Under a Silent Moon: A Novel (38 page)

“Hello,” she said to them.

“Wotcher,” said the boy, eyeing her suspiciously. “All right?”

“Is Connor in?” Worth the risk, she thought. Even though she was now convinced she was right, because the family resemblance was a remarkable one.

“Dunno.”

They carried on past her. It was the confirmation she needed. She knocked on the frosted-glass panel of the front door, which rattled in its frame, no doubt loosened by the repeated slamming. The dog barking continued, and then she saw a figure approach. The door was opened by a woman wearing a vest top and a pair of tracksuit bottoms.

“Is Connor in?” Flora said again.

“Who’s asking?”

“Flora Maitland,” she said. “It’s urgent.”

The door shut in her face. She heard the woman shout: “Connor! Someone at the door for you.”

Flora waited, glancing at the road behind her, expecting at any moment to see her father’s car pulling up.

The door opened abruptly and there he was, in all his ferrety glory. “What you want?” He clearly hadn’t forgiven her for pushing him into the manure pile.

“Dad sent me,” she said, dropping her voice to an urgent whisper. “He’s been arrested. He told me to come and get the stuff he gave you to look after.”

It was the moment of greatest risk. She half-expected him to ask her what the fuck she was talking about; after all, would her father really have trusted this halfwit with the contents of the safe? But there had been such little time to dispose of it all, and there had been the moment in the space above the office when Nigel had told Connor to go home, reminded him that he had been given something to do.

It was nothing more than an educated guess. And her suspicions were confirmed when the expression on Connor’s face changed from a scowl to a gawp. He was buying it. “You’re joking,” he said. “Fuck!”

“Yeah,” Flora said. “He wants me to move it again, he thinks they might get a warrant to search your”—she broke off, trying to find the suitable word, settled on—“house.”

“Wait,” Connor said. “I should ring him, to check—”

“You can’t do that,” she said quickly. “The police have got his phone.”

“Right, right. Course. Fuck! Wait. How do I know he sent you?”

“For crying out loud. He told me your address, right? How would I find you otherwise?”

He seemed reassured by this, then he frowned again. “Fuck. Nigel’s been nicked, I can’t believe it! What are we gonna do?”

“Look, they could be here in a minute. We need to get the stuff into my car.”

“Where are you going to take it?”

“Safer for you if I don’t say.”

He hesitated. Flora could almost see the cogs whirring inside his skull as he tried to work out what else he should be doing. Then he seemed to reach a decision. “Wait here, yeah?”

The door slammed shut.

Flora breathed out. So far, so good. But she was in deep shit now. Nigel might phone Connor at any moment.

A few moments later, the door opened again, and Connor pushed a cardboard box toward her with his trainer. “You take that one. I’ve got the other one.”

She picked up the box. It was heavy, the top flaps interleaved shut. Without hesitation she made her way back down the driveway. Back at the car, she put the box down on the pavement and unlocked the boot. Connor was behind her, looking up and down the road anxiously as though the police might appear at any moment. In Kensington Avenue they probably often did.

“Glad to be rid of it, to be honest,” he said, sniffing. “Not the sort of stuff I like having under me bed. You know what’s in there, right?”

“I don’t want to know,” Flora said, “so don’t tell me. I’m just bloody doing as I’m told.”

“Yeah. When’s he gonna be out, do you know?”

“No idea. He said he’d contact you as soon as he can. He seems to think it’s going to be okay as long as I can take care of this stuff.”

He nodded excitedly. “Yeah, yeah. They ain’t got nothing on him, other than what’s in there. You bloody take care of it, right?”

“Don’t worry,” she said, taking the second box from him. This one was much lighter. She slammed the boot lid down and went to get in the driver’s door.

“Wait a sec,” he said.

“What?”

“Did he say anything about the phone?”

Shit. What does he mean?
“The phone?” She had one hand on the open door, looked back over her shoulder at the road as a pair of headlights suddenly illuminated them both. She pulled the door in closer as the car passed.

“Does he want me to drop it, or what?”

For a moment Flora’s mind was a terrifying blank. Then: “He didn’t say anything, but then he only had a second, and I guess this was his priority. Did you have an agreement, then? To do something with the phone if he was arrested?”

