by Simon Booker
‘I thought he’d gone, so I wasn’t going to tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’
A long pause. Lissa shakes her head, closing her eyes.
‘About the attack on the cliffs.’
She swallows, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
‘Go on,’ says Morgan.
A deep breath. Lissa opens her eyes and meets her mother’s steady gaze.
‘It was Pablo.’
Morgan tries to sound calmer than she feels, but her heart is racing.
‘You’re sure?’
A nod.
‘You saw him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why would he do such a terrible thing?’
Lissa bows her head. Her voice is a whisper.
‘I refused to plant the pouch in your pocket. So he did this.’ She points to what’s left of her hair. ‘I was terrified he’d do something even worse. That’s why I caved in when he hassled me after we got back from hospital.’
Morgan exhales a slow breath, reaching for her pouch of tobacco.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I was so ashamed. I keep messing up.’
Torn between sympathy and anger, Morgan feels a rising surge of fury but bites her tongue. Gripped by a sense of foreboding, she tries to roll a cigarette but her hands are trembling. The tobacco spills onto the table. She gets to her feet and walks into her bedroom, resisting the temptation to slam the door. She lies on the bed and closes her eyes. For twenty years she has raised Lissa on her own. No partner. No parents. There are nights when the urge to share the burden feels overwhelming.
This is one of those nights.
*
Dawn is breaking as she parks outside the gates of HMP Dungeness, listening to the distant sound of the waves as she waits for Nigel Cundy. At first she was mystified by Lissa’s failure to recognise Karl Savage, to realise that he and ‘Pablo’ are one and the same, but her daughter has been quick to set her straight.
‘Why would I recognise him? I don’t read the papers and I don’t watch the news.’
Lighting a roll-up, Morgan’s eyes rove the beach that surrounds the enormous prison complex. For almost four years the Dungeness peninsula, formed from hundreds of shingle ridges and valleys, has been her home. She shares her habitat with seabird colonies and a wildlife population that includes weasels, newts, badgers and stoats. Over by one of the derelict fisherman’s shacks that give the landscape its air of eerie abandonment, a mangy fox picks at the remains of a dead seagull. Morgan watches for a moment, considering the efficiency of the scavengers – foxes, cats, rats – that ensure dead birds are an uncommon sight, then drags deeply on her cigarette and checks her watch.
A man who has told her many times that ‘punctuality is the politeness of kings’, Cundy appears at precisely seven o’clock. He’s riding his bicycle, the stiff wind making a mockery of his comb-over as he removes his helmet. Morgan steps out of the Mini, watching the psychologist chain his bike to the rack. When he speaks, his voice is nasal, thick with cold.
‘’Morning, Morgan. To what do I owe the pleasure?’
Flicking her cigarette, she suppresses a surge of irritation. If the man didn’t say things like to what do I owe the pleasure? she might find him easier to tolerate. But his conversation is peppered with lovely ladies and footloose and fancy-free and it’s not rocket science. He invited her on a couple of dates back in the day, refusing to take no for an answer and forcing her to make it clear that she’d rather eat her own feet than sleep with him.
‘You shouldn’t smoke,’ he says. ‘It’s bad for you.’
‘Now you tell me.’
Squinting against the early-morning sun, Cundy scans the horizon. A fishing boat is returning to harbour, surrounded by shrieking seagulls.
‘What can I do you for?’
‘Can you get to see Anjelica Fry?’ says Morgan.
‘Why?’
‘I need you to give her a message. Tell her I’m on the case. Tell her I believe her. Tell her I’ll do everything I can to help.’
Nigel takes a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and blows his nose.
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘The woman tried to kill herself, Nigel. Give her the message.’
‘If you insist.’ A sniff. ‘But I’m not sure it’s wise to give someone as unstable as Anjelica Fry hope where none exists. As the saying goes, “She’s got no hope and Bob Hope, and Bob Hope’s dead”.’
‘Hilarious,’ says Morgan. ‘You should have your own show.’
