by Jane Goodall
‘Manhole.’ Sharon whispered. ‘What if it opens up in the middle of the road?’
Zig turned the handle and pushed the cover up. Daylight streamed in and blinded them for a moment. Then they took it in turns to look out. When Sharon’s head emerged, the first thing she saw was the wheels of a stationary truck. She was in the middle of an expanse of pavement. Looking up, screwing her eyes against the glare, she saw sky with moving clouds. And chimneys. Massive brick chimneys, soaring up into the heavens. She retreated and closed the manhole after her.
‘So we are in Lots Road.’
The tunnel here had opened out and they were standing on a platform bordered by a metal rail, like some kind of bridge under the road. At the far end of it on their left was what looked like a big mesh cage. The light here was stronger, coming from a long fluorescent tube fixed to the wall above, and thick cables ran down through the centre of the cage. If that was a lift shaft, there might be God knows what kind of a drop from the platform they were standing on. Zig had come to the wall at the far end, where there was another platform running at right angles to the bridge. This felt a bit safer, with the wall on one side and the railing on the other.
Zig pointed to a piece of red string bound around the railing. ‘Sol’s trademark.’ She swung a leg over the bar and Sharon made a grab for her.
‘Don’t! It’s a great big drop down there.’
‘Nuh,’ said Zig. ‘Not here.’ She was already up on the rail. ‘Come on!’
There was a reassuring crunch of feet hitting the ground. Sharon followed, landed on solid earth and saw in the torchlight that it extended far beneath where the platform ran, into an alcove, just high enough to stand up in. And right over their heads was a wooden trapdoor with a rope handle. When Zig opened it a coil of rope fell out, knocking the torch from her hand. Sharon picked it up, played the light over the dangling rope and noticed that it was cross-tied to make a ladder. She planted her foot on it and hoisted herself up.
The shriek escaped from her lungs before she could think to clap a hand over her mouth. She was confronted with a row of faces, with staring eyes and gaping mouths. Their skin glowed yellow in the torchlight and they seemed to turn, slowly, in response.
17
‘Name?’ said Steve. ‘What are we going to call you?’ Aidan sat studying the palms of his own hands as if they’d provide an answer, but couldn’t come up with one. Steve pressed on.
‘Something simple. What about John? Aren’t half of these punks called John? Must have been a craze for that name in West London for some reason.’
‘Think I’d prefer Nick,’ said Aidan. ‘Or Mick.’
The blue eyes narrowed. ‘Nick, I think. Yeah. Suits you. Now. Your story is that you’re a muso looking for work. And I understand you’ve got some background there. What is your experience exactly?’
‘I had my own band for a while. I was on vocals — and I know how to handle a guitar.’
‘I thought that didn’t matter with electric guitars.’
Aidan gave him a look, but didn’t respond.
‘All right. So it’s enough to pass in the scratty end of the music scene they got down there.’
‘Kind of you to say so, sir. I teach guitar on Wednesday nights. I’ll have to make other arrangements about that for a while, won’t I?’
There was a knock on the door and a woman in kitchen overalls appeared, carrying a tray. ‘Lunch,’ she announced, beaming as if she’d just delivered a fully dressed turkey.
Aidan waited for her to leave then inspected what was on the tray. He made a face. Rows of sandwiches with bits of floppy cheese and lettuce in them.
‘Food for people that got no teeth,’ he said, posting one in his mouth and swallowing it whole. ‘It’s no wonder you people turned out white, eatin this shit.’
‘Never touch it myself,’ said Steve Latham. He leant forward across the desk. ‘But I tell you what, Aidan. You ought to learn when you’re being given a privilege, because sandwich trays are pretty rare around here. Reserved for the high and mighty who are too important to take lunch breaks, or for the humble workers like you and me — well you, anyway — when they want to get something special out of you. So eat up. I don’t think food’s a major part of the culture down there around the Triangle. You might find yourself dreaming about these sandwiches in a couple weeks’ time.’
‘They got beer and crisps, haven’t they? I’ll take a bag of nuts for emergencies.’
