Come to that, I didn’t mind the animal groups, either. They were rather charming, taking their human activities so seriously, and rather clever too. It was a social comment, I supposed. Death warmed up, death prettied up. Behind human celebrations and family life, the emptiness of mortality. But a celebration of life too, because unless you disapproved of taxidermy in principle, you couldn’t look at the groups without identifying with their evident pleasure and pride in the moment or without admiring the skill and charm of the artist who’d had the idea, and the skill of the craftsman who’d restored these dead creatures to a sort of immortality, clothed in shiny healthy coats, adorned with delicate little whiskers. Nor could you look at them without feeling sad at the ultimate futility of people’s personal and domestic enjoyments and rituals.
Equivocal, that’s what it was. And that suits my own world view, although equivocal is a poncey word for it.
Enough art appreciation. I had to open the fridge. I did, and shut it again. It was a small-animal mortuary. No Nick.
That was it, then. I’d drawn a blank. I wandered back through the human-animals, wishing I could look at them in proper light. Maybe he was accumulating them for an exhibition. If so, I’d go, because I wanted to see all the detail. Maybe I’d even buy a group, except Hobbs’d probably charge a fortune. I could ask Barty to give me one.
I turned, nearly at the door, for a last look.
Then someone spoke, behind me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I jumped away from the voice, bumping into a table, rocking the Christmas dinner I hadn’t taken in whose voice it was, or what it said. Every bit of me tensed in an effort not to scream, because if you screamed you were vulnerable.
Then the lights came on, bright overhead spots, momentarily blinding.
‘It’s only me,’ said Jack Hobbs. ‘You need the lights to see, don’t you?’
His voice was as flat as ever, the statement practical. He didn’t seem surprised or angry to find me there. He was wearing the same pair of ancient corduroy trousers as he had the night before, unless he kept several pairs with identical blotchy stains, and the same Arran sweater.
My heartbeat steadied and I switched off the torch. He was between me and the doors but the doors were wide open and there was nothing threatening in his manner I stopped feeling scared and felt mildly embarrassed instead.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see the workshops and nipped in, since the door was open.’
‘Richard told me the surveyor was looking at them on Monday,’ he said.
‘I was curious.’
‘You’re a detective,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s your job, prying.’
Prying rankled. ‘Detecting, I’d call it,’ I said.
‘Detecting. What exactly are you detecting, here?’
‘Actually I was admiring,’ I said. ‘Admiring your work.’
‘By torchlight?’ He didn’t seem angry, but neither did he seem flattered. ‘What are you really after, Alex?’
‘I told you. I’m doing a property enquiry.’
‘If you say so,’ he said, trying to meet my eye. ‘I rather wanted to talk to you about that, actually.’
What was he getting at? Did he suspect I was after a particular quarry? I hoped not. And why should he? ‘It must be very difficult, taxidermy,’ I offered.
‘Not difficult exactly. Not the preservation bit. That just takes method and patience.’
‘But you make them look natural and human and expressive as well,’ I said.
‘Glad you think so,’ he said more warmly. ‘That’s what I aim to do.’
‘Anyhow, I’ll get out of your way,’ I said moving towards the yard.
Instead of stepping back, he closed the doors behind him. ‘I need to keep the fog out,’ he said in explanation. ‘Damp’s not good for them. Don’t go yet. Tell me what you think about the group I’m working on now. The baby bath scene, over here.’
The mother and baby ferrets were towards the back of the workshop, and I was deeply reluctant to move further from the doors. I wasn’t afraid, exactly, but I’d be happier outside, I knew. As a distraction, I pointed up to the spaniel, alone on its shelf.
‘Are you going to put that in a group?’ I asked.
He stopped walking, quite close to me now.
‘That’s the first animal I ever did,’ he said. ‘My apprentice piece. Years ago now. I hadn’t got the concept then. I keep her for sentimental reasons.’
‘Her?’
‘She was the family pet. I really loved her. We all did.’
‘Doesn’t it upset you, looking at her like this?’