Cundy sighs.
‘I take it you’re an admirer of Saint Jude?’
She pretends not to understand.
‘I’ve never been good at saints.’
She gets into her car and starts the engine. He taps on the window.
‘Saint Jude. Look him up.’
Driving away, Morgan has no interest in learning more than she already knows about the patron saint of lost causes. She has more important things on her mind. More urgent questions.
Like what to do about her daughter.
And why a dead man was outside her house.
Six
KARL
He’s walking on the pavement, holding Daddy’s hand. Daddy’s got his birthday present under his arm – the big tin of biscuits. Guy Fawkes on the lid.
–When will I be dead, Daddy?
–Not for a long time.
–But when?
–Not for years and years and years. You’re only four. Four today. My big lad.
–When will you be dead?
–Not for a long, long time. But we all die, son. And we’re a long time dead. That’s why you need to go up like a rocket, even if you come down like a stick.
Karl doesn’t know what this means but he thinks about fireworks while Daddy stops to talk to the man outside the pub. Today is Karl’s special day. People organise fireworks displays to celebrate his birthday. Daddy says so. Rockets are Karl’s favourite – they’re loud and scary, but in a good way. He likes sparklers too because Daddy lets him hold them in his hand.
There’s that dog again, on the other side of the road. Maisie. Sniffing a lamppost. Karl has seen her before. Black, friendly, waggy. Last time, the lady let Karl stroke her.
–Daddy?
–Hold on, son, I’m talking.
–Can I stroke Maisie?
–In a minute.
But Karl can’t wait a whole minute. Daddy always talks for ages and ages. The dog will be gone soon.
He steps off the kerb.
Hears a car horn.
Daddy yells.
–Karl!
Daddy’s shoving him, hard. A screech of brakes. A loud thud. The dog lady screams. Maisie barks.
Now Daddy’s lying in the road. Blood is coming from his head.
Karl looks at Daddy. There’s more blood now. And the biscuits – his birthday biscuits – are scattered all over the road. Karl starts to put them back in the tin. Then he puts the lid back on and sits on the kerb, waiting for someone to take him home. He’d like a biscuit but he’ll have to wait till after lunch or she’ll tell him off.
Or worse.
*
Ten days later the house is full of people talking quietly, eating sandwiches and saying nice things about Daddy. Karl didn’t want to go to the funeral – it meant missing Danger Mouse – but she made him.
–This is all your fault.
The last words she said to him.
Not a word since.
Not one word.
And now she’s put the Guy Fawkes tin of biscuits – his birthday biscuits – on the kitchen table so everyone can help themselves.
First no fireworks, then no Danger Mouse, now no biscuits.
Not fair.
NOT FAIR AT ALL.
Seven
The police station sits on a busy London high street and serves two parallel universes: old-school Hackney with its blue-collar population, and Stoke Ne
wington, otherwise known as ‘Stokey’, the spiritual home of brunch, cupcake cafés and sharp-elbowed yummy mummies queuing for quinoa or asserting the divine right of the double buggy.
Morgan and Lissa are cramped into the small interview suite, opposite Detective Inspector Brett Tucker. Dapper. Early fifties. Sporting a tan from a belated summer holiday. Judging by the ring of pale flesh where a wedding band has been, he’s recently divorced, or perhaps bereaved. So far his idea of hospitality has extended to a polystyrene cup of water. He has ostentatiously checked his watch three times in fifteen minutes but Morgan has no intention of allowing him to give her the brush-off, not after the effort it took to secure what he insists on calling ‘face time’.
Four days since the man in the white camper van sped away into the night, she has taken the precaution of moving herself and Lissa out of their isolated home and into the Dungeness Beach Inn. She has also launched a salvo of calls requesting an urgent meeting with the SIO in charge of the enquiry into Karl Savage’s murder, the prime mover behind the prosecution of Anjelica Fry. When DI Tucker ignored Morgan’s messages, she hand-delivered a letter to the Police and Crime Commissioner. Her burgeoning reputation as a relentless pain in the arse did the trick. She received an email the next morning. This case is closed but I have asked Detective Inspector Tucker if he can find time to meet with you as soon as possible.
