IMPERFECTION

by Ray Clark

  “It’s in the cab, any chance you can let go?”

  Gardener did so. The driver wasn’t a threat, and he’d established that it wasn’t Corndell. He handed over his ID for inspection.

  “Tell me about the parcel.”

  “Nothing to tell,” said the driver.

  “Don’t mess me about, otherwise I’ll arrest you for conspiracy to murder and have you inside so fast you’ll break the four-minute-mile by at least half. Now start talking.”

  “Look. I haven’t killed anyone, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyone in my position on my shitty salary would have done exactly the same.” Barlow pulled his shirt back into place – as if it suddenly mattered – and sat on the step of his van.

  “Done what?”

  “I just did what he told me to. A couple of hours ago, a bloke asked me if I wanted to earn a few quid. I asked how much, he said five hundred pounds, in cash, and he had it in his hand. I asked him who he wanted me to kill, and all he said was he wanted a parcel delivering to this address, and asked if it was on my rounds. I said, for five hundred quid I didn’t care if it was on the moon. For five hundred quid I’d take it.”

  “Where were you when he asked?”

  “Horsforth.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Briggs had called Gardener five times while Reilly drove through the centre of Leeds and finally out on to the road that led them to Churchaven. The phone remained unanswered.

  Reilly eventually brought the car to a halt on Gardener’s drive, noticing there were no other vehicles. Reilly knocked on the front door and walked in. Briggs followed Reilly into the kitchen, where they found a puzzled Malcolm staring at two teacups and a pot of cold tea.

  Startled, Malcolm nodded and greeted both men.

  “Have you seen, Stewart?” Reilly asked.

  “No, but he must have been here at some point. Look at this lot.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Only next door. I was in the potting shed when Harry popped round and said he’d just brewed up, so I went for a cup.”

  “And you haven’t seen or heard from him?” asked Briggs.

  “No. Is something wrong?”

  “We’re not sure,” replied Briggs. They all sat at the kitchen table, and Briggs briefly told them that he’d removed Gardener from the case and that shortly afterwards they had taken a call from him with some important information, which led to another corpse.

  “Maybe we should ring him,” suggested Reilly, fishing in his pocket for his mobile. “Shit, I’ve done it again, the bloody thing’s still in the car.”

  “It’s okay, Sean, I’ll ring,” said Briggs.

  “You ring. I’ll get my phone.”

  As Reilly came back in, he saw Briggs and Malcolm rushing round the living room trying to locate the ring tone from Gardener’s mobile. They eventually found it down the side of a chair.

  “Something’s wrong,” said Reilly. “Cold tea on a kitchen worktop and his phone stuffed down the side of a chair. He left here in a hurry.”

  “So, where’s he gone, and why?” asked Briggs. “And why was it so important that he had to leave without calling us?”

  “Christ! Would you look at that? My phone’s not even switched on, so it isn’t.” As soon as it was, Reilly had a voicemail message. He listened intently.

  “Is it your boss?” Briggs asked.

  “No. Laura. Her car’s broken down. But she hasn’t said where, just that she’s phoned the recovery people.”

  “Is she okay?” asked Malcolm.

  “I’ll give her a ring at home, she should be there by now.” Briggs’ concerned expression did little to abate the feeling in Reilly’s mind. The Irishman disconnected after ten rings.

  “No answer?” asked Briggs.

  “No.”

  He called her mobile. On the third ring, a male voice answered. “Erik speaking.”

  “Erik!” repeated Reilly. “Who the feck is Erik?”

  “Oh, Mr Reilly... I’m sure you know the answer to that by now.”

  The connection died. Reilly tried again but the phone had been switched off.

  “Erik?” Briggs asked.

  “Corndell!” Reilly threw the phone on the chair. It landed next to Gardener’s. “That bastard has Laura somewhere.”

  “Why Erik?” asked Briggs. “Who does he think he is now?”

