But they hadn’t seen him lately and didn’t know where he could be now. One spoke and the other echoed. There always had to be a front man and they had silently elected the Elder Twin. Tomorrow the younger one might have a go, trying the part on for size to see how it fitted him.
They saw their visitors to the door, holding hands and moving in unison, little feet tapping a neat pattern.
Kath and WPC Grey crept away from those dancing feet. One more friend to visit. This time an adolescent boy, whose parents were both actors, and who spared a few minutes before going off to a singing lesson to explain that Billy was a real pro but needed to groom up his act a bit. But give him time, give him time, and he’d be great, great.
No, he had no idea where Billy was, their contacts had been entirely professional, Billy liked talking to both his parents about stagecraft, if they’d talk about it, which his mother would and mostly the Guvnor wouldn’t, and had been even keener since his father took over as Director of the Havisham Festival. So had quite a few other kids. He, Roger, had never had any illusions, and if they would now excuse him …?
They did, and collapsed into Max’s for a cup of coffee.
‘Any news of the boy?’ Max brought their coffee himself. He knew what they had been doing. If Mimsie Marker was one centre for gossip and information, then Max’s delicatessen was certainly another. He nodded politely to WPC Grey. Always keep in with the police.
‘Not yet.’ Kath took a reviving sip of hot coffee. ‘Hopeful.’
‘I saw Mr Larger go by.’ Max knew everyone. Anyway, Deborah Larger was one of his best customers. Even bought the best Beluga to go on a cheese mousse she made. ‘I suppose he’s out looking too.’
‘Couldn’t do anything else,’ said Kath. ‘Don’t suppose he can rest.’
‘I’d be the same if it was one of mine.’
‘How are yours?’ asked Kath, who thought she had seen the flash of a cotton skirt round the door to the kitchen. Shouldn’t that girl be at school?
‘Over what they had, whatever it was. Some virus. But I’m keeping Clara at home. She helps her mother, who is not so well.’
Kath gave an involuntary frown. The headmistress in her did not approve of that.
‘How are you, Mrs Lupus?’ asked Max. ‘You don’t look so good yourself
‘Bit of a headache. It’s the strain. Nothing. If only we could find the boy. I think he’s hidden somewhere. There must be someone who knows where he might have put himself
Or been put. But she dared not say that aloud.
Clara, who had been listening from the kitchen while she polished glasses, pursed her lips. Then, because she was a discreet and circumspect girl, she went to consult her mother.
Kath Lupus and WPC Grey were about to leave when Clara appeared at the back of the shop. She was carrying a couple of warm scented towels in a bowl.
‘Mother thought you might like a tidy up if you’ve been on the go all the morning.’
‘Oh, that’s kind.’
‘I’ll show you the way. There’s a nice big mirror.’
Max had been very careful to meet all hygiene regulations when fitting out his new shop, so that the little washroom was sparkling and bright. Kath washed her hands and face and applied new lipstick. One of those days, she thought, when you look worse with lipstick on than off.
The girl hovered in the background, straight-faced. Presently, Kath Lupus’s extra sense, derived from years as a headmistress, alerted her to the fact that the girl had something to communicate. A glance at WPC Grey told her that the policewoman had noticed too.
Kath knew it was up to her to start. The girl wanted to speak, but she needed a push. ‘How’s your mother, Clara?’
‘Getting better, thank you, Mrs Lupus.’
‘And how are you? I know you’ve been ill.’ Clara was a nice girl, but slow, all her teachers said so. You had to give her time, she wouldn’t hurry herself.
‘I’m well now, thank you, Mrs Lupus.’
‘Back to school soon?’
‘I hope so.’.
‘Is there anything you wanted to say?’
Clara nodded. ‘It’s about Billy. He comes in here for a Coke sometimes. We talk, you know?’ Kath nodded. ‘I know he’s missing, and I think I might know where he is.’
Clara elaborated on her theme.
