Down: Trilogy Box Set (85 page)

“That’s the second time in a row, Ben,” she had complained.

“The bad guys don’t seem to adhere to the school calendar, you know.”

“Look, I’m sure you’re keeping the nation safe from the bad guys, darling,” she’d said with a biting tone, “but your daughters are growing up without you.”

“You’ve no idea,” he had said, slipping on his shoes. “No bloody idea.”

“You’re right. I have no ideas, none at all. I’m just an empty-headed, stay-at-home mum. And don’t bother calling later. I know you’ll be home after we’ve already gone to bed. You always are.”

They put down in front of a general aviation hanger at the Southampton Airport where a car whisked them the fifteen miles to Southsea. The Hampshire Constabulary had set up an interview room at the Southsea Police Station. Weary of dealing with curious coppers, Ben had arranged for direct access to the interview room from a loading-dock door, no police participation in the interviews, and no video recording. The lawyers at MI5 had attended to the formalities.

Murphy and Rix sat alone behind a two-way mirror; given the circumstances, Ben had decided to conduct the interview alone.

“Hello, Gavin,” Ben said on entering the room. “My name is Wellington.”

Gavin West picked his head off his arms. He looked exhausted.

“Are you the one I had to wait for?”

“I believe so.”

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t let me go home. I’m being treated like I’m the criminal.”

“I understand.”

“Do you know how long I’ve been kept here?”

“Since before midnight, I believe.”

“That’s right. All bloody night and half the bloody morning.”

“When I’m done you’ll be allowed to leave.”

“I’d better or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Ben’s mouth curled faintly. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

“Beginning of what?”

“Finding your father.”

Gavin shook his head in disgust. “It’s like I told every single officer who’s spoken to me at the house and here, I started ringing my dad after supper last night and he didn’t pick up. I thought maybe he went to the pub.”

“Did he do that often? Go to the pub?”

“No, not often. That’s why I was uneasy. I couldn’t go to bed without knowing where he was so I drove over from Portsmouth. That’s when I …” He choked on his words.

“I’m sorry. This must be difficult.”

Sorrow turned to anger. “Difficult? The fuck you say. Difficult? Seeing your father tied to a chair, his head bashed in, blood everywhere? It was horrible.”

“Yes, I’m sure it was. Listen, Gavin, I don’t need to inconvenience you regarding routine police matters so I won’t be asking you about the state of the house, missing items, et cetera. I want to probe a statement you made to the officers last night about calling around to your father’s house a few days ago and seeing a woman who purported to be your mother, Christine. Could you tell me what you told them?”

On the other side of the mirror Rix and Murphy leaned forward.

“He called me up. Said he wanted me to come by but wouldn’t say why. When I arrived there were two women with him, one who wanted to see me. She said her name was Jane. That she was a friend of dad’s.”

“Did the other woman give her name?”

“No.”

“I see, go on.”

“This Jane woman, she said she used to live in the area and that she’d met me when I was young. But that didn’t make any sense, did it?”

“Why not?”

“Because she was no older than me. I’m thirty-six. She looked about the same. On the beat-up side, like you get from sleeping rough, you know, but not much older than me.”

“And did you ask her about that?”

“I did. She said she was older than she looked.”

“And did you believe her?”

“No, it was rubbish.”

“Did you call her on it?”

“I did more than that. Something in the back of my mind set me off. There was something about her I thought I recognized. When I was young something happened that everyone hid from me. But kids find out stuff, don’t they?”

“What happened?”

“My mother was killed. Along with the scumbag she ran off with, some copper. She left my dad and me and fell in with this geezer who was a bad apple. They kidnapped a girl and killed her and they got killed for it. Got what they deserved. Anyway, my dad had a photo album of when I was a tyke, when we were still a family. I used to sneak looks at those photos when I was a teenager. This woman, this Jane. I remembered her face and sure enough when I got the photo album out, it was just like her.”

“Your mother.”

“That’s right.”

Ben had a copy of the photo sent to MI5 by the police. “Is this the photo?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“And the woman, Jane, looked just like this?”

“Near enough.”

“And you confronted Jane with the photo?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she was my mother. She started to cry and so did my dad.”

