The Beautiful Dead

by Belinda Bauer

  Eve frowned. ‘Show me again!’

  She was tipsy, but Aguda was patient and within a couple of hours Eve was sober and could do the trick, albeit slowly, flicking the cuffs open, then slapping them closed over her own wrist.

  It was addictive.

  After a while, Aguda gave a discreet yawn and said, ‘I’m going to turn in.’

  Eve put her in Stuart’s room, surrounded by old Top Gear crap and half a 1/24 scale model of the RMS Titanic that he’d started building from one of those ridiculous weekly magazines. He had only given up on it when their father had gently pointed out that, at one part a week for £5.99, it would cost Stuart almost as much to build the model in his bedroom as it had to build the original ship.

  She went to bed herself, but couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t imagine ever sleeping again. Couldn’t close her eyes on the images of her father – scared, cold, lost, confused, hurt—

  Dead—

  – that ran through her mind like a horror film.

  If she closed her eyes on those images, it felt like leaving him to fend for himself until she could be bothered to wake and rejoin him there.

  In hell.

  She should call Stuart.

  She should. But she couldn’t.

  The truth was, she was too ashamed to alert him. There would be plenty of time to tell him what had happened once they found Duncan.

  And if they didn’t find Duncan …

  Eve’s throat squeezed shut so badly that her misery could not escape except as a reedy whistle.

  Please come home, Dad. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Pleasepleaseplease come home.

  Her phone rang.

  Aguda was at her door in a second, alert and dressed, as if she’d been standing sentry on the landing the whole time.

  Number withheld.

  Eve stared at her phone as if it might bite. What did he want? What would he say? What would she say?

  She had no idea.

  ‘Answer the phone,’ said Aguda calmly.

  She answered the phone.

  ‘Hi, Eve.’

  She frowned. It wasn’t the killer. But the voice was familiar …

  ‘Guy?’

  ‘Hello.’

  She looked up at Aguda and shook her head, and her pocket bodyguard withdrew soundlessly.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’

  ‘Well, I did have something for you,’ said Smith haughtily. ‘But if that’s your attitude—’

  ‘You gave me a fright, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s late, Guy! I’m in bed!’

  ‘It’s only nine thirty. How old are you? Fifty?’

  She wanted to slam down the phone on him. Playing stupid little games when her father’s life hung in the balance. She had no time for this!

  But he had never called her before. And there was something in his voice that made Eve hesitate. It was not the faux confidence she was used to from Guy Smith, but something new. Something smooth and smug that made her stay on the line, even though experience told her to hang up.

  ‘Sorry, Guy,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘OK then,’ he said, mollified. ‘Meet me at YO! Sushi at Paddington Station. Alone.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘I can’t, Guy. I’m busy.’

  ‘You’re not busy. You’re in bed, remember? And I’m assuming alone.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Eve sneezed and winced as she dabbed her nose with a tissue.

  ‘You got my cold?’ laughed Guy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a stinker, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be even sicker if you miss this,’ he said confidently. ‘Sick as the proverbial parrot.’

  ‘Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Can’t you just tell me now?’

  ‘No,’ said Guy. ‘And I’m doing you the favour here, so you’d better be nice to me.’

  ‘What do you mean, nice?’

  ‘I mean nice.’

  Eve pursed suspicious lips. ‘I’m not sleeping with you, Guy.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ He laughed and she blushed.

  ‘All right then,’ she said.

  ‘All right what?’

  ‘All right, thank you.’

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, and hung up.

  YO! Sushi.

  Guy Smith loved YO! Sushi. He’d told Eve once that he always met contacts there. Eve imagined it satisfied some caveman need in him to capture his own metrosexual lunch as it wobbled past him on a conveyor belt.

  Guy was eating when Eve arrived at the Paddington branch just after ten fifteen.

  ‘You alone?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. It was almost true. She was alone here, but Emily Aguda was waiting outside. She had refused to allow Eve to leave the house by herself, and Eve had recognized that if she had tried, Aguda would only have followed her.

