45.
He waited until after lunch, when Alastair usually went out to the shops, before he made his move. Gave him a good ten minute head start.
Jon left a note (giving no useful details should it be somehow intercepted), essentially telling Alastair he needed to get out – fresh air and all of that – and have a bit of a hunt around, but not to worry, he’d be remaining below the radar. And he thanked his host for his help. He felt a bit guilty running off in Alastair’s clothes (suit and tie, and ironed shirt, sorry Alastair!) and with some of his money, but he had little choice. For now. He’d pay him back somehow. He even left him an IOU.
He stepped out the front door and into the street. To the right, the charred ruins of Qui Vive, like a victim of a bombing raid, a visible reminder of his life, perhaps, a monument to the catastrophe it had become…
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something moving stealthily towards him. It was orange.
Bertie. Had he come to say goodbye? From the accusatory look on his face – if such a thing were possible to detect on a cat – it was to scold him. Or was it a warning, advising him not to leave?
Jon turned on his heel and walked quickly away up the street towards the West Kensington station and freedom.
Given he was supposed to be dead, it seemed more appropriate to be underground, so he caught the Tube, not the bus, to Notting Hill. The short walk to the tube station had been wonderful though – it was the first time he’d been outside in a week (even if he could only remember the last two days of it).
On the way there, something that had been bothering him finally surfaced in his thoughts. It was to do with Emerald. Not just why she’d come to visit him that day, or whether it was the same Martin Nevers whose will she had, or even whether there was any connection between her visit and the ‘incidents’. It was the mention of something else that seemed to have been lost in all the confusion. He remembered her exact words: “It’s about your sister.”
As he didn’t have a sister, her comment was strange enough. (Of course, it was always possible there was something someone, somewhere along the line, hadn’t told him.) But more than that, it was the fact that she’d raised the subject of his family at all. Jon’s family had always been a bit of an unknown quantity, and the thought – even the vaguest of possibilities – that they could somehow be connected with any of this he found decidedly unnerving.
The train bounced and rattled through the tunnels, and as it did, he entertained the thought that all these worries and fears would be dislodged, and shaken free, by the time he arrived at his destination. He’d burst out into the sunlight of a new world, into a life he never knew he had.
He almost hired a bicycle when he got to Notting Hill, in Pembridge Road, but realised he didn’t have his credit card and that dead men didn’t ride bikes anyway, they walked, and so, instead, he made his way on foot along Kensington Park Road and continued on to his and Sabine’s flat in Lansdowne Crescent.
Noticing the rusty gate to the basement flat (he couldn’t help it, it used to drive him crazy), he walked up to that big black door and pressed the buzzer.
The person who answered wasn’t Sabine however. A youngish-sounding male, probably of student age, probably the son of a banker, told him Sabine didn’t live there any longer, in fact he’d never met her: she’d moved out earlier than planned, returned to Germany was what he’d been told, sorry.
Returned to Germany? He could hardly believe it. He’d only been speaking to her… when had it been? Tuesday last week, eight days ago. She’d rung about the sheets. There’d never been any mention, or even a hint, of her leaving the country, and she was excited about moving into her new flat (which was now only two weeks away from being vacant), so it didn’t make sense: she loved London, she’d always been adamant that she was staying, that she’d never go back.
Jon stood in the street for a moment thinking about his next move. Looking straight ahead he could see, in the distance, the corner of Lansdowne Rise, where the runaway car incident had occurred – the place it all started – two weeks earlier. Had it really only been two weeks?
He wondered why he’d even wanted to visit Sabine in the first place, did he miss her? Romy was more of a friend, he’d have been better off trying her. He would have rung her if he could have remembered the number of the landline there (it might have been his number too – for two and a half years – but numeral recall had never been his thing, a weakness exacerbated by his “rubbish long-term memory” as he’d put it to Emerald). He knew where she lived though: he and Romy were still co-owners in the place – being a “small” (her word) semidetached house with three floors plus a basement and a garden. And because it was in Carlyle Square in Chelsea, and the whole area was a tube station desert, he decided his loan from Alastair could stretch to a taxi.
Carlyle Square, with its Georgian terraces and beautifully maintained central gardens was a welcome sight, but the feeling didn’t exactly seem to be mutual. When he pressed the doorbell and the large door eased open, it was Romy, but she looked more horrified than happy to see him. He immediately thought he realised why.
‘I’m not dead. As you can see.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I would have rung, but…’ He shrugged meekly. ‘The fire.’
She didn’t seem to comprehend.
‘I lost everything,’ he said.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t you read the papers?’
‘No more than I have to. Writing for them’s bad enough.’
‘My house burnt down.’
She just looked at him. None of it seemed to register.
‘I nearly died,’ he added. ‘In fact, I’m supposed to be dead.’
‘Well, dead or not, you can’t stay here I’m afraid. Um…’ She paused for a moment, apparently framing her next sentence. ‘My, er… boyfriend actually, is um… due back.’
‘Boyfriend.’ There was a childish, mocking tone to his response which he regretted immediately.
