by S W Kane
‘Why was the door locked?’ she asked.
‘Oh, that. I’ve had a duplicate key made and was trying it out.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Connie, wondering why he needed a duplicate. ‘I see.’
‘I left my damned wallet here last night,’ he said, patting his jacket pocket. ‘Good job, actually, because the phone rang as soon I came in. That call I was on just now, it was the executor of Helen Linehan’s estate.’
Connie frowned; the name was familiar and yet she couldn’t place it. ‘Remind me?’
‘Her family owned Marsh House – you know, the place by the river in Battersea? She died at the end of last year.’
Connie knew exactly where Marsh House was; it was the house next to Blackwater, where she would have been meeting Ed had she not been stuck on that frigging train. ‘What did they want?’ She tried to keep her voice even.
‘Mrs Linehan has left us some drawings of the house and garden.’
‘Really? That’s great news. Do we know how many?’ Her mind was racing as she spoke. ‘Or whether there’s anything else?’
Bonaro shook his head. ‘Only that it’s all in one portfolio, apart from a couple of journals. As to its exact contents’ – he shrugged – ‘they’re anyone’s guess. I doubt the executors have even looked.’
‘So there could be plans for Blackwater mixed in . . .’
Bonaro smiled. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, but yes, I suppose there could be. Regardless, they’ll be a significant addition to the plans we already hold of James Neville’s other hospital buildings. I’ve arranged for you to collect them next Monday at noon. There’s a family member there clearing the house. The name and contact number are here.’ He handed her a piece of paper torn from his notepad, then looked at his watch. ‘Damn, I’d better get going. I’m late. Dentist.’
‘I’m surprised it’s open,’ said Connie, thinking of all the closed businesses she’d passed on the way in.
He grimaced. ‘Typical, isn’t it?’
‘Urghh. Well, good luck.’
‘Oh, and there’s something I need to talk to you about tomorrow. First thing, over coffee?’ he said, pulling his office door closed. ‘Assuming I can still speak.’
Connie smiled. ‘Okay. Can you give me a clue?’
‘You’ll have to wait. It’s nothing to worry about though,’ he said, hurrying past, leaving a waft of Floris aftershave in his wake. ‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’ She listened as the metal Blakeys on his shoes clipped the stone stairs, followed by the echo of the front door slamming shut in the hallway. When she was sure he’d gone, Connie opened the door to his office and peered in. A box of James Neville drawings sat on the table, and she went over and lifted the lid: Neville’s drawings of mental asylums from the nineteenth century, the ones she’d painstakingly catalogued a year ago. RADE held all of Neville’s asylum designs, except the ones for Blackwater, which had never been found. She wondered who Bonaro had been showing them to, and let the lid fall back into place. Leaving the room, her thoughts returned to Ed – he really should have called by now, he knew how anxious she’d be – and a sickening feeling began to grow in the pit of her stomach. Please don’t let it happen again, she thought, as she headed to the kitchen.
CHAPTER 6
Revulsion bubbled away in Kirby’s gut as he descended the creaking wooden staircase to the ground floor. Decades of grit, plaster and pigeon guano crunched under each step. The medical examiner had estimated the time of death somewhere between 10 p.m. and midnight – probable cause, the combination of a blow to the head and hypothermia. The blow to the head hadn’t been the one to break the elderly woman’s jaw: that had been meted out separately. The ME couldn’t say much more until he’d examined the body in detail at the mortuary.
What kind of person would commit such a brutal act on someone so vulnerable? The pressure would be on to solve this as soon as possible, and he sincerely hoped that they did. The location wouldn’t do them any favours; the media loved Blackwater despite professing to hate it.
