by William Shaw
So she said the name again, this time a little louder. ‘Astrid Miller. You know. Astrid Theroux as she was.’
For the first time, they had the room’s full attention. ‘Astrid Theroux? The model?’
‘You’ve been interviewing Astrid Theroux? You jammy arse,’ said a young woman, Ferriter’s age.
‘Not yet.’
‘Get me her autograph, will you?’
‘I attempted to contact the Foundation’s office yesterday and again this morning. So far, nobody picked up.’
‘Where are they based?’ DI McAdam asked from the back of the room.
Everyone turned to look at him.
‘Not sure. Just a phone number and an email.’
‘It’s probably London. Call the Met. Get someone to go round.’
‘Can’t I go myself? I don’t mind.’ Ferriter smiled.
‘Call the Met. We’re stretched enough as it is.’
‘Short-handed,’ someone muttered. A snigger.
McAdam ignored it. ‘And if that’s where the arm came to us from, we’ll be able to hand the whole thing back over to the Met.’
Cupidi saw what McAdam was trying to do. In these straitened times, managing the caseload was everything. If there was a chance they could pass the arm on to the Met it would be their problem. ‘Chances are,’ said McAdam, ‘the whole thing turns out to be pointless, but the press will be all over it.’
‘Already are.’ Ferriter grinned. ‘BBC were down there again today. Going to be on national news.’
A woman constable said, ‘Hand it over. Just got it.’
There was a big laugh.
‘Did that one take you long?’ asked Cupidi.
‘’Armless fun,’ said Wray, holding up his hands as if to defend himself.
‘Keep them coming.’
‘You must be feeling out on a limb on this one.’ They laughed louder at the DI’s jokes, on account of his rank.
‘Pure genius. Finished?’
‘Yes. Sorry. Carry on.’
Cupidi stared at him.
‘Honestly. Just messing about. Go on.’
‘You’re all treating this like it’s some joke,’ Cupidi said, looking around the room. ‘What if the person who’s arm it is isn’t dead?’
A constable spoke first. ‘It’s not actually likely, though, is it?’
And then everyone was talking again.
‘That’s not the point, though, is it?’ Cupidi raised her voice above the noise. ‘You all think this is a laugh, don’t you. Yes, Michael Dillman is dead. We know that. But what if this one isn’t?’
‘Why would someone chop off an arm, then leave it to be found in a gallery?’
‘I don’t know. What if it’s a kidnapping?’
DI Wray leaned back in his chair. ‘A finger is the conventional item. Not the whole bloody arm.’
‘How much arm is it?’
‘It was severed below the elbow. You could survive that. Think about it. What if putting that arm in that particular place was meant to send someone a signal?’
DI Wray gave the smallest of nods. ‘Alex is right. Until we know more, we must adopt the precautionary principle. We treat this as a full murder investigation. And hopefully we can load it off onto the Met, as DI McAdam suggests. But try and keep a lid on it until we know what we’re dealing with, shall we? Let’s not add to the background chatter and speculation. Anything else new?’
McAdam read out from his sheet. ‘Security guard killed during a robbery on a Co-op in the Dartford area.’
‘Bloody hell. All going on up that way.’
‘I haven’t seen that on the system yet.’
‘When I say “killed”, it appears to have been an accident. He ran out into the road after a couple of lads. Got hit by a motorbike. Bike was speeding. Dead at the scene.’
‘Not the same motorbike guy . . . ?’
‘That would have been too easy. Different motorbike, different rider. This one’s in hospital with a fractured femur following the accident. He’ll live.’
‘Armed robbery?’
‘Just a couple of young lads shoplifting. Teenagers. Guard picked his moment to chase them, that’s all, poor bastard.’ He pulled up a map on the screen. ‘Just there.’
Then the meeting was over. People stood, notes in hand, ready to log back on to their computers. The room was throwing everything at the murder of the man whose body had been found near Erith. To them, that looked like a real crime, with real villains. The kind they were used to.
