Behind Closed Doors (8 page)

If the situation in this house was part of what had happened then that still left a wide range of possibilities. Explanations that might be found with Rebecca's friend Russell Cohen or be solely inside the Slater family. Or maybe the unhappy house wasn't related.

I took one last instalment on my borrowed time to give the ground floor a once-over. Covered four rooms lightning-fast, hoping for a break – maybe a ransom note saying
Leave one million pounds in a locker at Paddington Station
– but the only extortion I found was a stack of utilities bills in amongst the unopened mail in the lounge. The mail dated from nine days back. It looked like the Slaters had had other priorities since then.

I picked up the phone and listened to the voicemail. A woman named Meg wanted Jean to get back to her, let her know when she should start again. She offered to fit in extra hours to get the place straight. It looked like the Slaters had put their domestic on hold. That explained the unmade beds. So the Slaters didn't want anyone around the house right now. I picked up Meg's number and let myself out of the front door.

As I drove the Sprite down the lane the menacing shape of Jean's four-by-four appeared right on cue, tearing back up from the main road. Five minutes earlier and I'd have had an interesting improvisation to serve up. Mr Education Authority, back without his coat or briefcase. As it was our vehicles flashed by each other. I doubt if Jean Slater even saw me. Her eyes were staring straight ahead like she was fleeing from a nightmare and losing ground.

I pulled over at the main road and phoned a number Sadie had given me. Marcus Moxham, Rebecca's ex, picked up through a hubbub that sounded like a college cafeteria. Or maybe classes were livelier nowadays.

The voice was deep for a youth under twenty, difficult to match to the nerdy photo in Rebecca's diary. Sadie had warned Marcus that I'd be talking to him. He sounded bemused at the thought of her calling in the detectives, but I heard concern in his voice. He told me he was at the West Kilburn college, taking early lunch. We agreed to talk outside in fifteen.

I spotted him, a lanky kid in crisp denim and suede ankle boots, seated on a bollard outside the college. He stood when I arrived. People don't meet private detectives every day. It makes them uneasy, like with a trainee dentist. Detectives – police and private – are evidence of a world that people prefer not to know about. The detective is tainted by association. Marcus strained a grin and we shook hands. I asked him when he'd last seen Rebecca.

‘A couple of weeks ago,' he said. ‘I see her here at college off and on.' His voice was matter of fact but the way he was watching the street and not me told me this was a heavy subject for him.

‘Did Rebecca mention anything that might suggest a problem?'

‘We didn't talk.' He grimaced at his feet. ‘We just pass by. Nothing much to say.'

‘The two of you are finished?' I watched him, still waiting for him to look at me but he continued to watch the street as he gave the world an aw-shucks grin.

‘Yeah, we're finished,' he said. ‘It was kinda sad, but that's life.'

‘Sad?'

He finally looked at me. ‘For me.'

‘I heard you were serious.'

‘That's what I thought. It fell apart. Things got in the way.'

‘What things?'

‘Rebecca had problems. She could be hard to take when she was in her moods.'

‘Is that why you split? Her moodiness?' I thought of the diary: Rebecca blaming herself. But Marcus shook his head.

‘No,' he said. ‘I could put up with the difficult side.'

‘So why did you break up? Did Rebecca walk away?'

This time he stayed silent. Went back to watching the street. He thought it through and finally decided it was none of my business. He changed the subject to the more immediate matter.

‘What's going on?' he asked. ‘Sadie's hysterical about Rebecca disappearing.' He forced another grin. ‘I can't believe she called in a private eye.'

‘Neither can I,' I said. ‘I guess Sadie told you that Rebecca has dropped out of sight. She's not been able to get her for a week.'

Marcus nodded. ‘She told me,' he said. ‘I don't know if I'd go calling in the cops though.'

‘Why's that?'

Marcus shrugged again. ‘You never know with Rebecca. She's unpredictable. Maybe she's just lying low. Problems at home. Late with her coursework. I wouldn't automatically assume that anything had happened.'

