19 Saturday 5 August
I’m cold, for the first time in two months. I pull my coat around me. A wind sweeps along my street: in the light of the lamps, I see litter blown across the pavement. The sky is low: raggy clouds race past the moon. I’m standing outside my flat: it’s five past midnight.
A car turns in to the street. A black Audi A6 saloon. Its headlights pick me out: glare in my eyes. It pulls in, engine still running. I try to see the number plate, but between the headlights is a pool of black. The passenger door is pushed open.
“Get in.”
“No. Talk to me on the pavement.”
For answer, Krasniqi hands me a piece of paper. I read it under the streetlight. It’s a certified copy of his witness statement.
Then he hands me another piece of paper. It’s got a couple of paragraphs typed on it.
“Now read that. That’s what I’ll add to the statement.”
I read it. I get into the car.
A hand reaches across me, pulls the door hard shut. I’m out of the breeze: it’s airless, stuffed in this car. Suffocating. And then I realise there are two other people in the back seats.
I turn to look, but I can see only silhouettes. Big, big blokes; they fill the space behind me. I reach for the door, but a hand comes from behind my seat, holds the door lock column up. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Krasniqi’s hand goes to the gearstick, and we’re moving: my home, my street, slides from view.
The car turns left. We’re heading north. I hear a voice behind me.
“Get the money out. Put it in the glove compartment.”
I recognise the voice. The man whose face I’ve never seen. Manchester accent. Gimp Man.
I do as he says: hoping, willing the car to slow. For the door to be opened and for me to be pushed out, onto the pavement. But we’re on a major road now: we could be going anywhere. And obviously, this is not about a measly three thousand quid. The faceless voice continues.
“When I visited your flat, I told you to stop sniffing around. This time, I’m not going to bother telling you that.”
There’s a silence. Thirty seconds.
“Now you are going to tell us everything you know.”
And I do. I start to talk, to confess. This is it, Witch Finder General has caught up with me. But then, as I start speaking, I do remember one thing. These guys in the back of the car, they are mean fuckers, no doubt. And I feel certain that one or other of them was the man who came to that hotel room, who killed Wycherley. They’re murderers; they might even turn out to be sadistic. But I remember what I thought about Gimp Man when I saw him before: a hired hand. No, he’s not really the Witch Finder General after all. He’s not personally interested in what I say. He might enjoy hurting me, but all the same, this is work to him. And the bottom line of his job is this: he’s not the boss. He has to report back to someone else.
So I tell them, but I skip bits, because I know Gimp Man’s not going to ask detailed questions. I say that I was offered a job at the Soames, but I don’t say how I found out about the place. I don’t tell them about Jack Downes, or that I know the name George Vennery. I don’t tell them about my argument with Cheriton, or that I know the names Agnieszka, Klaudija, Lucy. I tell them that I impersonated Devine Cattrell at Home Croft, but that I found out nothing. I don’t mention James or Elspeth. I tell them that after finding out nothing at Home Croft, I’m giving up. All trails have gone cold.
As I’m speaking, telling them what they expect to hear, I can see through the windscreen, against the moonlit clouds, what looks like pylons, standing up above us. And it’s dark around the car, I can’t see streets any more. Have we driven right out of London, into the country? I’ve lost all track of time, we could be fucking anywhere. I feel so lost and scared that I’m about to lose control and start screaming, but I try to hold it in: I know it won’t help me. Anything I do can only increase my risks. Sit still, try to keep it together, think. And then I see, below the pylons, a familiar silhouette, and I realise they’re not pylons. They’re radio masts. We’re at Alexandra Palace. A road runs through the park, below Ally Pally itself, lit by only a couple of streetlights. We’re high up on an open grassy hillside, looking out across space. As the car slows down, stops, I look out of the passenger window, see the lights of London strewn across the valley. I can pick out the three Barbican towers, the Shard, the City and the Heron Tower, then Canary Wharf and a trail of lights out towards the dark of the estuary. Between the lowering sky above and the dark below, it’s a glittering veil of man-made stars, an orange Milky Way.
The hand reaches from behind again, lifts the column lock of the door. “Get out of the car.”
