Death Trap (37 page)

Before Rio realised what she was doing, she was leaning down to drop a kiss on his cheek. His head moved in a way so that her lips hovered over his mouth.

‘You going to kiss me?’ he asked softly.

She wanted to throw back, ‘Fuck, no.’ But that’s not what happened. Her lips touched his. No pressure, no tongues, just skin meeting skin. Rio pressed her hand down to his leg to make her position more secure . . . Calum swung his whole body back away from her.

‘Why did you stop smooching?’

They both turned to find Nikki standing just inside the doorway. She wore a pair of woollen, lime-green fingerless gloves that stretched to just below her elbow, resembling winter socks.

Rio scrambled to her feet, heat creeping up her face. ‘How are you doing?’

The girl walked slowly into the room. ‘Your time’s running out. And I’ve decided that today’s the last day—’

‘You can’t do that, Nikki. We’ve still got tomorrow. The hitman is still out there—’

‘Yes I can. And I am. I’m going to stay with Ophelia first thing in the morning.’

fifty-one

7:00 p.m.

‘I say we clear out Connie’s stuff and get the room ready for someone else,’ said one of the four members of The Rebels’ Collective, just before they snorted another line of coke.

They were sat downstairs at a round table scattered with an assortment of drugs and two bottles of vodka. Monica hadn’t been happy when they decided not to accompany her to the demo, but they’d convinced her that someone needed to be looking after the place, especially after what had gone down with Connie. Truth be told, they couldn’t wait for I’m-the-boss-woman Monica to sod off so they could indulge in a tote or two and get smashed.

‘I don’t think that Cookie would be best pleased if we shifted Connie’s gear without talking to her first.’ The man who spoke was wearing a red beanie hat and waving an elegantly rolled joint in the air.

‘You’d think his famous actress sister would put in an appearance—’

‘Get real,’ another broke in. She pulled in some weed then passed the spliff on. ‘Ophelia Bell isn’t going to want to be seen dead around here. Can you imagine her fans’ faces if they saw pap snaps of her underneath Che Guevara over there.’

They all looked across at the poster of the legendary revolutionary posing in the spot where a framed picture of the Queen was once proudly displayed, back when the pub was in business. The four laughed as the booze and drugs flowed.

‘Why do you think he topped himself?’ The question was slurred.

‘The guy was a royal mess. Without Cookie to lean on, I don’t know where he’d have been.’

‘That dad of his sounded like a first class c—’

The corrugated steel door shook as someone hammered against it. They all froze, looking at each other with apprehensive bloodshot eyes.

‘Could be the cops,’ one whispered.

‘Or Monica, who’ll be well pissed if she doesn’t find us reading her revised Rebels’ Collective manifesto.’

The banging started up again. This time the one with the red beanie hat – who told everyone his name was Santos, but whose birth name was William Farmington-Chandler – got up and approached the door.

‘Santos, leave it,’ one of the others called out, behind him.

But Santos didn’t listen to the plea. Instead he shouted, ‘What do you want?’

‘Connie’s expecting me.’ American accent. Female.

Santos fiddled with the bolt and partially opened the door. He was surprised to see a woman wearing a combination of street clothes and African dress. There was a leather jacket and jeans on the one hand while her hair was bundled into an elaborate green and yellow head wrap. She wore dangly earrings in the shape of Africa and, despite the darkness, wore shades. But what stuck out most for Santos was that she was carrying a case for a double bass, which was nearly as tall as she was.

He checked the street behind her but couldn’t see anyone else. ‘Can I help?’

‘Hey man – is Connie there?’

Santos was too embarrassed to tell her the truth, so he said, ‘No, he’s away. Sorry.’

He started closing the door, but the woman jammed her foot in the gap.

She was chewing gum. ‘What do you mean he’s not here? He only texted me a few days ago. Said I could come and stay. Are you sure he’s not here?’ She stretched up to check behind him.

