‘After that I went into the kitchen to cook dinner. But Walter saw someone else arrive, didn’t you?’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes, you know you did. You said, Speedy’s got visitors.’
Walter didn’t seem inclined to make the effort to confirm or deny this, and Kathy had to ask him to please think back. He put down his minute tools with a sigh of resignation.
‘I heard a car engine, but I don’t know if it was Speedy’s or someone else’s. I looked out the side window’-he nodded at a small window whose curtain was drawn back- ‘and I thought I saw someone out there.’
‘With a box,’ his wife prompted him.
‘How large a box?’
‘A big one,’ the wife jumped in. ‘Walter said, “Looks like they’re getting rid of a body”.’
When she saw the look on Kathy’s face, the woman sucked in her breath. ‘Oh, you don’t really think…?’
‘It may just have been Speedy,’ Walter said. ‘You can’t see very clearly. Look for yourself.’
‘Yes, but his kitchen light was on then,’ his wife objected. ‘And you said-’
‘I know what I said.’ Walter sighed. ‘But I couldn’t really be sure.’
‘But Speedy would have been in his chair, Walter.’
Walter shrugged.
‘Do you remember when the house lights went off next door?’
‘I think that must have been while we were having our dinner. I don’t remember them being on when we came back in here.’
Unable to get anything more concrete, Kathy gave the woman a card, which she accepted with a very satisfied expression, as if this was a trophy that could come in very handy.
The east wind sighed and blustered as Kathy walked back out to the street, pushing the buttons on her mobile. Brock answered. ‘The house is in darkness,’ she said. ‘His neighbours think the lights went off sometime before eight p.m. But his van’s still in the drive.’
‘We’re on our way,’ he replied.
She walked along the street looking for any other observant neighbours, but the suburban bungalows were all buttoned up tight against the winter night, and she turned back to Speedy’s house and walked down the front path. She knew she was being observed by at least one pair of beady eyes from next door, and took comfort from the fact that the little woman probably had the phone in her hand, two nines already dialled.
She hesitated at the front door when a phone close by inside suddenly started ringing. She waited, but nobody made a move to answer it, no lights came on. The phone stopped ringing and she tried the doorbell, but got no response. She pushed on the door, but it was firmly locked.
She moved round the side of the house, down the drive where Speedy’s van was parked. It was impossible to see inside its tinted rear windows to make out if it contained a box. She was still visible from the neighbours’ window, but as she approached the gate leading into the back garden she came to thick evergreen bushes that blocked their line of sight. The gate clicked behind her. The windows were curtained, all in darkness.
A ramp had been formed up to the back door so that there was no step for a wheelchair to negotiate. She tried the door handle and it turned: the back door swung open and a billow of warm musty air spilled over her.
‘Hello?’ she called into the darkness. ‘Speedy? Anybody home?’ There was total silence for a moment, then a soft thump from somewhere inside the house.
She took a deep breath and stepped into the dark kitchen, making out unusually low worktops. The dark void of the doorway on the far side was broad, the proportions of everything subtly different from what she was used to. She walked carefully towards the doorway, ears straining, trying to acclimatise her eyes to the interior darkness, unable to see the light switch. There was a hall beyond, another wide doorway facing her, leading into the other back room.
She made out that this door was closed, and she put out a hand and found the handle and very gently began to ease it open. A flickering green light came through the opening, and a smell, rancid and unpleasant. Then suddenly, low down and fast, a dark shape leapt through the gap towards her. Kathy jumped back with a cry, then saw a cat disappear through the kitchen door. She swore softly and put a hand to the light switch now visible at her shoulder, and blinked as light flooded the hallway. Then she pushed open the door and looked into the room. There was enough light coming from the hall and from the digital displays on a rack of electronic machines for her to see the outline of Reynolds’s wheelchair. Her eyes were drawn to the void above the back of the chair where his head and shoulders should have been.
