Where There's Smoke (1997)

by Simon Beckett

  The Inspector put the poster down on the desk. "Well, I think we can safely say he's putting his work experience at the printer's to good use."

  Kate looked away from the upside-down image in front of her. "I'm glad you think it's funny."

  The chair protested as Collins tried to ease his bulk into a more comfortable position. He gave up and sat uncomfortably, his big hands resting slackly on his thighs.

  "I don't think it's particularly funny. Miss Powell. Though I'd rather he occupied himself making posters instead of lighting fires. Upsetting, I know, but not as bad as burning the building down."

  Kate didn't answer. The fire at her flat had shaken her, but this seemed worse, somehow.

  "Do you recognise the picture? The one of you, I mean?" Collins asked.

  She nodded, still without looking at it. "It looks like one of the ones he took at Cambridge. From the same day as the one I gave you. I don't think he had any others."

  The memory seemed to belong to another person. It gave her a dull ache in her chest, like heartburn.

  "Does it matter where he got it from, anyway?" she snapped, to dispel it. "The point is that he put the bloody posters up! What happened to the patrols you said were going to keep watching for him?"

  Collins rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thick forefinger. "None of them noticed anything out of the ordinary when they were in this area."

  "They couldn't have been in the area very long, then. How could they have missed him, for God's sake? He must have been here half the night!"

  "King's Cross isn't the easiest area to police, Miss Powell. Our officers do the best they can, but they can't be everywhere at once."

  "It doesn't seem like they were around here at all."

  Collins looked at her, reproachfully. He had a shaving nick on one of his jowls, she noticed. "Actually, Miss Powell, we kept a car stationed here and near your home for several nights after the arson attempt. But we're a police force, not night-watchmen. We can't mount twenty-four-hour surveillance indefinitely, just on the off-chance. I'm very sorry this happened, and we'll step up our patrols again, but someone like Timothy Ellis isn't what you might call predictable at the best of times. And if he's stopped taking his medication to treat his schizophrenia, as we've got to assume, he's going to be even less so." He fixed her with a bland stare. "Particularly now he believes you've had an abortion."

  The pointed reminder brought colour to Kate's cheeks. She didn't say anything as Collins handed the poster to the sergeant, who had been keeping an even lower profile than usual.

  The Inspector pushed himself heavily to his feet, wincing slightly as his knee joints cracked. "We'll take this away and see if we can find anything out from it," he told her. He didn't sound hopeful.

  Clive waited with her as she locked up that evening, insisting on walking her to the station. She had closed early, almost as soon as the steam cleaners had finished. The atmosphere at the office had been subdued all day. Caroline and Josefina had had to be given some explanation, and although there was a brittle attempt at normality whenever Kate went downstairs, she recognised it as a facade. No one knew quite what to say.

  She set the burglar alarm and pulled the door shut, then stepped back and looked at the front of the building. The pavement was littered with scraps of paper left by the cleaners. Water dripped from the walls and pooled on the floor. The door and window had been scoured clean, but tiny flecks of white still clung to the rougher surfaces of the bricks and mortar.

  "Not too bad now, is it?" Clive said. He didn't sound convinced. Kate shook her head, not trusting her voice. She tried to imagine the figure working in the darkness with its brush and paper. She wondered what had been in Ellis's mind as he went about his business, and realised with a jolt that she was now thinking of him by that name. Ellis. Not Alex. With a subtle tug of loss, she finally understood that Alex Turner was dead. There was only Timothy Ellis now.

  Kate turned away. As she did she saw that a scrap of poster had stuck wetly to her shoe. She scraped it off with her other foot and stepped away. "Let's go," she said.

  She left Clive at King's Cross and caught a tube to the health club. Although it wasn't far from her flat, she hadn't been since finding out she was pregnant; partly because she'd had other things on her mind, partly because she didn't want to subject the delicate foetus to her usual strenuous workout. But the habit of regular exercise was hard to break. She had packed her swimsuit that morning, intending to start a new regime. Now, though, all she wanted to do was go home and lock herself in her flat. Which was all the more reason not to.

  The health-club gymnasium was busy with the usual post-work crowd. Kate changed into her black one-piece costume and looked down at her stomach. She wasn't showing yet, and she put her bloated feeling down to lack of exercise and imagination. Eager now, she went downstairs into the low basement that housed the club's swimming pool.

  Inside, the air was warm and moist, like a greenhouse. A few other swimmers were already in the pool, performing their laps with disciplined regularity. Obeying the sign not to dive, Kate lowered herself into the water. It was blood warm. She felt it wrap around her, comforting, and on impulse she closed her eyes and lowered her head below the surface.

  The external world ceased. She let herself sink, giving herself up to the water. There was a roaring in her ears, like listening to the seashells she had found on beaches as a little girl. Through it came the deep, steady pulse of her heart. Womb music. This is what it's like inside me. We're hearing the same sounds.

  Lulled by the sensual, sensory deprivation, she floated, suspended, until a message of discomfort intruded. Her lungs pulled for air, and for an instant Kate felt an impulse to draw a breath and let the water engulf her inside as well as out. It was gone almost immediately. Opening her eyes, she kicked through the amniotic warmth for the surface.

