LUTHER: The Calling

by Neil Cross

  ‘That can’t have been very nice.’

  ‘It was a lot worse than not very nice. I’m looking round for something to whack him with. Then he comes in. Stands in the doorway and he’s—’

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Breathing funny.’

  ‘Excited funny? Or lots of exercise funny?’

  ‘Excited,’ says Mrs Kwalingana, ‘in that way. The way men get.’

  Luther writes a note.

  ‘I just lay there,’ Mrs Kwalingana says, ‘and watched him through a crack in my eyelid.’

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘Playing with himself.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Howie says, ‘I have to ask. Was he exposing himself?’

  ‘No. He was rubbing it through his trousers. Very slowly. Not’ – she looks at the table – ‘not up and down, but round and round. And he was smiling. Making these breaths.’ She mimes it. ‘And rubbing himself all in circles.’

  ‘You saw his face?’

  ‘I saw him smile.’

  ‘Anything else you noticed about him? Did he have long hair? Short hair?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Short, I think. He wore a hat.’

  ‘He was a white man?’

  ‘White, skinny. Young. But muscles, you know?’

  ‘How did you see his muscles?’

  ‘In his forearms as he . . . jiggled it around.’

  ‘Did he wear a watch, maybe? Jewellery?’

  ‘No watch. No jewellery.’

  ‘Did you notice a tattoo?’

  ‘He was a thin young man. Quite strong.’

  ‘Clean shaven?’

  ‘Yes. None of these goatees.’

  ‘And while he was . . . playing with himself, did he say anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And he didn’t touch you?’

  ‘No. I pretended to be asleep and in a minute he went away.’

  ‘What did he take?’

  ‘Just my bag. My keys.’

  ‘Your own keys?’

  ‘Yes, my own keys.’

  ‘And only your keys?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What other keys did he take?’

  ‘Keys from people whose houses I clean.’

  ‘Mrs Kwalingana,’ says Howie. ‘This is important now. Did those keys have the address on them?’

  ‘Do I look stupid to you?’

  ‘No, you don’t look stupid to me.’

  ‘Good. Well, I’m not.’

  ‘Do you keep a computer at home?’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Never mind. Do you keep your clients’ addresses written down anywhere?’

  She taps her head. ‘No need.’

  ‘And in the morning, you reported this theft to the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I put the kettle on and sat round waiting. And sure enough, they turn up eventually. I tell them what happened, they give me a crime number for insurance. I tell them – these keys, if my boss finds out they’re gone I’m sacked. There’s nothing we can do, the police lady says. I call her a name and she leaves. I never see them again.’

  ‘And how did your employer respond,’ Luther says, ‘when you told him about the lost keys?’

  ‘I never did.’

  ‘All those keys were stolen, and you never told anybody?’

  ‘Nope.’

  He glances at his notes, knows he’s missing something. ‘You need those keys to get into the houses you clean, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you have a spare set?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So?’

  He sits back. Crosses his arms. Waits.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘The keys were stolen on Friday. No cleaning on Saturday. Sunday morning, I get out of bed – can’t sleep, you know. Have to keep checking windows and the doors.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And in the hallway, there’s an envelope.’

  ‘What’s in the envelope?’

  ‘My keys.’

  Luther glances at Howie.

  ‘What?’ he says. ‘All of them?’

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘He gave you back your keys?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you ever wonder why?’

  ‘Many times.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Because they’re no good to him?’

  ‘So why didn’t he just throw them away?’

  ‘Perhaps deep down he’s a good boy.’

  ‘Could be,’ Luther says. ‘Did you tell the police about this?’

  ‘Yes. They told me they’d get the SAS onto it.’

  Luther laughs, liking this woman. He says, ‘I’m sorry you weren’t treated better.’

  ‘Not your fault. The young gentleman this morning was very nice. He had a kind face. What was his name?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

  ‘DS Ripley,’ says Howie.

  ‘I’ve never met DS Ripley,’ Luther says. ‘But if I do, I’ll be sure to pass on your kind words. Are you sleeping better now?’

