Pecking Order, page 19
‘Some sort of disease. To do with her bones I think. They can't cure it.'
Rubble nodded, studying the plastic rear of the tax disc holder on Eric's windscreen. His eyes shifted to the parking permit just above it; he could see the faint outline of the crest showing through. 'Does the Government pay for your car and stuff like that?' he asked pointing at the corner of the windscreen.
Eric looked at where his thick finger was directed and thought he was pointing at the tax disc. 'Remember Agent White; we work on a need-to-know basis only. And you don't need to know that,' he snapped.
They set off back to the motorway, and were soon cruising at just below seventy. As Eric drove along he kept fidgeting in his seat and glancing across at his passenger. Rubble kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead and his mouth shut.
Eventually Eric said, 'How are you finding the work so far, Agent White?'
Rubble glanced at him uncertainly, 'Enjoying it.'
'You can be honest Agent White. It's not unusual to have ... negative emotions.'
'Negative?'
‘Yes. Perhaps feelings of remorse?' Rubble looked at him blankly.
'Guilt. You know ... um, doubts. About taking ... about taking another human being's life.'
Rubble shook his head.
'You never find yourself dwelling on the missions you've completed? '
Thinking he was being tested, Rubble kept his answer short. 'No.'
‘What about now. Any feelings of nervousness at this moment?'
'No.'
They drove along in silence, the inside of the car growing ever more hot and claustrophobic in Eric's mind. When they reached the turn off he had unbuttoned the top of his shirt and wound the window down a little. They slowed to a halt at a set off traffic lights leading to a small roundabout and, even though there was no other traffic in sight, the lights stubbornly remained on red. Irritated, Eric glanced at his rear-view mirror and shut his eyes.
On the road behind him he saw an image of the bodies of Bert and Edith lying there. Bert's nearer the car, Edith's further up the road, almost swallowed by the darkness. Ahead he saw Patricia standing in his path. Just a simple obstacle to get past and then he would be secure. Once she was behind him, he could move forward - put more and more distance between himself and the memories of all three.
He opened his eyes and revved the engine, willing the lights to change. The red glow suffused the inside of the car, catching on the white rubber stretched over his knuckles where they gripped the steering wheel tight. The smell of exhaust fumes drifted into the vehicle and he remembered getting a mouthful from Patricia's BMW outside the biology department.
The orange light came on as he forced himself to think of his father and how retirement had destroyed him. Then both bulbs died and the one below glowed green.
There could be no going back now. He let his foot off the clutch and moved forward, driving across the roundabout and along narrow lanes. The countryside bordering the road was almost entirely farmland, interspersed with occasional driveways that curled away across landscaped grounds to large houses.
After a few minutes Eric changed down through the gears and rolled to a stop beside a dense row of conifers. A sign at the top of the driveway said, Otter's Pool Lodge. Eric focused on the small gaps between the branches, making sure the house beyond them was completely dark. 'OK, this is it.' He reached below his seat and handed Rubble a loaded syringe.
Rubble placed it carefully in the pocket of his overalls.
Next, Eric handed him a large shiny key and a small pocket torch. 'Now, proceed across the lawn and round the back of the house. Open the kitchen door and go through into the hallway. You'll see the stairs to your left. At the top, a door will be straight in front of you. That's where she is. As I said before, she should be fast asleep. But if she does wake up confused, you are to restrain her and give her the injection anyway. Now, I've got several other operations in the area tonight, so I won't be able to pick you up for a couple of hours. Once you've completed your operation, wait for me in the garden. There's not much traffic out here, so you'll know it's me when I park at this spot. Everything clear?'
'Can I climb up a tree? Wait for you up in the branches?'
'Yes, that's a good idea. Wait for me up a tree, it's a very safe place to hide.'
