by Penny Grubb
Drunk like Terry and neither of them drinkers. Missing like Terry for just over two days. It was a good thing it was unequivocally suicide, because there was a limit to how high the coincidences could stack up before they began to fall down.
As Annie left the Martins’, the breeze that stroked her face held the first chill of early evening. The street lay empty, but within a stone’s throw the sea-front would still be packed. On impulse, she drove the short distance to the sea and parked by the high sea-wall.
She leant on to it, elbows on the rough stone surface, chin cupped in her hands. The North Sea spread in front of her, the sun glinting off incoming waves as they rushed the shore in small explosions of white frothy foam. Children raced about, their laughter and shrieks overlying the rhythmic swish and rush of the waves’ ebb and flow.
Even here at the edge of the sea and with the first chill of evening in the air the day lay heavy as though the atmosphere was over-laden with the sun’s heat. Annie looked up and saw clouds a long way off in a sky that had begun to boil. There’d be a storm in the next twenty-four hours.
The sea and sky with their direct link to the beginning of time put perspective on to her immediate worries. She might have stood there a long time soaking up the ambience of a summer’s day winding down, but the familiar chirp of her phone cut in. She stood up straight and stretched her arms before pulling the mobile from her pocket and glancing at the screen. It was Pat, but that was fine. She was ready to talk now.
‘Where are you?’
‘Just outside the Martins’ in Withernsea.’ It was true to within a few hundred yards.
‘Oh right, you’ve decided to go and see them. OK. You’re coming back here though, aren’t you, before you go on anywhere else?’
‘That’s what I had in mind. Why?’
‘I just need a word, that’s all. What time will you be back?’
Annie bit back a question, suddenly realizing what it was Pat wanted to tell her and knowing she didn’t want to hear it. She glanced at the time, crossed her fingers and said, ‘Not sure. I could be with the Martins for a couple of hours.’
Pat had been to see Barbara. They were to discuss Orchard Park. Pat had told her she might have seen the last of the Earle case. Annie knew she shouldn’t do it, but she wanted one more trip to that tower block. She didn’t want the case pulled from under her. And as long as Pat hadn’t explicitly told her not to go there, what harm could it do to have one more look?
If Pat found out, Annie would say, I thought you meant me to come back when I’d finished work for the evening – you know, the Martins, Mrs Earle …
The tower-block’s car-park was packed. For the first time ever, Annie had to manoeuvre the vehicle to get into a space. She’d never seen it so full. Pat had drummed into her that she mustn’t leave the car unattended here at night, but it was barely evening. Her watch showed just after seven o’clock and she’d won herself two extra hours. What she needed was to swap her early evening hours for later ones, but there was no way to make the trade.
A sudden rapping on the window made her start up in alarm. Scott!
The face staring back into hers flinched at the hard glare she gave it. Of course, it wasn’t Scott. It was more obvious than that. The joy-rider, Maz. He’d been frantic to talk. In all that had happened since she’d cut him off, she’d forgotten him, but he hadn’t forgotten her. Desperation had brought him within arm’s length. She lowered the side window a short way.
‘They won’t be ’ere tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s Sunday. They don’t do Sundays.’
She held her expression steady – neither friendly, nor threatening. How did he know who she came here to watch? How come he knew so much about her? Some of it could have come from the girls in Milesthorpe but not all.
Maybe this wouldn’t be a wasted journey after all. She’d hear him out but anything she gave him would come at a high price and he’d pay her in advance.
As she climbed out of the car, he took a step back, on guard for attack. She stood with one hand on the top of the open door and looked towards the tower block, first the entrance then right up to the high roof that stood out against the veins of dusk across the sky. She sensed his hesitation. The direction of her stare wasn’t lost on him.
‘You want something from me,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘Then you’d better have something good to offer in return.’
‘There’s summat I need you to keep safe.’
‘What is it? And what do I get for it?’
‘Say you’ll keep it and not say owt, and then I’ll tell you.’
‘What’s in it for me?’