I open my door. I realise there’s no point running into the dark; I can dimly make out some bushes, but these guys would find me, sure as houses. I stand by the car, and wait. One of the guys gets out, stands next to me. I see he’s got a scarf or something over his face, as has Gimp Man, who stays in his seat.
Some kind of discussion is going on inside the car between Krasniqi and Gimp Man. I hold to this thought, even though it doesn’t explain everything – Krasniqi’s blackmailing me: if they kill me, there’s no more money. If they don’t kill me, will they rape me, hurt me? The sick feeling inside me is growing, I can physically feeling it pushing up against my lungs, my heart. Time seems to have slowed to a standstill and I can’t breathe, I can’t stand it any more, I’m about to run. If I run behind the car, back down the road, they’ll have less time to react. I tense my muscles, to spring into a run.
And then the driver’s door opens, Krasniqi steps out. The rear passenger door opens behind him. And in the orange streetlight glow, I see, for the very first time in my life, the black tube of a handgun barrel. Pointed at the head of Krasniqi.
Gimp Man gets into the driver’s seat. He doesn’t bother to shut the door, but he winds down the window. Now he’s pointing the gun through the window at Krasniqi, who’s standing beside the car. I can see the outline of Krasniqi’s face, some of his features. His expression says: I give up. A shrug of hopelessness. He walks away from the car, across the grass, then back onto the road ahead of us. He’s giving up on this deal: they’ve cut him out of it. I see his figure lit by the glare of the headlights, an unreal shape, like he’s floodlit: the raw glare seems to drain the colours from his jacket, his trousers. A white silhouette, washed out by the light, against the black of the park. Shoulders down, head sunken. Defeated.
The car goes into first gear, and starts to move. The screech is three, four, five thousand revs, still in first gear. The bonnet hits Krasniqi in the back of the thighs: I see his shape flying up, his feet in the air like they’re on strings, his body a rag-doll, hitting the top edge of the windscreen and the roof of the car, bouncing down onto the verge.
Ahead there’s a pool of light where the headlights are shining onto bushes and leaves. I see the black outline of Krasniqi’s arm raised, moving against that greenish glow. The silhouette of his hand flaps feebly. I run towards him: I fucking despise you, Krasniqi, but I’ll help you. I’ll help you.
The car’s reversing as I reach him. I kneel beside him in the dirt, and now both Krasniqi and I are full in the headlight glare. I look into the light. The arm reaches out of the car window, the gun is pointing at me now.
“Stand back from him.”
“No. he’s dying. Leave him.”
“Stand back.”
And I do. Krasniqi’s hand reaches up to me, as if to hold onto me, but I step back. I preserve my life. That’s the basic programming of a human being, I think, as I take two, three steps back.
The car moves forward again, and this time it’s like I’m watching a film, like it’s all happening on a screen in front of me and I’m not connected to it. The left wing and tyre of the car hit his head; I see his face fly back, his eyes and mouth a mass of blood. The rest of his body is under the car. It reverses again, and his body is entangled under it, drags along between the two front wheel
s. Then it comes loose. Now it looks just like a couple of torn sacks, lying in the road, spilling out here and there, red and sticky.
Gimp Man is getting out of the car, looking at me. “See. You are still alive. Be glad. Now do you understand? If I see you again, it will be to kill you, like this piece of shit here.”
I can’t answer him.
“If you tell the police anything about this, then you will see me again. Understand that, bitch? You don’t go to them. If they come to you, you say nothing. You weren’t here. If the police link you to this, you will see me again. And then you will be dead. So understand me now: you weren’t here.”
“Not here.”
“Well done. Remember that, and just maybe, Holly Harlow, you and your flatmate will survive this business.”
I hear the slam of the door, and the car is gone. I’m about to go over to that thing lying on the road. Something wants to hold me back: like the autopilot that first night, I think: the police have my fingerprints and DNA. So far, I’ve not touched Krasniqi. Gimp Man said I wasn’t here, and that I would die if the police found out that I was. But another part of my mind says – St John’s Ambulance. Kenneth Cropper. Airway, Breathing, Circulation. I go over, I kneel in the blood that covers the tarmac. I touch the heavy ball of mush that his head has become. I put my hands on the floppy neck to feel for a pulse. I hold my ear against what had been his nose and his lips, to try to hear any breath. And of course it’s just a lifeless lump of meat, and after a while I get up and walk away in the dark.
