by Knight, Ali
John’s car was parked by a large foyer that hadn’t yet had its glass inserted. The interior was dark and unfinished. Darren locked his bike to a lamp-post missing its light and followed John into the building. He could hear men talking and laughing in a language he didn’t understand, the sound of heavy bags of something being dragged across cement floors. He heard a lift arriving and turned to walk away. John was at the start of nothing more sinister than a work shift. Darren was wondering what time John finished when he passed a pillar and something heavy smacked him on the side of the head.
He slumped sideways to the ground, trying to get his hands up to protect himself. A foot connected with his stomach and he gasped in pain, doubling over tightly. He felt hands on his shoulder and braced for another blow, but instead he heard a voice close to his ear. ‘Leave Roehampton, or next time it’s worse.’
A kick connected with his back before a shout produced a volley of running feet. He tried to stand and glimpsed two figures being swallowed up by the dark.
A hand was pulling him by the biceps to get him upright, but the pain in his stomach was too great and he was on his knees and palms on the rough concrete.
‘You all right, mate?’ Darren flinched. John was standing in front of him. ‘They take your wallet, mate? Which way did they go?’ He was already half at a run out of the foyer into the road, scanning for the culprits or their car.
‘No, no, they didn’t, everything’s fine,’ Darren gasped.
John turned to look back at him. ‘Don’t look fine to me, mate. The security here’s a bloody joke!’
Darren leaned back against the pillar and felt his head. He pulled his hand away and saw blood.
‘You need to get that looked at.’
‘I’m fine, really.’ Darren made a move to leave but John put a hand out to stop him.
‘Hang on.’ He frowned, staring. ‘I know you.’ The hand pushed harder into Darren’s chest, making him back up to the pillar again. ‘I’ve seen you at the charity shop. On video. You were asking questions about me.’ Now his face was hard and full of suspicion. ‘Why are you following me?’
Darren tried to stand up taller than John, but he was still in pain and found it hard to straighten. His mind had taken a knock and he couldn’t clear the fog of confusion. If John had saved him, who were the other guys?
John dragged Darren by his T-shirt, further away from the lifts towards a darker corner of the foyer. ‘Why?’ One of his fists was balled, ready to continue what Darren’s attackers had started. ‘You fuckers can’t let an honest man alone, can you?’
The pain was beginning to pulse through Darren’s frame now the shock had subsided. ‘Honest? That’s a joke. No one who’s honest has two names and befriends a serial killer.’
The change was instant. John dropped his hand and stared at Darren. ‘This is about her?’
‘Why are you not who you say you are?’
The hand was back round his throat immediately. ‘Hang on. I’ve seen you at the prison.’ John paused, his mind working it through. ‘You work there.’ His hand jammed Darren against the pillar again. ‘Who are you?’
‘I want to find those girls.’
The hand didn’t release its grip and his eyes narrowed. ‘This is twisted shit.’
‘No more twisted than you changing your name and going in to see her!’
‘I’ve got a bloody good reason! But you, you’re going to tell me right now why you’re there and why you’re following me.’
‘Who were those women at the shop?’ Darren thought he knew the answer, though, and he was right. John grinned nastily. ‘My sisters. They’re very protective of me. They don’t like strangers sniffing around, police trampling on my privacy. So who are you?’ The hand clamped tighter round Darren’s neck.
It was hopeless. He had to tell him or he was going to get very hurt. ‘I knew one of her victims.’ The hand stayed where it was. ‘Carly. Carly was my sister.’
The hand came away from his neck. John was very still. He looked Darren over, assessing his scuffed trainers and studenty clothes. ‘This really is about her,’ he said finally and pulled a cloth from his pocket and handed it to Darren. ‘Put it over that cut, it’ll stop the bleeding.’ John shook his head. ‘How many laws did you break to get a job there?’
Darren ignored the question, ploughing on with questions of his own. ‘Why do you see her?’