  So instead Aguda had dropped her off in her police-issue Range Rover, and was waiting to give her a ride home. It was quite handy sometimes, this close-protection lark.

  Guy was eating teriyaki salmon and had sauce on his chin. He gestured around with his chopsticks. ‘You want something?’

  ‘No thanks, Guy,’ she said. ‘You already gave me your cold.’

  ‘Bet it hurts to blow too,’ he said, ‘with that big swollen nose.’

  She raised a rueful eyebrow and he laughed. ‘What the fuck did happen there?’

  ‘Somebody punched me,’ she said.

  ‘Wow!’ he said. ‘What does the other guy look like?’

  ‘What have you got for me, Guy?’

  Guy captured a plate of California rolls and popped one into his mouth. When he spoke, Eve could see it in there – tumbling around like a white wash with added spinach socks.

  ‘Something you’re going to be very interested in.’

  ‘Something in which I’m going to be very interested,’ Eve corrected him. She didn’t know why; she didn’t correct anyone else’s grammar. Guy Smith just brought out the worst in her.

  ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’ said Guy, washing another load. ‘You’ve always got to be so fucking clever.’

  Eve sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she almost was. ‘I’ve had a bad week.’

  ‘Well, OK then,’ said Guy, and gave her a patronizing smile. ‘I forgive you.’

  Eve bit back a sarcastic response and said, ‘Thanks, Guy. So, what have you got?’

  He didn’t look at her for a moment, while he chased another roll around his dish with the chopsticks. When he finally gripped one, he lifted it up and looked at her with an expression of triumph on his face.

  ‘A flyer.’

  Eve’s heart thudded in her chest and blood rushed past her eardrums, making the hubbub of the station fade to an undercurrent.

  ‘A what?’

  Guy popped the roll in his mouth.

  ‘A flyer,’ he repeated. ‘For an exhibition.’

  Eve could barely form words with her shocked mouth. ‘Where?’

  Guy tapped the front of his jacket with his chopsticks. ‘Riiiiight here.’

  ‘Not where on you! Where’s the exhibition?’

  He grinned at her in white and green. ‘That would be telling.’

  ‘Guy, you have to tell me,’ she said urgently.

  ‘Oh really?’ I didn’t notice you having to tell me about any of the flyers you found.’

  Eve flushed. How did he know about the other flyers? Huw Rees? DI Marr? Or was the whole murder team leaking like a sieve? They had a deal! And now it was even more critical that she was the person covering these crimes! To Guy it was just a job – but to her it was a matter of life or death. Her father’s life or death.

  ‘There was a news blackout …’

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘Listen, my job’s hanging by a fucking thread, thanks to you. I’ve had it in the neck ever since the Layla Martin murder. Playing ca
tch-up, missing shit. Then I find out why. That you’ve got some kind of deal with the cops so you get an exclusive on the flyers! Royal fucking baby bollocks!’ He shook his head as if he could barely believe she’d behaved like a journalist.

  ‘Listen, Guy, that deal was for me not to cover the story. I brought the flyers to them, not the other way round. I’ve been keeping this out of the news! What this prick wants is airtime. If you give it to him, you’re complicit!’

  ‘Complicit?’ frowned Guy. ‘I’m just doing my job. Unlike you.’

  ‘Have you told the police about the flyer?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  He lined up the final California roll and Eve snatched the bowl from under his chopsticks.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Listen,’ she started, then made a supreme effort to speak calmly. ‘Listen, Guy. Two nights ago this bastard kidnapped my father. I have to know where the exhibition is so the police can get there before he kills him. Now do you understand how important this is to me?’

  For a second Guy Smith’s mouth stopped chewing and he believed her.

  Then he didn’t.

  ‘Nice try, Eve.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  He smiled. ‘You know, all this time I thought you were a better reporter than me, but it turns out you’re just a better liar. Or maybe you’re fucking Huw Rees.’

  ‘I’m not fucking anybody!’ Eve shouted furiously, to interested glances from passers-by.

