Candleland (17 page)

The man opened a dark wooden door, letting them in to a room that might once have been a small sitting room or study but was now a small office. The walls were lined with filing cabinets and shelving. Larkin checked out the books: child psychology, child development, social studies, legal procedure, current affairs. There were government papers and reports and also, incongruously, what appeared to be a complete set of Dick Francis paperbacks. A well-used Bible took pride of place near the desk. On a lower shelf was a portable CD / radio / cassette player surrounded by tapes and CDs. Larkin clocked the titles: The Best of Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Queen Of Soul, Marvin Gaye – What's Goin' On. Time warp taste, but good taste. On the desk was a PC and printer, next to that a small CCTV monitor.

Behind the desk sat a man. Middle-aged, shaven-headed, powerful-looking. He wore grey suit trousers, the jacket of which was slung over the back of his chair along with a plain wooden walking stick, green checked lumberjack shirt and red braces. His face gave nothing away.

“Thanks, Darren,” the man said, his voice like sandpaper over chrome.

Their guide excused himself and, with an unreciprocated little smile at Andy, left the room.

“Sit down, please, gentlemen.” The voice had unreconstructed East End authority. It was used to being obeyed. They did so.

“Now then,” he said, pointing at Larkin, “my little birdie tells me that you are Stephen Larkin, and you –” he pointed at Andy, “– are Andy Brennan. My name is Mickey Falco. What can I do for you?”

Larkin launched into his spiel once again, keeping it brief. Mickey Falco listened intently and impassively. Larkin reaching the end, stopped talking. Silence.

“Jackie Fairley,” said Mickey Falco eventually. “Poor, poor Jackie Fairley. She was a diamond. One in a million.” His sorrow seemed genuine.

“Yeah,” said Larkin. “So we hear.”

Mickey Falco looked him straight in the eye. They were intelligent eyes, like a fox's. “Who'd you 'hear that from?”

“The police. I spoke to them. They're still investigating.”

Mickey Falco shook his head. “Old Bill, bless em, will never solve it. I'm sure they'd make the effort for one of their own, but they wouldn't know where to look.”

Larkin was about to press him further on that when he spoke again.

“Now. You reckon I know where these girls Karen an' Hayley are, that right? What gives you that idea?” Mickey Falco asked.

“Nothing,” replied Larkin, “apart from the fact that we're sitting here talking about it.”

Mickey Falco gave a small smile, exclusively for his own benefit. “D'you know what ‘here' is, gentlemen?”

They both shook their heads.

Mickey Falco settled back in his chair. “Then I'll tell you. This is Candleland. We're a refuge. A safe house. If kids, young adults, are in trouble, for whatever reason, and they ain't got anywhere else to go, they come here. Or get brought here. Problems with parents, pimps, pushers, if they've been abused, victimised, runaways, whatever. We take them in. And we try to help them. Not sayin' we work miracles, mind, just sort them out, turn them round, point them in the right direction and let them toddle off.”

“And has Karen been here?” asked Larkin.

“She's been here. They've both been here,” Mickey Falco replied.

“And are they here now?” asked Andy.

Mickey Falco studied the two men intently, as if he was trying to X-ray his way through their bodies and read the intentions of their souls. Larkin didn't flinch, kept his gaze fixed. Showing he had nothing to hide.

“Karen,” began Mickey Falco, his mind apparently made up, “Karen had got herself into a spot of bother when she came to us.”

“What kind of bother?” asked Larkin, sitting forward.

“Her and her mate Hayley … offended someone.” He stopped talking, searching for the right word. “Someone … influential.” Mickey Falco kept his eyes fixed on Larkin and Andy, gauging, measuring their responses all the time.

“Who?” asked Larkin.

“You ain't got any idea?”

“Course we don't,” replied Andy. “Did you miss that bit about why we're 'ere?”

Mickey Falco smiled as if Andy's response amused him.

“Gentlemen,” said Mickey Falco, “now, there's something I haven't asked you. And it's important. If, or, I dunno, when, you catch up with Karen, what you gonna do then? What's your plans for her?”

