The Happier Dead (15 page)

When he heard the slam of the downstairs door it startled him. He rinsed the glass quickly in the bathroom sink, and popped a couple of brushes in it. So as not to worry Lori he inched a mint caterpillar of paste onto his finger and scrubbed his gums. He put the tube in the glass beside the brushes and flushed the toilet. He kissed his wife on the cheek as she entered, and to avoid any conversation about when he might be home he pretended to be speaking to John on his earpiece. He mimed apologies to her and bowed in their tiny hall, and she smiled and courtseyed, and called for the boys.

B
ACK IN THE
car he checked his phone, and there was a text from Grape:
Found your boy
.

The Apollo House Hotel on Haggerston Road. Hector’s street was in Hackney, just north of the bridge over the old canal that ran down to Victoria Deer Park and no more than a ten minute detour. He could pay Hector a visit on the way back out to the Great Spa.

It wasn’t safe to leave the car in the streets too far east, so Oates parked in customer parking under the shopping mall at One New Change, and headed up towards the Kingsland Road on foot, taking the bridge over the canal. These were the neighborhoods that would give up their sons and daughters for the ranks of the riots, and also the neighborhoods that would most likely be destroyed. Although Oates’s pride would not allow him to change out of the tell-tale boots and the shin-pads which came beneath the hem of his raincoat, his common sense made him tip the collar and fold the breast to stop the wind from getting in, or the shape of the standard issue body armour from getting out. Unless you looked close, you couldn’t tell he was a policeman.

His big figure trudged down the street, puffing steam. The still grey water of the canal reflected the evening sky and the orange bulbs of the streetlights, and chilled the cold air. There would have been ice on the water if it had been clean stuff, but the million secretions of East London dissolved in it and kept it from freezing.

Along the Haggerston Road the houses knew their place, and rose no higher than the second storey. Oates walked the long channel carved in the mirrored terraces, above which was the illuminated henge of the financial headquarters in Canary Wharf, the names of the banks hanging like a divine judgment over the two-up two-downs. The Apollo House Hotel was composed of a couple of houses knocked together, with one of the front doors bricked up. Oates stood at the end of the garden path, and looked up and down the street.

The pavements were empty, but in the early gloom he could see one car parked with the lights on inside. The car was filled with smoke, turning the air milky in the refracted light, but Oates thought he could make out three figures, two in the front seat and one in the back. A faint pulse of bass reverberated from the car’s interior. He was debating whether or not to go over and knock on the window when the car drew out into the street, and drove off. Oates peered for the numberplate, but he couldn’t make it out, and turned his attention back to the building in front of him.

The name was spelt in a neon pink frown over the unbricked door, with a couple of the teeth blacked out. No estate agent’s euphemism could have done anything for the outside of The Apollo House Hotel. Oates had been to many boarding houses like this in the early days of his career, delivering news of deaths and taking statements. Once upon a time, this was where the council put you when the waiting list for housing grew too long, and they had to park you with the private landlords. It was better than the streets, which is where you’d end up these days, but not much. The outside promised suffering, and the inside delivered.

He stood on the pavement for a moment, and wondered what one of Helen Girst’s boys was doing in such a dump. A session like the one he had interrupted at Prudence Egwu’s place would cover a month’s rent at The Apollo House Hotel, with change left over for the razor to slit your wrists. You had to pay good money to do things like that to people without their going to the police. It meant that Hector was either a spender or a saver. Only an addict could spend such big wads of cash that quickly, and only addiction would re-order the priorities so thoroughly that living in the boarding house would seem a fair exchange for the indulgence of some other pleasure. But Helen Girst was famous for checking her charges, not just regular urine and blood tests but spot checks for track marks between the toes, under the eyelids, for anything that the body processed too quickly to catch.

That left gambling or saving. He’d know when he saw him. An addict’s attention was never complete, as the inner life was entirely consumed with the prospect of satisfaction, and in talking with the police instinctive craftiness had to do the work of intelligence. A saver, by contrast, would commandeer every spare neuron to the defence of the pot.

