‘Force majeur,’ Hoare said. ‘Fleet Street’s a young man’s game.’
‘But you always lied about your age.’
‘Till I dyed my hair grey and fell foul of the young Turks.’
‘Well, at least you’ve gone respectable now.’
‘Again, no choice. My ex and her lawyers need their pound of flesh.’
‘And you’ve a cross to bear?’
‘Too right. My bloody shoulder’s full of splinters.’
They sat in a corner alcove, well into a bottle of Merlot. Hoare lit a cigarette from the butt of another. He’d washed up in a hack’s last refuge - public relations - but hadn’t lost habits like trousering other people’s receipts for his own exes.
His companion checked his watch. He was running a live operation to find - and if necessary, kill - a Provisional IRA active service unit intent on turning the London Stock Exchange into a car park. Hoare took the hint.
‘Look, I’m doing the words on a missing kid case for a DI called Larry Benwick and I’m trying to find out a bit more about him.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘Because he’s a bit of a mystery. I’d like my card marked now I’m working with him.’
His source finished his drink then offered some parting words of advice.
‘I’ve heard tell that some blokes in our game go off the books for years.’
‘Really? Is that where Benwick’s been - off the books?’
‘Do yourself a favour, matey. It’s often safest to hear nothing, see nothing and say a damn sight less. Do you get my meaning?’
So now he waited for Benwick in the communal yard behind the shabby, low-rise block of council flats where Ruby lived. Hoare knew two questions niggled Benwick when he’d read into Ruby’s case file – why didn’t Etta ring 999 immediately she realised her daughter was missing and why was she reluctant to say what she herself was doing that Friday afternoon? He’d not believed her story about being in bed with a migraine and drowsy from painkillers.
Murder was usually a family affair so she was brought in. They’d sweat Etta in an interview room as a witness, under suspicion but not arrest.
While that was going on, Benwick wanted to conduct a second search of the flat but with his PR man present.
‘Forensics tell me the kid’s body isn’t there,’ he’d said. ‘But it’s coming time for you to be let in on a few secrets.’
*
Linden House was once a Utopian design for living to replace many acres of diseased Victorian slums. But the complex of maisonettes had itself now become a warehouse for the socially disadvantaged, those from many nations whose refugee tongues could be heard in dark stairwells running with the piss of drunks and dogs.
Here were watchful eyes, briefly glimpsed behind rainbow veils before a door closed or a window shut. But they could tell of torture and of those they had loved who’d disappeared into the night, never to be seen again.
Some flats were boarded up - squats where heroin and crack cocaine were dealt to the walking dead who drifted by Hoare, barely making a shadow.
From this place and from such people, police needed help. A child cannot vanish without someone seeing, someone knowing.
Hoare had struggled to generate much media interest in Ruby. The papers were preoccupied with the Gulf War, Britain’s military role in it and oil prices rising. If Benwick expected more coverage, he was on a loser - unless they found a corpse.
A silver Vauxhall Cavalier drew into the yard. Benwick emerged in his Florida cop outfit and nodded for Hoare to follow him to Etta’s ground floor flat. He unlocked the door and they stepped straight into the kitchen.
‘No offence, but let me give you the gypsy’s warning,’ Benwick said. ‘If anything you’re about to see gets leaked back to your old pals in Fleet Street before I’m ready, I shall be at the psychotic end of really hacked off. We understand each other, yes?’
Behind Benwick’s smile, his unblinking eyes remained fixed on Hoare in the same impersonal manner of a gangland enforcer he’d interviewed in a previous life.
‘Anyway, notice how clean it all is, Mr Hoare… no blood and guts for us to find.’
Every surface gleamed – the aluminium sink and drainer, a Formica-topped table, the black and white linoleum under their feet. The bathroom and toilet were the same, shining, relieved of all germs and contamination.
Ruby’s bedroom was equally dirt-free. Coloured pens and crayons and an unused pad of A3 cartridge paper were neatly laid out on a small table by her pine-framed bed. On the wall above was an architecturally detailed pencil drawing of the castle-like Victorian pumping station at Manor Hill reservoir.
