He shook his head at her indomitability, wondering whether her descendants knew of her sacrifice; did they realize how this woman, who probably appeared to them only in sepia-tinted photographs at the bottom of a drawer or a box, had altered the path of their family, hauled it from the shadows and preserved a bloodline?
The centre was empty, the last remaining member of staff alternately glancing at Nigel and the clock on the wall, closing on seven o'clock. There was no way Nigel could complete the job that night, and his eyes ached. He called Foster and told him how far he'd reached. The detective was barely lucid, distracted by the looming deadline and the awful, impending prospect of a fourth victim.
Foster gazed up at the tower block, like a climber contemplating an unconquerable face. In the dusk light it seemed less ugly, yet still inscrutable. People had come and gone throughout the day, and he and Heather had watched them alclass="underline" every delivery was checked, each workman questioned, each resident who left and arrived cross-referenced against the list they had. Nothing appeared different, or out of the ordinary.
At intervals Foster went and checked each and every bin, alley and scrap of wasteland around the block. Each time there was nothing to see; but while he could tell himself that he had been watching, and no one had slipped in without his knowing, he still expected to lift a lid or peer around a corner and see the sight he dreaded most of all.
As night fell there seemed little option but to sit in the car with Heather and wait. The lights of the flats flicked on one by one and the stream of people in and out became an intermittent drip. Gangs of youths congregated on a street corner, drinkers weaved their way to the pubs and late stragglers made their way back from work. Shouts, pounding bass and the feed-me screams of babies wafted through the air, mingling occasionally with the irregular sound of sirens hurtling along the Westway. He got out only once, to shoo away a mongrel threatening to piss on his offside rear tyre.
Foster had never felt so helpless. He ticked off the hours as they passed: ten, then eleven, midnight. The anniversary of finding the fourth victim in 1879 had begun. The first three had been found in the hours between the middle of the night and dawn. He saw no reason why this might be different.
The city noise abated, the streets cleared, though the sirens never stilled. One by one the lights of the block vanished, a few remaining illuminated as the wee small hours came and went, insomniacs staring numbly at screens. He and Heather barely spoke.
There was nothing for it but to see how this would play out.
Dawn came. He let Heather doze. Foster had passed the point of tiredness, when sleep could come easily, and lapsed into a wired, restless exhaustion, unable to stop his leg from bouncing manically as he sat still. His mum used to call it St Vitus's dance, he remembered through the fog in his brain. He had not done it in years.
As the sun rose, the tower block woke from slumber.
The first workers left, the sybarites returned.
Heather came round and poured two cups of stewed coffee from a flask.
'What do we do?' she asked.
'We wait,' he said. 'There is nothing more we can do.'
His phone rang. Andy Drinkwater.
'You're up early,' Foster said.
"I never went to bed. Big development last night.
About three it came through that they'd found a knife similar to the one that may have stabbed two of the three vies in Terry Cable's garden, beneath the rosebushes or something. It's with forensics now.'
For a second, Foster was speechless. 'That's bullshit,' he blurted out.
'What do you mean? I'm only telling you what I know.'
'I know, Andy,' Foster said. 'It's just that I'll bet you all the blow in Amsterdam that the knife they found did not stab James Darbyshire or Nella Perry.
And if it did, then it was planted in the garden to fit him up.'
'Everyone here thinks it's a breakthrough,' Drink water muttered. 'No sign of any action your end?'
'None,' Foster grunted. He knew that every minute that passed without a fourth victim would harden Harris and his cronies' conviction that the right man was in custody. He ended the call, still shaking his head in disbelief.
'What's up with you?' Heather asked.
'The past does repeat itself.'
'That's a bit cryptic. What you on about?'
'In 1879, as you know, there was a series of murders in Kensington. The newspapers went ballistic, the natives got restless and the cops panicked; they arrested a guy to stop bucket after bucket of shit being tipped over their heads. Then they realized they'd better get a case against the man they'd chosen to be their suspect. So, lo and behold, a knife turns up in his lodgings.'
'You've told me all of this.'
'Yes, but what I haven't told you is that, lo and behold, a knife has turned up in Terry Cable's garden, just when the press were beginning to get a bit restless about the lack of any charges.'
He could see Heather take this in. Ready to play devil's advocate.
'Have you considered the idea he might actually be guilty?'
'Considered it. Dismissed it. Come on, Heather, you can see what's happening here as clearly as I can.
They're so desperate they've convinced themselves that he's guilty. It doesn't follow that, because he's the only suspect, he's the right suspect. No one has given me any indication of a possible motive.'
'What about the GHB?'
'That's coincidence: detail, not motive. Why did he kill these people? Why did he remove parts of their body? Why did he leave them in those exact same places on those exact same days? They have no answers to those questions. We know why -- the killer's following a pattern. And because of what happened during and after the trial in 1879, we may even know the motive.'
'So they have a suspect and no motive; you have a motive and no suspect.'
'I know in which position I'd rather be,' he muttered.
'You hope we find a body, don't you?' Heather said, turning to face him, a smile on the corner of her lips. 'Proves you right if we do.'
'No,' he maintained. 'I think we'll find a body different from wanting to. And we might find the killer. But we would have had a damn sight better chance if we had more manpower and if everyone had not been scattered to the four winds trying to fit up some sleazeball to deter a shitstorm in the press.'
His gaze returned to the tower block. Inside, the lights were coming back on.
Noon came. Foster was still there, spent by lack of sleep. He was beginning to doubt whether it was worth it. Cable seemed certain to be charged; a fourth body had not turned up, after all. Had he been wrong?
Heather might have been right: Cable could be their man. He shook his head to clear it. However blurred his thinking had become, he still refused to accept Cable's guilt. Of course, if Barnes called and told him that Terry Cable was a descendant of Eke Fairbairn, that would change everything; until then he would not move.
He had sent Heather home to grab a couple of hours' sleep. She was reluctant, but he needed someone with energy at his side when the names came through from Barnes. He sat there, window open, a cool breeze helping keep him awake, blowing in more sounds from the street. For the past half-hour loud music had been blaring from a window high up in the tower block, indistinguishable white noise save for the thump of a bass and what sounded like handclaps.
There was something familiar about it, Foster thought, but from a hundred feet below it was impossible to assign any tune to the rhythm. Whoever lived in the flat obviously loved the song because each time it ended, it would start again.
His arm was out of the window, absent-mindedly tapping on the car door, beating time along with the percussion and bass. After a few repeat hearings he thought he'd found the rhythm, and it was possible to make out the melody carried by the singer. Foster started to whistle a tune. A disco song, he was sure.