by David Mark
“Not open yet,” he says, and his accent is local.
Pharaoh pulls out her warrant card. Crosses the space between them. He gives her a quick once over and his eyes linger on her breasts for no longer than anybody else’s do.
“Superintendent,” he says, reading the card and looking impressed. He smiles, friendly and open. “What’s he?”
Pharaoh turns to look at McAvoy trying to get his warrant card out of his waistcoat pocket and dropping his car keys all at the same time.
“Him? He’s a defective sergeant. Don’t try and pronounce his name. He’s Scottish.”
The man looks at McAvoy, who is straightening his clothes. “Rangers or Celtic?”
McAvoy pushes his hair back from his face. “Ross County. I can only apologize.”
The man laughs. “Better state than Rangers these days, at least. How the hell did they let that happen, eh?”
Pharaoh gives a wave of her hand, telling both men to stop talking about football. She looks up at the imposing building. “Lovely place,” she says. “You a groundsman?”
The man sticks out his hand and withdraws it when he sees the dirt on his knuckles. “Groundsman? Nah. I’m a contractor. New owners have got a whole crew coming in next month to do the place up. I’m keeping it nice enough so that the MD can show his investors around as it stands. They’re not short of cash, I’ll tell you that.”
“I read on the Internet it had been sold . . .”
“Yeah, big company with a base in Sweden. Or Norway. One of those . . .”
“Sweden. Sceptre Healthcare.”
The man rummages around in the pocket of his overalls and finds a grubby card. He reads the name on it. “Yeah, Sceptre.” He shows them the card. “‘Bernt Moller,’” he reads. “He’s my contact. Just told me to keep it nice, really. They’ve only been up here a couple of times, but they had people in expensive suits with them. It’s going to be fancy. I’ve seen the plans.”
Pharaoh looks at the card, and in the corner of her eye sees McAvoy taking down the name and number in neat handwriting.
“It’s not going to house nutters anymore then?”
The man gives a laugh, showing slightly crooked teeth and silver fillings. “Last of them were long gone by the time I got this contract.”
“And it’s going to be an old folks’ home?”
“Don’t let them hear you say that! I’ve seen the brochures. They love their marketing speak. It’s all respite care and quality-of-life and fancy words to try and get you to part with your cash. Going to be lovely, though.” He gestures at the house. “Couldn’t not be, really. Gorgeous place.”
McAvoy looks around him. Through a line of lime trees he spots an outbuilding with a red slate roof. He can see a faint line of what looks like barbed wire above loose brickwork.
“Outbuildings come as part of the sale?”
The contractor looks puzzled. “I just stop the weeds growing through the cracks and pull the leaves out of the gutters. Why do you ask?”
McAvoy shrugs, and then realizes he doesn’t like being the sort of person who answers a question without words. “I heard there had been an incident here. When it was still in the hands of the old owners.”
“No idea, mate. Is that what you’re here for?”
Pharaoh kicks a pebble with the toe of her biker boot. She seems to be mulling something over.
“I’m Trish, by the way,” says Pharaoh with the practiced ease of somebody who knows how best to get men on her side. “You are?”
“Gaz,” he says with a smile. “Gary. Reid.”
“A pleasure, Gaz. We were rather hoping to speak to somebody who used to work here. A psychiatrist. He was a very senior figure here a few years ago.”
Gaz rubs a hand over his jaw. His face implies that he would love to help but can’t.
“There’s still some of the old stuff in boxes,” he says after a pause. “Belonged to the old owners. May be some names and addresses. If you ring that Swedish bloke, he would probably say to help yourself.”
Pharaoh looks at him for a moment, then swallows, letting a smile creep onto her face. “Already phoned him, Gary. Just now. Nice chap, isn’t he? Loves pickled herring, apparently. Got a poster of Freddie Ljungberg on his desk. Reads a lot of Wallander. Says it’s fine. Just to go right in. You probably heard me.”
Gaz’s smile matches Pharaoh’s. He looks like the sort who enjoys giving the rules a slight tweak. He looks as though he had been expecting a boring day and now has the opportunity to give himself a story to tell in the pub tonight.
