Requiem

by Clare Francis

  Walking swiftly back to the car, she unlocked it and quickly restarted the engine. A car came ponderously over the brow of the hill. She knew the look; hunting for a space. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ she breathed, winding viciously on the wheel to extricate the Beetle in fewer than ten moves.

  She misjudged the final manoeuvre, clipped the bumper of the car in front with a loud scraping sound, and shot forward just in time to see the approaching car pause by the vacant parking space. She was accelerating, rehearsing reasons why the interloper should give up the space to her, when the car started towards her again, the driver’s head bent forward over the wheel, peering at the house numbers. He was just lost.

  She slowed down, made a conscious effort to unwind the tension in her hands, and parked quietly, without attracting attention. From here she had a good view of the front door and, when she shifted across to the passenger seat, the flat above. The lights were still on, the curtains drawn.

  She settled down to wait, to catch him when he came out. She wanted to see his face.

  Was it the man in the dark clothes, the pedestrian who’d passed her when she parked? There had been something about him, some echo of the past. She groped for the memory, but it wouldn’t come.

  Whoever he was, he was taking his time. How long had he been in there? Ten minutes? No, more like fifteen. She angled her head so she could keep the whole width of the bay window in view. What could he be doing in there? she wondered. What could be taking so long? Perhaps it wasn’t the dark-clad man after all, perhaps it was a sneak thief who’d left even before she returned from Mr Patel’s. Perhaps there was nobody in there any more.

  Suddenly the light went out, the curtains absorbed the dull amber of the streetlights.

  Her adrenalin rocketed. Fixing her eyes unwaveringly on the front of the house, she slid back into the driving seat. Her foot caught the edge of the milk carton, it fell. She swore and leant down to right it.

  She glanced rapidly up at the window and her throat dried.

  The curtains had been reopened.

  She looked down at the front door.

  It began to open. Whoever was opening it had not activated the time-lapse stair lights so that behind him the hall was in darkness, and she could make out only the barest shadow as he paused ghostlike in the open door, as if to watch and listen, before casually stepping out and pulling the door behind him.

  Dark clothes, thick build: yes, the man from before. He ran quickly down the steps, head down.

  Look up. I need you to look up.

  He reached the bottom of the steps and, moving into an aureole of light, took a quick glance over his shoulder before setting off briskly in the direction he had come.

  Got you.

  Maynard.

  The neck, the tight jaunty walk. Maynard. Plastered-down hair, thick lips, stocky build: crawling obsequious Maynard.

  He was walking fast, his head and shoulders bobbing rapidly over the line of car roofs. She screwed around in her seat, watching the buoyant head retreating rapidly down the hill, and was fixed with a momentary indecision.

  Should she leave it there? Be satisfied with the fact that she’d rumbled him? Or was she going to take it further? Make a complaint. All she had, she remembered, was an address in Hertfordshire, a phone number in Battersea. But suppose Maynard wasn’t his real name, suppose the Battersea number wasn’t there any more?

  Undecided yet loath to lose him, she started the car and, straddling the street in a tight three-point turn, began to follow. Too fast, too fast. She slowed until she could see his head bouncing along at a comfortable distance ahead of her.

  Turn off the headlights? No, too obvious. Best to crawl close by the parked cars, like the motorist she had seen earlier, so that if he looked back he would think she was lost.

  Reaching a corner he turned suddenly, swivelling his body round abruptly until it was almost facing the way he had come. She resisted the urge to jam her foot on the brake and kept creeping forward, craning her head from side to side, so that, if his eyesight was that good, he would be able to see the dim outline of a face peering up at the house numbers.

  When she glanced back he had vanished. She drove cautiously on towards the junction and stopped just beyond the last parked car, so that she could see along the pavement of the adjacent street.

  No sign.

  Now how had he managed that, for God’s sake?

  She looked down the hill towards Mr Patel’s, then back the way she had come, then across to the other side of the side street again. Nothing.

  Hell.

