Down into Darkness (41 page)

‘It's impossible to say.'

Candice managed to shout without raising her voice. ‘Make a guess.'

The doctor shrugged. ‘All right. My guess is that he won't.'

Candice returned to Morgan's bedside. He was propped up by a bed-back. He turned his head to look at her, then seemed to lose interest; he uttered a long, involved sentence that made no sense at all; when she leaned in close he recoiled slightly, then gave a little, wet laugh. Watching from her desk, the nurse thought Candice had leaned in to kiss her husband. This wasn't true. She was cursing him.

Candice knew that Morgan had numbered bank accounts offshore. She knew that only he knew those numbers. She knew that the accounts contained millions. They'd had conversations about that money. What if something should happen to you? What if you suddenly dropped dead?

Morgan's response had always been the same: ‘It's better that you don't know.' Candice understood this to mean that the money wasn't strictly legal. It irked her to be kept in the dark, but she assumed that, though she didn't know, someone would: the family solicitor, it had to be.

When Morgan was comatose and likely to die, she had got
in touch with the solicitor and asked about the money. He had no knowledge of any such accounts. She told him that was impossible – he must have been told. He assured her that he had not. There were, of course, certain instructions in the case of death or impairment, but none of these made mention of offshore accounts.

Which is why Candice had sat so long at Morgan's bedside, waiting, saying over and over like a prayer,
Don't die, you bastard
. Which is why she now leaned close to him, her lips at his ear, and cursed his soul to hell.

Two days later Costea Radu walked into the front office at Notting Dene and asked to speak to DS Stella Mooney. Costea the Pimp was wearing a three-quarter-length black leather coat, a black T-shirt and a sunny smile. Stella called Frank Silano in to sit with them.

Costea said, ‘I got something you want.'

Stella gave date and time to the tape, repeated what the man had said and asked him to agree that he had, indeed, said it.

‘Something you want.'

‘Which is?'

‘Yeah, first I need something back – guarantee.' He gave Stella a little knowing grin. ‘I got bail. You fix this. Good. This time, better deal, okay? This time I walk.'

I didn't fix your bail, you creep, but I'm glad you think I did
.

She said, ‘Difficult for me to give something in return for something you haven't yet given me.'

Costea had to think this through. When the process was complete, he took the folded front page of a tabloid news-paper from his pocket. ‘This was yesterday. I know this guy.'

‘You do?'

‘Not
know
him, not like that. I see him.'

‘Where?'

‘Places…' Stella waited. ‘Places, around, I see him sometimes.' The tape recorded Silano's cough, then silence. ‘I can tell you where is he, but there must be something for me.'

‘Tell me what you have in mind.'

‘Soon I am in court, yes?'

‘And?'

‘I give, you give.'

Stella chose her words carefully. ‘I'm not able to offer any undertaking to you concerning the charges against you, or the outcome of your trial. However, if any information you give to us does assist us in our inquiries, I'm prepared to let this be known to the court. DS Mooney ending the interview with Mr Costea Radu.'

She signed off with a time-check. Costea looked at her, still smiling. He said, ‘And now?'

‘Reduced sentence.'

‘Discharge.'

‘Oh, for Christ's sake…'

‘Community service.'

‘You're facing kidnap and malicious wounding, bottom line.'

‘How bad you want this guy?'

‘It's an offence to withhold information.'

‘Okay, I tell you I see this guy on tube, that help? I see him at airport, I see him in big car next to Queen Elizabeth.'

‘Where did you see him?' Stella asked. ‘Community service, a hundred hours. Last offer.'

It made no difference to Costea whether it was a hundred hours or five thousand, because he wasn't planning to be the person doing it. He said, ‘Up on the Strip. Big house on the rise, he live there. Come with me and I show you.'

Stella said, ‘Stay put. This officer will wait with you.'

She ran to Collier's office. She said, ‘We might have a location. I think we have. I need authorization for sidearms issue, Hatton gun, extra bodies.'

In the interview room Costea smiled at Silano, who smiled back. Costea's smile meant
I know police. There's always a deal
. Silano's meant
She was lying. You're going down
.

*

Gideon Woolf was walking the streets. He looked different now. The compufit was bad, had only appeared in two tabloids and didn't look much like him, but the picture of Silent Wolf made him particularly edgy: the clothes, the hair. He had worn a beanie to go out and buy a home-dye, then taken his hair back to its natural brown. Black
50IS
and a loose shirt had taken the place of the combats and the long coat. He felt weakened; he felt insignificant.

How did they know about Silent Wolf?

Aimée had given him a mobile phone number in case of problems. He called her and listened carefully for any sign that she might have seen the papers. She sounded fine, excited, a woman in love. She repeated their meeting time to him and he said, yes, that was right, that was when the new life would begin.

He walked for an hour, circling, his head bowed. Silent Wolf stalked his footsteps. Their shadows collided and merged. He thought of his new life as Silent Wolf and his new life with Aimée and knew he had to choose.

She knows me. She knows who I am. She knows my name, and they know my name. Safer if she's dead
.

As he walked, he thought of what the new life might have been. The image that came to him was of a couple standing on a hilltop and looking out over a placid valley where a river cut a silver seam, the man's arm round his lover's shoulders. He thought he'd seen it in a movie on the TV in the scorched room, the TV that was never switched off.

Gideon paused, as if he could see that scene in front of him; then Silent Wolf's shadow blotted it out.

Safer if she's dead – and soon
…

He didn't know if the voice in his ear was his own or that of the hero.

*

Aimée had written a letter to Peter and Ben. It said many things, but mostly it said no way back. Ben had an after-school club, so he and Peter would both be home at about six o'clock, by which time Aimée would be clear and gone, on the train, somewhere else. She had thought she might feel something drawing her back – the child, perhaps – but all her thoughts lay in the future.