‘God, this is amazing,’ Hoare said. ‘It’s like a photograph.’
Hoare, three stone overweight, forehead damp and prickling in the humid air, loosened his tie and struggled out of his creased suit jacket.
‘Do you think Mum could’ve given Ruby a slap so she’s run away?’
‘Maybe… if we’re lucky.’
‘Meaning what?’
The detective’s eyes narrowed as if weighing the risk of sharing his suspicions further. He led Hoare to Etta’s bedroom. It took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Benwick turned up the dimmer switch and a gantry of soft lights came on.
‘Have a good squint… then tell me I’m wrong to be worried about Ruby.’
The room looked part brothel, part Satanist’s den. The atmosphere was heavy with stale incense. It clung to the swags of purple velvet curtains and the richly painted burgundy walls covered with prints of waterfalls, forest sprites, winged horses. There were books on witchcraft, the Wicca religion, paganism, mythology. Lumps of sparkling crystal were arranged on an altar-like dressing table alongside a pack of tarot cards, a few black candles and carved images of symbolic Egyptian gods.
But above Etta’s double bed - and dominating all else - was a huge print of a pentagram encircling a horned goat. Under this were the words The thoughts attached to the real desire of the seeker will lead us to him and him to us.
‘I’m guessing Mum’s not big in the Women’s Institute?’
‘And maybe Ruby’s starting to look like a better story?’
‘Too right it is. The Sunday red tops would kill to get in here.’
The detective wagged a cautioning finger. Benwick pulled open the drawer of the bedside cabinet and scattered a dozen or so condoms across the deep red coverlet on Etta’s bed.
‘People, Mr Hoare… who’d credit what goes on behind their closed doors?’
‘Keeps us in work though, doesn’t it?’
‘Why the hell do we bother?’
‘To pay the rent. But nothing’s illegal here, is it? No law’s being broken.’
Benwick shrugged then opened the door of Etta’s built-in wardrobe, almost by way of an answer. Hoare saw a hooker’s nurse’s uniform. The DI then emptied a shoebox full of banknotes over the condoms on the bed.
‘That’s ten grand, give or take a fiver.’
‘So Etta knew her ceiling professionally… but how does all this help find the kid?’
‘It doesn’t but maybe it gives us a reason why we can’t.’
*
Benwick said he was late for a meeting so Hoare told him about the phone call he’d had from McCall and of the meet they’d arranged next day.
‘You know him personally?’
‘Good pal from way back. Freelance, obsessive, doesn’t do drive-by journalism, only long gropes for the colour supplements and television. His family had connections, not short of a bob or two so he can pick and choose what he works on.’
‘Bit of a dilettanté, then?’
‘Wouldn’t say that. He’s broken some half decent stories in his time.’
‘So why’s he interested in Ruby? No-one else appears to be.’
‘That could be the reason - a clear field. He’ll want to talk to you, of course.’
‘OK, I’ll ask around about him,’ Benwick said. ‘I’ll
ring you later - and don’t forget to keep the shutters down on what you’ve just seen, even to this guy, McCall.’
Hoare was left to walk the half-mile to Manor Hill bus station, jacket over his arm in the clammy evening heat. He wasn’t any nearer to figuring out Benwick. If he wanted publicity - not least from an upmarket hack like McCall - it didn’t make sense to blank any mention of Etta’s colourful private life. That was a spread in any paper.
Hookers began to appear along the street as Hoare passed by, conjured out of nothing and nowhere. They leaned their insolent derrieres against the front garden walls of once respectable Edwardian villas, smoking, waiting, painted faces alert for the next trick.
Far in the distance, London rumbled towards dusk as the sun sank behind the reservoir’s fortress pumping station. Its alien silhouette towered into the sky like a medieval highland keep, dominating and threatening all who dwelt beneath.
