Pain of Death (25 page)
Nick Absolom’s clapped-out Beemer roars past junction nineteen in the fast lane. Staffe boots his Peugeot down the slip road and Eve says, ‘Where’s the fire?’
He says, ‘We’re about to find out.’
The second item on the news round-up reminds them both that tomorrow, Vernon Short’s controversial bill is up before the House.
Eve says, ‘How could Natalie be mixed up in something like this?’
He thinks of something his father once said to him. ‘Things that go away by themselves can come back by themselves.’
‘What?’
‘It’s like most crimes. There’s an irresistible force. Sometimes, there’s too much love, too much hate. Sometimes, people just need the money or are caught up in situations that won’t go away. Usually, there’s no choice.’
‘I had a choice.’
‘Did you?’
They are up with and following Absolom’s Beemer and now the reporter cuts across two lanes. His brake lights glow red in the early dusk. He is taking the M56. Staffe backs off, lets him get two cars ahead. He calls Pulford, is told that he is down in Fulham with Josie and they have an eye on Dan Carlyle’s house.
The instant he hangs up, Staffe receives another call, from Alicia Flint.
‘Our car has followed Natalie Stafford into Parkgate. We’re on standby, but there’s no sign of Given. I’m sorry. Hang on. Our car’s calling in. You want to hang on?’
Staffe waits for Alicia Flint to take her call, says to Eve, ‘I think Natalie is up ahead.’
‘Staffe?’ says Alicia Flint. ‘They’re in Parkgate – parked up on a track that leads to a disused water tower. It’s all locked up, but it seems as if the driver knows where there’s a key. She’s letting herself in through the gate.’
The line goes silent.
‘They’re driving in. My team is holding back. There’s no track beyond the tower. There’s no way out of there.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’ Up ahead, Staffe sees the sparkly afforestation of the towers of the Stanlow oil refinery, lit up like something from James Bond in the gathering dusk. The smell of petrol is overwhelming: sweet, tacking to the nostrils.
*
The main news runs Vernon Short’s forthcoming bill as the lead item. There has been minor skirmishing at Breath of Life marches in Swansea and Sheffield. ‘We should be working on the Degg case, not stuck here,’ says Pulford. ‘We need to track Tommy Given down, and get Bridget Lamb in again.’
‘I know,’ says Josie. ‘But Staffe was adamant. He said …’
‘I know. Our bloody lives depend on keeping a lid on this Carlyle bloke. He works for that firm Staffe’s mate runs.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ says Josie. She switches the radio off and follows a set of headlights coming towards them. The car is a Jeep and it slows to a crawl, even though there are no other cars coming down the residential street. ‘Look, Pulford,’ she hisses. ‘It’s slowing down.’
The Jeep pulls up outside Dan Carlyle’s house and Pulford reads out the number. ‘YG10EGB.’
‘Someone’s getting out.’
Though the car is still moving, the passenger door opens and a man in a hooded track-suit top steps into the road, running alongside the car. He reaches back with one hand, then hurls something at the house. The downstairs window smashes. The man is back in the car and three fresh lights come on in the house.
‘Shall we follow the car?’
The Jeep’s tail lights fade. Pulford’s car is facing the wrong way. ‘Let’s make sure they’re safe. We’ll call the plates in. Come on, let’s see what they threw, but take it easy.’
As they advance slowly towards the house, a neighbour comes to her door and Josie shouts for her to get back inside. More lights come on in the Carlyles’ house and Pulford is at the door, knocking. He calls, ‘Police!’
A desperate-looking man opens the door. He looks afraid. He seems broken and walks heavily into the room where the window is smashed. At the top of the stairs, two children peer around the newel post.
In the lounge, a woman is on her knees, a piece of paper in her hand. Beside her a house brick is on the solid oak flooring. Glass, like diamonds and blades, is all around her.
‘Be careful. Don’t move,’ says Josie, reaching out for the piece of paper. It says, ‘LOSE YOUR NERVE. LOSE YOUR BOY’, written in marker pen.
The woman looks up, towards her husband who is standing in the doorway. She says, ‘Dan. What have you done?’
