by Howard Marks
Most of the back of the office was occupied by a counter topped with a built-in shutter that had been left open. Behind this sat a squat individual with sleek, black hair. He wore a garish open-necked seersucker shirt in pink and yellow. Tendrils of chest hair were clearly visible above the top buttons. On his wrist sat a heavy gold Rolex watch. Cat pulled her warrant card out of her pocket, waved it in front of him.
‘I’d like to see your fare book from June.’
Rolex was almost too quick for her, but she managed to stick her fist under the shutter to prevent its closure.
‘You want a charge of ABH against an officer, do you?’ she shouted into the gap between shutter and desk, refusing to retract her arm.
He seemed to understand the situation. Gradually the shutter was raised, the fare book pushed begrudgingly across the counter. The records had been entered in a leatherbound ledger with a stained cover. Inside, there were greasy smears hinting at a more than casual link with the kebab house next door. Cat turned the pages quickly, searching first for the correct date, then the time that she had seen the cab parked opposite the cybercafé. About halfway down the page she found a reference to a drop-off.
‘So which driver is seventeen then?’
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a sudden movement. A rustling noise as a newspaper was put down. One of the three waiting drivers was leaving by a doorway to the right of the counter. The shutter slammed down loudly as she ran after the driver into the building’s back yard.
The yard measured no more than twenty feet from one end to the other; most of it taken up by overflowing bins. There was a door that would have given access to the street but had rusted shut. The wall was less than seven feet high and the cabbie was halfway over it. Cat grabbed the man’s legs as he scaled it, used all her weight to bring him back down. She wasn’t taking any chances. As he dropped, she wound her right arm around his neck, squeezed it back towards her shoulder so that it obstructed his windpipe, tensed her arm a little so that her hard bicep bit into his soft throat.
‘All right! Fuck’s sake.’
His face was contorted, his arms up in a gesture of surrender.
She kept her arm where it was, but loosened her hold slightly. He smelled of inexpensive aftershave with an overlay of sweat. She could feel his fear.
‘I’m not immigration, I’m not interested in your papers. OK?’
He nodded slowly. Half-turned and threw a longing glance at the wall, freedom.
‘Who was the man in your cab with a laptop?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t remember.’
Cat wasn’t too bothered; he’d have to resist at least one question for his self-esteem.
‘I am becoming a little more interested in your papers now.’
She saw him glance to the right, followed his gaze. She saw the office owner with the Rolex and the two other drivers now moving across the yard towards her. Rolex came in close, sneering. He must be as stupid as all hell to threaten a police officer, but if people weren’t stupid, policing would be a quiet job.
Cat gave driver 17 a last, hard squeeze on the Adam’s apple to leave him choking and temporarily incapacitated. Then in one flowing move stepped forward and kicked Rolex in the groin. It wasn’t a precise martial arts kick, Walter would be tutting disapproval, but she was Welsh and liked to allow herself a robust rugby punt, now and again. Rolex sagged to the ground.
‘Back off!’
The growl that emerged from her throat had the desired effect on the men who cupped their hands in front of their crotches. They hesitated, not wanting to lose face and retreat but looking as if they didn’t fancy it either.
Back to driver 17, who was beginning to revive. She pushed his head against a wall to give her back the initiative, then resumed her choke hold and pulled him backwards with her down some steps. She just managed to right herself in time to maintain her hold. The steps led down to a doorway. In the yard, the three men were moving closer, recovering their courage. She backed through the door, dragging driver 17 by the throat after her. They came into another small yard. The smell of spices mixed uneasily with the stench of the bins.
She had some time, but not much.
She moved against the wall, briefly increasing the pressure to remind her prisoner who was boss. He grunted in response, moved his head from side to side in an attempt to gain some freedom. And some air.
‘Who is he?’ Cat asked again.
‘Don’t know.’
He had a lot to lose by holding out, and she’d been told a lot of lies in her time but there was a tone in his voice that made her believe him. She tried another avenue.
