Now You See Me

by S J Bolton

  ‘Unhappy?’ I suggested as we stood on the doorstep.

  ‘No, dear,’ she replied. ‘They looked like shark’s eyes. Dark and dead.’

  Police budgets don’t stretch to luxury hotels, but business centres like Cardiff often have empty hotel rooms at the weekends. The Met had got us a good deal on a new and rather glitzy hotel in the bay area and we checked in shortly after six.

  ‘Where do you want to eat?’ asked Joesbury, stifling a yawn as we took the lift up.

  ‘Actually, I don’t,’ I said, without taking my eyes off the lift buttons. ‘I’m just going to crash. I’ll see you at breakfast.’

  The lift got to my floor first and I left it without looking back. My room was beautiful, quite the classiest place I’d ever been in. The bed was king-size, the décor understated but elegant in shades of soft cream and biscuit. Most of one wall was glass. I walked over and pulled back drapes that were fine as cobwebs.

  Night had fallen properly by this stage and lights were shining across the water. Not far from shore a yacht had anchored. It gleamed like a jewel on dark velvet and I could see people moving around on deck. The lights seemed to stretch away from it like coloured streamers across the water. I watched the yacht until everyone went below and the loneliness felt like something that could smother me.

  Then I ran a bath and lay in the water for a long time, thinking of Joesbury a floor or two above me and of what could never be. And I thought about two young girls, who hadn’t had much to start with except each other, and who had lost even that when an evening in the city had gone so very badly wrong. I lay there, thinking that finally, at last, I might have found enough courage to take my own life. And that I probably would do exactly that when this was all over; in a warm, sweet-scented bath just like this one.

  When the water was starting to cool, I got up and dressed in jeans and a sweater. I pulled on trainers and my jacket and left the hotel. Outside, I fastened my coat and started walking. Within a few metres, the smooth brick path became rough stone and shingle. Most of the remaining light slipped away and rough grasses, taller than me, rose up on either side, turning the path into a tunnel.

  I was walking through an area of natural wetlands, preserved as part of the bay development. Signs along the path warned of deep water, life buoys at intervals suggested the signs probably weren’t kidding and soft splashing sounds told me I wasn’t alone out here.

  To my right, through gaps in the grass I could see a single row of brick-built terraced houses. Lights were shining in most of the windows. I saw a woman of about my own age, with a toddler in her arms, pull the curtains in an upstairs room. She stopped for a second to look at the solitary figure walking through the wetlands, before shutting herself off from view.

  A normal life. It had never seemed so far away.

  I kept on walking, listening to the sounds of the city on one side of me and those of the bay on the other, until I reached a wooden pier that zigzagged out across the water. As I made my way along, water gurgled gently below it and a swan flew close enough for me to feel the air under its wings. It landed close by and disappeared into the bullrushes.

  I’d reached the end of the wooden structure when, a hundred metres or so behind me, someone else stepped on to the pier.

  I bent forward, leaning my elbows against the wooden railing. To my right was a small marina, the yacht riggings clinking gently in the wind like tiny bells. The port buildings of the old Tiger Bay were across to my left and I could just about make out tall cranes and a few boat masts against the skyline.

  The footsteps on the pier were getting closer. They were heavy, the steps of a man. I watched a water taxi skim across the bay like one of the water fowl.

  ‘I told you I wasn’t hungry,’ I said a second later, to the reeds in front of me.

  ‘What you said was, you were going to crash,’ came the response. ‘And what makes you think they’re for you?’

  ‘A man who stalks me with chips in his hands had better be prepared to share,’ I said, turning round.

  Joesbury had two wrapped packages under his arm and a carrier bag in one hand. The smell of hot chips had given him away. We set off back along the pier and, once on dry land, stopped at a large stone sculpture that looked a bit like a wave and a bit like a sail. It had a circular base and we sat down together. Joesbury handed over a package that had Harry Ramsden stamped on it.

