by Steve Mosby
Twenty painful seconds later, he reached the roundabout. When he turned left, the van was nowhere in sight.
The road that led out towards Hammond's house was coming up on the right. As it approached, Kearney made his decision: he couldn't risk making a mistake. The road was wider here, so he pulled out and accelerated away, overtaking the line of traffic. He knew where Hammond's house was, and he could take another right further up if he needed to. But he had to be sure the man wasn't heading somewhere else.
As he shot up the middle of the road, one hand holding the wheel steady, he got his phone and flipped it open. Turned it on and waited. Kept his eye on the white lines flashing underneath his car. Brake lights kept flicking on to the left. More horns whining past him to the right.
He speed-dialled the number for Todd's mobile.
Car after car…
If Hammond hadn't turned off, he should have seen him by now. Shit.
'Paul.'
'Todd - listen to me. I think I've found Rebecca. I think Hammond's got her.'
A pause.
'You mean Arthur Hammond? Paul—'
It would take too long to explain. He interrupted.
'Look, I know he's got her. Todd, please. You need to get people to his house now.' The next turning was coming up. He slowed, indicated. 'I'm following him now. He's taking her to his house.'
'You shouldn't be following anyone, Paul.'
There was something wrong with Todd's voice, he thought - but then, he should have expected that after everything he'd done. Kearney shook his head. Right now, he just really needed Todd to fucking listen.
'Listen to me: Hammond is driving Roger Timms's van.' A break in the traffic. He swung the car around, hitting the kerb as he went. The chassis rocked, and then he was off again. 'The number plates have been changed, but I'm sure it's his. And he's got Rebecca in the back.'
Silence on the line.
He said, 'Are you there?'
'What's the reg?'
Thank God. Kearney read the new plate from memory.
'He's taking her home. Back to his house.'
'OK. Don't do anything stupid.'
'I'm sorry, Todd,' he said. 'I'm so, so sorry.'
'Paul—'
But Kearney cancelled the call and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. He needed to concentrate now. There was a right turn up ahead. The tyres shrieked again, and then he had both hands on the steering wheel, and his foot to the floor.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Three
Garland wasn't taking any chances with me. Two of his men held me in place as he released the handcuffs from round the pipe, and then clicked them shut again behind my back. They lifted me to my feet and kept a tight grip on my upper arms as he walked off to one side and took the gun out from underneath his jacket.
Examined it.
With everyone gone, the loading bay itself was now silent and empty. There was only that same distant clanking of metal. I could feel the space where the van had been. The sense of what was missing.
'Why are you doing this?' I said.
'It's just business.'
'Business.' I tried to laugh, but couldn't.
'Of course.' He frowned to himself, then finished checking the gun and looked up at me. 'Your friend asked the same question. I'm sorry to disappoint you both. We're just facilitators. All we do is arrange an experience for people with the appropriate funds. That's all there is to it. I don't understand it any more than you do.'
'You trade people for money.'
'Not living people. Not usually, anyway. When people act professionally, we're probably the only business in the world that doesn't hurt anyone.'
'Rebecca Wingate was alive,' I said. 'She's a human being.'
He shook his head.
'You don't understand what's happening here.' 'I know you're a killer.'
'Only when I have to be, Mr Connor. And besides, so are you.'
'No.' It was stupid, but I denied it anyway. 'I'm not.' 'Yes you are.'
With his free hand, Garland reached inside his jacket and pulled something out of the pocket. It was a single piece of A4 paper, folded into quarters. He rubbed it open between his fingertips. There was writing on both sides. My letter.
'Your friend had this with her when she performed her stunt,' he said. 'She obviously thought it was important.' I didn't say anything. 'You know what this is?' he said.
And even now, I still couldn't admit what was there; I could feel myself wanting to refuse it. It was ridiculous. You were right, I'd told Sarah. You need to face up to it. I'd written those words as I prepared to do the exact opposite, and I was still doing it now. I said, 'Yes.'
'It's a confession, isn't it?' 'Yes.'
But the truth is, it was something even worse than that.
So you were right. Death really is a monster, and you need to face up to it. If you don't, it spreads. It contaminates everything around you. I didn't face it, and that's exactly what happened.
When I learned how long Marie had been planning what she did, I couldn't deal with the knowledge. I couldn't bear to accept how badly I must have failed her. How could I not know? And so I ran away from the responsibility and tried to pin it on someone else. I convinced myself it was that man's fault. A part of it really was, but that's not why I went to his house and did what I did. I was blaming him simply to avoid blaming myself.
But what she did was my fault.
You shouldn't have told the police I was there with you that night. I asked you to when you didn't know the truth, and that was wrong of me. You have a right to hear that truth now and change your mind. Which is why I'm leaving you this letter. There is more evidence in the rental space the police will be able to find under my name. It's up to you what you do with this. Whatever decision you come to will be the correct one.
Most of all, you deserve to know that you were always right.
I appreciate everything you've done for me, and how you tried to help me. I hope you can understand and forgive me for this.
