The Four Last Things (33 page)

To his surprise, she did. Within five minutes she was fast asleep again. The medication was still affecting her. Eddie waited for a moment, just to make sure, before standing up.

The chair creaked when he moved, and Lucy opened her eyes.

‘I want a drink.’

It was a delaying tactic, Eddie thought. The red beaker was still beside the bed. He picked it up and discovered that it was empty.

‘I’ll fetch you some more water.’

‘I want Ribena.’

‘We’ll see,’ Eddie said weakly.

He opened the door of the freezer room. It smelled faintly of cooking. He found Ribena in the cupboard over the sink and refilled the mug. He took it back to Lucy, only to find that she had fallen asleep again.

He left the drink by the bed and returned to the freezer room to put back the Ribena bottle in the cupboard. Angel need never know that he had come down here. He noticed that there was a bowl on the draining board and a knife, fork and spoon in the rack. They had special cutlery for the children, but these were the normal adult size. For some reason, Angel must have eaten breakfast down here.

On the other hand, there was nothing for her to eat. Usually she had muesli for breakfast, or sometimes bread or toast. In any case, why had she needed a fork? The problem niggled at him. On impulse, he unlocked the freezer and opened the lid.

He hadn’t seen inside the freezer since it was new and empty. There were three compartments, two of them filled with shop-bought frozen meals in bright packaging. The third compartment was full of uncooked meat, which surprised Eddie because Angel did not believe in wasting time in cooking and preferred convenience foods. The meat was packed in polythene freezer bags, some transparent, others white and opaque. The cuts varied considerably in size and shape. Some were large enough for a substantial Sunday joint. It was not easy to see exactly what the packages contained, because they were frosted with ice. Some of the cuts looked rather bony. Angel had labelled the packages. Eddie took out one of the smaller ones.

The label said, in Angel’s small, neat writing, ‘S – July ‘95’. The meat was in one of the transparent bags. Eddie held it in his hands and felt the cold seeping into his fingers. Sausages? Spare ribs?

I’m feverish. I’m dreaming.

The whiteness of bone gleamed at one end of the package. The ends looked sharp and jagged. S, Eddie thought: S for Suki. A shudder ran through his body. His fingers went limp. His hands fell to his sides. The other, smaller pair of hands fell back into the freezer.

‘For there are certain tempers of body, which, matcht with an humorous depravity of mind, do hatch and produce vitiosities, whose newness and monstrosity of nature admits no name …’

Religio Medici
, II, 7

Sally thought that Michael was going to hit the man. He accosted them early on Monday morning as they left Oliver’s house on their way to Paradise Gardens.

‘Now look,’ said Frank Howell, smiling his battered-cherub smile. ‘It’s not like I’m a stranger, is it? You and Mrs Appleyard know me. And these things work both ways.’

Sally moved forward, inserting her body as a barrier between the journalist and Michael. ‘We’re in a hurry, Mr Howell. Perhaps we can talk later.’

‘How did you know where to find us?’ Michael demanded as he unlocked the driver’s door of the Rover.

‘Ways and means.’ Howell tried the effect of a smile. ‘Just doing my job.’

‘It must have been Derek Cutter,’ Sally said, her voice suddenly bitter. Howell’s eyelashes flickered. ‘I gave him the phone number when I talked to him yesterday.’

Michael threw himself into the car and started the engine. Sally climbed into the front passenger seat. Howell, the perfect gentleman, held the door for her.

‘Remember, Mrs Appleyard, it’s a two-way process. Maybe there’s things I know that you don’t.’

Michael let out the clutch and Howell hurriedly slammed the door.

‘I’m sorry.’ Sally sensed the blood rushing to her face.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Michael said. ‘Bloody ghoul.’

After that they drove in silence. Damn Michael for mentioning ghouls. Sally tried to persuade herself that she was being unreasonable. How could he be expected to know that in Muslim legend a ghoul was an evil demon that ate human bodies, particularly stolen corpses or children?

