Disturbia

by Christopher Fowler

  Pam dug in her shoulder bag. ‘I just got paid. Let me come with you, Vince.’

  ‘Absolutely not. I won’t be responsible for something bad happening to you. You can’t risk being seen with me.’

  Pam stopped and stared at him awkwardly. ‘You are sure about all of this, aren’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean you’re sure you really saw someone—killed?’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake you don’t think I’m making it all up, do you?’

  ‘Well no, it’s just that—’

  Vince tore the riddle-page from his jacket and waved it in front of Pam’s alarmed eyes. ‘You think I sat at home writing these damned things out, do you?’ He became aware that he was holding a scrap of paper no bigger than a postage stamp. The rest had fallen to pieces in his pocket. Pam had edged out into the street and was now standing within range of the traffic cameras. ‘Get back in here!’

  ‘No, let’s test out your theory.’ She looked about at the passing traffic, then walked towards the nearest intersection. ‘Let’s see if we can make this secret society show itself.’

  She really didn’t believe in any of it, not deep down. His best friend didn’t believe him. Perhaps it was better this way. Thank God she hadn’t brought Louie with her; they would really have stood out in a crowd.

  The moment Pam’s back was turned, he slipped from the safety of the store entrance and ran off down the street. He hated to do it to her, but by the time she missed him he wanted to have vanished from her sight.

  Chapter 27

  Walking into Trouble

  Arthur Bryant halted in the middle of Battersea Bridge and gripped the handle of his umbrella tightly as the wind tried to snatch it away. He looked along the line of the river, but his vision was obscured by squalls of gale-driven rain and sleet. The city was well-protected from the elements, but here above the Thames, away from the sheltering mansion blocks, a man could catch pneumonia. Why Harold Masters had persuaded him to move their monthly meetings a week forward wasn’t entirely clear. The doctor had mumbled something about ‘being on hand’ to help a friend in trouble, and had promised to call the others, so Bryant had set off to visit his friend unmindful of the late hour. Which was fine by him, because after all, they were jokingly known as the Insomnia Squad.

  The elderly detective was not enjoying his sabbatical one bit. His partner John May was busy making a fool of himself over a woman in a closed-for-the-season hotel somewhere in the Greek islands, and would not be back until the new year arrived or his passion departed. The damage caused by the fire that had virtually destroyed their offices six weeks earlier was supposed to have been fully repaired by now, but thanks to a remarkable number of malingering carpenters and decorators claiming that they couldn’t get the parts, their vans had broken down in Wandsworth, their wives had left them and so on, the work had yet to be finished. May had swanned off leaving his partner in an office without a roof, and so far he had not even sent a postcard detailing his absurd affair with the former Miss Ghana, or somewhere like that, who was young enough to be his niece. It really wasn’t good enough. May knew what he was like when he couldn’t work, how wound up he became. Not even a phone call.

  So when Harold Masters had called twenty minutes ago, Bryant had jumped at the chance to get out of his flat and start solving something. ‘I think you’ll be intrigued by this,’ the doctor had told him, whetting his appetite. What could he have meant? Still, it would help to find a cab right now. What did they all do in the rain, melt away?

  Damn and blast, thought Bryant, setting off with renewed vigour, I must be half-mad to come out in weather like this. And of course, there were many in the metropolitan force who believed he was.

  —

  There was someone walking behind her, she was sure of it. There had been for the past five minutes or so. Pam quickened her pace, cutting down into Bond Street and checking the reflections from the street in each window she passed. There were three people following her route, a woman laden with Christmas shopping bags, a young Asian man in a track suit, an older man in a long black raincoat. None of them seemed to be paying her special attention. Releasing a cautious breath of relief, Pam doubled back to the tube station. She was furious with Vince for running off and leaving her, but she had decided to go to Red Lion Square and keep a watchful eye on him anyway. Display her initiative. Show some leadership qualities. Besides, she was curious to see if any members of this mythical League would put in an appearance.