Rubble got out of the car and gently closed the door. Eric put the car into first gear and, keeping his revs right down, slowly eased away. At the next turning he doubled back to the city, heading for the all-night garage near his house. He pulled up to the side of the pumps, dropped his rubber gloves into a bin full of them from the fore court's dispenser and walked over to the window hatch. Taking in the notice telling him he was on CCTV, he ordered a pint of milk and a box of paracetamol. The young man inside picked a small bottle of pills off the shelf behind him then set off round the counter to get the milk from an open-fronted fridge. Craning his neck to see the image on the screen by the till, Eric realised the tall thin man staring at a window was himself. It reminded him of the footage he'd seen on Crime Stoppers when the presenter asked for help in identifying a particular suspect. Fearfully, he wondered if what he was looking at would ever end up on national television as part of a documentary.
The attendant returned, asking for payment before he pushed the items through. Eric drove back to his house and, once in his kitchen, knocked back a couple of pills with a gulp of water straight from the tap. Then he made himself a cup of cocoa, sat down at the table and tried to concentrate on that day's Guardian.
The back of Patricia's house was covered in a thick layer of ivy and Rubble had some trouble finding the small oak door. The key turned smoothly in the lock and it swung open with a slight creak. In the corner of the kitchen a fridge-freezer juddered to life as the thermostat triggered the cold air mechanism inside. Next to it the green numbers of an oven clock glowed. Rubble looked at the kitchen table and the bag thrown on to it. A bunch of keys lay carelessly splayed on the wooden surface. Testing the floor with his foot, he guessed it was solid wood, and he walked carefully across it into the hall. To his left stairs stretched upwards, lit by moonlight shining in from a round window set deeply into the thick wall. He climbed up them, a massive beam in the ceiling not far above his head. He stopped outside the half-open bedroom door and listened. In the gloom he could see a double bed, quilt ruffled on one side. A thin strip of light shone from under a door in the corner of the room. Frowning, he crept across the deep pile carpet to the bed and, once he was standing by it, saw that it was empty. A dark, wet patch was visible across the pillow and sheet. Puzzled, he noticed a large cooking pot on the carpet next to the bedside table.
Slowly he turned his head and looked at the glow coming from beneath the door on the opposite side of the room. Silently he walked round the bed, careful to avoid the high-heeled shoes on the floor, one toppled over on its side. At the door he bowed his head and brought his ear to within millimetres of the wood. On the other side a tap dripped.
Rubble reached out and slowly turned the handle. The door swung partly inwards without a sound and, inch-by-inch, he opened it further. The first thing he could see was a towel rail on the wall just inside. As the door opened wider he could see a sink in the corner of the room and next to that a toilet. On the floor beside it was a wicker basket piled high with a jumble of toilet rolls. The next thing that came into view was a freestanding shelf unit, crowded with bottles and jars. The door was half-open when he saw the partly wet nightdress crumpled on the carpet. He edged the door open further and now he could see an empty shower unit in the opposite corner of the room. Next was the end of a bath. And in it, a pair of feet. They lay below the surface of the water, motionless. His eyes narrowed and he looked at the lilac painted nails, waiting for movement. When nothing happened he stepped forwards and opened the door fully. As the hinges reached their limit they let out a long, high-pitched creak. He craned his neck round the door; saw a pair of submerged knees, thighs, crossed hands over a stomach, a pair of slack breasts. Finally he looked at Patricia Du Rey's face, eyes shut below the water, lips tinged blue and hair like tendrils of an aquatic plant floating about her head.
The tap continued dripping and the overflow let out a single glug as water drained into it. Rubble stepped fully into the bathroom and examined her more closely. The flesh all over her body was
laced by an intricate network of wrinkles. Crouching down by the bath, he reached into the water. It was chilly. He lifted out a cold hand. Its surface was as deeply furrowed as that of a raisin. He let it fall back and looked at her face. Trapped in the underside of each nostril was a silver sphere. He pinched her nose, squeezing out the two bubbles. They floated up a couple of inches and popped at the surface.
