Sabbathman

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘How heavy?’

  Kingdom licked his fingers, taking his time. ‘Inland Revenue. The VAT people. DSS. The Immigration lot …’ He smiled. ‘Then me again.’

  Kingdom took the train back into Central London. By half-past six he was standing outside Gloucester Road tube station, watching the Saturday traffic inching past, wondering quite how late he should leave it. According to the A-Z, Queen’s Gate Gardens was five minutes away. If Cousins was at home, then now would be as good a time as any to knock on the door. If nothing else, they had Annie in common. The least the man owed him was some kind of clue, some kind of indication about how and why she’d died. With that, he told himself, he could begin to make his peace.

  Kingdom crossed the Cromwell Road, heading north towards Hyde Park. Queen’s Gate Gardens was next on the right, a handsome square of tall mid-Victorian houses, each entrance with its separate portico. Kingdom mounted the steps to number 318 and paused beside the wall-mounted speakerphone. Cousins, to his surprise, had used his own name. Second bell. Ground floor flat.

  Kingdom rang the bell a couple of times. Nothing happened. He rang it again. Finally it answered, a man’s voice. Kingdom gave his name and asked for Hugh Cousins.

  ‘Who are you again?’

  ‘A colleague.’

  There was a pause and then the lock slid back in the big front door and Kingdom stepped through into the carpeted hall. The flats smelled of money: fresh flowers, expensive perfume, and the skins of very young animals. A door at the end of the hall opened and a tall figure stood waiting for him. He was wearing jeans and a nicely-cut white shirt. He had dark, curly hair and a quizzical smile. The handshake was light, the merest touch of flesh on flesh.

  ‘Hugh’s away,’ he said at once, ‘back tomorrow afternoon.’

  Kingdom registered his disappointment with a scowl. He could smell burning toast now.

  ‘Shit,’ the man said, ‘hang on.’

  He turned on his heel and disappeared. Kingdom ran his fingers over the lock. Double mortice, he thought. The best you can buy. He peered around, looking for the tell-tale signs of a security system – photoelectric sensors, pressure pads – knowing already that he’d have to come back tonight, and lay the ghost the proper way. No flannel. Nothing face to face. Just a thorough search of the flat on the off-chance that he might find something worth the effort and the risk. Men like Cousins often made mistakes that way, leaving stuff around, and Kingdom remembered his face again in the pub. He’d had that look, that arrogance.

  The man who’d opened the door now was back again, newly apologetic. ‘I’d ask you in,’ he said, ‘but I’m off out.’

  ‘Back later?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I meant Hugh.’

  ‘No.’ The man was frowning now, studying Kingdom a little harder. ‘I thought I told you. He’s away until tomorrow.’

  Kingdom grinned, stepping back into the hall, saying he’d phone Hugh in a day or two. The man at the door was still watching him as he paused at the end of the hall and let himself out.

  It was dark before Kingdom saw him again. He emerged from the flats, pulling the front door shut behind him and testing it to make sure it was locked. He was wearing a suit now and when he got to the pavement he put on a long black raincoat, turning up the collar against the blustery wind that was stirring the leaves in the garden which occupied the middle of the square. He set off towards Gloucester Road, then paused, patting the pockets of the raincoat. Standing in the shadows across the road, Kingdom heard the soft curse as he turned back to the flat, running up the steps to the front door, pausing to let himself in. A minute later he was out again, pocketing the keys, walking briskly in the direction of Earl’s Court.

  For a minute or two, half an hour later, Kingdom thought he’d lost him. They were walking east along the Brompton Road, and the pavement was thick with pedestrians. Scaffolding covered a parade of shopfronts, with a walkway underneath, and by the time Kingdom emerged, Cousins’ friend had vanished. Kingdom began to run, stepping out into the road, hugging the kerb, careful not to find himself suddenly abreast of the man. Maybe he’s taken a cab, he thought. Or maybe he’s ducked into one of the several restaurants he’d already passed. Then he spotted him again, the other side of the road this time, just the back of the long black raincoat as he disappeared into the lobby of a big hotel.

