Trick of the Mind

by Cassandra Chan

  “So,” said Carmichael, his voice even raspier than usual, “have we got anywhere at all today?”

  The pause before anyone ventured to answer this question spoke volumes. But as the senior man present it was Davies’s duty to speak up, and he did it bravely enough, clearing his throat and saying, “We’ve made a little progress, I think. We’ve filled in some of Gibbons’s day and if we haven’t turned up any real leads, at least we’ve eliminated several possibilities.”

  “That’s right,” chimed in Hollings. He had spent all day down in Walworth, interviewing anyone and everyone who might possibly have been in the immediate area where Gibbons had been found. He and the police at the Lambeth station had done their best to find any connection, however faint, with a young detective sergeant who had been investigating a jewel theft in Southgate, but they had come up empty.

  “And we’ve got the ballistics report back,” offered O’Leary.

  Carmichael snorted. “That would have been a sight more helpful if Hodges had managed to trace the gun. All we know is that it was a 9mm which had not previously been used in a crime. It might have come from anywhere.”

  “But, again, it rules something out,” said Hollings, sticking to the optimistic point of view. “If Gibbons was shot by a career criminal in Walworth, you would expect ballistics to turn up the gun.”

  Carmichael nodded, if rather glumly. “At least your man Clarkson managed to find someone who saw Gibbons that night,” he said. “I was beginning to believe the lad had wandered about Walworth like so much smoke.”

  “Well, it was a nasty night, sir,” said Hollings. “Most people were keeping to their firesides. I won’t deny that’s complicated things.”

  “True, true.” Carmichael sipped at his coffee and tried to take stock. Turning to Davies, he asked, “Where are you with the Haverford case? Anything there?”

  Davies sighed. “I’m afraid not,” he admitted. “My contacts have dried up on this one, and so far I’m not having much luck in matching the M.O. with any gangs we’re currently aware of.”

  “That’s what Sergeant Gibbons was doing,” said Constable Lemmy unexpectedly.

  They all turned to stare at him.

  “What was Gibbons doing?” asked Carmichael, his eyebrows beetling dangerously.

  “On his computer,” explained Lemmy, apparently serenely unaware of the import of the chief inspector’s eyebrows. “He was trying to refine the search pattern so he could get better results. Or at least Joe thinks that was what he was doing.”

  This was received in stunned silence.

  Carmichael opened his mouth, closed it, and took a deep breath before speaking. It was clear to most of the men at the table that he was holding on to his temper with both hands.

  “Joe?” he inquired.

  “Joe Michaels over in forensics,” supplied Lemmy. “He’s the one who’s been working on the sergeant’s computer.”

  Carmichael’s jaw clamped.

  “Er,” said Davies, trying to stem the tide, “perhaps there was some mix-up over there. I did tell them to send any reports on the computer to you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think Joe has written up his report yet,” said Lemmy. “He just mentioned it to me while I was over there checking on the notebook.”

  “Perhaps,” said Carmichael in a stiltedly polite tone, “the next time someone at forensics mentions something to you, you might pass it on to me. In a timely manner, I mean.”

  “Oh,” said Lemmy, as if only just realizing the tension in the room was centered on himself. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you earlier.”

  “Dear God,” muttered Carmichael. He rubbed at his forehead.

  “If I might, sir?” said Davies. “Constable, did Michaels say whether Gibbons had got any results?”

  “I don’t think so, sir,” replied Lemmy. “He—Sergeant Gibbons, I mean—was working on one of those maths things.”

  “Dear God,” said Carmichael again.

  “An algorithm?” suggested Davies.

  “That’s it, sir,” said Lemmy, with a doubtful look at the chief inspector.

  “Didn’t know Gibbons knew that much about computers,” observed Hollings.

  “Neither did I,” admitted Davies. “I would have asked him to work on it if I had.”

  “But where does that leave us?” demanded Carmichael. There was a plaintive note in his voice.

