Trust No One (28 page)

Standing on the chair, she was able to pull open the trap-door. Like the rest of the bungalow, its initial appearance was deceptive. It was a much more sophisticated affair than it looked, the trapdoor counter-weighted so that it opened smoothly, an aluminium folding ladder tucked neatly behind it. She pulled down the ladder, noting that it seemed well-maintained and lubricated. This was a space that had been used relatively recently.

Intrigued now, she returned the chair to the kitchen and made her way cautiously up the ladder until she was able to peer into the space above. At first sight, it looked unremarkable – just a small area of unused space below the pitch of the roof. Given the quality of the trapdoor, she had half-expected that the loft would have been adapted for regular use. But there was no real floor – just the usual joists with the plasterboard ceiling nailed beneath them. She would have to be careful. If she slipped off the joists, she would most likely just crash through the plasterboard.

She noticed that, although there was no floor, a number of doubled planks had been positioned across the joists to provide a safer route across the loft. Not just a temporary measure, either. The planks were neatly nailed into place.

There was some light up here – lines of sunlight creeping through gaps below the roofline – but it remained gloomy. She looked around and found a light switch. As she pressed it, the space was flooded with light from two large spots set in the corners of the roof. Again, she thought, not what you'd expect from your average loft. Looking around, she saw that, otherwise, her earlier expectations had been largely fulfilled. There were various items scattered about the attic, most of them nothing more than discarded junk. A rusting child's tricycle, a discarded toaster, an old television. Beyond that, there were a number of cardboard shoe boxes filled with papers. She made her way carefully along the planks towards these, hoping that their contents might be of interest.

But they were simply more rubbish, sheet after sheet of old domestic bank statements, all at least ten years old. She scanned a handful briefly, but the name of the account holder meant nothing to her and the amounts in the account were small. She flicked quickly through the rest of the boxes, but the papers were of a similar type and vintage – old utilities bills, tax returns, bits and pieces of formal correspondence. All of it unremarkable, the kind of thing you might find in any household. Stored up here by some previous occupant in the hope that it might come in useful someday. It clearly never had.

She straightened up, careful to keep her balance on the narrow planks. There didn't seem to be much else. This was another wild goose chase, of no value except to waste another half-hour of the endless morning. If nothing else, she'd enjoy Salter's reaction to the mess she'd made of these new clothes in the small time he'd been out of the house.

There remained one interesting question, though. Why had someone installed that expensive-looking entrance and then taken the trouble to put the planks down? Her eyes followed the path of the planks across the attic. They led to an area at the far gable end, lost in the gloom. Her immediate guess was that the planks led to the house's water tank, although she couldn't see it in the dim light. Still, while she was here, there was no harm in looking.

As she drew closer, she realized that the arrangement was more professionally constructed than was at first apparent. The planks broadened to a reinforced platform. What she had taken to be the gable wall was a neatly made plasterboard screen, painted a dark colour so as to be invisible to anyone taking a casual look into the attic.

Examining the panelling more closely, she saw it was designed to slide back on stainless-steel runners set at ground level and head height. Like the loft entrance, the structure had been well maintained and drew back easily. She opened it to its full extent, and peered to see what lay behind.

At first, she was disappointed. Immediately behind the panel was a steel water tank, pipes leading off to the bungalow's plumbing and central heating. She craned her head to look further around the panel. Behind the tank was something much more interesting.

It was a large industrial safe, a squat cast-iron monstrosity that lurked almost threateningly in the semi-darkness. The platform beneath it had been reinforced to ensure that it would take the weight. Christ knew how it had been brought up there. She could imagine only that it had been lifted by crane and brought in through the roof. Hardly an inconspicuous activity, although maybe the kind of thing you could disguise as part of a rebuilding or renovation exercise.

Why in God's name was it here? Whatever else it might be, it clearly wasn't a repository for superannuated utilities bills and bank statements. She climbed past the screen and examined the safe more closely. It was the kind of object you might find in a large retail store. Somewhere to keep the day's cash takings.

