Gone to Ground (27 page)

There was just enough in the background to suggest, yes, this was on the riverside, close to the Magdelene Street bridge, but, other than that, the focus was variable and the images unclear. Individual identification would be difficult, nigh on impossible.

Will scanned the images again for someone who might be Helen, but she was nowhere to be seen. More than likely, he thought, all the shots had been taken before she had intervened.

Less than an hour later, a second e-mail arrived from the same source. Parsons had successfully followed a trail from the initial site to another and come up with four short video sequences, each little more than a minute in length and with its own muffled soundtrack of chants and shouts and screams.

In one sequence, a man wearing sweatshirt and jeans—one of the injured students, Will was sure—was seen running away, before tripping and being sent sprawling; in another, presumably filmed soon after, the same person was being kicked savagely as he curled on the ground, making himself as small as possible; the third video was little more than a kaleidoscope of indistinguishable movement, a mass of bodies surging across the frame. In the fourth, a figure lurched toward the camera, thrusting a hand toward the lens, middle finger raised. Even here, the focus was less than perfect, never as sharp as Will would have liked, the light too bright at the centre and fading into black around the edges.

The lower half of the person's face was covered by a scarf, wrapped round twice, a dark tight-fitting hat, wool or some synthetic material, pulled low toward his eyes. Enough to see that he is white, youngish—somewhere, most probably, between seventeen and twenty-four—but little more. Until just before the sequence ended, when the scarf slipped away.

Will called Rastrick's extension. "You had a chance to look at what Parsons sent across?"

"Looking at it now."

"What do you think?" Will asked.

"Magdelene Street, has to be."

"The youth in the scarf, giving the finger, you think tech services can freeze those last few frames? Get them cleaned up somehow?"

"Worth a try."

"Should we handle that ourselves, or get Parsons to do it at his end?"

"On to it already, more than likely. Why don't you give him a bell and see? Meantime, I'll talk to our people here. Show them what we've got."

"Right away," Will said, reading the number off the screen.

Parsons answered almost immediately. "Everything download okay?"

"No problem."

"Whoever shot this stuff, not exactly Steven Spielberg."

"The last piece of video, the youth with the scarf..."

"Cocky little sod, isn't he? Thinks it's all some great fucking joke."

"Think we can get an ID?"

"I don't know. I'll run a visual check as soon as I can, but I'd say the chances weren't brilliant."

Will swore beneath his breath.

"You'll let me know either way?"

"Of course."

"How about the site where this stuff was posted?" Will asked. "Do we know whose it is? Who maintains it, anything like that?"

"Not really. Small sites like this, they're all over the Net. Difficult to track down. Start up one day, close down the next. People posting things on them without leaving any obvious trail. You could spend an eternity trying to get to get to the bottom of it and end up back where you started. But I'll get our IT boys on to that video, see what they come up with. Any luck, I'll get back to you tomorrow."

An hour later, the news came through that the theology student from Honduras had died.

Lorraine had put candles on the table, readied a bottle of wine, Australian shiraz. While Will and Jake played out their floodlit cup final, she peeled potatoes, sliced carrots, pork and rabbit casserole already in the oven, one of Will's favourites.

When Jake was in the bath under Will's supervision and the vegetables were simmering, she went upstairs to fix her face and change.

"You look nice," Will said, when she put her head round the bathroom door.

"Dinner's in twenty minutes."

"No chance of a quick one first, then?"

"Sshh," she said, with an eye toward Jake, and laughed.

The casserole was as tasty as usual, the wine went down easily, both Jake and Susie were sound asleep upstairs. When Lorraine walked past the table on her way to the kitchen, Will reached for her hand and brought it, palm first, to his mouth. The palm and then the fingers, one by one.

"Only teenagers do this," Lorraine said later, raising herself up onto one elbow.

"Have sex?"

"Have sex on the living room carpet."

"While their parents are out."

"Or upstairs in bed."

"We are the parents," Will said.

"And the children are upstairs in bed."

"That's because they're not teenagers."

