The Silent Pool Page 7

  Rachel tutted. ‘The spotty youth who was working the ticket booth remembered Stephen. It was so early in the morning and it was so unusual for him to have two customers at that time of the day?’

  ‘Two?’

  Rachel looked triumphant.

  ‘Someone came in two minutes after Stephen entered. There's something else as well.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He's not the most reliable of witnesses though. He was stoned out of his mind when I talked to him. But he did say he doesn't remember either of them leaving the museum. The exit is the entrance. So where did they go?’

  Erasmus didn't know but he was willing to bet there was a service entrance somewhere in the building. As part of his training for 14th Intelligence Company he had had it drilled into to him to look for alternative exits in every building he entered. Even now it was a habit he couldn't break.

  ‘So why were you following me?’

  ‘I started following Jenna and she led me to you. I thought you two might be having an affair, maybe you knocked off the competition, but after today I can see we both want the same thing, we both want to find Stephen.’

  The mention of Jenna in the context of an affair with him distracted Erasmus for a second. Rachel caught the change in him.

  ‘Are you?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Having an affair with Jenna Francis.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Erasmus, but he had a suspicion that the growing flush on his face was betraying him. Rachel looked delighted that she had hit home.

  ‘Why did Stephen approach you?’ asked Erasmus, hoping to move the conversation along quickly.

  ‘I did a fluff piece on Bovind for my editor. It nearly made me puke doing it. It was hardly Woodward and Bernstein you know. All about him being a philanthropist, a man of God, the saviour of the city. I tried to put in some stuff about Lightspeed, refer to the search rankings but my editor was having none of it. Not my finest hour. It went in the paper on a Friday carrying my byline, that same evening I got a call from Stephen. He was emotional, angry at me; he said I didn't know the truth and that Bovind wasn't a saint, but that he was the Devil.’

  ‘The Devil?’

  ‘His exact words. He then told me it wasn't safe to talk on the phone and we arranged to meet up. I turned up, he didn't, and next thing his wife has reported him as missing. Suspicious huh?’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘What should we do?’ she said.

  ‘We? I'm going home for a large drink. I suggest you do the same and make sure you get some sleep.’

  ‘But what about you, what do you know? You promised me you would tell me?’

  She was talking to Erasmus’ back.

  CHAPTER 10

  Malcolm Ford looked out from his office on the twenty-third floor at the top of Beetham Tower. The floor to ceiling plate-glass windows afforded him a magnificent view of the city at night. He could see the blinking green and red harbour lights at the mouth of the Mersey estuary, and then south towards Perch Rock and the lighthouse that stood by the fort guarding a dock that had silted up many years ago. The Mersey lay in the centre of his view, dark and brooding. From his vantage point, Malcolm Ford felt that the city belonged to him. Far below he could see a pedestrian, probably a drunk staggering home from a bar at this time of night. He was the size of an ant. Malcolm cocked his hand like a gun and shot him as the staggering man made his way home to his tiny life.

  Tonight he was a happy man. A deal had been done, bringing his firm a huge amount of income and Malcolm had been the lawyer leading the transaction team. It had been months of work culminating in this last late night session. Malcolm had in equal parts cajoled and rewarded the junior lawyers and accountants to make sure that the documents were signed, the takeover completed.

  The client and the nature of their business was unimportant in Malcolm's mind. It had been something to do with a paper merchant, but who cared; it was the deal that mattered. It had been completed at 1 a.m. in a flurry of faxes and congratulatory phone calls. The client had been satisfied and the rest of the team overjoyed that the weeks of overnighters and endless paperwork was over for a short time at least, until the next deal came along.

  Malcolm had slapped backs and, even at the end there, made a rather good speech, so he thought, about teamwork and success. He had sent them all home and told them if he saw anyone in before midday on Monday they would be sacked.

  Now the office was empty and Malcolm was alone, surrounded by empty pizza boxes, coffee cups and boxes of files. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small crystal topped vial. He poured out a generous line and snorted it in triumph. He poured himself a large Balvenie from the bottle on his desk and then sat back in his chair and soaked up the view from the top of the city.