She tried the handle, with no expectation that it would move. Sure enough, the safe was firmly locked, requiring both keys and a combination number to open. Not much else was likely to provide access, short of maybe a piledriver. So what was in there? It could be anything. Cash. Drugs. Arms. Perhaps all three. Certainly nothing that you'd expect to find in a domestic setting. Or, for that matter, in one of the Agency's safe houses. Which raised the question of what this place really was. And what Salter was up to.

She spent a few more minutes searching the area around the safe for any clues to its contents, but found nothing. But then, her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, she noticed something else. There were wires running alongside the safe, just below the bottom of the roof. In itself, there was nothing remarkable about that. The attic space was strewn with domestic wiring, grey cables snaking across the plasterboard, tacked to the rafters, powering the ceiling lights and electrical points in the rooms below.

But this was different – lighter than domestic wiring, with the air of having been hastily installed. It trailed back to some sort of unit in the far corner. It took her a few moments to work out what she was seeing. Covert recording equipment. Voice activated. One of the Agency's machines. So the question was even more pertinent.

What the fuck was Salter's game?

She was on the point of making her way back towards the entrance to the attic, when she heard a sound from outside.

A car.

She stepped rapidly back along the planks, wondering whether she would have time to make her descent into the hallway before Salter came through the door. She would rather keep Salter in the dark about her discoveries up here. Though, looking down at her dust-covered clothes, she had to admit that this was probably an optimistic goal.

In any case, the question was academic. Already, she could hear a murmur of voices from outside the front of the house. Salter was not alone. Whatever his game might be, it was becoming more convoluted by the minute.

Moving quickly, she leaned down to pull up the ladder and drag the trapdoor back into place. She had expected that the weight might be too much for her, but the counter-weighted design was as easy to operate from above as from below. Even so, she was only just in time. As the trapdoor clicked into place, she heard the fumbling of a key in the front door below.

She quietly straightened up and looked around. On her way into the loft, she'd noticed a small pile of rusting tools left, presumably forgotten, just inside the entrance. She flicked through them and selected an old screwdriver, its shaft rusting, its handle thick with dried paint.

She laid herself carefully down along the length of the planking, her face close to the ceiling boards. Then, as silently as she could, she used the screwdriver to bore a small hole in the plasterboard. She worked away at it for a few moments until it was large enough for her to gain a clear view of the hallway below.

Salter himself entered first, still talking to someone behind him. He sounded nervous, she thought, his voice a little too high, words a little too fast. Well, she knew how he felt. She was already wondering about options for escape. Would it be feasible to break out through the roof itself, push through the tiles? It would still leave her with the problem of how to reach the ground, but that shouldn't be impossible. Not ideal, but better than nothing, if it came to that.

As the second figure came into sight below, she caught her breath.

Kerridge. Jeff fucking Kerridge.

There was no question. She had seen that figure too often – the body running to fat, the greying slicked-back hair, the clothes slightly too expensive for the circles he usually mixed with.

So much for keeping her secure. So much for Professional Standards. So much for this sodding safe house. Her instinct had been right again. She'd walked straight into it. From frying pan to fucking fire, in one not-so-smart move.

Salter had snatched her from Boyle's clutches just to hand her straight over to Kerridge. Now she understood why Salter had been pumping her about what evidence Morton might have against Kerridge. They knew – or thought – she had something. Morton's ‘insurance policy', as Salter had called it. They'd probably been afraid that if she'd ended up in the frame for Jones' death or even dead herself, the material might still leak out. So they wanted to get their hands on it. She'd given nothing away to Salter last night. Now they'd come to get the information out of her, no doubt using the same techniques that Boyle's people had used on Jake.

