by Emma Jameson
“Dad woke up screaming. Mark only stabbed him once, but he made it count.” Mariah smiled slightly. “Dad came back from hospital missing one of the family jewels. Mark got in-home therapy, which is how we met Gert. And I wasn’t the hero anymore. Dad insisted his bedtime visit to me never happened. That I was a nasty little liar. And Mum believed him.”
“I see. Well. I can’t say for certain,” Tony said, “but I suspect your mother has come to regret that with all her heart. Perhaps the heaviness of guilt is why she insists you didn’t take your own life. If she thought you did, knowing how she failed you in childhood, her guilt would be unbearable.”
Mariah shrugged, staring into her mostly-full pint as if it were suddenly fascinating.
“You’re almost there, love. I’ll fill in what I know,” Gert said, patting Mariah’s hand. “Mark and I reconnected when he started hanging around the No-Hopers. He dressed like them, all in black, and carried a backpack with the Urbex gear. Duct tape, lock picks, binoculars, an axe….” She laughed nervously. “I asked what in the world he carried an axe for. He said, in case you get stuck in a tight place. It was brand-new. Purple silicone blade cover. Never used, like most of his gear. Poor lad thought he’d be looking down on London like an eagle every day. But once the hackers realized he was the best of them, they kept him busy.”
“He went in headfirst,” Mariah agreed. “He loved Duncan’s mysticism, and he loved thinking about Fibonacci spirals and secret messages from the Universe. I was afraid he’d never emerge, so I went in after him.
“It wasn’t hard to make nice with Duncan. In the beginning, he was handsome and charming and I liked him.” Mariah sighed. “Thought he’d been stitched up by the cops, too, I guess it goes without saying. Maybe all that wank about karma is real. I watched him kill Jennie. Pretty cosmic payback, if you ask me.
“I didn’t sleep the night she died. Not only because it was a ghastly sight I’ll never forget, and I was a bloody coward who did nothing to help her,” Mariah said. “But because I’d fallen out with Duncan over his nonsense, just like Jennie. He’d become so doolally on the notion of rebirth and the galactic brain, I couldn’t bear to listen anymore. I’d already tried to leave once, Gert. It wasn’t PTSD that stopped me. It was Aaron and his girlfriend, Kay. They said if I left, Mark would leave, and if Mark left, Duncan would be angry. If I died, Mark would be sad for awhile, but then he’d get over it. So Kay took me out for drinks, Miss Pretty Princess with her lavender hair and her zero body fat, and told me very sweetly that I could leave, but only in the way that wouldn’t anger Duncan.”
“Tell Tony about the phone hacking and the car hacking,” Gert urged. “All the things the No-Hopers could do without setting foot within ten meters of you.”
“I’m all too familiar,” Tony said. “My wife is working on the Ford Fabian case. This Kay you mentioned—is she an Urbex celebrity, as it were? Like Ajax?”
“No,” Mariah said. “I don’t even know her surname. Just another nutter who worships Duncan. When she threatened my life, I believed her. I thought maybe I could plead with Aaron, or even Duncan, if his mood was right. But not her. She’s a zealot.
“I asked Mark to meet me at the Rookery. It’s a little boutique hotel, one people forget about. We ordered up room service and two bottles of wine. Over dinner, I told him everything. How Jennie died. How Aaron and Kay seemed to revel in the sight of it. How Kay threatened me. I said maybe death was the only way out. I wasn’t being melodramatic. I meant it.
“I fell asleep around midnight. Passed out, really, since I’d drank most of the wine. I woke up in my bra and knickers on top of the duvet. Mark must have undressed me. My bag and ID were gone. My clothes were gone, but his were spread out next to me. He’d taken my phone and given me his. There was a video message for me. He said….” Mariah’s voice caught. “He said if he fell from a great height, the remains would be almost impossible to identify. And if I dressed as him, and identified the body, that would probably be the end of it. The last thing he told me was not to worry. That Duncan was right. As above, so below. The measure of a man is the measure of an angel.”
She dissolved into silent weeping, face in her hands. Tony, despite his unanswered questions, allowed her to cry without interruption. He’d felt no particular emotion when her mother, Hannah, had wept. But his throat constricted as he watched Mariah grieve for the brother who’d valued her life so far above his own.