Which all brought him back to the location: why Blackwater? The hospital was deeply embedded in the fabric of the entire local area, even after all these years. It was a place about which everyone had a tale to tell, from seeing ghosts to knowing someone who’d worked there. It had also been the location of various criminal acts since its closure in 1993 – arson and drug dealing to name but two – and one poor soul had chosen it as the backdrop to their suicide. It was the stuff of urban legends, and the press lapped it up. That the victim had been left there was no accident, he felt sure. And then there was the ward itself: Keats. What was the significance of that? It was deep in the grounds of the asylum, a fair walk from either of the two entrances. The killer would have passed plenty of other hiding places en route – not to mention locations where the body may not have been found for weeks. It could have been a random choice, but Kirby didn’t think so.
Kirby stepped outside, glad to be out of the decaying ward block, which he found profoundly depressing. A path had been marked out, for police coming and going, in an attempt to preserve any evidence outside, but the truth was that whoever had done this had come before the snowfall ended. When the first police had arrived, there were no other tracks leading into the building, or anywhere in the immediate area, apart from those belonging to Leroy Simmons.
He spotted Anderson talking to one of the SOCOs, and he waved Kirby over.
‘There’s a breach in the fence by Daylesford Road,’ said Anderson. ‘Big enough to crawl through, but difficult to drag a body through, at least without snagging it or its clothing.’
‘We’re checking for fibres,’ said the SOCO before wandering off.
‘Sweet’s got a woman’s coat in his house,’ said Kirby. ‘It’s on some sort of dummy.’
Anderson raised his eyebrows. ‘Maybe he likes dressing up.’
‘Or it could belong to our victim,’ Kirby said, stamping his feet. He was frozen to the core. ‘Look, I’m going to check out the house next door, the big posh place. You want to come?’
Anderson shook his head. ‘Site manager’s on his way.’ He looked at his notes. ‘Brian Kaplinsky. I’ll wait for him, otherwise we’ll be here all day.’
It was true; they were so short-staffed that if they did everything in pairs, cases would take twice as long to get solved. ‘I’ll call you when I’m done then,’ said Kirby, and he began to make his way back towards the admin block.
He was keen to have a proper look around, but that would have to wait until the SOCOs had finished their search. When he reached the admin block, a handsome Queen Anne-style building, he skirted around the Corsa – preferring to walk, despite the cold – and set off down the asylum’s main driveway. Away from the police activity, silence once again shrouded him, like it had at Raymond Sweet’s house. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before in London. He stopped for a moment and took in the beauty of the white landscape, the snow off the main driveway pristine and undisturbed. It reminded him of a film set, and he imagined Father Christmas hurtling into view with reindeer and sleigh any moment; although, in truth, Jack Torrance from The Shining was more like it.
When he reached the main gate, the same young PC who’d first admitted him – now a lovely shade of blue – let him out of the grounds, and he turned left to walk along Battersea Fields Drive towards Marsh House. The asylum perimeter along this part of the road was boarded up: difficult to climb over in any circumstances, but with a body in tow? Impossible, thought Kirby. On the opposite side of the road to the asylum, their lower floors masked by trees, sat large, Victorian, red-brick mansion blocks. The flats at the top would afford perfect views of the asylum grounds and beyond, although the likelihood of anyone seeing something last night was slim. Officers were doing door-to-door, and Kirby hoped their efforts yielded something – the glimmer of torchlight in the dark, a strange vehicle – that might lead them to the elderly woman’s killer.
After several
minutes of brisk walking, the asylum’s boarded-up perimeter came to an end, replaced by a brick wall over which he could just make out the bare branches of trees covered in thick snow. A few feet further on and he came to an open gate, flanked on either side by ivy-covered stone gateposts, the inscription Marsh House barely visible on the left-hand post. He turned off the main road and began walking up the drive. The house was easy to miss from the street, and although he had no idea of its history, he wondered if at some point it had been part of the asylum. Whatever its original purpose, it was now a highly desirable residence. Kirby rang the bell and waited.
The man who answered the door to Marsh House introduced himself as Charles Palmer and was a slender man in his fifties. Judging by his accent he was either Australian or Kiwi. After explaining the reason for his visit, Kirby was led into the kitchen, where Palmer offered him a coffee. ‘I was just about to make myself an espresso,’ he said, gesturing towards an expensive-looking Gaggia.
