Silvermeadow

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Fitness salon?’ Kathy said, taking the note from Phil. ‘What’s a fitness salon?’

  ‘It’s where they make you look fit, as opposed to actually being fit, Kathy,’ Phil explained patiently. ‘Sun lamps and stuff. Liposuction too, for all I know.’

  ‘That figures,’ Gavin Lowry growled at Kathy’s shoulder. ‘That wanker Testor would go for that. I’ll come with you.’

  On the way down to the lower level, Kathy said, ‘Haven’t seen much of you recently, Gavin. How’s it going?’

  He blew his nose loudly, looking out of sorts. ‘Bit hung over, actually. Me and a few of the lads went down the pub last night, after it became obvious we weren’t going to find that bastard. Drown our sorrows.’ In any ordinary town street on a wet December morning his scowling discontent would have seemed entirely normal, but here, in Silvermeadow’s perpetual Indian summer, he looked menacing and out of place, and people glanced at him uncertainly as they passed.

  ‘How’s your campaign against Forbes going?’

  He shot her a mistrustful look out of the corner of a bleary eye. ‘Don’t know what you mean, Kathy. The chief super has implicit trust. Asked my advice this morning, as it happens.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘About Testor. We decided that it might be a good idea to work up a bit of a media storm about Testor before we catch him, so that the result will seem more “meritorious”. His word, not mine. He called another press briefing straight away. Rigorous detective work has identified a man the police are anxious to interview, blah, blah, blah. The public are warned not to approach this man who has a record of violent assault, blah, blah, blah.’

  Kathy said nothing for a while, then, ‘What if he didn’t do it?’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s the risk, isn’t it? Go public too soon and get egg on your face, too late and miss out.’

  ‘What did you advise?’

  ‘Boldness, grasp the nettle, seize the moment. Christ, I feel terrible. Can you slow down a bit?’

  A girl in a tracksuit behind the front counter of the sports club pointed out the tinted glass entrance door of the Primavera Fitness Salon on the far side of the atrium, and they wove towards it through a stream of bustling volleyballers.

  A redhead looked up from the schedules she was discussing with the receptionist as they walked in, and gave them a big smile. ‘Good morning. Haven’t seen you two here before.’ Her voice was deep and throaty. ‘Kim Hislop, manager. What can we do for you?’ The smile faded when Kathy showed her warrant card. ‘Oh yes. What now?’

  ‘We’d like some information about one of your customers, Ms Hislop. Is it all right to talk here?’ Kathy asked, looking around at the furniture in the reception area, something between a hotel foyer and a clinic.

  The manager set her head back on her surprisingly broad shoulders, studying them before she said anything. ‘This way,’ she murmured finally, and led them into a second waiting room behind the first.

  A glass door on the far wall carried the name PRIMAVERA above the stylised figure of Botticelli’s Venus wearing a sash that said FITNESS SALON. She indicated for them to sit, herself perching in her tracksuit pants on the very edge of a seat, projecting herself forward at them.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We’re interested in anything you can tell us about Eddie Testor. Do you know him?’ Kathy showed her the computer image.

  Hislop glanced at it. ‘Is that the best you can do?’ She smiled and handed it back. ‘We’re on performance contracts here. The last thing I need is a reputation for shopping our best clients to the filth, know what I mean?’

  ‘We’re anxious to contact him, that’s all.’

  She shrugged and swept her red hair back from her forehead, her biceps swelling impressively under the brilliant white T-shirt. Then she got to her feet and took a book from a shelf and turned the pages. It was an album of photographs, Kathy saw, of men and women bodybuilders in studio poses. She found the one she was looking for and passed it over to Kathy and Lowry. In it, Testor was wearing almost nothing, his body oiled and gleaming. She traced the outline of the hairless torso with a fingertip. ‘This is my work,’ she said.

  Kathy’s reply was drowned by a muffled scream from beyond the Primavera door. Ms Hislop ignored it. ‘I wax him,’ she said. ‘I do most of the regulars myself.’

