The Stranger You Know (Maeve Kerrigan Novels)

by Jane Casey

  “Hey! Shut it.”

  “I need air.”

  “It’s like having a dog. Do I need to take you for a walk before the interview or do you think you can wait until afterward?”

  “Very funny,” he said, without shutting it. I gritted my teeth and concentrated on getting to Kensal Rise, where Lionel Orpen was living out his retirement in a small terraced house.

  There was nowhere to park on Orpen’s street so I drove around the corner and left the car beside a small park with a playground. The day was cool but bright and the park was busy with mothers and small children, who were running around shouting at top volume. I thought of Oliver Sinclair and wondered if Stuart would be allowed to look after him on his own again after letting a strange woman into the house.

  Derwent squinted across the top of the car looking pained. “Do they have to make so much noise?”

  “It’s a key part of having a good time when you’re little.”

  Two small boys ran past us on the other side of the railings, scuffling with one another.

  “Give them fifteen years and they’ll be being arrested for fighting outside pubs after closing time.”

  “Well, that won’t be your problem any more. You’ll be retired by then,” I said.

  He pulled a face. “Not quite. Anyway, they’ll have extended retirement age to seventy to save on pensions. Or I’ll keep working for free. I’m not exactly thrilled at the thought of doing fuck all every day for the rest of my life.”

  “I don’t think fuck all is obligatory. You could find something worthwhile to do.”

  “What sort of thing could I do? What else would I want to do? The crossword?” He snorted. “Come on. Let’s go and see how it’s done.”

  Good policeman or not, Lionel Orpen was no poster boy for retirement. He opened his door and peered out at us suspiciously, two days of stubble frosting flabby thread-veined cheeks. He’d been a big man in his time but now his clothes hung off his body, apart from where a substantial gut pushed against the thin wool of his jumper. Even before I smelled the alcohol on his breath I knew he was a drinker. It was half past ten and he was weaving as he led us into a living room piled high with newspapers and books.

  “Excuse the mess. I’m writing my memoirs. This lot is the raw material. Sources, and such.” He sat down in a threadbare armchair by the gas fire, leaving us to find somewhere to put ourselves. Derwent perched on the arm of the sofa, which was loaded with yellowing magazines and otherwise unusable. I stood near the door, not wanting to touch anything. The house smelled of mildew and I was afraid to disturb any of the piles in case something jumped out at me. A movement at the back of the room made me whirl around, my heart thumping.

  “Gave you a fright, did he?” Orpen patted his lap and a cat threaded his way through the stacks of books, uttering low cries. It was a round-faced tom with tattered ears and a scarred nose. It jumped up on Orpen’s knee and he scratched it under the chin. “Poor old Rudolf.”

  “As in the reindeer?” Derwent asked.

  “As in Hess.”

  Derwent glanced at me and I could see what he was thinking. Oh, here we go …

  “You’re wondering why I named him after a Nazi. Well, he reminded me of him. He used to be free—I fed him now and then, when he came into the garden. He had a great life, fighting and screwing and chasing rats. Then he got picked up by the do-gooders next door and taken to a rehoming center, as if anyone would want him. He was on death row when I found out where he’d gone. I got there in time to save him but he’d been de-balled. The way he looked at me, through the bars of the cage—it was Hess at Spandau all over again.”

  “Oh. That’s—”

  Orpen interrupted Derwent. “You didn’t come here to talk about Rudy. You came to talk about Angela. Don’t bullshit me. I spent long enough doing the job you’re trying to pretend you’re capable of doing.”

  “All right.” Derwent shifted position on the arm of the sofa. “Tell us about Angela.”

  “You first. What made you join the Met?”

  “It seemed like a good career.”

  “Bollocks. The truth.”

  “I wanted to help people.”

  “You’re wasting my time.”

  “I wanted to fuck up the people who think they can do what they want with other people’s lives.”

  Orpen’s eyes lit up. “That’s what I liked about you, Joshua. You understood what we were trying to do.”

