Blue On Blue

by Dal Maclean

  “Okay. You’re . . . Roxy?” The third woman—a small, thin, short-haired brunette—sneered at Will defensively. It wasn’t worth the battle of extracting her real name. Someone in the team would get it later. “You were working in here?”

  A statement seemed obvious, since Roxy wore only a lacy lilac bra and panties with a short, open, black silk robe thrown over her slim shoulders.

  “I didn’t see anyfink.” Her accent was harsh South London. “I was wiv a client. But,” she went on with dignity. “I ‘eard . . . it sounded like the other flat door, bangin’ back and fore on the ‘inges. Shoutin’. Sounded like a woman. But I couldn’t go an’ check cuz. . . .” Will met her eyes. She smiled slowly. “Cos the client was balls deep at the time. Wrote that down in the notes ‘ave ya?”

  “Balls deep,” Salt repeated without inflection.

  Will fought not to laugh. “Did you hear or see anything else?” he asked Roxy.

  “Nope,” she said, still grinning. “Quieted down at once.”

  “Do you have any idea what the time was when you heard the disturbance?”

  “The disturbance,” Roxy mimicked. “Just after twenty past seven.” She nodded at the wall behind Will, and when he turned he saw a wall clock identical to the one in the other room, easily seen from the bed, their purpose now clear. “The client was pumpin’ away, an’ gettin’ nowhere, so I checked how long he ‘ad left, in case I needed to push ‘im out an’ finish ‘im off by ‘an’ he ‘ad exactly three minutes.”

  Will cleared his throat. “Right. Well. Thanks. Roxy.” For that graphic recounting of events. He hoped he looked unfazed because she was watching greedily for a reaction.

  He braced himself to say, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you all to surrender your clothing.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Roxy returned.

  Will didn’t explain the importance for forensics, because he thought Roxy deserved the exit line.

  Outside, he paused on the cerise landing, Salt at his heels.

  “19:20 disturbance, roughly,” Will said. “If Monique was back at half past, that’s a tight window. Less than ten minutes, give or take, to get into the flat, subdue and kill the victim and get out.”

  He unlocked the iPad and began to note all of the major details in the decision log. The log had felt to him like ridiculous petty bureaucracy when he joined up first, but he’d learned the hard way how a precise record of decisions taken and methods put in place could protect an SIO’s career in the modern police force. Where inquiries were held into inquiries. It had certainly helped save him from disgrace when Sanjay died. “Body discovered, presumably just before the 999 call at . . . ?”

  “19:36.”

  “19:36,” he said, as he tapped. “CCTV?”

  He glanced up. Salt grimaced in apology, his narrow face framed like a cutout by the white forensic hood drawn tightly around it. He looked unfamiliar with his thick red hair hidden, his features sharp and severe, and with that cold-pink nose he looked a bit like a huge white rabbit. Or maybe a white rat. Will didn’t share the news with him.

  “Cameras at either end of the street, Guv,” Salt said. “Nothin’ down here.”

  “Get someone to grab the tapes anyway. And see if SCD9 had any contact with the victim.” SCD9 would have been called “Vice” back in the day; now they were part of the Human Exploitation and Organized Crime Squad. “See if we can get any details from Roxy about her client as well. He may have seen something when he left. Have you got someone interviewing the crowd outside?”

  “Karen and Omar are on it,” Salt said, as Will had known he would. But, Will had to cross every T and dot every pedantic I, for the decision log.

  In theory, a busy street should be a gift for the police, heaving with eyewitnesses. In reality, unless there was an incident to draw attention, a crowd was often more of a gift for the criminal than anything else. Easy to slip in and out; easy to hide in the mass of people. Especially in London, where people made an art of minding their own business.

  “Either she let in the man she was expecting,” Will mused, “and he was her killer, so the noise Roxy heard could have been an escape attempt. Or . . . she opened the door, saw it wasn’t the guy she was expecting, and tried to shut him out—and that was Roxy’s banging door. Then the killer forced his way in and she fought him with a knife she carried as protection. He overpowered her, scared her enough she threw up, forced her to her knees, shot her and got out. Ten minutes or less.”

