Pain of Death (12 page)
Jombaugh whistles when he sees Tommy Given’s place, at the end of a hundred-yard track and through a five-bar gate. This is the posh side of Cobham. A breeze shimmers in the tall elms and yews. A dog barks.
The house itself is old and stone, with low, leaded windows and mullions. Out front are a new-plated Merc GL, an old and clearly rehabilitated Alfa Spyder, and a knackered
short-wheelbase
Land Rover with large mounted spots like frog’s eyes and a horse box hooked up. Round the side are four newly built stables in dressed stone.
The dog bowls up, snarling. Some kind of bull terrier with a head like an anvil and shoulders like hams, a tiny arse and slobbering chops. Pulford gasps, takes a step back, but Jombaugh goes down on one knee, as if meeting royalty, and pats the dog, slaps its shoulder and holds its muzzle with both hands, playfully shaking it left and right.
Pulford takes a step away as the dog howls with joy.
‘Not lost it, Jom!’
Jom stands up and the dog jumps up at Pulford, snarling.
‘Sarge,’ whimpers Pulford.
‘All right, Tommy? A long time,’ says Jombaugh.
‘Good for both of us.’
‘Sarge!’ calls Pulford.
Jombaugh clicks his fingers and pats his thigh and the dog comes to him. ‘It’s not the dog that bites,’ says Jombaugh. He stabs a finger at Tommy Given. ‘This one’ll poison you.’
‘Very funny,’ says Tommy. He looks at Pulford as if he might recognise him. ‘Not so funny, is why you’re here.’
‘We need to eliminate you is all,’ says Jom. ‘Just tell us where you were last night, Tommy.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Let’s not make a fuss, in front of your family.’
‘Fuck that, Jom. You can ask my wife. I was in the Duke’s Head early doors. There’s six of my mates can vouch for that, and the bar staff.’
‘But just your wife after that?’ says Pulford, looking down at the dog, who growls up at him.
‘And my daughter. And the guy from the Thai restaurant. He came round with a takeaway at half-eight. Why? What’s up?’ Tommy turns his back, walks away round the side of the house, through a loggia with honeysuckle climbing all over it. He pauses, takes a bud between his big thumb and forefinger. ‘These are too early. I don’t know what’s going on in the world.’
Jombaugh and Pulford follow him. The dog has its head against Pulford’s trouser bottoms.
A woman appears from a conservatory at the back of the house. A swimming pool is covered with blue tarpaulin. She wears a kaftan and has her auburn hair up in a careless bun. She is beautiful, delicate and with a young child. She says, ‘Hello,’ in a foreign accent. Probably French.
‘This is Sabine,’ says Tommy. He says her name in a perfect, soft accent. ‘These men want to know where I was last night,’ he continues, in his thick and wide London accent.
‘Ahaa. Like the old days.’ Sabine laughs. Her voice is fine as porcelain. ‘He was here, with me and our daughter.’
‘I didn’t know,’ says Jom. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Giselle is napping,’ she says.
‘Maybe next time,’ says Tommy.
‘I’m not so sure you’re telling the whole truth,’ says Pulford. ‘You were with my DC.’
Tommy nods at his dog, who jumps up at Pulford.
Pulford steps back, bangs into the loggia.
Sabine laughs and Tommy looks at her, adoringly.
Tommy says, ‘Come in and I’ll show you my receipt from the Thai. Then you can be on your way – once you’ve told me what I’m supposed to have done.’
Jombaugh smiles at Sabine, says, ‘That won’t be necessary.’
Tommy whispers to Pulford, ‘One word from me and that dog will rip out your throat.’
Pulford wants to tell Tommy that he saw his car last night, that he knows exactly where he was. But he bows to the better part of valour.
As they make their way back to the car, Jombaugh says, ‘It looks like you’re going to have to tell Staffe we appear to have mislaid a detective constable.’
*
Anton Troheagh is biscuit thin, a ginger tom in his lap and a long, thin joint hanging from the corner of his mouth.
‘I am police, you know,’ says Staffe.
The joint jiggles and the ash spills as Anton talks. His eyes are vague and watery, his speech lazy. ‘I take it for pain.’
