by Huw Thomas
The woman read the name on the card and her face coloured even brighter. One hand stole up towards her glowing neck. ‘You’re… him.’
‘I certainly am,’ said Cash. ‘That’s definitely who I am.’ He winked. ‘But I mustn’t monopolise you completely. My friend here has come to have a chat with Mr Van Hulle. He’s in his office upstairs, is he?’
The woman looked confused. She glanced at Harper, back at Cash, at the stairs, off into the nave and then back at Cash. ‘I… Have you got an appointment?’
Cash grinned. ‘Now, what sort of a question’s that? Do we look like the kind of people who would turn up unannounced?’ He gave the woman a wink that only made her blush more madly.
Harper moved away to the left. He had watched the woman’s eyes and guessed Van Hulle was somewhere in the main part of the church. He stood for a moment, scanning the space. There were only a couple of people in sight and neither were the Dutchman. He began to walk slowly down the aisle, aware of the dryness in his mouth and the blood pumping in his temples.
‘Excuse me.’ The sentry’s voice sounded distracted as she called half-heartedly after Harper.
‘Oh forget him,’ said Cash. ‘He only wants to ask a few questions.’
‘Questions? What is he: a policeman?’
‘Oh no. Much worse. He’s a journalist.’
Harper ignored the voices behind him as he made his way down the church. There was still no sign of Van Hulle. He approached a podgy man attempting to feed several huge sheets of paper into a massive printer. ‘Excuse me. Is Van Hulle around?’
The man blinked. He looked as flustered by the question as he was by the printer. ‘Er… Mr Van Hulle. I’m not sure. I haven’t been… He could be here somewhere. Let me see.’ He pulled a pair of glasses from on top of his head and peered around. ‘Well, I can’t see him.’
Harper nodded. ‘No. That’s why I was asking. Is there another office down here?’
The fat man looked confused. ‘Another office? No. Well, not exactly.’
‘Not exactly?’
‘He could be in the undercroft.’
‘The undercroft?’
‘Yes.’
‘And where’s that?’
‘Oh.’ The man turned and pointed over his shoulder. ‘Below the big window. There’s a flight of stairs down to the undercroft. But you’ll have to wait if he’s down there.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh.’ The man smiled weakly. ‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s down there. It’s like a private chapel. Mr Van Hulle… goes there when he needs to meditate or think. He might be some time if he’s in the undercroft.’
‘I see.’ Harper nodded. ‘Well, thanks for your help.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘I’ll just go over and check if the door’s open.’
Harper left the man to his flapping sheets of paper and walked briskly across the nave. On the far side, underneath what had once been a large stained glass window was a marble tomb. Built for one of the sugar baron’s neo-aristocratic relations it had been badly damaged in the fire and a great crack ran through the stonework. Tucked against the tomb were some iron railings. Inside their confines, a narrow staircase dropped steeply into a dark passageway. A short way along was a heavy wooden door.
Harper looked at the door. He felt as nervous as at any other time in his journalistic career. Over the years he had interviewed or attempted to interview all kinds of people. Some had been more than willing to claim their fifteen minutes of fame; others would rather have seen the ground open up and swallow them. Some had been angry when confronted with a notepad-wielding reporter and a few potential interviewees had offered violence when faced with the prospect of being questioned by Harper. But none of them — as far as he was aware — had been a serial killer, alleged or otherwise.
On one level, the idea of confronting Van Hulle filled him with an acid nausea. But it also presented an opportunity to act. The past week had been a surreal blur with moments when he really feared he was losing his mind. Or had already lost it. Harper swallowed and took a deep breath.
But then, as he was about to start down the narrow stairs, the door below opened.
Harper quickly took a couple of steps back. He wanted to see Van Hulle come out and have time to ask at least a few questions. If he blocked the stairs and confronted him there the Dutchman might go straight back into undercroft and shut the door without saying anything.
