And he wore a white mask.
Somehow, she hadn’t been able to forget him like she’d forgotten so many other monsters, so many other horrors; somehow, he’d got under her skin. He wasn’t like all the rest. What she’d seen on that flickering screen wasn’t just abuse, wasn’t just cruelty and pain; it was performance.
Cox threw back the covers, climbed from bed, shivering as the cold raised goosebumps on her bare arms and legs. Flicked on the bathroom light, blinked in the glare. Fumbled in the cabinet for a small, hard-plastic bottle.
One of these days, she thought, unscrewing the cap, I’ll give that bloody police counsellor a call.
The pills were only ever a short-term answer, a stopgap measure to get her through a rough night or a long day. The force had been trying to bundle her into therapy for God knew how long; they don’t want to have any awkward questions to answer the day I finally snap and stick my head in the oven, she cynically thought.
Gulped down a couple of the blue-and-green capsules. Yep, one of these days she’d go and get herself sorted, once and for all; but not now – how the hell could she find the time? And she needed to be sharp, together, to deal with this.
In the kitchen she flipped on the coffee machine and fired up her laptop. It was nearly seven. Dusty grey light filtered through the window-blind.
There was an email from DiMacedo – sent at 3 a.m. She poured coffee and sat down to read.
Morning, Spook. Bad news: nothing new on dear old Verity. Not yet, anyway. I’ll keep digging. I admit it: you’ve hooked me.
Cox smiled, but it was a let-down: she had a feeling that what happened at Hampton Hall was the key to all this – whatever the hell ‘this’ was.
Don, she knew, had taken the therapy option. Christ, Don DiMacedo – the sort of guy who’d been able to eat a spicy hot pizza while he’d sifted the megabytes of sick filth that came their way.
She read on.
I know you’ll be crying into your coffee over this, so by way of a consolation prize, I dug out William Radley’s full service record for you. It’s attached. It all looks pretty standard to me, but maybe it’ll help.
I blew off the cocktail reception, by the way. Hope they don’t fire me. Love, DD.
She downloaded the file – a PDF, scanned from dog-eared typescript – and pinged it open.
Radley had begun his career in the Midlands, at Sutton Coldfield – what was that, maybe ten miles from Walsall? He’d had quite a reputation as a young PC, earning two commendations in his first eighteen months on the force; shifted to CID precociously early, made DS while still in his twenties; transferred to the Met, and kept on rising. In the early nineties he’d been seconded to the RUC in Northern Ireland, in an undisclosed capacity – the details had been redacted from the file. Then in around 2000 he came back to London and took up the well-paid Scotland Yard desk job that was every veteran copper’s dream.
If anyone had ever deserved it, Cox reflected, Bill Radley had.
Her phone buzzed on the desktop – Greg Wilson. She ignored it, yawning, swilling the dregs of her coffee in the bottom of her cup. If she was going to stop this case spinning out of control, she had to keep Wilson at arm’s length.
Should she call Naysmith? she wondered. No: she didn’t have enough yet, didn’t know enough yet. If she drip-fed him every new clue, every whisper and half-lead, he’d lose patience, pull her off the case for good. Before she went to the DCI, she needed a solid case, something that’d hit him hard between the eyes. Right now, that seemed a long way off.
Besides, calling Pete Naysmith at 7 a.m. – just as the hangover was getting to work – was never the smartest move.
Instead, she called up the number of the evidence room at Acton. As it was, based on what they knew for sure, the link between Radley and Allis was pretty weak – as thin and fragile as a creased restaurant receipt. There had to be more. Had Allis been found with a phone on him? An address book?
As she waited for someone in Evidence to pick up, she wondered who’d be on shift. Chang, she hoped. Maybe Chalmers would be passing through.
Just as long as it wasn’t –
‘Acton Evidence Room. DS Malory speaking.’
Cox suppressed a sigh. Gloria Malory. Not her best pal on the force.
‘Gloria, it’s Kerry Cox.’
‘Good morning, inspector!’ Her tone was glassy, bright and painfully false. ‘How can I help?’