  “We need to find out who she was plannin’ to meet,” Salt said.

  “Yep.”

  “There’ll be DNA.”

  “There’ll be too much DNA Des. Fuck knows how many different people have been in that room.” Will sighed. “But a pro won’t have left anything behind.” He rubbed his mouth with the pads of his fingers. “Accurate placement isn’t enough to assume it was contract. I mean . . . these days anyone who can use a search engine could know. But Roxy didn’t hear a shot. So, putting placement together with a silencer . . . .”

  “She pissed off whichever of the gangs was runnin’ her,” Salt concluded. “An’ they made an example of her.”

  It was the logical fit, though it’d be next to impossible to bring a culprit like that to justice. Even more so now they were stretched well beyond the limit.

  A significant drop in the murder rate after Will had left the force had allowed the Met the political leeway to slash the number of murder teams it operated, though the South Ken MIT had survived, partly thanks to Ingham’s political footwork. It had even got bigger as it absorbed some of the remains of other teams.

  But when a shocking wave of lethal street violence hit London, it had left them all working flat-out to cope. Will had found that those cases seemed to meet one of two extremes—straightforward, or close to impossible. A matter of CCTV and willing eyewitnesses, or a wall of nothing and a flat refusal to cooperate. It was grinding and exhausting and demoralizing, but Will’s relief to be back in the police force never dimmed.

  “She wouldn’t secretly rent a room to meet a gang enforcer if she knew what he was,” Will said. “The guy she was expecting, one way or the other, he’s the key.”

  “Maybe a witness saw him.” Salt’s optimism never dimmed. Will wasn’t sure how he managed it.

  “We should go and break the news to the flatmate,” Will said.

  Salt glanced up from his notebook, with a look of knowing complicity.

  There was a reason why Will rarely farmed out the delivery of the bad news to uniform, on his cases.

  “Bethnal Green,” Salt said. “I got the address already.”

  Of course he had. “You drive,” Will said.

  Informing people that someone close to them had been murdered and using their first reactions to get unguarded information, may not have been the kindest way of going about an investigation. But Will wasn’t a murder detective to be kind. He’d long ago decided that it was right to use any leverage he could get, without sentiment, to catch killers before they killed more people. Nothing else made sense to him.

  Which was why they were heading to Bethnal Green.

  “You all right Guv?”

  Will opened his eyes and rolled his head against the headrest of the police saloon to peer at Salt, who threw him a look of badly concealed concern before turning his attention back to the road.

  The question had been discreet. Easy to fob off. And Salt had waited until they were alone in the car to ask it. Salt knew most of Will’s weak spots.

  Hard not to dwell on the funeral. On Sanjay.

  “Stickin’ out, Big Man,” Will said gravely.

  Salt laughed. It was a Northern Irish expression he used often himself, to mean “pretty good.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but it served as a distraction.

  Will had to make a phone call he really didn’t want to make.

  He pulled his phone from his top pocket and scrolled to find the right number.

  The call was answered
on the fourth ring.

  “Oh no!” Pez groaned. In the background, Will could hear the joyous clamor of James’s party continuing without him.

  “And a warm good evening to you, too,” Will returned. “Look, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t desperate. If John wasn’t desperate,” he corrected quickly.

  Pez made a disgusted sound. He was Tom’s agent and his best friend for years; his on-off lover too, until Tom had gone back to Will the previous summer. Pez had been in love with Tom for a long time. Who knew if he still was?

  Pez and Will had far too much history between them for easy friendship, but what they managed was mutual toleration. A kind of armed peace, centered on Tom and the well-being of Tom’s cat, John.

  “I may not be back home for days. You can take him to your place if you want. I’ll pay for the cab,” Will wheedled. “Come on Pez. Please?”

  A weary silence, made louder by the tinny noise of chatter and music on Pez’s end of the line.

