The Calling l-1

by Neil Cross

  ‘If he hadn’t called,’ Howie says, ‘the Lamberts would still be lying there. Nobody would even know.’

  Luther closes his eyes and runs through the checklist: look deeper into friends and family. Extra-marital affairs. Was the child conceived with donor sperm? Were there money worries? Workplace rivalries?

  If they don’t get a quick result, the problem won’t be the absence of information but an exponentially increasing super-abundance of it.

  He sighs, and places a call to the best technical forensics officer he ever worked with.

  ‘John Luther,’ says Benny Deadhead down the line. ‘As I live and breathe.’

  His real name is Ben Silver, but no one calls him that. Not even his mother.

  ‘Benny,’ says Luther. ‘How’s Vice?’

  ‘Depressing. The things people do to each other.’

  Luther lets that one go by. He says, ‘Listen, how’s your workload?’

  ‘Insurmountable.’

  ‘Anything urgent?’

  ‘Well, that depends how urgent you mean.’

  ‘I mean, I need your help with a really bad one. If I get my guvnor to ask your guvnor if I can borrow you, how’s that going to go?’

  Benny says, ‘I’m already packing a bag.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Until yesterday, Anthony Needham was Tom Lambert’s partner in a small, two-man counselling practice near Clissold Park.

  Needham’s in his thirties, in wine-coloured shirt, tailored, and grey trousers, neatly gelled hair. He’s tanned, fit and sporting. Expensive watch. He doesn’t conform in any way to Luther’s notion of a therapist. He makes Luther feel grubby and unhealthy.

  The room is designed to be agreeable: three comfy chairs arranged in a semi-circle, low bookshelves. A desk, bare but for a laptop and some framed photographs of Needham taking part in an Ironman Triathlon — scowling in muddy agony, running with a mountain bike slung over his shoulder.

  Needham opens the window; it’s stiff and doesn’t come easily. Sounds of the city insinuate themselves in here with them, the smell of traffic and the smell of winter.

  Luther crosses his legs and clasps his hands in his lap; something he does to constrain nervous energy. Howie observes Needham with silent gravity. She has her notebook in front of her and a pen in her hand.

  Needham opens the lowest drawer in his desk, takes out a flattened, mummified pack of cigarettes. He roots around until he finds a disposable lighter. Then he perches on the windowsill, lights a cigarette and takes a puff.

  He discreetly dry retches, leans on the windowsill with the cigarette held between two fingers.

  He grinds out the cigarette after that one puff, comes back queasy and moist-eyed. He sits in the third comfy chair, hands laced in his lap.

  Luther lets him work it through. Turns over a page of his own notebook, pretends to consult an earlier entry.

  ‘Holy Christ,’ says Needham at length. He’s Australian.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Luther says. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in. But I’m afraid these first few hours are critical.’

  Needham gets himself together. Luther likes him for it.

  Needham swallows, then unlaces his fingers and gestures, meaning: ask away.

  ‘Well,’ Luther says. ‘You deal with some very troubled young people here. Violent people, presumably.’

  ‘You do know this is covered by doctor-patient privilege?’

  ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘Then I don’t know what you want me to tell you.’

  ‘Non-specifically — do you know if Mr Lambert was concerned about any of his patients?’

  ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Like you say. We deal with a lot of disturbed young people.’

  ‘Can I be honest with you, here? This wasn’t a random attack. This was a very violent, very personal crime.’

  Needham shifts in his chair. ‘All I can tell you is, Tom had some raised levels of anxiety about some of his patients.’

  ‘What kind of anxieties?’

  ‘Would counselling actually help them? Could he actually stop them victimizing? Would one of them lose his temper once too often?’

  ‘That happens? They lose their temper in here?’

  ‘These are angry young men. Introspection isn’t in their nature, but we encourage them to confront difficult personal issues. It can be hard.’

  ‘Issues like violence?’

  ‘And usually the history of abuse that led to it.’

  ‘A lot of kids are abused,’ Luther says. ‘That doesn’t give them licence to hurt other people.’

