Echo

*14*

Terry had turned on the overhead light in Deacon's bedroom and was prodding the slumbering man's shoulder aggressively. Deacon opened one eye and looked with extreme disfavor on his protege. "Stop-doing-that," he said slowly and clearly. "I am not a well man." He rolled over and prepared to go back to sleep again.

"Yeah, right, but you've got to get up."

"Why?"

"Lawrence is on the phone."

Deacon struggled to a sitting position and groaned as his hangover hit him behind the eyes. "What does he want?''

"Don't ask me."

"Why didn't you leave the machine to take a message?" growled Deacon, glancing at his clock and seeing that it was six-fifteen in the morning. "That's what it's for."

"I did-the first four times-but he just kept ringing back. How come you didn't hear it? Are you deaf or what?"

With muttered imprecations, Deacon stumbled through to the sitting room and picked up the receiver. "What's so mportant that you have to wake me at the crack of dawn on Christmas Eve, Lawrence?"

The old man sounded worried. "I've just been listening to the radio, Michael. I sleep so little these days. I'm guessing that either you or I or both of us can expect a visit from the police shortly. I know Terry's there because he answered the telephone, but can you vouch for his movements last night?"

Deacon rubbed his eyes vigorously. "What's this about?"

"Another incident at what I assume is Terry's warehouse. Look, find a news bulletin on your radio and listen to it. I may be completely wrong, but it sounds to me as if the police are looking for your lad. Call me back as soon as you can. You may need me." He rang off.

It was the top story, with details breaking as the newscaster was on air. Following an attempted murder and the arrest of a suspect on Friday afternoon, further trouble had erupted among the homeless community in a docklands' warehouse in the early hours of Christmas Eve, when several men had been doused with gasoline and their clothes set alight. The police were looking for a youth, five feet eleven inches tall, shaven-headed and wearing a dark coat, who was seen running from the warehouse following the incident. Although they had not released his name, the police were looking for a known suspect who was believed to hold a grudge against the warehouse community, following the attempted murder on Friday.

For all Terry's surface bravura, he was only fourteen years old. He stared at the radio in tearful panic. "Someone's grassed me up," he stormed. "What am I gonna fucking do? The police'll crucify me."

"Don't be an idiot," said Deacon sharply. "You've been here all night."

"How would you know, you bastard?'' demanded Terry angrily, his fear sparking further aggression. "I could have gone and come back without you knowing anything about it. Shit, you didn't even hear your phone ringing."

Deacon pointed at the sofa. "Sit down while I phone Lawrence back."

"No chance. I'm out of here." He bunched his hands into fists. "I ain't gonna let the fucking pigs anywhere near me."

"SIT DOWN," roared Deacon, "BEFORE I GET REALLY ANGRY!" Afraid that Terry would bolt if he left the room to search out Lawrence's number, he switched to the loudspeaker, pressed one-four-seven-one to give him a voiced number recall of the last person who had phoned him, then pressed three to dial that person back. "Hi, Lawrence, it's Michael and Terry on the speakerphone. We think you're right. We think the guys at the warehouse have grassed Terry, and we think the police will come knocking. So what do we do?''

"Can you vouch for his movements?"

"Yes and no. We got back here at about two o'clock in the morning, courtesy of a taxi. I abandoned my car in Fleet Street because I was over the limit. We were with a chap called Barry Grover until about one-fifteen a.m. We were pissed as rats. The last thing I remember is telling Terry to stop giggling like a schoolgirl and go to bed. I crashed out immediately, and the next thing I knew was Terry giving me grief because you were on the phone. I can't swear he was here between two and when he woke me"-he squinted at his watch-"which means four and a quarter hours are unaccounted for. It's a hypothetical possibility that he went out, but a practical no-no. He could hardly stand when I pushed him into his bedroom, and I am one hundred percent certain that he's been there ever since."

"Can you hear me, Terry?''

"Yeah."

"Did you leave Michael's flat after you got back to it at two o'clock this morning?"

"No, I fucking didn't," said the boy sullenly. "And I've got a fucking headache, so I'm not answering fucking questions about what I didn't fucking do."

Lawrence's dry laughter floated into the room. "Then I'm sure we're worrying unnecessarily-perhaps there are two shaven-headed youths known to the police after Friday-but I do urge you to purify the flat. Our friends in the police force tend to react unfavorably to anything that requires chemical identification. Let me know if you run into trouble, won't you?"

