The Detective's Secret (46 page)

‘I
was
your friend.’ Nicola Barwick sounded weary as if she had repeated this many times. ‘Until you made Richard climb up here. He was a cruel boy and he became an unkind man. But you have become worse. You took revenge on him and on all those around you. He even married your sister because he was frightened you would report him for murder. You took over his company and threatened to bankrupt him. He lived in fear of you. In the end he went to William for help, but you were there first.’

‘Running away is no escape if you don’t know which direction is “away”.’ Simon laughed. ‘We know that, don’t we, Justin! He married my sister because he thought it was the best way to hurt me. He wasn’t frightened of me, he wanted to destroy me.’

‘Are you Liz?’ Jack asked the woman in the shower. She nodded.

‘Liz was my friend too until she started talking to the Cleaner,’ Simon explained. ‘She broke her promise. She told her about me.’

‘I only promised not to tell anyone about where Nicola was!’ Liz’s voice trembled, and Jack saw that, behind the bravura, she was frightened. There was nothing he could do; Simon had planned it meticulously. In a locked tower, there was no way out. Or in.

‘Did you call him Justin?’ Jack asked Liz, remembering something Stella had said. Another missed sign.

‘He said his name was Justin Venus.’ She spat out the words.

‘That’s my grandfather.’ Jack exclaimed. Simon knew everything.

‘Come on, Justin.’ Simon beckoned with his half-finger. ‘You two will be OK here, I’ve shut the windows to keep out the storm so you won’t hear a thing.’ He gave a low laugh. ‘Nor will you be heard.’

‘The police are on their way,’ Jack said stoutly, but his tone lacked conviction.

‘This is how it is.’ Simon addressed them all. ‘The Reporter and the Cleaner are here. The Cleaner spotted me on the roof so they have gone up there and now they can’t get down. They will be shouting, but in this wind… it’s a pity, but no one will hear them. Today, or rather yesterday, since it’s after midnight, was St Jude’s feast day, so the gods have named this storm after him. Mr Wilson told us that St Jude carried the image of Christ. Some think St Jude the brother of Christ. We were blood brothers, weren’t we, Justin? Or shall I call you Jude!’

Jack heard the prattling small boy, eager to cheer him up, whom he had put out of his mind. Nicola Barwick had liked Simon. That boy had gone.

Returning to the front room, Simon lifted Stanley from the truckle bed. Jack expected him to attack Simon, but he nestled on his shoulder. There was a flash of silver; Simon had a knife. He opened the door. They were at the foot of the spiral staircase that led up to Jack’s flat.

‘Stella!’ Jack yelled. This was his only chance.

The silence was profound. No Smiths, no sink noise, no storm. The soundproofing was effective.

‘Effective soundproofing.’ Simon pulled open the door and a powerful gust of wind hit them, bringing with it the cloying odour of river mud.

‘After you,
Guy
!’ Still holding Stanley, Simon stepped out on to the walkway and, his bad hand clasping the knife, he said, ‘Come with me.’

For the first time in his life, Jack did as Simon said.

In sudden squalls, freezing rain hit them from every direction. Soon, despite his coat, Jack was soaked through. Simon was walking ahead of him over the causeway to the eyot. He never looked to see if Jack was behind him. He had slung Stanley over his shoulder and, in occasional gleams of light, Jack saw Stanley’s eyes watching him; like Liz Hunter’s they showed fear. The dog wasn’t fickle, he was playing it safe; his gaze willed Jack to do the same.

The tide was out, but already, beneath the wailing and moaning of the wind, Jack heard the trickling of water filling miniature creeks and gullies in between debris on the beach. Pools were spreading and joining up.

Jack saw that Simon walked with no hesitation. Not once did he stumble; like Jack he must know every stone, every jutting slab of concrete embedded in the mud. Adroitly he avoided the viscous mud that, like shifting sands, threatened to pull them below the glistening surface.

Jack couldn’t think of escaping because Simon would read his mind and stop him.

On the eyot, Simon stopped and, shining his torch into Jack’s face, said, ‘You’re the Captain, you lead the way.’

Obediently Jack took them along his hidden path deeper into the undergrowth. Jack tried to keep his mind blank, to keep Simon out. He forced himself to think of the calculation of the West Hill Tunnel: 266.66 recurring. Recurring.
Recurring
.