  There was a second scream, a male voice in agony, followed by a string of curses. Ms Hislop shook her head resignedly and rose to her feet in one smooth aerobic movement. ‘’Scuse me one moment.’ She disappeared through the door.

  After several minutes she returned and sat down in the same perching position, as if in the middle of a knees-bend exercise. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘What was that all about?’ Lowry asked.

  ‘God, they’re babies,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Men.’ She raised an eyebrow knowingly at Kathy. ‘It’s just so bloody embarrassing when they start to cry. Don’t you find that?’

  ‘What are they doing to him?’ Lowry asked cautiously.

  The Primavera door opened again and a girl in a white tracksuit came out and knelt by Ms Hislop’s side, whispered in her ear.

  ‘All right,’ she nodded. ‘But there’s no refund. He knows that.’

  She turned back to Lowry. ‘Body wax. First time.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘The women come in here, pop up on the couch and get it over with without a murmur.

  But the men . . . God! They want a full consultation first, before they decide. Then they get so worked up thinking about it they’re in a panic before we even begin. You can see why God gave the job of having babies to women—if the men had to do it, there wouldn’t be any.’

  ‘They’re stripping his body hair off with wax?’ Lowry looked at her in horror.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But . . . why?’

  She looked at him as if he was even more stupid than she’d supposed. ‘It’s the look, isn’t it?’

  ‘The look?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you read your wife’s magazines?’

  ‘I don’t think she has any.’

  ‘Course she does! You take a gander. All the male models have got totally hairless bods. Nobody would touch a hairy model these days. It’s the look. Movie stars are the same. When did you see a hair on Arnie Schwarzenegger’s pecs? And sportsmen, too, your swimmers and runners and that. Body hair is definitely out.’

  ‘Christ . . .’ Lowry’s imagination was still coping with the vision of the hair being ripped from his back. ‘But still, why bother?’

  ‘Well, it’s ecological, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ecological?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, clean and green. And anyway, a lot of them, their wives and girlfriends make them do it. They ask why they should be the only ones to have to do it. They expect their men to take equal waxing responsibility.’

  This reduced Lowry to stunned silence.

  Kathy said, ‘How much is it? I might treat him.’ She nodded at her fellow DS.

  ‘Men’s chest wax is the same as ladies’ half leg wax. Nineteen ninety-nine, unless he’s very hairy.’ She looked at Lowry appraisingly. ‘I’ll give you a half-price introductory offer.’

  ‘Thanks. Think I’ll give it a miss, all the same.’

  ‘So you do Eddie Testor regularly?’

  ‘Yes. He comes in once a month. Has the works. I give him a special deal, as a regular.’

  ‘What, head, body, legs . . .’

  ‘Everything, yes.’

  ‘Everything?’ Lowry echoed.

  She nodded.

  ‘What’s he like?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘He never complains. Seems to like it. Ideal client.’

  ‘I meant, as a person.’

  ‘Quiet. Keeps to himself. He comes to the gym regularly, too. To work out, you know.’

  ‘Does he have a friend here? Someone he meets regularly?’

  ‘Not that I know of. He’s a solitary sort of bloke.’

  ‘What does he talk
to you about?’

  ‘Movies. He just talks about the movies he’s been to see. At the multiplex, usually. He goes to everything that’s on: children’s films, horror films, comedies, thrillers, everything. That’s why the others don’t like to do him, because he spoils it for them, tells them what happens, can’t help himself. I don’t care, cos I never go to the pics. He never mentions friends, or family.’

  ‘What address do you have for him?’

  She looked it up on the computer, but it was the same one they had.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be there at the moment,’ Kathy said, and then had another thought. ‘You didn’t see him on the sixth of this month, did you? Week ago Monday?’

  ‘That’s the day that girl disappeared, isn’t it? Blimey! You think Eddie . . . ?’ It hadn’t struck her before that this might be why they were there, and she seemed startled by the idea.

  ‘We think he could have been a witness to something,’ Kathy told her soothingly. ‘That’s why we need to talk to him.’

  ‘Ah, well . . .’ She checked her computer again. ‘No, not the sixth. He was booked in for his monthly the following day, the seventh, four till five p.m.’

