‘To take a piss, how the hell do I know? Wash the come off her. Doesn’t want to be in bed with someone who can’t control himself…’
‘OK. And she sits on a chair?’
‘Yes.’
‘A mirror?’ I asked. ‘Was there a mirror?’
‘No, not there. There was one but it was over the other side of the room. I see what you’re getting at but it wouldn’t have made any difference. It doesn’t change anything.’
‘Probably not. So, she’s sitting there. Why does he kill her?’
‘Come on!’ Andy leant back in his chair. ‘She starts laughing at him, taking the piss, making him feel bad. Maybe they’ve tried it before and he was useless that time too. We’re pretty sure they were both living there, although there was nothing to ID the boy. Anyway, her laughter is getting to him so he tells her to shut up. She won’t. He shouts at her. She just laughs. Maybe it’s happened to him before, with other girls. Maybe the kids at school used to laugh at him for having a little todger, how the hell do I know? But he just cracks and then our Maxwell picks up his hammer.’
‘A hammer. In the bedroom?’
’We’re not sure it was a hammer. But even if it was, why not? People keep things in the strangest places.’
‘So then he hits her, with whatever, and after that he sticks a bag over her head. Why?’
‘He’s scared. He knows he has to make sure. Or else he’s suddenly enjoying himself, he hasn’t got his humiliation out of his system yet.’
‘And…’
‘And then he thinks, oh shit, and he drags her downstairs and sticks her under the garbage. Finish.’
‘And I see him running down the street.’
‘Bingo,’ Andy said. ‘And he makes a call about seeing you there to dump you in the shit. Which you were in anyway, at least until the DNA test. After that he disappears. That’s it.’
I sat back in my chair and I nodded reluctantly. It wasn’t bad. I’d have probably been satisfied with it myself if I hadn’t seen the kid’s face. I leant forward.
‘The neighbours,’ I said. ‘Did they see anyone else? Going into the house that day? Another guy perhaps, someone else.’
‘No, they didn’t. The neighbours didn’t see her with another bloke. No.’ Andy stopped and looked at me. ‘One of them thinks she may have seen her earlier in the day, but not with a bloke, with a girl. It’s only a maybe, but there were other recent prints in the car. It might not mean anything and it’s not something we want to rely on. No, the thing to do is collar the boy, and that, believe me, is not going to take too much longer. Especially as we’ve now got the added help of your very talented self, William.’
Andy went off to use the toilet, and I had another look at the pictures, for no reason that I could think of. I then put the pictures back into the folder but somehow the rest of the file, about fifteen pages of photocopied typewritten notes, ended up propped against the wall behind the cigarette machine. Odd that. I thought about what Andy had said about another girl, and I figured that if she was with another girl that day it was probably Donna. From the way they’d linked arms they’d obviously known each other. I was beginning to have doubts about keeping Donna out of it. I’d go back to the office and give it some thought. I didn’t want to give her up to her family, and I knew from experience that having something Ken Clay didn’t was a good way to play him, but I was beginning to think that she might be involved in something that could turn out to be worse than the thing she’d run away from. Maybe, if it was the same thing as Lucy had been into, it could turn out to be much, much worse.
When Andy came back he told me what else he’d been doing. He’d been to the club, of course, and spoken to a lot of people who worked there, but no one remembered much. A barmaid remembered Lucy, and so did one of the promotions assistants who’d given her a load of fliers to hand out. She only met her a couple of times. Neither of them could say whom she’d been with that night. The promotions assistant also claimed never to have seen the boy, and had definitely not employed him in any way. Lucy must have shared her fliers with him, she said.
None of the guys on the door remembered either the boy or Lucy, citing the weight of people coming in and out, and though the incident room was still getting calls from some of the clubbers themselves, they were still sifting through these, seeing which sightings or possible sightings turned out to have any value. Andy also said that none of the cab drivers could recall her walking past them on her way out. Neither did the club have CCTV.
