This Thing of Darkness (14 page)

‘Nellie Bentley, John Redhead and Galton Evans, Lockwood’s former husband, all served on the insurance sub-committee that Dennis just mentioned.

‘All three break-ins were effectively impossible. A twenty-five-foot sheer wall in the case of Plas Du. An exterior window on a thirteenth-floor apartment in the case of the Redheads. The Sussex property was a converted lighthouse, with the thief gaining access, apparently, from the very top of the building. Local police – different forces in each case – dismissed evidence of a break-in as totally implausible.’

She stares at me.

I stare back. Neither she nor Jackson seem to be wearing their interrogation knickers today. Lots of statements. All verifiably true. No questions.

She concludes. ‘Marianna Lockwood, recently interviewed by Fiona here, reported that the stolen items had all been returned and the insurance money refunded. On further enquiry, it now turns out that the Redhead family jewellery was also recovered. Insurance money repaid. No report of the recovery made to the Metropolitan Police. It is not known whether Nellie Bentley recovered her teddy bear.’

I nod. Watkins’s summary was characteristically terse, but correct, and missing no major facts. She’s a very good officer, I think.

Jackson stares. Everyone stares.

I feel strange, but I didn’t sleep overnight and I’ve just crossed half a dozen time zones twice in two days.

Jackson says, ‘Fiona, is there anything you would like to add to the facts currently on the table?’

I say, ‘Jet lag. I think I might have jet lag.’

His face tightens in a way that tells me my answer didn’t quite hit the target, so I say, ‘The cable outfit. They assigned the mapping to different surveyors, each one with their own segment of the route. That’s not unheard of, apparently, but it’s not standard either.’

‘Noted.’

Jackson has a deep voice anyway, but when he’s in certain moods it turns into one of those bass rumbles which you don’t so much hear as feel through the soles of your feet. But when the rumble finishes the silence comes back, so I say, ‘Those undersea cables. You know how long it takes to get a signal to America? About fifty-something milliseconds. The theoretical limit is around forty milliseconds. Speed of light and all that. You’d have to cut a tunnel through the earth to go much faster.’

I mime the action of digging a tunnel to help anyone whose comprehension isn’t that great. On reflection, that probably doesn’t include anyone in the room.

‘Finance types. Hedge funds. They care about those things. I don’t think anyone else does.’

Then I shut up.

Then there’s a pause.

Then a Jacksonian rumble says, ‘Thank you, Fiona. You’ve been very helpful.’

There is a discussion of what to do next. There’ll be two separate investigations. One into Livesey’s death, headed by Findlay, and to operate out of Bristol. The second into Moon’s death, the Plas Du burglary and the apparently related thefts. That operation will be headed by Watkins, supervised by Jackson, and will operate out of Cardiff. Liaison officers on both forces to keep the inquiries closely connected.

Jackson says to Watkins, ‘Codenames?’

‘Yes, what haven’t we used yet?
Where Eagles Dare
? “Eagles” would be good . . .’

‘Or “Zorro”. It’s got to be “Zorro”,’ says Jackson. To Findlay, ‘We’re on Welsh films, or films with Welsh stars, anyway.’

That puzzles me. How does “Chicago” fit in? Then I think there might have been a film about the city, although why you would need a Welsh actor in that, I don’t know.

I don’t ask.

The meeting breaks up. Findlay talks to Watkins. Creamer mutters in annoyance, because he’s lost his phone and can’t call out. Then the Somerset deputation leaves, and Jackson and Watkins beckon me over.

Jackson says, ‘I need you to stay working in Exhibits. Can’t switch at this stage. But if you’re not too much of a pest, Rhiannon will let you sit in on things when it makes sense.’

Sit in on things?
Sit in on things?
I produce two honest-to-God, prime-quality murder victims plus a string of burglaries, which are, admittedly, only burglaries and don’t have any lovely, lovely corpses dancing in their wake, but are nevertheless pretty much gold-standard in their class – and Jackson tells me that I can
sit in on things
?

I don’t know what to say. Or rather: I have a number of options, but all of them come thickened with more swearwords than Jackson is likely to relish.

I stand there gaping.

He says: ‘If I could simply shift you, I would. But right now, we’re short of exhibits officers, and Chicago needs you. OK?’

I think of asking him for a number. Like, is there some minimum quantity of corpses I have to produce before I’ll be allowed out? You know: allowed out, to do my
actual
job, which involves
actual
investigation of
actual
murders?

Jackson says, ‘Chicago is an important case and you’re an important part of it. I’m not moving you.’

Important?
I want to say. We have now three thousand nine hundred exhibits and not a single useful lead. The hospital swabs were not secured and have long since been destroyed. The weather-coverings which collapsed, that time I was bad-mouthing Dunthinking in the canteen, did indeed compromise subsequent investigation. Dunthinking currently has his team forensicating every van that has ever rolled down Tremorfa’s leafy avenues, but all his work has not provided one single interesting lead – and I’m damn sure he knows it.

