by Adam Creed
‘Are you charging him?’
‘Would it be your business if we were?’ Staffe turns to Bobo, eyes bloodshot as beetroot.
The sergeant ushers Staffe and whispers, ‘Not a sausage.’
Staffe approaches Bobo, smells the pungent breath of sorrow from his mucous mouth, and whispers, ‘Elena’s mother should be told. This is just a case of being a decent human being.’
Bobo looks towards Tchancov and shakes his head, slow. You can practically hear his heart sigh.
Staffe snaps, ‘I will need to know where each of you was between four and six o’clock on the seventh of December. Sergeant, take the statements, get them typed up and hold them until they’re both signed.’
Tchancov reaches into his jacket and produces a receipt for lunch at the Fat Duck. It is timed at 5.15 p.m. ‘As you will know, Inspector, this is an hour from the City – minimum. I have three companions plus the staff. And we shared a digestif with the proprietor afterwards.’
Almost too good to be true, thinks Staffe, returning to the holding room, where Markary stares into infinity.
‘I really don’t know where to start, Taki. I had no idea you and Vassily were so intimate.’ He picks up Markary’s Crombie from the floor, dusts down the shoulders. He sees a hair on the lapel, holds it between the pads of forefinger and thumb. He drapes the coat across Markary’s lap and takes a piece of paper from his pocket. Folds it over and again, with Taki Markary’s hair trapped inside it.
Markary runs a finger along the perfect stitching of his coat, says, most deliberately, ‘I wouldn’t distract yourself by reading any significance into what you saw. Are you going to upset everybody Elena knew, rather than get down to the business of finding her killer?’
Staffe pulls up a chair, sits right up to Markary. ‘You set her up in that fancy pad of yours and, believe me, Markary, if you don’t tell me why you called Elena Danya on the seventh of December, I’ll drive straight round to your wife and ask her.’
‘You enter my home without a warrant and I’ll have you suspended.’
Staffe considers the nature of this threat. To be calmly told that you will be suspended from duty sends a chill to the bone. He wants to ask Markary who he knows so far up the police food chain. But he schools himself that it is better to say nothing. ‘You sent her to the Thamesbank, didn’t you?’ He leans forward. ‘She was leaving you, wasn’t she.’
‘You’re in the dark.’
‘I know about her plans.’
Markary’s eyes widen and he looks away, wrings his hands. ‘I had nothing to do with this terrible thing.’
‘You had everything to do with it, Taki. Your mask is slipping, sir.’
Markary laughs. ‘You’re an unusual man, Inspector. I hear you don’t need this work. You should opt for an easier life.’
‘She said she couldn’t do it any more. Do what, precisely?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Carry your baby? Sell herself? Or is there something we don’t know?’
‘Charge me, or release me, Inspector. You have nothing.’
Staffe shows Markary out, watches the Turk reinstate the Crombie to his shoulders; his back straight, his head tall.
Jombaugh shakes his head, says ‘Christ, that’s one nasty piece of work.’
‘Tchancov?’ says Staffe.
‘He was an officer in the first Chechen war, running things the Russian way. He actually said “the Russian way”, as if I’d respect him for it.’
‘You didn’t disillusion him?’
Jombaugh’s voice goes down a pitch, quieter too. He shifts forward in his seat and Staffe notices that his fists have clenched. ‘He didn’t tell me exactly what the scam was, but he was running something.’
‘Like what?’
‘Extorting wages from his soldiers. Maybe worse. You hear things that would make your blood freeze.’ Jombaugh squares right up to Staffe. ‘He could kill that Danya girl. Like treading on an ant.’
Staffe takes out the folded paper from his pocket, writes on it, ‘TM hair re Thamesbank’. ‘Get this to Janine, will you, Jom.’
Ten
The sun is low to the horizon and the morning mist lies above the fields, which are dusted with snow.
‘There’s something odd about this, sir,’ says Pulford, reading through the list of the contents of Elena Danya’s case. He reads it out, under his breath. ‘Jeans, lumber shirt, jumper, hat, a Jane Austen novel and a notebook. Underwear and a toothbrush. No make-up or hairdryer. No perfume or hair straighteners. You don’t think she was doing a runner, do you, sir?’
