No Help For The Dying

Chapter 8

The welcome message was followed by a telephone number. Riley stared at it, trying to gauge if there was something she was missing, or whether she was trying to read too much into it. It was a bible, that was all. Not a Gideon, but so what? But unless the uncanny arm of coincidence meant someone else with the same initials had passed through recently and left behind their very own copy, this bible had to belong to Henry Pearcy. How had the police overlooked it?

She turned to the greeting on the flyleaf. It was different, certainly, but hardly unbiblical in tone. Still, a hell of a way to get inside the heart of a lonely resident of an airport hotel: to appeal to the unloved side of their nature. She wondered how they approached the terminally depressed or the deeply suicidal.

A shadow suddenly loomed up at the car window. It was Mike Hutton, the salesman with the flip chart. He was mouthing something at her. She lowered the window a crack.

‘What is it?’

‘The boss wants to see you. He says if you’re with us you should have reported in earlier. You’d better get your suit on, too, he’s a stickler for that.’ His gaze dropped to the bible on her lap and faltered, as if he’d found her doing something unwholesome.

‘Thanks,’ she told him, turning the ignition key. ‘But I’ll pass. Tell him I’ve just been made a better offer.’

By the time she got back to Holland Park, it was late afternoon and a chill was descending, lending a sharpness to the emerging street lights. She parked the car in a nearby street and walked back to the flat, head buzzing with unanswered questions. After all this she was no nearer knowing whether Henry’s bible being left in a hotel room was significant or not. As far as she could recall he’d never voiced religious leanings, although few people of his age ever do. Religion was the third side of the conversational triangle along with sex and politics, and only the young seemed intent on discussing them openly with little or no embarrassment and precious little in the way of experience.

‘Miss Gavin?’ The voice carried the familiar air of tired authority, and Riley felt her stomach flip. A man stepped out from a plain car parked at the kerb in front of her building. He was tall and stocky, with the look of one who knows not to take anything or anyone for granted. A uniformed officer stood on the other side of the car, idly flicking raindrops off the roof, but watching her carefully.

‘That’s me,’ she confirmed, and saw curtains twitching in the flat below hers. Mr Grobowski, no doubt keeping an eye on things. Give it a couple of hours on the local grapevine and this was going to do her street credibility no end of good.

The policeman nodded but made no move towards suggesting he wanted to go inside out of the weather. He had a fleshy face and an unfashionable moustache that looked as if it had begun life as a dare and become a fixture. He flashed his card but in the poor light she couldn’t read it closely. ‘DS McKinley. I’d like to ask a couple of questions, if that’s all right?’ The way he said it meant her agreement was immaterial. He looked as if he’d had less sleep than she had. He consulted a small notebook. ‘You made a phone call at oh-five-thirty-one this morning to a mobile belonging to one Henry Pearcy. This was followed by another at oh-five-fifty-three, then again at oh-seven-ten. Would you care to tell me why you were calling him?’

Riley felt her stomach tighten. Of course, Henry’s phone would have revealed her number. It would have taken the police no time at all to get her address. The fact that McKinley had gone straight to the question of why she was calling meant they had enough information to bypass the bit about did she know him and where they had met.

‘That’s right,’ she said, deciding on as much of the truth as she dared use. ‘He left a message for me earlier, saying he was on his way overseas and suggested we have a drink. He wanted to tip me off about a story he’d picked up. I arranged to meet him, but when I rang again to confirm where, I had trouble getting through. Is something wrong?’

McKinley stared at her while chewing his lip. His face was expressionless, and Riley couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. On the other hand, what could he accuse her of?

‘I said-’

‘I heard what you said, miss,’ he murmured. ‘Bit early, though, isn’t it, to be talking about having a drink?’

She shrugged. ‘He probably meant coffee. I didn’t think about it at the time.’

‘And you were quite happy to get up and drive out to meet him, were you?’

‘Why not? I’ve been up earlier and driven further for less.’

‘Further than where?’ His eyes glinted as he stared at her, suddenly leaning forward slightly like a gun dog spotting a kill.

Riley swallowed. Shite. That was a stupid slip. She told herself to play it calm. ‘To Heathrow. Some hotel on the Bath Road, he said. And before you ask, DS McKinley, I was already up when I got his call.’

‘How come?’

‘I don’t have to answer that. What hours I keep are my business.’

McKinley nodded. ‘Fair enough. Well, being a reporter, you’ll know all about crime investigations, won’t you?’ The warning was as clear as a clap of thunder: Don’t mess with me, otherwise I’ll turn your life upside down.

