by Greg Keen
Chop jumped off the low stage and landed on the concrete floor with a dull clump. His outfit matched his demeanour: grey V-neck sweater, dark-blue shirt, heavily creased chinos and black suede brogues. It’s not often that I have the sartorial advantage in life. I felt like David Bowie standing beside Chop.
My tablet was in sleep mode. It took a few seconds to bring the photograph back. Chop pushed his glasses on to his forehead and stared at the screen.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked after a few seconds.
‘It was published in the Essex Courier in 2001. I found a hard copy on Saskia Reeves-Montgomery’s houseboat. She said that she had something important she wanted me to see. I think this may have been it.’
No response from Chop.
‘Look at the woman,’ I said, and enlarged the picture using thumb and index finger. ‘Don’t you think she looks exactly like Emily Ridley?’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said after a few more seconds scrutinising the tablet. ‘Lydia bore a remarkably strong resemblance to Emily back then.’
‘You remember her name?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’
‘And are you still in touch?’
‘We had supper two weeks ago.’
‘Who is she?’ I asked.
‘My sister,’ Chop replied.
THIRTY
Several million coffin nails had probably been manufactured in Studio 4 before it became Studio 4, making it ironic how many NO SMOKING signs were on the walls. I was so desperate for a nicotine hit that I could barely focus on Chop’s account of the Mickleton Lodge fire. Sitting on the stage, his trousers had ridden up to reveal unexpectedly hairy shins above a pair of argyle socks.
‘Thank God it didn’t properly take hold,’ he said after explaining that the fire had broken out in the kitchen. ‘Otherwise I’m not sure how it would have turned out for Lydia and me. Even so, if Diego hadn’t acted as promptly as he did then we might well not have made it out.’
‘Diego being your gardener?’
‘That’s right. During summer he occasionally stays in the guest cottage at the rear of the property. Fortunately he was up before dawn and raised the alarm. If he’d decided to go home the previous day . . .’
Chop pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘As it was, we got off lightly,’ he continued. ‘Several items in my memorabilia collection were destroyed, and Diego had to be treated for smoke inhalation.’
‘The investigators were certain it was an electrical fault?’ I asked.
‘Positive,’ Chop said. ‘Some of the wiring was seventy years old. It was an accident waiting to happen.’
‘What was destroyed in your collection?’
‘Posters, photographs, T-shirts. Nothing of any great monetary value.’
‘No suspicions at all surrounding the fire?’
‘Not according to the incident report. Although, having said that . . .’ Chop scratched the back of his neck. ‘. . . there had been a burglary two days before.’
‘What did they take?’ I asked.
‘A few hundred pounds and some jewellery.’
‘Did you report it?’
‘Only to get a crime number. The police thought it was probably kids.’
‘Why?’
‘They spray-painted graffiti on the walls and one of them . . . one of them defecated on my bed. Not the kind of things professionals do, apparently.’
Chop was right. Your career burglar likes to get in and out with as little fuss as possible. Taking a dump and tagging walls takes time and leaves DNA behind. The kind of person who does that is usually high . . . or bears a grudge.
‘Was there anything personally abusive about the graffiti?’ I asked.
Chop thought about it and shook his head.
‘Not that I can recall. Mostly it was just four-letter words.’
‘Could whoever broke in have interfered with the wiring?’
‘Wouldn’t the investigation have indicated that?’
Fair point.
‘And why do all the damage if arson was your motive?’ he added.
Another fair point.
‘And why would anyone want to burn me alive?’
Fair point number three. The only reason I could think of that anyone might want to immolate Chop was that he knew something they wanted kept quiet. Even if he didn’t know he knew it.
Someone like the Golden Road.
‘Are you quite sure this photograph is the one Saskia wanted to show you?’ Chop asked. ‘Admittedly it’s quite dramatic, but that aside . . .’
‘I’m not sure, no,’ I said. ‘It was left under the lid of the copier.’
‘Possibly by accident?’
‘Possibly,’ I admitted.
‘Then why do you think it’s so significant?’
‘Your sister looks incredibly like Emily.’
‘Not anymore. Two divorces and three children take a toll.’
‘But at the time . . .’
‘Lydia was a big fan of Emily’s look, although your photograph makes her appear more like her than she actually did.’
Chop frowned as though something had just occurred to him.
‘Do you think Saskia might have thought it was proof she was still alive?’ he asked.
‘No idea,’ I said.
‘What do the police think?’
‘About what?’
‘The photograph. I’m assuming they’ve seen it.’
‘They haven’t. I took it from the copier before they arrived on the scene.’
‘Does that mean you found the body, Kenny?’
I nodded. Chop winced.
‘That must have been awful.’
‘It was. I’d only met Saskia a couple of times but I liked her very much. And no one deserves to be put through the ordeal she was. Someone held an electric iron to her face before they killed her.’
‘Christ, why do that?’
‘Either to find out something she knew or for kicks. The consensus opinion seems to be that it was to see if she had any valuables on the boat.’
‘You don’t seem convinced.’