  An engine started not far away. She wound down the window to get a direction on it, only for the sound to be drowned by a car lumbering up the hill towards her. The approaching car, a rumbling diesel, made ponderously slow progress and it was a long time before she could tune into the altogether quieter hum of the other car.

  She had the sound now: it came from the side street where Maynard had disappeared.

  It had to be him. Could it be him? But why, having started his engine, wasn’t he moving?

  A second later, the red glow of a rear light sprang on, then a second later the white reflection of a reversing light. The car moved back once, then curved out and accelerated away.

  Daisy turned the corner and followed. It was a dark saloon, possibly a Rover. But was it Maynard?

  Part of her accepted that this was crazy – even if it was Maynard he was probably the sort who’d know instantly if he was being followed – but the other part of her was damned if she was going to give up without a try.

  The street led into another that ran parallel to Augustus Road. With hardly a hesitation to see if anything was coming, the dark car turned left, heading downhill through the web of dark residential streets. Reaching the arterial road at the bottom, it stopped in the face of a steady stream of traffic. Daisy saw an immediate problem: to close up or stay back? To invite attention or risk him seeing her in his mirror?

  In the end she closed up, lowering the sun visor to hide her face. As she halted behind the Rover she saw with relief that the driver was not looking in his mirror: he was too intent on pushing the car impatiently forward, sticking its nose further and further out into the traffic, his head peering sideways as he waited for a suitable gap. Peering sideways and showing his profile to her.

  Maynard. Maynard.

  He spurted forward, then jammed on the brakes as someone hooted at him. As the brake lights flashed on and off, Daisy realized she was looking at his registration number. For God’s sake. How many half-brained witnesses forgot to remember something as basic as a car number?

  She got the number into her head just as the Rover finally sprang forward into the main road, accelerating fast. She rolled forward, knowing she must get out soon or lose him. The traffic was thick but tailing off, regulated by some unseen traffic lights. A small gap was coming up, followed, four cars later, by a larger one. She went for the earlier gap, pushing her foot hard down which, in the Beetle, provided little extra speed but some illusion of achievement. The approaching car braked uncomplainingly to let her in.

  She was four, no five, cars back. Too far if there were traffic lights. One car peeled off to the left, then, in a straightish section, she risked overtaking another with nerve-racking slowness, hanging out in the centre of the road until she was almost squeezed against a traffic island.

  Still two cars between them. The road curved to the right and she got a clear view of the Rover ahead. In the fluorescence of the shop lights it glinted dark red.

  The road straightened then, enacting her worst fears, some traffic lights ahead of the Rover turned amber. As the line of cars slowed, she pulled out slightly to get a better view of the junction and waited with a sinking heart for the sight of the Rover speeding away. The lights were a solid red now, yet, though she waited, the car didn’t appear. Maynard wouldn’t be one to stop at anything short of red. Had he turned off then? She darted a glance to the left, but no car was turning off.<
br />
  The cross-traffic had started, and she realized that he must have stopped at the amber after all.

  Lucky, very lucky. More than she deserved.

  Quickly, before the lights changed, before she forgot the registration number, she reached for her bag and scribbled it on a scrap of paper.

  When the line started off again, she saw that the leading car was not after all the Rover, that Maynard had been caught behind another more cautious motorist. Now the Rover was jammed up against his bumper, as if this would encourage him to accelerate faster. She waited impatiently for an opportunity to overtake the car immediately in front of her and narrow the gap but they were into the twists of Turnpike Lane, heading north-east towards Tottenham, and it was impossible to pass.

  The problem was eased by the car two ahead, which slowed and swooped into the kerb by a parade of shops, leaving just one car between her and Maynard. She couldn’t decide whether she should leave it at this, whether the still considerable risk of getting separated at lights was preferable to being spotted. A few seconds later the problem became academic as the Rover suddenly indicated right and rocked to a halt in the centre of the next junction, waiting to turn.

