by Clare Curzon
‘Miss Rosemary, Miss Emily,’ he introduced them.
The old lady surprised her by shooting out a bony hand to be shaken. Z took it gently and smiled.
After a short pause she said, ‘Ramón, how can I find out who this man is that Sheena has gone off with? Surely you have some idea.’
He shook his head. ‘Perhaps …’
‘Yes?’
‘Perhaps you ask her friend. Name is Roseanne, in bar at Crown hotel. Where Sheena drink.’
‘Right. I’ll do that. Thank you, Ramón.’ She rose from the chair beside the old lady.
‘Come …’ Emily enunciated clearly, ‘ …again.’
‘I’d like that, thank you. I will.’ This was the patient Alyson had said seldom ever spoke. Z smiled at Ramón as he saw her to the door. ‘You seem to be giving your patient new confidence.’
‘Miss Emily is lovely lady,’ he said, and bowed as he closed the door on her.
Chapter Eighteen
There was a brief moment when PC Higgins confronted near-death. While the outer world froze, his mind leapt into infinity. Without his relatively short and uneventful life passing before his eyes, yet there was time enough to ask himself, Poor Mum, who’ll see to her …?
Then basic training kicked in. Survival in a small hand-held radio. He waved it between himself and his destroyer. ‘Back-up!’ he croaked, then remembered to identify himself. The response from Control was level and totally relaxed.
Higgins gulped. Whatever else, he had to leave some lead behind for them. ‘Car check!’ and he gabbled off the licence plate figures.
They could be false, of course, but at least he’d tried. And still the threatening hulk in black leather had made no move, except to lean forward and peer at the blood-caked corner of the tartan rug.
PC Higgins retreated two paces. When ordered out, the man had switched off the engine, but the keys were still there. Higgins edged round to the driver’s open window, reached in and pocketed them.
‘Listen, son,’ said the old and infinitely wise metallic voice in his ear, ‘there’s procedure to follow.’ He gulped; desperately searched his brain. And complied.
‘What the fucking hell?’ the accosted driver demanded, eyes still focused on the rug and almost echoing Higgins’s own first reaction.
‘How the bloody blazes did that get on it?’ But his belligerence was on the way out, as he recalled Sheena’s bloodied face before he dumped her. She had floundered back on the rug, a quivering lump like a distressed, beached whale, hugging it to her.
‘Hot cocoa, that’s what!’ he blustered. ‘God, for a minute I thought it was blood. We took a picnic. Up to Halton ridge. Only it was too blasted cold so we got back inside.’
But by now PC Higgins’s partner had abandoned the fuggy warmth of their patrol car and wandered round to see what the kid was getting so excited about. She lifted the rug from the open boot and ran an exploratory hand over the stain. A small chip flaked off as she scratched at it with a fingernail. ‘What’s all this, then?’ She sounded unfazed.
A crackle from Higgins’s radio prefaced the information he’d demanded. The car was registered to an Oliver Markham with a local address. It had not been reported stolen. Did PC Higgins still require back-up as first requested?
‘I think,’ Higgins said faintly, ‘you’d better deal with this one,’ and surrendered his radio to WPC Trish Carter.
Superintendent Yeadings had despaired of the accumulated paperwork and taken a turn round the corridors. He fetched up at the door of the CID office. Both his sergeants were there, and DI Salmon was perched on the edge of Beaumont’s desk running through witnesses’ statements before they were committed to the computer or the bin.
‘Nothing that could be connected with Allbright, then,’ he summed up. ‘Unless he’s the shadowy figure, sex unknown, who was deep in conversation with a kid on a bench by the boathouses a week last Wednesday. Or it may have been Thursday.’ His voice was heavy with sarcasm.
‘It’s all we’ve got,’ Beaumont reminded him. ‘It was a school day, so it could have been Micky.’
‘Or any local kid skiving off lessons. So can we assume the Kane boy hadn’t arrived here until just before he was picked up?’
Perhaps he was content to shrug off the missing days as the Met’s responsibility, Yeadings thought. ‘Have we nothing yet on how young Micky travelled?’ he asked, making his silent approach known to them.
