I was about to dump the greasy crap I’d just bought on top of the nearest pile but I caught myself in time. I saw my mother’s face, over a plate full of cauliflower. Some things never leave you. I looked round for a worthy recipient for my largess and then thought of Olly. I walked along amongst the late-night revellers, crossed at the lights and saw that Olly was at his pitch, trying without any success to get rid of his last copy of the Issue.
I said hi and went to hand him the package but I stopped. An old man ambled past and I handed it to him instead. He took it in amazement, telling me that I was high up in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Olly was of a different opinion.
‘What? Hey? That was for me that was. You can’t offer something to someone and then—’
‘Follow me,’ I said.
I gave Olly a ten-pound note and told him to go to the kebab shop on the High Street. He knew which one I meant. I said he was to sit at the small ledge by the window, and eat whatever he liked. I didn’t expect any change. I asked him to stay there as long as he could and listen out for anything unusual. I said that if a very fat man came in he should come and tell me at once. I didn’t want to do it myself because I’d already been in, and I didn’t want to get my face known. Olly couldn’t see anything wrong with the deal.
‘Where will you be?’ he asked.
I thought about it. ‘Outside Cafe Delancey,’ I said.
I left Olly, walking with him as far as the lights to make sure that he didn’t head for Thresher instead, and then strolled round the corner to Delancey Street. I stood at the bar of Cafe Delancey for ten minutes until a smart young couple left a small table outside. I beat a couple of suits to it, sat down and ordered a chicken salad, immediately changing my mind to fresh tuna. I was off chicken. I drank a glass of red and some water and thought about my brother. I recognized a waitress who was still working there after all those years. She either didn’t notice me or else didn’t know who I was. I thought about visiting Luke in his time there, and about one night in particular, not long after he’d left, when we’d both gone there and got hammered after hours and not had to pay anything for the privilege. I’d gone home with one of the chefs, as far as I could remember. He, of course, had gone home with Sharon.
I try to avoid thoughts like this, getting drawn into the past like a wasp into syrup, getting its legs caught more and more as it tries to drag itself out. But this time something was different. The memories came but not the deep, pulling regret that normally came with them. They were just pictures, they didn’t have any hold over me. It felt very curious, like looking at photographs in a second-hand shop of someone else’s family. I felt a pang of guilt for a second, but then I began to feel light inside. Sharon’s clear green eyes stood up in front of me. I felt that somehow I was very much part of the present, the here and now, and the things that were part of my life there. Not a product of the past, not a flipped-out ex-copper who couldn’t take it any more. I remembered reading somewhere that the cells in your body change completely every seven years and that, therefore, every seven years you are a completely different person than you were. It wasn’t seven years but it was approaching it. I felt like I had earlier at the gym, that somehow I was retaking possession of myself. I couldn’t change the past, and though the present was full of trauma and pain for a lot of people, just then it wasn’t for me and I couldn’t pretend it was. Unlike the Bradleys, my past was gone. I finished my glass of wine and ordered another one. The tuna came and it tasted as fresh and clean as I felt.
Olly came by after about an hour. I’d sat outside so that he could come and meet me; there was no way they’d have let him through the door. There’d been no fat guy, he told me, and nothing unusual that he could see. I had a thought. Remembering the people I’d seen from my car, I asked him if anyone had come in to the place, but not ordered anything.
‘I wish I had of, the kebabs are shite. Burgers didn’t look bad though—’
‘Did anyone?’
Olly looked at me. ‘If I happen to think of it, yes. A couple of blokes actually. Not together, one after the other like.’
‘What did they want?’
‘They wanted a bloke called George I think it was.’
‘Right.’
‘But he weren’t in. So they both left.’
‘Right. You didn’t recognize either of them, did you, by any chance?’
‘No, sorry.’ Olly shook his head but then looked pleased with himself. ‘Got their names though for ya.’
‘Nice one, Olly.’ I took out my book and flipped over a couple of pages. ‘Well?’
‘Vincent,’ Olly said, decisively. I wrote it down.
‘And?’
‘Vincent,’ he said again. I looked at him.
‘Thanks, Olly. What was the other guy’s name?’
‘Vincent, I told you. Both of them.’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘’Course I am! What are the chances of that, eh?’
I shrugged my shoulders and put my book back in my pocket.
I paid my bill and ignored the waiter’s discomfort at seeing the state of the man who was now sharing my table. His obvious disdain made me almost decide not to tip the guy, but as he hadn’t actually been serving me I let it go. The girl had been nice enough and the guy didn’t actually say anything. And Olly, Lord love him to bits, is one hell of a scruffy bastard.
Looking at my friend made me imagine Sharon sitting there instead and I resolved to give her a call. Olly and I handed the table over to an American couple in their fifties, who both looked uncertainly at the chair Olly had been using. We walked back down to the High Street where we stood leaning against the railings. Olly pulled a couple of cans from his coat, which were still cold. We stood drinking for a while, watching the people, and then I showed Olly the pictures I had with me.
Lucy, of course, was dead, but Olly squinted at her face and bit his lip. I understood his confusion and helped him out of it.
