by Ian Mayfield
‘I’m OK,’ Jasmin said stoically.
Just looking at her made him yawn. He said, ‘If Sophia OKs it, we’ll pick him up in the morning.’
Jasmin stirred as if to say something.
‘Early,’ Zoltan said. ‘Go home.’
She looked at him as if he’d suggested something obscene.
An adolescent female voice answered the phone. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, that Michaela?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is Juliet in?’
‘I’ll go and see.’
The phone slammed down on a hard surface; receding footsteps, labouring as though climbing stairs. The adolescent voice distantly calling a name. A faint, indecipherable conversation; then silence. Time to think; for a thumbtip to hover over the end call button. At last, a rattle as someone picked up.
‘Hello?’
‘Juliet? It’s Larissa. Sorry, your mobile’s off.’
‘Hang on a sec.’ More rattling. ‘Got to be careful. I was in the middle of doing my nails. That’s better. So how’ve you been? I haven’t heard from you for ages.’
‘Yeah, well. Things on my mind.’
‘How’s being a detective? You started that yet?’
‘Last week.’
‘So what’s it like? Do CID really treat uniform like second class citizens?’
‘Not really. This lot I’m with - Special Crime - they’re a bit different. Besides, I’m not really a detective yet.’
‘No?’
‘Trainee investigator.’
‘I see. So you make the tea?’
‘Not all the time.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘No, honest. I’ve been working on this thing... I’ll tell you later. Listen, why I’m ringing - ‘
‘No, I bloody don’t!’
‘What?’
‘Sorry. That miserable child getting under my feet again. Look, I don’t know - ask Mum.’ An exasperated sigh. ‘As if I knew anything about ocean currents.’
‘Got your geography GCSE, didn’t you?’
‘That was six years ago.’
‘Ha.’
‘Anyway, you were saying?’
‘Was I? Oh, yeah. I was wondering, you doing anything Saturday night?’
‘Don’t think so. What’s on?’
‘Wondering if you fancied going out. It’s somebody’s leaving do. Kind of a police thing, but they say anybody can come.’
‘And you haven’t got a date? Come off it, Larissa. New job, CID, somebody must want to get their leg over.’
‘No. They’re mostly women, for one thing.’
‘What?’
‘I know. It feels weird. Anyway, so you wouldn’t be out of place or anything. It’s just I don’t know most of them that well yet, so - ’
‘Where is it? Anywhere we know?’
‘Not sure. They’ve been having a big debate about it, but I think they eventually decided on Barkeley’s.’
‘Oh, right.’ Juliet sounded brighter. ‘Hang on a minute. The nightclub Barkeley’s? In Purley?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Gets raided for drugs every five minutes?’
‘Meant to be half the fun, apparently.’
‘Oh, great.’
‘I didn’t mean - ’
‘No, I know what you mean. Yeah, all right, I’m up for it.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll get myself a book out of the library, though, case you get a better offer.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Doesn’t sound like you, Larissa. “I won’t.”’
‘Won’t be the chance.’
‘Pressure of work?’
‘Something like that.’
Suddenly, a note of concern. ‘You all right? You sound a bit funny.’
‘Do I?’
‘Only normally I can’t get a word in.’
‘Tired, I s’pose.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Might sound like a contradiction, but it’s the not working shifts any more. It’s thrown off my circadian rhythms.’
‘They’ll adjust. Hey, listen.’
‘What?’
‘If I get a better offer, can I bring him?’
Lucky gripped the phone tighter.
‘Hello?’ Juliet said.
Across town, another phone call.
Nina had wound herself up tighter than the rubber band on a child’s toy aeroplane. To hear from her father, when finally she did manage to dial, that Paul had gone that afternoon to stay at his parents’, almost snapped her resolve. Tough enough to psych herself up again, without having to reassure Dad first. Among other things, he’d asked whether she, or Paul, had been unfaithful. Fielding his anguished questions, she’d admired Lucia’s restraint; her normally garrulous younger sister was the only member of the family who knew. Such was her state of mind she now wondered whether Lucia’s reticence was due to her being the object of Paul’s adultery. She dismissed the notion with a shudder. This was enough of a mess without turning into a melodrama.