Back down in the kitchen his stomach rumbled and he remembered what Agent Orange had said about not picking him up for several hours. He walked over to the fridge in the corner of the room and opened the door. The shelves were stacked with strange things. A jar containing lumps of square shaped pale cheese in a thick oil. Another with green berry-like objects with small red things shoved into their hollow middles. A small bottle full of a watery brown liquid. He smelt the neck and recoiled at the sharp aroma of dead fish. The door was lined with little shelves and the top one held a row of eggs. Something he recognised. He plucked four from the rack and slipped them into the front pouch of his overalls, alongside the unused syringe.
Outside he locked the door, walked back round to the front of the house and crossed to the large cedar tree in the corner of the garden. Sitting up in its boughs he took out an egg and pressed his thumb through the brittle surface. Then he held it above his open mouth and pulled the shell apart. His mouth flooded with thick mucus. Locating the egg yolk with his tongue, he punctured it, washed the mixture around his mouth and swallowed. Then he placed the empty shell back in his pocket and took out another egg.
Around three hours later he saw headlights approaching along the narrow lane. Recognising the tone of Agent Orange's engine he climbed down and was waiting by the hedge when the car pulled up.
He climbed in and Eric immediately pulled away. 'Was the operation a success?'
'She's dead, but I never killed her.'
‘Pardon?' said Eric, braking hard and looking at Rubble.
'She was in the bath. Drowned.'
‘You found her in the bath?'
‘Yeah.'
'With her head under the water?'
'Naked she was. Sick all over her nightie. She must have been ill with that disease.'
'You're quite sure she was dead?'
'Yeah. She'd been in there a bit. The water was cold and she'd turned all wrinkly.'
Eric mused on the information. 'So you didn't inject her?'
'Nope.' Rubble fumbled in his pocket and brought out the syringe. 'Here.'
Eric took it and noticed how it glistened. 'Why is it wet? Has it leaked?'
‘Egg white,' explained Rubble.
Preferring not to ask for an explanation, Eric just dropped the syringe back under his seat. So that was it, he thought. Patricia had been removed. The project was over.
When they reached the caravan he took back Rubble's gloves and Patricia's key.
'Thank you Agent White, you have done very well.' There was a note of finality in his voice and Rubble looked alarmed.
'It is policy to rest our agents every three jobs, so you will not be hearing from me again for a while.'
'I've done something wrong,' Rubble immediately said. 'Not injecting her - was that it?'
‘Agent White, you have done nothing wrong. It’s just regulations. Now, I really must be going,' he held out a hand and Rubble shook it uncertainly.
Then he got out of the car and looked on forlornly as Eric reversed back up the lane.
In the grey of early dawn he turned off the motorway and followed the signs for Fairwind Waterpark. Soon he had parked at the side of a small lake with a fenced off area next to it full of tarpaulin-covered sailing boats, masts rising at erratic angles into the slowly lightening sky. Only when he went to get the mobile phones from the glove compartment did he realise he'd forgotten to take Rubble's back. Cursing himself, he retrieved his own, scooped up the syringe from under the seat and got out of the car.
He walked to the water's edge and, standing on the top of a concrete slipway, opened up the back of the phone, ripped the SIM card out and ground it to pieces under his heel. Then he surveyed the perfect stillness of the lake before him. Hidden in the bullrushes on the other side, a coot made its chirruping call. Raising his arm he hurled the phone far out over the water. Its slowly turning shape cut though the still air, descending on a long arc before puncturing the glass-like surface. The splash was gone in a split second but a quivering wound remained, spreading slowly outwards.
Quickly now, Eric pulled the plunger from the syringe, spilling the contents over his hands. He flung both halves and the key into the dense reed bed to his side then held his glistening fingers up. A strangled noise escaped him and suddenly he stumbled forwards into the shallows. He waded out beyond the concrete slipway until his feet connected with the soft bottom of the lake. Falling to his knees, he held his hands below the water, churned them around in the gritty mud then furiously began rubbing one against the other.
