SO THE DOVES

by Heidi James

  ‘Government, potential embarrassment, the EU… Murder. Makes sense it’s busy.’ She tilted her head to the rest of the room, indicating the crowd.

  ‘Right. Sure, makes sense.’

  ‘I’m Annabelle Walker – Anna, from the Messenger. You?

  ‘Marcus, Sentinel.’ I shook her hand.

  ‘I thought I recognised you! Marcus Murray, right?’ I nodded. ‘I really admire your work. You really get under the skin of your stories. Wow, I’m so pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘So this must be pretty big, for you to be here, right? What’s going on? Corruption? Is the body just a diversion? I thought it was a bit convenient, just appearing like that.’ She stopped, filled up with breath and waited for me to answer. I didn’t, and didn’t have to because the door behind the screen opened and a team headed by DCI Sutton came into the room. I stared at Sutton, trying to place him. Where did I know him from? The girl leaned in, her head almost touching mine, trying to get a better view.

  Sutton and Finborough sat down behind the desk, joined by the Superintendent. To the left, just out of view of the TV cameras, I spotted McMahon, from the site the day before. He was leaning against the wall as Okonjo joined him, while a couple of uniformed officers took their places around the room.

  At the desk the Superintendent sipped from a glass of water and neatened the pages of the statement in front of him. He tugged at his uniform, straightening the line of silver buttons down his front. He almost sparkled under the bright lights. It struck me as odd that only the lowliest police officers and the highest rank are uniformed.

  ‘Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for your interest in this case. We good to go?’ He looked to the back of the room, the cameramen nodding. He cleared his throat. ‘Kent Police are investigating the discovery of a body found on the North Kent access site of the International Speed Rail Link. Formerly farmland, the site was at one point used as an orchard. The body was found on Tuesday the twentieth of June as the ground was being cleared.’ Annabelle scribbled on her notepad, her shorthand illegible. I looked back up and checked I’d switched my recorder on. ‘At the moment we are keeping an open mind…’ Sutton was sitting back in his seat, watching the room from under heavy, almost drooping eyelids, his hands resting on the desk. Beside him the junior minister looked hot and uncomfortable. He swallowed from his glass then wiped the moisture and sweat from his top lip. ‘The investigation is at a very early stage and we are working with the forensic team…’

  We are keeping an open mind. Early stage. The uniforms; theirs and ours, Annabelle and her cheap suit; the signs, the clichés; all so flimsy and constructed it was like a joke. I almost laughed. Corpsing, isn’t that what actors call it? Breaking character, laughing out of place? Shattering the illusion of reality? Isn’t that what the dead do? Shatter our illusions that we are exempt from mortality. I swallowed the impulse and shifted in my seat like a child. I was out of sorts, unsettled. I needed a holiday.

  ‘We will of course update you as soon as we can and we ask if anyone has any information to please come forward. Thank you.’ He made to stand up, tucking the statement under his arm. No invitation for questions.

  ‘Marcus Murray, the Sentinel. Is there any truth in the speculation that the victim is a missing police officer?’ My voice rose above the camera shutters clattering around the room. I hate that sound: so final, got it, caught. That moment, that image, mine. Possessed. I caught McMahon’s eye and he frowned.

  The Superintendent sat back down and looked over at Sutton, who leaned forward and said slowly and deliberately: ‘As the Superintendent said, it’s too early in our investigation to speculate. The post-mortem is taking place and our colleagues in forensics are at the site gathering evidence now.’

  A voice from behind chipped in, ‘Joanne Cline, Radio Kent. And what about allegations of corruption and the mishandling of EU funds? Does that have any bearing on this “discovery”?’

  Both police officers turned to Finborough, who now looked as if he would pass out.

  ‘Which allegations?’ He reached for his water again, but put it back down. The camera flashes flicked points of light against his damp skin.

