‘I’d forgotten how blunt you are,’ he said, pulling out a cane chair with a soft-looking patchwork cushion for her. ‘It was always disconcerting, but better than wasting time.’
‘Do you remember the case?’
‘Not well. But Caro told me that’s what you wanted, so I’ve invited a mate along. He’ll be here in the next ten minutes or so and will be able to tell you more than I can. How is Caro? I haven’t seen her for a while, and she said she was too busy to talk yesterday evening when she phoned about you.’
‘She’s fine, I think. Worried to death by the shooting of this woman officer, but otherwise fine.’
‘Why should Caro be worried? What’s it got to do with her?’
‘Nothing in particular, as far as I know,’ Trish said, remembering Caro’s determination to keep the relationship secret. ‘But any man’s death diminishes me and all that. Look, while we wait for your friend …’
‘Here’s your coffee. Help yourself to shortbread.’
‘While we wait, can you fill me in on London’s organised crime families? I asked Caro about them, but she came over all official and discreet and wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought that being retired might make it easier for you to talk.’
‘I wouldn’t know anything useful. I’ve been out of the job nearly four years now.’
‘But you must have mates who are still working. Don’t they gossip?’
‘Not about things that don’t concern outsiders. Why’re you asking anyway? You don’t do crime.’
‘Which is why I don’t know enough about it. But I’m really interested.’ Trish laughed to show how frivolous her curiosity was. ‘I’d never realised how many families there were until I heard a couple of colleagues talking the other day,’ she went on. ‘One of them said the police know more or less exactly what they all do but can rarely catch them at it with enough evidence to bring a case.’
‘True enough. But that’s because of your colleagues, not mine.’
A brisk tattoo sounded at the front door. ‘That must be Dick. Help yourself to more coffee.’
Odd how much information gathering involves eating and drinking, Trish thought. It’s as though you have to swallow physically as well as mentally. Remembering Caro’s description of the way the Slabbs gagged their victims, she put down her shortbread with only a small bite taken out of it.
‘Dick,’ Femur said from just behind her. ‘This is Trish Maguire.’
She stood to shake hands with the new arrival, a big man whose lined and pitted skin seemed far too old for the darkness of his straight hair. Looking more closely, she noticed how unnaturally uniform the colour was and realised he must have resorted to dye.
‘Bill tells me you want to know what went on at Paddington Green in the seventies,’ he said, as he eased his ample body into the cushions of a deep cane chair.
‘Only in this one instance of the bomb at X8 Pharmaceuticals, when a busload of children were blown up.’
‘So I gather. He told me you’ve got a client facing a libel case. Obviously I haven’t got any files, but my memory’s good enough to assure you that we never had any other suspects for the bombing. And Jeremy Marton’s dead.’ He crossed his legs, which made the grey-flannel trousers ride up to show a patch of very white calf thickly patterned with coarse dark hairs above the top of a wrinkled sock.
‘You can’t have believed he was working alone,’ Trish said, trying not to stare at the gap, ‘so you must have asked him about the people who’d helped him.’
‘Of course we did.’
She had never heard a voice for which ‘gravelly’ was a more suitable adjective.
‘So, what did he say?’
‘Nothing. He claimed he’d done it all himself, which we knew was bollocks. Where would a lad like him have found the stuff to make a bomb? It wasn’t like now, when he could’ve just looked up the recipe on the Internet and ordered everything from there too. But we couldn’t shake him.’
‘How hard did you try? I mean, what did you do to him?’
‘We weren’t the Gestapo, you know.’ Dick didn’t notice the mug of coffee Femur was holding out, so Femur put it quietly on the low cane table in front of them and went back to his own chair without saying anything.
‘Of course not, but everyone knows that before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act things were done throughout the police that wouldn’t happen now,’ Trish said, hoping to avert the angry outburst she could foresee. ‘I’ve heard stories of nasty pressure being put on people who were “known” to be guilty.’
