The Reckoning

by Jane Casey

  ‘To me? There’s no need.’

  ‘There’s every need. I should apologise for my unprofessional behaviour to every police officer who was at the scene. It put everyone at risk. But I do want to apologise particularly to you, since you were injured.’

  ‘Injured is putting it a bit high,’ I began but he held up a hand to stop me.

  ‘You have a gash on your forehead, a bruised hand and possible concussion, and you had a serious head injury last year, Maeve, so don’t make light of this, please. It’s my fault and I’m going to take responsibility for it, whatever you say.’

  ‘Actually, it’s not your fault. It was Inspector Derwent who pushed me. If anyone should apologise, it’s him.’ I spoke lightly, hoping to God Derwent had a sense of humour.

  ‘Forget it. I’m not going to apologise. It was for your own good.’ He smiled at me, then glanced at Godley and I saw concern on his face. The superintendent was looking shattered, and it was more than simple fatigue. I leaned forward impulsively.

  ‘Sir, you mustn’t be too hard on yourself for what you did. It’s completely understandable, given what he was saying.’

  ‘I doubt that, Maeve, but thank you.’ A short, painful pause. ‘I take it you’ve worked out what Mr Skinner was getting at.’

  I was reluctant to put it into words, but the superintendent waited me out. ‘He was saying that he knows where you live. And he knows all about your family. I sort of guessed that he was threatening them.’

  ‘He was. And I didn’t help the situation by attacking him. It was hardly calculated to get him on my side.’

  Derwent laughed. ‘Seriously, boss, you have no chance of managing that unless you’ve got a time machine.’

  ‘Why is that?’ I looked from one of them to the other. ‘What happened?’

  Instead of answering, Godley stood up. ‘I’m going to get a coffee. How about you?’

  ‘Thanks, boss. White, no sugar.’

  ‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ I said hopefully, but he shook his head.

  ‘Better not have caffeine before you see the doctor.’

  ‘Tea won’t do me any harm,’ I protested half-heartedly. I knew it was a lost cause, and all I got from Godley was a reproving glower before he stalked out of the room. He turned heads as he usually did. I doubted that he was aware of it. He certainly wouldn’t have cared.

  Derwent had been watching me watch Godley. ‘Don’t take it personally that the boss didn’t want to stick around. We’ve been telling this story all afternoon. He can’t stand to hear it again.’

  ‘What’s going on? Did he arrest Skinner back in the day or something? I wouldn’t have thought that would make him hold a grudge. From what I know of Skinner, he’s been arrested by every London copper over a certain age.’ It had been sort of a rite of passage, until Skinner spoiled everyone’s fun by moving to Spain.

  ‘Don’t believe a word of it. Everyone likes to boast about catching John Skinner, but there aren’t that many who actually have. Godley is one of them, but that’s not why Skinner hates him. Being arrested is part of the game for him.’ He leaned closer to me and lowered his voice so no one else could hear what he was saying. The waiting room was not an ideal place for confidential discussions. ‘You know Bryce and I used to work with the boss on the Central Task Force? He was our inspector when I was a DC and Bryce was a sergeant. At the time, John Skinner was single-handedly skewing the crime stats. He was making us look really bad – pretty much every serious crime that was committed in East London came back to him, but we couldn’t get anyone to give evidence officially. It didn’t even get as far as witness tampering; no one would risk annoying him by talking about him on the record. The bosses were screaming for us to do something, but we needed to catch him in the act of committing a crime. Godley got assigned to run an undercover operation targeting Skinner.’

  ‘And arrested him.’

  Derwent shook his head. ‘Not a chance. Skinner behaved like a choirboy. He went about his business and the bodies kept piling up. He had such a strong hold on his gang that he didn’t need to tell them what to do. They could keep things ticking over the way he wanted even if he was banged up in solitary. We watched him for weeks and then the bosses decided they’d spent enough time and pulled us off it. You can imagine what it was costing. Twenty-four-hour surveillance doesn’t come cheap.’

  ‘I’m not seeing how this pissed off John Skinner.’

