From the Cradle (34 page)

Too many questions. Did Helen know the truth, that she wasn’t really dead? Was it only Alice who had been kept in the dark?

He needed to talk to Helen urgently. For one thing, she needed to know what had happened here. But he also had a feeling she held a vital piece of the puzzle.

He heard cars pull up outside, the slamming of doors, heavy footsteps coming towards the house. Soon, this house of horror would be sealed off for the second time in a week, and Sean’s body would be taken away.

Where was Helen? He was about to try to call her again when it struck him. Sean had said Helen sat on Facebook all day, that it was the last thing he’d seen her do last night. Helen had told
Winkler
last week that a woman had been in touch with her saying she knew where Frankie was, but Patrick had dismissed it out of hand, assumed it was a troll.

What if it hadn’t been a troll?

A fresh wave of nausea hit him. He knew who he needed to talk to.

Chapter 42
Patrick – Day 7

‘Where’s Winkler?’

Carmella looked up from her computer. ‘Patrick! I’ve just heard about Sean Philips . . .’

‘Later. I need to talk to Winkler right now.’

She cupped her mouth with her hand and yelled out. ‘Hey – anyone seen Fonzie?’

Patrick suppressed a smile. He’d forgotten that was Winkler’s nickname, one which wasn’t meant affectionately. One of the PCs at the other end of the room called back, ‘I think he went to t
he gym.’

‘Of course he bloody has,’ Patrick hissed. He stamped across to Winkler’s desk and sat down. It was the most clutter-free desk he’d ever seen, not a scrap of loose paper, no science experiments in mugs like on Patrick’s own desk. Anyone would think Winkler never did any work. The computer was locked and Patrick started typing in random password guesses:

ilovemyself

happydays

winkler

None of them worked. He started to type in another when a familiar voice said, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

It was Winkler, his thick hair still damp from the shower, his skin gleaming with sweat, biceps bulging.

‘You’ve got access to Helen Philips’ Facebook account. I need to take a look at it, now.’

Winkler’s eyes twinkled. ‘Uh-uh. I don’t think I should do that.’

‘Why the hell not?’ Patrick felt hot and prickly; he could actually picture his temper fraying.

‘It’s private, isn’t it? Besides, there’s nothing else useful on there. I’ve been through it all.’

Patrick took a deep breath. ‘When was the last time you checked it?’

Winkler shrugged. ‘Dunno. A couple of days ago. All she’s done is like dozens of posts on the “Find Frankie Philips” pages.’

‘She was on it last night. Sean told me. I need to take a look – now.’

Winkler waved a hand dismissively. ‘I’ll check it out later.’

That was it. Patrick saw a flash of red and, barely knowing what he was doing, grabbed the front of Winkler’s shirt with both fists, two buttons popping as he yanked him forward so their noses were almost touching.

‘Give me the log-in,’ Patrick said in a low voice.

Winkler brought his hands up and apart, breaking Patrick’s grip. ‘You arsehole. This is a fucking Ralph Lauren shirt . . .’

Patrick threw himself at the other man, catching Winkler off balance so they both tumbled to the floor. Patrick rolled on top and grabbed Winkler’s shirtfront again, getting a fistful of chest hair.

Winkler cried out and brought his knees up fast, connecting with Patrick’s thigh. Patrick loosened his grip and Winkler pulled away, getting up into a crouching position and aiming a punch at Patrick’s ear. Pain seared across his head but he was able to block the second punch, balling his own fists, ready to throw a punch of his own.

He felt hands on his upper arms, pulling him backwards, shouts, Carmella whispering to him, though he couldn’t hear what she was saying through the roar in his ears. Two other cops had grabbed Winkler and were pulling him off.

‘What the hell?’

It was Suzanne. From Patrick’s place on the floor she appeared eight feet tall.

‘Get up. Both of you.’

Patrick slowly pushed himself to his feet, panting, and
Winkler
did the same. With one hand, Winkler held his gaping shirt together; with the other he jabbed a finger towards Patrick.

‘This dick attacked me.’