  “I suspect he thinks he’s the Phantom,” said Malcolm. “From the film.”

  “Oh Jesus!” replied Briggs.

  “Who he is or who he thinks he is, doesn’t matter,” said Reilly. “Where he is, that’s what I want to know. When I find out, I’m going to kill him.”

  Reilly’s temper scaled new heights, his fists clenching and unclenching. As far as he was concerned, Corndell had signed his own death warrant.

  “Calm down, Sean,” said Briggs. “Losing your temper won’t help Laura.”

  “Won’t help Corndell either, when I find him. So, where the hell is Stewart?” asked Reilly. “He must know something, which is why he’s left here without telling anyone. He hasn’t even left a note. That means he was in a hurry.”

  Reilly hoped so, because the only thing that would stop him wiping Corndell from the face of the earth was if his partner found him first.

  Briggs phoned and informed the station before putting his mobile in his pocket. “I think I know where they might be.”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Gardener parked the car and switched off the engine. He remained in the vehicle, studying the building opposite: what was thought to be a disused warehouse. He now knew better. In the sodium glow of the streetlamps it resembled the mausoleum he imagined it would be inside. The sky was clear, and he noticed the start of a slight ground frost.

  After the disagreement with the UPS driver, Gardener had gone back inside the house and forced himself to remain calm. It was the only way he was going to think rationally. It was obvious who had paid the driver five hundred pounds to deliver the package containing a clue as to whom he held hostage. But it didn’t tell him where.

  For that, he had to rely on his police instinct and his memory. The warehouse behind the Playhouse was where the watch committee had held their screenings, the very same group of people that had banned William Henry Corndell’s film Imperfection. That’s where he had to be.

  He’d phoned the station to find out that Reilly and Briggs had gone to see Trevor Thorpe, after which they were going to Corndell’s with an arrest warrant. Gardener figured they would have been far too late.

  In the car, he glanced at the parcel he’d received and removed the photo and the newspaper clipping. The photo was of Laura. The clipping was the damning review she had written about Corndell’s performance at the university theatre. So, it was pretty obvious that he had Laura in there. And during the time that Gardener had spent with Fettle, Corndell had probably taken his father. So, God knows what he was going to walk into.

  Glancing at the dashboard clock, it was six-fifteen. He knew that he shouldn’t walk in there alone, but calling for backup could waste vital time. Nevertheless, he owed Sean that much.

  Reaching into his jacket pocket revealed he did not have his mobile. In that instinctive moment of panic he tried every pocket he had, before reaching into the glove compartment, even though he knew it wouldn’t be there.

  A picture suddenly came to mind: he had thrown the phone on to an armchair before he’d gone to see who was at the door. He obviously hadn’t retrieved it. So now he had no choice but to walk blindly into the situation alone – seeing as public phone boxes were a thing of the past.

  Annoyed with himself, Gardener stepped out of the car and locked the door. He saw little point in scurrying over to the warehouse. Knowing what he knew about Corndell and how security conscious he was, there would most definitely be CCTV watching his every move.

  He confidently strolled to the building and opened the side door next to a roller shutter door. It was unlocked.
As he thought, he was expected.

  * * *

  The first thing he noticed about the inside of the warehouse was the clinical silence. Standing still, he could hear absolutely nothing. That made things worse, because he would almost certainly telegraph his moves.

  Glancing around, he saw what he presumed was the missing limo, and the large white truck parked in front of a corridor with rooms either side. As he crept forward and glanced in, the first office had a computer terminal and monitor, which was on stand-by. There was also a variety of other electrical equipment including, as he’d suspected, CCTV. As the screens revealed, it was also linked to Corndell’s house.

  Opposite that office was another. Standing on a tripod was a movie camera. The room had plain, bland walls, with a chair in front of one of them. There was no carpet. Gardener suspected it was the room where Corndell had donned his Inspector Burke make-up, filming the small clue he had left them.