  Guy made a sad face and said, ‘Poor Mike.’

  Then he winked and took out his wallet. ‘I’ve got some catching up to do, Eve. Fair’s fair, right? Just consider this a levelling of the playing field.’

  He put fifteen pounds on the counter and slid off his stool.

  Eve stood in his way. ‘Guy, please. Please tell me where and when it’s going to happen.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out.’

  ‘Then tell the police! I don’t care about the story, but I’m begging you. I’m begging you. This bastard came into my house and took my dad.’

  ‘Good,’ he shrugged. ‘Then you have your exclusive and I have mine.’

  Eve lunged at him, aiming for the inside of his jacket. He easily deflected her, twisting her wrist painfully as he held her hand away from the prize.

  For a moment they were as close as lovers, their faces inches from each other – his breath was fishy.

  ‘I’m in the loop now, Eve,’ Guy hissed at her, ‘and you can’t keep me out.’

  ‘Please, Guy,’ she begged, but she knew it wouldn’t help.

  He let go of her hand and checked his watch. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve got places to go, people to meet, murders to witness.’

  He turned away and Eve felt the blood drain from her head. From her heart.

  She grabbed his arm.

  ‘You mean now? The exhibition is now?’

  Guy fixed her with a grey-eyed smile. ‘Not so tetchy now, are we?’ he said. ‘I like you a lot better this way.’

  Then he shook his arm free of her grip and walked away.

  Eve watched Guy Smith walk briskly across the concourse. He glanced back at her twice, then turned up the ramp to Praed Street.

  She couldn’t go after him. She couldn’t move. She felt weak and woozy, as if she might faint. A swirling nightmare was unfolding while all around her people bought books and burgers and checked train times on the big boards. She wanted them all to just stop. She wanted the whole world to just stop, so she had time to think, time to plan better than she had done, time to do everything differently. Not just everything today or this week, but everything in her whole life that had led her to that ghastly moment where she had wished her father dead, and now it was going to happen and she had no way of taking anything back.

  Somebody took her arm and she almost screamed.

  It was Aguda.

  ‘Walk fast,’ she said calmly, and propelled Eve along beside her.

  ‘He’s got a flyer,’ said Eve desperately. ‘He’s going there now!’

  ‘I know,’ said Aguda, turning over Eve’s jacket lapel and showing her a microphone the size of a pea. ‘Walk fast.’

  ‘But we need a car!’ They had parked at the other end of the station.

  ‘I know. Walk fast.’

  They walked fast to the bottom of the ramp.

  ‘There!’ Eve pointed at the News 24/7 crew car pulling away, its indicator flickering left.

  Aguda opened the door of a car and Eve baulked, before realizing it was the Range Rover, magicked here. Somehow.

  ‘Get in,’ said Aguda.

  Eve got in.

  Aguda had said something about driving qualifications, Eve was sure. What she hadn’t said was that they’d apparently been acquired at the Hollywood School of Speed, Stunts and Abject Terror.

  Eve wanted to get out, and she wouldn’t really have cared whether Aguda stopped to let her do that. Or even slowed down. But staying in the lurching, sliding, gunning Range Rover through the congenitally congested heart of London was the only way to catch up with Guy Smith and save her father’s life.

  It was like having a tiger by the tail. She just had to hold on tight and hope for the best.

  With her free hand she called Joe and told him what was going on.

  ‘Where are you?’ he said.

  ‘Going north on—Jesus!’ Eve squeezed her eyes shut so she couldn’t see her life flash before her as Aguda steered straight at a red light.

  She opened them fractionally to discover they were still alive, and still with the News 24/7 crew car in view, a block ahead. She glared furiously at Aguda, but the woman looked as calm as a mum on the school run.

  Only half the size.

  Her tiny hands, her size-three feet, all moved on pedals and wheel and gear-stick in perfect harmony to propel the two-tonne 4x4 at breakneck speed through lines of traffic that seemed to be stationary by comparison. Sometimes they were stationary! And when they were, Aguda’s uncanny anticipation always chose the lane that moved the fastest and cleared the quickest once the lights had gone green.

