by Tony Parsons
Edie was shaking her head.
‘You should have thought about all this before you set up shop in that penthouse,’ she said.
Whitestone left. Edie followed her. But I stayed where I was as Madam Theresa reached across the table and once again I felt those long bony fingers digging into my arms.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘I never wanted you hurt. I never wanted those girls hurt. I did not want them pumped full of those disgusting drugs. I never did these things in the past. Ask your friend. Ask Ginger. It was that abomination and his paymasters. My son is blameless. And I’m begging you not to punish him too.’
I felt my elbow throbbing with pain, pulsing and straining against my skin, as if that hammer was still coming down and connecting with fragile flesh, blood and bone.
I shivered. Her hand felt as if it was seizing me from beyond the grave. I shook it off.
‘Why should I give a damn about your son?’ I said.
‘Because you are a parent too,’ she said.
33
I had been home for an hour when someone rang our bell down on Charterhouse Street. There was a tiny black-and-white screen by the intercom and the sight of DCI Whitestone jolted me. I buzzed her up, expecting her to tell me that the only thing she wanted from Madam Theresa now was to see her burn. But there was something else on her mind.
‘We want our dog back,’ Whitestone said.
‘His name is Dasher.’
‘We want Dasher back.’
I felt like shutting the door in her face. She had not asked about Dasher once. He was our dog now. I have no sympathy for anyone who gives up a dog, whatever the reason. But then I thought about all the time and money that someone else had lavished on Dasher, and of all the tests he had to pass, and the serious task that he had been trained for and I could not find it in me to send her away.
This wasn’t about Pat Whitestone. This was about her son.
‘You better come in.’
Whitestone had never been to my home before. She walked into our loft and stood there staring at all that empty space. That’s what everyone does when they see our place for the first time. A loft is like a cathedral. It is built to inspire awe.
‘Dasher’s being walked with our Stan. They’ll not be long.’
She nodded, still adjusting to the cavernous room. Mrs Murphy was laying out Scout’s school clothes and I introduced her to Whitestone, seeing her face fall as I told her why Whitestone was here.
Mrs Murphy blinked back the tears, briskly folding Scout’s freshly ironed school clothes as Whitestone wandered over to the window, her gaze drawn to the left and the great white dome of St Paul’s.
Scout came out of her room.
‘Scout, thank you for looking after Dasher,’ Whitestone said. ‘I’ve come to take him home, if that’s OK with you.’
Scout thought about it, weighing it all up.
‘It’s really hard to become a guide dog,’ she said, looking at me for confirmation.
‘That’s right, Scout,’ I said. ‘Guide dogs have to be aware of their environment but not overwhelmed by it. They have to be sensitive without being timid. They have to be confident without being too wild. It takes a lot of people to train a guide dog.’
Whitestone nodded, attempting to smile.
Then she addressed Scout.
‘Justin – my son, Scout, who you met when you came to our house – he had some problems adjusting to his new life.’
‘He’s blind,’ Scout said.
‘That’s right. So for all sorts of reasons we couldn’t take Dasher at first. But now we can. I hope you understand.’
‘Dasher’s going to live with you and Justin now?’
‘If that’s all right with you, Scout.’
‘I better draw a picture of Dasher,’ Scout said. ‘To keep when he’s gone.’
‘I’m sorry, Scout,’ Whitestone said. ‘I know you’ll be sad to see Dasher go.’
Scout nodded briefly, dry-eyed but subdued, and went off to her room to get started with her drawing.
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ Whitestone said.
After that night at the Hopewell Centre I had developed the habit of flexing my left arm. The elbow pulsated and throbbed as if it was a living thing, filled to bursting with blood. Moving it seemed to ease the pain. I did it without thinking about it.
‘Just a knock.’
‘What exactly happened in that penthouse before we arrived, Max?’
‘You were late.’
‘The lifts were out. The CCTV was out. We had to walk up fifty floors. Who was there before we arrived? Some crew were there before us. Edie says she didn’t know them.’
‘Madam Theresa must have got on the wrong side of the wrong people.’
‘It looks that way. CSI found a severed hand up in one of the rooms. They’ve run the fingerprints of the hand through IDENT1 but it doesn’t ring any bells. Ten million fingerprints on IDENT1 but not this character. So you didn’t clock who the crew were?’
‘Whoever they were – God bless them. They saved my life.’
‘You’re still angry,’ Whitestone said.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You’re angry about Billy. You’re angry about the dog.’
‘Dasher.’
‘Dasher. And you’re angry about the Hopewell Centre.’
I could feel my left elbow throbbing with too much blood.
‘And you’re angry about Edie being undercover in there,’ Whitestone said. ‘You think I’ve taken too many chances.’
‘You’re meant to be on our side.’
‘I am on your side! That’s why I sent you and Edie in there – to watch over each other. That’s what the pair of you do. That’s what the two of you are so good at.’
I shook my head.
‘Edie didn’t need to be there. I could have done it alone. There were women dying in there.’
‘Don’t let your personal feelings get in the way of the job.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Whitestone stared at me.