  —

  Vince studied the buildings as he passed, endless terraces of Victorian homes, carved into tiers of offices. It was close to midnight now, but even at this late hour there were a few lights in the windows, legal and medical secretaries still at their desks, chatting on phones, talking to colleagues. These days a lot of people felt that they could only get their work into some kind of manageable shape by waiting until their switchboards had closed for the night. Pleasant, ordinary people, seated in cream-coloured rooms with great closed fireplaces, toiling quietly, sipping coffee, as unapproachable as if he was viewing them from a telescope a thousand miles away.

  He walked through Queen Square, where a few doctors, nurses and students would still pass each other through the night on their way to Great Ormond Street Hospital, and the great dark weight of London surrounded him. Layers of history compressed like geological formations were here beneath his feet, ancient countryside lying in disguise. These roads were older than history, their paths twisting to preserve routes around long-dried marshes, their walls following the borderlines of land once defined by hedgerows. A two-thousand-year-old city that had stood in darkness for all but the last century. So many murderous deeds had occurred here beneath the heavy cloak of night, and yet he felt protected, as though the metropolis would ultimately prove itself to be on his side.

  The air was sharper here than in the traffic-choked West End. Red Lion Square stood dark and empty before him, the bare branches of its trees entwined in symbiotic dependency. The new buildings stuck out among the old, square and plain, of lighter brick. They marked the sites of the Blitz’s bombs more clearly than if the land had been left razed.

  He was not scared now. Melancholy and a little tired, hungry even, but no longer frightened by the prospect of what the night still held in store, even though—incredibly, it seemed—there were still seven full hours of darkness ahead. It felt strange to be so completely alone, even though there were friends and family out there in the dark. And Pam—what had she said about the ghosts walking diagonally across the little park?

  He reached the main entrance to the square and found the gate padlocked, but it was an easy matter to climb over the low railing and follow the path inwards. He moved beyond the reach of street light to a point where he could barely see the way ahead, but could already make out the sharp white rectangle of the envelope propped up in the circular central flowerbed, waiting for him.

  —

  Pam briskly cut into the backstreets beyond Holborn tube station. She remembered most of the roads around here from her temping days. Having been forced to wait nearly fifteen minutes for a train, she felt sure that she would arrive too late to find Vince.

  She entered the southern side of Red Lion Square, keeping against the walls wherever possible, and watched. There was someone in the little park; she could see a bluish shape moving between the bushes. From her vantage point it was difficult to identify the figure, but just at that moment it turned, and her friend stood revealed in profile. He stooped, disappearing for a moment. Then reappeared, holding something in his hands and studying it.

  There was someone else in the park with him, the dark shape of a man standing motionless behind a holly bush. Marooned where she was, Pam could do nothing but watch and wait. Presently Vince left the park, vaulting over the railings and setting off at speed. The remaining figure shifted off through the undergrowth, making for the top side of the square. It was impossible to tell if this was one
of Vince’s phantom tormentors or simply a loony locked out of his shelter.

  She slipped from the protection of the office doorway, keeping him in her sights. He was a hundred yards from her, then eighty, then fifty. He was wrapped in a heavy, expensive-looking overcoat, murmuring into a mobile phone.

  She needed to be nearer still, but the pavement between them was broad and empty, too brightly lit, and her shoes made too much noise. Vince had gone, and for all she knew she could be stalking some poor innocent businessman. But he had been in the park, hidden and watchful. It was worth the risk. As he shut the phone and moved off, Pam moved with him.

  Chapter 28

  The Reaches

  As Vince walked wearily into High Holborn, sooty snowflakes began slanting through the sweeping grey skies like television static. His breath drifted before his face in clouds. He brought out the latest letter and examined the envelope. Tearing open the dampened vellum, he found, as usual, a single square of chemically treated white paper. Three lines of type adorned the sheet:

  The Challenge of the Crenellated Pachyderm

  Nine Trees in the Nineteenth Reach

  Opposite the Secret Five

  Pray Remember the 25th of July

  To Three of Four Doors

  And Up to Steel and Stars

  Time allowed: 120 Minutes

  More gibberish that he was expected to unravel into something tangible. Not much to go on here, but it would have to do. Two hours allowed again. It was almost as if they were regulating the timing of his movements to some specific undisclosed agenda. He checked the batteries on the mobile phone; they were standing up at the moment, but he would have to choose his calls wisely. His boots were starting to let in water. The slush-puddled street in which he stood was empty in either direction. He hoped Pam had gone home and was safely tucked beneath her duvet. It was best to face the rest of this night alone.