  ‘A little. I’d like a dog.’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’

  ‘I’m scared to get one in case I take a fall and can’t feed it.’

  Luther tucks away the notebook. ‘You didn’t happen to keep the envelope the keys came in, did you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘You may have kept it, though? To reuse, pay a bill, send a Christmas card?’

  ‘It’s not impossible.’

  ‘Would you mind if I sent an officer home with you to take a look?’

  ‘He’ll drive me home?’

  ‘It’ll be a she. And yes.’

  ‘Then fine. Good.’

  ‘From memory,’ he says, ‘were there any marks on the envelope? Any words or drawings, or—’

  ‘I don’t think so. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay. You’ve been very helpful.’

  Luther and Howie stand, head for the door.

  Mrs Kwalingana says, ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Why he gave me my keys back?’

  Luther hesitates. He wonders what to say.

  The burglar needed a set of keys to copy, he thinks. So he took them from you. But he didn’t want you to tell your boss. Because your boss would have to tell the people the keys belonged to. And they’d have changed the locks.

  He can’t say that. But he can’t think of anything reassuring to say either.

  He gives Mrs Kwalingana a smile and an encouraging nod, and leaves the interview room.

  Patrick gets home to find Henry sitting on the lowest step with his head in his hands.

  He looks up when Patrick walks through the door. He rubs his eyes. He’s been awake for hours. He says, ‘So where is she?’

  Patrick steels himself. ‘She wouldn’t come.’

  ‘So why not fucking make her come?’

  ‘I couldn’t, Dad.’

  Henry stands. He advances on Patrick. ‘Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

  Henry twists his lip and leers. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he mimics.

  ‘I really tried,’ says Patrick.

  ‘I really tried,’ repeats Henry.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I did.’

  Henry slaps Patrick.

  He grabs a fistful of Patrick’s hair and bends him double. A flurry of rabbit punches to the ear and cheek, then Henry spins Patrick round and throws him into the wall. Four vicious little jabs to the kidneys.

  Then he bites Patrick’s scalp.

  Patrick cries out. He pleads and begs.

  Henry spits away a coin-sized chunk of hair and skin.

  Once – a long time ago, years and years – Henry made Patrick torture a dog. It was a German Shepherd, an intelligent and noble beast. Henry tied it up in the garden and gave Patrick a chain to beat it with.<
br />
  At first, as Patrick thrashed the dog, it snapped and snarled, bared gritted teeth, snapped and lunged. But near the end, when it had shat and pissed everywhere, smearing Patrick with its excrement and its blood, it dragged itself towards him on its belly, using its forepaws. Its ears were pinned back. It was whimpering and trying to wag its tail.

  ‘See?’ said Henry. ‘Now it loves you.’

  Henry spent years beating love into Patrick. But this isn’t a love beating. It’s just a beating. Patrick knows the difference.

  When it’s over, Henry stands over him. His hair is sticking up. His face is pale with loathing. Two pale tributaries of snot run from his nostrils into his mouth.

  ‘Well, what the fuck do we do now?’ he shouts. ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do? Everyone’s going to think I’m a fucking kiddie-fiddler.’

  He kicks Patrick one more time. Then he retreats to the kitchen, head in hands.

  Patrick curls into a ball on the floor. He lies there and doesn’t move.

  CHAPTER 9

  Maggie Reilly is fifty-one and supremely well groomed – even in the studio, where nobody but her producer and the engineer can see her. Grey trouser suit, cerise shirt, glossy high heels.

  Maggie took a roundabout and now obsolete way to get here: Bristol Evening Post at eighteen, straight out of A-levels. At twenty-five she made the move to television, working as a reporter on Westward!, an early evening current- affairs programme. Two years later she moved to television news in London.

  There were some award shortlistings, including one for rear of the year. She was named as a correspondent in a reasonably high-profile divorce case. There were some unflattering photographs in the papers, most famously of Maggie leaving the ‘love den’ looking frumpy and hungover; a trick of light and shadow added twenty years and several chins. There followed a year or two in the wilderness during which she wrote a newspaper column, renting out opinions she didn’t really hold, or not that strongly.

