Slow Motion Ghosts

by Jeff Noon

  ‘And one who’s plain crazy,’ Latimer added.

  ‘And one of these remaining people is our perpetrator.’ He read the names out loud. ‘King Lost, Miss Caliban, Mood Indigo.’

  Latimer nodded. ‘Are we to assume that Eve Dylan was drowned?’

  ‘It seems likely. I believe someone has taken over her role.’

  ‘As the leader of the group?’

  ‘Yes. She’s the new figure of authority. And that gives her the right to kill.’

  The phone rang. Latimer answered it.

  Barlow said to Hobbes, ‘What if we’re wrong, sir?’ He sounded nervous, raising the doubt. ‘I mean, what if someone else entirely is to blame, someone not on the list? How can we be sure?’

  ‘We can’t be. We can’t be sure.’

  Latimer finished on the phone and said in an urgent voice, ‘It’s about Fairfax, sir.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s in trouble. He’s been in a fight. Apparently, he’s attacked someone.’

  Ordinary Human Weakness

  Hobbes lit a cigarette, just to get the smell of the strip club out of his mouth, and then started to walk down Berwick Street. Soho was crowded. He cut down a side alley to where the car was parked and slipped into the back seat, next to Fairfax. The young officer’s carefully gelled hair was awry and his bottom lip was puffed up and marked with a trail of blood. One lapel of his jacket was torn.

  ‘Did you sort it, Henry?’

  Chief Superintendent Lockhart spoke from the driver’s seat without looking round.

  ‘I hope so,’ Hobbes answered.

  ‘DC Fairfax is playing dumb. Isn’t that right, Thomas?’

  The young officer didn’t answer. Hobbes broke the silence. ‘The club’s called the Blue Moon. It’s running some dodgy practices. But nothing illegal, not on the surface.’

  ‘A back room?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Straight or gay?’

  ‘Probably both.’

  ‘Enterprising, let’s give them that.’

  ‘I had to promise them a deal.’

  ‘A blind eye?’

  ‘A month’s amnesty.’

  ‘Needs must. I’ll sort it with Charing Cross nick.’

  Hobbes turned to Fairfax. ‘Do you hear that, Tommy? We’re having to make deals for you, otherwise …’

  Lockhart turned round at last. ‘Otherwise you’d be up for assault. And you know what that means?’

  At last Fairfax spoke, if only a single word: ‘Sir.’

  The superintendent frowned. ‘Do you see that patch of wall over there, Detective, where the water trickles down from the broken gutter?’

  Fairfax looked confused.

  ‘Do you see it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘That’s where I’d like to smash your fucking head, right there, until your nose breaks and your forehead splits open.’

  Seeing the terrifed expression on Fairfax’s face, Hobbes had to feel sorry for him.

  Lockhart carried straight on: ‘I’m this far from kicking you off the force, as it is.’

  ‘Sir, I’m sorry, sir.’ Fairfax’s voice sounded thick, his damaged lip giving him trouble with the words.

  ‘That’s enough apologies. You’re turning my stomach.’ He glared at the miscreant for a good few seconds, to get the message across, and then looked at Hobbes. ‘And you reckon Charlie Jenkes was dealing with them?’

  ‘Yes, it’s possible,’ Hobbes replied. ‘I saw him coming out of the place a few days before he died.’

  ‘Fairfax, what do you reckon?’

  There was no response. Hobbes said, ‘Tommy, you’re in the shit, waist-deep. Don’t sink down further.’

  The young officer’s tongue licked at his broken lip as he made a decision. ‘Charlie was bent,’ he said. ‘I know that now. He was …’

  ‘Come on. Spit it out.’

  ‘He was blackmailing someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. Possibly more than one person.’

  ‘You’re sure? Positive?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I did a bit of digging and found that DI Jenkes was known at a few places in Soho. The Blue Moon was one of them.’ Now that he was in confessional mode, the details came easier to him. ‘I knew something was going on, words unsaid, and all that.’

  ‘So you decided to beat it out of them,’ Hobbes said.

  ‘They got on my wick, sir. Fucking ponces.’

