But Felix wasn’t really listening. He was imagining hundreds of thousands of strangers reading about his golf handicap and his sex drive and his hopeless DIY. He thought of himself as a private person. But his wife interrogated him while he was unconscious, and not only that, she wanted to plaster the details of his personal life all over the shelves of WH Smith.
As part of a rather transparent and stomach-churning charm offensive Captain Roderick was doing the rounds, coming as dose to an apology as he had probably come in his entire life. There were plenty of excuses for his commando-style storming of the school toilet, including his own high blood pressure on the day and his fear that Ruby ‘might have being doing herself harm’.
‘We are all very mindful for the girl’s welfare,’ he said, bringing both hands to rest on the handle of his umbrella, which was propped between his knees. ‘If there’s anything we can do?’
‘No, nothing,’ said Felix.
His voice was thin and cold. For the past two nights he had hardly slept, not daring to drift off before Abbie did, then lying awake well into the small hours, afraid of what he might say. On several occasions he had prodded Abbie in the back or whispered her name to check if she was sleeping. It appeared that she was, but who was to say she wouldn’t wake up once he had drifted off? It was an impossible situation, like guarding a lump of gold in the high mountains of the Sierra Madre. The minute his eyes were dosed it would be stolen out from under his nose. Already he was seriously tired, not to mention irritable, and the more Captain Roderick slimed and slithered in front of him, the closer he came to losing his patience. Eventually, just as Rubberdick was expressing his concern for ‘the girl’s’ health for the seventh or eighth time, Felix snapped.
‘Is that nail varnish?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m asking you if you’re wearing nail varnish.’
The Captain extended the fingers of his right hand and examined the gleaming, translucent nails in the light from the window. The nail on the middle finger appeared to be broken or torn, a war wound from his battle with Ruby, and somewhere under the carapace was a dark blister of blood.
‘Nail polish. As a matter of fact I am,’ he replied.
‘Why?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m asking you why.’
The Captain looked again at his fingers, paying particular attention to the damaged nail, and grimacing slightly as pressed it against the desk, testing for pain.
‘A protection,’ he explained.
‘Against what?’
‘I have a calcium deficiency.’
‘I see.’
‘Besides which. This hand…’ He dropped his voice to a low but serious hush. ‘This hand has shaken the hand of the Queen of England. This hand has touched history. Preserved beneath those layers of polish are the actual molecules where contact occurred. Thus.’ He leaned towards Felix, lifted his hand from where it rested on the mouse pad and, with what Felix took to be the authentic weight and control of a royal greeting - gentle, yet significant, and slightly menacing - he shook it.
‘Wasn’t she wearing gloves?’ asked Felix.
The Captain dropped his hand. ‘You can scoff. But we all need something to keep us going, some little sign or deed. She shook this hand because of the good it had done. And trapped beneath the polish is the will to go on doing it. It’s what gives me the power, and the right.’
It was just about the weirdest thing Felix had ever heard. The man was dearly deranged. A maniac. And it suddenly flashed through Felix’s mind that atoms of Her Majesty the Queen might not be the only things held in suspension beneath the see-through varnish. Captain Roderick was a teacher, wasn’t he? And what do teachers grip between their fingers every day of their working life? Chalk. Just what they found on Ruby’s knickers. Dusty white chalk. Somewhere within the layers of polish, specks of white powder were lurking, particles of the stuff that could be forensically identified then traced to a batch, a packet, an individual stick of chalk. Indisputable evidence. Suddenly everything was unmistakably obvious. The cause of Ruby Moffat’s trauma was sitting no more than two feet from him, and the only mystery was why more of his students weren’t barricading themselves in the toilets or jumping out of classroom windows. At least that’s how it looked to Felix, through the fog of his exhaustion. In truth, though, the cause of Ruby Moffat’s trauma was three or four miles away, and right at that moment was driving away from the Social Services children’s home in a rusty dark-green van, with Ruby on the passenger seat next to him.
