“I'll try, but if this has a bearing on someone's death, then it's your responsibility as much as mine to inform the police.”
He gazed at my face for a minute, the muscles at his jaw working.
“Well, I really don't think it does, so I'll take that risk. The thing is, Paula came to me and said that, in order to communicate the horror of drug abuse, she needed film of someone actually using drugs. Preferably someone young and vulnerable, she said. Well, hah!” Amey sat back in his chair. “I was stunned at the suggestion. She knows perfectly well that there have been cases where social workers have been imprisoned for allowing drug-taking on their premises. She said it didn't have to be on the premises, but any hint of our collusion, if it ever got out, would have been the end of us. I refused point blank. A scandal like that, and everything we've been working for … Even my volunteers don't really know what happened. They know Paula and I had a falling out—some of them may have put two and two together and got four—but this was something I tried at least to keep between Paula and myself.”
Amey stopped speaking, but I knew that was not the end of the story.
“But eventually you helped her find someone,” I said, trying to bluff it out of him.
“I did not,” Amey protested. “I've told you, I refused point blank to have anything to do with it, and Paula dropped the subject. I never heard any more of it, but it had poisoned the atmosphere, and frankly I was glad to see them go.”
I sat in silence for a moment, mulling over what he had said. I was aware that I had offended Amey, that he wished he had confided nothing, and that he was impatient for me to be gone, but I could not believe the trail ended here.
“Could you do one more thing for me?” I asked.
“Tell me first, do you believe what I've told you?” he demanded.
“I do,” I said, “but I want to show you why I'm confused. Will you let me?”
He nodded, but he was still on his guard.
“Okay.” I unzipped my bag, and pulled my laptop from it and set it up on the desk, moving the in-tray. I found the relevant file, then explained to Amey that I was about to show him extracts from the unedited documentary film. He nodded. I had cut the film to the minimum. First came the shot of the man I thought might be Dan Stein.
“Do you recognize him?” I asked Amey.
“Certainly,” he said. His face was tense.
“Who is he?”
Amey shrugged, as if to say it wasn't important, then pulled a face that I could not read. “He's a volunteer, or he was. Name of Ned Sennet; he helps us with publicity stuff. He's an excellent photographer, so he used to get stories into the local press, and he had links with various celebrities around the place, so if you wanted someone to come and open a fund-raiser or speak after dinner, you went to Ned … He was always extremely helpful.”
That sounded like praise, and yet Amey's tone of voice was unhappy.
“Where is he now?”
“He left a few months ago, just after the filming of the documentary. I don't know where he went. Someone was asking me how to get in contact with him just the other day …” Again his voice trailed off, and he seemed distracted.
“Okay, let's go back to the film,” I instructed, impatient. “This follows straight on from the section filmed here in Penzance. There's no indication on the film that we've moved to another town so I'm assuming it happened here.” This time I played him the section that showed the boy shooting up. I'd included everything, from the false start, the vomit break, to the intravenous injection of the drug, the shocking spasm, and the suddenly blank screen. I kept my eyes on Amey's face throughout, and saw the blood recede and his jaw slacken with shock. He could not have faked such alarm.
“You've seen him before,” I prompted.
“Where did this come from?” Amey hissed. “What is it?”
“It's the documentary that Paula made. You know who he is, don't you?”
“I don't remember his name,” Amey broke off, his fists tight on his lap and his knuckles white. I gave him time to gather his thoughts. “I'm almost certain it's a boy who came here once about a year ago. Or, rather, he was dragged here by a friend. He was addicted to heroin—as I remember he'd just switched from smoking it to injecting, you know I'm sure that it's a more intense high, and it doesn't waste any—and he was in trouble with the police for housebreaking. His friend brought him here because he hoped we could get him off it. I talked to him about his options. He was an unfortunate boy. He obviously wanted to please his friend, and he wasn't happy about his life as it was. My heart went out to him, but I've seen this too often and I knew that he was not at a point where he was determined to change. I wasn't surprised when I didn't see him again—and I'm afraid,” Amey's voice was solemn, “that I wasn't very surprised when a few months later I saw his picture in the newspaper, with a report of his death from a heroin overdose.”
Chapter 32
I started that afternoon in the library next to Morrab Gardens, three acres of subtropical plants that on any other day I would have loved to explore. We'd gone through Michael Amey's files already. He was sure he had clipped the article: it was relevant to the work of the center, and the death had been shocking because of the youth of the boy involved. At first he refused to believe that his filing system could be anything but perfect, but he couldn't find it anywhere, and eventually, increasingly irritated and anxious, he admitted defeat. I felt stupid asking, but I asked anyway.
“Did Ned Sennet ever have access to your files?”
Amey scratched his head and sucked in his lips.
“He might have done some work in here on the computer once or twice,” he said. I knew he hated having to give me an incomplete, imperfect answer. It offended his sense of control.
