Destroy Unopened

by Anabel Donald

  Enough. I focused on the tattered posters still warning against infestations of the Colorado beetle which, if it had any sense, would have long ago retreated to Colorado before it froze solid. I kicked the radiator; it died into silence. Then I heard Lil, bellowing.

  ‘I know not whether Laws be right/ Or whether Laws be wrong;/ All that we know who lie in gaol/ Is that the wall is strong;/ And that each day is like a year,/ A year whose days are long.’

  The jaded WPC who let her in to the Interview Room rolled her eyes at me and slammed the door behind her, which shocked the radiator into gurgling life. ‘I’m not in jail, Lil,’ I said, ‘just waiting to give a statement.’

  ‘Since Oscar Wilde didn’t see fit to write “The ballad of waiting to give a statement in Notting Hill Police Station”, you’ll just have to take what you’re given,’ she said tartly. ‘For each man kills the thing he loves,/ By each let this be heard . . . I brought you coffee.’

  She plonked two takeaway plastic cups on the table and herself in the other chair, pulled off her woollen cap and tugged at her flattened mop of grey curls. ‘Hat-hair,’ she said. ‘A cross I have to bear, in winter. Here’s your notebook. And there hasn’t been . . .’ her voice tailed away into silence, then she changed tack. ‘Both those coffees are for you.’

  ‘There hasn’t been . . .’ I prompted, feeling that on several occasions already I hadn’t listened to Lil when I should have, and resolved not to make the same mistake again.

  ‘Any answer from Cairncross,’ she said, dodging an issue, I thought. Presumably she’d come back to it.‘I kept trying his number but I never got an answer. And I did talk to the police. They said they’d check it out, but I didn’t believe them.’

  ‘Never mind. Good work on Nick’s message: Lalia did mean something to me – Russell Jacobs, the big man you saw in the pizza place having lunch with Fairfax and Sam, has echolalia.’

  ‘Did Nick name him specifically because he was the most dangerous of them?’

  ‘Could be. Or could just be that he was the easiest to point out in a coded message. Echolalia was part of a private joke between Nick and me. She got Sam to send the e-mail on the pretext that it was part of her job . . .’ I stopped talking. Lil wasn’t listening.

  ‘How long are you likely to be kept here?’ she said.

  ‘No idea. You don’t have to stay, though, I just needed the notebook.’ I was surprised she wasn’t full of questions about what had happened.

  ‘It isn’t that,’ she said, looking at me with a kind of peering intensity. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Cold. Tired. Worried about Nick and about a perfectly innocent young man who’s unconscious in hospital because of me. Better for the coffee. How do you feel?’

  ‘Worried about you,’ she said. ‘There hasn’t been a further e-mail from Africa –’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said repressively. I absolutely wasn’t going to talk to her, or anyone, about Barty. Not yet. Nor was I going to think about it myself.

  ‘And I am also concerned,’ she went on remorselessly, ‘about your physical condition.’

  ‘I’m fine –’

  ‘Because I believe you are pregnant,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘None of your business,’ I said. ‘None of your bloody business.’

  ‘And I want you to know that I have every intention of looking after you.’

  That was too much. ‘Shut up, Lil,’ I shouted.

  She patted my hand. ‘Have a good cry,’ she suggested, and to my own horrified surprise, I did.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Embarrassingly, once I’d started crying, I couldn’t stop for what seemed like an age but was probably only about five minutes while Lil kept the Kleenexes coming. Finally she said briskly, ‘Finish your coffee, then you can tell me what happened earlier this evening.’

  So, with a few snuffles, I did. She kept asking questions so she got the full detail. I wasn’t sure whether this was all curiosity or partly tact, but anyway she deserved to hear. Eventually she said, ‘What very unpleasant young people. And you think that Fairfax and Jacobs, together, were the Killer initially? And they selected Sam as a victim, for physical reasons, but she then became part of the group?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Arthur Fishburn was killed by one of them?’

  ‘Probably Jacobs. The first time I met them, noonish today, Jacobs was late. I think he did it then. The time fits.’

