by Howard Marks
‘I know you and Rhys used to be an item.’ Powell moved back to where she sat, standing over her. ‘Why else would you be here if it wasn’t for Rhys?’
She didn’t look up at him, her eyes on the seagull hovering outside the window. There’d seemed genuine sympathy in his voice, she noticed, and a hint of something else – anger, maybe even fear. In such a man the two emotions are probably very closely connected, she guessed.
‘I’d like to show you something,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow over lunch.’
He was staring at her lips again, then down at her hips. He wants me to see that he’s looking at me that way, she thought. He’s used to getting his own way, and he’s not even hiding it from me. She felt angry, wanted to give him a kicking, leave him with a nice big shiner on his smug rich man’s face. Then the feeling passed.
‘You said it was an accident,’ she said.
‘I said the police said it was an accident. I didn’t.’
‘So you think his death was connected to the photos?’
He said nothing, shrugged his shoulders.
‘Stop playing games,’ she said. ‘If you know something, tell me now. You won’t get another chance.’
She stood now, bending to pick up her bag from the floor, opening it to look for her keys. She was aware of his eyes on her as she did so. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant, she had to admit. But still the sense of discomfort she’d felt earlier persisted.
‘Let me show you something,’ Powell said.
He was behind her, gently taking her arm. He led her up a spiral staircase to a large, almost empty room. It occupied the pyramid at the apex of the tower, the lights of the entire city spread out beneath them, on the other side the dark expanse of the channel.
He sat at one end of a table. On it was a small scale model of the tower, and some exotic fruits Catrin had never seen before. To either side of him were two young, well-built men. They were standing back at a respectful distance. The room was so large they couldn’t hear what was said at the table.
Powell gestured for her to sit opposite him.
‘You’re going to work for me,’ he said matter-of factly, as if he was stating something they both already knew would happen.
‘I have a job already thanks,’ she said.
He pretended not to have heard, waved to one of the guards, who brought a square object to the table and two envelopes.
‘By the time I’ve finished what I’m saying you’ll have decided to work for me,’ he said.
He was opening what looked like a backgammon box. It was rubber-sealed, Catrin noticed. Inside it was divided into small square airtight cubicles. In each was a small bag of what looked like grass or hash.
‘This is for afters,’ he said. ‘To celebrate when we’ve signed our contract.’
The rich, she thought, they think they can buy us and use us at will. She got up, began backing away to the door. Powell made no attempt to stop her. He’d taken out what looked like a contract from the first envelope. He’d left the smaller envelope closed.
Then he took out a glass stem, a pipe, and several bags from the box.
‘These are some of the finest dopes in the world,’ he said. ‘Temple sticks from the Manali Valley. The Dom Perignon of hashish, you’ll like them.’
He picked up another bag. ‘This is from Pakistan, Chitrali. So good the locals keep it for themselves. It’s very rare to find it in the west.’
She’d reached the doorway, was about to go down the staircase. But she kept her eyes on him. He’d put his hand on the small, unopened envelope.
‘It’s in here,’ he said. ‘The thing that will make you change your mind.’
Catrin stopped, waited. He was opening the envel-ope, spreading some papers face down on the table like a deck of cards.
‘Here’s the deal,’ he said. ‘Three weeks of your time investigating the photos. In return, I’ll show you something that may prove Rhys’s death was not an accident.’
From the second envelope he’d counted out eight pieces of paper, face down, all identical except the last. She felt a flush of anger mingled with anticipation as she stared down at the papers.
He pointed at the contract. ‘This is a confidentiality agreement, it’s for your own protection. No one will ever know you worked for me.’
‘Why me?’ she said. ‘You could hire anyone you wanted.’
‘Because for you this will be personal. That could make the difference between a result and a lot of expensive pissing in the dark.’
‘Three weeks to solve a mystery that hasn’t been solved in twelve years? It doesn’t sound like a very realistic proposition.’
‘I’m not expecting you to solve the mystery.’ His eyes were moving slowly down her body again. ‘Though that would be nice, of course.’
‘So what are you expecting of me exactly?’
‘Just to find the source of the photos. That will be sufficient.’
Powell pushed the contract to the side of the table. She walked over, read it briefly. She signed it without even a moment’s hesitation.
‘All right, show me,’ she said.
He paused for a moment. ‘One thing you need to understand,’ he said. ‘What I will show you, it’s not conclusive.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I said what I have may show his death was not an accident, not that it did.’
He turned over seven of the papers. They were cheques made out to Rhys Williams, each for £500.
The eighth document was a bank statement, from a small private bank she’d never heard of. All the details had been deleted except the name and address of the account holder, and the cheque numbers.
The numbers of the cheques matched those on the statement.
‘This was how I paid Rhys,’ Powell said. ‘A series of foredated company cheques.’
She looked at the dates: the cheques were dated one week apart.
‘Notice anything?’ he said.
‘You paid him four thousand. But the final cheque was never presented.’
He moved the statement closer to her.
