The Reckoning

by Jane Casey

‘You’re not exactly to this killer’s tastes from what I’ve heard. You should be okay. Besides, I don’t have to worry about you this time. You’ve got DI Derwent to protect you.’

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘That bad?’

  I spent the rest of the meal giving Rob a rundown on Derwent’s behaviour during the day. It didn’t work out quite as I’d hoped. Instead of leaping to my defence, he shrugged dismissively.

  ‘You can’t let him get to you. Not if he’s that sort of person anyway.’

  ‘He scared me.’ It sounded ridiculous when I said it out loud.

  ‘How?’ Rob had been playing with his knife, but now his fingers stilled.

  ‘He waited for me, on the stairs. He wanted to tell me off for surprising him in our meeting with Godley.’

  ‘He’s a control freak. You said as much.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What did he actually do that scared you?’

  I frowned, trying to remember. ‘I came through the doors and he grabbed me, as if he wanted to start off by intimidating me physically. Then he shouted at me for going behind his back. Then he told me he liked me for not backing down.’

  ‘Sounds as if you’re well on the way to winning him over.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ I sighed. ‘I just don’t get him. I don’t have a clue what he’s thinking or what he’s going to do next. I think he’s capable of pretty much anything. And he’s impossible to work with.’

  ‘No. He’s not. He’s awkward and belligerent, but you’re used to dealing with difficult people. Godley basically told you what to expect and how to handle him. It’s up to you to deal with it.’ He nodded to the magazine on the floor. ‘Better read the article on how to get what you want and see if you can pick up any tips on diplomacy.’

  ‘I’ve been doing much better with that lately. Hardly anyone has complained about me.’ I glared at him. ‘I can’t believe you’re not on my side.’

  ‘To the death, my darling, but there’s nothing you can do about this one. You’re just going to have to get on with it and make the most of working on this case. This is your thing, isn’t it? High-profile cases?’

  ‘I don’t seek them out.’ In spite of myself, I shivered. ‘It’s not a good one, Rob. Those men – they were tortured. Horribly, mercilessly, for hours. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done, you shouldn’t have to die like that.’

  ‘Don’t think about how they died. Think about why.’

  It was easier said than done. I poured some more wine into his glass. ‘You deserve a drink after that meal. Where did you learn to cook?’

  He leaned back. ‘You can’t be that impressed by spag bol.’

  ‘Seriously. I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘You couldn’t be bothered to do it. That’s different.’ He stretched. ‘I don’t know, really. I used to watch my parents cooking. They’re quite into food, so that helps.’

  ‘My dad can boil eggs. That’s it. And Mum specialises in chops, fry-ups and stews.’

  ‘Good plain food.’

  ‘The most experimental they get is fish and chips on a Friday.’ I shook my head. ‘I’ve never seen the point in cooking. All that work and it just disappears, if you’ve done it well. You just get left with the washing-up.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been meaning to say, I’m not doing the washing-up as well as cooking.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. But not straightaway.’

  His jaw tightened. ‘It’s not going to get any better if you leave it.’

  ‘You can’t stand it, can you?’ I leaned across the table. ‘The saucepan is in there, drying out even as we sit here. The food’s just caked on. By the time I get around to washing it, I’ll never be able to scrape it off. I’ll probably end up throwing it out.’

  ‘I know what you’re doing and I’m not going to fall for it.’

  ‘Damn,’ I said softly and laughed. ‘You know me too well.’

  ‘I sometimes think I don’t know you at all.’

  I stared at him, wrong-footed by the change of mood, and was ridiculously relieved when he started to talk about cooking again, a nice safe subject for both of us. I stopped listening properly after a while and just watched him as I sipped my wine, noticing little things – the way the skin around his eyes creased when he smiled, the shape of his mouth, his beautiful hands …

  There is a limit to how much anyone can say about food, no matter how enthusiastic they may be. When Rob stopped talking, I picked up my glass and stood up.

  ‘Let’s move to the sofa.’

