Jigsaw Man (12 page)

‘What was she saying?'

‘Search me. Then he says he's off out.'

‘He didn't tell you where he was going?'

‘No. He just said not to wait up for him. He had a big grin all over his face.'

‘He took his mobile with him?'

Chapman nodded. ‘Must've done.'

‘Can you give me the number, please?'

‘His phone's been switched off all this time.'

‘I still need the number.'

Chapman took out his phone and, squinting at it, reeled off the number.

‘When he didn't come home, were you worried?'

Chapman frowned. ‘No. I wasn't his effing keeper.'

Tartaglia stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was
telling the truth. Chapman
struck him as very incurious. Had Finnigan really not said anything about the woman
he was going out to meet? Had Chapman not asked him how he knew her and where he
was going? If they'd been a pair of close female friends, he wouldn't have believed
it for a second. But thinking of himself and his cousin Gianni, and what his sister
described as their appalling communication skills, he supposed it was plausible.
There were some things that didn't need to be said; they were simply understood.
Maybe it had been like that between Chapman and Finnigan too.

‘How long had he been staying with you when he disappeared?'

‘About a week, maybe.'

‘Did he use any of the social networking sites?'

Chapman shook his head. ‘He wasn't into computers.'

‘What about email?'

‘No, far as I know.'

‘What about when he was inside, how did he keep in touch with you?'

‘I'd go and see him, leastways when he was in the Scrubs.'

Tartaglia made a mental note to check where Finnigan had been in prison over the
previous few years and what visitors he had had during his last stretch. ‘Did you
report his being missing to the police?' he asked.

Chapman looked at him as though he were mad. ‘You think they'd care about a bloke
like Jake?' He cleared his throat and shook his head. ‘They'd fucking laugh me out
of town.'

It was a fair point. With resources scarcer than ever and nearly a thousand people
reported missing in the UK every day, the majority in the London area, there had
been a recent move to cut back on missing person investigations. Only the disappearance
of people thought to be vulnerable or at risk, or
where their disappearance was out
of character, was fully checked out. Other than logging the call, someone with an
itinerant and criminal background like Finnigan would have no doubt been treated
as ‘absent' rather than ‘missing' and his disappearance would not have been looked
into. ‘OK. Do you still have his things?'

‘Yeah. I hung onto them in case he comes back. They're at home in my room.'

‘Right. Finish your pint, Mr Chapman, and let's go and get them.'

They walked together in silence for a few blocks, crossed the Uxbridge Road, then
Chapman stopped outside a KFC on a corner.

‘The flat's upstairs. You want to come up or wait out here?'

‘I'll come up,' Tartaglia replied. He wanted to make sure Chapman didn't remove anything
from Finnigan's bag.

The entrance was in the side street, just past the KFC window. Inside, the communal
parts were shabby and piles of post lay uncollected on the dirty carpet. The place
smelled as though someone had been cooking curry recently. He followed Chapman up
the narrow stairs to the first floor and waited while he unlocked the door.

Chapman switched on the light and took Tartaglia along a passageway to the bedroom.
There was little furniture, just a mattress on the floor and a wardrobe in one corner,
but it was tidy. The bed was made, and a couple of pairs of trainers and a pair of
heavy-duty work boots were lined up under the window. Chapman heaved a heavy-looking
rucksack down from the top of the wardrobe, almost falling over in the process, and
dropped it at Tartaglia's feet.

‘That's everything he had with him. When he didn't come back I put all the things
he'd left lying around the flat inside it.
Probably smells a bit by now, but it's
all in there.' He sniffed, put his hands in his pockets and looked at Tartaglia anxiously.
‘What do you think happened to him?'

‘We're trying to find out. His body was found in the back of a burnt-out car. He
was already dead when the car was set on fire.'

Chapman looked puzzled. ‘What, you mean this has only just happened?'

‘Yes. Just over a week ago.'

‘So where's he been since May?'

Probably cut up in pieces in someone's freezer
, Tartaglia wanted to say. Instead
he replied, ‘We're still trying to put it all together. Thank you for your time,
Mr Chapman. You've been a great help. If you think of anything else, please give
me a call.'

