PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - READ BETWEEN THE LIES

PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - EPISODE FIVE

 I shook her slender manicured hand, and she folded up the paper self-consciously, although not before I’d noticed, she hadn’t filled in a single clue.  She wore an open-necked T- shirt and extremely tight-cropped jeans and looked good.

  “Please, sit down.”  She pointed to the bench.

  “Thanks.”  I sat down at the other end.

  “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

  “I heard that you had been taken off the case.”

  “I am running my investigation. I don’t like to leave things half-finished.”

  Her eyes narrowed.  “I see.”

  “How are you coping?”

  “All right.”  She spoke with an element of sadness.  “I had to identify the body today.  It was awful.  Despite my protests, they are sending a family liaison officer round.  We don’t need one.  We can cope.”

  “Sleeping OK?”

  “Yes.  Well, no, not really.  You know.  I wake and . . .”

  “Eating?”

  She nodded.

  “Had you heard that Sabrina Muller had been killed?”

  “Yes, I did.  I’m not sorry, though.”

  I made no comment about how she felt.  “I spoke to one of her best friends earlier today.  She thought Sabrina was being threatened by someone.”

  “I hope you don’t think it was me?” 

  I waited. 

 “Because it wasn’t.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything of the sort.  I just wondered if you knew anything about it.”

  She stared down at the ground as if she was trying to pretend I wasn’t there.  “Why would I?”

  “She was having an affair with Buster, and now they are both dead.”

  “Do you think Buster shared his pillow talk with me? The night he told me he had fallen in love with another woman we sat at that table.”  She pointed at a table on the patio.  “We ate Moussaka and green salad and drank wine.  Everything seemed normal until he told me he was leaving me for a whore.”  Her voice got a bit less clipped.

  “I’m sorry to bring the matter up but there are certain questions I wanted to clear up.”

  “In your unofficial investigation.”  She looked distressed.

  I said nothing.

  She spoke now as if she were waking from a deep sleep.  “I don’t know what you’re digging for.  Do you think this has something to do with me?  Buster broke my heart, but I didn’t kill him and neither did I kill that prostitute.  If you’ve got reasons for thinking differently, please tell me what they are.  I want to know.”

  I stood up.  “I’m sorry to distress you.”

  We waited for the other person to say something.  Then we both said goodbye politely. 

  I didn’t see Isabella again before I left, and I then drove along the coast road the short distance to the car park which led to the entrance of Oxmarket forest.  I parked near the Forestry Commission sign pointed in the direction of the walking trails that wound beneath the dense canopy of trees.

I climbed out and leant on my car and stared at the entrance.  My phone rang in my pocket.  It was Kira.  The line popped and then buzzed as I answered, and I heard Kira saying, “John?”

  “Yeah.  Can you hear me?”

  “Just about.”

  The call cut out.

  I wandered around the car park, hoping it might flicker back into life.  The wind moved silently through the forest as I dialled Kira’s number.

  Click.

  “John?”

  “Sorry about that. Poor signal. I’m out by the forest.”

  “What are you doing out there?”

  “Being objective,” I told her.

  I turned back towards the car, the faint breeze died away, the branches settling, the leaves doing the same – and, as everything hushed, I thought I saw something move out of the corner of my eye; off to my left, deep in the forest.

  There was a drystone wall separating the car park, to make people use the sandstone arch.  I stepped up to it and watched the forest for a moment.  Leaves and branches moved again, thin shafts of sunlight appearing and vanishing, pale amber strands criss-crossing along the floor of the forest.

  “John?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my eyes still on the trees.  “I’m here.”

   “The reason I called is that I’m finishing work at seven tonight and I thought about cooking a meal for us.”

  “That sounds great.”   

 “Is everything okay?” 

  “I’m fine.  I’ll see you at seven.”

  I looked into the forest again, my eyes moving between boots and branches, across grass and beds of fallen leaves.

  There was no one around.

  I saw a bird – a rook – on a branch about twenty feet from where I stood, its black eyes and silver beak trained on me.

