Spider Trap

SEVEN

On her way out she roused Tom from whichever tropical beach he was lazing on in his dreams. She rushed to the tube and sat on the northbound train in a daze, still half asleep. At home she rapidly showered, cleaned her teeth, and made some tea and toast. Feeling only a little less fragile, she returned to central London, this time to Embankment station, where she caught a cab to the hospital where Dr Mehta had his laboratory. She made it just in time.

She felt the tension as soon as she stepped into the room. Dr Mehta was with Brock over by the window, arguing fiercely. She’d never seen him angry before, and the others looked mildly embarrassed. It seemed the pathologist was scolding Brock for releasing Teddy Vexx after Mehta had provided the crucial forensic evidence against him.‘I pulled out every stop!’ he protested angrily. ‘I twisted people’s arms, gave up my weekend, ruined my mother’s eightieth birthday party! And what do you do? You mess it up! You let the animal go free!’

Brock said something placatory, but Mehta wasn’t having any of it.‘Well, don’t be surprised when I’m less than enthusiastic about going the extra yards the next time!’ He turned away in a huff and started talking to someone else.

Brock, looking unperturbed, came over to Kathy and introduced her to a man from the Forensic Services Command Unit whom she hadn’t met before. On the other side of the long table the three forensic experts were taking their seats. They represented,Brock murmured,‘flesh,bones and teeth’.Sundeep Mehta, ‘flesh’, the forensic pathologist, sat in the middle as nominal leader of the group.‘Teeth’sat on his left,in the person of Professor Lyons, forensic odontologist,a studious-looking elderly man in a white lab coat stained at the sleeves with something yellow. On Dr Mehta’s right a black woman, Dr Prior, was ‘bones’, the team’s forensic anthropologist. She looked to Kathy to be about her own age, early thirties,and was immersed in a document while Mehta worked out some of his anger in an energetic conversation with the odontologist about fees. Apparently, three bodies in a single incident would attract a separate case fee for each, whereas if they found any more, charges must be made at either a half daily rate or a reduced case rate, but whether this applied to all the bodies, or only the fourth and subsequent ones, was a matter for debate.

Brock cleared his throat and Mehta broke off and frowned at Kathy.‘Sergeant Kolla,how are you? Is this everyone,Brock?’

Brock said yes.

‘No Inspector Gurney?’

‘He’s on site this morning.’

‘Very well.’

Mehta sniffed at a scrap of paper.‘I have a message that Morris Munns has something he wants to show us. He should be along shortly. Now, this is really your meeting, Brock. We can only charge extra for police case conferences, not our own.’ He gave Brock a grim look, inviting him to challenge him, but Brock said nothing.‘Anyway I thought we’d better speak to you,because we had another discussion last night and we seem to be approaching a preliminary consensus on your three skeletons.’

At that moment there was a tap on the door and a woman hurried in with a sheaf of papers which she handed to Mehta, who said,‘Perfect timing, Jenny.’

The documents were the combined forensic reports of the three specialists, fresh off the photocopier. Each person was given a set, and Mehta directed them to the final summary for the profile that had now emerged of the three victims, Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. It confirmed that they were all males, and provided rather specific estimates of their heights-167, 185 and 181 centimetres respectively-and ages-twenty-three, nineteen and twenty-eight. Both Alpha and Bravo were right-handed,whereas Charlie was left. Available teeth were generally in good condition, with no fillings or other signs of dental treatment. As children, Bravo had had rickets and Charlie had suffered multiple fractures to his left leg. Both Alpha and Bravo had probably died from single gunshot wounds to the head, whereas the cause of death of Charlie, whose skull had not yet been found, was unknown. The size of the entry wounds were consistent with the two nine-millimetre calibre cartridge cases found on the site.

All three skeletons showed evidence of fractures, which Dr Prior felt were probably sustained close to the time of death, although Dr Mehta wasn’t so sure, emphasising how difficult perimortem trauma was to distinguish. There were sufficient traces of oxidised iron strands in the surrounding soil to support the conjecture that all three had been bound with wire to arms and legs at the time of burial. It was not possible to determine whether they had died together or on separate occasions, nor whether death had occurred on the railway site or at some other place, although the presence of spent cartridges might suggest the former. Fabric traces in the ground suggested that all three bodies had been clothed at the time of burial, but these traces weren’t substantial enough to yield more specific information, apart from the remains of a shoe, a belt buckle, two zip fasteners and some buttons, which were being further investigated.

The condition of the remains indicated a date of death between ten and forty years previously. A Seiko digital wristwatch with plastic case and LED display had been found on the wrist of Charlie, indicating an earliest date for his death of 1978, when this model first came on the market. So far, the evidence did not warrant a closer estimate for date of death than the seventeen-year period from 1978 to 1995. Maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA had been obtained from the remains of all three victims.

‘Sorry about the date, Brock,’ Sundeep said, not sounding at all sorry. ‘I suppose that’s the thing you’re most interested in, but we’ve tried everything-benzidine test, precipitin test, demonstrable fatty acids, nitrogen content. No go, I’m afraid. The only other time-related fact we have is that ballistics have matched the cartridge cases to a gun used in two other shootings in South London during the mid-eighties, but that doesn’t really narrow your time frame, does it?’

‘This bit about “indicators of non-Caucasian ancestry”, Sundeep,’ Brock queried.‘Can we be more specific?’

As they’d been reading the summary, Kathy had noticed Dr Prior shake her head several times. Now she answered Brock’s question.

‘They were black,’ she said bluntly.

It was Dr Mehta’s turn to shake his head.‘Dr Prior, I’ve been trying to emphasise to our colleagues here that such a term is arbitrary and meaningless in science. Racial categories have no biological reality.’ He sounded testy.

Dr Prior gazed calmly back at him and said,‘That’s nonsense, Dr Mehta. You’ve completely ignored my evidence in your summary. The morphological arguments are compelling and well established. Race is a biological fact, and the three victims were as black as I am. I think the police need to know that.’

‘Nonsense!’ Mehta almost shouted. ‘I quote Sauer, I quote Brace:“There are no races, there are only clines.” If we can’t dispel this wicked misconception, who can?’

The odontologist, Dr Lyons, was peering over his glasses at his forensic colleagues. From what Kathy could make of his part of the report, the dental evidence had been disappointingly inconclusive, and throughout he’d had the air of someone rather bored and impatient to get back to his laboratory. But now he, the only white member of the trio,seemed intrigued by his colleagues’increasingly irate debate about race.

It was interrupted by the arrival of Morris Munns, who bustled in with a cheerful ‘Morning all’ and an ancient leather doctor’s bag. The lenses in his glasses were so thick that Kathy was always worried that he would barge into something, which was ironic since he was perhaps the most skilful photographic specialist and enhancer of latent images available to the Met. Dr Mehta, somewhat tightlipped,invited him to speak,and from the bag he produced a plastic evidence pouch containing an irregular lump of material.

‘This is the remains of the shoe Sundeep gave me,’ Morris said in his broad cockney.‘It was found with Bravo’s body. And hidden beneath what was left of his leather instep, Sundeep was smart enough to notice something odd.’

Mehta’s sulk relaxed a little, mollified by this compliment.

‘Under examination, I found a fragment of what turned out to be rag paper.We ’ad a go with it on our new image detector equipment, digitally enhanced, and eventually came up with this.’ He passed out copies of a photographic enlargement, twenty times life size, of an irregular area of grey. Across its surface was a blur of darker grey smudges. Kathy held the picture at arm’s length, screwing up her eyes, until finally a pattern emerged.

‘Kathy’s got the idea,’ Morris said, and handed round another image, in which the first had been overlaid by red symbols, corresponding roughly to the shapes beneath. The smudges now read:

Celia’s Dream

8.22, 7/2, T4

‘Brilliant, Morris,’ Brock said,‘as always.What does it mean?’

‘I reckon it’s a betting slip, don’t you? An old-fashioned one, hand-written. The horse is Celia’s Dream, running at odds of seven to two.’

Horseracing was another acknowledged area of Morris’s expertise, and Brock was impressed. ‘What about the other numbers?’

‘Dunno for sure. 8.22 can’t be the time of the race-too early or too late and too odd. It could be the date, American style, month first-August twenty-second. Maybe Bravo was a Yank.’

‘Or the bookie was,’ Mehta suggested.

‘All right, we’ll see what we can find out,’ Brock said. ‘Many thanks. And thanks also to you and your colleagues for your report, Sundeep.Worth every penny, I’m sure. I realise what a rush it’s been. Is there anything else?’

‘Will you be wanting facial reconstructions?’ Dr Prior asked.

‘Definitely. Are the skulls in good enough condition?’

‘Oh yes. Of course, there are big differences in the thicknesses of facial tissues for different races.’ She paused with a slight smile on her lips, and Kathy realised she was needling Sundeep. ‘But we have pretty accurate tables for both pure Negroid and mixed-race subjects. The South Africans have done a lot of work in this area.’

Dr Mehta winced at that, but he had obviously decided on a more dignified, patronising approach. ‘Yes, well, as we know, the results of facial modelling are open to conjecture. But Dr Prior is a very artistic practitioner.’

Kathy gathered that ‘artistic’ was probably the most damning compliment that Mehta could find. As they got to their feet, Kathy made a point of speaking to the anthropologist. She introduced herself and they shook hands.

‘What was that all about, with Dr Mehta?’ she asked.

‘Oh,it’s an ongoing thing with us.Sundeep is a soft-tissue man, and they tend to see the way the responses of races to climate are evenly graded across populations, without clear breaks-the clines he mentioned. But deep inside you, in your bones, the opposite is true. There are sharp divisions between the races, and I can tell much more clearly what you are from your skull than from your skin. But of course, the reason Sundeep gets so heated isn’t scientific. He thinks that exposing biological differences between the races encourages racism, so he wants to suppress them. I, on the other hand, believe the opposite. I think that if we don’t explain exactly what science tells us, we encourage myths and stereotypes. When I was a student and my lecturer first explained the evolutionary basis of race I felt liberated.For the first time I understood why I was black.’

She paused, studying Kathy’s face as if trying to make a decision,then added,‘And this case is about race,isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’

‘Oh, I think so. I think these murders were racially motivated, don’t you?’

‘I don’t think we know enough yet. They could be many things, gangland killings . . .’

‘No,this isn’t some crack-crazed Yardies taking pot shots at one another. And it wasn’t done to intimidate the opposition-the bodies were hidden. This was deliberate, like a military execution, torturing them first,breaking their bones,then making them kneel, shooting them from above and in front, through the crown. This was cold hate. Race hate.’ Dr Prior leaned closer to Kathy and whispered in her ear.‘Use your imagination,sister.’Then,as she was turning away, she added, ‘And forget about Sundeep’s jibe about facial reconstruction. I’ll show you exactly what those two boys looked like.’

Kathy was silent in the taxi back to Queen Anne’s Gate with Brock, and finally he said,‘You’re very quiet, Kathy.’

‘Just thinking about what Dr Prior had to say.’She noticed mud on his trouser legs. The on-site teams were now working around the clock ahead of expected bad weather, and she wondered if Brock had spent the night out there. ‘You’ve been pretty quiet yourself.’

Her remark sounded abrupt and he said nothing for a while, staring out of the taxi window at the dark figures hurrying along the cold streets. She wondered if she’d annoyed him. Then he turned and smiled.‘Yes,you’re probably right.We should get together and talk about things. Soon.’

She wasn’t sure if he meant about work or something else. Then he added,‘But first I want to get a fix on when they died. From that, everything else will follow; without it we’re helpless. What did you think of Morris’s conjuring trick?’

‘Pretty convincing.’

‘Mm. Are you a punter?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘No, I didn’t think so. Me neither. But I’d like you to make it your number one priority.’

‘You want me to track down Celia’s Dream?’

‘Yes. Drop everything else. I dare say it’ll take time. Talk to experts, people in the industry, but don’t mention where this came from. And don’t tell anyone else about it.’

Kathy looked at him in surprise.‘The team?’

He shook his head. ‘No one.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll explain when we get a date. I may be quite wrong. I want you to go at this with a completely open mind.’

The cab had arrived at Queen Anne’s Gate. Kathy made her way to the room where she had her workspace. The building seemed deserted, as if all the others were away doing something active and important. She made some strong coffee, sat down at her desk, switched on her computer and tried to get her brain working.

Celia’s Dream could be many things-a book, a rose, a boat. Perhaps Bravo had arranged to pick something up from a boat at

8.22. She was puzzled by the particularity of the time, if it was a time. Or perhaps Morris was right and it was a date.

She got onto the internet and began searching Google. Celia’s Dream yielded 6890 entries, most concerning a track of that name from an album by a UK band, Slowdive, released in September 1991. She couldn’t find any reference to horses or boats. She tried horseracing websites, again without result, and then on one of the sites she noticed the word ‘greyhounds’ on the site map and she remembered a scene from long ago, her Uncle Tom in Sheffield putting on his coat to go out and Aunt Mary telling her grimly that he was ‘going to the dogs’. And the races must have been held in the evening as she remembered the streetlights on outside.

