by Casey, Jane
‘You’re a shit.’ Kennford was trembling with anger.
‘No, Mr Kennford, I’m a copper who’s trying to work out who killed your wife and your daughter, and I’m doing my best not to let your frankly annoying attitude put me off. They deserve answers and so does Lydia.’
‘And what do I deserve?’
‘Oh, Mr Kennford. You ask questions for a living. You should know better than that.’ Derwent shook his head, grinning widely. ‘I’d start telling you but we’d still be here at midnight.’
‘Is that all we can do for you, Mr Kennford?’ Godley was as urbane as ever, ultra-civilised in contrast with his DI. ‘Or was there anything else you wanted to talk to us about?’
‘There was one thing.’ He slid his hand inside his jacket and took out an envelope that he flicked across the table to Godley. ‘I’d like you to have a word with this prick.’
‘What is it?’ Derwent was straining to see.
‘A sympathy card.’ Kennford’s jaw was clenched. ‘It came in the post this morning.’
‘To which address? Your house?’ Godley asked.
‘Chambers.’
Godley opened the card to read it, so I could see the image on the front, a white lily leaning on a cross. ‘With Sympathy’ was looped across the top in silver cursive script. It was just the wrong side of tasteful. ‘“I’m sorry to hear of your bereavement. Jesus will look after them, and he’ll look after you if you let him into your heart. Maybe this is an opportunity for you to come to Him. I hope you find happiness. C. Blacker.” Do you know who that is?’
‘Yes, and so should you,’ Kennford snapped.
‘Christopher Blacker,’ I explained, not actually surprised that the boss had forgotten his name. ‘He was unhappy with the job Mr Kennford did when he represented him on a rape charge. We spoke to him yesterday.’
‘And told him what had happened, presumably. So I have to put up with patronising shit like that.’ Kennford pointed at it, his finger shaking. ‘Tell him to stay the hell away from me.’
‘You could take it at face value, mate. Forgiveness, as sold by Clinton’s Cards.’ Derwent tweaked it out of the superintendent’s hands so he could read it himself. ‘Think he was serious or ripping the piss? He told us he’s a Christian. He might have meant it.’
‘I don’t care if he meant it or if he didn’t. I view it as harassment. I don’t want to have anything to do with him and I’d appreciate you telling him as much.’
‘I’ll have a word,’ Derwent said, not looking as if he thought it was particularly urgent. I thought that was probably for effect, though – he would be more concerned than he was letting on to Kennford. I was bothered by it myself. There had been something about Chris Blacker, still waters that ran too deep for comfort. Sending a card to Kennford was a passive-aggressive move in my book, but one that was calculated to draw attention to himself, which surely wouldn’t be his intention if he was the killer.
Then again, Blacker was certainly clever enough for a double bluff or two.
‘Can I keep this?’ Derwent asked, waving the card.
‘I don’t care what you do with it. I don’t want it.’ Kennford was looking irritable. ‘Look, are you going to help my daughter or not?’
‘You haven’t given us any reason to interfere with her wishes. As far as we know, she’s going to a safe place and happy to be there.’
Kennford swore under his breath but didn’t say anything.
‘Look, Mr Kennford, I don’t want Lydia’s well-being to be compromised. I’d like to ask you again if there’s any specific reason for her not to stay with your other daughter.’ There was a pause before Kennford shook his head. ‘Then there’s nothing else I can do.’
The barrister looked at each of us in turn, but again with that sightless gaze that made me think he wasn’t quite with it. Moving with great dignity, he went straight to the door and walked out.
‘Thank you for your time,’ Derwent called after him. ‘Do drop in whenever you like.’
‘Josh, do I really need to tell you not to taunt him?’ Godley sighed. ‘Look, both of you, I hope you know what you’re doing. Is Lydia safe where she’s going?’
‘As far as I know,’ I said. ‘If Savannah’s an actor, she’s bloody good. I thought she was genuine and honest.’
