(1998) Denial (52 page)

Glenn wrote down the details as she spoke and thanked her. Then he drummed his fingers on the wheel.
Dr Terence Goel, what is your interest in Cora Burstridge? What kind of a doctor are you? Why did you drive all the way from Cheltenham to Cora Burstridge’s cremation but not get out of your car? Why didn’t you go to the church?

You’re not making much sense to me, Dr Goel
.

In fact, you’re really bothering me
.

He picked up his radio mouthpiece and asked the operator to put him through to the Divisional Intelligence room at Cheltenham police station.

A harassed sounding detective answered. Glenn asked him if he had any details at all about a Dr Terence Goel of 97 Royal Court Walk.’

‘How urgent? We’re up to our necks.’

‘It’s urgent,’ Glenn said.

‘Will an hour do?’

‘An hour would be fine.’

He put the mouthpiece back on the rest and yawned. He’d got to bed after two this morning. Officially it should have been his day off today.

Closing his eyes, he allowed himself a five-minute catnap.

At twelve fifty-five Michael sat in a tiny, stuffy, windowless microfiche booth in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Planning Department offices, ending a call on his mobile phone.

Shocked, he put the phone down on the wooden work surface, scarcely able to believe the words of the detective at Hampstead police station, who had just given him the news that DC Roebuck had died earlier this morning, at the wheel of his car, from an apparent heart attack.

Bleakly, he stared at the pattern of holes in the pegboard wall in front of him. Roebuck had been his anchor, the man who cared, the man who had been trying his hardest for him.

The phone was hot and the right side of his head felt as if it was on fire. He’d had to call his architect friend Richard Franklin out of yet another meeting to pull strings to circumvent the three working days the clerk at the Planning Department had told him were required to retrieve a file from the archives.

So far the clerk had taken half an hour. He picked up the phone again, and rang Lubbings in Cheltenham to see if he had heard from Dr Goel. Lubbings, deeply deferential, assured Michael he hadn’t. After Lubbings, he rang Thelma and blew out his afternoon appointments, then he rang Lulu. He’d already spoken to her earlier, on his way up to London and given her his findings about Lubbings and Dr Goel, but he called her again now because he preferred to keep busy, and told her the latest, about Roebuck.

‘Do you think it’s suspicious, Michael?’ was her immediate response.

‘I don’t know. He was only in his thirties, but he was overweight, he’d been working around the clock, and this heat isn’t clever for anyone with a heart condition. I don’t have enough details. He came home late last night, left early this morning, and he apparently had a heart attack in his car in traffic this morning.’

‘It doesn’t strike you as odd?’

Her voice irritated him, as if she was accusing him of some deficiency. ‘Lulu, I don’t have enough information, OK? I don’t know what’s odd and what isn’t odd any more. Everything’s bloody odd.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said gently. ‘We’re all stressed. Is there anything I can do to help you?’

A shadow fell over the desk. Michael looked up and saw the clerk standing right behind him, holding a microfiche film.

‘I’ll call you back in a while,’ he said to her.

‘Michael,’ she said. ‘I know you’re doing your very best. I appreciate it, I really do. We all do.’

‘I wish I was doing my best,’ he replied. ‘I feel I’m running around like a headless sodding chicken.’

He thanked the clerk, loaded the microfiche, which contained all the planning applications for the whole of Holland Park Avenue since the first Planning Act of 1953, and began to scroll through it.

He found Gloria Lamark’s house. An application, in 1957, to build a double garage at the rear. Granted. An application in 1961 to widen the roof to create larger servants’ quarters. This had been turned down. There was an appeal. All the objection letters were listed. The appeal was rejected on the grounds of it being out of character with the neighbourhood.

Then he found an application dated 7 October 1966.

APPLICATION TO EXTEND CELLAR FOR FINE WINE STORAGE PURPOSES
.

Permission had been granted, but with strict provisos on structural work to shore up the foundations of the house, and elaborate drainage instructions.

