by Val McDermid
‘Do you want me to come?’ I said.
She puffed out her cheeks and considered. ‘Could you stay here and hold the fort? George is going to want to talk to you. Because we’re going to have to respond to this and I don’t want to be talking to strangers. Then when I get back, we can tell Jimmy.’
‘You’re not going to feel like telling Jimmy after you’ve had a round of chemo,’ I said. Sensibly, I thought.
‘I know that,’ she lashed back at me, the stress taking over the driving seat momentarily. She pressed her eyes closed and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Steph. Yeah, I am going to feel like shit. But I can’t put it off till I’m feeling up to it. He’s got to be told. Apart from anything else, he’s a sensitive little lad. He’s going to notice we’re all walking round like a wet Wednesday in Wetherby. He needs to know there’s a good reason for it.’
And I believed she was capable of it. She’d come this far on guts and gumption. There was no reason why they should fail her now. Except that none of the old certainties seemed to be holding fast.
36
I spoke to Maggie as soon as Scarlett and Simon left in his gleaming Audi TT convertible. They took most of the paparazzi with them, which made life easier for everyone else. Maggie knew how I felt about Joshu, so she didn’t bother with condolences. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I’ve already spoken to Georgie. The Mail wants seven hundred and fifty exclusive words by half past four, Yes! needs five hundred words by Thursday. I’m still negotiating the funeral exclusives, but this will be a lovely little earner for us. And of course it keeps the interest lively for the cancer book.’ Maggie only bothered with tact and diplomacy when there were strangers around. With me, she could be as blunt as she liked.
These days, I knew Scarlett well enough to knock out a Daily Mail feature on her grief without actually having to speak to her. I could tug at the heart-strings without tipping over into saccharine sweetness, I could convey the tragedy of a love that had died and the sorrow that there could be no attempt at reconciliation now. I was almost moved myself by the words I put in Scarlett’s mouth.
I’d finished the first draft and given it to Leanne to look over when my mobile rang. I didn’t recognise the number but I answered it anyway. ‘Hello?’
‘Is that Stephanie Harker?’
I didn’t recognise the voice but I liked the sound of it. Northern, deep, warm. ‘Yes. Who is this?’
‘Detective Sergeant Nick Nicolaides of the Met Police. I’d like to talk to you about the death of Jishnu Patel.’
I hadn’t heard Joshu’s real name since the wedding and it gave me a jolt. ‘Joshu? Me? Why me? I don’t know anything about it.’
‘George Lyall gave me your name,’ he said. Bloody Gorgeous George. What was he playing at? ‘I’m outside Ms Higgins’ house now,’ he continued. ‘Your intercom doesn’t appear to be working.’
‘It’s working fine. They turn it off when the media won’t leave them alone,’ I said sharply. ‘On days like this.’
‘Can you let me in? Since I’m here? And I want to talk to you?’
I didn’t want to talk to him but I didn’t think I had a lot of choice. I ended the call and opened the gate.
‘Who’s that?’ Leanne looked up from the screen.
‘A copper. He wants to talk to me about Joshu.’
She pulled a surprised face. ‘Why you?’
‘We’ll soon find out. Is that piece OK?’
‘It’s great. You’ll have them sobbing in the streets of Beeston,’ she said cynically. ‘I’ll make myself scarce, then.’ She grabbed her cigarettes and practically ran out of the room. Leanne had never learned to be comfortable around authority. I think she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I opened the back door as a lanky man in black jeans and a thigh-length leather jacket was unfolding himself from the driver’s seat of a weary-looking Vauxhall. His dark hair was shaggy, framing a lean and bony face with deep-set eyes and a nose like a narrow blade. I met his eyes and I felt a spark of danger. I know it’s a cliché, but I’ve always thought of Nick Nicolaides as a handsome pirate. The Johnny Depp kind of pirate, not the ones who kidnap innocent holiday sailors in the Indian Ocean. To be honest, at that moment, I’d have answered pretty much anything he asked me.
