11

Judith didn’t pay any attention to the police car when she first noticed it. Double parked and with blue lights flashing, it blocked a whole lane of Finborough Road, reducing the bumper-to-bumper eight p.m. traffic to walking speed. On her way home from Earl’s Court Underground, the Tuesday following Bernie’s party, she realised as she got closer that the police car was parked directly outside the front door of number 174. She climbed the short flight of steps up from the road, and found a police constable standing at the open door.

‘Evening, madam?’ he queried.

‘I live here,’ she explained, ‘top floor.’

He retrieved a notepad from his pocket and glanced down a list of names. ‘And you are?’

‘Judith Laing.’

‘Very good.’ He opened the door for her.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, hurrying towards the stairs.

‘My colleague up there will explain.’

She rushed up the six flights of steps to the top flat. The door was unlocked and she could hear voices from inside. Hurrying through the hallway, she turned into the large room they used as a lounge-cum-dining room. It looked like a bomb-site. Every book, picture and piece of paper that had been in the room was now scattered across the floor. Ornaments lay smashed, tables and chairs were overturned. A bottle of tomato ketchup had been sprayed like graffiti over one wall. In the centre of the scene of disaster, a woman police constable stood taking notes from Simon who stood, ashen-faced, in a short-cropped T-Shirt and blue jeans a size too tight.

As she stepped into the room, the two looked up.

‘I’m afraid you’ve had a burglary,’ the WPC explained needlessly.

Judith glanced over towards where the TV, video recorder and CD player used to be.

‘They took my camcorder,’ Simon whimpered.

‘And a lot of other stuff.’ Judith looked around with the feeling that she’d been caught in some surreal drama.

‘The landlord will have to replace all that,’ Simon was, as ever, both self-absorbed and theatrical, ‘but my camcorder was personal property. Brand, spanking new.’

The WPC exchanged a glance with Judith before trying to reassure her. ‘The bedrooms aren’t nearly so bad. But I’d like you to have a good look round yours to see if anything is missing.’

Judith turned, making her way down the short corridor. As she did, she suddenly thought of Merlin de Vere. What if this wasn’t just some random break in? What if it had to do with her Starwear investigations? She made her way hastily into her bedroom. Her ancient desktop computer stood untouched, dwarfing her dressing table. All the computer disks were exactly where she’d left them. She raised a hand to her chest as she glanced about at the overturned drawers and open cupboards. Tough shit if they’d come searching for jewellery, she thought. She didn’t have any of value. Though, as she looked over at her bedside table, she saw her Discman had been stolen. The gold-faced alarm clock her parents had given her when she left for university had been ground into the floor.

She felt emotion well up in her; a powerful and bitter-sweet paradox of relief and anger. The bastards! How dare they invade her private space! She didn’t have much – there’d hardly been anything to steal – but this was the only corner of the world she could call her own. Knowing that some anonymous, malevolent thug had been rifling through all her most intimate belongings only hours before, seeing what he could loot and pillage, made her feel violated. As she fought to retain her composure, anger and loss churned inside.

The WPC knocked on the door. ‘There’s been a lot of it in the area,

I’m afraid,’ she said, seeing Judith glance about her room with an expression of hopelessness. ‘Teenage gangs.’

‘Drugs money,’ Judith’s voice was flat.

‘That’s about the sum of it.’

‘And not a bloody thing we can do.’

‘I’ve left a leaflet on how to improve your security,’ the WPC tried to steer the conversation in a more positive direction. ‘These sorts of people always pick on the easy targets. The harder you make it for them to get in, the less likely they are to try.’

‘How did they get in?’

‘Kitchen window.’

Judith looked up with a weary expression; the kitchen window faced directly on to a fire escape. ‘And how do you suggest we seal that off?’

‘I admit, it might be difficult …’

‘Impossible, more likely.’

‘Yes, well. I can request a Community Liaison Officer comes round to advise you—’

‘I’d sooner you catch the bastards who did this,’ Judith vented her frustration, ‘but I don’t suppose you’ll be sending round the CID to dust the scene of a domestic burglary for fingerprints?’

The WPC met her eyes with a cool expression. ‘Actually, they’ve already been.’

‘Oh.’ Judith glanced away, embarrassed. Up till now, she’d always had the distinct impression that apathy prevailed in the Metropolitan Police when it came to “petty crime”.

‘There’s a gang that’s been active in the Chelsea and South Kensington area,’ the WPC was explaining. ‘They’re getting more and more audacious – there’s been quite a lot of press coverage on them.’

