White corridor (17 page)

29

CONNECTION

Janice Longbright had asked everyone else to leave the room. Once the door closed, she turned down the light a little and sat beside Owen Mills. She knew that he would only ever view her as the enemy, even if he had done nothing wrong. Sometimes, though, it was possible to lower the barriers set in place by age, race, gender, and authority just a little, enough to allow common gestures of grace to pass between two lives.

‘Owen, I want to talk to you, not because my job demands it, but because I want to understand a little more. It’s hard to imagine this as neutral territory, isn’t it?’ She looked up at the glaring light panels. ‘I hate this room as much as you do. Probably more, because I see it nearly every day. God, it’s depressing in here.’ She moved a little closer. ‘Seeing that we have to talk, would you rather be somewhere else?’

‘Whatever. The quicker I can get away.’ He threw her a sullen glare.

‘Let’s see how we get on. I can wrap this up more quickly if you give me an answer. Silence implies guilt, you know? At least if we talk, we can clear the air. How did you come to meet Lilith Starr?’

‘Saw her around on the estate.’

‘You probably see a lot of people on the estate, but you don’t have to talk to them. What made you choose her?’

Silence. Mills folded his arms defensively. Longbright narrowed her eyes, thinking. ‘You asked her out?’

Nothing.

‘You dated her?’

‘
Dated
. What is that?’

‘All right then,
went out with
. You went out with her.’ She stopped and watched him. ‘You were still going out with Lilith Starr.’

Silence, she saw, was starting to mean yes.

‘How long have you been going out with her?’

Downcast eyes. A sigh, a refolding of the arms. ‘Seven, maybe eight months.’

‘You still at school?’

‘They got nothing to teach me.’

‘You went to St Michael’s, Camden? I’ve been there a few times. Can’t say I’d blame you for leaving. A real dump.’ The room had grown cold. April brought them take-out coffees. Beneath his padded nylon sweats, Owen was small. He had the look of a boy who had been teased, then bullied and finally ostracised by those around him in class. In Camden, kids sometimes killed each other for living in the wrong postcodes. ‘I guess you and Lilith looked out for each other. A private thing. We all need someone who’ll do that, Owen. The streets can be pretty bad, especially in winter. Did you think she was going to stay out all night on Monday?’

‘No, man, she had a crib. The place was fine.’

‘So it came as a surprise when she didn’t return.’

No answer.

‘She had a tattoo removed. Didn’t she like it anymore?’

‘No.’ Emphatic.

‘What was it, the name of an old boyfriend?’

No answer.

‘I was thinking of getting one once, a picture of Sabrina—an English glamour model from the fifties with a tiny waist and a big bust, you won’t have heard of her. I changed my mind when I discovered that her real name was Norma Ann Sykes.’

‘
Bust
. You use weird words.’

‘Everyone needs to find the language they’re comfortable with, Owen. I haven’t seen this removed tattoo, but apparently it’s a real mess. How did she get rid of it?’

‘Cut it off with a penknife. The tattoo guy wanted too much to take care of it.’

‘When did she do that?’

‘Soon after I met her.’

‘Was it because of you? Did you ask her to do it?’

No answer.

‘Where did she go to get it done? That place in the market?’ Janice looked up at the ceiling, thinking. ‘Lilith Starr. If I was planning a career in show business, it’s the kind of name I’d pick. What made her choose that one?’

‘I’m not telling you anything more about her. You didn’t know her.’

Longbright kept her voice soft and low. ‘I know she went out last night meaning to come straight back, then maybe met a couple of friends, maybe had a drink, got a little high, got wasted, forgot the time. She suddenly felt tired, arms and legs really heavy, dragging at her so she just wanted to rest, and sat down to get her breath back for a moment, but the night turned really cold. She meant to get up, knew you were waiting, didn’t want to let you down, just five more minutes, you were already looking for her, but by then it was too late. Five minutes made all the difference between living and dying. You could have saved her if she’d let you, you’re really angry that she could have been so damned dumb. Five minutes to save a life, who wouldn’t be angry? It had happened before, her staying late somewhere, but this time was different. She wanted to chill and she really
chilled,
so much that she died. The whole thing could have been avoided. Just bad circumstances.’ She looked across and saw a silver thread on his cheek.

