‘Arthur, your crazy warlock-academic or whatever he calls himself is not involved in this.’
‘You don’t know that,’ said Bryant. ‘This could all be part of his grand design.’
‘There are only three motives for murder,’ said May. ‘Sex, money and revenge.’
‘That’s not true. He has a fourth, the oldest motive of all. Power. I think he wants control of the city.’
‘What, you reckon he’s behind all this, manipulating everyone for the sole purpose of destroying you? I don’t even know how to respond to that, although the phrase “paranoid delusion” springs to mind.’
‘He doesn’t want to destroy us, merely bypass us. He’s after something bigger.’
May shook the idea from his head. ‘I can’t listen to you any more, Arthur. This is arrant nonsense. Don’t you see? He’s wormed his way inside your brain with all these phone calls and notes and predictions. You can make people believe in all kinds of rubbish just by nagging away at them and undermining their confidence.’ He leaned forward and looked hard into Bryant’s eyes. ‘You know what I understand least about you? You don’t believe in God, yet you’re always ready to believe in the Devil. Well, you can’t have one without the other. Belief or disbelief, which is it to be?’
‘Disbelief,’ said Bryant softly, but he didn’t sound as if he meant it.
30
STRESS FRACTURE
Longbright sat in the waiting room of the dental surgery in Cowcross Street reading a two-month-old copy of Hello! magazine. When Sennen Renfield emerged she hooked her finger in her mouth to reveal a neat white filling, then waited patiently for Longbright’s explanation.
‘He’s always got an excuse,’ she huffed. ‘He shouldn’t have offered if he wasn’t going to come. I didn’t need to be collected. I can get home by myself; I’m not useless.’
‘Nobody’s saying you are, Sennen. Jack needed to take his car battery to a garage. We have to take time off in turns. Your father has a very demanding job, and he’s having to put in very long hours.’
‘Yeah, I know all about it. Can we go and get noodles?’
‘What do you mean, you know all about it?’
‘I go to Albany, don’t I? Shirone Estanza is in my class and Martin Wallace is in the same year but only just, because of his birthday. Romain was as well.’
It hadn’t occurred to Longbright that the children of those involved might all know each other, but it was hardly surprising, considering there were probably only two secondary schools in the neighbourhood.
‘Are you all friends, then?’ she asked.
‘Not really. I’m mates with Shirone. We see Martin around. He doesn’t notice me but I think he likes her. He always seems to turn up at break time. He asked her out once but Shirone unfriended him on Facebook because he posted a photo of her; she liked Romain a lot. She’s been very upset since he died.’
As they headed down into the street, an idea occurred to Longbright. Bryant had a habit of using outsiders to help him gather information in investigations. ‘Do you know Martin Wallace well enough to talk to him?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Could you find out how his mother is?’
‘Why?’
‘If I tell you something, how do I know you’ll keep it to yourself?’
Sennen gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘I’m my father’s daughter,’ she said. ‘You know what he’s like, right?’
Longbright was all too aware of Jack’s clam-like qualities. She decided to take a chance. ‘Mrs Wallace went around to one of her husband’s old clients and threatened him. And we think she might have followed Shirone Estanza home and stayed outside her flat one evening, keeping a watch on her.’
‘I’ve met her at school – she’s a miserable cow. But why would she act like a stalker?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps she blames Shirone for what happened to her husband in some way. It occurred to me that she might think Shirone was involved in what happened at St George’s Gardens that night.’
‘Shirone definitely encouraged Romain to go to the Scala club. He didn’t want to because he knew her brothers were going to be there.’
‘So,’ said Longbright. ‘Could you do a little undercover work for me?’
‘You want me to spy on my friends?’
‘No, not at all. I’m not looking to get anyone in trouble. It’s just that sometimes young people don’t feel comfortable talking to older people. There might be things they don’t want to mention to us because they’re worried we’ll get the wrong idea or it’ll make them look silly. That’s the last thing we want to do. No one would know the information came from you. Your friends would be protected, and it could help us get a handle on this whole thing, because frankly we’re not getting on too well by ourselves.’
Sennen was clearly excited by the prospect of helping. ‘What do you want to know?’
They stopped at the kerb, and Longbright turned to Sennen. ‘I want to know what Martin Wallace thinks his mother was doing. Just keep your ear to the ground. You may find out things I never could.’
‘I’d only do it to help them, not hurt them.’
‘I give you my word, Sennen, I only want to get them cleared from our inquiries so that we can concentrate on getting to the truth.’
After a minute of silence, Sennen looked at her and gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Later, Longbright realized it was one of the biggest mistakes she’d ever made.
‘That crazy woman is outside again,’ said Irina Cope. ‘Take a look.’
Krishna Jhadav pulled back the kitchen curtain of the house on Ensign Street. There at the kerb, with the engine idling, he could plainly see the old blue Renault, and Mrs Wallace seated behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. Her features were expressionless. She looked as bored as a taxi driver waiting for a passenger to sort out change.
‘She’s not well,’ said Jhadav. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘You have to go and say something to her. She can’t just hang around outside all day. Last week she nearly dropped a planter on you. God knows what she’ll try to do next.’