  “You were trying to fit me up for murdering Angela,” Derwent said with commendable restraint.

  “It was obviously you. All the evidence pointed to you. Except that you couldn’t have done it.” He gave a rattling, wet cough. “We put Charlie Poole under plenty of pressure to take back his statement but he wouldn’t. Said it wasn’t fair. He wanted justice, not revenge on you for putting his darling daughter in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “He was a good man.”

  “Oh, do you think so?” Orpen leaned back in his chair to let the cat surge up his chest and lie against his shoulder. “He had no love for you.”

  “Not surprising. Men tend to have trouble with their daughters’ boyfriends.”

  “He thought you were a fool.”

  “He was probably right.” Derwent smiled. “I was a teenager.”

  “You weren’t the worst. Not as clever as you thought you were, but cleverer than most.” Another cough. “I knew you joined the army, you know. I kept in touch with your social worker. Found out when you left and decided to become a police officer.”

  “I’m flattered.” Sarcasm was so much a habit with Derwent that I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not.

  “Don’t be. I kept track of a few lads. The ones I couldn’t lock up, for whatever reason. Some of them turned into killers and rapists, just as I’d thought, and got sent down. Some of them got on the straight and narrow. You’re the only one who joined the Met, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “I’m not surprised. You weren’t the best example I could have had.”

  “I. Did. My. Job.” He slammed his hand down on the arm of his chair, his face livid with rage, and I actually stepped back even though he wasn’t speaking to me. The cat took offense and jumped off, sliding under the chair instead. Orpen was depleted now, a shadow of what he had been in his prime. It must have been truly terrifying to be interviewed by him when he was in the full vigor of middle age.

  Derwent folded his arms, outwardly unmoved. “Yeah, but you didn’t. Because you never locked anyone up for Angela’s death. Who did you like for it, apart from me?”

  “The dad, initially. That went nowhere. The two of you canceled each other out, didn’t you? Alibied each other.” Orpen burped, loudly, and went on as if he hadn’t. “The local troublemakers. We had a couple of sex offenders who were living nearby who seemed right, but then there wasn’t a sexual assault.”

  “Why do you think that was?” I asked, too interested to stay silent.

  “Dunno. Maybe he lost his nerve. Couldn’t get it up. Got disturbed and ran off.” He looked at Derwent with a glint in his eye. “Didn’t fancy sloppy seconds.”

  I saw it hit home. It was only the smallest shift in his posture but it was a giveaway nonetheless and Orpen didn’t miss it either.

  “Still sad about her, aren’t you? Still wish you’d walked her home.”

  Derwent was the last person to need rescuing, usually, but in this instance he seemed defenseless and I found myself stepping forward to stand beside him.

  “Mr. Orpen, I spoke to Stuart Sinclair yesterday. He admitted he’d lied to you in his original witness statements.”

  “About seeing this fellow?” Orpen pointed a long, wrinkled finger at Derwent. “I knew that. He was a real mommy’s boy. His mother kept her door locked at night to stop him from coming into her room.”

  “Fucking hell,” Derwent said. “You mean—”

  “Not like that.” Orpen raised a hand to stop Derwent from going on. “Don’t get too
excited. The Sinclair marriage had split up earlier that year. Stuart was going through a bad time and he’d stopped sleeping. He wandered around the house all night. Drove his mother mad. She didn’t want him bothering her.”

  “So he didn’t see anything from the front window,” I said.

  “No.”

  “And you knew he was lying at the time.”

  “Yeah, but he wouldn’t budge. Said he’d seen what he’d seen.”

  “Did you go into his bedroom?” I asked. “What sort of view did he have of the garden next door?”

  Orpen’s face went slack and he gazed into the corner of the room, trying to remember. “He could see a bit, I think. His room was on the left at the back.”

  “Could he have seen Angela with her killer from his bedroom?”

  “He said he didn’t.”

  “He lied about seeing Derwent,” I pointed out.