  He carried the wine bottle over as well as his glass. ‘Have some more?’

  ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’

  ‘No. I don’t need to.’

  ‘Confident, aren’t you?’

  ‘Reasonably.’ He put the bottle down beside the sofa. ‘If I shouldn’t be, I’ll leave.’

  ‘Don’t leave.’ I didn’t even think before I said it. When it came down to it, I didn’t want him to go. But whatever I’d been expecting would happen next, didn’t. Rob changed the subject.

  ‘Who else lives here, apart from weedy Chris and the delectable nanny?’

  ‘Upstairs, opposite Szuszanna and above Chris, is Walter Green, otherwise known as my landlord. He has five properties in this street, apparently.’

  ‘He must be loaded. What’s he doing living in a one-bedroom flat?’

  I shrugged. ‘He lives on his own. Bit of an oddball, I think. I doubt he needs a lot of space.’ I had met him briefly before signing my lease, and might have found him unsettling if I hadn’t been used to talking to strange people at work. He had frizzy greying hair, a bulbous nose and long white hands that hung down at his side limply, as if weighted. I had found myself staring at them, fascinated, and had to force myself to focus on his face instead, although I needn’t have bothered. Walter was not big on eye contact. I was willing to bet he had lived with his mother until she died, and it was, he had confessed, family money that had paid for the houses – he was the last of his line, a genetic dead end. ‘Walter is all right. I don’t think he’s too strict, as landlords go. But I don’t think maintenance is high on his list of priorities.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t for you either, so that’s all right.’ I could tell the mild dinginess of the flat was bothering Rob. I had caught him fiddling with the broken blind already. His own flat wasn’t extraordinarily neat, but it was organised, and everything worked. One up to him, I thought, sipping my wine and not caring in the least.

  ‘Top floor is an actor – Brody Lee.’

  ‘Is he famous? Would I recognise him?’

  ‘You might. I’d never heard of him and I haven’t met him yet so I can’t tell you. According to Walter, Brody is filming a kids’ series based on Gawain and the Green Knight somewhere in Eastern Europe, so he’s not around much.’

  ‘Is that everyone?’

  ‘That’s your lot.’

  ‘Do they know what you do for a living?’

  I shook my head. ‘I just skated around it when I was talking to Walter. I did say I might be coming and going at odd times because of work, but he just told me not to bang the front door. God knows what he thought my job was, but he didn’t ask any more questions.’

  ‘Let’s see.’ Rob frowned, assessing me. ‘Assassin. Emergency plumber. Pilot.’

  ‘Call-centre worker. Fish gutter. Stripper. Drug dealer.’

  ‘All perfectly reasonable ways to make a living. And all less controversial than being a copper.’ He stood up. ‘I’m going to have a look at your tired bathroom. I can’t stand the suspense.’

  ‘Down the hall, on the right.’

  He disappeared, whistling again. I listened to him close the bathroom door behind him and reflected that he, at any rate, seemed to feel at home. I wasn’t quite comfortable yet. The sounds of the house still bothered me. The little ticks and creaks of an old building were magnified a hundred times when you were lying in bed, alone, unable to
sleep. The pipes made unearthly noises in the early morning that had woken me up more than once, convinced that I’d heard a scream. Earplugs might have helped, but I didn’t like to cut myself off from my surroundings. It wasn’t surprising really. Being wary had probably saved my life a few months earlier. If indulging my survival instinct meant losing out on some shut-eye, I’d just have to cope without it.

  When Rob came back he sat closer to me, his thigh touching mine. The candle had burnt out and the only light came from a dim lamp behind him. I couldn’t see enough of his expression to know what he was thinking.

  ‘I don’t mean to be boring, but we really do need to talk.’

  I wriggled. ‘Do we? I’d rather not.’

  ‘I know. I noticed you dodging me for the last two months.’

  ‘No, I mean that I can think of things I’d rather do than talk.’

  ‘That’s not what you said when we got together last year. You were the one who wanted to talk about what we were doing and whether it was a good idea.’

