by Adam Creed
‘Was she going off the rails?’
Ramone takes a sip of his tea. ‘This is good.’
‘Her family turned on her.’
‘You reckon she had a family, Inspector?’
‘My guess is Tommy helped her get that residency with you. But that was before he knew she was pregnant.’
‘Why would Tommy stick his neck out for a girl like Kerry?’
‘Don’t shit me, Phillip. You know. I know you know.’ Staffe gives Pulford a nod.
‘Even I know,’ says Pulford.
‘What do you know?’
‘That Tommy Given is Kerry’s uncle.’
‘Was,’ says Ramone. He puts out a cigarette, sips his tea and lights another. ‘I’m very fond of Tommy. He’s a better man than anyone gives him credit for, and I don’t believe it’s a crime to help out your flesh and blood.’
‘What did he do when he found out she was pregnant?’
‘He told me to pull the residency. Said it wasn’t right. Tommy knows right from wrong all right.’
‘And did you?’
‘We’d signed the contract. It was a tidy sum. I tried, but…’ Ramone shakes his head, takes in a lungful and a half, coughs up, like an engine that can’t catch the light. ‘She laughed, when I said to hand the contract back. She had a nasty laugh – like a knife. You can tell a lot about a person by their laugh. You can tell if they’re weak, or cocky, or if they don’t love themselves as much as they ought. And you can tell if they don’t know what life’s worth. But if you’re asking me if Tommy would harm a hair of that girl.’ He looks at Staffe, then back at Pulford, shaking his head, coughing again, and getting it to catch this time. ‘It’s a sad, sad world. But it’s not that sad. I hope to God.’
‘Did Tommy come round when he knew she was having twins?’
‘Twins?’
‘I know, Phillip.’
‘He wanted the best for her, is all I know.’ Phillip drags heavily on his cigarette and tips a glug of whisky into his tea. He drinks it down and looks out at his corner of London clinging to a better past. ‘This is some town, hey?’
‘Did you ever meet Kerry’s sister?’
He shakes his head. ‘Nor hair nor hide of her. Knowing what I do of Kerry, I’m amazed they didn’t break the mould.’
*
Staffe regards his own finger, a millimetre from the protruding plastic that is the bell. He also regards all the things he knows that he didn’t know the last time he was here, stood outside the mansion block on the Castelnau, a kidney-stone’s throw from the wrought Hammersmith Bridge.
If he presses the bell, she will come to him and the words will begin to spill. He could let someone else do it. Would it be such a cowardly route to take?
Staffe pulls his hand away. There had to be a nurse down there – in the tunnel: someone who knew how to usher new life into the world. And now, a baby is missing. There is powdered milk inside this place.
If he closes his eyes, which he does, he can see her in the half-light. At the height of their lovemaking, she had stopped, for an instant, and looked him dead in the eye, said, ‘I could.’ He had said, ‘What? Could what?’ and she had said, ‘I don’t, not yet. But I could.’
It could be love, he had thought. And then she had pulled him close to her, deeper inside her. Her skin was soft to the touch, but hard to the press. She tasted of nothing whatsoever but afterwards he could run his tongue around his mouth and find her again, like the smoke in your sweater after a bonfire.
He steps back, looks up and hopes that she is not in. He takes out his phone to call her, but sees he has a missed call, from Jasmine Cash. It seems as if it might have been a week or a month since he last met with Jasmine. He knows it will not be a good thing. But he makes the call.
‘I’m worried about Jadus,’ says Jasmine, without a ‘Hello’ or ‘How are you?’
‘He’s still holding that job down, isn’t he?’
‘It’s what I’m worried about.’
The line peters to silence and Staffe looks up to see if Eve’s curtains twitch. But there is no sign of life. ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘There’s something you have to tell me?’
‘I can trust you, right? I’ve called in confidence.’
‘I want Jadus to make it, you know that. Now, is there something you have to tell me?’
‘I have to tell you? I said I would. I promised.’
Staffe remembers. Jasmine said the promise and then said she didn’t need to. And now it is her that is broken, not the promise.
