Requiem (63 page)

‘What therapist?’

‘A psychotherapist, she called herself. Sent by the social services. She came twice in a week, all the way from Glasgow. Said she’d be comin’ regularly. Campbell heard what she was sayin’ to Adrian. He didna’ like what he heard.’

‘And?’

‘There was an incident.’

‘What sort of incident?’

‘Well … They’re sayin’ it was assault.’

Daisy sighed aloud. Wonderful, Campbell, bloody wonderful.

The call meter started flashing a nil-units warning. Daisy said hastily: ‘Listen, I’ll be up. I’ll try to get up as soon as I can – ’

The line went dead.

Daisy leaned against the side of the box while she worked out what time she would get to Scotland if she grabbed a few hours’ sleep and started at four.

Placing the car was half the art. Too far away and you could say goodbye to any hope of a quick bunk, too near and it was like hanging up a sign to say that you were in there, uninvited. There was another alternative, of course, and that was to look like you owned the place. Hillyard used a spike to spring the padlock, then swung open one of the gates and reversed the car close into the side of the building and, returning to the gate, latched it loosely shut behind him.

He marched purposefully up the side of the building until he was in the shadows, then went slowly about his business. He never hurried a recce, especially one like this. In fact, it was possible he might not go in tonight at all. It all depended on the alarm system, if there was one.

There was one. Shining a pencil beam through one of the windows, he sighted a magnetic contact attached to a window frame opposite. After that it was a question of cataloguing the type and location of each security device. It wasn’t difficult. The windows around the rear of the building were numerous and large, revealing two laboratories full of equipment but not, as far as he could see, a great deal of security. There was no sign of heat sensors, nor of floor beams. The system appeared to be a fairly primitive mix of magnetic contacts and vibration sensors, though it never paid to make up one’s mind about these things too soon.

It took him half an hour to decide that his first assessment had been right, and the system was as basic as he had first thought. It took him another twenty minutes to decide on the best way in. The front of the building was out: too well lit. On the open side where he had left the car there was a side door, but it was solid and well bolted, and all the windows were covered by vibration sensors. On the other side however, reached by a narrow strip between the building and the one next door, there was a frosted metal-frame window which looked as though it belonged to a washroom of some sort. As far as he could tell by peering through the distortions of the glass, the opening half of the frame, a conventional vertically hinged window, had only a single magnetic contact. More to the point, the other, fixed, window had a revolving draught-operated vent cut into the glass.

From his tote-bag he selected some tools and, taking his time, began to work on the vent. In the end he had to cut around the fitting and lift the thing out wholesale. This was not ideal – the refixing would require clips and putty and a lot of fiddling about – but it was safer than trying to drill out the fixings from the wrong side.

Padding the sharp edges of the cut glass circle with his jacket, he reached through up to his shoulder until his fingers touched the latch of the other window. It moved under his fingers: it was not locked. He then checked the alarm fitting to make certain that it was indeed magnetic.

From his bag he took a magnetic contact and, passing it through the hole, stuck the magnet to its brothers on the frame, ensuring that a circuit would be maintained when he opened the window. Then, dropping his hand down to the latch, he levered it upwards.

He pushed open the window. The alarm did not go off.

Climbing through, he came out of the washroom and into the passage and made his way softly towards the front entrance, looking for floor beams or heat sensors. Finding none, he looked into the rooms to right and left – offices, a stationery and equipment store – until he came to the office at the front of the building, the place where he had seen the light flicker on. This looked like the centre of operations: a large desk, a smaller one, two phones, filing cabinets.

He doubled back and went down to the other end of the corridor, to a pair of swing doors, just to check he hadn’t missed anything. The doors were locked. He thought of trying to pick them, but it might not be possible and, since they undoubtedly led to the laboratories he had seen through the windows, it was unlikely to be worth the effort.

He returned to the front hall. Tracing the lightweight cable from the alarm touch pad inside the main doors, he found the alarm control box tucked inside a utility cupboard in a corner of the main office. It was a standard if outmoded model. He made a note of the model type, and the number of circuits.

Then he settled down to his main work of the night. Closing the venetian blinds, he draped his jacket over a desk lamp and risked turning on the light. Reading through the files, it took him half an hour to get the picture. Even then, he went back over some of the material a second time, just to be sure. Well, well. Cunning bitch.

He began to photograph everything systematically: correspondence, names of staff and advisors, scientific protocols, weekly progress reports, lists of so-called victims, accounts, bank statements. Everything was here. But just as he allowed himself a small chortle of triumph he realized there was after all something missing. The money: or rather, its source. This wasn’t the sort of operation which the shoestring Catch budget could finance, not when the money was arriving in dirty great lumps, a quarter of a million at a time. Oh no, Miss Field had got herself a benefactor from somewhere, a nice little money machine. A rich lover perhaps; a sugar daddy.

In his mind he sifted through what he’d already read and photographed, but he knew the information wasn’t there. By three, after a last search through the files, he had to admit defeat. But only temporarily. There were ways, and stuff the low-risk policy.

He hovered for a moment over the choice of items in the specially cushioned box in his tote-bag, and finally went for a small crystal handset transmitter. Better range than the wall-socket variety, and that was the main consideration when he wasn’t sure how closely he’d be able to monitor it.

Opening up the telephone handset, he clamped the transmitter’s tiny alligator clips to the connections, and stuck it to the inside of the plastic casing using double-sided tape. Neat as pie.

Closing the handset again, he tested the transmitter, then tidied up carefully, ready to leave.

