Chameleon's Shadow

Thirty-one

DAISY APPEARED QUIETLY in the open bedroom doorway and watched Acland pack his kitbag. Everything he owned was laid out neatly on the bed and, like others before her, she was struck by how little he had. To her, the most poignant articles were the single mess tin and mug which spoke of a life that wouldn’t be shared with anyone else.

She shifted her position slightly to draw attention to herself. ‘Jackson doesn’t want you to go,’ she murmured quietly to avoid her voice carrying downstairs, ‘but I don’t think she’ll tell you herself.’

‘Has she actually said that?’ Acland asked, folding a T-shirt.

‘Not in so many words . . . but I’m sure I’m right.’

He glanced at her with genuine warmth in his expression. ‘I don’t think you are, Daisy. Jackson’s a realist. She knows there’s no way I can suddenly redefine myself as an anonymous paying guest . . . not if she keeps watching me for migraines and you keep trying to feed me.’ He tucked the T-shirt into his kitbag. ‘Thanks for saying it, though.’

‘Will you keep in touch?’

‘Sure.’

Daisy didn’t believe him. ‘I know you think Jacks is strong-minded and tough, but most of that’s a front. She worries about everything underneath. She’ll worry about you.’

Acland pushed the T-shirt to the bottom of his kitbag. ‘She can always find out where I am from the police. I have to report in on a weekly basis in case I’m needed for further questioning.’

‘I can’t see you doing that either,’ said Daisy with sudden conviction. ‘You’ll disappear and leave everyone wondering where you went and what happened to you.’

Acland eyed her for a moment. ‘It worked for Chalky,’ he said.

*

Jones had expressed the same doubts as Daisy when Acland sought him out on Monday morning to tell him he was planning to leave the Bell the next day. With his bail conditions lifted, he was free to travel again. ‘Are you about to do a runner on me, Lieutenant?’ ‘No.’ ‘How good is your word?’ ‘As good as it’s ever been.’ The superintendent nodded. ‘But I’d like to be sure you really understand what’s at stake here. We’ll get a conviction of some kind without you . . . but I doubt we’ll have justice. Any accusation Jen chooses to fling at you will go unchallenged if you’re not in court to defend yourself.’ ‘I won’t be the one on trial.’ ‘But your good name will, along with the reputations of Jen’s three victims . . . and dead men don’t have voices. The blacker she paints you the better her chances.’ Acland hesitated. ‘You might do better without me,’ he said. ‘In a contest between Quasimodo and Uma Thurman, I can’t see the jury believing Quasimodo.’ Jones looked amused. ‘You’re the wrong body shape for Quasimodo, Charles. Dracula, possibly.’ ‘Same problem – Beauty versus the Beast – and I’m not sure my name matters that much to me, Superintendent. It hasn’t done me any favours so far.’ ‘Then here’s where we part company,’ said Jones, ‘because I have a lot of respect for Lieutenant Acland.’ He looked for a response in the younger man’s expression and shook his head when he didn’t find it. ‘The doctor’s right. You’re far too keen on

martyrdom, my friend . . . and it’s your least attractive quality.

Your forte is fighting.’

‘I’m not allowed to do that any more.’

‘There’s more than one way of skinning a cat. Pick a legal fight. Become a champion.’

‘Of what?’

‘Three dead men would be a start. Justice doesn’t come automatically. It has to be fought for.’

Acland wondered if Jones realized that he was using the same kind of language that politicians use to justify wars. In the end, the only satisfaction was to settle one’s scores for oneself. ‘Isn’t justice the job of the police?’ he asked without emphasis.

‘Certainly,’ the older man agreed, ‘but we can’t do it on our own. You’d have been called as a witness whatever happened, you know. Your association with Jen would have come under scrutiny as soon as we fixed on her.’

‘Only because I gave her to you. If I hadn’t come back to Bermondsey, you’d still be in the dark.’

Jones smiled slightly. ‘We’d have got there eventually. We found the name “Cass” on Kevin Atkins’s mobile.’

‘I gave you that as well . . . and the duffel bag.’

‘You didn’t know it was Jen’s.’

For the last time Acland toyed with keeping to himself the only secret he had left, but Jackson had urged him to be fair. ‘You can’t destroy all the evidence,’ she had said. ‘At least give the police a chance with the Harry Peel photos . . . even if you don’t like Jones much.’

She was wrong about that. Acland had a great deal of respect for the superindentent. He’d recognized the man’s strength the first time he met him, just as he’d recognized Jackson’s. With a sense of regret that he was about to lose Jones’s sympathy, he shook his head. ‘I was watching from across the road when Ben snatched the bag off her,’ he admitted. ‘I always knew it was hers.’

The superintendent didn’t bother with surprise. ‘Did you know who Ben was?’

Acland nodded. ‘I recognized him as the kid who set his girls on Chalky. Jen didn’t make a sound, just got to her feet and stood there as white as a sheet. It made me wonder what he’d stolen.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’

‘I did. I said several times that I thought a bag existed.’

‘You knew it existed, Charles.’

‘Not for certain. I couldn’t see what Ben was carrying when he arrived in the alleyway. He collapsed almost immediately, and it was so dark I wasn’t even sure he was the kid I wanted until I shone a torch in his face and checked his breathing. I think that’s when Chalky buried the duffel in one of his own bags.’

Jones tapped his forefingers together. ‘You could have told us you’d witnessed the theft.’

