by Tim Weaver
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You too.’
He left her, walking off towards the prison building. When he heard her Mini start up and drive off, he turned around and headed back to the car. Unlocked it. Slid in at the wheel. His heart was beating fast and his palms were slick with sweat, even in the cool of the morning. Slowly the windows of the car began to steam up and he wondered whether he was doing the right thing. But then he felt the burn of grief and anger in the centre of his chest, and any doubts were washed away.
25
While I watched the house, I used my phone and went searching for Wellis online. Facebook was the world’s greatest detective. Inside a minute you could get yourself a picture. And if there were holes in their privacy settings, seconds after that you had their whole life. It was even easier if you had an unusual surname. My Facebook account was a shell – no details, no photos, no posts – but it got me access to other people’s, and although I couldn’t see Wellis’s wall, info or friends, I could see all his photos.
There were fifteen in all: Wellis at the beach, in woodland somewhere, standing on the edge of a lake with a hunting rifle. He was five-ten, stocky, about forty, with a shaved head. He had a tattoo of a crucifix on the side of his neck. In most of the photos he was on his own, but when he wasn’t he was always with the same guy: taller, thinner, late thirties. They both had looks I didn’t like, but Wellis – his eyes small, like an animal’s – I’d have to watch the closest.
After a while light began to fade from the day, the sun burning out in the sky, the clouds bleeding red and orange. Inside twenty minutes it became a different world: shadows grew deep and long, like vast curtains being pulled across a stage, and although the temperature didn’t drop much, a faint breeze picked up, whispering past the car and down towards the house.
Twenty minutes after that, I heard voices on the other side of the road.
Two men were approaching, silhouettes beneath the faint orange glow of a street light. I lowered myself into my seat, using the lack of light as a disguise, and turned the radio off. They drew level. They couldn’t see in, but I could see out.
One of them was Adrian Wellis.
In real life, he looked a little shorter than five-ten, but in all other areas he was exactly the same as his photo: fierce, shaved head, dark eyes. He wore a red bomber jacket over a blue check shirt and dark blue trousers. All name brands. I thought about the reasons a man might live in a place like his if he was making enough money to buy £200 trainers, but then my eyes fell on the guy next to him. Taller. Thinner. Blotchy skin and greying hair, and without Wellis’s sense of style. He was the other guy in the photos.
They got to the house, and Wellis started fiddling around in his pocket for his keys. But when he finally found them, he paused.
He looked along the row of houses.
It was like he’d sensed someone had been here. In the front garden. Up to the house. In the still of the night, it was possible to hear the other guy asking him what the matter was, but Wellis didn’t reply. He just stared at the front of the house – and then up the road towards me.
Even though there was no possible way he could see me, no way he could know I was watching, it felt like he’d zeroed right in on me. He took a step away from the house, his trainers crunching against a crumbling piece of concrete, and then he stopped, one foot slightly in front of the other as if he was primed, ready to strike. There was something different about him now. He stood rigid, his body taut, his eyes oil-black circles in the shadows. He stayed in the same position – absolutely still – for a long time, hands out either side of him, fists balling and opening, over and over. And then eventually he said something to the other guy and let the two of them into the house.
A light went on in the hallway. The door closed.
And I waited some more.
Not long after, the front door opened again. The other guy stepped out, into the night air, and pulled the door shut. He stood there for a moment, lighting a cigarette, and then started making his way up the road in my direction. I sank back down into my seat and watched as he passed the car and headed up towards a fork in the road about thirty yards behind me. In between a pair of street lights, where it was more shadow than light, he perched himself on somebody’s broken garden wall and waited.
The rhythmic glow of his cigarette.
The brief light from a mobile phone screen.
A couple of minutes later, headlights emerged from the darkness. The road was even quieter now, so the noise of the car travelled across the stillness: every tick of the engine, every stone spitting out from under its wheels. Just short of the man, it stopped and killed its headlights. It was a blue Toyota. The windscreen was just a rectangle of darkness. No shape inside. No idea who was driving. The man got up off the wall, flicked his cigarette out into the road and walked to the car. He bent down at the passenger window.
There was a short conversation, not lasting more than thirty seconds, and then the car’s lights switched back on, the man stepped away, and the vehicle pulled a U-turn and headed back up the road. The man stood there, not moving, just watching the car all the way along the street until it melted away in the night. Once it was gone, only then did he move from his spot and head back towards the house.
As he passed, I noticed something in his hands.
Money.
At 4.40, dawn started to break and light edged its way across the sky, a faint, creamy glow the colour of tracing paper. But in Adrian Wellis’s house, the lights remained on. Throughout the night there’d been movement inside: a shadow passing, a silhouette forming, but never for very long. All I knew for sure was that they hadn’t been to bed.
At 5 a.m. the front door opened and the other guy emerged, dressed in the same clothes, his hair a little ruffled, his clothes not on properly. Why’s he taking a walk at 5 a.m.? He was carrying a black holdall. Halfway along the road he stopped, unzipped it, checked inside and then closed it again.