Cupidi pulled up a photograph of the arm, still in the jar. The white flesh. The curled fingers. If this had been someone’s idea of a prank, wouldn’t they have come forward by now? What was the point of a joke if it had no punchline?
SIXTEEN
The first night had been a long one. Though they had huddled together, the floor beneath them had been hard and cold. Tap had turned from one side to the other, thinking about his mum, about the security guard. The second night, he had slept better but woke around four when it was still dark, hearing rustling outside the hut.
‘Hear that?’ Tap whispered.
Sloth didn’t answer. Tap tried to go back to sleep but he couldn’t.
A couple of minutes later he kicked Sloth.
‘What?’
‘Listen.’
But the rustling had stopped now.
There must be ghosts around here. Old people from the Victorian workhouse; all the dead people from the fever hospital. People had come here just to die. He remembered how the schoolteacher had said that there had been a tramline built to take the infected from the ships that ferried them away from the city, to the beds in the hospital, long demolished.
*
For breakfast the boys ate the last of a tin of warm rice pudding, burning fingers on the can propped on top of the embers. As long as they avoided the walkers and the anglers who sometimes appeared along the bank of the muddy creek to the west of them, they seemed to be OK.
‘We could do this place up a bit,’ said Sloth. ‘Nobody would know we’re here. Couple more days, I reckon, we’ll be safe. As long as we can find some more food.’
‘We’re not safe. We’ll be on CCTV. They’ll know it was us.’
‘Didn’t mean that. Meant the other one. The phone man.’
‘I don’t know. Crazy stuff, Slo.’
Sloth nodded.
They stood, stretching, and wandered aimlessly, exploring the derelict land around them.
There was warmth in the spring sunshine. Brambles were sprouting new green shoots, bright lines curving out of the dead wood. They walked through the scrub towards the wide reach of river, smelling the mud before they could see it.
‘In’t your mum going to worry about where you gone?’ asked Tap.
Sloth nodded. ‘I’ll call her some time, I guess.’ He pulled the stolen Alcatel out of his pocket. ‘Still one blob of charge on this phone, if we could actually use it.’
‘Why do you reckon he had that phone, Slo?’
‘I don’t know. Some people just got two phones.’
‘Drug dealers mostly,’ said Tap.
‘Reckon that’s what he was? Some county lines bigshot?’
‘Didn’t look like a drug dealer, did he? Just looked like . . . a bloke.’
It was true. The man they had robbed didn’t look like a dealer at all.
A dead seagull lay on the ground. Something had tugged at its insides, scattering feathers across the dry mud. Tap picked up a long stick and started poking.
‘What about your mum?’ said Sloth.
‘Dunno.’
‘Don’t suppose she gives a shit where you are.’
‘’K’ off.’
‘Serious. You’re lucky, man.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Wish my mum was a druggie.’
‘Shut up.’ Tap shouted this time, and as he did so, he dug the stick into the dead bird and flipped it into the air, lifting the heavy carcass off the ground s
o it swung towards Sloth.
‘What the frick? That’s disgusting. That thing almost touched me.’
Tap dropped the stick. ‘Don’t talk about my mum like that.’
‘You’re the one who always calls her a skank.’
With a wail, Tap launched himself at Sloth, head down, knocking him to the ground.
‘Get off!’
They tussled, each trying and failing to land punches on the other.
‘You’re pushing me into dog shit.’ Sloth finally landed a knee into Tap’s solar plexus, knocking the air out of him.
He stood, leaving Tap gasping on the dirty ground.
‘I mean, Jesus. If your mum means that much, why don’t you give her a call?’ He threw the useless phone at Tap and turned, heading off in the direction of the shed they’d been sleeping in.
When Tap got his breath back, he stood, picked up the phone and threw it as far as he could, watching it rise up into the air, black against grey sky, then drop somewhere beyond the scrubby trees, where the big river lay.
