(1998) Denial (33 page)

He reversed into the space and switched off the engine, but kept the fan blower going, grateful for the gale on his face, though it was just as warm as the heavy air outside.

He had a straight-line view, through the gap between two parked cars, of the front door of Mezzanine Productions. The downstairs looked suitably media cool: smoked-glass windows, angled slats of limed grey wood. He dialled the number, which he had already programmed into his mobile. It rang several times before Ms Super-Defensive answered.

‘I’m sorry, he’s still in conference. I have given him your message,’ she said, in a tone that gave Michael no grounds
for confidence that the call would be returned tonight, if ever.

‘Would you tell him that I’m now on the mobile number I gave you and I’ll be on it for some while.’ As an inducement he added, ‘I’ll keep the line clear for him. You have conveyed how urgent this is, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Dr Tennent, I have.’ Her tone sounded now as if she was repelling a double-glazing salesman.

Michael killed the call. At least Brian Trussler was still in the building. He felt shattered, but his brain was whirring. He dialled Amanda’s office number, hoping Lulu was still there. She was.

‘Lulu, do you by any chance know what car Brian Trussler drives?’

A man in denims and Walkman headphones strode past with a fierce expression as if he was heading into battle.

‘Oh, God, he has a Porsche, a Bentley – um – a Range Rover and a Harley Davidson motorcycle, but he’s off the road at the moment,’ she said. ‘He got banned for drink-driving about two months ago. Second offence, he’s off for three years – and he only just scraped out of a prison sentence.’ Then, as if imparting a great secret, she said, ‘I don’t think that’s public knowledge.’

He thanked her, hung up and dropped the phone next to his briefcase on the passenger seat beside him.

It was a fine evening, and sunlight still daubed the pavement on the other side of the road. The café a short distance down had put tables and chairs outside, all occupied. Further along, a crowd of people stood drinking outside a pub.

Then he saw movement behind the front door of Mezzanine, and stiffened, watching carefully. Two men came out, both in their twenties, one in T-shirt and jeans, carrying a large film can under his arm, the other in a loud shirt and Lycra shorts, who made sure the door was shut. They stood chatting for some moments, before walking off in different directions, the one in shorts stopping at a lamp-post a few yards up and unchaining a mountain bike.

Michael hoped this was the only entrance to the offices.
At least, since Trussler didn’t drive, he wouldn’t have a car secreted somewhere around the back.

Seeing the people drinking at the café and the pub reminded him of his own thirst – and hunger. He’d had a glass of water and a cup of tea in the office, and eaten one of the two shortbread biscuits that Thelma had put on the saucer. Other than that, and the cup of coffee at Hampstead police station, he’d had nothing since this morning. But he was reluctant to leave the car now to get something in case he missed Trussler.

Keeping one eye on the front door, he hauled his Mac PowerBook out of his briefcase, and booted it up. Then he attached a cable from the modem serial port into his mobile phone, logged onto the Internet, and called up the Mezzanine Production web page, which he had bookmarked earlier.

The download was interminably slow and he wondered if the machine had hung or the line had dropped. Then, finally, the image began to fill out the screen. He clicked on the icon, which was marked
DIRECTOR’S BIOGS
. After another interminable delay, Brian Trussler’s colour photograph appeared, above a long list of his television credits.

Although he had already memorised the man’s face, he studied it hard again now. Trussler seemed fairly distinctive-looking, and ought to be easy enough to spot. Short-cropped, thinning hair with a few pathetic vanity strands across his dome; collarless black shirt fastened at the neck with a jewelled stud. He looked like a flash, smug, middle-aged criminal.
Amanda, what did you see in him?

And he knew she would never be able to answer that question, because the truth was that humans seldom understood the forces of attraction that ensnared them. You could make informed guesses, sure, in her case an element of father-figure, but that was only one part of a massive composite.

The door was opening. A woman strode out, brown hair cut in a chic but dated style, silk scarf draped around her shoulders, clothes that were smart but sensible. The kind of woman who might run Brian Trussler’s life and secretly yearn
for him, who’d be adept at fielding unwanted phone calls from psychiatrists, but less so at finding love.