  It squawked once and took off.

  I climbed back into my car and pulled out onto the main road.  Frustration ate at me.  What had been watching me?  Had it been my imagination playing tricks on me?  As my thoughts festered, I noticed something in my rear-view mirror.

  A black Audi about five cars back.

  It had been behind me when I had left the police station but that had been an hour ago, and we had been heading in the opposite direction.

  And it was now behind me again.

  I let a couple of miles passes, keeping an eye on the vehicle.  His windscreen reflected back the bright afternoon sun and the blue of the sky, so it was impossible to see who might be inside.  But the further I went, the less concerned I became. The Audi slowly dropping back, cars overtaking it as I approached the coast road.  Before long, it was eight cars behind me, a blob in the shimmering evening heat.

  I overtook a slowly moving lorry and eased the accelerator down.  As I did, the Audi sped up, too.

Chapter Twelve

I ignored the Audi following me.  Likely someone trying to get home.  I took the next left and headed toward where Sabrina Muller lived.

  Winchester Terrace was a narrow, forgotten row of houses, each with the same, uniform white-bricked garden wall. The houses themselves, however, were painted a mishmash of clashing colours: reds, creams, peaches, greens.  Halfway down I found number eighteen.

  I passed it and parked two houses down.  I got out, turned up my jacket collar, and studied the road.  The houses opposite were all abandoned.  The road had a depressed air about it.

  I got my torch from the back of the car.  I made my way up the sprawling concrete drive, the concrete beneath my feet crumbling.  I flicked the torch on and directed it inside.  The cone of light illuminated walls painted a shade of magnolia, a fireplace and patio doors.

  I switched off the torch, checked the street and then took out a couple of straightened hairpins I kept in my jacket.  It took me twenty frustrating minutes before I heard the pins fall into place.

  It looked like Sabrina Muller had half moved out and never returned.  Dust clung to the walls.  I moved into the living room where I found a two-seater sofa, with a lamp next to it.  A half-filled bookshelf.  No TV.  No CD player. No satellite decoders or DVD player.  Nothing a single girl would have owned.

  The kitchen had been mostly cleared out as well.  Only a few things remained: a kettle, two plates in the strainer, a fruit bowl. The fridge stood with both doors open, the light on, the compressed humming. It was empty and had been defrosted.

  A gust rose and the house moaned.  It made me stop halfway up the stairs and look back    

  Nothing.

  Beneath my feet, the stairs felt soft, the wood warped and rotten, bending under my weight.  My steps sent a shudder along it as if I’d woken something within.  The wind increased, and I felt the house shiver out of its stillness, and then everything settled again:  the windows, rattling in their frames, became silent; the creak in the walls faded.

  I paused, my pulse racing.

  I didn’t feel alone.

  I thought of everything I’d seen until now. 

  Concentrate.

  On the landing, the first doorway was on my left. I stopped and peered around the frame. I turned on my torch.  The bedroom was like the rest of the house—like someone had moved out months before.  A bed frame, a bare mattress.  Built-in cupboards, all open.  There were some clothes inside, but not many.  A couple of tops, some very short skirts and dresses.  Cobwebs draped everywhere; everything carried a stench, a tangy scent that hung in the air and lingered in the walls.

    I moved out onto the landing. 

    As I did, I heard the noise again, more defined this time.    I glanced behind me.

   Nothing.

   I went into the bathroom and turned on the light and the vent fan kicked into life.  I opened up the cabinet and looked around inside.  A can of deodorant.  Some talc.  Some perfume.  Nothing else.  I pushed the door shut – except now it wouldn’t close.  When I tried again, it crept open.  I leaned in and looked at the catch.  It was broken.  The moment I’d pulled the cabinet door open, the catch had come loose.

  As if it had been set to break.

  And someone was trying to draw attention to it.

  I looked inside.  In the corners, it had been attached to the wall with four screws.  I placed a hand on either side of the cabinet and levered it away.  It stuck for a moment, the screws clinging to the holes that housed them.  But when I applied more pressure they began to come out as it shifted off the wall.

