East of the City (41 page)

I focused on the builder’s hut. No lights.

Nev said, ‘Pike’s in the hut.’

I pulled back from the binoculars. ‘You’ve seen him?’

‘Hour or two ago.’ He explained that he was pretty sure it was Pike. Anyway, he’d seen some bloke with red hair dive in there straight after the builders shot through. ‘Thought if I seen Tubs later, I’d tell him.’

Lowering the glasses, I said, ‘Do you still need a pass to get back there?’

Nev nodded. ‘Give us two minutes.’ He headed round to the bar.

Raising the glasses again, I took another look at the builder’s hut, then I turned my attention to the main stand. The race had just finished, most of the punters on the terrace were tearing up their tickets in disgust. Halfway up on the right, I located Tubs. He was just sitting there, talking, and I thought, Good man. But the next moment I noticed who he was talking to, Katy, and I sucked on my teeth. The way he was waving his hands around, and the way she was hanging on his words, he was obviously telling her the story. I shot a look at the seat next to Katy, but it was empty, there was no sign of Bill Tyler. My hand went to the mobile in my pocket. I was rehearsing a bollocking for Tubs, but then who should appear shuffling down the row of seats towards Tubs and Katy?

Detective Inspector bloody Fielding.

Fielding stopped when he reached them. I couldn’t make out the looks on their faces, but after a moment Katy slid into the empty seat, and Fielding sat down between them.

Nev reappeared from the bar with two passes. ‘Bloke needs ’em back in an hour,’ he said, handing me one of the white cards.

I swung the binoculars around to the path by the kids play-gym, the way I’d crossed, searching now for Fielding’s offsider. There was no sign of him.

I said, ‘You don’t think you’re coming back there with me, Nev.’

Smiling, he said, ‘You don’t think I’m not.’

I handed him the binoculars. He was half-dead, wasted to the size of a stick-insect. But short of bashing him over the head with a brick, there was no way I could stop him from following me. Pig-headed, like Dad. Like Tubs. Like that whole generation of stubborn old bastards. For some reason that didn’t piss me off now, at least not like it used to.

Together we headed for the stairs.

O
nce we’d flashed our passes at the gatekeeper in the white coat we made our way back behind the kennels. The noise of the crowd in the stands was muffled back there, but you could hear the kennel-lads getting the runners in the next race set to parade. The pint-sized tractor that dragged the track-sweeper was parked up, there was no driver about. When we’d walked out of the light and into the building area it felt like we were completely alone.

There was no window on the near side of the builder’s hut. When we reached the sand-pile we had a clear view of the closed door, about ten yards away. Nev started to creep towards it. I pulled him back.

‘Where are you going?' I whispered.

He grinned like an idiot.

Then came the pre-parade trumpet flourish over the loudspeakers, and from behind us the shout of the steward as he led the runners out onto the track. It gave me an idea.

'The race’ll start in five minutes,’ I told Nev quietly. I pulled up a plastic bucket the builders had left, flipped it over. ‘Sit tight.’

He stayed on his feet for about a minute, then exhaustion seemed to hit him and he sat down on the bucket. While we waited, I looked around for something heavy. The only thing I could see was a bag of cement half-hidden under a tarpaulin. Dragging it out, I propped it against Nev’s bucket.

‘What’s that for? Concrete shoes, heave-ho into the Thames?’

I told Nev, very firmly, to shut it.

Once the race started I’d have about thirty seconds to do what I planned. There was no padlock on the outside of the door, and I guess that could have meant a lot of things. What I hoped it meant was that Eddie Pike had smashed the builder’s lock off, and now thought he was safe inside. If he’d done that, he would have secured the door from the inside to make sure no nosy bugger stuck his head through. He really needed his privacy just now, did Eddie. But once the race started there’d be noise, punters shouting, everyone focused on the dogs. That would be my chance to take Eddie’s privacy and knock a hole clean through it.

‘They’re loadin’ them in the traps,’ Nev said quietly. He wasn’t even looking towards the track, he just sensed it from the noise of the crowd.

I heaved the bag of concrete onto my shoulder, the bag standing like a solid pillar up past my ear.

Getting to his feet, Nev asked, ‘Whaddo I do?’

‘Shut up,’ I grunted. Stepping out from around the sand-pile, I sighted up the door.

In the stadium the bell sounded. There was a whirr as the hare sped along the wire, then a roar from the crowd. The traps were open, the dogs were off.

I bent forward, the cement bag started to topple, and I charged the door.

