Nine Elms: The thrilling first book in a brand-new, electrifying crime series (Kate Marshall 1)

by Robert Bryndza

  She’d phoned Paul Adler the day before, and he’d been very helpful and amiable on the phone, answering all of her questions. He had even offered to meet her in person at the pharmacy, which he still owned, to give her some photos he had of Caitlyn. Kate was dreading having to go back to Malcolm and Sheila, but she thought she’d take one last roll of the dice and go up and have a look at where Caitlyn lived, and collect the photos. It was something. On the way back she would call in to see them in Chew Magna.

  Tristan had a ‘performance review meeting’ with Ashdean University’s HR department. He had been working as Kate’s assistant for three months now, and on her recommendation, he would be made a permanent member of staff. It was a meeting he couldn’t miss. Kate had promised that she would call him with any updates.

  Kate grabbed a sandwich from a petrol station and wolfed it down in her car. She then drove to her first stop, the house where Malcolm and Sheila had lived when Caitlyn went missing. Altrincham was quite a smart, well-heeled little suburb of Greater Manchester. Their old house was a small, modern terrace, and was now a solicitor’s office for a company called BD and Sons Ltd. It had recently been renovated and had gleaming sash windows with the name of the firm stencilled onto the glass. The black soot had been sandblasted away from the bricks to reveal their original biscuit colour. The front garden was now a small car park. Kate got out of her car and stood on the pavement for several minutes, staring at the house and willing some kind of feeling or insight. She tried to imagine Caitlyn leaving the house or returning after school, but nothing came to her, so she got back in her car and drove on.

  Her next stop was the church hall where Carter’s youth club had been. It was demolished in 2001, and now it was part of a vast distribution centre which ran half the length of the street. As Kate stood outside, watching huge lorries come and go, she wondered what had happened to the river that ran past the back of the youth club. The corrugated building seemed to cover acres.

  It was just before 2 p.m. when she pulled up at Paul Adler’s pharmacy, which was a couple of miles from Caitlyn’s old house. It was at the end of a parade of shops which also housed a Costa Coffee and two estate agents. A large red fluorescent sign spelled out ADLER’S CHEMIST above the door. A long line of huge multi-coloured apothecary bottles filled a window display on one side, and they were covered in dust.

  A bell on the door rang when Kate went inside, and there was a pleasant antiseptic smell and library hush that older chemists seem to have. There was a polished wood floor and countertops, and a couple of old ladies at the counter speaking in low tones to a very young girl behind the till. The rattle of a prescription being filled came through a hatch at the back.

  The pharmacy also sold cosmetics, and Kate browsed the make-up and waited until the old ladies were gone. She went to the till and told the young girl wearing a white smock that she had an appointment to see Paul Adler.

  ‘I’ll just see if he’s available,’ replied the girl. She was doll-like, thin and blonde with huge eyes. She spoke with a small, almost squeaky voice. She went out back and returned moments later with a tall, broad, greying man. He had put on weight and was a little stooped, but Kate recognised him from his photo as Paul Adler.

  ‘Hello, pleased to meet you,’ he said, coming to shake her hand.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ said Kate. He held onto her hand, clasping it in both of his. His eyes were clear and strikingly blue as he looked down at her. Kate only noticed the false eye when he glanced over at the girl behind the counter. ‘Tina. We’ll be in the back. Please don’t disturb us.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Adler,’ she said meekly.

  ‘Come this way,’ he said, releasing Kate’s hand. He led her through a door at the rear of the room and down a dimly lit wood-panelled corridor, past a closed door on the left and an open door, which was the pharmacy proper, where medication was stored in a wall lined with drawers.

  Two young women were inside, and they were similar in appearance to Tina – small and pretty with long blonde hair. They were making up prescriptions, working in complete silence, and they looked away when Kate passed. At the end of the corridor was a smart little staff kitchen with a wooden table and chairs. A glass door looked out onto a small loading bay.

  ‘Please, sit,’ said Paul. He closed the door. Kate pulled up a chair next to the glass door and sat. ‘Would you like coffee?’

