The Mercy Seat Read online

  She loved that feeling. But it wasn’t enough.

  Seven thirty a.m.: her regular morning exercise session half completed. Four hundred sit-ups, eighty at a time, alternating extended legs. Sixty push-ups, three sets of twenty. Then side bends, stretches. All aerobic. Four sessions with the small weights.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  She missed her bag, the heaviness of it on her foot as she kicked it, the resistance when she punched it. She missed the gym, the machines, her sessions in the dojo. She missed running and cycling. She missed the free exertion, the exhilaration. The release of endorphins into her body, the only chemical change she dared allow herself these days.

  She needed the strict regime, the drug-free self-abnegation. Going back to her old ways was not an option.

  But she hated being stuck in the room with virtually nothing to show for it.

  She checked her watch. Nearly ten to eight. He would be here soon.

  Bending her left leg and straightening the right, holding it six inches off the floor, she breathed deeply once, twice, knotted and locked her fingers behind her head and started again.

  ‘One … two … three …’

  She reached fifty-four when the door opened. He stopped, stood there smirking.

  ‘I heard all that panting on the landing,’ he said. ‘Didn’t know whether to come in or not.’

  ‘Piss off,’ she gasped. ‘Fifty-five … fifty-six …’

  He entered carrying a paper bag, closed the door behind him. Yawned, then smiled.

  ‘You know you should get out more,’ he said. ‘Enjoy yourself for a change.’

  She ignored him, keeping her rate steady, uninhibited by his presence, until she reached eighty and lay flat on the floor, panting again.

  ‘Like you, you mean?’ she managed between gasps. ‘Have fun, did you?’

  The man smiled, took off his jacket, the leather soft and high grain, the tailoring several cuts above standard chain-store sweatshop wear. He draped it carefully over the back of a chair, folded his arms. He was in good shape, but there was narcissism to his actions; for his prone, gymhead partner a good body was an end in itself, but his was only a means to an end. However, he also practised martial arts and as such carried himself well, gracefully even, Peta had to admit.

  He placed the brown-paper bag on the table. ‘Coffee and croissant in there for you,’ he said, taking out his own. ‘Starbucks. Last night, right, business and pleasure? Can’t beat it.’

  She sat up, propped her body on her elbows, looked at him.

  ‘You’re going to catch something one of these days, you know that? Either that or get arrested.’

  He sighed, bit into his croissant, brushed crumbs away from his thighs. ‘Oh shut up and drink your coffee. It’s just good fun, Peta. And it brings in the money. God knows we need that.’

  Peta looked away. Said nothing.

  ‘And anyway,’ he continued, taking a mouthful of coffee, ‘I’m just there to watch, aren’t I, darling? Well, most of the time …’

  Peta sighed. ‘Amar …’

  ‘And,’ Amar said, ‘most of them have never seen an Asian poof before. Well, not outside an arranged marriage, anyway.’

  Peta stood up, wiped sweat from her body with the towel. She opened the bag, took out the coffee, had a sip. ‘You had any sleep?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope. You?’

  Peta shook her head. ‘Well, on and off. Not much.’

  ‘Go get some,’ he said. ‘I’ll take over here.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He smiled, gave a mock sniff. ‘Got something a little stronger than caffeine in my pocket. That’ll keep me going.’

  Amar knew she was looking at him, probably disapprovingly. He avoided her eyes. Kept his gaze on the window.

  ‘So did I miss anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really,’ said Peta, also looking towards the window. ‘Fat boy’s client left in the wee small hours.’

  ‘Positive ID?’

  ‘Not yet. Took a minicab. May have to take a chance, you know. Do a bit of shadowing next time he turns up.’

  Amar nodded. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Only that new boy. The light-skinned one.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Went out again. On his own.’

  ‘So? Don’t they all?’

  Peta frowned. ‘Yes, but he was … furtive. He circled the block a couple of times. Hid and waited. Like he was up to something and wanted to make sure he wasn’t being followed.’

