Behind Closed Doors (4 page)

Palmer watched me. His expression remained stony but a fuse was lit. Suddenly he leaned forward like he wanted to come over the desk.

‘Illegal?' he hissed. ‘Am I hearing you right? Are you shitting me?'

We continued to lock stares while he tried to figure out just how big a blunder he'd made.

‘Since when did legal come into it?' he said. ‘All you guys play behind the rule book.'

‘Not Eagle Eye,' I said.

Palmer watched me a moment then threw out a laugh like a Volvo backfiring. He pointed a fat finger.

‘So you're Flynn,' he said. ‘The ex-filth. I knew it the moment you walked in. Smelled it a mile off.' He rocked back in his seat and shook his head. ‘Half the private dicks in this city are Met failures,' he said, ‘but not many of them have the gall to squeal about legalities. Coppers are the most bent people I know.'

‘You don't know me,' I pointed out.

I wasn't smiling myself. Maybe the sound of the triple-fee bubble popping had spoiled my mood. I'd known the bubble was going to burst but that didn't make it easier. At least as commissioning interviews went this was short and sweet, because I was through.

I slid off the swivel chair and wheeled it back to the wall. Palmer waited until I reached the door.

‘Sure I know you,' he yelled. ‘I did my homework. I made sure I knew what kind of a fuck-up I'd be hiring. And I found it was the worst kind. The high flyer who thinks he's God right up to the day they cut his strings. How does it feel, Flynn? King of the rubbish dump.' I heard him getting up from his desk behind me.

‘You're as bent as any copper I ever met,' he said. ‘But my information said that your agency was the best. Name your price. I'll pay it. Only don't give me pious, Flynn. Pious gives me acid. I never met an ex-filth yet who didn't have his price!'

I had the door open. I should have walked out. I shouldn't have been listening to any of this. Instead I turned back and wheeled the swivel chair out from the wall again.

Palmer laughed and slapped his desk.

I picked the swivel up. The thing weighed an absolute ton. You get hernias that way. I saw Palmer's eyes pop as I heaved my shoulders and launched the chair. It went through the panoramic window as if it was paper, showering glass down onto the bays. Palmer was charging round his desk like a scalded walrus, but his tonnage was against him. By the time he'd got half way across the room I was out of the door and down the stairs.

It looked like Harold's acid tablets were going to take a hit today.

My business acumen had shaved forty-five minutes off my schedule, which meant that the North Circular was still moving when I exited the depot. I drove north-east and took the Golders Green turn-off.

The Slater home was a two-storey Spanish villa facing woods in a cul-de-sac south of the golf course. Ten-foot hedgerows hemmed the roads in like the avenues of a maze, testifying to the area's premium on privacy. Luckily the Slaters preferred their wealth to be visible. Their house stood open to the road behind a fir-shaded lawn circled by a curving driveway that serviced triple garage doors. There was nothing parked. No sign of life. I spotted an ivy-covered substation set into the trees fifty yards back along the lane. Fibre optics were going down in the area and a ten-foot cable drum on the station parking area gave me cover. I reversed the Frogeye alongside the drum and settled in with a view of the house.

The lane was quiet. Ditto the Slater house. I tuned in to LBC and listened to two hours of regurgitated headlines and traffic nightmares. Sometimes you learn just by waiting and watching. Sometimes you get nothing. In two hours only three vehicles passed me, heading for properties further in. One was a Porsche with a forty-something woman at the wheel. The two others were high spec Mercs that whispered by as the light faded. I glimpsed shirt-sleeved execs behind tinted windscreens.

Around seven o'clock thick cloud drifted over the trees behind me and killed the last of the light. In response, the glass around the Slaters' front door lit up. Someone was home. But the rest of the house stayed dark. I waited another fifteen minutes and decided to call it a day. I'd evaporated two and a half hours of Gina Redding's money without even dipping my toe. Looked like we'd been lumbered with the quietest family in the city.

Just as I reached for the choke another car came up the lane and passed in a silent rush. A light metallic Lexus, its driver invisible. Fifty yards on the Lexus turned into the Slaters' driveway and swung round in front of the garage. When the driver got out the light and distance worked against detail but I got an impression of a tall, casually-dressed man. No business suit. No briefcase.

The man was expected. The house door opened before he reached it and a woman's figure held it while he entered.

No embrace. No welcome home. The man strode past without any sign he'd seen her. The door closed and the show was over. Maybe affection was not the Slater family strong point. Assuming these were the Slaters.

On a hunch I flipped the radio to a music station and waited another thirty minutes.

