The Loop

by Anabel Donald

  Maybe I should jog to Queen’s Park.

  No I couldn’t, get real, my brain already felt too big for my skull and that was while I stood still.

  If Polly was still asleep, I could borrow her car without asking. I took the spare set of car keys and went, gingerly, downstairs and out into the chilly street, then looked up at her windows. No sign of life. Good.

  Queen’s Park is an odd area, not one I know well. It’s only about two miles from Notting Hill so it’s definitely London. Some of its semi-detached Edwardian villas sit gloomily in tree-lined squares pretending to be top-of-the-range suburban, while just two streets away jerry-built dark cramped terrace houses in multiple occupation look too exhausted for pretence of any kind.

  Balmer Leisure Services was at the top of the local heap. Number 2 Copthorne Square, the address I had, was a double-fronted red-brick Edwardian villa on three floors, complete with bay windows, little gables and a narrow surrounding strip of lawn and rhododendron bushes. It stood alone opposite the narrow end of a wedge-shaped communal garden, the sort where all the residents have keys, and dogs and children aren’t allowed. I parked next to the garden, opposite the house, and scoped it out.

  It was in good repair, neat, and utterly uncommunicative because all the windows were shuttered on the inside, with the kind of white metal security shutter you pull down and lock, not the picturesque wooden folding sort.

  The street, the whole area, was empty of people as you’d expect at seven in the morning on Easter Sunday. I got out of the car, crossed the road and walked casually past the house. If there was anybody inside, I wouldn’t know, so I didn’t push my luck and go up the path. There was a small respectable polished brass plate by the rose-pink front door, with lettering too small for me to read.

  I walked round the square while I was at it. The sun had come up but behind grey clouds so, while it wasn’t dark, it wasn’t very light either, and there was a cold breeze. I began to wake up properly and looked at the other houses as I passed. They were all semi-detached and solid. If they’d been in Hampstead they’d have been worth a fortune, and even here they wouldn’t be cheap, and their owners were taking, good care of them.

  A respectable middle-class residential square. What kind of leisure services was Sandra Balmer’s company providing for the neighbours? Or were the neighbours nothing to do with it? Had the company just happened to pick on the house as a head office? It didn’t look like an office.

  By now I’d almost lapped the square and had nearly reached the car, when I saw someone going up the front path of Number Two. A shabby woman, not old, not young, with a weary walk, two large carrier bags and a push-chair with a baby.

  When she reached the door she put down her carrier bags and fumbled in her overcoat pocket. Eventually she found keys, a large heavy set of keys, and used three of them on the front door. When it opened she went straight in, leaving the baby outside, and then re-appeared, presumably having switched off the alarm system, looked across and saw me.

  I got into the car, started it up and drove away.

  I didn’t think she’d noticed me. I hoped she hadn’t. She didn’t look interested, anyway.

  She was the cleaner, surely, arriving at that time of the morning with a baby.

  I wished I’d had Nick with me, then Nick could have kept her talking on some pretext – water for the car radiator, perhaps, or a telephone call to a car breakdown service – while I had a quick nose around the building.

  Too late now. But I could try it with Barty tomorrow.

  Not much wiser, and suddenly feeling bored and tired, I went back home to bed.

  The telephone woke me but I let the answering machine catch it. By the time I went downstairs, the caller had rung off.

  Nine-thirty. I opened the french windows to get some air and let the wind wake me properly. I don’t like second sleeps, they make me irritable.

  Then I listened to the message.

  ‘Happy Easter, Alex! This is Sandra. Sandra Balmer. Please call me back, dear, as soon as you can. We must talk.’

  Ring ring ring ring ring ring. Perhaps she was out, or in the sprawling bungalow’s west wing. Finally, a pickup.

  ‘This is Alex Tanner.’

  ‘Thank you for calling so promptly, dear I wonder . . . Have you been in touch with poor Jams?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is she still in America?’

  ‘No.’

  Pause. Laugh, the other end. ‘She must have been delighted to hear that Jacob was safe. Though she’s hurt, I expect? That he hadn’t been in touch?’