Jack hoped Simon was taking him to Stella. He trod heavily, deliberately snapping branches and reeds to warn her of their approach.

‘The Cleaner won’t hear you,’ Simon said.

They arrived in his Garden of the Dead, out of sight of Chiswick Mall and of the tower, and hidden by a screen of reeds and willow fronds from any boats on the Thames. Jack couldn’t see Stella.

Simon’s voice broke into his thoughts: ‘I’ve done my murder. Now it’s your turn.’

They were standing by the gap in the reeds where, nearly thirty years before, Jack had stopped Rick Frost – the Captain – from pushing Simon into the Thames. Below, the river raced on: oily, turbid, toxic; the rain shattered reflections to nothing. Were he to fall, within seconds the current would drag him down. Shocked by the icy cold, Jack knew he would not struggle. Simon would watch until the black water closed over him, then he would walk away.

Tuesday, 29 October 2013

The perimeter wall was chest-high with no footholds. Stella couldn’t see directly down without clambering on to the edge. She peered into the darkness. The triumph of opening the skylight was long gone. Rapid crosswinds battered the trees and bushes on the eyot. A finger of stony ground leading out from Chiswick Mall was fractured as water rushed over the stones.

‘There he is!’ Lucie exclaimed.

Jack, hair wild and straggling, his coat billowing, was moving in a zigzag along the fringe of the island. He changed direction, changed again. Whipped up by the wind, the river was rife with conflicting currents, their strength measured by the speed at which wood, scum and rubbish, churned up from the river’s bed, streamed past. Waves rolled and crashed, driven by the force of the storm. A sack floated past. Even in the dark and from high up, Stella could see it was a dog, lifeless and bloated.

‘Jack!’ She waved both arms, but he was too far away and the wind was too loud.

‘He’s trying to get back, the tide’s turning!’ Stella yelled to Lucie. Lucie, puffing on her e-cigarette, nodded.

From their vantage point, Stella could see that Jack was going the wrong way. He should continue to the western tip of the island where, although it was shrinking, a scrap of land offered a safer route to Chiswick Mall. He was taking the most obvious way, but already the river was rising.

Something hit Stella in the eye, as hard and sharp as a stone. She wheeled away and rubbed it with her palm. A raindrop. Water thundered down, drops coming from all directions as the wind battered them. In seconds she was soaked. The island was a blur. Hands over her face, she peeped through her fingers.

Jack was picking his way across the stony ridge, but already the end nearest Chiswick Mall was submerged. He could go no further.

‘Go back!’ Stella jumped up and down, flailing her arms. There was still a path, narrow and already broken, at the other end of the island. Water stung her eyes: she couldn’t see him properly. She heard a clap of thunder.

Turning around, she saw that the skylight had slammed shut.

She heard a shout, faint about the roar of the wind. Lucie was scrabbling at the parapet wall.

Stella rushed over and, cupping her hands over her forehead to protect her eyes from the pounding rain, looked to where Lucie was pointing.

At last Jack was making for the far shore of the island. Already the eyot was officially an island, the path was disappearing as the stretch of water widened. Cold rain pelted her head like hail, but Stella didn’t put up her hood. She fixed on Jack as he struggled across the ground, flailing at reeds to prevent himself slipping into the river. She could see he wouldn’t get to the other path in time. He had left it too late.

‘Jack!’ Stella yelled. There was more water than land. ‘We have to stop him!’ she bellowed at Lucie, while aware that they could do nothing.

Jack reached where the beach had been and teetered on the edge of the water. Waves broke around his ankles. He stepped in and began to wade. At first he made good progress, but then he floundered; he held his arms above his head to keep them clear of the water and waded deeper in.

‘He should wait,’ Lucie bellowed in Stella’s ear. ‘He should stay where he is.’

Jack pulled his coat tight, the water now up to his waist. He gave into the water and pushed himself along in an awkward upright crawl. He slipped and went up to his neck, then regained his footing.

‘Take off your coat!’

Although she guessed what Lucie had said, Stella only heard ‘coat’. Jack’s coat was like a second skin; he wouldn’t take it off. Saturated, it would be hampering him. He went under, came up and, struggling against a current, went under again.

Through the rain, Stella stared at the river. Jack had told her once that he couldn’t swim.

Tuesday, 29 October 2013

‘We need to find some way out. We can’t just sit here and do nothing.’ Liz Hunter slid back the shower screen and stumbled out on to the metal floor.