18
Felix was in and out of the surgery in no more than fifteen minutes. The waiting room was unusually quiet and only one ear needed to be syringed, despite the fact that the locum doctor had identified a blockage in both and for the past five days Felix had been dribbling extra-virgin olive oil into his auditory canals. When he left he noticed a definite improvement to his hearing and also to his balance, as if a valve had been opened and pressure released. Following one idea with another, he found himself thinking about a photograph he had once seen of a hole being drilled in the top of a man’s head to relieve his headache. What he remembered most about the image was the drill itself - not a piece of surgical equipment or even a power tool, but a hand-operated thing with a wooden handle and what looked like a rusty bit. The patient didn’t appear to be under any kind of anaesthetic or suffering any pain, although his eyes were wide and somewhat skew-whiff, looking in opposite directions. It was an expression not a million miles from the look on the face of Carlos, the duty officer at the children’s home, as he ran towards Felix’s car. PC Nottingham and PC Lily were also in the car park, talking into their radios.
‘She’s gone,’ blurted Carlos.
‘When did this happen?’
‘About half an hour ago. Said she was going outside to play football with the others and she hasn’t come back. Ben here saw her getting into a van.’
‘A green ’un,’ said a boy standing with his hands in his pockets.
‘Are you sure she isn’t at home? Maybe one of her brothers came for her?’
‘No, I’ve spoken to the mother. Ruby’s not at home and she’s worried sick.’
PC Lily told Felix that they had several cars out looking for the van and even the police helicopter from Manchester making a sweep of the area. They searched through her room for any indication of where she might be and who might have taken her, but there was nothing. Felix told PC Lily he’d go up to the family house to try and reassure Mrs Moffat. Just then there was a squawk from the radio in the patrol car. Felix heard various code numbers being called out, followed by an address on the Lakeland Estate.
‘We’re on our way,’ said PC Nottingham. He slid into the driving seat and started the engine, and PC Lily jumped in next to him.
‘What shall I do?’ Felix asked before they pulled off.
The two police officers spoke quickly to each other, then PC Lily wound down her window. ‘Get in,’ she told him.
With the siren going, they went through three sets of red lights and over the central reservation of the dual carriageway, but it still took a good twenty minutes to reach the estate. On the way, bits of information were relayed through the radio. Ruby had been spotted by one of her brothers being taken into a house not far from their own. He had barged his way in through the garage and there had been an altercation. The brother had been stabbed. A chase followed; a man had taken refuge in an old coach on Coleridge Avenue, where he was now holding Ruby as a hostage.
‘The Big Blue One?’ asked Felix from the back seat.
‘Sounds like it,’ said PC Lily.
That was as much as they were told. When they arrived on the estate there were already six other police vehicles at the scene, including two Black Marias and a dog van, and as PC Lily opened the back door of the car to let him out, Felix heard the drone of the helicopter as it hovered overhead. A small crowd had gathered, including the Moffat brothers, who were hurling s
tones and small chunks of broken paving stones at the coach. Eventually they were forced back by the dog handlers to a distance from where they could only reach it with insults and abuse. Teddy, the eldest, was standing on top of the metal container that housed the local betting office.
‘You fucking pervert. You touch my sister and I’ll fucking rip you apart. Can you hear me?’
In his coat and trousers, Felix looked and felt peculiar, standing among the group of police officers in their uniforms and polished buttons and boots.
‘Who’s this?’ the officer in charge asked PC Lily.
‘The girl’s social worker.’
He didn’t respond. He was trying to establish the order of events, the current situation and a plan of action. More police arrived. Two of them circled the coach with a spool of blue and white tape until the area was cordoned off. All bystanders were ushered outside the circumference.
‘Anything on that address yet?’ the officer asked one of his subordinates.
‘Still waiting.’
Felix looked towards the houses to the left and could see an ambulance parked outside the garage and another policeman in front of the door.
