The Crime Tsar
Page 32
She was talking like an automaton: there seemed no resemblance between this voice and his wife.
‘Eleri, I swear, I promise you, I have never touched Peter or Alexander like that. I couldn’t.’
There was a hair’s breadth pause.
‘Geoffrey, Peter has been examined by a paediatrician and we’re taking Alex to the hospital tomorrow.’
He knew she wanted him to assume the rest, to make it easier for her. He knew what he was going to hear but wanted to feel the knife as it went in, not to find the handle between his shoulder blades later.
‘Well?’
‘Peter shows physical and psychological evidence of abuse.’
Carter had thought it would be a stab but it felt more like the smashing of his skull. What part of his denial would make her believe him? He had only one word.
‘No. Eleri. No. Those people have made mistakes before. Cleveland – what was that bloody woman’s name …?’ He went on, desperate, thrashing around for some sort of sense. ‘What about Romania, before they came here –?’
She had found a reservoir of courage and didn’t falter.
‘My parents are advising me to have you prosecuted but I’m not sure I want to put Peter through that. Of course, you know Alex could never give evidence.’ The way she said it implied she knew paedophiles often targeted the disabled knowing they could never legally accuse.
‘I’ve got to talk to them, Eleri. Peter would never say I hurt him. Never.’
‘No, you’re right. Peter won’t admit anything but he has nightmares, screams out, “No, Daddy, no, don’t.”’ Her anger got the better of her. ‘What the hell do you think that means, Geoffrey? You liar, you bloody filthy liar, what did you do to those boys –’
‘Eleri –’
She was screaming now, hysterical. He could hear her mother in the background trying to calm her.
And then Peter, he was shouting, shouting as loud as his desperation would allow him: ‘Dad … Daddy … I want to come home! Dad. I haven’t told them anything. Dad, please. Come and get me!’
Eleri’s voice drowned everything else out. There was no vestige of wife or lover left in her. No trust or love. She was a mother who had betrayed her sons with a monster. She would never forgive him because she would never forgive herself.
‘You’ll never see those boys again. Never. I’m divorcing you. And, Geoffrey, I’m changing my name back to Morgan. The baby will be a Morgan and if I could stop it ever knowing who you are I would. You’re nothing to us. Do you understand? Nothing.’
Carter understood. Everything was clear and that clarity gave him peace. He would continue to work. He would give every impression of being a person. No one would know that he’d been hollowed out.
Days later, alone as he always was now, he sat in front of a television which provided noise but not company, and watched a horse fall into quicksand. For minutes it struggled, desperate to find a foothold, then, exhausted, it let its strength go, and gave in to the inevitable. The camera closed in on one of its eyes. There was no peace there, no wise acceptance of God’s Will. All Carter saw was confusion, incomprehension and a desperate sadness to be leaving life.
He was looking into a mirror.
Jenni was pleased to be getting more invitations to political gatherings. But frustration woke her every day Carter wasn’t officially finished. She knew the new interest in Tom was because Carter was under suspicion but the longer the matter remained unresolved the more she could see the possibility of their being implicated. While Carter paced his empty house in misery she spent every sleepless night going over and over her actions. She knew Tom wasn’t sleeping either but his door was closed and the one time she went into his room he wouldn’t look at her. She was on the edge of total exhaustion when Eleri rang.
‘Jenni?’
She sounded as if she was on the other side of the world.
‘Eleri? Where are you?’
‘Wales. Reception’s terrible here, but I wanted to talk to you away from the house. How are you?’
They spent a few minutes in polite conversation before Eleri said, ‘I’m divorcing Geoffrey.’
‘Oh Eleri … no.’ Jenni went on to automatic ‘Are you sure? I mean, nothing’s proved. It’s probably all a horrible mistake.’
‘One day I’ll tell you everything, Jenni. One day. But I just wanted to thank you for what you’ve done for us. For the boys and me.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Is it really too late?’
‘Jenni, believe me I don’t want it to be but yes. I told him a month ago.’ She paused, ambushed by an image of Carter as he’d been before all this, when she still worshipped him. ‘I just wanted you to know, it’s official now. I think he’s going to contest it so it’ll drag on. For God’s sake, how could he?’
Jenni thought this was good. The government was distancing itself from Carter and now his wife was too. It could only be a matter of time before Carter resigned. Surely he’d want to follow Eleri and try to re-claim his family.
‘Maybe you should give him a second chance.’
‘Jenni, you just don’t understand.’ Then, again, ‘One day I’ll tell you everything. I promise.’
‘Oh, Eleri, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Tom will be so sad. After all, there’s no evidence, is there? Don’t be too hard on him, Eleri. Maybe if you just had time and space to yourselves you could work it out
‘Jenni. You don’t know the facts. You don’t know.’ She stopped, unable to go on.
Jenni heard her but wasn’t listening – she was anxious to speak to Shackleton.
‘No, well, whatever happens, stay in touch, won’t you?’
‘Thanks, Jenni. I really appreciate that. I can’t tell you what this has been like. It’s like someone has picked us up and dropped us in a sewer.’
Jenni automatically made the right noises, said the right things, until she could end the call without seeming rude.