She nodded and raised her eyebrows dismissively at the same time. ‘Any minute, so you know… I’m thinking um…’
‘Does he have a name?’
‘… he may not be exactly dying to meet you so…’
‘Romy. Social niceties aside for one moment, you do realise my house is a smoking ruin?’
‘That’s awful. Were you insured?’
‘I was renting but is that all you can say? Seriously? I’ve lost virtually everything I own, I’ve been reported as missing presumed dead and you ask about my insurance?’
‘What can I say. I don’t know, I’m a journalist. Jon I’m sorry. I’m so stressed at the moment. Work’s… And my… But anyway… it’s not a good time.’
‘And you’re pregnant.’
‘What?’
‘You told me you’re pregnant.’
‘I did?’
‘What happened to you at the end of that call by the way?’
She stared at him, frowning, as if he’d lost his mind. And maybe he had!
‘So were you just making it up?’ he said. ‘About being pregnant?’
‘It’s… it’s a really, really bad time Jonathon.’
‘You never call me Jonathon.’
‘Don’t I?’ She frowned again, as if she didn’t know what was going on herself. ‘I’m sorry. But you’re going to… have to… I have to…’
‘That’s fine, Romy. That’s fine. How’s our house going by the way?’
‘All in one piece, look I really have to go. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about the house.’
‘At least I’m alive though, huh?’
‘Yes. God. Yes. Jon I’ll ring you OK? But right now…’
‘OK. I mean I don’t have a phone at the… but I’ll be in touch. Oh and Romy. Don’t tell anyone you saw me, all right?’
‘Who am I going to tell?’
It was said such an odd way – with her mouth turning down
at the corners ever so slightly – that he was stuck for words. It may have been rhetorical, but before he could say anything, she quickly added: ‘So where will you go?’
‘Now? I may go back, I suppose. To West Kensington.’
‘I thought you had no house?’
‘No but I’m staying with… um… a friend.’ He almost told her who, but some deep instinct prevented him.
She nodded and closed the door, with an uncomfortable hand gesture passing as a wave. No kiss. No hug. It was as though she were a different person. As though the real Romy had been stolen. He wondered what was happening in her life that was so transcendent. Or dominant.
He was right, he decided, when he’d told Romy he’d probably head back to West Kensington. It was too hard for now: he’d go back, face the music with Alastair, regroup, and somehow sort out his finances. Not to mention his practice, he’d ring chambers.
It was strange that no-one in his chambers – Tiffany, Ry or any of the others – had told the police early on in the piece that he was missing, but then again, that was typical – barristers lived such disconnected, private lives compared to most people, why would chambers run around acting as if they had their collective finger on the pulse of Jonathon Marriner’s life?
He decided to proceed on foot – it was only a forty minute walk, it would do him good – and he started off towards Old Brompton Road.
He was almost there – walking north along North End Road in West Kensington – when he was struck by a moment of déjà vu. A girl suddenly appeared in front of him. A red-haired girl in a green dress. For a few moments he didn’t register that he’d seen her before, and it felt like the same moment had occurred in the past… then he recalled that he’d seen a similar-looking girl on North End Road a week ago, on the day of the fire, who he’d imagined at the time was the same girl he’d seen walk past him in Notting Hill just prior to the runaway car incident. Could it really have been the same person, and could this be her again? Or was it simply yet another so-called coincidence?
He hadn’t seen where she’d come from – possibly out of Tesco – but she was walking ahead of him up North End Road and he decided, out of curiosity, to follow her for a little way.
She had wavy dark red hair that brushed her shoulders as she walked. Her green dress seemed too light for the cool weather they’d been having – it was about knee length and flicked the backs of her legs as she walked. She had pale skin – not quite ivory, but not tanned – and a lithe and graceful figure. She half-turned around every now and then, not in Jon’s direction but at the world at large, as if she were expecting to see something extraordinary but had no idea where to look. Her face, side-on at least, was noble and bright and sharp.
She suddenly dashed across the road, through the traffic, and Jon managed to do the same without her seeing him.
She seemed to be heading for the tube station and he was going to let it go at that, but then she turned up the street before it – Beaumont Avenue – and so, at a safe distance, he continued to follow her. Past the computer repair shop on the corner. The street took them away from the traffic of the busy road and ran along beside the train tracks. It was basically a dead end, and so he was confident it wouldn’t be a wild goose chase. Sure enough, her destination appeared to be a long, low but imposing, grey building at the end of the street, with the name “Rootstein” emblazoned on its side.
Clearly displayed in the first window he came to was a bald female head, seemingly missing its decapitated body, bringing to mind the days of the French Revolution – The Terror – and thus the building’s purpose was revealed: it was a workshop, warehouse and display centre for mannequins.
He slowed down as his redhead disappeared into one of its doorways.
A bigger sign on the building read: “ROOTSTEIN Display Mannequins”. Below that, there was a large poster of a female model posing in front of a spectacular cloud formation. Approaching as close as he dared, he could see, through the entrance the girl had vanished into, a white-as-snow mannequin striking a pose just inside the glass door, and a back wall crammed with framed photographs.