  ‘And you think he did it because Fishburn had found something out?’

  ‘Yes. I’d pointed Arthur in their direction, Arthur was obsessed with the case; he may even have confronted them. Maybe Nick can tell us.’

  ‘And you also suspect them of killing Philip Gein?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Gein was asked to talk to Jack Hobbs about his mother’s suspicions that Jack was the Killer. He may very well have told his mate Fairfax, thinking it was funny or annoyed by it. Fairfax wouldn’t want any suspicion even of someone sharing a house with him.’

  ‘And Jack Hobbs wasn’t part of Bourbaki?’

  ‘No, Nick said he definitely wasn’t, and Fairfax talked about putting the blame on him.’

  ‘If he wasn’t part of it, why did he go to the industrial estate at all? Do you think he suspected them?’

  ‘He could have. Does it matter?’

  Lil looked at me anxiously. ‘Alex, there’s something wrong –’

  But I didn’t get to hear it, because Andy Cairncross came in and chucked her out.‘Who’s your lawyer?’ she shouted from the corridor.

  ‘Don’t need one,’ I called back.

  ‘Alex – Alex, listen –’ Her protesting voice receded down the corridor She did fuss.

  The first thing Cairncross told me was that Jack Hobbs had recovered consciousness. The hospital were keeping him in for observation, but they reckoned he’d be OK. Ditto Fairfax, but I didn’t care about him. Polly was waiting at the hospital to get her arm properly set, and Nick was, apparently, in terrific form, though again the hospital were keeping her and she had police in her room in case she remembered anything further.

  After that, the statement procedure was quite quick. It would have been quicker if any of the electric sockets in the Interview Room had worked so he could use a cassette recorder. As it was he had to find a spare constable to take it down in longhand, and few constables were spare that night.

  I’d already decided not to volunteer the fact that I’d found Fishburn’s body, and Cairncross didn’t ask me. Apart from that I had nothing to hide. He was abrupt but not hostile. I got the impression that he’d spoken at length to Polly and that my statement was something of a formality. I could feel, lurking behind his businesslike manner, an enormous satisfaction and relief, which I could well understand.

  When I’d read through the statement, signed it and the constable had taken it away, I stood up and Cairncross said, ‘Where are you off to?’

  I hadn’t thought. I looked at my watch. Nearly ten. ‘Hammer-smith Hospital, to see Nick and Polly,’ I said.

  ‘You might have to wait to see Nick. She’ll probably still be talking to us.’

  I shrugged. ‘Whatever I’ll wait.’

  ‘D’you want a ride over? I’m going in that direction.’

  ‘No, thanks, I’ll walk. I need some fresh air.’ I also needed to pick up some food on the way: I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten, and the baby probably needed zinc or protein or calcium – I’d have to get a pregnancy book to find out what. First thing tomorrow.

  I stepped out of the police station and breathed in the damp air. The fog had gone; I almost missed it. I didn’t like change, at the moment. Now, it was raining. Hard. Plastering my hair to my head, running down into my eyes, dripping inside my collar and soaking my jeans.

  I walked up the Grove, back to my flat, for a quick bath and a change of clothes. On the way I bought milk and smoked mackerel and french bread and fresh orange juice, which I ate
and drank in the bath, and thought about Barty. I comforted myself that he was sharp and wily and experienced, and if he came out at all he’d probably come out with great footage. He didn’t seem far away, either: it felt almost as if he was in the living room downstairs, and would answer if I called.

  I fell asleep in the bath, briefly. A soggy floating lump of bread bumped into my face and woke me. I got out feeling more tired rather than less, dressed, shoved some things in a bag for Nick, and drove Polly’s car over to Hammersmith Hospital.

  I was directed to a small corner waiting room on the third floor It was a bleak light-green box with the exhausted air of a disregarded public space used round the clock by unhappy or anxious people. Polly was in there alone, her arm plastered, flicking through a tattered supermarket lifestyle magazine aimed at followers of a lifestyle light-years removed from her own. The corridor outside was full of policemen: some of them uniformed, guarding doorways; some in plain clothes with a ‘We’ve got ’em’ glint in their eyes and a spring in their steps, bustling about.

