The Family

by P. R. Black

  Fresh from the shower in her hotel room, Becky wrapped her hair in a towel. Then, as an afterthought, she allowed it to drape on each side of her head, part-concealing her face.

  She checked her watch. Precisely on schedule, her laptop’s messenger programme bleeped.

  Rupert’s own mask of choice for today was either a moving bank of clouds, or an approximation of a sheep. She could still discern the mirth in his eyes.

  ‘Nice get-up,’ he said. ‘Are you going through a Jedi phase?’

  ‘It was either that or a dead president’s mask.’

  ‘I like it. It’s very… you.’

  ‘Did you find any cold case material? Specifically in Europe?’

  ‘Got one interesting hit. A very big one. A murder case from about twenty years ago.’

  Becky kept her voice level. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes. Family was butchered. Absolutely twisted stuff. They were kidnapped from a holiday home. British. Seems like it’s a notorious case. Strange, though – I hadn’t heard of it, but it was a big deal in the UK. Not much official information online, either. It’s kinda suspicious that it was so quiet across Europe. No one was caught. People remember the case in the UK, though. Surely you’ve come across it before? It’s near the top of Google rankings, there was an appeal on the TV recently. You must know something of this?’

  ‘I know about that case, yes.’

  ‘There was one little spike in the past couple of weeks. An anniversary passed. Doesn’t seem like the police expect much from the inquiry, though. Guy who did it just dropped out of existence. Like a ghost.’

  Becky swallowed. ‘That case is of interest to me. It may be connected to what I’m looking for.’

  ‘I see.’ Rupert leaned forward. ‘This case… is it what you wanted to check out with the police? Any signs of a cover-up? Links to other cases? And that message you sent me about checking pen-pals’ listings, and Monsieur Fabrice?’

  ‘It’d be a good starting point.’

  ‘How much do you want to know?’

  ‘As much as you can tell me. I want access to all the case files, investigating officers, and above all, suspects. Every avenue they followed. Details of the case. Things which might have been hidden from the media. Tip-offs. Lines of inquiry they dropped. The stuff they might have hidden to discourage kooks coming forward and claiming responsibility.’

  Rupert scribbled things down. A cartoon smile spread across the cloudy face; the effect was similar to a man’s mouth suddenly breaching a layer of shaving foam. ‘Great! I love the Nancy Drew stuff. It’ll take me a while to breach Interpol and Europol. From there I can access the regional stuff. Such a shame – I used to have a man on the inside, but he’s moved on to other things.’

  ‘Do what you can – anything at all is valuable. Redacted notes, weird dead ends – that’s what I’m most interested in.’

  ‘You thinking that there’s been a cover-up? Related to this case, the British family?’

  She was wary about how much she should tell Rupert. ‘It wouldn’t shock me. In that case and others, there are too many cold trails and false starts. And lines of inquiry that start off promising but seem to go nowhere. Plus there are a few cases I think are linked, but police have never made the connection.’

  The white face grinned again. ‘Hence the focus on police and politicians. Who better to sweep stuff under the carpet?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘How did Mr Edwin Galbraith MEP take the information we dug up?’

  ‘You know, I think he was a little bit emotional about it all. He’ll need some time to think about it.’

  The cloud-face grinned. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

  ‘Your information was golden. What else have you turned up on the politicians?’

  On-screen, Rupert flipped through a shorthand notebook. ‘Regarding organised, ritual killings, and the like… I found a few things here and there. Not much of it was pretty.’

  ‘The uglier, the better. What have you got?’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything organised outwith the usual lone perverts and the odd snuff video which sneaks through. But murder and such… that’s a niche interest. Tends to be done by people who like to keep themselves to themselves. They’re not really part of the sharing generation.’

  Becky drummed her fingertips on the dresser. ‘Any names?’