  Further down the corridor Gardener sensed a strong odour of leather before he came to the last two rooms. On the left, a small kitchen; on the right, a complete replica of the room in Corndell’s house, featuring mannequins and mirrors and benches. A number of shelves were crammed with tubes and bottles of make-up.

  Gardener walked inside and inspected the costumes. The Hunchback from the night at the theatre was there, complete with blood spatter patterns. The vampire costume Chaney wore in London After Midnight was also present, and it too had blood spatter. It was obvious now how Corndell had managed to do all he had without being caught. The warehouse was his centre of operations, not his house.

  Outside the room he glanced to his right. A curtain blocked entry into the main warehouse. He waved it aside and stepped through, into another world. The view was magnificent, one to make Hollywood sit up and take notice.

  Straight ahead was a French street scene reminiscent of yesteryear. The ground was covered in a fine layer of dust. Two circular pavements around ten feet in diameter had been constructed on either side, each with old-fashioned gas lamps. The street continued toward a brick pavement, where he noticed more traditional lamps. A swirling mist hung around the lamps.

  Gardener’s heart raced when he suddenly realised that hanging from those traditional lamps were a number of bodies. All were perfectly still, as if they had been in the building some time. Despite that, he ran forward to test the pulse of the first. As soon as he grabbed the wrist, it came away in his hand and Gardener breathed a sigh of relief as he realized they were mannequins. He checked two more with the same result.

  Turning to study the remainder of the area, he realised that the warehouse roof had been raised in order to accommodate the showpiece, a huge gothic building that had been backlit very carefully in order to create an eerie ambience, particularly as the façade had been constructed with cylindrical columns and arches. A series of steps led up to a number of doors, each with a wire grille front save one. A glass dome sat on the roof of the building, and on each corner were a number of angels glancing in different directions.

  Before he had any further chance to think about what to do, a spotlight lit up one of the arches. Approximately twenty feet high, standing in one of them was Corndell, as far as Gardener could ascertain. “At last, Mr Gardener.”

  The voice confirmed it all. He suspected a hidden microphone. Even at that distance it was crisp and concise. Gardener walked slowly forward as Corndell launched into his running commentary.

  “The Paris Opera House is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, Mr Gardener. It contains levels beyond levels of cellars, fountains, chandeliers – the history of which is very dark and very interesting. It even has its own ghost!”

  It’s talking to me, thought Gardener, with little idea what he was going to do, or in fact what he was going to say once he was up close. All he did know was that he was at an extreme disadvantage from the positions they were in.

  Corndell continued unabated. “Part of the mystique of the opera house, Mr Gardener, is the levels that it inhabits underground. There are chorus rooms, green rooms, ballrooms, set rooms, cellars for props, closets, dressing rooms, and many more kinds of rooms making up the building. The underground levels contain all sorts of gruesome objects from various operas that have been produced. Of course, my replica is nowhere near as prolific, but it does contain a nasty surprise for you.”

  Gardener had reached the steps leading up to the only entrance door available. He had a much better view of Corndell, and the character he was playing, the Phantom. Even from where he was standing, the attention to detail was so intricate that Gardener felt lost for words.

  Corndell’s head was little more than a skull with an up-tilted nose. The dark shading around his eyes gave them a hollow-eyed expression, emphasised even more by the line of colour under the lower eyelashes. And his ears seemed flattened against the sides of the skull, so much so that at first glance, he didn’t appear to have any. His face was very pale and the head itself bore very little hair save a few fine strands. Gardener was impressed, and at the same time disturbed.

  “How do you like what I’ve done, Mr Gardener?”

  “Where are they?” he asked.

  “All in good time. Now, perhaps you can answer my question.”

  Gardener sighed. Whether he liked it or not he would have to play the game. “If you mean, do I actually enjoy watching lunatics mutilate people, leaving puzzles all around the city, I can’t really say I am that impressed, Mr Corndell. It’s people like you who make my job extremely unpleasant.”

  “I’m not talking about that, you peasant!”

