Jack Pendragon - 02 - Borgia Ring Page 14

  ‘I didn’t mean that, Jez love,’ his mother replied. ‘I meant the crimes of passion you see in the old movies.’

  ‘There’s nothing very romantic about murder in real life, Eileen,’ Pendragon said. ‘It’s always repulsive and disturbing, whatever the motive or means.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ She turned to her son. ‘Jez, bring over the biscuits, will you, love? The chief inspector looks famished.’

  Pendragon laughed. ‘That’s very kind of you, but we really have to get going now.’

  Eileen started to protest, but Jez put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Mum, we can’t stay chatting, I’m afraid.’ He kissed her on the cheek and she squeezed his hand.

  ‘Take care,’ she said as the front door closed behind them.

  They were in the stairwell when Jez addressed his boss. ‘I know what you’re thinking. We hate the bloody place too. But I’ll be getting us out of here within a year. I’m saving for a deposit.’

  ‘Good for you, Sergeant.’

  ‘You want to know what happened, don’t you?’

  Pendragon looked at him, surprised.

  ‘Six years ago. Car crash. It killed me dad. Mum was left semi-paralysed.’

  They reached ground level and crossed the concrete courtyard that led to the road. ‘A tragic waste,’ Pendragon managed to say. ‘Your mum’s a lovely woman, and clearly lonely.’

  ‘I do the best I can, sir. We were on our way to getting out of this shit-hole when the accident happened.’ Turner waved to indicate the grey bulk of Malibu House without looking back. He had a pained expression. Pendragon squeezed the remote for the car and the doors unlocked with a click and a flashing of lights. ‘The upside is, it gave me the kick up the arse I needed. I was a bit of a tearaway before. Now look at me.’ And he produced a disarming grin. ‘A credit to the force!’

  They had just pulled away when Pendragon’s mobile rang. It was Rob Grant.

  ‘Sir, something’s come up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The skeleton has miraculously reappeared.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Close to Frimley Way. Long story.’

  ‘Well, it had better be a good one, Inspector. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  The skeleton had been found in a skip no more than fifty metres from the Frimley Way building site. Pendragon parked the car at the end of the lane and he and Turner walked towards a small group gathered around a rusty yellow skip. Forensics were there, but there was no sign of Colette Newman today. A large rectangle of plastic sheeting had been spread out on the stony ground of the lane. Two men in plastic suits stood in the skip, balancing on piles of household refuse and prising away a length of cabling that was caught around a large rusty oil drum. They laid a second sheet of plastic inside the skip and carefully manoeuvred the skeleton on to it. Then, between them, they lifted it gingerly over the edge into the waiting hands of two colleagues. Vickers and Thatcher were standing to one side, looking on. They stiffened when they saw Pendragon and Turner approaching.

  ‘Guv,’ Vickers said. He and Thatcher studiously ignored Turner who was standing slightly behind Pendragon with a smirk on his face.

  ‘Fill me in, Sergeant.’

  ‘Got a call from a lady at number seven Alderney Road, just over there.’ He pointed to his left. ‘The family’s collie brought half a skull into the kitchen. Sergeant Thatcher and I had just arrived at the station and came over straight away. We made a search of the lanes and alleyways round about. Half an hour ago we found this.’ He nodded towards the skip.

  ‘And you searched this alleyway two days ago?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The skip was here then, no skeleton.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Certain,’ Thatcher said firmly. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Turner, take that fucking smirk off your face …’

  Pendragon turned to find his sergeant a picture of innocence. ‘All right, Sergeants,’ he said to Thatcher and Vickers. ‘Obviously someone’s playing games with us. Get back to the station and do your reports. We’ll take it from here.’

  Pendragon and Turner walked over to where the skeleton had been laid out. They both crouched down beside the bones.

  ‘No ring,’ the DCI noted.

  ‘Could have been nicked by someone who saw the skeleton in the skip though, guv.’

  ‘Possible, but unlikely.’

  Pendragon straightened up and had turned towards the main road when he saw Fred Taylor approaching. The journalist was accompanied by a photographer Pendragon recognised from both his press encounters outside Brick Lane Police Station. ‘Oh, wonderful!’ he said under his breath.

