River of Souls (33 page)

‘Did you call an ambulance?’

‘God, no. My wife’s always protected him, and she was afraid of negative publicity. Heather cares far more about my career than I do. There have been times when I’ve wanted to stand down, but she wouldn’t let me. She thinks we’ve sacrificed so much, we shouldn’t waste our chance.’

I blinked in disbelief as his words spilled in a drunken gush. The truth must have existed midway between his version of events and Heather’s. ‘I appreciate your honesty; it’s helping me to understand.’

‘I found Guy at Jude’s bedside a few weeks ago, drawing one of his vile pictures.’ His face twisted into a sneer. ‘I can’t tell you how much they disgust me. It’s the worst violation yet, staring at her when she’s too weak to refuse. We had a dreadful shouting match in my office afterwards. Poor Giles couldn’t look me in the eye for days.’

‘What are you saying, Mr Shelley?’

His head swayed drunkenly. ‘Guy’s attacked Jude and Heather many times, and he picks verbal fights with me. You can see the shame in his face after he calms down. It makes him hate himself.’

I remembered Jude’s words the first time I visited her. Her attacker had been ashamed, just like Guy, begging forgiveness before abandoning her to the river. And the killer spoke in her own accent; Guy may have been adopted, but he’d acquired the family’s verbal mannerisms perfectly.

‘Where do you think your son’s hiding?’

‘God knows. We’ve phoned all of his friends.’

‘Can you tell me one more thing? You were close to Julian Speller once. Why did he want to quit his job?’

Another blast of Laphroaig hit me as Shelley’s mouth gaped open. I couldn’t guess whether he’d bawl at me or laugh hysterically, but when he finally spoke his voice was soft as a lullaby. ‘I had no idea he was unhappy.’

‘There must have been professional trust between you once. It would help to know what happened.’

‘Everything went wrong for us.’ His voice cracked suddenly, eyes blurring with tears.

The emotion on his face was unmistakable, and the facts slowly clicked into place. His dead adviser was the cause of his pain, not his missing son. ‘You were having an affair with Julian?’ Shelley gave a minute nod of confirmation. ‘How long had it been going on?’

‘It started a few months before Jude was attacked. Then I broke it off, but it was impossible. We were always together at work. We’d started meeting again recently.’ Now that he’d admitted to the affair, words gushed from his mouth like a floodgate opening.

‘You need to give me the name of everyone who knew.’

His bland professional mask melted away, lips twisting in a rictus of distress. ‘Jude found us here once, and she told Guy. I begged them not to tell Heather. It would have broken her.’

‘What about Father Owen?’

He hesitated. ‘I confessed to the affair, but didn’t name Julian.’

‘And Amala?’

‘She was so close to my children; it’s possible one of them let it slip. But I’m certain no one else knew.’

When I looked at Shelley again, tears were seeping from his eyes, and my cynicism evaporated. No one cried such bitter tears over the end of a political career. That kind of pain only surfaced when someone lost the love of their life. I almost felt guilty that soon I would have to report his revelation to Burns. The story was making my head spin. It added weight to the theory that Guy was the killer. Knowing about his father’s affair might have destabilised him to the point where he vented his rage on everyone who knew his father’s secret. When I stood up to leave, Shelley was too grief-stricken to notice, head bowed, weeping into his cupped hands.

47

It’s eight p.m. when the man returns to the garage. Even before the light flicks on, he knows the woman’s alive; her spirit hovers above the car in a dense cloud, particles glittering like mica. He wishes he could stand there admiring it, but there’s so little time. When he pulls open the boot, the gaffer tape is still covering her mouth. There’s anger in her eyes, but no panic. Maybe this one will be wise enough to accept her fate. He pulls back the tape and forces a bottle of water to her lips. She accepts the liquid without fighting, her shoulder relaxed against his hand. Her voice is quiet as he screws the lid back onto the bottle.

‘I’m glad you came back,’ she whispers. ‘I’ve been waiting.’

‘Flattery won’t work. The decision’s already made.’

‘Is it?’ The woman’s dark eyes pinpoint him.

‘The river wants me to save myself. It told me to bring you here.’

She looks surprised. ‘That’s weird. I hear the river talking sometimes too.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘It’s loudest at night when I can’t sleep.’

He binds the rope tight around her wrists. When he looks at her face again, her gaze is steady. ‘What does it say?’

‘The words aren’t clear. They just run through my head when I’m tired.’

‘That’s not true.’ But the man doesn’t know what to believe. It started that way with him too, the river’s quiet babble mingling with his thoughts.

‘I need to go home now, but you should come with me. We were meant to meet. No one else hears what we hear.’

‘I’m not letting you go.’ Something in her expression lets him know she’s lying, even though her spirit remains constant, not even flickering as she speaks.

‘You’d be safe in my flat.’

He stares at her. ‘It’s too late. You’ll never see your family again.’

‘My daughter needs me.’

‘Shut up. I can’t keep the river waiting.’

He silences her with a fresh strip of tape. Her lips twitch behind the sheen of black rubber, fear shining in her eyes, revealing that her bravery was just an act. He slams the lid shut then turns out the light. Her feet drum against the metal, a rhythmic thud of protest, muffled and pointless. He stands in the dark, planning the next stage. It’s too early to drive east – he must wait until the city sleeps before sacrificing her to the river. He locks the garage door behind him, with the water’s voice humming in his ears.