‘A lot of it was psychological,’ Dick said after a long pause. He looked down at his lumpy hands and began picking at the hard skin around one thumbnail. ‘I don’t mean at Paddington Green; just in general. You’d make them think there was going to be violence. You’d let them wait in grim surroundings, getting themselves worked up, and having to listen to scary sounds of banging and crashing through the walls. Maybe even the odd shout; occasionally worse. Then, when you got them in the interview room, everyone would start rolling up their sleeves and moving furniture about as if …’ His voice tailed off, and he coughed once, with a harsh sound that made Trish wince in sympathy with the effect on his throat.
Femur got to his feet, ostensibly to refill the coffee mugs, but probably to distract Trish from his old friend’s implied admission. She knew this wasn’t the time to push either of them or try to make Dick admit he felt guilty about some of his past activities. She believed strongly that it wasn’t fair to judge yesterday’s conduct by today’s standards. Instead, she smiled at Femur, took her copy of Bee Bowman’s book out of her bag and handed it across to Dick. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forwards to take it from her.
‘There’s a bit I’ve marked with a Post-it. It’s very short.’
Dick opened the book and looked down for a second, before raising his eyes again. He looked amazed as well as angry, and glanced towards Femur, who shook his head, as though to assure Dick that the book was new to him, too.
‘A diary?’ Dick said at last. ‘Jeremy Marton wrote a sodding diary about the bombing?’
‘Yes,’ Trish said, looking from one man to the other and back again. ‘You mean you didn’t find it?’
‘Christ, no! That would have made everything different.’
‘Did you look?’
‘Of course we bloody did.’ Again Dick glanced towards Femur, but he had nothing to offer. He sat on patiently watching the two of them negotiate their way through everything Trish needed to know and Dick didn’t want to say.
‘We were desperate for evidence. We turned his university rooms upside down, pissing off the lad who shared them, and went through his parents’ house like flea-trainers looking for new candidates. That took for ever and might’ve landed us with a hefty claim for damages. If the Marton parents hadn’t been such good citizens and so horrified by what their son had done, we’d have been in deep shit.’
‘Why did it take so long?’
‘It was a big house.’
Trish watched his expression and thought, you hated him. Why?
‘Big and glamorous?’ she suggested after a while.
‘Not so much glamorous as grand,’ he said at last. ‘Shabby, but grand in the way that’s more impressive than gold leaf and marble. You know the kind of thing. Big old iron gates and a drive and different rooms for different times of day: breakfast room, morning room and all that.’
‘And it riled you?’ He nodded, so she added, ‘More than the deaths of the children? And the maiming?’
‘Don’t be stupid. Nothing could’ve been worse than that. But I was young then. And innocent. I didn’t see how anyone with everything Jeremy Marton had – and brains and university on top of it – could chuck it all away like he did. So I … Yeah, I was riled.’
‘Read the diary entry,’ Trish said, thinking she could easily understand what Dick could not bring himself to say. She thought of the words she’d highlighted. There was silence for
a long time, then the sound of the book snapping shut. This time it was Femur who coughed, as though in warning. Dick didn’t look at him.
‘Stupid bugger,’ he said. ‘Oh, the stupid, stupid bugger. Why didn’t he tell us about this Baiborn and his threats?’
‘Would you have protected his parents?’ Trish asked.
‘In return for the man behind the codename and the people who actually provided the bomb? Of course we would. Jeremy Marton would still have done time, but not as much. Nothing like as much. What else was there he didn’t tell us? Can I borrow the book?’
‘It’s not mine to lend,’ she said, thinking for Bee’s need of money and her publisher’s losses on the title. ‘But I’m sure your local bookseller could order you a copy.’
‘Yeah, right. Does it give any idea of who this Baiborn was or how our boy met him?’
‘Unfortunately it doesn’t. Which is why I came to Mr Femur. He thought you might be able to tell me.’
