Suffer the Children (27 page)

‘What the hell is going on!’

Pennington frowns, tight-lipped, and Staffe hears a mechanical cough. It comes from neither Josie nor Pennington. He looks around and realises it is piped in from elsewhere. It was Montefiore coughing. There is a loudspeaker on the dresser.

‘You bugged us? You bastards. You can’t trust me to tell you what he said?’

Josie looks up, pleadingly, as if to say she had nothing to do with it, but she says nothing.

‘You haven’t exactly been straight with us, have you? And quite frankly, I’m glad I heard what I did. It’s all pretty
disturbing
, Staffe. Pretty disturbing.’

‘What is?’

‘Your relationship with Montefiore.’

‘What!’

‘Hardly regular, is it?’

‘I am trying to get him to confess to a crime.’

‘He seems to think you’re on his side.’

‘I wasn’t the one who let him off the hook.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going to see Kashell? Or were you afraid you were barking up the wrong tree, causing a vulnerable prisoner to make an attempt on his own life?’

‘He didn’t kill Lotte Stensson. I know for a fact.’

‘Which fact? Go on! Show me the fact.’

Staffe looks down, tries to slow his fast-beating heart. He takes a step back from Pennington who suddenly seems like the enemy.

‘And I know about the break-in – to the office on Kennington Lane. I don’t know why you couldn’t just use a warrant like anybody else. And why you had to drag DC Chancellor into it, I …’

‘He didn’t drag me, sir. I went of my own volition.’

‘That’s not exactly true, sir,’ says Staffe.

Pennington plunges his hands into his pockets and sighs. He looks out of the window. ‘We’ve had a complaint from the parents of Tanya Ford, too. They say you attacked the father.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘There was a careworker there. She doesn’t contradict their claims.’

‘He came at me. I was just trying to get some justice for their daughter! They call it disclosure, sir.’

Pennington turns, puts his hands behind his back, as if he was at a scene of crime – protecting evidence. He takes a step towards Staffe. ‘Meting out justice, regardless of procedure. Where have we heard that before?’

‘It’s not like that!’

‘It doesn’t look good, Staffe.’

Staffe looks into Pennington’s cold grey eyes. ‘What exactly are you saying?’

‘The PCA are following through on the e. Gang’s accusations. The spotlight’s on.’ He takes another step closer. Staffe can smell the clean lemon of his aftershave, as though the long hot day has taken no toll. Suddenly, Staffe feels tired, outgunned. ‘I have to be seen to be white on this one. Whiter than white. I hope you’ll play ball, Staffe.’

‘Ball?’ Staffe loses his breath. He fears the worst and his jaw is so slack it feels like stage fright. But he knows this isn’t make-believe. This is his life.

‘I’m going to have to ask where you were when Karl Colquhoun was murdered and when Guy Montefiore was attacked.’

‘I can’t believe this!’ Staffe sits at the kitchen table. He feels dizzy.

‘You were at the scene. You were here when it happened, Staffe! You opened the door that did for him. Believe me, I want the right answers. For your sake and mine.’

‘Are you arresting me?’

‘I’m warning you, DI Wagstaffe. This is a formal warning, in the presence of DC Chancellor. I want a full explanation of all your movements during the past week. I want alibis and witnesses. And I don’t want you within a country mile of this bloody case! Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘On my desk tomorrow.’

‘Are you suspending me, sir?’

‘I’m afraid I have no choice, Inspector.’

Darkness descends and the Limekiln tower looms over Gibbets Lane like a blue-black giant. Errol Regis looks out of his living-room window to see the flame burning beneath the drum of tar in the pathway to the unoccupied house next door. The pink-streaked sky is low tonight.

Errol had called the council to see what is going on but received only the answering service. They don’t open for business until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. In the meantime, he looks up and down the street and paces from room to room. He makes pots of tea that don’t get drunk. He flicks from channel to channel, stopping on the weather even though he has heard it before. As soon as the news comes on, he switches away.

