Rush of Blood

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Thanks, so do you.’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘What?’

  Sue pointed. ‘Your bag …’

  Marina lifted up her red leather handbag and smiled. ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’ve got the identical bag,’ Sue said. ‘You’ve seen it.’ Marina looked confused. ‘I had it with me the night we all went for dinner at Angie and Barry’s. Don’t you remember, you were talking about it, saying that you liked it or something?’

  Marina shook her head. ‘That must have been Angie,’ she said. She shrugged and placed the bag back on the floor. ‘I’ve had this ages.’

  The waiter brought their drinks across and left menus which they seemed happy enough to ignore for the time being. The compulsory background music – some kind of tango-meets-electronica thing – was coming from speakers nearby, but it wasn’t so intrusive that they had to shout across the table to make themselves heard. It was one of the reasons Sue had chosen the place.

  ‘Talking about Angie,’ Marina said. She leaned forward and lowered her voice conspiratorially, as though Angie, or someone who knew her, might be sitting nearby. ‘Why didn’t you ask her?’

  ‘No big mystery,’ Sue said. ‘I thought it might be a long way for her to come, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Marina looked a little disappointed.

  ‘Easier with just the two of us.’ Sue took a sip of her drink. ‘Probably best not to mention it when we see her though. I don’t want to upset her.’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘You and Dave still all right for next week?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ Marina said. She leaned forward again. ‘So, come on, I’m dying to hear all about your visit from the boys in blue.’

  ‘It was a bit strange, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘Really?’ Her eyes were wide. ‘How many of them were there? Men, women?’

  ‘Just one woman,’ Sue said. ‘Quite young, but very serious.’ She flicked a fingernail against the side of her glass. ‘She asked us what we thought about the girl.’

  Marina was drinking. She swallowed fast. ‘The girl who went missing?’

  ‘The dead girl.’

  ‘Why the hell did she want to know that?’

  ‘That’s what Ed said. We thought it was just going to be a few quick questions. When we’d last seen her, if we’d noticed anyone suspicious, that kind of thing.’

  ‘That’s exactly what she told us too,’ Marina said. ‘When she rang. A few questions. Bloody hell …’

  ‘I told her about the man we saw.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘That time at the Oyster Bar. We saw a man talking to the girl’s mother, down on the pavement, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, vaguely …’

  ‘So they’ll probably ask you about that, ask you for a description or whatever. You remember? He was tall, fit-looking. Short dark hair and tattoos on his arms …’

  Marina was nodding, but she still looked shocked. ‘“What did you think of the girl”? What on earth did you say? I mean, what did she expect you to say, for God’s sake?’

  ‘We were both a bit thrown, to be honest,’ Sue said.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Actually, I don’t think she liked Ed very much.’

  Marina took a second. ‘Really?’

  ‘I might have imagined it, but there was a bit of an edge, you know?’

  ‘Maybe she fancied him,’ Marina said. ‘Some women can get like that.’

  Sue shook her head. ‘I can usually tell.’

  Marina smiled and drained her glass.

  ‘So, when’s your interview?’ Sue asked.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Marina said. ‘I’d better warn Dave that we’re in for a grilling.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine—’ Sue’s mobile began to ring and she dug it out of her bag. She glanced at the screen, looked up and said, ‘Angie. Her interview was today, so I’m sure she’s desperate to tell me how it went.’ She pressed the key to drop the call. ‘I’ll ring her back tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind betting she calls you in a minute …’

  Marina took her own phone out and put it on the table. They stared at it for a few seconds, but it didn’t ring. They laughed and decided to get a bottle of wine and, when the waiter came over, they ordered bread and a few plates to share: olives and manchego cheese, chorizo in cider, artichoke hearts.

  ‘If we’re going to keep drinking,’ Marina said, ‘we’d better eat something.’

  When Marina stood up to go to the ladies, Sue said, ‘You changed your hair again.’