48

I gave up biting my nails when I was eight years old. It was an easy decision: the habit made my hands look ugly and did nothing to soothe my nerves, so I steeled myself and quit overnight. But by nine p.m. the impulse to gnaw at them was back with a vengeance. I stood in my kitchen dialling Burns’s number, but there was no reply. The investigation team needed to know about Timothy Shelley’s secret, but Angie’s phone went straight to voicemail too. My coping strategies were wearing thin; images from the autopsies I’d witnessed kept drifting into my head.

I slipped on my running shoes and left the flat, in spite of Burns’s warning to stay indoors. I was desperate to burn some adrenalin, but promised myself to stick to well-lit roads. Deep puddles still covered the pavement, but I quickened my pace and soon my muscles were working so hard that the dank air made no difference. The steady rhythm of my footfalls calmed me, even though my anxiety about Tania refused to shift. My thoughts flicked through the evidence as I ran at full pelt down Tooley Street. Why had the killer waited a year to strike again, and this time with even greater ferocity? Had each attack been linked to Shelley’s affair? He seemed to believe that the river had a mythic importance, sending the faceless bodies of his victims into the Thames as if he was baptising them. He must have spent days scouring its banks for talismans to carry them into the next world.

When I got back to Tower Bridge Road, I ran on to St Katharine Docks. The houseboats were packed tight as sardines. Through the window of the
Bonne Chance
I could see Nina alone in the galley, reading. I’d had no contact with my brother for days, despite sending regular texts. She looked as though she’d just woken up, white-faced, with tousled hair.

‘Come in, Alice. You must be cold.’ She fussed over me, pressing a mug of tea into my hands, but her distraction was obvious. ‘If you’re looking for Will, you’re out of luck.’

‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

She sat down opposite, black lines of script circling her wrists like bangles. ‘No idea. He stuck a note on the fridge saying he’d be back soon. I’m trying not to worry.’

‘Me too. He slammed out of Mum’s flat in one hell of a state.’

Her frown deepened. ‘It’s not the first time he’s done this. Will’s an escape artist. When the pressure gets too much, he ups and leaves.’

‘That’s how it was when he lived at mine. He’d be steady for months, then he’d go back on the road without any warning.’

‘So long as he doesn’t start using again, I don’t care. It’s his past that’s pushing him away, not the present.’

‘He’ll be back soon. He’s crazy about you.’

‘The feeling’s mutual.’

‘He’s lucky you feel that way. Some people would find him too challenging.’

She attempted a smile. ‘We’re in it together, aren’t we? Fully paid-up members of the fucked-up childhood club.’

‘That’s for sure. What was yours like?’

‘French aristocrat mother, with a chilly heart. When my dad left she sent me and my sister to a public school two hundred miles away. I spent a year in a psychiatric hospital in my twenties but she never visited. Her last piece of advice before she died was to get my tattoos removed.’

I glanced at her wrists. ‘That would be a pity. I’d love to know what they say.’

‘Quotes from Byron and Yeats, Emily Dickinson between my shoulder blades.’ Her smile reappeared. ‘My body’s a library.’

‘What made you get them?’

‘Comfort, I suppose. There’s solace in beautiful words, isn’t there?’

Nina’s face was sombre again, and it was clear she wanted to be left alone to wait for Will. She allowed me to embrace her before I left, and promised to phone when my brother returned. Rain was falling again as I ran home, light as teardrops on the back of my neck.

Burns finally rang back just before midnight. His voice was quieter than before, as if he was too tired to catch his breath. ‘We got a trace on Tania’s phone. It’s at the bottom of the river, near where her car was parked. I’m sending a dive team down in the morning.’

The facts were too bleak to register. ‘Can I do anything?’

‘Help me find the maniac who’s doing this.’ He spat the words out like expletives. ‘I’ve got teams sweeping the riverside twenty-four seven. Apart from that, there’s fuck-all anyone can do.’

‘I’m sorry, Don.’

‘Me too.’ There was an odd choking sound. ‘Stay safe, Alice. Don’t take any risks.’

He rang off abruptly, and a surge of guilt flooded my system. I’d looked at the evidence from every angle yet still drawn a blank. I was beginning to wonder if the Met’s executive board had been correct after all. Maybe they were right to want me removed from the case.

49

The man returns at one a.m. He fixes the false number-plates in place, then backs the car through the narrow opening. The woman makes no sound. Either she understands that fighting is pointless, or she’s conserving her energy. He drives east at a steady pace, careful not to trigger any speed cameras. The river hums softly as he makes his journey. His pulse rate doubles when he drives through Shadwell, past a row of stationary police cars. Luckily none of them notice him.

When he reaches the wharf, he parks by the side of the road to peer through the entrance gates. The site looks the same as before, builders’ rubble and abandoned steel girders strewn across fractured concrete, but another police car is parked by the trap door. A sick wave of panic crashes over him. They will find his basement, and see the metal brackets screwed into the wall, rats scurrying from their torch beams.

Only the river’s voice prevents him from losing faith. East, east, it whispers as he drives on, looking for safety. Eventually he finds a narrow turning between two factories, a stairway leading to the river, no one in sight. He opens the boot of the car and the woman’s bound fists strike at him. Her body is rigid as he drags her to the riverside, a siren screaming in the distance. The sound is coming from the opposite bank, an ambulance racing through Rotherhithe.

The woman writhes under his grip as he ties her ankles to a mooring ring. The tide is coming in fast, reassuring him that she will drown before first light. Her breathing is harsh, screams muffled by the thick layer of tape, blue eyes glinting in the dark. The woman’s soul touches his face like steam from a boiling kettle, making it hard to breathe. He rips the tape from her mouth to hear her last words.