by Jo Bannister
Kelso looked. He pursed his lips in thought. He reached out and solicitously straightened Donovan’s jacket. ‘Whoops.’
Brady steered Donovan away as a mother might a fractious child. ‘There we are now, Sergeant, no harm done. I suppose it was me you were looking for?’
‘Yes. No.’ Donovan was so taken aback by what had happened that for a moment he couldn’t remember. ‘That lunatic tried to strangle me!’
‘No, he didn’t,’ Brady said patiently, as if he might persuade Donovan that he’d imagined it. ‘It was self-defence. He thought you had a gun.’
Donovan’s voice soared incredulously. ‘Why would he think that?’
Brady stared at him. ‘This may come as a surprise to you, Sergeant, but Castlemere is a dangerous town. People get hurt here. People get killed. OK, so the gaffer over-reacted. He’s feeling a bit twitchy. We all are. The whole bloody town is, or hadn’t you noticed? The guy made a mistake, that’s all. Now, what was it you wanted?’
All Donovan’s instincts told him that it was not an honest mistake, the result of normal caution exaggerated by recent events. But he couldn’t prove it. He hadn’t been hurt, Kelso hadn’t produced a weapon, and it was possible to put Brady’s interpretation on the facts. He saw no point in pursuing the incident, though he was not ready to forget it.
Anyway, his earlier grievance took precedence. He rounded on Brady, throwing the calming hand off his arm. ‘All right. I want to know why it took you fifteen minutes to get to a phone last night. Fifteen minutes, when you could have walked to Queen’s Street in five.’
‘I’m a stranger here,’ Brady said reasonably. ‘Is Queen’s Street where you have your nick? I don’t know where that is.’
‘And you couldn’t find a phone? There’s one in Mere Basin three minutes away. There’s one at the end of Brick Lane. You could have tried the boats: at least two of them have phones. You could have knocked a few doors in Brick Lane—’
‘I could have got myself caught up in that mob,’ Brady reminded him. ‘You were hardly away when they came out of the tent. I couldn’t get through them. I went up the tow-path to the basin but the phone there had been ripped out. I tried the flats over the basin: there were plenty of lights on but nobody was answering their bell. This is a scared town, you know that? Finally a man answered and I told him to call the police. Fifteen minutes? I dare say it was. It was still the best I could do.’
Donovan was inclined to believe him. He felt the anger running out of him, weariness taking its place. ‘Yeah, OK. It’s just, if the cavalry had arrived even two minutes earlier it wouldn’t have happened. That’s all the time it was from that mad bastard set Carver on fire till the wooden-tops put him out. It was the petrol. I got to him but I couldn’t make any impression on it.’
Unconsciously his hands were repeating the futile pawing gestures that had achieved nothing beyond adding burns to his own list of hurts. All he had to fight the fire with was his jacket which wasn’t voluminous enough to wrap round and smother the flames. He desperately needed help, begged for it, but no one in the ring of men responded. They just stood watching the screaming man burn. Then sirens wailed round the corner into The Jubilee, the crowd scattered and a constable ran over with a fire blanket.
Brady looked from Donovan’s hand to his face. ‘I’m sorry. If I could have got you those two minutes I would have.’
Liz went straight home. Brian had a stew simmering. She put her arms round him. ‘Just what I need.’
He dropped a kiss lightly on top of her head. ‘I thought you might get home at lunchtime.’
‘Sorry, I couldn’t.’ She collapsed into a chair. The dining table was still stacked with tea-chests, they’d be eating off trays for a while yet. ‘I had someone to see.’
She had nothing to hide from Brian. She had taken advantage of a chance meeting to seek information that might have had a bearing on an urgent inquiry. It was irrelevant that no useful information had emerged and that she’d enjoyed lunch more than she’d expected. They had said and done nothing she was reluctant to tell him. On the other hand, it almost seemed to be investing the meeting with too much significance, to come home and tell her husband about it. Something less than professional. If she had nothing to hide, equally she had nothing to confess.