Once she’d put the phone down she called Tom. He was in a meeting. She wanted to scream at Janet. But she didn’t.
‘Janet, this is important.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Shackleton, the Chief Constable said he wasn’t to be disturbed under any circumstances.’
Jenni was vibrating with fury.
‘I am his wife. I am not any circumstances.’
There was a pause.
‘Hold the line, Mrs Shackleton.’
It was less than fifteen seconds before Shackleton came on the line.
‘Hello.’
Jenni was disproportionately irritated by the low-voiced sing-song way he said the word.
‘It’s me. Eleri’s divorcing Carter.’
She waited.
Tom, in his office with the Police Federation representatives, didn’t know what to say.
‘I see,’ was all he could think of.
She was sharp.
‘No, you don’t see, Tom. He might cling on while he was just being investigated but… well, don’t you see? He’ll have to make a choice; if he wants his family he’ll have to resign. She’s gone. He’ll have to go after them. I mean she’s started proceedings but he’s not going to accept it. He’ll fight, and to do that properly he’s got to follow her.’
Carefully, mindful of the others in the room, he said, ‘Well, thank you for letting me know.’
Jenni was exasperated.
‘God, you’re a prat.’
‘Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.’
Shackleton put the phone down and turned back to the business of unhappiness and unrest among the rank and file.
While one of the representatives talked he looked sympathetic and let himself think.
He didn’t know how long Carter’d been alone but he knew Jenni was right: Carter would fall apart without his family. Shackleton was relieved. While Carter clung on they were all in limbo and the weeks were dragging on. The signs were that Whitehall was turning its face towards the Shackletons but nothing had been said. Nothing was sure.
It would all work out.
Lucy was washing Gary when she heard the news. Geoffrey Carter had been found dead in his home three months after the start of a police investigation concerning paedophile pornography found at his home … There were no other details. Lucy was shocked. Gary cynical.
‘One less neck for Shackleton to step on.’
‘Oh Gary, don’t … it’s awful.’
‘Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry – one fewer neck.’
She continued to wash him, making sure her flannel soaked the sheet. A small revenge but her own. She’d comforted the man, they’d shared a tiny intimacy. And now he was dead …
‘Come on, Luce, you’ll give me nappy rash.’
She sighed. What could she do? Nothing. But she felt she should.
Wanting to talk about it, she went over to see Jenni as soon as she could.
Tamsin and her little boy were just leaving. There was noisy laughter, the child shrieking and waving to his nice granny. Lucy felt like a ghost walking into a happy family scene.
Lucy went into the house with her, Jenni still smiling, relaxed.
As soon as the pleasantries were out of the way and Jenni had poured out another coffee Lucy said, ‘Have you heard? About Geoffrey Carter? He’s dead.’
She would never forget the look on Jenni’s face. Surprise and pleasure hastily covered by sadness and regret. It was such a quick transformation Lucy wasn’t even certain it had happened.
But then Jenni said with an undisguised eagerness, ‘Are you sure?’
Lucy nodded.
‘Oh dear. How sad.’
And that was it. But Lucy could still see the triumph behind the modestly downcast eyes. Not long after, she went home and tried to explain the incident to Gary.
Shackleton was in meetings all morning so it wasn’t until one-thirty his secretary had the opportunity to tell him.
‘Mr Shackleton?’ Her voice was even more melodious and quiet than usual. ‘It’s Mr Carter, sir, he’s been found dead. Possible suicide. Don’t forget you’ve got the Police Authority at two o’clock. Would you like a sandwich?’
He shook his head and closed his office door. The walk to his desk seemed unreal. He looked out of the window. Uniformed police wandered across his view coming and going to lunch. The words free will and personal responsibility, hitherto meaningless mantras trotted out by development gurus, swirled round his head.
No matter how fast he ran round the corridors of his mind the rat-tailed words ‘You killed him’ kept up. There was real terror in the reality of it. This wasn’t part of the scenario. He wasn’t responsible for Jenni. He hadn’t known anything about it. But it was too late for that. He’d changed. He’d joined the human race. He was infected with weakness for the first time. The weakness of conscience. Geoffrey Carter wasn’t an abstract obstacle, he was a man who was dead.
No, who he had killed.
But Jenni did it … no, not Jenni. Me.
Only a fraction of the reality was being allowed to filter into his mind. He knew imagining the pain Carter had experienced would destroy his control, would eat away at him until he couldn’t function any more. Guilt. Responsibility for your brother. No man is an island. Carter being cleared away in a black plastic bag as they all were. Suicides. The dramatic gesture that always finished in the back of the body men’s grubby van. A discarded body bagged up, like any other rubbish. Then the slab and the unknown fingers probing and turning the naked dead body. The body that had been a friend, a fellow chief constable, a known success not a month before. Being sliced up and weighed for disease and legal requirement. The organs put back in any order. Brain in the stomach and newspaper in the skull. That’s what you did to him, Shackleton. Why? For what? Nothing’s worth killing for, is it?
‘I didn’t kill him.’
He said it out loud. The phone rang and Janet said, mindful of the tragedy, that Mrs Shackleton was on the line.
