NO HELP FOR THE DYING (Gavin & Palmer)

by Magson, Adrian

  Katie Pyle, Riley remembered, hugging the sheet to her neck, had been her baptism of fire. Pitched in at the deep end by an editor who was short of staff and impatient with mundane things like equal rights in the workplace, she had been assigned to cover a story way beyond the traditional newbie jobs of weddings, births, deaths, flower shows and local good works. As far as her boss was concerned, when news beckoned, a reporter reported and neither gender nor lack of experience was a barrier.

  Armed with only the vaguest instructions and the police report to go on, Riley had dashed off with crusading zeal, anxious to put the world to rights and dig below the scummy surface to reveal The Truth. Her main problem - something her editor seemed to have had neither the time nor inclination to tell her - was trying to trace someone who either didn’t want to be found or was simply beyond reach.

  She had begun by talking to the police, the most immediate experts. They had been by turn cautious, factual and professional. They had pointed out that, according to the available evidence, Katie, barely fifteen years old and a single child, had left home voluntarily, taking some money, a shoulder bag and a change of clothes, but little else of value. As a subsequent visit to her shell-shocked parents had shown, even her favourite teddy had been left behind, propped up on the bed-head and staring blankly at the opposite wall as if hiding all the girl’s secrets behind its frozen, glassy expression.

  A helpful desk sergeant, perhaps sensing Riley’s inexperience, had acquainted her with the statistics of missing persons each year. It now stood, she knew, at a staggering 200,000-plus.

  ‘Most of them are back within days, weeks or months,’ the sergeant had informed her. ‘Usually none the worse for it other than needing a good wash, some grub and a kip.’

  A more senior officer had been more analytical, suggesting that many wore the signs of their experience like a new coat, recognisable only by those closest to them. Some were deeply secretive about what they had done and where they had been. Sometimes they lost these new affectations and reverted to type, sometimes not. The unlucky ones, he’d added gravely, turned up dead, mostly at the hands of somebody known to them.

  ‘Shit happens,’ one DCI had commented before hurrying away on a call. As she had subsequently learned over the years, those two short words had proved a brutally accurate summary of life’s more unpleasant events.

  Riley was about to close her eyes and give in to sleep when the door buzzer sounded from downstairs. She tried to ignore it but it kept on ringing until she scrambled out of bed again and angrily punched the button in the hall. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Ouch.’ A familiar male voice. ‘So, no chance of a coffee, then?’

  Riley sighed and buzzed the door open. Ever since she had moved in three months ago, her sometime colleague, private investigator Frank Palmer, had been promising to drop by for a visit. He hadn’t said it might be at this ungodly hour of the morning, though. They had forged a friendship of mutual understanding after working on a couple of assignments, but pleading insane waking hours evidently wasn’t going to put him off.

  ‘Nice gaff,’ said Palmer, putting his head round the kitchen door. If he was startled by her rumpled blonde hair and the sight of her in grey sleep joggies and top, he hid it well. Riley ignored him and spooned fresh coffee into the filter pot. Palmer had seen her looking a lot worse and frankly, she didn’t care if he approved or not; it was far too early in the day for standing on ceremony. If she carried on drinking coffee at this rate she’d be as high as a kite by lunchtime and unable to sleep tonight.

  ‘Glad you like it,’ she muttered, slightly mollified. ‘I don’t want to sound unwelcoming, Palmer, but what are you doing here at this time of the morning?’

  ‘Work, as usual. Why else?’

  ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘I’m babysitting a Saudi business type for a couple of days. He’s down the road at the Kensington Hilton. You sound cranky.’