Bad hunch. The guy didn't reappear. The house looked like it was settled in for the night. The family were probably sat around
EastEnders
, or maybe Father was helping Rebecca with her studies while Mother worked at her embroidery. Blissfully unaware that they had London's hottest detective sitting on their doorstep.

Life is spooky.

At seven thirty I gunned the engine and left them to it.

I reviewed what I'd achieved. Distilled it down to having avoided the rush hour. Not something to trivialise. I headed towards Cricklewood, killed the radio and slotted in a Gil Evans tape. Added my own rendition to the opening of ‘Little Wing'. Drops of rain hit the windscreen. Drizzle turned into a downpour. I pulled in for petrol on the Edgware Road. The rain sparkled like crystal beyond the fluorescents as I pumped unleaded and watched the traffic, listened to the breath of the city hissing on wet tarmac. I was back in Battersea by eight twenty and Lady Luck combined with the Frogeye's dimensions to get me a parking space outside my apartment. When I climbed the stairs I detected more luck. An aroma of fried chicken and paprika was emanating from my doorway. I wasn't expecting visitors. Maybe my fairy godmother had dropped in. I hoped she'd cooled the beer.

Instead I found Arabel in the kitchen. I'd known it wasn't my fairy godmother. That old crone had left home when I was six and hadn't shown her sorry backside since. Luckily, Arabel's backside made a spectacular substitute. I walked up behind her and got reacquainted with it to the extent possible when the owner is holding a frying pan that's erupting like Vesuvius.

‘Nice surprise,' I stated. Arabel turned her head too quickly and caught my eyes on the pan instead of her. Pushed her rear against me in what was meant as a fend-off but had the opposite effect.

‘Hey, babe,' she yelled, ‘you're gonna be wearing this chicken.'

I wasn't sure what she was offering but I backed off. She returned the pan to the gas and turned to fend me off some more. When we got our lips unglued she gave me a big ‘Wow'. And that smile.

Wow!

‘Thought you were working,' I said.

‘Someone asked a favour. Swapped for an early next week.' Her skin was golden in the kitchen spots. The gold comes from mixing Anglo-Saxon and West Indian. I don't know what mix had produced her brown-speckled eyes. They were pure Caribbean warmth – the thing I loved most as long as I kept a weather-eye for the tropical storms. Arabel got my arms untangled from her body, changed her mind and tangled them back. Her eyes were closed. Mine stayed on the frying pan. When Arabel realised that the saliva she was drowning in had nothing to do with her she broke the clinch, told me to go freshen up.

‘You nearly missed the feast, Flynn,' she said. ‘Stir-fry doesn't reheat.'

Flynn.

It's what she calls me. Nothing impersonal - Arabel just comes from a generation that likes their names backwards. I wondered about age again. I'd never considered thirties old until my encounter with Miss Prissy-Pants this morning. But when I thought about it I realised that Arabel was halfway back to Miss P-P's age. Made me wonder why a twenty-seven-year-old was cooking my dinner. Then I looked at Arabel and I knew why she had my front door key. A man has no way of defending himself against a girl like that. I swear I'd tried.

I showered and scurried back to the aroma of paprika and cayenne mixing with hot chilli. Arabel served the chicken on a green salad with a homemade dressing that was heavy on honey. We sat at the table overlooking the street and a basket of wholemeal rolls emptied fast between us.

We talked about things and swigged Grolsch to cool the chilli. I told Arabel about my missing girl. She was all ears – still found private investigation romantic even though her instinct must have been screaming that this was not a good profession in a guy. While she listened she attacked her chicken like she was on the run between shifts. With Arabel meals were a metaphor for life. Take what's offered before the plate gets snatched. She finished ahead of me and sat back with her Grolsch. Came back to the missing girl.

‘You think there really is something funny going on?' she asked.

‘There's always something funny going on,' I said. ‘The longer you do this job the more you realise that there's no one leads a simple life.'

‘Some people must.'

‘No one I ever met.'

‘What about us?'

I gave her incredulous.

‘Relatively,' she said.

‘Relatively,' I agreed. ‘But we're probably the only people we know who aren't trailing skeletons around in their closet.'

Arabel's eyebrows raised. ‘How do you know I've got no skelingtons, babe?'

‘Your skeletons would have left years ago,' I said, ‘to save wear and tear on their bones.'

She threw me a look.

‘So how about you, Flynn? How do I know you've no boneyards? Since you never tell me anything.'

I stopped with my fork in mid-air. Looked at her.

Good point.

‘You don't know,' I said softly.

She watched me with those eyes, letting the point smoulder.

‘I just wonder sometimes,' she said.

I broke the stare first. ‘My skeletons are buried,' I told her. ‘Six feet under. Better leave them in peace.'

