Authors: JOHN YORVIK
PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES: a gripping crime thriller (Camden Noir Crime Thrillers Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)
“Lishman here, was arrested in connection with the Natasha Rokitzky murder. He spent the night with her. Possibly more than once, but he was so drunk he can’t remember.”
“You never told me about this, Lishman.”
“Are you surprised? It doesn’t look good when your best friend’s a serial killer and you’ve slept with at least two of his girlfriends.”
“Christ, if the press get hold of that, Lishman,” said Riley in hushed tones, “that’d be the end of you. It’s like the whole Manson Gang thing. Lots of people were hangers on and not involved with the murders, but no-one trusted them afterwards.”
“More than one of us has got a lot to lose being wrapped up in this business,” I said, shooting a glance at Amy for her to shut up.
“I guess you’re right,” said Amy. “We should draw a line under the whole affair. Until, that is, your journalistic career goes tits up and then you can write a sensationalist exposé.
My Life with the Pentonville Strangler.
The public loves a real life murder book.”
“Where there’s murder there’s money,” agreed Riley with a slow nod.
Thankfully, our somewhat disrespectful conversation was brought to an end by the opening chords of a Bob Marley song. Riley went to the bar without bothering to ask if we wanted more to drink. He returned with three beers and three shots.
Amy leant towards Riley and was giving him the third degree about his job as a private detective. I escaped into my own world for a while, thinking about the fact that Marty might well have been a murderer after all. But somehow, the idea of him having killed Jarpy, a demon from Meadow Well whose removal would improve the quality of life of so many people, wasn’t as bad as him killing Natasha Rok. Burning down the Jazz Club, however,
was
unforgivable.
I was drifting along with the beat of the music enjoying the respite from the conversation. And then it clicked. The bass line we’d heard at AmizFire. It was very similar to the heartbeat bass of this Marley song. And similar to a rhythm I’d heard several weeks before.
“EgoFunk,” I said aloud.
“EE Go fuck?” said Amy. “Is that a Northern thing?”
“No, EgoFunk. It’s the latest fusion reggae band in Camden. I was just thinking someone should sign them up before it’s too late.”
* * *
Arriving back at my seat with the coffee I was dismayed to see that my new table-mate had put on headphones and was listening to music with a heavy bass that was causing his headphones to give out an irritating tinny rattle. Deciding that the best thing would be to concentrate on something else, I took out my notebook and began transcribing Natasha’s book notes from the photo.
ФIГ
HCZ
A
ФИ
Ж
З
RMCCZUK PRILACZA
З
XTESCZUK
HЗ
PSCZ
AЩ
EN
TЗ
TCZUK
No-one Dani and I had asked had been able to recognise the language. Some of the letters were Cyrillic and some were from the Latin alphabet, though there were some letters resembling Latin script in the Cyrillic alphabet. I’d begun to think it was some kind of code and in spare moments played around with the letters as if it was a word puzzle.
As I was sinking into the
metasphere
of Natasha’s words, I felt a hand on my shoulder. There I was relaxing on a train, trying my hand at a conundrum, and I’d forgotten about Marty’s death, the firebombing at Hackney and the fight in the East End. I was in danger, and it all came rushing back to me. I grabbed the hand and yanked it forward, ready to strike out.
“Jesus, Lishman! What is wrong with you? I’ve heard it’s rough in Standard Class but this is ridiculous.”
“Amy!”
* * *
ФIГ
HCZ
A
ФИ
Ж
З
RMCCZUK PRILACZA
З
XTESCZUK
HЗ
PSCZ
AЩ
EN
TЗ
TCZUK
After ten minutes of humming and nodding, she picked up the pen I’d left on the table and started scribbling down words on the page, a self-satisfied expression showing on her face.
“Have you got it?” I said, surprised.
Amy nodded. “Child’s play, it’s Pig Latin.”
“What’s Pig Latin?
“At school, we wrote coded notes to each other in Pig Latin so the teachers wouldn’t understand them if they were intercepted. It’s simple. You move the first consonant and add ‘ay’ to the end of the word so ‘meet’ becomes ‘eetmay’. If the word is too easy to see, you can alter it a little, take out the double vowels and so on.”
“And this is the same system?”