‘Is that the house of the man who’s got Ruby?’ he asked.
The officer scowled at him. ‘Will someone escort this bleeding heart to the other side of the tape?’
‘Come on.’ PC Nottingham took him gently by the elbow to guide him away.
‘But I know whose house that is,’ said Felix. ‘It’s James Spotland’s.’
Just as he spoke, the crowd to one side were suddenly running for cover, some of them screaming. Felix looked towards the Big Blue One and through one of the shattered windows saw the outline and then the features of the small bald man he had last seen carrying a pile of children’s toys through the doors of the office. It was indeed Jimmy Spotland, and under his left arm he held a small, red-headed girl by her neck, and in his right hand he was holding a gun.
∗
During the next two hours the entire street was sealed off and the houses surrounding it evacuated. What had seemed like a little local drama with an audience of residents had suddenly escalated into a tense and serious incident, with police marksmen taking up positions in neighbouring buildings and journalists and cameramen setting up camp in adjoining avenues. Felix had found Mr and Mrs Moffat in a large police vehicle like a mobile library parked three or four streets away. They were drinking tea from paper cups and watching a bank of closed-circuit television monitors, all of them showing the blue coach from various angles. The time codes rolled over in the bottom right-hand corner of the screens. Felix put his hand on Mrs Moffat’s shoulder.
‘I’m sure she’ll be all right. I’ve known Jimmy a long time. He’s not the type…’
Not the type to abduct a child, was he going to say? Not the type to carry a gun? What other types wasn’t he? He changed tack.
‘How’s your son? Joey, was it?’
‘He’s OK. It was only a scratch,’ said his mother.
In fact Felix had been told by PC Lily that the young man had been taken to hospital with two deep stab wounds, one in his forearm and one in his shoulder. But maybe in the life of a Moffat, or in comparison with your only daughter being held at gunpoint in an armoured coach, two penetrating blows to the flesh didn’t really count. Neither parent had taken their eyes from the screens. Felix stepped back outside, feeling useless and with an unignorable sense of guilt growing minute by minute. He felt he should stay but had no idea what to do. The scowling officer and another important-looking policeman were walking towards him. Felix turned between two cars to avoid them. ‘That’s him,’ he heard the officer saying.
‘Is it Felix?’ the other man called after him.
‘Yes.’
‘Spotland wants to talk to you.’
‘To me?’
‘Correct.’
‘What, on the phone?’
‘He hasn’t got a phone. You’d better come with me.’
It was, as the officer in charge of the operation kept explaining, completely up to him. And yet before he had actually given his answer he was wearing a bulletproof vest and being walked towards the cordon. The words DO NOT ENTER were written on the tape in big letters. Things had been explained to him very clearly. Spotland had seen Felix from the bus window. He wouldn’t talk to a policeman but he would talk to Felix. He trusted him. He wouldn’t harm him. Felix was to walk slowly to the coach. Talk calmly to Jimmy. Find out what he wanted. Check that Ruby was OK. Then walk slowly away. Of course it was completely up to him, but even as he was told this for the eighth or ninth time, he saw a hand lifting the tape in front of him and felt a pat on the back. It was PC Lily, wishing him luck. The officer lifted a loudhailer to his mouth and in the direction of the Big Blue One shouted, ‘He’s on his way. Please acknowledge that he is free to approach the coach.’
There was a quick glimpse of Jimmy at the broken window and some sort of garbled reply.
The officer looked down at Felix. ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he said.
