(1998) Denial (53 page)

Who the hell turns up at a funeral and doesn’t get out of their car? Someone who doesn’t want to be seen? Why don’t they want to be seen? Are they shy? Worried they will upset other relatives by their presence? Was this some secret lover of Cora Burstridge who didn’t want to upset the family by showing up, but had to stay to the finish?

No. You’d have gone to the church.

If you cared about Cora Burstridge, you’d have gone to the church.

Glenn licked the last traces of ice-cream off the inside of the wrapper, then balled it up tightly, glancing around for a waste bin. He couldn’t see one and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Then he looked at his watch. One forty. Over an hour since he had spoken to the divisional intelligence room at Cheltenham police station. A light breeze off the sea cooled his face and flapped his jacket. Peaceful here. He could hear the shouts of kids on the beach, and the rasp of a
distant speedboat, but he had this breakwater to himself, and he savoured that.

Then his radio crackled. He heard his call sign and answered. At the other end was a hesitant voice.

‘DC Carpenter from Cheltenham. I have some information for you regarding Dr Terence Goel, ninety-seven Royal Court Walk, Cheltenham.’

‘Thanks, go ahead.’

‘That address is false. The numbers stop at ninety-six. I’ve been on to the local council tax office. They show a Dr Terence Goel as a ratepayer at this address. Their records show he is up to date with his rates payments and has lived there for five years.’

‘Do you have any explanation for that?’ Glenn asked.

‘They’re doing further checks for me. He shows up on their current database, but not on their master database backup.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It sounds like this character has hacked their computer and entered false data.’

‘Shit.’

‘I’ve run a check on him on the Police National Computer. There’s a record that Dr Terence Goel was stopped for erratic driving in Tottenham Court Road, London, at eleven thirty p.m. last Saturday, July the twenty-sixth, and cautioned.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. Do you want us to continue making local inquiries?’

‘Yes, please. You said your name’s DC Carpenter?’

‘Andy Carpenter.’

‘Andy, thanks. That’s very helpful.’

Glenn walked quickly, deep in thought, back to his car. He closed the door, opened the windows and switched on the engine to get the fan going. Then he radioed the local Police National Computer operator, to whom he gave the registration details of Goel’s Mondeo, then said, ‘I want this vehicle flagged to me personally,
DC Branson
, no one else. All sightings. I want no visible police interest in the vehicle. Can you make that very clear?’

‘No visible police interest in the vehicle. All sightings reported to you personally.’

‘Instantly. If anyone sees the car, they’re to stay with it but keep out of sight. I want this vehicle kept under surveillance, all movements documented and description of the occupants.’

The operator repeated the instructions back to him. Glenn thanked her, then drove straight to his office, his brain racing.

Dr Terence Goel, are you a doctor of medicine or do you hold a university doctorate? You exist on a computer file as a ratepayer at a non-existent address. You own a motor car. What else do you own in this name? I’m going to find out, I promise you that
.

I’m in your face
.

Glenn’s colleague, Mick Harris, was reading through a pile of documents, eating a sandwich out of a plastic lunch-box, when he arrived back.

Glenn perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Good sandwich?’

‘Uh-huh.’ The detective didn’t look thrilled to see him.

‘You’ve got a good wife, Ren feeds you properly.’

‘Thought you were off today,’ Mick said, through a mouthful of egg and cress.

‘How’s your hangover?’

‘Very nice, thank you. How’s yours?’

‘I’ve had better ones. Tell me, a man creates a false identity, right? This man is smart, he can hack computers, he gives himself a false address, hacks the local council office computer system, puts himself on the electoral roll, gives himself a good-citizen history, rates always paid on time, that kind of shit. He has a car registered in his phoney name. I have an alert out for the car. What else do I look for?’

‘Mobile phone.’

Glenn nodded. ‘Good one.’

‘Get his call log, see who he’s called. Yup?’

‘Yup.’

‘Do you know what he looks like?’

‘No.’

‘Geographical area where he might be?’

‘Some idea.’

‘Check with the CCTVs – the car will show up if he’s out and about in it. And check the credit-card companies.’

