White Light (11 page)

CHAPTER ten

Friday, 3 April 2015. 04.46

I'll say this for time-travel: you sleep like a baby. Despite my cracked ribs and my creaky camp bed I woke on the Friday morning as if I'd spent the night in a £2000 suite in the Waldorf Astoria. The grey light of early morning was seeping around the blanket across the window, and when I twitched it aside I saw the house and garden still slumbering in the gloom. I looked at my watch: 4.46am. Good, I had plenty to do.

Knowing I was sleeping heavily upstairs, knocked out by grief and a hefty dose of whisky, I quietly let myself into the house. I made an urgent visit to the downstairs loo – biting my lip viciously against the agony of a bowel movement, Richard's size twelve shoe prints still marked heavily on my abdomen. I tried to distract myself by watching the light streaming in through the little window, despite the early morning grey skies, and listening to the birds tuning up outside. I remembered that today, the first time round, I'd set off to work at about nine, so belted myself painfully back into my trousers and headed back up to the attic. I got a cup of black coffee before firing up my old laptop. It took a while to boot up, which reminded me why I'd replaced it, but eventually it got to the desktop and I navigated anxiously to the networks icon. I wasn't sure if the house wifi signal would reach over here, but to my relief I saw three green bars – it would be good enough for what I wanted. The laptop, already equipped with the password, logged in automatically and I opened a browser window.

At some point during the night my sleeping brain had posed a question which I realised I'd never bothered to ask before: where did the Hollands get their money? I'd always had a vague impression of some City job, finance, banking, whatever, and frankly I'd found Richard so repellent I'd never bothered to ask any more. I knew that Sarah had gone to a good school, and had been comfortable at University, but she'd always had to work and her parents hadn't been the sort to dish out expensive presents. I guess I hadn't cared enough about them to ever think about their finances. But now, I wanted to know.

The first thing I did was to fire up the Companies House website, and do a search for Richard Graeme Holland. I had to cough up an admin fee before it gave me any information, but after a few minutes I was staring at a page of results:

Name and contact details

Holland, Richard Graeme

Date of Birth: 22/07/1945

Address: 66 Lonsdale Road, Oxford, OX2 9AA

Directorships held (1 of 1)

Finance Director

Company name(s): Haverford Vintages Ltd

Company description: Import and export of fine wines and vintages from around the world.

Registered company number(s): 2794653

First registration date: 18/11/1972

Names of directors: Gillespie, Ian; Saunders, Trevor; Forrest, Nigel; Holland, Richard.

Registered address: Unit 12, Hockmore Street, Oxford OX4 3UZ

Click here
to download most recent accounts submitted.

I frowned at the screen. An address in OX4? I quickly opened another tab and found the location on the map. It was a back-street behind the hideous 1970s shopping centre in Temple Cowley, right on the edge of Oxford's most famous area of deprivation, Blackbird Leys. I couldn't imagine Richard Holland in his shiny shoes and polished jag going anywhere near there, in fact I didn't think he set foot in East Oxford in his entire life. I turned the map view into a street view, and virtually rolled down the road: it had tatty maisonettes on one side, and industrial wheelie bins and lock-up garages on the other. I couldn't tell which one was Unit 12.

I sat back and rubbed my neck, stiff from peering at the screen. I switched back to the company information page and downloaded the accounts. A PDF icon appeared on the screen, followed a second or two later by pages and pages of utterly boring figures. I scanned quickly down until I found the proverbial bottom line, and then made an involuntary grunt as I saw the company was apparently turning over six figures. This made no sense: who in their right mind would run a million-pound wine importing business from a scabby lock-up in Temple Cowley? Would you really keep valuable stock from all over the world behind a battered up-and-over garage door? It was like discovering Alan Sugar ran his empire from an office above a kebab shop.

I quit the Companies House site and googled Haverford Vintages. I got a lot of hits for some random off licence in Haverford, Pennsylvania, but it took digging down to page four of the results before I located the wine importer's site. It was a simple holding page, announcing that the Haverford Vintages website was under construction. I took a look at the metadata, and it didn't seem that progress was very quick: the last update had occurred over four years previously.

