The first press car arrived while they were drinking the coffee Harriet had made. It was Harriet who heard the screech of tyres on wet tarmac and got up and went to the window.
‘Oh, no!’ she groaned, staring out. ‘That didn’t take them long!’
Annie either didn’t hear anything, or didn’t care what was going on – she sat staring into the red-glowing bars of the electric fire like someone gazing into hell.
Sean gave her a concerned look, then joined Harriet at the window and scowled at the reporter and photographer running up the path. ‘Hell.’ Giving Harriet a furious look, he said, ‘I thought Billy was supposed to be coping with them?’
The front door bell rang loudly, and a man yelled through the letter box. ‘Hello? Annie? This is Jamie Bellew – remember me? I’ve interviewed you often enough. You know me, Annie, Can we talk? You’ll have to talk to someone and you know you can trust me to put your side of the story. You want everyone to know the truth, don’t you, darling?’
The photographer came to the lamp-lit window and tried peering through the Venetian blind over it. Before he could make out who was in the room, Sean quickly jerked the cord which closed the blind completely.
‘They won’t go away,’ Harriet muttered to him. ‘And there will be more of them any minute.’
Sean turned to look at Annie’s pale face, her dilated eyes. ‘Is there a back way out of here?’
She wasn’t listening.
‘Annie!’ he snapped and her head came round. She looked blankly at him.
‘What?’
‘Is there a way out of here through the back garden?’
She shook her head, but he went to look out of the high window at the back of the long sitting room which ran through the whole ground floor of the Edwardian house. It was obvious to Sean that this had once been two rooms, but at some stage in the past the wall between the rooms had been removed. Long ago, judging by the décor, which was old-fashioned, in Sean’s eyes.
He stared down at the dusk-filled garden. Lawn- and shrub-filled, with a couple of apple trees, it was surrouned by a ten-foot-high brick wall without a gate in it. They would never get over that.
‘OK,’ Sean said. ‘Then we’ll have to go through the front. Brace yourself. We must go now, before there’s a whole crowd of them. Put your coat back on and we’ll go.’
Annie was in no state to move fast enough to satisfy him, but she was limply obedient. Harriet got her coat back on her, they turned out the fire and the lights, and then, with Sean on one side and Harriet on the other, Annie was rushed out of her front door and down the path, with a barrage of questions fired at her by Jamie Bellew, while his photographer’s flashbulbs exploded, blinding her.
They had almost reached the car when several other reporters drove up and began harrying them.
Annie felt like someone in a nightmare; hands reached to grab her, pull at her, faces loomed towards her, eyes stared, raised voices deafened her. She heard but couldn’t even think about what she was asked.
‘How do you feel about Derek Fenn’s murder? Is it true that he was naked when they found him?’
‘Were you with him last night, Annie? Were you there when he was killed? Do you know who killed him?’
‘There is a rumour that he was a closet gay … could it be true, Annie?’
‘You weren’t on the set today, were you? And neither was Derek – were the two of you together? There’s a rumour that you were having an affair with him. Is it true?’
‘You’ve known Derek for years, haven’t you, Annie? How intimate were you? Is there any truth in these whispers … that you had his child when you were still at school?’
She moved through it all like a sleepwalker, looking at none of the reporters, answering none of their questions.
Sean pushed her into the back of his car, Harriet climbed in with her, and Sean ran round to get behind the wheel, bodily throwing out a photographer who was already half into the car at the front, aiming his lense straight into Annie’s white face with those deep, dark holes for eyes.
Sean slammed the door and locked the car, started the engine. On all sides the press bayed, hammering on windows, shouting more questions, taking more pictures.
Annie was too dazed even to hide her face. She just sat there in total shock. Harriet looked anxiously at her. What effect was all this going to have on her? The whole series depended on Annie; they couldn’t afford to have her off for any length of time or the series would grind to a halt.
Only as they drove round the corner of the road with the press running like lemmings to their cars to follow, did she think to ask Sean, ‘Where are we going to take her?’
‘My place,’ said Sean. ‘If we take her to your flat they’ll soon find her again – they all know where you live. They don’t know where I live yet, I only moved there a couple of weeks ago and, even better, it’s an isolated spot, for London. I don’t have many neighbours.’
Harriet was curious. He’d never mentioned having a new flat; she had thought him very happy with his old place. ‘Where on earth have you moved to?’
‘Wait and see!’
He drove round another corner, turned down a narrow alley and out into a side-road, then took another sharp left turn. By then they had lost the posse of cars on their tail.
It was ten minutes before Harriet realised they were heading into London’s dockland, along the ancient route once known as Ratcliffe Highway, skimming the north bank of the River Thames above the warren of warehouses and tenement buildings where the poorest denizens of London’s sewer streets had lived for generations, usually the newest immigrants, arriving penniless and desperate for somewhere to live. Each new wave of arrivals took the place of those who had moved on and out into better areas.
Since the Second World War, though, the London docks themselves had withered and died; no ships moored in the port, warehouses were abandoned, empty and decaying. The latest immigrants came by air, but still found their way here, to the slums of London.
