by Adam Creed
‘Quite the philosopher, aren’t you?’ Kashell is propped up in bed, his head on plumped pillows and a half-drunk glass of blackcurrant juice on the bedside table. A CCTV camera is fixed to the ceiling.
‘Or maybe I should be asking these questions of the person who actually killed Lotte Stensson.’
‘You are.’
‘Last time we talked you wished you could bring her back.’
Kashell has a picture of Nicoletta next to the glass of juice. She smiles out at them. Looking at the picture, he says, ‘It can’t be right – to make yourselves as bad as the people who do the bad things.’
‘You’re not a bad man, Nico. And that’s the problem.’ Staffe thinks about what he has heard. ‘Yourselves.’ Not ‘yourself’.
Kashell looks down at his bandaged wrists. His jaw goes weak and his bottom lip trembles. It seems as though he has to summon a last drop to raise his eyes. His voice is weak. ‘If there is a loving God, he must love the badness in us, just as much as the goodness. How can we live in such a world?’
‘Who is J, Nico?’
‘What you talking about?’
‘Someone you might have paid, to help you.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘There were no signs of a forced entry to Stensson’s house. It was a professional job, or someone she knew, someone she trusted. You didn’t know her, did you, Nico? How did you restrain her?’
‘She’s a woman.’
‘Did you tie her up?’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Where did you get the chloroform from, Nico?’
‘Shut up!’
‘And the hammer? Which hand did you start on?’
‘Nurse!’
‘It’s OK, Nico.’ A nurse appears in the doorway and Staffe stands up. ‘It’s OK,’ he says to the nurse. He waits for her to come forward, to stop him upsetting her patient any more, but she doesn’t. Instead she crosses her arms under her breasts and nods her head, mouths the words, ‘Go on.’
‘It doesn’t make you a bad man, to have not killed her. It doesn’t make you a better man to be in here, doing someone else’s time. You have to be with your daughter. Don’t you think she needs you?’ Kashell drags the back of his bandaged arm across his face, wipes away some of the tears. As he does it, Staffe sees smears of blood where the wound has leaked. ‘If there’s anything you want to tell me, Nico, anything at all, you call me. Don’t hesitate. It can’t be any worse than this.’
‘That shows how much you don’t know. I’d like you to go, Inspector.’
The nurse shows Staffe towards a small waiting room with a steel door. She is in her early twenties and has a mop of auburn hair twisted into a trendy confection with long strands curling down to frame her face. She has the greenest eyes. ‘There’s something I feel I have to tell you,’ she says, looking up and down the corridor before closing the door, locking them in. She plays with the strands of her hair and wraps an arm across her own waist. ‘Inmates all have a story about how they’ve been abused by the system. Some are stitched up by the police or grassed by a friend. Some say they’re innocent. But he’s the first I’ve come across who swears he’s guilty. You can see he’s lying just the same.’ She goes to the window and nods to another nurse. ‘There’s someone you should talk to. It’ll have to be quick.’
She works the magic with her keys and opens the door, takes a step back to let in a fearsome bulk of pasty white menace. ‘This is Wedlock. Billy Wedlock.’
Wedlock is about the same age as Nurse Louisa, but as far from her in every other respect. He has prison tatts all up his arms and even one on his forehead – done with needles and burning matches and biro ink. Staffe’s guess is he’s been jailbirding all his life.
One step ahead, Wedlock laughs at Staffe. ‘You checking the tatts, man? Got me for a jaily, yeah? But you be wrong, man. This just where I belong now. That’s what society wants, that’s what society gets. They want me down the gym and beefing up and mixing with these evil fuckers teaching me the business for when I get out? That’s what Billy’s doing, man. I’m learning the language, I’m graduating.’ He looks at the nurse and says, ‘Miss? You not told him what I done, miss?’
She shakes her head.
‘Just cleaning the streets, just like Nico wants.’ Cept I know he’s not cleaned no streets. He’s just fucked himself over, man. He done nothing. For real.’
‘He told you?’
‘Like the cat sat on the fuckin’ mat, man. He told me straight up.’