‘Where do you pick him up?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Where?’
He pointed at the passageway out to the street.
‘That one, he always comes off the street.’
She sensed he was telling the truth. But it was a truth that didn’t tell her anything she could use. She increased the pressure on his neck again, was rewarded with a strangled grunt.
‘Up close what does he look like?’
‘Always he wears glasses, a scarf.’
‘The drop-off?’
‘By that café. He just sits there, uses his laptop.’
‘He get out there?’
‘No, he asks me to drop him on the street, different places each time.’
‘Accent?’
‘English man. I don’t know.’
She could feel the man relax, the tension in his muscles ebb away. This meant he’d told her everything, he knew he could not be made to give more. He even allowed himself a flourish now. He extended his arm, made a claw with his hand, then made a gentle throwing motion. ‘He’s there, then he’s gone.’
‘Like magic, huh.’
Cat slumped, relaxing her hold. She knew how close she had got, which made the dead end that she had hit all the more painful. Feeling Cat’s grasp weaken, the man slipped his neck from her hold and half-turned, cautiously backing off towards the white door. Cat closed her eyes. The killer had been there in front of her, then disappeared, as a dream evaporates on waking.
‘Pick up or drop him on these streets?’
She reeled off the three local addresses, both Tana’s and Rhiannon’s.
‘Last one maybe. Once, I think.’
She gave the address again. He shrugged. It was a long street, she knew. She was clutching at straws now.
‘Fuck it,’ she shouted. The frustration was unbearable.
She heard the advance of feet from the adjoining yard as the cabbies gained the confidence to come again. Something told her she’d need to conserve her energy. She turned, jumped and slapped her palms on top of the wall of the yard, hoisted herself up, lifting her legs, she balanced momentarily on top of the wall, before dropping down into the street below.
The fading daylight did little to improve the look of Rhiannon’s former lodging. The rain had stopped for a couple of hours but was now returning intermittently, a skein of droplets on the windscreen. In Wales weeks could pass in this state of perpetual dampness. This felt like home.
She pulled into a space on the same side as the property, about thirty yards short. Out of the corner of her eye, by the dim light of a flickering street lamp, she caught a sign hanging in a window. A dirty flag, with a pentangle painted on it.
It was draped like a curtain from an upper window in the grimy brick tenement block. The front garden had a fridge-freezer rusting in the garden. A buddleia was trying to shoot from the old icebox. There was no doorbell, just a couple of wires poking out of a rotting doorframe. No lights on in any downstairs room. She knocked, her knuckles making little impression on the heavy door. She would have peered into the front room just beside her, but a red fake velvet drape hung in the window. A dead pot plant sat between the drape and the window, a little sanctuary for the home’s spiders.
She traversed round to the back of the house where the long low extensio
n had a flat roof, sheeted with roofing felt. A couple of dustbins and a teetering drainpipe gave her a way up. She climbed onto the roof. Jumping down the other way would place her in the garden and allow her to try the back door, but there were no lights there either. A window faced out onto the roof. She banged on it a couple of times, just to check there was no one there. She prepared to smash the window with a boot heel.
But the second knock brought a face to the window. A thin man, Asian, wearing a yellow T-shirt, none too new. She banged again, pressing her warrant card up against the glass.
‘Police,’ she snapped. ‘Open up immediately.’
The face disappeared to be replaced by a woman’s face. Then the man fiddled with the window lock and threw the window up. Cat climbed in. The room was ten foot by six foot, and housed three people: the immigrant couple and a two-year-old daughter. There was a kettle and a pair of electric rings in the corner. The three of them shared a single, ancient mattress.
Cat was already on her way out and upstairs.
Deeper into the house, a red bulb on an upper landing glowed its seedy invitation. Cat wondered about exit routes. Wondered if it was right to be here. Wondered if she should tell Kyle her whereabouts.
Too late. She was heading up.