And, as it happens, there’s one damn van which Dunthinking has
not
chosen to forensicate and which is now my very own personal property: a fact which would, I’m pretty sure, turn Dunthinking’s face pinker and angrier than I’ve ever yet seen it.

I would say these things, would even talk about my new van, except that the words which lie closest to my lips are a vigorous and expressive jumble of Anglo Saxon and Old High Dutch, and Jackson – though perfectly capable of a little Old English himself – doesn’t always love it when I speak my mind.

So I stand there, useless, gawping, silent.

Watkins uses the silence to say, ‘We’ll run both parts of the inquiry – Moon and Plas Du – together. Briefings at eight thirty. I’ll make sure you have access to the material.’

And that’s it.

Jackson goes, holding the door for Watkins.

I’m left alone in an empty room.

I think I feel angry
and
upset. Those things and the fog of jet lag.

I stand there a while – breathing hard, feeling the press of my knuckles against the melamine table top – until I conclude that standing alone in an empty room does not constitute an effective protest.

Back at my desk, I call Ed Saunders, a friend now in the third incarnation of our relationship. In its first incarnation, he was my carer, a young clinical psychologist, right at the start of his career, who took care of me when I was a mad, angry, scarily endangered teenager. In the second incarnation – one that happened years later – he was my lover. We’ve settled now, I think, into the kind of friendship which will stand the test of time.

He answers, ‘Fi! Hi. How are you?’

‘Angry, definitely. Maybe also upset. Both things, I think.’

‘Something bad?’

Yes, bad, I tell him. I keep producing corpses, proper triple-A-rated murder victims, and I keep getting stuffed back into Ifor’s dungeon. ‘It’s like no one values a corpse any more,’ I complain, ‘and these are really, really good ones.’

Ed sympathises. Asks me if I’d like to meet up.

I would, yes.

I need reminding of the day of the week – it’s Friday – so I ask about tomorrow. Ed says no, then maybe, then figures out a way to shuffle some stuff around and says yes.

We ring off.

Maybe it’s about quantity, not quality. Maybe I just need to produce more and more corpses.

I call Mike.

Say, ‘Mike, if Watkins asks you for help, can you tell her you’re busy, except for weekends?’

‘I’m not particularly
busy,’ he says. ‘Anyway, my hours are totally flexible.’ He works part time as an outdoors instructor at a place for learning disabled kids, and he’s already told me that the real joy of his job is his ability to escape from it at short notice.

‘I know,’ I say snappishly, ‘just don’t say that.’

He agrees placidly. He’s nice. Nicer than I am.

We ring off.

I bring up Penry’s number, ready to call. My finger hovers over the call button.

Hovers and hesitates, dithers and delays.

No flying solo, Fiona
.

We need you to mature. As a police officer and as a person.

I’m a good girl. I don’t call. Just complete my notes. Distribute them. Add my contact details to the Project Zorro team list.

Maybe it’s four corpses I need. Or five. I just think there should be some tangible target, so you can have something to work towards.

Home. Shower. Bed. Sleep.

19

Home, shower, bed. Those are the easy bits. The Just Be Normal template for every evening.

But then what?

My Saturday mornings are the hardest part of every week, harder still now that I’m not with Buzz. In a way, I’d prefer to spend the weekend working, particularly now that Zorro and whatever stupid name the Somerset police are giving their inquiry are opening up into something really worthwhile.

But I’m strict with myself. Since being sent down to Ifor’s dungeon, I’ve been working ever longer hours in the effort to spring myself. In the two weeks leading up to my American trip, I was in the office every evening, often overnight, and working the weekends as well. Chicago swallowed pretty much all my normal working hours, so my various other projects stole whatever scraps of time were left over.

Those other projects kept me sane but, much as I love those long marathons of work, I do get lost in them. Start to slip the moorings which keep me tethered to this difficult planet.

So no work for me this fine morning. Instead: life – a more difficult proposition.

I get up at eight. Ask my fridge if it has any food for me. It offers me a plastic container of fruit that is only slightly fizzy. A yogurt with a use-by date that seems to have passed some time ago, but which seems fine. A cold sausage.

I take those things to the table and eat them. The fruit, the yogurt, the sausage.

Make some tea. Drink it.

Smoke a joint, not a particularly big one.

Cleaning. I should do some of that, I think. I don’t normally like cleaning my house. I enjoy the feeling of the dust slowly settling, things returning to nature.

But this weekend my Just Be Normal rule will be my guide and lodestar. On my last big case, I worked undercover as an office cleaner, Fiona Grey. She became pretty good at her job. OK with hoovering and dusting and nothing less than a whirlwind in the bathrooms. So from time to time, I step back and let her do her stuff. Even went out and bought those yellow plastic buckets we used to use. Commercial cleaning fluids in five litre tubs.

