Dead Silent (10 page)

‘Has he acted any differently since last Thursday?’ Stone asked as they hit the landing. There were many doors leading down a wide corridor. ‘Which one?’ He held his breath.

‘On the end, right-hand side!’

Stone marched to the door, opened it and threw on the main light. Four beds, four men, all asleep. He pulled up the picture sent to his phone by PC Rimmer.

The first man to his left looked like an eighty-year-old dwarf, struggling for breath and on the point of death. The Chinese man in the bed next to him had his mouth and one eye wide open and the other shut. Stone turned to the bed facing and saw a white man with shredded dreadlocks and boils on his cheeks and forehead.

The last man lay perfectly still and hidden under the duvet. Stone lifted the cover back and looked at Darren, in the doorway, combing his hair with the fingers of one hand. ‘This is Samuel Forster, right?’

‘Sam, yes.’

Samuel Forster, black, twenty-three stone and wearing a string vest and baggy Y-fronts, pulled the duvet back over himself.

Stone showed Darren the picture of the man who had harassed Leonard Lawson in the park. ‘Do you know him?’

Darren scrutinised the image with contempt. ‘He doesn’t live here. Never has and I’ve worked here three and a half years. I have no idea who he is.’

‘I’ll remind you, Darren, that this is a murder investigation.’ Stone showed the picture once more. ‘Does he live here and is he here right now?’

‘You can go and wake up every last arsehole and have a look for yourself. Do I give one? I’m telling you straight. He doesn’t live here. I don’t know him from Adam.’

Deflated, Stone stepped into the snow and wind just as Eve Clay pulled up outside. He walked over to her car and the passenger door opened. He got in and showed her the picture of the eagle-like, cold-eyed man whose name he didn’t know.

‘This is the religious maniac who terrorised Leonard Lawson on Thursday and fobbed off PC Rimmer by passing himself off as an obese black British man called Samuel Forster.’

Clay was in first gear and away.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Stone.

‘Not far. To The Sanctuary.’ Her windscreen wipers were on top speed, but the snow was winning the race. ‘Tell me everything that PC Rimmer told you. And send whatever you’ve got to my phone and to Bill Hendricks, Gina Riley and Barney Cole.’

Clay got out of her car outside The Sanctuary. In the stillness of pre-dawn, Sefton Park had the silent aura of a space where magic might be possible. She evaluated the building and one word sprang to mind: money.

Illuminated by the security light he had tripped, DS Karl Stone walked through the freshly fallen snow towards the imposing front door. He was dwarfed by the three-storey, double-fronted, Victorian mansion, its windows black and its front wreathed in shadows. Not a single light was on inside the house. He knocked on the door.

The sinisterness of the old building was diluted by a bright blue board near the front door bearing a rainbow and in white letters:

T
HE
S
ANCTUARY

Caring ~ Creating ~ Challenging

Clay followed in Stone’s tracks through the snow and paused at the blue board. A white dove sailed through the sky above the curve of bright colours.

P
ROPRIETORS
: M
RS
D
ANIELLE
M
ILLER
& M
R
A
DAM
M
ILLER

C
ONTACT
0151 496 8437

Stone knocked again as Clay joined him on the middle stone step. A light came on behind the stained-glass arch above the door. Transparencies of childlike paintings of animals, trees and flowers had been stuck on to the glass panels to either side.

‘Who is it?’ A man’s voice, a Welsh accent.

‘Mr Adam Miller? Police.’

‘I’m not Adam Miller. My name’s Gideon Stephens, I’m—’

‘Hey, Gideon! Police!’ said Clay. ‘Open up!’

A bolt was drawn, but when the door opened, the chain stayed on the latch. Dark-haired and pleasant-looking, Gideon peered through the gap. Clay showed her warrant card.

‘Come in quietly, we don’t want to wake anyone up.’ From the other side of the door, Clay detected a tremor in his voice. He was in his late twenties and handsome enough to be on TV selling kitchen roll to bored housewives, she thought. But his face was knotted with a mixture of fatigue and anxiety, an expression she knew well from her own reflection in the mirror, and she felt sorry for him.

‘What’s this about?’

‘We need your help. We’ll tell you inside,’ said Clay.

He smiled at her.
I know you, though we’ve never met
. She read the thought on his face, and there was a transparency about him that promised helpfulness.

