by Joel Hames
Was Adrian part of the problem?
I checked her Facebook account, which she’d used precisely once in all the time I’d known her, and found the same entry on it, a “Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone!” with a smiley face at the end and a hundred or so comments she’d never read. I even checked her Twitter feed, which was something I’d never done before, and while it was loading I closed my eyes and heard Mrs Tully’s words again. She’s buried it in the past and doesn’t want it dug up. Claire and I had more in common than I’d realised.
I opened my eyes and focussed on the screen. I didn’t like Twitter. Millions of angry people shouting at each other, none of them listening, I thought. And not many listening to Claire, by the look of it: her account had precisely eight followers. Her feed had a certain monomaniac obsession, one I imagined was shared by those eight: her case, her story, the murdered girls. Once or twice a week she’d tweet a link to a news article about the murders, always an old article, because the murders weren’t news any more, hadn’t been for years. She tweeted the links with little comment or opinion. Only, over the last week, something had changed. She’d stopped tweeting the links, and replaced them with short, simple sentences. Questions.
Tuesday: “Who will speak for Xenia?”
Wednesday: “Who will speak for Aurelia?”
Thursday: “Who will speak for Marine?”
Friday: “Who will speak for Iboni?”
Saturday: “Who will speak for Yelena?”
And today, this morning, Sunday the sixteenth of December, not a question, but a statement: “I’m not afraid of the big bad Wolf.”
So Jonas Wolf had put in an appearance, too.
I remembered something she’d said, early on, when she’d accused me of playing her, of manipulating her, of trying to get her to do something she wasn’t sure about.
“I don’t like being groomed, Sam,” she’d said. Even at the time I’d thought it a strange choice of word. It didn’t seem quite so strange now.
She didn’t like being groomed. Being tricked and twisted and lied to. And she wasn’t prepared to tolerate it happening to anyone else, either. Don’t get too close, I’d said, but I was fifteen years too late. This had always been close. Amongst the storm of feelings I was trying to push back down, because emotion wouldn’t help me at all right now, I thought I sensed some pride. She’d lost it. Lost the plot. Lost her way and her sense of reality, adrift in a sea of memory and death. But she’d lost it for the right reasons. When I managed to track her down and steer her back to dry land, I’d remind her of that.
At three, struggling to keep my eyes open despite the gallon of coffee I’d taken in place of food, I gave up, lay down on the bed, and went straight to sleep.
It didn’t last. My phone went off an hour later. I was hoping it was Claire, or her mother, or someone who knew where she was and what she was doing, but it wasn’t. It was Brooks-Powell, and he was excited.
“We’ve been going about this the wrong way,” he said.
“What?” I asked, still groggy.
“We’ve been hiding from them, when they’re the ones who should be hiding from us. We need to go after them.”
It was four in the morning, I’d had an hour’s sleep, and I didn’t know where my girlfriend was. I wasn’t in the mood for cryptic.
“Go after who?” I asked.
“Look,” he said, “we know Trawden’s been lying, right?”
I thought about arguing, and then changed my mind and agreed. Trawden had been lying. We didn’t know who he’d lied to or what he’d lied about, but we’d found too much to pretend he was on the level any more.
“OK,” I said, grudgingly.
“And who’s been helping him?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s been covering for Trawden? Who do you think it is that’s been calling Willoughby and Martins and the rest, stirring up trouble? Trawden couldn’t do that himself, right?”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes. Sorry. Still half-asleep. Blennard, you mean.”
“Ten points to Williams. You can have a coffee when we’re done.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “You haven’t heard from Claire, have you?”
I didn’t think there was a chance in hell, but I was going to follow every last blind alley to its end.
“Your Claire?”
“Yup. Haven’t seen her all night. Her mum’s worried about her. To be honest, I’m a little worried, too.”
There was a pause at the end of the line, and somehow I knew that during that brief moment, Brooks-Powell had conjured up a quip about jealousy or infidelity, taken note of the seriousness in my voice, and squashed that quip back down. I was grateful.