  Amar raised an eyebrow. ‘Interesting. Where did he go?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘And then he went back there for the night after he was finished doing whatever?’

  Peta nodded. Amar looked thoughtful.

  ‘Maybe there’s more than one person we should be shadowing.’

  Peta nodded, began to gather up her things. ‘You going to be all right left here for a couple of hours?’

  Amar smiled. ‘I’ve got last night’s action to play back and keep me warm.’

  Peta grimaced. ‘Spare me.’

  ‘Hey, loosen up, ice queen,’ he said in his campest voice. ‘Does you good to let your hair down once in a while. You should try it.’

  Peta shook her head. ‘D’you need anything while I’m out?’

  ‘No, mum. I’m all right, mum.’

  Peta turned to go.

  ‘Oh, there is one thing …’

  She turned back to face him. He was smiling.

  ‘If you see Brad Pitt on your travels, I’ll have him.’

  Peta shook her head, opened the door, went out, slammed it behind her.

  Amar smiled.

  ‘Hugh Jackman would do,’ he said to himself, then returned his gaze to the window.

  He sipped his coffee, finished off his croissant.

  Something’ll happen soon, he thought. Something’s got to give.

  He kept watching the house. The morning wore on.

  Mikey Blackmore surveyed the crowd. About thirty of them, he reckoned. He shook his head. Surely they must have something better to do with their lunchtimes, he thought.

  He waited until the last of them had made it to the top floor, waited until everyone had admired the 1959 Sunbeam Alpine, waited until they had admired the view.

  Then went into his act, his spiel.

  ‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, if I can have your attention …’

  The crowd turned to face him. Showtime.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, pumping up his fake enthusiasm. ‘The highlight of the tour. Brumby’s Demon King Castle.’ He smiled. Most of them smiled in return.

  ‘Now, we’ll be moving inside the restaurant area, which, of course, as we know has never actually been a restaurant.’ A little laugh at that. ‘But first, if you’ll all stand back, we’ll have the scene where Glenda rescues Jack and takes him to see Brumby.’

  The crowd moved back, knowing what would be coming next. A blonde actress walked to the car and got behind the wheel, starting the engine. An actor in a black trenchcoat came from within the crowd and got in next to her. The car went round a corner and up a ramp to the next level of the multi-storey car park, where it sat idling. The crowd followed, huddled around. The actress turned off the engine and, when the audience was in place, began her scene.

  Mikey stood at the back, keeping his distance. Sometimes he couldn’t believe what he did to make a living. Or one of the things.

  The Get Carter tour had started by accident, a group of film enthusiasts having a laugh with their friends, walking round Newcastle and Gateshead, reciting chunks of dialogue to each other in what was left of the old film locations and then heading off to the pub.

  But it had grown; money was charged and professionally aspirant actors were employed to act out scenes. And a tour guide needed to ferry the punters round, set the scene. Once they had met Mikey and found out about his background – his pedigree, as they insisted on referring to it in th
e interview, oblivious to his discomfort – the organizers had almost begged him to take the job.

  He watched the scene progress, noticed how the young lad playing Jack Carter had tried to lower his voice, narrow his eyes in approximation of Michael Caine’s performance. Thought it made him a hard man, a killer.

  Mikey shook his head. The lad had no idea.

  Mikey pulled his old overcoat around him. Oxfam’s finest, at least one size too large for his scrawny frame, but it kept the wind from his bones. The top of the car park could get cold. He ignored the holes in his trainers.

  The scene played out, the audience applauded. Mikey took his cue, stepped forward.

  ‘Well done,’ he said, ‘well done. The plot thickens, eh? Right, well, I’ll give you a chance to get your photos taken with the car and then we’ll move inside, into the restaurant for five more scenes.’ He held up a finger. ‘Number one: Brumby offers Jack five grand to get rid of Kinear.’

  He held up another finger. ‘Number two. Carter kidnaps Thorpey and returns to the boarding house. Number three.’