  As Kathy and Lowry thanked her and got up to leave, she suddenly added, ‘Oh, hang on! I just thought of something. Have you been to Carmen’s?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Lowry said. ‘A fortune teller?’

  Ms Hislop looked sharply at him. ‘You should take up the offer on the wax, you know. You could do the sunbed, too. It’d make a big difference to you. Your wife would have a nice surprise.’

  ‘She’d have a bloody heart attack,’ Lowry muttered, looking impatiently at the door.

  ‘Carmen’s?’ Kathy prompted.

  ‘Hair salon on this level, other side of the food court, beyond the multiplex, through the Spanish market. Everyone goes to Carmen’s, me included. And I remember her or one of her girls saying that one of their customers was related to Eddie—his aunty or something.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Kathy said. ‘We haven’t come across her.’ She thought of Kerri’s Uncle Dragan. One day, she thought, the computer would have a complete record of the family interconnections of everyone, a map of the hidden blood lines that linked a subject to a second cousin or a step-uncle twice removed who might be waiting in the shadows to provide help, or something else. ‘You wouldn’t have a name, I suppose?’

  ‘No, but Carmen might.’

  The foyer to Carmen’s salon was all blonde timber and gleaming chrome, the only indication of its purpose a few discreet displays of bottles under concealed spotlights, like a museum of rare artefacts. Carmen turned out to be a small, dynamic woman with bright, compelling eyes, and a network that seemed to have got somewhat further than the police computer in mapping the human relationships of this area of Essex. She consulted with some of her staff, her technical director (colour), her creative director and her chief stylist, and finally found the nails consultant, who recalled a conversation with a woman who spoke of her nephew (actually, she thought, the adopted boy of her sister’s husband’s brother and his wife, who’d been tragically killed in a car smash) who was a pool attendant at the leisure centre. The customer, the aunt, was remembered as being in her fifties, blonde, a smoker with problem cuticles, and with an overall style bias described in the private terminology of the salon as ‘fluoro’.

  ‘That means brassy, hyper, unsubtle, too much,’ Carmen explained.

  Together with an approximate date of her last visit, four to six weeks before, the computer came up with three possible names and addresses. Two of the names had bookings arranged for the month ahead, and the receptionist rang their numbers on the pretence of confirming these. As she closed, the receptionist asked if they had a relative working at Silvermeadow, by any chance, since the salon was offering a special discount to centre staff in December. The second one said yes, her nephew worked there, but she didn’t want to get him to come to the phone right now, because he was asleep and hadn’t been well. In any case, she said with a wheezy chuckle, he’d be the last person to need a booking at a hair salon.

  ‘Carmen, that’s brilliant, thanks,’ Kathy said as the receptionist rang off. ‘I’m really impressed. I wish our information was as efficient.’

  Carmen smiled, eyeing Kathy’s hair. ‘Nice basic structure, love. But you need a better cut. And what have you been washing it with?’

  Kathy agreed to make a booking once the investigation was over, and meanwhile bought three bottles that Carmen recommended.

  When Lowry saw the price on the till display he gave a little gasp. ‘Kathy, if you ever meet my wife, do me a favour and don’t tell her about this place, eh?’

  ‘Lowry . . .’ Carmen frowned. ‘I know the name . . . Yes, Connie Lowry, is that your wife?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked worried.

  ‘Oh, I know Connie. She’s nice. She comes here regular. Everyone comes here, Gavin. Even your friend Harry Jackson comes here.’

  Lowry looked shocked, as if she’d accused Jackson of participating in some morally questionable practice. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he’d have had enough raw material for you to work on,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised what we can do. You should have come to us for your last cut. Really you should.’

  They ran across the carpark through the rain to Lowry’s Escort. Kathy was interested to see that whoever took care of his laundry obviously didn’t handle the interior of his car. It was full of rubbish: fast-food containers, newspapers, cigarette packets and odd bits of clothing jumbled together over all the passenger seats. He grumbled as he threw things into the back to make room for Kathy, who was shivering by the time she got in out of the rain.

  ‘I’ll get the heater going,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a box of tissues somewhere. Look down there.’ He began pressing numbers on his phone.

