Hope Road (28 page)

“Ground floor, yes?” she asks, and gets to work.

A Yale, chest-high on an internal door that’s been covered with hard-board painted white gloss.

“Six pin…” she whispers, inserting a thin metal bar into the lock then using what looks like a dentist’s pick to explore the innards of the lock’s mechanism.

A minute passes, punctuated by the odd sigh. Another minute, and John thinks he hears letterboxes rattling further down the street. Postman? Junk mail?

“There,” she says as the door swings open.

“Right. You wait in the car,” he says. “If anyone comes, ring me. If it’s a skinny kid with ginger hair, keep him talking outside as long as you can.”

“No problemo.”

The flat smells of dust and flowers. Potpourri? A decrepit vacuum leans against the wall next to the door, and the room is tidy, its dull fawn carpet recently vacuumed. Pushed up against the bay window is a cluttered wooden desk, an empty space right in the centre just big enough for a laptop.

There’s an elaborate bank of metal shelving running down most of the wall to his left. The shelves are stocked with hi-fi equipment, rows of DVDs, chunky computer manuals and a printer. At the other side of the room sits a large plasma TV in front of an old, low-slung sofa draped with a maroon and gold throw of an Eastern design. The place looks like a home, but it feels bare. Why?

The walls are bare, painted Magnolia. He stops, looks at each one in turn. There are faint thumb-sized smudges on them all, Blu-Tack stains. Not from posters, though. The spaces are too small, mostly A4 size, but some smaller, the size of photographs. A previous tenant? He looks around again. Something’s not right. Craig buys a Turkish throw for the sofa but leaves the walls bare?

He puts his laptop on the sofa, then takes the gloves from his pocket.

Another gift from Joe
.

The leather is almost imperceptible against his skin, just a hint of coolness, as if his hands are dangling in a calm river on a summer’s day.

Over on the desk there’s no computer. But there
was
one. A cable on the floor behind runs neatly around the wall as far as the metal shelves, where it connects to the printer. The printer itself looks like a good one, and next to it several packs of photographic paper in different sizes.

Right. He starts looking, living room first, then the small, miserable bedroom, and the kitchen. He looks on top of cupboards, in drawers, behind the fridge, anywhere he can think of. But it’s not here. There’s no laptop in the flat.

Back in the living room he notices a box on the floor beneath the desk: an old time-lapse VCR recorder, like the ones at the
Eurolodge
. A thick RCA cable is curled up on top of it.

He brings her home in analogue! Old-tech, Craig. Perfect.

Inside the drawer of the desk is an array of junk, fuses, keys, plugs, coins, a small craft knife, a screwdriver, a pack of playing cards, a roll of scotch tape, some scissors… He picks up the scissors, holds them close to his face. A thin sliver of clear tape is stuck to one of the blades, half an inch long, and about an eighth of an inch wide.

Putting the scissors back, he considers his options. The laptop is not here. Is that why he needed the memory stick? Has he dumped his computer?

There’s only the bathroom left. It’s tiny, no windows and a small extractor fan high up on the wall above the toilet. The bathroom suite is olive green, early seventies, and spotlessly clean. The floral smell is more intense in here. But it’s not potpourri. There’s citrus and sweet fruit, spice, notes of incense and sandalwood…
Opium
. A small bottle of the perfume sits on the sink, along with a spray-can of shaving foam, several disposable razors, and a tube of
Aquafresh
.

But the smell is not coming from the bottle. It’s coming from the radiator behind the door, which has been left on low. He peers down behind it and sees something lodged there. Stooping, he reaches underneath and pulls out a white handkerchief. The sudden intensity of the perfume makes him cough.
Opium
on a handkerchief? He holds it up to his nose. There is no doubting it: the cloth has been sprayed with the perfume. With the heating turned up higher, it would permeate the entire flat.

Is it to remind him of her? Or to pretend she was here, her presence in every inch of the place? He sits down on the bathroom floor, the strength gone from his legs at the realisation of what he’s discovered.
A bloody shrine
.
Craig’s shrine to Donna
.