  ‘Give me a chance. Godley was a bit annoyed that he hadn’t got anything on Skinner. He decided the best thing to do was to put pressure on him some other way. We’d seen Skinner’s father driving a stolen car during the surveillance. It was enough to arrest him, and we were lucky with the judge. Dean Skinner was deemed a flight risk and not allowed bail. His son was furious.’

  ‘Well, that was the idea.’

  ‘Yeah. But it turned out not to be the best idea Charlie ever had.’ Derwent looked around ultra-casually, checking to see Godley wasn’t on his way back yet. ‘Mr Skinner died on remand. He had a massive stroke the night after the hearing where he was refused bail. He was still alive when they found him, but in a coma, and he never came round. John was distraught. He knew his father was only in that situation because of him, but he blamed the boss, not himself.’

  ‘Naturally.’ I was wondering how Godley himself had felt about what had happened. From what I knew of him, he would have been as unforgiving to himself as Skinner had been.

  ‘Skinner has something of a gift for vengeance – he’s left a trail of bodies behind him since he was a teenager. Never forgives, never forgets. He went after Godley in a big way. His family have had to move house twice and they’ve got alarm systems like you wouldn’t believe – panic buttons, CCTV, the works. Godley’s daughter changed schools a few times. She couldn’t have any friends back to the house, couldn’t tell anyone anything about her dad or his work. She even had to change her surname so there was nothing to make a connection with the boss. As you can imagine, his missus was not happy with all the upheaval, not to mention the effect it had on Isabel. Godley went to pieces for a while. He almost left the job. Gradually, he came to terms with it and managed to settle things with Serena, but I don’t think it was easy, then or now.’

  ‘Is that why he doesn’t have any pictures of his family in his office? To keep his private life separate?’

  ‘Got it in one. That was the agreement he reached with Serena. He never talks about her or Isabel. He’s ex-directory – never gives anyone his home number, does it all off his mobile. He works long hours in the nick because he refuses to take the job home with him. And he doesn’t let many people – including other coppers – know where he lives.’

  ‘Sort of a double life.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t think Serena likes him talking about work either. He doesn’t have anyone to share it with now, and that has to be hard.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘The thing is, it changed him. Godley, I mean. You never met anyone as aggressive, back in the day. Gung-ho as they come and tricky with it – I mean, he didn’t always toe the line. But something about this affected him, and not for the better if you ask me. He felt guilty about Dean Skinner, even though he really shouldn’t have. John didn’t pick it up off the street - his dad was the same. Deano was a thug through and through and he could have had his stroke any time. Okay, he was in prison because Godley put him there, but he’d done more than enough to qualify for a spell behind bars, and it wasn’t as if it was his first time.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have let it bother you.’

  ‘No, I fucking wouldn’t.’ He grinned at me. ‘But that’s the sort of person I am. The boss is more sensitive.’

  As usual, he made it sound like an insult, and I assumed that to Derwent, it was. All that I had heard just made me think more of Godley, not less.

  ‘Anyway. Godley started to behave himself. Do things by the book. Draw back if there was a risk of someone getting hurt. It didn’t do him any harm with the bosses. He got promoted a cou
ple of times, off the Task Force, and I lost touch with him.’ He sighed. ‘It was sort of deliberate. Me and the lads – we weren’t that happy with the new version of the guv, even if everyone else thought the sun shone out of his arse. He didn’t have the same passion for the job. He didn’t have the same joy in it. And it made it hard to work for him, to be honest. You’d suggest something that would have been perfectly okay before the Skinner incident and it was like you’d suggested goosing Mother Theresa.’

  I had seen Godley’s ice-blue disapproval myself, and I couldn’t help smiling at Derwent’s description of it. But something was puzzling me. ‘If you didn’t like working for him, why did you join the team?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ve mellowed.’

  If what I had seen of Derwent so far was the mellow version, then I didn’t want to see him when he was feeling edgy. But before I could point that out, Godley returned with a cardboard tray.

