by Howard Marks
There was an almost imperceptible twitch in the girl’s cheek. ‘Yes.’
‘Where? Where did you take her?’
The girl took a deep breath, cleared her throat. ‘It was funny. She never told me where she was going. Just asked me to drop her by the river.’
‘Jen, this is really important. Really, really important. Can you take me there? Take me there now?’
Jen reached over to move a patterned straw shopping bag from the passenger seat. ‘Be my guest,’ she said.
20
JEN DROPPED CAT at an unlit spot near the river. She told Cat her friend always went off past the yards by the water, and that the place gave her the creeps. Cat could just make out the yards, a building site and a taller structure beyond them.
‘Listen, wait here for me. If you see anything that scares you, just call the police straight away. Say you’re calling in relation to Operation Bedd Arthur.’ The Welsh name was Thomas’s invention, his little Welsh welcome present to any interference from London.
Cat made Jen repeat the name, made her check she had a phone signal, got her to lock her doors and turn the car so it was pointing out of the complex and ready for a quick get-away. Jen sounded compliant, but Cat expected her to disappear as soon as her back was turned.
Nearing darkness, the river was just a wasteland of rubbish and industrial flotsam, some moving upstream on the tide. Cat hugged herself for warmth, and peered around. There was a strip of empty lots and a couple of builder’s supply yards, with wide turning areas for incoming trucks. Wire-mesh fences and cameras; security lights starting to blink on. Not exactly a place to coax a fine performance from a wannabe singer. Across from the waste ground and the builder’s yards, there was what looked like a deserted chapel. Any view it had once enjoyed had been taken by a warehouse to the front, currently undergoing conversion to flats. As a working place of worship, the chapel must have been impressive in its glory days, but now it was just a fume-blackened shell, ripe for restoration or, more likely, demolition.
The sky above turned an unearthly mauve, the chapel lit by a corona of light coming from a small break in the clouds. She shivered and approached through an evening that was now as cold as it was wet.
A path threaded off the pavement, round the back of a yard. She took it. The chapel was set back behind a box hedge which had been left to go wild. A no-trespassing sign was sealed in polythene against the elements. Incongruously, some borders had been planted with roses, perhaps to lighten the air of dereliction. The brightness of the roses seemed feeble against the ruin. Rubbish was strewn in the borders and gang tags covered the wall behind. The gate was topped with wire and secured with a padlock, but gaps had been worn in the hedge to the side.
She glanced up at the chapel. It seemed familiar somehow.
Inside the grounds, the paving was broken and moss-covered. A big pile of weeds and hedge clippings sat in a wide, woven polythene builder’s bag, awaiting removal. To the side of the chapel entrance, a glass-fronted board lay shattered on the ground and covered in graffiti. It’s been deconsecrated, she thought. Desecrated as well, perhaps.
Just then, her phone rang. She jumped – literally jumped. The panic was momentary – only Kyle had her number – but her reaction revealed her own state to her. She palmed the phone from her pocket and answered.
‘Price, you OK?’
‘Yes. Making progress.’
‘Anything you want to tell me?’
‘Not sure. Maybe not right now. It’s not a brilliant time.’
‘OK. Look, one thing you ought to know. I went by your flat just now. I thought I ought to.’
Cat gulped. Fear wasn’t an intangible thing. It was real. It gripped you. It could make you choke. She fought out a word. ‘Yes.’
‘Someone’s gone over the place. I’m standing in it now.’
‘Fuck.’
‘It’s a shit-hole, but I expect it was before.’
‘Yes.’ Cat tried a little ghost of a smile. She thought that was probably Kyle’s humour at work. A rare misshapen thing, but delicate and easily bruised.
‘There’s no computer here,’ said Kyle, returning.
‘There was a desktop. A black tower unit—’
‘I know. Only the monitor’s here and the keyboard. They’ve just taken the computer itself.’
‘There was nothing on it. Personal stuff, I mean.’
‘A fishing trip,’ said Kyle. ‘You’re safe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Phones, credit cards, email accounts?’