Salmon looked round at the sound of his voice. ‘Info’s thin on the ground, sir,’ he complained. ‘Not many folk on foot in this weather, and road conditions are enough for drivers to keep focused.’
‘Maybe there was nothing for anyone to see,’ Yeadings suggested. ‘If we can assume Micky did as “Hutch” recommended, and contacted him by land line, they’d have made some arrangement for a pick-up. Most probably by the famed Harley-Davidson. The meeting could have been outside our area, and he’d be delivered straight to wherever he was to stay over.’
‘Allbright’s house,’ Salmon said decisively.
‘Well, his gear was left there,’ Z put in, ‘but we don’t know he was there in person. SOCO haven’t been able to pick up any dabs or hair samples.’
‘And neighbours questioned about Allbright’s comings and goings by bike haven’t noticed any pillion passenger,’ Beaumont added. ‘So he used the car, or else …’
‘ …the boy was taken somewhere else entirely. Which has to be the warehouse. The “Hutch” computer will have to turn up there if we go on searching long enough.’ Salmon was grimly hanging on to this belief.
‘I don’t think he could have taken him there directly,’ Z objected. ‘Micky left home as if to go to school. At about eight-thirty. If he knew already where he’d be heading, he wouldn’t have wasted any time getting there, because I’m convinced he never meant to spend a night away.
‘Because Allbright’s a night-worker, he had the morning free to pick Micky up. He wouldn’t have taken him any place that was buzzing with activity and where everyone knew him. So not the warehouse. He must have some hideaway we haven’t discovered yet.’
‘Or – ’ Beaumont felt he was scraping the bottom of the scenario barrel here – ‘he took the boy joyriding until he was due to go on duty, and then slipped him in after day shift but before the night staff were due. We know he holds a key to the warehouse.’
‘And if Micky wasn’t willing,’ Yeadings said sombrely, ‘that’s when recourse was had to the cocktail of drugs. But for how long was he held like that?’
They all sat considering this. ‘An overdose,’ Beaumont muttered. ‘So maybe Allbright (or whoever) hadn’t much experience of the quantities to use …’
‘Or was just unlucky.’ That was from Zyczynski.
‘Or it was meant to be final,’ Salmon decided. ‘Just as it was later, bashing his head in and chucking him in the river.’
Yeadings sighed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Well, if anything comes up, I’m in my office.’ He left them to it.
In the canteen Higgins felt his ears burn as he queued with a tray, despatched for two teas, an almond Danish and a jam doughnut. Back at the table he heard their raucous laughter. He was the fool of the day. Never a slip until now, apart from the ribbing he’d received over carrying the ambiguous message to Inspector Ruby Winter, (and that was mild as initiations went). But now, expecting to bring in the local court usher on a charge of suspected GBH! That was priceless and he’d never live it down. As long as there were coppers on the beat the story would circulate and his name go down as a terrible warning to probationers who got above themselves and thought they were CID.
DS Rosemary Zyczynski was discouraged. The case was going nowhere, bogged down by lack of proof. She had no doubt it was Allbright they were after, but he seemed to be several paces ahead of the team. She stood on the kerb, letting the wind blow through her hair, but still mentally pent up in the office and wishing Max was here so they could go striding up the C
hilterns and get some clean air pumping through their lungs.
But exercise was no fun on one’s own, and it was another three days before her weekly aerobics class. If she was free to join it. Salmon had a way of sending her off on some wild goose chase whenever it came around.
She turned at the sound of footfalls behind her. ‘Fancy a jar?’ Beaumont invited, halting alongside.
It wasn’t what she longed for, but, ‘Why not?’
The Crown was their nearest pub; not the best, but she remembered then the name Roseanne, given her by the male carer Alyson had taken on. With any luck they’d find her on bar duty.
There were fewer than a dozen drinkers in there. The two sergeants settled on stools in front of the mirrored array of bottles. ‘My shout,’ Beaumont claimed.
‘Thanks. I’d like a half of lager.’