“Yes, but with different letters repeated. And some letters disguised in Cyrillic.”
“So it’s Pig Russian?”
“Or Pig Polish,” corrected Amy. “Look at PRILACZA. This is the easiest. The first five letters spell April in Pig Latin. The CZA is a typical Polish cluster used to confuse the reader.”
“Does it say April 16
th
?”
“Yes. How did you know?” said Amy.
“Thank goodness for your boarding school education,” I said, changing the subject. “What else does it say?”
“The first word ФIГHCZA. Take off the CZA.”
“It begins with H.”
“Yes, HOL. We can guess that the last letter Г is either E, D or Y. As E exists in other words, it probably means it’s a D and spells HOLD or a Y and spells HOLY. Okay, you do the rest,” said Amy, beginning to sound like a school mistress.
ФIГ
HCZ
A
ФИ
Ж
З
RMCCZUK PRILACZA
З
XTESCZUK
HЗ
PSCZ
AЩ
EN
TЗ
TCZUK
I took the original notes I’d photographed and began to decode them. After a few minutes, I held up the paper to Amy.
HOLD CONFIRM APRIL
SIXTEENTH SHIP TWENTIETH
Amy topped up the glasses, emptying out the bottle. We were coming in to London. We drank a toast and began to get our things together.
“Make yourself scarce, Lishman. I’m being met on the platform.”
“By whom?”
“Your grammar’s improving, Lishman. I’m not sure I approve. By someone you’re never going to meet. And who will never know about you.”
I took my bag and made my way back to Standard Class, where dishevelled travellers with too many bags were already queuing to get off the train. I waited where two carriages joined, feeling the rattle and sway through the suburbs towards King’s Cross. It was dark and too cold for April. My mobile vibrated in my jacket pocket. I picked it up and seeing the number, clicked answer.
“Yes...” I said. “Yes. Yes, it is Lish-
mon!
Nice to speak to you again, too... Thanks for getting back to me... You liked it? Good. Good...”
I’d talked to Judas the night of Marty’s funeral. He was intrigued by my plan and gave me all the information I needed. The studio was on level −1. Level −1 was a series of corridors flanked by rooms on each side that AmizFire was converting to studios. Because of this, there were always workmen around till late and EgoFunk, AmizMusic’s only signing, had the run of the place until the workmen were cleared out and the guards started patrolling with dogs at eleven o’clock. Judas said he often escaped the pressure cooker of the studio to smoke a joint and was able to wander around unhindered until 11 pm when he’d be shepherded back to the fold by the guards.
There was easy access by staircase to level −2, which was a large hall. My goal was to find a way down to level −3, where Natasha’s notes said the stolen art was being held and would be shipped out on April 20
th
. That was tomorrow. I knew where I had to go, but no idea how to get there. Decoding the rest of Natasha’s notes two days earlier had revealed a shorthand which could only have been meant for someone who had pre-knowledge of AmizFire and the stolen art. It didn’t make much sense that Natasha was writing these notes for herself, so I speculated that the notes were for Marty. It was possible that he had entered her flat with his own key and picked up any messages by checking the book on stolen art. He could have used the same key that he left for me in the locker at Euston station along with the gorilla mask. The notes told me that several of the items in the stolen art book were being held on the third floor below ground level. Dani had located a map of the AmizFire building in a university library’s architectural section. I had a small hand-drawn copy of that map in my pocket. The map didn’t show a level −3 at AmizFire. But I decided to take Natasha’s word that it really existed.
EgoFunk were late, and I was still waiting when the punks returned to the bridge. One of them was good enough to offer me a can of beer that my money had paid for. I sat down with them for a while, sharing out my cigarettes. I had another packet tucked into my jacket pocket. I would save them for later.
“What’s your name?” said an old mohican, veteran of ‘76.
“Lishman,” I said. “What’s yours?”
“Don’t have one,” he replied. This caused a chorus of piratical laughter among the six or seven others who were sitting on the bridge.
Just then a white transit van pulled up. The side window was rolled down, letting a cab full of smoke and dub reggae escape into the night air.
Judas, EgoFunk’s lead singer, leant out of the window and said, “Lish-
mon!
In the back.”
“In the back of the van, Lish-
mon!
” the punks chorused before collapsing into laughter.