Behind him, the syrupy grunt of a taxi draws close and its brakes squeal. Staffe turns. From the taxi, Eve steps out and when she sees him, she smiles. Her instinct is to be pleased, but she must then see something in his face that makes a frown quickly assert itself.
‘Staffe?’ says Jasmine.
‘I have to go, Jasmine. But I’ll see him. I’ll call round.’
‘I think something’s going down. In fact, something is going down.’
‘Hello,’ says Eve.
‘I’ll see him tomorrow.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’ He hangs up.
They kiss. His hand on her hip. He doesn’t mean to, but he can feel her underwear beneath. A tiny clog of kohl has gathered on that bud of membrane in the corner of her eye. It’s called the … He can’t remember. Sylvie had told him what it is called and now he has forgotten.
‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ says Eve.
‘Pleasant?’
‘Maybe we can do better than that.’ She puts the key to the door.
‘Is it OK if I come in?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ She smiles at him and puts a hand to his face. She seems confident.
He follows Eve in and they go up. He waits in the kitchen whilst she changes out of her uniform, can hear the ghost rustle of clothes through her imperfectly closed bedroom door, then the draw and clasp of furniture. The shower runs. He mooches around the flat. Everything looks normal, sustainable.
It is painfully easy for him to imagine being a part of the domestic here. He can picture himself kicking off sheets, preparing them both a fast breakfast, reading her mood. He reaches for the cupboard, opens it. The powdered milk is gone. He rummages to the back, tries another cupboard, then another, looking over his shoulder.
He looks under the sink but there is not so much as a grain of SMA. He hears the gurgle of plumbing and tiptoes through the lounge and into the bedroom.
A child was here. He is sure. Yet now, his assumption seems quite preposterous. She has laid out bra and pants and thick tights on the bed, a white lambswool crew top and a short kilt, and he can see she will look just so inside it. On hands and knees, he looks under the bed, then hears the shower stop. His knees click as he stands, retreats, closing the door to its precise degree, and forming sentences of what he might say to her.
As he waits, sitting on her sofa, he can’t shake the clarity from his head.
‘What’s troubling you?’ She bends to kiss his cheek and her dressing gown falls open. She grabs it, quite coy, and takes a step back.
He looks at the slim rise of her legs but quickly averts. He knows he is about to forfeit that.
‘What’s wrong, Staffe? Something’s wrong.’
‘The powdered milk is gone.’
‘What powdered …?’ She moves away. ‘You’ve been looking. The last time you were here …’
‘Why was it here? And now it is gone.’
‘You’re a bastard.’
‘I’m not. Tell me why.’
‘You don’t have the right.’
‘Rights have been removed. There’s no such thing when people are murdered. A baby’s life is at risk here.’
‘What baby?’
‘Tell me about the milk, Eve.’
‘You’re in a world of your own. What use is it, whatever I say?’ She smiles, weak and trembling. ‘You’re wrong.’
‘You had Sean Degg’s number.’
&n
bsp; ‘I felt sorry for him. It’s a normal emotion. I don’t know how this happened to me. How did I get here?’
He takes a step towards her, reaches out and she lets him rest his hand on her shoulder. ‘We should get you a lawyer.’
‘I don’t understand.’ She looks at him with half-closed, weary eyes.
Thirty-One
‘This is a first,’ says Pennington. ‘Bringing your girlfriend in for questioning.’
‘She’s not exactly my girlfriend. And we need to check where she was when Kerry Degg’s babies were delivered.’
‘Just how long have you thought there were twins?’
‘The paperwork at the hospital is non-existent, so we can’t be sure.’
‘Hence you think your nurse was involved.’
‘Not my nurse.’
‘If you’re right, we need to find this other baby. Do you think your girlfriend …?’
‘Miss Delahunty. I found powdered milk in her house. And then she hid it.’
‘When was this?’
‘The other day. We’re getting close, sir. Bridget Lamb and Tommy Given are part of the same church. Not a church, as such, it’s called the House of the Holy Innocents.’
‘Christ.’
