“Please just let me go into the kitchen and feed my little girl,” said Nevada beseechingly.
“Where’s your phone?” said Vardy, and I knew we had him. He was going to let her do it. Nevada gave him her phone. He took it and put it in his pocket, then he turned to me. “Where’s yours?” I gave it to him. He put my phone in his pocket then went to the landline and unplugged it. “Okay, go in the kitchen and feed her,” he said.
Nevada moved to the kitchen, giving the little whistle that signified food, and Turk promptly hopped off the table and went scrambling after her.
Vardy took the landline and carried it away from the sofa where it normally resided. I thought for a surreal second that he was going to try and fit this in his pocket, too, but he contented himself with going to the bookshelf at the other end of the room and tucking it away on the highest shelf. All the while he was doing this he kept twisting around so he was still pointing the shotgun at me. I prayed his contortions wouldn’t cause it to go off.
There was the sound of Nevada opening a cupboard in the kitchen. The dry rattle of cat biscuits in their box. I assumed she was shaking the box with one hand while writing with the other. Vardy wasn’t even looking in her direction. He was staring at me over the shotgun barrels. I tried not to let anything I was thinking or feeling show in my eyes. The sounds from the kitchen stopped. Nevada appeared in the doorway.
“I’m back,” she said mildly. Turk came trotting after her.
“All done?” said Vardy.
“All done,” said Nevada.
Turk dashed through the room and out the cat flap in the back door, moving so quickly that I barely glimpsed the note tucked under her collar. She went through the garden and over the back wall in one lithe leap, and I prayed with all my soul that she’d move quickly.
“All right,” said Vardy. There was a hint of finality in his voice. A suggestion that something had to happen now, which Nevada immediately recognised and set about attempting to counter.
“Nic, I just wanted to say…”
“The time for talking is over,” he said. His voice was hard and I felt a horrid cold thrill. He meant business. But Nevada ignored him and just kept going, soft and gentle and relentless.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
His eyes flickered towards her. “Thank me?”
“For letting us feed Turk. That was so kind of you. You’re a good bloke.” There was such warmth in her voice that even I almost believed her.
“You think so?” His voice shook but his hands were steady. The gun pointed at me without wavering. He snatched a quick glance at her, too fast for me to do anything.
“You’re such a lovely girl,” he said. “I liked you the moment I saw you. Believe me, I’ve known a lot of beautiful women. But you have something special.” My stomach turned over queasily. I didn’t like the way this was tending.
“You have a special quality,” he said. “A special warmth. Has anyone ever told you that before?”
“That’s a very interesting question,” said Nevada. “Why don’t we talk about it? Why don’t you put the gun down and we can talk about it. Just talk.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t. It has to be done.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know. Because it has to be done.” His eyes moved shiftily. “But we can do something else first.” He was looking at her and I recognised the look. He’d had it in his eyes when we’d met before, every time he looked at her, and I didn’t like it then. Now it caused a wave of cold, hard hatred in me, followed by a fear so intense that I could hardly think.
We all knew what he was talking about, but none of us was willing to say it aloud.
Just then, Turk came back in. She nosed through the cat flap and trotted back into the centre of the room.
The note was still under her collar, exactly where we’d put it.
Nevada saw it too and I saw the shock register in her eyes. This had never happened before. Turk wandered off into the bedroom, probably to have a nap. I wondered how long she’d sleep before the sound of the shotgun sent her fleeing in terror.
But maybe there would be other noises first.
“I liked you as soon as I saw you,” said Vardy hoarsely.
“I liked you too,” said Nevada cautiously, as if she was stepping through a minefield.
“I don’t want you to die.” His voice was thick now and the tears were gleaming in his eyes again.
“And I don’t want to die. I don’t want anyone to die. And no one has to.”
“It has to be done,” said Vardy, softly. “I’m sorry. It’s such a waste.” He glanced at her. “But it doesn’t have to be.”
“That’s right,” said Nevada, her voice as soft as his. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“Not a complete waste,” said Vardy. “That has to happen. But we can do something else first.” Nevada didn’t say anything. “One last burst of life,” said Vardy. “An affirmation. Life and pleasure, the pleasure of the flesh.”
The air temperature in the room felt like it had suddenly dropped ten degrees. “And I promise you’ll like it,” said Vardy, his voice soft and oily. “I’ll see that you like it. I know what to do. I’m a very good lover. I’m very experienced. I promise you things that you’ve never felt before. Tantric sensations.” He looked at me. “But we’ll have to tie him up. To make sure he doesn’t interfere.”
There was real hatred in his eyes when he looked at me. And the shotgun never wavered. But I began to feel a strange elation. I could see a way out of this.
If Nevada could get within reach of Vardy I’m sure it wouldn’t be a Tantric sensation that she gave him.
“Of course, I’ll have to tie you up as well,” he said, glancing at Nevada. And all hope died. At that moment I felt us, and our situation, descending into hell. “I’ll have to tie you to the bed first,” he said.
Just then a curious thing happened.
