Ruth, meanwhile, had retired to the bathroom, locked the door and run a hot bath. Before undressing and getting in to the water she sat on the Lloyd Loom chair which had once belonged to her mother and finally opened the flat envelope which she had found nestling inside the larger padded one which Emma Varley had given her.
As she had both feared and yet somehow hoped, it contained a number of photographs.
She began to go through them. There were old photographs of Christian and his mother. One of them showed him as a baby kicking on rug wearing just a vest and a nappy. Another was a portrait of an eight- or nine-year-old Christian standing under an apple tree on a bright, sunny day, quite possibly in the garden of the Old School House. And there was one of Pamela, glamorous in a low-cut sundress, sporting long dangling earrings in the shape of parrots. The surfaces of the pictures were grainy and scratched and the colours had faded to orange and yellow. They seemed to be pictures from another life, another world.
She dug around amongst the other photos, sadness and a growing anxiety stirring within. But it was impossible to stop now. And then she found some pictures which were quite different from the family snaps. The images were in black and white, glossy and new-looking. Looking at two or three was enough to make her wince at the images of a number of half naked women writhing around poles: a group of men sprawled in their chairs watching them, their faces drunken and vulpine. Ruth was no aficionado of lap-dancing clubs but she had a strong feeling this was no seedy back-street club. The décor looked expensive – marble walls, velvet drapes at the windows, sparkling chrome furniture. The whole scene was anathema to her. What was Christian doing in a place like that? Was it for professional reasons or personal pleasure? And then she came to a photograph which made the colour drain from her face. What she saw was bad enough, but the knowledge that she must share it with Chief Inspector Swift and his colleague made things even worse.
DAY 8
Ruth rose early and took Tamsin for a walk in the nearby park. There was a tingling crispness in the air and the sky on the horizon was patched with dark tongues of cloud standing out from a gleaming background of pale, buttery light.
She walked around the boating lake, through the regimented ranks of pom-pom dahlias, and up the stone steps leading to a high terrace which was the home of ranks of stone statues, depicting departed grandees from the Victorian era.
Tamsin hopped along briskly on her three good legs, the smaller, withered limb swaying cheerily, her long curly tail waving with the joy of being out in the open air and free to run.
Ruth loved this time of the day, when the town and countryside were just waking to welcome a new day. She quite often had the park to herself, although the occasional early morning runner would break the solitude.
She walked with her head down, her thoughts occupied with the issue of Christian’s envelope of photographs and the shiny mobile phone. ‘Do I, or do I not, show the photographs to Chief Inspector Swift?’ she asked herself, speaking the words very softly. ‘That is the question.’ Her mind couldn’t focus, couldn’t sort out the right way from the wrong, and possibly disastrous, way.
As she reached the end of the terrace a figure walked out from behind the last statue.
It was Mac the Knife.
He fell into step with her, his manner easy and relaxed. ‘Good morning, Mrs Hartwell. Nice morning for a walk, eh?’
He might as well have been holding a gun to her temple for the cold terror Ruth experienced. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded, hearing her voice sound in her head; the quavering voice of a panic-stricken old woman.
‘Just those photos, the ones I told you about.’
She thought about the cardboard box filled with pictures which she had taken from Christian’s flat. She had placed them under the sideboard in her dining room, a draughty cold room she hadn’t used for years and treated as a temporary storage place for items she didn’t quite know what to do with. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t speak. Wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t bloody just cave in to his demands. Her heart was hitting her breast bone so hard she thought it would break a rib.
‘Come on, love, just tell me where they are.’
She stayed silent. She felt a prickle of sensation move over her scalp. She tried to speak but her lips wouldn’t work.
Tamsin had come close, was sitting at her feet, watchful and afraid.
Moments went by.
Mac the Knife took a pair of shiny surgical scissors from his pocket, then grasped Tamsin by the collar. The dog sprang up, trying to shake herself free. Ruth saw the flash of the blades, saw his fingers move to encase the flap of Tamsin’s left ear.