The smell was overwhelming now in the hot room. Vomit. She reached to the wall beside the door and fumbled with the switch, then saw the limp forearm on the floor beyond the wheelchair, the syringe nearby. Behind her she heard voices, then Brock calling her name.
They found Wiff in a bedroom at the front of the house, lying curled, fully dressed, on the bedding. He was clutching a brand-new pair of roller blades to his chest, and the headphones of a Walkman were in his ears. There was an angelic smile on his face, a dribble of foam at the corner of his mouth. There was no pulse in his skinny little throat, and his hand was cold.
*
Leon sniffed as he got in and closed the door of the car. Kathy said, ‘Sorry. I think I’ve still got some of the mess on my shoe. I tried to clean it, but I can’t seem to get rid of the smell.’
‘You sound tired,’ he said.
‘Yes. It’s just hitting me. It’s been a long day.’ What she really wanted was to put her arms round him and close her eyes for a few minutes, but what with the ambulance and the patrol cars and the SOCO vans and the neighbours, there wasn’t much hope of that.
‘How’s it looking?’ she asked.
‘Dead around three hours, he thinks. Probably of asphyxia. Choked on his own vomit after he fell to the floor.’
‘The bottle on the floor beside him, was it ketamine again?’
‘That’s what the label says. He’s got a fair old chemist’s shop in there: grass, amphetamines, a variety of other pills, and Ketapet. There was a pack for two dozen bottles in the fridge, with two unopened and one half-used as if he’d been experimenting with doses.’
‘Could somebody have killed him?’
‘It’s possible, but there’s no indication of anyone else having been there.’
‘No visitor, like the neighbour said?’
Leon shrugged. ‘No visitor, no box. How reliable are they?’
‘They’re not really sure what they saw.’
‘I think the view is developing that he gave Wiff a shot back in the plenum to calm him, then brought him back here and gave him some more, then took some himself and OD’d. There were wheelchair tracks in the dust of the duct floor leading to Wiff ’s den, though we can’t say how old.’
‘Is there anything else to connect him to Kerri?’
‘Yes. We’ve found the green frog bag, in one of the bedrooms, in a cupboard.’
‘Oh,’ Kathy said, voice flat, and turned away. It all seemed somehow both inevitable and wrong at the same time.
‘We’re concentrating on that room at present, looking for hair and fabric samples. We’ll take his van away to check it.’
‘What was that equipment in the room he was in?’
‘Video editing and copying machines. There are quite a number of tapes. I don’t know what of.’
‘Maybe of us.’
‘Maybe. I don’t care.’
She was still thinking about Kerri’s green bag in Speedy’s cupboard and didn’t pick it up right away-the slight edge in his voice, as if he’d been thinking about this and come to some decision.
‘Don’t you?’ she asked.
‘Why should we care? What kind of job is it if you have to care about that?’
‘It isn’t that. It’s just that it’s private, between us. Nothing to do with anyone else.’
‘Yes, but if it isn’t private any more, does it matter?
’
‘… I’m not sure.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘No, you’re not, are you? Christ, Kathy, it happens all the time. Boy meets girl. Who cares?’
Kathy blinked with surprise. This conversation had gone off the rails somewhere and she wasn’t sure how. ‘No, you’re right. It doesn’t matter. You sound angry. You don’t think I’m ashamed of us, do you?’
He sighed and looked away. ‘No, I’m not angry. I understand. I understand exactly, because I’m much the same. You want two lives, a public life and a private life, with no connection whatever between the two. And that’s impossible, especially while we’re working together like this. If it isn’t Speedy’s tapes it’ll be something else. Hell, these guys are supposed to be detectives. I’m astonished they haven’t spotted the difference in us already.’
‘Have I changed?’
He looked at her, face softening. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.
Then he turned way again as another patrol car drew up fast to the kerb, lights flashing, and Chief Superintendent Forbes got out.
Leon reached for the door handle. ‘I’d better go. We’ll talk about this another time, when we’re not so tired.’
