by Kevin Brooks
Cal got up, went over to his work desk and pressed a key on one of his laptops. He watched the screen for a few moments, then he took an iPhone from his pocket and rapidly thumbed its screen, and then, finally, he turned back to me. ‘OK, that’s it,’ he said, putting the iPhone back in his pocket. ‘If the program finds anything, it’ll send it to my iPhone. So … what do you want to do now?’
I looked at him. ‘Do you fancy a drive down to Eastway?’
I didn’t particularly want to go to the police station, but I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day trying to avoid getting arrested for assault and criminal damage either. And, besides, I knew that I’d have to deal with the charge sooner or later, and the later I left it, the worse it’d probably be.
Cal wasn’t all that keen on visiting the police station either, but once I’d assured him that he didn’t have to come in with me, that all he had to do was drop me off and pick me up again later, he was happy enough.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to be seen with you or anything, John,’ he told me as we drove away from his house in one of his several Mondeos. This one, like all the others, was totally anonymous from the outside — just another bog-standard black Mondeo — but on the inside, and under the bonnet, it was as well equipped, if not better, than a car worth twenty times as much. ‘I mean,’ Cal continued, ‘you know I’d do anything to help you …’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘It’s just that … well, me and the police …’
‘It’s all right, Cal,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to keep explaining — ’
‘I think I’m allergic to them.’
‘You’re allergic to the police?’
‘Yeah … whenever I’m anywhere near them, my heart speeds up and I start sweating like a pig.’
‘That’s probably just the drugs.’
He looked at me. ‘You know that if I could wait for you in the car park, I would.’
‘Yes,’ I said patiently. ‘I know you would.’
‘But they’re always looking out of their fucking windows down there, aren’t they? Fucking cops … nothing better to do. And they’ve got all that ANPR shit now … automatic number-plate recognition. Not that they’d get anything from my plate — ’
‘Cal?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Just shut up and drive, will you?’
As he muttered a few more paranoid curses and carried on driving, and I wound down the window and lit a cigarette, my phone rang. I’d turned it back on that morning, hoping that any reporters would have given up trying it by now, and so far I hadn’t had any unwanted calls. But I was still double-checking the caller display before answering every call, and when I looked at the screen now I saw the name LEON.
I hit the answer key. ‘Hello, Leon.’
‘John,’ he said. ‘Is it safe to talk?’
‘Yeah, I’m with Cal.’
‘All right, listen, I’ve been asking around about Mick Bishop and the Gerrish case, and there’s definitely something going on, but no one seems to know what it is. Whatever Bishop’s up to, he’s playing it very close to his chest. But as far as I can tell … and you have to understand that a lot of this is guesswork, John. I really don’t have enough information to confirm anything … but it would appear that the only evidence that links Viner to Anna Gerrish is one small sample of DNA, and I wouldn’t put too much faith in that.’
‘Why not?’
‘The pathologist, Gerald McKee … have you heard of him?’
‘No.’
‘He’s the pathologist that Bishop always uses when he wants things done his way.’
‘You mean he’s a bent pathologist?’
‘Not really,’ Leon sighed. ‘He’s just a sad old man with a few personal problems, the kind of problems that Bishop knows how to exploit. I doubt very much if McKee actually lies about anything for Bishop, but he’s perfectly willing to conveniently overlook things or stretch the truth a little if it’s in his best interests to do so.’
‘But McKee wouldn’t be involved in the DNA testing himself, would he?’
‘Not as such, no. The testing’s done at a contracted forensic laboratory, and I don’t think even Bishop has got his hooks in there. But even so … well, I wouldn’t trust any evidence that’s passed through the hands of Bishop and McKee.’
‘And there’s nothing else at all that links Viner with Anna Gerrish?’
‘Not as far as I know. I haven’t been able to get a copy of the autopsy report, and no one that I’ve spoken to has actually seen it, but the prevailing opinion seems to be that there are very few similarities between Anna’s murder and Stacy’s.’ Leon hesitated for a moment. ‘Are you OK talking about this, John?’
‘Yeah, go on.’
‘Well, the knife wounds don’t match, for a start. Anna was stabbed with a different kind of knife than the one used on Stacy. Also, Anna wasn’t strangled … and she wasn’t raped either.’
I took a breath, steadying myself. ‘So, if it wasn’t for the DNA, there’d be no reason to suspect Viner?’
‘None at all.’
I paused for a moment, trying to piece things together — Bishop, Viner … Anna, me … Viner, Stacy … Viner, me — but I still didn’t get it. I could just about see how I could make everything fit together, but only in the way that you can make all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fit together if you keep hitting them hard enough with a hammer.
‘We’re nearly there, John,’ Cal said.
I nodded, wiping condensation from the car window and gazing out at Saturday morning shoppers scuttling along the pavement, their heads bowed down to the wind, their cold hands stuffed in their coat pockets. We were on North Street, just the other side of the Eastway roundabout.
‘John,’ I heard Leon saying. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yeah … sorry, Leon,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking …’
‘Listen, John, I have to go now — ’
‘Yeah, me too.’
