Sight Unseen Read online

  ‘It’s great. It’s perfect.’ He doesn’t bother to hide his admiration, which makes me blush. Time to change the subject.

  ‘So who’s Suze?’ I ask.

  ‘She’s the woman I mentioned earlier with the three daughters. So far she’s OK drug-wise but that’s because they never go out.’

  ‘And your boy?’

  ‘Scott plays football. He’s got a brain in his head.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Lucky him. His mum’s a cow, as well. That’s another reason he’ll stay clean. He’s terrified of her.’

  I laugh. Danny tells me it’s true. He never got properly divorced, he says, because he was too frightened to turn up for the court hearing. She’s kipping with a mate of his now and she’s turned a bloke who’d stop at nothing into a hamster.

  ‘She’s got him tied to the wheel.’ It’s Danny’s turn to laugh. ‘I bumped into him at Morrisons the other day. She’s even got him doing the shopping now.’

  He at last gets round to lighting the doobie. The sweetness of the weed is filling the van. I wind the window down.

  We sit in silence for a while. The wind has got up and I think I can hear the distant roar of the surf from some faraway beach.

  ‘Where do I find these kids?’ I ask him.

  ‘Don’t bother. They won’t talk to you unless you’re buying and even then it’s going to be a short conversation. You get new faces all the time and some of them are black. Did I mention that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That matters round here. Not that they care a toss. These are Somali kids from London. They’re wild. They know no fear. It’s just business, man. County lines. Here’s a tenth. Give us thirty. Enjoy.’ Danny sucks in a lungful of smoke and tips his head back.

  ‘Noodle?’ I suggest. ‘Evie?’

  ‘Noodle sometimes kips in a tatty old tent down on the beach in West Bay. Ask anyone.’

  ‘And Evie?’

  ‘Evie’s shacked up with an evil bastard called Brett Dooley. Nice enough when it suits him, but basically a psycho. He’s thick as well as violent and the state of the woman tells you everything you need to know. Dooley trades her to settle drug debts and beats her up the rest of the time. Has done for ever. A mate told me Evie tried to run away once. Dooley went to Dorchester and found her at her sister’s. Gave them both a hiding before bringing Evie back on the bus. Poor bloody woman.’

  ‘They still live together?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Where?’

  Danny turns to look at me. He’s astonished.

  ‘You’re serious? You want to talk to her?’

  ‘I want to know where she lives.’ I’m checking my watch. ‘That may not be the same thing.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Danny drops me off at the hotel. He’s given me an address for Evie and a health warning about the kind of welcome I can expect from the man in her life. He’s also scribbled a phone number in case I need to be rescued from any other pub. When I give him a hug and thank him for his time I can sense that he’d like our conversation to continue. For someone with so many friends, so many roots buried so deep in this little town, I can only conclude that he’s lonely. This he appears to confirm with his parting shot, an open invitation extended across the front passenger seat as I stand on the pavement and prepare to shut the door. ‘I’ll cook for you any time,’ he says. ‘As long as you’re not a bloody vegetarian.’

  The Bull Hotel is on the town’s main street. I met the girl at reception earlier. She fetches my bag, gives me a key and points out the lift. For some reason I’ve been upgraded to a deluxe king room. This includes a four-poster bed and a freestanding bath in the en suite, and when I take a proper look at the flowers tastefully arranged on the table in the window I realize they’re from H. You’re a star already, goes the message. How many other women would be seen dead in a pub like that?

  I’m tempted to phone him and say thank you but there’s something about this evening that stays my hand. I’ve done this by myself. I’ve come up with a result of sorts. Thanks to my lonesome carpenter, I think I’m beginning to understand this little town, the way it works and the opportunities it might offer to a bunch of incoming kids with an eye to business and nothing to lose. On the way to the hotel, ever-helpful, Danny had warned me to be careful. ‘Nothing frightens these little bastards,’ he told me. ‘Streetwise doesn’t begin to cover it. They think they’re immortal. Just remember that.’

