by Tom Marcus
‘Right, see you back here in twenty.’
The idea was for each of us to do a walk-by, coming at the target from different directions. It wasn’t ideal: pedestrians on The Bishops Avenue were few and far between, so somebody somewhere might be taking note of who came and went, but we could risk doing it one time, just to get a proper feel of the geography.
I walked south and Alex, in baseball cap and trainers, started jogging north. I turned left again at the end and was soon back at the top of the Avenue. Now I knew where Shlovsky’s mansion was situated, I had a better idea of what I was looking for.
I walked on the left-hand side, too close to see much more than a sliver of driveway and the two pillars flanking the entrance when I went past Wyvern Lodge. But it didn’t matter.
I was much more interested in the crumbling pile on the other side of the road.
Without a security gate and a ten-foot wall all the way round, it was easier to see what you were dealing with: three stories of faded stucco with a green tiled roof, a little more modest than Shlovsky’s mansion, and more importantly, no cars out front and all the shutters on the windows looking as if they hadn’t been opened in a while. I took out my phone and pretended to answer a call, while taking in every detail of the house.
This place was definitely unoccupied, and had been for some time. But what I really liked about it was the view.
From the third floor, I reckoned you’d be able to see more or less the whole frontage of Wyvern Lodge.
I put my phone back in my pocket and carried on past without a backward glance. Alex passed me on the other side of the road, looking like a jogger who’d run out of steam. In my peripheral vision I saw her stop, leaning forward, breathing hard, her hands on her knees, then straighten with a hand on her hip, as if she had a twinge in her back.
For Christ’s sake, don’t overdo it, I thought, quickening my pace.
Ten minutes later, back in the car, we compared notes.
Alex was keen to impress me with how much she’d managed to glean from her performance as a stricken jogger, but I cut her short.
‘The house opposite. That’s the OP,’ I said.
7
I dropped Alex back at her flat, then drove to the place that was going to be my new home for the foreseeable future – in other words, the next three weeks. Alex had offered to let me doss down at hers until I found somewhere permanent; she didn’t have a spare room, but the couch was comfy, apparently, and she said she needed someone to do the washing-up.
I didn’t know how serious the offer was, but I thanked her and said I didn’t want to cramp her style. I also didn’t want her to find me sitting at the kitchen table talking to someone who wasn’t there at three in the morning.
A couple of Sarah’s musician friends who’d moved down south were touring in Europe for a month and needed someone to house-sit. I’d never met them and they didn’t really know anything about me except that I was ex-Army, but they obviously liked the idea of someone who could handle the odd burglar looking after their place, and I liked the fact that nobody else would know I was living there.
I found a parking spot fifty yards up the road, grabbed all my worldly possessions from the boot and made my way to the front door. The key was under a flowerpot on the third step, just like they said. I shook my head. For people who were worried about burglars, they didn’t seem to have thought much about security. Maybe that was musicians for you.
I dumped my bag in the hall and did a quick recce. A front room with lots of books, ethnic knick-knacks, stacks of old-fashioned vinyl and a beanbag instead of a sofa – the sort of place you’d have to be stoned to feel really comfortable in. A small kitchen out back, looking onto a postage-stamp back garden crammed with flowerpots full of half-dead plants. Upstairs a bedroom that continued the ethnic theme, with a big, fuzzy painting of a woman in a sari, a couple of guitars on stands and something hiding in the corner that looked like a lute made out of some kind of exotic vegetable. A small office space with more books and magazines scattered on the floor and a knackered-looking PC completed the picture.
I went back down to the kitchen, found milk and teabags and made myself a brew. ‘Make yourself at home,’ they’d said, but that didn’t really feel like an option. I’d probably sleep on the floor in the hall, I decided, touching as little as possible. I wouldn’t even disturb the dust. I’d be a ghost.