  Kingdom waited for less than a minute. Inside the hotel, the lobby was crowded with guests. Cousins’ friend was nowhere to be seen. Kingdom paused at the reception desk. The girl gave him directions to the cloakroom. He followed the stairs to the basement. Cousins’ friend was standing beside the counter. He had a ticket in his hand and the attendant was busy putting his coat onto a hanger. Kingdom slipped past, pushing open the door to the men’s lavatory. Locked in a cubicle, he waited a full minute, emptying his coat pockets. When he emerged again, Cousins’ friend had gone.

  At the cloakroom counter, Kingdom handed over his coat. The attendant gave him a ticket.

  Kingdom smiled at him. ‘Expecting a busy night?’

  The attendant was young. The broad Geordie accent sat oddly with the pressed brown uniform. ‘I’m off out, sir,’ he said, ‘as soon as the relief arrives.’

  Beside the lobby was a small cocktail bar. Kingdom limited himself to a single Pils before he returned to the cloakroom. The attendant who’d given him his ticket had gone. In his place was a much older man. Kingdom stood at the counter, turning out his pockets. The ticket he’d collected for his own coat was number 92. When the attendant shot him a sympathetic smile, he shook his head.

  ‘Gone,’ he said.

  ‘Number, sir? Can you remember?’

  ‘Ninety-one. My wife’s age,’ he grinned, ‘last birthday.’

  The attendant offered a dutiful chuckle, then disappeared into the line of coats. ‘Can you describe it, sir?’ he called.

  ‘Black raincoat. Ankle-length.’

  ‘Make, sir?’

  ‘Pass,’ Kingdom grunted, ‘The missus, again. Never look too hard at a present. Never know what you might find. My theory, not hers.’

  The attendant emerged with the raincoat. Kingdom gave him a pound before he folded it over his arm and made for the stairs.

  The keys were still in the pocket. Kingdom took a taxi from the hotel forecourt, and was outside Cousins’ flat again less than ten minutes later. There were seven keys on the ring, including one for a Mercedes. By this time, he’d also found a number of other objects in the pockets of the raincoat. They included a pair of leather gloves and a balled-up credit card sales slip. The signature was a scrawl, but Kingdom finally deciphered the name Devereaux.

  Kingdom paused outside the big front door, trying the keys, one after the other. A newish Yale finally did the trick and he stepped into the empty hall, closing the door behind him. At the door to Cousins’ flat, he went through the keys again. Within a minute he was inside, wondering about the security, whether or not Cousins had a system, and if so whether it was fully activated.

  A small table lamp in the living room was already on, light spilling through the open arch in front of him. Kingdom dropped to his knees, crawling carefully forward. A small square of Afghan rug lay on the carpet in front of him, and when he lifted it he found the pressure pad beneath. He paused, scanning the pale grey walls, looking for the tiny glass eyes that would indicate a sensor system. Somewhere, he thought, there’d be a master switch, a way of turning off the security alarms. He examined the bunch of keys again, knowing that Devereaux would have the same problem. Then he began to search the area round the front door, aware that most systems work on a time delay. Once the front door had been opened, the occupant would have a pre-set period of grace to deactivate the system, otherwise the alarm would sound.

  Kingdom worked quickly, first one wall, then another. Beside the arch was a shelved recess. The shelves were bare except for a couple of railway timetables and junk mail from the AA. At the back of the middle shelf, painted the same
colour as the wall, was a small square flap. Kingdom pulled on Devereaux’ gloves and opened it. Inside was a time clock and an electrical switch. The switch was down. Kingdom peered at the clock. It had been preset on a two-minute delay and a neat little digital read-out was counting down to the moment when the system would signal an intruder. With seven seconds left, Kingdom reached for the switch and deactivated the system. The digital read-out stopped and then returned to two minutes. Kingdom watched it, his finger still on the master switch. When nothing happened, he began to relax.

