by James Oswald
Then I can remember. It was Pete. About six months ago when we were first starting to plan out this operation. Fuck.
There’s still half of my cheese on toast left, but I’ve got no appetite any more. I dump it in the bin under the kitchen sink, pour the tea down the drain. For a moment the half-bottle of wine calls to me from the fridge, but I ignore it. Now’s not the time. Get your life in order first, Con. Then you can get shitfaced.
Most of the stuff I’ve shoved into my backpack could really just go in the bin too. There’s some station paperwork I’ll have to fill in if I want to continue being paid, a few certificates that’ll be of limited use if my police career is truly over, a mountain of cheap biros and felt-tip markers that I’ve been hoarding for a while now, and a bunch of keys. I set everything out on the table in front of me, each item bringing with it a memory. There’s the photo still in my jacket pocket too, but for now I leave that where it is. Pick up the keys. Pete’s keys.
I remember him giving them to me, making some joke about it to ease the tension. We had a history, sure, but this wasn’t that kind of exchange. More a ‘look after the place while I’m gone’ kind of gesture. At least I think that’s what it was. As it happened, he wasn’t gone for long enough for me to need to use them. Now he’ll never go back there again.
I loop the keyring around my finger, dangle the keys in front of me. Indecision’s always been a problem, and I can hear Detective Superintendent Bailey’s voice, grumpy and harsh, warning me off going anywhere near the investigation into Pete’s murder. Will they have sent a team already? It’s probably the first thing I’d do, visit the victim’s house. But I’m not running the case.
Fuck it. What’s the worst they can do? They’re going to run me out of the force anyway. I shove the keys in a pocket, grab my own from the sideboard in the hall and head back out into the city.
5
Detective Inspector Pete Copperthwaite was forty-five when he died. That’s another reason why we never really got together. Bad enough a DC and a DI in the same unit, but a fifteen-year age difference? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against that sort of thing. It’s just that coppers are the worst gossips and there’s only so much tutting I can take before I lamp someone. And Pete has an ex-wife too. Christ, I wonder if anyone’s told her yet?
All these and more useless thoughts bounce around the inside of my skull as I ride across the city, south of the river. Too far to walk, it takes an age to work out the bus routes, but I’m damned if I’m taking the Tube. In the end I give up and walk the last mile.
It’s a nice place. Tiny little terrace house in a quiet street just a little too far from the main commuter routes. Even so it’s probably worth ten times what young Police Constable Copperthwaite paid for it when he first joined the Met. I don’t imagine any PCs starting out now will have much chance of buying their own place. Not around here anyway.
Walking here’s given me the opportunity to scope out the street before I get anywhere near. There’s no sign of any police presence, no sign of anyone at all. The sun’s making it hard to see through the windscreens of some of the cars, but I reckon they’re all unoccupied. Parked up while their owners are at work in the city. I never could quite understand the point of having a car in London; it’s usually quicker to walk. Still, people love their motors, I guess.
I can’t find any evidence the front door’s been tampered with, and when I unlock it the alarm beeps until I key in the code to disarm it. So far so normal. There’s about a week’s worth of mail on the doormat, but that’s to be expected. Pete was working undercover, spending most of his time at the office where I found him. There’s a small flat above it that came as part of the deal and that was his cover. For all the good it did him.
I’ve still got a pair of latex gloves wedged in one of my jacket pockets, an old habit I’m glad of now. I pull them on before going beyond the hall, aware that I’ve already touched the door handle and the buttons on the alarm keypad. It’s not as if I’ve no right to be here; Pete gave me keys and told me the code, after all. We were colleagues, worked together on loads of cases. Got drunk together. I pause a moment, trying to remember him like that, pint in hand, head back as he laughs at some inappropriate joke. All I can see is his bruised and battered face, that tiny red dot in the middle of his forehead. The choking stench of smoke everywhere.
Snap out of it, Con. You came here for a reason, so get on with it.
I step lightly through the house, checking for any obvious signs of disturbance, but also for anything that might embarrass Pete’s memory. His whole life’s going to be rifled through for clues as to how he died, and that seems wrong to me right now. Strange, really. I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve dug through people’s personal history, often those who are still alive. Pete’s dead. He doesn’t care if every detective in the Met knows he wore boxer shorts with polka dots on them, or liked reading fantasy novels and comics. But I care. I want him to be remembered well.
There’s a back door to the house, opening onto a tiny patch of garden that’s been almost entirely paved over. A high wall at the back with a black-painted wooden door set into it, bolted top and bottom. If memory serves, there’s a lane beyond, and some of the bigger houses on this street have garages. I don’t bother going out; it’s obvious no one has been here any time recently. The house has that feel about it, a staleness to the air. I take one last look around the hall, try to call up happy memories. It doesn’t work. Coming here was a mistake, now it’s time to leave.
Resetting the alarm, I reach for the front door at the same moment it swings open. I think DC Penny is as surprised to find it unlocked as I am to see him.
‘What part of “stay away from the investigation” do you not understand, Fairchild? Posh public school education like yours, I’d have thought you’d understand basic English by now.’