  ‘Really? Well spotted. Donald wakes me at God knows when, and just as I’m dropping off to sleep again, you turn up on the doorstep expecting instant service. How does being cranky not come into it?’ She gave him a suspicious look. ‘Hang on a minute… did Donald get you to come round here?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Palmer gave her his best vacant look, the one he used when he didn’t want to give anything away. Bloody Donald; he was making her paranoid. He had a bit of a thing on the quiet about her safety, which was how she’d first met Frank Palmer. Co-opted as back up on an assignment involving some unpleasant gangster-types the previous year, and with a background in the Military Police, she knew there was nobody better than Palmer to have on her side. But she doubted he would come out and admit he’d been told to stop by. She let it go and watched as he wandered off to prowl around the small series of boxes which comprised her latest home. The cat followed his progress with a watchful tilt of the head, but didn’t seem the least bothered by the man’s presence. Riley wasn’t surprised; Palmer had a way about him which was both unthreatening and reassuring, guaranteed to set old ladies and animals at ease in the middle of a firestorm.

  ‘Not bad,’ he congratulated her again, returning from his scouting mission. ‘So what was wrong with Fulham that made you move to Holland Park? Or is it Notting Hill?’

  ‘Depends who you talk to. Mr Grobowski downstairs reckons Notting Hill, but the old dowager upstairs says Holland Park. I’m just Confused of West London and don’t really give a damn. I felt like a change of scenery.’ It had also been a practical and timely way of despatching ghosts after her previous flat had been burgled by a psychotic thug named McManus. Somehow, a thorough cleansing hadn’t been sufficient to rid herself of the feeling of vulnerability afterwards, although McManus was long gone to whatever hell awaited him, and in the end, the desire to move had become irresistible.

  Palmer nodded but said nothing. He, too, had known McManus and understood Riley’s need to shake off the past. He drifted over and poured coffee into two mugs, then leaned across to the fridge and rooted around for the milk. Riley allowed him the familiarity, pleased he felt at ease. He was wearing, she noted, his usual comfort-before-style tweedy jacket and jeans, of a sombre colour guaranteed to blend in wherever he went. After a career in the Military Police, Palmer, now somewhere close to forty, had developed a healthy dislike of formal wear of any kind. He also wore his fair hair slightly longer than Queen’s Regulations would have permitted, but it seemed to suit his tall frame and angular face.

  ‘So… nothing to do with broken hearts, then.’ He handed Riley a mug and spooned three portions of sugar into his coffee.

  She scowled at him. ‘It’s not socially unacceptable for a girl to be single, you know.’ He was referring to her arms-length relationship with John Mitcheson, by coincidence also a former soldier. They had met on an assignment in Spain barely a year ago, and so far had struggled to maintain momentum while he was building up his security business in San Francisco. Due to a misunderstanding with the law, Mitcheson was not currently welcome in the UK, so much of their involvement took place over snatched weekends in out-of-the-way places. Exciting and head-spinning at first, the relationship had suffered from a lack of regular care over the months, a fact both of them acknowledged. And all the while, Frank Palmer had observed them with detached interest, watchful of Riley’s welfare, a close friend but nothing more. His opinion of John Mitcheson had originally been uncomplimentary, but had changed with time. Now, she guessed, he remained merely cautious on her behalf.

  ‘What did Donald have to say?’

  She led the way through to the living room and slumped on the sofa, the cat bagging the place next to her and staring at Palmer in disdainful triumph. Palmer stuck his tongue out and opted for the armchair.

  The cat lifted one leg to a lithe ninety-degree angle and licked its bottom.

  Riley told Palmer about the message from Henry Pearcy, and how she had first met the newsman, ending with Donald’s news of the discovery of the body on th
e Embankment. ‘It could simply be a bit of final housekeeping on Henry’s part,’ she said. ‘He probably heard of the girl’s death the same way Donald did and wanted to tip me the wink.’

  ‘For old times sake?’

  ‘Why not? Henry was ok. I’m surprised he’s still around, though, let alone in the business.’ When Palmer looked puzzled, she explained: ‘He suffered from depression... and he drank a lot.’

  Palmer nodded. ‘Bit unusual, though, this girl - woman - turning up dead after all this time. What was it - ten years? Didn’t her parents ever hear from her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I lost touch years ago.’ Riley hoped they had made contact, even if only for their peace of mind. Apart from offering a reward for information, they had put up dozens of posters wherever they thought it might do some good. It had been carried out, she recalled, almost as an act of self-protection more than hope, as if it might somehow alleviate the awful pain of realising their daughter had chosen to leave of her own accord, with no explanation. It was painfully obvious even then that the event had permanently marked their lives, numbing them into a state of paralysis from which they had seemed unlikely to recover.