  The flat was spacious. Kingdom moved from room to room, pulling the curtains, getting the feel of the place. As far as he could judge, Cousins lived here alone and everywhere Kingdom looked he found more evidence for the neat, tightly ordered life this man must lead. The Marks and Spencer ready-to-eat meals in the freezer. The tidy piles of newly-ironed shirts in the airing cupboard. The membership card for a Bayswater health club tucked behind the black and white digital clock on the mantelpiece. The copies of The Economist carefully indexed beside the Technics audio stack. The flat had a cool sense of function. There were no photographs, no souvenirs, no silly knick-knacks. It wasn’t a place you’d find it easy to relax in.

  Kingdom finished with the living room and moved into the bedroom. It was at the back, beside the bathroom. The window was barred on the outside and security lights flooded the tiny courtyard. Kingdom pulled down the calico blind and turned back into the room. There was a plain black duvet on the low single bed and three pairs of trainers in a line by the built-in wardrobe. Beside the bed was a cabinet, knee-high. On top, propped against the clock radio, was a notepad. Kingdom picked it up. Someone had made a series of jottings on the pad and then torn off the top leaf. They must have pressed hard because he could still read the indentures left by the pen on the sheet below. Kingdom removed the sheet and held it up against the light. ‘A1,’ it said. Then there was an arrow to another scribble, ‘A6136’, then a second arrow, ‘B6270’, with the word ‘Muker’ beside it. Road directions, Kingdom thought, folding the torn-off sheet and slipping it into his pocket.

  Kingdom paused for a moment. A framed photographic print hung on the wall facing the bed. It was an image he’d seen before, Ayers Rock in Australia. The photo had been taken in low sunlight, the beginning or the end of the day, and it showed an orange, alien place, a landscape the colour of Mars, the dead heart of an entire continent. Kingdom looked at it, wondering what kind of man would want to wake up to a picture like this. It spoke of something fierce and implacable, at once arid and overwhelming.

  Kingdom shrugged, turning back to the cabinet. In the drawer, beside a box of Kleenex tissues, was a Jiffy bag. He took it out. It was addressed, in a child-like hand, to ‘Mr Cousins’ and it had been sent from Belfast only two days ago. Kingdom peered inside, shaking out the contents. A single audio cassette fell onto the duvet, no box, no letter, not even a note. He looked at it a moment, wondering whether or not it was important. On the evidence of the postmark alone, he knew he had to find out.

  In the living room, part of the audio set-up, was a cassette player. Kingdom slipped the cassette into the machine. There was a dubbing option on the control panel and Kingdom began to go through the drawers below again, looking for the cassettes he’d examined earlier. Cousins kept a couple of dozen of them, mostly recordings from Radio Four, each neatly labelled. Kingdom found one at the back marked File On Four: Nato in a Changing World. He loaded it into the machine’s auxiliary cassette port, winding it back, hoping that Cousins wouldn’t miss it. This way, if the Belfast cassette was important, he’d be able to leave with a copy.

  On top of the audio stack was a pair of lightweight headphones. Kingdom plugged them in, knowing that the machine would now play mute. The last thing he wanted was visitors. He reached forward, checking the audio levels, then pressed the play and record buttons. He was sitting on the floor now, his back to the wall beside the machine, his long legs reaching out towards the sofa. On the sound track he heard a rumble, then someone coughing. A door opened and closed again. Something fell over, something big, and a voice began to curse. It was a man’s voice, a rich Belfast accent, slightly slurred. Someone else was in the room, another man. He was laughing. A radio was turned on, very loud, then the same voice cursed again.

  ‘You’ll fucking turn it off,’ he said, ‘we’ll need the plug.’

  The door opened again and someone else came in. Then the recording stopped. Seconds later, it started again. Kingdom had no idea how long the real gap had been but that didn’t matter because the situation had now become abruptly clear. Two men, both of them with Belfast accents, and someone else who was refusing to talk.

  ‘You’ll tell me,’ one of the voices kept saying, ‘so help me God, you’ll tell me.’

  The voice was low, almost a hiss, the tone you might use with a child who wouldn’t eat his breakfast, or a dog which wouldn’t sit down.

  ‘Fucking do it, do it, fucking tell me.’

  Kingdom flinched as the first blow fell, the smack of knuckle against flesh, of knuckle against bone. Then the questioner again, more insistent.

  ‘Who did you show? Who else saw it?’

