by Sarah Hilary
Had he laminated the rules himself? A labour of love, perhaps.
‘How many bedrooms do you have here?’ Noah asked.
‘Thirteen for men. Seven for women.’ A first flicker of emotion curdled his face. Distaste, or just inconvenience? ‘Segregated, of course.’
‘I imagine that makes it tricky.’
‘Arkinstall didn’t think so. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
Marnie said, ‘I’m sorry, we didn’t catch your name. Mr …?’
‘Welch.’
‘We were hoping to speak with one of your residents. Jamie Ledger.’
His eyes widened. ‘Ledger? That’s why you’re here?’
‘That surprises you?’
‘If he’s in trouble. I didn’t think he was the sort.’
‘You saw a lot of him? Enough to form a good opinion?’
Welch scratched at his cheek. ‘He was quiet, followed the rules. We didn’t see a lot of him, but that’s a good sign, generally speaking.’
‘Is he here now?’
‘Might be. We don’t ask residents to sign in and out, unless they’re on probation.’ No curiosity in his face. No questions, not wanting to know why the police wanted to see Ledger.
Marnie said, ‘How many staff do you have here?’
‘A minimum of two, plus a night security officer.’
‘Could you show us to Mr Ledger’s room? We’d like to speak with him.’
Welch gathered up a set of keys on a numbered ring and led the way down the corridor, where the mould was having a field day. Marnie saw Noah’s face pinch shut, his profile narrowing. ‘You have a problem with damp,’ she told Welch.
He didn’t argue, just quoted from the rulebook again: ‘This is only ever meant as a temporary step on the way back. The aim is always independent living.’ As if the mould was doing the residents a favour by giving them an incentive to step up, get out.
Ledger’s room was locked.
Welch knocked, waited, knocked again. Then called, ‘I’m coming in.’ He unlocked the door, pushed it wide with his arm at full stretch, keeping his feet firmly in the corridor. Another house rule? Protecting Ledger’s privacy, or anticipating trouble?
The room was empty. Thin curtains pulled shut, a small table and a single bed made with military neatness. No wardrobe, not even a locker. Holes in the skirting board had been filled with plaster and bits of raw wood. The light bulb hanging from the ceiling was red. No lampshade, just a cobwebbed black cord. Imagine lying on the bed – a sagging divan, stained up its sides – trying to read, with the room lit red and the damp curling the paper away from the walls. Marnie couldn’t have done it. She thought of the efficient way in which Ledger had rolled his cigarettes, smoking each one to a shred of paper. Standing with his shoulders back, sweeping her with his stare, all watchful attention. Precise, orderly. No doubt he’d slept in worse places than this, but from choice?
I’d forgotten what a pit London is.
What had it done to his dignity to call this place home? To check in and out with the addicts and ex-offenders? Just another face for people like Welch to blank, stripped of his identity, all notion of comradeship obliterated by a tenure agreement dictating when he could and couldn’t lie under a red bulb breathing in mould spores. No control over any of it, after his life had been all about control, routine, orders. Just Welch’s house rules, no smoking except in your own room.
Ledger hadn’t smoked in here. No trace of tobacco, no shreds of paper. Nothing.
Marnie hadn’t expected to find him here, but she’d hoped for some clue as to where he might have gone. She was out of luck. ‘Was he friendly with any of the other residents? Someone who might know where we can find him?’
‘I’ve never seen him talking with anyone. Mind you, he isn’t here much of the time. Comes and goes, keeps himself to himself, knows better than to get comfy here.’ Welch’s tone said he wished more residents shared Ledger’s attitude. ‘He spoke with the volunteers sometimes.’
‘Do you have many volunteers?’ Noah asked.
‘Quite a few. I can get you a list if you need one.’
‘Thanks. And we’ll need to see the contact details you have. Ledger’s next of kin and so on.’
Welch nodded. Even now he had no questions, his face the same empty mask he’d worn when they’d arrived. Perhaps it was a necessity. His camouflage against intimacy, or pity, or aggression – any of the things that might make his job more difficult, more human.
‘He isn’t here much of the time,’ Marnie said. ‘What did you mean by that?’