I finished my tea, rinsed my mug and put it on the drainer. Finsbury Park was round the corner: I’d go for a run, have a shower, find somewhere that did a decent chicken jalfrezi, then try and get a bit of kip before it was time to go back to The Bishops Avenue.
I’d set the alarm on my phone for 1.30 a.m. but my eyes snapped open promptly at 1.25, as I knew they would. Despite the odd creaky floorboard, I’d slept like a kitten and woke up with a clear head, raring to go, already dressed in black jeans and black T-shirt. It felt good, having a plan, like being back in the job. A nice little adrenaline buzz was quietly building as I laced up my army boots, then I put on a black tracksuit top and stuffed a black balaclava into my pocket before grabbing a black daysack. I’d already checked the contents before going to sleep.
I took it easy on the drive, despite feeling that old familiar itch to press play and start the action; if I didn’t look like someone planning a bit of breaking and entering, I don’t know who did, and I didn’t want to give some over-eager plod a chance to improve his stats for the night. By the time I got to Hampstead Lane, the traffic was getting sparse, but there were plenty of cars parked on the road, so I could blend in without too much trouble. I drove past the top of the Avenue and took the third left, the street that bordered the other side of the golf course. The houses weren’t quite so palatial on this side, but one owner seemed determined to change that, having bulldozed whatever inadequate fifteen-bedroom hovel had been on the site. The resulting wasteland was now hidden behind a ten-foot security fence, but the little panel set in the black metal sheeting had been left unsecured, presumably as there was nothing on site to nick yet. That was going to be my way in.
At least, that was the plan.
When I’d been a surveillance operative, working for MI5’s A4 unit, improvisation was the name of the game. It didn’t matter how much planning you’d done, how many briefings you’d half dozed through, how many different scenarios you’d prepared for; the target almost always did something you weren’t expecting, meaning you were either suddenly at risk of being compromised, or they were going to slip out from under your control. Sometimes you had to create a diversion; sometimes you had to switch instantly from the part you were playing to a quite different one. Whatever you had to do, it wasn’t something you’d prepared for.
And with Blindeye the chances of that kind of situation happening were multiplied tenfold. Maybe more, now that there were just the four of us (I wasn’t quite ready to call Mrs Allenby one of ‘us’ yet).
I parked up as far from the nearest street light as I could manage while still being in sprinting distance of the entrance point. If things went tits-up, I needed to be ready for a quick getaway. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to get a sense of whether my arrival had disturbed the slumber of this leafy backwater, but there were no twitching curtains or front doors opening curiously as far as I could tell. Maybe no one actually lived here, either.
I slipped out of the car and made my way down towards the building site, staying light on my feet and keeping close to the shadows, before ducking through the panel and across the empty expanse of rubble-strewn mud until I reached a low wooden fence bordering the golf course. I hopped over the fence and into the trees.
That was when I realized a bit more planning would have been good.
I’d looked at the layout of the course, and calculated where the nearest point to the back of the house would be. But now that I was there, the online map didn’t seem to correspond to reality. I was aiming to keep to the trees until I reached the two big bunkers alongside the sixth
fairway, then sharp left past the green and straight down the fifteenth fairway and I’d be more or less there.
I stood in the shadows, looking out at the gently rolling landscape faintly lit by a quarter moon, and realized I had no idea where the hell the fifteenth fairway was. I knew they moved pin positions around on the greens, but did bunkers come and go as well? I leaned back against an old oak tree and tried to get my bearings. There was nothing else for it; I’d have to get out onto the course until I stumbled across a feature I recognized.
Feeling uncomfortably exposed, I left the safety of the shadows and started walking in a vaguely westerly direction, with the mansions of The Bishops Avenue somewhere through the dark smear of trees ahead.
Where was my one, though?
I’d always thought golf was a game for cunts; now I was sure of it.
I skirted a little bunker then stood still, letting my boots sink into the turf and my heart rate steady. Some infrared goggles would have been handy, I thought.
