‘Well?’
Brock saw that a crude doorway had been hacked into the flank of the shed, giving access into what appeared to be an inner room, lit by a warm orange glow.
‘Shall we go inside?’ he suggested.
Ollie looked a little surprised by this, but then shrugged and led the way. Brock found himself inside the belly of a narrowboat, but one unlike any he’d seen so far. It was lined with wide timber planks, whose brown varnish had turned dark with age. A big and battered cast-iron kitchen range stood against one wall, a coal hod at its side, and a fat black metal flue rising to the ceiling. The fumes of burning coal took Brock back to his earliest childhood, before the Clean Air Acts put an end to coal fires. The space was lit by several paraffin lamps, whose warm light showed a rickety old table and chairs, threadbare carpets and an assortment of old photographs hanging on the walls, along with horse brasses, a braided whip and an assortment of ancient tools. The photographs showed stoic men in flat caps, waistcoats and large boots, and women dressed in long dresses and strange head coverings like nuns.
‘Canal people,’ Ollie said. ‘From the same time as this boat.’
Brock picked up the educated vowels again, beneath a rougher veneer, and the tone of a teacher. ‘Really? This was an old narrowboat, was it?’
‘This was the passenger packet boat Princess Louise, which worked the Grand Union Canal from the 1880s.’
‘That’s amazing,’ Brock said, turning around and seeing other compartments disappearing down its length. ‘You have no inkling of this from the outside.’
‘What was your name again?’ Ollie tugged suspiciously at his beard.
‘Brock.’ He beamed at Ollie and scratched his own beard, as if in solidarity.
‘And you’re a friend of Ned’s?’
Brock handed him the bag. ‘Here.’ He unbuttoned his coat and sat down carefully on one of the chairs. ‘I’m trying to contact Ned. I haven’t been able to reach him since his boat was vandalised.’
‘Vandalised!’ Ollie scoffed, sitting down facing Brock.
‘You know better?’
‘That was attempted bloody murder!’
‘Attempted murder? So he is still alive?’
Doubt returned to Ollie’s face. ‘So how do you know Ned?’
‘I want to help him, Ollie.’
This was the wrong answer, Brock realised, watching the doubt deepen in wrinkles on the man’s forehead as he looked more closely at Brock’s clothes, and then clear suddenly in an explosive, ‘You’re the Bill, aren’t you?’ He rose to his feet. ‘You’re the fucking Bill!’ For the briefest instant his eyes darted down the length of the boat, as if to check something, to make sure something wasn’t visible perhaps, or that a door was closed, or maybe for a weapon.
‘Yes, I’m the Bill,’ Brock confessed calmly.
‘Well you can clear off!’ His voice had risen to a shrill pitch. ‘Get off my boat!’
‘I want to help, Ollie,’ Brock repeated. ‘I work with Detective Inspector Kathy Kolla, who saved Ned on the night his boat was burned. Did Ned tell you about Kathy? She’s laid up now, badly injured, and I need to know what’s going on.’
Ollie looked momentarily perplexed, as if having difficulty absorbing this, and Brock went on, ‘And I want to know about Gudrun.’
There was a beat and then the reply, ‘Gudrun? Who’s Gudrun?’ But Brock was sure he’d seen recognition in those big childlike eyes.
‘She called herself Vicky. She lived in Grace across the other side of the canal there, and she used to visit you, before she died. That’s how Kathy got involved in this, trying to find out what happened to Gudrun. Can you help us, Ollie?’
Ollie abruptly slipped on an air of helpless bewilderment that Brock found unconvincing. ‘They were both good to me, Ned and Vicky, bringing me food and stopping by to have a chat, that’s all. They were good souls. But I don’t know what they were mixed up in! I live a quiet life. I don’t get out much.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re wasting your time talking to me, Mr Policeman.’
Brock eyed him for a moment. ‘Think about it, Ollie—two serious accidents in houseboats on this canal. We don’t want a third, do we? This old boat would go up like a bonfire. Here, this is my card, phone me any time. Tell Ned to contact me.’