‘Pain from what?’ asks Staffe. Beyond Anton, through the bay window of his first-floor flat, a thick band of Brighton’s beach lies between the balustraded promenade and the sunless, cloudless sky, the colour of kaolin and morphine.
‘I’m dying,’ he says, matter of fact. ‘Is this about Kerry?’
‘You remember her, still?’
‘You know, I’m amazed I don’t remember more about my children. But you couldn’t forget Kerry. She demanded to be known. Not much to look at, but you couldn’t take your eyes off her. She had mischief, you know. It made you want to be her. She didn’t give a toss.’
‘And that’s what Sean saw in her, is it?’
‘I remember him. Some of the teachers were concerned at one stage, but he wouldn’t harm her.’
‘He preyed on a schoolgirl almost half his age.’
‘It wasn’t like that. I knew Sean. I was in a theatre group. Just did the pubs, round Islington and Camden, you know. It was just before I left teaching and he was good to me.’
‘Because you were Kerry’s teacher?’
‘It was she who chased him.’ Anton Troheagh coughs. He doubles up and holds his ribs, wheezing, reaching for a glass and sipping, holding his throat as he swallows, slowly leaning back, resuming his position. ‘She was a minx. Before Sean, there was a man who’d pick her up from school in a car, but she set her sights on Sean Degg the minute he started seeing her sister.’
‘Bridget? Sean Degg went out with Bridget Lamb?’
‘Lamb? She got married, then. I always knew them as the Kilbride girls. It made us laugh. Kerry would kill the bride to get to the groom – even if it was her own sister.’
‘She got her man,’ says Staffe. ‘And this man who would come to pick Kerry up from school. Was he a gangster? Do you know Tommy Given, Anton?’
‘I’m dying, Inspector. But I don’t have a death wish.’
Enough said, thinks Staffe. ‘Bridget has done very well for herself – living in Surrey with a doting husband,’ he says.
‘And children?’
‘She can’t have them.’
‘It wasn’t always thus.’
‘What?’
‘Ask Sean.’
‘Bridget had a baby with Sean?’
‘She left school as soon as she started to show. I heard she went the whole term and lost it right at the end.’
‘Is that when Sean left her?’
‘God only knows, but the minute Bridget left school, he was there at the school gates for Kerry. It was summer and Kerry never came back after the holidays. She could have done anything she wanted to, you know.’
‘I read her work.’
‘That’s how you got hold of me?’ Anton looks proud. Staffe tries to work out how old he is, reckons they must be the same age, even though Anton’s drawn and pallid face is thickly riven with lines and his hair is all shorn away. His eyes are dark, hollow as two halves of an egg’s shell.
‘If there’s anything you want to tell me, anything you remember about Kerry and Bridget and Sean; about Tommy Given – you should give me a ring.’ Staffe stands, hands Anton his card and laments the life unlived. He makes his way back out through the book-lined hallway: floor to ceiling with thoughts and memories; stories and theories. How many has Anton read? he wonders. How many unread? Lying on its back, atop a line of Bruce Chatwins, is
Beloved
.
*
When he was done with Anton, Staffe had stomped down Brighton’s pebble beach to the shore. It was heavy going and as the pebbles rattled and shifted beneath him, his muscles had begun to burn. He couldn’t remember the last time he had some decent exercise. So he had walked all the way to the pier. When he got there, the sun was disappearing down beyond the playboy beach houses that stand high, silhouetted on the pale road to Hove. He treated himself to oysters in the Regency and was pleasantly surprised that the place was much the same as he remembered it. Then he drove back against the traffic, took a call from Pennington who had asked where he was going. He told him and the DCI said he was to steer clear of Tommy Given. Pennington had received a call from the Met. Tommy was their man. Always had been, and it would stay that way.
*
Now, Staffe puts down his pint and looks out of the enormous plate-glass window onto Harrow Road, the walled enclosure of Wormwood Scrubs in the background. Each time a lorry trundles past, the window rattles.
‘Tell me what your deal is with Given, Smet,’ says Staffe, pushing away his empty glass.
Smethurst wraps his fat fingers around his own glass and takes a mouthful. A third of the bitter disappears. ‘Do you really think that’s how we operate?’
‘He knows Kerry Degg. He helped get her a residency at one of Phillip Ramone’s places.’
‘Why not have a chat with him?’
