Slow Burning Lies (23 page)

42

The last mile of Patrick’s run wasn’t essential as the men had given up when the chase reached busy streets and shopping malls. But Patrick wanted to run that extra mile. He knew he couldn’t change the things that had happened, but running away from them eased his soul a little. Perhaps the physical pain caused by running in feet not shod for the purpose distracted his mind.

When he did eventually stop – in one of the small parks dotted around the city – he collapsed onto a bench and retched once or twice. All of that running and the adrenaline rush of the previous few hours had rendered him hungry and exhausted. Also, by now the city was encased in the cold shadow of dusk. These were no streets for a desperate man already chilled from the clammy sweat of an escape.

He checked into a cheap hotel using a false name – just in case this thing was even bigger than he thought – where he ate, drank, and best of all, rested in a hot bath.

After the soundest, most uneventful night’s sleep for many days, he pondered on his next move over breakfast.

Go to the cops? They’d laugh at him. Talk to someone at OrSum? They’d lock him away. And VTA? What they were capable of doing didn’t bear thinking about.

There was only one realistic move: find Beth and talk to her, ask her what this whole thing was all about. Sure, she’d lied to him and misled him, but it was his only shot. She owed him that, and if she disagreed with that he’d just have to make her agree.

And there was no way he was going back to the OrSum or VTA offices – ever.

But he didn’t need to – he knew where Beth lived.

The problem was, when would she get back from work? Moreover, did she even go into the OrSum offices today? Okay, she was a strong-willed woman, but would she really be able to behave like it was a normal day at the office after what had happened?

He checked out of the hotel and spent a restless morning wandering along the shoreline, his mind churning over more possibilities. If Beth was in on whatever was going on – and Patrick was as sure of that as he was of anything else in his life at the moment – would she want to be seen colluding with him after the event? There was always the chance of her denying everything, that she’d say it was all in his head, twisting his thoughts like she had about Rozita.

Whatever her reaction might be, the unfortunate fact was he had no other option. And the sooner he acted the better. Even if she wasn’t home he could wait for her.

He took a cab to her apartment block.

He got the cab to drop him off some distance away and walked the rest, stopping on every street corner, watching for any surveillance that might have been set up. As far as he could tell there was nothing, so he approached the apartment block.

He’d been there before, and knew exactly which one she lived in. Of course, that time she and her keys were there; this time he was on his own. The first stage to deal with was the communal access.

He pressed the buzzer next to her name and waited.

Then he tried again.

And again.

‘You won’t find her in at this time.’

Patrick turned to see an elderly man clutching a paper bag of groceries. He was wearing a bright white shirt, light blue trousers which stopped just below his knee, and flip-flops.

‘You know Beth?’ Patrick said.

‘Pretty career type woman lives up top?’ the man said, fetching his keys from his coat pocket with his spare hand. ‘Yeah, reckon I do. Why?’

‘I’ve come to see her,’ Patrick said.

‘And what makes you think she’s home?’

‘She isn’t.’ Patrick pointed inside to the lobby. ‘Could I come inside and wait for her?’

The man paused, and half of his mouth jerked to the side. ‘No offence, sonny, but I can’t let you do that.’

Patrick looked the man up and down. He could have whipped the key from his hand and snapped the old boy’s arm without breaking sweat.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I understand.’ He stepped back to let him enter. As the old man opened the door and stepped inside Patrick twitched, suppressing the urge to ram into his back. He turned and walked away.

He got two blocks before he turned back.

No. He wasn’t giving up. He
had
to talk to Beth. His sanity was at stake here.

He went back, now with a more considered strategy, and waited a discreet distance from the entrance.

Twenty long minutes later a middle-aged woman, somewhat overdressed in a plaid overcoat, approached the door. Patrick rushed up behind her and took out his keys.

The woman turned to him and gave a polite, but slightly nervous, smile.

Patrick returned the smile, said, ‘Hi,’ and lifted up his own front door key, as if ready to use.