I picked up my jacket and got into the two foot space at the back of the transit van next to amplifiers, instruments and drum parts. Before I’d even closed the door the van lurched forward, its brakes whinnying as it semi-stalled its way in fits and starts along Camden High Street. I feared being crushed by a ton of musical equipment before I even got to AmizMusic. On the way, I checked I had everything I needed. There was Dani’s slim digital camera and my mobile phone. Also, in my inside jacket pocket there was a bicycle tool wrap with two screwdrivers, a heavy adjustable spanner and a thin torch. They were all things that a roadie might carry. And could all be used as weapons if the need arose.
Dani was waiting back in Shakespeare Street for news from me. She had several phone numbers she was to call if anything went wrong. If I located the stolen art, she was to alert Agent Greenfield at the Commission for Looted Art or the mystery caller. This would depend on my instruction when I contacted her. The truth is I still didn’t know which one to trust. Either one could be in collusion with AmizFire. There was even the possibility that both of them were.
It had been so tense back in the attic room with Dani before I left that I was glad to be the one that was going into AmizFire rather than the one waiting for news. If I didn’t return, what would Dani do then? She had no home to go to. The news of the fire bomb attack in Hackney had been devastating. She didn’t speak for a day, but then she reappeared the next morning more determined than ever to strike back at AmizFire. Thankfully, she managed to confirm that Pippa and Erika were safe and well, visiting friends in the Middle East.
The truth was neither of us would be safe until we resolved this. We wouldn’t be able to walk the streets without constantly looking over our shoulders, or do our jobs at North London Free Press again without fearing that one day we’d meet with an unfortunate accident. And with death on the menu for both of us, the only escape route was to blow the whole thing wide open. And that was what I intended to do.
When I’d got back from Newcastle two nights before, I’d walked back to Shakespeare Street through Primrose Hill park. As I was climbing the fence I noticed in the twilight there were cigarette butts on the grass on the park side of the fence. I picked one of them up and smelt it, but discerned nothing useful other than a tarry odour. Using the light from my mobile phone, I found indentations from footprints ground into the earth where the cigarettes had been stamped out. There were five butts altogether. Someone had been there for some length of time, perhaps watching the house. It could have been teenagers, but I didn’t want to take any chances, so I returned the ammunition to Dani’s bag the first chance I got.
The van pulled up to the gates of AmizFire. Kari, EgoFunk’s manager, could be heard talking with someone on an intercom. The gates opened electronically and the van lurched forward again and headed to the far end of the grounds on the opposite side to AmizFire’s public entrance. The van parked and I heard the band get out. Then someone banged twice on the back door and opened it up. Sitting on the floor holding a cheap can of punk beer, I was faced with Judas, four other rasta band members and their manager, Kari.
“C’mon Lish-
mon
!” said Judas. “Time to work, Robin Hood.”
I jumped up and tried to shush him.
“No names!” I hissed, sure that someone would have heard that and the game would be up already. He nodded and winked, then offered me his fist to clunk together with my own.
“Don’t worry. Every-ting be just fine,” said Judas. “Let’s get to work now.”
We began to unload the van and take the drum equipment and guitars and stack them at the back entrance of AmizFire. AmizMusic was on level −1. There were outdoor stairs leading down to the entrance doors, which were rust coloured, heavy and locked from the inside. When we’d finished unloading the van, we waited for the security staff to let us in. Kari made a quick phone call from her mobile and told us they were on their way.
It was dark now, but the car park was lit up by floodlights from the four corners of the AmizFire grounds. One of the band passed round a joint but I decided to forgo it. It stank of skunk, the kind that makes you scared and paranoid. And I was already tapping into a level of adrenaline that required no artificial boost.
We heard the doors being unlocked. They creaked as they were pushed outwards. There was one uniformed security guard, accompanied by someone in casual clothing, short bleached hair and sharp predatory eyes. It was Suedehead. He was everywhere I wanted to go. If I’d needed further proof of the Chessington Club’s links to AmizFire, then I had it. Suedehead had attacked me twice in different pubs, both times accompanied by Bomberjacket. Now, here he was: some kind of head of security. I looked downwards so that the peak of my cap obscured most of my face. If Suedehead was to accompany us to the studio, I wasn’t going to get very far into AmizFire before he recognised me. On the phone two days before, Judas had assured me that the band were usually left to their own devices. But if Judas was smoking Camden skunk all day, was he really a reliable source of information? I felt the hope draining from my complexion.