‘Finish your coffee, Owen,’ she said gently. ‘I’m going to let you go home soon. I hope this doesn’t have to go any further. You’ve been through enough, kid.’

It seemed that, whether they liked it or not, Colin Bimsley and Meera Mangeshkar were destined to be yoked together during their hours of work, even out of the office. Colin thought they should make the best of it and at least try to get on, but Meera was still fighting him every step of the way.

As they walked along the balcony checking door numbers, she found herself fascinated by her partner’s inability to pass plant pots or bicycles without tripping or becoming entangled. He was so determined to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a detective that the natural barrier of sheer inability seemed to elude him.

Banbury’s photograph of Lilith Starr had come through to Bimsley’s mobile. The picture showed a puffy-faced girl with fiery red hair, a rather flat nose and small eyes, pouted lips and a formative double chin. She reminded the DC of Marilyn Monroe’s morgue shot. Photographs of the dead were never flattering; as the muscles relaxed, gravity dragged at the face to produce alarming effects. Neither of them was sure why Bryant and May had been so keen to get the photo sent.

‘Number seventeen is just here,’ Bimsley called, stopping before a council red door with a chipboard square fixed across a missing glass panel. ‘Looks as if she was squatting.’

He prised the loose wood from the window and reached in, opening the door. The flat was clean and bare, with strings of red plastic Christmas lights taped around the edges of the ceilings. The kitchen held a portable electric ring and an ancient microwave oven. A grubby sleeping bag and a chair covered in bright polyester undergarments indicated the bedroom. The few pieces of furniture looked as if they had been scavenged from the street, but several—a bedside stand, a sofa unit, a coffee table—had been amateurishly restored to good condition. What was missing was any clue to the identity of the squatter.

‘There must be something here,’ said Meera, wrenching open a wardrobe door and pulling tiny T-shirts aside. ‘Everybody leaves a few signs behind.’

‘Be careful with her belongings,’ warned Colin. ‘She took the trouble to press her clothes and hang them up.’

‘She’s dead, Colin; she doesn’t care what happens to this stuff anymore.’ She kicked aside a pair of worn high-heeled boots and rooted about in the back of the wardrobe. ‘Nothing of any value here. There never is. White-trash clothes and junk jewellery. Crack whores will try to sell their family photo albums for drug money.’

‘You have a pretty ugly view of people, you know that?’

‘I don’t go around with my head in the clouds, if that’s what you mean. Last summer, over in Parkway above the Adidas shop, two junkies kept an old woman tied to a bed for three weeks while they systematically emptied out her bank account and tortured her to death. When she was gone, they put her body in a bin bag and threw it into the Regent’s Canal. You think my view of them should be something other than ugly?’

‘It’s just that we don’t know anything about this girl, except that she probably split from home and came here nine months ago. Looks like she tried to keep this place decent.’

‘She’d need to, if she was turning tricks on the premises.’ Meera spoke over her shoulder while she was trying the second bedroom door. The Alsatian mongrel that leapt out had been maddened by starvation and confinement. Mangeshkar yelled in surprise as the dog sprayed spittle, twisting its head to bite her throat, knocking her to the floor.

In the next second Bimsley reached the animal, forcing his elbow into its jaw, bringing his other arm around to grip it in a headlock. ‘Hold the door open,’ he shouted, lifting the thrashing animal from its feet. ‘Then get out of the way.’

He struggled along the hall and hurled the Alsatian onto the balcony, where it regained its feet and charged the front door, but was unable to reach them through the narrow gap.

Bimsley returned to the bedroom and pulled Meera to her feet, checking her neck and face. ‘You all right?’

‘A bit shaken, that’s all.’ She brushed herself down and looked at him. ‘How’s your arm?’

Bimsley checked his elbow. ‘I’m good. Padded jacket, no broken skin.’

‘I guess she locked it in there before she went out.’

‘Someone will remember the dog even if they don’t know her.’

‘I suppose I should thank you.’

‘You don’t have to. What’s that?’

