The Sad Man (2 page)

‘They see the pain etched in your face and think it’s for them.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘No. I know that. It’s there for me. For us. For ever.’

He is quiet. He knows he is a good family liaison officer, that he brings calm to those who need it, empathy for those in deep grief. Sometimes he sees something in the eyes of a family member that triggers an alarm. He sees the shadow of guilt. He passes all that on to the DI and a few times, a few times in the last twelve years, it has been his spidey-sense tingling that has led to a killer being convicted. He is proud of that, but it is not enough. He wants to lead an investigation – he wants to find the men who…

Tom pulls back the sheet. Her body was released to the coroner’s office and is now in the morgue. The eyes are closed, he feels a stab of disappointment, he wanted to see the deep deep blue and he cannot find it in himself to open the lids – it would be disrespectful.

‘But she’s dead. The dead can’t be disrespected,’ Dani says.

‘But they can. The dead need our protection too.’ Tom bends forward and leans into the face on the table. He whispers into her ear. ‘Chelsea. We will find him. I swear.’

‘You and your promises,’ Dani-in-his-head almost sings. ‘You can’t keep them all.’

‘I know. I just—’

‘Need to make it personal?’

‘Something like that.’

He rarely sees the body at the crime scene – he is the go-to-FLO after all. Once the victim is identified, he is dispatched to break the news. He hates it. After he has done that he goes to see the body, either at the crime scene if it is still in situ, or here at the morgue.

‘Gruesome!’

He ignores her. He needs to see the body, to make a link with the dead and—

‘You promise them, promise they will be avenged. At least the girls. Girls like me.’

And he tries to keep his promises. He works all hours, chases down reports and interviews family, friends, neighbours – everyone. He drives himself hard and chips and chips away until he finds something in the family, if there is something. But he only gets to see his part of the operation, a jigsaw with half the pieces missing.

‘But the team finds the killer.’

‘Yes, mostly. In most cases we do find the killer – because most murders are stupid and most killers are idiots. Men who still have temper tantrums like toddlers, or think they own anything they can see, anything they can take with force. Most killings happen in plain sight, are witnessed or are telegraphed ahead. Or forensic evidence by the bucketload is left for us to find. They might as well be signed and addressed.’

‘And if not? If it is not run of the mill, if the killer is not stupid?’ she asks.

He sighs so deeply. ‘You know the answer, Dani.’

‘She might become lost. Just like me,’ Dani says in his head.

‘Just like …’ For the second time that day a tear runs down his cheek.

Wednesday 13 October 1999

It is late afternoon by the time Tom walks into the CID office at Greenwich. It is a large room, a hub of desks in the middle crowded together like an open-plan bazaar. There are free-standing white boards and flip charts scattered through the melee and one wall is filled with Post-it notes and pieces of paper tacked onto cork boards. The other three walls have had dividers put in to create small offices. Some are for senior officers, others are for private meetings, though the serious interviews take place one floor up, where there are secure rooms.

Tom navigates his way through the jumble of desks. A few heads turn as he passes, there are a few little laughs – Chelsea’s mother has coated his chest in slime and his trousers are covered in dog hair that refuses to be brushed off. He does not acknowledge the sniggers, just keeps his eyes ahead and heads to the small office he shares with three other FLOs. He has a spare uniform in there. He can grab it and head down to shower and change – good as new.

‘New?’ Dani-in-his-head laughs.

He sighs.

He would like it to be all new. Maybe he could start again, have another try at this – at being a grown-up. At thirty-one years old he feels he is still just a boy inside He is alone – not lonely – just alone most of the time.

‘You’ve got me,’ Dani-in-his-head laughs.

‘And isn’t that a big part of the problem?’

He has tried to make friends. Recently he bought two tickets for the opening day of the Millennium Dome – he is excited to see the technology; there might be jet packs. He bought two so he could offer one to another officer – but so far he’s asked four other sergeants and they all laughed. No one wants to go with him. He even tried speed dating a few months ago, but the only woman who was remotely interested had a love of Phil Collins and turned out to be a creationist. He couldn’t cope with both genesis and Genesis.

‘Bevans. Boss wants to see you.’ A voice comes from the other side of the room.

Tom doesn’t look up – eyes ahead, he is almost at his office door.

‘Now, Bevans.’