“No, Sam. Sorry.”
I sighed and turned my thoughts back to what we’d just been discussing. I didn’t like Blennard, for all his charm. I didn’t trust him. But I didn’t like where Brooks-Powell seemed to be going with this.
“It’s a little extreme, David,” I said. “Blennard. What are you suggesting?”
“Remember how you cracked the Trawden case?”
“Yes, David. Using my brains,” I shot back, and regretted it instantly.
“I know that. Even back then I was impressed. I couldn’t stand you, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t impressed. No, what I mean is, why were you looking at Evans in the first place?”
“Well, it was Akadi, wasn’t it?”
“That’s why Evans was in the frame. But why were you looking at Evans?”
I took a moment to think back, but it was a blur. We landed Trawden. I landed a role on the case. And then – straight onto Evans. There must have been something in between, but whatever it was, I’d decided it wasn’t important enough to stick.
“I don’t remember, David. Does it matter?”
“I think so. There’s a file note. In the Hancocks stuff. Elizabeth’s handwriting. Record of a call between Blennard and Elizabeth. I’m going to read directly from it. OK?”
“OK.”
“Right. Here we go. Call with CB, re Trawden. I explained that things were going slowly but that wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. CB seemed disappointed, suggested we take a look at others who have admitted the crime. I disagreed, pointed out that wasn’t the way we do things here. Mauriers does not chase headlines. We’ll do it slowly and carefully, but we’ll pick apart the prosecution case, and if there’s anything to find, we’ll find it. CB took issue, said that firms had been trying that angle for twenty years and if there was anything to see, it would have come up by now. CB mentioned Robbie Evans, deceased convict with potential link to MG. I continued to disagree, but conceded we would take a look at Evans. Unlikely to be anything solid, but I will ask SW to follow the Evans angle.”
Brooks-Powell had finished, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. It wasn’t exactly conclusive – Blennard had put us onto Evans, Evans had been the line that freed Trawden, and so bloody what? All that proved was that Blennard was looking out for Trawden and had an eye for the right angle. But still. It was another stick on a growing pile.
“There’s more, Sam,” said Brooks-Powell. He was speaking gently, quietly, whether that was out of deference to the seriousness of the subject or my concerns over Claire or the fact that there were just four hours to go before December’s excuse for sunrise. “Do you remember who ran the investigation from the police side? When it was reopened, after you’d put Evans on the spot?”
“Yes,” I said. “Detective Inspector Jones.” I’d never met the man, just sent his subordinates some paperwork, and it wasn’t exactly a name that stuck in the mind. But sometimes the odd little details of a case made a home there.
“That’s right,” he replied. “Detective Inspector Gareth Brady Jones. The late. He died three years ago.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d never known his forenames. Brooks-Powell went on, but he didn’t need to. I knew what was coming.
“Later to become Deputy Commissioner Gareth
Brady Jones of the Metropolitan Police. Friend and protégé of Lord Charlie Blennard. Member of the Reform Club, although that’s not a hanging offence by itself. Jones would have been perfectly placed to make sure the investigation went where Blennard wanted it to. It wasn’t like anyone cared. We all knew it was Evans, Evans was dead, no one was pleading his corner, the investigation was never supposed to be more than a box-ticking exercise anyway.”
“It’s still not evidence,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. Brooks-Powell was right. Blennard was in this, knee-deep or worse. “And why would he do it?” I continued, casting around for anything that would steer us away from where we were heading. “Why would Blennard protect Trawden?”
“I don’t know. That’s the one thing I can’t figure out. What was in it for Blennard?”
I cast my mind back to Saturday. Shapiro. Went through his words. Thinking aloud.
“Shapiro said Trawden had helpers. Useful idiots and enablers, that was the way he put them. But Blennard doesn’t strike me as the type. Too self-serving. Too intelligent. Blennard would know when he was being played, wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe,” said Brooks-Powell, but I ignored him, still thinking, still talking.
