Blood Falls (11 page)

‘I’m trying to be thorough,’ he said. ‘You have to examine every possibility at the outset, otherwise you go running off on a wild-goose chase.’

‘Huh. Don’t you think I pray every night for a good reason for her to be missing? Don’t you think I hope she is somewhere else, safe and happy? So I can leave this terrible place and go back to my home, and my job, and my life?’

Weeping again, she found the tissue she had previously discarded, folded it until it was impossibly small and yet managed to blow her nose on it.

Chastened, Joe reached out and grasped her shoulder briefly. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t believe you.’

Alise let out a sigh. ‘You must ask these questions. I know.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘For insurance company, in the City. I am an actuary.’

Joe must have made a bad job of concealing his surprise, for she eyed him with a glint of humour. ‘You think I would be cleaning the toilets?’

‘No. But I’m surprised you’re able to get time off to do this.’

‘I use all my holiday for the year, plus some compassionate leave. Plus a warning that they will fire me if I am not back one week from now. I am good at my job, but their patience is nearly at the end. I need to find Kamila very soon. Even if she is dead …’

Alise tailed off, giving a simple shrug. The tears had stopped. In their place was a calm, quiet pragmatism that chilled Joe, even though on another level he understood it perfectly.

‘If she is dead, I want the body to bury.’

Nineteen

IN GENERAL, LIKE
most people, Leon thought sunshine was a good thing. Good for business, in a town reliant on tourism. Good for the mood – hence expressions like ‘a sunny smile’ and ‘a sunny disposition’. And good for photographs, taken outside, of a group of important but not particularly attractive middle-aged men, all keen to project an aura of power and prosperity.

So, for the latter reason at least, Leon was glad when the weather changed for the better. It allowed a bright, optimistic light to shine on the little group of dignitaries as they stood, chests puffed out, trading phoney smiles and frozen handshakes for the cameras.

Leon was confident that he looked every bit as powerful and prosperous as anybody else – and almost as respectable. A job well done, with all kinds of future benefits in terms of reputation and prestige. Plus, very sweet timing that Giles Haw-hee-haw was there to see it and include it in his article.

But on the journey home the sunshine wasn’t so kind. During the buffet, while listening to some arse-licker from the chamber of commerce, he’d had a sense that a migraine was developing. A couple of times his vision had distorted, like glancing into a funhouse mirror. There was a vague not-quite-nausea swelling in his throat.

He’d ignored the signs. Sometimes, if he stayed mellow enough,
he could pretty much wish it away. But that meant not thinking about Alise-fucking-Briedis, or this new feller in town.

On the way back the pain came creeping up on him, intensified by the sunlight lancing through the screens. The Merc’s tinted windows didn’t help; neither did his two-hundred-quid Oakley sunglasses.

As the car pulled into the wide gravel driveway, Leon reached forward, gripped the passenger headrest and overcame the urge to vomit by the sheer force of his will.

Giles swallowed loudly. ‘Leon …?’

Warren, from the driver’s seat, said, ‘The boss gets terrible headaches.’

‘Migraines,’ Leon said. If there was one upside, it was that he didn’t have to fake a reason to ditch the journalist.

When the nausea receded, he got out of the car, keeping his back to the sun. He spotted Glenn in the doorway, his whole posture screaming crisis. Leon tipped his head sideways, discreetly motioning for Glenn to go back indoors. Then he gave Giles some guff about checking out the amusement arcade.

‘Used to be a tip. I snapped it up, put Glenn in charge of the renovations. Added a snack bar. A bigger car park. Persuaded the council to stick a skate park and basketball court next door. We even took on some young kids, a couple of the … what do you have to call ’em? “Special needs”?’

Giles pulled a face. ‘Alas, we do, now the PC brigade have us in their Stalinist grip.’

‘Yeah. Soft in the head, we used to say. They do a decent job, though. No fuss about minimum wage. Could pay ’em in jelly beans and they’d be grateful.’

With the journalist dispatched, Leon hurried inside. Saw Pam, his housekeeper, and tapped his head. Then Glenn started up; Leon silenced him with a raised hand, and cut into the toilet just off the hall. Turned out the need to vomit had only been postponed.

After throwing up, he rinsed his mouth with cold water. Splashed
his face. Pam brought the box of Maxalt and a glass. He popped a 10mg tablet from its blister pack, told it to work fast or else.

