by Adam Hamdy
Station Road and The High were similar to the dozens of streets around London that shared their names. A newsagent, a mid-sized supermarket, a bank, a hardware store, multiple pound shops, and scores of grimy takeaways. Only the run-down mechanics immediately opposite the station marked Norwood out as unique. The small forecourt was packed with cars that had been kept alive longer than was natural, and the surrounding road was speckled with small patches of black grease.
Schaefer walked down the alleyway that ran behind the high street, past the two squat mini-tower blocks that loomed over the train tracks. He stepped onto Portland Road, and the dangerously enticing smell of solvents from a nearby print works filled his sinuses. Schaefer crossed Portland Road under the railway bridge and walked two streets up. He turned into Addison Road, and searched for number 116, which he found right at the very end of the street. A small terrace house with an immaculately cared for garden, 116 was flanked by neighbours who did not show as much care. The light blue paint, which could not have been more than two years old, ended in an abrupt line on either side, turning to flaked yellow on 118, and white with black patches of mould and damp on 114. Schaefer felt the unfamiliar tightness of nervous anticipation in his chest, and the bite of acid in his stomach as he went through the gate and knocked on the front door. Schaefer took the opportunity to check his reflection in the adjacent window, and thought he didn’t look too bad, all things considered. The woman who opened the door obviously did not agree with his assessment. Her face fell as she registered him standing on the step. Curly, shoulder length black hair, a full face and a little too much weight around the middle, the woman slipped her foot behind the base of the door and held it firmly. Schaefer could tell she thought he might be dangerous, and suddenly wondered what other people saw when they looked at him. Did the drinking show? Were the past ten years worn on his face? Judging by the reaction he was getting from this woman, the answer had to be yes.
“Mrs Blake?” Schaefer asked.
“No, I’m a friend.”
“I have an appointment to see Mrs Blake. My name is Thomas Schaefer.”
“The private investigator?” the woman asked, not bothering to conceal her surprise. “You’d better come in.”
Sally Blake’s house was much like her garden; well-kept and thoughtfully laid-out. The whitewashed floorboards were covered with Persian rugs that gave the home an oriental feel. A wall of photos in distressed frames showed a happy mother with a young girl who looked remarkably like Amber.
“I’m Marcie,” the woman said as she led Schaefer down the hall into the living room. “Sally’s upstairs. She’s not herself.”
The living room showed signs of Sally’s distress. A pile of papers was scattered on the coffee table by the telephone. Many of the sheets had hurried notes scrawled on them. A pair of jeans had been tossed by one of the two plush sofas, as someone got changed in a hurry. Marcie sat on one of the sofas and looked Schaefer up and down.
“Exactly what kind of investigator are you?” Marcie asked. Schaefer could sense the scepticism in her voice. He was as far from the stereotypical, professional private investigator as it was possible to get, and looking at himself through the cold reflection in Marcie’s eyes, all he could see was a broken down drunk who was clinging to the last vestiges of sanity. Schaefer felt the familiar burning sensation between his ears, as the anger started to build. Who was this woman to stand there and judge him? She didn’t know who he was, or what had happened to him. Schaefer was about to respond, when Sally Blake entered the room.
Auburn hair midway down her back, a slight frame with very little excess flesh, and a gaunt, but attractive face, whose only blemishes were two red-rimmed eyes that had sunk deep into her skull through lack of sleep. Schaefer’s building rage immediately gave way to pity – he knew exactly what Sally Blake was going through, and felt an almost overwhelming urge to embrace her. Instead, Schaefer offered his hand.
“Mrs Blake, I’m Thomas Schaefer.”
Sally touched his hand, absent-mindedly going through the motions of convention. With her other hand she wiped away fresh tears.
“I’m sorry,” Sally sobbed. “I can’t seem to stop. She’s all I have.”
“Please don’t apologise,” Schaefer replied.
Sally sat next to Marcie. Schaefer took the sofa opposite, and directed his words at Sally. The sight of Marcie’s suspicious, disapproving face would only anger him again.
