Thirty-six minutes was my standard for three circuits. Slower was a sign that the gremlin was sliding my way. Today I managed forty, blamed the weather, and staggered back to my front door with health oozing from every pore. My legs didn’t give way until I was half way up the stairs.
I showered and swallowed a pint of orange juice, crammed sliced ham into wholemeal rolls. I dug out my old briefcase and dropped the rolls inside, then went to the bedroom and stooped to kiss the duvet under which I’d last seen Arabel. The duvet didn’t move. I picked up my Burberry and headed out.
When I turned the Frogeye onto Battersea Bridge at just before seven the tingle of blood sluicing through clear veins rewarded me for my fortitude. A mid-river burst of sunlight lifted the morning. The wind was still gusting but the rain had stopped.
I cranked the radio up and beat the traffic through Chelsea and Kensington, headed north towards Hampstead. By seven twenty I was parked up in my substation fifty yards from the Slater house, ready for a second look.
The house was quiet and dark. The Lexus hadn’t moved. I tuned in Capital and listened to a mixture of rap and news headlines while the clock crept towards eight.
Just after seven thirty the two Mercs from up the lane headed out towards the City. There was a lull until the post van drove by at eight fifteen and dropped mail at the Slaters’ and the properties further up. Five minutes later it returned in convoy with a four-by-four driven by a woman with a child perched illegally in the front seat. Next action was eight twenty-three when an elderly woman walked up the lane to domestic duties further in. Then nothing for another half hour. The Slaters’ front door stayed shut like it was Sunday morning.
It looked like Larry Slater didn’t follow the twelve-hour city routine. Maybe a perk of running your own business. Let someone else open up. Nine o’clock and still no action. No sign of the girl heading for college either. Rebecca Townsend was either indisposed or not there.
At nine fifteen the door finally opened and Larry Slater came out. He wore a leather jacket and an open-collar shirt. He fired up the Lexus and rolled by me without a glance. His casual garb didn’t exactly say City stockbroker. I was intrigued but stayed put. The most important information was right here at the house: was Rebecca Townsend home in bed like her parents said?
I tuned in Radio Four and ate my sandwich rolls, allowing Larry Slater forty minutes to fight through traffic. Then I pulled a number from directory enquiries and dialled his company, Slater–Kline. The call routed to a computerised pitch that some delusional had worked up to keep customers entertained while you stalled them. Between bursts of muzak the spiel assured me that my call was deeply valued. After five minutes even the computer was sounding unsure. I was about to hang up when the line was finally picked up. A bright female voice asked how she might help me. The brightness was that of someone who hasn’t just endured five minutes of muzak brainwashing. I asked for Larry Slater.
‘Mr Slater’s out right now,’ Brightvoice said. ‘May I help?’
‘No,’ I said, brainwash-brusque. ‘I’ll catch him when he’s back in. Do you know what time that will be?’
Brightvoice told me she didn’t know exactly and offered to take a message.
‘An hour?’ I guessed. ‘Shall I try at eleven?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Brightvoice insisted. ‘Mr Slater is out on business. We’re not sure when he’ll be in. Did you have an appointment? We’re rearranging some of his schedules today.’
I told her I didn’t have an appointment, said I’d ring back, and cut the line before she could ask questions I didn’t want to answer.
So Slater was not in the office. And schedules were being rearranged. A priority business client? Or had Slater just left it till the last minute to tell them he wasn’t turning up?
I settled back to watch the house, wondering if I should have tailed the Lexus. But if I’d been tailing Slater I’d have been worrying that I should have stayed at the house to find out whether the girl was home. The endless neuroses of private investigation.
As surveillances went this threatened to be a slow mover. Conventional surveillance (what Smarty-Pants called snooping) is typically away from home – tailing rogue husbands and the like. Less often it involved watching for house calls whilst said husband was away. This one was different: I was entirely on the outside. I had to get in.
At ten fifteen I slid out of the car. I donned my Burberry and pulled my briefcase from the Sprite’s footwell. Then I walked up the road and rang the Slaters’ doorbell.
The chimes brought no response. I tried a second time. Still nothing. I leaned on the button.
The message finally got through.
The woman who opened the door was the one I’d seen the night before. Tall and good-looking, late thirties. Classic high cheeks and ocean-blue eyes. She would have been beautiful without the fatigue. She looked at me with a clamped mouth that showed no sign of starting a dialogue. Her best effort was an indifference that barely papered over her impatience to close the door.
Her lassitude helped gloss over the rudimentary ID I held up. The ID was one of an inkjet stock conjured up by our part-timer Harry Green. The card was designed to look as official as possible whilst remaining sufficiently generic to fit most bills. The trick was the heavy use of acronyms and meaningless titles with words like authority and registered association, plus a few machine-readable numerals and a generic logo. Add a geeky-looking photo of yourself, encase the lot in plastic and your legitimacy will never be challenged. Most people wouldn’t recognise the name of their utilities provider, much less the subcontractor who reads the meter. When police recommend that you check visitors’ IDs they don’t tell you that the con men have the best of the lot.