‘And what about me?’ I asked.
‘You?’
‘Did anyone remember me leaving?’
‘No one.’
‘What about the cab man, the controller on the gate?’
‘Nope.’
‘And no one remembers a tall Rasta with gold teeth in an old Renault 18? Another car following?’
‘’Fraid not. Not that they’d tell us. You think they’ve got some kind of mugging racket going on, organized through the cab drivers?’
‘Maybe,’ I said, although I knew that whoever set me up did so for more personal reasons. ‘Had any other complaints?’
‘I’ll check it out,’ Andy said.
We chatted a little more. Andy didn’t seem especially psyched to the case; there was no sense of urgency about him. It was maybe the weather, or else he thought it was a simple matter of finding the kid and locking him up. I asked him what sort of state the family had been in.
‘The usual,’ he said. ‘Sister sitting on the sofa with her shoulders hunched over, lip going, one-word answers. Father aged about ten years. That woman though, Jesus.’
I thought for a second.
‘Don’t worry,’ Andy said. ‘She’s accounted for. The whole family were in before eleven and didn’t leave. We told them it was just routine, but I was interested in her for a while. She didn’t seem so much upset by the whole thing as furious.’
‘But she was in?’
‘It’s a controlled building,’ Andy said. ‘The security on the desk would have clocked her if she’d left.’
‘Right,’ I said.
And that was about it. Andy asked me if I wanted another game of table football but I told him no. He opened his case and I dropped his file into it for him, before he could pick it up and notice how light it was. We both stood up and walked to the door together, emerging into eye-watering sunlight. Andy’s car was parked, veiy illegally, right outside. He strolled towards it but stopped and turned back.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘congratulations by the way.’
‘Sorry?’
‘On your new job.’
‘What?’
‘With Esquire magazine.’ Andy held a finger up. ‘Or was it GQ? That’s a very nice gig you’ve got there, taking pictures. I didn’t know you were so talented. Get you into many clubs does it?’
‘A few,’ I admitted.
‘Not York’s any more though, I’m afraid.’ Andy shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, one of our boys blew your cover.’
‘Never mind,’ I said, ‘not my kind of place anyway. The music’s too loud and it’s not music. Tell him not to lose any sleep over it.’
‘I won’t,’ Andy said, giving me a big smile.
Andy pulled the parking ticket he’d acquired from behind his windscreen wiper and tossed it onto a pile of rubbish. He got in his Cavalier and wound the window down.
‘One more thing, Billy.’
‘Yes?’
‘Ken Clay asked me to remind you that impersonating a police officer, even over the telephone, is a very serious criminal offence, and one he doesn’t take particularly kindly to. Especially when the officer impersonated is himself.’
‘I don’t know what he means,’ I said, folding my arms and leaning against a lamp-post. ‘But why don’t you tell him to mention that to those two clowns who interviewed me last week. They weren’t impersonating police officers over the phone, they were doing it in a bloody cop shop.’
Andy laughe
d and drove off, his left front tyre popping open a bin bag that had rolled down from the pile. I walked back into the bar and retrieved the photocopies from behind the back of the fag machine. Impersonating a police officer, what about simple theft of classified documents? I sat back down and read through them quickly and made more notes in my book. When I’d finished I turned a new page and wrote several names down, names of people I wanted to talk to. I put Donna-Natalie’s name down of course, and the word ‘boy’, and then I had an odd, nebulous sensation, the cross between a concrete thought and a vague feeling. I wrote another two words, in capitals, underlined them, and followed them with a question mark.
GEORGE CURTIS?
I slid the photocopies into my jacket and walked outside.
Chapter Thirteen
Back at my office I thought about changing into my shorts but decided against; I was hoping to talk to Mrs Bradley later and a suit might make her take me more seriously. I called the number she’d given me and arranged to go round later that afternoon.
