‘OK, but make it quick.’
‘Mike didn’t do it.’
‘Billy…’
‘He did not do it. He didn’t. I’ve just been to where Josephine Thomas was killed. She was big Andy, big. Like she looked pregnant. Especially in her winter coat. She was killed because of that but then left there, when they realized. Two women from the Lindauer. One pregnant, one who could have been. Mike didn’t do it.’
There was a pause. Live static until eventually Andy spoke.
‘I know.’
‘What?’
‘DI Gold? The fire officer wants you, sir.’
‘Billy. North side of the tunnel, OK?’
‘Andy? What the hell do you mean you know?’
‘The north side of the tunnel.’
‘Andy!’
‘There’s been another one,’ Andy said. ‘We just found another one.’
Chapter Fourteen
It took me forty minutes to get to the Rotherhithe, forty minutes that seemed like forty days. The traffic got worse the nearer I got. As I cut down bus lanes and leaned on my horn, Andy’s words rang round my head. Another one. So it wasn’t a one-off, a jealous husband. Josephine Thomas and Ally – the Lindauer was the link. It had to be. Christ – were there any other pregnant women there? I didn’t know. The place was too big. I had the urge to forget about Andy and just head straight there. I pictured the building, saw the flow of people leaving later on. Or maybe for lunch, to take a stroll in the park. Someone could have been watching it, right now. Should I go? No, I needed to speak to Andy. I wondered if he’d had the same thought about Josephine. No, if he had the Bill would have been down there, at the alleyway. Another one? I couldn’t believe he’d cut me off like that.
The Rotherhithe Tunnel forms a direct link with east and south London near Limehouse. If you’re going down to New Cross or Greenwich it’s the quickest route from anywhere east of the City, meaning that you avoid the snarl at the Elephant and along the Old Kent Road. It’s an old two-way tunnel and it seems very narrow when you drive through it for the first time, the lanes barely wide enough for your car, let alone the vans thundering towards you or the occasional lorry, not allowed to use the tunnel but sometimes doing so anyway. A small mistake can lead to a major pile-up if the circumstances are right, something which happens once or twice a year, or used to when I knew anything about it.
I found out soon enough why the traffic on Tunnel Approach was so bad. The tunnel was closed. It was a crash scene that I was looking at when I finally got down to the Rotherhithe. A flatbed truck was pushing its way out of a police cordon, a mashed pile of metal on the back that must have once been a car but didn’t look anything like one now. I swore as I was forced to back up to let it through. When it had passed I pulled up as close to the cordon as I could and got out. Beyond the cordon I could see shocked-looking uniforms coming out of the tunnel mouth, holding their helmets like miners after a pit fall. Traffic duty, it could give you as many nightmares as homicide. I hurried up to the tape towards a stout copper, who didn’t wait for me to say anything before telling me that there was no way I could leave my car there.
‘I need to speak to Andy Gold,’ I said to him. ‘DI Gold. My name’s Rucker, he told me to come down.’
‘First name?’
‘Billy. Billy Rucker.’
‘OK, sir, he’s in the tunnel.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But you might not want to go down. I can get someone to let DI Gold know that you’re here if you like.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find him.’
‘If you’re sure,’ the copper said.
Inside the tunnel it was fairly bright, portable emergency lights glaring in addition to the strip that snaked along the tunnel ceiling. I jogged down into it, towards the sound of heavy machinery. I could see an arc of sparks streaming over the heads of perhaps ten men, standing in front of another pile of twisted metal, bigger this time, completely filling the tunnel. What was it – a container lorry and a car? Or two cars moulded into one? I didn’t know and I didn’t care. In an instant all of the strength went out of my legs. I couldn’t move. I wasn’t able to take another step, as though I was running into an intense wall of flame. People had died in this tunnel. That was immediately clear. But that wasn’t why my legs had suddenly refused to work. Or why my heart was hammering inside my chest like it wanted to leap out. It was because I’d been here before. I’d come upon another sight like this, another burnt tangle of steel and tarmac like a mad sculptor’s vision of pain. Eight years ago. I stared ahead of me. The way they were working, there was obviously someone in there. I didn’t know who, or how many, I had no idea what this wreck held within it. The one eight years ago had held my brother. My brother had been trapped inside. In many ways he still is.