She watched him walk back to the house, and said to herself, bewildered, ‘Talk about what?’
13
I t was late in the small hours by the time they returned, separately, to Kathy’s flat and fell exhausted into bed, and by morning Kathy had forgotten the conversation in the car. The wind had dropped, and from the bedroom window the city was bathed in a silvery light from low luminescent cloud. The sense of stillness matched Kathy’s mood. She had slept deeply and felt detached from the events of the previous day, as if they had unfolded too rapidly and needed time and distance to absorb.
She made a pot of tea and took it back to bed, and they made love. They were good at it now, with a developed understanding of each other, and when it was over she felt completely at peace.
‘We should get away this weekend,’ Leon said. ‘Get some time together after all the hours we’ve put in this week.’
‘Mmm. That sounds good. Do you think we can? Will we wind things up today?’
‘Depends on the preliminary PM results, I suppose. But I reckon there’ll be a lull, if not an end to it.’
‘Nice word,’ she murmured, curling into the crook of his arm. ‘Lull… lull… lull.’
*
By midday the evacuation of unit 184 was well in hand. Phil had finally been dislodged from his post at the door, and men with hand trolleys were moving boxes of computers and files out into the rear access corridor to the service lift, and down to a truck in the basement. Gavin Lowry came over to speak to Kathy.
‘Nice meeting you,’ he said. ‘Hope we get to work together again, next time I need a new car.’
‘Yes. Sorry about that, Gavin. And I’m sorry I won’t be able to see how your campaign against the grey crust works out.’
‘Read about it in Th e Job.’ He grinned.
‘Maybe Forbes can go for Harry Jackson’s job. I hear he’s resigning.’
‘He offered his resignation, but Bo Seager wouldn’t accept it. Reckoned he wasn’t culpable.’
‘Do you think that’s right? You’d have thought he should have picked up a few warning signals about Speedy. He was his appointment, wasn’t he? Knew him from the old days before his accident?’
‘Yes. I guess Harry’s fault, if he has one, is that he tends to be too loyal towards his team.’
Kathy smiled at him. ‘That’s not a mistake you intend to make, eh Gavin?’
He looked hurt. ‘This from the woman who trashes my car.’
They shook hands and Lowry left to accompany the truck back to Hornchurch Street. Kathy went through to the rear office, where Brock was sorting through papers, pushing most of them through the slot of a locked bin for shredding.
‘Well, Kathy.’ He stretched and straightened his back, and walked over to the door to check on progress with clearing the place. ‘I asked for twenty-four hours, but I honestly didn’t think we’d crack it in the time.’
He seemed relieved but hardly elated, she thought. ‘You’re sure we have?’
He glanced at her. ‘Certainly looks that way. Lowry and the others didn’t come up with anything suspicious in the shop units, and they did a pretty solid job this time. Bo Seager’s just been on to me about a deputation from the small traders led by our friend Bruno Verdi complaining about how thorough we were. Everyone seems very relieved to have us leave Silvermeadow. Our SIO especially. Can’t wait to have us off his patch. We’ll let his people wrap it all up.’
‘While we concentrate on North.’
‘Exactly. We’ve got plenty of leads on Keith Nolan to follow up. However, I was talking to Bren this morning…’ He turned back from the door and came and sat on a box next to the chair Kathy had taken, lowering his voice as he went on. ‘An idea occurred to me. I thought it might be worth us making one last little effort here tomorrow, unofficially.’
‘Saturday?’
‘Yes. It was last Saturday that North, if it really was him, was spotted. If he has some particular interest in the place, he might make a repeat visit. I’ve asked Bren and a few of the lads to spend the day with me here, on the off-chance.’
‘You’ll be lucky to spot him in the Saturday crowd. It’s the last Saturday before Christmas.’
‘So they tell me. We’ll be in a couple of emergency road assistance vans, parked at the two main entrances onto the site, watching car drivers as they come in and out. Another lad’ll watch the bus station and taxi rank.’
