by Greg Keen
‘I told you she was dead,’ Pam said. ‘All I wanted was to have her back. At least, that’s all I wanted then . . .’
‘Yes, I saw your press conference,’ I said. ‘I’m sure the police will put serious resources into finding Emily’s murderer.’
The exhaustion in Pam’s voice was replaced by the steeliness I’d heard on TV. ‘They won’t find who did it,’ she said. ‘My swami said you’re the one to do that.’
If the bloody swami was so good at predicting who would find Emily’s killer, why didn’t he save everyone a lot of bother and just say who did it? On the other hand, I did need something to do in order to stop fretting about my health . . .
Odeerie had been all for calling a press conference of his own. Instead we’d agreed that I would continue with the case for a limited time if that was what Pam Ridley still wanted. ‘You’re positive about that, Mrs Ridley?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘And you can call me Pam.’
‘Okay, Pam. I’ll need to touch base with you to ask more questions about Emily. Are you around later today, around two p.m.?’
‘I should be, but there’s reporters outside the house.’
‘You never know, they may have gone by then,’ I said.
Flying pigs might carry them away.
There were two journos outside my own place. Both were in their twenties and looked as though doorstepping ‘a semi-professional skip-tracer on the brink of retirement’ (the Mirror) was not what they’d had in mind when taking on fifty grand’s worth of debt to sign up for Applied Media Studies. I told them that Mr Gabriel was on his way down and would be happy to issue a statement. It flummoxed them long enough for me to make my way towards Piccadilly Circus station untroubled by questions. I was busy congratulating myself on my ingenuity when a hand fell on my shoulder.
‘Nice one, Kenny,’ its owner said. ‘You gave that pair of amateurs the runaround good and proper. It’d be funny if it weren’t so fucking pathetic.’
The guy was in his early fifties. His green leather jacket had seen better days and his moustache looked like a strip of grey AstroTurf. His eyes were heavily recessed, although I suspected they didn’t miss much.
‘Do I know you?’ I asked.
‘Danny Abbott,’ he said, releasing his grip on my shoulder and brushing it down. ‘I work for the Post. All I wanted was a few words on this Emporium business. Turn-up for the books, ain’t it? You reckon Cas is still alive or what?’
‘No comment.’
Danny exhaled heavily. ‘Look, Kenny, I don’t blame you for being suspicious, but I’m a proper reporter, not like Pinky and Perky round the corner. Play straight with me and I’ll play straight with you.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Answer a few questions and I’ll write exactly what you say.’
‘Otherwise . . .’
Danny shrugged. ‘Otherwise I’ll have to make the whole bleeding thing up. And I don’t want to be that guy, Kenny, I really don’t.’
I recalled what Odeerie had said about it being better to control the situation. And while Danny’s demeanour and outfit didn’t scream my word is my bond, at least he’d been honest as to what would happen if I didn’t cooperate.
‘You get three questions,’ I said.
‘Cheers, Kenny.’ Danny produced an iPhone and pressed Start on the Record app. ‘First up, what made you think Emily’s body was in the Emporium?’
‘There was something strange-looking about one of the heating ducts.’
‘Which is where you found her?’
I nodded.
‘Pam Ridley said that she wanted you to carry on looking for the person who killed her daughter. That what you’re gonna do?’
‘Hasn’t been decided yet.’
‘Obviously Cas Greaves did it.’
‘Did he?’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea.’
Danny nodded. ‘Course not. You think Cas is still alive, though?’
‘There’s no reason to think he isn’t.’ I looked at my watch. ‘That’s your lot.’
‘Just one more question. D’you think there’s any truth in the Golden Road theory?’
‘The golden what?’
‘You’ve never heard of it?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘You aren’t ruling it out, then?’
‘How can I when I don’t know what it is?’
‘No problem,’ Danny said. ‘Okay, thanks for that, Kenny, I really appreciate it.’ He tucked a card in the breast pocket of my jacket. ‘I’ll let you get on, but if you feel the need for a chat any time, give me a call.’