‘And you’ll testify to that?’
‘No way, man! What do you think I am?’
‘But he told you. Maybe he wants to be discovered.’
‘Wasn’t like that. He just had to get it out of his mind – like a priest thing in the what you say?’
‘Confessional. So why are you telling me?’
‘Kashell has to do any more time, he’ll die, man. And he’s a good man. A proper good man.’
‘What exactly did he say to you, Billy, to make you believe him?’
Wedlock looks at the nurse and she nods for him to go ahead. She looks anxiously through the reinforced glass, up and down the corridor. ‘I mashed some man proper. He was fiddlin’ some kids of a woman I knew. Just a neighbour but I’d heard her crying. I couldn’t get it out my head. She was marrying him. Fucksakes!’ Wedlock is pacing up and down the small room, pressing up to the glass and looking left and right. He turns on Staffe and gives him a look to kill. ‘He’s not putting his dirty prick near no one, man. You get me.’
‘And you told all this to Kashell.’
‘I heard he was in for the same beef. But he wouldn’t talk, man. Over and over he’d listen to me tell what I served that perv.’
‘And what else did he tell you, Billy?’
Wedlock shakes his head and punches one open palm with the fist of the other. ‘I swore down I wouldn’t tell.’
‘He told you he didn’t do it, Billy?’
‘I’m saying nothing, man.’ He shoots the nurse a look, as if she has betrayed him. But she’s having none of it.
She takes a step towards him and plants her feet, puts her hands on her hips. ‘It was you that came to me, Billy. It’s me who’s sticking her stupid neck out here.’
Wedlock hangs his head, says, quiet as a church mouse, ‘Sorry, miss.’
‘You don’t always have to blame, Billy.’
‘Did he tell you who did it, Billy? Who killed Lotte Stensson?’
Wedlock shakes his head, sadly defiant, without looking up.
‘I’m not asking you to tell me who, just did he tell you who killed Stensson?’
He shakes his head again and the nurse works her key magic, pulls open the door and shows Wedlock out, reaching up to give him a pat on his shoulder as he goes.
*******
Pulford watches Staffe on his video-entry phone. He looks all washed out: bags under his eyes, unshaved, grey-skinned. He lets him in and kicks a pizza box under the sofa, puts all the newspapers into one pile. He turns off the game, even though he’s got too much on Ashton for the first goal. He boots his computer and opens the door.
‘How can you live like this,’ says Staffe, striding into the room.
‘You want a coffee or something?’
‘I might catch something.’
Pulford shrugs and flops into his armchair, lets his arms dangle to the floor and stretches his legs out, waving a hand casually towards the sofa. He smiles to himself as Staffe sits down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, unable to relax. From where he is, he can see the debris of too many weekends on the floor, less than a foot below Staffe’s backside. He nods at the computer. ‘Just keeping track of the victim site.’
‘Any change to the fourth quadrant?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not going across to AMIP?’
‘Smethurst doesn’t want me.’
‘I’ll have a word.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
/>
‘It does and I will.’
Pulford hands Staffe a sheet with those names appearing on both the case’s database and the VABBA telephone bill.
‘Any key names?’
Pulford smiles and begins to read the highlighted names from the sheets. ‘Debra Bowker.’
‘We knew that.’
‘Tyrone Watkins.’
‘You’d expect that.’
‘Delilah Spears.’
‘Spears? Isn’t that …?’ Staffe rubs his face, hard.
‘The match comes from the transcript of Debra Bowker’s interview.’
‘That’s it! Bowker thought she was a bit strange.’
‘“Poor Delilah”,’ remembers Pulford. He flicks through the transcript. ‘“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 of ended up doing time when it should have been him.”’
‘Have we interviewed Delilah?’
‘Johnson cleared her.’
Staffe looks at the dead TV. ‘You not watching the game?’
‘I might later.’
Pulford takes a deep breath and studies Staffe’s face for the next reaction. ‘Jessop was on the list, sir.’
‘Jessop!’
‘There’s one call to Leadengate and two later ones to his home number.’
