Down Among the Dead Men (40 page)

Mills looks at him. 'Who else knows?'

'Just me,' says Frank. Mills looks unconvinced. 'Really? Because I'd have told someone if I was sitting on this.'

Is Mills making a threat? Frank decides not. And he has a point. Maybe it's a warning.

'I may have emailed my team,' says Frank. 'As a matter of protocol.'

'Protocol, hey?'

Mills pushes the material back across the desk. 'You keep this,' he says. 'If I need copies I can look up what you looked up.' He folds his hands across his stomach. 'The fewer people who know about this the better. It's political with a capital Fuck Me. Making a fishing trip to find witnesses – which I'm not saying is wrong – is one thing. Coming up with assertions like this Sheehan connection? That's trouble, right there. For you, for me, for Sheehan, for your department.'

'My department?'

'If this goes public watch how soon your actions get looked at. You Brits have a nosy press, right?'

Frank thinks of McSkimming sniffing at his heels when Nicky Peters was missing.

'But you'll pass this along to Hagenbaum?'

'Yes,' says Mills. 'As quickly as possible. I don't want any part of this if I can help it.'

'And the meeting with Noone?'

'We'll fix it.'

As Frank stands Mills speaks. 'I'm curious,' he says. 'What do you think Noone's gonna do? Assuming you're right about him?'

'Kill his father,' says Frank quickly, surprising himself. Until Mills had asked, Frank hadn't known that was what he thought.

'Why?'

Frank shrugs. 'I don't know.' He pushes open Mills' door and walks out, thinking: I need to speak to Salt.

Twenty-Four

'Look at this,' says Koop, pointing to the laptop.

They've been back at the apartment for an hour. It's almost five. Koop's been working the internet while Frank makes calls. There's been nothing from Warren and Frank needs to wait a little longer until he can call MIT. He wants Harris to do some more digging and he wants to register their progress with the case files. He's already spoken to DC Rose, who's once again pulling a late one in Liverpool, but this is something Frank wants to go through with Harris. She'll be in around seven in the morning, 11 pm in LA.

'What is it?' says Frank.

'I was digging around into Sheehan and saw this.'

Frank follows Koop's finger. It's a news item about a presidential fundraiser dinner to be held in Los Angeles at the weekend, in four days' time. LA is a Democrat stronghold and the president will be in attendance at a dinner hosted by a movie star. Tickets for the best tables are being snapped up at $30,000 a pop. Despite his involvement as a witness in the congressional hearings, Dennis Sheehan will be attending.

'I thought he was a Republican?'

'Was,' says Koop. 'He retired from politics. Maybe now that he's just a humble businessman he likes to keep on the right side of whoever's winning.'

Frank reads out loud. 'Following an afternoon charity garden party hosted by the First Lady and her daughters in support of US veterans, the president will attend an evening dinner for the Hollywood community, whose contributions will make this the most expensive dinner in political history.'

'Daddy's coming to town,' says Koop. 'Might be worth talking to him.'

'Hmm.'

Frank sinks back onto the couch and pinches the bridge of his nose tightly. He's drowning here. All the work he's put in and all the effort involved in getting Koop and Warren out from Australia seems to have been swallowed up by the magnitude of Noone's connection to Sheehan. Frank tries to pinpoint what it is he's feeling and the answer is that he feels exactly as he did blundering through the darkened tunnels under Edge Hill. There's the same sense of being underneath a great weight. There are forces moving around him that he is barely aware of.

There's something else too that's been nagging him.

Why did Noone send the Theseus email? What's in it for him?

Before Frank can chase those thoughts down their particular rabbit holes, the phone rings.

It's Dooley.

'Deborah Sterling was employed as a nanny for Dennis and Mary Sheehan's youngest child, Cody,' says Dooley. 'Between June of 1982 and January of 1983.'

'Noone was born in July '83,' says Frank. 'Good.' It's not conclusive but it's a link, probably not enough to lever open the Daedalus machinery but a start.

'There's more,' says Dooley. He sounds reluctant, but Frank can also hear the note of triumph at a job well done.

'More?'

'I fished around into the listed father.'

'Larry?'

'Uh-huh, yeah. I can't find anything that shows that Deborah and Larry even met. Which don't mean they didn't hook up and make a baby one night without telling anyone, right?'