‘Forgive me labouring the point,’ says Tucker, elbows on the table, steepling his fingers, ‘but just to be clear, it was night-time, there was no moon, no street lighting?’
‘Correct,’ says Morgan.
‘And you saw the van driver’s face at a distance of approximately fifteen yards, for no longer than two or three seconds?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this happened immediately after you’d been looking at photos of Karl Savage on the internet?’
‘Yes,’ says Morgan, shifting in her chair.
‘And not long after you’d consumed sleeping pills, painkillers and half a bottle of wine.’
‘Two glasses.’
‘Large or small?’
‘I don’t have small glasses.’
A pause. The police officer winces and adjusts his position in the chair, rearranging the lumbar support cushion he’d brought into the room. He gives a thin smile.
‘I have a bad back, Ms Vine. When it gets agonising I take painkillers. They knock me for six. I can’t work, can’t sleep, can’t concentrate.’
‘I know what I saw.’
‘So you say. And you want me to reopen a murder enquiry?’
‘Yes.’
‘A review of a month-long, painstaking investigation, following which the arsonist was tried by a jury of her peers. And is now behind bars. Where she belongs.’
‘Are you sure about the last part?’
A muscle twitches in Tucker’s cheek.
‘Absolutely. And thanks to the post-mortem I’m also sure she cracked the victim’s skull and knocked him out. Then she set fire to the flat, trying to cover her tracks. Karl Savage may have been a nasty piece of work, Ms Vine, and he may have been unconscious, but the man burned alive. So tell me, just how convinced are you that you saw him outside your house?’
Morgan can’t afford to betray a flicker of doubt, but for the sake of credibility it’s vital to be honest. She thinks back to the man in the van. For how long did she glimpse his bearded face? Two seconds? Three?
‘Ninety-nine per cent,’ she says.
‘OK,’ says Tucker, wincing as he shifts position once again. ‘I trump your ninety-nine with my hundred per cent. I don’t just believe he’s dead, I know it.’ Without giving Morgan a chance to reply, he turns towards Lissa. ‘What happened to your face?’
Morgan listens as her daughter explains how she came by the bruises: the cliff-top attack, her summer fling with ‘Pablo’. She doesn’t mention being persuaded into co-opting her mother to act as his unwitting mule.
‘You believe the man on the cliffs was Pablo?’
‘Looks like it,’ says Lissa.
‘Because he used a Zippo? Like the man in the van?’
‘No, because Mum says the man in the van was the same as the man in this photo.’
She reaches into her pocket and produces a printout of the newspaper clipping. Tucker examines the photo and sighs. A thought strikes Morgan.
‘Was Karl Savage a smoker?’
‘I believe so’ says Tucker.
‘Did he have a Zippo?’
‘I have no idea. We didn’t find one in his flat.’
He turns his gaze on Lissa.
‘Why would Pablo attack you?’
‘He was angry with me. He wanted me to do something. I refused. Looking back, I think the attack on the cliffs was a warning. A taste of things to come.’
‘What did he want you to do?’
Lissa avoids her mother’s eye. They have agreed not to disclose more than strictly necessary.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Can I be the judge of that?’
‘No.’
‘OK. But as far as you’re concerned, Karl Savage and “Pablo” are one and the same?’
‘Yep.’
The DI presses his point again.
‘Even though you didn’t see the bloke in the van?’
‘My mother doesn’t make things up.’
‘Does she ever make mistakes?’
Morgan struggles to keep her irritation from showing. It’s not simply what the man is saying, it’s how he’s saying it. Smug. Patronising. He’s giving them ‘face time’ because she went over his head and threatened to create a stink in the press. He steals another glance at his watch and sighs.
