Scar Tissue (21 page)

‘If I can find that passage, if I can have evidence no one can argue with, then everything can be wrapped up.’

He shook his head. ‘Very dangerous.’

‘Not as dangerous – for Fullers, that is – as having a load of plods attacking the place with those rams they use to open people’s front doors. They wouldn’t do Fullers’ plaster and woodwork any good at all. And probably not dangerous at all if the police think I’m safe and sound at the hotel. I bet they checked with reception and found I was a dirty stop-out last night.’

‘Where did you sleep?’

‘Back at my flat. Some obliging soul had cut off my electricity, though I don’t recall telling them to.’

He gave me one of his shrewd looks. ‘How do you pay?’

‘Direct debit.’

‘Have you checked your statement?’

Funny, I didn’t expect Todd to know about all these day-to day things: if I’d thought about it, I’d have expected him to have secretaries and accountants and housekeepers to do dull things like paying bills.

‘Not yet. There wasn’t one – hang on, there was hardly any post, either! You don’t suppose – Todd, am I officially dead?’

He pulled a face. ‘That might be a good thing. Wasn’t that the plan when they blew up the caravan? To prove to Granville that you were dead?’

‘Or at least in hospital. You know what, I must have missed the announcement of my own death.’ There was what would have been a silence except for the roar of the traffic. After the country, even after dozy little Ashford, it was deafening. Had it been as bad as this in Birmingham? And it wasn’t just traffic, it was people. Everyone seemed to be yelling.

‘I bet we could find a better ice cream,’ Todd said.

While we waited for room service to deliver it, I used Todd’s phone again, this time to check with my bank what had happened to my direct debits. They’d all been returned, account not known. Someone had been busy on my behalf. ‘Well, don’t, whatever anyone says, whatever documentation they have, close down this account,’ I said firmly.

‘We only do that if we get a death certificate,’ the helpful Northern voice told me. Where was she from? Leeds?

‘Even if you get a death certificate,’ I insisted. ‘Do nothing unless I tell you.’

‘You can’t tell us if you’re dead, though,’ she said delicately.

‘I don’t intend to die,’ I said. ‘Look, if I do, a friend will phone giving you my password. But only then can you close my account. My overdraft, more like.’

The girl didn’t laugh.

The ice cream was excellent. Todd watched as if fascinated by the thoroughness with which I cleaned the glass.

‘Why didn’t you have one?’

‘At my age, you have to watch all sorts of boring things like calories and cholesterol. Plus the cold makes my teeth jump.’ He grimaced. ‘I’ve been thinking: do you really think you could find the hidden room, passage-way, whatever, at Fullers?’

‘If Paula and I couldn’t, I don’t know who could – unless they knew about it already, of course, or went round with those ram things.’

‘I’ll have to talk this through with Jan, of course. But if you needed someone to ride shotgun, with a fast getaway car, I’d be game.’

‘It doesn’t exactly go with watching calories or cholesterol. If you’ve got a dodgy heart, Todd, it wouldn’t be wise.’

He roared with laughter. ‘My heart’s fine. How old do you think I am, for God’s sake? But it was kind of you to think about it,’ he added. ‘I want to die at a ripe old age, as I hope you do. The other thing we’d have to worry about is muddying the police waters. If only we knew who was doing what to whom!’

‘And if we could trust Moffatt when he said he’d involved all those police and other agencies. He certainly got the caravan blown up, and – Todd, I believed him! Or my tum believed him, after that wonderful meal. And the booze, of course.’

‘Well, we know the caravan was blown up. The people your Taz notified did that.’

‘Not “my Taz”.’

‘I though you said that dramatic parting was fiction?’

‘It was. We seem to have parted a while back – not sure when.’

‘So you’re footloose and fancy-free?’ His face crinkled in a smile.

Jesus, he wasn’t going to make a pass at me? Surely not! I hadn’t felt a single vibe! I loved him like I’d have liked to love my dad, if you see what I mean.

I waited too long to reply. He looked at me closely. ‘I’m sorry. It’s none of our business, but Jan and I were just wondering why there wasn’t a man in the life of such a pretty young woman, that’s all. Pretty until the makeover, at least,’ he added, laughing and ruffling my mop.