Cat told Kyle what she’d done on all those fronts.
‘Good,’ said Kyle.
‘Is the flat in a real mess?’
‘Yes.’ There was a moment’s hesitation, then Kyle chose to opt for honesty. ‘They’ve knifed most of your clothes, your bedding, your mattress. Not looking for anything, I don’t think, more just sending a warning.’
‘They could have tried a card’: Cat’s own feeble attempt at humour.
‘Yeah, look, you can come in. We can bring in the Met. Throw resources at it. Make this whole damn thing so big, so public, so out there, you won’t be a target any more.’
‘Unless I want to be.’
‘Yes, there’s that.’
‘And going big might just make our man bolt for the hills.’
‘It’s your call, Price. My advice would be to call it a day.’
‘Thanks.’ Cat fell silent for a moment. Gulls cawed overhead in the purple sky. Ahead stood the smoke-blackened facade of the chapel. ‘Look, I’ll call you back.’
Cat pocketed the phone. She had no headache. She was fighting her way clear. This is what being clean would feel like one day. Clarity you could taste.
She approached the main door to the church and twisted the iron handle. It moved to the right, but when she leaned against it there was no give. She made her way round the side of the building. The path was narrow, slippery with lichen in places. At the back there was another door. This looked in worse repair. The varnish had peeled and the wood was exposed to the elements, had cracked in places. She bent down, placed a wide eye to a crack, looked inside but could make out nothing. She pulled her hand back into her jacket, pushed her arm at the rotten section of the door, felt it give. The panels made no noise as they crumbled. Reaching in through the gap, she moved her arm upwards until she felt the door handle on the inside. Down an inch or so. She changed her position slightly, worked it until it turned.
Inside it was damp. She felt the atmosphere collecting in her throat. She coughed, rebuked herself for the noise, listened. Nothing. If the killer was in here he was silent as the grave. Had he already heard her? Cat stepped forward, cracked her shin on something, heard a scraping. If she carried on in the dark, inevitably she’d make more sound as she moved forwards. She decided to chance a light, pulled her phone out, flicked the beam level down by touch. She was in the vestry. There was an old open-fronted cupboard where once surplices and cassocks had hung. A door gave onto a narrow cubicle containing a toilet without a seat, rust stains in the bowl.
She opened the door, moved slowly through the gap between the pews into the nave. At first she wondered at the strange quality of the light, then the flapping wings of a pigeon alerted her to the cause. She looked up, saw that a hole in the roof diluted the coloured patterns created by the fading daylight filtering through the stained glass. Briefly she wondered whether the place was structurally sound.
Ahead there was no chancel or altar. Instead, in a central area which should have contained more pews, a curtain sheltered a covered space. She listened. Again, nothing. She moved the velvet drapes apart, nose wrinkling at the displaced dust.
Inside it looked like some sort of stage, a small performance space. The rostra had been fastened together, stood no more than six inches off the floor. On each side a couple of wooden uprights had been painted eau de Nil, decorated with Baroque gilt scrolls. There was the illusion of a grand old theatre, although one that had
seen better days.
Above, instead of a formal arch, a steel pole acting as a batten on which theatrical spotlights had been hung. Laid on its side, supported by a row of old chairs, a threadbare theatrical flat depicted a fairy-tale scene: a Mad Ludwig castle topped with jagged battlements. There were patterns on the battlements, some moss painted in between the faux-boulders of the castle walls and in an area on the right-hand side, superimposed over the rest, was what looked like an advertising poster. She studied it – a vintage ad for a Scotch whisky – and wondered why the scene painter had bothered to put it in. It diminished the illusion of the castle and the colours didn’t harmonise with those of the wall.
In the centre was a microphone on a stand, an instrument which had likely captured the voices of five girls who were now dead. On the ground, in front of the stage, three low tables and plush chairs formed a child’s vision of nightclub sophistication. A painted vaudeville-style sign advertised the Café Moon.
Cat stood, drapes still clutched in her hands, listening carefully for any sound. She heard only the flap of the pigeons flying in and out through the roof. Strange to be here at last, knowing that her flat had been trashed, believing that someone would dearly love to kill her. Not properly understanding why.