Patrick counted to five in his head. He wasn’t going to sink to the level of a schoolboy. But he felt like one when Suzanne snapped, ‘Both of you. In my office, now.’

As soon as the door shut behind them, Suzanne demanded, ‘What the hell was going on out there?’

Winkler said in a loud voice, ‘Lennon went for me, ma’am. He grabbed me, pushed me to the floor, attacked a fellow . . .’

‘Why?’ she interrupted.

Taken aback, Winkler said, ‘Huh?’

‘Why did he do that? I am guessing he had a very good reason.’

Winkler’s expression shifted. ‘Oh, I see. Taking the side of your boyfriend. I should have fucking known.’

‘Shut up,’ Suzanne shouted. ‘I am sick of listening to you.’

Winkler looked like a dog who’d been told off for trying to steal its master’s dinner.

‘Patrick, tell me what happened.’

He explained, as calmly and evenly as he could manage, about Winkler’s refusal to hand over the log-in to Helen’s Facebook account.

‘Give it to him,’ she ordered Winkler, who sighed and huffed before finally scribbling it down on a piece of paper and holding it out so Patrick could take it without the two men having to look at each other.

‘This,’ Suzanne said, gesturing to the two of them, ‘is to be continued. I can’t have two colleagues on the MIT acting like bloody Tom and Jerry. But right now, there are more important things to concentrate on. Adrian, go home, change your shirt, then get back here. Patrick, sit down.’

Winkler left the room, grumbling to himself.

As soon as he’d left, Patrick said, ‘Which one am I?’

‘What?’

‘Tom or Jerry?’

She didn’t smile, so he quickly rearranged his own face.

‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a look at this Facebook account.’

Patrick went behind her desk and brought up the Facebook site, typing in the email and password Winkler had given him. He found himself on Helen’s wall. He quickly scrolled up and down but couldn’t see anything interesting. As Winkler had said, she had done nothing but like and share posts about Frankie in the past few days.

Then he went to her inbox and read her most recent messages, Suzanne reading over his shoulder.

‘Oh my god,’ she breathed in his ear.

They stared at each other and Suzanne said, ‘Go.
Now.
’

Chapter 43
Jerome – Day 7

Jerome had the new Chase and Status album turned down low on the car stereo, not wanting to draw attention to himself, not wanting to hurt Rihanna’s sensitive ears either. He turned and looked at the dog, sleeping like a baby on the backseat. She’d been all sensitive and twitchy since yesterday, after ripping that little bitch’s face off. If Georgia survived – and Jerome needed to keep an eye on that situation, though he was pretty damn sure she wouldn’t dare rat on him – she had better get used to doing it doggy style, because no guy was going to want to look at that wreckage of a face while he was banging her.

Last night, soon as he’d got home, he’d called up his boy
Snowglobe
– named because he had the worst case of dandruff in TW11 – and instructed him to put the word out that he was looking for a VW Camper Van with the registration number that could clearly be seen in the photo Georgia had taken.

‘A VW Camper?’ Snowglobe said. ‘That’s like that fucking thing that Benny had on the front of his T-shirt?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Nice. What, is it like a mobile meth lab or something?’

‘Just put the word out to everybody. This is priority one, you get me? Five hundred to the person who spots it and reports back. But I don’t want no one going near it, alright?’

He thought it might take days for someone to spot the van, but he got lucky. This morning he’d got the call. Some muppet mate of Snowglobe’s called Niall had spent the night in
Richmond
Park with some piece of ass who was well into outdoor sex. As Niall had staggered off into the morning light at the crack of dawn he’d spotted the camper. It took the twat three hours to get round to
reporting
back, which meant his reward was going to be halved, but what the fuck. Jerome had a sighting – it was outside the Grant’s Hotel by the park gates – and he was on his way to che
ck it out.

£100k. What would he spend the money on? He had his eye on a black Jeep that he saw most mornings when he was walking RiRi. Or he could take the boys to Ibiza for a few months, live it large, fuck some models and shit.

