by Adam Creed
She shakes her head, says nothing and nods towards a door. Two uniformed officers are standing by it. Their faces are ashen. These are men who’ve seen most of the worst that London can muster.
‘I’ll take a look. You can talk me through it in a minute, hey?’ he says, putting a hand on her shoulder. He lets it rest, comfortable. He takes a step towards her, whispers into her hair, ‘Take your time.’
‘Thanks, Staffe. I’ll be all right in a minute.’
He runs his hand down her back, feels the hollow of its small with the ball of his thumb. He smiles. Her eyes go soft, damp and they each remember a happy time that should have lasted longer. Staffe remembers her eyes, wild and wide, the unlikely words that came out of her thin mouth.
‘Staffe,’ she says.
‘Yes.’
She takes a hold of his hand, looking around to make sure they’re not seen. ‘Nothing.’ She squeezes his hand.
Staffe takes a deep one, makes his way in.
‘Where is Pulford?’
‘He’s gone back to the station. It hit him hard, poor love.’ She says it without irony.
‘It’s not his first.’
‘You’ll see when you get there.’
Everywhere, there are signs that the usual people have attended to the usual necessaries. The evidence is bagged and sitting on the plastic-looking oval dining table. But nobody’s here. No one’s stayed longer than necessary.
A brown Formica display unit matches the dining table. Its veneered ply shelves shoulder school pictures of two different kids. The kids aren’t smiling. Most school photographers can cun a smile from the shyest or most miserable of children. And now Staffe feels it. A cold shiver runs up his spine. His scalp pinches. Not a happy home, this. Not by any stretch.
The hallway to the bedrooms is papered with big dark flowers and as he opens the first door the smell hits him. A deep, sweet smell which catches at the top of his throat. He takes a big stride in, clocking the feet splayed at the foot of the bed, trainers still on, a piece of pink gum between heel and sole in the hollow that never rubs clean. Karl Colquhoun’s trousers are ruched round his ankles and a brown crust has formed all around the leg flesh. It spreads on to the unmade bed. Blood, still red, is streaked down Karl’s thighs, thickest around his groin.
Then Staffe sees it. His hand instinctively takes a hold of his mouth and nose. He wants to gag but hears Janine rustling up behind him.
‘The human eyeball is spherical,’ she says. ‘The testicle measures 2.5 centimetres by 5 centimetres but it’s oval. That’s why it’s protruding,’ says Janine. ‘They would have had to sever the optic nerve, which is half a centimetre thick. It would require some kind of blade or a pair of scissors. Same with the vas deferens.’
‘His balls?’
She nods. ‘It would require significant force. A decent blade.’
‘And someone who knew what they were doing?’ Staffe pretends to be observing the body but he focuses on infinity.
‘Either that or a quick learner. A strong stomach, for sure.’
‘Wouldn’t there be two of them – one to hold him down?’
‘We’ll have to wait for the autopsy but my guess is he was paralytic. There’s an empty litre of Scotch by the bed,’ says Janine. She sounds tired. ‘There’s swelling to the jaw, I’d guess it is fractured.’
Staffe forces himself to look back at the body; he needs to see it in situ. He focuses on the man’s face, feeling himself about to heave but he swallows it away and squints. He suddenly feels as if he is connected somehow to this awful situation. He knows this man. He’s sure he does.
He grabs a pair of gloves and pulls them on, goes into the lounge and rummages through the drawers in the sideboard, eventually finds a photograph of Karl Colquhoun. He’s right. This man has been in Staffe’s house. The best part of a year ago, he had gone down to Staffe’s flat in Queens Terrace, South Ken. Not only that, Staffe had made him cups of tea while he repaired the marquetry on a Cobb writing table. Karl Colquhoun did a wonderful job. He was painstaking and uncompromising. A craftsman. You’d think he had something to offer a civilised society.
Staffe goes back to the bedroom and looks down at Karl Colquhoun. The man this happened to, the way they did it …… he is no ordinary victim. Perhaps no kind of victim at all – in some people’s eyes. He turns his back and walks through the flat, nods at the uniformed officer on the door, who says, ‘Sir, shall I lock the place down?’