"Why can't he speak English occasionally?" asked Terry ungraciously, as Deacon put the phone down. "What was he saying? That I'm guilty of something?"

"Yes. Possessing a class C drug. How much cannabis have you got left?"

"Hardly any."

"None"-Deacon banged the table-"as of now. It's going straight down the bog." He fixed the boy with a gaze that would have pinned butterflies to a board. "Do it, Terry."

"Okay, okay, but it cost me a fortune, you know."

"Not half as much as it's going to cost me if it's found here."

Terry's natural ebullience resurfaced. "You're more scared than I am," he said with a knowing leer. "Ain't you never wanted to live a little? See how much bottle you've got when the cops've got you pinned to the canvas?"

Deacon chuckled as he made for his bedroom. "I tell you what, Terry, I'm more interested to see how much bottle you've got. You're the one they'll be using for target practice, so I wouldn't give them too much to aim at if I were you."

They were fully dressed and eating breakfast when the police arrived half an hour later in the shape of two detective sergeants, one of whom was DS Harrison. When Deacon answered the door and agreed that he did know where Terry Dalton was-sitting at his kitchen table, as it happened- Harrison expressed surprise that they were up so early on a Sunday morning.

"It's Christmas Eve," said Deacon, taking them through the flat. "We're visiting my mother in Bedfordshire, so we wanted to make an early start." He resumed his place and tucked into his cereal again. "What can we do for you, Sergeant? I thought Terry gave you a statement on Friday."

Harrison glanced at the boy who was happily engaged on his third bowl of cornflakes. "He did. We've come about a different matter. Can you tell us where you were at three o'clock this morning, Mr. Dalton?"

"Here," said Terry.

"Can you prove that?"

"Sure. I were with Mike. Why'd'you want to know, anyway?"

"There's been another incident at the warehouse. Five comatose men were saturated with gasoline, then set alight. They're all in hospital and two of them are critical. We wondered if you knew anything about it."

"Not fucking likely," said Terry indignantly. "I ain't been near the place since Friday night. Ask Mike."

Harrison turned back to Deacon. "Is that right, sir?''

"Yes. I invited Terry to spend Christmas with me after he made his statement to you. We stopped off at the warehouse on our way home on Friday to pick up a few of his things, and he's been in my company ever since." He frowned. "When you say you wonder if Terry might know something, are you suggesting he was involved?"

"We're not suggesting anything at this stage, sir, just making inquiries."

"I see."

There was a short silence while Deacon and Terry continued with their breakfast.

"When you said you were with this gentleman last night," Harrison asked Terry, "what did you mean exactly?"

"What d'you think I meant?"

"Let me put it in another way, sir. If you and Mr. Deacon shared a bed last night, then it's doubtful you could have left the bed without him noticing. Is that what you meant when you said you were with him?" The sergeant's expression was neutral, but there was a look of amusement on his colleague's face.

A stillness settled on the boy which Deacon interpreted as anger, but when Terry raised his head there was cunning in his eyes. "I reckon it's down to Mike to answer that," he said offhandedly. "This ain't my pad. He's the one calls the shots around here."

Deacon located the youngster's naked toe under the table and ground his metal-tipped shoe heel into the unprotected flesh. "Sorry," he murmured as Terry yelped. "Did I hurt you? My foot slipped, sweetheart." He pursed his lips into a rosebud and prepared to blow a kiss in Terry's direction.

"Bog off, Mike!" He glared from Deacon to the two policemen. " 'Course we didn't share a sodding bed. I'm no pillow biter, and he's no sausage jockey. Got it? He were in his bed and I were in mine, but that don't mean I buggered off in the middle of the night to go torching the guys at the warehouse. We didn't get back here till round two, and I was out like a light the minute I hit the sack."

"We've only your word on that."

"Ask Mike. He's the one pushed me through the door of my room. Ask Barry, if it comes to that. We said good night to him at past one, and he'll tell you I was too rat-arsed to go looking for the warehouse in the middle of the night. And while you're about it, ask the taxi driver who gave us a ride. He only brought us back because it was on his way home and Mike paid up front and over the odds in case him and me puked all over the sodding seats. Which we didn't." He drew breath. "Shit! Why'd I want to set fire to anyone, anyway? The old geezers there are looking after my mattress."

"Who's Barry?"

"Barry Grover," said Deacon. "He works for The Street magazine and lives in Camden somewhere. We were with him from eight-thirty to one-fifteen."

"Was it a black cab or a mini cab?"

