Splinter the Silence (Tony Hill)

by Val McDermid

  ‘Let’s have it, Stacey,’ Carol said. ‘You’ve done a brilliant job so far.’

  ‘I did some digging around on social media sites. I figured since he’s so savvy about that, he must have a presence. Anyway, I found a RigMarole page he deleted nearly a year ago and I followed the threads I picked up there. He had a girlfriend, Sarah Bell. They’d been together for a little over a year. I tracked a deleted message string between Sarah and one of her friends who was working in Australia. It turns out Sarah became pregnant when she was with Martin and decided to have a termination.’

  ‘He wouldn’t like that,’ Tony said. ‘He wouldn’t like that one little bit.’

  ‘There’s more,’ Stacey said patiently. Years of working with Tony had taught her the necessity of persistence. ‘Seventeen days after the termination, Martin came home from a business trip to find Sarah dead in the bath. She’d washed sleeping pills down with vodka and slashed her wrists, according to the inquest. Martin gave evidence that she’d been racked with guilt over the termination. Friends posted online that they couldn’t believe it —’

  ‘They always do,’ Tony said. ‘It’s a way of letting themselves off the hook. “If I don’t believe it, I couldn’t have done anything to prevent it”.’

  ‘One friend in particular said that Sarah wasn’t depressed or guilty about the termination, she was relieved. This is the friend that went to the clinic with her. She messaged another of Sarah’s friends on the evening of the termination to say Sarah was adamant that this wasn’t the time for her to have a child, that she wanted to be more established in her career and she wasn’t sure enough about the relationship to want kids yet. This was seventeen days before she allegedly killed herself.’

  ‘She could have changed her mind,’ Carol said. ‘Funny things, hormones.’

  ‘Or he could have killed her,’ Tony said. ‘Her killing his baby would be on a par with the feminists of Greenham killing his mother. Bad things happening because women deny their proper role in family structures. That’s what set him off, it’s obvious when you lay it out like Stacey did. He kills Sarah, making it look like suicide, and sees in her death the perfect template for doing this to other women. He sees himself as setting things right. Forcing women back to where they should be isn’t limiting them or oppressing them in his eyes. It’s about restoring the correct balance.’

  ‘You’re sure his father sold the family home?’ Carol said.

  ‘According to the Land Registry.’

  ‘He didn’t sell it to his son?’

  Stacey shook her head, tapping her screen. ‘He sold it to Harvinder Singh Khalsa.’

  ‘Just wanted to be sure.’

  ‘Have we got contact details for his father?’ Tony asked.

  ‘They’re on the whiteboard.’

  ‘Thanks, Stacey, that’s all good stuff.’ Carol thought for a moment then said, ‘Is there any indication that he’s in touch with any Bradfield school friends? He has to be holed up somewhere, that’s a good place to start.’

  ‘I’m on it.’ Stacey headed out and Tony resumed pacing.

  ‘Carol, I think he’s going to kill himself,’ he persisted. ‘He can’t complete his mission. The only thing he can do is try to make what he’s done so far meaningful. And he can only be sure of that if he’s beyond being held to account. Which means being dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t get that,’ Carol said, sighing with exasperation. ‘He’s expended all this imagination and energy in carrying out his fantasy. Why would he kill himself when he can disappear into the woodwork?’

  Before Tony could answer, Carol’s mobile rang. ‘It’s Paula,’ she said, putting the phone on speaker. ‘Hi, Paula, I’m here with Tony.’

  He moved closer to hear Paula. ‘The good news is Elinor’s on duty and she says Ursula is going to make it. The bad news is that she’s got some kind of drug in her system. Rohypnol or GHB or something similar, so the chances are she’s not going to remember anything useful. Obviously they’ve taken bloods for toxicology tests, so that might be helpful.’

  ‘Bloody date-rape drugs,’ Carol said. ‘But she’s alive, which is a result. And at least we know for sure how he was getting them to comply. Is her husband there?’

  ‘Yes. But he’s in a state of shock. Knows nothing, saw nothing, all he cares about is that Ursula’s going to be OK.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘The media are here already, by the way. Penny Burgess from the Sentinel Times and some teenager from Bradfield Sound.’

