by Caro Ramsay
Batten went on. ‘So he saw you from the house, but suddenly appeared at the door at the end of the garden. Was there enough time?’
‘There was not.’
‘Did he say he was in the garden?’
‘No, he did not. He said he was in the house.’
Batten paused for a while, looked over to the other two then asked, ‘What was he wearing?’
‘Long dirty white shirt, old black trousers.’
‘And on his feet?’
‘Black shoes.’ Wyngate seemed to pause. He shook his head. ‘His laces were undone.’
‘OK, what did you think when you saw his face. Damp like that?’
‘He reminded me of Sam after we had wiped the beans from his face.’
‘And the trousers, how did they look at the bottom?’
‘Creased. Been folded.’
He counted him back out of his relaxed state. Wyngate opened his eyes and looked around hopefully. ‘So was that of any use?’
‘Yeah, we know your kid rubs beans on his face and that you are a shoe fetishist, so no, no bloody use,’ joked Costello but the whole room had relaxed.
They knew.
Batten pulled a photograph from the wall, the picture of Blondie at the fire where bright flames cast shadows on her face, highlighting her cheekbones, darkening the hollows. The huge dark glasses that covered her eyes were a canvas for the reflection of the bright jagged flames.
Batten placed the photograph next to the computer screen. ‘OK, Vik work your magic, change the hair in that to brown, slick it back like Wyngate described.’
‘You want me to turn her into some bloke that Wyngate met in Athole Lane behind the door?’
‘Yes,’ said Batten blankly. ‘And take all that make-up off him, take off that lipstick. Give it a little more masculine hair line, a widow’s peak. Take the scarf away. Now the glasses. Wyngate? Describe his eyes.’
‘Large, very open.’ Wyngate pulled his own eyes very wide. ‘And a deep, deep brown.’
Vik shrugged but did it. The face grew in familiarity.
‘But doesn’t that just look like him because I am making it so.’
‘There are many bits she can’t change; the shape, the nose, the lips.’
‘Shades of Pietro though, that cleansing of the face?’ said Costello. ‘Paolo has very big blue eyes. Not brown.’
‘And no driving licence,’ said Anderson bitterly.
‘Are we saying that Wyngate was talking to a woman and didn’t notice?’
‘Who wears a coat in high summer? Big bag? Do you think she might have been carrying her alter ego around in there? Miss Blondie … No wonder we can’t find you anywhere, you don’t bloody exist. She just goes around then slips in somewhere. Coat off, wig off, changes shoes. But in this case had no time to tie the laces.’
‘Why didn’t she stay there behind the wall? Wyngate would have walked off.’
‘Well anybody could have looked out those windows at any time. And she would have heard Wyngate phone for back up. The place was going to be full of cops. She, he might have even passed Wyngate as she walked out.’ Batten sat back thinking this through.
‘Weird? Absolutely. Clever? Absolutely. But that sense of theatre, of acting.’ He pointed to the picture of the Vinicombe Street Theatre on the board. ‘And it all goes back to there.’
David wondered what had happened to the girl he had tried to talk to. There was something that he was not seeing, and something that he was missing. The woman had come out and adjusted the drip in his arm. He had passed out, drifting out to the white place where nothing annoyed him and all was good. It wasn’t heaven but it was pretty close to it, as close as his imagination could get. There, walking around, he saw his mum and dad back together again. The dog was a playful puppy. He was younger, he must have been because Granny and Granddad were there. It was Christmas but they were all out in the garden. He had heard them talk, talk about him and what a shame it was.
He was trying to tell them that he was OK. But his mouth wouldn’t move. Nothing would move.
Then he was up on his feet. A clanking from above was pulling him up by the shoulders. His arms moved without any effort on his part. He could only feel a little pain as he was suspended from the brace across his chest, his feet not on the ground. His arms now falling uselessly by his side. He could see them but could not move them. There was a tight wire fixed to his wrists, so deep in, the tight, swollen skin was cut through. His fingers were somebody else’s thick black fingers. Then his hand moved. He tried to raise the right hand to look more closely but it was the left hand that moved.