The house was too old to have a keycard lock. He pushed the bell, and no sound emerged. He banged with his fist on the door. A shape emerged, shuffling behind the frosting of the safety glass. The door opened on a chain that Oates could have snapped with a firm push, and a wrinkled face appeared at the level of his belly button.

“Is Hector in?” He showed his badge.

“There’s no Hector here.”

“A young lad. Asian.”

“No Hector, no.”

She shook her head.

“I’m not here to cause trouble. His mum’s sick.”

The eyes assessed him from the bottom of a lake of polluted experience.

“We know he’s staying here. I don’t know what name he’s using.”

The eyes in the crack stared at him for a few seconds, trying to get at the truth in him. The door closed, and he was about to kick it in (he was just listening for the shuffle of the old lady out of the door’s inward swing) when he heard the sound of the chain sliding across.

The entrance hall of the boarding house made good on the threats of the cracked front garden. A patch of mould had grown across the ceiling. It felt colder in the hall than it had outside. Oates could see his breath. The doormat was covered with leaflets advertising pizzas, pawnshops and chances to enter the Treatment lottery. One of the shiny lottery flyers was addressed to an Adrian Chong. Oates heard a sound behind him, and looked up.

A child stood in the doorway to the kitchen. He held a dirty rag against his mouth, and swayed from side to side at the waist whilst watching Oates over the tops of his knuckles. Oates put his own hands up over his face, and concocted a mad grimace before flinging them open. It was something that had never failed to make Harry smile when he was a toddler. The child in the doorway just watched. Then a mother emerged behind, a tall black woman in a towelling robe, holding a steaming wooden spoon in her hand.

“What’s his name then?”

The woman stared at him. The sound of a hiss on a stove came from behind her.

“I’ve got three of my own,” he said.

“Fuck you,” she said.

The child waved at Oates, and he waved back until she pulled the boy back into the kitchen. The old woman reappeared.

“He’s gone out.”

“Well you won’t mind me looking then.”

Oates stepped quickly past her, and caught the boy he recognised as Hector leaning over the banister, listening for their conversation.

“Hello Hector. Or is it Adrian?”

“Does Helen know you’re here? Does your boss know you’re here?”

“No one knows I’m here but you and me. I just want a little chat.”

“You call Helen. You want to speak to me about anything, you call Helen, she’ll make everything straight.”

Oates began to mount the stairs slowly, his hands held out in front of him. Hector cast his eyes back over his shoulder at the safety of his bedroom.

“It’s not illegal. You ask Helen.”

“I’m not here about your private life, Hector.” He sniffed the air. Hector watched him suspiciously. “How long you been in this place then?”

“Two years.”

“Bit of a shithole, isn’t it? No place for kiddies. I saw the little one downstairs.”

Hector’s face softened for a moment. “Liam.”

“Is that right, Liam?”

“Yeah.”

Oates continued his ascent whilst they spoke, until he was close enough to grab Hector through the banisters if he tried to make a run for it. The boy was scared, and his fear made Oates relax.

“The council stick you here?”

“Yeah, they put me here.”

“You got lucky. Single healthy young bloke on the benefit could be on the streets.”

Hector sniffed, and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

“Isn’t that right?”

“Maybe. Don’t know.”

“You are on the benefit? Right? You know I can find that out, with a phone call. But you won’t mind that, because you’re declaring your earnings. So you won’t be worried about me calling up your benefits officer. Checking your tax returns. Calling immigration. Checking out the terms of your student visa. You’re here on a student visa, right? Really having a good root round. Because you’ve got nothing to worry about. Isn’t that right?”

Hector looked momentarily panicked. A saver then. A saver keeping together every scrap he could so that the day he left this place, he knew he’d never have to come back.

“We’ve got you on tape from Prudence Egwu’s gaff. There’s a camera on the porch where you took off your mask.”

Hector looked at him in shock, finally understanding why he was getting this visit. He tensed up for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped.

“Okay. It’s in my room.”