On greyhound-data.com she found ‘Dog-Search’, and typed in the name. And suddenly, there it was:

Celia’s Dream

color WBD

sex female

date of birth MAY 1978

land of birth IE Ireland

land of standing IE Ireland

owner Mrs Celia Frost

It gave the dog’s pedigree through four generations and the percentage of Grand Champions in her bloodline over six generations (10 per cent). It also gave her racing history. Kathy sat back and blessed the internet.

She knocked on Brock’s office door and went in. He was tilted back on his swivel chair, shoeless feet up on the desk and bright green boots on the floor nearby, as if he’d just come in from a spot of gardening. He was sipping from a mug of coffee, staring over his half-lens glasses at the opposite wall, which was covered with his own version of the crime scene information on the wall of the case room they’d established downstairs-a street map of the area around Cockpit Lane, a gridded map of the railway land, and dozens of photographs of what they’d dug up.

‘Problems?’ he asked.

‘Answers, I think.’ She handed him the printout of the dog’s details.

He sat up sharply.‘That was quick.’

‘And here’s her racing history.’Kathy pointed to one line.‘On 11 April 1981 she won the 8.22 race at Catford from trap four with a starting price of seven to two.’

‘Yes, of course! Catford dog track is just a couple of miles from Cockpit Lane.’

‘That’s right. Bravo was probably a regular punter there. Unfortunately the track closed down a couple of years ago, so I may have trouble tracing its records. I think I’ll concentrate first on finding out about that date-what day of the week it was,what was going on then.’

For a moment Brock seemed mesmerised by the information on the page, then he slowly shook his head and waved her to sit down. There was no need to find out about the date; he already knew.

The eleventh of April 1981 was a Saturday, and warm for the time of year. Around midday Brock got a phone call at his desk at the station.

‘Hello, Detective Inspector Brock.’ The promotion was recent, and he still had to check himself from saying ‘Sergeant’.

‘’Lo? I wan’ fe talk to you.’

The voice was pitched low and he had difficulty at first understanding what the man was saying.

‘Who is this?’

‘Me name Joseph, seen? Paul gave me yo’ number.’

Paul was a stallholder in the market and a useful informant, and Brock remembered being introduced to a tall, loose-limbed young black man. Joseph had cut a stylish figure in a white Kangol cap and black leather coat, and when he strolled away he almost seemed to be dancing on his markedly bowed legs.

‘Fine.What do you want to talk about, Joseph?’

The caller hesitated, then said, ‘Paul said seh you wan’ fe put some bad bwoys ah goal, yeah?’

‘Which bad boys do you have in mind?’

‘Not on t’phone. Dem bwoys real bad, seen? You know dem. Is like dem cyan wait fe kill someone. I don’t need fe talk to nobody, but I do need fe get money, seen?’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘Tonight, six o’clock, the Ship in Cockpit Lane. Don’ you be late.’

After he hung up Brock tried to find out if anyone else knew of this Joseph, but the station was in turmoil, uniforms rushing everywhere. There had been trouble on the streets the previous evening and more was expected. Brock decided not to hang around and headed out to catch a bus for home and lunch.

His felt the usual sag in his spirits as he approached the flat, a trendy shoebox. He hated the place, its miserable little rooms, low ceilings, windows looking out at blank walls. As he opened the front door he knew instantly that it was deserted. He felt the heavy silence, as if all the accumulated tensions had finally snapped like an overstretched elastic band. The kitchen was spotless, tidier than it had ever been since they’d moved in, three years before. A thousand days, a thousand nights. The lounge and bedroom were also immaculate, as if for a final inspection. Her drawers and wardrobe were empty.

There was no note, although in the bin beneath the kitchen sink he found two screwed-up attempts:‘Dear David, I can’t’ and ‘David, I have to’.

He found a bottle of beer and a lump of cheese in the fridge, and sat for a long time at the kitchen table staring at them, trying to work out how he felt. Relief, on the whole, at the arrival of the inevitable. Perhaps in a week or two, when the repetitive cycle was broken, they might talk, he told himself, but found it hard to believe.

He left the house at five,the beer and cheese still untouched on the table.He felt light-headed,disengaged from the world,as if after a violent accident, and put the odd little dislocations he noticed around him down to this. The bus timetable seemed to have been disrupted, and it took longer than expected to reach Cockpit Lane. The street was unnaturally empty, and through front windows he could see the blue flicker of television sets. In the distance he heard the howl of an ambulance. He hadn’t seen the news before he left, and he didn’t have a police radio.

As he walked along the deserted street he thought how much he liked this part of London. To those passing through on the commuter trains it might look like a scruffy mess of aging yellow-brick terraces, but to him they were dignified, sturdy, forgiving receptacles for the endlessly permutating human lives they’d sheltered for over a hundred years. These were the sorts of streets he’d grown up in, and the struggle of the West Indian immigrants today matched the earlier struggle of his own parents, fresh from the North. It was true, though, looking around with a critical eye, that these parts were going through a tough time now. Businesses were going bust, buildings falling vacant and being turned into squats, and a growing number of young unemployed men standing idle in the street. Always on the street. So where the hell were they now?

The Ship was a pokey little pub opposite the church at the end of Cockpit Lane. It had no room for gadgets like Space Invaders machines, jukeboxes or TV sets. Now it was deserted, the landlord leaning morosely on the bar studying form in the racing pages.

‘Quiet tonight,’ Brock said. He was five minutes late.

The publican grunted and shrugged. ‘Something going on. What’ll it be?’

‘Half of bitter, please. Have one yourself.’

‘Ta.’

‘I’m supposed to be meeting someone here.Young black lad. Seen him?’

‘Haven’t seen nobody, mate.You’re my first customer tonight.’

Brock glanced through the morning paper while he sipped at his beer. On page two he came across a report of the disturbance in Brixton the previous evening. Three police officers from Operation Swamp had been assaulted by a crowd after trying to assist a black youth who’d been stabbed. Bricks and bottles had been thrown, and six arrests made.

The time dragged on. He checked his watch again at six-forty and decided Joseph wasn’t coming.Then the phone behind the bar rang. The publican had difficulty understanding what the caller wanted.Eventually he looked over and said,‘Your name Brack?’

‘Brock. It’s for me, is it?’

‘Hard to say.’ The man handed him the phone.

‘Hello, Brock here. Is that you Joseph?’

‘Yeah. Is you fe true, man?’ He sounded out of breath, panicky, his voice pitched higher than before, no longer cool and husky.

‘Of course it’s me, Joseph. I’m waiting at the Ship, like we arranged.Where are you?’

‘I cyan come dere now, seen? Dem try fe dus’ me!’ The voice rose almost to a shriek. Brock could hear thumping music and voices in the background.

‘Who’s trying to kill you?’

‘You know who, supa. Dat big bad white bwoy.’

‘White? You’re talking about Spider Roach, is that right?’

Joseph gave a sob.

‘Where are you now?’

‘De Cat and Fiddle in Angell Town. Somebody ah follow me. Mek me laf yah, y’hear?’

‘No, don’t leave there, Joseph. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes. Just stay where you are!’

Brock was out of the door and running. It was a ten-minute walk, he reckoned, a five-minute run, a two-minute taxi ride. But there were no taxis.He reached the main road where the traffic was dense, not moving. A police car was stuck in the middle, lights flashing impotently. As he plunged across the road he heard the sound of a helicopter overhead, chop-chop-chop. He looked up and saw the word ‘Police’ on its fuselage. He’d read about the new Air Support Unit but it was the first time he’d seen such a thing over London.It was flying south-west,where he was going,towards a haze of smoke he now noticed in the sky,turning the late sun into a red disc.

He reached the pub at last, his chest heaving from the half-mile run. Sirens were braying everywhere around him now, although he still hadn’t encountered the crisis, whatever it was. An excited crowd made up of both black and white youths was gathering in the street outside the pub. It was crowded inside and he struggled through, from bar to bar, without success. Joseph was nowhere to be seen. As he stood, panting, eyes roving, a soft voice murmured at his side.‘You wan’Joseph,sir?’

‘Yes!’ He swivelled, then dropped his eyes to face a tiny middle-aged woman staring up at him.

‘You’re his friend, sir?’

‘I am.We were supposed to meet here. Have you seen him?’

‘He phoned me too. I’m his aunty, Winnie Wellington’s my name.’ She offered a hand and he felt the skin hard and rough in his grasp.

‘David Brock. I’m a policeman, Winnie. I’ve seen you in Cockpit Lane.’

‘He needs yo’ help. He’s very scared, sir. He asked me to bring money for him. He said if I saw you to tell you he’s gone to the Windsor Castle in Mayall Road. He feel safer dere among black folk, and he has a friend who can hide him. His name’s Walter.’

‘You saw Joseph here?’

‘Only for a moment. He told me this, and then he saw somethin’ dat scared the life out o’ him, and he just ran for the door over there.’

‘What did he see?’

‘Two men came in the other door. Big men, hard men, in black leather jackets.White men.’

‘Thank you,Winnie.I’ll do what I can.’

She laid a hand on his arm. ‘If you’re goin’ to Mayall Road you’d best take care, Mr Brock.’

He hurried out into the maze of streets heading south, turning eventually into Brixton Road.There he stopped dead,transfixed by the spectacle of a circle of people dancing around a man on fire. His hair, his suit were ablaze with fierce orange flames, and it took Brock a moment to realise that it was a shop dummy. They were outside Burton’s the tailors, whose glass windows had been smashed. Beyond them youths were lining both sides of the road, apparently waiting, although there was no traffic. Then a shout wentup as a police car approached,heading down thestreet towards the centre of Brixton. As it reached the lines the people began hurling bricks at it. Swerving, siren blaring, it ran the gauntlet and sped on.Brock saw the pale face of one of the coppers inside staring back through the cracked rear window at the jeering crowd.

He hurried on past kids smashing shop windows. A white woman with long fair hair was wielding a broom at the window of an off-licence, sending glass shards flying. Outside a jeweller’s shop, necklaces and watches were scattered across the pavement among the glass.A large crowd was milling outside the tube station.People were wide-eyed with excitement, some frightened, some laughing, exchanging stories.A line of uniforms was holding them back from entering Atlantic Road, where he wanted to go. He could see a police car down there in flames and the stench of burning petrol and rubber hung in the air. A fire engine stood by on this side of the police line, radio crackling, the crew waiting with arms folded. Familiar shop signs-Colliers, Boots, WH Smith-seemed oddly out of place, as if they’d been transposed to another place and time, St Petersburg in 1917 perhaps.

Brock decided to move on and try to approach the pub from another direction. He ran past the town hall and turned into a residential side street. Ahead of him he saw a group of people clustered at a front gate. Several black youths with bricks in their hands had cornered an astonished white man, while his terrified wife and two small children looked on from a car parked at the kerb. Brock moved to help but several other black men appeared and pulled their friends away, leaving the man unhurt. Brock could hear distant shouts ahead and the incomprehensible braying of a megaphone. The sky was darker here, twilight compounded by a pall of smoke, lit from below by a flickering orange glow.

He turned a corner and stumbled into a squad of police. They were sitting on the kerb and against a wall, their shields and visored helmets on the ground beside them. One looked up at him and he recognised a young PC from his own station, dabbing at blood on his forehead.

‘Hello, Stan,’ he said.‘You all right?’

The constable didn’t seem to recognise him. ‘Got me with a fucking brick, didn’t they? Bastards. They’re chucking fucking petrol bombs at us now. Can you believe that? Molotov cocktails in the streets of London.’

He moved on, sensing the heart of the storm ahead from the noises of battle, the rhythmic beating of batons against shields, the crashes of destruction, angry cries. Then at last he emerged into Railton Road. The street was littered with upturned and burning vehicles, broken bricks and glass. A fire engine stood abandoned, black smoke pouring from its cabin. Brock found himself behind a double police line facing a chanting crowd. A flaring petrol bomb arced through the smoke and smashed directly onto an upturned shield, spraying fire over several cops. There was a whoop from the crowd as the police line broke,a shower of bricks,and then the mob surged forward into the flailing batons.

Brock ran across to the far side of the street and kept going through the crowd, barging his way down a side street and into Mayall Road. There he stopped, transfixed by the sight. Ahead of him the Windsor Castle was in flames. He could hear the crash of exploding spirit bottles, and felt the billow of scorching heat as the ground-floor windows blew out. He leaned back against the brick wall, catching his breath as he watched the silhouettes of dancing figures against the blaze.

‘The Brixton riots,’ Kathy said.‘I’d forgotten.’

‘You’d be too young to remember.’ Brock heaved himself to his feet and got them both another coffee from the pot he kept brewing.

‘And you didn’t find Joseph?’

‘No. I never heard of him again. The following days and weeks were chaotic. I filed a report but didn’t have a chance to follow up. The next time I saw Paul and Winnie at the markets I asked them if they knew what had happened to him, and they hadn’t heard from him either. They guessed he’d gone back home to Jamaica. I thought that seemed likely.’

‘And now you think we’ve found him.’

Brock nodded. ‘The second body, Bravo, six foot two, age nineteen and bow-legged. Never collected on the race that Celia’s Dream was winning for him at exactly the time that the Windsor Castle was burning to the ground.’

‘Did you suspect this from the very beginning?’

‘It was a possibility.’

‘But I don’t understand the secrecy.Why couldn’t I tell anyone about Celia’s Dream?’

‘It gets more complicated, Kathy. Until I know exactly where we stand, I don’t want any more information leaking out than I can help.’