I got out of the car.
He clocked the movement, his eyes pinging towards me. I stepped around to the back of the BMW and flipped the boot. He carried on walking, his interest in me lost. In the boot, next to the spare wheel, was my escape plan; there in case it all went wrong. I removed the crowbar, slid it into the back of my trousers and made a beeline for him.
‘Excuse me, mate.’
He looked back. No reply.
‘Excuse me,’ I said again, and this time he stopped.
‘What?’
He glanced down at the holdall, as if I might be coming for that, and shifted it behind one of his legs to protect it.
‘What d’ya want?’ he said.
South London accent. So he’s from around here somewhere.
‘I’m looking for Adrian Wellis.’
Another frown. His eyes moved from me to the car then back to me. He shifted position slightly and glanced down the road to the house. Panic in his face.
When he turned back to me, he shrugged. ‘Never heard of him.’
But even if I hadn’t seen him come out of Wellis’s house, I would have seen right through the lie. He couldn’t play this game – he wasn’t canny enough – and all of a sudden I saw him for what he was: Wellis’s lapdog.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘What the fuck’s it gotta do with you?’
‘I’m just interested.’
‘Fuck off,’ he said, and started along the road again.
‘You’re going to help me find Sam Wren.’
He stopped and looked back. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard what I said.’
He turned fully towards me, bag swinging around to his front, and tried to make himself bigger and more aggressive. But it didn’t work. A man who barely weighed ten stone wasn’t going to be a match for me. He wasn’t going to be much of a match for anyone. Inside a couple of seconds he knew his ruse had failed and seemed to shrink in his skin. I took a step in his direction, just to underline its failu
re.
‘Let’s go and see Adrian,’ I said.
‘He doesn’t like strangers inside his house.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I figured.’
‘So he’s not going to open the door to you.’
‘No. But he’ll open it to you.’
26
The man stopped outside the house and knocked a couple of times. We waited. Ten seconds later, a silhouette moved along the hallway, distorted in the mottled glass panel. I took a subtle step away from the door as the silhouette leaned in towards the peephole. Then the lock flipped and the door came away from the frame.
Adrian Wellis filled the gap.
He was dressed in his boxer shorts. Nothing else. I could see the crucifix tattoo at his neck, and more on his body: a snake’s head on his left breast; the numbers 666 on his hip. ‘What the hell are you doing back?’ he said to the man, and then, as he took a step closer, spotted me off to the side. His eyes flicked between the man and me, and he pulled the door back as far as it would go. He had a faintly amused expression on his face. ‘What the fuck is this?’ he said. He was Welsh.
‘He stopped me on the street and I –’
‘Shut up,’ ordered Wellis. He turned to me. ‘Who are you?’
‘I want to talk to you about Sam Wren.’
Something registered in his eyes, like a flash of torchlight cutting through the dark. On. Then off. ‘Who?’
I didn’t bother repeating myself.
His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ben Richards.’
‘Who do you work for?’
‘I don’t work for anyone.’
He frowned for a moment, then broke out into a smile. Perfect teeth. Expensive, just like his clothes. He pursed his lips. ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about, Ben.’
‘I think you do.’
Beyond him the decor was probably the same as the day the house was built. Most of the wallpaper had either fallen from the walls or been torn off. The carpet was threadbare, from the front door to the kitchen at the back of the house. Three or four holes had been punched into the staircase and walls, about the size of a boot, and there were stains everywhere: on the walls, on the carpet, on the stairs. The house was filthy.
I looked back at Wellis. ‘So?’
He studied me a while longer, then looked at the man standing next to me. There was a mix of disgust and pity in his face. ‘You want me to invite you in, is that it?’
‘Not necessarily. We can chat here.’
‘I don’t do my chatting on the doorstep.’
‘Then it looks like I’m coming in.’
He snorted. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t move.
‘Or I can head back to the car, dial 999 and tell them you know where Sam Wren is. It’s up to you, Adrian.’
He stared at me, then stepped back and let the man through.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Your friend stays outside.’
‘You dictating the terms now, is that it?’
‘It’s simple maths. Two of you, one of me.’
The thin man stood there in the hallway, waiting for Wellis to tell me where to go – but Wellis ordered him to wait outside, and his face took on the look of a disappointed teenager. He dropped the holdall to the floor – making a clattering sound; metal against metal – and did as Wellis said. I stepped inside the house and pushed the door shut.
The house stank of sweat and fried food. In the living room the TV was on, but the screen was blue, as if a DVD had just been turned off. I shifted around, my back to the wall, so I had Wellis in front of me.
‘What do you want?’ he said, running his tongue around his mouth.
He didn’t seem conscious of the fact he was semi-naked. Or if he did, it genuinely didn’t seem to bother him. His body was squat; not fat, but hard and chunky, muscle in his chest, through the centre of his stomach and up into his arms. He rolled his shoulders back and then brought his hands together in front of him.
‘I want to know what happened to Sam Wren.’
‘Who?’
‘You know who he is.’
