Heaven's Light (9 page)

‘You’re right about knackered,’ Wilcox mused. ‘It’s been a bastard. Non-stop.’

‘But fascinating, I expect.’

‘Yeah,’ he concurred. ‘Pretty bloody special.’ He fingered the paper before looking up. ‘Didn’t make it to the Guildhall, then?’

‘No.’

‘Shame. History in the making. Unbelievable evening.’

The phone began to ring. Wilcox stared at it then got up, extending a hand. ‘Important call,’ he said, jerking his head at the phone. ‘David Montgomery. Monty’s son. We’re doing a big profile piece.’ He stepped round the desk, and patted Barnaby’s shoulder. ‘No promises, mate, but I’ll see what I can do.’

Charlie Epple was still packing his bag when he heard Liz at the front door. He went to the head of the spiral staircase, watching her come in. She’d been to Waitrose and she was carrying a heavy box of shopping. Charlie clattered down the stairs, relieved her of her load, and closed the door with his foot. He could see at once that she had been crying. Like Charlie, she’d been to the hospital. And, like Charlie, she’d found Jessie gone.

Liz went at once to the kettle, filled it and plugged it in, walling herself away behind the simplest domestic routines. Charlie pulled a stool towards him, perched on it and inspected the contents of the cardboard box. Someone ate a lot of tinned tomatoes.

Liz turned round and bent to the fridge for a carton of milk. ‘She loves pizza,’ she muttered, ‘or used to.’

Charlie nodded. Jessie had always been a favourite of his, a child so gentle, so ready to listen, so eager to please that she seemed to belong to another planet. Maybe that’s why she’d taken to hard drugs, he thought.

‘She’ll be back,’ he said aloud. ‘I know she will.’

‘You think so? You really think it’s as simple as that?’

‘Yep.’

Liz gazed at him, wanting to believe it. ‘It’s as if she’s
died,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s as if she’s dead and gone. She’s not the same any more. She’s different. She’s someone else. Jessie would never have done that. Not her. Not Jess.’

‘Are you blaming her?’

‘I’m blaming nobody. Except that bloody Haagen. Him and his wretched dog.’ Liz reached into the cardboard box for a packet of biscuits and tore angrily at the wrapping. She emptied them onto a plate and Charlie took one, trying to piece together in his mind the exact order of events. Haagen had been a client of Barnaby’s, a local kid up on a theft charge. Barnaby, for some reason, had thought the world of him and had promised the magistrate he’d give him a job as one of the conditions of a deferred sentence. The kid had evidently performed well in the office and Barnaby had brought him home for the odd meal. Jessie, a year older, had fallen for him at first sight. Much to Liz’s disbelief.

Liz was filling the caddy with tea-bags. According to her, Haagen had been trouble from the start.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. It was just something about him. You could sense it the moment he walked in. He was…
dangerous.
Do you know what I mean?’

Charlie eyed her across the breakfast bar, helping himself to another custard cream.

‘You mean different?’

‘No …’ She trailed off, thinking. ‘Yes, different, of course, but something else as well, something more than that. He was looking at you all the time. He made you feel, I don’t know, awkward. It wasn’t anything he ever said. He wasn’t abusive or rude or anything like that. It was just… as if… I don’t know… he didn’t
like
us. Nothing especially personal, just on principle. He’d made up his
mind before he’d even met us. We were there to be disliked, hated even.’

The tea-caddy was full at last and she tried to force the lid down, angry again. Charlie was watching her.

‘And Hayden?’ he said. ‘Did he feel the same way?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Didn’t you ask him? Talk about it at all?’

‘No, never.’ She looked up suddenly as if she’d betrayed a confidence and flushed.

‘This Haagen?’ Charlie said slowly. ‘Where does he figure now?’ Liz scalded the tea-pot with hot water.

‘God knows. They share a flat together, some ghastly basement. I’m sure that’s where it all started, the heroin, whatever it is.’ She looked up, the kettle still in her hand. ‘She should have gone away. That’s what’s so silly. She should have gone away to college somewhere and got on with her life. Staying here, she’s just a sitting duck. You should see them together. She’ll do anything for him, absolutely anything. It’s pitiful. I hate it. God, how I hate it.’

Charlie thought about trying to change the subject but knew there was no point. Jessie and her junkie boyfriend had become a running sore, a boil on the face of Liz’s marriage, and her fingers would return to it again and again.

‘What are you going to do,’ Charlie enquired, ‘when she comes back?’

‘If she comes back. If.’ Liz sighed. ‘I don’t know. That’s the frustration. I went to the police this morning, asked them.’

‘The
police?
What did they say?’

