Down into Darkness

by David Lawrence

  ‘Yeah,’ Larsen nodded. ‘Any more vigorous and he’d have taken the guy’s head clean off.’

  A pleasure boat was chugging downstream, being paced by a pair of herons. The tourists were dressed for summer in spring and glad of the breeze. A PA system yapped at them, information overload from a bored girl who had seen it, and said it, hundreds of times before.

  The sun was high and hot, the river flat, the towpath silent. A sudden rustle in the undergrowth close to the edge of the path was a rat, drawn by the scent of blood. Harriman stamped his foot at it.

  ‘He might have been dead for six hours,’ Stella said, ‘and he died here. When was it called in – two hours ago?’

  ‘Max.’

  ‘And no one noticed?’

  They went back inside the scene-of-crime tent and looked again at Leonard Pigeon. His posture said ‘sleeping’, but the blood was loud.

  ‘The bench is set back,’ Harriman said. ‘Some are right on the edge overlooking the water, some are just a foot or two from the path, but others are well back under the trees and this is one of them.’

  Stella cast a glance to the brush at the back of the bench, all thick-leaved and in its summer green.

  Came up from behind, pulled the guy’s head back, by his hair…

  ‘Even so… surely someone would have seen him.’

  ‘People walk without looking left or right,’ Harriman said. ‘They’re locked up inside themselves.’ Then, as if to explain, ‘It’s London.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Stella nodded acknowledgement, a woman more locked up inside herself than most.

  *

  In fact, Harriman had been partly right. It was a weekday, the towpath wasn’t busy, the bench was under the trees and in shade… A few people had passed Leonard Pigeon without noticing anything, lost in thought, or looking towards the river, or just keeping themselves to themselves. Several bikers had hammered past intent on speed averages, or too winded for peripheral vision to be a factor. But there must have been one or two… two or three… who had looked and seen and passed on quickly. A dog, eager for the blood, having to be called away or pulled away. Someone noticing the flies. Another drawn by the strange stillness of the man on the bench.

  Three or four, perhaps. Maybe more.

  It was London.

  15

  The towpath lovers were called Leah and Steve. They arrived at the AMIP-5 squad room together, though they had travelled there from different directions. Sue Chapman found some chairs and sited them in a corridor. The lovers sat there holding hands and waiting for a couple of interview rooms to fall vacant in the admin. building. Steve glanced at his watch from time to time, lifting his left hand; it was the hand Leah was holding and she didn’t let go: when Steve checked the time, both their arms came up, as though they were acknowledging cheers from an audience.

  Maxine sat down with Leah.

  The interview room was basic pine furniture and off-white walls, everything pale just as Leah was pale. Her bottle-blonde hair fell to her shoulders, and she wore a delicate pink lipstick.

  She said, ‘Is this like the doctor or the priest?’

  Maxine smiled, though not to reassure. ‘It’s confidential, unless a reason is found for it not to be.’

  ‘I’m married. Steve isn’t my husband.’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned it to the scene-of-crime officer.’

  ‘So, I tell you what happened, and then –’

  ‘Possibility of coroner’s court. We’ll let you know.’

  ‘On my mobile.’

  ‘It comes as a summons from the coroner’s office.’

  Leah was silent for a while: inventing tactics, perhaps. Finally, she said, ‘It was our bench.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Our bench: the place where we usually sit. That’s how we happened to see him. When I looked across, there was someone sitting on our bench. It was him.’

  ‘You realized he was dead –’

  ‘After a second or two. The way he was sitting so still. Then I saw the blood; or Steve did.’

  That was Leah’s story; all she had to tell. They went through the business of who had called the police (Steve), whether they had seen anything of significance (no), whether they had touched the body (no), what would happen if Leah’s husband should learn of her relationship with Steve (mayhem).

  Leah said, ‘It’s complicated.’

  Maxine was reading through Leah’s statement. Without looking up, she said, ‘I expect it is.’

  ‘It’s a matter of timing.’