*
Natalie parks the car as close to the water tower as she can. Hawthorn bushes have overrun the driveway and Emily struggles to get through to the front door without scratching herself or Giselle.
She waits for Natalie, who has padlocked the gate behind her and is putting the key back in its place. Natalie reaches into the car for Samuel and she carries him with the nonchalance of a professional towards the front door, which opens.
‘At last!’
Emily starts, turning quickly, afraid.
Lesley Crawford stretches her arms out towards Giselle. Emily holds the little girl’s hand tighter.
‘Let her come,’ says the woman in the doorway. Her hair is cut in a severe bob and her make-up is too harsh, quite inexpert. Her eyes are kind.
‘Let her,’ says Natalie.
‘What’s happening?’ says Emily, holding Giselle away from the woman in the doorway.
‘I am Lesley. I helped save her.’ Crawford steps down from the doorway and puts a hand on the back of Emily’s head. She strokes her hair. ‘Some might say I saved you, also.’
For a reason she cannot understand, Emily ushers Giselle towards the woman, who takes the child in her arms and turns, goes into the building, talking to the girl as if she were an adult. ‘It is a little cold in here, but we’ll get you wrapped up warm. You can see the sea and the hills, and there’s a heron. Do you know what a heron is?’
Giselle shakes her head, quite vociferously, in precisely the same manner as her mother.
*
Natalie takes Zoe Bright’s temperature, then tells her that she needs to remove her pants.
Lesley Crawford sits beside Zoe, leaning back on the sofa. She rests the baby Samuel on his chest, on her bosom. The boy is strong and he breathes evenly, on the edge of sleep. At her feet, Giselle stands inquisitively with her hand on the baby’s bottom. She has been quietly chastised for poking him in the ribs and face. Now, she understands he is weaker than her, that she must help the other women protect him. If the baby were left to its own devices, it would soon come to harm. ‘Not like you. You’re a big girl,’ Lesley Crawford had said.
All the time she has been here, Emily Bagshot has barely said a word. Fate has put her in this room with the two women who made her captive those years ago. But her daughter is here, too. Chances are, they can remain together now. What, precisely, are the chances? She tries to calculate, but it is too complex.
‘She’s fully dilated. It’s coming,’ says Natalie.
‘The contractions are all there,’ says Lesley, pointing at a sheet of paper on the floor besides Zoe. Her phone beeps text.
‘What happens now?’
‘You’re thirty weeks, right?’
Zoe nods. ‘It’s too soon?’
‘It’s a strong foetus. We’ll be fine.’
‘I need help. I need to be in a hospital. I keep telling her.’ Zoe grabs Natalie by the arm. She hisses, ‘You’re a nurse. Tell her. Tell her!’
‘We know what we’re doing.’ Natalie smiles at Lesley. ‘It is nearly time.’
‘He’s five minutes away.’
‘Who is five minutes away?’ says Natalie. ‘What’s happening?’
‘We’re going to show the world, is what’s happening.’
Baby Samuel writhes in Lesley’s arms. He arches his back, his legs stiffen and he roars. He roars with a deep voice and stretches out his arms, punching Lesley in the face. He looks around, with half-closed eyes, and slumps back to her bosom, to his slumber.
‘Now, tell me what happened to Given.’
‘Let me do this,’ says Natalie. She is on all fours, peering at Zoe. Zoe clutches her stomach and cries out and Natalie quickly kneels up. ‘We’re good to go, Zoe.’ She squeezes Zoe’s hand. ‘I’ll be damned if we’re not.’ She smiles. ‘Remember the breathing?’
Zoe nods. She whispers, between deep breaths, ‘I want Anthony to be here.’
‘No!’ says Crawford. ‘I told you, this has to be my doing. He’ll let the cat out and then you’ll be for it. Remember?’
She nods.
Under her breath, Crawford says, ‘You don’t even like him.’
‘That’s not the point.’
Crawford’s phone rings and she answers, saying, ‘The key is under a rock by the left-hand gate post. You have everything?’ She hangs up, says, ‘My God, it’s going to happen.’