  As she drew up behind him she tweaked the sun visor for maximum shadow, and instantly regretted what must be an obvious gesture. But if Maynard had seen her tell-tale movement, if he had recognized her, he gave no sign.

  The lights changed, Maynard lurched to the right across the junction, she followed. The road, not one she knew, was relatively clear of traffic, and Maynard accelerated away. She let him pull ahead a little, content just to keep him in sight. She was gripping the wheel so tightly that her nails were digging into her thumbs. Slow, take it easy. It’s going well.

  Even as she thought it, she drew a mental map and realised they had performed a loop and were now heading south. Perhaps Maynard wasn’t sure of his way, perhaps he’d lost his sense of direction. In most people that would have been believable – this part of north London was enough to defeat most map readers – but for some reason she was certain Maynard knew exactly where he was going.

  The thought made her pull back further.

  ‘Still with me?’

  The walkie-talkie gave a loud crackle, then Biggs’ voice came through, gruff and terse. ‘Affirmative.’

  Hillyard gave a sharp sigh, intended for transmission. If Biggs’ police jargon had once had novelty value, it had long since lost its power to amuse. Hillyard asked with heavy sarcasm: ‘Does that mean yes?’

  A silence. ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Right. Close in. Make it snappy. I won’t want to hang about.’

  ‘Received and out.’

  Hillyard braked hard and, keeping the radio to his ear, swivelled the wheel with the heel of his free hand and took the car round the corner into a dead-end street that led between banks of dismal council flats.

  He continued to the end of the road, where there was a more recent though equally grim development, a series of concrete blocks with slit-like windows and peeling murals, partly raised on concrete stilts and connected by webs of poorly lit footways, halls and flights of high-walled steps.

  Hillyard, who had been here before, bypassed the designated parking area and stopped the car under a raised block, between a massive concrete stilt and the blank wall of a service shaft. He parked unhurriedly, taking his time to slip the walkie-talkie into the inner pocket of his trainer jacket before getting out and locking up.

  Resisting the urge to look over his shoulder, he sauntered past a sombre light and along the front of the building before disappearing into the shadows of a covered footway.

  Daisy parked some way back. This was the sort of place you read about, where grannies locked themselves up at night and women didn’t take their babies out for fear of thugs. The ten-storey blocks were ribbed with external galleries lit by row after row of dim bulbs, many not functioning. Several of the ground-level flats were deserted and boarded up, abandoned to the vandals. The wide concrete verges were speckled with litter.

  She tucked her bag out of sight under the seat and got out and locked the door. Somewhere high up in one of the buildings, a thin shout echoed along a long empty space.

  Ahead, in the dark area under one of the buildings, she saw the lights of Maynard’s car go off. A moment later, he emerged from the shadows and strolled along the front of the building. He wasn’t looking around him, he wasn’t hurrying. He turned and disappeared into some sort of passageway. She waited for a minute to see if he would reappear, then wandered uncertainly forward. She wasn’t about to follow him into the maze of walkways – she wasn’t mad – but it might be worth taking a quick look at the car.

  On the other hand she might just wait right here until he came out again.

  You’re frightened. Yes, I know I’m frightened.

  Yet, as at so many times in the past, her old doggedness stirred, she was unable to let the idea go. Maybe it was the memory of Maynard at the Waldorf, his hamster cheeks full of cucumber sandwiches, maybe it was the idea of him poking around in her flat, but she set off along the pavement towards the towering end block, towards the shadows where the Rover was parked. Approaching, she kept an eye on the passageway in case Maynard should reappear, then ducked her head down to look in the rear window.

  The back seats were in deep shadow: impossible to see anything. She moved to the front and put her eye closer to the glass.

  The roaring snapping mouth reared up at her out of the darkness, aiming at her nose. She jumped back with a cry.

  The mouth yapped frantically at the window, its teeth clacking against the glass.

  ‘Jesus!’

  She stood still, her heart racing.