She packed a bag, taking, as she had promised herself, nothing of the past. The house was oppressive to her, the rooms stifling. She thought of Gideon and ached for him.

Stella Mooney in the scorched room, the TV on, the computer showing its yellow-eyed screensaver.

Forensics had turned up the gun, the knife, the combats, the long coat. They had done their preliminary work and were now going through the rest of the house, though it was clear they had got what they wanted: the room was thick with traces. Stella was dressed in SOC whites, the hood up, her shoes covered. The sun was flooding the window and the burned smell scratched her sinuses.

Harriman came in looking rueful. ‘He picked the right time to be out.'

Stella nodded. ‘Either he left in a hurry and won't be back, or he'll see the door off its hinges and police vehicles in the street.'

‘Why would he have left?'

‘The pimp brought us here, but he could equally well have tipped Woolf off, just for fun. He thinks he's doing himself a favour, not us.'

‘Put the door back,' Harriman suggested, ‘send forensics away, then sit and wait.'

‘News travels fast on the Strip.'

‘Sure, but –'

‘If you like,' Stella said. ‘Sounds reasonable. You fix it.'

She sat in the operator's chair, brought up the internet connection and went to Bookmarks. Two men in orange jumpsuits and behind them the self-styled warriors. One of the warriors stepped forward, drawing a long knife.

Stella in top-to-toe white, a ghost in the scorched room.

*

Aimée had been to the supermarket: the last time she would drive that car, the last time she would make that round trip. She brought the shopping indoors and packed it away in the fridge. It was food Peter could cook, food he and Ben particularly liked.

The last time she would be the goodwife.

She put the letter on the mantelpiece where it could be seen. She went out, slamming the door and giving it a little shove, to ensure it was properly shut, the way she always did.

He didn't know where he was or how he'd got there. There was a band of pain behind his eyes and his legs felt weak, as if the battle of shadows had been a real contest and himself the loser.

Must I kill her?

He walked on, hearing only one answer to his question. The sun seemed to be bearing down on him and the roadside slipstream was a toxic mist. He turned away, finding a gate between railings, and then, suddenly, he was somewhere he knew, somewhere he recognized.

Aimée had known she would be early, but then why not? She was living the new life, she was stealing a little of their future before he came to claim his part.

She sat at their chosen bar in the station concourse with a glass of cold white wine and watched the travellers. Everyone with a purpose, everyone with a destination, everyone – Aimée included – brightened by the sun.

She checked her watch. She couldn't decide whether to look for him – to catch him coming across the concourse towards her, smiling as she rose to greet him – or to lose herself in her thoughts and allow herself to be surprised when he was suddenly there at her side.

I love you. I love you. I love you
.

She was anonymous until he arrived and happy to be so. The sun struck rainbows from the bevel of her glass.

They had set up as Harriman suggested – door restored, vehicles cleared, officers waiting in the room, others deployed in the street to give warning. Activity on the Strip slowed to a near-halt, except for the kerb-crawlers, who speeded up. It would be a semaphore to Woolf, and Stella knew it. She walked down the Strip and found Costea in a cubicle bar; when she walked in, the silence was cymbals and drums.

Costea pointed to the street. When they were outside, he said, ‘You come here, you find me, you do this to fuck me up?'

‘To talk, that's all. He's not there.'

‘This is my problem?'

‘Where else might he be?'

‘Did I say this guy is my brother? I know where he live and I show you, what else you want me to do?' He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Fuck sake, these guys see me talking to you…'

‘Would anybody else know? Did he use any of the girls?'

‘No. Never fuck, never score, I didn't know him from that. Just see him going up and down. All I do – watch Strip, watch punters, watch girls. Watch out for me.'

‘Okay,' Stella said. She looked up and down the street. ‘Everything's gone quiet.'

‘Yeah. Fuck, Mrs Mooney, you are bad for business.'

She headed back up to the rise, but then kept walking, as if she knew where she was going.

And, after a while, she did.

Aimée went to the station entrance, although they had arranged to meet at the bar. Then she went back. He wasn't outside, so she tried the bar-room. Going from sunlight to
the bar's dim interior made her half-blind, so she visited each table in turn, peering at people, barely noticing their indignant stares. He wasn't there.

She ran across the concourse to the platform where the train waited, their destination announced on the red LCD display, the digital clock ticking the time away. Then she made a tour of the shops, the newsagents, the cafés, before going back to the bar, back to the concourse, back to the platform. She was crying, though she hadn't noticed it.

But he'll come. There's time. He'll be here
.

People were hurrying towards the gate that led to the train, hurrying in case they might miss it. Aimée thought that if she looked away, then back, he would be there, running, held up somehow but here now, and they would sprint for the train and get aboard just as it moved away, breathing hard, falling into one another's arms and that moment, the moment when they nearly missed the train, would be a part of their new life, something they would laugh about sometimes, a story to tell their new friends.

She looked away, then looked back. He was nowhere.

Not chance: it wasn't anything remotely like that, and certainly not guesswork or deduction. What had led Stella to her destination was a certain kind of knowledge that arrives unbidden: infallible, irresistible. It rose from the kind of certainty that brings to you, in a crowded street, the person you have just been thinking of.

The park was full of people but he was the only one Stella could see. He was sitting on a bench quite close to the tree where he had hanged Bryony; so much tension in him, so much grief, that it seemed to radiate. He didn't look much like himself, but, as she got closer, Stella could see the indistinct lines of the Indian-ink home-made tattoo on the inside of his left forearm. Closer still, she saw it clearly, though she had known what it would be.