  A third finger. ‘Carter meets Margaret at the crematorium, then quizzes her on the Iron Bridge. You saw it on the way over here. Number four.’

  A fourth finger. ‘Back to Brumby’s house. You’re a big man, but you’re out of shape …’

  The inevitable cheer went up. Mikey smiled along with them, waited for it to subside, then held up the thumb of his right hand.

  ‘Number five. Carter and Glenda. I know you wear purple underwear.’

  A smaller cheer, accompanied by a more knowing laugh.

  ‘Then it’s back over to the Bridge Hotel for the final scene and a pint.’

  He looked around again, paused to allow his words to sink in, then said: ‘Any questions?’

  Silence, then, when he was about to move on,

  ‘Yeah. What’s it feel like to kill someone?’

  Mikey’s head jerked swiftly round. The words hit him so hard, so fast and unexpected, that it was like being stung from a fierce slap.

  ‘What? Who said that?’

  A laugh this time, either of embarrassment or anticipation, then the same voice. ‘I said, what’s it feel like to kill someone?’

  Mikey felt suddenly hot inside his overcoat. He could feel the eyes of the crowd on him, expectant, waiting. Even the two actors were looking at him, waiting for him to answer their proxy questioner, to answer the question they hadn’t dared ask for themselves.

  The feeling swelled within the crowd. Mikey sensed it. This was it, they seemed to be thinking, the real thing. Not actors playing Hollywood stars playing hard men but the genuine article.

  Mikey’s stomach turned over.

  He located the questioner, sized him up immediately. A smug, southern student, well fed and educated yet dressed as if he couldn’t afford decent clothes, his accent a ridiculously affected mockney.

  Mikey stared him in the eye.

  The student laughed, but it was a nervous snort.

  The crowd waited.

  Mikey stared even harder at the student, anger rising. He wanted him not just scared but terrorized. He wanted to show him what happened when you opened your mouth and asked a convicted killer such a stupid question. He wanted to slap him stupid in front of all these people, teach them all a lesson. He wanted the student never to do that again.

  Mikey’s gaze was unblinking, unflinching. The student began to look scared.

  And Mikey sighed, broke eye contact, shook his head. He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t feel those things, think those thoughts again.

  ‘Worse than you’ll ever know,’ he said. His voice held no trace of the hardness the crowd wanted.

  Only regret and sadness.

  The student looked away, relieved Mikey wasn’t staring at him any more, confused by the response, even embarrassed that he had asked the question.

  Mikey turned his gaze from him, let his eyes travel around the rest of the group. He felt he had failed them. Failed to live up to their expectations.

  He didn’t care.

  ‘Right,’ he said, aiming for lightness but his voice falling flat. ‘Let’s make our way up to the restaurant. Let’s see how the drama unfolds.’

  The crowd, feeling that somehow the atmosphere had deflated, the excitement gone, began to make their way up the ramp.

  Mikey waited until they were well ahead, then followed them.

  Turnbull looked at the woman in front of him. And his heart went out to her. As a detective sergeant with the Northumbria police, he knew all about professional detachment. Practised it most times. But a pretty girl in distress needing comfort and closure, looking towards him to provide it, was the perfect victim. And he needed a victim. His focus demanded it.

  Turnbull saw the world in terms of moral absolutes; everything was black and white. There were victims. There was a good guy. Him. There were bad guys who had to be caught. By him. And anyone who stood in the way of that was on their side. Monochromatic and proud of it, even down to his dress sense. Black suit, white shirt. He could almost be taken for a rabid Newcastle United fan. And was.

  He sat forward on the sofa, legs apart, black and white check tie hanging down. He wore what he hoped was a sympathetic expression. His senior partner, DI Nattrass, was doing most of the talking. He nodded occasionally to show he was listening.

  Nattrass, stocky and plain-looking enough to be a lesbian, Turnbull thought, had on her soothing voice, the one she used to impart delicate information. Bad news or no news. No news, in this instance.

