Dead Silent (16 page)

‘These days of peace foster learning. Peace? Here?’ She laughed.

Justine’s office, a cupboard that wanted to be a room, had a small window overlooking the elegant red-brick buildings across the road. She handed Riley a card file. ‘I copied everything I could find.’

Riley opened the file. The papers were more yellow than white and the musty smell reminded her of her great-grandmother’s parlour.

‘I’ve put it together the way I found it. It’s a jumble.’

‘Did anything leap out at you, Justine?’

‘He kept his head down for decades. There are no disciplinary proceedings, no letters of complaint, no departmental controversies going to mediation.’

Riley stopped at a page of University of Liverpool headed paper. Personnel department. It was a brief letter of thanks issued close to his retirement. ‘That’s quite an achievement,’ she said, showing it to Justine.

‘Yes. Professor Lawson started work here in 1956 and retired in 1986. He didn’t miss a single lecture, seminar or meeting. That kind of dedication doesn’t exist any more.’

Riley turned over a bundle of pages. P60s and wage slips gathered in a thick silver paperclip. Professor Lawson hadn’t bothered to collect them and another strand formed in Riley’s mind. Obsessed with work, head in the clouds.

‘Did he have any enemies?’ she asked, fishing wildly.

‘No. He was a model employee.’

Riley turned the page and came to a letter in an envelope with an American frank and the words ‘Harvard University’ in the top left-hand corner. It was addressed to Professor L Lawson. She took out two pieces of paper, the top one with Harvard University’s coat of arms at the top and dated June 1974. Riley read the letter and let out a long, thin whistle.

She focused on one paragraph.

The lecture tour we would like you to undertake, sponsored by and on behalf of Harvard University, would involve you visiting twenty of the top universities and colleges across the United States of America. We would especially like you to focus your lectures on two areas of your expertise: Dutch art of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, and Egyptian art of antiquity. Your travel and living costs would, of course, be covered by Harvard University and we would pay you $US 200,000 for your services. The lectures would commence in October 1976 and end in December 1976.

‘A carbon copy of his response is on the next sheet,’ said Justine.

Riley turned to it. University of Liverpool headed notepaper.

Dear Professor Pink,

Thank you for your kind and generous offer. I am sorry to say that I will be unable to take you up on this as it would involve taking my daughter out of school. I also have teaching commitments here in the University of Liverpool.

Yours faithfully,

Prof. Leonard Lawson

PROFESSOR LEONARD LAWSON

Riley felt electricity run through her nervous system as she did some sums. ‘How much did Professor Lawson earn in the academic year 1976 to ’77?’

Justine consulted the P60s in the original file. ‘Before tax, £14,000.’

‘And he turned down $200,000 for twenty lectures on subjects he was passionate about.’

‘He could have taken leave of absence. Lots of English academics were on the gold rush to America in the 1970s. The universities there had obscene amounts of money and weren’t afraid to spend it to entice the world’s finest. If Professor Lawson had gone, he’d have been a star. And it could well have turned into a permanent move, on mega-money.’

Riley came to the last piece of paper, a cutting from
The Spectator
, a lengthy book review.
The Sacred Vow
by D.L. Noone. A picture of the cover showed a Carthusian monk in a hooded gown, kneeling in front of a vivid image of Christ crucified, the red of the wounds enhanced by the white of the monk’s habit.

Riley scanned the review. Superlatives leapt from the page.
Brilliant
.
Ground-breaking
.
Imaginative
.
Mesmeric intellect
.
Inspirational
.

At the bottom of the review were the initials LL.

She showed it to Justine.

‘Reads more like a love letter than a book review,’ said Justine.

‘Why’s it in his file?’

‘He’s either disclosed it in the interests of transparency or someone’s flagged it up as a little bit odd.’

Plates spun in Riley’s mind. ‘Why did he really stay in Liverpool?’ She heard herself speak the thought out loud.

Justine shrugged and Riley double-checked the name on the book review. D.L. Noone. ‘Did Noone work here at Liverpool at the time Professor Lawson was offered all that money?’

‘I can find out,’ replied Justine.