Except he wasn’t going to blow it. Guys like Snowglobe would do that, spend the lot on beer and trainers. Jerome was smarter than that. This £100k was going to be seed capital for his new venture. £100k could buy a lot of drugs, enough product to get Jerome properly into the game. Fuck messing around with a bunch of kids, the smalltime weed-dealing he’d been planning. Even before Georgia told him about the reward he’d decided against using Larry and the other posh kids; they were too much of a liability, although the posh-kid market was highly lucrative. He could make a fortune selling skunk and coke to the middle-class schoolkids of TW9. He could turn £100k into £500k easy. And then . . .

‘This time next year, RiRi,’ he said, ‘we’ll be millionaires.’

The dog groaned.

Jerome pulled up on the edge of the car park and looked up at the hotel. This place was alright, but when he was a millionaire he’d have a suite at the motherfucking Savoy.

There was the VW camper, right in the corner of the car park. He said, ‘Wait here, alright,’ to Rihanna and strode over to the van, weaving between the Beamers and Mercs and Audis – a lot of fucking Audis – and finally approaching the camper cautiously. The curtains were drawn across the back windows and the front cabin was empty. He peered around. There was a guy out front of the hotel lobby but his view of Jerome was blocked by the van. No one else around. He pressed his face against the glass and tried to peek behind the curtains but couldn’t see a thing. He tried the door, just in case the crazy bitch had accidentally left it open – which happened a lot in his experience – but it was locked up tighter than a nun’s pussy.

Was the kid in the camper now? He tried to think what he’d do if he’d snatched a little kid, which was not the kind of thing he’d ever do, no way. Though if it came down to it today, snatching this brat from the crazy kidnapper woman might be necessary. He had a pleasing vision of himself as a one-man liberating army, storming the hotel in a Call of Duty
stylee
, grabbing the kid and busting out of there, straight to the police station where he would collect his one hundred K and be a hero, all those feds standing slack-jawed and stunned that Jerome Smith had done what none of those lame motherfuckers could manage.

But first, he had to find her.

He took a walk round the back of the hotel. Going in the front wouldn’t do him any good. He imagined some snooty stuck-up fag behind the desk, the kind of person who looked at Jerome and put his guard up higher than a Kennedy tower block.

There was a young woman standing outside the back entrance, the door through which, Jerome guessed, they wheeled laundry and groceries. She was smoking, her free arm clutched tight around her ribcage. She had dark, spiky hair and dark eyes, kind of Eastern European looking. Pretty hot.

He walked up to her just as she flicked her cigarette away.

‘Hey.’

She eyed him suspiciously.

‘You gotta light?’

He pulled out his cigarettes and extracted two from the pack as she searched in her pockets for her lighter. She lit his cigarette for him, leaning in close enough for him to get a whiff of some kind of cleaning product, bleach or something, and he offered her a cigarette.

He smiled at her in that way that always worked. ‘You wo
rk here?’

She nodded.

‘You like a receptionist?’

She laughed. ‘No. A cleaner.’ He had been right about her being Eastern European. Her accent was sexy and he thought maybe, when this was done, he’d come back here, flash some cash, see what her voice sounded like when she was moaning h
is name.

He guessed she was paid minimum wage, probably less. As an expert in the black economy, he knew all about these poor suckers who came over here and did the crap jobs no other fucker wanted even though half of them were doctors and shit.

‘Want to earn some easy money?’

She looked him up and down. He gave her that smile again, one million watts of Jerome Smith charm.

‘What do I have to do?’

‘I’m looking for somebody.’ He took out his phone and showed her the picture Georgia had shared with him. ‘This woman. You recognise her?’

The cleaner hesitated then nodded slowly.

Jerome said, ‘Cool. A guest here, right? I need to know what room she’s in. If you can find that out for me I’ll give you a hundred quid right now.’ He showed her his wallet and counted out th
e money.

The cleaner licked her lips. ‘Two hundred.’

Jerome beamed. ‘You know what room she’s in?’

‘Yes. I clean her room.’