  He considered whether he should go home to Steph and the kids or whether he should use this opportunity to visit Katrina. He checked his watch. Too late to call home and he wouldn't want to wake Steph. Yes, he could tell her the deal completed late on and he had to sleep in his office. It was never too late to call Katrina in her dockland flat and even if she was asleep, so what, he was the client and, as he told his staff, what the client wants the clients always fucking gets. He began to get aroused at the thought of a sleepy Katrina and how maybe she would need a bit of the rough stuff to wake her up. Just the ticket, he thought.

  He didn't hear the lift door open and a man step out into the reception area of the Grantham & Lucky Partnership.

  Malcolm closed his eyes savouring the peaty taste of the whisky his thoughts skipping ahead to the next hour or so of bliss with Katrina.

  ‘Hello Malcolm,’ said a voice.

  Malcolm swung his chair around.

  ‘Who said that?’ he shouted with all the Colombian confidence that was buoying up his neuro-receptors.

  At the end of the corridor leading to the lift a man appeared. Tall, dark and angular, he wore a black jacket with a hood that covered the top half of his face.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  The man said nothing but stood there, silent and still. Malcolm could see the lower right half of his face was exposed, revealing a white scar the sight of which made his guts twist and turn. For a second he thought he recognised the man but no, it was impossible, and he didn't know anybody with such a disfigurement. It wasn't the type of thing you would forget easily.

  ‘I'm calling security!’ Malcolm picked up the phone: the line was dead. Slowly, he put the receiver down.

  ‘What do you want, money? I've got money.’

  The man moved closer.

  ‘Well, what do you want? I tell you what you need! You could do with seeing a good dermatologist I see. I have the number of an excellent consultant. He could sort you right out, you know.’

  The man said nothing.

  Malcolm put his hands behind his head and pushed back his chair. He had been surprised, maybe even a little frightened if the truth be told, but now he was back in charge. It was the natural order of things: winners and losers, and this man, this apparition, he was a loser.

  ‘You see, you come up here trying to frighten me but what are you going to do? You're just another of life's little losers, Scarface.’

  The man dared to come in here, at his moment of triumph and threaten him. Who was he? Some tramp? A wronged client? He was a nobody and he was going to get the full Malcolm Ford treatment. Malcolm was beginning to enjoy this now.

  The man was standing a foot away from the front of his desk.

  ‘People like you are scum. What is it? A heroin habit? Did Mummy not give you enough teat? Did Daddy touch you so now you have to go around taking other people's, successful people's property. Eh, so which is it?’

  He remained silent and impassive.

  ‘So, either tell me what you want or just fuck off!’

  ‘Do you believe?’

  In that moment Malcolm's world disappeared. His house, his cars, his mistress, his kids, all were
gone, replaced by a bloody void and a memory buried as deep as a corpse.

  From a million miles away Malcolm could hear a voice, monotone and expressionless.

  ‘Do you believe?’

  The scream in Malcolm's throat never made it to his lips because with a movement so quick that he didn't even see where it came from, the man slipped a leather rope around his neck and pulled it tight, cutting off Malcolm's supply of air.

  He tried to scream but he couldn't produce a sound. He passed out.

  He had no idea how long he was out. When he awoke he was woozy, his vision blurry. But then he recognised where he was, the corridor outside his office. There was an agonising pain from his neck where it had been crushed by the rope. He tried to move and then quickly realised his hands were bound to the arms of the chair with rolls of sticky tape and his legs were tied together with a plastic tie. He could taste blood in his mouth. He could hear breathing behind him and then closer until there was hot breath on his ear.

  ‘Do you believe?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Malcolm. ‘Whatever you want I'll give it to you. Money? I've got money, I won't say a word.’

  The man laughed.

  ‘Are my children OK?’

