Room 15: a gripping psychological mystery thriller Read online

  It’s a voice I recognise without a second’s thought.

  12

  Sometimes, my mind moves so easily from memory to memory that no join is visible. Jumping through time. Seamless. For a few glorious minutes, I forget that I forget. Then, it starts all over again. I spot a mistake, a small rift in the fabric of things. Like a movie projection that’s slipped out of place. I remember the broken glass, the smell of spilled wine. I’m standing in the road again watching the snow falling. And the horror returns.

  Even now, as I drive Laura’s Prius out of London at almost three in the morning, I don’t know why I’m here. For one frightening moment, I search around me, desperate for clues but there’s nothing, no notes or map on the seat beside me.

  Then after a minute of terror, I remember. I’m driving to meet the person who answered the phone. My father.

  What did Paul say when he picked up the phone?

  He mumbled. He sounded less than coherent.

  I said, ‘You remember me calling you yesterday evening?’

  He paused a long time and finally said, ‘Yes.’

  I said, ‘I don’t think we should talk about this over the phone.’

  And he said, ‘Well, I’m awake, aren’t I, Ross? I’ll put the kettle on.’

  I see one pair of tail lights far ahead and in the mirror a pair of headlamps a long way back. The snow has stopped, but, like me, neither of the other drivers trusts the conditions enough to go at more than thirty miles an hour. I turn left off the A1 and I’m on my own. The countryside lies dark and the air through the part-opened window is pure and hard. Stars glimmer against the blackness as clear as a church painting. Like God is returning to the world. This is something simple I can concentrate on. A moment later, the headlamps flicker back into sight behind.

  With the reappearance of this other car, tiredness has suddenly gone. Am I being followed? A sulphur-lit roundabout rushes up. The Prius’ tyres hiss on the ice. On an impulse, I swerve left onto a side road, tyres skidding, back into the darkness of the woods. In the mirror there is nothing but night, dense and undivided. I was imagining it, jumping at shadows. I relax my grip.

  Then the headlights reappear, glinting on the snow. I press on the accelerator, fighting the rising dread that the world is once more out of my control. White hedgerows shimmer past the beam of my lights. I lift my foot. The engine quietens, the Prius shifts into electric mode. I see the car behind begin to catch up before the driver realises his mistake and drops back. I wait thirty seconds then push down fast on the pedal. For a second, the lights fall back out of sight and then they reappear once more. There is no doubt now. I’m travelling dangerously fast for the narrow snow-covered lane, dark fences whipping past on either side, but still the car keeps pace behind.

  Is it him? The man who tried to kill me? Despite my fears, the very fact of being followed is something I can add to my small collection of certainties. The only way to fight uncertainty is certainty. Solid evidence.

  While I’m thinking this, I feel the Prius’ tyres start to skid. Desperately, I struggle to bring the car under control. The road twists sharply. I brake, seeing the tree line approach sooner than I wanted, taking the corner too fast. And still the other car is following.

  A pub hisses past, locked and sleeping, a village church and its cluster of dark gravestones, a single snowy van parked tight by a wall, then woodland swallows us again.

  I’m growing angry at being constantly one step behind. I need to do something. Take the initiative. The satnav shows a curve ahead and a side turning fifty metres beyond. As I approach the bend, I brake deliberately. As I hoped, the other car drops back.

  I round the curve and when I’m out of sight I speed up again. Elated, I spot the side turning ahead, a lane between trees and a fence. The snow has frozen hard, so I’ll leave no tracks.

  I wrench the steering wheel. The Prius heads for the turnoff, but I’ve left it too late. Tyres slide. I miss the turn and, to my horror, the car’s spinning.

  I fight to stay on the road, cursing myself. The trees rush past the windscreen. With a bang, I hit the fence sideways and crunch to a halt. The Prius stops at an angle, facing back the way I came, blocking the road, and the engine dies. Urgently, I start it again and try to move the car. But there’s an awful scraping sound from the front and I give up.

