Pain of Death

by Adam Creed

  ‘I have to go,’ he says. ‘I just wanted to say good luck with the case.’ He can hear Ethan shouting in the background.

  ‘You have to go?’ Despite what happened with Anthony Bright, she sounds disappointed.

  ‘Zoe went to Parkgate. She bought herrings for somebody.’

  ‘Bloody herrings again?’

  ‘I think it’s important.’

  Ethan screams.

  She says, ‘I’ve got to go,’ and hangs up.

  *

  Josie sips her tea and watches Sheila Archibald go through the archway into the dining room to tend to Miles and Maya. Husband John knocked it through from the lounge himself, so they could keep an eye on the children while they had their dinner. John is proud of his work.

  The Archibalds like their quiz shows and the opening titles for another programme come up on the big old tank of a telly. John watches the drama unfold with one eye as the children sit at the dining table, despite Josie’s suggestion that Miles and Maya might be better upstairs.

  She says to John, ‘The father has gone to ground. Has he been in touch?’

  For a moment, John looks confused. ‘The father?’

  ‘Sean.’

  ‘Aah.’

  ‘You know he’s not …’ Josie lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘… the real dad.’

  ‘That’s not our concern.’

  Through the archway, Sheila takes the plates away from the children, even though they haven’t touched the fish fingers or peas on their plates. The oven chips are all gone. Sheila says, ‘No clean plates, no pudding.’

  ‘I want a biscuit,’ says Maya.

  ‘Bedtime,’ says Sheila.

  The children slide off their chairs, looking glum. It is seven o’clock.

  ‘We thought he might have tried to see them,’ says Josie. ‘You’ll call if he does.’

  Sheila takes the children upstairs and John Archibald looks at Josie from the corner of his eye. ‘We’re not involved. It’s our misfortune, that’s all it is. You have to understand, we won’t be roped in.’

  ‘Kerry must have talked to you about their real father. That’s your concern, surely – in the children’s interests.’

  ‘She only came round once, we told you.’

  Josie finishes her tea and places the cup and saucer on the coffee table. It is glass-topped and has a shelf below. On the shelf are a couple of romantic novels, a TV guide from the tabloids and a travel brochure – for cruises.

  She contemplates asking John if he and Sheila are planning a trip, but decides against, instead says, ‘There’s the funeral to think about. We’ll let you know, of course, but I can’t say when it might be. I suppose Kerry’s sister will be the one to organise it – now the dad’s missing. The children should be there, but I’ll talk to the care worker about that. She’ll do an assessment.’

  ‘We wouldn’t want any part of that – the funeral, I mean.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  Upstairs, a child cries. Josie thinks it is Maya but can’t be sure.

  She says good evening to John Archibald and at the door, which is panelled with frosted glass, she reminds him to let her know when Sean Degg gets in touch.

  ‘What makes you think he will?’

  ‘Oh, he will,’ says Josie. ‘He isn’t a bad man and he’s the closest those children have got to a real father.’

  ‘You can’t know that, though.’ John looks up the stairs, follows the noise from the children and his wife. He looks like a child in a supermarket aisle, bereft of its mother.

  Josie takes a step closer, softly says, ‘We’ll get whoever did this. We owe it to those children, don’t we?’

  John nods, averting his eyes. He looks down at the telephone stand by the door.

  ‘Between you and me, John, we know who Kerry was seeing. We know who was looking out for her – or should I say, Sean.’

  Upstairs, a commotion breaks out. Maya cries. Josie knows it is her for sure this time, because above the crying and the stern coaxing of Sheila Archibald, she hears the voice of a young boy pleading, ‘I want my dad. I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him.’

  Josie has heard enough and lets herself out, leaves the Archibalds to their contrived domestic. Outside, she turns right at the gate and waves to John, who watches her – all the way. She goes past her car, which is unmarked and on the opposite side of the street. At the end of the road, she turns right again and waits for three minutes, then goes back onto the Archibalds’ street, texts Pulford and tells him it might be time. Then she waits ten more minutes and returns to her car.