I concentrated on clearing my plate but she was still watching.

‘Sometimes it's better to know, Flynn. Even the bad stuff.'

‘That's what my clients say. Till they hear the bad stuff.'

I downed the Grolsch to souse the spices. The chillies gave the beer an edge. Brought out the sweetness of the fermentation and sent the liquid down my throat like a spring stream.

‘Sometimes,' I said, ‘I wouldn't recognise my own skeletons if they came knocking on the door.'

I reached under the table and gave the wood a good loud rap. Arabel jumped a mile and spilled her beer, cursed me. Ended up laughing but her eyes were darting. She cursed me some more and swigged the rest of her Grolsch to steady her nerves.

‘What's your guess?' she said. ‘Has the girl run away? Is she in danger? Is the family hiding something?'

‘Any of those,' I said. ‘Or all. Or nothing. Who knows?'

Her eyes opened wide. ‘Sounds like you've almost closed the case.'

‘The biggest part of closing a case is knowing how to open it,' I said. ‘Head off in the right direction and you're as good as home. You just listen and watch, tug a few lines and see which tug back.'

The trouble was that the tugging usually started with inside information. This time I was outside, looking at a family who had declared that there was no problem. Maybe there wasn't. Just Sadie Bannister's overactive imagination and the fears of a lonely pensioner. Leaving us to disprove a negative. Arabel asked the question that I'd been asking.

‘How you gonna start?'

‘I'll figure something,' I said. ‘Tomorrow.'

Tomorrow would bring inspiration. Of that I was sure.

I was up before six and went out in the dark to run three laps of the park. As I pushed myself hard along the river the needles of rain that stabbed my face told me that this must be healthy. In the investigation business it pays to keep ahead of the ageing process – or ahead of the self-destruct process, in my case. If I ever relaxed, I knew that the gremlin that grinned at me from the other end of my lifestyle see-saw would come scampering across and devour me.

Thirty-six minutes was my standard for three circuits. Slower was a sign that the gremlin was sliding my way. Today I managed forty, blamed the weather, and staggered back to my front door with health oozing from every pore. My legs didn't give way until I was half way up the stairs.

I showered and swallowed a pint of orange juice, crammed sliced ham into wholemeal rolls. I dug out my old briefcase and dropped the rolls inside, then went to the bedroom and stooped to kiss the duvet under which I'd last seen Arabel. The duvet didn't move. I picked up my Burberry and headed out.

When I turned the Frogeye onto Battersea Bridge at just before seven the tingle of blood sluicing through clear veins rewarded me for my fortitude. A mid-river burst of sunlight lifted the morning. The wind was still gusting but the rain had stopped.

I cranked the radio up and beat the traffic through Chelsea and Kensington, headed north towards Hampstead. By seven twenty I was parked up in my substation fifty yards from the Slater house, ready for a second look.

The house was quiet and dark. The Lexus hadn't moved. I tuned in Capital and listened to a mixture of rap and news headlines while the clock crept towards eight.

Just after seven thirty the two Mercs from up the lane headed out towards the City. There was a lull until the post van drove by at eight fifteen and dropped mail at the Slaters' and the properties further up. Five minutes later it returned in convoy with a four-by-four driven by a woman with a child perched illegally in the front seat. Next action was eight twenty-three when an elderly woman walked up the lane to domestic duties further in. Then nothing for another half hour. The Slaters' front door stayed shut like it was Sunday morning.

It looked like Larry Slater didn't follow the twelve-hour city routine. Maybe a perk of running your own business. Let someone else open up. Nine o'clock and still no action. No sign of the girl heading for college either. Rebecca Townsend was either indisposed or not there.

At nine fifteen the door finally opened and Larry Slater came out. He wore a leather jacket and an open-collar shirt. He fired up the Lexus and rolled by me without a glance. His casual garb didn't exactly say City stockbroker. I was intrigued but stayed put. The most important information was right here at the house: was Rebecca Townsend home in bed like her parents said?

I tuned in Radio Four and ate my sandwich rolls, allowing Larry Slater forty minutes to fight through traffic. Then I pulled a number from directory enquiries and dialled his company, Slater–Kline. The call routed to a computerised pitch that some delusional had worked up to keep customers entertained while you stalled them. Between bursts of muzak the spiel assured me that my call was deeply valued. After five minutes even the computer was sounding unsure. I was about to hang up when the line was finally picked up. A bright female voice asked how she might help me. The brightness was that of someone who hasn't just endured five minutes of muzak brainwashing. I asked for Larry Slater.

‘Mr Slater's out right now,' Brightvoice said. ‘May I help?'