  Dust spilled out around the screw heads, landing inside the cabinet.  Plaster made a scraping sound behind it.  And then the cabinet came away.

  In the space behind it, there was a patch of cream paint – the original colour of the bathroom – and the holes that had once housed the screws.

  In the centre was an envelope sellotaped to the wall.  I carefully removed it and looked inside.  Photographs.  They were not obvious. It was of a man running through the forest and two blurred shapes were chasing him.  I pocketed the photographs feeling as if I had achieved something at last.

  A door downstairs shut.

  I slowly moved across the landing and looked downwards.

  Nothing.  Only darkness.

  I let out a breath, my mind filled with images of what I’d seen earlier, what I’d thought I’d see out in the forest, and then I moved downstairs towards the front door.

  It was darker in the house now, the light fizzling out.  I glanced at my watch and saw it was just before five o’clock.

  There was about an hour and a half of daylight left.

  Outside, the temperature had dropped slightly and beads of dew had formed on parked cars.  All except one – a black Audi parked further down the street.

  I couldn’t see who the driver was in the declining light as I fumbled for my keys.

  I pulled out and turned right onto Harbour Road.  The traffic was heavy as I reached the Oxmarket town centre.

  Headlights loomed in my rear-view mirror.  Large.  Close.  Flashing on high beam.  My body tensed when I realized the Audi had caught up with me.

 I slowed down, moved to the side.  The Audi stayed behind me.  Maybe there was something wrong with my car?  The tail lights might not be working.  I could be blowing smoke.  I checked the dashboard, but none of the warning lights were showing.  My temperature gauge was normal.

  We were bumper to bumper.  I touched the brakes.  The Audi wouldn’t back off.  High-beam lights filled my mirrors, making it hard for me to see the road.

  Subconsciously, I accelerated, trying to pull away.  A long sweeping left-hand corner was followed by a right-hand bend where Oxmarket Mountfitchet passed through a copse of trees. There was nowhere to pull over.

  I was travelling too fast, gripping the wheel too tightly, my eyes smarted at the brightness, seeing phantoms leaping from the ditches and from behind the trees.  I tried to remember what lay ahead.  There was a farm track on the left with a turning circle for tractors.  It was approximately two hundred yards away.  I intended to pull over.  Let the Audi pass.

  We were inches apart.  I touched the brakes.  I didn’t want the Audi crashing into me.  The near side tyres left the asphalt and dug into the softer edges.  I almost lost control and wrenched the wheel to the right.  My car fishtailed and veered wildly across the road, heading for a ditch.  I had to correct again.  The fear and the adrenaline pumping through my body.

  Ahead I saw the approaching lights of a car.  The headlights behind me suddenly disappeared.  As the oncoming car passed, I saw the vehicle for a brief moment in the rear-view mirror.  Then he flicked the lights on again and the high beam blasted my corneas, burning a white spot that wouldn’t go away.

  My car leaned heavily on the bends and surged over dips.  The trees and hedges were like passing shadows.  I’d missed the farm track.  There was a turn-off to Oxmarket Mountfitchet a hundred yards away.  I knew it wouldn’t be able to make the turn at that speed.

  Fifty yards.  Forty.  I hit the brakes hard.  Swung the wheel.  Braced for the impact.  My car skirted the far ditch but made the turn and skidded to halt on loose gravel.  I expected the Audi to shoot past, but instead, it made the same manoeuvre, far more expertly, stopping twenty yards behind me.

  Shouldering open the door, I screamed at the driver’s idiocy, my heart pounding.  I shielded my eyes against the brightness and took three steps towards the Audi.  There was no response.  The doors remained closed, the engine running.

  “What’s your problem?”  I yelled.

  No response.

  I glanced at my car and nothing appeared to be wrong.  All the lights were working.

  Hesitating, I could think of a dozen reasons why I should not move any closer.  I was alone, and I was unarmed. 