Kirby could almost feel himself salivating at the thought. ‘That’d be great, thanks.’
‘Milk?’
Kirby shook his head. ‘As it comes.’ He watched as Palmer made the coffee, neither man speaking – as though some kind of ritual was being observed.
When the dark liquid had finished filling two small espresso cups, Palmer handed one to Kirby. ‘Let’s go next door, it’s more comfortable.’
Kirby followed him into a handsome living room, where they sat down. The room was a jumble of partially filled boxes and crates, but despite the chaos a fire roared in the grate. Kirby finally felt himself warming up.
‘Are you moving in or out?’ Kirby asked.
‘I recently inherited the place, so I’m busy clearing things out at the moment. But I have been living here for the past month or so.’
‘Where are you from? Australia?’
‘Perth.’
‘Do you intend to stay?’ Kirby looked around, thinking how lovely it would be to have this much space. Mind you, he’d only fill it if he did.
‘I’ll probably sell. Go back to Perth.’
‘Will the development next door affect the sale?’
Palmer shrugged. ‘I hope not, although it’s not ideal. The whole area seems to be being redeveloped, what with the American embassy down at Nine Elms and all those apartments going up.’
Kirby knew about that only too well; it was a stone’s throw from the boats. Not to mention the development going up right next to the moorings. He drained his coffee. ‘Thanks, that was good. Right, perhaps we could move on to last night. Were you here?’ He took out his Moleskine.
Palmer hesitated. ‘No, I was out last night. I got back late; the snow held me up. I’m not used to driving in it.’
‘And what time was that, roughly?’
‘I suppose I left here at about seven and didn’t get back until gone midnight. It was snowing heavily by then – the roads were deserted.’
‘I see,’ said Kirby, noting down the times. ‘Can anyone verify your whereabouts?’
Palmer looked taken aback. ‘Why do you need to know?’
‘I have to ask.’
Palmer paused as though weighing up the options before speaking. ‘I was at the Vauxhall Tavern. The barman, Vihaan, will remember me.’
Kirby wrote down the barman’s name. ‘And you drove back, you said?’
‘Despite what you might think, not everyone who frequents the Tavern is high or drunk. I don’t drink, for the record. Or do drugs.’
Kirby ignored the dig and went on. ‘When you drove back, did you see anyone outside the house or on the road – either on foot or in a car?’
Palmer shook his head. ‘No one. It was a whiteout. Never seen anything like it in a city.’
He was right – Kirby had never seen snow like it in the capital. ‘Have you seen or heard anything suspicious in the last twenty-four hours?’
‘No. What’s this about?’
‘A body was found this morning in the grounds next door,’ said Kirby.
‘What?’ Palmer looked genuinely shocked. ‘A body? Jeez, that’s terrible. Was it an accident?’
‘It’s unlikely.’
‘D’you know who it is?’
‘Not at this point, no. I don’t suppose that you’ve seen anyone hanging around recently?’
Palmer shook his head. ‘No, but then again, I don’t go that way very often – past the main entrance, I mean. I usually turn left and head to the shops, or into town, that way.’
‘I believe that there used to be access to the asylum from your grounds, is that correct?’ Kirby went on.
‘There’s a door in the garden wall, but it’s been blocked off for years.’
‘Is there any other way into next door from here?’
‘Are you saying that someone got in through the garden on this side?’ Palmer looked shocked at the thought.
‘We have to explore every possibility.’ Kirby had noticed a path down the right-hand side of the house, which he assumed led to a back entrance. ‘Do you mind if I take a look in the garden?’ He glanced through the window at the snowy scene outside; he felt warmer now than he had done in the past twenty-four hours, dammit.
‘Be my guest, but I can tell you now that whoever got into the old asylum didn’t get in through here.’ Palmer got up and led Kirby through to a drawing room, which had French windows that opened straight on to the garden. He unlocked the doors with a key that he took from the top of the doorframe.
‘Does this lead directly down to the river?’ Kirby asked, stepping out on to the crisp, white snow.
