A Good day to die

27

Five minutes later, we were sitting at a corner table in the lounge bar of the pub across the road, the only customers in the place. I was on one side with a double orange juice. They were on the other: Grant with a pint of Stella, Andrea with a mineral water.

'How did you find me?' she asked.

'A friend of Jason's said you knew his girlfriend Ann.'

She nodded, before asking in a voice that was more mature than her years suggested what it was I wanted to know.

'Anything that could point to why Jason Khan was murdered.'

'I can't really help you. I knew Jason, but not that well. I knew Ann better. But why are you involved? There are plenty of police on the case, aren't there?'

'There are, but my client's concerned that things aren't progressing.'

'And your client is…?'

I smiled. This one was no fool. I told her it was Asif Malik's uncle, and she seemed to accept the answer. She then told me that she couldn't think of any reason why Jason would have been murdered. 'I can't see how he would have got himself involved with anyone big enough or nasty enough to have bothered killing him. He was just a smalltime dope dealer and thief. He thought he was one of the big boys, but from what I could see, he was just a loser.' She shrugged, as if there wasn't anything else she could add of any relevance.

I decided to change tack, and asked how she'd known Ann.

She relaxed visibly. Grant too.

'I first met her a couple of years back,' she said, fiddling with her glass. 'I'd been in foster care for ages before that, but then my foster mum got cancer and she couldn't look after me and my brother any more. We got split up and I got put into a care home in Camden while they tried to find another family for me. Ann already lived there, and she showed me the ropes and looked out for me. We just became mates. I liked her because she didn't take shit off people, but she was nice underneath as well, you know what I mean?'

I did. That had been my take on Ann as well, although I couldn't admit that to Andrea. I motioned for her to continue, keen to let her talk at her own pace.

'I was at Coleman House – the place in Camden – about six months and when I left and went back into foster care, me and Ann kept in touch. My foster family were living up in Barnet so it wasn't that difficult to get down and see her. We used to go out drinking, smoking a bit, having a giggle. But to be honest, I got sort of tired of all that. I didn't want to piss my life away. I wanted to do something a bit different. You know, get a job, get a life, go back to college. I met Grant…' At this point, she put her hand in his, and he pulled one of those yearning expressions you sometimes see in crap romance films. Somehow it endeared him to me. It's nice to see a bit of young love. 'Me and Ann drifted apart for a while,' she continued, 'but recently we'd started seeing more of each other again. She was beginning to grow up herself, and thinking of changing the way she lived her life.' She sighed. 'But it was all too late, wasn't it? Always is, for girls like Ann. You know, a lot of people wrote her off, and I bet quite a few of them think she got what was coming to her, because she did have a real temper. And she didn't like doing what she was told, either. But I tell you this: she was a good sort, she really was. She meant a lot to me.'

The mention of Coleman House brought back memories for me too. Memories of my last days in London, and how they'd ended in violence and murder. How a brief affair – a potential relationship – had ended before it had even begun. The woman had been Carla Graham and at one time she'd managed Coleman House. I think I might have even been in love with her. The image of her in my mind was unwelcome. It reminded me of events I'd rather not have remembered, both for my own part in them and for other people's.

I had my notebook out and made a point of writing down the details of Andrea's testimony. When I'd finished, I looked her in the eye and asked if Ann had committed suicide.

'That's what the police said, isn't it?' she answered, trying to sound casual. Avoiding my gaze.

'Yeah,' added Grant. 'And they ought to know, right?'

'Perhaps,' I said. 'But what do you think?'

'I think she did,' said Grant, with far too much in the way of conviction. 'She'd had things hard in recent months. And then with Jason dying, I think it all just proved too much, you know?'

Andrea sighed. 'I think Grant's probably right. It seems the most likely way it happened.'

'Did you both make statements to the police?'

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Grant looked furtive. Then Andrea spoke. 'They never asked, and because they didn't seem that interested in what had happened, I never approached them. My experiences of the police haven't been that great over the years. I tend to avoid them when I can.'

'From what I've gathered during my investigations,' I continued, 'Ann Taylor was a tough girl who'd been in care for many years. Statistically, people with that type of upbringing, or lack of it, tend to be the least likely to commit suicide. It's because they're tougher than most of us, more used to the hard knocks that life has to offer, so they don't get brought down so often. They're already there. Would you agree with that assessment of Ann, Andrea?'

'She was tough, but she had a vulnerable side, too. She hurt the same as anyone else, you know.'

And she had done, I remembered that. She'd cried in front of me once, three years earlier, when she thought that a friend of hers from Coleman House, who'd gone missing, was dead.

'When was the last time you saw Ann alive?' I asked.

Andrea hesitated, and I saw Grant glance at her, trying to catch her eye.

'About a week before she died, I think. Something like that.'