Mangeshkar had knocked the sofa back as the Alsatian bowled her over. She held up the library book revealed beneath it. ‘
Women Who Can’t Stay Faithful,
by Felicity Bronwin. Lilith Starr was into self-help books. Incredible how people can delude themselves.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Colin, she overdosed in a shop doorway. She had bigger problems than staying faithful.’ Meera threw the paperback onto the sofa. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Wait.’ Bimsley picked up the book and stared at the back cover, turning it around for Meera to see. ‘The author’s shot looks a lot like her, don’t you think? Family resemblance?’ He took out his mobile and thumbed open the image of Lilith Starr in the morgue. In death it had become almost identical to the photograph on the book. ‘Looks to me like Felicity Bronwin might be her mother. This is probably why she changed her name.’

It was one-fifteen on Wednesday morning, and DS Janice Longbright was fighting to stay awake. She had drunk two Red Bulls and a Starbucks grande latte with an extra syrupy shot, but her eyelids were succumbing to forces beyond her control. She would sleep on John May’s couch tonight, but not until she had written up notes of the day’s events, something Arthur Bryant always insisted upon doing before going home.

She was puzzled by Owen Mills.

The boy had finally admitted that yes, Lilith Starr was his official girlfriend, and that they had argued the previous night. She had left his flat a little after four
A.M.
, heading for Camden High Street, where she expected to score hash and cocaine. When she had failed to return, Mills had walked over to the spot on the south side of the canal bridge, at the entrance to Inverness Street Market, knowing that dealers always congregated there. After wandering around the area for what seemed like hours, he had finally found her lying in the doorway. He didn’t think she was breathing, couldn’t find a pulse, so he called the emergency services, refusing to give his name, and watched from the opposite corner while a constable checked her out, then had her loaded into an ambulance.

He knew she was dead because the ambulance had driven away in silence, without its lights or siren. And he knew that she’d be taken to the Royal Free or UCH, because those were the two hospitals where all A&E cases were taken. But he’d called both, and nobody in admissions had checked her in. So then he had called the morgue at Bayham Street, because she wasn’t the first dead junkie he had seen removed from the pavements of Camden Town.

Longbright had looked into his wide brown eyes and seen a strong intelligence cloaked with a mistrustful attitude. She had no reason to disbelieve his story, but felt sure there was something that he had decided not to tell her about their relationship. She thought back to their final exchange about his visit to Oswald Finch, just before she allowed Owen to leave the PCU.

‘I didn’t argue with him, didn’t hurt him. I didn’t know him, hadn’t ever seen him before. He was okay about letting me see her. Unzipped the body bag, explained why she died. He showed me the notes he was writing. I must have put my hand on them, and the ink came off. He was using this old pen. But I swear I didn’t take them. I was there five minutes, that’s all.’

‘You wanted something to remember her by,’ said Longbright. ‘You took the neck chain. Can I see it?’

Owen had clutched the chain tight to his throat. ‘It’s all I got of her now.’

She knew she should have persisted, keeping him longer at the unit, but the PCU made its own rules, and those were set by the two old men she had always relied upon to make all her decisions.

Now, until they were safely back in London, the responsibility for everything that happened in the following hours would rest with her.

30

HUNTERS

‘We have to warn everyone who’s still stranded,’ said Bryant. ‘He could attack anyone.’

‘How do you propose we manage to do that?’ snapped May. ‘We don’t even have any proper shoes. I haven’t been this cold since I fell off the pier in Cole Bay when I was twelve. I can’t feel my buttocks. Even my teeth are cold. It’s below zero and the wind is strong enough to knock you off your feet—God knows you’re not steady at the best of times. You think you’re going to wade through the drifts banging on car windows shouting “There’s a killer loose”? All we can do is report the death and wait for someone to turn up. Have you any idea what’s going on in other parts of the county? There are sixty people trapped in a supermarket in Canterbury because the roof has collapsed under the weight of snow. We’re not going to get priority. This sort of thing happens almost every year on the moor.’

He looked across at his partner and softened. Bryant’s white fringe was now sticking up around his ears in stiffened tufts, like stalagmites. His watery blue eyes peered up at him above his travel blanket. ‘Try to get some sleep, at least until it’s light. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning.’

They awoke into a strange new world of opalescent whiteness. The sky was a vulgar shade of heliotrope that reminded May of a Maxfield Parrish painting. The undulating snow dunes were as shiny as vinyl, and extended to the tips of the lowest trees. The road had been transformed into a sparkling white canyon. Some vehicles had been twisted and tipped by the snowpack that had shifted down from the surrounding moors.