‘I didn’t choose her, she was randomly assigned to me by the befriending organisation. I’m there to help her with the day-to-day stuff about being a lifer, things her legal team don’t deal with. We sit in a bare room and she’s supposed to talk. Most of the time I’m the one talking and she listens. She keeps me on the straight and narrow.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Going in there is the best deterrent there is to a life of crime. I’ve no desire to follow in Lee’s footsteps.’
‘Who’s Lee?’
‘My brother. He’s doing a seven-year stretch for dealing. Names have a habit of following you around, like bad smells.’
Darren understood that, probably more than John realised. His name had also been changed when he was adopted as a baby, to create a fresh start.
‘I don’t advertise that I see her. No one here would take kindly to knowing I visited someone like that.’
‘What do you talk about?’
‘That’s private.’
‘Tell me—’
‘Listen. You think there are revelations here, but there aren’t. She never talks about those girls.’
‘Never?’
John shook his head and sighed. ‘Maybe that’s what makes her mad. She doesn’t feel things like normal people would.’
‘What does she talk about? Please, give me something.’
‘You’re clutching at straws.’
‘Does she have any special requests, interests? Think.’
‘If they find out who you are you’re fucked! You’ll end up in a place exactly like that!’ John looked around, frustrated. ‘She told me she reads the Police Gazette, she once came to see me carrying some kind of government journal—’
‘What journal?’
‘I can’t remember. It looked dull, like it was about people who worked in the civil service. And no, she has never given me any clue about where any of those victims are.’
‘How long have you been seeing her?’
‘Coming up to three years.’
‘Does she talk about her sister, Lauren?’
He shrugged. ‘Rarely. I know she’s dead, but I don’t know anything else. This will be hard for you to hear, but Olivia’s not tormented. She has no regrets and she doesn’t try to justify what she did. That’s rare, and believe me I know. Lee spouts justifications all the time: he’s unlucky, misunderstood, he never hurt anyone, he’s innocent, all this bullshit.’
‘Did she ever talk about Molly?’
‘The girl that’s just been found? No.’
‘She ever mention a Rollo, or anything about how tall he was, six foot two?’
John shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. It’s as if the past isn’t very up front and centre for her. She’s usually just calm and fairly pleasant.’ He paused.
Darren seized on this tiny change in John. ‘What? There’s something.’
‘There was this one time she wasn’t calm. It was the most animated I’ve ever seen her. About a year after I started seeing her she came to our meeting and showed me a newspaper report. It was about a guy in Bristol who was exposed as a paedophile – all the messy stuff was on his computer. Someone had tipped off the local police and the local paper and he killed himself.’
‘What was his name?’
John shook his head. ‘I can’t remember. But what struck me was she was ecstatic and also angry. Really veering around in her emotions. It was very unlike her, as if she had stopped her pills and she was on an emotional rollercoaster. She kept saying the guy got what he deserved, that those abused girls got their justice in t
he end. You know some say she’s mad and others say it’s all a lie – that day, it was weird, she was clearly insane, but it was also the happiest I have ever seen her.’ There was a pause. ‘Look, mate, I don’t know what you’re doing, and I don’t want to get involved. I’m just a plasterer trying to get by. I’m sorry about your sister but what I do is not against the law. Last thing I want is any trouble. Now, I need to get to work.’ He began to walk away and then hesitated. ‘You sure you’re OK?’
Darren nodded. ‘Thanks for getting them off me. I owe you.’
‘Owe me by never saying hello to me at Roehampton. This conversation never happened.’ A moment later he was swallowed up by the darkness.
Darren limped out of the building and round the corner, then swore. Someone had slashed both his bike tyres.
65
It was a long road home for Darren, pushing his damaged bike, feeling the bruises swell and the blood dry in a sticky mess on the back of his head. He didn’t even have any hair to mop it up or hide under. It was the first time Darren had ever been beaten up, and he felt shaky and disorientated and desperate for home. He passed a cycle shop in Clapham and decided to lock his bike up for the night and take a minicab home; he could get the bike repaired in the morning.