‘There was nothing to tell. For all I knew, Ben had stolen a pile of magazines.’ He saw the irritation in the superintendent’s face. ‘I hoped the bag contained something I wanted. That’s the only reason I went to the alleyway. I thought Chalky might be able to tell me where the kid usually hung out.’

‘What’s the something you wanted?’

Acland hesitated. ‘These,’ he said curtly, putting his hand into his jacket pocket and placing a couple of USB flash drives on the desk. ‘It wasn’t Jen who smashed my laptop, it was me. That’s why I went back to her flat two weeks later. She’d loaded some photographs on to it that I didn’t want anyone to see. I hoped that was the end of it till she sent me a letter the day I went to Iraq with one of these memory disks in it.’ He squeezed his temples between a thumb and forefinger. ‘She said she’d made copies before the laptop was destroyed.’

Jones looked at the two small rectangular objects. ‘Why did you think they were in the duffel bag?’

‘I didn’t . . . it was a possibility, that’s all. Jen was carrying a memory card in her handbag when she came to the hospital. I took it and ran it through Susan Campbell’s computer the next day.’ He shook his head at Jones’s questioning expression. ‘Publicity shots.’

‘What were you doing outside her flat last Friday?’

The good side of Acland’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. ‘Working out how to get in. I could have done it if she hadn’t been so shell-shocked by the theft. A minicab turned up a few seconds later, but she cancelled it and went back inside. That’s what made me curious about the contents of the bag.’ He paused. ‘I had no idea there was anyone else involved. I truly believed it was all about me.’

Jones wasn’t impressed. ‘You must have wondered when you found Kevin Atkins’s mobile in Ben’s rucksack.’

The lieutenant shook his head. ‘Not at the time. I assumed Ben had nicked it along with the iPods and the BlackBerry. I might have guessed if he’d transferred the stun gun.’ He fell silent.

Jones studied him for a moment. ‘Perhaps you didn’t want to believe there was a connection?’

Acland shook his head, but whether in agreement or denial Jones couldn’t tell.

Out of habit, he used the tip of his pen to pull the USB flash drives towards him. ‘Were you searched when you were brought here from the Crown?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why weren’t these on you then?’

‘They were under the mattress in the bedroom. I needed to see what was on them before I handed them in.’

‘And?’

‘One’s blank and the other has some photographs of someone who might be Harry Peel. I think Jen may have loaded them on to my laptop before I destroyed it. If she took pictures of Britton and Atkins, they’ll be on her own computer.’

‘We haven’t discovered any.’ Idly, Jones moved the USB disks again. ‘You should have trusted me, Charles. We wouldn’t have put pictures of you into the public domain. These are worse than useless if you’ve contaminated the evidence.’

Silence.

‘Whose computer did you use to download and delete your images? Dr Jackson’s?’

Acland shook his head.

‘Are you going to force me to serve her with a subpoena?’

‘You’ll be wasting your time. There’s no way you’ll be able to retrieve anything, either from the disk or from a hard drive. Will you trust me on that?’

‘Why should I?’

There was a brief pause before Acland drew himself to attention. ‘Because you’re the person I wanted to keep the photographs from, sir. There’s no way you’ll ever see them. I’d rather have your respect than your pity.’

‘You’re a pain in the arse, Lieutenant,’ said Jones with a growl. ‘You’d have had my respect either way.’ He stood up abruptly and held out his hand. ‘Will you give me a personal promise that you’ll come to court?’ He saw the hesitation in Acland’s face. ‘You told Inspector Beale you’d never betray a friend. If you refuse to shake on it, should I take that as a compliment?’

Humour creases appeared around Acland’s eye. ‘Not necessarily.’ He grasped the other man’s hand. ‘I prefer enemies. At least I know where I am with them.’

*

Jackson was straddling a chair at the kitchen table, head bent over some accounts, big shoulders hunched forward. She flicked an amused glance at the lieutenant as he appeared in the doorway with his packed kitbag, and he saw with relief that she wasn’t proposing to be sentimental about his departure. ‘You owe Daisy a fiver for breakfast,’ she said, tapping the top page, ‘otherwise you’re up to date.’ Acland took out his wallet. ‘She force-fed me a horse in case I starved.’ ‘It’s her way of saying goodbye,’ said Jackson, folding the note he handed her. ‘What’s yours?’

She reached over to open the money drawer. ‘A fifty-quid fine for making me reformat my hard drive. You’re lucky I’m a computer whiz.’ She watched him sort through his remaining notes. ‘On second thoughts, you can make it a hundred. I hardly had any sleep over the weekend because I had to reinstall my own data afterwards.’

Acland placed five twenties on the stash that was already there. He didn’t think the drawer had been emptied since the last time he’d paid a fine. ‘Who are you planning to give it to?’

‘I’m a businesswoman. What makes you think I hand out gifts?’

‘Intuition,’ he said with a gleam of a smile. ‘I’ve discovered I have a feminine side.’

‘You’re making progress, then.’ She watched him sling his kitbag across his shoulder. ‘Do you want me to come to the door and wave you off?’

Acland shook his head. ‘You’ll only pester me about whether I’m going to keep in touch.’

‘Not my style,’ she said firmly. ‘Either you will or you won’t . . . but I’m damned if I’ll massage your ego by asking.’

His smile deepened, pulling his scar into something approaching a laughter line. ‘According to Daisy, you’ll worry if you don’t hear from me occasionally.’

Jackson placed his five-pound note in the money drawer. ‘You’d better believe it,’ she said.