  Evie. Noodle. Tomorrow, I think. I pull the curtains and settle on the bed to check my phone. It’s been a while now since I had that last conversation with Pavel and just a part of me still expects some word from Prague. Maybe his body has been recovered. Maybe he’s still alive and has been traced to some hotel or other. Either way, I need to know. I scroll through a day’s missed calls, texts and emails.

  Confirmation from Amazon of a book order I’d been expecting. A cheerful update from my Breton mum on the third week of heatwave at Perros-Guirec. Word from my agent about the possibility of a leading role in a French cop drama set, of all places, in Nantes. Might I be available for what she calls ‘conversations’ in Paris late next week? She’s talked to the producer and she thinks the part is mine for the asking. If that’s the case, shooting is scheduled to start after Christmas.

  I gaze at Rosa’s message. January, next year. What might have happened by then? To Clem? To Mateo and his wife? To Malo? To Pavel? And to the inside of my head?

  I fire off a reply to Rosa. In principle, I tell her, Paris sounds fine. If she can give me an exact date, I’ll confirm ASAP. In the meantime – a long shot – has she heard from Pavel at all? Rosa is a night bird. Pavel is one of her favourite men, largely because she’s never quite figured out how a blind person can be so much more perceptive than the rest of us. Back comes the reply. Thanx for Paris. Got a postcard from Pavel this morning. The Orkneys in this heat? Lucky man.

  The Orkneys? I’m staring at my smartphone. To the best of my knowledge the Orkneys are north of Scotland. Just to be sure, I do a Google search and confirm it. I’m right. Stromness. The cliffs of Hoy. Twenty-four-hour daylight in the middle of summer. Squadrons of killer midges. I phone Rosa, apologizing at once for bothering her. She’s listening to Aretha Franklin. The goddess of soul has passed away and Rosa is having a teary night with her huge collection of LPs.

  She wants to know if I’m all right.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘I just want to check something out. It’s about Pavel. What was the date on the postmark?’

  There’s a longish silence while Rosa goes looking for the postcard. Then she’s back.

  ‘Yesterday. It came first class.’

  ‘And what does he actually say?’

  ‘On the postcard, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He says he just got back from a dive in Scapa Flow. He says he touched a battleship.’

  ‘What’s Scapa Flow?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, my precious. I thought you two were close?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘Then why the call? Am I allowed to ask?’

  I mumble something about local difficulties, apologize again for the lateness of the hour and end the conversation.

  Back on Google, I’m looking for clues about Scapa Flow. It turns out to be a huge body of water that served as a naval anchorage. The German High Fleet scuttled itself there at the end of the Great War and twenty years later a German U-boat stole back and sank a Royal Navy battleship, HMS Royal Oak.

  Dimly I half-remember a conversation with Pavel over a meal several months ago. We’d both had a lot to drink and he was telling me about an idea he’d had for a movie. It seemed to feature a son obsessed by his father’s death. His grandfather had been a high-ranking officer aboard a German battleship. His belief in the Kaiser and in victory had shaped his entire life and after the German surrender he’d spent seven months sitting on that same battleship in Scapa Flow trying to come to terms with defeat.

 
During that period he’d written an extensive diary which somehow survived the scuttling and now the grandson, a successful businessman and keen scuba diver, has returned to Scapa Flow to explore the German wrecks. This coincides with the capsize of his own marriage, and the way Pavel told it in the restaurant, the movie would try and interweave both disasters.

  I remember thinking at the time that this challenge had Pavel’s special magic all over it – a plaiting of military history and something infinitely more personal – and the fact that Pavel himself has now dived on the wreck comes as no surprise. The image of him using his fingertips to explore a long-ago tragedy is altogether wonderful. Except that he’s not supposed to be in bloody Scotland at all. He’s supposed to be in Prague. Dead.

  I shower and towel myself dry, overwhelmed by both relief and something more visceral that might well be anger. The best stories, as Pavel always insists, detach you from real life. You float away down the river of fiction, lie back, and enjoy the view. The storyteller’s challenge is to cast a spell, and the longer that spell lasts, the better. The journey down the river goes on and on. Night falls. You maybe doze a little. But when the sun appears again the river is still there, meandering on, bend after sleepy bend, and you lie back, assured that one day you will arrive at a destination worthy of its name. That, at least, is the way that Pavel likes to put it.