It didn't take a physicist to work out that it was all camouflage. One fact seemed to be supported by another, unless you were able to connect a third that made the whole supposition impossible. There was nothing surprising about a business using a lock-up in Cowley, unless you knew it was a million pound wine importers; there was nothing peculiar about a website being under construction unless you noticed it had been like that for years; it seemed perfectly normal that a fine wine company would make big money, unless you were aware that its business address was in a dilapidated block in a deprived area. They were hiding in plain sight, blending in, stealthy, poisonous.

My heart was a stone in my chest and I knew where the money was really coming from. The wine business was just the vehicle that got that cash into circulation, laundering it, supposedly washing it clean of the fear and the pain and turning it into useful things like fancy cars, big houses, nice holidays. I pushed the laptop away and worked hard not to be sick, my battered insides clenching and cramping painfully.

I stood up and paced around the narrow attic space, trying to walk it off. How had nobody put this together before me? But then, I'd never bothered to ask where the latest five star holiday or designer kitchen or hand-made suit had come from, so why should anyone else? Oxford isn't short of rich bastards, so Richard had chosen his long-grass well. I stopped pacing. I knew now, and that was something. I could rip apart his web of misdirection, and I would. I looked at my watch – there was just time.

I let myself back into the house in complete stealth mode, almost holding my breath. Upstairs, I could hear myself stomping about, and then the shower running. I had my hand on the kitchen door handle when Fergus appeared at my heels, mewling piteously for his next meal. I shushed him, but he carried on yowling, so I swore at him and quickly slung some of his dry food into his bowl. His noise stopped at once, like a switch being flicked, and his head disappeared into his food. I listened intently: the water was still running, there was still time. I shot across the hall and into the living room, and rushed to the cupboard under the window where miscellaneous stuff was usually kept. If I remembered rightly – yes! I fished out the digital SLR and clicked the cupboard door shut as quietly as I could. I took two steps across the hall, back into the kitchen, and then registered that the sound of the shower had stopped. Shit! I raced across the room and out of the back door, the deadbolt sounding like a gunshot as I locked it, then ran full-out back to the garage.

My heart was pounding as I flattened myself against the wall, but I couldn't resist peering round: and there I was, standing at the kitchen sink, staring at the two mugs I was holding in my hands with an unreadable expression on my face. I slipped back behind the corner of the garage and eased myself in through the doors before putting my hands on my knees and breathing deeply. Bugger me, that had been close.

Now I had to wait for earlier me to finish getting ready, and for the postman to appear. It all seemed to take an age, but eventually I heard the crunch of feet on the drive and the rattle of the letterbox, followed a few minutes later by the slam of the front door. I didn't watch this time, superstitiously feeling that I would know I was being observed. Instead, I heard the car door open and bang shut, the engine start, and then the tyres biting the gravel as it drove out and away.

I waited ten minutes then wheeled out the bike and headed down the road to Oxford. As I rode, my stomach started to feel strange again and I realised that I was hungry: I'd been awake for hours now and yesterday's diet of black coffee and pot noodles wasn't cutting it. My body was healing, it told me, and I needed to fuel it. I cut along the ring road and then stopped at MacDonald's for a burger, a mere anonymous delivery man amongst the van drivers and kids and students and tourists. One lad stared at my black eyes, but when I looked back at him he sunk his head down and pretended to be fascinated by his burger. Funny, really, all it took for me to become intimidating was a bereavement, a beating, and some time-travel – easy. I slung my tray onto the bin and then it was time for the owner and sole employee of Nemesis Couriers to head back to Summertown.