I was still stuck, physically unable to force my legs to move forward no matter what I told myself. Thinking maybe I should get the copper on the tape to fetch Andy after all. But no. I had to push through this. I had to. Time could be crucial; I had to get to Andy, and fast. Maybe it would save someone’s life if I did. The thought fired me, and I forced my feet forward, casting my eyes around, unable to see through the small crowd in front of me. Memories dive-bombed into my brain but I deflected them with a question. Andy was on a murder case: what the hell was he doing here at a smash? Even one as big as this. It made no sense. My eyes scanned every figure in front of me but I still couldn’t see him. The noise was getting louder. Finally I picked Andy out, standing to the side five yards from the wreck with his arms folded. I moved towards him, wanting to pull him aside, but my attention was drawn to the sight beyond him in spite of myself.
The violence and speed involved in the pile-up were perfectly preserved in the twisted display of charred metal and body parts. No sculptor could convey horror like this. It stopped me yet again, picked me up violently and hurled me backwards into the past. My eyes were glued to it.
‘Fuck,’ I said.
Andy swung his head round quickly before turning back towards the pile-up, nodding. Then he turned again and I could feel his eyes on me.
‘Billy,’ I heard him say. ‘Jesus. I’m sorry. Shit. If I’d thought. Are you OK?’
My throat turned over. I swallowed what little saliva there was in there and shook my head to dismiss his question. ‘What happened?’ I said.
‘Joy rider,’ Andy replied. He turned his head back quickly to the crash. ‘Joy rider, car full of mates. Happened four o’clock this morning.’ He pointed a finger. ‘That little cunt. See him? He’s the only one survived. Lorry driver dead as well. These guys have been trying to get him out for the last six hours and they won’t let me speak to him until they do. Another car went into the back of him but that’s been shifted. Can’t get any lifting gear in, obviously, so they’ve got to cut through the truck, then the car. Slowly. They’re scared the weight of the truck’ll shift onto him, though why they care, the little shit.’
Andy touched one of his colleagues, who moved aside for me. Through the space I got a clearer picture. The truck was on its side. The car had slammed into the mashed-in cab like a cruise missile. The lorry driver must have tried to turn when he saw the car coming, sending his vehicle over onto its side moments before the car impacted. The car had tried to turn too but must have spun, going in backwards, which must have been what had saved the driver. The car was now the size of a small table. I tried to force my mind to stay straight as I looked at the feet twisted up in it, and limbs, none of them connected. The car was stuck beneath the cab, but also rammed up against the tunnel wall. Suddenly I saw what Andy was pointing to. A face on the driver’s side. Two eyes, scared as a monkey’s, darting up towards the welders working above them.
I took Andy’s arm. I didn’t want to look at this. And not just because of Luke. Again I couldn’t believe that Andy had bothered with it. I shook my head.
‘Listen. Listen to me. I meant what I said. On the phon
e. Josephine Thomas was killed by the same person who killed Ally. You need to seal the alley she was found in, and start thinking about the women at the Lindauer Building. Warn them.’
‘It’s being done.’
I stopped for a second. ‘Right. Good. But I don’t understand. Another one? So what are you doing here? Andy?’
I was relieved and surprised at what Andy had said but still confused. And exasperated. Andy had turned his back on me. He was walking away, round towards the rear of the truck, closer to the welders trying to cut through to the trapped boy. I followed him, angry. Wanting to know what he was doing. He walked on and I sped up to keep pace, unable to stop my eyes darting to the car that was the focus of everyone’s attention. It had once been blue but I had no idea what make it was. I couldn’t tell. Luke had been driving a Cavalier, a silver one. My car. Just like then I found it almost beyond belief that anyone was alive inside. Luke hadn’t been conscious but the boy was, trapped in a space barely big enough for his head, terror making his eyes shiver as he watched me go by. I thought that he was holding his arm out to me but I was wrong: the arm was pale, almost blue. I pulled my eyes away and followed Andy as he skirted the tails of sparks leaping out towards him and made his way towards the front of the truck.