‘I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.’
‘Thanks, Leon.’
‘No problem.’
As I ended the call and put the mobile back in my pocket, Cal said to me, ‘Is it OK if I drop you off here?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ I replied.
He pulled in at the side of the road about fifty yards from the police station. ‘Just call me when you’ve finished,’ he said. ‘And I’ll come and pick you up.’
‘OK.’
‘Use the number I’ve just called you from.’
‘What?’
He held up his iPhone. ‘I just called you, so this number will be in your call log. It’s a new one. Just dial the number, let it ring twice, then hang up. I’ll know it’s you. All right?’
I smiled at him. ‘Yeah …’
‘What’s so funny?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing …’
‘You think I’m being paranoid?’
I shrugged. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being paranoid.’
‘Fucking right,’ he said.
As I got out of the car and watched Cal drive away, I thought I saw a silver-grey Renault approaching the Eastway roundabout from North Street, but when I wiped the rain from my face and looked again, trying to catch a glimpse of the registration number, it had already turned left, heading away from me towards town, and all I saw was a rain-blurred flash of silver-grey disappearing behind a bus. I couldn’t even be sure that it was a Renault, let alone the Renault.
‘Who’s being paranoid now?’ I muttered to myself as I turned round and headed for the police station.
When I informed the reception officer who I was and what I was doing there, he just stared at me for a moment or two, his mouth half open, and I could almost hear the cogs whirring dimly inside his head as he digested the information, registered it, processed it, and finally came up with an answer.
‘Just a minute,’ he told me, reaching for a phone.
Ten minutes later I
was sitting in Bishop’s office, looking around at his bare white walls, his bare black desk, his bare beige carpet … it was one of the emptiest rooms I’d ever been in. Apart from Bishop himself, sitting across from me at his desk, there was nothing of him in that room at all. No photographs, no mementoes, no certificates … nothing. In fact, the only way of telling that it was Bishop’s office was the sign on the door saying DCI M Bishop.
‘Do you want coffee or anything?’ he asked me.
‘No, thanks.’
He sniffed. ‘Anyway, it’s all sorted out. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The assault charge, the photographer … I’ve had a word with him. He’s withdrawn his complaint and he’s not pressing charges.’
‘Oh … OK, so that’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
I almost said Thanks, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t thank this man, not in a million years. And, besides, I doubted very much that he’d done whatever he’d done for my benefit anyway.
‘Did you watch the press conference?’ he asked me.
‘Yeah.’
‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘Have you still got doubts about Viner?’
I shrugged. ‘What can I say?’
‘You could answer my question.’
‘Why are you asking me about it? I don’t know anything, do I? You’re the one with all the answers.’
He smiled. ‘That’s not how you felt yesterday.’
‘Yeah, well — ’
‘You said it was impossible, didn’t you? When I told you that Viner’s DNA had been found on Anna Gerrish, you said that was impossible.’
‘So?’
‘So how come you’ve changed your mind?’
‘I haven’t changed my mind — ’
‘You still think it’s impossible?’
‘Look,’ I said, trying to stay calm. ‘You turn up out of the blue, and you tell me that the man who raped and killed my wife is suspected of killing not just another woman, but the woman I was hired to find, the woman whose body I did find … I mean, Christ … how do you expect me to react?’
Bishop studied me for a moment, his eyes fixed on mine, and then — with a self-satisfied nod — he said, ‘All right, that’s fair enough.’ And then he tried to give me the kind of smile that says, OK, the formalities are over, let’s get the platitudes done and then we can say goodbye, but it just didn’t work on him. His smiles were all the same: cold, tight, empty of emotion and meaning.
‘So,’ he said casually. ‘What are your plans now? Back to work, I suppose?’
‘Probably not. It’s not that easy investigating privately when you’ve got a pack of reporters following you around all the time. They kind of get in the way.’
‘Right,’ he nodded, feigning interest. ‘Of course … it must be very difficult.’
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘Maybe it’d be a good time to take a break? Get away from it all somewhere.’
‘You think so?’
He gave me a cold look. ‘I’m only trying to fucking help.’
‘Yeah …’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Well, I’ll think it over. Do you need me to let you know if I’m planning on leaving town?’
‘Not particularly.’
I couldn’t think of anything else to say then, so I just turned round and started to leave.
‘John?’ I heard him say.
I stopped. ‘What?’
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’
I turned to face him. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘There’s nothing you want to ask me about?’
‘Like what?’
‘Viner, maybe?’
‘What about him?’
‘Don’t you want to know if we’ve found him yet?’
Shit, I thought.
‘Have you?’ I said.
‘No, not yet.’ He stared at me. ‘You’ll be the first to know, though … when we do. I’ll see to it personally.’