Bryant peered sleepily out from his blanket. ‘What time is it? My back’s killing me. I feel like I slept on a bag of spanners.’

‘Seven-fifteen,’ said May. ‘I’ve just spoken to the Highways Authority emergency services. They’re hoping to get a supply helicopter out this morning if the wind speed stays low. Do you want something to eat?’

‘No. I need to venture outside and perform my ablutions, but the thought of lowering my trousers in these temperatures is a trifle unappealing. Give me a minute, then let’s get into the back of the van and see if there’s anything in there that can help us.’

When he returned, they dragged open the great canvas bags that Alma and Arthur had wedged behind the props and flats for the convention performance, and checked their contents.

‘What kind of a show were you planning to stage?’ asked May, pulling out a grotesque crimson papier-mâché devil’s head with an ax in its skull and bloody eyeballs on springs.

‘They’re not just our props. There are all kinds of activities taking place throughout the convention. I agreed to take down equipment for other attendees. There are lots of indoor and outdoor events planned, ceramics, divination and crystal healing, bungee jumps, potholing, all kinds of extreme—’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve got equipment bags for potholers here. Where are they?’ May pulled at an immense backpack covered in Hello Kitty stickers and opened it, releasing a pile of blue nylon all-weather suits covered in pockets.

‘They belong to the Women’s North Wales Adventure Team,’ said Bryant, ‘but they’re pretty big lasses, so we could probably fit them, although the flies do up on the wrong side.’

In minutes, the pair had zipped themselves into ungainly but practical outfits, although they had been forced to roll up the legs and stuff spare socks into the toes of the boots. They clambered from the truck like spacemen, and stopped to examine the road. Snow was still falling, but now the flurries were light and manageable. The exact number of stranded vehicles was hard to determine, but the jewelled spine of traffic snaked around the next bend in the valley like the bones of a great dinosaur.

‘Let’s start with the cars nearest the spot where we found the dead Bentick’s driver,’ said May, hauling his floundering partner out of a deep drift. They reached the abandoned truck, but were unable to open the frozen door. Scraping ice from the window, May saw that the body had frozen solid. ‘At least the temperature will preserve it until we can get it to a morgue,’ he said. ‘I think our murderer must have gone back. I haven’t seen anyone pass us. No sign of the witness either, and we’ll need his statement. Let’s start with the cars behind.’

They approached a blue Nissan and scraped at the window. ‘Empty,’ said Bryant. ‘Next one.’

A black BMW and a red Fiat were both abandoned, but in a silver Mercedes saloon they found a young couple fast asleep, warm and safe beneath all-weather jackets. A straggle-haired businessman still dressed in a tightly knotted tie mouthed at them through the window of his Vauxhall Signum, indicating that he could not open the door. May ran the edge of his penknife around the edges, but it made no difference. Ice had frozen the wet seals as firmly as if they had been welded shut.

‘What’s he saying?’ asked May, trying to read the driver’s lips.

‘He’s from Kettering,’ said Bryant.

‘I’m in catering,’ said the driver, opening the window an inch before it stuck. ‘I’ve got plenty of food to last, so don’t worry about me. The same thing happened two years ago. To be honest, it made a nice break from the wife. You might take an Eccles cake back to the lady behind me. It’s all I can pass through the window.’ He slid the cake through the gap. ‘She looks very upset.’

The detectives trudged farther back. A grey-faced woman in a green Barbour jacket watched them anxiously. The door of her Volvo saloon was iced shut, but she could open one of the rear passenger windows. ‘We’re police officers,’ Bryant explained, tapping the glass. ‘Don’t open this to anyone else. Have an Eccles cake. Do you need anything else?’

She shook her head miserably. ‘I’ve been listening to the radio. There are people much worse off than me. I manage a farm outside Holbeton. My husband knows I’m here. There was a man outside a while ago, just after dawn. He tried to get in, but couldn’t open the door.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘I’m sorry, it was dark and snowing, I really didn’t see.’

‘At least the ice is preventing him from entering other cars,’ said Bryant as they made slow progress up the hill.

‘He’ll be able to get into trucks, though. Their cabins are built to withstand extreme weather.’

