This isn't about Howard. I don't care about reasonable doubt or innocence or guilt. I just want to find Mickey.
A storm is coming. The static electricity in the air lifts strands of hair on Ali's head and suspends them like invisible wires. Within minutes raindrops are bouncing off the windshield like marbles and the gutters are choked with leaves. Put it down to global warming or climate change, but I don't remember storms like this when I was younger.
The tires of the Vauxhall swish through the wet. Ali has a way of concentrating when she drives that brings to mind an arcade game. It's as though she expects someone to run a red light or step out from the pavement.
We cross Tower Bridge and turn east along the A2, passing through Blackheath and Shooters Hill before reaching Dartford. The storm has passed and the sky is low and gray. A cold wind picks up scraps of paper that swirl and dip along the pavements.
This is real English suburbia, with privet hedges and puddle-size birdbaths. I can even smell the lawn fertilizer and watch television three houses away through the picture windows.
The White Horse pub advertises all-day breakfasts but doesn't open until midday. Peering through the windows I see an empty bar, chairs stacked on tables, a vacuum cleaner squatting on claret carpet, a dartboard and a brass footrail along the base of the bar.
I circle around the back, Ali never more than a few feet away. The large wooden gate is shut but not locked. It leads to a bricked courtyard, full of silver kegs, with a motorbike and two cars, one of them marooned on bricks and painted camouflage green.
Just outside the door, a teenage boy, perhaps fifteen, is sitting on the hood of a car, cleaning a carburetor with an oily rag. His worn sneakers swing back and forth and his jaw moves constantly—biting off words, chewing them up and spitting them out.
Spying me, his head jerks. “FUKLEMICK!”
“Hello Stevie.”
Sliding off the car he grasps my hand, pressing his ear to my wristwatch. “Tickatock, tickatock.”
Tourette's syndrome has turned him into a riot of twitches, cusses and screeches—“a human freak show,” according to his father, Ray Murphy, the former caretaker at Dolphin Mansions.
I turn to Ali. “This is Stevie Murphy.”
“S. Murphy. Smurfy. Smurf. Smurf.” He barks the words like a seal.
Ali runs her fingers through his short-cropped hair and he purrs like a kitten.
“Is your dad inside?”
His head jerks. “FUKLEOFF! GONE!”
“Where's he gone?”
He shrugs.
Ray Murphy provided Kirsten with her alibi on the morning Mickey disappeared. According to both their statements, he was fixing her shower. A small man, slung low to the ground like a dachshund, I remember seeing Murphy fight at Wembley—top of the bill for the British bantamweight title. That must have been the early eighties.
I interviewed him twice during the original investigation. I thought he might have some ideas on how Mickey got out of the building.
“Same way as everyone else,” he told me. “Through the front door.”
“You think maybe her friend Sarah missed her.”
“Kids don't always do what you want.”
He was speaking from experience. His eldest boy, Tony, was in Brixton prison, doing five years for armed robbery.
Turning away from Stevie, I knock three times on the pub door. A chair scrapes and the door opens a few inches. A large woman with nicotine-colored hair, lacquered to concrete, regards me suspiciously. She is wearing a furry yellow pullover and black leggings that make her look like an oversize duckling.
“Mrs. Murphy?”
“You found him yet?”
“Excuse me?”
“You found my Ray? What slut is he shagging?”
Ali tries to sort out the confusion. “Are you saying that you haven't seen your husband?”
“No, shit, Miss Marple!”
She turns away from the door and waddles to her chair. The remains of breakfast cover the table and a TV perched on the counter is broadcasting images of a couple on a sofa, looking cheery and bright.
“I remember you,” she says, not looking away from the screen. “You're that copper who looked for that little girl.”
“Mickey Carlyle.”
She gestures with her hand. “Stevie remembers. He doesn't forget things.”
“Mickey ficky sticky licky,” says Stevie, playing with the rhyme.
“Don't you be disgusting,” scolds Mrs. Murphy. Stevie flinches and avoids her slap. He steps back and swivels his hips in an oddly adult dance.
The kitchen is small and cluttered. A strange collection of souvenirs and bric-a-brac decorates the mantelpiece, including a Donald Duck salt and pepper set, a boxing trophy and a signed photograph of Henry Cooper.
Stevie is still dancing while Mrs. Murphy has her eyes glued to the TV. I could be eighty before I get her undivided attention. I hit the standby button on the TV remote and Mrs. Murphy looks at me like I've turned off her life support.
“When did you last see Ray?”
“It's like I told them—September 24.”
“Who did you tell?”
“The police! Twice I been down to see them, but they never believed me. They figured Ray had just taken off like before.”
“Before?”
She wipes her eyes and glances at Stevie. Ali picks up on the signal.
“Perhaps we should go outside,” she suggests. Stevie grins and hugs her around the waist.
“Just make sure he keeps his hands off you,” says his mother, glancing forlornly at the blank TV.
When the door closes, Mrs. Murphy continues, “Ray could never keep his trousers buttoned. But ever since we got the pub he stayed home. He loved the White Horse . . .” The statement trails off.
“Being a caretaker must have paid pretty well to afford this place.”
She bristles. “We bought it fair and square. An uncle left Ray some money.”
“You ever meet this uncle?”
“He worked in Saudi Arabia. You don't pay taxes in Saudi Arabia. And Ray deserved it. He worked down them sewers for twenty years as a flusher. You know what that means? He shoveled shit. He worked knee-deep in the stuff, in the dark, with the rats. He used to come across huge nests of them, writhing like worms in a bucket.”
“I thought he used to work on flood management.”
“Yeah, later, but that's only after his back gave out. He helped Thames Water Board draw up plans in case a surge tide flooded London. People forget the Thames is a tidal river. Always was, always will be.”
Her voice takes on a bitter tone. “When they built the Thames Flood Barrier they said surge tides weren't a problem no more. They got rid of Ray. He said they were idiots! Sea levels are rising and the southeast of England is sinking. You do the maths.”
“What made him choose a pub?”
“You show me a man who doesn't want to own one.”
“Most of them drink away the profits.”
“Not my Ray—he hasn't touched a drop in sixteen years. He loved this place. Things were going OK, you know, until that bleedin' theme pub opened up the street. The Frog and Lettuce. What sort of name is that for a pub, eh? We were gonna do this place up and put on darts tournaments. Our Tony was going to arrange it. He knows lots of them professional players.”
“How is Tony?”
She goes quiet.
“I was hoping to have a word with him.”
“He's not here.”
The answer is too abrupt. I glance toward the ceiling. The woman is like a fortune-telling ball—shake her up and the answer is written all over her face.
“He's done nothing wrong, my Tony. He's been a good boy.”
“When did he get out?”
“Six months ago.”