‘No chance. We went through Jeremy’s whole life, looking for the people who could have been involved. We interviewed everyone he’d been with in Africa; everyone at his chess club; all his tutors, teachers, scout leaders; his university friends, school friends. Everyone.’ At last he reached for the mug of cooling coffee and swallowed some.
‘You seem to remember an awful lot about the case for something that happened more than thirty years ago.’
‘It was my first big one. And something about Jeremy Marton got under my skin.’
‘What? Apart from his privileged life.’
Dick thought for a while, with anger tightening up all his muscles until his lips were white and his neck looked like a bodybuilder’s.
‘He was so wet; but nothing we could do made him talk. It was the combination that did it for me. Pathetic as he was, he should’ve been pouring out everything he knew and snivelling at us. We got plenty of snivels but no information. I hated the bugger. I must get off.’
‘Before you go,’ Trish said urgently, hoping to do something for Caro while she was here. He paused, halfway to the door out of the conservatory, looking more uncomfortable than ever. Femur got to his feet too.
‘Yes?’ Dick said.
‘I heard a whisper that Jeremy might have been in cahoots with a South London crime family called Slabb, who were apparently operating then.’
Something that looked very like shock arrested him and he stood, arms dangling, one leg stretched to take the next step to the door. He didn’t say anything. Femur was frowning. She smiled to reassure him that she wasn’t going to do anything dreadful and said, ‘I wondered whether they might have provided the bomb, and whether you considered—’
‘No.’ Dick had got over his surprise and was talking to her as though she were an impertinent child. ‘The Slabbs never involved themselves with rich kids like Jeremy Marton. In any case, what would they have got out of bombing a chemicals factory? I don’t know where you get your information, but it’s a load of cock.’
‘OK. Fine,’ Trish said, wondering why he was so angry.
‘I haven’t got time for this, Bill.’
Femur escorted him to the street door, then came back to say: ‘Did you get what you came for?’ He was no longer frowning, but some of his earlier warmth had gone.
‘Not really. But it helped a bit. I’m very grateful. While I’m here, do you know anything about a man called Simon Tick?’
‘Not a thing. So there’s no point asking me whether he’s involved with the Slabbs too. Does Caro know what you’re up to? How you’re using this story about Jeremy Marton to dig into the Slabbs’ affairs? What are you really after?’
‘It was idle curiosity,’ she said, knowing he wouldn’t believe her any more than Dick had, but intrigued by the effect her questions had had on both men. ‘My interest is in Jeremy Marton and whoever provided the bomb. If I could find out, I might be able to fend off the libel claim. So I’m trying to look at every possibility. From the little I’ve heard about them, the Slabbs seemed to be one; clearly not a very good one.’
‘I don’t know if that’s true or not.’ The way he looked at her made her feel as though she were in a police interview room, facing a hostile team alone. ‘In case it is, let me give you a piece of advice. It is not a good idea to go talking about the Slabbs to people whose affiliations and loyalties you don’t know.’
Trish’s guts lurched, in spite of her determination to push on until she’d heard everything Femur could tell her. ‘You mean, Dick might be in their pay?’
‘I’ve no idea. And I don’t want to know. I’m too fond of my house and my life to go stirring up the Slabbs by asking questions about them or anyone who might or might not be working for them. Understood?’
‘No, I don’t understand. What do you mean about your house? I thought the Slabbs’ great threat was this bag-and-gagging thing.’
Femur’s diamond-shaped eyes turned into slits. ‘That’s what they once did to inside informers. For anyone else, they’ve always used whatever’s to hand. Shooting’s most likely these days. But there are other ways. D’you remember a house fire in Fulham last year, in which nearly a dozen people burned to death?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘There was a party, and one of the guests – guests, mind you, not the host – had been asking too many questions about why an operation against the Slabbs had gone pear-shaped. They had a firework put through the letter box, with an extra load of accelerant to turn it into a bomb. A few party-goers got out through the windows, but only a few, and all the children upstairs died in their beds.’