“And what did you do?”

“Well, I didn’t cry if that’s what you’re asking. I got angry. Look, Mr. Wellington, I’m not Albert Einstein but I’m not Forest Gump, either. It was bullshit. Some kind of a scam on an old man.”

“Did you tell her that you thought she was perpetrating a scam?”

“I did tell her that.”

“And her response?”

“She told me there were things in this world that we couldn’t understand. I told her she was a fucking bitch who was either wearing some kind of Hollywood mask or had plastic surgery to try to fool us.”

“Did she deny that?”

“’Course she did.”

“And then what happened?”

“I told her we weren’t buying whatever it was she was selling and told her to sod off and leave my dad alone.”

“And did she and the other woman leave?”

“They had to didn’t they?”

“Did they say where they were going?”

“No. And I didn’t ask.”

“Did they call a taxi? Did they have a car?”

“The other woman took car keys from her bag.”

“Could you see the make of car from the keys? Did you see them getting into the car?”

“No to both.”

“All right. Did your father believe that Jane was your mother?”

“He did, but I think he wanted to believe it. An old man’s mind playing tricks on him.”

“Do you think these women came back and murdered your father?”

“’Course I do. Who else? You’ve got to catch them, Mr. Wellington and bring them to justice for murdering a kind old man.”

“You’ve been very helpful, Gavin. Is there anything else you haven’t mentioned I wonder?”

“No, that’s it.”

“Anything about the way these women might have smelled? Their aroma?”

“Yeah, there was. Both of them were reeking of perfume. It was almost too much being in the same room as them. What was that all about?”

Ben went into the observation room and sat with Murphy and Rix.

The room was thick with Murphy’s roll-up smoke.

“I don’t think smoking is allowed,” he said.

Murphy lit another.

“Do you think Christine and Molly killed him?” Ben asked.

“What do you think, Benjamin?” Rix said in a mocking tone.

“No, I don’t. In addition to the victim’s fingerprints, Gavin’s, and your wives, there were at least four sets of unidentifiable prints inside the flat. How did the rovers know where to find Gareth West?”

“Had to be Hathaway,” Murphy said. “Christine must’ve mentioned her ex to him. All he’d need was his name and the city.”

“Of course it was Hathaway,” Rix said. “We used to have that piece of garbage at our flat, shuttling dope in and out.”

“Why do you think they’re looking for the women?” Ben asked. “Why don’t they just forget about them?”

“They’re twisted bastards, aren’t they?” Murphy said. “They’ll be blaming them for winding up here. They’ll be wanting their revenge. It’s the way they are.”

“Blaming the victims,” Ben said, “Marvelous. Well, the good news is that they didn’t find your wives. The bad news is we’re no closer to finding any of them and the body count is rising.”

Christine and Molly drove around London lacking any sense of purpose. Their route and pace were as aimless and listless as their emotions. Gareth had given them what cash he had in his flat and had shouted at them to go. They had left him behind in a state of confusion and agitation.

Ahead, Molly saw the dome and spires of St. Paul’s.

“Fancy going to church?” she said.

“Fuck off,” Christine replied. “Not funny.”

“We’ve got to go somewhere, luv. How ’bout the cinema then? Sit in the dark, have ice lollies and popcorn?”

“We need a plan.” Christine said.

“I know what we can do. We can sell our story to the
News of the World
then go on the tele and make millions. What do you reckon they’d call us? Hell birds?”

That almost made Christine laugh. Almost.

“Did you see how much Gavin hated me?” she said.

“He didn’t hate you. I don’t think hate entered into it.”

“If he believed it was me he would have hated me. I abandoned him. What kind of a mother leaves her boy?”

“A mother who was head-over-heels with Jason. Don’t forget that Gareth West was a domineering, soul sucking bastard. You were at wit’s end, darling. You needed a fresh start and you took it. More power to you. And Jason wasn’t going to be any kind of father figure to the boy. It wasn’t in him. Gavin was better off growing up with one father. And with what happened to us, well, he was spared all that.”

Christine took it in. A young couple on the sidewalk caught her eye. They were mucking about and having fun. “You’re not wrong,” she said wistfully.