Good boy.

Oates followed him up onto the landing, where Hector motioned him towards his bedroom. The moment they opened the door, Oates understood why Hector hadn’t wanted him upstairs. The landing was as cold and damp as the rest of the house, but the door to Hector’s room was fitted with a shiny new brass lock. Up close Oates could see that a new steel frame had been fitted, and the door itself was panelled with metal under the whitewash. If you wanted to break into Hector’s room, you’d be best taking a sledgehammer to the wall.

Inside, the room was cosy and filled with the tiny red lights of electrical equipment, glowing in the teenage dinge like embers spat from a winter fire. The light in the room came from the glow of the computer screen, a fish tank filled with tiny bright blue fish and a length of Christmas lights wound like an electric cornice around the ceiling and down through the fronds of a palm tree sitting under a gro-lamp in the corner. The walls were covered with posters for the same films and bands that the goth kids at Oates’s comprehensive had loved thirty years before. The Venetian mask which Hector had worn during the robbery was mounted above the bed. Blondie played on the stereo, and a stick of incense burned in a holder beside the fish tank. The room smelt of patchouli, dirty clothes and semen.

“You here about Mr Egwu, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh shit! I knew that was trouble, I knew it.” Hector cast himself down on his bed, and held his head in his hands. “Look, I didn’t even know he was dead.”

“You told Casey he was.”

“That was later! I have news alerts set up for all my clients. Sometimes they like to talk to me about stuff in their lives, you know? I didn’t know when I went to his house. All he said to me was he knew the house would be empty last night and I had to go in right away. I said to him, ‘Look, mister, I have clients, you know, I can’t just be running off after you every five minutes’. But he said it had to be then or not at all.”

“Who’s he?”

“Chris Rajaram. I mean that’s why you’re here, right?”

“When did this Chris Rajaram first contact you?”

“I don’t know. Like six months ago. He wanted me to find some stuff in Mr Egwu’s house.”

“What stuff?”

“Some science stuff. It was really hard to find it at first, because he has all these hundreds of files. But I had to look for the ones that talked about the Tithonus Effect, so I looked for that and in the end I found it.”

“What were you supposed to do?”

“Well, first I told them he had this big safe in his study where he kept all his papers. Then I was supposed to break into his safe, but that was super easy because his code is his birthday backwards. Who still does that? Then I was supposed to photograph it, I mean the pages in the files, and send these guys the photographs. Mr Egwu likes me to sleep over sometimes, but he’s a super deep sleeper. Sometimes he snores and I have to go sleep in the guest bedroom anyway, so even if he woke up it would be okay.”

“And how do you know it was Chris Rajaram who wanted you to do this?”

“I didn’t know who it was until last night. I’m not supposed to know. Normally it’s these encrypted instructions on this website. But then last night some guy just called me from a mobile, so I checked him out. He wasn’t even ex-directory, you know?”

“What time last night?”

“12:27.”

“12:27?”

Hector slid his body forward on the bed, the better to access the pocket of the tight jeans he wore. He disgorged a phone, scrolled quickly down the screen, and offered it face out to Oates. The received call record showed the exact time.

“I’ll need to take that.”

“Okay, sure. I’ve got like three others.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Hey, no! Look, I don’t want any trouble. I work to pay my fees, you know?” Oates rolled his eyes. “I do. You go check, look, look.”

He grabbed Oates by the sleeve and pulled him towards his desk. Sure enough before the computer screen was an open textbook, a notepad filled with cramped handwriting, the wrapper of an energy bar and all the detritus of domestic scholarship. Oates was unsure why it was that Hector thought this proof of his studiousness would help his cause, but his utter conviction that it would was infectious. He stood there nodding in satisfaction over the display.

“Alright, so what happened?”

“When?”

“I mean, you were supposed to photograph the folders, but you stole them.”

“Oh, I forgot the camera. And the one on that phone’s shit, it doesn’t even work anymore. I dropped it in the toilet at this party. I had to get it out with a plastic bag, it was disgusting.”