I brought him into the kitchen and sat him down at the breakfast bar. I offered him coffee; he asked for espresso then sat in silence while I prepared it. I sometimes think espresso has become the twenty-first century equivalent of the vindaloo. You’re not a real man unless you can take it full strength.
I put the cup in front of him and noticed the nails of his right hand were long and well-shaped with the gloss of acrylic varnish, while the left-hand nails were trimmed short and neat. He saw me notice and moved his right hand out of sight.
‘You’re a guitarist,’ I said.
He looked uncomfortable. ‘I play a bit,’ he said. ‘It’s a good way to unwind.’
‘What kind of stuff do you play?’
‘Acoustic. Finger-picking. A little bit of jazz.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘Does it come with the territory, asking the questions?’
‘You mean, because I’m a ghost writer?’
He nodded. ‘Is it something you can’t help?’
There’s so much in our lives that we never question. I had to think for a moment before I could formulate an answer that wasn’t a glib throwaway. Somehow, I didn’t want to palm him off with that. ‘It’s a bit of a chicken and an egg question,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure whether I’ve developed the habit of asking questions because I’m determined to do my job as well as I can, or if I ended up going down this route because I like drawing answers out of people.’ I smiled. ‘I suppose I like being the one in the know. The one with the inside track.’
Nick nodded, looking pleased with himself. ‘That’s what George Lyall said. “Stephanie notices things. And she knows how to ask questions that get answers.”’
‘I still don’t understand why you want to talk to me. I don’t know anything about what happened to Joshu.’
‘According to Mr Lyall you know all the people at the heart of this tragedy. You knew Joshu. You’re probably Scarlett’s best friend. You know Dr Graham and you’ve been to the clinic with Scarlett while she’s been undergoing treatment. I’m trying to form a picture of what happened here. And I often find it helpful to talk to someone like you. Someone not directly concerned with what happened but who has a good understanding of the individuals and the relationships involved.’ His smile was dead sexy. I know it was wildly inappropriate to be thinking like that with Joshu barely cold, but I couldn’t help it. Since the debacle with Pete, I hadn’t met a man who’d provoked the slightest reaction in me.
‘You don’t sound very like a cop,’ I said.
‘Maybe it’s your idea of cops that’s out of date?’
I think I blushed. ‘Well, ask your questions and we’ll see, shall we?’
‘Were you surprised to hear Joshu had died from an overdose?’
Straight to the point. No small talk to warm me up. I understood the gambit. I’d used the ambush technique myself more than once. ‘He’s been into drugs for as long as I’ve known him. Which is just over three years. So in that sense, no, it wasn’t a surprise. But I was quite shocked because he always struck me as someone who knew what he was doing.’ I sighed. ‘It’s hard to explain, but I never quite believed Joshu was as out of control as he wanted people to think. I always thought there was something quite calculated about his behaviour. I never saw him as a candidate for an overdose. But that’s the thing about drugs. People think they’re in charge of their abuse when actually they’re not. Joshu might have believed he was managing his drug use when the truth was he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.’
Nick gave me a shrewd look. ‘I can’t argue with that analysis.’ It was a lot later when I discovered why he spoke with such feeling. ‘Did he always seem to have plenty of money?’
‘He was
always flash. He earned a lot, I know that. But from what Scarlett said when they were divorcing, he spent it as fast as he made it.’ My smile this time was wry. ‘Scarlett said he’d found out the hard way how expensive cheap women were. I think he kept his head above water, but I don’t know whether he had much in the way of assets. He didn’t have a house, for example. He had a lock-up for all his work gear, but he used to crash with friends or shack up with whoever he was dating.’
‘He didn’t have any money worries that you knew of?’
I shook my head. ‘He could always earn good money. When he came round to pick Jimmy up, he always seemed flush.’
‘In that case, why would he steal drugs? It’s not like he was some junkie on his uppers, from what you’re saying.’