Chapter Seventeen
“Knackered” was the word that perfectly fitted Kate’s mood. In bygone times, the knackerman had slaughtered horses that were injured or too old to work, often by knocking them on the head with a ball peen hammer. Or so people said. Kate found the image repulsive, but sometimes it came to her nonetheless, especially after long, tedious interviews with people like Mrs. Alfalfa Fabian.
“What a day,” Kate said, settling into the Bentley as she might have settled into a warm bath. “You look ridiculous.”
“Thanks for that.” Tony grinned. “Typically I cast off my homeless costume, shower, and dress appropriately before you get home. But today was a marathon. In the end, I didn’t care to walk back to One-oh-One, so I asked Harvey to bring the Bentley round. I thought you might like a ride, too, the sight of me notwithstanding.”
“You’re right. Sorry.” She kissed him. “Oh, and cheers, Harvey,” she added, waving at the manservant in his rearview mirror. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. How’s the renovation going?”
“Dante got it wrong. The ninth circle isn’t Satan eternally chewing on Judas Iscariot,” Harvey said. “It’s restoring a Grade II listed home to legal specs.”
“Crikey. Stay for dinner? We’ll crack open a bottle of wine and listen to your tale of woe.”
“I have to go back,” Harvey said. “The dining room wallpaper’s going up. We’re paying a fortune for after-hours labor. I will take John Alastair Hetheridge’s cavalry sword off the wall and draw blood before I let the paper hangers leave without seeing this nasty, brutish matter concluded to my satisfaction.”
Chuckling, Kate asked Tony, “Which one of your ancestors is John Alastair?”
“No idea whatever.”
“Born in 1792. Fought in the Battle of Waterloo,” Harvey replied. “Died of typhus soon after. Only the sword came home.”
“Of course, John Alastair, my heroic forbearer.” Tony shrugged. “Traffic isn’t moving. Might as well settle in. I take it Mrs. Fabian was unpleasant?”
“A bitter old bird who lies as easily as she breathes,” Kate said. “I let Gulls conduct most of the interview. Turned out to be the right strategy. Mrs. Fabian has been a politician for so long, she’s used to saying whatever pops into her head. She told Gulls she doesn’t own a computer. But she pays BT for Internet service. She said the last couple of weeks have been business as usual, just the staff in and out of the house, nothing to report. But her neighbors told me young people visited her house the night before Ford Fabian died. Emo-looking, all in black, No-Hoper types. It may take a few days to nail down a connection, but I like my odds.”
Tony looked intrigued. “So perhaps Lady Isabel’s belief that Sir Duncan targeted Ford Fabian was wrong?”
“Going purely on instinct, I’d say he and Mrs. Fabian joined forces to bump off her hubby. Heaven knows why,” Kate said. “As we dig into the No-Hopers, we may find several roads that lead back to Sir Duncan.”
“On that topic, I have a name for you. Jennifer Lane Concord. Called Jennie.” Tony put his head back and closed his eyes. He sounded as tired as Kate felt. “Mariah Keene witnessed Sir Duncan kill her in a rage. She’ll testify against him.”
“Mariah? But isn’t she … Oh. So someone else jumped off Deadenfall?”
“Mark.”
Kate paused to take this in. “So that’s why you just happened to be on the Embankment this afternoon?”
“Arranging protective custody for Mariah, yes.”
“Her parents must be in absolute shock.”<
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“They don’t know yet. No one will know until we have Sir Duncan in custody. As for Lord Brompton, he does have a shock coming. He’ll be arrested tomorrow on charges of sexually abusing his daughter. Makes me rather proud to be an Englishman,” Tony said. “No statute of limitations for rape.”
“I never did understand putting an expiry date on serious crimes,” Kate said. “So did Mariah take on Mark’s identity? Dress in his clothes and make appearances in the City?”
“She did. Once a week, she’d pick a CCTV camera and stand nearby. Or pass a shop where Mark was known, and leg it when someone called his name,” Tony said.
“Why?”
