Adrian Magson - No Help For The Dying

Eventually, they rounded a corner and saw a row of railway arches huddled together beneath an ancient viaduct. A railway line ran overhead, the embankment below covered in debris and litter, the old fencing torn and rusted. Even the lack of light couldn’t conceal the aura of sad neglect in the rotting brickwork, defaced concrete and wind-bunched litter. Where there would once have been signs of life and industry, there were now heavy metal barriers and marine-ply screens festooned with warning notices.

Palmer ducked into the doorway of an abandoned shop across the way and squatted down, pulling Riley in behind him. The recess was a harbour for litter and dead leaves and God knew what other debris Riley tried not to think about. The smell was enough to choke an elephant but if Palmer noticed he gave no indication. The letterbox of the shop door was jammed tight with junk leaflets, and Palmer turned and pulled a wad of the papers free and dropped them on the floor for her to sit on. Riley stared at him in surprise.

‘Do this a lot, do you?’

He shrugged. ‘A few, here and there. This is a good one, as doorways go.’ He nodded towards the arches. ‘I just want to check the lay of the land.’ He took a small metal flask from his coat and passed it across. ‘Try this. Coffee with a bit of something added. It might be a long wait.’ Then he handed her a woollen ski hat. ‘You’ll need this, too.’

The something added was brandy. The welcoming heat spread through her stomach. She hadn’t realised how cold she was. It made her appreciate Maureen’s eagerness for the contents of the bottle Palmer had given her, although she doubted any of the local outreach workers would see it the same way. She returned the flask and pulled on the ski hat, tugging it down over her ears. It wasn’t the first thing in style, and smelled of mothballs, but frankly, she didn’t give a damn.

The minutes ticked by, then Riley said, ‘I got a message from Mitcheson.’ Even as she spoke, she wasn’t sure if Palmer would be impressed. He wasn’t.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘He’s in Florida. On a job.’

She sensed his head turning towards her. ‘Florida. What, you thought sharing that with me right now,’ he murmured wryly, ‘would make this easier?’

In spite of herself, Riley smiled. ‘Well, It gives us something else to think about, doesn’t it? Sun, sea, spare ribs.’

‘If you say so. What else have you been up to?’

She brought him up to date on her talks with Eric Friedman and Nikki Bruce, and briefly told him about the flat. It made her realise that she was temporarily homeless. Palmer said nothing throughout, rarely taking his eyes off the arches across the road. But she knew he was taking it all in and storing it away. When she finally fell silent, he nodded and passed her the flask for another drink.

‘You’ve been busy,’ he said. ‘Whoever did it means business.’

‘Eric Friedman thinks it was Quine. They did the same to his place.’

‘It was a warning. Next time they might wait for you to be home. Best not be there.’ He sounded matter-of-fact, as if this kind of thing happened every day, and Riley wondered how he’d got so used to it. If indeed he ever had. He sipped from the flask, tipping his head back to let the liquid trickle down his throat the way Maureen had done. ‘Nikki Bruce has been very helpful. You sure she won’t steal your story?’

‘No. She’s too hell bent on getting out of hard news into television; taking up this story would keep her mired in the world of the Post . She’s interested enough to help me, but not enough to hang about.’

They fell silent, feeling the cold seep out of the ground and into their bones, leaving them numb and shivering. They sipped the coffee sparingly. As the light faded further and what little pedestrian traffic there had been diminished to a trickle, lights began to come on in houses further along the street, beyond the fenced-off area. A few cars and vans nosed their way past and disappeared in a fog of exhaust fumes, leaving a growing feeling of desolation hanging in the air. In a small, scrubby play area nearby, a plastic carrier bag was tossed into the air by the wind, before catching on the upraised snout of a broken see-saw, where it flapped ineffectually like a trapped bird.

Riley dozed intermittently, brought awake by faint night noises from the shadows around them; a clatter of a pigeon taking off in panic from a nearby rooftop; a scurrying sound of something furtive along the outer wall of the building they were sheltering in; a burst of tinny music from somewhere above their heads. It was hardly what anyone would have called rest, and was too draining and uncomfortable to be anything but ultimately exhausting.

The sound of her mobile buzzing against her hip sounded frighteningly loud in the silence. It was Nikki Bruce.

‘There’s been a development. The Post ran a photo of Katie Pyle. It was seen by a couple in Chesham who rented out a flat for the past seven years to a special needs teacher named Jennifer Bush. Either it’s Katie or she’s got a double. Jennifer disappeared a few days ago, early one morning, which they say was completely out of character. The woman says she thought she heard a car door slam. And this Jennifer was into Buddhism.’

‘It must be her. But why Chesham?’

‘Who knows? Close to home, perhaps? From what you said, it’s only about twenty miles from where she used to live. Maybe it was as near as she could get. We’ll never know. The police got both sets of medical records and made a match. And guess what: Jennifer Bush had an abortion a couple of months after the date Katie Pyle disappeared.’

‘Christ, poor kid,’ whispered Riley. ‘Another reason she never went back.’ It hadn’t been enough that Katie had felt compelled to leave home, she’d endured the mental agonies of an abortion alone and even changed her name. She thought about Susan Pyle’s description of her husband’s intransigently religious nature, and wondered how such attitudes could become set in stone. Yet all it would have taken was for Katie to go home. At least then she would have known for sure how they felt. Who knows, perhaps they could have worked it out somehow. Still, easy for Riley to say. She had never been in that situation. ‘Wait a minute — why did the police bother looking up Katie’s medical records if she died of choking?’

‘That’s what they first thought. Then they took another look. They found suspicious bruising around her throat. Katie’s death is now a murder enquiry.’

Riley felt Palmer’s hand on her arm. A scraping sound echoed softly in the dark, coming from the direction of the arches. She whispered to Nikki to read out Jennifer Bush’s address, then switched off her phone, praying she hadn’t been heard.

The shadows moved and a man emerged from a wooden door, back-lit by a faint yellow light from inside the ancient brick structure. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and stood for a moment, nosing the wind like a gun-dog, scanning the area around him before glancing at his wrist.

‘He’s expecting someone,’ Riley whispered.

Palmer nodded but made no move to stand up. ‘And soon, by the looks of it.’ He looked at Riley. ‘The call. Bad news?’

‘Katie’s death is now a murder enquiry. They’ve also found out where she’s been all these years.’ She told him briefly about the discoveries and the revelation of Katie Pyle’s second life.

At the end of the street there was a flicker of movement and the man outside the arches turned his head to watch. An elderly man wrapped in an old coat and a Balaclava rolled into view, mumbling as he moved along the street. His course was erratic, alternating between the gutter and the buildings as if looking for something. Then he wandered into the play area and began digging in a rubbish bin, scattering the contents indiscriminately and muttering a fluid stream of obscenities.