Deadland

by William Shaw

  TWENTY-ONE

  In the middle of the room, sitting on a small oak stool, was a life-size sculpture of a naked woman.

  She appeared to be made entirely of cardboard and adhesive tape, cut, stuck and carefully folded.

  Considering the ordinariness of the materials she had been built from, the result was extraordinarily human, though strangely semi-transparent. The proportions of the woman were perfect. Light glittered off the many surfaces made by the tape. Her legs were crossed, one foot dangling above the floor, her bare head tilted slightly downwards.

  And one arm was missing; her left.

  ‘That’s bloody Astrid Theroux,’ said Ferriter.

  ‘Astrid Miller, yes.’

  ‘Mr Clough. What, exactly, are we looking at?’

  ‘That’s it, you see. I don’t really know yet,’ he said. ‘That’s why I wanted your help.’

  The small bedroom doubled as Ross’s art studio. A pale blind blocked sunlight from the window. A single mattress lay on the floor, covered in clothes. The lino floor was splashed with paint, the walls covered in sketches and pictures torn from magazines. Pasted to the walls were also dozens of newspaper cuttings about the severed arm. Instead Clough pointed to a series of charcoal drawings, carefully pinned up. One was of a cartoonish monkey with its arm in a jar, its eyes big and frightened.

  ‘See?’ he said.

  The monkey trap, thought Cupidi. Place a nut in the jar; the monkey places its fist around it, but his greed means he won’t let go of it, even though it means he can’t pull himself free.

  She rotated slowly about the room, taking in the drawings and the photographs while Ross stood, half nervous, half proud, in the doorway, like a child showing his mother a drawing he had done.

  *

  Sitting in the car in the wind-blown car park at the bottom of the block, Ferriter looked up at the building, towards the seventeenth floor and said, ‘Bloody weirdo. Hundred per cent fits the picture, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Fits what picture?’ Cupidi frowned. The moving clouds made it look like the tower above them was falling.

  ‘Classic narcissist. Only got in touch with us because he needs us to acknowledge how brilliant he is.’

  ‘If he’s such a show-off, why was he reluctant to show us that room? Why didn’t he let us see it straight away?’

  ‘Drama, that’s why. He wanted the big reveal.’

  Cupidi said, ‘You think he fits some sort of criminal profile, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve read the psychology. Narcissist sociopath. The way he opened the door to us—’

  ‘I’ve never found that calling people names, however fancy, ever helped me solve a case.’

  ‘You got to admit, he was . . . creepy.’

  ‘He’s not a very good judge of other people, for sure,’ said Cupidi. ‘He’s never going to be able to get that sculpture out of the flat, for a start. She won’t fit out the door.’

  ‘Don’t joke, boss. The vilest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s like . . . some sex doll, except with an arm chopped off. At first I thought he’d actually wrapped someone up in Sellotape, swear to God.’

  ‘Get his work rota for the Turner. Find out which days he was there.’ Cupidi started the engine.

  ‘Is that it? We’re just leaving him?’

  Cupidi looked at her watch. ‘We’re due at the Millers’ house in three-quarters of an hour. I could leave you here if you like. You could do a bit of covert surveillance on Ross. It doesn’t need two of us to go and see Astrid Miller.’

  ‘No,’ said Ferriter. ‘You’re OK.’

  *

  After twenty minutes on the road, Ferriter sat forward, so she’d be closer to the vanity mirror, and opened her handbag.

  ‘Are you getting made up for Evert and Astrid?’ asked Cupidi.

  ‘I’m just more confident in the presence of women like that if I’m not looking like a sack of potatoes. Don’t you feel like that, sometimes?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘No. You’re just confident like you are.’

  ‘Deftly done,’ said Cupidi.

  ‘I know.’ Ferriter tugged at the fringe of her blonde bob. ‘Seriously, though. You are crazy cool. When I’m your age, I wouldn’t mind looking like you.’

  Cupidi snorted.

  ‘Actually, I was attempting to be sincere.’

  They rose out of the flatland into the lush lanes of mid-Kent, hawthorn breaking through in the hedges they sped past.

