by James Carol
I got out the car but Templeton stayed where she was, frozen to the seat, her hands on the wheel at a five-to-one position.
‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said.
‘Interesting choice of words. “Shouldn’t” implies that you’re going to do this, so why don’t we skip all that toing-and-froing where I pretend to talk you into something you’ve already decided you’re going to do?’
Templeton unbuckled her seatbelt and got out the car. She hit a button on the key and the immobiliser activated with a quick beep-beep. I lit a cigarette and offered the pack to her. She took one, lit it, blew out a plume of smoke.
‘I could get fired for this,’ she said.
‘And if you get fired you could always become a model.’
‘I’m serious, Winter.’
‘So am I.’
Rachel and Jamie Morris lived in a two-bedroom apartment that overlooked Camden Lock. This was telling in itself. Donald Cole had money and liked to throw it around. He liked people to know he had money and he would have wanted his daughter to have the best. This was not the sort of place he would have bought for her. He would have gone for something bigger, something grander, something that reflected his status. For starters, it would have been a house rather than an apartment, somewhere with plenty of bedrooms for future grandkids, and a yard for them to play in.
So either Rachel had chosen not to take handouts and go it alone, or Cole had not approved of her choice of husband and had withheld his money on a point of principle. Having met Jamie Morris, I was veering towards the latter reason.
Jamie was staying at a friend’s place in Islington, which meant the apartment was empty. Allegedly. I pressed the buzzer for number eight anyway, since it was possible he’d changed his mind, or was lying. No response. I tried again and still got no answer. I didn’t try a third time. When your wife has been kidnapped you tend to answer on the first ring.
The keypad was pretty standard. Type in the correct four-number code and you were good to go. The problem was that ten numbers gave ten thousand possible combinations, which meant the chance of hitting the right code at random was slim. I checked the door in case it was open, but it wasn’t. Then I took a closer look at the keypad.
Six of the numbers were black, and four had been worn down to the metal. The two, four, seven and eight. Four numbers gave twenty-four possible combinations. I checked right, checked left. No one was about. We were halfway down an alley that led off the main road. To my right, a hundred yards away, a steady stream of traffic and pedestrians flowed past the entrance to the alley. Occasionally someone would glance our way, but no one seemed interested in what we were doing. I started with two, four, seven, eight and got a red light.
‘So, this is your grand plan for getting in,’ said Templeton. ‘You hit numbers at random until you get the right combination.’
‘Nothing’s ever random.’ Two, four, eight, seven got me another red light.
‘It looks random to me.’
‘That’s because you can’t see the underlying logic.’ I punched in two, eight, four, seven and got a green light. The lock clicked and the door opened.
‘You were lucky,’ Templeton said as she breezed past me. ‘Admit it.’
‘I don’t believe in luck.’
On the top floor there were two doors, one blue and one red. Number eight was behind the blue door.
‘So what now?’ said Templeton. ‘We kick the door down?’
‘Nothing so crude.’
Inside my pocket was a small leather wallet that contained my lock picks. The FBI guy who taught me had drilled me until I could crack a Yale lock like this one in twenty seconds. That guy could do it in less than five, faster than most people managed with a key.
I pushed the tension wrench into the keyhole and applied a little pressure, gently adjusting the amount until it felt right. Then I inserted the pick and went to work on the pins, listening carefully. The first pin gave way with a tiny metallic click, then the second. I worked my way through the other three pins, then applied a little more pressure to the tension wrench. The lock released and the door opened. Thirty seconds to crack the lock. Not bad, but not brilliant.
Templeton shook her head and her ponytail bounced from side to side. ‘I’m not even going to ask. So what exactly are we looking for?’
‘I’m not sure, but we’ll know when we find it.’
Templeton closed the front door, shutting us into a gloomy world of grey shadows. Four doors led off the hallway, all closed. The first one opened on a small, functional bathroom that had just enough room for the toilet, bath and sink. I checked the cabinet and found nothing more interesting than painkillers, birth control pills and Jamie Morris’s shaving kit. The windowsill was a bust, too. Bottles of shampoo, conditioner, bubble bath, and a whole load of other lotions and potions.
The next door led to the master bedroom. There was a king-size bed and a line of fitted wardrobes along one wall. Lilac walls and purple curtains. Like the hallway, the flooring was laminate. The bedroom was tidy. There were no clothes scattered across the floor, everything was squared away.
‘Notice anything interesting?’ I asked.
‘The bed’s made, which means Morris didn’t sleep here last night.’
‘No he didn’t. You discover your wife’s missing, the last thing you’re going to do is make the bed.’
‘The fact his wife’s missing is irrelevant. I’ve yet to meet a man who knows how to make a bed.’
I went clockwise around the room and Templeton went counterclockwise. We checked drawers and wardrobes and the space under the bed, and met at a point halfway along the wardrobes.
‘Nothing,’ said Templeton.
‘Nothing,’ I agreed.