‘Tom? Tom?’
He didn’t want to speak to her. Ever.
‘Yes, Jenni?’
‘Have you heard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well?’
‘It’s tragic.’
She snorted.
‘For who? Not us. Mind you, I didn’t think he’d go that far – bit melodramatic after all.’
She paused.
‘I think it just proves he was a paedophile. Why would he kill himself otherwise? I mean, he still had his job, he hadn’t actually been prosecuted. They must have found something against him, don’t you think?’
Shackleton put down the phone. He felt the ties that had bound him to Jenni dissolving in the acid of self-hatred. What she had done was no worse than many of the things she’d done in his name before. But no one had ever died before. His eyes were staring, unseeing, out of the window, but something wanted to be seen. His eyes found focus and saw the three black faces.
They weren’t smiling now. They carried a heavily filled black plastic sack, and it lay, like a body, across their arms. A pietà triptych. The woman who frightened him, the African woman with the blind seashell eyes, lifted her hand to him. Its white palm was red and wet with blood. Slowly, deliberately, she smeared it across her face and opened her mouth in a silent ululation. The other two stretched their lips wide too. Then the sound – it seemed the only sound in the world – filled his head. The wild, high, rippling cry of grief. The three voices invoking misery for the dead and the living.
He didn’t know what prayer he made but when he raised his face from his hands there was silence. The women had gone.
Danny Marshall went to the house immediately the call came in that Carter had been found by the local beat bobby. The window cleaner had raised the alert.
When he arrived the place was quietly full of scenes-of-crime officers, CID, police photographers and the soberly dressed men whose job it was to take away the body. The body, unaccompanied by anyone who had known or cared for its inhabitant, was just a sad mess to be cleared up.
He asked what had happened. The first officer he approached shrugged, embarrassed.
Down the stairs was the lumbering Inspector Davidge. Danny had served under him when he’d been starting out. Davidge was a very good copper. Three commendations for bravery, lived in Essex and collected Minton sugar bowls. His girth was remarkable and his offwhite shirts always had a triangle of pale stomach peeping out from under his tie which lay, stranded, halfway down his vast belly.
He spoke with the intimate dodginess of a second-hand car salesman.
‘Sorry for your loss, sir.’
He stepped respectfully across Carter’s body which was still being measured and photographed as it lay at the bottom of the stairs, any dignity it had had in life dispelled by violent and surprising death.
‘What happened?’
Davidge nodded at the question and led the deputy into the garden. Danny looked at the stone sculptures Carter had brought back in his hand luggage from Zimbabwe, pretending his bag weighed nothing, and remembered they’d talked about Danny’s ancestors who had been taken as slaves from Ghana. They’d laughed at Danny’s description of a ship-load of artists being dumped on Barbados because they were only good for housework. The tough ones went to Jamaica.
Davidge lit up a Rothmans. The deputy thought if he made retirement without a heart attack there was no justice, but although he wheezed and waddled and drank for Britain his blood pressure and cholesterol gave no cause for alarm. Bastard, thought Danny.
‘What happened, Bob?’
Davidge took a long pull on his fag and looked at the apple tree from which hung a child’s empty swing.
‘He’s gone up to his study, right? And he’s writing a letter. Fond farewells, I suppose. We found the hoover hose taped to the car exhaust and he’s taken enough aspirin to fell an ox. So far so g
ood. Anyway his pen runs out. Nice Mont Blanc fountain, black ink. Not realising how far gone he is he tries to get downstairs to refill it – we found a new bottle of ink in his briefcase. But… he gets to the top of the stairs and loses his footing – the nib of the pen went through his eye into his brain. And he died. Quicker than carbon monoxide. Lucky, I suppose. A paedophile’s life is not a happy one.’
Danny looked down the garden.
‘He wasn’t a paedophile.’
Davidge looked at his cigarette end.
‘No, sir. Of course not.’
Danny felt like the disciple who had thrice denied his master. Only evangelism would make up for betrayal.
‘He told me. Swore he was innocent.’
Davidge thought about this for a few moments.
‘Well, whatever. Doesn’t make him any less dead, does it?’
He shook his head and put another Rothmans between his lips. An acutely intelligent man, he had great respect for his instinct and his instinct told him Danny was telling the truth. The atmosphere between them shifted. Davidge had no taste for witch hunts and that is what Carter had been put through.
‘I’ll light a candle. By the way, sir, I found this upstairs. The letter he was writing. No point in it going through official channels, eh?’ He handed him the sheets of paper addressed to Danny in Carter’s hand. ‘Well … I’d better get back in there.’
With the unlit fag in his mouth he shambled into the house.
Later that night he went into his local church and lit a night light under the statue of St Francis of Assisi. It was the only candle lit for Carter in the darkness surrounding his death.
Danny caught sight of Carter’s body just before the door closed. If he’d only come round. Had faith. Been there. He read quickly:
Danny. Why does the truth seem more true when the speaker’s dead? I don’t know and it seems more and more stupid to die just to be believed. But it’s too late now. Not too late to make sense, I hope. It’s getting dark, round the edges, like looking down a ‘what the butler saw’. What do I want to tell you? What must you believe?