It Was You

by It Was You (retail) (epub)

  I gave the WPC my name and her eyebrows drew together as if, given a minute, she might remember where she’d heard it before. Instead of giving her that minute I headed off towards the stairs. Walking up I felt strange. As a policeman I’d been told about murders and felt, in that moment, an abstract sympathy. Real feeling only came later, when I got a sense of who the victim was, what effect their death had had on those around them. Hearing about Jo was similar. My stomach clenched at the image I’d created of her last hour but I’d been a DS long enough to understand the simple truth that in London people get murdered. They get murdered almost every single day and in every kind of way. It’s a sad fact but you can’t let each and every act of horror into you. Self-preservation alone means we filter the things that appal us, we somehow decide whose misery we are prepared to embrace full on. The news of Jo’s death sent a wave of depression through me that morning but I wasn’t going to pretend that my life had really been changed by it.

  Upstairs, in the cafe along from my office, the reaction was similar. Most of the other tenants had never seen Jo, let alone met her. Jo had only been in the building four or five times. The sympathy expressed was genuine if unspecific, the news a little like a door banging open on a stormy night. Everyone shivered at the claw of wind reaching in but it wouldn’t take long to slam the door shut again.

  For Jemma, however, it was different.

  * * *

  Jemma set a big latte down in front of me and I took a sip. She was drinking herbal tea, a paper tag poking out like a bookmark. As if she’d forgotten what sip she was on. She was wearing a Muji pinafore dress, her hair pulled back by a scrunchy. Jemma’s door key hung on a piece of string around her neck and I smiled as I remembered how she’d locked herself out a couple of times. I pushed my cup to one side, trying to imagine what she was feeling. It was Jemma who Jo had been working with the night she’d died. She had seen her only minutes before she’d got her bus, had still been working there when Jo was being attacked. Jemma hadn’t found out what had happened until she came in the next morning, ten minutes after me, and met the same WPC at the door. Her grief had shattered the atmosphere of quiet empathy in the building, and on two occasions in the weeks since I’d heard it slicing through the wall that separated our two spaces. Both times I’d wanted to go and see if she was all right but Cass had been with her, as well as some other people I didn’t know. I’d done nothing and felt uncomfortable about it, and I was glad that I now had the chance to register my concern.

  Jemma lifted the cup to her lips and blew across it. I asked her how she was.

  ‘Fine,’ she replied.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Why shouldn’t I be? It didn’t happen to me, did it? I didn’t get stabbed.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You didn’t. But you and Jo were friends, weren’t you? Good friends?’

  ‘We were,’ Jemma admitted. ‘Yes. Jo was helping me with my scarves. For Harvey Nichols. They ordered two hundred, amazingly, not that I care now. That’s why she was here. I met Jo on foundation. She was doing acting. I used to share a flat with her.’

  ‘Well then,’ I said. ‘It must be hard for you.’

  ‘I don’t need sympathy.’

  Jemma drew her lips together and then studied her knees. I could see her telling herself to keep it together.

  ‘I’m sorry, Billy. Everyone is being so nice to me and I can’t stand it. You weren’t to know. But I don’t need anyone to make me feel better. This isn’t about my feelings, OK? This is about what happened to Jo.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘She deserves the sympathy. Not me.’

  ‘I understand that. But losing someone is hard too.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jemma said. ‘But even so, what I feel is nothing compared to her really close friends and her family.’

  ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘No, but I’m going to have to meet them next week.’

  ‘Have to?’

  ‘At the funeral. The police are going to release the body soon.’

  ‘But why "have to”? Won’t it be good to share your grief with other’s who were close to her?’

  ‘They won’t want me there.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  Jemma frowned, like I was the dimmest boy in the class.

  ‘Because it was my fault. Because if it weren’t for me there wouldn’t be a funeral. Jo was helping me.’

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘She wouldn’t have been here so late otherwise. I let her stay till nearly midnight. Midnight, Billy. She stayed because she knew I needed help but I should have made her go.’

  ‘You weren’t to know what would happen.’