*
Staffe has the handset pressed to his ear, watching Absolom’s lights get further and further away until they glow a brighter red and stop. He can see the outline of the water tower, which is on an escarpment at the end of the track that runs down by the side of the Marsh Tom Hotel. You can’t see it from the Strand or from any point on the Neston Road. Absolom’s Beemer is just fifty yards from the tower.
‘Did you hear me, sir?’ says Pulford.
‘Go on.’
‘We’ve got a couple of uniforms staying with the Carlyles overnight. Dan Carlyle says they’ll find out tomorrow that their scam won’t work.’
‘What time?’
‘Not before ten. Not long after.’
He hangs up and says to Eve, ‘This is it. You’d better book into the Marsh Tom. It will be a long night.’
Alicia Flint and her entourage of sergeants and constables are in the games room of the Marsh Tom, down at the bottom of the beer garden. From here, if you walk just a few yards to the barbecue area, you can see the water tower. An officer, clad in black, is looking through a pair of serious binoculars, mounted on a tripod and hooked up to a laptop.
Inside the games room, they are wired up with internet and Alicia Flint is standing in front of a pinball machine by an interactive whiteboard, holding court. Staffe shows his ID and slopes into a seat at the back, listening to the briefing talk and fixing eye contact with her.
Alicia Flint continues, ‘Natalie Stafford is in situ and we have to accommodate the possibility that Bright’s baby might have been born. Stafford is with a woman we believe to be Emily Bagshot, who may have been abducted by Lesley Crawford and Natalie Stafford three years ago.’ She looks across to Staffe. She could say, ‘Thanks to our colleagues at City Police for this information’, but she doesn’t. Rather, she reiterates the positions they hold, the fact that they have no reason to believe that either Crawford or Stafford is armed. The priority is to preserve the
well-being
of Bright and her baby. ‘One thing we must keep at the forefront of our minds is that, whether Crawford suspects this or not, she is cornered. This is the end of the line for her and as a result everyone in that tower is in danger. Crawford is capable of anything and we know there are two children and three women in there with her. Their safety is paramount.’
For a moment, Staffe allows himself to think of how he has let down his friend, Finbar, who is now up to his eyes with the latest grand plan of Jadus Golding. He feels a fool, but knows he has to hold his nerve. He checks his phone to see if there is further contact from Pulford but there is nothing.
An officer rushes into the games room. ‘Ma’am. There’s another car drawn up at the tower. It’s a man alone. He has a large bag and he looks as if he knows where the key to the gate is. What’s your call?’
Alicia Flint becomes still. She says nothing. After several beats, she says, ‘Can we intervene?’
‘Yes, ma’am. We have forty seconds. Our men are thirty yards away.’ The officer presses a finger to his ear. ‘He has the key to the gate.’
Staffe feels himself standing. ‘No!’
‘What?’ says Flint.
‘He’s five eleven and ten stone, long dark hair and probably smoking a roll-up, dressed as if he’s in a band.’
The officer turns to look at Staffe. ‘Yes.’
‘We have to trust him.’
‘Twenty seconds, ma’am.’
‘He’s a reporter. He’s not with them.’
‘So he could be in danger,’ says Flint, glaring fiercely.
Staffe puts his head in his hands. He was expecting contact from Absolom before he went in. But even so, he should know what to do. All he can think of is Giselle Bagshot and Grace’s twin. He hasn’t figured …
‘Inspector Wagstaffe!’
… quite how he can use Absolom yet. He prays he can.
‘He’s going, ma’am. He’s through the gate and parking up. We could still stop him,’ says the officer.
‘No!’ says Flint. ‘Keep our cover.’
The officer says, into his mouthpiece, ‘Stand down.’
Alicia Flint says, ‘Inspector Wagstaffe? A word!’ She strides out into the night.
*
Jadus Golding holds Millie close. Jasmine is clearing the dishes away, serving up ice-cream. It is Phish Food and Jadus’s favourite. He is seldom in for dinner, and when he is, he never sticks around for pudding. Tonight, he doesn’t want to go out at all. ‘Just stay in. Like a family,’ he had said.
It made Jasmine want to weep and it is what has made this feel like a Last Supper.
Tonight, Jadus holds Millie, whispering the story of Chicken Licken to her. It has lulled her to sleep.