“’Course I’m not. Maybe I could get my own show on the tele. Advice on life and love from Dr. Hell Bird. So, what did you decide?”

“On what?”

“On seeing your sister. We’re not far from Stoke Newington.”

“I didn’t like her when she was young. She was a cow. Now she’ll be an old cow.”

“Well I’ve got no one in this world or the next besides Murph,” Molly said.

“All right, then,” Christine said. “I didn’t want to but we’ll go visit my mum.”

The address was a small Victorian cottage on a leafy street in Stoke Newington. Hathaway drove past it a few times then found a parking space on a small dead-end road near a mechanic’s garage. Talley held up his hand to protect his sensitive eyes from the bright sun. They had two bottles of Gareth West’s liquor to occupy their time and they would wait until night.

Waking in the darkness, the booze long gone, they piled out of the car and pissed on the deserted road. When they got to the cottage it was pitch dark. Hathaway rang the bell and when there was no answer he went around to the back, broke a window with a rock, and let the others in.

“We’d best keep the lights off.”

“Suits me,” said Talley. “This land’s too bright for my liking.”

Hathaway fumbled for a pair of candlesticks on the mantle and lit the wicks on the kitchen cooker. Inside the fridge there was a box curiously labeled as wine. Hathaway figured out how to use the plastic spout and tasted it.

“What a world,” he said. “Wine in a fucking box.”

He passed the wine box to the others to keep them quiet while he had a proper look around.

The wardrobes in the bedrooms were filled with old-lady clothes. There was a TV in the lounge that was flat and alien but there was an old boxy set in one of the bedrooms that he thought he might be able to figure out. There was an accumulation of mail on the floor under the slot. All of it was addressed to a Helen Mandeville.

The kitchen and pantry shelves were stocked with an abundance of canned and dry goods and an overage of loo paper. It seemed Christine’s sister was a food hoarder. In the lounge a breakfront cabinet was filled with cheap, floral china. He pulled open the lower doors and whistled. It seemed she was a booze hoarder too.

“I reckon we could stay here a while,” he announced to the others, tossing liquor bottles around to eager hands.

While pondering his next military move, Stalin took possession of Barbarossa’s palace, directing it to be cleaned and scrubbed, removing every filthy remnant of the ancient king.

“Burn his clothes, burn his mattress, burn everything that burns,” he had said.

When the bonfire in the main bailey had finally died out, a small army of servants moved all of Stalin’s possessions and those of his generals and advisors into the rejuvenated palace.

“How long must we stay in this damned place?” Field Marshal Kutuzov had asked after inspecting his own chilly quarters.

“What’s your hurry?” Stalin had asked.

“I prefer Moscow,” the general had replied.

“We all prefer Moscow,” the tsar had said. “But we are soldiers, Mikhail, and soldiers fight. Marksburg is a better place to launch our conquest of Europa than Moscow. Do I need to draw you a map?”

“Then let’s get on with it,” Kutuzov had sniffed. “Let’s march on the Norselands which will fall like a house of sticks then sail to Britannia and take London from the north. You have seen my war plan.”

“Soon, soon, Mikhail, but we must consolidate our position in Germania first. Any German officer and noble who is not completely loyal and trustworthy must be purged and replaced with men we own, men whom we can trust. Otherwise, as soon as we leave Marksburg, some devil will try to install himself as the new king and all our gains will be wiped out.”

It was nighttime and Stalin sat alone in the king’s damp great hall staring at burning logs. He pulled a blanket over his lap and felt himself beginning to drift off.

His personal manservant tiptoed in. Nikita, a freckled young man, had been at his side since Stalin first seized the reins of power from mad old Tsar Ivan. Ivan had ruled over Russia for over four hundred years, more than living up to his earthly moniker, Ivan the Terrible.

Nikita inched into view and waited to be acknowledged.

“What is it?” Stalin asked. “Are you going to scold me for sleeping in my chair?”

“Apologies for disturbing you. A party of men has arrived at the castle. Their leader, a barbarian, I am told, demanded to see Barbarossa and when informed of his demise, demanded to see you instead.”