By the time he got home his parents were in bed. He found a bag of peas in the freezer and held it against his head, trying to take down the swelling. His ribs were beginning to turn bright purple from the boot that had crunched into them and his eye was already turning blue and black. He took some paracetamol and tried to lie down and get some rest, but his mind was in turmoil.
Was John connected to the people who had beaten him up? It seemed unlikely; he had run out and frightened them off. Without him, Darren had no doubt he’d be in the hospital, and he’d had quite enough of hospitals for now. Why was he being warned off Roehampton? He must be close to something, but he didn’t know what it was.
He typed John’s brother’s name, ‘Lee de Luca’, into Google and found someone of the right name sentenced to seven years for crack and cocaine dealing. He also found the evidence that put his doubts to bed once and for all – Lee looked like John.
He tried to think back through what John had said about his meetings with Olivia. He was right about her reading newspapers – he had seen the evidence in the dayroom and he had wiped newspaper print off the desk in her room – but other than that he hadn’t found out anything more about her. Her sister didn’t feature in what John had told him, which surprised Darren considering Olivia’s reaction at St George’s. That she wanted to keep up to date with the police and their activities was hardly a revelation to him.
Darren tried to find on the internet reference to the Bristol case that Olivia had mentioned to John. It became a depressing hunt through many newspaper and online reports about policemen, clergy, insurance salesmen and scoutmasters who hoarded indecent images of children on computers and shared them round the world. In among the criminal convictions and public shaming were quite a few suicides. He couldn’t, though, find a case that exactly matched what John had said.
Feeling he’d come to the end of an evening that had taken him no further forward, he collapsed into bed, his whole body aching.
66
The police inspector picked up his first coffee of the morning and walked over to the detective tasked with the investigation of the security breach at St George’s hospital. ‘You need to see this, sir,’ the detective said. He began scrolling on his computer through CCTV footage from the corridors at various points around the wing where Olivia had been held. The team had already discounted hours of surveillance and now they were looking at a grey and indistinct picture of a figure walking down a corridor, head bowed. ‘The quality of these things is shot,’ the detective muttered.
The hair colour was impossible to determine, but that was definitely a young man, with longish hair.
‘You can see the Adidas stripes on his trainers,’ the detective added. The man showed up on another camera near a door that led to Olivia’s corridor. ‘Look – the camera doesn’t show the actual door, but he doesn’t appear on the camera on the next bend, where he would have come had he not gone through that door.’
The inspector was sure. ‘It’s the same guy,’ he said.
‘I think so too. But there’s something else. I don’t think the guy was with the protestors. Look.’ He closed the file, opened another and fast-forwarded through. ‘This is the lobby, four hours before anyone even knew Duvall was in the hospital.’ The inspector clearly saw the same man, a Sainsbury’s bag banging against his knees, lope past the camera. He made no attempt to hide his face. ‘And this is even better.’ He inserted another disk, this time of another corridor. The same man, still holding the bag, going through a door.
‘What ward is that?’
‘Northampton. He’s visiting someone.’
‘Great work,’ the inspector said.
‘But here’s the thing,’ the detective said. ‘I got a list of people who were staying in that ward that day. Ten women. I looked them up, and this is what I found.’ The detective opened a browser and typed a name into Google Images. ‘She look familiar to you?’
‘Kind of …’ The inspector tailed off, trying to place the woman.
‘She’s Melanie Evans, the mother of Carly Evans, who was abducted by—’
‘—Olivia Duvall.’ The inspector finished the sentence.
‘That man, I’m pretty sure, is Melanie’s son.’