Larkin was beginning to get irritated. “We don't have any plans for her. All we want to do is let her know her father is concerned about her and that he wants to meet with her. Beyond that, it's up to the pair of them.”

Mickey Falco said nothing, just nodded absently, as if reaching a conclusion within himself.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said eventually, “I think that's as far as we can go today.”

Larkin and Andy looked at each other. “That's it?” said Larkin.

“That's it,” said Mickey Falco. “Time for you two to skedaddle. Mickey's got work to do. Now, I hope I've made it clear that the location of this refuge is a secret,” he said, leaning forward, “and I want it to remain so.” His eyes hardened, turning to bright, glittering ball-bearings of metal. “But I don't suppose I have to tell you gentlemen that again, do I?”

“We found it easily enough,” said Andy, trying not to be unnerved by the stare.

“No you didn't,” replied Mickey Falco. “You had no directions. You were just following someone's trail. You didn't know where it would lead.”

Larkin nodded to himself. Yeah, he thought, that seems to sum up my visit to London so far.

“Now,” said Mickey Falco, handing over two pieces of paper, “if, and I stress the if, we are to talk again, I've got to get you two checked out. Names, addresses, phone numbers, work contacts, the whole lot, please.”

“Photos?” asked Andy.

“Got them,” said Mickey Falco, showing them two colour ten by eights. “CCTV hidden behind the front door. Digital camera hook-up. Expensive but necessary.”

“I'm impressed,” said Larkin.

“Good. So you should be.”

“So if we go along with you on this,” said Larkin, waving his piece of paper, “will it be worth our while talking to you again?”

“Depends, depends, depends. On if you are who you say you are,” said Mickey Falco. “On whether we think we've got something we can tell you. It's not a game. We have to protect ourselves.”

Larkin, reluctantly, nodded. He picked up a pen from the desk and, like Andy, began to fill up the paper in front of him.

There was something about Mickey Falco, something that didn't immediately compute. There was the obvious fact that he was running a refuge with everything that entailed, yet there was something more. They'd seen glimpses of a much harder nature, like he had a titanium skeleton, unbreakable. Larkin knew this was a man to tread warily round, respect.

“Stick your phone number on there where I can contact you,” said Mickey Falco.

“And when will that be?” asked Larkin.

“If and when I reckon you're cleared,” he said in an offhand way. He took his stick from the back of the chair, leaning heavily on it. “Thank you for your interest, gentlemen, I'll get someone to see you out.” He pressed a buzzer on his desk.

“One thing,” said Larkin, standing. “Candleland. Where does that name come from?”

Mickey Falco smiled. “Are either of you two Catholic?” he asked.

They shook their heads.

“Didn't think so. Well,” he said, pulling himself up to his full height, which wasn't much, “you probably know the practice? Lighting candles for departed souls? Now I might be something of an iconoclast, but the way I see it, the souls don't have to actually be dead, just lost, missing, disappeared, whatever. And that –” he gestured with his free arm, “– is where we are. Candleland.

“You see,” he said, voice gaining the precise authority and oratory of the street preacher, “Candleland is a wasteland. The land of the missing and the dispossessed. It's all around us. But the citizens don't want to acknowledge it's there. Just bumble about their lives, refuse to believe it exists. But somebody has to face up to it. Somebody has to be here to help.” The words sounded incongruous in the man's East End accent – incongruous but truthful. “And we're a candle, a beacon. We let them know there's somewhere they can go.”

Larkin smiled to himself. He thought of Jane Howell, a woman he'd left behind in Newcastle. She was now doing the same thing. “Good,” he said.

“An' it's also the title of Ian McCulloch's first solo album,” said Andy.

Mickey Falco regarded him as if he'd just sprouted an extra head. “Pardon?”

“Ian McCulloch. Lead singer with Echo and the Bunnymen. First solo album.” He looked between the two, reddening. “They've reformed now.”

“Glad to hear it,” rasped Mickey Falco.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in.” The door opened behind them. “Well, gentlemen.” Mickey Falco made his way slowly round the desk, leaning heavily on his stick. He shook hands with them. “I'll be in touch with you. Ralph here'll show you out.”