In the end she made a wholly justifiable decision for the most trivial of reasons: so that she could throw it in Donovan’s face. ‘That evangelist with the tent by the canal. Michael Davey.’
Brian blinked. ‘Evangelist? Whatever has he been up to?’
‘Probably nothing. There’ve been some odd coincidences but that’s likely all it is. But Donovan’s gunning for him after what happened in The Jubilee and I felt I had to look into it. But I know now he wasn’t there when the girl on the pony was killed, which is as good as saying he had nothing to do with any of the murders.’
‘Any of the murders?’ Brian echoed weakly.
‘Sorry, I keep forgetting you don’t know the ins and outs of this. The same killer seems to have struck at least three times: the two girls in Castlemere and one in Dover. But one of them couldn’t have been Davey which really means that none of them were. Coincidence.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one.’ Then as an afterthought: ‘The problem’s Donovan. He’s convinced Davey’s doing something illegal, if not murder then perhaps drugs. There’s no evidence. He sees that more as a challenge than the natural end to a line of inquiry.’
‘He’s your sergeant,’ Brian said reasonably, putting the tray in front of her, ‘tell him to drop it.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
Brian shrugged. ‘I suppose, in the last resort, you get Frank Shapiro to slap him down.’
Liz scowled. ‘That’s what I’m trying to avoid. You said it: Donovan’s my sergeant. If I need help to handle him, what credibility do I have left?’
‘Listen,’ Brian said, ‘he isn’t a child. Kids in fourth form have no choice but go to school, whether they see the point or not. Them I expect a little trouble from. Teachers can leave tomorrow if they don’t like what they’re doing. The education system is not, nor should it be, geared to the needs and aspirations of teachers. I’d have said the same was true of the police. Don’t be afraid to read him the Riot Act. You know Frank’ll back you.’
‘I know that. That’s why I’d rather not put either of them in that position. Donovan has his faults, God knows, but he’s worth—’ She gave a little snort of laughter. ‘It sounds silly, but he’s worth nurturing. I want him on my side. I don’t want to turn him into another time-server waiting for his pension and going by the book because that way nobody can blame you no matter what the outcome. He’s a better copper than that. With all his failings, he does at least care about what he’s doing. That’s not so common I can afford to waste it.’
‘Can you afford to have him playing by his own rules?’
She shook her head. She’d pulled out the pins that held her hair in its brisk no-nonsense pleat as she’d come through the door and it tossed on her shoulders in a corn-coloured riot. ‘I had a run-in with him this afternoon. By tomorrow, either he’s ready to toe the line or he starts looking for someone else to work for.’
8
‘There’s something going on there,’ insisted Donovan when they met on Thursday morning. ‘I honest to God don’t know what, but something. They do not behave like normal people.’
‘Of course they don’t,’ said Liz, exasperated. ‘They aren’t normal people. They’re a bunch of gypsies led by a man who thinks he has a mission from God. What standard do you judge them by?’
‘Any standard you know will still leave them behaving like people with something to hide. I went over there last night—’
‘Did you?’ murmured Shapiro, with just enough emphasis to make Donovan stumble.
‘Er – and that Geordie came down on me like a ton of bricks. And Brady said’ – this time an elevated eyebrow was the extent of
Shapiro’s interruption – ‘that he thought I was pulling a gun. Now you tell me: what kind of people is it that assume an inside pocket contains a gun? And what kind of company are they for a genuine missionary?’
‘I imagine,’ Liz said caustically, ‘they were employed more for the strength of their arms than for any great religious conviction. Davey believes in God, Mills believes in him, and I imagine the rest of them believe that the labourer is worthy of his hire. That’s a rough life they lead, living in a caravan parked mostly on waste ground. Look where we put them: begging your pardon, Donovan, but Broad Wharf is not the most salubrious part of town. They’re probably used to the occasional trouble-maker, find it wise to jump him first and search his pockets afterwards. They didn’t know you were a copper.’
‘Brady did. If he did, why didn’t Kelso?’