Luck is a fortune. If I’d tried the stunt fifty times I couldn’t have done it as expertly as I did with that first unpractised effort. The cement bag was almost perfectly horizontal when it hit, and I was driving off my right leg, hard. I felt a slight check, then with a splintering crack the door flew open, smashing against something metallic inside. The cement bag kept going forward, and falling, and I went after it, stumbling over the thing as it hit the floor. Somehow I stayed on my feet.

A dim light shone into the hut, throwing my shadow on the far wall. To the left, on the table, there were a few mugs and magazines. To the right, from a sleeping bag on the floor, two petrified eyes bulged out at me.

‘Jesus Christ,’ the bloke said, ‘Jesus Christ.’

‘I’m not the cops,’ I told him, parting the air with my hands, trying to sound calm. ‘I’m Ian Collier. We have to talk.’

He stared at me. His sleeping bag rose and fell, his chest heaving.

Peering into the darkness, I said, ‘You are Eddie Pike, yeah?’

As the crowd outside roared the winner past the finishing line, he closed his eyes and bellowed, ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’

It was Eddie.

Nev stuck his head in, asking if I was all right.

‘Fine,’ I told him.

Eddie swore at me from the corner.

‘Nev,’ I said, ‘stay out there and keep an eye out.’

He nodded and disappeared. My legs were trembling. I pulled the door to, it didn’t shut properly, then I sat down on a chair. Eddie stayed in his sleeping bag on the floor, cursing me now with everything he had. I’d scared him witless with my charge through the door. Finally he raised himself, his arms braced behind him. My eyes were getting used to the dark, I could see he was wearing a tracksuit top. Probably the tracksuit bottom as well, he seemed to be ready for a very fast exit. He finished swearing, and glared at me.

‘What is it with you, man? You fucking crazy?’

My hands weer trembling, I rested them on the table. ‘You've caused me a shitload of trouble, Eddie.'

‘Bollocks.’

‘I need to know what happened at Sebastian Ward’s place. The night it burned down.’

‘Sebastian who?’ he said.

‘Ward,’ I said.

He shuffled back, resting his shoulders against the wall. His legs were still wrapped in the sleeping bag. ‘Sebastian Ward.’ He stared into space. ‘Who he?’

‘He,’ I said, ‘is the man you worked for. The guy whose valuables ended up being stored at Doug Aston’s kennels for a few days after the fire. And I think you know who Doug Aston is.’

Eddie didn’t answer me.

‘Eddie?’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Not this time.’

He gave me a sideways look and I realized then that he probably hadn’t known till that moment who’d paid him the late-night visit at the kennels. But he was too wary to question me about that yet.

‘When you cleared out of Doug’s place, you left one of Ward’s paintings behind.’

‘Bullshit.’ He made as if to stand. ‘If you’ve had your say, piss off.’

‘Ward employed you as his security guard, Eddie. The cops have been looking for you since the day they realized it wasn’t you that got fried in the fire. And right now,’ I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder, ‘they’re here at the Stow, and still looking.'

Eddie’s gaze slid past me to the door.

‘All I have to do,’ I said, ‘is whistle.’

He turned back from the door, figuring. He figured I was lying. ‘Then whistle,’ he said, but he wasn’t quite sure enough to sound cocky.

I went and opened the door, Nev was sitting right there on his bucket. I slipped the binoculars from around his neck, then I called Eddie over from the dark corner of the hut. Swearing, he climbed out of the sleeping bag and came over. I handed him the glasses and pointed into the stand.

‘Can you see Tubs Laszlo?’

‘What is this?’

‘Halfway up,’ I said, still pointing. His lip curled, but he raised the glasses and looked.

After a few seconds he said, ‘So I see him. So what?’

‘And the bloke next to him? On his right?’ The glasses moved. Eddie let out a quiet moan when he saw Fielding. I pulled the mobile from my pocket and punched the buttons, and now Eddie looked at me curiously. ‘Person to person call,’ I told him. ‘Me to Tubs.’

Understanding glimmered. Eddie snapped the glasses back to his eyes, looking up at the stand. In my ear the phone started ringing. Eddie saw Tubs reaching inside his jacket to answer.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ Eddie hissed at me. ‘Turn it off.'

‘Can we talk now?’

‘Turn it off!’

In my ear Tubs said, ‘Hello?’

I waited a moment, studying Eddie. He was scared out of his brain. ‘False alarm,’ I told Tubs, and I flicked off the phone.

I herded Pike back into the hut. Behind us, Nev closed the door.

