Talking to the Dead (15 page)

And I was too clever for that. Got Davis out and me in. Persuaded Jane to let us prepare for the interview beforehand. Arrived, oh so cleverly, at just the right time to catch Edwards having her morning cornflakes. And found her dead. No escape hatch. Just duct tape, cable ties, and—I’ll bet my car on it—a skinful of heroin and a murderer who closed up her nose. The lightest of pressure with finger and thumb. A minute. Two minutes. Five at the outside. Then he’d have been on his way, job done, as Stacey Edwards’s thwarted little soul flew out of the window beyond him.

17

Seven thirty that evening, and the Incident Room breaks up. Lohan is now in overdrive. When Janet Mancini died, most officers on the force would have said, correctly, that these things happen when you mix drugs and prostitution. They wouldn’t have meant that they should happen, that it’s remotely okay for them to happen, just that they do. True, April’s murder made the whole thing worse, but she seemed like collateral damage. Don’t take drugs. Don’t be a prostitute. Bad stuff happens when you break those rules. If your daughter happens to get killed—well, treat that as a memo to self on the importance of sticking to the straight and narrow.

But Stacey Edwards’s death was no coincidence. Jackson’s assumption—which I and everybody else share—is that the manner of Edwards’s death was intended to send a signal. That Mancini’s death was murder, not accidental overdose. That her death wasn’t just a one-off. That there could well be others in danger right now. Edwards’s murder was presumably intended as a warning. Keep your mouths shut, or else.

As officers disperse, Jackson jabs a finger at me, then at his office. His face is craggy and impassive. I can’t read anything there, but assume that there’s going to be some kind of bollocking, since Jackson seems to have a taste for it at the moment.

“Sit down,” he says. “I want some tea. Do you want anything?”

The coffee machine dispenses teas and coffees. For my herbal stuff, you have to go to one of the kitchenettes and make it yourself, I can’t ask a D.C.I. to make herbal tea for me, so I just say, “No. I try to avoid caffeine.”

“No fags. No booze. No
caffeine
?”

I shrug. A sorry-without-being-sorry shrug.

“You vegetarian?”

“No, no. I eat meat.”

“That’s something.” Jackson gives me a shaggy-eyebrowed look which would probably speak volumes if I had the codebook. But I don’t. “You want herbal or anything?”

My face must show my indecision, as I try to figure out the right response. Jackson solves the problem by opening his door and yelling at someone to bring him tea “and something that tastes like wet hay for D.C. Griffiths here.” He bangs the door shut.

“That the first time you’ve found a corpse?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Pretty grim, isn’t it? I’ve found four in my time. No bloody fun at all.”

“I had D.S. Alexander there. I’d have found it worse without her.”

“You did the right thing. I shouldn’t have assigned Jim Davis to that interview. You were right to prepare. I think we can take it as a given that Stacey Edwards was our anonymous caller.”

“We’d have got to her alive if we’d gone straight out.”

“Maybe. You don’t know that. You might not have found her. You don’t know where she was last night. We had no reason to think she was under threat. And even if you had gone out last night, she might still have been killed this morning.”

“I know.”

“You need counseling?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so.”

“It’s there if you need it. You just need to say.”

The teas arrive. Mine’s chamomile with the bag removed, so it’s probably had about ten seconds to steep, not five minutes. It tastes like hot water with a very slight edge of hay, so Jackson’s orders were obeyed to the letter.

“Go on then,” he says, snouting up some tea. “Shoot. I know you’ve got a headful of theories, and I’m dying to hear them.”

“Not theories. Nothing as advanced as that.”

“Right. Well, my theory and everyone else’s theory pretty much fell apart today. That theory held that some punter killed Janet Mancini—deliberately or on purpose, who knows?—then killed the kid to shut her up. No forethought. No planning. No point. No follow-up. I’d say that theory is pretty much fucked.”

“I don’t have a theory. I really don’t.”

“But … ?”

“But here are the bits and pieces as I see them. One, Brendan Rattigan’s card was in that house. That’s a hell of a strange place for a rich man’s debit card to be. Two, his wife pretty much told me that he liked rough sex. She obviously didn’t share that taste, she wasn’t cool with it at all, but he did.”