  ‘I’m feeling surprisingly warm towards you right now,’ I said, unwrapping it. I honestly hadn’t realized quite how hungry I’d become.

  ‘Well, that sounds like progress,’ he replied and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was smiling. I heard the sound of a ring-pull being torn and then Joesbury handed over a cold can of lager. I drank and put it down on the stone beside me. In the tall grasses in front of us something was rustling. For a few minutes we ate in silence.

  ‘Have you heard from DI Tulloch again?’ I asked, when the more pressing hunger pangs were starting to fade.

  ‘The image enhancers have got back to her,’ Joesbury replied. ‘You know, the boffins who take a picture of a three-year-old with a bad diet and age it so that you know the kid will be Lard Man with prostate cancer when he’s forty.’

  Wishing I hadn’t asked, I nodded. A few days ago, Tulloch had sent the snapshots of the Llewellyn girls away to see if a computer programme could indicate what they might look like in their late twenties.

  ‘Any good?’ I asked, realizing my hunger had mysteriously disappeared.

  Joesbury popped another chip in his mouth and shook his head. ‘Not promising, from what she told me,’ he said, in between chews. ‘They didn’t have much to work on with Victoria, given that the picture was in profile. They had a bit more with Catherine, but nothing conclusive.’

  ‘Shame,’ I said, putting my fork down.

  Joesbury looked at me sideways. ‘Turns out the kit works best on distinctive features,’ he said. ‘Big noses, pointy chins, wide foreheads. Classically pretty women like the Llewellyn girls, especially Catherine, have very bland features. How they look when they’re older depends on things we can’t predict – weight loss or gain, skin condition, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Worth a try, I suppose,’ I said, and pushed a few chips around the tray to give the impression I was still eating.

  Joesbury finished his first can and opened another. ‘Some wag in the department aged Cathy’s picture twenty years, darkened the hair and skin tone, and now it’s a dead ringer for Tully herself,’ he said.

  I managed a smile. ‘Well, let’s hope she has a good alibi.’

  Silence fell again and I found I could eat some more, after all.

  ‘Is Dana all right?’ I asked after a few seconds.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joesbury’s head flick in my direction. ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘She’s tougher than she looks.’

  Joesbury was so full of shit. ‘Yeah, OK,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ He had his hard-man voice on. This wasn’t something I should have brought up. Well, tough. I was way past worrying about upsetting senior officers.

  ‘I know she’s struggled with this case,’ I said, turning to look at him properly. His eyes had narrowed, one brow was higher than the other, he was just daring me to say something disrespectful about his precious Dana. ‘She told me so herself,’ I finished. I wasn’t scared of Joesbury any more.

  ‘We’re all struggling with this case,’ said Joesbury, in a voice that told me he intended to have the last word.

  ‘Yeah, well, we don’t all have eating disorders,’ I replied. ‘And we certainly don’t all have suicide scars.’

  Joesbury took a deep breath and let it out noisily. He leaned slightly closer. ‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way Dana has been leading this investigation,’ he said in clipped tones.

  I leaned closer too, until I could smell vinegar on his breath. ‘I didn’t say there was,’ I came back. ‘I asked if she was OK. You’re not the only one w
ho likes her, you know.’

  Joesbury turned away from me, finished his meal and screwed up the paper. For a moment, I thought he was sulking. Then, ‘Those scars weren’t self-inflicted,’ he said, in a soft voice.

  Now that I hadn’t expected. ‘Someone else did that to her?’

  He gave a sharp nod. ‘She doesn’t like to talk about it,’ he said, before standing up. ‘Are you done?’

  I folded the greasy paper carefully and stood up. I’d got the message. We set off back and for a minute or two Joesbury didn’t speak. I had the impression, though, that he was thoughtful rather than angry.

  ‘Have you thought what you might do when you finish training?’ he asked me, when we’d deposited the chip papers and empty cans in a bin.

  I was waving my fingers in the air to get the smell of fat and vinegar off them. ‘To be honest, I’m finding it difficult to see much beyond this case,’ I said, which was certainly the truth, if not the whole truth. For me, there was nothing beyond the case.

