Absent Light (8 page)

“Which case was that?” Helen replied dead calm.

“There's Chloe and Chris,” Martin cut in, ludicrously animated, “remember you wanted to ask them round for supper, Sarah. Sorry, Helen, catch you later,” he said, pulling Sarah with him.

Helen stood rooted. In just a couple of days, it felt as if her life were unravelling, her own near-death experience opening up her past. Could there be any connection, she thought anxiously? Maybe Jacks harboured a grudge. Maybe Adam wanted payback for her betrayal. No, silly. It was too long ago. While Adam was a lot of things, he wasn't a vengeful man. But, perhaps, he'd turned bitter. Perhaps life had treated him badly. She'd heard his marriage had collapsed but that was no great surprise; it had been on the verge of disintegration for years. She looked across the room, saw Martin and Sarah together, listened to their bright, to her ears false, laughter.

Eventually she drifted away to find another drink. Christmas was for couples, she thought, for close families, for old friends. It didn't have room for people like her, for the lost and the lonely. Wafting in and out of other people's conversations, she felt more like Banquo's ghost with every passing minute.

About eleven-thirty, the music changed tempo. As Steve Tyler and Aerosmith belted out a catchy version of Road Runner, several couples started to dance. Ed, who'd arrived late with an imposing-looking black man, grabbed hold of Helen, making her squeal. “Come on,” he said.

They danced until midnight. The New Year was seen in with a drunken rendition of Auld Lang Syne. After that, Helen kissed people she knew and those she didn't, including Ed's new friend, Charles. Champagne was popped, and people stole away with whole bottles of the stuff. The party began to fold around four in the morning when she eventually caught up with Jen.

“Want a hand clearing up?” Helen said, slipping off her shoes and tweaking her strangled toes.

“Let's leave it,” Jen said, also removing her shoes. “Had a good night?”

“Lovely,” Helen lied. “What did you make of Martin's new girl?”

“Never had the pleasure of talking to her,” Jen replied.

“You're lucky.”

“Jealous?”

“No,” Helen said vehemently.

“In fact I never got a chance to talk to anyone properly,” Jen complained.

“The penalty of playing host,” Helen smiled.

Jen yawned and rubbed her eyes, sending smuts of mascara down her cheeks. “Want to stay over?”

Helen looked in the direction of Jen's bed. “Looks like you already have company,” she laughed.

George was conked out on the covers, hairy head on the pillow, eyes tightly shut, legs extended in a pose of sheer luxury.

“Terrific,” Jen moaned. “How come I only get dogs to sleep with?”

Charles and Ed insisted on walking her home. Drunkenly linking their arms through hers, they joked they were bodyguards. She wasn't complaining.

A fierce and bitter wind had picked up, and there was a lethal-looking layer of ice upon the ground. She set her chin down into her coat and, zigzagging up the road, exchanged greetings with inebriated passers-by. It was all good-natured, which was lucky, she thought. The season of goodwill was often a flashpoint for violence.

Somewhere in the distance, the night sky was lit up with fireworks. They all stopped and watched for a few moments before the brutal cold drove them on. As they drew close to the studio, she explained that she could manage on her own.

“It will only take a couple of minutes to walk down the road and round the back.”

“You didn't bring the studio keys?” Ed said, with concern.

“Ray would go bonkers if I lost them,” Helen laughed. “Seriously, it's fine.”

“You sure?” Charles said, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the darkness.

“Go on, boys,” she said, kissing both of them.

“We'll watch your back,” Ed said, standing on the corner with his arms crossed.

“Have it your way,” she laughed, setting off down the road with a determined step.

The wind buffeted against her face, lifting her hair, numbing her ears. She called to them and they called back but their voices were carried away, sucked into the sound of New Year breaking over the city. She stood for a second, feeling nervous, wanting to run back and join them, to say she'd had an attack of nerves and changed her mind. Instead, she did what she always did. She summoned up her courage. She took a risk. Giving a last wave, she turned down the private road that led to the back entrance, taking out the bunch of keys to the coach-house from her bag. Together with the thinning slice of moon, there was enough of a duff glow from the street lamps to light her way. She listened to her own footsteps, which seemed loud in the darkness. She saw plumes of hot breath escape from her mouth and cut through the cold. She felt her heart hammer in her chest. Get a grip, for God's sake, she told herself sternly. It would be fine. A few more paces, that was all. At any moment, a security light was timed to come on.

Only it didn't.