  ‘And you see what happens,’ Lockhart said, ‘when you go in like a raging bull.’

  ‘They started taunting me, all about DI Jenkes and his nasty habits, and his dirty little schemes, his blackmailing – it all came out, they spat it in my face, like I was to blame. They were loving it, sir! They were saying the cops were all bent, all the same. That we’re all bastards, all that. And so …’

  ‘And so you waded in.’

  ‘I did what I had to do.’

  Lockhart scowled. He turned back to face the windscreen. ‘I’d like to know why you were looking into Jenkes. That’s the mystery.’

  ‘Because he was murdered. Well, that’s the story, isn’t it?’

  Now Lockhart went quiet. Hobbes watched as the superintendent’s head bowed down slightly. He would have to take over, try to protect Fairfax as best he could.

  ‘The detective constable was very close to DI Jenkes, sir, when he was younger. He looked up to him, and he feels angry that his mentor might have been killed. He acted irrationally and out of character, and he knows that now.’

  Lockhart’s head shook from side to side. He didn’t speak.

  Hobbes tried again. ‘He knows he’s done wrong, Chief.’

  Lockhart grunted. ‘Get him out of my sight.’

  ‘Right-oh. Come on, Fairfax, out you get.’

  Hobbes had to lean over and open the door for him, but eventually Fairfax made it out of the car. For a moment it looked as though he was going to lean in at the driver’s window and make another apology, or another justification, but he thought better of it and started off down the alleyway.

  ‘I’m not twisting my neck any more, Henry. Not at my age.’

  ‘No. Of course not.’ Hobbes got out and climbed in the front passenger seat and waited for judgement to be passed.

  ‘I really thought you’d keep the lid on this.’

  ‘I tried. I don’t know where the stories are coming from.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late now, too bloody late.’ Lockhart pursed his lips. ‘So then, is there anything in this blackmailing story?’

  ‘There might be. I’ve found some negatives that DI Jenkes was hiding. I’m having them developed today. But there are other possibilities.’ He decided to keep Lisa Jenkes’s affair private, for now, in case it came to nothing.

  Lockhart nodded his head. He laughed and said, ‘He’s got gumption, that Fairfax. I’ll give him that. Sticking his snout in where it doesn’t belong. Mind, I used to do the same thing, when I was his age.’

  ‘What shall I do with him?’

  ‘Why, you take him on board. Best place for him, at your side. Otherwise, he’ll go off like a grenade in a tea shop.’

  ‘And what if another copper’s involved?’

  Lockhart’s mouth set in a hard thin line. ‘The thing is, Henry, there’s pressure from on high, from the gods themselves. The bad press is finally getting to them. We need to clean our dirty laundry in public.’

  ‘No more cover-ups?’

  ‘Spot on.’

  ‘That might be a good thing, actually.’

  Lockhart stared at him. ‘Don’t give me the bleeding-heart routine, please. Despite everything you might think about me, or everything you might have heard … if there’s one thing I fucking hate, it’s corrupt cops.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘So, get this sorted! Whatever the outcome.’

  The conversation was over. Hobbes got out of the car and watched as Lockhart drove away. He walked back on to Berwick Street and heade
d over to where his own car was parked. There was a telephone box nearby. He rang Neville Briggs.

  ‘Have you got round to those negatives yet?’

  ‘I’ve only just got in. I was on a shoot—’

  ‘Now, please. Get on it.’

  Hobbes put down the handset without waiting for an answer. He couldn’t move. The phone box smelt of urine and aftershave. He waited until the moment of stasis had passed, then he rummaged through his pockets until he found a slip of paper with an address written on it.

  He drove back over towards Ilford.

  The house was identical to all the others in the council estate but was well looked after. The front door had been freshly painted and the small garden was neat and tidy. Hobbes rang the bell and waited until a harassed-looking young black woman opened it.

  ‘Mrs Patterson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is your husband in?’

  ‘Can I ask what it’s about?’ She spoke in a mixture of Cockney and Jamaican.

  ‘A private matter.’

  Her eyes narrowed, and a deep set of creases appeared on her brow. She opened her mouth to protest, but he’d already had enough by then. He showed her his warrant card.