  I step back into the bedroom and let the coolness of the cotton sheets enfold me. On the phone, Pavel lied. He lied about Prague and he did nothing to prevent me from concluding that he’d thrown himself into the water and ended it all. That’s what he’d wanted me to believe. That was the whole point of the call. But why? Did he go to these lengths because I’d gotten too close? Because I’d asked him for more than he could possibly give? Because I’d become some kind of emotional burden? Or was the whole baroque lie another virtuoso demonstration that real life was there to be manipulated into whatever shape he fancied? Another twirl on the trapeze of his wildest imaginings?

  Whatever the truth, he appears to be alive and for the time being I’m very happy to settle for that. Anything as mundane as an explanation, I tell myself, can wait.

  NINETEEN

  Breakfast, according to the guest notes beside my bed, is served in the hotel’s dining room. I’m down there a minute or two after eight o’clock. I’ve written down the address that Danny gave me for Evie and I plan to call a cab once I’ve done justice to a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon from the buffet. It’s only when I’m returning to my table that I recognize the figure bent over a cup of coffee in the corner. H.

  ‘Like them?’ He’s slipped into the other chair at my table.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The flowers.’

  ‘The flowers are lovely. Sweet. I’m touched.’

  ‘So how did it go?’

  In the broadest terms, I tell him what happened. The Landfall, in a phrase I treasure, is indeed a souk. People tell me you can buy anything there and I’ve no reason to disbelieve them. This wild west Dorset explosion of the freest enterprise is tolerated by the drugs squad for reasons of their own and while the pub is overrun with youth, Karl the landlord is doing his best to hang on to his old hard-drinking clientele. More troubling, I suggest, are the larger consequences of what’s happening. The Fall sounds all too prescient.

  ‘Malo?’

  ‘They know him there. They recognized the T-shirt. And they knew about Clem, too.’

  ‘Was he a punter? Was he buying?’

  ‘That wasn’t clear.’

  ‘Why else would he be there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  H grunts and helps himself to a slice of my toast. This morning, he said, he’d had a conversation with Jessie in the kitchen. Andy had taken a call from a mate of his late last night.

  ‘Bloke called Danny? Ring any bells?’

  I duck my head, load my fork with scrambled egg. Rule one: never underestimate this man.

  ‘Danny’s a carpenter,’ I say. ‘He’s been using the pub for ever. He knows the town backwards. Interesting guy.’

  ‘And?’

  I tell H about the debris washed up by the tide of drugs, about Noodle and Evie, and about the platoons of young London-based Somali dealers moving from squat to squat.

  ‘Cuckoos,’ H grunts. ‘They nest with the numpties.’

  ‘You know this already?’

  ‘It’s nationwide. It’s the business model I told you about. County lines. Travelling salesmen have been doing it for ever. It’s all about territory.’ He reaches for the little pot of marmalade. ‘And violence.’

  Mention of violence takes me neatly to Evie. I offer a little sketch of Brett Dooley.

  ‘He pimps her out?’

  ‘He does, according to Danny. That way she helps to pay his drug debts.’

  ‘So he’s in the swim, this Dooley? Got his finger on the pulse? Knows where the bodies are buried?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Runs with the London boys?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘But he’d know them, yeah? A town this size, that can’t be hard. And if he knows the London boys, that might take us to Clemmie.’

  I nod. I agree. When I remind H that the kidnapper’s midnight deadline is fast approaching he tells me not to worry. Deadlines, he says, are just a negotiating tactic. What matters just now is Brett Dooley. H says we need an address. I’ve written it down. I have it in my bag. I slide it across the table. H stares at it.

  ‘This is where he lives?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Fuck.’ He looks up. ‘You don’t need the day job. Stick with me.’

