Condensation drips steadily down the dormer window creating rainbow patterns on the windowsill. What day is it? Thursday. No, it's Friday. Lying in bed, I listen to the delivery trucks, pneumatic drills and workmen shouting to each other. This is London's dawn chorus.
Against my better judgment I let Ali bring me here last night—to her parents' house in Millwall. We couldn't stay at her flat—not after what happened.
Ali's parents were both asleep when we arrived and exhaustion drove me to bed soon afterward. Ali showed me the spare room and left a fresh towel and cake of soap on the end of the bed like at some fancy B & B.
This must be Ali's old room. The shelves and tops of bookcases are crammed with elephants of all description, ranging from tiny blown-glass figurines to a large furry mammoth guarding the wooden chest at the end of the bed.
There's a light knock on the door. “I brought you a cup of tea,” says Ali, pushing the door open with her hip. “I also have to change the dressing on your leg.”
She's wearing a dressing gown with a frayed cord and an elephant sewn into the pocket. Her bare feet are out-turned slightly, which splays her knees and puts me in mind of a penguin, which is strange considering she moves so gracefully.
“How did you sleep?”
“Great.”
She knows I'm lying. Sitting next to me, she sets out scissors, bandages and surgical tape. For the next fifteen minutes I watch her unwrapping and rewrapping my thigh.
“These stitches are nearly ready to come out.”
“Where did you learn first aid?”
“I have four brothers.”
“I thought most Indian lads were pretty peaceful.”
“They don't start the fights.”
She cuts off the last strip of tape and wraps it around my leg. “Does it hurt, today?”
“Not so much.”
She wants to ask about the morphine but changes her mind. As she leans forward to retrieve the scissors, her dressing gown falls open and I glimpse her breasts beneath a T-shirt. The nipples are dark, sharp peaks. Immediately, I feel guilty and look away.
“So what are you going to do with the diamonds?” she asks.
“Hide them somewhere safe.” I glance around the room. “You seem to like elephants.”
She smiles self-consciously. “They bring good luck. That's why their trunks are raised.”
“What about that one?” I point to the woolly mammoth, which has a lowered trunk.
“An ex-boyfriend gave that to me. He's also extinct.”
She picks up the scraps of bandages and straightens a lace doily on the bedside table. “I had a call this morning about Rachel Carlyle.” She pauses and my hopes soar. “She suffered some sort of nervous breakdown. A night watchman found her sitting in a stolen car on some wasteland in Kilburn.”
“When was this?”
“On the morning you were pulled from the river. The police took her to the hospital—the Royal Free in Hampstead.”
Rather than joy I feel relief. Up until now I have tried not to think of who might have been on the boat. The longer Rachel remained missing, the harder this had become.
“Was she interviewed?”
“No. The police didn't talk to her at all.”
This is Campbell's doing. He won't investigate anything associated with Mickey Carlyle because he's frightened of where it might lead. It's not a cover-up if you don't lift the covers in the first place. Plausible deniability is a coward's defense.
“They searched Rachel's flat and found your messages on her answering machine. They also found a set of your clothes. They don't want you anywhere near her—not so close to Howard's appeal.”
“Where is Rachel now?”
“She checked out ten days ago.”
Someone close to Campbell must have told Ali these things, a detective who worked on the original investigation. It was probably “New Boy” Dave King, who has always fancied her. We call him “New Boy” because he was the newest member of the Serious Crime Group, but that was eight years ago.
“How is your boyfriend?”
She screws up her face. “That would be none of your business.”
“He's a good lad, Dave. Very fit looking. I think he must work out.”
She doesn't respond.
“He's not the sharpest quill on the porcupine but you could do a lot worse.”
“He's not really for me, Sir.”
“Why's that?”
“Well for one thing his legs are skinnier than mine. If he can fit into my pants he can't get into my pants.”
She keeps a completely straight face for about fifteen seconds. Poor Dave. She's far too sharp for him.
Downstairs in the kitchen I meet Ali's mother. She's barely five feet tall, dressed in a bright green sari that makes her look like a bauble on a Christmas tree.