  We set off again and before long were approaching the hotel. Leaving the shingle path, we re-joined the smooth red-brick one that would lead us to the front door. The path circled around another sculpture, this time a large brick circle decorated with massive rocks and cast-iron seagulls. Joesbury stopped walking and turned to face me.

  ‘We should have a chat,’ he said. ‘When this is all over. About where you go next.’

  Not far from us, people were milling around outside the hotel. A couple getting into a taxi. Two middle-aged women smoking and shivering. A man strolling up and down, talking loudly into his mobile; in Welsh.

  ‘You’re offering me career advice?’ I said.

  ‘Let’s just say I have a couple of ideas,’ he replied. ‘As does Dana, by the way. If she survives this case, she’ll be after you for the MIT.’

  The wind was picking up. My hair blew across my face and I reached up to push it away. Joesbury’s hand got there first, brushing against my right ear. I pulled away and turned to face the bay.

  ‘What have I said?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ On the sculpture in front of us, some of the iron seagulls had broken off. Only their feet remained, clinging to the rocks.

  ‘How has that upset you?’

  I swallowed hard. Both he and Tulloch were assuming I had a future in the Met. Shit, I could not cry.

  ‘Lacey Flint, you are one weird girl.’ He’d moved closer.

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘I still think you’re trouble,’ he said. One finger was brushing the sleeve of my jacket and I could feel his breath against the side of my face.

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ I muttered.

  He was holding my hair now, winding it round in his hand, gently pulling me back towards him. ‘So why is it that every morning when I wake up,’ he said, as I felt his cold fingers on the back of my neck, ‘the first thought in my head is you?’

  81

  13 September, ten years earlier

  BY THE TIME VICTORIA LLEWELLYN ARRIVES BACK, IT’S DARK. She climbs the fence and slips across the abandoned ground. At the metal gate, she finds her torch and makes her way inside. The tunnel is dark and damp, but cheap lanterns light the way. She climbs steps and, still in almost complete darkness, makes her way around camps and prone bodies. When she sees the hospital screen and the calor-gas stove she slows down.

  A girl is lying on the mattress the two of them share. Victoria shines her torch softly on the girl’s face. She doesn’t want to wake her up.

  The girl isn’t asleep. Her eyes are wide open. A second later, Victoria is on her knees, checking for a pulse, for breath, anything. Her friend isn’t dead yet, but close.

  ‘Oh God no, not you too.’ She has to get her up, get her to where they can find help. She slips an arm beneath the other girl’s shoulders and tugs. ‘Come on, wake up. You have to help me. Come on, Lacey, I can’t lose you too.’

  Lacey’s eyes focus for a second on Victoria’s and she struggles to her feet. Slowly, the two girls make their way back out to the night.

  82

  IN MY ROOM, I SAT IN DARKNESS FOR A LONG TIME, STARING out at the water. One by one lights across the bay went out, and as each one disappeared, a tiny chunk of time seemed to be slipping away. Eventually, all movement ceased and the bay settled down for the night.

  At one o’clock in the morning, I knew I couldn’t play a waiting game any longer. I had to get back to London. More importantly, I had to get Mark Joesbury off my back.

  Against all odds, coming to Cardiff had helped, I realized. I’d got through the various traps he’d set and he was starting to get some measure of trust back. Not enough, though. It was time to take a huge gamble.

  I was going to have to tell him the truth.

  Not giving myself the chance to chicken out, I left my room and walked barefoot to the lift. I’d changed after getting back and was dressed in loose jogging pants and a running vest. At the door of his room, I knocked gently.

  When he opened the door, he was bare-chested, with brightly coloured, button-up cotton trousers slung low on his waist. The way he was squinting at the bright corridor lights told me I’d dragged him from a pretty deep sleep. When he registered that it was me, the look in his eyes became a mixture of bewildered, curious and hopeful. I didn’t give him chance to open his mouth.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I said.