  Marina’s hands moved to her hair, and as she clawed fingers through it she turned to look at herself in the ornate mirror on the wall above their table. ‘I wasn’t sure about the blonde bits in the end,’ she said. ‘Went back to the red.’

  ‘You’ve lost some weight too.’

  ‘I’ve been going to the gym,’ Marina said, a hand dropping to her stomach.

  ‘Looks good.’

  ‘Well, I need to put the work in if I’m going to keep up with you.’

  Sue laughed and when Marina asked why, she explained how Ed was always banging on about the way women compliment one another. ‘It’s one of the funny routines he trots out now and again,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘How blokes never do it, you know? How you’ll never catch a hairy-arsed bloke saying to his mate, “You look great in that,” or “Have you been working out?” whereas women do it all the time.’

  ‘Because we’re not petrified in case someone thinks we’re gay.’

  ‘Right, but Ed says women deliberately play up to that. You know, the way they dance together in clubs, pretending to be lesbians when they’re not.’

  Marina laughed. ‘I bet he likes to watch though, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t all men like watching two women?’ Sue looked up at Marina and smiled. ‘Have you checked out the history on Dave’s internet browser lately?’

  ‘God, no,’ Marina said. ‘First, he’d know exactly how to hide it and even if he didn’t, I don’t really think I want to know.’

  ‘Probably very sensible.’

  ‘What about Ed?’

  ‘Well, he’s not quite as careful as Dave, put it that way.’

  ‘Really?’ Marina raised her eyebrows, but Sue showed no inclination to say any more on the subject.

  The waiter was hovering with the wine. Marina asked him where the toilets were and he waved vaguely towards a staircase at the back of the restaurant. When she stepped away from the table, Sue nodded at the red leather handbag and said, ‘I still can’t believe that.’

  Marina took a final glance at herself in the mirror. ‘Great minds,’ she said.

  Jenny was taking her time over the first draft of Wilson Homicide Interviews: 2. She was thinking hard about how best to describe that day’s interviewees, their demeanours, their reactions. While all her questions had been answered eventually, she was in no doubt that both of them had been distinctly rattled at various points during the questioning, even if the husband had not been as good as his wife at hiding it.

  Barry Finnegan certainly had quite a temper on him.

  Sitting there while he ranted and raved, Jenny felt a quiet thrill that had stayed with her the rest of the day. She must have been doing something right, she knew that, to have got under his skin to that degree. On top of all that, she was pleased that she had not reacted to his jibes about her lack of experience, the taunts about her stupid questions.

  ‘You want to be at the sharp end,’ Simmons had said to her once, ‘you’d better get used to plenty of abuse.’

  She was used to it, to taking it and showing nothing. You couldn’t let them in, not for a second, couldn’t show them any chink. So, she had sat there quietly, loving every moment of it, while Barry Finnegan sweated and spat like a balding bull terrier.

  Thinking: all day long, mate. All day long …

  As it happened, Angela Finnegan had succeeded in calming her old man down eventua
lly, to the point where Jenny had been able to ask a few more questions. He had listened and answered like a good boy. He had made no comment as to whether he found the questions stupid or not.

  Yes, they had talked about the girl’s disappearance with the other couples.

  No, they did not remember seeing Patti Lee Wilson talking to any man.

  They had been driving a red Nissan Altima.

  Jenny saved the document and sat listening to the noise coming from the living room. The nursing student had invited a couple of friends round for dinner. She had told Jenny she was more than welcome to join them, but with an expression that said she’d be happier if Jenny declined the offer. Now, Jenny wondered if she could maybe go out and have a last drink with them or something. She looked at her watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock and she had the final interview tomorrow.

  It had been a long day.

  In the living room, one of the girls began laughing and someone clapped.