'Before Jason was murdered?'

She nodded.

'You didn't go round to offer your condolences after his death?'

She shook her head. 'No.'

I didn't believe her. She was lying. So was he. The question was why. 'But she was your friend,' I said. 'Someone who'd shown you the ropes when you first went into Coleman House. Who'd helped you when you needed her help.'

This was the cue for Grant to butt in angrily. 'I don't like the tone of your questioning,' he snapped. 'We're only here out of the kindness of our hearts. We don't have to talk to you, and I don't think we're going to any more. Come on, Andrea.' He started to get to his feet, and she moved in her seat as if to follow.

'If you leave, I'll go straight to the police and give them your names. I'll also hand over the evidence as to why I don't think Ann committed suicide. Then they'll come looking for you, only next time you'll have to talk. And if there's anything you're hiding, they'll find it.'

They both stopped moving.

'If you talk to me I'll do everything in my power to protect you as sources. No one'll ever know I spoke to you and you won't be bothered again.'

Grant sat back down. Andrea shuffled in her seat. For a few seconds there was an awkward silence.

I was going to ask them again whether they thought Ann had committed suicide, but then I remembered something from my first meeting with Emma. 'I understand that Ann had recently been receiving treatment for psychiatric problems. Can you tell me about that?'

They looked at each other again. Nervously.

'How much do you know about it?' asked Grant, after a pause.

'Very little,' I said, 'but I can find out more, easily enough. Why don't you make it easier and tell me?'

It was Andrea who spoke. 'She got referred to a psychiatrist about a year ago, after she'd got arrested for GBH. It was part of her bail conditions.'

'GBH? That's pretty serious. What did she do?'

'It was when she was working the streets. She used to do that before she got nicked. She had a bedsit in Holloway she took the punters back to. One night one of them gave her a load of trouble. He tried to get her to do stuff she didn't want to do, so she pulled a knife and let him have it across the face. Then she chased him out of the bedsit and cut him a couple of times round the back of the head. He needed about eighty stitches.' There was an unmistakable pride in her voice as she recounted this story. It was clear that, eighty stitches or not, the punter had got what was coming to him. It surprised me hearing her talk in a manner that so readily condoned violence. She was an attractive, well-dressed girl, and clearly intelligent. It was easy to forget that she'd probably had a few hard knocks herself over the years.

'So what did this psychiatrist have to say?'

'She reckoned she was suffering from some sort of schizophrenia. Ann told me she even wanted her sectioned, but that didn't happen. What they did was put her on a psychotherapy course.'

'And did that help?'

Again she paused. 'Yeah,' she said after a few seconds. 'It did. The jury found her not guilty because of diminished responsibility.'

'And that was that? She was released?'

'Yeah, that was that.' She looked down at the table.

'The schizophrenia Ann was suffering from. Did the psychiatrist say what had caused it?' This time the pause was longer. 'I can find out, you know, but I'd rather hear it from you.'

Grant leaned forward suddenly. 'The doctor who diagnosed her said that she thought it stemmed from her past. Apparently she'd been abused by her father when she was very young, and it was something to do with that.'

He took a generous swig from his beer, before pulling a metal tobacco tin from his pocket. I watched his hands as he took out a roll-up and lit it with a cheap plastic lighter. They were shaking slightly. He took a drag and blew a mouthful of smoke towards the empty chair beside me. I took out my own cigarettes, watching Andrea now, and offered her one. She shook her head and told me she'd quit.

'Why are you so interested in talking about Ann's psychiatric problems?' she demanded.

I could have said that it was because she and Grant were so interested in not talking about them, but I didn't. Instead I asked another question. 'Ann's allegations about her father. Did anyone ever follow them up? Presumably, if the judge believed the psychiatrist about her schizophrenia and what had initially caused it, then the police must have launched some sort of investigation into her father's alleged abuse.'

'Yeah, they did,' said Grant. 'And they nicked him as well. But they never got him to trial. He got released on bail and absconded.'

I felt my skin crawl.

A stifling hotel room in Manila a year ago. A man who wanted to kill a little girl.

'And now he's got what he deserved,' added Andrea, her voice full of barely suppressed rage.

I turned to her and was surprised at the intensity of her expression. She was staring right at me, the earlier furtiveness now completely gone.

'What do you mean?' I asked her, even though I was suddenly very sure of exactly what she meant.

'After he absconded, he left the country,' she said, 'and the next thing anyone heard he'd turned up dead in a hotel room somewhere in Asia. Someone had shot him, and good riddance to the bastard too.'

'I read something about that,' I said. 'But I don't remember it involving someone called Ann Taylor.'

'No,' said Andrea. 'That's because Ann changed her name after she ran away from home. Her real name was Sonya Blacklip.'