by Peter James
In your dreams, Dr Tennent.
Then, aloud, he said, ‘I hate cocktail parties.’
‘Why is that?’ Michael replied.
Dr Goel blanked him. ‘Why is what?’
‘Why do you hate cocktail parties?’
‘What makes you think I hate cocktail parties?’ Dr Goel asked, with disarming innocence.
‘You just said so.’
Dr Goel frowned at him. ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t say anything.’
On the top sheet of paper in the file folder, beneath where he had written today’s date, 23 July, with his Parker fountain pen (a first wedding anniversary gift from Katy) Michael made a note. Some conditions made people speak aloud without realising they had done so.
Thomas Lamark had to work hard to suppress a smile. This was going to be much easier than he had feared. You might be smart, Dr Michael Tennent, but you have no idea how much smarter I am.
Tina Mackay had been his only slip-up so far. Not a big slip-up, but unnecessary. He had not done his research properly with her, hadn’t known her father was so high profile, a big cheese in the civil service: the coverage they had given his daughter’s disappearance was out of all proportion to her significance.
Every bloody day there was an article. Quotes from friends, quotes from her mother, quotes from the police. Everyone was getting more worried. And the police had no leads!
There had been six editors on the list who had turned the book down. Any one of them would have done fine. The coin had told him to take Tina Mackay.
He blamed the coin.
This office was a tip, it was disgusting, really it was. How could the psychiatrist work here? How could he find anything? Look at the wodges of paper, the loose floppy disks, the magazines, the files, just piled everywhere, haphazardly. Anyone would think he was in the middle of moving in but he had been here for seven years.
You are far, far filthier than a pig, Dr Tennent, and one day, very soon, you are going to squeal far, far louder than one.
And that’s before I start to really hurt you.
Thomas had familiarised himself with the building before coming in. He’d strolled around the grounds, checked out the exits, the fire escapes, and then taken a good walk around the inside, carrying his clipboard. He reckoned it was a fair bet that if you carried a clipboard no one would challenge you.
Now he knew all the staircases, passages, doors.
He also knew he was Michael Tennent’s last patient today. It would be easy to take him or kill him after the session. But that would be too easy, and he wasn’t ready yet. He still had unfinished business.
‘I’d like to know a bit about your parents, Terence. Are they still alive?’
Instantly, Michael saw the reaction in the man’s face, as if he had touched a deep nerve.
Dr Goel did not reply.
Michael saw the man struggle to keep his composure. His body language had changed from a man at ease to someone under threat. Dr Goel leaned forward, arms tightly crossed, then he leaned back.
Michael gave him a couple of minutes, and when he still did not say anything, Michael asked, ‘Do you find it difficult to talk about your parents?’
‘I don’t find it difficult to talk about anything, Dr Tennent,’ he replied, with haunted eyes.
There was clearly a big key in his childhood, but Michael could not find the way into it today. All further questions about his parents simply made Goel clam up and rock backwards and forwards in his chair.
Michael moved to a different subject, planning to come back at the parents from another angle, and asked Dr Goel about his work.
‘I’m afraid it is classified information,’ he replied.
Michael looked down at the man’s incomplete form. ‘You are a widower. Shall we talk about your late wife?’
‘You are asking a lot of questions, Dr Tennent.’
‘Do you resent that?’
‘Why should I?’
Michael changed tack again. ‘How do you wish me to help? What is the problem you want me to solve?’
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ Dr Goel said. ‘You are asking a lot of questions.’
At six o’clock, Michael shook Dr Terence Goel’s hand, and Terence Goel told him he looked forward to seeing him again the following week, at the same time.
Michael closed the door, sat down and glanced through his notes. He felt zonked – exhausted and confused by the man. It had been a long day. Dr Terence Goel, what do I make of you? What the hell is going on inside your head? If you want me to help you, you are going to have to open up to me. What have I learned about you today? Every time I asked you a question you replied with a question. You have one hell of a personality disorder. You are stubborn. You are a control freak. You are confused. Delusional. You very definitely have an obsessive streak.
