No Help For The Dying

Chapter 12

Riley returned to Holland Park to find another message on her machine from John Mitcheson. Maybe the fates were trying to tell her something.

‘Riley? Sorry I’ve missed you again…what a pain. I’m off to Florida for several days on a job. Pity you can’t make it over here. We need to talk. I miss you. You’ve got my number.’

She punched the stop button with a degree of venom. Maybe this was his idea of psychological torture. What would be next — the sound of him singing in the shower? The rattle of his snoring? She wished she could tell him about the assignment. He would have had a way of reducing things to their bare essentials and cutting though all the froth. A bit like Frank Palmer, only less deliberately irritating.

She booted up her laptop and focussed on what she had so far. If she didn’t get something in to Donald soon, to show there was a story, he was going to start bothering her. But after five minutes of typing, she had pathetically little on the screen in the way of hard facts, with more conjecture than solid, provable detail. It wasn’t enough, any more than her feelings about de Haan and his spooky colleague, Quine. And trying to construct a story which confessed to her invading a crime scene at the Scandair Hotel was a sure way of committing professional suicide. She leapt up and roamed the flat, making coffee and letting it go cold while the cat vied for her attention, head-butting her whenever she came within range until she got the message. In between strokes, she mulled over what was puzzling her most. If there was a connection between Katie and Henry and his subsequent disappearance, then she still couldn’t see it. The two events were totally disconnected by time and circumstance. Yet there had to be a link.

She was also bugged by the idea of someone looking for her. Was it someone she had met while working on Katie’s story? If so, he had left it a long time to try and make contact. Unless he knew something about Katie’s disappearance. With Henry out of the picture, would he continue looking for Riley or would the necessity to find her wither and die?

She picked up the leather bible where she had left it on the coffee table and idly fanned through the pages, hoping perhaps that some divine inspiration might fall from them. But other than the musty book-smell of print and paper, nothing did.

Something about it was bothering her. It was tugging away at her consciousness like a fish pulling at bait on the end of a line; you know something is there but until it surfaces, you have no idea what it might be. It was something familiar… yet it stayed just beyond reach. The last bible Riley had seen was probably in the church at her father’s funeral.

After a while she gave up and went for a walk, leaving the cat to finish cleaning itself. Maybe some fresh air would help clear her mind. The sky was the colour of dirty sheets, and it was grey and cold enough to keep people indoors, which suited her fine.

Riley crossed Holland Park Avenue, dodging with casual ease through a gap in the traffic, then cut through to the park. As usual it was like entering another world — one of tranquillity and continuity, with the whisper of the trees and the scurrying sound of wildlife in the undergrowth. Along the trails between a stretch of beech trees were the usual baby walkers and doggie freaks, today hunched under umbrellas against drops of water falling from the branches overhead. Most were tucked inside fleeces and thick jumpers to ward off the cold wind, the exception being a group of four women, apparently impervious to the elements and chattering away in Russian, pausing only to dart off and retrieve an errant child making a bid for freedom in the bushes. She skirted the pond with its statue of Lord Holland and crossed an expanse of green towards the gardens and Orangerie. A jogger flitted between the trees on a trail to her left, moving with an easy gait. He was sporting a long coat rather than the usual designer wear favoured by local jogging freaks, but Riley doubted anyone would notice; stranger things were seen every day in this area.

She walked through the Arcade with its 19^th century murals, and wandered out to the sports field, where she stood and stared across the open space. Another shower of rain was gusting towards her, so she went back and bought a cup of tea from the park café and stood under one of the archways, sipping it and watching two old men playing chess. They seemed frozen in place, staring at the board as if eyeball contact alone would move the pieces into a winning position.

The air was cold enough to chill salmon. She dumped her empty cup in a bin and began walking across the park.

She emerged on to a damp, wind-swept Kensington High Street with no clear thought of where to go next. Home seemed a good idea. She had walked enough. Time to get back and do something constructive.

As she turned to retrace her steps, a rectangle of pale paper taped to a street light caught her eye. It had the forlorn look of another ‘missing’ flyer, with a photo and contact details. This time the subject was a small terrier named Ralph. It wasn’t only humans who went missing, she reflected. And no matter how big or small, they each lefet behind a vacuum in somebody’s life.

Then she felt as if she’d been punched in the chest.

The flyer.

Of course. The flyer she’d found in the coffee shop about Angelina Boothe-Davison, and the leather bible from Henry’s room. Suddenly the connection was blindingly obvious. She wanted to race back and confirm it with her own eyes before it slipped away.

Her mobile rang. It was Palmer. ‘Walk across the main entrance to the park and don’t look round,’ he said calmly. ‘Turn up Abbotsbury Road and keep walking.’

‘Why? What the hell are you talking about, Palmer? Anyway, I’ve just thought of something.’

‘Never mind that. You’ve got company.’

‘What?’

‘A white van’s been dogging you since you left home. Two men inside, and neither of them look friendly.’

‘What?’

‘One of them followed you through the park on foot… a tall bloke in a long coat. I don’t think they’re after your autograph.’