‘Jessop?’ Staffe’s face tightens and his bottom lip whorls. ‘He never mentioned he had spoken to VABBA.’
‘They called him.’
‘Maybe it was when they were dropping the charges. When Ruth Merritt let the case lapse.’
‘I checked the dates. The second two, yes. The first – to Leadengate – was a couple of days before the CPS wound the case back in.’
‘J?’ says Staffe, as much to himself as Pulford.
‘Sir?’
Staffe looks at him, as though he is a doorman deciding whether he is good enough to be allowed in. He makes a tight smile and shakes his head. ‘Nothing. Maybe I will have that coffee.’
‘We are honoured.’ Pulford puts the kettle on and while it boils, he tidies up a mess of poker chips on the small, circular dining table.
‘It’s all the rage now,’ says Staffe.
‘I’ve been playing for years.’
‘Playing for money, too?’
‘The way you play football with a ball.’ He can feel Staffe weighing him up, so he adopts a casual air. ‘You should join us for a game one night.’
‘Maybe when this case is done and dusted.’
‘You can have a life and a job, sir.’
‘I beg to differ. You’re young.’
‘And I don’t care enough?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Pulford puts a dessert spoon of own-brand coffee granules into the chipped mug. ‘You know, sometimes I think it was a godsend, me working for you. You’re …’ He busies himself putting the milk in, stirring the coffee.
‘Carry on, Sergeant.’
‘Sometimes, it’s like you’re the antidote, an extreme. A lesson in how to go too far. You’re so wound up … all the time.’ Staffe is gazing into nowhere.
Eventually, Staffe takes a sip from his coffee and looks at the papers, says, ‘Thanks for doing this. Don’t think it’s not appreciated. I’ll have that word with Smethurst. He’s way out of line.’
‘It’s only a case, sir.’
Staffe gives him a rueful look and drops his gaze. He stares at Pulford’s feet then gets up, shows himself out without saying another word. When he has gone, Pulford bends forward, sees one of his bank statements on the floor under his chair. Bottom line, eleven and a half grand overdrawn.
Staffe sits behind the wheel, closes his eyes and sees the numbers on Pulford’s bank statement, the look on his DS’s face when he spoke of his poker.
He turns the ignition. Jessop once told him that we are defined by our faults. ‘No problem, no person,’ he said. ‘Bloody Jessop,’ says Staffe, aloud, and he swings the car round in the direction of his old boss’s home. He tries desperately to remember if his father had ever supplied him with such maxims for life. But he can’t.
At a red light, Staffe checks the stub again, making sure the J couldn’t be another letter – a twitchy T, a lazy l, a straight S. There’s no mistake. He rehearses the questions he will ask Jessop, but he can’t make them sound casual, unthreatening, or remotely respectful: do you think Nico Kashell didn’t kill Lotte Stensson; why did the CPS really drop the case; why were VABBA calling you before and after Lotte Stensson was killed – at the station and at home; who is the J on the VABBA cheque stub; can I see your bank statements; what were you doing on the night of the Lotte Stensson murder; and what were you doing on the night Karl Colquhoun was murdered, and the night Guy Montefiore was tortured? And can you prove it?
Staffe parks up the road from Jessop’s flat. He leans back against the car and squints up at his ex-boss’s squalid abode. What has he done to the gods to deserve this case?
If he doesn’t ask these questions of Jessop, will Smethurst? Staffe knows he has no choice – there is already an innocent man serving life and there is, Staffe is certain, another victim about to be added to the list of the dead and tortured. Jessop brought him up to do precisely this. He locks down the Peugeot and walks slowly up to the front door. He presses the top buzzer, still hoping a plausible and alternative truth will hit him with a rabbit punch. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, tries to see his way through to a brighter end.
There is no answer so Staffe stands back, looks up to the top flat and sees the curtains are half closed. He feels the bunch of keys, still in his hip pocket from the VABBA sortie.