‘Of course. But what’s that got to do with me? And what crime? Has something happened to Henry?’

‘Have you been in contact with Mr Pearcy since your last call?’

‘No, I haven’t. Look, what’s happened?’ Riley decided to act out the part, since if she clammed up and tried to brush him off, he’d probably go to town on her.

‘Have you been out to the Heathrow area at any time in the last eighteen hours?’

Something told her McKinley was waiting for her to say more, and she guessed he knew that she — or someone very like her — had been to the hotel where Henry had disappeared. It was time to come clean. Well, clean-ish. ‘I went out there this morning,’ she admitted, putting on a sheepish look. ‘I was halfway there and forgot which room he’d said he was in. So I rang — to find out.’

‘Which room did he say?’

‘Two-ten.’

‘You went into the hotel?’ The question was casual, like it didn’t really matter and he was only going through the motions. He even looked off to one side, as if his heart wasn’t in it. But his eyes were too sharp.

‘As far as the foyer. I was stopped by an armed officer. He suggested I leave, so I did.’

‘And you haven’t heard from Pearcy since?’

‘No. I told you. I rang him again, but got someone else — a wrong number. Look, why is it so difficult to tell me what happened?’

The detective chewed his lip some more as if debating the issue with himself. ‘The hotel management called to say a fight had taken place early this morning in one of the rooms. A passing patrol found signs of a struggle having taken place in a room registered to Mr Pearcy. His passport was under the bed, so it doesn’t look as if he caught his flight out. But we’re checking on that.’

‘What sort of signs?’

‘Evidence of an injury. We have reason to believe Mr Pearcy left in a hurry… or was forced to leave by a third party.’ His face was blank, giving no hint of which option he preferred.

‘Was anyone seen going to his room?’ Riley suddenly realised she had completely overlooked the presence of security cameras and felt the blood drain from her face. The thought that they had her on film skulking around the corridors made her feel sick.

McKinley didn’t appear to notice. He nodded. ‘We’re checking all that. Do you know if Mr Pearcy had any enemies — anyone he might have had a disagreement with, either recently or in the past?’

It was a standard question but she couldn’t think of an obvious answer. Reporters picked up their fair share of hate mail, but she couldn’t envisage Henry being on anybody’s hit list. ‘No. I can’t. He wasn’t the sort.’

‘The sort?’

‘You know what I mean.’

He shrugged and handed her a card with his name and number on it. ‘Please call if you hear from him.’ He climbed back into the car and was driven away, leaving her with a feeling that in spite of his casual attitude, he hadn’t taken anything she’d said at face value.

She went inside and paced around the flat for a while, watched by the cat. She was just beginning to realise that in the absence of anyone else as a prime suspect in Henry’s disappearance, the police had her. She not only knew Henry, but had phoned him earlier, just prior to his disappearance. She had also turned up at his hotel shortly afterwards, compounding the problem. Even a raw recruit fresh into Hendon wouldn’t need long to make a connection out of that.

She sat down at her laptop and fed in what she knew so far. It wasn’t much; merely an unconnected jumble of detail surrounding two main facts; one was the disappearance of Katie Pyle, which had now become her return and death, ten years later. The second was the disappearance — possibly violently — of Henry Pearcy, who claimed to have information about Katie. Yet how could he know anything about her — unless he’d reported on it at the time? It was a slim possibility, but one she couldn’t ignore.

She stared at the bible, which was the only clue she had. It pointed to Henry definitely having been at the Scandair last night, now confirmed by the police. Yet if he’d gone to the trouble of carrying a personal bible with him, would he have left it behind?

She flicked through the pages and came back to the flyleaf. It was just possible the Church of Flowing Light might have heard from him, or knew where he might be. She picked up the phone and dialled the number on the inside cover.

‘Is he sedated?’ The speaker watched with distaste as the two men deposited a bundle on a single bed in an otherwise bare room. It was a man, with traces of dried blood at the corner of his mouth and nose. He was limp and frail looking, and freshly dressed in a pair of old pyjamas. On the floor by the bed, lay his recently discarded trousers and shirt, creased and dirty from the floor of the white van parked out front.

‘He’s out cold,’ said the man with the glasses. ‘Don’t worry — he won’t bite.’

‘He’d better not,’ muttered the speaker. ‘When he comes round, I want to know what he’s done and who he’s been in touch with.’ He walked to the door, then turned and gave the unconscious man a malevolent glare. ‘And I don’t care how you get it out of him.’