‘And Lesley Crawford is in the group, too. I’m sure Given must know Crawford. If anyone knows where she is, I think it might be him.’
‘You want to rock the boat?’
‘Are my hands untied?’
Pennington nods, reaching for the phone. ‘Will you bring him in?’
‘No. I want him to take me to Crawford.’
‘Can’t we take the simple option for once?’
‘And risk not finding Zoe Bright? I wouldn’t want that on your conscience,’ says Staffe.
*
Tommy Given travels light and throws the holdall into the back of the Merc. For her part, Giselle is much more the seasoned traveller. She toddles across the gravel, tugging her small suitcase on wheels behind her. It keeps getting snagged and toppling over. The case is bright pink and the size of one volume of the OED. It is adorned with the image of Sleeping Beauty and Tommy comes across, scoops her up in one arm and lifts the case with two fingers of a giant hand.
Smet says, ‘You get it?’
Pulford squints into the eyepiece of the camera and squeezes, like a trigger, and the motor drive kicks in, louder than he thought, the shutter capturing four images per second through its three-hundred-millimetre lens. ‘Let’s go,’ he says. ‘Before he sees.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Staffe said not to follow him,’ says Pulford, walking up the lane, getting into the car. He is tempted to see where Given goes, to see if he might lead them to Kerry and Sean’s orphan twin, Grace’s sibling. Should there be such a person.
*
‘He hasn’t the guts to interview me himself.’
Josie weighs Eve up, seeing how she would appeal to Staffe. It is the first time she has seen Eve in civvies and she isn’t what Josie had expected. She is wearing a print top that Josie had admired in Whistles, but couldn’t afford, and a pair of wide-flared, jersey slacks; heels that would send her immediately overdrawn. ‘Inspector Wagstaffe is out of the City. We’re a team.’
Eve looks Josie up and down, smiles faintly. ‘I feel an idiot.’
‘Tell me what drew you to Grace. I remember you calling in a lot when she was in intensive care.’
‘You were there, too.’
‘The sooner you account for everything, the sooner you can go.’
‘Everything? What exactly is it that you are saying I have to account for?’
‘You had powdered milk in your apartment.’
‘So?’
‘Why would you have such a thing?’
‘Is it a crime?’
‘You can’t verify where you were when Kerry Degg gave birth and we have reason to believe a nurse was with her.’
‘A nurse wouldn’t abandon a woman like that?’
‘If you thought she was doing wrong, by putting herself before the baby.’
‘You think I’m one of them? Jesus. Would you abandon a woman like that? Could you?’
‘Listen. I found Grace. I’m not sure what would have happened if I hadn’t. That’s why I stayed with her. And now I know she is going to be fine, I have to find out who left her there. Whoever did it would feel guilty. It would haunt them.’
Eve presses her fingers to her cheeks and sighs. She avoids Josie’s eye.
‘Especially if there is another baby.’
‘Another?’
‘Twins, Eve. A child is missing and the mother was left to die. At least Grace was delivered to us, but it all went wrong down there. Were there complications?’
‘I really don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘We have a warrant. As we speak, we’re going through your place with a fine-tooth comb.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Did you think it would help, attaching yourself to Inspector Wagstaffe the way you did?’
‘He made the first move. I’m the one who was dragged in. Ask him.’
‘You have Sean Degg’s number in your handbag.’
‘He snooped on me. Staffe. He looked in my bag.’
‘Why would you have his number?’
‘We were with Grace, together. We said if she made it we’d celebrate. I felt sorry for him.’ The whites of Eve’s eyes are pink and she blinks fast as she fleetingly looks at Josie. ‘What makes you so sure a nurse would be involved? Childbirth is the most natural thing in the world. Hundreds, thousands of babies are born every day under a mother’s own steam.’
‘Not underground, and finding their way out of a tunnel and into our car park. And there’s something else, Eve. There was another one. At least one. Three years ago, Lesley Crawford took another woman. We know.’
Eve seems lost in thought, as if trying to recall something. Her face is grey-white.