I took Kojak through to the cafe where Ally filled him up. Mike was there too this time and seemed to be in a good mood. Chelsea and Forest were once again in the same league, and even though any game between them was months away, Mike started baiting me about the likely result. It wasn’t like I was exactly passionate about it but I mixed it up with him anyway. Mike put an arm round Ally’s shoulder and said, ‘Being at The Bridge, it’s just like watching Inter, isn’t it, darling?’ Ally, a Milanese, forced a weak smile and turned to froth some milk. She still seemed a little distant.
‘The only difference at Stamford Bridge is you’ve got more Italians,’ I said.
I walked back to my office. I had to decide about Natalie. I didn’t have a clue why Lucy had been killed but if it wasn’t a crime passionel, if it was something Lucy had got herself into, then it didn’t matter if I betrayed Natalie’s confidence. All that mattered was she didn’t get involved. I called Andy Gold. After he told me what a bloody liberty I had just taken I told him I might have something.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking. I’m pretty sure I saw someone at York’s who might have known Lucy.’
‘Who? Who did you see?’
‘A girl. Donna Appleby’s her name, though she’s now calling herself Natalie. A young kid I was looking for. I saw her there, and I saw her talking to Lucy in the street, a few days earlier. In Camden. Then, when I was at York’s, I’m pretty sure I saw her talking to the boy we’re after too.’
‘What? Why the bloody hell didn’t you—?’
‘I only just clicked it,’ I lied. ‘I’ve been trying to ignore the whole thing, at least until today. Anyway, I’ve got a couple of shots of her and I’ll drop them round.’
‘You do that, Billy, and don’t take too long about it. She was in Camden you say?’
‘That’s right. And Andy?’
‘What?’
‘If you could keep her parents from knowing where she is I’d be grateful.’
He thought for a second.
‘Dodgy Daddy?’ he asked.
‘Something like that. And she’s a really sweet kid. Well?’
‘They won’t find her through me,’ he said.
* * *
I’d left the Mazda in the shade of a huge truck belonging to a ballet company so it was only like stepping into a Belling on gas mark 3, not as bad as it had been recently. It took me half an hour to drive up to Chalk Farm, during which time I was tuned into long wave, listening to English wickets falling faster than Italian governments. I decided to hell with it, I was half Canadian anyway if I cared to think about it, though unfortunately it wasn’t quite the weather for ice hockey. By the time the last man had gone the score was only just higher than the temperature.
Mrs Bradley had informed the management of the building the family’s pied-à-terre was in that I was arriving, so I was allowed into the private car park and told that I could leave my car in any of the unnumbered spaces. I did this, and was very proud of the fact that my car was the elder statesman of the lot, a veritable antique compared to the soft-shouldered saloons and sporty little numbers all around it. I straightened the tie I’d put on and walked through the car park to the back door of the building, but found it locked, with no entry bell. I strolled round to the front where I was buzzed in by Mrs Bradley.
Although the outside of the building was Victorian, the foyer of the complex was more like the lobby of a modern, five-star hotel. A marble floor led past a small fountain to a desk, behind which sat a well-dressed young woman and a security guard. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to register with the desk but I couldn’t be bothered and ambled past nonchalantly, heading for a row of four lifts to the right-hand side. No one said anything to me. It was only then that I realized I had no idea where the apartment belonging to the Bradleys was located. I retraced my steps and approached the desk.
The girl was talking on the telephone and didn’t notice me. The security guard was gone. Eventually I was told that the Bradleys lived on the fifth floor of the south side of the building, flat 516. Left out of the lift. I took the lift, which spoke to me quite sternly, and did what the girl told me, getting out on five. I was in a sombrely lit corridor also reminiscent of a hotel, with a thick brown carpet and apartment doors on the wall in front of me. I padded my way along until I reached 516 and then pressed the door bell. I could feel a presence at the door and a movement behind the peephole. The door opened.
‘Please,’ Mrs Bradley said, ‘this way.’