She eyed the key in his hand, hesitated for a second, then opened the door.

‘You must be new here,’ she said as she hooked her head for Patrick to follow her into the lobby.

‘Very much so,’ Patrick said. ‘I’m David, David Smith.’

She smiled again, this time without the nervousness. ‘I’m Josie. Most folk in this block know me and I know most folk in this block. Where have you moved here from, David?’

‘Texas,’ he said with his warmest smile and widest eyes. ‘I’m from England originally, though.’

And now every vestige of suspicion dropped away from Josie as her face exploded into life. ‘Really? England? Really? You’re from England? Are you from London?’

‘Yes,’ Patrick said. ‘London.’

‘Oh, I do so love London. Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, The Tower of London. What a magical place. I’d just love to go there some day.’

‘Anyway,’ Patrick said stopping outside an apartment chosen at random. ‘I’ll let you get on. Nice to meet you.’

‘You too,
David English
.’ She giggled as Patrick fiddled with his keys. She took two steps up the stairs then turned. ‘Have a nice day, then.’ She stood still.

‘Yes, you too.’ Patrick held a hand up to her, then carried on fiddling with his keys. He picked one which looked about the right shape and size and held it up to the lock.

Still, Josie was looking.

Patrick slid the key in and suppressed a sigh as it went in. It stuck halfway, but Patrick guessed that wasn’t obvious from a distance.

He looked back to Josie. ‘Bye then.’

‘Bye.’ But still she stared.

Fuck her. If she wanted a staring contest she was going to get one.

‘Bye again,’ Patrick said, and kept a steady gaze on her.

Patrick counted to seven before the woman’s sensible shoes shifted and she carried on up and out of sight.

Patrick flopped his hair back with an itchy palm and quietly let out a sigh.

He tugged on his key, then groaned – it wouldn’t budge. He pulled it, wiggled it, tugged again, then cast a glance to the stairwell, half expecting Josie to reappear.

Then he heard mumbles and the click of a lock being unlatched from the other side of the door.

If the door opened with Patrick’s key still in it he could always say he was new and had got the wrong door. But the mumbles became words, and Patrick thought he recognized the voice. He grabbed his key and gave it an almighty wrench, stumbling backwards and almost falling as it graunched out of the socket.

As the door started to open, Patrick ran up the stairs and around the corner, getting out of view just as he heard the old man he’d met half an hour before moaning about
who the hell was messing with his property
, doubtless still wearing his light blue cropped trousers and flip-flops.

Patrick sniggered to himself. Jesus, he’d jumped straight out of one crazy world into another, and the sooner he got out of it the better.

He went up to Beth’s apartment and knocked on the door.

Nothing. As expected. Strange as it seemed, she had gone back to work today after all.

He checked his watch. It was two o’clock. If he waited for her to get back from work he might be waiting another four or five hours, more if she stopped off to eat somewhere. Then again, she might not be coming back at all.

And what lay inside her apartment? Perhaps some evidence of what she’d been involved in.

Patrick glanced left and right along the corridor, then pressed the face of the door with both hands. It flexed a little, perhaps a boot or a shoulder would deal with it.

He took a step back, stiffened his torso, and faced his shoulder towards the door

‘Yoo-hoo!’

It was an exclamation Patrick had only heard from old TV shows, never from the mouth of a living person. He turned to see a familiar face.

Why couldn’t she mind her own fucking business?

‘Josie,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again.’

‘Are you looking for Beth?’

‘Yes. We’re friends from work. I just wanted to say hello.’

‘You won’t get her.’

‘Still at work, I guess.’

‘Oh, no.’

Patrick waited for her to explain, but she didn’t.

‘What do you mean?’ he said eventually.

‘She’s had to go.’

Patrick felt a tingle cross his face. ‘I’m sorry? Go? Go where?’

‘She told me late last night. An emergency, apparently. She said she’ll be gone some time. I look after her plants, you see. She has some succulents. They’re quite drought tolerant, of course, but she also has—’

‘Have you heard from her since?’