‘You may have seen her sister in the last week or so,’ I told him. ‘Her twin. She was hanging around the tube looking for her.’
Olly nodded. ‘Different though? Different kind of person. Not identical.’
I thought about it. ‘No,’ I said, ‘identical, but you’re right. Very different indeed.’
I showed Olly the other two pictures and though he obviously recognized Donna, and had seen the boy around a lot, he hadn’t seen either of them recently.
‘If you do, Olly…’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m more than happy to do your job for you, Billy, you know that. Though I do expect you to do the same for me sometime.’
‘Fine,’ I said, nodding, and I slid my hand in his jacket pocket before he could stop me. I took out his last remaining copy of the Issue and then walked up to a very, very beautiful Chinese girl, waiting for her friends to finish using the cash machine.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. She turned round. ‘Would you like to buy my very last copy of the Big Issue, and make me the second happiest man on this entire street?’
‘The second?’
‘Behind your boyfriend, that is.’
I held up the copy and smiled. The girl hesitated for a second before handing me a pound coin, taking the .magazine with a deep smile. I thanked her.
‘Charm, Oliver,’ I said, spinning the coin in the air. He held a hand out but I frowned at him and slid it into my back pocket, before turning to go. ‘C-H-A-R-M.’
‘Badged vendors only, mate,’ Olly said. ‘Badged vendors only.’
I flipped Olly the coin and left him there.
I walked twenty yards to the nearest phone box, a sex Tardis, catering for an unbelievably huge spectrum of tastes and desires. I was in a good mood. I held the phone and was about to dial Sharon’s number when something started to nag at me, an impression that it was far too early to be calling it a day. But no. I’d been at it since eight that morning and I didn’t have a very clear idea as to what to d
o next anyway. The kid could be anywhere, and I didn’t want to start slogging around until I was sure that George Curtis didn’t have anything to do with him. The image of Emma Bradley came to mind and I felt slightly guilty at putting the hunt for her sister’s killer on hold, but the image I had of Sharon was too much and so I shrugged the feeling off. I could still see her, the other night. I tapped in Sharon’s number, enjoying the familiarity of its pattern on the keypad, and she picked up after a couple of rings. I could hear people in the background, and I even recognized one of the voices; a brassy Geordie girl from Sharon’s office whom I remembered meeting in some pub or other, and liking a lot. I asked Sharon if she was having a party and had forgotten to invite me.
‘As if,’ she said, taking me a little too seriously. ‘Just people from the office. We were going to do some work on this pamphlet thing but, well, we got distracted.’ She was talking about a report on racial inequality in asylum procedure that she and a group of other lawyers had got together to commission.
‘Well, is it an all-legal affair or would a lovesick private investigator fit in to the evening?’
At that point a male voice asked Sharon where the loo was and she broke off for a second to tell him. She came back and told me that people had already said they were going soon.
‘Even better,’ I said. ‘No, that sounded wrong.’ I laughed. ‘But I can come over anyway, if you want that is.’
Sharon didn’t speak for a second. I had the feeling that she was going to say maybe tomorrow but then, very decisively, she said, ‘Yes. Yes I want you to come over, Billy. I really need to see you.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’ll be half an hour—’
‘Oh,’ Sharon said. ‘That policeman phoned.’
‘What?’
‘The one I could never stand. You know.’
‘He phoned you?’
‘Uh huh. He said that if I spoke to you I should get you to call him. He wasn’t too polite either. I don’t know why I can’t think of his name. I wrote it down, just a…’
‘Andy. Andy Gold.’
‘That’s right. He left his number. He said he’d tried you at home and at your office. Here it is, 0973 534 826.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘I’ve got it.’
‘Right,’ Sharon said. ‘You know, Billy, I think I’d better come over to yours…’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind at all. Really. I’ll see you later.’
‘OK then,’ she said.
I put the phone down. Andy wouldn’t have called Sharon unless something was going on. He would have had to get hold of the number somehow. I ran into the nearest newsagent and asked the man for some change. Even as the words left my mouth I could see him forming his response.
‘Sorry, my friend…’
I picked up a handful of chocolate bars and slapped them down on the counter before thrusting a fiver at him. His till rattled open and I took the coins he offered me.
‘Wait a minute, you forgot…’
The phone box was occupied. I pulled open the one next to it and found that it only took cards. I went outside again and waited, but when I peered in over the shoulder of the woman who was using it I saw that she still had ninety pence left. I ran off up the High Street towards Cafe Delancey again, trying not to make the very disappointing decision that it really was about time that I bit the bullet, gave in to the modern world and got a mobile. I ignored the maître d’, pushed through the crowd and eventually got to the little plastic call box that was sitting on the end of the polished wood bar. I pumped two pound coins into the slot.
‘DS Gold.’
I pressed the heel of my hand into my right ear.
‘DS Gold.’
‘Andy,’ I said. ‘It’s Billy.’
‘Billy. You have to meet me. Where the hell are you?’
‘In a bar. What is it?’
I moved aside to give some room to a waitress carrying a tray of drinks. It was the same one I’d seen before and after doing a double take and spinning her mind back six years she did recognize me. I saw all sorts of cogs turning, which were replaced by a look of concern. I held a just-a-minute finger up to her and let her go past.
