Christopher Fowler

by Bryant; May 08 - Off the Rails (v5)

  He was having trouble lifting his legs. Now his right arm was tingling. He’d drunk more than this before without losing control of his limbs. Weird.

  The feeling got worse. Was this what dying felt like? My neurons are being deprived of oxygen, he decided. This will lead to the cessation of electrical activity in my brain—the modern definition of biological death. But it just feels like I’m falling very gently. Swirling around and around, toward the gutter.

  I’m one of life’s naturally lucky guys, he told himself. What a charmed life I lead; there’s always someone there to catch me when I fall. I think I’m falling faster now. And there’s someone right here to catch me again. How perfect is that?

  TWENTY-ONE

  Alpha Males

  Wednesday’s dawn was fierce and raw, low crimson light splashing the glass offices in Canary Wharf. A turbulent sky of sharp blue cloud unfurled over the frothing reaches of the river, threatening rain. John May leaned at the railing of his steel balcony on the fourth floor of Shad Thames, and breathed in the brackish smell of the tide. As a child, he had played on the shore below these windows. I haven’t strayed very far from home in my life, he thought. How we love to tether ourselves.

  Leaning over the rail, he looked down at the pebbles stained with patches of verdigris, wondering if the sand beneath held the memory of his footprints. His mother had once lost a bracelet while chasing him along the shore. Was it still buried in the mud, another layer of London’s history? Although the embankments had been transformed, the cranes and wharves giving way to boxy river-view apartments, the shoreline had hardly changed at all. It seemed strange that he and the other kids had once swum here. Surely the water was cleaner now, free of tires and shopping trolleys and iridescent lumps of tar? His sister Gwen had never joined them. Fastidious and superior, she had always sat on the river wall to wait, smoothing her patterned dress, ignoring their yells, biding her time.

  He smiled sadly at the thought. Gwen, happily living in Brighton with her extended family, was the only one to have survived unscarred. A strong sense of self-preservation had protected her, but the rest had all suffered in some way. His wife, Jane, fragile and mentally lost, in Broadhampton clinic, his daughter, Elizabeth, dead, his grandchildren at war with their own devils, and now a new woman in his world, the beautiful, haunted Brigitte, who had called him a few hours ago, drunk again. If he had not been able to help his own family, how would he ever be able to help her?

  He listened to the city. A few minutes earlier it had been virtually silent, but almost on the stroke of seven o’clock a low, steady roar began and grew, like the sound of factory machinery starting up. It was the hum of engines, the turning of pistons, of voices and vans and coffee machines, of peristaltic traffic and disgorging trains. The sound of London coming to life.

  He used the last of his cold coffee to wash down a statin designed to tackle his high cholesterol. As he stood above the water, his thoughts turned to Gloria Taylor’s uncomprehending daughter, and his fingers brushed the cotton of his shirt, over the ridged scar on his heart. A five-year-old girl left without a mother. The wound opened by the loss of a life could never be fully healed, but it was the PCU’s duty to find a way of restoring balance. He had not been able to save those closest to him, but perhaps he could make a difference in the life of a stranger.

  He knew it was what his partner would be trying to do, in his own mad way. Tonight, long after the others had gone home, the top floor lights in their King’s Cross warehouse would be burning as Arthur worked on, driven less by a sense of injustice than the need to solve a puzzle. At least they would work toward the same end. The city was a blind, uneven place where injustices could never be fully righted, just smoothed out a little. With its funding returned, the PCU stood a chance of making a difference. If it failed in its first case, however, the fragile faith it had newly engendered would be destroyed.

  He took the circular sticker from his pocket and traced the outline of the figure with his forefinger. It wasn’t much to go on, but anything with a connection to the case, no matter how tangential, was worth exploring.

  Ruby Cates lived on the second floor of a house in Mecklenburgh Square, in the back of Bloomsbury. The square had been named in honour of Queen Charlotte, on the grounds of the Foundling Hospital. The damage it had sustained in World War II had been tidily repaired, but the grand square and its spacious roads were little-used and overlooked. At the centre was a high-railed garden filled with mature elms and plane trees, shadowy and vaguely mournful, in the way that empty London squares could feel damp even in high summer.