‘Me too. And you know I don’t think anyone is honest,’ Derwent added.
‘We’ve offered to drive Lydia to the house tomorrow anyway, so we’ll get a chance to see how the two of them get on.’
‘Why did you decide to do that?’ Godley asked.
‘Basically so we could have a nose around Savannah Wentworth’s house,’ I admitted. ‘But also so we could talk to Lydia in the car. I thought not being face-to-face would take some of the pressure off and we might get a bit more out of her.’
‘Do you think she has more to tell you?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
Derwent yawned again. ‘What do you think his problem is?’
‘Kennford? No idea. But we can’t take his concerns seriously until he’s prepared to talk to us.’ Godley shook his head. ‘If he’d seemed more bothered about Lydia’s safety from the start, I might be a bit more understanding now. But he didn’t even bother to go to see her in the hospital. I can’t understand that.’
‘If it had been your daughter nothing would have kept you out of there.’
Godley didn’t answer, his face grim, and I remembered that his daughter was one of the subjects he considered to be off-limits. Derwent must have recognised that he’d made a mistake, because he moved on.
‘I’ll give Blacker a call. Tell him to mind his own business.’
‘Do you think it’s strange that he sent the card?’ Godley asked.
‘Hell, yes. Don’t you?’ Derwent slid it into an evidence bag, holding it gingerly. ‘It hasn’t been treated with the care you’d want for an exhibit but I’ll give it to Kev Cox. See if he can use it for comparative purposes against any of the material he recovered from the Wimbledon house.’
‘Good idea.’
‘There is one other reason why Kennford might have turned up here to shout at us,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’ Godley asked.
‘To get an update on what we’ve found out so far. To throw us off the scent, if we were even close to being on it. To distract us and make us suspicious about Savannah instead of him.’
‘Are you still suspicious about him?’
‘No reason not to be, as far as I’m concerned.’ Derwent tapped the edge of the evidence bag on the desk, considering it. ‘And it’s not just that I don’t like the job he does. I haven’t liked him from the start.’
‘You don’t like anyone,’ I pointed out.
‘True. But I know when someone is trying to bullshit me. And that’s all I got from him, from start to finish.’ He jerked his thumb in the general direction Kennford had taken. ‘We’ve only got half the story, believe me. And when we get the rest of it, I promise you, we’ll have our case.’
I have no idea how it happened, but I ended up asking Derwent if he wanted to come out for a drink. It was something to do with the way he loitered by his desk, flicking through the folders on it in an aimless way. I got the feeling he had nowhere to go once he left the office, despite his rush to leave earlier. Whether I was right about that or not, he had agreed to come before I got halfway through a slightly awkward invitation.
‘I don’t even know if it’ll be a good pub,’ I was still saying when we were halfway to London Bridge on a packed Tube train. ‘Or what the company will be like. I haven’t met any of them before.’
‘These are your boyfriend’s new colleagues, aren’t they? I know a few guys on the Flying Squad. Don’t worry about me. You won’t have to hold my hand.’
‘Definitely not.’ I didn’t have to fake being appalled at the idea.
Derwent dropped a heavy arm across my shoulders. ‘And I won’t leave you to be a wallflower either. You stick with yo
ur Uncle Josh and I’ll make sure you have a good time.’
‘I don’t need you to make sure I have a good time.’ I used the swaying of the carriage as it rattled over some bumpy track to duck out from under his arm. ‘I just thought you deserved a drink, that’s all. It’s been a tough few days.’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘I don’t want to know any details of your personal life. Just to avoid any doubt about that.’
‘Of course you’re curious. Why wouldn’t you be? Working closely alongside me, you must wonder occasion ally what’s going on inside my mind. Who I’m thinking about. What I get up to in the evenings, when we’re not together.’
‘No, really.’ We pulled into a station and I peered to see where we were. ‘Waterloo. Oh, shit. The platform is packed.’