  Jenny undressed quickly and slipped into bed; blissful between the clean sheets she had put on before leaving for work. She lay there thinking that if she did get a chance to go to Florida, to work on the case with Detective Jeff Gardner … as a consultant for the Met or even as his partner … that she fancied driving a Mustang …

  TWENTY-NINE

  A momentary lapse, that business in Sarasota.

  A weird one-off, something to do with the heat maybe …

  All of which might be trotted out by a desperate defence brief with his back to the wall, none of which would cut any ice with even the stupidest jury and certainly not after the business eleven weeks later in Kent.

  No excuses, second time around.

  It’s strange, but despite how fast everything happened that afternoon in Siesta Village, and it was certainly quick, I sometimes reimagine it in slow motion. You know, the way they’d show the key moments if they ever made the film? The way they have shown them in a dozen films about a dozen people who’ve done what I did.

  A heart starting to race, that’s the usual soundtrack, isn’t it?

  The blur of bars and shopfronts that comes into focus as I slow up and come abreast of the girl. Her face when she sees me. Her face as she walks to the window when I wave her over. The water that sloshes in the bottle when I lift it up to show her. The hand reaching for the door handle and pushing the door open from inside. The backside that settles into the seat and, of course, the smile. Big, slow zoom in on that. The girl might have been missing a few bits and pieces when brains were handed out, but her teeth were bloody perfect …

  What was said, too. I go over that a fair bit. I can’t swear it’s absolutely the authentic dialogue, but it’s as accurate as I can remember.

  ‘So, where are you off to?’

  ‘I want to get the egg.’

  ‘Does your mum know where you are?’

  ‘Can you give me the money to get it?’

  ‘What kind of egg?’

  ‘A big egg. A chocolate egg wrapped in red …’

  ‘It’s too hot to be walking, so why don’t I give you a lift and maybe when we get there I can buy you the egg. How’s that?’

  ‘It’s not far. Walking’s good for you.’

  ‘Yes it is, but today’s far too hot to be out in the sun. Come on, I’ve got some water. Look …’

  Driving through drizzle, past Chislehurst and Swanley, I wondered what the conversation might be like this time. How much going round in circles there might be. How much persuasion it would take. I hadn’t needed to work very hard with Amber-Marie, which was why I was looking for the particular school whose postcode I’d programmed into the sat-nav before setting off. The park where I knew those parents would be likely to take their kids at the end of the day.

  Those particular kids.

  Shitty weather or not, that first day I drove out to take a look at the place I was struck by how nice the countryside was. There are plenty of places like the one I was after in London of course. There are plenty of those sorts of kids being taught in bog-standard, inner-city schools, but it must be nicer for them where there’s a bit more green space than you can find in Hackney or Walthamstow. A bit more calming, a lot less noisy and stressful, and that’s got to be good when you’re a child with these sorts of problems.

  Less busy too of course, which made it a whole lot handier for me.

  I parked within sight of the exit and watched them come out at half past three. Lots of parents, but I was expecting that. Not too many of these kids would be trusted to get the bus home. Then, even though the weather wasn’t great, I followed a gaggle of mums – mostly mums, of course – and their children across to the park.

  They’re just like any other group of parents and kids in the end. The mums start to talk. They’re desperate for a bit of adult conversation and who can blame them, the lives they’ve got? So they sit on benches and natter, they stand in clusters smoking, they grab a few minutes’ peace while the kids entertain themselves.

  While they run and climb and shout and stare and laugh.

  While the odd one drifts a bit too close to the line of trees or wanders towards the very edge of the adventure playground.

  Driving home, I decided that when it came to what I was going to say, I should probably just play it by ear. Something would come to me. If you plan everything, you run the risk of what you say sounding … rehearsed, and I think a child can sense that. That first impression is crucial, same as when you meet anyone really.

  It’s all about what they see in your face.

  Thinking back … nice and slow with that thumping-heart soundtrack … the electric window going down and her turning, eyes wide when I call to her, I reckon Amber-Marie reacted to my smile every bit as much as I reacted to hers.

