Barry Maitland - The verge practice

Half an hour later she stopped pacing and tried the intercom again. ‘George, I want to speak to Luz. Put her on, please.’

‘Sorry, she’s busy. We’re in the middle of delicate negotiations. She says you’re to stay calm and not worry. She’ll work things out, but it may take some time. And there’s no point buzzing me all the time. Save it for an emergency. You’ve got plenty of grub down there and stacks of channels. Put your feet up, watch a movie.’ He clicked off.

What negotiations? Were they bargaining for her life? She paced around the flat again, searching for something, an access cover, a floor duct, anything that might give her an outlet to the world outside. Nothing. The only possibility for breaking out seemed to be to find something to smash through the glass of a window. She felt for the tea-knife in her pocket and stared at the stone wall, wondering how many years it would take her to dig her way out.

By ten Brock was in a cold sweat. He’d had no contact with Kathy since Friday night, sixty hours earlier. She had seemed disappointed that the Verge investigation had been shut down, but not unduly so. Then they had parted and he had thought no more about it until he got the phone message on Sunday afternoon that one of his officers had gone berserk in Barcelona, and would he kindly get his arse back to London. He had had no sleep since. He had gone himself to meet her plane at Heathrow, but a cloudburst had jammed traffic on the M4 and by the time he had arrived the passengers were already dispersing. British Airways confirmed that she had been on the flight, and he had assumed she was making her way back to her flat in Finchley. He drove there, and spent half the night sitting outside the building, phoning people until his batteries ran down. Her phone wasn’t answering, and no one else he could think of-Bren, Leon, Suzanne, Linda Moffat-had heard from her. At three a.m. he went home, thinking she might be waiting for him there. She wasn’t, and he raised the alarm.

When Sharpe phoned at three minutes past nine to find out why the hell DS Kolla hadn’t turned up for her appointment, Brock informed him that she was now listed as missing. ‘Missing?’ Sharpe had growled. ‘Missing in the head, or what? Christ, Brock, this was supposed to be your star. What’re the rest of your cowboys like?’

When he’d rung off, Brock had sent Bren to Finchley to gain entry to Kathy’s flat, to see if there were any clues as to her whereabouts there. Apart from an altercation with a neighbour who thought he was a burglar, Bren had nothing to report. There was no sign that Kathy had returned to the flat, and nothing apart from a scribbled note of plane times to connect to the events of the weekend.

If only she’d got engaged to Leon, Kathy thought, and he’d bought her a very large diamond engagement ring, she might have been able to cut her way through the glass. She lifted the small iron she’d found in a cupboard and extended her arm. In her left hand she was gripping a steel leg that she’d managed to detach from a chair. She swung the iron at the glass. There was a solid bang that jarred her arm and reverberated through the structure of the building; a star formed in the glass. She tried again, and the star spread. With the third blow the glass shattered. But this was only the first of three layers.

She heard feet on the stairs and ran towards the door, dropping the iron and lifting the chair leg to shoulder height. She pressed herself flat against the wall alongside the door and waited. The door burst open and she swung her weapon, but there was no one there.

A voice outside in the hallway said, with a weary sigh, ‘What do you think this is, James bleeding Bond? Come on, luv, I’ve been around too long. Back off.’

Feeling somewhat sheepish, Kathy stepped away from the door and George appeared, a small automatic in his hand, aimed in the general direction of her midriff. ‘Ooh

…’ he frowned at what she was holding. ‘That’s an early Eames prototype that is. Worth a bomb. Hope you haven’t done any permanent damage. Luz’ll kill you.’

‘I was thinking that might be the general idea,’ Kathy said, her heart thumping from the adrenaline.

He clucked scoldingly. ‘I told you to be patient.’

‘Where is she, George?’

‘Do you want me to cuff you to the bench?’

‘No.’

‘Well behave then. Watch telly, have some food. You look like you could use it. There’s some choice stuff in the fridge. I bought it myself.’

‘Why are you getting mixed up in this, George? You’re on parole. They’ll put you back inside forever. Let me out now and I’ll do the best I can for you.’

‘Save it.’ He stepped back and slammed the door closed behind him.

It was late afternoon before George appeared again. He knocked on the door and pushed it open cautiously. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Where to?’ she asked, suddenly reluctant to leave the security of her prison.

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Queen Anne’s Gate.’

‘Okay.’ He turned on his heel and she hurried after him. When she reached the top of the spiral staircase she had the impression that the house was deserted. She noticed a large painting had been taken down from the wall of the studio. They continued on up to the entry pavilion, and George held the passenger door of the car open for her. Her backpack was on the seat. She got in and they set off along the misty autumn lanes, passing the village pub, its lights on for the evening trade.

When they reached the M25 Kathy said, ‘Come on, George. What’s happening?’

‘She’s gone. You won’t be seeing her again, none of us will. She just needed a bit of time to get clear.’ He glanced over at Kathy, her expression suspicious in the wash of passing lights.

‘What, no amazing corpseless death?’

‘No. She always knew it might come to this. After the opening of Marchdale she thought she was in the clear, but she couldn’t be sure. There was always the chance of some bloody-minded copper or reporter figuring it out.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So she had arrangements in place. She’s still got her money, of course, and by now she’s a long way away and somebody else. There’s no chance of catching up with her this time.’

‘Are you really letting me go, George?’

‘Yeah, really. I advised against it, you might like to know. Loose end, I said, but she didn’t see it that way. She wants the cops to know, and not be able to say or do a thing about it. Otherwise, she said, it would be like designing a building and not having anyone know it’s yours. She said this was her last big design.’

‘What makes you so sure they won’t do anything?’

‘We’ll see, shall we?’

‘What about Madelaine and Charlotte? How do they feel about all this?’

‘They know nothing. Nobody does, except you and me, and I’ve got a watertight alibi for the last twenty-four hours.’

Kathy was silent, thinking. They came to the M4, but then, at the next junction, turned off at the signs to Heathrow. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the way.’

‘I’ll drop you off at the taxi rank here.’ He felt in his pocket and produced some cash that he handed to her. ‘Luz told me to look after you. Here you go.’ He pulled over to the kerb. ‘Goodbye, Kathy. As far as I’m concerned, none of this happened.’

She watched him roar away, then walked over to the taxi queue and caught a cab into town. As it pulled to a halt at Queen Anne’s Gate, she looked up at the brightly lit windows and wondered what sort of reception she would get.

The first person she bumped into in the corridor was Bren, who goggled as if seeing someone risen from the dead.

‘Kathy! We’ve been looking everywhere. What happened to you?’