Somehow a butterfly had got into the room and it fluttered past Vardy. It was bright red. Its vivid red wings fluttered as it moved swiftly back and forth, then settled on his chest, and I saw that it wasn’t a butterfly at all but an intense spot of red light.
Laser light.
Outside an electronically amplified voice called out. “Armed police. Put down your weapon.”
30. POSTMARKED CANTERBURY
Tinkler shook his head. “Tsk tsk.” He folded the newspaper and showed us the front page. The headline read: FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHER DIES IN POLICE CUSTODY. “I guess this means that I don’t get my autographed print after all.” He shoved the paper aside despondently and picked up the menu.
“Cheer up,” said Nevada. “Your favourite people on Earth are still alive and well.”
“A small consolation.”
The girl from behind the bar came and took our orders. We’d only recently discovered that our local gastro-pub did breakfasts, and we’d been coming here every day since. We weren’t spending much time at home at the moment. What had once been our sanctuary had been transformed into a place with some very vivid and recent bad memories. I couldn’t go into my own living room without thinking about the madman with the shotgun. Nevada felt much the same.
So we were spending as much time as possible outside the house. In fact we only went home to sleep and feed the cats.
Today Tinkler had decided to join us for breakfast. The pub did a particularly good one, with all organic, locally sourced ingredients—much of it from the nearby allotments cultivated by local environmental nuts. The Spanish omelette was especially nice and all three of us had ordered it.
“So the police didn’t shoot him,” said Tinkler.
“No.”
“He died in the police station.”
I sighed. “Here’s what happened. He put down his gun when the cops arrived outside—”
“You mean Stinky’s SWAT team.”
“Yes. His police bodyguards were living on site at the Abbey.”
�
��Thank god,” said Nevada.
“So Stinky actually came good?” said Tinkler.
“I suppose I have to say yes,” I said. “But being Stinky he had to add a little characteristic twist to things.”
“How so?” said Tinkler. “My god, that omelette smells good. Where are ours? Do you suppose those people would mind if I took some of theirs?”
“In an answer to your question,” I said, “when Stinky got the note he acted immediately. But he also felt he had to write an acknowledgement on the note, put it back exactly where it had been and send it back to us.”
Nevada nodded. “So when poor Turk came in with the note still under her collar, we thought the message hadn’t got through.” She looked at me. I knew what she was thinking. We were both still having nightmares.
Nevada said, “Stinky, that maniac, had actually written back to us, suggesting we sit tight. As if we could read this while some fucker is pointing a gun at us.”
“Whoops,” said Tinkler. “Typical Stinky. Still the SWAT team came through. So what did they do? Take Vardy back to the police station and kill him there?”
“Nobody killed him,” I said. “Look, this is what happened. He put down his shotgun and they took us to the police station and put us all in separate interview rooms. I was left sitting in mine for hours, waiting for something to happen, no one talking to me—I later found out exactly the same thing had happened to Nevada.”
“Exactly,” said Nevada.
“Then eventually someone came and told us we could go home. We later found out that Vardy had died shortly after they brought him in. At first everyone thought it was a heart attack.”
“But now,” said Nevada, “everyone thinks he took something.”
“Took something?” said Tinkler. He paused in wiping his cutlery with a paper napkin. Restaurant cutlery was never quite clean enough for Tinkler. “You mean like a suicide pill? Like cyanide?”
“Not cyanide,” I said. “But something equally effective.”
“Bummer.” Tinkler breathed on a fork and began polishing it.
“Call me small-minded and vindictive,” I said, “but I couldn’t be more pleased.”
“I mean from the point of view of you not getting closure. I mean, now he’s dead he can never tell us what the hell was going on.”
“The very fact that he came in pointing a shotgun at us tends to tell us something,” said Nevada.
Tinkler reached for my knife and fork and I moved them away from him. “I don’t want you polishing my cutlery.”
“Touchy. I was just offering. Anyhow, so concerning Vardy, he might have been Valerian’s killer—always assuming she didn’t actually kill herself.”
“Yes,” I said. “He might have been.”
“And now we’ll never know. Like I said, bummer. And he also might have been the missing boy’s father.”
“He might have been.”
“And we’ll never know,” said Tinkler. “But wait a minute. Can’t you do a DNA test? I mean, sure Vardy’s dead, but you could get a post-mortem sample. The DNA would be viable.”
“Viable?” said Nevada. “Have you been watching CSI again?”
“We could get a sample all right,” I said. “But what would we compare it against?”
“The kid’s,” said Tinkler. Then he stopped. “But of course we don’t have any trace of the kid.”
“That’s kind of the difficulty.”
Our omelettes came and we all got stuck in. “So anyway,” said Tinkler, “now you’re completely screwed in terms of your investigation. This omelette’s stupendous. What is this, coriander?”
* * *
We got back to the house late that night, having been to see a movie—we’d been to a lot of movies lately—and while Nevada fed the cats I went through the mail on the doormat. The only interesting item was a letter addressed to Nevada in looping feminine handwriting and postmarked Canterbury.