  And now here she is, born again, enjoying solid but unremarkable ratings on the Talk London Drivetime slot, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Yesterday, an elderly immigrant woman was hit and killed by a bendy bus just round the corner from Camberwell Art College; there’s nothing like a bendy bus death to make London ers irate. Maggie’s taken three consecutive calls on the subject and the subject’s getting old. Keen to move on, she hits the dump button, goes to line four.

  ‘Pete Black from Woking,’ she says. ‘You’re through to Maggie Reilly on London Talk FM.’

  ‘Hello Maggie,’ says Pete Black from Woking. ‘First-time caller, long-time fan.’

  ‘Well,’ she chuckles, checking out the monitor on the corner of her desk, ‘a girl can’t have too many of them.’

  ‘Since ’95, actually,’ says Pete from Woking. ‘I used to live in Bristol.’

  ‘Did you, my lover?’

  He chuckles at the exaggerated accent. ‘I remember that thing you did,’ he says. ‘The thing about little Adrian York.’

  Maggie laughs that near-famous cigarette laugh. ‘Well, if I was feeling a bit blue round the edges, I’d say that dates you. So what’s got your back up today, Pete?’

  ‘Okay. Really, I’m calling to say that I’m the one who killed Tom and Sarah Lambert. It was me.’

  There are two full seconds of dead air during which Maggie glances up and makes eye-contact with Danny, her producer. He’s already reaching for the phone to call the station boss.

  The engineer, Fuzzy Rob, is already Tweeting.

  Holding the phone, Danny makes a gesture: Keep going.

  Maggie swallows. Her throat is dry. She says, ‘Are you still there, Pete?’

  Detective Sergeant ‘Scary’ Mary Lally finds Luther making himself an instant coffee and eating cream crackers from the packet.

  She hands him a thin file. ‘The head we found at the squat. The owner’s a Chloe Hill.’

  Luther flicks on the kettle then glances through the file. ‘‘Owner”,’ he says. ‘Do you own your head?’

  ‘Whatever. It belongs to Ms Hill. She was nineteen. Died in a motorcycle accident. Canvey Island.’

  ‘So it’s not just dead girls he goes for. It’s dead girls and motorbikes. Blimey.’

  ‘Her grave had been interfered with,’ Lally says. ‘This is seven or eight months ago. We’re thinking either he dug her up himself or maybe paid a friend to do it for him.’

  ‘So where’s the rest of her?’

  ‘Still in the grave, presumably.’

  ‘We can only hope, eh?’

  ‘Should I order an exhumation?’

  ‘Let’s start the process, yeah. So this has nothing to do with the Lambert murder?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Guv.’

  ‘Call me Boss.’ He massages his brow, hands back the file. He’s about to say something else when the door bangs open and Teller steams in.

  She says, ‘Do you ever listen to London Talk FM?’

  ‘No,’ says Luther. ‘Why?’

  ‘Come with me,’ she says. ‘You’ll enjoy this.’

  Luther follows her across a weirdly silent and watchful bullpen, wondering what’s going on.

  Teller slams her office door, gestures for him to shut up and listen.

  She stabs a finger onto her keyboard, unmuting the volume on a streamed radio broadcast.

  ‘Pete,’ says the husky-voiced woman on the radio. ‘I’m asking you on bended knee. Please. Whether this is true or not, you need help. You need to give yourself in to the proper authorities.’

  ‘Tom and Sarah Lambert sexually abused my daughter,’ says the caller. ‘They weren’t fit to be parents.’

  Luther glances at Teller.

  She doesn’t respond. She’s pacing the office, arms crossed, head down.

  Luther bows his head. Shuts his eyes. Listens.

  ‘They seemed a nice couple,’ the caller says. ‘They loved kids. One night we let them take care of our little girl—’

  ‘Pete, I need to stop you there.’

  ‘Okay. I get you. All I’m saying is, there were reasons.’