He attempted to look down. He couldn’t, something was holding his chin up. In front of him was a huge nothing, just blackness. The noise was the same, but the smell was different. Using only his eyes, he strained to look above him. Branches, leaves, trees, all bright green and false. He could see somebody up there, crawling through metal girders, a faint and silvery will-o-the-wisp through the darkness.
There was a creak and he felt his neck snap. His chin fell onto his chest. Now, at least, he could look down to the dark, stained concrete floor. But he was standing on wooden floorboards. Beyond that were tea chests, stacked up.
He was on stage.
He was waiting for his audience.
And at that minute, he knew he would die.
He thought about his mum. And Winston’s dog. Strange thoughts with no tears.
He thought about that pretty girl with the dark hair, the one with the flower. Had she been part of this? Part of the lure? The woman who had come back and stabbed him in the arm so he lost control and she could bundle him away into a car. Had they been part of it all? He closed his eyes, thinking of her smile; a Judas smile.
Sandra woke up. Something lovely had happened. Mentally she snuggled down deep in the duvet that honeycombed round her. Paolo had been lovely. So lovely. He had taken her to a small Italian restaurant, upstairs somewhere on Byres Road, a small intimate place where he spoke Italian to the waiters and they greeted him like a long-lost family member. She was included in their hugs and kisses. She hadn’t recognized any dishes on the menu but he had asked her what she liked and he had chosen for her. They had drunk wine, far too much wine. She was wearing a dress that belonged to the Duchess, while silk, simply cut that cascaded from the cowl round her neck down in soft waves to mid-calf. Nothing she hadn’t worn before, it was one of her favourites but Paolo was not to know that. Or if he did, he didn’t mind. The leather of the Duchess’s handmade shoes was so soft it caressed her feet as she climbed the stairs. After that things got a little hazy, she remembered going down the stairs, back to the street. The cool wind on her new, lovely face. Rain was on the way at last. They walked across the road towards the car. Paolo had taken the keys, insisting on driving. And she remembered getting back in it, drowsy with the drink, then she couldn’t recall any more but that didn’t matter as her plan was coming together. And as the Proclaimers song said, she was on her way from misery to happiness.
She told Paolo where to drive, not noticing where he was going, and now she was snuggled up, looking up at the sky, the trees and the green little animals hanging off them. So pretty.
Sleep came quickly. She had some thinking to do about part two of her plan. It was all going so well.
Wyngate was back at the dentist late that afternoon. His root canal was starting to feel very hot and painful. Then it started to throb and Anderson had told him to go round and get something done with it. In truth Wyngate was happy to walk away. They hadn’t really said anything but he felt guilty. If he had had his wits about him, would they now have Blondie in custody?
And what about him? Wyngate knew it had been a bloke he had talked to. And it was a woman he had been following. He could tell the difference. His subconscious mind had told his colleagues what he knew they wanted to hear; that was the problem with hypnosis. He was mulling it over, wanting to prove himself right but seeing no way to do it. He was walkin
g down towards the bottom of Byres Road, out of the dentist and heading towards Elean Lane which would take him up to Elean Street. He had lost her once before, but he was going to be ahead of the game this time. He was fed up with Mulholland’s sly glances. He pulled his hood up against the light drizzle that was threatening, at any moment, to turn into a downpour. He continued up past the Cambodian restaurant with its three scooters neatly parked outside, under a canopy in preparation of rain. The cobbles underfoot were slippy, oily after so many days of blistering heat. He looked round, searching for any sign of a low key operation being underway. By now, they would have some covert surveillance on the situation. But to him it appeared to be office workers hurrying back and forth, the odd shopper, all moving quickly to get inside before the heavens opened. He looked at the angry black clouds, grinding their way across the sky, charging into each other. He scanned the roof of the single-storey garage with the double-storey central workshop. There were no Sky men, no BT engineers, no roofers, nobody that might be a surveillance unit. There was an arcade or something here, an antique shop, bric-a-brac, a warren through the old single-storey buildings.