As Stone closed the front door, Clay took in the spacious hallway, the framed, unsophisticated pictures on the wall to the left and right of Gideon’s back.

A light came on at the top of the wide staircase, on the landing above, and a middle-aged woman in a silk dressing gown appeared.

‘What’s going on, Gideon?’

‘It’s the police, Danielle...’

‘The police?’

‘I haven’t got a clue.’ He turned to Clay as the woman hurriedly made her way down the stairs. ‘Follow me.’

‘Danielle Miller?’ asked Clay. The woman’s face creased with concern.

A man appeared at the top of the stairs behind her, knotting his dressing gown. He looked at Clay.

‘Adam Miller?’

He nodded as he padded down the stairs after his wife. ‘Yes,’ he replied, eyeballing her. ‘How could any of our residents be of interest to
you
?’ His face was long and narrow and covered in a thick, dark stubble that ran round the back of his head and chin.

On the wall, in the middle of the hall, was a framed picture of two men standing on a boat. Clay did a double-take of Adam and the picture and guessed it was a much younger Adam with his father.

Danielle reached the bottom of the stairs and, stepping alongside Clay, pulled a face. ‘We’ll take you into the kitchen. Get the kettle on, Gid!’

‘Does Gideon really need to be here?’ asked Adam. ‘He’s an employee...’ As he passed the framed picture, Clay saw how much he’d come to resemble his father.

Gideon threw on the kitchen light and Clay followed him in. ‘I’ve come to see all three of you. You may all be able to help.’ She glanced around the kitchen, at the top-of-the-range fixtures and fittings, all onyx work surfaces and polished chrome, and priced it at £40,000 plus, recalling a similar kitchen she’d seen in a recent issue of
Ideal Homes
.

Adam Miller indicated the long table at the centre of the room. ‘Can I see your warrant card?’

‘I’ve already seen it,’ said Gideon. Clay caught the smile on Danielle’s face.

‘Well, I haven’t!’ insisted Adam.

Clay showed him and, as he over examined it, she made a snap judgment about the three of them. Pain-in-the-arse husband, wife-at-the-end-of-her-rope, flirty young man.

Stone sat next to Clay, across the table from Gideon, Danielle and Adam. He slid the leaflet from The Sanctuary’s open day across the surface. As Adam took a pair of reading glasses from a case in his dressing-gown pocket, Danielle snatched up the leaflet away from him. On a grim night, the dynamic amused Clay.

‘We had a great day,’ said Danielle. ‘The open day in June, Gid!’

‘Everyone was in such a good mood,’ replied Gideon. ‘Nothing happened, nothing went wrong on open day, DCI Clay!’

‘We’re not here about events on the day itself,’ said Stone. ‘We found it in Louise Lawson’s bedroom.’

Danielle looked up from the leaflet, the colour draining from her face, anxiety consuming her features. ‘Don’t tell me something bad has happened to her?’

‘She’s in the Royal at the moment,’ Clay replied. ‘She has a minor head injury from a fall she had on the street in the early hours of this morning.’

‘Louise on the street at that hour?’ Gideon’s voice was full of doubt. ‘She was... Why?’

‘Let the police officer speak!’ Adam said.

‘She was escaping from the scene of a crime, in her home on Pelham Grove. Her father was murdered in his bedroom.’

‘Oh God, no!’ Danielle’s face turned pale, her eyes filling with shock.

‘How?’ The boom in Adam’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

‘This is a brand-new and ongoing murder enquiry. We can’t reveal any details. The reason we’ve called here is because the leaflet on the table before you is the one link we could find between Miss Lawson and the outside world. We need information and we need it fast.’

‘Fire away,’ said Danielle. She sat up in her chair, her hands folded on the table in front of her, and Clay did a quick appraisal. Well spoken, well preserved, a woman in her late fifties who, with a coat of make-up, could pass herself off as a forty-something; quite a looker in her youth. Clay turned to Adam and wondered what the attraction was. Although he was younger than his wife, looks-wise she was out of his league. She guessed it had something to do with her own first impression of the building they were in: money.

‘We know Louise volunteers every day, including weekends,’ said Clay. ‘You must know her really well. Has she ever expressed any concerns about her father?’

‘Can you be a little more precise?’ asked Danielle.

‘Did he have any enemies? Does Louise have any enemies?’

Stone caught Adam’s eye and The Sanctuary’s joint owner held his gaze. Stone guessed that he didn’t like being questioned by a female police officer.