I’m not going to use my iphone to report this. I walk downhill, away from the park. A footbridge over the railway to Alexandra Palace station, public call box. I lift the receiver, dial 999. I hear my voice telling someone there’s a body in the road in the park at Ally Pally, no I don’t know who it is, how it happened, whether any vehicle was involved. “I think he’s dead.” I hear my voice repeat that five, six times. I ring off. Autopilot tells me not to use my usual taxi, but just beyond the station is a taxi-driver’s cabin. I put my white, stunned face round the door. Ten minutes later, I’m home: I strip and put all my clothes in a plastic bag, fall onto my bed naked.
Normal things can be surprising. My alarm goes off. 8.30am. Was I asleep or awake? I don’t know, I can remember nothing, feel nothing, know nothing. All that my brain can hold onto is what I need to do right now. I have a meeting, at 10.30am. I get up, shower, dress. I take the tube to Green Park, and the plastic bag goes into a litter bin. Then I start walking, down through the park. The sky is uniform, colourless; a misty haze has come down on everything, although I sense the sun behind the gray blanket. That’s how I feel: gray, numb. I am taking the steps that are ahead of me. It’s not even the horror of last night: it’s the certain knowledge that if Rainbow & Co don’t put me inside for these murders, then Gimp Man and his mate, or those who pay them, will kill me. I’m counting out the last days of my life, taking the steps that I can. I’ll keep trying to find out what, who, is behind all this, until I’m stopped dead in my tracks, by either the cops or the robbers.
I reach Pall Mall, and cross it. Although it’s a day of outlines and shades, not of colours, I’m going to enjoy St James’ Park, this last time that I’ll see it. I walk down to the lake in front of Buckingham Palace, I see children feeding the ducks, young women with prams, tourists chattering. A squirrel balances boldly on an iron railing, just two feet from the American couple who snap its photo. Goodbye, life. I liked you.
I walk along the side of the lake, purposeful, not hurrying, not dawdling either. My eyes take in everything, the August holiday mood, the laughter I hear around me as I pass the playground. All these people who are happy, unthinking, enjoying their lives, who have never paid for sex, or been paid for it, who don’t live in fear of murder, who’ve never seen a real gun, or a body covered in blood. I’m a ghost walking through them, like they might feel a chill from me. Past the island where they once found the skeleton of a man who’d lived in hiding there, obsessed with the Queen. Past the bridge dedicated to Princess Di. Past the pelicans and the Duck House, across the road where Big Ben and Westminster Abbey hove into view. Then I turn right, into the entrance of a building I’ve never been in before. Westminster Central Hall, headquarters of the Methodist church. I follow the directions I was given, down some steps and into a cave-like underground café.
It’s like some weird non-London, at the heart of London. It looks like a country village hall jumble sale: middle-aged and older people, badly dressed. I tune in and out of half-a-dozen earnest conversations as I weave my way through, go to the counter, order a coffee and a teacake. And I see him at a table; he’s already here.
“Jack.”
“Holly. Thanks for making it.”
I don’t tell him what’s happened. Maybe I will, if the conversation goes there.
“I never even knew this place existed.”
“It doesn’t. In terms of London – the politics, the business, the hustle – you can come in here, and instantly it’s all shut out. The Press would never think to come here. The twenty-first century equivalent of medieval Sanctuary. I always say: you can forget anything in here.”
I think: forget anything, except the thought that your own life is about to end. But I focus on the job I’ve come to do. Just keep taking the next step, Holly, and the step after that, until I’m cut down. So I take the next step.
“Do you know George Vennery?”
“That’s a bizarre opening question. I thought we were meeting so you could tell me what you’ve found out about Lucy.”
“That’s right. That’s why I’m asking you. I think there’s a connection.”
“What, between her disappearance and old George?” He looks surprised, but almost amused too.
“Exactly. I’ll tell you. I’ll start with what I know. I found out about a private, very discreet clinic, out in the Chilterns. Home Croft. It’s legitimate business is plastic surgery and other therapies for the rich and famous. But there is a secret, non-legal side to it. They deal with cases from the Soames. Cases where people have got ill or – injured.”
