Vicious Circle (33 page)

“It was so I could send him a receipt,” I admitted.

“Right. Like he fucking cared where that ended up. Anyway, the real Stephen Torrington lived in Maida Vale—and he doesn’t fucking live there anymore. I’ve got the address if you want it, but my advice is to stay clear.

“Place of death was the living room; some of the furniture had been moved to clear a big space—killer with a sense for the theatrical. The entire place had been ransacked. Every drawer, every cupboard, everything hauled out and strewn over the floor. Like there’d been a search, the file notes said, but they were just guessing. With the place being so messed up, they couldn’t even tell if anything was missing. And they couldn’t figure out what had happened to the girl.”

“Abbie,” I breathed.

“Yeah, her. They knew there was a kid even without going through any records on the Torringtons, because there was a room that was obviously a kid’s room. That had been turned over, too, just like the rest of the house.”

Of course it had. And some things had been taken. I knew because except for the doll’s head in my goddamn pocket they were sitting in a big black bag in my office—a gift from the guy who called himself Steve Torrington. I imagined him raking through Abbie’s things with her real parents lying murdered in the room below, and I was filled with an unreasoning rage at my own naiveté. No wonder he’d sent the woman back to the car: whoever the fuck he was, he knew his own acting skills were up to the job, but he didn’t want to have to rely on hers. And he was right; he’d got the grief spot-on, mostly—except that grief isn’t usually that articulate. I should have known. I should have smelled something.

But if I had, what would I have done? Refused to take the case? Abbie was dead—that much I knew, because I’d touched her spirit across the London night. And I’d felt the choking well of unhappiness that was all she knew back when she was alive.

Lies or not, I’d taken this job on because of her: so fair enough, I’d see it through because of her, too. Right then I hoped that meant that somewhere along the way I’d be running into the soi-disant Steve Torrington again, so that I could salvage some of my self-respect with the judicious application of a tire iron.

That image made me think about “Mel’s” bruises. They were just there for effect, I was suddenly sure: a stage prop to engage my sympathy and maybe to explain the relative awkwardness and lack of expression in her voice. This bastard didn’t miss a trick—and he didn’t care who he hurt.

“So what do the cops think happened?” I asked, pulling my thoughts off that particular track with a twinge of unease.

Nicky gave a one-handed shrug. “They don’t know a thing,” he said. “At least, nothing that’s on file as yet. They analyzed the bullets six ways from breakfast, so they’ll know the gun when they find it. Guns, sorry—two different weapons. But there’s nothing in their ballistics database to say either of them’s ever been used in any other crimes, so that’s a dead end for now. They dusted the place for prints, got nothing apart from the ones that should have been there anyway—not even virtuals. Retrieved a few footprints, which again will only help in nailing the perps once they find them.”

“Statements from the neighbors?”

“Nobody saw, nobody heard. Bits of street gossip creeping in here and there, though. Some people thought it was just a matter of time. The Torringtons were lowering the tone of the place, apparently. Lots of undesirables turning up at the house all hours of the day and night. One guy in particular seen going in and out a lot: tall, well built, in a long leather coat, with two goons dancing attendance like he was God. They figured he was either a gangster or a record company producer. Maybe both. There’s a complaint on file with social services. One of the neighbors was worried enough about all the coming and going to raise a query about whether the Torringtons might be pedophiles, farming Abbie out for abuse.”

I froze with my glass half-raised to my mouth. That would certainly explain the misery.

“And?” I prompted, both wanting and not wanting to hear the answer.

“One follow-up visit, records appended to the file. I couldn’t access everything, but I gather Abbie seemed to be a healthy, normal girl. A little solemn and preoccupied, but well fed, well looked after. Room was nice, clothes were neat and tidy, she checked out okay at interview, you know the drill. ‘Did not display precocious knowledge of or concern with sexual matters.’ No smoking pistol—not even any powder burn. Sorry to bother you, sign off, hit the road.”

“But there was something going on there,” I mused, grimly. “Lots of visitors. Some of them regulars. Turning up often enough for the neighbors to clock them and take notes. What were the Torringtons up to?”