  ‘We’ve found a sighting of him on CCTV at Newcastle station, and then a similar camera at King’s Cross. And then nothing more, I’m afraid.’ She leaned forward, eyes locking with the other woman’s. ‘Do you have any idea at all what he could have been doing down there?’

  Caroline Huntley sighed. And Turnbull got a picture of her as she would have been a week ago: back and forth to work as head of personnel for a city bank, dinner dates with a boyfriend, nights out with girlfriends, nights in with a DVD, a glass of wine and a bar of fruit and nut. Two-week holiday in Greece or Portugal. A normal life. A happy life. A life unaware of nightmares.

  She was trying her best to hold herself together. Her fingers, curling and uncurling the edge of a newspaper in front of her until it was shredded, gave her away. So did the unwashed, long blonde hair, the clothes unchanged for the last couple of days. She would have been very attractive under normal circumstances, Turnbull thought. Her situation just increased that attractiveness.

  She shook her head. ‘No … He never … no …’

  ‘We’ve spoken to his work colleagues,’ said Turnbull, ‘but they can’t tell us anything either.’

  Caroline nodded. The two police officers said nothing.

  ‘Don’t …’ Caroline stared at the paper before her, the headline telling of the hunt for the missing scientist. ‘Don’t they say that the first forty-eight hours are crucial in missing persons cases?’

  ‘They do, yes,’ said Nattrass. ‘But that doesn’t mean to say you have to give up hope. We’re doing all we can to find your father.’

  Caroline nodded. He had been gone over two days now. And, barring a sighting in King’s Cross, there was no trace. He had left behind no clues and a distraught daughter.

  Turnbull looked around the room. The block of flats was 1960s built, all Le Corbusier angularity, and Caroline’s décor was a twenty-first-century version of that, with the added warmth of earth tones: wood, creams and browns. Both modern and homely. All around were bouquets of flowers, most of them wilted, dying.

  His eyes alighted on a photo by the TV. Caroline, Colin Huntley and a woman who was presumably her mother. There was a happiness in the photo as if they were good people and nothing bad would ever happen in their lives. And here they were: the father missing, the mother dead from a nasty form of cancer and the daughter before them.

  Turnbull felt her pain all the more.

  Her face when she had opened the
door, despair and hope fighting each other for prominence. The disappointment when they told her of the CCTV footage. The hope that it might lead to a discovery. The fear of what that might be.

  They talked for a while longer, inconsequential stuff, Nattrass reassuring Caroline that they were doing all they could to find her father.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Turnbull, ‘we’ll find him.’

  Both Caroline and Nattrass looked at him. Nattrass shook her head.

  Then they left.

  Outside the block of flats Nattrass turned to Turnbull.

  ‘You can put your tongue back now,’ she said.

  Turnbull looked angry. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I saw the way you looked at her.’

  Turnbull felt himself reddening. ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘And what was all that about? “We’ll find him”? What if we don’t?’

  Turnbull shrugged. Kept what he had been about to say to himself.

  ‘Professional detachment,’ said Nattrass with only a hint of condescension. ‘Remember that.’

  She turned, walked away to the car.

  Professional detachment, thought Turnbull, walking behind her. You can shove it up your arse.

  He watched. She had no idea.

  He watched her get up in the morning, get into her Beetle, drive to work. Brave the slug-slow snarl-up once she reached Jesmond’s Osborne Road, then down into Newcastle city itself.

  Park. Heels clack-clacking, echoing round the all-but-deserted multi-storey as she walked towards the lift.

  Any time, he thought. He could have taken her any time at all.

  Had he wanted to.

  He knew her lunch friends, her lunch haunts, her lunch menus.

  He knew which days she drove, which days she took the Metro. Which bars, clubs, cinemas, restaurants she frequented after work.

  But not tonight.

  The day had dissipated, night rolling in. He sat opposite her block of flats in Jesmond, his car hidden by overhanging trees, outside the radius of the streetlights.

  Watching. Waiting.

  No going out for her this week. Just stuck in her flat, frantic with worry, praying for good news. Any news.