NO HELP FOR THE DYING (Gavin & Palmer)

by Magson, Adrian

  Riley’s mobile rang. She excused herself and looked at the screen. It was Palmer.

  He didn’t waste time on small talk. ‘I need your help right away. Can you come to Waterloo station?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Riley said to Friedman. She felt guilty at having to leave him, but guessed Palmer must have tracked down Angelina. ‘I have to go. I’ll call you later.’

  Eric Friedman sat for a few minutes after Riley had gone, letting his thoughts settle. Talking about Nicholas always left him unnerved, even after all these years, and he had long ago ceased trying to pretend that he was in any way left normal by the experience. He wondered how other people coped.

  Outside the pub the chilly air made him shiver. He hurried back to the Puttnam Hotel, glad to have found somewhere he felt safe, away from prying eyes and sidelong glances. It wasn’t much, but it was all he needed.

  As he ducked through the entrance and walked upstairs, he failed to notice the thin man in the long, dark coat following in his wake.

  Moments after reaching his room, there was a soft knock at the door. He guessed it was Riley Gavin. She must have forgotten something. He smiled, relieved at finally having found someone he could talk to about what had happened. Someone who understood. It had been a long time.

  He threw open the door.

  Chapter 30

  Riley bagged a passing taxi and told the driver where to go, then sat back and thought over what Friedman had told her. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the speed of events, and saddened by his shock news. It seemed so unfair after all he had been through.

  She curled up in the corner of her seat, exhausted by the day’s events. In spite of the coffee and alcohol, but lulled by the warmth of the cab, she fell asleep.

  The driver woke her outside Waterloo station. She paid him off and took a few deep breaths of cold air to shake off the cobwebs, then turned and hurried up the steps onto the station concourse. Instinct made her head for the main departure and arrival boards. Palmer hadn’t said where to meet, but she had a feeling he would find her soon enough.

  She was passing the news stand in the centre of the concourse when he suddenly materialised at her side and told her to keep walking. She tried hard not to stare. With messy hair and a growth of stubble, he looked as if he’d been up all night.

  ‘Christ, Palmer, you look a sight.’

  He hustled her to the far end of the concourse before answering, occasionally looking over his shoulder. Riley went along with him, allowing him to dictate the pace. They ducked through a narrow entrance and he stopped and turned to her. ‘I’ve got a line on Angelina. But I need your help.’

  ‘Of course. Where is she? Is she ok?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ He turned and led her outside the station. They walked hard at first, moving away from the main thoroughfares and winding through narrow streets where there were few pedestrians. At first they ran parallel to the river, then he veered away towards an area Riley thought was somewhere on the borders of Southwark and Newington. Cutting down narrow streets flanked by the sombre outlines of old warehouses, Palmer seemed to have the ability to skirt round darkening clutches of shadow where the whisper of movement was suddenly stilled and voices stopped speaking. A thin crackle of flame echoed in the depths of a half-demolished building, revealing a circle of faces gathered over the fire, silent and brooding. The group watched them go by with unblinking stares, then turned back to the fire.

  It was much colder here, the sharp wind coming off the water gathering an icy venom as it sliced through the dark canyons, sending up a flurry of paper scraps and stinging grit into their faces. Riley wished she had put on an extra layer or clothing. It was raw and desolate and there was a rank smell of stale water in the air. Even the street lights seemed to have a weaker, sickly glow.

  Palmer turned a corner into a deserted yard and stopped. A large bundle was sitting against a graffiti-covered wall under an overhanging slab of concrete. A weak light beneath the overhang washed over a clutch of rubbish skips, their edges dripping an overdose of refuse. Alongside the bundle was an old golf caddy loaded with string-bound packages wrapped in grimy polythene sheeting. Out on the river, the sound of a boat chugged past.

  ‘Her name’s Maureen,’ Palmer said softly. ‘She won’t talk to me. Hates men, apparently. I’ve been keeping track of her. She moves in an area roughly half a mile square and knows everyone and everything. All she would say was she’d only talk to a woman. I think she knows where Angelina is. I’ll lead the way and you chip in whenever you think necessary.’