  “There was a tree in that corner of the garden. It was in full leaf. He wouldn’t have been able to see much, if anything.”

  I thought about it, trying to imagine myself there. A sleepless fifteen-year-old, attracted by the noise of a scuffle, seeing movement under the trees. Assuming it was the girl next door and her boyfriend. Assuming they were having sex, there and then, only feet from him. And he hated Derwent. Certainly enough to want to disturb them.

  “You know who didn’t have an alibi?” Orpen was watching Derwent again, his expression wry. “Your mate. What was his name? Vinny. He said he was with Shane, but it was bullshit.”

  “Why didn’t you arrest them?” I asked.

  “No evidence.” He sucked his teeth. “And Shane did have an alibi in the end. Some girl he wasn’t supposed to be seeing. That’s why he lied. He dragged Vinny into it to back him up—that was their story.”

  “So Shane was out. But why didn’t you arrest Vinny?” I asked.

  “I wanted to. It was just a hunch, though. No evidence. I interviewed him twice and didn’t get anywhere. Got told to back off by my boss because he was a juvenile and his parents were getting antsy.”

  “Who was the girl?” Derwent demanded.

  “Now you’re asking me.” He went looking through a stack of papers by his chair, wetting his thumb the better to flick through them. “Here we are. Claire Naylor. You should talk to that Vinny again. Find out if he knows anything about these killings you’re investigating.”

  Derwent didn’t say anything. He was staring into space. I assumed it was too hard for him to tell Orpen what had happened to Vinny, in the end. He had walked away from me when I told him—just turned and left before I could say I was sorry.

  “Vinny died, Mr. Orpen. In Afghanistan,” I said.

  “So he’s probably not your killer, then.”

  “Probably not.”

  “He wouldn’t have hurt Angela.” Derwent had recovered. “No way.”

  “Well, someone did. And you asked me what I thought, and that’s what I thought.”

  “Do you remember if you showed the crime-scene pictures to many people when you were doing interviews? Do you recall who saw them?”

  Orpen winced. “Bit of a sore point, the pictures. We lost a set.”

  “What do you mean, lost them?” Derwent demanded.

  “They went missing. They were in the police station, on a desk, and someone misplaced them.”

  “Or they were stolen,” I said.

  “Who’d want to do that?” Orpen asked. “Anyway, why are you asking me about them?”

  I explained about the website Stuart had shown me, and the relevance to our murders. Orpen shrugged.

  “Can’t help you. Didn’t know who nicked them at the time and I’m certainly not going to be able to tell you now. Any more questions?”

  “Just one,” I said quickly. “Do you recall any intel coming in on a guy called Craig? He was passing through the area around the time of Angela’s death.”

  “First name or last name?”

  “No idea.”

  “Description?”

  I told him what Claire had told me and he shook his head. “Where did you get that?”

  “I came across the name,” I said vaguely.

  “Never heard of him before. And good luck with tracking him down twenty years on.”

  “Thanks.”

  Orpen nodded at me. “She’s a bright one, Joshua.”

  “Never thought you’d fall for a pretty face,” Derwent said, dismissing me as usual.

  “Not my type. Too tall. But she’s got something.”

  “Yeah. Ears.” I glared at the pair of them. “Can you stop talking about me as if I’m not here?”

  “Take it as a compliment, lovely.” The old police officer gave a wheezing laugh that degenerated into a cough.

  Derwent turned so Orpen couldn’t see his face and looked from me to the door. I took the hint and said good-bye, leaving Derwent behind. He joined me on the doorstep a few minutes later and blew his nose.

  “Good to go?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I am.” He set off toward the car and I hurried after him.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course. Got dust in my sinuses. That place is a health hazard.” He blew his nose again, and took the opportunity to wipe his eyes. “Oh, fuck it. I must be getting soft.”

  A lorry with a skip on the back of it blasted past, taking the speed bumps along the road far too fast. The skip flew into the air and thumped back down after every bump. I waited until it had gone by, with a thud and a crack that sounded like a gunshot, before I tried to ask anything else.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “He told me he was proud of how I’d turned out.”