‘Has this happened before?'

‘Not like this,' Marcus admitted. ‘But there's been times she's laid low for a few days when she's been pissed with me. Hit the town, stayed out nights, slept over at friends of friends. Her mother always got mad at me because she assumed she was with me. And I had to let her think it was true. But Rebecca's never dropped right out.' He looked at me again. ‘Is she in some kind of trouble? ‘

My turn to watch the street. My grave look was meant to scare him a little so he'd open up some more. ‘From what I've seen,' I told him, ‘it's possible that she's in trouble, yes.'

Maybe the words coming from me and not from Sadie made the thing real. The boy's face dropped. Split up or not, Rebecca still meant a lot to Marcus.

‘I'm trying to understand what state of mind Rebecca has been in the last few weeks,' I said. ‘Did you pick up anything, Marcus?'

He shook his head. ‘Like I said, we've not spoken. I've seen her a dozen times but if there was a problem she didn't tell me. We've pretty much gone our own ways.'

‘She showed no sign that she might have wanted to get back together?' I asked.

‘None,' he said. ‘I called after we split but she'd cut herself off. Didn't call back. Whenever I bump into her she doesn't have time, just rushes by. She's been kinda cold, actually, after what we'd had. I guess she's made up her mind that I'm history.'

Kind of cold. Mind made up. Marcus' account contrasted with the emotion I'd read in Rebecca's diary. I wondered what drove a girl to bury her feelings and let a bad act play out until something that mattered was trashed. Marcus seemed like a good guy.

Sadie's information was that Marcus knew about this new guy Russell Cohen, but he hadn't brought it up. I guess the idea of his ex-girlfriend looking to a lowlife as replacement company must have cut deep. And who's going to pour their heart out to some private detective they meet on the street? Somewhere in Marcus' head, though, was a better picture of Rebecca than he was giving me.

I asked him what he knew about Cohen.

Marcus switched his gaze smartly back to the street. He paused while he tried to find something neutral.

‘I heard stuff,' he said. ‘Don't know the guy.'

‘What did you hear?'

He shrugged. ‘Nothing good. Rebecca's a fool, getting involved with someone like that but I don't know if there's anything between them.' He spoke the words but his eyes told a different story. Marcus saw Russell as Rebecca's new boyfriend. He still hadn't told me anything about the guy.

‘What do you know about him?' I repeated.

‘Just stuff. Cohen's a shithead. He works the door down the West End. Deals drugs. Small time but he thinks he's a mobster. It's hard to understand Rebecca. The dropout scene isn't hers.'

‘And she's been seeing this guy for a few weeks?'

‘I heard she's been hanging out with him, yeah.'

Another discrepancy with Rebecca's diary. The diary didn't sound like just hanging out. To me it looked like Rebecca was dipping her toe deep into the doggie-doo.

An antique Beetle swerved into the kerb and a scruffy youth wearing aviator shades yelled out of the window and hit the horn. Marcus held his hand up to hold the car. He shrugged his jacket, ready to go, but stayed put.

‘You need to understand something,' he said. ‘Rebecca's a great girl. She's just a little mixed up. Everyone talks about her moods, how crazy she can be, but do you know what I think of?' His guard was down. I kept my mouth clamped.

‘I think of what Rebecca loves most in the world: peace.'

‘Peace?'

This didn't sound quite the same girl.

‘We used to meet in Regents Park,' Marcus said. ‘It's halfway between us. There's a café by the colleges. Whoever got there first was supposed to buy the drinks. If it was Rebecca she'd usually sit outside, feeding the squirrels. Other times she'd be in with the oldies, watching the world go by. I used to watch her there. You'd think she was seeing the most wonderful thing in the world. The old people talking, the squirrels chasing around. You see someone that way and you know what's important to them.'

He suddenly realised he was giving a speech. Shut his mouth. Turned to walk across to the Beetle.

‘Just find her,' he called back. ‘Make sure she's safe. It's something I could never do.'

