The policeman following her hadn’t been part of the plan. She’d hoped to be left alone, to simply go into the kitchen, take the garage keys, and leave. Instead, she now had to play out a charade for the benefit of the officer, rifling through drawers and papers as if she was looking for something unknown. The back of her neck began to warm, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice the golf ball sized beads of sweat on her skin. A burst of static from the policeman’s radio made her jerk around as if someone had been shot.
“You all right, ma’am?”
“Yes, sorry…little bit jumpy. Like I said, terrorism. Never good.”
“No, ma’am.”
Bridge finished rifling through the stack of papers she’d occupied herself with and pouted, as if frustrated and considering another place to look. Then she shook her head and head walked past the officer into the kitchen, praying that Ten was the kind of person who kept books and papers in there alongside food-related items. Knowing there was a skull candlestick gave her some hope.
It turned out that not only was Declan O’Riordan the kind of person who kept books and papers in the kitchen, but he had also been the kind of person to keep bills, receipts, bank statements, and much more stuffed into kitchen drawers. She removed them all, placed them on the counter, then took her time leafing through while the officer paced around the room.
“Seems like a decent area, this,” she said. “I need to find a new place. What do you know?”
The policeman shrugged. “Changed a lot since we moved here, back in the nineties. It was pretty rough, back then, but it was all me and the missus could afford. Now it’s all slowly turning into cafés and crêches.”
“Ah, hipster central?”
The policeman chuckled. “Used to be that if you came across a man covered in tattoos you kept your hand on your baton, know what I mean? These days…”
Bridge interrupted him, startled. “What was that?”
“What?”
“I don’t know, did you hear it?” She fixed her gaze on the hallway. “I thought I heard… Oh, never mind. I’m hearing things. Maybe the place has mice.”
But the line had worked, and now the policeman was also staring at the door into the hallway. Without looking away, he thumbed his radio. “You OK out there?”
The younger officer replied immediately. “All fine. Something up?”
“Stand by.” The older officer walked into the hallway, cautious and alert — with, she noted, one hand firmly on his baton.
The moment he was out of sight she reached across the counter, lifted one edge of the skull candlestick, swiped the keys from underneath, lowered the skull, dropped the keys in her coat pocket, and replaced her hands on the bank envelopes she’d been sifting through. It took one and a half seconds, and she barely looked at the keys. If they weren’t the right ones, she was out of luck. There was no way she’d be able to bluff her way back in a second time.
“All clear.” The policeman returned to the kitchen, and winked at Bridge as he said into his radio, “The place has probably got mice.”
She smiled as if embarrassed, then took three random bank statements from the pile in front of her and laid them on the counter. “I reckon this is what we missed,” she said to the officer, taking out her personal phone, “I mean, who keeps bank statements in the kitchen?” She opened the camera app and took pictures, as if documenting the statements. “Some very interesting financial stuff on here. My boss is going to love me for this, thank you.” She put her iPhone away, replaced the papers back in the drawers, and nodded to herself firmly.
“All done?” asked the policeman.
Bridge smiled as he ushered her out of the house. “All done.”
21
They were the right keys.
Brockley Gate. TR7. That’s all Ten had said, but it was enough. Out of context, to someone who didn’t have the keys, or know Ten himself, it might appear meaningless. Brockley Gate was easy enough to find, a cul-de-sac of private lockups not far from his house. But the lockups weren’t numbered in any way that resembled TR7, and when Bridge looked up the postcode, she discovered TR7 was for Truro in Cornwall. Anyone following that thread would be on a wild goose chase.
But the keys themselves had a homemade fob, a thin strip of paper folded once over the key ring and completely bound in sticky tape as a crude form of waterproofing. It was old, browning from light exposure and however many kinds of dirt, grease, and oil had been transferred from Ten’s hands. Creased, crinkled to within an inch of its life, and curling at the edges. Underneath the layers of tape, the blue ballpoint ink of what Ten had written there seemingly decades ago was visible. Just two digits, 18.
At this time of night, the lockup area was deserted. Bridge noticed the silent, dim red pulsing operation light of a CCTV camera mounted high on a corner wall, watching for thieves. But she was no thief; she had a key.
Lockup number 18 was one of the larger units, as wide as two of the nearby houses, with a double-width rollup door. She inserted Ten’s key in the lock and turned it. With a solid metallic click, she felt it give and unlock. She pocketed the key, then lifted the door open with a grunt.
Inside it was completely dark. She had a flashlight on her iPhone, but didn’t use it right away. To whoever was watching on the other end of that security camera, it would look pretty dodgy if she didn’t appear to know where the light switch was. So she stepped inside, lowered the
