Ten Days (36 page)

Cathy thought she saw something – a dark shadow, moving. ‘Is that . . .?' But no, nobody there: probably just an illusion of the rain. ‘Come on,' she said. ‘Let's go and get him.'

There being so much mud churned up on either side of the gravel path, they walked in single file with Cathy in front. Water dropped off her chin and splashed down the ends of her bedraggled hair, and it got into her eyes, so she kept on having to shake her head to clear her vision. She was grateful for the distraction. When she finally did come face to face with Banji, what was she going to say?

The brooding outline of the building Lyndall had pointed to was coming closer.

‘It's the one after this,' she heard Lyndall saying.

Somebody there. She saw them now as a dark outline. ‘Who's there?' she called.

The faint beam of their torch lit up the shafting rain. ‘What are you up to?' The man – a policeman, she saw – was peering anxiously at them. ‘Identify yourselves.' He raised something – a whistle – to his lips.

'I'm Cathy Mason.' She stepped up to make sure he saw her empty hands. ‘And this is my daughter Lyndall and Jayden, a friend.'

‘What are you doing here?'

‘We're . . .'

‘Taking a walk,' Lyndall piped up.

‘Funny time for a walk.' The policeman let his whistle drop and swiped his face, wiping away the rain. ‘But you can't keep on this path. It's blocked. You need to go back the way you came and cross the bridge, and then you can walk along the opposite bank. Although if I were you on such a filthy night, I'd just go home.'

Over his head Cathy thought she saw lights flickering high up in the warehouse. ‘What's going on, officer?' She was right: there were lights there.

‘Police operation,' he said. ‘Nothing that . . .'

Lyndall's loud ‘You told them' stopped him from finishing his sentence.

‘No, I did not.'

Lyndall's voice even louder: ‘You did. You fucking well told them.'

‘Now, now.' The policeman shone his torch in Lyndall's face.

Her eyes were ablaze and focused on her mother: ‘That's why you were acting so nice, buying us supper and all. Waiting for the rain to end. You told them and then you slowed us down so we couldn't go and warn him.'

‘Him?' The policeman took a step closer. ‘Who's him?'

‘Oh, go fuck yourself.' Lyndall turned on her heel and marched off.

8.55 p.m.

It had been a filthy day and the beginnings of a night that wasn't turning out to be much better. Peter rolled off Patricia to lie beside her on his back: ‘I'm such a cliche.'

‘It's okay.' Patricia stretched out a consoling hand. ‘It's only because you had such a hard day.'

Which – given that he'd lost his wife, his home, the possibility of ever becoming Leader – was an understatement that nearly made him laugh out loud. He breathed in, registering that same slightly musty odour he had smelt on her earlier. ‘Have you changed your perfume?'

'No.' She frowned. ‘Why?'

‘Just something I keep smelling.'

‘Really?' She lifted up an arm and (something Frances would never in a million years have done) sniffed under an armpit. ‘Seems okay to me.'

Leave it, he told himself. And said, ‘Perhaps a shower?'

He saw the hurt in her expression, but all she said was, ‘Okay, then' before getting out of bed and closing the door of the en-suite behind her.

As soon as she had gone, he felt the relief of being on his own.

Despite the air conditioning, the room felt stuffy. Enclosed. Claustrophobic. It was the change, he supposed. Because although he'd been with her in many a hotel room, these had always been fleeting visits, a step out of their separate lives. But now he had no home to go to and, with the press camped on her doorstep, they couldn't go to hers.

So here they must stay.

For better or for worse.

He sighed, got up and went over to the windows that ran the length of one wall. Not their usual choice of hotel: this one was corporate with many rooms stacked, each one of the same size and same inoffensive decor as its neighbour.

He pulled the cord and the curtains swished open to expose a dark night. He thought that the storm, whose thunder could be heard even through the double glazing, and whose lightning had flashed in like a warning, must have moved on, but as soon as he pulled open the slotted casement at the top of the window, rain came sheeting in. He pushed it closed, thinking, drought over, flood on the way.

‘Shall we go out to eat?' Patricia called.

Eat at a restaurant with his face and hers on every media outlet: what was she thinking of? ‘We'd better use room service.'

‘Okay.' Her faint reply was followed by the sound of singing.

She was happy.

Of course she was. She'd got what she'd always wanted: him.

He'd order a nice bottle of red with supper, he thought, and if there wasn't one that suited his fancy, he would send the concierge out with
full instructions. In the meantime, what he needed most was a stiff drink.

He went over to the minibar and broke the seal. Didn't like the look of the whisky so got out a mini bottle of gin to which he added tonic. Took a sip. Grimaced. Why anybody ever used slimline tonic was beyond him. Thought, maybe more gin would drive that plastic taste away, and poured another in.