  …Nine Trees in the Nineteenth Reach…

  The Thames was divided into reaches, but he had no idea how many there were. Who would know? His uncle Mack might. His father’s younger brothers had both worked on the river until one of them had fallen from the stern of a tug and drowned. Mack had filled his head with lurid stories as a child, always showing him the kindness his father had never managed. Vince opened the phone, thought for a moment and punched out a number.

  —

  Dinner had been disappointing. Barwick really was the most frightful cook. Anything more complex than a steak was beyond him. Thank God the cellar was still well-stocked. Sebastian reached for another bottle of Montrachet while Ross Caton-James, seated at the far end of the table, adjusted his portable TV screen.

  ‘He’s on the bloody phone again,’ he exclaimed, tapping the blurry monochrome image on the monitor. ‘It really is too much. You’re going to have to take it away from him.’

  ‘No doubt he prides himself on being a part of the modern world. We shouldn’t have made the questions so academic, Bunter, then he wouldn’t need to consult people all the time.’

  ‘The next one is hardly academic.’

  Sebastian snorted in disgust. ‘It’s quite the least appropriate of them all, but it was the best that poor old Barwick could come up with. The fellow’s hardly a mental giant, but he demanded to have his turn.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Caton-James airily. ‘I think it has a certain panache. I’m surprised he figured it out by himself.’

  ‘But will Reynolds, though?’

  Sebastian gestured vaguely into the air. ‘He’s working class, he’s supposed to know about that sort of thing.’

  ‘He’s taking longer than you thought, isn’t he?’ said Caton-James, needling.

  Sebastian was agitated. In truth he had expected a faster response from Vince, a little more ingenuity. He was merely plodding from one problem to the next, whining to his friends until they solved each challenge for him. He was supposed to be running in terror for his life. You’d have thought that seeing someone killed before his eyes might gee him up a bit. He needed more of a spark from his key player. It was inconceivable to think of failure now.

  ‘There’s no sport in this, Bunter. We have to do something. I don’t think the demise of Mr Street-Trash was enough to shake him.’

  ‘If this one proves too easy to crack, we can change the running order.’

  ‘Good show.’

  ‘One thing bothers me,’ said Caton-James, fiddling with the TV controls. ‘The weather’s having an adverse effect on our signal. It’s hard to make out who’s in some of these shots, and quite a few of the cameras are getting snow on their lenses. There’s nothing we can do about that.’

  Sebastian rose and wandered over to the mullioned window where Barwick sat, miserably staring down into the deserted streets. ‘Snow in London before Christmas—a rare thing. No wonder it’s so sodding cold. Stir yourself, Barwick, you gormless protozoid, stoke up the fire, get me a drink, make toast or something. Don’t just sit there like the sad corpulent lump you are. We still have a long night ahead of us.’

  —

  ‘Gravesend, Northfleet Hope, St Clements, Long, Erith Rands…’ Mack Reynolds read from the maritime manual he had not opened in years, ‘you count the reaches of the Thames from the sea inwards.’

  ‘I need to know what the nineteenth is called.’

  ‘Hold your horses, young man. I don’t hear from you for nearly three months, then when you do call it’s after midnight, and you can only stay on for a minute.’

  ‘I told you, this is an emergency situation. I’m taking a terrible risk just talking to you.’

  ‘You’re not taking drugs, are you? You know, after your father died I promised your mother to try and…’

  Vince sighed. ‘Mack, I don’t have time for this right now, mate. I promise I’ll visit you.’ If I’m still alive in the morning, he added under his breath.

