by Mark Roberts
‘There was something I didn’t see back then about you, about the Baptist. In a world that had no vision, you had a vision, not just of the future but of the entire scope and scale of time. Tell me about that vision and I’ll go back and read about it in your prophetic books.’
‘Did you see the sky last night as you chased through the darkness looking for what little light you could find?’
‘Yes, it was dark and full of snow.’
‘Says she who has eyes but cannot see. Go to the ground and work your way up.’
She zoned in on her memories of the dark hours of the previous night.
‘What was the colour, Eve?’
She saw three generations of bodies at the bottom of the stairs in the Patels’ hall. Upstairs, the bloody shapes on the walls of the Patels’ home danced through her mind.
‘Red.’
‘Look higher,’ he whispered.
‘The sky?’
‘Go on.’
‘The park, Calderstones Park.’
White clapped rapidly five times and another second was gone forever.
‘Don’t daydream, Eve. You only have me for a certain amount of time. The sky?’
‘The sky turned red some time before dawn.’
‘Did you see the cloud?’
‘Yes, I did see a red cloud.’
‘How was it moving?’
‘It was rising.’
‘Where?’
‘To the east.’
‘Did you read my books or did you skim and scan them?’
‘Guide me further,’ she said.
‘Guide yourself, Eve.’
‘This red cloud...’ Clay pressed. ‘Is it the marker of the Beginning of the End of Time?’
Silence.
‘Yes.’
As he spoke, she felt his breath across the top of her head and heard the sound of the door opening rapidly. The Baptist had closed down the space across the table.
‘Go away,’ she called to the nurses.
The Baptist whispered in her ear, ‘How long did Mr Edward Carter QC live for after the end of my trial?’
Seven weeks, she thought.
‘Stay perfectly still, Adrian!’ said Taylor.
‘Walk away, DCI Clay!’ Another voice.
‘It’s going to be another busy night for you, Eve. But for now,’ said Adrian White, his eyes closing with unnatural slowness, ‘time is up. Six? Make that seven.’
She walked past him and, as she reached the door, White said, ‘Give my love to the fruit of your womb. They’ll do anything to get your attention, Eve.’
She stopped.
‘What do you mean?’
White remained seated, still as stone, and Clay knew he wasn’t going to say another word.
Richard Taylor closed the door of the Meeting Room and sent his colleagues away with a nod of the head. ‘He could have killed you,’ he said. ‘He was close enough to do that. It would have taken him one second.’
She saw the dark sky above Calderstones Park and, in the shifting patterns of night, the Baptist’s language crystallised inside her head.
‘The Red Cloud will rise from the belly of the city and when the Red Cloud rises, the river will run with blood.’
30
1.01 pm
Outside the walls of Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital, Clay sat at the wheel of her car and washed down two painkillers with a mouthful of Evian to stem her banging headache.
She needed to see Sandy Patel, to ask if the notion of a red cloud had any significance in his life or the life his immediate family used to have.
Clay scrolled through her contacts and came to the 0151 landline she’d stored for Sandy’s bolthole.
After three rings, the call connected.
‘Hello?’
‘Mrs Price?’
‘Yes?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Eve Clay.’ She slipped from the aggressive state of mind needed for dealing with Adrian White into the gentle mode reserved for victims, their friends and relatives.
‘Oh, hello, Mrs Clay.’
‘I was wondering if I could have a word with Sandy.’
‘Sandy? He’s not here.’
‘He’s not with you?’
‘I thought... we all did... we all thought he was still with you,assisting with your enquiries, that’s why we didn’t ring him.’
Clay checked the panic rising inside her.
‘If he shows up, call me immediately. In the meantime, phone round all the possible places where he might be. Your son and Sandy have friends in common, don’t they?’
‘Lots.’
‘Call them all, see if he’s paying someone an unscheduled visit.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘I just need to know where he is, in case I need to talk to him.’
Clay was on the phone to Stone within moments.
‘Karl, I need you to find Sandy Patel. Start in Calderstones Park and work your way outwards.’ She checklisted all the other open spaces in the neighbourhood. ‘The Municipal Golf Course, Allerton Towers, Camp Hill, Reynolds Park...’
‘How long’s he been AWOL?’
‘Last time I saw him was around ten past nine this morning.’
She closed down the call. The clock on her dashboard read 1.03 pm.
Inside her bag on the passenger seat she caught a glimpse of Sandy Patel’s packet of cigarettes.
And within seconds she was in fourth gear with the speedometer rising rapidly.
31
1.05 pm
DS Gina Riley found a man called Barry Hill who she’d never previously heard of but who was, she realised as she waited for him to answer his phone, probably one of the most significant human beings in her life. Google threw up Hill’s name as the regional sales director for Liverpool and the north-west of England of Shoe World, the largest distributor of footwear in the United Kingdom.
Riley, the owner of one hundred and eight pairs of shoes, had never imagined that her private obsession would one day mesh with her professional life. She was researching every angle with enthusiasm and confidence.
As Barry Hill’s mobile number rang, she looked at the full-scale reconstruction of the size 2 print she’d drawn and thought about its diamond-within-a-diamond pattern. To the best of her knowledge it didn’t look like the sole of a formal shoe.
