‘You think the strangler…?’
‘Hopefully not.’
‘Hopefully? Jesus wept,’ Robin muttered, stunned, and pushed himself to his feet. ‘I need to go over there…’
‘And do what? We’ve checked her apartment, and there’s nothing to show where she might have gone. But the problem is, you might be the last person to have seen her, and as you were the last person to see Helen Speakman alive, you see why you’re a part of the problem?’
It was a bit like the crash, Robin thought, staring at Redwall blankly. One minute you were driving along, contentedly assuming you were in control of your life, and the next minute you were funnelling down into nightmare. He was terrified of the implications, and his voice rose.
‘You don’t think it’s me, do you?’
‘There’s no evidence to suggest it,’ the DCI said calmly. ‘All the signs point to sheer coincidence, but it would be useful if we could find her, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, with more enthusiasm than he had felt during the whole of this unreal interview. ‘Yes, it fucking would. So, it’s all circumstantial, you’re not charging me with anything?’
‘No. That’s it. This was just an investigative interview, conducted with your permission.’
‘And Sarah…’ Redwall’s brows rose. ‘Well, I hope she’s OK,’ he said inadequately.
Robin left the station, utterly bewildered.
A few days ago, he was the happiest man alive, and now this? If Sarah turned up dead, his life was pretty much over. He couldn’t imagine a future without her vital, wonderful, funny presence, but equally as shocking was the realisation that if she was dead, he would be the prime suspect. They would find his fingerprints and other forensic evidence linking him to her. She might still have traces of his semen in her body. If she turned up dead, they would charge him with her murder. Hell, they might even do that if she didn’t turn up.
It was unreal.
But somewhere, deep inside, was the certainty that she wasn’t dead. Surely, with the heightened awareness that was growing in him, he would know?
But the other person who would know would be Joel. He wondered if the police knew about Joel, whether he’d been questioned. The staff at the hospital would have mentioned him, surely?
Chapter 31
After Robin had gone, Jim asked, ‘What do you think?’
‘Everything he says checks out with what we know, down to the unanswered phone calls. He even referred to her in the present tense, but the facts are worrying the hell out of me. Either he’s straight up, or he’s a damn good actor.’
‘You think his profession of undying love is a bit sudden?’
‘Not necessarily. She saved his life, then was seeing him in the hospital. He’s probably wearing the rose-tinted spectacles of passion.’
‘When I met her after the Helen Speakman incident, I was wearing rose-tinted spectacles for a while, too, but it was pure lust.’
‘I might be old and overweight, but I’m not blind. There is something charismatic about her. And he owns a house. That makes him an attractive proposition.’
‘Do you think Sarah’s like that?’
‘All girls want a nest. We should talk to the staff at the hospital, find who her friends are. We need to know what she does on her days off, where she goes, what her interests are.’
Redwall spoke of her in the present tense, but harboured a nasty suspicion that that might not be the case.
‘Do you think we did the right thing, questioning him?’ Jim asked. ‘Because we’ve discovered nothing at all about her, but we’ve put him on his guard.’
‘She disappeared under strange circumstances, and as far as we know, he was the last person to see her alive. We had no choice. Let’s just hope she rolls up to work someday soon. At the moment, she’s not even logged as a case, just a query. You know that adults going missing isn’t police business unless there’s reason to suspect foul play, and at the moment all we have is a gut feeling. She might have gone AWOL for reasons of her own. It’s only the strangler that’s made us even look into it. But I’m having nasty thoughts, all the same.’
Chapter 32
After leaving the station, Robin drove straight to the hospital, and was relieved to find a familiar, dark face at the Admissions desk. He waited until she had finished dealing with an admission, then responded to her half-frozen query.
‘The police tell me Sarah’s disappeared. I’m really worried,’ he said bluntly. ‘We went out a week ago, and she said not to call as she was on shift. I’ve been trying to get hold of her ever since, but can’t get a response, and now the police say she’s disappeared. If she doesn’t want to see me, I don’t understand why, but please, please, just tell me you know she’s OK.’
There was a slight softening of her features at the sincerity in his voice. ‘We don’t know. That’s the problem. We’re all worried. She didn’t turn up for her shift, and no one’s seen her. She told me you were taking her to the opera.’ She said that with a slight lift of the brow.
‘She took me, actually. She knew I liked classical music, and bought the tickets. I’m not sure Sarah appreciated the music so much.’ He allowed himself a tight smile. ‘Then she stayed with me for the night, and I dropped her back at the nurses’ flats the following day, so she could catch up on a rest before going to work that night. She was supposed to call me, but I didn’t hear from her.’
‘Well, we don’t even know she got back. When she didn’t report for work, we phoned her, then tried her flat. She’s so reliable, it was unusual. We wondered if she was ill. A day later we got the warden to unlock the door, but there was no sign of her.’
‘No sign of anything untoward?’
‘Nope.’
‘Was there a red dress there, a slinky thing, like a sheath?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I saw her go in through the front door, but I’d better tell Redwall about the dress. We could at least establish that she made it to her room.’
