Caught In the Light

by Robert Goddard

  The launch was moored at Charing Cross Pier as promised, a sleek rapier-flanged craft with the vainglorious name Nyman Aqua recorded in ultramarine copperplate on the bow. I was welcomed aboard by the pilot. He was polite but unsmiling. And clearly expecting me.

  ‘Mr Nyman’s not here yet,’ he announced. ‘Make yourself comfortable while we wait.’

  There was a large and airy cabin beneath the wheelhouse, but I preferred the bow, where I could scan the Embankment for Nyman. As it was, I didn’t have to wait long for him to appear. No sooner had I looked up than I spotted him, halfway between Cleopatra’s Needle and the pierhead, strolling casually along, the breeze ruffling his hair. He was speaking into a mobile phone as he walked, but, seeing me, paused by the parapet to conclude the call. As soon as it was finished, he nodded down to me and walked on.

  A minute or so later, he was on the pontoon, exchanging a cheery word with the pilot. Then he was aboard, the engines were throbbing into life and we were casting off. Nyman tossed his briefcase into the cabin and joined me in the bow. He was wearing an immaculately cut lightweight suit and was smiling as broadly and warmly as if I were an old friend he hadn’t seen for far too long.

  ‘Grand day,’ he remarked as we nosed out into the river and the Embankment slowly sheered away from us.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on his.

  ‘Not getting to you, is it? Surely any photographer worth his salt should have a feel for the weather. Light. Temperature. Visibility. Don’t they all play a part?’

  ‘I’m not here to take photographs.’

  ‘No. Of course not. Just as well, probably.’ He spun round and stretched an arm towards the receding flank of the Houses of Parliament. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Jarrett, but didn’t your hero, Roger Fenton, take a famous photograph of that when it was still under construction, with sailing barges in the foreground and Big Ben shrouded in scaffolding?’

  ‘You’re not wrong.’

  ‘When would that have been? 1857 or so?’

  ‘About then.’

  ‘And Fenton was born … when?’

  ‘1819.’

  ‘Before photography was invented.’

  ‘Supposedly.’

  ‘Yes. Quite.’ He turned back to me, still grinning from ear to ear. ‘Quite so.’

  ‘Forget Fenton, Nyman. You and I both know this has nothing to do with photography.’

  ‘Does it not?’

  ‘You’re out to take some twisted kind of revenge for what happened to Isobel Courtney.’

  ‘“What happened to her.” Don’t you mean “What you did to her”?’

  ‘You admit it, then?’

  ‘I suppose I do. In a sense. But as for it having nothing to do with photography, well, you couldn’t be further from the truth.’

  ‘It was an accident, you know.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Isobel’s death.’

  ‘Really?’ He followed some spot on the South Bank with his eyes as we passed under Waterloo Bridge, glanced at his watch, Rolex gold flashing in the sun as he twitched back his cuff, then slowly returned his gaze to meet mine. He was no longer smiling. ‘Even if that were true, the question arises: does it make a difference? I mean, do intentions mitigate consequences? What do you think, Jarrett? If, just for the sake of argument, somebody ran over Amy in their car and killed her, would it make you feel better or worse if you thought they’d done it deliberately?’

  ‘There’s obviously a difference. To any sane person.’

  ‘As to sanity, I believe the doubt hovers over yours, not mine. But bear with me. Would it make you feel better or worse if you thought they’d done it deliberately?’

  ‘Worse. Naturally.’

  ‘You reckon so?’

  ‘I’ve just said so.’

  ‘Yes. So you have. Still, it’s pure conjecture on your part, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve never actually experienced such a thing. You don’t really know. Do you?’

  ‘Not from—’

  ‘Then let me tell you.’ His voice was suddenly harsh, his expression intense. ‘Based on my personal experience. You’re wrong. Murder presumes a motive. And a motive gives you something to hang on to. It confers meaning on tragedy. Whereas stupidity and carelessness reduce death to a farce. And enable the killer to evade responsibility. “It was only an accident. It wasn’t my fault. I’m not to blame.” Does that accurately paraphrase your moral position in this particular debate, Jarrett?’