“The producer will be here in half an hour, boys and girls,” said Suedehead. “Lots of time to set up.”
Each of us grabbed an instrument and part of the drum kit and followed the guards down to the studio. The two men stood back and chatted while we did the carrying work. Suedehead seemed uninterested in me, but I didn’t make the classic mistake of looking at him to see if he was looking at me. I just kept my head down and carried the equipment, joining in with everyone else in laughing at Judas’s pranks. Thankfully his clowning around was drawing everyone’s attention.
When we’d finished carrying equipment into the studio, Suedehead and the security guard locked the outside doors and then without saying anything, walked off along a corridor. The band set about reconstructing their drum kit and tuning their guitars.
Judas approached me and said, “Now’s your chance, Lish-
mon,
investi
ga
tional journa-
list.
You have two hours.
”
“I’ll be back before 11,” I said, clunking his fist again, and crept off down the corridor in the opposite direction to the security guards.
* * *
The corridor was at least ten foot wide and smelt dank and sulphurous. I wondered if it was a chemical smell left over from its days as a match factory or from the current construction. I stopped and acted worn out, like a tired worker. I lit a cigarette, saying hello to a passing tradesman, who was carrying a large hacksaw. Acting casually, I pushed through a set of double fire doors, which creaked noisily. There were no lights on the stairs, so I flashed my torch on and off for a second. It gave me just enough light to see the worn stones of the first flight of steps. Then I switched to the weaker light of my mobile phone to see my way down to level −2.
At the bottom of the stairs, I walked forward into the darkness and noticed the sound of my footsteps had changed. There was an echo. The sulphurous smell had been replaced by the smell of wax. I flashed on the light and saw, as Judas had explained, that I was in a vast hall.
Checking around with the torch, I could see the pyramid symbols and Egyptian theme from above had been continued below. At one end, there was a large Isis statue at least five-foot tall and, at the other end, a statue of a giant beast with a wide open mouth big enough to swallow a man. It took the form of an animal, half bull and half owl. In the centre of the hall, was a large round stone table, encircled with 13 ornate oaken chairs.
I froze when I heard the creaking of the double doors I’d just come through. Counter-intuitively, I lit a cigarette and sat down in one of the chairs. If it was anyone else but Suedehead, I could pretend I was just a worker, skiving on an extended break. As I waited, my pulse thumped out a rhythm in my temple as regular and loud as any EgoFunk track. And I wrestled with trying to appear casual, concentrating on looking sullen and smoking my cigarette.
A minute later, I heard the double doors creak again, the noise of the workmen leaked out for a second from above before the doors closed. I listened intently for the sound of footsteps, but heard nothing. Had they really gone?
When I was finally satisfied that no-one was coming, I walked the four corners of the hall. It took up the entire floor of level −2 and could be accessed from level −1 by four staircases. Unfortunately, the map Dani had found was right: there was no staircase going down to level −3. If there was a level −3, its entrance was hidden.
I walked the perimeter of the hall, knocking on the wall as I went with the hope I would find a hollow panel, but the entire room was solid brick. I checked my mobile for the time. Thirty minutes had passed already. I could hear EgoFunk’s loud bass guitar banging away in the distance. I hoped that Suedehead and the guards hadn’t returned to the studio to do a head count. If they had, I was sure they’d come looking for me.
I tried to calm my thoughts and think of a way of getting to level −3. I thought about Sherlock Holmes. One of his maxims was something about ruling out the possible, all you’re left with is the impossible. No that wasn’t it. And why was I trying to remember the words of a fictional character as I stood in an occult palace, facing almost certain death if I got caught. I sat on the floor in the absolute darkness and took deep breaths to calm myself down and get my mind working on the problem. Had I mistranslated Natasha’s notes? What else could they have meant? Maybe Natasha had been trying to trick Marty and lead him to be trapped in this hall, just like I was. More speculation. Maybe there was no level −3. I breathed deeply trying to pull my legs into the lotus position. I tried to forget where I was. It was then that the words of Sherlock Holmes popped into my head: