by Simon Booker
Looked inside.
Big mistake.
Did she really think he’d never look? Is the cellar her idea of a safe hiding place? Somewhere to keep her darkest secret? There’s no point in asking. Having uttered those two words – ‘no peeking’ – she has reverted to silence.
The Whistler knows what’s in the tin. No doubt about it. He came down to the cellar (after she’d gone to bed, as usual). Even said he was sorry. But he was drunk. Very drunk.
–Fucking baby wouldn’t stop crying. I kept telling him to shut up, but he wouldn’t. So I snapped. I’m sorry. But it was his fault for crying all the time. You forgive me, don’t you, Karl?
–Yes. I forgive you.
What else was he supposed to say?
–Good boy. Show me how. Show me how you forgive me. Let’s play our game, shall we? Our special game.
After ‘the game’ – after The Whistler had gone – Karl opened the tin again. Just to check. Then he sealed it up, good as new. He won’t tell her that he knows.
Won’t tell her about The Whistler’s ‘special game’ either. Too ashamed.
But he’s got to do something. He’s ten. This has been going on for over half his lifetime. He’s been hoping she’ll change if he’s a good boy. Hoping she’ll talk to him. Hoping The Whistler will leave him alone.
But one of Daddy’s sayings keeps playing inside his head.
Hope is not a plan . . .
Thirty-One
Sitting at Ben’s dining table, Morgan speaks softly into her mobile, doing her best not to lose her temper.
‘Are you telling me Mr Singh is refusing to see me?’
The receptionist’s voice – honeyed, designed to soothe the anxieties of wealthy patients – emanates from the speaker.
‘Not at all, Ms Vine. He’s just a busy man, which is why he starts work so early. Patients, conferences abroad, not to mention his forensic work.’
‘That’s what I want to talk to him about.’
‘Perhaps you could email him again?’
‘He’s ignored two emails, why would a third make any difference?’
‘It’s not a question of ignoring, I assure you. He’s just—’
‘A busy man. I get it. Thanks.’
Hanging up, she resists the temptation to hurl her phone across the room. She has been awake most of the night, reviewing the evidence, and has reached a conclusion: Jatinder Singh, Dip. F. Od. may have a string of letters after his name and a Harley Street office with a portrait of his wife and daughters adorning the wall, but the man is either incompetent or dishonest.
Stepping into the courtyard garden, Morgan smokes her first cigarette of the day while gazing at the clouds scudding across the Canterbury sky. In the distance, she can hear the peals of the cathedral’s oldest bell. She checks her watch: 8 a.m. She recalls her father telling her about Bell Harry. Cast in 1635, it hangs at the top of the tower to which the bell lends its name. ‘Harry’ strikes at eight every morning, then at nine in the evening, marking the opening and closing of the cathedral.
Although not on speaking terms with God, Morgan has always found church bells comforting. Today is different. She’s weary after another semi-sleepless night, worried about her daughter and frustrated at the lack of progress in unravelling a miscarriage of justice that seems more unjust with each passing day.
In the kitchen she makes a pot of coffee, then spends half an hour googling articles about Jatinder Singh, reading up on his presentations to conferences around the world – Amsterdam, Dubai, Rome, Mexico City. A leader in his field. It seems unlikely he made a rookie mistake identifying Karl’s remains. Which leaves only one explanation.
A lie.
She can find no trace of Singh’s home address, but a flattering piece appears on the website of a local paper, the Camden Examiner. The article is a thinly disguised ad for a charity supported by Singh. The interviewer refers admiringly to the forensic odontologist pro bono activities in Sierra Leone and Bangladesh, operating on children with cleft palates. Accompanied by a photo of Singh’s wife and daughters, the article was printed last year and references the man’s current case, identifying a charred corpse found after a fire in Dalston.
Karl Savage?
About to click away, Morgan’s attention is drawn to a mention of stone lions on pillars outside the man’s ‘pastel-coloured family home in uber-trendy Primrose Hill’.
