by Adam Creed
‘There’s lots we could all be called to answer for. Will’s not one I’d be ashamed of.’ He looks at Staffe. ‘Not when I knew him, anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Staffe.
‘I hear things. Like that last case.’
‘Golding? He’s guilty,’ says Staffe, indignant.
‘I’m sure he is, Will. I’m sure he is.’ Jessop smiles and reaches out, places a big hand on Staffe’s shoulder and squeezes it. ‘We have to uphold the law. That’s all we have to do.’
‘We have to go,’ says Staffe and as they make their way down the stairs, through the blare and aroma of ragga and crackpipes, Staffe says, ‘Nice move. Catching him about VABBA, like that.’
‘Deception is nothing to be proud of,’ she says.
Staffe’s phone goes and he sees it is Leadengate.
‘I’ve checked out Greta Kashell’s alibis,’ says Pulford. ‘She’s clean as a whistle.’
‘Good,’ says Staffe.
‘It’s weird, isn’t it, sir. A case where you don’t want to catch a break.’
When they get to the Villiers estate, Josie looks around, says, ‘You can never know what goes on in these estates. So many doors and windows and secrets.’
Staffe reaches on the back seat for the Tesco Metro bag – fast goodies he picked up en route.
‘What is all that stuff?’
‘Just repaying a favour.’
‘You really think Tyrone could have done for Montefiore?’
‘He’s a better prospect than Sally. I can’t see her thinking up how to rig those ropes.’
Sally lets them in. She looks wasted and slopes off into her bedroom, doesn’t even look at the warrant that Staffe shows her. Tyrone is propped up with cushions in front of the widescreen. There’s a tin of corned beef on the coffee table in front of him, half eaten with a fork sticking out of the pink and brown meat.
He looks up at Staffe and Josie as if he’s never seen them before and flicks from one channel to another, to another.
‘We’ve come to have a look round,’ says Staffe. He shows the warrant but Tyrone doesn’t look away from the screen.
Staffe knows what he’s looking for and goes straight to the kitchen drawers. There, exactly where it was, is the dog-eared leaflet. There’s no address, no meeting time, no contact name, just the same 0207 telephone number as on Greta Kashell’s database. He takes out a plastic bag and tags the leaflet. While Josie looks in the cabinets in the lounge and goes in to have a look round Sally’s bedroom, Staffe unpacks the Tesco bag and finds a bowl. He combines two tablespoons of mayo, a squirt of ketchup and the king prawns, then butters four rounds of the wholemeal bread. He constructs the sandwich and cuts the crusts off, slices them into triangles and arranges them neatly on a plate before washing up after him. When he throws the packaging away, he sees a syringe in the bin under the sink and it makes his heart shrink.
*******
It is Saturday afternoon and London has come out to play. The 4 × 4s are cruising up and down Clapham High Street and the tables outside the cafés and bars are teeming. It seems for all the world as though there is nothing to get hung about. Debra Bowker will be touching down at Heathrow soon. She is being met by Pulford and will be available for interview within a couple of hours. As he weaves his way to Leadengate, Staffe’s phone goes again.
‘Staffe?’ says Jombaugh.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m afraid there’s some bad news. Gloucester Road nick have been on. Your flat has been broken into. They’ve not taken anything, but I think you should take a look. There’s some … they’ve written something. It’s on the walls and the officers who went round say they reckon it’s been written in blood.’
Staffe punches the steering wheel and switches lanes, takes the first left he can back towards the north side of the Common. As he drives as fast as he can to Queens Terrace, he thinks about what Jessop said about upholding the law, about Sohan Kelly being ‘taken care of’ by Pennington.
The main door is undamaged and the uniformed officer tells him that access into the building was gained by someone who must have a key. He’s spoken to all the other residents and one of them had a briefcase stolen on Wednesday. There might have been a spare key in the case.
