Recall, page 11
You sip your coffee. ‘I don’t think I did pull the trigger, and deep down I don’t think I’m a thief. But I was at the house. I was in Johnston’s car. I can hardly claim to be an innocent bystander.’
You finish your sandwich and sip your coffee. She’s only halfway through her sandwich, she’s nibbling whereas you wolfed yours down.
‘I think Maggie had the right idea, taking me back to the house,’ you say.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the one thing likely to trigger my memory.’
‘But it didn’t, did it? You went and you’ve still got amnesia.’
‘We only parked outside. And we weren’t there for more than a minute or two before the Russians grabbed us.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘You’re thinking of going back, aren’t you?’
You force a smile. ‘If I go to the police now I’m at a huge disadvantage. I can’t answer any of their questions, can I? I still can’t remember anything that happened before the crash. If I tell them my name is Tom Fisher then I’m identifying myself as a hacker at best, a career criminal at worst.’ You frown. ‘No, they took my prints and there wasn’t a match so I don’t have a criminal record. Or at least Tom Fisher doesn’t. The point is, without my memory I’m not in a position to defend yourself. I need to get inside that house. That’s where everything happened so if anything is going to bring my memory back it’s that.’
She grimaces. ‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea,’ she says. ‘Better you just tell the police everything and let them investigate.’
‘That’s the problem though, Adeya. I don’t have anything to tell them.’
‘You can tell them about the Russians.’
‘Except that I don’t know who they are.’
‘They must have known about the robbery.’
‘That’s true.’
‘You could give them a description and they could look for them.’
You try to smile and look as relaxed as you can. You know where four of them are. Dead in the warehouse outside Croydon. ‘I just think that I’d be better prepared if I at least knew what happened in the house. As it is, the police can accuse me of anything and I can’t deny it.’ You can see that she’s worried. ‘Look, I’m not involving you, I’ll get a taxi to take me there.’
‘The police will be looking for you,’ she says.’
‘I’ll wear a disguise.’
That makes her smile. ‘You’re crazy.’
‘You’re even crazier for helping me.’
She nods. ‘I trust you,’ she says. ‘I know at heart you’re a good guy.’ She looks at her watch. ‘I’ll take you,’ she says.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I know I don’t have to. I want to. You’ll be safer. I’ll run you out there and you can have a look around.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t sure,’ she says. ‘I meant it when I said that I trusted you. I don’t really understand what you’ve got yourself involved in, but I want to help you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘All part of the National Health Service.’ She laughs and you laugh with her. She looks at her watch again. ‘Let’s go now, before it gets dark.’
CHAPTER 22
Adeya brings the Ford Fiesta to a halt on the opposite side of the road to the house. ‘It’s big,’ she says. She’s right. It’s huge. More of a mansion than a house. You’re sitting low in the front passenger seat with an Arsenal baseball cap pulled low over your face. Adeya drove along the road twice, up and down, and you are sure there’s no one sitting in any vehicles close to the house, and definitely no Range Rovers.
‘Does it look familiar?’ Adeya asks and you’re not sure what to say. In a way it does, the same as it did when Maggie and Peter brought you here, and in a way it doesn’t, which of course is no help. You have no memory of seeing the house before, let alone of being inside, but there is something familiar about it.
‘I can’t see any police, can you?’ you ask.
‘It looks deserted,’ says Adeya. ‘So does it ring any bells at all?’
‘I have a feeling that I’ve been here before, but no specific memory. But it looks like the sort of place you’d see in an episode of Midsomer Murders.’
‘This is what I don’t understand about your memory loss,’ says Adeya. ‘You can remember a TV show that started running what, almost thirty years ago. But you can’t remember your own name.’
You nod, because she’s right. You can remember that actor John Nettles played Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, so why is your own name a complete blank? Maggie said your name is Tom Fisher but no matter how many times you repeat it to yourself, there’s no feeling of familiarity.