‘Correct. You’ll see he wouldn’t have been able to present until the day after he died.’
She began to feel let down, this didn’t seem to add up to anything.
‘So what?’ she said.
‘No cheque was found on his person or at his room when he died.’
She sat back, stared at him. ‘That means nothing,’ she said. ‘He could’ve just lost it.’
‘Yes, and that would have been my assumption too, except for one subsequent development.’
He moved his finger over to the address of the account. A company registered on the Newport Road.
‘The day of Rhys’s death this small private bank’s computers were compromised, but no moneys were stolen.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I am a part-owner of the bank. I was notified as a matter of course.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But banks get hacked all the time.’
He’d stood up, ushered her towards some binoculars set up on a tripod, directed towards the east of the city.
‘Take a look at this,’ he said.
‘What am I meant to be looking at?’
He said nothing.
Catrin put her eyes to the sockets. She could make out the Newport Road in detail. She looked at the numbers on the doors of the buildings. She realised she was looking at the stretch of the street where the account of the cheques had been registered.
On the far side of the road, there was large gap between the office buildings. She looked more closely. There had been a recent fire. What had once been a building as tall as those next to it, eight storeys at least, had been reduced to a single floor of charred rubble.
‘Jesus,’ she said. She stepped back, not quite believing what she’d just seen.
‘That happened the night after the bank was hacked.’
She said nothing. She was waiting for him to go on.
>
‘I was due there that night for a meeting,’ he said. ‘But fortunately I had a last-minute change of plan.’
She turned. He’d taken another document out of the smaller envelope. Two pages from a report by a private security firm. She recognised the name at once; it was one of the most respected firms of its type in the world.
He passed it over to her, keeping hold of one corner.
‘Whoever breached the bank’s firewall would have been able to see the address the cheque account was held at.’
She glanced at the report, saw enough to confirm what he’d said.
She felt slightly faint. What he’d shown her had an air of unreality and yet its implications were stark. Whatever Rhys had been doing while obtaining the photos had upset someone else a great deal, someone with reach and power.
She saw that Powell was looking at her with a quiet intensity. There was a genuine look of concern on his face, almost a look of tenderness.
‘I need to go now,’ she said. She began to go down the spiral staircase.
He followed her down. ‘I’ll give you all the background on Owen Face,’ he said. ‘Everything Rhys would have known. You’ll be starting from the same point he did.’ She searched through her bag, not stopping until she had her keys in her hand.
Powell guided her back towards the door, his hand on her shoulder as though the room was already dark and without him close to her she would lose her way.
As he did so Catrin noticed over the doorway a crucifix, made of the same wood as the panelling, almost two metres in height, all the details lifelike. The workmanship was beautiful. It must have taken years to finish, she thought.
It looked like something one might see in an ancient church but it had been carved recently. The lift was waiting and as she entered it she felt his hand again, barely touching, just the briefest of caresses over the nape of her neck.
6
Catrin dreamt that night she was standing with her mam on wet sand. She must have been young, barely knee height. It was raining and they were sheltering under a pine tree on the edge of a beach.
Out on the high waves there were two pale shapes skimming the surface of the water. Then they were lost under the crashing waves.
The rain eased, sunlight streamed through. Two men were walking along the shore holding surfboards under their arms. Their hair was long, dark, shimmering in the light.
One came towards her and she felt him lift her high into the air.
The other was paddling out into the churning foam. He rose up with the waves. She watched him glide down the cliff face of black water and he was lost in the breakers.
She waited, but there was no sign of him. Then she saw him, some way off, running away down to the rocks. His figure was as small as the birds circling in the sky. Then she couldn’t see him any more.
From the back of her mind came the distant wail of feedback, then Face’s cracked voice. I want to walk in the snow and not leave a footprint.
She sat up, wiping the fine sweat from her forehead. She remembered hearing the track as she’d lain awake in her old flat in Cathays. It had played on the radio-alarm, the red numbers of the clock blinking away the minutes as she waited for Rhys to return from his shift. She felt herself falling back into a shallow sleep.
Outside the motel she heard car doors slamming and voices, loud at first then dying away as they entered the diner. Lifting the curtain, she noticed that several of the parking spaces had been filled since the previous night.
She reached for the remote and the television in the corner flickered on. Images of snow-covered trees and huddled figures scraping ice from their windscreens were followed by high seas along the promenades at Tenby and the other resorts out to the west.
She checked her phone. There was a text from Powell. The address of his company in Penarth: he asked her to meet him there at noon. There were also three messages from Della’s number. She deleted them without listening.
She called the switchboard at Cathays Park, got through to Occupational Health. Their line wasn’t answering, so she left a message, telling them she’d send a leave extension form online via Human Resources. Her voice still sounded shaky, she didn’t have to fake it. Next she called Thomas’s mobile. He sounded half asleep. She told him she wasn’t coming in yet. He made a grunting noise as if he didn’t care either way, then hung up.
