Stop Me (8 page)

Leo hadn’t been surprised to find Bookwalter online. He rarely wasn’t and the website and its maintenance appeared to be his full-time occupation. He’d already told him whose laptop he was logging in from.

Leo wondered if Bookwalter really knew anything of the doctor’s death and had already decided to keep the information he conveyed to a minimum.

Another recondite response. As always, Bookwalter could know everything or nothing. He was about to attempt to solicit something more specific when Bookwalter added a footnote. 

Again, the words rattled out slowly with no pause for thought and again Bookwalter managed to imbue his response with the right measure of grainy, subjective relevance.

It was easy enough when he was alone at home but sitting in a dead stranger’s room using a dead stranger’s laptop seemed to remove any last anchors of his own reality. 

For the first time Leo saw how he could completely let go of his reality and indulge in the fantasy as much as Bookwalter did.

6.05

Leo glanced at the clock in his living room and thought about food for the first time. Less than two hours until he was on duty. Mutatkar’s confiscated laptop had so absorbed him that time had sped by, hours sneakily speeding outside the closed blinds while he scanned every conceivable folder. The phone rang and he cast it an accusing glance before getting up to answer. 

If I reach it before its fourth ring then the caller will have news of Laura
.

He did but they didn’t.

‘Leo?’ He didn’t recognise the female voice. ‘It’s Henryka.’

‘Oh hi, Henryka. Everything OK?’ He wondered why the Polish cleaning girl he’d occasionally shared coffee with at the end of his shift and the start of hers was phoning him and how she got his number.

‘Mrs Baptiste told me to telephone you. Are you ill?’

‘I’m fine,’ Leo answered in confusion. Then he pulled the closed blinds aside and noted the early morning sunlight. It was not 6.05 p.m. but 6.05 a.m and his shift was nearly over. Recovering quickly he added, ‘Well, a bit under the weather. Migraine,’ he added lamely.

‘We were worried about you when you didn’t come in. Don’t worry, we will tell your relief that you went home early.’

‘Thanks, Henryka. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Leo put down the phone and sat back in front of the laptop, the conversation already forgotten. His stomach purred and he told himself he would work through one more file before he made himself some dinner.

Lunch with Ashley was always a three-hour affair but Leo had been strangely relieved to get a telephone call from her. Having raked the contents of Mutatkar’s 
laptop he was down to the last couple of files and welcomed any interruption that would stall resigning himself to finding nothing. He accepted the invitation even though he hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours. The lack of temazepam made him feel like he could stay awake for hours but when she told him where she’d booked lunch Leo thought he’d fallen asleep at the laptop.

Chevalier’s was buzzing when he got there and Ashley was waiting for him at a table in the front bar looking into a bowl of red wine. She stood up to kiss him as he tentatively removed his jacket.

‘I know why you’re doing this, Ash, but you’ve no idea how many times I’ve been back here already.’

‘Not to eat though,’ she said sitting down again. ‘I’ve ordered for both of us.’

Leo sat and looked up the stairs behind Ashley to the area beyond. He wondered if she’d deliberately positioned them there.

‘I couldn’t get us a table upstairs at short notice.’

Leo saw Hektor emerge from behind the bar. He looked harassed as usual and the lines on his Mediterranean features seemed a little deeper than the last time he’d seen him. Was there even an extra pound or two on his short frame? Nevertheless his silver grey hair was still immaculately squared around his tanned features and there was little to suggest that they’d celebrated his fiftieth birthday in Leo’s other life. 

Hektor leaned on the front of the bar and rested his hand on the thin waist of one of the bar staff while he talked to her. Everything seemed to be as it had been all those months ago and, for a split second, it was like inhabiting his old life again. He didn’t want to make eye contact with Hektor though and returned his attention to Ashley.

‘Lunch and banality, that’s all I want.’ She smiled and snapped a breadstick, handing him half.

He took it but placed it on his side plate and suddenly felt nauseous. It was the smell of the place. One aroma led to another and soon he would smell the sweaty interior of the interview room and the stale nicotine gum the investigating officer used to pulp in one side of his face. ‘Thanks for trying to do this but this really doesn’t feel right.’ How could Ashley not understand that this was Laura’s place, Laura’s very last location? He rose but Ashley put her fingers round his wrist.