And suddenly, he feels sick. He is meeting Sylvie soon – as if for a first time. He should go home, shower and get ready. It will be the first time they have been out for dinner since he and Jessop were still friends; when Lotte Stensson was alive and Nico Kashell was a free man; when Karl Colquhoun and Guy Montefiore were leaving indelible prints all over the ruined lives of Tyrone, Linda and poor Sally Watkins.
He looks up into the sun and says ‘Come on!’ aloud, then goes back up to the door and presses all the buzzers, continuously until someone berates him.
‘The fuck you playin’ at!’
‘Police! Now let me in or I’ll have you for …’
The buzzer sounds and the latch whirrs itself unlocked. Staffe pushes it open and takes the ring of keys from his pocket, strides up the stairs. He smells the same old illegal smells, and notices that the rubbish bags outside the doors on the landings are piling up.
When he gets to the top floor he pounds the door. If only he could let himself in, rifle through his friend’s possessions and find out what he needs to without having to ask. ‘Ask?’ You may as well say ‘accuse’.
Staffe waits, weighs up the locks on the door. There are three. To triple lock a top-floor flat in such a dismal block is abnormal. He looks closely at the wood around the middle lock and runs his finger around the pale, routed subsurface where the lock was fitted. It rubs rough on his finger and he catches a splinter. It’s a new fitting. Very new by the look and feel of it.
He holds up the ring of keys and realises – as he offers them to the new lock one by one – that none match. His heart sinks and he knows Jessop must have something to hide. He knows, too, that he must get to Jessop before Smethurst. The least he can do for his old friend is hear it first – then react accordingly.
Staffe knows he should go straight home and get ready for dinner with Sylvie – after all this time. But first, there is just enough time for another trip down Memory Lane.
Approaching the Scotsman’s Pack, Staffe remembers the rollickings he used to get from Sylvie for the Sunday lunches he spent here with Jessop. Sunday dinner was the only meal she ever cooked. A bottle of Aligoté for him, a Brouilly for her. The wrong way round, some might say.
Staffe opens the Scotsman’s door and goes into the dark. The door slams violently behind him. As so
on as you walk in through the panelled, narrow corridor, you can feel the appeal. A handful of diehards still slope up against the bar, pulling on pinches of snuff between sips of their halves and house doubles, with trips outside to smoke in the fresh air.
Jessop and he used to sit in one of the tiny snugs – little more than booths – so they could discuss cases without being overheard. But today, Staffe maintains a spot at the bar with a pint of Adnams. The landlord, Rod, looks as if he half recognises Staffe but he doesn’t say anything, even when Staffe offers him ‘your own’. When the change comes, Staffe sees he took for one anyway.
He bides his time, looks around with a scratch of the ear, a readjustment of the trousers, a trip to the paper rack. There is no sign of Jessop and Staffe finishes his drink and orders a Laphroaig. It’s the reason they made a habit of coming here. Jessop introduced Staffe to the Islay malt and he couldn’t get enough. Not everywhere has it.
Staffe surrenders to the slow wash of nostalgia. The old times seem happier than they were, now, in the beer’s sepia as the slow roast of the malt takes him right the way back.
He says to Rod, as casually as he can muster, ‘I don’t suppose you remember, but I used to come in here. Used to come in with a friend of mine.’
‘I remember all right. You’re a copper.’
The old soaks down the bar turn, look him up and down and take a drink before they each take a half step away.
‘Bob Jessop. I don’t suppose he still comes in?’
The landlord shrugs and the soaks say nothing. If he didn’t still come in, they’d have said. They know Jessop all right.
‘Not been in today? He used to love his Sunday lunches,’ says Staffe.
Rod turns his back and bends down, comes up with a packet of scratchings from a box and puts it in the one empty clip in the rack beneath the optics.
‘Never mind.’ Staffe drains his Laphroaig. ‘See you again.’ He goes into the dark, narrow corridor that leads outside and opens the door. The brilliant day floods in. Staffe lets the door swing its violent slam, shut. But he remains in the corridor, his back to the panelled wall. He holds his breath and listens hard. After a minute, maybe more, Staffe begins to feel foolish, makes to leave. But then, just a few feet away, he gets what he wants. Rod starts to talk, telephone loud.