  THIRTY

  You learned about people from talking to them in their homes. The way they lived told you a lot. Clutter and mess rarely went hand in hand with an organised mind, for example, while someone who cleaned and tidied to a ludicrous degree might well have something to hide. Basic stuff that might prove useful. Still, Jenny believed there were things to be learned in all sorts of places and felt it could do no harm to ring the changes. So, she asked Marina Green and Dave Cullen into Lewisham Police Station to conduct their interview.

  They were, she decided almost immediately, a bloody strange couple.

  The girlfriend would clearly have been glamorous without make-up and wearing a sack, but nevertheless looked to have made something of an effort with her appearance. She wore a multi-coloured Western-style shirt over black leggings – or were they jeggings? Jenny was not sure – with patent leather Doc Marten boots. Jenny wondered if that was the sort of outfit she wore as a dental receptionist, and if she had to take the diamond stud out of her nose.

  ‘I love your hair,’ she said.

  The woman thanked her, laughing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just a conversation I was having with a friend,’ the girlfriend said. When she saw that Jenny was happy for her to explain, she said, ‘The way women say nice things like that, but men don’t.’

  ‘I told you how great your hair was,’ the boyfriend said. He was somewhat less well groomed than his other half, in stained jeans that were saggy around his arse and a shapeless brown jacket. He had the sort of scraggly beard Jenny saw on some of the schoolboys at her bus stop in the mornings and looked as though he’d probably have trouble arm-wrestling any one of them. Clearly Dave Cullen wasn’t too bothered how he looked, which Jenny admired to a degree, but still … he was definitely what Steph – who was fond of using football terminology to measure this kind of thing – would have called non-league material.

  ‘To other men, I mean.’ The girlfriend – who was probably Chelsea or Man United, Liverpool certainly – smiled at Jenny. ‘Idiot …’

  The boyfriend shrugged, twitched like he’d been given a tiny shock. He had been a bundle of nervous energy since they had arrived; seemingly over-excited to be there, nodding like a kid
in a sweet shop and puffing away on his inhaler, firing off questions as Jenny led the two of them through the station.

  ‘Where are the CID offices?’

  ‘Do you not get on with the coppers in uniform or is that just a myth?’

  ‘Does this station have a custody suite?’

  They were sitting in a bog-standard interview room. Jenny on one side of the scarred wooden table, the couple on the other in nice uncomfortable plastic chairs. There was no other furniture in the room. A box of tissues that Jenny guessed was left over from an earlier interview was sitting on the table. The place smelled of pine air-freshener and the sweat it was not quite able to mask.

  ‘Thanks for giving up your time to come in,’ Jenny said. ‘I know you’ve both taken time off work, so I’ll try not to keep you too long.’

  The boyfriend nodded towards the heavy-duty twin CD recorders built into the wall. ‘You recording this?’ Jenny shook her head. He nodded up towards the camera high in the corner. ‘They normally video these things as well now, don’t they?’

  ‘This really isn’t that kind of interview,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Normally though, right? And you wouldn’t usually interview anyone on your own, would you? In fact, is that actually allowed?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s just a chat.’

  ‘Police and Criminal Evidence Act, right? PACE, right?’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

  ‘He watches all the shows,’ the girlfriend said. ‘Reads endless books about it. True crime stuff.’

  The boyfriend shrugged again, looking pleased with himself. The girlfriend’s hand was clutched tightly in his.

  Jenny thought she knew the type. At the extreme end of the spectrum were the nerds who constantly applied to join the police and were always knocked back, usually with very good reason. Many ended up as traffic wardens or working as civilian support staff.

  ‘You should apply for a job,’ Jenny said, smiling. ‘The Met’s always on the lookout for good IT staff.’

  He blinked slowly. ‘I design games,’ he said. He spoke quietly, sounding rather less excited suddenly. ‘It’s a bit more creative than IT. Pays a damn sight better too.’