When he gets to the door to his flat, the frame is splintered all around the lock and the officer sucks his teeth as if to say ‘You should know better, sir. You should at least have a double lock.’ Going into the lounge, there is no sign of a break-in and it’s the same in the kitchen. The only evidence of an intruder is saved for the bedroom wall. There, above the bed, is written in red:
done soon. over to you
*******
Errol Regis sits at the small, Formica-topped table in his kitchen. Out the back he can see the cloudless blue of the City sky. The willow tree in the yard somehow flourishes. It has dusty trumpets of dirty white bloom and he can’t remember it being there before he was sent down, can’t remember much of how it used to be before the police came knocking that day, accusing him of interfering with poor Martha Spears. And then came the evidence – from God knows where.
A pile of letters are on the table. Most are from his various solicitors. Theresa’s letters petered out soon after her visits did. She made her last visit the day after he wrote to tell her his appeal had been turned down. It seems she had more faith in the law than she did in her husband.
He goes into the cupboard under the stairs and finds an old can of lighter fluid, sticks it into the back of his jeans which are too baggy for him now. He gathers together the letters and slips into the yard, looking left and right as he goes. It feels strange to be living your life in open view of people you don’t know. In jail, everyone’s in the same boat. Here, it seems so random, the people you rub your life against. He makes a pile of the letters in the grid by the back door, figures that if it makes too much smoke he can always pour water on it. He squirts the lighter fluid on the papers, strikes a match and drops it, watches it go with a whoosh!
Errol feels a lump inside him melt. It rises up from his belly into his throat. It spreads into his lungs. He struggles to catch his breath and then he begins to wail. He cries like a child who doesn’t really know what it’s screaming for, just that something it desperately needs is missing from its life.
The sun has dropped below the high fence and somebody in one of the neighbouring yards calls through to ask what’s wrong. Soon after, someone from an upstairs window shouts for him to shut the fuck up and Errol Regis, as has become his wont, does as he is told and takes it inside.
*******
‘This sounds like an accusation, sir,’ says Staffe.
Pennington is sitting in Staffe’s chair. Staffe stands, hands in his pockets, like an errant schoolboy.
‘You’re tied up in all this more than is healthy for any of us. First, they call you at home when they’ve tortured Montefiore. You shouldn’t have gone in on your own, but you did. And there’s the cryptic messages on those photographs. You started grubbing around in the Stensson case and checking up on Jessop. And now your flat is broken into with a message daubed in blood. And there was your car, too.’
‘How did you know about that?’
‘Who exactly is this case about, Staffe?’
‘It was sheep’s blood, sir.’
‘So bloody what? Whether you like it or not, you’re involved. You’re personally involved.’
‘I’m leading the investigation. This is all about the investigation. It goes back to when Lotte Stensson was killed. That was when Karl Colquhoun was accused of messing with his kids. It was when Guy Montefiore assaulted Sally Watkins. And I’ll wager that it was when VABBA was set up.’
‘I’ve had over a dozen cases of people on the sex offenders’ register being hounded out of their homes. I’ve got two of the thugs downstairs. And Karl Colquhoun was killed this week, not three years ago, if it’s slipped your mind.’
‘I’m right, sir! I’d stake my …’
; ‘Your reputation, Staffe? I hope you’ve got more than you’re telling me. I’m glad it’s not my reputation.’
‘I’ve tracked down the property that VABBA used to operate from. And Debra Bowker’s in the country. She’s on her way from Heathrow.’
‘She was out of the country when her husband was murdered, for God’s sake.’
‘You said I could have a week. You gave me your word.’
Pennington leans back in the captain’s chair, puts his hands behind his head. ‘There’s something else, Will.’ He gives Staffe a doleful smile.
‘What is it?’ Staffe feels tight in the stomach.
‘The Police Complaints Authority have opened a file on that young scrote’s allegation the other night.’
‘The e.Gang? You know that’s a load of crap.’
‘We have to go through due process.’ Pennington stands up.
‘Because of Sohan Kelly.’