As he got to his feet, Brock noticed some battered old paperbacks discarded under his chair, and he pulled a couple of them out—a well-worn volume of The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent.
He nodded at Ollie as if approving his taste, and made for the door. As he pushed it open a gruff voice behind him muttered, ‘Milestones, not Miles Ahead.’
When he got home, Brock slipped a frozen meal into the microwave, opened a bottle of red and switched on his computer. Kathy phoned him as he was typing in Oliver Kovacs.
‘How did you get on with Ollie?’ she asked.
‘A character. Very cagey, said Gudrun and Ned were just passing acquaintances, but there was more to it than that. I think he knows where Ned is, or at least has heard from him since the fire. But Ollie’s very hostile to the police.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Kathy said. ‘I’ve been looking him up.’
‘You’ve beaten me to it. What do we have?’
‘He got a degree in sociology in the sixties and was in Paris during the student riots in 1968. In 1972 he was arrested briefly outside the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston during the CND Easter march, and again in 1984 during the miners’ strike, protesting against the Thatcher government. On that occasion he was injured by a riot squad policeman who hit him a bit too hard with his stick.’
‘Any lasting damage?’
‘No mention of that, although he tried unsuccessfully to sue. That was the end of his police record, although I wouldn’t be surprised if Special Branch or MI6 had more. He’s published a number of articles on politics and socialism and was a member of several left-wing groups until about ten years ago, when he seems to have retired from all that and gone quiet.’
‘What does he do for money?’
‘Don’t know. Family probably. His father was Sir Oliver Kovacs, merchant banker.’
They talked about the canal people for a bit longer and then Brock asked Kathy if she’d remembered anything else about her missing days.
‘No, nothing. I went to a shop in the high street today that sells herbal medicines, and got a bottle of pills for memory—ginseng and stuff. I know what you’re going to say, but I’m desperate. I feel like I’ve had a partial lobotomy.’
‘A copy of the fire brigade report on the fire on Ned’s boat came in this morning. The only thing I noticed that we didn’t already know was that the handles on both sets of doors into the boat, fore and aft, had been chained and padlocked, on the outside. Ollie was right: it was attempted murder.’
He heard Kathy’s intake of breath, and said, ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘I don’t want to be treated like an invalid, Brock. I want to know everything. Maybe it’ll help bring things back.’
‘Yes, of course.’
He rang off, closed down his computer and contemplated his dinner, wishing he’d hung on to Ned’s cannelloni.
24
Kathy woke with a cry, opening her eyes to darkness. She was in a boat, a coffin on the water . . . She struggled to take a deep breath, expecting to choke, but instead, in a whirl of panicky sensations, she recognised the smell of tagine spices and abruptly remembered where she was. The relief she felt immediately began to dispel the dream, so that she had to concentrate to capture it before it vanished. The rattle of chains—that’s what had shaken her awake. She couldn’t remember ever having dreamed a noise before. It had been very vivid, echoing though the darkness in the boat, and it had made Ned panic. His terror had galvanised her. She’d pulled out her ASP and used it to smash a window and then forced him to climb through. How he’d wriggled and squirmed, including one painful kick in her c
hest. Then the agonising struggle to get herself through with her bad shoulder, and out, tumbling into the sudden shock of cold water . . .
But all that had happened after the rattling chains, she realised, after the dream ended. A flood of excitement filled her. This was a memory, not a dream. And it didn’t end there. She forced her mind back to the water: the terrifying glare of fire on the dark surface; the gulping vomit of foul canal water as she fought to swim, one-handed, in her clothes; Ned grabbing her hair, her shirt, hauling her up the bank.
What next? She felt almost as breathless, lying there in bed, as she’d felt running through the darkness—towards what? And then Anne Downey’s face was in front of her, looking so worried and severe. Anne Downey and her boat. Now she had it. She sat up in bed, heart pumping, feeling a scary mixture of elation and fright.
