by Baker, John
Harvey shook his scrawny head. ‘She wouldn’t’ve gone away without saying something to me. If she’s missing, he’s done her in. That’s what’s happened, mark my words.
At the end of the day you’ll find he’s done for her.’ 1 ‘Who do you mean? Who’s done for her?’
‘Reeves, the husband, who do you think? He’d never let her go. He told her that.’
Marie looked back at the man. His eyes were black holes. There was a quiver to his lips, the only sign of emotion in his face. But his arms were held out like a supplicant, arms that were thin and stick-like, closed at the ends by white-knuckled fists.
You can only use your nose, Marie thought as she settled herself behind the wheel of the car. Some people can lie so convincingly that it’s impossible to tell. Lying is a talent. You either have it or you don’t. Russell Harvey was plausible; there was no denying that. But was he honest?
It was not impossible that Isabel Reeves was locked in one of the upper rooms of that house. Maybe dead, which would account for his insistence on the past tense.
She turned the key in the ignition and checked the wing mirror as she moved out into traffic.
And another thing. What would a woman like Isabel Reeves see in a man like Russell Harvey? The guy was a stick insect. He didn’t shave, didn’t bother much with soap and water, and his house was a shithole. He looked at you, watched you with those sex-hungry eyes, so intently that his stare was almost tangible.
Men did look at women, and women looked at men, too. Except there was a difference in the way they looked. A woman couldn’t look at men like Harvey had looked at her, because if she did, the man would interpret the look as a come-on. Men didn’t understand about being looked at, being watched. It took a long time to get used to it. Women, most women, they learned early to take it in their stride. But even then, there would always come along some guy who could make you squirm.
And Russell Harvey was one of them.
Marie’s nose told her that he was honest as well, at least in relation to his involvement with Isabel Reeves. But there were no certainties in the job or in life. Sometimes the nose was a good indicator and other times it was completely wrong. The only safe way was to keep an open mind until all the leg-work was over.
9
It was around midday that Dave Taylor and his new girlfriend, Amber Hill, strayed from the well-beaten track of the Cleveland Way a mile or two to the north of Cold Kirby on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. The sun was bright and apart from a few low clouds over to the west, the sky was clear.
They’d been warned about straying from the path, and knew they were in danger of losing their way if visibility suddenly became difficult. But Dave had been getting more and more randy throughout the morning, and had joked about his erection for more than an hour and a half before Amber admitted to herself that she wanted it just as much as him.
They climbed down a hill and crossed an ice-cold stream, picking up a sheep-run, maybe eighteen inches wide, which led into an area of thick heathers and a scattering of blueberries. Dave unzipped his sleeping bag and threw himself down on it, holding his arms out for Amber. ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Jesus, just come here.’ Amber flashed him a smile, but some movement caught her attention further down the hill. ‘I think there’s someone over there,’ she said.
‘Christ.’ Dave got to his feet. ‘It’ll be a sheep. There’s no people up here. I thought we was gonna screw.’
‘I want to check it out, Dave. You can hang on a bit longer.’
‘This is torture.’ He took her by the hand and they walked towards the spot where Amber had seen movement. Within about fifty yards a large ewe leapt out of the heather and made off up the hill. ‘What did I tell you?’ Dave said. ‘There’s only sheep and rabbits up here, maybe some grouse, wild birds, whatever they call ’em.’
‘Still needed to check it out, though,’ Amber said. ‘I don’t want some shepherd or gamekeeper walking in on us when we’re getting at it.’
Dave smiled. No point in upsetting her. He took her hand in both of his and brought it to his lips. ‘I know where there’s a really warm sleeping bag,’ he said. ‘And it’s in the middle of nowhere, with no people, except me and you and a hard-on that feels like it’s gonna break off.’
‘You shoulda been a salesman,’ she said. ‘The way you talk.’
‘I am a salesman, Amber,’ Dave told her. ‘What do you think I do in the sports shop all day?’
But Amber wasn’t listening. He felt her shake and when he followed the line of her sight something began to shake inside Dave as well.
The body was in a sitting position only a couple of metres above the path. A mound of earth supported the woman’s back. It was as if she was looking out over the moor. She was wearing a black suit and flat shoes and one of her eyes had been pecked out of its socket. The eye was still there, hanging by the remains of a vein and some threads of tissue, resting on the lower part of her cheek. Her face was criss-crossed by the dark footmarks of birds that had clung to the flesh, and her suit was speckled with the lime from their droppings.
Her arms were stretched out and the open palms were scarred, as if someone had tried to gouge holes in them with pieces of flint. Her feet, which were crossed one over the other, were similarly scarred.
Most of the exposed flesh was black, but at the neck of the suit and the cuffs of the jacket it was a creamy colour. There was an odour of decay and putrefaction.
Amber retched and vomited, going down on her knees. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and returned her gaze to the body of the woman. ‘That’s horrible,’ she said. ‘Really horrible.’