  ‘Is the uniform who brought Bill Foreman still around?’

  ‘Yes, he’s hovering.’

  ‘OK, leave him to guard Ursula. Get her into a side room on her own; Elinor should be able to sort that out for us. Nobody in or out except medical personnel with photo ID and her husband. And then I need you back here.’

  ‘OK, chief.’

  ‘You did a good job, you and Alvin. Getting her down. Saving her life.’

  ‘Thanks. But we shouldn’t have let him go.’

  ‘Better to let him go than to let Ursula die,’ Tony said. ‘If you’d realised and given chase, it might have been too late by the time you got back to her.’

  Not for the first time, Tony had hit on the saving grace. ‘Good point,’ Carol said. ‘See you back here.’ She ended the call. ‘I’m glad she’s going to pull through.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tony said, abstracted. He began pacing again. ‘So if he’s going to do it, I think he’s going to stick to the programme. He’s going to choose a death that reflects one of the women he’d already settled on. But he can’t go back to his base to get drugs or poison. He’s going to have to copy May Ayim and jump from the thirteenth floor.’

  ‘I think you’re reaching,’ Carol said. ‘I know you’re very good at getting inside the heads of psychopaths, paranoiacs and general nutters, but this time it feels like you’re making it up as you go along.’

  Tony gave a half-smile. ‘This whole case has been making it up as I go along. Sometimes you have to trust yourself.’

  ‘I trust you. I’m not sure I believe you, though.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s OK. I’ll go away and think some more.’ He waggled his fingers in a farewell and went back through to the squad room, where he studied the various details on the whiteboards then found a vacant computer. He spent a few minutes on the internet before he stood up and walked out into the sunshine. Time to do what he did best.

  58

  Kevin’s head came up as soon as Paula walked in and he beckoned her over. As she approached, he called to Stacey. ‘You got a minute, Stace?’

  She looked up, blinking as if she was surfacing from a dream. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘A minute?’

  She nodded and emerged from behind her bank of screens, stretching. Kevin tried not to look at the tautness of her blouse over her breasts. He’d spent years schooling himself out of sexist responses, but it was hard when women’s bodies were so present, so attractive, so tempting.

  Paula and Stacey gathered around the end of the table where he’d been working on tracking down old friends of Matthew Martin. ‘I spoke to Penny earlier,’ he said, casting an apprehensive look at Carol’s open door.

  ‘Any joy?’ Paula said.

  He scratched his ear. ‘I wouldn’t call it joy, but I have got an answer.’

  ‘Who was it?’ Stacey asked.

  Kevin’s voice dripped contempt. ‘Our former colleague, DC Sam Evans.’

  Stacey’s face froze, her eyes unblinking, her lips parted. Paula drew her breath in sharply. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Penny’s sure. And I’ve no reason to doubt her. She knows if she fucks me over, she won’t get another answer from this squad ever again.’

  While he was speaking, Stacey turned and walked back to her office, closing the door behind her. Paula stared after her. ‘Oh shit,’ she said.

  ‘What’s up with Stacey?’ Kevin said. ‘I mean, I know she thinks getting information from carbon-ba
sed life forms is beneath her, but at least I got what we needed to know.’

  ‘She’s been going out with him. Didn’t you know?’

  Kevin’s face showed his shock. ‘I had no idea. I didn’t know Stacey did dating.’

  ‘She doesn’t, as a rule. That’s why this is so devastating. This is going to break her heart.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m sorry about that. Me, I’m going to break his legs.’

  ‘No, Kevin. I think we should leave it be. If he’s not with Stacey, he’s not going to get anything to leak. We should make a point of letting him know we know, but that’s all.’

  Kevin grunted. ‘As long as we let him know in front of other people,’ he said. ‘The people he works beside need to know he’s a disloyal twat.’

  ‘Agreed. We’ll work something out as soon as we get Matthew Martin in custody, I promise. But no broken legs, no bloody noses.’