‘Redwall?’
‘The detective. But I thought they didn’t look into missing adults unless there was suspicion of foul play? Is there something I’m not being told?’
‘I don’t know, but what with the strangler, and her being the type, if you know what I mean, we thought we’d better report it.’
He recalled his mission. ‘Do you know if her brother’s here today?’ She looked blank. ‘Joel?’
‘The only Joel I know is Joel Waterman, but as far as I’m aware, he’s not her brother. They have coffee together sometimes. I think she feels sorry for him.’
‘Sorry for him?’
She tapped her head. ‘He’s not the brightest spark in the fire, for all he’s good-natured as they come. I doubt you’ll get any sense from him. But that’s Sarah for you – there for people, never shooting off the moment her shift ends, like some of them. I always said she was too nice for this world.’
Her face slumped as she realised what she’d said, and he hoped like hell that she was wrong, too.
‘Is Joel here today?’
She tapped a few keys, blinking hard, trying not to let her flooded eyes overflow. ‘No, he’s on leave.’
‘Can I contact him?’
‘I’m not allowed to give out personal information, I’m afraid. I can leave a note in his pigeon hole, for him to call you when he comes back?’
‘Thanks, I’d appreciate it.’
He scribbled his name and number on a sticky, which she slapped on her computer screen. She was wiping her eyes as he turned away.
It must be the same Joel, though, he thought. There wouldn’t be two porters called Joel, described as thick. Sarah said he was her brother. He had a different surname, so the hospital staff obvious-ly hadn’t made the connection, but why would there be any secrecy about a familial relationship? And why would they have different surnames, unless she’d been married? But if she had, wouldn’t she have told him? This added another layer to
the mystery surrounding Sarah, and he seriously considered telling Redwall, but if he involved the police in her private life, it might stir up the very trouble she was trying to avoid – whatever that was. Was it coincidental that her possessive brother had taken leave when she’d been going to tell him about her future plans?
At home, he ran a search on the name Professor Waterman, and struck a couple of references to cell generation research, which was exciting, until he realised they were old history, and also referred to the guy he’d found once before, the one who had generated the sarcastic comment about his longevity – or lack thereof. There was nothing more recent, and no address. He couldn’t be her father, though; the chronology was all wrong. This was the point at which he recalled Freman. Surely the reporter’s skills at discovering people, on the internet, or by some other nefarious means, would be better than his?
Chapter 33
Freman was snatching the time to continue with a series of infill articles about the rising tide of young protestors seeking government intervention on global warming issues. He had a sneaking admiration for their tenacity, but they were young. They had yet to realise they weren’t pitting themselves against governments, but against the might of commercialism. With a President like Trump openly proving that financial success had more to do with being a bully than having intelligence, their mission was as doomed as the planet. Well, not the planet, he amended, but what was presently living on it. It was amazing that humans maintained the hubris to believe they comprised the pinnacle of God’s creations, when they’d pretty much decimated the planet in a few traumatic centuries, while dinosaurs had maintained a status quo for millions of years. He’d read that the next group of creatures to rise would probably be insects. He could name a few around now.
He was trying to be interested in the lost cause, but his mind kept warping over to the missing nurse, and wondering whether Robin Vanger had, in fact, topped her.
His phone rattled out Billy Joel’s song, We Didn’t Light the Fire. ‘Yeah?’
‘Freman, it’s Robin.’
Well, well. Speak of the devil. ‘Help you?’ he asked, not betraying the spark of adrenaline that fired in his gut.
Robin told him stuff he hadn’t known. About Sarah, her father, and her brother. Hell, the girl had a brother, at the same hospital, and he hadn’t realised? He was slipping. He promised to see what he could find out. With his reporter’s radar pinging, he threw the other stuff aside, and trawled the internet. It wasn’t just tips like this that had made him successful, but the speed at which he hounded them. After all, who else might have clocked the connection?
He immediately discovered traces of a Professor Waterman, but the guy had been writing well back in the last century, and was surely too old to be Sarah’s, and maybe Joel’s, father. He’d been publishing papers on genetics before the internet got underway, but Freman eventually found a scanned copied of one that didn’t require a subscription. Why did the profession want you to pay for old news?
Maybe he had a son who’d followed in his footsteps? But he kept digging, and eventually found an old address, probably long-defunct, but it was a starting point, anyway. He tapped the location into Google Earth, and zoomed in, biting back his irritation. This Waterman dude must have been rolling in it, or inherited. You didn’t buy this sort of place on a salary. The one thing he hated more than politicians was inherited wealth. He was envious, of course, but the fact remained that inherited wealth meant inherited status; self-perpetuating elitism by those whose ancestors had undoubtedly been as ruthless in their quest for supremacy as Hitler – just more successful in hanging on to it. It was at times like this he kind of liked the notion of Communism, except that it didn’t work in practice. It was always the ruthless who inherited, not the friggin’ meek.