‘What was that golden road thing again?’
‘Oh, nothing important,’ Danny said, shaking my hand. Oddly enough, he seemed much keener to finish the interview than he had been to start it.
The journey to Euston took twenty minutes, the walk to St Michael’s Hospital a further fifteen. The scanning suite was in the Yakamoto Building, opened by HRH Diana, Princess of Wales in 1993, according to the plaque by the lifts. I gave my name to the receptionist, who handed me a twenty-question form to fill in. She admitted me to an antechamber and instructed that I place all metal items in one of the lockers.
The operator emphasised that keeping perfectly still while in the belly of the beast was essential. He placed a pair of ear defenders on me and retreated to the booth.
A minute later my torso rolled into the machine and the thing kicked into action. According to the operator, claustrophobia troubled some patients. I wasn’t one of them, although after fifteen minutes of grinding and clicking, I began to suspect that the machine wasn’t simply assaying my brain’s structure but sifting its essence.
If there were a nugget of doom in there, would my presence on earth have been worthwhile? I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. It had applied to Richard II, and it applied to Kenny Gabriel. I was bearing down on my seventh decade, and all I had to show for it was a twenty-a-day Marlboro habit and a beleaguered liver.
Emily Ridley’s bent and corroded body came into my mind. How long before my own would be consumed by worms or fire? Her mother had said that someone had discarded her like a piece of garbage. Pam Ridley wanted me to find who that person was. I had no idea how I was going to do that, but I knew I was going to try.
Retrieving my phone from the locker, I found an email from Saskia Reeves-Montgomery in response to the one I’d sent a couple of days ago. No doubt the author of Play Like You Mean It had been inspired by recent events to click the Reply button. She would be very happy to meet. I suggested early evening. My phone pinged with a response confirming 6.30 p.m. before I’d made it to Euston station.
There was still nothing from Chop Montague. As the most famous ex-Mean member still living, and the one-time songwriting partner of Castor Greaves, he was probably under siege from the press. I rang his agency again and asked if my message had been passed on. Apparently Chop might take a while to respond, as he was very busy. No shit. I left my details and stressed the urgency of the matter.
The call I made before entering the station was to Still Life. The phone at Dean Allison’s taxidermy shop was engaged. At least someone was there. Whether it was Dean and whether he would agree to talk to me was a different matter.
Two questions preoccupied me most as I travelled south on the Tube. The first was how to approach Pauline Oakley. Did you nick a shitload of cash from Jake Villiers, and are you blackmailing him? Perhaps not the strategy most likely to succeed. The second question was why Jake had really bought the Emporium. By the time my train rolled into Tooting Bec station, I had no answer to either.
In common with the other council houses on Burnham Drive, number 35 had been constructed from red brick with a roof tiled in grey slate. Each door had been painted midnight blue and there was small patch of front garden. A gate led from the path to the road and there was a portico in which wheelie bins were sheltered.
 
; Pam Ridley’s house had a dozen reporters and paparazzi outside. A bored-looking copper in uniform was supervising them. Entering by the front gate would have probably created a stir, if not pandemonium. Just as well I didn’t have to.
Each eight-block row was served by a track to its rear. Pam’s lawn had been recently mown and there was a well-maintained ornamental pond in its centre. I walked up the crazy-paving path and tapped on her door.
‘Hello, Kenny,’ she said, and ushered me into the kitchen. ‘Did anyone see you?’
‘I don’t think so. How are you bearing up?’
Pam was wearing the same cardigan she had worn at the press conference. Her lank hair was greasy and there was a faint mustiness about her. Pounds to peanuts she’d spent the night in a chair. ‘I’m okay,’ she said, scratching the back of her neck. ‘D’you want a tea or a coffee?’
‘No thanks,’ I said. For some reason we were talking in whispers.
