Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] (17 page)

At last he nodded. ‘That would be great, thanks.’

They retreated to the kitchen, mainly to escape from Carol Vorderman, and while Anna poured the wine, Mariner took off his jacket and slung it over the back of a chair. Anna, pulled up a chair to sit opposite him. ‘Right,’ she said, impishly, encouraged by the wine she’d already consumed. ‘I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.’

Mariner smiled, ‘I’m afraid you might find mine a bit of a disappointment,’ he said, holding her gaze. Was he flirting with her? Momentarily perhaps, but that was all.

Almost immediately he was back to business as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took a single sheet of folded paper. ‘The most interesting thing we found on Eddie’s home computer was a powerful virus. Someone had made a deliberate attempt to destroy all his files.’

‘His… killer?’ Anna struggled to form the word.

‘Possibly, or it may have been Eddie himself, if he knew he was under threat. Whoever it was did an effective job.

The only thing of any interest we managed to rescue was this.’ He was right. It wasn’t much. The A4 sheet that he spread out on the table was a database of some kind, rows and columns divided by gridlines. The left-hand column contained only letters, and the row next to it numbers, but beyond that, halfway across the page, the data began to be replaced by rows and rows of meaningless hieroglyphics, where the virus had begun to corrupt this document too.

Anna had witnessed a similar effect when a bug had entered the system at work.

‘As you can see,’ Mariner said. ‘We’re not left with much, even on this. But this is our starting point.’ He traced a long, pale finger down the left-hand side of the page. His nails were clean and neatly trimmed, Anna noticed. No ring, but that could be a matter of personal choice. He didn’t seem like a man who’d go in for any kind of jewellery. She dragged her thoughts back to the task.

The column of figures Mariner was showing her appeared to be initial letters, paired with dates. ‘Any of them mean anything to you?’ he asked.

Anna studied them dutifully for a moment, but none of them did, and he didn’t seem particularly surprised. ‘At the moment we’re thinking that they probably relate to the escort agency ads. We’ve checked these initials against the names Eddie had highlighted in that Personal Services column and one of them did match up, although as we don’t have the date to go with it, it’s too early to say whether that’s just coincidence. They could be the names of the girls working out of those particular agencies. Or it could be that these are places Eddie’s already checked up on, and those highlighted in the newspaper are the ones he had yet to add to the list. Without knowing what the other details mean, we can’t be sure.’

‘But why would he do that?’ Anna wanted to know, not entirely comfortable with this line of enquiry, though at least Mariner seemed to have moved away from questioning Eddie’s personal life.

He shook his head. ‘We’re not sure, yet. When I spoke to Ken Moloney, Eddie’s boss, he told me that Eddie had done a story on prostitution some time back. He won some awards for it.’

‘Yes, it was a sore point. I didn’t go to the presentation.’

‘Well, according to Ken, it was a mission neatly accomplished, except that one of the key players, Frank Crosby, got away with it. We’re considering the possibility that Eddie had developed a renewed interest, possibly tied in with drugs this time, too. Drugs and prostitution are not exactly mutually exclusive these days and Darren, who he worked with, gave the impression that Eddie had been working on something of that kind on his own initiative. He did it all the time apparently, going off on his own for hours on end.’

‘It sounds like his style. I met Darren today at the funeral.’

‘Did he tell you that Eddie had been mugged?’

‘No. Do you think that was to do with what he was working on, too?’

‘There are some pretty hard guys tied up in that kind of racket and if Eddie had been ruffling the wrong feathers …’ He left her to draw her own conclusions.

‘I asked Darren about possible girlfriends, too. But he’s saying the same as everyone else. As far as he knew, Eddie didn’t have one.

‘And nobody we’ve talked to yet has heard of Sally-Ann.

Apparently she’s disappeared off the face of the earth.

Unless of course she never existed in the first place.’

Reluctantly, Anna put into words what she was increasingly learning. ‘Or it’s just a name Jamie’s picked up from the telly.’

‘Terrific. That’s just what I needed to hear.’ He smiled but she could see him physically slump in his seat. ‘What was it you were going to show me?’ he asked, making an effort to sound interested.

‘It’s probably nothing,’ Anna said, mirroring his dejection.