She did half an hour of kicks and jabs, based on the tae kwon do katas. She tried to push out some of the anger and sadness that was in her. But, as before, found she couldn’t. This time she clung onto it, balled it up into a small place deep in her belly. Her whole body ached. She took a quick shower, laid some clothes out on the bed.
She wanted an outfit that would not look pliant and girlie, but not too hostile, not something suggesting she’d lost the habit of enjoying herself with men. She chose her black woollen suit, the jacket short, the trousers flared but tight; it was about the most conventional outfit she owned. It hid all her tatts. She pulled her weatherproofs over it, went out to her bike.
By ten-thirty she’d reached the lines of small industrial estates on the outskirts of the city. The rain had eased into a light sleet, the skies to the west filled with grey snow clouds. Before the flyover, she took a lane that ended on the nearside of the estuary.
The area was mostly derelict, with few buildings on either side. At the end was a small motorcycle repair shop. The windows above were blacked out. The only sign of what lay within was a sign with some Japanese characters on.
The door was open but Catrin couldn’t see anyone inside. The air was heavy with the smell of oil and old leather. Against the brick walls several old Hondas and R90s were stacked. It didn’t look as if the place had much work. At the back were steps going up to the floor with the black windows. She hesitated for a moment at the bottom, letting her eyes linger over the walls.
In dusty frames were pictures of biking champions from years past. She recognised Jarno Saarinen, Mike Hailwood, Giacomo Agostini. She looked round to check she was alone, kissed her finger then placed it against the handsome Italian’s lips. She smiled to herself. It was what she had always done at the foot of those steps as a girl. As if she was reminding him to keep their secret. It was the same gesture she’d used with Rhys.
Rhys had no surviving family that she knew of. His mother had died the year before hers. It had been another bond between them. No family, no close friends: Rhys had been a loner, like herself. But Rhys had trusted the local sensei, Walter, to teach her what he knew. She wondered now if that trust had continued.
The dojo upstairs was almost empty. The glass screen from behind which Rhys had watched her was still there. From the water pipes hung more scrolls with Japanese characters. The largest, she knew, translated as ‘Unity, Spirit, Path’, the smallest as ‘Fear No Man’. At the end by a mirror, two boys were practising. The smaller, with a buzz cut, waited as the taller ran at him. Gripping his wrist, he threw him to the floor. The taller slid away over the mats into the wall.
She saw a third figure in the mirror, and swung round. Walter was standing at the door of his office. He’d put on weight and his hair had thinned. Across his hakama, his black pleated trousers, he wore a wooden training staff, tucked into his black belt. As she bowed he recognised her. His eyes glistened as he beckoned her into the office.
She went to hug him but felt awkward and stepped back. Behind the desk were photos of Kyoto from the years he’d worked for Sony. He’d been at the Bridgend plant, part of the cultural exchange programme with Japan. Next to the pictures was a shelf with a row of origami birds on it. She saw they were some of the forms Rhys had mastered. The perching owl, the crane with its upright tail feathers and long beak. All the figures were covered in a thin layer of dust.
‘Cat,’ he said, ‘it’s been a while.’ He pointed at the top of the stairs. ‘I can still remember the first day you came in here.’ His eyes were almost closed in a rapt expression. She had the sense he’d been expecting
her. She felt bad for not having called on him earlier. Now he’d think she had only come about Rhys.
She let him go on about the past until the talk dried up.
‘Rhys kept in touch?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ he replied quietly.
‘You must’ve seen him around town?’
He shrugged. ‘Occasionally,’ he said.
‘Anyone with him ever?’
‘No. He was always alone.’ He paused. ‘He avoided me. I think he was ashamed.’
‘Of what he’d become?’
Walter was nodding slowly, sweat beading under his hair. From next door came the sounds of the boys sliding over the mats. Catrin gestured down to the bike shop and asked how business was. He told her it was slow. He looked at her as if he didn’t care. She knew she should be feeling more of a connection with the man. He’d trained her, taught her all he knew. But it wasn’t there. Rhys was in the way.
She caught Walter’s eye and saw what looked like guilt there. She reckoned he was thinking of all those times he’d seen Rhys and done nothing to help him. Now he blamed himself. Maybe he believed she blamed him also.
She touched his hand. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t the smack that killed Rhys.’ She held his gaze. ‘Rhys was working on something. Someone silenced him.’
There were questions all over his face, but she got up, hugged him quickly, then went downstairs.
As she stepped out to her bike she sensed someone watching. She looked into her visor as she put her helmet on. A reflection of the trees by the water spun across the perspex. She glimpsed someone standing between the black trunks. She turned but no one was there.
She got on her bike and started it. The Laverda was about the only thing she trusted in the world. It looked old, a classic, but she’d customised it herself part by part into a mean street racer. The front discs she’d fitted with state-of-the-art Brembos so it could be ridden hard, the handlebars shortened to give control at high speed. The tank was fibreglass, lighter than the original but more capacious. The 1000cc three-cylinders she’d tuned to make quieter but as rapid as the latest Ducattis and Dukes.
