by Steve Mosby
Confidentiality.
All business, Garland knew, was the same below the surface. Someone sold an item and someone bought it - not always an item, and not always with money, but in principle a business was just a market stall. The company Garland worked for was no different. It was just that the stall was set up in a darker corner of the square and the transactions had to be hidden by shadows.
To deal with problems that arose, the organisation employed cleaners. They were men with a natural affinity for the task at hand: usually ex-soldiers or mercenaries, who were intelligent, professional and - when required - at ease with killing.
Problems such as Christopher Ellis.
Men such as Garland.
After he'd swept the front room, he moved through to the makeshift office Ellis had created in the flat's small second bedroom. On the way past, he stopped briefly to check on Amanda Gilroyd. She was lying on her side on the bed, hands and feet cuffed, with a bunched towel knotted in her mouth and tied tightly round her head. Keeping still.
Good.
On a personal level, Garland felt sorry for the woman. The only mistake she'd made was to have a relationship with the wrong man, and what would happen to her today was completely disproportionate to that particular crime. To begin with, he'd watched her asking herself why. Garland had seen that response before. People genuinely believed the world functioned on that level. Accustomed to the gently wavering peaks and troughs of everyday fortune, they were often shocked when the graph spiked suddenly downwards, without warning.
Nevertheless, she had been forthright and helpful, telling him everything he needed to know in a small but determined voice. She had convinced herself that co-operating with him would save her life. Garland had seen that response before too.
He turned away from the bedroom and moved down to the office. It had been two weeks since he'd arrived in the country - landing on a private flight to a private airfield - and he'd spent the intervening time evaluating the situation here as it developed. A number of events had forced him to act sooner than he would have preferred, but still: he had been confident everything was now under control, and that dealing with Ellis would be one of the last actions required of him.
But now there was this mystery man.
Turning up here and asking about Sarah Pepper.
Over the years, Garland had become accustomed to weighing the available facts and making calculations, and he knew full well the man was a problem. His arrival had answered one of the few remaining questions Garland had, and yet posed several new ones.
But he pushed it to the back of his mind for now. There was no point. Amanda Gilroyd clearly didn't know, so it would have been unproductive and unfair to talk to her. Ellis wasn't home yet. Therefore those questions had to wait.
He clicked on the light in the spare room.
It was more of a shrine than an office: a temple to Ellis's peculiar obsession. Garland's gaze moved over the items within, taking in the details and assessing what he saw. They were of no interest to him in themselves, only as potential sums of money. As with any business, you salvaged what you could.
A framed reprint of Roger Timms's 'Disgrace' had pride of place above Ellis's desk. It was the second of the Gehenna series - notorious and highly sought-after in certain enlightened circles - but a reprint was worth nothing. Middle-class people hung them on their walls. A devil mask in a glass display case was more valuable, he thought, but it was bolted in place and too cumbersome to move.
Ellis had also collected the standard letters, most of them with prison addresses in the corners. Locks of hair. Vials of blood. Child-like illustrations. Garland recognised several names, but the currency attached to them was of a decidedly low denomination. The mask aside, this was the itinerary of an amateur.
He sat down at the desk and booted up Ellis's computer, hoping the information would be simple to find. It was. Five minutes later, he had logged into several places and destroyed what was necessary. When he was confident that the online files had been removed, he took a USB stick from his jacket pocket, slotted it into the back of the computer and opened the contents up on the monitor. Within a minute, the programs contained on the memory stick had worked their way through Ellis's data and left it ravaged and unreadable.
Almost done.
The final task was to check the drawers in here for additional paperwork: anything that would need adding to the small bonfire he'd accumulated in the front room.
Garland was halfway through that when he heard the front door open, clattering against the chain.
'Mandy? What the fuck - open the door.'
A man's voice. Ellis was home.
Garland pushed the drawer shut, checked his gun with a frown, then walked quietly back to the front room to let the man in.
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
I didn't know why the older kids had called it the Chalkie. Perhaps they thought it was part of the old quarry. They were both on the south side of Whitrow, close to where the river curled past, but the Chalkie was on the other side of a small road, hidden away between the trees. You climbed a rusted old barrier and then took the vaguest of paths through the undergrowth, never quite sure whether you were going in the right direction or not. Eventually, the weathered, broken-down buildings appeared slowly between the trees, emerging piece by piece, like the fragments of some ruined temple.
I had no idea what it had been before the woodland took it over. All that remained of the original structure was a blackened roof supported several metres above the ground on four enormous, charred timbers, like a giant's table. There were also three overgrown bunkers: little more than doorways leading into thin corridors full of rainwater and pitch-black debris, illuminated by streaks of light from blowholes in the ground above. In places, large wooden blocks rested in weathered piles, with metal ladders bolted to the sides but nothing on top worth climbing them for.
A generation of kids made it their own, then passed it on to the next. Every stone surface was covered in ageing graffiti, broken glass, or ash and burnt newspaper. It was where my brother used to go with his friends. They would drink and smoke weed, have sex and get into fights.