  ‘Whatever your reasons,’ says Maggie Reilly, ‘right now we’re talking about a helpless baby. So where’s baby Emma, right now?’

  Luther mouths: Emma? Since when?

  Teller shrugs.

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ says Pete Black.

  ‘A newborn needs medical attention, Pete. You must know that.’

  ‘She’s fit and well. She’s happy. She’s a very contented little baby. She’s lovely.’

  ‘You do know you can’t keep her? You have to hand her in to the proper authorities.’

  ‘That’s why I’m calling. I want her to be well looked after. I want her placed with a loving family that can care for her properly.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘I’ll drop her off tonight. At a hospital. Something like that. A convent or something.’

  ‘Don’t wait for tonight. Do it now. Do it as soon as you can, Pete.’

  ‘Yeah. But I need an assurance, don’t I.’

  ‘What assurance? From whom?’

  ‘The police.’

  Teller braces herself against the desk. Here it comes.

  ‘What kind of assurance?’ says Maggie.

  ‘I want the police to promise me, in front of London, that they’ll let me drop off Emma safely. They won’t be watching the hospitals.’

  The strength goes out of Teller and she sits.

  ‘All I want,’ says Pete Black, ‘all I want is for little Emma to be safe and sound. I need the police to help me with that. I’ll call back later.’

  There’s a click and the line goes dead.

  Three endless seconds of dead air.

  ‘Okay, London,’ says Maggie Reilly. ‘Your reactions in a moment. First, let’s go straight to the news.’

  After a moment Teller says, ‘So what do we think?’

  Luther dry-washes his face. Rasp of skin on stubble.

  ‘It’s
him.’

  It’s in the self-justification, the moral blankness. The need to control.

  He tugs at his weary eyes. Looks at the ceiling.

  ‘Holy shit,’ he says.

  London Talk FM is run from a corporate office building on the Gray’s Inn Road. Grey and chrome, smoked glass. Luther and Howie arrive early in the evening; they’re obliged to edge through a scrum of media already gathered outside.

  There’s a uniformed security guard at the front desk. He asks Luther and Howie to sign in, gives them each a badge, directs them to the lifts.

  They go up five floors, then step into an anonymous reception. A few promotional posters have been framed and mounted.

  They’re met by a pretty and energetic young intern, who leads them to a glass-fronted conference room. Danish pastries on the long table.

  On the other side of the table sit a scruffy man and a good-looking woman in early middle age. Danny Hillman and Maggie Reilly.

  The four shake hands across the table, cordial and watchful. Hillman takes two business cards from his wallet and slides them across the table to Luther and Howie.

  Luther glances over the card. ‘I’m sorry to cut to the chase,’ he says, ‘but obviously we’re against the clock here, so . . .’

  Maggie Reilly gives him the smile. ‘Ask away.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Luther says, ‘our first priority is to request that you don’t give this man any more airtime.’

  ‘Seriously,’ says Hillman. ‘How could we ever justify doing that?’

  ‘Because he’s not who he says he is?’

  ‘You don’t know that, any more than we do – unless you’ve caught and arrested the real killer. Have you?’

  Luther shrugs, tucks the business card into his wallet.

  ‘I’m not going to discuss open investigations with you, Mr Hillman. You’ll have to take my word for it.’

  ‘If you knew who he was,’ says Danny Hillman, ‘you’d have released his name to the media by now.’

  ‘You think what you want. But I guarantee you this: if you cooperate with this man, nobody will ever see that baby alive. People like Pete Black only ever contact the media because it serves their agenda.’

  ‘And can we quote you on all this?’ says Maggie, with a warning grin. ‘Senior Investigating Officer warns London Talk FM not to help find little baby Emma?’

  Hillman steps in, speaks over Luther’s visible irritation. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘there’s a very clear public interest here. We’ve run it past the lawyers. They’re happy. If you try to gag us, we’ll go to air with it, treat it as a story. And once it’s discovered the police tried to stop us helping save a child’s life – what happens then?’