That was one pain confronted. Now for the other.

‘Fuck were you playing at?’

‘I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Yeah, but how could I answer with Giles practically parked in my lap? Engage your fucking brain in future.’

‘Sorry, Leon.’ With a morose sigh, Glenn followed Leon across the wide hall, the sound of their footsteps on the stone floor jarring Leon’s brain. He glanced in one of the living rooms and spotted Kestle, pimply and ginger, glued to his Nintendo DS.

‘Why aren’t you in Truro?’

Kestle, panicked, said: ‘That’s Marc’s route today. I just got off my shift.’

‘Yeah? Well, rustle up some drinks, would you? I’ll have my usual, and get Pam to do me a cheese sandwich and some crisps. Lots of crisps.’

‘Didn’t they have a spread laid on at the council?’ Glenn asked.

‘Only some finger food. Vol-au-vents and shit like that.’ Leon snorted. ‘Still, paid for by our taxes, so I’d have been pissed off if it had been caviar and steak.’

‘I bet they keep that back for themselves,’ Glenn said darkly.

‘Yeah. Whatever.’ Leon didn’t rise to it; he knew Glenn was sucking up to him. ‘Makes no difference, seeing as how I just dumped most of it down the bog.’

Although there was a small private study upstairs, Leon’s main office was on the ground floor: a vast room that contained a desk, a couple of sofas and a conference table spacious enough for a dozen people.

Derek Cadwell was sitting on one of the sofas like a lumbering white zombie, a cup and saucer balanced primly on his knee. Clive Fenton was behind the desk, a stack of paperwork under one elbow, two laptops up and running in front of him. Fenton was another big
man, not as tall or freaky as Cadwell but massively overweight. Hair like a baby duckling’s, teased and brushed to look thicker than it was.

Fenton was Leon’s right-hand man – although Glenn, in his own head, probably thought he occupied that position. But Fenton had real brains, as well as solid experience in the world of law and accountancy. Proper legitimate skills and a great head for figures, albeit not as good as Leon himself. Nobody could touch Leon on arithmetic.

Both men greeted him warmly. Both spotted that something was wrong.

‘Migraine coming on,’ he said.

‘Maybe you should have a lie down,’ Glenn suggested.

Leon took a chair at the conference table. ‘In a minute. First I want to hear exactly what we’ve got going on.’ He saw Glenn opening his mouth, so he said, ‘You first, Derek.’

As it turned out, neither of them had much new information. Leon wasn’t happy to hear that.

Kestle came in with tea and coffee, plus cranberry juice for Leon, who didn’t care for hot drinks. He took a careful sip, his stomach lurching and queasy and yet craving food, as often seemed to happen with the migraines.

‘I wanna know more about this Joe Carter,’ he said, stabbing a finger at Glenn. ‘You think Diana’s holding back on you?’

Glenn shrugged, his cheeks bright red. ‘I bloody hope not—’

‘Me neither. So find out. I don’t expect you to slap her around, but you can get more than this. Tell her to search his room, or you do it. I want to know what’s in his wallet, what’s on his phone. Gotta be something there.’

Glenn nodded, but without much enthusiasm. Pam delivered his sandwich and a selection of crisps: salt-and-vinegar, cheese-and-onion, as well as Quavers, his favourite. Leon grabbed a bag, tore it open and inhaled the contents.

‘So what about this damn girl?’ Cadwell said. ‘I can’t go on like this, soaking up the heat on your behalf.’

‘I know that,’ Leon snapped. ‘But I got this journalist on me like a second skin.’

‘Of course, long-term his article could exacerbate the situation,’ Fenton cut in. ‘If it raises your profile, she might be encouraged to shout all the louder.’

Leon prised the debris of the crisps from his molars while he translated Fenton’s words into English. Eventually he signalled his agreement with a grunt. ‘Good point.’

‘Then she has to be removed,’ Cadwell said. ‘It’s that simple.’

‘Hardly simple,’ Glenn said, indignant on Leon’s behalf.

Cadwell shrugged, like it was beneath him to respond to anything Glenn said. He addressed Leon: ‘Your friends on the force can turn a blind eye, can’t they?’

Something about his tone got Leon’s hackles up. ‘They won’t have to, if we’re smart about it.’ He opened a bag of salt-and-vinegar and stuffed a handful of crisps in his mouth. Aware that Cadwell was wincing at the noise, he crunched as loudly as he could, mouth wide open, spraying fragments into the air. ‘If we do it, we need to move fast.’