  Since I hadn’t told Jams about Sandra, I’d have to come up with some lie but I wasn’t sure what. Go for the obvious. ‘Very hurt.’

  ‘Aaah. I’m so sorry. Does she intend to take any further action?’

  ‘That depends,’ I said.

  Pause. ‘Alex, can we speak frankly?’

  ‘I can,’ I lied.

  ‘You might have guessed I wasn’t absolutely honest with you the other evening.’

  ‘Yes.’ Let her scramble for it, I thought. She’s on a damage-limitation exercise, but why? Why not let her preposterous story about Kyrgyzstan simmer and wait to see if it erupted in her face?

  ‘Jacob isn’t travelling abroad.’

  ‘Isn’t he?’

  ‘The poor boy . . . He’s in a bad way. He had a breakdown.’

  ‘A mental breakdown?’

  ‘Yes. And you can see that he mustn’t be upset, it’s very important. Any contact with Jams would be very distressing for him.’

  ‘That’s possible,’ I said. ‘Why don’t I have a word with him?’

  ‘He’s institutionalised,’ said Sandra.

  ‘I could visit the institution. So long as it isn’t in Kyrgyzstan.’

  Laugh. ‘Of course not, it’s in London.’ Pause. ‘That might be best,’ she said. ‘When?’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘But it’s Easter Sunday! Oooh, you are a hard worker, aren’t you, determined and ambitious. That’s the way, I always used to tell my girls. Work hard and you’ll get on.’

  ‘What was your business, Sandra?’

  ‘Leisure. That’s the way forward in a post-industrial society, you know, the service industries and the media. You’re so wise in your choice of career. But I do worry about you. Does your mum worry about you?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said, remembering my mother’s furrowed face and her anxious question to Eddy about me, ‘Who took care of her?’

  ‘I would. Investigation can be dangerous, surely.’

  Her tone was still sweet and light, but she was threatening me. ‘I expect so,’ I said non-committally.

  ‘And that doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘It bothers me. It doesn’t stop me.’

  ‘Ah.’ Pause. ‘You’re a practical girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Financially speaking?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘So a bit of money always comes in handy?’

  ‘I hardly ever say no to money,’ I said. ‘Not real money. What are we talking about?’

  Pause. ‘Bottom line, ten thousand, in the hand and not a word to our friends at the Revenue.’

  Ten thousand, first offer. That meant she’d go to twenty thousand.

  Not a huge sum. But a much bigger sum than I could imagine being worth Sandra’s while to pay just to get me off Jacob’s back, or her own.

  There was something fundamental I was missing about Jacob Stone.

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ I said. ‘Can I ring you back?’

  ‘Oh do, you’d be so wise. I knew we’d understand each other,’ she said with a gush of cosy relief. ‘I’m out for lunch but I’ll be back after four.’

  ‘I’ll ring you then,’ I said. ‘And Sandra . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I always pay my taxes. It’s a citizen’s duty. So we’d have to allow for that. Round up proportionately.’

  ‘Surely not if i
t’s cash?’

  ‘Tip-offs to the Revenue have been known.’

  ‘Not by me,’ said Sandra indignantly. ‘Surely we can trust each other?’

  ‘I’m sure we can. But you wouldn’t want me to go against my conscience.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I put Liszt’s second concerto on the CD, ground beans, made some of my best coffee, sat at the kitchen table and sipped. A possible twenty thousand pounds. That was serious. That was chilling. It gave substance to Sandra’s implied threat of danger to me.

  But what danger? What could she do?

  It depended who she was, or what she was, and who her low-life contacts were, because she probably wasn’t reckoning to do me any damage herself. My best guess was that she had been a madam of some kind, because she kept referring to her girls. Was Balmer Leisure Services an escort agency? If so, the house was too big just to be offices, surely, and escort agencies didn’t usually provide bed space: too much trouble with the law.

  It couldn’t be a massage parlour. Wrong place, wrong presentation, no passing trade, and the neighbours would have raised hell.