Back at the station, back in Detective Superintendent Bailey’s office. It’d be déjà vu all over again if it weren’t for the absence of Sergeant Thomas and DCI Bain, replaced by a smirking DC Penny. I guess it could be worse; they could have shoved me in a cell for a while and questioned me under caution.
‘I have a key for Pete’s house. I know the alarm code. He asked me to keep an eye on the place while he was undercover.’ It’s a weak excuse and I know it, but it’s all I’ve got right now.
‘Keep it so clean you had to wear gloves, right?’ Dan Penny is enjoying my discomfort way too much, and for once I can’t see any easy way to get my own back on him. He’s not the one in charge here, so I ignore him.
‘You’re suspended while we investigate Pete’s death and your role in it, Constable. How do you think it looks when we find you snooping around his house? What were you trying to hide?’
‘Hide? I wasn’t—’
‘Picking up a pair of your old undies you’d left behind, were you?’
This time I round on DC Penny. It helps that I’ve got a couple of inches’ height on him, but the way my blood’s boiling it wouldn’t matter if he was a giant.
‘Pete’s dead, Dan. Someone shot him in the forehead. Right there.’ I poke him in the exact same spot, hard enough for him to take a step back. ‘He was a better cop than you’ll ever be. A better man. So keep your fucking sick fantasies to yourself, OK?’
I can see the red flush spread up his neck and across his cheeks. The anger not far behind it. Brawling in the Detective Superintendent’s office isn’t a good idea, but it wouldn’t be the first time Dan and I have come to blows. Bailey interrupts us before we can get started.
‘Are you denying that you were in a sexual relationship with DI Copperthwaite?’
There’s just enough disbelief in his tone to stop me from laughing. That and the anger I can barely control at the moment. ‘Of course I’m fucking well denying it. Pete was my friend, sure. But Jesus Christ, sir. “Sexual relationship”?’ I almost make little bunn
y ears with my fingers. ‘He was fifteen years older than me.’
Bailey stares at me with a mixture of contempt and disgust I’m more used to seeing on hardened criminals in the interview room. Lawyers too, now I come to think of it. He doesn’t believe me, and neither does DC Penny. How many others in the station think Pete and I were together? How did I never know? I mean, there was that one time, sure. But that was years ago.
‘Nevertheless, it’s very suspicious of you to go round there alone. What were you doing there? What were you looking for?’
It’s a very good question, and one I don’t have a ready answer to. Put simply, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything to embarrass Pete when they went in and turned the place upside down. I knew they were going to, didn’t have to be part of the investigation to see that coming. I just don’t know how to explain that to Bailey and Penny, perhaps the two most unenlightened men in a station dripping with testosterone.
‘I wasn’t looking for anything, sir. Wasn’t trying to hide anything either. I just wanted to see the place one last time.’
Blank stares from the both of them, but then I was hardly expecting anything else. On the other hand, it’s just the two of them. And I’m not in one of the interview rooms, not being offered a lawyer or read my rights.
‘Look, Pete and I were close. You know that, everyone in the station knows that.’ I’ve been standing to attention, on my guard, but now I force myself to relax a little. Make this feel like an informal chat rather than a dressing-down. It might work.
‘I had heard.’ Bailey’s voice is all snark, but that’s better than anger, right?
‘It wasn’t like that, sir. I know what station gossip’s like. Two officers working closely together, they must be having an affair. Only, we’re detectives, aren’t we? We don’t do supposition, we do facts. And the fact is Pete and I weren’t fucking each other. We were friends. And we were both working on the same operation. He was undercover, I was first contact should he need anything. You know all this. You authorised the whole thing in the first place.’
For a moment I think I’ve got him convinced. Somewhere deep down, hidden under the machismo and management by bullying, Bailey’s a good detective. Dan Penny, on the other hand, is the closest thing to a talking piece of shit I’ve ever met.
‘Come off it, Fairchild. You were in his house wearing latex gloves. That’s a potential crime scene and you were tampering with it despite being told to back off the investigation into DI Copperthwaite’s death.’
‘How is it a potential crime scene, Dan? Pete hadn’t even been there for a fortnight. He was working undercover, remember?’
‘Nevertheless, you shouldn’t have been there, Constable. You knew that, and yet you still chose to disobey a direct order.’
There’s something about Bailey’s tone that kills my snappy retort. When I left here the last time I was still in shock, still coming to terms with Pete’s death. I couldn’t understand why everyone seemed to blame me for that when it clearly wasn’t my fault. Stupid, really. I assumed they were all in shock too, and their anger was just a knee-jerk reaction. Now I know it’s something far more serious. They really mean to make me a scapegoat for this. Bailey set me up perfectly. He knew exactly what I’d do. Christ, he probably even had Penny tailing me, ready to pounce when I crossed the line. They want me out, because then it’s easy to blame me and sweep everything under the carpet. Idiot that I am, I walked straight into their trap.
6
‘We have come here today to remember before God our brother, Peter Copperthwaite.’