‘Get ready for a crush.’ As Derwent said it, a great swell of people began to push past us heading for the doors. I turned my head sideways, acutely embarrassed as the DI’s body pressed against mine. ‘It’s nothing personal, Kerrigan.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Still, I’ve had worse experiences on the Underground.’
‘I’m not sure I have.’ I absolutely refused to make eye contact with him from a distance of six inches, even though I could feel him staring at the side of my face. The carriage was filling up behind him, the passengers who’d been waiting forcing their way on despite the fact that the doors were already beeping to indicate they were about to close. He gave a snort of laughter and moved back slightly as the doors finally slid home, leaving a platform full of reproachful faces behind.
‘You should see your expression. Pure misery.’
‘It’s about fifty degrees down here and I’m enduring full body contact with my boss. Why are you even surprised I’m miserable?’
‘Oh, I’m not, really. It must be torture for you, being so close to me.’
‘It is,’ I said, my tone absolutely sincere. ‘But I’m fairly sure it’s not in the way you’re thinking.’
‘Always fighting it, aren’t you?’
‘And I always will.’
‘Yeah, you don’t want to get a reputation for shagging your colleagues.’
‘Which is the only reason I’m not tempted, let me tell you.’
Derwent grinned, knowing full well I wouldn’t dream of having anything to do with him. ‘Right. Well, let’s enjoy being out of the office and away from this shitty case for once. The first round is on me.’
He was as good as his word, fighting to the bar through a packed pub when we eventually emerged from the Underground and located it. The street outside was full of drunk people talking too loudly and smoking as if they were getting paid to do it. Inside, it was hotter still but the fug of smoke was pleasantly absent. I could only imagine what it would have been like in there before the ban. I jostled through the crowd to stand in what seemed to be the only free space in the entire bar and checked my phone. While I was reading my messages a tall, frosty glass of gin landed on the shelf beside me with a clink of ice cubes. A bottle followed.
‘Tonic. Add your own. I’d go for as little as you can stand and take the evening from there.’
‘Top advice, boss.’ Desperately thirsty after the journey, I emptied the bottle in anyway and drained it in one go. I surfaced gasping. ‘Was that a double?’
‘It was indeed.’ Derwent handed me another glass which he’d had tucked under his arm. ‘Here’s another. Get it down.’
‘I’d quite like to be not blind drunk when I meet Rob’s colleagues, thanks.’
‘Whatever.’ Derwent had lined up a pint for himself to follow the one in his hand. ‘Any sign of them?’
‘Rob’s just texted me. They’re in the back room, apparently. I can’t face the struggle to get there. I said we’d wait here until the crowd thinned out a bit.’ I looked around. ‘These are post-work boozers. They’ll be hungry by now and this place doesn’t serve food. I reckon half an hour will see us right.’
It was a small enough pub, a weird combination of traditional boozer and swanky bar. I guessed it had been redecorated recently and the tiny chandeliers, blue velvet banquettes and wooden floor were new. The big mahogany bar was emphatically not, dented and scratched by generations of drinkers. Mirrors ran down both sides of the room, doubling the reflections of hundreds of people all crammed in, shouting at the tops of their voices. I craned to see the room at the back, getting a vague impression that it was even more crowded than the part we were in. I couldn’t see Rob anywhere.
‘When did they get here?’
‘An hour ago.’
‘Great. They’ll be softening up nicely. No one will be able to remember to be discreet.’ Derwent scooped up his second drink. ‘Come on. I could waste time talking to you, but there’s gossip to be had. Faint heart never won fair Flying Squad.’
‘You go first,’ I urged.
‘Shy?’
‘No, but you’re bigger than me and people are more likely to get out of your way.’
‘True. Stick close.’
I did as he said, staying within touching distance of his back as he shouldered through the crowd, leaving a variety of shaken and annoyed drinkers behind him. He made it to the doorway of the inner room and stopped dead, so that I crashed into him. I leaned forward and said into his ear, ‘What’s up? Can’t you see them?’