  ‘Nobody said it did.’ Needham has the infinitely patient air of a man who’s answered this indictment a thousand times. ‘Life’s about choices. We try to give them tools to make better choices.’

  Luther refers to his notes to break the eye contact. ‘So, no specific worries? No threats, no funny phone calls?’

  ‘None that he discussed with me.’

  ‘He wasn’t drinking a little more? Maybe self-medicating some other way? Sleeping pills? Cigarettes?’

  ‘Nope. None of that.’

  Howie steps in. ‘What about young women?’

  Needham turns to her. ‘Not Tom.’

  ‘I mean, do you treat young women at this practice?’

  ‘You think a woman did this?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Luther says.

  ‘Tom’s a strong man. He’s very fit. A woman. It just…’

  Silence falls. The clock ticks. ‘We do treat women,’ Needham says. ‘But I don’t know. It seems strange. Why a woman?’

  ‘We’re just trying to cover all the possibilities.’ Luther tucks his notepad into a pocket. ‘Just one more thing. Do you know anyone who may have a key to the Lamberts’ house?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. I’m sorry. Their cleaner, presumably. But that’s all I’ve got.’

  Luther thanks him and stands. Howie is half a beat behind him.

  Needham leads them out. At the door, he says, ‘Are you going to catch this man?’

  ‘We’re doing all we can.’

  ‘Well, sorry to be rude, but that sounds like generic police speak to me.’

  Luther hesitates, lets Howie take the lead.

  She says, ‘Mr Needham, do you have any reason to be worried for your own safety?’

  ‘Objectively, no more than usual I suppose. But I do have a wife and children, y’know. I’m only human.’

  ‘Then you can help us. Let us see Tom Lambert’s patient records.’

  ‘Obviously I can’t do that.’

  ‘We know,’ Howie says. ‘Absolutely. But do you really think it’s ethical to gamble with your children’s safety?’

  Needham gives her a measured look.

  Howie returns it.

  Quietly, Luther says, ‘Whoever did this, they let themselves into the house while Tom and Sarah were sleeping. They cut off Tom’s genitals and choked him with them. They cut open Sarah’s belly and they took her baby. The baby may still be alive. We both know what Mr and Mrs Lambert went through to conceive that child. If you want to help them, Dr Needham, then help me find it — before whoever took it does whatever they’re planning to do.’

  Needham glances at his hand, still clasping the door handle. It takes him a moment of concentration to make the hand let go. Then he wipes it on his shirt. He says, ‘Like I said, I suppose the cleaner must have a key. She must, surely?’

  ‘It stands to reason,’ Luther says. ‘Did Mr Lambert keep details of people who may have access to the house? Cleaners, builders, that kind of thing?’

  ‘He did,’ Needham says. ‘Tom’s very diligent when it comes to record keeping.’

  ‘Where did he keep these records?’

  ‘On his work computer.’

  ‘Do you have Mr Lambert’s password and log-in details?’

  ‘I do. But you do understand, I’d be trusting you not to access his patient database or
his work diary. Those items are subject to doctor-patient confidentiality.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Luther says.

  ‘Then I don’t see a problem.’

  Needham leads them to Tom Lambert’s office, similar to his own. Tom uses an older IBM ThinkPad. His chairs are comfy dark leather. Needham sits at Tom’s computer, logs on, then pointedly checks his watch. ‘I need to make some calls, cancel Tom’s appointments and so on. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes?’

  ‘That’s plenty of time,’ Luther says.

  ‘Excellent,’ Needham says.

  There’s a moment. Then Needham backs out of the room like a servant, leaving Howie and Luther alone with Tom Lambert’s computer.

  Luther says, ‘Okay. Get on with it.’

  Howie shrugs off her jacket and hangs it over the back of Tom Lambert’s chair.

  She gets on with it.

  They leave without seeing Needham again. They nod goodbye to the receptionist, who sits at the desk wearing the raw, blank expression of the recently bereaved.

  Luther makes a note to have her interviewed. But not today.