‘I’ve been warned off.’ Staffe unfolds a piece of A4. As he reads from it, he wonders if Tommy Given might somehow be in the Met’s pay. The biggest grass in all of London town? ‘He did six months of a three-year in 1978 when he was just a pup. Since then, he’s only been up in court twice and neither went to trial. He’s one of the nastiest bastards in all London and we haven’t got so much as a DNA swab.’
‘You’ve got his dabs.’
‘That won’t prove he’s the father of a murdered woman’s child.’
‘I should be careful who you say that in front of. He’s got some mighty fine lawyers – so I hear.’
‘I thought we were mates, Smet.’
‘And you’d be right. As long as you’re in City and I’m at the Met, it’ll stay that way.’ Smet laughs, but the truth is raw enough. They spent six years together and didn’t always see eye to eye. Each of them knows that either would help the other at the drop of a switchblade – so long as it didn’t harm themselves.
‘All I need is a whisper where Sean Degg is. Forget Tommy Given, I’ll find some other way to cook that bloody goose. You must have heard something.’
‘You tried Ross Denness?’
Staffe says nothing, wondering how Smet would know about Ross Denness. He’s on Staffe’s patch, supposedly. All Staffe has to work out is: has Smet slipped up, or did he mean to let him know he had been told about Denness? He watches Smet finish his pint and tug at his belt, look at his watch. Smet purses his lips and makes the smallest shake of his head. ‘Shouldn’t you be concentrating on that Crawford woman? It’s in the papers again, you know. That bill of Vernon Short’s is on the rebound. Now, there’s a real fish to fry.’
*
‘What are you doing here?’ says the nurse, Eve, to Staffe in the reception of City Royal’s antenatal unit. She puts on a stern face and looks around, as if he might be tarnishing her in some way, but when she sees they have the place to themselves, she allows herself a smile.
‘I don’t have your number. Remember?’
‘Something tells me this isn’t a social call.’
‘Does it have to be one thing or the other?’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘The time you spent in the hospital, with Grace, did anybody else come to see her?’
‘There was the policewoman. The pretty one who found her.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘The police had someone there the whole time – to keep the press away, they said. There were other mothers there, of course, and their families. You should ask Natalie.’
‘The other nurse? Is she a friend of yours?’
Eve laughs. ‘More than that. We’re from the same part of Yorkshire, we were in the same hostel when we first came down to London.’
‘Yorkshire, hey?’ says Staffe. ‘Which village?’
‘A place called Appletrewick,’ says Eve.
‘Aptrick,’ he says, smiling.
‘That’s what the locals call it. You’ve been there?’
Staffe recalls a weekend in the Yorkshire Dales with Sylvie.
‘You’re not here to chat about the Dales,’ says Eve, turning towards him. Her mouth is set, but her eyes sparkle.
‘I’m here to coax something out of you.’
‘Anything in particular?’
‘Kerry’s sister. She’s called Bridget.’
‘And nothing alike, if I remember. I was with her, but you should ask Natalie. She made Natalie pray with her. I saw them together, kneeling by Grace’s cot.’
‘Did she come more than once?’
‘Not that I know. She was stuck-up. I didn’t like to think of Grace as being her niece. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? The father, he looked right with the child, but I didn’t take to that sister. Something seemed wrong, even though you could tell she loved them.’
‘Loved them?’
‘You had to look hard, but yes, she loved them all right, the baby and the mother.’
Staffe hands her his card, then puts a hand on Eve’s shoulder, squeezes it gently. ‘Thank you. You’ve been a great help.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Let me buy you dinner.’
‘I can buy my own dinner, thank you.’
‘Let me eat it with you.’
Eve laughs and flicks his nose with the card he had given her. ‘Maybe I’ll call you. Maybe you can pay. You can afford it.’
‘What?’
‘I spoke to your friend, the policewoman. I’m not sure how happy she would be, you chatting me up.’
‘Am I?’
‘Have you taken her out to dinner, Inspector Wagstaffe?’ This time, as she goes, she looks over her shoulder. Her eyes sparkle and her teeth show, pearly white.
He watches her go and he wonders what the hell she was talking to Josie about. And come to think of it, where has she got to? He calls Jombaugh, but he’s not in the station. Jombaugh’s always in the station. What’s happening to the world?