“Good morning, Inspector, welcome to our home. I trust you slept well.” Her dark eyes seem to be smiling at me and her accent is incredibly proper as though I'm someone important. She doesn't even know me.
“Fine, thank you.”
“I have prepared you breakfast.”
“I normally eat breakfast closer to lunch.”
Her look of disappointment makes me regret the statement. She doesn't seem bothered. She is already clearing the table from the first sitting. Some of Ali's brothers still live at home. Two of them run a garage in Mile End, one is an accountant and the other is at university.
A toilet flushes at the rear of the house and Ali's father appears moments later dressed in a British Rail uniform. He has a salt-and-pepper beard and a bright blue turban. Shaking my hand, he bows his head slightly.
“You are welcome, Inspector.”
Ali appears, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her father swallows his disappointment.
“We're all British now, Babba,” she says, kissing him on the forehead.
“Outside these walls, yes,” he replies. “In this house you are still my daughter. It's bad enough that you cut your hair.”
Ali is supposed to wear a sari when she visits her parents. I saw her once, looking self-consciously beautiful, wrapped in orange-and-green silk. She was on her way to a cousin's wedding. I felt strangely envious. Instead of being caught between two cultures she seemed to straddle them.
“Thank you for letting me stay like this,” I say, trying to change the subject.
Mr. Barba rocks his head from side to side. “That's quite all right, Inspector. My daughter has explained everything . . .”
Somehow I doubt that.
“You are very welcome. Sit. Eat. I must apologize for leaving.”
He takes a lunch box and thermos from the kitchen bench. Mrs. Barba walks him to the front door and kisses his cheek. Whistling steam billows from the kettle and Ali begins making a fresh pot of tea.
“You'll have to forgive my parents,” she says. “And I should warn you about the questions.”
“Questions?”
“My mother is very nosey.”
A voice answers from the hallway. “I heard that.”
“She also has ears like a bat,” whispers Ali.
“I heard that, too.” Mrs. Barba appears again. “I'm sure you don't talk to your mother like this, Inspector.”
I feel a stab of guilt. “She's in a retirement home.”
“And I'm sure it's very nice.”
Does that mean expensive?
Mrs. Barba puts her arms around Ali's waist. “My daughter thinks I spy on her just because I come to clean her house once a week.”
“I don't need you to clean.”
“Oh, yes! And if you are Queen and I am Queen, who is to fetch the water?”
Ali rolls her eyes. Mrs. Barba directs a question at me. “Do you have any children, Inspector?”
“Two.”
“You're divorced, aren't you?”
“Twice. I'm trying for third time lucky.”
“That is sad for you. Do you miss your wife?”
“Yes, but my aim is improving.”
The joke doesn't make her smile. She puts a fresh cup of tea in front of me. “Why didn't your marriage work out?”
Ali looks horrified. “You don't ask questions like that, Mama!”
“That's all right,” I say. “I don't really know the answer.”
“Why not? My daughter says you are very clever.”
“Not in matters of the heart.”
“It's not hard to love a wife.”
“I could love one, I just couldn't hold on to her.”
Without realizing how it happens, I'm telling her how my first wife, Laura, died of breast cancer at thirty-eight and my second wife, Jessie, left me when she realized that marriage wasn't just for the weekend. Now she's in Argentina filming a documentary about polo players and most likely shagging one of them. And my current wife, Miranda, packed her bags because I spent more time in the office than I did at home. It sounds like a soap opera.
Mrs. Barba picks up on the melancholy note in my voice when I talk about Laura, who should have been my childhood sweetheart because then I would have known her longer than fifteen years. We deserved more. She deserved more.
One thing leads to another and soon I'm telling her about the twins—how Claire is dancing in New York and every time I see her disfigured toes I feel like arresting everyone at the New York City Ballet; and the last I heard from Michael he was crewing on charter yachts in the Caribbean.
“You don't see much of them.”
“No.”
She shakes her head and I wait for a lecture on parental responsibility. Instead, she pours another cup of tea and begins talking about her children and her faith. She doesn't see any difference between races or genders or religions. Humanity is all the same except in some countries where life is held more lightly and hatred gets a hearing.
Ali apologizes again for her mother when we get outside.