It was no good. The map and the territory refused to slot together in my mind. I might as well have been on the moon.
I saw a movement to my left and made myself stay loose. Sat on the lip of a bunker, his outline grey in the moonlight, was a fox. He must have caught my scent, because he was now stood stock-still, too, his nose pointed straight at me. I was sure I caught a glint of moonlight in his eyes, a quick flash of silver.
I stared back, trying to make contact, trying to bridge the unbridgeable gap between us. I took a step towards him and he turned lazily away, not spooked, not even wary, as if we were just two pals out for a moonlight stroll together.
‘All right, Foxy, show me where to go.’
He ambled on, checking behind him once, but I couldn’t help thinking not because he was worried I was gaining on him: more to check that I was keeping up. Finally he reached the edge of the trees, threw me one last look and disappeared.
I walked into the undergrowth at the point I’d lost sight of him and let my eyes adjust to the gloom. Ahead, through the trees, I could just make out a shape, a faint area where the dark felt a tinge more grey than black. I took a few steps closer, brushing the brambles out of my path, and the shape began to solidify. Soon I could see the outline of a roof. Then three black-shuttered windows in a neat triangle. I didn’t need to see any more.
It was my house.
I picked my way carefully through the bushes, taking it slowly. It was impossible to know what was underfoot and I didn’t want to turn an ankle at this point in the game. But I still almost walked into the fence before I saw it. I thought of going over, but reckoned I could make out razor wire at the top and didn’t fancy having to deal with that every night. I needed a proper back door.
I took off my daysack and rummaged around until I had the wire-cutters, then got to work. When the hole was big enough, I pushed through, then fitted the chain-link back in place. The garden was almost as much of a jungle as the woods surrounding the golf course: a pain to get through, but otherwise good news. I wasn’t going to be interrupted by the under gardener trimming the wisteria.
The back door was inside a pillared portico (they did like their pillars round here) and secured behind a metal sheet bolted to the frame. No way in there, then. I edged round to my right and found a pair of French windows. A gap in the curtains revealed a solid-looking metal grille. I took a step back onto what had once been the lawn and looked up. The first-floor windows were covered over with metal plates, just like the door. There was a drainpipe to my left. I hefted my daysack again and found a torch, then played the beam quickly along the length of the drainpipe. It was leaning slightly to one side, as if someone had pushed all their weight against it. The wall jutted out a couple of feet, just to the right. Maybe someone had used the drainpipe as leverage as they hauled themselves up the wall. I decided to see if the trick would still work.
Putting my left foot on the drainpipe’s first join, I planted my right against the wall and pushed. I was half expecting the drainpipe to give way, but it held firm and I was able to take another step, pushing off my left, then my right, with one hand on the pipe and the other wedged into the angle of the wall to steady myself, inching my way up crab-wise.
Two more pushes and I was level with the first window. Still holding on to the drainpipe with my left hand, I took the torch out of my back pocket and leaned round so I could take a look at the bolts. Each sat in an aureole of rust, marked with deep gouges, but the bolts themselves looked relatively new.
My hunch had been right. Someone else had taken this route before. They’d unscrewed the bolts (which were probably rusting somewhere in the undergrowth below me) and got in through the window. But they’d obviously been discovered, and the metal plate had been reattached with shiny new bolts. I reached round and fumbled in the daysack for my toolkit.
Twenty minutes later, with my knee shaking and my back threatening to go into spasm, I was in. I’d loosened the bolt in the top-right corner but left it in place, so I could swing the plate round on its axis, push open the sash window, scramble inside and then carefully manoeuvre the plate back to its original position.
I jumped down, my boots landing with a soft thud, and turned on the torch. I was in a bedroom. The door opened on to a corridor, leading to a grand staircase sweeping down to the front entrance. I moved the beam of the torch in a slow three-sixty. As it caught the teardrops of a massive chandelier, there was a brief sparkle of faded glamour, but it quickly died as the torch beam lit up a tableau of rotting floorboards, crumbling plaster and peeling wallpaper. The stairs had begun to collapse, pulling the gilded bannisters along with them. There was rat shit everywhere.