This Saturday morning, I give that other Fiona her head. She scrubs, cleans, hoovers, wipes. Rooms dazzle at her touch. She does things that wouldn’t even occur to me: running the hoover up the inside of the curtains, wiping condensation spots with vinegar as a precaution against mould.

She’s blitzkrieg fast, but peaceful. She has a contentment I never quite manage. I let her get on with things, not intruding. Then, when she’s done, she puts the cleaning stuff away and goes out into the garden so we can share a ciggy. We stand out there in the chill – two women, one body – and watch the smoke curl up towards the grey sky. We like the way that nobody tries to stop it.

And after a bit, Fiona Grey fizzles out. As though that part of me dwindles and the other part, the me-part, comes back strong.

I think about taking some exercise, but decide that thinking about it must be almost as good as doing it.

Have another conversation with my fridge. It tells me that the milk is so sour it is forming islands. It shows me a packet of bacon with last year’s date on it.

I throw everything out and go out to buy some groceries.

Come back. Put them away.

Pick up the phone to call Penry. Start to dial, but don’t hit the call button. Just listen to the silence.

No flying solo, Fiona
.

I think of those cables undersea. Snaking past the sunken clutter of the estuary floor, past the flatfish and the hagfish and the skates and the rays, down to the black waters beyond the continental shelf, where dark things move.

I replace the phone. My house crawls in its own silence. Beetles moving behind wood.

Moments like this, I miss Buzz with an intensity that is so physical, it almost takes my breath away. What’s worse is that I have this vision of him, standing in his flat, feeling the same thing, in the same way.

I lean my forehead against the glass of the kitchen window. Feeling it cold and clear and empty against my skin.

It’s not yet time to go round to Ed’s house, so I spend a little time on naughty things. Enter Cesca Lockwood’s computer. Read her emails. Steal her passwords. Facebook. Gmail. Instagram. Everything. Look for phone numbers. Inspect her documents and photos.

Find nothing obviously wonderful, but you don’t always know what’s golden when first you see it. When it’s time to go over to Ed’s house, I drive slow, not the idiot behind the wheel that I normally am.

He asks how I am. I tell him OK.

‘Getting to grips with the single life again?’

‘Maybe. Yes, maybe.’

‘Have you been out on a date yet?’

‘No.’

Ed is single too. Divorced, two kids, ones he only gets to see every second weekend. He’s had one or two fairly short-term girlfriends since the collapse of his marriage, but nothing major.

And I suddenly worry that Ed has been waiting for this. For me. To become available again. So that we can do as properly functioning adults what we tried to do too early, too young, too foolish.

I like Ed, but not like that. His silence troubles me.

I say, ‘But I’m getting closer. There’s a guy at the office I quite like. Not CID. But, you know. Nice. And I’ve been thinking I should start to do all that again.’

Ed nods, says something, starts kitchening around, the way he does.

He doesn’t drop the conversation right there. Not straight away. He probes a bit more, but I adhere to my policy of careful indifference. An indifference which pretends not to have noticed that he is a boy and I am a girl and we once used to share a bed.

And then – I don’t know. The moment passes. That ghost of a possibility in his mind snuffed out by the glassy impenetrability of my response.

Did I read things right? I can’t tell. I’m not very good at these things. There’s maybe a slight angry edge to the way Ed opens a bottle of wine, cracks eggs, shifts crockery. But I’m not sure. And any case, I can’t go climbing into bed with someone, just because their feelings might be hurt if I didn’t.

Things move on.

I sit on the kitchen counter as he works. He asks about my case and I tell him about my corpses. I ask about his work and he tells me about his nutcases.

When I talk about Ifor’s dungeon and the problems I have in managing my head down there, he looks at me carefully. Steady blue eyes, with the wisdom of experience.

He doesn’t tell me what he finds, though. Just makes an omelette for us both. Welsh goats cheese and chives chopped in its middle. A green salad, mixed, dressed and served while the omelette goes golden. After a bit, I get off the counter. Go and stand at the stove so I can jiggle the pan now and again, pretending to be useful. When Ed comes over to check what I’m doing, I lean my head against his shoulder.

We stay like that a while. The omelette doing whatever it does. Me leaning on Ed. Him letting me lean, blue eyes grave above me, sentinels guarding a lonely sea.

When the moment is over, and the omelette divided between two plates, and I’m sitting down and finding my knife and fork and remembering that I need to try and eat like a human being, I say, ‘Thanks, Ed,’ and I sort of make it look like I mean the food, but he knows and I know and the whole world probably knows that the food is only the smallest and least important part of it.

He says, ‘You’re welcome,’ and smiles at me, and I smile back, and we eat.

Two friends. Just friends. Sharing a meal.