‘Look, I don’t know to tell you this but I’m afraid Cornelius has passed away.’

‘Passed away? You mean, as in,
dead
?’

‘Yes.’

The woman stopped chewing, ‘You’re shittin’ me?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

The woman seemed to be choking up. ‘Did he OD?’

Santos was embarrassed again. ‘No, I’m afraid there was a family tragedy and, well, he didn’t cope too well. It’s our fault really, we should have noticed. Unfortunately, it all got too much and he took his own life.’

‘No way . . .?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ He pulled back the door. ‘Look, come inside for a second?’

The woman picked up her double bass but she was so upset Santos offered to carry it for her. He took her into the common room, past the curious and suspicious faces of the others and sat her down on a battered sofa. Lit a half-gone spliff for her when she said she’d prefer that to a drink. Santos asked her name. The woman took a long drag and said, ‘Keisha. Keisha X. My folks were Panthers back in Chicago, so they got rid of the slave master’s surname and put an X instead, in honour of our unknown African ancestors, you know like Malcolm X.’

Santos didn’t have clue what she was talking about, but the others were nodding their heads in approval, except Missy, whose expression was a cross between stoned and confused.

Keisha took another drag on the joint. ‘Man, oh, man, it was bound to happen. Connie was a genuine artist, the real deal; he lived fast and died young. That’s what happens to the real thing. It always has and it always will.’

Santos sat next to her and asked, ‘Did you know him well?’

‘Sure. Whenever I was over, we used to hook up. Used to jam and write songs together. Didn’t he mention my name?’

She sounded rather hurt, so Santos told her, ‘Yes, I’m sure he did.’

This seemed to cheer her up a little before Keisha looked downcast again. ‘Only the good die young . . .’

She finished the spliff, stubbing it out on an old saucer. ‘OK. Well, I guess I’d better be going. I haven’t got much dough, so I’ll have to find somewhere on the street for now until my gig tomorrow night.’

Santos looked over at the others, who eagerly nodded their heads, except Missy, whose face didn’t look too happy. ‘It’s quite late; why don’t you stay here tonight?’

‘No, I couldn’t . . .’

Missy got shakily to her feet, her gaze giving Keisha a not too polite once-over. ‘We’re a bit short of space at the moment.’

Keisha seemed to have changed her mind about staying. ‘Hey, I’ll stay in his room . . .’

Santos was quite shocked. ‘You want to stay in Cornelius’s room??’

‘Sure. I’ll pick up on the vibe in the room and feel his presence to write a tribute song about him.’ Keisha shook her head sadly. ‘Really going to miss the guy.’

Santos paused before saying, ‘OK. Well, let me show you where his room is.’

While Keisha picked up her double bass, Missy hurried over to Santos and hissed, ‘Are you mad? She looks familiar. I’ve seen her somewhere before—’

’I look like another black woman?’ Keisha said, her eyebrows raised in disgust. ‘I guess us black folks all look the same to you, honey?’

That shut Missy up.

Santos took Keisha upstairs. As soon as they reached Cornelius’s room, Keisha placed her double base case against the wall and started to rub her palms in the air in circles as she did a circuit of the room.

‘He’s really left a strong presence here,’ she told Santos. ‘Perfect for getting the right lyrics to remember him by.’

‘Really sorry about Missy—’

‘Don’t worry about it man, I’m used to racist jerks like her. But you want to tell her to sort her shit out because if you folks don’t cotton to black people and that gets around . . .’

She dumped herself on Cornelius’s mattress on the floor. As soon as Keisha settled herself into a cross-legged position and started making circles in the air again Santos eagerly left the room. He didn’t believe in none of that getting in touch with the dead vibe stuff; but he did feel guilty about the way Cornelius had died.