Jean Slater was not in a perceptive mood. She glanced at my ID for two seconds then looked at me for the explanation. I gave her the name on the card and made up something about the Local Education Authority.
‘Just a routine call,’ I said. I checked a clipboard I’d pulled from my briefcase: ‘This is Rebecca Townsend’s home?’ I looked up.
Jean’s eyes widened briefly then her expression clouded into a look that said she wanted me gone, whatever my business. She pulled herself together to deal with the situation. Forced herself to frown more convincingly.
‘What’s this about?’ she said.
‘Nothing official,’ I assured her. ‘May I come in?’
She thought about it. Lacked the resolution to refuse me. She stepped back and held the door open. I walked in. Easy.
I held out an official hand. Repeated my false name and apologised for intruding. Jean’s hand was clammy. No suggestion of a grip. The handshake is another con man’s trick. Confers legitimacy to even the most outrageous of cold calls. If I wasn’t in investigation I could have been a top-notch insurance salesman.
I asked Jean how Rebecca was.
Jean stayed puzzled but she answered me. ‘Fine,’ she said.
I saw that she was close to asking questions I didn’t want her to ask. I gave her my most reassuring smile and headed her off.
‘It’s nothing official,’ I repeated. ‘We try to follow through on students who are away from college.’
‘That’s unusual,’ she said. Her frown deepened but she didn’t have the willpower to disbelieve me. I was there in her house so I must be proof of the Education Authority’s concern.
‘Perhaps you’re familiar with our “Access to Education” policy,’ I suggested. ‘One if its tenets is that we offer assistance to students who are detained by medical factors for more than five consecutive college days. If I understand,’ another glance at my empty clipboard, ‘Rebecca has been absent for eight days. That makes her eligible for home assignments prepared by her course tutors.’
The spiel sounded dodgy even to me. I sensed the suspicion wavering behind Jean Slater’s eyes and moved quickly on.
My pause left the house deadly quiet. When I looked back, Jean Slater’s eyes were locked on me. I went back to my spiel.
‘If it helps your daughter,’ I explained, ‘we can authorise home assignments in lieu of regular coursework. Reduces the risk of her falling behind. Everything is her decision, of course.’
My little speech seemed to settle Jean. She smiled a little and hunched up her shoulders with a kind of helpless understanding.
‘Of course,’ she said. For the first time her eyes opened with something like confidence. The realisation that she would soon have me out of the door. ‘Unfortunately Rebecca is convalescing from a rather bad virus. She’s sleeping most of the time. There’s no way she could take on any academic work.’
I gave her my gravest smile.
‘Of course. Perhaps a short chat with her? She could let me know if she’d like anything preparing for when she feels up to it.’
Jean shook her head emphatically. ‘That won’t be possible,’ she told me.
‘I would take just five minutes,’ I assured her.
‘No.’ Her eyes were harder now. She looked at the ID I’d clipped onto my Burberry and I sensed that she was drawing herself up to ask questions.
I backed off. ‘Fine, Mrs Slater, we’ll trust to your judgement. You know your daughter best. If she is not up to it I’ll not impose. Perhaps I should call in a couple of days?’
‘No.’ She shook her head again with wine-assisted vigour. ‘Rebecca is staying with my sister in Berkshire. She’ll be there another week. And I’m sure she’ll pick up quickly when she gets back to college.’ She gave me a smile that didn’t quite make it. ‘I’ll mention your visit. If there’s anything she needs then she’ll get in touch.’
‘Marvellous!’ I gave her my most brilliant smile to mark this tremendous achievement. We’d sorted the problem wonderfully. I waxed lyrical as I handed over a generic card and told her to make sure that Rebecca asked for me personally when she called, although it was unlikely she’d get me or anyone else on the card’s number. I threw in a few more best wishes for her daughter’s recuperation and let Jean shepherd me back out of the door. As she held the door wide, her smile was so bright that you almost missed its insincerity.
She certainly missed mine.
I walked back down the lane in bright sunlight, sweating under the Burberry. At the substation I ditched the coat and pushed it back into the Frogeye’s tiny boot. Then folded myself into the tiny seat.
Time for a meeting I didn’t relish. My fingers actually hesitated on the keypad. But I needed information. I made the call.
I pushed in a Claire Martin tape and cranked up the volume to fill the Frogeye with her gutsy, smoky flow and drove south, thinking through what I had.
Rebecca Townsend was not at the house. I got that from my senses rather than from faith in Jean Slater’s words. And the house screamed of something amiss. I pictured Jean wandering alone around the perfect home with her perfect glass of wine. Husband away, daughter some place unknown. Jean’s agitation was almost tangible, something that craved early tranquillising. What stage of marital disharmony had Jean and Larry Slater reached? What sort of home was the Slaters’ when you looked behind the gloss? Maybe one that would have a recuperating teenager jump at the chance when an aunt offered her a bed. Assuming that the aunt had made the offer. What if the girl had simply decided to up and leave? Was that what I saw in Jean’s face?