  He realised he’d touched a raw nerve because Corndell’s left eye had started to twitch, something he had noticed only once before when he thought he was being threatened. Corndell gripped the sides of the arch in which he was standing, and Gardener found himself praying that he had not done too good a job when erecting the exterior: hopefully the whole fucking lot would collapse and kill him!

  “But seeing as you brought up the subject, perhaps we can discuss what I’ve done... why I’ve done it? Isn’t that what you shrinks are all about?”

  “I am not a psychiatrist, I’m a police officer.” Gardener was growing tired of the conversation, and he certainly wasn’t about to pander to the whims of an egomaniac, particularly when he was holding two people hostage who were not necessarily here.

  Corndell leaned forward. “You should be very interested in me–”

  Gardener realised there was no stopping Corndell now, even if he wanted to. He had the microphone, and there was probably very little that could be done but let him have his finest hour. It would – after all – be his last, thought Gardener.

  “Chaney was a true legend, Mr Gardener, and could only be admired. He was an inspiration, and I have taken his place: I am the modern-day master of the silver screen, the modern day ‘man of a thousand faces’. Or at least I would have been if your father and his friends hadn’t meddled. Who did they think they were? What right did they have to pass judgement on my masterpiece, to ruin my career? Well, let me tell you Mr Gardener, no r–”

  Gardener cut him dead as he shouted, “If you’ve quite finished, I have no wish to stand here all night while you give me what you think will amount to your finest hour. I want to know where my father and my friend’s wife are. Now, if you don’t tell me in precisely ten seconds, I’m going to forget that I’m a police officer and fucking throttle you with my bare hands. Do you understand?”

  Corndell burst out laughing. “Such language, Mr Gardener. I really don’t think your superiors would take kindly to that. I do have rights, you know.”

  “His superior officer is having trouble with his eyes and ears at the moment,” said Alan Briggs, appearing in front of the curtain at the back of the warehouse. “And as for any rights, as far as I’m concerned, you gave up those when you started murdering people all over the city, and then decided to kidnap one of my officers’ wives.” Briggs glanced at Gardener. “So, you go right
ahead, Stewart, do what you have to, so long as you get the information we need.”

  Briggs walked slowly towards Gardener, who had never been more pleased to see him than now.

  But where was Sean?

  Briggs whispered to him. “He doesn’t have your dad, Stewart. He’s back at the station with a couple of junior officers. I left word with the desk sergeant to locate the rest of the squad and get them here, pronto.”

  Gardener turned and glanced at Corndell. He wore a long dark cloak with one arm swept across his chest. Even his clothes were covered in dust for emphasis. The other arm was reaching to something that Gardener could not see because of a low-slung velvet drape.

  “Where is she?” asked Gardener. “Your time is up.”

  “How true that statement is, Mr Gardener,” said Corndell.

  Gardener realised how much confidence Corndell had. You couldn’t do what he’d done without self-assurance. That thought alone was worrying, because right now, he was holding all the cards.

  “You’ll find what you’re looking for inside. And by the way... best of luck.” Corndell pulled the rope behind the low-slung drape.

  Two things happened.

  Firstly, he disappeared behind the curtain. Secondly, the front doors of the opera house clicked open.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  The warehouse lights dimmed, leaving only those of the opera house for guidance.

  “Right, forget that mad bastard for the moment,” said Briggs. “Let’s get inside and see what we have to do.”

  Both men took the steps two at a time, and Gardener went through the door first. The inside was as magnificent as the outside, only much more disturbing.

  They were in a graveyard. An earthy smell, and it being soft underfoot, told him that the maniac had used soil – and not for appearance. Peering into the distance, Gardener could make out a series of randomly scattered tombstones and, what he suspected were fake trees. On the extreme right and left of the building were in fact two shrines; on either side of the headstones were two angels staring down at the names on those headstones. A small amount of green coloured lighting added to the emotional scene. Other than that, there was very little light.