January Window

39

A little later on, Detective Inspector Considine appeared in my office doorway. She was wearing a black coat and a little black dress. She had very bright red lipstick for a policewoman and she looked smiley and nice.

‘I’m beginning to feel like the bad penny,’ she said. ‘Always turning up.’

‘You know, I’ve never really understood what that means.’

‘I suppose you’d have to understand the value of a penny, first. And it strikes me that you don’t. Haven’t done for a long while. Not with a flat like that in Manresa Road.’

I smiled. ‘You like my flat, don’t you?’

‘Who wouldn’t? It makes my own flat look like a broom cupboard.’

‘Drop by sometime and I’ll make you another coffee.’

‘I’d like that. Listen, there are two reasons for my being here now. One is to apologise for yesterday; I’m afraid I was rather abrupt in the way I told you that Matt Drennan’s friend had raped Miss Fehmiu. That must have come as quite a shock to you. Not to mention your friend’s part in covering it all up. I’m sorry about that. Really I am. I was only doing my duty in telling you, but—’

‘Forget about it. Like you say, you were only doing your job.’

‘Honestly? I could have handled it better.’

‘Apology accepted. And the other reason?’

‘You’re going to hate me.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Another equally unpleasant duty, I’m afraid. Only this time I’m going to do my utmost to handle it with more sensitivity.’

‘Which is?’

‘Maybe you don’t remember, but you volunteered to identify Mr Zarco’s body.’

‘Oh Christ, yes, I did, didn’t I?’

‘I’m sure you can think of a hundred things you’d rather do this afternoon. But it is important. A legal requirement. Fortunately, his body isn’t so very far away from here, in East Ham, so I can drive you there myself. Now, if it’s convenient. Later, if it’s not.’

I glanced at my watch. ‘Now is good, as it happens.’

‘All right then. Let’s go.’

She made a quick call to the mortuary to let them know we were on our way. Every time I saw her I liked her a little bit more. Maybe it was because she was posh; I like posh, good-looking birds. But mostly it was because she was clever. I followed her outside to a black Audi TT and got in. A minute or so later we were heading north away from the dock and up East Ham High Street.

‘All I really know about you is that you studied law,’ I said. ‘Did you ever want to be a lawyer? Or did you just watch too many episodes of Inspector Morse?’

‘Actually I really wanted to be a vet, but I abandoned that idea because I used to faint at the sight of blood. I’m still pretty squeamish sometimes.’

‘Forgive me, but a career in the police doesn’t seem like an obvious alternative. Especially under the present circumstances.’

‘True. Most of the time I’m okay with these things. And I absolutely adore working in the police. It’s just now and then that something makes me feel a bit dodgy. I’ve got several strategies for dealing with it. Bodies, I mean. What about you? Will you be all right with this? With seeing Mr Zarco’s body?’

‘I’ll let you know when I see him.’

‘What, you mean you’ve never seen a body before?’

‘You make it sound like I should have done. I’m only forty, for Christ’s sake. My parents are still alive and so are my grandparents.’

‘Oh, I see. I thought when you volunteered it had to be because you were cool with this kind of thing.’

‘I volunteered because I hoped to spare his wife, and because I’ve known him longer than she has. But I’m not in the least bit cool about it, Miss Considine. In fact, you might tell me one of your strategies for dealing with your squeamishness, just in case I go wobbly on you.’

‘It’s just a bottle of smelling salts. Sal volatile. I keep some in my handbag. I know it sounds a bit old-fashioned of me but it’s actually quite scientific, you know. They give it to weightlifters before they compete in the Olympics because the ammonia triggers an inhalation reflex and activates the sympathetic nervous system; and this elevates the heart rate, blood pressure and brain activity, thus counteracting the faint. Before I see a body I just take a whiff of the stuff and I’m usually fine. Now it’s just another tool in my forensic kit.’

‘Well, if I keel over don’t forget to loosen my clothing, will you? I’m a bit old-fashioned myself. Besides, I like to wake up with a smile on my face.

‘You’re very funny, do you know that?’

‘I’m glad you think so.’

When we got nearer the East Ham Mortuary, she pointed left and said, ‘I think West Ham Football Ground is about half a mile that way, on the Barking Road.’

