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Authors: Minette Walters
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flat that contained nothing of a personal nature because there was nothing from his past that he wanted to remember?
He sank deeper into maudlin gloom, indulging himself in drink inspired self-loathing. He was to blame for everything. His father's death. His failed marriages. His family's bitterness and their ultimate rejection of him. (God, how he wished he could get that damn woman's eyes out of his mind. Memories of his mother had been haunting him all evening.) No children. No friends because they'd all taken his first wife's side. He must have been out of his mind to betray one wife, only to find the second wasn't worth the price he'd paid for her.
From time to time, the cabdriver flicked him a sympathetic glance in the rearview mirror. He recognized the melancholy of a man who drank to drown his sorrows. London was full of them in the weeks before Christmas.
Deacon woke with a sense of purpose, which was unusual for him. He put it down to the fact that his subconscious mind had been replaying the tape of his interview with Amanda Powell, further whetting his curiosity about her. Why should mention of Billy Blake, a stranger, produce an emotional reaction when mention of her husband, James Streeter, produced none? Not even anger.
He pondered the question in the solitary isolation of his kitchen while he stirred his coffee and looked with disfavor at the blank white walls and blank white units that surrounded him. Predictably, his thoughts turned inwards. Did either of his wives show emotion when his name was mentioned? Or was he just a forgotten episode in their lives?
He could die like Billy Blake, he thought, slumped in a corner of this wretched flat, and when he was found, days later, it would almost certainly be by a stranger. Who would come looking, after all? JP? Lisa? His drinking pals?
Jesus wept! Was his life really as empty-and as worthless-as Billy Blake's ...
He arrived at the office early, consulted the phone book and an A to Z of London, left a message at the front desk to say he would be back later, then retrieved his car and headed east along the river towards what had once been the thriving port of London. As in so many other ports around the world, the shipping fleets and working docks had long since given way to pleasure vessels, expensive housing, and marinas.
He made his way down the western shores of the Isle of Dogs and located the refurbished warehouse where W. F. Meredith, architects, had their offices, then drove on towards a filthy, boarded-up building that bore no resemblance to its neighbors except in its rectangular lines and gabled roof. Not that it required much imagination on his part to picture what this sad relic of Victorian London could become. He had lived in the capital long enough to witness the transformation of the old docklands' buildings into things of beauty, and he had only to look at the converted warehouses around him to remind himself of what was achievable.
He parked his car, took a flashlight and a bottle of Bell's whiskey from the glove box, and made his way through a gap in the fence to the front of the building. He tested the boarding on the doors and windows before making his way round to the back. Five or six meters of exposed scrubland separated the rear wall from the river, and he pulled his coat tighter about him as a bitterly cold wind whipped across the surface of the Thames and flayed the skin of his face. How anyone could expose themselves to such conditions was beyond him, yet a small group of men, apparently impervious to the morning cold and damp, sat huddled about a brazier of burning wood in an open doorway in the warehouse wall. They regarded him with suspicion as he approached.
"Hi," he said, squatting down in a gap in the circle with the bottle between his feet, "my name's Michael Deacon." He took out his cigarette packet and offered it around. "I'm a reporter."
One of the men, much younger than the rest, gave a short laugh and mimicked
He sank deeper into maudlin gloom, indulging himself in drink inspired self-loathing. He was to blame for everything. His father's death. His failed marriages. His family's bitterness and their ultimate rejection of him. (God, how he wished he could get that damn woman's eyes out of his mind. Memories of his mother had been haunting him all evening.) No children. No friends because they'd all taken his first wife's side. He must have been out of his mind to betray one wife, only to find the second wasn't worth the price he'd paid for her.
From time to time, the cabdriver flicked him a sympathetic glance in the rearview mirror. He recognized the melancholy of a man who drank to drown his sorrows. London was full of them in the weeks before Christmas.
Deacon woke with a sense of purpose, which was unusual for him. He put it down to the fact that his subconscious mind had been replaying the tape of his interview with Amanda Powell, further whetting his curiosity about her. Why should mention of Billy Blake, a stranger, produce an emotional reaction when mention of her husband, James Streeter, produced none? Not even anger.
He pondered the question in the solitary isolation of his kitchen while he stirred his coffee and looked with disfavor at the blank white walls and blank white units that surrounded him. Predictably, his thoughts turned inwards. Did either of his wives show emotion when his name was mentioned? Or was he just a forgotten episode in their lives?
He could die like Billy Blake, he thought, slumped in a corner of this wretched flat, and when he was found, days later, it would almost certainly be by a stranger. Who would come looking, after all? JP? Lisa? His drinking pals?
Jesus wept! Was his life really as empty-and as worthless-as Billy Blake's ...
He arrived at the office early, consulted the phone book and an A to Z of London, left a message at the front desk to say he would be back later, then retrieved his car and headed east along the river towards what had once been the thriving port of London. As in so many other ports around the world, the shipping fleets and working docks had long since given way to pleasure vessels, expensive housing, and marinas.
He made his way down the western shores of the Isle of Dogs and located the refurbished warehouse where W. F. Meredith, architects, had their offices, then drove on towards a filthy, boarded-up building that bore no resemblance to its neighbors except in its rectangular lines and gabled roof. Not that it required much imagination on his part to picture what this sad relic of Victorian London could become. He had lived in the capital long enough to witness the transformation of the old docklands' buildings into things of beauty, and he had only to look at the converted warehouses around him to remind himself of what was achievable.
He parked his car, took a flashlight and a bottle of Bell's whiskey from the glove box, and made his way through a gap in the fence to the front of the building. He tested the boarding on the doors and windows before making his way round to the back. Five or six meters of exposed scrubland separated the rear wall from the river, and he pulled his coat tighter about him as a bitterly cold wind whipped across the surface of the Thames and flayed the skin of his face. How anyone could expose themselves to such conditions was beyond him, yet a small group of men, apparently impervious to the morning cold and damp, sat huddled about a brazier of burning wood in an open doorway in the warehouse wall. They regarded him with suspicion as he approached.
"Hi," he said, squatting down in a gap in the circle with the bottle between his feet, "my name's Michael Deacon." He took out his cigarette packet and offered it around. "I'm a reporter."
One of the men, much younger than the rest, gave a short laugh and mimicked
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