Hell Is Empty Read online

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, in predictably flat, police tones. ‘There’s no guarantee he didn’t have you tracked. I can protect you in here. I can’t protect you out there.’

  ‘You don’t look as if you could protect the skin on a rice pudding. No offence.’

  ‘I’m a fully trained police officer, sir,’ he said, putting a bit of spice on the ‘sir’. ‘I can handle myself.’

  But he was looking at me as if to say ‘I could handle you’. Part of me really wanted to test that, but it would only piss Mawker off, and his heart was in the right place. Well, I say ‘right place’. The right place for Mawker’s heart was actually Mengele’s food bowl.

  ‘Fuck it,’ I said. ‘Go back to your cards and lard.’ And then I thought of something.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said.

  ‘Sir?’ He might as well have said ‘Turd?’

  ‘There is something I could do with, if I’m going to be stuck here for a while. The cold case files Mawker brought over to my place.’

  ‘I’ll have someone pick them up,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, that’s it. Thanks.’

  ‘Can I go back to my cards and lard now?’

  ‘Knock yourself out.’

  * * *

  I dreamed Karen was with me in the Mini, but the car was filled with water and she was drowning. I thought I would drown too, but every time I opened my mouth to pull in that final, liquid breath, Sarah finned up out of the darkness to pass the oxygen from her lungs into mine.

  I woke up gasping, disoriented. It was night time again, four a.m. according to my watch. At least I was catching up on my sleep. I got up and managed fifty press-ups and went in search of the shower. After ten minutes under water as hot as I could get it, I returned to find that one of the face furniture brothers had left a tray of sandwiches and a steaming mug of tea on the table. The case files were stacked alongside.

  I called out a thank you from the top of the stairs and a voice with Welsh depth to it said, ‘De nada.’

  I dressed and bolted the food, then stretched out with the case files and took restorative sips of tea. The bare bulb was of high wattage and its light cast strong, enormous shadows against the angles of the room. But it also picked out the subtle shadows on the folder I’d just cast aside. One of my most prized possessions – and I store it at Keepsies because I’m scared it will get lost or destroyed – is a vinyl copy of John Lennon’s compilation album Shaved Fish, given to me by Rebecca on our fifth anniversary. I’ve long misplaced the card that accompanied it (it’s around somewhere, tucked inside a book most probably) but its message to me remains, because she must have written it leaning on the album. The words have indented on the cover, and you can see them if you tilt the sleeve in a particular way against the light.

  Here’s to another five… and maybe more, Faceache. I love you, R xxx

  The ghost words on the cardboard were undoubtedly in Mawker’s hand because they were capitalised and abbreviated.

  DO NOT LET ON TO JS ABT GT VSTS!

  What was that supposed to mean? JS was me, presumably. GT: Graeme Tann. What visits? Had he been let out of prison for some reason? I tried Mawker on the phone but he wasn’t answering this early. I took the folder down to the kitchen. My bodyguard was sitting with his feet up on the table rubbing at something with a scrap of sandpaper. On a small TV, a nature programme depicted something big with lots of teeth creeping up on something small with big eyes.

  ‘Moore, isn’t it?’

  ‘Chris Moore, yes.’ He swung his feet away from the table and sat up.

  ‘You know Ian Mawker.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Any idea what he means by this?’

  I had to get a piece of paper and shade with a pencil the area containing the words so that they would transfer and be more legible in the softer lighting down here.

  ‘No idea,’ he said, once he’d read it. ‘What’s that? Vests?’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Does Towne come back later?’

  ‘He does,’ Moore said, returning to his sandpaper. When he noticed me watching he held up a piece of wood. ‘Pawn,’ he said. ‘I’m slowly making a chess set for my nephew.’

  I went back upstairs and leafed through the pages, looking for something to alleviate the boredom. I read some more about the mythical beast that was the Skylark. The speculation. The list of possible perpetrators, many of which would no doubt be dead now. He had to be athletic, they reckoned. He was getting in and out of these construction sites at speed. Up and down stairs like greased shit. No working lifts. And he was strong too. Able to overpower his victims and, in some cases, heave them over railings. You couldn’t do that if you were five foot nothing and built like a streak of piss. So many blank spaces in these files. So many question marks. It really was a cold case.