‘Maybe they’ve better things to do of an evening than talk about you,’ growled Liz.
Both of them, in the quiet of their own homes the previous evening, reviewing their last undignified exchange, had resolved to strive harder for a calm professional relationship untroubled by the clash of their different, sometimes conflicting styles. They had decided that such an accommodation should pose no problem to two intelligent, adult people who, differences notwithstanding, shared a mutual respect for one another’s abilities. Moreover, there were selfish reasons for them to make it work. Donovan thought his job might depend on it. Liz thought her credibility might.
Only minutes into the meeting in Shapiro’s office Liz’s resolution went out the window, and Donovan’s went winging swiftly after it.
‘Are you telling me,’ he demanded, ‘that nothing about this setup seems wrong to you? You can’t smell it? You don’t have a deep gut feeling that, evidence or no evidence, there’s something going on here that we need to know about?’
‘No, I can’t say that,’ allowed Liz. ‘But I also can’t say what you just said – “evidence or no evidence”. People are entitled to be odd; it’s only if we have reason to suspect them of crimes that we have a right to interfere. That means facts not feelings, and the fact is that Michael Davey didn’t kill Alice Elton. As for your drug statistics – well, we all know what statistics are like. Jennifer Mills thought the same ones showed that crime had dropped in the wake of the crusade. Have you been on to Drugs Squad?’
He glowered. ‘They thanked me for the suggestion, said they’d give it some thought.’ There was a small chorus of nods and sniffs. All three of them knew what that meant.
Shapiro said, ‘This man Kelso: do you want to do him for assault?’ He was getting tired of asking Donovan this same question.
Again Donovan declined. ‘If we haul him in, whatever it is they’re up to they’ll put it on ice. Let him run. I’d sooner get him for pushing drugs than for pushing me.’
Liz breathed heavily. ‘Drugs again. What drugs? This isn’t hypothesis, it’s sheer guesswork. Do you want to search their vehicles for drugs? Would that satisfy you?’
He shook his head. ‘If they’re well enough hid for Customs to miss them we wouldn’t find them either. Not without turning them inside out, and we can’t justify that. Not yet. What I’d like is to keep an eye on them. See where they go when they’re not setting out chairs and hymn-sheets. See who they meet. If we can catch them with a known dealer, then we have reason to suspect. Then we take them apart.’
Shapiro nodded slowly. ‘Sounds reasonable. Inspector?’
Liz agreed. ‘After last night, though, it might be better to put someone else on it. They all know Donovan’s face now.’
Donovan got in fast, before Shapiro could concur. ‘Sir, I live there. I can watch them without them knowing. I can move about without them getting suspicious. If you put someone else on them he’ll only have the edge until they spot him and then they’ll know we’re interested. With me they can only wonder, and they won’t even wonder unless I have to follow them somewhere they’ve no reason to be.’
Shapiro weighed it a moment longer then decided. ‘All right, Sergeant, you take it. Two conditions. If you follow them off the wharf, let me know. And if you so much as suspect there’s a deal going down, you call for back-up. If you’re right about them and they spot you, you’ll need more than your warrant card to fend them off.’
Liz didn’t argue. ‘What do you want me to do?’
Shapiro gave her a weary smile. ‘I want you to catch the man who murdered Charlene Pierce and Alice Elton. I can’t offer a single suggestion that might help you do it.’
She smiled too. ‘Perhaps I’ll pay another visit to The Jubilee. They’ll be a bit shaken after what happened to Ray Carver, perhaps they’re ready to talk now. When we asked round after Charisma was killed it was like asking the walls if they’d seen anything. Perhaps if we try again someone’ll remember seeing her with a customer that night.’
Shapiro wasn’t hopeful. ‘He met Alice, killed her and was away from the scene inside a very few minutes. Why would he hang around with Charisma long enough to be spotted?’
‘Probably he didn’t, in which case it’s a wild goose chase. But it was dark, it’s the sort of area where people mind their own business, perhaps he felt safe enough to talk to her for a little while. He probably made some sort of arrangement with her to get her into the alley. Or perhaps someone saw him before he met her. Yes, it’s a long shot. I don’t know what else to do.’