  It is cold in the car but she resists the temptation to turn on the engine and suck in the hot air. From here, she can see the Archibalds’ home quite clearly. The upstairs lights go off and she tries not to dwell on what long, sleepless gloom the children face. Downstairs, the hall light comes on. Two shapes appear in the frosted panes of the front door, beside the telephone stand.

  Josie texts Pulford again: ‘Archibalds calling. Anything your end?’

  *

  Pulford gestures to the barmaid from the side bar of the Duke’s Head and asks for another glass of low-alcohol lager. All the while, through that gap between the optics and the counter in the opposite bar, he keeps an eye on what goes on in the front snug.

  Tommy Given and his entourage have been guffawing and drinking, slapping each other and taking the piss out of the barmaid, since early doors – just like Smet had said. Smet didn’t have to go to a file or refer it around the Met. He knew, straight off, and he told Pulford to steer well clear and not be seen. For fuck’s sake not to be seen.

  Some folk have ventured into Tommy’s sphere, but few have stayed. A couple of old-timers schlep against the bar, happy to be victims of the gang’s chidings. They give as good as they get. They’re in some kind of circle, and probably have been since the good old days.

  But now, the laughter stops. Pulford leans down, gets his change, and sees that Tommy has a serious look on his face. Pulford leans further down so he can see Tommy properly beneath the optics. He sees all of Tommy for the first time, as he stands: how broad he is, how hard he is.

  Tommy raises the phone to his ear and pushes one of his cronies out of his way. He has a good face – bright blue eyes and a strong jaw, a boxer’s nose and big, golden-brown hair, all combed back. His skin is white, almost translucent, and he has a scar across one cheek, from his eye to the lobe of his ear. There’s a big ring on each big finger of both his big hands.

  He makes his way out of the bar, pausing at the door, phone still raised to his ear. Pulford can’t make out what he’s saying but it’s bad news for somebody. He points at one of the entourage, who stands, leaves the rest of his orange juice. The driver?

  As soon as Tommy is gone, Pulford turns his back to the bar and texts Josie: ‘They’re coming. Make scarce. On my way.’

  *

  Josie knows she should make herself scarce. Pulford had told her what Smet said about not being seen and she twirls the car keys around her finger, looks back at the Archibalds’ house. The shapes in the frosted windows of the front door are gone and the hall lights flick off. She knows it will be fifteen, twenty minutes, if he comes at all. What harm can she do?

  She thinks about Grace, and what it must have been like to be born like that. What kind of repercussions there will be. She’s been thinking through the possibilities all day.

  Josie does her hair into a high-up ponytail and pulls a baseball cap from the glove compartment, then teases her ponytail through the gap in the back of the cap. She drags a pea jacket from under the passenger seat and takes off her tailored woollen blazer, folds it neatly and places it under the seat. Josie zips the pea jacket right up and checks her watch, kills minutes by sifting the backlog of texts on her mobile. As she does it, she realises how seldom she returns messages from her friends. She can’t remember the last time she saw any of them.

  She gets out of the car and pulls the peak of her cap right down. T
here’s a minimart on the corner and she walks up to it, slouching, hands thrust in the pockets of the short jacket. It is cold, now the sun is down. There might be a frost tonight.

  In the minimart, which does halal, she keeps an eye on the street. There’s every chance they will come by this way – from off the North Circular. She asks for a can of Diamond Power and the owner IDs her. For a second she feels a glow of satisfaction, but has to be careful not to let him see her warrant card as she fumbles in her purse.

  She loiters in the shop doorway, as if its light might make her warm. She snaps the ring-pull and takes a sip, tries not to baulk as its sickly sour zings in her mouth and throat. She moves away, realising the doorway isn’t the place to be.

  Josie leans on a wall obscured from the Archibalds’ street by a privet hedge. She can just about see the house if she takes a step back from the hedge and, as each car passes, she raises the can to her lips, sips a little. After a while, the supercharged cider laps up to her senses, makes her feel kind of happy, optimistic about the night. Tomorrow, she will text her mates. All of them. For sure. She will be a better friend.