Staffe nods and thinks of the warmer clime that awaits him with the far older and political crime that killed his parents – supposedly a crime of reason. And he wonders whether that makes it better or worse than the brutal slaying of Karl Colquhoun, no angel, perhaps. Regardless, he’ll chase them down. It’s what he does.
Walking down the stairwell, the sounds of his own footsteps echo against others coming up at him. As he passes them, they look down, and at level two the smell of aerosol paint is thick and new. Even while the police are here, they’re tagging the place. The chemicals catch in his throat and Staffe takes the last few flights two steps at a time and runs out into the courtyard, gulping at the air.
‘Someone’s in a hurry.’
Pennington is leaning against the old Peugeot. He pushes himself off the rusted car and dusts himself down, adjusts the knot of his tie. He looks more like an accountant than a chief inspector. He is wiry, with dark, sheened hair that has more than a hint of Just For Men. As always, he wears a double-breasted suit. He shoots his cuffs. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here, Staffe.’
‘I’m off in the morning, sir. First thing.’
‘Couldn’t resist a look, eh, Inspector?’ Pennington puts a hand on his Seamaster watch, takes a studied look at the time. ‘We can manage without you.’ He fixes Staffe with a lame smile.
‘I just thought, what with Rimmer off on the long sick.’
‘Stress. Ha!’ Pennington looks past Staffe and up, towards the Limekiln tower. He talks as if he is being recorded. ‘Don’t you think that if the word didn’t exist, the condition would never arise.’ He mimics a whine. ‘“I’m all stressed out.”’ He looks straight at Staffe, slit eyes. ‘Well, everybody’s stressed, unless they do fuck all. It’s what keeps us going. It’s good for us!’
‘Some more than others, perhaps. Sir.’
‘You don’t get stressed, though, do you, Staffe? No chance of that! You get yourself on holiday. How long’s it been? Two years? Longer?’
He nods. ‘You don’t want me to stay, sir?’
‘I’d have thought that with the Golding episode you’d see the advantage in keeping a low profile. A bit of sun on your back.’
‘And what about Sohan Kelly? Will he be feeling the sun on his back? I hear he’s about to be magicked off to India but there’s trouble with his visa.’
‘Kelly’s taken care of. He needn’t concern you.’
‘But he does, sir.’
‘He got us our conviction.’
Staffe feels Kelly’s original statement, safe in his pocket. He wants to know exactly what kind of a hold Pennington has over Sohan – to make him change the evidence the way he did. ‘And what did it get him?’
Pennington gives Staffe a look that could kill. He takes a step closer and lowers his voice. ‘You know that bastard Golding – and all the bastards he runs with – had it coming. And you know that poor sod of a postmaster will be a quivering wreck for all his days. Kelly was your witness, Staffe. Your witness. I’ll get him away from here, don’t you worry. Bloody visas!’
Staffe can’t say anything; can’t remind Pennington it was his idea to conjure up Sohan Kelly. He looks Pennington in the eye. ‘I’ve never believed that ends justify the means, sir.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Staffe’ – Pennington is talking through his teeth now – ‘I’m not going to have another ethical debate. I’m telling you, what’s done is done. And by Christ, justice has been done.’
‘Not my kind of justice, sir.’
�
��There’s no place in Jadus Golding’s world for philosophers. Remember, Golding did it! And what’s more, Wagstaffe, the buck stops with you.’ Pennington jabs a finger at Staffe, pulls himself up short from actually touching the chest.
‘Don’t I know it, sir. Don’t I know it.’
Pennington plays with his cuffs again, calming himself. ‘So. You get yourself off, Staffe. Leave us to take care of this.’ He nods up at the Limekiln tower. ‘It’s a done deal by the looks of things. The wife’s gone missing. Odds on it’s her. Open. Shut.’
‘And if it’s not?’
‘Then we’ll gather the evidence. The way we always do.’
‘You’re short-handed.’
‘There’s always the Met if we’re struggling.’
‘The Met!’
Pennington turns sideways, takes a step away. ‘Get yourself off, Staffe. Trust me, we can survive without you.’