‘The evidence from the Battersea Park stabbing, Reginald Allis – has it been logged yet?’
‘Hmm. Let me see.’ There was a pause, a rattle of a keyboard. Then Gloria made a funny little noise, a bit surprised, a bit self-satisfied: ‘Hmf.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I’m sorry, ma’am, but it doesn’t look as though you’re the lead investigating officer on the Allis case.’
Keep your temper, Cox. You don’t need any more enemies.
‘No. No, I’m not, Chalmers is. But look, Gloria, I just need to know if we found a phone on Allis’s body, and –’
‘I’m so sorry, ma’am. I can’t give out this sort of information without authorization from DI Chalmers or a senior officer.’ A brittle laugh. ‘You know how it is. “Computer says no”! I’m so sorry,’ she said again.
‘Look, Gloria, I know you’ve got the information I need right there in front of you. If you could just –’
Malory’s tone turned faintly frosty, metallic.
‘As per the latest data management regulations, ma’am, I am unable –’
‘Yes, yes. I know all that.’
‘DI Chalmers is due on shift at eleven this morning. If you’d like to come into the station in person, I’m sure he’d be happy to assist you with your inquiry. Was there anything else, ma’am?’
About as much warmth as a computerized answer-machine, and about as helpful.
‘If I keep pressing “9” will I get through to a human?’
‘Pardon, ma’am?’
‘Never mind. Goodbye, sergeant.’
It was a good thing you couldn’t slam down a mobile phone, Cox thought, jabbing the red button to end the call. She’d get through ten phones a week.
She rattled out a quick email to Chalmers, asking him to catch her up on the Allis case. She kept it short, avoided going into detail.
Poured herself another coffee. Stared into the middle distance. Felt lost.
Time to admit it: she needed help, real, on-the-ground help. And she was pretty much out of options. Pretty much – but not completely.
Naysmith would say she was off her head. Serena McAvoy and her legal team would take an even dimmer view.
No one has to know except me, Cox thought. Problem is, even I think this is insane …
She picked up her phone.
11
‘Is this really necessary?’
He was bleary-eyed, shabby in a checked shirt and worn cords.
Cox popped open the passenger door.
‘Just get in.’
The traffic was light – by London standards – out this way. Rain spotted the windscreen.
‘So are you going to tell me where we’re going?’ asked Greg Wilson.
‘North,’ said Cox.
‘I’d gathered that much,’ Wilson muttered as they moved out on to the North Circular.
All she’d told him on the phone was that there was another lead, a lead he didn’t know about, on the Radley case; that she was heading out to investigate, if he felt like tagging along; that she’d pick him up from his place in Kilburn in half an hour’s time.
At first he’d been resistant: ‘One minute you’re clapping me in bloody handcuffs, the next you’re bringing me along on an investigation?’
But his heart hadn’t been in it. Just for show.
Now he said: ‘I have a feeling I’m not the only one working freelance on this.’
Cox gave him nothing. Didn’t take her eyes off the road.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Com
e on. There’s no way your chief super wants you working on Radley’s death. There’s pressure being brought to bear on this case, heavy stuff, from high up. I got a call from my old newsdesk last night, giving me a heads-up: there’s a lot of legal noise being made in the background, Cox. Threats from the Radley family.’
‘A man died, in inconclusive circumstances,’ Cox said flatly. ‘That merits a police investigation.’
‘I know that. But I don’t think Scotland Yard agrees.’
‘I’m just doing my job,’ she said. Pulled out on to the motorway roundabout; slowed as she saw a green light up ahead switch to amber. Wilson just shrugged; happy to drop the subject – at least for now.
Cox glanced in her rear-view.
‘Can you tell me what we’re looking for,’ Wilson pressed, ‘once we get to wherever we’re going? I –’
He broke off as Cox slammed hard on the accelerator. The light was red when she roared through; a lorry lurching forwards from the left braked, rocked forward, sounded its horn gratingly. Cox checked her rear-view again; a grey Merc had come through the lights after her, slewing across two lanes to avoid an incoming motorcyclist.