He walks past Staffe. ‘Three days, Will. I gave the commissioner my word. You want me to keep my word, don’t you?’ As he leaves the room, he hands Staffe a ten-pound note. ‘That’s for getting Debra Bowker over here. Don’t say I’m not a man of my word.’
Pennington has left his residue on and around the chair. Not unpleasant, just the smell of another. Staffe opens the window and rings through to Johnson for the trace on the VABBA number. ‘The line was disconnected two and a half years ago, sir.’
‘Find out who the freeholder is and check the tenancies in that building over the last three years.’ He’s about to ask Johnson how he is faring when the buzzer goes.
Pulford says, ‘We’re back, sir. I’ve got Debra Bowker here. Just giving her a sandwich and a cup of tea.’
Staffe clicks Johnson off and says to Pulford, ‘Take her to interview room three when I say so. Get Josie to stay with her in the meantime, and make sure everyone’s got their kid gloves on.’
‘Stan Buchanan’s the duty solicitor.’
‘He’s got a conflict of interest. He represented Leanne Colquhoun.’
‘He says the charges against Leanne have been dropped. He’s not budging, sir.’
‘I’m coming down.’ As he makes his way downstairs, Staffe visualises Debra Bowker and the things she might be capable of.
He has to go into reception and out the other side to get to the interview suites. As he does so, he clocks the familiar shape of a man being processed by Jombaugh. The man sneaks a peek at him, pretending to scratch his ear and the instant he turns away, the penny drops.
It is Ross Denness, the very man who, in the Ragamuffin pub, told Staffe that Colquhoun had got what was coming. And now, Debra Bowker – who had left the country because of Karl’s derelictions against her kids – and Ross Denness are in Leadengate nick at the same time.
Staffe goes straight on through to room 3, which is empty, and he calls Jombaugh. ‘Don’t say my name, Jom. Just tell me what charge code you’ve got on those two in reception.’
‘It’s a section 43, sir.’
‘On a sex offender, just say yes or no.’
‘Yes.’
‘Under no circumstances whatsoever is Ross Denness to be released. And get him out of reception. Quick!’
‘Debra? Take a seat,’ says Staffe, taken aback by Debra Bowker. She has the permatan he expected, but almost everything else disarms him. She is wearing a smart cream suit with a mid-thigh skirt and her hair is shiny and straight – a hundred quid cut is his guess. She has perfect teeth and her skin looks in good nick, despite the sun. ‘This is my colleague, DC Josie Chancellor.’ The women nod and exchange thin smiles.
‘I’ve seen the News. Looks like that alley cat hasn’t changed her spots. Leanne always would turn a trick for a couple of quid,’ says Debra Bowker, her East End accent stretched to the breaking point of how posh it can go.
‘Let them ask the questions, Mrs Bowker,’ says Stanley Buchanan. ‘And refer to me before you answer.’
She turns, slowly, to face Buchanan. ‘I have nothing to hide, Mr Buchanan. I volunteered to come here and if it is all right with you, I’ll tell the truth.’
‘Of course we tell the truth, Mrs Bowker.’
‘It’s “Miss”.’
‘Of course,’ says Buchanan.
‘When did you drop the Colquhoun name, Debra?’ says Staffe.
‘The day I kicked him out.’
‘And you got a new passport, I dare say.’
She takes out her passport and shows it to Staffe. He takes it and smiles, flicks to the back page and notes that the passport replaced a stolen one. He makes a written note of the missing passport’s number. As he hands it back, he sees Stanley Buchanan beginning to fret, so he hits them with it. ‘Your other passport wasn’t stolen, was it, Debra?’
‘I never said it was.’
‘Aah. Never mind.’
‘Never mind what?’
‘That you just said you were here to tell the truth and that you told the passport officials your Colquhoun passport was stolen. And you told us you hadn’t been back to England since you left. Yet Budjet Air had a Debra Colquhoun on one of their flights this April. And she stayed ten days.’