"Not yet."

"Not for a long time." He moved his face toward hers and kissed her again.

"Did you talk to Helen?" she asked, when the kiss was over.

"About the job?"

"Uh-huh."

Will looked into her face, considering his answer. "I suppose so. Just a bit, you know. In passing."

"And that's why you changed your mind. Because of what she said."

"Not entirely, no."

"You'd have done it anyway?"

"I expect so."

"Come around."

"Don't I usually?"

"No," Lorraine said, laughing. "No, you don't. You're a stubborn bastard, and you know it."

"Shame you married me, then, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"You tell me."

For an answer, Lorraine reached her hand out toward his ribs, and ran her nails down toward the dark hair curling up from between his legs.

"Do you ever think," she said, resting her head on his chest, "you should have married her instead of me?"

"Her?"

She bit lightly into his skin. "Helen."

"No," he said, bringing her face up towards his. "No, I never do."

LESLEY WOKE EARLY, UNCERTAIN WHY, AND THEN REALized it was because she was cold. Hugging herself, knees to her chest, she tried to get back to sleep and, when that didn't work, decided on a slow, warm bath. Weetabix she ate with hot milk, a banana sliced on top. Tea in her large Cornish ware mug. When she checked on the local weather site, it showed heavy cloud throughout the day and a maximum temperature of zero degrees Celsius, thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, winds from the northwest. Just a short while ago, on the south coast, despite a chilly wind, there had been definite warmth in the sun. And traveling down to London by train, not so many days before that, she had been certain spring had arrived.

Now this. A day for her thermal vest if ever there was one. Except she couldn't find it in the drawer. Any of the drawers. Stephen had once given her a yellow Notts County T-shirt as some kind of joke, and she put that on instead. Several layers over the top of that. She had almost finished buttoning and zipping herself up when the phone rang, not her mobile, but the regular landline. Her mother. Earnest cold callers from the Indian subcontinent aside, intent on persuading her to change her gas supplier, subscribe to Sky, sign up for broadband or switch her bank account, it had to be her mother. At first, Lesley decided to let it ring, and then, smitten by guilt, lifted the receiver.

"Ah, Lesley, I was hoping I'd just catch you before you left for work."

Thirty minutes later, in the course of which her mother had broken down several times into tears, Lesley managed to say goodbye, send love to her father, grab her hat and bag, and let herself out of the door.

You're a hardhearted bitch, she said to herself, walking out into the cold: her son's been killed, murdered, your brother. Shame you couldn't shed a few more tears yourself. But she had cried enough.

Outside, Lesley tightened her scarf. The steps down from Commerce Square were treacherous, with a covering of frost and near-ice that threatened to upend her more than once.

It was the second item on the local news: at a meeting of the City Council Development Control Committee, plans registered by a local consortium led by Prince Holdings, to build an apartment complex on open ground adjacent to the Victoria Embankment, were yesterday given the go-ahead. The complex, which would incorporate a leisure centre and multi-purpose gym, would comprise forty-four one- and two-bedroom flats and ten penthouse apartments in a premium position overlooking the River Trent.

Lesley clicked onto the City Council Web site and found the appropriate page. In his report, the case officer for Planning Services outlined the objections to the scheme. The Ward Councillor had protested in the strongest possible terms against the loss of open space that was regularly used by local people and a nearby primary school for sports and recreation, claiming, in addition, that the extra traffic that would ensue would serve to create a bottleneck at the Trent Bridge end of the Embankment, especially on match days, because of its proximity to both the Nottingham Forest and Notts County grounds. The local residents' committee had also objected on the grounds of increased vehicular and pedestrian traffic and the loss of recreational space.

While acknowledging these objections, the case officer commented that only a small percentage of land between the Embankment and the Meadows would be given over to the project, and that this would be more than made up for by the specialized facilities that would be provided as part of the scheme, in compliance with section R7 of the Nottingham Local Plan, agreed 28th November, 2005. Nottinghamshire Police, moreover, had not objected to the scheme on the grounds of any potential increased traffic congestion.