  “As far as the Haverford case is concerned,” answered Davies, “it leaves all the possibilities wide open. I’ve looked through our database of career jewel thieves myself, but none of them match up exactly to this robbery. It could well be a simple case of a thief, knowing the house was now empty, having a go at it and getting lucky.”

  They all nodded; robberies at the houses of the recently deceased was a perennial problem.

  “But,” said Carmichael, frowning, “if the robbery was either of those possibilities, it’s very difficult to see how Gibbons could have stumbled on the thief or thieves.”

  “I know,” said Davies glumly. “The biggest connection I can think of is that half those pawnshops in Walworth are fronts for stolen goods, some of them very high end. But I can’t see how Gibbons could have come at the thing from that end.”

  “No,” agreed Carmichael, “it’s not likely, is it? He’d only been with you for a couple of weeks.”

  “And he gave you no indication at all of how he planned to spend the evening?” Hollings asked O’Leary. “Presumably he was at least planning to have some supper.”

  “He may have been,” answered O’Leary, “but he didn’t mention it. Honestly, Inspector, if none of this had happened and you had asked me what I thought Jack did last night, I would have said he was heading home to Google Golconda diamonds, possibly picking up some takeaway en route.”

  Carmichael pursed his lips. “Then let’s assume those were his plans,” he said. “Something happened to change them after you left. That’s the piece of information we really need, though I don’t see quite yet how we’re to get it.”

  Neither, it was clear, did anyone else.

  “Well,” said Carmichael after a moment, “let’s all be off home—perhaps a good night’s sleep will give us some new ideas.”

  They were all more than eager to comply with this sage advice. But Carmichael, rather than following it himself, picked up his overcoat from his office and went, not home, but to University College Hospital.

  At 10:30 the hospital was quiet, all the bustle of the day gone from the halls, the hum and regular blips of monitors more noticeable in the hush. Gibbons’s room was in shadow.

  “I think he’s been asleep for an hour or so,” the uniformed policeman outside Gibbons’s door told Carmichael in a whisper. “His parents came back from their supper after that other friend of his left, but they didn’t stay long. His mum said when they went that she thought he’d sleep if he was left alone.”

  Carmichael nodded, his gaze still focused on the still shadow in the hospital bed.

  “I thought he probably would be,” he said. “But I wanted to stop in, since I missed him this morning.”

  “Of course, sir,” said the policeman. “I’ll see to it he knows you called by.”

  Carmichael nodded. “Thank you,” he said. He stood still for another moment, knowing that his guilt sprang not only from not having visited his sergeant this day, but also from a most unreasonable feeling that if he had not let Gibbons go to Arts Theft, he would not have been shot.

  Eventually, however, he turned away and started for home and his wife and the comfort of their bed.

  Gibbons came awake much later, in the depths of the night, and lay blinking in the hospital bed until his gaze sharpened enough to make out the rain-flecked window. He was acutely uncomfortable, and his drugged mind flitted from thought to thought while he stared blankly at the window and tried to come to terms with what had happened to him. The idea that he had been shot still seemed an absurd one; he felt he ought to remembe
r such a momentous event. Nor did he feel much like he had experienced a near-brush with death though that was what everybody told him. There was gravitas in such things, or at least there ought to be, but try as he might he could not come up with any emotion appropriate to the occasion. He did not feel profoundly changed, or filled with any insight into the meaning of life. He merely felt unwell. And while he pondered this, his lids grew heavy and he dropped back again into a restless sleep.

  5

  Kith and Kin

  He was cold. Gibbons knew that, but he couldn’t seem to figure out why. He had some notion that if only he could get up and get out of the rain, he would warm up, but he seemed unable to move. And there was something at the back of his mind that told him he wasn’t wet or outside in any case. But he was still cold.

  There was a rustling sound somewhere behind him. It was not at all a threatening sound, and yet it awoke terror in his heart. It was vital that he turn and see what was making it. With an enormous effort, he turned his head.

