by Jane Casey
‘This is fine.’
‘If this is about Josh—’
‘It isn’t. Except that I think you would quite like him to leave the team so you didn’t have to worry about him finding you out.’
It was a guess, but I saw it hit home. ‘Maeve, that’s not true.’
‘I don’t think you’ve admitted it to yourself yet.’
He shook his head, but there was no conviction in his expression and I knew I was right.
‘I wanted to talk to you about what’s been going on.’ I wanted nothing less than to talk to him about it but I made myself go on. ‘Terence Hammond, the attack on the TSG, and now Emma Wells. We’ve all been looking for a connection and not finding it. But the connection is you.’
‘What?’ He laughed, but without humour. ‘This had better be good, Maeve.’
‘On the Sunday morning when Terence Hammond died, you gave me your phone to look at his picture. I was still holding it when you got a text message and I saw the preview of the first few lines.’ I closed my eyes and could see it without even trying. ‘It said, “Make no mistake you fucking cunt, you’d better change your mind or—”’
‘That’s enough.’ He sounded calm but his fingers were tapping on the bottom of the steering wheel. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions.’
‘You’d been happy before you got the message. You’ve been miserable ever since. John Skinner’s pet assassin was tentatively identified by one of the victims in the Maudling shooting and you won’t acknowledge that he might be involved because you know he is. Who else has the audacity to commission these killings? Who else wouldn’t think twice about it? You took John Skinner apart when you were working on gang crime, making your reputation by smashing his organisation. He’s been obsessed with you ever since.’
‘This is preposterous.’
‘Is it? I think it’s preposterous that a Met superintendent would allow himself to be used by a gangster for years without anyone suspecting a thing. I think it’s strange that you get a threatening message just after a police officer gets shot. I don’t think it’s the only one you’ve received either. Are they turning up the heat?’ I leaned towards him. ‘Did Emma Wells die because you pissed off John Skinner?’
‘You have absolutely no evidence to support that allegation.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m asking you if it’s true.’
‘Jesus, Maeve, this is completely inappropriate. I can’t imagine what you think you’re doing.’
‘I’m trying to stop another police officer from dying. Or two. Or five.’ I was watching him closely and I saw the flicker that told me he was worried about exactly the same thing. ‘What do they want you to do?’
I thought he was going to go on denying all knowledge of Skinner and his blackmailing tactics, but fundamentally Godley was decent, and honourable. He hated lying even if he was good at it.
‘I told him I didn’t want to give him information any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he asked me to do something I wasn’t prepared to do.’
‘What?’
Godley’s face was drawn. ‘He wanted me to give him personal information on the team currently working on taking down his organisation. He wanted to buy or blackmail or threaten his way into persuading them to leave him alone. And I’d had enough. I couldn’t stand to be involved in putting someone else in my position. The lying. The fear of being caught. The fear of giving him too much information when I was trying to avoid telling him anything at all. The fear of what he’d do to me if I let him down. I couldn’t do it any more.’
‘So what did you do? Give the money back?’
‘It’s never been money, Maeve. I told you that before. I couldn’t say no to him because it was too risky for the people I loved.’
‘And it’s no less risky now that you’ve lost your stomach for it.’ I thought for a second. ‘Is this why you’re getting a divorce?’
‘I have to try to keep Serena safe. I told him I wasn’t in love with her any more so he couldn’t use her to punish me. I told him he’d be doing me a favour if she died.’ Godley was sweating. He looked as if he was going to be sick.
‘What about Isobel? Just because she’s planning to study abroad, do you really think she’ll be safe there?’
‘I don’t think she’s safe anywhere. He told me he’d never harm Isobel because he had a daughter too. Then his daughter died, and Skinner blamed me for not saving her.’ Godley shook his head. ‘My job has threatened the safety of the people I love most in the world. All I could do was try to persuade him that I don’t care about them any more so he couldn’t use them against me.’
‘So he found a way to force your hand.’
‘Total strangers. Colleagues. People who were in the job. Anyone. Everyone. You’re all at risk, because of me. And every time one of you dies, it weakens the very foundations of the Metropolitan Police. We cannot do our jobs if we are living in fear, and I can’t do mine if I feel responsible for that.’
I regarded him with horror. ‘What information have you been giving him that you’re so important to him that he’d go on a killing spree just to keep you in line? It’s massively risky.’
‘What can we do to him? He’s never getting out of prison.’ Godley gave a brittle laugh. ‘He loves that he has me where he wants me. He knows how much I hate this. He enjoys that he can manipulate me. He’s an evil bastard and this situation can only be good for him. The weaker we are, the easier it is for him and his gang to do whatever the hell they like. The harder he pushes me, the happier he feels. He’s sitting there in his prison cell pulling all the strings, making money, making a mockery of justice and of me.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’ve been thinking about resigning.’
‘He’ll kill you.’
‘There are worse things.’ Godley gave me a twisted little smile. ‘Standing in there looking at Emma Wells’ body, I found myself thinking my own death would be quite bearable.’