  How many crimes went unpunished around the world? The number of people who got away with it. All those victims, some of them never found.

  Click.

  I put down the pages and looked up at the wall. A sound. A different sound. It hadn’t come from this room and it hadn’t come from just outside it. It hadn’t originated in the kitchen either, where Moore was sitting, buffing his chess piece: I could just hear the faint skrit of sandpaper. I thought about it, and listened some more. Nothing. Could be any number of things. I didn’t know this house. I didn’t know this neighbourhood. I was just jumpy and on the lookout for not-rightness. And—

  And click.

  Followed by a faint scraping sound. Metal on glass. Someone was trying to get in.

  I got off the bed and stole to the window. Nobody there, but it was too dark to see anything in the garden below. Coming up to five a.m.

  On the landing I could no longer hear Moore’s woodworking, and I hoped that was because he’d heard the noises too and was now doing his job, hopefully with a fully loaded gun in his hand. I slipped down to the final half a dozen stairs and strained for shadows and sound. Either Moore had left the building, or someone had come in; fresh night air laced the stale. I did not want to call him and give away my position.

  All of the lights went out.

  Now I couldn’t hear anything because my heart was thrashing in its bone cage like a frightened bird, filling my ears with the thud of hot blood. All that rolled around my mind were the words safe house/shit house over and over.

  I edged along the wall to the corner of the hallway and glanced around it towards the kitchen. In the diffuse light from the street I could just see Moore’s legs stretched out from the chair in which he was sitting. The rest of him was obscured by the wall. One of his legs was twitching around, the shoe on occasion tapping out a tattoo against the table. He wasn’t describing the beat of a song he liked; I knew he was dead, or well on the road towards it.

  I backed off, keeping my eyes on the doorway, waiting for someone to advance, but he never came. I felt my neck prickling, but there could not be anybody behind me. Entry was forced via the kitchen. In the end, fear turned my head. Just as I thought: The door shut. Nobody there.

  When I turned back, a figure stood in the hallway, about six feet away from me. I almost moaned. I almost dropped to my knees and begged him to do it, to finish it, because I couldn’t cope with the stress of it all. The not knowing where or when. By whose hand. By what method. It ate into me like an aggressive cancer. Death would be a release from it. A flash of light. A sting of pain. Insensate eternity.

  But then: Sarah. But then: Rebecca. You bend but you don’t buckle. You falter, but you do not fall. He moved towards me and I braced myself. Another game of death. Another few scar cards to add to this livid deck. He got to the newel post at the foot of the stairs and I stared in wonderment as he turned and glided up them, his head back, eyes trained on the landing above for what might be waiting for him. He hadn’t seen me. The shadows too dark; the spill of streetlights through the casement just a little too bright in his eyes.

  I didn’t breathe.

  Once h
e’d vanished from sight I got myself moving. It would be seconds before he realised there was nobody up there. I swept through to the kitchen and, careful not to tread in the fan of blood widening under Moore’s chair, got myself through the door the killer had so expertly broken open and I was over fences and down back alleys and through hedges until I was covered in scratches and I couldn’t see any more for the sweat and blood filling my eyes.

  12

  Mawker met me by the water at the Millennium Bridge. I’d been skulking around on buses for a couple of hours, unable to go home, and reluctant to seek refuge with any of my friends in case I put them in jeopardy. In fact, I’d just finished texting Lorraine Tokuzo and Romy Toussaint to suggest they get out of London for a while, just in case. I huddled into my coat and stared up at the skyscrapers. They were calming, somehow. Maybe because they promised a way out if things became too gnarly. Romy sent me a message imploring me to come to her father’s house. Tokuzo sent me a gif of a face being repeatedly slapped above the words ‘FUCK YOU’.