Harper watched as Van Hulle emerged from the stairs to the undercroft. The big man moved ponderously and his face looked flushed. There were beads of sweat on his forehead and he seemed tense. He turned towards the main part of the nave without appearing to notice his unwanted visitor. The Dutchman began moving away from Harper, heading in the direction of the reception desk and the stairs up into the tower.
Harper took a quick breath and steeled himself. ‘Mr Van Hulle,’ he called.
The big man turned in surprise at the voice from behind. He frowned as Harper approached. ‘Yes. Do I know you?’
‘My name’s Daniel Harper. I’m a reporter for The Post.’
An expression that could have been surprise or alarm crossed Van Hulle’s face. He glanced over his shoulder towards his receptionist. Cash was still perched on her desk and gave a cheery wave.
‘Excuse me.’ The Dutchman’s face was blank as he shook his head. ‘I do not believe I have an appointment with you, Mr Harper. I am sorry but I am too busy for this now.’ He turned and made to begin moving away.
‘Are you sure, Mr Van Hulle?’ Harper concentrated on keeping his voice firm and level. ‘You haven’t even heard what I’m going to ask you.’
The big man stopped, looking impatient and shook his heavy-featured head. ‘Whatever it is, Mr Harper, it is not important to me. I have things to do. I do not have time to be interviewed.’
He began to walk away. Harper was conscious of the hairs on the back of his neck lifting as he followed. ‘Do you know anything about women going missing Mr Van Hulle?’
The Dutchman stopped mid-stride. His expression was unreadable as he turned back to Harper. ‘Missing women? Why would I know anything about missing women, Mr Harper?’ He shook his head. ‘I think these sound like questions you should be asking the police. I am a member of the police authority, Mr Harper, but I am not a policeman.’
‘I realise that,’ said Harper. ‘But I’m asking you personally: if you can tell me anything about women going missing?’
‘No. I can’t. I don’t have anything I can tell you about missing women.’ The big man’s eyes were empty of emotion as they stared back at Harper.
‘Really? I’d heard different.’
A flicker of something crossed Van Hulle’s expression. Harper wondered what it was: fear, anger, curiosity? Harper stood his ground as the big Dutchman stared at him: aware they were only a few paces apart.
Van Hulle frowned. ‘I am not interested in what you have heard, Mr Harper. I am telling you that I do not have anything to say. I cannot help with your inquiries and I do not wish to be interviewed. Now, please excuse me. I have work to do and I think you should take your questions to someone who can help you.’
‘Don’t you even want to know what I’ve heard?’
Van Hulle stared blankly at Harper then shook his head with slow deliberation. ‘No.’
With that, the Dutchman turned his back on Harper. Keeping his eyes fixed on his destination, he marched towards the stairs, not looking at either Cash or the now even more flustered-looking receptionist.
But as he approached, the artist pushed himself up off the desk. He stepped into Van Hulle’s path, clicking his fingers to an imaginary beat. Reluctantly, the developer found himself with no choice but to look the artist in the face.
‘Psycho killer!’ announced Cash.
Van Hulle stopped in his tracks. His features were normally pale but for a moment they appeared to blanche whiter than usual. His fish eyes blinked at Cash.
‘Psycho killer
,’ repeated the artist.
‘I’m… sorry. What…?’
‘Psycho killer,’ said Cash again.
He paused. ‘That song by Talking Heads. Don’t you know it? I was trying to remember how it went.’ The artist frowned. ‘Ah yes. “Run, run, run, run away. Chase all the women. Got to make them pay. I hate people when they’re alive.”’
The artist shrugged. ‘Something like that anyway. Ring any bells?’
Cash was still grinning as they left the former church and got back into the Rolls. Harper looked at him and frowned. ‘That’s not how Psycho Killer goes.’
The artist shrugged. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? I doubt if Van Hulle will know the difference.’ He smiled. ‘But he didn’t like those lyrics. I could see it in his eyes.’
Cash was silent as he started the big car and manoeuvred it around the tight space before aiming for the far end of St Bartholomew’s Yard. ‘That was interesting,’ he said as they drove away from the former church offices and headed towards the open daylight of Ferdinand Street. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, though; there’s something very odd about that Van Hulle character.’