  I leave my bag upstairs and step outside. Under a cloudless sky the temperature is already heading for the mid-twenties. H leads the way across the road to the Range Rover. A figure in the front passenger seat gets out and stands in the road. He’s tall, fit-looking, early forties at least. He’s wearing jeans and a white singlet that testifies to a serious gym addiction. He’s also black with a bushy afro and his basketball shoes look brand new.

  ‘Meet Wes. Wes, this is Enora, Malo’s mum.’

  I’ve heard the name before. H mentioned him a couple of times last year in conversations about his beloved Pompey. I know exactly who this is.

  ‘You’re Wesley Kane? From Portsmouth?’

  He nods, smiles. He has the whitest teeth.

  ‘So what were you doing under my car the other night? Tracking device? Am I right?’

  Wes glances across at H. He has the grace to look briefly troubled. H tries to shrug it off.

  ‘Needs must,’ he mutters.

  ‘Needs must what?’ I turn on H. ‘I don’t understand. You were trying to follow me? Find out where I was going? All of that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why? You don’t trust me? You thought I might go to the police about Clem?’

  ‘Yeah. And that’s exactly what you did because the fucking tracker was gone when I checked and that can only be the Filth.’

  I frown. Then I remember H picking me up in the rain outside my apartment. The wet patches on his knees, I think. He’d been checking for the tracker.

  ‘It was the police,’ I say hotly. ‘What else was I supposed to do? It might have been a bomb for all I knew. Why not use the phone? Why not ask me where I was going? Why try and be so bloody devious?’

  H has no answer. Wes enquires whether this is the full domestic and if so whether we’d like to batter each other in the privacy of the car. It’s a nice line but I haven’t finished with H yet.

  ‘Of course I rang the police.’ I’m getting very angry. ‘That’s what they’re there for, in case you were wondering. And yes, they came round. And yes, they found the tracker. But no, I never mentioned Clem. Not once. Not then and not since. Is this music for your ears? Do you trust me? If the answer’s no, I’m going back to the hotel. A cab will take me to Dorchester. It’s an excellent train service. I can be back in London in time for lunch. So just one favour, eh?
Do you trust me or not? A yes or no will do fine. And please don’t swear in public.’

  ‘Of course I fucking trust you.’

  He turns to Wes, who opens the rear door. Moments later, with H at the wheel and Wes feeding the address into the sat-nav, we’re on the move. I shake my head, thinking suddenly of Pavel and his long white fingers exploring the remains of the sunken battleship. Madness, I think. Everywhere.

  The address I’ve been given turns out to be a minute’s drive south of the main street. This, I suspect, was once a council estate. We’re looking for Larkrise Crescent. The houses are semi-detached and most of them are a credit to their owners – bright paintwork, borders filled with shrubs – but number thirteen at the end of the road is the orphan in the family. An old mattress and a sagging armchair have been abandoned in one corner of the front garden and scabs of dog mess form an untidy semicircle inside the rotting gate. A wheelie bin at the side of the property is overflowing with pizza boxes and empty plastic bottles of something called Frosty Jacks.

  Wes has noticed my interest. ‘Cider,’ he says. ‘Seven and a half per cent fight juice. Three pounds fifty for three litres in Iceland.’

  I nod. In the upstairs window I think I see a woman’s pale face behind the fall of curtain. The moment she catches my gaze, she’s gone.

  H is already standing at the front door. He raps three times and takes a tiny step back. In his suit and tie he looks like a bailiff I once had to answer the door to in a movie we shot in Middlesbrough. On-screen, I was silly enough to answer the summons. In this sun-kissed corner of Bridport, they know better.

  H tries again. Nothing. Wes has disappeared around the back.

  I join H at the door. ‘There’s someone upstairs,’ I tell him. ‘I saw her.’

  The bell push beside the door doesn’t seem to work. H raps on the door for a third time.

  Again, no response. Wes has reappeared. He says there’s a dog locked in a coal bunker in the back garden. There’s also a door into the back of the property. Someone’s had a go at the lock recently and it’ll be a piece of piss getting in.

  ‘Neighbours?’ H grunts.