‘He’s locked us in and, as he said, no one will hear us in here. I’ve been shouting and no one has come. You don’t know Simon. He’s thought of everything. There is nothing we can do.’

‘We can’t give up,’ Liz protested. ‘He’s not thought of everything – he hasn’t even bothered to tie us up.’

‘That’s because he knows we can’t get out. He let a man die in here and blamed another boy for it. He murdered his brother-in-law and his mother. He’s a cold-blooded killer.’

‘I’m not prepared just to sit here and wait for him to come back and kill us. What is this hold he has over you, Nicola? Over everyone?’ Liz glared at Nicola Barwick sitting stock still on the chair.

‘He gets into every corner. Nowhere is safe. Even if we escape, he’ll find us.’

‘We have to try!’ Liz dragged Nicola to her feet. ‘That man just got in and it wasn’t through the door. Come on, Justin – Simon – will be back any minute.’

They ran through the little kitchen to the main room. Ahead was a door of galvanized metal. Liz Hunter banged and kicked it, making only dull thuds. There was no handle.

Nicola pulled aside a cupboard and examined the wall behind. Nothing. She ran to the bed and, sitting on the floor, pushed it back with her legs. It shifted a few centimetres.

‘Here, let me.’ Liz joined her. Together, the women pushed the bed several metres out into the room and stared at the exposed partition wall. Liz saw the same hairline cracks that, unknown to her, Jack had seen in his own flat earlier. ‘That’s it!’ She ran against it and fell back nursing her shoulder.

‘It must have a secret mechanism.’ Nicola got down on her knees and crawled along the skirting.

‘Out of the way.’ Liz lugged the black swivel chair over and prepared to use it as a battering ram.

‘Simon is an engineer, he doesn’t work with brute force.’

‘He’s a killer,’ Liz retorted.

‘He doesn’t use violence, he relies on leverage and coercion. He deals in stress and load bearings.’ Nicola had reached the end of the skirting.

‘There’s money on the floor.’ Liz tried to pick up the ten-pence piece lying where the bed had been. ‘It’s stuck.’

‘Try pushing instead of pulling!’ Nicola was beside her.

Liz pressed on the coin with the flat of her thumb and, with a rumbling, the wall slid aside.

Two women stepped into the room. One of them, billowing in a bright red coat, had a gun.

‘Don’t move!’ she shouted.

‘Stella!’ Liz exclaimed.

‘Do you know them?’ the woman in the huge red coat asked Stella. Water was pooling into the room from their clothes. Liz saw that they were soaking wet. The ‘gun’ was an electronic cigarette.

‘Stella, this is Nicola Barwick,’ Liz said.

‘Where’s Simon Carrington?’ the woman in the red coat asked.

‘He’s gone with your friend, Jack. That was ages ago – he could be back any minute. Stella, I think he was going to—’ She couldn’t use the word “kill”.

‘This way!’ The woman with the cigarette dipped back into the darkness beyond the wall. ‘We’ve found the way out. A shed is not always a shed.’

Stella was stony and unresponsive. Liz knew it was because she had realized that her friend Jack would be dead.

Tuesday, 29 October 2013

The tea was warm and sweet, not how Stella liked it, but she didn’t care. She pulled the foil blanket tighter around her. The liquid warmed her, but did nothing for the profound numbness that made her feel she was floating above her body. Hazily she hoped she would always feel this way.

Jack wouldn’t feel the wind or the rain. He couldn’t feel the cold.
Jack
.

If Jack had heard her ask him about Justin Venus from the pay phone before his money ran out, he could have told her it was his grandfather’s name. She had seen the headstone herself. Lucie May had known instantly when Liz told her. But then Lucie May made it her business to remember names and faces. Stella was a cleaner.

Stella heard a ping and looked at her phone as if Jack might have texted. It was from Liz Hunter. She had texted an hour earlier, but everything was disrupted by the storm. Liz had opened Rick Frost’s letter to Nicola Barwick. Attached was a picture of it: ‘19 9 13 15 14  19 8 21 20  20 15 23 5 18  4 15 15 18’. If I die, tell the police about Simon.’ Unable to reach Stella, Liz had told the man calling himself Justin Venus. The very last person she should have told.

If they had read the letter in the café, Jack would be alive.

‘Stella, I’m sorry.’ Martin Cashman climbed into the ambulance and sat down on the bed beside her.