‘And there’s the WPC in the shop,’ Kathy said, thinking.
‘No. Forbes has pulled her out.’
Kathy felt him looking keenly at her.
‘I did wonder if you would be interested in a new career for a day.’
She had seen it coming, and had already begun to resign herself to it. The weekend with Leon would have to wait.
‘It’s a long shot, Kathy, no doubt of that.’
She nodded. ‘What about putting somebody in the control room to watch for him on the screens?’
‘Yes, Jackson would probably be delighted, what with half his staff ill. But I’d rather not tell him what’s going on. His own security isn’t looking too good at the moment. Let’s keep this to ourselves.’
As she was leaving, Kathy met Sharon in the mall. She was giving directions to an elderly couple, confused and lost, and when she caught sight of Kathy she waved to her to wait. When she’d finished with the shoppers she came over and said, ‘I hear you’re going.’
‘Yes. Looks like we’re all finished here, Sharon. You’re back on patrol, I see.’
‘We’re very short-handed at the moment.’ She looked uneasily at Kathy. ‘You’re quite satisfied, then? About Speedy? That he killed those poor kids?’
‘It looks that way.’
‘Oh…’ Sharon lowered her eyes.
‘Yes, it’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it?’
‘I’d never have believed it, to be honest.’
‘What, because of the wheelchair?’
‘Oh no, I think he could have done it, physically I mean. I’ve seen him down the gym. He was very strong in his shoulders and arms. No, I just wouldn’t have believed he would. And especially not Wiff.’
‘Did you know the boy?’
‘Yeah. Speedy had him down the security centre once, showing him the computers and stuff. He was really fond of him, I thought. You know, protective. He felt sorry for him, homeless and that.’
‘Did the other security people know about Wiff?’
‘Probably not. Speedy didn’t want Harry to know. Didn’t think he’d approve.’ She stared down at her toecaps, polished shiny black, immaculate like the rest of her uniform, the way Harry would like it.
‘Something bothering you, Sharon?’
‘Yeah… It may sound stupid, but it isn’t possible somebody else could have killed Speedy, is it,
and made it look like Speedy did it?’
‘What makes you say that?’
She shrugged, uncomfortable. ‘I suppose I just can’t believe it really.’
‘That’s often the way. People can’t believe that the nice man they worked with for years could really be a killer.’
‘Yeah, only… Speedy had this way of annoying people. He’d do things to get under their skin.’
‘Yes,’ Kathy agreed.
‘I think he did it because he couldn’t stand them feeling sorry for him, so he’d do something to piss them off. I said to him once that he should be careful or someone would belt him one, wheelchair or not. And he said he didn’t worry, cos he knew too much.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
‘I don’t know, and he wouldn’t tell me. He just said he saw more of what went on stuck in front of his screens than the rest of us did on our two legs. Well, I wondered if he’d pissed someone off good and proper this time. Someone who didn’t care what he knew.’
‘Or cared too much. Nothing else? What about his drugs? You must have known about them.’
Sharon looked unconvincingly defiant. ‘What drugs?’
‘Come on. His place was full of stuff.’
‘Was it? I don’t know… sometimes he did seem out of it. I thought he was on medication.’
‘He was dealing, Sharon. That’s what we’re told.’
‘I didn’t know that, honest. How could he have done, in his chair?’
‘Wiff was his legs, ran his errands.’
‘Oh.’ She looked genuinely shocked. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘But you had a pretty good idea he was taking something.’
She nodded.
‘Then surely Harry must have realised too, eh?’
‘Yes, maybe. I saw Harry getting stuck into him once, and I thought it might have been about that. Speedy was really doped up at the time.’
‘Well, we don’t have anything to say we’re wrong at the moment, Sharon. But if you think of anything, give me a ring, will you?’ Kathy wrote her mobile number on the back of a card and handed it to her. They shook hands and said goodbye.
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