by Tom Trott
I made myself a coffee, downed it, helped myself to the air in the fridge, then had a shower. When I turned it off the phone was ringing. I was surprised Tidy hadn’t unplugged it.
I towelled down and got dressed, then thought about what I was going to do next. Just as I was sure I was about to think of something, the phone rang again. I went into the yard to try and get some fresh air; what little I could amongst the pollution rising from North Street. I could hear it ringing again through the glass.
I decided I would answer it this time and tell them to stop calling, but it had stopped by the time I got my hands on it. I waited.
Five minutes later, to the second, it rang again. I snatched it up.
‘What?’ I barked.
‘Grabarz?’
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and a bolt of electricity ran down my spine. It was the voice of a man who enjoyed doing his job. It was the voice of a man who had smacked me round the head with a lump of steel. My split scalp itched. It was the voice of Mr X.
‘Joe Grabarz?’ he asked again.
‘Yes,’ I replied through clenched teeth.
‘Good. He wants me to give you a message, as a professional courtesy.’ There was a beat. ‘Your lady friend is dead.’
There was a click as the line disconnected.
The dial tone filled my ear. Lady friend?
I dialled 1471. Withheld number.
Where was Tidy? Had to work, she said. I didn’t have her number. Then a flashbulb appeared above my head. I ran to her camera bag and searched the pockets. There was an envelope of negatives from Clock Tower Cameras. The pick-up slip and receipt were still inside. Her name was scrawled as “J. Smith” but her number was legible. I grabbed the phone and dialled. As it rang I held the negatives up to the light, they were just beach and city scenes.
On the eighth ring she answered: ‘So you’re awake?’ she purred.
‘You need to get back here right away.’
She could sense the panic in my voice. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘They know I’m here, they know where you live.’
‘The police!?’
‘Worse, our friend who pistol-whipped me.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘He just called me on the house phone. Get back here, I’ll pack up what I can.’
‘Ten minutes, sugar.’ She hung up.
I dialled Thalia. It rang and rang until it reached the network’s automated voicemail. I rang again. It rang all the way to voicemail again. Answer your phone! This happened seven more times before I heard the roar of Tidy’s bike from the street below. I put the phone back in the cradle and stood there listening for the lift, foot tapping involuntarily. At last she burst in through the door.
‘What’s going on!?’
I described the call.
She gasped.
‘I need your help,’ I begged.
‘Sure, give me five minutes.’
She ran downstairs. I kept calling Thalia, now it didn’t even ring, it just went straight to voicemail. This had happened three times before Tidy jogged back up the stairs carrying a bulging camping rucksack. She stuffed her laptop and camera bag into it.
‘Let’s go!’
I followed her out of the maisonette and into the lift.
‘It’s not even ringing now, what does that mean?’
‘One of a thousand things, sweetie.’
The lift doors opened to reveal her bike, and she handed me the rucksack.
‘You’ll have to wear this.’
She wheeled the bike into the street and I pulled on the heavy rucksack, then I got on the back and put my arms around her.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked over her shoulder.
‘I’ll direct you.’
She flipped down her visor. ‘Let’s go save your girlfriend!’
We shot off down the road toward North Street.
‘Left!’ I shouted.
She darted onto the road.
‘Left again at the Steine.’
We took it.
‘Now keep on this road, I’ll tell you when we’re there.’
We zipped in and out of traffic past the Pavilion, staying in bus lanes where we could past the Dome and Victoria Gardens. Traffic was thin and the lights were on our side, we were out of the centre in less than a minute. The road became Gloucester Place, then York Place past St Peter’s, then London Road to Preston Circus and my old flat. Another two minutes. Then it became Preston Road, then Preston Park was to our right and we arrived at the modern block Thalia had moved into only recently. Five minutes since setting off, twenty minutes since the call.
We pulled up by the entrance. I threw off the rucksack and ran inside. There was a reception desk, but no one to be seen. I ran up three flights of stairs and started pounding on her door.
‘Thalia!’
I pounded some more.
‘Thalia!’
Amazingly nobody stuck their head out to ask what was going on, or tell me to shut up. There might have been eyes behind the spyholes, but I doubted it, the building had an unattributable feeling of emptiness. This was a building for professional singles and professional couples, and they were all at work.
Tidy appeared with the rucksack on her back.
‘She’s not answering,’ I told her.
Tidy pulled a set of a picks from her jacket and raked the lock. That was literally all it took: push the pick in and drag it out. The lock clicked open. A thousand pounds a month Thalia was paying for a one-bedroom flat, and this was the kind of security they were offering.
The door swang inwards. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Empty plates and cups dotted the surfaces. Towers of paper, letters, and newspapers had been piled on things and then fallen off.
I checked the bathroom and the bedroom. Both were empty, the bed was stripped. I stared at it.
‘Has it been searched?’ Tidy called from the living room.
‘No, it always looks like this,’ I called back. We’d had the conversation a million times. If I mentioned it she told me it was because she spent so much time at the office. I told her that’s why mine was so tidy: I’m never there to mess it up.
I marched back into the living room. ‘We’d better check the car park.’