“Doctor Gilmore says you specialise in this sort of case,” Sally said.
“I don’t usually take on children,” Schaefer responded honestly. “I work with adults. People who have disappeared. Mostly those who have joined cults.”
“When they saw the card, the police suggested I contact Doctor Gilmore. They say he is an expert in this field,” Sally’s voice broke, shifting into a higher register as the words spilled out. “They said he could counsel me, but how can anyone get through this?”
Schaefer found himself unable to respond. The truth would have been too painful, and she seemed too smart to accept a lie.
“Have you noticed any changes in…” Schaefer hesitated, unable to complete his question.
“Katie,” Sally offered helpfully.
“In Katie’s behaviour?” Schaefer continued.
“No.”
“Any unusual people hanging around? Anyone following you?”
“Nothing,” Sally said, shaking her head in frustration. Schaefer could see her wracking her mind, desperately trying to remember something; a face, a car, a clue of some kind that would shine a sudden burst of truth on the situation and enable Schaefer to find her little girl. Schaefer recognised the look; he’d seen it on his own face many times over the past ten years. He could feel the familiar palpable and desperate longing for the one thing that would bring her child back.
“And her father?”
“Gone. He died five years ago.”
“When did you discover she was missing?”
“Eight days ago,” Sally struggled to get the words out, as her tears fell freely. “It was the day after her tenth birthday.”
The revelation caught Schaefer off guard and he felt a blaze of emotions burn inside. There was the ever present anger. The pointed hostility. The bitter edge of self-pity. The slimy, constantly shifting paranoia. And suspicion that Sally might somehow be part of whatever forces were ranged against him. Schaefer’s face must have betrayed some of his turmoil.
“Are you okay?” Sally asked.
Was she a concerned client? Or someone sent to torment him further? Throw him off the scent, mess with his mind. Never let them know, Schaefer told himself. If Sally was part of something, her time would come. But it was not now. Play along.
“What happened?” Schaefer’s voice was completely neutral.
“I went into her bedroom to wake her up for school and she wasn’t there,” Sally’s voice broke entirely, as her raw throat swelled shut with grief. Marcie put a reassuring arm around Sally, and after a few shuddering, tearful moments, Sally was able to continue. “I found the card on her pillow.”
The grief seems genuine, Schaefer thought. Let’s see.
“Was her bed made?”
The domestic mundanity of the question puzzled Marcie, but Sally was still as she looked at Schaefer with the growing realisation that the man opposite her was possessed of an unexpected degree of insight.
“How did you know?”
“Were her pyjamas neatly folded?”
Sally’s eyes filled as she nodded. Marcie was shocked by the implication, and Sally turned to her and sobbed, “I couldn’t tell you. They … they … undressed her.”
“I’d like to look at the room,” Schaefer said as he stood.
Schaefer lingered in the doorway and studied the room for what seemed like an eternity. A single bed was pushed up against the far wall, under the window. A personalised princess blanket, embroidered with the words ‘Katherine Blake’, lay neatly folded at the end of the bed.
An old-fashioned wooden toy chest stood at the foot of the bed. The chest was so packed with toys, they looked like they were fighting each other to escape. A pine closet loomed against the opposite wall, and next to it was a matching set of free-standing pine shelves. The shelves were covered with cuddly toys, books, a pink laptop, music boxes and other assorted bric-a-brac that might typically be found in a little girl’s room. Along the wall that ran off the doorway was a small red laminate desk, and next to it a chest of drawers that was swamped with yet more cuddly toys.
Sally said nothing, but Marcie clearly felt Schaefer was wasting their time.
“The police have already been through everything.”
“The police don’t know what they’re looking for,” Schaefer said. “Did they leave everything as they found it?”
Sally nodded.
“What can you see?” she asked.
