NO HELP FOR THE DYING (Gavin & Palmer)

by Magson, Adrian

  Riley followed his instructions and turned to her right, walking along the pavement past the park entrance. The traffic on her left was a muddle of cars and buses flashing past, with a sprinkling of bikes and revving scooters weaving in and out to gain extra yardage. No white van, though.

  ‘Could they be police?’ Riley wondered if DC McKinley had decided to put a tail on her to check her story.

  ‘Nah. They’d find a spot and let you come to them, then double ahead. These two jokers like to keep on the move, as if they don’t want to get caught on a double yellow.’ He chuckled with evident satisfaction. ‘Seems you’ve perked up someone’s interest. This is good.’

  ‘Good? How the hell can it be good, Palmer? Did you get the number?’

  ‘Got it, logged it, phoned it in.’ He didn’t say where he’d phoned it in to, but her guess was a contact with a finger on a reliable vehicle-licensing database.

  She continued walking with the phone clamped to her ear, pretending to ignore everything around her while scanning the surrounding traffic. She had a hint, but that was all: white, as Palmer had said, and nondescript, with no markings. You could see a hundred like them any day of the week, anonymous and unremarkable apart from their apparent disregard for traffic regulations and anyone else on the road.

  ‘Keep going,’ said Palmer calmly, as she took the first road to her right after the park. ‘If they keep to their pattern so far, they’ll turn off in a minute and go round the block, then come up behind you and play catch-up.’ He gave a snort of disgust. ‘It’s criminal. I mean, if they’re going to play silly buggers, they could at least do it properly.’ He sounded genuinely offended, as if they were letting the side down. Then he told her to get ready, because as soon as they were out of sight, he was going to do a drive-by and pick her up. Riley crossed to the left-hand side of the road to make it easier for him.

  Moments later a scruffy Saab 95 slid into the kerb alongside her and Palmer popped open the door. She slid inside and he took off again immediately. He drove fast and with a deceptively casual air, slowing only to negotiate speed bumps in the road. Then it was foot down on the accelerator, the engine humming so smoothly Riley could have balanced an egg on the bonnet. The thup-thup of the windscreen wipers filled the silence.

  After dropping her off outside the flat, Palmer disappeared to park his car a couple of streets away, then trotted back. Once inside he stood at the window facing onto the street, scanning the traffic. A few minutes later he nodded with satisfaction. ‘Right on cue.’

  Riley peered past him just as a white van drifted slowly past the front of the building. The windows were too dark to see through, but the passenger side window was lowered, showing a section of narrow, pale face and close-to-the-bone cropped hair. ‘They know where I live.’

  ‘Yes. I first spotted them a couple of days ago. I came round for coffee but you were out. Yesterday morning I saw them again. What they won’t know is how you got back here so quickly. It’ll have thrown them for a bit.’

  ‘They’ll assume by taxi.’ She looked at him. ‘If they’ve been out there a couple of days, why didn’t you mention it before?’

  ‘So you could do what - go out and kick their door in? I wanted to be sure first. I think it’s safe to assume they’ve been following you for some time, and they might know about me, too.’ His mobile beeped and he took it out and listened. Riley handed him a notepad and pencil, but he waved it away before thanking the person on the other end and switching off. ‘Well, well. Sometimes we find out more by what we don’t know than what we do.’ He didn’t explain the cryptic comment but looked hopefully towards the kitchen, rubbing his hands. ‘Coffee, I think.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Riley and left him to it. She knew he’d soon tire of the smug act and tell her what he was thinking. She didn’t really care how he got his information, as long as he didn’t keep her in the dark.

  ‘All right, so who are they?’ She felt annoyed at being the first to give way.

  ‘You first.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said earlier you’d thought of something. What was it?’

  She picked up the missing persons flyer from the coffee shop and passed it to him. He studied it for a moment, front and back. ‘I saw this before. So?’

  Riley pointed to the phone number underneath the picture of Angelina Boothe-Davison. Then she picked up the leather bible. When she flicked open the cover and pointed to the stamp inside, he looked puzzled.