Harper nodded and closed his eyes. The dark was appearing in the corners of his vision again: the fog building its strength. Harper licked his lips and gripped the edges of his seat. He was starting to know what to expect.
47. Fear And Love
Friday, 7.03pm:
Louise stood for a moment, waiting for her heart to calm and breathing to slow. Her shoulder ached where it had hit the concrete and the grazes on her hands, elbows and knees were beginning to hurt. So far, she had fallen at least a dozen times but she was not going to give up. While there was strength in her limbs, she refused to admit defeat.
Reaching into the darkness, she felt for the bed frame. Her fingers closed around the now-familiar metal shape. The frame still stood upright and seemed as solid as last time. She shuffled round to face the springs and moved closer. With a deep breath, she reached for the foot of the bed and carefully put her right foot through the springs. She pulled up: lifting her left foot, trying to keep her weight balanced and stop the bed from swaying too much.
The idea had come a couple of hours ago, not long after the last of the faint light coming in through the opening in the cell roof faded. Stood on end, the metal bed provided a crude, if unstable ladder: one that offered the potential to get her most of the way from the floor to the ceiling of her cell. The frame of the head end even gave a kind of base on which to balance the bed.
In theory it was simple. She simply needed to climb up the springs, reach up into the opening above her head, hold the sides while she balanced the bed and climb up out of the cell. In practice it was not quite that easy. The higher she climbed, the more the metal frame rocked. Plus, now it was totally dark she was unable to even see the opening above her head.
Last time though, she managed to hold the concrete walls briefly before she slipped and fell. She was getting the hang of the balancing trick needed to perch on the bed frame and was confident her plan could still work. It must work. Not just for her sake but for the boy. He had been unconscious for a while now. She had made him as comfortable as she could but the last time she checked on Ahmad his skin was burning hot. Louise did not know how bad his injuries really were. Something told her, however, that he would not last long stuck down here in his present condition.
She had no choice but to keep trying. If her captor came back there was no way of knowing his intentions. Or what his reaction would be to finding the boy here. And if having been attacked by her last time, he decided not to come back, their chances were possibly even worse. If the boy was right about where they were, the pair of them were trapped in a disused building that may not be visited for weeks or even months. The likelihood of either of them surviving that long was too miniscule to contemplate.
Louise bit her lip. For the thousandth time she wished she had stayed at home with Oscar instead of going out with the girls.
She hung for a moment on the bed, mental and physical strength flagging. But then she shook her head. Louise pressed her body to the springs, trying to let the bed lean so it was against the support of the head end, slid her right foot out of the springs and moved it up another few inches. Letting her legs do most of the work, she pulled her shoulders upwards. Her chin reached the top of the frame and she paused, letting the wobbling bed find a new balance.
That attempt ended in failure. As did the next and the one after. But on about the twenty-third attempt, Louise found herself crouched precariously on the end of the metal frame, arms inside the concrete shaft. She pressed her hands to opposite sides and pushed hard, bracing herself as she tried to keep her legs straight, using her limited remaining strength to keep the bed upright.
And it held.
Louise breathed out slowly, relaxing just a fraction. She needed to move: the muscles in her right leg were starting to tremble under the strain.
Cautiously, trying to keep up the pressure that was maintaining her balance, she shuffled her hands up the shaft, straightening her body as she did so. Her left foot still locked into the springs, she pulled the right one free and gently lifted it up onto the end of the bed, keeping it bent.
She paused. It was now or never. She was not sure how far the shaft extended. In theory, if she wedged her body into the opening she could climb it like a chimney. An old boyfriend of hers was a climber and she had seen him do similar tricks in the past. But she doubted whether she possessed the strength or ability. Her only hope was to use the bed frame as a launch pad, lunge up and hope to reach the top of the opening. Then she could hopefully drag herself up. The only trouble was, she would probably only get one attempt. The moment she tried to propel herself up through the hole, the bed would probably crash over and there would be nothing to support her if she missed and slid back down.