But would Rebecca run away from home without informing her best friend? I doubted it. I just needed to hear it again from the best friend herself.
Winter had switched to spring inside four hours. Micro-seasons breaking up the day. The sun slid in and out of the cloud, turning the wet road alternately grey and blinding white. I cranked the volume up beyond the cassette’s limit until Martin’s voice rasped like sandpaper over my backing vocals. I let the Frogeye take me at its own pace, slipping gracefully through the traffic at wheel-arch height. I headed through Swiss Cottage then swung west and drove into West Kilburn at just before eleven thirty.
I parked in a convenient Waitrose and walked up towards a nest of fast food shops across the road from the sixth-form college. The shops and kiosks were busy with students. I spotted Sadie sat on the low wall fronting the college, munching something that looked like a health-insurance catastrophe.
Her belly was still taking the air but her upper parts were covered by a cotton jacket today. She’d even found a pair of jeans that reached her hips. Sadie still looked thirteen, but so did most of the youths milling around us. I stopped in front of her and she wrapped her cholesterol-special in a napkin and set it on the wall, pulled the tab on a canned drink. Her eyes were a little friendlier today. Like an affectionate rottweiler’s. I sat down next to her.
‘Have you found out what’s happened to Becky?’ she asked.
I raised my eyebrows.
‘Yeah, I know.’ She took a sip. ‘“Don’t expect miracles.” Well at least you’re looking. Hey,’ her eyes widened, ‘have you got a name or anything? You know,’ she shrugged, ‘to be friendly?’
She made it sound like names were a young-generation thing.
I shrugged back. ‘Call me Eddie,’ I said.
‘Like Eddie Gumshoe? That guy off the old repeats?’ She swung her right fist under my nose. If she’d followed through it would have been like a gnat had collided with me but her drink can sloshed threateningly. I shifted away but kept my tough-guy smile to let her know I wasn’t intimidated.
‘How are you today, Sadie?’ I said.
‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘What do you think’s happened to her?’
Enough small talk.
‘I need to ask some questions,’ I said. ‘Gina Redding gave me some details but I need more background.’
‘Sure,’ Sadie promised. ‘I just don’t know what will help.’
‘I’m looking for a bit more on Rebecca’s parents.’
She shrugged. ‘There’s not much I know. We never go to her house. Becky doesn’t get on with Larry.’
‘Any particular reason?’
Again the shrug. Her eyes gave nothing. Whatever Rebecca had said to her friend she didn’t see fit to pass on. ‘Larry’s a dick,’ she offered finally. ‘I think he bullies her mother.’
‘But nothing ever happened between him and Rebecca?’
She looked at me. ‘You mean like him coming on to her?’
‘It happens,’ I said.
‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘Sick. The guy’s at least fifty. I’d throw up.’
‘Rebecca never mentioned anything?’
‘No.’
‘What about her mother? Does Rebecca get on with her?’
‘So-so,’ Sadie said. ‘Jean’s a control freak. Wants to rule her life, you know? Where Becky goes. Who she sees. When she gets home.’
‘Do the two of them argue about it?’
‘Would they argue enough to piss Rebecca off? Enough that she might walk out?’
Sadie shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Becky’s always pissed off with Jean but she’s never talked about leaving. And she’d tell me if she was going to do that. She wouldn’t be like “see you later” one minute then disappear the next. And she gets her diploma next year. Then she’s out of there anyway. We’re going to share a flat.’ She looked at me again: ‘Becky hasn’t run away, Mr Gumshoe.’
‘Eddie,’ I said. ‘Does her mother have any problems?’ I wondered if the drinking was under wraps.
‘Nothing I know about,’ Sadie said. ‘She’s okay. Like any mother.’
Maybe Rebecca saw things but didn’t tell. Things you’d not want even your best friend to know. Rebecca was up-front about not liking her stepfather but there was no reason she’d want to shred her mother’s name. Rebecca’s family sounded as normal or abnormal as the next. It was just the thing with the stepfather that bothered me.
‘How’s Rebecca been acting lately? Happy? Sad?’
She gave it some thought.
‘Just the usual. Rebecca’s always up and down. She’s a crazy bitch.’
‘A crazy bitch?’
‘You know what I mean. Life’s a big saga with Becky. She should be in a soap opera.’
‘What kind of things make her crazy?’
‘You know.’ She looked at me again. ‘Whatever.’
‘Whatever?’
‘Yeah. You know?’ She lifted the can again.
I turned to look squarely at her. ‘No, Sadie,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. Detectives never know things until people tell them.’
She stopped swigging and rolled her eyes like I was diverting from the relevant.
‘Becky’s had some problems,’ she said.
‘What problems?’
‘She’s split with her boyfriend. It kind of got to her. Now she’s started hanging about with this older guy? He’s like, a real creep. Into drugs. I told Becky she should be careful but she says there’s nothing going on. Claims she just hangs out with him.’
Behind Closed Doors Page 5