Twelve

Adam was in Kit's small basement kitchen, opening a bottle of wine from Kit's cellar,
when he heard the front door above him slam shut, followed by heavy footsteps on
the bare boards in the hall. He froze. He ran through in his mind everything Kit
had told him about the house; there had been no mention of anybody else having a
key. Instead of turning down the stairs to the kitchen, the footsteps grew fainter
and it sounded as though the person was going upstairs. Adam put down the bottle,
quickly wiped his hands on a tea towel, then picked up a large, sharp knife from
the block by the cooker. He took off his shoes and slowly crept upstairs, wincing
at every creak of the ancient boards. He was nearly on the first-floor landing when
he heard the footsteps thundering back down towards him. With his back to the wall,
he braced himself, knife behind his back.

A tall young man in grey tracksuit bottoms and a matching hoodie bounded around the
turn in the stairs at the half-landing above him and stopped abruptly as he caught
sight of Adam.

‘Who the hell are you?'

‘I'm a friend of Kit's,' Adam replied. ‘Who are you?'

‘Strange he never mentioned you,' the man said, staring down at him with the arrogance
of somebody who had a right to be there. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I'm staying for a few days, that's all. What about you? I wasn't expecting anybody.'

‘Clearly not.' The man was eyeing him up and down in an unembarrassed fashion. He
was barefoot and extremely muscular, with very short, fair hair and a deeply tanned
face. Kit had never mentioned having any immediate family and he didn't look like
he was related to Kit, who was not particularly tall and slightly built, and had
thinning, brownish hair. Nor did the man fit the description of any of Kit's ex-lovers,
from what Adam remembered of Kit's occasional drunken musings and the motley collection
of old photographs Kit kept in an old shoe box in his study. He was far too young,
for starters, and too good-looking, although maybe Kit had deliberately omitted to
mention him. It wouldn't be the first time; the little shit had slyly kept so many
important details from him, partially out of spite as well as a foolish and mistaken
desire to fascinate and tantalise. But whoever the man was, if he knew Kit, Adam
would have to be careful.

‘Are those your things in Kit's room?' the man asked.

‘Yes. What about it?'

‘And your name is?'

Adam returned the man's stare. ‘Tom.' It tripped easily off his tongue, the first
of the handful of aliases he used that came to mind. It was also the one that Kit
called him, which was useful in case Kit had talked about him to anybody. The man
had the manner of someone used to giving orders and someone who would probably know
a lie when he heard one. But it was too late to worry about that.

‘Well,
Tom
,' the man said, as though the name was open to question, his eyes still
locked with Adam's, ‘I suggest you move your stuff down to the spare room. I always
sleep in Kit's room when I'm here. I take it he's away, then?'

‘Yes. He's still in Thailand. And who are you?'

‘My name's Jonny.'

He studied the man's expression. He was expert at reading people and something told
him the man was lying. But did it matter? He decided to let it pass for the moment.
The man clearly had a key to Kit's house, so maybe he had Kit's permission to be
there. There was no point in stirring up trouble unnecessarily.

‘Kit never mentioned you,' Adam said.

‘Well, he never mentioned you either. When's he due back?'

‘Another month or so, I think.'

‘And how do you know him?'

‘We were in the same house together at school,' Adam said. ‘Although he was a bit
older. We ran into each other when I was out in Thailand.' He had rehearsed the story
many times and it sounded fluent enough to his ears. ‘What about you?'

‘Kit and I go back a long way. Do you have his permission to be here?'

Controlling his anger, Adam smiled. Normally, he would never allow someone to interrogate
him in this way, but he had to keep calm. He couldn't risk any form of confrontation,
let alone further questions being asked. Maybe if he was polite the man would let
it drop. ‘Of course I do. He gave me his key and told me to make myself at home.'

‘Yes, I saw it on the hall table. I recognised the fob. Now, if you don't mind, I'm
bloody knackered. I'd be grateful if you'd clear your stuff out of Kit's room PDQ.
I need a shower and then bed. And I'm famished. I hope there's some food in the fridge.'
He spoke as though he was entitled to what was there.