Staffe watches England go by. When you are in the city, it is easy to forget that this is all on your doorstep, just an hour or so away. He thinks about Markary and his buried emotions. Perhaps he truly loved the real Elena that she packed away for her trip to the sea.
The train slows and the tendrils of a Suffolk village come into view. Red-bricked Georgian and Victorian houses, a small grid of Edwardian semis laid out like a picnic blanket of tree-lined streets. A lodge with a steep sloping roof, and far away, tall silver birch trees poke at the endless, cream sky, cloudless all the way to the Baltic, it seems.
‘They’re building some stuff here, sir.’
Staffe looks out of the other window. A different scene altogether. As far as you can see, scaffolding and mini-towers of Portakabins. Blockwork skeletons of houses are scattered to the horizon. A twenty-metre advertising hoarding welcomes you to Aldesworth Country Town. A New Model Market Town for Modern Living.
As they pull into the station, the old High Street is only two lines of buildings with a spire church and pastel-painted Tudor shops, an old court house and a half-timbered Spar mini market, all higgle-piggled together, then the fields start again, all the way to the sea.
‘This is us,’ says Staffe, standing. ‘Taxi or bus?’
‘What would she have done?’ says Pulford.
‘Taxi,’ says Staffe, pleased his sergeant sees the point of following Elena’s footprints to the sand.
All the way, the taxi driver chit-chats about the new model market town. Gerald Holt, says the signage on his dash. ‘We all thought, that’s going to be a shot in the arm for us, what with all the jobs it’ll create. Good for the youngsters learning a trade. But the place fills up with jam rolls doing all the labouring and now we find out they’re putting up a bloody Waitrose. Progress? I don’t know what to think.’
Pulford says, ‘Communities need to evolve slowly. It takes history.’
The taxi driver slows down, turns to look at Pulford and says, peering over his glasses, ‘You might be right, son. The Signet. That’s a lovely place. You been before?’
‘No. We’re meeting a friend,’ says Staffe. ‘His friend,’ says Staffe, jabbing a thumb in the direction of Pulford. ‘She’s called Elena. You might have given her a lift, some time. She’s beautiful. You’d remember her.’
‘A local girl?’
‘She’s Russian.’
‘Aaah. They’re pretty them Eastern girls, that’s for sure. I do give one of them a run every now and then. Lovely girl. She stays at the Signet, funny enough.’
‘Maybe it is Elena?’ says Pulford.
‘I hope not,’ says the cabbie.
‘Why’s that?’
The cabbie cocks his head, fixes Pulford in his rear view and weighs him up. ‘Not sure I should say.’
‘She with another fella?’ laughs Staffe.
Gerald Holt keeps quiet.
They pull up outside the Signet and Staffe nudges Pulford to get the bags. Once he is out of earshot, Staffe leans forward, proffers a twenty and holds on to it as Gerald Holt tries to take it from him. ‘He knows, about the older fella. It is an older fella, isn’t it. Foreign?’
The cabbie nods, says, ‘Bloody loaded he is. Always gives me thirty.’
Staffe takes another ten from his wallet, hands it to the driver. ‘Is she always with him? The fellow in the Crombie.’
‘Not lately.
She’s up here once a month, maybe.’ Gerald rubs his chin. ‘Crombie. You’re right.’
‘And how long has she been coming here?’
‘You going to freshen him up?’
Staffe shakes his head. ‘It’s all been sorted. It’s not exactly what you’d think.’
‘Well over a year, to my knowledge. Not seen him for a while.’
‘Have you got a card?’
‘Sure,’ says the cabbie. ‘And ask for room fourteen. Trust me.’
*
They are checked in by an old boy in a waistoat and stiff, buttoned collar; black tie. He has got the heating turned up so high against the winter cold that he sweats with every movement and, despite Staffe’s protestations, he carries both their overnight bags up the stairs. They drop off at Pulford’s room first, then go to 14. Fourteen, the number of her apartment in Livery Buildings and – according to the old boy when he trousered a tenner – the finest room in the hotel. ‘You don’t get given it unless you ask. And you got to be in the know to ask.’ He put a finger to his lips when he had said it.