  His arm was lying along the back of the sofa behind my head and I leaned against it. ‘Yeah, but now I’m absolutely sure it’s a bad idea, I don’t want to think about it any more.’

  ‘You can’t hide for ever.’

  It was uncomfortably close to what Dec has said earlier in the evening. I looked at him earnestly. ‘Do you think I’m using you?’

  He moved away a few inches and laughed. ‘God, Maeve. Be more direct.’

  ‘It’s a serious question.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll give you a serious answer. No, I don’t. I think you’re doing your best to do the right thing by both of us but you don’t have a clue what that is. I think you want this to be uncomplicated and you’re terrified that it’s not going to turn out that way. I think you want to be logical about it and you can’t help the fact that your emotions keep getting in the way. You weren’t made to be dispassionate, Maeve. Not at work. Not at home. And certainly not in bed.’

  I pleated the hem of my jumper, not wanting to look him in the eye. ‘It seems a bit unfair that everyone knows a lot more about me than I know about myself.’

  ‘That’s one of the sweetest things about you. You genuinely have no idea what you’re like. It makes you very unpredictable.’

  ‘But you predicted I wouldn’t be able to resist you.’

  ‘Oh, that was a sure thing.’

  Instead of answering, I leaned over and kissed him lightly. He slid one hand up to the back of my neck and drew me towards him for a proper kiss, one that reminded me, as if I needed it, that Rob was something special.

  When we broke apart, he grinned at me. ‘Unless you’ve changed a lot, I doubt you want to go any further while we’re sitting in such a public place. And I noticed the bed has sheets and pillows and a duvet on it already.’

  ‘I have some standards.’ I stood up, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. ‘Come on.’

  Once we had moved into the hall, out of the goldfish bowl that was my living room, Rob pulled me back towards him and kissed me again, hard. I hadn’t forgotten what being with him was like – I had thought about it often enough – but he had a single-mindedness that was new, an urgency that took me by surprise. It was as if he had something to prove, to me or to himself. It was altogether too serious for me and I leaned away from him so I could look into his eyes, laughing a little.

  ‘Wow. Take it easy.’ He bent his head again and I dodged. ‘Just a second.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. But there’s no rush, is there?’

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Right.’

  ‘From what I recall, you are very good at this. I just want to enjoy it.’

  That earned me a flash of the old Rob. ‘Let me guess – somewhere in that magazine there’s a feature on ten ways to get your boyfriend in the mood for sex. Number four: flatter him by telling him he’s good at it.’

  It was a throwaway remark but I couldn’t let it go, even though I should have known better. ‘You’re not my boyfriend.’

  He looked at me for a long moment, then dropped his hands from my body, burying them in his pockets as if he didn’t even want to touch me by accident. The space between us suddenly felt like it stretched for miles. ‘You still want to have it your way, don’t you? No commitment. No trust.’

  ‘No complications,’ I countered, suddenly angry. ‘Come on, Rob. Most men would prefer that.’

  Instead of answering, he walked away, picked up his jacket from the arm of the sofa where he’d thrown it on arrival and headed for the door.

  I went after him. ‘Where are you going? You can’t just storm off in a huff.’

  No answer.

  The very short fuse of my temper spluttered into flame. ‘This is exactly why I thought a relationship was a bad idea in the first place. I warned you this would happen. We have to work together.’ He paid no attention. ‘And it would be nice if you could stop ignoring me. Sulking is very unattractive.’

  ‘So is your attitude.’ He turned, one hand on the door latch. ‘Let’s recap, Maeve. You’ll sleep with me but you don’t want to have to talk about it. You’ll spend the evening with me as long as there are no strings attached and no one finds out.’

  ‘I said from the start that it was risky to get together. We’re mates first and foremost – that counts for a lot. I don’t want to screw things up.’

  ‘Bit late to be worrying about that.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t do this again, Maeve. I can’t chase after you and think I’ve got you, then end up back at the start. I want to know where I stand. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.’

