‘I’m sorry?’
‘Working at Toys-R-Us. You know, a profession.’
‘But I’m not. There’s a young woman in my apartment building, and she’s been injured. This isn’t paint, it’s blood. There’s not supposed to be anyone else there, and now she might even be dead.’
You sound hysterical,
I thought.
Even I wouldn’t trust you.
‘You want to try calling the police, love. Ain’t you got no mobile?’
Thoughts flashed forward. If I called the police they would come to the block and demand to know the identity of the owner. They’d get in touch with Malcolm. He’d complain to Julie, who was already on a knife-edge, and I would be screwed. Which meant, part of me thought selfishly, I would not get paid. I needed the new start and I needed the money.
‘It would only take a few minutes. Please, I don’t want to go back there by myself.’
‘You know what happens to blokes who have a go? Some old dear in East Street got stabbed to death for her phone last week. Seventy-something. What’s the point of surviving wars to get murdered by a schoolkid? You had a fight with your boyfriend?’
‘No, I have a husband.
Had
a husband. I think there was an intruder. But he may have gone. The main doors aren’t shutting because the power’s off.’
He can’t understand,
I realised,
because I’m not making any sense.
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m due up the Welsh Centre on Gray’s Inn Road in half an hour, I’m lowering their ceilings with plasterboard. I can’t afford to get my head kicked in when there’s a job on, I’ve got kids.’
I stood and watched him go, willing him to feel guilty. I’d never noticed how annoying it was to be called Sweetheart before.
The bridge led back toward the Ziggurat. The great white building was softened by the murk from the river. Rain advanced in mizzling clouds, haloing the Embankment lights and hiding the tops of buildings. In a moment like this, London reconnected to the past. I felt like the latest in a long line of distracted victims who had crossed the bridge looking for help. I had absolutely no idea what to do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Boy
T
HE GREEN LIGHT
on my mobile returned at the centre of the bridge. I called the emergency services, something I hadn’t done since my mother’s pressure cooker blew up. Punched 112, selected Ambulance, and got ‘You are held in a queue…’ Friday night in South London. The recorded message only lasted a few seconds, and I was unprepared for the questions that followed, stumbling on the circumstantial detail.
‘Are you a relation?’ asked the controller, assessing the urgency of my request as he waited for the nearest callout, St. Thomas’s, to answer.
‘No, I’ve never seen her before.’
‘But you say she’s in your flat.’
‘It’s not mine. It belongs to a friend.’
‘Does your friend know her?
‘I don’t know, he’s not in the country. Can you just get someone here?’
‘Is she unconscious?’
‘I think she might be dead. She has a thing round her throat.’
‘What kind of thing?’
‘One of those plastic tags they use to do up packages. I tried to get it off but couldn’t. And she’s received a blow to the head.’
‘Sorry, love – which is it?’
‘It’s both. I think she choked first.’
‘She’s been attacked then? You notified the police? Someone tried to strangle her?’
‘Yes, and then she fell on me.’
‘So she was up on her feet after she was strangled?’
‘Yes, and her hands were tied.’
‘Hang on, love, you’re losing me. Do you know the victim’s name?’
‘No, she’s a total stranger.’
The operator was clearly used to untangling confused stories, and calmly promised help as soon as possible. I didn’t trust the ambulance to turn up, so next I called the police. This time I tried to sound more organised in my thinking, and got the promise of a constable, but it sounded as if they were very busy and weren’t too likely to send someone just yet.
Looking along the bleak edge of the bridge, I spotted another passer-by and ran across to enlist his help.
That was when some old bloke backed his car over me.
It was an ancient black Wolseley with chrome bumpers and orange indicators and a steamed-over rear window, which was probably why he didn’t see me. He didn’t hit me hard, but it was enough to knock me off my balance. As I watched him alight from the car, I realised he was very old indeed. ‘My dear lady,’ he called, ‘I’m so terribly sorry. I took a wrong turn and was reversing.’ He was wearing a cashmere overcoat several sizes too big and an unravelling brown scarf that was so long he managed to shut it in the door.
‘I wonder if you could help me,’ I began, climbing to my feet.