In the kitchen, by the light of the full moon glowing in through the window, she made herself a cup of tea. On the pegs she saw the old jacket she’d arrived home in—Anne Downey’s coat. She pulled it over her shoulders and sat at the table and made herself go through it all again, step by step, right up to the taxi ride, the consternation at the clinic, the arrival of Dr Partridge, stripping off her wet clothes, X-rays . . . then nothing, not a thing, until Jock was helping her through the door of her own flat.
There was something else, a strange detail that itched at the back of her mind. Then it came to her. She went upstairs again and opened her wallet, and found a Visa card that wasn’t hers. She examined it closely. It had a number and valid expiry date, and a cardholder’s name, A. Black. She had a clear image of Anne Downey putting it in her hand, but couldn’t remember why.
On his way into work Brock received a text message:
Mtg Commander Lynch earliest. Contact me. Carol (secy).
He phoned her and arranged to go straight to headquarters. The matter was extremely urgent, was all she would say.
When he arrived at Carol’s office she gave him a long considering look that he’d seen before, on the faces of court officials when a convicted man was brought up for sentencing.
‘Morning,’ he said brightly.
She returned his greeting with a cool smile then knocked on the inner door and put her head inside. ‘DCI Brock is here, sir.’
There was an indistinct growl from inside, and Carol stood back to let him in.
Lynch looked up at him, face rigid, as the door closed softly behind him. Brock wondered what he’d missed. Had one of his team shot an unarmed civilian, or sold the details of the Bragg story to the press? Why hadn’t anybody warned him?
He walked forward towards the desk, Lynch saying nothing, just staring at him with that same look. There was an empty chair facing the desk, but Brock didn’t take it. He stood beside it and said, ‘Sir?’
Finally Lynch spoke. ‘Why did you go behind my back and ask Superintendent Russell to undertake a private investigation for you?’
Brock initially felt relieved. Was that all? He wondered which part of Lynch’s question to begin with.
‘Knowing how busy you are, sir, I didn’t want to bother you until I knew the result of Superintendent Russell’s inquiries.’
The nostrils flared, the face, previously very pale, became slightly pink.
‘Yes, I am busy, Brock.’ He put his hand on a high pile of papers beside him on his desk. ‘I have two hundred and eight suspects under arrest from the biggest police operation in six years and all my officers are working one hundred and ten per cent on the follow-up inquiries—all of my officers except one.’ He pointed a finger like a pistol barrel at Brock. ‘You, apparently, have time to indulge yourself in a little private matter which I have previously explicitly told you to drop.’
‘Sir, I’ve been pulling my weight during the present crisis, working the same long hours as everybody else, and my team has performed well. But I believe there are grounds for considering the deaths of Freyja and Gudrun Kite as murder, and the firebombing of Edward Tisdell’s boat as attempted murder, and I—’ Lynch stopped him with that same gesture he’d used before, slamming his hand down on his desk. ‘You don’t listen, do you, Brock? You just don’t listen!’ He was shouting now, his face growing a deeper red. ‘This is sheer, bloody-minded insubordination, and I will not have it!’
Brock was beginning to feel annoyed. Lynch was no doubt under tremendous pressure, but this was sounding like paranoia.
Abruptly the shouting stopped, and Lynch spoke in a quieter, more menacing voice. ‘This is your yellow card, Brock, a formal caution. You step out of line once more, once more, and you’ll be out of here, out of your cosy little nest in Queen Anne’s Gate, so fast your arse won’t scrape the footpath. Now go away.’
He hadn’t been long back in his office when a call came in for him from Suzy Russell. After Lynch’s tirade, she sounded reassuringly brisk and sensible.
‘Brock, we’ve completed a check on those two firms, about as far as we can without talking to them directly. Nothing much on Paddington Security Services: one of their employees was arrested for downloading kiddie porn four years ago and their books were audited by the Inland Revenue two years ago, but otherwise nothing interesting. Regarding Penney Solutions, there have been rumours of them being the subject of industrial espionage, possibly by the Chinese. Did Dr Penney mention anything like that to you?’
‘He said they were always on the lookout for espionage.’