‘Did you find the boy?’ I bellowed.
Andy left a second. I could hear a siren in his background and then a door slam.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Then what the hell—?’
‘The girl,’ he said. ‘We found the girl.’
‘The girl?’
‘The girl you told me about, from York’s. For God’s sake keep up, will you? Donna Appleby. Natalie, as you said she calls herself.’
‘And you want me to ID her?’
The waitress had come back. She was waiting, wanting to say hello to me. Her nervous look told me she wanted to ask about my brother.
‘No, not really, Billy,’ Andy’s voice was a distant crackle. ‘She had a rail-pass on her. We know who she is. But I think you should come over anyway.’
I held another finger up to the waitress and then covered my ear again. ‘Where is she?’ I shouted. ‘Calshot Street?’ My heart sunk at the prospect of spending any more time in that building.
‘No,’ Andy said. ‘No, she’s not there.’ I was relieved. But then Andy’s voice died for a second and I thought that my cash had run out or else the signal had gone. I was about to hang up and redial when he came back on the line.
‘She’s not at the station,’ he said.
‘Then where the fuck is she?’
‘She’s at the Whittington, Billy.’
Chapter Sixteen
It was the second time I’d been to the Whittington Hospital on Highgate Hill and I tried not to think of the first time. Instead I thought of what Andy had said over the phone about not needing me to come and identify Donna-Natalie. At the time I’d been confused – even if she did have ID on her, I’d still have to say that it was her I saw leaving York’s that night with the murder victim. But now I knew what he was getting at. Looking at Natalie through the seeming confusion of tubes and wires connecting her to the insulin, and oxygen, and heart monitors, which were all there to try to keep her alive, I didn’t think that her own mother would have been able to tell who she was. Her face was covered in so many bandages, and what was visible was so swollen and misshapen that she could have been just about anybody.
Andy Gold and I sat on canvas chairs by the side of the curtained-off bed and looked down at the girl who was occupying it. A nurse walked by, who obviously knew who Andy was, and she gave us both a look that had a warning in it. Donna-Natalie had had brief moments of lucidity apparently, and the staff didn’t want anyone badgering her with questions if she came round again. Andy was staring at Natalie so hard he didn’t seem to notice the nurse but I gave her a slight nod of acknowledgement and a serious smile that was supposed to say, don’t worry we won’t bother her. The nurse allowed herself to be fractionally reassured before bustling off down the ward to see to another patient.
I looked down at Donna-Natalie and tried to fix in my head the odd thought that the messed up inert body in front of me was the same sunny girl with the clear face and the quick smile I’d seen that morning in Camden. I let out a breath and Andy put a hand on my shoulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
I was surprised. ‘I didn’t know her. I just took her picture.’
Andy smiled, and let the sounds of the ward float over us for a second. Steel sounds, electronic sounds, so different from the smell, the all-too-human smell that hid just behind the disinfectant but was always there. I looked at Andy and was puzzled, as I often am by him, to see that he seemed genuinely affected by the sight of Natalie lying there.
‘You liked her though.’
‘She was a nice girl,’ I said, somehow feeling that I had to justify myself. ‘She was a nice, bright, fucked around girl, who should never have come to London. She should have been riding her pony around the field near her house, or else if she did
come it should have been to wander round Madame Tussaud’s holding hands with her mum and dad. Not lying here or sitting on the street or doing whatever else she was doing.’
‘Which is why I’m sorry,’ Andy said. He pushed himself up on my shoulder and walked out of the ward to get some coffee.
* * *
Donna-Natalie had been in hospital for twenty-four hours, ever since being brought there by the ambulance that had rushed down to King’s Cross to pick her up. She was admitted suffering from major concussion as well as excessive cranial fluid caused by severe trauma, and by the time I’d got there she had already had two emergency operations to remove shards of her skull, which had splintered and become embedded in the soft tissue of her brain. Her nose and both of her cheekbones were shattered, as was her jaw, which had almost disintegrated into miniature rubble under the impact it had suffered. As I sat there trying to focus on the fragile, almost imperceptible sound of her breathing, Andy came back and told me what the doctor had told him. It was close to a miracle, he’d said, that Andy had been called to see Donna lying in an intensive care unit on the ground floor of the Whittington, rather than on a cold piece of clean steel downstairs.
At approximately nine o’clock that morning Donna-Natalie had caused what London Underground refer to as a passenger incident, when they are trying to explain to irate customers why a particular line is being subject to delays at a given time. At nine o’clock she had jumped in front of a tube train, a Victoria Line service coming into the platform at King’s Cross. She had been at the near end of the platform and had, according to the very distressed German tourist who had been standing only feet away from her at the time, been acting very strangely. For at least ten minutes she had been wandering aimlessly about the platform in a daze but had then started screaming, very suddenly, and very loudly, for no apparent reason, as if she had suddenly seen something terrible. The tourist had then watched in horror as Donna held her hands up in front of her face and sprinted towards the steadily increasing sound of the incoming train as fast as she could. The tourist managed to make it to her feet but there was no way she could have caught up with the girl to stop her.
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