‘I wasn’t there that night'

‘Nigel Chambers disagrees'

Pike had been making himself comfortable on the sleeping bag, but now he lifted his head sharply.

‘He’s dropped you right in it, Eddie. He’s told me, and he’s told Fielding.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Never mind what he said; I’m after your side of the story.’

‘You’re bullshittin’ me,’ he said, but there wasn’t any conviction in it. The mention of Chambers had taken him clean between the eyes.

‘You were there that night, weren’t you.’

He drew up his legs, wrapped his arms around his knees. ‘So I was there,’ he said finally. ‘Fucking Chambers.’ He looked up. ‘You can’t trust that bastard, what he says.’

‘No?’

‘No fucking way.’

‘What happened, Eddie? That night.'

He went quiet. I couldn’t see his face too clearly in the darkness, but as I was about to repeat the question, he spoke.

‘I had the night off.’

‘You were there, Eddie.’

‘That was later,’ he said. ‘First off I was out here.’

‘Here where?’ I asked, surprised. ‘The Stow?’

‘Listen, if ya don’t wanna believe me, I don’t give a shit. If ya wanna check, arks the old bugger outside. He was pencillin’ for Abes Watson that night.’

‘Nev saw you?’

‘Doubt it. But I seen Teddy Mills sting Abes for three grand, the third race.’ He flicked a hand towards the door. ‘Arks him.’

I went and stuck my head out the door and checked the story with Nev. He confirmed it. Tubs was off sick that night, so Nev had filled in for him. He remembered the three-grand payout to Teddy Mills quite clearly. The bookie, Abes Watson, was still spitting chips about it, Nev said.

Going back inside, I said to Eddie. ‘All right, you were here first, then what?’

‘Got jack of it after a bit, so I went home.'

‘Your rooms at Ward’s place.’

Pike nodded.

‘What time?’ I said.

‘Christ knows.’ He shrugged. ‘I dunno, maybe nine thirty? Ten? Comin’ up the drive, I see there’s a few lights on, no car ’cept for Sebastian’s, so I park round the back like normal, and go in. No big deal.’

‘The door was locked?’

‘Ahha.’ Pike hugged his knees tighter. It seemed like he didn’t have to try to remember, that night was right there for him, like something he just couldn’t forget. 'The first thing I do is, I go check in the security room. You know, all the alarms and that, they’re wired up to this one main panel. The security cameras, the monitors and stuff, they’re all in there, so the first thing I do when I get back is go in and check it out. Shit.’ He shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe this bit himself. ‘You know, he even got a badge made up for me?’

I thought of that badge, the only time I’d seen it, lying next to Sebastian Ward’s charred body. I said, ‘Everything in order, was it, in the security room?’

‘Well, nothin’ was broken.’ A leer spread over Pike’s face. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘Sebastian thought it was a good idea to have the security cameras turned off`.’ This one went right past me till he added, ‘That friggin’ bedroom, man, the stuff he had in there.'

‘He’d turned off the security camera in his bedroom? My mouth was working two steps ahead of my brain. 'Why?'

When Pike laughed, I got it.

‘You thought he had someone up there?’

‘Hey.’ Pike raised his hands. ‘Man’s entitled to his privacy.’

My mind went back to that picture of Justine and Sebastian, the one Eddie had left behind when he bolted from Doug Aston’s place. Suddenly I knew where it came from. I asked, ‘How hard would it be to lift a still photo from the security film?'

Eyes lowered, he said he didn’t know anything about that technical shit.

What was it Nev had called him? A weasel? Way too generous. Eddie Pike was a leech. He’d been gathering a collection of Sebastian Ward’s most private moments, and saving them up for a rainy day. Wanting this to be over now, I said, ‘Then what?’

‘Well, I come outa the security room, I was gonna turn off the lights and get some kip. Into the front room, there he is, Sebastian, flat as a tack.’

‘On the floor?’

‘Whadaya think, swingin’ from the fucking chandelier? Course on the floor. The bastard was dead.'

‘Shot?’

Pike’s gaze slid away. ‘Chambers give yous the story, didn’ ’e?’

He still wasn’t sure if I was bluffing about Nigel Chambers, and I had a feeling he was getting set to give me some complete load of bollocks. So I took the plunge and explained that Chambers had pointed the finger at him. I told Pike exactly what Chambers had told me. When I was done, Pike held his head in his hands for a bit, his head moving slightly from side to side. ‘Bastard,’ he said in disbelief. ‘The fuckin’ bastard.'