The Depths of Solitude (17 page)
“Is he in hospital?”
“It was a nurse who called me,” Deacon replied, deadpan.
On the way back to his office Deacon finally remembered someone was waiting for him downstairs. He called the front desk to say he was free for a minute if they could make it quick.
“He gave up twenty minutes ago,” said Sergeant McKinney. “He said you were obviously busy and he’d catch you another time.”
Deacon wasn’t sorry. “Did he leave a name?”
“French,” said the duty sergeant. “Michael French.”
Where she was it was cold and dark and dank, reeking of time and rot. Her clothes were wet with it, slimy against her skin. Her hair hung in rat-tails around her face and she’d lost her shoes.
She didn’t know where she was and she wasn’t sure how she’d got here. The last thing she remembered clearly was being in her car with Geoffrey Harcourt. He’d had his bag across his knees and he’d gone to blow his nose. Only something unexpected happened. And now she was cold and leaden-limbed, and her head ached and felt like it didn’t belong to her and wasn’t her size. Which suggested … yes. He hadn’t felt a sneeze coming on. He’d pulled out a handkerchief soaked in chloroform and clamped it to her face, and her first startled gasp had drawn the gas deep into her lungs.
Sometime after that she was vaguely aware of movement - of being dragged around the way Paddy dragged Howard. She must have been at least half-conscious: enough that he didn’t have to carry her, not enough to have any idea where he’d brought her or how long it had taken or why it was so dark. Only in the last few minutes had her brain-cells started phoning round the neighbours and reached some sort of consensus as to what was going on.
Harcourt had pushed her across the car-seat and got behind the wheel. After driving for a time he hauled her from the car and steered her, staggering, in here. They walked some distance and it involved steps. Finally he let her slump in this corner. He fastened her wrists behind her and also to the wall, then he left. She had no way of
judging how long he’d been gone, couldn’t remember if he’d said he was coming back.
judging how long he’d been gone, couldn’t remember if he’d said he was coming back.
She tried to work out how long she’d been out of touch. If the darkness meant night it had been hours. But if it had been that long, she should have wandered longer in the twilight zone between sleep and waking. She thought she’d been fully conscious about ten minutes, and was perceptibly clearer now than at first. She didn’t think she’d been AWOL for hours.
So it wasn’t dark outside, just in here: not enough daylight penetrated to dissipate the cold and the damp. And by God it was cold – even with her coat on she was shivering. She might be underground – a cellar, an air-raid shelter, a sewer even. It smelled bad enough.
But as she strove to assess her situation calmly she realised that there was a minimal amount of light present: a hint of grey in the blackness that enveloped her, as if a few persistent photons got in here by bouncing around determinedly until they did. Which meant it wasn’t dark outside, and she hadn’t lost hours, and service to her brain had been suspended only temporarily.
This was good. It didn’t improve her situation but it did make her feel marginally more positive about it. Of course she was afraid: she wasn’t stupid. But with her brain back in business she knew she was capable of things no one ever expected. If she waited, clear-headed and patient, her chance would come and she’d be ready to take it.
Armed with the search warrant Deacon led his team to Warwick & Sons’ depot to carry out a detailed inspection of everything Michael French had left behind. The accumulated detritus of two people’s lives was packed into crates and piled in a corner module of the storage facility. Spread out it would cover the warehouse floor. Deacon
had brought extra people because he knew he hadn’t much time.
had brought extra people because he knew he hadn’t much time.
The only absentee, apart from Voss, was Detective Constable Winston who’d gone to the railway station. He phoned as Deacon supervised the unpacking.
“She was here, all right. About ten past one. She met a man and they went down the steps and got into her car.”
“Description?” said Deacon.
“Unremarkable,” said Winston.
“Slightly
fuller
description, Constable,” Deacon prompted tersely.
fuller
description, Constable,” Deacon prompted tersely.
“Sorry, sir, there isn’t one. A middle-aged man in a tweed jacket. Thickset, thinning on top. Aged anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five. A bit of a stoop. Someone thought he was distressed. Mrs Farrell went into the station, met the man at the phones and they left together.”
“In what direction?”
“Into the traffic,” said Winston wryly.
