Falling Off Air (34 page)

The next morning I opened the window and took a deep breath, the air like spring water. I showered, I carbo-loaded on scrambled
eggs and bacon and toast, fending off the landlord's attempts at conversation. Betty had clearly shared her suspicions with
her husband, and he was questioning me about where I was from and why I was in Penzance. I didn't want to talk, and he must
have concluded that I was guilty. I got back in my car, and drove to the address that Jane had given me. Market Jew Street
could have been a high street anywhere, complete with Boots and Woolworth's and WH Smith. Elderly women pulled shopping carts,
and young mothers pushed strollers. There were few men around, and those there were had nothing to push or pull. There was
no beach crowd at this time of year, just a few brave walkers, dressed professionally against the weather.

Away from the street a maze of alleys sloped up and away from the sea, and it was here, vertiginously perched just off Causeway-head,
that I found a modest terraced cottage, a small hand-painted plaque next to its door confirming that it was the office of
the Penzance Clear Water Rehabilitation Project. I rang the bell, but there was no response, and I realized that the windows
were still dark. I turned around to leave—so much for early-morning optimism—but as I did so, a man hailed me. He was striding
toward me, and I met him halfway.

“Who are you looking for?” he asked.

“You're Michael Amey,” I said, recognizing him from the documentary film.

“At your service.”

“Robin Ballantyne,” I said, and held out my hand. He gave me an intent look, but shook my hand anyway, then led the way to
the office, where he unlocked the door and pushed it open, waving me in ahead of him.

“We don't really get started until about ten,” he said, brisk and businesslike, “but the day stretches into the morning at
the other end. Now, tell me what I can do for you.”

Amey was, I guessed, in his early fifties. He wore a tweed jacket and had a receding but distinguished hairline. He was bluff
and sociable, but I imagined that he did not suffer fools gladly. He had a vaguely military air to him. I glanced at his shoes.
Brown leather, well worn, but they shone. Inside the building, the original layout remained: a narrow corridor, small rooms,
the thick granite walls taking up more space than any modern architect would have allowed. We sat in an office that was small
but perfectly ordered, except for a mound of mail in a basket marked “In-tray.”

“I've been away,” Amey explained as he followed my eyes. “I'm afraid things mount up. I don't know if you know, but what we're
trying to do here is keep people out of prison, even persistent offenders. We're trying to get them into detox, turn their
lives around. It's a constant battle. How anyone can imagine that with a challenge like that we have time for the fine print
of bureaucracy …” He stopped himself and took a deep breath. “But I'm sure that's not why you've come to see me.”

I launched into my story, keeping my eyes glued to his. He must not think me shifty, or indeed mad. I told him about finding
Paula Carmichael's body, about the death of Adam, and my conviction that the two deaths were linked. I told him that the police
did not share my view, told him that I myself was a suspect in the killing of Adam. I said I believed he could help me by
talking to me about Carmichael's visit during the making of the documentary. As I spoke I could see the tension rising. By
the time I was finished, his jaw was set, his lips thin.

“Well, I knew a lot of that already,” Amey said when I drew to a halt, “but thank you for being so candid. Tell me what you'd
like to know.”

“I think something happened here that put an end to the filming of the documentary,” I said. “I know that there was some sort
of falling out between Suzette and Paula, and that perhaps something happened that involved Adam too.”

“I'm afraid I can't help you with any internal differences,” he said. “If there were personality clashes between the three
of them, that's nothing to do with us or our work here.”

I nodded slowly, asking myself whether there was any other way to approach this.

“I understand that,” I said carefully, “but I wonder how you would characterize your relations with each of those three people.”

“Characterize my relations?” Amey laughed nervously, but then he caught sight of my face and the laugh disappeared. “What
does it matter?”

“Well, people may have died because of it,” I said quietly.

Amey raised his eyebrows, but he gave a little bow from his neck, and started to speak.