The next door led to the second bedroom. This was a multi-purpose room, part office, part spare bedroom. It was three-quarters the size of the main bedroom and decorated in warm yellows and oranges. The desk pushed into one of the corners had a filing cabinet alongside it and the bookcase was crammed with books. A futon was pulled down and a duvet had been left in a heap in the middle, pillows abandoned at the top end.
‘Well, at least we know where Jamie Morris slept last night,’ said Templeton. ‘Do you think this is a regular thing?’
I looked at the pile of dirty washing and estimated there was at least three days’ worth. ‘It’s a regular thing,’ I said.
We started from the door again. This time I went counterclockwise while Templeton went clockwise. I gave the filing cabinet a good going-over, taking out the drawers to make sure there wasn’t anything hidden in the cabinet itself, checking the undersides of the drawers in case anything had been taped there. Thoroughness had been drilled into me during my years with the FBI.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Nothing,’ Templeton agreed. ‘We should hurry. If Morris comes back then I might as well kiss my career goodbye.’
‘He won’t come back. He’s staying at a friend’s place.’
Templeton gave me a look.
‘No hurrying,’ I said. ‘There’s something here.’
We went through the living room next, checking everywhere, behind the wall-mounted TV, behind the cream leather sofa, under the sofa. I stuffed my hand down its sides, but found nothing except fluff, a few coins and some organic matter of dubious origins. There was nothing in the DVD rack, nothing in any of the DVD cases. The kitchen was accessed through the living room, and that was a complete bust, too.
‘Come on, Winter. Let’s go.’
‘There’s something here.’
‘Why? Because you say there is. Look, I’m going. If you want to keep looking, fine. I’ll wait in the car.’
Templeton headed for the hall. I took one last quick look around the kitchen then followed her. Sunlight filtered into the hall from the living room and reflected off the laminate floor. Something caught my eye. Scuff marks on the flooring. The loft hatch was directly above the scuff marks. Templeton had alrea
dy reached the front door.
‘Wait,’ I called out, and jogged back to the kitchen to grab a chair.
Templeton was waiting in the hall, tapping her foot. Her body language screamed with impatience.
‘We’ve got to go, Winter. I’ve got a bad feeling Morris is going to turn up any minute.’
I ignored her and climbed onto the chair, pushed the hatch open and peered over the lip. The tin sat right by the opening. Small, silver, square. I lifted it out, then climbed down off the chair and prised the lid off. Inside was a cellphone and a bank statement in the name of Jamie Morris. The statement started on November first and went through to the thirtieth. It showed an initial deposit of two thousand pounds followed by four weekly payments to someone called Simon Stephens. Different amounts, but they all went out on a Friday.
The cellphone was a cheap model. No bells or whistles. No qwerty keypad or touch screen. There was only one number in the call directory. During the last week Morris had called that number eight times. Three of those calls had been placed yesterday morning. Templeton hovered at my shoulder, her hand on my arm, her breath warm on my neck, impatience replaced with fascination. I hit the button to connect the call, hit another button to turn on the speakerphone. Three rings then a recorded message kicked in.
‘You’ve got through to the offices of Simon Stephens, private investigator. Sorry I’m not here to take your call, but if you leave your name and number I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’
47
Rachel thought she’d been scared before, but that was nothing to what she was experiencing now. She was absolutely terrified. The terror was bigger than she was and had turned her into a child again. She huddled into the corner and buried herself under the blankets, wishing and praying and making bargains with herself.
Adam said he would be back when he’d thought of a suitable punishment, but what did that mean? What was a suitable punishment for trying to escape? Was this the point where he cut into her head? Rachel’s imagination conjured up the buzzing of the saw and that grisly animal stink of burning bone. She saw Adam slicing up her brain and the image was so real she could almost feel it happening.
Maybe Adam would drug her again, like he’d done before he cut her.
The thought was out there before she could stop it, and the more she tried to force it away, the more it struggled to stay out in the open. The drug had amplified the agony so much that when he cut her it had felt like someone was blasting away at her nerve endings with a flame-thrower. How much worse would it be if he was sawing into her skull? Could he adjust the drug dosage to intensify the pain?
The lights banged on and Rachel shrank deeper into the corner. She stared up at the nearest camera, eyes wide and terrified. She was shaking and trembling all over, teeth chattering.
Her eyes moved from camera to camera, from speaker to speaker, her head tracing anticlockwise circuits around the room. The lights had been on for almost a full minute now and the speakers were still silent. The silence unnerved her, but waiting to find out what Adam had planned was worse. He was playing mind games, and the worst part of it was that it was working. Rachel wanted to scream at him to leave her alone, but she forced herself to stay quiet because that was exactly the sort of reaction he was looking for.
Like before, the glass was crystal, the cutlery silver, and there was a neatly folded white napkin. The food was served on a china plate. Spaghetti hoops, straight from the tin.
