Sorrow Bound (18 page)

The manor house is magnificent: all stone vaulting and turrets, tippy-topped towers and rounded, mullioned windows. In this light, it appears timeless, though McAvoy finds it hard not to imagine some medieval princess sitting at one of the dark windows, weeping and working on her tapestries as father and brothers practise swordplay in the grounds.

‘Cost more than three million,’ he says. ‘I’ve requested a brochure.’

McAvoy parks the car in the shade of some tangled elderflower trees. He makes a note to tell Roisin the berries are coming early this year then steps from the car and listens to the silence. Wonders how one should knock on a door of this size. Whether he should go the kitchen entrance, like a tradesman.

Christ, Roisin would love this
, he thinks.

It’s a beautiful home, and yet carries with it an air of something vaguely unsettling. It is not so much the quiet, though the absence of noise is noticeable. It’s the air. The heat seems more oppressive here. There is a whiff of something McAvoy recognises as rotting vegetation; like the bottom of a compost bin when it has been cleaned. Something remains here. Something lingering and powerful. McAvoy listens hard and can hear the sound of rushing water somewhere nearby. He hangs on to the sound. It seems to represent a place beyond the mansion walls. It represents escape.

As they approach the big front doors, a figure comes into
view. A young man in overalls and a lumberjack shirt is spraying the paved area in front of the giant front portico with what McAvoy takes to be weedkiller. A large canister of the stuff is strapped to his back and he has a hose in his right hand. He’s whistling to himself, the wires from a pair of headphones dribbling out from underneath a dark baseball cap. McAvoy doesn’t want to come upon him unaware so makes as much noise as he can as he approaches. Pharaoh has no such qualms, and merely yells ‘Oi’. The man turns, startled. He’s in his late twenties. Not bad-looking, but could do with a scrub. He pulls an earpiece out of one ear but leaves the other one in. He gives them a smile.

‘Not open yet,’ he says, and his accent is local.

Pharaoh pulls out her warrant card. Crosses the space between them. He gives her a quick once-over and his eyes linger on her breasts for no longer than anybody else’s do.

‘Superintendent,’ he says, reading the card and looking impressed. He smiles, friendly and open. ‘What’s he?’

Pharaoh turns to look at McAvoy, trying to get his warrant card out of his waistcoat pocket and dropping his car keys all at the same time.

‘Him? He’s a defective sergeant. Don’t try and pronounce his name. He’s Scottish.’

The man looks at McAvoy, who is straightening his clothes. ‘Rangers or Celtic?’

McAvoy pushes his hair back from his face. ‘Ross County. I can only apologise.’

The man laughs. ‘Better state than Rangers these days, at least. How the hell did they let that happen, eh?’

Pharaoh gives a wave of her hand, telling both men to stop talking about football. She looks up at the imposing building. ‘Lovely place,’ she says. ‘You the groundsman?’

The man sticks out his hand and withdraws it when he sees the dirt on his knuckles. ‘Groundsman? Nah. I’m a contractor. New owners have got a whole crew coming in next month to do the place up. I’m keeping it nice enough so that the MD can show his investors around as it stands. They’re not short of cash, I’ll tell you that.’

‘I read on the Internet it had been sold …’

‘Yeah, big company with a base in Sweden. Or Norway. One of those–’

‘Sweden. Sceptre Healthcare.’

The man rummages around in the pocket of his overalls and finds a grubby card. He reads the name on it. ‘Yeah, Sceptre.’ He shows them the card. ‘Bernt Moller,’ he reads. ‘He’s my contact. Just told me to keep it nice, really. They’ve only been up here a couple of times but they had people in expensive suits with them. It’s going to be fancy. I’ve seen the plans.’

Pharaoh looks at the card, and in the corner of her eye sees McAvoy taking down the name and number in neat handwriting.

‘It’s not going to house nutters any more, then?’

The man gives a laugh, showing slightly crooked teeth and silver fillings. ‘Last of them were long gone by the time I got this contract.’

‘And it’s going to be an old folks’ home?’

‘Don’t let them hear you say that! I’ve seen the brochures. They love their marketing speak, it’s all respite care and quality of life and fancy words to try and get you to part with your cash.
Going to be lovely, though.’ He gestures at the house. ‘Couldn’t not be, really. Gorgeous place.’

McAvoy looks around him. Through a line of lime trees he spots an outbuilding with a red slate roof. He can see a faint line of what looks like barbed wire above loose brickwork.