‘With all the stiffs in their team it’s certainly handy for the mortuary.’

‘You’re playing them tomorrow night, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. It’s the second leg of our semi-final match in the Capital Cup. Would you like to come as my guest? We can have dinner afterwards in the director’s box.’

‘I can hardly say no if I’m to be your guest, can I? But what if you lose — won’t you be in a filthy temper? Throwing football boots at people and that kind of thing? You might throw a boot at me. I wouldn’t be at all surprised after yesterday.’

‘That’s Sir Alex Ferguson you’re thinking of, Inspector. Besides, we’re not going to lose. We’re going to win. And I promise not to be in a filthy temper. But bring your smelling salts, just in case.’

‘Are you planning another inspiring team talk, is that it? Like the one on YouTube.’

‘When they win it won’t be for me, it will be for João Zarco.’

‘That might work for the team. But it won’t work for me. I think if I come to the match it had better be because I’d like to see you smile some time. And only if you promise not to tell anyone that I’m coming. I’d hate the news that I was at your game to get as far as Stanford Bridge.’

‘It’s Stamford Bridge. And I don’t believe you’ve ever been to a game of football in your life, Miss Considine.’

Just beyond a park she pulled up on a double yellow line in front of a small sixties-style building that most resembled a public library, with what looked like a little chapel on the end. There was a fence and a hedge and a large oak tree in the garden. She smiled a disarming smile.

‘All right, it’s a fair cop. I haven’t. And I lied about supporting Chelsea. But it cannot be denied that José Mourinho is a very handsome man. Very handsome indeed.’

‘I can deny it, Miss Considine. I can deny it on a stack of Bibles.’

‘It’s Louise. If I’m going to switch allegiance from José to you, I think we’d better be on first-name terms, don’t you?’

‘Agreed. Louise.’ I smiled. ‘Is this just to make me feel better before we go in there?’

‘You’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to know for sure,’ she said.

She got out of the car, opened the gate and then pulled onto a short driveway.

Inside the door of the mortuary she handed me a little glass ampoule covered in cloth.

‘Ammonia gonna say this once,’ she said. ‘Just break it under your nose if you feel faint.’

A mortuary official greeted us. He was small and balding with a gold tooth, and had an Arsenal pin in his lapel, which struck me as brave so close to Upton Park. He showed us into a room with a curtained window.

‘You ready?’ asked Louise.

I nodded.

She broke one of the little white ampoules under her nose and inhaled sharply. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly filled with a strong smell of ammonia and then she was gasping and blinking like she was in bright sunshine and knocking on the window glass.

The grey curtains parted to reveal Zarco’s body lying on a trolley. Most of him was under a green sheet but I could have wished his head had been covered, too. He had been such a handsome man — every bit as handsome as José Mourinho, whom he had known well, of course, since they were both Portuguese. His habitually unshaven face was badly bruised and his skull bashed in like a discarded plastic water bottle. It was the only part of his face that had any colour; the grey hue of the remaining part made him look like an extra in a zombie movie. But it was Zarco all right — I recognised the grey Brillo-pad hair, the sulky mouth and the broad nose; I’d have recognised that nose anywhere. I’d seen it hovering over a glass of good red wine often enough, savouring the bouquet like a true connoisseur. I remembered the dinner we’d had at 181 First, a restaurant in Munich, when he’d come to offer me the job at London City, and the two-hundred-euro bottle of Spätburgunder he’d ordered to cement the deal, and how much he’d enjoyed that particular red wine. I remembered how the restaurant was in the Olympic Tower and that it had been a revolving room, and the fantastic 360-degree view of Munich it had afforded us, and how even now I could remember our table and the way that it, and the whole restaurant, had turned, and how I’d drunk too much that night — we both had — and then the whole world was spinning until the moment when Louise, bless her, had something under my nose and I was reeling away from the ammoniac smell and her hand and the next world’s window.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked as I staggered through the mortuary door.

Outside in the fresh air I wiped a tear from my eye and nodded. ‘It’s him,’ I said. ‘It’s Zarco. Sorry about that.’

‘Don’t be.’ She took my hand and kissed it quickly. ‘Come on. I’ll take you back to Silvertown Dock.’