  I can hear the whine of the other car approaching, struggling to slow for the bend. And then it appears, a red Vauxhall Astra, heading straight at me, single driver, blinded by my lights, full in his face. I grapple with the unfamiliar door handle, scramble out into the cold night air as he swerves, almost hits me, clips the front of the Toyota inches from my leg, skids off the road and tips into a shallow ditch.

  Then silence. Nothing but the crack of snow falling from heavy branches.

  Instinctively, I run round the back of the Prius, sliding hazardously on the flat ice, jerk open the hatch door, search fearfully for something heavy, and find a tyre jack and kit, strapped to its place with Velcro. I pull the strips apart and tug out the wheel wrench.

  Over in the Astra, nobody moves. I slip and slide across the road, feeling stupid, grab the back of the other car for balance, reach the door and yank it open. There’s just the one man, holding onto the steering wheel in shock. I grab him by the hair and drag him out, head first, onto the ground, his legs caught in his seat belt, his head cracking on the ice-covered tarmac. I raise the wrench.

  He shouts and tries to shield himself. This one is round-faced, in a thick grey Puffa jacket. And I scream back, ‘What do you want? Why the fuck are you following me?’

  I strike down hard. As I do, he desperately squirms sideways, but the wrench catches him on the arm with a nauseating thud. I want to hit him again. To hurt someone. Anyone. He tries to protect himself, to wriggle away, but his legs are trapped.

  And he goes, ‘Boss, it’s me. It’s me, boss, it’s me, it’s me. Boss, it’s Becks, man. Me. Stop. Put the wrench down. Please.’ Like that’s all he knows to say.

  I go, ‘Who the fuck is Becks?’ and, ‘Why are you following me?’

  He reaches a hand towards his jacket pocket and I raise the wrench again.

  ‘No!’ he shrieks.

  I shout at him to stay still, desperately wanting to take my anger out on this man who is screwing with my mind. I pull open his jacket and take out a warrant card. It reads: Detective Constable Behzad Parvin.

  ‘Who’s Becks?’ I ask.

  ‘Me. You know me. My nickname, man. Behzad – Becks. You know me, boss. Put that down, please. It’s me.’

  I ask again why he’s following me. He hesitates. I raise the wrench.

  ‘Gerry said.’

  ‘Gerry told you?’

  ‘DCI Gardner.’

  I look down at this man, half sprawled out of his car. How do I know what to think? How do I know if I believe him?

  ‘Becks,’ I say, lowering the wheel wrench, and he nods.

  13

  I gaze around the icy lane. The only houses I can see are a distance away behind trees, and no one has appeared to investigate. The man who calls himself Becks scrambles shakily to his feet. I decide to play along and pretend to know him. He rubs his arm and then anxiously inspects his car. It seems he’s more concerned about the Vauxhall than his bruises. He spends some time examining a cracked sidelight where it hit the Prius and some dents on the bonnet where it went nose-first off the road, and while he does, I study his face. It’s soft with dark stubble. He sees me looking and gives me a surprisingly warm smile.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, you scared me there, boss,’ he says and climbs into the ditch to check the front wheels.

  I continue to play the game and say he freaked me out. I couldn’t see his face in the dark. He glances at me guiltily and scratches his chin.

  ‘Yeah. Sorry,’ he says, this stranger who calls me boss. ‘Look, I reckon this ditch is shallow enough to have a chance of getting my car out.’

  So I help him push rubber
floor mats under the tyres, but all the time I keep the wheel wrench close at hand. He seems childishly happy when the engine starts, gives a cheer and thumps the steering wheel with pleasure. With me pushing the front, he inches back up from the ditch onto the road. For the most part he seems patient and practical, but then he’ll suddenly do something thoughtless, like forcing the throttle too urgently, throwing up a spray of ice and grit that narrowly misses me. I yell at him and jump to one side. He merrily shouts sorry.

  On first inspection, Laura’s car seems to have received less damage. The front nearside wing is jammed into the tyre, which must be why I couldn’t move it before. Annoyed with myself, I force the wrench between the wing and the wheel and lever it away. As far as I can tell, the tyre is still intact, but when I start the engine there’s a most unpleasant rattling. I lean out and say that the Toyota isn’t going to get me far.

