It was a very small house for Hampstead, a cottage really, single-storey with one Gothic gable. Nineteenth-century, perhaps even older, and Liz wondered if the roof had once been thatched. The cottage sat behind a tall, shaggy yew hedge. The wooden entrance gate moved slightly in the breeze, its hinges squeaking mournfully; when she gave a push, it swung wide open.
Liz took two tentative steps and found herself in a small front garden hidden from the street by the hedge. A path of old paving stones led to the front door of the cottage, which seemed to be badly in need of repair: several roof tiles were slipping, and the window sills on either side of the front door looked rotten.
She rang the bell and heard it echoing loudly. No sound of movement inside. She peered through the letter box but couldn’t see any post lying uncollected on the mat inside. She waited a little while, then rang again. Still no response.
It was while she was wondering what to do next that some second sense made her turn round and see the man standing in a corner of the garden, next to a small circular rose bed. He was over average height and wore a baseball cap, tilted down, making it hard to see his face or tell his age – anywhere from thirty to fifty, Liz decided. Around his waist a gardener’s apron was wrapped, and in his right hand he held a pair of secateurs. He waved them casually at Liz, before turning to prune one of the tall roses.
‘Excuse me.’ Liz raised her voice as she crossed the lawn.
He turned around very slowly, but didn’t look her in the eye. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m looking for Mr Marcham. Is he in?’ She wondered if this could be Marcham himself, tending his garden, but no – Marcham’s photographs had shown an angular English face. This man looked slightly foreign; dark-skinned, Mediterranean.
The man shook his head, turning away from her. ‘I haven’t seen him today. Did you ring the bell?’
‘Yes, but no one answered. You don’t happen to know where I might find him?’
The man now had his back to her. ‘Sorry. He’s not often here when I am.’
‘Right,’ said Liz, wondering if she should leave Marcham a note. ‘Thanks very much,’ she said, and the man merely nodded, continuing with his pruning. I hope you’re a better gardener than communicator, she thought as she left.
She walked out and looked both ways along the street, as if willing Chris Marcham to appear. Where could he be? The source at the Sunday Times had said there was no wife or children, no family that he’d ever heard about. ‘A bit of a loner,’ he’d added for good measure. Liz cursed Marcham – if he was so bloody unsociable, then why couldn’t he stay at home?
But he couldn’t be doing too badly, she concluded as she started the long walk back to the Underground. His house was small and pretty run down, but it was in Hampstead, and right on the edge of the Heath. It should provide a handsome pension in his old age. And he could afford a gardener, though from the look of the ragged flower beds this one didn’t seem to be much cop. A funny bloke, thought Liz, suddenly realizing the man hadn’t even been wearing proper shoes for the job – they were slip-ons, shiny-looking ones, more at home in a wine bar than a flower bed. What had he been doing anyway? Pruning the roses, that was it.
Liz stopped suddenly and stood still. Her mother ran a nursery garden, but you didn’t need her knowledge to see what was wrong. No one prunes roses in August – not bush roses, that was for sure. The man had been a fake. Whatever he was, he wasn’t a gardener.
She wondered what to do. Looking back, she saw that she was barely a hundred yards from the house. Ought she to ring the police? She paused. Better to go back herself, right now, before he’d sloped off, and see what he was really up to.
She hesitated, since if he wasn’t a gardener, then he couldn’t be up to anything good. But she made her mind up to ignore her apprehension, and started half-running towards the little house. When she got to the gate she saw the front door was wide open. She slowed only momentarily, then walked quickly inside, calling out ‘hello’ loudly as she entered.
Silence. She stood in the small hallway next to a living room remarkable for its lived-in drabness. Through the door she could see a television perched on a MDF cabinet in one corner, covered by a thick layer of dust. Along the far wall sat a shabby, stained sofa badly in need of reupholstering. The low coffee table in front of it was covered with newspapers and magazines. Never mind the gardener, thought Liz, Marcham should get himself a cleaner.
Directly ahead of her the short hall led to a closed door. She walked up to it, quietly turned the knob and pushed it open. She was looking into a small, square kitchen. Dirty dishes sat in the sink; an open box of cereal stood on the pine table in the middle of the room. Beyond were two more doors, one also closed, the other open and leading to a bedroom. She walked across the kitchen and, peering in, saw a brass bed, neatly made. On the bedside table there was a dog-eared copy of England’s 1000 Best Churches, and on the wall a framed picture of Jesus on the cross.
Then she heard the noise. Something being moved, or pushed, the sound of wood sliding, coming from the room next door. Retreating to the kitchen, she looked around for something to defend herself with. Not a knife, she thought; facing a stronger man, she might find a knife turned against her. But there was a heavy frying pan on the stove. Grabbing its handle, she moved to the closed door and opened it cautiously. She was just in time to see a man drop from the back window.
‘Stop!’ she shouted, knowing he wouldn’t, and by the time she got to the window, the man was scaling the low wall that separated the rear garden from Hampstead Heath. All she got was a glimpse of his shoes. Slip-ons, still shiny.
Her pulse racing, she put the frying pan down and looked around the room, which was a small study – the bedroom must be next door. In contrast to the squalid sitting room, the study was tidy and well organised. Books lined two of the walls, neatly arranged, and a small antique bureau sat next to the window, its lid down to double as a writing surface. On it sat a closed laptop computer, a digital tape recorder the size of a cigarette lighter, an A4-sized notebook, and three HB pencils, sharpened and aligned in a row. The arsenal of a professional writer.
She examined the tape recorder, but it was empty. Noticing a pile of file folders on the bookcase, she extracted the top one, which lay askew across the neat stack. She read its label with sudden interest. Al-Assad Interview, Notes and Final Copy. The article on Syria’s President that the Sunday Times was waiting for so eagerly. Yet when Liz opened the file it was empty. Was that what the ‘gardener’ was after?
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Liz jumped at the sudden noise behind her. She turned and found a middle-aged man in jeans and a white shirt standing in the doorway. He was tall and he was very angry – an accomplice of the burglar she’d just surprised? Liz looked quickly around, but the frying pan was out of reach.
It seemed best to take the initiative; maybe she could catch him off-guard long enough to get past him. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
‘My name’s Marcham. Now perhaps you’ll tell me just what the hell you’re doing in my house?’