Dave wanted to tell her not to look, but he couldn’t stop looking himself. He stared abstractedly, remembering the time he’d gone with some mates to a girlie show. There was the same confusion over how to interpret the image. The thought that there was a conventional response which somehow didn’t connect with his feelings. The result was paralysis, an inability to opt for either alternative. He couldn’t help wondering what was behind the closed lid of the woman’s other eye. If she were suddenly reanimated, would the wink reveal an empty socket?
‘We’d better tell somebody,’ Amber said.
‘Yeah.’ Dave followed her back up the hill. ‘No point hanging round here.’ Somehow he couldn’t keep up with Amber’s pace. When they found the track of the Cleveland Way, she went even further ahead, well out of earshot. ‘This’s a real ball-breaker,’ Dave said to himself.
Sam got to Angeles’ house a few minutes after receiving her message. He’d been to see the physiotherapist at the hospital, and arrived at the office an hour late. His hand was healing slowly, he seemed to be able to do more with it every day.
She was wearing a dark shirt and a striped Breton jumper. There must be some way she could tell what looked good when she dressed in the morning, but he couldn’t imagine what it was. It isn’t possible to feel colours, yet she never wore combinations that clashed. Always looked as though she’d been personally dressed by one of those couturier guys.
She was calm and collected but the tension in her facial muscles betrayed the effort involved in maintaining the mask. ‘I want you to drive me,’ she said. ‘I have to identify the body, that’s number one, then I want you to find out who killed her.’
‘Shall we take it a step at a time?’ Sam said. ‘It might not be Isabel.’
‘We’ll soon know,’ she said. ‘Can we go now?’
‘Yeah. The car’s outside. What about her husband? Shouldn’t he be involved in this?’
‘Quintin’s not here,’ Angeles said. ‘He went on a business trip last night. The police are trying to contact him, but he’s not due back until tomorrow.’ She pulled a beanie hat down on her head and slipped into an ankle-length fitted coat. She did it nonchalantly, without thinking, but in a way that made Sam want to share his life and prejudices with her.
He followed her through the door. ‘So he doesn’t know
about the body being found?’
‘No.’ She took his arm and let him lead her to the car. He opened the passenger door and waited until she’d settled herself inside. He watched her smooth out the wrinkles in her skirt. As he walked round to the driver’s door he wondered if there was anything else in the world apart from sex. No, he mused, not a lot, apart from birth and death. Music? The politics of power came into the equation somewhere. And starvation was always good. Homelessness? OK, the world was a complicated place, full of joys and disappointments, an infinite variety of emotions and experiences. It was just that sex was the best.
She’d been at the bottle. There was the minted mask which only drew attention to her breath. There was the careful walk, the conscious placing of one foot in front of the other. And there was the slight tremor of the hand. Sam couldn’t leave it alone.
‘I’m an alcoholic,’ he said.
She didn’t respond, her eyes seemed as though they were following the road.
‘Booze isn’t going to help,’ he said. ‘It might seem like it will, but at the end of the day you have to get yourself through this.’
‘I had a stiff drink,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
He drove the car, nodding inwardly. She’d had at least three. Big ones. But the real danger sign was that she could hold it.
What it looked like, apparently, if you were a policeman, was that Isabel Reeves drove up to the moors, parked her car, took an overdose of sleeping tablets, and wandered off into the bracken.
‘Part of her face had been eaten,’ Angeles said. ‘Birds had pecked out her eye. It was the only time in my life that I was glad I couldn’t see.’
‘Could you identify the body?’ Sam asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How did you do that?’
Angeles sighed. ‘She was my sister. I know her body, her hands, her jewellery. There is a birthmark on her thigh. There’s no doubt. It was Isabel.’
‘They can’t have held a PM already. There’ll have to be an inquest.’
Angeles put her hands forward and rested them on the dashboard. She jumped when a huge truck with airbrakes went into a sneezing fit beside them.
‘They said the preliminary results show she died from the combined effects of the sleeping pills and the exposure. Temazepam. They think she committed suicide.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘No, I don’t. If she did that herself, then someone drove her to it. The skin on her palms was broken. It felt as though someone had tried to gouge a hole through her hands.’ Angeles swiped a tear away from her cheek. ‘How can they think she’d do that to herself? She was happy. She was in love. For the first time in years she had something to live for. So why did she kill herself? If she killed herself.’
‘You told them about being watched? That someone was following you and Isabel?’
Angeles nodded. A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and splashed on to her cheek. She brushed it away impatiently. ‘They said there was no evidence to link anyone else to her death. They’ve had a forensic team up on the moor, but they haven’t found anything suspicious.’
‘So they’ve already solved it?’
‘Sounded like it. They said their inquiries would continue, but I didn’t get the impression they were going to put much effort into it.’
Maybe we’re looking at a vendetta,’ Sam said to Marie when he got back to the office.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Marie. ‘My money would be on the boyfriend, Russell Harvey. He was seriously weird.’
‘There was something strange about the husband, too,’ Sam said. ‘But we’re still left with sister number two, and we have to assume that the guy who was watching Isabel is the same one watching Angeles.’
‘You think Angeles is in danger?’
‘We can’t rule it out.’