‘I’m not. The way Saskia lived it must have been pretty clear to anyone that she didn’t have a lot of cash. It was either a sadist or someone who wanted to find out information she had before they killed her.’
‘Connected to Castor and Emily?’ Chop asked.
‘That’d be my guess,’ I said.
Yvonne entered the studio. Her eyes were a little red but little else indicated that she had just been comprehensively bollocked. Her coach was on his feet immediately.
‘Yvonne, I’m incredibly sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just that you’re the strongest finalist by a country mile and I want to get an amazing performance from you.’
Bullshit, although it played well with Yvonne.
‘I know you’re trying your best for me, Chop,’ she said. ‘I was thinking in the ladies that maybe we should try a different number. I sang “River Deep, Mountain High” at the audition, don’t you think it’s better suited to my vocal range?’
Mime was best suited to Yvonne’s vocal range. Judging by the way Chop flinched as though she’d thrown a glass of ice water in his face, he shared my opinion.
‘Huge mistake to switch songs at this stage,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we give it another half-hour and call it a day? Don’t want to strain the cords . . .’
Yvonne beamed. ‘You’re the boss,’ she said.
The first thing I did on leaving Encore Studios was google Chop Montague sister. Three images came up. In two, Lydia Montague was with her brother – an awards do and at their mother’s funeral. In the third she was wearing riding gear and standing next to a horse called Fruit Fly. Lydia Montague was prominent in her own right as a three-day event equestrian on the verge of the British Olympic team.
Had Emily Ridley lived to bear three children and spend a lot of time riding over open country in all weathers, she may have ended up l
ooking like Lydia Montague. Chop’s sister had a ruddy complexion and sturdy shoulders. The elfin look was long gone, although at a stretch it was possible to imagine Lydia as the girl in the photograph. Her brother and Odeerie had been right: I’d made two and two add up to five, or more specifically a random photo add up to a conspiracy.
I called St Mick’s and arranged an appointment for the following morning. By noon I’d be scheduled to have my operation, always assuming that the surgeon didn’t saw my skull open there and then.
My cabbie’s genial banter and wry sense of humour added up to the best case for self-driving cars I’d ever heard. By the time we pulled up at Brewer Street, I was on the point of strangling the cockney git.
My plan for the rest of the day was to chain Marlboros, eat junk food and drink Monarch until I passed out. Shortly after instructing Dominos to bike round a cheesy chicken, bacon and chorizo pizza, my phone buzzed with a message.
We are in the grey van. Open the rear door and get in. Leave your phone behind.
According to my watch it was 6 p.m. exactly.
Life often hinges on choices that seem insignificant at the time. Should I take this job offer? Ask Jill from accounts out? Take the 3.15 from Waterloo or the 4.18 from Victoria? Climbing into a van on the instruction of an untraceable email and an anonymous text message does not fall into that category. You know that it’s not something you’ll barely remember a month afterwards. There will be consequences.
I stared out at the vehicle on the opposite side of the street for at least a minute. Tinted windows made it impossible to see the driver. Apart from that it was a standard Transit – the kind of thing plumbers and electricians drive around on a daily basis. On the other hand it had also been the vehicle of choice for serial killers, rapists and terrorists for over fifty years. My phone bleeped again:
60 seconds.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair and took the stairs two at a time. Crossing the road, I almost collided with a Deliveroo cyclist.
The handle on the back door was stiff and took some opening. The interior of the van was empty and dimly lit. If I got in then I was taking a journey to who knew what and who knew where. If I didn’t then I would probably never know the fate of Castor Greaves. There was another possibility, of course, but I put that out of my mind as I closed the door behind me. The engine started up and the driver put it into gear.
And off we went.
THIRTY-ONE
The first thing I noticed was the empty van’s astringent smell; the second that its doors had been centrally locked. For twenty minutes I sat with my back against the side and tried to envisage our destination. Would Castor’s whereabouts be revealed in a cosy bistro over a rack of lamb and an agreeable Bordeaux? Probably not. Likelier scenarios were deserted woods, lock-up garages or remote farm buildings.
The sounds of the city faded and the Transit picked up speed. The temperature dropped. I jammed my hands in my pockets to keep them warm. The resin smell became more pungent, as though the van had been used for transporting recently felled pine logs. Odds shortened on the woods as our final destination.
After we’d been travelling the best part of an hour, the van slowed. It took several turns, suggesting we were negotiating roundabouts, and came to a halt. I heard the driver’s door open. Moments later, so did mine.
I was looking at Donald Trump.
The latex mask was the kind you buy at joke shops with holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth. It was disturbing in and of itself. When worn by a bulky man in a donkey jacket, doubly so.
‘Get out,’ he ordered. I swung both feet on to the tarmac road on which the vehicle was parked.
My legs were weak and it wasn’t entirely due to the cramp and the cold. The guy indicated that I should raise my hands and then patted me down. In the gloom I could make out three buildings. The largest was two storeys high. All the windows had been boarded up. Bits and pieces of twisted metal were strewn over a concrete forecourt, through which weeds had broken at irregular intervals.