‘I’d really like to get inside,’ you say. ‘That might help me remember,’
‘You want to break in? I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘I don’t know. When you put it like that, it sounds crazy.’
‘It’s not crazy. I get that it might spark a memory. But it’s a criminal offence, breaking into someone’s house.’
‘I’m not asking you to get involved, Adeya.’
‘I am involved, or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Maggie told me that we got in through the back. Through the garden of the house that backs on to this one.’
‘There’s a burglar alarm box above the front door.’
‘There was an alarms expert on our team.’
‘I meant if you tried to get in now, you’d have to deal with the alarm.’
You smile. ‘Now you’re thinking like a housebreaker,’ you say.
She laughs and that makes you smile. She has a cute laugh, like a schoolgirl’s giggle. ‘I am definitely not a housebreaker,’ she says. ‘I’m just pointing out that you probably won’t be able to get inside.’
‘It depends on whether or not the police or forensics people were able to set the burglar alarm when they left. The owner of the house is dead and there doesn’t appear to be anyone else living there.’
‘Now you’re the one who is definitely thinking like a housebreaker,’ she says.
‘It’s not about breaking in, it’s about getting inside to see if that jogs my memory. It’s not as if I’d be in there to steal something.’
‘I’m sure the police would understand,’ she says.
‘I really hope that I can get in and out without the police knowing,’ you say.
Her eyes harden. ‘You’re serious, aren't you? You want to break in?’
‘I want to get in, Adeya. There’s a difference. I just want to get in and have a look around. If I’m lucky it’ll help me remember and at least then when I go to the police I’ll be able to give them some sort of explanation for what happened.’
She looks at you for several seconds before nodding. ‘Okay, I’ll drive you around.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘You’ve less chance of being spotted while you’re in the car,’ she says, and you can’t fault her logic.
She pulls away from the kerb, drives down the road and makes the turn. You keep the cap pulled low over your face and keep a careful watch on the parked cars that you pass. Eventually she comes to a stop. ‘I don’t see anyone watching,’ she says.
You look over at the house. It’s a semi-detached, a good deal smaller than the Johnston house. There’s a wall running around both houses but it’s only waist high so you can get a good look at them. They are mirror images, a bow window on the ground floor, a door with a porch, and two bedroom windows on the upper floor. The house on the left has ivy crawling over the side and a paved driveway. The house on the right has no ivy and a neatly trimmed grass lawn.
‘I don’t think anyone is at home,’ she says. ‘Does this look familiar?’
You nod. ‘It does. But it’s just a feeling.
‘I think they both back on to the garden of the big house,’ she says. ‘Do you know which one you went through?’
You shake your head.
‘I’ll check to see if anyone is at home,’ she says. ‘Better I go then you do. A woman can get away with a lot with a dizzy smile.’
‘Adeya, you’ve done enough,’ you say. ‘You can leave me here.’
‘And what if there’s someone home and they call the police? Then it’s all over for you. Just stay in the car while I ring the bell. It’ll only take a couple of minutes and then we’ll know if the coast is clear.’
You smile. ‘Now you definitely sound like a housebreaker,’ you say.
She smiles and climbs out of the car. You watch as she walks over to the gate, pushes it open, and heads up to the front door. She reaches the porch and rings the doorbell. She stands looking up at the bedroom windows and after a minute or so she rings the bell again. Eventually she walks back to the car and gets in. ‘Nobody home,’ she says.
‘I’ll give it a go,’ you say, reaching for the door handle. ‘Thanks for all this, Adeya. I really, really appreciate it.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ she says.
‘You don’t have to,’ you say.
‘I want to,’ she says. ‘You’ll be safer if there are two pairs of eyes. And if there’s a problem, we’ll have the car.’
‘So now you’re a getaway driver as well?’
‘I just think you need help, Phil.’
You smile at that. She’s still calling you Phil. ‘You might get into trouble and I don’t want that.’