Then he sees it, poking out from below the radiator, something else that’s fallen down there, its white corner touching the floor. A photograph, taken from video footage, printed on glossy photographic paper. A photo of Donna Macken.

She’s smiling, looking back over her shoulder, dark hair off her face, eyes wide and radiant, staring at someone. The smile? It’s playful, innocent, honest. But in the curl of her lips is something wildly, almost grossly sexual.
Jesus, no wonder they were all nuts for her. She was amazing.

There are more Blu-Tack smudges on the wall above the radiator, and on all the other walls of the bathroom. The whole flat was a pervert’s shrine to her. But the bathroom was the inner sanctum. Friday night, Craig gets home and strips every last trace of her from the walls. He’s panicking, and he knows it all has to go, every last image of her. But in the rush, one of the photos drops behind the radiator, taking the handkerchief with it.

Getting slowly to his feet, John puts both the handkerchief and photo back behind the radiator. Moving into the living room he gets a screwdriver from the desk and returns to the bathroom, unscrewing the panels around the bath and searching every last square inch of the dark, dusty space within. Nothing. He peels back the carpet, looking for loose floorboards. He rifles through the dirty clothes in the red plastic laundry basket and works his way methodically through a pile of towels in a narrow cupboard. By the time he’s done there’s nowhere in the bathroom he hasn’t looked. Still, he’s found nothing.

He escapes the lingering smell of the perfume, pacing up and down the living room to think. The bathroom: the beating heart of Craig’s obsession with Donna. That’s where he feeds his fantasies, where he feels the most urgent desire, nostrils full of her aroma as he strips naked every night, Donna looking on, the two of them together in their private world. On Friday he tried to erase as much of this as he could, but it won’t have been every last trace. She’s dead. You might destroy the shrine, but you don’t destroy what’s most sacred. You hide it.
There’ll be something left.

He studies the neat rows of DVDs and books on the metal shelves. Standard male classics,
The Godfather
,
Goodfellas
,
Sopranos,
most of them illegal downloads, the artwork laser printed, cut to size for the plastic boxes. Meticulous work.
The Godfather
box set, though, is genuine. He removes the case and examines the inserts.

The Godfather.

It comes to him like the punch line of a joke.

The gun. The gun that Michael Corleone uses in the restaurant…

Back in the bathroom. Standing on the toilet seat, almost losing his balance. He reaches up to the old-style cistern close to the ceiling. On tip-toes he just about gets half a hand behind it, works his fingers along, his body off-balance.

There it is. No bigger than a pack of chewing gum, wedged in hard between the wall and the tank. He wiggles it back and forth and eventually it comes loose. The memory stick is wrapped in clear plastic, a sandwich bag it looks like, then taped up tightly with Sellotape. He does his best to peel away the tape without tearing the plastic, finally making enough of an opening to ease out the contents.

Around the memory stick a twenty pound note has been wrapped. It takes him less than thirty seconds to recognise the note as a fake, the one Donna gave Craig, must be. It’s one of Bilyk’s fakes, the ones she was paid in, the ones that are all over town.

He copies the contents of the memory stick to his laptop. Dozens of video files, sixty-four gigas’ worth. There’ll be copies of these somewhere else too. Craig is meticulous; he won’t have risked leaving only one copy, even on Friday night, heart racing, scared to death. It doesn’t matter. What matters was that he left these files in his flat. In his shrine.

They seem to take forever to copy. The memory stick is full. Is there more than this? How much more? Are there any limits to human desire, to obsession? He waits impatiently as the files copy across, only one question in his mind:
can I do what comes next?

By the time he’s standing in the bathroom again, the memory stick ready to be rewrapped in its plastic swaddling and pushed up behind the cistern, he still doesn’t know.

Can I really do this? Think about it, John. The evidence is on the memory stick. The fake note doesn’t change that. Craig’s story will be the same. She was angry about the fakes. She gives one to Craig. Here it is, in his shrine. The fifty grand in the car? It doesn’t change anything, doesn’t matter to anyone.

Apart from you, John.

It matters to you.