*
Tap turned and headed off towards the water. A fence blocked the way, but he found a place where he could climb over it. It took another ten minutes to reach the bank where he found a big old lump of concrete to sit on, a huge lopsided square, spray-painted with somebody’s tag.
To the east, the big road bridge stretched across the Thames. Ahead of him, the greeny grey water, tugging everything out to the sea.
Birds pecked at the sand along the river edge. Living in a small town, bounded by small walls and small people, all this looked huge. And sad. Why did it all look sad? Maybe it was just him and what had happened, and his mum and stuff, but it all looked so . . . overwhelming. It was like he was noticing every twig sticking up from the mud, every bubble in the river, every footprint left by the birds. There was a strange kind of ache in his chest. He wished he had some spliff or something. That would sort it. Glue, even.
‘What you doing?’ Sloth had returned to him. ‘Did you get the hump?’ Tap didn’t answer. Sloth sat down on the concrete next to him. ‘Just a frickin’ joke.’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘You’re always hungry,’ said Sloth, looking at the big bridge, cars and lorries constantly streaming over it. ‘We could hitch a ride somewhere far away so he couldn’t find us. Get a job or something.’
‘Hitch a ride?’
‘I’ve seen people do it. Car dealers going to pick up vehicles. They stand holding up their trade plates by the roundabout by the Holiday Inn and catch the drivers heading over the bridge.’ Then, looking downriver: ‘Sorry about what I said.’
‘OK.’
From the east, a towboat pulling empty barges was chugging leisurely up the river, making slow progress against the outgoing tide.
‘We’re not car dealers, though, are we?’
‘I know, but . . . wait there long enough, bet someone would give us a ride.’
‘Maybe,’ said Tap. But getting far away from this place sounded good. He slid off the concrete and ambled away, leaving Sloth alone, sitting cross-legged on the big lump.
A huge branch, leafless twigs pointing up out of the water, drifted downriver, dragged by the force of the water. When he turned, Sloth was shouting something, waving his hands. Tap stared, then walked back towards his friend. As he came closer he heard the descending notes of an old-fashioned ringtone.
‘Someone’s calling the phone.’
‘Where is it?’ shouted Tap, looking around.
‘I don’t know. You’re the one who bloody flung it.’
It was somewhere close. The phone kept on ringing, the same cheap chirpy notes, going round and round. Whether it was the gentle winds, blowing across the flat shoreline, the noise seemed to move as they approached it.
‘There!’ shouted Sloth.
Tap ran towards a small clump of pale green grass. The black handset sat right in the middle, like a bird on a nest. But just as he reached out and picked it up, the ringing stopped.
‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’
They both stood looking at the phone’s screen. ‘Missed call.’
‘Reckon it was him?’ asked Sloth.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Or maybe one of his gang?’
‘How do you even know he’s got a gang?’
Out on the river, a tugboat, chugging up the Thames in front of a line of rusty barges, sounded a long, shrill warning note.
‘What would we even say if it was him?’ asked Tap.
Sloth didn’t answer. He just stood, frowning at the screen.
SEVENTEEN
Between the power station and the Channel, Cupidi always had the beach to herself at this time of day, after work, when the spring chill was coming off the water. Sometimes a few fishermen hung around the hot water outflow to the nuclear power station, and you might find the occasional birder scanning the horizon, but mostly you could be here on your own in peace and quiet. And then her phone rang.
She swiped her screen. ‘What?’
‘It’s me,’ said Jill Ferriter.
‘I know it’s you.’
‘I found out where the offices of the Evert and Astrid Miller Foundation are. Listen. Astrid Miller runs the Foundation from home. Guess where they live.’
‘About ten miles outside Canterbury.’
‘Oh. How did you know?’ The young constable sounded disappointed.
‘I looked it up. On the internet.’
‘Right. Same.’
‘Our millionaires live in Kent. That’s why they are benefactors of the Turner Contemporary. They’re locals.’