  ‘You reporting to Brock?’ Kathy said, groping around her feet.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, but from the muttered words she could pick up it sounded more as if he was calling first for armed support and then, more surreptitiously, with his back to her, speaking to someone about cameras and a news crew. Then he drove off, pulling the car over short of the carpark exit and sitting with the engine running, tapping the steering wheel impatiently while he examined a street map.

  A second car appeared on the road behind them and flashed its lights.

  ‘About bloody time,’ Lowry muttered, and threw the car into gear.

  The address was a modern brick terrace, compact and drab in the rain. The front doors faced a tarmac parking court into which Lowry turned his car, the other following close behind. He switched off the engine and waited.

  ‘Did you call Brock?’ Kathy asked. She hadn’t seen him at Silvermeadow that morning, and there were things she wanted to speak to him about. She pulled out her phone. ‘I’ll give him a call.’

  ‘Hang on.’ He pointed through the rain-washed windscreen as an unmarked van swung fast into the court and squealed to a halt. ‘I told Phil,’ Lowry said. He looked at his watch. ‘You’ve worked with the Indian guy before, I take it. Desai?’

  The sudden jump in topic threw Kathy. ‘Eh? Yes, a couple of times. Why?’

  ‘Like him, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  Lowry grinned and pulled a bag of barley sugars out of the door pocket and offered them to her.

  ‘I’m sensitive to these things,’ he said.

  Kathy undid the paper from the sweet and threw it into the ankle-deep trash. ‘Go wax yourself,’ she said, and saw another van come to a halt in the street opposite the entrance to the carparking yard. It had a satellite dish on its roof and the logo of a TV channel’s news programme on its side.

  ‘Come on.’ Lowry jumped out of the car and ran to the back of the first van. As he pulled open the back doors, Kathy saw the outline of men inside with guns.

  The woman who answered their knock on her front door was instantly recognisable from t
he hairdresser’s description. Her chemical hair colouring, her glossy orange lips, her lime-green costume jewellery, all vibrated in the dull grey light, working very hard to make the dreary world a brighter place. Kathy immediately understood what ‘fluoro’ meant.

  ‘Hello.’ She smiled at them, taking in the support people hanging back in watchful anticipation. ‘To what do we owe this little visitation?’

  ‘Mrs Goldfinch?’ Kathy said, showing her warrant card.

  ‘That’s me, darling. Call me Jan.’ Eddie’s aunt appeared unperturbed.

  ‘We want to speak to your nephew, Eddie Testor. Can you tell us where he is, please?’

  ‘Why yes, certainly!’ She gave them a little flash of brilliant white dentures. ‘He’s here! How on earth did you know? Everyone seems to want to speak to him today. Why don’t you come on in? I don’t think there’ll be room for all of you, mind.’

  After they’d got Eddie dressed and taken him downstairs to the car with a towel over his head, Jan realised she was almost out of cigarettes, and went back up to Eddie’s room to see if he had any. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she said from the doorway, staring with fascination at Lowry pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

  ‘Why don’t we go downstairs and talk about Eddie, Jan?’ Kathy said, steering her back out onto the landing. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’

  Aunty Jan was happy to do that, because it was a touching story that she loved to tell. The poor boy had had a very difficult time of it after his parents were killed in the accident, she explained when they were settled in the kitchen. It was divine intervention really that had brought the two of them together after so many years. She had been checking out the sunbeds and spa pools and saunas at the fitness salon at Silvermeadow one day when she had stopped to admire the photographs of the waxed body builders hanging in their golden frames (‘Well, Kathy darling, there’s no harm in looking, is there?’), and one in particular had caught her eye. It had reminded her so much of her sister’s brother-in-law Donald, on whom she’d had a terrible crush twenty years ago, before he and his wife were killed in the accident. So like him, in fact, that she began to think of their little orphan kid Eddie, whom she hadn’t heard of for years. And then she’d looked at the signature scrawled across the bottom of the photo and when she managed to decipher the name her heart had gone all of a flutter, for there he was, Eddie Testor, in the glorious flesh.