‘Just what I said. He’s here enough to justify the room, but he doesn’t live here.’
‘So where is he living?’
‘No idea.’ Welch looked surprised by the question, but uninterested in its answer. ‘Just glad he’s got the good sense not to try and put down roots here. That’s the thin end of a fat wedge.’
And a short route to aspergillosis.
‘One last question,’ Marnie said, ‘for now. Is there anywhere else on the premises where residents can leave their belongings? Lockers, or a safe?’
‘This is it.’ Welch indicated the stripped-down room. ‘If it’s not in here, he took it with him.’
33
Aimee
See that row of windows to the right of the power station, the place with the flat roof? That’s a hostel. I spent a couple of nights there, before I met May. The whole place stank of damp and I stayed up all night with my bed jammed against the door in case someone decided they liked the look of me. You can laugh, but plenty of people liked the look of me, before Harm.
In the new place, it was a long way down. Too far to jump even if he hadn’t fixed the windows. Too far for anyone to see me waving or shouting for help. If I was getting out of there – and I was getting out – I had to go through them.
Harm, and Christie.
The wire was taking too long. I needed a broken glass or a knife. I’d had a knife on the streets after I was raped, but it was risky carrying a knife. If you were robbed, there was a good chance they’d stab you, and hostels made you empty your pockets in case you were a druggie or a psycho. I got rid of the knife before I met May.
It was my fault she’d been there, in Harm’s safe place.
As soon as I saw her in the subway, hiding from the rain, I wanted her with me. I’m not being romantic; this isn’t a love story and I wasn’t a lezzer like Ashleigh thought. I wasn’t anything. But I’d loved May as soon as I saw her. Wanted her with me in the house, and then in that place where it was too high to jump and too far to wave. Only one way out – through them.
It was my fault May was there, but it was their fault she was gone.
Harm and Christie.
It could’ve been good, should’ve been good. Better than that fucking dump with the mould on the walls where I was scared of getting raped again, where I had to stay awake all night.
We’d sit up there, May and me, for hours. I’d brush her hair with his silver brush and she’d tell me about her little sister and—
Fuck, I loved her. So much it hurt. I wanted to be out there. Even if it was cold and wet and I ended up getting knifed, it’d be worth it to see her again. Even if she didn’t want me, if she was back home with her sister waiting for the baby to come, I’d see her and it’d be worth it.
So I was getting out, if I had to kill the pair of them to do it.
No more if I had the courage, no more Aimee in decline.
I was growing a pair and getting out.
Let them try and stop me, just let them fucking try.
I’d have them. You watch.
I’d fucking have them.
34
‘Paradise House is a hostel,’ Marnie told Tim Welland. ‘Run by staff and volunteers. They take homeless people with particular problems, usually drug- or drink-related. They also take ex-army personnel who are struggling for one reason or another.’
‘James Ledger was stru
ggling,’ Welland surmised. ‘With what, exactly?’
‘PTSD. Panic attacks, night terrors. His neighbours complained to the council about the noise. He’d wake screaming around three a.m., putting his fist through walls. His wife asked him to leave because she was scared they’d lose the house. He wouldn’t take any of the help on offer, insisted others needed it more than he did. Refused medication because it made him catatonic, and how could he take care of his wife if he was like that?’
Marnie smoothed her thumb over Ledger’s picture, pinned to the whiteboard. ‘He does a good impersonation of a functioning human being, but according to his wife and doctor he’s anything but. Paranoid delusions, violent outbursts, controlling behaviour. The works.’
Susie Ledger was listed at Paradise House as Jamie’s next of kin. She’d answered Marnie’s questions quietly, sounding exhausted. Asked if her husband was okay, if he was coping, if he was safe. Marnie hadn’t been able to answer her questions.
Welland was studying Ledger’s face. ‘You think he’s our killer?’
‘He fits the profile. He’s been living in this part of London for the last two years, since he was discharged from the army. He’s plausible, someone girls might trust, with access to the site where May was found. He found her, and he’s missing. The hostel says he’s not been back since the morning of the police interviews, walked off site after we moved in. No one’s seen him since.’
