‘There’s a surprise. And you’re not working with me, you’re blackmailing me.’
‘Listen to me. I promise I’ll find you the sort of doctor you want,’ he said.
‘Why should I believe you?’ She stopped dead and got in his face. ‘I’ve got four hits left! What happens then?’ she hissed.
‘I’ll sort something out. Trust me.’
His great red, bony hand touched her arm, ever so lightly. But she felt it.
He wanted to make it up to her, so he drove her out to a pub in Essex for dinner. It was modern, warm, and they served Talisker. Berlin found th?e ahistorical ambience strangely comforting. She didn’t have to sneer at faux Tudor fittings or a Disneyfied past that had been gussied up for tourists.
Her sensibilities, which grew out of her visceral connection with the past, weren’t outraged by the King William IV. She almost relaxed. She hadn’t said a word on the way out there, but once she was on her third Scotch, she thawed a little.
Dempster had been his usual garrulous self during the drive, going over again why he needed someone to get close to Bonnington. Someone trained to manage a conversation. Bonnington would never suspect she was working on a professional assessment of him while he was supposed to be assessing her.
‘The woman who got pushed over the balcony at the town hall, Merle Okonedo. Her brother died of an overdose in prison,’ he said.
‘I know that,’ she said.
‘Bonnington was his CARAT worker.’
‘His what?’
‘Counselling, Assessment, Referral Advice, Throughcare.’
Berlin wasn’t impressed. She knew verification bias when she saw it. You make up a story and then go looking for the facts to fit it. It was a trap that was very difficult to avoid once you’d got a scenario fixed in your mind, no matter how hard you tried to keep it open. Dempster’s mind was now firmly closed.
‘Have you got any evidence he knew the sister?’
‘I’m working on that,’ he replied, slightly peeved. ‘The connection shouldn’t be too hard to make.’
‘So the theory is that Bonnington set up a mock hit so he could save Lazenby from the mock gun and thereby distance himself from the not-mock murder? Using Merle Okonedo as a sacrificial stalking horse. That’s pretty cold.’
‘She was collateral damage. A martyr for the cause, if you like, chosen by Bonnington,’ suggested Dempster.
Berlin thought it was an odd choice of words. ‘You’re forgetting about the woman Pink Cheeks saw at the surgery; how do you account for her?’ she said. ‘What’s Bonnington’s alibi for Lazenby’s time of death?’
Dempster shifted in his seat and picked at his french fries. ‘He was with a couple of kids. The sons of one of his outreach clients.’
‘And?’ she pressed him.
‘The times are a bit rubbery. It’s difficult to get anything definitive out of a pair of kids,’ he hedged.
‘In other words, Bonnington’s alibi checked out,’ she said. ‘Give it up, Dempster, it’s a dead end.’
Dempster was unusually subdued as they walked through the car park and got into the car. I’ve hurt his feelings, thought Berlin with satisfaction. He drove out of the car park and turned right onto Hainault Road.
‘Where are we?’ asked Berlin. ‘I mean, I recognise the wilds of Essex but where exactly is this?’
‘Chigwell. I thought you might like to see the place where Doyle’s father lives. We can swing by his house. I haven’t forgotten Gina Doyle.’
She gazed out of the window at the flat, windswept fields, aware he was still trying to make amends.
‘I’m focused on Lazenby’s murder; you’re focused on her. I know that. I said I would help and I will. I got you that file, didn’t I? It’s all intel.’
God, what a sweet-talker, she thought, as they turned into a narrow lane. Bare hedges towered over the car on both sides. She suspected Dempster found her silences difficult to take.
‘You’re too hard on yourself, you know,’ he said.
‘Is that right?’ she muttered.
‘Drugs don’t necessarily make you selfish. It’s just an excuse. Gina Doyle’s murder got to you and you’re afraid that without heroin you won’t be able to paper over the cracks. Finding her killer won’t fix it.’