  For some reason Mawker’s voice was making me think of ancient, blind goats stumbling on rocks and falling to their deaths down steep faces of scree. I was quite enjoying the imagery. But he was haranguing me now about the intruder, why I hadn’t stuck around to at least identify him if not incapacitate him.

  ‘Ian,’ I said, ‘correct me if I’m wrong but the idea behind a safe house is to ensure that its inhabitants don’t come into contact with anyone dangerous. There’s a level of protection involved. You know, I think the clue might well be in the name.’

  ‘Agreed,’ he said, ‘but seeing as though the opportunity presented itself…’

  ‘How did he find us?’ I asked.

  Mawker blew out his cheeks. ‘Who’s to know?’ he said. ‘Could have been a tail after those cold cases were picked up for you.’

  ‘So it’s my fault, is what you’re saying?’

  ‘Or it could have been someone was on you every step of the way.’

  ‘Maybe an insider,’ I said. ‘Someone who’d like to see me on Clarkey’s gurney. Someone with shit taste in coats and haircuts.’

  ‘I can’t say I’ve not been tempted in the past to turn the nation’s killers your way, but I’m sorry to disappoint you. My unit’s integrity is squeaky. As is mine.’

  I let that slide without comment but the idea of a tail was, anyway, much more feasible.

  ‘Any names yet?’ I asked. ‘Other than Tann. And this Paul guy in Lee?’

  ‘Paul Kearney. Nurtured on violence. He stabbed a teacher in the arm with a screwdriver when he was six.’

  ‘Nasty,’ I said. ‘Still, credit where it’s due, he did introduce himself politely. Impeccable manners. What about the creep at your so-called safe house?’

  ‘Jon Les,’ he said. ‘We caught him… well… he’s dead. Shoot-out at a gastropub on Broadway Parade.’

  ‘Shootout? In Crouch End? Jesus.’

  ‘What can you do? It didn’t take long. He’s a knifer, by trade. He held that Brocock as if it was a dick he didn’t recognise. We gave him every chance.’

  ‘Did you have to kill him, Ian? We need a live one. We need to get some information out of the bastards.’

  ‘We shot him through the leg. Fucker had a heart attack. You can’t legislate for that.’

  ‘Anything on him? Any leads?’

  ‘Nothing useful.’ Mawker pressed a folder into my hands. ‘Here are the others. You can keep it,’ he said. ‘I printed it off for you myself. Bit of homework. You’ll be hoping there’s no test off the back of it.’

  I opened it and looked inside. A list of names, Kearney and Les among them. A bunch of photographs. Bullet heads. Prognathous jaws. DIY tattoos. Scars. Trophies.

  ‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  The Thames blew us a kiss: there were the ghosts of diesel and death on it. The corpse of a bird drifted by. A helicopter swept over the Tate Modern. I stared up at the Splinter, and the lights reflecting off its glass skin. I thought I’d rather be up there. I’d be safe up there. Tann wouldn’t dream of it.

  ‘So we’ve got another place, in south Tottenham,’ Mawker was saying. ‘We’ll double the security. We’ll make sure—’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Then go home. We’ll have officers stationed all along your street. If he makes his move—’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  The look on his face told me he knew exactly what I was going to do. I confirmed it for him.

  ‘That would be a mistake,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t allow it.’

  ‘It’s why you gave me the folder, you tit,’ I said. ‘You either want me to be bait or you want me to do your dirty work for you. Well I’d rather be out here than trapped under a roof with your so-called professionals.’

  ‘I can’t be seen to be helping you.’

  ‘Why change the habit of a lifetime?’ I said. ‘I prefer to be on my own. I might have a chance of living through this.’

  ‘You know my number, if you want to talk,’ he said. ‘And if you’re caught with that folder, I had nothing to do with it.’

  I wanted to ask him what it was he did all day. But there were other, more pressing questions. What was it about Tann that evinced this extraordinary loyalty in the relatively short time he’d spent in prison? Where did I turn to next? And never mind these snivelling little henchmen, where was he? I’d been watching the news since it happened – in hotel bars, in the windows of high-street TV shops, on my own phone as I took buses from one place to another, trying to shake off would-be pursuers, trying to force some anonymity into my weary bones.