  ‘It accurately paraphrases the coroner’s summing-up at the inquest. If you’d been there, you’d know that.’ ‘I was unavoidably detained elsewhere. But I read a transcript of the proceedings later. I know exactly what was said. And what was concluded. I just don’t happen to accept the conclusion.’

  ‘You blame me for Isobel’s death.’

  ‘That’s right. You’re catching on awfully fast.’

  ‘Were you in love with her?’

  We were past the Oxo Tower now, homing in on the centre span of Blackfriars Bridge. Nyman glanced at his watch again. He took a slim gold case from his pocket – monogrammed N like the bull’s-eye window in the front door at Derringfold Place – and opened it, offering me a cigarette. I shook my head. He went ahead and lit one for himself, savouring the first draw as we passed beneath the bridge.

  ‘Well?’ I persisted. ‘Did you love her?’

  ‘All other things being equal, I’d be happy to satisfy your curiosity on every single point. But they aren’t equal. I’m constrained by … tactical considerations.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘It means your lucky guess that Isobel and I were … connected … has obliged me to step up a gear in our little … jeu de mort.’

  ‘Our what?’

  ‘I underestimated Quisden-Neve and had no choice but to take drastic action against him. It was of necessity clumsily done. But, apropos of my earlier comments, it didn’t insult him by being accidental. The point is that I don’t propose to make the same mistake twice. I have to limit your freedom of movement before you succeed in turning Faith against me.’ His smile returned. ‘The game still has rules, though, even if they’re harsh ones. I’ll give you a chance. Not a good one, but a chance nonetheless. We’re going to drop you at Swan Lane Pier, just before London Bridge. You can make it to Bank Tube station from there in five minutes, if you put a spurt on, then you can travel straight through to Notting Hill Gate on the Central line. Ten stops. What do you reckon? Twenty minutes from Swan Lane to your flat if you go like a bat out of hell and get lucky with the Tube schedule? Half an hour’s a more plausible minimum, I suppose. Let’s say that. You could take a cab, of course, but the traffic’s diabolical today. Well, every day, really. I’d opt for the Tube myself. But it’s your choice.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Eris is at your flat. Has been since ten o’clock. That’s who I was speaking to on the phone. I should have a word with your landlord about the locks on that place if I were you. Not exactly top security. But you’ll soon have more pressing matters on your mind, so let’s not dwell on it.’

  We were approaching Southwark Bridge now. Nyman took another draw on his cigarette and checked his watch yet again. ‘At ten forty-five Niall will join her. Eris is expecting you, actually. Niall will be a surprise for her. And not a pleasant one. They don’t exactly get on. I’m none too fond of Niall myself. He has some deeply unappetizing characteristics. It’s one of those characteristics he’ll be giving expression to this morning.’

  Nyman paused while we went under the bridge, the engine noise bouncing back at us from the stonework above and around us. Then we were back in the sunlight again. ‘He’s going to kill her, Jarrett. In your flat. He’s going to make it look like your handiwork, of course. And, needless to say, I’m not going to supply you with an alibi.’

  I looked at him, disbelief somehow confounded by the mildness of his expression. He meant it. Every word
. There was absolutely no doubt. It was going to be as he’d said.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll get there in time to intervene, let alone prevent it happening. Consequently, you’ll be in prison when Faith marries me and Amy becomes my stepdaughter. I’ll have taken your life away from you. Just like you took Isobel’s. Only you won’t be dead. And you’ll have the privilege of knowing it wasn’t in any sense accidental.’

  We passed under Cannon Street railway bridge. London Bridge lay dead ahead. The launch slowed fractionally and veered in towards the pier on the north bank. My thoughts couldn’t seem to keep pace with what was happening. He was mad. He had to be. But he was also clever. And in Niall Esguard he had a confederate who was willing if not eager to put his plans into effect.