‘Yes, it’s a huge potential problem at the moment, and the Chinese are prime suspects for much of it. And, from what we were able to find out, Freyja’s work was concerned with protecting data and internet traffic—just the sort of thing they’d be very interested in. But it’s a big jump from that to possible murder. That isn’t the Chinese style at all, they’d want to be low key and invisible. They might try to lure Freyja to work for one of their front companies, or try to bribe her, or hack her computer, but not assassinate her.’
‘Maybe they hired contractors.’
‘Hm. Anyway, industrial espionage is one of our main areas of concern, and we’ll keep this one on our radar. But you said that the key thing from your point of view was to find a connection between the two firms, and that we haven’t been able to do. As far as we know, there’s nothing to link them.’
‘Oh.’ Brock felt a sag of disappointment.
‘Sorry.’ There was a pause, and then she added, ‘I had a meeting with Fred Lynch yesterday about other matters, and I mentioned your approach. It would have looked odd if I hadn’t.’
‘Ah yes. He just called me in for a bollocking about it.’
‘Ouch.’
‘I hope this won’t cause a problem for you.’
‘No.’ She laughed. ‘I can handle Fred.’
That’s more than I can, Brock thought. He realised that he’d never come across another fellow officer with whom he felt he had so little in common. By comparison, Sharpe’s regime seemed positively benign, as he had predicted. It made Brock wonder what made Lynch tick.
‘Well, thanks for your help anyway.’
‘Any time.’
His next caller was Mickey Schaeffer, asking for a private word.
He came into Brock’s office looking pleased with himself but also a little guilty. He accepted a cup of coffee from Brock’s machine, which he examined briefly with a few compliments, and then they sat down.
‘The thing is, boss, I really enjoy working in your team, but you probably know that I’ve got a computer science degree, and if possible I’d like to build on that.’
Brock nodded.
‘Well, following the whole Bragg operation I’ve had an approach from the new DiSTaF unit, and I think they can give me some opportunities to do exactly that.’
Brock went through the motions. He would be very sorry to lose Mickey, he said, but he could understand his desire to transfer and, if he ever wanted to come back, the door was open.
Mickey looked relieved. ‘I just think this is the future, boss.’
An hour later
Bren knocked on his door.
‘We traced the cab that took Kathy to the clinic that night, Brock. It was called to a street address in Old Ford Road in Globe Town, by a mobile phone owned by Anne Downey.’
‘Ah.’ He took the street map that Bren gave him and saw that the address was next to the place where Old Ford Road crossed the Regent’s Canal.
‘Do you want me to find out where she is now?’
Brock shook his head, still studying the map. The address was also near the place where another canal, the Hertford Union, branched off to the north-east, out to Hackney Wick. ‘No, Bren. I’ve just had a bollocking from the commander about this case. We are under strict orders not to touch it.’
Bren’s big face wrinkled in a frown, the same look that Brock had seen when watching him play for the police rugby team, facing an oncoming pack. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘It’s a waste of our time, apparently.’
‘Don’t we have any discretion to decide that?’
‘Not any more. So, we’ll leave it alone.’
‘What about Kathy? Might this not help her get her memory back?’
‘Let’s hope so. I’ll talk to her.’
Bren hesitated, expecting more, but then he said, ‘Okay. Let me know if you need a hand.’
Kathy was alone in Suzanne’s house, getting ready to go out for the day. She had promised herself a visit to the coast, to Bexhill-on-Sea, where her parents had taken her one summer as a child, and, with a clear sky and a mild breeze coming in from the Channel, she had looked up the train times—Battle to Crowhurst and West St Leonards, then along the coast to Bexhill. She would probably be disappointed going back, she guessed, but a little nostalgia was allowable, wasn’t it? They would come suddenly into her mind from time to time, her parents, often at unexpected moments, inspired by an old song on the radio, the sight of an ancient Bentley like her dad’s, a taste of her mother’s favourite Rose’s lime marmalade. And the memories were always bittersweet, for they belonged to an earlier time, a time of innocence, before her father’s disgrace and suicide.
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