  Maxine said, ‘Look –’

  ‘It’s serious, me and Steve. A serious thing. He has to go abroad for a while. I could tell Nick, but then what would I do while Steve’s away?’ She spoke about Nick as if Maxine knew him.

  Maxine said, ‘Look, it’s none of my business. I just have to get a statement, you know?’

  ‘I’m explaining –’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘When Steve gets back, things will happen then. It’ll all be above board. We’ve been to look at flats.’

  Maxine said, ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  Leah stood up. She was tall and slim-hipped and pretty in an etiolated kind of way. She said, ‘If he hadn’t been on our bench, we’d never have seen him. There might have been a dead body on every other bench we passed for all I know. Why did he have to be on our bench?’

  Maxine countersigned the record of statement, then dated and timed it. More paper.

  She said, ‘Yes. Selfish bastard.’

  Frank Silano sat down with Steve.

  Someone had put a fan in the room, and it whirred very gently in the background while they spoke. Silano heard it as a flight of birds. Steve gave his age as thirty-two and his occupation as garden designer. He was unmarried, and his address wasn’t permanent just now since he was about to go to America. Californian gardens, he told Silano, afforded a high cash yield. He spoke of sun and dollars and one hell of a lifestyle. When he’d finished with California, he told the same story as Leah: the walk, the bench they always sat on…

  ‘She’s married,’ he said, ‘which makes things a bit complicated, yeah? Just a bit tricky.’

  Silano didn’t think for a moment that Leah and Steve had killed Leonard Pigeon, but he was a meticulous cop, and he liked to get everything down. He asked about the affair. Steve was all man-to-man on that; all fuck-and-tell. It had been going on for about four months and had started when Steve was landscaping Leah and Nick’s garden: two thirds of an acre, Richmond waterside, two-point-four million. Now they met during the day, when Leah’s husband was at work: a couple of times a week at Steve’s impermanent address. Leah lived for those two days, and Steve knew it, though he didn’t say as much to Frank Silano.

  ‘If you’re freelance,’ Steve observed, ‘you can organize your time.’

  Silano passed the statement across for Steve to sign and mentioned the possibility of an appearance in the coroner’s court.

  ‘I go to the States in a couple of weeks.’

  Silano shrugged. ‘Leave an address – you might have to come back.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘But these things take time. Maybe you’ll have finished the job over there by the time you’re needed.’

  Steve shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘look, I’m not planning to come back.’

  It went round the squad room as ‘story of the day’.

  16

  John Delaney was getting a taste for it: the mid-morning champagne, the big airy houses, the BritArt, the spare Maserati. It wasn’t his lifestyle, of course, but it was definitely that of the people he was interviewing, and now and then, just for a few minutes, he was allowed to get a share.

  If the champagne was being opened, he drank a glass. He strolled through libraries and snooker rooms while waiting for his interviewee. He climbed regal staircases. He noted those spot-paintings (everyone had them) and compared them one with another. If the interview transfer
red from town to country, he was nought to sixty in a blur.

  Neil Morgan was an exception only in matters of taste: a Lowry, not a Hirst; a Lexus GS300, not a boy’s toy. In all other respects, he measured up, with his house in Norland Square, his flawless wife, his directorships. Delaney sat in a large, elegant room, his back to the light, and listened to Morgan telling him about wealth and ambition. The essence of the story was you can’t have one without the other. When Morgan started in on politics, Delaney held up a hand to interrupt, but only while he turned the cassette in his recorder.

  ‘New Labour,’ Morgan said, ‘now New Conservatism. It’s time for a change, you can feel it. Blair only found power and held it by parking his tanks on our lawn.’

  In addition to being a multimillionaire, Morgan was a Conservative MP: a back-bench activist. He liked to think of himself as one of the coming men. This was because the press had labelled him ‘One of the Coming Men’. Twice Morgan had turned down shadow cabinet posts; he was biding his time, waiting for the big one: Home Office, Foreign Office. Until that happened he would be a mover and shaker. Mover and shaker and lurker.