At fifteen, I wasn't old enough - not that James would ever have invited me anyway - but one night I made my way down there. I don't know why. Perhaps I felt some stupid sense of entitlement. That if my brother could go there, I should be able to as well.
It was raining that night, hissing in the air, tapping the leaves above and shining on the dark-green undergrowth. I heard my brother and his friends before I saw them. The first sound was somebody whooping in the distance - and then glass shattering, followed by a collective cheer. Another person, a girl this time, shouted and swore. Then someone belched, and a few people's laughter echoed between the trees.
'Fuck!'
A man's voice. I was still out of sight, but the word came at me like a spear. Full of threat.
Then it came again.
I stopped at the edge of the tree line. It was James, of course. He was standing on the edge of the concrete floor, leaning against one of the pillars, bellowing out at the world. Light from the campfire behind him flickered around the sides of his face, hinting at the contortions of anger there. He looked like he was concentrating on something. Summoning up rage like magic.
Another glass shattered.
Back by the fire, I could only make out shapes and silhouettes: shadows flickering against the back wall. Someone tossed something, and sparks skittered upwards. The flames made it seem as though twenty people were huddled there.
My brother bellowed again.
This time it wasn't even a word, and it wasn't directed at anyone, either, or at least not anyone I could see. It was as though he was trying to make an impact on the trees themselves: to knock them down with his voice. Years later, when Marie died, I would recognise a similar feeling, but back then I looked at him and couldn't understand what I was seeing. He was a stranger.
'What are you shouting for?' someone complained.
'Ignore him. He's fucked.'
Someone laughed, and James half glanced behind him, on the verge of saying something. Instead, he lifted a bottle of beer and took a swig, glaring out at the wood again. A moment later, he turned in my direction, and his eyes met mine.
I don't think he recognised me at first. He just saw a strange kid that had turned up at the camp uninvited, then frozen on the perimeter. But when he realised who it was, the expression on his face went utterly blank. He didn't say anything and he didn't need to, because I felt it inside me. The rain pattered down around, and I knew. My brother hated me. He hated me for what I was and for what he wasn't, and maybe a hundred other things that neither of us would ever be able to articulate.
He threw the empty bottle with real purpose, so fast and hard that I barely had time to dodge. It went slightly wide anyway, wheeling past and hitting the tree beside me with a dull clunk, then landing - unbroken - in the undergrowth.
He looked defeated at missing. One more disappointment added to the pile. I was absolutely certain that he'd intended to hit me, and if he had it would have fractured my skull. For a moment, I thought he might even come running at me, but he just stood there, swaying slightly.
I turned around and walked back the way I'd come.
It was another year before I went again, this time with friends of my own, including Sarah. My brother had moved on to the pubs by then, and taken to huddling in corners and shouting with his eyes rather than his voice. He'd been so drunk that night, I was never sure whether he even remembered it.
But obviously he had.
Tell Alex to go to the Chalkie, he'd told Mike.
To see what he's done.
Mike was a sensible man. After he picked me up from Wrexley, he told me he wanted to go to the police. I wasn't a sensible man, so I said no.
When he objected and said he was going to go anyway, I pointed out the inconvenient truth that he had no idea where or what this place was, so he wouldn't be able to tell them anything anyway. Instead of enlightening him, I provided basic directions. Grudgingly, he set off.
'Look,' I said. 'It's probably nothing.'
Mike shook his head. 'Why would it be nothing? And you're seriously telling me you don't know who "Peter French" is?'
I sighed. 'All right, that wasn't entirely true.'
'What?'
'I'm sorry. The name just caught me off guard.'
Hearing it, I'd felt like James had reached out and grabbed tight hold of the front of my shirt. Like he was glaring right into my face. Having had time to think about it, I thought I understood now.
Mike waited for me to explain. It wasn't going to be easy, but I tried my best.
'Peter French,' I said, 'was Marie's stepfather.'
That was probably an exaggeration, but it was close enough to do. Marie's mother was an alcoholic, and she clung to stupid relationships with the wrong people. I didn't think she ever married French, but he certainly lasted longer than most of the men who came into and out of the house. But then, Marie was ten years old at that point, and so he had other reasons for staying.
'When she was eleven,' I said, 'she sat down with her mother and finally told her what was going on. And this woman's reaction was to ask Marie what she wanted her to do. Did she want her to leave Peter French? This fucking woman sat there and asked her eleven-year-old daughter to make that decision.'
And in the end, Marie said no.
'Christ.' Mike looked at me. 'I never knew.'
'Nobody did. Marie had good days and bad days, but it never really left her. I tried to help her as much as I could, but…'
I trailed off. It was true: both that I'd tried, and the thing I couldn't quite bring myself to say, which was that it had never been enough. When the depression hit, it was like a steel shell closed around her. But even in better times, I knew there was something inside her that remained completely impervious to anything I said or did, and that it always would.
Mike said, 'But James knew?'