The property he was eyeing with disfavour was Edwardian or older, set in an estate of several acres. From what he could see from the satellite’s-eye view, the building was intact, along with what might have been a row of estate-workers’ cottages, and some stables. The estate had a slightly untended aura, though, softened around the edges, as though the lawns had encroached on the drive, and the hedges had outgrown their allotted tasks. Maybe the owners had fallen on hard times. Strange, though, because the property, if only because of its southern situation, would fetch millions on the market.
His eyes glittered with the thrill of a new chase. Robin had handed this to him out of the blue. He might get there and find it had been sold, that it had nothing to do with Sarah and Joel, but, hell, a story was a story, and his nose was twitching. He could make something of it, especially if the place hadn’t featured in Stately Homes, and truly was a relic of a past era. He grabbed his jacket, plugged the location into his Satnav, filled up with petrol, and whistled tunelessly as he set out on a new mission.
Freman found the entrance to Wood Hall estate on a tiny country road. The huge iron gates were festooned with rusty flecks of peeling green paint; the gates bound with stainless steel links, and a sturdy padlock. He tried to tweak the sliding keyhole cover, but it didn’t move, which probably meant the lock wouldn’t give way to his persuasion, either. That might mean there was another entrance, of course, and that there was someone inside.
There was a modern post box to one side, but no sign of electronic surveillance or a communication link. Either side of the gate a six-foot-high stone wall marched away, crumbling in places, the gaps filled with wire fence, barbed at the top. He was right, the estate hadn’t been tended in years. And the owners were not exactly inviting visitors. But the tree-lined avenue beyond, and a distant tangle of shrubbery, suggested enough cover for a recce. He could just slip in and suss the place out, see if there were any vehicles, any sign of life. Maybe even catch a glimpse of the inside and score a few images.
He shifted his car into a field entrance down the road, and strolled back, wondering whether to brave the crumbling wall or the barbed wire. His city shoes weren’t suitable for climbing, either way, but the wall wasn’t designed to keep out people who really wanted in, it had probably been a deterrent to local peasantry, to ensure privacy and status in an era when a landowner’s word could have a trespasser hanged.
He was contemplating a section of wall where the capping stones had slipped free, when something tickled his memory, and he looked more closely at the chain and padlock. Damned if that wasn’t just a deterrent, too. He pulled the doubled chain, which had been looped inside itself behind the latch, and it came free. The latch clicked up, and the gate swung open silently on oiled hinges. Intriguing. Why the deception? He slipped in and replaced the chain, hoping there were no dogs loose. The only time in his life he’d contemplated getting a gun, illegal or otherwise, was from his fear of dogs. He hadn’t seen any warning notices, though, and surely that was a legal requirement these days? Especially if the place was deserted, and possibly monitored by a private security company. But the whole setup being weird in some indefinable way meant there was a story. And it was his.
Freman soaked up the ambience.
The house was a Dickensian exhibition of grim black beams and dirty red brick. The dirt in the diamond-paned windows must have been accumulating for years, dimming the light within. Given the chance, Freman would replace those with modern plate glass, straight away. If only, he thought, amused. The house stretched to a third storey where tiny gables were strung along above the gutter, their steep roofs trimmed with tall red finials. Then, walking around it, he found another set of tiny windows at ground level. From the ground sloping away, front to back, he surmised that the main entrance was on the first floor, a ballroom, maybe, and some guest rooms. The next storey would have been for the family, the garret for the servants, likely accessed via a back stairway. The basement discovered at the back probably accommodated domestic spaces and kitchens.
There was something forbidding about the place, the seediness, the uncared-for aspect, as though it reeked of past unhappiness. He wasn’t really into residential evil
– the worst things he’d seen had been perpetrated by the pinnacle of God’s creations – but it created a mental image that would enhance his story. It was no good just being pedantic, reporting things as they were, you had to be creative and artistically licenced.
What was really useful, though, was the absence of any visible vehicles. The gravelled drive was scuffed in a circle by the back door, but the grass sprouting cleanly around the front would have surely been trashed if vehicles had gone that way. After trawling the house, trying all the doors and windows, he was pleased to discover a small, unlocked door at the back of the building, behind which a short set of stone steps led to the basement. He wasn’t averse to breaking a window if needed, and scrambling through, but this was much easier. He wasn’t as young as he used to be.
He was half expecting to find an Edwardian kitchen, complete with a cast iron range, brass blancmange moulds and fish kettles, but what he found shocked him. The area contained a small anteroom, a steep set of wooden stairs leading up to an interior door, but to the left was a row of what could only be cells. Four stout wooden doors, with small openings at the top filled with iron bars.
‘What the hell?’ he muttered, then leapt as a scuffling sound emanated from one of them. Rats? They came very close to dogs in the list of things he didn’t want to meet.
‘Joel?’ a woman’s voice yelled. ‘Joel, you damn-well let me out, right now!’
He peered in through the first two grills, into small stone rooms with bench beds, and a mediaeval lack of facilities. From the third, a pair of luminous eyes met his, making him jump back.
He pushed vast iron bolts aside, and the nurse erupted from the room. After the Helen Speakman incident, those eyes had radiated venom, now they were wide with panic.
Stations of the Soul Page 16