“And the other group. Blackmail victims. I don’t know, David. I just don’t see him fitting the profile.”
“What did you just say?”
“I said I don’t see him fitting the profile.”
“No, not that. Before. Blackmail. Is that what you said? Did Trawden have a history of blackmail?”
“Shapiro thought so. Nothing proven.”
“That’s it.” There was something new in his voice. Certainty. Determination. Something that said the work had been done and an end was coming. And something else, too, that I couldn’t quite place. “That’s it. I’ll meet you there.”
“Meet me where?”
“Blennard’s apartment. Mayfair. Do you need the address?”
“No. I’ve got his card. Why? Why are we going there?”
“We’re going to get some fucking answers out of Lord Charlie Blennard,” he said, and hung up.
I’d placed it now, that something else. Anger. A fierce, steely anger. Claire still wasn’t home and it was coming up for five in the morning, but something told me I had to get to Mayfair before Brooks-Powell did something he’d regret.
22: Relics
IT HAD JUST turned five when I arrived. I hadn’t wanted to drive, because I was tired and didn’t know the area, but when I’d searched my jeans pocket all I found were two pound coins. I was running low, I realised; that long-term cash problem was starting to bite. No one had returned any of my calls. Claire was out there, somewhere.
I pulled up on a double yellow line and hoped for the best. Brooks-Powell was waiting for me outside the building. In the stark illumination cast by the security lights he looked older, somehow; dishevelled, by his standards. There was a wildness in him I’d not seen before and wouldn’t have believed possible.
“Good. You’re here. Let’s crack this bastard. And no,” he said, turning to me, a dangerous smile on his face and his arm on my shoulder. “This time, I’ll do the talking. It’s time to get some answers.”
I shrugged. I could see there was no point arguing with him. “We’ll both do the talking,” I said, and he nodded.
The commissionaire wasn’t for letting us in. He stood the other side of a big glass door and stared at us, and I saw us from his point of view: jeans, unbrushed hair, standing there talking animatedly to each other in the night. He was an old man with white hair and a navy blue uniform, standing six feet away from the door and leaning on his desk in a manner that suggested he welcomed the support. I produced Blennard’s card and held it to the glass, and he walked over, haltingly, squinted at the card, and stared back at us.
“He’ll want to see us,” I shouted through the glass. “Sam Williams and David Brooks-Powell. He’ll want to see us.”
I think it was Brooks-Powell that did it, those weighty twin barrels that couldn’t possibly belong to a man considering anything untoward. He shuffled back to his desk, stared at us again, and lifted the phone.
Two minutes later we were standing at the door to Blennard’s apartment. Brooks-Powell raised a fist, ready to pound, and the door opened. Blennard stood there, silk dressing gown – or was it a smoking jacket? – somehow frowning and smiling at the same time. It was a good look for someone who wasn’t sure quite how to receive his guests. I reckoned he’d know soon enough.
“Come in,” he said, and stood aside to let us through. There was a short, narrow corridor with coats hanging on the walls and shoes in a rack, and then a door, open to a vast, high-ceilinged living room that wouldn’t have been out of place in Brooks-Powell’s mansion. I fingered the last two pounds in my pocket and caught myself wondering where I’d gone wrong.
“Sit down,” said Blennard, pointing to a dining area off the main room, with a long table and half a dozen leather chairs. It was poorly-lit, which was probably by design, but after the security lights and the lack of sleep, I wasn’t complaining. “I suppose you’ve come round to apologise,” he continued, when we were all seated, he at the head of the table, me beside him, Brooks-Powell next to me. “It’s a funny time of day to do it in, but I won’t say I’m not relieved. You both know the legal system isn’t perfect. It’s pulled so many lives apart. Elizabeth did everything she could to put those lives back together again. It does you no credit to sully her name and undo all that good work.”