  ‘First the money and only now you ask about your children. You'll never know whether they are alive or dead.’

  ‘You bastard. If you've touched them I'll…’ He began to sob.

  The man spun the chair round so Malcolm was looking directly into his eyes.

  ‘You'll do what, Malcolm Ford, kill me?’

  Malcolm's chair was spun again and then pushed, accelerating hard down the corridor towards the window and then the hands pushing the chair pulled away as the chair gained speed.

  But Malcolm knew he would just bounce off, these windows were made of toughened safety glass. He might break his nose though. He steeled himself for the blow.

  The sound of the gun was dampened by the silencer fitted on the muzzle. However, the sound of the bullet was deafening as it tore through the air above Malcolm's head, breaking the sound barrier with a crack. It slammed into the window causing a starfish pattern of cracks to splinter across its surface.

  In the split second before he hit the window, Malcolm knew he was going to die and the realisation caused him to howl like a beast, a sound cut off as the glass tore open his cheeks from jaw to ear as he hit the window.

  The glass gave way as it shredded his body and then Malcolm Ford, father, husband, lawyer and deal-maker plunged twenty-three stories in 4 seconds before hitting the concrete below and ceasing to exist.

  CHAPTER 11

  Monday morning had never sat well with Erasmus. Even during his time in the Army when the days of the week were made redundant by the all-encompassing military routine, he reserved a special loathing for Monday morning and reckoned that it always brought with it that extra little dose of fear and loathing.

  He had read that suicides and heart attacks peaked at around 9.30 a.m. on a Monday morning, something to do with the release of the stress hormone cortisol. Erasmus thought that Mondays were just plain evil and today was just proving the point.

  The problem today was that the strikes had been called off and the teachers and other council workers were back in work. The city was in funds and the school runs were back on, clogging up the roads and making him late for work.

  His office was two rooms, an office and an antechamber in an old shipping building off Water Street. Back before the war, the building had housed the headquarters of one of the world's largest mineral and ore shippers. Now the grand offices were carved up with stud walls, and microbusinesses operated from the cells formed.

  Next door to Erasmus’ office was a tooth whitening operation run by Katy, a fortysomething ex-stripper with a permanent tan and eyebrows as thick as carpet swatches. Through the thin walls Erasmus could hear the low hum of the infrared lamps she had purchased off eBay as they bleached her seemingly never-ending queue of customers.

  Sandy, his admin assistant, was sitting outside. Sandy was looking, as ever, immaculate in a crisp white blouse and perfect hair and make-up. Sandy was thirty-three and a single mum to ten-year-old Max. She was everything he wasn't: organised, tactful and professional.

  ‘Dan's already here, I sent him in.’ She shook her head. ‘Late again, Erasmus. You need to set that alarm clock earlier.’

  Erasmus considered a witty riposte. They'd all sound petulant given that Sandy had, as she did every morning, got up, fed, dressed and got her little boy to school and still had time to make herself look like a million dollars.

  ‘As usually, Sandy, you are right. Good weekend?’

  ‘I took Max to see his father. You?’

  Max's father was currently doing a ten-year stretch for armed robbery in Strangeways.

  ‘I had a gun pressed to my head by a homicidal Islamic loan shark.’

  ‘Nice. So still no girlfriend then?’

  Erasmus harrumphed and walked into his office.

  Dan, looking relaxed, pointed at two Styrofoam cups of coffee on the desk. ‘Breakfast!’ he declared.

  ‘Thanks and sorry I'm late,’

  Dan waved the apology away. ‘Always like to see how the other half is getting on and I come bearing more gifts than just the coffee. But first tell me all about Jenna, she's hot stuff, isn't she?’

  Erasmus was forced to agree and he told Dan about his meeting with Jenna and the subsequent introduction to Purple Ahmed. He didn't tell Dan about Rachel and her theory about the Third Wave. In the cold light of day it seemed a little too much like paranoia.