Taking all of these matters into consideration, the committee granted the scheme approval, with a three-year limit for implementation.

Well, why not, thought Lesley, clicking the council page into oblivion. What was a little open space after all? Somewhere for kids to kick a ball, people to walk their dogs, ride bikes, fly kites. What was that compared to another bevy of upscale apartments? As if the city didn't have enough of those already. And these, with their views along the river, would doubtless fetch premium prices, premium rents.

Was she being overly cynical, Lesley wondered, to imagine the well-oiled turning of wheels within wheels, the slick and silent greasing of palms?

She dialed the number for Prince Holdings and instantly recognized the supercilious tones of Raymond James.

"Hello," Lesley said, "this is BBC Radio Nottingham. We were wondering if you had any comment to make about the council's approval of your scheme for the Embankment?"

James cleared his throat discreetly. "Naturally, we are delighted on behalf of ourselves and the other members of the consortium. We see this as a really forward-looking development and one that can only serve to enhance the reputation of the city."

If he recognized her voice, he gave no sign.

"You don't think, then," Lesley said, "there was any merit to the many objections that were raised?"

James coughed. "I'm afraid I can't possibly go into such matters on the telephone. A press conference has been called for this afternoon and there will be an opportunity for asking questions then."

Alan Pike was in his office, sleeves rolled back, tie discarded, a look of puzzlement on his face; the coming week's assignments were spread across his desk.

"Alan," Lesley said, poking her head round the door. "You got a minute?"

"No."

"This press conference, Prince Holdings, have we got somebody covering that?"

"Jerry."

"Let me go instead."

"No."

"Alan..."

"No. No way."

"Jerry hates that stuff. Suits. Business. Let me swap."

Pike looked at her for the first time. "How many ways do I have to say this? Absolutely and categorically, no."

"You're weakening, Alan, I can tell."

"Okay." Pike made his way round his desk towards her. "Okay, here it is. That press conference, words of one syllable. You do not go anywhere near."

"Anywhere, that's..."

"Not even close. Is that understood?"

Lesley raised a hand and smiled. "Absolutely. Couldn't be clearer. Nowhere near."

Half an hour later, she waylaid Jerry Walton as he emerged from the Gents, still fastening his flies.

"Jerry..."

"Damn buttons! What the hell was wrong with zips?"

"You're going to that Prince Holdings thing?"

"For my sins."

"Thought I might tag along. Just out of interest. Long as you don't mind, that is?"

"No. Why should I? Help yourself."

"Thanks, Jerry. I'll be quiet as a mouse. Won't say a word. Oh, and Jerry, no need to mention it to Alan, okay?"

The oak table that normally dominated the Prince Holdings boardroom had been cleared away, and in its place a pale plywood model of the Trent River Project stood on a Perspex plinth, awaiting inspection. Behind and to one side, a shimmer of green cloth suggested lawns reaching toward an avenue of matching trees, while in front plastic couples strolled comfortably, pushing plastic buggies, and miniature oarsmen sculled along a winding strip of blue.

Lesley glanced at the glossy press pack she'd been handed by an eager young PR woman at the door, and accepted a glass of white wine from a tanned waiter in a short white jacket, moonlighting from Hart's or Merchant's or somewhere else discreetly flash.

Jerry was already helping himself to a small selection of canapés from a side table, beyond which Mel Mast and Mark Patterson from the
Post
were chatting to a jolly broadcast journalist from Saga Radio, whose name Lesley could never remember. A number of middle-aged men in suits, whom she assumed to be councillors or fellow-developers, were standing at the far end of the room, where a small platform had been placed in readiness. A small clutch of student types, meanwhile, who were probably from
Left Lion
or one of the proliferation of lifestyle magazines, were keeping within arm's reach of the wine.

Of Howard Prince, there was as yet no sign.

Lesley took a closer look at the model, which on further inspection, with its curved edges, was not unlike a ship, then moved across the room and helped herself to the world's smallest sausage roll and a prawn thingamajig on sesame toast.