  Drug-dealing was the other possibility. If it was drugs, then I’d back off sharpish. Drugs meant huge profits, and crackheads, and guns. But it didn’t fit with the house. Drug-dealers dealt on the streets, with mobile phones, and their bosses didn’t hang around Queen’s Park, they were in Jersey or Marseilles or Amsterdam or Miami.

  The house was the key. Roll on seven o’clock tomorrow morning, when I could nip in and check it out.

  But meanwhile I’d bought myself some time. Whether she had any intention of paying me I didn’t know and didn’t care, because I couldn’t take the money. I’d have to speak to Jams and warn her that we might both be in big trouble, and see if there was anything else crucial she hadn’t told me.

  I poured some more coffee and fetched the telephone to the kitchen table. I’d just found Jams’ number and was stretching out my hand to dial when the phone rang, startling me.

  ‘Yes?’ I said irritably.

  ‘Alex Tanner?’ An unfamiliar, educated male voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Patrick Brownlow here. Miss Tanner. We haven’t met, but Mrs Balmer asked me to speak to you about one of my patients. I’m a consultant psychiatrist, in attendance part-time at the Caritas Clinic.’

  ‘Is this about Jacob?’

  ‘Yes, but I’d prefer not to discuss it over the telephone. Perhaps we might meet? I could come to you, if that would be more convenient?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Today?’

  An eminent psychiatrist, offering to make a house call on Easter Sunday? The stakes were upping all the time. I’d heard of Patrick Brownlow. He was a very top persons’ shrink, and the Caritas was a very top persons’ place. If a minor member of the Royal Family or a film star jolted off their trolley or stuck their nose too far into the candy, off to the Caritas with them.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, of course. ‘What time?’

  ‘Would noon suit you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  He was exactly on time. A distinguished-looking man, about fifty, with an attractive irregular face and thick dark just-greying hair combed straight back from his forehead. He was wearing a light tweed suit that looked as if it had come from a good tailor and made him look slimmer and taller. He was actually about five foot eight and on the blocky side.

  He came in, made appreciative noises about my flat and about me sparing the time, and accepted a cup of coffee. He was surprisingly pleasant. Psychiatrists in my experience (and I’ve known a lot of of them, through my mother) are either neurotic or powerfreaks. He didn’t appear to be either, and he chatted amiably about the weather and about the music I was playing (Mahler) for the right length of time.

  Then he came to the point. Jacob was his patient, had been since last October when Sandra had brought him in. He couldn’t of course discuss the details of the case but Jacob was very unwell and had been in the Caritas ever since. He, Brownlow, wanted to reassure me and my unfortunate client that Jacob was indeed alive, that nothing physical had happened to him, but that a meeting with Jams at this stage wouldn’t be helpful. Might even be damaging. And a meeting with me would be equally so because I was representing Jams.

  ‘You could always tell him I wanted to see him for some other reason. We could make it up,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘I never lie to my patients,’ he said. ‘Never. Most of them are my patients because too many people have told them lies in the past, or continue to do so.’

  ‘That’s the neurotics, I suppose. So Jacob’s a neurotic, not a psychotic?’ I fished.

  He smiled and said nothing.

  I smiled too. I liked him. He was quietly clever and he had an expressive face. But just because I liked him, I wasn’t going to let him get away with anything. ‘So what’s your association with Sandra Balmer?’ I said, ‘Why did she bring Jacob to you in the first place? Especially all the way down here from Doncaster?’

  ‘I’ve known Sandra for years. She trusts me,’ he said.

  ‘She’s an unusual person,’ I said. ‘What’s her line of business?’

  He raised one dark eyebrow. ‘Leisure services, I believe.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Doesn’t that bother you?’

  He smiled. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘She’s not my patient.’

  ‘When do you think Jacob will be well enough to talk to Jams?’

  ‘That’s difficult to say.’

  ‘Does he feel anything for her at all? Does he love her?’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t answer you,’ he said. ‘I can’t discuss my patient.’