  We hugged. A hug of relief on both sides and thanks on mine. ‘You were brilliant,’ I said.

  ‘So were you. And lucky. We were both lucky. Let’s talk about it some other time, OK?’

  I looked at her blankly. Was she sedated? Why wasn’t she gabbling away as usual, telling me all the details, swamping me with words? ‘You’ve had painkillers?’ I said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tranquillizers?’

  ‘No, why? I’m OK, apart from the arm and it’s a clean break. It’s you I’m worried about.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah, Lil came by, she’s in with Nick now. She said you were off with the fairies. She said you didn’t even get a solicitor before you gave your statement, and your brain wasn’t working.’

  ‘Did you get a solicitor?’

  ‘I hadn’t hit anyone. Jack Hobbs could have died – maybe he still could – and how can you call that self-defence?’

  ‘He’s all right,’ I said huffily, ‘and my brain’s just fine.’

  Polly was looking at me with the same anxious protective expression that Lil’d had earlier, and I was equally irritated. ‘Lil told me about Barty,’ she said.

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ I said. My tone warned her off. ‘Why don’t you take a cab home, Polly? You should be in bed. I brought your car but you can’t drive with that arm, and you shouldn’t hang around here. I want to see Nick.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you,’ she said firmly.

  There was a policeman outside Nick’s room, a WPC sitting inside on a chair in the corner, a nurse taking Nick’s pulse, and Lil yammering.

  Nick looked good. Her head was bandaged, her colour was better, her face was as animated as I’ve ever seen it, and she was talking more than I’ve ever heard her talk to strangers. She was even responding to the WPC’s feeble jokes.

  When the nurse had left and Lil had gone to wait with Polly (why wouldn’t she just go home?) and the WPC was tactfully studying a magazine with exaggerated interest, I sat down on a chair by the bed.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she said.

  ‘I’m tired,’ I said. ‘And I’m worried about Barty.’

  ‘Lil said. He’ll be fine, you know.’ She sounded suddenly older, trying to look after me. ‘Go home and get some sleep. We can talk tomorrow.’

  That course of action was powerfully appealing. Not just rest, but oblivion, for a while. But I couldn’t. I had to pretend some interest, first, in what had happened to Nick, so I asked.

  ‘I’ll make it short,’ she said. ‘I wanted to get out of town for a while because I was pissed off at Laverne. On the way to the station I dropped by Bartlett Close because there’d been a sighting of Sam there and I wanted to confirm it before I left. I was poking around when Fairfax spotted me, overreacted and hit me. Then Jacobs decided they had to get rid of me because they didn’t want a complaint to the police which might attract attention to them, but Fairfax wanted to torture me first, so I was put in the cage at the industrial estate. I managed to con Sam into sending the e-mail to you. I had to keep it obscure so she couldn’t understand, and I just hoped if you took over the Eyre case you’d meet them and I knew you’d remember echolalia.’

  ‘Sorry it took me so long,’ I said again. ‘D’you want me to ask how they treated you?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Let’s leave it.’

  ‘It’s good for you to talk,’ said the WPC. She was young, fresh, plump with blonde frizzy hair and eager, slightly dim blue eyes.

  ‘I know, thanks, maybe later,’ said Nick, more obliging than I’d ever heard her. Maybe what’d happened would hit her later, or maybe the best cure for a period of captivity was to put your captor’s eyes out. ‘So anyway because they were going to kill me they talked quite freely in front of me. Fairfax was the pervert, Jacobs the practical one. He didn’t mind a bit of rape and torture and murder, but actually I think he was planning to blame it all on Fairfax and rip him off somehow, because Fairfax is the rich one. Hobbs – is that his name? I never met him – had absolutely nothing to do with it, and I don’t know why he turned up in the basement when he did. Then they set the trap for you, mostly because of someone called Arthur Fishburn who they thought was working for you and had got onto them.’