  ‘Can you put a siren on?’ Eve managed to say between gasps.

  ‘I don’t want to alert them to being followed,’ said Aguda. ‘We don’t want them to stop. We want them to lead us right to the killer.’

  Without taking her eyes off the road, Aguda called Superintendent Rees, while Eve peered at the side streets to relay their position and direction. They were right behind them now. There was no way they could lose it.

  They swung around a shallow bend and headed down a hill under a railway bridge.

  Something fell out of the sky.

  ‘Shit!’

  Aguda hit the brakes. The Range Rover swerved to avoid a collision and they would have been OK, except that the crew car fishtailed then flipped on to its side, carrying them both into the oncoming traffic with a horrible blackboard squeal.

  Eve braced her hands on the dash and closed her eyes.

  38

  ‘STAY IN THE car!’

  The door slammed and Eve slowly opened her eyes.

  There was a great ringing in her ears, as if someone had rapped her on the head with a tuning fork. Somebody was shouting from somewhere a long, long way away.

  She looked across to Aguda for answers, but Aguda had gone.

  The bonnet of the Range Rover was pressed against the dark Victorian brick of the bridge, and there was steam coming out of the front as if it were an old jalopy in a hillbilly film.

  Then the steam cleared and – like a bad dream – graffiti on the brick swam into focus:

  EXHIBITION …

  Eve gasped as if she’d been slapped, and opened the door.

  She couldn’t get out.

  She tried again and again and finally realized that the seatbelt was what was stopping her. She jabbed the catch half a dozen times before hitting it right and getting free. But her legs gave way the minute her feet hit the road, and she fell on t
o her knees on the rough tarmac.

  She struggled to her feet, holding on to the car, not so much remembering how to walk as making it up as she went along.

  A hand on her arm. ‘Stay here.’

  ‘I have to get there.’

  ‘Just stay here,’ the woman said again. ‘You’re in shock.’

  It was a middle-aged woman in a bright-blue coat.

  ‘Yes,’ Eve nodded, ‘I’m in shock.’

  She looked around her. The traffic was stopped. A crowd was gathering. Police sirens were already approaching.

  Aguda was at the crew car. On the crew car, pulling the door open like a submarine hatch … She reached in and Eve held her breath.

  Guy Smith clambered out, battered and bloody, and lowered himself gingerly to the road.

  Emily Aguda didn’t need her extensive field-medicine qualifications to know that the driver of the crew car was dead.

  He had no head.

  A chunk of concrete the size of a microwave oven had smashed through the windscreen and hit him in the face. His shoulders were still there, and his arms. One slack hand still held the wheel. But his head had been pulped, and had coated the inside of the Volvo with lumpy blood and jagged white shards.

  She stood up on the side of the car and called Huw Rees.

  ‘This is Aguda, sir. There’s been an RTA. One dead, one walking wounded. Eve Singer’s OK.’

  ‘Is it connected?’

  ‘Could be, sir. Those involved got a flyer supposedly from the perp—’

  She glanced up at the bridge. A man’s head drew back quickly from the parapet.

  ‘Shit!’ Aguda was away from the car and running before she’d even processed the thought. If she moved fast, there was a chance she might catch the man and stop this nightmare right here, right now.

  ‘Sir, I see a suspect! I’m after him! Do I have permission to leave the job?’

  There was a cavernous pause and her eyes darted all around for the most direct route up the steep embankment to the tracks. On either side of the bridge, her way was barred by brick walls topped by wrought-iron railings that guarded the line and trapped the litter of decades.

  ‘Is Eve Singer safe?’

  ‘People are with her and backup is on its way.’

  ‘Then go!’

  She went.

  There was no way up from the street. Her swift mind changed direction in an instant and she burst into Lou’s Fish Bar alongside the bridge, scattering a gaggle of alarmed customers who were pressed against the door and windows to gawp at the accident outside without losing their place in the queue.