As he studied the plans carefully, trying to get his
bearings on them, he began to grasp the reason for the provisos. The plans showed a cellar beneath part of the ground floor of the house. But instead of broadening it to extend under more rooms, they showed that the new cellar was to be dug underneath the existing one, making it thirty feet below the ground floor of the house. It was shown as having a ten-foot high ceiling. The existing cellar had only a seven-foot high ceiling. It was nine feet from the hall floor to the bottom of the existing cellar. The new plan showed a twenty-one-foot gap between the floor of the old cellar and the new one.

Michael was puzzled. If the new one was only ten foot high, that left eleven feet unaccounted for. He studied the plans more closely, and saw a different shading between the ceiling of the new cellar and the floor of the old. Then he found the key to the plans and saw what the shading indicated. Concrete. The new cellar had a concrete ceiling eleven feet thick.

Next he looked at the walls: they were six feet thick.

This cellar hadn’t been built to store wine. Wine needed to be kept at a steady temperature, but it didn’t require six feet of concrete around it and eleven above.

This was a nuclear fallout shelter.

He was shaking from tiredness, excitement, nerves.

Is this where you are, Amanda? Are you down here? Under nine feet of concrete?

But why? It still did not make any sense.
Why should Dr Terence Goel hold you prisoner in Gloria Lamark’s cellar?
He closed his eyes, trying to think. If –
if
there was anything in this crazy idea then Dr Goel would have to be a close friend or relative of Gloria Lamark.

Or of her son.

He tried to think of anything Gloria had told him about her son that might give him some pointers, but he had been a taboo subject in their sessions, and despite all his many efforts at prising information from her over the years she had been his patient, she had always resolutely refused to talk about him. Michael had to think hard even to recall his name. Thomas, he thought. Yes. He had had a feeling
the boy might be gay, but when he’d tried to broach this with Gloria, she had been furious. Anything that threatened the perfect fantasy world of Gloria Lamark provoked a rage in her.

Dr Goel had said he was a widower. But nothing he said could now be trusted. Could he be having a relationship with Thomas Lamark?

The plans showed that the shelter was divided into three chambers. There was an entrance directly at the foot of the stairs. This was a small, airlock chamber. A door led through to a second room, the size of a modest bedroom. Another door led through into the third chamber, which was the largest. All were served by an elaborate ventilation shaft system.

He put his Mac on the table and powered it up, then went to the photograph of Amanda. It was hard to look at her. Just seeing her face churned him up. His mouth dried and he swallowed, stared at the crazed red of her eyes, the terrible state of her hair, her clothes. The darkness all around her.
Are you here? Darling Amanda, is this where you are?

He swigged from a bottle of mineral water he’d bought in a garage shop. There were psychics who could find people by dowsing. He’d read a piece on one a year or so back. Maybe he could take this photograph, a copy of these plans and have a psychic –

He sank his head into his hands and squeezed his temples with his thumbs.
You don’t need a bloody psychic, you need to go to the police, tell them what you think, have them go and check out Gloria Lamark’s house
.

He dialled the number of the new detective he had been given as his principal contact, DC Paul Stolland. The number was answered by a harassed-sounding woman.

‘Incident room, DC Rhonda Griffiths.’

‘Could I speak to DC Stolland?’

‘I’m sorry, he’s out of town. I’m not sure if he’s going to be back today. Is it anything urgent or can you call him back tomorrow?’

‘
Tomorrow?
’ Michael shouted.

‘Can I help you instead?’ she asked.

‘My name’s Dr Tennent.’

Blank silence.

‘I’m the one who reported Amanda Capstick missing.’

She sounded as if her mind was on something else entirely. ‘Oh, yes, right, I’m sorry, Dr Tennent. I think you may have heard we’re having some problems today.’

Michael started trying to explain his thoughts about Amanda’s whereabouts, but after he was only a few seconds in she interrupted him to take another call. It was two minutes before she was back on the line again. ‘What address was it you want us to check out, Dr Tennent?’

Michael gave her the details.

‘And can you tell me exactly why you think Amanda Capstick may be at this address?’