Eight
McCall, unable to sleep and up before daybreak, drank tea and watched over Lexie. He still wasn’t entirely sure about her motive in reappearing in his life after so long. She’d always been self-obsessed and impulsive, driven by an almost feline instinct to do only that which made her content.
If others benefited, fine. If they suffered, she might be upset - but not for long. Lexie could no more change these ways than the colour of her eyes. Against this, her concerns about Ruby seemed genuine enough.
Yet for all his uncertainty, to lie with Lexie last night had been to disregard the passage of time. She was as she had been in those first insane days - a lover one dreamed about, however changed they’d become, however destructive the memory of their attraction. McCall knew he would do her bidding for reasons far deeper than he would ever admit.
Lexie murmured something unintelligible and turned onto her left side. The blue bed sheet covering her nakedness slipped a little, exposing the creaminess of her belly till it darkened between her legs. Here was mystery just as it had always been.
He combed the rounded firmness of her behind with the tips of his extended fingers. She woke and smiled and desired only to yield again as the moon waned and the sun rose and nature reawakened without and within. And all which remained unspoken between them was as nothing.
*
McCall drove to Essex after breakfast. Hoare was at a college in Harlow, lecturing media students about police-press relations. But he was free for a late lunch.
‘Malky, you old fraud - still not been rumbled?’
Hoare happily took this as a compliment. They found a wine bar and ordered a bottle of house red.
‘OK, cards on the table, Mac, what’s your real interest in Ruby Ross?’
‘I told you on the phone. I want to write a warts-and-all piece on every aspect of a missing child investigation.’
‘Hundreds of kids go missing. What made you choose Ruby’s case?’
‘Because I saw the mother and my old mate making a TV appeal to find her.’
Hoare didn’t look entirely persuaded but trotted out the officially approved line on the Ruby investigation. He omitted the sexiest of angles - Etta being on the game and fascinated by the occult and how that might have a bearing on Ruby’s disappearance. But McCall knew Hoare rather too well.
‘I didn’t ask for a press release, Malky. That’s for those who’ve never done you any favours in the past.’
‘I’m giving you the official picture. That’s the truth.’
‘No, the truth is that being a spin-doctor doesn’t suit you. You’re still a hack at heart and you know a good story when you come across one.’
‘How do you know Ruby Ross is a good story?’
‘Because I’ve got friends in low places.’
‘Yeah, maybe you have but you’ve not got my problems.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘OK, I’ll level with you, Mac, but absolutely not for quoting. Agreed?’
‘Sure, everything’s off the record.’
‘Right, OK… so this case is being run by a detective inspector called Larry Benwick and on my life, he’s the least likely cop I’ve ever come across in a long march through Fleet Street.’
‘Why is that a problem?’
‘You must promise to keep this to yourself but I’ve a pal in the anti-terrorist squad and he’s tipped me the nod that before this Ruby job came along, Benwick had been working under cover for years.’
‘Was he, by God? So that’s why you fronted the press conference and not him.’
‘It’s got to be, hasn’t it?’
‘What kind of undercover work was he doing?’
‘I don’t know but as sure as the good Lord made little apples, he’s not adjusted to everyday police work yet. There’s an anger in the guy, only just below the surface, like he doesn’t give a damn about anyone or anything.’
‘But why put a UC like him on a case you say doesn’t amount to much?’
‘Can’t help you there but I wouldn’t want to cross him, I seriously wouldn’t.’
‘So you’re accepting there’s a half decent story in Ruby’s case?’
‘You didn’t hear this from me, but yes… and judging by the little I know, it’s a belter.’
‘Great, now we’re getting somewhere. So tell me more.’
‘Sorry Mac, no can do. I just daren’t. I know I owe you big time - ’
‘Then do me this little service and we’ll call it quits.’
‘It’s not that easy, old sport. I’m still on my uppers after the divorce.’
‘But I’d keep your name out of everything.’