  ‘The bible is from Henry’s hotel room,’ she explained. ‘The flyer was in a coffee shop down the street from here. Look at the phone numbers.’

  He did. ‘It’s the same.’ He was staring at the bible with an odd expression on his face, as if genuinely surprised. That was another first. ‘Isn’t it usually the family who put out these things?’

  ‘Usually.’ She had helped Katie’s parents do the same, tramping around the streets pinning posters to anything solid. They’d probably been breaking all sorts of by-laws, but at the time she figured a missing teenager trumped regulations any day. She took over making the coffee while Palmer studied the piece of paper. While it brewed she took out her phone and dialled the number inside the bible, then pressed the button for loudspeaker. After three rings, there was a hiss of static, then a click, and de Haan’s familiar and theatrical voice echoed richly around the room to a faint soundtrack of organ music. This time, instead of the announcement about the important function, the words were more traditional, even quaint:

  ‘You have reached the message service of The Church of Flowing Light. If you have information about our missing persons, please press two and leave a message. If you require further information about our services, please press three and leave your name and address. We will get back to you. Thank you for calling.’

  She switched off the phone.

  ‘Pretty one-sided,’ said Palmer. ‘For a church relying on sponsors, you’d think they’d want to grab every caller first time round.’

  Riley nodded. ‘But it answers the question about that phone number and confirms what de Haan told me; they trace missing kids.’

  ‘Yes. And most likely on behalf of the families. Must be worth a few quid to some people.’ Palmer looked sideways at her, a glimmer of a smile on his lips.

  ‘You’re an old cynic.’

  ‘You bet. It keeps me young.’ He stared at the ceiling. ‘Right, logic time. You never came across this church before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, it’s a coincidence. They help people in need, they distribute bibles in hotels and they search for runaway kids. It’s not illegal and they’re not the only ones. And Henry is a member, supporter, whatever. Good for him.’

  ‘Except I can’t understand why de Haan wouldn’t let me speak to Henry.’

  ‘Maybe he was telling the truth, and Henry had some kind of breakdown. It happens.’ He waited while she digested the logic. Common sense dictated that if de Haan and his Church were truly looking after Henry and concerned with his welfare, she didn’t need to concern herself about him any longer. The presence of the bible was a clear indication that they already had some kind of relationship, and were probably the best people to care for him. But were they? Her suspicions, already stirred by de Haan’s changing accent and Quine’s palpable aura of menace, were increasing steadily.

  ‘Henry might have asked him to keep callers away,’ Palmer continued. ‘Breakdowns and stress affect people in different ways. Some let it all out, others just want to find somewhere to hide.’

  ‘Well, thanks for that input, Doctor Palmer,’ Riley said dryly. ‘And here was I thinking you were going to tell me my suspicions were absolutely correct and the whole thing was a conspiracy. Why do you think the men in the van know about you?’

  ‘Because when you came to the office, I got a tingly feeling in my neck. Never fails me.’

  ‘Tingly as in-?’

  ‘The white van. It stopped along the street after you arrived. Sa
me colour, same tinted windows. Where I come from, only people with something to hide use tinted glass.’

  ‘But it was just a van. The streets are full of them.’ Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. People like Palmer seemed to operate on a different wavelength to the rest of humanity. In this case he had been right. It explained why he had seemed so thoughtful when she walked into his office.

  ‘The passenger window was down a couple of inches and the bloke inside was watching your car. He was trying to look casual but he got careless.’ Palmer made it sound like a criminal offence. ‘When they took off after you, I decided to follow. They tailed you right back here. Definitely suspicious.’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘No reason why you should. Spotting a tail in busy traffic is a tough job. But I’ve had the training,’ he added smugly.

  Riley was annoyed with herself; she had been so fixated on finding out what Henry could have known about Katie, she had totally missed the procession behind her. She went back over her movements for the past two days, trying to work out how long the van might have been there. Nothing came to mind.