‘We can go up to Em’s room, if you want to see it . . .’
I followed Pam into a passage. Flowered wallpaper had faded and the stair carpet was worn smooth in the centre. Four doors led off from the landing. One had a rainbow attached to it, under which EMILY’S ROOM had been posted in multicoloured letters. Pam opened the door gently, as though her daughter might be sleeping.
In one corner was a single bed covered with a pink duvet. By the window stood a utility dressing table. Lipsticks were corralled behind a cheap vinyl jewellery box and yellowing ticket stubs had been inserted where the mirror met its frame. ‘Geoff wanted a clear-out after Em went missing,’ Pam said. ‘He reckoned we needed to move on.’ She shrugged. ‘S’pose it can all go now.’
‘There’s no rush, is there?’ I said, forcing myself to speak at normal volume. ‘You can keep it like this indefinitely if it makes you feel better.’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Now Em’s been found, I can get rid of her stuff.’
A couple of photograph albums lay on a shelf with a large Humpty Dumpty toy perched on top. ‘Would it be okay if took a look at those?’ I asked.
‘Course you can,’ she said.
I sat on the bed and opened the smaller album. The first few pages contained photographs of Emily taken when she was about eight. Two featured a girl in school uniform smiling self-consciously at the camera. Subsequent pages marked the graduation from preteen to adolescence. I flipped to a series taken at a party. Fifteenth Birthday had been written neatly at the top of the page in round letters.
The birthday girl had shaken off the gawky cloak of adolescence. Wearing a black dress, she posed for the camera individually and with guests. I turned another page to see Pam and her husband standing on either side of their daughter. All three were contemplating a candled birthday cake.
‘Did Emily always live at home?’ I asked. Pam nodded.
‘Yeah, although she was away quite often on shoots, especially in the year before she died. And she’d stay at Castor Greaves’s place sometimes. Em brought him home once. Me and Geoff weren’t keen.’
‘Why not?’
‘Emily was too young to be in a serious relationship. And even though Castor was polite enough, he didn’t seem as though he was all there.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Not so much that as he was just going through the motions when he was talking to you. He treated Em well, though. At least, she said he did.’
‘How did they meet?’ I asked.
‘They were booked for a shoot with the same photographer. Mean were her favourite band. There’s pictures of them in the other album . . .’
Indeed there were. Those in the first pages had been taken from the audience. Halfway through the book there were a few of Emily with assorted members of Mean at what appeared to be parties. In another she was sat beside Castor at a mixing desk, and then one in which he had his arm around her waist outside a London Fashion Week event. There were intermittent gaps in the pages. I drew Pam’s attention to this.
‘You know what girls are like when it comes to photographs. If they don’t like them . . .’ She mimed a tearing motion with her hands.
‘Then why put them in the album at all?’ I asked.
‘Dunno. Maybe she went off ’em later.’
In subsequent pages there were fewer gaps. Castor and Emily were in swimming gear on a beach, outside Radio City Music Hall in New York, and gooning around with animals at London Zoo. The last picture was of her and JJ Freeman sitting next to each other on a flight of stone steps. They were smiling, but not convincingly.
‘Have you any idea when this was taken?’ I asked.
Pam bent over to take a closer look. Particles of dandruff descended on to the image of her daughter and JJ. ‘She bought that top a week before she went missing.’
‘When was the last time you spoke to Emily?’ I asked.
‘The day of the concert.’
‘What time did she leave the house?’
‘About six. She was seeing Davina first.’
‘Davina?’
‘Her best friend since they were at school.’
Pam took the album from me and flicked through a few pages.
‘That’s her.’
The girls were sitting on bar stools holding up cocktail glasses. Davina was a couple of inches taller, with dark hair and delicate features.
‘Did Davina go to the Emporium?’ I asked.
‘No. She had the flu. At least, that’s what she said. Her and Emily hadn’t been getting on that well. I think she was jealous about her modelling.’
