Down into Darkness

by David Lawrence

  She shook her head. ‘Someone who looked like me.’

  42

  Silano said, ‘It was an American company, that’s what I got from my chis. Pigeon took the meetings, because Morgan either couldn’t be there or didn’t want to be there. Chance of some sensitive content, apparently.’

  ‘How was it possible?’

  Silano considered. ‘Maybe they’d never met Morgan?’

  ‘Yes, right, so let’s say they’ve never met him. Have you met him?’

  ‘Morgan? No.’

  ‘But you know what he looks like?’

  ‘I’ve seen him on TV, I think. In the papers.’

  ‘Did you look closely?’

  ‘No, I don’t expect I did.’

  ‘A photo, a screen image, it’s not the same, is it? Ever met someone famous?’

  ‘A couple of times. News presenter doing an after-dinner speech; a model whose boyfriend had overdosed.’

  ‘Did they look like their pictures? The way they looked on screen?’

  Silano thought about it. ‘They did, yes, but… more so. Or maybe I mean less so. What? It’s a two-dimensional, three-dimensional, thing? People seem smaller in life; TV makes you look fatter…’

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Stella said. ‘Now think about this. Could you stand in for DC Harriman?’

  Silano laughed. ‘Totally different types. Physical types, I mean. No resemblance.’

  ‘So, if I wanted someone to stand in for Harriman and fool people who had only seen his picture, I wouldn’t choose you. Who would I choose?’

  ‘Someone who did actually look like Harriman.’

  ‘Yes. So, think about Morgan and Pigeon. Does he?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Does Leonard Pigeon look like Neil Morgan – enough to fool people who’d only seen him on TV or seen his picture in the papers?’

  Silano found the photograph of Pigeon that his widow had handed over. Stella googled a mugshot of Neil Morgan. They propped the photo next to the screen.

  Dark, thirties, clean-shaven, neat hair, fleshy, eyes pretty much, nose more or less, mouth very close.

  Silano looked at the two images, then at Stella. ‘You think he meant to kill Morgan?’

  ‘I think it’s possible, yes.’

  ‘But the writing on Pigeon’s arms: “Filthy coward”. He ran when he saw the incident on the bridge.’

  ‘And we know that because…?’

  ‘It was in the papers, on TV.’

  ‘Was it? The incident was reported, we know that.’

  Silano looked at the two images, then glanced up to the whiteboard and another picture of Leonard Pigeon, a man sitting on a bench, his head fallen forward, a flabby spread round the jowls where the jaw was unsupported by the slashed throat.

  Leonard in life, Leonard in death. Not looking himself.

  Open windows were letting cigarette smoke out and exhaust gases in. Texan Bars had taken over from Mars and TimTam, and people were drinking Highland Spring, except Sue Chapman, who claimed that she knew full well London water was full of oestrogen, but she needed the boost.

  Maxine Hewitt said, ‘It’s where he got the information from – the killer. Newspapers and TV.’

  ‘You sure? Did the stories include a full account of Pigeon seeing the attack on the woman and instantly legging it in the other direction? Did you read the reports? Did you check them out?’ Maxine shrugged. ‘No, okay, let’s do it. DC Harriman and I will go back to see Morgan.’

  ‘Why?’

  This was Collier, leaning against a desk, centre-front and right under Stella’s nose. It had always been Sorley’s practice to stand just inside the door, observing but allowing Stella to run the briefing. Collier wasn’t the unobtrusive type.

  ‘If he was the target,’ Stella said, ‘we need to know more. “Filthy coward” – if that wasn’t meant for Pigeon, it was meant for Morgan. Why?’

  ‘It’s just a theory,’ Collier said. ‘You could be wrong. Probably are.’

  ‘But it ought to be looked at.’

  ‘He’s an MP and a high-profile one, at that. Tread carefully.’

  There was a tiny silence in the squad room, like an indrawn breath. A touch of colour sprang up on Stella’s throat. She turned back to the squad members. ‘There’s a link between Bryony Dean and either Leonard Pigeon or Neil Morgan. They might have known one another. Or it might be something that connects them only in the mind of the killer. We have to find that link. Whatever the common factor is, it will point back to our man.’ She paused. ‘Okay, that’s it.’