Perplexed, she waited. Still nothing happened. She glanced behind her, checking for someone in the shadows, but there was nobody. With a faltering step, she moved forward, one arm stretched ahead of her like an elephant's trunk, feeling her way. She could just make out the outline of her MR2 Roadster parked in its usual slot, and the white painted door that led to the rear garden and her home. Emboldened, she walked on, touched the car, her fingers connecting with and briefly sticking to the frosted metal, hoping to God that nobody was lurking behind it. Then she heard the noise: the heavy-duty sound of an engine starting up. And it was coming from in front of her.

It came out of the darkness with vicious speed. A flash of white. Swerving towards her. Clipping her smartly. Sending her and the keys sprawling. Even though her hands and knees took most of the impact, the intense pain in her hip rivered through her as she fell. Gasping with distress, she twisted her body round, her eyes searching the night. White van. Blocked-out windows. No plates. Stationary. Oh Christ, she thought, watching the brake-lights glow a simmering red, he's coming back to finish the job off.

Crying out with pain and fear, she grabbed hold of the side of her car and levered herself to her feet. She'd lost a shoe. Her tights were ripped to shreds and her hands were bleeding. Dragging her left leg, she tried to melt into the darkness, hugging the bushes near the side of the road. Still the van waited, taunting her. Got to get out of here, she thought, desperately trying not to panic. Got to find the keys. She dropped back down to her hands and knees, her desire to stay alive greater than the agony in the left side of her body, and raked the ground with her fingers.

That's when the van slowly started to reverse.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE PRIVATE DRIVE WAS
a cul-de-sac. The van was hemming her in with deadly intent. In too much pain to make a run for it, her only ally was the moon. A chink of light shone on the frozen ground and, guided by its gleam, she searched furiously to locate the keys, but the van was still crawling at a menacing pace towards her. By now, it was no more than two yards away. In desperation, she raked the ground again with bleeding hands. Still the van backed. She felt as if it were already on top of her. Then she caught sight of her key ring glittering in the moonlight. Crawling towards it, she recognised the metallic disc with her initials engraved upon it. She calculated that she had seconds to strike and get clear. No more. At any moment, he could put his foot down and reverse over her, crushing her bones, leaving pools of blood and bits of her on the tarmac. She lunged forward. At the same time, she heard the wrench of the handbrake, heard the tyres locking. Crackling with fear, she lay there, waiting for her assailant to get out of the car to do God knows what. Had she been uninjured, she would have faced him and taken her chances. In her current state, it was unthinkable.

Heart thumping, blood drumming in her ears, she held her breath until she felt dizzy. Then the engine gave an unexpected roar, the brake lights vanished, and the van took off at speed,
forwards
, disappearing down the drive, jerking left towards the main road, and out of sight.

Scrabbling for the keys, she moved back onto her haunches, and forced herself to her feet. Her only focus was the door. She fumbled for the lock, jabbed in the key, turning it, pushing her way through, taking care to bolt the door shut behind her. Then she lurched along the path to home, tears streaming down her face.

Once inside, she headed straight for the bathroom, locking the door, something she never did, and collapsed onto the floor. Deathly cold, she was shaking all over. Her teeth chattered. Everything hurt. She felt sick and her mind was rambling. Another shock like this in so few days couldn't be good for her, she thought wildly. Tea, sweetened tea, that's what you're supposed to have. But first she needed to get up, and she couldn't. She just couldn't. She stared at her hands. The nails were broken and there was grit in her palms. Same with her knees. Her dress was wrecked and the left side of her body felt all stiff and swollen. She didn't know how long she stayed there on the bathroom floor but, very slowly, she managed to pull herself up. In between moans, she gingerly peeled off her tattered clothes and threw them into the corner. She was cut and grazed all over. Her hip and left thigh had started to swell and change colour but, as far as she could tell, it was all soft tissue; there was no major damage. After making a half-hearted effort to bathe her wounds, she decided to run a shallow lukewarm bath and get it over with in one go. While it was running, she slipped on a robe and went downstairs to make herself a drink.

The kitchen clock said five fifty-five in the morning. Apart from the moon clinging tenaciously to the sky, she could see very little outside, which made her feel safer. Ought to be checked over by a medic, she thought vaguely, sipping her tea. Ought to phone the police and speak to Harmon. She thought of D.C. Wylie showing up, imagined his swagger, his disapproving expression. She wouldn't be believed, she thought numbly. Half of her didn't believe what had happened either.