“Yeah,” Connor said. “He told me that if he got nicked I was to drop the phone and get another one.”

Flora felt relief wash through her. “Yes, that’s probably a good idea. Drop your phone. He’ll come and find you when he’s out. Just keep your head down for a bit.”

“You won’t want me over at the stables, then?”

“No. Don’t worry about the stables. I’ll sort that out.”

“Fucking excellent!”

She got in the car and started it, tried to pull away smoothly, but the tension caused by her own mad behavior was making her jumpy. When she got to the end of Kensington Avenue and turned left, back toward the main road, she started to laugh. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel as though it were about to fly off.
What have I done? What the hell am I doing?

19:25

“Your phone’s been ringing,” Chris said when Taryn came back down the stairs, bathrobe on over her pajamas, hair in a towel.

“Well, you could’ve answered it,” she replied, rooting through her bag for the phone. She had had several glasses of wine in the bath, trying to relax, worrying about Flora. Her first thought was that something had happened, that Flora had been arrested again, but the missed calls—three of them—were all from an unknown mobile number.

There were no voice-mail messages. Irritated, she redialed. It was answered straightaway—and the voice on the other end, imperious, impatient, was a familiar one.

“Taryn,” said her father. “They’re going to discharge me tomorrow. Can you come first thing? I don’t want to have to wait for those awful patient-transport volunteer people.”

Her father must have borrowed a mobile phone from someone. She considered it for a moment, thinking about where Brian was planning to go. Would the police just let him back into the Barn? She didn’t even have his key. Surely he wasn’t imagining that he could come and stay with them? And she had to be at work by half past eight.

“Does it have to be first thing?” she asked. “I might be able to take an extended lunch break.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Chris, on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, was watching her face, mouthing
Don’t let him give you any shit.
Brian didn’t do compromise. It felt likely that he was working himself up into a rage and she contemplated what Reg might say if she phoned in to ask for the morning off, just as the answer came. “That would be really kind of you, Taryn. Thank you.”

Well, that was unexpected. She raised her eyebrows for Chris’s benefit. “Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll give you a call in the morning, shall I?”

“Thank you,” he said again.

She couldn’t resist the little dig. “Isn’t your lovely lady friend available to come and pick you up?”

Another pause. “She has . . . other priorities,” he said.

“Is she married?” Taryn asked.

“No, she’s not married. That’s not what I meant. It’s—it’s just not possible to ask her.”

The wine she’d drunk was igniting her curiosity and giving voice to it: “Are you going to marry her, Dad? Now that Barbara’s out of the picture?”

“No,” he said after a moment, and there was an audible sigh. “No, I rather think not.” His voice sounded so strange, so unlike his normal brusque tone that Taryn had to sit on the arm of the sofa.

“Have you had a falling-out?”

He chuckled slightly. “No, not that. I don’t think I should get married again, you know. Wives are more trouble than they’re worth. Don’t you think so?”

“I’ll have to ask Chris about that,” she said, and winked at her husband who had glanced up on hearing his name mentioned.

“I think . . . I rather think Barbara was very unkind to you, Taryn,” Brian said.

Taryn didn’t reply, shocked to hear him say this.

“And I think I was, too. I’m very sorry for it.”

“Dad—?”

“It takes something like this to make you realize, you know.”

“Nearly dying, you mean?” she said and then instantly thought how tactless that sounded.

“Oh, I’ve nearly died before,” he said, his tone light. “It’s not as bad as you’d imagine.”

“What do you mean?”

“A dicky ticker,” he said. “And a woman that likes to kill people. Makes you put everything into perspective.”

The wine she’d drunk was making the turn the conversation was taking seem more than surreal. She was about to ask him what he meant, but before she had the chance, he brought things to an abrupt end.

“Anyway, if you can get here tomorrow I’d really appreciate it. Very kind of you. You know my number now, in any case. See you tomorrow, I hope.”

“All right, Dad. I’ll ring you first thing.”

“Good night, then.”

“Bye, Dad.”

Taryn sat for a moment, staring at the handset before reaching across to replace it.