  Palmer walked up to the bundle and hunkered down carefully to one side, scanning the surrounding area as he did so to make sure they were unobserved. He waved Riley to the other side. In the thin light, Riley saw the old woman’s head was wrapped in layers of cloth, with just a small hole to reveal a dark, weather-burned face. Her legs stuck out in front of her like two sticks, encased in heavy woollen stockings and a pair of surprisingly stylish boots on her feet.

  ‘This is the friend I told you about, Maureen,’ Palmer said softly. ‘Her name’s Riley.’ He pulled a half-bottle of whisky from his coat pocket and handed it to the woman. She took it without comment and snapped off the cap with practiced skill, swallowing a generous mouthful. Nodding in approval, she then took several small sips in quick succession, allowing the liquid to seep down her throat in controlled doses as if savouring each one. She gripped the bottle tightly throughout as if Palmer might snatch it back at any moment.

  Palmer looked across at Riley while the old woman was drinking. ‘I showed Angelina’s photo around, concentrating on the younger kids at first because they hang out together. Nothing doing. Then I was put onto Maureen, here. She’s the local bush telegraph.’

  ‘That’s me, dearie,’ Maureen piped up suddenly, looking directly at Riley. ‘Regular neighbourhood watch, I am. Everyone knows me but nobody notices. The girl was with a couple of Dukes.’ She took another swallow from the bottle.

  ‘Dukes?’

  ‘There’s a pecking order down here,’ explained Palmer. ‘The Dukes are the top dogs. They feed off the cardboard cities by allocating the best places to sleep. If you don’t get permission from them, you sleep somewhere else. It’s as simple as that. They also offer protection to those who want it. But they don’t do it for free and you can guess what they ask for in return.’ Especially, his tone implied grimly, if you happen to be a young girl.

  ‘What about people like Maureen?’

  ‘They don’t bother me.’ The words came out of the bundle with a burst of defiance and a fine spray of whisky-soaked breath. ‘You can ask me direct, you know - I’m not deaf; I’m not mental, neither. Not like some.’ She belched softly and sighed.

  ‘Sorry,’ Riley said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘They don’t touch me because I ain’t got nothing to give them,’ Maureen continued matter-of-factly. ‘Men. I’m too old for all that. And I ain’t got nothing else, have I?’ She took another sip from the bottle, then held it up. ‘Except this. They’d take this, though, if they could. Just to show they can. Men are bastards, in my experience.’ She peered at Palmer and surprised him by winking. ‘He’s not so bad, though.’

  ‘Nice people,’ said Riley.

  ‘Right,’ said Palmer. ‘And they’re not pushovers. Anyone crosses them, tries to muscle in, they’re likely to end up floating in the river. They’re hard as nails and they’ve got nothing to lose.’

  Riley looked at the old woman. ‘How long has Angelina been with them?’

  ‘Is that her name? Nice. I wish I’d been called Angelina. Sounds like a doll, doesn’t it? I used to have dolls - lots of them. She’s been with ‘em a couple of days, no more. She’s pretty. Just like you, dear.’ She smiled up at Riley. ‘They’ll be sure to hang onto her, I bet.’

  ‘Do you know if they’ve touched her?’ asked Palmer. His voice was unnaturally calm and Riley stared at him through the gloom.

  Maureen shook her head, evidently regarding
Palmer as acceptable. ‘Not yet they haven’t. They’re very careful about underage girls. DNA, you see.’

  Riley’s surprise must have shown because the old woman cackled and crossed her arms with a sudden, almost childish show of pleasure, kicking her feet out in front of her at the same time. ‘See, I know about things like that. Told you I wasn’t stupid. If they do anything to her and she gets away and goes to the police, they’ll test her for DNA. Then the Dukes’re in big trouble.’

  Riley guessed the Dukes must have a record, and their DNA was on a database. Any allegations of rape would activate that database automatically. ‘What will they do with her?’

  ‘If they can, they’ll sell her back,’ said Palmer briefly. ‘Get her to go home in return for a finder’s fee.’ He shrugged beneath his old coat. ‘The Church didn’t invent the concept.’