He was looking deeply worried as I left him. Amey thought the boy had died at around the same time as the documentary, but because he had never before connected the two events he could not be sure. Nor, he admitted, could he be one hundred percent certain that it was the same boy. What he had seen, after all, was a photograph in a newspaper, grainy, two-dimensional, and quite possibly out of date. Still, I trusted his hunch in the same way I trusted mine about Dan Stein/Ned Sennet.
When I found the boy, looking out at me from the pages of the West Penwith Herald dated two days after Paula Carmichael's premature departure from Penzance, I knew Amey's gut instinct was right. The paper didn't say where the photograph had come from, but I guessed it had been taken by Social Services or the police. In it the teenager looked sullenly straight ahead, the collar of his sweatshirt sagging around a scrawny neck, his ears sticking out, cheeks sunken in. He was the same boy, I had no doubt of it. The report accompanying the picture was short and to the point.
Eighteen-year-old Sean Morris died yesterday after taking a fatal overdose of heroin. Emergency services responded at three in the afternoon to an unoccupied address in Newlyn after an anonymous 999 call made from a public phone box by a woman but Morris was dead when they arrived. Sean Morris had a history of theft and drug use. He is the eighth drug fatality in the county this year, and the youngest.
I searched the newspapers for the next few days, and then for the next few weeks, and found a brief coroner's report. Morris, the coroner said, died of a sudden seizure and lung edema caused by an injection of impure heroin administered after a heavy drinking session. When he was found, the needle was still in his arm. His blood was full of alcohol. He was underweight and was still recovering from the flu. The coroner recommended a review by the relevant authorities. I could find no subsequent reference to the boy's death.
The discovery filled me with restless energy. I made copies of the two small articles I'd found, then left the library. Outside the breeze had turned into a storm. The sky was dark and rain was lashing down. I got back in the car and drove along the shore, but I couldn't stay in the car for long, despite the weather. I needed to pace, and to think. I parked opposite a bus station, then fought my way agai
nst the gale to cross a wooden bridge over the railway line and found myself on a path along the top of the beach. To my right Mount's Bay stretched toward the low rooftops, the domes and spires of Penzance. To my left lay the tiny settlement of Marazion. Out to sea the Mount itself rose medieval from the waves. The tide was out, the desert of sand stretched wet and sleek, the water beyond was like slate, the horizon a marker for a threatening sky. I breathed in deeply, filling my lungs with the good damp air. I shut my eyes for a moment, clutching my jacket closed at my neck. I abandoned myself to the wind as it battered against me and whipped my hair against my face. I hugged my new knowledge close. My instincts were vindicated. The deaths of Paula and Adam had a common root, and I had found it. I started to walk along the path. I needed to keep moving, needed to use up the adrenaline coursing through me.
In my head I can see how it happens. Suzette is concerned that her documentary is turning into fluff. So far it is all nice volunteers and helpful institutions, lots of pats on the back for Paula Carmichael, who she feels is too good to be true. Suzette wants substance, she needs an illustration of a grimmer reality.
“Paula,” I see her saying, “they'll listen to you. You're the one with the clout here. I need more than this. I need something so visually shocking that our viewers really sit up and take notice and say ‘God, this is so awful, I need to do something. I need to get involved.’”
And Paula wanted the documentary, of course, because it would mean so much to the cause. She had moved mountains, but she needed publicity. She'd already invested weeks of her time in the project. She might not feel comfortable about it, but Suzette was the professional. If Suzette said it was necessary, then it was necessary.
Then the picture grew cloudier. Amey says he will not be involved. My guess is that Sennet—Dan—steps in with an offer of help. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows … He needs some cash to do the persuading. Suzette is unhappy, but if it's the only way to get the footage … just don't ever tell the Corporation, Ned. Perhaps he needs cash for the drug too … Suzette doesn't want to know where the heroin comes from. Probably she doesn't even want to be present when they film the boy. Perhaps Sennet does the whole thing on his own. He knows the boy is just a baby, knows the boy's been drinking, that he's sick, knows he needs the cash and is desperate for the drug. Suzette at least thinks she's buying a pro, some hardened addict. If she had been there, if she had seen him, then surely she would put a stop to what happens next—but then why didn't Paula put a stop to it? And what did Adam know of what took place? Four people, bonded together by guilt. Two of them dead, one missing.
Deep in my thoughts, I lose all sense of time. There is no one else on the beach, no one in sight. The sky is getting darker, but the wind is losing none of its power, and I am beginning to be more aware of the cold and the wet, the beach and the railway tracks. Then, out of nowhere, comes a voice from behind me.
“Small world.”
I start, turn, knowing already who I will find.
Dan Stein—Ned Sennet—is walking just behind me.
For an instant I try to formulate words—I will challenge him, demand the truth—but he is in no mood to talk. He takes advantage of my hesitation by walking straight toward me so that I have no alternative but to step backward, off the path.
He smiles at me, licks the rain off his lips. He is wearing jogging pants and a black waterproof jacket, its hood over his crew-cut head. Until now I have seen him in the chinos and button-down collars that make every man look the same size. Now, for the first time, I realize that he is large and athletic. We are both wet through.