“Selling drugs?” Nicky said. “Cosmetic surgery? I deal in data, Castor, not reading fucking fortunes. What I got, you’ve now had. As of now, that’s the entirety of what the Met have managed to nail down since Saturday night. Abbie is officially missing, her parents are indisputably dead. I know you see a lot of ghosts in the way of business. You ever been
hired
by them before?”

For once, Nicky didn’t even laugh at his own joke. He’d caught the edge of my somber mood, and of course he was still choked with me for souring his arrangement with Imelda.

I took another slug of whisky, didn’t even taste it.

“What about Peace?” I asked. “You dig up anything else there?”

Nicky turned coy—the way he always does when he’s got something really eye-popping to tell me. “Yeah,” he admitted, “a little. I don’t know how much of it is strictly relevant, though.”

“Meaning—?”

“Meaning it’s mostly old. Lifestyle stuff. Not the kind of intel you could use to find out where he is now.”

“Tell me anyway,” I suggested.

He flared up, coyness giving way to the irritation that was still slow-burning underneath. “Castor, I am not exactly in your fan club right now. It hacks me off when you talk to me like I’m some kind of skivvy you can just—”

“Please,” I amended. “Pretty please. Pretty please with sugar on the top.”

“Better. Well it’s a case of the more you dig, the more you find. That charge sheet I mentioned runs to more than one page—wherever Peace lays his hat, he starts some kind of trouble. After that army tour I told you about he found a way to turn his training to good account. He became a merc—signed up with some private security firm in the Middle East that had a very nasty name for itself, but then half the board got locked up for trying to trigger a coup in Libya and he was out on his ear again.”

There was something in his eye that told me he was saving the best till last. Under other circumstances, I might have been short enough on patience to yell him out about that: tonight I decided I’d better humor him.

“Anything else?” I asked, playing straight man.

“Yeah. Since you ask, there is.”

“Go on.”

“Peace filed suit back in 1999, under the jurisdiction of the State of New York. Against Anton Fanke—you remember, the satanist guy I told you about before?—and a woman whose name appears on the affidavit as Melanie Carla Jeffers, a.k.a. Melanie Carla Silver, a.k.a. Melanie Carla Torrington.”

I swore aloud, and Nicky nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah, it’s a peach, isn’t it? Only that’s not the part that made me prick up my ears. Get this: it’s a suit for custody. Plaintiff alleged that defendant was unfit to be a parent, and asked the court to award him guardianship rights over . . . well, you can see this coming, so there’s no point drawing it out.”

There was a roaring in my ears: I couldn’t tell how much of it was the fever, how much the adrenaline surge as my mind raced ahead to where Nicky was going.

“A little girl named Abigail?” I hazarded, my voice sounding hollow and fuzzy in my own ears.

“Got it in one. Abigail Fanke, she’s called at this particular juncture.”

“She’s Peace’s daughter.”

“Well, he thinks she is. And the court records agree, as far as that goes, because surname notwithstanding there’s a birth certificate on record for her in Burkina Faso, thirteenth of March 1993. Mother: Melanie Carla Jeffers. Father: Dennis Peace.”

“That’s not long after he got out of prison,” I said.

“Good to know you’re listening. Yeah, it is. And armed with that little titbit, I went back to the court records. Which was a bastard, because I don’t need to tell you they were all fucking handwritten. I had to call in a favor or three, but I got there in the end. Melanie whatever-her-name-is bailed Peace out of jail, and presumably spread those bribes around. Makes more sense, I guess. Like I said before, if he had the money himself he could have bought off the judge before he was sentenced, for about half the price. But maybe he didn’t have any money. Maybe he needed an angel.”

“An angel. Right.”

“Then they have a night of passionate celebration, and nine months later little Abbie is born. Makes sense, kind of. And now he’s on the run with her—alive or dead, we don’t officially know.”

“I know.”

“Sure you do. Only what you didn’t know was that he stopped to murder her mother and the mother’s current boyfriend along the way. And that someone wants him badly enough to make up all this bullshit and get you on board.”

I shook my head, which was aching so badly now it felt like it might fall off. Nicky was affronted. “What, did I hurt your professional pride?”

