In the Dark (26 page)

‘It's understandable.'

‘Is it? I'm carrying her bloody grandchild.'

‘I'm sure she'll come round.'

‘I don't know how much I care, to be honest,' Helen said. ‘I'm just not up to fighting about it.'

‘Do you want me to have a word?' her father asked.

Helen remembered the awkwardness at the party for Paul's thirtieth, the stilted conversation on the single occasion that her father had met Paul's parents. She remembered the jokes that she and Paul had made about it afterwards. ‘I'll sort things out,' she said. ‘Thanks.'

Her father nodded and opened the fridge. Brought out a trifle that he'd picked up along with the pie.

Helen smiled. ‘Pushing the boat out,' she said.

‘I was going to ask if I could help carry Paul,' her father said. He cleared his throat. ‘Carry the coffin. You've probably got his mates doing it, members of his family, I suppose . . .'

‘It'll be coppers,' Helen said. ‘An honour guard, in dress uniform. Paul's mum wants the full ceremonial bit. Twenty-six-gun salutes, trumpets, the whole thing.'

Her father nodded, impressed.

‘I'm kidding.'

‘It's not a problem, really. Just thought I'd volunteer.'

‘You'll probably need to carry
me
.'

‘I don't know if I'm up to that,' he said.

She stood close and watched as her father dished up a large portion of trifle. ‘I should probably be getting back,' she said. ‘Why don't you take that over to your girlfriend? Mind you, you'll need to watch your waistline if you want to get anywhere with her.'

‘Who says I haven't?'

She punched him on the shoulder, looked around for her bag.

‘Call me when you get home,' he said. ‘Or later. Doesn't matter.'

Helen nodded. ‘If I'm in any fit state.
Midsomer Murders
is on UK Gold every bloody night . . .'

 
Helen's car was parked more or less opposite her father's front door. Crossing the road, she froze at the squeal of tyres and watched a black Jeep accelerate away from the kerb fifty yards to her right. As it passed her she could see that there were two men inside staring straight ahead, and she wondered if she'd seen a similar car, maybe the
same
car, outside her own block a couple of days before.

She was telling herself that she was being ridiculous, that there were a lot of black Jeeps around, when her mobile rang. It was Martin Bescott, Paul's DI at Kennington.

‘We've got some more of Paul's stuff,' he said.

‘Oh? I thought I took it all.'

There was a pause. ‘We found a second locker. Paul's . . . replacement wasn't too keen on taking his old one, so . . .'

Helen said she understood. Coppers were more superstitious than most.

‘Had to force the bloody thing open in the end.'

‘Can't you just give it to charity?' she asked. ‘Save me, you know . . .'

‘Well, yeah, there are some old trainers, a few other bits of kit. But I thought you'd probably want the laptop.'

Now it was Helen's turn to pause.

‘Helen?'

‘I'll pop over and get it,' she said.

Theo had spent most of the morning at the stash house, stuck there talking shit with Sugar Boy, who had been sent over by Wave when SnapZ had failed to show up. Theo had been hoping that the first day of a new week would be a good one. That the money might start coming in a bit faster and that he might start feeling less jumpy, a bit less like someone waiting for something bad to happen.

He'd been well out of luck on both counts, and as soon as it was anything like lunchtime, he'd jogged back over to the flat to share a sandwich with Javine.

He'd barely sat down when Easy showed up, his fat, ugly pit-bull straining at the leash on Theo's doorstep. He'd bought the thing as soon as Wave had got one; laid out seventy-five pounds to some Essex wide boy knocking them out round the back of the Dirty South and managed somehow to get the stupidest beast on the estate. Wave said that someone must have kicked the thing in the head when it was a puppy. Easy seemed to like that. Thought that he and his sick-in-the-head dog belonged together or something.

Javine started mouthing off as soon as she heard the yapping. She couldn't stand the dog and didn't want it anywhere near her or the baby. Theo tried to pull the door behind him when she started losing it shouting that she didn't want any dumb animals in her house, didn't matter if they had four legs or two.