Steve leant back and hoisted his feet onto the desk. ‘Oh, I don’t think they’re short of nuts, Aidan. You’ll come across plenty of those. But anyway, we’ve still got a few things to sort out. Talk.’
‘What d’you mean “talk”?’
‘I mean, we have to think about how you’re going to talk.’
‘Oh, I get it. You want me to do the Rastafarian, is it?’ Steve’s feet disappeared from the desk and hit the floor with a decisive thud. ‘Absolutely not. This is not a comedy act, Aidan. Don’t make that mistake. Not for one minute.’
Aidan was taken by surprise at the sudden change of attitude, but he didn’t show it. This guy Latham, he was thinking, didn’t actually know which way up he was. He’d overheard DI Williams complaining about him yesterday, when she was on the phone and her office door was open. A control freak, she called him. But Latham couldn’t even get himself under control. His hands were shaking and he couldn’t sit down without shifting his position every thirty seconds. Aidan let the new mood settle before he responded. ‘Hey!’ he smiled. ‘Go easy on me, Doc. I never talked to a psychologist before — don’t know what to expect, do I?’
‘Nerve. You got a lot of nerve haven’t you, Aidan? Basically it’s one of the things I like about you, but you want to watch your tone when you talk to senior officers. Some of them might not like it.’ Steve pushed the sandwiches towards him, and Aidan responded by firmly moving the plate sideways, out of his line of vision.
‘If there’s one fundamental principle to learn about undercover work,’ Steve continued, ‘it’s this: don’t put on an act. Human beings are programmed to see that sort of behaviour for what it is. Sure you have to change how you look, adapt your body language, change your name — but you have to find your new identity in yourself. You can’t just put it on like a mask. And with the people you’re reporting on, you have to become one of them. Genuinely.’ He leant forwards, eyes searching Aidan’s face. ‘Have you ever noticed that the most manipulative people are the most transparent?’
Yes, as a matter of fact, thought Aidan, suppressing the ghost of a smile.
‘Ironic, really,’ continued Steve, with no attempt to hide the smile on his own face. ‘They think they’re so clever, putting one over on you, and all the time you’ve got their number. But you let yourself go along with them. Why is that, d’you think?’ He turned sideways in his chair, draping an arm over the back. ‘Why does the person who’s being taken for a ride seem to be going along with it?’
‘Social, isn’t it, Doc?’ Aidan said. ‘You go along with most things people say, when you’re in company with them. Then you have a think about it afterwards and make a few adjustments to the mental record.’
‘Good, Aidan.’ The hand behind the chair made a sudden grab for a pencil on the desk. ‘And you know, I think it might actually be a good idea for you to call me Doc. Given the situation. It has the advantage of being a name that wouldn’t identify anyone, so if you need to ring me up from a public place, I’ll know who’s calling and the people around you won’t know who you’ve called. Right?’
Aidan nodded blankly. ‘Guess so.’
Steve grunted. ‘And are you clear about the relation you have to me in all this?’
‘You’re my adviser. But I never had an adviser before.’
‘I’m your sympathetic ear. Undercover work can be stressful in ways you don’t anticipate. If you find yourself on the inside of something ugly, you might be surprised at your own reactions, and whatever they are you won’t
be able to show them. So you tell me about them. And I give you advice about strategies — communication strategies, how to handle interactions, that sort of thing.’
‘Interactions? Meaning talk — is that it?’
‘Partly. Talk’s important. As I’ve said, don’t put on an act you can’t sustain. But you will have to adjust your vocabulary. Every subculture has its own lingo, so you want to be familiar with the kinds of things people say to each other, and their attitudes, body language, intonations.’
‘I gotta talk the talk and I gotta walk the walk. And you gotta teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’ Even if Steve was a DCI, Aidan was losing patience with this bullshit. ‘Matter of fact, spendin my whole day sittin on a winji little chair talk talk talkin isn’t my idea of work, Doc. Can I go now? I gotta get me a real ugly haircut.’