‘Don’t think this is easy for me either. Sit down,’ she whispered firmly but even before he’d settled again he’d decided against telling her about Mutatkar. ‘It’s a room full of chairs and tables. People pass through it…good and bad.’

Leo didn’t hear her but visualised Bookwalter standing at the top of the stairs in a delivery uniform. His shoulders tightened, almost in readiness for an impact of some kind. 

‘Let’s try some meaningless chatter. How’s work?’

He returned his gaze to her and registered how perfectly her fuchsia lip-gloss had been applied. She had on a tawny silk shirt and matching beads and her dark curls were once more in decorous disarray about her elegant face.

Being here with her wasn’t right. After Hektor had been forced to suspend the immigrants in his staff and had taken it out on Leo, it had been an excuse to stop haunting the place. He should never have come back.

Ashley had clearly been waiting for an answer to her first question and raised her eyebrows as she tried another tack. ‘Have you had any sort of contact with human beings apart from me?’

‘Only Matty stalking me.’

‘We all know about that. Stalking, I mean,’ she added a little too hastily.

Leo thought he almost saw her bite her tongue. To Leo’s knowledge, Ashley had very little to do with Matty except when they’d met at the wedding.

‘Stalking or Matty’s stalking?’

Ashley looked sheepish. ‘OK, Matty’s stalking.’

‘So, are you going to make me beg for what you aren’t telling me?’

Ashley used the action of refilling her water glass to break eye contact. ‘Only what Laura told me.’

‘Which was?’

‘That Matty was capable of it.’ 

‘But my brother was AWOL for most of the time Laura knew him. It’s only since he moved in with Carla that he’s been stalking me to play grown-ups with him.’

Ashley looked at him again and just nodded in hollow agreement as if she were considering whether she should tell him something.

‘Ash…’ he said, mock-threateningly.

‘Pointless dragging things up now, particularly if you’re on speaking terms with Matty.’ She took her cue from his raised eyebrows. ‘OK, there was a reason Matty was late to your wedding.’ She pushed down and twisted the salt cellar so the tablecloth started to knot around it. ‘He called at your house while you were waiting at the registry office.’ She narrowed her eyes at the cellar.

‘What for?’ He felt his shoulders tighten.

‘To…appeal…to Laura.’

‘To not marry me?’ said Leo jokingly.

‘Yes.’

Leo sat back in his chair and his mind went utterly blank.

‘And to marry him.’ Ashley lifted her wine glass to her lips as if quickly concealing the source of the revelation.

Leo felt as if he was being suddenly pulled out of his mould. Ashley’s pained face seemed to mirror what he felt on his own features and it was clearly something she’d dreaded telling him for a very long time. 

‘Ancient history,’ she said and unsuccessfully tried to sound matter-of-fact.

‘But news to me.’ Something started to pool inside him but he wasn’t sure if it was undiluted anger or pain.

‘Laura didn’t want to tell you because she knew how fragile things were between you and your brother.’

Leo didn’t hear her. He was already spooling back the few occasions Matty had been in Laura’s company. ‘But Matty hardly knew her.’

‘That’s what was so bizarre. I didn’t hear the conversation. Not that there was much of one anyway. Matty turned up at the front door and said he wanted to talk to Laura about a sensitive matter. Laura saw him in her room; she already had her dress on by then. Next thing I know, Matty is coming back down the stairs. I couldn’t believe it when Laura told me what it had been about. Apparently, once she’d said no he’d turned on his heel and gone to join you at the registrar’s.’

‘Quatro staggioni.’ The waitress announced what had just been placed in front of them but didn’t hover with the black pepper grinder when she picked up the atmosphere from the table.

Ashley pulled a ring off her napkin. ‘I’d only met Matty once or twice but watching him making his speech and acting throughout the day like it had never happened was just…unnerving.’

Leo thought that the day had been perfect. Laura 
had said it had been and he suddenly felt idiotic for being so oblivious.

‘Look, none of this effects how Laura felt about you,’ Ashley said as if she were reading his mind. ‘And Matty’s happily settled now. He obviously had some…issues at the time.’

