Echo

by Minette Walters

  "Yes." The movement at the side of her mouth became suddenly more pronounced. "You haven't explained why he was starving himself to death or why he burnt his hands to claws."

  He made a gesture of apology. "That's what chronic alcoholics with severe depression do, Amanda. They drink instead of eating, which is why the pathologist included self-neglect as a cause of death, and they mutilate themselves as a way of externalizing their anguish about a life that holds no hope for them. I think your Billy was clinically ill and, because he drank to make himself feel better, he ended up dead in your garage."

  He could see from the resigned expression on her face that he hadn't told her anything she hadn't already worked out for herself, and his curiosity about her increased. Why this idee fixe about Billy Blake's life? There was something much deeper driving her, he thought, than simple compassion or high-minded sentiment about a man's value to society. "I couldn't get anyone even remotely interested in trying to find out who he might have been," she murmured, bending her head to the bowl of potpourri and sifting the petals idly between her fingers. "The police were polite but bored. I've written to my MP and to the Home Office, asking for some attempts to be made to trace his family, and had replies saying it's not their responsibility. The only people who were at all sympathetic were the Salvation Army. They have his description in their files now and have promised to contact me if anyone tries to trace him, but they're not optimistic about it." She looked very unhappy. "I simply don't know what else to do. After six months, I've reached a dead end."

  He watched her for several moments, fascinated by the play of expressions that crossed her face. He guessed that her look of unhappiness probably translated as deep despair for someone more demonstrative. "If it's that important, why don't you hire a private detective?" he suggested.

  "Have you any idea how much they charge?"

  "You've explored the possibility then?"

  She nodded. "And I could never justify the expense. I was told it could take weeks, even months, and there's no guarantee of success at the end of it."

  "But we've already established that you're a rich woman, so who would you be justifying the expense to?"

  A flicker of emotion-embarrassment?-crossed her face. "Myself," she said.

  "Not your husband."

  "No."

  "Are you saying he wouldn't mind if you spent a fortune trying to trace a dead stranger's family?" The elusive Mr. Powell intrigued him.

  She didn't say anything.

  "You've already recognized Billy's worth by paying for his funeral. Why isn't that enough for you?"

  "Because it's life that matters, not death."

  "That's not a good enough reason, or not for the kind of obsession you've developed."

  She laughed again, and the sound startled Deacon. It was pitched far too high, but he couldn't decide if it was drink-or fear?-that had introduced the note of hysteria. She made a visible effort to bring herself under control. "You know about obsession, do you, Mr. Deacon?"

  "I know there's something else to this story that you haven't told me. You seem to be going to extraordinary lengths to try to identify Billy Blake and trace his family. Almost," he said thoughtfully, "as if you felt under an obligation. I think you did speak to him, and I think he asked you to do something. Am I right?"

  She stared through him with the same expression of disappointment that his mother had shown the last time he saw her. He had wished so often that he'd tried for a reconciliation then that he reached out now, in a strange, confused transposition, to do for a stranger what he hadn't done for Penelope. He put a sympathetic hand on Amanda's arm but her skin was cold and unresponsive to his touch, and if she noticed the gesture at all, she didn't show it.

  Instead she leaned her head against the back of her chair to stare at the ceiling, and Deacon had a sense of doors closing and opportunities lost. "Could you retrieve my garage keys when you return to your office?" she asked politely. "Unless your friend is still out there, she's taken them with her."

  "What did he say to you, Amanda?"

  She glanced at him for a moment, but there was only boredom in her eyes. He was no longer of any interest to her. "I've wasted your time and mine, Mr. Deacon. I hope you find a taxi without too much trouble. It's usually easier if you turn left out of the entrance to the estate and walk up to the main road."

  He wished he was better at reading a woman's character. He was sure she was lying to him, but women had lied to, him for years and he had never known when they were doing it.

  There was a note with the two sets of keys at the front desk. What a cow! Hope she didn 't eat you alive after I left. I put her stupid keys in my pocket and forgot about them. Here they are with your car keys. Thought you should return them rather than me! If you're interested, I left the film with Barry. He said he'll develop it tonight. See you tomorrow. Love, Lisa.

  Deacon decided he was in no hurry, and wandered up to the third floor where Barry Grover doubled as film processor and archives' librarian. He was a somewhat pathetic character in his early thirties, very much a loner, short, potbellied, and bug-eyed behind magnifying lenses, who pored over the picture cuttings in his library with the avidity of a collector, and haunted the offices till all hours in preference to going home. The female staff avoided him wherever possible and invented malicious gossip behind his back. Over the years they had described him variously, and always with conviction, as a pedophile, a Peeping Tom, or a flasher, because it was the only way they could account for his infatuation with pictures. Deacon, who found him as unsympathetic as the women did, nevertheless felt sorry for him. Barry's was a peculiarly barren life.

  "Still here?" he said with false bonhomie, as he shouldered open the door and caught the man bent over a newspaper clipping on his desk.

  "As you say, Mike."

  He propped a buttock on the edge of the desk. "Lisa told me you were developing her film. I thought I'd drop in to see how it turned out."