He takes the envelope from his jacket pocket and removes the note that he’s been keeping in the office, hidden in that framed picture of a fake Subaru. It’s the only note he keeps from his supplier, just in case he ever detects a decline in quality. And now it’s gonna save his skin.

He wraps it around the memory stick.

Thanks, Craig.

“A
re you ready?”

“I suppose,” she says.

They’re in the Saab, several streets away, the laptop open on John’s legs.

He presses
play
.

The recording starts at precisely midnight, Thursday night.

Routine. Routine…

Fast-forward
almost to the end of the file.

Friday, 11:00 p.m.

Fedir comes out of the hotel room, staggers up the corridor, a bottle of Champagne in his hand. He enters the bar, yanks a bottle of scotch off the wall. Craig Bairstow is standing behind the bar and does nothing. Fedir makes his way back to Room Twelve.

11:11 p.m. Donna, short fur jacket and not much skirt showing beneath, falls through the revolving doors, she staggers over to the bar, flops onto a bar stool. Craig gets her a vodka and tonic. She starts talking to him, ranting, her head all over the place. Reaches into her handbag and pulls out a bank note, waving it in the air then letting it fall onto the bar. Craig says something, puts a hand on her forearm. She’s still talking as she drinks, downing the vodka in one. Then she hoists herself off the stool and makes a winding path towards the double doors behind the counter.

Down the corridor. She thumps her fist on the door of Room Twelve. It opens and immediately she’s screaming, eyes blazing, arms flying out, looking as if she’s gonna swing for somebody.

Craig remains behind the bar. He studies the note from Donna, then puts it into his pocket. Donna disappears inside the room.

Fast-forward
to 11:46 p.m.

The Ukrainians come out, Fedir loose-limbed, grinning. They leave the hotel. A minute and a half later Freddy comes out of the same room. He hesitates, heavy and lethargic, his body overwhelmed with sadness. Then he too moves down the corridor.

“The tape that the police have stops here,” John says. “But when Craig took it home on Friday night to copy, there was more. Look, it’s not finished…”

11:48 p.m. Freddy goes out through the hotel’s revolving doors. A moment later Craig walks quickly down the corridor to Room Twelve and knocks. He presses his face to the door, speaking into it, then rests his forehead there and waits.

Finally it opens and Donna appears, her body swaying, on the verge of collapse. He says something, touches her chin, lifts it gently. Her mouth moves, but slowly. There’s some swelling on her cheek and her face is expressionless, her eyes almost closed.

Both his hands are on her now, his fingers running down her arms. Can she even hear him, feel him? He inches forwards until their bodies touch. He kisses her neck. She leans into him and his arms wrap around her.

They move into the room together and the door closes behind them.

“Rewind,” Connie says. “That last bit.”

They watch again.

Donna’s body sinks into his. He holds onto her easily. Then, just for an instant, she seems to flinch, to move back. But she’s on the verge of unconsciousness. He pulls her onto him, arms wrapping around her torso, face buried deep in her neck. He walks forwards, pushing her into the room.

“She doesn’t know where she is,” Connie says quietly as the door closes behind them. “She has no idea what’s going on. And then…”

They sit there in silence as two minutes of footage run on with no further movement. But now they know. Behind the grainy image of the door is Donna, helpless, dying.

11:50. Craig appears at the door. Dazed? Difficult to tell. He stops, seems to realise suddenly where he is. Panic sets in and he moves down the corridor. Fast, long strides, getting faster.

Just before he reaches the double doors his eyes flick up at the security camera. He turns, disappearing into the security room.

The recording stops.

“Craig Bairstow,” says John, his iPhone already in his hand. “Creepy Craig, the one with the Donna fixation and the wank-shrine to match. He pushed her into the room. And then?”

Will DC Steele take the tip-off, he wonders as he searches for Steele’s card. Course he will. He’ll get a commendation out of this. Promotion? Probably. And another thing, Steele will owe John an enormous favour. It’s tempting. But…

You wanted to be a copper once, John. What kind of copper did you want to be?

He gives it a split second’s thought.

Time enough to blink.

Dials.

“Detective Inspector Baron, please.”