A man! After all the men who’d flitted through my life, would I ever need another one? Maybe a young and unattached clone of Todd. But what decent man would want to take up an ex-tart, even one who’d been celibate for years? I think Todd knew he wasn’t getting the whole answer when I replied blithely, ‘Absolutely footloose and fancy-free.’

Todd was just tempting me with full afternoon tea either in their suite or, better still, he said, in the hotel lounge so I could people-watch, when the phone rang.

Picking it up swiftly, he mouthed, ‘Jan,’ to me, and settled down to listen, his face increasingly stern. ‘You’re joking! …I don’t believe it! … You cannot be serious!’ he added in John McEnroe mode. At last he cut the call. ‘You may not believe this,’ he said, almost grinding his teeth, ‘but the man they need to see is in a meeting. And the man below him. And his deputy. All very important! Top brass! All too bloody busy talking about fighting crime to fight crime.’

‘Is there no one else –?’

‘I’m quite sure there is,’ he said grimly. ‘But you don’t know Jan like I know Jan. She’s going to see the top man if she has to sit there till midnight. And maybe she’s right, in the present instance. Maybe only the top guy has the clout to sort all this out. OK. Did you want that afternoon tea or do you want to check dutifully into your hotel and suss out Fullers?’

I blinked. ‘What about Jan – don’t you want to discuss it with her?’

‘The mood she’s in now she’d tell us to go and make sure we took a machine gun. Two machine guns. I’ll send her a text message. If I can remember how, that is. Jesus, Caffy, remember to take your gingko biloba!’

I smiled vaguely. He wasn’t to know a packet of pills like that would consume my entire food budget for a week – and
more. He was now fizzing with energy, and no amount of sitting around feeding his face with fine food would calm him. So I said nothing as he bundled us into his Range Rover, delivered to the front door by a young man I wanted to yell at not to be so servile. Valet-parking was a job, for God’s sake: if he was doing it well, he should hold his head up.

Todd drove slowly out of London – slowly was the only way – and then pulled over. ‘I bet you’d like to drive, wouldn’t you?’

I risked asking outright. ‘How did you know?’

He laughed. ‘You’ll tackle anything, Caffy. I like to give you a challenge to rise to. Go on, try it! Your excuse is that I need to work out how we get you into the hotel without them seeing me and get you out again without them seeing you, and I can’t think while I drive.’

‘I’ve been thinking about nothing else while you drove,’ I admitted. ‘But the first’s easy. You drop me somewhere off-camera if they’ve got any, that is, and I walk. But we’ll need to find a thick hedge – since that’s what they’ll be expecting, I’ll change back into my working gear.’ I patted the carrier bag on my lap.

‘I wondered what was in there. OK. It won’t be so bad walking in those trainers. But what about escaping?’

‘That’s probably not too hard either. There’s a kitchen lad whose bike I should be able to borrow. I can meet you at Fullers.’

‘That’s a hell of a way to cycle. There must be a lay-by where I can wait.’

‘There is. I’ll point it out.’

‘You’ll still have to drive. I’ve got to text Jan, remember.’

I quite enjoyed it. No, I really enjoyed it. He was a bit surprised when I pulled up at Ashford’s big B&Q, but was happy to fork out for a tool belt and a couple of items to hang from it.

The helpful young pseudo-Frenchman who’d pointed out I was booked in for five nights was on duty, smiling. In a genuine Frenchman, it would have been the sort of smile that tells me he knows I didn’t come home the previous night and that he hoped the sex had been good. As it was, it just looked seedy. ‘And will you be requiring a reservation for dinner this evening, Madame?’

‘I’m not sure.’ I flicked a glance at my watch. ‘I’ve got a shocking headache. I may just lie down with an aspirin.’

It didn’t take me long to change yet again, this time into clean jeans – goodness knows why – and the least vivid top I could find. Slipping the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the doorknob as I left, I headed not for the lift but for the stairs. With luck they’d continue beyond the reception floor into some sort of basement. Yes! I made the acquaintance of huge bales of what I presumed was dirty sheets and pressed on. More stairs the far side. These definitely led to the kitchens: someone was cooking something involving garlic, and I nearly dribbled. Maybe I should have had that afternoon tea after all. Hell, the smell was so inviting I’d have dribbled anyway.