Josie shook her head.

‘And what sort of emergency was it?’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘You know where she went?’

‘Didn’t say.’

Patrick bowed his head and took a few seconds to chew his thumbnail.

‘You wanna come in for a coffee?’ Josie said. ‘You can tell me all about London.’

But Patrick didn’t hear, he was already past her and heading for the exit. The woman hadn’t told him much, but she didn’t need to. Patrick had a good idea where Beth had gone.

43

Patrick bought a large plastic bottle of cheap lemonade, and also a thick oversize coat, partly to keep himself warm on the cold night to come, and partly because it had pockets large enough to hold the bottle. He hired a car and headed out of town, south, on Route 57.

It was almost midnight by the time he hit the Tennessee state border. The bottle was empty, and when he stopped at a gas station he took the opportunity to fill the bottle as well as the tank of the car.

He hadn’t gone much further before he parked up and gave in to his urge to sleep. At first the car was warm from the heat of the engine, but Patrick was blessing his own foresight by the early hours as the coat became a blanket. He was so tired and warm that he slept until mid-morning, and now, in the daylight, he could start searching.

At least, he could do so after grabbing a late breakfast; some strange concoction of catfish, chicken and a slush that was advertised as ‘slaw’, accompanied by cornbread and cola.

These remote parts seemed like they belonged to a different country from any other place he’d been to in the US, so he was almost surprised to find that the internet had reached them. Even the café he’d chosen was ‘all wired up’ as the sign would have it.

It didn’t take long to find Lake Chikasaw, and he printed out a map of it and set off. Two roads led to the shore, and he tried those first.

There was a boathouse at the end of the first – at least, if a bundle of driftwood that hadn’t quite made the break to drift counted as a boathouse. There was a larger one at the end of the other road. Patrick found three expressionless fishermen sitting on the edge of the pier, chewing gum and gazing out to the distance. He asked if any of them knew a woman called Beth who might be around. One spat into the lake then gave a single languid shake of the head. The other two presumably agreed. By the look of them they didn’t even know a woman, let alone one called Beth.

Patrick studied the map again, and set off for the other side of the lake. There was no obvious road leading up to it so he stopped at a wooden house where an old man sat on a veranda on a rocking chair.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Sir.’ The man nodded, and showed off half a set of rotten teeth as he smiled.

‘Do you know of any boathouses along here?’

The man spoke slowly, as if he had a whole lifetime left to answer and wasn’t going to be rushed. ‘We have two, although I’d say one’s a little run down these days. It’s the heat does it, see.’

‘Are these the two?’ Patrick showed the old man the map.

He laughed. ‘No way I can read that.’

Patrick groaned. ‘Are you sure there’s only two?’

‘Sure as I’ve got old bones in me.’

Patrick looked up and down the road, and for a second only saw trees and only heard birdsong.

‘There’s always the old one,’ the man said, almost as an afterthought. ‘What’s it called again?’ He tapped a twisted finger to his long chin. ‘More like a barn out of its place than a boathouse, most people would say, and there’s no driving to it neither.’ His head and his twisted finger both jerked up in unison. ‘Now I remember. Caine’s place they call it.’

Bingo.

Twenty minutes later Patrick parked up at the roadside and set off on what the old man told him was a mile-or-so walk. It took him along a gravel path built up on the marshland like a tightly twisting railway embankment. Were there tides on these lakes? He hoped not, or else getting back might be a problem.

As soon as the boathouse came into view Patrick stopped. The birds that seemed so at home elsewhere on the lake were absent here, as though the water or the air were tainted. The lake had an eerie beauty about it, an almost funereal peacefulness, the silky smoothness of the water surface only disturbed by the gentlest of ripples and a million insects dancing on it, the silence only broken by the occasional lap of water on sandy mud.

