She leads Manon to a corridor stacked with food and they stand with the multi-coloured slats of the doorway curtain about their shoulders like plastic hair.
‘I want you to keep a tab for that boy over there,’ says Manon. ‘Give him whatever he wants to eat, whenever he wants it, and send the bill to me. I can give you card details as surety.’
‘Is OK, your job. You will pay,’ says the woman, smiling. ‘He just a boy. I feed him no problem.’
‘Right,’ Manon says to Fly when she gets back to the table. ‘Come on, we’re going to buy you a coat.’
‘Davy,’ she says. She’s gasping for breath, leaning against a wall, the phone to her ear. She’s looking at the dirty Cricklewood sky, opaque as wool. She cannot seem to get a full lungful. ‘Davy,’ she gasps.
‘Calm down, Sarge. What is it?’
‘We’ve got to help him.’
‘Who? Help who?’
‘Taylor’s brother, Fly. He’s in a shithole and his mum’s out of it, and no one’s feeding him, not now Taylor’s gone. Davy, he’s going to get taken into care. He’s ten.’ She feels dizzy with the lack of oxygen. A bus roars past and she cannot breathe because she’s whipped about by a grey fog of exhaust fumes, unnaturally warm. ‘Social workers are onto him. You remember what that woman said from child protection – what was her name?’
‘Sheila Berridge,’ says Davy. ‘Didn’t think you were listening.’
‘Fine, Davy, fine. I’ve changed my tune. What can we do?’
‘Care’s not always bad. Sometimes it’s better than where they are.’
‘D’you believe that?’
‘Course I do. I’m not saying it’s lovely. I’m not saying it’s mum and dad and roast chicken for Sunday lunch. But people get through it. It’s dry, there’s food. He might get a decent foster family.’
‘Or he might get shoved into a massive care home which is stalked by paedos. I just want someone – a teacher, education welfare, anyone – to keep an eye on him, that’s all. Free school meals, I dunno. Taylor fed him and now …’
‘All right, all right,’ says Davy. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll talk to my mentoring buddy. See if she can’t pull a few strings down there. When did you turn so soft?’
Miriam
‘Iaaaan!’ she shouts up the stairs as she makes for the front door, rubbing her hands and thinking she must put the heating on. Their thermostat timer has not been adjusted to all these bodies being home during the daytime.
Miriam opens the front door and there is DS Bradshaw, a rumpled mass of black clothing, a capacious bag dropping off one shoulder. Her curls are pushed back from her forehead. She half-smiles a hello.
‘Do come in,’ says Miriam, stepping back. ‘Gosh, it’s freezing. Come on in, yes, that’s it, follow the corridor straight down to the kitchen.’
DS Bradshaw walks ahead of her, Miriam following and saying, ‘Tea?’
‘Lovely, yes, thanks,’ says the officer, allowing her bag to slip to the floor beside the kitchen table. ‘Glad to see the photographers have gone.’
‘Yes, we are no longer of interest, thank God,’ says Miriam, filling the kettle at the tap. ‘For the time being, at least. The last of them sloped off on New Year’s Eve but it was only the stragglers, to be honest.’
DS Bradshaw takes off her coat, laying it gently over the back of the padded banquette and revealing only more black, formless clothing. Perhaps they have to be constantly prepared for death – harbingers at the ready!
Ian walks in. ‘DS Bradshaw,’ he says, offering his hand. His voice these days has no uplift, no spring of humour behind it, which Miriam had always so loved in his greetings.
‘Call me Manon, please.’
‘Yes, Manon, of course.’
‘Tea, darling?’ says Miriam.
‘Why not?’
‘Can you call Rollo down?’
‘Yes, of course,’ says Ian. ‘He’s frantically tweeting and Facebook-ing,’ he says by way of explanation, and he disappears again to look for their son.
Miriam places a tea in front of Manon, who looks up at her and her face is lit by the window opposite – an angry left eye, swollen, pink-sheened and half shut.