‘Yes, I’m about to get on to them.’

‘You could also try drinking a cup of tea.’

‘Huh?’ Glenn looked at him blankly.

‘Drain it to the bottom, then read the formation of the leaves.’

For an instant, Glenn took him seriously. Then he grinned. ‘And I suppose I ought to sacrifice a chicken and read the entrails.’

‘Always works a treat. Mind if I finish my lunch in peace now?’

Glenn slipped off his desk. ‘Sorry.’

‘Start with what I’ve given you.’

‘I will,’ Glenn said. ‘I’m starting right now.’

Michael pulled up the Volvo on the opposite side of the road and observed Gloria Lamark’s house through his open window. It was as grand as he had imagined it would be. And as cold-looking. And secretive. This was a London house where you really could be a recluse in style.

You could have all the secrets you wanted in this house.

He drove around the block, trying through his exhaustion to formulate a plan. He was travelling up a narrower, less impressive street now, along the rear of the houses, lined on both sides with garages, sheds and dustbins. He saw the double garage at the rear of the Lamark house, which had been on the 1957 planning application. It appeared in good condition, and had a modern up-and-over door. A high wall either side of it protected the privacy of the rear garden.

He found a meter bay in the quiet avenue at the top of the street and parked. From the glove-box he took a small torch he kept in the car, and he also took his phone. Then he walked back to Holland Park Avenue, and along towards Gloria Lamark’s house. The street was sleepy, the traffic light. A gardener was weeding a flower-bed two houses up from Gloria Lamark’s. Smart cars were parked in driveways; he could hear people splashing in a swimming pool close by. Birdsong.

The wrought-iron gates were shut, but he couldn’t see a bell, and neither, to his surprise, was there any evident security system, no closed-circuit camera watching the gates, nor any sign of an alarm box on the house. Michael looked up at the windows: the curtains were drawn in some of the upstairs ones; the others yielded only darkness. A
Mercedes sports car, driven by a brunette, went past. Then a taxi, followed by a rattling van.

Michael pressed the latch handle on one gate, expecting it to be locked, but the gate swung open. He stood where he was. Was this a smart thing to do? What was he expecting to find?

Maybe he should turn back. If Amanda was here, all he was going to do was alert whoever had taken her and make the police’s job even harder.

Leave her for another twenty-four hours?

He approached the house, gravel crackling under his shoes. The ground-floor windows were too high to see into – he could make out a rather ornate chandelier in one room but nothing else.

Close up, the house seemed even bigger, darker, more impenetrable. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his jangling nerves, as he climbed the sweeping steps, past two grandiose carved Egyptian lions, up to the front door. It was white, recently painted, and had a spyhole. He pressed the brass bellpush and heard the clear, strong ring inside.

A full minute passed. Something made him glance over his shoulder, but there was no one behind him. A cluster of cars drove along the street. He rang the bell again. A pulse nerve plucked at his throat. A bee flew around his face and he flapped it away. It came back and he ignored it. After another minute he rang the bell again.

In the burning heat, the door was releasing a strong smell of paint. Michael could also smell something sweet – perhaps honeysuckle, he wasn’t sure. Katy had been the expert gardener.

No one answered the bell.

He pushed open the heavy brass flap of the letterbox and peered into the hall. He could see a long-case clock. Grey quarry tiles. The hall looked still. Complete silence in the house. Complete silence inside his head. The wail of a siren somewhere in the distance. The faint shout of a child.

He went back to the bottom of the steps, looked up at the windows, checking each one in turn, then walked round to the side, into the welcome cool of the shadow from the
neighbouring house. No windows at ground-floor level down this side. Then he came into the back garden. He saw the handsome pond with its columned island, flowerbeds badly in need of weeding, and grass gone wild from a month of neglect.

Maybe the son is away and the house is empty, he wondered.
The best hiding place is often the most obvious
.

He was rambling again, he realised. Why should this place be obvious?