“Everything we do here is sensitive. We walk a tightrope, perhaps they didn't understand that.” He paused, to give me time
to digest what he'd said. “We'd talked to the production company, and we were aware in advance that the filming here would
be a small part of the documentary about Paula, and about her organization, and that really we would be filmed just as an
illustration of the work that organization does. Everything was fine at first. I liked Paula Carmichael, and we were all fully
supportive of the documentary. In our view, and in the view of our governors, the more publicity Paula Carmichael got, the
more people would be motivated to help. It's meant a lot to organizations like us, the extra funding. I can't say it's flowed,
but there's been a steady trickle since Paula Carmichael came on the scene. So we were only too happy to do our bit. At first.”
Amey shifted in his chair, leaning forward, supporting his elbows on his knees, and pressing the tips of his fingers together.
“There was a lot of filming, lots of talking, lots of interviewing. Paula was absolutely delightful, so there was absolutely
no ill will, none at all. Then she wanted interviews with clients. We found a couple who were willing to talk on film, and
that went well I think. Then …” He screwed up his face and looked away. “Much as I want to help, I'm going to ask you to keep
what I tell you next confidential. You'll understand why. I'm cooperating with you, and on this I need you to cooperate with
me.”

“I'll try, but if this has a bearing on someone's death, then it's your responsibility as much as mine to inform the police.”

He gazed at my face for a minute, the muscles at his jaw working.

“Well, I really don't think it does, so I'll take that risk. The thing is, Paula came to me and said that, in order to communicate
the horror of drug abuse, she needed film of someone actually using drugs. Preferably someone young and vulnerable, she said.
Well, hah!” Amey sat back in his chair. “I was stunned at the suggestion. She knows perfectly well that there have been cases
where social workers have been imprisoned for allowing drug-taking on their premises. She said it didn't have to be on the
premises, but any hint of our collusion, if it ever got out, would have been the end of us. I refused point blank. A scandal
like that, and everything we've been working for … Even my volunteers don't really know what happened. They know Paula and
I had a falling out—some of them may have put two and two together and got four—but this was something I tried at least to
keep between Paula and myself.”

Amey stopped speaking, but I knew that was not the end of the story.

“But eventually you helped her find someone,” I said, trying to bluff it out of him.

“I did not,” Amey protested. “I've told you, I refused point blank to have anything to do with it, and Paula dropped the subject.
I never heard any more of it, but it had poisoned the atmosphere, and frankly I was glad to see them go.”

I sat in silence for a moment, mulling over what he had said. I was aware that I had offended Amey, that he wished he had
confided nothing, and that he was impatient for me to be gone, but I could not believe the trail ended here.

“Could you do one more thing for me?” I asked.

“Tell me first, do you believe what I've told you?” he demanded.

“I do,” I said, “but I want to show you why I'm confused. Will you let me?”

He nodded, but he was still on his guard.

“Okay.” I unzipped my bag, and pulled my laptop from it and set it up on the desk, moving the in-tray. I found the relevant
file, then explained to Amey that I was about to show him extracts from the unedited documentary film. He nodded. I had cut
the film to the minimum. First came the shot of the man I thought might be Dan Stein.

“Do you recognize him?” I asked Amey.

“Certainly,” he said. His face was tense.

“Who is he?”

Amey shrugged, as if to say it wasn't important, then pulled a face that I could not read. “He's a volunteer, or he was. Name
of Ned Sennet; he helps us with publicity stuff. He's an excellent photographer, so he used to get stories into the local
press, and he had links with various celebrities around the place, so if you wanted someone to come and open a fund-raiser
or speak after dinner, you went to Ned … He was always extremely helpful.”

That sounded like praise, and yet Amey's tone of voice was unhappy.

“Where is he now?”

“He left a few months ago, just after the filming of the documentary. I don't know where he went. Someone was asking me how
to get in contact with him just the other day …” Again his voice trailed off, and he seemed distracted.

“Okay, let's go back to the film,” I instructed, impatient. “This follows straight on from the section filmed here in Penzance.
There's no indication on the film that we've moved to another town so I'm assuming it happened here.” This time I played him
the section that showed the boy shooting up. I'd included everything, from the false start, the vomit break, to the intravenous
injection of the drug, the shocking spasm, and the suddenly blank screen. I kept my eyes on Amey's face throughout, and saw
the blood recede and his jaw slacken with shock. He could not have faked such alarm.

“You've seen him before,” I prompted.

“Where did this come from?” Amey hissed. “What is it?”

“It's the documentary that Paula made. You know who he is, don't you?”

