She’s Polish. Ruiz speaks to her in German, asking after the priest. He’s in the presbytery. She fetches him, complaining about the interruption. Some people will find their own grave too crowded.
“Where did you learn to speak German?” asks Luca.
“Where did you learn to speak Arabic?”
“My mother.”
“We both have one of those.”
Daniela has gone to meet Keith Gooding and get the latest news on the search for Richard North. Police divers entered the river at first light, using sonar equipment in the zero visibility.
A row of candles is burning beneath a statue, the wax almost glowing from within, creating flickering shadows on the skirts of the Virgin Mary.
Ruiz leans back in a pew, feeling his muscles let go. High above his head there are dust motes drifting in a shaft of sunlight and a strand of web clings to a beam, moving back and forth as though the entire building is inhaling and exhaling.
“Do you know any prayers?” asks Elizabeth, struggling to kneel.
“I’ve forgotten the only prayer I ever learned as a kid,” says Ruiz. “That one about dying in your sleep.”
“You’re scared of dying.”
“Better than being scared of living.”
Elizabeth lowers her eyes and clasps her hands. “What makes a man who has a woman who loves him risk it all?”
“Are you asking me or Him?”
“You.”
Ruiz rubs his forehead. “Sometimes when a man feels bad about himself, he doesn’t want to be with a woman who looks at him with nothing but love. Instead he wants to lie on top of a woman who knows how nasty and shallow and faithless he can be… a woman who doesn’t put him on a pedestal or expect him to be a knight in shining armor… a woman who’s happy with the worst he can be.”
The priest appears. Young. Frizzy-haired. Dressed in a multi-colored shirt with silver crosses on the collar, he looks like a Woodstock wannabe, forty years too late for the party.
“I’m Father Michael,” he says, bowing slightly from the waist as though his spine is hinged on a spring. He notices Elizabeth’s pregnancy and is trying to place Luca and Ruiz in the picture as either a husband or a father.
Elizabeth speaks. “I’m looking for Bridget Lindop. I know she comes here.”
“What makes you sure she’s here now?”
“Is she?”
“I’m not in a position to discuss—”
Elizabeth interrupts him. “I’m sorry, Father, but they found my husband’s car in a river last night. Some people think he’s dead. Some think he stole a lot of money. I have a little boy at home… a girl coming. Please don’t lie to me or treat me like an idiot.”
Father Michael passes his hand over his jaw. Before he can answer there is a movement from deeper in the church. Bridget Lindop emerges from the shadows where she’s been kneeling in prayer.
The two women embrace. Elizabeth’s shoulders are shaking, but there are no tears. This is an English middle-class grief. Reserved. Contained. They sit down, holding hands, their knees touching, as though drawing strength from each other. Miss Lindop’s dress has a ruffled collar that has collapsed like a chain of wilting flowers around her neck.
Father Michael offers to make tea. He and Luca retreat to the sacristy.
“I come here every day,” says Miss Lindop. “Father Michael gives me chores to do.”
“We’ve been to your house,” says Ruiz.
“Is Tinker all right? I’ve been worried about him. I didn’t leave him any milk.”
“He found some,” says Ruiz.
“Did he open the fridge again? He’s learned how to do that. He’s very cheeky.”
“He’s very fat,” adds Ruiz.
Miss Lindop stiffens, less than impressed. “He’s not fat. He’s big boned.” She turns away from him and seems to be talking to the shadows. “A man came and said he was a detective. I asked to see his badge and he held something up in front of the peephole, but it was too quick for me to read. He knew about you being pregnant, Lizzie, and about your little boy, so I let him in.”
“What did he look like?” asks Ruiz.
“Dark hair. Medium height. Foreign looking. I couldn’t place his accent. There was something different about him. His eyes. Something cruel. It was like he hated being in his own skin.”
Ruiz presses her again, wanting more detail, but she gives him a disapproving scowl. “I don’t have a photographic memory, sir.”
He apologizes. “What did this man want?”
“Mr. North had a small Moleskine notebook about this big. It was black with an elastic strap.” She uses her fingers to show the dimensions.
“What was in it?”
“Lists of some kind.”
“Lists?”
Miss Lindop cocks her head to one side. Her opinion of Ruiz isn’t improving because he keeps repeating things that she’s said.
Luca and Father Michael have returned with a tray of mugs. Miss Lindop delves into her bag and produces a small pillbox of saccharine tablets. She smiles at Luca, perhaps imagining having a son his age.
“North was always scribbling notes,” she says, “but he stopped whenever I walked in.”
“This man that came to your house—did he say anything else?”
Miss Lindop gazes sadly at Elizabeth. “He said Mr. North was sleeping with someone. He wanted to find her.
“I called him a liar and said Richard was a good husband and father, but the man just laughed.”
“Did he mention a name?” asks Elizabeth.
Miss Lindop hesitates, not wanting to inflict more heartache.
“What name?”
“Polina.”
Ruiz checks himself. How did this man know about North and the nanny? The police only made the connection in the past twenty-four hours. At some point during the winter, somebody photographed North and Polina together at a café. The images were sent to him as a warning or a threat.
