"I suppose you're right," I agreed reluctantly. I think the urge to see inside Terry's mysterious basement had got the better of my judgment.
We finished our lagers and went back to the house. As we'd agreed I held back and whistled as best I could as Dave knelt down by the lock and inserted one of the metal picks from the wallet. He tried a second, and a third, then a fourth, then he straightened his back and lifted the door with a grating sound that set my teeth on edge. He slipped inside and I followed him. As I shut the door a pick-up truck drove by but I doubt that the driver would have seen anything.
A fluorescent light had flickered on as soon as he'd swung the door open and it bathed the concrete floor in a stark white light that was almost blinding after the soft yellow streetlights outside. It was musty-smelling as if it hadn't been used though there was a small patch of oil on one side of the garage as if a car had been there recently. Terry's Porsche maybe? There were metal racks against one of the walls and a selection of tools but they were dust-covered and festooned with cobwebs so she obviously wasn't much of a mechanic. Or, more probably, the Porsche never needed any work doing on it, Teutonic engineering and all that. "Jamie, you can stop whistling now," said Dave, with a grin.
To the left was a white-painted wooden door with a brass lock. Dave carefully ran his fingers around the door frame, peered through the cracks at either side and at the top and bottom, then went to work with his picks. It took him three minutes and the I heard a metallic click and the door slowly opened inwards. Dave made as if to go through the door but I stepped forward and pulled him back.
"No," I hissed. "I'm on my own from here on in. Thanks for everything, Dave, but you must go now."
He looked as if he was about to refuse but he could see that I was serious. "OK," he said.
"Close the door after me."
He told me to switch off the light and as I did he swung the door halfway up, ducked under it and was away. I closed it behind him and stood in the dark waiting for my eyes to get accustomed to the dark. They didn't. I waited for a full five minutes but I still couldn't see my hand when I held it in front of my eyes. The garage was completely lightproof. I couldn't even remember where the light switch was in relation to where I was standing. I groped against the wall but couldn't find it, then took a step to the left and banged against something wooden. Had there been a crate there before? Or a box? I couldn't remember. I felt a cold breeze on my left cheek and I turned my head that way but couldn't see anything. Was that the direction of the door leading inside the house? I squinted a little and it seemed as if there was a grey rectangle in the blackness but it could have been my eyes playing tricks.
I remembered I had a miniature Mag flashlight on my keyring, a present from Deborah in the days when she used to buy me presents. Way back when. I pulled it out of my pocket, the keys jangling like a wind chime, and twisted the light on. I ran the circle of light around the walls of the garage and allowed it to settle on the white door. There was a cool breeze coming from that direction, but I couldn't understand how that could be because all the windows Dave and I had seen had been shuttered and locked.
I decided against switching on the light and walked carefully across the garage floor to the door.
It made no sound when I pushed it and I stepped over the threshold, holding my breath. Beyond the doorway was a red-carpeted hallway. There was a rough mat on the floor and I wiped my feet on it and then stepped onto the plush pile. It made a quiet brushing noise as I walked, the sound of a cat being stroked. As I swung the flashlight around I saw another beam of light and a figure in the shadows and I jumped back, my heart thudding, and it jumped back simultaneously and I realised I'd been frightened by a mirror.
"Calm down, Jamie," I muttered to myself. The mirror was old, very old, obviously an expensive antique. It was as tall as a man and the frame was gold-painted. I looked at it closely.
No, gold leaf more likely. Real gold. It must have been worth a fortune. The door from the garage had opened into the middle of the hall, facing the mirror, and it stretched out to the right and left.
There were two doors leading off the hall, one at either end, and I decided to head for the right, hoping that there weren't any more locks and wondering what I'd do if there were. I worried too about alarms and thought that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to send Dave away. It would also have made me feel a lot better wandering around in the dark if I'd had someone with me, but I knew that was childish. There was nothing to be frightened of in the dark. That's what I told myself, anyway.
There was a brass knob on the door and I turned it slowly and pushed. It opened and there was no sound from the hinges, just the swishing of the bottom of the door against the thick carpet.
Beyond was another hall off which led at least eight doors. There were probably more but the thin beam of light couldn't penetrate any further through the darkness. I was starting to feel like I was in a game of Dungeons and Dragons, the fantasy game I used to play at university, where you go through a maze fighting imaginary demons and monsters, but you've no idea of where you're going or where the monsters are – the only one who knows is the guy controlling the game, the Dungeon Master. All you are told about is the tiny bit you're in, be it a cave or a room or a corridor with a thick red carpet.
I opened one of the doors and entered a room which must have been about twenty feet square with high ceilings and no windows. There was a glittering chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling and a brass light switch by the door and there were paintings on all of the walls. I couldn't see much detail of the paintings because the flashlight didn't throw enough light to illuminate them entirely, I could only examine them a little at a time. They were big, and obviously old. Some of them were sea scenes, big galleons engaged in bloody battles with cannons firing and sails flapping in the wind, others were landscapes, images of farming practices that had long gone.