Now that she was reminded, Judith did recall seeing some headlines in the Evening Standard about burglaries.

‘We’ve identified who they are. Special Branch thought this job was another of theirs. But’, she added knowingly, ‘I knew it wasn’t, the moment I arrived.’

Judith looked at her, questioningly.

‘This gang have their own signature – something that hasn’t been written about in the papers.’

‘And that is?’

The WPC looked away. ‘They masturbate on the bedclothes.’

Judith pulled a face.

‘I knew dusting here would be a waste of time,’ the WPC sounded firm.

‘No ID?’

She shook her head. ‘No prints at all.’

‘What?’

‘Whoever did this job was very professional. Didn’t leave a trace behind.’

Judith immediately glanced back at her computer and disks.

‘Do you see a lot of this?’ she said, chewing her lip. ‘Not leaving any prints behind, I mean?’

‘Far from it,’ the WPC was firm. ‘Most criminals don’t give a damn. Usually teenage junkies in too much of a hurry.’

It was not the answer Judith was looking for.

‘But’, she asked, urgently needing reassurance, ‘have you seen professional burglaries in the area at all?’

The WPC flipped shut the notepad she’d been carrying, and slipped it into her pocket. ‘I’ve been working this beat for five years, and I’ve never seen a job like this. It has all the hallmarks of a teenage break-in, but it’s been carried out by a very slick operator.’

Judith felt her mouth going dry.

‘It’s almost’, the WPC continued, ‘as though this was some kind of copycat operation; a professional trying to look like an amateur.’

Judith met her eyes with a look of desperation. ‘But why … us?’ Her voice was strained.

In the pause that followed, she realised it was a question to which there was no answer. The WPC looked sympathetic as she admitted, ‘I really can’t say, madam. But I can request—’

‘A Community Liaison Officer. Yeah, sure.’ Judith glanced about anxiously.

‘Would you like a visit?’ the other persisted.

Judith shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘About this time of day?’

‘Any time after eight.’

‘I have your details.’ The WPC tapped her pocket. ‘Someone will be in touch first.’

‘Fine.’ She wouldn’t hold her breath, Judith thought, as the WPC turned and left the room. She wouldn’t expect any answers either.

As she stood in the centre of all this mess, she looked around her with a growing horror. What if it was, as the WPC had suggested, a break-in designed to look like a burglary, but with a very different motive? Stepping back to her computer, she was now a lot less certain than she’d been earlier. They could have come in here and copied every single disk – and she’d never know. They could have downloaded the entire contents of her computer. Were these the guys who had murdered Merlin de Vere, and dressed up the crime to look like a squalid episode of autoeroticism; the same guys who had made sure William van Aardt had been found strung up?

She fumbled in her handbag for her cigarettes and hastily lit one. Her only consolation, she thought as she exhaled, was that even if they had checked through all her computer files, they would have found she was clean as a whistle. Ditto her computer at The Herald. Everything to do with the Starwear investigation was safely stored on three computer disks she kept with her, in the pocket of her cosmetics bag, at all times.

Dropping on to her knees, she began collecting up the clothes and books that had been thrown to the floor. In her mind she went back to her last contact with Starwear – the conversation with Mark Hunter. They must have realised he’d screwed up, she thought. They must be wondering if she’d discovered that Hunter had lied to her. It was a lie that would be hugely damaging if reported in the press – a lie that would send the price of Starwear shares into free fall, and see half the Starwear Board fired; including, probably, Jacob Strauss.

It was all making sense. As she replaced her lingerie drawer, trying to block out of her mind the knowledge that unknown fingers had been searching through it only hours earlier, she realised what was going on. They were trying to find out how much she knew; how big a threat she was. And if she became a problem to them, she had no illusions about what would happen to her. She would join the roll-call of victims that included van Aardt and de Vere, and God knew who else. A fatal mishap would befall her – of that she had no doubt. The question was – what could she do to stop them?

•••

‘I have some disturbing news.’ D’Andrea always used the Boardroom when he needed to impart particularly sensitive information. Soundproof, and swept for bugging devices every morning, it was the one room in the building in which there was no chance of anyone eavesdropping on the conversation.

Across the Boardroom table, in the late-afternoon shadows, Elliott North raised his eyebrows.

D’Andrea opened the brown A4 envelope in front of him and took out a photograph which he pushed across the table. ‘This was taken three nights ago. Kitchen of Treiger’s new house.’

North glanced at the photo. ‘Who’s the girl?’ he wanted to know immediately.

D’Andrea paused before answering. When he did, his voice was quiet. ‘Judith Laing.’