He hesitated. ‘I’ll show you the setup. Up there. I’ve got keys. No one comes on Sunday. Is that why you’re here?’
This was beyond what she’d expected. An offer to see the top flat while it was empty. It wasn’t a chance she could pass up. Unless she was snapping at hooked bait. The car…? She shot him a look, then stared again at the high building.
‘I’ll see no one touches the motor,’ he said, anticipating her.
He turned away, put finger and thumb to his lips and emitted a low piercing whistle. A pool of shadow by the edge of the concrete broke up and became two small figures. Children aged about ten, Annie judged, sex indeterminate. They approached warily, eyes on the boy who seemed to swell in height and breadth as he assumed authority over them.
‘You know whose motor that is?’ he barked out in a low voice.
The two small figures tipped their heads towards Annie in unison.
‘Nah,’ said Maz, crooking a finger and beckoning them closer. ‘I’ll tell yer whose it is.’
He leant to whisper in their ears and Annie saw their eyes widen. Their stares rested on her again but this time with unmistakable respect. Whatever name he’d given them, Annie suspected it wasn’t Pat Thompson.
‘OK. It’s safe now.’ The boy turned back to Annie with a throwaway comment over his shoulder. ‘Anyone comes near, make sure they know.’
He set off towards the building. Annie took a couple of seconds to weigh up the risks, then slammed the car door, clicked the key fob to lock it and followed him.
The entrance lobby pulsed with activity and laughing crowds. They jostled through the throng, people all dressed-up, eyes blurred with the slight haze of an afternoon of drip-fed alcohol. The pristine crispness and flamboyant style of the clothes they pushed past marked this the aftermath of a wedding. The lift was packed, too, but the crowds melted away at floor nine, chatter and laughter replaced by the hum of machinery; when they arrived on the top landing they were alone.
Annie walked with Maz, heard the jingle of keys as he delved in his pocket. She watched in detail the pantomime she’d listened to in the early hours of Saturday morning. A key in a lock. Another key in a lock. And then another.
Now she knew just how many locks the door had, and she would soon know why.
‘Why all the locks?’
‘Need time to get out if there’s a raid, don’t they? There’s like as not guys in what won’t want hauling into the nick, be all over the telly an’ all that. Reinforced steel.’ He banged his fist on to the door panel. ‘You’ll not ram yer way through that.’
OK, that wasn’t perfect sense, but she’d let it do for now. She stepped inside and looked round. It was a smaller apartment than Mrs Earle’s and, beyond the entrance lobby, fitted out so it bore little relation to conventional living space with none of the usual boundaries to show where living room became bedroom. The air was cool, the atmosphere antiseptic. The mismatched furniture was sparse. Three functional armchairs and two hardback chairs in amongst tables topped with electronic equipment. Wires looped across the open spaces. Headphones dangled untidily from chair arms. Some semblance of normality remained in what was left of the kitchen. A bin overflowing with pizza boxes, a stack of stained mugs, a jar of Kenco Rappor on its side, contents spilt on the draining board.
She saw Maz hunch his shoulders as he saw the
mess, felt surprise that he noticed, then as he made a stack of the dirty boxes and carried them through to the main area she realized that his role in the setup included mucking out the place. It made sense that he was just a gopher.
‘So what the hell is it?’
He stared at her. Amazement and doubt crossed his features. He thought she already had the answers. She read in his expression that if he’d known how little she knew, he wouldn’t have brought her here. Too late now.
‘Radio, innit?’ His voice was sulky.
She understood and swung round again to take in all the setup. Pirate radio. She’d known a couple at college who’d done a bit of broadcasting out of their rooms at hall. That had been amateur stuff, nothing like this. She had no idea that pirate radio could be this sophisticated. Whoever ran this little lot had plans … big plans. No way they intended to sit out their lives at the top of this block.
Tuesdays and Fridays – that was, early hours Wednesdays and Saturdays – two guys operated this setup on their own. And that’s when they put a few spare minutes into their sideline, their little drugs’ store on the sixth floor. All this equipment. It had cost serious money both to set up and to run.
