Safe House (20 page)

I could hear the kettle coming to the boil. The vacuum-suck of a fridge door opening.

The delay was getting to me. Bothering me. I fussed with my sling. Cursed under my breath.

‘Give her time,’ Rebecca said.

‘To do what? Come up with a story?’

‘To reconcile herself to telling us the truth.’

‘You think she even cares?’

‘I’m sure she does.’

‘How sure?’

‘Look around,’ Rebecca said, in a low voice. ‘Does this look like a happy family home to you?’

It didn’t look like anything of the sort. There were no pictures on the walls, no books or mementoes on the shelves. There was a single photograph on the mantelpiece. Teare, when she was younger, in a blue police uniform, with a bad perm. She was smiling crookedly, holding some kind of certificate in her hand.

I scanned the rest of the room. There was the single sofa we were sitting on, the television and the fold-out kitchen chair. Not a set-up for boisterous family gatherings. Not an environment for entertaining.

‘I’d say her job means a lot to her,’ Rebecca said.

‘Maybe.’

She nodded at the photograph. ‘She takes pride in it.’

‘So perhaps she’ll want to protect her career. Maybe she’ll lie to do that.’

‘Or perhaps it means more to her than that. Perhaps she views it as a calling.’

Rebecca whispered the last part because Teare was returning to the room with two steaming mugs in her hands. They were mismatched. One brown and squat, like it had come from an amateur kiln. One white and featuring the logo for a brand of coffee. A freebie.

‘I can hear you gassing about me, you know. I’m not bloody deaf.’

I avoided Teare’s eyes as she handed me my mug. Rebecca smiled graciously, like the tea was an exotic treat she’d heard of long ago and had always wanted to try.

‘It was mostly complimentary,’ she said, taking a sip.

‘My arse. But it doesn’t matter.’ She collapsed on to her chair and fished around in her tracksuit bottoms again. She removed another can of Diet Coke, wet with condensation from the fridge. She opened it and tipped its contents into her mouth.

‘So was it Shimmin who told you to drop things?’ Rebecca asked.

‘Yep.’ She lowered the can. Balanced it on her thigh. ‘But there was nothing fishy about it.’

‘How so?’

Teare sneered. Shook her head. ‘Way you talk. Sitting there all prim. In your pricey leather jacket and your flawless make-up.’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘We’ve come to you about my sister. It’s important.’

‘Yeah. That’s exactly my point.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The importance. Your sister. I told you Shimmin had a thing for your dad. It’s generational, maybe. Pretty much gender-specific. Manxies like Shimmin, they treat your dad like he’s some kind of hero.’

‘So?’

‘So it affected the way Shimmin went about things.’

‘Affected it how?’ Rebecca asked.

Teare exhaled. She pressed the cool metal of the can against her cheek. There was a clammy film on her skin. It made me wonder how long she’d been exercising for.

‘A suicide like Laura’s. Something spectacular. Forgive me,’ she said, catching my eye, ‘but something as nutso as driving off Marine Drive, that would normally draw a lot of attention. A lot of gawpers and rubberneckers. Inside the force, the fire service, the ambulance crews, not to mention the public. Then factor in your sister’s identity. Your dad’s status on the island. I mean, we’re talking about the daughter of Jimmy Hale, yes? Normally you couldn’t keep a lid on something like that.’

Teare looked from me to Rebecca. She was expectant.

‘What I’m saying,’ she said, as if we were altogether too slow, ‘is it shows respect, right? Shimmin respects your dad for throwing himself around on a motorbike way back when. So he keeps things civilised. Keeps numbers low. It’s the same with the press. Think about it. There wasn’t much of a to-do, was there? But that’s all it was so far as Shimmin was concerned. Respect. Nothing sinister.’

I reflected on what she’d said. I could see what she was driving at. Yes, I’d been caught up in the grief and the emotion of Laura’s death, the sheer numbing horror of what she’d done to herself, but I hadn’t been aware of a circus going on around us. There’d been well-wishers. Condolence cards. But the memorial service had been relatively modest. The coverage in the local paper and on the radio had been contained. People on the island would know what Laura had done. Maybe they were still taking about it. But it hadn’t become the spectacle it might have been.