‘They asked me if I was making a complaint.’ She snorted, a short, mirthless bark of laughter. ‘Actually, that’s unfair. The man on the desk said that. I met someone else afterwards, someone from the drugs squad. He was nice.
We just talked about it. He gave me his number. Told me to ring any time.’

‘I bet.’

Liz looked up, catching the innuendo, and Charlie winked at her, Mr Nice Guy, no offence meant.

‘It’s good to see you,’ she said suddenly. ‘You do wonders for Hayden.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, you make him laugh. He doesn’t do much of that these days.’

‘And you?’

‘Me?’ She glanced across at him and then slipped the tea-cosy over the steaming pot. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

There was a long silence and Charlie thought about getting back to London. The fast trains left at four minutes past the hour. The taxi he’d ordered would be here any minute. ‘Hayden can be a head case sometimes,’ he said lightly, ‘but that just makes him normal.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know it. He worships you. He’d be lost without you. No kidding.’

‘Really? You think that’s true?’

‘Yeah, and if it isn’t then he’s even more of a head case than I thought.’

Charlie slipped off the stool. His bag was at the top of the spiral staircase, ready for the off. He reached past Liz for the jacket he’d left on the back of a chair. She had a second cup in her hand. She was looking surprised.

‘You’re going?’

‘Fraid so.’

‘No time for tea?’

Charlie bent to kiss her, shaking his head. Liz tilted her face, catching his hand, giving it a little squeeze, telling him
he was welcome back any time. Hayden would love to see him. She knew he would.

Charlie heard the beep of the taxi’s horn in the street outside. ‘Fuck Hayden,’ he murmured, heading for the stairs.

Chapter Four

Barnaby stood at the window of his office, inspecting the long black Daimler double-parked in the street outside. Already the traffic was backed up towards the one-way system while the driver of the Daimler – a short, stocky Chinese – helped an older man out of the back. He, too, looked Chinese and Barnaby checked the name of the afternoon’s appointment list as the two men below squeezed between the row of parked cars and made for the office door. Raymond Zhu rang no bells. Barnaby knew perhaps half a dozen Chinese in the city, men who ran restaurants and takeaways and the odd speciality food store, but none was called Zhu.

He slipped behind the desk, reaching for a fresh pad, wondering vaguely whether Mr Zhu might be bringing any work with him. Most of his business with the city’s immigrant population was commercial. The domestic stuff – wills, probate, conveyancing – they tended to keep close to their chests, using family networks, but the Chinese were born entrepreneurs and whatever legal help they needed was almost entirely connected to their passion for establishing new enterprises. Barnaby would never make his fortune arranging commercial mortgages or applying to the magistrates for a liquor licence, but he had a healthy respect
for these people. They worked bloody hard for their money and one or two of the city’s Chinese restaurants offered food as good as Barnaby had ever tasted.

Hearing a soft knock on the door, Barnaby got to his feet. The door was an inch or two ajar but when he called, ‘Come in,’ nothing happened. He crossed the room. The older of the two Chinese he’d seen in the street was standing outside in the corridor. His tunic jacket was buttoned to the neck and a pair of baggy trousers hung limply on his thin frame. He had a high forehead and a receding chin and his face carried an expression of mild detachment. Unlike the other Chinese Barnaby knew, he looked slightly bookish, a man born not to commerce but to something infinitely more academic.

‘Mr Zhu?’

The Chinese accepted Barnaby’s handshake. He spoke English with great care and a certain gravity, which made him sound slightly old-fashioned. He was pleased to meet with Mr Barnaby. He’d heard some excellent reports. Unused to such a formal compliment, Barnaby found himself offering Zhu a tiny inclination of the head, almost a bow, which rather surprised him. In a matter of seconds, Zhu had set the social tone. At this rate, they’d spend the rest of the afternoon swopping courtesies.

He stepped back into the office, inviting Zhu to take a seat. Zhu declined his offer of tea or coffee and Barnaby reached for the intercom. He told his secretary they wouldn’t need refreshments, studying Zhu while the Chinese examined the plaster rose on the ceiling. There were liver spots high on both temples but the rest of his face betrayed nothing about his age. No wrinkles, no laugh lines, nothing obvious to indicate the passage of time.

Zhu began to talk about a hotel. It was called the
Imperial. Barnaby nodded. ‘It’s on the seafront,’ he said at once, ‘big old place.’

‘Are you familiar with it at all?’

Barnaby hesitated before replying. The Imperial had fallen on hard times. Inside and out the building was a wreck.

‘Are you thinking of staying there, Mr Zhu? Only I could possibly recommend something a little more suitable.’

Zhu produced a silver cigarette case and, for the first time, Barnaby detected the beginnings of a smile. Zhu opened the case and offered it across the desk. Barnaby shook his head, looking for the matches he kept in the drawer.