  "I'll get the contact sheets for you." Barry scuttled hurriedly out of the room like a fleshy white cockroach, and Deacon, watching him critically, decided it was the way he moved that set people's teeth on edge. There was something very effeminate about the rapid little steps he took, and he wondered, not for the first time, if Barry's problem had more to do with unresolved homosexuality than the heterosexual perversions of which the women accused him.

  He lit a cigarette and turned the clipping that Barry had been reading towards himself.

  The Guardian * 6th May, 1990

  BANKER'S WIFE RELEASED

  Amanda Streeter, 31, was released without charge yesterday following two days of police questioning. "We are satisfied," said a police spokesman, "that Mrs. Streeter was not implicated in the theft of ten million pounds from Lowenstein's Merchant Bank, nor has any knowledge of her husband's whereabouts." He confirmed that James Streeter, 38, is believed to have left the country sometime during the night of 27th April. "His description has been circulated around the world and we expect him to be found within days. As soon as we are notified of where he is, extradition procedures will begin."

  Amanda Streeter's solicitor issued the following statement to the press. "Mrs. Streeter has been deeply shocked by the events of the last eight days and has given the police as much assistance as she can in their search for her husband. Now that she has been ruled out of the investigation, she asks to be left in peace. There is nothing she can add to the information that is already in the public domain."

  The allegations against James Streeter are that, over a period of five years, he used his position at Lowenstein's to falsify accounts and steal over ten million pounds. The alleged irregularities came to light some six weeks ago but the details were kept "in-house" to avoid panicking the bank's customers. When it became clear that the bank's own investigation was going nowhere, the Board decided to call in the police. Within hours of the decision being taken, James Streeter disappeared. Charges are being brought against him in his absen
ce.

  "I recognized her face."

  Deacon hadn't heard Barry return and was startled by the sudden, breathy voice in the silence. He watched the man's fat finger push the clipping to one side and point to a grainy photograph underneath.

  "That's her with her husband before he ran. Lisa called her Mrs. Powell, but it's the same woman. You probably remember the case. He was never caught."

  Deacon stared down at the photograph of Amanda Powell-Streeter, aged thirty-one. She was wearing glasses, her hair was shorter and darker, and her face was in three-quarter profile. He wouldn't have recognized her, yet, knowing who it was, he saw the similarities. He looked thoughtfully at the husband for a moment or two, searching for a resemblance with Billy Blake, but nothing in life was ever that easy. "How do you do it?" he asked Barry.

  "It's what I'm paid for."

  "That doesn't explain how you do it."

  The other man smiled to himself. "Some people say it's a gift, Mike." He placed the contact sheets on the desk. "Lisa's done a lousy job with these. There are only five or six that are good enough to pass muster. She needs to do them again."

  Deacon held the sheets to the light and examined them closely. They were uniformally bad, either out of focus or so poorly lit that Amanda Powell's face looked like granite. There were six perfect shots of an empty garage at the end of the sequence. He stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray on Barry's desk which was placed beside a prominent notice saying: In the interests of my health please don't smoke. "How the hell did she manage to produce crap like this?" he asked crossly.

  Fastidiously, Barry emptied the ashtray into his wastepaper basket. "Obviously there's something wrong with her camera. I'll call it in for service tomorrow. It's a shame. She's usually very reliable."

  Considering how bad Lisa's photographs were, it was even more extraordinary that Barry had been able to make the connection. Deacon fished his notebook from his coat pocket and isolated the two photographs of Billy Blake. "I suppose you don't recognize him?"

  The little man took the prints and placed them side by side on his desk. He examined them for a long time. "Maybe," he said at last.

  "What do you mean, 'maybe'? Either you do or you don't."

  Barry looked put out. "You don't know anything about it, Mike. Supposing I played a bar or two of Mozart to you, you might be able to identify it as Mozart, but you'd never be able to say which of his works it came from."

  "What's that got to do with identifying a photograph?"

  "You wouldn't understand. It's very complicated. I shall have to work on it."

  Deacon felt suitably put in his place. And not for the first time that night. But thoughts of Barry were less likely to haunt him than thoughts of a woman who reminded him of his mother. "How about making some good negatives for me? The chances are he looked nothing like this when he was fit and healthy, but we might be able to do something on the computer to flesh out the face a bit. That would give you a better base to start from, wouldn't it?"

  "Possibly. Where did the prints come from?"

  "Mrs. Powell. He died in her garage under the name of Billy Blake, but she doesn't think that was his real name." He gave Barry a quick summary of what Amanda had told him. "She has a bee in her bonnet about trying to identify him and trace his family."

  "Why?"

  Deacon touched the newspaper clippings. "I don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with what happened to her husband."

  "I can make the negatives easily enough. When do you want them?"

  "First thing tomorrow?"

  "I'll do them for you now."

  "Thanks." Deacon glanced at his watch as he stood up and saw with surprise that it was after ten o'clock. "Change of plan," he said abruptly, reaching for Barry's coat from a hook behind the door. "I'm taking you for a drink instead. Christ, man, this bloody magazine doesn't own you. Why the hell don't you tell us all to get stuffed occasionally?"