“I thought she was very nice.”
“She drives me crazy.”
“Wanna swap?”
We have changed vehicles since yesterday. Ali has borrowed a car from one of her brothers. I know it is part of her training—never using the same vehicle or driving the same route two days in a row. People spend years learning this stuff. I wonder what happens to them afterward. Are they frightened of the world just like Mickey Carlyle?
Edging through the traffic, north along the Edgware Road, I feel a sense of expectation. The uncertainty could end today. Once I find Rachel she'll tell me what happened. I might not remember but I'll know.
We cross a railway bridge and turn right into an industrial area, full of car-repair shops, wrecker yards, spray painters and engineering workshops. Pigeons pick at the trash behind a café.
The road runs out and we pull up on a patch of wasteland littered with rusting drums, broken chimney pots, fence posts and scaffolding. An abandoned freezer, pockmarked by stones, rises above the weeds.
“This is where they found Rachel. She was sitting in the passenger seat of a stolen car,” says Ali, studying an ordinance survey map on her lap. “The car was reported missing the previous evening from a multistory parking garage in Soho.”
The skies have cleared and the sun is shining strongly, reflecting off the puddles. Climbing out of the car, I walk toward the freezer, moving gingerly across the broken ground. The nearest factory or warehouse is fifty yards away. London is littered with sites like this one. People imagine high-density living with every spare foot being utilized, but there are thousands of empty warehouses, vacant blocks and patches of waste ground.
I don't know what I expected to find. Answers. Witnesses. Something familiar. Everybody leaves a trail. The ridiculous thing is, I can't look at a vacant lot without thinking what crops might grow there. I'm in the middle of a vast city and I'm thinking about barley and rapeseed.
“Why can't I remember any of this?”
“You might never have been here,” says Ali. “Rachel abandoned her car three miles from here.”
“I would have followed her.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
Finding the smoothest path through the weeds and rubble, she moves ahead of me until we reach a wire fence. Beyond are railway tracks—the Bakerloo line. The ground trembles as a train rattles past.
Turning left at the fence, we come to a pedestrian footbridge over the tracks. The platforms of Kilburn Station are partially visible to the north. The dual tracks have weeds growing at the edges and rubbish has collected in the ditches.
It's a good location to drop a ransom. Quiet. The factories and warehouses would have been empty at night. There are major roads leading north and south. The railway line runs east-west. Ten minutes traveling in any direction would put someone miles away.
“I need you to get hold of the incident logs from the local police stations,” I tell Ali. “I want to know everything that happened that night within a two-mile radius—burglaries, assaults, parking tickets, broken streetlights, whatever you can find.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I'll tell you when I find it.”
The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead is less than half a mile from where Rachel's car was abandoned and three miles from where she was found. Ali waits outside while I go through the main doors.
The receptionist is in her fifties with reddish-brown hair pinned tightly to her skull. She might be a nurse but it's hard to tell without a uniform.
“I'm Detective Inspector Ruiz. I need some information about a woman who was treated here two weeks ago.” I notice her name tag and add, “Thank you very much, Joanne.”
She straightens and touches her hair.
“Her name is Rachel Carlyle. She was brought in by the police.”
Joanne is leaning on her elbows, looking at me.
“Perhaps you should check on the computer,” I suggest.
Blushing slightly, she turns to the keyboard. “I'm afraid Miss Carlyle is no longer a patient.”
“Why was she admitted?”
“I'm afraid I can't give you that sort of information.”
“What day did she check out?”
“Let me see . . . September 29.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“Well, there is an address . . . I'm not sure . . .”
I know what she's going to say. She's going to ask for some official identification or a letter of authority. I no longer have a badge.
Then I notice her staring at my hands, in particular my Gypsy ring. It's fourteen-karat yellow gold, mounted with a champagne colored diamond. According to Daj it belonged to my grandfather, although I don't know how she knows this or how she managed to recover it from Auschwitz.
People are superstitious about Gypsies. My mother used to play on it. At school fetes and local fairs she would set down her cloth-covered table and shuffle the tarot cards, telling fortunes at a few quid a time. Private readings were conducted in the cottage parlor, with the curtains drawn and incense stinking the air.