  Kevin closed his eyes and gave a weary nod. ‘OK, you win. Now roll your sleeves up and help me find somebody who keeps in touch with Matthew Martin.’

  Tony stood in the foyer of the Skenfrith Street police station and took out his phone. Sometimes when he was following a hunch, he didn’t like witnesses. Nobody liked looking stupid when things didn’t pay off. He keyed in a number, then waited. It was answered on the third ring. The voice on the other end was gruff and peremptory. ‘Hello? Who is this?’

  ‘Is that Mr Martin?’

  ‘You called me, pal. You should know who you’re calling.’

  ‘My name is Tony Hill,’ he said. ‘I need to ask you a question that’s going to sound a bit daft.’

  ‘So why should I answer it? And who the hell are you, Tony Hill?’

  ‘I’m the man who’s trying to stop your Matthew doing something stupid. I haven’t got time to explain, but I promise you, I mean him no harm.’

  ‘I don’t understand. You’re talking nonsense,’ Pete Martin said, his impatience obvious. ‘What do you mean, “something stupid”?’

  ‘Just one question, please. Do either of these buildings have any family significance for Matthew – the Bradford Assurance Tower or the Exchange Hotel?’

  ‘Are you some sort of nutter?’

  ‘It’s a harmless question. Please, Mr Martin.’

  ‘Is this some kind of wind-up? I’m hanging up now.’

  ‘No,’ Tony yelped. ‘I’m not a nutter and it’s not a wind-up. It’s vitally important. Honestly. How can it hurt you to answer that?’

  There was a pause. ‘We had our wedding reception at the Exchange. Are you satisfied now, you weirdo?’ The line went dead, but Tony didn’t care. He knew where he was going. His destination was across town, about ten minutes away. Walking would be quicker than persuading Carol to give him a police car and driver. Besides, if Matthew Martin was still alive, he might be spooked into jumping if he saw a liveried cop car racing up to the Bradfield Exchange Hotel.

  Before he’d left the ReMIT squad room, Tony had googled ‘tallest buildings Bradfield’ and been grateful to Wikipedia for a list of buildings by height and by the number of floors. Even more usefully, the dates of their construction were also given. There were twenty-six buildings in the city with thirteen or more floors. Only two of them had been in existence when Matthew Martin had lived in the city. Tony operated in a field governed by probabilities; he thought it was most likely that Martin would find it symbolic to go for a building he remembered from his youth. And now his father had confirmed it had an emotional connection to a day when family life had been a beautiful promise.

  The Exchange was the grandest hotel in the city. It had started life as the cotton exchange, where rich men gambled on the rise and fall of the commodity that had made the Lancashire mill owners rich for almost two hundred years. Above the soaring exchange floor were eight levels of offices. It was one of the tallest buildings of the age in the North of England. But by the time the First World War broke out, it had been overtaken by the Royal Exchange in Manchester, closing in the spring of 1915 after it was clear it wasn’t going to be all over by Christmas. A shrewd businessman bought the decaying building for a song ten years later and took advantage of the cheap labour of the Depression to restore the exterior and fit out the interior as an opulent luxury hotel.

  Tony had been inside twice. Once for a colleague’s overblown wedding to a Cheshire stockbroker, and once for a conference organised by a rich Swiss pharmaceutical company. He’d found the interior intimidating and uncomfortable, but guessed that was the effect it was supposed to have on the likes of him. Today, he’d have to ignore its effect on him and concentrate on the man he was there to save. It scarcely crossed his mind that he might be wrong. He couldn’t have explained why he was so certain. But he was.

  As he drew nearer to the hotel, he slowed his pace and craned his neck to look up. He knew the tall windows that started at ground level were an optical illusion that actually ran the height of two interior floors. From Wikipedia, he’d learned that the hotel had fourteen floors. That meant Martin would be somewhere on the second level down. Among the pinnacles and decorative balusters it was hard to distinguish whether there was anyone there. Tony squinted and peered, but he couldn’t see any movement.

  He walked the length of the frontage and turned the corner. The Exchange occupied a whole block, so he’d be able to circle the entire building without any difficulty. He crossed the street for a better view but still he saw no one.