Was this where she worked? Or even – and his mind was racing ahead of him here – was it a one-off job and was she posing for a sculptor? He didn’t even know if that was how it was done or where that thought had come from, but he’d begun, rightly or wrongly, to trust the wilder catches of his imagination.
He turned and headed… not for home exactly, but the closest thing he currently had.
As he walked the well-trodden path back towards Alastair’s flat, he had another déjà vu feeling, although this time for no apparent reason. Nothing looked especially familiar – in fact to the contrary, it all looked strangely unfamiliar and foreign. It wasn’t, of course. The street hadn’t changed and as he walked down the long avenue towards the T-junction where Alastair’s building was, he imagined he could see that easily recognizable orange bundle of fur at the end.
And he could. It was Bertie all right, sitting there, waiting patiently, watching the world. Ten metres out however, Bertie stood up suddenly, and for a moment, Jon thought he might be springing forwards to meet him (as out-of-character as that would have been). But he ran off. I’ve frightened him? … The moment the thought crossed his mind, a puff of smoke appeared where Bertie had been sitting. Like a cartoon puff when a character speeds off. Although this one was accompanied by a popping noise and the sharp crack of a lead projectile hitting cement, and this was no cartoon. Someone was shooting at Bertie! and Jon spun around to witness a man in an unkempt, dark grey suit, baseball cap and dark sunglasses, striding purposefully down the street towards him, gun in hand, silencer rudely attached, straightened arm rising for another shot.
They weren’t shooting at Bertie, they were shooting at him.
He ran.
The air whistled next to his right ear and masonry exploded in front of him. He only had two choices, left or right, and to the right was a long straight section of road, so he went left.
Which was a dead end.
But it was also where the charred ruins of his former home were and he leapt over the fence and into the gaping space as if he were jumping into a swimming pool.
He landed ten feet below, at basement level, although fortunately on some old cardboard boxes which softened the impact. The irony was, if the building had been intact, and therefore locked, it would have been the end of the road, literally – a dead end in every sense – because out of the corner of his eye, just as he was about to launch himself through the burnt out doorway in front of him, he saw the suited figure appear at the fence railing above him, silhouetted against the sky.
Another popping sound and a shower of masonry erupted behind him. A further shot must have been fired through what used to be the kitchen window (but which was now a gaping hole) because the remnants of the old kitchen table, now looking like a large nugget of coal, spat black splinters into the air just feet away. He stumbled on into the darkness of the collapsed shell of a house. He didn’t know if his pursuer had leapt down after him, but he plunged further into the interior anyway, praying he’d find a way out. The place was, still, after a week, heavy with the smell of burnt wood and paper and plastic. And then he remembered there was an exit to the rear laneway, permanently locked in better times, but with a bit of luck, not any longer. He found it fairly easily – there were huge gaping holes in the basement ceiling on the other side of the house and daylight poured in. The exit was on the next level up, on the ground level, but he was able to clamber over and up a collapsed section of ceiling, and then a simple shoulder charge to the exit door not only opened it but sent it flying into the lane outside.
And then he was running again.
Down the lane, towards North End Road, about fifty metres away, which he could see at the end. Waiting for a bullet in his back. Would it hurt? Would he have time to realise he’d been shot? That he had seconds to live? Or would the lights go out instantly?
North E
nd Road, twenty metres away now. It never looked so good. But would it be the last thing he ever saw?
And then he was there. He turned – to gauge how close his stalker was – and he did so just in time to see him, in his baseball cap, only just emerging through the same doorway he had.
The man stopped and looked up in his direction. Gave him a strange look, possibly a frown or a squint. He was a good distance away, and Jon wasn’t close enough to get a good look at his facial features, especially under the baseball cap, but he had a pale face and he no longer had his sunglasses on. They could have fallen off in the chase. And then he realised the man wasn’t looking directly at him, but was looking around, surveying the scene. And it occurred to him that the sunglasses may have had prescription lenses and that the man was possibly short-sighted.
Jon nimbly dashed across the road, weaving his way, footballer quick, through the traffic. He looked like he was running for a bus, but he ran down North End Road and jumped in the first taxi he saw going in that direction, almost throwing himself on its bonnet in his desperation.
‘Fulham Broadway, thanks. And maybe further.’
Clearly, returning to Alastair’s was out of the question. He was going to need his ex-neighbour’s help though, because it was obvious he’d have to stay underground for a while. Properly underground, until he sorted out what was going on. Contacting chambers was also not an option. He knew Alastair would help him, would be sympathetic. He’d have to get a message to him somehow.
He had a lot to think about in that taxi as they headed south down North End Road, away from the traffic congestion, and the tube station. And away from “Rootstein”.
Which got him thinking. Was there a connection? With the girl in the green dress? Or, for that matter Romy, with her weird demeanour? Because he’d either been followed, or someone knew his movements that day.
Dark Oceans Page 22