‘Maybe Professor Lawson couldn’t bear to leave that
mesmeric intellect
behind. Do me a favour, Justine. I desperately need to talk to anyone who knew or worked with Professor Lawson. Can you go through your records and find anyone still alive who fits that bill.’

Justine’s face clouded and Riley read the weather forecast:
I’m busy and haven’t I done enough for you already?

‘Justine, I really appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into helping me so far, but I’m going to jump off the bridge here with a piece of confidential information. Can you promise me, and it is a matter of life and death, that you can keep this to yourself?’ She turned what was already public knowledge into the coordinates for the Holy Grail.

Justine nodded. ‘God, yes, of course...’ Her façade crumbled.

‘Within the last twenty-four hours, Leonard Lawson was murdered in his bedroom. We think he knew his killer. Who worked with Professor Leonard Lawson in 1986?’

‘I’ll begin searching immediately.’

Riley stood up. ‘Thank you.’

Outside the Hart Building the air was alive with particles of mist and mean needles of snow. Riley texted Clay and considered Leonard Lawson’s response to Professor Pink and the unnecessary lie that he had committed to paper.

Eve, we need to talk about Leonard Lawson. Gina

The hiss and click of a needle hitting the inner edge of a vinyl record was the only sound inside Gabriel Huddersfield’s flat. The corridor that divided the space was narrow, dark, the air infused with stale incense that stung the eyes.

Hiss. Click. Hiss. Click. Hiss. Click.

‘He’s not here,’ said Clay to Hendricks, sensing the hollowness of an empty living space.

There were five doors. Two to the right, two to the left and one at the top of the corridor.

Clay opened the first door to the right. Boxes upon blue plastic boxes were stacked to the back wall and were three-quarters high to the ceiling.

Hendricks opened the door opposite. ‘Same story,’ he said. ‘The room’s not used as a room, just as storage space for boxes. So far, he’s Mr Neat and Tidy, but I suspect he can’t bear to throw anything away. He’s an organised hoarder.’

Clay sniffed the air, caught the edge of something strong and oily under the stale incense. ‘Paint?’ she said. ‘Do you get that?’

She tried the next door, found another neatly ordered collection of boxes and was hit with a much stronger aroma of paint. She turned on the ceiling light and saw art materials through the handle of a box at her eye level.

Hendricks opened the next door. A bathroom. ‘Come look at this, Eve.’

Clay stood in the doorway and felt her breath evaporate.

Mirrors ran from floor to ceiling and all the way across the ceiling itself, rectangles and squares pieced together to create a reflective whole. The shower curtain was pulled all the way round and Clay’s neck tingled when she saw the shape of a man standing behind the semi-transparent fabric. She edged closer. The form behind it was perfectly still.

She took a breath, waited for the dark shape to twitch and then explode into life, jumping at her, seizing her by the throat with hands and teeth.

Another step and the rattling of a pipe caused a light-headedness to transfer to goose bumps right across her skin.

Clay clasped the curtain and swished it back.

It was a life-sized male mannequin, dressed from head to ankle in leather and draped in chains. The head and face of the dummy were covered in a leather mask, with slits for dead eyes staring out into the void.

Although the bathroom was scrupulously clean – the mirrors and ceramics shone – a fat, black, sticky cockroach scuttled over to the mannequin’s foot, antennae twitching.

Clay turned away and headed for the door, her reflection un-avoidable in the mirrored walls, her features contorted in disgust.

‘The cockroach in the bath’s probably got friends and relatives in the kitchen. Which is what I guess the last room is.’

From behind the closed door the sound of the record-player needle repeatedly misfiring invaded the corridor like a curse. Hiss. Click. Hiss. Click. Hiss. Click. The smell of incense became more pungent.

Clay opened the door and was silent for a moment. She surveyed the space and its contents with the assurance of a hunter knowing that this was the empty lair of its prey. It wasn’t a kitchen. There wasn’t one. But she didn’t have a word to name the function of the largely empty room.

‘Bill, I want you to ask Karl Stone to look up Gabriel Huddersfield on the national police computer. Circulate the image we have of him to constabularies across the country and to all ports and airports. When we know what he’s done in the past – and it’s going to be violent crime – I want you to coordinate the manhunt, starting in and around Sefton Park. We need as many officers out there and looking for him as are available. Go now.’