  Barry Grover allowed himself to be drawn along the pavement by Deacon's insistent hand on his shoulder, but he was a reluctant volunteer. He had been on the receiving end of such spontaneous invitations before. He knew the routine, knew he had been invited only because Deacon's irregular conscience had struck, knew he would be forgotten and ignored within five minutes of entering the pub. Deacon's drinking cronies would be lining the bar, and Barry would be left to stand at the side, unwilling to intrude where he wasn't wanted, unwilling to draw attention to himself by leaving.

  Yet, as usual, he was prey to a terrible ambivalence as the pub drew closer, because he both feared and yearned to go drinking with Deacon. He feared inevitable rejection, yearned to be accepted as Deacon's friend, for Deacon had shown him more casual companionship since he'd arrived at The Street than Barry had known in years. He told himself that to be accepted just once would suffice. It was such a small ambition for a man to hold, after all. To feel part of a social group for a single night, to tell a joke and raise a laugh, to be able to say the next morning: I went for a drink with a mate.

  He stopped abruptly outside the pub and started to polish his glasses furiously on a large white handkerchief. "After all, Mike, I think I'd better get home. I hadn't realized how late it was and, if I'm to do those negatives for you, I can't afford to oversleep."

  "You've time for a pint," said Deacon cheerfully "Where's home? I'll drop you off afterwards if it's on my way."

  "Camden."

  "It's a deal then. I'm in Islington." He clapped a friendly arm across Barry's shoulders and escorted him through the doors of The Lame Beggar.

  But the fat little man's forebodings were well-founded. Within minutes, Deacon had been subsumed into a raucous pre-Christmas drinking throng, while Barry was left to blink his embarrassment and his loneliness in feigned insouciance by the wall. It was when he realized that Deacon was too drunk to drive him home, or even to remember the offer, that a terrible sense of injustice began to grow in him. Confused feelings of hero-worship turned angrily to bitter resentment. Hell could freeze over, as far as he was concerned, before Deacon would ever learn from him who Billy Blake really was.

  11.-oo p.m.-Cape Town, South Africa

  It was a warm summer night in the Western Cape. A well-dressed woman sat alone in the glass-fronted restaurant of the Victoria and Alfred Hotel, toying with a cup of black coffee. She was a regular customer, although little was known about her other than that her name was Mrs. Met-calfe. She always ate and drank sparingly, and it was a mystery to the waiters why she came at all. She seemed to take little pleasure in her solitary meal, and preferred to turn her back as far as possible on her fellow diners. She chose instead to gaze out over the harbor where, had it been daylight, she would have seen the seals that play among the moored ships. The night held fewer diversions and, as usual, her expression was bored.

  At eleven o'clock, her driver presented himself at reception and, after settling her bill, she left. Her waiter pocketed his customary handsome tip and wondered, not for the first time, what brought her here every Wednesday evening to spend three hours doing something she found so uncomfortable.

  Had she been remotely friendly, he might have asked her, but she was a typical tight-lipped, skinny white woman and their relationship was a professional one.

  *4*

  If Deacon was surprised that Barry Grover left the pub without saying anything, he didn't dwell on it. He had walked out on too many drinking sessions himself to regard it as anything unusual. In any case, he was relieved to be shot of the responsibility of driving the man home. He wasn't as drunk as Barry had believed, but he was certainly over the limit and chose to abandon his car at the office and take a taxi. He was renting an attic flat in Islington, and he slouched dejectedly in his seat as Islington drew closer. He and Barry had something in common, he thought, assuming Barry's long hours at work meant he shared Deacon's aversion to going home. The parallel intrigued him suddenly. What were Barry's reasons, he wondered? Did he, like Deacon, fear the emptiness of a rented fla
t that contained nothing of a personal nature because there was nothing from his past that he wanted to remember?

  He sank deeper into maudlin gloom, indulging himself in drink inspired self-loathing. He was to blame for everything. His father's death. His failed marriages. His family's bitterness and their ultimate rejection of him. (God, how he wished he could get that damn woman's eyes out of his mind. Memories of his mother had been haunting him all evening.) No children. No friends because they'd all taken his first wife's side. He must have been out of his mind to betray one wife, only to find the second wasn't worth the price he'd paid for her.

  From time to time, the cabdriver flicked him a sympathetic glance in the rearview mirror. He recognized the melancholy of a man who drank to drown his sorrows. London was full of them in the weeks before Christmas.

  Deacon woke with a sense of purpose, which was unusual for him. He put it down to the fact that his subconscious mind had been replaying the tape of his interview with Amanda Powell, further whetting his curiosity about her. Why should mention of Billy Blake, a stranger, produce an emotional reaction when mention of her husband, James Streeter, produced none? Not even anger.

  He pondered the question in the solitary isolation of his kitchen while he stirred his coffee and looked with disfavor at the blank white walls and blank white units that surrounded him. Predictably, his thoughts turned inwards. Did either of his wives show emotion when his name was mentioned? Or was he just a forgotten episode in their lives?