Running Girl (26 page)

It was all familiar and ordinary: sessions giving help for the usual mix of problems and addictions. ILD was the Institute for Learning Difficulties, GA Gamblers Anonymous, FID Families in Distress. The only acronym he didn't recognize straight away was SOTP. He looked it up.

And sat there looking at it.

Sex Offenders Treatment Programme.

He looked through the list of attendees for the programme obtained by Collier. There was no Naylor on it. For five minutes he stood by his window looking out at nothing. Then he made three phone calls.

The first was to Probation Services, the group responsible for SOTP, who told him that disclosure of further information, even to police services, would involve formal legal intervention taking a minimum of two weeks.

The second was to the Sex Offender Registry, who half an hour later sent through a report of all the Naylors on their records, none of whom matched
his
Naylor.

The third was to Archives.

‘Bill? Raminder Singh here. City Squad.'

‘What's up, Raminder?'

‘Remember we asked you to find records for a school caretaker?'

‘That's right, somebody Naylor. We drew a blank.'

‘I think we were looking for the wrong man.'

‘Wrong man?'

‘Right man, wrong name.'

There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

Singh said, ‘I'll come over and explain. If I'm right, we've got more searching to do.'

It was lunch time, but Singh ignored his hunger. On his way past his PA she said, ‘The chief called.'

He hesitated, and walked on, saying, ‘I'll be over at Archives. Maybe all afternoon. But if Mal calls I want to know straight away.'

Then he was gone.

Bill Archer was a young guy with wiry orange hair and an Australian accent. He met Singh in reception and took him up to the open-plan offices above. As they walked between the pods of the data-archivists and researchers (a few of them glancing curiously at Singh in his turban as he went by), Singh explained what he wanted, and by the time they reached the glass-fronted office at the far end Archer was ready to get to work.

He accessed the database. ‘Here's the data hole. See?'

Singh peered over his shoulder.

The system held all the usual information for Naylor – date and place of birth, current medical records, social security data, financial and insurance details, police record and current employment details – but no record of his upbringing, schooling or any previous employment. Even if he'd been unemployed before, there should have been something in the records – at least his application to Marsh Academy, or his references, or his previous address. There was nothing. A whole part of his life had disappeared.

‘So where's it gone?' Singh asked.

Archer shrugged. ‘Astray.'

It wasn't uncommon for data to go missing. It had happened on a big scale when Archives migrated to the new system a couple of years earlier. It still happened from time to time, for instance when data was transferred from one region to another.

‘So if, say, Naylor used to work as a caretaker at a school in another area, his records could have got lost en route from his old regional educational authority to his new one?'

Archer nodded. ‘Most likely they're in the system somewhere but you can't find them if you don't know what he was calling himself.'

Singh handed him a copy of the list of attendees from the SOTP meeting and Archer raised his eyebrows.

‘He's one of these guys?'

‘If he's a convicted sex offender he'd have been given a new identity after his release. He'd be Naylor to everyone now except the SOTP. His real name would be one of these.'

Archer looked down the list. ‘Nineteen of them – that's not too bad. But first initials are notoriously unstable; you'll have to scan the whole surname groups. And you've got some of the commonest here. Miller, Johnson, Williams. With a population this big, that's a lot of slow work. I mean, really.'

Singh winced. ‘Is it quicker to pull out photographic records from the Sex Offenders Register instead?'

Archer shook his head. ‘Only half those records have photographs. Besides' – he smiled wryly – ‘the systems don't talk to each other.'

‘Then there's no alternative.'

Archer nodded. ‘I'll set you up. But I've got to warn you: it could take a very long time.'

Singh took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and began. It was half past two. Beginning with the less common names, he plugged in Naylor's age, ethnic profile and the years he was likely to have worked, and ran the searches. He creamed off the closest matches and drilled down, and ran the searches again. Archer had been right. It was slow work.