We took the lift down underground. Her parking space was empty, along with most of the rest.
‘Where next?’ Tidy asked.
‘The office.’
‘Won’t the police be watching it?’
I smiled wanly. ‘Undoubtedly.’
We jumped on the bike and cruised down the rest of Preston Road, past the speed camera, then bombed it through the lights by Preston Manor, weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring the honking. I checked my watch. Thirty-three minutes since the call. We passed the point where the road becomes London Road again, then bombed past Surrenden Field, past Withdean Park, past Patcham Village and the huge mock Tudor mansions off the Patcham bypass, past Patcham Place, and finally to the roundabout, onto the bypass, then off a mile later at the first junction, just over the bridge from the office.
Tidy braked suddenly and pulled off the little roundabout onto the grass.
‘Wait here,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘I’ll check it out.’
I climbed off. ‘She drives a cream Mini,’ I told her, ‘with black stripes down the bonnet and a checkerboard roof.’
‘Does she have any taste?’ she asked, then zipped off before I could give an answer.
I watched her scoot across the bridge and then disappear toward the green box building. I was waiting on a grass bank by the entrance to a footpath. The endless sluice of traffic circled the roundabout like a merry-go-round. It was a cold day; cloudy, grey, polluted even here on the edge of the Downs.
Then, above the constant rumble of traffic, there was a low growl, like thunder, that seemed to shake the air. I looked up, there was plenty of cloud but none of it looked black enough for a storm. I looked around, the traffic
continued oblivious. It had unnerved me, something I couldn’t explain told me it came from earth not heaven. There was something indefinable about it. Something violent.
A minute later Tidy came scootering back across the bridge and pulled up. She flipped up her visor.
‘No one there. No Mini, and your office is sealed.’
‘Did you hear that sound just now?’
‘What sound?’
‘Like thunder.’
She instinctively scanned the clouds. ‘Can’t hear much over the bike, sweetie, not with a helmet on too.’
I thought about Thalia. I ran through what we had seen in her flat. The clothes. The plates. The papers. The bed! It was stripped bare, but there was nothing in the washing machine.
‘She’s at the laundrette!’ I blurted. ‘There’s one on Preston Drove, that’ll be the closest to her.’
We drove up the hill and crossed the other bridge over the bypass, onto Ditchling Road, past the golf course and Hollingbury Camp on the left, with Hollingbury to the right, then the view three miles down to the sea opened up in front of us, then down past the park toward the speed camera, toward the Fiveways. There were blue lights in her mirrors. I turned my head, a convoy of police cars, three of them, charging full speed. We were the same pair on the same bike as last night, and I still wasn’t wearing a helmet. As we reached Varndean School their sirens came on. We took a steep right down Balfour Road. I kept my head round and saw them whoosh past the turning. They weren’t after us.
We cruised over the speed bumps, past Balfour School, then a minute later emerged onto Preston Drove, opposite the laundrette. I jumped off.
‘Wait here!’ I yelled.
I ran across the road and inside. It was surprisingly busy, but tiny. Everyone was reading newspapers. From every one the same word blared in bright red block letters: “MANHUNT”. I focussed on one, being read by someone sitting on the row of fixed plastic chairs. I stared at my face on the front page, then the reader sighed and folded the paper. Thalia! Her eyes bulged when she saw me. I leant down and whispered in her ear.
‘You need to come with me right now.’
She was flabbergasted. ‘I can’t come now.’ She gestured at the machine in front of her.
I groaned, turned, and knocked on the glass behind which the owner was also reading the paper.
‘Twenty quid to dry what’s in machine 4 and keep hold of it until we pick it up.’
Their eyes bulged too, they were afraid. I shoved the money through the slot and dragged Thalia outside before anyone had a chance to argue.
‘Who still uses a laundrette!?’ I moaned.
‘I’ve got a king-size duvet, it won’t fit in my machine!’ she yelled as I dragged her across the road.
‘Did you drive?’
‘No, I carried a king-size duvet from my flat.’
‘Where are you parked?’ I growled.
‘Beaconsfield.’
Typical. I dragged her back over the road and gestured for Tidy to follow us.
‘Who’s that?’ Thalia asked, then frowned. ‘It’s that bitch, isn’t it!?’
‘Listen to me!’ I screamed.
I pushed her up against her Mini and explained about the message. She saw how afraid I was.
Tidy pulled up next to the Mini and removed her helmet, smiling at Thalia in a warm, genuine way that I was sure made her feel guilty.
‘We’d better find somewhere safe for you to stay, sweet cheeks,’ she told her.
Thalia responded with a silence that rang out between them.
Leaves rustled in the trees. There was a siren on the wind, coming from the south. But not a vehicle siren, it was lower pitch than that. But I recognised the sound, I had the strange notion of having heard it in my sleep. Or in my bed. Then I knew what it was. The fire station at Preston Circus. It was the siren that blared as they rolled up the doors, warning motorists and pedestrians that several tons of metal were about to roll out into one of city’s busiest junctions.
Then I jumped as a siren squealed on Preston Drove. An ambulance turned onto Beaconsfield Villas and shot past us. I focussed my attention back onto the two women.