He jumped into the car and it roared away.

I sat in the Frogeye and dialled the number I'd picked up from the Slaters' voicemail. Recognised the voice above the drone of a hoover. A lilt of Caribbean ancestry. I asked to speak to Meg.

‘This is me, hon,' the voice said.

I introduced myself as an acquaintance of the Slaters. Said I was looking for part-time domestic help. The hoover quit.

‘That's nice of Jean to give me a recommendation,' she told me. ‘I'm busy but I can always fit you in.'

I stayed vague. Details about moving house and possible future dates. Nothing specific to mess up her diary with false bookings. Meg told me she'd be available whenever I was ready. I flicked her some bait.

‘Jean says you do a great job,' I said.

That got a yelp from the other end.

‘Here's me wishing,' she said. ‘But I ain't touched their house in nearly a fortnight. Ever since Jean said they were getting some work done and she didn't want me in. Left a hole in my schedule. I just wish she'd tell me when they're gonna be through.'

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘those plumbers are unpredictable.'

‘Plumbers? You sure your hearing's right, hon? It's the electricity they's repairin'.'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘But you know how they need to earth the electrical supply to the water pipes. Means resetting the pipes the right depth in the ground.' Mr Know-It-All. Sometimes known as Mr BS. But the BS usually works.

‘Lord,' Meg yelled, ‘I bet the whole house is topsy-turvy. I hope they ain't expectin' me to get it all tidy in a half-day! Honey, you just give me a call when you're ready for me.'

‘Yeah. And if I need some cleaning too.'

Meg laughed and cut the line.

I fired up the Frogeye.

So the Slaters didn't want a domestic inside the house right now. Maybe whatever was happening with Rebecca had complications that might be difficult to hide from someone inside their front door. I just needed to get a line on what the complications were.

Time to try Slater's office door.

I detoured back to Paddington and caught Shaughnessy in the office. Brought him up to date on what I had on my missing girl, which was basically a jumble. But along with the confusion I had lines to tug. With the girl missing a week I had some urgency too. Shaughnessy agreed to come into the thing for a few days.

Shaughnessy's view coincided with mine. The Slaters were not in control. Someone had taken their daughter. The question was what to make of the peripheral stuff – Rebecca's bust-up with her boyfriend, the Cohen character, the thing with her stepfather, and Larry Slater's fixation with Holland Park.

Shaughnessy said he'd talk to someone we knew in the DPP's office and see if they'd heard of this Cohen guy. Then he'd take a closer look at Jean Slater. I'd take Larry Slater.

Shaughnessy sat down to work his phone and I headed out to Islington.

I parked on a meter a hundred yards from the Slater–Kline premises and walked down. Waiting for Slater's call-back wasn't going to work. Besides, I wanted to meet the man face to face, get a feeling for him, look for any sign of something gnawing at him.

I went into the shop and walked to the nearest desk where a thirty-something woman in Day-Glo ovoid spectacles and a pinstripe suit sharp enough to raise legal action from Gillette was packing a bag. She asked how she could help. Her smile made it clear that it had better be the kind she could deliver in two minutes because it was closing time and she was revving for a quick getaway. I asked to see Larry Slater.

She asked if I had an appointment. I said I hadn't. She told me that in that case she didn't think it would be possible.

I assured her I only needed a couple of minutes, hinting that Larry and I were old business buddies, used to operating on the fly. Fly operations didn't work for Ms Gillette. She turned her smile to full wattage and explained that she was personally authorised to assist all Larry's investment clients. I declined her offer, said I needed to see Slater face to face. She locked smiles and repeated her offer. Slater was not available.

We could have gone on all evening. Gillette probably got overtime. I apologised again, slowly, and said that I really wanted to see Larry Slater. Personally and right now. While I was talking I was sneaking a look around the place. The office was modern – pine floor and pine furniture and pine wall cladding. The open plan room went back thirty feet to an array of pine filing cabinets and pine fire doors off to each side. The door to the left was propped open. A clerk came through it, closing up a bag, and walked back to her desk. The door on the right was closed. Probably gave access to private meeting rooms and the bosses' offices upstairs. When I looked back, Ms Gillette's smile was set so hard it was cracking her makeup. She put finality into her voice and repeated that I couldn't see Slater today.