Of course, anybody on a roof would be highly suspicious with the amber weather warnings currently in existence. Was Blondie merely lucky or had she moved quickly on Tania Kirkton to take advantage of the weather?
She was not a lady to be underestimated.
Wyngate stood in the middle of the crossroads. Cobbled lanes, four of them at this point, five or six if you counted those offshoots within a twenty-feet radius. It was a clever place for a meet, easy to lure him here, easy to see him without being seen. But then what? Lure Kirkton away with a phone call? Then Wyngate realized that he himself was acting suspiciously. So he pulled out his phone, easing himself on to the wall of the disused garage; the old Elean Lane Car Repair and Body workshop. The vehicle entrance was roller shuttered, closed tight. It hadn’t been used for years this place, but it had an overhanging roof which gave him a good eighteen inches of protection from the rain. He too was going to take advantage of the weather, and shelter under the roof. A young man, on his mobile. Nothing suspicious there.
His tongue was back at his tooth, probing the numbness of his cheek, wondering if it had stopped bleeding at last. The door behind him opened, then closed. Quietly, as if nobody was supposed to notice.
Then it opened and closed again, nothing more than a little bang and a bounce. As if somebody was checking he was gone before they came out.
He looked round, then tapped roughly on the door with his knuckle. He placed his hand against it, it opened easily; just an old wooden door with the wood at the bottom frayed, eaten through by damp.
This would be a good place for the homeless to sleep. Were they gathering here in readiness for the onslaught of weather? It looked like the Met Office might have got their timing right this time. A chill of wind pushed the warm air from the narrow channel of Elean Street as he stepped inside. He shouldered open the door as it caught on the rough concrete.
And he was in an office, a dusty old office with a flagstone floor and an ancient desk, a tattered and curling Pirelli calendar above it. It was dark in here. It was getting dark outside, the sky blackening by the minute. He left the door open to get some fresh air in. He called out, ‘Hello?’ This would be a good place to view the crossroads outside. He called out again.
No answer. There was no real furniture, just a rusty cabinet like a wardrobe, and an old filing cabinet, both drawers slightly open. He didn’t investigate closer.
‘Anybody here?’ He got his warrant card out, pulled down his hood. The metal cabinet was locked. There was another wooden door, presumably into the mechanics bay and the main workshop of the garage. At the far end of that were the big double roller shutters that opened on to the other side of the lane. Another good viewpoint.
He opened the door, and stepped through into a stone floored corridor. The place was bigger than he thought. The left-hand wall had a huge mirror, somebody here was either very vain or it was some kind of two-way mirror for the workman to see who was going in and out of the office.
There was no sign of anybody about, but there was a sense of there being life here. Paige Riley would run to a place like this. Wyngate knew this area was on their watch list for beggars. He opened another door, just a cupboard, old shelves. He disturbed something that scurried away with a flash of silver.
He closed the door. There were another two, one double, a single and one of them, he presumed, must take him on to the floor of the workshop.
David watched him through the big window, his heart striking a military beat. So close. So close. He could see the man in his hooded anorak opening and closing the doors behind the window, could see the individual crystals of rain on his shoulders. So it was raining out there. He could hear the drumming on the roof that was a few feet above him, but sounded so far away. Was this somebody coming to look for him? This thin man who walked nervously, opening cupboard doors, here and there, peeking in like he was playing hide and seek and he was seek.
David knew he was hidden, behind the mirror, swinging. He was dangling in mid-air, swaying slowly with an invisible momentum, suspended by the bands round his groin, his waist and under his shoulders. He could see his own wrist, the tight wire wound round it that disappeared into thin air even though it was slack now and his wrist dangled at his side. Earlier, the wire had been tight and had been tightened further, moving his arm up by jerky movement, accompanied by a mechanical clunking and grinding from above him, from up in the trees somewhere.