She stepped inside the drapes, picked her way warily around the stage, walked behind it. There was a bed there, a fairy-tale-style half-tester, satin sheets, white eiderdown. A vase on a table, empty of flowers. A silk carpet on the floor.
Silk carpets and pigeon-droppings.
She reached for her phone, took a picture of the bed. She moved round to the front, listened carefully again, opened the drapes wide, took more of the stage area, the tables and chairs at the foot of the stage. She checked through each shot to make sure the camera’s night setting had worked.
The door to the vestry was still as she had left it – pulled to, but not closed. She winced as it scraped against the floor. She’d damaged the door somewhat when she forced it. But not much, it had been in bad shape before.
She stopped with her back against the door, listening. The gulls were still there, but there was something else besides. A scraping, shuffling sound outside on the street. Heart in mouth, she eased round the building, trying to get a clear view. The gates, previously padlocked, were open. A white Berlingo van was parked just beyond, its rear backed up to the entrance.
A man crouched by the gate, dropping weeds into a bin bag. He tugged the bag full of weeds to the open doors of his van. And turned to his side. He was average build, early or mid sixties maybe, with a boozer’s veiny nose. He walked with a slight limp.
Cat held back, watching him. He seemed an improbable Mr Big, but Cat didn’t feel like testing the limits of chance, not right now.
She heard the van’s back doors closing, then the gate being shut. Waited until she heard the sound of the van starting, then ran through the gap into the hedge, to find Jen still waiting bravely.
Cat leaped into the car, grinned at Jen, and told her to follow the van.
‘Really?’ Jen tried starting the car with the handbrake on, stalled, tried again and Cat needed to release the handbrake herself before they got going. ‘Sorry,’ said Jen. ‘Nerves.’
A high-speed chase it wasn’t. The van cruised slowly, never breaking the speed limit. It took backroads, past scrapyards, rows of lock-ups, a closed-up garage specialising in the repair of freezer lorries. The road ran downhill, underneath a railway embankment, through red-brick arches black with years of pollution. After about ten minutes, the van pulled into a small yard framed by two open steel doors. At the back of the cobbled yard there was a low warehouse.
Jen drove, on Cat’s orders, just beyond the steel doors and parked up. Cat got out and hurried back.
She stood under the yard’s wall, bobbed her head out, got a look through the open gates. The place was small. In front of the warehouse, a jumble of items littered the ground. There were extending ladders, stacks of buckets, squeegees on extendable poles, stacks of roof tiles, wheelbarrows that looked too rusted to be of any practical use, rolls of electrical cable, sacks of compost. The gardener had stepped out of his van and was unlocking the back doors to tug out his bag of weeds.
Cat surveyed the yard. The awkward way the man was moving suggested he had bad arthritis.
She approached through the open gates, moved quietly over the cobbles towards him. She could see him clearly now. Apart from the booze-wrecked nose, his other features were moleish: small mouth, deepset eyes. She was practically within touching distance before he realised that she was there. As he heard her he whirled round. He flinched, reached for his heart, put an open palm across it, steadied himself.
‘What? You made me jump.’
She’d go in softly at first. ‘Sorry, I did shout,’ she lied. ‘You didn’t hear.’
‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Lugholes not what they were.’
He looked at her, lowered his lids, seemed puzzled. She could see his wits gathering as the surprise began to wear off. He was about to ask her what the hell she was doing in his yard. She nodded back up the road in the direction of the chapel. ‘That your place back there? The chapel?’
He frowned, realised she’d followed him down, as she had intended he would. He seemed to take a moment to gather himself, took a greasy rag out of his pocket, reached into the back of the van, pulled out the hedge cutters. He wiped them with the rag, ran his finger along the opened blade. Was he trying to menace her?
‘Who are you?’ He was angry now.
She reached in her pocket and took out her police ID. His face wrinkled as if she was handing him something rancid. He didn’t look at it. From the first time she saw him close up he had reminded her of someone she knew. Or was that just her nerves and the failing light? She didn’t know.