  She gave Palmer a keen look. ‘For a coffee-break visit, you’re asking lots of questions.’

  ‘Am I? I thought I was just being matey. Are you going to follow it up?’

  Riley shrugged. After all this time she wasn’t sure she wanted to get into Katie Pyle’s life again. It had affected her enough the first time round; she wasn’t sure she needed another dose of family sadness and grief to deal with. Besides, hadn’t she moved on from following that kind of news trail? She was now, if her recent track record was any guide, more into high-level fraud, gang-busting and political chicanery than family tragedies and missing teenagers.

  ‘Hey-ho.’ Palmer drained his mug and stood up. ‘Time’s-a-flying. Better get back to his Highness the Prince of whatever.’

  ‘He’s a real prince?’

  ‘So they tell me. His lackeys seem pretty impressed.’ He looked at her. ‘What is it?’ Her attention had drifted away while he was speaking and she was staring out of the window with a faint frown.

  Riley shook herself. ‘Sorry - I was just remembering something about the chronology of the Katie Pyle case. It’s not important.’

  ‘Ok.’ He waved and drifted towards the door. ‘What are you working on at the moment?’

  Riley looked at him. The question had been almost off-hand, but there was something not so relaxed in the way he had put it. ‘I’ve just finished a piece about forged papers and phantom airport workers. Why?’

  ‘No reason. Just asking.’ He waved a vague hand at the four walls. ‘Nice. Who else lives in the house apart from you and the other two?’

  ‘Jeez, Palmer. If you must know, just the three of us. Mr Grobowski helps out at the Polish Community centre, and the old dowager type upstairs, whose name I don’t know and is a spit for Miss Marple, comes and goes at odd hours. I think she might be a vampire. Satisfied?’

  ‘Great. So, no chance of any wild parties, then.’ He smiled and left.

  Riley listened to his footsteps fading down the stairs and shook her head. Palmer was getting paranoid. He’d spent his life watching people and probably couldn’t drop the habit. New faces and new places meant somebody else to keep an eye on, just in case.

  She scooped up the phone and dialled the number she’d written down. With full wakefulness, her mind had started working on Donald’s information. Activity was the only way to get to the bottom of it. Who knows, it might lead to a decent story.

  As the phone rang at the other end, the thought that had been bothering her before suddenly crystallised in her mind. It was so obvious she wondered if she had got it wrong. But she knew she hadn’t.

  Katie Pyle had disappeared a full twelve months before Riley had left The Reader and begun working with Henry Pearcy. Twelve months in which the story had faded and died, superseded by a thousand other events that changed lives and claimed public attention. In many ways, Riley felt that her inability to discover what had happened to the girl had been a failure on her part - certainly too much to want to talk about it a year later with an experienced hack like Henry. Which meant that in news terms, as far as Henry Pearcy was concerned, any connection between her and Katie Pyle had simply never existed.

  Frank Palmer walked down the path from the front door and paused at the gate to look back at the building. He was just out of sight of Riley’s window. He was already holding his mobile in his hand, so leaned down next to a street lamp just outside the gate and pretended to talk to someone while rubbing at the ID plate. He stared up at the bulb and made gestures towards the house, then shook his head and put the mobile away. With a bit of luck it might convince any watchers that he was a conscientious official from the lighting department going about council business.

  Especially the two men in the white van with tinted windows fifty yards away.

  He walked past the vehicle, noting the registration, and wondered why they were scoping Riley’s building.

  Chapter 3

  The area around Heathrow airport was busy, the lights hazy through an impenetrable early-morning drizzle steadily turning the roads to a slick, shiny gloss. A large jet thundered in, trailing twin lines of vapour from its wingtips, and Riley mentally crossed her fingers until it touched down with a squeal of rubber and disappeared into the mist.