  ‘Well, looks like you've made some progress and more importantly you're keeping Mrs Francis happy. And we want her happy so we can get the uncle's account. I've just been in with the Bean talking about this, among other things – more of which in a minute – and he is really grateful. There could be a training contract on offer if you play your cards well here.’

  A training contract in a law firm for a thirty-eight-year-old dishonourably discharged ex-Army officer was all but unthinkable without the right connections. Dan represented that connection.

  Erasmus’ experiences at his own military trial had given him an appetite to become a lawyer but he couldn't deny that part of it was about proving to Miranda that he could hold down a real job and that the demons of the past could be caged. Erasmus had been studying part-time for his legal practice qualification for two years now but getting the training contract was always going to be the stumbling block.

  ‘That's great, when will this be available, I don't take my final exams for another six months?’

  ‘Well, given I'm moving on, there's going to be the need for another dogsbody fairly soon.’

  Erasmus stared back at Dan. ‘They've made you a partner?’

  Dan smiled and nodded. ‘Correctemondo! It seems that three years running of being the highest billing associate counts for something after all. So as of 1st January you are looking at the youngest equity partner at the firm.’

  Erasmus shook Dan's hand. ‘Congratulations, you deserve it.’

  ‘Never a truer word spoken. Now listen to me when I tell you that the Bean is going to be looking to get another trainee on board if he bumps up Erik to my role. If you can keep Mrs Francis sweet and maybe bring in the uncle as a client your days of sitting in this cupboard are over.’

  ‘OK, that's great news. You heard the teachers’ strike is over?’

  ‘Finger on the pulse, eh Raz? That was news last week. It does mean I can do the school run again and get a chance to bump into those yummy mummies. Maybe I'll see you down there? But only after you find Stephen Francis. Make Jenna a happy woman, yeah?’

  Dan left him with that thought. He might not have the perfect marriage, thought Erasmus, but Dan did get to spend time with his kids. Erasmus decided he would call Miranda later that evening and see if they could work something out, maybe Abby could stay over in the week for a couple of days and he could drop her off at school. He might eve
n drop some reference to the training contract into the conversation but then he remembered Jeff and his mood darkened. Work, the habitual dampner of emotions beckoned and Erasmus happily followed.

  The rest of the morning Erasmus ploughed through his large caseload of small time personal injury work and drug crimes. At 1 o'clock he got up and went outside to grab a sandwich from Philpotts, his favourite deli, which was situated in a large square behind the town hall. The square was filled with the usual mix of business people sitting on benches enjoying some cold, November sunshine while they ate their lunch and a gang of young skateboarders that were there every day performing tricks on the steps of the derelict offices that fronted the square.

  Erasmus recognised one of the skateboarders. Her name was Heather, and Erasmus had helped her get off a charge of damaging public property by obtaining CCTV footage showing that the benches she was alleged to have broken by landing her skateboard on them had already been damaged by drunks the night before. Erasmus raised his hand and gave Heather a wave. She grinned and waved back. Even from fifty yards away Erasmus could see that Heather was smoking a large spliff.

  With a shake of the head Erasmus walked into Philpotts and placed his order for the king of sandwiches: cheese and salad cream. It was what his elder brother Paul used to call the dum dum sandwich because when it hit your stomach it exploded with joy. As he waited for his sandwich he wondered what Paul's advice would be regarding Miranda and Abby. He would probably have told him to just kidnap Abby and let down the tires on Miranda's car on the way out. Paul had always had a direct approach to matters. Erasmus missed his advice.

  Before the sandwich was ready his mobile rang.

  ‘Hey Erasmus. How are you doing? I got your message.’

  Erasmus felt a tingle down his spine.

  ‘Hello Mrs Francis.’ He paused to allow her to say, ‘I told you, it's Jenna,’ and she obliged.

  ‘Look, Jenna, I've got something I need to discuss with you. Can we meet today?’

  ‘Sure, have you got a pen?’ asked Jenna.

  Erasmus fumbled about in his suit pockets and pulled out a small blue bookies’ pen.