I gave it to her and she ripped it open.
Dear Nevada,
My brother has now told me the truth. There is no documentary and there never was one. You should not have lied to me and misled me. However I am now sitting here looking out at my little garden with Nevada (the kitten) purring in my lap and I am feeling inclined to be magnanimous. I forgive you. More than that, since you seem to be so eager to solve the mysteries in our family, I shall make a compact with you.
If you find out who really killed my sister I will tell you what happened to her child.
Yours faithfully,
Cecilia Drummond
31. SOAP BUBBLES
I went up the steps and rang the doorbell of the pink house. I had left Tinkler’s car parked around the corner and I glanced back in that direction while I waited. I didn’t have to wait long. There were footsteps and then the door was opened by Dr Osterloh, as I knew it would be. It was late on a cool, autumn night and Adela would be long gone, off to wherever omnivorously sexual Swedes go at the end of their working day.
Osterloh was wearing a dark green sweater, white shirt and grey trousers. He didn’t have shoes on, just black socks, and he was clutching what looked like a half-eaten smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel in one hand; well, it was his house and his working day was over, too.
I said, “Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.”
“Not a problem.”
“And out of office hours.”
“Come in.” He gestured with the remains of the bagel and I followed him inside. We went past the room where we’d talked previously and up the stairs and along a thickly carpeted corridor. He daintily finished the bagel as we walked, then took a tissue out of his pocket and wiped his hands. Putting the tissue away, he opened a door on our right and we went into a small office dominated by a desk with a comfortable-looking armchair in front of it. Behind the desk was a high narrow window with the shadowy shape of a tree dividing the faint amber light that came from the street.
He sat behind the desk and I sat in the armchair. “Since this is something resembling an official consultation,” he said, “I thought we’d conduct it in my office.”
“Right,” I said. I laced my fingers around my left knee and stared down at the navy-blue carpet. “Well…”
“Take your time.” He leaned back in his chair, relaxed and professional. Suddenly the bagel-eater was quite gone. “Just let me make sure all the phones are off.” He opened a drawer in his desk and frowned down into it as he consulted an unseen piece of technology and pushed buttons. After a moment he smiled and closed the drawer. “There. All ready.” He looked at me expectantly.
“So,” I said, “since the recent incident I’ve been having certain… difficulties.”
His face became grave. “I’m not surprised. What a terrible thing to happen. It must have been profoundly unsettling.”
“It was.”
“I knew Nic Vardy,” said Osterloh.
“I know,” I said. “All you guys knew each other.”
“You were saying?”
“Well, since it happened both my girlfriend and I find it hard to be around the house. We go out as much as we can because we just don’t feel safe there anymore. It was our home. We used to be happy there. Comfortable. We used to enjoy just being there. Now we avoid it as much as we can.”
He leaned towards me across the desk, hands clasped in front of him. “That’s entirely natural of course. And you mustn’t worry too much. I imagine at the moment you’re bleakly prognosticating that your feelings about your home have changed forever, that you’ll never feel safe or comfortable there again. Perhaps you’re thinking of selling the house and moving.”
“That’s right.”
Osterloh smiled. “Of course. But trite as it sounds, you will find that the passage of time will allow your feelings to change, to return to normal. And it need not even take long for that to happen.”
“What if we can’t wait?” I said.
He nodded as if he understood. “I think you’ll f
ind that any major new event in your life will tend to push this into the background, emotionally speaking. In a sense you can hasten the return to normality by deliberately creating a major new event. For example, by doing something as simple as going on holiday. Visiting a country where you’ve never been before.” He smiled.
“A holiday,” I said. “Now there’s an idea.”
Osterloh folded his arms and leaned back in the chair. “But this wasn’t really what you came to talk about, was it?”
I said, “No. I came to ask you why you killed Valerian.”
He peered at me for a moment and then chuckled. “Is that dramatic accusation supposed to elicit an equally dramatic response?”
“It’s not an accusation. It’s a deduction based on facts.”
“Well, then it’s a deeply flawed deduction,” he said. “Because I did not kill her.” He glanced at me. “What facts?”
“Some Glenn Miller records.”
He seemed taken aback. “What?”
“The last time I came to see you I bought some records from a charity shop. Or rather I paid for them and left them there. But before I could go back to collect the records, somebody stole them. Or maybe they bought them.”
“Why would anyone want to steal some Glenn Miller records? Or indeed buy them?”
“They wouldn’t,” I said. “But they didn’t know that’s all they were. For all the thief knew, they represented some vital piece of information.”
“Relating to what?”
“To the fact that you killed Valerian.”
He shook his head. “You keep coming back to that. But it seems to be circular reasoning, with no actual input of fact.”
“How’s this for an input of fact? Those records ended up here, in your house. Someone working for you got hold of them when they saw me choose them at the charity shop. And they brought them here to you. Presumably you just stuck them in a closet or something, when you realised they weren’t important after all. And that’s where Adela found them.”
The Run-Out Groove Page 28