‘You’d better treat that, sooner rather than later, by the looks of it. Conjunctivitis,’ Miriam says, adopting her GP no-arguing voice. ‘Very simple – buy some Chloramphenicol eye drops over the counter. It’ll clear up in a day. But make sure you finish the course. There, sermon over.’
‘I thought it might clear up by itself.’
‘Unlikely.’
‘How are you bearing up, Lady Hind?’
‘My name’s Miriam, my dear,’ she says. ‘And I’m not bearing up at all. Do you have any news for us?’
‘Not about Edith’s whereabouts. We have some leads …’
‘Leads?’ says Ian, settling, with Rollo, in the chairs opposite Miriam and Manon.
Manon stretches out her hand. ‘Nice to see you again, Rollo. I hear you’re running a formidable social media campaign.’
‘Much good it’s doing. There’s a lot of online emoting,’ says Rollo, ‘often by strangers, which I know I should find comforting but is really quite creepy.’
They smile and sip. In the sad silence of the kitchen, a fly fizzes against the glass of the window. Tap, fizz, tap.
‘So – leads, you said,’ says Ian.
‘Well, not exactly leads,’ says the sergeant. ‘Possible links which need exploring. We found a body.’ Then she swiftly adds, ‘No, not Edith. A boy – a seventeen-year-old called Taylor Dent.’
‘Oh, his poor mother,’ says Miriam, her palm across her mouth. Poor mother, but oh thank God it’s not Edith, thank God that wretched mother is not me. ‘What has he to do with Edith?’
‘We don’t know yet. That’s what we’re investigating. He is, was, from Cricklewood, not far from here.’
‘I think you’ll find Cricklewood is very far from here,’ mutters Ian.
‘Did Edith ever mention the name?’ asks Manon.
‘Taylor Dent?’ says Ian and he searches Miriam’s face. They shake their heads at one another.
‘I’ve never heard of him,’ says Miriam. ‘How did he die?’
‘We can’t be sure. His body was found on Friday in the river near Ely. Did you know him, Rollo?’
‘No, no, I’ve never heard of him,’ Rollo says.
‘Did Edith ever try any drugs? Did she buy any marijuana from anyone, for example?’
‘No,’ say Rollo and Miriam simultaneously.
‘She had a boyfriend who smoked a bit – Jonti – but she never wanted it,’ says Rollo. ‘I know because I was with her when he was smoking.’
‘Might she have refused because you were there?’
‘I don’t think so. It wasn’t a big deal – she had no moral problem with it, she just didn’t like it, or feel the need for it,’ Rollo says.
‘We’ll need to talk to Jonti,’ says Manon.
‘I went to see him this morning. He hasn’t seen or heard from her. But yes, of course, I’ll get you the number,’ says Miriam, getting up to fetch her telephone book from the worktop.
The fly is fizzing its death throes again.
Ian gets up and turns to the window, his back to them. He begins to rattle – rather frantically, Miriam feels – at the window lock, trying to lift the metal arm to let the fly out.
She returns to the table, her reading glasses on, and gives Manon the number. Then she looks up irritably. ‘Ian, stop fussing and come and sit down. This is important.’
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Is this Dent boy your lead? Do you think he harmed Edith?’
‘We’re trying to work out whether there’s a connection between the two of them first – whether they had ever met, or whether they had friends in common.’
‘He was seventeen, you say?’ says Rollo.
‘A child,’ says Miriam.
‘Which school was he at?’ asks Rollo.
‘He’d left s
chool. He worked the black market, basically,’ says Manon. ‘Cigarettes, counterfeit gear, stolen goods, other things, too.’
‘I hardly think Edith would know someone like—’
‘Oh, Ian, shut up,’ Miriam snaps, and she is immediately ashamed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says to Manon. ‘I shouldn’t snap.’
‘It’s all right,’ says Manon with a weak smile.
Oh, stop fucking observing us, Miriam thinks. We are like that fly, helplessly bashing ourselves against glass.
‘We have the feeling,’ says Ian, ‘that there is information you are keeping back about the investigation.’
Miriam looks into Manon’s face. She can see a decision being made.
