Dead Centre - Andy McNab [60]
St Martin’s Church stood at about the halfway mark. Many of my friends were buried there. I always thought about them when I passed, but not today. I needed another word with Crazy Dave.
‘What?’
‘Dave, it’s me again.’
Bob Dylan had taken over from Simon and Garfunkel.
‘Yeah?’
‘Jan? You know, Tracy’s sister? You know where she works, or where she might be today?’
Dave didn’t miss a beat. ‘Who the fuck do you think I am? The fucking Yellow Pages?’
‘What about her mates – do you know any of them?’
‘I’m trying to have a new life here. Remember what I said?’
‘What?’
‘Fuck off.’
The flats, a collection of three-storey rectangular blocks, were on an uphill stretch to my right. The grass around them was neatly trimmed. The cream rendering looked in much better condition than I remembered.
Jan lived on the ground floor, far right, at the back. There was no C-class Merc in sight. I wasn’t surprised. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
A couple of kids kicked a ball between them as their mum tried to open the main security door. She was laden with shopping and a pushchair, and had to use a knee. She called over her shoulder, ‘You staying out?’
They didn’t answer, just kept on kicking the ball. She got the message.
I quickened my pace but stayed out of her line of sight. A stranger entering the block would register.
I grabbed the steel handle as the door closed behind her and held it open a second or two to give Mum time to move out of the hallway.
I turned right down the corridor. I wanted the last door on the left.
The place had definitely had a facelift. Bright strip-lights showed off the newly painted walls. The 1960s doors with frosted panels had been replaced by solid wooden ones with on-trend steel furniture.
I gave Jan’s a gentle knock. There was no bell. The intercom at the front entrance did that job. There was no letter-box either.
I knocked again, this time a little harder and with my ear to the wood. The loudest thing I heard was a muffled shout from the two kids outside.
One more knock. Still nothing.
I walked outside. The footballers were sitting on the grass with the ball between them. I glanced around. There was nowhere out here she could have hidden a set of keys.
I followed the block round to the back. Her curtains were closed. There was no sign of life. Maybe she really had played away last night.
22
AMONG THE FOREST of Sky dishes that had sprouted along the wall there were two small bird boxes. One was by her bedroom – or what I remembered as her bedroom.
I pushed my hand inside the hole, felt around inside and heard a metallic clink. Old habits die hard. One was a plastic fob to enter the security door, the other an ordinary pin tumbler.
The footballers looked ready to take an early bath. I walked past and pressed the fob. The door opened. I opened the flat door slowly. I didn’t call out. As soon as I saw the state of the place I knew I didn’t need to. The hallway was strewn with coats and newspapers. Every drawer of the sideboard she used to keep the kids’ clothes in – the ones that didn’t fit in the bedroom – had been tipped out.
I closed the door with an elbow and headed for the bedroom.
Her dress and underwear were on the floor, alongside her shoes. Next to them was a pair of jeans and a blue-striped shirt. Their owner was still in bed. The duvet he was lying on was covered with blood. He had puncture wounds in his neck and chest.
I moved on to the living room. It had been ripped apart. Jan was sitting naked on the floor, her top half slumped over the sofa. She hadn’t been as beautiful as her sister for a good few years. Now she looked a whole lot worse. Her back was a riot of stab wounds and bruises. The carpet was soaked with blood. Like Nadif, she had been gagged with a tea-towel. Her face was black and swollen. There were splits in the skin above and beside her eyes. Part of an ear lay on the cushion beside her. The blood that had run down her neck and shoulders was dry.
Neither of them would have stood a chance.