‘No,' I said, brainwash-brusque. ‘I'll catch him when he's back in. Do you know what time that will be?'

Brightvoice told me she didn't know exactly and offered to take a message.

‘An hour?' I guessed. ‘Shall I try at eleven?'

‘I'm sorry,' Brightvoice insisted. ‘Mr Slater is out on business. We're not sure when he'll be in. Did you have an appointment? We're rearranging some of his schedules today.'

I told her I didn't have an appointment, said I'd ring back, and cut the line before she could ask questions I didn't want to answer.

So Slater was not in the office. And schedules were being rearranged. A priority business client? Or had Slater just left it till the last minute to tell them he wasn't turning up?

I settled back to watch the house, wondering if I should have tailed the Lexus. But if I'd been tailing Slater I'd have been worrying that I should have stayed at the house to find out whether the girl was home. The endless neuroses of private investigation.

As surveillances went this threatened to be a slow mover. Conventional surveillance (what Smarty-Pants called
snooping
) is typically away from home – tailing rogue husbands and the like. Less often it involved watching for house calls whilst said husband was away. This one was different: I was entirely on the outside. I had to get in.

At ten fifteen I slid out of the car. I donned my Burberry and pulled my briefcase from the Sprite's footwell. Then I walked up the road and rang the Slaters' doorbell.

The chimes brought no response. I tried a second time. Still nothing. I leaned on the button.

The message finally got through.

The woman who opened the door was the one I'd seen the night before. Tall and good-looking, late thirties. Classic high cheeks and ocean-blue eyes. She would have been beautiful without the fatigue. She looked at me with a clamped mouth that showed no sign of starting a dialogue. Her best effort was an indifference that barely papered over her impatience to close the door.

Her lassitude helped gloss over the rudimentary ID I held up. The ID was one of an inkjet stock conjured up by our part-timer Harry Green. The card was designed to look as official as possible whilst remaining sufficiently generic to fit most bills. The trick was the heavy use of acronyms and meaningless titles with words like
authority
and
registered association
, plus a few machine-readable numerals and a generic logo. Add a geeky-looking photo of yourself, encase the lot in plastic and your legitimacy will never be challenged. Most people wouldn't recognise the name of their utilities provider, much less the subcontractor who reads the meter. When police recommend that you check visitors' IDs they don't tell you that the con men have the best of the lot.

Jean Slater was not in a perceptive mood. She glanced at my ID for two seconds then looked at me for the explanation. I gave her the name on the card and made up something about the Local Education Authority.

‘Just a routine call,' I said. I checked a clipboard I'd pulled from my briefcase: ‘This is Rebecca Townsend's home?' I looked up.

Jean's eyes widened briefly then her expression clouded into a look that said she wanted me gone, whatever my business. She pulled herself together to deal with the situation. Forced herself to frown more convincingly.

‘What's this about?' she said.

‘Nothing official,' I assured her. ‘May I come in?'

She thought about it. Lacked the resolution to refuse me. She stepped back and held the door open. I walked in. Easy.

I held out an official hand. Repeated my false name and apologised for intruding. Jean's hand was clammy. No suggestion of a grip. The handshake is another con man's trick. Confers legitimacy to even the most outrageous of cold calls. If I wasn't in investigation I could have been a top-notch insurance salesman.

I asked Jean how Rebecca was.

Jean stayed puzzled but she answered me. ‘Fine,' she said.

I saw that she was close to asking questions I didn't want her to ask. I gave her my most reassuring smile and headed her off.

‘It's nothing official,' I repeated. ‘We try to follow through on students who are away from college.'

‘That's unusual,' she said. Her frown deepened but she didn't have the willpower to disbelieve me. I was there in her house so I must be proof of the Education Authority's concern.

‘Perhaps you're familiar with our “Access to Education” policy,' I suggested. ‘One if its tenets is that we offer assistance to students who are detained by medical factors for more than five consecutive college days. If I understand,' another glance at my empty clipboard, ‘Rebecca has been absent for eight days. That makes her eligible for home assignments prepared by her course tutors.'

The spiel sounded dodgy even to me. I sensed the suspicion wavering behind Jean Slater's eyes and moved quickly on.

‘It depends, of course,' I extemporised, ‘on the student's condition and inclination. How can I put it?' I used the cover of a thoughtful gaze to get a quick look around the place. The entrance hall was designed to impress visitors whose own lives were dedicated to impressing others. A square two-storey space with green and gold wall fabrics that would have outpriced the carpets in my apartment by a factor of ten. And the carpet here was an Axminster you could have run a combine harvester through. The Axminster ran back towards distant doorways and curved seamlessly up twin oak-banistered staircases to right and left. The stairs came together at the top to feed a gallery that crowned the grand entrance. Everything was Ideal Home perfection. No dropped coats or bags. No shoes in the corner. No domestic appliances. The only item out of place was a half-empty wine glass Jean had dumped on the Italianate telephone stand as she scurried to the door. Maybe the slight thickening in her voice was more than fatigue. It looked like our devoted mother was an early starter.