  ‘This must be the owner of the metatarsal,’ Taylor announced as he got close. He turned to give Pendragon a cold smile. ‘That’s m-e-t-a-t-a-r-s-a-l.’ He started to walk over to where the forensics officers were arranging the limbs and cranium of the skeleton on the sheet, but Pendragon shot out his arm, stopping Taylor in mid-stride.

  ‘This is a crime scene, Mr Taylor. Strictly off-limits to the public.’

  Taylor knew better than to push things. He turned to face off Pendragon. ‘A crime scene, Chief Inspector? Well, that’s really all I needed to know.’ He nodded to the photographer who peeled off a dozen shots in rapid succession.

  Feeling his anger rising, Pendragon took a step towards both men, then restrained himself. Thatcher and Vickers were still by the skip. ‘Sergeants, would you please escort these gentlemen to their car?’ he politely requested.

  London, Wednesday 8 June, 8.05 p.m.

  Tony Ketteridge passed by the bed and glanced at his wife, Pam. There was nothing on TV so they had agreed on an early night. She was propped up against a pile of pillows reading a magazine. He could see the white lead of her iPod running down into her frilly nylon nightie. The strains of a particularly rumbustious Tom Jones track spilled from the headphones.

  He had always hated this flat, hated it for the entire seven years they had lived there. He particularly despised the bedroom with its pink walls and faux-antique furniture – all Pam’s choices. There was nothing of him in the room, he thought as he walked towards the bathroom. In fact, there was nothing of him in the entire flat. It was Pam’s domain. He earned the money, she picked the curtains. It was an arrangement he had come to accept long ago. But he had also concluded long ago that accepting a thing was not the same as embracing it.

  He closed the bathroom door behind him. At least it was cool in here. To either side of the sink stood narrow sash windows. They were open, the blinds up. They faced a neighbour’s brick wall, so it was private enough. The bathroom was over-lit and painted in a different shade of pink from the bedroom. To Tony Ketteridge’s eye, the colours clashed horribly, the entire ensemble looking like a pig’s insides. The bath was lilac plastic and had been very fashionable in the 70s. To complement it, Pam had opted for gold-dipped, Victorian-style taps. The hand basin was white except for a pattern of lilac flowers that swept up from the pedestal and cascaded into the bowl. A gold-plated but severely tarnished waste and plug completed the look of fake faded grandeur.

  Ketteridge studied his reflection in the mirror. He looked horrendous, and felt worse. Until a few days ago he was just about coping. Now … everything seemed to be falling apart around him. He wasn’t just on the back foot – that was normal – he was tumbling into the abyss. All he could see ahead was hopelessness, a yawning chasm into which he was being sucked.

  He leaned towards his reflection, arms dangling at his sides, and poked out his tongue. Then he realised he had forgotten to bring up a glass of water. Walking back into the bedroom, he saw that Pam was engrossed in an article about Tom Cruise’s love life. There was an old picture of him in mid-leap on Oprah’s studio sofa. Pam ignored her husband completely.

  He padded along the hall barefoot, past the tiny living-room with its heavily patterned sofa and drawn curtains that clashed horribly with both the fabric of the sofa and the ghastly orange and re
d swirls of the carpet. He switched on the kitchen light and crossed the linoleum floor as the fluorescent tube juddered into life. He let the water run for a moment. It had been so hot for so long, the pipes made water from the cold tap lukewarm.

  He heard a sound behind him. He turned but there was nothing. He could see his own reflection in the glass of the back door. He tested the water with his finger. Satisfied, he pushed the glass under the tap.

  That sound again. It was coming from just outside the door to the yard. Maybe Minnie the cat wanted to come in. She did that sometimes though it was against Pam’s strict rules. He had dutifully fed the cat and put her out only five minutes earlier. He unlocked the door and opened it a few inches.

  It was quiet except for the sound of traffic passing along the main road the other side of the building. From far off, he heard a girl squeal then a peel of laughter. He was just ducking back into the kitchen when the sound came again. It was a scratching sound, like metal on metal.