‘Outbuildings come as part of the sale?’

The contractor looks puzzled. ‘I just stop the weeds growing through the cracks and pull the leaves out of the gutters. Why do you ask?’

McAvoy shrugs, and then realises he doesn’t like being the sort of person who answers a question without words. ‘I heard there had been an incident here. When it was still in the hands of the old owners.’

‘No idea, mate. Is that what you’re here for?’

Pharaoh kicks a pebble with the toe of her biker boot. She seems to be mulling something over.

‘I’m Trish, by the way,’ says Pharaoh, with the practised ease of somebody who knows how best to get men on her side. ‘You are?’

‘Gaz,’ he says, with a smile. ‘Gary. Reeves.’

‘A pleasure, Gaz. We were rather hoping to speak to somebody who used to work here. A psychiatrist. He was a very senior figure here a few years ago.’

Gaz rubs a hand over his jaw. His face implies that he would love to help but can’t.

‘There’s still some of the old stuff in boxes,’ he says, after a pause. ‘Belonged to the old owners. May be some names and addresses. If you ring that Swedish bloke he would probably say to help yourself.’

Pharaoh looks at him for a moment, then swallows, letting a smile creep onto her face. ‘Already phoned him, Gary. Just
now. Nice chap, isn’t he? Loves pickled herring, apparently. Got a poster of Freddie Ljungberg on his desk. Reads a lot of Wallander. Says it’s fine. Just to go right in. You probably heard me.’

Gaz’s smile matches Pharaoh’s. He looks like the sort who enjoys giving the rules a slight tweak. He looks as though he had been expecting a boring day and now has the opportunity to give himself a story to tell in the pub tonight.

‘Was he sitting in an Ikea chair?’ he asks, enjoying this. ‘Blond. Drives a Volvo …’

‘That’s the chap,’ says Pharaoh. ‘We good?’

Gaz nods. ‘I’m going for a bacon roll in a bit anyway. Door’s open. Load of cardboard boxes in the second office to your right. I’m sure he told you that.’

Pharaoh reaches out and puts a hand on his forearm. ‘Word for word.’

Gaz crunches away across the gravel, towards a small blue Transit van parked in the shade of the far wall. A moment later, he’s reversing out and heading through the gate.

‘Coming?’

McAvoy has a finger in his ear and his phone to the side of his head. He’s reading the dirty business card in his hand and having no luck getting in touch with Bernt Moller. He leaves a message with a secretary with a better English accent than his own and mentions that Gary Reeves had told them to go right ahead.

Pharaoh is standing in the doorway of the great stately home, leaning against the cool stone. ‘Does it suit me?’ she asks, gesturing at the mansion. ‘Think I would fit in here?’

McAvoy stands beside her and turns to take in the view.
Examines the grounds, the church, the tumbledown outbuildings and the lime trees that veil the barbed wire.

‘Lady of the manor,’ he says, nodding. ‘I can see it now. You married the owner and he died on your honeymoon night. Now you offend all the old-money posh nobs and have elaborate parties here with your husband’s money.’

Pharaoh laughs appreciatively and plays along. ‘And you can be a Scottish laird, visiting from the Highlands. You’re here to persuade me to buy five hundred acres of quality sheep-farming land. This evening I’m going to get you drunk on old wine from the cellar and persuade you to do a handstand in your kilt.’

McAvoy busies himself putting his notebook away. ‘It’s always the kilt with you, isn’t it, Guv?’

Pharaoh turns her back and enters the cool of the porch. ‘You should wear one for work. Would be something to threaten the villains with during interviews. Can you imagine? “For the benefit of the tape, Detective Sergeant McAvoy just waggled his bollocks at the suspect. The suspect is crying.”’

They cross a wooden parquet floor past the deserted reception desk. It’s a cool, airy place with high ceilings and dangling chains that have clearly been used to support chandeliers. It has the air of a Tudor castle: its owner imprisoned for heresy and his buildings left to fall into disrepair. The light does not extend much beyond the open doorway but there is enough of a glow for McAvoy to investigate the black and white photographs that still hang in brown wooden frames upon the drab magnolia walls. He and Pharaoh spend a few minutes using the lights from their mobile phones to stare into crowd scenes, to examine pictures of agricultural workers long dead, standing by hay bales and
scowling below hats and moustaches. The images are a joyless jumble, all pixels and dead eyes.

Pharaoh pushes at a pair of mahogany double doors that swing open as she twists the brass handle. It’s dark and cold inside, and smells old.