‘Stop camping it up, Aidan. Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow. And actually, you’re right about these chairs.’ Steve stood up, pressing a fist into the small of his back, and Aidan made a swift exit.
There was half an hour to spare, now, before Aidan’s next meeting — and he needed a walk and a think. He made his way through the busy corridors, relieved that none of the passing officers was going to stop him for a chat. Maybe that was the idea of holding all the briefing sessions at Paddington Green, but it was also clear that bigman Macready was intending to keep this case under his nose.
Aidan walked out across the green, where the traffic noise was replaced by leaves racketing crazily in the wind. Wind had the rackety effect on people sometimes, too. Every cop knew that. Winds and full moons — guaranteed to bring the loonies out to play. And most cops would think the punks were loonies, but Aidan wasn’t so sure. People who made a policy of acting crazy usually weren’t. The Walker, though. That guy was crazy.
A slim file on the Walker case had been brought out for him to read, but he had to do that under special conditions. DI Williams took him to one of the interview rooms at Paddington Green, and told him to call when he wanted to take a break. He wasn’t even allowed to walk down the corridor with the thing to return it to Macready’s assistant. It was a little file for such a big case, so obviously he was only being allowed selected information. But it was enough to get the picture. Walker was big on pictures. He liked his murder victims arranged like scenes from famous drawings. William Hogarth, DI Williams had said. Aidan said he wouldn’t know William Hogarth from Rolf Harris. When he looked at the scenes in those drawings, though, and the sick repetition of them in 1970s London, there were a few things he knew.
White man’s evil. In every country, people did bad things. They beat up kids and raped women and stole from old-age pensioners and set up protection rackets and burned houses. All those things were pretty much alike the world over: basic instincts gone out of control, sometimes with a bit of help from the full belly moon. Evil was something else. It had a life of its own and fed off its surroundings. Evil was cultural, belonged to times and places. It picked up on the things people did for fun, the songs they sang and the games they played and the things they respected and worshipped. Especially that.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
Aidan had read this part was the Walker’s favourite bit of the Bible and remembered some girl with a soprano voice singing a version of it on Top of the Pops.
A time to love and a time to hate. A time to be born and a time to die.
Or in Walker’s version: A time to hate and a time to die.
Just a bit of editing and the whole thing turned into something out of the devil’s hymn book, a song of time and change written in blood with children as witnesses.
‘Aidan!’
The sound of his name being called was confused with a sudden squall of wind, so he thought he’d imagined it.
‘Aidan!’ DI Williams came sprinting out between the trees. ‘Thought it was you I spotted. I’m about to head back to Chelsea, but I wouldn’t mind a bit of a chat.’
Aidan shrugged. ‘What’s one more chat? I been chattin all day, since eight o’clock this morning. Long as I don’t have to go to another office for it.’
‘Out here suits me fine. I get cabin fever as well sometimes. Look — that file you were reading this morning — it was my idea you should see it. Steve Latham wasn’t keen, and I could tell Macready wasn’t either. But if the Walker’s catching their imagination down there, you should know the details of his history — he blends into a cult environment, like the hippy movement.’
‘Punk’s the other end of the stick, isn’t it? They want to be the opposite of everything the hippies stand for.’
‘Yes, but that’s not the point. The Walker takes on the colours of his surroundings, whatever they are. He’s a chameleon.’
‘But he’s locked up tight.’
‘Yes.’ She replied a bit too quickly.
‘Then what?’
‘Just because he’s locked up doesn’t mean we’ve contained his influence. There’s some evidence he’s got a fan base developing. Whether it’s one person or several involved in that, we don’t know.’
‘For me to find out, is it?’
‘Yes. And you have to watch yourself, Aidan. I was involved in the Walker case, and I know how he has a way of coming at you from the direction you’re not watching. So — ’ She stepped up the pace and Aidan lengthened his stride to keep level.
‘So?’
She was silent for a few seconds, then shook her head. ‘Dunno. I just want you to know about Tremlay. He may not be able to get out — physically, at any rate — but he has ways of getting in.’
‘In where?’