‘If this fellow knows there was a witness, that Chinese chap will be at risk. I wish he’d stayed with us. Any one of these stranded motorists could be the person we’re looking for.’

‘Given the circumstances, he’ll be hiding in plain sight. My concern is over our situation here. There’s no backup, no threat of legal retribution we can invoke. The man we seek will probably be younger and fitter than us.’

‘My dear chap,’ said Bryant, ‘
everyone
is younger and fitter than us. What have we got on our side? Decrepitude, mid-afternoon narcoleptic attacks and ill-timed lapses of memory. Although being the oldest, I am of course less afraid of dying and therefore liable to do anything, no matter how uncalled-for and dangerous.’

May eyed him warily. ‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘Now, we need to enlist some aid and organise a search. There are plenty of others trapped out here. It’s no use just waiting for the authorities to turn up. Let’s do what we’ve always done at the PCU, and get some civilians to help us.’

A quarter of a mile from the detectives, in the half-buried Vauxhall van, Madeline’s thoughts were also turning to her nemesis.
He took me to the huntsman’s villa in the hills,
she remembered, standing watch over Ryan while he peed circular traces in the snowdrift beside the car.
He knew its owner was lying dead on the floor. Why would he have taken such a risk?
‘Finished?’ she asked aloud. ‘Let’s get back inside.’

‘Can’t I play for a while?’ Ryan peered up at her over the folds of his scarf.

‘No, it’s not safe. In you go.’

‘All this snow and I can’t build a snowman—what else is it good for, anyway?’

It keeps us trapped here,
she thought.
He’s from a village in the mountains; he knows how to get around in weather like this
.

‘I’m hungry,’ said Ryan. ‘How much longer are we going to be here?’

‘It won’t be long now.’ The van and its engine were frozen into a single solid, but their combined body heat, together with the warmth from an extra blanket they had discovered under the rear passenger seat, had guaranteed their survival. There were patches of brilliant blue in the sky, and although the wind still seemed high it felt milder than the previous day. She could hear trees creaking and dripping. Perhaps Johann had decided to leave them alone, and had struck out in the direction of the nearest town. Perhaps the worst was over.

The envelope with the passport and the photographs lay on the floor of the van, behind her legs. This time, she knew, she would do the right thing, and have him stopped before he could hurt anyone else. She laid her head back against the seat rest and closed her eyes, just for a moment, not meaning to fall asleep.

Johann’s leg still hurt, and the icy wind bit deeply into his chest and thighs, numbing them further. He had slept the night in an abandoned carpenter’s van which had, at least, supplied him with some useful tools, but he needed to find weatherproof clothes. This, he felt, was to be his greatest test, a battle fought with the demons that had pursued him all his life, the same demons that pursue all lonely men.
If I can’t convince her to see the truth, I have nothing left,
he thought.
I know no-one else in this terrible country. She has to be here somewhere. All these cars look the same now. She even has nature working on her side
.

He could see drivers hunched across their seats, vague organic shapes huddled down in positions of protection, barely recognisable as human beings. They had been reduced to rudimentary life-forms with the most basic requirements: shelter, food, warmth. The adverse conditions could work in his favour, he decided. He was free to rise above them, to prove his fitness and strength, against them all.

He knew that Madeline would never come back to him; that was no longer the issue. Part of her had retreated too far to be reached. He had behaved stupidly, impulsively, and saw nothing but uncomprehending hatred and the madness of maternal protection in her eyes. He would make her understand, then take back the packet and go on his way, lose himself in the empty coastal towns, never returning to the fierce light of Southern France, where he would be forced to exist as a failure beneath God’s ever-watchful gaze.

He seated the carpenter’s tools more firmly in his back pocket and trudged on, searching each of the vehicles in turn. He felt he was close; the corridor of snow had locked them in at either end of the stretch of road. He could escape across the moor, hoping that the break in the weather held. In the mountains of his childhood, storms could arrive within seconds, trapping unwary climbers. He had watched clouds roll over the cliffs like the fallout from some great explosion. Was it the same here, in these deceptive woodlands? And the people; he had always considered the residents of the Alpes-Maritimes to be a suspicious, private people, but they were nothing compared to these faceless shapes sealed in their cars. What would it take to prise Madeline from her hiding place?