The gym was filling up now. I could hear voices behind me and the deep drill of a Miss Dynamite tune. I felt a little better than I had done an hour ago. I’d done something, set a plan in motion. It gave me a small feeling of control, though it didn’t stem the terror. I knew that I was still a blind man, waving his stick at the attacker he knows is there but can’t see. Waiting for the next blow. Sal looked at her watch. I told her goodbye but she shook her head. As she stood up from her desk she tried to persuade me to put some work in.
‘You’ve already piked out of two training sessions, Billy Rucker, and you’re not going to miss a third.’
I said no on reflex but let Sal change my mind. As much as I wanted to get to Sharon, I thought it might do me good, give my brain time to regroup. I changed into some shorts from my locker and joined the circuit training that puts Sally one place behind Torquemada in the Torture Hall of Fame. Finding myself still breathing when Sal called a halt I used the bike and the rower and then the heavy bag, stopping short of getting into the ring itself, even though Jeff did his best to persuade me into a rematch.
All the while I was thinking that I didn’t know whether or not to feel guilty, guilty about the deaths of three women. Until I’d found out who was doing it, and why, how would I know? My frustration was added to by the fact that whatever the police were doing, and they were doing a lot, the answer was inside me. It had to be. And I couldn’t get to it. The workout hadn’t helped. As I was leaving the gym, I remembered the massage girl and wished she was there now. Maybe her ministrations might have had a greater effect.
Back on Exmouth Market I made the van easily enough but only because I was looking for it. It was an unmarked blue Transit, perfectly anonymous but for the smoked plastic window on the side. It was parked at the top of the street, at the end of the market, with a good view of the door to my flat and all the approaches to it. It felt strange, knowing I was being watched as I unlocked the street door. Carpenter would be pointing me out to the other officers, getting them to remember my face. He’d probably be telling them all about me. How the drug cartel I’d been after as a DS had tried to finish me, but got my brother instead. I thought of Luke, lying motionless in his hospital bed as the world drifted past him, unnoticed. For the first time in nearly seven and a half years I was almost jealous of him.
Upstairs I picked up the phone but put it right down again. I couldn’t see the point of calling Sharon again, maybe waking her, just to tell her I was coming over. I ran through the way we’d left the airport, every single face we’d seen, and told myself she was safe. She was. Instead of calling her, I made myself eat a bowl of filled pasta and then tried Andy again, without any success. I guessed he’d be one of the officers down in Brixton, trying to shake out the girl. I wanted to go down there too but I’d trust Sally, for a day at least. If the 22 didn’t come through, I’d go and find the girl. I wouldn’t care whose party I was crashing. The girl was the key, I was sure of it. If she gave me a description, it might shake something loose, might make me think of the person she’d seen. It was difficult to wait but I had to do it. Unless the police found her, in which case I’d get to her sooner. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted the police to find her or not.
Andy had said the CCTV stills would be ready the next day, so that was something else I had to wait for. He’d told me midday but I’d go there first thing, look at the ones they’d already pulled. No point waiting for them all when the first picture I looked at might be the one. But what now? I wanted to do something, something that would keep me from trying to wring the answer out of my mind, which only seemed to send it hiding even deeper. I knew something I could do and the thought was so good it was painful. The clock in my kitchen told me it was nine-thirty. I grabbed my coat and walked down to the street again. It was ten-thirty by the time I was standing on the north side of the bridge that crosses Regent’s Canal, at Broadway Market in Hackney.
I’d driven down to Hackney but parked half a mile away from my destination on the other side of London Fields. I’d locked up and then walked away from Broadway Market, all the way to the busy, unfashionable end of Kingsland Road. Once there I’d jogged down some steps onto the canal towpath. It was a ten-minute walk along it to Broadway Market and as I took it I listened out for footsteps behind me. I couldn’t hear any. I ducked behind a bridge to see if anyone came by, but they didn’t. Eventually I emerged onto Broadway Market and stood with my back to the still water. I tied my shoes and took a furtive look across to Sharon’s flat. Sharon’s flat is on the other side of the canal, looking straight down onto the water, part of a converted machine-tools factory.