There was a drilling feeling inside her skull. And then it seemed as though a huge plastic tube was lowering itself on to her, enclosing her. Her vision and her hearing seemed to have left her and become swallowed up in a blur of cloud. She found herself cut off from the outside world.
And then there was nothing. Just darkness and silence.
It was around three hours later that Swift rang the bell at the Old School House. Having failed to get Ruth to answer the phone on the several occasions he had called between 9.30 and 10 o’clock, he had got into his car and driven around to her place, a faint anxiety about her welfare stirring within him. He was disappointed that Cat was not able to be in on the visit, but she had phoned in with heartfelt apologies to say she that she had suffered a migraine in the early hours of the morning and was reluctant to drive until the disturbances to her vision had settled.
The door to the Hartwell house was opened by Ruth’s young protégé, Craig. Seeing him standing framed in the doorway, Swift was impressed by the young man’s sheer physical presence: his tallness and his sheer mass, the shoulders those of a rugby prop-forward. Craig regarded Swift with wary dark eyes under heavy black eyebrows.
‘Hello,’ Swift said. ‘I was hoping to see Mrs Hartwell.’
‘She’s not here.’ His tone was uncompromising.
‘Do you think she’ll be back soon?’ Swift kept his tone calm and pleasant.
‘Yeah. Guess so.’
‘Could I come in and wait?’ Swift said.
The young man’s deep forehead contracted into folds. ‘Yeah, OK.’
He opened the door just wide enough to allow Swift to pass through, closing it as Swift walked into the hallway and overtaking him to lead the way down the hall into the kitchen.
Glancing through the doorway into the front room Swift could see a large TV set tuned to a cartoon show which played out to an accompaniment of lively music and loud whoops.
The young man went through into the kitchen and stood beside the table, his head bent away from the visitor.
‘May I sit down?’ Swift asked.
The young man nodded.
‘Would you like to sit down too?’ Swift suggested.
He followed, sitting as far from the policeman as possible. There was a long silence.
‘Do you know where Mrs Hartwell has gone?’ Swift asked gently.
‘Taken the dog for a walk.’
‘Right.’ He allowed another silence to fall. ‘Perhaps we could have some coffee?’ he suggested eventually, guessing that might free up the young man to talk whilst diverted with a practical task.
‘OK.’ The young man got up. He was wearing a pair of new denims, and a pristine grey sweatshirt with North Bay written on it. There was a crease down the middle, indicating that the shirt had only recently come out of the packet. The sleeves were slightly too short, revealing the young man’s large wrist bones. On his feet were spotless grey trainers with silver stripes. Swift saw that everything was new, giving a strangely self-conscious look, as though he were wearing a costume put together by someone else. Which, given the clothes would be prison issue on discharge, was in fact the case.
‘Have you known Mrs Hartwell long?’ Swift asked, as the young man busied himself with the kettle and the coffee jar.
‘Aye, quite a few years.’ He spooned grounds in
to two mugs. ‘She helped me learn to read and write.’
‘Did you ever meet Christian Hartwell, Craig?’
There was another pause, and more frowning.
‘Do you mind me calling you Craig?’ Swift asked. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your surname.’
There was a beat of silence. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘And did you know Christian Hartwell?’ Swift persevered.
‘No. I never came to this house before. I only ever saw Mrs Hartwell …’ He jerked himself straight and shot Swift a look of blazing defiance. ‘I met her in prison. I’ve been in prison for eight years. Just got out of Wentworth.’
‘That’s a long time to serve,’ Swift said.
‘Yeah.’ His Adam’s apple dipped and bobbed.
‘It’s all behind you now,’ Swift said, accepting a mug of steaming black coffee which scalded his lips when he took a sip.
‘Do you want milk?’ the young man said.
‘This is fine.’
