BOILER

Chapter 32

Records didn't have an address listed for Jack Moses, but his last known employment was at Big Hand Cabs, and that did exist.

The dispatch office for Big Hand was not much more than an annex, and it was slotted into a gap between two buildings. One was a closed optician that served as an advertising board for club nights and local fights. The other was a Mexican place that had Aztec temples painted onto a window. There was a long queue of people snaking up to a counter that had two silver pods on top with sun lamps in them.

A few cab drivers milled about in the light of the entrance, and there were a few cabs parked at the curb. The rain fell on and off, dappling the yellow paintwork on the cabs, and turning the road into a wash of black. Toland stepped in a puddle deeper than it looked and soaked his foot. The drivers parted not unlike the sea for Toland as it was common in the city to make space for a man whispering mean words to himself. He came into a waiting area where you could order a cab or sit on a bench that had room for three and clean green pleather. There was a tall plant below a tv in one corner of the room and a kind of kiosk which had two windows — one for looking inside the waiting area, one for looking out to the street, and a door for getting into the kiosk. Toland stood in the waiting area and stared at the man staring at him through the window of the kiosk. It looked like a week or two since he last shaved, and he didn't have all his beard yet, and at around forty years old he was unlikely to ever get it. What he did have was a rash and spectacles with a patch covering one eye.

'You want a cab? Cause there's plenty outside,' the man said.

'I don't want a cab,' Toland said, looking for his cigarettes.

'Then you're in the wrong place 'cause cabs is all we got. If it's Mexican food you're after, you need next door. Down the street, not up.'

Toland found his cigarettes and put his ID against the glass. 'What do you know about Jack Moses?'

The man leaned forward and looked past the card at Toland.

'Did you hear me?' Toland asked.

'I heard you. He's one of the temp drivers. What's it about?'

'Private matters.'

'Well, I need to talk to my boss about giving out information. People's privacy you know.'

'Talk to the boss then.'

'He's out of town.'

Toland looked at the stack of files behind the man and the door next to them and asked if it was locked.

The man scrambled out of his chair and fell, and Toland got the door open before the man could lock it. He pushed into the kiosk and the drivers came in from the street.

'We're all fine. No need to get excited,' Toland said, holding up his ID.

The man shrank into a corner while Toland took the top file off the stack and opened it. He closed it and took another. He looked at the man to be sure he was the same size and shape in the corner and then around for more files.

'Where are your employee records?'

'I can get in trouble for this.'

'Relax. Nobody that matters knows I'm here. And it's not like you have a choice anyway. Where are the records?'

'We keep them in a safe.'

Toland looked around and found the safe. He kicked a box out of the way. 'Open it, please,' he said.

The man grudgingly selected a key from a bunch of them and opened the safe. He took out a folder and passed it up to Toland. Toland took out each sheet of paper, reading each name in the title box until he got to Jack's. He took a pencil from the man's shirt pocket, scribbled the details onto a horse racing form guide from the days paper and ripped the section off.

'You got driver IDs, too, right? And up-to-date photos?' Toland asked, looking down at the man.

The man sighed, looked, and reached into the safe. 'Jack Moses?'

'That's right.'

The man nodded. 'Right here.'

He handed over Jack's driver ID and Toland held it up to look at.

'I'll make you a copy. Just please don't take it. I'll catch hell if you take the original,' the man said.

'Make a copy then.'

***

He parked outside Jack's place, crossed the street, and went up a path that started between two small bushes and went in through the open entrance. There were two lifts, one was in darkness and didn't seem to be working, the other was working, but was full with people and furniture. Toland checked the apartment number he'd written as he walked to a set of double doors that had a poorly realised wolf, or maybe it was an otter, graffitied on them and took the stairs up the five flights he needed to go. The steps and walls were all stained concrete and there was the smell of damp and urine and cold in that stairwell. He came out a little out of breath.

Dirt had been walked into the carpet. The walls were brown, and the door frames and doors were darker brown. The lights looked like brass flutes, cut in half and spaced evenly along the wall. The carpet was hard and so was the floor, and neither were giving out word of his steps.

Apartment 523. He knocked the door. Nothing came back. He knocked again, and nothing came back. He put his ear against the door and heard nothing. He knocked again. Nothing. There was a chair back a small distance that looked down the length of the corridor, Toland took it, and fished out a cigarette and thought about waiting. He lit the cigarette and waited, listening to a tv somewhere that was turned all the way up.

The cigarette was finished, stubbed out, and dropped in an empty plant pot. He rubbed his eyes and the red lump in his hair line and took another look at the apartment before collecting a crowbar from his car. The door put up enough resistance to get the neighbours out. He put enough pressure on for the lock to pop out of the frame.

A window had been left open, but the budgerigar still flapped about the room. Toland tried to ignore it while he looked around. There was a smell of bleach mixed in with the potpourri. There was the faint outline of a rug in the carpet. He went across the living room to the kitchen and turned the light on. There were scuff marks on the floor and cupboard doors that had been scrubbed at, but not quite erased so long as the light hit them right.

He went to the bedroom which was neat except for the clothes and panel falling out the cupboard. He stuck his head in and poked around the bathroom. He stood and looked about, and then he went back to the kitchen.

He looked at the scuff marks again and got down and moved so the light would travel along them and from there he sat where he thought the person that made them would have been sitting. He looked about. The carpet was a dark blue and didn't look any different, but it was stiffer to the touch before it ran into the kitchen tile. He got a knife from a drawer and peeled the carpet back. Enough blood had been spilled here to soak through the underlay and onto the concrete.