He takes a sleeping pill and checks the bolts on all the doors and says a prayer that Theresa makes some kind of return, even if it is just to collect more of her things. Like he always does, he says a prayer for Martha Spears, and finally he asks God to one day let the truth arise – that he may be forgiven for something he never did. And as usual, he curls up like a foetus, listening to the deep resound of his own heart.

As he drives home, Staffe designs a route towards what seems an improbable sleep. He will run himself a deep Radox bath and open a decent bottle of red, then he will watch the cricket highlights in bed and hopefully drift away. Then he will rise early and document his whereabouts ever since the afternoon Karl Colquhoun was murdered. He has never been able to turn a blind eye to a problem.

Outside the V & A, he sees a news-stand touting the
News
and he feels a bubble of bile. He tries to swallow it away, begins to sing a song in his head. For some reason, the opening refrain of ‘Love For Sale’ announces itself. He indicates away from home, turning away from all the things he has prescribed. Staffe can’t get Jessop out of his mind. Why the hell would he do the things Staffe thinks he has done?

Montefiore’s recanted words resound: ‘Only Wagstaffe can save you. Keep him close, I warn you. But there will be a time when he won’t be there.’ Were they Jessop’s words? Staffe can’t help feeling his old friend might have played him like a fiddle.

When he gets to Jessop’s place, Staffe sees lights on all the way up the building, until you get to Jessop’s windows that jut from the sloping, slate roof. He isn’t surprised to get no response from the intercom and feels the ring of keys in his pocket. He thinks about the alibis he must produce, the hearing he will have to face. What else can he do, but uncover the truth.

He picks out a key and puts it to the lock, slips inside and takes the stairs one at a time in the dark. At the top, he knocks lightly on Jessop’s door – just enough to raise him, not enough to draw attention from the flats below. When he gets no response, he removes his diary and pen, takes off his leather jacket and drapes it on the floor in the corner of the small landing. He checks that Jessop won’t see him as he comes up the stairs, and he begins to jot down his precise movements at the times in question.

When Karl Colquhoun was being delicately butchered, he had cooked a meal for Josie, was packing for Spain. And as for Montefiore, that night he had gone for a run and asked Johnson to ‘take care’ of Marie’s bullying boyfriend. He had gone to bed, found an imperfect sleep – a good match for his imperfect alibi.

He snugs down into the corner of the landing where the walls and the floor meet. He pulls his jacket up around him and smells the leather and pubs and too much hurry. He feels so, so weary but knows he cannot allow himself the luxury of sleep. His eyes lid down and he blinks himself awake, feels himself drifting again. He thinks of dinner with Sylvie, can see her standing naked. He remembers the cut of her hair and the deep green of her eyes, the way she spoke as she ate, spearing the turbot flesh with her fork. On the back of his eyelids he pictures the way she looked when she spoke of her favourite aunt – as though she had never left him, as though the last three years had been a dream. A long, long dream.

A searing light wakes Staffe. He blinks into the fierce white. He smells meat on a man’s breath, can feel the dull weight of something blunt on his throat. He struggles to breathe and squints into the light, trying to see what is beyond. Right up against his face is the leather sole of a boot, the frayed edge of trouser bottoms. He tries to lever himself up, but can’t.

‘Do yourself a favour, Staffe. You think you’re doing good, but you’re not. Believe me,’ says Jessop. He talks calm and slow, as if he has nothing to fear from his friend.

Staffe tries to work out where he is and how long he has been asleep. He stretches out with his right hand, feels wood and the coarse fabric of worn carpet, the soft leather of his own jacket. Even though he can see nothing beyond the torchlight, up close and shining straight into his eyes, he starts to remember.

Jessop says, ‘Believe me, there are forces of good at play here. More than you might imagine.’

Staffe fancies his chances to overcome Jessop but doesn’t want to hurt him. ‘Let me up. We’re friends, for God’s sake.’

‘Some friends we’ve turned out to be.’

‘I could have handed you to Smethurst and AMIP, but I want to be wrong. Tell me I’m wrong.’ He drags his legs round, prepares to spring up, but one of his legs snags. Something bites into his ankle and he realises he is tethered.