Alex
I remembered the perverse sense of self-sacrifice I felt when I wrote that. Whatever decision you come to will be the correct one. When I sold the house, I packaged up my belongings and put them away in storage, where I wouldn't need to see them. The letter was just another example of that. All I'd done was brush my guilt into a tidy little pile of words, and leave it for someone else to deal with. So that the responsibility didn't belong to me any more. So that if I didn't turn myself in, it wouldn't be my fault.
So that I could leave unencumbered.
Garland folded the letter up and slipped it back into his jacket, then nodded at the two men. They stepped away and he moved in beside me, placing the barrel of the gun against my side.
The pressure was light but it tingled, as though there was an electrical charge to it. At the same time, he gripped my arm. Again, only the lightest of touches, but it tilted me off balance.
'Tell me something,' I said. 'If I'd out-bid that guy, Hammond, would you have let me win?'
'No.'
'You were just letting me raise the price for you.' 'It's just business.' He shrugged. 'And my job here is salvage. That's all there is.'
The pressure on my arm increased slightly, and then the gun went into my side a little harder. This was it, then. I wanted to close my eyes, but I decided that I wasn't going to. 'Now move,' Garland said.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Four
He took me into the cellar of whatever building we were in.
It was strange down here. The walls and floor were made of stone - roughly hewn blocks - and the ground was moist, almost mossy in places. From somewhere, I thought I could hear water trickling. The corridor was dark, illuminated only by weak, inadequate bulbs hanging down from nooses of cable. It felt like a natural underground structure, partly adapted for purpose, rather than man-made foundations. For some reason, it made me think of haunted houses, built on top of old graveyards.
<
br /> We turned a corner, and I smelled petrol in the air.
There were large, steel kegs lining the sides of the corridor here. Drums. Panic flared inside me, and I faltered slightly. He was going to burn me alive down here. But the gun nudged me in the back, and I started moving again.
'Look-'
'Quiet.' He lowered his own voice. 'We're here.'
On the right, there was a break between the barrels, and I realised the space had been left to provide access to what looked like a door. It was made of dark metal, and the outline was lost in the gloom, but there was a panel at face-height. Garland reached up and pushed it across with his fingertips, revealing a steel mesh, the kind you'd stub a cigarette out on.
'Your friend,' he said.
For a moment, I didn't move. Then I realised what he was allowing me to do, and I stepped closer.
Sarah.
She was lying down on a mattress at the far side of a small cell, wearing dirty blue jeans and a black blouse that merged with the darkness around her, making her appear half formed. Her long arms were slightly brighter: tucked up together to form a pillow she could rest her head on. Her face was mostly lost beneath a tumble of jet-black hair, which itself was only really discernible by the pale skin between the tangles. But in those spaces, after a moment's confusion, I saw enough to know that it was Sarah.
She was asleep.
Tears blurred my eyes. I thought of the photograph in the newspaper, when she'd looked so young and unguarded. Smiling, tilting her head slightly, and leaning back against me. This was still the same woman, but she had changed in the same way everything had. I think it was the fact she was sleeping that bothered me most. She looked peaceful, as though being in a dirty little cell was all she'd ever known.
You were always right.
When I'd written that, I was thinking of that young girl Sarah had told me about, and the lessons she'd learned and taken through her life. I think I wanted to offer her some reassurance. But it was only ever selfish. I should have realised that Sarah would hold those words close to her heart, like an ache. Because saying you should have listened to someone is only ever a way of telling them they should have spoken louder.
I'm so sorry, I thought. So, so sorry.
'Why haven't you killed her already?'
Garland thought about it.
'When she first turned up at one of our displays, we needed to know who she was. And then there were different reasons at different times. If it makes you feel any better, you were one of them. If I hadn't seen you at Mr Ellis's flat yesterday, she would be dead by now.'
It didn't make me feel any better.
'You just said "our displays".' 'Did I?'
'And back in the car, you said "one of our places". Plural.'
Garland didn't reply.
I think I'd understood already, but his choice of words confirmed it. This wasn't simply about Thomas Wells and Roger Timms. If people were prepared to pay to see their victims, they'd be prepared to do so for the victims of other killers too. Clearly, there was money to be made from offering this kind of 'experience', and Garland's organisation had built up enough resources - over only God knew how much time - to expand. The murders here were just one small part of their business, and for various reasons they'd been compromised.
'So what was it?' I said. 'Was it because of Timms?'
'Because of greedy people. We always paid Mr Timms well, but apparently that wasn't enough. He put everyone at risk, and we can't have that - not for ourselves or our clients.'
I nodded. 'So this is salvage.'
'It's what happens when you're forced to close a branch of your organisation. You tidy up carefully. You save what can be saved. You cut out the dead weight.'
Dead weight. He was talking about everyone he'd had to remove to keep this covered up. My brother. Mike and Julie. And me, I supposed - me and Sarah.
In the cell, she was still fast asleep. I found it hard to breathe as I looked in, but her body was rising and falling gently as she slept. Oblivious.
Perhaps that was for the best.
'You're forgetting something,' I said.
'What?'
'I still have the research Sarah collected.'
It was all I had. And Garland didn't look impressed.