‘There was another lead, which was a focus of our investigation for a time, but it has proved … well, it hasn’t gone anywhere.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ says Ian, and Miriam smiles at him gratefully. At least he still has some fight in him.
‘Go on,’ pleads Miriam.
‘We have been looking at someone called Tony Wright. He was released from Whitemoor prison eight months ago, where he’d been serving a sentence for aggravated burglary and sexual assault.’
‘Sexual assault,’ says Miriam. ‘I was praying it wouldn’t be—’
‘It isn’t,’ blurts Manon. ‘He has a cast-iron alibi for the weekend Edith disappeared.’
She has closed the door on Detective Sergeant Bradshaw and the things she shared with them about Tony Wright, the way he held a knife to the throat of his terrified victim.
Miriam and Ian stand in the cold, quiet well inside their front door. He looks at her, then frowns and turns, and in this split second she thinks she can see contempt. For what? For her upset?
He is marching down towards his study and she follows him.
‘What was all that rattling about with the window? Can’t you sit still for a minute?’ she says, spoiling for him to swivel on his heels and give as good as she wants to give him.
‘Leave me alone,’ he says icily. He stands behind his desk, pretending to leaf through some papers.
She walks out of the study and he shouts after her, ‘Where are you going – for another lie-down?’ and she turns and storms back in, and when she gets there, his face is a jagged mess of fury and accusation. ‘Why is your distress the only thing in the room?’ he demands.
‘It isn’t, Ian, but you won’t allow me any grief at all. She’s my daughter.’
‘And she’s mine, and you sobbing or lying in a darkened room the whole time doesn’t help.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
He is silent, his head bowed again towards his desk, but she knows he is fizzing and enraged just like her.
‘Stop acting like this is my fucking fault,’ she says and walks out again.
Manon
She has her feet up on the blue tartan First Capital Connect seats, beside a sign saying Do Not Put Feet on Seats. She pulls at her eyelid, peeling it away from the eyeball in an attempt to relieve the scratching. The infection has moved from irritation to pain and yet, when she has passed a chemist – on Hampstead High Street, at King’s Cross Station – the urgency of buying the antibiotics has gone from her mind. No chance now – it’s 8 p.m. and she has to be in early tomorrow for the Crimewatch briefing.
She told the Hinds to brace themselves for renewed press interest – photographers back on their doorstep – when the televised reconstruction of Edith’s last journey home with Helena Reed is broadcast on Wednesday evening. Telling them about Tony Wright hadn’t been easy, despite his alibi. She recalls the look of terror on Lady Hind’s face, which prevented her from describing what had become of his last victim – how he had beaten her about the head with the knife handle so that her face was purple and enlarged. Two weeks after his conviction, she killed herself.
Manon’s mobile phone vibrates somewhere deep in her bag. A text, number not recognised.
I am toasty
She smiles. Buying the coat for Fly had brought her myriad unlooked-for pleasures, as if satisfaction were refracted into a fresh rainbow. Picking out a hot-pink sequinned number and saying to him, ‘This is a good look for you’; his dry look in response, as if she were the silliest object he had ever come across. Him picking the designer labels, to which she would turn the swinging ticket and say, ‘In your dreams.’ Most of all, when they had selected together a padded cornflower-blue coat, with white stripes at the chest, she had noticed what pleasure there was in keeping him warm: the thought of the softness of the fleece lining against his skin, the waterproof outer layer sheltering him from rain. It was the best twenty-five pounds she had spent in a long time.
Shouldn’t you be in bed? M
No, cos I’m not five.
Anyway, I am in bed. I’m wearing it in bed.
She is smiling to herself, up the steps of HQ, into reception, thinking how she must type up her notes, prepare for tomorrow’s briefing. Her head is down, unaware of her surroundings, when Bob on the front desk says, ‘Sarge, someone to see you.’
Manon looks up, and there he is: his flappy coat, the stoop, horrifying and wonderful – Alan Prenderghast.
‘Hello,’ he says. ‘I didn’t expect to see you. I was just dropping this off.’