There were pellets of broken glass on the ground that crunched under his shoes. He purposefully crushed them into the tarmac, making as much noise as possible, and every two or three steps cleared his throat or coughed. Even though the officer had announced Felix’s visit, he didn’t -want to risk any element of surprise. He wanted to be utterly conspicuous, as obvious as was humanly possible. But every step forward was a step towards loneliness, despite the dozens of people watching his progress and the cameras trained on the coach. He pictured himself on the surveillance screens, an isolated figure, walking away from safety. And at some stage, some mid-point between the loudhailer and the gun, he thought of Abbie, standing in the precinct with her clipboard, asking her questions. He should have phoned her to tell her where he was and what he was doing. He should have asked her permission - she would have said no. He thought of his mother also and glanced down at his watch. Whatever time it was, it didn’t register. About ten feet away from the bus, in line with the broken window, he stopped and swallowed his breath.
‘Jimmy, it’s Felix.’
‘I can see you,’ said Jimmy’s voice from inside.
Felix stood still, wondering whose turn it was to speak. After a while he said, ‘I’ve been told to ask you…’
‘Get on the coach,’ shouted Jimmy.
‘What?’
‘Go to the door and get on the coach. NOW.’
There was a squeal from inside. Ruby, in pain.
‘All right, all right. They told me to stay outside. Don’t hurt her.’
Felix made his way towards the door, where several weeks ago he had been told by some anonymous and all-powerful presence inside the coach to fuck off. Now here he was, pulling on the handle and climbing up the metal steps, reluctant and afraid. He expected the sudden, amplified voice of the police officer telling him not to do it. But nothing came. Behind him was darkness, and silence. Inside the coach it was even darker. He reached out to steady himself and felt the ball at the top of the gear stick. Looking ahead, he could just make out the back window and the metal strips of the luggage racks on each side at head height. As his pupils widened, he could see that all the seats had been removed, and that boxes and crates were stacked at intervals along the length of the floor. It was from between two of the crates that a light suddenly flickered and glowed. Then out of the gap came Jimmy, on his knees, with a cigarette lighter flaring in his hand. He looked like some poor wretch who had been locked from birth in a cupboard or a shed. Like someone who’d never seen daylight or another human being in his life. His clothes were filthy and torn, and his movements were those of an animal, a wild animal cornered in its lair.
‘Where’s Ruby?’ said Felix, his voice trembling in his throat.
Jimmy swung the lighter to the other side of the bus. Ruby was crouched on the floor with her head between her knees and her hair spilling down towards her ankles.
‘Are you OK, Ruby?’
/>
‘Of course she’s OK,’ hissed Jimmy. ‘Tell him you’re OK.’
Outlined against the blackness, Felix could see the lifting and falling of her shoulders as she sobbed. She did not reply.
The lighter went out.
‘Got any fags?’ said Jimmy, from the darkness.
‘No.’
‘Listen, tell them I want fags. And some food, yeah? And something for her - a burger and a Coke.’
‘I’ll tell them. Just don’t hurt her.’
‘And listen, Felix, I need you to tell them about me. I’m a good character, right? And how the wife left me - you know all this stuff. This thing with Ruby - you’ve got to tell them what these Moffats are like. How they’re liars and shit stirrers. You know ’em, Felix. You can tell the coppers what they’re like. I’m just a small-timer. You know that, don’t you, Felix?’
There was no conviction at all in his voice. It wasn’t even a plea. Out of the silence that followed, the sound of crying finally emerged, and as Felix moved his head to listen, he realized they were not the tears of a young girl.
A loud and nasally voice came from outside. Through the megaphone the policeman boomed, ‘We’re just bringing up the lights. Nothing to be alarmed about.’
A generator started up in the distance and almost immediately a cool, silvery light pierced the windows of the coach from all sides and illuminated everything within it. Jimmy scurried back between the two packing cases. For a moment, Ruby looked towards Felix. Her face was dirty and creased. Strands of hair were plastered to her cheeks. Her eyes peered through the bedraggled red curtain of her fringe. Then came a loud pinging sound from the mesh on one of the windows. Like something had snapped.
‘You fuckin’ pervert. Touch our Ruby and I’ll rip you up. You get out here, Spotland, and I’ll fucking tear you to pieces.’
The White Stuff Page 20