‘I really need—’

‘Now.’

Tom stops and looks over. DI Bennett taps his watch and rolls his arm to show the urgency.

‘Okay.’ Tom turns and heads to the unit officer’s room – the hated DI Ashe.

‘Not the guvnor, Ashe’s not here. The boss.’ Bennett calls and points to the stairs. One floor up to Chief Superintendent Drake. Tom looks down at his uniform.

‘You look a right sodding mess.’ Drake opens a drawer and throws him a packet of baby wet-wipes. Tom sponges the worst of the snot away while Drake watches him from behind his
antique oak desk. No other office in the building has a wooden desk, the others are metal and grained plastic that does a very poor imitation of wood. Drake had his own desk brought in from home, it was meant to intimidate. Tom thinks it just makes him look like a show-off.

‘I apologise,’ he says as he wipes. ‘I was with a family this morning. Sir.’

The
sir
is an afterthought. Tom has little respect for the man sitting before him – he is a
political
policeman. He plays golf with the mayor and hosts charity events for the local MP’s wife. He surrounds himself with policeman who think like he does and who don’t rock the boat. Tom hands back the wipes. They go back into the drawer. Tom looks at Drake’s uniform, crisp and clean. His hair, cut army-short, is like steel wool filed down. His cheeks and chin look polished. If Tom felt his own he would feel stubble; even ten minutes after shaving he feels stubble.

Drake sneers a little. ‘That’s a bit better, I suppose. Sit down, Sergeant.’

‘Sir.’ Tom sits, one leg crossed over the other. As he does so he sees he has mismatched socks. He uncrosses them quickly.

‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ Drake starts, looking down at a pile of notes on his desk. ‘You passed both parts of your DI exam – the law part you’ve had for …’

‘Three years.’

‘And you passed the practical and field assessment six months ago.’

‘Yes.’ Tom’s face clouds over.

‘You applied immediately for promotion to detective inspector?’

‘Yes.’

Drake smiles his snake charmer’s smile. ‘DI Ashe and myself have turned down your application.’

‘Three times.’

‘Three times exactly. Do you know why?’

‘No, sir.’

‘How did that make you feel?’

‘I don’t underst—’

‘Bollocks, Bevans. You pass both parts of the exam, the law section with the highest score this department has ever gained. You should have got automatic promotion, but you didn’t. Doesn’t that make your blood boil?’

‘No.’

Drake looks at him for a few seconds, clearly trying to gauge what lies behind the mask.

‘Sad Man? That’s what they call you isn’t it?’

He sighs a little. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘You lost your childhood sweetheart – murdered, wasn’t she?’

‘Childhood sweetheart?’ Dani-in-his-head laughs.

‘Yes.’ Tom fights to keep his voice neutral, controlled. He can feel the tears start to form.
Breathe
. He does not want to cry in front of a senior officer. ‘She was abducted and murdered.’

‘So you dedicate your life to help other victims like her?’

‘Nothing like that, I had chosen the police force bef—’

‘Do you have outside interests, Bevans? Outside the force, I mean.’

‘I don’t see the relevance.’

‘I play golf. I used to do battle re-enactments, Wars of the Roses was my favourite. I was Warwick, the Kingmaker. Military history serves the modern policeman well – you should remember that.’

‘I will, sir.’ He won’t.

‘DI Ashe recommended you be kept as a sergeant for two reasons. The first: because he felt you were the best family liaison officer he has ever seen – and I agreed with him.’

‘The second?’ Tom asks, his throat tight with a growing resentment.

‘He said that you had little ability to lead a team, that you were an outsider, that the empathy you seemed to show by the bucketful to the families, even scumbags, was totally lacking towards your fellow officers. Does that seem like a fair assessment?’

‘I …’

‘Maybe a bit unfair, let me turn the question around. DI Ashe – what do you think about him as a leader of men?’

Tom considers this for a second. ‘I think he fosters a familiarity, a camaraderie within his team. Most of the team are loyal to him.’ Tom also knows DI Ashe likes to frequent strip clubs and get hand-jobs from teenage prostitutes in return for not arresting them. He says nothing of that.

‘Familiarity. That’s a strange word to use, Sergeant Bevans.’ Drake drums his fingers on the desk. ‘I’d say he builds a team – I would also say that loyalty is bloody important.’