  A car approaches. It’s a Merc GL, she thinks. It rolls high and comes faster than the others did. She steps back, tight against the privet and raises the can, swigs for real. But she can’t help sneaking a peek. Her heart misses a beat. Her guts feel loose. She would remember Tommy Given anywhere.

  He’s in the driver’s seat, alone.

  Another car comes: fast, but not quite so fast. It is Pulford, which makes her happy and suddenly she feels stupid for getting herself worked up. All they need is to clock Tommy Given going into the Archibalds’. Nothing more.

  She lowers her can and raises the peak of her cap, so he can see her, but he is on his phone, slowing now. Another car follows behind Pulford but turns off down the side street, parks up just past the shop. She wants to wave to Pulford, but knows she can’t and presses the half-empty can into the privet and moves off, towards the minimart. Tommy’s car has slowed right down outside the Archibalds’, its brake lights glowing red – but then they fizzle out and the car moves off. She’ll text Pulford from inside the shop. But what will she buy?

  Josie stops by the entrance to the shop and looks in the window. She could get some gum, or a magazine – Just Seventeen or something like that. This makes her smile. She hears a voice, from behind.

  ‘Bad girl.’

  Then she feels flesh on her face, her mouth; then the dullest pain, the slowest fall that has no landing. And straight away, she is in the land of Nod.

  PART THREE

  Eighteen

  Her clothes tack to her when she tries to move. Her bones ache and her head feels brittle. She tries to move, but it hurts too much and she thinks she might have broken something. She opens her eyes and it is too bright. She blinks, squints at an oval light which has a cage around it; and she can smell excrement and bleach.

  Josie raises a hand to her face and feels her chin and cheeks and eyes. She puts her other hand to the floor. Is it the floor? She pushes herself up and grimaces through the pain as she swivels, looking around the room.

  She is on a bench with a mattress no thicker than a pack of cigarettes; a steel toilet in the corner and a steel basin; a thin window, high up, and a big steel door with a spyhole in it.

  ‘Shit,’ says Josie, realising where she is – that she is on the other side.

  She tries to remember how she came here. She was up at the Archibalds’ house and she was waiting for Pulford. Wasn’t she?

  Josie looks down, sees her legs swing from the bench. Her bare legs. She looks again and feels for her clothes but all she has on is a short, tight minidress that has ridden up and which is ripped across the midriff. It’s not her dress. She doesn’t have a dress like this.

  She heaves herself up and has to lean on the bench for support. She tugs the dress down and makes her way, gingerly, to the door, pounds on it.

  Eventually, a metal plate slides across and a female face appears. Josie says, ‘What am I doing here? I’m police.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ says the woman. ‘You sticking with that shit?’

  ‘My name’s Josie. Josie Chancellor. DC Chancellor.’

  ‘It’s not what your ID says.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You give me a shout when you’re through wasting our time.’

  ‘I want to make a call. I’m entitled.’

  The metal plate slides shut, with a sharp clank. Josie’s head resounds with pain and her thirst burns. She bangs on the door but it hurts her hands. She shouts at the spyhole but her throat is dry as ash.

  Eventually, she eases herself back to the bench and tries to recall what happened to her, but the last thing she can remember is being held, thinking it was Pulford. And music. Was there music?

  *

  Vernon Short knows better than to drive his own car. Six months ago, after spending nine hours over lunch at his club, he was pulled over by the police just a quarter of a mile from his town house in Pimlico. He blew eighty milligrams and immediately insisted on being allowed the opportunity to give a blood sample. Then his lawyer turned up and discovered that Vernon had only been given one shot at the breathalyser. He instructed his client not to proceed with the blood sample unless he could be breathalysed again. The duty sergeant had every confidence in his bag of crystals. The second time, two and a half hours later, and having drunk an entire bottle of Milk of Magnesia, Vernon blew twenty-nine; the Milk of Magnesia, being alkaline, had defeated the alcohol in Vernon’s system. He drove home, licence intact. The first thing he did next day was to hire Bob Tomkins, driver.

