It wasn’t worth it.
‘Through an unrelated investigation I discovered that Blick, posing as Freddie Coyle, had become a member of an exclusive gentlemen’s club in town. That was odd, given that Coyle had just painfully and publicly realized he was gay, and the club only catered to straight men. That, alongside Blick’s caginess, set off alarm bells. There was the light, repeatedly being switched on in 413 after the murder, too. It made me realize someone was searching the room, nervous about what might be found in there. That had to be someone with access to the building. Coyle was just one of several possibilities.’
There had been hints.
A detail which had pulled at me was that Coyle hadn’t been a big drinker. When I went to visit him for the first time, the man I met was having cocktails at 10 a.m. I’d found a vape kit down the side of the sofa and heard someone in the next room. I now believed that person was Aneesa Khan, and might have connected them sooner but had discounted the idea upon finding out Coyle was gay. When Alicia had told me he was in fact a fully paid-up member of Incognito’s Gold Member system, that changed everything. Aneesa smoking a cigarette on our drive out to Blick’s, having lost her vape kit, sent the same chill down my spine.
Stromer detached herself from the wall. ‘What about the attack on Amy Burroughs?’
I’d been trying to lead our conversation away from her. I was almost certain that the man with the nail gun had been Anthony Blick. Either the smiling man had discussed his connection with Amy, or Blick had followed us to her home, or both. He had every incentive to silence the one person who could provide the missing link to the case: that the smiling man was a vanisher who’d assisted him in changing identities.
‘It seems as though that was unrelated,’ I said. ‘A family matter. We’re looking into it.’
Stromer looked at me dubiously. ‘What about her reaction at the formal identification? Either she knew that man, or she held something else back from us.’
‘She was holding something back,’ I said. ‘It turns out she was in love with this Ross Browne, the man we originally thought to be the victim. When she realized he wasn’t dead, she was so relieved she passed out.’
‘I know what relief looks like, Detective Constable,’ Stromer said flatly.
Parrs sat back in his chair. ‘I’m afraid the truth according to Aidan Waits is a little like an iceberg, Doctor. What shows above the surface is only about a tenth of it. So this nurse can’t help us with the identity of the smiling man?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir.’
‘Shame that. My challenge to you was to bring me his name. It seems like with all this Blick-Coyle-Khan-Reeve intrigue, that’s the one thing that we’re missing. What was our wager, again?’
‘You said you’d reassign me to a different shift. Find me a new partner.’
‘That was it.’ He gave me his shark’s smile. ‘So close.’
‘Well, I’ve still got a lot to learn from Detective Inspector Sutcliffe.’
‘And believe me, you’ll have plenty of time to do it.’
‘If that’s all, sir, I’ve requested a day’s leave.’
‘So I see, Detective Constable.’ He nodded. ‘You are dismissed.’
I stood and left the room. I was halfway down the corridor when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see Karen Stromer and stopped.
‘You’ve done good work, Detective Constable,’ she said with some difficulty. ‘But if this nurse knows something …’
‘She doesn’t.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you.’ She looked at me. ‘I’m only pursuing this out of concern for her position. When she identified that body she didn’t look heartbroken or in shock. Stacked up next to someone breaking into her home and threatening her, threatening her son, that troubles me.’ When I still didn’t say anything she went on. ‘Why wouldn’t you volunteer information that could save her life? Perhaps even your career?’
I stood to one side of the corridor and lowered my voice.
‘Because that might be the one thing that could put her in danger. I won’t insult your intelligence, Karen, but if asked I will deny this conversation ever took place. I’m telling you this because I hope you’ll understand. As long as Amy Burroughs isn’t compelled to go on the record or draw attention to herself, she’s safe. After what she’s been through she deserves that much. You were right, she wasn’t heartbroken or in shock. She was scared for her life.’
Stromer’s expression softened and she nodded. Gave me her thin paper-cut of a smile. ‘Perhaps I was mistaken about her reaction in the formal identification,’ she said. ‘Perhaps people aren’t always what they appear.’
‘Perhaps not.’ I wanted to acknowledge the moment, and the trust she was putting in me, but my phone had started to vibrate in my pocket. I knew with a heavy certainty who it would be. ‘Thanks for all your help, Karen.’
2
We turned off the main road and kept on going. The way felt complicated, impossible. Meandering roads became unmarked streets, then lanes and then nothing at all.
I drove.
Bateman sat in the back seat but we could both feel it now. The desensitizing effect of details, fizzing by the window. We’d left the city in the late afternoon, with at least a two-hour drive ahead of us. The weather forecast had predicted that the heatwave, the shared fever dream that had passed more like a nightmare, was ready to break.
It hadn’t happened yet.
Every object, building or person we’d passed was alive under the sunlight, looking like the best version of itself. When the landscape began to change, blasts of green foliage after miles of failed, grey towns, Bateman dug a pint of whisky out from his jacket and started sipping at it in silence. He was a brooding, ominous presence. Like a tumour on life itself, and I knew that this trip couldn’t really be about the bag, or whatever he thought was in it. It was about me and him. It was about power and fear. Neither of us had spoken as we drove along the motorway, the tension in the car rising, tightening like a knot. Now this sudden deviation, these endless, looping backroads felt like something coming undone, unravelling faster than I could keep track of.
So far nothing but the feeling had been familiar to me.
As I made the final turn towards White Gate House, all of that changed in an overwhelming rush of memory. I stopped the car in the narrow driveway, the engine still running. Bateman stirred. Shifted to stare over my shoulder, through the windscreen. It was early evening now, but still bright out and it was clear that the farmhouse had been abandoned. Perhaps as long as we’d been away from it. I drove us closer, parking beside the enormous bank of trees I remembered so vividly. I’d turned the rear-view mirror so I couldn’t see Bateman, but when I switched off the engine I could hear his loud, rasping breaths.
It felt like he was inside my head.
I opened the door, got out, and started towards the house.
‘Where you going?’ he said bluntly.
‘I want to look around.’
He snorted and followed me.
I tried the door once and then pushed my shoulder into it. When it didn’t move I stepped back and Bateman kicked it in with one powerful boot. I tried not to look rattled by it. The interior was as I remembered, but warped by time and damp.
‘After you,’ said Bateman, drooling down himself, still breathing like an old bulldog. The windows in the kitchen were just holes in the wall and the sun, descending in the sky, blinded us both. I walked towards it, into the death room. It didn’t hold the same power I’d expected it to. Buildings forget. When I turned, I saw that Bateman was watching me from the doorway, as though he didn’t want to cross the threshold.
‘What happened in here?’ I said.
His good eye moved on to me. ‘They killed her.’
‘Fisk’s wife? Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Fisk wouldn’t talk,’ he said slowly. ‘Wouldn’t tell where the bag was …’
‘How did you know where it was, then?’