‘Look, I don’t doubt that you believe you saw Karl Savage. But unless he has an identical twin – and he doesn’t, I know his backstory like I know my face in the mirror – what you’re saying is simply not possible. I personally attended the aftermath of the fire. I personally saw the state of his . . .’ He tails off, eyes flickering towards Lissa.
‘Go ahead,’ she says. ‘I’m not a kid.’
‘I saw his body,’ continues Tucker. ‘Or what was left of it. Black, charred like something out of the worst horror movie ever. As for the smell . . .’ Morgan opens her mouth to protest but he beats her to it. ‘Yes, it’s conceivable that someone else was in his flat that night, and that Savage didn’t die. But what’s not conceivable, frankly, is that a world-renowned forensic dentist failed to correctly identify Savage’s unique – I repeat for emphasis – unique dental make-up. And this isn’t some high street quack, Ms Vine. He’s got letters after his name like alphabetti spaghetti. He subjected Savage’s dental records to detailed analysis. Teeth. Jawbone. Fillings. They’re like fingerprints. Unique.’
Smirking, Lissa turns to her mother.
‘I think he’s saying they’re unique.’
Tucker ignores the sarcasm and continues.
‘The jury took less than two hours to reach a verdict. Anjelica Fry’s motive was beyond dispute. Karl had threatened to take her baby. Traces of petrol identified by an experienced fire scene investigator match the brand in her can.’ He pauses for breath before delivering the coup de grâce. ‘Then we need to consider the Anjelica matches in her kitchen. An obscure Spanish brand they haven’t manufactured for years and which have never been exported to the UK.’
‘Were they unique?’ deadpans Lissa.
The muscle in Tucker’s cheek twitches again.
‘Is this funny to you?’
‘No.’
‘Good. When it comes to murder I tend to have a sense of humour failure.’
Chastened, Lissa folds her arms, shifting in her chair as he continues. ‘OK,’ says Tucker, ‘the matches were not unique, but they were as rare as hen’s teeth.’ He cracks his knuckles, still in full flow. ‘And finally, we come to the “hoodie video”. Anjelica Fry was caught on CCTV not two hundred yards from Savage’s flat, a mere seven minutes before the fire started—’
Morgan interrupts.
‘The defence demolished the CCTV evidence. You couldn’t see the person’s face. Same brand of hoodie, yes, and roughly the same build, and OK, the timing fits, but that doesn’t prove it was Anjelica.’
DI Tucker sighs and spreads his hands, a gesture of exasperation.
‘Off the record?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I work half a dozen murders at any one time, doing my best for families desperate for answers. This isn’t box-ticking, Ms Vine. It’s about victims’ mums, their nans, their kids.’ He gets to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got work to do.’ The muscle in his cheek twitches again as frustration leaks from his lips. ‘Some people like to believe the worst of the police,’ he mutters. ‘Frankly, it sticks in the craw.’
He gives Morgan a defiant stare. For a second she feels on the back foot. This isn’t the first time she’s encountered blatant hostility from the forces of law and order, but she’s still taken aback by the extent to which Trial and Error has made her an object of suspicion, an enemy. Perhaps she should have known better. Brett Tucker is clearly going through the motions, tolerating what he sees as her drink-and-pill-fuelled, sleep-deprived stupidity. Moronic impertinence. Waste of time. Waste of space.
‘Can you let me have contact details for the fire scene investigator and forensic dentist?’ says Morgan.
‘Are you asking me to do your job as well as mine?’
‘I’m asking for help.’
He shrugs.
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
For a moment she thinks the man is softening, but his next question knocks her for six.
‘How do you sleep at night?’
She narrows her eyes.
‘Excuse me?’
‘We all know the system messes up occasionally,’ says Tucker. ‘Once in a while some nutjob copper goes rogue or fits up some poor bastard for something they didn’t do. And it makes me sick to the stomach. But do you have any idea how hard people like you make life for us? Undermining public confidence, raking over the past.’