“That’s still speculation.”

“This is all speculation really. None of this is courtroom evidence.”

“Okay, but let’s go with it. Let’s say that Rattigan knew Mancini and used to visit her. Somehow or other she got hold of his platinum card.”

“Right. Number three, Brian Penry. Wild speculation, remember.”

“Go on.”

“Okay, the thing that was making my head explode with that case was that he seemed to have stolen more money from the school than the school knew about. I just couldn’t figure out how he’d bought all the stuff he had.”

“That’s hardly the point.”

“No, I know. We had evidence enough to convict him on a dozen counts of embezzlement, so it was curiosity more than anything that kept me scratching. That, plus a feeling that I’d been doing my sums wrong.”

“But you hadn’t.”

“No. Or rather I had, because I’d managed to miss the fact that Penry owned shares in more racehorses than we knew about. He’d taken some very basic steps to disguise his name, that’s all. His horses all seem to be co-owned with Brendan Rattigan or his chums. Logical deduction: Rattigan was paying a corrupt ex-policeman for something. Must have been something big, because the payments were big.”

“Why didn’t you report this earlier?”

“Um, a few reasons for that. One, I’ve only just found out the full picture. Two, I
have
reported it. It’s in my most recent batch of notes, and it’ll be in my report for D.C.I. Matthews when I present it. But three, it’s hard to investigate a crime when you don’t know if there’s even been a crime, and when we’ve already got easily enough evidence to bang Penry up for embezzlement. I thought if I’d come out with it straight, you and D.C.I. Matthews would have told me to forget about it.”

“Maybe. And you don’t
know
that it was Rattigan making those payments. Could have been anyone.”

“Could have been. Except for the coincidence of shared ownership of those horses. And the money. I haven’t yet had time to chase the value of those extra horses, but Penry’s share must have been worth tens of thousands, minimum. You’ve got to be rich to toss out that kind of money.”

“But Rattigan is dead. Which rather removes him from the list of suspects.”

“
Presumed
dead. I spoke to the AAIB—the air accidents investigation outfit—and asked if there was anything funny about the crash.”

“You have been busy.”

“And the answer was no not really, only maybe yes a bit.”

Jackson considers that for a moment, then says, “No. People don’t vanish like that. Especially not people worth a hundred mill, or whatever. Unless you’ve got anything else you want to tell me.”

Those chip shop texts don’t really count. The look on Penry’s face won’t count. Neither does the fact that his Yaris has rust on its wheel arches or that there’s no sheet music for his piano.

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

Two other things actually, but so small they almost don’t count for anything. Number one, Penry’s last extravagant purchase—the conservatory—came fifteen weeks after Rattigan’s reported death. That was well after his last illegal withdrawal from school funds.

Number two, although Rattigan was wealthy by almost any standard, his business had been having a rough old time of it. His highest ranking on a sterling rich list came in 2006, when he notched up a supposed value of 91 million pounds. But his businesses were steel and shipping, among the industries worst hit by recession. At the time of his death, in December 2009, both halves of his company were losing money, and he was seeking to restructure some of the debt associated with the steel business. Given the credit markets at the time, that was like asking to be beaten over the head by his creditors, then robbed. After the hurricane had passed, the
Financial Times
estimated the value of the remaining business at just 22 to 27 million pounds. I’m not sure how you think about those things if you’re a Rattigan type. Are you sad because you’ve just lost 65 million pounds? Or happy because you’ve got 25 mill and you’re still in the game? And would any of that make you fake a plane crash? And how does any of that connect with murdering Janet Mancini, and her child, and Stacey Edwards? I don’t know.

Then another thought bubbles up, and this one I do volunteer.

“The StreetSafe people say that Stacey Edwards had a particular hatred for the Balkan types who have been taking over the city’s prostitution rackets. Her death has an organized crime feel to it, I guess, so maybe there’s a connection there. And Rattigan’s shipping interests were mostly in the Baltic trades, whatever that means. From Russia to the U.K. anyway. Maybe some kind of drug connection. Who knows? If you did want to smuggle drugs, then owning a shipping line would be a nifty way to do it.”