‘There’s this. Us. Our residents. And there’s her father,’ said Adam. ‘That’s her world, beginning, middle, end.’

‘That’s what you
think
, Adam,’ said Danielle. She reproached him with her eyes and he paid her back with silent contempt. ‘But you don’t know. We don’t
know
anything much about her life outside The Sanctuary.’

‘I can’t imagine Louise having any enemies,’ said Danielle. ‘She’s the sweetest woman in the world. But when was sweetness a defence against the world?’

‘How about her father?’ asked Stone.

‘She doesn’t talk about him much,’ said Adam.

‘But you don’t really talk to her much, do you, Adam?’ said his wife.

‘She talks to me about him,’ said Gideon. ‘He’s a fit old man, a creature of habit. Was.’ The information of Leonard Lawson’s murder connected with Gideon and he looked down for a moment, then up again. ‘I knew him...’

‘Are you all right, Gid?’ Danielle looked at him fondly, almost touched his hand.

‘Yeah. Jeez, I’m sorry, folks, it’s just... I’ve never known anyone who got murdered.’

‘You knew him?’ Clay almost sang the question.
You knew the people-swerving recluse?
she thought.

‘Oh, yeah. I knew Leonard. When the weather’s bad or... or it’s dark, Louise can get a little nervous about going home round the park. If I’ve bicycled into work, I often walk her home, or if I’m in the car, I’ll give her a lift.’

‘Well, I do offer!’ said Adam.

‘Let him speak, Adam!’ said Stone.
Shut up!

‘I always make sure she’s over the door, and wait... used to wait for her father to answer my knock. The bell had been broken twenty years or more.
Thank you very much for escorting my daughter home and delivering her safely to me
. Every time, the exact same words. Every time, I’d reply,
You are more than welcome, sir!
’

Gideon turned his face away suddenly, as if he’d been slapped by an invisible hand. ‘God in heaven, the poor old man.’

‘All right, Gideon, take your time.’

Danielle stood up and walked to the sink. A tap gushed and a few moments later she returned with a glass of water. ‘Take a few deep breaths,’ she said, lifting a lock of hair from his eye. ‘Have a drink. Compose yourself.’

Clay saw Adam look darkly at the show of tenderness.

‘Poor Louise, she’ll be devastated. She didn’t say much about him. She’s a modest woman, not given to boasting,’ said Danielle. ‘But her father was a high-achieving academic in his time.’

‘Does Louise ever talk about her mother?’ asked Clay.

‘Only that her name was Denise and she had no memory of her.’

DN.
Clay thought about the dedications in Leonard Lawson’s books.
Denise Lawson? DL?

‘Anything else?’ she said, looking at Gideon, Danielle and Adam. ‘About her father?’ Silence. ‘Her home life?’ Clay waited. ‘Her past?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Danielle. ‘I’ve known her for years, but when you’re faced with it, you only know so much about a person, what that person wants to reveal.’

‘I understand,’ replied Clay, veteran of thousands of interviews.

‘I know what she’s like here, but the very little I do know... I guess I’ve run out of ideas.’

‘Anything? Anything else?’ urged Clay. Danielle looked at Gideon and Adam.

‘She’s a devout Christian, goes to church most days,’ said Adam. ‘I see her in the Anglican Cathedral on a regular basis.’

‘You’re in the cathedral on a regular basis?’ Clay asked, wondering why the detail surprised her.

‘I’m a volunteer there. I’m an interpreter of the building. I’m a Christian.’

‘Do you talk to her in the cathedral?’ Clay asked, hopefully.

‘No. I’m a very busy man. When I see her at the cathedral, I’m usually showing Japanese tourists around.’ He glanced at Gideon. ‘I work hard and there’s always work to be done.’

‘I’m a complete atheist,’ said Danielle.

‘That’s irrelevant,’ said Adam. ‘We’re not talking about you, Danielle.’ The words skimmed like razor-sharp stones across icy water. ‘But what is relevant is Louise and she has a series of mountainous problems ahead of her.’ He pulled his dressing gown together at the throat and looked at Clay. ‘Her home’s a crime scene?’

‘Yes.’

‘In which case,’ said Adam, ‘she’ll need somewhere to stay. She can stay here. My father always told me, give shelter to the needy.’

Clay drank in the mutual astonishment of Danielle and Gideon.