At least they knew where she’d gone when she left the shore. She’d collected a man from the station and driven him away in her car. It didn’t sound like an abduction.
So the abduction came later. Because come it had: abduction and wild horses were the only things that would have stopped her being at the school gates when Paddy came out.
A thickset, balding, stooped middle-aged man in a tweed jacket who seemed distressed. He didn’t sound much like an abductor. He didn’t sound much like Michael French, although Deacon’s recollection of the man remained vague.
But whether the man on the station was French or an accomplice, Deacon was now convinced that Brodie was in French’s hands. Assuming she was still alive. Strong fingers gripped his heart and kneaded.
But this wasn’t about Brodie, it was about him. About hurting him – punishing him for Millie’s death. French went to Battle Alley because he wanted to tell Deacon what he’d done and didn’t give a damn what happened after that. But he hadn’t waited. Why not? He was going to prison for most of the rest of his life – could he really begrudge an hour spent in a police station waiting room? No, his presence was required elsewhere. And Deacon didn’t see how that could be if Brodie was already dead.
He knew he could be kidding himself. He knew you can want something so much that any alternative seems impossible. But he couldn’t make sense of French coming to see him and then leaving because he was busy if he’d already accomplished everything he purposed. Maybe he did mean to kill her, but he hadn’t killed her yet.
He had to find French. He had to find out where French would go if he couldn’t go home.
“What exactly are we looking for?” asked PC Huxley. Everyone in the warehouse was thinking it, but Huxley had the immune system of a bull buffalo and never suffered from tact.
“We’re looking for a missing person,” Deacon told the room at large. “That means a secure place. Keys. Bills or other paperwork referring to premises other than River Drive. Correspondence. And photographs – I still need a good picture of Michael French. Not that picking him up is likely to be a problem,” he added bitterly, “the guy’s tried to turn himself in once already.”
But not now, he reflected in some confusion. An hour ago was fine, no doubt he’ll be back later, but right now isn’t good for him. Why not? What is it that changes?
A metallic clang away to her left warned Brodie she was no longer alone. Then she heard footsteps, and then that
rumour of light was eclipsed by a shaft of brilliance that made her flinch. Her belly tightened with fear.
rumour of light was eclipsed by a shaft of brilliance that made her flinch. Her belly tightened with fear.
A voice said cheerily, “I’m back. Listen, I have something to do outside. I won’t be a minute. Then we’ll have some tea. Well – milk and cake, actually, there’s no way to boil a kettle, but I don’t expect you’ll mind. You must be starving.”
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid. “No,” she said haughtily. As her eyes adjusted to the glare of his torch, for the first time she could see something of her surroundings. It wasn’t a room exactly, more a bay. The floor was covered with years of rubbish, wet-rotten. Behind him, lost in shadows, was a corridor of sorts. The way out.
“Nonsense,” he said briskly, “you’ve got to keep your strength up. I don’t want anyone thinking I mistreated you.”
“Whatever would give them that idea?” she snorted. Harcourt chuckled. She’d never heard him chuckle before. He came closer. “It’s a pity about all this. I like you, Mrs Farrell, I wish we could stay friends.”
“We were never friends, Geoffrey,” she said dismissively. “You were a client. I took your money in payment for my services and never gave you another thought. My friends cost me money on the whole, but they don’t lie to me, they don’t drug me and they don’t tie me up in damp cellars. You want a friend, Geoffrey, buy yourself a dog.”
Without the sad bear stoop, and now he’d stopped combing his hair to emphasise his bald spot, he looked ten years younger. That wasn’t the only change. “And you’re fairly getting on top of the agoraphobia, aren’t you?” she added sniffily.
Geoffrey Harcourt smiled – not the wry self-deprecating smile that was his trademark but something
altogether more confident. Physically he was as she had always known him. He was wearing the same tweedy brown clothes. But everything else about him – his manner, the way he moved, the way he spoke, the very space he occupied – was so different that if the circumstances had been more ambivalent she might not have recognised him. And the reason for that was, as she now realised, that he’d been playing a part for as long as she’d known him.
altogether more confident. Physically he was as she had always known him. He was wearing the same tweedy brown clothes. But everything else about him – his manner, the way he moved, the way he spoke, the very space he occupied – was so different that if the circumstances had been more ambivalent she might not have recognised him. And the reason for that was, as she now realised, that he’d been playing a part for as long as she’d known him.