  Ruby answered the door in a sweat-stained red Mets T-shirt, with a white towel knotted around her neck. She was pleasant-faced, but too thin and fiercely blond, with an intensity in her deep-set eyes that put May instantly on his guard. Having emailed her first thing, he had received an instant reply providing the address and the time she would be at home. She held open the door and started explaining the moment he stepped inside. May saw that the lower half of her left leg was locked in a grey plastic cast.

  ‘I went up to Camden police station but they said I have to wait until tomorrow. I told them there couldn’t be any mistake but they weren’t interested in listening to me, so I went down to the tube to check for myself.’ Her voice had a soft country burr, Dorset perhaps.

  ‘Come through. This is my kitchen but the others tend to turn up here for coffee. It’s not really fair because they have bigger bedrooms. There’s another kitchen upstairs but they use it as a storeroom. There’s a mountain bike in it no-one’s ever ridden. I’ve learned one thing: Never be the only woman in a household of men.’ Ruby’s kitchen was overflowing with dirty crockery, newspapers, magazines and books. A heavy blue glass ashtray pinned down wayward paperwork. There was a faint smell of tobacco, as if someone had been rolling it from a pouch.

  ‘Under normal circumstances I would have run back up here. I run everywhere. I finished the marathon last year. Not going to do it this time, though.’ She rapped on the plastic cast.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was training. Really stupid of me—I slipped off the kerb outside the house and fell badly. I didn’t even feel the bone break. I’m working out every day, trying to keep the muscles strong. It should be off soon. I didn’t leave details about Matt at the station so I suppose you’re going to take a statement now?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I think we’re at cross-purposes. This is a routine enquiry about an accident.’

  ‘You’re not here about Matthew Hillingdon?’

  ‘No, a chap called Nikos Nicolau gave me your email address.’

  ‘So you haven’t spoken to the police at Camden? That’s really weird.’ Ruby shook the idea around in her head. ‘Well, it’s good you’re here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Matt is missing—I reported him missing.’

  ‘Ah—no, I’m not connected with that. I’m tracing a set of these things a girl called Cassie handed out at her bar.’ He passed over the plastic sachet containing the sticker.

  ‘But you must have known something. Matt has one of these things on his computer bag.’

  ‘I think you’d better start from the beginning,’ said May, sitting down.

  ‘Matthew Hillingdon is a friend of mine. Well, maybe a bit more than a friend; I’ve been seeing him. He lives here.’ She paced awkwardly to the window and back, unable to settle. ‘We study together at UCL. We were supposed to be meeting up last night, but he never showed.’

  ‘And you went to the police?’

  ‘As soon as he failed to appear. I know, I know, you’re going to say I was overreacting, that’s what they said, but I had my reasons. I haven’t heard from him since.’

  ‘But if it was only last night …’

  ‘He texted me just as he was entering King’s Cross station and said he’d be on the last train, okay? He’d been out drinking at some bar in Spitalfields.’ She dug her phone from her pocket and showed him the
message: At KX just made last train C U 2mins. The call register showed that the text was sent at 12:20 A.M. ‘He was probably pretty smashed.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Matt has a habit of texting me when he’s had too many, because if he calls I’ll hear him slurring his words, and he knows I don’t approve of him getting wasted when he’s got a lecture the next morning.’

  ‘Does he get drunk a lot?’

  ‘Yes, lately. He’s under a lot of pressure. He’s got money worries. And he’s finding the course difficult.’

  ‘Did he tell you who he was drinking with?’

  ‘No, one of his classmates, probably. But look at the time of the call. He always catches the tube, so he’d have come on the District & Circle Line, and changed onto the Piccadilly at King’s Cross. We both know that the last train goes at 12:24 A.M. I was waiting by the exit at the next stop, Russell Square. The train only takes two minutes, and came in at 12:26, but he wasn’t on it.’