‘Do you think she knew what she was talking about?’ asked WPC Grey, as they walked away.
‘I think she did. It sounded right. Billy was the sort of boy to have a hideout. Boys do that sort of thing.’
‘But would he tell her?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘She’s quite pretty. A bit overweight, but nice.’
‘Yes, she is.’
And, somehow, motherly for her age and size. Kath recognized that a boy like Billy, somewhat short of maternal love, might confide in Clara. She wondered exactly what he had said. More perhaps than Clara had let on. Other secrets, other confessions?
‘But she didn’t know exactly where this place might be, so where are we going?’ asked WPC Grey. She asked politely, because she was always polite and had been told to accompany and help Mrs Lupus, a respected local figure, but she did want to know where Kath was so confidently leading her now. ‘Do we take the car?’
‘Not now. We’ll do better on foot.’
‘But where?’ WPC Grey stuck to her point. She was not moving a foot without some information.
‘Clara didn’t know the name of the street, but she gave a pretty accurate description of where it was and what it looked like.’ Katherine Lupus lived in the neighbourhood, she had worked in it for years, and her husband’s building firm had helped to knock down a lot of the old landscape and to construct the new one. She carried a picture of the district in her head, and she knew where she was going. ‘Not far from the river, the remains of a workman’s hut, but hidden by a street of new houses. In a cul-de-sac.’ There was such a place, Kath wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.
‘She didn’t say that.’
‘She doesn’t know the phrase. A kind of little alleyway, she called it.’ But Kath knew the area, and she had knowledge that WPC Grey and the police did not have. ‘Also, remember it has to be within walking distance of the Theatre Workshop.’ Or running distance. The boy had run.
‘Does it? Why?’
‘Because the boy was on his way home, and he never got there.’
‘I don’t think it quite follows. But I get what you mean. So where are we going?’
‘Nearly there.’
Not many yards from St Luke’s and the Theatre Workshop, a building which had formed a part of the old docks had been converted into several expensive flats. The former yard of the building now contained a square of rather charming mews-type houses. These had only just been completed (not by Ted Lupus’s firm but by a competitor, but which Kath knew about) and now stood empty.
The old gatehouse stood between the flats and the mews houses. It had been used as the site manager’s office while building work was going on but was on the point of being renovated into a period town house. A handsome building, it had its own narrow back yard, now filled with builder’s debris and rubbish.
This yard was nothing more than a passageway designed to give entrance to the back of the house. Kath remembered noticing it when she had gone with a friend to view one of the mews houses, which the friend had bought. To her mind, it exactly fitted the description Clara had given them of where Billy might be.
‘It’s worth a look here,’ she said, halting WPC Grey at the gate. ‘Just in case.’ Inside herself, she was sure the boy was here, somewhere.
‘In the house?’ The girl looked up at the building, empty and boarded up.
‘No. In the yard.’
There was a side passage to the yard through which the two of them pushed, elbowing their way through the general rubbish. A grating in the floor gave light to some subterranean hole.
The little yard was empty except
for more rubbish. But at the side two steps led down to what must have been a coal cellar once. The grid in the passage was probably where it got its light.
You could stand underneath there, Kath thought, and see into the street. A boy would like that. Workmen on the site might certainly have created a cosy hideaway for themselves. It fitted Clara’s description of what the boy had told her.
‘Let’s have a look down here,’ she said, leading the way down the steps. ‘Mind how you go.’
There was a sign of human habitation, a bit of carpet, an old armchair. There was the smell of humanity, not a good smell.
In the light from the grating, Kath saw a figure curled up on the floor, lying on a pile of newspapers.
She turned to the girl behind her. ‘We’ve found him. Get help.’
‘How is he? Is he dead?’
Kath knelt down by the boy.
‘No, I don’t think so. Alive, but unconscious.’
Little Billy, who had experienced a range of symptoms, many of which had been enjoyed by other victims of the virus who had felt breathless, semi-paralysed and full of pain, heard her voice yet kept his eyes firmly closed.