  ‘No, wait.’ Collier stepped forward. He motioned to Stella to sit down at a nearby desk, then stood where she had been standing. ‘You might have heard that the mother of Bryony Dean committed suicide yesterday, not long after being interviewed by DS Mooney and DC Harriman. Questions are being asked, mostly by the SIO, but also by the press. The official response from this squad – that means all of you – is “no comment”. I’ll require written reports on the incident from the officers in question. That’s separate reports, not one account signed by both of you.’ The briefest of pauses before he said, ‘DS Mooney, my office, just a catch-up, okay?’

  He left. Stella left. Collier went to his office. Stella went to Coffee Republic and bought a two-shot American. She didn’t want a coffee, but she needed to put some air between herself and Collier. No one thought it was a catch-up. Everyone knew that Collier shouldn’t have butted in that way, or given the needless warning about treading carefully around Neil Morgan, or mentioned Melanie Dean’s death without making it plain that there was no blame attached to anyone on that score. Pete Harriman second-guessed her destination, got himself a double espresso and walked her back.

  ‘You know him from –?’

  ‘Fulham Cross.’

  ‘And the problem is?’

  ‘He’s an asshole.’

  ‘Yes, that’s plain to see. You think so, I think so, I bet everyone thinks so. But something else.’

  ‘He hit on me, I knocked him back. But, listen, that’s not it. Not really. It didn’t help. But mostly the problem is as stated – asshole, grade-A.’

  ‘How’s DI Sorley?’

  ‘Out of ITC, but only just. We’re not expecting him back for a while.’

  ‘A while?’

  Stella shrugged. ‘God knows… months…’

  They crossed the street between vehicles and homicidal cyclists. Harriman said, ‘Well, lucky us.’

  Collier had been involved in some interior design: Sorley’s desk set cross-wise, to make an isosceles triangle with the corner of the room, some steel shelving to hold the files and reports, trays for current work, a colour-coded progress chart on the wall. Or maybe, Stella thought, it was a form of Feng Shui that specified all assholes had to be triangulated.

  He said, ‘Melanie Dean’s death… She topped herself, we’re sure of that?’

  ‘I haven’t seen the report. Have you?’

  ‘Yes. It assumes suicide. Who knows?’ Stella said nothing. ‘No possibility of a robbery, rude boys off the estate, some wiggy bastard out of his head on crank lobbing her over the side?’

  ‘Is that what we’re hoping for?’

  ‘On Harefield it’s got to be a possibility. Look for it.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s there.’

  Collier lit a cigarette and coughed. ‘You know how the red tops love a police-brutality story.’

  ‘They couldn’t possibly try that.’

  ‘Did you think of suggesting counselling to her? You went round there and told her that her daughter was dead – for sure, dead. No mistakes. Up in a tree with her fucking eyes pecked out.’

  ‘Read my report. You’ll see just such a recommendation.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Your job – admin.’

  ‘If we could give this to some madass crackhead, it would be simpler.’ He thought for a moment. ‘She was pissed, right? Could it have been an accident? Could we go that route?’

  ‘Anyone
who goes over those walkways either climbs up or is shoved over; you can’t fall off; and, anyway, I’m sure she jumped.’

  ‘Are you? Why?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, it’s what I would have done.’

  43

  The boys in the Imola-red Beamer cruised the Strip. Their sound-system would have reversed a pacemaker. The whores were doing deals for the lunch-time trade. They could probably have sold all-fruit smoothies and tuna-mayo wraps on the side.

  Aimée was checking the kitchen in a North Kensington apartment: what estate agents like to call ‘Notting Hill borders’. She opened cupboards and drawers and took stock. After that, she went into the bathroom and left some gels and creams, make-up, a toothbrush and toothpaste. She had brought some CDs and books from home to help her think of the place as hers. As theirs.

  The friend who had loaned it to her would be working abroad for six months. She needed an apartment-sitter; Aimée needed a place to be with Woolf. They had met several times after she’d left work; they’d met in her lunch-break; they had kissed on parting and pretty soon those kisses had become more than a peck.