‘Yes, there’s an old boathouse down there, beyond the maze.’ Palmer pointed off to the left, his breath clear and white in the cold air. ‘I wouldn’t go in, though. I don’t know if it’s safe. Everything’s a bit of a mess these days.’
Kirby walked away from the house, leaving Charles Palmer watching him from the warmth of the drawing room. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the man. He’d been helpful and certainly knew how to make coffee, but Kirby wondered whether his hesitation over his whereabouts the previous night concealed anything more sinister than reticence. And the inheritance. I’ll probably sell. Kirby thought back to when his grandmother had died and his mother had sold the house. It was fraught with emotion. He’d got none of that from Palmer, and wondered if he had siblings or a family of his own. Just because he hung out at one of the best-known gay bars in London didn’t preclude a wife and kids tucked away in Perth.
After a few yards, Kirby stopped for a moment, the same feeling that he’d had outside Raymond Sweet’s house returning. London felt miles away, although in reality Chelsea Bridge and its traffic were only a few hundred yards to his right. A siren wailed in the distance, but the snow muffled even that, as though it were in another world running parallel to his.
As he carried on towards the boathouse through the thick, undisturbed snow, he could tell that the garden had once been beautiful. The lawn he was crossing led to a parterre on the right – its layout just visible under the snow – and a wooded area to his left. Directly ahead, he could see a statue, and beyond that a small frozen pond and a line of trees. Although the Thames was shielded, he could feel its presence beyond the treeline. He veered off to the left and found himself in a small maze, and The Shining sprung to mind for the second time that morning. Unlike the maze in the film, however, these hedges were no more than four feet high and would once have been neatly trimmed; now, they sprouted unwieldy shoots, which hung heavy with snow.
Out of the maze, he found himself on what must have been the path that Palmer had mentioned. He could feel the frozen gravel through the snow as he crunched his way forward. He could sense the river ahead of him strongly now, and smelt its familiar tang. To his left there was a high wall overgrown with ivy and topped with razor wire, and he spotted the bricked-up doorway. He went over for a closer look, but it was clear that no one had been through it in years. He gazed up at the wall, trying to imagine the elde
rly victim scaling it in the middle of the night; there was simply no way, unless she changed into Catwoman in the early hours. He turned and looked back at the garden. It really was magnificent; there was even what he took to be a small folly – a short, stumpy structure covered in ivy.
Heading towards the river, he made his way over to the boathouse, which was on raised stilts, and looked out over the water. In contrast to the snow, the Thames looked brown and sluggish, and yet despite this it was still a magnificent sight. A flight of steep steps led straight into the river; the tide was out and the steps were exposed right the way down to the foreshore. He moved around to the boathouse door, which he saw was fitted with a new lock. It was heavy-duty – more than you’d need to secure a lawnmower or a rowing boat. What few windows there were in the boathouse had been blacked out, and he couldn’t see anything inside. He was about to head back to the house when his mobile rang; it was Anderson.
‘What’s up?’ Kirby asked.
‘Raymond Sweet’s back. He’s waiting for us at the Lodge and doesn’t look too pleased.’
CHAPTER 7
Raymond had been waiting at the Old Lodge for over half an hour – a policeman standing guard outside – and his stress levels were escalating by the minute. He only took the odd thing from the asylum, things that no one else could possibly want. It was the more delicate acquisitions, as he liked to think of them, that he was worried about: things that should never have been left behind in the first place. Was that what this was about? Or maybe it was his drawings? He often drew little faces on the walls to help him navigate – smiley faces, sad faces, sometimes faces making a noise, depending on how the mood took him – as parts of Blackwater were so overgrown that sometimes even he had difficulty finding his way around. He spoke to them sometimes, too – little helpers, he called them. They did no harm to anyone, so it couldn’t be that, surely? Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. He got up and, despite the situation, felt a surge of pride opening the door to his house – the house that if Patrick Calder had his way would be demolished with the rest of Blackwater.
