Pecking Order (25 page)

Outside he locked the door, walked back round to the front of the house and crossed to the large cedar tree in the corner of the garden. Sitting up in its boughs he took out an egg and pressed his thumb through the brittle surface. Then he held it above his open mouth and pulled the shell apart. His mouth flooded with thick mucus. Locating the egg yolk with his tongue, he punctured it, washed the mixture around his mouth and swallowed. Then he placed the empty shell back in his pocket and took out another egg.

Around three hours later he saw headlights approaching along the narrow lane. Recognising the tone of Agent Orange's engine he climbed down and was waiting by the hedge when the car pulled up.

He climbed in and Eric immediately pulled away. 'Was the operation a success?'

'She's dead, but I never killed her.'

‘Pardon?' said Eric, braking hard and looking at Rubble.

'She was in the bath. Drowned.'

‘You found her in the bath?'

‘Yeah.'

'With her head under the water?'

'Naked she was. Sick all over her nightie. She must have been ill with that disease.'

'You're quite sure she was dead?'

'Yeah. She'd been in there a bit. The water was cold and she'd turned all wrinkly.'

Eric mused on the information. 'So you didn't inject her?'

'Nope.' Rubble fumbled in his pocket and brought out the syringe. 'Here.'

Eric took it and noticed how it glistened. 'Why is it wet? Has it leaked?'

‘Egg white,' explained Rubble.

Preferring not to ask for an explanation, Eric just dropped the syringe back under his seat. So that was it, he thought. Patricia had been removed. The project was over.

When they reached the caravan he took back Rubble's gloves and Patricia's key.

'Thank you Agent White, you have done very well.' There was a note of finality in his voice and Rubble looked alarmed.

'It is policy to rest our agents every three jobs, so you will not be hearing from me again for a while.'

'I've done something wrong,' Rubble immediately said. 'Not injecting her - was that it?'

‘Agent White, you have done nothing wrong. It’s just regulations. Now, I really must be going,' he held out a hand and Rubble shook it uncertainly.

Then he got out of the car and looked on forlornly as Eric reversed back up the lane.

In the grey of early dawn he turned off the motorway and followed the signs for Fairwind Waterpark. Soon he had parked at the side of a small lake with a fenced off area next to it full of tarpaulin-covered sailing boats, masts rising at erratic angles into the slowly lightening sky. Only when he went to get the mobile phones from the glove compartment did he realise he'd forgotten to take Rubble's back. Cursing himself, he retrieved his own, scooped up the syringe from under the seat and got out of the car.

He walked to the water's edge and, standing on the top of a concrete slipway, opened up the back of the phone, ripped the SIM card out and ground it to pieces under his heel. Then he surveyed the perfect stillness of the lake before him. Hidden in the bullrushes on the other side, a coot made its chirruping call. Raising his arm he hurled the phone far out over the water. Its slowly turning shape cut though the still air, descending on a long arc before puncturing the glass-like surface. The splash was gone in a split second but a quivering wound remained, spreading slowly outwards.

Quickly now, Eric pulled the plunger from the syringe, spilling the contents over his hands. He flung both halves and the key into the dense reed bed to his side then held his glistening fingers up. A strangled noise escaped him and suddenly he stumbled forwards into the shallows. He waded out beyond the concrete slipway until his feet connected with the soft bottom of the lake. Falling to his knees, he held his hands below the water, churned them around in the gritty mud then furiously began rubbing one against the other.

Ripples from his activity advanced across the lake, meeting the last of those created by the phone's splash, engulfing and then overwhelming them. After several minutes Eric was finally satisfied. As he walked calmly back to his car, arms hanging limply at his sides, the drips that fell from his fingertips were tinged with yellow by the rising sun.

Getting back into his car, he concluded that all he had to do now was dispose of the remaining Euthanol and syringes back at his house. Then all means of connecting him to Rubble and any of the murders had been destroyed.

Chapter 39

'I'm sorry.' Lisa stifled her sobs behind the tissue as the crowded room looked on in shocked silence.