Jasmine brings the ice-cream.
‘Put mine in the fridge a while. I like it soft on the outside.’
‘I didn’t know you knew Chicken Licken.’
‘Didn’t know myself,’ he says. They exchange a look as she comes back with her ice-cream. He thinks, she’s thinking about the sky falling in.
Later, when Millie is properly put down, they make love. Jadus is tender and afterwards, he gets her to spoon and he falls asleep with his hand on her belly. Jadus can sleep anywhere – even on the eve of something like this. He doesn’t feel Jasmine become progressively more rigid with fear.
*
Staffe took his medicine from Alicia Flint. She was furious he hadn’t told her about Absolom and he explained his pact with the reporter and how indebted they are to the fact that Crawford had targeted him. If he had divulged his source, Crawford wouldn’t have used him. It is down to Absolom that they knew she was on Merseyside, and his presence in the tower could be to their advantage, still.
Outside, he looks up at the black outline of the tower against the indigo sky. He thinks he can hear the sea, but knows it must be the breeze across the reeds.
There is a light on the second floor of the tower. He looks through the field glasses and homes in on the shape of Nick Absolom. The journalist reaches up above the window, reaches as high as he can. Only when he brings his hand down – empty – does Staffe realise what he was placing there. He thinks hard. He thinks of the thing that Lesley Crawford and Nick Absolom would have most in common, and he realises that Lesley Crawford is not here to hide. This is not the dead end that Alicia Flint thinks it is.
Now, Absolom stands with his back to the window, pointing. He brings a camera to his eye, then lowers it. He points some more. He is directing.
Staffe calls Absolom. He listens as his phone rings and he watches the window, waiting for Absolom to reach up for his phone. But he doesn’t. He pulls one up from his hip, puts it to his ear.
‘I can’t talk.’
‘What are you up to?’
‘Waiting on Crawford.’ Absolom looks out into the night. He raises a hand and for an instant, Staffe’s heart misses. He thinks Absolom is waving to him so he ducks, but when he looks back, listening to Absolom say, ‘She said she’d call me,’ he realises the journalist is only shielding the reflected light from his view through the window and into the dark, empty night.
‘We still have our deal?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do you have anything to tell me?’
‘Not yet.’
‘We had an agreement, Nick.’
‘You don’t call me Nick.’
In the background, Staffe can hear a hullabaloo, can see Absolom turning inwards, moving away from the window.
‘Where are you, Nick? Can I hear children?’
The line is dead. Absolom comes back towards the window and points some more into the room. He holds the camera to his eye again and when he is done, he looks back into the night.
The phone perched on the frame above the window is not a phone.
Staffe makes his way back inside the games room. As he does, he feels an echo from a previous case. It zags in at him through the ether, lightning-fast. He feels wired up, has a clear picture – at long last.
***
Vernon Short shakes the Home Secretary’s hand. She wishes him well for tomorrow and looks him square in the eye as she says it. ‘Really, Vernon. I mean it. You’ve had a rough ride.’
‘Thank you, Home Secretary.’
‘Cathy,’ she says and her mouth widens. She shows her teeth. He hasn’t noticed before, but she has good teeth.
He goes out into Whitehall. The light-grey stone of the buildings looks almost white tonight against the indigo sky. Earlier, his father had telephoned. His father only ever calls him on his birthday and when they are short for the drag hunt. Today, his father had called him to say ‘well done’. He hadn’t even said ‘well done’ when Vernon had secured the deal to save the family firm in the winter of 1987. Today, his father had asked him to come up to the club, for supper.
Vernon had almost fallen off his chair.
As he makes his way up Pall Mall, towards Saint James’s, his pace slows. After all this time, he doesn’t want to arrive. The clubs line Pall Mall like so many sentrymen with their high ceilings and stuccoed frontages and extravagant balconies, as if their arms are crossed tight across their chests, backs straight. Hearts of stone.
He pauses as he climbs the steps and looks left, up to Clarence House and a cool breeze seems to come along the street. He feels cold to the bone recalling what Lesley Crawford’s people had told him they knew about his father. Vernon wonders if he will have the courage to bring the matter up over supper.