She wiped sweat from her hand and forced herself to hit send. The phone rang once, twice, then was answered. Paul’s mother. Her condemnatory silence reverberated down the line. She wondered what Paul had told his parents. Then her husband’s voice rang in her ear.
‘Nina?’
‘Yeah, it’s me.’
‘Hi.’
‘How are you?’
Guarded, flat voices. Like strangers, Nina thought. No: like relatives. Distant, burdensome relatives.
‘I’m OK. You?’
‘How d’you think?’
‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t blame you.’
‘For something.’
‘What?’
‘You must blame me for something, else why’d you do it?’
He hesitated. ‘We need to talk. Not like this, over the phone.’
‘Why’d you move out?’
‘The atmosphere. Your mum and dad worrying and wondering. I’d’ve caved under the pressure. I needed to get out from under.’
‘They deserve to know, Paul.’
‘From you.’
He was right. Though if they found out about their bed, they’d crucify him anyway. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell them. But don’t expect me to spare your blushes.’
He said nothing for a moment while this sank in. ‘I haven’t seen her again,’ he said, ‘since.’
‘I don’t give a flying fuck, Paul,’ Nina said.
‘Honey - ’
‘But you’re right. Let’s not talk about it over the phone.’
She heard his sigh of relief. ‘When can we meet?’
‘Saturday.’
‘Saturday?’
‘Give us time to think, get our heads straight. In the meantime I’m going home, and I don’t want to see hide nor hair of you till then.’
‘OK.’ He sounded broken. ‘When and where on Saturday?’
‘Anne’s leaving do, Barkeley’s. Pick me up at nine.’
‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘you want to discuss our future in front of a dozen coppers, at a nightclub?’
‘Take it or leave it.’
‘You sound cold,’ he said wretchedly.
‘I’m nice and warm, thank you.’
‘Not what I meant.’
‘Saturday, nine p.m.,’ she repeated.
‘See you then.’
As she hung up, she fancied he’d said something else. Her sudden urge to listen came too late. Sandra, always with that uncanny knack, reappeared bearing coffee. ‘How’d it go?’
‘All right.’
Her vision blurred suddenly. She reached out. The tissues were already in Sandra’s hand. Sandra said, ‘D’you want me to call you a cab?’
Nina could only nod.
Wednesday
Jasmin Winter couldn’t sleep. She was on call, which always put her on edge no matter how hard she told herself that after all these years in the Job, she ought to be able to cope. What didn’t help wa
s a vicious headache that had wrapped itself around her brain like a boa constrictor. She’d downed three Paracetamol before bed but they’d had little effect. She lay in the dark, debating whether to relinquish the relative warmth of the bedclothes for a hot drink and some toast from the kitchen. If her metabolism had some food to occupy it, maybe it would stop bothering her head. As if that would do any good. She’d only start worrying about something else, like what in the name of the Blessed Virgin she was doing in England.
What she was doing was being a guinea pig. It was an officer exchange programme between the Metropolitan Police and the Amsterdame Gemeentepolitie, an experiment to find out how closely the law and order forces of the new improved European Union could work together. Somewhere in the Dutch capital, Jasmin’s Met counterpart was working on a similar secondment. Soon, perhaps, as internal borders blurred, as freedom of movement and labour became a reality, such things would be part of everyday life. But this was now, and Jasmin felt acutely the displacement and loneliness of the pioneer.