  And found himself in the hospital room, blinking at Chief Inspector Carmichael, who was sitting by his bedside, reading the paper and sipping at a coffee.

  “Ah, there you are, lad,” said the chief inspector, laying his paper aside. “How are you doing?”

  Gibbons was not at all certain of the answer to this question, although “Not well at all” sprang to his mind. It hardly seemed an appropriate response.

  “All right, sir,” he replied, or tried to; his newly awakened throat did not cooperate and what came out was a garbled sound. Carmichael’s cheerful smile was at once replaced by a worried frown, and he leaned forward anxiously while Gibbons cleared his throat around the tube and tried again.

  “I’m all right,” he managed, though it did not sound very convincing even to his own ears.

  “Good, good,” said Carmichael, recapturing his smile, though it did not look very heartfelt. “I’m really sorry I didn’t get round to see you yesterday, but I got a late start on the day and never seemed to catch up.”

  “Oh.” Gibbons was trying to think, without much success. He knew he had wanted badly to see Carmichael, yet now he was faced with him, he could not seem to remember why. A memory stirred out of the depths of his drugged brain. “They told me you’d been here last night.”

  “I did just stop by,” said Carmichael. “But you were already asleep.” He paused. “Did you have a good night?” he asked, not knowing what else to say.

  In fact, Gibbons had not, having woken or been woken at several points, either by pain or the nursing staff, but again the truth did not seem very appropriate.

  “Good enough,” he said.

  “Getting your rest is important,” Carmichael told him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  An awkward pause ensued in which Carmichael tried to think of something cheerful to say and Gibbons yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  They were saved from the lengthening silence by the arrival of Gibbons’s parents, looking fresh and well rested. They, too, wore falsely bright smiles to hide the small, anxious lines between their brows, but they seemed genuinely pleased to see Carmichael again.

  Gibbons closed his eyes while they greeted each other and tried to take stock of himself. What he most needed, he decided, was a bedpan and to sit up a bit. He felt stiff and achy, and very muzzy-headed indeed.

  His mother seemed to divine at least one of these needs, detaching herself from the two men to come and ask if he would like the bed put up a little.

  Gibbons nodded gratefully. “Yes, please,” he said.

  “Have you remembered anything more to help the chief inspector?” asked his mother, pressing the bedside controls.

  “I’ve only just woken up,” protested Gibbons.

  A thought occurred to Carmichael. “Do you know,” he said, “I’ve never had the chance to ask you if you could think of any reason you might have gone to Walworth. Bethancourt said he didn’t know of any friends of yours who lived there, but we never asked you.”

  “I don’t think I know anyone there,” said Gibbons. “Perhaps a casual acquaintance, but no one I regularly visit.”

  “Well, there’s Dawn,” said his mother brightly. “She’s in Walworth.”

  Carmichael stared at her. “Who’s Dawn?” he asked.

  “My cousin,” supplied Gibbons. “Dawn Melton.”

  “She’s my sister-in-law’s daughter,” explained Mrs. Gibbons. “She got divorced recently and wanted to make a new start. She found a quite good job here in London last September, and I asked Jack to keep an eye on her. It was a nice opportunity for her, but she’s never lived in a big city before, and we thought it might be difficult for her just at first.”

  “I helped her sort out the kids’ schools,” said Gibbons, but with a guilty air that made Carmichael think Dawn had not been much in the forefront of his mind. “And I’ve taken her to lunch once or twice.”

  “She said you’d been a great help,” said Mrs. Gibbons, smiling fondly at him.

  “Well?” asked Carmichael. “What about it, lad? Could you have gone to visit her on Tuesday night?”

  “I might have,” said Gibbons doubtfully. “I mean, I didn’t have any prior plans to, but if she rang me, I would have stopped by.”

  “It’s easy enough to find out,” said Gibbons’s father. “Ring her and ask.”

  “I’d rather like to do that myself,” said Carmichael hastily.

  “Of course, of course.” Mrs. Gibbons was rummaging in her capacious handbag. “I have the number and address right here somewhere … ah, yes, here’s my address book.”