She would get the details from Maz and listen in, later tonight. With the setup they had here and … She stalled her own train of thought to slot another piece into the puzzle. Those odd-shaped packages. Now she knew what she’d watched them bring to the tower that first night. Aerials. Yes, with the size of the aerials they now had on the roof she’d pick them up from the other side of the city no problem.
Was it drugs money that financed them? Yet their sixth floor activities were sordid small-time stuff. High-risk too, to use a regular venue like that landing. And right on the doorstep of the operation they took such trouble to protect. She looked again at the door. All those locks. And now she looked from this side, all those steel bolts.
‘How scared are they of being bust?’ she asked.
Maz pulled himself up basking in the reflected glory. ‘Yeah, real scared. They’ve some mint gear stashed. ’s a real finite setup. Big names an’ all.’
Big names? Mentally she struck her forehead as she remembered the times she’d felt frustration at Pat for always having the TV playing. How many times had she had those faces almost in her grasp and felt the blare of the television wipe them from her mind. It hadn’t been that at all. That’s where she’d seen them, those bafflingly familiar third parties who arrived with the white van on non-drug nights. Celebrity faces. Not big megacelebs but big enough and just off mainstream. She’d clocked their pictures in the music press; on local TV. These were names big enough to have red-carpet treatment when they came to the area, and this setup was big enough to tempt them in to do guest spots. Big enough and secure enough.
The jigsaw grew, piece by piece. Not quite a complete picture yet but surely close, very close. All the time, this kid had been a goldmine, and there might be more to get out of him.
‘Oh yeah,’ he told her, his sulks left behind in the face of her close-to-speechless astonishment and taking advantage of a fresh audience to boast to. ‘Yeah. It’s for real. Look at this lot. They gotta shift it quick, it’s real mint stuff. Don’t want to lose it. An’ whoever’s here, they need time, see? Door like that’ll give ’em long enough.’
‘But where would they go?’ The reinforced door, after all, was the flat’s only exit.
‘Oh, they’ve a kick-through to the next flat, and a way down from there. An’ they could always go up and get the lift off the roof.’
‘Up? How?’
His face now wore the self-satisfied look of one about to impress his public. ‘Come and see.’
She followed him to a space behind the kitchen and through a door to the veranda. She recognized the layout from Mrs Earle’s. The small tarmacked rectangle was empty but for a metal contraption lying on the swept floor. As she stepped out, the air changed, the whistle of the wind zipped round the apex of the building. At this height it became a different world.
The balconies didn’t protrude far from the face of the building so when she stepped to the railing and looked down it was on to a sheer drop to a world in miniature that made her gasp and pull back.
Maz smiled a superior smile and made a flashy approach to the edge which he peered over with swaggering indifference. Annie was annoyed with herself for showing her fear, but then couldn’t stop a gasp as he lifted the metal contraption and hoisted himself up so he straddled the inadequate balcony rail.
He lifted the thing over his head pushing it up beyond the top of the gap. Annie clapped her hand to her mouth. He stood up now, balancing on the rail, one arm against the ceiling as though that would save him if a sudden gust whipped stability from under him. Impulsively, she leapt forward and grasped a handful of material near his waist ready to haul him in if he lost balance.
He threw her a casual, ‘Cheers.’
But it wasn’t his safety in her mind at all. She’d grabbed hold to save herself the horror of his falling in front of her, plummeting down to splat on the concrete below. This close to an unguarded edge it was too easy to imagine herself slipping over. How would it feel at the instant of realization, the point of toppling too far to get back again? She shuddered and shifted her weight away from the direction of the drop.
‘There. That’s it, see?’ He twitched suddenly loosening her grasp and she saw his feet fly free of the rail out into mid-air.