  *

  ‘I was expecting something . . . I don’t know . . . posher,’ said Ferriter, disappointed.

  Cupidi had done her research. Evert Miller had made his first millions in the 1990s from a series of price comparison websites, then diversified into online retailing and data marketing. Astrid Miller was his second wife; he had two children by his first. The divorce had been contested, apparently, and the children lived with their mother.

  Long Hill, the Millers’ estate, was not a single house, but a collection of ultra-modern buildings, made of wood, stone, steel, concrete and glass, some joined at angles with each other, others separate, but they were all of a piece. Above each structure, red-tiled triangles rose against the skyline like sails, attempting to echo the shape of Kent’s oast-houses, the hop-drying towers that had once dotted the landscape. From a distance, it looked like some red-backed dragon had landed on the fields, its scaly spine raised skywards. Repeated motifs made each building feel part of a larger whole: round windows, flint-knapped walls, black wood cladding. It looked expensive, but as millionaires’ houses went, it was curiously unassuming, nestling into the shape of the hillside. Some surfaces were covered in solar panels, others grew vetches and stonecrops.

  ‘Where’s the front door?’ asked Cupidi as she drove up a gravel driveway.

  ‘Where the posh cars are.’ Ferriter pointed. ‘Course he’s got a Tesla, hasn’t he?’

  A low red sports car was parked next to one of the bigger houses. Cupidi pulled up next to it, got out.

  There seemed to be nobody around. The place was quiet.

  ‘Remember,’ said Cupidi. ‘Watch yourself. We need to go gently. McAdam doesn’t want us to go making the millionaires nervous.’

  A black lead snaked from the red car across the gravel to a charging point, hidden by bushes. Ferriter peered inside the vehicle. When she stepped back, she saw she’d left smudges on the clean glass and set about polishing them with her sleeve.

  Cupidi wandered away, down a pathway towards a second building, with a large glass wall. There seemed to be lights on inside. Ferriter followed her.

  As they approached, they saw a young woman, sitting behind a glass desk, look up, surprised. Cupidi entered. ‘Police,’ she said.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘We just drove up. There was no one around.’

  The woman, dressed in a white silk blouse and black trousers, frowned.

  ‘We’ve come about the Foundation,’ Cupidi explained.

  ‘Ms Gubenko is expecting you. She’ll be with you very shortly. Please take a seat.’

  ‘Ms Gubenko? I thought we were here to see Astrid Miller?’ said Ferriter.

  The young woman paused. ‘I understood you were here to enquire about the business of the Foundation?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Ms Gubenko is the Foundation administrator. She can answer any questions you have.’

  ‘But Astrid Miller runs the Foundation?’

  A smile. ‘Of course. She and Evert. But it’s Zoya Gubenko you’d need to ask about any details. Mr and Mrs Miller are very big picture.’ She paused. ‘Coffee?’

  Cupidi accepted; Ferriter declined. ‘Can I just have a hot water?’

  ‘Naturally.’ The woman disappeared.

  There were two leather and steel armchairs; they sat.

  ‘Aw,’ said Cupidi her voice low. ‘It looks like you’re not going to s
ee Astrid after all. She’s too big picture.’

  ‘Bloody gutted, actually,’ complained Ferriter. ‘Maybe I should have stayed watching Ross’s flat instead. Did you see that woman’s shoes? Those two-tone Oxfords. I’ve got the same ones.’

  She picked up a copy of Monocle, flicked through it, put it down again.

  The woman in two-tone Oxfords returned two minutes later carrying two white porcelain cups.

  ‘What about Mr Miller? Is he here?’ demanded Cupidi after she’d taken a mouthful.

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman, back at her desk, eyes fixed on her computer screen.

  ‘Perhaps we could speak to him instead.’

  The woman jerked her head back slightly, as if Cupidi had just said something inappropriate. ‘I doubt it. He’s busy. You can make an appointment.’

  ‘So where is Mrs Miller?’

  ‘Ms Miller,’ she said, emphasising the title, ‘is away.’

  ‘Away where?’

  The woman hesitated for a fraction of a second. ‘As I said, I am not employed by Ms Miller. I work for Mr Miller. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.’