Weird. A house on one of London’s most exclusive streets, where only the super-rich could afford to buy, and inside it was a fucking tip. Someone had paid a fortune for this house once, and then literally let it fall to bits.
I found some more stairs and made my way up to the next floor, testing my weight on each step first so I didn’t find myself crashing down to the floor below. Another corridor: more bedrooms, it looked like. I opened the door to the second one, guessing it would be the one with the view I was looking for. There was a crunching sound as I stepped in. I shone the torch over the floor to see a syringe, along with a scattering of broken wine bottles. So this is where the intruder had ended up. I hoped they’d enjoyed the party. Back in the day, it was the sort of party I might have had an invite to.
I picked my way through the broken glass to the window. The shutters were locked but not bolted. A couple of minutes’ work and I was able to open them an inch or two, just enough to make sure I hadn’t fucked up. Across the way, Viktor Shlovsky’s double-fronted Disneyland castle was lit up like a Christmas tree.
I hadn’t bothered lugging a sackful of gear on the off-chance I’d find a way in, but now that I was here, I thought about what else I’d need if this was where I was going to be hunkering down for a while. I had a couple of ideas. Maybe tomorrow Alan could go and do some shopping.
I’d seen what I needed to see. No point in hanging around. I closed the shutters and turned back towards the door, shining my torch in a wide arc across the floor, just to check how much more crap there was I’d have to clear up.
The torch beam stopped when it reached the corner.
‘Jesus.’
She was crouched in the angle of the walls, her knees drawn up, looking as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible. I assumed it was a she, from the long blonde hair that still half covered her face on its way almost to the floor. Otherwise there was no real way of telling. Most of the flesh had gone; the rats had seen to that. Before they’d started on her clothes. A few scraps of blackened, leathery skin, some wisps of fabric and a pair of much-chewed ankle boots were all that was left.
I stepped closer, holding the torch out in front of me as if to ward off something evil. Her blonde hair shone incongruously in its beam.
How old had she been when she’d put
the fatal dose in her arm? I wondered if someone was thinking about her, even now, wondering where she was, what had happened to her. Well, there was nothing I could do about that. If there was a loved one out there waiting for closure, they were going to have to wait a while longer.
Something caught my eye. A rust-coloured stain on the wall by her head. A smear of something that had once been red. And on her temple, I could see, the bone had cratered, as if it was collapsing inward.
Or as if someone had smashed her hard with something. Like an iron bar, or a baseball bat.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
So they’d found her here. They’d seen the window at the back where she’d managed to get in, followed her footprints in the dust, up the stairs to the third floor. And then? I could imagine how it had happened. She’d been young, pretty and off her head. Easy meat. Then afterwards, they knew they couldn’t let her leave, couldn’t sling her out on the streets again in case she went crying to the cops. That would be the end of their cushy little security job, for starters. So they hit her with the bat, until she had no more stories to tell, and then they fixed the steel plate back over the window and left her to the rats.
My nostrils flared at the smell of something rotten.
I turned the torch off and let the darkness swallow her again.
8
It was hard to find anywhere without any cameras these days. There are more cameras per head in London than anywhere else in the world, so they say. But is it really true? What about a real police state – what about North Korea? Why would a decent country like Britain need to keep more of a watch over its citizens than a brutal dictatorship like that? It didn’t make sense.
It was also a pain in the arse.
It meant fixing a meet was like trying to find a pub where the bar staff were older than his daughter, spoke proper English and knew how to pull a pint without spilling it all over the bar. Bloody difficult, in other words. Sometimes he felt like the only way to be a hundred per cent certain you weren’t being watched was to meet in the middle of Epping Forest, but he wasn’t about to suggest that. Apart from anything else, he always liked to stay in the car.
