by Neil White
She tried to move away but didn’t have the room. She counted to ten, tried to calm down, and then she reached out again. She felt the stomach, and then she ran her hand further up. It was a woman, Laura could tell from the rise and fall of her contours, and then her fingers felt the tangle of hair.
Laura knew straight away. It was brittle, like Susie’s dyed blonde hair. She moved the hair away and felt something sticky. Blood was her guess. Susie’s cheeks were cold, and Laura strained to lift her hands to Susie’s mouth to try and feel the warm whisper of her breath. There was nothing.
Laura screamed, the noise loud in her ears, echoing back off the metal lid; but she knew that no one above could hear her. Claude had dug a hole for her and now he had gone on the run. But she screamed just the same, screeching as loud as she could until her throat hurt.
And when she stopped and gasped for breath, she realised that all was silent. No one would ever hear her.
Chapter Sixty-Six
I was jolted awake by the ringing of my phone, loud in my ear. I scrambled around for it, knocking it onto the floor at first, and finally answered in a tired mumble.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Tony.’
I looked at the clock. It was later than I thought. Nearly eight o’clock. I squinted at the daylight. Rain speckled the windows. So that was the summer. As always, over before the solstice.
‘What can I do for you?’ I asked.
‘I’m just calling to congratulate on the front page,’ he said. ‘It’s good stuff, Jack, with your byline nice and large. You’re going to be in demand for a while. This could be award time, finding Claude Gilbert.’
I didn’t speak at first. I thought about Claude, I had found him and lost him. And then I thought about Harry. I had let him down.
‘Jack?’
‘Huh? Sorry, Tony, I’m just tired, that’s all.’
‘That’s okay,’ he said, and then, ‘but you didn’t use any of my stuff.’
‘What stuff?’
‘The papers I brought round the other night. There was some good material in there. Perhaps they’re saving it for a follow-up?’
I sighed and rubbed my face. ‘I’m sorry, Tony. I owe you an apology. Someone went through my papers that night, and we had a police officer on the sofa. Your papers went. I wrote the story from memory.’
‘What do you mean, went?’
‘Just that. The police were here, trying to find out what I knew, getting heavy, but then I went to a murder scene. One of the detectives stayed behind, and the next morning, your papers were gone.’
‘The police didn’t take your papers,’ Tony said.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because Alan Lake would be in custody—and Chief Inspector Roach.’
That woke me up. ‘It’s too early for puzzles. What do you mean?’
‘Did you read what I left?’
‘I’m sorry, Tony, but I didn’t get round to it.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Tony said. ‘I can get it again, if you need it. It will make for a good follow-up.’
‘You’re being cryptic,’ I said. ‘What do you mean about Alan Lake and Paul Roach?’
Tony chuckled. ‘They were more than just Claude’s last client and the cop who dug up Nancy. They were also Claude’s landlords.’
Tony’s words weren’t registering. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The address on Lower Belgrave Street, where Claude lived, as Josif Petrovic,’ he said. ‘Alan Lake and Roach own it. Or at least their company does. Northern Works Limited. I wanted to know how Claude could rent somewhere and stay hidden, and so I made some enquiries at the Land Registry, and then at Companies House, like I told you. I called the company secretary, Lake’s accountant, told him that I was interested in buying it. He told me that the flat wasn’t for sale, that Lake used it as his London crash pad whenever he needed to go down to the capital. He paid rent to the company and then set it off against his personal tax bill. But he never paid enough on it to make it profitable, and so his company didn’t pay corporation tax. All the time, the flat increased in value, part-funded by the taxman.’
‘Except that Claude was living there,’ I said.
‘It seems that way,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t know what Claude has on Lake or Roach to make them help him out, but it must be something good, because there’s nothing in it for Lake. Even less for Roach. It’s career-ending for him.’
I blew out. ‘Wow, that is good stuff. Now I know why Lake was getting twitchy.’
I thanked him for the information, and then headed upstairs to wake Laura. It was getting near school time, and I thought she would have been up by now.
I walked into the bedroom and stopped. Laura wasn’t there. I remembered the unlocked front door. Where was she?
I heard a noise behind me and turned to see Bobby, his hair ruffled, coming out of his bedroom.
He looked up at me as I stared at him. Something was wrong. Laura would never leave Bobby alone in the house. Not ever.
He must have sensed my thoughts, because he began to look frightened. I went to my knees to reassure him.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘We need to go out quickly, Bobby. We’re in a rush.’
He looked at me as if he didn’t believe me. I took him back into his room to get him ready, the routine stuff, so that he wouldn’t guess what was going on. Once he was dressed, I took him outside.
My stomach took a jolt when I saw that Laura’s car was still there. And I saw something else. A Vespa, pulled onto its stand. Frankie was sitting on it, his coat pulled over his head to shelter him from the rain, his feet pulled up onto the footboards.
‘Bobby, get in the car,’ I said. Once he was in there, I walked across to Frankie. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
He pulled his coat down. ‘I like watching Laura,’ he said, an arrogant smirk on his face. ‘She’s pretty.’
‘Don’t push me,’ I said, teeth gritted. ‘I am really not in the fucking mood.’