She’d encountered this secretiveness in him often enough before. It was a deeply ingrained instinct, formed by years of stalking dangerous people while working in an institution of ambitious gossips. And there was always a good reason for it.

‘You think Spider Roach killed them,’ she said.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I couldn’t say that. But he’s an obvious candidate. We should go and talk to Winnie Wellington again. She was his aunt, and she was the last person to see Joseph that we know of.’

As she drove them across Westminster Bridge, the sweep of the river sparkling in the crisp morning light, Kathy said, ‘Winnie spoke of two white men following him.’

‘Yes, although when Joseph first called me I assumed he was talking about being in trouble with some other Jamaicans,Yardies. You know about the Yardies?’

‘I’m learning. Last night Tom Reeves told me something about them-he’s been to Jamaica with Special Branch, did you know?’

‘Really? No I didn’t.When was that?’

‘I’m not sure. He made a bet with me that if the three victims were black, then they were murdered after October 1980.’

‘Smart lad.What else did he tell you?’

‘About Jamaican food, mainly. And drink.’

‘Aha.’ Brock nodded sagely, as if that explained many things.

Kathy drove first to the warehouse in Mafeking Road, where they went inside to check on progress. Bren was there.

‘Weather’s holding up, and we’ve got something interesting, chief. Remains of a bullet.’

‘Where did they find it?’

‘That’s the interesting part.’ Bren led them over to the gridded site plan, now covered with numbered pins and scribbled annotations in a dozen different hands. ‘C6.’ He pointed to an empty grid square. ‘We’ve just started excavating it. The bullet was on its own, embedded in the ground about six inches down. It’s not in good shape. Probably won’t help us match the gun. But it confirms what we assumed from the spent cases, that the victims were shot here on the site, not somewhere else and brought here for burial. This one presumably exited from either Alpha or Charlie and ended up a good ten or fifteen yards away.’

‘And we’ve got something for you, Bren.’ Brock told him about the betting slip and date.‘I’ll be releasing some of this to the press this afternoon. In the meantime, Kathy and I are going to start talking to people who knew Joseph.’

‘A photograph would be a help.’

‘And a surname.’

They walked back down Mafeking Road to the junction with Cockpit Lane. The Ship public house stood on the corner, as scruffy and unwelcoming as when Brock had gone there to meet Joseph twenty-four years before. They turned into Cockpit Lane, threading through the market crowd until they reached the pots and pans on the final stall.Winnie was there, George at her side. She saw them and made a face.

‘Oh no.What now.You want this boy again?’

‘Not this time,Winnie. It’s you we want to chat to. Nothing to worry about.’

‘I’ve heard dat before.You want a cup of tea? Come inside.’

As she led them through the shop door there was a loud clatter from the street behind them and Winnie yelled back over her shoulder,‘Clumsy boy!’She shook her head with disgust.‘He wears those thick gloves, so he drops things. I tell him he’s got to take the gloves off,but he complains,“Aw,Winnie,I’m so cold.I get frostbite.” He’s eighteen years old and he’s a baby, dat boy.’

They settled in the small kitchen at the rear. A shed had been built in the backyard right up against the window, and they could see racks and cardboard boxes piled inside.Winnie put the kettle on and they sat around the kitchen table.

‘You’ve heard that we’ve found some old human remains on the waste ground at the back here,beside the railway?’Brock asked.

‘The whole street’s talkin’about it.They say it’s a Yardie burial ground. Is dat fer true?’

‘We don’t know, Winnie, but you’ve been here a long time, and I wanted to tap your memory. Back to 1981, the time of the Brixton riots, remember that?’

Winnie nodded.‘I remember.’

‘I wanted to ask you about a nephew of yours-Joseph was his name. I used to see him in the Lane, all those years ago.’

‘Joseph?’ The old woman’s lined forehead wrinkled as she thought. ‘Yes, I remember Joseph. But . . .’ She looked horrified. ‘You don’t think dat’s him do you, lyin’ out there in the waste ground all that time?’

‘We’ve found a man who was tall, six foot two, and bowlegged from childhood rickets. He was about nineteen when he died, and he was black.’

Winnie put a hand to her mouth.‘Oh Lord above.’ She crossed herself quickly and felt in the pocket of her quilted coat for her rosary beads. ‘Was that 1981, when we met in dat pub in Angell Town?’

Brock nodded.‘You do remember. Did you ever hear of him again?’

‘No, I never did. I just assumed he’d gone back to the yard- to Jamaica-but I never knew for sure.’

‘The thing is,Winnie, there is a way we can be certain if it’s him. If you’re his aunt-his mother’s sister-and you allow us to do a small test . . .’ But Winnie was shaking her head.

‘No, I’m not his real auntie. Dat was just a figure of speech. I really don’t know who his baby mother was back there.’

‘Oh.Well, perhaps you could give us some details about him -his full name, his age, anything you know.’

‘But I don’t really know anything.When he arrived I gave him a room upstairs and some work on the stall, like George out dere. Just to get him started, you understand? I just always knew him as Joseph, dat’s all.’

‘The last time we saw him was the eleventh of April of that year.When did he arrive,exactly?’

She pondered. ‘It was before Christmas, I think.Yes, I’m sure he was here for Christmas . . . Unless I’m mixing him up with Bobby. He was next, I think. Oh dear, I’m not sure.’

‘So you think he was staying with you for four or five months? Something like that?’

‘Yes, I’d say so. Somethin’ like dat. I expect Father Maguire could tell you. He helped Joseph.’

‘Father Maguire?’

‘At St Barnabas, up the Lane, beyond the market. He’s been here nearly as long as me.’

She got up to make the tea, bringing the pot and cups and saucers to the table. ‘I’m afraid I can’t be very hospitable. I don’ have no cake. Maybe I can find some biscuits.’

‘Tea will be just fine,Winnie.What else can you tell us about Joseph?’Brock coaxed.‘What about his friends?’

‘Well, there was Paul, who sold shoes in the market. But he’s long gone. I’ve no idea where he is.’

‘You went to the Cat and Fiddle that night to give him money, do you remember? The message he asked you to pass on to me was that he was going to the Windsor Castle in Brixton to meet someone who could help him.His name was Walter.Did you know this Walter?’

Winnie seemed to draw her tough little body in upon itself, and not just from the effort of remembering, Kathy thought. She seemed troubled.

‘He was always gettin’ into hot water, dat Walter. He had a big mouth and never went to church. He came from a bad crowd in the Gardens.’

‘Covent Garden?’ Kathy asked, puzzled.

‘Tivoli Gardens, in Kingston. Dat’s where the Shower Posse hang out, you know? Walter and Joseph were both Garden boys.’

‘They were rudies, were they?’ Brock said. ‘With the Shower Posse? Is that why they had to leave Jamaica?’

‘Oh,dey weren’t serious gangstas,Mr Brock.Dey was what dey call “fryers”, at the bottom rank, but dey got in trouble with the police. When Joseph came here he tried to start a new life, but before too long Walter led him astray again. Dey called themselves the Tosh Posse, which was just stupid showing off to the girls at the club, and dey upset the Spangler boys across the railway line with their boasting about what big men dey’d been in the Gardens.’

‘Were they selling drugs?’

She flared.‘I wouldn’t have no drug dealers in my house! Joseph was a show-off and weak in the face of temptation, but he wasn’t really bad. Father Maguire had faith in him. But Walter . . .’

‘This Tosh Posse, who else was in it?’

‘I only remember one other boy with them. He was older than them, nice-looking boy. Don’t know the name.’

‘How old was Walter?’

‘He was a few years older than Joseph, I’d say. Dey made an odd pair, Joseph tall and so particular about his appearance, and Walter short and dirty.’

‘How short?’

‘Oh, shorter than her,’ she nodded at Kathy, ‘but not as short as me.’

‘Was Joseph left- or right-handed?’

‘How can I be expected-No, wait, he was right-handed. I remember watching him trying to write a Christmas card to someone back home. It was a struggle for him.’

‘And you say they upset people across the railway- Spanglers?’

‘Dat Shower and Spangler business was from the yard; it had no place here. But some of ’em brought it over with dem.’

‘Any names?’

Winnie shook her head.

‘When we met in that pub in Angell Town, you told me that Joseph had been frightened by two white men. They couldn’t be Spanglers, could they?’

‘Not if dey was white dey couldn’t.’

‘So who were they?’

Again,Winnie seemed to close in on herself.

‘You’d seen them before, hadn’t you? Come on,Winnie. Let’s have it.’

‘I wasn’t sure. At first I thought dey might be coppers, but then I thought dey might have been Mr Roach’s boys.’

‘Yes,’ Brock said quietly. He seemed to Kathy to relax, easing back in his chair as if finally satisfied.‘Did Joseph get on the wrong side of Mr Roach, do you know?’

‘Not to my knowledge. Dey seemed to get on just fine. Too fine, if you wan’ my opinion.’

‘You’ve been very helpful, and the tea was just what we needed.’ Brock got to his feet.‘Would you have a picture of Joseph or Walter?’

‘No, I don’t have no camera. I don’t know if Father Maguire might.’

‘We’ll ask him. If he doesn’t, I’d like you to help one of our computer people make a likeness of them and the third man. Would you do that for me?’

Winnie seemed quite taken with the idea as she bustled out with them to the street, where George was standing miserably stamping his feet.

The sun had disappeared behind dark clouds and the threatened rain or snow seemed imminent as they made their way between the market stalls towards the church. There were few people around now, hoods and collars turned up against the sharp wind. The church was locked, and they knocked on the door of the presbytery next door. A housekeeper answered and told them that Father Maguire was at the hospital and would be back in an hour. Brock suggested they see if the Ship did lunches.

The pub had succumbed to TV, an absurdly large screen on one wall showing a game of American football. Otherwise it seemed little had changed. Lunch was limited to an assortment of greasy sausage rolls and meat pies in a hot cabinet. Brock ordered a couple, and a beer and a tonic water, and took them to Kathy, who’d found a small table as far as possible from the TV speakers. She thanked him for the tonic and unbuttoned her coat.

‘You need more than that,’ Brock said.

‘Had a big dinner last night.’

‘Ah yes, with Tom Reeves. So how is he these days?’

‘Fine.’She was going to leave it at that,then thought she should say more, for the purposes of barter. ‘He was called away over Christmas, so we’re just catching up again. Do you remember that other Branch bloke we worked with a couple of years back,Wayne O’Brien, who just disappeared one day? I thought the same had happened to Tom. They’re difficult people to keep track of.’

‘True enough. It’s the nature of the job. Not easy.’

‘He wants to transfer out. Anyway, he made a Jamaican dinner from stuff he bought here in the Lane-pot roast with Red Stripe beer. It was really good.You can get takeaway from the cafe, too.’ She described the other dishes.

‘I’ll have to try that. It’s ages since I tasted jerk.’

‘He said that’s next. Maybe we could do something together.’

Then,having prepared the ground,she said,‘How about you? Have you heard from Suzanne? I got a postcard from her from the Great Barrier Reef. Looked beautiful.’

He saw it coming, of course-but even so, the probe, gentle as it was, made him wince unexpectedly, like the slightest touch to an infected wound that doesn’t want to heal. The trouble was that he hadn’t been talking to anyone, so he hadn’t developed the protective form of words.And there was the other thing,too,which made it worse. In telling Kathy about 1981 he’d omitted the part about going home to the deserted house, but here he was back in Cockpit Lane again in much the same situation, twenty-four years later,locked into the same old patterns,as if nothing had progressed. He hadn’t got a postcard from the Great Barrier Reef, but he had received a Christmas card from Suzanne’s grandchildren in Hastings, back with their mother now, which had shaken him for a time.

‘No, no.We haven’t been in touch.’

‘It’s over then?’ It sounded too abrupt and she sensed Brock flinch, but she was suddenly irritated by this cocoon of silence on the subject of Suzanne; Bren whispering, his wife phoning up to casually inquire about the boss’s Christmas arrangements. She was also fairly certain that the old man wasn’t talking to anyone else.

‘I’m not sure, Kathy.’

‘I mean, I’d be very sorry because I like her so much and I think she’s great for you, but sometimes these things aren’t meant to be . . . as I’ve discovered on numerous occasions.’ She grinned and the sombre look on his face melted a little.

‘Several times I’ve got as far as the travel agent’s door,’ he confessed,‘but I never made it inside.’

‘Do you need a push? I’ll take care of everything if you want.’

‘Thanks. I know you would.We’ll see. Now . . .’ He addressed himself to the discouraging lump of pastry on his plate.‘. . . what have we got here?’

‘Are you going to tell me about the Roaches? You reacted to what Winnie said as if you’d been expecting it all along.’

He shot her a sideways glance as he chewed.‘You’re annoyed I haven’t been open with you?’

‘Well . . . I’ve been getting the feeling that you’ve had these ideas from the start that you’re not telling us about.’

‘Mm, rubbish. This pie, I mean. No, you’re right. From the beginning I’ve felt as if I were reliving the past with this one,which certainly suggested several possibilities, but I’ve been reluctant to . . .’ the image that came to his mind was of stepping back into a tangled thicket,‘. . .to jump to conclusions until I had a date for the murder, the race of the victims, and that comment from Winnie about who the two white men might have been.