She noticed Wilson’s knuckles were white on the door-handle. Well, let him think she was just a madcap driver, for now. See what happens.
‘We’re after something solid,’ she said. ‘Something that makes sense.’
Swiftly she filled him in on Verity Halcombe, the flowers Radley sent, the info about Hampton Hall in Reginald Allis’s book.
‘That place is the common link here,’ she said. ‘That’s my hunch, anyway.’
‘You got me out of bed at eight o’clock on a hunch?’
‘Don’t pretend you had anything better to do.’
‘So how do you read it? Some sort of geriatric love triangle?’
‘With two deaths, maybe that’d be worth looking into. But three? Doesn’t make a lot of sense.’ She shook her head. ‘I think it’s something – something worse than that. Something that happened, that made Verity Halcombe leave so abruptly – something that Radley and Allis knew about.’
‘They were killed to keep them quiet?’ Wilson’s tone was sceptical. ‘Thirty-odd years later?’
‘It’s my best guess,’ Cox shrugged. ‘Let me know if you come up with anything better.’
The traffic got thicker, and the rain heavier, as she moved across the motorway to the filter lane for the M4 exit.
In a forced-sounding, casual, conversational voice, Wilson asked: ‘How’s things at home? How’s it going with Matthew and – Aidan, is it?’
Cox felt an internal shutter go up. Happened automatically these days.
‘Fine,’ she said.
‘You’re still – separated?’
She moved quickly to stamp on that one.
‘We’re talking things through, working some stuff out,’ she lied.
Wilson nodded understandingly.
‘That’s good. Listen, I never wanted – I never meant to ruin things between the two of you. It was a mistake, and I’m sorry for it.’
This was a conversation she didn’t want to have.
‘That wasn’t your mistake,’ she said shortly. Moved out on to the spray-shrouded M4. ‘It was mine.’
‘My granddad died in a shit-hole like this,’ Wilson said conversationally, sparking up a cigarette in the gravelled car park.
Cox took in the rain-darkened redbrick façade of what had once been Hampton Hall – now Evergreen Care Home (‘Providing Safe and Secure Facilities in Later Life’). It looked like what it was: a run-down Victorian pile in a sprawl of suburbs near the Wolverhampton turn-off, repurposed, unloved.
Imagine having to live here, she thought. Imagine having to die here.
‘Pretty bleak,’ she said.
‘Uh-uh.’ Wilson nodded, trod out his fag. ‘I’ve seen prisons look after their inmates better than some of these places.’
‘Come on.’ Cox started down the flagged path towards the front door. ‘Let’s see if anyone here remembers nice old Miss Halcombe.’
‘Hope they’ve got long memories,’ Wilson grunted.
A harassed-looking young healthcare assistant in a white tunic answered Cox’s knock.
‘We’ve no visitors booked in today,’ she said.
Cox paused, badge in hand.
‘None? No one in this whole place has any visitors today?’
The assistant shrugged, leaning on the half-open door.
‘I’m very busy,’ she said. ‘We need to get the lunches ready. Who did you say you were here to see?’
Now she showed her badge. The assistant flinched, straightened up out of her slouch.
‘Detective Inspector Cox, Metropolitan Police. We’d like to speak to the manager.’
‘You mean Mr Latham? He’s the owner, but he’s not on site much. You might be able to talk to the matron, though. Mrs Hazlewood. I’ll see if she’s free. Hang on.’
She hurried off, leaving the door open. Cox exchanged an unimpressed look with Wilson; stepped inside.
The lobby carpet was threadbare, the walls magnolia-washed. Fine cobwebs drifted under the high white ceiling.
‘Bloody hell, it was warmer outside,’ Wilson said, zipping up his jacket.
There was a desk with a computer, a tray of files, a half-empty mug of tea. On the farthest wall, a dusty red fire-extinguisher was fixed beside a defibrillator. Three doors led off the lobby. One was marked ‘Lounge & TV’, another ‘Staff Only’. The third was open and led into a corridor. A sign gave directions to the lifts and residential rooms.
It all had the feel, Cox thought, of a cheap hotel – the kind no one would stay at twice, given the choice.