As she stared into the room, Clay phoned Terry Mason. The more she saw, the more certain she was that Gabriel Huddersfield had killed Leonard Lawson. She had to catch him before he did it again.

‘Terry, leave Pricey in place at Pelham Grove and draft in other Scientific Support officers to support you here. I need you at 777 Croxteth Road. This is our boy’s bachelor pad.’

At Otterspool tip, David Higson watched a fat man in his fifties drive a blue Audi through the gates and pull up at the hut. His forehead sloped and fat hung from his cheeks like saddlebags. In the passenger seat, a pretty blonde girl in her early twenties stared straight ahead with the same pale blue eyes as the driver, lost in thought or ashamed to be seen in public at the tip with the man who was surely Daddy.

Mr Forehead and the Blonde Conundrum, Higson named them.

Higson glanced inside the back of the car and saw a small fridge that looked like it had come from a war zone. He pointed straight down the road that ran past the line of skips 1 to 12.

‘Hurry up, Dad!’

As they drove towards the overturned shipping container in which broken and discarded electrical goods were laid to rest, Higson wondered how on earth such an ugly man could have fathered such an attractive young woman. He sat down on the deckchair in his hut and watched the back of the car as it slowed down in front of the electricals shed. Higson, who could see them through the convex mirror on the gatepost, knew what Mr Forehead was thinking as he leaned out of the open window and looked back at the empty space behind him. He assumed that he, his daughter and the car were all unseen.

I reckon they
will
, thought Higson, self-taught expert on human nature.

In the mirror, he watched as both front doors opened and Mr Forehead and the Blonde Conundrum got out of the car with sly swiftness.

Get on with it!

Blonde Conundrum double-checked behind her and got into the back seat. Meanwhile, Mr Forehead pulled out the old fridge, wobbled over to the electricals shed and plonked it down at the front. He looked left, right and backwards and then at the other abandoned fridges and freezers.

You’re eyeing up that almost-new freezer
, thought Higson.
The one Laughing Gas brought in before opening time this morning
.

Sure enough, Mr Forehead picked up the freezer and hurried back to the car. He placed it on the back seat next to the Blonde Conundrum, slammed the door shut and got into the driver’s seat.

Higson stepped out of the hut and, pretending to throw the dregs of his tea on to the tarmac, took a brief look at the Audi. Through the rear windscreen he watched the Blonde Conundrum engrossed in the newly acquired freezer.

She’s taking off the tape that kept the door shut
, he thought, as Mr Forehead turned the corner at the top of the line of double-row skips and began to drive for the exit past skips 13 to 24.

The Audi picked up speed and a lone gull shrieked over and over. Then the tyres screeched and Mr Forehead pulled up in an emergency stop. A muted yell drifted from the exit side of the skips. The gull above cried even louder and others joined in, circling in the sky.

As if stirred from a dream, the heads of Higson’s three colleagues appeared above the skips they were working in – Harry in green garden waste, Bezza in wood and Robbie in non-recyclables.

Two of the Audi’s doors opened, half a moment apart, and a piercing scream cut through the air, a scream that travelled with the Blonde Conundrum as she panicked away from her father’s car.

‘Jesus, Kylie!’

Higson listened. Her screams followed her as she ran like fury towards the exit. The gulls picked up the note. As she took her screams to the bottom of Jericho Lane, the gulls replied with louder, stronger screeches, threatening to split the sky in two.

And then, as Higson took the shorter route through the entrance to the tip, another sound filled the air. The bass screaming of Mr Forehead.

Higson ran at speed as the freezing air came alive with the sounds of terror.

He turned the corner and saw Mr Forehead doubled-up at the back of his car, throwing up, eyes bulging, body shaking.

David Higson headed towards him and wondered what was in the freezer that Laughing Gas had left behind.

Hiss. Clay stood in the corner of the fifth room of Gabriel Huddersfield’s flat. Click. The room was almost bare and the record on the turntable in the corner continued to connect with the pulsing needle. Click. Clay looked at the spinning LP. Hiss. Gabriel Huddersfield had been listening to Handel’s
Messiah
. Click. And psyching himself up for murder.