  ‘You are aware that we are involved in a murder investigation,’ said Cupidi. ‘Human remains were deliberately placed in property belonging to the Miller Foundation. We need to consider the possibility that someone has a particular grudge against Mr or Ms Miller. I had expected to speak to him.’

  Ferriter frowned. The woman hesitated. ‘I can ask. I have his diary. His schedule is very full.’

  ‘Ours too.’ Cupidi smiled back at her.

  The woman’s mobile rang. ‘I’ll send them through.’ She looked up from her screen. ‘Miss Gubenko is ready for you. Third on the left,’ she said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Tell him we’ve gone,’ hissed Sloth.

  ‘Don’t say we’re here.’ Tap rubbed the scab on his lip.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Frank.

  The boys looked at each other. ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? If that’s not your dad, I need to know who that is ringing my front door bell.’ Pacing the floor of his own apartment, Frank looked anxious too.

  ‘We don’t frickin’ know, right? It’s him we’re running away from.’

  Tap was thinking. He was in my mum’s house all this time. Frank stopped by the entry phone, a small white handset that hung in his hallway next to the kitchen. ‘You’re running away from him?’

  Again the buzzer sounded. Now Frank looked from the boys, to the phone, to the front window and back again, a triangle of indecision.

  ‘Don’t say we’re here, please,’ Tap pleaded. ‘Please don’t.’

  The man was holding his finger on the bell now. A continuous bzzzzzzz.

  Frank stepped forward, grasped the handset. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi.’ The boys could hear the voice from the little loudspeaker, friendly and warm, like everything was perfectly normal. ‘You had my boy there. And his mate. I’ve come to pick them up.’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry.’ Frank floundered.

  ‘Say we went out to the shop,’ Sloth hissed.

  ‘They went out to the shop. They haven’t come back.’

  ‘I can wait.’

  The three, Sloth, Tap and Frank, exchanged glances.

  The buzzing stopped and now the silence was almost too loud.

  They stood in Frank’s flat, unsure what to do next.

  ‘Is he just standing there?’ said Tap. ‘Can you see?’

  Frank went over to the window at the end of the living room and tried to look down. ‘Maybe he’s gone.’

  ‘No. He’ll be out there somewhere.’

  When Frank turned from the glass, there was something new in his eyes. When they’d met him, that morning on Ruby Tuesday Drive, and in the KFC, Frank had seemed cocky, superior, in control with his wallet full of cash. Now, Tap realised, he just looked scared. What was he so frightened of? Could he sense who this man was too?

  ‘There another way we can sneak out?’ asked Sloth.

  ‘There’s a back door, where the bins are. But you have to walk down the stairs to get there. If he’s still at the front door, he’ll see you through the glass.’

  That’s where he would be; waiting for them.

  ‘Frank should call the po,’ Tap told Sloth.

  ‘The police? Really?’ said Sloth.

  ‘Honest. I don’t give a crap any more. I just want to go home. I know we’re in trouble but it can’t be as bad as this. Call them.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’ asked Frank.

  Sloth turned to him. ‘Yeah. Call the police. Tell them there’s someone shady hanging around outside your flat. You think they’re coming to rob you.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? That’ll scare him off for a minute, moment he sees their car. I promise you.’

  This time veins rose on Frank’s forehead. ‘No.’

  Sloth looked puzzled. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I can’t call the police.’

  Sloth’s eyes widened. ‘Oh Jesus. I get it. You’re in trouble with the coppers, too. That’s why you don’t want to call them.’ He laughed. ‘That’s superb. Absolutely bloody frickin’ superb.’

  Frank flopped down on the couch. Dust rose into the air, hanging in the sunlight. ‘I just want you two out of here.’

  ‘What happened to “Come on over to my flat?”, Frank?’

  ‘What are you in trouble for?’ asked Sloth. ‘Let me guess. Not hard, is it? Kiddy fiddler, is it?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything to you, have I?’

  Sloth, standing next to the kitchen counter, back against the wall, slid down till he was sitting on the floor. ‘Mind if I have a smoke?’

  ‘Not in here. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Well I’m not going outside, that’s for shizzle.’