  ‘So what do I tell Jams?’

  ‘Tell her what I’ve told you. The rest is up to her.’

  ‘She loves him. I know it sounds silly after just one meeting, but I think she actually does. Deeply.’

  ‘Then I am sorry,’ he said, and he sounded as if he really was.

  ‘Should I encourage her to hope that when he’s better he’ll want to see her?’

  He looked at his hands, which were lightly clasped on his knee. ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea,’ he said, finally, carefully.

  I trusted him instinctively, but I didn’t trust Sandra, and he was her messenger. Even so I hesitated. Should I tell him about the baby? That might jolt him into more confidences. But then again he might tell Sandra, and since I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t know whether the fact of her pregnancy might expose Jams to danger. It made her more vulnerable, somehow.

  No, I wouldn’t. ‘So you think she’s lost him?’ I said. ‘She should drop it? Behave as if she’d never met him?’

  ‘If she can, that would be best,’ he said.

  I met his eyes. He was telling me Jacob was dead, I thought. That’s what he was saying. And not metaphorically, either, not mentally ill and beyond Jams’ reach, but actually dead.

  I didn’t understand why he’d agreed to see me. I couldn’t begin to guess what pressure Sandra, or someone bigger than Sandra, had put on him to make him do this. I trusted the man, but his mission stank.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. ‘Thanks, then,’ I said. He got up to go and I walked down the stairs with him. We’d said our goodbyes and I was closing the street door when something struck me. He wouldn’t answer, but I might get a reaction. I called ‘Wait!’

  He turned on the steps.

  ‘The loop.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Any idea what Jacob could have meant when he said that the real him was in the loop?’

  ‘Did he say that?’

  ‘To Jams.’

  ‘The loop,’ he said consideringly.‘No, I’m sorry. It means nothing to me.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As soon as Brownlow left, I called Jams. I couldn’t any longer justify keeping anything from her. We needed to meet, and talk the
case through. The answering machine was on. I asked her to pick up but there was no response so I left a call-back message.

  Then I rang Grace Macarthy’s cottage in Oxfordshire. It sounded like a good party. I could hear noises and laughter in the background and the receiver was passed from hand to hand until I finally got Nick.

  ‘I need you tomorrow morning, early. About six. Can you get a lift back tonight?’

  ‘Wait.’

  More noise and laughter. Then she came back.

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  I hesitated, briefly. Should I offer her a bed for the night? She was doing me a favour by interrupting her stay with Grace. No. She had a perfectly good foster-home to go to, if she chose. If I once let her stay, I’d never get rid of her.

  She read my mind. ‘I can stay at Grace’s,’ she said, ‘see you,’ and rang off.

  It was now nearly one o’clock on Easter Sunday and unlike most of the British population I didn’t have to go anywhere for a family lunch. That satisfactory thought in itself finally banished my hangover. I felt well enough to run, and I knew I should, because while I ran maybe my subconscious would come up with a pattern for the confusing and conflicting information I had.

  At this stage of a case, thinking about it didn’t help. It had to shake down and simmer.

  As I changed into my jogging gear and my new top-of-the-range Nike trainers, something struck me. Family lunch. My grandparents. They’d be at home, bound to be. Unless I had great-aunts and great-uncles, but somehow I didn’t think so, not close ones anyway because if they had been surely they’d have helped my mother out when she was pregnant with me?

  Or maybe not. I didn’t know, but it was time I found out, and the four or so miles round trip to Ealing was a reasonable run.

  I found the Tanners’ address, checked out the road in my A–Z, and set off before I could reconsider.

  Good running weather. Still chilly, but not wet. I headed west and set a good pace. Posh residential streets. Aspiring residential streets. Narrow ex-railway workers’ cottage streets. Past Wormwood Scrubs prison, over a main shopping road, temporarily deserted, into the wilderness of huge hangar-like DIY stores, over the railway, through the industrial bleakness of Acton, into the small suburban streets of Ealing, to a sports ground.