by Mick Herron
‘It can be. He told somebody he was coming into money. How was that?’
‘Not likely to tell me, was he?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Deepman,’ she said with studied patience. ‘That’s why I’m asking.’
And it was his turn to regard her, as if he’d just noticed she had no great call to be here; that her questions were her own; that she might leave at any moment.
‘He told me nothing,’ he said at length. ‘Wensley . . . didn’t tell me nothing.’
Then, in a bewildering display of hostly control, he opened a cupboard and found teabags.
She put them in the cups, added hot water, and stared at the wall while they brewed. There was no window. Only the front room had windows, which gave out on the walkway: you could see sky, and the companion block across the way, but from inside you couldn’t see down. You could be scared of heights, and stay unbothered.
As if reading her mind, he said, ‘You get used to it. You could be underground, really. ’Stead of halfway up the sky.’
‘He didn’t like heights, did he?’
‘He never admitted being scared.’
She fished the bag from his mug, and added milk. He said, ‘But he didn’t like heights. No.’
Zoë said, ‘So . . .’
His blank stare told her she’d have to spell it out.
‘Mr Deepman. If he didn’t like heights, what was he doing on the roof of a tower block?’
‘I don’t know.’
Nobody knew anything. That’s why her job kept on going.
She had made herself tea, and she didn’t want tea. A small problem in the scale of things. ‘I spoke to a friend of his,’ she said after a moment. ‘He told me Wensley only came here when he needed somewhere to hide.’
Joseph Deepman gave this some thought. Whatever conclusion he reached expressed itself as a shrug.
‘So you’ve no idea who he might have been hiding from?’ she persisted. ‘The day before he died?’
‘You think somebody killed him?’
‘I don’t know what I think.’ She thought he was quicker than she’d given him credit for. ‘I’m just asking questions.’
‘You ask more than the police bothered.’
‘I don’t think the local cops were too fond of your grandson.’
‘Not only them.’ He looked down at his cup, then at the floor, as if he’d just become aware that he was standing up and drinking. ‘I want to sit.’
He carried his tea to the other room. Leaving hers by the sink, Zoë followed. When you acted on impulse, this was what you suffered: consequences. She’d boarded the bus in Oxford because it seemed the right thing to do at the time; because Alan Talmadge was less real than her own problems; because she wasn’t sure she wasn’t kidding herself in what she thought she knew about him. Wensley Deepman, though, had been indisputably alive; was indubitably dead. This was less a mystery to Zoë than a foregone conclusion, but it bothered her that Tom Connor had checked up on her. He’d established who she was on Saturday. Why had he talked to Bob Poland?
Deepman’s cup was balanced on the arm of his chair, and he was staring at the TV set, Zoë’s old set, though it was off. ‘He had no friends round here. There’re people glad he’s dead.’
Some kind of response seemed called for. Zoë, unable to think of one, stayed silent.
‘One of the neighbours, he had his pension from him once. Never spoken to me since.’
Between the tortured pronouns, Zoë saw frosty meetings on stairwells and in lifts; looks cast like daggers at retreating backs.
He lapsed into quiet again. Zoë was thinking: maybe the little bastard deserved it. On any ranking of the not-much-missed, Kid B scored about the same as Charles Parsley Sturrock. She shook away these probably vile thoughts, and noticed the empty bottle in the wastebin. Friday’s alcohol.
Association prompted, ‘Have you seen Chris?’
He looked at her blankly.
‘Chris? Who was here Friday?’
‘Oh. He said he’d come back. And he did.’
‘Since Friday?’
‘On Friday.’
Some conversations it was best to escape from as quickly as possible.
‘I have to go,’ she said. She was tired again. Last night’s sleep had been the usual aggravated nuisance, like hunting somebody through a viciously thorned maze.
‘You’re going to the inquest?’
‘That was not my intention.’
Strange how sentences came out formal when they least needed to be. No Fucking Way, she’d meant.
‘Somebody should be there.’
‘Somebody no doubt will be.’