‘What exactly is it that you think I’ve done?’ Jessop takes his foot away and lowers the torchlight. ‘Keep your voice down. I’ve got neighbours you know.’

Staffe takes his chance and makes to spring up off his free leg, but he falls back to the floor, bangs his head against the wall and sees that his ankles are tied together. ‘What the hell?’

Jessop slowly places a heel on Staffe’s chest. ‘Go on. Tell me what you’ve got.’

‘Nico Kashell didn’t kill Lotte Stensson and you know it. And you pulled the Sally Watkins prosecution, you and Ruth Merritt between you.’

‘Why would I do such a thing, friend?’

‘You were pissed off with the law, fed up with the way you were treated, the way people got off.’

‘And your evidence?’

‘There’s no interviews. There are massive gaps in the filed evidence on that case. Only one interview with the defendant. There’s no sign whatsoever that you saw Sally Watkins. But I know you did.’

‘I hope that’s not your idea of evidence. Do you have a
statement
from Sally?’

‘Tell me I’m wrong. Deny it!’

‘You know a lot for a man who’s been suspended.’

‘How do you know I’ve been suspended?’

‘Let it go, Will.’

‘How can you let Kashell do his time?’

‘You should leave well alone. He was all right until you upset his apple cart.’

‘You killed Stensson, didn’t you? And you’re letting an
innocent
man serve your time.’ And as he says this, Staffe has the hollow feeling he has underestimated Jessop.

Jessop lifts his foot off Staffe’s chest and turns off the torch. In the dark, Staffe can discern the crouching figure of Jessop. The smell of meat on his breath is stifling now. ‘I went to see Stensson to get a confession out of her. We had other accusations but nobody would disclose. There would have been others, too, if we hadn’t …’ Jessop sighs and his speech slows right down. ‘You should have seen the way she looked at me. As if she was better than me. I could have killed her there and then, wiped that smug look off her face. She saw it and she screamed the place down, accused me of trying to beat her. So I went back to see Nico.’

‘You killed her?’

‘He wasn’t supposed to confess. Everybody had alibis.’

‘Everybody in VABBA?’

‘It’s not what you think.’

‘What about the fifty grand?’

In the half light, Staffe sees Jessop’s mouth goes slack. His eyes turn from angry to sad. ‘What fifty grand?’ he says.

‘The fifty grand VABBA paid you to do all this, to live out their fantasies of revenge and record it all. You recorded it all for them, didn’t you?’

Jessop stands up again, rests his boot on Staffe’s chest and puts all his weight on it, supporting himself on the banister. ‘You think this is for money? Do you, my friend? Do you!’

Staffe can’t get his breath. He thinks he will pass out, thinks his breastbone is about to crack, breaking into pieces and piercing his lungs. ‘Please,’ he wheezes, his eyes filling with water. Life draining away.

Jessop bends down towards him. Staffe has adjusted to the dark now and through the glaze of his own watery eyes, Jessop’s sad face comes bigger and bigger. He smells a chemical.

‘You know, Will, if you could see yourself the way you were when you first came to Leadengate – you were washed up. You had nowhere to go. But I saw a spark. Nobody else did, just me. I took you on and it was the right thing to do. If only we could see ourselves as others do, eh, Will? That would be something.’

The smell gets closer, stronger. It’s a smell Staffe has come to recognise. And with the last blots of sensory perceptions
running
into each other, he feels the damp rub of gauze around his mouth and nose. He tries to hold what little breath remains, but he can’t and as he breathes in, he slips away.

Pulford minimises
victimvengeance.com
and the ‘snuffcast’, as Nick Absolom calls it, disappears into its icon at the bottom of the screen to reveal the homepage of
Poker-Rich
. Pulford rubs his face, the way you would rub a whiteboard clean. He leans back in his chair and takes the mouse. The cursor hovers over
Join Game
. He looks down at the financial statements on the floor and blows his cheeks out. He leaves the cursor where it is and goes into his tiny kitchen, makes himself a black coffee because there is no milk. He tries Staffe’s mobile again and gets the answering service, doesn’t bother to leave another message. He curses Staffe and goes back to his workstation.