‘I think you’re asking the wrong question.’ I realised I was talking to Nick the way I would to someone I knew. Someone I trusted. But it felt natural, so I didn’t rein myself in. ‘It’s not why he would steal drugs but who he was taking the drugs from. Joshu was jealous of anyone who had Scarlett’s attention. He was jealous of his own son, for heaven’s sake. In his eyes, Simon Graham was no more than another competitor for Scarlett’s attention. Stealing from him would be like a dog peeing on a lamppost. I think Joshu was staking out his territory. Showing Simon who was boss. It’s heartbreaking, really. A bit of macho posturing, and this is how it ends up.’ My stomach suddenly rumbled like car tyres on a cattle grid. That’s what you get when you go all day without eating. I pushed my hair back and stood up. ‘Do you want something to eat? I just realised I’m starving. I’m going to make a sandwich – do you want one?’
Taken aback, he scratched his head. ‘Yeah, why not?’
I raked around in the fridge, all the while answering apparently pointless questions about Joshu and Scarlett. I ended up with two chicken salad wraps with Caesar dressing which I plonked on plates in front of us. ‘Not very exciting, I’m afraid. This is not the home of haute cuisine.’
He chuckled. ‘I imagine not.’
‘We have a very fine collection of home-delivery menus, however.’
‘Did you think Joshu and Scarlett would ever get back together?’ he asked through a mouthful of sandwich.
‘No chance,’ I said. ‘She loved him, but she knew she was better off without him. Getting cancer reset the zeros for her. She reordered her priorities and bad relationships was number one on the list of stuff she wasn’t going to do any more. She hasn’t so much as had a date with anyone since the divorce, never mind her diagnosis.’
He raised his eyebrows in a polite expression of dubiety. ‘Not according to the tabloids,’ he said.
I felt the sudden clench of horror in my chest. I’d let my guard slip and said something deeply, deeply stupid. It hadn’t been Scarlett in the papers. It had been Leanne putting on a show, of course. Was I so pathetic that a kind and attractive man could dismantle my careful barricades as if they were made of paper? ‘Not everything that’s in the tabloids is true,’ I said hastily. ‘It’s part of her job, to keep her name in the tabloids.’
He looked mildly scornful. ‘I suppose.’
I tried not to show my relief at having apparently got away with it. And it seemed Nick had run out of questions. So I took my chance. ‘How did you get to be a cop?’
‘I did a psychology degree. And I didn’t want to be any of the things people usually do with a psychology degree. The idea of being a detective interested me but I didn’t know if I could hack the journey to get there. I signed up without really knowing if I could cut it.’ He grinned and shrugged. ‘So far, so good.’ He finished his sandwich and stood up. ‘Thanks for feeding me. And thanks for filling in the background.’
‘It was an accident, wasn’t it? You don’t think it was deliberate?’
‘It’s not for me to say. I just present the information to my boss.’
‘Not even a hint?’
His eyes flicked from side to side. ‘Not even a hint. I’m sorry. I hope the kid’s OK. It’s hard to lose a parent that young.’
I was touched by his concern. But as he drove away, I found myself wishing Joshu’s death wasn’t quite so open and shut. I know it was a shitty thought, but I really wished I had an excuse to see Nick Nicolaides again.
37
Nick lingered outside Asmita Patel’s flat, leaning against his car in the chilly night air. There was a whiff of curry spices from a nearby restaurant on the breeze and the constant hum of London traffic. He thought about getting something to eat, but he was too antsy for food. He could go home and pick up a guitar and play till his fingers tired. But that wasn’t going to help Stephanie or Jimmy. Maybe if he went back to the office, he could find something useful to do.
The overhead lights were turned off in the squad room but a couple of pools of illumination revealed where colleagues were working late. As Nick made for his desk, a lone voice called out to him. ‘Jammy bastard, how did you get out of the bloody bunker?’ Davy the Fat Boy Brown had been assigned to the phone hacking and police corruption inquiry at the same time as Nick and he was even less suited to being stuck indoors with a bunch of suits.
‘I found a shittier stick to get hold of,’ Nick said, dropping into his chair and waking his computer from its hibernation. ‘Running errands for the FBI. As glamorous as Dagenham on a Sunday morning.’