“No. But you said they wanted Peace. It’s not Peace who’s the point of this, Nicky—it’s Abbie.”

“Well from
his
point of view it’s Abbie, obviously. I mean, it looks like he killed two people to get hold of her. But the guys who are looking for him—”

“If they’re looking for Peace, why not hire a proper detective? Why come to me?”

Nicky opened his mouth to speak, blinked, shut it again.

“You see? There’s a whole lot of people out there who could do a better job of tracking down a man who doesn’t want to be found. But finding him wouldn’t necessarily mean finding Abbie. No, to find a ghost, you need an exorcist. And that’s what they went out to get.”

I stood up, a little unsteadily.

“Are you drunk?” Nicky asked, with the scorn of the teetotaler.

“No. I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Doesn’t surprise me a bit, the shit you pour into yourself. Your body may not be a temple, Castor, but it sure as hell isn’t a skip. Take it from me, if you want to live to be old, you’ll—”

“Save it up and mail it, Nicky. I’m not in the mood. You serious about that cab?”

“Dead serious.”

“To coin a phrase.”

“Funny.”

“Whatever. Thanks for your help. The fare’s on me.”

I dropped a couple of tenners onto the table and lurched toward the door. I must have looked right then like one of The Level’s zombie customers: I sure as hell felt like one.

Approaching Matt’s car from the wrong direction, I was able to see firsthand what a mess the Catholic werewolves had made of the near-side wing. I felt bad about that; it seemed like a poor exchange for his trust. He might even have trouble with his insurance, given that I wasn’t a named driver. The only consolation was that—to the religious mind—adversity is good for the soul.

I got in and drove, trying to focus on the road ahead as dark filaments swam across my vision. Whatever was wrong with me, it seemed to be getting worse rather than better. On the other hand, it had been a hell of a night. I didn’t need to look all that far to find reasons why I might be functioning at less than a hundred percent.

I really needed to concentrate hard on the road, but I found my mind wandering back onto what Nicky had just told me. Little Abbie may not have had much happiness in her life, but she sure had a hell of a lot of parents. Two who’d died on Saturday night, two more who’d turned up at my office on Monday morning, and a fifth, Dennis Peace, who didn’t figure in either tally. And then there were the Catholics: the Anathemata wanted her, too—wanted her badly. I got the feeling of wheels turning within wheels, and little fires touching off bigger ones. Whatever was going on, Abbie was the key to something huge: I knew I was right about that. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to be any closer than before to figuring out what that something actually was. “Someone didn’t close the circle,” the werewolf Zucker had said, charmingly mixing his metaphors, “and a little bird flew the nest.” Still sounded like garbage whichever way you played it, but I was suddenly certain that the little bird was Abbie Torrington. Whatever she’d run from, it had to be bad if even being dead didn’t get you free.

It was half past one when I rolled the car into Pen’s driveway. The house was dark, which didn’t mean anything because the windows of Pen’s basement room look onto the garden, not the street. I was hoping she might still be awake so we could make our peace, knock back a glass or two of brandy, and I could maybe try her out on some of the stuff Nicky had just dropped on me—see if her credulity was any more elastic than mine.

I never got the chance to find out. I’d taken about three steps toward the door when some headlights went on across the street, pinning me like a butterfly to a board. Some doors slammed, and footsteps sounded from my left and right simultaneously. I bunched my fists, preparing to go down fighting.

“Relax, Castor.”

I did, but only a little way. It was Gary Coldwood’s voice. A moment later, he loomed out of the light like some negative Nosferatu and clapped a hand on my shoulder, a little too close to my neck. I winced. My head was throbbing so badly now, even that overfriendly touch sent spikes of pain through it.

“Burning the candle at both ends,” Coldwood said. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit,” I said. “It’s a set.”

He stared at me for a moment in silence. He seemed to want to say something, and it seemed to be something that needed a hell of a run-up.

“Something about Pauley?” I prompted him.

He looked blank. “About who?”

“Robin Pauley? Drug czar and murderer? I’m going to be a material witness at his trial, remember? You told me to look out for frighteners.”

Coldwood nodded, waved the topic brusquely away.