Returning to the bathroom, she immersed herself in water, grinding her teeth as it flowed over her wounds and made them sting. At least she was alive, she consoled herself.

For the second time in less than a week.

Two hours later she awoke in bed. Every part of her body had stiffened. Her muscles ached from where she'd instinctively braced. Her skin felt sore as if sunburnt. Gently touching the back of her head, she found her hair was matted with blood and that there was a noticeable bump. But more than all these physical injuries, she was consumed by one question: why?

He could have killed her. She was unarmed, vulnerable and totally at his mercy. There were no witnesses. The van was plain, no markings, rather like a scenes of crime van but this one had no plates on it, indicating it was stolen. Afterwards, all he had to do was get far enough away, torch it and go to ground.

But he didn't run her over.

So killing her wasn't part of the agenda. Then what did he want, she thought anxiously? Was he simply intent on roughing her up, on frightening the life out of her? But that neither explained his motivation nor indicated what he wanted. And she couldn't rule out the connection between last night's incident and the mugging a few days before. Oh God, she thought, was it just possible that Jacks had a hand in it?

She remembered what her dad told her, but the idea that present events could be linked to her past simply didn't ring true. Convicted criminals often had policemen and judges in their sights. The threat to witnesses and jurors was real enough, but former scenes of crime officers didn't come in for that kind of attention. Not even people with her history, she thought, feeling a sudden weight of guilt so strong it hurt.

She struggled to sit up. In the chaos, she'd forgotten to draw the curtains. Although her clock told her it was morning, she could see that the moon was reluctant to make an exit. So what if her past was also refusing to go away, she thought with a shiver? What if it had come back to smack her round the face? What if it was all connected to the case that was branded on her mind? The one that made her leave, the one that destroyed her lover's career, her own career, the one that threatened her sanity? She swallowed hard. For four years she'd done her best to bury it. She'd tried to build a different life, to recreate a new persona, to immerse her entire being in work, to switch off, to escape. She'd also taken a personal vow of honesty. Exhibiting the same zeal as a reformed smoker, she'd become obsessed with truth, the need to know it and, where it counted, to tell it, even if that meant leaving her vulnerable and putting her at a disadvantage. But, in spite of all her efforts to twist and turn away from her past, to lay it to rest, it kept seeping through to the surface. It kept coming back to haunt her. That's why she got the headaches, she reckoned.

Her mind flipped back to the party. First there'd been goofy James, the CAFCASS bloke, then Sarah. She believed that women were finer observers than men, better at picking up non-verbal clues, expert at dishing out covert insults, not that Sarah was particularly clandestine in her attack, she remembered with annoyance. While she only felt peeved that Jen had gossiped to Mark Horton, it worried her that Martin had discussed her history with someone who'd used it as a weapon against her – even if it was to be expected. Lovers invariably talk about their pasts. It was a kind of currency, a chance to reveal, share, sometimes show off the most attractive facets of one's personality, but she'd believed, naively perhaps, that when she'd confided in Martin it was in strictest confidence. She imagined him telling Sarah. Perhaps it had been dropped into the conversation after one too many glasses of wine, or shared with her after sex. A chill crept up her spine. Pillow talk was a dangerous thing.

After another hour of trying to doze, she gave up. Pulling on a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants and a navy fleece-lined top, she shuffled to the bathroom, rooting through the medicine chest for painkillers. Her clothes lay in a bloodied heap upon the floor and there was grit in the bath from where she'd picked out bits of road from her skin. At least she didn't have a hangover, she consoled herself, swallowing a couple of paracetamol with some water. She knew that, if she were anyone else, she ought to report the incident, but, as it was her, a discredited and corrupt individual by many police officers' standards, it was out of the question.

Putting on a jacket, she hobbled downstairs, grabbed the camera she kept for personal use, a Leica with a zoom lens, and let herself out.