Your parents are your Achilles’ heel.
The lawnmower was still going strong outside. Jesus, how much grass was out there?
He returned to the referral letter from Goel’s doctor. Clinical depression. He wasn’t convinced depression was at the heart of all this.
To the bottom of the list of notes he had written down, he added a mental one: ‘FUBAB’. It stood for Fucked Up Beyond All Belief.
Then he turned to his computer and, once more, for the hundredth time today, checked his e-mail. With a beat of excitement he saw, finally, that he had a reply from Amanda Capstick. He dragged the mouse across the pad, and double clicked on the e-mail to open it. Like the one he had sent her, it was short and simple. It said: ‘I’m missing you too.’
Chapter Twenty-six
Detective Constable Glenn Branson eyed the brand new Jaguar sports convertible that was driving in the opposite direction to him, along the seafront towards Brighton, with its roof down, its wipers jerking across the dry windscreen and its hazard lights flashing.
In particular he looked at the driver, a greaseball youth who shot him a nervous glance. Although Glenn was in plain clothes in an unmarked car, if the youth was a local villain he would be aware of the tell-tale signs: the make of car, dark colour, type of radio aerial. Glenn noted he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
In the short time he had been with the force, Glenn had earned respect and he was well liked; although a rookie detective, he was a mature human being, having joined the force relatively late, at twenty-nine. He had completed two years’ as a police constable, first on foot patrol then in cars, and had then successfully applied for the CID. He’d served the standard two years probation period then, just two months ago, had completed a further year as a temporary detective constable, following which he had taken and passed the CID course with honours.
In his former life, Glenn had worked for ten years as a nightclub bouncer. He was black, six foot three inches tall, weighed a tad under two hundred pounds and was as bald as a meteorite. Not many people had given him trouble, and the job had paid so well he’d been scared to give it up. It wasn’t until his son, Sammy, was born that he had plucked up the courage to change. He wanted his son to be proud of him. He didn’t ever want his son to have to tell someone that his daddy was a bouncer.
Normally Glenn brimmed with confidence but in these few weeks since passing his exams and becoming a fully fledged detective he had been nervous. There was a huge amount to remember and he wanted to get it right. He’d seen how easily the police could lose a case by a simple error in procedure. In the movie Storm-10, Kirk Douglas, quoting Einstein, had said, ‘Heaven is in the details.’ Good policing was in the details, too.
Glenn was ambitious and he had some catching up to do in his new career. He had calculated he could make inspector or even chief inspector by his mid-forties. And that would be something he wanted to hear Sammy telling people. ‘My dad’s a chief inspector!’
I will be, Sammy, I promise you.
This Jaguar was definitely wrong.
So far he’d had a good day. He’d been congratulated on a piece of detection work by the DCI at the
station. A suspected antique-jewellery thief had denied being in Brighton on the day of the raid on a shop in the town and had a strong alibi – a sworn statement from a witness that he had been in London the whole of that day. Glenn had discovered a mobile phone registered in one of the suspect’s alias names. From analysis of the bill provided by Vodaphone, he could see that two calls had been made on the phone at different cells along the London-Brighton line, travelling north, two hours after the raid.
A stolen car would add another small feather to his cap. He had one job to do this afternoon, which was to take a statement at a flat that had been burgled last night. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, and then, he hoped, he could get off shift promptly at four in time to catch the four forty-five showing at the Duke of York cinema of a 1950s movie he had never seen on a big screen, On the Waterfront. Outside police work and his family, Glenn ate, drank and breathed old movies.
He swung round the car in a U-turn, accelerated hard, overtook two vehicles and pulled in directly behind the Jag. The driver seemed to be struggling with the controls. Glenn pressed the transmit button on the car’s radio, and said, ‘This is Charlie Hotel One-Four-Four.’
He heard a female voice at Central Control acknowledge him. ‘Charlie Hotel One-Four-Four.’