I stared at him. Was this all it was? Was it Elizabeth Maurier he was protecting, rather than Trawden? It seemed a little extreme, but so little made sense at the moment that any rationale, however stretched, was a comfort. We might, I felt, get out of this without raised voices and threats.
I was reckoning without Brooks-Powell. I hadn’t noticed him standing and wandering back into the living room area. I could have blamed the fatigue, but it wasn’t that; I was operating on three out of four cylinders, which was good enough by my standards. No, it was Blennard. I didn’t trust the man and I’d been in his company for no more than two minutes, but already I was under his spell.
Brooks-Powell, thankfully, wasn’t. I turned as he spoke, and saw him holding a clock. Glass front, wooden case, burnished metal all over it.
“Sanderson, is it? Eighteenth century?”
I turned back to Blennard, who was nodding.
“Nice piece,” continued Brooks-Powell. “Worth a pretty penny, I’d imagine. Now tell me,” he went on, in the same urbane, apparently friendly tone, “you don’t really think we’ve come here to apologise, do you? You’re not that stupid, Charlie. Far from it. We’ve come here to get some answers. And we’re not prepared to listen to you leading us up the garden path and spouting on about good names and good works.”
Blennard had risen from his chair. The smile was gone.
“What on earth are you talking about?” he said, and there was a crash. Brooks-Powell had dropped the clock. Thrown rather than dropped, judging by the sound and the chunks of splintered wood that now littered the living room. Blennard sat back down and put one hand on his forehead as though he were trying to keep his brain from bursting out.
“We’ll ask the questions, Charlie,” said Brooks-Powell. Same tone. Same dangerous smile. “I know all about you, you bastard. I’ve heard the rumours. You hear them, in my circle. Hear them about all sorts of people. I tend not to believe them. But this time. Well. There has to be a reason, doesn’t there?”
“I really don’t know –” began Blennard, and stopped as Brooks-Powell marched over to an antique desk and started picking up the objects on it – a pen, a glass paperweight, a curious carved wooden ornament that looked like it belonged somewhere a thousand miles from Mayfair – weighing each one carefully in his hands before flinging it across the room.
“I know there’s no evidence,” he said. “Of what you’ve done. You’ve got them all snug in your pocket, haven’t you? You’v
e got the police running all over the country shutting people up and they think they’re doing the right thing, they think it’s important business and Charlie Blennard says it’s very hush hush so it’s got to be kosher. But the moment you drop dead it’ll all come out. You can’t stop that. They’ll all be singing the same story and you can forget your good name, Lord Blennard. You’ll be the next Jimmy Saville, won’t you? Right?”
He turned to me, and continued. He was no longer smiling.
“You think it’s easy, being gay? You think it’s a simple life, Sam? Even now, when it’s all supposed to be fine? Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. But bastards like this one make it next to fucking impossible.”
So Claire had been right, all along. I spared a moment to worry about her, but a moment was all I had. Brooks-Powell was still talking.
“So we have to try even harder. We have to make up for this lot.”
Blennard was still in his seat, spluttering, trying to say a thousand things at once. I couldn’t blame him. Everything was moving so fast. What rumours? What had Blennard done?
“So tell me, Charlie!” shouted Brooks-Powell. “Tell me everything.”
Blennard had stopped spluttering and made it back to his feet. His face was red, and I could see he was sweating.
“You’re a fool, Brooks-Powell,” he said, with a calmness that didn’t match the face. “Your allegations aren’t even absurd, they’re non-existent. Rumours, whistles here and there, no one even knows what these allegations are. Muck-raking. And you believe this nonsense? Oh, go ahead,” he continued, as Brooks-Powell turned to gaze around the room, hunting out more objects to break. “Throw a few more ornaments around. It’ll just be more things for you to pay for. Take the Bentley, if you want. Smash that up, too.” He reached into his pocket and threw a set of keys on the table. “Although you should know that I happen to have a pair of antique rifles and a shotgun just around the corner. And I believe I have the ammunition to go with them.”