‘So,Spider Roach.Spider was one of the most vicious and most successful crooks in South London. He started out as a very smart operator in long firm fraud-setting up wholesale companies to buy goods on credit, then selling them fast and going bust or disappearing without paying their debts.He found he could double his profits by combining long firm fraud with arson and insurance scams, burning down the companies’ premises and claiming for the goods, which had already been sold. Then, when he began to find it hard to get credit for his bogus companies, he discovered violence. He realised that he could persuade genuine companies, small family businesses usually, to act as the front for the fraud if only he could terrify their owners enough. The businesses were destroyed in the process, of course, and the owners usually ruined, but with sufficient violence-the threat of a brutal attack on the wife, perhaps, or on an elderly parent-they would keep quiet. He was a ruthless predator, and before long his violence escalated into murder. Spider was believed to be behind a number of particularly ugly unsolved killings in the seventies, but he was never arrested on any serious charge until 1980, when the supergrass Maxie Piggot named him for two murders. But by then juries and courts were getting wary of the evidence of supergrasses, and defence lawyers had had plenty of practice at discrediting them. The case against Spider collapsed.’

Brock pushed his plate away with a grimace of distaste and took a quick pull of his beer. ‘Cockpit Lane was the heart of Spider’s web. He and his family lived just behind the Lane. The shop next door to us here was a pawnshop he owned.What’s now the cash and carry next to it was his funeral parlour.’

‘Funerals? Adonia and her father?’

‘That’s right. He owned the premises and the Despinides operated the business. What better way to get rid of unwanted bodies? We suspected that’s what they were doing,but we couldn’t catch them. After two unsuccessful exhumations the magistrates became reluctant to go on giving us permission to dig up the Despinides’ customers.’

Kathy thought of Adonia, in her cashmere and gold jewellery. ‘My God.’

‘Anyway,Spider flourished.I should say the Spider clan,because he had three sons who all followed him into the business. He got on well with the West Indians coming into the neighbourhood,and his long firm frauds were aimed at them, offloading the kind of things they wanted and would buy up quickly-cheap booze, bedding, thermal underwear, confectionery, toys, you name it.

‘When the Jamaican bad boys started arriving in ’80 and ’81, with their cocaine and their crack and their fancy guns,some of the established London gangs got a bit shirty, but not Spider. He had discovered drugs years before when he’d pressed a chemist into one of his scams, and he’d developed a local clientele in a small way, but now he saw a huge new opportunity. The drug gangs in Jamaica were making the island a staging post for Colombian cocaine on its way north, and Spider saw the chance to tap into that golden stream. He welcomed the former Garden boys and Spanglers and all the rest, and they became his partners.’

Brock stared morosely at the slimy sausage roll lying untouched on his plate. ‘I’m still hungry. I missed my dinner last night, and breakfast this morning.’ He picked it up and bit it.

Kathy watched, feeling queasy, as if Tom’s rum punch might still lurch up in her throat. She wondered whether she should try to pacify it with a hair of the dog.‘So you were involved in trying to catch Roach?’

‘Actually it’s not as bad as it looks.’ Brock took another bite. ‘Yes, very much so. This was my patch.We knew each other well. I’d bump into him and his sons in the market, in court, in here. He always had a leery smile for me. Sometimes I even suspected he felt a little sorry for me, getting nowhere. And I knew his victims, or the people they left behind, every one. Spider Roach was my big failure,Kathy.We all have them.He was mine.’

Kathy did feel sick. She got to her feet and said,‘Can I get you another beer?’

‘Shouldn’t really. Oh, what the hell.’

He handed her his empty glass and she went to the bar and ordered a rum and Coke for herself. When she returned he glanced at it and said, ‘Switched to Coke now? Not much nutrition in that either.’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised. So, are you ready to share your theory?’

He sipped, wiped his beard and nodded. ‘Whatever Joseph planned to tell me when he first asked to see me, he couldn’t have realised it implicated Spider. If he had, he’d never have suggested meeting here, right on Spider’s doorstep. But then he must have realised. He was no longer safe in the Lane. He headed into the heart of Brixton to be among black folk, as Winnie told me. But Spider’s boys tracked him down.’

Kathy thought. ‘If they were Spider’s boys. Winnie’s first thought was that they were cops. Is that possible?’

‘I’ve wondered about that too. It was the time of the riots, maybe a time of settling old scores . . . But no. I’ve thought back over the people I knew then, and I’m sure there was nobody . . .’

‘Was Bob McCulloch here then?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And Spider’s still alive?’

‘I believe so.He’d be in his late-seventies now.The last time our paths crossed was over ten years ago. I was investigating a murder in Epping. The victim turned out to be a drug dealer and the Drugs Desk got involved. Then the trail turned up a drug-smuggling route and Customs and Excise got in on the act, followed by the Fraud Squad and Special Branch. Before long we realised that Spider Roach was at the centre of it all, and a joint operation was mounted.It was a fiasco-too many cooks,all trying to outdo each other. The whole thing was so badly bungled that it led to a major review of joint operations. Several senior officers took early retirement. And once again Spider’s teflon magic had worked. By the end he was better off than ever-nobody wanted to know about him.’

‘I see. This is why you’ve been so cautious?’

Brock nodded.‘If we pursue him now we’ve got to be very sure of our ground,and we’ve got to keep it very quiet until we’re ready. In the meantime we’ll continue checking every detail of what Dana and Dee-Ann did when they came south of the river and who they met. I’m meeting DS McCulloch later this afternoon to work out how his team will help.’

He checked his watch.‘Come on, time we met the priest.’

Father Maguire offered them coffee in front of a gas fire in the sitting room of the presbytery.

‘The warmest room in the house,’ he said.‘It’s far too large this place,impossible to heat,but there you are.I bumped into Winnie on the way back just now, and she told me something of what you’re after.’

A vigorous elderly Irishman with rosy cheeks and given to explosive gestures with his hands to punctuate his words, he wasn’t much taller than Winnie. Kathy could picture the two of them together, a formidable pair.

‘Those poor souls. So you’re still trying to identify them?’

‘We think they may have been buried in April 1981,’ Brock explained.‘You were here then, is that right?’

‘Yes, I arrived in ’76. Winnie mentioned the name Joseph. I couldn’t immediately remember.’ He tapped his head. ‘Getting to the stage where if a new name comes in an old one drops out to make room. Ha! Anyway, fortunately I keep a diary of parish matters.’ He went to a bookcase behind his desk and ran his fingers across the spines.‘Yes,here we go,1981.’

‘We might need 1980 as well, if he arrived that year.’

‘True.’ The priest brought both volumes.

‘Winnie thought some time before Christmas.’

They waited while he thumbed back through the 1980 diary, clicking his tongue, until finally his finger shot into the air. ‘Got you! Thursday September eighteenth,“08.55 Gatwick, BA 2262, Joseph Kidd 19 amp; Michael Grant 15.JK to WW,MG to AL”.Well, well, he came over with young Michael then. I do remember that morning. A fine pair of likely lads.’

Kathy was making notes.‘What does that last bit mean?’

‘“JK to WW” means Joseph went to stay with Winnie Wellington, as you know, and young Michael was taken in by Abigail Lavender, just down the street here.’

‘Is that Michael Grant the MP?’

‘Oh indeed! The star of Father Guzowski’s boys, you could say.’

‘Father Guzowski?’

‘I’m sorry, I’m not explaining myself very well. Father Guzowski is a saint,or at least he will be,I’ve no doubt of it.He was an American priest,from New York,and he went down to Jamaica to run a mission in the slums of Kingston, with the poorest and most desperate. He worked miracles in the worst of circumstances. He saved lives and brought hope to thousands. And one of the things he did was to help lift young people out of the pit and offer them a new start,a new life,overseas.They were Father Guzowski’s boys, and in New York, in Toronto, and elsewhere in London, there are people like me who met them off the planes and helped to get them a job and a place to stay.

‘It didn’t always work out, of course. They came from violent backgrounds, some of them, and found it difficult to shake that off.’

He stared at the diary entry again.‘You know, I’d forgotten that they came over together. I suppose you could say they represent both ends of the spectrum of Father Guzowski’s boys.We worked hard on Joseph, as I recall, especially Winnie, but he was only interested in fast money and girls. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been dealing drugs. And now, it seems he died a violent death. Michael, on the other hand, was younger and more malleable, receptive to Abigail’s encouragement, and very bright. From the most rudimentary education in one of Father Guzowski’s schools, he developed remarkably fast. By his early twenties he was studying at university, and a few years later he was a union official with UCATT, back here in our area. Soon he came to the attention of the local politicians, and was adopted as our parliamentary candidate.Michael Grant MP is now the member for Lambeth North.’

He said the final words with a flourish of his arm, as if proudly presenting not only Michael’s but his own triumph over life’s many obstacles, the draughty old presbytery, the recalcitrant youths, the shortage of funds. ‘You might talk to Michael about Joseph, you know.’

‘Yes, good idea,’ Brock said.

‘His constituency office is in the shop next door to the Ship.’

‘Where Spider Roach had his pawnshop? You’ll remember Spider Roach, of course.’

‘Oh indeed.’ Father Maguire seemed suddenly wary.

‘He must have been a thorn in your side. He certainly was in mine.’

‘He was a powerful figure around these parts, all right, and a baleful influence on many lives. But I hear he’s a changed man now, a great giver of charity. In point of fact . . .’ Kathy thought she detected some embarrassment here,‘. . .he paid for the repairs to the church spire last year, and donated computers to the school. A sinner’s repentance is a wonderful thing.’

He met Brock’s stony gaze.

‘Does he still come down here then?’

‘No. I haven’t seen him in years.’

‘What about his sons?’

‘Nor them. I heard they all moved out to Shooters Hill.’

‘Doyouhave anything else that might help us then,Father? Any particular friends of Joseph? Or any recollections of that night,Saturday the eleventh of April 1981? It was the time of the riots in Brixton.’

The priest thumbed through the second diary but found nothing. He couldn’t remember the surname of Joseph’s friend Walter, or anything about a third member of the group. Abigail Lavender’s husband had died and she’d moved away, but he wasn’t sure where to.

‘Maybe you could ponder on it and let us know if anything comes to mind.Would you have a photograph of Joseph?’

‘Well now, that is possible. I used to make a habit of taking a picture of the boys when they arrived, to send back to Father Guzowski. Let’s see, let’s see.We’ve been making an effort to get my papers in order.’

He bustled across to a couple of old wooden filing cabinets in a corner of the room and began searching through the drawers. ‘Here we are. It would be with these, if it’s anywhere.’

He laid a sheaf of photos on his desk and turned them over until one caught his eye.‘This would be them, I think.Yes.’ He showed a picture of two young men grinning at the camera, one tall and skinny and bow-legged with his arm around the shoulders of the other, more guarded and boyishly handsome.

‘Thank you, Father.’ Brock took the picture. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

‘I’d like it back, if that’s all right. I’ve had it in my mind for some time to write a little memoir of Father Guzowski’s boys. Somebody should.’

The path from the front door of the presbytery to the street wound around an ancient black yew tree,and as they emerged from its shelter they noticed a blue Peugeot convertible parked at the opposite kerb, emitting the usual heavy thumping bass. The side windows were tinted dark so they couldn’t see who was inside. Just then, with perfect timing, a police patrol car swung around the corner and pulled in behind the Peugeot. Two young uniformed cops got out, a man and a woman, and approached it. The woman tapped on the driver’s window and the door swung open,filling the quiet street with booming hip hop, and Mr Teddy Vexx heaved himself out. The policewoman said something to him and he reached back inside the car and turned the music off, then straightened again.She stood close in front of him,a good foot shorter,and delivered a short lecture, pointing to the no-parking sign, the double yellow line and the distance to the corner. All the time he stood there impassively, huge arms folded across the gold chains draped over his chest, staring across the road at Kathy and Brock. He was wearing a black bandana around his head and dark glasses. The constable asked for something and he reached to his hip pocket and produced a wallet, handing her his driver’s licence.While she walked away,talking into her radio,her partner was peering into the car. The rules prevented him from searching it without due cause, something suspicious he could actually see or smell, and he looked slightly comic bent to the opening, nose twitching, straining for an excuse. Vexx said something and the cop straightened sharply and said,‘What’s that,sir? Speak English,please.’

Kathy and Brock walked away.

‘I owe you a fiver.’

He chuckled.‘You’ve established a date?’

‘April 1981.’

‘Interesting. How about buying me a pizza tonight? You can tell me all about it.’

‘Suits me.’

‘Can I pick you up at seven?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

‘And I may have something interesting for you.’

‘Great, as long as it’s not rum punch.’

‘Aw, I thought you liked my rum punch.’

‘I did, but it refuses to let go.’

‘I know what you mean. I’ve got this strange limp today.’

‘Strange limp what?’

‘Now, now.’

That afternoon Bren had returned to Queen Anne’s Gate to set up the case room for a new phase of the investigation, while Kathy got to work on Joseph Kidd.She established that he had entered the country on the eighteenth of September 1980, but there were no further records of him either leaving or returning. He had been allocated a National Insurance number the following month, but there were no records of any social security, national health or income tax transactions on that number. He had had no driver’s licence,bank accounts,police record or traffic offences.As far as the record was concerned, sometime during 1981 Joseph Kidd had simply ceased to exist, although no one had ever reported him missing. Kathy looked at the copy of Father Maguire’s photo of the two boys pinned to the wall, feeling the poignancy of that brief moment of elation at the arrivals gate at Gatwick. One boy had gone on to success in his new country, the other had disappeared into the void.She began to assemble the material that would be sent to the JCF in Kingston and to Interpol.