Patio doors from the kitchen at the rear led out onto a small terrace. To their left, a metal fire escape rose the full three-storey height of the house. A dozen windows, all closed. A tortoiseshell butterfly jigged past him. He turned and looked at the neighbours’ houses on either side. Could anyone see him? Not easily. Dense foliage protected him.

Anyhow, what the hell if the police did come? That was fine by him – that was what he wanted!

He climbed the steps onto the terrace and peered in through the patio doors at a rather dingy, old-fashioned kitchen. An empty pizza container sat on the table. Several flies buzzed around, and he could see why: there were some dirty plates on the draining board.

Someone had been here recently. Her son? Where was he now? Out shopping? Away? Left the clearing up to the staff. Housekeeper? Why were there no staff? Gloria had always talked about her staff, her
retainers
, she called them. Probably dancing on her bloody grave, he thought irreverently.

With trembling hands he tested the doors. They were locked.

Jesus, I could get struck off for this. Breaking and entering. The press would have a field day
.

He examined each of the ground-floor windows in turn. They were all secured shut. Then he began to climb the fire escape. Struggling against a life-long fear of heights he kept going right to the narrow platform at the top. Gripping the handrail, he walked forward slowly and pressed his face against the glass of a sash window. Through it he could see what appeared to be a changing room.

Gingerly, he tried to raise the bottom half of the window. To his surprise, it shot up with well-oiled ease. This is madness. Turn round, go back down the fire escape, get in your car and go back to work, Michael Tennent. You haven’t a shred of evidence to justify breaking into someone’s house.

Very nervous now, he turned on the platform and looked around. He had a clear view down into the garden of the house on his right. It was empty. The cover lay in place over the pool; it seemed that the occupants were not there. The view into the house on the left was obstructed by a giant laburnum tree. Similarly, conifers at the end of the garden, some planted, he presumed, to block out the unsightly view of the garage, screened him from the houses behind.

He climbed over the sill and dropped down onto the thick pile of the wall-to-wall carpet. Then he held his breath and listened as carefully as he could, engulfed in the smell of leather and mothballs. Silence.

A thousand pairs of women’s shoes were laid out in long, tidy rows in the room. Hat boxes were stacked on top of each other. Dresses in plastic dry-cleaning bags bulged out of the open sliding door of one fitted wardrobe. He trod lightly down the narrow pathway through the shoes to the door, gripped the handle, listened. As he opened it, a rubber draught excluder shuffled along the carpet but the hinges were mercifully silent.

He looked out onto a landing, eyes darting in every direction, ears tracking the silence in the house. Just the tick of a clock down below. Nothing else. His whole body was pulsing as he slipped quietly onto the landing, which was carpeted in the same grey as the dressing room, and glanced at the walls lined with framed publicity photographs of Gloria Lamark. There were several closed doors, a bronze bust of her on a pedestal, and a wide, handsomely carved staircase leading down.

One step at a time, keeping to the edge of the treads, testing each for a creak, he reached the next landing, stood still, listening, glancing warily at each of the closed doors, unsure what he was going to do if one opened suddenly.
Run, he supposed, either to the front door, or back up to the dressing room, whichever exit was clear. One door was open just a crack, but no light came from it. Probably one of the rooms with the curtains drawn.

He noticed a large Wedgwood vase on a plinth, filled with dead flowers. And on the floor, right beside his foot, was a coffee cup, half full, with a thick green crust of mould.

There isn’t anyone here. The house is empty
. It’s been empty since her death. Where’s her son? Away? Unable to bear being here on his own?

Making less effort to remain quiet now, he reached the hall. Images of Gloria Lamark covered every inch of wall space. There was a massive oil painting of her stepping out of a limousine, framed posters, production stills, framed press cuttings. The whole house was a shrine to her.

He wondered, absurdly, if she was looking at him right now, angry with him for what he had said to her in their last session. She had been a great beauty: these pictures told the story. Stunning. She had the looks to have been one of the greats, but she had not had the intelligence. People forgot that the most enduring actors and actresses had more than great looks: they had fine minds, too.

In the plans he had studied, the steps down to the cellar were from the kitchen. There was a passageway in front of him, which he presumed led to the kitchen, and he walked down it.