  ‘Maybe there’s another way out of the station.’

  ‘No, I’ve waited there often enough; there’s only one exit and I was there, right at the barrier, as always.’

  ‘Then he must have missed it.’

  ‘He’d have walked down to me. It doesn’t take long.’

  ‘He could have chosen not to catch the train for some reason.’

  ‘In that case, why would he bother to text and tell me he’d be on it?’

  ‘The London Underground is the most heavily monitored system in the world,’ May answered. ‘There are some things we can do to establish where your friend went. But before I start that process, I need you to be absolutely certain about the facts.’

  ‘If you knew me, Mr May, you’d know I’m certain.’

  ‘One thing at a time. Tell me about the sticker.’

  ‘I don’t know anything more. It was on his bag, that’s all. They’re from the Karma Bar. All the geeks have them. I said I wouldn’t call them geeks but it’s just that they hang out together so much and they never stop working.’

  ‘And you also have one.’ May pointed at the sticker on Ruby’s backpack.

  Below them, the doorbell rang. ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Do you want me to get it? Your leg—’

  ‘I can manage.’

  May walked over to the kitchen table and thumbed through a paperback. He heard the slam of the front door, followed by thumping footsteps on the stairs. The wild-haired Indian student who appeared in the doorway did not bother introducing himself. He was trying to prevent a fat stack of papers from sliding out of a plastic folder, which was splitting under several loose items of shopping. ‘Have you seen Theo?’ the newcomer asked Ruby.

  ‘I think he had a meeting with one of his tutors. Why on earth didn’t you get a bag?’

  ‘I forgot. Don’t start. I don’t know what he’s bloody playing at. Did Matt leave me any money?’

  ‘Matt didn’t turn up last night. I’m really upset, actually. Are you making toasted sandwiches?’

  ‘You know I am. I don’t know why you always have to ask.’ The boy stamped off up the stairs.

  ‘That was Rajan,’ Ruby explained to May. ‘He has the room above this one.’ She did not seem pleased to see him.

  ‘Who else lives here?’ May asked. He had forgotten the peculiar atmosphere of urgency, languor and confusion that could be detected in student digs.

  ‘Apart from Matt, there’s a guy called Toby Brooke, then there’s Nikos Nicolau and the guy you just saw, Rajan Sangeeta. Theo Fontvieille has the top floor because his rich parents own the building, and we pay his family the rent direct, so it gets kind of feudal around here just before rent day.’

  ‘And you,’ May reminded.

  ‘They gave me the attic at first. I wanted to change rooms so I wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs all the time, but of course I’m a mere girl, so my vote didn’t count until Theo stepped in and supported me. We have too many alpha males living under one roof. Sometimes the competitiveness drives me crazy.’

  ‘Are you in the same field of studies?’

  ‘Toby, Theo, Matt and Rajan are all taking social engineering together.’

  ‘That sounds rather Nietzschean.’

  ‘It’s a branch of urban planning; they’re happy to explain it to anyone who listens. Niko’s aiming for a degree in biochemistry. The rest of his family owns restaurants, and they’re very anxious to ensure that he passes. Theo’s in line to inherit his parents’ fortune and doesn’t have to study, so he’s just doing it for fun.’

  ‘Why were you meeting Matthew Hillingdon at Russell Square tube?’

  ‘We were going to go to the Horse Hospital. I mean, it’s not a horse hospital anymore, although it’s still got cobblestones and there are horse ramps inside. It’s a club, stays open until two. My leg was hurting like hell, but I wanted to spend some time with Matt. Have you got a cigarette?’

  ‘I don’t smoke. So you’re at the same college.’

  ‘I’m a second-year research student, doing Bioinformatics.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have no idea what that is.’

  ‘Bioinformatics is mostly about searching databases for protein modelling and sequence alignment.’

  ‘How long have you been seeing Mr Hillingdon?’

  ‘He’s missing—you don’t really need to know about our private lives, do you?’