  Finally, I took a step back, reached into the car and pulled out my mobile.

  “You see this?  I’m calling the police.”

  I started punching in the numbers, glancing at the glowing screen.  At the same moment, the car accelerated in a roar of horsepower and spinning wheels.  It was heading straight for me.

  I didn’t have time to run.  I threw myself across the seat and pulled my legs inside as the driver’s side door was ripped from its metal hinges with a crunching finality.

  The sudden backdraught blew dust around the interior of my Peugeot.  Then there was silence.  No sound except my breathing.

  I climbed out and looked down the empty road.  My crumpled car door was lying thirty yards away in the ditch.  I felt relieved to see the Audi had gone.  I walked across the road, retrieved the door, and loaded it into the back of the Peugeot. Then I put a call to Kira to tell her I wouldn’t be able to make dinner.

  “Why not?”

  “I've got a problem with my car.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” 

  “It doesn’t have a door”

  “Why not?”

  While I explained, I could imagine her eyes rolling towards the ceiling in a well-worn expression of unsurprised.

  “Sounds like something out of the film Duel,” she said.

  “Duel?”

  “Spielberg’s first classic.”

  “Are you taking this seriously?”

  “Of course, darling.  Did you get the registration?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know what make it was?”

  “A black Audi.”

  “Do you know who the driver was?”

  “I couldn’t see anything.”

  “Have you phoned Silver?”

  “Are you serious?  I’ve been officially taken off the case, but I’m carrying out my own unofficial investigation.  Hardly going to endear me to him, is it?”

  “True.  Where were you coming from?”

  “I had been to Sabrina Muller’s flat.”

  “You think it’s connected?”

  “Maybe.  What do you think?

  “Maybe you should stop asking so many questions.”

Chapter Thirteen

   The mirror treated me with cruelty the next morning.  All through the night I had a black Audi with blazing headlights chasing me.  Each time I’d woken with my heart pounding and my fists clenched on an imaginary steering wheel.

  After showering and a quick breakfast of cereal and toast, I telephoned Matthew Cobbold at the local garage and asked him to pick up my Peugeot and find me a new door. I told him I’d leave my keys under the seat.

  I walked into town.  A balmy wind smelling of the North Sea sent litter swirling into the gutters.

  I passed shops and businesses – a DVD store, a fish and shop, charity shop, a florist, s*x shop, a minicab office, a car dealership, and small local supermarket.

  “Spare some change, guv?”

  A stick-thin black man in a woollen hat held out a hand clad in a fingerless glove.  Nearby I saw a shopping trolley piled with scavenged treasures.  I fumbled in my pocket and found a two-pound coin.

  I stepped round his trolley and pushed open the door of a hair salon.  A young woman in her mid-thirties stood washing a customer’s hair in a sink.

  “What do you want, darling?  I don’t do men’s hair.”

  I remained at the door and looked down the street where I had just walked.  A man stood barking at the tramp.

 The tramp cowered. 

  It was the man from the alleyway. 

  I stepped outside.  Flags above a car dealership snapped in the wind. Next door at the florist shop, a dark-haired woman in jeans and a flannel shirt arranged buckets of flowers.   I passed the closed s*x shop, barricaded behind metal shutters.  A sign claimed that it was open late, seven days a week.

  Next came the minicab office on the corner, little more than a waiting room with half a dozen plastic chairs and a control booth behind a plywood partition and small glass window. A pretty woman wearing too much makeup and dressed in a long overcoat and high-heeled shoes, waited.

  A morbidly obese man with a phone pressed to his ear was carrying on a phone conversation. He was so large he had to sit two feet from the desk to accommodate his stomach. 

  He met my gaze but kept talking.

  “. . . Yeah, he wanted three-to-one . . . Yeah . . . He was dreaming, I told him so . . . Yeah. . .”

  He screwed a finger into his ear and when he had finished, he examined his fingertip.