  ‘No. It’ll require more work, or a more refined search. I’ve snagged a few guys who accessed or uploaded snuff, but it looks like they didn’t create it. Sourced from the usual tourist hotspots – Iraq, Syria, Haiti, Mexico, Colombia, West Africa. Where the real crazies live. Machetes, heads on sticks, you know? Nothing particularly European. As I said, anything like that which exists online is probably a closed shop. It’ll be set up to look like a fashion website or, I don’t know… a textiles enthusiasts’ blog. The board game association’s list of rules and regulations, fully annotated. Something which isn’t what it appears to be. It’ll be especially hard to link it to police and politicians if they’re involved – you’d think they’re too smart for that. That’s why you need to give me more data.’

  ‘I might be able to help you with that shortly.’

  Rupert took a deep breath. ‘Okay. I have to tell you… if you want me to help you… you’re going to have to be little more upfront. I get the impression you’re hiding something, Elizabeth.’

  Becky didn’t like the way he laboured Elizabeth. ‘I’ll want you to work with the information I’m giving you, nothing more. Understand?’

  Rupert raised a hand. ‘Not a problem. If you’re worried about legality – let me put your mind at rest. This is totally illegal. We’re both committing a crime. But don’t worry, you’re as safe as you can be online, when you’re doing something very illegal.’

  She smiled. ‘“Safe as you can be,” says the man with the cloudy face. Look, when it comes to hacking, I don’t think anything’s safe, and I’d prefer us to be as neutral as we can. Fair enough?’

  ‘That’s cool.’

  ‘How about the classified ads and pen-pals’ pages in France?’

  ‘Ah, your mysterious Fabrice. This one I particularly enjoyed.’ His fingers danced a tarantella on an unseen keyboard, and documents appeared on-screen. ‘There were three possible hits in the timeframe you mentioned. One of them appeared in a school magazine that was sent out nationwide, on creative writing.’

  Rupert enlarged one of two entries on a single column of text, underneath a ‘pen-pals’ header’. It was decorated with sketches of the Coliseum, the Eiffel tower and – Becky almost burst out laughing – a pair of clogs underneath stripy tights. The first one was from Erich, who lived in Hamburg, whose hobbies were go-karting and moto-cross. Below that, was Fabrice, from Provence. His hobbies were ‘all sports, particularly rugby union’.

  ‘Oh, Fabrice. There you are. In a school magazine. “Quality newspaper” my sainted arse, Clara.’ Becky took note of the details. ‘Excellent work. Have you found out where his address was?’

  ‘It’ll take some digging. This is all pre-internet, remember. There may not have been accurate records taken; anything relevant on him might be handwritten, shoved into a box file somewhere. And that’s only if you’re lucky. But that looks good for your mystery man.’

  ‘It does indeed. Very interesting. Hello, Monsieur Fabrice.’ Becky tapped the screen with the tip of her fingernail.

  Rupert asked, So, are you expecting anything more from Galbraith?’

  ‘He called me this afternoon – we’ve got a lunch date set up in the Atomium.’

  ‘Sounds good. Well, as soon as you’ve got something, get back to me, and I’ll get looking.’

  ‘Thanks. And… good work.’

  Rupert raised his index finger. ‘But be careful now, you hear? Politicians never were a trustworthy lot, even if you do have this one by the balls.’

  ‘I’m a very careful girl. Don’t you worry.’

  ‘Dope,’ he sai
d, simply, then the screen went blank save for the bubbly face. Stripped of its living eyes and mouth, only a white mask remained, which discomfited Becky so much she slammed the screen down flat.

  13

  The Atomium had the look of something that might have been dreamed up in 1989, rather than thirty years earlier, designed by someone with a geometrically precise haircut whose favourite musician was Jean Michel Jarre. That wasn’t to say Becky disliked it.

  Her rendezvous point was on the upper sphere, nearly 300ft above Brussels. Although Becky was sure it wasn’t holiday time, the place was swarming with schoolchildren, delighted with the spaceship windows, angles and contours. This riotous activity reassured Becky, but not to the point where she let her guard down and ignored the men who were tailing her.

  The two lumpy no-necks in long black coats had stuck out like the sore thumbs they so closely resembled, all the way up the escalators, from sphere to sphere. They had failed some of the most basic tests when it came to tailing someone by matching her movements as she retraced her steps up and down the escalators.