  “Well,” Pez loosed an explosive sigh and began to concede. “I suppose. Since Tommy’s back tomorrow.”

  Will sucked air in through his teeth. “Ah. Actually, there are some things Melanie’s insisted he does. So he agreed to stay to attend a few promo things. He’s at some event today for an American guy he’s been working with.”

  A guy called Cam Daley. And Will knew about him because Tom kept mentioning him in the few phone conversations he and Will had managed between clashing time zones and extreme work schedules.

  Cam and the classic Harleys they’d had to ride, wearing nothing but a minuscule pair of boxer briefs and a bandana each. Cam and the show they’d gone to, starring one of Cam’s close friends. Cam and his romantic woes. Will had hated himself for looking him up, and then he wished he hadn’t.

  Cam was beautiful even for a model. And he was the man in the photo Will had been sent, asleep beside Tom on a bench.

  Maybe Tom had sent it to illustrate his stories about their camaraderie.

  The image still dug at him, for all of his efforts to ignore it.

  “He’s what?” Pez screeched. “What about the event I want him to go to? The bitch! He knows it’s the agency party! When did the fuck did he decide that? Fuck! The Ferret’ll be fucking ecstatic! She’ll say its proof Tommy’s ‘disillusioned with my handling of his career’.”

  “The ferret?”

  “Nora! The other senior booker!” Pez said as if he couldn’t believe Will had to ask.

  Come to think of it, Will vaguely recalled Tom telling him about a turf war in his and Pez’s new agency. But he’d been preoccupied; not paying attention properly.

  His chest squeezed with something that felt like alarm.

  Had he been neglecting Tom? As if the competition of celebrities and supermodels wasn’t enough? As if he didn’t already sense that Tom was pulling back.

  “It was last minute,” Will said. His patience with Pez winked out. “Look, are you able to do it or not?”

  Pez drew an audibly offended breath. “Don’t you dare take it out on me, Captain America! I’m not the one pushing him into taking jobs.”

  “He’d already promised to use his Easter Holiday to do these shoots.” Will sounded defensive even to himself. “It’s big money. . . enough to fund him for the next year. And he needs to keep up his profile.”

  “Those are my lines sweetie,” Pez snapped. “And I’m not talking about the big stuff like Armani. Tommy pulled back at the very top. He has status. He doesn’t need to do most of the things he’s offered.”

  “New people are always coming in,” Will insisted.

  “So? He made it as far as he did for a reason. What he has, can’t be manufactured. He’s unique.”

  “I know,” Will said tightly. He knew it very well. It was why Will encouraged him to do as many prestigious modeling jobs as he could, when he wasn’t working on his university courses. He needed Tom to know that his options were still open. That his choice wasn’t irrevocable, and that he wasn’t trapped in Will’s small world.

  Then Pez’s tone changed, softened. “Tommy could always take it or leave it. He just wanted to reach the top because he’s a competitive dickhead.”

  Will gaze slid down to his free hand, fiddling with a brass button on his uniform jacket, and the horrible understanding hit that Pez—Pez of all people—was trying to comfort him. Lie to him even. That maybe Pez actually felt sorry for him now.

  The thought was unbearable.

  What did Pez know?

  “Will you take John?” He gritted. “Or not?”

  Silence. Then, “All right! But only if you drop by the party instead.”

  Will blinked out the windscreen, shocked speechless. The car had stopped at red lights and an old ragged woman pushed a supermarket trolley full of bedding across the road in front of them. Will watched her hobbling progress with blind confusion.

  Finally, he found his voice. It was very calm. “Pez. Why would you want me to go to a fashion party? I don’t know anything about it.” He darted a shifty, sidelong glance at Salt, who was staring ahead, waiting for the lights to change, expressionless.

  “Because Nora! If you’re there, it’ll be harder for her to spread more shit about Tommy dumping me. She knows he’s dating a copper.”

  “That’s ludicrous even for you,” Will countered. “And has it occurred to you that if I had time to go to a party, I wouldn’t have to ask you to look after John?”