  She swam thirty laps before climbing out. Her body ached with the afterglow of exertion as she showered, then dressed and dried her hair. Luxuriating in the feeling, she contemplated getting a takeaway on her way home. The exercise had made her hungry, but reduced her inclination to cook. By the time she came out of the changing room she had decided to indulge herself fully and eat out. She was dimly aware that the attendant on the reception desk gave her a strange look as she left, but was too preoccupied over whether to go for Italian or Chinese to pay much attention.

  The club took up most of the first two floors, and part of the basement, of a converted warehouse. Its entrance on the ground floor was a doorway set between a fruit shop and a chemist's. They had been open when she arrived, but both were closed now, with steel security shutters pulled down over their windows. As Kate came out, still considering where to eat, she realised that there was something different about them. It was a second or two before she understood that the grey metal was flecked with specks of white.

  She stopped. More aware now, she noticed the scraps of paper specking the pavement in front of the shops. She looked back at the door to the club. The steel sheet that covered it had fresh scratches gouged in its surface, as though something had been scraped off.

  Kate looked along the length of the other shops, but there was nothing to indicate that anything had ever been pasted onto them. She became conscious of a pain in her hands. Her nails were digging into the palms of her clenched fists. She opened them, turning away from the mottled shutters that didn't, after all, prove anything.

  Her appetite had vanished. Intending to go home, she went to cross the road. A bus shelter stood on the other side, opposite the entrance to the club. She had passed it on her way in, walked right by without giving it a glance. Now, though, it was directly facing her. The posters almost covered it.

  During the next two days, it seemed that Kate saw the poster wherever she went. Her features smiled out from on top of the fat woman's body all over the city. Sometimes there would be only one, slapped in a prominent position in the middle of a wall or window. At others there would be a c
luster. Coming up from Tottenham Court Road tube station she saw a line of them running parallel to the escalators, raggedly pasted between and over the everyday advertisements. Most had been partially ripped off, but on some her face or name still remained. Kate ducked her head and stared at her feet as the escalator carried her past them. At the top she stumbled when she stepped off and saw one stuck to the floor. It was dirty and scuffed from the hundreds of feet that had trampled it, but still recognisable. KATE POWELL IS A MURDER it said, before a missing corner obliterated the rest of the message. Buffeted by the other people coming off the escalator, Kate walked over it.

  "How can he do this?" she protested to Collins. "He's supposed to be wanted for murder! How can he just go around sticking posters wherever he likes?"

  Even over the phone the Inspector sounded tired as he answered. "Thousands of illegal posters go up in this city every night. We don't see any of those being put up, either. And as for Ellis being a murder suspect, so far no one's made the connection between Alex Turner's killing and the pornographic posters that have been popping up in odd places. Personally, unless I can see some advantage in changing that, I'd like to keep it quiet. I imagine you would too."

  "But you must be able to do something!"

  "We're doing everything we can. London's a big place to find one man in, Miss Powell, and there's no way we can simply predict when or where Ellis is going to surface next. It only takes a matter of seconds to put a poster up. A quick slap of paste, and he's away."

  A headache was forming in Kate's temples. She massaged one of them. "Where's he getting the money from? How's he paying for all this?"

  "Good question. He's obviously producing the posters himself, putting them together on something like an AppleMac and then running them off on a colour copier. Ellis used computers at work, so that wouldn't be a problem for him. As for money, he was apparently left a bit by his grandmother. Not a fortune, though, and it looks like he's been drawing on it fairly heavily since he met you. We found his savings book at his bedsit, and the account's almost empty now. But that isn't to say he doesn't have savings we don't know about. Or he could just have stolen the money. You can buy second-hand hardware cheaply enough, and all he'd need then would be somewhere with a plug socket to hole up in. We're checking small hotels and boarding houses, but it's a long business."

  "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

  "No, Miss Powell, it's supposed to show you what the difficulty is." There was an uncharacteristic bite to Collins's voice. "Believe me, I don't enjoy having a murder suspect running around like this, and if I could do any more to get my hands on Timothy Ellis I would. But with the information we have at the moment, there's nothing more we can do, and if you can offer any constructive suggestions, I'd be very happy to hear them."

  Immediately, he seemed to regret his loss of composure. His tone became conciliatory. "Look, I know it's distressing. We will catch him, I promise you that. But you'll have to accept that there's only so much we can do. He's obviously targeting areas where he knows you go, but that still covers most of West and Central London. It's a big city and we can't just guess where he's going to turn up."

  Afterwards, Kate berated herself that she didn't have to guess, that she should have known what Ellis was going to do next. But it wasn't until the call from the Parker Trust the following morning that she saw the inevitability of it.

  "Hello, Mr Redwood," she said, wondering what petty complaint the Trust's chairman had now. "How are you?"

  There was no reciprocal pleasantry. "You know why I'm calling, I expect?"

  Kate hastily tried to think if there was something she'd forgotten. "No. Should I?"

  "It's about the poster."

  Oh, God. "Oh?" Kate heard herself say.

  "I presume you know what I'm talking about?"