  That was when she was sure she was dealing with people connected to Edwin Galbraith – amateurs, in other words. She wondered what northern English town they lived in; whether they’d have stuck it out forever in nightclub doorways with earpieces embedded in their coarse sandy heads had they not discovered that old-time religion Galbraith preached: barracking Muslims.

  Pausing by one window, she gazed out towards the Basilica in the distance, keeping one eye on the two shadowy smudges growing on either side of her shoulders.

  ‘Quite a view,’ the man on her right said, in soft East Anglian tones. A plague upon my prejudices, Becky thought.

  She turned to him and beamed, aware that his colleague was now flanking her on the left. ‘It’s amazing. We’re quite a way up. I was just wondering what I might think about if I was to jump off.’

  ‘You’d have lots of time to think, I suppose. You might even have time to change your mind.’ He chuckled, and his face was transformed; that of a butterbean at a roadside Hungry Horse, someone with a brood of kids and a plump momma for a wife. Her heart kicked hard, and she began to doubt herself.

  But she pressed on: ‘Is Ed not with us today? I cancelled some important business to be here.’

  ‘He’s here,’ the man on her left said. ‘We’re here to give you a little message first.’ Now, his accent was more like it: north of England, possibly Leeds, or further east into the wilderness gouged out of the coastline towards Hull. He was younger, keener-eyed, than his colleague. The hairline dotting his scalp showed that he had no real need to skin it, and a movie star jawline was hidden beneath clotted muscle cladding. If it weren’t for ’roids and an addiction to lifting heavy things, he would have been a strikingly handsome man.

  ‘Go on then. What’s the message? Bear in mind, I can scream. Really loudly.’

  ‘You won’t, though,’ the bigger man said, amiably. ‘There’s no need. We’re only having a conversation, aren’t we?’

  ‘Freedom of speech,’ his younger colleague agreed. He scratched stubble that was more pound shop than designer. ‘Journalists know all about that, eh? Just speaking our minds.’

  ‘The message is, we can find you for a chat,’ the big man said. He, too, was strangely distracted, reaching out a forefinger and picking at some speck on the window pane. ‘Any time we like. We like having chats with people who have really interesting ideas.’

  Becky played with her hair and affected a girlish laugh. She used the gesture to peer into a corner. Yes; the red winking light of a security camera. ‘Oh, I understand perfectly. Hey, did you get that coat out of Matalan?’ She touched the older man’s lapels. ‘I’ve been thinking of getting one for my dad.’

  The older man stared at her hand for a moment as she rubbed the material, and then she traced her fingertips over his chest underneath. He shook his head for a moment, astonished. ‘You’ve got some balls on you, I’ll tell you that for nothing.’

  ‘Balls being the operative word.’

  The younger man spotted what her other hand was doing and reached out for her. But he was too late. ‘Hey!’

  ‘Back off,’ Becky spat, teeth bared. She turned towards the older man. ‘Tell him, Butterbean.’

  ‘Patch it for now,’ the older man said to his colleague, levelly. His back was rigid. He smiled at Becky, but all the warmth was gone.

  She jammed what she held in her left hand tight against the crotch of his black trousers, and he grunted, quietly. ‘Now, a man in your line of work will know all about what a stun gun can do to sensitive parts of the body, don’t you? It’s a bit like the stuff they don’t tell you about baton rounds and rubber bullets, when they’re aimed at the same place. Did you used to be a policeman, Butterbean?’

  ‘No. But if you’ve got an offensive weapon on your person, then I’ll be introducing you to one shortly.’

  ‘Excellent. You can explain why you were following me around, while you’re at it. We’ll both go, in fact – you and me, down the escalator. Your sidekick here can stay and look at the scenery, because you’re going to tell him to do that. Then when we’re downstairs we’ll speak to security, and then they can call the police. Sound fair?’

  She hadn’t raised her voice; indeed, she angled her hips and parted her legs slightly so as to make her position seemingly flirtatious, even brazen. In fact, it gave her more leverage to knee him in the groin, as hard as she needed to.

  ‘Fair enough,’ the big man said. ‘You should know that accidents can happen on escalators.’

  ‘Accidents can happen when your finger is on a trigger, too.’ She jammed the barrel hard against him. She watched his Adam’s apple bob.