  “. . . That’s my point, Ricky, you can’t trust them . . . You got to show them who’s boss, you know . . . Otherwise, someone’s going to lose some serious money . . . Later, Ricky.”

  He hung up and talked into the radio.

  “. . . Yeah, Antony, it was Charles Street . . . Number eighty-seven . . . Bottom buzzer.”

  The controller looked past me at the young woman.  “Fifteen minutes, love.”  His gaze lingered on her.    Finally, he turned to me.

  “Can I help you, mate?”

  “No.”

  “What are you doing then?”

  “Minding my own business.”

  I turned back towards the door and watched Cowan’s man walk past, with an expression of panic on his face.

  I glanced back toward the controller but a tall man wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt blocked my view. His face was pale and narrow and the tattoos running down his cheeks were like black tears dripping from his chemical-green eyes.

  The minicab controller called out from behind him.  “He’s got a sense of humour, Eugene.  Why don’t you show him what we do with people who like to show off their sense of humour?”

  “Really, there’s no need,” I said, feeling for the door handle behind me.  “I’m now leaving.”

  He stood a few feet away from me.  I could smell his aftershave and something else, lurking beneath.

  “I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”  As Eugene said the words, he raised two fingers to his face and traced the dripping tattoo down each cheek, dragging his flesh out of shape.

  This man liked intimidating and bullying people.  I decided to give him a taste of his medicine. I surprised him when I took a step forward.  I stared into his eyes and I sensed his hesitancy.

    Eugene said nothing.  Confusion, then anger, then uncertainty showed on his face.  He was trying to read mine.  He blinked, and I could see him struggling to retain control of himself.  I’d surprised him.  No one had never done this to him before. He continued to study me, his eyes skirting mine, the lines of my face, looking for evidence that I wasn’t bluffing.  His whole body seemed to hollow out.  His domineering presence evaporated before my eyes, like tendrils of smoke vanishing into the darkness.

  I turned, stepped out of the minicab office, and broke into a trot.

  I soon saw the man who had followed me in the distance. Stepping behind a Range Rover, I watched through its windows.  He had stopped and looked both ways along the street, and then took off in the opposite direction to me, hurrying, glancing over his shoulder.

  I held back for a moment and then followed.

 I remained about eighty yards back, on the opposite side of the road in the shade.  He entered Oxmarket Park, and I hung back, and I watched him cut across the damp grass and find a bench facing the harbour as he talked into a mobile phone.

  The call lasted about three minutes.  After he had finished, he remained on the bench, but kept looking over his shoulder to the entrance of the park. He seemed agitated.  About five minutes after that, he glanced back again – around fifty feet to the right of where I stood – spotted someone and gave them a quick wave.  The park and its approach was crowded, so I found it difficult to zero in on the recipient of the wave until Cowan Carter broke through, making a beeline for the bench.  She looked extremely attractive, with her hair tied back into a ponytail, wearing a red skirt, white blouse, and red high-heeled shoes.

  She perched herself on the bench and the man immediately launched into conversation.  No smile, no greeting.  Cowan didn’t seem perturbed as if she expected that.  I assumed she'd been the person the man had called.  I moved a little closer, positioning myself against one of the park’s snaking stone walls, and got a clearer view.  If she’d walked here, she would have been somewhere close by.  Plus she had nothing with her--no bag, no jacket.  The man thumbed open a packet of cigarettes and offered her one.

  The conversation continued with Cowan eventually taking part. The man did most of the talking. Finally, Cowan reached out, put a hand on the man’s arm and spoke sternly and seriously to him.  When she had finished, she stubbed her cigarette out, looked at her watch and then got up and left.

  I followed her, back across the park in the direction of the harbour.  The paths and grass verges of the park were busy, so it became easy to merge with the crowds, but I kept a good distance behind her just in case.  On the other side of the road, she moved in a diagonal towards the largest bank in Oxmarket.

   I made up some distance between us, and as she entered the foyer, stepped through after and watched her walk toward the back of the bank where one of the senior personal bankers waited for her.