You’re only ever one game from a change of luck. One more punt might turn the tide that got him into this predicament. He raises the mug to his mouth and it burns his lips. He takes it as a sign and says, ‘Fuck it. Fuck you!’ and closes the site down, turns the computer off. He looks at the pile of statements and sits cross-legged on the floor, making separate piles of HSBC, Ladbrokes, Paypal and Barclaycard, putting the most recent bills on the top. He rounds the totals down to the nearest hundred and tots up in his head, adds on another seven hundred for last month’s unpaid rent. He might get two and a half for the MR2 but he still owes the finance company three grand. All in all, he’s looking at twenty-two grand. Eight months’ salary. His parents keep asking him when he’s going to buy a place of his own, get a foot on that ladder. They don’t know he’s sliding down snakes.

A black suit hangs on the back of the door, ready to be worn to Karl Colquhoun’s funeral. Even though he’s not on the AMIP team, he will go, thinking it might rule a line under the case before he throws himself back into his backlog of car-ringing gangs, DVD smugglers, extortionists and immigrant sweatshops.

He goes back to the kitchen and pours the coffee into the sink, takes a pair of scissors from the second drawer down and returns to the lounge, cuts his credit cards, one by one, into tiny pieces. Halfway through, he rubs his eyes and punches the pedestal of his desk. ‘Idiot!’ he says to himself. ‘Bloody idiot!’

The ceiling is dirty and a paper lantern hangs from the cracked, off-centre ceiling rose. Staffe rubs his eyes, wipes his mouth. He can tell they have fashioned this entire flat from a single old room, probably for a servant in a moderately
well-to-do
family. He remembers what happened last night. Was it last night? And he waits for the anger to surge at him, but it doesn’t. He feels calm, kind of distant from himself: separate from the space he is in.

He considers the quality of the refurbishment, sitting up and looking around at the bare room. No books, no ornaments. The sun streams in, showing the window smears. He stretches and yawns. He feels fresh, kind of brand new.

‘Jessop,’ he says, softly, standing slowly. He paces sedately around the room, opening drawers and crouching to look under furniture. The place has been packed up and shipped out. There is a pile of dirty clothes in the corner by the kitchenette and junk mail in the paper basket, but apart from that no sign of life, except… except a single sheet of paper Blu-tacked to the microwave in the kitchenette. Staffe squints until it gradually comes into focus. It is handwritten.

He ambles across to the window in the slope of the roof and bends to take in the view across North London’s rooftops, remembering some of what his old friend had said last night.

Staffe feels a vague compunction to call Smethurst but considers that Jessop has left him untethered and unharmed. Thus, he is disinclined to snitch on his old friend – even though the man did, after all, assault him. He begins to recall that he is suspended from the case. Yes, he is definitely suspended from the case. But he feels less miserable about this than he ought.

As he makes coffee, the ceramic of the mug feels soft and he thinks that his fingertips might not be entirely his own. He tries to pick his way though the conversations he had last night, remembering what Jessop told him about Lotte Stensson and Nico Kashell. Jessop has now fled far, of that he feels certain. He has probably gone to meet up with the woman. He can’t quite remember her name.

If he called Smethurst and put him on to Jessop, would it lead to Nico Kashell being released? Probably not. In the absence of a confession from Jessop, nothing has changed. And what does Staffe really know about Nico Kashell; what that poor, broken man wants for his life.

What good has come of this long, protracted case of vengeances? Would good come from the incarceration of Bob Jessop? Only if he is to kill again; or if the law must always be an end in itself. He resolves to consider this.

Staffe lets himself out and slips into the long, blue day. His tread feels light, as though his feet barely touch ground. He walks briskly, not really knowing where he should go. He has a notion that he will be watched, or followed, and switches sides of the road, looking around as he goes.

Looking at the papers on the news-stand tells him it is Monday and the position of the sun in the sky implies it is late morning. In the Sainsbury’s on Kilburn High Road, they are queuing at the checkouts already. Perhaps people queue all day every day.