“The dead come back through children,” Daj would say. “They steal their souls.”
None of this crap about Gypsy curses and fortune-telling impressed me but sometimes when I interview a suspect, I notice them grow suddenly anxious when they see my ring. They look just like Joanne does now.
Her eyes move to my left hand—the one missing a finger.
“A bullet did that,” I say, holding it up for her. “Sometimes I think the finger is still there. It itches. You were going to give me the address.”
She shudders slightly. “I think her father might have signed her out. Sir Douglas Carlyle.”
“Don't bother about the address. I know where he lives.”
Sir Douglas Carlyle is a retired banker and a descendant of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland. I interviewed him during the original investigation and he didn't seem to like me very much. Then again, he didn't have much time for Rachel either. The two of them hadn't spoken in eleven years—ever since she dropped out of university, embraced the politics of the left, and disowned him for being rich and titled.
Rachel did everything she could to provoke him, working part-time for homeless shelters, housing cooperatives and environmental groups, saving the world one tree at a time. However, the real sword in her father's side was marrying Aleksei Kuznet, a foreigner and a flower seller.
The thing that struck me about Sir Douglas was his equanimity and patience. He remained convinced that one day Rachel would come back to him. Now it seems he may have been right.
Parking out front of the large house in Henley, I self-consciously check my appearance in the side mirror. Titled people make me feel uncomfortable. I could never be a class warrior. A large white fountain dominates the garden, surrounded by paths that radiate between flower beds and angular patches of lawn.
I can hear laughter coming from outside and the gentle thwack of ball on racquet. There are wild cries of exultation and breathless moans of despair. Either someone is playing tennis or it's the soundtrack to a sixties blue movie.
The tennis court at the side of the house is hidden behind fences draped with ivy. We follow a path and emerge at a pagoda beside the courts, where trays of cold drinks have been set out on the table. Two couples are on court. The men are my age, sporting expensive suntans and muscled forearms. The women are younger and prettier, wearing miniskirts and midriff tops that show off their flat stomachs.
Sir Douglas is about to serve. With his aggressive countenance and eagle nose, he makes a social game look serious.
“Can I help you?” he asks, irritated by the interruption. Then he recognizes me.
“I am sorry to trouble you, Sir Douglas, I am looking for Rachel.”
Angrily, he slams the ball into the side fence. “I really can't be dealing with this now.”
“It's important.”
He troops off the court with his playing partner, who brushes past me as she reaches for a zip-up jacket to stay warm. She towels her face and neck. It's a very long neck. I read about Sir Douglas's divorce from Rachel's mother.
“This is Charlotte,” he says.
She beams. “You can call me Tottie. Everyone does. I've been Tottie forever.”
I can see that.
Sir Douglas waves to the far end of the court. “And those are friends of ours.” He shouts to them: “Why don't you go and get ready for lunch? We'll meet you inside.”
The couple wave back.
Sir Douglas looks even fitter than I remember, with one of those deep suntans you see on sailing types and Australians. You could cut off his arm and the tan would go all the way through.
“Is Rachel here?”
“What makes you think that?” He's testing me.
“You collected her from the hospital ten days ago.”
He plays an imaginary backhand. “I don't know if you recall, Inspector, but my daughter has never liked me very much. She thinks the Establishment is some sort of criminal society like the Mafia and that I am the Godfather. She doesn't believe in titles or privilege or the education that I paid for. She thinks there is only dignity in being poor and has swallowed the popular mythology of the working class being full of decent hardworking people possessed of piety and common sense. Breeding, however, is a curse.”
“Where is she?”
He drinks from a glass of lemonade and looks at Tottie. Why do I get the impression I'm about to be fed a plate of bullshit?
“Perhaps you should go inside sweetheart,” he says. “Tell Thomas he can clear these things away.”
Thomas is the butler.
Tottie stands and stretches her long legs. She pecks him on the cheek. “Don't let it upset you, dear.”
Sir Douglas motions us to the chairs, holding one for Ali.