‘That wouldn’t save me,’ he said. ‘Benwick knows about our meet today and that we’re pals. If I anything leaks, I’m out on my ear and with no way back this time.’
*
There had always been something of the monk about Lexie’s ex-husband, Evan, something austere, not entirely joyless but a man driven by a certainty of purpose.
McCall parked outside his house, a large dormer bungalow behind a screen of willows already shedding their yellow leaves. Evan would be in his study. It looked out across the river slipping between the sloping lawn of his rear garden and the water meadows beyond and in the distance, to the spires of Cambridge where he taught.
But Evan’s connections weren’t just academic. He had access down corridors where few others ever went.
‘Mac, it’s been too long. You should’ve rung and I could’ve organised supper for us.’
‘Thanks, but I can’t stay. I’m on my way home from Essex.’
McCall was under no obligation to tell Evan that Lexie had reappeared in his life, still less that he’d become her lover again. Yet it felt right that he should, however subconscious his need for approval.
‘I hope you survive this time,’ Evan said. ‘I wouldn’t want you hurt again.’
His voice held neither jealousy nor resentment, only the concern of a fellow casualty. McCall told him about Ruby and how Lexie feared she could have been murdered.
‘What an intolerable strain for her to be under.’
‘It is, which is why I’ve come to ask if you might help.’
‘In what way, Mac?’
‘By making a few discreet inquiries with your anonymous friends about a detective in London called Larry Benwick.’
‘Why, what’s he been up to?’
‘All I know so far is that he’s just been taken off long term undercover work to run the Ruby case. I find that interesting.’
‘Couldn’t he have just finished one assignment and been given another?’
‘Possibly, but someone in a position to know has told me to keep digging on this tale.’
Evan nodded but said nothing. McCall left it there. Evan was a source who could join the dots for himself.
They walked to the front door. McCall still saw no sign of any female presence in the house save for the sterile neatness imposed by a cleaner paid by the hour.
‘Mac, before you go, I should tell you my news.’
<
br /> ‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve bought Staithe End cottage.’
‘Say that again.’
‘I’ve bought the cottage.’
McCall stared at him. After twenty-five years of knowing each other, this outwardly cautious, measured man could still amaze him.
‘How on earth’s this come about?’
‘I saw it advertised and I didn’t like the idea of a stranger mucking up our memories.’
‘Lexie simply won’t believe it. She’ll be overjoyed.’
‘Then you two should go across to Norfolk and keep the place aired for me. I’ll give you a key.’
Nine
Malky Hoare lived in a shoebox of a service flat near King’s Cross Station. Each evening, he looked down on the toms - brown girls, white girls, aimless, shameless girls in the wide, wet streets which were their market place. They’d caught trains from the north or coaches from the west, each believing they’d make it big, make it better.
None ever did. So now they click-clacked their way from one litter-blown corner to another or sheltered in doorways to be serviced with a French-kissed rock of crack cocaine from the pimps whose creatures they were.
For Hoare, all was noise, dirt and traffic. Buses, cabs, cars, users and dealers, fast food, human flesh, human weakness – this was life as it had become, coarse and transitory and weighed nightly against how it had been before.
Only in the confines of this expensively rented privacy was he obliged to confront all he had given up for the career he’d had. The mirror foretold an unhappy ending. This much he knew from his ex-wife - a nursing assistant. The pains in the heart he didn’t have and the tiny yellow deposits of fat beneath his whisky-brown eyes were evidence of coronary disease. He should beware. His clock was winding down.
But old habits, like addiction itself, were hard to break. Sitting on his single bed, he wrote three A4 pages of notes for an old-style reporter’s aide memoir of everything he’d learned about Ruby’s case that day.
Hoare added these to the manila folder in which he had already put copies of all the confidential internal briefings, pictures and material he’d snaffled from the Ruby investigation - and from her flat, too. It was a sacking offence but something about Larry Benwick - and the whole Ruby affair itself - puzzled him and brought out his need for insurance. How interesting that McCall was onto it, too.
The Convenience of Lies Page 4