‘You don’t know that,’ said Jhadav. ‘You didn’t see anyone up on the balcony.’
Irina was really angry now; why did he always refuse to believe her? She snatched back the curtain. ‘Look at her, Krishna. You’ve met her socially, you know what she looks like, and that’s the woman who followed me from the shops three days running, swearing at me under her breath. She thinks her husband killed himself because of you!’
‘Maybe he did,’ said Jhadav. ‘I took the account away because he started crying in a board meeting, can you believe that? He told me his bank was refusing to extend his credit lines, but is that my fault? It obviously all got too much for him.’
‘What matters is that she’s decided you’re culpable, and you don’t know what she might do next. She’s under the kind of stress that makes people act crazy. And I’m just as much at risk as you.’
‘All right, I’ll go down and talk to her.’
‘Be careful, Krishna.’
Jhadav turned back and kissed her on the forehead. ‘She’s in a weird place right now, but what is she really going to do? You think she’s packing a shotgun?’ It was still raining, so he put on a jacket and ran downstairs.
Mrs Wallace remained motionless as she watched him approach. Jhadav knocked on her window and made a turning motion. Eventually she let the glass down an inch. She was wearing the kind of clothes you slipped into on a rainy Sunday when you had no intention of going out. Looking in he could see that her feet were encased in tartan slippers.
‘What are you doing here, Mrs Wallace?’ he asked.
She glanced at him briefly, then stared ahead through the windscreen once more. ‘You know very well.’
‘You can’t stay outside the house. My girlfriend’s upstairs and she’s very upset with you. She’s taken pictures of your car. She’ll take them to the police if y
ou don’t go away and leave her alone.’
‘I’m the one who’s been left alone,’ she said finally. ‘I’m the one whose husband is dead because of you.’
‘I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. Your husband lost our account because he was unstable, he was a nightmare in meetings and he reeked of alcohol first thing in the morning. He couldn’t do his job, so we didn’t renew his contract.’
‘That’s not true, and you know it. It was you who put him under so much pressure in the first place.’
‘I think you need to see a doctor,’ said Jhadav, leaning down to the window to address her directly. ‘If you don’t get help, and if you don’t stay away from us, I’ll get someone to take care of you. But right now you need to get away from outside my house before I call the police.’
It happened in the blink of an eye. She grabbed his tie, twisting it around her fist, and put her foot on the accelerator, swinging the wheel with her free hand, tearing away from the kerb.
Caught by surprise, Jhadav was pulled to his knees and dragged along the tarmac. The knot on his tie slipped tighter and her grip on the fabric remained fierce, so that he could not breathe or free himself.
A van was approaching from the opposite direction and she swung the vehicle to the right. Jhadav was caught between the driver’s door of the Renault and the cars parked at the kerb. Door handles and wheel arches tore at his clothes. His legs swung wide. One shoe lost its sole. He tried to get his fingers under the tie.
He realized that she wasn’t going to stop, and fought back. The tarmac burned through his jeans and bit into the flesh on his kneecaps. He knew that if she swerved hard again he would be crushed to death by the parked vehicles.
As he screamed, she seemed to snap out of her trance and suddenly released the tie. Her car shot forward, slewed to the right and collided with a Mercedes parked on the other side of the road.
As Jhadav yelled and rolled across the wet tarmac, bloodied and torn, Mrs Wallace collapsed on the steering wheel and began to sob.
31
CONTAMINATION
‘I’m not going to press charges,’ said Jhadav, examining the white square of tape on his elbow. ‘I wouldn’t mind some new clothes, though.’
He was seated with Longbright in the busy coffee shop of St Bart’s Hospital. The knees of his jeans and both elbows of his blue suit jacket were torn open. Both his kneecaps had been bandaged. There was a livid scarlet cut across the bridge of his nose that gave him an aura of toughness.
He had been kept in until the examining doctor could ensure that there was nothing seriously wrong with him. After making his rounds and prodding his patient in the ribs a few times, the doctor had handed him a release form and told him to report any severe headaches or sudden changes in his condition.
‘I mean, what’s the point?’ said Jhadav. ‘She’s clearly unbalanced. I’d only be making matters worse for everyone.’
‘Did you talk to Miss Cope about your decision?’
‘No, she been upset enough in the last few days.’
‘Very well,’ said Longbright, ‘but I have to advise you that as a police case number was issued, Mrs Wallace will be required to undergo psychiatric assessment and charges arising from the assault may still stand.’
‘She lost her husband,’ said Jhadav heatedly, ‘she has every right to be angry. She looked around for someone to blame and found me, and that’s the end of it. Just so long as you keep her away from us.’
‘There’s no question of the situation arising again,’ said Longbright. ‘I’m just sorry it got this far. We should have acted earlier.’ Jhadav’s attitude puzzled her. He didn’t seem the easily forgiving type. His girlfriend had been threatened and he had nearly been killed, yet he just wanted the police to leave him alone. She saw this kind of behaviour all the time when villains were involved, but Jhadav was a white-collar worker with only a tangential connection to the case.