On the walkway the chill wind slapped her sideways like a cardiac incident. It brought tears to her eyes, the way things used to do. She paused to catch breath, to get steady – to feel, perhaps, the icicle stab of the weather; to punish herself: what for? – and heard Joseph Deepman’s telephone ring inside his flat. So she wasn’t the only one spared him the odd thought. This ought to have eased whatever it was she carried, flight by flight, down fourteen floors, because the lifts were broken again.
On the street she looked round for her car, feeling a brief flare of fear-cum-outrage at its absence, before remembering she was on foot. There was barely a soul in sight – an elderly woman doing the cornershop shuffle; a man watching his unleashed dog crap on the pavement. The wind kicked hell out of an empty lunchbag. No way was she going to the bloody inquest, damn it. There was no obligation laid on her. She’d left no debts unpaid. Zoë felt the first heavy drops of rain begin to batter as she reached the junction, as she stood there for a full half-minute, with no idea where she was headed next.
At the library, the computer area was decorated with a mural made by pupils from a local primary school: it pictured a green field grazed by fat and stupid sheep; an image of the countryside designed by city children, who didn’t know much about it, but suspected it was rubbish. Ignoring it, she went looking for Wensley Deepman, who was dead. This was the first thing you noticed about him, trawling the web: all the hits were recent, and all concerned his death. That was as much footprint as he’d leave: this ghostly electric newsprint, describing his end on an unforgiving pavement.
But last time she’d hunted Wensley, all she’d wanted was his address; now, she devoured the details of his passing. The Guardian had covered it in depth; most of the others had let it drown in the wash from the week’s big story: the death of Charles Parsley Sturrock. The tower block he’d fallen from hadn’t been anything like the forty storeys Bob Poland had quoted, but anything over ground-level was high when you hit the road head first. She had a sudden dizzying moment, living it – the acceleration beyond anything achievable by non-fatal means, and then the dead stop, sudden as a diagnosis. A bead of sweat trickled down her back: What is this? she thought. This isn’t about me. Some kid I never knew; some kid I swore at, long ago. One of the tabloids had run with it a little, once its angle was established. Death plunge boy was tearaway. Another way of saying that everything worked out for the best in the long run.
It was the Guardian that confirmed the half-remembered detail she’d taxed Tom Connor with: that there had been a witness; a man who, from the ground, had seen Wensley leave the roof. His name wasn’t given. (Not everybody wants to be a celebrity, Connor had said; his voice tightening with the words, as if Zoë were a rubbernecker at a traffic accident.) The boy jumped, said the witness. Stood on the ledge and spread his arms like the Angel of the North. The block had been just west of the City, not far from where Zoë had grabbed Andrew Kite, and transported him home to his parents. A life’s small circle, though this circle had a finishing point.
. . . record of street crime . . .
. . . involvement with drugs . . .
The witness would be at the inquest; the story would roll on the same. Wensley Deepman had killed himself.
Other stories, meanwhile, unfolded, only a mouseclick away. The Internet was another versi
on of that maze of connecting doors, through which you could wander secure in the knowledge that there was no way you’d truly lose yourself, except you always did. On the newspaper’s opening page she found Charles Parsley Sturrock: the familiar photo, with that fuck-you grin that was his default expression. Until they took him into the car park, probably. Which, she saw, was just this side of the City: a long way from Sturrock’s own patch, but not that far from Wens-ley’s. Calling up a map, she pinned the distance to less than a mile, which was neither too small nor too big to be anything other than what it was: a fact. Playing with it further would be like rearranging sheep in a field. Sooner or later you’d find a pattern, but only because you wanted one.
That was always the danger. That you’d end up designing your own maze, just to be sure you’d know your way out again.
The inquest had taken place in the magistrates’ court not far from where Wensley Deepman had died, as if in this, too, he’d been keen to demonstrate how circumscribed a life could be when its poles were street crime and thug-gery. By the time Zoë arrived, it was over. From one of the news crews on the pavement she learned the verdict: misadventure. It was the one preferred to suicide when there was family extant, or a child involved. She lit a cigarette and held back, keen not to step into cameraview. The redbrick building was tall and flat-faced. Its barred windows put Zoë in mind of orphanages.