But he couldn’t move or shout. All he could do was watch.
He looked over to his left. The girl came into view every now and then, a frail wispy creature who floated through the air on her gossamer wings. She had been noisy at first, then bleeding. Now she was silent. And the bleeding had stopped.
Wyngate could hear the rain battering down on the flat roof, it rattled like a drum-core. He opened another door, just a storage room, no sign of anybody living there. Strange when the door was unlocked. Surely some desperate soul would have discovered this.
He opened the double door, and took two steps back. A rack of little people hanging one by one, neatly arranged. To one side was a frame with clothes hanging. Shelf upon shelf of fabric, wire, tools, small pieces of wood, turned and smooth. The largest single item was a yellow duffle coat, too small to fit an adult but much bigger than any of the other dolls clothes.
On the side of the door were separate sheets of paper, pinned many layers thick, numbers listed with beautiful italic writing, four sets of numbers again and again. And on the inside of the wooden door, much older paper but the writing was of the same style, the same pattern.
He saw pairs of tiny shoes, polished to perfection. And a rolled-up futon.
A clean, rolled-up futon. And a neat pile of folded clothes.
So somebody had been sleeping here. Somebody who loved dolls and puppets, and made dolls and puppets.
Was Tania here? David?
He saw a case, like an artist’s case with pockets and drawers. Full of make-up. And on top of that a familiar little case; blue circle on one side, white on the other. Contact lenses. He bent down to pick them up, unscrewing the top. Brown-coloured lenses.
Don’t it turn my brown eyes blue, so the song went. Or was it vice versa?
He thought about searching the rest of the place but this was no time for bravado. He was going back out to the street to call for back-up. He jumped at a noise, like a cough or a muffled shout, and turned round. He placed his ear against the wood of the big door. He was sure this was the door going back into the workshop. He opened it slowly. The smell that assaulted him was recognizable. And human. Human decomposition. He lifted his phone to use the light. Then he hit the floor.
David couldn’t turn his head. But he heard her. The click click of those heels on the concrete floor as she walked across the floor beneath him, heading for the single door. She was going for the man in
the anorak. He had taken his hood off now, he was moving very slowly and taking his time as he walked up to the big double cupboard. Why was he on his own? Why was he being so slow? She would be here soon, shadowing around in that suit that rendered her invisible in this dull light. He wouldn’t see her or hear her. David watched helpless, his heart sinking. He knew she was going to open the door and the man in the hood would be too late turning round.
David swung, back and forth, dangling from his four wires and he knew blackness and despair.
They looked at each other in the mirror. One chin resting on the head of the other. Identical. Like a sculpture. Blonde on Blonde. Naked.
Lips parted. One in pleasure. One in fear.
Four eyes wide open.
A gloved hand side-shifted a few stray hairs from the fringe. So they matched. Precisely.
Pale skin. Dark eyes. Perfect arched eyebrows.
Ruby red lips.
Blood red lips.
And he had said that colour was too dark for her.
Two hands came to settle round a neck, giving the sculpture a base, two serpents of forearms and fingers wound and twisted.
A kiss from ruby lips to a nest of blonde hair.
One face leaned back to scrutinize the other in the mirror.
There had been alcohol and sleep. And now this.
Lips kissed the top of a head again.
This was a game.
It was going to be OK.
Just a game.
They were Greek gods.
One body, two faces.
The dark eyes studied the image, examining its every pore, as if they were a sculpture of great value, of great beauty.
The work of art was admired by its creator. And vice versa.
So close, so very close.
Then a wave of hot breath over skin. The scalpel came up slowly.
The blade pressed against the skin just under the ear and pierced the flesh creating a single bubble of ruby red. The edge worked its way round the jaw line. Not going deep, just slicing under the skin, peeling it off as it cut its path.
The gloved fingers eased the skin off the underlying tissue, loosening it so the face could come away in one piece.