She was astonished. Had he been managing their conversations? She stared at him.
‘It’s fear that rules you, not the drug.’
The silence was palpable.
‘Stop the car!’ she shouted.
Shocked, Dempster slammed on the brakes and she leapt out.
She thrust her way through the brittle hedge and into a barren landscape, a blur of earth and sky melding in the dark. Stumbling across the glacial furrows, she turned her face to the icy gale. Perhaps it would freeze her rage.
Frank heard the car approaching. He cocked an ear when the motor cut out, but after a while it started up and he heard the whine of the reverse gear as it backed down the lane.
Repelled again. Try as they might they couldn’t get near him. It would be a sorry day for them if they ever did. He was ready.
35
DOYLE, SLEEPLESS, TRIED to take his mind off things by running through his mental tally, ready for Frank. He actually had to keep two sets of figures in his head now, because he had to give that pillock Fernley-Price a regular update on his end of the business.
The banker knew all about dicky figures, or he wouldn’t have come looking for investment opportunities with Doyle. He had kept on asking for a list of clients, or amounts lent, or repayment schedules or whatever. He said any type of documentation would do. He must have thought Doyle was born yesterday. He would just tap his bonce and tell him it was all up there.
Doyle sighed. Nobody gave a flying fuck about him. He just had to get on with it. At least it didn’t look like the Agency was going to come after him now. Given the state of play, they probably wanted to sweep it all under the carpet and give him a wide berth. They weren’t going to get out of this smelling like roses. And the police weren’t interested in illegal moneylenders. They wanted to be real thief-takers. Plus, all the paperwork involved in a financial case didn’t appeal to them. They could put in a lot of legwork and then the legal eagles would knock the case back.
So it looked like it would be business as usual.
He’d ignored all Fernley-Price’s attempts to make contact since he’d fronted him in The Silent Woman. He doubted the prat would show up unannounced like that again. The less contact the better. He didn’t want whispers getting out about their joint venture. God forbid that Frank found out. He was sure there was no way he would, all the way out in his Chigwell castle. Well, almost sure. The old man’s paranoia was getting out of control lately and Doyle didn’t want to give him any more reason to be jumpy. He was still sharp.
Frank’s business model was simple and had the virtue of being transparent and self-financing. The punter knew exactly what was going on and you didn’t have to borrow to lend, which appeared to be what banks had been doing. Doyle could have told them it would end in tears.
Frank had drilled the basics into him. You take a hundred quid and lend it to someone who can’t borrow from the bank or anywhere else in the high street. You tell them they have to pay the hundred quid back to you eventually in a lump sum, but until they can afford to do that, they can just pay ten quid a week. A tenner a week sounds good to them; they can manage that. But they’ll have trouble ever putting a hundred together.
After a year they’ve paid you five hundred and twenty quid, and they still owe you a hundred. Of course, you had to come up with the hundred first – your little bit of capital, as Frank put it. But you hang on to the tenners you collect until you’ve got a hundred, then lend it out again. Now you’ve got twenty quid a week coming in and two punters who each owe you a hundred quid. Magic.
The beauty of this model was that it didn’t require tricky interest-rate calculations and there were no contracts with five pag
es of small print, which no one ever read anyway. The small print was ‘pay up or else’. Something everyone could understand. The back end of the operation was just a couple of fit lads. No overheads.
If the punter couldn’t pay the tenner one week you didn’t thump him, you treated it as a business opportunity: you offered to lend it to him. The upshot was that he would have to pay you eleven quid a week until he could put one hundred and ten quid in your hand.
Worst scenario, he paid you out. This was bad for business and you would want to know how he managed it. You would then reveal administration costs, like an exit fee, which he still owed you. It was standard business practice.
If he stopped paying the tenner and wouldn’t borrow to cover it, then the small print would kick in, literally. The word of mouth from that wouldn’t do you any harm either.
