73
Sunday, 6 May 2012
‘After three hundred yards turn left.’
A flashing light cut a downward trajectory across the Milky Way and a dull roar like distant thunder signalled the descent of an aeroplane to Heathrow Airport.
‘Turn left.’
The few lamp standards on Marquis Way cast cones of light on the pavements.
‘Slow down.’ Jack’s voice was disembodied, a shadowy form picked out by the dashboard lights.
Stella let the van crawl. In the rear mirror, she registered that the lights of the Westway had gone. Ahead there were no more lamp-posts.
‘Pull in here.’ Jack turned off the satnav.
It was where they had parked last week: there was the sign with the fierce dog, warning trespassers from the desolate wasteland. The chain-link fence was upright; Stella vaguely expected to find the model’s devastation mirrored in reality.
‘This doesn’t feel right. Why isn’t David here?’
‘We’re early.’
‘Perhaps he won’t come? He doesn’t care about money.’
‘Everyone cares about money. Barlow has been building up to this.’ Jack narrowed his eyes.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I thought Barlow wanted deep cleaning to purge his guilt. In fact it was to rid the house of his wife. To start again. Drive past Vickery’s tree. Keep a steady pace and if you see her, act as if you haven’t. Drive to the end of the road and send me a blank text.’
‘What? Where will you be?’
‘We have to split up. I’ll be behind the laundry. Where’s your phone?’
‘Jack, splitting up is precisely what we shouldn’t do.’
‘One at each end of the street and we might save Barlow.’ Jack did up his coat. ‘When you see his car, flash your lights.’ He fixed her with a look. ‘Don’t try to block his path to make him stop. Flash your lights, promise?’
‘He’ll stop.’
She didn’t hear his reply. It sounded like: ‘Don’t bank on it.’
‘Let’s stay together,’ she urged, now properly scared.
Jack was gone before Stella could protest. She watched him run across to the derelict laundry. Stella glanced over at the dark expanse beyond the fence on her right. When she looked back at the laundry, Jack had gone.
Her finger hovered over the emergency services key on her phone. What emergency would she report? Jack was right; their evidence didn’t stand up. She couldn’t admit to stealing the printout or the green form. Hours ago she had given Cashman the impression Marian was her friend. If she told him Marian was a killer he wouldn’t even humour her. She was a criminal too.
Stella maintained five miles an hour. Her hands were clammy and slipped on the wheel. She stared at the road and her mind played tricks, conjuring flitting figures in the shadows. The ghosts of Paul Vickery and Harvey Gray. Her teeth were chattering. She clenched her jaw as she passed a skip, jammed with rubbish, blocking the entrance to a disused industrial unit. The perfect place for Marian to hide.
A buzz vibrated in her pocket. The central screen lit up with a call. Suzie. Mum! Stella wanted to tell her everything. Her mum would solve it. Mechanically she pressed the cancel button on her steering wheel. Her mum could not help her now.
She passed a warehouse, its corrugated iron roof sagging. ‘Gina-Ware Plastics Ltd’. Metal grilles screened the doors and windows; weeds flourished in the parking lot. Gina-Ware had moved on. Stella should do the same. There was the telegraph pole where Gray had died. Despite Jack’s instructions she touched the brake. If Marian was out there, she could talk her out of it.
The van juddered. Stella pumped the accelerator. It jerked forward and then lost power. She leant over the wheel as if to coax it on. The engine died. The van freewheeled a few metres but the road had a gentle upward gradient and even as she willed it forward the van trickled to a halt. Stella slapped the wheel. The fuel gauge needle was at ‘zero’. She had been so preoccupied with getting to Dukes Meadows that when she left David’s she had forgotten to fill up.
A coil of smoke or mist rose from the tarmac, snaking and twisting. Terry had explained the phenomenon; she couldn’t recall what he had said. What would he say now? She snatched her keys from the steering column and, slotting them between her fingers, got out of the van. To her left, a ramp sloped to a basement car park. She considered pushing the van there, out of sight, but she couldn’t manage it by herself.
The road was quiet. Too quiet. The tree and the laundry were lost in darkness; she had no sense Jack was there. The telegraph pole was closer, surely? Jack said they would be more effective alone. On her own she was no use at all.
She was in full view, exposed. Stella ran down into the car park. Avoiding patches of oil in the bays, she slipped behind one of the stanchions. Closing her mind to the acrid drift of urine, she edged around the pillar, disorientated by shifting shadows and her own cold fear. Stupid to come here: the underground expanse was treacherous. She was electric with panic. Marian was behind one of the columns, black rectangles stretching away into the darkness. Stella’s terror was sharpened by the constant spattering of a pipe. She went very cold. In a corner bay, where no light penetrated, was what could be a car. Panic overtook her. She rushed back up the ramp to the street.
She teetered on the kerb. Her job was to stop David, to save him. She whipped around. Behind her was a practice tower for firefighters. Smoky clouds moving fast behind gave the impression the tower was swaying, the pretend windows gaping cavities. There was someone at the top one. Stella squinted up. No, she had imagined it.
Her phone buzzed, she fumbled in her anorak.
Sorry to miss you. At hospital. Fancy coffee tomorrow? Marian.
A flood of relief engulfed her. Marian was not Mary Thornton. She was a civilian administrator at Hammersmith Police Station. She was her friend. Martin Cashman had told Marian Stella was concerned and, as he had predicted, she was touched. They could meet in the café; Marian would see her return the umbrella. Stella would explain about the green form, even the printout.
Stella texted, Meet you at the Broadway – she stopped. The text was a trick. Marian wasn’t at the hospital or the school. She was in the car park, or the tower, somewhere close, biding her time.