  ‘Did you know the hospital has a Starbucks concession? God bless private enterprise.’ He handed me a cup. ‘Don’t get too excited. It’s camomile tea.’

  ‘Great,’ I said bleakly, not managing to sound pleased, and the two men laughed. ‘Sorry. That was rude of me. I’m sure it will be lovely.’

  ‘Better than nothing.’ Derwent popped the lid off his coffee and inhaled the steam. ‘Mm. Want a sniff?’

  ‘Don’t taunt her.’ Godley sat down again, concentrating on not spilling his own coffee as he set it down by his feet. ‘How far did you get?’

  ‘Just before Skinner left the country.’

  ‘When did that happen?’ I asked.

  ‘About five years ago,’ Godley said. ‘He got himself into a bit of a mess. He’d been running a highly successful crew who specialised in bank robberies where the managers’ families were held hostage to coerce them into opening the vaults.’

  ‘Tiger kidnaps,’ Derwent interjected, and got a glare from Godley.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Josh. I’ve never liked that particular nickname.’

  I hid a smile. The boss was always hostile to anything that glamorised crime. Derwent made eye contact with me for a long second, his face absolutely blank, but I knew what he was trying to convey: See what I mean?

  ‘The last of the kidnaps went badly wrong. A hostage tried to escape – he was the daughter’s boyfriend, as far as I can remember, and not inclined to cooperate. The kidnappers panicked and shot him, which made the neighbours twig that something was up so they called 999. Imagine how pleased we were to discover that the kidnappers had phoned Skinner right after the shooting on a number we could trace back to him. The lad was shot in the back, seriously injured, and the kidnappers couldn’t decide what to do – leave him to survive as best he could, abandon the whole job, or put him out of his misery. The other hostages heard them asking Skinner’s advice and they were prepared to give evidence that he was in charge.’

  ‘I didn’t think anyone ever agreed to give evidence against John Skinner.’

  Godley nodded. ‘It was unusual. The family were extremely angry and determined not to let him get away with it. The boy survived but he was never going to walk again. I imagine that a dose of guilt played a part in their decision. Besides, we got them away to a safe house before any of Skinner’s acquaintances could even think about shutting them up. We had him for the lot – kidnapping, armed robbery, murder. The only thing left for him to do was run, and that’s what he did.’

  ‘On a false passport?’

  ‘On a private yacht. He sailed off with a couple of suitcases of cash and jewellery, and an address book full of contacts. He’d already bought a villa on the Costa del Sol, in case of emergencies. He thinks ahead. That’s one of the things that makes him so dangerous.’

  ‘So why come back? It looks as if he was doing nicely for himself in Spain.’

  Godley shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘It’s hard to blame him for this one. When he did a runner, his wife flatly refused to go too. They have a daughter, Cheyenne, and Gayle didn’t want her to grow up in Spain. Skinner had to agree to leave them behind. They went out there for holidays – he didn’t lose touch. He set them up in a nice house in Hertfordshire, private schooling for Cheyenne, tennis and riding lessons – everything you could want.’ Godley picked up his coffee from the floor and sipped it, as if he was playing for time. Derwent took over again.

  ‘Five days ago, Cheyenne Skinner disappeared. According to her friends, she’d been invited to a private party in Brixton by someone she only knew via the Internet. It was a pop-up nightclub in an empty warehouse – one night only of dancing and debauchery, according to the invitation. She went on her own, which was stupid. And she never came home.’

  My mind was racing. ‘Was there actually a nightclub?’

  Derwent nodded. ‘They’ve traced the organisers who couldn’t recall seeing Cheyenne but there were a couple of hundred people there. The event was a word-of-mouth thing – you know, they told fifty people and asked them to invite the coolest people they knew. Everyone was supposed to wear masks.’ He snorted. ‘Maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t see the attraction of spending an evening in a dark, dirty warehouse getting wasted with a bunch of tossers in disguise.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I said automatically, thinking about what he’d told me. ‘So they don’t know if she was actually at the event.’