DI Williams tapped her forehead sharply with the tip of her finger.
18
Sharon let rip.
‘So I’m supposed to play tagalong Trixie while you prance about telling me “do this do that but for chrissake don’t ask any questions”? I tell you what, somebody ought to be asking a few more bloody questions about this freak show in here. If you ask me.’
Zig shot back. ‘Who’s asking you? No one’s asking you jackshit, Sharon, because you wouldn’t know. Don’t you understand I’m trying to figure this out?’
‘Well so am I. I’m not brain dead, you know, like the fifty million other people you think you’re so superior to, and if there’s some psycho lurking about in here planning who he’s going to knock off next, I’m not waiting to get on his list. I’m going to the police.’
‘Oh are you? That’s a really intelligent suggestion, that is. What d’you think they’ll do? Give you a free ride home to your parents — which is probably what you really want anyway, isn’t it?’
Past flashpoint, Sharon grabbed the nearest thing and chucked it, then froze as Zig doubled over. The thing had hit her full in the chest. There was silence as Zig slowly unfurled, looking down at the mass of sticky stuff that was oozing down the front of her rubber vest, and covering her hands as they clutched at it.
It was yellow. The stuff was yellow — a thick yellow paint that gleamed in the light from the bulb directly overhead. Its plastic container was still rolling across the concrete floor, spilling a viscous trail over all the older, duller splashes.
‘Sorry,’ said Sharon numbly. ‘I spose you want to kill me now as well.’
Zig’s chest was heaving as she caught her breath, and at first Sharon thought she was sobbing. Maybe that’s what Zig thought herself, until she realised she was laughing. She wiped her hands on Sharon, smearing the tartan skirt and making sure there was plenty on her face and hair. Her boots were already splashed from the first impact.
‘There must be some turps in here,’ Zig said, inspecting the bottles on the bench. She selected one, tipped the contents over her hands and began rubbing at them with some strips of cloth that were strewn around the floor. Sharon did likewise, watching her flesh return to an inflamed pink.
‘Better rinse this off,’ she said. ‘There’s a tap — look — over by the wall.’ The tap
was set low with a drain directly underneath, and they could hear the water running noisily down below. ‘Don’t try to clean the vest, though. You want to keep it exactly how it is. With any luck you can sell it back to SEX for double what you paid.’
As Zig dunked the rags and got on with the rescue job on her appearance, Sharon took a look around. The faces were everywhere: besides those hanging from the red cords that criss crossed the room, there were others hooked on the walls and strewn across the benchtop in various stages of completion, some half painted, some still just blank latex cutouts, the colour of old toenails.
Sharon turned her attention to the things on the benchtop. On the far end was a vice surrounded by drills and ugly cutting instruments. Next to that was a wooden box, and when she looked inside she saw a white plaster face staring up at her. Behind that were plastic tubs and bottles: Resin pellets, Gelatin, Dextrin, G3 foam. But what was he doing with a hairdryer? And the egg whisk? These were among the things hanging on a row of hooks at the back. In the centre of the bench was a mess of books and magazines, and among them a scrapbook lying open.
The words DEFF ROW stood out in big black letters at the top of one page, and under the heading were the three photos Logan Royce had pointed to. But here their names were printed below: Detective Superintendent Macready, Detective Chief Inspector Steven Latham, Detective Inspector Briony Williams.
She turned the pages. Photos and newspaper clippings were pasted over each other like wallpaper, with slogans and swastikas daubed across them. Most of the articles were about Charles Manson and the man they called the Walker. Maxwell Tremlay. There was a picture of Manson approaching along a corridor in jail, handcuffed, but with a face still looking for action. And next to it there was the Walker on his way into court, surrounded by police but turning his head to stare back at the crowds. She remembered seeing that on the news a few years ago, when she was only about ten. The police had put a blanket over his head to shield him from the cameras, but as he got out of the car he threw it off and just stood there, looking into the hail of flash lights. There was a frame of cutout words around the photos: Manson’s Mayhem, Helter Skelter — Charlie’s New World, California Nightmares, Hello Death.