“To torment her parents. Her father violated her. Her mother refused to believe it happened. So she stayed ‘dead,’ as it were, to hurt her father, and appeared as Mark to haunt her mother.”
Kate let herself digest that. “Mariah sounds a little diabolical. Maybe I am, too. Because I sort of get it.”
“As do I,” Tony said. “And she isn’t consumed with rancor. Rather, by pain and justice too long delayed. When she sees Sir Duncan standing in the dock—when she hears his sentence pronounced—she’ll begin to heal.”
“I hope so. What a piece of work he is, sending a body double to Brunei,” Kate said. “I don’t care what anyone says about Lady Isabel. I believe her. The man’s lost his mind.” The climate-controlled, plush-seated Bentley was too soothing; such comfort wouldn’t allow her to get properly torqued up, like a good copper should.
“According to Mariah, his illness is all too real. Perhaps he has business in Brunei that’s best conducted in person, necessitating a proxy.” Opening his eyes, Tony took off his bucket hat, running his fingers through his steel-gray hair. “Or perhaps he’s deliberately confusing the Met as to his whereabouts. Which concerns us, because I consider the Leadenhall building inadequately secured.”
“Wonderful. Can’t say I’m surprised.” Kicking off her pumps, Kate massaged her right foot, which was throbbing. “Henry creeps here and there and no one ever seems to question him. I’ve seen security doors propped open for event staff. Little infractions can add up.”
“According to Mariah, urban explorers rely on little infractions. The No-Hopers started as BASE jumpers,” Tony said. “Aaron Ajax parachuted off the Shard and created a twenty-four-hour news sensation. He was tried, got off, and has been trying to top himself ever since. Just last week, he tried to lead a group into 20 Fenchurch but failed. The street access doors had been upgraded.”
“I should hope so,” Kate said. “The Walkie-Talkie building is an icon. That makes it a target. I’m always shocked when a place like that leaves doors and windows unsecured.”
“Another sin chalked up to convenience,” Tony said. “While Mariah was being processed, I rang One-oh-One’s general manager. Came over as aristocratic as I could, but still couldn’t convince him to meet us over dinner. Friday night plans, I suppose. Perhaps if we were owners and not subletting we’d receive greater consideration. At any rate, I have a meeting with him and his head of security tomorrow morning, seven o’clock sharp.”
“To read them the riot act?”
“More than that. With their permission, I’ll have Cecelia’s people in. Her corporate espionage team and her security squad are willing to work on Saturday if I pay their overtime. One Hundred and One Leadenhall has done a fine job of making their atrium impenetrable to the homeless. Not to mention girls on the game. Unfortunately, we can’t be certain anyone coming to harm us will be badly dressed.”
“Women,” Kate said. She was trying to push her feet back into her pumps, but they were swollen and didn’t want to go.
“Beg pardon?”
“Women on the game. Not girls. Now called sex workers, actually.”
“Oh. I don’t care for ‘sex worker,’” Tony said. “Sounds like some poor beggar relegated to an unsavory farm chore. Like peering at the dribbly end of baby chicks to sort the boys from the girls.”
“‘Dribbly-End Peerer’ sounds accurate to me,” Kate said. “But you mentioned Cecelia’s espionage team. You don’t think secure mobiles and computers are enough?”
“It’s a start,” Tony said. “But the No-Hopers might send up a maid or appliance repairman to bug us the old-fashioned way. Even try a home invasion.”
“Right,” Kate said. “So after I check the fire pulls and the smoke detectors, I should settle down for a night of staring at the ceiling and listening for intruders.” She sighed. Then she remembered One-oh-One’s resident-only lifts.
“Even if someone slips into the building, they’ll be stuck on the public floors until security chases them out,” Kate said. “The private lifts need a key card. A visitor without a key card has to call upstairs for the resident to buzz them in.”
“True.”
“What about the security cameras? Are they manned 24/7?”
“No idea. I couldn’t get a straight answer from the general manager on that topic.”
“Which doesn’t bode well. What about the stairs?” Kate asked. It was no good telling herself to calm down. That was impossible until she’d reassured herself as much as she could.
“The stairs look acceptable, at least on paper,” Tony said. “There are different locks on every floor, each specific to a manager or a resident. To reach the roof, an intruder would need over forty separate key cards. But I’ll sleep better once Cecelia’s crew evaluates the reality.”