“I owe you an apology,” he said calmly. “Well, several probably, but one in particular. I obtained your services under false pretences. I did suffer from agoraphobia once, for about three months, but that was years ago. Now I go anywhere I want. But I needed a reason to hire you. I had to make myself part of the furniture of your life. I needed you to think of me as harmless.”
“Until now,” said Brodie tautly.
“Until now,” he agreed. “How’s your head? I’m sorry about that, too. I thought you might get hurt if I had to wrestle you all the way here.”
“My head’s fine,” she growled, though there was still an odd thickness behind her eyes. “Where’s here?”
“A place I know,” he said off-handedly. “Somewhere we won’t be disturbed. It’s not exactly salubrious but you’ll be safe here.”
“Until?”
He didn’t understand. “Until what?”
“Until you knock me out again? With a shovel this time?”
She’d managed to wipe the smile off his face. “I won’t hit you.” He sounded a little offended that she’d wondered.
Her chin came up pugnaciously. “Then this is your idea of a love-nest. I don’t mean to be picky, Geoffrey, but shabby chic is so last year.”
He straightened, taken aback. “Mrs Farrell – I didn’t bring you here to
rape
you!”
rape
you!”
“So what does that leave? Ransom? My friends might pass a hat round, that’s about the best you can hope for.”
“No,” he said slowly, “I think your friends will care more than that. I think Jack Deacon will care far more than that.”
So Deacon had been right: he was the target all along. But why?
Why depended on who: who the man in front of her was. “I keep calling you Geoffrey,” Brodie said roughly, “but I don’t expect it’s your name. Who are you? What’s this all about?”
For a moment he regarded her without reply. He seemed to be weighing his options. Then he said, “My name is Michael French.”
She searched her memory but there was nothing there. “I don’t
know
you!” she exclaimed petulantly.
know
you!” she exclaimed petulantly.
“No, you don’t.” His voice had lost the irritating heartiness without resuming the hang-dog tones she associated with Harcourt. The transformation was complete. He was a different man: younger, stronger, more decisive and much more dangerous. “I will explain,” he promised. “But there’s something I have to do first. Otherwise we’re going to be eating our cake waist-high in water.”
When he came back French freed her left hand so Brodie could feed herself. If she’d seen half a chance to break free she’d have kneed him somewhere sensitive and taken it, because even if he caught her she’d never be more at his mercy than she was right now. But he knew better than to give her a chance. There was never a moment when both her hands were free. She might have hurt him but she could not have escaped. She bided her time, hoped an opportunity would come.
“So Geoffrey Harcourt wasn’t real. The man with the model in the Woodgreen estate wasn’t real either, was he? You gave me an address that would take me under that walkway, and I told you when I’d be there. You dropped the brick on me.”
French nodded. “I didn’t mean to hurt you – I was aiming for the back of your car. I was never any good at ball games either – no hand/eye co-ordination.”
“What were you trying to do when you burnt my car?”
“Funnily enough, that wasn’t me. I suppose it really was the local yobbos. You shouldn’t have gone back asking questions.
They
didn’t know it wasn’t one of their own they were protecting.”
They
didn’t know it wasn’t one of their own they were protecting.”
“My handbag?”
French gave a slow smile. “Yes. I followed you into town. I had coffee and croissants at the table behind you and you never even noticed.”
“Why did you want my handbag?”
“I didn’t. I wanted to unsettle you.”
“And it was you at the library. And in my house.”
“Yes,” said French again, “that was me.”
“You put my husband in hospital!”
“Ex-husband.” He said it as if it made a difference.
Brodie was getting angry enough to forget the danger she was in. “Will you tell me what it’s about? Or is keeping me in the dark part of the fun?”
French sliced the cake, keeping his knife out of her reach, and poured the milk into two plastic mugs. He looked up sombrely. “Believe me, Mrs Farrell, none of this is fun. But it is necessary. I owe it to someone.”
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