Clare gritted her teeth to suppress the waves of grief that were travelling up from her chest, making her lower lip tremble. With a voice hoarse from the lump in her throat, she tightened her grip around the other girl's shoulders and said quietly, 'You don't have to carry on.'

In the corner of the room, someone was hastily preparing a pot of coffee. On the padded seats, Julian tapped a biro slowly against the spine of a plastic folder.

'No, I want to. Michel wanted you all to know.' Resolutely, Lisa wiped her nose and dabbed at her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she continued. 'He tried ringing her from Brussels yesterday morning. When he couldn't get an answer he rang a neighbour. She went round with a spare key for the back door and found her ... found her ...' the sobbing started again and she struggled to make the next words comprehensible, ' ... dead in the bath.' Again she began to cry and various students and staff reached for cigarettes. After a few minutes Lisa was able to carry on. 'Michel flew straight back. The police think she had been sick in her bed and got up to clean herself off. It looks like she ran a bath, but must have passed out or fallen asleep after she got in.' Again she began to sob, choking on the words. 'Because she's so small, her feet didn't reach the other end of the bath. So she slid under the water and drowned.'

The room was silent. Eventually someone whispered to their neighbour, 'Was she really that drunk?'

Several people remembered her being unsteady on her feet, holding onto her husband for support. Lisa carried on, 'Michel told me to tell you all that no one must blame themselves for this. He said, if anything, it's his fault for bringing along so much champagne.'

Lighters clicked and matches flared as more cigarettes were lit.

The room was silent except for the tap, tap, tap of Julian's biro. Eventually he said, 'I wonder where this leaves the grant from the ESPRC? I presume it was awarded to the department and not Patricia personally?'

They all glared at him in silence.

Clare felt like she was sitting too close to a giant cinema screen; trying to absorb everything was making her feel dizzy and sick. Behind the mass of thoughts crazily playing out in her head was the sombre realisation that someone she admired and liked immensely was now dead. Needing to take her mind off the terrible news and all its consequences, she picked up a copy of the local paper lying on the coffee table. The right-hand column of the front page was topped by the headline, Leading academic dies in bath tragedy.

She read the first line again. 'Patricia Du Rey, a head of department at Manchester University has been found dead in her bath.'

Unable to look again at the photo of Patricia next to the University crest, Clare started turning the pages, eyes numbly wandering over the articles inside.

Someone else murmured, 'Where's Professor Maudsley? He must have been the last person with her.'

Lisa was looking at her nails as she quietly spoke. 'John, the security guard on duty that night, said Eric put her in a taxi not long after we'd all left. Said she looked really the worse for wear.'

Clare had reached page thirteen before a small paragraph - boxed off in the corner of the page - caught her eye. The headline read, War vet found dead.

Her vision seemed to tunnel in as she focused on the words.

'Albert Aldy, an ex-paratrooper who was decorated for his part in the Suez Crisis, has been found dead in his flat on Wood Road this Tuesday. Concerned neighbours, bothered by an unusual smell, first alerted the authorities. According to a council spokesman, the body had lain undiscovered "for several days". Albert - or Bert as he was more fondly known - lost his wife eight years ago and is not survived by any children.

A familiar figure around the city centre parks, usually wearing his old paratrooper's beret, Bert liked nothing more than to tell passers-by about his time in the army, especially his exploits on the rugby field when playing scrum-half for the Combined Armed Forces. The same council spokesman added that, clue to cutbacks, Bert's flat has now been boarded up.'

At the very end of the piece, added almost as an afterthought, was another small paragraph.

'In a tragically similar case, the body of Edith Davis was found by a door-to-door salesman earlier this week. Unable to get an answer, the representative of the double-glazing company glanced through the front window only to make his grim discovery.'

Clare looked away from the page and sat gazing at the floor then she abruptly closed the paper, shoved it into her bag and got up. The rapidity of her movements caused everyone in the room to stare. 'Can I borrow the paper?' she asked no one in particular.