  ‘And if she won’t go?’ Or, Riley thought cynically, she was unlucky enough to have the sort of parents who refused to pay.

  ‘Then they’re fair game to sell on. There are others who won’t be so cautious.’ The way his face clamped down said it all, and Riley decided she wouldn’t want to be a Duke if he discovered they had done anything to Angelina. By the sound of it, they didn’t have much time before she was moved on somewhere else.

  ‘Ok. Where do we go?’

  Palmer gently nudged the old woman. The whisky appeared to be having the effect of making her retreat further inside her cloth bundle, away from the cold outside.

  ‘Maureen?’

  She gave a start as though surprised they were still there and gestured with a grimy thumb towards a jungle of buildings away from the river. ‘Try the arches,’ she muttered, her voice beginning to slur as the alcohol took over. ‘Down below the Causeway.’

  Palmer patted her on the shoulder, but it was unlikely that she felt it.

  Chapter 31

  Palmer led Riley at a brisk pace through the streets, heading south and sticking to the shadows. He seemed to know precisely where to go and rarely seemed to check his bearings. Riley was hard pushed to keep up, but made no protest; this was Palmer’s turf and whatever he felt necessary was fine by her.

  Eventually, they rounded a corner and saw a row of railway arches huddled together beneath an ancient viaduct. A railway line ran overhead, the embankment below covered in debris and litter, the old fencing torn and rusted. Even the lack of light couldn’t conceal the aura of sad neglect in the rotting brickwork, defaced concrete and wind-bunched litter. Where there would once have been signs of life and industry, there were now heavy metal barriers and marine-ply screens festooned with warning notices.

  Palmer ducked into the doorway of an abandoned shop across the way and squatted down, pulling Riley in behind him. The recess was a harbour for litter and dead leaves and God knew what other debris Riley tried not to think about. The smell was enough to choke an elephant but if Palmer noticed he gave no indication. The letterbox of the shop door was jammed tight with junk leaflets, and Palmer turned and pulled a wad of the papers free and dropped them on the floor for her to sit on. Riley stared at him in surprise.

  ‘Do this a lot, do you?’

  He shrugged. ‘A few, here and there. This is a good one, as doorways go.’ He nodded towards the arches. ‘I just want to check the lay of the land.’ He took a small metal flask from his coat and passed it across. ‘Try this. Coffee with a bit of something added. It might be a long wait.’ Then he handed her a woollen ski hat. ‘You’ll need this, too.’

  The something added was brandy. The welcoming heat spread through her stomach. She hadn’t realised how cold she was. It made her appreciate Maureen’s eagerness for the contents of the bottle Palmer had given her, although she doubted any of the local outreach workers would see it the same way. She returned the flask and pulled on the ski hat, tugging it down over her ears. It wasn’t the first thing in style, and smelled of mothballs, but frankly, she didn’t give a damn.

  The minutes ticked by, then Riley said, ‘I got a message from Mitcheson.’ Even as she spoke, she wasn’t sure if Palmer would be impressed. He wasn’t.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘He’s in Florida. On a job.’

  She sensed his head turning towards her. ‘Florida. What, you thought sharing that with me right now,’ he murmured wryly, ‘would make this easier?’

  In spite of herself, Riley smiled. ‘Well, It gives us something else to think about, doesn’t it? Sun, sea, spare ribs.’

  ‘If you say so. What else have you been up to?’

  She brought him up to date on her talks with Eric Friedman and Nikki Bruce, and briefly told him about the flat. It made her realise that she was temporarily homeless. Palmer said nothing throughout, rarely taking his eyes off the arches across the road. But she knew he was taking it all in and storing it away. When she finally fell silent, he nodded and passed her the flask for another drink.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ he said. ‘Whoever did it means business.’

  ‘Eric Friedman thinks it was Quine. They did the same to his place.’

  ‘It was a warning. Next time they might wait for you to be home. Best not be there.’ He sounded matter-of-fact, as if this kind of thing happened every day, and Riley wondered how he’d got so used to it. If indeed he ever had. He sipped from the flask, tipping his head back to let the liquid trickle down his throat the way Maureen had done. ‘Nikki Bruce has been very helpful. You sure she won’t steal your story?’