'True.'

'And then Larry conveniently died before Noone was born.'

'We know that.'

'But what you don't know,' says Dooley, 'and what maybe they didn't know either is that Larry had surgery in 1981 at Cedars-Sinai. Double inguinal orchiectomy. Larry had no nuts when he was supposed to be fathering your guy.'

'That would be . . . tricky,' says Frank.

'Fuck, yeah,' says Dooley.

'Would they have picked him, knowing he couldn't have kids?'

'Not if they knew, no. But you know what it's like with this kind of information. If the medical history didn't show it – and this was before computers, y'know? – then maybe they wouldn't know at the time. I got it from an updated records system. They may know now but it's so long ago they might figure it doesn't matter any more.'

'Makes sense. Thanks, Sam. Listen, I handed the information I gave you to my contact at West Street LAPD, Lieutenant Mills. I'm not going to mention you unless you want me to?'

'No, no mentions. You can get this stuff yourselves if you push Mills. Claim you thought it up yourselves, whatever the fuck you want. Leave me out. Peace.'

'Peace,' mutters Frank self-consciously as Dooley rings off. Koop smiles.

'You hear all that?' says Frank. 'Larry Grant couldn't have fathered Noone.'

'Dooley's a good feller,' says Koop.

Frank's phone rings again. It's Dooley.

'Sam,' says Frank. 'We were just . . .'

'Stop,' says Dooley. There's something different in his voice. 'Something else just came into the office. We get updates on all deaths in the divisions around Burbank. One of them caught my eye. They found a dead guy in a cold store at the Farmers Market this morning. Heart attack. Reason I noticed it is that the dude was an Australian.'

Frank feels sick.

'He was a cop,' says Dooley. 'Warren Eckhardt.'

Twenty-Five

Warren looks healthier dead than he had done alive.

Koop supposes there must have been a young Warren Eckhardt once, a Warren without the layering of lard and the shattered lungs and underpowered ticker, but he finds it hard to imagine. Warren, to Koop, will permanently be the wheezing wreck slumped in the armchair of the house in Nashua, cradling a beer in his nicotine-stained fingers.

Lying flat on the slab under the green sheet his skin looks smoother, his wrinkles less pronounced. His expression is mildly sardonic, as if dying is a sly joke and he'd just been told the punchline.

Koop nods at the doctor holding the sheet clear of Warren's face. 'It's him.'

They're at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Beverly Boulevard, the same place Larry Grant had been operated on in the eighties.

Frank and Koop walk slowly through the double doors of the mortuary display room and back into the warmer environment of the main hospital building. Frank's already argued with the medical staff about Warren being moved from the storage room. His insistence that Warren's death is a murder is getting little sympathy.

'Heart failure, Mr Keane,' says the doctor. 'It's simple. Your friend had a massive cardiac infarction.'

'Behind a Korean barbecue?'

The doctor holds his hands up in supplication. 'Not my area of expertise. All I can tell you is that there is overwhelming evidence that Mr Eckhardt died from natural causes. If you can say that about someone who smoked as he did. If you feel differently, please speak to the police.'

'Leave it, Frank,' says Koop. 'It's not this man's fault.' Koop turns to the doctor and shakes his hand. 'Thank you.'

Fifty minutes later Frank and Koop emerge from the hospital and stand in the concrete canyon outside the emergency room. It's almost midnight.

'What now?' says Frank. 'I should call Mills and Hagenbaum. See if they can place Noone at the Market . . .'

Koop puts a hand on Frank's arm. 'You think that's going to happen? They call the hospital and the doctor tells them what he just told us. Look at what Warren was like. Maybe Noone was involved. Maybe Warren mistook the storage room for the toilets and had a heart attack. Either way, he's dead and we have nothing to give to the Americans that would help even if they were inclined to investigate. We can't get them to help much with the six dead in Liverpool and we know they were murdered. We're a long way from home.'

'So we do nothing?'

'Not now,' says Koop. 'Not until tomorrow, Frank. I'm going to find a bar and drink something. You coming?'

They leave the car in the hospital lot and walk without purpose until they find somewhere off the main drag. The doorman gives them the once-over but waves them inside without a problem. Inside the bar is half-full. Mostly men, with a scattering of women.

'You know this is a gay bar, Koop?' says Frank.