Louise gritted her teeth.
She closed her eyes, gathering her strength. She had one chance to get it right: one chance to get out of this evil place, get the boy to hospital, call the police, call Oscar. One chance to escape, save herself and hopefully catch the sick bastard who had chucked her into this hole in the ground. She needed to get it right first go.
Louise pushed with her legs and lunged.
48. Who Can You Trust?
Friday, 8.47pm:
The prints from the Smith Street sewer remained on the wall but were now to one side. In the centre was a map of the city centre. One pin marked Smith Street but there were also several others. One indicated the railway station, another the hotel to which Stacey Cole had been called on the night she disappeared.
Arranged around the map were a number of photographs. Stacy Cole smiled out of one; another was the wedding picture Glasgow had shown to Camille at the women’s refuge. There were also three pictures of other women: a couple of them family snapshots taken in happier times.
The big man in the ageing suit glanced at the pictures. ‘So Rob, bring me up to speed. What have you got?’
Glasgow nodded. ‘Sir. I’ll start with the women. The facts we’ve got.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay. On the right here: pictures of Amy Black and Kim Smith. Streetwalkers who worked the Union Road area: both known to us, both regular drug users. Black had some minor form for shoplifting. Reported missing by their families: Black nearly two months ago, Smith a couple of weeks later.’
Glasgow shrugged. ‘We made a few routine inquiries at the time but there was nothing to go on. None of the other girls on the street had seen them recently but there was no suggestion of any kind of foul play. Neither family had regular contact with the girls and, to be honest, anything could have happened to them. Both files were left open but they weren’t active. The likelihood was they did a flit for some reason, maybe moved on to another town. Or took an overdose and are still lying somewhere waiting to be found.’
The older man nodded. ‘And now? Are you linking them?’
Glas
gow shrugged. ‘No. Not for definite anyway. We’ve still got no conclusive evidence to change our original guess. But.’ He paused. ‘Now we’ve got more concrete evidence about these other girls it makes sense to keep them in mind. I don’t want to overlook any leads.’
‘Good. What about the others?’
‘Next is Stacey Cole; nothing much to add on what I told you earlier. We’ve checked out her brother’s statement and followed up the leads that gave us. The room at the Royal Hotel was booked with a stolen credit card. We’ve got the note telling her to meet the client at Moody’s Bar. I’ve asked for CCTV footage from the hotel and outside the bar but it’s nearly three weeks since she disappeared and I’d be surprised if they’ve still got anything that old. I’ve also got a team making inquiries along The Parade but it’s a bit of a cold case. We’ll be lucky to get anything there.’ Glasgow paused. ‘It’s a shame he didn’t report what happened at the time.’
The big man sucked air through his teeth. Superintendent John Black was one of the force’s divisional commanders. He largely ran policing in the city and, as an ex-detective, he liked to come and chew over details with his junior officers but his input was seldom resented. He knew how things worked on the streets. He was a hard man with shirkers or those that messed up but equally, when he knew it was needed, he was capable of making sure operations were not controlled by rule books.
Glasgow watched Black study the pictures and the map.
The superintendent shook his head. ‘And the Latvian?’
‘Probably our strongest evidence,’ said Glasgow. ‘She caught the train from Birmingham New Street. It arrived here at eleven fifty-two. We’ve got footage of her leaving the station and we picked her up on two cameras along Union Road shortly after.’
‘Hmm.’ The senior officer pursed his lips. ‘So that gives you a possible link with the two streetwalkers then.’
Glasgow nodded. ‘Exactly. Although there’s no sign of anything having happened while she was in camera shot. She was on foot and there’s no sign of anyone with her or following. But it’s a straight line up Union Road, across Caledonia Way and up Ebony Hill towards the women’s refuge. As far as we’re aware, she’d never been here before so we can only assume she’d got directions on how to find the place. There’s no obvious reason for her to take a detour. Having passed the two cameras along Union Road, she should have come up on the one at the Ebony Hill roundabout. But she never appears. So…’