Two words, typed in bold, large font. Look upstairs
The breath stopped somewhere in my throat and I could feel my stomach constrict.
'What are you looking at?' she asked, coming up behind me. 'Don't tell me that was attached to the brick?'
I blew out the match and refolded the note, pushing it into my jacket pocket, then turned to face her. She was standing a few feet away, the pale contours of her face just visible in the darkness. I couldn't see the gun but assumed it was down by her side.
'Stay down here,' I told her. 'I need to go upstairs.'
She started to protest but I moved past her, fumbling my way over to the staircase and banging into the sofa on the way. I didn't want her to follow in case of what was up there, but it was clear from the sound of her footsteps that she wasn't planning on hanging back. As I reached the staircase and found the banister, she asked me again about the contents of the note.
This time I told her.
She cursed under her breath, but stayed behind me as I reached the staircase. 'I should go up first,' she whispered. 'I know where I'm going.'
'No way,' I said, and made my way up the stairs, thankful that they weren't creaking. As surreptitiously as possible, I brought the.45 back out, hoping that Emma wouldn't see it.
And then when I was close to the top of the staircase, the power came back on. I had to blink rapidly to reaccustom my eyes to the light and immediately thrust the gun out in front of me in case this was some sort of trap.
But it wasn't. No one suddenly appeared. No shots rang out. The whole upper floor was quiet. It also looked remarkably ordinary, in so far as anything in Emma's house looked ordinary. It was a lot tidier than downstairs, and there was no obvious sign of intrusion. The walls were painted the same orange as the sitting room, and several abstract paintings – little more than symmetrical patterns created in black and white – hung from the available spaces, along with an expensive-looking metallic silver clock shaped like a very thin oblong. Three doors, all painted white, were positioned round the small square landing.
'Which one's your bedroom?' I asked her.
'The one to your right. Why?'
'Just an educated guess,' I said, and pushed the door open rapidly. I flicked on the light switch and ran inside, keeping low, and moved the gun round one hundred and eighty degrees in a covering arc, taking in from left to right the desk with PC, the neatly made queen-sized bed with stuffed animals reclining impassively on the pillows, the huge wardrobe that took up most of one wall.
At first, I missed it. But as I swept the gun back round from right to left, my eyes stopped and focused on something in the middle of the bed.
It was a small African woodcarving of a narrow tapering face, about six inches long, that blended in well with the midnight blue of the duvet, but definitely didn't belong in the room. Thick, straw-like hair sprouted up wildly from the face, through which two large chicken feathers had been passed in opposing directions. Each feather had what appeared to be dried blood on the tip, and there were further flecks of blood in the hair as well.
As I lowered the gun, Emma came into the room and saw what I was looking at. I heard her take a sharp intake of breath and out of the corner of my eye saw her put a hand to her mouth. Despite the fact that her other hand was still attached to the Colt Diamondback, she looked very vulnerable again. 'Oh God, they've been in here. In my house.'
She took a step towards the bed but I put out an arm to stop her. 'Don't touch anything. You might contaminate evidence.'
And then a thought struck me, something that I should have cottoned onto as soon as I'd seen the lights showing in the other houses in the street.
Unless whoever had cut the power had some supremely good contacts within the local electricity company, the only way they could have shut it off was if they'd done so manually.
From inside the house.
'Where's your fusebox?' I demanded.
'Downstairs. In the utility room. It's off the kitchen.'
I didn't hesitate. I went out of the room and hit the stairs at a run, almost stumbling in my haste to cut off any escape, the gun waving wildly in front of me, although, God knows, I really didn't want to have to use it in here after what had happened in the cinema.
But, of course, I was too late anyway.
The front door was wide open. The intruder had gone. He'd even had the nerve to turn the power back on while we were otherwise occupied, before calmly emerging from his hiding place and walking straight out the front door.
I went over and closed it, not even bothering to attempt a pursuit, then pulled the bolt across. Next I pulled back the curtain and inspected the window in more detail. It was going to be expensive to repair because the whole pane would have to be replaced, but overall the damage was limited, and even another couple of heaves of the brick wouldn't have shattered it. It definitely wasn't an emergency job.
When I was satisfied that everything was in order, I found a plastic bag in one of the kitchen drawers and went back upstairs.
Emma was sitting in the swivel chair by the desk and staring into space. She was no longer holding the gun, and the exhaustion in her face suddenly made her seem very much her age. Even her hair seemed to have lost its lustre. The woodcarving remained on the bed.
I stepped across and carefully picked it up, turning it round in my hands. It was an ugly-looking thing, the pitted eyes staring out malevolently from amidst the straw, but not much different from any of the other traditional African face-carvings on sale in hundreds of shops across London and the South-East. I put it in the bag, tied the handles and placed it on the floor by my feet.
'The man you're investigating,' I said, turning round in her direction, 'is his name Nicholas Tyndall?'
Which was when she said something that truly shocked me.
'I know who you are now.'
There was no fear in her words, simply a weary resignation. Our eyes met, and I knew there was no point lying about it. She knew. I said nothing.
'When I first saw you, I thought you looked familiar,' she went on, breaking eye contact and looking at a point above my left shoulder, 'but I couldn't place where it was I'd seen you before. Then, when you lied to me about who you were, that started to get me suspicious. But it was only when you pulled that bloody great revolver that I remembered where I'd seen your photo. Three years ago in the papers. Dennis Milne, police officer and killer.' She emphasized that last word and I flinched involuntarily. 'They mentioned your name when they were writing about Malik's murder. They said he used to work with you a long time ago. Is that why you're here?'
I nodded slowly. 'He was a good friend of mine once. I don't like to think of his killers running free.'
'But you're wanted for murder. You're risking everything by getting involved.'
I shrugged. 'Sometimes we do things we don't understand.'
She ran a freckled hand slowly down her face, and I could see the tension in her features. When she looked at me, I saw an attractive, vivacious girl who'd suddenly found herself in terrible trouble. I wanted to reach down and hold her. Press her head against my chest and tell her that it was all right, it wasn't as bad as it looked, and breathe some of the vibrancy that had been there the previous evening back into her.
Then, in a soft voice, she asked a question that ripped me apart. 'You've come here for my help, but what's to stop you killing me when I'm no longer any use to you?'
For a moment I didn't say anything as I absorbed the blow. It still hurt to know that this was how the world viewed me – as a murderous pariah – because somewhere, somehow, they were wrong to do so.