  ‘No? But I should have known it might. Especially knowing where she lived. An estate in Dalston? I live in a nice square off Upper Street with my boyfriend, it was all right for me going home. I didn’t have to walk down an alleyway full of drug addicts, did I?’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself for where Jo lived. Or for what happened.’

  ‘Can’t I? Aren’t friends supposed to look out for each other? I told her to take a cab, you know? I even made her take an extra tenner.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘But I didn’t check, did I? She said she’d get Ron to phone one from the gate and I just said fine. As soon as she said goodbye it was as if she didn’t exist. All I could think about was my deadline, the fact that my scarves were going into a posh shop. She probably saw the bus and thought, why not? I should have called the cab myself. While she was bleeding to death I was probably sewing some bloody tassels on. Oh shit.’

  Jemma tried to hold out but her face began to break up, like a sandcastle at high tide. Her body started to shake, almost without moving, and I sighed. The extent of Jemma’s sorrow chastised me. She’d never been a DS, she didn’t think that some murders were everyday occurrences, to be shrugged aside. I pushed a box of tissues towards her but she didn’t take one, gripping the desk instead. I reached forward, prising Jemma’s slim, dye-stained fingers from the surface and reattaching them to my own. Jemma held on tight, fighting her grief down until finally it withdrew. When she’d calmed down I relaxed my grip and held her hands gently, until we both felt self-conscious. I let go, setting her wrists back down on the table top.

  ‘You have absolutely nothing to reproach yourself with. You haven’t done anything wrong and no one thinks you have.’

  Jemma took some more deep breaths and pushed away the last of her tears. She didn’t argue with me, simply shoving my words to the side. I could tell she didn’t agree with me. She just wanted to move on.

  ‘You know what I’m going to ask, don’t you?’ Jemma said after a second or two.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You must feel like that financial adviser bloke on the top floor. Every time he goes for a coffee people hassle him about their mortgages. You look for kids normally?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Jemma nodded to herself. ‘It’s been two weeks and nothing has happened. The police won’t tell me anything, except no one’s been charged. I can’t believe they can’t catch some druggie. Will you see what you can find out?’

  I tried not to let the sigh that ran straight through me out into the room.

  ‘I can try. But the police will be doing everything there is to do.’

  ‘That’s what they said to me.’

  ‘And they were telling you the truth. Two weeks isn’t that long and, anyway, they might already know who did it. They just can’t say, maybe because they’re after more evidence or the kid’s under-age. Anything could be happening, you just don’t know. And even if they haven’t got anywhere yet, they won’t give up. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And it’s much more than I could ever do. I usually do things that the police aren’t interested in. Where there’s a gap for me. But they will be interested in this, Jemma, and I’m not sure there’ll be anything for me to do that hasn’t alre
ady been done.’

  ‘I realize that. But what the police are doing isn’t the point. It’s what I’m doing. Just carrying on with my life, sitting behind my knitting machines as if nothing has changed. Even if you don’t find anything, it doesn’t matter. At least I haven’t just sat there. So please don’t say no. If you do, I’ll have to find someone else.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘I’ll make some calls. I’ve got a couple of friends still on the police who’ll fill me in. They’ll at least tell me more than they’ve told you. I’ll let you know what they say. They might just be closing it out.’

  ‘And if they’re not.’

  ‘Then I’ll see what else I can do. That will come second, though.’

  ‘Whatever you say. I trust you. I’ll pay you, of course.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. It’ll just be a couple of calls.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘Even nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure? Really? If you have any expenses, at least.’

  ‘Make me a scarf sometime,’ I said. ‘It’ll save me going to Harvey Nichols. As far as I’m concerned that’s worth a hell of a lot.’

  ‘I will do,’ Jemma said. ‘I will.’

  ‘One thing, though. And it’s very important.’

  Jemma looked at me, seriously. ‘What?’

  ‘No tassels.’

  ‘No, Billy Rucker, I hadn’t got you down as a tassels kind of man.’