CHAPTER 12
Little Billy lay safely in hospital, and he meant to stay there. He was putting on the act of his life.
The medical staff were puzzled at his condition. They believed he had had a bad case of the virus which had afflicted so many people, he still had a high temperature, it was possible he had a residual weakness in his legs, they could not be sure, but he should be responding to their calls for wakefulness, and he was not.
‘We don’t know what to make of it,’ said the young male houseman into whose nervous care Billy had been entrusted. Dr Blood (he came from a long line of local doctors) had only qualified three months ago, this was his registration year, he didn’t want anythig to go wrong. ‘But he isn’t speaking and light seems to worry him. He doesn’t open his eyes.’ He had caught a flicker from the patient’s eyes once or twice, and the night sister could have told him about a long hard stare round the darkened ward in the small hours, but she kept information like that for the consultant or at the very least the senior registrars. With every minute that passed she was becoming increasingly sceptical about Billy’s responses.
‘You don’t think he has brain damage?’ whispered his mother. Debbie Larger was sitting by the bed, her hand tightly gripping Billy’s.
Dr Blood looked alarmed. ‘It’s too early to tell.’ His patient both interested and puzzled him. He had experienced a strong desire to stick a pin in the boy to see if he jumped, but he recognized this as an ignoble impulse. Billy might be putting it on a bit, but why?
Billy was lying there with a chart at the foot of his bed listing all his vital functions, his temperature which was now approaching normal, his blood pressure and some more technical details about his bowels, bladder, and body fluids. He shouldn’t have been unconscious, but it seemed he was.
‘How are you feeding him?’ Keith Larger got down to basic facts.
‘He responds to spoonfuls of food, so he can swallow. And we’ve got him on a drip.’
Little Billy’s stomach gave a convulsive twitch. After a period of pain and nausea, it now cried out for hamburgers and chips, fried back bacon and hot toast, with chocolate ice-cream to follow. It was not happy with the pap it was getting.
‘I noticed the drip,’ said Keith Larger. ‘Wondered if it was necessary.’
Little Billy was listening, but with detachment. Let them get on with it, he was not going to utter. Then, because he was comfortable after what truly had been a very gruelling time, he began to drift off to sleep.
Thoughts idly drifted through his mind. He had hidden because he believed the murderer was after him, had seen feet that alarmed him. Then he had become very ill, that part was misty and vague. Now he was in hospital and the murderer was still after him. He had reason to believe so. He was better off where he was.
His mother’s hand felt comforting rather than otherwise. She could stay, but no other visitors were allowed. They appeared to distress the patient. Billy was rather proud of the way he appeared able to send up his pulse and blood pressure when anyone came near his bed. He didn’t know how he did it but he thought it showed he was a real trouper.
On the other hand, it might be genuine fear.
As Billy Larger deliberately lost his voice, so the murderer of Peter Tiler increasingly found his. It rumbled away inside the murderer in a gravelly, neutral kind of voice, internal voices being sexless, demanding confession.
It was a judgemental killing, it said, you will be praised for it.
Naturally the killer did not altogether believe this, internal voices being frequently wrong, because they are after satisfaction, not prophecy.
Not being heeded, it continued its communication in another way, seeping into the atmosphere by a kind of osmosis, causing pains, headaches and irritations all round.
You shall know me by my behaviour, it was saying, even if not by my words.
Little Billy was a known and recognized invalid, but he was safely tucked up in his hospital bed, where his parents felt he could be left for the time being; they went home to get some rest. Debbie ached from head to foot, and Keith felt his ulcer playing up. The au pair having tactfully absented herself (she was doing her packing with a view to going home), Debbie and Keith went to bed.
The Frasers gratefully faded into their own lives again, once Billy was located, taking with them as their share of infected anxiety an attack of migraine for the Lord Mayor, who nevertheless had to be host at a City dinner next day, and the sudden fear of his wife that all her hair was falling out. There certainly seemed to be a lot of it about, on her shoulders, on her pillow and even in the Lord Mayoral car. ‘I feel like a dog that is moulting,’ she said.