  ‘She updated her Facebook status to say that she was. That was at ten to ten and it’s the last that was heard from her. Local CID have been on it but they’ve basically got nothing – no witnesses, no trace of her belongings or her phone.’

  ‘So she disappeared in Brixton.’

  Derwent grinned at me. ‘Yeah. You’ve spotted it, haven’t you? Skinner wasn’t happy with what Gayle told him about the way the investigation was being handled. He decided to take care of things himself. First things first: draw up a list of likely suspects. Then go round and beat the crap out of them until you get tired of it and put them out of their misery.’

  ‘But he was only targeting paedophiles.’ My mind was working at about half-speed as I struggled to understand what I was being told. Maybe I was concussed after all. ‘How old is Cheyenne?’

  ‘Fourteen,’ Godley said bleakly. ‘The same age as my daughter.’

  I was starting to see why Godley was so rattled. ‘Who’s been investigating it? You said local CID?’

  ‘It was being handled at borough level. There was no ransom note received, that we’re aware of, so no kidnap squad. I’d thought it might have been something to do with Skinner – that she’d been taken to put pressure on him for some reason, or to get back at him for a past grudge – but then he wouldn’t have been wasting his time trying to scare up a lead from the local sex-crimes brigade.’

  ‘Even without the Skinner connection, given her age she’s surely a high-risk MISPER. I’d have thought it merited a bit more than local CID.’

  ‘Me too,’ Godley said, his mouth thinning to a line. ‘I spent a lot of this week trying to persuade the high-ups to let the team take over the investigation. But for reasons known only to themselves, they decided not to bother.’

  ‘Cheyenne’s a bit of a bad girl, by all accounts. Takes after the old man. I think they probably thought she could look after herself, fourteen or not.’ Derwent glanced at Godley before continuing. ‘And to be fair, the bosses probably wanted to keep you out of it if they could. Given your history.’

  ‘I think they were aware I would have been completely professional, Josh,’ Godley replied stiffly.

  ‘Yeah, but anything that brings you to his attention is bad, isn’t it? Because of what happened before.’

  ‘He has his own idea of fair play. I think if we’d been able to find his daughter, he might have been willing to let the old grudge drop.’

  Derwent snorted. ‘Do you believe in the tooth fairy as well? For Skinner, there’s no such thing as fair play. And he meant what he said. He’ll never forgive you for what happened to his dad.’

&nb
sp; Godley winced and didn’t respond. I thought that Derwent had been sailing a little too close to the wind. I found it strangely reassuring to see that he didn’t limit his insensitive comments to his dealings with me. In the meantime, diplomacy called for a change of subject.

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘We’ll interview Skinner tomorrow. He’ll be charged with the murders you and Josh have been investigating, of course, and with false imprisonment, GBH and whatever else we can think of in relation to William Forgrave. The other two have been interviewed once already, but they weren’t feeling very cooperative. We’ll have another bash at them.’

  ‘And Cheyenne?’

  ‘I’m going to take over the investigation.’ Godley sounded completely determined. ‘She may be streetwise, but she’s vulnerable. And as of this moment, no one has the least idea where she may be. You don’t have to be John Skinner to turn into a homicidal maniac in those circumstances.’

  ‘Making excuses for him?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘If you’d told me I’d have something in common with John Skinner, I’d have laughed at you, but if it was my daughter who had gone missing I might have done the same myself.’ The look on Godley’s face told me he meant it.

  ‘It bothers you, doesn’t it. The fact that the girls are the same age.’ Derwent was staring at Godley with a strange expression on his face, part pity, part curiosity. ‘Is it because you can imagine yourself in the same situation? Or is it because you’re afraid he will take it out on you and yours if anything’s happened to the girl?’

  I was surprised once again by Derwent’s frankness, and even more surprised that Godley didn’t cut him off with a glare.

  ‘A bit of both, I suppose. I’m worried about Cheyenne. I don’t like that no one’s heard from her. I don’t get a good feeling about it. And of course I’m concerned about Skinner. If any harm comes to Isabel because of John Skinner—’