Sean Degg looks down on the Regent’s Canal. From here, he can see everybody who comes: from the bus stops up and down the New North Road, and along the towpath. The only blind spot is out back, through next door’s garden. Because of the fixed, frosted window in the bathroom, he can’t see next door’s garden properly. Next door the other way is just fine.
He knows that if they are to find him, they’ll come the back way, whether they’re the filth or the filthier – they’ll know what they’re doing. Does he have the stomach for this? Can he dig in and fight to his last breath? He’s got Grace now, but she seems a million miles away. That kind of a life – one they might forge together, the way he always dreamed – seems impossible. He looks at the photo he has of her on his phone.
Sean goes to the fridge. He has a half-drunk can of Tennent’s left and a swallow of vodka in the bottom of the bottle. He has eight tins of Big Soup and two loaves in the freezer and a multipack of Jaffa cakes. He has a quarter-ounce of dried-out Drum and two spliffs short of an eighth.
He wonders if he should phone. He’s going mad in here, but they told him not to call. It’s a funny feeling, being nowhere; having no one. He doesn’t register on any kind of radar, which ought to be a good thing.
Sean goes through to the back bedroom, hangs out of the window and checks next door’s garden. The days are drawing out and the sky is hues of orange and coral where the sun is trying to set, way behind Canary Wharf’s oblongs and prisms of glinting glass. And then he realises that by hanging out of the window he isn’t helping himself, so he slams the sash frame down, pulls the catch across, and picks up his phone. His finger hovers over the green, but he chucks it onto the bed and counts his cash. He’s only got twelve quid left and he can’t go to the machine. He can’t leave that kind of a trail, not yet; not until it all plays out. He doesn’t know quite what that means.
He waits for the sun to drop and the last of the dog walkers to drift away from the canal, and he puts on his coat. He hasn’t been out for two, or is it three days?
As he pulls the door behind him, Sean’s fingers tremble and his bowels shift. He feels loose inside, feels kind of alive.
*
Staffe takes the record from his turntable. It was his father’s LP and not exactly his cup of tea. He prefers the later works: Miles and Coltrane; Mingus and Ornette. But he can see now, hear now, that his father was right about Ellington being the master. He puts the needle back to the first track and listens again, this time intent upon following the sweeping lines of Jimmy Hamilton’s clarinet. But by the time he has popped his coffee back in the microwave for ten seconds and settled back into his American spoonback, his mind has flitted across Eve and all the way back through to the moment he first set eyes on Kerry Degg down in the tunnel.
The tendrils from this case go all over the place. He needs something to focus on – like a magnifying glass, put to the sun, that burns a hole when the clouds roll away.
He picks up the data sheets for Zoe and Kerry, and Cathy Killick, too, looks at the thinly populated central core of the Venn diagram. The only thing that unifies the women is that they were twenty-four weeks pregnant when they disappeared (or were threatened, in the case of the Home Secretary).
Jimmy Hamilton’s clarinet meanders. Occasionally, and fleetingly, he swims with the melody. Staffe looks at the data reports for the three women, then works his way through the list of names that are in his head, looking for connections – a job for Pulford, rerunning the data fields for everyone in this case: victims, witnesses and suspects alike.
The orchestra swoons and rolls, and Ellington picks out strands of the melody with a few choice piano chords – just so much that you can follow him, like someone almost out of sight, giving chase in the half-light of dense woods.
Staffe reaches for the telephone, to tell Pulford to spread further the data matches, but as his fingers touch the phone, it rings.
‘Inspector?’ It is a woman’s voice: calm, lofty, distinguished. He recognises it immediately, from the radio.
‘Mrs Killick, you shouldn’t call me here. Your people won’t be happy.’
‘The line is fine. We checked.’ She pauses and he suspects her hand is over the mouthpiece, thinks she might be talking to somebody else. ‘This isn’t an official call, you understand. We are not having this conversation.’
Staffe considers what he discovered of her past from Vernon Short.
‘I need this case to be solved, Inspector. The other women disappeared at my stage, and as you know, there are people who want Vernon’s bill back.’
‘I can’t do as much as I would like – as you know. Can you arrange for me to have access to Lesley Crawford’s house?’
‘What I am about to tell you is absolutely confidential, Inspector.’