The phone rang on and on as she scrolled through Google images of footwear soles on her mobile.
‘We could do with that... who was that woman...?’ said DC Ryan, two desks away.
‘Imelda Marcos,’ Riley telegraphed. Ring ring.
‘That’s the one.’
Riley paused scrolling and opened up a raised diamond pattern on a black leather sole. Russell and Bromley black suede ladies’ slip-ons. But it didn’t have the continuous pattern of the print she was looking for.
‘Hello?’
‘Barry Hill?’
She could hear cars speeding past him and she figured he’d pulled up on the hard shoulder of some motorway.
‘Speaking.’
From the mannered and genial tone of his voice, Riley marked him down as middle-aged, from Warrington, probably a heavily built bruiser.
‘My name’s Detective Sergeant Gina Riley, Merseyside Constabulary.’
‘Oh yes?’ There was a pronounced note of surprise. ‘Did you say Sergeant Gina Riley or Detective Sergeant?’
‘Detective Sergeant Gina Riley.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘It’s not an easy one, but if anyone can help, you’re the man.’ She allowed a moment for the flattery to get him on board. ‘We need to identify a specific piece of footwear from the pattern on the sole of a shoe left at a crime scene. You seemed like the person to come to.’
She heard the double click of a cigarette lighter and the rise in the background traffic as his window came down.
‘You know how many pairs of shoes were manufactured in the UK last year?’
‘5 m
illion made by 5000 people working in the shoe trade according to the British Footwear Association,’ said Riley, watching as DC Ryan wiped the drip from his nose with one hand and scrolled with the other.
‘Well done.’ Barry Hill sounded impressed. ‘With unknown millions of pairs imported from competitive sources around the world. It’s a big ask, but I’ll do my best to help. Can you describe the pattern to me?’
‘A thin diamond, surrounded by a space and with a broad diamond bordering it. The pattern might repeat across the sole. Maybe, maybe not. It’s a small shoe, size 2.’
‘Size 2. Be a kid’s shoe. If it was a kid, then was it a burglary?’
‘Yeah, it was a print on a windowsill at a burglary.’
‘Little bastard, whoever he is.’ Hill spoke with the grit of righteous indignation.
‘He?’
‘Fewer than one per cent of burglaries are committed by females. Size 2 is the average size for eight- to ten-year-old boys. It’s possible from the pattern you’ve described that it’s not a formal shoe and if it’s not a formal shoe it could be unisex leisure footwear.’
‘You’re good with your crime stats, Barry.’
‘Someone has to chair the Neighbourhood Watch.’
‘Unisex. Leisurewear. Can you pin it to a specific shoe?’
‘It could be one of dozens.’ She heard him exhale a long stream of smoke, and in the background the drone of traffic slashing up the salty spray of the gritted motorway.
‘What about the indents, the gaps between the diamonds?’
‘Come again?’
‘There must be a significant indentation between them because the shapes are so clearly defined. Big chunky indentations.’ He coughed. ‘So you won’t be dealing with a leather sole. It’s going to be rubber or plastic. Some material that’s pliable. Like I said, it’s going to be a plimsoll or a trainer.’
No one in their right mind, thought Riley, would go out in weather like that in plimsolls. But then again... Images from the Patels’ home fast-forwarded through her mind.... they clearly weren’t right in the head.
As Barry Hill’s window rose up, the background din of traffic was bottled.
‘Do you have any idea, Barry, what brand of trainer or plimsoll this might be?’
‘Do you know how many brands there are out there? How many different shoes within each brand?’
‘You’re the king of the castle, Barry.’
He laughed a little too smugly.
‘Go on!’ She injected a note of amusement into her voice. ‘What’s the bad news, chief?’
‘You’ve got a field of thousands. You can probably narrow it down into hundreds based on the pattern, but it could be a trainer that’s years old and not being manufactured anymore. It could even be some Croatian trainer that’s come in on the foot of some snotty-nosed little immigrant, some cheapo shite that not even Primark will touch, something right off the radar, as in it mightn’t even fall in with the official imports on the UK stats.’
‘Where do I begin, Barry?’ He was quiet. The background noise was gone and she wondered if he’d hung up, triumphant. ‘Barry?’
‘I’m thinking. Have you got a picture of this footprint?’
‘Yes, we have a reconstruction based on a partial print.’
‘Send it to my mobile.’
Bad idea. He was knowledgeable, but she didn’t want a unique piece of evidence being trophied in some pub.
‘Can’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Official Secrets Act.’
‘No shit?’
‘Shit. I can meet up with you. Where are you heading, Barry?’
‘Kirkby Industrial Estate. Our central distribution warehouse.’
She did a quick reckoning in her head. The M57 and the East Lancashire Road, and in foul weather conditions. She hated those roads at the best of times.
‘Shit, yeah!’ said Barry, suddenly pleased.
‘What is it, Barry?’
‘Rupert Baines.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘He works in my warehouse in Kirkby Industrial. You’ve got to see him to believe him.’
‘What’s your warehouse address and postcode for the satnav?’