  He talked about money: it was a key that unlocked doors.

  He talked about the war in Iraq: it was a good thing.

  He talked about a global economy: it was the one true way.

  While Delaney sat, Morgan walked. He roamed the room, speaking in a low, passionate voice: a slight man in his early forties, formally dressed, his narrow, carefully shaven face glowing with conviction. His eyes had an odd, upwards slant; they glittered.

  ‘Remember Gordon Gecko?’ he asked.

  Delaney offered, ‘Greed is good.’

  ‘That’s what people quote, that’s their memory: greed is good, greed is right, greed works. They don’t recall the rest of it.’ Delaney waited. ‘Greed in all its forms,’ Morgan said, ‘greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind.’

  ‘You’ve got it by heart.’

  ‘By heart is right. By heart. And the country will feel that, and the people will respond, and they’ll see that we’re the future.’

  Delaney wanted to dim the light in Morgan’s eye. He turned his questions away from the future and asked, instead, about death. He asked about six hundred thousand dead Iraqis, he asked about Abu Ghraib, he asked about Guantánamo Bay and Extraordinary Rendition.

  Acid leaked into Morgan’s voice. ‘Everyone knows I voted in favour of that action. I would do the same again. Some unfortunate things have happened, but it’s war, not a stroll in the park.’

  Off-the-shelf phrases, and old stock at that; Delaney allowed himself the ghost of a smile. He said, ‘A lot of people opposed it – ordinary people; there were marches, millions of people on the streets.’

  ‘This country isn’t run by straw poll,’ Morgan informed him. ‘Governments govern, that’s their job.’

  Morgan wasn’t a day-time champagne man and, anyway, Delaney had taped enough. He stood up and got a firm, politician’s handshake. As he hit the street, Stella and Harriman were just arriving to let Morgan know that his principal researcher had been found on a bench by the river, his throat cut back to the cervical vertebrae.

  17

  DI Mike Sorley was getting into his second pack of the day. Stella watched as he snapped his lighter, lit up, then allowed the flame to come dangerously close to the stacks of paper on his desk.

  ‘It’s one way,’ she observed.

  Sorley laughed. ‘Don’t think I’m not tempted.’ He pushed one set of files aside to accommodate those Stella had just brought in. The file on Elizabeth Rose Connor aka Bryony Dean had moved up a little but still lay five deep. He said, ‘We’ve got all manner of shit here. We’ve got a crazy person, we’ve got a multiple, and we’ve got a prominent MP. I know it’s a multiple because I can count, I know it’s a crazy because the press have it in page-high headlines, and I know the MP is prominent because the pompous bastard told me so.’

  He drew on his cigarette so the coal crackled: a lungful wasn’t enough for Sorley.

  ‘A crazy person, right? Has to be.’

  Stella knew Sorley was being wry – he was too good a copper to jump to easy conclusions. She said what was in his mind: ‘That, or it’s what we’re supposed to think.’

  ‘So either way we’re looking for connections between the two.’

  ‘Would be if we had an ID for Tree Girl.’

  ‘What are we holding back?’

  In every investigation, certain details would be kept from the press in order to eliminate the professional confessors who stood in line for their chance at fame, to be loathed and feared, to be up there with the best of the worst.

  ‘The writing,’ Stella said. ‘Dirty girl; filthy coward.’

  ‘There’s your link,’ Sorley observed. ‘There’s your connection.’

  ‘I know. Except I don’t know what I know. Whether it’s a real connection or a connection the killer’s making in his mind. I need to find out more about him.’

  ‘Talk to a profiler?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stay in budget, Stella.’ There was enough of Sorley’s cigarette left to light the next. He said, ‘This Morgan looks a problem.’

  Stella grimaced. ‘I thought he was pro-police: more money, more powers. Didn’t he vote for ninety-day detention?’

  ‘He did. But it seems we’ve let him down – a brutal and horrendous attack in broad daylight, an innocent man’s life cut short, maniacs roaming the streets, a police force that seems unable to deal with the ever-increasing blah-fucking-blah.’