  She produced an old-fashioned address book with a spray of irises across its worn cover and opened it. “Here you are, Chief Inspector,” she said. “And as long as I’ve got you here, I’ll take down your address as well, if you would be so kind. I very much want to write a note to your lovely wife—she was so kind to us that first morning.”

  “She’d appreciate hearing from you,” said Carmichael, pulling out his notebook and a pencil.

  He excused himself once they had exchanged information, secretly relieved to leave Gibbons to his parents. He had never been much of a hand at visiting the sick, and he was quite anxious to talk to this Dawn Melton. If Gibbons had indeed gone to visit her on Tuesday night, then it might well have been an act of random violence that had felled his sergeant, rather than some insidious plot involving elderly pawnbrokers and/or stolen jewelry.

  Or, he thought glumly to himself, the reason for the shooting could be hidden in some dark corner of Gibbons’s personal life, which would make the situation even worse. As an experienced homicide detective, Carmichael knew only too well how easily lives could be destroyed by a police investigation. It would be even worse for a detective, who would have every nook and cranny of his private affairs exposed to the eyes of his colleagues. Carmichael was not sure how one could recover from that.

  Detective Sergeant Chris O’Leary had started his day very early, determined to make up for yesterday’s sin of omission in neglecting to mention the drink he’d had with Gibbons on the Tuesday. In truth, he had pretty well forgotten all about it until Carmichael had reminded him and he was feeling guilty over that. He was, after all, supposed to be a detective, and he ought to have realized that he had been the last known person to see Gibbons before the shooting.

  So he was fully determined to discover at the very least what time Gibbons had left the pub. He had not taken much notice at the time, but his memory of the pub that night was of a quiet place, with only a few patrons scattered about. If he closed his eyes and tried to envision the scene—something he had spent a great deal of time doing since yesterday—he seemed to remember passing a group of men by the door as he left. He did not know any of them personally, but he believed at least two of them worked in the Narcotics Division. If he could track them down, they might remember seeing Gibbons leave.

  But his first port of call must be to the bartender, Bob Crebbin. Crebbin was tolera
bly well known to all those at Scotland Yard who enjoyed the odd drink after work, O’Leary among them, but he had no notion where the man lived. He did, however, recollect that Crebbin had at one time been a detective himself, or at least a policeman, and that should make him fairly easy to find. By a quarter to eight, O’Leary had compelled the Scotland Yard computers to divulge Crebbin’s current address and was on his way to Barking.

  Once arrived there, however, he found an unexpected obstacle in the person of Dora Crebbin, Bob’s wife. She answered the door with a cigarette in her mouth and a suspicious glint in her eye.

  “Bob’s not up yet,” she announced flatly. “He works nights, does Bob.”

  O’Leary tried to summon up his most ingratiating smile, but was a little hampered by the dangling cigarette.

  “But I really need to speak with him,” he said. “It’s a matter of a friend of mine, you see. A fellow policeman.”

  Dora snorted to show her opinion of the police.

  “It wouldn’t take long,” added O’Leary, aware that a wheedling tone was entering his voice. “Bob could go right back to sleep.”

  Dora shook her head firmly. “He don’t like to be disturbed once he’s down for the night,” she stated.

  “I’m sure not—who among us does?—but this is really an emergency,” said O’Leary. “My friend was shot, you see—he’s in hospital right this minute—and he can’t remember anything about Tuesday. Only Bob can tell us when my friend left the pub.”

  This failed to impress Dora. She seemed completely uninterested in any of the events O’Leary described, and utterly unmoved by his plight.

  “He can tell you when he wakes up,” she said. “Now, I got to get to my work.”

  And she made to close the door.

  “Perhaps I could wait, then,” suggested O’Leary desperately.

  “Right,” she said sarcastically. “And then you’d be waking him up as soon’s I’d gone. I’m no fool, young man, and don’t you be thinking it.”