Michael again started to tell her, but it came out clumsily and he could tell he wasn’t convincing her.

‘Dr Goel is a patient of yours, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘And his own doctor doesn’t exist?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘And this Dr Goel has given a false address?’ She was sounding more interested now.

‘Yes.’

‘And he talked to you about a fallout shelter?’

‘And about losing a loved one – he talked about keeping a dove in a cellar or a shelter,’ Michael said.

‘Excuse me if I’m sounding dim, sir,’ she said, politely, ‘I can’t see how you’ve made the connection to the Lamarks’ house.’

‘It was a long-shot guess.’

‘And you’re suspicious because it has a fallout shelter?’

‘It certainly looks like a fallout shelter from the plans.’

Her enthusiasm was waning. ‘I’ll get someone to stop by there, sir.’

‘How soon?’

‘As soon as I can.’

‘That’s not good enough. I want someone to go there
now
.’

‘Sir, we have a reported sighting of a woman in a car outside Northampton, and we have a body of a woman in her late twenties who has just been found in Epping Forest. On top of that we’ve had another thirty calls logged today from the
Crimewatch
programme. I’ll try to get someone there today. If not, it will be tomorrow.’

‘What do you know about this sighting?’

‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you that.’

Desperately, he pleaded, ‘Just tell me whether it’s Amanda Capstick or Tina Mackay.’

‘A dark-haired woman,’ she said.

‘And this body?’

‘I can’t give you more details.’

‘Just one detail, please. Is this body fresh, or has it been there a while?’

Again a hesitation. ‘I understand it’s a few weeks old.’

Michael thanked her grimly and hung up. Neither sounded like Amanda, but the woman’s words about the body in the woods were freaking him. If Amanda was dead –

He had to block that from his mind. He couldn’t handle that right now.
She’s alive. The photograph was sent because she’s alive
.

Under Gloria Lamark’s house?

The police weren’t going to check it out probably until
tomorrow
.

Another twenty-four hours.

No way.

friday, 1 august 1997

Three hundred and twenty-seven people came to make sure Cora Burstridge was dead this morning
.

Most of them came just to be seen. Notice how few real stars were there – they were mostly second division, poseurs, has-beens, wannabes. Some had been hired to be there – you could tell by looking at them. That’s pretty sad when you have to hire people to come to your own funeral
.

We Lamarks are above tricks like that
.

I forgot to give the thing any food today. In fact, when I arrived home after the funeral, I completely forgot it was down there! Easy to do that, because I’ve cleaned the bloodstains from the reporter off the sauna walls
.

This forgetfulness is no laughing matter, actually. I’m getting more and more concerned about my erratic memory. Dr Goel must ask Dr Tennent about his erratic memory during his next consultation. I will be interested to learn if Dr Tennent thinks this is something to worry about
.

In an hour I am going back to my old alma mater, King’s College, to watch the medical lecture and operation. It will be strange, being back at school. My mother always told me I had the ability in me to be a really great surgeon. I have a passion for surgery
.

All greatness stems from passion
.

Curare is untraceable in a post-mortem unless you are specifically looking for it. When the pathologist examines DC Roebuck’s body, he will conclude that cause of death was heart failure, probably caused by an unspecified allergic reaction. Sad
.

Dr Michael Tennent has telephoned Dr Goel’s mobile phone
number several times in the past twenty-four hours. I think he is really suffering now
.

But he hasn’t even begun to know what suffering really is
.

Low tide. Midday. The pebble beaches a riot of colour, densely packed with sunbathers and kids. Beyond, acres of wet sand stretched out into the distant shallow waves, far beyond the end of the concrete groyne. This should have been his day off. He could have been down here on this beach with Sammy. Sammy liked to build things in the sand. Sammy was smart, he could figure things out. Puzzles. Computer games.

Glenn sat on the end wall, his jacket slung over his shoulder, tie off, shirt open, eating a vanilla ice-cream and thinking about the man in the blue Mondeo. This was where he liked to come to work out his problems. Sometimes the movement of the sea got his brain going.