He sat upright on the scooter and pulled on the crash helmet, grinning as he fastened the strap. ‘I saw her,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw her last night.’
‘Who, Laura?’
‘Not just Laura. She was with someone else. An old man.’
A chill rippled through my body. An old man. Claude? Had he been here, with Laura?
‘He took her to his car.’
‘What do you mean, took her?’ I said, and gripped his arm.
‘I followed them,’ Frankie continued, his cheeks flushing slightly, pulling his arm out of my grip. ‘I was here, you see, hoping for another picture. The police took my others, and Laura is special. I like her. I wanted some more, but you’ve started closing your curtains.’
I remembered the flash from the night before.
‘You give me what’s mine, and I’ll tell you more,’ he said. ‘But not before,’ and then he pressed down hard on the kickstart pedal. ‘I’ve seen him before,’ he shouted over the engine noise.
I coughed as I was shrouded in two-stroke fumes, and then Frankie clunked his Vespa into first gear before setting off, his tyres sluicing through the water gathering in the road.
I was left alone, rain wetting my clothes, Bobby watching me from the car.
Susie moved. It was a twitch, like a kick of the leg. Her foot banged on the metal sheet. Laura took some deep breaths.
The cold had been tough, and her bare feet were numb. She thought about Bobby. Had Claude gone back for him?
No, don’t think about that, she told herself.
Then Susie moved once more.
Laura knew that she was dead; she had heard about this from mortuary assistants, spasms after death, something to do with rigor mortis and the contraction of the muscles. She did her best not to think about the dead body next to her.
Then she heard a light buzz. She thought about that. Susie might have been dead for a couple of hours befo
re she was thrown in here, maybe more, so that Claude would have time to dig the hole. So Susie had been left out in the open, dead, blood on her head. Enough time for the flies to land. And the spasm must have disturbed them.
She blew at the buzzing to get the fly away, but its drone was loud under the metal. Then she heard another.
Laura knew how it would happen. The flies land and lay their eggs. The maggots come out. They turn into flies, and the cycle gets repeated over and over. They will burrow into the body, feed on Susie, break her down into flesh and mush.
Laura gagged, tried to turn over so that she wouldn’t choke on her vomit, but her shoulders jammed against the metal. Her mouth filled with the acid taste. How long would it take? Would it happen to Susie as she lay next to her?
She kept her eyes shut, it was the only way she could pretend that she wasn’t trapped. She had to remain still, not think about where she was. If she thought about it, she would thrash again, her hands and legs banging uselessly against the metal, unable to sit up or move sideways. That would use up oxygen. There was blood on her toes from where she had kicked out.
Pretend to be in bed, she told herself. Relax. Lie down. No need to sit up. Then Susie groaned, a long drawn-out moan.
Laura grimaced, tried not to think about it, but she felt drawn to reach out, to touch Susie. Maybe Susie was just unconscious, or in a coma?
Laura’s bound hands crawled along the small space between them, straining her shoulder until she felt Susie’s cold arm. It felt stiff. She pushed against it in the vain hope that she could wake her, but the arm was rigid, tensed.
Laura turned her face away. Susie was dead, she knew that now. Rigor mortis had set in. Claude wasn’t going to come back for Susie. For either of them.
Tears of desperation flashed into Laura’s eyes, a sob stuck in her throat, and she wished for death. Make it quick. Then she thought of Bobby and realised that she needed to get out, that she couldn’t stand the thought of him growing up without her. How long would the oxygen last? Three days without water was a maximum, she had read that somewhere. How airtight was the hole? She would be dead within three days if no one found her. Less, if the air gave out, but Laura knew the soil above was loose and freshly dug. That would let some air through. But if she was going to die in there, make it quick. Don’t let her lie next to Susie as she decomposed, unable to move or get away, surrounded by her own piss and shit.
And why would they find her? Only three people had seen Claude, as far as she knew, and two of them were underground, trapped under a sheet of metal and a covering of soil.
Laura thought about what she knew about Nancy. It had been a week before she had been dug out, and she had died in her hole. Claude hadn’t come back for her.
Laura opened her eyes. It was a mistake, she knew that straight away. She couldn’t see anything in front of her, just darkness, and she felt the surge of panic again. She fought against it, but it was too hard. It wasn’t like physical pain, where she could focus on something else. There was no escape. It affected her mind, directed her instincts and she shuffled downwards, used her heels on the floor, wondering whether she could dig her way out. Her feet hit the dirt wall, and she tried to gouge at it with her toes, unable to move her feet much, but it was tightly compacted. She could try her hands. If she could get her fingers around the edge of the metal, then maybe the soil on top would be looser.
But there wasn’t much room for Laura to work her arms above her shoulders, her movement restricted by the fact that her wrists were still bound together. She moved to the edge of the hole and slowly worked her arms upwards, her eyes wide with effort, her teeth bared, soft moans escaping. Her fingers snagged on Susie’s top, but there wasn’t enough room to pull her hands back, and so she kept on pushing upwards, the cloth around her fingertips, her touch revealing more of Susie’s cold ribs, until her hands got higher and the cloth slipped away.