  Jemma nodded, allowing the ghost of a smile to pass across her lips. It felt good to have put it there. But then her eyes lost focus again and she had to clench her jaw. Her hands still sat on the table top and I thought about holding them again but I didn’t quite do it. I just hoped I could help her. A crime with no personal motive was almost impossible for one man to get anywhere near. I prayed that the police came up with something soon to bail me out. If they didn’t, Jemma was going to be disappointed by my efforts, maybe even more so than if she’d just sat next door and let the police get on with it.

  Chapter Three

  It was after nine now but the hall was still empty. Save for the smell of fresh coffee signalling to me like a crooked finger. It drew me on to the cafe, four doors down on the other side of the hall. The Sanctuary is housed in a medium-sized, cosy unit, the back third sectioned off into a small kitchen. Mike and his Italian wife, Ally, who run the place, are my closest friends in the building. They were both working, getting ready for the day ahead. Mike roared out a hearty greeting when I stuck my head round the door and Ally asked me how I was.

  ‘All the better for seeing you, O increasingly round one. But what are you doing on your feet?’

  ‘It’s him,’ Ally said, casting a barbed glance at her husband as she looked up from the carrot she was grating. Her thick, dark hair was tied back behind two delicate ears. ‘First he puts this ball of crazed snakes inside me and then he makes me work like a slave all day.’

  ‘Disgusting. You should sit down right now. The next five weeks should be spent reclining in a comfortable chair being hand-fed Belgian chocolates while having both feet massaged simultaneously.’

  ‘Hey, thanks, Billy. Thanks a lot, mate.’

  ‘Are you listening to this, “Mr Hurry up with Those Sandwiches for Godsake”? Oh, why didn’t I marry you, huh, Billy?’

  ‘Because he wouldn’t have you. And he’s going to marry the lovely Sharon, aren’t you, fella?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Are you, Billy? Michael, has he told you something?’

  ‘Hold on, hold on!!’ I put my hands up. ‘It’s a little early for that.’

  ‘So, nothing’s going on then, mucker?’

  ‘Yes, all right. We got back together. OK, I admit it.’

  ‘Finally!’

  ‘But our relationship currently stands at a spectacular nine days.’

  ‘This time, Billy, but it was ages before. You have to add that on.’

  ‘Yes, OK, Ally. I will. But we have a long, long way to go and there’s no guarantee anyway. Also, as you know, Sharon just happens to be in Afghanistan at the moment, which even in the age of the Internet makes matrimony difficult. Married people – you just can’t help trying to get everyone else to join the club too, can you? What is it, you get a percentage from the vicar?’

  ‘No. It’s just because it’s such a wonderful club to be in.’ Ally beamed up at her husband, her eyes full of sarcastic adoration. Mike grimaced back then raised his eyebrows. Ally punched him on the arm with one hand, the other curling beneath the impressive bump that had been steadily growing amongst us like an alien for the last seven and a half months. The irony vanished from her face, replaced by a soft smile.

  ‘And so is this club,’ she said.

  I shook my head, marvelling once again at the fact that the two people in front of me would, in five weeks’ time, be parents. Parents! How the hell did that happen? Actually I knew how it happened, but what I didn’t know was how I’d suddenly got to the age where two of my best friends were having a baby. Wasn’t it only last week that we were drinking tequila and smoking weed and talking bollocks all night? The idea was wonderful and bizarre at the same time, as was the fact that I was to be the child’s godfather. They’d only asked me last week, and as well as feeling deeply moved and honoured, there were shifting sands of pure terror moving in me.

  We chatted away a little longer. I asked after little Billy, as I called him, and was told that little Michael was fine. As was little Sophia, as Ally referred to her baby. She showed me the last scan she’d had done, and I looked with slight unease at the black-and-white photo until the features became clear. I suddenly had an image of a bouncy little two-year-old, running through my open office door, Ally following. She was a little girl with curly black hair, achingly lovely, and she’d just learned to call me Uncle Billy.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘You can tell that already.’