As she took her leave, she decided to dig a little more deeply into his background. But first, she needed to summon Vanessa Wallace and threaten her with the spectre of a jail sentence. While she did so, the lads could check her vehicle for signs of any other contact with pedestrians. After all, someone had run down Romain Curtis in what could have been a similar fit of road rage.
Bryant sat in on the interview but left the questions to Longbright, knowing that women always responded better to the detective sergeant. Mrs Wallace looked as if she was still in shock.
‘Have you been seen by a doctor?’ Longbright asked.
‘Yes. He gave me some of these.’ Mrs Wallace looked tired and resigned. She took a foil panel of small blue pills from her handbag and held them up. ‘Diazepam. I think they’re meant to reduce anxiety.’
‘You understand the seriousness of what you did?’ asked Longbright.
‘I understand that I lost my temper, yes. I obviously don’t know my own strength.’ She held Longbright’s gaze in defiance.
‘You could have killed him.’
‘Then we’d be equal, wouldn’t we?’
‘Krishna Jhadav was not responsible for your husband’s suicide, Mrs Wallace.’
‘Of course I’d expect you to say that. He’s Indian. You have to be seen to be taking his side. Political correctness.’ She turned her head aside and stared angrily at the wall.
‘There’s a difference between political correctness and racism,’ Bryant interrupted. ‘His background has nothing to do with Detective Sergeant Longbright’s question.’
‘Mr Jhadav’s girlfriend says you followed her,’ Longbright pointed out, ‘and that you dropped a plant pot on him.’
‘I didn’t mean for the plant pot to fall. That was an accident. My arm caught it.’
‘What were you doing on the upstairs balcony? How did you get up there?’
‘I rang the doorbell and they let me in. A couple of Chinese students. They didn’t seem to speak any English so I just walked past them.’
‘I don’t understand. What on earth did you expect to achieve?’
‘I wanted to hear him say it. That he was guilty. I wanted to force the words out of his mouth.’ She looked off into the distance, as if wishing she was far away and all this was long over.
That was the point at which Bryant would have allowed his impatience to get the better of him. Luckily, Longbright was made of sterner stuff. ‘Mr Jhadav was doing a job that required him to keep his company’s best interests at heart,’ she said. ‘He acted within his rights.’
‘It wasn’t my husband’s job to be the reluctant keeper of all his dirty little secrets,’ said Mrs Wallace furiously. ‘When you’re next called upon to champion Mr Jhadav, take a look into his company and see what Defluotech Management Systems get up to. Don’t bother searching their website, though, that’s just full of jargon. Oh, and I seem to remember there’s a nice picture of children playing in a field of daisies. Google the company name instead and follow a few of the links back to his factories outside Mumbai. See what the brokering of toxic chemicals and rotting animal parts actually involves. Then ask yourself: If I became the unwilling repository of illegal information, how would I ever live with myself?’
‘You’re saying that your husband was forced into an untenable position because he was made privy to details of Defluotech’s business practices?’ asked Bryant.
‘I’m saying they filled rivers with dead pigs in India and poisoned an entire town,’ said Mrs Wallace, as if talking to a child. ‘They told my husband to help them hide the evidence and bury the legal problems. And when he said he wasn’t prepared to become part of a cover-up, they snatched the account away overnight, and took all their files back.’
‘You think there was evidence of irregularities in those files?’
Mrs Wallace suddenly appeared less certain. ‘I don’t know. Probably. There must have been. I never read them. You have to understand that there were contracts that ran to hundreds of pages. They’re designed not to be understood
by a layman.’
‘And your husband returned everything that pertained to the company?’
‘Every last damned thing, and he was glad to be rid of it all.’
Longbright tapped her notes with a pen. ‘But Mr Jhadav says your husband retained his private account.’
‘Not any more. I returned that, too, when I cleared out Thomas’s personal effects. I wanted nothing from that man contaminating my house.’ Her voice hardened. ‘How do you think I felt when I saw my husband being torn up inside because of his job? When I watched him night after night, sitting at his desk in tears? Knowing that there was nothing I could do to help?’
‘But if your husband felt that strongly, surely he would have—’ Bryant began.
‘I think we’ll leave it there for today,’ said Longbright, throwing him a warning glance. ‘Thank you, Mrs Wallace, we’ll be in touch.’
‘Contamination,’ said Bryant that evening. He was sitting in his favourite armchair, an overstuffed Victorian horror of maroon and lime brocade that he had been carting from one London home to another for most of his life.
‘You’ll get lost in that dreadful old thing,’ said Alma, looking up from her knitting.
‘Yes, I’m shrinking.’
‘I’m going to come in one evening and find you’ve slipped down the back of it and suffocated to death.’
‘Why is everybody talking about my imminent demise all of a sudden?’ Bryant exclaimed.
‘You’re the one who’s usually talking about death. Anyway, what do you mean, contamination? Have you been mixing up chemicals in your bedroom again?’
‘No, I’m talking about spiritual harm. Do you believe there is such a thing?’
Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart Page 22