He set off again, and as he approached the boathouse could see it was a rudimentary and now decidedly run-down affair, its peeling paint running down to within a few inches of the base, where rot had set in and the black decay had started to leach upwards. The roof had long since given up being worthy of the word, only rafters and the odd panel remaining, offering little in the way of protection from rain or sun. The design was as basic as the construction, with no entrance from the side directly facing land, only two large holes at either side close to the water’s edge.

Patrick rapped his knuckles on the wood. ‘Hello?’

He walked around to one side and poked his head through the gap. There was no movement bar the wavy reflections of the sun thrown by the water. But there was a small bag – a brown leather satchel of sorts lying on the bench along the back.

Patrick stepped inside and picked up the bag. There was a book underneath, a dog-eared paperback version of Pride and Prejudice that had come loose from its bindings in parts. Patrick idly flicked through it, seeing pen marks and parts underlined.

Then he heard a click behind him.

He turned to see a pistol pointed at him – a familiar pistol.

‘Beth?’

‘What the hell are you doing here? What do you want?’

‘I…’

‘And what’s with the comedy coat?’

Patrick put the book down and held his hands up to head height. ‘Hey, relax. I’ve just come to talk.’

‘So talk. Then leave.’

‘Could you put the gun down first?’

‘No. Say what you need to say and leave.’

Patrick dropped his hands in a slow, deliberate manner. ‘You’re not really going to use that are you?’

‘What do you want to talk about?’

Patrick frowned at her. ‘Are you serious?
What do I want to talk about?
’ He exhaled slowly, puffing his cheeks out and shaking his head. ‘What do think, Beth? As a starter we could talk about why there’s some sort of microwave machine underneath the bed in my apartment, then you can explain why my internet and TV feeds are what you might call “managed”. In short, I need to know what the hell’s going on.’ He nodded to the pistol. ‘You know, you don’t have to keep that thing pointed at me.’

‘I only know what I’ve been told,’ Beth replied.

‘What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’m going to hurt you?’

‘I think you must be pretty pissed off.’

‘Wouldn’t you be?’

She started to lower the pistol. ‘Patrick, I’m sorry. But I was only doing my job.’

‘
What
?’ Patrick gave a sharp tut. ‘Your
job
?’

‘Look. I know you must hate me, but it’s just what I do.’

‘Which is what, exactly?’

‘Anything OrSum tell me to do.’

Patrick stepped closer. ‘
Anything
?’

‘Don’t twist things. I’ve never hurt anyone.’

‘Paulo? Did you hurt him?’

Beth shook her head. ‘Paulo’s fine.’

‘He’s alive?’

‘Christ, Patrick. We’re not the goddam mafia. He still works in Chicago, just at a different office. We thought he was getting a little too close to you.’

Patrick took another step forward and Beth raised the pistol back up to him. He relaxed on his haunches and took a moment to look over the lake.

‘Nice spot here,’ he said. He picked up the book. ‘Yours?’

‘I like to read it whenever I come here. It keeps me strong.’

‘But why here? Isn’t this where…?’

‘Don’t say it, Patrick. Just don’t go there.’

‘I won’t. But I can understand. Perhaps it makes you think of a different life, how things might have turned out for you if it hadn’t happened.’

Beth stepped closer to him, the pistol now a foot from his face. ‘Just shut up!’ she said. ‘Don’t try to screw with my mind, Patrick. I do okay.’

‘Do you?’

‘I’m the highest earning woman at OrSum.’

Patrick laughed. ‘And that’s it? That’s your life?’

Beth’s lips parted but no sound came out. Patrick looked out across the wide sheet of water. Beth frowned and looked too.

Within half a second Patrick had ripped the pistol from her hand and her face was stinging from the harshness of his hand.

Beth stepped back but Patrick grabbed her by the arm and threw her down onto the wooden bench.

‘Right. I want to know everything you know. About OrSum, about Rozita, about my nightmares. Everything.’

‘Or what? You’re gonna shoot me?’