But developers had moved in over the past few years. The area was changing. Sean’s new flat was on the very top floor of an old warehouse right on the river edge – workmen were still busy converting the rest of it into offices and shops but Sean had managed to acquire the penthouse flat for a song because he knew the developer, he told Harriet.
‘When I was still in the force, I caught his daughter selling drugs. She was more sinned against than sinning, a rather lonely, sad little girl whose mother had died when she was fourteen. Her Dad was always too busy to have time for her. He stuck her in an expensive private school and forgot about her. She met a smooth-talking bastard who seduced her and then used her to sell his drugs at parties.’
Annie stirred, suddenly tuning in to what he was saying, and winced. ‘Poor kid … men can be vile, can’t they?’
She was thinking of Roger Keats and the way he had ruined her life, and Sean knew it, looking at her in his driving mirror and seeing the misery in her face.
‘Some men can be,’ he grimly agreed. ‘Don’t tar us all with the same brush, Annie.’
A smile flickered over her mouth and her eyes turned dreamy. Sean was learning to recognise her expressions – she’s thinking of him now, he thought, his teeth meeting. She always looks like that when she thinks of him.
‘What happened to this little girl?’ Harriet asked, more interested in the story he was telling.
Sean shrugged. ‘I managed to persuade her to testify against her lover. When the case came to court she was put on probation. I’d made a deal with her and her father. She agreed to go to a clinic and get help, be weaned off her drugs. Of course, threats were made by the rat who’d been running her. He might be in prison but he had friends outside and she’d be sorry, that kind of thing – but I made it clear to him that if she was ever so much as touched I’d make it my business to see he didn’t live to boast about it.’ Sean smiled drily. ‘He took one look at my expression, and he believed me.’
Harriet said excitedly, ‘You’ve never used that story in the series – it would make a great episode.’
He shook his head. ‘I promised her Dad I wouldn’t ever talk about her part in the case. He was really shaken by realising that if he had taken more notice of her she-would never have got into that mess. He made sure she knew he loved her, after that. She’s working with him, now; she’s an accountant, and a damn good one, I gather. And that’s why I got first refusal on the penthouse flat in this new development. They bought the old warehouse and began reconstructing it, and offered me a chance to buy a flat there before work even began.’
‘I can’t think why you accepted,’ Harriet said, staring around at the bleak landscape of the riverside streets.
‘Wait till you see the view from my terrace,’ said Sean, slowing as he made his way along a narrow, winding road between high blank grey brick walls; behind them Harriet caught glimpses of the river, glinting black and ominous under the wharf lights. There was no other traffic around, no people, no sounds, except the rattling of mast wires in a marina some way up river, the chug of a barge passing slowly along the river.
Sean drove up an alley and parked behind one of the high warehouse buildings. Harriet helped Annie out of the car. She was shivering and looking blankly around.
‘Where are we?’
Sean unlocked a high door and ushered them in, switched on lights which showed them a dusty corridor, an old metal lift like something out of a thirties film.
‘Been here for years,’ Sean explained, pulling the iron fretwork doors back.
The lift rose jerkily; Annie was afraid, cold sweat dewed her forehead.
‘I want to go home,’ she whispered, trembling.
Harriet put an arm round her. ‘Don’t be scared, honey. We’ll look after you, me and Sean.’ Her voice sounded more confident than she felt. Sean must be crazy, living in a place like this. It was so cold and grim, like a prison.
Harriet looked sideways at him, suddenly scared.
What if Sean was the crazy bastard who had murdered Derek? What if she and Annie had just walked into a trap?
9
Sean had some sleeping pills in his bathroom cabinet. He gave a couple of them to Annie with a glass of milk and Harriet put her to bed.
Rejoining Sean in the thirty foot sitting-room which overlooked the River Thames, Harriet sat down with a long sigh, looking at him.
‘She’s half asleep already. Those pills must be pretty strong stuff. I hope you know what you’re doing, giving them to her.’
‘That was the dosage for me, and she’s had too many shocks over the past couple of days. I’m worried about what it could all be doing to her head.’
‘She’s fragile, isn’t she?’ Harriet heavily agreed. ‘Both mentally and physically. I thought, just now, she was pretty close to collapse.’
‘Yes. And a lot more is going on in her life than we know about, I think.’ Sean was thinking about this old lover who had reappeared out of the blue. ‘I want to know a lot more about this guy she’s been with – she seemed pretty cagey about him to me, didn’t she to you?’
Harriet gave him a dry glance. ‘Sure you aren’t just jealous?’
Sean flushed darkly. ‘Why should I be? I’ve never had anything going with Annie.’
That doesn’t mean you don’t want to! thought Harriet. But most men hate to admit their feelings, and judging by all the policemen she had met since she started making this series, it was practically a crime in the police force. Their training taught them not to get too involved, not to let themselves care about the people they had to deal with – because if your emotions came into play you wouldn’t be cool-headed enough in dealing with a crime, and you would get torn apart each time.
Aloud she just said, ‘What with the guy who’s been sending her Valentine’s cards for years, and the abortion when she was barely out of school, it’s a wonder she’s not more mixed up than she is. In fact, having a man in her life doesn’t seem to me to be anything to worry about – more like a cure for all her problems. She looked to me as if she was over the moon.’