I don’t really do churches. Got that all out of my system at school. There was a time I loved the ceremony, the singing, the sense of shared purpose, but then I saw through the lie. Or I became a teenager and rebelled the way all teenagers do. Whatever the reason, church and me don’t really get along any more. I’ve skipped out on quite a few weddings just to avoid the awkwardness of having to explain why I’m not going to accept the inevitable christening invitation a year down the line.
But I still do funerals, even if I’m starting to have second thoughts about this one.
Pete didn’t have many friends outside of the police service. Those of us who worked with him are huddled together at the front. Twenty or so people in a nave built for a congregation of hundreds. The vicar’s almost as old as the church, his face as grey and lined as the plaster cracking from the walls. He’s wearing a simple cassock that looks enormous on him, weighing him down like the mountain of sins he’s forgiven. I don’t know if he knew Pete at all, but he’s doing his best.
I can see the coffin from where I’m standing, near the back of the small crowd. Plain, cheap, it was carried in here by six uniformed officers who probably didn’t even know Pete at all. I don’t know why that makes me angry, but it does. I fight back the tears anyway. Damned if I’m going to let any of this lot see me cry.
‘To commit his body to be cremated.’
I’ve not really been listening to the vicar, but as he speaks those words I’m reminded of the fire in the wastebasket, set to burn the whole building down and cover up the crime. Is it my imagination, or can I smell that smoke again? Two fat candles flicker on the altar, twin trails of black drifting up from their yellow flames. Maybe that’s what has set me off. It’s been two weeks since he died and there hasn’t been a day when I’ve not thought about that room, that fire, Pete’s bruised and beaten body. I’ve no idea how the investigation is coming along. Nobody will speak to me about it. I made a formal statement to DCI Bain, but nobody has come back to me for anything more. Almost as if I no longer exist.
‘Let us commend Peter to the mercy of God, our maker and redeemer.’
Time slips forward and the coffin is being carried out again, a sombre line of black uniforms following on behind. A grey-haired old man, hunched with arthritis and walking slowly with the aid of a cane must be Pete’s father, retired police sergeant Henry Copperthwaite. The tiny woman by his side is his wife, Marjory. They both look at me, but only briefly. No more attention than they give any of the other people here. Then they’re gone, following their son’s body to the crematorium, where new flames can finish what the old flames failed to do. His ashes will be buried in a small pot beside his grandparents, somewhere on the North Yorkshire moors, and in time – a short time if the look of them is anything to go by – Henry and Marjory will join him. This church service is for them more than anyone.
Detective Superintendent Bailey stares at me for longer than is polite as he shuffles past. It looks like he’s going to ignore me, but at the last moment he stops. His scowl of annoyance at my presence here is a small victory.
‘Professional Standards want to interview you. First thing tomorrow morning.’
His tone surprises me, and I get the distinct impression that if I’d not been here, seen in his presence by at least two dozen other police officers, the message would have somehow been ‘forgotten’ and not reached me. It’s not as if I had any plans for tomorrow though, and this was going to happen sooner or later.
‘I’ll be there.’ I hold his gaze until he breaks eye contact, then wait until he’s long gone before joining the few stragglers.
‘It’s Constance isn’t it? Con?’
I turn to see a woman dressed almost as inappropriately for a funeral as me. She’s got a thin black woollen cardy on, but that’s about it as far as mourning goes. I don’t recognise her for a moment, then the young face I’ve seen in a few photographs at Pete’s place morphs itself onto the older one in front of me.
‘Veronica?’
Pete’s ex-wife smiles, wrinkles spreading from the corners of her eyes. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever actually met before.’ She holds out a hand and I shake it lightly. ‘Peter spoke very highly of you though. I must say, I’m surprised not to see you in uniform. Everyone else is.’
‘I quit.’ It’s not quite
the truth, but it gets to the essence of it.
‘Not over what happened to Peter, I hope?’
‘Partly. Indirectly, I suppose.’ I lean against the end of a pew, unsure where this conversation is going or why I’m even having it. The church is empty now, save for a verger tidying up around the altar. He snuffs the candles and the smell of burning flesh grows stronger.
‘You going to the wake?’ I ask, not really sure what to say.
‘With a bunch of coppers? Why do you think I left in the first place?’ Her smile is at odds with the occasion, but suits her face just fine.
‘I didn’t realise you were police.’
‘Not for a long time now, but that’s how Peter and I first met. We came through training together. He went through the fast track and ended up in plain clothes. I stuck to uniform.’ She shoves her hands into her pockets. ‘You want to get a coffee? Got to be better than standing here chatting, right?’
Mid-afternoon, I’d more likely be looking for something a bit stronger than coffee, but what the hell? This woman was married to Pete for almost ten years. Least I can do is give her a bit of my time. It’s not as if I need to be anywhere else, after all.
We’re in a chain coffee shop just around the corner from the church. Veronica’s drinking something with ice in it, which seems to defeat the point of coffee as far as I’m concerned. My double hit of dark espresso lasted all of thirty seconds, so maybe she’s onto something.
‘They wouldn’t tell me how Peter died,’ she says after we’ve dispensed with the small talk. ‘I spoke to his boss, Gordon Bailey. Never really liked him, if I’m being honest, and he’s not changed. How he made it to superintendent I’ll never know.’