Instead of answering, he turned around, and it was as if a switch had flipped in his head. The jovial fellow-drinker was gone; he was back to being the faintly sinister superior officer I found so unsettling. ‘Look, I’ve turned a blind eye to this so far but I can’t ignore it any more. This is unprofessional behaviour and I’m surprised at you.’
‘What?’
‘It’s completely irresponsible to go out drinking when we’re in the middle of a big case. Two, if you count the gang stuff. I might get to work on that yet, and I don’t want the Kennford case to get forgotten, even if you’re not too concerned about the fact we have a double-murder to solve.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I looked at him, bewildered.
‘I’m just surprised how unprofessional you are.’
‘Unprofessional,’ I repeated stupidly.
‘You can’t do your best work if you’re tired and hung-over.’
‘No, but I wasn’t planning on a big one.’ And you were the one buying doubles …
‘You should get out of here.’ He started to move forward so I had to step back. ‘We both should. Best thing you can do is go back to the office and read the notes on the interviews again. I want a report on them on my desk first thing tomorrow morning – anything that bothers you, any major points you think we need to revisit.’
‘I don’t understand. What’s going on, Josh?’
‘It’s up to you. If you want to prove you take your job seriously, you’ll leave now. If not …’ he shrugged. ‘Then I’ll know where you stand.’
It was probably the gin that made me slow to catch on. He had been moving me away from the back room as he spoke, but I was taller than Derwent and still had a good view over his shoulder.
A view that, at that moment, consisted of my boyfriend sitting in the corner of the room, turned away from me. A fair-haired woman stood behind him, her hourglass figure flattered by a tight-fitting skirt and top. Unseen by anyone at the table, she was running her hand down the back of his neck and along his shoulder in a gesture that spoke of familiarity, and affection, and intimacy. I was fairly sure I recognised her from the photographs I’d seen the previous night. Rob’s ears were red and as I watched he leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees, moving away from her.
But then, he did know I was in the pub. And however much he enjoyed sneaking around, he’d hardly want to get caught.
Derwent had obviously seen my face change. He risked a glance over his shoulder, then turned back to me. ‘Ah. You’ve seen them.’
‘I have.’
‘It was worth a try.’
‘T
o save Rob from getting in trouble? Big of you. But I suppose that’s how it works. You boys stick together and try to fool us. After all, we’re just stupid birds. We deserve what we get.’
‘That wasn’t what I was trying to do.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘Ah, fuck. I think I’d better go. What’s your plan?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. Mark my bloody territory, that’s for sure.’
‘Just don’t make a scene.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
There was an unfamiliar look on Derwent’s face, a look that I slowly recognised as sympathy. ‘Because if I’m not mistaken, Blondie is Rob’s boss. So you might be the official girlfriend, but you don’t have the advantage, do you? And whatever she’s up to, you might have to bite your tongue for his sake. If you really care about him, I mean.’
I thought that was his parting shot, but I was wrong. He had one left, and he delivered it as he moved away, heading for the door.
‘Not much of a choice, is it? Fuck up his career or kiss your relationship goodbye. It sucks to be you, Kerrigan, and no mistake.’
I really, truly wished I didn’t agree with him.
If I hadn’t seen what Derwent had been trying to hide from me, I might not have noticed anything strange was going on, which was actually the opposite of reassuring. Rob turned his head and saw me about two seconds after Derwent faded into the crowd, so I had no alternative but to smile, and make my way through the back room towards him, and allow myself to be folded into his arms for a kiss that tasted of cold beer and went on much longer than I would have expected.
‘That’s a big welcome,’ I said, when I could speak.
‘I missed you.’
Oh, yeah, I thought, looking into his eyes and seeing nothing but sincerity. Or this is your way of warning your boss to back off because your current girlfriend has just arrived. ‘I only saw you this morning.’
‘That was a long time ago.’