There was no way the kitchen would be empty. I’d just have to hope everyone was too busy to notice me. In any case, it dawned on me that provided I looked purposeful enough, it didn’t matter if I were seen. Someone had left a
wad of paper – yes, laundry lists – on one of the bundles. I stalked through the kitchen reading it so intently I nearly collided with a chef with a mega-knife, the sort I’d have liked, come to think of it, hanging from my belt. There propped against the railing was the bike I’d used before. The little rat had bought not lights but a chain! Arms akimbo, I turned back into the kitchen, still clutching my fistful of paper.

‘That bike!’ I bawled. ‘Whose is it? I said, whose bike is that?’

At last Mal sneaked forward. I pointed with what I hoped looked like authority: outside.

Once there, I held my hand out. ‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ he asked sullenly.

‘Keys.’

‘It’ll cost you –’

‘It’ll cost you – your job if you cheat on the deal. Fifteen quid you had, to buy lights.’

He threw the keys in the air. ‘Seems like a seller’s market to me.’

I grabbed them as they fell. ‘All’s fair in love and keys. Don’t worry. You won’t have to walk home.’

He came and stood over me as I fumbled with the lock. ‘How could you get me the sack?’

Cheat he might be, but he was clearly a few spokes short of a wheel.

‘You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?’

‘Let’s draw up some ground-rules,’ I said. I probably wouldn’t have got away with that but Todd had just wrestled the
wretched bike into the Range Rover and was a touch breathless. ‘The first is that you stay in the car and sound your horn if there’s any sign of trouble.’

‘And the others?’

Bother. ‘I don’t take any risks.’

‘And you come back and report if you find anything interesting. Promise? But that’s not as important as the no risks rule.’

‘For either of us,’ I conceded. ‘What does Jan say?’

‘A lot. It’d be an exaggeration to say she gives us her blessing, but I think she understands.’

‘I’m sure she does,’ I said, ironically. ‘I’m sure she loves the idea that her husband is larking round the countryside in the company of an ex-whore hell bent on smashing up her beloved house.’

‘But not as violently as the police would,’ he said. ‘OK. And we’re in luck! No police presence!’

‘In that case back in – so you can make a quick getaway if they do appear. Which I’ll bet they will, somehow. And keep your eyes peeled. And if in doubt – Todd, I really, really mean this – save your own skin. I know the house well enough to hide until you can get help. Unless they try to burn it down,’ I added under my breath.

He looked around at the mess left by the explosion, the fire and the removal of the caravan. His face set. He said suddenly, ‘We need someone else. Two inside and one out here. I’ll call Paula.’ His jaw set and his thumb was already pressing buttons.

‘OK,’ I agreed, buckling the belt. Yes, hammer, long thin screwdriver, a couple of chisels. ‘If she wants to join me, she
can. But it’ll take her – what – forty-five minutes to get here. Assuming she’s free, of course. I’m going in now. Just in case anyone’s got wind of what we’re up to.’

‘You really are paranoid, Caffy.’

‘Yeah. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.’ I was just going to let myself in when I looked back. He’d sagged against the driver’s door, looking older than I’d ever seen him. Old and worried. I ran back and hugged him. ‘It’ll be all right. You’ll see.’

He kissed the top of my head. ‘Of course it will.’

OK, that was two of us who were scared witless. But I really couldn’t understand why I was. I was doing the easy bit, after all – simply trying to find a room used years ago to save lives. Persecuted folk, like me. I didn’t know much about the religious ins and outs – school and I hadn’t been very well acquainted, remember – but I pitied anyone having to hide, knowing that if their hunters caught up with them they’d be roast meat. Literally. OK, eventually – after a show trial and a spot of torture. I didn’t see torture as high on Moffatt’s list of leisure activities. But then, if he was employed by Granville, he’d do as he was told. Granville had had one go at my tum. There was no doubt he’d enjoy repeating the experience, with the extras he’d promised. I wouldn’t. I was sure of that. Dead sure, you might say.