He holds out a small white paper bag, folded over at the top, with a green chemist sign on it. Manon opens it and takes out an oblong box. The label reads: Chloramphenicol eye drops, for the treatment of Conjunctivitis.
‘Crikey,’ she says.
‘I feel a bit like a criminal caught in the act,’ he says.
‘Gosh – I haven’t had time, as you can see.’
‘Look,’ he says, rather urgently, ‘I don’t know the form for this. Am I still a witness or something, in the case?’
‘No, why?’
‘I was wondering if I could take you out. For dinner or something. Or a film, where we sit in the same row. Adjacent seats, even.’
There is a red patch creeping up his neck.
‘I don’t know, I’ve got a lot on at the moment.’
They both look down at the white chemist’s bag.
‘Why don’t you think about it?’ he says. ‘I’ll give you my number.’
He puts a hand out to take the chemist bag back off her and pats his pockets for a pen, only to find Bob holding one out to him. ‘I enjoyed our coffee after the film,’ he says, while writing on the bag against his palm.
‘Thanks,’ she says, looking down at his writing. The numbers are all bunched up and tight. ‘Look, I’d better go – got to prepare for a briefing first thing. Just had a murder come in, plus it’s Crimewatch this week,’ and she lays it there, her job as a police officer, which he must admire, what with his very pedestrian work as a systems analyst.
‘Well, OK then,’ he says, and she watches him go out of the station doors and down the steps to the car park.
When she turns, Bob is frowning.
‘What d’you do that for?’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Turn down a nice chap like him?’
‘What would you know about it, Bob?’
‘I know it’s nice to have someone to come home to.’
Tuesday
Davy
‘For me,’ Kim is saying thoughtfully, ‘it would have to be tuna pasta bake with back-to-back Place in the Sun.’
Davy is just about to put in his two pennies’ worth, which involves crackers and cheese and Quincy, but Harriet has shot everyone a look which says: Shut your fucking gobs, the boss is here.
DCS Gary Stanton has a collection of important-looking files under one arm and his buttons are straining over his stomach. Time to size up on the shirt front, Davy thinks.
The whole team is gathered around a circular table, which is part of a new stratagem brought back from the States by Stanton, when he went to NYPD on a skills swap residential last autumn. For Davy, things got much more confusing after the residential, because Stanton returned armed with incomprehen
sible management-speak. Davy’s all for a spot of police jargon, which clarifies the lines drawn between good and evil (only last night he watched a DCI on the news outside the Old Bailey telling how they’d ‘exposed the villain’s web of wicked lies’). But this corporate mumbo jumbo – it didn’t clarify; it did the opposite, scribbling over itself in loops and meanderings. It started with just having to ‘action’ things, instead of do them; then Stanton wanted to ‘sunset that line of investigation’, which seemed to mean not do it any more. They had moved from ‘breaking’ an alibi to ‘putting it on the radiator to see if it melts’. But then Stanton started talking about ‘shifting the paradigm’ in order to ‘leverage our synergies’, and that’s where he lost Davy altogether. At one point, Davy had felt quite worried about keeping up in the department, but then he overheard Harriet hissing at Manon, ‘What the fuck’s he talking about?’ and felt better.
Edith Hind has been missing for two weeks and the press have more or less shuffled off. But that’s about to change with the Crimewatch appeal, especially if what everyone is saying is true. Stanton is about to let the proverbial cat out of the bag (his words), and they’d better all be ready.
‘Right,’ Stanton says, sounding a bit out of puff. Perhaps he’s just walked up the stairs from the press office. ‘Crimewatch. There will obviously be a massive upscaling of media interest and we can expect to be inundated with calls from the public—’ Colin groans loudly – ‘which we need to take seriously,’ says Stanton. ‘Lot of powder, so expect some avalanches. We don’t know which sighting might be significant at this point, so I want nothing dismissed, please. I don’t care how left-field they sound. I will also be raising the issue of Edith’s love life in the appeal and the fact that she had male and female lovers. The purpose of this is not to supply fodder for the tabloids, but to flush out Edith’s previous lovers, be they secret or in the past.’
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