"Black cab. The driver was about fifty-five, grey-haired, skinny, and wearing a green sweater. He picked us up on the corner of Fleet Street and Farringdon Street."

"You were lucky," said Harrison dryly. "Black cabs are usually pretty thin on the ground at Christmas time."

Deacon just nodded. He didn't think it necessary to mention that he'd climbed on the taxi's hood at a traffic light and refused to budge until the driver agreed to a fifty-quid fee. It was a rip-off but preferable to passing out in the gutter.

"Do you mind if we look around your flat, sir?'' Harrison asked next.

Deacon eyed him curiously. "Why would you want to do that?"

"To satisfy ourselves that your beds were slept in last night."

"You should make them get a search warrant," Terry said.

"What on earth for?" asked Deacon.

"The old Bill aren't allowed to go poking round people's private things just when they fancy it."

"Well, I've no objection at all to them looking at my room, but if you've got a problem-" He broke off with a shrug.

" 'Course I ain't got a problem," said Terry crossly.

"Then what are you bellyaching about?" Deacon stood up. "This way, gentlemen."

The two sergeants accepted a cup of coffee and relaxed enough to join Deacon and Terry in a smoke. "Terry fits the description of a youth seen running from the scene after the incident," Harrison told them.

"So do a million others," said Deacon.

"How would you know, sir?"

"We heard the description on the radio."

"I thought you might have done. May I ask who alerted you?"

"My solicitor, Lawrence Greenhill," said Deacon. "He heard the bulletin and warned us to expect a visit from you."

"So you were lying when you said you were visiting your mother?"

"No. We'll be leaving as soon as you've gone, but I will admit we were woken rather earlier than I'd intended. If you hang around my alarm will go off in approximately"-he consulted his watch-"thirty minutes."

"When do you expect to be back?"

"This evening."

"And you're happy for us to check your story with Barry Grover and the taxi driver?''

"Be our guests," said Deacon. "You can do more. Check that we were in the Lame Beggar until ten-thirty, and then at Carlo's in Farringdon Street until one in the morning when we were finally thrown out."

"Your mother's address please, sir."

"I don't want to see your mother," said Terry morosely, hunched in the corner of the passenger seat as they set off for the Ml after collecting Deacon's car from The Street parking lot following yet another taxi ride, "and she won't want to see me."

"She probably won't want to see me, either," murmured Deacon, calculating that he'd shelled out a fortune in incidental expenses since Terry had moved in. He was coming to the conclusion that teenagers cost more than wives. Terry's appetite alone-he'd eaten enough breakfast to sink a battleship-would beggar most people.

"Then why are we going?"

"Because it seemed like a good idea when I first thought of it."

"Yeah, but that was just an excuse for the old Bill."

"It's good for the soul to do something you don't want to do."

"Billy used to say that."

"Billy was a wise man."

"No, he weren't. He were a bloody pillock. I've been thinking about it, and d'you know what I reckon? I reckon he never starved himself to death at all but let someone else do it for him. And if that ain't stupid, I don't know what is."

Deacon glanced at him. "How could someone else do it for him?''

"By keeping him permanently pissed so he didn't think to eat. See, food were only important to him when he was sober-like when he were in the nick-otherwise he'd forget that it's eating that keeps you alive."

"Are you saying someone kept him supplied with booze for four weeks so that he'd drink himself to death?"

"Yeah. I mean it's the only thing that makes sense, isn't it? How else could he've stayed rat-arsed long enough to starve? He couldn't've bought the sodding stuff because he didn't have no money, and if he'd been sober he'd've come back to the warehouse. Like I said, he used to bugger off from time to time, but he always came back when the booze ran out and he started to get hungry again."

DS Harrison had rung the bell of the Gravers' terraced house in Camden several times before it opened a crack and Barry's sweaty face peered through it. "Mr. Grover?" he asked.

He nodded.

"DS Harrison, sir, Isle of Dogs police station. May I come in?"

"Why?"

"I'd like to ask you a few questions about Michael Deacon and Terry Dalton."

"What have they done?"

"I'd rather discuss this inside, sir."

"I'm not dressed."

"It'll only take a minute."

There was a pause before the security chain rattled and Barry opened the door wide. "My mother's asleep," he whispered. "You'd better come in here." He opened the door of the front parlor, then closed it quietly behind them.