  ‘No sweat, boss,’ says Becks. ‘I’ll drive you. The Vox is fine.’ He gives it a fond pat like a proud parent.

  ‘You like it?’ I say.

  ‘I bought it with my first police pay. It’s never been any trouble.’ He catches my eye. ‘Which is more than I can say for the job.’ He grins warmly. His emotions seem to change moment by moment, like a child’s.

  I don’t want to leave the Prius out here in the middle of nowhere, but Becks points out we’re close to the South Mimms services, if it can get there. I climb painfully into the driving seat, wait as he turns the Vauxhall round and we begin the drive back. He’s dimly visible ahead, silhouetted from time to time in the headlamps of the few oncoming cars. After a mile, I see his head move: he looks down to his left. A quarter of a mile further on, he does the same thing.

  I’m close enough to read his licence plate. At three twenty in the morning there’s almost no traffic, even here, so I feel safe taking out my work mobile, holding the steering wheel with one hand, and calling for a vehicle check. It comes back as belonging to a Detective Constable Behzad Parvin.

  I search for the name Becks on my contacts list. It’s there. On impulse I phone the number and see Becks’ head move as it did before. So it was his phone he was using earlier. He answers. I invent a trivial question and then ring off.

  The Prius doesn’t sound good and I’m relieved when we reach the M25 and turn into South Mimms, the enormous car park gleaming under high sodium lights. I stop beside Becks and leave a note and my Met Police business card inside the Prius’ windscreen so that it doesn’t get towed. Then I open the Astra’s side door to get in. The passenger seat is covered with old sandwich cartons, takeaway coffee cups and a copy of The Mail, all of which he gathers up and slings into the back with an infectious grin and another apology. He seems good at apologies.

  ‘Where to, boss?’ he says.

  I tell him the address, without mentioning that it’s where my father lives, and he doesn’t show any signs of recognition. Instead he puts the address into a satnav clipped onto his dashboard, turns out of the car park and heads north again.

  He has an easy-going expression, big hands, thick dark brows and the warm manner of a large friendly dog. I imagine he is good at getting people to relax and open up, but I still don’t know if I trust him. I twist round in the seat. ‘You were following me. What the fuck’s that about?’

  He hesitates.

  ‘You said DCI Gardner told you to. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe my boss told you to tail my car.’

  ‘It’s true, sir. Kind of.’

  I note the ‘sir’. Is that a sign of respect or is he trying to put me off my guard? ‘What does “kind of” mean?’

  He overtakes a Tesco delivery lorry and glances across at me. ‘I’d come on duty at ten and was catching up on paperwork in the main office when Gerry… when DCI Gardner phoned and told me you’d been attacked and gone AWOL. He needed a copper he could trust to watch out for you.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘I drove to your house as fast as I could and managed not to hit a couple of night buses on the way.’ He has a soft voice, very south London, and quiet, so that sometimes I have to lean across to hear what he’s saying. I wave a hand for him to continue. ‘When I got there, everything was dark. Then I saw you open a curtain and look out. I texted Gerry and told him you were there. I was going to go in and speak to you, but then you came out and took off in the Prius. I thought I’d tag along in case you needed help. But you scared me, man. Back there on the road. When I thought you didn’t know who I was.’

  He glances across at me again. He has an air I’ve seen in many young coppers. Eager. Like a big hairy Labrador that simply wants to run around fast and be petted.

  ‘You phoned someone,’ I say and I’m speaking softly myself. ‘You phoned someone in your car when we were driving just now.’

  ‘I didn’t call no one,’ he says.

  ‘I saw you. I saw you look down.’

  ‘I sent another text. I texted Gerry Gardner that we’d joined up.’

  ‘And the second time? You looked down twice.’

  He smiles and shakes his head. ‘I was checking to see if there was a reply, wasn’t I?’

  I wait, silently, not knowing if I believe a word he’s said. He looks down at my hands. Instinctively I glance down too. Blood is seeping through the plaster.