‘I’m sorry about everything, Max. I’m sorry you think I put Edie in danger. But she’s a tough woman and it’s a dangerous job. This is what she signed up for.’
‘What about Lee Hill? What did that poor bastard sign up for? He was a bent lorry driver, but that’s all he was. He didn’t sign up for the risks we take, did he?’
‘I’m sorry about Lee Hill – he had earned some hard time but he didn’t deserve to die. And – please believe me, Max – I’m sorry about Billy.’
‘Billy was never a field man,’ I said. ‘That’s what was so wrong about sending him to that camp. It was insane. Troy saw right through Billy – and through Lee Hill, too. Troy was shrewd enough to know what side they were on and he was enough of a cop-hating psychopath to kill them.’ I flashed on Troy stamping on the face of the young black cop in the riot outside West End Central. Some of them do not worry about how big our gang is – they just want to bury us. ‘Yes, I’m sorry about Lee Hill, too. But Billy – that just breaks my heart. He was out of his depth and it killed him.’
‘Billy was never a canteen cowboy. How does anyone become a field man, Max? Not by sitting in West End Central. Billy was brave, tough, resourceful. I never dreamed he wouldn’t make it back.’
‘You asked too much of him.’
She nodded, all the defiance suddenly gone, her mouth flinching with some emotion that I couldn’t read.
‘And now I have to live with Billy’s death for the rest of my life,’ she said. ‘And it cuts me up, too – in a way that it will never cut up you or Edie. Because Billy’s death is my fault and I carry that weight to my grave. OK?’
And I felt that she was not asking for my understanding or forgiveness but just the recognition that she was the one who had to make the call, the one who had to make all the hard choices, and she had to do it again tomorrow and then try to sleep with all the damage done.
>
I nodded, giving her that, not envying her job, and some ice between us began to crack at last.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Here they come now.’
Nesha was crossing the street with the two dogs. They were a striking pair. Stan’s fur was that deep burnished red colour that you only see in dogs and Dasher was pale yellow and gigantic at his side, with all the calm intelligence and quiet strength of his breed.
‘I’ll get Dasher’s things,’ I said. ‘There’s a blanket he likes. And an old tennis ball.’
‘Max?’
‘What?’
She turned back to the window.
‘Thanks.’
Everyone said their goodbyes to Dasher.
When I was down on Charterhouse Street with Whitestone and Dasher, I looked up and saw Scout, Mrs Murphy and Nesha solemnly watching us from the window while Dasher was happily oblivious, wearing his big Lab grin, ready for his next adventure.
I drove Whitestone and Dasher to the terraced house in Holloway that already looked like his new home.
There were fresh boxes of Nature’s Menu Country Hunter food – ‘seriously meaty’ – in the tiny kitchen, a silver bowl full of water and a collection of brand-new balls, toys and chewing sticks. Dasher padded off to give it all a good sniff. But there was no sign of the boy.
‘Justin wants to talk to you,’ Whitestone said. ‘If that’s all right.’
Dasher padded behind me upstairs to the boy’s bedroom. I don’t know what I was expecting. Nothing good. But Justin was calling Dasher’s name before we went inside and he got down on his knees to wrap his arms around the Lab.
Dasher responded with excited licks of Justin’s face.
‘Do you shave yet, Justin?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Twice a week now.’
‘Dasher loves aftershave balm. It’s like ice cream to him.’
‘I thought he might be annoyed with me,’ Justin said, easing into his chair by his desk. He moved with more confidence than when I had last seen him. It had not become easy. It would never be easy. But it was not quite the struggle it had been. ‘Because of when we met,’ he said.
‘Dogs are endlessly forgiving,’ I said. ‘My friend Fred always says that if he locked his wife and his dog in the boot of his car for four hours, when he went back only one of them would be pleased to see him.’
We laughed, the boy’s fingers in Dasher’s fur as the dog settled at his feet.
‘You sound as if you like dogs more than people,’ he said.
‘Whatever you give Dasher, he’ll give it back a hundred times over. You don’t find many people like that, do you?’
His face grew serious.
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he said. ‘About your work.’
‘Why don’t you ask your mother?’
‘Because she’ll tell me what she thinks I want to hear. And I think you’ll tell me the truth.’
So I sat on his bed and I waited. Dasher sighed and closed his eyes. Justin’s hand soothed his head.
‘After what happened, everything changed,’ he said. ‘I felt like the future I was expecting had been taken away. That caused all those feelings. Depression. Self-pity. I know it’s pathetic.’
‘It’s not pathetic.’
‘But I’ve had a chance to think now. And I know I want to be like you and my mum – I want to do what you do.’
I did not speak.
‘I want to make a difference,’ he said. ‘And I wanted you to tell me honestly – is that just stupid?’
I shook my head.
‘No, Justin, it’s not stupid. The Met has thirteen thousand civilians working with thirty-one thousand officers. They’re all sorts of people, with all sorts of skills. What happened to you – that doesn’t have to stop you. But first you have to get out of this room and out of this house. It’s always going to be hard, Justin. It’s already going to be harder for you than I can imagine. But that’s why Dasher is here.’ I didn’t know what else to tell him. I stood up. ‘OK?’