I was pissed off with Andy but maybe he was just going to give someone instructions, leave his mobile number, and then talk to me properly. Get the hell out of there. I watched him walk to the back of the car, which had been crushed against the wheel arch of the lorry when it had gone over. I’d expected to see firemen working from that end too, but I didn’t. The three men at the back of the car were dressed in civvies. All three were focused on the crushed boot. The man in the middle nodded at Andy’s approach, confirming something they’d clearly already spoken about. Seeing me, he looked a little confused, but a shake of Andy’s head told him that I wasn’t really there. Andy stopped now. He pointed towards a whorl of red, staining the dirty white tiling of the tunnel wall.
‘That’s what made the fireman curious,’ Andy said, for my benefit. ‘He managed to get most of the lid up with a crowbar and then he called us. I didn’t realize what we had until just before you phoned.’
Andy nodded towards the back of the car. I hesitated. Suddenly I knew why he was there. Why he’d come to a crash. Why he’d got me to go too. Andy nodded to me again and before I could think about it I stepped forward. To the boot. The three men stepped back, watching me. Taking a breath I looked inside.
The body was naked. It was the body of a woman, lying on its side. In the foetal position. The woman was white, had been white, her age uncertain, although I’d have guessed that she was youngish if someone had made me guess. Her height was difficult to distinguish too because her legs were pulled up under her.
And that’s it. I don’t have much else to say about the woman. But if this sounds like a scant description I didn’t have much else to go on. It wasn’t because of the blood, though there was plenty of that. The woman had had her head stove in so absolutely by the impact that there was nothing left of it. I couldn’t see teeth, eyes, nose, anything, just sunken shards of skull. Slowly I moved my eyes away from it. Down to the rest of the body. I didn’t want to but I did. I saw that the body was relatively untouched by the impact. But it was harder to look at than the remains of the woman’s skull had been. Much harder.
‘Must have stashed her in there before taking off,’ I heard Andy say behind me. ‘I thought she’d been stuffed in alive, that they were taking her somewhere to rape her or something. But she can’t have been. Right?’
One of the three men beside me nodded. I kept my eyes on the torso and a wave of revulsion surged inside me. All I had to push it back with was the sure knowledge that this huge wreck had meant nothing to this woman. She hadn’t felt any fear at the speed, hadn’t screamed at the sound of a skid or felt anything as her skull disintegrated. The revulsion kicked up stronger as I realized that what she had gone through must have been far, far worse than that.
The woman had been opened. Like a tent flap. There was nothing inside her.
Chapter Fifteen
I stared at the emptiness, the lack in front of my eyes. The shock had climbed up through my stomach and grabbed hold of my throat. After it had spread out into the rest of my body, I felt cold. I ran my hands up my arms but didn’t move away, trying to fix everything in my mind. My eyes stayed bound to the sight before them, transfixed almost, until a crawling sense of dirtiness started to move into me. I knew then that I was no longer learning anything. Just looking. So that I’d have to believe it. I felt small and scared, like I used to as a child, listening to the silence from downstairs that told me my father had finished arguing with my mother. That he was on his way up.
I raised my head from the woman but the sight of her stayed with me. Just as it had in the cafe, another image had burst into my mind, burst into the most private quarters there like storm troopers before I could bar the door. Andy was pulling me away and I let him, shivering, waiting for the image to fade. I wanted to ask Andy what he knew. I took three steps and stopped. The disgust and the shock were vast, but they were already being pushed out by something else. Relief. Relief was flooding in. The strange, awful relief that certainty brings. Even as I’d shouted at Andy over the phone I knew that my theory about Josephine Thomas was no more than a guess. I knew how I’d have sounded: Mike didn’t do it! There’s a maniac out there! I wouldn’t sound like that now.