  The blaze at Cold Quay was under control, but four of the six remaining escapees were still at large. Their mug shots stared grimly out from the screens as if they were auditioning for parts in Neanderthal! The Musical. All except Tann, who looked fit and lean and piercingly intelligent. One of the largest manhunts in history, squealed the headlines.

  We will not rest until they are behind bars.

  A combined prison sentence of 267 years.

  They are likely to be armed and are considered extremely dangerous.

  Do not approach them, under any circumstances.

  Their names seemed to contain fragments of the aggro in their faces: George Carney. Vic Bledsoe. Lenny Bates. Leo Brand. I stuffed the folder into a jacket pocket and asked Mawker if there would be anything else.

  ‘We’re trying to find these fuckers,’ he said. ‘We will find these fuckers. This is an island. There’s a limit to the number of places where they can hide out. All the airports and seaports are on high alert. You really don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Airports,’ I scoffed. ‘They aren’t going to leg it. Not until I’m on the barbecue coated in my formaldehyde marinade. I can’t just sit around waiting for them to pop up,’ I said. ‘And there’s Sarah to think of. She’s still out there somewhere. Tann knows that. I have to be proactive.’

  ‘You sound like the training videos we used to watch at Bruche.’

  ‘And as ever, you sound like a cunt. Go home to your Vaseline and your microwaved pumpkin.’

  ‘Whatever that means.’

  ‘See you,’ I said. It was cold, getting colder. I needed to get warm. I set off marching, expecting some final attempt at smartarsery, but then I remembered something and turned back.

  ‘On the cold case folder,’ I said. ‘There was some handwriting. Well, the indentation of it. Your handwriting.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It said something like “don’t let on to JS about GT” something or other… “V-S-T-S”.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, way too quickly for my liking. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Come on, Ian,’ I said. ‘JS is me. GT is Graeme Tann. What the fuck is V-S-T-S. Visits? Were you letting him out?’

  ‘I wasn’t letting him do anything. Not my say-so. If he was going anywhere it was down to the Home Office.’


  ‘Then why your handwriting?’

  ‘Who says it was my handwriting?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I can’t be the only person in the world with shit handwriting,’ he said.

  I stared at him. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Play your games. But if I find out—’

  ‘You find out what? And then you’ll do what? Come on, I’m aching to hear some more of your empty threats.’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, Ian.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘Piss off back to your grief pit, or some shit-stained bedsit somewhere, or go vagabond and walk holes into your shoes. I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss. I’ve just about had it up to here with your constant yapping. Nothing but your worries is the important thing. Everyone else’s plight isn’t worth the candle. Well, I’m sick of it. You’re a one-story scream queen and I’ve heard it too many times. Good-fucking-night, you arsehole.’

  He stormed off in the direction of Blackfriars, if indeed it is at all possible for a man with a side-parting, an iron-free shirt and slip-on shoes to do anything quite so dramatic.

  I headed east, towards vertical London. The towers and cranes. It was getting dangerously close to up-tools hour but I needed to get some height in my veins.

  * * *

  An hour it took, to steal through those shadows, to hide from the overweight waddling serge-muppets with their crackling walkie-talkies, to creep up the steps and shuffle along gangways and duckboards where the shiver of brick netting and the creak of scaffolding was like fear given a voice.

  I got to the top and stood looking down at the river, like a black split in the earth. All the teeming lights, gradually shutting off now as dawn streaked the sky with pink and puce. Tann among them. Tann and his cronies, tightening the net, or making it bigger. How could you conduct a search when so many people were looking for you? How could he be so single-minded? So driven? Or maybe I shouldn’t gild what he was doing with such positive terms. Monomaniacal. There, that was better. That’s what fuckheads with a purpose were. I was asking myself the question, but didn’t I already know the answer? I understood that level of commitment; I’d lived it – I was living it – hunting for Sarah.