It was not generally known among the team that half her pay went straight home to her mother, a widow with crippling debts accrued over twenty years singlehandedly raising ten children. As the eldest unmarried Winter, a large portion of the financial burden fell to Jasmin. The accommodation she was subsequently able to afford was a room in a crumbling shared house in Selhurst, by the main line out of Victoria with express trains to and from Gatwick and the coast booming past her window every few minutes. The room was, but for her vain efforts at homemaking, almost slumlike, the walls covered in ancient, mouldy, peeling wallpaper that soaked up damp like a sponge; and often without heat or light because of the seeming pathological obsession of the landlord not to pay the bills. Her fellow inmates at present were the night security guard in the upstairs front, whom she hardly ever saw; a student from Thailand who roomed in the attic, didn’t seem to speak English and certainly couldn’t speak Dutch; and the elderly RAF pensioner on the ground floor who seldom went out.
‘Why the fuck don’t you move?’ Sandra Jones had once demanded, hearing of all this.
‘Too busy,’ Jasmin had said.
‘Take some time off.’ Sandra wasn’t put off so easily. ‘Use it to find another place.’
‘OK, if I find somewhere else, with my money, what would it be?’ she’d snapped. ‘Another shithole, ja? Look, if possible, I would be out of there like a shot.’
Wouldn’t she just. She sat up and swung her legs out onto the floor, groping for the bedside lamp. Unimpeded, the cold air slipped easily through her soft cotton nightie, raising goose bumps on her skin. She held a brief and serious debate with herself. Yes, she decided, it would make a lot more sense to get up properly and dress, rather than exhaust herself in a futile attempt to sleep. She didn’t know what the new day, with the hoped-for arrest of Darren Pegley, would bring, but there was bound to be a lot more chasing about, whatever happened, and on this schedule she’d have difficulty lasting the pace. She shook off the doubt. Damn it, she was a cop. Long periods without sleep were part of the Job; she could cope, had done many times in the past.
But with Ovaltine and toast prepared she found herself sitting on the bed, wondering what to do with the rest of the night. She wondered if inhaling mould spores was affecting her health. It was probably the cause of her headache, not to mention the nasty gastric bug that had kept her off work for three days last month. She’d contemplated asking the landlord to bring someone in to take a look, but she’d learned that landlords like hers invariably had relatives in the trade who could not, in their expert opinion, find anything to worry about. Really she ought to call someone herself. Environmental Health, for a start. Except that with her luck Mr Aloneftis would probably have a cousin working there as well. Added to which, any resulting work would cost money she was far from sure she had.
Eventually she decided sitting around moping was doing no good, and picked up the copy of Nostromo she’d got from the library. Her first language was Dutch and this was a novel in English by a Pole who’d lived in France until his mid-twenties. Not surprisingly it was hard going. After a fortnight of abortive attempts she was on page forty and this was probably not the smartest thing to try and do after twenty hours without sleep and with a head like a ball of barbed wire. But it was about the only thing to do at half past two in the morning.
She was on page forty-five when her mobile rang.
Zoltan Schneider arrived at Camberwell Green police station at seven, just as the local Drugs Squad were starting to assess the haul from their night’s work. From a club called the Bluebell, in Denmark Hill, the arrest of Darren James Pegley and one other male, now being questioned by other members of the squad at Peckham. Visual and video evidence of them selling Ecstasy, LSD or similar drugs. When searched, small quantities of tablets, which they claimed to be aspirin, found in their possession; samples sent to Forensic for identification.
From the subsequent raid on a flat in Glazebrook Road, Camberwell, one further arrest for possession of controlled substances. Colleen O’Dwyer, age twenty-three, an unemployed agency nurse from Limerick. No previous, either here or in Ireland. Small amounts of LSD and cannabis resin hidden in a metal bedpost and under the base of an anglepoise lamp in the bedroom. It would be hard to prove anything against her, but they couldn’t afford to let up. So when further, substantial, findings of LSD, cannabis, and this time Ecstasy and cocaine had been unearthed from beneath a loose floorboard, and also from the feedpipe and battery compartment of the gas cooker in the kitchen, the detectives had felt justified, their stony intolerance of O’Dwyer’s tearful bewilderment vindicated. Anyone daft enough to shack up with a slag like Pegley shouldn’t be surprised by a gang of coppers drumming her out of bed at four in the morning.
