A Cast of Vultures (23 page)

I heard the indicator again. ‘The chronology doesn’t work. Harefield didn’t turn up at his office on Thursday, but he was alive and breathing enough to inhale smoke on Saturday night when the house burnt down. Where was he in between? And why?’ Jake was thinking aloud, and continued on. ‘Let’s summarise. You think Frederick Winslow expected to buy a property his father owned, or at least be permitted to incorporate it into his plans. Instead he discovered that his father was ceding legal possession of it to the squatters. It’s a corner property, and without it his development is in jeopardy. He then learns from his contact in the council’s planning department that a colleague is aware both of his father’s plans to cede ownership of the house, and that R&B’s plans can’t proceed without it. He meets Harefield, somehow keeps him out of circulation for a few days and during those days he sets up a scenario to
make it look like Harefield was a drug dealer who had been caught in, or had caused, a fire, the fire serving the dual purpose of eliminating both Harefield and the squatter problem.’

‘Yes. But now you say it, the money he left in Harefield’s flat – the £25,000. It’s an awful lot, isn’t it? He’d never see it again.’

Jake made a dismissive sound. ‘How many houses did you say were going to be torn down to create this retail area?’

‘About two dozen.’

‘And property prices, even for residential, would rate that at what – twenty, twenty-five million if they were just sold as houses?’

I knew that from Land Registry site. ‘At least.’

He was bland. ‘So he’s protecting a deal where the land value is twenty-five million. Once the properties were turned into shops, the rental value would double, or treble. So no, spending a thousandth of that initial sum to ensure his deal goes through doesn’t seem excessive. If he was paying off planners, he’d be spending that already.’

Put like that, no, it didn’t. I mentally copied Jake’s dismissive sound: Pffft.

Then there was a thump, a car door, and Jake’s voice came through more plainly. ‘I’m at Talbot’s Road. I’ve parked and I’m going to have a look around. I’ll be home in twenty minutes or so. Will you write everything out for me, make notes?’

‘What are you doing?’ I demanded. I always stayed out of Jake’s work, but this wasn’t his work.

‘Just having a look around.’ It didn’t sound any more
concrete by virtue of being said twice. ‘Give me the house numbers. Which ones are part of the redevelopment scheme?’

I read them out and he repeated them, writing them down. Then he said, ‘Twenty minutes,’ and hung up.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. I hadn’t told him any of the important parts. Important parts like why someone wanted me dead.

T
HE PHRASE ‘WHY
someone wanted me dead’ echoed in my head. I looked at my laptop, still open to the squatting websites I’d been researching. While I’d been figuring out the details, it was as though it had happened to someone else. Now I was back to reality: people I knew had been burnt out of their house, their friend had been murdered, and someone wanted me dead. I decided I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I shut everything down.

I undressed and got into bed. I pretended to myself that I was going to read until Jake got home, even though I knew that there was too much rattling through my head. And then I was out like a light, asleep even before I finished the thought: ‘I’ll never manage to rea—’ If my life had been a cartoon, the remainder of the panels would have been filled with Zs.

I’m not a heavy sleeper, though, and I was vaguely aware of the front door opening and footsteps coming down the
hall. But while I was used to Jake coming in late, I wasn’t used to him sliding into the room in the dark and putting his hand over my mouth. A low voice in my ear, so low it was almost a vibration rather than a sound, said, ‘Don’t make any noise.’

I didn’t. I bit the hand.

‘Fuck,’ said the voice. Then, ‘It’s Sam. Stop that.’

Sam? The hand loosened enough that I could turn my head. It was Sam all right, kneeling beside the bed. He put his mouth to my ear again. ‘Your man’s been knocked out,’ he breathed. ‘There were two of them, so I came here. Where’s your phone? We’ll call the cops but we have to get out first. One of the men is in the next room. Do you understand?’

He waited until I nodded.

‘Can we get out the window?’

I nodded again. It opened on a light well, and we could jump down into the garden from there. I wasn’t sure what we’d do after that – there was no street access from the garden – but I’d burn that bridge when we came to it. Sam took his hand away and stood and I got out of bed, snatching my phone from its charger as he gently eased the window up. I joined him, and we were both out, and Sam had the window closed, before I even knew I’d moved.

The tar-paper surface of the light well was gritty under my bare feet. Sam pushed me back against the wall between my bedroom window and that of the spare room, putting his finger to his lips and then pointing to the room I used as an office. He was right. A light danced inside. A torch? I gripped my phone tighter.

I nodded, an acknowledgement that I’d seen it and
understood. I was ready to move, but again Sam pulled me back. This time he didn’t gesture. He unbuttoned his overalls. I’d never seen him in anything but homeboy jeans, but by the ambient light he was wearing what looked like a uniform. He shrugged out of the top and pulled off the T-shirt he wore underneath, holding it out to me as he looked in the other direction. Christ, I was naked. I’d been too startled, first, and then too scared, to notice, but here I was, standing with an adolescent boy in a light well at two in the morning, with only a phone to cover myself with. And phone coverage, as we all know, is never very reliable.