The stairs creaked under her. The place stank of an overflowing toilet and uncleaned carpet. She made for the top floor, trying to feel centred. Trying to find her fighting energy.
At the top there was a single door. Music was coming through beneath it. She knocked hard, yelled, ‘Police.’
Nothing. She knocked again and slammed the door with her boot. She was about to make a more serious effort when the door opened. A cadaverous man – maybe early twenties – in skinny black jeans and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt hung in the doorway smirking at her.
‘Fuller?’ The man hesitated. ‘Roberts?’ He still hesitated, but at the same time scratching his scrawny neck. She reckoned she’d got Roberts.
‘Pigs?’
‘May I come in?’ Cat was polite, because she had to be. She had no legal right of entry. She couldn’t step over the threshold without an invitation.
‘You got a warrant?’ Roberts smirked at her, enjoying his little one-upmanship. Incense and the sweet smell of marijuana hung in the air.
‘Buddy, I don’t have a warrant, but if you want me to come back here with a van full of cops and a sniffer dog, then I will, I will.’
He smirked a bit more, then flung himself aside so the way was clear for Cat to enter. She did so and the moment she did, he swung the door shut and locked it.
‘For your comfort and safety,’ he said.
Cat checked the lock. It wasn’t a Yale that could be unlocked from the inside, but a mortice lock and Roberts had pocketed the key.
He swept past a dirty kitchen and an unspeakable bathroom into a surprisingly large living room. Blackout curtains prevented any street light entering from outside. There was no electric light, only twenty or thirty wax candles. Apart from Roberts and Cat herself, there were three people in the room: an unusually tough-looking hippy in combat gear and dreadlocks – Fuller? – two girls, all dramatic eye make-up, black dresses and beads. There was a table covered in black cloth, and at the centre a human skull.
One of the girls was more finely dressed than the other and more alert. Her close-fitting black jacket looked like something a professional horsewoman would wear.
The girl eyed Cat apprehensively, whispered something to her friend. As Cat approached, she saw that she looked about the same age as her friend, but, with her finely cut clothes, she exuded a greater air of authority. A woman trying to look older than her years.
‘Do you believe in the devil, pig?’ said Roberts.
‘Does the name Rhiannon Powell mean anything to you?’
‘Look out over London. Tell me, who’s winning?’
‘I have reason to believe that Rhiannon Powell used this address. She was murdered.’ And here Cat looked at the two girls. ‘Murdered recently, in her own garden.’
‘Or sacrificed.’ The hippy was standing now. He had the dissociated look that goes with PTSD or a bad drug experience.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t pay any attention. He’s out of it.’ Roberts again.
The guy was tall – six two, six three even – and a strong bastard, gym-muscled. He stood too close, breathing tobacco and garlic breath into Cat’s hair.
‘Oi,’ said Roberts, but the hippy wasn’t listening.
‘She was frightened as shit that’s what.’ The hippy stared at her. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘I think you should leave.’ It was one of the two girls speaking, urgently but quietly.
‘Frightened of what?’ asked Cat, but she got no answer.
‘Fucking pig.’ The hippy had his hand on Cat’s chest and was pushing her back against the wall. She didn’t know the room layout and the place was so untidy she had no idea what might be lying on the floor to trip her.
‘She wouldn’t tell us.’ One of the girls looked more frightened than the others. She went over to Roberts.
The hippy was still closing. Cat was pinned against the wall. The girl took the key from Roberts, was opening the door. Then it slammed and she was gone.
The hippy had his bearded face up close to Cat’s. ‘I don’t remember inviting you in here.’
‘Steady,’ Cat said, ‘steady,’ as though talking to a horse.
He pulled his head back. Cat wasn’t sure why. He was going to either spit or headbutt her, and if it was the latter she wasn’t sure she’d win any fight that followed.
She stamped on his instep, and brought her knee up as his face folded down with the pain. She made good contact – felt blood soaking into her trouser leg – and flung the guy to the side.
‘Fuck’s sake, man.’ That, from Roberts.