  ‘Allegations that funds have been misappropriated; concerns that were raised by MEPs at the Transport committee last month and then reported by the French press. The delay caused by the discovery of this body seems a little convenient, doesn’t it?’ She had him on the ropes. Cliché. Hyperbole. Once I thought I could write, or at least get a story straight.

  ‘I would just like to say that we will work with the police to ensure that all the evidence is collected, and then work will continue as before and without too much delay. Thank you.’ He stood and walked from the room, a patch of sweat soaked right through his suit jacket. Brooks, Sutton and the Superintendent followed him out, trailed by a volley of questions from the other journalists.

  ‘She hit him where it hurts.’

  ‘Yeah, so did you. Do you think there’s anything in the rumour it’s a police officer?’

  ‘What?’

  McMahon and Okonjo were standing close to each other, McMahon listening intently to whatever she was telling him, while keeping an eye on the room and the slowly dispersing press.

  ‘The body? Your question, remember?’

  ‘Right. Who knows, I just thought it was a place to start.’

  Disappointed. She was disappointed. I knew the signs, the tiny slump of the body, the open expression almost pitiful – hopeful that I’d say or do something to change her rapidly deteriorating impression of me. ‘What about the misappropriation of funds?’

  ‘It’s interesting but I doubt it, the bureaucratic checks are too tight. But if you think there’s a story there then you should follow it, Annabelle.’

  ‘Just call me Anna. I will. It’d be great to get your handle on things though. I mean this is your area, right? Political scandals and dirty deals? It would be such an honour for me.’ There was no expression on her face as she spoke and I couldn’t decide if she was being sarcastic or not. I didn’t say anything.

  She packed her things away and stood to leave. ‘Anyway it was good to meet you,’ She handed me her card. ‘Stay in touch?’

  ‘I won’t be around for much longer, but sure.’

  ‘Do you have a card?’

  ‘Not on me, but you can get my email from the website, I’m easy to find.’ I looked past her and kept my eye on McMahon: if there was any juice in this, he’d be the one to squeeze.

  ‘OK. Thanks. See you soon then.’ She dithered, taking a half step back then forward, and a part turn of the feet before moving between the chairs and out across the room. I half expected her to trip to complete the picture, but she didn’t.

  The room was almost empty. I got up, preparing to interrupt McMahon and Okonjo, but I didn’t need to: she was moving away, behind the screen and through the door into the building off limits to me.

  ‘Detective McMahon?’

  ‘That’s right. And you are?’ He looked me up and down and smiled, a wide, snaggle-toothed, cowboy smile. Yeah, he was hot.

  ‘Marcus Murray – from the Sentinel.’

  ‘Right. A bit out of your way isn’t it? What brings someone like you down here?’ He looked as if he might hook his thumbs in his belt loops and rock on his heels. He crossed his arms instead.

  ‘This case, the story.’

  ‘We are honoured.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Didn’t I see you on TV the other week? Talking about dirty politicians and financial scandals.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘What did you do to get sent here? Upset someone?’

  ‘Maybe this is a bigger story than it seems?’

  ‘It’s not. Trust me.’

  ‘Convince me. What else can you tell me about this case?’


  ‘You mean aside from the briefing you just heard?’

  ‘Yeah. I’d appreciate having access to the information the local radio station has. An undercover police officer, any truth in that?’

  ‘Whoever spoke to that journalist was out of order. At the moment there’s nothing to tell, and when there is we’ll let you know.’

  ‘Well, if there is anything – off the record even – let me know, I’d like to help if I can.’ I gave him my card and watched him tuck it into his inside pocket. ‘See you.’ I walked out through the now-empty reception and into the sunshine and tried to remember why DCI Sutton seemed so familiar to me.

  1989

  ‘Your mum won’t like me.’

  ‘She will, she’ll be thrilled I’ve brought a girl home. She thinks I’m a poof.’

  ‘Well, you are ain’t you?’