  ‘You could phone the police, of course. But you have to weigh your chances of persuading them to take the call seriously against the time you’d lose. And then there’s Niall to consider. He may jump the gun and turn up earlier than instructed. He does so love his work. In that event, all you’d be doing is strengthening the case against you. The call would look like a ham-fisted attempt to cover your tracks. You could walk away from it, of course. Abandon Eris to her fate and try to prove you were somewhere else when she died. But you care about her, don’t you, even though she tricked you? And there’s just a chance you can save her. Maybe you’ll get there quicker than I’ve allowed for. Maybe she’ll stall Niall long enough to make a difference. Maybe you’ll have a slice of luck. Who knows? That’s part of the game.’

  I looked at his smiling face, then round at the approaching pier, then back at him again. ‘You’ve done all this because, five years ago, I killed Isobel Courtney in a road accident that was as much her fault as mine?’

  ‘It’s made you remember her, hasn’t it?’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

  ‘I’ll have to take your word for that. One thing’s certain, though.’ He leaned closer. ‘You won’t ever forget her now.’

  ‘I’ll find some way to stop you.’

  ‘I doubt it. You’re welcome to try, of course. Indeed, you should try, because the futures I have planned for Faith and Amy aren’t ones you’d approve of, especially Amy’s. By the time you get out of prison, she’s going to be a seriously troubled young woman if I have anything to do with it. And I will have something to do with it. Rather a lot, actually. The middle teens are such a vulnerable period in a girl’s life, don’t you think?’

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Sticks and stones, Jarrett. And even the words are over now. Time for you to jump ship.’

  A river tour boat was already moored at the pier. The launch approached at some speed, slowing suddenly and slewing round as it came alongside the vacant end of the pontoon. A man mopping down the deck of the tour boat stopped to gape at us in bemusement as white water churned and the engines roared.

  ‘There’s not a moment to lose,’ said Nyman. ‘I should start moving if I were you.’

  I wasted another precious few seconds grappling mentally with a situation I still couldn’t quite believe, even though I knew it really was happening. There was only one thing for me to do. He’d made sure of that. I’d spent three months searching for Eris. Now I was certain to find her. But there was only the slimmest of chances I’d find her alive.

  ‘What’s it to be, Jarrett?’

  All I could deny him was an explicit reply. My dash to the opening in the port rail must nevertheless have been exactly what he wanted to see. I jumped onto the pontoon, raced along it and started up the ramp to the street. From there I carried straight on up Swan Lane without looking back, running hard and fast, as if the Devil were behind me – as, in a sense, he was.

  The traffic round the Monument and approaching London Bridge looked as heavy and slow-moving as Nyman had predicted. The Tube really was likely to be the quickest route, even though it could hardly be quick enough. I ran on up King William Street, dodging other pedestrians as I went, dashing headlong across side streets, ignoring the squeal of brakes and the blare of horns. A subway to Bank station appeared ahead. I plunged gratefully into it, sprinted through the concourse to buy a ticket, then took the escalator down to the Central line two steps at a time.

  And at the bottom I found myself reduced at once to the slow and steady pace of London Underground. ‘NEXT TRAIN: 6 MINS,’ declared the overhead display on the westbound platform. It wasn’t open to negotiation. That was how long it was going to be. I thumped the nearest pillar in frustration. I was going to be too late. There was hardly a doubt in my mind, far less a hope in my heart. I wasn’t going to make it.

  But still I had to try, as Nyman had calculated I would have to. The six minutes grudgingly passed while I prowled the slowly filling platform. All the anger at Eris that had boiled up in me as I’d listened to her last tape drained away into despairing forgiveness. She’d duped me. She’d made a fool of me. But I didn’t want her to die. Some small part of what had happened in Vienna remained precious in my memory. I saw that now as the crowning irony of Nyman’s campaign against me. It had only worked as well as it had because Eris and I had unwittingly stepped outside it and found a place where deception didn’t matter any more. Perhaps Nyman realized that. Perhaps that was why he’d decided she had to die. Not merely because it suited his purposes, but because she was the weak link in the chain he’d bound around me.

  I held on to the thought as I boarded the train. It made everything better and worse at the same time. It meant Nyman’s plans could sometimes misfire. But it also meant that, if Eris died, it really would be my fault.