  A minute passed, and then another.

  ‘How long are we going to wait?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What if he’s gone?’ said Frank. But his words were still in the air when the buzzer rang again.

  ‘Tell him to go away,’ urged Sloth.

  Frank stood. Again he pressed the button. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Let me up,’ the man’s voice said. ‘You know the police are after those boys, don’t you? They killed a man. You’re harbouring a pair of murderers.’

  Frank looked at the boys.

  ‘I can help. You don’t want them in your apartment, I promise you. Let me come up. I’ll have them off your hands in no time.’

  Frank released the button, looked round at the boys. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘No,’ Tap blurted. ‘He’s a liar. He’s the one who’s frickin’ dangerous. He killed my uncle. We didn’t kill anyone. Not on purpose.’

  ‘Shut up, Tap,’ said Sloth.

  ‘Phone the police. Please. Think about it. Would we be begging you to call the cops if it weren’t true?’

  Again, Frank returned to the sofa, uncertain. The two boys watched him as he chewed on the skin on the edge of his thumb.

  ‘You’re useless, you know that? You have to do something.’

  ‘Don’t, Tap. He’s scared. What are you so scared of, Frank?’

  Frank shook his head. ‘I’m a bloody idiot.’

  ‘We’re frightened too,’ said Tap. ‘It’s why we were running away. He’s going to kill us. He’s psycho. Seriously.’

  Sloth edged himself up from the floor. ‘He killed Tap’s uncle Mikey. That’s what we were trying to get away from.’

  Frank’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head slowly, as if he didn’t want to believe any of this. ‘You’re making this crap up.’

  ‘It was on the TV. Just up the road. Last week. Man on the motorbike. Remember?’

  Frank nodded. ‘I saw that.’

  ‘That was him. That was Tap’s uncle.’

  ‘What did your uncle do to him?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s the whole point. The man outside, h
e’s psycho.’

  ‘And he’s after you? What the hell have you got me into?’ he whined.

  ‘Wasn’t our fault. You’re the one who picked us up. Why did you pick us up, first place, Frank?’

  The bell rang again and this time kept ringing; a continual buzzing that filled the space around them. Frank put his fingers into his ears like he didn’t want to hear any more.

  ‘Now are you going to call the coppers?’

  ‘If I ring the police, you got to get out of here, moment I do.’

  ‘We can’t get out of here till he’s gone.’

  ‘OK. Moment he’s gone, you go, right?’

  ‘Got to be sure he’s vamoosed. Tell him. Tell him you’re calling the cops. Maybe he’ll go then.’

  Frank stood, went to the intercom, pressed the button. ‘Hello?’

  There was a crackle. But no answer. Was that the sound of a man out there? Could they hear breathing, or was that just the noise of electronic circuitry?

  ‘You still there?’

  Just the same hiss.

  ‘Are you still there?’ He turned to the boys. ‘Maybe he’s gone.’

  ‘Swear to God,’ said Tap. ‘He’s hundred per cent still there. He doesn’t give up.’

  ‘You hear me? I’m ringing the police,’ called Frank. ‘Telling them there’s someone suspicious outside my door.’

  The intercom clicked. ‘What those boys say about me?’

  ‘I’m phoning the police,’ Frank shouted, then put down the handset.

  Silence.

  Frank walked to the window, then flinched backwards. ‘I can see him. He’s still down there looking up. He’s looking right at me. He’s not moved.’

  ‘Don’t frickin’ let him see you talking to us.’

  ‘He knows you’re here, boys. He’s not stupid. If you say he is who he is, he’d go because he won’t want the police here. Won’t he? Why’s he not moving?’

  Tap could taste blood on his tongue. He realised he had scratched the scab off his lip again.

  Sloth said, ‘Because he doesn’t believe you’ve called them.’

  ‘Now you got to call them,’ said Tap. ‘Call them for real. He won’t go unless he really knows they’re coming. He needs to see the bloody cop car. Then he’ll vamoose.’

  ‘Will you get lost when he goes?’

  Tap nodded. ‘You don’t want boys in your flat when the police are here. We get it. We understand, Frank. We’ll scarper, moment he goes. Swear to God.’