Brock, meanwhile, had got through to Michael Grant in his office at the Houses of Parliament. The MP had already heard from Father Maguire, and said he’d been intending to contact Brock. He said he’d come over immediately, Queen Anne’s Gate being only a short walk away, and ten minutes later Brock met him at the front door. Seeing him again he recognised the handsome boy of the photograph, but the caution in his look had been replaced, or masked, by that air of open energy and confidence.

‘I’ve been wanting to get in touch again ever since the rumours started about finding bodies on the railway land.Is this where you’re running that investigation from? No chance of seeing the operations centre, I suppose?’

‘Of course. This way.’ Brock led him along the corridor to the main case room, once a merchant’s drawing room with tall sash windows to both the street and the small courtyard at the rear.

There he introduced him to Bren and Kathy, whom he remembered, and gave him a tour of the material on the walls- the gridded site map, the photographs of retrieved items and, most recently, the enlarged photograph of Joseph and himself.

‘Oh my goodness.’ Grant stared for a long moment at the picture.‘Father Maguire said he’d found a photo. I never knew it existed. Is there any chance, do you think, of getting a copy?’

‘Certainly.’ Brock had a word to Kathy, who nodded and went to her computer.‘Let’s sit down and see what you can tell us,shall we? Tea or coffee?’

‘Tea would be good.’

‘Yes, always the safer bet.’ Brock led the way to a conference table by the window overlooking the rear courtyard.

‘So you think Joseph is one of your victims?’

‘It looks very likely, Mr Grant. We’re trying to contact his family in Jamaica to make a DNA match, but we’re having trouble tracing them. Can you help us with that?’

‘I don’t think I can.You see, I didn’t know Joseph before we came out together. Father Guzowski introduced us for the first time at Kingston airport.’

‘Didn’t Joseph talk about his background? Mrs Wellington thinks he was from Tivoli Gardens.’

‘Actually, that does ring a bell. I’m sure we must have chatted about things like that on the flight over, but I don’t remember. He was a few years older than me, and I can recall feeling a bit intimidated. To tell the truth, I was pretty overwhelmed by the whole experience. It was my first trip out of Kingston, my first flight. And I didn’t come from Tivoli Gardens.’ He gave a wry smile.‘The Gardens was a rough district, but we used to think of it as a step up from where we lived. I came from Riverton City, on the edge of town. Riverton City was the Soweto of Kingston, grown up around the Dungle, the Kingston City rubbish dump, which was pretty much the only resource the people there had to live off. It’s all been cleared away now, transformed into what they call Riverton Meadows.’

Kathy arrived with his copy of the photograph and mugs of tea.

‘You would have kept in touch with Joseph when you arrived here, I take it?’ Brock asked.

‘No. Oh, I saw him around, but I wasn’t in his circle. The whole point of Father Guzowski sending me here,as he drummed into me again and again, was to get an education. He believed in me, said I could do it and mustn’t let him down. I worshipped the man.With the help of Father Maguire and Abigail Lavender I just buried myself in schoolwork-I was so far behind the English kids, you see. I don’t know what Joseph was up to,but it certainly wasn’t studying.’

‘What about his friends, someone called Walter and another, older man? They called themselves the . . .’ Brock checked his notes,‘. . . the Tosh Posse.’

‘Oh, after Peter Tosh, yes?’

Brock looked puzzled.

‘He was one of the three original Wailers, with Bob Marley in Trench Town. But no, I didn’t know Joseph’s friends.You think they could be the other bodies?’

‘It’s possible.’ Brock described the physical characteristics they’d been able to establish, and for a moment he thought that something registered with Grant, then faded.

‘No, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help with Joseph or his friends. I’m sorry. And what about the murders of the two girls? Has there been any progress there?’

‘DCI Savage believes they were killed because of something that happened in Harlesden, where they came from. He’s quite optimistic about some leads he’s following up there.’

‘I see.’ Grant looked carefully at Brock. ‘You don’t sound entirely convinced.’

‘I’m keeping an open mind. We’re still trying to trace their movements after they arrived in Cockpit Lane, and find the people they made contact with. It’s a slow business, but it usually brings results in the end.’

‘Good.’ Grant paused, looked back over his shoulder at the people working, then leaned towards Brock and spoke more softly. ‘Father Maguire mentioned to me that you were asking about Spider Roach. Can I ask, do you think he was involved with the bodies on the railway land?’

Brock hesitated.‘What would your interest be in that?’

Still in the same quiet voice,but stabbing the table with a finger to emphasise his points, the MP said,‘When I arrived in Cockpit Lane I thought it was paradise compared to where I’d come from. But I quickly learned that there was a nasty serpent in paradise. Spider Roach and his gang had an iron grip on that part of the city, and everyone was terrified of him. I saw what he did to people. Abigail Lavender’s husband had both legs broken because he threatened to go to the police with something he’d seen. They told him the next time they’d take the hammer to Abigail.’

Brock nodded.‘I was a detective in the area then.I remember Mr Lavender. The hospital reported his injuries, but he wouldn’t say a word.’

‘Then you know what I’m talking about. But do you know that Spider Roach is still there, still sucking the life out of those people like a predatory leech?’

‘Still there? I thought he’d moved away?’

‘Oh, you won’t see him on the streets any more, or his sons, but they’re still operating there, through their agents, behind the scenes, intimidating, destroying our young people with drugs.’

Brock looked sceptical.‘Do you have any evidence of this?’

‘I have evidence enough to know I’m right, but not enough to interest the police. Perhaps you know of the reluctance in some quarters to pursue Spider Roach. But if you have some new evidence against him, it may be that I can help you. I have a strong constituency network, including people who were around in 1981.’

Still Brock hesitated, weighing the risks. In the end it was the strong impression that Michael Grant had made on him, his passion and conviction, that persuaded him to open up.

‘Joseph Kidd disappeared on the night of April the eleventh, 1981, the night of the Brixton riots. He told a witness that he was going to the Windsor Castle, which was burnt down that night. He appeared to be in fear of his life, and was apparently being pursued by two white men. A witness thought they might be Roach’s men. I’d be very interested to know if Joseph and his friends had upset Roach in some way, if they did jobs for him, or were ever seen in the company of Roach and his sons. I’d also be interested in finding anyone who was in the Cat and Fiddle in Angell Town that night, or between there and the Windsor Castle, and who may have seen Joseph or the two men.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘But very discreetly, please, Mr Grant. As you say, plenty of people around here never want to hear Roach’s name mentioned again.’

‘I understand. Thank you for being so open with me, Chief Inspector.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Now, I must dash. I have a committee meeting. Home Affairs Committee, you know it?’

Brock caught the gleam in Grant’s eye.‘I don’t think so.’

‘You should. It’s a Departmental Select Committee, charged with scrutinising the operations of the Home Office, the Attorney General’s Office, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Serious Fraud Office.You lot, in other words.’

He grinned and got to his feet, shaking Brock’s hand.

When he returned to his office Brock put a call through to Keith Savage. The Trident detective spoke with a renewed confidence. Things were going well, he said, and arrests were expected shortly. Several sources had confirmed that Dana and Dee-Ann had stolen drugs from a powerful underworld figure in Harlesden, and Savage hoped their murders would provide the opportunity to close him and his operations down for good. And this time the team was going to do the job properly, at their own pace. Brock told him what they’d learned about the bodies on the railway land and asked if the Trident records might throw any light on them.

‘They don’t go much further back than 1998,’ Savage said, ‘when we were formed. There were earlier operations, of course, going back to the “Yardie Squad”, Operation Lucy, in 1988. Before that you’re talking ancient history, I’m afraid. Things have changed a lot since those days. For a start, most of our villains today aren’t Yardies at all-they were born here.’

‘While other things never change,’ Brock said.‘The guns and the crack are still concentrated in the poorest boroughs.’

‘True enough.’

‘So you don’t think you can help us identify our three victims?’

‘Sorry, it’s all too long ago. Ancient history.’

‘Right. Incidentally, I came across a little quirk of ancient history that may intrigue you. That name that Michael Grant gave you-Roach.’

‘Yes?’ Savage was cautious.‘What about it?’

‘It seems that Mrs Ivor Roach was hurt one day last week in a robbery.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Her car was stolen as she was getting into it, by two unidentified black kids. I’m wondering if there could be a connection.’

Savage was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Million to one, I’d say.’

‘Yes, you’re probably right.’

Kathy’s phone rang precisely on seven. Icy rain was battering the window.

‘Hi, I’m downstairs.’

‘I’m ready, be down in a minute.’

‘I’ll meet you at the door. I’ve got a brolly. By the way, I, er . . . I have someone else with me.’ He sounded uncharacteristically hesitant.

‘Okay, fine,’ she said, slipped on her coat and grabbed her bag. She took the lift down to the lobby and saw his car parked directly outside under the lights. In the rear window she could make out the pale face of a small figure.

Tom wrestled his umbrella open. ‘Hi.’ He offered her a smile and an arm, but no kiss.‘What a night!’

Kathy smiled back.‘Hello.Who’s your passenger?’

‘It’s my daughter, Amy. I’m sorry, I’d forgotten that I’m supposed to feed her before I take her back to her mother’s.’ He looked acutely embarrassed.

‘That’s fine,’ she said, sounding more enthusiastic than she felt. ‘I’d like to meet her. How old is she?’

‘Nine.’

They scurried across to the car together and Kathy slid into the passenger seat and turned around to meet the eyes of the young girl staring at her from the back.

‘Hello, I’m Kathy.’

‘I’m Amy.’ Her expression was grave, and Kathy couldn’t quite shake off her first impression of a little old lady.

‘We’ve been out together,Kathy,’Tom said.‘Tell Kathy where we’ve been, Amy.’

‘The London Dungeon,’ the girl said, still inspecting Kathy carefully.

‘Oh yes? Any good?’

‘Yes.’ Amy turned away as they moved off, wipers beating against the storm.‘It was all right.’

‘It was horrible,’ Tom said.‘I felt sick.’

Amy said flatly,‘He didn’t like the blood when they cut off the queen’s head.’

‘Too right. Not a good evening to be out on your site, Kathy.’

‘No, they were expecting this. It’ll be flooded.’

‘Is that the murder site?’ Amy asked.‘Can we go there?’

‘Not tonight, sweetheart,’ Tom said.

He dropped them at the door of the pizza restaurant while he tried to find a parking space, and Kathy and Amy hurried inside together. The place was bright, warm and busy, and they found a table and took off their coats. Looking around Kathy saw young women in studded belts, stretch jeans and pointy black boots, looking like refugees from the eighties. On the wall were framed posters for The Cure and Depeche Mode. It seemed that Brock wasn’t the only one having an eighties revival.

She noticed that Amy had been clutching a fat paperback under her raincoat.

‘You’re a reader, like your dad.’

‘Yes,’ Amy said, settling herself.‘We’re very alike.’ She glanced around at the other tables. ‘I shouldn’t really be here. I’m on the Atkins diet.’

Kathy looked at her in surprise.‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’She screwed her nose up at the menu.‘The most dangerous food additive on the planet is sugar, in all its forms.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. How many bodies have you found so far?’

‘Three.’

‘Yuk, doughnuts, twenty-seven carbs.Were they all together?’

‘No, they were spaced apart.’

The precocious manner sat uncomfortably on the little girl and Kathy suspected that it was her form of protest at having to share her father with her.

‘Can you draw a plan?’

Kathy smiled at the girl’s serious expression, as if they were discussing a professional problem of great mutual concern. She took a pen from her bag and drew a diagram on a paper napkin with three crosses. ‘We call them Alpha, Bravo and Charlie.’

‘Hm . . . Doesn’t that mean they were shot separately? If they were shot at the same time you’d dig one big hole, not three little ones, wouldn’t you?’

‘Sounds reasonable.’

‘How did the murderers get onto the land?’

‘We think from here, a derelict warehouse.’

‘So this would have been the first grave . . .’ Amy pointed to Bravo,‘. . . followed by Alpha, then Charlie.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘Bravo is the closest to where they got in, right in the middle of the site, halfway to the railway. The next time they went past that spot to here, and the third time further again, to here. I bet you I’m right, fifty p.’

‘Okay, you’re on.You’re pretty smart. Do you want a Coke?’

‘I’m going to be a forensic pathologist. Forty-one carbs, no thanks. I’ll have a Diet Pepsi, zero carbs.’

‘You should meet our forensic anthropologist, Dr Prior.You’d like her. She worked out just about everything we know from their bones.’

‘Cool. If you’re going to have pizza, I’d advise the thin ’n crispy, and definitely not the Hawaiian.’

‘All right.’

Tom arrived, shaking off rainwater.‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine. Amy and I have just made our first bet. And here’s the fiver I owe you.’

They ordered, three thin ’n crispies, and chatted happily for an hour until Tom said he had to get Amy back to her mother’s. As she sat in the car, watching Tom and his daughter running to the front door beneath the umbrella, Kathy felt as if she’d been given another little glimpse into Tom’s life, and wondered if it had been as accidental as he’d made out. Afterwards they went for a drink, and he told her a little more about his ex-wife, divorced now for six years.