I looked for signatures in the corners of the paintings but couldn't find any, though I was pretty sure one of them was a Turner. I'd been around the Turner collection at the Tate in London and the one on the wall was definitely similar. If it was a Turner, Christ, what would it have been worth?
Millions, I guess.
I left the gallery, checked up and down the corridor, and went into the next room. The door felt much heavier and I really had to push to open it, and once inside I could see why. The back of the door was faked up to look as if it was covered in shelves of leather-bound books. When I closed the door it formed part of a bookcase and it was difficult to see where the join was, to make out which were real books and which were the fakes. I opened the door and left it ajar because I was sure that otherwise I'd have trouble finding my way out of the room again. It was about twice as long as the first room and lined from floor to ceiling with books. The ceiling was high, at least twelve feet, and there were several small stepladders so that you could reach the books on the top shelves. There must have been several thousand books in the library and I walked around, reading the titles in the light of the flashlight. One wall was composed entirely of fiction, and it looked as if most of them were first editions. It was an eclectic mix, modern thrillers, detective stories from the forties, classics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, poetry, romances, ghost stories. The rest of the books were non-fiction, a wide range of subjects, geography, science, cooking, a whole collection of text books everything from anatomy to zoology. They were in many different languages, too, I spotted French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and some that I couldn't identify. I wondered where she had got all the books from, they all seemed in pristine condition as if they'd been bought by the yard by some interior decorator.
I couldn't see any order to the collection, either, they weren't grouped in subjects, or languages, or alphabetically, and I shone the torch around looking for a catalogue system of some kind, a card index or a computer. There was nothing.
She either had an incredible memory or didn't care
where the books were. Had they even been read? I took one of the books, a first edition of For Whom The Bell Tolls and flicked through it. It was in beautiful condition but two of the pages had been bent over as if to mark the place where she'd finished reading so I guess that answered my question. I flicked the pages with my thumb making a rippling noise and I saw writing on one of the pages near the front, a scribble in blue ink.
I went back page by page until I got to the one that had been written on. I read the inscription and it felt as if the temperature of the room had dropped by ten degrees. I looked up at the door but it was still only slightly ajar and there was no breeze. I shuddered and reread the words on the page.
"To the girl with the blackest eyes I've ever seen." He hadn't signed it, but his initials were there.
E.H. There was no date, either. I examined the book and it seemed genuine enough, though obviously I couldn't vouch for the handwriting. When had Hemingway died? Sometime in the sixties, I thought, but I wasn't sure. I slid the book back into its place and pulled out the one on its right. The Maltese Falcon. By Dashiell Hammett. One of my favourites. Hammett, I knew, had died in 1961, almost ten years before Terry was born. I couldn't remember when he'd written the book but I reckoned it must have been about 1930. Maybe 1929. I didn't open the book because I was scared of what I might find. I held it in my hands and tapped it against my chin and breathed in the smell of a book that was more than sixty years old. I took a deep breath and opened it.
There, on the title page, was a black-inked scrawl. "Lisa – I'll never forget you. Ever," it said, and there was a signature. Hammett's signature. I had a friend, once, his name was Gilbert Leighton.
We were at university together and then he set up a practice in partnership with a guy from Birmingham and soon after they were up and running he invited me around to his new Harley Street offices. To boast, I guess, to show me how well he was doing even though his marks were an average fifteen per cent below mine all through our academic years. He wanted to take me down to his garage and show me his Rolls, too, but I passed on that. What did impress me wasn't the expensive leather couch or the wood-panelled walls or the gorgeous blonde receptionist with the top three buttons of her dress undone, no, what really impressed me was the collection of signed photographs on one wall, next to his academic and professional qualifications. There was Edward Heath, and a message which said "Gilbert – Thanks for everything, Ted" and there was a head and shoulders shot of a pouting Patsy Kensit with "Love and thanks, Patsy" written in one corner with a flourish. The collection included top politicians, singers, movie stars and media personalities, all with personal messages to good old Gilbert.
I turned to look at him, wide-mouthed, and he was laughing soundlessly and shaking his head.
"Your face," he said.
"How did you…" I began asking.
"Gloria," he said.
"Gloria?"
He nodded towards the reception area. "Gloria. The blonde bombshell. She does them for me.
Pretty good, uh?"
"Pretty dishonest," I answered. He did all right, though. He lives with Gloria in the South of France now and makes a fortune listening to the problems of the super rich.