Patrick stilled himself for a moment, then grunted as he hurled the gun towards the lake. It clunked on the wooden ceiling and fell inches from the water.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I can do better than that. Much better.’

‘What do you mean?’

Patrick pulled the plastic bottle from his coat pocket. It looked just like it was full of water. He unscrewed the top and cast it from left to right, splashing a little of the fluid onto Beth’s face and neck, making her cough and splutter.

She screwed her face up against the stink and let out a scream. Patrick slapped her across the top of her head and she stopped.

‘Start talking, Beth, or you and your beloved boathouse go up in flames.’

‘No, Patrick. You wouldn’t.’

Patrick grabbed her chin and pulled her face to his. ‘Just tell me.’

‘But, I don’t know. I just don’t know. Like I said, I just do as I’m told. Jesus Christ, Patrick. You have to believe me!’

Patrick released her chin but kept his face pointed at hers while his hand went to his pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter.

She screamed again, now cowering and covering her face.

‘Cut the crap, Beth. Tell me what’s been happening.’

‘I can’t.’

Patrick pulled her hand away from her face and now saw moist, shiny red cheekbones.

‘Final chance,’ he said, slowly and clearly.

‘Okay, okay,’ Beth shouted. She took a deep breath. ‘But please, put the lighter away.’

‘I’ll decide when I do that,’ he said, grabbing her hair and pulling it to the side. ‘Tell me!’

‘It’s all a set-up. I don’t know the details, I don’t know why, but I know you’ve been set up.’

He released her hair with a sharp twist and she let out a yelp.

‘Just put the lighter away and I’ll tell you everything I know.’

‘Fuck!’ Patrick kicked the bench. ‘I knew I couldn’t trust you.’ He put the lighter away. ‘So tell me more. I want every detail and I want to know who’s behind all of this.’

‘I don’t know everything.’

‘Is my brother part of this?’

‘Look, it’s something to do with him. I don’t know what, but I know he doesn’t live in Seattle.’

‘So where is he?’ He grabbed her hair again and pulled. ‘Tell me! What have they done with Declan?’

‘I swear, Patrick. I don’t know. Please, you’re hurting me.’

‘Okay.’ He let go, then pointed an angry finger at her face. ‘But you need to tell me more.’

‘Right,’ she said, gulping down a breath. ‘I can tell you everything I know. Yes, OrSum control your TV and internet feeds – I don’t know anything about a microwave. The Rozita thing was part of the set-up. I just did what I was told to do – like I always do. Of course you didn’t kill her – I loaded the gun with blanks and I guess the rest was down to fake blood. But that was the limit of my involvement, Patrick. I swear it.’

‘You must know more than that.’

‘Patrick, I’m on your side, really.’

‘
You’re on my side
? How can you say that?’

‘Even the break-in at VTA, they wanted to stop you at security and rough you up a little to scare you off.’

‘Jesus! You told them we were going to break in?’

‘Yes, I did. But it was me that persuaded them to let you go ahead with it.’

‘Why would you do that?

‘I told them there was no way you’d get into their computer system. I underestimated you.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Patrick said, running his eyes over her face. ‘I trusted you, Beth. I told you about my nightmares, about my family, my brother.’

‘It’s what I do for a living, Patrick, that’s all.’

‘But you knew everything about me already, you knew it all.’

‘No, I didn’t, Patrick – not everything. And I was wrong. You’re a nice guy. Whatever OrSum have done to you it stinks. I can see that now.’

Now he looked more closely at her face, and saw the bare streaks where tears had washed away her make-up. He brought a hand up and gently placed it around her throat, pinning her back.

‘You know something, Beth. I
still
think you’re lying.’

‘I’m not.’ She started to lash out with her fists, only a few hitting their target.

He squeezed her neck, oblivious to the blows. ‘Whatever. It’s. Just. Not. Good. Enough.’

‘You don’t mean that, Patrick. I can’t believe you’re gonna do this.’

‘If I walk away with no leads, I walk away from a burning boathouse. Now SPEAK!’