‘Tell me about this hotel, Mr Barnaby. Tell me what you know.’

‘It’s very big, as I said, and it’s very old. It’s got a wonderful position looking … south-west, I think. It’s Victorian. Lots and lots of rooms, and a great deal of history. It used to be extremely grand. Now?’ He spread his hands, a sign of regret. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t what it was.’

‘But once?’

‘Once it was the best. The very best.’ It crossed Barnaby’s mind that he might have a photograph of the place, one of the archive shots that the city records office had started to issue as postcards. His secretary had begun a collection in the belief that one day they might come in useful. Barnaby sorted quickly through the box file in which they were kept. There were lots of shots of the naval dockyard, and the cathedral, and the Edwardian hey-day of Southsea’s fashionable shopping arcades, but he couldn’t lay hands on the photograph he remembered. It had shown the Imperial at the turn of the century. It looked like an enormous birthday cake, a confection in elaborate white
icing, and the foreground had featured women promenading in extravagant hats.

At the bottom of the box was a view of the Common. Barnaby took it out and crossed the room again, examining it in the light from the window. A path known as Ladies’ Mile ran the length of the Common, flanked by trees, and at the far end stood the Imperial.

Barnaby showed the photograph to Zhu, pointing out the tiny line of horse-drawn cabs waiting in front of the hotel. The Chinese touched the photograph. The fingers of his right hand were yellowed with nicotine.

‘Big,’ he said slowly. ‘A very important place.’

‘It was.’ Barnaby sat down again, pushing an ashtray across the desk. ‘That was ninety years ago. I think it had a little bomb damage during the war. Afterwards, they tried to keep it going but times were difficult. I remember…’ He was suddenly aware that he was straying from the point, but Zhu signalled for him to carry on, a tiny motion with his right hand, and Barnaby smiled, watching the curl of blue smoke drifting towards him.

Some of his earliest memories revolved around visits to the Imperial. His father had regularly entertained clients there for afternoon tea and his mother would sometimes meet him afterwards for early-evening drinks in a cluttered little cocktail bar beside the dining room. On these occasions, Barnaby would go too, largely because there was no one else to look after him. He remembered a fat porter called Mr Jones, who did tricks with an inkwell and a handkerchief, and he remembered, too, the smell of the place, a mixture of furniture polish and stale alcohol. He’d liked it in the hotel. It smacked of grown-ups and money, two items for which he’d developed an early enthusiasm.

Zhu followed his descriptions with grave interest. ‘You had no brothers or sisters?’

‘No, I was an only child.’

‘And your father?’

‘He was a barrister.’ Barnaby gestured round. ‘Barristers are like solicitors. But richer.’

Zhu sucked at the cigarette, ignoring the joke, and Barnaby was aware of the eyes watching him through the curtain of smoke. The conversation was fast developing into an interview, himself on the receiving end. He thought of the hotel again, the gaunt shell that housed so many memories.

‘It was bought by one of the big chains,’ he said. ‘I’m not quite sure what happened after that.’

‘And now?’

‘It’s very run down. The kind of people that made the place pay don’t go to that sort of hotel any more. It used to be different, of course. Families came down to the coast for a couple of weeks in the summer. If they had money, they’d stay somewhere like the Imperial. And there was the navy too. Lots of officers and their families. Lots of comings and goings. The Imperial was where you’d be seen, where you’d meet for a drink or a meal. Now?’ He sat back, trying to think when he’d last driven past. The place had become a blemish, an eyesore, something you wouldn’t spare a second glance.

‘But it’s still a hotel? It still has guests?’

‘I honestly don’t know. Probably not. These big places have often been converted into …’ he tried to find the right phrase, ‘boarding houses for unemployed people, people without homes, people with no money.’

‘So who pays the owner?’

‘The state does. We do. All these people get benefit.
Some of the money goes straight to whoever runs the place. It’s very profitable but it’s not a hotel any more, not the way I described it.’ Barnaby was sure now that he’d got it right. A week or two back, he’d been duty solicitor down at the magistrates’ court. A couple of the men he’d had to represent had given their domicile as the Imperial Hotel and he remembered them sharing a sour joke when he’d questioned the address. Imperial fucking dosshouse, one had told him. Stained mattresses, cracked wash basins, and a little barred window on the ground floor where you handed in your Giro cheque.

Zhu stirred in the chair, uncrossing his legs, and Barnaby leaned forward across the desk, curious to know the reason for all these questions about the Imperial.

‘I want to buy it,’ Zhu said simply.

‘The Imperial?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mind me asking why?’

‘Not at all. I intend to turn it back into a real hotel, the kind of hotel you remember from your childhood.’

‘You do?’ Barnaby tried to mask his astonishment.

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re aware …’ he hesitated, not wanting to give offence ‘… what that would involve? The amount of work? The capital outlay?’