Staffe makes his way into the night. As he walks towards his car, Pennington’s Jag purrs past, red lights fading to nothing and just as he is left all alone, with the Limekiln tower looming like a monster in the dark sky, he hears a bang! And glass falls to ground from the street light above. The street goes dead, dead dark. Staffe stops in his tracks, fears the worst. He clenches his fists in readiness. For what?
He looks behind him and up at the dark tower, then he hears something. He peers into the dark, sees a moving shape by his car. He knows he can’t take a backward step, so he walks slowly towards his car, watching his steps. Catcalls ring out from inside the Limekiln. Dogs bark. Closer, Staffe is sure he can hear breathing, heavy. As he gets to the car he hears something behind him and he spins round, calls out, ‘Who’s there!’ He flicks on his pocket Maglite and casts a sharp beam out into the night. Nothing. He checks up and down the street. When he turns to his car, the beam illuminates a fresh violation. The letter J is key-carved into the car door. ‘J,’ he says aloud. ‘Jadus bloody Golding,’ he whispers to himself.
Opposite, two figures in baseball caps and hoods drawn down, look out at him from a boarded shop doorway. They could be anybody. A car speeds by. Anybody could be in it, carrying anything. In the City, there’s too many people, too many vehicles. The headlight swoop seems to show that the hooded youths in the doorway are smiling.
*******
Back in his suit, Guy Montefiore is inconspicuous. In this part of Fulham the worlds of City and Media rub shoulders with white trash.
He switches back and forth, avoids the one or two streets that butt up from the big estates. He makes the smallest detour to pick up some tonic water from Oddbins and as he comes back out on to the street, a man in a flight jacket on the opposite side of the road turns quickly away. Guy checks around him. It doesn’t feel as if he’s being watched and he knows, as one who watches, what to look for.
He doesn’t have to wait long when he gets to Tanya’s street. Tanya Ford uncouples her arm from her friend and they kiss on both cheeks. Tanya skips up the steps to her tiny townhouse and the door opens before she can knock. She is loved, but she didn’t see Guy. She never does.
Within ten minutes, Guy is delving into his Gieves & Hawkes trouser pocket and sticking his key into a million quids’ worth of late Victorian terraced house. He kicks off his shoes and goes into the study that used to be the family room. He dials Thomasina’s number. As it rings – and usually it rings and rings and rings before she picks up – he tucks the phone into the crook of his shoulder and makes a middling G & T, takes a sip and shoos the cat off his armchair with the tip of a toe.
‘I want to speak to Thomasina,’ he says to the male that answers. Some dirty bastard her mother has dragged home.
‘Is that her dad? They said to say you can’t.’
‘Who are you?’ Guy’s heart goes double fast.
‘Fuck off. I’m her boyfriend.’
‘Her boyfriend? Whose boyfriend? Not Thomasina’s.’
But it’s dead.
Tuesday Morning
Staffe has locked down the Kilburn flat and given Josie a key so she can take in the mail and water the plants.
The Tube doors slide shut and Staffe feels a tiny pocket of emptiness – a single air bubble can close down an entire heating system. Last night, when he got back from the Limekiln estate, visions of Jadus Golding tampered with his sleep again and now he feels tired, shakes open the Guardian, trying to get the mind clean, working in straight lines again, but he sees the front page of somebody else’s News. The headline is:
SELF-HELP MURDER.
He squints at the strapline that runs beneath an old photograph of Karl Colquhoun.
A Crime That’s Not a Crime?
More pages 4 and 5.
He takes a hold of the News and tugs it down to see a wide-eyed young Asian man looking up, afraid. ‘It’s OK. I’m police. Can I borrow your paper?’
The young man nods, folds it neatly and hands it across.
Staffe accepts it, says, ‘Sorry. Here, have this,’ handing him the Guardian.
According to the News, Colquhoun’s murder is a crime of passion. His wife, apparently, has had to give her children up because of what Karl did to his kids from a previous marriage; and if the wife did it, could that make her more saint than sinner? She would be doing society a favour.