‘Lees Road, L33 7SE.’
‘I’ll meet you there,’ she said, standing, looking at the clock on the wall and gathering her bag from the floor.
‘I’ll be there late afternoon, four-ish.’
‘What time does Rupert finish?’
‘Five. I’ll tell security to expect you.’
‘Make sure you do, Barry. Take me to your Rupert.’
She could hear him laughing as she hung up and headed swiftly for the door.
32
3.35 pm
Darkness came before four o’clock. Clay could have screamed with frustration as she negotiated the thickening rush-hour traffic heading into south Liverpool.
As she weaved through the stream of cars on Mather Avenue, her iPhone, on hands free, rang out. It connected to a number she didn’t recognise.
‘DCI Clay, it’s Professor Andrew Bailey, Linguistics Department, University of Liverpool. DS Stone told me to call you with my findings.’
‘Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. You’ve analysed their language?’
‘I’ve been listening to it all day. I’ve given the drives back to DS Stone, along with a cleaned-up copy, and I’ve wiped all traces of the original from our recording systems. He asked me to call you.’
‘I appreciate it.’
Snow fell past the tall white streetlights like dark stars crashing to the earth’s surface.
‘Two things about this synthetic language. Phonetically, it’s recognisable and these are the blends I’ve detected.’
‘Email all this to me, please.’
‘I already have done. Ka, ri, sa, a den,. Five distinct sounds. The mouth clicking? There’s a language spoken by fewer than a thousand people in Tanzania, the Hadza. Their language uses a range of clicks for consonants. There are other click-speaking tribes, hunter-gatherers who’ve hung on to their lands and cultural identities. It could be your perpetrators are imitating some primitive language system using their own synthetic language.’
‘How do we know clicking featured in primitive languages?’
‘Mitochondrial DNA. Genetic data. The different click-speakers share rare mtDNA and Y chromosomes that indicate common ancestry going back tens of thousands of years. They click because they’ve hung on to their ancestral languages.’
Clay thought of Kate Patel’s face, her crushed skull, the superstitious removal of a dead woman’s eyes. Primitive.
‘I moved away from human language and turned to Morse code but drew a blank because there was no clear distinction between long and short signals; it was just repetition. I ran it through and looked at it as sound waves and there was no correlation with anything in nature, from birdsong to whale music. Dolphins – I thought I was onto something, but no. The only consistent and constructive thing I can say about the mouth clicking is that between each phonic sound there were five or ten random beats. I’ve memorised a section. Would you like to hear?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Ka...’ She counted his clicks, ten uneven but identical sounds. ‘...Ri...’ Ten more clicks with no rhythmic pattern. ‘...Sa.’
She pulled up at a red light at the junction of Mather Avenue and Booker Avenue and glanced at the billboard on the wall of the United Reform Church, a poster of the planet as a spinning football and the words: ‘Man United With God’.
She shook her head and almost laughed bitterly.
‘DCI Clay, are you still there?’
‘I’m taking on board what you’ve told me.’
‘I really can’t think of anything else or, to be quite honest, anyone else who could help you further on this one.’
‘I can’t thank you enough, Professor Bailey.’ The traffic light turned green and she turned left onto Booker Avenue. ‘Thank yo
u for calling.’
They either were or wanted to be profoundly different from the rest of humankind. Clay was seized by a wave of light-headedness and nausea.
Her iPhone rang. On the display: ‘Stone’.
She let it ring out as she drove on to Calderstones Park, her instincts screaming that DS Karl Stone was calling with bad news about what lay a few hundred metres ahead of her.
33
3.43 pm
Yewtree Road was closed at the junction with Allerton Road. Clay flashed her warrant card at the constable manning the closure and negotiated her car around the marked vehicle parked sideways across the road.
As she drove up to the entrance of Calderstones Park, through the fog she saw the flashing lights of a stationary ambulance and bodies milling on the narrow pavement.
She pulled up, parked and walked along the gritted road.
The back doors of the ambulance were open but so were the back doors of the black mortuary vehicle just ahead of it.
The crackle of static on the officers’ walkie-talkies and the disembodied voices leaking through the air combined into an ethereal soundtrack.
‘Excuse me, madam.’ A constable was directly ahead of her, approaching through the fog. He was young and in her way. When he made out her features, he said, ‘I’m sorry, DCI Clay, I thought—’
‘Never apologise for doing your job,’ she said, turning into the park, onto the short stretch of path that led to the lake.
She dipped under the crime-scene tape stretched out between two oak trees. Stone was at the railings, his back turned to the busy action behind him, looking out, waiting for her.
‘Eve? I tried to call you. Your line was busy and then...’
‘Have we found him?’
‘We found the body of a young male. We don’t know if it’s Sandy Patel for definite.’
I do, she thought. ‘Where?’
‘Come with me.’
They walked in silence through the open gate and on to the lake. The all-black form of a frogman stood out in the gathering of bodies on the west bank. A bird, disorientated by the white arc lights that illuminated the scene, rattled out a song from the island in the middle of the lake and Clay saw a sign reading: ‘Caution! Thin Ice’.