  He didn’t say anything because he hadn’t admitted it to himself, at least not in those words. He loved and fantasised and had feelings that worried him, but they could be denied, ignored, pretended away. Couldn’t they? Didn’t being queer mean AIDS and being alone and sick and rejected? He’d read the papers, seen the adverts on TV. So he unlocked the front door, stood aside and held it open for her.

  ‘Well, I bloody hope you are,’ she said as she went in, ‘because the last thing I need is another dirty bastard trying to get in my knickers.’ She laughed and turned on her heel to look around.

  ‘Do you have a lot of dirty bastards in your knickers then?’ He shut the door and moved past her across the hall and into the kitchen, leaving her with the question. He’d dumped his bag and turned round to offer her a drink before he realised she wasn’t there.

  She was still in the hallway, her lower half anyway: the top was leaning through the doorway of the study, holding onto the doorframe for balance, her head and shoulders out of sight. He walked to stand next to her as she said, ‘Now I understand,’ so he pushed the door fully open and nodded to her to follow him inside.

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘Why you don’t know who the gavvers are. You’re like really fancy. Bloody hell, look at this place, you’ve got a library! How many rooms have you got downstairs?’ She ducked out into the hall again and counted the doors, ‘one, two… five!’

  ‘No, that door there is to the pantry, a cupboard. So, four and it’s just a study, not a library.’

  ‘Study, library call it what you want. Our entire house only has four rooms if you don’t include the karzi. Jesus. This hallway is bigger than my living room. No wonder you’ve got a housekeeper.’ She walked back into the study, smiling. ‘Look at all these books. All yours?’

  ‘No, these are mostly my dad’s and some of my mum’s too.’

  She walked over to the far side of the room, reaching out towards the bookcase. ‘A whole room lined with books. And a piano. You lucky fucker. Are you rich?’

  ‘Oh God no. Not at all.’ He shook his head, embarrassed but proud to be impressive for once, even if it was for the wrong reason. She turned to look at him, her face hidden behind a blank expression. He leaned back against the doorjamb and crossed his arms, unsure what might happen next. Did she hate him already? He expected her to eventually, but not this soon.

  ‘What does your dad do then?’

  ‘He was a vicar.’

  ‘Oh.’ She moved away from the books and towards the French doors, pushing aside the curtain and breathing a patch of condensation onto a glass panel. They both stood still, watching it shrink as if it were pulling into itself from the outside edges in, to a place beyond the glass.

  ‘If you’re not rich, then you’re posh. Old money. I knew it, you’re like a character in an Evelyn Waugh novel.’ She dropped the curtain and walked over to the desk.

  ‘Some of my family would like to think so. But my mother says we are “jolly old Anglican middle class”. She hates all that stuff.’

  ‘What stuff?’ She picked up a photograph in a silver frame from the desk, stroking a thin film of dust from the glass.

  ‘Snobbery, but she’s still a bit a snob I think.’

  ‘Ain’t we all. My mum’s a right one, judges everyone, look at the state of her net curtains, her sheets, kids… She thinks everyone but her is filthy.’ She held up the photograph for him to see. ‘This your dad?’ He nodded.

  ‘He was handsome. You look like him. You’ve got his nice square chin. Do you miss him?’

  ‘Sometimes. I was only six when he died.’ She placed the frame carefully on the desk. He didn’t like to talk about his father, not even with his mother, but with her, he wanted to. He cleared his throat. ‘He wrote a book,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ He walked over to the shelves, the orderly, perfectly alphabetical, shelves. There it was, a slim volume bound in maroon fabric-covered board. Christianity and the Necessity of Sacrifice by Dr Alexander Murray. He took the book from the shelf and flipped through the pages. There was no pressed flower or note in there of course, nor any dedication at the front: neither parent was sentimental. He placed it in Mel’s outstretched hand. ‘He went to America to meet a famous French philosopher for his research.’