‘OK, Max. And thank you.’
I went downstairs leaving the sleeping Dasher with him.
‘Your son thinks we make a difference,’ I told Whitestone.
‘And you don’t,’ she said. ‘Because you went to see Billy’s family and now you wonder if it’s worth it. But we all wonder if it’s worth it, Max. You have to stop thinking that makes you a bad policeman. It doesn’t. It makes you human.’ She gestured at my arm. ‘Let me see that elbow.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said.
She gestured impatiently. I rolled up the sleeve of my shirt.
My left arm was a mass of black and purple bruising from my bicep to my wrist. The point of my elbow had swollen up to the size of a ripe apple.
‘Olecranon bursitis,’ Whitestone said, prodding it. ‘There’s a little sac of fluid around the joints. The bursa. It helps movement. But it fills with blood if it has a trauma. That’s what has happened here. It needs to be drained.’
She came back from the kitchen with a first-aid box, took out a disposable hypodermic needle and eased it into the livid red lump that was now my elbow.
‘You think I’ve become a heartless old cow,’ she said, as we both watched the needle fill with blood that was closer to black than red. The lump on the tip of my elbow began to shrink.
‘That’s a bit harsh,’ I said. ‘You’re not that old.’
‘And you’re right, Max. I am changed from the woman I used to be. And the woman I wanted to be. And it’s not because of what happened to Justin. It’s not because of what some mindless little thug did to him in some bar. It starts long before then. It starts when his father left us. I always thought that being a single parent would make me a better person. All that sacrifice and caring for someone who depends on you for everything. But it didn’t make me a better person. It made me harder. I find I care less about the outside world. Sometimes all my compassion is reserved for my child. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. Do you know what I mean?’
Of course I knew what she meant.
I watched her dispose of the blood-gorged syringe.
‘You need to walk Dasher,’ I said. ‘That’ll cheer you up.’
I stayed to watch them prepare for that very first walk. I watched them put Dasher into his bright yellow harness with its blue Guide Dogs logo. I watched them double- and triple-checking that the lead was correctly attached to the collar, and that they had enough poo bags, hand wipes and dog treats for twenty walks. And I smiled because all those preparations would become second nature before they knew it. Then they stepped out into the quiet street, bound for the open pastures of Highbury Fields, Whitestone and Justin talking nervously as Dasher wore his reassuring grin between them.
By the end of the street, I could hear their laughter and I could see the spring in their step.
Dogs can break your heart. But they can heal it too.
Then I drove across town and picked up the motorway at Brent Cross, flexing my left arm as I followed the GPS to Summerdale Psychiatric Hospital.
It was feeling better already.
‘Summerdale is increasingly focused on promoting mental health rather than simply responding to mental illness,’ the hospital’s Director of Nursing told me. She was a tall woman nearing the end of her career, and in her classless accent I could detect just a hint of Australia, the country she had left a lifetime ago. ‘We want people to get well and stay well,’ she said. ‘We believe change is possible. But we also provide mental health care for long-term residents. Like Tommy Defarge.’
I looked out across the grounds. It could have been a private school, or a country hotel.
‘So in the past, people would come here and stay here,’ I said. ‘But now they receive care and then they leave. Is that about right?’
She nodded.
‘But the young man you’re interested in – no longer so young, but then neither am I – is one of our long-term residents. You have to understand,
Detective, that there was a stigma about mental health when Tommy Defarge was born.’
‘He’s never going to get better?’
‘He doesn’t have a disease. He has a condition. A lifelong developmental disability.’
‘Is he autistic?’
‘He has AS – Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s on the autism spectrum. Tommy doesn’t have problems with learning, or speech, but he has difficulty with social interactions, and understanding, and processing language. We know far more about AS now than we did when Tommy was born. He is a lovely man but he will be with us for the rest of his days. The fear his mother has – that he will be abandoned – is simply not going to happen. She has the understandable concerns of an ageing parent who wants to protect her vulnerable son. But we will take care of Tommy as long as he needs us. And he will need us forever. There he is now.’
Tommy Defarge, who must have been in his late forties, looked like a large boy, with a shock of fair hair and dressed in clothes that someone else had chosen for him. He moved slowly, holding the arm of the man who accompanied him.
‘Who’s that with him?’ I said. ‘That’s not a nurse, is it?’
‘That’s his father,’ she said.
And I saw it was Paul Warboys.
I walked across the grounds towards them.
Paul Warboys saw me coming, and watched my face as I stared at Tommy.
This close, Tommy was clearly not a boy but a man in his middle years. Yet he had a sly, youthful grin.
‘Tommy?’ Warboys said. ‘This is Max.’
‘Hello, Tommy.’
He hugged me in his powerful arms. I hugged him back, and then gently broke free of his strong embrace.
Then I looked at Paul Warboys.
‘Fancy seeing you here,’ he said.
And I felt that finally I saw the truth.
‘So you’ve been topping up your pension plan, Paul. How could I have missed it? Madam Theresa was done. Finished. Retired from the game years ago. But she came out of retirement because someone had a job for her. And who better to bankroll her comeback than the father of her son?’