  ‘Thanks, I owe you,’ she said, and meant it. Such carelessness could have been serious. ‘What about the number… did your friend in the ministry of mystery registration numbers find out who it belongs to?’

  Palmer shook his head. ‘It belongs to a Fiat Punto written off seven months ago.’

  Riley frowned. ‘I thought you said you knew something about them.’

  ‘I do. I know that whoever these people are, they’re definitely not legal. Now all we’ve got to do is find out who they are and want they want.’

  A hundred yards away, the white van idled at the kerb, shielded from Riley’s flat by a large removals lorry. The driver, Meaker, looked at his colleague for instructions. He wasn’t empowered to make decisions, and was quietly hoping he wasn’t about to get the blame for losing the woman outside the park.

  ‘She had help.’ Quine spoke dispassionately. He kicked some leaf mould from one boot, where he’d been running through the trees. ‘She had to, disappearing like that.’

  ‘Should we go and look? They could be up there,’ Meaker ventured, eager to encourage the deflection of responsibility.

  Quine shook his head, his jaw muscles moving. ‘No. She’ll keep for later. Her and whoever helped her.’

  Chapter 14

  Henry’s house looked undisturbed and empty, with no obvious signs of activity. Riley eased the Golf into a space eighty yards from the entrance and waited. It was late afternoon and the suburban road was quiet and deserted, apart from Palmer, who was checking the area on foot. It could have been her imagination or the effects of the dull weather, but she thought the house now wore the unique air of desolation which seems to cloak deserted buildings when their human occupants are not coming back.

  She joined Palmer on the pavement as he came abreast of the car.

  ‘This should do,’ he said. They were close enough to the house to pick the car up in a hurry, yet sufficiently far away for it to be missed by anyone keeping watch on the front door. ‘If anybody has got the place under surveillance, they’ll expect us to park up close.’

  They had decided earlier to hit the two houses - the neighbour’s and Henry’s -simultaneously. They each carried clipboards and were trying to look like canvassers working the street. Privately, Riley didn’t think Palmer looked like any canvasser she had ever seen, but no doubt he would argue that he would get by on charm. Part of the plan was for him to work that charm on the Neighbourhood Watch supremo, while Riley got inside Henry’s place. She hadn’t been able to think of a logical reason for coming back so soon after her last visit, so it would be better if the elderly neighbour didn’t see her.

  Riley turned down Henry’s drive, the gravel crunching loudly underfoot. If anyone was watching, it would look too suspicious if she kept to the grass, so she gritted her teeth and marched along as if she had every right to be there. Off to her right, Palmer was doing the same. She reached the front door and pressed the bell. Count to thirty. Press again. Count another twenty for luck. No sounds from inside and no sign of movement through the slit windows either side of the door. The corner of an envelope was protruding from the letterbox, which meant the post hadn’t been touched today. She heard Palmer pounding on the door on the other side of the fence and whistling cheerfully, already playing his part to distract attention from Riley.

  The garage doors were still shut, so she walked over and looked through the crack. It showed the same empty space and the same oil tray with its glutinous black deposit, the surface now covered by a scum of dust and bits of leaf. She walked round to the back and peered through the honeysuckle-clad gate, one ear cocked for noises. It would be crass to go charging through the house only to find the old neighbour giving the cat an early tea.

  She crossed the patio to the kitchen door. The same shards of glass were on the floor, except now a faint outline of a dried footprint showed alongside them. It had probably been there on her first visit but it had been too damp to see clearly. Judging by the size, which was at least a nine, it had not been made by the old lady.

  Riley tried the door. It was unlocked. She wiped her feet carefully on a small brown mat, stepped over the slivers of glass and looked around. A fork was lying in the middle of the work surface, with remnants of what looked like cat food stuck to the prongs. An empty dish stood nearby, licked clean save for a smear of dried jelly.

  She did a rapid scout of the ground floor. Out of the kitchen down a carpeted hallway, into a living room on one side and a dining room on the other. A downstairs cloakroom opened off the entrance lobby on one side, with stairs nearby, and across from it and looking out onto the front, a large study. A room to come back to.