‘Nice. OK, two hundred.’ He pinched the money between forefinger and thumb and held it up.

The woman snatched it. ‘She’s in the honeymoon suite, to
p floor.’

‘She in there now?’

‘I don’t know.’ She had already stuffed the cash deep into her pocket. ‘But she was there one hour ago.’

‘Nice one.’

‘You go in that door,’ the cleaner said, ‘and take the stairs to the top.’

Jerome stubbed out his cigarette and winked at the woman. Then he went in through the doors and started to climb the staircase. This was going to be the easiest £100k anyone had eve
r made.

He reached the top of the staircase, out of breath and sweating, and stuck his head out the door. This wasn’t the freaking honeymoon suite. It was some kind of garden – a roof garden, loads of trees and shrubs and shit, a pretty cool place. He decided he’d like one when he owned his owned penthouse. The parties would be immense.

Trotting back down the stairs he went through another door and found himself standing at the end of a short, cool corridor with springy carpet beneath his Nikes. Cool. This must be it.

He took out his phone. All the way up, he’d been figuring out his plan. He needed to see the kid. He would look pretty damn stupid if he called the cops now and, when they turned up, she wasn’t there. He couldn’t see any way he could eyeball the girl without going into the hotel room.

This was going to be easy, though. The woman in Georgia’s photo was old. It wasn’t like she was going to fight him. All he had to do was get in the room, lock it and call the police. Maybe even make a motherfucking citizen’s arrest. He could imagine the feds’ faces when they rocked up and found out who the big h
ero was.

He rapped on the door.

From within, a woman said, ‘Who is it?’

This was exactly like being in a movie, one in which he was the star. That was another thing he wanted to do when he was loaded. Make a film, one with loads of guns and cars and money and boobs.

What would he say if this was a movie? ‘Room service.’

‘I didn’t order anything.’

‘I brought you some champagne, madam.’ He suppressed a laugh. ‘Compliments of the manager.’

He waited, and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to buy it. But then she opened the door.

‘You don’t look like—’

He barged past her, pushing her aside and slamming the door behind him. The crazy bitch started yelling at him, asking him who the hell he was, but he ignored her, scanning the huge room. There was a large lump in the bed. A kid-sized lump. He walked over to the bed, ready to pull back the covers.

‘Stop right there.’

He turned around, preparing to grin at her, but his smile was stillborn.

She was holding a gun.

He put his hands up. Shit, he hadn’t been expecting
that
.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked. She had a weird accent, kind of Essex mixed with a bit of Australian. ‘Are you police?’

‘Police? Uh-uh. I’m a friend.’

‘A friend of whose?’

The gun was trained on his face. He said, ‘Hey, I’m no one. This was all a bit mistake, alright? Put that thing down and I’ll walk right back out of here. No drama.’

The woman looked past him at the bed. Jerome stole a look over his shoulder. The lump in the bed wasn’t moving, despite all the noise.

The phone beside the bed rang.

‘Get over there,’ the crazy bitch commanded, jerking the gun towards the far wall. He obeyed, striding over with his hands still aloft, keeping his distance from the gun.

The woman picked up the phone, said, ‘OK, thanks. Tell her I’ll be down in a minute.’

The woman looked down at the phone, thoughtful, taking her eyes off him.

This was his chance. He rushed her, but as he tore across the carpet he realized he’d underestimated the distance and her head came up and with it, the gun.

Pain exploded in his shoulder.
Oh my fuckin’ days, I’ve been shot
, he thought.
I’ve actually been shot.
This really was like a movie. Except in a movie, he’d spring to his feet, or roll and trip the woman standing over him now with the gun pointed at his head.

Her face was twisted with anger. ‘You stupid arsehole. You’ve fucked everything up.’

He watched, paralysed, as her finger tightened on the trigger. His last thought, before she blew his head off, was of Rihanna. She was locked in the car, all the windows up, the hot sun rising in the sky. He opened his mouth to plead for the woman to stop, because otherwise who was going to save his dog?

He didn’t even get the first word out.