Rachel looked at the glass and her head filled up with more of those black thoughts. She could smash the glass against the wall and use one of the shards to cut along the length of her femoral artery. That would be the quickest and most effective way to kill herself. She would bleed out in no time. The compulsion was so strong that when she looked at her leg she half expected to see blood seeping through the grey jogging bottoms. Rachel pushed the thought away and told herself to get a grip. She lowered herself to the floor and sat cross-legged with her back against the wall.
‘Is that you, Eve?’
There was a long silence, then Eve spoke in her quiet whisper. ‘I’m sorry. He made me do it.’
‘Do what, Eve?’
‘He made me leave the dog flap open.’
Rachel shut her eyes, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She should have known better. Adam had wanted her to escape so he could get off on chasing her around the house with the cattle prod.
‘He said he would hurt me if I didn’t do what I was told.’
‘It’s okay, Eve. You didn’t have a choice.’
‘I could have stood up to him. I could have told him no.’
‘And then he would have hurt you.’
Another long silence. Rachel wanted to fill it, but made herself hold back.
‘They said he killed one of the girls,’ Eve said eventually. She sounded on the verge of tears.
‘Which girl?’
‘The first one. Sarah. She was so pretty. She used to let me do her make-up.’
Sarah.
Rachel filed the name away. Sarah had been just like her. She’d had a life and hopes and dreams, and now she was dead. Except that didn’t make sense. Adam was a lot of things, none good, but he wasn’t a killer. The girls at work had made a big deal about that. He kidnapped and tortured his victims, and then he lobotomised them and set them free. She remembered that because the general consensus was that his victims would have been better off dead.
Suicide wasn’t an option, but a mercy killing was a definite possibility. Perhaps a friend or relative had finished what Adam started. Or maybe Sarah had died from her injuries and it had just taken a while.
This last thought sent a shiver of fear through Rachel. She’d seen what Adam was capable of, and she didn’t want to think about how bad things might get. Surviving meant taking things as they came. Her future was too bleak to contemplate, and if she started looking for answers there she might as well give up now.
‘How do you know she’s dead, Eve?’
‘They said so on the news.’
‘Do you know how she died?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘That’s okay, Eve, we can talk about something else.’ Rachel paused, wondering what to say next. ‘I’m glad you came back. I like talking to you.’
‘Do you? Really?’
‘I meant what I said last time. I really would like us to be friends.’
The silence went on long enough for Rachel to think she’d pushed too hard again.
‘I think I’d like that, too.’ Eve hesitated. ‘Could I do your make-up some time?’
Rachel smiled to herself. This was what she’d been hoping for. The walls were coming down, bridges were being built.
‘Of course you can, Eve. I’d like that.’
‘Your dinner is getting cold.’
Steam rose up from the food and Rachel’s stomach did a backflip at the smell. Thinking about what Adam was going to do had stripped away her appetite. A question occurred to her. She debated whether she should ask it or keep her mouth shut, then thought what the hell and asked it anyway.
‘Is the food drugged, Eve?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
Rachel picked up the fork and began to eat.
48
Simon Stephens PI didn’t have offices, plural, he had a rented office, singular. It was above a tattoo parlour in a run-down street in a run-down part of Tottenham. I pressed the bell and waited. No answer. I gave it ten seconds then pressed again, holding my finger down long enough to annoy Simon Stephens if he was in, or wake him up if he was asleep at his desk. Still no answer. On to plan B. Templeton saw me pull out the leather wrap that contained my lock picks and muttered something under her breath.
‘You can wait in the car if you want,’ I said.
‘Yeah, like that’s going to happen.’
The Yale on the front door took twenty-five seconds to beat, but the five-lever mortice lock on the o
ffice door was sturdier and more of a challenge. I inserted the turning bolt first, a T-shaped device made from top-grade stainless steel, then used the pick to move the levers.
This type of lock took patience, feel, practice. The first lever disengaged, then the second. I took my time, forced myself not to hurry. Act like you’ve got all the time in the world and you can beat a lock like this in a minute or two, hurry and it would take all day. Templeton was at my shoulder watching intently, holding her breath without realising. The last lever gave and the lock released.
‘Piece of cake,’ I said.
‘That does it,’ said Templeton. ‘I’m getting a bank-vault door fitted to my house.’
‘It wouldn’t do you any good. If someone is determined enough to get in, they’re going to get in.’
‘Could you be any less reassuring? Anyway, how come you know all this stuff?’
‘The FBI is a great believer in that saying about knowing your enemy. The way they see it, if you can think like the bad guys, it’s going to make it easier to catch them.’
‘And where do you draw that line?’
‘Well, I’ve never flayed a person alive, but I have skinned a dead pig.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
I answered with a smile and Templeton shook her head.
‘You know something, Winter, let’s pretend this conversation never happened.’
Stephens’s office was meticulously tidy, the space well utilised. The desk in front of the window was made from real wood rather than laminated chipboard. It was old and scuffed and had probably come from a thrift store. The computer was a tower rather than a laptop, but it was bang up to date. The chair was a cheap executive model covered with fake leather.