There had been an accident in Fortis Green Road and the traffic slowed to a standstill. As they waited in the queue, Michael fidgeted in his seat, his eyes darting from side to side, looking for non-existent side streets, searching for ways of escape.

‘I’ll call Maxham. Can I have the mobile?’

‘I left it at Oliver’s,’ Sally lied, her muscles tensing at the thought of yet another confrontation between Michael and Maxham.

Michael glowered at her. Sally felt sick with guilt. She opened her mouth to confess the lie, but at that moment the traffic began to move. Neither of them spoke again until they reached the North Circular.

‘We’ve had a purple Peugeot 205 on our tail since Muswell Hill.’

‘It’s following us?’ asked Sally. ‘You sure?’

‘Of course I’m not sure. All I know is, it’s been two or three cars behind us since then.’

Sally turned round and tried without success to see the driver’s face. ‘Do you think Maxham’s got someone keeping an eye on us?’

‘I doubt it. He must be stretched enough as it is.’ Michael overtook a lorry and, fifty yards behind them, the Peugeot pulled out to overtake as well. ‘Unless he still suspects that we did it. That I did it.’

‘Michael. Please don’t.’

‘Get the number.’

Sally opened her handbag and took out an old envelope and a pen. Michael became increasingly irritable as she struggled to read the licence plate of the Peugeot, which promptly ducked, perhaps intentionally, behind the cover afforded by the vehicles between them. She managed it in the end and then wished that there was something else she could do other than listen to her thoughts. Any job was better than none.

To distract herself from the ghoul within, Sally took out the A-Z road atlas. She turned to the index. There were three Paradise Roads and one each of Paradise Gardens, Paradise Passage, Paradise Place, Paradise Street and Paradise Walk. Paradise Gardens was the only scrap of heaven in north-west London. She wondered who had chosen the names and why. Probably nothing more significant than someone’s sales technique: buy one of these houses and have an earthly foretaste of the joys to come. Tears filled her eyes. It was a cruel place to choose, a typical refinement, all of a piece with yesterday’s discovery at St Michael’s, Beauclerk Place.

‘What was the message, exactly?’ she asked Michael.

‘That Lucy Appleyard was in forty-three Paradise Gardens. The message was repeated once. It was received just before eight o’clock. They recorded it automatically. Maxham said they traced the call to a public telephone in Golders Green.’

‘It wasn’t much more than eight-forty-five when he phoned us.’

Michael changed gear unnecessarily. A moment later he said, ‘The caller said one other thing:
Not just her tights this time
.’

‘So?’

‘So the call wasn’t a hoax. They’ve not released the fact that Lucy’s tights were found.’

Paradise Gardens was a little over a mile west of Kensal Vale, a long, curving road of red brick terraced houses, perhaps ninety years old. Many of the houses were boarded up. Two police cars and an unmarked van were parked at the far end of the road.

‘It’s not Lucy,’ Michael said. ‘Just remember that. While there’s life, there’s hope.’

Sally stared through her window at two children, perhaps ten, who should have been at school and who were instead sitting on the wing of a car and sharing a companionable cigarette. ‘If there’s life.’

‘God help me, I sometimes find myself hoping that there isn’t.’

‘Just so it could be all over?’

He nodded. ‘For her. For us, too.’

‘It’s awful. Everything’s changing because of this. You. Me. Everything.’

She was about to tell him of her lie about the phone. But he gave her no chance.

‘We have to face it,’ he said. ‘Nothing will ever be the same again. Whatever happens. You can never go back. I found that out a long time ago.’

‘What do you mean?’ Sally asked.

‘When I was a kid I was mixed up in a murder case.’

‘What?’ The word emerged as a gasp, as though someone had punched her in the stomach. ‘Why did you never tell me?’

Michael drew up behind a police car. One of the two uniformed policemen on the pavement moved towards them.