‘So what about the cottage and the missing girl?’ Rebecca asked. ‘What about the way Rob’s version of events was dismissed? That didn’t have anything to do with respect.’

Teare sucked her lips in thought. ‘I still say there was some of that. It’s another reason Shimmin came to the hospital with me. Like I said, I couldn’t be trusted not to offend, could I?’

‘But that’s not all, is it?’

‘No, it’s not. And the honest truth is I don’t know what it was for sure. But Shimmin was quick to tell me not to dig around in that cottage. I got a locksmith out, to take a shufty, and we had a right barney about it. That’s how come you’re talking to me now.’

She wiggled her eyebrows.

‘What do you mean?’ Rebecca asked. ‘Have you been suspended?’

‘Like you care, princess. But no, not suspended. Right now I’m on a period of
extended leave
. Time to reflect on my attitude.’

‘And how’s the reflection going?’ I asked.

‘In terms of the attitude, not so good. But in terms of what happened up at that cottage, I’ve come to a few conclusions.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as hidden cameras and microphones and vanishing blondes aren’t something a smart copper goes sticking their nose into. That’s something Shimmin knew already. And that’s why he stopped me from asking questions. Not because he had anything to hide. Because he didn’t want us to find answers we couldn’t do anything with.’

I was still cradling my mug in my hand. It was hot against my skin. I hadn’t drunk any of my tea just yet and I didn’t think I was about to start any time soon. Rebecca was shifting around in her seat. It seemed like we’d got just about as much as we could have hoped for. But it still felt like a defeat.

‘Does the name Melanie Fleming mean anything to you?’ I asked.

‘Nope. Can’t say that it does.’

‘Then we’ve taken enough of your time.’ Rebecca straightened and placed her mug down on the carpet. I followed suit.

‘You can see yourselves out,’ Teare said. ‘But take my advice. Do some reflecting of your own. Nothing good is going to come from poking around in what happened up at that cottage. Best to let sleeping dogs lie, you know?’

*

Lukas struggled out of the taxi and closed the door behind him. The hotel was built in a grand Victorian style, many storeys high, and located on Douglas seafront next to an ornate theatre. The ground floor featured large bay windows with curved glass and Lukas could see well-dressed people eating at circular tables covered in crisp white linens, drinking wine from sparkling glasses.

He thought of his dirty clothes. His unkempt appearance. Then he cursed himself for thinking of those things and started up the steps. He took them one at a time, heaving his bad leg behind him without bending his knee.

The foyer was impressive. High ceilings and shiny marble floors, oversized planters with colourful flower displays, uniformed staff behind a polished reception counter off to one side. There were two staff on duty, a man and a woman, and the instant they saw him they devoted all their attention to a computer screen sunk into the counter. He got the impression he was expected to leave without troubling them. He didn’t have to.

Anderson emerged from a club chair hidden behind one of the planters. He was wearing a smart blue suit over a white shirt. His shirt collar was open and the suit was a size too small, emphasising his hard packed muscles.

He swept over to Lukas, buttoning his jacket on the way, then shaking his hand and patting him on the arm like a valued business companion. His eyes danced across the bulge beneath Lukas’s grubby sweatshirt. He smiled, showing a lot of teeth and not a lot of eyes. Then he wrapped an arm around Lukas and led him through the foyer to a waiting elevator. Anderson pressed a button for the top floor and waited for the doors to close before spinning Lukas around and plucking the pistol from the waistband of his trousers with a fast, dextrous movement.

‘What’s under the sweater?’ he asked, ejecting the magazine of bullets, then stuffing the pistol and magazine inside his jacket.

‘His laptop.’

‘And what’s up with your leg?’

‘I told you. I was shot.’

Anderson’s face was impassive. ‘Bad?’

‘I think so.’

Anderson shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t be walking if it was. And you know we can’t take you to a hospital. Not over here. But I’ll give you a shot for the pain.’

Lukas gulped. ‘They have Pieter.’

‘Pieter let Mr Zeeger down.’ Anderson placed a hand on Lukas’s shoulder. ‘You’re a lucky guy, Lukas. You get a second chance.’

The doors parted on to a silent corridor. The dark-blue carpet was richly woven. The walls were papered in blue and cream stripes.

Anderson led Lukas as far as a lacquered wooden door. He knocked three times and waited for a muffled response before using a keycard to enter.