‘Oh no. It isn’t Girl, up there. Just her skin.’
It hit me so hard I felt as if my heart had leapt right out of my body to perch beside Girl.
Girl, the dog. No wonder the references in the letters made her sound handicapped. Because she wasn’t a girl at all. She was a spaniel. Hardly surprising they hadn’t sent her to boarding school.
And here I was with Boy, who wasn’t Fairfax but Hobbs. Hobbs, whose own mother feared he might be the Killer. Hobbs the patricide. Hobbs who showed his affection for the family pet by scraping the flesh from her coat and sucking the brains from her skull. Hobbs, who was standing between me and safety while the latest train thundered overhead and rattled the stuffed creatures on their plinths.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ I said. Stupidly, because if I looked half as dreadful as I felt, I must look terminal or worse. ‘Or maybe a little faint. Some air ...’
I made to pass him, going for the yard. He put out a strong arm and stopped me. ‘Hey – lie down, that’s the best thing for fainting, lie here on the floor and I’ll open the doors. Really, it’s a circulation thing, get your feet up and blood to your head, you can’t faint lying down.’
I tried to pull away but he held on, and he was much stronger than I was.
So I abandoned subtlety and kicked him in the balls.
It was an effective kick, thanks to a combination of fear and Doc Martens boot. He collapsed immediately into a groaning heap, and I took off for the street.
I stopped running just outside the flats, and tried to look casual as I turned into the estate.
Two shapes were approaching. As they got nearer I could see it was Fairfax and Jacobs. I looked behind me – no sign of Hobbs.
‘Hi,’ I said, and kept walking.
‘Alex, do you have a minute?’ said Fairfax, with a confident smile.
‘Not now, I’m afraid,’ I said, not pausing.
‘But I have a job for you. I want to hire you,’ he said, sounding miffed.
‘I must get back. Sorry,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘I’ll give you a ring.’
‘But this is urgent,’ he said to my retreating back.
‘This is urgent,’ echoed Jacobs.
‘I’ll ring right away. Promise,’ I called.
By now I couldn’t make out his expression, but I guessed it was petulant – tough.
Off the estate, back in the more populated Lancaster Road, I nearly stumbled over a lifelike guy propped against a wall with its lower body on the pavement. ‘Watch it,’ said the guy’s owner, who was, surprisingly, not a child but an adult, shoving an upturned motorcycle helmet at me coercively. The Golden Kid, in fact. ‘Gissa quid for the guy, go on.’
I stopped. ‘What the hell?’
‘Quite all right,’ said the guy.
It was Lil.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Obbo,’ said the Kid. ‘Lil thought you needed some looking after, and you can’t have just a guy, can you, stands to reason, there’s got to be someone taking the readies.’
It would have been ungrateful to point out a) that they were a ludicrously unconvincing duo, or b) that I could have been murdered in Bartlett Close while they were attracting attention in Lancaster Road.
‘Good scheme, don’t you think?’ said Lil proudly. ‘I learnt my tradec
raft from John Le Carré.’
‘If I were him and I heard you say that, I’d sue.’
‘Now now Alex, you’re just jealous you didn’t think of it yourself,’ said Lil, attempting to get up. The Kid put his hands under her armpits and scooped her up as if she was weightless.
She dusted herself off, settled her hat more firmly on her head, and said ‘I’m glad to see you. We were just about to come to your rescue.’
‘Yeah,’ said the Kid, shaking his helmet, ‘and we made upwards of twelve quid. Not bad.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
We were all back in the office. Despite my broad hints, they’d refused to be shaken off
‘Tea for everyone?’ said Lil.
‘Ta. You make a great cuppa,’ said the Kid.
‘Coffee, please,’ I said, and sat down wearily behind the desk.
‘We’ll need more milk,’ said Lil. ‘Dermot, could you?’
He stood by the desk, waiting. I unlocked the petty cash and gave him some. He seemed to have embezzled the Guy Fawkes contributions in the short walk from Lancaster Road.
When he’d gone, I said to Lil, ‘Can we get rid of him?’