Reaching for the photograph she slid it across the table to him. ‘Francine gave it to me. Eddie was using photographs to communicate with Jamie, people and places he might know, to help him to prepare for change. This was among them. I’ve never seen her before and neither had Darren.’

‘But I have.’ Mariner looked up at her, suddenly alert again, his blue eyes gleaming. ‘This is the woman Eddie was with on the night he died. The brunette. That’s brilliant!

You’ve found us a connection!’

Anna flushed with unexpected pleasure. She’d always been a sucker for praise. For one bizarre instant she thought he might be going to kiss her, but he was studying the picture again. ‘Yes, it’s her all right. And if her name happens to be Sally-Ann, we’ve hit the jackpot.’

Anna shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Watch.’ Taking the picture from him, she got up from the table and Anna took the photograph to where Jamie sat on the floor in front of the TV. ‘Jamie, look.’ She held out the picture again, for Jamie to see.

He glanced momentarily at it. ‘Kay, Kay no cry,’ he said before turning his attention back to the screen.

Anna came back to the kitchen. ‘Meet Kay,’ she said.

‘Christ, how many mystery women can a guy have?’

Mariner wondered aloud, visibly disappointed. ‘I’ll need to take that to make a copy,’ he went on. ‘We can show it around, see if anyone else recognises her. Somebody made that emergency call, and presumably it wasn’t the invisible woman.’

His sarcasm was drowned out by a clatter from the living room. Mariner and Anna rushed in to find Jamie on the rampage, running the length of the sofa, pulling things from the shelves as he went. His TV programme had ended.

‘Jamie, get down! Down! Now!’ Anna commanded.

‘Jesus.’ Mariner looked on with disbelief as Jamie jumped down from the sofa and ran off down the hall, sweeping his arm along a radiator shelf and knocking its contents to the floor.

With a weary sigh of resignation, Anna knelt and began to retrieve them. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him tonight. He hasn’t settled since we got back from McDonald’s.’

Mariner bent down to help. ‘It’s all those additives.

You could do with some space. You haven’t got a garden here?’

‘Oh, there’s a garden all right. The only problem is, it’s on the roof, with very little to separate it from a two hundred-foot drop. Jamie wouldn’t last five minutes.’

Mariner glanced back at his watch again, and Anna waited for the inevitable ‘Actually-I-must-be-going’ routine, that any of Jamie’s more extreme behaviour always seemed to prompt in people.

Instead Mariner said, ‘Why don’t you come and keep me company? I was on my way to The Wall.’

‘The Wall?’

‘The indoor climbing centre. You could get in as my guests and Jamie can climb as much as he likes there. He’d have to wear a harness of course, and a helmet, but if you think he can handle that we’ll give it a go.’

‘Game on,’ said Anna and somehow she meant more than the climbing.

‘Are you sure this is no trouble?’

‘None at all. It’ll ensure that I actually go. I’ve had about as much use out of the membership as your average person gets from the gym: not much. Somehow there’s always something more important to do.’

‘Well I appreciate it. I had no idea what a comprehensive service the police offered these days,’ said Anna.

‘Hadn’t you heard? It’s all about customer satisfaction.

Even the felons get a customer satisfaction questionnaire.’

Mariner was watching in the rear-view mirror as she strapped Jamie into the back seat of the car beside her. He wished now that he’d hung on to the borrowed squad car, which tended not to include the optional extras of discarded polystyrene cups, cellophane sandwich packs and chewing gum wrappers that littered the floor of his own neglected vehicle. Deep down, he knew that he was pushing the boundaries of professional conduct with this, although if it came to it, he could fully justify his actions. Jamie Barham provided the link with his brother’s killer. All Mariner was trying to do was build enough of a relationship with him to get at the truth. Anna Barham’s presence was just a necessary but pleasant by-product. Wasn’t it? Tony Knox would have approved.

The Wall was actually more like a vast cavern lined with layers of towering moulded and riveted panels, lending it the surreal appearance of an old set from Dr Who. Once a disused firearms factory, abundant EU regeneration grants had helped to reinvent it as a comprehensive climbing centre with a thriving clientele. Despite being a long-standing member, Mariner continued to be treated with the customary cool suspicion afforded police officers in most social situations. It did mean, however, that there was no argument about Jamie and Anna gaining entry.