  ‘Thank you. Black, no sugar,’ said Kate. With the door closed, the room felt even smaller. ‘You’ve kept all the original features of the shop out front. It reminds me of the chemists I went to as a child.’

  ‘It’s all being ripped out next month. I’m having a new shopfront, new wiring and a digital security system put in. I only have cameras on the till and in the dispensary, and they still use VHS,’ said Paul. ‘Here are the photos,’ he added, picking up a packet of prints that were next to a capsule coffee maker. He dropped them onto the table and started to fuss with the machine. Kate opened it and found six photos, all taken of Caitlyn on a bright, sunny day. She had posed for the pictures in a field of buttercups. She wore a long, white dress and had a chain of daisies on her head.

  ‘She was beautiful,’ said Kate as she flicked through. Paul didn’t answer. There was a whirr as the coffee machine finished and he brought the cups over. He pulled a chair out and sat opposite.

  ‘You kept the photos? Was she special to you?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Listen, I’m happy to answer any questions, but I don’t appreciate being under suspicion,’ he said. His voice was soft with a tinge of menace.

  ‘You’re not under suspicion. I told you I’ve been hired by Caitlyn’s parents to clear up a few questions . . . and it was more of an observation, as to why you kept the photos?’

  ‘I used to process photos here, back in the day before we all went digital. Some of my clients were actors and modelling agencies. They would pay me a fee to keep negatives on file for reprints. I kept the negatives of Caitlyn for memory’s sake. I was being an old softie,’ he said.

  Kate thought the way he loomed over her with his unseeing eye didn’t conjure the image of him as ‘an old softie’.

  The door suddenly opened and Tina entered with a bag of rubbish.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Mr Adler,’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said. His chair was pulled out, and he didn’t move, so she was forced to squeeze past him. She opened the glass door and went out to the loading bay. The door closed behind her. Kate watched her cross to a large rubbish bin filled with bags. She tossed the bag onto the pile and came back.

  ‘It’s a revenue stream I greatly miss, photo processing,’ said Paul, turning his attention back to the photos of Caitlyn. Tina came back to the door and tapped four numbers into a security keypad. She mouthed the numbers as she punched them in: one, three, four, six. The door clicked open.

  Paul tilted his head to look at a photo of Caitlyn leaning against a tree, smiling at the camera with her back arched.

  Tina squeezed past Paul, and he waited until she was out of the room, then shifted his chair so he was sitting with his back against the door out to the pharmacy.

  ‘I’d just got married when I had the affair with Caitlyn. She was, er, tasty, shall we say . . . ’ He smiled, and it was made more unnerving because it didn’t reach his right eye.

  ‘Where did you take these photos of Caitlyn?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Out near Salford. There was a nice walk you could do, and go swimming in the lake. We used to go skinny dipping.’ He raised an eyebrow suggestively. Kate felt alarm bells going off. She was shut in this room, at the end of the corridor. The door was closed, and he was sitting halfway across it.

  ‘When was this?’ she asked, forcing herself to stay calm.

  He blew out his cheeks. ‘June of 1990. It’s all gone. There’s a new housing estate there.’

  Kate nodded. ‘And the video shop where you met Caitlyn?’

  ‘It was just on the other end of this row, where the
Tesco is . . . ’ He knocked back his coffee in one.

  ‘You didn’t see anything or anyone around Caitlyn who was odd or strange?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The times you met?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve never lost my copper’s instinct. You must have it still too?’

  Kate nodded. He stared at her again.

  ‘Are you sure I can take these photos? Caitlyn’s parents will want to know where they came from.’

  ‘Perhaps you should leave out the part about the affair.’ He smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s best kept in the past. I have a good marriage.’

  ‘Of course. The photos don’t show you in them. I’m glad we found you through Victoria. It’s cleared up a line of enquiry.’

  Kate just wanted out of the tiny little room. She could smell Paul’s sweat, but she knew her next question was the most important. ‘Did you ever meet Peter Conway? He was a police officer in Greater Manchester at the time when Caitlyn went missing.’

  ‘No. I never knew him. Our time didn’t overlap. Terrible man. Did terrible things.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Did any of your colleagues know him?’