  As Howie negotiates the traffic, chewing her lower lip and cursing under her breath, Luther consults Tom Lambert’s diary and patient records.

  Finally, he calls Teller.

  She says, ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘A few possibles,’ he says. ‘People worth having a look at. But right now, one name’s leaping out: Malcolm Perry. Made a number of death threats to Lambert over the course of a year, eighteen months.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Lambert was trying to help him with his paraphilia.’

  ‘What paraphilia we talking about?’

  ‘Sex with corpses.’

  ‘Nice. So he was angry enough to threaten Mr Lambert. Was he angry enough to follow through?’

  ‘According to Lambert’s notes, Perry’s the reason they started setting the burglar alarm every night.’

  ‘What a world,’ Teller says, down the line. ‘So where do we find this charmer?’

  CHAPTER 5

  Clive, Zoe’s boss, has cancelled a longstanding community outreach engagement. So a day that started badly soon gets worse; Zoe finds herself addressing a gaggle of sixth formers about the work of Ford and Vargas, and about the nature of human rights legislation.

  She tells them about Lisa Williams, twelve years old when she was killed in a hit-and-run. This was back in 2003. The driver was Aso Ibrahim, an Iraqi asylum seeker already on bail for driving while disqualified.

  Lacking clear evidence that Ibrahim had been driving dangerously, the Crown Prosecution Service charged him with Driving While Disqualified; the more serious offence of Causing Death While Disqualified didn’t become law until 2008.

  Ibrahim served two months in prison. Since his release, he’s been appealing against his deportation.

  Zoe tells the class that over the course of nine years, Aso Ibrahim cost the taxpayer several hundred thousand pounds in legal aid for lawyers and interpreters. There were immigration hearings and trials, at which he was convicted variously of harassment, possession of illegal drugs and, three years after Lisa Williams’s death, Driving While Disqualified.

  Then she asks the sixth formers what they’d do about him.

  The consensus, as she’d presumed it would be, is — send him home.

  ‘But he’s entitled to stay,’ she tells them, ‘because he’s the father of two children with a British woman. Though he doesn’t actually live with those children, taking him away from his estranged girlfriend and those kids would breach his rights under Article Eight of the Human Rights Act.’

  She asks them what they think about that.

  She sits back and listens. The kids debate the danger Ibrahim would be in, back in Iraq. They talk about his two children and their right to a father. They talk about the bereaved parents of Lisa Williams, and their right to a daughter.

  Zoe lets them discuss it for a bit, then tells them about how the British National Party had used Lisa Williams’s death as a propaganda tool during local elections in Barking.

  She tells them how Lisa Williams’s father, a good and broken man, had made a public appeal for the people of Barking not to vote BNP because this injustice had nothing to do with the colour of his daughter’s skin.

  One of the sixth formers, a good-looking, supercilious kid called Adam, suggests that Aso Ibrahim should be hung.

  Zoe says, ‘Now you sound like my husband,’ and everyone laughs.

  Then she tells them about Article Three of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Prohibition of Torture, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, dictates that Ibrahim should be granted asylum in the United Kingdom, because rejection of torture is a moral and legal absolute.

  She asks if there are any questions.

  There are always questions. Adam tries to hold her gaze, but Zoe’s been an expert at that game since before this kid was born.

  ‘No questions?’ she says. ‘Come on. There must be one. Who’s got a question?’

  The quiet girl sitting off to the far side raises a timid hand.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stephanie.’

  ‘Yes, Stephanie?’

  ‘Do you, like, get a clothing allowance?’

  Zoe looks at her, deflating.

  Stephanie says, ‘Because your clothes are really nice and everything.’

  Her classmates perform a lot of exasperated eye rolling, sucking air over their teeth.

  Stephanie blushes, and suddenly Zoe’s fiercely on her side. It’s in her nature.

  ‘Good question,’ she says. And as she’s saying it, she begins to believe it. ‘No, we don’t get a clothing allowance but we’re expected to meet a required minimum standard of dress every day. And when I say minimum, I mean — going to a royal wedding.’

