eyes.
‘I don’t want to run this down the chain of command, Charlie,’ said Palmer. ‘I want you three to hear it from me. This business, it’s maybe a bit more important than I’ve managed to get over to you. And it’s getting more important and more fucked up by the minute. Now it isn’t just this South African and the woman, now it’s…’ Carrick’s mobile trilled. He looked at Palmer, who nodded.
‘Carrick. Yes. Yes. A second, please.’ He went to Martie’s desk and wrote on a pad. ‘Thank you. Well done. Stay on it.’
Carrick pocketed his phone.
‘Progress,’ he said. ‘The woman used a card to buy petrol on the A44. We’re back on track.’
62
…LONDON…
‘She doesn’t live here anymore and I don’t know where she lives,’ said the woman and slammed the door.
Caroline stood in the thin rain and thought about trying again. Then she went back to the car and got the phone book out of the boot. ‘You can never find one when you need one,’ McClatchie once said. ‘I used to keep ’em in the boot. Whole of Britain. You never know.’
There were any number of J. Thomases and a Jess Thomas Architectural Models in Battersea. She tried that on the cellphone.
An answering machine message-a woman with a faint Welsh accent.
Caroline fetched the Yellow Pages. There weren’t many architectural model makers. She rang the first one. A man answered.
‘Hi, this is a really strange thing to ask but I’m trying to get hold of a model maker called Jess who rides a motorbike and…’ ‘Jess Thomas,’ he said. ‘She’s in the book.’
‘Great, thanks, you wouldn’t know anyone who could tell me something about her work, would you?’
‘Her work? Why don’t you ask her to nominate some clients?’
‘I’d really prefer to do it before I approach her.’
‘Well, she’s pretty much in-house for Craig, Zampatti, you could ask them.’
‘I will. Thanks very much.’
It took a long time to get to Battersea and it was wasted. No one answered the bell of Jess Thomas’s place of work and dwelling. There was mail in the box. When she looked up, she saw a man watching her from the other side of the street. Something made her go over.
He was old, ancient, small, lifeless grey hair needing a cut, in a long raincoat, pyjama pants showing above battered brown shoes.
She introduced herself, told the truth.
The man looked at her through glasses smudged and scratched. He dropped his top teeth and moved them sideways. She looked away.
‘I’m looking for Jess Thomas. She lives in the building.’
‘Hasn’t come back since the fire,’ he said. ‘Up on roof. Run away, the boogers.’
‘Who?’
More teeth movements. He looked around, took a hand out of a pocket and waved it vaguely. There were bits of sticking plaster on his hand, dirty strips.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Who ran away?’ Caroline prompted.
‘Before fire brigade come,’ he said. ‘Burned uns. Two of ’em. I seed ’em, put ’em in the van. They come in a van. And a car. Burned.
The two. I seed ’em.’
‘And Jess, the one with the bike?’
‘Bike?’
‘The girl with the bike? Was she at home?’
‘Home?’
‘The girl on the motorbike.’
‘Never in my day. Girls.’
Caroline bent over him. He had a sour dairy smell, like old spilt milk.
‘Was she there, at home. Was the girl there when the fire happened?’
He shook his head with some vigour.
‘Went off before, always hear the motorbike. Bloody racket. Nice girl. Never rode motorbikes, girls, no, never, not my day. On the back, mind you, now that…’
‘Has she come back?’
‘Hey?’
‘The girl?’
‘Nah. Always hear the motorbike, never rode motorbikes in my day, girls…one booger come down the pipe, seen him. Off he goes in the car. Like bloody lightning.’
‘Whose car?’
‘Car?’
‘The one who came down the pipe? Whose car did he go off in?’
He shook his head, as if she’d said something stupid.
‘Well, their bloody car, what else? Come in a van. And a car. Booger come down pipe, he’s off. Bloody lightning. I can tell you. Down there, in that lane. The car.’
She thanked him, gave him a ten-pound note. He looked at her as if she were not quite right in the head.
Someone fleeing? Escaping? Mackie? Had Jess Thomas brought him here and people had tried to kill him again?
She sat in the sluggish traffic, sky leaking, windscreen fogging. She felt weak, tired, scared, a little, perhaps. This is not for me, the inner voice said, this is too serious for me. I’m not responsible for people trying to kill Mackie, villages in Africa, I’m involved by accident, he saw my byline, I owe him nothing. And there’s nothing in this for me. There’s no page one here.
There probably wouldn’t be another page one.
The woman who rang her. The woman who said she had lived in Birmingham and admired her for uncovering corruption and had a friend who was being harassed, he was really scared, he thought he was in danger, and he needed to talk to someone in the media. A person who could be trusted.
And then being run through the obstacle course. The no-shows, the phone calls, having to sweet-talk Gary’s friend. Finally, finally, after two days, the meeting in the park, in the dark. And, before the handover of the film and the tape, Gary saying, quickly:
She had gone to the conference late, you had to be late on a day like that. She had waited, so high, so sure that she had it. She had sat there, the pulse felt in her throat, not really hearing what other people said, it didn’t matter. She knew that she was going to be the star, they were just supporting acts before she came on.
Waiting to be the star. And for once she was. She remembered the silence. And Marcia’s mouth frozen open.
The moment went a long way to balancing other memories. The one of running down a path towards her father, her brother behind her. Her father was coming home. They had been waiting all day. He father held out his