Debra Bowker smiles at Staffe. ‘I found the passport and never thought anything of it but then I got the chance of a cheap flight. I keep all my valuables in a safety deposit box over there and it was a Sunday. I couldn’t get to my new passport.’ She doesn’t blink, she doesn’t look away. Her voice is calm and unwavering. ‘I’m sure you can check that it was booked on a Sunday.’
‘You seemed to loathe the name so much, though, Miss Bowker.’
‘I loathe him enough for a name to mean nothing. I changed the name for my children.’
‘Why lie to us when we asked you if you had been back to England.’
‘Because I knew it would bring you back snooping. I soon realised it was naive of me to imagine you wouldn’t get your nails in a little deeper. It was an error.’
‘Do you drink, Debra?’ says Josie.
‘A little too much, probably.’
‘And did that cause you any problems, when you and Karl were together?’
‘He caused me enough problems. A few too many glasses of vodka doesn’t count when you look at what he did to my children.’
‘Did you drink to get at him, to damage him?’
Debra Bowker looks at Stanley then quickly away. Stanley says, ‘I hardly see why you’re wasting my client’s time with this.’
‘You know about Karl, the way his father used to beat him. The other things he did to Karl.’
‘You’re not going to get me to feel sorry for him.’
‘The things he did to your children, who can blame you if you tortured him.’
‘Torture?’
‘You said you took the children away as soon as you found out, Debra,’ says Staffe.
‘Of course. And you lot did nothing. Nothing!’
Josie says, ‘But that wasn’t the start of the bad times between you two? Not if you were drinking and he hated it so much.’
‘It’s no mystery that if I hadn’t got pregnant, me and him would never have been together. It was a mistake.’
‘Two mistakes.’
‘I tried to make us a family. I tried to make the best of a bad job.’
Staffe scribbles a note and slips it to Josie. Get Denness and sit him outside. He waits for her to go and says, ‘We’re nearly done, Debra. I know you weren’t happy with the way the allegations against Karl were dealt with by the police and the CPS. However, we’re trying to do our jobs as well as we can and there have been other incidents drawn to our attention.’
‘That poor Watkins girl. I read it in the News on the way over here. Let’s hope that bastard Montefiore gets what’s coming properly this time.’
‘Tell me about VABBA, Debra.’
Without the faintest hesitation or flicker, Debra Bowker says, ‘It didn’t work. For me, it made things worse, getting together with people who just wanted to keep going over a
nd over the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. They were hooked, some of them. They let the grieving replace what they loved. That’s no way to carry on.’
‘Can you remember who went to VABBA?’
‘A whole bunch of people who got more and more into that victim “thing”.’ She makes speech marks in the air and shrugs.
‘Specific people, Debra.’
‘It was a while ago. There were only one or two I ever got on with. One was a man, funnily enough. Tyrone. That’s Sally Watkins’s dad. He was in bits, poor soul. Like me, he was trying to put it behind him.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘A woman called Delilah. I forget her surname but she was a black lady. A real lady.’
‘Why was she there? How had she suffered?’
‘Her daughter was raped. Poor Delilah. She wanted to go out and kill the bastards. That’s why I left, truth be known. I’d’ve ended up doing time when it should have been him.’
‘But you couldn’t have killed Karl, could you, Debra?’
She smiles. ‘If only I could have been there.’
Staffe thinks, If only someone had videoed it! ‘Would you have paid someone to kill him, Debra?’
‘Maybe,’ says Debra.
‘Miss Bowker!’ says Stanley.
‘To stop him doing it again?’
‘That was Leanne’s problem. I told her, what more could I do?’
‘Why do you hate her so much?’
‘He’d been seeing her for two years while he was still with me. He was lining up her kids while mine were getting bigger. When I found out about, you know, what he did to Kimberley, I told Leanne and she told me to “piss off”.’
‘You must have dreamt of getting back at him,’ says Staffe as there is a tap on the door and Josie sidles in.
‘And ruin my children’s lives more? I’ve found better things to do than having that dirty bastard get his comeuppance.’
‘Thanks, Debra. We might want another word while you’re here. We really appreciate you coming in.’
‘That’s it?’