Koop's already ordering at the bar. 'Who gives a shit?' He's been in plenty of gay bars with Zoe.

Drink follows drink and bar follows bar in an endless spiral of oblivion. Koop tells stories Warren told him. There is some singing and an argument with a barman who won't serve them. Frank's sick outside the last place and they make it to the apartment around four.

Koop is unconscious within seconds of lying down but Frank is still restless. He drinks a large glass of water and sits heavily on the couch, the lights off, and stares stupidly at a spot on the wall opposite. His phone is wedged uncomfortably in his pocket and he fishes it out.

For a few seconds he sits with it held loosely in his hand. Then, concentrating hard to find the number, he calls Warren's phone and
puts it to his ear. It rings and Frank can picture Warren's phone sitting in a plastic bag of his belongings on a shelf in an office at Cedars.

Just as Frank's about to hang up someone answers. In his drunken state Frank says, 'Warren?'

Whoever has answered says nothing. Frank sobers up fast. He sits up, listening intently to the silence on the other end of the call.

'Noone,' says Frank. 'I know that's you. We're coming, fucker. You hear that? We're coming.'

There is silence and then the call is ended. Frank looks at the phone for a long time.

Tomorrow things are going to change.

Twenty-Six

Noone presses 'end' on the cheap prepaid he took from the Australian and puts it back in his jacket pocket.

It had been worth taking if only to discover that Keane's out there.

DCI Frank Keane. Noone's not sure of the connection between Keane and Eckhardt but he now knows that there is one. It's useful. As is the knowledge that Keane's followed him over here. Not to mention that the dumb fuck is drunk and mouthy. Brits and booze. Jesus.

'Who was that?' Angie's voice is sleep-heavy.

'No one.' Naked, Noone pads across the room, gets back into the bed and puts one hand behind his head. The other he drapes over the curve of Angie's hip, his fingers brushing the soft skin of her thigh.

'Someone was speaking,' murmurs Angie.

'No one important. Shh.'

They're at Angie's place, ten or more blocks back from the pricey Venice properties. Noone prefers coming here to taking Angie home. He doesn't really like anyone coming into his own house. Not that there's anything much to hide. Noone has none of those handy Hollywood serial killer rooms at his place, no walls full of photos, no blueprints in the cabinet, no smoking gun.

That's not who he is.

In the dark he doesn't feel powerful, doesn't feel 'evil', whatever the fuck that might be. He just feels like he's in the right place at the right time.

Angie reaches down and takes hold of his cock.

'I thought you were asleep?' Noone says.

'Your phone woke me up, remember?'

'Go back to sleep.'

Angie slides down the bed under the covers. She runs her tongue along Noone's lower stomach. Despite himself he can feel the blood flowing. His cock grows and Angie flicks her tongue at the tip.

'Still want me to go back to sleep?' Her voice is muffled.

Noone doesn't reply. Instead he pushes his hips so that Angie takes him in her mouth.

'What?' says Angie.

'Nothing.' Noone hadn't realised he'd made a sound. He reaches down and turns Angie so that his head is between her legs and licks her pussy gently, two of the beautiful people passing time. As with everything he does, pretty much anyway, not all of Ben Noone is present. He can see himself in bed with Angie, can see what they look like, can analyse what they're doing, as if checking his performance while it's happening.

'Ben,' says Angie. 'Come back.'

Noone squirms out from underneath her, leaving her on all fours. He positions himself behind her and Angie guides him inside. While they fuck he's wondering if she knows him too well.

He hopes not.

Twenty-Seven

Frank can feel the rocks pressing down, can feel the back of his knuckle scrape along the sweating sandstone walls of the narrow shaft. For some reason he can't quite grasp, he finds himself past the point of no return; the angle and shape of the tunnel conspiring to force him forward. Gravity, muscle, weight, all push him in one direction. There is no going back.

Ahead of him, if he cranes his neck and strains his eyes, is a wider cavern, and in it, their skin green-white and corpse-clammy, are the murder victims from Birkdale and Garston and Los Angeles. Nicky Peters is talking softly to Warren Eckhardt while smoke from Eckhardt's cigarette coils around his head and shoulders. Terry Peters is slumped, his head down, at a distance from the others. The rest of the Peters family, and Dean Quinner, stand uncertainly to one side.