‘Amy seems very bright,’ Kathy said.

‘She’s like a sponge, soaks it all up.’

‘Isn’t she a bit young to be on a diet?’

He laughed.‘Is that what she told you?’

‘Yes, she’s very serious about it, telling me exactly how many carbs there were in everything on the menu.’

‘She was having you on, Kathy. That’s her mother, she’s obsessed by all that stuff. This afternoon Amy had, let’s see, one chocolate milkshake, two hot dogs, one sticky doughnut, two Cokes and a bowl of chips. All the stuff her mum tells her she can’t have.’

‘I see.’

‘What’s your bet about?’

‘She told me the order in which the bodies were buried, for fifty pence.’

‘Aha.’

Kathy saw the grin on Tom’s face.‘What’s the joke?’

‘Nothing. She’s smart all right.’

They both felt like an early night and Tom drove her home. They reached the forecourt of her building, the rain still pounding, and ran with the umbrella to the front door. Beneath its black canopy he kissed her cheek, then mouth.

‘You didn’t mind too much, me taking you out with Amy,

did you?’ ‘No, of course not. I was really pleased to meet her. It was fun.’ ‘Good. Oh, look, I forgot about that thing I’ve got for you.’

He patted his pocket.‘We really need some light.’ ‘Want to come up to the flat?’ ‘Maybe I should.’ As they went up in the lift Kathy realised that this was the first

time she’d brought a man up to her flat since Leon had lived there with her. She felt a little itch of disquiet, sharing her lift, her front door, her living room, with a man again.

‘Take your jacket off,’she said.‘It’s wet.Want a glass of wine?’ ‘Thanks. So are my trousers.’ ‘Feel free,’ she laughed, but he kept them on. In fact, he

seemed to sense her reserve about having him there, and sat quietly on the sofa.

She got a bottle of verdelho from the fridge and poured two glasses, giving him one. In return he handed her the envelope he’d taken from his jacket pocket. Inside she found a single sheet of paper with a short paragraph of print. She sipped her wine and read.

The Browning 9mm Hi-Power automatic pistol remains the weapon of choice among Yardie gang members. These guns are often difficult to trace as they are sold, exchanged and passed around between different users. On the other hand, tracking the use of the same weapon in various locations can be employed to reveal previously unknown connections between different groups (see ATF case study US/1/84). Sometimes individual guns acquire a reputation and a nickname, often playing on the Browning label,as in ‘Brown Maggie’,‘Big Brownie’and ‘Brown Bread’. The last, never traced, is believed to have been used in at least six separate shootings across South London in the 1980s.

She stared at it, surprised that he’d remembered. ‘Hell. Why didn’t we find this?’

‘It’s one of a series of Special Branch internal intelligence memos. I tracked it down this morning. I couldn’t find any other reference to the six shootings, but you’re bound to have that gun somewhere on your files, probably from the days before records were computerised.’

‘Yes, thank you, Tom. That’s terrific. Brock’ll be delighted.’ ‘As long as you are.’He hesitated,then said,‘If he needs more,

just let me know. I can maybe do some digging.’ ‘Okay. He’s interested in your having been to Jamaica.’ ‘Oh yes? Well, this should earn you a few Brownie points.’ She laughed.‘That’s right,and I got a few this morning when

I worked out the date of the shooting.’ ‘Yes, tell me about that.’ So she told him about her day, and then he told her about his,

escorting the sinister colonel’s wife around Harrods while her husband was negotiating at the peace conference. He put his arm around her.‘I blew it last night, didn’t I? Too

much rum punch and Red Stripe. Sorry about that.’ ‘I enjoyed it. Anyway, there’s plenty of time.’ ‘That was the first time I’d invited a woman to my flat in

years, you know. I got a bit carried away.’ She stroked a slick of rain-damp hair from his brow, feeling a growing warmth inside her, but also an unease that wasn’t just to

do with having a man in her private space. Perhaps it was the lack of preparation for meeting his little girl, or more likely the sighting of Teddy Vexx again that afternoon.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m just tired.’

‘Sure.’He smiled and shrugged on his jacket,still wet.‘Thanks for the pizza. And thanks for being so nice to Amy.’

‘And thank you for the stuff on Brown Bread. I’ll speak to Brock first thing. He’ll want to see this as soon as possible.’

The next morning Kathy met Brock on his way into the office. She showed him Tom’s information on Brown Bread and he raised an eyebrow.

‘Could be something in it, I suppose.You could speak to the boy again. He might say more without me around. Tom Reeves seems to be taking quite an interest in the case.’ Brock gave her a little smile.

‘Yes, well . . . the Jamaican connection, you know.’

She returned to her computer and tried to find references to the six Brown Bread shootings, but without success. Neither of the records of the two shootings that ballistics had linked to the cartridge cases found on the railway land carried any references to ‘Brown Bread’. Finally she rang up her friend Nicole Palmer in Criminal Records at the National Identification Service, to ask for her help.

‘And how’s the boyfriend?’ Nicole asked.‘I hear he’s back.’

‘Nothing gets past Palmer of the NIS, does it?’

‘The real question is why you kept it a secret, Kathy. I had to rely on Lloyd bumping into him. He said that you were going out again.’

‘Bit early to say.’

‘Oh, come on, Kathy. Get in there. He’s perfect.’

‘Apart from the odd prolonged disappearance.’

‘That’s his work. And according to Lloyd he’s getting out of Special Branch as soon as he can.We need to talk about this. I’m worried about your attitude.’

Kathy laughed. Nicole was perfect for the NIS, she thought. She just loved information,the more human and intimate the better.

‘If you can get me anything on Brown Bread by lunchtime I’ll buy you a sandwich.’

‘Done.’

The headmistress at Camberwell Secondary seemed pleased to see Kathy again.‘I can’t pretend we don’t find all this pretty exciting. It’s a struggle to keep the kids’ attention in the classes on the upper floor, from where they can see your people working, and it’s the only topic in the staff room. Have you found out what brown bread means?’

‘It’s possible that it’s the name of a pistol,’ Kathy said, and watched the enthusiasm drain from the other woman’s face.

‘Oh no. Not guns again.’

‘Has that been a problem here?’

‘Not inside the school,so far,which is a miracle I suppose,given what goes on right outside the gates these days.The shooting of the two girls next door wasn’t the only one. Somebody shot the news-agent round the corner last month, just for a packet of cigarettes.

I’ve dreaded becoming one of those places with guards and metal detectors at the front gates.’ She shook her head in frustration.‘I’d never have thought it of Adam Nightingale, but none of them are immune,are they? Not when there are so many terrible role models out there.’

‘I’d like to talk to him again. It may not be what we think.’

The boy appeared, sullen and withdrawn, and was told to sit facing Kathy while the headmistress took her seat behind her desk. Kathy waited for a moment, saying nothing, staring at Adam long enough for him to shift with discomfort, then she reached into her shoulder bag and took out something wrapped in black plastic, about the size of a hand. She put it down on the edge of the desk between her and the boy, hard enough for him to hear the clunk of metal against wood.

He gave a sharp gasp, staring at it.‘You found it,’ he whispered. ‘It was there.’

‘It was like a quest,’ Kathy said later at the team meeting.‘The story had been circulating among the boys in the school for years, an urban myth, passed on from generation to generation, of a gun called Brown Bread belonging to a notorious gangsta murderer being thrown from a passing train onto the waste ground and never found. By the time it percolated down to Adam’s year it had almost faded away. Nobody really believed it except him. He was obsessed by it.The gun became a kind of talisman that would give him some respect around the place and stop him being bullied.When he saw McCulloch’s people searching the railway land he panicked and decided to get in there first.Afterwards he couldn’t admit what he’d been after without being seen as an even bigger nerd, and the bullying would’ve got worse. I let him think we found it.’

‘But it isn’t there?’ Brock asked Bren.

‘Not a chance, chief.We’ve now covered every inch of our site and along both railway banks to north and south for a distance of fifty yards with metal detectors and ground-penetrating radar. There won’t be any more surprises.’

Bren went on to report progress at the site. More fragments of bones and clothing had been found, but neither a third cartridge nor Charlie’s skull. Someone asked about the foxes and Bren pointed out on the plan where two dens had been found. That was normal, he said, as foxes liked to have an alternative hiding place for emergencies. This being the breeding season, they’d found three dead pups in one of the dens, together with some small gnawed human and animal bones. The foxes themselves hadn’t been seen.

He then came to the final part of his report and, although Bren rarely showed much excitement, it was obvious from his animation that he thought this was good. It was a line of reasoning that he had been developing with the forensic team, to understand the sequence and timing of the three murders. On a map of the railway land he pointed out their locations and the probable routes taken by the victims and their killers,and put forward an argument for the order of events that was almost exactly the same as Amy had suggested to Kathy in the cafe the previous evening.

Brock was impressed. ‘Makes sense,’ he growled, as if edging closer to some hidden truth. ‘So Bravo-Joseph Kidd-was the first of a series of three separate murders and burials that began, presumably, on the eleventh of April. How long did it last?’

‘Can’t say for sure, chief, but Dr Prior says the skeletal remains are indistinguishable in terms of aging. She doesn’t think they were too far apart.’

When they broke up Kathy spoke to Bren. ‘That was a neat bit of deduction.When did you work it out?’

‘Yesterday. It was Dr Prior’s idea mainly.’ ‘You didn’t happen to mention it to Tom Reeves yesterday,

did you?’

‘Yes, I did actually. He called in to the site. Said he was just passing. He seems very interested in this case. Aren’t they keeping him busy enough in Special Branch?’

‘He’s on some escort duty, pretty boring I think.’

‘Do you reckon he’s looking for a transfer over here?’

‘Over here?’ Kathy was startled. ‘I don’t think so. There wouldn’t be a vacancy anyway, would there?’

‘S’pose not.’

As she went back to her desk, Kathy turned this over in her mind. She was finding herself thinking about Tom more and more these days, but the idea of him moving into Brock’s team made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. Experience had taught her to keep her private life separate from her work, but there was also the matter of her rank and position in the team. As detective sergeant, Kathy had already passed the exams for inspector, but her promotion was on hold because it would mean moving to another unit, which she refused to do. If there was any possibility of an inspector position becoming available at Queen Anne’s Gate, she was determined it was going to be hers.

She met Nicole for a quick lunch as arranged, but she too had been unable to find any references to Brown Bread. It seemed it existed only as an old piece of intelligence buried in the internal files of Special Branch. After some probing interrogation and advice from her friend, Kathy paid for the lunch and returned to the office, where she rang Tom’s mobile.

‘Hi, can you talk?’ she asked.

‘They’re halfway through a hugely expensive lunch at the Connaught, no doubt at British taxpayers’ expense.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Not me. I’m sitting outside drinking a cup of coffee. How are you?’

‘Okay. What were you doing on the site at Mafeking Road yesterday?’

‘Looking for you,of course.Had to make do with Bren Gurney.’

‘And he told you about his theory of how the murders were committed, which you then told Amy.’

‘Ah. It’s a fair cop. Are you mad at us?’

‘Not really. I should have worked it out.’

‘Amy was nervous about meeting you, but she told me later that she liked you.’

‘Well, it looks like I owe her fifty pence. Now I wonder if I can ask a favour?’

‘Sure, go ahead.’

She told him about her difficulty in tracing the Brown Bread shootings, and he said he’d make some calls. He got back to her half an hour later with one name, Johnny Mulroy, a thief and police informant who had been murdered by Brown Bread in 1985. Tom said it would involve a lot more research to track down the other five shootings, but for Kathy that one was enough. She knew of the Johnny Mulroy case, because it was one of the two shootings that ballistics had tied to the cartridges on the railway land.

‘That’s great, Tom. Thank you. I owe you.’

‘How about a drink after work tonight?’ He mentioned a bar and she agreed, then went to see Brock and told him what she had.

He was very interested in Brown Bread now.‘We need those other five cases, Kathy. If we can tie the Roaches to any one of them, then we can tie them to our three corpses.’

‘It’ll mean a trawl through Special Branch files.’

He nodded.‘I’ll speak to them.’

She was the first to arrive at the bar that evening. She sat watching the door, and felt a warm buzz of pleasure when he appeared. Nicole was right, she decided, he was exactly what she needed.

He kissed her cheek, his face cool from the night air.‘Hi,’ he said, then stood back a moment and stared at her.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’he said.‘I came through the door there and saw the most beautiful girl in London sitting at the bar, and she was waiting for me.’

She laughed, pleased by his flattery. ‘I’m a cop, Tom, highly trained to detect bullshit.’

‘But I mean it.’ He ordered a drink and sat beside her. ‘How was your day?’

‘Good. Brock was very impressed with what you gave me. He said he’d speak to your people about searching out the other cases.’

‘Yes, he did it. I thought I was in trouble when my boss called me in and asked me how come I’d been giving information to Brock. But he seemed happy enough when I explained. He’s keen on interdepartmental cooperation. I think it’s in our mission statement somewhere. Anyway, it seems the colonel and his wife are heading back to Africa and no longer need me, thank goodness, so the boss offered my services to Brock to follow up on the Brown Bread cases. Good, eh? I’ll get to work with you.’

‘Oh . . . yes. That’s great, Tom.’