The young man sat down again. There was a lessening of tension in the air now that the topic of prison had been opened and closed. He looked across at Swift, his eyes clearly holding some information which he was afraid to reveal. Swift guessed he was experiencing the same kind of conflict which Cat had reported seeing in Ruth Hartwell’s eyes the day before.
Swift took a further sip of his coffee, this time with a degree of caution. ‘I expect Mrs Hartwell will be back any minute,’ he remarked, casually.
The pleading in the young man’s eyes transformed itself into sudden desperation. ‘I’m worried about her,’ he said. ‘She’s been out for going on three hours.’
‘Perhaps she’s taking the dog a long walk – it’s a fine morning for walking.’
‘No!’ He shook his head vigorously. ‘She only takes it twenty minutes or so at a time. It’s disabled, you see. Its mum lay on it when it were a tiny pup and made its bones go out of shape. Mrs Hartwell told me all about it.’ He sank into silence after this long speech, his forehead heavily creased.
‘What do you think has happened to her?’ Swift said.
‘Dunno.’ His breathing harsh and jagged.
Swift leaned forward, trying to ease the boy’s anxiety. ‘Tell me what you think has happened to Mrs Hartwell,’ he repeated.
‘She’s in some sort of trouble.’
‘Can you tell me about it?’
He swallowed hard, his eyes flicking from one side to the other. ‘There was a man here yesterday. He was up to no good.’
Ah – now we’re going somewhere. ‘Did he come to see you or to see Mrs Hartwell?’
‘Mrs Hartwell,’ he said, grasping on to a question which required a plain, simple answer. ‘He came to see her.’
‘Were you here when he arrived?’ Swift asked, beginning to build a picture of the scene, having a keen sense that it was one of significance.
‘No, I was out.’ He sliced a brief glance at Swift. ‘Seeing if I could get some work at the local pub.’
‘Did you get it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well done.’ Swift drank some more black coffee.
The young man ploughed on. ‘He was all puffed up with himself. He said his name was Mac the Knife. I didn’t like the sound of that.’ He drew in a long breath, steeling himself for the next speech.
‘No, neither would I,’ Swift commented.
‘Mrs Hartwell … was like … getting a bit worked up. She said she had to go to the doctor’s. She tried to get away from him, but he kept following her.’
‘Did you follow them?’ Swift asked, keeping steadfastly neutral.
‘Oh, aye.’
‘And did you hear anything?’
‘He said, “Chill. I only wanted to talk to you about Christian”. And she said that she couldn’t tell him nothing, she hadn’t been in touch …’ He took another restorative breath.
Swift was impressed. ‘Did he say anything else?’
‘He kept going on at her. Something about this Christian being her next of kin.’ He looked again at Swift. ‘That means she was important to him, doesn’t it? Like me and my mum.’
‘Exactly.’ Swift waited a few moments.
Craig frowned, seeming to have become exhausted with the effort of volunteering so much information. He began gnawing at his knuckles, leaving teeth marks in the skin. ‘He was certainly after scaring her,’ he burst out. ‘He was a slimy, bullying bastard. And I’ve met a fair few of those.’ The irises of his eyes shivered as he flicked yet another glance at Swift, who guessed that most of the bullies the young man had in mind had been policemen or screws, people whom he would see as basically on Swift’s side.
‘Anything else?’ Swift prompted, impressed with the young man’s account, and sensing that it was a pretty accurate recollection of what he had seen and heard. If only all informants were as clear and straightforward.
The young man was scratching at a patch of eczema on his right palm, picking at the skin and making it bleed. He gave a long slow shake of the head. ‘What have I to do? Have I to go looking for her? Yeah, that’s it.’ He got to his feet, swallowing hard, panic showing in his eyes. ‘I don’t know where to go….’
Swift could feel the young man’s fear and his despair at being unable to formulate some kind of plan to help Mrs Hartwell, his friend, perhaps the only person he could trust at the moment. ‘Why don’t I phone in to the station and see if there have been any reports of her whereabouts?’