Ripples from his activity advanced across the lake, meeting the last of those created by the phone's splash, engulfing and then overwhelming them. After several minutes Eric was finally satisfied. As he walked calmly back to his car, arms hanging limply at his sides, the drips that fell from his fingertips were tinged with yellow by the rising sun.
Getting back into his car, he concluded that all he had to do now was dispose of the remaining Euthanol and syringes back at his house. Then all means of connecting him to Rubble and any of the murders had been destroyed.
Chapter 39
'I'm sorry.' Lisa stifled her sobs behind the tissue as the crowded room looked on in shocked silence.
Clare gritted her teeth to suppress the waves of grief that were travelling up from her chest, making her lower lip tremble. With a voice hoarse from the lump in her throat, she tightened her grip around the other girl's shoulders and said quietly, 'You don't have to carry on.'
In the corner of the room, someone was hastily preparing a pot of coffee. On the padded seats, Julian tapped a biro slowly against the spine of a plastic folder.
'No, I want to. Michel wanted you all to know.' Resolutely, Lisa wiped her nose and dabbed at her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she continued. 'He tried ringing her from Brussels yesterday morning. When he couldn't get an answer he rang a neighbour. She went round with a spare key for the back door and found her ... found her ...' the sobbing started again and she struggled to make the next words comprehensible, ' ... dead in the bath.' Again she began to cry and various students and staff reached for cigarettes. After a few minutes Lisa was able to carry on. 'Michel flew straight back. The police think she had been sick in her bed and got up to clean herself off. It looks like she ran a bath, but must have passed out or fallen asleep after she got in.' Again she began to sob, choking on the words. 'Because she's so small, her feet didn't reach the other end of the bath. So she slid under the water and drowned.'
The room was silent. Eventually someone whispered to their neighbour, 'Was she really that drunk?'
Several people remembered her being unsteady on her feet, holding onto her husband for support. Lisa carried on, 'Michel told me to tell you all that no one must blame themselves for this. He said, if anything, it's his fault for bringing along so much champagne.'
Lighters clicked and matches flared as more cigarettes were lit.
The room was silent except for the tap, tap, tap of Julian's biro. Eventually he said, 'I wonder where this leaves the grant from the ESPRC? I presume it was awarded to the department and not Patricia personally?'
They all glared at him in silence.
Clare felt like she was sitting too close to a giant cinema screen; trying to absorb everything was making her feel dizzy and sick. Behind the mass of thoughts crazily playing out in her head was the sombre realisation that someone she admired and liked immensely was now dead. Needing to take her mind off the terrible news and all its consequences, she picked up a copy of the local paper lying on the coffee table. The right-hand column of the front page was topped by the headline, Leading academic dies in bath tragedy.
She read the first line again. 'Patricia Du Rey, a head of department at Manchester University has been found dead in her bath.'
Unable to look again at the photo of Patricia next to the University crest, Clare started turning the pages, eyes numbly wandering over the articles inside.
Someone else murmured, 'Where's Professor Maudsley? He must have been the last person with her.'
Lisa was looking at her nails as she quietly spoke. 'John, the security guard on duty that night, said Eric put her in a taxi not long after we'd all left. Said she looked really the worse for wear.'
Clare had reached page thirteen before a small paragraph - boxed off in the corner of the page - caught her eye. The headline read, War vet found dead.
Her vision seemed to tunnel in as she focused on the words.
'Albert Aldy, an ex-paratrooper who was decorated for his part in the Suez Crisis, has been found dead in his flat on Wood Road this Tuesday. Concerned neighbours, bothered by an unusual smell, first alerted the authorities. According to a council spokesman, the body had lain undiscovered "for several days". Albert - or Bert as he was more fondly known - lost his wife eight years ago and is not survived by any children.
A familiar figure around the city centre parks, usually wearing his old paratrooper's beret, Bert liked nothing more than to tell passers-by about his time in the army, especially his exploits on the rugby field when playing scrum-half for the Combined Armed Forces. The same council spokesman added that, clue to cutbacks, Bert's flat has now been boarded up.'