Friday, 3 April 2015. 10.16

Lonsdale Road was soft and prosperous. The morning grey had cleared into a beautiful day, and the sunshine had brought the street alive with people bustling from their cars and out in their front gardens. I pulled up down the road a little way, and pretended to be reading a map whilst I kept an eye on Richard's fuck off big Jaguar, which gleamed on the driveway. My father-in-law was ridiculously proud of his garden, doing all the work himself with an array of expensive tools and equipment, and I wondered whether I'd see him pottering around with that stupid garden hoover he'd recently bought himself. But I was pretty sure that he usually played golf on a Friday morning, and at 10.30am I was relieved to see him heading out to the car with a set of expensive clubs. He drove sedately down the road, and after a few moments I set off after him. Golf, I reckoned, was as good a chance as any to get some photos of his sick cronies. I was honest enough to realise that following him also delayed the moment when I had to decide whether to try to stop Sarah's car crash from happening.

Oxford is not short of well-heeled middle class men, and a number of manicured golf courses lay around the city to cater for them. I'd scoped out a couple on the map, and once Richard had turned the jag towards the largest and glossiest I risked losing sight of him and roared past, aiming to get to his destination before he did. I was pretty sure he wouldn't recognise me in my new get-up, but I didn't want to take too much of a chance.

I purred through the Oxfordshire countryside, postcard-perfect in the Spring sunlight, and turned down the long, sweeping drive to Sandwich Place – a medium-sized Georgian stately home that considerable amounts of money had transformed into an exclusive golf course and hotel. Discrete signs along the trimmed verge directed me to the twenty-first century's equivalent of the tradesmen's entrance, and I turned the bike and came to a stop outside the admin office. As I switched off the engine all I could hear were the birds singing, the well-mannered thwack of golf balls being struck, and the chatter of the middle classes at play. Just Richard's sort of place.

I'd filled my courier bag with padded envelopes stuffed with random magazines, and, under the pretext of checking my delivery list, looked up the Club Captain's name on my phone and scribbled it onto one of the packages. I took my time, keeping an eye out to catch Richard as he arrived. From my vantage point I had a pretty good view of the closest greens, so I should be able to get a look at some of his golf buddies. At least, I bloody hoped so. After five minutes stretched into ten I couldn't really string out this visit much longer, so dropped the parcel off with the vacuous but posh receptionist and had straddled the bike ready to move when the big blue jaguar swung round the drive and came to a complacent stop in the members' carpark.

I pulled my bag round in front of me and began rummaging through the parcels as if looking for something, but what I was really doing was readying the camera and putting it into continuous shooting mode to get as many images as possible. With my visor shut, as long as I angled my head down, no-one could tell that I was actually looking up and towards the carpark where my father-in-law was now unpacking his expensive clubs without an apparent care in the world. Several balding men in designer golf-wear hailed him as they passed, and my hands tensed on the shutter button, but they all just walked on. I had begun to think this whole thing was going to be a bust when two of them stopped.

'Holland,' one said as they all shook hands.

'Gillespie,' he replied, but annoyingly didn't mention the other man's name. They were both in their middle years, but the nameless one seemed quite a bit younger than the other two. Gillespie was bald and fat, his golf jumper straining across his belly, but Nameless looked in great shape and fidgeted about as he spoke as if filled with impatient energy.

'Thanks for that tip the other day,' he said, smirking at Richard. 'A great bouquet, with such a firm finish.' They all laughed, and my stomach twisted violently.

'Yes, definitely a good mouthfeel,' agreed Gillespie and all laughed again, standing happily in the sunshine and making it feel sullied and obscene. While they laughed, I whipped up the camera and fired off a dozen or more automatic shots. I shoved it back in the bag just as, still chuckling, they turned towards the club entrance. Instinctively I swung off the bike and walked in the opposite direction, back to the administration office, my head pounding.

'Yes?' asked the girl on the desk, and I wondered how old she was. I thought I was going to faint, so leaned on the counter, pushing up the visor to get some air. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of my black eyes and patched face.

'Er, I've just seen a car back into one of the other vehicles in the members' car park,' I improvised. Her face swept into an expression of alarm.

'Oh no!'

'Yes, and I'm afraid it didn't stop. I thought I ought to let you know.'