Zhu gazed at him with an expression of mild reproof. Then his hand went to the breast pocket of his tunic and he produced a card. It read ‘Mr Raymond Zhu’. Underneath, similarly embossed, was a Singapore address with phone, telex and fax numbers.

‘I run a number of companies,’ Zhu was saying. ‘Most will be of no concern. That address will find me.’

Barnaby put the card carefully to one side. Zhu didn’t
look like a businessman, far from it, but personal appearance – as his father had once told him – was often the worst possible guide. He glanced up, remembering the Daimler outside in the street. That, on reflection, should have been an early clue.

‘Have you … ah … begun negotiations?’

‘Negotiations are complete.’

‘You’ve agreed a price?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I ask how much you intend to pay?’

‘Certainly.’ He paused. ‘Mr Seggins has agreed to accept a hundred and ten thousand pounds, plus a small percentage of my first year’s trading figure. That’s profit, of course.’ He smiled. ‘Net.’

Barnaby scribbled down the name and then the figure. £110,000 was a steal. In the eighties, at the height of the boom, hotels had been valued at £60,000 a room. The Imperial must have a hundred rooms at least, probably more. Barnaby’s pen went back to the owner’s name.

‘You’ve met Mr Seggins?’

‘This morning.’

‘He holds title to the hotel?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he’s happy with this figure?’

‘He’s accepted it.’

Barnaby caught the nuance, the hint of amusement that warmed Zhu’s voice a degree or two, and he looked up, adjusting his preconceptions yet again. This man was tough as well as clever, and Barnaby began to wonder exactly how much he really knew about the hotel. Nobody would bid for the Imperial without having done a great deal of background research.

Barnaby tore the top sheet off his pad and put it to one
side. Then he picked up his pen and began to take Zhu through the usual checklist. If nothing else, it might define his own relationship to this strange deal.

‘You’ll need a full survey,’ he began. ‘I can organize that if you wish. Then there’s a schedule of works and a proper inventory, assuming one doesn’t exist. Someone will have to talk to Mr Seggins’s solicitor. You need to check his claim to title, any outstanding mortgages, any—’

‘There are none.’

‘No mortgages?’

‘No.’

Barnaby made a note. Stuffing the Imperial full of DSS folk was even better business than he’d been led to expect.

‘The local authority people?’ he enquired, looking up. ‘Have you talked to them at all?’

‘No.’

‘I’m afraid you must. There’s a search to be done, just to make sure there are no orders out on the place. Does it have a bar?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’ll need a licence when the time comes. That’s an application to the magistrates’ court. Will the Imperial be in your name, Mr Zhu?’ He looked up. Zhu was gazing peaceably out of the window.

‘Mr Zhu?’ he prompted.

‘Yes?’

‘Will it be your name on the—?’

Zhu was getting up. He shuffled towards the window, peering down at the street. In profile, he barely had a chin at all.

‘I understand you normally charge one per cent,’ he said.

‘That’s right. There’s room for negotiation, of course,
but it’s normally around one per cent. Plus or minus. In this case …’ Barnaby looked down at his pad, recognizing how little room he had for manoeuvre. Big properties like the Imperial could easily turn into a nightmare. If things got tricky, one per cent of £110,000 would barely cover the photocopying.

He looked up. Zhu was waving to somebody. ‘Mr Hua,’ he said absently, ‘has returned.’

Barnaby checked the street below. The black Daimler was parked opposite, legally this time. ‘May I assume you want us to represent you …?’ he asked.

Zhu nodded. ‘Yes. You will be my solicitor.’

‘For the purchase?’

‘Yes. Afterwards there will be much to do. Building. Improvements. A very great number of things. Unlike the current negotiations, I anticipate significant costs. Also, significant problems. One per cent of a lot of money, Mr Barnaby, is a lot of money.’ He lifted his arm again and then turned back into the room. ‘I suggest we agree a thousand pounds for the purchase of the hotel, Mr Barnaby. Does that sound acceptable?’

Barnaby fought the urge to say yes. If Zhu was serious about restoring the Imperial, then Zhu was big time. And big time people respected caution.

‘There’s no substantial change of use,’ he mused aloud. ‘What about vacant possession? Does Mr Seggins anticipate any problems getting his lodgers out?’

‘None.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

Barnaby was impressed again by Zhu’s lack of self-doubt, by how clear-cut he made everything sound. The deal on offer couldn’t have been more explicit. As long as Barnaby
kept his nose clean on the conveyancing, then the rest of the job, the real money, would be his for the asking. Tidying up a dump like the Imperial, doing it properly, wouldn’t cost less than a couple of million. Conceivably, it could go well beyond that, providing ample scope for a fat management fee.