Dead and Buried (30 page)

What are you doing, Josh?
Rose thought.

Without Rose holding him back Joshua would be able to let go of the feelings of frustration he had about Munroe. He would park his car and sling the canvas bag over his shoulder and walk towards the Royal Swan Hotel. He would wait outside for Munroe.

Rose walked up and down. She was stuck. She couldn’t ring him because her phone was in her rucksack in the back of the car. She had no money to call a cab or get on the tube or hop on a bus. She was on Waterloo Bridge and Joshua was in a car heading for Hyde Park, two or three miles across London.

She had no idea what to do next.

She turned back across the bridge and began to walk. She shoved her hands in her pockets and put one foot in front of another and went as quickly as she could. At the edge of the bridge she stopped a woman passing by and asked the time. ‘Twenty past eight, my dear.’

She strode on, heading west. She wasn’t that familiar with the streets of London but she knew that Hyde Park was near Green Park and that was close to Piccadilly. A bus went past. She looked at the front. It was heading for Piccadilly Circus. It was the right direction but she had no Oyster card and no money. She ran a dozen steps to the stop and waited until a few people had got on and went up to the driver.

‘I’ve lost my pass,’ she said, looking pleadingly at him.

‘No pass, no ride,’ he said, sighing with impatience.

‘You could just take my name and address . . .’

‘You’re holding these passengers up . . .’

The driver flicked his hand in the direction of the door. Rose got off and watched the bus move away. She walked swiftly on. At a crossroads she asked a woman the directions for Piccadilly Circus. She continued, her thoughts full of Joshua outside the hotel building in Hyde Park. Maybe he would discard the canvas bag and have the gun in his pocket. In her mind she saw him hunched over, looking for Munroe, his face screwed up with worry. His hand would be in or near his pocket. Maybe he would be forcing himself to think of Skeggsie and the way he was murdered in the alleyway. He might have to go over and over this to psych himself up. Or maybe it was all there, the well of grief that he’d felt over the last months, just waiting for a time like this. These thoughts would spur him on, his finger twitching, his heart full of hatred for Munroe.

How calm Frank Richards had seemed when he’d pulled the trigger of a gun. She remembered him under Waterloo Bridge, one hand pulling his suitcase on wheels, the other holding the weapon. Frank Richards had raised his arm elegantly, like a dancer. After the shot he’d dropped the weapon and glided off. Had it taken anything from him? Cost him in an emotional way? Rose had no idea. She knew for sure, though, that if Joshua succeeded in killing Munroe it would destroy him. He would never be the same person again. Even if he were to drop the gun and fade away into the darkness unseen it would warp his life for ever.

She couldn’t let Munroe do that to Joshua.

Even if it meant him getting away with two murders.

Up ahead she could see the neon lights that peppered the buildings around Piccadilly Circus. She quickened her pace. She must have been walking for fifteen or twenty minutes already. Munroe was due at the Royal Swan Hotel at nine. She simply wasn’t going to get there in time. She saw a London Underground sign and headed for it. At the top of the stairs there was a group of young people standing round, a couple smoking, the others talking, looking at phones. She had nothing to lose except her pride.

‘Guys, can anyone lend me some money?’

‘What? Get lost!’

‘My bag’s been stolen, my phone, everything. I just need a tube ride home. I can write down my mobile number and tomorrow you can ring and I’ll give you double, treble what you give me.’

‘It’s a scam.’

‘I’m stuck up here otherwise. I’ve got no way of getting home.’

‘Go to the police,’ a boy said, looking at her in a puzzled way.

‘I don’t trust the police.’

Several of them turned away but the boy continued to stare at her.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’m desperate.’

He put his hand in his pocket and came out with a pen. He held his arm out and pushed the sleeve of his jacket and jumper back.

‘Write your number there.’

She wrote it, holding the pen softly so it didn’t dig into his skin. He looked at the number, then back at her. He put his hand in his trouser pocket and pulled out a five pound note and gave it to her. Some of the others saw it and started to laugh.

‘I always said Tony would have to pay for sex!’

Rose took the money and mouthed the words, ‘Thank you.’

She ran down the steps of the station and in minutes was on a Piccadilly Line train to Hyde Park Corner. Then she just had to find the Royal Swan Hotel. The journey was just two stops and she dashed off and up the escalator until she was outside the station and standing by a busy road. Across the road was Hyde Park, huge, dark and quiet. Behind her was a line of glass buildings, some apartment blocks and hotels. She ducked into the half-moon drive of a hotel. The concierge was standing on the front steps.

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for the Royal Swan Hotel?’

He sighed and looked away from her. ‘Four buildings along, madam.’

She hurried away, quickly passing the other buildings. When she came up to the Royal Swan Hotel she saw that it was smaller and older than the others. It had a recess for coaches and cars to pull in. Then there was a garden area. Along the front of it was a line of trees and benches dividing the hotel off from the busy road. Rose looked round at the grass and shrubs that grew there. It was mostly dark but the lights from the traffic illuminated parts of it.

She saw Joshua. He was sitting forward on one of the benches, his hands in his coat pockets. She was sure it was nine or thereabouts. She had no idea which direction Munroe would be coming from. He had said he had somewhere else to go before coming to the hotel. She walked over to the bench. Joshua saw her coming. He was surprised. He stood up.

‘Leave me alone, Rosie,’ he said, looking from side to side.

‘Don’t do this. It makes you just like him,’ she said, putting her arm through his.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ he said, shaking her off, stepping away from her. ‘It evens things out. It rids the world of a killer. Wasn’t that what
The Butterfly Project
was all about?’

‘It will taint you. It’ll change you.’

‘It’ll make me happier. I haven’t been happy since Christmas Eve. It’ll pay back for Skeggsie.’