  He blew out his cheeks and tilted his head back.

  ‘I only ever heard people talk about him after you caught him and, like you, they’d always thought he was a great police officer. He fooled you all, by the sound of it.’ He looked at her for a moment, a mocking smile twitching at his lips. ‘Would you like more coffee? Although you haven’t touched that one.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ She stood. ‘I’d better be going.’

  Paul looked surprised that she was leaving. Kate moved around the small table to the door. There was a long pause when she thought he wasn’t going to move, but he then heaved himself up off his chair and, to her relief, opened the door.

  As they walked along the corridor and back to the front of the shop, Kate saw the door opposite the pharmacy was now open. It was a storeroom with shelves of folders, a large photo-processing machine and a stack of old promotional branding signs for cosmetics. The sign on top said ONE HOUR PHOTO and it was written inside a stopwatch.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kate when they were back in the front of the shop.

  Paul put out his hand, and she shook it. ‘Anything else, don’t hesitate to call me,’ he said, holding on to her hand a little too long.

  It was raining when she came out onto the pavement, and as she looked back Paul was standing in the window, next to a revolving display of reading glasses, staring at her. She nodded and hurried away, shaken, but not quite able to put her finger on why. Was it the glass eye that gave her the creeps? Or did he enjoy dominating women? The three young women who worked in the pharmacy seemed so subservient and quiet. But he was in the clear. He had an alibi.

  Kate left Altrincham just before three, and it was dark when she arrived in Chew Magna. The uneasy feeling hadn’t left her as she drove. Almost every place from Caitlyn’s past was gone, apart from that creepy pharmacy, which felt trapped in time.

  As she reached the end of the dirt track to Malcolm and Sheila’s cottage, flashing blue lights bounced off the surrounding houses. A siren blared and an ambulance came shooting out of the dirt track and turned off to the left at high speed, streaking away in a blare of sirens.

  ‘Shit,’ said Kate. She turned into the track and when she reached the end, she saw an old woman with white hair coming out of Malcolm and Sheila’s cottage. Kate wound down her window, and the woman came over.

  ‘I’m here to see Malcolm and Sheila. Are they okay?’

  ‘It’s Sheila. She collapsed and she’s in a coma,’ the woman said.

  ‘I’m Kate Marshall . . . ’

  ‘Oh yes. You’re the private investigator they hired to look into Caitlyn going missing? Have you any news?’ Her lined face brightened briefly.

  Kate still didn’t feel comfortable calling herself a private investigator, especially when her investigation seemed to be going nowhere. ‘I was due to deliver it,’ she said, holding up the file she and Tristan had put together. ‘I’m afraid we’ve drawn a blank.’

  The woman shook her head sadly. ‘I’m Harriet Dent, neighbour and friend. Do you want me to give Malcolm the file?’ She didn’t seem keen, and Kate could imagine she didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news.

  ‘No. Thank you. I’ll hold onto it,’ said Kate. ‘Can I give you my number? I’d like to know when Sheila is better.’ She scribbled it on a piece of paper and Harriet took it.

  ‘It’s not looking good for Sheila. She’s been waiting for a donor for three years. We all had tests to see if we were a match.’ She shook her head. She held up the piece of paper. ‘I’ll phone you when I know more.’

  Kate watched as the old woman picked her way down the muddy lane back to her house, and then she set off on the long journey home.

  CHAPTER 25

  Layla Gerrard felt a throbbing pain throughout her whole body, like a hangover mixed with dehydration. It was pitch black, and she had stared into the darkness so hard it felt as if her eyes were going to fall out of her head.

  She had woken several times in darkness and was trying to piece it all together. She was strong, and had always thought she could look after herself in a fight, but it had happened so quickly. The man – he smelled like a man – had been dressed in black. She’d seen a flash of a woollen balaclava, eyes glittering and a full mouth with wet red lips, but it had been so fast.