Marie shook her head. ‘No, we can’t rule it out. It’s just that there is a motive for Isabel’s husband. And the boyfriend seems like he could be seriously disturbed. They both might have had a reason to kill Isabel, but neither of them has any reason to kill Angeles.’
‘As far as we know,’ said Sam.
‘OK, I see what you’re saying. I’m getting stuck here; I should be looking at the bigger picture. But even if I do that, I don’t arrive at a vendetta. The closest I can get is a stalker who goes too far. Some guy who stops stalking and starts getting physical.’
‘No, I don’t think so. With stalking, the motive is random or peripheral. The stalker sees someone and makes an association. But this seems more systematic, as if the perpetrator is working to some programme. I’m assuming that Isabel was killed or somehow driven to take her own life. And now the same guy is left with sister number two. If that’s what happened, we’re looking at some deep-seated resentment on the part of the killer.’
‘Someone with a grudge against the Falco family?’ asked Marie.
Sam nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘A grudge. A grievance. We could be looking for someone who cringes when he hears their names. Someone who has identified them with evil.’
Angeles rang the next morning. ‘The police were here,’ she said. ‘They’ve changed their minds about Isabel.’
‘Tell me,’ said Sam. He put his aching hand on the table, balling it into a fist until the nerves screamed.
The line was silent for a moment. ‘It wasn’t Temazepam,’ Angeles said. ‘It was some kind of veterinary drug, injected. Apparently it’s not available here. Someone must have imported it. They’re going to search her house as soon as Quintin gets back, but I told them they wouldn’t find anything. Isabel hated injections, she’d never do that to herself.’
The clink of a glass came down the wire. He didn’t hear it, but he imagined the glugging sound as the liquor came out of the bottle. ‘They’re treating it as a murder case now?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The drug wasn’t the only thing.’ Sam waited until she steadied her voice. When she found the words they came in a rush. ‘Her back was broken,’ she said.
10
‘It’s like being trapped inside the covers of a book,’ said the blind hero in the opening sentence of the opening chapter of JD’s novel. It was a good start. Now all he had to do was follow it with another hundred thousand relevant words.
The hero was going to be half-blind, a man with failing sight, eyes that could not be trusted to tell the truth. But in working surveillance on Angeles Falco, JD had begun to think of his hero as totally blind. The book wouldn’t work that way, because the plot involved the hero witnessing a murder, but JD’s mind was already tinkering with the plot.
Sight was a spatial dimension, whereas hearing worked in the realm of time. Most people feared losing their sight more than their hearing because they imagined that their spatial universe would recede and disappear, that they would lose contact with the world of things. But the physical universe exists in space and time, and to be condemned to experience it without full access to one or the other is perhaps an equal disability.
Not a disability that was impossible to overcome, JD reminded himself. Angeles Falco functioned in the world as well as many sighted people and in some areas better than most.
She was not a helpless stereotype, stumbling around in a black cellar with her arms outstretched. She was an independent, rounded character, someone who embraced the world and responded individually to whatever stimuli it put in her path. She would be a real-life model for JD’s fictional hero.
And the fact that she was in trouble, that she was being watched by some hidden presence, well... JD smiled. That was the lot of all fictional characters. As soon as a writer created a character and put him or her into a book, the character became the focus for the reader of the book. The character’s every move was seen and noted. The inflexions of speech, the inner thoughts, the dreams, fears, aspirations. The being of the character, existentially, the fact, the survival of the character was dependent on him or her being continually observed.
Being watched.
Without a constant flow of readers, the fictional character was, in reality, trapped inside the covers of a book. And perhaps that was the reason why the best fictional characters tried to take on a life of their own, tried to charm, to captivate the reader. They wanted to insert themselves into the consciousness of the reader, so that he would carry them off inside his head when he came to the last sentence and closed the book. Then the fictional character would go on living, vicariously, it is true. But there are many among us who live by proxy, through another’s joy or sorrow, and yet still experience their lives as real, valid.
JD did a word count, saved his work and shut down the computer. Time to go back to reality, watching the blind woman, try to keep her safe from whoever it was killed her sister. He pulled on his coat and closed the door behind him. Ten words. It was a start, a beginning. He’d have to expand on it a little. Couldn’t really claim it was a novel yet.
11
When Echo was born Geordie couldn’t imagine what she saw when she gazed at him. Celia had quoted William James’ ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’, but Geordie hadn’t wanted to believe that his daughter didn’t hold him in some kind of focus. She imitated him, didn’t she? Mimicked his facial expressions. But more than that, it seemed to Geordie that the transactions that took place between Echo and himself were rich in emotion and understanding.
JD reckoned that babies were almost blind. That they negotiated with the world by means of touch and hearing and their vocal cords, but that they didn’t actually see very much. Not until they were around two months old. He’d read a book about it.
‘Why is it,’ Janet asked, ‘that people like Celia and JD, who’ve never had babies themselves, are always the ones who know everything about them? Echo sees me just as clearly as I see her and she has done since the moment she was born.’
‘Yeah,’ Geordie agreed. ‘It’s because they’re intellectuals.’