‘Yeah. I’m to report to Queen Anne’s Gate tomorrow at eight-thirty to brief Brock on what’s involved.’ He took a deep pull at his lager. ‘I must admit, it feels good to get involved with some real detective work again.’

The next morning, Kathy met Tom in the front lobby of the Queen Anne’s Gate offices and took him up through the labyrinth of corridors and staircases that had been knocked together from the original houses that made up the terrace.

When they reached the top floor she introduced him to Brock’s secretary Dot, and said, ‘Look in on me when you’re finished. I’ll be in the case room on the ground floor, down the corridor from the entrance.’

‘I think I’ll need Ariadne’s thread to find my way out again.’

‘Dot’ll show you the way, or she can give me a ring to come and get you.’

Kathy returned to the case room, where she settled at a computer and got back to trying to find references to a possible missing person called Walter.Around her other team members dribbled in, starting the day with cups of coffee and yawning accounts of what they’d done the previous night.

Tom appeared after half an hour, looking bouncy and cheerful. He said hello to Bren and the others, then Kathy walked with him to the front door.‘How did it go?’

‘Good,especially after I recognised the picture of Spider Roach on his wall.You didn’t mention that you were interested in him.’

‘No, I didn’t. How do you know him?’

‘We did a little bit of work on him, some time ago.We helped put a couple of his business buddies away. You should have mentioned it.’

‘I didn’t know we were working together then.’

‘He’s asked me to report back later this afternoon with whatever I’ve found,so maybe I’ll see you then.’He waved goodbye,and Kathy returned to her search.

It was frustrating work, and there were continual interruptions, so that she felt she’d achieved nothing by the time Tom returned. He, on the other hand, seemed to have done well. He was carrying a box of files and papers, and she showed him to a meeting room for his briefing, where they were joined by Brock and Bren.

He had been able to identify all six of the shootings referred to in the Special Branch memo. They comprised four murders, one attempted murder and one drive-by shooting. They included the two shootings that ballistics had linked to the railway land cartridges, and they had all occurred between 1981 and 1987. Tom had marked the pattern of their locations across a map of South London, like a cluster of hits on a target.

‘Interesting,’ Brock said, unfolding his half-lens glasses and peering at the map intently, as if he might decipher some hidden message. ‘You’ve pretty well exactly defined Spider Roach’s territory during the 1980s. It’s like the map of some lethal dog pissing on lampposts.’ He stuck a finger at Cockpit Lane at the centre.‘And that was his kennel.’

He sat back down with a look of satisfaction.

Tom went on to summarise what he knew about the victims. Apart from their own three corpses, there had been two West Indian, one South Asian and three white victims, all male. Two of them had criminal records-Johnny Mulroy, and a well-known Jamaican disc jockey whose charges of drug trafficking were pending at the time of his death. Three other men were local businessmen and the sixth appeared to be a chance victim caught up in a car theft.

‘Indiscriminate and non-racial,’ Brock said.‘That’s Spider.’

Kathy noticed Tom give a grudging nod of agreement, his theory of feuding Yardie gangsters apparently demolished.

‘What now?’ Brock asked.

‘We should reopen the files on the six cases. There may be witness statements describing the gunmen, maybe facial composites, fingerprints even.’

‘But all of these cases were unsolved, yes? And the matching gun was never found?’

‘That’s right. In most of the cases the ballistic evidence isn’t very helpful, which is why you didn’t get a match straight away. The name “Brown Bread” came from undercover sources. Apparently it was widely believed among young Jamaicans at the time that the disc jockey had been shot by a gun of that name, and that the gun had been used in a number of other shootings, which were narrowed down to those six.’

‘We should get ballistics to review all the evidence,’ Bren suggested.‘They’ve got better equipment now.’

They discussed the individual cases for a while, Brock listening in silence, then he sat up and told them what they would do. There were three urgent lines of inquiry, he said. The first, to be investigated by a team led by Bren, would reopen the six Brown Bread cases that Tom had discovered; a second team would scour the dozens of possible sources of film and still photographs taken in Brixton on the night of the riots;and the third,led by Kathy,would work the area from Cockpit Lane down to the centre of Brixton looking for eyewitnesses from that night, starting with whatever sources Michael Grant had promised to find.

‘Tom,’ he added, ‘you’ve been a great help with this, and I’m sure there’s more about Brown Bread and the Roach family tucked away in Branch files. Are you interested in spending a bit more time helping us?’

‘Yes, absolutely.’

‘Then, if you’re agreeable, I might ask your boss if you could be spared to work over here with us for, say, a couple of weeks. What do you think?’

‘I think he’ll probably be delighted,’ Tom grinned.

He was right, apparently, and the next morning he arrived with several boxes of files, as well as a carrier bag containing assorted bits and pieces, including his coffee mug, as if he were moving in for the duration. Bren gave him a desk next to his own, and they settled down to work on the old case files.When Kathy later went to see what they were up to, she was surprised to find the two of them in the basement, in the Bride of Denmark, the curious little private snug bar which the previous owners, a publishing firm, had lovingly constructed out of bits retrieved from bombed and demolished London pubs. Bren and Tom were leaning on the ancient bar, beer bottles in hand, heads together as if they were old mates at their local. The Bride was, to say the least,an anachronism in a Scotland Yard office building,studiously overlooked by Admin, and only Brock had ever invited outsiders down there. Kathy had never seen any of the team take a drink except at Brock’s invitation. Bren knew this, of course, and there was an awkward moment as he saw Kathy stoop through the low vault to come in.

‘Kathy, hi. I was just showing Tom around.Would you, er, care for one?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Isn’t this just the most amazing place?’ Tom said. He waved the hand holding the bottle, almost empty. ‘The stuffed lion, the salmon, the mahogany. I mean, who would believe it?’

‘Well, just don’t go telling any of your mates at the Branch,’ Kathy said.‘If head office hears we’re down here boozing all day they’ll have the wreckers over in no time.’

‘Relax, Kathy,’ Tom said expansively.‘I’m not likely to let them in on this now, am I?’ As if he were no longer one of them.‘And you know you’re partial to a drop now and again. I was telling Bren about Red Stripe. Maybe I’ll buy a case for the Bride next time I’m down Cockpit Lane.’

Kathy frowned at Bren, who winced with embarrassment. ‘I just came down to see how you’re going with the case files.’

‘It’s coming along,’ Bren said.‘Tom dug up a lot of useful stuff. How about you?’

‘Yes, making some progress. I’m going over to see the MP soon,to see what he’s come up with.Well,see you.’

‘Yes.’ Bren hurriedly finished his bottle and began gathering up the bottle tops as if cleaning up a crime scene.

Tom followed Kathy out.‘Hey, you okay? You sound fed up.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Um, I’m going out with some of the blokes tonight to play squash, otherwise . . .You free tomorrow evening?’

‘No, I’m going to see some friends this weekend.’ It wasn’t quite true, but she suddenly felt she wanted a bit of time to herself.

‘Are you sure you’re not mad at me over something? Is it Amy, me springing her on you like that?’

‘No. I liked Amy.’

‘I’m glad. She’s been talking a lot about you. She had some idea you were taking her to a path lab, but I told her that wasn’t possible.’

Kathy didn’t remember actually saying she’d take the girl to Dr Prior, but she said, ‘I may have mentioned something along those lines.Yes,I will try.When would she be free?’

‘Oh well, if you’re sure . . . any afternoon after school, I suppose.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, Tom. No promises.’

She got on the phone when she returned to her desk. Dr Prior was cooperative.

‘Yes, no problem, but could you make it tonight? I’m off to a conference in Germany on Monday and I won’t be back for a while.’

Kathy phoned Tom, who phoned Amy’s school (a small domestic emergency, he explained) to speak to Amy, and within twenty minutes it was arranged.

Tom gave Kathy a lift to Michael Grant’s constituency office in Cockpit Lane in his Subaru, saying he would pick up his daughter while she was busy.

‘I really appreciate you doing this for Amy,’ he said. ‘She’s beside herself.’

‘It’s a pleasure.’ Kathy felt she’d maybe been too defensive about Tom moving into Queen Anne’s Gate. Perhaps things would be all right.‘What do you think about Brock’s idea that the Roaches are behind all the killings?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t like it at first, though I could be convinced. But really, all we’ve got is a possible sighting of two white guys in a crowded pub, twenty-odd years ago. The witness could have got it completely wrong, you know how these things are. Maybe the two guys weren’t white, or maybe they had nothing to do with whatever was scaring Joseph.’

‘I know.’

‘You don’t think Brock’s got himself a mission, do you, putting the past to rights? That’s worrying you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but you’ve doubted him before, don’t forget, on the Tracy Rudd case, and he was right then. I trust his instincts.’

‘Yeah,’Tom said,as if to himself.‘Loyal Kathy.I like that.’

Tom turned into Cockpit Lane and pulled over to the kerb. ‘Half an hour?’

‘Fine. See you.’ Kathy watched the grin form in his mouth and around his eyes, and realised how much it was growing on her.

A chill east wind buffeted her as she hurried forward. More snow was promised and the wind tasted of it. She noticed a slight, dark figure standing at a shop window filled with PlayStations and digital gear. The face was covered by the hood of a parka and she was almost past before she recognised the glint of Adam Nightingale’s glasses.

‘Hello, Adam. How are you?’

He shrugged, pushing his glasses back up his nose.‘Saw them packing up from the school window. Leaving are they?’

‘Yes.’

He looked forlorn, as if a moment of meaning or excitement in his life was coming to an end, and she felt sorry for him.‘You’re interested in that forensic stuff, are you?’

He nodded.

‘Actually I’m on my way over to the laboratories where they’re working on the skeletons, reconstructing their faces.’

‘Wow. Cool. I wish . . .’ His sentence trailed off into inarticulate silence.

‘Well, I could probably arrange for you to come, but we’d have to get your mother’s permission.’

‘She’s at work.’ He whipped a mobile phone out of his jacket pocket and offered it to her.Kathy watched him press the keys,then she took the phone and spoke to his mother, who was delighted that someone was willing to take Adam off the streets for an hour or two.

‘Okay,’Kathy said to the boy.‘I’ve got some business to do.Be here in half an hour.’

The shopfront next to the pub was plastered with pictures of the MP’s handsomely smiling face alongside public service posters reading, ‘Stop the Guns’, ‘Crack Kills’, ‘Let’s Work Together’. She pushed open the door and stepped into a fug of heat and clamour, Magic FM competing with clattering keyboards, a whistling kettle and a group of women arguing loudly over the messages on a noticeboard. An electrician stood on top of a stepladder fixing a light, and in the middle of it all, oblivious to the turmoil, Michael Grant posed for a photograph being taken by a reporter from the local paper. Grant was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with the slogan OUR STRUGGLE and a clenched black fist.

He caught sight of Kathy and clapped the reporter on the shoulder and swung over to her.‘Hi! DS Kolla,right?’

She shook his hand, unable to resist the dazzle of his smile. It wasn’t just the mouth; his whole face seemed animated by it, and as they spoke he focused on her as if nothing else in the world interested him. A politician’s trick perhaps, she thought, but he did it brilliantly.

‘Come through and meet Kerrie, my office manager.’ They manoeuvred around the stepladder and approached a young black woman sitting behind a desk, arguing with someone on the other end of the phone, smacking the file in front of her to emphasise her point. She put the phone down and nodded at Grant.

‘He’ll see you at noon tomorrow. I’ll line up the media.’

‘Well done, Kerrie! Didn’t think you’d do it. This is DS Kolla from Scotland Yard.’

‘Kathy.’

‘Hello.Yes, we’ve got one or two leads for you.’ She handed Grant a sheet of paper.‘I’d better get on with organising things for tomorrow, Michael.’

‘You go ahead. I’ll take care of Kathy.’ He waved her through to a seat in a quieter area at the back of the shop and poured them both cups of coffee from a percolator.

‘It may not look like it, Kathy, but this is a war room. We’re involved in a life and death struggle, literally.’ He tapped the slogan on his chest. ‘This isn’t idle rhetoric. We have a three-pronged youth crisis here-unemployment, drugs and crime. My job is to motivate my community to action, to break the vicious circle. We’re on the same side, Kathy, and we’ll do anything we can to help you take the drug kings, the crime bosses, out of the picture.’

‘Right, I appreciate that, sir.’

‘Michael, please.’ He glanced at the sheet of paper.‘These are people we’ve found who can remember Joseph. They’ve all expressed a willingness to help. To save you having to traipse all over the district, one of the girls on the front desk can set up times when they can come in here to talk with you, if that suits. I think they’d feel more comfortable here than at the police station.’

Kathy scanned the list, half a dozen names and addresses. ‘That’s great.You’re doing my job for me.’

‘It’s a start.’

‘We’re making up posters of the three victims on the railway land. This is what we’ve got so far.’ Kathy handed him photographs of Dr Prior’s reconstructions.‘Joseph Kidd and the one we believe was called Walter.’

Grant gasped as he took in the lifelike images.‘How on earth did you get these?’

Kathy explained.‘Do you recognise them?’

‘Yes . . .Well, Joseph, certainly. It’s very close. The other one looks familiar, but I’m not sure.’

Kathy handed him the third image, based on Winnie’s sketchy memory of the other member of the Tosh Posse.‘This is the one we have the least information about-no name and no skull to make a reconstruction from.’