After a rough and windy night, the garden was an oasis of calm. A watery sun bled light onto the grass. She walked down the path to the rear door, unlocked it and, checking both ways to make sure she was entirely alone, carefully studied the area of disturbance. One of her stiletto shoes lay near the fence. Patches of fabric and fibre from her dress and tights were clearly visible to her trained eye. She crouched down painfully, her good knee resting on the ground, right elbow resting on her right leg. She hurt so much she found it difficult to keep the camera steady, crucial for a pin-sharp shot, and took the precaution of ensuring that the shutter speed was fast enough to hide any camera shake. She took several shots of both shoe and fabric, and one of the security light that had failed to come on. Where the van revved and sped off down the road, there were distinct rubber-marks, which she also snapped. Walking back down the drive to the entry to the next-door building, she noticed a narrow weed-infested patch that had been clearly flattened by a vehicle. She limped over and, gingerly resting on her haunches, examined the verge for tyre tracks or foot impressions, but the frozen, unyielding ground made it impossible to make anything out. Painfully straightening up, she noticed a number of spent matches aimlessly thrown towards the middle of the drive. Applying Locard's Principle – every contact leaves a trace – she took a closer look. There was no sign of cigarette-stubs, but she estimated this was roughly the spot where he'd holed up. This was the place he'd lain in wait for her. All quite deliberate. No chance of coincidence. Again she took more shots, this time using the macro facility on the zoom lens to a get a close-up. The simple act of recording what happened seemed to concentrate her mind. Returning to the coach-house, she knew exactly what to do next.

An hour later, she was sitting in her colourfully painted kitchen with Detective Inspector Joe Stratton.

“I wasn't sure if you'd be at work. Pulled the short straw?” she said with a warm smile.

“Volunteered for it.” His deep, well-spoken voice sounded clipped. He'd lost weight, she thought, making him look taller than his six foot build. His dark hair was cut short, and his skin was pale, lending his eyes an unusual intensity. She briefly wondered if she'd made a mistake asking for his help.

“Thanks for coming,” she smiled again, nervously.

“Didn't think you'd want to come to Steelhouse Lane.”

“Too much like going into the bear pit,” she joked.

Stratton agreed, eyes smiling. “Looks as though you landed on your feet,” he said, looking around. “Ray's a good guy.”

“And I'm a good photographer,” she batted back.

“Must be quite a change from photographing corpses.”

“My present clients smell a lot better,” she grinned.

“But talk back,” Stratton let out a laugh. That was more like it, she thought, more like the Stratton I know. It felt like the old days; black humour to cover the dreadful nature of some of the work.

“Want a drink?” she asked him.

Stratton requested coffee, no milk, no sugar. They sat down at the kitchen table. Now that he was here, she didn't know where to begin. Neither did he, by the look of him.

“So run through what you told me on the phone again,” Stratton said.

She did.

“And you reckon this is connected to the mugging four days ago?”

“You already heard about it?”

“Hard not to. After your call this morning, I checked out the paperwork. It's not absolutely crystal-clear that you were pushed.”

“No.”

Stratton inclined his head in question.

“Truth is I'm not sure,” she said, shuffling on her chair. No matter how she tried to sit, she couldn't get comfortable.

“Why didn't you report last night's incident to Harmon and Wylie?”

It was the obvious question. She'd been waiting for it. “I did
think
about it.”

“And?”

She looked straight into his dark brown eyes. “I won't be taken seriously.”

He glanced away.

“You want me to spell it out?” she said softly.

Stratton pulled a face.

“Corruption's a dirty word, Joe. It's like the big C.”

His look inferred
so that's why you got me here
. “You weren't corrupt.”

Helen arched an eyebrow. “Remember Lou Crosbie?”

Stratton let out a sigh and nodded. Detective Constable Crosbie's superior officer was found to be on the take, a crime for which he was arrested and eventually sent to prison. Even though Crosbie was innocent, he was shunned and eventually forced to resign, the assumption being that Crosbie must have been in the know. Helen didn't believe for a second that Adam Roscoe had been corrupt but there were plenty who did, and that meant her card was marked.

“I know the score, Joe. If I report what happened, my complaint will be written down, all the right noises made, and the details filed in the bottom of a very large filing cabinet.” She couldn't say that she suspected Harmon and Wylie were the types who'd follow orders without question, would always close ranks. She couldn't say that Wylie appeared to have a view. “That's why I thought you were better placed.”

“Bloody hell, Helen.”

“Look, Joe, someone's out to get me.”

“I'm getting deja vu. Next you'll start banging on about conspiracy theories and cover-ups.”

She flinched, glanced away for a second. “I was right.”

“Only to a point,” he said a warning look in his eyes. “And I don't need reminding of it.”

No, he didn't. One of the few who'd been good to her, he'd defended her when others had wanted to tear her limb from limb. The police were no different to the rest of society. They had no love of whistle-blowers. They turned against those who betrayed their own.

“Sorry,” she said humbly.

“OK,” Stratton said, his features relaxing a little. He took a sip of coffee and studied her. “Suppose someone
is
out to get you, as you say, the question you have to ask is what do they want?”