Frank had honed his financial skills during World War Two. At the tender age of thirteen he’d become a sort of broker, at least that’s how he described it. If you wanted something like petrol, mixed fruit for your daughter’s wedding cake or a nice bit of cloth, Frank was the go-to lad.
Unfortunately the government didn’t reward enterprise with tax breaks in those days. The Ministry of Food inspectors nabbed him and he was sent to the naughty boys’ home for black-marketeering. Frank described it as the educational opportunity of a lifetime.
Doyle drained his delicate bone china cup and returned it to the saucer with care. It was from an antique set his mum had left behind. When he was a nipper she used to hold one of the cups up to the light and show him how you could see right through it. He thought it was marvellous. She’d say, ‘You see, that’s how a man should be. You should be able to see right through him. There shouldn’t be any dark secrets between him and the light.’
Then she’d clasp him to her and sing, ‘All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.’ She wasn’t religious, but when she sang that old hymn the weight of the world seemed to lift from her thin shoulders and the black eye she always seemed to have didn’t mar her beauty.
Doyle blew his nose and realised his cheeks were wet. Blimey, he was falling apart, crying like a big girl’s blouse.
Frank had chucked all his mum’s stuff in the dustbin after she’d gone, including the tea set. Doyle was just a little kid, but he’d carefully taken it out, piece by piece, and hidden it in a box under his bed. He wasn’t allowed to mention her ever again and if he forgot Frank would give him a back-hander and mutter ‘that bitch’. He couldn’t even whistle ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ without Frank flying off the handle.
Christ. What a family. His mum walked out on Frank, Nancy walked out on him, then Gina walked out on the both of them. He and his father were a right pair. Doyle wiped his face with his handkerchief. He had a feeling that he hadn’t really grown up to be the sort of man you would compare with a bone china tea cup.
36
BERLIN CLOSED THE curtains and got out her kit. She and Dempster hadn’t exchanged a word on the way home. She had stood in the bone-cutting wind, hands and face scratched and stinging from her tussle with the thorny hedge, waiting for him to drive off and fulfil her fantasy of abandonment. But when the car continued to idle and it was clear Dempster was going nowhere, she shrugged it off and got back in.
She lined up her four ampoules, hands trembling, the back of her neck damp with cold sweat. It was late and she was well overdue.
She thought of Pink Cheeks and wondered how he was coping. It was clear from his sorry story that it was going to be impossible to find a doctor in the time she had left. How was Dempster going to help her? His promises were vague, but she had wanted to believe him, so she had bought into his deal. Perhaps he could get her some decent junk that had been seized by the drug squad. At least twenty per cent of it always came back into circulation. The problem was Dempster didn’t seem to be bent, just unorthodox.
She subdued the panic that threatened to overwhelm her by choosing an ampoule and injecting its contents. A sense of calm soon prevailed.
She considered her options. She could try going private. At least if she was a paying patient she might find a GP who would prescribe her some strong tranquillisers. She’d have to prepare her system for the shock of withdrawal, if it came to that. But if she lost her job, where was the money going to come from to pay for the doctor and the drugs?
The alternative was even bleaker. An NHS doctor would run her number through the system and up would pop her status as a registered addict. Then they would palm her off on a detox programme or insist their lists were closed. Junkies were high maintenance and a bloody nuisance around the surgery. The judgement of these doctors and their approach to prescribing was moral, not clinical. Heroin bad, benzodiazepines good.
But currently there was no room for concern in her system. Any imperative she had felt to listen to Nestor’s voicemail dissipated. She was physiologically incapable of anxiety, while retaining absolute clarity about her situation. She was coherent and calm, safe in an embrace that would never disappoint.
The three ampoules that were left in the line glinted in the soft yellow light. Three days before she descended into hell. Her mother would retort that Jesus rose from the dead in the same time. Her father would wink and tell her not to take that too literally. The ties that bind. She nodded, smiled.