“The man wanted an address for Polina,” says Miss Lindop. “I told him that I might have one upstairs. I thought if I could distract him I could use the phone and call the police. But he followed me.”
“How did you get away?” asks Luca.
“He was searching the spare bedroom when I locked him inside.” She looks at her hands. “He was yelling terrible things and kicking at the door, but I ran… I have a bicycle; I know the cycle paths and shortcuts. I can pedal pretty fast for someone my age.”
Behind them a door opens and an elderly man in a homburg dips his hand in the holy water, making a sign of the cross, before taking a seat in the shadows. Kneeling. Praying.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” asks Luca.
Miss Lindop frowns. “Afterwards, I thought maybe he was a detective and I was going to be in trouble for locking him up. I didn’t go to work today. It’s the first day I’ve missed in eight years, but ever since Mr. North went missing I’ve had nothing to do. They took everything away.”
“The police?”
“The lawyers. They went over his appointments book and diary, wanting to know who he spoke to and where he went…” She glances at Luca. “They asked me about a journalist: Keith Gooding. Is that you?”
“A friend of mine.”
“They wanted to know if Mr. North had ever spoken to him.”
“What did you say?”
“I had no idea. I don’t think so. Then they made me sign a confidentiality document. They said I’d go to prison if I talked to anyone. Am I going to get into trouble?”
“No,” says Ruiz.
Elizabeth squeezes the older woman’s hand, surprised at the shallowness of her own grief. Ruiz glances over his shoulder. The man praying in the rear pew has gone. The church is empty again.
Outside the sun is coming and going, giving little warmth. Ruiz pauses on the pavement. Ponders his next move. Every new detail comes back to the notebook. The murder of Zac Osborne. The break-in at Elizabeth’s house. The search
for Holly Knight. Richard North had been investigating certain accounts, according to his secretary. That was his job as a compliance officer, but these inquiries were private. Hidden.
Elizabeth lets out a cry of pain and muffles the sound with her fist. Another contraction, this one is real. It forces her to lean back, legs splayed slightly, trying to take pressure off her cervix.
“How often are they coming?” asks Ruiz.
“I don’t know.”
“Since the last one?”
“Ten minutes maybe.”
Ruiz holds his hand to her forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m fine. Claudia isn’t due for three weeks.”
“I don’t think Claudia is going to wait.”
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is less than fifteen minutes away. Ruiz parks and waits as Elizabeth fills in a form and changes into a hospital gown. A midwife is summoned, bell-shaped with blue trousers and a white blouse. Ruiz feels clumsy and out of place.
“I can wait outside,” he says, fidgeting with his car keys. “Is there someone I can call?”
“You can give me my phone back,” says Elizabeth, who is sitting on the bed, her knees together and hands flat on the mattress. Ruiz puts the SIM card in her mobile.
“How long since you’ve been in a place like this?” she asks.
“Thirty-two years. My wife was having twins. They wouldn’t let me stay. Not that I minded. I didn’t really want to see the business end of things.”
“The business end?”
“You know what I mean.”
The midwife pulls the curtains around the bed and asks Elizabeth to lie back and part her knees.
“You can stay away from my business end,” says Elizabeth, motioning him to the top of the bed.
Grimacing slightly at the intrusion, she stares at the ceiling, letting her left hand reach across the gap and take hold of Ruiz’s fingers.
“You’re six centimeters,” announces the midwife. “Call who you have to call—this baby is coming today.”
Fifteen minutes later Ruiz watches as they wheel Elizabeth along the corridor and into the lift. Her father and brother are on their way. They’re going to welcome a new addition to the Bach family—another limb to the family tree, a dynasty in progress.
Ruiz uses a payphone in the visitor’s lounge.
“Capable.”
“Mr. Ruiz. Sorry. Shit! No names. Stupid of me.”
“Relax.”
“OK. Yeah.”
“Any messages?”
“Your friend called. Is he really a professor? I’ve never met a proper professor.”
“What did he want, Capable?”
“Ah, I wrote it down, he said, ‘Holly remembers the notebook’ and he gave me an address.”
Ruiz jots it down on the back of his hand. “Another favor, Capable, I want you to find someone for me. Polina Dulsanya. She might be working as a nanny. You could try the agencies.”
“What do you need?”
“An address.”
22
LONDON
As the last rays of token sunlight strike the towers of Canary Wharf, four divers tumble backwards from the Zodiacs. Slick as seals, they disappear beneath the surface leaving barely a trace save for the brown bubbles that fill and pop.
The officer in charge is short and barrel-chested, clad in a wetsuit that makes him look as if he’s carved from ebony. He swings an air tank into a boat and uses a towel to wipe his face and neck before washing out his mouth with bottled water.
Campbell Smith is standing on a narrow strip of beach that bleeds back to a stand of willow trees.
“We found the body about eighty yards from here,” says the senior diver. “You can see the orange marker buoy. They weighted the body with chains and breezeblocks.”
Campbell glances at his shoes, which are sinking into the fetid ooze. Paul Smith brogues. Unsalvageable.
“How?”
“One bullet. Back of the head. Execution style.”
“We likely to recover a shell?”