  She had waited for him to invite her to his place, and he hadn’t done that. It made her wonder whether there were entanglements in his life too. She didn’t care if there were. The last time they had kissed, she had stepped closer and put her arms round him; his hand in the small of her back pulled her in, and she could feel the hard, flat planes of his body. The apartment would be their world. She hadn’t told him about her husband and son, and she didn’t intend to.

  It was a first-floor apartment in a Victorian four-storey house, just four rooms, but the ceilings were high and the rooms light and airy. She went into the bedroom and lay down; she imagined herself lying down with him, and her nipples hardened.

  A butterfly, too early for the time of year, was trapped between the window and the pale blue chiffon drape her friend had hung to diffuse the light. Aimée watched the creature’s shadow seeming to dance as its wings fluttered at the glass. After a moment her eyes closed and she slept.

  Gideon Woolf sat in his operator’s chair, his back to the TV, the laptop and the window. He was thinking about Aimée and whether he would have to kill her.

  Frank Silano knew that Maxine Hewitt was gay; she knew that he was divorced. Apart from this information, which seemed, to each of them, largely irrelevant, they knew they worked well together. Silano tended to take a back seat. This was technique, not deference; it was the opposite of what people expected to happen, and it put them off guard.

  Paula Pigeon was on the receiving end of this tactic: Silano sat back and made notes, while Maxine asked a few questions that Paula could easily answer. She asked how long Leonard had worked for Neil Morgan, where he’d worked before that, whether the job entailed long hours. Did he, Maxine wondered, always take his walk at the same time each morning, and did he drive to work or take public transport, and how many times, exactly, had he impersonated his boss?

  Paula said, ‘Three, I think.’

  There was a little silence in the room, a drawn breath, a panicked look. She didn’t try to backtrack: she said, ‘Does it matter?’

  Maxine said, ‘I don’t want to appear callous, but how could it?’

  ‘No.’ Paula gave a sharp little laugh. ‘Of course…’

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘Sensitive issues, I think. Neil was on several boards. I imagine he had to be careful not to compromise himself: clash of interests, you know.’

  Maxine nodded. ‘So rather than back off from a deal he shouldn’t have been involved in, he sent your husband along.’

  ‘I suppose if questions were asked, he could truthfully claim not to have been at the meeting, not to have a connection with the company.’

  ‘But your husband could pass information on to Morgan, who could then pass it on to whichever board of directors was cutting the deal.’

  ‘The idea was for Neil to impress the Americans, make them believe that if an MP was backing the company, it must be safe to invest… that sort of thing.’

  ‘But in fact it was your husband who was making the impression.’

  ‘Not always. Not most times. Just those three occasions, so far as I know.’

  ‘Do you know what the clash of interests involved?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Just business Neil didn’t want to be publicly involved with, I imagine.’

  Silano remembered something Derek Crane had said. ‘Jump-leads for Abu Ghraib…’

  Paula turned on him. ‘Len would never have gone along with such a deal.’

  ‘How would he know?’ Silano asked. ‘They wouldn’t call themselves Instruments of Torture, Inc.’

  ‘Where did the meetings take place?’ Maxine asked.

  ‘At a hotel. The Royal Lancaster.’

  ‘And how did Mr Pigeon get there?’

  Paula nodded, as if to acknowledge a point. ‘Yes… In Neil’s car, with Neil’s driver. It was part of the subterfuge.’

  ‘Where did he leave from?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Did he go to the meetings from here or from Mr Morgan’s house?’

  ‘From Neil’s house, obviously. It was –’

  ‘Part of the subterfuge,’ Silano offered.

  Maxine followed up fast. ‘And where would Morgan be when this was taking place?’

  ‘I think he arranged the meetings for a time when there was a vote in the House. He’d be surrounded by colleagues. Organized a chat with the Prime Minister, for all I know.’

  Silano picked up on the tightness in her voice. ‘You didn’t approve –’

  ‘I did wonder what would happen to Len if things went wrong. He was loyal, that was Len’s problem. If he’d backstabbed and ass-licked like the rest, he’d have been better off and higher up the ladder.’

  Maxine asked, ‘Did you think they looked alike?’

  ‘Superficially, I suppose. No one ever accused them of being brothers.’