She'd kept her eye fixed on the hallway as the third figure entered. Welsby. So Salter had been telling the truth about that at least. Welsby really was on Kerridge's payroll. Salter had just omitted to mention that Welsby wasn't the only one.

She heard the three men move into the sitting room. Moving as silently as she could, she edged her body slowly forwards along the planks, until she judged that she was above them. Conscious of every creak in the wooden joists, she pressed her ear to the plasterboard ceiling, hoping to hear something of the conversation below.

Their voices carried clearly through the thin boarding, and apart from a few mumbled words, she had no difficulty following their discussion.

‘Of course it was Boyle,' Salter was saying. ‘Who else would it have been?'

‘So how the fuck did he work out who she was?' Kerridge's voice was low and growling, the voice of someone used to getting his own way. She'd never seen this side of him. In his few dealings with her, he'd always displayed an old-fashioned courtesy that, she'd thought, was only just the right side of patronizing sexism. Outside of that, she'd seen him only in unctuous mode, glad-handing the great and good at business and charity events.

‘How the hell would I know?' Salter said. ‘Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just worked out that she was close to Morton. Maybe he's just flailing in the dark like we all are.'

‘Bollocks. Boyle does nothing without thinking. If he thought Donovan was worth putting down, he must have had a good idea who she was.'

Marie felt a chill down her spine. Putting down. Like a fucking dog.

‘Someone tipped Boyle off, then.' Welsby's voice.

‘Well, what the fuck do you think? Boyle's smart, but he's not a fucking clairvoyant. How the hell else does he know that Donovan's one of yours?' There was silence for a few moments, then Kerridge went on. ‘OK, tell your story again and let's see if it sounds any more convincing this time.'

This was clearly addressed to Salter. After another pause, Salter said, ‘I don't know what you're trying to insinuate—'

‘Oh, fuck off,' Kerridge said. His voice had dropped, and Marie could hardly made out the expletive. He sounded even more intimidating when speaking quietly. ‘I'm not
insinuating
. I'm telling you to your fucking face that I don't fucking trust you. Little Boy Scout who's suddenly decided to join the bad guys. That clear enough?'

‘Crystal,' Salter said. His voice was icy, but to Marie's ears he still sounded the most nervous of the three of them. Out of his depth, she thought. Well out of his depth. ‘I just thought I was doing you a fucking favour.'

‘Very generous of you. So tell me again.'

‘I've been keeping tabs on her,' Salter said. ‘Like we agreed.'

‘You didn't tell us she'd been to see Jones.' Welsby's voice again. ‘Not till after he was dead.'

‘I didn't get the chance,' Salter said. ‘I didn't think Jones was significant. I thought he was small fry.'

‘He is fucking small fry,' Kerridge said. ‘But he's small fry who works for Boyle.'

‘Christ, I didn't know—'

‘That's your trouble, Hugh. There's a lot you don't know. And you don't even know how much you don't know.' Welsby sounded dismissive, as though he was wearily trying to deal with a student who'd failed to live up to his initial promise.

‘I don't know why I fucking bother, that's what I don't know,' Salter said. He was trying to match their aggression, Marie thought, but he succeeded only in sounding petulant. ‘I'm not a fucking clairvoyant either, you know.'

‘So you kept tabs on her after she slipped out of brother Blackwell's clutches,' Welsby said. ‘Why didn't you tell us where she'd hidden herself away? Why wait till now?'

There was another pause. ‘I don't know,' Salter said after a moment. ‘Just being a bit too smart, like you say. Maybe I just felt a bit sorry for her. I thought I could get whatever she's got without things coming to this. I thought she'd trip up and I'd get it out of her. Then things moved a bit quicker than I expected.'

‘Story of your life, Hugh,' Welsby said.

‘Don't notice you doing all that much better. Don't notice you having much success in keeping a lid on all this,' Salter said. ‘Don't notice you doing much at all. Seems to me that we could all be up shit creek if Boyle gets hold of this stuff and uses it against Kerridge.'