Keisha X kept up with the hand circles for half minute, then scrambled off the mattress. She took the solitary chair and rammed it under the door handle so no one could get in. She ripped off her head wrap, earrings and sunglasses. Then Rio Wray finger combed her ’fro.

fifty-two

Rio thought the game was up when that Missy character sowed a seed of doubt about who she was. During her last visit here, Miss Fluffy Pink Slippers Monica, and mostly everyone else, was clearly going out of town for a while for some type of demonstration, so Rio had gambled that they wouldn’t be back yet and anyone left who decided they recognised her she’d just challenge back with all that ‘Oh, so you think all black people look alike?’ patter.

Rio was surprised that they hadn’t found her out with that dubious American accent and all that ‘sure’, ‘honey’ and ‘man, oh, man’ gum-chewing stereotypical crap. The only person who could have really pointed the finger at her was Cookie, Cornelius’s lady . . . But, thank God, she hadn’t been here. With Nikki threatening to up and leave for her cousin’s in the morning, Rio hadn’t had much choice but to put this plan into action.

But they hadn’t found her out and here she was, ready to search Cornelius Bell’s small room upstairs. Then again, she wasn’t sure what she was looking for. If Cornelius had had something to do with his parents’ death – and that was a big
if
– what might she find in this room that would tell her? Rio sifted through his clothes. Nothing. Next she pulled off the bedding on the mattress. Nothing. Turned the mattress . . . the furniture . . . the three books . . . She stopped when she got to the small makeshift table. Something was missing . . . what was it? Ah, yeah, the framed photograph of the small boy. Sometimes people locked their secrets behind the picture of a loved one; was that why the photo was gone? Cornelius had hidden something revealing in there?

Rio stored the info away and got back on with the search.

‘Balls!’ Rio let out ten minutes later, having turned up nothing of interest. It was a long shot anyway. Standing by the window, she stared outside, not really seeing anything, thinking about what excuse she could invent to leave. It had to be credible or the others would get suspicious – maybe Missy would start finger-jabbing again. As she turned away, her gaze caught something in the dark outside. Rio turned fully around again and realised that outside was the yard at the back and what had drawn her attention was as, at first glance, an old-fashioned style metallic outdoor rubbish bin, complete with lid. But what kept her attention was in the centre of the lid was a round chimney or flute. Maybe . . .?

Rio shoved the window up, leaned out and saw a large, black downpipe attached to the wall. She placed half her body outside, reached and grabbed the pipe, then heaved completely out, throwing herself against the pipe. It shook slightly, so she remained immobile until it became still. Then she pushed her legs down, gripped the walk with the toe-end of her trainers and started to slide down, monkey-style. As she got halfway, Rio heard the distant chat and laughter of the others downstairs. A few inches from the ground, she let go and landed.

When she reached the bin, she worked out it was a garden incinerator. A circular band around the base which had a blackish-grey colour and polka-dot style ventilation holes covering it. The wall behind was thick with the same coloured residue. Rio poked the scum with her fingers; it had a slight spring to it. She scraped some off and smelt it. Carbonised rubber?

Rolling up her sleeves, she began sifting through the incinerator. It was mostly ash and scorched objects that had been expected to burn but hadn’t. She laid the bin on its side as quietly as she could and let the contents spill out into the yard, then did an amateur’s forensic search, putting anything of interest to one side. When she’d finished she scooped the ash back inside and placed the bin back on its feet. Crouching back down, she examined the two items she’d retrieved that now lay on the ground:

A blackened, long tube.

A pockmarked piece of oval Perspex.

They wore
a piece of puffy cloth
. . .
with two plastic things over the eyes. And a trunk or hose thing—’

Rio’s heart raced as she remembered Nikki’s description of the murderers’ attire. Could the blackened tube be the hose/trunk that Nikki meant? Was the oval Perspex one of the plastic eyes?

That sounds like a gas mask, except the baggy cloth bit.

Rio heard Samson Larkin’s smug words inside the café. Was the mask some type of gas mask? And were the rubber scrapings she’d felt the remains of a boiler suit? But why wear a homemade gas mask? It just didn’t make any sense.