The Jag driver continued, unaware of him, still apparently struggling, wipers arcing away.
‘I am following a Jaguar sports car which I view with suspicion, navy blue, registration Romeo five-two-one Yankee November Victor, westbound on Hove Kingsway. Have a uniform patrol check it.’
‘Jaguar sports, navy blue, registration Romeo five-two-one Yankee November Victor. Thank you, Charlie Hotel One-Four-Four.’
Then he heard his local control on the personal radio clipped to his belt, a cheery male voice, Ray Dunkley – Glenn had met him a couple of times. He was putting out a call to a uniform police constable.
‘Charlie Hotel One-Six-Two, we have a grade three for you, a resident at three Adelaide Crescent is reporting concern about an elderly neighbour who hasn’t been sighted for three days. The name of the person she’s concerned about is Cora Burstridge.’
Glenn’s ears pricked up. He fumbled for his radio, unclipped it and raised it to his mouth. ‘Sorry to butt in, Control, this is Charlie Hotel One-Four-Four. Is that Cora Burstridge the actress? The Cora Burstridge?’
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘I knew she lived somewhere around there! I’m on my way to take a statement at fifteen Adelaide Crescent, I can check it out.’
‘Do you want to be bothered? Uniform can get over there some time this afternoon.’
‘It’s no bother!’
‘Thanks, Charlie Hotel One-Four-Four, if you don’t mind? Be helpful – we’re a car short today.’
Glenn felt a surge of excitement. ‘Cora Burstridge! Wow! She’s something else. Did you see her in Rivers of Chance with Robert Donat and Cary Grant? Nineteen fifty-two?’
‘Before my time. Afraid I’m not as old as you, Glenn.’
‘Ya, very witty.’
‘The neighbour will let you in. Mrs Winston. Flat seven.’
As he released his mike switch, the car’s radio fizzed again, and he heard the female controller putting out the details of the Jaguar. Moments later, he made a left turn into Adelaide Crescent, and watched the Jaguar continue on towards the congested traffic of central Brighton. Either the kiddie was innocent, or was planning to leg it on foot into the crowds rather than try to out-drive the police.
Glenn parked his car almost directly outside number 3, Adelaide Crescent, a proud classical Regency terrace: columned porticoes, tall sash windows, white paintwork fading and flaking under the relentless corrosion of the salty air. Its air of faded grandeur made it just the right kind of building for a star like Cora Burstridge, Glenn thought. It had real style.
He felt a guilty thrill of excitement just staring up at it, thinking about the actress who lived there. It ought not to matter to him who it was, his actions should be just the same for everyone, but of course this mattered to him.
Cora Burstridge!
He could reel off the names of every single one of her forty-seven movies by heart. Safe Arrival. Monaco Suite. Forgetting Mr Didcote. Desert Tune. Comedies. Musicals. Thrillers. Romances. She was so versatile, so beautiful, so graceful, and so very sharp-witted. Glenn had seen her only recently in a television adaptation of a Robert Goddard novel, and she still looked marvellous and gave a powerful performance. And, of course, only on Monday night she’d been on television at the BAFTA awards, where she had delivered a slightly disappointing acceptance speech, he thought. But he could forgive her that: the poor woman had clearly been overwhelmed by the adulation.
Must be about sixty-five now, he calculated. Amazing how good she looked. He glanced up at the windows of the building and felt a lump in his throat. He hoped fervently that she was all right.
He rang the bell for flat seven. Mrs Winston met him on the third floor. She was a pleasant woman well into her seventies, her grey hair elegantly coiffed.
Two bouquets were propped against the wall outside Cora Burstridge’s door. The hall was musty and smelt of cats, and it was dark and much less impressive than the exterior of the building: everything was browned with age and it felt as sad as a railway-station waiting room.
‘These arrived today,’ Mrs Winston explained. ‘Another eight or nine came yesterday – I’ve put them in my spare bathroom to keep them watered. And I took in her milk yesterday and this morning.’