He started down the stairs towards Adam. For a big man, he moved with the grace of
a cat, at home in his own skin and physicality. He also appeared at home in Kit's
house. He had to be one of Kit's ex-lovers, although he wasn't at all what Adam had
imagined to be Kit's type, nor did it make sense that
someone like him would be interested
in a weak, vacillating, wreck of a man like Kit. Maybe he was after Kit's dwindling
trust fund. Adam flattened himself against the wall to let him pass, the knife still
concealed behind his back. He wanted to shove it hard between the man's broad shoulders
as he pushed past, but he checked the urge. He needed to find out more information,
see how long he intended to stay, and then he would make a plan.

Thirteen

Sam Donovan paused outside Detective Chief Inspector Carolyn Steele's door, her hand
raised ready to knock. It felt odd being back at the office in Barnes. She had worked
there for a couple of years before quitting. Now, only a few months on, stepping
into the building and walking up the stairs to the first floor, it seemed like an
alien world and she felt unexpectedly nervous. The official view when she had announced
her departure was that she simply needed a change. Everybody had wished her well
and appeared to understand. That it had had as much to do with Mark Tartaglia as
anything else, was something she had refused to acknowledge to anybody, although
she knew there had been talk. Sharon Fuller was sharper than most and had certainly
guessed the truth. With the benefit of hindsight, what had happened between her and
Tartaglia felt less relevant now, and certainly a lot less painful than before. Maybe
she had acquired some immunity, or perhaps the official view was right: all she
had needed was a change.

She heard voices along the corridor, a man and a woman coming her way. As she listened,
she recognised the man's as Justin Chang's. It sounded as though they had stopped
by the coffee machine. It had been a while since she had last spoken to him, when
she had broken off their relationship. He had taken it badly, refusing to accept
the simple explanation she had given about needing to be on her own. Deep down, she
still had mixed feelings about it and wondered if she had made a mistake. At times,
particularly late at night when
she'd had a drink or two, she felt lonely and she
missed him. But it wasn't enough to warrant getting back together. She certainly
didn't want to see him now, not in her current state. She felt too raw to cope with
his sympathy, let alone anything else he might say . . .

She knocked on Steele's door and heard the DCI say ‘Come in.'

Again she hesitated, but Chang's voice was coming closer. Taking a deep breath, she
pushed open the door and went inside. Steele was sitting behind her desk, back to
the window, reading some papers. The room was small, and tidy to the point of emptiness
– none of the personal clutter most people gathered around themselves at work. Steele
had been in the Barnes office for just over a year, yet it was as though she had
just moved in and all her things were still in boxes somewhere, waiting to be unpacked.
It was already dark outside but she hadn't bothered to draw the blinds. Lights were
on in the terrace of low-built houses opposite and Donovan heard a loud bang from
somewhere close by that made her jump, followed by childish screeches of excitement.
A rocket cut through the sky, sending a shower of red and gold across the horizon.

‘Yes,' Steele said impatiently, eyes down, still reading.

‘It's me. I hope you don't mind . . .'

Steele looked up. ‘Oh, it's you, Sam. What are you doing here?' She got up from behind
her desk and came over to Donovan. Broad-hipped and broad-shouldered, she was dressed
in her normal combination of dark trouser suit and plain shirt. It was a uniform
she rarely varied, as though she couldn't be bothered to think of a different outfit,
or wasn't interested. ‘Come and sit down, will you?' She motioned Donovan to the
small sofa against the wall by the door, pulled
up a chair and sat down opposite.
Her short black hair gleamed under the overhead light. As usual, she was wearing
a minimal amount of make-up but her brows and features were strong and she didn't
need much help to look striking. Aware that her own appearance left a lot to be desired
– hair soaked and flattened by the rain and no make-up to cover her swollen, red
eyes – Donovan consoled herself with the thought that at least the coat she had helped
herself to from Tartaglia's wardrobe was so large on her that it easily disguised
the motley array of garments underneath.