  Stephanie smiles, seraphic. Zoe smiles back, wanting to help her, wanting her to come away from this pointless little forum with something of worth.

  ‘It’s easier for men,’ Zoe tells her. ‘The dress thing. Their wives buy their ties.’

  ‘Racist,’ says Adam.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Adam withers a little, not much, crosses his arms, slumps in his chair, looks her in the eye. ‘That’s racist against men.’

  Zoe feels the corner of her mouth twist. She knows the futility of engaging this kid. After all, he’s here because he wants to be; he’s just trying to make the kind of obscure, self-defeating point adolescent boys seem compelled to make. But he’s still a prick.

  She says, ‘Sorry, what’s your name, again?’

  ‘Adam.’

  ‘Okay, Adam. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we step outside this room and conduct a spot poll. We’ll see how many men in this office — that’s about sixty-five per cent of the personnel by the way, and about eighty per cent of the senior partners — bought their own tie.’

  Adam grins like the triumph’s his. Zoe’s torn between giving up and laying into him.

  Then there’s a discreet tap at the door and Miriam, her PA, pops her head into the meeting room and mimes a phone call with thumb and little finger. She mouths the words: It’s John.

  Zoe thanks everyone for coming, gathers her notes, gives Adam a withering look and Stephanie an encouraging smile, and leaves.

  She hurries to her office and dials John’s number.

  ‘Zoe,’ he says.

  She can tell he’s outside. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Right now? Next to a canal.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking at a dead pigeon trapped in a shopping trolley.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘Clive had me speak to the sixth formers.’

  ‘I told you he would.’

  ‘Well, he did. Arsehole that he is.’

  ‘Any progress on the Hattem thing?’

  The Hattem thing is Zoe’s biggest current case. Sh
e says, ‘I’ve got that bloke coming round later today, tomorrow maybe, wants to liaise about it.’

  ‘What bloke?’

  ‘Mark thingy. From Liberte Sans Frontiere.’

  ‘Hippy?’

  ‘Trustafarian,’ she says, hating herself. ‘All ganja and yeah.’

  Luther laughs. ‘You’ll get through it.’

  ‘I hope so. I’m sorry I ever said yes to it.’

  She runs a hand through her hair, becomes aware that she’s dying for a cigarette.

  She holds her fringe in a bunch and tugs slightly, just enough so it hurts a bit.

  She’d been doing this since she was seven years old. It relieves stress. She doesn’t know why. Sometimes she worries she’ll get a bald patch, like one of those stressed parrots that yanks all the feathers from its body except the ones it can’t reach, so in the end it sits on its perch like an oven-ready chicken in a Halloween mask.

  She says, ‘Did you speak to Rose?’

  ‘I did. I did, yeah.’

  And now she knows why she’s tearing at her hair. It’s got nothing to do with the Hattem case. It’s John and his inability to say no to anyone except his wife.

  She says, ‘What happened?’

  ‘It’s difficult to talk about,’ he says. ‘Too many people around. But I can’t ask her today. I just can’t.’

  John knows when anyone else is lying, usually at a glance. The speed and conviction of it gives her the creeps sometimes. But he never knows when he’s lying to himself.

  ‘It’s a pretty bad one,’ he says.

  ‘They’re all bad ones,’ she says. ‘That’s the point.’

  Zoe’s ashamed as well as angry. And she’s resentful that John can do this to her — make her feel guilty for wanting a marriage.

  And here they are, like nightwatchmen patrolling the same ground, the same route, night after night after night.

  ‘I have to do this,’ he says. ‘Then I’ll talk to her.’

  ‘No you won’t.’

  ‘Zoe.’

  ‘You won’t, John. Because after this one there’ll be another one, and after that one there’ll be another. And then another one after that and it just goes on and on and on.’

  There’s a long silence.

  ‘Fucking Rose Teller,’ Zoe says. ‘That woman’s managed to fuck over more marriages than anyone I ever met.’