'Which car was it?' she was reaching for her computer keyboard.

'A silver grey Audi RS3,' I said, describing the car I'd seen Nameless step out of. 'The car that hit it was a – er – light blue Nissan.' I silently apologised to Dave for thinking of his car.

Her fingers stilled on the keyboard. 'Oh dear! That's Mr Naismith's car!' She picked up the phone on the desk, 'I'll page him and let him know.'

I had opened my mouth to utter some platitude or other when I glanced over the receptionist's shoulder and suddenly noticed the large white-board labelled 'Members Playing Today'. Amongst all the names printed carefully in red marker my eye riveted to two words:
Nick Walters
. The room seemed to spin away as my eyes travelled along the line, reading the scribbled note:
'11.30pm joining Holland, Gillespie, Naismith'.

I don't know what she said to me next, or what I said, if anything, instead I felt my feet walking me calmly out of the door and crunching across the gravel towards the bike, my hand reaching up to close my visor as if controlled by somebody else. In seconds I was barrelling down the drive and back onto the main road, and then on towards Oxford. My brain felt cold, and my stomach was roiling - after a couple of miles I was forced to pull into a lay-by and throw up my Macdonald's breakfast into the cow parsley. I knew I should really have hung around and watched for Richard coming back out, or to see if Walters was there, but a visceral compulsion to put as much distance between me and those men as I could got me back on the Yamaha. I didn't stop until I found myself in St Giles, where I parked up and risked taking off my helmet to get some air.

I sat in the shady graveyard of St Giles' church, isolated from the traffic and the buzz and noise all around me, slumped on one of the benches alongside trendy tourists drinking expensive coffee from the Maison Blanc and homeless men in assemblages of tattered clothing sifting through the bins. The nearest guy shot me a glance, and his narrow face made me think of Kenny – maybe Susie
had
known something, and maybe Richard or Naismith or even fucking Walters had paid her a visit and encouraged her to disappear. After all, who would take the word of a pathetic ex-junkie against their polished North Oxford respectability? I wondered where Susie was now, or even if she was alive, poor cow. Ahead of me, the green of the church yard was sliced across by the broad carriageway of St Giles, its parallel lines of immense plane trees marching away, all the way down to the Martyrs' Memorial. Burning at the stake seemed too small a punishment for my father-in-law and his friends.

I had thought that I had understood what Richard Holland was like, but now that seemed mere deluded self-deceit. I felt disgusted, and disgusting, soiled by even breathing the same air as these men, with a white hot panic in my chest that somewhere in this city, somewhere nearby, there were children going through what Sarah and Helen had endured. I pulled out my phone and had dialled Darren Underwood's number before I realised that I couldn't phone him – my earlier self wasn't even going to find Sarah's video till later tonight. Anyway, even if I called it in anonymously there was still DI Walters sitting there like an obscene spider, trapping all those statements and witnesses and pieces of evidence like little flies, and wrapping them up and hooking them out of reach of each other where they could do no harm. There was no innocent explanation for his involvement: the fees for that place alone must be nearly his annual salary. Paedophilia must be profitable, I found myself thinking, and had to fight down an urge to retch.

I don't know how long I sat there, but eventually I was able to take a deep breath and start to think properly. I was a very intelligent man, I said to myself, there must be a way I could stop this, there
must be a way
. A grubby bloke looking older than his years shuffled up to the bin next to my bench, and matter-of-factly began to root amongst its contents. A sheet of crumpled newsprint fluttered to the floor, and my eyes followed it automatically – and then I sat up. That was one avenue I hadn't tried: the press. With Operation Greenland still regularly making headlines, there was every chance that my allegations would at least be heard. And in my paralysis of horror I'd overlooked something else – the lock-up garage on Hockmore Street. There might be all manner of evidence which could back up my allegations. I pulled out the camera and spooled through the photos I'd taken back at the golf club: they'd come out well, but without the context you'd think they were just three balding, prosperous, middle aged men. I returned the camera to the bag and headed back to the bike. I needed to get
more proof.