She checked that the door was locked. Then she adjusted her scarf, glanced at her reflection in the glass, and walked away in fast, neat, sensibly spaced steps.

He jerked the modem cable out of his mobile phone, switched it off then back on again to clear it, and dialled Trussler’s direct-line number again. This time there was no intervention by the secretary. Instead, after six rings, the voice-mail kicked in. The secretary’s voice.

‘You have reached Brian Trussler’s phone. Please leave your name and number and we’ll call you back.’

Michael pressed
END
. SO, almost certainly, that woman had been the secretary. Did that mean the meeting had now ended, or was she simply leaving the office for the day?

He was trying to decide whether to go over to the door and try to bluff his way in, or whether to continue waiting here, when the door opened: three men and a woman came out. One man had a pony-tail, one a shaven head, one had gelled black hair. The woman, thirtyish, raggedly attractive, held the door and a fourth man came out, dressed in a cream suit. Short, thinning hair with a few strands straddling his almost bald dome, he was talking and gesturing with his hands. He had a commanding air about him; this was his call, this was his meeting, these were his minions.

This was Brian Trussler.

In the privacy of his den, Thomas opened the box that had been mailed by UPS carriers to Dr Terence Goel’s PO Box in Cheltenham. Inside, it was beautifully packed, each component nestling in its own polystyrene compartment. Two lenses stared up at him through the shredded paper wadding, like some fat, creepy bug.

‘Beautiful,’ he whispered.

He laid his face against the wadding.
Beautiful
. It felt like straw. Today felt like Christmas.
Beautiful
. The cold plastic rims of the lenses touched his cheek like two kisses.

This is for you, Mummy, I’m doing this for you. Is this making you happy? I hope so
.

A copy of Dr Goel’s Midland Gold MasterCard credit slip, in an envelope, was attached to the invoice. A payment for one thousand, nine hundred and forty pounds to the CyberSurveillance Mail Order Company Ltd.

Thomas tucked this proof of purchase into his black crocodile-skin wallet, sliding it down behind the lining, just in case the apparatus had a fault and he needed to send it back. Then, in the grate of the disused fireplace, Thomas carefully lit the label addressed to Dr Terence Goel that had been on the outside of the package and burned it. The Ford Mondeo parked in the garage alongside Amanda Capstick’s Alfa Romeo was unavoidable but, other than that, he tried to ensure that nothing in this house could connect him with Dr Terence Goel of Cheltenham. The white van was secure on a long-term contract in a multi-storey car park.

Fetching the vacuum cleaner from downstairs he hoovered all the ashes out of the grate. No dirty fireplace in this room, thank you. He wanted it clean, spotless, sterile, like a
hospital operating theatre. That was the way he liked it. Carpet, desk, computer, chair, armchair, books, pictures of his mother. No bugs. No bacteria. Behind closed curtains, double-glazed windows were sealed against the shitty London air. Better to be hot than poisoned. No dirt, none, no thank you.

Now this room wasn’t clean any more, there was shredded paper all over the floor around the box and this angered him.
Bitch Amanda Capstick
. This was her fault. If she hadn’t allowed herself to be penetrated by Dr Michael Tennent he wouldn’t have had to order this piece of kit, and if he hadn’t ordered it, then he wouldn’t have this shredded paper as messy as straw over his grey carpet.

He could vacuum it up soon, but not yet, not until he was finished.

He had to read the instruction book. He removed it from its Cellophane wrapper. On the outside was printed
AN/PVS NIGHT VISION GOGGLES MODEL
F5001.

This was the model he had ordered. Good.

He read carefully, memorising the diagrams. Then he lifted the goggles out of the box and held them up. They were beautiful to look at, beautiful to hold, he pulled them to his eyes, smelt the rubber cushioning. So comfortable, such a snug fit. He could see nothing through them yet, of course: the lithium battery wasn’t installed.

He checked out all the features. The IR-on switch. The low-battery indicator. The IR illuminator. The F/1.2 objective lens. The momentary IR-on indicator.

