“You ever hear Ray mention Kirsten Fitzroy?”
The name slowly rings a bell.
“She was that uppity bird who lived in Dolphin Mansions. Had that scar on her neck . . .”
“A birthmark.”
“Whatever,” she says dismissively.
“She ever visit or telephone?”
“Ray wouldn't be shagging her. She's too skinny. He likes his women with some meat on their bones. That's where he'll be now—screwing some tart. He'll come home soon enough. Always does.”
A car engine splutters and snarls outside. Stevie is peering under the hood while Ali sits behind the wheel, working the throttle. Somewhere on the floor above me a sash window opens and a string of invective fills the air, telling them to be quiet.
“Now that Tony is awake . . .” I say, maximizing her discomfort.
She plants both hands flat on the table, rises to her feet and clumps wearily up the stairs.
A few minutes later Tony emerges, wiry and loose-limbed in a dressing gown. He has shaved his head until only one tuft of hair remains, cut into a circle above the nape of his neck. With the tattoos on his forearms and ears that stick out like satellite dishes, he looks like an extra from an episode of Star Trek.
Like his father, Tony had been a promising fighter until he tried to apply some elements of the World Wrestling Federation to his boxing. The pageantry and phoney feuds might have been OK but when he started fixing fights he got into trouble. He came unstuck again when he tried to fix a darts tournament. He broke the fingers of a player who miscounted and won a game he was supposed to lose.
Tony opens the fridge and drinks from a carton of orange juice. Wiping his lips, he sits down. “I don't have to answer nothing. I don't even have to get out of bed for you.”
“I appreciate you making the effort.” The sarcasm is lost on him. “When did you last see your father?”
“Do I look like I keep a fucking diary?”
Reaching quickly across the table, avoiding the soggy cereal, I pin his forearm in my fist. “Listen you vicious little scumbag! You're still on parole. You want to go back inside? Fine. I'll make sure you're sharing a cell with the biggest, meanest faggot in the place. You won't have to get out of bed at all, Tony. He'll let you stay there all day.”
I can see him eyeing a butter knife on the table but it's only a fleeting thought.
“It was about three weeks ago. I gave him a lift into South London and picked him up that afternoon.”
“What was he doing?”
“I dunno. He wouldn't talk about it.” Tony's voice rises. “None of this involves me, you know. Not a fucking thing.”
“So you think he was up to something?”
“I don't know.”
“But you know something, don't you? You got suspicions.”
He chases spit around his mouth with his tongue, trying to decide what to tell me. “There's a guy I used to share a cell with at Brixton nick. Gerry Brandt. We called him Grub.”
There's a name I haven't heard for a while.
Tony is still talking. “Never seen anyone sleep like Grub. Never. You'd swear he was dead half the time except his chest was moving up and down. Guys would be kicking off in their cells or getting beat up by screws but Grub would sleep through it all, drooling over himself like a baby. I'm telling you, that guy could sleep.”
Tony takes another swig of orange juice. “Grub was only in for a few months. I hadn't seen him in years, you know, but about three months ago he turned up here looking like a playboy with a suntan and a suit.”
“He had money?”
“Maybe on his back, but he was driving a heap of shit. Not worth stealing, not worth burning.”
“What did he want?”
“I dunno. He didn't come to see me. He wanted to talk to the old man. I didn't hear what they were saying but they argued about something. My old man was spitting chips. Later he said Grub was looking for a job, but I know that's bullshit. Gerry Brandt don't wash glasses. He thinks he's a player.”
“They were doing business.”
Tony shrugs. “Fuck knows. I didn't even know they knew each other.”
“When you shared a cell with this Gerry Brandt, did you ever mention your old man to him?”
“Might have said something. Cell talk, you know.”
“And when your dad went up to London, what makes you think he was going to see Gerry?”
“I dropped him outside a boozer on Pentonville Road. I remember Grub talking 'bout the place. It was his local.”
I take a photograph of Kirsten from my jacket pocket and slide it across the table. “Do you recognize her?”
Tony studies it for a moment. Lying comes easier than telling the truth, which is why he takes so long. He shakes his head. I believe him.
Back in the car I go over the details with Ali, letting her bounce questions off me. She is one of those people who reasons out loud whereas I work things out in my head.
“Do you remember someone called Gerry Brandt?”
She shrugs. “Who is he?”
“A nasty toerag with a toilet mouth and a taste for pimping.”
“Charming.”
“His name came up in the original investigation. When Howard was taking photographs outside Dolphin Mansions on the day Mickey disappeared, Gerry Brandt turned up in one of the shots—a face in the crowd. Later his name popped up again, this time on the sex offender's register. He had an early conviction for sex with a minor. Nobody read much into the sex charge. He was seventeen at the time and the girl was fourteen. They knew each other. We wanted to interview Gerry but we couldn't find him. He just seemed to vanish. Now he's turned up again. According to Tony, he came to see Ray Murphy three months back.”
“It could be just a coincidence.”
“Maybe.”
Kirsten Fitzroy and Ray Murphy are both missing. Three years ago they provided each other with alibis when Mickey disappeared. She must have walked straight past Kirsten's door on her way downstairs to meet Sarah. Meanwhile, Sir Douglas Carlyle was paying Kirsten to keep watch on Rachel and gather evidence for a custody application. Perhaps he decided to go one step further and have his granddaughter kidnapped. It doesn't explain where she's been or why a ransom demand has arrived three years later.
Maybe Ali is right and it's all a hoax. Kirsten could have collected Mickey's hair from a pillow or a brush. She might have known about the money box. She could have concocted a plan to take advantage of the situation.
A chill wades through my skin like it's five o'clock in the morning. The Professor says coincidences are just two things happening simultaneously, but I don't believe that. Nothing twists a knife quicker than fate.
19
The Thames Water truck is parked halfway down Priory Road, facing south into the low sun. A foreman is standing beside it, sucking on a cigarette. He straightens up and adjusts his crotch. “This is my day off, it had better be important.”
Not surprisingly, he looks like a man with nothing more important to do than play billiards with his mates at the pub.
Ali makes the introductions and the foreman grows more circumspect.
“Mr. Donovan, on September 26 you repaired a burst water main in this street.”
“Why? Is someone complaining? We did nothing wrong.”
Interrupting his excuses, I tell him I just want to know what happened.
Crushing the cigarette under his heel, he nods toward a dark stain of fresh bitumen covering thirty feet of road. “Looked like the Grand fucking Canyon, it did. Half this road got washed away. I ain't never seen a water main rupture like that one.”
“How do you mean?”
He hitches up his trousers. “Well, you see, some of these pipes have been around for a hundred years and they're wearing out. Fix one and another one goes. Bang! It's like trying to plug a dozen holes when you only got ten fingers.”