“Was he sitting in an Ikea chair?” he asks, enjoying this. “Blond. Drives a Volvo . . .”
“That’s the chap,” says Pharaoh. “We good?”
Gaz nods. “I’m going for a bacon roll in a bit anyway. Door’s open. Load of cardboard boxes in the second office to your right. I’m sure he told you that.”
Pharaoh reaches out and puts a hand on his forearm. “Word for word.”
Reid crunches away across the gravel, toward a small blue transit van parked in the shade of the far wall. A moment later, he’s reversing out and heading through the gate.
“Coming?”
McAvoy has a finger in his ear and his phone to the side of his head. He’s reading the dirty business card in his hand and having no luck getting in touch with Bernt Moller. He leaves a message with a secretary with a better English accent than his own and mentions that Gary Reid had told them to go right ahead.
Pharaoh is standing in the doorway of the great stately home, leaning against the cool stone. “Does it suit me?” she asks, gesturing at the mansion. “Think I would fit in here?”
McAvoy stands beside her and turns to take in the view. Examines the grounds, the church, the tumbledown outbuildings, and the lime trees that veil the barbed wire.
“Lady of the manor,” he says. “I can see it now. You married the owner and he died on your honeymoon night. Now you offend all the old-money snobs and have elaborate parties here with your husband’s money.”
Pharaoh laughs appreciatively and plays along. “And you can be a Scottish laird, visiting from the Highlands. You’re here to persuade me to buy five hundred acres of quality sheep-farming land. This evening I’m going to get you drunk on old wine from the cellar and persuade you to do a handstand in your kilt.”
McAvoy busies himself putting his notebook away. “It’s always the kilt with you, isn’t it, guv?”
Pharaoh turns her back and enters the cool of the porch. “You should wear one for work. Would be something to threaten the villains with during interviews. Can you imagine? ‘For the benefit of the tape, Detective Sergeant McAvoy just waggled his bollocks at the suspect. The suspect is crying.’”
They cross a wood parquet floor past the deserted reception desk. It’s a cool, airy place with high ceilings and dangling chains that have clearly been used to support chandeliers. It has the air of a Tudor castle: its owner imprisoned for heresy and his buildings left to fall into disrepair. The light does not extend much beyond the open doorway, but there is enough of a glow for McAvoy to investigate the black-and-white photographs that still hang in brown wooden frames upon the drab magnolia walls. He and Pharaoh spend a few minutes using the lights from their mobile phones to stare into crowd scenes; to examine pictures of agricultural workers long dead, standing by hay bales and scowling below hats and mustaches. The images are a joyless jumble, all grainy and dead eyes.
Pharaoh pushes at a pair of mahogany double doors which swing open as she twists the brass handle. It’s dark and cold inside, and smells old.
“This place would drive you mental even if you were sane,” mutters Pharaoh, shivering. “Shut down for years, you said. How come I can still smell cabbage and disinfectant?”
She reaches up to the long panel of light switches and flicks half a dozen of
them up. After a slight pause, the chandeliers crescendo into life, pitching a yellow puddle into the chilly space, spreading down the corridor in a flood.
Pharaoh carries on down the hallway, with its chessboard floor and burgundy walls, to the staircase, which sweeps elegantly upward.
Peaches-and-cream little girls in velvet dresses.
Stern patrician types in curled wigs and uncomfortable robes.
The place may have been a hospital, but it feels like an abandoned stately home. Pharaoh looks as though she is considering sliding down the banister, then gives a shiver and comes back down, heading, businesslike, to the door she had been directed to.
“This one,” says Pharaoh, twisting a door handle. “Oh bloody hell.”
“Guv?”
Pharaoh pulls a face. The door that Gaz had directed them to is locked.
McAvoy lets his disappointment show. He wants to try the handle himself, just to feel involved, but forces himself not to.
“Worth looking around?” he asks.
Pharaoh angles her head to peer up the stairs. She doesn’t look keen to spend any more time here. It feels old. The walls have soaked something up over the centuries and seem to be silently screaming that this building will be here long after they, and everybody else, have gone. McAvoy wonders what the patients thought when they were brought here. Some were willing, asking for help. Others had been sectioned by their families. Half a dozen had been sent by the courts, trying to ease the workload of busier and better-known facilities like Rampton.