“What was that all about?” Chris asked.

“He said she liked to kill people,” Taryn said quietly.

“Who? Barbara? Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. We’re all bloody better off without her.”

21:42

Jason had barely paused for breath all day, and now Sam was back with the warrant for Brian’s arrest; barely five minutes passed before the officers who’d stayed behind had their coats on, ready to go out to the King Bill.

Sam, the only one still on duty, was staying in the office to prepare the morning briefing for the arrest and interview team. Lou spent a moment debating what to do, stay or go. But then she saw Sam’s face and realized that actually she preferred to get on with things on her own. Besides, Jason had already left with Ali and Jane.

“Don’t stay past your hours, Sam,” she said. “You’ve done enough.”

“Ma’am. I was hoping I could swap shifts and do an early turn tomorrow?”

Lou looked at her. Sam already knew what the answer would be; she was just trying her luck. “I really appreciate what you’ve done, Sam. You’ve been brilliant. But you’ll have to wait until your shift, all right? You need your rest the same as everyone else. And you never know, we might be able to bring Suzanne in, and I’ll need you for that.”

By the time Lou got to the King Bill, she had promised herself she was only going to buy a round, maybe two, and then make sure everyone buggered off home. They weren’t celebrating, not yet, anyway. This was all about putting a barrier between the case and going home. It was a transitional phase, involving beer.

And at the bar, the crush of people from the team along with every other random punter, most of whom were job themselves, she found herself standing next to Jason, who was pressing against her like some frotteur on a crowded underground train. As she necked the bottle of beer someone had lined up ready for her, alongside Ali and Jane and Les Finnegan, who smelled as though he’d sneaked in a couple of whiskey chasers already, she felt Jason’s hand on her waist. She looked round at him, his green eyes so close to hers, closer than they’d been since the night she’d spent tangled round him on his sofa.

“How
did
you get that black eye?” she asked with a smile.

“What?”

It was loud in here, music from some local band coming from the function room upstairs—and they sounded good, too—so she repeated her question, a little louder, a little closer to his ear.

“I got a stick in the face, of course.”

“Don’t you wear some sort of mask thing?”

“Yeah, on the ice. This was in the changing rooms.”

Lou laughed because it was quite funny after half a beer and an improbably long working day, and he laughed too. “What, on purpose?”

“Maybe. Who knows.”

“Someone from the other team?”

“Does it even matter?”

“I’m just interested.”

But he didn’t answer, distracted by Les Finnegan talking about the pornographic pictures of Brian and his lovely lady friend on the phone and what he could sell them for, if he had half a mind to get started in the granny porn market.

Lou felt for Jason’s hand, gave it a squeeze, intending to let go. He held it.

21:53

Flora was sitting on the floor of the kitchen, a small windowless room at the back of the studio where she made cups of coffee and washed out her brushes. The main studio, a large room with big windows overlooking the car park at the front of the building, was in darkness. Her car had been moved round the back, behind the second warehouse, and it was partly concealed by two large Dumpsters full of cardboard for recycling. To the casual passerby, nobody was home.

She had shut the kitchen door before turning on any lights, boiled the kettle, turned on the radio with the sound low so that the thought of being here all on her own was not quite so scary.

Now, with her third mugful of black coffee in hand, she had almost reached the bottom of the first box.

The contents had been by turns eye-opening, confusing, and, frankly, terrifying.

Large brown envelopes containing bundles of cash, fifties in great wads, bound with elastic bands. There were files, too, in three thick lever arch folders. One marked “Leeds,” one marked “Liverpool.” The other with nothing on the spine at all. Inside the files were plastic sleeves, each one containing personal details, photocopies of passports, birth certificates, phone numbers, addresses from all over eastern Europe, North Africa, Asia. One plastic sleeve in the unmarked folder contained nothing but credit cards, new looking, all in different names.

Then there was a large carrier bag containing passports, lots of them, different sizes, different colors. Flora pulled one out at random. The picture was of a young girl, dark haired, aged about twelve. The date of birth on the passport would have put her at seventeen. The name on it—in a Cyrillic script and in roman letters too—Ekaterina Ioratova.