Schaefer could see the past. He could see the same pattern of behaviour that was observed the day Amber went missing. The neatly made bed, the crisply folded pyjamas, and the toys. Every single pair of glassy eyes stared at the same point; Katie’s desk. It’s not something even the most seasoned police detective would have noticed. No normal person would even register where a disparate collection of dolls, animals and cuddly toys were looking. But Schaefer had been on the trail for long enough to understand the sick joke; the child’s toys were witnesses to this heinous crime, and as witnesses they all longed to tell him something. Schaefer stepped forward hesitantly. He had to be careful. If there was something here, he didn’t want to share it with the police. But if his client and her watchful friend saw him recover something, they would almost certainly insist on it being turned over as evidence.
Schaefer checked under the bed, and then ran his hands along the bottom of the bed frame, along to the laminate desk. He positioned his body between the desk and the door and concealed what he was doing from Sally and Marcie. There, wedged under a crack in the laminate, was a small, carefully folded piece of paper. Schaefer pinched it out with the very tips of his fingers and concealed it in his pocket as he turned.
“I guess you were right,” Schaefer tipped his chin in acknowledgment to Marcie.
Marcie shook her head and gave Sally her best ‘I-told-you-so’ look. Desperate to cling to even the smallest shred of hope, Sally ignored her friend’s scepticism.
“Will you take the case, Mr Schaefer?”
Even after going through a personal hell that had burnt away most of his humanity, Schaefer could not help but be moved by the despair in Sally’s eyes. He saw a reflection of his past self, from a distant era when he still believed in the decent and proper lies we’re all told in childhood. If you do the right thing, you’ll get the right result. Virtue wins the day. Good will triumph over evil. In her faltering voice Schaefer heard an echo of himself from a time when he harboured the false hope that someone else could make everything better. Now, standing in the harsh, cold glare of the truth, Schaefer knew that there was no one else and that good most definitely does not triumph over evil. But he wasn’t so lacking in compassion that he would share his gospel with Sally; she needed hope, even false hope. And he had the benefit of ten years’ experience, and a fresh trail; there was a chance he might find Katie.
“I’ll need a recent photograph,” Schaefer replied.
Sally held the door open for Schaefer.
“Please find her, Mr Schaefer,” Sally implored. “Please find Katie.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Schaefer said as he walked away.
Sally watched him for a few moments before shutting the door slowly. As he walked past the neat terraced houses, their inhabitants untouched by darkness, Schaefer checked to make sure that Sally no longer had eyes on him. When he was out of sight of the bay window in Sally’s living room, Schaefer put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the note that had been concealed under the laminate of Katie’s desk. He unfolded the tightly pressed paper and saw familiar handwriting scrawled in crayon.
Hello, Schaefer. It’s been a long time.
TEN
Schaefer put his phone back in his pocket. He heard footsteps stop outside the front door. Someone fumbled with a set of keys. Schaefer stood completely still in the darkness and waited. The stench of failure permeated the room. The smells – damp walls, decaying food, thick dust, stale cigarettes, spilt beer – mingled together to form an overwhelming odour of neglect that signalled this was the home of someone who had given up. Schaefer had once read that poor hygiene was one of the earliest signs of mental illness, and his experiences over the past ten years had only served to validate that nugget of pop psychology. Schaefer stood silently in the darkness, his muscles tensing slightly as he heard a key slide into the front door. Heavy, clumsy footsteps. The sound of the door being kicked shut. More oafish steps. A pause, as the mail, which Schaefer had left undisturbed, was picked up. The footsteps resumed and grew louder and closer. Schaefer readied himself for what would come next.
Porcine fingers reached around the doorway and found the filth-covered light switch. A single fluorescent strip stuttered into life, illuminating a greasy, fat man covered in a light sheen of sweat. The fat man put two bags of shopping on the cluttered counter and turned to be confronted by the sight of Schaefer standing in his near-derelict kitchen.
“No,” the fat man said weakly. His legs failed him as he tried to back towards the door, and he stumbled sideways into the counter.