DC Wade was waiting for me outside Bishop’s office, and as I followed him along the corridor towards the lift I was trying to work out if Bishop knew anything about what I’d done to Viner, or if he was just guessing, or just fishing … or just fucking me around. There was no doubt I’d made a mistake in not asking him about Viner, but it was hard to see how Bishop could deduce anything definite from that alone. Unless, of course, he already suspected something … but then, if he had any inkling at all that I’d killed Viner, why the hell would he put Viner in the frame for the murder of Anna Gerrish? If, indeed, that’s what he’d done … and I was only guessing at that.
As we approached the lift doors, I took out my mobile and dialled Cal’s new number. I let it ring a couple of times, and I was just putting the phone back in my pocket when Cliff Duffy appeared from a doorway on my right.
‘Hello, John,’ he said, coming straight up to me and offering his hand. ‘Good to see you again. How’s everything going?’
He was looking directly into my eyes as I shook his hand, which was slightly unusual for Cliff, but then I felt something in his hand — possibly a piece of paper — and I realised that he was passing me a message.
‘All right?’ he asked, still shaking my hand.
‘Yeah,’ I said, nodding to let him know that I’d got it.
He turned to DC Wade and said, ‘Is the DCI in his office?’
And as Wade answered him, ‘Yes, but he’s busy,’ I took the opportunity to let go of Cliff’s hand and slip the message into my pocket.
I didn’t look at the message until I was safely in Cal’s car and we were driving away from Eastway, heading back towards town.
‘What’s that?’ Cal asked as I unfolded the sheet of notepaper.
‘I don’t know yet,’ I said, lighting a cigarette and starting to read:
John. Overheard B making private call to someone called Ray 10.00 this morning. Your name mentioned. B angry with R about something, couldn’t hear what. B arranged to meet R 19.00 tonight at Turks Head, off Roman Road.
Good luck.
C.
‘What are you doing tonight?’ I said to Cal.
‘Why?’ he asked, glancing at the notepaper in my hand. ‘What is it?’
I smiled at him. ‘Charles Raymond Kemper … I think we might have found him.’
25
Before dropping me off in town, Cal checked his iPhone to see if the search on Mick Bishop had come up with anything yet. It took him a while — scrolling up and down, reading this, reading that … and occasionally looking up to make sure that he was still on the road — but eventually he shook his head and said, ‘Nope, nothing of any interest yet.’
‘What’s it given you so far?’ I asked out of curiosity.
He shrugged. ‘Not much. I’ve got his landline number, and I know what kind of car he drives, and when he passed his test, and where he lives, and how old he is …’ Cal looked at me. ‘It might take a while to get to the good stuff.’
‘If there is any.’
‘Yeah, well … we should know by the end of the day.’
I glanced out of the window. ‘You can drop me here, Cal.’
‘Sure?’
I nodded. ‘How long do you think it’ll take us to get out to The Turk’s Head?’
‘Not long,’ he said, pulling up at the side of the road. ‘Twenty minutes, maybe.’
‘All right, so if we leave your place at six, we should get there by half-past at the latest. That’ll give us plenty of time to check things out before Bishop meets this guy called Ray.’
‘How are we going to play it when they get there?’
‘I don’t know yet.’ I smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll work something out.’
He nodded. ‘OK, so you’ll be at my place by six?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where are you going to be until then?’
‘Around.’
; ‘Around where?’
‘Just around.’ I opened the car door. ‘Let me know if the search comes up with anything, OK?’
‘Yeah, but — ’
‘See you later, Cal.’
Bridget’s pet shop is situated halfway down Market Street in a pedestrianised area on the west side of the shopping precinct. It’s a small brick-built place, flanked by a confectionery shop that’s always empty and an old-fashioned hardware store with a dusty window display of upright vacuum cleaners, pressure cookers, light bulbs, and dead wasps.
The rain was beginning to ease off as I made my way down Market Street, and in the distance I could see patches of clear blue sky breaking through the purple-grey blanket of cloud. It was unusually quiet for a Saturday lunchtime. The streets were busy, but not so busy that I couldn’t keep walking in a straight line, and it wasn’t long before I found myself standing outside Bridget’s shop, smoking a cigarette, wondering what the hell I was doing there.
Why was my heart beating so hard?
Why was my blood racing?
And why did I have a tiny black planet spinning around inside my chest, whipping out threads of adrenalin?
I smoked my cigarette and stared at the ground.
I didn’t know why.
I didn’t know what I was doing there.
I put out my cigarette and began walking back the way I’d come … but after three or four steps I stopped, turned round, and went back.
I couldn’t help it.
It didn’t matter why.
When I entered the shop, Bridget was at the counter wrapping up bags of greeny-brown pellets for a plump old woman in a threadbare fur coat. The old woman had a huge purse in her hand and a wheeled shopping trolley at her feet, and she seemed to be buying up half the contents of the shop — rabbit food, drinking bottles, bowls, polythene bags full of hay and straw. Bridget was cutting off price tags with a small lock-knife and jotting down prices on the back of a paper bag, but when the bell over the door sounded, she stopped what she was doing and looked over the woman’s shoulder at me and smiled … and just for a second I was sixteen years old again — stupid and pure, a blue-eyed animal, wanting and needing only this moment …