  “Oh nice try, but I’m not talking whole nights and days, am I? I’m talking forty minutes to nip to Soho and eat a few peanuts. Look,” Pez said in a tone of eminent reason. “Just look at it this way. No party, no cat.”

  Will blinked. “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t leave John in the lurch.”

  “Try me,” Pez shot back. “That’s my fee for going above and beyond for Tommy’s cat when he can’t be arsed to turn up to my party.” Will opened his mouth and closed it again. They both knew Pez had him over a barrel. “That’s settled then,” Pez said. “You can be the deeply inadequate stand-in. Actually . . . wear the uniform you had on tonight so she knows it’s you. And I think I’ll stay at yours rather than haul John about. And I’m inviting Mark,” he finished, for maximum provocation.

  Will just wanted the conversation to stop. “Wash the sheets after,” he said, and rang off.

  The silence in the car felt heavy.

  Will mentally reviewed what Salt would have heard, wondering how much he’d given away. It must have sounded like a full-on domestic squabble. But Salt only sniffed once, and said nothing.

  Will stared out of the passenger window. His stomach was jittery with tension. And it didn’t help when he recognized where they were.

  Shoreditch. Driving along Old Street. Tom’s flat had been near here, before he’d moved to Leyton to live with Will.

  Did Tom miss it? Or was he focused on missing other things he’d given up? Like moving to New York, to be with people like Cam Daley.

  Fucking hell!

  Will moved restlessly in his seat, disgusted by his own pessimism. He couldn’t work out what was wrong with him. Why he wallowing like this, as worried and unsure now as he’d been when Tom first turned up at his house last summer and persuaded him to reconcile. Not that it had taken much persuading, even though Will had told himself at the time that it was crazy to accept, that he was asking for yet more pain. But he’d been unable to help himself grabbing what he could while he could.

  And now?

  Was it the fact that this was by far their longest time apart since they got together again? Or the fact that Tom had been getting quieter, more remote—more his old, elusive, self-contained self—well before he left for LA? Or was it that photograph, showing Tom so content in his old world, with beautiful people like himself?

  Will darted another glance at Salt, but he was lost in his own thoughts as he drove.

  Will had to keep reminding himself . . . this time, Tom had been the one to hustle and to maneuver to
move in with Will. He’d been the one to talk about love. The first time round, Tom had dumped Will cold for suggesting the same things. It was different now.

  But, that was the thing wasn’t it? Will had misjudged Tom completely last time.

  He’d believed that because of how Tom had been with him then—greedy, never seeming to get enough of him, even agreeing, contrary to his usual behavior, to exclusivity—that he’d fallen in love too. And Will had been blind to the warning signs: Tom’s skittishness, his declarations of independence. He’d blundered on, reassuring himself, seeing what he wanted to see, until he’d showed his hand, and lost. And when they’d met again the previous summer, Tom had made it brutally clear again that he wasn’t in love with Will, that his top-level modeling career and total emotional freedom were what he truly wanted.

  But then Tom had almost died as a result of a plausible psychopath’s obsession with him, and in hospital he’d abruptly done a complete one-eighty, decided to upend his life, all but drop his superstar career and pursue commitment with Will.

  If Will were analyzing a stranger, he’d say those decisions had been made at the lowest ebb, when the subject would have been desperate for comfort and safety and reassurance. The subject may even have been suffering from PTSD. He’d say it was an unwise time to make major life changes and any decisions reached then, could not be trusted. He’d actually said as much to Tom, but Tom hadn’t listened.

  Will couldn’t pretend not to know though, what all of those factors added up to, though he’d worked to forget it.

  Might add up to.

  He scowled out the window, registering nothing. He hated this. Hated that he was obsessing like a teenager; catastrophizing like one. He’d always been stoic. He was rational by nature. Calm. Dedicated to his work. Happy to have relationships, but never really needing anyone. Until Tom had walked into his life and emotionally eviscerated him, and then done it again last summer.

  He had to remind himself that having doubts about this relationship was rational. Even his mother worried history would inevitably repeat itself.