I’d have to be embarrassed some other time. I put the shirt on and, still silent, we moved to the open end of the light well. Sam looked over the edge and then jumped the few feet, gesturing to me to follow. He seemed to know what he was doing, so I did as I was told.

There was nowhere to hide in the garden. We stayed pressed to the wall of the house, but if anyone looked out of the kitchen door, they’d see us. Sam breathed in my ear again: ‘Is there any way to the street from here?’

I shook my head and moved my mouth to his ear. ‘That house’ – I pointed to the left – ‘that’s the end of the terrace.’ I’d never been in their garden, and didn’t know if it had street access, but I knew for sure the garden on the other side had none. And if we could get over the fence, then at least we’d be hidden from the person in my house, and I could call the police without being heard.

I saw Sam work it out too, and then he nudged me towards the fence. I looked up. It had to be two and a half metres high. And I’m – well, I’m not. More like one and a half. And despite zapping around the treetops at Kew, I’m
not athletic. Sheer terror had made me agile then. I wasn’t terrified now, just afraid.

Sam gave me no chance to think. He patted his thigh. ‘One foot here. Next on my shoulder, and you’re at the top.’

I looked at him. He was less than half my age, he’d barely left school, and had none of the education that I’d been taught to think was what mattered. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. ‘Thanks.’ And then I was up and at the top of the fence before I knew I’d even started. And, happily, before I remembered I wasn’t wearing underwear. Instead of that I focused on how I was going to get down the other side without Sam as my climbing frame. That resolved itself quickly when I overbalanced, and half-slid, half-fell. Sam dropped lightly down beside me a moment later.

Without speaking, we crossed the neighbours’ garden. Once we were around the side of their house I clicked at my phone to give us some light. A second outing for the torchlight app. I’d have to write an online recommendation: ‘Handy for fleeing household invasion!’ But that could wait. The light showed a gate closed with a deadbolt. We were out, and on the street.

Even so, I live on a dead-end street, and we would have to pass my house to get to the main road. I pulled Sam back into the shadow of the neighbours’ front steps. Voices carry at night, so I kept mine low. ‘I’ll ring the police from here.’ I had begun to hit 999 when I saw his head go up.

‘Not cops. Fire.’

Everything became simpler. Now we didn’t need to be quiet, unseen, we needed to make as much noise as
possible, to get everyone up and out of their houses. ‘I’ll take this side, you do that one,’ I shouted to Sam, and even as I reported the fire with my phone to my ear, I was already ringing bells and banging on doors. I sprinted to my house first. There was no doubt where the fire was – the light I’d seen in my office hadn’t been anything nearly as anodyne as a torch – and we had to get the Lewises and Mr Rudiger out fast.

The 999 operator was calm, promising an engine was minutes away. I didn’t need calm, I needed the police. I disconnected and scrolled down to Jake’s work number as I ran. I didn’t know if anyone would answer at that hour of the morning, but at the very least, I hoped the call would be forwarded. A voice replied on the second ring, ‘CID,’ so I was already ahead of the game.

‘I have to speak to Chris,’ I blurted, still banging on doors as I worked my way down the street. I must have heard Chris’ last name several times, but it had never stuck. Then I backtracked. ‘Inspector Jacob Field has been assaulted, and a house has been set on fire. Chris is in charge of the case. Please locate him.’

This voice was calm. ‘Where was the assault? Where is the inspector now?’

‘I don’t know. I—’ I looked around. Sam had deputed several neighbours to check that everyone was out, and was back beside me. ‘Where is Jake?’

‘Talbot’s Road. By the roadworks at the junction of the high street.’

I relayed the information as the fire engines arrived, my voice rising to be heard over the sirens. I began to run towards Talbot’s Road, Sam moving alongside me at a jog.

‘Officers are on their way. Do
not
approach the scene,’ said the voice on the phone, but I had no plans to pay any attention to it. It was a matter of minutes from my house to the roadworks, but when I reached the crossing, there was no one there. I stood, staring at the empty road: cars parked, houses dark, no Jake.

I was both winded and frantic. ‘Where?’ I shook at Sam’s arm. ‘Where did you see him?’

He pointed to a spot on the pavement, and I described it over the phone. ‘There are dark marks on the pavement where the assault took place.’ I wasn’t ready to say ‘blood’. ‘But there’s no one here.’

And I was off and running again, the answer obvious. ‘He’s in the flat,’ I called. I don’t know if I was telling Sam or the man on the phone. ‘They’ve put him in the flat and they’re going to burn it down.
Again
.’

My bare feet slapped along the pavement. Neighbours were spilling out along the adjacent street, drawn by the sirens, just as they had for the pub fire. I kept running as I turned into my street, running until I was stopped by a fireman who was moving everyone away from my house.

‘He’s in the flat,’ I said again, this time to anyone who would listen.

Wearing nothing more than a T-shirt has advantages. I slipped out of the man’s grasp and ran up to the house, only to be blocked by another fireman on the front steps. ‘There’s someone still in there,’ I gasped.

He gave me that Crazy Lady look that men reserve for any women over the age of twenty-four who behave in ways they don’t think appropriate. ‘Everyone’s out,’ he said.