‘Why should we?’
‘Because until I’ve found Nick I don’t know which men I can trust.’
‘You think she’s been kidnapped?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because even though she left her mobile phone behind she still hasn’t been in touch yet. Because she isn’t back. Because I feel it in my bones.’
‘Why are you wary of men, particularly?’
‘Because I think she’s been kidnapped by the Notting Hill Killer.’
‘Do we know the Killer’s a man? There’s no physical evidence left on the bodies.’
‘They’ve been raped.’
‘The rapist could have been a woman using an appliance,’ she said. ‘In any case, Dermot can’t be the Killer. That’s absurd. He’s a perfectly decent young man from a very close family. And he likes large dark women.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He’s made approaches to Solange.’
I didn’t want to waste time arguing with Lil. I wanted to think in peace, and plan my next move. I could feel the sands of Nick’s life trickling away while Lil and the Kid drank their tea and told me how clever they’d been.
‘I’m going home for about half an hour. There’s something I need to do. Snap the Yale on the door if you go before I get back,’ I said, and refused to meet her outraged and reproachful eye.
The flat was warm and wonderfully empty. I took off my boots and picked up the phone for messages, just in case I was completely wrong and there was a call from Nick.
Only one message. ‘Hi Alex it’s Polly, about four thirty, the plane’s been delayed and delayed and I’m coming home, see you soon, maybe we could go out tonight or I could help you work, whatever you want, I’ve been missing you in Hong Kong you know, we should spend some quality time and—’
Her time was up on the call-minder so I didn’t hear any more, though she was probably still burbling into a phone at Heathrow.
Four thirty, she’d said. She should be here soon.
Better Polly than Lil, anyway. Better still, though, would have been Nick. I was beginning to realize how much I missed her taciturn pragmatism. But when she was back I’d have plenty to say about the lax security in the office. I’d no idea the Kid was wandering in and out at will, listening to messages, using the computer. He could spend hours on the Internet at my expense. Plus Lil obviously had the run of the office some of the time.
When Nick was back I’d give her a bollocking, for sure. Except it wasn’t for sure she’d be back, not at all.
I lay on the sofa, under the duvet, stared at the ceiling and tried to make sense of what I knew.
It was like peering through fog. Close up were the figures I could see, that I knew about. Fishburn, in pursuit of the Killer and pointed by me at Bartlett Close, dead. Sam Eyre, who Nick was tracing, still alive and well and living at Bartlett Close. Alive and well even though she was made-to-measure for the Killer.
Made-to-measure. The phrase stuck in my head. Why? I niggled at it, but nothing came.
Leave it, it’d emerge in its own time. What else did I know for sure? Further back, blurred by wisps of fog, was Hobbs. He was certainly Boy. His mother thought he might be the Killer, and a mother’s opinion on something like this should go a long way. And Gein had conveniently died when the finger was pointed at Hobbs. And he did know all about the long-ago murders at Rillington Place. And he produced most unusual works of art.
But I liked the works of art. On balance, I was surprised to find, I liked Hobbs. I’d attacked him because I was frightened: by the stuffed spaniel, by Bartlett Close itself, because he wouldn’t let me go. He could just have been trying to help a fainting woman, and he was right, of course, you couldn’t faint lying down.
Behind Hobbs, there were the really shadowy figures. Fairfax and Jacobs, neither of whom I liked, Fairfax because he seemed vain and shallow and arrogant, Jacobs because he was a coarse yes-man to Fairfax. And then there was Jonno, who seemed grabby and dirty and misogynistic, and the Kid whose bike might have been in Fishburn’s road – how many big Harleys were there in Notting Hill? Very few, surely. And even Alan Protheroe who was desperate with impotence and who’d been working since January on a documentary on the plight of men wronged by rapacious women.
And behind all of them, faceless, the Killer, who pounced from nowhere and went back to nowhere and who might have Nick, and who, as Lil had pointed out, might be a woman anyway.