Harrison sniffed the cold, musty air and looked about him. He was in a time capsule from a forgotten era. Drab velvet curtains hung beside the windows, with pale stripes where the sun had bleached their color, and ancient wallpaper showed a tide mark of rising damp from the ground outside. Photographs of a man in First World War uniform crowded the mantelpiece, and a portrait of a young woman in Edwardian dress smiled sweetly above it. The furniture had the dark and heavy imprint of the Victorian era, and the atmosphere was heavy with the weight of years, as if the door of the room had been closed on a day in the distant past, and never reopened.

He rested a hand on the back of a mildewed chair, feeling its dirt and its dampness soil his palm, and he thought unquiet thoughts about what sort of people chose to inhabit so oppressive an environment.

"You mustn't touch anything," whispered Barry. "She'll go mad if she thinks you've touched something. It's her grandparents' room." He pointed to the photographs and the painting. "That's them. They brought her up when her own mother ran away and abandoned her."

He smelt of sickness and stale drink, and presented a pathetic picture in a worn terrycloth robe that barely met across his fat stomach and striped pyjamas. The sergeant was torn between sympathy towards a fellow-traveler-Harrison had been on too many jags himself not to know the pain of the morning after-and a strange flesh-crawling antipathy. Harrison put it down to the bizarreness of the room and the man's unpleasant smell, but his sense of revulsion remained with him long after the interview was over.

"Michael Deacon says you'll confirm that you were with him and a youth called Terry Dalton from eight-thirty last night until approximately one-fifteen this morning. Are you able to do that?"

Barry nodded carefully. "Yes."

"Can you tell me what they were doing when you last saw them?"

"Mike stopped a taxi by climbing on the hood, then he and Terry got into it. There was a bit of a row because the driver didn't want to carry drunks, and Mike said it was obligatory as long as the customer could pay. I think he gave the driver the money in advance, and then they left." He pressed a queasy hand to his stomach. "What's happened? Were they in an accident or something?''

"No, nothing like that, sir. There was some trouble last night at the squat Terry Dalton's been living in, and we wanted to assure ourselves that he wasn't involved in it. How would you describe his condition when you saw him off in the taxi?"

Barry wouldn't meet his eye. "Mike more or less had to drag him into the cab and I think he was lying on the floor when it left."

"And how did you get home, sir?"

The question clearly alarmed Barry. "Me?" He hesitated. "I took a taxi, too."

"From Farringdon Street?"

"No, Fleet Street." He took off his glasses and started to polish them on his robe hem.

"A black cab or a mini cab?"

"I phoned for a mini cab from The Street offices. Reg Linden let me use the phone in reception."

"And did you have to pay in advance as well?"

"Yes."

"Well, thank you for your help, sir. I'll see myself out."

"No, I'll see you out," said Barry with an odd little giggle. "We don't want you turning the wrong way, Sergeant. It wouldn't do at all if you woke my mother."

Deacon drove through the farmhouse gates and parked in the lee of the red brick wall that bordered the driveway. The drone of motorway traffic was muted behind the baffle and the house slumbered in the winter sunshine that had emerged from the clouds as they traveled north. He peered up at the facade to see if their arrival had been noticed but there was no sign of movement in any of the windows that looked their way. There was a car he didn't recognize outside the kitchen door (which he rightly attributed to the live-in nurse), but otherwise the place looked exactly the same as when he had stormed out of it five years ago, vowing never to return.

"Come on, then," said Terry when Deacon didn't move. "Are we going in or what?''

"Or what probably."

"Jesus, you can't be that nervous. You've got me, ain't you? I won't let the old dragon bite you."

Deacon smiled. "All right. Let's go." He opened his car door. "Just don't take offense if she's rude to you, Terry. Or not immediately, anyway. Hold your tongue till we're back in the car. Is that a deal?"

"What if she's rude to you?"

"The same thing applies. The last time I came here I was so angry I damn nearly wrecked the place, and I never want to be that angry again." He stared towards the kitchen door, recalling the episode. "Anger's a killer, Terry. It destroys everything it touches, including the one it's feeding on."

"Looks like we've caught our arsonists," said Harrison's partner as he reentered the station an hour later. "Three subhumans by the names of Grebe, Daniels, and Sharpe. They were picked up thirty minutes ago still reeking of gasoline. Daniels made the mistake of boasting to his girlfriend about how he and his mates had done the local community a service by getting rid of undesirables, and she rang us. According to her, Daniels heard about the trouble at the warehouse on Friday and decided to go in and torch it last night. He says all homeless people are scum, and he's buggered if their kind should be allowed to infect the streets of the East End. Charming, eh?"