  Tomkins waits for his client on double yellows in Berkeley Square, the engine running – to keep him warm and to present the argument that he’s not actually parked.

  Staffe taps on the passenger window, opens the door and gets in alongside Bob, says, ‘How’s it going, Tomkins?’

  ‘I don’t know you.’

  He shows his warrant card and says, ‘Let’s keep it that way. When’s your boss back?’

  Ten minutes later, Vernon Short gets in the back and tells the driver to take him home. Five minutes after that he says, noticing Staffe in the front and breathing alcohol fumes all over the car, ‘What in God’s name are you doing here? I have nothing to say to you.’

  Staffe turns round, raises a finger to his lips. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Vernon. I’m not supposed to be here.’

  ‘So get out.’

  ‘You need to tell me what Catherine Killick promised you.’

  ‘What makes you think I’ll say anything to you?’

  ‘Because there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance you’ll get a place in the Cabinet. She’ll fob you off with some talk of a reshuffle and by the time it comes around, you’ll have fucked up. It might be another driving mishap.’

  ‘How d’you know about that?’

  ‘Or a woman, or whatever it is that floats your boat. I bet she hasn’t even told you what they’ve done now?’

  ‘They?’

  ‘They? Maybe it’s you. I don’t think you’ve got the gumption, or the balls. But you might know someone who has.’

  Vernon Short looks perplexed, and is clearly a quarter cut. He rubs his temples and screws up his eyes. They practically disappear into the podgy flesh of his face. ‘The balls to do what?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. It’s a matter of national security.’

  ‘You know nothing.’

  ‘What was in the bag, Vernon?’

  ‘Bag? I don’t know anything about the bag.’

  Strange, thinks Staffe, to employ the definite article. Poor Vernon shouldn’t drink.

  ‘Drop me at the end of the street. There’ll be someone watching your place when you get there. You say nothing, just go in and wait five minutes then go out the back. I’ll be there. You let me in.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because it wouldn’t do for Cathy Killick to know you’ve been exchanging favou
rs with Lesley Crawford. Not after what’s happened.’

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Honestly, Vernon, you don’t want to know.’

  ‘It involves the Home Secretary?’

  Staffe raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ says Vernon, leaning back, blowing out his cheeks. A man out of his depth, it would seem.

  *

  Short holds a thick, cut-glass tumbler of scotch as he opens the back door and lets the inspector into his home.

  Staffe mooches around the kitchen. He opens the door to a utility room and downstairs loo. The room is stacked to the gunnels with Glenlivet and San Pellegrino. But contrary to what you might expect, Vernon recycles. Of course he does. The press probably goes through his rubbish. And he puts his empty bottles in a hessian eco-friendly bag – from Waitrose, naturellement.

  Staffe wraps a plastic bag around the handle and picks up the eco bag, shows it to Vernon. ‘Whose prints do you think I might find on this?’

  ‘What?’ Vernon is incredulous. Then the penny drops, his mouth agape.

  ‘The question is, Vernon, what was in it?’

  ‘I’m calling my lawyer. Anybody could have touched that bag.’

  Staffe weighs up his options, trying to think four, five, six moves ahead. He has his finger on Vernon’s queen. Why not take it? He says, ‘Put down the phone, Vernon. This is for your ears only.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have what came in the bag, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll do you a deal. You needn’t tell me a truth until I’ve told you a truth.’

  The Rt Hon Vernon Short sits at his kitchen table, looking at the bottle of Glenlivet. Sometimes, all he really wants, has ever wanted, is an easy life and he curses his father, his family – the tradition. ‘Tell me. What has she done?’

  ‘No matter what we tell each other, Vernon, this is our secret.’

  Vernon nods.

  ‘They have made a threat – against the baby inside her.’