Those Who Feel Nothing (27 page)

‘Monique. I run this shop.'

Sexy French accent
and
petite. Jesus Christ – couldn't Gilchrist get a break?

‘I'm looking for a Charles Windsor.'

‘I don't know where he is,' Monique said.

‘This is his shop, though?' Gilchrist said.

‘It is but he's not involved day-to-day. To be honest, I can't remember the last time he was in here.'

‘But he's in the city.'

Monique shrugged. ‘I wouldn't know.'

‘I understand his boat is moored in the Marina,' Gilchrist said.

‘You know more than I do,' Monique said.

‘I understood its skipper was in here not long ago.'

The woman frowned. ‘Now how would you know that unless someone was spying on us? Is this linked to the visit by the police commissioner?'

‘This has nothing to do with him. Was the skipper in?'

‘No. Mr Windsor's assistant was.'

‘So Mr Windsor is around.'

Monique smiled. ‘The presence of his assistant does not necessarily indicate the presence of Mr Windsor.'

Gilchrist nodded slowly, looking around. ‘We have found a number of objects like this in the cellars of the Royal Pavilion.'

‘Really? How exciting.' Monique sounded sincere. ‘And you want Mr Windsor to authenticate?' She smiled. ‘Why didn't you just say that?'

Gilchrist gave a little smile. ‘Do you have an address for Mr Windsor?'

‘From what you say he may well be on his boat.'

‘If he isn't – and a phone number?'

‘No phone number. He has a house here in the Lanes though.'

‘I didn't know there were houses in the Lanes.'

The woman gestured around her. ‘This used to be one. His house is in that very narrow alley, Fitzwarren Wynd.'

Monique walked over to the desk. She held herself and moved like a dancer. Gracefully. Gilchrist wondered again whether the women she was meeting at the moment had clubbed together to make her feel lumpen and inelegant.

Monique handed her a business card. She had written Windsor's full address on the back.

‘Thanks,' Gilchrist said. ‘This assistant – is he around?'

‘I think he's on the boat,' Monique said. ‘That's your best bet.'

‘Do you have a number for him? And a name to go with it?'

Monique nodded. ‘Coming right up.'

‘The Chink?' Hornby said to Heap. ‘Used to rent a room here.'

‘Cambodian, actually. I wondered if I could look at his room?'

‘Nothing in there. When he buggered off I boxed everything up.'

‘Where's the box?'

Hornby looked at Heap.

‘Well, it's in the back yard.'

‘And how long ago did he vacate the room?'

‘A few months.'

‘Did he say why?'

Hornby scratched his chin. How much did the midget know? Did he know the Chink had just disappeared at a sensitive time in their negotiations?

‘Didn't say. Didn't say much though. His English wasn't that good, you know.'

Heap nodded and stepped to one side. ‘If I could take a look at the room?'

Hornby fiddled with his keys at the door, wondering if there was anything incriminating he'd left lying around. Well, not
incriminating
, more embarrassing. It wasn't right police could just turn up on your doorstep and demand entry.

He half-turned. ‘Shouldn't you have a warrant or something?' he said.

‘We're getting asked that a lot lately,' Heap said. ‘This is a missing persons inquiry, possibly a murder investigation, and it's the victim's room I want to see, not the whole house.'

Heap smiled up at Hornby. ‘Should we need to search the entire house, rest assured, we'll have the appropriate paperwork.'

Hornby huffed as he opened the door, recognizing the steel behind the polite words. He stepped straight into the living room, his eyes giving it a quick once-over. He'd left his computer on. He turned. ‘It's up the stairs at the front,' he said. ‘Help yourself.'

Heap didn't so much as glance at the living room, just kept his eyes on Hornby's face. He started up the stairs.

‘Watch your head – the ceilings are really low in these old cottages,' Hornby called. Adding: ‘Oh, but you're probably all right being the size you are.'

That'll teach the little sod, he thought, as he went over to his computer to turn it off. Not that he had any kiddy porn or anything like that on it – couldn't get his head round that paedophile stuff – but, well, he was a normal, healthy male … Plus, there was this other stuff he was working on.