*
Two and a half hours later she’s roving the streets of the well-heeled north London neighbourhood, searching for Singh’s house. The overpriced cafés, delis and boho-chic clothing shops denote eye-watering property prices and prosperous locals. Just the sort of place a well-off professional might raise a family if he’d established a foothold before the housing market went crazy.
After two hours of slogging around Primrose Hill with no sign of lions on pillars, Morgan is tired, hungry and despondent. She sits at a table outside a café, drinking laughably expensive coffee, eating a Parma ham baguette and smoking two roll-ups in quick succession. The sunshine is unseasonably warm for late October, the locals dressed for summer, not autumn. Paying her bill, Morgan overtips the waitress, a young black woman of Lissa’s age, who maintains a smile while catering to three pinch-faced ladies debating whether or not climate change is real, and a table of sharp-suited estate agents braying about the size of their commission. Pocketing Morgan’s fiver, the waitress flashes a grateful smile.
‘Nice one. Thanks.’
Morgan gets to her feet, picking up her pouch of tobacco and lighter.
‘Don’t suppose you know a house with lions on pillars?’
A long shot but worth a try.
‘Sorry,’ says the waitress. ‘Not my area.’
Morgan smiles.
‘Nor mine.’
Turning to leave, she bumps into a woman hurrying past, laden with carrier bags.
Morgan mutters an apology – reflex politeness – but the woman doesn’t hear. She has her head down and is focused on navigating a cluster of yummy mummies pushing outsized buggies and scattering pedestrians in their wake.
Morgan frowns. Has she seen the passer-by before? It takes a moment for realisation to dawn. It’s not the woman’s face that strikes a chord, but her distinctive dress: a white sari, like the one worn by Singh’s wife in the portrait in his office.
Instantly, the woman is transformed from stranger to quarry.
Morgan follows her along the pavement. The sari makes it easy to keep her in sight, the heavy shopping bags ensuring a slow, steady pace. As the road curves around the south side of Primrose Hill, Morgan sees affluent Londoners on the slopes – walking dogs, chasing toddlers, savouring the unexpected sunshine beaming down on the spiritual home of all things cupcake.
The woman in the white sari is fifty yards ahead, walking away from the park, towards the urban sprawl of Camden. The houses facing the hill are tall and elegant, four or five storeys painted in delicate shades of blue, yellow and pink. One window displays a magnificent antique rocking horse, others feature huge floral arrangements that must cost more than the wages of the army of cleaners, gardeners, nannies and au pairs required to keep each household ticking over smoothly.
For a moment Morgan feels a pang of jealousy, but then remembers that the only thing to envy about the rich is their money. Dismissing fantasies of a lottery win, she focuses on her quarry, following the woman onto a tree-lined street. The houses are smaller than those opposite the park but well cared-for and still worth many millions. The road is lined with BMWs, Mercedes and enough 4 x 4s to suggest a community braced for severe snowdrifts.
Now a second turn, another quiet street, one that escaped Morgan’s notice during her trawl of the area. She slows, lingering at the corner and watching the woman approach a set of wrought-iron gates and tap a combination onto a keypad. The gates swing open. The woman walks onto the driveway, lets herself into the house and shuts the heavy door.
Morgan counts to ten, watching the gate
s close then scanning the windows for any sign of life. There is none. She takes a tentative step forward. The double-fronted house is three storeys high and painted a rich shade of cream. A silver Mercedes sits in front of the garage next to a red Volvo estate and a yellow Fiat 500. But it’s not the house or cars that command Morgan’s attention.
It’s the stone lions on pillars, perched on either side of the gates.
Her eyes rove the house, taking stock of three CCTV cameras beneath the eaves, alongside a battery of security floodlights. Closer scrutiny of the gates reveals loops of razor wire across the top.
A voice at her side: male, elderly, posh.
‘Wouldn’t loiter, if I were you. They’ll have the police out before you can say Jack Robinson.’
Morgan turns to see a spry-looking man in his eighties. He sports a blue cashmere cardigan over a Viyella shirt, and yellow cords tucked into wellington boots. At his side is a motley pack of dogs – eight or more, all shapes and sizes. Morgan makes an instant evaluation. The man is a widower who keeps fit by acting as dog walker for his time-poor, cash-rich neighbours. He nods towards the cream house.