They always say, ‘Why do you bother, Staffe? You don’t have to work.’ Every day could be like this – nothing behind him, nothing ahead and God knows what new people he will meet, what joys and hardships he might encounter without having to do something about them.

What has Jessop done to him?

He wonders where his friend is now. On a plane or a boat. Has he found a kind of peace? Or love?

Staffe cuts off the High Road, not far now from his own house. He will call on his sister. That is what he will do.

Marie opens the door to the Kilburn house and she beams a broad smile when she sees him, throws her arms open wide and takes him in. She smells of something green, he thinks. Turquoise, perhaps. The house is spick and there are fresh flowers on the coffee table – lilies. He knows he might tell her to be careful the stamens don’t fall on his fabrics. They stain. But he thinks she will probably know this for herself. Paolo gets up from his knees. He has a rag in his hand and there is a smell of lacquer. Has he been cleaning the hearth? He too is smiling and he extends a hand, shakes Staffe’s firmly. The swelling around the bridge of his nose is down and the bruises on his eyes are fading.

‘Sprucing the place up, Will. I hope it’s all right,’ says Paolo.

Staffe sniffs up, can’t smell tobacco smoke.

Behind him, he hears a scream and a whoop and something crashes into the backs of his legs, hard enough to knock him off balance. Paolo stops him from falling to the floor.

‘Harry! Be careful,’ shouts Marie.

‘He’s fine,’ says Staffe. ‘Just fine.’ He reaches down for Harry, picks him up and presses the infant’s head hard to his cheek.

‘Take me park, Uncle Will,’ says Harry. ‘Take me park.’

‘He’s been doing my head in all morning,’ says Marie. ‘Strange you’ve come now.’

‘Can I take him?’

‘Paolo and I have got to see about a car. We’re getting a van, a small van with some of the money. Paolo’s going to start on the restaurants again. He has such green fingers you know, for the herbs. We’re going to lease a place out Surrey way. He’s going to show Harry how to grow.’

‘Take me to the park!’ screams Harry.

‘Can I?’ says Staffe.

‘Of course you can. It’s meant to be,’ says Marie.

Pulford looks at the jagged plastic snippets of the hole he is in. He scoops the credit-card cuttings together with a cupped palm and puts them in the bin, then showers, gets into his black suit and tries Staffe a final time, but gets no response. He trousers his mobile and picks up his keys, warrant card and notebook and takes a look around the room, hoping he has put something behind him.

Just as he is about to lock up, his mobile vibrates, then breaks into his ringtone – the chorus of the Clash’s ‘I Fought the Law’. Staffe gives him stick for it, says it might advertise what he is. Josie thinks it’s funny. Johnson thinks it’s sad. Everyone has an opinion, which is why he keeps it. He looks at the screen, sees it is Leadengate.

As he raises it to his ear, he feels afraid.

‘Thank God somebody’s answering me,’ says Pennington. ‘Where the hell is Staffe?’

‘What is it, sir? Can I help?’

‘Tell him to get in touch with me. Tout suite!’

‘Can I tell him what it’s about?’

Pennington pauses, eventually says, ‘You tell him there’s been a major breakthrough. Smethurst has cracked it, no thanks to you and your so-called boss.’

‘Cracked it, sir?’

‘Don’t come the innocent with me, Sergeant, and don’t think that you can always hide behind people like Staffe. You should have told me you knew it was Jessop. Nobody’s bigger than the law, Sergeant, and you can tell Staffe that. Nobody!’

Staffe watches Harry from the park bench. He goes up to the other children and joins in even though they are strangers. The mothers and fathers smile into next week at him and twiddle their fingers at Staffe as if to say what a good job he is doing. He will take Harry to Hamleys later in the week and maybe buy him a rugby ball. He will teach him to pass and kick, take him to see a game when the new season starts.

Harry is on the roundabout now, playing nicely with younger and older children. Staffe feels a warm glow, and stares off into infinity. There will be something of Staffe’s mother and father in the boy. There may be something of Staffe in the boy, but will it ever show itself? Could it possibly transcend the difference between him and Marie? He tries to get his head round where her free-spiritedness comes from. Could it be the same place as Staffe got his – before it died?