‘I read somewhere that trespass is a civil offence. So long as we don’t do any damage, no offence has been committed. All we’re doing is taking a short cut through a garden. There’s no one home here and the big house looks empty. It’s pretty much zero risk. And if I do go, where do you go afterwards?’
‘My plan was call the police at some point. They’ll pick me up.’
‘If you do that, you’ll want to be well away from here. Picking you up at the house is going to give the wrong impression, isn’t it?’
Again it’s difficult to fault her logic.
You get out of the car and she locks it. She takes the lead and you follow her around the side of the house. The rear garden is neat and tidy with a small lawn surrounded by flower beds. In the far left corner is a garden shed. At the bottom of the garden is a tall privet hedge and beyond it you can see the back of the Johnston house. ‘Does any of this look familiar?’ she asks.
It’s not an easy question to answer. There’s nothing that you specifically remember but there is a feeling of familiarity about the place, as if you had been there before. Déjà vu? ‘Maybe,’ you say.
She walks along the lawn to the shed. You look over your shoulder at the house behind you. There’s no sign of life.
Adeya slips behind the shed. ‘Look at this,’ she says, pointing at a gap in the hedge. ‘Someone has forced their way through here.’ She points down at the soil. ‘And those are definitely foot prints.’
You look down at the marks in the soil. In a perfect world you’d be able to match the prints in the soil to your shoes but the soil has been pretty much flattened and you can’t really make out individual prints. But someone has definitely pushed their way through the hedge, and recently. ‘You can leave me here, Adeya,’ you say.
‘I’ll come with you to the house,’ she says.
‘I don’t want to get you into trouble.’
‘We’re not doing anything wrong,’ she says. ‘And anyway, from the look of it both houses are unoccupied. We’ll be in and out before anyone is any wiser.’
Before you can say anything she bends down and pushes her way through the hedge. You follow. It’s a bit of a struggle and you get scratches on your hands and face but in a matter of seconds you are through. You stand in the garden, breathing heavily. Again a feeling of déjà vu washes over you. Not a memory as such, just a feeling that you have been in this situation before.
The garden you are standing in is probably ten times the size of the one behind you. There’s a large gazebo to the left and a clump of apple trees to the right. The garden is surrounded by tall hedges and you stick close to the hedge to your left as you follow Adeya to the house.
You pass an ornamental pond stocked with large striped koi fish, then cross a paved area with Japanese lanterns. On the other side of the garden is a large terrace with a brick barbecue that looked as if it could comfortably provide food for several dozen people. You keep looking up at the house as you walk towards it, but there are no signs of life.
You reach a set of patio doors and peer through. It’s a library, from the look of it. Or a study. Lots of bookshelves, two large overstuffed Chesterfields and several winged armchairs. A wicker basket filled with logs next to a massive cast iron fireplace. Further along is a terrace with a large outdoor table shielded from the sun by two spreading umbrellas. You walk to the terrace. A glass door leads to the kitchen. You peer inside. It looks like a showroom, all gleaming marble work surfaces and stainless steel appliances. You examine the lock. Adeya joins you.
‘Is this how you got in last time?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know.’
‘None of this looks familiar?’
‘It does and it doesn’t,’ you say. ‘I certainly don’t remember being here, but I keep getting a feeling of déjà vu.’
‘Isn’t that the same?’
‘No, because you’re here when I get the déjà vu feeling, not Maggie and Peter. It feels as if I’ve been here with you and that’s impossible. It feels like there’s a short circuit in my brain, as if my memory is now in a loop.’
‘Like Groundhog Day.’
You can’t help but smile. ‘Exactly.’
She pulls at the door handle. It’s locked. ‘The patio doors are a better bet,’ she says.
‘How would you even know that?’ you ask.
‘When I was a kid we lived in a house with patio doors and thieves broke in one night and stole our TV. I remember the policeman who came telling me that patio doors were like an open invitation to a thief.’
‘That must have been a long time ago,’ you say. ‘These days cops rarely turn out for burglaries. They just issue crime numbers over the phone.’