‘You shouldn’t tell me, then.’
‘I have to.’ Her voice cracks. She lowers her voice, almost whispering. ‘They have been in touch again. They said that they have no choice.’
‘Was it a man or a woman?’
‘A woman.’
‘Was it taped?’
‘No.’
‘And did you recognise the voice?’
‘No. I’d like to say it was her, that Crawford woman – but I can’t.’ Cathy Killick’s voice is tremulous.
‘Tell me about Vernon Short. What might the future hold for him?’
The phone falls silent.
Staffe tries to imagine what the scene might be on the other end of the line.
Eventually, she says, ‘There’s someone who could make way for him. There’s always somebody wanting to spend more time with their family.’
Staffe is quite dizzy at what is at stake here and, although he knows it might not advance his own cause, he feels a compulsion to tell Cathy Killick what he knows Vernon knows. ‘Mrs Killick …’
‘Yes?’
He falters. ‘Have you offered Vernon a Cabinet post?’
‘I can’t say any more.’ She laughs weakly, trying to break the tension. ‘I’d have to kill you.’
‘Can you get me into Lesley Crawford’s house?’
‘How might that help?’
‘Why call me? You have your own people,’ asks Staffe.
‘I will arrange what you want, Inspector.’
‘Mrs Killick …?’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing.’ He hangs up.
The record has come to its end and the needle scratches away in the runaway grooves at the end of the final track. As Staffe flips the record over, there is a knock at the door and he checks his watch. Who could it be, this time of night?
Pulford looks sheepish and, immediately, Staffe knows that the news must be bad. He invites his sergeant in and they sit opposite each other at the kitchen table in the flat which, earlier in the year, they had shared.
‘It’s Josie, sir. You know we were onto Tommy Given.’
‘We’ve a problem with that. He’s the Met’s man. Anything to do with Given, we have to pass through Pennington.’
‘We didn’t know that.’ Pulford looks at his hands. He can’t keep his fingers still.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I’ve not seen Josie since …’
‘Since when?’
‘You know Josie spoke to Cello Delaney, that friend of Kerry’s.’
‘What’s happened!’
‘She told us about Tommy Given and so we – well, Josie – went to see the foster parents, the Archibalds. And I went to Given’s local. Josie wound the Archibalds up and they phoned Given. I followed him. We wanted to see him going into their house, that’s all. It’s the connection we need.’
‘And they saw you following them.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And where was Josie?’
‘That’s it, sir. I don’t know.’
‘You haven’t seen her since then?’
‘We think it’s Tommy Given, sir.’
‘We?’
‘Jom came with me.’
‘With you?’
‘To Given’s spot, down in Surrey.’
‘My God, Pulford.’ Staffe stands up, paces the kitchen. ‘What have you done about it?’
‘I’ve checked all the A & Es and I’ve called Josie’s folks …’ Pulford looks up at Staffe, appears to be close to tears. ‘I don’t know what to do, sir. It’s a right mess.’
Staffe sits heavily in his chair.
‘Have you knocked on, in the Archibalds’ street?’
‘Not yet.’
‘First thing in the morning, Pulford.’
‘And in the meantime?’
‘When was the last time you phoned a DCI at home? Call it staff development.’ And Staffe tosses Pulford his mobile. ‘Then, you can do something constructive. I take it you’re in no mood for sleep.’
*
Sean puts down the phone, fearing the worst. He shouldn’t have even come out tonight. From the phone box, he looks along the canal, then back up at the window of the flat he is holed up in. You would never guess. There is no outward clue as to who or what might be within.
Now, though, he is out. It is done. He may as well make the most of it.
In the off-licence on the New North Road, he counts his change again, keeps his phone money separate, in a coin bag, then gets himself a quarter-bottle of an obscure brand of vodka with an implausibly eastern-bloc name. All set, he slips in the side door of the Nags.
There’s only two others in – sitting separately and each sucking hard on the house doubles. One chases it down with a half, the other a pint. The place smells of toilet. The Pogues track on the CD keeps jumping. It’s the one about whisky on Sunday and tears on your cheeks. He thinks it’s called ‘The Majestic Shannon’. Kerry used to love it. Kerry …
Nothing seems real.