Easy shrugged. ‘Let's walk,' he said.

They strolled around the estate first; Easy enjoying the attention from the kids by the garages, the dirty looks from a few of the older women - the mothers and sisters - as he watched his dog do its business in the scrubby square of grass, parading around what passed for a playground before they cut out onto Lewisham High Street.

It was seventy-something degrees and rising. Easy wore a silk shirt, open over a vest, rust-coloured, like his combats and trainers. Theo had picked out low-slung jeans and a Marley T-shirt, the Timberlands he'd bought after the break-ins he'd done with Easy three weeks before.

With the bit of cash he hadn't put away.

‘How's tricks, Star Boy?'

Theo told Easy that tricks were OK, that he hadn't seen too much of him the last few days. Not since Mikey.

‘Been busy, T.'

Theo nodded back in the direction of the stash house, where he'd left Sugar Boy holding the fort. ‘Things are pretty slow.'

‘Exactly. Got to whip up new business where you can, you get me?'

‘So where you been whipping it up?'

‘Here and there, man.'

‘Anywhere you shouldn't?'

‘Meaning?'

‘When we went robbing, when we turned them whores over. Maybe that was stepping on someone's toes, all I'm saying.'

Easy threw a hard look Theo's way, almost knocked over a girl wheeling a pushchair. She swore at him and he ignored her. ‘Whose toes? Fuck you talking about, man?'

‘Doesn't matter whose. Anywhere that's not here is somebody else's.'

‘You always been a worrier, T.'

‘Yeah, maybe.'

‘Ever since we was kids, man.'

A uniformed copper and two community police support officers - plastic plods - came sauntering towards them. The copper got a good eyeful of Easy and Theo, while the CPSOs seemed rather more concerned about the pit-bull.

Easy gave them all a grin, yanked the dog away. They turned the corner onto Lee Bridge. ‘All these extra pigs gonna be trotting off soon,' he said. ‘Things can get back to normal, yeah?'

‘You reckon?'

‘This is the Wild West, man. You can see it on their faces, they don't fancy it.'

They stopped a few yards further on when Wave's Mercedes drew alongside and stopped on yellow lines. As If was behind the wheel and calmly signalled the car behind to come round when its driver sounded his horn. Theo watched as Easy strolled across and leaned down to talk to Wave through the window. They talked for a few minutes and Theo saw Wave's eyes flash across to him; saw him nod and laugh at something Easy had said. Theo nodded back. He knew they were talking about him and tried not to think about it.

Could have been anything. The clothes he was wearing, whatever.

When Wave had driven away they carried on walking. Easy said he was still planning on giving As If a good slap when the chance presented itself, then he talked about the various hassles he was getting from assorted women. He had a fair few on the go, so he claimed, and there were at least two children knocking around somewhere.

‘Like to keep my options open,' he said. ‘Get some
variety
, you know what I'm saying? Never been one to settle.' They walked on. ‘I tell you, man,' he laughed, ‘that woman of yours is a serious handful.'

‘Yeah.'

‘
Serious
. . .'

Theo smiled and stepped carefully to avoid a brown smear on the pavement. Thought, Yeah and she's
my
handful.

They talked rubbish for a few minutes, Easy pouring scorn on some local DJ he'd heard on the community radio station and bragging about how he'd put the fear of God into some loser who'd cut up his Audi on Shooters Hill. Theo did his best to look relaxed. He was still thinking about those three uniforms around the corner; the look on the face of that copper as he made eye contact. He struggled to listen to Easy's ramblings above the whine in his brain as it raced and his imagination fought to escape from dark corners.

‘T? You listening, man?'

‘Nothing worth hearing, man.'

‘I'm hungry. You hungry?'

They stopped at the McDonald's just inside the Lewisham Centre. ‘I need a piss as well,' Easy said. ‘Two birds with one stone, man. Sweet and simple.' He handed the leash to Theo, asked him to look after the dog while he went inside to get them both McFlurries.