“Seems rather cumbersome, though, doesn’t it?” Jackson laughs at me, but it’s a friendly laugh. “Going to all the trouble of making yourself a shipping millionaire just so you can run drugs into the country.”

“I know. None of it makes sense.”

“Okay. Thank you. That’s all helpful. Extremely speculative, but you did warn me. We might yet get something helpful from Forensics on Stacey Edwards. Meantime, we need to talk to every prostitute we can find to talk to. You getting on all right with Alexander?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. Then the two of you can stay working as a team. I’ll see if we can drag some other female officers in to help as well. Brian Penry. What do you think we should do with him? We could drag him back here and give him the third degree.”

“Won’t do any good. He told us sod all last time. And it’s not as though we can connect him to this inquiry in any meaningful way.”

“No.”

That’s a big, round, Welsh, senior officer
no.
An end-of-the-conversation
no.
A go-home-and-get-some-sleep
no.
A
no
that doesn’t bother to wonder why a certain D.C. Griffiths wakes at five every morning with a prickling feeling running through her body, like a premonition of murder.

Jackson checks his mug for the third time, only to find it still empty. He bangs it down on the desk.

“We forget Rattigan. He’s dead. He’s not a part of this. We forget Penry. We’ve got nothing to connect him to it and he won’t crack, anyway. As you say, this looks like an organized crime thing. Somewhere out there, there’ll be people, probably prostitutes, who know what’s going on. We find them. We hit the forensics hard. We get our killer. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, as in ‘I hear what you say but I propose to ignore it’ or yes as in ‘yes’? You know. The old-fashioned sort.”

I smile. My mug’s still full. I don’t like watery hay. “I’ll make it the old-fashioned sort, shall I?”

“Good. Good. What day is it tomorrow? Christ, Sunday already? You had any time off this week yet?”

“No.”

“Okay. Take tomorrow off. Go home. Do whatever you do to relax. Sleep in. If you feel up to coming in on Monday, then it’d be helpful. But look after yourself. You need to pace things. Big cases like this, you’ve got to look after yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

I stand up and say good night. Because that’s the thing about life. There’s nowhere to go but forward.

18

I get my things, head downstairs, blip open my car, and get in. Just sit there, door open, mind and body vacant.
Do whatever you do to relax.
What do I do to relax? Illicit smoking in my garden is the obvious answer, but that seems too solitary. It leaves my head too much room to cause havoc. I need people.

It’s not as hot as it has been. Sometime this afternoon there was a breeze from the west and a few sudden, dense showers of rain. Big raindrops hitting the street like a rattle of hail. The clouds have cleared now and the car park has steamed off, but you can tell the change in the atmosphere. The evening seems sharper and brighter than the last few we’ve had.

I can’t help but remember that night on the Taff Embankment, watching prostitutes disappearing into the darkness. I can’t imagine living that life. I can’t imagine dying that death.

People come and go. Some of them—those that know me and don’t dislike me—raise a hand to say hi. I raise a hand back.

I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to pop over to my mam and dad’s. I don’t want an evening out with a colleague. I’ve got more family—aunts and cousins—out in the farms beyond the city. The real Wales. The old Wales. The one that looks at this crazy, crowded coastal strip with incomprehension. I’d like that. A day or two of getting up at milking time. Hill walks, with buzzards curling overhead and plovers strutting pompously through the bilberries. Mending fences and feeding chickens.

Another time. I wouldn’t have time to unwind there. Instead, I swing the door shut and get the car into gear. I drive out of town just as far as Penarth. Saint Vincent Road.

Commuterville. Victorian houses, tidy gardens. Seaside shrubs which I don’t like: viburnum, euonymus, and my least favorite, escallonia. The damn things seem to be all about survival, not about beauty. I’d rather have something that lived fast and died beautiful. A winter jasmine that dropped dead in the blast of the first December gale. At least it’d have tried, not just held on.

I park and make a call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Ed. It’s me, Fi.”

“Hi, Fi, good to hear from you. How are you?” His voice is enthusiastic. Energetic.

“Yeah, not bad. What are you up to?”