Authors: Tim Weaver
Healy
studied me, then turned back to the warehouse, 'What?' I said.
'You
think it's her?' He was still looking at the warehouse, at the men removing
boxes from the back of the lorry. When I didn't reply, he turned to face me
again. 'Do you think it's Megan?'
I
glanced down at the metal container. 'It could be, yeah.'
'So
the other one…'
'Would
be her baby.'
He'd probably
seen worse. The darkness in men; the moments in life when murderers and rapists
and abusers reached into the earth and pulled a little piece of hell out with
their hands. I'd been there too. Walked through blood. Stepped over bodies.
Flashes of time when, for a second, you realized humanity had vanished, and no
rules remained. We'd both known worse than a heart cut from what housed it. But
things changed when a child was involved. And, in this case, maybe not even a
child: an unborn baby. Healy carried on massaging his chest.
'Are
they preserved in that stuff?'
I
looked at him. 'Formalin? I'd imagine so. I'm guessing Drayton sourced all
those weapons for the Russians, and the chemicals came in with the guns. That
was the currency the Russians paid Glass with: the formalin.'
When
I looked at Healy again, his mouth had flattened and his eyes seemed to project
his thoughts: Leanne and the formalin, and whether he could bear to imagine the
rest.
In
the warehouse, someone started closing the rear doors of the lorry. The noise
carried across the street towards us; a huge metal clang. We both turned and
watched as the driver came around the front and disappeared inside the office
door. Two minutes later, he re-emerged, got into the cab of his lorry and
pulled out. The lorry was gone within thirty seconds.
Inside
we could see people milling around. There was a wall of misty-coloured windows
at the back of the warehouse. What little light the day could muster shone
through them, turning everyone inside into silhouettes. I counted five people.
Possibly six. The interior was hard to make out other than that, but it looked
cavernous and empty.
'I
hope you know what you're doing here,' Healy said, pressing his fingers against
his chest again. 'You're out on bail, remember.'
In
the rear-view mirror, a blue Nissan appeared at the top of the street, heading
down towards us. 'I know,' I said, watching the car. It slowed up as it got to
the warehouse, and bumped up on to the pavement outside. Healy heard the noise
and turned to look.
'That's
him,' he said.
'Drayton's
son?'
'Yeah.'
'What
do you know about him?'
Healy
shrugged. 'Only what I've heard. I remember Phillips saying he thought the kid
might be hiding something. But you know what Phillips is like.'
Drayton's
son got out of the car. A couple of the people inside the warehouse waved to
him, and then he disappeared through the office door.
'You
ready?' I asked.
Healy
looked at me. 'Let's do it.'
The
office was small and plain. There was a counter running most of the length of
the room to our left, and a window behind it, looking out on to the warehouse.
The place was a mess: invoices and paper pinned to the walls, a Page Three
calendar, receipts, even photographs of the family. There were three worn
seats, none matching, and a circular table in the waiting area. Everything
smelt of food. Drayton's son was standing behind the counter, leaning on it as
he wrote something down. He looked up as Healy approached. I could see his
brain ticking over, trying to decide if he recognized him. I stood at the door
the whole time.
'Luke
Drayton?'
He studied
Healy, then glanced at me. 'Do I know you?'
Healy
fiddled around in the pocket of his jacket and got out his warrant card. When
he laid it on the counter, he kept a couple of fingers pressed against the
wallet. I could see what he was doing: the tips of both fingers were covering
his name.
'We're
with the Metropolitan Police.'
Drayton
looked between us. '
Again?
'
'We've
got some more questions.'
'About
what?'
'About
your father.'
Drayton
rolled his eyes. 'We told you everything we knew the first time you came. And
the second. And the third. Do you want me to make something up — is that it?'
Healy
took a step towards Drayton. Leaned on the counter.
Didn't
say anything.
'Dad
screwed us,' Drayton continued. 'He destroyed the reputation of this business.
Everything I told you the other times you people came to see me, it still
stands. I hope he rots in hell. I hope he never finds peace, wherever he is.'
Healy
nodded. 'Sounds like you miss him.'
Drayton
frowned, and shook his head.
I
left them at it, let the door close behind me, then made my way around the side
of the warehouse. At the back was a concrete yard surrounded by a five-foot
wall topped with barbed wire. I peered over: a small forklift truck; two cars
and a van; a few unmarked barrels; and a massive pile of cardboard boxes,
covered with a rain- sheet. Two men were milling around the boxes. One was
holding a clipboard, marking something off. A second was adding more boxes to
the pile from a stack inside — presumably part of the delivery earlier.
I
followed the path around the property and at the end was a stream, probably
feeding in from the Royal Albert Dock. It ran the length of all seven
warehouses and disappeared into a knot of trees at the end. I could see that
the back wall of the yard was topped by three lines of barbed wire instead of
one. No entrance. No way over unless you wanted to tear your skin to shreds.