I sat up. Andy Cairncross. I’d have to tell him, or failing him, any policeman. I’d have to tell the police, because I had no answers and no place to go, no place to look for Nick. She wasn’t in the flats at Bartlett Close; she wasn’t in the workshops. I had no idea where else she might be.
Time to call Cairncross.
I reached out for the phone. As I did, the doorbell rang. I jumped. Then I looked out of the window. Damn. Lil. But she’d seen me and I had to let her in.
She settled on the sofa, looking at me with a kind of peering intensity. ‘I know you wanted a bit of peace, but I thought you ought to see this.’ She offered me a sheet of paper.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘An e-mail. It arrived a few minutes ago. I printed it out for you.’
I looked at the origin first. Inge Ericsson, EAPWU, Nairobi. EAPWU? Nairobi? Oh, the Scandanavian I’d spoken to about Barty, probably.
Lil was still peering at me as I read the message.
You should not worry too much, but I do not think you understand the situation here. Eastern Zaire is at war. It is mostly jungle. Maybe a million refugees and more Zaire IDPs are wandering through it, trying to escape the RPF, Kabila, Inter-ahamwe, mercenaries, the Zaire, Ugandan and maybe Burundi armies. It is chaos. There are two holed roads, no better than wide farm tracks, and one rusty railroad for a region the size of France. The only comms are in the big towns. They weren’t reliable in peace, and now men with guns are destroying everything they can’t steal, they work worse. Nobody knows what is going on. So do not worry too much when I say there is no way of telling Barty anything because there has been no contact with him and his crew for three days – people are always disappearing into the jungle and coming out two weeks later completely OK. We do know that he left Goma Wednesday, trying to reach some refugee camps NW to talk to the guys who organized the Rwanda genocide in ’94 before Kabila kicks their ass. This area is now very confused. Barty has GPS, so he knows where he is, but if his satcom isn’t working he can’t tell us. CNN say there are reports of white journalists caught in fighting near Ubundu, but it’s too far for Barty. Anyway, there are reports of everything. The chances are soon Barty will come out of the jungle and reach you by satellite, but we just don’t know. So be ready for a long wait and do not think the worst. Things are bad there, but probably not as bad as t
he TV makes out.
I read it, then I read it again. I must be tired, I thought. Or else my mind was refusing to grasp it.
I read it for a third time and the mists in my brain cleared. Inge was trying to be tactful. She’d been trying to be tactful on the phone, and I’d not listened and thought she was being patronizing. Barty was in a war zone and hadn’t been heard from for three days. She kept telling me not to worry, which probably meant she was worried, and she knew a sight more about it than I did.
He might have been dead for three days.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lil asked who Barty was and I told her. She was brisk and reassuring. ‘Zaire is a mess but he must have known that when he went,’ she said.
‘He did. That’s why he went.’
‘He’s competent and sensible?’
‘Very.’
‘And experienced in theatres of war?’
‘Minor ones, very.’
‘Then don’t let’s worry about him until we have something concrete to worry about. Must get back to the office – things to do. I’ll let myself out.’
I hardly noticed she’d gone, what with concentrating on not worrying about Barty. I fetched a glass of water from the kitchen and patted my stomach absently as I drank it. Time enough to think about life as a lone parent when – if – I knew that’s what it had to be. Meanwhile, get on with work, which meant finding Nick, which meant ringing Cairncross.
First, I’d wash. Displacement activity, probably, but I went upstairs to the bathroom and did it anyway.
I only just heard the telephone over running-water noises and leapt downstairs two at a time, mouth still sticky from toothpaste.
Alex? Lilian Seymour here.’
‘Lilian Seymour?’
‘Loony Lil,’ she clarified crossly. ‘We’ve just received a telephone call from a Richard Fairfax. He seemed to be expecting you to ring him about a job he wants you to do.’
Fairfax was following up? Surely, by now, he’d have talked to Jack Hobbs. They were mates. Would he want to hire a detective who’d kicked his friend in the balls? Unless Hobbs hadn’t told him, because Hobbs was guilty – but of what?
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