I followed Mrs Bradley into a very spacious living room with a homely feel. It had block wooden flooring mostly covered by an old Persian, two black leather sofas and a smoked glass coffee table cluttered with copies of National Geographic and The Economist. A breakfast bar acted as a partition to a small, brown tiled kitchen. The whole place looked like it had been decorated in one go, very fashionably, but that this had occurred quite a few years ago. The human-shaped indentations in both of the sofas increased the effect. The only recent additions seemed to be an office table in one corner, replete with the usual fax machines and VDU.
The room led out through large French windows to a veranda-cum-roof garden made up of pale stone slabs, on which sat a profusion of tubs and plant pots overflowing with brightly coloured flowers, the only ones of which I could identify with any certainty being geraniums. A wooden rose trellis bordered two sides. Mrs Bradley turned in the frame of the window and folded her arms over her breasts. She was wearing burgundy trousers and a blue sweater with a gold chain over the top. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She seemed nervous, chewing her full bottom lip, trying to be brusque and natural but looking everywhere except at me. In contrast to her husband, she didn’t seem to have aged any since we met, and the slight vulnerability that I thought I detected even made her seem younger. She gave a short cough before asking me if I would like any tea or coffee. I told her that a glass of something cold would be welcome, and watched as she walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She had a strong, deliberate walk, moving her arms though she only took a couple of steps.
‘Grapefruit juice OK?’ she asked.
‘That’ll be fine,’ I assured her.
I took the glass of juice and sat on one of the sofas, looking at Mrs Bradley across the coffee table. She sat with her hands in her lap, very still. She wasn’t drinking anything, which made me feel a little like I was a kid again, visiting my best friend’s house. I put the glass down on a coaster. A welcome breeze meandered in from the roof garden, casting a light pall of scent across the room. I pursed my lips and said how sorry I was about Lucy. Mrs Bradley nodded at the token, taking it for what it was. A ritual. Some words to exchange, nothing more, but words that must be given and must be taken.
‘You look a lot different,’ she said eventually, studying me like she had done in her office.
I smiled. ‘I can make an effort,’ I told her, ‘if I know I’ve got an appointm
ent. You have to admit you caught me on the hop last time.’
Mrs Bradley smiled to herself and lit a cigarette, instantly snuffing out the aroma of the flowers. I watched her, slightly puzzled. She still made my back straighten, but this was not the difficult, impatient woman I’d met in my office. The lack of impatience I could understand – there was no hurry any more – but not the uncertainty. It made her more attractive, and I almost wondered if she had a twin, like her daughters had. I would have put it down to what had happened to Lucy, but Andy Gold had said she’d been very tough with him. Now she seemed, not timid exactly, but ever so slightly unsure of herself, like a boxer with a secret injury who’s trying to pretend to be the fighter he used to be naturally. Suddenly I had an idea as to why, something I’d not thought of before but seemed quite obvious as soon as I had. I folded my arms and looked her in the eye.
‘Did you get anything off the film?’
Mrs Bradley let out a breath and looked down, the shame on her face mixed with a little relief. She reddened, setting her lipstick-smudged cigarette down in an ashtray.
‘No,’ she said. ‘There was nothing on it. You must have broken the casing.’
‘That was my intention,’ I said, quietly. I looked at her for a second, holding her gaze. ‘As I told you when we met, I don’t tell people where their children are, and I do my best to ensure that they don’t find out where they are either. And if you knew what reasons some of the children I look for have for leaving home, you would understand why I do this.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Rucker, I really am.’ Her sorry was explanatory rather than apologetic. I’d put her down but she was on her feet again. ‘It was unforgivable to have had you waylaid like that. But you must understand that when you’ve lost a child, then you’ll do anything, anything, to get her back. I really didn’t know you’d get hurt.’
‘But you didn’t know I wouldn’t either, did you?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t say that I knew that but—’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘did Sirius suggest it or was it your idea?’
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