The assistant reappeared out of the ‘Staff Only’ door, gestured impatiently at them to follow her and barged through into the ‘Lounge & TV’ room.
Cox caught the door before it closed, went through. Paused to get her bearings. Heard Wilson behind her mutter, ‘Christ.’
Seven grey faces were looking up at her from easy chairs ranged on both sides of a long rectangular room. Three striplights cast stark shadows; one, badly connected, flickered strobe-like every few seconds. It smelled as though the high windows had never been opened: a fug of disinfectant, drying linen, body odour, air-freshener and urine. There was, as promised, a TV, a big old cathode-ray set tuned to a gameshow re-run.
No one was watching it. They were all watching Cox.
‘Good morning,’ she nodded uncertainly, moving ahead – the assistant had already passed out through another door at the far end of the room.
An elderly woman, wearing a grubby T-shirt under a knitted cardigan, called out to her as she passed: ‘I’m glad you’ve come, pet, Amanda’s going to take us shopping …’
A man sat by the television worked his jaw silently, his lower lip hung with fine strands of drool. Cox heard a reedy male voice behind her call out to Wilson: ‘It’s our Trev! Over here, Trev. I’m over here, son!’
‘Give me a one-way ticket to Switzerland over this, any day of the week,’ Wilson said through gritted teeth, not bothering to keep his voice low. No one besides Cox seemed to hear.
The far door was marked ‘Matron’. She knocked briskly, went in without waiting for a response; Wilson followed.
Mrs Hazlewood, the matron, was younger than she’d expected. She was seated at a desk, in conversation with the harassed assistant, when they entered; she broke off, looked up with a professional smile.
‘Inspector. Good to meet you.’ She stood, extended a hand. She was maybe thirty, thirty-five. Slim and long-faced, with dark hair knotted in a chignon.
She shook Wilson’s hand, too. He didn’t introduce himself; it was easiest, Cox supposed, for him to say nothing, to let people’s easy assumptions take over. He was with a copper, who had a rank and a badge; he looked like a copper, as much as he looked like anything else; surely, then, he was a copper.
It was better than telling a lie. Lies, she knew, could trip
you up.
As the assistant hurried away, disappearing through an unmarked door at the back of the office, they settled into the plastic chairs across the desk from Mrs Hazlewood.
‘So, how can I help?’ Again the professional smile: brisk, polite, faintly chilly.
‘We’re investigating a – a historic incident.’ It sounded lame, she knew – she could almost hear Wilson’s eye-roll – but what else could she say? ‘To be honest, Mrs Hazlewood, we’re just poking about at random in the hope that something will come up.’
‘Historic?’
‘How much do you know about Hampton Hall?’
‘That was the name of this place before it became a retirement home,’ Hazlewood said. She spoke slowly and carefully – the tone of someone in the habit of assuming that whoever they were talking to was half-senile at best.
Cox nodded.
‘We know that. It was a children’s home. Do you know anything about the place in those days?’
‘No. Before my time, I’m afraid.’ She showed her teeth briefly. ‘But I believe Mr Latham was the owner back then. He might be able to help.’
She seemed keen to offload responsibility for answering their questions – or to get them out of her office. Fair enough, Cox thought. No one enjoys a visit from CID.
But they weren’t done yet.
‘What about records? Paperwork from back then? Aren’t the Hampton Hall files kept here?’
Hazlewood poked out her bottom lip, shook her head.
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ she said. ‘My responsibility is Evergreen Care. I’m sure Mr Latham will be able to give you the information you need. I can find his address for you. He lives out of the country now.’
Cox glanced across at Wilson, who shrugged. They weren’t going to get much from Matron Hazlewood, that much was clear.
Cox stood, taking up her bag and coat. Hazlewood looked relieved.
‘Well, inspector, it’s been –’
‘Could we take a look around?’
The matron looked momentarily thrown.
‘Look around?’ she echoed. ‘Whatever for?’
Whatever’s there.
‘We’d just like to get a feel for the layout of the building,’ Cox improvised. ‘Put our investigation into context.’
Twelve Deaths of Christmas Page 10