I looked at her desk nameplate.

‘Ms Mellor,' I said. ‘I guess you don't know who I am.'

If she did I was in trouble. Unsurprisingly, she didn't. Which explained the uncertainty that replaced her fend-off smile. She threw a glance at a male colleague a couple of desks away and shook her head.

‘I'm sorry Mr…?'

‘…Pine,' I said. ‘Just tell Larry that Jerry Pine is here.'

My officious tone kept her off-balance. Ms Gillette's voice took on something that might have been genuine regret. ‘I'm very sorry, Mr Pine, but Larry is totally tied up this week. Some unexpected business. He's cancelled his appointments through to next Tuesday. But I'll let him know you called. I know he'll want to speak to you at the earliest opportunity.'

Appointments cancelled. Unexpected business. My bet said that the unexpected stuff had nothing to do with stocks and shares. Ms Gillette's face told me that she'd been turning clients away all week and was up to her eyebrows with it. She just wanted to pack and leave.

I gave her tight-lipped while I thought it through.

Ms Gillette's spectacles glinted under the fluorescents. She was going to be late getting out. She came to a decision. ‘Let me call his partner – Mr Stevens. I'm sure you know him.' She reached for her phone.

‘Stop!' I held up my hand. ‘I know Mr Stevens very well. And Mr Stevens knows that when I come here I talk to Larry. At least I used to talk to him. I hope Larry will be able to explain why he doesn't have time for his oldest clients any more. Just tell him I was here, Ms Mellor. Tell him I'd like him to call me sometime when he's not tied down with too much unexpected business. Tell him I may be reviewing where I do my own business.'

I gave her Eddie-Vindictive and walked out before she could reply.

I'd not got my face-to-face with Slater but I had something I needed.

I walked back by way of the rear of the Slater–Kline block. Slater's parking slot was empty, which explained why he was not available to see his old pal Piney. It didn't explain why Ms Gillette hadn't just told me that he was out in the first place and saved our confrontation. Unless she hadn't been sure. It looked like the guy was sowing chaos this week.

I got back to the Frogeye and called Shaughnessy. He'd finished his telephone research and was outside the Slater house watching for anything interesting. Slater's Lexus wasn't there. He gave me what he'd found on Russell Cohen.

‘This boy's a bad apple,' Shaughnessy said. ‘List of convictions as long as your arm. Twenty-eight years old and he's spent nine of those inside. Young offender plus two stints in adult, both GBH. Out the first time after eighteen months, the second after three and a half years. The second was a lucky break. Cohen got into a fight and apparently his opponent took a half-dozen slashes across the face with a Stanley knife. The story is that one cut came within a quarter inch of the guy's carotid. That's a quarter inch away from our boy going down for life. Some people are just lucky.'

‘Who? Cohen or the guy who got slashed?'

‘With Cohen's take on life I guess the other guy's luck doesn't come into it,' Shaughnessy said.

‘Figures. So who did he slash?'

‘Officially the incident was a random scrap,' said Shaughnessy. ‘Unofficially the victim appears to be a punter who got behind in his debts. The word is that Cohen has had a sideline supplying drugs since before his juvie. Nothing they've pinned on him. He's just a name that crops up regularly. The guy's strictly small time but nasty with it. According to the DPP the two GBHs are the tip of the iceberg. They cover a whole list of incidents that didn't get to court. Victims who changed their mind and so on.'

‘What did he go down for the first time?'

Shaughnessy laughed cheerlessly. ‘You'll love this one, Eddie. He beat up his girlfriend and threw her out of a window. She fell two storeys and spent eighteen months in rehab. Still wouldn't shop him. Cohen only went down because a witness disputed the girl's claim that she'd fallen accidentally. The witness lived in the flat below. Claimed that the girl was screaming long before her acrobatics. In the end the jury went for the word of an independent witness against that of a victim with a shattered pelvis who remembered slipping on a banana skin.'