Vernon is shown up to the smoking room where nobody is smoking, but still they sit in fours on low-slung armchairs around card tables drinking ancient malts from thick Irish crystal. Empire remains, in these four walls.
Edward Short raises a hand, stands and leaves his four. He walks with a stoop but is still an imposing figure. He is taller than Vernon and has always been more handsome than his son. His hair is dapper long, to his collar and combed back in thick, grey-black slicks. Easy to see he would have been popular in the highest, the very highest, circles – not so far away.
As they eat turbot, Edward talks easily about his day and the party down at the farm last weekend and how Vernon really should find time to visit more. Especially now. His mother would like to see him.
‘My mother? Do you think of mother, when you are in town?’
Edward neither blinks nor stops the tiny circles he makes in the mastication of his fish. He swallows. ‘You know, it’s not important what is in this bill. The statute book is written on paper. It’s the musculature of what precedes. That’s what is important.’
‘Father, I know the worst.’
Edward raises his eyebrows. ‘These things can be forgotten as quickly as they are found. We’re in the secrets business, after all. The important thing is that you keep your eye on the ball.’
‘It matters to me.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘But it’s preposterous.’
‘Don’t worry about me. Or your mother.’
‘They hold it to my head. Not yours.’
Edward sets his knife down, alongside his fork and even though Vernon is no more than half-way through his supper, a waiter comes. The plates are removed. He says, to his son. ‘You look well on it. Look well tomorrow, regardless of the outcome. It’s what people will remember.’
Vernon leans forward, whispers, ‘I don’t even want this bloody bill.’
His father stands, pats him on the shoulder and says, ‘Have pudding if you want or the stewed cheese is excellent. I’m done.’
*
Staffe is exasperated. Alicia Flint and her DS crowd him, pointing at the screen. For twenty minutes, he has been pumping keywords into all the major search engines. He comes up blank.
Alicia Flint says, ‘What makes you think there’ll be something on the internet?’
Staffe tries ‘Breath of Life’ for a third time, this time on Yahoo! He flicks through the 231,456 results, getting little of promise. ‘There was a case a few years ago. Absolom will remember it, and so would Crawford, I bet – it would have been around the time Emily Bagshot went missing, too.’
‘Was this your case?’
Staffe can tell what is coming. He nods.
‘Isn’t that a little …’
‘Egocentric? Probably. But Absolom covered that case. He’ll remember, and he’s got a device up there. A receiver for a modem, if I’m right. He had to put it up high, by the window.’
‘Lesley Crawford, as far as we know, is here to put a stop to the trail that leads to her. She has Zoe and the nurse, and she has Emily Bagshot. God knows where Given is. Imagine if he showed up.’
‘Crawford is in the business of saving those children, not harming.’
‘Believe me, that’s the only thing that has stopped me going in there already.’
‘We can’t do that. Can’t you see?’
‘Something terrible could still happen in there tonight. It’s no time for high-falutin theories. What exactly is it that you think is going on?’
Staffe has an idea. Something more obscure. Something that Crawford may not think he knows about. ‘She
wants
to be found out. But maybe not straight away – and not by us.’ He types in ‘House of the Holy Innocents’ and gets millions of responses.
Most of the results to the search are seemingly religious. Some relate to a Chilean novel, some to a Swedish heavy metal group. ‘Why would she get a journalist up here if I’m wrong?’
‘Maybe he got a lead?’
‘He knew where the key was.’ Staffe punches in ‘Breath’ and ‘Innocents’.
‘This is a blind alley. We need to focus.’
Staffe scrolls down the first page. He double-clicks. ‘Focus on this.’
Alicia Flint leans close, stares at the screen, her cheek practically pressed against his. ‘Fuck,’ she says, looking at an image of Lesley Crawford standing between Natalie Stafford, who is holding a baby just a few weeks old, and Emily Bagshot who is holding an infant, kissing the cheek of that daughter. They are all smiling. In front of them, sitting in a low sofa, is Zoe Bright. Her face is flushed red and she is covered in a sheen of sweat. Her eyes are wide and full of fear. On her swollen belly are the words, ‘Let the Innocents Breathe’, written, it would seem, in lipstick.