‘I don’t see why not,’ he replied, shaking my hand rather formally. ‘I’m a retired police officer.’ He flicked a wallet at me. ‘Actually that’s my library card, I’ve got some proper credentials somewhere.’ He didn’t look like any policeman I had ever seen. They say you know you’re getting older when constables start looking young. This had to be the oldest police officer in London. If you transformed a tortoise into a human being, that was what he looked like, except he had a rim of white hair sticking out like icicles around the sides of his head.
I explained the situation and asked him to come with me, but he told me he wouldn’t be able to manage the stairs with his bad legs.
‘Well, is there anyone else you can call?’ I asked.
‘There is someone else in the area who may be able to help.’
‘Thank God for that.’
He ushered me into the car and we drove around the corner to Vauxhall Bridge Road, where he pointed out a boy of no more than sixteen hunched beside a bus stop, balancing on the outside rims of his trainers, hands deep in his pockets. He was avoiding my eye, pretending I wasn’t there.
‘It’s all right, he’s one of the lads we keep in touch with around London. Our eyes and ears. Don’t let him near your pockets. Shiny objects stick to him. All right, Nalin?’
The boy grunted. He looked like a million other youths, low-slung jeans with no arse, grey cotton hoodie, red curve-peaked baseball cap, an exercise in operational invisibility except when it came to looting Currys and getting caught on CCTV.
‘I like your trainers, Nalin, where did you get them, somewhere in Camden? What colour would you call that, heliotrope? Listen, this lady lives nearby and all her lights have gone out – a blown fuse or something, and she’s scared of the dark. It’s a phobia, I’ve forgotten the medical term for it. Nyctophobia, that’s it. I get muddled up because there are so many of them. Pogonophobia is fear of beards, did you know that? Do you think, if it’s not out of your way, you would mind escorting her upstairs, only her lift’s not working and my knees aren’t up to it. It would be a good deed, like in the scouts, not that I suppose they do that sort of thing any more.’ The old man gave me a confident smile. ‘Show him where you live – I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’
‘I’m June, like the wet month. June Cryer.’ I pointed to the curved concrete wall of the apartment block, its lower levels sunk beneath the angle of the raised roundabout.
The boy watched me silently for a few moments, sucking his teeth. He had that totally bored look all teenagers have these days, as if showing an interest in anything would cause them to lose credibility. ‘I’m not allowed in Finsbury,’ he announced, clearing his throat. ‘I have to be careful.’
‘Oh.’ I tried to muster an answer but failed to think of anything even vaguely appropriate.
‘Or King’s Cross. I got run out of King’s Cross. I can’t go back there. Or the Elephant.’ His eyeline followed my pointing hand. ‘Where d’you live then, the Ziggurat?’
‘Yes,’ I said in some surprise. ‘You know it?’
‘A mate of my dad’s did the plumbing. He said he’d show me the inside but...’ His thought trailed off.
‘But what?’ I asked, anxious to keep the conversation alight.
‘He got put away. Pentonville, three years for receiving and interfering with a witness. Jeffrey Archer’s buying a flat in there, isn’t he? I’ll take you in ’cause I don’t want to stay out here. I’m not supposed to be outside.’
He was behaving very strangely, shifting back and forth on the edges of his trainers, watching the horizon. The old man didn’t look at all worried. I began to have second thoughts about asking either of them for help, but had no intention of walking into a blacked-out building with a dead body and some madman possibly waiting in the dark, even if there turned out to be a logical explanation.
‘It’s this way.’
Mr. Officer pulled me back before I could step into the traffic hurtling across the roundabout. He gave me another reassuring smile that made him look slightly mad. I noticed he was wearing very white false teeth.
‘You don’t have to go right around. There’s a staircase.’ He pointed to a set of steps leading down from the end of the bridge. We splashed down to the ramp below, making our way past Portakabins and JCBs, across the churned mud of the square.
‘The electricity’s off,’ I warned, brushing down the arms of my jacket.
‘It’s alright,’ said Nalin. ‘I can see in the dark. That’s why I only come out at night.’
It crossed my mind that the boy might be on drugs. ‘There’s not supposed to be anyone else here this weekend,’ I told him. ‘They’ve only sold a few of the units and the other residents have been warned to stay away.’