Staffe puts the big old key to the lock. The oak door is thick and heavy, creaking as Staffe stoops under the low lintel. Once inside, it is everything you would ever want.
The floor gives out theatre croaks as Staffe treads gingerly across the threadbare Persian rug to one of two leaded picture windows. Outside, the beach is empty, the sea and sky a seamless pale, metallic blue; milk wisps here and there. The seagulls swoop and rise like Lowrys. He closes his eyes to the surf and squawk; smells the wood and cloth and ozone. He imagines opening his eyes to see Elena Danya on the window seat in her lumber shirt and her hair in a careless clasp; pale eyes unfocused on the vague horizon and knees drawn up to her chin; book downturned and open, a new chapter but not wanting her story to end.
He sits on the three-seater William IV settee at the bottom of the squat bed that is swamped in eiderdown, looks around the room and is swept back through centuries. He pictures a Jane Austen novel unravelling in Elena’s head as she drifts to another world, somewhere unreal between the one she left and the one she came to, and he tries to imagine precisely how she came to visit here with Taki Markary, eventually coming of her own accord.
Staffe calls room service, orders broth and a ham sandwich and sets his field recorder to Rec then Pause. He heads straight downstairs, knowing the old boy will be in the kitchen. It’s the kind of meal he’ll rustle himself but to be on the safe side, Staffe waits around the corner from the reception desk in the musty lounge, head tilted to a copy of Suffolk Life, waiting for the old boy to head upstairs with his order. He’ll have four minutes, maximum, to go through the register.
As he waits, he skims through the Life, not really reading it properly until he lands on an article about the Aldesworth Country Town new model market town. Gerald Holt smiles into camera with a comment below applauding the development. On the opposite page, the mayor, in full chain of office and holding a silver shovel, shakes the hand of a fellow called Leonard Howerd in a chalkstriped suit. Howerd, according to the caption, is a prominent Catholic and well in with the Duke of Suffolk. His local family seat, The Ridings, has been in the family for centuries. Staffe recalls, dusting off some distant titbit, that the Dukes – the Audley Howards – descend from Mary Tudor.
As he checks the date of the magazine, which is last June, the old boy totters past reception holding a silver tray out in front of him and Staffe strolls casually behind reception.
He flicks through the register, skimming the left-hand column and looking for room 14, whispering the date of each of Danya’s visits into his recorder. Markary appears in June this year and from then, back to the previous Christmas, he came each month. Staffe hears the squeak of the door at the bottom of the stairs swinging open and shut, but still he quickly leafs back. He thinks he sees a name he recognises, but realises it is simply the banker from the Life article. Howerd. Room 14, also. He must be in the know. He scrolls down again, sees Markary on the same date but in a different room. ‘Twenty-three,’ he whispers into the recorder. ‘Fifteenth of March 2008. One night.’
‘What are you doing?’
Staffe’s heart stops for a beat, two beats, then races to catch up. He formulates an excuse, but when he raises his head, it is Pulford. With a scold of the eyes, he closes the register and scoots around the desk.
*
Rebeccah looks down at Frank, through her hair that has come loose. His eyes are almost closed, eyeballs rolling up. He bites the corner of his lip.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘I want to go into you, Becca,’ says Frank.
‘We’ve got all afternoon.’ She leans down, to kiss him on the mouth. She knows that she has him – any time she wants. But this is the game. This is why he comes to her. She can cusp him for an hour, make him feel like a man. Rebeccah cranes her head, looks out of the car, all around, into the spruce trees that surround them. They could be adorned with tinsel, strung lights whispering from their ferns. A memory from long ago pinches her cheek. A good fairy, or a bad uncle?
‘There’s someone watching,’ she says.
This would be no surprise, were they here four or five hours hence. But the dogging lovers don’t come until it is well and truly dark. ‘We’re alone,’ says Frank. He puts the palm of his hand on the underside of her breast, lifts it, as if for weight, and sucks at her.