The face of Josh Borrowdale looms in my mind. In our society, I guess the rich can get away with anything. For a while, at least. Probably, that’s true of every society.
“So are you saying that George was a guest at the Soames?”
“Exactly that. And that he was treated at Home Croft. At about the same time as Lucy disappeared.”
“It makes no sense. The Soames can’t have many cases of people falling ill, even if they’re snorting a ton of cocaine there. Why have a special clinic? One that’s equipped – if you’re right – to deal with really serious illness? And even if it was worth their while, why have one so far away?”
“Yes. All those points have occurred to me. And those are the parts of the story that don’t make sense. Yet.”
“And how did Lucy feature in this?”
“One more question, and then I’ll tell you what I guess happened. Did Lucy ever meet George Vennery? At the Soames, probably?”
“That’s very unlikely. She knew who I was, everything about me. We kept nothing from each other. By the same token, she told me about every person she’d been with.”
“And then, you paid Cheriton, didn’t you, to keep her away from – the other guests.”
“I did.”
“But Cheriton could lie to you.”
“Lucy wouldn’t.”
“Unless...”
His face registers disappointment, shock. “You think she went with Vennery, and that either they threatened her, told her not to tell me, or she didn’t tell me to spare my feelings?”
“One or both of those.”
“OK.” I watch as he digests this information. But of course, I’ve worse to tell him.
“Jack, I think there’s no hope. I feel certain that Lucy is dead.”
“Yes. I do know that. I knew it in my heart all along. She’d never have disappeared like that. She was eit
her abducted, a prisoner somewhere, or – ”
“You do have to face this. Nothing about this matter tells me that anyone involved would keep her alive, for any reason. In January, George Vennery was taken from the Soames, along with a girl who I’m sure was Lucy. I don’t think that Lucy survived that day.”
“Who?”
“Who killed her? I have no idea. But I know this: whoever did it, they are now going to kill me.”
“What do you mean?”
All around us is chatter: I hear words that I don’t understand: long, mild words – ecumenicism, synod, denomination. How nice to take life for granted, to have been given education and confidence, to be able to spend your life sitting there, saying long words, talking about God and make-believe. I tell Jack about Gimp Man’s visit. Then I steel himself, and tell him what happened to Krasniqi.
“Fuck. So, you’ve gone to the police?”
A man in a dog-collar stares at Jack briefly, and returns to sipping his tea.
“No. They told me they’d definitely kill me if I did.”
“But – would they? If you tell the police everything, then you’ll get some protection. And if you did tell the police all you knew – and these guys know that – then they have nothing to gain by murdering you. The only outcome of doing that would be: they add to the catalogue of evidence against themselves. Increase the risk to themselves for no gain. So their threat is almost certainly a bluff; they won’t carry it out. Plus, if they’re willing to murder you, why didn’t they kill you along with this Krasniqi bloke, last night?”
“Logically, all that you say makes sense. But I’ve met these people. They made my blood run cold. I know, and you can’t reason it away, that they will do what they’ve said. And anyway, the last people I would go to are the police. The lead detective on this case, I don’t understand what he’s doing, it’s strange. Like he’s got it in for me. But I guess the cops have a one-track mind: they think I’m in on this. Prostitutes are controlled by gangs, aren’t they?”
“Not some of them.”
“But others are. Unfortunately for me, those are the ones the police see. They don’t see me as a law-abiding person earning a living: they see me as the sort of person who’s on the edge of the underworld. And now – I was there, actually present, on two occasions when men were killed. Killings which are obviously related. This detective, Chris Rainbow, he’s convinced that I’m in with the killers, that I set up my booking with Wycherley, arranged to meet him at that hotel, and gave the room details to the guy who came up and slit his throat. Then Krasniqi’s flat was torched, and it looks like I was in on that too, I was seen near his place, and he’s a key witness. It looks like the fire was a warning, to shut him up. And now, I arrange to meet Krasniqi, and lo and behold, two thugs turn up and kill him. When it was the one murder, I had a chance. But it’s too much of a coincidence now, for any jury to ever acquit me.”
“To lose one parent is unfortunate. To lose two is carelessness.”
“I lost my mother.”