'Neither of you really knew a thing.'
'I wouldn't gamble on that.'
'I don't gamble on anything.' He shook his head. 'My work here is finished. Mr Hammond's money has disappeared into a large number of foreign accounts and will never be traced. This place will burn to the ground. And in less than two hours, I'll be on a private plane.'
'What about the police?'
He shook his head again. 'They'll have the only answers they'll ever bother looking for.'
There was an air of finality in the way he said it, and I realised we'd almost come to the end of the discussion. It felt like I should panic: flail about again, maybe, or attempt some kind of heroics. But I looked in at Sarah and my throat was tight. I just wanted this to be over now. I wanted not to feel this any more.
Garland reached into his jacket and pulled out the letter again.
'I want you to tell me exactly what happened with Peter French,' he said. 'And where we can find this "evidence" you mentioned.'
'Why?' I said. 'What does it matter?'
For a moment, Garland didn't reply. At first, it seemed that he wasn't quite sure of the answer himself. But then I realised he was simply choosing his words carefully.
'Mr Hammond said that money wasn't enough, and he was right. Part of what allows us to operate is that everyone involved has something to lose. It's just business.' He paused. 'And I think you have the credentials, Mr Connor.'
I turned slowly to look at him.
'That's why I want you to tell me,' he said. 'Because I want us both to understand the exact terms of the offer I'm about to make.'
* * *
Chapter Forty-Five
Arthur Hammond went through to the kitchen and poured himself a Scotch. The ice chinked as he swallowed the whisky, then rattled emptily in the glass. A bead of condensation ran down his wrist, tickling beneath the cuff of his shirt like a spider.
He poured himself a second.
His hand was trembling. He'd been so excited on the drive back here that it had been difficult to focus on the road. As he sipped the drink, savouring the silk and burn of it, the silence in the house was thumping with its own quiet heartbeat. It was an ominous sensation, like something huge and heavy was approaching from the distance, the pulse in his ears measured by the beast's enormous stride.
He'd almost missed out.
The ice rattled at the memory.
He was still furious about the man who'd been there. He owned that auction house; he'd only permitted Garland to use it today because the bastard had offered him a special, one-off payment. One he knew Hammond wouldn't be able to resist.
Emily.
If he'd known what would happen - that he'd be made to pay over the odds for something he wanted even more - he'd have refused. Not even what he wanted. He deserved to have it…
Hammond shook his head.
At least Garland would be dealing with that man now. There was some small measure of consolation to be had from imagining that. Nothing extravagant, of course; Garland was a businessman first and foremost. So it would be a bullet into the top of the head as he walked casually past. A puff of bloody, burnt smoke. Gone. Garland probably wouldn't even look behind him.
That could have been you, Arthur.
Yes, it could. A smile cracked his face. A sensation of relief. There had always been a danger that Garland knew about his unauthorised dealings with Timms: the violation of the indirect purchasing system. He imagined the repercussions would have been harsh. But he had gone anyway. Risked it. Partly because he wanted this piece so badly, but also because it was the nature of the experience. Part of the seduction of selling your soul was that the buyer always had the power to take it if they prefe
rred.
The drink was finished. He put the glass down on the kitchen counter, where it refracted the blue lights from under the cabinets. He might pour himself another when he was ready. In the meantime, there was work to do. He opened the side door and moved through to the garage. He had to get the new piece installed with the others, in the gallery beneath the house.
It didn't take long. The metal box was resting on makeshift runners in the back of the van, and slid out easily onto the waiting trolley. Heavy in itself, but simple to manoeuvre once he got it onto wheels and put his small weight behind it, pushing it across to the elevator that had been built into the corner.
In the contained, amber space of the lift, he took a moment to look at the box. It was the shape of a coffin, although slightly larger, and with a mesh of air holes drilled into the centre of the lid. He scratched at it with his fingernail, and the box responded by thudding inside and then screaming. As they descended, he realised he could smell her: that she'd soiled herself. It both revolted and excited him. In the early days, there had often been revulsion, but it had always been overtaken by fascination. He'd had to force his way through it sometimes, but it remained important and he made sure he paid attention to it. Every doorway, after all, was a part of the room beyond.
One level below, the thick doors slid open and Hammond pushed the gurney out, his body at an angle to it. And then he rolled it along, the wheels clicking and screeching.
The floor plan down here was hammer-shaped: it was basically just a long corridor with a large room at the far end. A number of smaller rooms jutted out to either side as you went down, but they were reserved for individual pieces - single works - with the exception of one at the end where a shower unit had been installed. Each had a separate light switch. All now rested in darkness as he passed them, moving under the single bulbs that illuminated the corridor at intervals, leaving half of it in darkness, half bathed in light.
The decor was shabby. He'd never attempted to turn this into one of the clean, white spaces he maintained in his public galleries. When he'd bought the house, this level had been bare floorboards and peeling wallpaper; it had reminded him of a forgotten floor in a hotel. Aside from adding the elevator, lights and atmospheric controls, he'd left it that way. It felt right: you came down in the lift and entered another world, entirely distinct from the polished, modern sheen of the house above.