*
Jadus Golding waits for Jasmine Cash to leave their flat on the Limekiln estate. She has Millie in a papoose, facing outwards. Jadus knows that Jasmine prefers to have Millie facing towards her, likes to cup her bottom and hug the baby close into her bosom, whispering to her. But Jasmine says it is better for the baby to look out, to be fed the world.
The instant the door closes, Jadus puts the snick up and shoots the bolt, then he watches until Jasmine and his daughter cross the tenemented Limekiln enclave, fading onto the City Road.
He goes to the baby’s bedroom and sinks to his knees in front of the wardrobe. He took art classes when he was in Belmarsh and when he got out, had painted a frieze of dolphins around the bottom of the wardrobe. He removes the boxes of toys and slips the hook from its eye at the base, lifting up a false bottom and reaching right to the back, pulling out his Browning Forty-Nine. He doesn’t want to use it, or even carry it; he still finds it an ugly weapon. He’d rather have to carry a Glock. He can’t help it, but a Glock makes him feel good about himself.
Jadus checks the clip, puts the pistol down the back of his jeans. There’s no safety on the Browning but the trigger pulls the best part of ten pounds – heavy enough to be safe.
Today, because he is carrying, he wears a belt and has his jeans hoisted a few inches higher than normal. He pulls on his Sean John jacket, suitably long, and then makes the text to Carlyle.
Within a minute, Jadus has the response he requires. The poor bastard Carlyle is shitting himself.
He makes his way across the Limekiln quadrangle, reminding himself how good his eGang had been whilst he was inside. Jasmine has her X5, still. Baby Millie wears only Monnalisa, and her Grandma Rose was flown over from Trinidad for the Christening. And now, he has to reinvest. As if he had a choice.
Jadus has to chip in. They had given him this gun. This gun, whose steel he can feel in the crack of his arse, had been pressed hard into his jaw just three days ago when he had said he wanted out. When he had placed one foot outside the circle, they
had treated him like the enemy and now that treatment is going down the line, towards Dan Carlyle.
Dan is thirty-six and is waiting for Jadus in the disused underground car park round the back of Peerless Street where they are knocking down an old block. Dan is smoking. Jadus didn’t know he smoked, but there is plenty he doesn’t know about Dan, who is a director of Devere Chance, the firm that saved Jadus’s arse by giving him a job in the post room. What Jadus does know about Dan is that he has a beautiful wife who doesn’t need to work and three beautiful children, one of whom, Luke, has cerebral palsy. Dan loves Luke the most, which makes Dan sad. Lately, many things have been making him sad. And to comfort him, Dan has a friend, called heroin.
‘You got it?’ says Jadus.
Dan is standing by a pillar in the middle of the car park. Above, the ground shudders with the demolition work going on next door. He nods and produces an oversized chequebook from a Waterstone’s bag.
Jadus takes it and flicks through. ‘Shit, man. They say these are good for fifty grand. Each. I’ll get it back the day after tomorrow.’
‘No. I need it back tomorrow. Before four o’clock. It’s what you said.’
Jadus reaches behind him. He takes a step towards Dan, pulls out his Browning and kicks out at Dan’s midriff at the same time. Since he was four, Jadus has done karate. It’s the one thing he has to show from having had a father. He pins Dan to the pillar and aims the Forty-Nine. He can feel his pulse change its beat and his blood courses fast. He has a good feeling which he knows will pass but he puts the gun to Dan’s left temple. He turns it ten degrees to his right and makes the almighty squeeze. It’s the most power a man can exert and the sound is fat and sharp and Dan Carlyle screams.
He closes his eyes tight shut, then opens them, waits for the life to pour out of him and onto the car-park floor. He is trembling and Jadus watches his ear, waits for it to bleed and it does. A thin, viscous stream emerges from the folds of hard membrane. Jadus reaches out to Dan, grabs his tenderest hair, above the ear and when Dan can’t help but scream, he pushes the hot, cordite-reeking barrel of the gun into Dan’s mouth, says, ‘Day after tomorrow. Right?’
Dan closes his eyes, slow, to nod ‘Yes’.
‘You’ve got the authorised signatures, too?’