Thalia looked horrified. I could see her mouthing the words “lady friend”.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Stephanie,’ she said breathlessly. ‘What about Stephanie?’
‘Call her.’
Thalia scrambled for her phone and called. ‘She’s not answering!’
‘Try again.’
Thalia clawed at her coat as the inhuman tone chirruped in her ear, then a robotic voice cheerily announced ‘Welcome to our digital messaging service. The person you called is unable to—’
She hung up. ‘Shit!’ She took a long breath, then had an idea. ‘Of course!’ She started tapping at the phone excitedly.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘It’s a company phone, I can track its location.’ She tapped some more. ‘Come on, come on, come on... Yes!’ she screamed, then jumped into the Mini. ‘Come on!’ she shouted to me.
I ran round and climbed into the passenger seat. She was already pulling out before I had shut the door.
‘Where is she?’ I barked.
‘The phone last reported its location at the Open Market, seven minutes ago.’
The Open Market is between London Road and Ditchling Road, about halfway between the circus and where the roads converge at St Peter’s.
We were already at the bottom of Beaconsfield Villas, Tidy riding behind us, then onto Beaconsfield Road and under the viaduct, stopping at the lights at the circus. The doors to the fire station were still up. All the engines were out. What the hell is going on?
We turned left where we had to, onto Ditchling Road, then a second later we reached the Level and then Thalia swerved the Mini over the opposite lane, in front of a bus, and screeched to a halt in a loading bay outside the market entrance.
‘Go!’ she commanded me.
I jumped out of the Mini and ran into the market. It is nothing more than a two-storey covered market with two levels of semi-permanent shops and some temporary stalls in the middle. I stopped at the main entrance. A moment later Tidy appeared by my side.
‘What does she look like?’ she asked.
‘Middle-aged, middle class, white, short, curly grey hair.’
I ran left, she ran right. There was the butchers, a fair-trade chocolate shop, small-batch coffee shop, the greengrocers selling fruit in bowls, second-hand books, a fishmongers. I pushed through the crowds of curious people “just looking”, some buying, and twice as many using the market as a cut-through. Vinyl, paintings, nuts, antiques, homemade jewellery, Indian snacks; I kept searching and pushing; gluten-free cakes, soap and bath stuff, knitwear, honey, eggs, bread, buttons, a stall of people collecting signatures for something. More newspapers, more “MANHUNT”, more scrutinising, suspicious gazes.
She was nowhere to be seen. It was now more than fifteen minutes since the phone reported its location, more like twenty, if she used the market as a cut through from Ditchling Road to London Road, or vice-versa, she could be a mile away by now. Over an hour since the call.
I ran into Tidy on the other side.
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Check upstairs.’
We each took one side of the upper balcony. I checked the herbal tea shop and the textiles shop, we met in the middle. Still nothing.
I ran back down to the middle. Someone shoved a petition in my face.
‘Want an exit from Brexit? Sign for a second referendum!’
I pushed them out of the way. Another clipboard blocked my way.
‘Get the frack out of Sussex, sir!’
‘What!?’
The polite young rocker on the end of the clipboard pointed to the banner above his head. “get the frack out of sussex!” it read.
‘Sign the petition, sir, and tell Tessafrak to frack-off and leave our countryside alone.’
‘Stephanie!’
She turned with a jump, and her eyes bulged when she saw me, just as Thalia’s had.
I grabbed her arm and dragged her through the crowds.
‘Oi!’ I heard the rocker shout.
‘It’s ok!’ she called behind us.
I looked to my left and saw Tidy was pushing through the crowd to join us.
‘What’s going on?’ Stephanie shouted. Then she calmed slightly when she saw Thalia’s Mini.
‘Get in!’ Thalia shouted to her.
She climbed into the back and when I was in the passenger seat, she shot off again.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘What’s happened?’ Stephanie asked from the back.
‘We need somewhere safe,’ Thalia explained.
‘Why?’
‘The police are watching my place,’ I told Thalia, ‘your place is too dangerous.’
‘We can go to mine,’ Stephanie offered.
‘Are the police watching it?’
‘No.’
I leant over my shoulder to look at her. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about your husband?’
‘He’s with Rosie in Peru.’
I thought about it.
‘I don’t think we have another option,’ Thalia offered.
‘Fine,’ I relented.
Then she swung the car round in a sudden U-turn and we bombed back up Ditchling Road.
Stephanie’s house was a big mock Tudor mansion on Old Farm Road, in that area that is historically Withdean, potentially Surrenden, but generally counted as part of Patcham. We pulled up on the drive and Tidy pulled up beside us. As we climbed out of the car she pulled off her helmet and shook out her mass of curls. Stephanie regarded her for a moment. Tidy smiled.
‘I don’t think we’ve met.’ She offered her hand.
‘No,’ Stephanie replied in a stilted way. ‘Why don’t you put your bike in the garage, I’ll just get the key.’
She let us into the house and grabbed a long mortise lock key from a bowl by the door. ‘Shoes off!’ she sang as she slipped back out the door.