“Do you know the hardest thing about being a father, Inspector? Trying to help your children not make the same mistakes as we did. You want to guide them. You want them to make certain decisions, marry certain people, believe certain things, but you can't make them go that way. They make their own decisions. My daughter chose to marry a gangster and a psychopath. She did it partly to punish me, I know that. I knew what sort of man Aleksei Kuznet was. It was bred into him. Like father, like son.”
Sir Douglas slaps his racquet through the air again. “Oddly enough, I actually felt sorry for Aleksei. Only an innocent millionaire would have satisfied Rachel—and short of winning the lottery or finding buried treasure in one's back garden, there's no such thing.”
I don't know where he's going with this but I try to keep the desperation out of my voice. “Just tell me where Rachel is.”
He ignores the statement. “I have always felt sorry for those people who choose not to have children. They miss out on what it means to be human, to feel love in all its forms.” His eyes have misted over. “I wasn't a very consistent father and I wasn't objective. I wanted Rachel to make me proud of her instead of realizing that I should always be proud of her.”
“How is she?”
“Recovering.”
“I need to speak to her.”
“I'm afraid that won't be possible.”
“You don't understand . . . there was a ransom demand. Rachel believed that Mickey was still alive. We both did. I need to find out why.”
“Is this an official investigation, Detective?”
“There must have been proof. There must have been some evidence to convince us.”
“I had a phone call from Chief Superintendent Smith. I don't know him well but he seems quite an impressive man. He alerted me to the fact that you might try to contact Rachel.”
He is no longer looking at me. He could be talking to the trees for all I know. “My daughter has suffered a breakdown. Some very callous and cruel people took advantage of her grief. She has barely said a word since the police found her.”
“I need her help—”
He raises his hand to stop me. “We have medical advice. She can't be upset.”
“People have died. A serious crime has been committed—”
“Yes, it has. But now something good has happened. My daughter has come home and I'm going to protect her. I'm going to make sure nobody hurts her again.”
He's serious. His eyes have a gleam of pure, unadulterated, idiotic determination. The whole conversation has had a ritualistic quality. I even expect him to say, “Maybe next time,” as though nothing would be simpler or more obvious than coming back another day.
Warm, melting undulations of fear ripple through me. I can't leave without talking to Rachel; too much is at stake.
“Does Rachel know that before Mickey disappeared you applied for custody of your granddaughter?”
He flinches now. “My daughter was an alcoholic, Inspector. We were concerned for Michaela. At one point Rachel fell in the bathroom and my granddaughter spent the night lying next to her on the floor.”
“How did you find out about that?”
He doesn't answer.
“You were spying on her.”
Again he doesn't respond. I've known about the custody application from the start. If Howard hadn't emerged as such a strong suspect I would have investigated it further and confronted Sir Douglas.
“How far would you have gone to protect Mickey?”
Angry now, he exclaims, “I didn't kidnap my granddaughter, if that's what you're suggesting. I wish I had—maybe then she would still be alive. Whatever happened in the past has been forgiven. My daughter has come home.”
He stands now. The conversation is over.
On my feet, I swing toward the house. He tries to intercept me but I brush him aside and begin yelling.
“RACHEL!”
“You can't do this! I demand you leave!”
“RACHEL!”
“Leave my property this instant.”
Ali tries to stop me. “Perhaps we should leave, Sir.”
Sir Douglas tackles me in front of the conservatory. With his tanned forearms and sinewy legs, he's surprisingly strong.
“Let it go, Sir,” says Ali, taking hold of my arms.
“I have to see Rachel.”
“Not this way.”
At that moment Thomas appears, wearing an apron over a pressed white shirt. He's carrying a silver candlestick like a club.
Suddenly the whole scene registers as being vaguely ridiculous. In Clue there is a candlestick among the possible murder weapons but, surprisingly, not a butler among the suspects. Blaming the staff is just another lousy cliché.
Thomas is standing over me now, while Sir Douglas brushes mud and grass clippings from his shorts. Ali takes my arm and helps me up, steering me toward the path.
Sir Douglas is already on the phone, no doubt complaining to Campbell. Turning, I shout, “What if you're making a mistake? What if Mickey is still alive?”
Only the birds answer back.