Mariner had brought a bag in with him and once inside, left Anna and Jamie to go and get changed. Returning minutes later, wearing khakis and a T-shirt, he felt more relaxed, and sensed Anna Barham looking at him differently too. Jamie had at first seemed overawed by the new surroundings, but as they walked round to the climbing area, he suddenly came to life and was at the nearest wall in a couple of bounds, forcing Mariner and Anna to physically restrain him.

‘Wait Jamie,’ Mariner said, firmly. ‘Helmet and harness first, then climbing.’ Jamie complied, but under duress, and it was like trying to keep hold of a wriggling eel getting his harness on, and ensuring that it was safe. Mariner was worn out before they’d started. The beginner’s climbs provided fixed ropes, making the walls simple and safe for anyone to try. But it soon became obvious that for Jamie Barham these were unnecessary precaution. Quick and unerring, he reached the top of the first wall in a matter of minutes. A small audience gathered to watch as Mariner gradually introduced Jamie to increasingly complex climbs.

He had, it seemed, an insatiable appetite, but after an hour Mariner called a halt.

‘It’s taken me years to achieve this level,’ Mariner told Anna. ‘I refuse to be completely humiliated by a novice. Let’s get a drink. Jamie drink?’

‘Drink,’ echoed Jamie happily.

‘I thought he didn’t have any special talents,’ Mariner said, bringing over two bottles of beer and orange juice to where Anna sat watching Jamie as he prowled.

‘So did I,’ said Anna.

‘He’s a natural. Most of us have to give it some thought.

You sure he hasn’t climbed before?’

‘Apart from at every opportunity around the house? How would I know? One of the things I’ve learned in the last week is how little I’ve ever really known about him or Eddie, or for that matter, my parents. And now they’re all gone and it’s too late.’

‘Does that bother you?’

‘Well, I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but yes, in a way it does. It’s weird, knowing that there’s only Jamie and me left. No one else to answer to.’

‘Sounds all right to me,’ Mariner said, without thinking.

‘Oh, yes? Nobody keeping tabs on you?’ she asked, cheekily.

‘My gaffer mainly,’ smiled Mariner, trying to keep it professional.

But she wasn’t satisfied with that. ‘What about family, brothers and sisters, mum and dad?’

‘There’s just me. I see my mother from time to time. I never knew my dad.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She’d misunderstood, as people always did.

‘No, I mean, as far as I know he’s still out there somewhere.

I’ve just never met him. Don’t know who he is.’

‘Oh.’ Naturally she didn’t know what else to say. It was a situation people generally seemed to have difficulty in grasping, which is why Mariner on the whole kept it to himself. In fact he didn’t have a clue why he should be talking about it now. Apart from Greta, he hadn’t told anyone in years. But perhaps he felt that Anna deserved something back from him. Through her brother’s murder he was uncovering more and more of the intimate details of her life, it only seemed fair to reciprocate on some level.

‘My mother didn’t tell me,’ he said, in response to her unasked question. ‘She didn’t think it mattered.’

She’d also made it clear that his father didn’t want to know. She was fobbing him off of course. This was the sixties, when the consensus was still that children ought not to be troubled with the complexities of adult lives. To her credit Mariner couldn’t ever remember being lied to, it’s just that what he was told was vague; his dad was an important and very busy man, so he couldn’t live with them in the same way that other dads did. It didn’t explain why the man also couldn’t be identified, but by the late sixties his fantasies ranged from Neil Armstrong to the Krays to Geoff Hurst, depending on his mood.

By the time he was old enough for his questioning to be more probing and direct, his mother had conveniently developed migraine. Any talk of his father was guaranteed to induce an attack, long before any answers were forthcoming.

Repeatedly he was dismissed with a vague promise that one day ‘when the time was right’ he would know. The few friends he had were those who took him for what he was, and when he began, in his mid-teens, to attract girlfriends, his predicament afforded him an aura of mystery that he used shamelessly to his advantage.

‘And what do you think?’ Anna Barham jolted him back to the present.

‘I think there are times in my life when it’s been more important than anything else in the world, and other times, like now,’ Mariner shrugged, ‘when it seems almost irrelevant.