A shove in the back sent me stumbling forward. A second helped me further along the way. ‘Keep fucking going,’ the guy instructed. The closer we got to the units, the more evident it became that they’d been derelict for a considerable time. Corrugated roofs had oxidised, and even the tin sign that read UNSAFE STRUCTURE: KEEP OUT had begun to buckle away from the brickwork.
The entrance doors to the largest unit had been secured with a padlock. My companion – or ‘abductor’ might be the more accurate description – removed a bunch of keys from his jeans and selected one.
‘Watch your step inside,’ he said. ‘There’s all sorts of crap lying around and the electricity’s live.’
It was dark, cold and damp inside the building. Water flowed steadily through a ruptured pipe somewhere, its sound magnified by the silence. The door closed and the blackness became so profound that I could almost reach out and grab handfuls of the stuff. A lever was thrown and the interior flooded with light.
The place was the size of a car showroom. Beyond that, all comparisons ended. Its rough cement floor was strewn with broken glass, chunks of masonry and what looked like a rusted engine. To my left were a couple of small brick enclosures, to my right a channel about six foot wide constructed from two low concrete walls.
Halfway down the channel a piece of orange-painted machinery had been mounted, with cables that fed into its rear. A few yards further down, a winch had been bolted into the ceiling. From it hung several lengths of chain. A large metal drain had been set into the floor. Not a deserted farm building, not a lock-up garage, and not a deserted wood either. I was standing in a derelict slaughterhouse.
Trump led me to a wooden chair and forced me on to it. He positioned my wrists behind my back. I felt a nylon tie click into place around them and waited for a bullet to the back of the head and a split-second journey into oblivion.
‘How are you, Kenny?’
The question emerged from an ancient tannoy speaker attached to one of the walls. It had been digitally disguised in the same way the guy claiming to be Castor’s had when he warned me off the case in his late-night call. Presumably vocal synthesisers were standard-issue at the Golden Road.
‘I’ve felt better,’ I managed to say. ‘Who are you?’
‘Call me George. Who knows, it might even be my real name. The driver’s Alex, by the way, and as far as you not feeling too great is concerned . . . sorry, but you did accept our invitation.’
‘Whose invitation?’
‘We’ll discuss that later,’ George said. ‘For the moment, let’s focus on your surroundings. Any idea what this place used to be?’
‘A sherbet-dip factory?’
‘Try again.’
‘It’s an abattoir.’
‘Correct. To be specific, you’re currently in the dispatching shed. Cattle would be led through the door opposite you and into the slaughterhouse. A bolt would be fired directly into their brain, after which the carcass would be taken to the rendering plant next door. All very humane and efficient, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Tip-top,’ I said. ‘Can I leave now?’
‘Except that description omits a lot of detail,’ George continued. ‘They say animals can sense danger, which may well be true. The one thing they must have been able to do was smell the blood and hear the terrified bellows. It had to be an appalling place to work. Have you ever met a slaughterman, Kenny?’
‘Not that I recall.’
‘Most only do the job for a few months and then leave. Those who last longer either become desensitised to the work or actually enjoy inflicting pain. They’re the ones undercover journalists find playing baseball with live chickens or blinding calves with hook knives to watch them stumble around the yard for an hour or two.’
‘Any specific reason you’re telling me this?’ I asked.
‘Merely to emphasise that you’re in a place where bad things have happened,’ he said. ‘And a place in whic
h bad things can happen still. Clear on that?’
‘Crystal,’ I replied.
‘Good, then let’s proceed to the matter at hand. You were employed by Pamela Ridley to find her daughter Emily. You succeeded in that endeavour and now you’re trying to discover the whereabouts of Castor Greaves. Is that right?’
I confirmed it was.
‘The organisation I represent would like you to cease doing so immediately. In return we are prepared to tell you what it is that you want to know.’
‘What happened to Castor?’
‘Correct, although the information is for your edification only. Continue to search for Castor and the next time we get in touch will be the last time we get in touch. Does this make sense, Kenny? It’s important there are no misunderstandings.’
‘Perfect sense,’ I said. ‘What’s the name of your organisation?’
‘As far as its members are concerned, it doesn’t have a name,’ George said. ‘Although inevitably people have invented something to call us by.’
‘The Golden Road?’
‘Indeed. Although everything you’ve heard is almost certainly nonsense.’
‘So tell me the truth.’
‘I don’t think so, Kenny. What you’re interested in is what happened to Castor Greaves on the night he was last seen in Soho.’
‘And where he’s been for the last twenty-two years,’ I added.
‘I can help on both counts,’ George said. ‘Castor left the Emporium club at one forty-five. He got into a van, not unlike the one you arrived in tonight, and two days later departed the country.’
‘Why didn’t the security cameras pick him up leaving the club?’
‘They were doctored. A relatively easy procedure in those days.’
‘Did Castor kill Emily Ridley?’
‘He did not,’ George said.
‘Who did?’
‘I can’t help you with that.’
‘Because you don’t know?’
‘I can’t help you,’ he repeated. ‘Ask a different question.’
‘Where was Castor taken?’