  ‘All right, let’s see. Give me a minute. Halfway. Barking. Gallions. Must be further along.’ He heard Mack rustling the pages, trying to hurry for his sake. ‘Ah, here. Limehouse, Lower Pool, Upper Pool, London Bridge. No, can’t do it.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t do it?’

  ‘The nineteenth has no official name.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. From London Bridge to Westminster and from Westminster to Vauxhall Bridge are the only two reaches that are unnamed.’

  ‘What if you don’t count the unnamed ones?’

  ‘Hang on.’ The line started crackling. He prayed it would hold. ‘That would make the nineteenth—Nine Elms.’

  Nine Elms, near Lambeth Palace, where the Covent Garden Market had relocated. He should have known. It was clear to him now. ‘Thanks, Mack, you’re a wonder.’

  ‘Call me soon. Keep your promise, you hear?’ His voice was cutting out.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You’ve said that before, Vincent.’

  ‘I mean it this time. I have to go.’

  ‘You always have to go.’ The old man chuckled, then the line failed. It was probably a bad reception area. The mobile’s battery had enough life in it for a few more calls. He would try to rely on call boxes wherever possible. Vince checked his watch. 12:23 a.m. It would take him at least half an hour to get to Nine Elms. His deadline was up at 2:00 a.m. The snow was trying to settle. Turning up the collar of his soaked jacket, he set off in the direction of the tube station once more, hoping to catch the last train south.

  Cities bisected by rivers often develop distinct characteristics in their separated halves, and London was no exception. South was low ground, traditionally poorer, now patchily gentrified, but with a unique nature of its own. Here a car was called a ‘motor’, problems were ‘sorted’, people would ‘see you all right’. Vince knew that a rough guide to an area’s wealth was provided by McDonald’s outlets: the larger the yellow arches, the poorer the neighbourhood. Hampstead would only allow a discreet McDonald’s symbol outside its much fought-against outlet. South London
had giant drive-through branches.

  On the southern side of Vauxhall Bridge stood the next part of the clue—Opposite the Secret Five. This was obviously a reference to the Secret Five of Nine Elms, the headquarters of the British Secret Service, MI5, housed in an extraordinary cream-coloured wedding cake of a building that looked more like a latter-day redesign of St Clement Danes, with cypress trees added to the Thameside upper levels, rather than a government office. The architecture of the edifice was absurdly high-profile for an organisation dedicated to the creation of covert operations. Everyone knew what it housed. It was a very public secret.

  On the other side of the road there was nothing, just a piece of wasteground and rows of blackened railway arches leading south out of the city. Here a number of raucous night-clubs were buried, and lines of clubbers, oblivious to the freezing night air, shuffled patiently forwards in their black nylon puffa jackets like war babies queuing for rations.

  There had to be something else here.

  …Pray Remember the 25th of July…

  What could that mean? Pray remember? Something to do with a church? The only other structure in sight was the cabbies’ tea-stall he had sometimes used coming back from the clubs. That couldn’t be it, could it? He carefully crossed the six-lane road, passing beneath the traffic cameras, and checked the walls of the shuttered plywood tea-cabin, but found nothing. The stall was closed for the night and there was little else of interest around. At least, nothing opposite the government building. The snow was growing heavier, speckling yellow in the lamps of Vauxhall Bridge. Vince looked at his shaking hands and knew that he would have to find a warm shelter soon. He dug into his duffel bag and pulled out a small diary. Flicking to July the 25th, he checked beneath the date. St James’s Day. He knew nothing about the saints; his family were Church of England, and Vince considered himself an agnostic.

  He would have to make another phone call. Part of him considered it cheating. On the other hand, if he was supposed to be, as Sebastian put it, ‘a child of the streets versus the people who own the houses’, he was free to decide that their rules were not his, and take the course he felt necessary. He reached the public call boxes beside Vauxhall station and punched out Harold Masters’s number once more. The doctor answered on the third ring, almost as if he was expecting him.