I stayed where I was for ten minutes, pretending to smoke a cigarette, making sure that no one had followed me. I didn’t think they had, and I couldn’t see anyone else watching the buildings opposite. Sharon was home, I did know that. Orange light pushed through her curtains. I stood, trying to act casual, and whether I did a good job of it or not no one seemed to notice me. I pictured the inside of Sharon’s flat and remembered the last time I’d been there. It was the night before Sharon had gone away and we hadn’t fumbled around then or been very still either. I smiled. I’d been impressed by Sharon’s flat. It was light, with high ceilings and a good kitchen, ducks to feed right outside the window. There was also a boxroom and I wondered now: was it big enough for a nursery? Probably. I had to admit that the place was a lot more practical than my flat. Without even thinking about it I knew that we’d live at Sharon’s. It would be weird to move out of my place but it made sense, though if we had another kid then we’d have to move out of Sharon’s too and find a house somewhere. Another kid? What the hell was I talking about, another kid?
I was still standing on the other side of the canal. I still hadn’t crossed the bridge and rung Sharon’s bell. I scanned the towpath, where a bow-legged Arsenal fan wearing a thick gold chain was walking his bull terrier. He passed the looming gas tower and was gone. An old couple followed in the same direction, not speaking. I took another step forward but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go there. The thought was terrifying. I wanted to run across the bridge, to be there with my pregnant girlfriend, to press my face against her belly and listen for the sounds within. But my feet wouldn’t take me. Instead I stood for another ten minutes before turning round. I walked off quickly, down Broadway Market, to my car. I thought about calling Sharon but I couldn’t do that either. She’d only persuade me. I just had to go, but when I got to the brooding space that is London Fields I remembered that there was a pub on the far side that did lock-ins. I’d been there with Andy, years ago, a fleapit of a place called the Prince or something. It was just before eleven and the doors were closing when I got there. I ordered a pint and drank it quickly and then ordered another and a double shot of Jameson’s in case there was no lock-in.
There was a lock-in but I put both drinks down quickly enough anyway, ordering more, emptying my head as I filled my mouth. The pub was half full, as decrepit as I remembered. Foam fought its way out of twenty-year-old upholstery and the thin, green-paisley carpet was matted with fag ash and beer. A drunk by the jukebox was playing the same Tom Jones song again and again. I was sitting at the bar next to three builders. I don’t know how long I stayed there, the noise around me was just noise. The Guinness was thin and ferrous and so I emptied the whiskey right into it. Then a man’s voice stood out from it, one of the builders. He was telling the joke, the same joke that I’d heard on the tube that morning. But he never got to the end of it. He was heading backwards by then, his nose closer to the back of his head than was usual. His colleagues objected and I laid one of them out too before someone managed to get me in a bear hug. It was the landlord and when the first guy was up, and then the second, the four of them managed to get me outside. I thought that might be it but instead they got me back behind some wheely bins, the landlord being the most enthusiastic. I covered up as best as I could but I didn’t try to stop them. I laughed through most of it.
The phone woke me, which meant that I was at home. The digits on my alarm clock told me it was just after nine. When I reached out to silence the ringing a sharp, barbed spike jabbed into my ribs. It was followed by a sticky pulling, as if all the muscles in the side of my chest had been Velcro’d to my ribcage. I winced, instantly remembering everything that had happened. The canal, the soft, comforting glow behind Sharon’s window. Everything up until I was dragged out of the pub. After that it was a blank. I couldn’t remember how I’d got back, or got undressed, how I’d got into bed. I was just glad I had. The phone was still ploughing a furrow through my skull. I pulled my cheek from the pillow it was stuck to and shuffled closer to it, so that I wouldn’t have to hold my hand out very far. I hesitated before picking it up, knowing that as soon as I did my life would begin again.
I thought it might be Sharon and I was braced for what she’d say to me. But it was Andy. He asked me if I was awake and I said I was, just. In a hurried voice, he told me that the girl in Loughborough Junction hadn’t been found yet and I nodded to myself. She must have been in hiding and me looking for her would probably have been fruitless too. Sal was right. Andy did say, however, that he had located the flat Denise Denton had been using before her death. It was a squat, in a derelict block near to the corner she’d been working. I asked him about the CCTV stills. They’d be ready by ten. I said I’d be down there, which meant I’d have forty minutes in the bath.