67
Darren struggled awake, clawing with his hands, crawling from a tight endless hole. He woke gasping for air in his bed, the lingering nightmare about still being in the hospital incinerator making his heart dance with fear. He struggled to sit upright, his ribs groaning with the pain of the bruised flesh from his beating last night. He felt the back of his head; a painful swelling marked the place where someone had warned him off. He needed to lie in bed, curtains closed, complete the latest GTA video game and smoke all his dope. Forget. Repair.
Instead, he struggled to his feet and tried to stretch. Someone had warned him off Roehampton, but that was exactly where he was going.
He also needed to talk to Orin. He managed a shower, then came downstairs and put some bread in the toaster, remembering as he did that his bike was in Clapham and was unrideable. He picked up his bag and hunted around for some cash, then got a minicab to Clapham.
He sat over a coffee in an American chain as he waited for his tyres to be replaced. Orin phoned him.
‘Young gun, you made up your mind yet?’
‘Sorry Orin, I’ve had a really hectic night, a lot of stuff has been—’
‘I know who Rollo is.’
Darren pushed his coffee aside. ‘Tell me.’
‘Rollo McFadden. He was Molly’s mum’s boyfriend. I didn’t recognise the name when you asked me because he appears in very few of the reports on her. She had a string of men in her life – he was just another name in a long and sad list.’
‘What do you know about him?’
There was a long pause. ‘You’re a terrier with a bone, young gun, I respect that. But why is he significant to you? You haven’t explained and you sound like you’ve just been given a knock that’s sent the sense straight out of your mouth.’
Darren put his hand protectively over the big bruise on the back of his head. ‘Well, Streatham is a dangerous place.’
‘I wouldn’t know, I never go to south London.’
‘Where do you live, Orin?’
‘Knightsbridge.’
He imagined an elegant Georgian terrace, the thrum of black cabs. Death brought people from all walks of life together. ‘I guess your nights aren’t disturbed by fourteen-year-old joyriders on mopeds.’
‘No.’ Orin paused. ‘My nights are ruined by Arab princes racing Ferraris. It’s a goddamn nightmare. Good job I don’t sleep.’
Darren smiled ruefully. Despite himself he was beginning to warm to Orin.
‘D
o you have a photo of Rollo? Does he look like he’s tall?’
Orin gave a low laugh. ‘He’s built like a Georgia outhouse. He’s six foot two exactly.’
Darren frowned. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I’ve got the summary sheet of his murder right in front of me.’
‘His murder?’
‘And I’m not telling you another goddamn thing until you share your theory, tell me how you got Rollo’s name and go public with me.’
Orin hung up and walked out of his office towards his research room. As he opened the door he turned to his secretary. ‘Type up a press release saying we have a new high-profile member of The Missing campaign. The brother of Carly Evans. I’ve waited long enough for Darren Evans to pull his finger out of his ass. I’ll extract it for him today.’
68
Darren locked his bike up and went into Roehampton. He left his bag in a locker and changed into his uniform, and was standing in the corridor when Kamal emerged from his office. Kamal took a long look at the cut on the back of his head. ‘Are you going to fill in that leaving form now?’
Realisation began to dawn. It was his boss who had sent the men to follow him to Nine Elms. Kamal really wanted him gone and had gone to some length to achieve it. Darren’s scab itched, his body ached and he was so tired – but not tired enough that he couldn’t feel angry at what had happened.
Kamal began to dole out the cleaning routes. With the new revelation from Orin about who Rollo was, Darren was more desperate than ever to get a moment with Olivia. He tried to double-bluff Kamal. ‘Can I clean the kitchens today? After what happened I find the cells bring back bad memories.’
Kamal grinned nastily. ‘Think you’re smart, college boy? Think you can double-bluff me? You’re definitely doing the kitchens.’
Darren’s heart sank. He was looking at another eight-hour shift without getting a glimpse of Olivia or any chance to talk to her. He felt the pressure of time he didn’t have, of a door of opportunity closing. He turned away and waited for the buzzer to sound and the door to slide open, his only solace being that if he was unmasked Kamal’s little empire would also fall.