  She peered through the windscreen of the Golf, trying to recall the locations of the main hotels along the Bath Road. Her few infrequent trips to Heathrow usually ended at the car parks, with little or no reason to familiarise herself with the surrounding geography other than a passing awareness of alternative roads in and out.

  She spotted the building she wanted on the north side of the road, its presence anchored in the grey light by a large blue-and-gold logo. Nosing beneath an open chevron barrier, she found a parking space not far from the main entrance between two growths of berberis. As she flicked off the lights, she caught a glimpse of movement in the glass-lined foyer and a flutter of curtains on the first floor. Evidently some guests were already up and about, no doubt preparing for imminent travel and trying to suppress nerves and catch an early breakfast.

  When she had dialled Henry’s number from her flat, she’d got his answer machine. But in place of the normal request for callers to leave a message, Henry’s plummy voice had spoken directly to Riley. ‘Remember me? It’s been ages, I know. I’m on the move and have to switch this off for a while. It’s important I see you, so please call me later.’ The message had clicked off without another word, leaving her staring at the phone in puzzlement. Was that a slur in his voice… or simply the toll of the years? By the tone of urgency, it was obvious he’d been waiting for her to call and had left the direct message to make sure she kept trying.

  She had given it another twenty minutes before dialling again. This time he’d picked up on the first ring, wasting no time on catch-ups, his words spilling out with urgency. ‘Riley, are you mobile? Sorry I couldn’t speak earlier - I had to switch off the phone. I must speak to you, but there’s not much time.’ His voice had been clearer, the slightly cultured drawl coming back to her over the years. Henry had been expensively educated, she remembered hearing, with a good degree from Oxford, although it wasn’t something he had ever talked about.

  ‘What’s this about, Henry?’ she’d asked him. She probably sounded equally terse to him, but it was difficult not matching his urgent manner. ‘You mentioned Katie Pyle.’

  ‘I’m near Heathrow,’ he said, as if that would explain things. ‘At the Scandair.’

  She knew the hotel vaguely; it was a refurbished concrete-and-tinted-glass block catering to mid-range travellers and sitting a stone’s throw from the airport’s chain-link perimeter fence.

  ‘I’m flying out tomorrow - sorry, this morning,’ he continued. ‘Rush job, covering for somebody. You know the way it is. Can you come here? I’d meet you halfway but I can
’t get to my car easily at the moment.’

  ‘Why not tell me over the phone?’

  He hesitated. ‘It’s difficult. A man’s been looking for you.’

  ‘A man? What man?’

  ‘He wouldn’t give details. I heard about him through a colleague. He’s been asking questions about where you might be… how he could reach you.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘I’d best leave that to him. He wants to talk to you. About Katie.’

  ‘He said that?’ This was becoming bizarre. What kind of peculiar twist of the gods could simultaneously bring back a name from the past, now turned into a dead body, an old news-hound from outside the circle, and a stranger with information? ‘Henry?’ Riley wanted to shout at him to open up and stop messing about. But she told herself to be patient. There was no telling how fragile Henry might be, and the longer she kept him talking, the more likely he was to tell her what was going on. Spook him, on the other hand, and she might never find out. The pause stretched for a few more seconds. ‘What did he say about her?’

  ‘Riley… it would be better if I saw you. I’m in room 210. This chap - the caller - has your name. But that’s all. I said I’d try to get in touch with you, that you’d moved on and so forth, and he said he’d call again.’

  ‘And did he?’

  But Henry had gone, leaving a heavy silence. Riley hung up and stared at the phone, trying to make sense of his words. Whatever was bugging him involved this mystery man who was trying to contact her. But why not just tell her who he was, instead of acting as if the whole thing was a state secret? She couldn’t recall him ever being so evasive.

  She’d gathered her things and slipped into Kickers, jeans and a warm jacket, then headed for her car and west London. The journey had taken an hour because of a spillage of timber on the westbound carriageway, leaving her raging in silence until the traffic cops and highway crews in their wet slickers managed to clear a path through the debris.