  “Aw. That’s nice.”

  “Don’t,” Derwent said, shaking his head. “Just don’t.”

  “I knew you were sentimental but that’s astonishing. I bet he never made you cry when he was interrogating you.”

  “You’re right, he didn’t.” Derwent sniffed. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Ever.”

  “You’re not here, remember?” I took out the car keys. “So no one will ever know.”

  We turned the corner so the park came into view. The children were still screaming, sounding shriller than ever. I glanced across at the playground, about to make some remark to Derwent about it, and stopped. I was aware of him pausing too, looking in the same direction. Something was wrong, I thought, trying to work out what it could be. I couldn’t see any of the children or mothers at first, just a lot of abandoned prams and buggies, but I could see a man standing in the middle of the park, all in black.

  And as he turned toward us I saw the gun in his hand.

  Derwent and I started running at the same time. Toward, not away.

  It didn’t occur to either of us to do anything else.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Being fitter and quicker, Derwent got ahead of me, but not by much. I sank down behind the car nearest the park gate, a couple of seconds after he had done the same thing.

  “Stay here. Call it in. Tell them to send SO19.”

  “I won’t need to tell them to do that,” I said, not unreasonably. A gunman in a playground would get every resource available to the Met. I had my phone out and was dialing already. Derwent turned and prepared to move.

  “Hey,” I hissed. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m not going to stay here and wait for him to start killing kids.”

  “And what do you propose to do about it? Talk him to death? You’re not armed.” I got through to the police control room before I could say anything else to Derwent and he took advantage of that to dart out from behind the car and slide through the gate. I moved along a bit further, still crouching, still on the phone, so I could keep him in view, see the gunman, and monitor the distance between the two of them. It was not enough and narrowing all the time.

  And then Derwent whistled, a jaunty two notes to attract the man’s attention.

  “All right, fella? Lovely day for
it.”

  The gunman turned, his free hand stretched out toward Derwent as a warning. “Go away.”

  He was older than I’d thought—forty, at a guess. White. Fair hair, thinning a bit. Deep lines scored his forehead and bracketed his mouth. Staring eyes: I could see white all around the irises even from where I was lurking. The gun was rock-steady in his right hand, though.

  “Come on, mate. You don’t want to wave one of those around.” Hands in his pockets, Derwent was walking toward him, slowly but inexorably. The gunman stepped back a pace.

  “Fuck off, mate. This is none of your business.”

  “What’s the problem? What’s going on?”

  Through his teeth, the man hissed, “I was looking for my bitch wife and my little boy.”

  In my ear, the operator was repeating all I’d told her and checking the address, her voice calm and nasal. I was riveted to the scene in front of me.

  “We’ll get backup to you ASAP. Trojans are on the way. ASU is lifting. Stay on the line.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with her but I needed both hands. I put the phone in my jacket pocket, still on so she could hear what was happening, and moved forward to the gate. Derwent was about thirty feet away from me, getting closer to the gunman and, crucially, his weapon. Beyond him, I could see a group of about ten women and maybe fifteen children, huddled together in a tight group. They were looking at Derwent as if he was their only hope.

  “The two of you not getting on?”

  “We split up. A couple of months ago. She threw me out.”

  Derwent tutted. “What’s your name, fella?”

  “Lee.”

  “This isn’t going to help, is it, Lee? You don’t want your little boy seeing you with a gun, do you? Not for real.”

  “I don’t know where he is.” Lee swung back to face the group of children and women, waving the gun in their direction. “They won’t tell me.”

  “Maybe he’s not here. Maybe he’s gone home.”

  “Not without his mother.” A ghastly grin. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  I saw it at the same time as Derwent: a body lying on the ground. From my angle, all I could see was a pair of legs in skinny jeans and flat brown leather boots. They weren’t moving. She was lying on her front, just beside a brightly colored climbing frame in the shape of a giraffe.