The woman who served their drinks was slim, a hennaed redhead with an upturned tip to her nose and upper lip, revealing two long, rabbity incisors.
‘Would you be Roseanne?’ Z asked when there was a lull in serving.
‘That rather depends on who’s asking.’ She darted a shrewd glance at Beaumont. ‘You’re a plain-clothes copper, aren’t you? I’ve seen you around the courthouse. So what am I supposed to have done wrong?’
‘Nothing. We just wondered if you could tell us something about one of your regulars.’
‘And lose their goodwill, not to mention their custom?’ She grinned along with the warning.
‘Sheena Judd,’ Z prompted. ‘We understand she drops in here from time to time.’
‘Sheena, yes. I know her quite well. She’s a neighbour, actually. What’s wrong?’ She leant matily over the counter towards them.
‘Nothing that we know of. It’s more her boyfriend we’re curious about.’
‘Who would that be, then?’
‘We thought you could tell us that.’
She regarded them both with her head on one side, her left hand reaching for a straying lock of hair which she absently laid over her upper lip like a moustache, then put its tip between her teeth. She shook her head.
‘Look, I really can’t help. Truth of the matter is, she’s a sort of loner. Bit of a sad case, poor Sheena. Married the wrong bloke, got divorced, and then rather let herself go, if you know what I mean. Not that she wouldn’t welcome a spot of nooky if she got half a chance. But she won’t make much of an effort to set herself up, like.’
Not very much help, Zyczynski decided, sipping at her lager which was warm and smelled smoky, like the bar itself.
‘Mind you,’ and Roseanne broke off to mop up a puddle of spilt beer with a red-checked towel, ‘I won’t say she didn’t fancy someone. But whether he picked up on it or not I couldn’t say. You can’t easily tell with orientals, can you?’
‘Inscrutable,’ Beaumont agreed, nodding like a mandarin doll himself.
‘That’s what I mean.’
‘Ramón?’ Z asked, to be utterly certain; ‘– who used to work here?’
‘Yeah. Nice bloke, a bit quiet. Got on all right with the customers, for all that. He’s got a job as a nurse somewhere local, I was told. I doubt we’ll see him in here again. Doesn’t drink, see, except lemonade.’
‘What goes around comes around, it seems,’ Rosemary commented when Roseanne had moved off to serve a table with baguettes and tomato soup. We’re back where we started. It was Ramón who put us on to Roseanne, who points us back to him. But if he’s still looking after old Emily he’s obviously not riding off into the sunset with his inamorata.’
‘In amorwhatsit? Cor, how she do go on!’ Beaumont complained in a Monty Python voice. ‘Drink up, girl, and let’s get out of here. There are better drinks to swallow, at better watering holes.’
‘Not for me, thanks. But next time it’ll be my shout. I think I’ll get home. Today’s been rather a waste of effort all round, to my mind. I’d hoped we’d make some progress.’
Alyson Orme sat hugging a mug of coffee. There was a rare lull in activity in ITU, allowing her mind to orbit other worlds: particularly the dining room of an Italian restaurant fifteen miles outside town. It should have been called The Subfusc, but the well-spaced tables stood out against the gloom, having crisp white under-cloths topped diagonally by pink linen. Not shocking pink; more flirty pink. And with pink-shaded lamps instead of candles.
Things she seemed not to have observed at the time came back distinctly to her now: Keith facing her, dark-suited and formal, unlike how she normally saw him. She wondered if her own appearance had seemed strange to him, out of uniform or the casual T-shirt and jeans she wore at home.
It was strange how people dressed themselves up for special occasions. As though they took on a carapace, had something to conceal. Well, she had. Not that it was shameful, simply inappropriate: loving Keith when he was powerless to respond. Waiting for someone to die, when both were dedicated to saving life.
Audrey, she thought. How awful it would be if she guessed. That, on top of everything else!
She hung on to the basin as the spasms ran through her. Keith was rapping on the door, but it was locked and she was safe from him. There was nothing left to come up but bitter, thin liquid, yet it hurt like hell, all through her body.