Time passed. Three thirty, four thirty. A broad bar of sunlight swept slowly across the desk and carpet, and disappeared into the corner of the room. Outside the building, colours cooled and leaked from things. Soon it would be evening and twilight. Five o'clock, six. The offices and pods around Singh emptied. Noises of footsteps and voices ebbed to nothing, and then there was silence.

Alone, Singh worked on, slowly, methodically. The time for his rehras came and went, but he stayed at the terminal, plugging in his data and running his searches, as night fell around him.

GARVIE SMITH ARRIVED
home from school on time, took his high tops off at the door, made his mother a cup of tea, went into his room and settled down at his quite astonishingly tidy table to begin his evening's revision.

‘Citizenship,' he said, ‘from four till five. Biology, five till six. Geography after tea.'

His mother examined him carefully from his bedroom doorway.

‘All right,' she said at last. ‘I don't know if it's going to stick, but at least you're doing something. I recognize it.'

‘Told you. These exams are all I'm thinking about now.'

‘Is that right?' She looked at him sceptically. ‘What's your first? Tell me that.'

‘Maths, higher tier, calculator paper.'

‘And you know what you've got to do?'

‘Answer all questions in the spaces provided. You must not write on the formulae page. Mark allocations are shown in round brackets. If your calculator does not have a pi button, take the value of—'

‘All right, Garvie. When
is
the exam?'

‘Monday May the twenty-eighth, two thirty.'

She looked sceptical again. ‘Doesn't give you long to do a whole year's work from scratch.'

He glanced at his watch. ‘Twenty-eight days. Six hundred and seventy-two hours.'

‘Hmm.'

‘Forty thousand three hundred and twenty minutes.'

‘
All right
, Garvie.'

‘Two million four hundred and nineteen thousand ...'

But his mother had already moved away and was standing in the kitchen looking out of the window.

At five o'clock Garvie dutifully began his biology revision.

At six o'clock he had his tea.

At seven o'clock he began his geography, finished it, and pushed on with physics.

And at eight o'clock, as arranged, the telephone rang. He didn't look up. He didn't even look as if he were listening as his mother went across the living room to answer the phone.

‘Hello.'

She caught the name of Felix and frowned. ‘He's revising,' she said shortly.

After that there was a long silence from Mrs Smith in which she did a lot more frowning, then a low murmured conversation that was difficult for someone in another room to make out.

Eventually she reappeared in the doorway of Garvie's room, where he was apparently engrossed in his
Physics Revision Guide
. She was already changed into her hospital uniform.

‘That was Felix, your burglar friend. Says he's revising maths.'

‘Felix? Revising? Are you sure?'

‘Must be taking an evening off from robbery. Says he's stuck. He wanted me to ask you if by any chance you could go round and maybe help him with his probability. On account of you being a mathematical genius.' She looked at him suspiciously.

Garvie said, ‘Can't it wait till tomorrow?'

‘He says he has to do it now. His revision schedule must be packed.'

‘Well.' Garvie checked his watch. ‘I suppose I have put in four hours already on top of a full timetable at school. But, look, I won't go if you don't want me to. No way. I'll stay here and do another couple of hours.'

His mother gazed at him for what seemed like a long time.

‘All right, then,' she said at last. ‘Maybe you need a break. And even burglars benefit from an education. I'm due on in half an hour, so I won't be here when you get back. But don't be later than ten. I don't want any more distractions for you now till after the exams are over.'

He met Felix at the Old Ditch Road playground, as arranged, and they sat on the roundabout and swapped bags. In Garvie's rucksack were several maths textbooks. In Felix's were the familiar single-cuff Jil Sander shirt, black Acne jacket, Ralph Lauren stretch chinos and black brogues, all courtesy of Felix's older brother, who knew nothing of the transaction, being currently on a job out of town.

‘You investigating again or just gambling this time?'

Garvie ignored him. ‘Got the card?'

Felix handed it over. ‘Goes without saying that if you lose it or get any of his kit damaged we're both dead.'

‘That's fine, Felix. I'm pretty sure I'm immortal. And you, my friend, have been dead for years. Did you get the money too?'