North shot him a disbelieving glare, before looking back at the photo, which showed the couple standing close together in a kitchen. ‘What the—?’

‘It seems they know each other rather well.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ North’s face filled with sudden fury, the red marks at his temples deepening several shades.

‘I was about to do exactly that.’

‘Of all the people he could hit on.’

‘Oh, it’s worse than that, I’m afraid. Very much worse.’ D’Andrea retained his provocative calm.

‘How could it be any worse?’ North fixed d’Andrea with a savage expression, as though holding him personally responsible.

In the twilight shadows, d’Andrea responded with a look of distaste. ‘It would seem the two have been in an on-off relationship for the past ten years.’

North struck the table with his fist with an almighty thump. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he screamed, jumping up from the table and pacing the room. ‘Why the fuck are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you say anything before we hired the son of a bitch?’

D’Andrea observed North’s tantrum with a cool detachment. ‘We didn’t know,’ he shrugged.

‘But it’s your job to find out.’

‘We find out what we can. But when a relationship has been … dormant for a period of several years—’

‘Judith Laing is turning into a major issue. A week ago I’d never heard of the dumb bitch. Now she’s all over Starwear and Treiger.’

‘I believe we passed on both those pieces of information,’ d’Andrea reminded him evenly.

‘Routine surveillance,’ snapped North, shoving hands in his trouser pockets as he stood staring out of the Boardroom window. ‘Ten years. Like an old married couple, and you never picked it up.’

‘Clairvoyance is not one of our specialisms.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What it means’, d’Andrea addressed his back, ‘is that if there’d been a relationship to pick up, as you put it, we’d have picked it up. But there wasn’t. None of Treiger’s friends or colleagues knew anything about a girlfriend. The two of them haven’t exchanged a single phone call since Treiger started here. There have been no visits or physical contact since,’ he nodded at the photo, ‘that night. It’s my belief that they aren’t regularly in touch. But last Saturday night they found themselves at the same party, they had a few drinks … and so it goes.’

‘And so it goes, huh?’ North turned back from the window. ‘All very well you giving me this “and so it goes” crap. I’ve got to patch up a major security leak.’

For a long while, d’Andrea regarded him with a long stare, scratching one of the liver blotches on his hands before saying finally, ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ The welts on North’s forehead were burning deep crimson.

‘You don’t know if anything leaked. We’ve carried out a search of Judith Laing’s flat this afternoon. We also downloaded all the files from her computer at work.’

He paused, observing North’s surprised expression. ‘Nothing on Starwear.’

‘Nothing?’ North was disbelieving. Then a sardonic expression crossed his face. ‘Well, how’s about that? Next you’re going to tell me that she’s “squeaky clean”. I believe that was the expression you used to describe our great recruitment error?’

‘That’s not a description I would use in this case,’ d’Andrea overlooked the vitriol, once again. ‘She could have written straight on to disk and be carrying around any disks with her.’

‘Shit.’ North raised a hand to his brow.

‘Of course, the only way of checking that would be to remove her handbag.’ D’Andrea’s voice betrayed no emotion. ‘But coming on top of the break-in at her flat, her suspicions would be aroused. Anyway, even if we found one set, she might still have back-ups.’

‘God Almighty.’ North paced the other side of the Boardroom table for a while before wheeling round suddenly to face d’Andrea, eyes blazing. ‘I want both of their flats bugged.’

D’Andrea raised his eyebrows. ‘Expensive operation.’

‘The client will pay,’ he spat out the words. ‘In the meantime, I’m going direct to Carter.’

‘I would strongly counsel against that.’ D’Andrea pursed his lips. ‘It’s something one would contemplate as a final resort—’

‘Which is exactly what this is,’ exploded North. ‘We pay his kid’s school fees, don’t we? We foot the bill on his holidays. Where’s the pay-off?’

D’Andrea shrugged. ‘I’m not the PR man. But I have the impression the pay-off is every day he’s City Editor. There’s a lot of … goodwill there. We don’t want to blow it.’

Leaning over the Boardroom table, North’s eyes flashed behind his lenses. ‘You’re right,’ he snapped, ‘you’re not the PR man. So why don’t you go back to playing hide-and-seek while I take care of the business?’

D’Andrea held his eyes, utterly unintimidated, before shaking his head, slowly. ‘You know, Elliott, most of the time it doesn’t feel like we’re playing on the same team.’

Five minutes later, North was back in his office, dialling a phone number. ‘Alex. It’s Elliott North,’ he announced when he was put through. ‘It’s about one of your staff- Judith Laing. I’m worried about her …’