  But when he rounded the next corner, Tony could see a figure outlined high above the street. He was outside the third window from the end, leaning on the stone parapet that came up to his waist. Tony barely paused, lowering his eyes to avoid Martin realising he was being observed. As soon as he reached the next corner, he stopped and took out his phone. When Carol answered, he said, ‘I think I’ve found him. I need you and Paula here to arrest him when I talk him down. And probably to get me alongside him. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ Carol said, incredulous. Then, with resignation, ‘No, you’re not. Where are you?’

  ‘Outside the Exchange Hotel. On the Midland Street side. I can see him on the thirteenth floor. Like I said.’

  ‘We’re on our way. We’ll come round the front. See you there.’

  Tony continued on his way back to the front of the hotel. He was itching to get to Matthew Martin but he knew that trying to make it on his own would only end in disaster. He’d freak out a chambermaid or terrify some innocent guest or get into a fight. Slowly, he was beginning to learn from experience to modify his impulses when it came to confronting the kind of people who didn’t understand his therapeutic desires. He’d pushed his luck once with the call to Martin’s father. Twice in a row would be too much to hope for.

  He didn’t have long to wait. Carol and Paula drew up outside the hotel less than seven minutes after he’d called. Carol didn’t waste any time; she swept into the hotel with Paula and Tony scurrying in her wake. She flashed her ID and gave the receptionist the hard stare and in moments, they were in the office behind reception, talking to the duty manager, an elegant young man with a French accent. ‘There’s a man on the ledge outside the thirteenth floor,’ Carol said.

  The manager frowned. ‘We do not have a thirteenth floor.’

  It was a weird response, Tony thought. To be more concerned with the numbering of the floors than a potential suicide displayed a disturbing ordering of priorities. ‘The floor below the top floor.’

  ‘That is the fourteenth floor.’

  ‘But it’s actually the thirteenth floor,’ Tony persisted. ‘Only you don’t have a floor called the thirteenth floor, right? Because people are superstitious?’

  The manager pulled a face. ‘If you say so. But yes, the floor above the twelfth is the fourteenth.’

  ‘I’m glad we got that cleared up,’ Carol said, failing to hide the sarcasm. ‘Where exactly is he, Tony?’

  ‘He’s outside the third window from the corner of Midland Street.’

 
The manager’s eyes strayed upwards, as if he was envisaging the layout above him. ‘This is a bedroom,’ he said. ‘Fourteen forty-seven, I think.’

  ‘What’s the layout outside the windows?’ Carol asked.

  ‘There is a ledge and a parapet. The ledge runs right along the floor. But you can’t get out there from the bedrooms. The windows don’t open far enough.’

  ‘So how has he got out there?’ Paula asked.

  ‘He must have used the maintenance door. It’s round the corner.’

  Tony gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Whatever he used, I need to get out there, and I need to get out there now, before he manages to wind himself up to the point where he can actually jump.’ Seeing the manager’s shocked face, he continued. ‘What? You think he’s up there for the view? He’s going to kill himself unless I can stop him.’

  The manager flushed. ‘But that’s terrible. You must stop him.’ He pushed past them and headed out of the room, pausing to look over his shoulder. ‘Come on, I’ll take you there now.’

  In the lift, the manager couldn’t keep still, twitching and fidgeting like a sugared-up toddler. ‘Why has he done this? Why has he come here? Does he have some grudge against us?’

  ‘It’s nothing personal against the hotel,’ Tony said. ‘It means something to him, that’s all. Something from his family history.’

  On the fourteenth floor, they hurried down the thickly carpeted hallway until they reached an anonymous door that was almost invisible against the dark walls. The manager held a plastic card against the electronic lock. It buzzed and released. He pushed it open a crack. ‘I don’t how he got through here. This should not be possible.’

  ‘I’ll take it from here,’ Tony said.

  The manager looked as if he was about to protest, but Paula put a firm hand on his arm. ‘He knows what he’s doing. You need to wait here.’ Her voice was like the caress of a mother towards a fretful child. Tony nodded his thanks and slipped through the door.

  59