When people began emerging it was clear who the focus was on. There was nothing like a grieving mother to shift copy. Jet – the name came back like magic; Joseph Deep-man saying It was her mother’s idea. It means a stone, not an aeroplane – Jet Deepman leaned on her man’s arm, her bright blonde hair belying her name. If that was natural, Zoë didn’t smoke. Zoë smoked. Jet wore a black dress, which showed she’d read some of the etiquette books, but even from here Zoë could see the scarlet tips to her fingers. It was easy to judge, so Zoë judged. The man she leaned on was broad and solid: black, bald, wearing a rather fine knee-length coat. His expression in the face of press attention was utterly inscrutable.
Jet Deepman, though, wept as if she’d had lessons.
Zoë watched for a while, thinking about motherhood.
Some instincts, you couldn’t fake. Love was inimitable, evidently. There were times she imagined she’d felt that tug – had wondered what it would be like, being woken by a crying child – and expected, in all honesty, she’d have fallen short. She’d always been too much Zoë to happily submit to another’s demands. But a small steady part of her was sure she’d not have touched up her nail polish to attend her child’s inquest. She dropped her cigarette, ground it underfoot, kicked it into the gutter.
‘You’re Zoë Boehm.’
She looked round. The speaker was mid-forties, tall and lean, with thinning sandy hair, and that seen-it-all edge Bob Poland affected sometimes: enough of a clue for Zoë. Cop. He must be Tom Connor; Tom Connor in tan chinos and dark jacket, an expertly knotted black tie. Tom Connor wore thin-framed spectacles; behind them, had brown eyes with lines creeping away from their corners, like fine fractures. Tom Connor wasn’t smiling. Tom Connor looked like the kind of cop you didn’t want to meet when you were guilty, and possibly the kind of cop you didn’t want to meet, full stop. Bob Poland must have described her to him.
‘DI Connor,’ she said.
A blink was as much surprise as he showed. ‘You’re still ferreting, then.’
‘Interested party.’
‘Who lives in Oxford. Who isn’t getting paid.’
Zoë said, ‘You know a lot about my business.’
‘None of which you’re denying. Thanks. I will.’
She was holding her cigarettes, so extended the pack. He slipped one free and held it between finger and thumb, as if it were a whole new experience.
He said, ‘Public spirit, that’s good. Nothing like seeing a member of the GBP taking an interest in the workings of justice.’
‘You’re about to say “but”.’
He leaned close for a light. As soon as he had one he dropped the cigarette, and trod it out. ‘Filthy habit.’
This was meant to annoy her. She said, ‘That’s pretty clever.’
‘Biggest favour anyone’ll do you all day. You’re right, Ms Boehm, there’s a but. There’s a big difference between taking an interest and interfering. There’s nothing to find out.’ His voice was surprisingly gentle: that was probably an asset. Cops, you expected to be brusque and loud. When they weren’t, it took you aback. You might end up believing their every word. ‘A boy’s dead. Very sad, but nobody’s fault. All you’re doing is upsetting people.’
‘Like you?’
‘Ms Boehm, I don’t want to come across like some pillock from the TV. But you’re way off home ground. If I say you’re upsetting people, you’re upsetting people.’
‘Go go go,’ said Zoë.
‘What?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s what they say on The Bill, isn’t it? I don’t have a telly.’
He said, ‘The coroner’s verdict’s in. Misadventure. We both know she was being kind. The kid killed himself.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I just did. So it’s over. You can leave now.’
‘Last I checked, I still had freedom of movement.’
‘Okay. That was inappropriate. But there’s nothing to find out. We know what happened. We’ve drawn a line.’