  ‘Wow,’ she breathed, tracing the lettering on the cover, her hair falling around her face. ‘It’s impressive. You must be proud of him.’ She flipped the pages open and began reading, her voice clear and fluent, reading as if she had rehearsed and was performing for an audience:

  Christ’s sacrifice, of dying for our sins, paying for our sins with his life is of course the ultimate gesture of love. This is, I suggest, the exemplar for Christian participation in all relationships- one of sacrifice, of relinquishing self, body and soul for our fellow man. It is in always valuing the other above ourselves that we ourselves feel the full expression of love, both the love of God and of our fellow man.

  My esteemed and valued peer, Girard, writes, ‘If left unappeased, violence will accumulate until it overflows its confines and floods the surrounding area. The role of sacrifice is to redirect violence into ‘proper’ channels. The scapegoat, so called to bring to mind the lamb substituted by Abraham in place of his son, I suggest, is a willing participant in the event, demonstrating God’s love in becoming the locus for societies’ fears and hatred and dispelling them without causing greater harm, rather than a victim of a functional, carnivalesque release of social tension. It is a sacred act, a cultural ritual affording a transcendent proximity to Christ’s passion, and yet ambivalent, for Christ died so that we might not.

  She closed the book and he stood there for a beat, his father’s words, her voice fading slowly like tobacco smoke. ‘Have you read it?’ She turned the book over and stroked the back cover.

  ‘No, not all of it.’

  ‘Why not? Your dad wrote it. You should read it.’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not my kind of thing.’

  ‘How do you know if you haven’t read it?’ She shifted her weight onto one leg and drew the other foot in, like a dancer preparing for a step.

  ‘It’s complicated. All the God talk.’

  ‘What does your mum think?’

  ‘About the book?’

  ‘About the God stuff.’

  ‘We still go to church sometimes. She thought Dad’s missionary work was arrogant and colonial, going off to Africa and India and imposing the Bible and the stories of Jesus and Mary on people with perfectly good stories of their own. Anyway, that’s what she says.’

  She tilted her chin a fraction, encouraging him to keep talking but he didn’t know what else to say. ‘Well, it’s not for me. All that talk of sin and saving people from themselves, sitting in judgment and ain’t that supposed to be a sin? Contradictions and lies.’ She handed him the book. ‘You should be proud of your dad though: at least he tried to do what he thought was right.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He slid the book back in its
place.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Malaria. Caught on his missions, or at least I think so. I just remember him getting sicker and sicker and then just not being there. It’s not really talked about. My mum gets upset.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s fair enough.’

  ‘What now?’ he said, changing the subject or trying to, clumsy and gangly in all respects.

  She smiled. ‘Time I educate you, I reckon. Despite all these books you’ve got some serious gaps in your knowledge. Right, let’s start with the gavvers. The gavvers are the police, also known as the filth, pigs, rozzers. Best avoided at all costs. OK? Repeat after me. Gavvers. Come on, Gavvers…’

  ‘Gavvers,’ he croaked.

  ‘Filth, pigs, rozzers.’

  ‘Filth, pigs and rozzers.’

  ‘And they are?’

  ‘Best avoided?’

  ‘You catch on fast!’ She took his hand, and pulled him towards the door before releasing him, dropping his unpracticed hand. ‘Come on, I’m parched. I need a drink before your next lesson.’

  In the kitchen she watched as he took the juice from the fridge and poured it into glasses, then wiped down the side with a cloth. With most people, being watched felt like an affront, as if they were trying to possess him, to catch him out, but when Melanie looked at Marcus like that, it didn’t feel sinister, there was no agenda: she was just giving him her full attention. It was unnerving but comforting; like being watched by God or one of his agents. But if he’d said that to her, she’d have laughed so hard that she’d have exploded snot from her nose. She did that sometimes, despite being as graceful as a ballerina.

  ‘Your mum never remarry then?’

  ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘The photos on the desk: there’s a few family ones, ones of you and your dad, your mother, but they’re all from a while ago. You’re a little boy in the pictures. No updated ones, no one here to replace or be jealous of the past. Plus, in the hall there’s no men’s coats or nothing.’ She picked up her glass and gulped, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘That tastes good.’