I was leaning over, hands on knees, panting, but I had
enough breath for this. ‘No, he’s unconscious. He wouldn’t have heard anything.’ I stood up straight, to explain both to him and the man on the phone, who I suddenly realised was still there. ‘They’ve taken him from Talbot’s Road where he was knocked out, and carried him to the flat. It’ll burn down, and he’ll be dead. It’ll be like the last fire.’ I was shrieking at them both, even though I knew it gave them more reason to think I was a Crazy Lady.

I grabbed Sam, who had stayed beside me the whole time. ‘Sam, explain it to him.’ I pushed him towards the fireman on the path, distracting him enough to give me the seconds I needed to run up the stairs and into my flat.

The fire had barely had a chance to take hold. If Sam hadn’t woken me, if we hadn’t called the fire in, it would have been a different story, but this was the story that we were reading now. The place was filled with smoke, and there were firemen everywhere, but there was no urgency in their movements.

‘There’s an unconscious man—’ I said again, leaning against the wall.

‘There’s no one here. We’ve been right the way through.’

I just nodded.
Yes, there is
. ‘Boiler cupboard. Behind the kitchen door, on the left.’ If they’d checked all the rooms, it was the only place he could be, and unless they’d looked behind the door, they wouldn’t notice the cupboard.

The fireman stared at me for a moment, then turned and walked down the hall, pulling his mask back on. I knew what he would find, because the last I had heard from Jake he was on Talbot’s Road, Sam had seen him knocked out on Talbot’s Road, and he wasn’t on Talbot’s Road now. It took no imagination to work out what had happened. One
man took Jake’s keys and went to my house to set a fire, the other called in help and carried Jake to the flat, dumping him there while Sam and I were climbing over the garden fence. It would have been the empty house all over again: an unconscious man assumed to have died in a fire, this time with a dead woman too. Me.

I was pulled away from the door by the fireman I’d slipped past. He’d morphed from humouring the Crazy Lady to full-blown fury with a member of the public who wasn’t doing what she was told, but it didn’t matter now. Someone had gone to look for Jake. I realised I was still holding the phone, and I lifted it to my ear to see if the CID person was still there, waving a ‘Shush!’ to the angry fireman, and, when that had no effect, snapping, ‘I’m on the phone!’ as if I were a housewife interrupted by a particularly persistent Jehovah’s Witness with a pile of
Watchtowers
to get shot of.

I attempted to calm myself enough to decide what the police needed to know, but he didn’t wait, which was probably a good thing. ‘Where are you?’ he said.

I gave my address, adding, ‘The fire department is already here. There’s a fire.’ I admit, the first sentence probably meant I didn’t need the second, but this was life, not editorial decisions. ‘I went to Talbot’s Road, to where Inspector Field was assaulted. He wasn’t there. I think he was carried back and left here, and then the house was set on fire.’ I didn’t really expect him to believe me. Without the back-story, it sounded ridiculous. ‘Look, his colleague Chris, whose last name I don’t remember, knows about this. It’s part of a case he’s working. I was assaulted a couple of days ago, and—’

For the first time, the voice stopped sounding like a speak-your-weight machine. ‘Are you Sam?’

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. This person knew me? ‘Yes, I’m Sam.’

‘Hold on.’ His voice was sharp now, and then faded as he turned from the phone. I couldn’t hear the words, but the tone sounded like he was giving instructions. Then I stopped listening, because the front door of the house opened, and out came a fireman. And he was carrying Jake.

Time went elastic after that. The previous hour, from talking to Jake, through Sam appearing in my bedroom, and running to Talbot’s Road and back, had felt like it had taken seconds. Now the seconds it took for the fireman to bring Jake down the stairs lasted for hours. The you-got-past-me-once angry fireman wouldn’t let me go to him, so I had to stand for all those hours, waiting.

An ambulance nosed its way around the fire engines, and Jake was finally out of the house. I walked behind with my hand on his back. Everyone felt such a sense of triumph that I was no longer trying to force my way into a burning building that they didn’t try to stop me, and by the time we reached the ambulance, Jake was conscious and coughing.

He was set down and, with a little help, he stood briefly before the ambulance’s rear doors opened, and they sat him gently on the step. I kept a hand on him, in case someone tried to snatch him away and return him to the burning flat. And when the paramedic slipped an oxygen mask over his face and tried to move me to one side, Jake’s hand shot out and clasped my wrist, pulling me down to sit on the
step with him. I patted his arm.
Don’t worry
, the pat said,
Crazy Lady isn’t going anywhere
. Sam appeared at some point and stood on my other side. His posture radiated
Not moving either
, and nobody tried to argue.

We sat there until Chris and Paula and what felt like a thousand more policemen arrived. The paramedics wanted Jake to go to hospital, but he shook them off, claiming he was fine. He’d been in a cupboard, and so had been fairly well protected from the smoke. His head wound worried me more. Once they’d cleaned away the blood, it was surprisingly small, but still, he’d been unconscious. That couldn’t be good, but when the paramedics didn’t argue with him, I decided I wouldn’t either.