“I don't remember his name,” Amey broke off, his fists tight on his lap and his knuckles white. I gave him time to gather
his thoughts. “I'm almost certain it's a boy who came here once about a year ago. Or, rather, he was dragged here by a friend.
He was addicted to heroin—as I remember he'd just switched from smoking it to injecting, you know I'm sure that it's a more
intense high, and it doesn't waste any—and he was in trouble with the police for housebreaking. His friend brought him here
because he hoped we could get him off it. I talked to him about his options. He was an unfortunate boy. He obviously wanted
to please his friend, and he wasn't happy about his life as it was. My heart went out to him, but I've seen this too often
and I knew that he was not at a point where he was determined to change. I wasn't surprised when I didn't see him again—and
I'm afraid,” Amey's voice was solemn, “that I wasn't very surprised when a few months later I saw his picture in the newspaper,
with a report of his death from a heroin overdose.”

I
started that afternoon in the library next to Morrab Gardens, three acres of subtropical plants that on any other day I would
have loved to explore. We'd gone through Michael Amey's files already. He was sure he had clipped the article: it was relevant
to the work of the center, and the death had been shocking because of the youth of the boy involved. At first he refused to
believe that his filing system could be anything but perfect, but he couldn't find it anywhere, and eventually, increasingly
irritated and anxious, he admitted defeat. I felt stupid asking, but I asked anyway.

“Did Ned Sennet ever have access to your files?”

Amey scratched his head and sucked in his lips.

“He might have done some work in here on the computer once or twice,” he said. I knew he hated having to give me an incomplete,
imperfect answer. It offended his sense of control.

He was looking deeply worried as I left him. Amey thought the boy had died at around the same time as the documentary, but
because he had never before connected the two events he could not be sure. Nor, he admitted, could he be one hundred percent
certain that it was the same boy. What he had seen, after all, was a photograph in a newspaper, grainy, two-dimensional, and
quite possibly out of date. Still, I trusted his hunch in the same way I trusted mine about Dan Stein/Ned Sennet.

When I found the boy, looking out at me from the pages of the
West Penwith Herald
dated two days after Paula Carmichael's premature departure from Penzance, I knew Amey's gut instinct was right. The paper
didn't say where the photograph had come from, but I guessed it had been taken by Social Services or the police. In it the
teenager looked sullenly straight ahead, the collar of his sweatshirt sagging around a scrawny neck, his ears sticking out,
cheeks sunken in. He was the same boy, I had no doubt of it. The report accompanying the picture was short and to the point.

Eighteen-year-old Sean Morris died yesterday after taking a fatal overdose of heroin. Emergency services responded at three
in the afternoon to an unoccupied address in Newlyn after an anonymous 999 call made from a public phone box by a woman but
Morris was dead when they arrived. Sean Morris had a history of theft and drug use. He is the eighth drug fatality in the
county this year, and the youngest.

I searched the newspapers for the next few days, and then for the next few weeks, and found a brief coroner's report. Morris,
the coroner said, died of a sudden seizure and lung edema caused by an injection of impure heroin administered after a heavy
drinking session. When he was found, the needle was still in his arm. His blood was full of alcohol. He was underweight and
was still recovering from the flu. The coroner recommended a review by the relevant authorities. I could find no subsequent
reference to the boy's death.

The discovery filled me with restless energy. I made copies of the two small articles I'd found, then left the library. Outside
the breeze had turned into a storm. The sky was dark and rain was lashing down. I got back in the car and drove along the
shore, but I couldn't stay in the car for long, despite the weather. I needed to pace, and to think. I parked opposite a bus
station, then fought my way against the gale to cross a wooden bridge over the railway line and found myself on a path along
the top of the beach. To my right Mount's Bay stretched toward the low rooftops, the domes and spires of Penzance. To my left
lay the tiny settlement of Marazion. Out to sea the Mount itself rose medieval from the waves. The tide was out, the desert
of sand stretched wet and sleek, the water beyond was like slate, the horizon a marker for a threatening sky. I breathed in
deeply, filling my lungs with the good damp air. I shut my eyes for a moment, clutching my jacket closed at my neck. I abandoned
myself to the wind as it battered against me and whipped my hair against my face. I hugged my new knowledge close. My instincts
were vindicated. The deaths of Paula and Adam had a common root, and I had found it. I started to walk along the path. I needed
to keep moving, needed to use up the adrenaline coursing through me.