by Adam Creed
‘Can you have dogs in prison?’ Blears asked, his eyes ponding with tears.
Rimmer smiles and nods as Josie reaches down beneath her chair, producing six sealed plastic bags. In five of them are single pairs of knickers: some lacy, some plain; one, a thong. All of them, according to Forensics, are worn. In the sixth bag is a knife.
‘You know where we got these, don’t you, Graham?’
He nods, looking confused, and then he gasps as Josie puts US Snuff on the table.
‘The knife, I have to say, Graham, is a perfect match for the wounds on Rebeccah’s body.’
‘It’s not mine,’ he says, uncertainly. Graham squints. He is breathless. ‘I’m sure.’
*
Sylvie has a first violinist from the LSO going round at twelve and it could be a lucrative new commission. Good for her reputation, too, so Staffe makes his way, alone, to his Kilburn house. It’s not so long since he lived there – before he moved out to provide his sister with a base; immunity from her bad boyfriends and some solidity in life for her and Harry.
He is here for an afternoon with his nephew, but he can’t shift Rosa from his thoughts. What on earth is she doing in the phones of the two murdered women? Of course, that’s her game, too.
The sun has come out today, quickly melting the snow. He remembers last summer, shudders when he recalls that first time, with Rosa. He hasn’t seen her since. Now, he knows for sure, that must change.
As he walks up Shoot Up Hill, Staffe hears footsteps behind him, just out of kilter but at the same clip as his own. He slows. They slow. He speeds up and the echo dis appears. He makes to cross the road, unnecessarily, and checks behind him. Nothing. The street is empty. ‘Bloody fool,’ he says aloud, to himself. ‘Relax, why don’t you.’ It makes him smile.
Now on the wrong side of his old street, he can see right into his house. Harry is sitting in the window of his mother’s bedroom, rocking slightly and mouthing words. It cracks Staffe up and in the crisp winter chill, he hears himself laugh out loud, plumes of happy gas coming from his mouth. Harry has his Apple buds in and Staffe tries to imagine what he might be listening to: his father’s bad rock or his mother’s tortured singer-songwriters? Staffe gave him some Chet Baker the other week and plans to have him into Coleman Hawkins by next Christmas. The boy will be amazing, already is, and as Staffe pictures him growing up, his nephew sees him, jumps up and down and bangs the window. The glass warps and steams up in the brilliant December sun.
*
In the taxi up to Parliament Hill, Harry chit-chats away, updating Staffe on his new school and his football and his music. It softens Staffe’s heart to even contemplate that the young boy might be too bright for his own good. The driver chips in and Harry scoots across to the tipper seat. He talks briskly through the paying hole, telling the cabbie all about his favourite team and players and how the footballers are all paid too much and his team is Orient because they’re a proper team. The driver challenges him to go through the team. Harry scrunches up his face and slowly, surely, reels them off, from goalie to strikers.
‘I did it, Will! I did it!’ Harry spins round and is beaming, holding aloft the pound coin that he has won from the driver.
‘You got trouble on your hands there, governor,’ says the cabbie, smiling all over his face. They get out of the cab and Staffe watches Harry run off into the park, trailing the kite behind. He wonders at the power of innocents to bring joy into the city.
Then, hands come from nowhere. Cold on his face. Over his eyes.
His heart stops as he recalls the steps behind him on Shoot Up Hill and he spins round, the heart quickly catching up, double time. A familiar voice spears words towards him. ‘Guess who!’
Sylvie is beaming, bright-eyed. She says, ‘No need to worry, Will. I won’t harm you.’ Then she crouches, opens her arms and lets Harry come bowling back down the hill into her, dragging his kite behind him along the ground.
*
Two men, each with the collar to his overcoat turned up, stand on a knoll, looking across at Staffe, Sylvie and Harry. London towers glint in the low sun as if they might be silvery confections for a Christmas or wedding cake. DI Wagstaffe sprints away, holding the string to the kite aloft, and the young boy jumps and waves his arms, urging the kite to fly. After fifty yards, the kite loops and catches a gust and sweeps into the air. The young boy cheers and runs to the inspector, who tugs and tugs at the kite to get it high. He ties the string to the belt of the youngster’s jeans then holds his hands aloft in triumph, turning to the pretty woman. She claps her gloved hands and opens her arms, invites him to run to her, which he does.