My pause left the house deadly quiet. When I looked back, Jean Slater's eyes were locked on me. I went back to my spiel.

‘If it helps your daughter,' I explained, ‘we can authorise home assignments in lieu of regular coursework. Reduces the risk of her falling behind. Everything is her decision, of course.'

My little speech seemed to settle Jean. She smiled a little and hunched up her shoulders with a kind of helpless understanding.

‘Of course,' she said. For the first time her eyes opened with something like confidence. The realisation that she would soon have me out of the door. ‘Unfortunately Rebecca is convalescing from a rather bad virus. She's sleeping most of the time. There's no way she could take on any academic work.'

I gave her my gravest smile.

‘Of course. Perhaps a short chat with her? She could let me know if she'd like anything preparing for when she feels up to it.'

Jean shook her head emphatically. ‘That won't be possible,' she told me.

‘I would take just five minutes,' I assured her.

‘No.' Her eyes were harder now. She looked at the ID I'd clipped onto my Burberry and I sensed that she was drawing herself up to ask questions.

I backed off. ‘Fine, Mrs Slater, we'll trust to your judgement. You know your daughter best. If she is not up to it I'll not impose. Perhaps I should call in a couple of days?'

‘No.' She shook her head again with wine-assisted vigour. ‘Rebecca is staying with my sister in Berkshire. She'll be there another week. And I'm sure she'll pick up quickly when she gets back to college.' She gave me a smile that didn't quite make it. ‘I'll mention your visit. If there's anything she needs then she'll get in touch.'

‘Marvellous!' I gave her my most brilliant smile to mark this tremendous achievement. We'd sorted the problem wonderfully. I waxed lyrical as I handed over a generic card and told her to make sure that Rebecca asked for me personally when she called, although it was unlikely she'd get me or anyone else on the card's number. I threw in a few more best wishes for her daughter's recuperation and let Jean shepherd me back out of the door. As she held the door wide, her smile was so bright that you almost missed its insincerity.

She certainly missed mine.

I walked back down the lane in bright sunlight, sweating under the Burberry. At the substation I ditched the coat and pushed it back into the Frogeye's tiny boot. Then folded myself into the tiny seat.

Time for a meeting I didn't relish. My fingers actually hesitated on the keypad. But I needed information. I made the call.

I pushed in a Claire Martin tape and cranked up the volume to fill the Frogeye with her gutsy, smoky flow and drove south, thinking through what I had.

Rebecca Townsend was not at the house. I got that from my senses rather than from faith in Jean Slater's words. And the house screamed of something amiss. I pictured Jean wandering alone around the perfect home with her perfect glass of wine. Husband away, daughter some place unknown. Jean's agitation was almost tangible, something that craved early tranquillising. What stage of marital disharmony had Jean and Larry Slater reached? What sort of home was the Slaters' when you looked behind the gloss? Maybe one that would have a recuperating teenager jump at the chance when an aunt offered her a bed. Assuming that the aunt had made the offer. What if the girl had simply decided to up and leave? Was that what I saw in Jean's face?

But would Rebecca run away from home without informing her best friend? I doubted it. I just needed to hear it again from the best friend herself.

Winter had switched to spring inside four hours. Micro-seasons breaking up the day. The sun slid in and out of the cloud, turning the wet road alternately grey and blinding white. I cranked the volume up beyond the cassette's limit until Martin's voice rasped like sandpaper over my backing vocals. I let the Frogeye take me at its own pace, slipping gracefully through the traffic at wheel-arch height. I headed through Swiss Cottage then swung west and drove into West Kilburn at just before eleven thirty.

I parked in a convenient Waitrose and walked up towards a nest of fast food shops across the road from the sixth-form college. The shops and kiosks were busy with students. I spotted Sadie sat on the low wall fronting the college, munching something that looked like a health-insurance catastrophe.

Her belly was still taking the air but her upper parts were covered by a cotton jacket today. She'd even found a pair of jeans that reached her hips. Sadie still looked thirteen, but so did most of the youths milling around us. I stopped in front of her and she wrapped her cholesterol-special in a napkin and set it on the wall, pulled the tab on a canned drink. Her eyes were a little friendlier today. Like an affectionate rottweiler's. I sat down next to her.