'He shouldn't have. I told Sarah about it in a letter.'
At the moment, I remembered writing, I'm not sure where I'm going. All I know is that I have to get away. But before I leave, I want to tell you something. Something that you deserve to know.
'I was trying to explain why I needed to leave. Part of that involved wanting her to know how badly I let Marie down.'
'Alex-'
'Yeah, I did.' I closed my eyes, not wanting to get into this with him. 'And it doesn't matter any more. The point is, he's just striking out. Trying to hurt me.'
I pictured that small, sad figure, extending its arms sideways, tipping its head back, and I felt a jolt of anger at my brother. Throwing that name at me now, just as he had that bottle all those years ago. Only this time, he'd hit.
Tell Alex this is all his fault.
Mike sighed. 'What about this place, then?'
'That, I don't know.' I ran through the story of my encounter there with James, but I genuinely had no idea what relevance it had. 'It's probably just another way of telling me to fuck off.'
Mike thought about it.
'Maybe we should go to the police.'
'Not yet.'
'We could find a body there, Alex.'
That had been on my mind too. As the crow flies, the Chalkie was little more than a mile from the field where Sarah had gone missing. But I'd been mulling it over, and I didn't think it made sense.
'We won't,' I said. 'The police have already found the place he left Sarah's body. James told them.'
'And now it's gone.'
I nodded. 'Yeah, but whoever stole it, that was after he'd turned himself in. If it was here, how would he know?'
Mike said nothing.
'The only way would be if the person who did it went in and told him, and then, for some bizarre reason, he decided to keep it to himself. I mean, has he even had any other visitors?'
'No.'
'So whatever he meant by it, it's something else.' I looked out of the window. 'And anyway, we don't even know if the place is still there.'
But it was.
The road reared up ahead: the large, hump-back bridge over the river. Coming down the far side, we drove past the dirt track leading towards the quarry, then a quaint, old building set back from the road - a stables, with old black cartwheels bolted to the outside walls - and then pulled up at the bottom of the hill.
The woodland to the side was thick, but the path was still there. The barrier was too, although so rusted that it had cracked in places and the metal looked as fragile as parchment.
'You should wait here.' I opened the door. 'Just in case. If I'm not out in forty minutes, call the police.'
'Forty?'
I shrugged. 'It's easy to get lost in there.'
Mike nodded, but reluctantly.
'All right. Be careful.'
'Don't worry.'
I gave the barrier an experimental shake and sharp flakes of metal came away on my palms. But it still felt surprisingly solid. I clambered over, my feet landing silently in the thick grass beyond, then dusted my hands off on my jeans and set off.
Could I still remember the way? Within a few metres of the road, the old path seemed to disappear; there was just a vague suggestion of space between the trees, the undergrowth spiralling and curling up to knee height. I found a large stick on the ground, then used it to push the brambles aside and work my way through. I was hoping that either memory or instinct was going to lead me in the right direction.
In less than a minute, the road was out of sight and I was lost amongst the trees. Behind me, the undergrowth had sprung up again, almost indignantly, as though it had been here for long enough now and wasn't going to be kept down by the likes of me. I stopped. The sun was filtering through the trees above, and I could hear the rush of the river from somewhere up ahead, full of quiet purpose. Those sounds aside, I felt isolated. In all directions, as far as I could tell,
there were just trees and bushes and darkness.
It took nearly ten minutes to find it. One moment I was wandering aimlessly, pressed at on all sides and beginning to panic slightly in the quiet, damp claustrophobia of the wood - the next, there it was, the old, familiar structures appearing between the trees in front of me.
Wow.
I stepped onto the concrete floor of the central structure and glanced overhead. The timbers were still holding the roof up. At the bottom, brambles had wrapped themselves around the struts, tight and sharp as barbed wire, while grass poked through cracks in the slabs on the ground. On the back wall, the graffiti now looked so old and faded that it might have been part of the stone. The silence was monumental.
It felt like nobody had been here for years, maybe even since my friends and I vacated it. In the time since, the forest had reached out and begun claiming the place back for itself, and that task was nearly complete.
Except that someone had lit a fire here.
I walked across to the far edge of the floor.
There was a small pile of half-burnt wood, with the stone underneath and around it charred black. I scattered the remnants with my foot, breathing in the scent of ash and soot that wafted up at me. It looked and smelled fresh. Someone had been here fairly recently. Sitting out, keeping warm.
I stood still and listened. There was no sound at all now.
It could have been a tramp, I thought. Or kids.
It was nice and isolated here, after all, and would probably still make an ideal drop-in centre for any local derelicts that happened to know about it. And it wasn't like the area would have run out of teenagers. At the same time, there wasn't any of the other debris I'd have expected from people sleeping rough or partying. No smashed bottles or crushed cans. No old food.
Check around.
The heavy silence was putting me on edge.
Check around, then get the fuck out of here.
I circled round the back of the building, grateful I had the stick with me, if nothing else, and then ducked quickly into each of the gloomy, old bunkers. They were all empty.