Pharaoh screws up her face. “Load of empty bedrooms and the lingering smell of cauliflower farts? No thanks. It’s okay, we weren’t sure what we were looking for anyway, were we? We’re just bloody fishing.” She looks a bit dejected. “Let’s go, eh? Ben Neilsen will have an address for the shrink by now anyway. And it won’t be hard to find out where Hoyer-Wood is a patient, even though I don’t know what we’re expecting to find there, either. Bloke’s a cripple, you said.”
Discreetly, McAvoy gives the door handle a shake, for good measure. Were he to allow himself to try, he would be able to kick the damn thing off the hinges. But he knows he will not try.
A sudden vibration in his pocket causes McAvoy to give a tiny shout and Pharaoh begins to laugh as her sergeant retrieves his phone and blushes furiously. He speaks softly and quickly. Lays on the charm. Hangs up smiling.
“Bernt Moller,” he says by way of explanation. “Very polite man, but asked if we would mind submitting our request through the proper channels. Told us that Reeves had overstepped the mark a little.”
“Reeves?”
“Reeves. Reid. One of the two. Employed him by pure luck when he was on a site visit. I hope we haven’t got him in trouble. Seemed a decent sort.”
“Well, we better hadn’t upset the Scandinavians any further,” says Pharaoh, and threads her arm through his own. “Come on.” He feels the heat of her, the closeness. Smells her. Hair spray and wine, perfume and perspiration.
He doesn’t know what to say. What to do. Just feels himself coloring, and the hairs on his arm rising to scratch the strap of his watch.
“Excuse me, this is private property.”
McAvoy looks up as the double doors swing open. Two men in uniform stand outlined in the soft light.
“We’re police,” says Pharaoh, pulling out her warrant card. “Sorry. The gardener said to go straight in . . .”
The nearest man takes the warrant card from Pharaoh’s hand and looks at it closely, then at her. He’s young. Too young to scare anybody but not old enough to realize it.
“I’ve grown my hair since then,” says Pharaoh, pointing at the picture on the ID. “You like it?”
“You be quiet,” says the second man. He’s got a round belly and receding hair and there are short bristles sprouting from his red nose. Up close, there is enough of a similarity about the two men’s eyes for McAvoy to think that they may be father and son. The logo on their uniforms is a bearskin hat, and the words “Tower Security” are stitched in yellow onto their gray short-sleeved shirts.
“Easy now,” says McAvoy, stepping forward. “We were just hoping to speak to somebody in charge . . .”
“There’s nobody here yet,” says the older man. His face softens a bit. He’s clearly relieved that the intruders are nicely dressed and aren’t carrying anything that could be used as a weapon. He instructs the younger man to give Pharaoh her warrant card back. “Sorry, we get no end of bloody trespassers.”
Pharaoh is sucking her teeth, unsure whether to accept the apology or beat the man to death for telling her to be quiet. She nods.
“We’d best get some air, eh?”
The four of them walk back into the light, the heat feeling like a physical barrier as they emerge from the cool of the reception area. As one, they stare up at the gray clouds. They are shifting. Rolling. Taking shape. Taking on the hue of rotten fruit and crackling with barely contained energy.
“Going to be one hell of a bloody storm,” says the younger security guard breathlessly. “Will give us an easier life though, eh?”
“You get much hassle, do you?” asks McAvoy, showing his own warrant card and finding that nobody cares.
The older man blows out demonstratively. “Hikers are no bother. There’s a public right-of-way past the church, even though it’s all bloody nettles and thistles and cow shit, so you wouldn’t head up there for a picnic. It’s the house itself that brings the nutters out. You know how it is. They read on the Internet about this abandoned asylum and get all these images in their mind. We’ve had loads of photographers trying to get in. Lick of paint and it could still be a mansion. You should have seen it back in the day. We just chase them away.”
McAvoy considers. “You’re on-site all the time then?”