Her next cigarette was still unlit. She remedied this, while wondering how to respond. He was a clean-looking cop – not just the tie, the jacket, the close shave, but what he didn’t have: the weasel glint to the eye that told you he was in it for himself. You couldn’t spend more than ten minutes with Bob Poland without knowing he was after a bite. Of course, it was always possible Tom Connor was better at undercover.
‘Zoë.’
Both turned as if operated by the same string. It was Chris, whom Zoë had met last Friday at Joseph Deep-man’s. Slightly dressier (black jacket, black jeans, white shirt), but otherwise still pale and plucked. In daylight, his buzz-cut looked like a fight he’d lost.
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ he said, and she realised they’d been staring at him, wordlessly.
‘Chris,’ she said. ‘This is Detective Inspector Connor.’
Zoë thought it wise to make clear who was the policeman.
‘Chris Langley.’
Connor nodded, without offering his hand.
Chris said to Zoë, ‘I just thought somebody ought to be here. For the old man. The daughter tells him nothing.’
‘I was late, myself.’
He said, ‘It was the usual thing.’ He looked round. Cameras were still running; Jet still crying. She looked capable of continuing for as long as the situation demanded.
‘You’d be a friend of the family?’ asked Connor.
‘Of the grandfather.’
‘Give him my condolences.’ He looked at Zoë. ‘I don’t mean to come on the hard guy. But all this, it’s done with. People get aggravated, people get upset. When it’s the death of a black kid, well. We don’t want anybody making more of it than it is. I’m sure you appreciate that.’
Chris Langley was watching this conversation more than listening to it; watching, too, the way she raised her cigarette to her lips. Zoë was having one of those slightly hyperreal moments: time slows down, and every action seems invested with a significance beyond reason. She inhaled, then dropped the cigarette. How many was that today? It was a good job she’d cut down, else she’d probably be dead by now.
. . . She was tired and pissed off, and really needed to get a grip. ‘Was he carrying cash?’
‘Was who carrying cash?’
‘Wensley. He was coming into money. So he said.’
‘As far as I’m aware,’ Connor said carefully, ‘his pockets were empty.’
‘As far as you’re aware.’
‘They were empty.’
‘Did you know he was scared of heights?’
‘No. I’d say it was a moot poin
t now, though.’
‘He was running a scam, Inspector. Something he’d seen, something he’d heard.’
‘He was always running a scam. Mostly the smash and grab kind.’
‘But maybe he got ambitious. Maybe he was putting the squeeze on somebody. That’s the sort can easily go wrong.’
Connor looked at Chris, newly aware they had an audience. He turned back to Zoë. ‘I don’t recall that being mentioned inside.’
‘Little bits. Details. They add up.’
‘Ms Boehm? Do you have anything you want to make official?’
‘She’s only saying,’ Chris said.
They both stared. He flushed.
‘She’s only saying, maybe not enough attention’s been paid. He was a kid. He’s dead. He might have been a handful. That doesn’t make it right.’
There was an edge to Connor’s voice when he said, ‘I don’t think any of us are saying it’s right.’
‘Well . . .’
Zoë said again, ‘Details add up.’
‘Coincidence.’
‘Is that the best you can do?’
Tom Connor nearly smiled. ‘If they didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have a word for them.’
‘Are you working the Sturrock case?’
If the switch fazed him, it didn’t show. ‘Not my patch.’
‘Not far, though.’
‘Borders have to happen somewhere.’ He looked at Chris as if about to say more, but unsure what it should be. Chris had that earnest, left-leaning, actions-speak-louder air that worked on policemen the way salt works on wounds. Except Connor had used inappropriate, so maybe he’d had sensitivity training. He turned back to Zoë. ‘You have a point?’
‘He was a street kid. Maybe he heard something.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t have a telly?’
‘Who was the witness?’
He said, ‘Ms Boehm, I don’t want to appear rude, but you’ve had your fifteen minutes of fame. Was that not enough?’
Zoë said, ‘You’ve looked me up.’
He glanced at Chris, then back at her. ‘You shot a man. Killed him. He wasn’t armed.’
‘He was armed.’
‘Reports vary.’