Rebeccah continues to look out the window, scanning the perimeter of the clearing in the wood. She tries not to appear perturbed, but thinks Mitch might suspect she is up to something. He is quite capable of telling Tchancov about her ‘foreigners’. Her debt to Tchancov is down to four grand but whatever she earns lately seems swallowed whole by the interest.
Something moves in the undergrowth: crouched and fast. She shudders.
‘You like that?’ says Frank.
‘I feel it inside.’ She looks down at him, suddenly not wanting to be here one little bit.
Sometimes Frank can look quite dishy, but in this light, his skin is grey with wide pores and a fag-tar, greasy sheen. Meat on his breath.
‘You hot and bothered?’ Rebeccah reaches round with her hand and, through his boxers, puts her fingers between his cheeks. His eyes close and his smile goes serious, she feels him stiffen. She cranes her neck again and sees a man, in the second length of grass where the trees get thicker. He’s not playing with himself – just watching.
‘Put me in. Put me in!’ pleads Frank, losing it.
Rebeccah takes her hand away from his bottom and slides down into the footwell in the back of Frank’s Bentley. She rests her chin on his rubbery dick. His piece is clean and she can barely smell him, just the rich leather of the old Bentley’s heated seats. Outside, a dog yaps. Rebeccah looks up at Frank. ‘Imagine, when we go away. It’ll be soon, won’t it?’
‘When I can sell the business.’
‘It’s been a long time. You last the longest time, hey babes?’ She runs her tongue down and up, along the shaft of his dick.
He grunts.
‘I love you, Frank.’
‘You just say that, Becca,’ he gasps. His eyes are out of control.
‘You’re the only one gets me like this, like I want it to go forever. Be forever.’
‘Don’t talk about them.’
‘Who?’
‘The others.’
‘I didn’t say nothing about no others.’
Frank sits up, earnest. ‘It’s the implication. You should stop.’
‘I will, Frank. When we go away.’
‘Stop! Then we’ll go away.’
She looks down, sees he has shrunk and she puts her fingers on him, looks him dead in the eye as she takes her mouth to him, wrapping her lips around her teeth.
‘You’re behaving like a whore.’
Suddenly, she doesn’t know what to say. Should she say she wants him inside her? Or all to herself? Or to just give her all his money and fuck off. Or … ‘I just want you, Frank. Just
you.’
‘Stop those implications. I told you once!’ He pushes her away with the ball of his foot and she rocks back against the Bentley’s door. Frank sits forward, head in his hands. ‘Get out.’
‘We’re going for dinner. We always go for dinner.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Let me have you, Frank.’ She reaches out, delves for his dick but he slaps her hand away.
‘This was the last time and even that’s gone tits up.’
‘The last time?’ she says.
He looks as if he might equally laugh or cry. ‘You know, I really did love you, Becca. What kind of a prick does that make me?’ He suddenly seems calm, as if a fog has lifted, a clue is fathomed.
‘What about …’ She begins to sob, realising he is serious. She gathers her clothes together, not daring to look him in the eye. ‘What about …?’
‘I’m not paying today. Now get out of my car!’
Rebeccah has been in the game long enough to trust her instincts, so she stifles her tears and gathers her clothes. Outside, the cold is fit to freeze. The ground is rough. She scurries to the trees as best she can, like trying to run on burning hot sand. At the trees, she quickly steps into her pants. Frank’s car hasn’t fired up yet. Perhaps he is changing his mind.
She pulls on her top. Frank bought it for her. It is cashmere, lemon, and as it comes over her head, it reminds her of summer – that yellow light when you close your eyes, tight, to the sun. She feels it now and doesn’t want this life any more. A hand is on her.
Rebeccah screams, but it seems to be lost in the cashmere and now a hand is over her mouth and her scream ruptures inside.
Then she hears it.
Before she feels anything – and through the sound of her own breathing and his grunting and the rustle of her top against her hair – she hears the wet, impossibly loud and flesh-metal slurp coming from her own body. It is her side, she thinks, then the pain snipes, long and thin. Then the sound again, this time in her back, she thinks. And a wider pain, less sharp. Spreading.