‘Agreed,’ Fenton said. The others nodded.

‘Tonight.’ Leon swallowed, smacked his lips together. ‘And I wanna talk to her first.’

Twenty

OVER A FRESH
round of tea and coffee, Joe asked more about Alise’s life. Did she have any kind of support network in London?

‘Only my boyfriend,’ she said, with a derisive snort. ‘He works for same company, in IT development. We had been two years together, we talked of marriage. Then Kamila goes missing and Jason is not worried. He thinks Kamila is spoilt bitch.’

‘What was her opinion of him?’

‘Huh. She always tell me I can get a better man. She is right. When police are here, talking to Leon, I call him, and Jason is like …’ She mimed a yawn while making a
yak yak
motion with her fingers. ‘So I dump him.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Better to find out now he is a prick, instead of marrying him first.’

The bluntness of her response made Joe laugh; after half a second Alise joined in.

‘And you?’ she said. ‘You are new to this town?’

‘I’m staying with a friend. She runs the Dolphin B&B.’

Alise grimaced. ‘When they find out why I’m here, none of these places would give me a room. They know I am blaming Leon. In their eyes I am his enemy, so they want nothing to do with me.’

This is Leon’s town
. Although Ellie had subsequently downplayed the statement, Joe was inclined to believe it had been a
truthful response, before she’d thought to worry about speaking out of turn.

He surveyed the cafe again. The two women had just departed, the nosier one treating Joe to a haughty glare on the way out. The bikers remained engrossed in one another. The waitress was behind the counter, wrapping a cake in cling film.

‘Not everybody’s like that, surely?’

Alise waved dismissively at the window. ‘Some days it can look beautiful, but this is not a nice town. No one cares. No one will help.’

Then a long, calculated pause. Joe knew what was coming. He couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t blame her for saying it.

‘But you care. Will you help me?’

He knew he should refuse outright, but it shamed him that he had stood and watched while Cadwell grabbed her by the throat. Now, during this conversation, he’d shifted into professional mode, assembling the raw material of the case as if preparing to investigate it. That was no doubt how it would seem to Alise – raising expectations that he couldn’t fulfil.

So, for now, he avoided giving an answer, diverting her with another question.

‘What do you know about the first man your sister met? The one who took her to the Cotswolds?’

‘I know his name, but nothing more. You think we should talk to him?’

‘Was he interviewed by the police?’

‘No, I … did not mention him.’ She blushed, suddenly haunted by guilt. ‘Did I get this wrong?’

‘Not at all. I’m sure he isn’t involved, but it’s a place to start. Did you say he met Kamila at the hotel where she worked?’

‘Yes. Palace Garden hotel, in Piccadilly.’

‘Any friends of Kamila’s there? Anyone who could look up the records and find his address or a phone number?’

Alise was starting to read his thought processes; smiling and nodding even before Joe finished the question.

‘Yes. There is one man. He liked Kamila, also. He is worried for her.’ She beamed at him. ‘This is good. I never think of this. Thank you.’

Joe shrugged, a little rueful because he was still backing himself into a corner. The worst thing was, part of him didn’t particularly mind.

‘I will call him this afternoon,’ Alise went on. ‘Let me take your mobile number, yes?’

He gave her the number, reassuring himself that it couldn’t really hurt. Another thought struck him.

‘Do you know where Leon lives?’

Alise looked taken aback. ‘It is on the hill above the town. There is a cave, for tourists. Follow the sign to the cave. Leon’s house is just before this place.’ She studied him for a moment, her eyes misting over. ‘All this time it is my dream to have someone who listens.’

Joe felt unworthy of the praise. The voice of caution reminded him that Ellie Kipling, whilst appearing to be no great fan of Leon’s, had nevertheless been scornful of the allegations that Alise was making. Joe wondered if he was susceptible to a sob story like this because, in their own way, his own wife and children were missing.

‘What about Derek Cadwell?’ he said, remembering that Ellie had at least shared Alise’s loathing of the undertaker.

‘Cadwell and Leon work together on many things.’ Alise crossed her fingers to illustrate the point. ‘You should speak to a man named Patrick Davy. He owns a gallery along from here. Ask him if Derek Cadwell is a—’