She needed to move fast to reach the girl. She edged towards him and the door, hoping that he’d be only too happy to let her out.
He was. She ran forwards. Roberts first forgot he had a key, then remembered, then fumbled the lock, then undid it. The hippy was at the end of the short corridor, with a Gothic-looking hunting knife in his hand. Cat fled. She pounded down the stairs, to the back room with the immigrant family in it, didn’t trust that the front door could be opened from the inside. Without a word of explanation, she flung open the window and bundled herself out onto the roof, from there to the pavement.
She leaned panting against a graffitied wall. She had to laugh at herself, really.
Reaching the street Cat saw the retreating back of the girl. Keeping a steady pace she kept her close, waited until she was out of sight of the house. Further down, the street branched off into separate roads containing large Edwardian houses. The girl crossed over to the other side.
The clatter of retreating heels was not the syncopated click-clack of the self-possessed: their rhythm was quicker, more urgent, brisker than a purposeful stride. The footfalls had upset in them. Cat turned, looked again, saw now that the girl was running.
She crossed the street again. Cat made her move. ‘Wait!’
The girl spun around, looked startled. Cat could see the marks of tears on her cheeks. She clutched a balled tissue in her right hand, sniffed.
‘You were a friend of Rhiannon’s, weren’t you?’
Cat moved closer, put a hand on her left arm, squeezed gently. The girl did not nod, but she did not move away either. Shock kept her still.
‘I’m police, but not what your friends thought.’ She gestured back behind them. ‘Can we talk?’
The girl did not stop, and Cat walked fast beside her. ‘I never really knew her. I mean, she answered an ad for the room, paid the rent, but she was hardly there.’
The girl hoped this was enough but Cat stayed on her.
‘All her stuff – she didn’t have much – she took to the other flat.’
‘Two places she had?’
‘Maybe more, dunno.’
�
�OK, I believe you,’ Cat said gently. ‘Did she see an older man ever?’
‘No. I don’t know. She never mentioned anything like that, but she kept going away.’ The girl bowed her head. ‘It just feels so wrong that she—’
The girl started to cry. Cat asked for a name – Jen – and gave her own. Cat patted her pockets, pretending to look for a tissue but knowing she didn’t have one.
‘She was a singer, wasn’t she?’
Jen nodded.
‘Listen, can I ask if any of these pictures mean anything to you? Do you know where they might have been taken?’
Cat showed the printouts she’d made of the missing girls. All singing the same song. ‘These ring any bells?’
Cat kept her eyes fixed on the girl’s face for any sign of recognition. She showed close-ups of the victims’ faces, then focused on features of the stage. The peeling paint on the proscenium, the corner of the flat at the back with the painted battlements. Nothing produced so much as a flicker.
‘No, I’ve never seen anything like that before.’
The girl removed her hand from Cat’s, put the tissue to her nose as she shook her head. She pulled away, moved across the street to a hatchback. Its scratched paintwork had faded to an unattractive pinky-orange. The back bumper was dented in several places. The girl removed a bunch of keys from her pocket, opened the door, slid in quickly behind the wheel. The engine coughed briefly, then caught.
Something clicked in Cat’s mind. ‘Wait?’ She screamed, belted forward, reached the car just as the girl was pulling out into the road. She banged an open palm on the windscreen, her rings clattering on the glass. Cat mimed winding down the window, held her hands together in a plea, caught the girl’s eye with her imploring own. A small chink appeared at the top of the driver’s window. Cat moved round, breathless.
‘Rhiannon, she didn’t have a driving licence, did she? You gave her lifts.’
Jen nodded. ‘Sometimes, yeah. I mean, she had a bike too, but …’
She gestured quickly upwards, by way of explanation, at the rain. But something in her mood had changed. Her hands were tensed on the steering wheel, her leg moving as she pumped the clutch, inching to get away. Cat knew she would have to act fast. ‘Ever drop her off in the Deptford area?’