Somewhere in the distance a woman screamed. A face flew at her out of the darkness, the head lolling at an acute angle because half her neck was missing. Berlin woke up with a start. The screams were her own.
The Fifth Day
37
BERLIN’S METABOLISM WAS reeling from the change in routine. Dragging herself out of bed, she stumbled to the computer. On top of it lay the old Doyle file. The file had given her a lead, but first things first. She pushed it aside. She’d like to do the same with Dempster.
According to Thompson, Nestor had made his last call to her old mobile. It would have been among the voicemails she’d downloaded from the carrier after her phone was smashed by the disaffected youths at the park gate.
She clicked through her messages. She had missed a number of calls, some with blocked ID. Probably Flint or Thompson. Only one message had been left late the night before last. She selected ‘listen’.
The abuse at the beginning was clear enough, although Nestor’s delivery was slightly slurred and breathless.
‘Berlin, you think you know everything, you arrogant bitch, but you never knew Juliet Bravo. When I said no further action I meant no fucking further action. Now look what you’ve done.’
It was a shock, hearing such language from Nestor’s usually pursed lips.
There was the sound of buzzing, an entry phone maybe, then the lift doors droned.
‘So glad you could make it,’ said Nestor to his visitor in his familiar, perfectly clipped, unctuous tone. Coming hard on the heels of his venomous outburst it gave Berlin the chills. It was as if he was suddenly seized by sober malice.
The visitor mumbled something Berlin couldn’t catch. Then there was a thud, as if Nestor had dropped the phone. Everything after that was indistinct.
Berlin realised Nestor hadn’t just left her his last phone message. He had left a record of what was probably his last conversation.
38
THE CENTRAL LINE was beset with the usual tangle of dramas, great and small, that plagued the Underground: security incidents, bodies on the line, drivers on strike. Like most Londoners Berlin neither knew nor cared which it was; she just wanted to get where she needed to go, get the information she wanted and get out again, fast.
She peered at her reflection in the glass of the double doors and tried to straighten herself up a bit. She needed to create a good impression.
The walk from Barkingside Station took her to a row of pretty cottages that had the great good fortune to be within a stone’s throw of a Sainsbury’s. There was a pub on the corner and a Chinese take away about a hund
red yards further on. A perfect location.
The herringbone brick path had been cleared of snow, which lay quite thick out here, and grit had been laid. The path wended its way through a garden that was pristine white. A modest, immaculately clean Ford was parked in the drive, also clear of snow. Someone was home. The brass knocker gleamed. After she’d used it she was tempted to give it a rub with her hanky in case her fingers had sullied the shine.
The door was opened by a tall man with a heavy build wearing a crisp checked shirt and grey flannel trousers. His slippers were brown corduroy and not the slightest bit worn.
‘Senior Constable Marks?’ inquired Berlin.
‘Retired. I was intrigued when I got your call,’ he responded, taking a step back and inviting her to cross the threshold. ‘Always happy to help with inquiries.’
The array of horse brasses on the living room mantelpiece was dazzling. She could hear Marks in the kitchen, the clink of tea cups, which were no doubt coming out of the top cupboard. It was to be the best china then, not the old mugs he used for every day.
He hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t volunteered, just let him assume she was there on official police business. She prayed he wouldn’t want to see ID. It made her feel uncomfortable. It was the sort of underhand technique Coulthard used.
Sympathy cards were arranged on the sideboard and a sneaky look at them alerted her to the fact that Letty Marks had passed on just before Christmas. The truth was that Marks would jump at the chance to talk to anyone.
He returned with a tray of tea and chocolate bourbon biscuits. Her favourites.
‘So you’re interested in the Doyles,’ he began. He put the tray down with care on an occasional table and produced coasters to protect the French polish.
When his wife had done this he would have told her not to fuss, thought Berlin.
‘You don’t forget that family in a hurry. Your phone call brought it all back. It’s not every day an eleven-year-old girl walks into the station and accuses her dad of murder.’
In Her Blood Page 11