  ‘No, but I might find something you haven’t thought of. Please.’

  ‘Well, we’ve been dating about four months. He’s very sweet, a bit helpless. Probably needs a mother more than a girlfriend. He spends a lot of time at the Karma Bar. He specialises in the analysis of pedestrian traffic flow in urban areas. He’s very goal-oriented, works long hours.’

  ‘And sometimes forgets about meeting you?’ added May, gently.

  ‘It’s happened before. But not this time, I’m sure of it. When I heard from him, he was definitely catching that train.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’m due at a class.’

  ‘I’ll walk down with you.’

  The sound of The Avalanches playing over the roar of an engine outside sent Ruby to the landing window. ‘Here’s another one,’ she told May. ‘Theo’s probably the richest guy in the whole of UCL. His father owns, like, half of Hertfordshire or something.’

  ‘That would explain the car,’ said May, impressed. Theo Fontvieille was driving a new red Porsche Carrera, a beacon of conspicuous consumption branded with the licence plate THEO 1. He was unfolding himself from the driver’s seat as May arrived back on the street.

  ‘Theo, this is John May. He’s from—’

  ‘The Peculiar Crimes Unit,’ May explained, holding out his hand. ‘We’ve met.’

  ‘I thought you were a little too old to be a foot soldier. Peculiar Crimes Unit? What’s that?’ The surname might have been French, but he had no trace of an accent. Although he shook hands, Fontvieille was clearly keen to get inside.

  ‘It’s a specialist detection unit.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why are you here? Ruby, what have you been up to?’ Although he could have been no older than twenty-one, Fontvieille had the patrician air of someone mature, confident and secure in his wealth. Tanned and moisturised, his long black hair sleekly groomed, he was dressed in a grey hooded top and jeans too well cut to be confused with the kind generally worn on the street. His clothes were bookended with a red silk scarf and red leather trainers that perfectly matched his car. He might have been a model or a city executive, except that there was a discordant note in his appearance that May couldn’t nail down.

  ‘This young lady has lost a friend,’ he said.

  ‘What’s he talking about? Ruby, who have you lost?’

  ‘Matt’s been missing since last night.’

  ‘You know he doesn’t always come home.’

  ‘He was supposed to be with me.’ She was clearly uncomfortable arguing about a mutual friend in front of May.

  ‘You’ve
got to give the guy a bit of room to manoeuver, he’s really stressed out at the moment.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say, Theo, you never get worried about anything. You don’t have to worry.’ It sounded like a put-down. She’s wrong, thought May, who had pinpointed what was bothering him. Theo Fontvieille looked as if he had not enjoyed a good night’s sleep in a week. Beneath the young man’s smooth tan were fault lines and shadows.

  ‘I’ve got to get going,’ said Theo. ‘I’m meeting Rajan, running late. Is he up in his room?’

  ‘God, you guys hang out together every night—don’t you ever get tired of each other’s company?’ She sounded jealous.

  ‘Ask me in five years’ time, when we’re running the country. Nice to meet you again, Mr May—and Ruby, when you find Matt tell him he owes me fifty quid.’ Theo swung a smart red leather case onto his shoulder and bounded up the stairs.

  ‘Not the bookish type?’ May suggested to Ruby.

  ‘I’m sure he only attends UCL to annoy the rest of us, he makes it all seem so easy. He’ll go to an all-night party, then come back and knock out a paper that will have his lecturers mooning over him for weeks.’

  ‘No Karma Bar logo,’ May noted.

  ‘Theo wouldn’t be seen dead sticking a cheap club advert on his fine Italian leather. I fear our common ways don’t appeal to him.’ She hates him, realised May. Just because of his money, or is there something else? Perhaps that’s not hatred in her eyes, but something quite the opposite.

  ‘All right,’ he told her, ‘I’ll cut a deal with you. Keep your eyes open for any more of these stickers, and I’ll see if I can get you some information on Mr Hillingdon’s whereabouts today, to save you waiting for the regular police.’