He reaches down into his pocket and pulls out his dead phone. He tries turning it on and can’t recall if he turned it off or if the battery is dead. It sparks up and sings its jingle. He will call Sylvie. She said he could. She said not to be a stranger. Didn’t she?

A jangle of unread text messages. Six missed calls, all from Pulford and Pennington. He highlights the most recent and presses ‘Call’.

‘
Staffe!
Thank God, where the hell have you been?’ says Pulford.

The case comes to him, like many segments from different dreams. ‘I’m due some leave, Pulford. I’m going to take it.’

‘Pennington’s been on. He says Smethurst has got Jessop for the Colquhoun murder.’

‘
Got
him?’

‘Did you know it was Jessop? Pennington thinks you did. He reckons you were protecting him. Why didn’t you tell me, sir? He thinks I am in on it.’

‘Nobody knows anything, Sergeant,’ says Staffe. He crosses one leg over the other and leans right back into the bench, watching the top of the trees sway against the wide, blue, unclouded sky.

‘You sound strange, sir. You’re coming to the funeral?’

‘Funeral?’ He can hear the children shouting and squealing. They sound further away.

‘Karl Colquhoun’s funeral is at two o’clock.’

Staffe looks for the sun, tries to work out what time it might be.

‘I’ll come and get you,’ says Pulford.

‘When you say they’ve got Jessop, what do you mean? Have they
got
him?’

‘I reckon Pennington thinks you know where he is.’

‘He’d be wrong.’ Staffe looks down, away from the sky and across to the swings and slide. There is nobody there. The children have gone. The parents have gone. He stands, looks all around him.

‘Sir?’

‘How would I know where he is?’

‘You went to see him. You’re friends.’

Staffe looks at the playground. He knows something is wrong. ‘Harry!’ he shouts. ‘Harry!’

‘Who’s Harry? Sir, are you all right?’

He clicks off the phone and walks towards the swings and slide, calling ‘Harry, Harry!’ as he goes. He climbs the steps of the slide, feels his pulse booming inside his head. He looks to the four corners of the park. There are several couples, strolling. A handful of people are starting picnics or having a snatched lunch on the benches. But no Harry. He calls his name again, louder. Far away, a woman pulls her child close to her and scurries away.

There is a copse of trees fifty yards away and Staffe jumps down the steps, runs across the grass to the trees. Halfway, he stops dead in his tracks. He thinks of Tanya Ford and the rag he found in that copse. He is suddenly struck, like a leather cosh across the back of the neck, by how real the world is. ‘Harry!’ he calls, sprinting hard for the trees. He ducks his head and calls Harry’s name, time and again inside the copse. The twigs scratch at his face as he crashes all the way through and out the other side. A lump forms in his throat and his stomach is tight. Suddenly, all the blood seems to drain from the muscles in his legs. He sinks to the ground and rests up against the trunk of a tree. In the distance are railings and, beyond, a pond. He sees a boy being led away by a man.

‘Harry,’ he calls. ‘Harry!’

The two of them turn around. Harry pulls away from the man’s grip. The man looks up. He is smiling. Harry runs towards Staffe and the man jogs after him. Staffe gets to his feet, clenches his fists as he runs towards the pond. Halfway, Harry runs into his midriff, knocks all the wind out of him. He bends double, holds Harry tight. The man’s jog peters to a walk and he says, ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being funny, but are you his dad?’

Marie is out and Staffe isn’t carrying a key to his Kilburn house so he tells Pulford to get hold of Josie and meet him outside the Scotsman’s Pack and hangs up. As he puts the phone in his pocket, he feels something sharp. He pulls out a torn foil
blisterpack
of pills, empty. He studies the name of the medication Jessop must have forced on him but it makes no sense. Wellbutrin. He slips the foil pack back into his pocket and takes a tight hold of Harry’s hand. ‘Let’s go and play with some of my friends, shall we?’ As he says it, he feels dreadfully sad and he can’t help but hope that Jessop is safe and sound.