‘They don’t care for dogs,’ he says, ‘so I don’t care for them.’
Morgan smiles.
‘I take it you’re a local?’
He gestures towards a house at the end of the road; it’s the same size as the Singh’s residence, but scruffy and dilapidated.
‘Since I was a nipper,’ says the man. ‘You could buy a decent house for five thousand and have change for an Austin. Which my parents did.’
One of the dogs – a King Charles spaniel – is straining at the leash.
‘Excuse us,’ says the man. ‘Nell’s desperate for walkies.’
He heads towards the corner. Morgan acts on impulse.
‘Don’t suppose you’d like company?’
The man smiles.
‘Can’t think of anything nicer.’
His name is Edward Somebody-or-Other, a double-barrelled surname Morgan doesn’t catch. Keeping the dogs under control, he leads the way towards Primrose Hill, pointing to where shops and pubs used to be ‘when God was a boy and I was knee-high to a grasshopper’. Morgan is happy to let the man talk but feels shabby about her motive for keeping him company.
Still, it makes a change from flirting with Neville Rook.
Reaching the park, Edward unleashes the dogs, calling out to keep them under control but never breaking his stride while ascending the steep hill. Morgan struggles to keep up. Reaching the top, she pauses to catch her breath, panting like a marathon runner. Edward raises an eyebrow.
‘Young thing like you? Out of puff? Well, I never.’
‘Smoker, I’m afraid.’
The smile falters.
‘So was my dear wife.’
He raises his gaze, looking across the spectacular view of London. To the east St Paul’s nestles amid the City skyscrapers; to the west a glimpse of the London Eye. He points to a familiar building in the foreground, the BT Tower.
‘I remember when that was the GPO tower. Bet you don’t know what GPO stood for.’
‘General Post Office,’ says Morgan. ‘There used to be a revolving restaurant at the top. My father took my mother there the night he proposed.’
Edward smiles.
‘And here you are.’
‘In a nutshell.’
She sits on the bench, rolling a cigarette.
‘Mind if I ask about the Singhs?’
‘I was wondering when you’d get round to it.’
‘Am I that obvious?’
He smiles, warm and twinkle-eyed.
‘I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty face.’
Morgan smiles back.
‘How long have they lived here?’
He sits next to her, rummaging in his pocket for a spotted handkerchief.
‘Thirty years? Maybe more.’ He blows his nose. ‘Mr Singh is a dentist, I believe. Two delightful daughters and a somewhat charmless wife, or perhaps she’s just shy. I seem to recall my wife saying that it was Mrs Singh’s family who had the wherewithal to buy the house.’ He turns to face her. ‘Why the interest?’
She lights the cigarette.
‘Mind if I keep that under my hat?’
‘Not in the least.’
Turns out that many of Edward’s neighbours refer to the Singh’s family home as ‘Fort Knox’. The draconian security measures are as unwelcome as they are new.
‘He put up the gates after the attack, about nine months ago.’
Morgan plucks a wisp of tobacco from her tongue.
‘What attack?’
‘Racists,’ says Edward. ‘At least, that was the assumption. Someone put a burning rag through the letterbox, soaked in petrol.’ The mention of arson makes Morgan’s pulse start to race. She focuses on the man’s every word. ‘Three in the morning, no one around. They were lucky the dog next door started barking, woke them up and saved their lives.’ He gestures towards one of his pack, a black poodle chasing a pigeon around the slopes of the hill. ‘There’s their saviour – dear old Suki. You’d think they’d be grateful, but no. Still, perhaps it’s a cultural difference. I know many people from India are wary of dogs.’
It’s not the dogs that interest Morgan.
‘Did the police catch anyone?’
Edward shakes his head.
‘Not for want of trying. I sometimes have a pint with one or two of the local coppers. They took it seriously but the arsonist was too clever by half. Wore a hoodie and managed to avoid being caught on CCTV. Which is why poor Mr Singh felt it necessary to put up cameras and install those ruddy gates.’ He sighs. ‘Used to be such a friendly neighbourhood. Now it’s all bankers and Botox. Ghastly.’