  ‘He’s handsome, you mean. Good left foot too, you can feel him practising free kicks. Just what we need down Stamford Bridge.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have him. He’s only half Italian.’

  ‘And he’s not a he either.’ Ally looked serious for a second, shooting another, meaning-laden glance at Mike. ‘You keep calling her that. My family, we’re all girls. You better get used to the idea, my love!’

  Mike took hold of Ally’s shoulders. ‘I don’t care. You know that. Chelsea’s got a women’s team too.’

  ‘Oh yes? Well, wait till my papa takes her to the San Siro.’ Ally winked at me. ‘Then we’ll see who she wants to support.’

  Mike looked disgusted as he turned back to the rolls he was unpacking. I left Ally and Mike to their prep and walked back down the hall to the lift.

  Chapter Four

  I spent the rest of the day in that place Islingtonites only speak about in whispers to frighten their children up to bed: South of the River. Land of drive-by shootings and drive-through McDonald’s. Precisely, I spent it in the no-man’s-land between Camberwell and Brixton, looking for a young girl called Denise, who had disappeared from her home in Birmingham six months before. This, as Jemma had pointed out, is what I usually do. I find kids for parents who have lost them. Parents who have fucked up and failed in the only really important job there is.

  I’d been looking for Denise for the last two weeks, on and off, ever since a watchful young dude called Jared had slunk his way into my office one afternoon and handed me a picture of her. I’d taken Jared for the missing girl’s younger brother but Jared told me he was actually Denise’s husband. I said that I’d keep an eye out for his missing wife, but in the days that followed I hadn’t looked too hard, simply showing Denise’s picture around while I was out looking for other kids. Denise was perfectly within her rights to skip both her town and her young husband, having reached the elevated seniority of sixteen years. There was also the fact that I didn’t know what she was leaving behind. I’d interfered once before in the life of a runaway and even though I wasn’t there to s
ee them I was sure that the consequences for her had been pretty terrible. I hadn’t meant to hurt the girl but I’d sworn it would never happen again.

  Just the day before, however, I’d got a tip-off. It came from a retired bus conductor of my acquaintance, a wise and wizened Barbadian called Joe, who sometimes gets his former colleagues on the network to keep an eye out for the kids I’m looking for. Joe had told me that a young girl with Denise’s dyed black spiky hair had been seen hanging around the Brixton area. One driver had spotted her two days in a row and from what he’d said it sounded like she might be hooking for the 22 Crew. The 22 are a posse of enterprising Jamaicans who operate their people-management concern out of a cafe on Brixton’s Railton Road. The 22 are the leading employers in their field, always on a recruitment drive, and it didn’t seem unlikely to me that a young runaway from Birmingham had been persuaded to follow a career path with them.

  Even though finding Denise was just bread-and-butter stuff the tip was fresh, so I decided that Jo Thomas could wait until later. After leaving Mike and Ally, I walked downstairs and the Mazda, given a few slaps, sputtered its way into life. I rejoined the traffic, moving a little faster now, as if a stopper had been pulled out across town somewhere. Even though I’d felt Jemma’s pain, Jo’s death still hadn’t really got to me and I wondered once again why not, when it had had such a profound effect on my neighbour. Other people’s problems, other people’s lives in variable degrees of storm, while I seemed to be sailing along to the place I most wanted to be in life. Like the traffic that morning I’d shrugged it aside without making any conscious decision to do so. I suppose there was too much weighted on the other side: my own expectant happiness. The image of Sharon, soon to be more than an image.

  I got to Brixton just after eleven and cruised slowly past the tube station, where used tickets were already being traded by a thin, ragged sub-species of human. Along the High Street clusters of wary young men leaned back on the store fronts while stout old women heaved striped bags of shopping past the discount shops and pizza restaurants. I drove round the one-way, then checked out the spot Joe had told me about, a leaf-littered stretch of road lined with Portuguese cafes. Denise wasn’t there. The only person touting for business of any kind was an enthusiastic evangelist dressed in a pink zoot suit, his cheap PA system translating the jewels of his message into a hissing, unintelligible babble.