  The mouth subsided for an instant, revealing bulbous eyes, a flat squashed-back nose, a mane of pale hair, then started its screaming again, yelping maniacally, crashing itself blindly at the window.

  She retreated, her pulse still pumping in her ears, and headed back towards the Beetle.

  Voices, loud and shrill, reverberated suddenly from the block to her right, and a group of youths spilled out from a doorway, jostling each other in aggressive horseplay. She kept her head down, aiming straight for the car. She sensed them catching sight of her, exchanging remarks. One of them called out something, though she didn’t hear what it was. She caught it second time, though. It was the sort of graphic sexual invitation that yobs like to yell at women to make them feel threatened. She slowed a little and tipped her head up to show she wasn’t going to be impressed. At the same time she was relieved to see someone coming along the pavement towards her, a man with a coat flapping round his knees: the sort of thin raincoat worn by clerks and insurance salesmen and other safe people.

  She reached the Beetle just ahead of the man in the raincoat and thrust into her pocket for the keys. As she went round to the driver’s side and bent to open the door, she was aware that the man in the raincoat was no longer on the pavement, that he had achieved some mysterious vanishing act. Then, by some instinct she couldn’t name, she realized that he had moved around behind her, and realizing it, she instantly rationalized it: he was coming to ask her something, coming to ask if she was all right. She sensed his sudden approach as much as heard him, or maybe she glimpsed a brief flicker of movement, but either way she was turning when he hit her, which was probably why the weapon missed the back of her skull, where it could have been aimed, and caught her on the side of her head, above the ear and across the width of her cheekbone. Thwack! The weapon was both soft and enormously hard: she felt its soft edge, she felt its immense force. Even as it cannoned into her cheekbone, she thought: He shouldn’t be hitting me in the face. No one gets hit in the face.

  The blow threw her sideways and she felt herself sprawling untidily against the car. At some point two of her fingers got caught up somewhere and mangled, possibly in the door hinge, and at about the same time she must have sunk to the ground, where she was eventually found, but at that moment all she was a
ware of was a vast shock, a loud ringing in her ears, and a sensation that felt like drowning.

  ‘Didn’t tell you to brain her,’ Hillyard sighed.

  ‘You didn’t tell me not to either,’ said Biggs, with his usual mindless logic.

  Hillyard straightened up and took a quick look around. ‘Brought it on herself,’ he commented waspishly. ‘Trying to switch cars like that. Trying to be clever.’

  ‘Didn’t see it was her when she got on to you,’ said Biggs. ‘Just saw the car. That van’s no good for gettin’ a view, y’know. Can’t see a bleedin’ thing.’ He gestured down at the girl. ‘What shall we do with her?’

  ‘A mugging victim, isn’t she?’

  They went through the contents of her shoulder bag, then the car itself, examining each item before either pocketing it or putting it back in the bag. Hillyard gave a grunt of satisfaction at finding one piece of paper, but otherwise he was not at all pleased. He had still not found what he had been looking for in that flat.

  Chapter 31

  DUBLENSKY SAT OVER the newspaper and idly marked off the ball games that were showing on TV later in the day. Although it was ten he wasn’t yet dressed and still wore a towelling robe over his shorts. His unclad feet were cold on the floor, his coffee in need of a refill, but indolence made him heavy, and he couldn’t summon the energy to move.

  The phone rang, a long sombre sound. Gathering his robe around him, Dublensky rose and shuffled over to the wall phone.

  The voice wrenched Dublensky back to the past with a speed that left his mind stumbling. Reedy? But there was no mistaking the hearty tone, the sheer force of that voice. And then the name itself, announced with warmth and an extraordinary note of expectation, as if they were long-lost college friends due for a congenial reunion.

  Dublensky managed: ‘How are you, Don?’

  ‘Never better! Never better! I’m in the Big Apple, John! Arrived yesterday. Attending a weekend meeting of the Institute. Dinners, lectures – you know, everyone applauds your speech then secretly tears it apart later.’ He chuckled: ‘You know the kind of thing.’