Ted and Kath Lupus followed them home, Kath with one of the raging headaches that were going the rounds and Ted sunk in a misery so extreme that he could not speak.
They drove past St Luke’s with its church, now a domestic dwelling, and its hall, now the Theatre Workshop, and he wished he had never seen it or that it would burn down, in spite of the fact that it was a profitable contract and his men were still at work there. As far as the police would allow them to be.
‘All those poor women buried there,’ he said, as he changed gears and headed for Pavlov Street. ‘If only I’d known.’
‘What would you have done?’
‘Blown the bloody place up. What would you have done?’
Kath kept silent. She had a sudden vision of dead limbs being blasted into the air, scattering legs and arms on the traffic thundering past to central London, and distributing bits and pieces all over Leathergate and Spinnergate. They would probably not reach as far as Swinehouse and Easthythe.
‘Thank God it’s half term,’ she said aloud. ‘And I need not see another child for a week. Except Billy. I’ll visit him.’
‘He’s not allowed visitors,’ said Ted as he parked the car. ‘His father said so.’
‘I must not let that apply to me,’ said his wife. ‘Are there any aspirin? I must have a painkiller.’
‘Life’s a bugger,’ said Charlie Driscoll, summing it up for himself and more than one of the others. He went home to pace his living-room and feel miserable. Life was pinching him in places where he felt he did not deserve it.
Rehearsals had been aborted that day for the cast of Hedda Gabler, sickness and bad temper had taken over here, too. Stella Pinero, not usually one to let up on the discipline of regular work, recognized that with one member of the cast hieing away to a nunnery, another taking to drink, and yet another, Lily, on the point of a lawsuit with both her agent and the producer of her latest film, it was time to relax the rules. The Equity rep had advised it, and for once Stella was taking her advice.
One by one, the cast melted away to their own preoccupations. They had heard about Little Billy’s rescue, which was a relief, but their spirits were not gre
atly raised. Who was going to come to their show, when the excitements of the world outside were so real? Ibsen was competing with multiple murder and raging sickness and not going to win.
Stella took JoJo and Lily Goldstone off for coffee at Max’s. These two were her main allies in the company. When it came down to it, she preferred working with women, whom she found more reliable than men.
‘I suppose you’ve heard about Bridie’s nonsense?’ she asked. ‘Coffee for us all, Max, and a ham croissant for me.’ Dieting be damned, her stomach raged for solid food.
They agreed that they had heard, but it might not be nonsense, there was a desperate look about Bridie.
‘Poor Will, look what it’s doing to him. Drink. That’s no answer. All he needs is straight sex to set him right. I might have to take him on myself and make him over,’ said Lily, who had long fancied Will.
‘The girl thinks she’s sinned,’ said Stella, biting into her croissant.
‘Oh God, I do detest and despise the Anglo-Saxon sense of sin,’ cried Lily viciously, in her best National Theatre voice, causing a customer at another table to look round nervously.
‘Never worried you, dear,’ said JoJo. ‘But then you’re not really Anglo Saxon, are you? I think I’ll have one of those croissants. I know they’re junk food, but I feel the need to bite into something soft and warm.’
‘That’s not a bad bit of dialogue,’ said Lily appreciatively. ‘You know, Jo, your future might be in writing more than acting.’
‘Oh, do you think so? I’ve often thought so myself.’
They settled to a companionable discussion.
Stella drank her coffee while continuing to worry about Bridie. ‘You don’t think, do you, that Bridie’s behaviour has anything to do with the murders?’
‘Yes, a bit,’ said JoJo. ‘We’re all a bit touched by it.’
‘Bridie never killed all those women,’ declared Lily bluntly.
‘Never said so. But there might be more than one murderer about,’ said JoJo.
‘You can be so cheerful,’ said Stella, putting down her croissant.
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