Laura stopped to take a few breaths but they came in gulps, her chest hurting. Panic was her enemy but she was losing the battle. She could hear the quiet buzz of insects around her face, but she hoped that it was just her imagination racing in the darkness. It was too early for anything like that. Don’t think about what was happening with Susie. Laura knew she would be either found or dead long before Susie’s organs spewed into the hole.
Then she stopped. There was something against her foot, cold and wet. Was it just the temperature, her toes losing sensation—but then she felt it against her leg, creeping upwards like icy fingers.
The water was creeping in. Was it raining outside? As the water crawled along the floor of the hole, like icy claws, Laura realised something else too: it was rising.
She started to scrape at the soil again, panting, desperate.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
I drove into the police station car park too fast, almost clipping a tatty black Vauxhall that had been parked badly. I pulled into the first space I saw and headed quickly for the station entrance. I had no plan, nothing worked out, but I knew that Laura wasn’t at home, and Frankie had told me that Claude had been to the cottage.
As I ran along the tarmac path that took me to the station, I saw Joe Kinsella emerge from the large double doors. He headed towards a man who was loitering outside, squinting at the rain that was just starting to get heavier, but then Joe saw me and stopped.
‘Jack?’ he said, his face concerned. ‘I thought today was the big day?’
‘Claude has gone walkabout,’ I said. ‘And Laura isn’t at home. I don’t know where she is.’
‘I haven’t seen her this morning,’ Joe said.
The man stepped forward. ‘Are you Joe Kinsella?’
Joe looked at the man, who was holding something in his hand. A disk. Joe nodded.
‘A police officer told me to bring this in yesterday,’ the man said, and he held out the disk. ‘It shows the Mercedes drop the girl off.’
He had Joe’s attention now.
‘I checked my computer after the officer left,’ the man said. ‘It looks like I did leave my camera on.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Joe said.
The man went into his pocket and pulled out a business card. ‘DC McGanity,’ he said, ‘although she was in uniform.’
‘Was this yesterday?’ I asked.
He nodded, and then he said, ‘It’s not what you think. It isn’t about the sex or anything. I want you to know that.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve been doing this job long enough not to blush any more.’
‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I was setting up a name and shame website. I was going to post the photographs and videos, only those that showed the cars. Who would go down there if they were going to be caught on camera? Explain that to the wife.’
‘It’s a dangerous game,’ Joe said. ‘People don’t like their income being affected.’
‘But you don’t know what it’s like living round there,’ he said. ‘Prostitutes and drug dealers everywhere, syringes dropped into your wheelie bin. Can you imagine what it’s like to find a used condom on your doorstep most mornings? I thought that if I drove away the prostitutes, everything else would follow.’
I paced impatiently as Joe looked at the man in front of him.
‘So what did your camera catch from the night Hazel was killed?’ Joe asked.
The man held out the disk again, and Joe took it this time. ‘Like she said, I put it onto a DVD. The gold Mercedes comes in at around ten o’clock. I’ve included the hour before and the hour after, just in case it’s important.’
Joe looked at the disk. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Kev Smith,’ he said. ‘I know I want prostitutes away from my house, but I wouldn’t want them to be hurt. And I don’t want to get in trouble. I’m sorry.’
‘Thanks, Kev, I’ll take a look at this. Keep the original footage. Someone will be around for it later.’
Kev looked pleased
at that, but Joe didn’t have time for a long goodbye; he rushed into the station holding the disk, the door slamming back against the wall as he flung it open. I kept close at his shoulder.
‘Something has gone wrong,’ I said. ‘Claude isn’t playing ball, and Laura’s missing.’
Joe rushed through the atrium, heading for a room on the other side. ‘Hazel?’ Joe said. ‘Last night And something else isn’t right,’ Joe said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mike Dobson. He hasn’t really shown up for us before, just some ordinary bloke, and now he’s saying that he was there when Nancy Gilbert died. But then, just before Claude is due to come home, Dobson is implicated in a prostitute murder. After twenty-two years of nothing. We’re supposed to be picking up Claude today, but now it’s getting too complicated. It doesn’t feel right.’
We settled down into swivel chairs in front of a television. A fan made notices on the wall flutter, mainly mugshots of Blackley’s target criminals, pictures of sullen young men with cropped hair. Joe put the disk into a machine.
‘What has Mike Dobson said?’ I asked, as we waited for the disk to load.
‘About Hazel?’ Joe said. ‘Last night, he was sticking to the same story, that he was with her, but that she was alive when he dropped her off. A night to stew on it might make him come up with something else.’
‘And once you get one lie, more tend to follow,’ I said.
Joe nodded. ‘The more you get, the easier it is to pick them apart,’ he said, then he pressed play before winding quickly through the footage.
The images were clear and bright, and it seemed that Kev Smith was using a camcorder, not one of the grainy security cameras that disappointed so many searches for evidence. The streetlight outside his house kept the image bright enough for the camera but, as Joe raced through the footage, the parts further away slipped slowly into twilight. Joe tapped the counter in the corner of the screen. ‘He said to look at around ten o’clock.’