“Entry and exit wounds. We’ll keep looking for the murder weapon but it’s blacker than black down there. Visibility nil. We’re working a circular search pattern from a single anchor chain, moving further and further out, working by touch.”
Behind him, a white tent has been raised around a bloated and discolored torso, strung with weed and wrack. The body is curled in an embryonic position, with drying mud giving it the color and texture of desiccated leather.
“Where’s Noonan?”
“On his way.”
23
LONDON
The lockup is one of a dozen single garages in the laneway, each with double doors that are scrawled with graffiti signatures, crude diagrams and territorial markings. Streetlights barely shift the gloom and trains clatter past on the main line from Waterloo.
Joe watches the faces in the brightly lit carriages, passive and incurious about the world outside their windows.
There is a car parked at an angle halfway along the lane. The door opens, but no light comes on. Even in silhouette Joe can recognize Ruiz. He walks like a bear, rocking from side to side, the legacy of a bullet that tore through his thigh six years ago.
Holly lets out a squeak of excitement and runs to Ruiz, stopping suddenly when she seems certain to hug him. Instead Ruiz takes hold of her shoulders. It’s strangely intimate, like watching a grandfather admonish his granddaughter for running in the house.
“Have you been avoiding me?” she asks.
“I’ve been busy.”
“I’ve been crazy bored.” She glances back at Joe. “I mean, no offence, but he’s got this creepy way of looking inside your head.”
“Yeah, I know, but you two are made for each other. You’re a human lie detector and he’s a professional mind reader.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Quite the contrary.”
He nods to Joe. “I got your message. Which one is it?”
Holly points. “Zac has the only key.”
Ruiz goes to the boot of the car and pulls out bolt cutters along with a torch. Running his fingers over the padlock, he notices the gleam of scratched metal. Someone has tried to pick the lock.
The teeth of the cutters slice through the padlock. Lifting the floor bolt, Ruiz swings the doors open and runs his hand along the wall at chest height, feeling for a switch. A tube light blinks and blazes.
Holly’s shoulders sag under another defeat.
The floor is swept clean except for a pile of rubbish that includes old clothes, oil bottles, paint tins, polish, leather protector and a sponge. An old bicycle frame hangs from one wall, along with the wheels of a pram.
“It’s gone then,” says Holly.
“Who knew about the lockup?” asks Joe.
“Locals. Kids mainly. They play football in the lane. They were always pleading with Zac to give them a ride of the bike. He used to pay them to keep an eye on the place.”
Ruiz crouches and begins sorting through the large pile of rubbish on the floor. Pulling at a strap, he drags a scarred leather pannier across the oil-stained concrete, into the light. It belongs to a motorbike. Inside the pannier is a plastic bag. Inside the bag is a jacket. Inside the jacket is a notebook.
24
LUTON
The three men get off the bus at Dunstable Road and walk beneath the railway underpass and along Leagrave Road. Syd and Rafiq are kicking a squashed Coke can along the pavement while Taj listens to music on his headphones.
Syd is puffing hard, unfit and overweight. He’s hungry. They stop at a chippy opposite the Britannia Estates and buy five quid’s worth of chips with curry sauce, sharing a feast on butcher’s paper. Afterwards they throw rocks at an abandoned bus propped on bricks and push a supermarket trolley into the stormwater drain, where it bounces end over end and settles in the mud.
When they reach the Traveller’s Rest, they follow a side path along the chain-link fe
nce, out of sight from the main road. The air smells of exhaust fumes and chemicals that blow across the industrial lots and freight yard. Syd goes first because he knows how to work the lights. As he puts the key in the lock he hears something behind him, beyond the fence in the freight yard. Maybe it’s a dog scavenging for food, he thinks, peering through the fence. There are shipping containers stacked in neat rows and freight cars rusting on the sidings.
Stepping inside the room, he kicks aside a crumpled cardboard box and closes the curtains, before turning on the lights.
The others follow him. Taj sniffs the air. “What’s that stink? Smells like somebody rubbed shit on the walls. Did you take a dump, Syd?”
“It wasn’t me.”
“It’s always you,” says Rafiq.
Syd is banging on the top of an old TV that has never worked, trying to get a signal. Taj is sitting on a sofa that is spilling foam. Rafiq keeps watch at the window. Through a half-inch gap in the curtains, he sees the Courier coming, moving along the walkway.
“He’s here.”
The young men take their places. Standing. Showing respect. Aware of how the atmosphere in the room changes whenever this man appears.
The Courier looks from face to face, stopping at Syd.
“Have you been talking to anyone?”
“No, not me, not a soul, nobody.”
“I heard you were bragging to your mates.”
“No fucking way.”
“The next time you come in here, lock the door.”
The Courier paces the room, checking the light fittings, power sockets, running his fingers under the edge of tables and along the underside of the windowsills. His lips are flat and thin against his teeth.
Satisfied, he returns to the table and opens the cardboard flaps of the box. He pulls out a canvas vest—a simple garment tailored to fit a man or a woman’s body. Thick shoulder straps hold the midsection in place.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks.
The Wreckage: A Thriller Page 36