Felix took the note out of his pocket and passed it over. ‘It's a lot of dosh, man. There's going to be plenty of glum faces if it doesn't come back.'

‘It'll come back.'

‘Don't know why you wanted it all in a single note, either.'

‘Basic subterfuge, Felix. Looks better. I'm an out-of-luck rich boy down to his last C-note.'

Tucking it into his top pocket, he stepped off the roundabout and posed in front of the climbing frame. ‘Do I look the part?'

‘You look like a tosser.'

‘Perfect.'

Felix handed him his bike. ‘You going to tell me what's happening in the great investigation? While you've been out and about, Plod's been into school on a daily basis. We've all had to give our alibis and stuff. Smudge is convinced they think he did it. I'm seriously worried he's going to break down and confess.'

‘Smudge is a natural-born killer. But you know, Felix, the police get too hung up on alibis. I think it's best not to pay too much attention to them.'

‘Oh yeah?'

‘Yeah. They're like complex numbers.'

‘Oh yeah?'

‘Yeah. The numbers are real but they exist in an imaginary dimension.'

‘Yeah, yeah, very true, Garv. Just take care of the stuff, all right? Oh, and don't get caught by the bad guys.'

It was a twenty-minute cycle ride to the casino. Relations with his mother being so delicate, Garvie didn't want to risk using Abdul and word getting back to her.

He went up Bulwarks Lane to the track along the bypass and rode south through the surf-noise of traffic towards the sewage plant, past the back ends of tenement streets and fenced-off waste ground, until he came to the old railway path, and turned down it into darkness and sudden quietness. Under old brick bridges and overhanging hawthorns he went, along asphalt walkways split by weeds and crusted with garbage as far as the canal, then along the towpath until he reached the Southside retail park. Here he left his bike. He cut across the vast near-empty car park, walked over the pedestrian bridge and came at last to The Wicker and the full-on blare of big-city entertainment. Even on a Monday night the place was busy.

As before, he crossed the forecourt of the bowling alley next to the casino, went down the pathway between the properties into the shadows, and hopped over the wall into Imperium's car park.

First thing he saw was a Porsche. It was red. He went past it, circulated round the car park twice, seeing no other cars in any way resembling Porsches, and returned to the shadows by the wall, where he smoked two Benson and Hedges, frowning, thinking partly about Porsches and partly about a girl in a toga with shoulder-length brown hair.

In the pocket of Felix's brother's Ralph Lauren chinos he found a coin, and he flipped it up and caught it and showed it on the back of his hand. Heads. He grinned, dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out. Stepping out of the shadows, he joined a group of people leaving their cars and made his way to the front of the casino.

THE FAMILIAR SOFT
noise washed over him as he went through the sunken lobby and on, through chatter and laughter and lyre music, into the gaming rooms. She wasn't in the poker room or by the roulette and blackjack tables, she wasn't in the coffee lounge or bar, and at last he came to rest by the end of the slot machines, in a space away from the crowds, to think.

A blonde girl in a toga came up with a tray of drinks – Livia, according to her name tag – and he took a glass of bubbly.

‘Hypatia around tonight?'

She gave him a look. ‘You a fan?'

‘No, I'm her twin brother.'

She looked him over, smiling. ‘Aren't you a little young?'

‘It's a medical condition.'

She rested her fingers briefly on his arm. ‘Is it catching? I hope so.'

‘If you see her, will you tell her Garvie's looking for her?'

‘I might.' She moved away with a long backward glance. ‘Or I might just keep the information to myself. Garvie.'

To pass the time he sipped his bubbly and watched blackjack, a game he knew nothing about. Six punters sitting round a curved green baize table and an unsmiling girl labelled ‘Messalina' dealing them hands from a long plastic box. It was an easy game to pick up: each punter played against the house, and the highest hand closest to twenty-one won. There were some other rules and conventions to learn, a few hand gestures, but two things really caught Garvie's interest: all the cards were played face up and the dealer never shuffled the deck after the first time.