  The journey was a void. I refused to let myself look at my watch. I stared at the tunnel walls beyond the window opposite my seat and tried to fill my mind with their blankness. St Paul’s; Chancery Lane; Holborn: people got on, people got off. Tottenham Court Road; Oxford Circus; Bond Street: one day, I knew, it would all be different. Marble Arch; Lancaster Gate; Queensway: one day, I’d know what had already happened.

  Notting Hill Gate. I was running again now, along the platform and up the escalators, through the barriers and up the steps to the street. I fumbled with my keys in my pocket as I dodged and weaved along the crowded pavements. Everyone else seemed to be moving with exaggerated slowness. I was like the blur of a mobile figure in a Fenton photograph: the man who’d been there but couldn’t be seen. My mind flashed forward to what might be waiting at the flat. Niall was capable of anything. Killing her wouldn’t be enough for him. The worse it looked, the worse it would turn out for me. That would be all the encouragement he needed. ‘I can’t say I like him,’ she’d told me on the tape, ‘but I guess he has his uses.’ And so he did – more than her guesses could ever have encompassed.

  But now guesswork was at an end. I was past the front door and bounding up the stairs. The door to the flat lay ahead. I rammed the key into the lock, turned it and flung myself through.

  The first thing I saw was Niall’s face. And he was smiling.

  But the smile was a rictus of death.

  He was lying in the centre of the room, his back propped against the armchair, his head lolling sideways. His shirt and trousers were wet with blood, and a slick of it lay black-red on the carpet beneath him. There was blood on his chin, too, and on the cushion of the sofa, as if it had poured from his mouth. His eyes were wide and staring, his mouth fixed in a grin.

  I stood with my back against the door as the details of the scene slowly lodged themselves in my mind: the grey pallor of his face, the apron of blood, the frozen clench of his fists. Then I noticed a narrow coil of dark material trailing from between the fingers of his right hand. I stepped closer. It was a black leather tie. His tie, presumably, though I’d never seen him wear one. The rest of his outfit was standard: black jeans, black leather jacket, white shirt, the breast pocket stretched round a blood-soaked pack of Camel cigarettes. I remembered the manner of Quisden-Neve’s death and wondered if Niall had tried to strangle Eris with the tie. Maybe that’s how he’d
done for Quisden-Neve. No doubt it had struck him that by using the same modus operandi he could saddle me with both murders and so kill three birds with one stone.

  But somehow Eris had got the better of him. She’d shot him or stabbed him – I couldn’t tell which – and then … I turned slowly in a circle. Was she still here? Half of me wanted her to be. The other half was very frightened. There wasn’t a sound, except the drip of the kitchen tap. It was too rapid for me to have overlooked when leaving earlier. I walked into the kitchen and immediately noticed droplets of blood and bloody water on the floor and draining board. There were some in the sink as well, along with spatters of vomit. The roller towel was stained pink in patches. The physical debris of violent death was waiting everywhere.

  I checked the bathroom. It was empty. That left me back in the bed-sitting room with Niall Esguard’s corpse and a limited ration of time in which to decide what to do. He was a tall man and his splayed legs seemed to fill the space between the armchair and the door. I edged round him to the window, flung it open and leaned out to breathe the clear spring air. I ran a hand across my sweat-bathed face and was almost surprised, when I looked at it, that it wasn’t covered in blood. Out of the corner of my eye, I could still see the dark and jagged shape slumped against the armchair. It wasn’t going to go away. I hadn’t dreamed it. Niall Esguard really was dead, there, in the room behind me.

  In some strange way, it was actually a relief. The things I’d imagined on that torturous Tube ride from the City were infinitely worse than this. Eris dead, raped, mutilated – anything. And all of it wildly off the mark. Had she been ready for him? Or just lucky? It didn’t matter which. The result was the same. She’d killed him, thrown up in the kitchen sink, washed the worst of the blood off and gone. But there would still have been a lot of blood on her clothes. She’d surely have attracted attention. Or perhaps …

  I left the window open and, giving Niall another wide berth, crossed to the wardrobe. The door was ajar. I swung it wide open and saw at once that my raincoat was missing. She’d taken it to cover the bloodstains.