Larkin turned to go and was confronted by the middle-aged cyclist he'd seen earlier. The man stepped back suddenly, shock on his face, as if he'd been physically struck. He had recognised Larkin.

Larkin scrutinised him, mentally searching for the right file.

Then click. The tumblers moved into place, the long-closed door of his mind opened and the buried memory leapt up at him. He had never buried it that deeply in the first place; it was a shallow grave memory.

His legs went weak, his heart tumbled into sickening somersaults. He now knew who the man was. How the hell hadn't he sussed him earlier?

It was Ralph Sickert. The murderer of his wife and son.

Larkin just stood and stared. He couldn't move, he was rooted to the spot. No words, no coherent articulation came into his head, just jump-cut collage images, white noise, static. His body physically aped his mind; arhymetic heartbeat, limbs suddenly shaking. He could feel, hear and, at the corners of his eyes, see the pulse of his blood.

The room dissolved away. Larkin became unaware of everyone – everything – else as his concentration focused narrowly on the other man. Sickert was doing likewise. Time stopped, they stood transfixed by each other like mongoose and snake.

Mickey Falco was the one to break the moment. “D'you two know each other, then?” The lame question was asked out of genuine curiosity.

At these words, Sickert managed to pull his eyes from Larkin. At the same time his adrenal glands kicked his body into fight or flight and, wisely, he opted for safety. He turned and ran from the room.

Larkin, his body in a similar state but acting at the opposite extreme, quickly followed him.

Sickert ran down the hall to the front door. Larkin was after him, but Sickert had a better knowledge of the layout and locks of the place, plus a headstart. By the time Larkin reached the front door it had been slammed shut, with Sickert on the other side.

Both Mickey Falco and Andy were shouting now, out of the room, but Larkin either ignored or couldn't hear them. The red mist had descended, sharpening his vision to one man, one objective. Shrugging off restraining arms, he fumbled open the door and ran outside.

Sickert was across the road, pelting through the barren park. Larkin, his rage gifting him with immunity from any oncoming traffic, ran into the road. He reached the pavement on the other side, vaulted the low brick wall, and was into the park, also running.

Larkin knew Sickert couldn't outpace him. The cycling couldn't stave off the ageing and it was starting to tell on the man. Sickert's breath escaped in ragged bursts, the cold air turning it to instant clouds. Feet seeming to get heavier and heavier with each step, he began to resemble an old steam train breaking down.

Larkin saw Sickert reach the playground and allow himself a glance over his shoulder. He picked his pace up. He could see Larkin was gaining. Turning back to face the front, Larkin watched as Sickert stumbled on a discarded glass bottle, missed his footing and fell. A swing was directly in front of him and he made a desperate lunge for the chain to break his fall. He missed and sprawled over it, the swing hitting him flat in the chest, knocking all the air out of him. Within seconds Larkin was on him.

He grabbed Sickert by the shoulders, forced him round, face to face, and looped the chain of the swing round both his arms.

Larkin looked at Sickert, but didn't see the old, jowly man in front of him; ashen, unable to run away. No, his twisted eyes saw the City big noise, the amoral, immoral yuppy high-flyer he'd brought down. The man who had lost everything because of Larkin, the man who had forcibly removed anyone Larkin cared about as a consequence of those actions. That was the man Larkin saw when he drove his fist into Sickert's face, shattering the cartilage of his nose, bruising his own knuckles, savouring the pain.

Larkin took another swing, then another. Suddenly, he felt the air supply to his throat being forcibly, violently cut off. His hands sprang to his neck. Some kind of hard, polished restraining device. Mickey Falco's stick.

He felt himself being pulled backwards and fought against it. It got him nowhere, the grip on his neck was too strong. Instead, Larkin went with it, allowed Mickey Falco to pull him off Sickert and down on to the playground's blighted tarmac.

As soon as Larkin was prone on the ground, the cane was released. He gave it a beat, then sprang up, ready for round two. Or thought he did. The sudden lack of air had made him nauseous and lightheaded; he could only manage a slow climb to his knees. He saw Darren untangling Sickert from the swing.

“Leave him alone!” Larkin rasped. “The bastard's mine!”