‘Then why are you still in your place?’ he asked reasonably, stopping on the steps.
‘It’s this way up.’ I felt too tired to explain again.
It was dark in the foyer, but blacker still in the stairwell. Somewhere far above, water drizzled from an unfinished gutter. I found Madame Funes’ lighter and flicked it. ‘I’m sorry about this.’
‘I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind,’ said the old man, settling himself into one of the red armchairs. ‘God, these things are uncomfortable. I’d keep an eye on the place from outside, but sitting on cold stone plays havoc with my Chalfonts. Nalin, listen to the lady and see what you can make of this. I’ll be here when you get back.’
‘What floor d’you live on?’ the boy asked.
‘Right at the top, I’m afraid. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I didn’t tell you was, the girl on the next balcony looked as if she’d got into some kind of fight. It’s none of my business, but she saw me looking, and I think she wanted me to help her but then she passed out and stopped breathing. The phone’s off, there are no lights, it was awful.’
The stairs went on forever, as though they were expanding in the brackish gloom.
‘It’s through here.’
The landing door led to corridor, and the square of pale light where the half-naked girl had slumped against the wall. The footprints had dried and vanished. There was no sign of any disturbance at all.
‘Which one’s yours?’
‘This way.’
The door to the apartment stood slightly ajar. I shoved it wider, then stepped back as cold spirits rushed me. ‘I can’t go in.’
‘I’m not going to walk in first, am I? This could be a set-up by one of my enemies. Someone might be standing inside that door with a bit of wood.’ The boy was covering his own nervousness.
‘I’m not setting you up for your enemies, I promise. I’m beginning to think I’m losing my mind.’ That was more honest than I’d intended. I was forced to lead the way into the corridor. ‘Through here.’ Extending the lighter and waving it about, I stopped at the threshold of the lounge, trying to see inside, frightened of what I might find. ‘Nobody.’
‘I can see that. This is lush. Must have cost you a fortune.’
‘She was attacked out in the hall.’
‘You got scared of the dark. I used to until I did a couple of weeks on the streets.’
‘The girl is in the bedroom.’ I suddenly realised what I was about to do, letting him see her in a state of undress, but it couldn’t be helped.
‘I thought you said she was in the hall.’
‘She was but then she came into the apartment. The door was open.’
Nalin stepped out onto the balcony and peered over the wall. ‘There’s an ambulance going round the front of the building.’
‘Oh God, I forgot about that. You go to the bedroom and stay with her.’ I couldn’t go back in there. I went into the corridor.
The ambulance was small and low, a white estate with yellow stripes and a discreet blue light. It looked more like a vehicle for carrying out urgent repairs to venetian blinds than a ferry for the sick. The paramedic who emerged from the passenger seat wore a white paper suit spattered with droplets of blood that gave him the jaunty air of a Hoxton artist interrupted in the middle of an action painting.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said, tearing off the suit as he arrived out of breath on the seventh floor, ‘we were just round the corner. Some little sod got glassed in a pub and spat teeth at me when I tried to help. I was tempted to break the Hippocratic oath by standing on his ankles. Ain’t you got any lights?’ He paused to try a switch in the hall.
‘Everything’s off. Through here.’ I pushed back the front door and picked up my lamp, giving him the short version of what had happened, but I could tell from his cautious silence that he wasn’t convinced. As I led him through to the bedroom, I started to think that perhaps the only thing worse than leaving a semi-naked corpse in someone else’s apartment was leaving a dodgy stranger in there with it.
‘You shouldn’t be wandering around without lights, love, you could have an accident.’ The paramedic indicated the bedroom door. ‘In here?’
I walked in behind him, hardly daring to look. The bedroom was empty, the floor clean of any incriminating mark. No body, no stranger, nothing. But the air smelled acrid from the fire.
‘I’m not imagining things,’ I said defensively, pointing to the burned coverlet in the corner. ‘That was alight but I managed to put it out.’ Telling him about the blaze in the bedroom only made matters worse.
Nalin was sitting in the lounge, eating an orange.
‘Well, he seems alright now,’ said the paramedic.