With hindsight he should have just turned it off at the mains. But when he pressed down on the power button of the computer to kill it dead the screen lit up and a message in a rectangular box came up: ‘Are you sure you want to close down this computer?'

‘Yes, are you sure?' Heap said from behind Hornby, his voice low.

Hornby jumped and stepped to the side.

‘Sorry,' Heap said, giving an apologetic shrug. ‘Youk's room is locked. I came down for the key.' He pointed at Hornby's computer screen. ‘But why have you got what looks like a surveillance photograph of an FBI agent on your computer?'

B
ob Watts watched Sarah Gilchrist go into the antiques shop. He'd been checking his emails and had just received one from Christian Aid asking for donations for Syrian refugees fleeing the violence. All Christian Aid wanted was for you to text Syria2 to 70060 and donate £5.

Watts looked at the email address this had come from and sighed. Sure Christian Aid was using an email address whose sender was: duqqncpezcddkehffs.

This scum. There was no limit to how low those who felt nothing would stoop. He wasn't sure who was worse – those who inflicted horrible suffering on people or those who used this suffering to profit from people's good, naïve hearts. He figured they belonged in about the same circle of hell.

When Watts saw Gilchrist leave the shop he went to the door of the pub and waved her over. She had her phone glued to her ear but she ended the call as she reached him. She offered her hand to shake but he pulled her close and kissed her on her cheeks.

‘Don't start getting stupid,' he said in her ear. ‘We're friends, remember?'

‘Start getting stupid?' she said.

‘Continue, then,' he said. He stood to one side. ‘Come in and let me know what's going on.' He saw her look. ‘As your friend, not as the police commissioner.'

She ordered a sparkling water. He glanced at her but said nothing.

‘Bellamy is tied up somewhere and I really want to doorstep this Charles Windsor guy,' she said. She showed Watts the card.

‘I have his address.'

‘Use DS Donaldson?' Watts suggested.

She gave him a look.

‘I need a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.'

‘Well, I can come with you if you want.'

Gilchrist gulped down most of her drink. ‘I'm not sure I should go there with an Irregular.'

‘What's holding Bellamy up?'

‘He's being a bit vague but it's linked to a murder inquiry. A Cambodian boy.'

‘Well, that does sound linked to this,' Watts said. He drained his glass. ‘So do you want to do this?'

As they were leaving the pub, Watts said: ‘How was the skipper?'

‘He wasn't there.'

Watts stopped on the pavement.

‘Well, he never came out. I was watching.'

Gilchrist stopped beside him and thought for a moment.

‘Maybe he went down the rabbit hole,' she said. ‘Anyway, Monique said he wasn't the skipper, he was Windsor's assistant.'

She fished out the card.

‘Name of Klingman.'

Blake Hornby was seriously pissed off. He had a plan to get rich and this pint-sized policeman was getting in the way.

‘Where was the photograph taken?' Heap repeated.

‘I've told you – I can't remember. I take lots of photographs. It's one of my hobbies. With digital cameras you can go berserk.'

Heap shrugged. ‘Fair enough. So you don't know who it is either.'

‘Haven't a clue.'

Hornby kept his expression deliberately blank, aware that Heap's eyes never left his face.

‘So don't you want to look at that bloke's things?'

‘We'll see what forensics come up with,' Heap said. ‘I'll arrange for somebody to come round to collect his things later today – can you ensure that you're in?'

‘I have quite a few things to do today, actually.'

Heap leaned in. ‘Mr Hornby, I'm not entirely sure what you're up to but I'm pretty certain you're up to something. If I were you I'd regard cooperation with the police as my top priority.'

Little prick, Hornby thought. He wanted to smash his fist into the plod's smug face. For a moment he seriously contemplated doing it. Perhaps Heap saw it in his eyes because he stepped away.

‘We're investigating what might prove to be a murder here, Mr Hornby,' he said. ‘Best be careful how you act.'

The policeman's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. ‘I'll be going now, Mr Hornby. Think about what I said now.'