She considered Sean’s frown with a touch of secret amusement – look at him glowering, and he says he doesn’t care!
‘I just think it’s odd, him turning up out of the blue just now,’ Sean bit out.
‘Well, why don’t you ask her about him?’
‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll check the guy out,’ Sean said with threat in his tone.
He was taking it very personally, thought Harriet. ‘Good idea. We don’t want Annie hanging around with someone we know nothing about, especially after what’s happened to Derek. We don’t need any more bad publicity. Oh, by the way – Billy wanted us to go and see him tonight, at his house. He wants to know exactly what’s going on.’
Sean shook his head. ‘I’m not leaving Annie alone here. We might have been followed. I don’t think we were, I kept watch for anyone who might be behind us, but I’m certainly not leaving Annie here without someone to keep an eye on her. Look what happened when we left her at her own house. She went out and vanished for most of the day.’
Harriet was frowning. ‘Yes, that was weird. Do we tell the police?’
He looked sharply at her. ‘Tell them what?’
She met his eyes levelly. ‘That she’s been vanishing a lot lately. She went out for hours the night Derek was murdered, remember?’
From his face she could see he hadn’t forgotten that, but that he had hoped she had. ‘If they ask, you’ll have to tell the police, of course, but don’t for God’s sake volunteer the information. After all, you can’t really suspect Annie? Of killing Fenn? Strangling him? Do you honestly see her committing murder?’
Harriet grimaced, shaking her head. ‘No, of course not. I just thought you’d advise me to tell the police everything. Whether I believe Annie could be guilty or not.’
Sean hesitated and Harriet gave him another of her dry, cynical glances.
‘If it was anyone else, you would, wouldn’t you? But not when it’s Annie. You’re in love with her, aren’t you, Sean?’ She watched him closely, waiting for the betraying look in the eyes she had seen just now.
He reddened, eyes turning angry. ‘What are you talking about? You women, that’s all you ever have in your heads. Love! Look, I just don’t think Annie’s capable of strangling Derek Fenn, but if she comes under suspicion it could be disastrous for the series. That’s what I’m worried about.’
‘You and me both,’ Harriet agreed soberly, frowning. ‘The press are going to be everywhere, from now on, like bees around a honeypot. They seem to be on to the idea that something was going on between Annie and Derek, which means somebody has told them so.’
‘Yes, but who, I wonder?’ said Sean curtly. ‘Got to be one of us. Not you?’ He read her annoyed face. ‘No, of course not – I didn’t think so. Who else knows? Who else talks to the press a lot?’
She looked blank.
‘Mike?’ suggested Sean and her eyes widened.
‘Mike might,’ she accepted.
‘Well, his head has got to be straightened out. If he destroys Annie, he destroys the series. That has to be made clear to him. If he had two brain cells in that head of his he’d know that! In the meantime, we must think of some way of keeping the press away from Annie, and that will mean minimising the interest the police take in her. If I genuinely thought for a second that Annie was involved, of course I’d have to tell them everything I know, but I don’t believe it, and I don’t trust them not to draw the wrong conclusions. And even worse, I never knew a police station that wasn’t as leaky as a sieve. There’s always someone lower down who makes money on the side by selling information to the press. You know it’s the same around the studio, and in the TV company. Knowledge
is money in our business, and in theirs.’
‘You’re right. I’ll tell them as little as I have to.’ Harriet was frowning. Then she said, ‘If Mike Waterford is leaking to the press, Billy will soon plug him up, don’t worry.’
Sean’s mobile phone rang; he took it out, pulled out the aerial. ‘Hello? Oh, hi, Chorley, what can I do for you?’
‘We have to talk to Annie Lang, Halifax. Where have you taken her?’
‘What makes you think I’ve taken her anywhere?’ Sean hedged.
‘Oh, come off it, Halifax. A crowd of tabloid reporters saw you driving off with her. They lost you and you never showed up at your flat. They didn’t know your address, of course, but we did. When we found out that Annie Lang wasn’t at home, and had left with you, we went round to see you, but we were told you had moved out a couple of weeks ago, nobody knew your new address.’
Thank God for that! thought Sean, his mouth relaxing. He looked at his watch and calculated how long they had been on the phone – would Chorley be trying to trace the call while they talked? Better get off the line as soon as possible.
‘So what is it, Halifax?’ Chorley snapped. ‘We must talk to her. She’s a vital witness.’
‘She’s under sedation. She can’t talk to anybody.’
‘Don’t pull that one on me.’ Chorley’s voice snarled. ‘Or I’ll arrest you for wasting police time and interfering with witnesses.’
‘I’m telling you the truth. Annie is in shock. She can’t talk to you yet. See her tomorrow morning. For God’s sake, man, it’s late. Go home and get some sleep yourself.’
‘Give me that address, Halifax.’
‘Tomorrow, at ten o’clock. I promise I’ll give it to you then.’
Sean switched off his phone while Chorley was gabbling with rage, and looked at Harriet broodingly. ‘Tell Billy to get her the best lawyer he knows.’
In the Still of the Night Page 23