‘What about this offer of his to show journalists around the place?’ Welland stroked his cheek. ‘That was risky, if he was planning on leaving a body up there. Why draw attention to himself?’
In the photograph, Ledger was smiling but his eyes were serious.
Marnie had liked him. It hurt to think she’d got it wrong.
‘Everything this killer does is risky,’ she told Welland. ‘Ledger thrived on risk when he was in Afghanistan. Nothing fazed him apart from complacency. Civilian complacency. He thinks most of us live like zombies, that we need waking up to what’s happening in the world.’
‘This is coming from his wife?’ Welland lowered his brow. ‘She hasn’t heard from him?’
‘Not in nearly three months.’
‘What about their friends?’
‘He doesn’t have any in London. The hostel said he had no visitors, no messages left for him.’
‘So he’s homeless, a loner, ex-military. Dangerous, paranoid and violent.’ Welland gave a slow nod. ‘What else, or is that enough?’
‘He’s been working on new-build sites for some months, so we’re looking into those. He spoke with Marc Amos at the media party. It’s possible he approached several journalists too. Maybe one of them took up his offer of an inside story. We’re following that up. He has a phone that he’s either switched off or thrown away. We’re tracing it. DS Carling’s showing his picture around the Garrett to see if anyone’s spotted him recently.’
‘It’s time to tell the press about Ashleigh Jewell.’ Welland put his hands together, measuring their long palms. ‘I’m thinking we release Ledger’s photo at the same time. Person of interest.’
It would look like progress on their part. Two dead girls and a man who was missing. The public would assume Ledger was the killer, whether or not the press pointed them in that direction.
Marnie didn’t like it, and said so.
Welland shrugged his big shoulders. ‘We need some forward momentum.’
‘And if it comes back to bite us?’
‘You can say you told me so.’
By 9 p.m., Ashleigh’s face was on television, her death linked to May’s, the two girls looking as different in life as they had in death.
Marnie watched the news at Ed’s flat, feeling thinned out, her body lighter than it should be. Her head fizzed emptily, not quite a headache. Ed was next to her on the sofa, ballast for the night. She knew she needed to sleep. When she shut her eyes, she saw the girls’ faces, so unalike. And the other faces, the missing girls from the whiteboard. Sasha and Kim and Sika. Traffic’s girl too, for whom they had no name. Some homogeny haunted her, a tyranny of sameness behind those too-bright smiles, make-up like warpaint, empty eyes, hair extensions, painted nails, fake tans. So little space to be different, to be yourself. Had life been like that when she was fifteen, sixteen? She remembered carrying the weight of her difference – red hair, pale skin, spikiness. Whole weeks when she’d radiated hostility towards everyone, giving out a lighthouse signal that was part warning, part SOS. She’d wanted rescue, safety. Someone to take her away from everything, including herself. Had it been like that for May and Ashleigh, and the other girls? Had they learnt the same hard lesson she’d learned? That no matter how loud you shout, sometimes you’re left alone. Sometimes, no one comes.
Dan intercepted Noah as he got home, to say Sol was cooking in the kitchen. ‘He’s making reggae nachos. You should see him go.’
‘He’s feeling better.’ This was Sol in penance mode, hoping to avoid unwelcome questions. The food smelt great. ‘When’s it ready?’
‘Not for ages.’ Dan’s eyes gleamed. ‘Fancy a shower?’
Later, the three of them sat around the table eating. Sol had made rice with the nachos, and black-eyed peas. Noah resisted a reference to his brother’s own black eye, fading to green.
Sol was on top form, cracking jokes, refilling their drinks. He could’ve dodged a bullet, never mind an awkward question. Noah was glad of the distraction. He’d made a promise to himself when he started doing this job that he’d switch off when he got home. It wasn’t easy, especially since he’d started working with DI Rome on cases like this one. Six months ago, it had been dead brothers, young boys left to die in an underground bunker. This new case wasn’t any easier, but he was glad he hadn’t grown a thick skin like Kenickie, dismissing murder as if it was just another statistic. Where was Kenickie’s girl, missing since the night of the crash? And where was Jamie Ledger, who might be their killer? Noah had lost half a day to the migraine. The loss nagged at him.
After supper, he told Dan he was going for a run.