She wraps her arms around his neck and turns to make sure the boy is not looking, then kisses him, full. Their heads move slowly, like clouds.
‘That’s him?’ says the elder of the two men, tall, barrel-chested and erect. He has a perfectly bald pate and a pencil moustache.
‘He doesn’t look like a detective inspector,’ says the lean, ruddy-faced, younger one – hints of soft Scouse in his voice. He adjusts his tie, turns his head towards the low sun and regards the scene around him.
‘They say he’s unorthodox,’ says the Elder.
The Younger says, ‘We’ll use that, to fuck him over.’
The silver Gherkin glints bright in the east, like a fat candle, alight. You can see it from the inspector’s office. But things look different from up here. You can see the whole picture.
*
In Pentonville, Rimmer and Tara Fleet watch Josie on a monitor. She is opposite Blears, alongside his solicitor. In observance of the ground rules for admissible evidence, it is more than six hours since Blears’ last intake of temazepam, as prescribed under expert medical advice. They are ready to roll.
Josie adjusts her skirt, an inch or three shorter than she would normally wear for work. Her tights are sheer. Minutes earlier, under prescription from Tara Fleet, she had applied lipstick, which she hardly ever wears.
Blears says, ‘Where is he?’
‘You do not have to say anything,’ says his solicitor.
‘I want Rimmer,’ says Blears.
‘You can have what you want, Graham. DI Rimmer is on his way. He just asked me to get things started.’ She slides a photograph across the table. ‘We took it this morning. DI Rimmer went over specially, to make sure she’s all right. Useless is with the police dogs up in Hendon. The best a dog can get,’ she beams, keeping her painted talon finger on the corner of the photograph of Blears’ dog. He touches it, too. He looks up at her and smiles: involuntary, lascivious.
‘It’s bad in here,’ he says. ‘They’re all evil.’
‘It’s better where Useless is,’ says Josie. ‘She’ll be fine, Graham. No matter what you tell us.’
‘This is irrelevant,’ says the solicitor.
Josie leans back in her chair, looks at Blears, who is staring at her legs. ‘How did you get on last night, with the priest?’
‘They talked sense,’ he says.
‘They?’
‘Said they believed in me. Said they understood.’ He looks up at Josie, eyes glazed and leaning slightly forward, almost as if he is about to collapse, his neck unable to support the weight above.
‘We all want to understand everything, Graham. That’s all.’
‘This is bullshit,’ says the solicitor.
‘That’s what he said,’ says Blears.
‘The priest?’ Josie uncrosses her legs, leans forward. ‘The priest said “bullshit”?’
‘No. The other one. He said that I had to believe in myself. He said the truth is the truth and I don’t have to make things up to make things better.’ Blears blinks, looks around the room.
‘The other one?’
Blears looks at Josie, then immediately down at his shoes. ‘He said, “It won’t end until we get the right man.” He said to believe in that. He asked me if I was him.’
‘The right man?’ says his solicitor.
‘Are you t
he right man, Graham?’ says Josie.
‘You don’t have to answer this question, Mr Blears,’ says his solicitor.
‘I don’t know,’ says Blears. He looks up, for the briefest glimpse, at Josie. Head down, he says, ‘That’s your job.’
The door opens and Rimmer comes in with Tara Fleet, says, ‘Sorry I’m late. Have I missed anything?’ It’s the sign for Josie to leave.
Which she does, taking an escort back to reception, running the gamut of wolf-whistles and catcalls, the whole C-to-F of obscene invitations to copulate and fellate. Sodom puts his head above, too.
At the gate, she checks the visitors’ book and runs a finger down the list of entries from last night. At 19.00, Father O’Dwyer had signed in, and there, just below, she sees that, at 19.30, a DI Staffe had signed his name.
*
Staffe tries not to breathe in the low-rise air of the Atlee tenements. The smell of dogs and garbage cloys in his mouth and nose. There is no need to live like this, he thinks. Then reminds himself how little he knows.