Tom feels his jaw tighten. He doesn’t believe you build loyalty by going to the pub: leadership is not the same as being liked. ‘I appreciate DI Ashe’s qualities of leadership, Ch—’

‘Liar. I can see it in your face. You don’t rate Ashe as a DI. And it’s mutual.’

‘Sir.’ It creeps like a condemnation from Tom’s mouth.

‘Bloody hell, Bevans, you’re an excellent family officer, a seriously good evidence analyst, a ferret up a drainpipe where it comes to finding the flaws in some bastard’s alibi – but a fucking liability as a senior copper.’

‘I think you’ll find—’

‘Lia-fucking-bility. Bevans, you are not the sort of man I trust at the top level. Do you know what it means to lead men? Do you have any idea what you need to do to be a DI, let alone run a CID team? Run a unit without enough people or resources – where half of the staff are depressed and the other half are too stupid to know they should be? Where you see guilty men – men you know are villains – walk free every day because you can’t make something stick? Where colleagues hate each other or are fucking each other, or both? Where every day is a juggling act and there is pressure from the top to catch more villains – and to do it more cheaply, more quickly? A good copper these days isn’t Sherlock-fucking-Holmes. He’s an accountant, a ringmaster and an organiser. And he has to know when to lick arse and when to stick the knife in.’

Tom stays silent but his jaw clamps tight.

‘And you know what I think of you? I think you’re a bleeding heart in a uniform. You think a copper is some kind of superhero or a knight on a fucking white charger. You are an idealist. I hate idealists. They’re messy.’

‘White knight? Oh, he doesn’t know you very well, does he?’ Dani-in-his-head whispers.

Tom feels battered. He should resign here and now, he could—

‘But needs must and you’re the best I’ve got. I want you to go home, get some sleep and be here at the crack of dawn. You’ll be acting DI.’

‘What?’

‘What part didn’t you understand, lad? Ashe isn’t here, Bennett is an idiot and maybe you can make the grade. Maybe, I’m not sure.’

‘Sir, I will—’

‘I’ll do the paperwork now; you’ll get the pips in a few days. It’s no more money and longer hours – none of which you will get as overtime, not any more. You will coordinate blue team and report directly to me. No Miss Marple shit like hunches or clues. You and all your team goes by the book: tag and bag evidence; chase down alibis; check friends, family and neighbours. Good and proper policing and we clean ’em up or hang ’em out to dry. At 9 a.m. tomorrow I will introduce you to the floor as acting DI. You need to be aware that DI Bennett will fucking hate you—’

‘He does already.’

‘No difference, then. Go home, get some sleep – because you won’t get any more for the next month – and be back here in the morning. Congratulations, acting DI Bevans.’ They stand and shake hands. The older man’s hand is weak. Tom grips it firmly and nods slowly.

‘What’s wrong with DI Ashe, sir?’

‘Bloody idiot fell down the stairs. Probably pissed, and he broke his – oh, I can’t say it without laughing. The bottom of his spine.’

‘Coccyx?’

Chief Superintendent Drake sniggers like a schoolboy. ‘Coccyx – yeah.’

Wednesday 13 October 1999

On the way home Tom buys a portion of chips and a giant pickled onion. Cliché. The single cop who eats take-away every night in front of the TV. At home he goes to the kitchen and pulls out a wok, drizzles in some sesame oil and fish sauce and throws in onions, mushrooms, chillies and some strips of chicken. A few minutes on a high heat, then he throws the chips in with some soy sauce, lemongrass and ginger. At the last moment he stirs in fresh coriander. The pickled onion is the salad.

His dining table is red and white squared Formica – it was his nan’s. It has two hinged leaves that can be raised to make a table for four, six at a squeeze. Otherwise it seats two and the leaves bang against your knees. There is a gouge in it where his dad stuck a carving knife in one day. His dad had been holding Tom’s head down on the table at the time, the knife stabbed the Formica close to his nose. His dad was drunk. Incredibly contrite the next morning, of course. Tom loves the table. He pours himself a glass of fizzy water (pauper’s champagne) and eats his fine-dining take-away. He uses chopsticks, practising for the big holiday he plans to take in China. Someday. Across from him is a second placemat and pair of chopsticks. Stupid.