‘I’m the landlord,’ he said. Standing up straight with the box in his arms, he paused, turned to her. ‘I’ve a few units around here, bedsits and one-beds mostly, nothing fancy. Bought the whole portfolio from a foreclosure sale. A buy-to-let thing that went bad. That dump came with it.’
‘It’s tenanted?’
He looked to the side, as if seeking some reason to excuse himself. Cat noted his reaction. ‘Well?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘Are you being paid rent for it?’
‘Punctually.’
‘So, who’s paying?’
He dumped his box on the ground, puffing with the exertion. ‘I’ve never met him, and he doesn’t seem to use the place.’
‘Someone does.’
He rested the hoe against the van, picked up the box, carried it towards the doors of the warehouse. Cat followed him, moved in front so he wasn’t able to open the door. ‘There’s sound equipment there, lights. It’s like a film set for a nightclub.’
He flapped his hand dismissively, reached in his pocket for the keys. Cat put her hand on his arm. ‘So this is a sitting tenant you inherited?’
He pulled his hand out of his pocket, the keys hanging from his middle finger. ‘He just leaves cash in an envelope every six months.’
Cash, no receipt. The way you paid if you wanted to stay out of the system. The way she was using now. ‘So what name’s he given you?’
‘Never has. His predecessor was called Archibald Leach.’
Cat thought that she saw a flicker of a smile on that otherwise morose face. She knew the cause of his amusement. ‘Archibald Leach, huh?’ It was one of the more famous pseudonyms in show business.
‘That’s right. I’ve got Cary Grant for a tenant. And him well over a hundred by now.’ He gently moved Cat aside as he locked his van. ‘Look, I don’t ask questions. I’m paid above market rate. I’ve never seen anyone in there. A big place like that, no heating, no roof, just an empty shell, it would be impossible to rent otherwise.’
So near and yet so far. The front of Cat’s brain felt like she was chasing shadows again. No sooner did she catch up with one, than it melted away under her
grip.
That wasn’t what the back part of her mind thought, however. That part felt the light bulbs stringing together again, blinking on, illuminating the darkness. She didn’t feel defeated. She felt whatever it is you feel one stop before triumphant.
21
CROUCH HILL, THE following morning.
Cat had spent the night in another anonymous hotel. She scrubbed her clothes with a bar of soap when she undressed for the night, hung them out to dry, and put them on again, still slightly damp, in the morning. She’d had three cups of coffee, three roll-ups, not much by way of food. She’d done some good work on the internet and phone, checked in with Kyle, chatted with Thomas.
The house she was after was a two-storey detached affair made from pale stone, and topped by a loft conversion. It had to be worth a fair bit, maybe as much as three-quarters of a million now that Crouch End had become one of the fashionable suburbs.
She paused before she pressed Farrell’s doorbell, felt the confusion of the case temporarily bulge in her mind: the certainty that he had done it, the certainty that he could not have done it. She felt herself spinning into the unthinkable. Light bulbs flickering on and off in the dark. But more on now than off.
She concentrated on the doorbell. It looked like an original fixture but when she rang it, the buzzer played the first bars of ‘Summertime’. After only a few seconds there was a click as the door opened a crack. She put her hand against it, pushed. There was nobody on the other side.
‘In here. Close the door behind you.’ The speaker had a rough voice, a smoker’s voice with too much phlegm. Frogspawn sliding over gravel. She followed the sound along a short passageway. The light faded as she moved away from the front door. On her left a door was ajar, the wheezing audible from within, a flickering emerging from the room.
She stepped inside. The place was a shrine.
Every surface had been covered in photographs, some in sharp minimalist frames, others in elaborate antique versions. The curtains were closed, the lights off. Each frame was lit by its own candle. The photographs all featured the same woman. Farrell, a gaunt, bent figure in a tracksuit, was sitting in an armchair in the corner, a dark outline beyond the reach of the light. On the wall opposite hung a large flat-screen TV, a home cinema system resting on a table beneath it.