“Funny running into you here,” he says, shouting over the storm. He is still coming toward me, and when I step backward once more I feel the low chicken-wire fence behind me. For a moment I lose my footing, and the chicken wire gives way. Behind me is a steep embankment, and below that the railway line.
“Are you sure you don't want to go out with me?” he yells, still grinning. I realize that on top of the noise of the storm there is now another sound, an approaching train. Dan leans over me, making me bend even farther back to avoid the touch of his body, puckering his lips, laughing when I turn my face away. As the train approaches, I raise my knee into his groin, but he jumps backward before it makes contact and my sudden movement makes me lose my balance. I am slipping. The train roars toward us, and I see the driver's face, frozen in alarm as he catches sight of us. I fall forward, pulling myself away from the embankment. Then the train is gone.
“I know what happened to the boy,” I yell at Dan through the rain, fury overwhelming fear.
He turns his face away for an instant, then turns back to me.
“The boy was a mistake, forget about him,” he yells back. “Remember what happened to Paula.” He comes closer again and this time I stand my ground. He leans in close and still I don't move. My jaw is set. I don't even want to run, I want to fight.
“You'll never find me,” he says, his mouth so close to my ear that he doesn't have to shout, “but I can always find you.”
I feel his tongue on my ear and slap him hard across the face. He laughs, steps away from me.
“Why are you here?” I shout.
“Remember Paula,” he mouths at me. He blows me a kiss and, grinning, turns and walks away. I start to walk after him, and when he starts to jog, I break into a run too. We are heading toward the Mount but the rain is getting heavier, the sky is black, and Dan pulls away from me into the downpour. Then, all at once, as the path divides, I have lost sight of him. I bend over, hands on knees, panting. My legs are shaking, and my heart is pounding, and I am soaked to the skin.
Up in the town, away from the shore, I found a coffee shop open. I was the only customer, and the tables were all set with white lace tablecloths. The waitress, a young woman with blond streaks in her hair and a tight pink T-shirt that rode up over her stomach, looked at me in horror as I dripped through the door.
“Did you get caught in the rain?” she asked, full of sympathy.
I nodded. I'd got caught and nearly killed in the rain, but I wasn't ready to share that.
“Isn't it awful. I'll get you a towel,” she said, and I stood and waited, not daring to plant my soaking self on one of her white chairs. I dug my mobile phone out of my pocket, but then realized it had run out of power.
When the waitress got back I dried myself as best I could and thanked her profusely. Then I asked for a coffee and the use of her telephone.
I rang my home number and Carol answered. She reported that the children were fine, although by the time she had arrived the day before Jane had put Hannah's nappy on back to front and had the contents of the old nappy smeared down her skirt. Between them Jane, Carol, and my mother seem to have a schedule worked out. Carol will do the daytime shift while my mother is at work. My mother will do the night shift and stay until Carol returns in the morning. Jane has been demoted to logistical support in the form of grocery shopping. “She needs to feel useful,” Carol confided. The children are cheerful without me, and when I speak to them briefly, they do not break down in floods of tears. Before I hang up I remind Carol that she must not open the door to strangers.
Relieved and reinvigorated by the knowledge that all was well at home, I rang Amey to tell him that he was right, that the boy on the video was the boy he remembered from the newspaper, but he had already taken that for granted.
“You need to come over here now,” he told me, his voice tight. “There's someone you need to talk to.”
Amey was waiting for me in his office, and with him was a young woman, slim and attractive, her dark hair gathered in a ponytail on top of her head, her ears and fingers heavy with silver jewelry. She was seated at Amey's desk, and she looked apprehensive. Amey was standing, stone-faced.
“Becky is my assistant here,” he said, his voice clipped. I nodded at her, and she dipped her head at me, but Amey was not in a mood for social niceties. “I asked her days ago whether she'd seen Ned, and
she said no. Now she tells me she's been talking to him on a daily …”
“Mike, you told me someone was looking for him, and you asked if I'd seen him,” Becky interrupted, defiant. “I told you I hadn't seen him because I hadn't seen him. I'd just talked to him on the phone. I didn't know where he was.”
“Why on earth didn't you give me his phone number?”
“I don't know, I just didn't think … It was only today, when you said a boy died, that I realized it was important. I thought you were just mad at him for walking out on us.”
At which Amey's face turned purple. He was appalled at her idiocy, but I wasn't convinced by her story. He was about to harangue her, but I gestured at him that I wanted to speak, and he shut up, shaking his head in frustration.
“Becky, Ned told you not to give anyone his phone number, didn't he?”
Becky fixed me with a speculative eye. She didn't reply.
“Were the two of you seeing each other?” I asked her.
She nodded minutely, a single jerk of the head.
“And he told you he wanted to continue his relationship with you?”
Another nod of assent.
“But he didn't want everyone calling him, he just wanted you.”
“He felt put upon here.” Becky glared at Amey. “They'd been asking too much of him because he was so good at things. He wanted to break off contact with them, but not with me.”
“So when Mike told you someone wanted to get in touch with Ned, you lied.”
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