‘If you make him angry,’ I said slowly, ‘what’s to stop him from taking it out on us? The Met, I mean? That’s the threat, isn’t it? Do what he wants or he’ll make you regret it.’
‘Yes.’
‘So can you take the risk? What if he doesn’t go after you but he keeps killing, to punish you. It’s working well so far. After this, no one is going to be able to do anything unsupervised. No single-crewed vehicles. Reduced night patrols. We’re going to be running and hiding instead of doing our jobs.’
‘So what should I do? I can’t keep helping him but I can’t quit either.’ Suddenly he slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. ‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Right is right and wrong is wrong. I fell into this situation and I can’t get out. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?’
‘Stop shouting at me.’
‘Come on, Maeve. You’ve got all the answers. How do I get out of this one?’
‘I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you this: you need to do something. Buy him off. Tell him you’ve changed your mind. Even if you do the wrong thing, it’s better than nothing. This is not going to stop just because you want it to.’
‘Are you finished?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Thanks for your advice.’ He didn’t bother trying to sound grateful.
I got out of the car without waiting for him to say anything else and slammed the door as hard as I could, which was both childish and stupid because standing nearby, on the pavement, was Una Burt. Beyond her, a little way down the street, I saw Derwent. They were both watching. They had little enough in common, but at that moment they had precisely the same expression on their faces: curiosity, speculation and disappointment. I knew what they were thinking, too: proof that there was something going on between me and the boss. I swallowed the unfairness of it and it sat in the pit of my stomach like a ball of hot metal.
As a rule, I had murder on my mind. That day, I had it
in my heart.
Chapter 21
If the killers of Emma Wells had intended to cause a massive reaction, they succeeded. The newspapers and television were full of wise-after-the-event talking heads holding forth about how vulnerable the PCSOs were, and what a waste of time and money it was to have them out patrolling in the first place. There were pictures of Emma everywhere, culled from her Facebook page. She was heartbreakingly pretty in every single one, whether it was a pouting selfie before a big night out or a holiday snap, grinning in a cowboy hat. The fact that she was pretty shouldn’t have made a difference but of course it did. The comments on newspaper websites and social media said it all. ‘Such a waste.’ ‘She had her whole life ahead of her.’ ‘Her poor parents.’
Far more important, though less visible, was the effect her death had on the Metropolitan Police. The statistics should have been reassuring – there were 31,000 full-time police officers and 2,600 PCSOs out there covering an area of 620 square miles that contained over 7 million people. There was no reason to fear that the next attack would be close to home, but for the first time none of us felt safe. There were just too many of us across too large an area for all of us to be kept out of harm’s way. It was common knowledge across the service, though fortunately unreported, that officers in certain areas had refused to patrol. Everyone was jumpy. In the week after Emma died, there were four times as many incidences of officers deploying Tasers. The armed response crews were constantly busy, chasing shadows and rumours and finding nothing. Everyone was waiting for the next killing. Everyone knew it wasn’t a matter of whether it happened, but when.
In the office, things went on much the same as usual. The team were slowly grinding through the tedious detail of a proper investigation: the phone records so we knew who was in a particular area and when, the CCTV footage so we could match a suspect with a vehicle and trace their journey via automatic number-plate recognition. Pete Belcott and Dave Kemp and a handful of the others spent hours running through the background of every police officer who had died, looking for connections. It was awkward and difficult and depressing. The victims’ professional past was under scrutiny but so were their personal lives and it was hard not to say the wrong thing when you were dealing with damaged, grief-stricken wives and girlfriends. And it was futile, anyway, I thought. They’d been chosen at random. They’d been easily trapped and showily killed, and it was all about proving a point to Superintendent Charles ‘God’ Godley, but of course no one else knew that and I couldn’t prove it. It would be my word against Godley’s. He was too clever to have left any evidence of what he’d been doing, and he was respected, liked, admired throughout the Met. I was nobody. And a nobody who was widely assumed to be having an affair with the man I was accusing.
So my colleagues kept looking, gathering information and organising it, plodding through paperwork. Racing against time. Waiting. And I hoped against hope that we’d find Tony Larch before anyone else had to die.
I concentrated on the gun that had killed Terence Hammond, trying to trace its journey from Rex Gibney’s garden to Richmond Park. I worked through an endless list of interviews, talking to members of the gun club and their friends. It was tedious but somehow comforting because it was so specific. The gun had existed. It had been used to kill Terence Hammond. It had been in Gibney’s possession before it was stolen. I was determined to follow it from the sticky soil of the vegetable garden to the hands of the person who killed Hammond.
For his part, Godley kept his own counsel. I stayed away from him – I’d said all I had to say. He shut himself in his office for long hours, reading reports. He looked thinner and greyer every day, with circles under his eyes. He was always composed and in command of himself, but the strain was obviously telling on him. I could see into his office from my desk if the blinds were open and I watched him from time to time. When he was on the phone he leaned right back in his chair, sometimes putting one hand over his eyes, as if the effort of sounding calm and confident took all of his energy. More than once I looked away from the window into his office only to meet Derwent’s sharp gaze. Of course I blushed, every time. If there was a way to make myself look more guilty or to confirm Derwent’s worst suspicions, I generally found it. Neither Una Burt nor Derwent had asked me what had happened in Leytonstone, which was a giveaway that they’d both made up their minds about it. I tried not to mind, but I did.