Davy lumbered across to Nick’s desk. ‘You got a cup?’ He produced a bottle of Scotch with a couple of inches remaining.
‘You keep it,’ Nick said. ‘I’m too bloody tired already. If I have a drink, I’ll fall off my perch.’
Davy shambled off, grumbling. ‘I thought you Manchester lads were supposed to like partying?’
‘True, Davy. But you don’t have the right kind of tables for dancing on.’ He clicked on his message queue to see what was waiting for him. He scanned the list of incoming mail, ignoring anything related to the task he’d been temporarily spared. There were three others that promised relevance to what he cared more about. The first was from Cambridgeshire Police. The woman Nick had dubbed Megan the Stalker had ended up in a secure mental hospital in their force area so they’d been his first port of call. The email was short and to the point. Megan Owen had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act but she had been released six weeks previously. She was currently living in a supported hostel, where she had been abiding by the terms of her release. At eight o’clock that evening she had been in the common room watching a TV soap with three other residents. She definitely was not in Chicago kidnapping Jimmy Higgins.
That was a relief. It was never good news when nutters got their hands on small children. One down, a couple to go. According to West Yorkshire Police, Chrissie and Jade Higgins were both at home in the house Scarlett had bought for them. Neither woman seemed to be particularly bothered by the news of Jimmy’s abduction.
The other pertinent message was from the local nick in Peckham, which he’d asked to check on Pete Matthews’ whereabouts. Again, the message didn’t waste words. Pete Matthews was not at home. He was working away, according to a neighbour, who said he’d been gone for about six weeks. The neighbour had no idea where he was but said he knew Matthews had worked in the US, the Caribbean and South Africa in the past couple of years.
Nick felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising. Child abduction generally had three motivations. A parent who felt unjustly deprived of their child; ransom; and something deeply twisted. Pete Matthews definitely had a deeply twisted possible motive – he wanted to hurt Stephanie and he wanted to show her who was boss. He’d already stalked her, demonstrating that his take on what was reasonable behaviour was deeply skewed. And Nick didn’t know where he was tonight.
He thought back to his previous run-in with Pete Matthews. He’d had trouble tracking him down then as well, mostly because the man kept irregular hours and didn’t have a set place of work. He’d ended up making a list of recording studios and patiently working his way through the list till he found the one where Matt
hews had been currently working. If he checked back through his pocket books, that might give him a place to start.
Nick headed for his locker, where he kept his completed pocket books, the records of his daily tasks and accomplishments that would be his aide memoire when cases came to court. He tracked back to the relevant one and sat down then and there to flip through the pages, not caring about the dank smells of stale bodies and questionable drains that permeated the room. The Matthews notes were towards the end of the book, but they were perfectly clear. At the time Nick had confronted him about stalking Stephanie, he’d been mixing a trip-hop album at a place called Phat Phi D up in Archway. Wherever Pete was tonight, it wasn’t there. But they might know where he was.
He replaced his notebook and headed back to his car feeling unreasonably cheerful. He knew from his own occasional session work that record studios did not keep nine to five hours. The chances of finding someone still working close to midnight at Phat Phi D were better than evens, Nick reckoned.
It was nice to be proved right. A percussionist and a keyboard player were working on a backing track for some female singer songwriter, and the producer and the engineer were happy enough to let Nick in to ask a few questions to break the tedium. The studio was small and sweaty, but the equipment looked the business. ‘These kids need that many takes, I’m about dying in here,’ the producer moaned. ‘You said you’re looking for Pete Matthews?’
‘Yeah,’ Nick said, lounging against the back wall as the musicians went again.
‘You seen Pete lately?’ the producer asked the engineer.
‘Not for months. Last I heard, he was going to Detroit to work with the Style Boys.’
Nick’s heart leapt in his chest. His American geography wasn’t brilliant. But he was pretty sure that, in the scale of things on that giant continent, Detroit wasn’t too far from Chicago. In the dimness of the booth, he struggled not to let his excitement show.