Leo felt aggression solidifying. So Matty had attempted to sabotage things like he always did. How he’d expected to do it that way was beyond him though. Perhaps it had made sense in his head, like all those well-timed vanishing acts he’d used to perform. Was he really so disturbed that he’d expected to steal Laura from him?

Now he felt foolish sitting in front of Ashley, knowing she’d been more aware of Matty’s delusion than he’d ever been. And what he’d thought had been a happy day had been much less so for Laura. ‘Thanks for lunch, Ash.’

‘Leo, don’t you dare go.’

But Leo was already bumping the back of his chair into the diner behind him

‘I’ll call you tonight, I promise. I can’t…’

Leo held his breath until he’d made it to the door. Hektor was standing there chalking a special on the board as Leo scrabbled to find his coat from under the pile on the rack at the door. Hektor turned and began helping Leo put on his coat. Had he recognised him? His mind seemed to be elsewhere and Leo quickly turned 
his back on him so he could put his arms in the coat.

‘Come back soon, sir.’

Leo didn’t say a word and only breathed out when he was back outside in the fine spray of rain. 

‘Leo, it’s Matty. We’re worried about you and want to make sure you’re OK. I don’t know how to reach you bar kicking down your door. I’ve tried pretending that everything’s normal but that obviously isn’t working. Call me as soon as you hear this.’

The message prompted Leo to draw the curtains in the hallway window. The last thing he wanted was a surprise visit from his brother. Yeah, there certainly had been some pretence to normality. He’d never been convinced by Matty’s sudden immersion in domestic bliss and now he wondered just how unbalanced he’d been when he called on Laura the day of their wedding.

He walked into the living room and stood in the middle of it, not knowing why he’d come in. The air was 
cold and he was suddenly aware of the rain mist that had soaked into his scalp trickling into his collar. His relationship with Laura, the only part of his existence that had been worthwhile, was long gone and now even that seemed to be warping into something ugly. He understood why Laura had kept Matty’s proposal secret, but the absolute openness he’d always assumed they’d shared was suddenly in doubt. He looked around at the photos of Laura on the wall and wondered if she’d concealed anything else from him.

When Leo sat on his bed and opened his laptop he found an email from Bookwalter:

Despite the provenance of the email it still, 
oddly, unsettled Leo and he found himself willing Bookwalter’s page to load up faster so he could log in to the private lounge. Bookwalter was online but Leo resisted the urge to type immediately and sat back, contemplating what to say before eventually opening their dialogue.

Leo remembered Bookwalter was spearheading the local opposition to the proposed plant and decided to ignore the email. If Bookwalter wanted to play mind fuck so could he.

There was a longer pause than normal before Bookwalter’s reply constructed itself.

Again Leo circumvented the fact that he’d read it.

He hadn’t.

An even longer pause than normal.

Bookwalter’s words were instant this time.

Leo leant back on his pillows and waited for him to press him further about the email but Bookwalter obviously knew he was deliberately evading.

Leo tapped in his response.

Again Bookwalter’s reply was instant – as if he’d been waiting for an opportunity to use it.

Leo tried to be rational. Bookwalter could very easily have done an internet search for Mutatkar after he’d mentioned him and found the news item about his suicide and, of the comments he’d made in their earlier exchanges, all of them were vague enough to allow Leo to read whatever he wanted in to them.

Leo had no desire to indulge Bookwalter’s attempts at humour.

Leo wondered if Bookwalter was genuinely surprised. 
He waited for his answer and heard himself breathe out four times before it started to appear.

Leo registered that Bookwalter was trying to cross reference Mutatkar’s death to one of the
pseudo-enigmatic
observations he’d made when he’d had the dialogue with him from the doctor’s bedsit. It was also an obvious allusion to his recent email. Leo waited for Bookwalter to elaborate.

For a moment, he almost had second thoughts about what he was about to type. He’d already made up his mind but he wondered if Bookwalter’s email had sealed it.

‘Mr Allan-Carlin, please.’ Cleaves ran his hand over the prickles of his hair and lingered over the sparse patch on his scalp. His palm felt cool against it and he didn’t care for the sensation.

‘I’m afraid he’s in a meeting.’

‘He’ll speak to me. Tell him it’s Cleaves.’