  With the WPC’s ears flapping, I couldn’t enlighten her about Fishburn. ‘What about Sam?’ I said.

  ‘I couldn’t make her out. Sometimes she seemed half-witted, other times she enjoyed keeping me locked up. Something seriously wrong there. She doted on Fairfax. Called him Daddy. Have you been in touch with Pauline Eyre?’

  ‘Yeah, I called her from the police station.’

  ‘She’s here with Sam, you know.’

  ‘I’m in no hurry to see her,’ I said, ‘but I ought to see Jack Hobbs, say I’m sorry for knocking him out.’

  ‘It’ll keep till tomorrow. Go home, Alex.’

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ said the WPC.

  ‘No. I don’t need one.’

  ‘Go home, Alex. Now,’ Nick said again. ‘Ring me tomorrow. I’ve got the mobile.’ She waved it at me. ‘See?’

  I wasn’t responding to her enough, I knew, but I was exhausted. So I went home.

  Sunday 6 November

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I slept dreamlessly and deeply, and woke up at seven feeling terrific. Terrific lasted until I remembered about Barty, and being pregnant, when I downshifted to anxious. As I showered and ran through the events of the previous evening, I downshifted still further, to worried as hell. What was pregnancy doing to me? Lil, Polly and Nick – they’d all seen that something was wrong and they couldn’t see the half of it, because it was inside my head.

  I’d lost my sense of reality. How could I possibly have given a statement to Cairncross without even consulting a solicitor? I could have been, might still be, in all kinds of trouble, depending on what attitude to me the police took.

  I’d also lost my curiosity. Now, this morning, I was bubbling over with questions, about what had happened to Nick, about what Bourbaki had done and why and how, about Fishburn and Philip Gein, but yesterday I’d been sleepwalking. All I’d wanted was to get home to bed, presumably because my baby needed me to sleep and didn’t want his/her resources squandered on my self-indulgences. If the whole pregnancy was going to be like this I’d better fix myself up with seriously undemanding work, specially if I was going to have to support us without Barty. And I’d also better seize this window of access to my normal self to get things done.

  As soon as I was dressed and on my second cup of coffee I called Eddy in Florida. OK, it was two thirty in the morning over there, but at least I’d be sure to get him.

  After he answered it took five minutes to pacify him, ten minutes to explain what had happened, still leaving out my discovery of Fishburn’s body, five minutes to endure his well-deserved bollocking, and a minute to apologize. Then he said he’d talk to Cairncross, get a picture of my situation,
and ring me back with advice.

  By this time it was as light as it ever gets in London in November Clear sky, watery sun, pavements still puddled from last night’s rain but no trace of fog. I made more coffee and drank it looking out at the empty Sunday-morning street, listening to Mozart, thinking about Barty.

  Then I played the messages on my answering machine. The only relevant one was a ring-back from Barbara Gottlieb, the professor from NCL. She’d left the message last night and said she’d be in all Sunday morning.

  That decided my next move for me: while I was still firing on all cylinders I’d better finish up the Hilary Lucas case. I rang Nick on the mobile. She answered perkily. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Hi. I’m fine and being well looked after I’ve still got the police with me. Not Jenny from last night, though, she went off-shift. It’s Caroline now. Say hi to Caroline.’

  ‘Hi, Caroline,’ I shouted and heard a muffled response. When the acoustics told me that the phone was safely back at Nick’s ear I said, ‘Listen carefully but don’t let her know what I’m talking about. This is another case I’m working on, might be connected. Jack Hobbs’s father was a guy called Philip Gein. He was killed in a mugging last summer. Did you hear anything to suggest that Bourbaki did it?’

  ‘No,’ she said airily, ‘nothing like that at all.’

  ‘No mention of Jack’s father?’

  ‘Absolutely not, and I got every detail, believe it. You can rely on me.’

  I signed off, promising to come round and fetch her in an hour or two, and bring the clothes I’d brought and forgotten to leave for her the night before.

  Then I took the DESTROY UNOPENED envelope to my desk and looked at the last letter again.