“You’d need far more sessions with a shrink than you’ll get on the NHS to figure that out,” I replied. “What was it Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven? It’s got nothing to do with deserves. It’s all about betrayal and double-cross — my work, my life, her husband, my wife...” Maybe she’ll betray me too. Burn the whole house down like one of those big-eyed urchin paintings until there’s nothing left but a pile of ash. But if I wasn’t going to get as iced up as that freezer, right now I needed that flame. Which is why, instead of heading home after my last appointment, Dino and I were in my car, inching along Leighton Road. I parked on Lady Margaret, picked up Dino and my briefcase, and walked around the corner to the tube. By the station, as always, there was a clutter of winos perched on the benches under the glass-andiron canopy. It always struck me that there was something theatrical about this spot. Like it was some kind of project Camden Council had for out-of-work actors. Putting those insane uplighters in the pavement to illuminate the puddles of puke and piss only added to the effect.
As I approached, one of the men looked up. “I’m working hard,” he said, “although I appear to have the air of a holiday-maker.” He patted the space on the bench beside him. “Take a load off, doc. How’s it going?” I recognized him. Back in the day when I worked as a GP around the corner, he had been one of my patients. I sat down and took out the cropped headshot I’d printed from the DVD. A man at the next bench with a can of Special Brew came over and eyed me suspiciously.
“Are you a cop?”
My old patient cut in with, “How many cops have you seen with a ventriloquist’s dummy? I know him, he’s all right,” he said, and the man with the Special Brew came over.
“I know her too.” He pointed at the picture. “It’s Fat Mary.”
“Oh, my love,” his companion laughed. “That it is, and in the prime of health. And I thought she was dead. She’s not dead, is she?”
Mary, he told me, used to work King’s Cross; she had a handful of regulars who’d come to her for years. The cops left her alone mostly, but then they brought in all those community officers who shifted the girls along York Way up to the park by the astroturf football pitch. Her clients stopped coming and the younger girls gave her a rough time. Around a year ago she disappeared. Which must have been when the bass player took her in. They told me they had no clue where she was, but I already had an idea. I picked up Dino and headed for the car.
It was easy. Surprisingly easy. All you need is a computer and the medical profession behind you. The hardest part was changing the appointments; patients, psychiatric ones particularly, don’t like change. My secretary put a few of them off and crammed the real crazies into the mornings. That way I had the afternoons to myself. I didn’t spend the whole of that time with her, even though her husband was at his studio and we could work on her problems at her place, undisturbed. Like I said, I had other things to do, people to track down, plans to make. I’d lost contact with David and Malcolm many years ago, but here we all were, e-mailing each other like old friends.
I’d worked with both of them closely, way back when. It was before I started specializing in phobics. My interest back then was fetishists. David was an accountant. He was also my first feeder. Jailed for locking up and fattening up an underage girl from Poland who had answered his ad for an au pair. He said she lied to him about her age and, already on the chubby side, she looked much older than she was. He believed that she was happy with the setup. Maybe she was. It was clear he worshipped her; he waited on her hand and foot. When they sent me to see him, all he did was ask if I would look out for her and make sure she was all right. At some point after his release, when the Internet started to catch on, he set up a site for fellow fat-admirers; it might even have been the first in the UK.
He knew about Fat Mary — her picture had been posted in a number of places. Feeders took pride in their work, and there was a lot of Mary to be proud of. Most of the feeders were possessive of their gainers, but not the bass player. According to David, Mary had asked the bass player to let her bring customers in once in a while so she could make some money of her own. She said she didn’t want to spend his; the bass player apparently found that amusing. So he lent her out to some of the FA network; probably filmed them too. David told me to give him a week and he’d come up with an address and a key. He did. I left a message with the secretary to book me two days leave.
It’s only polite to take a gift when you visit a woman. I took four. I hadn’t realized I would be so spoiled for choice in Kentish Town. Since she came along, I had been taking more interest in my immediate environment than I had in years, if ever. I’d even defrosted the fridge. Though I hate to say it, and it’s still no excuse, there might have been something in Kate’s accusation about my work taking over everything. I bought flowers, of course, then I crossed the road to the bakery and bought her some of those cakes. I swung back over to Poundstretcher, which Lord knows how but I’d never noticed before, and came out of the place with two huge jars of chocolates and, while I was at it, a child’s silver shell suit for Dino. The tux definitely neeed a trip to the dry cleaner’s.
On the way back home I made another find. A couple of blocks past the station there was a weird old ladies’ underwear shop — you’ll know it if you’ve ever seen it. It’s like the place that time forgot. The main feature of its window display is an absolutely colossal pair of knickers, almost as big as the window itself. Too small for Mary, though. Still, things might change.
When rush hour was over I picked up Dino and got in the car. I knew precisely when the bass player would be leaving. Sitting outside on a yellow line, I pretended to examine the A-Z when I saw him come out the door. He walked a few paces to the residential parking bay, aiming a device on his keychain at a gleaming Range Rover. It chirped and he stepped in. I waited another ten minutes after he’d driven off before I got out and walked up the front steps.
Apart from the cars, the street was empty, or as empty as any Central London street can be. I tried the first key in the lock, then the second. Neither seemed to fit. I dropped them, cursing, just as someone walked out of the building next door. He did not so much as look in my direction. When I picked them up and tried again, it worked.
The front door opened into what appeared to be a storage space. Other doors, all unlocked, opened onto rooms crammed with boxes and packing crates. On the left there was a fairly narrow staircase. There must have been a lot less of Mary when she first came here. I climbed the stairs until they stopped at a locked door at the top. The second key opened it without trouble and I stepped inside.
I knew this room so well from watching that DVD over and over. It was as preternaturally clean and tidy as it appeared in the footage. Not so much as a finger smudge on the paneled walls. I spotted the webcams and wondered if they were filming me. I must have considered, subconsciously at least, the possibility, since I knew I was looking pretty good. Kate didn’t know what she’d thrown away.
And there was the corridor. I walked along it. I noticed another door off to the side that I didn’t remember from the film. I opened it: a large bathroom, also spotless. The mirrors that covered every wall looked like they’d been rubbed harder and more often than a teenager’s dick. I walked on to the end of the corridor and pushed open the door.