Staffe rereads the report but his mind is distracted by the very opposite kind of a killing: as cold-blooded and indiscriminate as they come. He closes his eyes, tries to picture his coming together with Santi Extbatteria in Spain. The train builds speed on its way towards Heathrow as the distance between stations grows. It rocks from side to side and the more Staffe thinks about what happened to his parents, the closer his eyes clench, tight shut. His stomach churns and his mouth slowly fills with fluid. He swallows. He wants to be sick. He wants to get off but knows he can’t.
*******
DCI Pennington scans the room to check on the team at his disposal. The temporary incident room at Leadengate Station is undersized and packed tight. ‘I want you, Johnson, to stay bang on top of this. Report directly to me and keep them at it. With a bit of luck, this should be done and dusted within a week.’ Pennington looks around the room. ‘Where is DS Pulford?’
‘On his PlayStation,’ calls out one of the DCs. The laughter spreads.
‘Very funny. Now, where is he?’
The room falls silent.
‘Well find out. I want everyone keyed into this. Done and dusted, I say. Done and dusted.’
Johnson had been off on the sick for a week but he soon got better when he heard Staffe was on his way to Spain, that Pennington needed someone to ride shotgun. Now, he stands tall, leaning against the open door, red hair receding, his sleeves rolled up showing thick, pale forearms, freckled like a salmon. He is struggling to keep the smile off when he feels a tug on the tail of his jacket.
‘You’re better, Johnson.’
He turns round, hisses, ‘Bloody hell! What are you doing here?’
‘Thought I’d keep an eye out.’
‘You heard the DCI. It’s practically done and dusted.’
‘In which case I can take my leave next week. And anyway, where is Pulford?’ says Staffe, leaning against the far wall, obscured from Pennington’s line of vision.
‘You heard. On his PlayStation.’
‘I know you know, Johnson, so why don’t you just tell me.’
‘He’s chasing down the wife. Leanne Colquhoun.’
‘And he’s taken a counsellor, or at least a WPC?’ says Staffe.
All Johnson can do is shrug.
‘You bloody idiots.’
‘She’s got a sister, down Southend.’
‘And Pulford’s got a warrant?’
Johnson shakes his head, feels like he’s at school again. But just as Staffe prepares to unleash a full onslaught, Johnson sees his attention wane. It’s DI Wagstaffe’s turn to play the schoolboy as Pennington gets wind of him.
‘Staffe!’ booms the DCI. ‘What the hell …’
In Staffe’s office, Pennington stands dead still in front of the window, pushes out his narrow, pigeon chest and furrows his brow. ‘I thought we agreed you should take some time away. Especially after the Golding case.’
‘It can wait, sir.’
‘I had this under control, you know. I told you – we can survive without you.’
Staffe wants to say, I know your game. You’re pushing for commissioner and if you can put a front-page crime to bed without your senior DI then that’s all to the good. You ambitious bastard! But all he says is, ‘I know, sir.’ He remembers the first time he ever met Pennington. Staffe was a DC and had just been taken under DS Jessop’s hard-nosed wing. Jessop and Pennington had both gone for the DI post and Pennington had won. His knife was sharper. Jessop and Staffe would be together for fifteen years and even though Jessop made DI, Pennington would always be a step ahead.
Pennington turns his back, signifying their meeting is over, and Staffe’s heart sinks as he reminds himself that Pulford has gone chasing after their only suspect without any backup. All he can hope is that Pulford draws a blank.
*******
DS David Pulford puts the unmarked Vectra through its paces, driving it a gear higher than you’d drive your own as he cuts down off the A127, following the estuary alongside the reclaimed land they’ve taken from silt to make money.
He tries not to think of the bollocking he might get, for not waiting for the warrant. He left a message for Carly Kellerman, Leanne Colquhoun’s caseworker, and then had driven out of London as though it was he who was fleeing the scene, not Leanne Colquhoun. Nobody had seen Leanne come home to the Limekiln from her job at Surrey Racing, but around six thirty she had run off the estate screaming like a banshee.
From what Pulford has gleaned so far about Karl Colquhoun, he’s led the kind of life that takes the ‘victim’ out of ‘murder victim’. ‘Give the wife a medal not a prison sentence. What’s a mother to do, to protect her kids?’ – is the way it sounds to most.