  ‘We need some information from him, regarding a pupil at his school.’

  That seemed to settle her and she vanished down the corridor. A minute later Lloyd Patterson arrived at the door, a man of medium height, wearing spectacles and a brown check shirt with a loosely knotted woollen tie, both covered by a Fair Isle tank top. He looked every inch the old-fashioned English teacher, except for the colour of his skin.

  ‘Yes, can I help you?’

  Hobbes lowered his voice. ‘I hope so. It’s about your affair with Lisa Jenkes.’

  Panic took over. Patterson looked nervously over his shoulder, to see if his wife was still there. She wasn’t, but he stepped out on to the street anyway and part-closed the door.

  ‘I have my car over here,’ Hobbes said. ‘If you’d prefer?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Thank you.’

  They walked across the road to the car and sat next to each other in the driver and passenger seat.

  ‘I don’t wish to cause you undue trouble,’ Hobbes said. ‘I told your wife that I need information about a pupil. You can make up any story you like.’

  Patterson didn’t reply. He was looking through the windscreen over towards the front door of his house, as though expecting his wife to appear and start walking towards them, but the road was empty and quiet. A slight breeze moved the branches of an elm tree growing out of the pavement, and a cat slinked by and disappeared through the gap in a fence.

  Hobbes got right to it. ‘I don’t care what you get up to in your personal life, Mr Patterson. I just need to know one thing.’

  He paused. The passenger turned to look at him, a look of utter trepidation on his face.

  ‘Did you kill Detective Inspector Jenkes?’

  A moment passed. Patterson almost laughed but then stopped himself.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘It’s very simple. Did you or did you not—’

  ‘Yes, I heard you. But I really do not understand why you’re asking me this.’

  ‘You made threats against Jenkes’s life. Isn’t that correct?’

  ‘I won’t conceal it, I did. I think he was a nasty piece of work, and I haven’t shed a tear over his death. I doubt that any black man or woman in London has done so. But no, I didn’t kill him.’ He hesitated. ‘In fact, I thought he’d killed himself?’

  Hobbes didn’t respond to this. He said, ‘And you don’t know of anyone who would want to hurt him? Any of your friends?’

  ‘We’re not all savages.’

  Hobbes kept his cool. ‘I’m talking to a number of people, most of them are white. Believe me: when it comes to villains, I’m colour blind.’

  Now Patterson did laugh, and loudly. ‘I’ll be sure to call you, next time I get pulled over.’

  They fell to silence. Hobbes said, ‘Why are you still bothering Lisa Jenkes?’

  ‘Are you friends with her?’

  ‘I am. An old friend.’

  ‘Would you believe me if I told you I was in love with her?’

  ‘What about your wife?’

  Patterson shook his head sadly. ‘We’ve been having problems.’

  It was all so pitiful, Hobbes thought. Such everyday passions and despairs. Is that all it was, a bored man and a frustrated woman drawn together in search of excitement? How long would it last, he wondered. If it ever came to anything, that is, given the various obstacles that would have to be overcome.

  As DI Collingworth used to say: Look for the ordinary human weakness, Henry. No matter how big the crime, simple emotions always lie at the heart.

  ‘Tell me. You met with Jenkes, I believe?’

  ‘Met with? The man beat me up.’

  Hobbes smiled. ‘You were sleeping with his wife …’

  ‘And that allows him to hurt me? To hit me, to kick me?’

  ‘What would you do, if someone was sleeping with your wife?’

  ‘I am a Christian man, Inspector.’

  ‘Yet you commit adultery?’

  Patterson made a noise with his lips. His voice changed as he quoted chapter and verse. ‘Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.’

  ‘The Bible?’

  ‘Romans, 6:12. Of course, we are merely human, not divine.’

  ‘What did Jenkes say to you? Anything?’

  ‘Is this important?’

  ‘There’s a chance that he might have been murdered. We’re not yet sure. But I’m looking for any possible motivation. Or any information about the state of his character.’

  Patterson nodded. ‘He was full of rage, I will say that. Absolute fury. He seemed to know that something would happen, in Brixton.’