  She remembered being on the road with the kids behind her, and going down that underpass thinking they were following her. The underpass always gave her the creeps, but for the past few months it had always been light on her way home.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed. All she wore was her underwear. Her hands and feet were bound tightly, and she could feel a cold damp concrete floor underneath her back. Her mouth was filled with some kind of rag or bundle of cloth, and taped over. She had fought her fear of the man coming back, almost as much as the fear of choking on the bundle of rags. The drug he’d used to knock her out had made her nauseous.

  Her panic ran in cycles, and each time it threatened to consume her, the blood pulsed painfully through a huge lump on the side of her head, wanting to burst out. Had he hit her? Or did she hit something when she was dragged into the van?

  There was a crashing sound, far away, which seemed to echo around, giving her the first indication that the place where she lay was somewhere big, with a high ceiling. Three times she had woken to hear a soft far away click-clack of a train on tracks.

  There was a rolling sound, like a large sliding door being pulled back, and a crash. Without warning, lights came on above. Her pupils contracted and she closed her eyes, wincing. Footsteps came towards her, and she felt a freezing gust of air.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ said a man’s voice. It was well spoken with a ring of authority. He didn’t sound angry. ‘Open your eyes, please.’

  She felt a kick in her ribs. The pain focused her and she managed to open her eyes. She lay in the middle of a large warehouse, with rows of strip lights above against a curved metal roof. The floor was concrete, and the walls were clean and made of old red bricks. Along one of the back walls was parked a row of six black vans, all bearing the logo ‘CM Logistics’. This was different to the dank dungeon she had imagined in the long hours of darkness.

  A man stood above her, tall and broad in a smart blue suit. He had short red hair, and Layla recoiled at his large wet lips and almost rubbery features. He wore a black leather glove on his right hand. His left hand was behind his back.

  The man came closer and stood over her. Vapour streamed from his mouth and nose. He crouched down and took his left hand from behind his back. He held a long sharp knife. Layla winced and whimpered as he moved closer and grabbed her legs. She angled her body, scraping the backs of her legs and wrists on the floor as she tried to push away.

  He tilted his head and looked at her face, then abruptly let her go and moved away i
nto the shadows. He returned carrying a six-pack of water bottles by a plastic handle. Using the knife, he carved the plastic away and released a bottle, throwing the rest across the warehouse. He brought the bottle to her. She was moving away, edging towards the back wall.

  ‘Stay still,’ he said, putting his hand on her belly. He placed the bottle beside her head. ‘If you scream, I’ll cut your throat.’ He tore off the tape on her mouth and pulled out the rags, keeping the knife pointed at her face. She swallowed and gulped in air. ‘I’m serious. If you scream, I’ll slit you open.’ His voice was calm, almost like a newsreader’s. Layla nodded, her eyes wide. He picked up the bottle and opened it. Cradling her chin with the knife hand, he tilted the bottle to her mouth. ‘Drink.’

  She didn’t take her eyes off him and gulped at the water as he poured, coughing and sputtering as it went over her lips and nose. She didn’t realise how thirsty she was and she drank half the bottle.

  He set the bottle down, the knife still hovering beside her head. The water had given her hope. He wanted her to stay alive. He smiled at her. It was a broad, warm smile, but his eyes were malevolent. His teeth were so white. Like a Hollywood smile. He placed his foot under her side and flipped her over. She landed painfully on her front on the cold concrete, yelping.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, hating herself for her subservience, but she knew it was hopeless to fight him.

  ‘If you scream,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘I won’t . . . I promise,’ she started to say but he forced the rag back into her mouth. Her mind was racing. What was this place? It looked like it belonged to a delivery company. The parked vans meant there could be delivery drivers arriving. Maybe one would hear her, or save her?

  For a moment she didn’t know what he was doing as he bent over her. Then she felt his breath on the back of her left thigh, his wet rubbery lips next to her flesh and his teeth as they sank into her skin. The pain was terrible as he bit down. He grunted and twisted his head from left to right, like a dog with a piece of meat. He bit down harder. The pain almost made her black out as his head snapped back, pulling a chunk of her flesh free. He spat it out beside her and she felt the warmth of her blood running down her thigh. She screamed and writhed but he held her down and his mouth and teeth moved up to her lower back.