He looks around the place and tries to think of something not Kerry, tries to block out the sound of Shane’s cracked and bleeding throat. It’s a place you’d come if you took pubs but left people. It suits, down to the ground, for tonight.
Sean orders the premium lager. The barman weighs him up, as if he might be a threat, and when Sean says, ‘You all right?’ he smiles and nods, looking as if he has decided he knows Sean won’t present a problem. The phone goes and the barman goes out back, and Sean, deft as a thief, slurps a sixth of his pint, pulls the vodka from his pocket and glugs half the quarter-bottle of vodka into his pint. It comes up nicely to the rim and Sean smiles at a job well done. One of the others catches him at it and gives him a look of admiration. Sean takes a drink and immediately feels the full whack. It fuels a softening inside him and a vial of optimism unfurls. He settles back in his stool and watches Sky Sports News with its looping tales of sacked managers and sub-continental cricket.
The barman comes back in, eats his freebie chilli at the bar. He winks at Sean, as if to say he knows his sort. When he turns away, Sean empties the rest of the vodka in and takes a slug. It is almighty powerful now and his eyes water a little. When he gets towards the bottom, he orders a half, hears the words of his request tumble softly into each other. The barman smiles, but instead of pouring a half, he takes the pint from in front of Sean and fills it right up, just asks him for the one-eighty for the half.
Sean begins to picture a better outcome. The prospect of it flows slowly in his blood. He wonders if he might approach Phillip Ramone. Technically, he is due a commission, still. Kerry’s contract had been signed. And he wonders also if simply considering this makes him a bastard. He thinks of Grace, knows he has to provide for her, somehow. God knows how, if he’s holed up like this. But this can’t be for ever.
If Phillip coughed up and he could get to Grace, he could take her out of London altogether until things settle down. Which they will. He tries to remember who had assured him everything would ‘settle down’. His head is fuzzed. Soon, his pulse quickens, his mood darkens. He needs another drink. Just one. He takes a final and almighty gulp of his strange brew, feels the stool beneath him waver.
The fellow who was chasing with pints sups up and heads for the door, pulling a fag from his black pack of cheapo cigs. Sean looks for the other punter, but he’s gone. Now, he’s all on his own. He looks at his pile of change and thinks he hasn’t quite got enough for a final half. He doesn’t want to leave just yet. He could dip into his phone money, his lifeline.
The barman says, ‘Another?’
‘I’m not sure …’ Sean looks at his pile.
The barman raises a finger to his lips and says, ‘Pay me next time.’
Sean necks the remainder of his pint in one go, but has to stop himself gagging on the viscosity of the booze. It’s like winning on a long shot after a stewards’. The barman hands across his glass then goes out back again, leaving Sean to his good fortune, his head soft and his heart lifted.
As soon as the barman goes, a hand appears upon Sean’s shoulder. It feels neither unusual nor familiar, and Sean recalls that the last time he touched or was touched by another human was days, maybe a week, ago. He had pressed the sole of his boot to the wrist of that prostrate newsagent.
‘Hello, Sean,’ says his new companion. ‘We should go. I have what you asked for.’
‘Why don’t you stay? Just for one.’
‘We can’t be seen. Come on, there’s plenty where we’re going.’
*
Pulford taps away on his laptop at Staffe’s kitchen table, whilst Staffe ploughs through the case notes and statements, calling out slivers of information for his sergeant to enter.
The computer does the hard bit and Staffe takes a break, cuts them each a slab of Cornish Yarg and a chunk of bread, serves it up with spoonfuls of spring chutney and a handful of salad leaves growing on his window-sill. ‘Do you want a glass of beer?’ he asks.
‘Wait!’ says Pulford, peering into the laptop’s screen. ‘Lesley Crawford went to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, from 1984 to 1987.’
‘Same as Vernon Short,’ says Staffe.
‘Hang on. I need to style these correctly or the computer won’t pick up the match.’ He types in Cambridge, then the dates, then the college, into three separate fields – just as he had for Vernon Short and Zoe Bright.
‘I knew that. I’m
sure
I knew that, from somewhere,’ says Staffe. ‘Am I going mad?’
‘No. Vernon was there eight years earlier. They wouldn’t have met.’
‘When can I look at this? On paper, I mean – not on that damn thing.’