‘Audrey, let me in,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t shut me out like this. We need to be together.’
Together. When were they ever that? Only in photographs. And they say the camera doesn’t lie! That bloody wedding shot, all radiance and white satin; the groom dressed up like a fucking tailor’s dummy. Lies, all lies. When had there ever been truth between them?
She slid to the floor already awash from when she’d tried to drench her pounding head. She wallowed there like a goldfish flung from an upturned bowl. Well, here was the truth then, the truth she couldn’t find in her marriage. Pain and the long drag into death; alone, while Keith slavered over some other woman hot to fill her place in his bed.
So now there was no longer any shadow of doubt. She had proof, face to face with his treachery. She hugged her wretchedness to her as the only thing left of her own. God, she could not hate him enough. It should be him here, suffering as she did. She knew she’d been meant for something better than this, Daddy’s little Princess. Oh, poor Daddy, why did you have to die? You’d have done something, rescued me, punished him.
She had torn up the restaurant receipt discovered in the pocket of Keith’s best suit. Dinner for two. She knew the place well, the pinkness of it, the romantic shaded lights, the obsequious, discreet service. And afterwards, in the back of the car, or even an upstairs room – she could picture them at it. And all that while she was being held, drugged, in the psychiatric department, like a madwoman. That last night, Sunday, before she was allowed home.
Home? Just an alternative place for drawn-out dying.
‘Cancer,’ she said aloud, accepting it. But that was only a part of the truth. The greater thing was his treachery. That was why she must do it.
This time she would splendidly succeed. And everyone should know how he’d wanted her gone!
She pushed the shredded paper back into the jacket pocket and hung the suit again on its rail. It was safe there, her precious evidence that she could visit and revisit to feed her resolve on.
Chapter Nineteen
It had struck DS Beaumont that Z was being uncharacteristically casual about following up the name which Roseanne had offered as Sheena Judd’s love interest. And any opportunity to get a step or two ahead of his rival sergeant could do him a power of good.
Ramón, he recalled. Foreign, Spanish-sounding. Well, there were a lot from those parts employed in the service industries in the South-East counties. Nearly as many as Cypriot waiters. Decent types for the most part, and he’d prefer them any day to the scruffy home-bred variety who sneered at your ignorance of the menu and muttered over the paucity of tips.
A visit to the nick’s canteen, channel of all available gossip, reliable or otherwise, might bring to light where the man
was working at present, at what Roseanne thought was a private nursing job.
He wasn’t to be disappointed. Sergeant Charlie Wise, who laboured to live up to his name, had worn out the elbows of several civvy suits at the bar of the Crown hotel. He told Beaumont that the barman, who had worked there only a short time, had left them in the lurch, not having been bound by contract. The assistant manager, one of Wise’s cronies, and probably a snout to boot, had complained loudly, particularly over the unrealistic wage being offered by the rich old lady at the one-time show penthouse.
Beaumont, not a local himself, had to be directed to it. ‘Not that they’ll let you in if they don’t like the cut of your jib,’ he was told. ‘There’s a spy camera on the door. One of those hi-tech security things.’
Thus warned, he repaired to the Gents to check himself in a mirror, combed flat an obstinate quiff which his son said made him resemble a tufted duck, and polished the top of each shoe with a nifty rub up and down the back of alternate trouser legs. It could pay to have a wealthy old lady batting for you. If she was susceptible to a Spanish barman she might well un-bosom herself to a personable British copper. Purely in the confiding sense, of course. Anything more literal wasn’t on. Not with old ladies.
It was Alyson who answered his buzz, caught clearing the lunch things. Beaumont announced himself, displaying his teeth widely towards the camera, together with his warrant card.
‘How can I help you, Sergeant?’ the young voice asked.
Why do they say that? Beaumont wondered, not for the first time. For one thing it’s always when they’re holding you at arm’s length, like on the phone, and for another they’d probably floor you if you said what it was you’d really like from them!
‘I’d appreciate a word with you concerning the employment of Ramón Nadal.’