As if that weren’t enough, a DC, availing himself of the loo, had been puzzled by the length of time the cistern took to refill and discovered, in an airtight Tupperware container in the cold water tank, a complete kit of burglary tools, neatly arranged as to use in various small cases and boxes.
Assuming the drugs found in the flat turned out to be from the same batch as those in Darren Pegley’s possession, the squad had enough to bury him good and deep. What they were worried about was Special Crime’s interest, and whether it was going to sod up their collar. Jasmin Winter had found herself the object of some cold looks.
Zoltan heard this in the Brummie-accented voice of Gareth Beaumont, the DI who’d commanded the raid, as he led the way upstairs. Jasmin walked over when they came into the room the Drugs Squad had requisitioned. Zoltan studied her with a solicitous expression.
‘Could’ve rung me, rather than dragged yourself out of bed,’ he frowned. ‘Considering how rough you were feeling yesterday.’
‘I was on call,’ Jasmin said stoically.
He shrugged, unwilling to argue. ‘Mr Beaumont’s kindly agreed to let me have a go at Pegley before he does,’ he said. ‘Soften him up.’
‘Do you want me with you?’
Zoltan cast a slow gaze over the trestle tables piled high with clear plastic bags containing the exhibits from Pegley’s flat, the Drugs Squad officers beginning their task of logging them, preparing them as evidence for court. ‘Somewhere among all that,’ he said, ‘may be the smoking gun that ties in Darren Pegley to one or more of the attacks. I’ve no more idea than you what that might be, but look anyway. I’d like to have a time bomb ticking while I’m downstairs talking to him.’
Jasmin looked disgustedly round the room. She nodded.
‘Come and fetch me,’ Zoltan said.
She watched him go, then lowered her head and let out a deep sigh that, before she could stop it, turned into a yawn. Her vision blurred for an instant and she rubbed her eyes to clear it. To stay sharp she wandered over to one of the DCs and offered to help.
Half an hour later something on one of the other tables caught her eye. She waved to get the attention of the DC who’d just buried the object of her interest under s
omething else.
‘Can I have a closer look at that?’ she said, pointing.
Experience had taught the two men facing each other across the table what they needed to know.
For Detective Inspector Zoltan Schneider, the ability to judge what manner of person he was dealing with was vital in determining his approach to an interview. With a first-timer, often so scared they’d crumble and start babbling under the slightest probing, he need say little. Prompt them where necessary, but let them dig their own hole, or climb out of it. On other occasions his opponent was more formidable, a hardened villain or a sociopath with no remorse or fear of legal sanction. Question, keep at them, wear them down, gradually build up and confront them with the evidence, goad, befriend them, keep working away until they confessed or copped a plea out of sheer frustration or boredom.
Darren James Pegley was about halfway along the spectrum. First and foremost, he was a burglar, with a string of convictions for the offence. He had another string, shorter, for petty drug offences. He was not bright. Faced with interrogation, he knew three things: ask for a brief, keep shtumm, and bow to the inevitable. Let the pigs do the legwork, nail him if they could. Six months in a young offenders’ institution had been, in the past, no hardship.
Today was different. For the first time, Darren Pegley had been arrested for dealing Class A drugs. Furthermore, he’d been seen and recorded doing it. To make matters worse, he was now twenty-two years old. No cosy borstal this time. It would be the real McCoy.
Zoltan read the consternation as his suspect realised this copper was not Drugs Squad, nor even regular CID, and was not the slightest bit interested in questioning him about what had gone on in the club. He could picture files riffling through Pegley’s memory as he tried to think which undetected offence he was about to be nailed for.
‘Mr Beaumont,’ he said pleasantly, ‘has very kindly agreed to let me talk to you before you sort out this Bluebell business with him.’ Tempting him, paying out the briefest length of line.
Pegley’s eyes flickered.
Zoltan said, ‘Aren’t you curious as to what this is all about?’