  He rubbed both eyes and then turned and walked back into the room. I followed, letting the door swing shut behind me.

  Joesbury’s room was even bigger than mine, with two double beds. As he switched on a reading lamp, I saw that the bed he’d been sleeping in had a pillow laid lengthways and that it was dented. He’d fallen asleep hugging it.

  On the other bed, glossy pages from a souvenir book of the Ripper mystery had been spread across the counterpane. I had a copy of the book myself. As a reference work it had been close to useless, but it did have perfect reproductions of much of the original documentation, including the mortuary photographs of the five victims. Joesbury, who I guess had fallen under the Ripper’s spell like so many do, had spread them out across the bed in chronological order. Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catharine Eddowes and Mary Kelly.

  He walked the full length of the room. I picked up the photograph of the mutilated Mary Kelly and moved it further up the bed, before perching on the corner.

  ‘Want a drink?’ he offered. I shook my head.

  The huge windows were open a fraction and the room was cold. The night air was goose-pimpling the skin on his shoulders and I found myself shivering. I watched him walk to the bathroom, reach inside and bring out a large, white towelling robe. He wrapped it round himself and then, from a pile of clothes over a chair, found a sweatshirt and threw it across.

  ‘Central heating at night gives me a headache,’ he said.

  I pulled the sweatshirt over my head. It was the one Joesbury had been wearing all day. It was cool, like the room, but its smell made me think of a warm body, moving closer. When I could see again, he was pouring himself a drink from the minibar. More awake now, he sat in an armchair in front of the window and looked at me.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I know this is something I should have told you before,’ I said. ‘But I think you’ll understand why I didn’t. At least, until I was sure there was no alternative.’

  A glass with about two centimetres of amber-coloured liquid was in his left hand. He brought it to his lips.

  ‘You remember me telling you I lived on the streets for a while?’ I asked him. He inclined his head and the glass went down on the table beside him with a soft clink. ‘And you know I had a drug problem once?’

  Another nod from him. Another deep breath from me.

  ‘The truth is, I was a complete mess,’ I said. ‘Completely addicted to heroin for nearly two years. It was far, far worse than I told the Met’s selection process.’

  One eyebrow went up.<
br />
  ‘What I told them was that I’d had a problem in the past,’ I went on. ‘That it had been the main reason why I didn’t finish my degree, but that I’d been clean for several years before I applied to join the police.’

  Joesbury’s eyebrow relaxed. His eyes hadn’t left mine.

  ‘They did lots of tests,’ I said. ‘And they found out that as far as that part was concerned, I was telling the truth. I was completely clean when I applied. I’d been lucky in that I’d always managed to avoid any serious trouble with the police. If I’d had a record of any kind I wouldn’t have got past first base, I know that. But when I applied, they were broadening their admissions criteria. The fact that I knew so much about what you call London’s low-life was seen as an advantage. They thought people like me would bring something new to the service.’

  I could see from Joesbury’s expression what he thought about the Met’s relatively recent relaxation of its selection procedures. ‘They’ll let anyone join these days,’ was a refrain heard a lot around stations.

  ‘I had to be routinely tested all the time I was going through training,’ I said. ‘And I had to see counsellors. The Met didn’t take any stupid risks. But I kept my nose clean and I got good marks in all my exams.’

  ‘So they let you through,’ said Joesbury.

  ‘They let me through,’ I agreed. ‘But if they’d known the truth, it would never have happened. When you report what I’m about to tell you – and I know you have to – I’ll be finished in the force.’

  I stopped, giving myself a moment.

  ‘I have no family,’ I went on, after a second. ‘And as you’ve probably seen for yourself, not much of a social life. My career is everything and I couldn’t give up on it until there was no choice. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Consider it understood,’ said Joesbury. ‘But you haven’t really told me anything yet.’

  ‘My home life was abusive,’ I began. ‘You don’t need the details. I went to live with my grandparents, but they couldn’t cope. So I spent most of my childhood in and out of children’s homes and foster care.’