  ‘He has friends in the press,’ Stella guessed.

  ‘Friends everywhere, flash fucker.’ After a moment Sorley said, ‘He likes public places, our maniac.’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Big risk.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what he likes.’

  The rest of the team were going different ways.

  Sue Chapman was cross-referencing forensics.

  Maxine Hewitt and Frank Silano were talking to Mrs Pigeon.

  Andy Greegan was reviewing the scene-of-crime material.

  Pete Harriman was kissing a whore in a pub up by the Strip.

  18

  It was just a kiss hello, because Stacey didn’t do professional mouth to mouth. She was a natural redhead with a neat body and the perfect lips for kissing, but you couldn’t buy them. Stacey had a repertoire second to none: slow hand, good head, straight all ways up, dealer’s choice, three-way humps, name your shame. She would look up for a facial, or stand in the rain, and if the money was right she might even stretch to anal, but kissing was off the list.

  Harriman’s lips brushed her hair, and he only got that because he’d known Stacey for five years and helped her out on a couple of occasions.

  Occasion one: malicious wounding during an attempted fuck-and-run. Stacey had multiple abrasions and a cracked rib; the punter had criss-cross knife lines on his buttocks. Harriman reported person or persons unknown.

  Occasion two: a pimp takeover complete with death threats. Harriman pulled the pimp on suspicion and just happened to find, in the boot of the guy’s Ferrari Modena, an attaché case full of street-ready crack.

  Stacey was drinking Breezers because there were still some working hours left in the day. Harriman was on duty, so he’d decided on Scotch with a Becks chaser. He took out the retouched morgue photo of Tree Girl and pushed it across the table to Stacey. Underneath the ten-by-eight was the price of a blow-job. That was their real relationship.

  The trade-off for having a cop as a friend in times of need made Stacey Harriman’s ‘chis’. That’s covert human intelligence source. Stacey wasn’t crazy about the arrangement, but some worked the kerbs and cars, some worked the pubs and bars, and if you were an indoors girl, like Stacey, you needed good connections. She had an apartment in North Kensington, a client list and an advertising network that brought the punters to her door. She was almost a class act and only hit
the bars when the cash flow was low.

  She palmed the money and held the photo to the light. ‘Is this the girl in the tree? Is this Tree Girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stacey looked closer; her mouth twisted in a little grimace.

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Someone hung her in –’

  ‘Happened to her face.’

  Harriman tried to think of another way to say it, but gave up. ‘Birds took her eyes.’

  Stacey looked for a long time, and Harriman knew she wasn’t running through a mental file-index, she was thinking how all the girls on the Strip were just a step away from something like this. Just a step, a wrong word, a bad connection, a piece of lousy luck.

  She said, ‘It’s Lizzie.’

  19

  That was all Stacey could offer: Lizzie. Lizzie Someone. Lizzie No Name. Though she did have more on Lizzie’s connections and her way of life.

  ‘She was freelance. The pimps tried to muscle in, add her to their list, but she wouldn’t talk to them: she was like a guerrilla-whore, you know? Hit and run. She’d arrive out of nowhere, scoop a trick, go off in the guy’s car, do the business, then turn up twenty minutes later in a boozer or some pizza-pasta place just off limits looking for more.’

  ‘How did you know her?’ Harriman asked.

  ‘She worked the pubs sometimes, especially if the pimps were down on her: safety in numbers, though your hit ratio tends to be poor compared to working the kerbs. Question of turnover.’ She laughed at the word ‘turnover’; she’d heard it before. ‘Lizzie tended to do pretty good business.’

  ‘She was special?’

  ‘She was young. Fresh meat.’ Pimp terminology: Stacey said it with a sneer.

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘No. I heard her speak, though. To punters.’

  ‘What nationality was she?’

  ‘You really don’t know much about her, do you?’

  ‘She was dead, she was naked. No, not a thing.’

  ‘Local. South London accent, Essex, whatever you call it.’