‘Of course, Officer. Will do, Officer.'

The cop tried to give Hornby a hard look but it didn't have any effect. The thing that was having an effect was the possibility he wouldn't be able to take his plan forward.

Heap let himself out but stopped in the garden and made a call. Hornby got as near to the window as he could without being seen but he couldn't hear anything. Heap mostly listened. When he ended the call he looked at his phone for a moment, clenching his jaw, then hurried out of the garden.

You drive down from Gatwick over the Downs, the rapeseed impossibly yellow either side of you. The light is steamy and it sends you right back to Cambodia and the way the green, green jungle trembled in the morning heat haze.

You come off the Downs on to the Ditchling Road. The road winds past the golf course and rises to the crest of a hill. You stop at the traffic lights there. You look down at Brighton spread out below you, the sea glittering beyond it, a ferry from Newhaven on the horizon heading for France. You feel that something is soon to be resolved. One way or the other.

The front door was inset into a long, blank, dark brick wall. There was a stale smell of urine as Watts and Gilchrist entered the alley but the door wasn't set far enough in for people to relieve themselves against it.

The door was unexceptional, with only one big lock. It was painted black but the paint was scuffed and graffiti had been badly removed.

Watts rang the bell and the lock was released with a click. Gilchrist looked up and saw the glitter of a tiny lens pointing down from the corner of the stone lintel.

Watts led the way into a small, low ceilinged, dimly lit foyer, bare of furniture. Another black door two steps up and ahead of them. Another camera in the angle between wall and ceiling.

They heard another click and this time Gilchrist pushed open the door and led the way into a tiled second foyer with a low rack on the left wall.

‘Please take your shoes off and put them on the rack,' a disembodied male voice said.

Watts complied. Gilchrist hesitated. She was wearing pop-socks underneath her boots and didn't think that look without boots did anything for her. Plus her nail varnish on her toes was chipped if she took the pop-socks off. Plus she was self-conscious about her feet after teenage years cramming her toes into too small, too tight shoes. She disliked Charles Windsor already.

She was expecting a white carpet to justify the shoeless state but when she stepped through the archway into the house proper it was on to bare wood: long wide planks of seasoned pine. She disliked him even more.

‘Impressive,' Watts muttered.

They stepped into a large atrium with balconies on two levels running round all four walls and rooms leading off it on every side. In the centre of the room lilies floated on a rectangle of water in a shaft of light from the glazed roof far above.

A haze of incense drifted across the light shaft, its smell strong in the room.

Gilchrist was thinking this secret house must occupy the entire block behind the shops on the other three sides of the alley.

High up on the walls were semi-shuttered windows. Some soothing drone-like music wafted from an unseen source. It reminded Gilchrist of a posh spa she'd splashed out on once. Except that in place of massage beds and recliners lining the walls there were full-sized stone statues with seraphic smiles, hung with jewellery.

‘It's a museum,' Watts whispered, looking from side to side in the dim light. There were artefacts on stands and pedestals, glass cases filled with smaller objects. They were all spot-lit from above, casting long shadows down the faces.

A tall, broad-shouldered man emerged from the gloom at the far end of the room. He stepped into the shaft of light. It made his shock of white hair look like a halo around his head. His face was ruddy. He wore a black, oriental-looking silk jacket with toggles for buttons and loose black trousers. There were gold bangles on both his wrists.

He walked a little stiffly over to a stone statue, standing guard over the pool. He made a small gesture.

‘All Khmer sculpture was lit from above when in situ.' His voice was gravelly, smoke-damaged. It wasn't the voice on the intercom. ‘It emphasized the shadows under the nose and mouth and over the pectorals, giving them definition.'

He gestured for them to come closer.

‘Beautiful objects,' Watts said.

The man seemed to appraise the room.

‘The pieces are the best of their kind. That Chinese horse, the Indian Chola bronze of Rama. Those bronze bells are older than the Khmer. Second century, actually. The lingam and yoni are pre-Angkor too.' He pointed. ‘That finial for a palanquin is twelfth century.'