‘Aye, yes.’ He sat slumped in his chair, his head hanging down, his hands lying loosely between his legs.
Swift spoke quietly and crisply into his phone. After he cut the connection he stood up and put his hand lightly on the other man’s shoulder. ‘She’s been taken to the local hospital. The A and E staff are assessing her now. She doesn’t appear injured, but she’s unconscious.’ He felt the younger man’s broad shoulder bones sag. A low groan of misery resonated in his chest.
As Swift reached for his car keys he contemplated offering to drive the distressed young man to the hospital to see how Ruth Hartwell was faring. Instantly he dismissed the idea as inappropriate and intrusive. Ex-convict Craig was not related to Ruth, and, given that he had still been in prison at the time Christian Hartwell was killed, he had no clear role to play in the drama surrounding the current events in Ruth’s life. His first task here was to check with Ruth’s doctor at the hospital and to ensure that Harriet Brunswick was informed as soon as possible.
Giving the stricken young man a card with his contact number on, and a reassuring smile, he walked quickly from the house and slid behind the wheel of his car.
Larry McBride walked away from Ruth Hartwell’s huddled, collapsed body and headed towards the gates of the park. His steps were regular and purposeful, his heart rate only minimally above its normal level. He had wanted to scare the old lady, make her aware of how seriously he wanted those photographs. He had not expected her to capitulate in quite the way she had done. She was not looking at all good, and that did slightly disturb him. If she died, his main lever was gone.
He would have to make a thorough search of her house, cross his fingers that she had not already disposed of the pictures or lodged them in a safe place with either the police or her solicitor. He knew the whereabouts of her solicitor’s office, but the knowledge was of little use, getting into the safe of a law firm being somewhat more problematical than frightening a decent, law-abiding woman like Ruth Hartwell. Not impossible to arrange, but risky.
This job was turning out to be unnervingly complex. He thought he’d cracked it when he broke into Hartwell’s flat and found his state-of-the-art Nikon camera flung into a corner of the sofa. Quite a number of jobs were like that; you thought you were going to have to get into a real sweat finding what you were looking for, and then it just dropped into your lap like a ripe plum. He’d run the camera through its paces. The bugger had deleted everything and then taken shots over the deletions just to make sure the erased stuff wasn’t foun
d by a special retrieving process. He’d had to look through fifty shots of Hartwell’s kitchen sink to find that out.
And then he’d come up with Mrs Hartwell, her great big house, her giant-sized, well-muscled relative and her bloody dog. Not the best scenario in which to institute a search. Or an assassination.
Having left the park, he walked through the streets, planning his next move. A grey drizzle was coming from the sky, turning to sludgy grease underfoot as it hit the pavements. A whining, punishing wind whipped around the blackened stone buildings.
He hated Yorkshire; the pasty-faced women with their flat vowels and ugly bulk, the aggressively jesting blokes in the pubs, the chummy shopkeepers who asked impertinent personal questions. At least in London people mainly left you alone as you churned through the packed, anonymous streets. Biddy didn’t like London. She wanted to go back to Huddersfield where they both had been born. But he had always wanted excitement and change. The entry into a profession, the dearest wish of many of the parents of his generation, repelled him. The mere thought of years of studying followed by even more years of routine, safety and dullness made him feel suffocated before he had even started. He left school at fifteen and drifted into a life of hazard and chance: a couple of years working on an assembly line a factory making tools, then a stint in a betting shop, a spot of taxi-driving, a few years as a debt collector’s assistant. And then the big break came – being taken on as a bodyguard to a guy he met in a pub in Leeds. The guy turned out to be a fraudster and a thug, with fingers in pies in London, New York and Bangkok. McBride had got to see the world. The work was exciting and dangerous, and the money was fantastic. Until the fraudster was caught and banged up, and everything stopped.
The Killing Club Page 13