I heard Shaughnessy's sigh down the line. ‘How much punishment do these women have to take,' he said, ‘before they realise that whatever they're afraid of can't be any worse than what's actually happening?'

‘Psychology,' I said. ‘Better the devil you know than a really pissed-off devil you know.'

‘This violence against girls,' Shaughnessy said, ‘it's not a good thing to be hearing.'

‘Nothing sounds good about Rebecca being involved with this guy. Did you pick up anything on what Cohen is up to right now?'

‘I talked to Steve at Hammersmith Magistrates' Court,' Shaughnessy said. ‘Cohen's probation office is Balham. They have him officially on the dole. Waiting for the headhunters to offer him a City job. Word is he's ticking over nicely with the drugs thing. Work's a few casual door jobs.'

‘Did you get an address?'

Shaughnessy gave me an address in Streatham. A council flat in a working class area. Whatever deals Cohen was into weren't getting him rich.

Shaughnessy said he would stay at the Slaters' house for a while, see who came and went. Tomorrow we'd go for the direct approach. Confront the Slaters and suggest that they bring us in on what was happening or have it go public. If Rebecca was involved with someone like Cohen it might need sorting fast. I dialled Sadie to see if she had anything on Cohen's door jobs. Her voice screamed into my ear over the top of another racket. I held the phone at a safe distance.

‘I knew it would be that creep!' she yelled, ‘I knew he'd got her!'

It's impressive the way people are always ahead of us. What can they see that detectives can't? Maybe the agency should recruit a few doorstep gossips and teenagers. Save a whole lot of legwork. I repeated my question about Cohen's place of work.

‘Up the West End,' Sadie said. ‘A place called Kicks?'

‘Is he there every night?'

‘Most. He starts around eight. That's the time Becky's always gone up there.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘I'll go talk to him.'

‘Tell him that if he's hurt her you're going to tear him apart.'

‘Sure,' I said, ‘unless he's bigger than me.'

‘He's not so big,' Sadie said, ‘just a mean prick.'

‘Watch your language, young lady,' I said.

‘Forget my language,' she said. ‘You just get that bastard. I hate guys like that.'

‘So do I,' I said.

‘Hey, Eddie?'

‘What?' I said.

‘It's a jacket and tie place? You might want to know.'

The racket went dead. I held up the phone wondering whether service providers could be held responsible for the stuff that came through. The phone stayed silent for about five seconds before it bust into life again and nearly gave me a heart attack. I picked up and Arabel's husky voice came over the airwaves.

‘How's it going, babe? Thought you were never getting off the line.'

‘Just client stuff,' I said.

‘I'm just checking that you've not forgotten that your girl has an appetite.'

My girl had lots of appetites. I deduced that this one was a reference to our dinner-date. We were eating out before she went on shift.

‘I'm on my way, Bel,' I said.

She made me an offer: ‘If you got here early we could have a little hors d'oeuvre.'

The invitation was tempting but if we started down that road we'd never eat. Didn't seem fair to send the girl to work hungry. I turned down the offer and said I'd see her in an hour. The happy way she accepted told me that she knew her priorities too.

‘Bel?' I said.

‘Yeah?'

‘Do you remember if I have a suit and tie?'

‘Are we going somewhere posh or are you getting kinky?'

‘Answer the question.'

‘A suit? Yeah. I saw something once. You'll have to fight the moths though.'

‘That's what I thought.'

‘So what's with the dressing-up?'

‘Nothing's with the dressing up. Just a passing thought. We're eating Italian.'

‘Suits me. Gives me my carbs for eleven hours' slog.'

I put incredulous into my voice. ‘You telling me night shift is a slog?'

‘Babe,' she said, ‘don't fall ill and come to my hospital.' She cut the line. It was a day for cut lines.