'Of course,' someone answered.

'Thanks. I'm sorry, but I've got to go.’ The people sitting between her and the door moved their knees to the side so she could squeeze past.

As she walked quickly from the crowded room, Julian watched her departure with interest.

Chapter 40

When Rubble saw the photo on the front page of the newspaper, he knew he had to have a copy. Handing his comics to Mr Williams, he pointed to the stack on the counter. 'And that.'

The shop owner looked surprised,
'The Manchester Evening News
? Not like you to be following gossip from the big city, Roy.'

Rubble placed a dirty fingernail by the university crest alongside the woman's face. 'I want the government badge. For my collection.'

‘The university crest you mean?' answered Mr Williams.

Rubble's eyebrows dropped even lower. ‘University?’

'That’s right. She was a lecturer – that’s the crest of where she worked. So, with the paper, that's £3.85. I'll put it on your account.'

When the six women arrived mid-morning to collect the day's eggs, Rubble returned moodily to his caravan and sat there looking over his comics, not wanting to be near anyone. He remained there until the egg collectors had gone, then took his air rifle from its sling and walked up to the packing shed. The day's produce was piled neatly in enormous trays by the double doors, ready for collection by the various supermarkets the next day. He transferred six eggs to a smaller carton then stalked back to his caravan, hoping to come across a cat or any other intruder to shoot at.

In his kitchen, he mixed the eggs up with some milk and cooked an enormous mound of scrambled egg. Placing two slices of bread on a plate, he spooned the mixture on top of it and doused it all in ketchup. Sitting at his table and shovelling it all into his mouth, he opened his comics once again. But he couldn't concentrate on the pictures.

Listlessly, he turned the pages, reaching the section of advertisements at the back. Despite always checking for them, he'd never found any other pieces of paper asking for government agents. Maybe they only recruited once in a while. He slid the comics to one side and stared again at the front page of the local paper. He got up, crouched down at his cupboard and pulled the door open. The mobile phone lay there, its little green light blinking in the shadows. He wondered miserably when it might ring again.

After staring at it for a couple of minutes, he took out his sketchpad and sat back down at the table. Opening the pad, he turned to the crest he'd copied down from the top of the Official Secrets Act form he'd signed. It matched the one on the front of the newspaper, even down to the letters on the ribbon below the shield. But Mr Williams had said it was the university’s crest. Was he wrong? Mr Williams was never wrong.

Carefully, he tore round the badge and photo then placed the piece of newspaper at the top of the next blank page in his sketchbook. In a matter of minutes, he sketched an image which bore an almost exact resemblance to the woman from the newspaper.

As he leaned back against the foam cushions, he remembered something. When Agent Orange had dropped him off the other night, he'd forgotten to pay him. He was now owed money for two successful operations; he didn't expect anything for the third, since she was dead in the bath already.

He didn't really care about the money: what was far more important was when Agent Orange would call on him for another operation. But Sylvie had said he was about to come into money. So when would he be paid? It was easily a good enough reason to call her again. He went to the biscuit tin of coins in his cupboard and scoured it for silver. When he'd first started ringing the chat lines, his store of change had quickly vanished and the same thing was happening now. Finding only a few twenties, he pocketed them and set off for the phone box. After pressing all his money into the slot he dialled the number.

By the time he'd got past all the messages and music, he guessed most of his money had gone. Eventually he got to the point when he could tap the number 304 in. Immediately the voice he so badly wanted to hear came on to the line, 'Hello caller, my name is Sylvie Claro, would you ...'

'It's me,' he announced.

Chapter 41

Clare's eyes widened and she reached for the paper in her bag. Almost forgetting her accent, she said, 'My child, I do not know your name.'

'Rubble.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Rubble.'

'Rubble?'

'Yeah.'

Frowning Clare said, 'I have been examining the heavens. I think I know more of your secret work, I find it very interesting. The man you put to sleep, the ex-paratrooper ...' She looked at the page of the newspaper. 'Did he serve in the Suez Crisis?'