Sour fluid rose in Trish’s throat. She forced it back down. No wonder Caro had been so worried about finding someone safe enough to trust with Stephanie’s suspicions.
‘I do remember the papers saying that no arrests were ever made,’ she said. ‘How do you know it was the Slabbs behind the fire?’
‘Everyone knows.’
‘Any evidence?’
‘Only circumstantial, but it was a typical piece of Slabb theatre. They like to make a point every so often by taking out someone known to be gunning for them. They use maximum drama to get the story out to the maximum number of people who could threaten them.’
That sounds horribly like Stephanie’s death, Trish thought. Last night the television news had led with the shooting. This morning’s paper had been full of it too, with a leading article about the increase in gun crime and plenty of genuine outrage that a gentle-looking, pretty woman had died in her fight to keep London’s streets free and safe for others. Everyone with any interest in the underworld or its policing would have seen those photographs and read those articles. Were Caro’s worst fears justified: had Stephanie’s death been organised by the Slabbs?
‘And they don’t care who dies in the process. So my advice is to shut up about them.’ Femur glared at her. ‘Even if you’re prepared to take stupid risks for yourself, I don’t want you putting Caro on the line. She’s one of the best.’
Driving home to Southwark so she could leave the car in its own parking space, before going on to her meeting with Lord Tick, Trish tried to believe that Femur had been exaggerating the extent of the Slabbs’ reach and urge for vengeance.
She’d once walked down a street in which firefighters were clearing up after a disaster and had never forgotten it. It wasn’t the charcoal smell that had worried her, or the disgusting stench of water-soaked wood, ash and brick, it was the barbecued meat. She could smell it in her nostrils now.
Long experience told her the only way to control such memories was to concentrate hard on something else that mattered. The first thing that came into her mind was the question of where Jeremy could have hidden his diaries so effectively that Dick and the investigating team had had no idea of their existence.
She phoned Bee Bowman to ask whether she had any information.
‘What’s the matter?’ Bee said at once. ‘You sound peculiar.’
‘Atmospherics. I’m in the car. Do you know wh
ere he hid the diaries?’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘Could you ask his mother?’
An immense lorry pulled away from the kerb without signalling. For a moment, all Trish’s attention was needed to brake without skidding into the cyclist oozing up on her left-hand side in the ten inches between her car and the pavement. She hung back, hating the suicidal cyclist, but for once grateful for the lorry’s exhaust that poured through her car’s ventilators. Even though it made her cough, it drove out the other, remembered, smells.
‘I don’t want her knowing anything about the case.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Because she’d think she had to pay all the costs for me, and she can’t. She has even fewer resources than I. She’s so poor even her gas bill terrifies her. I couldn’t let her worry about this too. She’s been through far too much already.’
‘OK,’ Trish said, trying to remember what Dick had told her before Femur tried to scare her into scuttling away from him and everything he knew. ‘Someone was telling me that the family have a huge, grand house.’
‘Not any more. They sold that after the bomb and moved to a much more modest one on the edge of the village. After her husband died, Jane stayed on there until Jeremy came out of prison and needed more money. It’s almost impossible to get a job if you’re middle-aged and have been in prison for more than twenty years, so she sold up all over again.’
‘Where does she live now?’ Make yourself concentrate on Jeremy, Trish told herself, ask questions, keep the conversation going.
‘Still in the same village but in a tiny one-storey cottage on the main road,’ Bee said. ‘You’ll see it tomorrow. Permanent traffic noise meant no one wanted it, so it’s cheap to rent. She gave Jeremy everything she had and he poured most of it into the shelter.’
It might not have been the Slabbs, Trish told herself as she tried to concentrate on what Bee was telling her. Lots of nasty yobs put lit fireworks through people’s front doors.
‘She absolutely makes the best of what’s been a ghastly life since the bomb. You’ll like her.’
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