‘One more thing,’ Andy said.
‘Go on.’
‘The husband. In Birmingham.’
‘Jared?’
‘We picked him up.’
‘Good.’
‘But not in Birmingham. Here, wandering around Euston station. Trains to Birmingham leave from there.’
‘I know. Did you tell him?’
‘Someone else did. I’m about to grill him. Tell me, what was he like?’
I shrugged. It hurt. ‘I don’t know. He missed his wife, seemed pretty cut up.’
‘Not as bad as she was.’
‘For fucksake. Anyway, you don’t think he’s got anything to do with it?’
‘Why not? He’s connected to his wife obviously but he was in the Lindauer. He came to see you. So he’s connected to Ally and the Thomas girl too. All three. Left his job, apparently without saying a word.’
‘Come on! Why? Why do this? I’d never met him before he walked into my office, I’ve got no link to him at all.’
‘Not that you know of. We’ll be checking that but think about it, OK?’
‘I’ll think about it. Ten then?’
‘Ten,’ Andy said.
I put the phone down and looked at it. I picked it up again and dialled Sharon’s number, swearing when her voicemail picked up. I left it a long time, trying to think what to say, some way of explaining my feelings as I’d stood on the bridge last night. I couldn’t do it, not to a machine. I’d have to speak to her in person, call her later. I tried to imagine what she’d felt last night, waiting for me, realizing finally that I wasn’t going to show. Had she looked out of the window and seen me there? I doubted it but I didn’t really know. I hung up.
In the bathroom I yawned and stretched gingerly, seeing how far my body would move. I’d hoped to be at the station before now but I needed to get myself together. I thought about Andy’s suspicions. I couldn’t imagine there was anything in them, though. The machine, just going through all the possibilities, leaving nothing out. I spun the hot tap and then looked in the mirror. I wasn’t feeling as bad as I should have. My left cheek was grazed, embedded with grit, but that was all. I cleaned it with cotton wool and Dettol, ending up looking like a Duran Duran fan who’d forgotten half of his blusher. Then I headed downstairs to get a pint of milk while the bath ran. That’s when I saw it. It was sitting on the doormat, at the foot of the stairs. A plain, white, letter-sized envelope with a handwritten address.
I saw the letter but I didn’t pick it up until I came back in with the milk. I don’t get much mail at home other than utility bills. The rest goes to my office, gives me an incentive to get out of bed and go there in the morning. I grabbed it and hopped back up the stairs and saw that it had a London postmark. I tossed it onto the side, intending to ignore it, but when I reached for the kettle I stopped and picked it up again. The entire address was written in very deliberate block capitals. Who writes a whole address in capitals? Not just the town or the postcode? I turned the envelope over. There was nothing on the back. I stuck a finger beneath the flap and jagged it all the way along. Inside was a folded rectangle of shiny, coloured paper. A page clipped out of a London A-Z.
I held the page in my hand and frowned. I searched for some kind of note but there was nothing else in the envelope. Tossing the envelope aside, I opened the page out and saw an area of London stretching east to west from Queensway to Shepherd’s Bush. I frowned again. I looked at it for a few seconds but it didn’t tell me anything, other than the fact that the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens was more of an oval. I turned over, expecting another page of London streets, but my eye went straight to the arrow. There was an arrow stretching from the very edge of the map to the centre, an arrow, ruler-drawn, in blue biro. It looked like a party invite but there was no indication as to whose party it was. And wouldn’t they have photocopied it anyway? I was irritated, about to shrug whatever it was aside, when my ribcage suddenly seemed to contract. The breath I was taking stopped in my throat as though a vice had tightened round my windpipe.
The arrow was pointing to the Westway. No, not the Westway, not the flyover itself. It was pointing just beneath it. To the exact spot where my career had ended seven-and-a-half years ago. Where everything in my life had flipped, been turned on its head, come crashing straight down.