Theo waited while Easy went about his business, trying to control the dog as it lunged at passers-by, fighting the temptation to let the mutt run free, see how it handled a busy main road.

Easy came out and handed Theo his ice-cream. ‘Before,' he said. ‘All that stuff about stepping on toes. You think it was my fault Mikey got killed?'

‘I never said that.'

‘Felt like that was what you was saying.'

‘It's fucked up, that's all,' Theo said. ‘Shouldn't be happening.'

Easy shrugged. He ate fast, and when he was finished he lobbed the plastic container towards a litter bin. He turned to Theo, spread out his arms, the dog chasing its tail at his ankles. ‘This is the way it is, man. You get me? It's
supposed
to be like this.'

‘What? Feeling shit scared?'

Easy narrowed his eyes, wrapped the dog's leash around his wrist, yanked the animal close. ‘Who's scared?'

Theo stared at the traffic.

‘You finishing that?'

Theo handed over his untouched McFlurry, then closed his eyes and tried to remember the taste of barley wine on a windy balcony, enjoying the sun on his face for half a minute while he waited for Easy to finish.

 
She and Paul had never lived in each other's pockets. They had kept their own space,
given
it to each other, and been happy enough with that. They'd seen their own friends and never felt the need to report every conversation, to ask the other who they had been talking to whenever the phone was put down. They had rarely been compelled to co-ordinate diaries and each had held a separate bank account; an independence that had been easy, though it had later become enforced, especially by Paul, in the aftermath of Helen's affair.

She told herself these things in an effort to explain away the existence of the computer she had collected from Kennington on the way home. To play down its presence, sleek and grey on the table in front of her. To make herself feel a little less apprehensive as she fired it up.

She'd opened all the windows in the flat, but it still felt muggy;
close
, her father would have said. She was sweating in baggy shorts and one of Paul's old T-shirts. A cold glass of wine, or better still a beer, would have been more than welcome.

Bescott had been waiting for her in the car park.

He had taken her into his office and handed over the laptop wrapped inside a plastic bag. He'd seemed friendly enough but, as always, it was hard to decide how much of that was down to her condition. Her . . . circumstances. There'd been something in his face, though, like he was trying too hard, and Helen couldn't help wondering if he, and others above him, harboured the same suspicions about Paul's activities that she did. How long would it be before an earnest-looking sort from the Directorate of Professional Standards came knocking?

The Rubberheelers.

The screen on the Mac turned blue as the system booted up.

How hard would the DPS pursue an investigation if the officer in question was dead? Was there a danger that she herself would be implicated? She knew how these people worked and how they might presume that, as Paul's partner, her own integrity had been compromised.

She clicked on the icon above Paul's name and told herself she was being ridiculous. Worst-case scenario, they'd probably want to go through Paul's stuff and take a look at whatever was on this computer. Poke around for dirt.

Same as she was.

The desktop appeared and Helen felt like the breath had been punched out of her: a grainy picture of herself and Paul, grinning at the camera in a Greek taverna three summers before. Paul's hair had been cut really short and his face was red. Her tits were almost coming out of a bikini top she should never have worn.

‘You tosser,' Helen whispered, stabbing at the keyboard. ‘Make me feel even worse, why don't you?'

She opened Paul's ‘Home' folder and looked around. All the default system files were where they should be. There was nothing at all in ‘Pictures' or ‘Movies', and the ‘Documents' folder contained only the expected user data.

The Mac had barely been used, or at least not been used for very much.

They'd shared the IBM at home, switched between users on the same system. Paul's desktop had always been littered with random documents and clippings, assorted folders bulging with downloaded songs and mildly offensive video clips courtesy of Gary Kelly and other mates at work. She'd been the one with nicely organised folders with names like ‘utility bills', ‘baby' and ‘council tax'.

On the laptop, it was easy enough to spot the folder she was looking for. It contained a single document, labelled ‘Victoria'. Helen double clicked to open the file and was asked to enter a password.