One week exactly after Emma Wells’s murder I walked into the office, shaking the rain off my coat. The contrast between the chill of the evening air and the warmth of the office made my face glow. I put my notes on my desk and stood beside it, peeling off layers of damp clothes.
Colin Vale stopped beside me. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Surrey. Chasing a gun.’
‘Find anything?’
I shook my head. ‘Any news?’
‘Not so far.’
I could have guessed that from the way people were behaving. It was quiet in the office aside from a few murmured conversations and the busy hum of a printer. All around the room, people had their heads down, concentrating, but not with the suppressed excitement I associated with a breaking case. It was the tense determination of prospectors panning for gold, despairing and hoping all at the same time.
I couldn’t sit down among them to write up my latest series of futile interviews. It was altogether too depressing. My hands were freezing and I felt chilled to the core. Tea, I thought, and went out to the kitchen. While I was there, Chris Pettifer came in with one of the newer detectives on the team, Mal Upton. Chris sat down at the small table, his hands behind his head.
‘Make us a cup, would you, love?’
‘You’d be lucky,’ I said, stirring mine to get every possible bit of strength out of the pathetic teabags that were supplied as standard. The leaves looked and tasted like the sweepings off the factory floor.
‘I am lucky. Notoriously so.’ He turned to Mal. ‘One for you, mate?’
‘Yeah, don’t mind if I do.’ Mal sat down on the other side of the table. ‘Two sugars, please. I like my tea as sweet as you are, Maeve.’
I gave him a look for that and got one back that started out as a leer and ended up as panic that I’d think he was serious.
‘All right. But no complaints that it’s too strong.’
‘Make a proper Irish brew, go on.’ Chris was grinning.
I took down mugs from the cupboard and refilled the kettle. ‘English people don’t know how to drink tea. My theory is that they don’t actually like tea. They just like the taste of milk in hot water.’
‘Get her talking about this and she’ll go on all night,’ Chris said to Mal.
‘I was brought up to drink tea that tasted like tea, that’s all.’ I dropped the bags in with a flourish. ‘You’ll notice I never ask you to make me a cup of tea, Chris. Why do you think that is?’
‘Because I make shit tea.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. You, Mal, I don’t know about yet, but I’m guessing you make bad tea too.’
‘Why?’ He looked wounded.
‘Two sugars? You might as well have a Coke and have done with it.’
Mal was new enough to the team that he wanted to get everything right, all the time, and apparently that extended to making hot drinks. ‘Give us a chance.’
‘I might. Maybe. Sometime.’
‘Rather you than me, mate,’ Chris said. ‘I wouldn’t want the pressure.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, it’s just a cup of tea,’ I said. ‘How difficult can it be?’
‘Very, apparently.’ Mal was looking daunted.
‘Don’t intimidate the new boy, Maeve,’ Chris said. ‘Give him a chance to find his feet first.’
‘I’m not that intimidating,’ I said. ‘I’m not intimidating at all.’
There was a short silence broken only by the kettle coming to the boil. I poured the water in and turned to face them. ‘Am I intimidating?’
Chris held up his
finger and thumb an inch or so apart. ‘Little bit.’
‘I wouldn’t have said so,’ Mal said quickly. ‘Impressive is the word I’d have used.’
‘Thanks, Mal.’
‘Smooth.’ Chris’s expression was pure disgust.
‘I’m just saying it as I see it.’
Eventually I left them to their tea and bickering. I was still smiling when I went back into the office, carrying my mug. As I walked in, I saw Derwent leaning over Dave Kemp’s desk, talking to him in a low voice. His forehead was creased with worry. He glanced up and saw me, then straightened up.
‘Kerrigan.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Where’s your bloke working at the moment?’
It wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I blinked, trying to remember at the same time as I was wondering why he wanted to know. The handle of the mug slipped a little so my fingers touched the hot china and I twisted to put it down on the nearest desk.
‘I don’t know. Somewhere south of the river, I think. Bexley?’
Derwent didn’t reply and I glanced up, surprised, to see from his face that it was the wrong answer. Before he could say anything, Godley hurried out of his office.
‘Have we got confirmation?’
Kemp looked up. He had his phone clamped to his ear. ‘Just waiting to hear, boss.’
Godley swore, and even though it was under his breath I was shocked.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked Derwent.
‘We don’t know for sure yet.’
‘Well, what do we think has happened?’
‘Just wait.’
‘Sir—’
Derwent stopped me with an impatient hand waved in my direction. He was focused on Dave Kemp’s face, as was Godley, so I looked at Dave too. He was listening to something carefully, his pen racing across the paper in front of him as he took down the details.
‘Right. Right. Okay. So that’s confirmed. And do we know the identity of the victim?’
I looked back to Godley to see his shoulders slump. He leaned back against the doorframe behind him as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up.