Lost - Michael Robotham [58]
“I can get the address,” says Ali, pulling off the road. She punches speed dial on her cell phone, no doubt calling “New Boy” Dave.
Twenty minutes later we pull up outside a large whitewashed Georgian house in Ladbroke Square, overlooking the communal gardens. The surrounding streets are painted in candy colors and dotted with coffee shops and outdoor restaurants. Kirsten has moved up in the world.
Her flat is on the third floor, facing the street. I pause on the landing to get my breath back. That’s when I notice the door is slightly ajar. Ali peers up and down the stairwell, automatically on edge.
Nudging the door open, I call Kirsten’s name. No answer.
The lock has almost been torn off and splinters of wood lie inside the door. Farther along the hallway there are papers and clothes strewn haphazardly on the sea-grass matting.
Ali unclips her holster and motions for me to stay put. I shake my head. It’s easier if I cover her back. She spins through the door and crouches, peering down the hallway to the kitchen. I enter behind her, facing in the opposite direction into the sitting room. Furniture is overturned and someone has filleted the sofa with a samurai sword. The stuffing spills out like the bloated intestines of a slain beast.
Rice-paper lampshades lie torn and crushed on the floor. Floating flowers are marooned in a dry bowl and a shoji screen is smashed into pieces.
Moving from room to room, we discover more wreckage. Foodstuffs, appliances and utensils litter the kitchen floor between upturned drawers and open cupboards. A chair lies broken. Someone has used it to search above the cabinets.
At first glance it looks more like an act of vandalism than a robbery. Then I notice several envelopes lying amid the destruction. The return addresses have been carefully torn off. There is no diary or address book beside the telephone. Someone has also cleared the corkboard of notes and photographs. Torn corners are all that remain, trapped beneath colored pins.
The morphine has left me with a sense of depleted reality. I go into the bathroom and splash water on my face. A towel and chemise are folded over the towel rail and a lipstick has fallen into the bath. Retrieving it, I unscrew the lid and stare at the pointed nub, holding it like a crayon.
Above the washbasin, tilted slightly downward, is a rectangular mirror with mother-of-pearl inlaid into the frame. I’ve lost weight. My cheeks are hollow and my eyes are deeply wrinkled at the edges. Or maybe it’s someone else in the mirror. I have been replicated and imprisoned in a slightly different universe. The real world is on the other side of the glass. Already I can feel the opiate wearing off. I want to hold on to the unreality.
Returning the lipstick to a shelf, I marvel at the salves, pastes, powders and potpourri. From among them I can summon up Kirsten’s fragrance and our first meeting at Dolphin Mansions the day after Mickey disappeared.
Tall and slim with tapered limbs, Kirsten’s cream-colored slacks hung so low on her hips that I wondered what was holding them up. Her flat was full of antique armor and weaponry, including two samurai swords crossed on the wall and a Japanese warrior’s helmet made from iron, leather and silk.
“They say it was worn by Toyotomi Hideyoshi,” Kirsten explained. “He was the daimyo who unified Japan in the sixteenth century: the ‘Age of Battles.’ Are you interested in history, Detective Inspector?”
“No.”
“So you don’t believe we can learn from our mistakes?”
“We haven’t so far.”
She acknowledged my opinion without agreeing with it. Ali was moving through the flat, admiring the artifacts.
“What did you say you did?” she asked Kirsten.
“I didn’t.” Her eyes were smiling at the edges. “I manage an employment agency in Soho. We provide cooks, waitresses, hostesses, that sort of thing.”
“Business must be good.”
“I work hard.”
Kirsten prepared us tea in a hand-painted Japanese teapot and ceramic bowls. We had to kneel at a table while she dipped a ladle