“I feel like I should contribute to this discussion in some way,” Harvey said. “Other than to announce the fact I’m absolutely terrified.”
“Sorry, love.” Kate felt a little guilty; she’d forgotten all about Harvey up front, listening to them talk shop about rape, surveillance, and murder. “Just trying to brainstorm all points of access. Usually if I think up a million horrible possibilities and fixate on them hard enough, they don’t come true.”
“Funny how that works. Forgive us, Harvey,” Tony said soothingly. “It’s worth noting that while urban exploring does happen at night, it’s usually in buildings that are abandoned. BASE jumpers penetrate landmarks properties like the Leadenhall building, but during peak hours, for ease of entry. It would be outside the No-Hopers’ skillset to breach One-oh-One on a Friday night with extra security in the lobby and a gala in every ballroom.”
He was right. Willing herself to relax, Kate forced her still-aching feet back into her pumps. When they reached the Leadenhall building at last, Harvey, always courtly, helped her disembark. For the first time, she looked on One-oh-One with genuine pleasure. The acres of polished brass, the big tinted windows, and even that gigantic snail-slow revolving door—it was becoming home to her. As they entered, Tony slipped an arm about her waist, and that felt like home, too.
The residents’ private lifts were tucked between the management offices and a row of Corinthian columns. There, a mixed bag of Friday night revelers waited to travel from earth to sky. Someone was throwing a party with an eclectic guest list. This was lucky for Tony, Kate thought, whose homeless costume wasn’t quite so jarring beside punk rock types with dyed black hair and pierced lips. When the bell dinged and the doors whooshed, Tony and Kate crowded into a lift along with two men in dreadlocks and Armani suits, three young ladies in shimmery dresses, and a white-haired man with a whiskey sour.
The white-haired man edged close to Tony. “I’m Warner. What about you? Sony or Universal?” The man had an American accent, which explained why he was accosting a total stranger in an enclosed space.
“Virgin,” Tony said. The trio of young ladies looked impressed.
The doors whooshed open on the thirty-third floor. There, a ballroom pulsed with canned electronica, the kind that made Kate feel old. The white-haired man disembarked, as did the men in Armani suits. Two of the young ladies departed, but one lingered on the lift’s threshold.
“Aren’t you coming, Mr. Virgin Records?” one of them asked Tony. If she was aware of Kate’s existence, she gave no sig
n.
“I fear not.”
“I’m Desiree. Room 7575,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “Call me tonight on the house phone. I’ll buzz you in.”
The doors closed. Kate was too stunned to laugh. Tony looked like the cat who got the canary.
“What can I say? Animal magnetism. Oxfam bucket hat not withstanding.”
“I’ve half a mind to go back to that ballroom and arrest Desiree, if that’s her real name.”
“On what charge?”
“Inflating your ego.”
He chuckled as the lift deposited them on their own floor. “You’re jealous because I took in the visual cues. Dreadlocks, a girl with a treble cleft tattooed on her ankle, and an American mentioning music corporations. With that information, I chose to pass myself off as a Virgin executive.”
“Aren’t you Sherlock Holmes?” Kate asked tartly as they approached their front door.
“As the great detective said, ‘You see, but you do not observe,’” Tony quoted shamelessly. “Take that black scuff on our door, just there. By the jamb. When did it first appear?”
“Today.” Kate groaned. “Three guesses how it happened. Henry probably locked Ritchie out, or the other way round. This is what I’ve been talking about. In the old flat, they treated property with respect. Appreciated what they had. This place is giving them the notion everything is disposable.”
She fit her key card into the lock. There was no click. After two tries, she realized the little circle was already green.
“And they’ve left the bleeding door unlocked.” She clenched her fists. “I swear to God, Tony, when I get my hands on Henry—”
“My fault,” said Sir Duncan Godington, filling up the doorway.
Purple smudges stood out under his eyes. His face was thinner, the lines deeper. He was dressed like a yachtsman or a dockhand—loafers, chinos, navy wind-cheater, and a knit beanie covering his hair. In his hand was something long and black.