The older man shakes his head. “Head office is in York, but we have regional offices here and there. Two-man teams look after a few different properties. Me and the lad are based in Driffield. Got a call on the radio about a couple of intruders. We weren’t far off, so shot on over.”
Pharaoh and McAvoy exchange a look, picturing Gary Reeves. Little git.
Something occurs to McAvoy. “You saw this place in its glory days then?”
The older man nods. “We’ve had the contract to look after this place for years. Tower has been in business for decades. You’ve probably heard of us. We try and help the police where we can—”
“Did you work here fourteen years ago?” interrupts McAvoy.
“Boy was at school,” says the older security guard. “I was still working the oil rigs.”
McAvoy gives up. He is about to thank them for their time when the older man speaks again.
“I live just up the road though, mate. Hutton Cranswick. If you’re talking about the fire, I know a bit.”
McAvoy scratches his face. Controls his breathing. Stares at the gray sky and the bare brick, the barbed wire, and the lime trees.
“Fire?”
“Yeah, not a big one. Just the old groundsman’s cottage. The doctors had access to it, you see, for when they stayed over. Not much of a place to live, in the grounds of a nuthouse, but the shrink who had it seemed happy enough. Was a shame what happened.”
McAvoy coughs, knowing that when he speaks next, he is at risk of sounding feeble.
“A shame?”
The older man assents. “One of the nutters went nuts, mate. Held one of the doctors and his family at knifepoint. The owners called security instead of the police, but by the time our lads got here it was all over. Horrible for the family, though. I got all the gossip from one of the old boys in the village. Was a bit of a balls-up all round, apparently . . .”
“The doctor had family with him?”
More nodding. “I can’t remember much more than that. Was amazing they kept it out of the papers, really. That w
as the beginning of the end, I think. Old owners put it up for sale not long after. Took years before this Swedish lot showed an interest.”
Pharaoh nudges McAvoy. Indicates he should shut up. “How did it end?” she asks. “The hostage situation?”
“Don’t really know,” says the older man. “Nobody really wanted to go into it. Was all very embarrassing. Mental units are supposed to have strict security measures, you see. Tower was the outside contractor. The owners’ own psychiatric nurses would have been the ones in the firing line if it had got out. I’m just surprised it’s taken you so long. Bit late now, though, I reckon. Shrink’s long gone. I reckon the locals will like the place more as an old people’s home, don’t you think?”
McAvoy closes his eyes.
“The incident,” he says softly. “The night it happened. Could you tell us everything? We’re investigating a murder. Two.”
The older man whistles. “More than my job’s worth, mate.” He looks at the younger man, then the two detectives. Gives a naughty smile. “But it’s lunchtime in a couple of hours. We drink in The Wellington in Driffield. Mine’s a pint.”
Pharaoh smiles, and McAvoy breathes out. He watches the other three walk away. Stands here, on the steps to the manor house, his back to the forbidding structure where Sebastien Hoyer-Wood was a patient because his university friends convinced a judge he was crazy.
“Sebastien Hoyer-Wood,” he shouts at their backs. “You know the name?”
The security guard looks baffled. Shrugs. “I’ll check with the lads who worked here.” He looks at his watch. “Pint. The Wellington.”
And they are gone.
McAvoy tries to walk down the steps to where Pharaoh is waiting, looking at him strangely. Behind her, he sees the dark clouds of the coming storm.
• • •
Detective Chief Inspector Colin Ray turned fifty last night. He celebrated at home, alone, in his flat in Hull’s Old Town. There were two cards on his mantelpiece, both from mail-order companies that valued his business and wished him a very happy day of celebration. He drank four cans of beer, ate a chicken bhuna, texted a filthy joke to Shaz Archer, and then masturbated halfheartedly over a picture in the Hull Daily Mail. The lucky recipient of his attentions was a local MP, fronting a campaign for better street lighting, and there had been something about her smile for the camera that had struck him as slutty. Not slutty enough, as it happened. He had gone to sleep half-pissed and frustrated, cursing the MP: his fingers coated in garlic and grease; his mobile phone discarded next to him on a yellow-stained pillow. The call he had been hoping for never came.