Maybe that was it, I thought. Maybe Terry likes collecting fake signatures, fake goodwill messages from long dead authors. It didn't seem likely though, and it would be an expensive joke to play, defacing first editions which would fetch thousands at auction. I put back The Maltese Falcon and chose another book at random. Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped. I opened it quickly and I was fumbling so much that I almost missed it but it was there in almost pure copperplate writing. A signed first edition of Kidnapped. With a personal message. A message that referred to black eyes. The book fell from my nerveless fingers and I backed away from it my chest tight. A muscle in my right cheek began to spasm and I put my hand against it and pressed hard, trying to stop the nervous tic. I swang the flashlight back and forth so that I could see the whole length of the library, fearful that there were monsters lurking in the dark corners, waiting to pounce and rip me apart as soon as the beam of light passed them by. It was as if the light was my protection, it was the only thing they feared. Something knocked against my shoulderblades and I leapt forward and whirled round, only to see that it was the bookshelves. I'd backed right across the library. The copy of Kidnapped lay face down. I couldn't bring myself to pick it up. For a moment or two I thought I'd lost the door but then I saw the irregularity among the bookshelves and pulled it open and slipped once again into the hallway. I leant against the wall and pulled the door shut behind me, knowing that I shouldn't have left the book on the floor but figuring that I could always go back later. When I'd calmed down.
I tried the door opposite and was surprised to find a modern office, the same plush carpet but chrome and glass furniture and several expensive looking desk-top computers. The air in the room was definitely colder than in the rest of the building and I guessed there must have been some sort of air conditioning for the computers but it was discreetly hidden away. There were a line of matt black filing cabinets ranged against one of the walls and they weren't locked. On the front of one of the cabinets were letters, A-E, F-K and so on on the front of the drawers. On an impulse I held the flashlight in my teeth with the keys banging against my chin while I pulled open the section that contained F and sure enough there was a file for Ferriman, Terry. A birth certificate, photocopies of credit card application forms, social security number, academic qualifications, passport. And a death certificate. It was there. The death certificate for Terry Ferriman. Aged eleven. I put the file back and pulled out the one next to it. Granger, Helen. There was a birth certificate in the file, and a death certificate, along with death certificates and the marriage licence of the girl's parents.
I put it back and went to the drawer containing the S files. There was no file for Sinopoli, Lisa, but as I pushed the drawer shut I saw that the one next to it had a label on that said Dead Files H-K.
I looked at the cabinets, there were six of them and five contained dead files. Each cabinet had six drawers which meant that there were thirty drawers full of dead files and when I pulled open the one labelled R-S it was packed tight and I had to struggle to get the Sinopoli file out. It was the paper trail of a life, the life of Lisa Sinopoli: her birth certificate, her exam results, her bank statements, pay cheques from her time in Hollywood, receipts, deeds to property she'd owned, a marriage certificate confirming that she'd tied the knot with Greig Turner when she was twenty two years old, and two death certificates. One, the real one, I suppose, showing that she'd died of TB at the age of six. The other, the one she'd have needed to kill off the identity when she moved on, was dated 1940 and had her as thirty years old. No doubt the war would have made changing identities easier, though by looking at the stacks of files she was well used to it. If I read it right, the dead files were identities she'd already used. The other cabinet contained files of future possibilities.
Part of me held out a vague hope that maybe she was just involved in some complicated credit card scam or cheque-kiting or any other common-or-garden fraud. That I could cope with, that wouldn't have me waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. But then I remembered the signed copy of Kidnapped and I knew that there was no straight forward explanation for it. I wondered how far back the dead files went. I flicked through the ones in the R-S drawer and got back to 1847, a woman called Anne-Cecile Rullier but I couldn't make sense of the documents, what with them being in French and all. It was also obvious that the more recent the file, the more documentation it contained, showing that it was getting progressively harder to maintain a new identity. That probably explained why there were computers in the room.
I went over to one of the machines, a top of the range IBM, and I managed to switch it on but I couldn't get into its files.
I left the air-conditioned room and tip-toed along the hall to the next door and went in. It contained a display of Egyptian art
ifacts and they were old, old, old. There were statues, a lot of gold jewellery, a gold cat that reared up on its back legs as if playing, and some stones with hieroglyphics on. I wondered if they were recent acquisitions, and I hoped they were because I didn't like to think what the alternative possibility was. That was too much to even consider right then.
I pushed open the next door down the hall and shone my flashlight on the wall opposite. Terry's face looked back at me, the eyes glinting, the skin a pale white, and it took a second or so during which my heart stopped beating before I realised that it was a portrait, a life-size painting hanging on the wall. It was a good one, almost like a photograph. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair by the side of a Victorian fireplace, unsmiling and with her hair tied back but it was definitely Terry. I played the beam of light along the wall and it illuminated a second portrait, this one much older and not quite as good. The room was full of portraits, some of them were clearly very old, the varnish going brown and the colours fading, others appeared fresh and new as if they'd just been painted yesterday. They were all of Terry, with one possible exception and that was a Picasso that may or may not have been her. It was difficult to say because there was an eye in one corner and a nose in the middle but I figured there was a fair chance it was meant to be her because the eye was jet black. Picasso painted her, can you believe that? Robert Louis Stevenson gave her a copy of his book and Picasso painted her. There was a single statue in the room, a life size sculpture of her in pure white marble.
Her voice, when she spoke, made me jump and I dropped the torch. "I know it's vain, Jamie, but I get such pleasure looking at them," she said. I whirled round but I couldn't see her and the thought flashed through my mind that she must be able to see in absolute darkness.
Once bitten Page 14