‘You’ve tried her doorbell, I presume?’ he asked.
‘Yes, again just now. And I’ve knocked.’
Glenn knelt and peered through Cora Burstridge’s brass letterbox. He could see a large amount of post scattered on the floor. Surreptitiously, not wanting to distress Mrs Winston, he sniffed the air. There were faint traces of a smell that had become as familiar as it was unwelcome to him; it made his stomach heave and gave him an instant, terrible feeling of dread. That cloying, putrid-fish smell.
He could hear flies.
He stood up, pulled out his notebook, and asked Mrs Winston a few standard questions. When had she last seen Cora Burstridge? Had she heard any noises? Did the actress have many visitors? A housekeeper?
To the last question, Mrs Winston surprised him by saying that Cora Burstridge was short of money. She had a cleaning lady who came once a week, on Fridays, for a couple of hours, that was all.
‘I’d have thought she must be a very rich lady,’ Glenn said.
‘I’m afraid not. She hadn’t worked much in the past ten years. I think she’d made a few bad investments and her last husband was a gambler.’
Glenn asked the woman if there was any other way into the flat and she directed him to the fire escape at the back. Then he persuaded her to go back inside her own flat: he didn’t want her to see what he feared he was about to see himself.
He radioed the duty uniform-section sergeant, gave him the facts and received authorisation to force an entry. Then he checked out the fire escape, a precarious metal super-structure which led up to a solid, rusted-up door, but gave no access to any windows.
He went back to the front door of Cora Burstridge’s flat, rang the bell several times, knocked, and then, to be quite sure, called loudly through the letterbox. Nothing.
The door was secured with a fairly recent Banham deadlock and there was no point, he knew, in even considering trying to pick it. Brute force was his best option. He tried gently with his shoulder, then much less gently with his right foot. The door yielded a fraction but the lock did not give. He debated whether to radio for a unit with a portable battering ram on board, but did not want to risk missing out on this himself. Instead, he continued to hammer away with his foot.
After some moments, he became aware of other doors opening and of voices murmuring. A young man in a T-shirt and shorts came to the top of the stairs, then stopped with a look of shock when he saw Glenn, perspiring, in his grey suit.
With a look of horror, the youth fled down the stairs. Glenn made a mental note about that – he probably had drugs in his flat. Then he turned his full concentration back on the door, and kicked hard again.
Finally the lock tore away from the door frame, but the door swung open only a few inches then stopped tight against the safety chain. It had been installed well and it took several more very hard kicks before it yielded. He pushed the door shut as best he could behind him, to keep out prying eyes, then stood struggling against the smell and the nausea rising inside him. Then he pulled on the thin rubber gloves he carried in his pocket.
He was in a small hallway. Two exquisite abstract paintings of Parisian street scenes hung on one wall, and on the opposite wall were two framed playbills. Cora Burstridge and Laurence Olivier in Time and the Conways at the Phoenix Theatre, Charing Cross Road, and Cora Burstridge, Anna Massey and Trevor Howard in Lady Windermere’s Fan at the Theatre Royal, Brighton.
In spite of his anxiety, he could not help feeling awed at being inside the home of this great actress – one of the great actresses. Something about it that he couldn’t pinpoint made it feel different from anywhere he had ever been before. It had an air of magic, of being in some other world, part of an exclusive club which you had to be a rich, famous celebrity to join. He was looking forward to telling his wife, Ari, tonight. She’d never believe he had been inside Cora Burstridge’s home!
Then his anxiety returned with a vengeance. Stepping carefully over the mail he walked into a large drawing room, with the curtains partially drawn. Two bluebottles were batting themselves against the window. It was furnished almost entirely in art deco. It was utterly stunning, but gave Glenn the eerie sense of being in a time warp, heightened by more old playbills and film posters, as well as framed photographs. In pride of place above the mantel-piece was a letter from the Princess Royal thanking the actress for the time and effort she had put into hosting a fund-raising evening for Save the Children.