Beautiful!

He couldn’t wait to use them. This was going to be something else altogether!

He lifted out the head mount, a complex arrangement of straps. Now the excitement was really growing. He attached it to the goggles and, from the diagram he had memorised, put it on. One strap went around the rim of his skull, like a headband, clamping the goggles to his forehead. Another bracing strap went beneath his chin; a third went around his neck, and a fourth went from the headband in front of his ears to the neck strap.

Wonderful! He stood up, unable to see yet, but entranced. This strapping device was comfortable, so snug, he could wear these goggles for ever!

I wish you could see me now, Mummy!

He raised his hands to remove them and winced as his right arm twinged. Anger at Amanda flared up inside him again.
You hurt my arm, you bitch
.

She was so heavy! Why was someone so small and so thin so damned heavy when they were unconscious? Getting her out of the hallway of her building and into her Alfa Romeo while trying to make it look like they were two lovers entwined hadn’t been easy! He’d wrenched his arm getting her into that damned car.

But the pleasure that lay ahead helped him forget the pain. Oh, yes. This was going to be good. He removed the goggles, knelt down on the floor, took out the lithium battery and the charger, inserted the battery in the small compartment at the base of the goggles, then plugged in the charger. He pressed the switch and the indicator light came on. He smiled.

Thunderbirds are go!

Amanda heard the click of a door.

Movement.

Someone was sharing this darkness with her. Stifling her first instinct to call out for help, she lay still, held her breath. A muscle plucked at the base of her throat. She tracked the darkness with her ears.

Beyond the drumroll of her heartbeat, silence.

Then a sudden movement, like one single footstep. A thud close by. Then the unmistakable sound of sloshing water. The squeak of a rubber-soled shoe.

Thomas nearly kicked over the bucket. He cursed his clumsiness. He had almost tripped, dammit. Jesus! You stupid bitch woman, do you realise all the trouble you’re putting me to?

She was so close he could reach out and touch her, but he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to touch anything
that Dr Michael Tennent had had sex with, not yet, not until he was ready. And she stank of body odour and urine; she’d only been down here two days and she was turning this place into a pigsty. He could smell her even over the reek of formalin. And why was the stupid bitch lying on the floor and not on the mattress?

Should have brought her the food and water yesterday, he knew, and something for her to do her latrine stuff into. Somehow it had slipped his mind.

He looked at her in the green night-vision light. The tiny red glow of the battery indicator showed he had ten minutes left. The batteries had needed a twenty-four-hour charge but that was an impossible length of time. They’d had to make do with four hours, and that had been a hard enough wait.

But now, the main thing was, the goggles worked! Clear enough to see the fear on her face.

No, not
her
face, he corrected himself.
Its
face.

This was the mistake he had made with the editor, Tina Mackay, and the reporter, Justin Flowering. He had thought of them as people and in the end he had been distressed by what he had done to them. Keep this one at a distance.
It’s an animal. Just an animal
.

And, just like an animal in its lair hearing a sound, it lifted its head, staring around in the darkness, eyes open so wide in terror he could see the whites all the way round.

Not taking care of itself; there was a bad bruise on its forehead. Its hair was a mess, all tangled up, it needed combing or brushing, or both, he was tempted to tell it to make itself more presentable but it was better just to watch it in silence. It even had its T-shirt on back to front.

He thought how slovenly this animal looked compared to his mother. His mother liked to sit in front of the mirror, with him standing beside her, combing and brushing and caressing those long blonde tresses. Sometimes she would sit naked and he would stand beside her, also naked, combing and brushing, and she would reward him afterwards by doing something good with his choo-choo.

He made another noise now as he put down the second
bucket, this time scraping his foot deliberately. It was looking straight at him now, and for a moment he wondered if it could make out his shape in the darkness, but, of course, that was impossible. These goggles gave off nothing. Military specification. They were fabulous! He was invisible.

Could it hear him breathing? Was that what it was focusing on now? He stepped silently in his Nike Air trainers several paces to his right. It was still staring ahead, staring at where he had been.

In the land of the blind
. . .