  ‘You are such a hypocrite. You were the one who didn’t want to discuss that kind of thing the first time we slept together. You were far more interested in getting me into bed than in our long-term future, and if you’d thought about it for five minutes, you’d have known it was doomed.’

  ‘I thought we’d sort it out later. I thought I could get you to trust me if I let you get used to the idea of us being together.’

  ‘Do you want to know my rule about relationships? It has to be the right person, at the right time. Now, one of those things isn’t working with you.’ I looked at him coldly. ‘I just can’t decide which one it is.’

  ‘I’m so fucking tired of this.’ He opened the door and slammed it back against the wall, and one part of me was detached enough to note that I’d never seen him properly angry before. I followed him, standing in the doorway while he put his jacket on without looking in my direction. The communal hallway was shadowy, the stairs stretching up into darkness. There was a light switch somewhere, but I couldn’t recall where. The lamplight escaping through my open door caught the curlicues of plasterwork that still clung to the ceiling and glinted on the brass stair-rods that pinned the threadbare carpet in place. The house was silent, but it was the tense silence of someone holding their breath.

  As quickly as it had flared, my anger burnt itself out. ‘Rob, please. Don’t leave it like this.’

  Without turning, he said, ‘You know, Maeve, I think you’re right. This is a bad idea.’

  I felt a thud of disappointment in my chest. ‘That’s not a reason to leave.’

  ‘I’d have said it was a pretty good reason, actually.’ He looked at me. ‘For someone who doesn’t want to screw things up, you have quite a talent for it.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ I snapped, back to angry in a split second.

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to.’ He shook his head, slowly, sarcastically, and I thought he was going to say something else, but instead he punched the wall beside my door, quite hard.

  It was a physical expression of his frustration, not an attack on me – I understood that straightaway – but I still jumped about a mile. It had sounded incredibly loud in the quiet house, and violent too. ‘Rob, for God’s sake, get a grip.’

  He didn’t answer. He was too busy flexing his hand, examining it to make sure he hadn’t br
oken anything. In the silence we both heard the noise – a shuffle that might have been someone moving from one foot to another. Rob turned and peered up the stairs. He was in a better position than me to see a movement in the shadows and what he saw sent him bounding up the stairs three at a time.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing. I – nothing.’ I recognised the voice with a sinking feeling. Terror made Walter skip a few paces sideways so I could see him, his face contorted with anxiety. ‘I don’t want any trouble.’ He tried to sound firm. ‘I’ll call the police.’

  ‘I am the police.’ Rob flipped his warrant card out of his back pocket and flashed it to prove it. ‘But don’t worry. I’m leaving.’

  ‘It’s okay, Walter. Really.’ I walked into the hall, showing him that I was in one piece. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  He nodded, a shade uncertainly. I couldn’t blame him. Across the hall, a creak announced that Chris’s door was opening and I guessed he had been standing behind it the entire time. And when I looked up, Szuszanna was hanging over the banisters on the other side, a burly man beside her, frank curiosity on their faces.

  ‘Show’s over, folks.’ I gave a general smile, medium wattage, and waited until they had all taken the hint and left us to it. ‘Are you okay?’

  Rob came down the stairs slowly, shaking his hand as if it hurt. ‘I will be.’

  I couldn’t tell if he was talking about his knuckles or his emotional state, and I didn’t get the chance to find out. He went straight past me and out the front door on a gust of cool night air, pulling it closed behind him. I shut my own door and went over to the window. It commanded a view of the whole street, but by the time I got there he was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Thursday

  It was my good luck that I didn’t have to go into the office the following morning, or meet up with Derwent. I had a hearing to attend at the Old Bailey, a shooting that was on its way to trial. It was beyond restful to sit in Court 18 and stare at the oak panelling while the hearing dragged on, the barristers playing a polite game of one-upmanship. I had nothing to do. Chris Pettifer was more than happy to handle any queries that the prosecution had, and since he was a DS, he was entitled to.