  She tried to sound indifferent. "Perhaps you should just tell me, Mr Redwood, and then we can both be certain."

  "Very well. I'm talking about a highly offensive poster concerning you that's been brought to my attention. Is that plain enough?"

  The receiver felt heavy in her hand. She'd known there was a chance that some of her clients might see them, but she had told herself it was a slim one.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "So are we. Miss Powell. This is hardly the sort of profiling we anticipated when we hired your agency."

  "I'm not happy about it myself."

  "If you don't mind my saying so, that's small consolation. I presume you knew about the poster's existence already?"

  "Yes, but -"

  "And yet you didn't inform us?"

  "I didn't think it was any of the Trust's business."

  "I disagree. I made it clear at the outset that anything which affects the Trust is very much our business."

  "The posters are aimed at me, not the Trust. I'm sorry that you've been involved, but I can't see that you've any cause to be concerned about them."

  "Miss Powell, your agency currently represents the Trust, and as long as it continues to do so any adverse publicity you receive reflects on us by association. As a publicist I would expect you to know that. I also would expect you to realise that we cannot continue a relationship with a company whose head is involved in some kind of sordid smear campaign. And I might add that we have no intention of doing so. Under the circumstances -"

  "Under the circumstances you're not concerned that an associate of the 'charitable' Parker Trust is the victim of what's obviously a sick and malicious slander, is that right?" She had spoken heatedly, without thinking, but it gave Redwood pause.

  "Obviously, we're not unsympathetic," he said, cautiously, "but our sympathies can only extend so far."

  "Obviously. But, equally obviously, it wouldn't enhance the Trust's reputation as a humanitarian organisation if it became known that it had treated the victim unfairly. Callously, even. Particularly not when the victim was a woman, the Trust is run by men, and the slander was largely sexual in nature."

  Redwood was silent. Kate gripped the receiver, forcing herself to wait him out.

  "The Trust doesn't respond to threats. Miss Powell."

  "I wouldn't expect you to. I'm only telling you what would happen under those circumstances. As you say, I'm a publicist. I'm expected to know these things." She held her breath. Her knuckles on the phone were white.

  "We'll let it pass this time, Miss Powell," Redwood said, finally. Kate breathed out, silently. "But only this time. Any further hint of scandal or controversy concerning either you or your agency, and you can consider your relationship with the Trust terminated. I'll notify you of that fact in writing. So there's no misunderstanding of the position in future."

  "Thank you. I really am very sorry about this, and if you'd like to send us a bill for cleaning the posters off your walls -"

  "That won't be necessary, since there's only one, and it arrived in the post."

  "The post?" Kate echoed.

  "That's right. It came this morning. And while you, no doubt, think that your personal life is your own concern, when it comes to an issue as emotive as abortion, I might remind you that the Trust believes strongly in upholding Christian ethics, and that particularly includes the sanctity of life. Be it born or unborn."

  Kate felt control of the conversation slipping away from her. "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about what the poster accuses you of. While we obviously don't accept the accusation at face value, nevertheless -"

  A terrible comprehension was growing in Kate. "What does it say?" she demanded.

  "I hardly think there's any point in my repeating it -"

  "I want to know what it says!"

  There was a pause, in which she could sense Redwood swing from puzzlement to understanding. Something like satisfaction entered his voice. "Perhaps you'd better check your own post, Miss Powell," he said, and hung up.

  Her head throbbed as she buzzed Clive on the intercom. "Has the post arrived yet?"

  "
Yeah, I'm just sorting through it now. I'll bring it up."

  She listened to the downstairs door open and close, then the approach of his footsteps. He came in, smiling until he saw her expression. "What's wrong?"

  Kate shook her head without answering. She held out her hand for the pile of envelopes. Clive watched, worried, as she shuffled through them. She stopped when she reached the large brown envelope. Her name and the agency's address were written on the back in untidy block letters. She slit it open.

  Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded in half. Kate took it out.

  This time her head had been put onto the body of a woman wearing a white nightgown. The front of the gown was gory with blood, and the woman's hands, which she held stiffly by her sides, were dripping and red. Printed in the same colour across the top was a single sentence.

  KATE POWELL KILLED HER UNBORN BABY.

  Kate set it down on her desk. Her hands were unsteady. "He sent one to the Parker Trust," she said. "He posted it."

  Clive was folding up the poster with a look of angry disgust. "The bastard. The fucking sick bastard."

  Kate began to say something, but then an awful thought swept whatever it was away. "Oh, shit." She stared at Clive. "The Filofax." She saw understanding spread over his face. He sat down. "He's got a complete list of all our clients. Every one." She fought for control as the enormity of it registered. "He doesn't even have to bother sticking the posters up, he can just send them the bloody things! Christ, he probably already has!"

  "You don't know that for sure, he might not have." But Clive clearly didn't even believe that himself. "Anyway, who's going to take any notice of them? Nobody's going to be taken in by that sort of garbage."

  "Aren't they? And they don't have to believe it. A lot of people aren't going to want to be associated with anything like that, whether it's true or not. God, I should have seen this coming!"

  They stared at each other as the implications sank in.

  "What do you think we should do?" Clive asked.