  ‘Minnie!’ he called. ‘You can come in for a saucer of milk but that’s all. Then you’re out again. Minnie!’

  He saw a flash of colour and heard a swishing sound – the movement of sumptuous fabric. Then he was propelled backwards into the kitchen. Tony was a big man, but he had been taken completely by surprise. He lost his footing and crashed to the linoleum with a dull thud. A figure rushed through the doorway with astonishing speed – a bulbous crimson-and-gold blur. Tony Ketteridge registered long, black hair flying through the air and the flash of red lips. But before he could move, he felt a steel blade at his throat. Terrified, he just managed to focus on the face peering down at him.

  The face was pale: lips ruby red, eyes dark discs ringed in black mascara, cheeks heavily rouged. For an instant he imagined he was looking at The Joker from Batman. But beneath the make-up the face was just recognisable. He felt sick suddenly. ‘You!’ Ketteridge managed to rasp, eyes darting from the grotesque face to the blade held in the hand hovering above his throat.

  Tony Ketteridge felt a sharp pain in the soft flesh just beneath his left armpit. It was like fire, like a burning needle piercing his skin and sliding up into his shoulder. He turned his head as much as he could, but he could see no wound. His mouth fell open. Paralysis came a second later. To his horror, he had absolutely no control over his body. His vision began to go. The world started to melt into a palette of white, red and black. He wanted to scream, but instead he felt his stomach heave. He vomited blood that fountained over his chest. The face of his killer floated into view again and Ketteridge could see, in front of that painted face, the murderer’s hand. It was wearing a ring, but the large green stone had been lifted and a bloodied spike rose from inside. Ketteridge tried desperately to shout a name, but nothing happened. And, all around him, the universe faded to nothing.

  London, March 1589

  Ann Doherty’s was a typical Southwark house, tall and narrow and misshapen as a hunchback. The outside was clearly in a sorry state of repair. There were ragged gaps in the plaster above the front door and the shutters on the windows were in dire need of fresh paint. But inside Ann had done her best to make it as homely as possible.

  We walked into the main room straight from the street and almost immediately I felt the chill fade from my bones. It was a small place with a low ceiling. The floor was unadorned by any form of covering, just honest stone. A great fireplace took up much of one wall, with a wooden mantel above it upon which stood a line of pewter plates. A good, strong fire burned in the grate, and a kettle was boiling away on a stand above the flames. To one side of the fireplace stood a solid wooden seat, high-backed, with carved arms in the shape of lion’s heads. Two other chairs stood closer to the flames. As we came in, a young servant girl bent to lift the kettle from the fire and started to pour its steaming contents into a basin beside the heath. She hurried away as we approached.

  I helped Ann over to a seat beside the fire and took a closer look at her face. Her upper lip was turning black. I wetted a cloth and dabbed at the wound. She winced. The boy, Anthony, ran up and crouched beside her. ‘Mistress Ann, what have they done?’ he jabbered. He went to put his fingers to the woman’s injured mouth. I grabbed his hand, more roughly than I’d intended. He twisted to face me, his eyes ablaze, and I let him go.

  ‘Fear not, Anthony,’ Ann said gently. ‘These men are friends.’

  ‘Friends? Friends?’ he cackled. ‘Is there such a thing in this cruel world, my lady?’

  She smiled and stroked his hair. ‘Yes, there is.’

  ‘Those were the Queen’s Guards,’ I said. ‘Who is this boy?’ I studied him properly for the first time. He was tall and slender. Straight black hair flopped down into his eyes and he had disproportionately full lips. A faint caterpillar of hair, some way short of a full moustache, lay above the upper one. But there was still a childish softness to his features. His eyes were an unusual colour, hazel flecked with darker brown, and his eyelashes were long and dark. I guessed he was a youth of eighteen years or so, but he might have been younger.

  Ann put an arm around his shoulders. ‘Anthony is like a brother to me. I have looked after him for almost a year – since his parents died. He is a sweet boy and utterly harmless, but he suffers from a sickness of the mind. He is a true believer, but because of his affliction, he has no fear or caution. He believes he should preach the True Faith to all who will listen. Most of the people around here ignore him. They know he is harmless. Either someone took offence today or the guards were simply passing by and heard something they did not like.’