"And I've just wasted six hours chasing after Terry Dalton," said Harrison sourly, "ending up with the weirdest bloody bloke you've ever seen in Camden." He shuddered theatrically. "You know who he reminded me of? Richard Attenborough playing Christie in the film Ten Rillington Place. If it comes to that the house reminded me of a flaming film set."

"Who's Christie?"

"A nasty little pervert who killed women so that he could have sex with their corpses. Don't you know anything?"

"Oh, that Christie," said his partner solemnly.

The live-in nurse was an attractive Irish woman with soft grey hair and a buxom figure. She opened the kitchen door to Deacon's tap and invited them in with a warm smile of welcome. "I recognize you from your photographs," she told Deacon, wiping floury hands on her apron. "You're Michael." She shook his hand. "I'm Siobhan O'Brady."

"How do you do, Siobhan?" He turned to Terry who was skulking in his shadow. "This is my friend Terry Dalton."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Terry." She put an arm around the boy's shoulder and drew him inside before shutting the door. "Will you take a cup of tea after your journey?"

Deacon thanked her, but Terry seemed to find her mothering instincts overpowering and was bent on extricating himself as soon as he decently could from her embrace. "I need a piss," he said firmly.

"Through the door to your right, then first left," said Deacon, hiding a smile, "and mind your head as you go. There isn't a doorway in this house higher than six feet."

Siobhan busied herself with the kettle. "Is your mother expecting you, Michael? Because she hasn't said a word to me if she is. She's a little forgetful these days, so it may have slipped her mind, but there's nothing to worry about. I can find a little extra to feed you and the lad." She chuckled happily. "How did we manage before the deep freeze? That's what I'm always asking myself. I remember my own mother pickling eggs to tide us over the lean periods, and nasty-looking things they were, too. There were fourteen of us and it was a struggle to make any of us eat them."

She paused to spoon tea into the pot and Deacon seized the opportunity to answer her first question. She was a garrulous woman, he thought, and wondered how his mother, who was the opposite, put up with her. "No," he said, "she's not expecting me. And please don't worry about lunch. She may refuse to speak to me, in which case Terry and I will leave immediately."

"We'll keep our fingers crossed, then, that she does no such thing. It would be a shame to come so far for so little."

He smiled. "Why do I get the feeling that you were expecting me?"

"Your sister mentioned the possibility. She said if you came at all it would be unannounced. I think she was afraid I'd ring the police first and ask questions later." She poured boiling water onto the tea leaves and took some mugs from a cupboard. "You'll be wanting to know how your mother is. Well, she's not as fit as she was-who is at her age?-but, despite what she's claiming, she's nowhere near death's door. She has impaired vision, which means she can't read, and she has difficulty walking because one of her legs is packing up. She needs constant supervision because her increasing immobility has caused her to take shortcuts on her diet, which of course means she could pass out with hypoglycemia at any moment."

She poured a cup of tea and passed it to him with a jug of milk and the sugar bowl. "The obvious place for her is some sort of nursing home, where she can retain her independence and be given round-the-clock care, but your mother is very resistant to the idea. We have all tried to explain to her that she could live for another ten years, but she has a bee in her bonnet about being gone in a couple of months and is determined to die here." She fixed him with a knowing eye. "I can see from your expression that you're wondering what business this is of mine-why is the nurse siding with Emma and Hugh, you're thinking, when they're only after getting shot of their debts-but, my dear, the truth is I can't bear to see a patient of mine so unhappy. She sits day after day in her sitting room, with no one to visit her and no one to care, and her only companion is a talkative, middle-aged Irish woman with whom she has nothing in common. It breaks my heart to watch her struggling to be civil to me in case I up my stumps and leave. Almost anything would be preferable to that. Would you not agree, Michael?"

"I would, yes."

"Then you'll try to persuade her to be sensible?"

He smiled apologetically and shook his head. "No. If her mind's all right, then she's capable of making her own decisions. I'm damned if I'll interfere. I wouldn't begin to know what's sensible and what's not. I can't even make rational judgments for myself, let alone for someone else. Sorry."

Siobhan seemed less troubled by this answer than he expected. "Shall we find out if your mother will see you, Michael? Either she will or she won't, and there's little sense in putting it off."

Cynically (and accurately) he guessed that Siobhan's complacency was based on her knowledge that Penelope Deacon would do the exact opposite of anything her son suggested.