Her instinct was to leap back. Then she was ashamed as she saw him peer down from where he hung apparently secure from some handhold out of her sight. She stepped forward again and looked upwards. The metal contraption was now a robust ladder that hooked on to something up above. It took his swinging weight without trouble though she saw alarm cross his features as a gust of wind buffeted him. His feet scrabbled for purchase on the rail as he lowered himself down. She grabbed a handful of denim at his thigh and pulled him in.
‘Ta.’ He tried for nonchalance but couldn’t disguise his breathlessness. ‘It’s a piece of piss getting up, but it’s a bit tricky getting back in.’
She could believe it. ‘And they’ve actually used that as a route out?’
‘Nah, but they could. They did that ladder thing to get up to do the aerials first off when they didn’t have a key to the lift.’
‘What’s holding it?’
‘It fits on the maint’nance rail.’
‘Maintenance rail?’
‘Fer repairs and that. Holds the cradle.’
They were dedicated for sure. It would have to be life and death to get her outside on to that makeshift ladder. No way would she risk her neck at this height for an aerial.
The boy cleared his throat. ‘I’ll get that back in a bit.’ To retrieve the ladder, he’d have to straddle the railing again. Not so reckless and devil-may-care as he’d have her believe.
Fine. His problem. ‘The guys who do the radio, the gophers I mean, not the names. They deal drugs twice a week.’
He looked vaguely surprised. ‘Is that why you been watching?’
She nodded. ‘Why do they do it? It’s high-risk. They’ll be caught.’
A look of contempt crossed his features. ‘They’re pissheads.’
It was roughly the conclusion she’d found herself heading towards. She looked at Maz. She wanted more from him but it was time to let something flow the other way. Keep him on side. ‘OK. What is it you want from me? Quid pro quo.’
The quid pro quo clearly puzzled him, but he caught the sense and asked, ‘You’ll do it then?’
‘I don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Yeah, but I’ve showed you the setup, haven’t I?’
‘OK, if I can, I’ll do it. What is it?’
He went for an inner jacket pocket and pulled out two envelopes. He looked at one of them as if he’d never seen it before but then gave an irritated huff of recognition and put it on one side. The other he cradled in his hands.
‘We never used it. N
ever once.’ His tone was earnest, almost pleading. ‘Listen, you can do forensics an’ all that, that’ll prove it. We never used it. But like as not if the cops get hold of it they’ll fit us up. Fit me up. They’ll not touch the posh kids. And I’m not taking the rap for that out there. I ’ad nowt to do with any of it.’
Annie fought bafflement as she looked at the odd-shaped metal rod he passed to her. Her gaze rested for a moment on the other envelope he’d set aside. The words Annie Raymond were printed on it in neat script.
‘That’s nowt,’ he said impatiently. ‘That’s just some crap letter she wrote you. It’s that you’ve to deal with.’ As he spoke, he picked up the other envelope and held it out to her. She would quiz him on it in a moment. For now, she put it into her pocket and looked again at the object he wanted her to take away.
It looked like half a key. A large oddly shaped one. She turned it over in her hand then gave up. ‘What is it?’
He spoke with a hint of exasperation. ‘It’s a key to that place. I only did it ’cos they wanted me to. No one’s used it. I told you. By the time I’d got it done, they got all screechy and said they didn’t want it. I was going to chuck it in the drain but what if they found out I’d had it done? If you have those forensics done on it you can prove I never used it. But if the cops get hold, they’ll fit me up. They said you was OK over that stuff with the body.’
Annie pieced it together. The three girls considered her a safe pair of hands because she’d gone to meet them without telling anyone the night they’d found the body in Balham’s shed. It hadn’t occurred to them it was only because she couldn’t find anyone to tell. Oh hell! Of course. ‘That’s a key to the building on the cliff, isn’t it? How did you get it? Why did they want it?’
‘They used to follow him, see. But he always kept it locked. So I said it’d be a piece of piss to get in and we give it a go. Tried to open it up but it’s a better lock than you’d think. He’s had it done special. So I says I’d get a key made up and I followed him. This right big fancy key it was, then I just nipped into the house later on when he was down the yard doing stuff and I got the shape of it.’