Last night, he had called on Graham Blears who seemed sedated, who seemed to want to believe that he, Staffe, had been sent from God.
‘You’re here to save me?’ Blears had said, hollow-eyed as he sat in the plastic chair on the other side of the metal table, screwed to the concrete floor. ‘I have done some terrible things and my hour is come.’
‘You must save yourself, Graham,’ Staffe had said. ‘Tell me what you did. Forget the bullshit.’
‘I didn’t have the knife.’
‘How did you kill them, Graham?’
He shook his head. ‘I took Yooce for a walk is how.’
‘What about the hotel?’
‘They said I was there for a party.’
‘You must tell the truth. Lies won’t end this for you. They seem the easy way, but it is never so.’ Staffe pressed a palm to each of Blears’ shoulders. ‘I can save you. With the truth.’
‘My priest has come. He will save me.’ He had smiled at Staffe and his eyes lit up, briefly. For a second, his wits seemed to have recovered, then his eyes grew heavy and his frail smile faded quickly, to the nothing of his mouth’s narrow slit. ‘I am tired,’ he said. ‘You should go.’
As the PO led Staffe away, he said, ‘He do it?’
‘What do you think?’
The PO shook his head, said, ‘Comes a point you can’t tell. Sometimes they can’t tell.’
Now, at the Atlee, Staffe steps away from the door he has just knocked on and waits for the mother of murdered Rebeccah to welcome him into her down-at-heel home.
He is surprised Nicola Stone is so young, but when he looks, again, the hair is split beyond repair and the make-up is thick. From within, the smell of fried meat and burnt-out chip fat loops and curls.
‘You’ll have to come back.’ Nicola squints at him, tilts her head to one side and makes a thin smile as she clocks that he is respectable. Handsome, even. She is drunk, even though it is day. ‘Who are you?’
‘Police.’
‘I’m not doin’ nothin’. He’s a friend. Int’ya.’ She steps aside and a sixty-year-old man smoking a fag and watching telly from the sofa with his trousers round his ankles waves at Staffe.
‘It’s about Rebeccah.’
‘I ain’t got nothin’ to do with that bitch. No fuckin’ way.’
‘I have some bad news. Could I come in, please?’
Nicola steps back and for a frozen glimmer of time she looks as if the life has just gushed away from her. Then she adjusts her footing and plants herself, hands on hips, says, ‘What is it?’
Before Staffe can answer, she turns to her gentleman friend and says, ‘You fuck off.’
‘What about my tenner?’
‘Come back later.’ As Nicola turns around, her housecoat falls open, shows her lifeless breasts and the apron of skin that folds down over her mouse-grey pubis. She doesn’t adjust because she is too busy summoning life into her heavy eyes, looking deep at Staffe.
‘She nicked my fella, you know. Four years ago.’ Her lip quivers. ‘She’s not dead.’ Nicola takes a step towards him. ‘Tell me she’s not dead.’ She carries on coming, faster, falling into Staffe’s arms and sobbing, saying over and over again, ‘Not my baby. Not my baby.’
The old boy squeezes past and Staffe kicks the door shut. He holds Nicola, tight. She smells of drink and cigarettes and something else, something warm and like tea-dunked biscuits and from long ago.
Eventually, Nicola releases and tells Staffe everything. In terms of the case, it is nothing; Nicola doesn’t know anything about Rebeccah’s Russian paymaster or her friend called Elena, or, saddest of all, her dream of tending pets in the sun.
‘Did she have pets as a child, Mrs Stone?’
‘A gerbil. She killed it, though.’
‘You mean it died?’
‘Maybe.’
Staffe thinks it odd that Nicola doesn’t ask how Rebeccah was killed or if she suffered. All her make-up cried away, all the dirty love rubbed raw, it is clear she knows how to protect herself – that some things are better not known.
Sixteen
Nick Absolom blows out his gaunt cheeks then sucks hard on his plastic cigarette, looking at the SOC photographs of Elena Danya and Rebeccah Stone. The photographs and potted biographies of the girls were delivered by a man in a motor cycle helmet. According to the receptionist, the courier had a Scouse accent.