She broke into a run. She had left the headlamps on in the van. She made for the beams of light. Her legs were leaden and she had to force them to work.
She had not left the lights on. The van was behind her.
The strong lights dazzled her and she tripped on the kerb. David. She shouted and waved. The interior lamp filled his car with a cosy glow. It cut his visibility so he didn’t see her. He was driving very fast.
The car sped on, orange dulled to brown. In its headlights she saw white wings, spear-limbs flailing. A creature soared. Then the impression of flight was over and it plummeted, to land with a sickening flump on the tarmac.
Jack!
*
‘Ambulance and police!’ Stella yelled into her phone. She blundered through a list of landmarks. ‘A telegraph pole, tree, car park…’
A bundle of sacking dumped perfunctorily in the gutter. Stella recoiled. Jack’s beautiful face was streaked with war paint like hers as a Red Indian. It wasn’t paint, it was blood. The unbearable had happened.
‘What is the name of the street, Stella? Are you in danger from traffic? Have you cleared the airways? Two fingers under the chin…’
Jack was stroking Mary Thornton’s hair from her face, the same motion over and over. She was speaking, her lips barely moving. He bent close to her, his hair falling foward over his forehead as he listened. His other hand cupped her chin. Blood, bright and viscous, blossomed through her white blouse. Stella drew closer.
Mary Thornton gazed at Jack, her face white as marble. His voice was a lullaby: ‘You’re safe, Myra. It’s over. Sweet dreams, sweet angel.’ He repeated the incantation. ‘It’s over, Myra. Sweet angel.’
‘Marquis Way W6. Near the Westway. Halfway down. It’s by a tree.’ Stella stared at Marian and saw a child. Mary Thornton. Speaking into the phone she said, ‘The tree is a sweet chestnut.’
Jack had laid his coat over Mary. Blankly, Stella noted it would need cleaning. His voice was soft and lilting.
‘Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow.’
Mary stared intently at Jack, her lips working.
‘I did it, Daddy. I did it exactly like you told me. Did you see? No hands! One wheel up like a cowboy. Did you see?’
In Mary Thornton’s uncurling fingers lay a cluster of green glass chips. ‘She’s responding.’ Stella told the operator.
‘I did see. What a clever girl you are, Mary. Daddy’s favourite angel.’ Jack’s voice was warm and lilting. He bent closer to her. ‘You have made it all all right.’
A smile flickered over Mary’s lips. ‘She fell, Daddy. I didn’t hurt her. She made me go to the temple. She made me, Daddy.’
‘I know, Mary. You’re not in trouble.’
‘Michael’s upstairs, Daddy. I made him fish fingers. He’s in his room. I promise that I brought him home and made him his tea. He’s upstairs… I made fish…’
‘Hush Mary, you did your best.’
‘Everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went…’
Jack closed his hand over her fingers.
‘Everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.’
Mary Thornton’s pupils dilated and her fervent gaze resolved to a languorous gaze, sightless. Stella thought of Elizabeth Figg propped against the willow at Dukes Meadows. With the flat of his thumb Jack closed Mary’s eyelids.
Stella had never seen someone die before.
‘Rest in peace, Mary,’ she whispered.
‘Barlow didn’t stop.’ Jack sat back on the kerb, hands around his knees. ‘I tried to flag him down. She pushed me out of the way.’
‘He may not have seen her.’ She lapsed into silence. David had seen.
‘Mary knew he wouldn’t stop.’ In his knitted waistcoat and crumpled shirt sleeves, Jack was a capable stranger.
‘Have a wet wipe.’ She thrust the fragrant cloth at him.
Jack dabbed ineffectually at the blood on his palms. ‘Barlow didn’t stop when Michael ran in front of his car. Mary expected that he would not tonight. She knew. She never intended to kill him. She planned that Barlow would kill her. A greater punishment. You were right about Marian. She’s no murderer.’
‘He might have swerved.’
‘He called her bluff.’ Jack didn’t look at her. ‘Perhaps, also, he never wanted to see that little girl’s face again.’
Stella’s phone rang.
‘Stella, love?’
‘Yes?’ A girl’s voice. Marian. Despite the dead woman at her feet, she nearly shouted for joy.
‘Remember me, your mother?’
Jack covered Mary’s face with his coat.
At the end of Marquis Way blue lights strobed; the road was flooded with light, car doors slamming. Stella spoke over the chatter of radios. ‘Mum, I’m sorry, I’m busy.’
‘How can you be busy? No one wants cleaning at midnight.’
‘I’ll be there first thing in the morning.’
‘I won’t be there.’
‘What do you mean?’ Stella felt hands on her shoulders: David had given himself up. She turned. Martin Cashman draped a foil blanket around her and guided her out of the path of the stretcher. Dumbly she watched the ambulance doors shut. Ambulances were for the sick and injured. Marian didn’t need an ambulance. She shut her eyes against the stinging tears.
‘I’ve had an accident. I’m in Charing Cross Hospital.’
‘Daddy, watch’.
Mary heaved the handlebars up and leant back like Clifford Hunt. For a terrifying moment, the sky came down to swallow the ground. She pedalled frantically and lifted it high up. She was a circus clown on one wheel.
‘I’m going to go right around the statue with no hands!’ she hooted. ‘That’s harder than a straight line.’
A crack in the path. Unable to save herself, she flew off the bicycle on to the grass. She heard ticking like a clock winding down. The wheel spinning and spinning.
She had gone nearly all the way around the statue.
Daddy!
He was on the bench with Michael. They had not watched even though he had promised. Or he would have promised if he hadn’t been pretending Michael was there, when she could have told him Michael was dead. Dead. Dead! She had done it for Daddy.
Mary would not be able to do it again.