Schaefer crossed the rotten lino floor full of purpose. He grabbed the fat man and hurled him against the kitchen table, which collapsed under his weight. The whimpering man fell on his back and held his arms up to try to lessen the pain as Schaefer delivered half-a-dozen sharp kicks to his gut. Schaefer saw his victim – suspect – try to scream, but the kicks had robbed him of air. Charged with adrenalin, Schaefer hardly noticed the man’s weight as he pulled him to his feet. Schaefer head butted him, and the man’s nose popped like a water balloon, covering his face in blood. Schaefer pushed the man against the ancient electric cooker and took a step back.
“I find that pain concentrates the mind, Mr Taurn,” Schaefer growled. “Do I have your attention?”
Bewildered and bleeding, Peter Taurn was not quick enough with his response. Schaefer delivered a harsh knee to the man’s gut.
“You’ll need to concentrate to avoid upsetting me,” Schaefer barked. “Do I have your attention?”
“Help!” Taurn yelled. Now that he had found his voice, he made use of it, screaming wildly. “Help me! Help!”
Schaefer punched him, a little too hard. He saw Taurn’s eyes roll, and pulled him back from the brink of unconsciousness by grabbing the collar of his dirty canvas coat, and drawing Taurn towards him. He could just about smell Taurn’s stale cigarette breath over the ripe stench of a man who has not bathed in weeks.
“Do you think your neighbours are going to help a convicted paedophile?” Schaefer shouted.
Taurn recovered his senses.
“That was a long time ago.”
Schaefer punched Taurn in the gut, and the fat man doubled over and coughed up a little blood.
“The big wide world says you’re a panderer. That you sell children,” Schaefer said as he took a step back and allowed Taurn to catch his breath.
“You’ve got the wrong man,” Taurn wheezed.
Schaefer elbowed the top of Taurn’s head, knocking the battered man to the floor.
“I had a good chance to look around while I was waiting for you,” Schaefer said. He removed a bundle of photographs from his pocket and tossed them on the floor. “I know what you do.”
Taurn focused on the badly lit images of children in various states of undress. In some of the pictures the children were not alone and their stunned, miserable expressions evidenced they were aware of the depravity of the faceless men photographed with them. Schaefer could see defeat wash over Taurn’s face as he realised that feigning innocence was no longer an option. This was now a matter of survival.<
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“What do you want?” Taurn whimpered, raising the bloody mess that was his face to look at Schaefer.
“Do you know this girl?” Schaefer asked, as he produced the photograph of Katie Blake.
Taurn looked away, down at the floor – down at his sordid photo collection. Schaefer grabbed his greasy hair, yanked Taurn’s head up, and forced the photograph into his face.
“Look at her!” Schaefer growled.
Taurn whimpered and struggled to turn away.
“I called the police the moment I heard your footsteps in the corridor,” Schaefer said with low menace. “Those photos are enough to put you back inside. The only choice you have is whether you walk out of here in cuffs, or get carried out on a stretcher. Look at her!”
Taurn focused on the image of Katie.
“Never seen her,” he said, his voice rasping with fresh blood.
Schaefer pulled Taurn’s hair hard.
“Take a good look!”
Ignoring the pain, Taurn looked up at Schaefer, a sick smile cracking his bloody face.
“I would have remembered her.”
Schaefer released Taurn, who winced as he massaged the top of his head. Schaefer looked down at the photographs of degraded innocents, and then at the bloody mess hunched over them. His rage was impossible to contain. He punched Taurn on the top of his head, knocking the hideous man unconscious, and then, as he lay bleeding on the floor, Schaefer kicked him in the face. As he was about to move in for more, Schaefer caught himself; as dark as his path had become, he’d never murdered anyone. Schaefer reined his emotions, and backed away.
*
Old eyes that had long lost their brightness watched Schaefer as he slipped out of Taurn’s flat. Schaefer turned and caught sight of Taurn’s neighbour, a gnarly old woman in a dirty dressing gown and wrinkled tights, who had opened her front door, attracted, no doubt, by the sounds of violence and approaching sirens. She looked at Schaefer with neither approval nor disapproval, her face an emotionless mask. As Schaefer walked towards the lift, the old lady quietly shut her door.