‘Do you want company?’
Noah shook his head. ‘I’m going to take a long route, try and figure something out. I’ll be a couple of hours.’
He caught a bus to Chelsea Embankment, needing to get the power station in his sights as soon as possible, wanting to understand its lure for Ledger or whoever had put May’s body there. Until recently it had dominated the cityscape, but all that was changing. From across the river, he could see straight through the main turbine hall, gutted by the developers, full of empty windows. From this angle, by a trick of the light, it still had all its chimneys. When he got closer, the missing chimney was obvious, a chunk of London’s history gone. Its new frailty, the way it was being swallowed by glass penthouses, made him think of Emma Tarvin outflanked by the girls on the Garrett. Old London eaten up by savage ambition, and boredom. He started a slow run, pacing himself, his focus on the site’s changing shape as the river curved and dipped.
He ran between plane trees, their branches growing horizontally towards the water, coming out into a dazzle of sunset. Past stone steps that fell away with wear, dropping to mudflats and pebbled shoreline. Alongside odd buildings like old teeth that had survived the ravages of the planners, grass growing in hollows where iron railings had been ripped out.
Everywhere he felt the tug of the Thames.
Crossing Chelsea Bridge, he lost sight of the power station between the new-builds, catching glimpses through the ranks and ranks of glass apartments. He’d grown up not far from here. Once upon a time he’d known this part of London like the palm of his hand, its alleys and arteries, the white smokestacks a useful landmark when he was a kid navigating his way around his city. Tough luck for anyone trying to use them as a compass now. London was losing its identity. Like the girls the killer had found. An exercise in control and sanitisation, all the character torn out.
When he reached the Garrett, he stopped running.
The da
rk was moving in, shouldering out what was left of the day, the four tower blocks pocked with light. He didn’t need to look far for the kid. The lookout. Circling on his bike, the beanie hat making a round bullet of his head. Noah knew better than to approach him. He sat on one of the concrete troughs, propping his elbows on his knees, hanging his hands and head while he got his breath back. He’d sprinted the last leg, spurred on by this sudden idea of seeing the kid.
He’d not told Marnie, or anyone, but …
He had been the lookout once.
Years ago, when he was just a kid.
On an estate like this. Circling, pretending to be bored when actually he was thrumming with watchfulness. Not on a bike. Noah had done his circling on foot. Chosen for the task because he could sprint, and because he didn’t look like the rest of them, with their hair shaved full of chevrons, their gold-chained swagger. Because he looked like a nice kid. Decent.
Six flats got cleaned out that afternoon when Noah was the lookout.
Afterwards, he’d pretended to himself that he was tricked into the role; he’d misunderstood what the gang leader wanted, was just looking out for his kid brother. Sol had been in and out of the flats so fast. The gang picked him because he was small and because he had a nice-looking big brother who would swear he was elsewhere.
Memory made Noah’s skin burn.
He linked his hands at the back of his neck, holding his head down, eyes fixed on the tarmac under his feet. He’d lied for Sol on and off for years. Not to the police – no one had connected Noah or Sol to the robberies that afternoon – but he’d lied to their parents and at school, to his friends. He was lying to Dan right now, by letting Sol doss down at their place without full knowledge of what he might’ve done and where he might’ve been, who he was bringing back to the flat.
When was he going to stop lying, dodging the truth? Face up to the fact that Sol was still the narrow-shouldered boy who’d squeezed through windows a decade and a half ago, grinning at Noah when it was done, ‘I was fast, yeah?’, inviting his big brother’s approval, wanting it even. But not needing it, not enough for Noah’s disapproval to mean anything. When had he stopped trying to persuade Sol on to a better path, or had he even started? When he’d joined the police, Sol hadn’t spoken to him for a couple of years, more disgusted than he’d been when Noah came out. He’d got over it – Noah’s career choice and his sexuality – but he’d dug deeper into the gang, especially in those early days, protective of his status as a hard man, law-breaker. Noah had learnt to stop asking awkward questions, to accept his brother’s life choices as Sol had accepted his, but who was he helping, really? If Sol was bringing strangers into their flat, getting beaten up. Where did it end?