  ‘There had been trouble brewing for a while.’

  ‘He made general threats against my race, and said that we’d get what was coming to us, one day soon.’

  The inspector frowned. More and more he was seeing this other side of Jenkes. No, not another side, because the tendency had always been there. But it had been much worse than he’d ever let on. Unless Hobbes had decided to ignore it, for the sake of friendship. Again he felt the stab of guilt.

  ‘You look like a man who’s lost his way,’ Patterson said. ‘Are you troubled?’

  Hobbes didn’t give an answer. There was a pause. The cat reappeared through the gap in the fence and sauntered away, its adventure complete.

  Patterson said, ‘I do know who you are, Inspector Hobbes. I saw your photograph in the paper, and I read the reports about poor Michael Hennessey. And I guess I should be grateful to you, for what you did that night. I guess we should all be grateful; is that what you expect?’

  ‘I’m not expecting anything.’

  ‘But did you do enough, Inspector? Isn’t that the question?’

  ‘It is. Without a doubt.’

  ‘How would you answer?’

  ‘I don’t need to answer, not to you.’

  ‘That may be so. But to yourself?’

  Hobbes stared at his passenger. And then he spoke in a quiet voice. ‘No. No, I didn’t do enough.’

  Patterson nodded. But then he stared out through the window and saw his wife at the door of the house. She was looking up and down the street, her arms folded across her chest.

  Now he spoke quickly. ‘There was something said that night, when I was beaten up, it might be relevant to your search.’

  Hobbes was suddenly alert. ‘Yes?’

  ‘But it’s not a question of what Detective Jenkes said. It’s what the other man said.’

  ‘The other man?’

  ‘There were two of them.’

  ‘Another cop?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you have a name?’

>   ‘No. Not that I heard.’

  ‘What did he look like? Did you see?’

  ‘Not really. It was dark, and I’d never seen him before.’ But Patterson made an effort to remember. ‘Short hair, sports jacket. A tough-looking guy. That’s all. He did most of the hitting.’

  The description fit any number of the coppers Hobbes knew. ‘And what did this second man say to you?’

  ‘Not to me. To Jenkes, when I was lying on the ground. It was the last thing I heard. He said, “I hope this settles it between us.” And then the final boot came in and I blacked out.’

  ‘You didn’t hear DI Jenkes’s reply?’

  Patterson shook his head. ‘Look, I really need to get back to Ellie. There will be hell to pay, otherwise.’ He made to get out of the car, but Hobbes stopped him.

  ‘There’s one more thing I need to ask …’

  ‘I know. Keep away from Lisa, right?’

  ‘She doesn’t need any more hurt in her life.’

  Patterson leaned in at the open door. ‘Don’t worry, Inspector. Two days ago I found out that my wife is pregnant. We are expecting our first child. I am fully committed to that task.’

  And with that he was gone, hurrying across the street.

  Hobbes watched as he drew level with his wife, who had come out into the road. The couple talked for a moment, then walked back to their house. The door closed behind them. He sat there for a while, thinking about the second man who had helped Jenkes in his attack, and the remark he’d made. Then he started the car and headed south towards Notting Hill.

  Neville Briggs greeted him and invited him into the darkroom.

  ‘They’re just drying,’ the photographer told him. ‘I must say, they’re an intriguing set of images.’ He unclipped the photographs from the line strung above the workbench and showed them to Hobbes. ‘I suppose the younger participant must be a rent boy.’

  Hobbes remained silent. The images passed before his eyes.

  ‘And the older gentleman, he seems to be having most of the fun. I imagine he’s paid a lot for the pleasure. Do you know him?’

  Hobbes did. In fact, he recognized both participants.

  He left without saying another word and drove through the darkening city back towards home. The flat seemed tinier than ever. He went to make himself a cup of tea, but there was no milk in the fridge. He walked to the newsagents on the corner and bought supplies. He needed time to think, to consider what to do next. He looked over the newspapers and magazines on display in the shop, thinking how out of touch he was with the wider world. He turned towards the exit, but something made him stop in his tracks.