Adeya walks over to the patio doors. ‘There you are,’ she says. She points at the sliding window on the left. There are marks in the paintwork and the metal frame is distorted. ‘This is where you went in,’ she says.
You move closer to get a better look. The frame and the glass have clearly been dusted for fingerprints.
‘Probably used a crowbar,’ she says.
As you look at the damage an image fills your mind. Peter using a crowbar to force the window open, grunting with the effort, his eyes narrowed. Maggie standing behind him, urging him on. The window creaking and then springing open. You frown. Is it a real memory, or is your imagination creating the image? You have no way of knowing. Now the image is in your head you can play it back, over and over. Have you created a memory or was it always there and you have just recovered it?
Adeya pushes the window panel and it slides open. ‘Looks like the police didn’t bother getting it repaired,’ she says.
‘You mustn’t go in,’ you say. ‘You can wait outside, I’ll have a look around.’
‘Strictly speaking we’re not breaking in,’ she says. ‘So it comes back to trespass, which is a civil offence. And we know that the owner of the house isn’t in any position to sue you.’
‘Fair point. But there’s no need for you to take the risk.’
‘There is no risk, Phil. We’re just here to look around. Urban exploring they call it.’
‘Trespassing is what the law calls it.’
She grins. ‘Which as I keep saying, isn’t a criminal offence.’ She pushed the window open. ‘Go on. Age before beauty.’
You chuckle and step inside. She follows. You look around. It’s more of a study than a library and from the look of it the books have been bought by the yard and never read. To the left is a large antique desk with three monitors on it. There’s a high-backed executive chair behind the desk and you sit down and take a deep breath as you look at the blank screens. ‘Do you remember sitting there?’ asks Adeya.
‘Sort of,’ you say.
‘Sort of?’
‘It feels familiar. It’s that déjà vu thing again.’ You switch the computer on and then look over at her. ‘I knew how to do that,’ you say. ‘I knew where the switch was without thinking about it.’
The system asks you for a password. If you had used the computer to move Johnston’s money, you must have accessed the system. You spread your fingers over the keyboard, wondering if muscle memory will kick in, but it doesn’t. You stare at your hands in frustration, willing them to tap out the password that will give you access to the system, but nothing happens. You sit back in the chair. It feels right. It does feel as if you’ve sat there before.
Adeya walks towards the door. ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she says.
‘A lot of money has been spent on it,’ you say.
She opens the door and looks into the hall. She looks up. ‘That’s the biggest chandelier I’ve ever seen,’ she says.
You continue to stare at the keyboard as she walks slowly into the hall.
There is white powder on the keyboard where the CSI technicians have dusted for prints, and more powder on the desk drawers. Assuming you weren’t wearing gloves, as Maggie said, the cops will know by now that you’ve been in the house. They’re certain to blame you for killing Robert Johnston, and even without the gun or a positive gunshot residue test, the evidence against you is piling up. The prisons are full of people who have been convicted on circumstantial evidence.
What can you possibly say to them that will convince them that you’re not a killer? That you have a gut feeling that you have never killed anyone? The more you think about it, the more turning yourself in to the cops is starting to feel like a bad idea. A very bad idea indeed. Your fingerprints must be all over the desk and the computer. So they’ll know you were in the house and that makes you a thief. The gunshot residue test suggests that you weren’t the one who killed Robert Johnston, but someone must have pulled the trigger. Either Maggie or Peter or the mysterious Billy. And if you were all part of the team that broke into the house to steal from Johnston, that was all pre-planned, which meant that it was a conspiracy. Maggie had insisted that they hadn’t entered the house with any weapons and that Johnston had produced the gun, but what if she was lying? What if they had taken the gun into the house and used it to kill Johnston? That would be murder, plain and simple, and even though you hadn’t pulled the trigger, you could all be charged with conspiracy to murder.
_preview.jpg)
_preview.jpg)
_preview.jpg)
_preview.jpg)
_preview.jpg)