And Daisy?
Rose thought.

‘You’ll get caught. This is a public place.’

‘I don’t care.’

Joshua stiffened, looking over her shoulder. Rose turned round. Munroe was walking towards the hotel. He had on his Crombie overcoat. It wasn’t buttoned up, it was flying out behind him and he seemed to be moving quickly as if he was late. Joshua stepped past her but she grabbed on to his jacket.

‘Josh, don’t do this thing,’ she said, her voice cracking.

But he shook her off. He walked forward to the edge of the garden. Munroe was coming up to the hotel, striding briskly along the pavement. He looked at his watch and seemed to be smiling at something. Rose stood transfixed as Joshua edged close to a tree, took the gun out of his pocket and raised his arm.

‘No,’ she said, her hand over her mouth.

Seconds later a shot rang out, like a car backfiring. Everything seemed to stand utterly still as Munroe jolted and twisted as if he’d had some kind of electric shock. Then he fell to the ground. Rose ran up to Joshua.

‘Oh my God,’ she said.

Joshua was shaking his head and Rose burst into tears.

‘Oh, what have you done?’ she cried.

‘Nothing. Nothing,’ he said.

Munroe was lying on his back. He seemed to be twitching, his arm moving for a second then he stopped. People were walking towards him. A man at the front of the hotel was pointing towards the park.

‘We have to get away from here,’ Rose said through sobs.

But the man wasn’t pointing in their direction. He was shouting and gesturing to a spot further along the garden. Rose spun round and looked.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ Joshua said. ‘I didn’t have time to fire.’

Margaret Spicer was standing by a tree. She stared at Rose. She dropped something from her hand. She took a pale raincoat off and let it fall to the ground. Underneath she was dressed in a black trouser suit. She walked towards them, peeling off some gloves and letting them drop on to the grass.

‘Margaret did it,’ Rose whispered.

Rose stared horrified as Margaret Spicer walked up to them.

‘That was for Daisy,’ she said.

Margaret walked away from the hotel. Rose saw her cross the traffic, her head high. Then she disappeared into the darkness of Hyde Park.

‘We have to get away from here,’ Rose said, taking the gun from Joshua and holding it under her coat. ‘Where’s the car?’

Joshua mumbled something.

‘Where’s the car!’ she said, sharply pushing his arm.

He walked off. She held her coat tight and stayed behind him. A siren sounded and she put her head down as they cut off into side streets and walked for a while until they came to the Mini parked half up on the pavement, a parking ticket wedged under one of the windscreen wipers. Joshua took it out silently. He tossed it into the back seat.

‘Let’s go back to Waterloo Bridge and finish what we started.’

Waterloo Bridge was quieter. Rose had wiped the gun clean and replaced it in the canvas bag. Joshua pulled the car up in almost the same spot as he had an hour or so earlier. Before they got out he looked at the news on his phone. He read it out. ‘Man shot dead outside London hotel. ’

There were only a few details. James Munroe was not named. Rose thought all of that would come later, perhaps in the late night news and the morning papers. Her mother and Brendan would be on a plane by then and so, most probably, would Margaret Spicer.

She got out her phone and accessed her mother’s number. She wrote a text, short and to the point.
Munroe dead
. Then she pressed
Send
.

They got out of the car and walked to the parapet. Further up on the South Bank Rose could see Tate Modern, its chimney lit up with purple neon. On the seventh floor a party was taking place for Macon Parker, the man who stole people’s organs. He would be wondering where his housekeepers were. He would never know how close he had been to death. His notebook, back at the Camden flat, would never be completed.

The river was bright. Two riverboats were passing in opposite directions. They waited until both had gone by and then dropped the canvas bag. There was no sound for a few moments then a distant splash.

‘Will it wash up?’

‘Eventually but there won’t be any prints on it.’

‘Let’s go back to the flat.’

Joshua took Rose’s hand and they walked back to the car.

THIRTY

Anna had allowed Rose and Joshua to light a bonfire at the bottom of the garden. It was in a space adjacent to her studio, the building that had once been an unused garage. They had cleared away the remains of old garden rubbish to make room for the blaze. Rose had told Anna that she was burning old papers of her mother’s and Anna had nodded supportively. ‘It’s best to move on with your life,’ she said.

Joshua was trying to get the fire going using bunched up newspapers and scraps of wood that had been lying around.

Rose looked up to the house and saw her grandmother at the window of the Blue Room. She was busy talking to the decorator. They had chosen furniture and rugs and blinds and Rose was to have a television and stereo. In the past week she’d spent a lot of time with Joshua at the Camden flat but that would end in the summer. Skeggsie’s dad was going to sell the flat and Joshua would have to find a room in a shared house. So maybe the Blue Room would be a good place for them to use.

The fire was taking a while and Joshua was looking puzzled.

‘Maybe we should use some firelighters?’ Rose said.

‘It’ll catch,’ he said. ‘It’s not like we haven’t got enough flammable stuff to keep it going.’

Joshua pointed to the carrier bags he’d brought in the car earlier. They were full of all the stuff they’d ever used or printed off to do with the notebooks and
The
Butterfly Project
. In another bag were the notebooks themselves.

The front door bell sounded; maybe it was the decorator’s mate, a lad in his twenties who wore headphones all the time and went pink whenever Rose came near. She looked back at the fire. Joshua’s face was rapt in concentration.

‘It’s coming,’ he said.

He still had plasters over his ear but his face had healed and was looking normal again. Rose put her hand up to her cheek where her skin had been grazed and scratched. It too was getting better. A week had passed since Munroe’s death and she and Joshua were recovering.

‘Oh good,’ she said, seeing a flame lick around a piece of wood.