Absolom has discovered that the Russian girl and Rebeccah Stone were both known by Vassily Tchancov, and when he had gone upstairs, the editor and proprietor had both got hard-ons for the Russian angle. ‘We should know all about fucking Russians taking over,’ they said. Absolom had heard the rumours about The News becoming the organ, the plaything of an oligarch, but he kept his mouth shut, his options open.
Now, he compares his two possible front pages. Absolom runs his nicotine-stained fingers through his fop’s hair and stares at the screen.
VLAD THE RIPPER
Twin Sex Murders Point East
Brutal murders within London’s sex industry hint at gang unrest in the capital’s sordid fleshpots.
He presses send, leaves it to the legal department to see what they make of it but is certain that this version will be good to go. Tchancov is not named directly and there is nothing actionable in his vague, scaremongering copy. Nevertheless, he ponders what kind of reaction it will elicit from the Russian. Absolom always has an eye for the bigger picture. It is what will make him great – one of these days – and it doesn’t escape him that Tchancov’s uncle Ludo is up for governor back in Russia. He also knows, in this climate, that times are tough for the Russians. They’re all being called upon to make payments, to mend the gaping holes in those billion-dollar blankets.
He picks up his coat and goes down to the cold streets for a smoke. In the atrium, thinking he is watched, he spins round, sees nothing untoward – save a flashlight image of himself in the plate window, looking like a man who has missed something. One package. One call. Too easy by half.
*
Staffe has not seen Rosa for months, yet here he is at her door in a tight December frost, the last summer coming back in a hot flush that sends a shiver. It reprises the touch of her flesh on his fingers; the taste of her in his breath. That one and only time.
His heart bumps. She looks brand new, her hair cut smart in flyaway layers, her eyes bright. Her mouth drops open when she sees him and she takes a step, so he can’t come in. ‘Will?’
Like an idiot, he says, ‘I’m here on business,’ as if that could endear.
‘Charming. You can see me any time, you know. We’re supposed to be friends.’
‘You look …’
‘Yes?’
‘Beautiful.’
She stands aside, nods into the lounge he knows so well. Now, there is a photograph of a man on top of the television. He is tanned and raising a champagne glass; behind him, a tumbling Italianate village and an indigo sea. ‘I’d lik
e to talk about a couple of your friends.’
‘Girls?’ she says, with weight.
He nods, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa to Rosa. ‘Elena Danya.’
‘You’re right. She is a friend.’ Rosa’s eyebrows pinch together.
A lump establishes itself in Staffe’s throat; an equal and opposite pocket of nerves in the top of his gut. ‘And Rebeccah Stone.’ He tries to look her in the eye, but he wavers. She makes a choking sound. Then it is quiet. He looks up and her eyes are watery. He scoots along the sofa and wraps her in his arms.
Eventually, drawing back, the palm of her hand splayed on his chest, his shirt moist with her tears and smudged with her mascara, she says, ‘What happened to them?’
He shakes his head, slowly. ‘That’s what I have to find out.’
She laughs. A nervous gush.
‘What?’
‘You said “have to”.’ She falls into his arms again, says, ‘That’s what I love about you, Will.’
She is soft, warm, and his chest reverberates with the undulations of her voice. ‘I knew Elena, from a parlour I worked every now and then. I liked her straight away.’
‘Which parlour?’
‘One of Tchancov’s joints, out Ilford way.’
‘Ahaa. Tchancov.’
‘Within a month or so she was hooked into some heavy hitter over in Mayfair.’
‘Taki Markary?’
‘She was with him later, but I didn’t know this guy she left Ilford for.’
‘But she was still …?’
‘On the game? Elena didn’t want to be dependent on any man. It was money she loved.’
‘What about Rebeccah?’
Rosa smiles, as if she forgets for a moment that Rebeccah is dead. ‘There was a time she’d follow me round everywhere, but as soon as she met Elena … we were never so close again. Elena took a shine to her, as if Becx was a baby sister or something. I never could work it out, but Elena loved that girl.’ Rosa pulls away. ‘You know, I introduced the two of them. And now they’re both dead. If I hadn’t …’ A sob bursts and she swallows it back.