  Six or seven children cascaded past them in a shrieking throng. Becky ignored the interruption. She only took her eyes away from Butterbean’s to glance at their reflections in the window, to be sure the younger man was still there, but a safe distance away.

  At this point, another figure joined this blurry procession, a scarecrow’s shadow materialising between Becky and the big man.

  ‘That’s enough, lads,’ Edwin Galbraith said, brightly. ‘I think the point has been made.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Becky kept her left hand where it was, until Butterbean slowly backed away, both hands raised. She slid what she held in her hand back into her bag, gunfighter-quick.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Galbraith said, joining her at the railing as the two sullen blobs melted away in the glass. ‘Granted, these boys were a little slapdash, but I hardly wanted to put my best men on the job. This is merely a demonstration. One I hope you have taken note of.’

  ‘Yeah. I think it went really well for you. Next time, bring your big brother.’ She stood a good distance from him – still close enough to kick him in the throat, if the occasion demanded.

  ‘I’ll be brief, Miss Clifford – my schedule is chock-a-block these days.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re rushed off your feet. Just like the other day. You could have taken me back to the restaurant, you know. Picked some other things for me to eat. No reason why we can’t spin things out into a nice lunch.’

  Galbraith gripped a handrail. ‘It’s been a very trying week. I’ve had to speak to some old acquaintances I’d rather not have had occasion to think about ever again, far less contact.’

  ‘It gets that way with old mates, doesn’t it? They just know too much about you. Skeletons in the cupboard. Where the bodies are buried. It’s sometimes much easier to step away, isn’t it? Keep them restricted to Christmas cards. Maybe the odd round-robin letter.’

  ‘Maybe. But in any case, I found what I think you’re looking for, Miss Clifford. After today, I don’t expect to see you or hear from you ever again. If I do, well… there’ll be consequences.’

  ‘You don’t have to speak in tongues, Edwin. I’m not recording you.’

  ‘Shut up!’ he said, with sudden venom. He did not turn his head to look at her, his mouth compresse
d into a livid white line. She noted the dark patches underneath his eyes, the sloppy angle of his tie and the wayward parting in his hair. ‘Just… stop talking.’ He sighed, then looked down at the floor. ‘Terrible mess they leave in these places, isn’t there? Maybe they cut the cleaning budget.’

  Galbraith turned sharply and strode towards the escalators, falling in behind a young couple, their broad smiles and flushed faces a jarring contrast to his bent posture. She watched Galbraith’s high mop of hair sink out of sight, then scanned the floor.

  At her feet was a crumpled piece of paper she hadn’t noticed before. She picked it up and smoothed it out. Inside, in thin capitals sloped right-to-left, two words were scrawled in what looked like felt tip:

  JANUARY ORCHESTRA.

  She put the paper into her jeans pocket.

  Still gripping the barrel with her left hand, she pulled the object she’d held on Butterbean from her handbag, placed it under her chin, and pulled the trigger.

  Then she sprayed both her wrists, dabbed them together and smiled to herself, before making her way to the escalator.

  14

  Becky zipped her holdall and heaved it onto the hotel room bed. She was somewhat obsessive about leaving these places in good order, as blank and sterile as her home; the bed as hard-pressed as when she’d first peeled the sheets back, the damp towels folded neatly into a corner of the bathroom floor.

  She was about to double-check the train tickets when one of her phones grumbled.

  Becky had to paw through an inside compartment of the holdall before she reached the right pay-as-you-go. The number was withheld.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hey, Elizabeth. It’s Rupert.’

  ‘Hey… I thought we were restricted to video chat, Rupert?’

  ‘I tried to get a hold of you there, but you were offline. It’s important. I think I’ve got a fix on your Fabrice.’

  ‘Okay. I’ve got five minutes.’

  She set up the laptop and was soon connected. Rupert was in the same shadowy spot as before, but he had forgotten to cover his face. He was thin-featured and bright-eyed, with a long, sharp chin. He somehow suited his long straggly ginger curls where a million other faces would have struggled. If she was being unkind, Becky thought he resembled a witch from a long-forgotten childhood TV show.