He waited while the secretary put him on hold 
and tried to identify the piece of classical muzak. His workdays were a far cry from his tours in the Special Forces and he often wondered if being left in a shallow grave in Mali for his gun-running activities would have been a better fate.

‘This must be one of those rare emergencies when you contact me during business hours.’ Joe Allan-Carlin sounded appropriately surly.

‘Just one of those occasions, particularly as I’ve been trying to get hold of you since yesterday.’

‘Make it quick.’

‘Sharpe was back at Chevalier’s yesterday.’

There was a brief pause. ‘Doing what specifically?’

‘Having lunch with his sister-in-law. Now he’s left the country.’

‘What?’

‘Caught a flight to New Orleans. Maybe he’s going on holiday. What do you want me to do?’ Cleaves pushed through the revolving door of the airport and strode quickly back to his car that he’d left at the drop-off point.

Eventually, ‘I don’t suppose there’s much we can do until he comes back.’

‘Could be weeks. I’ll see what I can find out in the meantime.’ Cleaves thought about his expenses.
Allan-Carlin
was his full-time meal ticket. ‘Maybe I should look in on things while he’s away. Make sure his plants are watered.’ 

‘Do whatever’s necessary but don’t call me until you’ve got something concrete.’

Behind the frosted pane, the dark shape of the intruder moved unnaturally, his arm and shoulder frantically vibrating as the handle of the back door rattled. Leo struggled to keep his eyelids open but they locked shut as wood splintered and the handle clanged to the floor. He willed his hands to move so he could prise his eyes open but, as the door creaked, could feel no sensation in them.

He heard himself grunt with the exertion of trying to yank his eyes open with the muscles of his face and, for a brief moment, he could see the figure – a glimpse through the shutter of his vision as it briefly opened before snapping to darkness again. An impression of the figure was left on the black backdrop – a figure wearing a uniform. His lids were glued now but he could feel the presence of the intruder, breath and proximity. Footsteps halted at Leo.

‘Do you mind stowing your hand luggage under the seat in front of you?’

Leo found his eyes were open again and absorbing the face above him. The male air steward’s expression was one of impatience. Leo shoved the bag under the seat in front with his foot and kicked it again for good measure.

‘Thank you, sir.’ The air steward continued his 
checks past Leo’s row. He pulled his bag out from under the seat again with the sides of his heels and allowed his feet to stretch out in the vacated gap. It was the third time he’d done it and was sure it wouldn’t be long before the steward interrupted his sleep again.

After all of Bookwalter’s entreaties he’d at least expected business class. But although his forthcoming host had seemed taken aback by Leo’s request for the next available flight he had been highly efficient. Leo had been emailed his flight details less than half an hour later with promises that everything would be made ready for his arrival.

Leo didn’t question what he was doing by allowing himself to be enticed by a man who had attempted to get himself imprisoned for a string of brutal murders he hadn’t committed. He’d long since acknowledged Bookwalter as a delusional egocentric and had always managed to hold him at arm’s length, like a snake handler with a glove and a pronged staff. But now he was exposing himself to something more dangerous than a mutual indulgence he was entirely unclear as to what either of their motives were.

The trip represented movement though – something his life had been devoid of – but was it in a direction he could easily find his way back from? He couldn’t deny that he had an odd rapport with Bookwalter, one born from a shared obsession and self-imposed isolation but he really knew nothing of the man he was about to 
meet. Leo didn’t know where Laura was, but he knew she wasn’t where he was headed; but how could he not challenge Bookwalter on the claim he’d been making for so many months? How would Bookwalter possibly explain Laura’s non-presence when he got there? He had to be careful and told himself that from the moment he touched down he had to be in complete control of every element of contact. As soon as he found himself in a situation that was otherwise, he would be buying his own ticket home.

Bookwalter had not only offered to pick Leo up at the airport but to put him up at his home for the duration of his stay. Leo had declined saying that he would book into a hotel first and then telephone Bookwalter so they could arrange a mutually satisfactory meeting place. Bookwalter had made several recommendations for places to stay and again offered to foot the bill but Leo told him he would make his own arrangements.

Two hours to touchdown. The lights were out and most people were snoozing under their blankets. Leo was too uneasy and skittish to sleep. According to Bookwalter he would be able to see Laura in less than twenty-four hours.