Five seconds go by. I start speaking again. “Anyway, I’d rather be dead than spend the next twenty years going slowly mad in a prison cell. But it’s not even that, really. It’s something you wouldn’t understand, Jack. I made my own life. Fate, God, whoever it was – they dealt me a bum hand, but I made something of it. I made something from nothing. I’ve got – I had – a decent income, friends. Hope. If I go to prison, I’ll be alive, to watch everything I’ve gained, everything I’ve built in my life, being taken away from me. I’ll see myself destroyed. I’ll have nothing to think about, to look forward to, except getting out of prison sometime in my fifties, knowing no-one, having no home, no money, no job, or even hope of getting one. Nothing.”
He looks into the middle distance, thinking.
“The thought of that, Jack – it’s so horrible that I’d rather the gangsters got me first. Unless they plan to hurt me before they kill me. I don’t know if I could face that. I can’t imagine – ”
I trail off into yet-unimagined horrors. It’s like I’ve stepped on a crack in the pavement and have slipped down, out of ordinary life, into Hell. I look across at the vicars, the nice middle-aged ladies; I hear the educated chatter. I guess I’m probably the only person in here who didn’t have a proper schooling, who isn’t able to quote verses and stuff.
“Jack, who’s John Buchan?”
“Adventure story writer. The Thirty-Nine Steps. Lashings of derring-do about a decent bloke who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, ends up with both the cops and the baddies after him. Funny, it’s a bit like how you got into this, really. Anyway, he’s a complete amateur but he gets mixed up in espionage, and handles it all with a stiff upper lip and good old British grit and humour.”
“How the fuck do you know all these things? Anyway, someone described you as John Buchan.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“There was some other name, too, but I can’t remember it. I wrote it on a serviette, I left it at home when I collected the money together for Krasniqi.”
“I have to go, Holly.”
“Can you help me? Please Jack, I’m scared, I’m fucking scared.”
The vicar looks again.
“What can I do, Holly? I can’t get mixed up in this. I feel I’m already in too deep, with what you’ve told me.”
“For Lucy’s sake?”
He looks at me, those deep brown eyes. That jawline. That face has helped you get ahead, Jack, I think. But then, you were ahead already.
“Lucy’s dead, Holly. We’ve both known that from the time we first got mixed up this business. Neither of us can do anything for her now. So I must think about – ”
“Yourself.”
“I’ve got responsibilities, my constituency, the credibility of my party. We want to change this country for the better, and I’m part of that. The public persona of Jack Downes is going to help get the likes of George Vennery out of power at the next election. Then , we can give proper education and healthcare back to the millions who need it. That’s the big picture that I need to consider. So it’s not selfishness.”
“OK, it’s not you being selfish. It’s just something that looks exactly like it.”
“I’m sorry you see it like that.”
He gets up to go. I’ve not touched my teacake, and although it’s now cold, it looks quite nice. While I’m still alive, I’m going to enjoy eating it.
As he walks away, I can’t resist calling after him.
“When you replace Vennery’s lot, in government, when you’ve got the power that he had, make sure you don’t become just like him.”
The afternoon: travel back home, two incalls, one after the other. I don’t know how I got back after seeing Jack: a blank. I can’t remember either incall: another blank. I literally have no recall of what we did or what either guy looked like. But I know they must have gone OK, because the first guy went onto GirlsDirect straight after and gave me a 9 out of 10. The second guy gave me a £20 tip. Some part of my brain is carrying on the GirlNextDoor act while I’m living in some numb place inside my head. As he gives me the cash, I say to him “Thank you. I like guys like you – generous personality, gorgeous body.” He thinks I’m telling the truth. Now he’s gone. I shower, get myself cleaned up. I eat a banana and a bowl of Shredded Wheat.
I’m just not here any more. It’s like Holly is dead already. I nurse a coffee for half an hour, then mechanically go into my room, lie down on the bed, roll over onto my side, look at the sideways view of my room, like that dream of my mother at Coram’s Fields. Maybe it was a dream, maybe a memory; it’s on the borderlands of my conscious mind, but yet the colours, the sense of being there, is brighter than ever now, as I recall it. My mother. How long is it since I thought of you properly... where you might be now, what you’re doing, how life has been for you? What you might say to me if we, by crazy chance ever met, twenty-two years of time to make up? Where are you, Mummy?
Maybe I pass you in the street every day.