I shook myself, almost literally. First of all I went up to my eyrie, bundling everything up and taking it back to Todd. We both knew I wouldn’t be staying in precisely the same circumstances again: if all went well, I could set up a proper room there. If it didn’t, well, I didn’t want Jan or Todd to
have to pick over a pitiful mess of odds and ends, as I’d had to for some of my friends in the past.

Off I set again. This time I tapped and knocked in the library. If there was any decorative embossing, I tweaked and twirled it. If there was a panel out of true, I pressed it. Then I realised I’d missed the obvious. There was a loose bit of skirting. I prised it away, and there it was. A big, empty space. The torch showed me it was big enough for a stout man, assuming he could get in in the first place.

So was that it? Just a large coffin? I’m not given to claustrophobia, but I wouldn’t have fancied being stuck in there for long, with nothing for company but a bottle of water and a piss-pot. No, he wouldn’t need the piss-pot. He’d got a loo. What was a loo called in those days? A
garde-robe,
that was it, on the grounds that the stench of ammonia was good for your clothes. This was a bit more civilised than the hole in the floor you get in some old castles. It was actually a raised bench with a hole in it, the sort of thing old cottages used to have in their outside privy. This was rather a small hole. How on earth could you sit on it without cracking your skull on the coffin lid?

Answer, you didn’t sit. You shoved your hand in the hole, and pulled up the whole seat. And it was a good job I hadn’t been tempted to take a quick leak, because underneath there wasn’t any plumbing, but a staircase – crude, uneven, but a staircase.

I was heading down when I remembered my promise to Todd. Backing reluctantly out of the hole, I sprinted to the front door. He’d love to see it!

He would indeed, but it was clear he wasn’t going to get a
chance for some time. He was being manhandled by a load of roughnecks into a police car. What if some of their colleagues took it into their heads to check the house?

I was back in that hole before I knew it, blessing the workmanship of whichever of my predecessors that had provided an easy to grasp handle to pull the skirting back in place. One satisfying click and I knew I was safe.

Safe-ish, Caffy. Those cops would have all sort of unpleasant ways of prising off skirting if they thought they were on to something. They might even know what they were on to. At least the chance beam of my torch had shown me what someone wanted very much. Polythene bags of what looked very much to be like cocaine. Big ones. It wasn’t me they wanted, but them.

Possibly.

I was down those stairs faster than was safe. But even as I scuffed my shins and caught my arms on the rough brick, I stopped to pull back the loo seat. And then I set off wherever the beam of that good lantern torch would take me. With luck they’d be so busy checking those bags they wouldn’t bother with me.

The torch beam took me for what seemed miles. Mostly the corridor was dry, testimony again to the skill of the early builders. Once or twice, as I listened to sounds of pursuit, I had time to run my fingers over the old bricks, the mortar neat even if they didn’t expect anyone ever to see it. Yes, even Helen, thin scared Helen, was part of that tradition, painting beautifully parts that could only be seen if you lay on your back and used binoculars. Helen, who felt like my favourite niece in this family I’d found. Two families. Not just Paula’s
Pots, but the Daweses too. Pray God – yes, it seemed easy to say that, as I hid where old men of God had hidden – that Jan’s meeting with whoever had all those deputies would take place soon.

There was still no sound except that of my own breathing, not to mention the relentless thudding of my heart. Come off it, Caffy: you’ve been reading too many books. You need to have a relentlessly thudding heart. If it stops, that’s when you’re in the shit.

I paused a while to slow it, at least. Playing the torch beam along the floor, I realised that mine weren’t the only feet recently to have come this way. Trainers, boots – a forensic scientist with all his modern gizmos would have a field day.

What if I took my trainers off and went on in my socks?

Daft idea, Caffy. They’d pick up sock fibres, and you’d get sore feet. Bruised toes, too, probably. By now the passage was sloping quite steeply away from the house, steeply enough to have little ridges built into the floor – the sort of things you see on some canal towpaths so horses can climb the suddenly steep gradients of the approaches to bridges. Was it wide and high enough to accommodate horses? I was too much of a city girl to know much about a horse’s dimensions, but I’d have thought a donkey might fit more easily through a passage this size. Or perhaps they had smaller horses then.

Speculating about that got me another hundred yards. Whoever built this had been very determined.

As were – yes, I could hear the sounds of angry hammering echoing along the passage – the people now chasing me.