Heading
back up the path to my original position, I looked over the wall again. The
only person left in the yard now was the guy with the clipboard. He was
standing to the right of the pile of boxes, running a finger down a printed
list. The boxes were all different heights and sizes, and stacked in a series
of towers.
From
inside the warehouse, the man who'd been carrying the boxes appeared again. He
held a huge cube-shaped cardboard box in front of him, his arms barely
stretching halfway along each side. He wobbled as he walked, slowly edging
around the pile, careful not to knock anything. About three-quarters of the way
along, side-on to where I was looking in, he reached down and placed the box in
a space on the pile. The movement brought his weight forward, and the t— of his
boot knocked against the bottom of one of the boxes underneath. It shifted.
Turned slightly. Beneath the box, a line appeared, carved into the concrete
floor.
The
man crouched, placed a hand on either side of the box and then manoeuvred it
back into position, over the line. Within a couple of seconds, it was in its
original position and there was nothing visible on the concrete floor except
tyre marks and dust.
We
got back into the car. Healy kept his eyes on the warehouse.
'He
knows something,' he said.
'What
did he say?'
'Nothing.'
'So
what makes you suspicious?'
'I'm
not sure,' he said, and looked at me. 'Maybe you've just got me paranoid. But
if he
is
weaving a story, he's a bloody good liar.'
The
windows of the car creaked in the wind. 'Anything around the back?' he asked. I
nodded. We need to come here again when it's dark.'
'Why?'
I
could see through to the rear doors at the back of the warehouse, and the yard beyond.
'Because there's a trapdoor hidden out the back.'
There
was a coffee shop just off the East India Dock Road. Healy found a space a
couple of streets away, the Dome — framed by grey skies and drizzle — across
the water from us. We were about to go inside when, a little way up the road, I
saw someone I recognized: Aron Crane. There was no Jill with him this time, and
he was dressed in a suit.
I
told Healy I'd see him inside. Aron looked deep in thought, his eyes fixed
further out to where the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf needled the low-hanging
cloud. Twenty feet short of the coffee shop, he spotted me.
He
broke out into a smile, stopping. 'David.'
'How
you doing, Aron?'
'I'm
good.' We shook hands. 'What are you doing in this part of the world?'
'Just
having coffee with a friend.' I nodded inside. Healy was leaning against the
counter looking out, his eyes flicking between us. 'Well, more of an
acquaintance, to be honest.'
Aron
glanced at Healy. 'He looks angry.'
'He's
smiling on the inside,' I said. Aron laughed. 'So, do you work close by?'
'Yeah.
Well, kind of. For the next fortnight, anyway. I'm doing some consultation work
for Citigroup and HSBC. It's probably why I've got this thousand-yard stare.'
'I
remember you saying you worked in banking.'
'Don't
hold it against me.'
I
smiled. In the brief silence that followed, we both realized what was sitting
between us. 'How's Jill?' I asked finally.
'She's
good.' A pause. 'She said you called yesterday.'
There
didn't seem to be any animosity in what he said, but as he looked at me, I
could see what he was telling me:
You upset her.
'I didn't mean to
offend her.'
He
nodded. 'I know.'
'It's
just…' I stopped myself. It was a natural guard against giving out anything
more than I had to on a case that was still active.
But she would have
already told him everything. They're close. He knows what I said to her.
'There were just some unexpected links between what happened to Frank and what
I'm looking into at the moment. It seemed too convenient. I needed to ask Jill
what she knew, if anything.'
He
nodded again and ran a hand through his hair, as if he wasn't sure what to do
with himself. 'You don't have to explain.'
'Are
you seeing her tonight?'
'No.'
He looked at his watch. 'I'm heading over to Canary Wharf to pick up my stuff
and flying out to Paris at four for a meeting. It's a pain, and I feel really
bad about it. It's obviously the support group tomorrow night, and I promised
Jill I'd go, but I'm not going to be back until Wednesday.'
I'd
forgotten all about it.
'Are
you going?'
'I'd
like to,' I said
.
I'd like a chance to talk to Jill, look her
in
the eyes and find out what she knows.
'But I think I might have to see
how things pan out. I was going to ask you to apologize again for me if you
were going.'
'I'm
not, but I'll phone her later and tell her.'
I
nodded my thanks.
'Okay,
well, I better be going,' he said.
We
shook hands again, and as he headed off down the street, I got the feeling that
he was trying his best to remain neutral but finding it hard. I regretted
offending Jill, but I didn't regret asking her the question.
Because
something, somewhere, wasn't right.
The
coffee shop was small. Stools at the windows looked out at a row of two-storey
terraced houses and a brand-new glass and chrome apartment block. I ordered a
black coffee and a cheese and pastrami sandwich, Healy a bigger coffee and a
beef and mustard roll, and we sat at the window looking out. It was nearly two
and had started raining. We had at least three hours before it started to get
dark. A lot of time to kill doing nothing.