The suite was spacious, the lighting subdued. There was a well-appointed kitchen, a generous living area with multiple couches and armchairs, and a glass dining table.

Mr Zeeger was sitting in a wing-back chair at the far side of the darkened room, beneath a powerful reading lamp that bleached all the colour from his fair hair and tanned skin. When he looked up from the papers he was reading, his face had the appearance of a fleshless skull.

‘Sit down, Lukas,’ he said. ‘You don’t look well.’

Lukas shuffled across to the chair facing Mr Zeeger and winced as he lowered himself into it. Mr Zeeger seemed relaxed and composed. He was dressed casually, with a cashmere jumper over a light-blue shirt.

Anderson stood a few paces away, at the blurred edge of the cone of white light from the lamp. His hands were on his hips, pushing the tails of his jacket behind him. Lukas could see the holster for his gun.

‘Relax, Lukas,’ Mr Zeeger told him. His piercing blue eyes blazed out of his ghostly skull-face. ‘You’ve been very resourceful. Why don’t you tell us what it is that you’ve found?’

Lukas swallowed hard, then pulled the laptop out from beneath his sweater and flipped back the lid. He tapped a key and asked himself where exactly he should begin.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Laxey village is arranged over two sides of a river valley and towards the back of the village is a giant red waterwheel. In the nineteenth century, it was the largest waterwheel in the world, built to pump fluids out of the mineshaft beneath. It’s still claimed to hold that title. I couldn’t say if the claim is true. But I did know it was a good place to talk.

I had Rebecca drive us away from the beach and alongside the river until we crossed the embedded tracks for the electric tram system that runs around the coast to the north of the island. We passed a line of brightly painted cottages called Ham and Egg Terrace, where the mine workers used to enjoy cooked breakfasts back in the day. Beyond the terrace was a tight right turn, a small humped bridge and an empty visitors’ car park.

The wooden waterwheel towered above us, stationary at this time of night. A giant brick structure had been built to house it, painted a brilliant white, with a curved tower at one end that had been fitted with an external spiral staircase. There were two red Manx flags at the top of the tower, snapping in the coastal breeze. The flags featured the Triskelion, the emblem of the Isle of Man, made up of three conjoined legs. Another large Triskelion was embedded on the front of the brick structure housing the wheel.

There was a small entrance hut in front of us and a metal turnstile beside it. During the day they charge you to come in. At nine in the evening, when it’s close to fully dark, you can jump the turnstile for free.

We climbed over the barrier and strolled up the gravel path towards a fast-flowing stream close to the base of the wheel. Industrial floodlights bathed the white brickwork in a stark electric light. Midges and moths swirled in the glare. There was a wooden park bench close behind us. I took a seat and looked up at Rebecca, who was busy craning her neck and contemplating the wheel.

‘So what do you think?’ I asked her.

‘I think it’s a big wheel.’

‘I meant about Teare. About her interpretation of Shimmin’s motives.’

Rebecca cupped her hands around her eyes and looked beyond the wheel to the dark, clouded sky above. ‘I think what she said is possible. That perhaps Shimmin tried to keep a lid on the circumstances surrounding Laura’s death for the benefit of your family. Out of respect for your dad.’

‘You don’t sound certain.’

‘Because I’m not. I’m not certain about a lot of things.’

‘Such as?’

Rebecca sighed and lowered her head. ‘Such as what kind of mess your sister had got herself into, exactly. You asked me why she wanted your mum to contact me in particular. I’ve been thinking about that.’

‘And?’

‘I told you I work for Wilton Associates.’

‘So?’

‘So it’s a private firm. And it’s independent. That must have appealed to your sister. I’m outside the intelligence community. Maybe that means the problem she had was
inside
.’

‘What kind of a problem?’

‘Hard to know. But we’re assuming she was helping to hide Lena, OK? And that she was assisting Erik and Anderson to achieve that.’

‘I guess.’

‘And they told us Lena could have been taken by more than one group. There’s this environmental campaign angle, for sure. They were worried about that. No question. But that wasn’t all.’

‘So?’

‘So maybe they were also concerned about British Intelligence. Maybe Laura was concerned about them, too. Maybe, thinking about it, she was helping Erik to hide Lena from her own people.’