‘Did the police speak to her after Emily went missing?’
‘Must have done,’ Pam said. ‘They interviewed everyone.’
‘Where did she live?’
‘Dunsinane Road, but she moved out after she went to university and her mum and dad left more than ten years ago.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember her surname.’
Pam stared at the ceiling for a few moments. ‘Jacobs,’ she said eventually. ‘Although she probably got married, so it could be something different now.’
‘Would you mind if I borrowed the photo?’ I asked.
‘If you think it’ll help,’ Pam said.
While I was easing the photograph out of the protective cellophane, the front doorbell went.
‘I’d better see who that is,’ Pam said, and left the room.
Moments later, I heard her in conversation but couldn’t make out specifics. After transferring the photo of Emily and Davina carefully to my jacket pocket, I returned the albums to the shelf and put Humpty back in his place.
When I opened the jewellery box, a pink ballerina pirouetted into action accompanied by a tinkling version of ‘The Nutcracker’. After a few bars, both she and the music ground to a halt. I opened and closed the box twice to no avail.
Pam came back into the room. ‘Just a new bobby coming on shift,’ she said. ‘They keep asking whether I want a family liaison officer but I can’t see the point. I wish those reporters would bugger off, though. He said most of ’em will be gone by tomorrow. You got any more questions, Kenny?’
‘Not right now.’
‘This is the thing your boss wanted me to sign.’
‘You’re absolutely sure about this?’ I asked. ‘Because the police will reopen the case and do everything they can to find out what happened.’
‘Positive,’ she said, and handed me the new client form.
ELEVEN
I slipped out of the back passage unnoticed by the jackals of the fourth estate. Then I made my way to Tooting Bec station and began the journey to Notting Hill. En route, I read the first edition of the Evening Standard.
The splash photo, presumably taken from a drone, showed the Emporium’s roof covered by a large white tent. Also visible were a couple of figures in contamination suits with masks over their mouths, and DCI Shaheen staring skywards with undisguised annoyance. SEARCHING FOR CASTOR was the headline.
Pages two and three carried articles that featured th
e facts about the discovery – I was mentioned by name but without biographical detail – and ‘sightings’ that had been reported over the years. In light of recent events these were obviously complete bollocks, but even facts can’t always kill off a good conspiracy theory.
Experts on the case – including Saskia Reeves-Montgomery – had been polled as to possible scenarios. Favourite was that Castor had killed Emily in a drug-fuelled row and then committed suicide in an as yet undiscovered location.
If the theory were true then I was on a fool’s errand. On the other hand, one ‘expert’ had pointed out that Castor could be being sheltered by a former friend or associate. That the said friend or associate would turn out to be Dean Allison seemed unlikely. He and Castor hadn’t got on well from all accounts, and I couldn’t see any reason why Dean would put himself to the inconvenience of harbouring a murderer for twenty-two years, not to mention the lengthy sentence discovery would entail.
Much more likely that someone with a strong emotional bond built up since childhood would be liable to take that kind of risk.
Someone like JJ Freeman.
Sixty years ago, Notting Hill was one of the biggest slum areas in London. Things have changed. You have to be a tech entrepreneur or an oligarch to buy a townhouse in Ladbroke Grove now. Stucco buildings replete with balustraded balconies and bulletproof windows remain uninhabited for long periods while international owners kick their heels in Moscow suburbs or Palo Alto. But when the fat cats do turn up, they spend their lucre. And the boutiques around Portobello Road afford ample opportunity.
Still Life was situated between a shop selling icons and one offering vintage cinema posters. Outside stood two people who probably weren’t in the market for either. A thirty-something woman was wearing a long green parka and combat trousers tucked into black boots. Her companion was a skinny guy at least a decade older, sporting a tweed coat several sizes too large for him over a fisherman’s sweater and jeans. Hanging from his shoulder was a canvas bag.
‘You going in there?’ Skinny asked.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ I asked him back.