  ‘But you could see how one could be mistaken for the other by someone who’d never met either?

  ‘The Americans, you mean… Well, yes, I suppose so.’

  Silano put away his notebook. Maxine answered a few tricky queries about funerals and inquests, then Paula showed them to the door. She had smiled her thin, buttoned-up smile and was turning the latch when she said, ‘Oh,’ and stopped and looked at Maxine wide-eyed. A flush came to her throat. She leaned against the wall, then slipped down to sit on the hall floor. She was breathing hard, like a runner, head bowed.

  Without looking up, she said, ‘You think it should have been Neil. You think he wanted Neil. You think Len was a mistake.’

  Silano let himself out. Maxine sat on the floor with Paula Pigeon. She said, ‘It’s just a theory.’

  ‘He should be alive.’

  ‘It’s a possibility, that’s all; we don’t know.’

  Paula said, ‘Could you go now? Please go. Please.’ Maxine got up and went to the door. She thought the burden of sorrow Paula was holding back must weigh in her heart like a stone.

  When Aimée woke, the butterfly was still making shadow patterns on the blue chiffon, its wings a ghost-percussion against the glass.

  She took a shower and made coffee and ate a sandwich she had bought on her way to the apartment. She felt at home. She wanted him to be there with her and wondered how she was going to be able to go home that evening. He had her phone number at the clinic and her mobile number. He hadn’t offered his, and she hadn’t asked. She liked it that most evenings she left the clinic, and there he was – his choice, no pressure, no calls, no expectations. Most evenings, but not all.

  She liked it that she could recognize him from a distance: his hair falling to the nape of his neck, the duster-coat he liked to wear over a T-shirt and cotton combats tucked into high-lace boots. He wasn’t like anyone she’d ever known. Dressed like that, he looked ready for anything; ready for her.

  Little by little, she would get to kn
ow him. For now, she loved him and that was enough.

  44

  There were two clubs in Orchard Street, and it was a tough call. One was a dining club where the waitresses wore French maids’ uniforms and bent low over the tables to serve the food. The other was a high-class drinking club with a backroom poker table and a two hundred per cent mark-up. Stella chose booze and bets over butts and tits and got checked in at the entrance desk by a blonde ball-breaker in an Armani suit. She showed her warrant card, and the girl said, ‘I’m not sure that will do.’

  Stella leaned on the desk and smiled a winning smile. She said, ‘This is a top people’s club, so it’ll be full of top people. If Clubs and Vice turn up here and find those very same people gambling, or doing a line in the men’s room, or coming on to high-class whores, they’ll be obliged to make arrests. And I expect word will get round. You’re lucky, because I’m not here to make any of that happen, I’m here for reasons your bosses need never know about. Now’ – the smile disappeared – ‘is Abigail in tonight?’ The girl tried a shrug. ‘This would be the Abigail,’ Stella told her, ‘who has a special friend called Neil Morgan, MP. And please don’t tell me that the private lives of the members are none of your concern, because inside knowledge requires discretion, and discretion buys Armani.’

  ‘She’s in.’

  ‘Her friend?’

  ‘Expected.’

  Stella climbed a flight of polished mahogany stairs to the bar, which was about the size of a football pitch. It was the kind of place where everything smelled of money except the money, which smelled of nothing at all: an electronic connection, a deduction made in the stratosphere somewhere between dusk and dawn. She asked for a glass of champagne and started a tab which she had no intention of paying, then sat in a leather club chair by the door so that people entering wouldn’t see her unless they looked back.

  The clientele was smooth-rich or rough-rich or wannabe-rich. The blonde on the far side of the bar was wannabe: the Donna Karan dress and the ragged highlights just overstated her case, and the Fendi bag wouldn’t have been charged to her own card. She was toying with a cigarette that she was struggling not to light. Morgan came in twenty minutes later, when Stella was on her second drink and the blonde had got through three unlit cigarettes. Stella watched them together for a while; watched them being together. The body language was interesting: the way she leaned in towards him, touched his hand with her fingertips; the way he smiled and chuckled at whatever she was telling him, then fixed her with a look that was solemn with desire. It was difficult to see where need merged with greed.