Shapiro shook his head lugubriously. ‘You’ll never make chief inspector this way.’
‘Running out of ideas?’
‘Admitting it.’
She grinned. ‘If Special Branch call back while I’m out, will you talk to them? I’ve told them their information is incorrect, that Brady’s alive and he’s here, and asked for guidance as to whether we should consider him a threat. If they knew, if they’re helping him to disappear, the answer should be no.’
‘If they tell us the truth.’
‘And if he isn’t making fools of them. Oh no, whatever they say, I’d like to keep an eye on him. But if they genuinely believe he’s dead, perhaps we should haul him in and ask him why he’s not.’
‘And tell him that Donovan told us about Brady jumping him on his boat? I don’t know, Liz. I’m not sure Donovan isn’t right – that the best thing we can do for the moment is wait and watch. If he is up to something, almost the best thing we have at the moment is that he thinks he’s safe.’
It made sense. She nodded. ‘Fair enough.’ She went out, closing the door behind her.
Donovan hurried after her. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Yes?’
He stood awkwardly in the corridor as if he had more limbs than he knew what to do with. His eyes were low. ‘About last night. I’m sorry. I was out of line.’
She watched him for a minute, then said coolly, ‘Yes, you were.’ She seemed about to walk on when a thought hit her. ‘How long did you wait for me?’
He looked up quickly to see if she’d forgiven him sufficiently to joke about it. But her face was straight and he couldn’t tell. ‘About an hour and a half,’ he mumbled.
Liz said nothing more but departed, chuckling.
She was right about one thing: the mood in The Jubilee. When she was here before, after Charisma died, nobody wanted to talk to her. Time and again as she worked round the Pierces’ neighbours her knock at a door elicited only a fractional movement at an upstairs window. Seeing the uniform the householder then kept his or her head down until by repeated hammering Liz made it clear that she wasn’t leaving. When she finally got someone to answer it was never worth the effort. They listened stony-faced, their eyes giving nothing away, and when asked what they had seen or heard the answer was always nothing.
They weren’t afraid, not then. They didn’t even seem to be protecting anyone. It was just that they had made a lifetime habit of not co-operating with the police and didn’t see the murder of a working girl, even a local one, as reason enough to change. Working girls getting their throats cut was like rent-collectors get
ting mugged and sub-postmasters getting held up on pension day: a fact of life. Nothing in the faces of those she spoke to suggested that they found it intolerable.
That was on Sunday. It was now Thursday. In the meantime a young girl had been murdered in a public park, a young man had been run down and burned by a mob under their very windows, and the whole town was in a state of hysteria. The normal trickle of everyday comings and goings had dried up. People moved around in groups or not at all. Castlemere’s children might have followed Hamelin’s into a hole in the ground. Many of them were being kept off school, others were being delivered and collected in gangs surrounded by watchful adults.
When the children were safe inside some of the adults turned vigilante, pacing the streets in tight-lipped knots, peering intently at the faces of anyone they met, even other vigilantes. As if they might see the mark of Cain on the face of the murderer. As if they would know what to do if they did. Others sought the solace of religion. They didn’t blame Michael Davey for the episode that put Ray Carver in the burns unit of Castlemere General.
Or perhaps they did, and in some way they could not have explained took it as proof that this man at least cared enough about their plight to try and do something. The police said Carver was innocent; if so it was all very unfortunate. On the other hand, perhaps Reverend Davey knew better than the police. One thing was sure: people could die waiting for an arrest.
But one consequence of all the dirty water that had rushed under the bridges since Sunday was that the second time Liz went door-stepping in The Jubilee people were ready to talk to her. They still checked from their upstairs windows, but now seeing police outside they hurried to open the door.
It speeded the process, made it less frustrating, but in fact nothing helpful ensued. Assorted witnesses had seen one another and, a little before one o’clock on Saturday morning, Charisma herself. None of them had seen a strange man.