‘This place would drive you mental even if you were sane,’ mutters Pharaoh, shivering. ‘Shut down for years, you said. How come I can still smell cabbage and disinfectant?’

She reaches up to the long panel of light switches and flicks half a dozen of them down. After a slight pause, the chandeliers crescendo into life, pitching a yellow puddle into the chilly space, spreading in a flood down the corridor.

Pharaoh carries on down the hallway with its chessboard floor and burgundy walls, to the staircase, which sweeps elegantly upwards.

Peaches-and-cream little girls in velvet dresses.

Stern patrician types in curled wigs and uncomfortable robes.

The place may have been a hospital but it feels like an abandoned stately home. Pharaoh looks as though she is considering sliding down the banister, then gives a shiver and comes back down, heading businesslike to the door she had been directed to.

‘This one,’ says Pharaoh, twisting a door handle. ‘Oh bloody hell.’

‘Guv?’

Pharaoh pulls a face. The door that Gaz had directed them to is locked.

McAvoy lets his disappointment show. He wants to try the handle himself, just to feel involved, but forces himself not to.

‘Worth looking around?’ he asks.

Pharaoh angles her head to peer up the stairs. She doesn’t
look keen to spend any more time here. It feels old. The walls have soaked something up over the centuries and seem to be silently screaming that this building will be here long after they, and everybody else, has gone. McAvoy wonders what the patients thought when they were brought here. Some were willing, asking for help. Others had been sectioned by their families. Half a dozen had been sent by the courts, trying to ease the workload of busier and better-known facilities like Rampton.

Pharaoh screws up her face. ‘Load of empty bedrooms and the lingering smell of cauliflower farts? No thanks. It’s okay, we weren’t sure what we were looking for anyway, were we? We’re just bloody fishing.’ She looks a bit dejected, suddenly. ‘Let’s go, eh? Ben Nielsen will have an address for the shrink by now anyway. And it won’t be hard to find out where Hoyer-Wood is a patient, even though I don’t know what we’re expecting to find there either. Bloke’s a cripple, you said.’

Discreetly, McAvoy gives the door handle a shake, for good measure. Were he to allow himself to try, he would be able to kick the damn thing off its hinges. But he knows he will not try.

A sudden vibration in his pocket causes McAvoy to give a tiny shout and Pharaoh begins to laugh as her sergeant retrieves his phone and blushes furiously. He speaks softly and quickly. Lays on the charm. Hangs up, smiling.

‘Bernt Moller,’ he says, by way of explanation. ‘Very polite man, but asked if we would mind submitting our request through the proper channels. Told us that our new friend had overstepped the mark a little.’

‘Reeves?’

‘Yeah. Moller employed him by pure luck when he was on a site visit. I hope we haven’t got him in trouble. Seemed a decent sort.’

‘Well, we better hadn’t upset the Scandinavians any further,’ says Pharaoh, and threads her arm through his own. ‘Come on.’ He feels the heat of her, the closeness. Smells her. Hairspray and wine, perfume and perspiration.

He doesn’t know what to say. What to do. Just feels himself colouring, and the hairs on his arm rising to scratch the strap of his watch.

‘Excuse me, this is private property.’

McAvoy looks up as the double doors swing open. Two men in uniform stand outlined in the soft light.

‘We’re police,’ says Pharaoh, pulling out her warrant card. ‘Sorry. The gardener said to go straight in …’

The nearest man takes the warrant card from Pharaoh’s hand and looks at it closely, then at her. He’s young. Too young to scare anybody but not old enough to realise it.

‘I’ve grown my hair since then,’ says Pharaoh, pointing at the picture on the ID. ‘You like it?’

‘You be quiet,’ says the second man. He’s got a round belly and receding hair and there are short bristles sprouting from his red nose. Up close, there is enough of a similarity about the two men’s eyes for McAvoy to think that they may be father and son. The logo on their uniforms is a bearskin hat, and the words ‘Tower Security’ are stitched in yellow onto their grey short-sleeved shirts.

‘Easy now,’ says McAvoy, stepping forward. ‘We were just hoping to speak to somebody in charge …’

‘There’s nobody here yet,’ says the older man. His face softens a bit. He’s clearly relieved that the intruders are nicely dressed and aren’t carrying anything that could be used as a weapon. He instructs the younger man to give Pharaoh her warrant card back. ‘Sorry, we get no end of bloody trespassers.’