  ‘I’m not happy about this,’ Sebastian declared, stepping towards us. ‘It’s madness. This is supposed to be a safe house. This boy is attracting attention.’

  I looked at Ann’s shocked expression. ‘Sirs, I’m very sorry. It will not happen again. Anthony is a good soul. His heart is pure.’

  ‘The boy’s character is of little interest to me,’ Sebastian snapped. ‘I don’t think you realise the dangers we face.’

  Ann stood up. She was almost as tall as my friend. ‘Sir, I have apologised. What more do you wish of me?’

  Sebastian looked surprised by the girl’s outspokenness. Then I could see his surprise turn to anger. He took a step towards Ann Doherty and I felt sure he was going to strike her. But she was amazingly agile. Sebastian had barely moved when she caught him off balance, grabbed his brandished fist and pushed him back against the wall. She had her fingers at his throat. ‘Don’t ever tell me I am ignorant of the dangers we face, sir,’ she hissed. ‘We face death every day. Not for us the luxury of shelter in the chambers of the Vatican, Father Sebastian. Here, we must survive by our wits.’

  She released him. His face was flushed with embarrassment and he ran his fingers over his neck where Ann’s strong fingers had left red marks.

  I laughed to lighten the mood, which did not best please my friend. ‘Come, Sebastian,’ I said, and put an arm about his shoulders. ‘Let’s not begin this visit on the wrong foot.’ Then I turned to Ann. ‘Perhaps you have both over-reacted. Shall we not be friends?’

  ‘Yes, friends, friends!’ Anthony agreed gleefully, and began a little dance.

  Sebastian’s face was still thunderous. He straightened his tunic and ran a finger under his ruff. ‘I would like to be shown my bedchamber … if that pleases, my lady,’ he said coldly. I gave him a reproving glance, but he looked straight through me.

  ‘I would be very happy to, Father,’ Ann replied. ‘I’m sure you are both exhausted after your long journey. But there is one piece of business that needs to be attended to first. If you’ll excuse me.’ She passed between Sebastian and me and walked to the corner of the room where there stood a small oak desk. She opened a drawer, and to my surprise removed the entire thing from the desk. Then, after taking something from the back of the drawer, she pushed it back in. In her hand was a piece of paper, folded and sealed with an amorphous blob of wax. I broke the seal, opened the paper and read: ‘Our mutual friend Richard will
call on you soon. He will point the way to the brothers in crime. You may trust Richard and the brothers, and heed their advice. They are all loyal. The brothers will be expecting you. Destroy this immediately after you have read it.’ Beneath this was the holy papal seal. Sebastian took the note from my fingers and read it quickly. I reread it then stepped over to the fire and tossed it into the flames, watching it catch fire and turn black and crisp.

  ‘We were told we would meet our superior, Father Richard,’ I said. ‘But who are the “brothers in crime”?’ I looked at Sebastian and then at Ann. Anthony was making shapes with his hands, casting shadow puppets on a wall at the far side of the room.

  ‘The brothers in crime? I don’t …’ Ann began, then smiled. ‘Of course! Edmund and Edward Perch. It could be none other.’

  Sebastian and I looked at the woman, bemused.

  ‘They are local criminals. They lead a gang, the most powerful in the area, and deal in illicit goods, contraband. They are expert extortionists and each of them has murdered many men.’

  ‘And you know where to find them?’

  ‘Everyone knows where they are. Few wish to approach them. But the letter was quite clear on that point: Father Richard will show you the way. Now, come. Let me take you to your bedchamber. My maid will bring you some hot water with which to wash away the grime of your long journey.’

  It felt as though I had only just fallen asleep when I was awoken by Ann calling my name. I opened my eyes and found her leaning over me, holding a rush light that produced a pale and feeble glow. She placed the light on a small table beside my bier and walked around to wake Sebastian. I could see him jump up from his bed, startled as Ann touched his shoulder.

  I was instantly awake and sitting up. ‘What hour is it?’ I asked, seeing the black sky through the mean window set high in the opposite wall.

  ‘It is two hours past sunset, Father,’ Ann replied.