9.04 p.m.

As soon as Joshua surmounted the final rung and hauled himself up into the room, he saw the body.

It was hanging off a beam in the ceiling. A male, IC3, dangling with his back to the trapdoor as if he were looking through a window in the eaves.

‘He's dead?'

The sergeant nodded. ‘Sure is. And by the ligature mark on his neck looks like he's been dead for a while.'

The low-roofed space was messy with empty cartons of food littered about and dust so thick that Joshua could see where rain had dripped off the sergeant and also the marks left by his feet when he had approached the body.

‘Do we have any paper shoes?' Joshua was shouting at the people below so as to be heard above the drumming rain, and on receiving a reply in the negative he said to the sergeant, ‘Go and find me two plastic bags. Clean as you can get them. Get the Deputy Commissioner to bring them up – but not to step past the door. And ask an FME to attend urgently. Tell them I'm here: that should hurry them up. The rest of your men are to wait in the van until such time as we have secured the scene.'

‘Yes, sir.' The sergeant made his way down the ladder.

Not wanting to cause any further disruption to the room, Joshua just stood and looked at the dangling body.

He had watched the footage of Jibola throwing the Molotov over and over again. He had also read his record, interviewed his wife and begun to understand how beleaguered Jibola must have been feeling in order to do what he had done. Now, taking in that awful, lonely
sight, he thought again about how very desperate Jibola must have been. Unless of course he hadn't hanged himself.

He looked through the dust, trying to see if he could make out any tracks that might indicate the dragging of a body.

‘Sir.' Anil Chahda's head had appeared in the trapdoor ‘Is it Jibola?'

‘Seems like it, but I'm going to go over just to be sure.' He took the bags from Chahda, wrapped them round his shoes and used the handles to tie them on. Then, taking care to trace the sergeant's footprints in the dust, he made his way over to the body. The head was hanging, swollen, at an angle, the eyes bulging, the skin paler than he expected but even so: ‘Yes,' he called to the waiting Chahda. ‘It is Julius Jibola.'

11.55 p.m.

The rain was pelting down, soaking her. She was cold. She needed more clothes. She looked down.

Blood – that was the colour of the rain: blood that was now dripping off her summer frock. She cried out.

Heard Lyndall shouting, ‘Mum.'

Lyndall mustn't see this. She couldn't know.

‘Mum. Wake up.'

She opened her eyes to find Lyndall leaning over her.

She blinked. Sat up. ‘I was dreaming.'

‘Yes, and shouting the place down.' Lyndall's glare was ferocious. ‘Something you feel guilty about perhaps?' Without waiting for an answer, she turned away.

‘I didn't tell them,' Cathy said.

‘I don't believe you.'

‘But it's true.'

‘How did they know, then?' Lyndall kept her back to Cathy.

‘I don't know how.' She could hear great torrents of rain cascading from the landing. And the night so dark. ‘They could have followed you – ever thought of that?' Which was mean of her. ‘Or somebody might have seen something and reported it. Or maybe they just decided to search the building again. All I know is that I didn't tell them. And that I wouldn't have.'

'Why not?' At least Lyndall turned back, although she was still frowning and her fists were clenched. ‘I know he hit you. He told me that he did. And I know you can't forgive him. He told me that as well. So why wouldn't you have got your revenge by betraying him to the police?'

‘I wouldn't,' Cathy said.

‘Why not?' That hammering demand. ‘Why not? Why not?'

‘Because I loved him, no matter what he did.' She had to say more: to tell Lyndall the whole truth. She took in a deep breath and then, before she could change her mind, she burst out with the information she'd held back for so many years. ‘I also wouldn't have told the police because there was no way I could do that to your father,' she said and then, seeing Lyndall pale, her honeyed skin losing its colour, immediately regretted what she'd said.

‘Banji is my father?'

Too late now to take it back. She nodded.

‘I knew it.' As if her legs had given way, Lyndall sank down onto the floor. When Cathy reached down, Lyndall flinched away from the touch. ‘I knew it.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘What for?' Lyndall's eyes had filled with tears. ‘Did you stop him from seeing me when I was a baby?'

‘No, I didn't stop him.'

‘Did he reject me?' Lyndall's voice quivered.

‘No, that isn't right either.' She tried to put all the warmth in her voice that a hug, which she knew would not be allowed, would have delivered. ‘He never even met you. He left after I told him I was pregnant. I never told him in so many words that you were his, and he never asked. Just disappeared without a word. It wasn't you he rejected, it was me.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Because what he did was to do with me, not you.'

‘But I've been asking you for years.'

‘It wasn't to do with you.'

‘Oh yes it was.' Lyndall got up and stood a moment, looking at her mother. ‘If Banji is my father, it has everything to do with me.' Without another word, she left the room.