A question nags at Morgan’s brain.
‘If he wasn’t caught on CCTV, how do they know he wore a hoodie?’
‘Our local bag lady, Eileen, bumped into him two minutes before the fire was started, and asked for a light. She told police she remembered nothing about the man except his cigarette lighter.’
‘A Zippo?’ says Morgan.
Edward raises an eyebrow.
‘How did you know?’
Morgan’s mind is racing. The arson attack occurred around the time of the investigation into the fire at Karl Savage’s flat. Was the arsonist Karl himself? Is the timing significant? A warning to Singh? A threat to his family? A bid to strong-arm him into lying, into furnishing the police with evidence to identify the charred body as Karl’s, thus ‘proving’ he died in the inferno?
She recalls the conversation in the Harley Street office, the ante-mortem radiograph taken by Savage’s own dentist. Singh had used his Mont Blanc pen to point to a small, arch-shaped groove at the base of one of the front teeth. What had he said? Something about the notching of the mandibles being indicative of someone regularly using his teeth to strip plastic coating from electrical wire . . .
And now Morgan remembers another tap of the pen, pointing to the post-mortem radiograph, the one taken by Singh himself.
Or so he had told her.
And the police.
And the jury at Anjelica’s trial.
No doubt he’d shown the evidence to the court, just as he’d shown it to Morgan.
And they’d all believed it.
Why wouldn’t they?
Who would doubt a distinguished professional?
What could he possibly have to gain by lying?
She flinches. The cigarette has burned down, singeing her fingers. She drops it on the ground, grinding the stub under her heel.
‘Are you all right?’ says Edward.
‘Fine,’ says Morgan. Getting to her feet, she sees a woman at the bottom of the hill, pushing an overloaded supermarket trolley along the path. The trolley is piled high with newspapers.
‘Is that Eileen?’
Edward follows her gaze and sighs.
‘Yes,’ he sighs. ‘I’m afraid it is.’
*
&n
bsp; Ten minutes later, Morgan is back outside the overpriced café, ignoring the glares of the po-faced yummy mummies furious at the introduction of a bag lady into their gilded world. Eileen has refused to enter the café (I can’t leave my papers unattended), instructing Morgan to commandeer a pavement table. The imperious, grey-haired woman is in her fifties, overcoated despite the heat, and holding on to her trolley’s handle for dear life. Five minutes of small talk have led nowhere. Eileen blocks any attempt to elicit personal information, which is fine by Morgan. She’s not here to make friends.
‘Was the hoodie’s lighter definitely a Zippo?’
Eileen nods, crooking her little finger as she takes a sip of camomile tea.
‘I used to have one myself.’
‘But you didn’t see his face?’
‘No.’
Morgan begins to make a roll-up. The woman stares.
‘Would you like a cigarette?’ says Morgan.
A sniff.
‘If you insist.’
‘Do you know the Singhs?’
‘I know everyone, darling. This is my manor.’ Another sip of tea. ‘But I don’t see much of the girls these days, not since they got back.’
‘From where?’
The woman doesn’t answer immediately, distracted by the window display of eye-wateringly expensive cakes. Morgan senses a calculation being made: information for food.
‘Do you think I might have a chocolate éclair?’
‘Of course.’ Morgan waves at the waitress, who takes Eileen’s order then goes inside the café.
‘You were saying?’
The woman looks at the roll-up in Morgan’s hand.
‘Is that for me?’
Morgan hands the cigarette over, lights it, then watches Eileen exhale twin plumes of smoke.
‘I used to see the girls all the time,’ she says. ‘We’d meet on top of the hill, after school, and feed the pigeons. But their father sent them away after the arson attack on the house.’
‘Where to?’
‘France. The wife went too. She has relatives in Paris. I believe Mr Singh’s plan was to move the whole family eventually – out of harm’s way. But—’
She breaks off as the waitress returns with the éclair. Morgan suppresses a flicker of irritation, watching as the woman takes her time, nibbling the chocolate coating.