  Back out and across the lobby and up the stairs. There was a double twist in the staircase leading to a landing. She didn’t like the idea of that open space above her, but there was no choice other than to keep going. Four bedrooms, ranging from master to small-ish, with no signs of regular occupancy in the first three. A toilet, bathroom and airing cupboard. A faint trace of soap or air-freshener hovering in the atmosphere. And something else she couldn’t place. Musty, like the inside of an old wardrobe.

  A sudden flash of movement made her start and a black and white cat streaked past her on the way downstairs. It had come skidding out of the last room facing the rear of the house. Riley felt the hairs on her neck move and stepped quickly up to the open doorway, holding her breath. She had momentary visions of the old lady coming out, having chased the cat to stop it soiling the carpet, and screaming the place down when she saw an intruder.

  But the old lady wasn’t going anywhere, and any screaming had probably been done earlier.

  She was lying on the room’s double bed, her face turned to the ceiling, arms by her side. She looked oddly elegant, but a shadow of her former self. Her skin was as pale as parchment, and any wrinkles she’d possessed seemed to have smoothed themselves, as if fate had decided that death was bad enough, without being old, too.

  Riley couldn’t see any signs of a struggle, but the old lady plainly hadn’t got here by choice. Her clothes were neat, and her dark cardigan carried traces of white hairs where the cat had been nestling against her side. Riley thought about the fork on the kitchen work surface and guessed that was where she had been surprised. Carrying her up here afterwards would have been no problem; there was almost nothing of her.

  As Riley made her way downstairs she rang Palmer. When he answered she told him to come round the back through the kitchen and to wipe his feet.

  ‘No answer next door,’ he said, when he joined her moments later. ‘Maybe she thinks I’m a Mormon.’ He sniffed the air and frowned, then noticed Riley’s face. ‘What’s up?’

  She nodded at the ceiling. ‘She’s up there. Last door on the left. I’m going to do the study if you want to take a look.’

  He nodded and disappeared upsta
irs. Riley entered the study, trying to dismiss the mental image of the old lady on the bed upstairs and concentrate on the task in hand. The room was a typical male preserve, dark and solid in furnishings and tone. A heavy antique desk and a club chair stood squarely in front of the window, the surface holding a clutter of papers and a coiled black power cable. Bookcases lined the walls, and other than a side-table holding a small combination television and VCR, the only other items of furniture were a sofa and a recliner chair with the footrest extended holding a week-old copy of the Radio Times.

  The desk drawers yielded the usual household items; bank statements, old bills, photos, a few assorted batteries and a bunch of pens and pencils held together with an elastic band. Judging by the hotel names, Henry liked to collect souvenirs on his travels. In the bottom drawer she found a small stack of pamphlets showing a traditional biblical scene of fishermen in the Holy Land staring up at a ray of light coming from the heavens. The picture was topped by heavy lettering in black and gold, with the now familiar words: THE CHURCH OF FLOWING LIGHT. WELCOME ALL WHO ARE UNLOVED, AND ENTER HERE.

  Behind these were some old leaflets announcing a fete in support of funds to set up a drop-in centre in Southampton. It was dated two years ago. Next to it was a stack of envelopes with the same title on the back flap, and underneath these was a box of lapel badges with the name of the church in neat, gold lettering. On the very bottom was a photograph of a group of grinning youngsters standing round a picnic table. They looked self-conscious and awkward, and one or two had even turned away or raised their hands in protest. The shots were slightly blurred and grainy, as if they had been taken from a film or video reel. In the background Henry was grinning and holding aloft a sandwich and a glass of drink. He looked as if he was the only one happy to be caught on camera.

  There was no indication on the reverse side of where or when it had been taken. From the clothing of the subjects, Riley guessed it could have been any time in the last five years. She peered closely at Henry, but he looked no different from when she had last seen him - tall and gaunt and somehow effortlessly comfortable.