‘Do I?’
‘You’re in his phone.’
He shrugged, didn’t seem worried. ‘I’m in a lot of people’s phones.’
‘You called him in August last year.’
‘And?’
‘And you put him on edge.’
Wellis smirked. ‘And?’
‘And I want to know why.’
‘What the fuck’s it got to do with you?’
‘I guess we’ll see.’
‘Yeah?’
I nodded.
Wellis shook his head, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Let me just remind you of something, dickhead. You’re in my home.’
‘I can see that.’
‘So, what, you’re RoboCop – is that it?’
‘I’m not a cop.’
‘Then who the fuck are you?’
‘I want to find out what happened to Sam Wren. So I can either get the answers from you, or I get them from Lassie out there, but I’m going to get them.’
He took a step towards me, ready to attack.
Then, from above us, there was a noise. A bump. Like a big, dead weight being dropped. Wellis shot a look upstairs. I followed suit.
‘What was tha–’
But before I could finish he was on me.
He came forward, his arm across the front of his face, using it as a battering ram. He went through me, almost lifting me off my feet, and slammed me against the wall.
‘Eric!’ he shouted and the front door burst open.
The other man headed past us and upstairs, taking two steps at a time, as if he knew exactly what he was being summoned for. Wellis shoved harder with his forearm, pressing it in against my neck, forcing my body against the wall and my head up. I tried to swing a punch, but he blocked it and arced a fist up into my guts.
It was like being hit by a train.
I shifted my weight left to right and the movement rocked him back on his heels. Only a fraction. But enough. I drove a fist into the side of his head and managed to connect with his ear. He stumbled back half a step and I jabbed a second punch – as hard as it would go – into the centre of his throat. He made a sound like air escaping from a balloon, shrinking in on himself.
But Wellis was a fighter.
He channelled everything he had into a swing, connecting with the area around my heart. It was like he’d punched through me. I hit the wall so hard and so fast the whole house seemed to shake. The door rattled in its frame. The plasterboard rippled. As I was catching my breath, he moved quickly to the holdall, unzipping it.
A second later, he had a knife.
His fingers were laced through three holes in the rubberized grip. The blade was curved, about three and a half inches long. I stepped away from him and saw, inside the holdall, more knives, some rope, handcuffs – and a white vest and jeans, both belonging to a female, dotted with blood.
‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ he said, breathless. I didn’t respond. ‘Now I’m gonna have to take care of you.’
Upstairs, I could hear the other man moving around.
Quick footsteps.
Wellis edged towards me, knife out in front of him. He was forcing me back towards the kitchen, into a space where there was no exit.
‘Ade!’ the other man screamed from upstairs.
Wellis glanced behind him. An automatic reaction.
And I made my move.
From behind me I yanked out the crowbar I’d taken from the car. It was short, stubby, no more than a foot and a half long – but when it connected with the side of his head, Wellis went down like he’d been shot. His eyes rolled back; every muscle in his body turned to liquid. Then he was flat on his back on the carpet, lights out.
I turned him over on to his front.
‘Ade!’ the man shouted again from upstairs. ‘Quickly!’
Grabbing his arms, I dragged
Wellis through to the kitchen and then went through the cabinets. In between a bottle of bleach and a tube of rat poison, I found a roll of duct tape. I bound Wellis’s ankles and wrists and looped the tape around his head a few times, covering his mouth. By the time I was done, he was slowly starting to come round. Eyes flickering like butterfly wings; eyeballs rolling up into his head, as if trying to tune himself back in. I had about five minutes before he returned to something like full strength.
Moving back through the hallway, I padded up the stairs. No creaks. No sound. At the top, in one of the rooms, I could see a loft hatch was open. A ladder had been pulled down and propped against the carpet. The man was halfway up, body inside the loft, legs still on the steps. As I edged in closer, I spotted something else.
Right on the edge of the loft space.
Blood.
I moved quietly into the room and stopped at the bottom of the ladder; more blood was falling from the lip of the hatch. It hit a space about half a foot from where I was standing, forming a pool on the hard, matted fibres of the carpet. The man was just standing there, looking off into the darkness at whatever was up there. Not moving now. Just breathing in and out.
‘Ade,’ he said again, but this time there was no purpose in his words, no urgency, and I realized something: he was crying. Soft sounds. Sniffs. ‘Ade,’ he said again.
I reached up, hands either side of his ankles.
‘Ade!’
He looked down, and saw me. Shock in his face. Then fear. Then anger. I grabbed his ankles and pulled him off the ladder. He fell hard and fast, cracking his head against one of the steps, before landing awkwardly right on the ball of his foot. He yelled out and collapsed. I grabbed him by the collar, got him to his feet and drove him back, into the wall. The wind whistled out of him.
‘What’s your name?’
Tears and blood on his face.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Eric.’
‘Eric what?’
‘Eric Gaishe.’
I glanced up, into the loft space. ‘What have you done, Eric?’
He sniffed. More tears in his eyes.
‘I think I killed someone.’