  ‘You should get that stitched, boss,’ he says.

  I shake my head. ‘I’ve had enough of hospitals for tonight.’

  I look DC Behzad Parvin in the eye and I still don’t know whose side he’s on, but at the same time how long can I do this on my own? The heat in the car is stifling and I have a desperate urge to stretch, but when I do it makes no difference. I sit straight again. The man called Becks focuses on the road without another word.

  Some miles further, I tell him to turn off onto a dark slip road and then a darker side road. The Vauxhall winds up a hill steep enough to make me worry that the tyres might not grip, but Becks seems to have total confidence in his battered old car and accelerates with enthusiasm. We pass a faded snow-capped sign for summer fruit picking. Then a bright sign to the mobile park: Grove Homes, Your Affordable Housing Solution. It leaves a floating after-image in the night, a sad blinking logo of an affordable house in negative.

  We turn into the icy entrance, headlight beams sweeping across rows of chalets. The most impressive look like small cottages, with porches and manicured plants bowed under the snow. The more ‘affordable’ housing solutions are little better than immobile mobile homes. I tell Becks to stop at the far end, near a caravan half lit by a security light. A rusty green Renault Megane stands nearby. This is where my father lives, has lived since he resigned from the force.

  Becks turns off the engine and goes to open his door but I put a hand out to stop him.

  ‘Stay here,’ I say. He doesn’t look well pleased, but I leave him in the car and limp with difficulty across the slippery ground.

  The door opens the moment I press the bell and Paul’s face appears, grey with the night-time. He hesitates as if he’s waiting for me to say something, but I don’t, so he steps back to let me through. Only there’s not much space, so he pulls his stomach in without a smile.

  I push past into his lounge and he follows, wheezing. Large jeans, an old baggy T-shirt; he looks heavier than I remember and more stooped. He waves a thick arm towards one of the battered armchairs and I’m surprised how willingly I sink into it, how much I still ache, how muzzy my head still feels. He offers a drink. I ask for a strong tea and wait while he squeezes himself into the kitchenette. Again I feel the anxiety levels rise. What does Paul know about me that I don’t? What have we been to each other in the last eighteen months?

  But at least his immobile home hasn’t changed. No matter the years he’s been here, my father still moves around inside like a visitor in a foreign country. Every possession looks as if it’s in transit. Here and there I see ornaments I grew up with. A plastic Leaning Tower of Pisa from some long-forgotten holiday, a bowl of glass fruit my mother lo
ved but which hasn’t been dusted for some time.

  He returns with a police mug for me and a can of Carlsberg Export for himself and drops into the other armchair. He’s watching me even as he looks like he isn’t, eyes watery and unfocused. He’s holding me in his peripheral vision. That was one of the tricks I picked up off him.

  Why him? Why, of all people, was he the one I phoned last night?

  ‘You keep this place in shape,’ I say, determined to stay in good humour.

  ‘I do okay,’ Paul says, tugging open his ring pull and contemplating the can as if it contains the meaning of life. ‘I’ve been house-trained. I hire out too. You want my business card?’

  As it happens, I remember once having his card; one of my DCs in a previous posting picked it up at a security conference. After Paul left the force, he put himself about as a private security adviser and was hired by businessmen who felt the need to be more secure for one reason or another – British, Russian, Chinese, whatever. He also worked the more downmarket clubs from time to time, supervising their bouncers and helping out on the door. The sleazier operations liked to have someone on their side who’d had connections with the force. They reasoned he might get wind of a raid or put in a good word if needed.

  Sometimes, I’d heard, he might get a call from an old criminal contact – a small-time dealer who’d got out of his depth, say, or a hooker who’d been threatened by her pimp and wanted assistance of a more direct nature. Even with the extra weight he’d put on, he could still frighten people.

  Now he peers at my face, neck and hands as if he’s just noticed them. ‘That must hurt.’

  ‘Not as much as it could.’ In fact my neck is getting worse, but I’m determined not to tell him that.