The relief deepened even as I tried not to feel it. Mike wasn’t involved in this. He had not killed his wife. Anybody. I wanted to see him. Not to look at him, to try and read him. I wanted to take him home. Two days had past since he’d lost Ally and he’d been alone during that time. I was his friend, I hadn’t been there for him. The fact amazed me. I looked round for Andy, wanting to say: let’s find out who’s doing this. But once again Andy was striding away from me, back around to the other side of the lorry. I wanted us both to look at the woman, to compare notes, force each other to see things. I was frustrated, but again I followed him.
‘’Ello ‘ello ‘ello.’
Ignoring the sparks showering down towards him, Andy strode right up to the front of the wrecked car and bent down to the pale, terrified face peering out from inside it. I watched as the sparks died. Above Andy one of the firemen lowered his torch and flicked his visor. He didn’t look happy.
‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ he spat. ‘You can speak to that boy when we get him out of there!’
‘You all right, sonny?’ Andy said. He didn’t even glance at the fireman or acknowledge that he’d spoken. He reached in through the narrow gap and stroked the kid’s face. It stopped the fireman, who was beginning to make his way down to us. ‘You OK?’ Andy went on. The fireman relaxed further. ‘You happy there with all your mates, are you? Nice and comfy all squashed in like that?’
‘Get away from the vehicle. This second.’
‘Now then.’ I could see Andy smiling. ‘These brave fire fighters above you are trying to get you out of here. They have, however, confidentially informed me that the odds are less than good. The actions they’re taking might, instead of releasing you, just cause the truck you ploughed into to shift. If, or rather when, that happens, you’re pretty certain to end up looking a lot like your mates here. Or the lorry driver. He’s dead as well, or didn’t you know? Were they trying to keep that from you? Oops. Somebody’s dad, he was. All of which should make you feel very, very sorry, you naughty little boy. Speeding. Tut, tut. You were speeding, weren’t you?’
The kid’s face was only inches from Andy’s. He used what space he had to nod. Andy shook his head.
‘Oh dear. That’s three points, that is. And in a stolen car. Yes?’ Another nod. ‘Where did you nick it from?’
The kid hesitated for a second but Andy didn’t need to ask him again. ‘Lewisham,’ he managed to say. ‘The High Road. Wasn’t even locked, keys in it.’
‘I see. Thank you. Now
, under normal circumstances I’d be very happy to arrest you for this. But what I’m more concerned about is the lady in the boot.’ Andy gripped hold of the boy’s cheeks, his voice getting louder. ‘The naked, formerly pregnant lady someone took a butcher’s knife to. Now what have you got to tell me about her, eh? Come on, now. I don’t want to wait until you’re a piece of minced topside like your mates in there, so what have you got to say? What?! I asked you a fucking question…’
Andy screamed at the shaking face peering out of the debris as two firemen pulled him backwards. Andy asked him why he’d done it, what he’d done with the baby. The kid didn’t understand, he had no idea what Andy was talking about. It wasn’t him, I could see that. He’d just nicked the wrong car. It had been left with the keys in for someone like him to come along. The kid’s eyes were wide. Here was more information he couldn’t deal with. I kept my eyes on the kid while one of the firemen got in front of Andy and butted him back with huge, gloved hands.
Andy dodged the guy and made a break for the car but I caught his arm and spun him round, signalling to the fireman that I had him. I pushed Andy back ten, fifteen feet, succeeding in calming him down, and then I turned back to the fireman. His face was setting into anger. He took a step towards us, about to give Andy more grief but instead he stopped. We all did. We turned towards the car. Towards the deep, metallic lurch that was beginning to fill the tunnel. That was getting louder. A voice behind me said, ‘Oh, shit.’ I searched for the kid’s eyes among the wreckage. They were shaking. The huge, bellyache of a creak increased in volume, again and again, seeming to go on for ever. I gave up trying to hold onto Andy and we both stared at the car. The kid’s eyes and face were shaking and then his body began to shake too. He was screaming, in a frenzy, bucking his body again and again, trying to break out of the tiny space he was trapped inside. Whether or not he caused it I don’t know but the door arch above him began to buckle. The crowd let out a grunt like a rugby scrum. Next to me the fireman had begun to run. As he sprinted forward he called out, ‘Stay still. Don’t move. Do not move!’ but the boy only intensified his struggling.
It Was You Page 10