  ‘No. She’s too hell bent on getting out of hard news into television; taking up this story would keep her mired in the world of the Post. She’s interested enough to help me, but not enough to hang about.’

  They fell silent, feeling the cold seep out of the ground and into their bones, leaving them numb and shivering. They sipped the coffee sparingly. As the light faded further and what little pedestrian traffic there had been diminished to a trickle, lights began to come on in houses further along the street, beyond the fenced-off area. A few cars and vans nosed their way past and disappeared in a fog of exhaust fumes, leaving a growing feeling of desolation hanging in the air. In a small, scrubby play area nearby, a plastic carrier bag was tossed into the air by the wind, before catching on the upraised snout of a broken see-saw, where it flapped ineffectually like a trapped bird.

  Riley dozed intermittently, brought awake by faint night noises from the shadows around them; a clatter of a pigeon taking off in panic from a nearby rooftop; a scurrying sound of something furtive along the outer wall of the building they were sheltering in; a burst of tinny music from somewhere above their heads. It was hardly what anyone would have called rest, and was too draining and uncomfortable to be anything but ultimately exhausting.

  The sound of her mobile buzzing against her hip sounded frighteningly loud in the silence. It was Nikki Bruce.

  ‘There’s been a development. The Post ran a photo of Katie Pyle. It was seen by a couple in Chesham who rented out a flat for the past seven years to a special needs teacher named Jennifer Bush. Either it’s Katie or she’s got a double. Jennifer disappeared a few days ago, early one morning, which they say was completely out of character. The woman says she thought she heard a car door slam. And this Jennifer was into Buddhism.’

  ‘It must be her. But why Chesham?’

  ‘Who knows? Close to home, perhaps? From what you said, it’s only about twenty miles from where she used to live. Maybe it was as near as she could get. We’ll never know. The police got both sets of medical records and made a match. And guess what: Jennifer Bush had an abortion a couple of months after the date Katie Pyle disappeared.’

  ‘Christ, poor kid,’ whispered Riley. ‘Another reason she never went back.’ It hadn’t been enough that Katie had felt compelled to leave home, she’d endured the mental agonies of an abortion alone and even changed her name. She thought about Susan Pyle’s description of her husband’s intransigently religious nature, and wondered how such attitudes could become set in stone. Yet all it would have taken was for Ka
tie to go home. At least then she would have known for sure how they felt. Who knows, perhaps they could have worked it out somehow. Still, easy for Riley to say. She had never been in that situation. ‘Wait a minute - why did the police bother looking up Katie’s medical records if she died of choking?’

  ‘That’s what they first thought. Then they took another look. They found suspicious bruising around her throat. Katie’s death is now a murder enquiry.’

  Chapter 32

  Riley felt Palmer’s hand on her arm. A scraping sound echoed softly in the dark, coming from the direction of the arches. She whispered to Nikki to read out Jennifer Bush’s address, then switched off her phone, praying she hadn’t been heard.

  The shadows moved and a man emerged from a wooden door, back-lit by a faint yellow light from inside the ancient brick structure. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and stood for a moment, nosing the wind like a gun-dog, scanning the area around him before glancing at his wrist.

  ‘He’s expecting someone,’ Riley whispered.

  Palmer nodded but made no move to stand up. ‘And soon, by the looks of it.’ He looked at Riley. ‘The call. Bad news?’

  ‘Katie’s death is now a murder enquiry. They’ve also found out where she’s been all these years.’ She told him briefly about the discoveries and the revelation of Katie Pyle’s second life.

  At the end of the street there was a flicker of movement and the man outside the arches turned his head to watch. An elderly man wrapped in an old coat and a Balaclava rolled into view, mumbling as he moved along the street. His course was erratic, alternating between the gutter and the buildings as if looking for something. Then he wandered into the play area and began digging in a rubbish bin, scattering the contents indiscriminately and muttering a fluid stream of obscenities.

  The man near the arches watched for a minute or two, then lost interest. After another impatient look along the street, he turned and went back inside, pulling the door closed behind him.