‘So you knew that all along?’ Ferriter sounded offended.
‘If it makes you feel better, I didn’t know that that’s where the Foundation is based, no. Just that they’re based around here.’
‘And about their house in Dungeness?’
‘Their what?’
‘You didn’t know that, did you?’
‘They have a place here? No.’
‘There you go. See? I am useful.’
‘Which one?’ asked Cupidi. ‘Which house do they own?’
‘No idea. I don’t know if they still got it, actually. I just got home and I was looking through all my old magazines. I used to keep stuff about Astrid Theroux. I properly idolised her. Her dad abused her. She talked about that stuff when no one else did. She’d come from nothing and proved that you could be beautiful and in control. I was having such a shitty time as a teenager . . . you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘I might,’ she said, thinking of Zoë.
‘No. Really, I promise. But that’s not the point. For me she was like a beacon of hope in a sea of absolute shit. And she was so good. She was in that Franz Ferdinand video, remember?’
‘Actually, no,’ said Cupidi.
‘Once, when she was at the peak-peak-peak of her fame, she did this weird performance at an Alexander McQueen show – or was it Westwood? – where she came onto the catwalk looking really hot in a short dress and asked people why they thought she was so good-looking. Why her and not all the other women in the audience? And there were all these blokes in the audience saying, “Because you got great boobs,” and stuff like that. And she just stares them out. You should see it. And the whole place goes quiet. It’s amazing. You can find it somewhere on YouTube. And it was cool, because she was accusing all the model agencies and photographers of this abuse but they didn’t dare drop her because she was so mega. And then she kind of fell off the radar when she got married. I’ll bring the magazines into the station if you like. I have loads. But anyway, there was an article from 2003 in The Face magazine when she was going out with this famous photographer who was done for drugs more than once as it happens, and it says they bought one of the shacks down there together. But then he ran off with this American actress and they split up but I think, from what the article said, she kept the place.’
‘Did it say if she still had it?’
‘No. Maybe t
hey sold it. But they’re gazillionaires. If they did own it, they’re probably not wanting everyone to know.’
Cupidi turned and looked north, up the long shingle beach. Between where she was standing and the Pilot Inn, the landscape was dotted with dozens of shacks. The rich had been buying them up for years, converting these low ramshackle buildings into discreet hideaways. Fashionable magazines featured glossy photos, namedropping the architects who had remodelled them. There were several that could be the Millers’.
‘You know what this means, though, don’t you?’
The Channel was still, the air clear and dry. You could see for miles. The dark blue horizon was dotted with lights of ships and fishing boats.
‘It means that McAdam can’t offload this case as easily as he wanted,’ Cupidi said. ‘It’s not going to be foisted off to some team at the Met.’
‘Yes. But what else?’
‘Tell me, Jill. Go on.’
‘It means we’re going to need to talk to Astrid Miller. Face to face. I was thinking of volunteering.’
‘Of course you were.’
‘Don’t be like that. I’m young and keen. I’m the future of modern policing.’
‘What does that make me?’
Ferriter didn’t answer.
It had been a long winter. This had been Cupidi’s second full year out here on the headland; with nothing to stop the wind out there, the cold was harsh, but it made the exhilaration of these spring evenings all the more thrilling.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘We need to get access to their records to find out when the sculpture was tampered with.’
‘I could come up to Dungeness now,’ Ferriter suggested. ‘We could look for Astrid Miller’s shack. We could have that drink you talked about, in that horrible pub you have out there, walk around, press our noses against some of the windows and see if we can guess which one is hers?’
‘She’s probably sold it. Know how much these places go for now?’
‘It would be nice anyway, wouldn’t it? Hang out like we used to. It’s so busy at work we never get the chance to chat about stuff.’
‘What do you mean, “like we used to”?’
Afterwards Cupidi wondered if Jill Ferriter had been trying to to talk to her about something else; whether the phone call was about more than just the Millers.