‘Because of Uncle David,’ Michael said. ‘At the time I promised him … He and his family were involved much more than I was. And in the early days I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Then I thought, least said, soonest mended. All this – what’s happening to Lucy – it’s like a punishment.’

‘Darling.’

He looked at her, and she saw the tears in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was too late – the constable had come round the car and was bending down to Michael’s window. Michael turned away to speak to him, leaving Sally to grapple with unanswered questions.
David’s family
?

“Morning, Sarge.’ The policeman was young and very nervous; he stared at Sally and quickly looked away, as if he had done something naughty. ‘Mr Maxham is in the house. You’re to go right in. If you leave the key in the car, we’ll take care of it.’

As Sally crossed the pavement, she was aware of twitching curtains and watching eyes in the neighbouring houses. Apart from the boys further down the street, nonchalantly smoking their cigarette, there were no bystanders; it was not that sort of area. In Paradise Gardens, as in Kensal Vale, the police brought trouble, not reassurance: they were not the protectors of society, but its agents of retribution.

The ground-floor window of number 43 had been boarded up. One of the windows above was broken, and none of them had curtains. As they approached, the second constable tapped on the front door and it opened from within.

Inside was a narrow hallway, its ceiling and walls covered with a yellow, flaking plaster and its floor carpeted with circulars and old newspapers; it smelled strongly of damp and excrement. The plain-clothes man who had let them in gestured towards the stairs. Maxham was coming down, talking to someone invisible on the landing above. ‘Get her to make a statement. Don’t take no for an answer. I want to see it in black and white by lunch time if not before.’ He turned to Sally and Michael and, without changing his tone, went on, ‘You took your time. Come and have a look at what we’ve got. I’d take you outside, where the smell isn’t so bad, but then there’s the problem of spectators. One of the bastards has got a pair of binoculars. And the next-door neighbour’s playing with his video camera.’

He led them into a room at the back of the house. There were two mattresses on the floor and fading posters of footballers on the walls. The window was boarded up, but someone had rigged up a powerful lamp. Maxham looked ghostly by its light, his plump face bleached of colour. He had not shaved yet this morning and his face looked as tired as his tweed suit. It occurred to Sally that even Maxham might have feelings, that even he might find this case harrowing.

The only person in the room was a uniformed policewoman. Beside her, a kitchen chair without a back did duty as a table. Its top had been covered with a sheet of paper, and on this rested a padded envelope which was almost as large as the seat of the chair.

‘You can buy them in any stationer’s or newsagent’s.’ Maxham hissed, sucking air between his teeth. ‘It’s brand new. No address, no nothing.’

‘Too big to get through the letterbox,’ Michael said.

‘It was folded. You can see the line.’ Maxham’s finger bisected the envelope. ‘It wasn’t even sealed.’

He pulled on a pair of gloves and, holding the envelope near its opening, gingerly lifted it so that the closed end was resting on the seat of the chair.

‘Look. Not you, Sergeant. Mrs Appleyard.’

The policewoman altered the angle of the light. Sally peered into the open mouth of the envelope. There was a mass of dark hair inside.

‘Don’t touch,’ Maxham ordered. ‘Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be doing this. But I need to know if that hair’s Lucy’s. The sooner the better.’

‘How can I tell? Especially if you won’t let me touch.’

‘Smell it.’

Sally bent down. The unwashed smell of the house fought with the plastic and paper of the envelope. Beyond those smells was another, a hint of the sort of perfume which is meant to remind you of Scandinavian forests.

‘Some sort of pine-scented bath essence? Shampoo?’

‘Do you use something like that? Could Lucy’s hair smell of it?’

‘No, we don’t.’ She looked more closely, longing to touch the dark cloud that might have been part of Lucy. ‘It could be hers.’

‘Then whoever’s got her has given her a bath, maybe washed her hair.’ Michael sounded very weary all of a sudden. ‘I suppose we should be thankful for that.’