He got as far as the door, then turned back as a memory struck him, something he’d seen in one of the files. It was a moment before he recalled the file’s pedantic title: Home Office Project Licence Application. He didn’t pretend to understand it all, much of it was in scientific-speak, but the relevant parts shone through all right, and a wonderful idea began to simmer and glow in his mind.

‘Y
OU LOOK FINE
,
fine
.’ David’s smile was the sort fathers use on adolescent children, fond but hesitant, in vague fear of rebuff. ‘The rest’s done you good.’

‘It also drove me crazy,’ said Nick mildly, and raised an eyebrow to show he almost meant it.

The waiter arrived with the drinks, a lager for David and a Badoit for Nick.

The restaurant was filling up. It was a nouveau-Italian place in Covent Garden, a cellar done out in neutral pastels with all the plumbing showing. Now and again someone looked Nick’s way then just as quickly looked away again.

‘She’s late,’ Nick remarked.

‘The traffic. A state visit or something. Do you want to order?’

‘No.’

David gave him that soft nervous smile again. He was unusually deferential, Nick noticed, almost as if Nick were some new client who might prove unpredictable.

‘You’ve seen Mel and Joe?’ David ventured.

‘Yesterday.’ Then, because it was what David wanted to hear, he added: ‘I gave them a couple of songs to look at.’

David, terrified of overreacting, hid his pleasure behind a frozen smile. ‘Stuff you might – er – put in the album?’

‘Too early to say.’

David went into immediate retreat. ‘Of course. Too early to say.’

‘Might not be suitable, that’s all.’

‘Whatever you say, Nick. Whatever you say.’

Nick’s irritation rose. All this eager agreement, all this backing away from the slightest risk of confrontation was getting on his nerves. David was sounding like a yes-man. Somehow, somewhere they’d lost touch with each other. Perhaps it had begun a long time ago and neither of them had noticed, perhaps it had happened during the brief American tour. Perhaps David wasn’t even aware of it. Either way, it was a lonely thought.

David rolled his eyes towards the door. ‘Here’s our lady now.’

Nick glanced round. Some women enter restaurants, others make entrances. Susan Driscoll was not entering unobtrusively.

As she strode towards him and reached out to take his hand he tried to work out how she’d changed since he’d last seen her. It was her hair, he thought, though whether it was the colour or the style he had no idea. Grasping his hand, she kissed him warmly on the cheek as if they were old friends. He wondered if she was remembering their last meeting in David’s office almost a year ago. From the breadth of her smile, he guessed not.

‘Well!’ she cried. ‘How lovely it is to see you.’ She leaned her chin on her hands to get a closer look at him. The movement caused her heavy golden hair to swing forward from her shoulder so that you couldn’t help noticing it. He wondered if she practised the gesture. ‘You look so well,’ she said. ‘Have you been away?’

‘I’ve been drying out.’

Her smile didn’t falter. ‘Where did you go – Clouds? My friends tell me it’s the best.’

‘A place in Arizona.’

‘Mmm. Sounds lovely. And do you do all that follow-up? AA meetings and all that. They say it’s the most fantastic brotherhood. Better than a club.’

‘I keep in touch.’

‘Well,’ she breathed, withdrawing gently from the subject. ‘That’s wonderful. You look wonderful.’ And, giving a soft laugh, she reached out and brushed her fingers lightly against his arm in a gesture that was curiously intimate. His instinct was to pull up his drawbridge and retreat fast, yet there was something so direct in her manner, so well meaning, that he decided to reserve judgement, for the time being at least.

David launched the subject of the restored charity concert.

‘It sold out in three days,’ Susan said, throwing up her elegant hands in delight. ‘Even at the extortionate prices we’re charging. And the advertising’s gone well. We should clear over a hundred thousand.’ She turned her eyes to Nick’s. He noticed their colour, a clear grey-green, and a distant memory came to him, of a morning when they had woken up together, long ago. But his recollection of his feelings at the time was strangely clouded, and no clear emotion came through. He knew that he hadn’t loved her – though he had liked her well enough for a while – but there had been something disturbing in their relationship, something that had resulted in difficulties and unpleasantness, particularly towards the end, though he couldn’t remember exactly what the problem had been. His memory, never brilliant, had faded dramatically during the drinking years.

‘It’s so inadequate to thank you, but I will anyway,’ Susan said in her light dancing voice. ‘It’s such a nightmare this fund-raising,’ she sighed. ‘Such a hassle thinking of brilliant ideas only to find they’ve all been done before. But to get you
and
Amazon – well …’ She gave an expressive little shrug.

‘Glad to help,’ he murmured.

She fixed him with those eyes again. ‘I know it’s probably a great bore for you.’

The first course arrived. ‘It’s just another concert.’

‘Of course, but …’ She paused, tucking her chin down and casting him a long upward look. ‘Can I come straight out and ask you something?’ She gave a sudden laugh that was self-deprecating and charming all at the same time. ‘Then I can get it over and done with, and I won’t have to spend the rest of the meal in misery, working out how on earth I’m going to find a way of asking you.’

It was bound to be something he didn’t want to do, but at least she was asking. Some charity organizers just sprang things on you at the last minute, on the principle that once the event was under way it was almost impossible for you to make a scene. ‘Ask away,’ he said.

‘It’s our main donors – you wouldn’t shake their hands at the party afterwards, would you? You know, say a couple of words to one or two of them. It wouldn’t take long – fifteen minutes at the most, then you could slip away – through a back entrance or something. It’s just so they can go away saying they met you. It makes such a difference.’

David tore himself away from his pasta. ‘Can’t be done in fifteen minutes. More like thirty. And Nick’ll be very tired.’

‘They’re business people, are they?’ Nick asked.