  A brief silence. The sound of a passing car. Then another blow, much heavier than the last, and a gasp of pain. Kingdom stiffened, reaching for the controls, wanting to stop the tape, wanting to rewind it, play the last few seconds again, make sure he hadn’t got it wrong. A woman, he thought. A woman in there. Taking the punishment. Absorbing the pain.

  The interrogation went on and on, the questioner beginning to lose his temper. The woman had something, something important, something no one else should see. Had she kept it to herself? Or had she shared this mysterious secret?

  From the woman, so far, there was nothing. The odd gasp, the odd little cry, but nothing they could seize on, exploit, pull and twist until the truth came tumbling out. Whoever she is, Kingdom thought, she’s playing these animals at their own game, refusing to say a single word, refusing to even acknowledge them.

  The man with the questions, the one in charge, was angry now and Kingdom could hear slurping noises from time to time, regular pulls from some bottle or other. Finally, getting nowhere, the man came up with a new suggestion.

  ‘Light the fucking gas,’ he said thickly, ‘and fetch the poker.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Just fucking do it.’

  The door opened. The other man went out. Then he came back in again.

  ‘It’s lit.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘It’ll be a while.’

  ‘Sure. Take her top off.’

  ‘You.’

  ‘No, you fucking do it.’

  The two men argued. Kingdom sat on the floor, his mouth dry now, a terrible certainty growing inside him. There was a tear of clothing and one of the men whistled. Kingdom shut his eyes, trying hard not to turn the sound-track into pictures, desperate not to visualise the way it must have been. The woman naked from the waist up. Tied to some poxy chair or other. Waiting for these animals with their red hot poker. One of the men was out of the room again. When he came back there was a moment’s pause. Then the low, gruff Belfast voice.

  ‘Fucking do it, before it gets cold.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Wherever you like.’ Pause. ‘There. That tattoo there. Yeah, that’s right, just move them.’

  Kingdom reached up for the controls. He should stop the tape. He knew he should. Before he wrecked the flat, broke it up, piece by piece, starting with this hideous piece of machinery, an orgy of violence that would only be over once he’d got his hands on Cousins. The man must have listened to this tape. He must have sat here, just like Kingdom, eavesdropping. That was unforgivable. That was worse, in a way, than even inflicting the pain in the first place. Ayers Rock, he thought. The dead heart.

  Annie Meredith spoke for the first time. She sounded calm, in control of herself. Only Kingdom could recognise the tiny tremor in her voice, undetectable
unless you knew her well.

  ‘It’ll make no difference.’ she was saying, ‘I promise you.’

  ‘We’ll fucking see about that.’

  ‘I meant the whisky. It won’t help. If you do it, you’ll never forget it. It’ll be with you forever.’

  ‘And you, cunt.’

  The men began to laugh and then there was a new sound, a high-pitched scream, unforgettable, and another and another, and Kingdom shook his head, trying to block out the noise, trying not to make the obvious connection, the poker, Annie’s naked flesh, the rose tattoo scorching and bubbling under the red hot metal.

  ‘Stop, for fuck’s sake. You’ll kill her.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  There was the thud of another heavy blow, the guy with the whisky out of control, then Annie again, the screaming louder and louder, then abruptly cut-off. Kingdom drew his knees to his chin, hearing her beginning to choke, recognising the low gurgling sound for what it was, hands around her throat, her life ebbing away.

  The tape ended a minute or so later, silence in the room, the Belfast voice very close to the microphone. The man was out of breath. He had a message for the boss.

  ‘You’re in the clear, so you are. The wee girl’s gone.’

  ENDEX

  PRELUDE

  It was nearly midday before he saw the Range Rover. It came bumping around the shoulder of the hill across the valley, travelling slowly, halting every ten yards or so while the driver inspected another obstacle. The overnight rain, draining from the moorland slopes above, had filled the deep potholes in the track and the Rover’s paintwork was blotched with mud.

  He eased his position in the wet heather, reaching for the rifle beside him. He’d expected them much earlier, around ten, ten-thirty, and the fitful sunshine had done nothing for the chill that had seeped through the layers of clothing beneath the thin camouflage smock.