Grant stared for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No. This means nothing to me. But once you have the posters we can put them in the front window here, and I’m sure we can persuade shopkeepers in the area to do the same.’

‘You’re being very helpful, Michael. Thank you.’

They arranged for Grant’s office to set up interviews on the following Monday, and Kathy left. Adam was waiting outside.

The Subaru drew up a few minutes later and Tom got out and spoke to Kathy and Adam while Amy waited in the car, watching. Kathy led the boy over to introduce him.

‘Adam, this is Inspector Reeves’s daughter Amy, who wants to be a forensic pathologist. Amy, this is Adam, who is helping us with our inquiries.’ She paused while Amy’s face froze at the form of words.‘He’s coming with us.’

‘Coming with us?’ she whispered.‘In our car?’

‘Yes, that’s all right, isn’t it?’ Then she added casually, ‘Adam was the one who found the skeletons.’

‘Oh! It was you? You got the electric shock? Everyone’s been talking about you at school.’

Adam ducked his head, embarrassed and pleased. They all got into the car, Adam in the back with Amy, and drove off.

Dr Prior was an excellent guide, explaining everything clearly and treating their questions seriously. The youngsters were captivated by the microscopes, the chemicals and the bones, but the high point was the computer imaging of Alpha and Bravo. The precise profiles of their skulls had been scanned, and then data for average Negroid soft tissue thicknesses all over the head had been applied to flesh them out. The resulting images could be rotated and viewed from any angle and with different hair and beard styles. The result for Bravo was startlingly similar to the photograph of Joseph that Father Maguire had provided, while the other was a reasonable match to the representation of Walter that Winnie had arrived at with the computer artist.

While the other three played with the computer, experimenting with dreadlocks, glasses and various Rasta beards, the anthropologist had a quiet word with Kathy.

‘How’s the investigation going? Any suspects?’

‘Nothing definite, but we are looking at some possible white suspects.’

‘What did I tell you? A race crime.’

‘But we’re not clear about motive. It could simply have been a dispute over drugs or punishing an informer.’

Dr Prior shook her head. ‘Look.’ She drew Kathy over to Bravo’s skull, mounted on a stand on the bench. Her finger traced around the bullet hole in the upper forehead.‘This is a close-range shot.’ She pointed to diagrams and hard copies of computer images on the wall, tracing the probable angle of the bullet into the skull.

‘Get down on your knees,’ Dr Prior said.

‘What?’

‘Go on, I want to show you how it was.’

Kathy’s smile faded as she saw how serious the other woman was. She knelt.

‘You’re Joseph Kidd-Bravo, right? Imagine it. Apart from soft tissue damage, we’ve just broken your right leg in the middle of the shin and crushed two of your fingers.We hit you on the left side of your head with maybe a hammer or a pickaxe handle, so hard that your skull is cracked.You’ve been unconscious for a time and you’re in deep shock. Now you find yourself on wasteland in the dark, your arms and legs are trussed with wire, you’re on your knees, there’s blood in your eyes and mouth. Imagine it.’

Dr Prior reached for a test tube from a rack on the bench, and pressed the end hard against Kathy’s forehead.‘This is a Browning automatic and now you’re going to die. We’re not doing this to make an example of you, because nobody will ever learn what happened to you. This isn’t business.We’re doing this because we want to. Understand? We’ve gone to a lot of trouble, hurting you, bringing you here, and now you will disappear. Die, you black bastard.’

There was a deathly hush in the laboratory. Kathy blinked and for a moment she saw herself, not as Joseph, but as Dee-Ann kneeling on the hard concrete floor of the garage. Then the test tube was withdrawn and she realised the other three children were staring at her.

‘Right,’she said,getting to her feet.‘Very convincing.’

At the end of the tour they thanked Dr Prior and returned Adam to his home behind Cockpit Lane. All the way back he and Amy were immersed in a hushed conversation, punctuated by little whistles and gasps.When the car pulled in to the kerb,Adam and Kathy got out. He thanked her awkwardly. ‘That was . . . really cool,’ he said, then, ‘I’m not the only one who’s been watching you, d’you know that?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘There’s a guy who’s been spying on you from behind the fences on the other side of the railway. I’ve seen him from the school window on the top floor.’

‘Probably a reporter.’

‘No, he doesn’t have a camera, just binoculars. Big ones with red lenses. He’s loosened some of the wooden palings of the fence so he can push them apart.You can’t see him, only the binoculars. He’s been there a lot, for whole days at a time. Must have warm clothes.’

As they drove Amy to her mother’s home, the girl also seemed subdued by their trip. She thanked Kathy without any of the boldness of their previous meeting.Kathy put out her hand to shake,and when Amy did likewise the girl felt the fifty pence coin pressed into her palm.

Kathy winked.‘Don’t spend it all on chips.’

She was silent as Tom drove her home. The odd little performance in the laboratory weighed on her. It wasn’t that it had told her anything new, but that replaying the actions had given them a physical presence in her mind that hadn’t been there before. That had been Dr Prior’s point, of course.

Tom broke into her thoughts,‘Tired?’

‘Just thinking.’

‘You take work too seriously, you know that?’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. I bought you a book to take your mind off things.’ He reached across to the glovebox and handed her a paper bag.‘I think you’ll like it. It draws you in, makes you forget everything else. But a bit heavy for tonight, perhaps. You need something buoyant. A movie? Maybe an old favourite? What’s the best movie you’d like to see again?’

She thought.‘The Blues Brothers.’

‘Yes!’ He tapped the steering wheel. ‘Brilliant. And appropriate, too-1980.’

‘It’s not as old as that, is it?’

‘Want to bet?’

She laughed.‘I’m not making any more bets with you or your immediate family. Are you sure?’

‘Yep. I can remember seeing it on my first blind date. I was twelve. I had to borrow some money from my mum afterwards to buy the sunglasses. What do you say we get takeaway and The Blues Brothers.’

‘I thought you were playing squash tonight?’

‘I cancelled.’

‘Well, that sounds good, if I can fit in a bath somewhere.’

And so it was. As she lay in her bath, aware of his presence in the room outside, she realised that she hadn’t felt so awkward about having him in her flat this time. He seemed to fit into the small space without intrusion, opening a bottle and following her instructions for a salad. It was a talent, she felt, for sympathetic manners, adjusting his dimensions (for he was actually quite a big bloke) to the available psychological space. Or maybe it was just part of Special Branch training, melting in, lulling the mark.

The meal wasn’t bad, the film great.When it was finished they stayed sitting on the sofa together and she was acutely aware of his physical presence so close beside her, like a source of warmth and life. He told her how much he’d enjoyed being with her over the previous days, and when he got up to leave they kissed, and it seemed natural and inevitable. She even felt a small tug of regret as he disappeared into the lift.

The following morning she drove back down to Cockpit Lane, where the Saturday morning market was in full swing. The wind had died down, the dark clouds dispersed and, although it was still cold, sunshine lit up the colourful striped awnings of the stalls. She drove down Mafeking Road to the warehouse. A single car stood in the yard, and when she went inside she found one of the SOCOs making a final inspection.

‘Lucky to catch me,’ he said. ‘Just about to lock up and give back the keys.’

‘Give me two minutes.’

She went through to the rear boundary, now reinstated and sealing off access to the railway land. She scanned the fences at the top of the embankment on the far side of the rail tracks. Most were brick or metal panels but among them she made out a section of wooden palings, almost opposite where the school stood. She left the warehouse and made her way back around Cockpit Lane to the footbridge across the railway beyond the school. From there she was able to see the wooden fence again, and estimate how far away it was.

She turned into the street running behind the railway embankment and paced the distance to the start of a row of small brick houses. She knocked at the first front door and, when there was no reply,walked down the narrow side passage to the backyard. There was the wooden fence,with no sign of disturbance.She tried the next house, again with no reply at the front door, but with a huge Rottweiler in the back, hurling itself against the gate as she tried to look over.

A young man, yawning and scratching his crotch, answered the third door. Kathy showed her identification and said she was investigating reports of a prowler in the street. The man shrugged and said he’d heard nothing, but she was welcome to look around the yard. There, in a corner hidden from sight of the house by a small shed, she found an area of ground cleared of snow, in front of a section of fencing in which the nails had been removed to allow the boards to be slid apart. From this sheltered hide she had a perfect panorama of the whole of the crime scene site. She searched the place thoroughly but could find no traces that might interest the SOCOs-no footprints, no cigarette butts or sweet wrappers, no threads caught on the rough wooden boards, which would probably yield no fingerprints. Whoever it was had been careful. She was turning to leave when her eye caught a tiny flake of white in the trampled ground. Using a key she flicked away dirt until she could see more of a scrap of paper, which eventually revealed itself as the remains of a hand-rolled cigarette end, crumpled, shrivelled and stamped into the earth.

Brock, too, was prowling-in his case at Queen Anne’s Gate, restlessly roaming the empty offices. From long experience he sensed that both murder inquiries in Cockpit Lane might be approaching some sort of turning point, in which, for good or ill, evidence would begin to swing their random searches into more deliberate directions. For his own reasons he had been more preoccupied with the older murders, but in the other case they had now accumulated a considerable list of people who had seen the two girls during their stay in the area, and the interviews were beginning to reveal distinctive patterns.

He came to Bren’s desk and noticed an unopened priority delivery pouch from Forensic Services. Opening it, he discovered the report of the review that he had ordered of the available ballistics evidence from the Brown Bread shootings. All of the surviving bullets and cartridge cases had been re-examined in the laboratories to confirm their common source. In one case, the murder of Johnny Mulroy, both cartridges and viable bullets had been recovered from the crime scene,and it was this that made it possible to tie all of the others, in which one or the other was missing, to a single source, Brown Bread.

Brock read the report carefully until he came to an addendum sheet at the end, which stopped him short. He scanned it again, unable to believe what he was reading, and when he reached for a phone he realised that he had been holding his breath. According to the report,the single intact bullet found at the scene of Dana and Dee-Ann’s murder had also been fired by Brown Bread.

He got through to Forensic Services, but the person he wanted wasn’t at work this Saturday morning, and it took some insistence to get a contact number for the author of the report. When he eventually reached him, the man confirmed the result. Both of the multiple murders in Cockpit Lane, committed twenty-four years apart, had been carried out using the same weapon. The scientist who had made the connection had recently worked on the Dee-Ann case and had recognised the markings straight away on the Johnny Mulroy bullet. The result had been confirmed by a second examiner.

Brock sat back, stunned.Was it really possible that one of the Roaches, after all this time, should return to the same old haunt and repeat his actions in almost the same place with the same gun? And if it were true, how must he now be feeling, reading the newspaper reports, realising that his latest handiwork had led, through the misadventures of a schoolboy, to the discovery of his old crimes?

He tucked the report back into its pouch and picked up the phone again.

He wanted a link, he told them after they’d broken off their weekend shopping, sport and family excursions and reassembled at Queen Anne’s Gate, a link between Shooters Hill and Cockpit Lane in the early morning hours of Friday the fourth of February.

More specifically, between Mark, Ivor or Ricky Roach on the one hand, and Teddy Vexx, Dana and Dee-Ann on the other, at

that critical period of time.

Failing eyewitnesses and forensic traces they turned their attention to telephones and Rainbow. There had already been an attempt to trace Vexx’s phone calls on that night, frustrated by the discovery that he appeared to have access to a number of stolen phones and SIM cards. A check of phones registered to the Roach brothers yielded nothing promising. That left Rainbow.

The London metropolitan area, the largest in Europe, sprawls blindly across some six thousand square miles of south-east England-blind,but not unseen.Its fourteen million inhabitants are observed as they move about its streets by tens of thousands of camera eyes. The eyes cluster along its major highways, its rail and underground stations, around the perimeter of the Central London congestion zone, the City of London’s ‘Ring of Steel’, the Docklands and the airports, and they spread out in a fine pattern wherever people transact business, cross each other’s paths and commit crimes. They are not uniformly intelligent, these eyes; some merely record what they see, others can read vehicle number plates, and some, the smartest of all, are said to recognise faces. Together they comprise the creature known as ‘Rainbow’,watched over by police Rainbow Coordinators in the borough commands.

The team began contacting the coordinators, armed with numbers and descriptions of all the vehicles registered to the occupants of The Glebe.

By Sunday evening Brock was forced to accept that they had found nothing.

Kerrie, with her fashionable shoes and hair pulled severely back, was a very efficient organiser, and when Kathy arrived at Cockpit Lane on Monday morning the first of her appointments was already waiting, sitting chatting to the women volunteers who always seemed to be present in Michael Grant’s office. Kerrie introduced Kathy to Mrs Parker and showed them to a quiet table at the back of the shop.

‘I remember when this was the pawnshop,’ the woman laughed.‘I had to use it once or twice,I’ve got to admit.’

Middle-aged and smartly dressed, it didn’t look as if she had much need of pawnshops now. She must have caught Kathy looking at her large and expensive rings, because she fingered them and said, ‘I had cold feet about coming back to the old neighbourhood.You read these stories in the papers. But then I was curious, too. It’s years since I was here.’

‘Have you come far?’

‘Croydon. But I keep in touch with Michael, Christmas cards and that.Wonderful man.’

‘Well, I do appreciate you coming in.’

‘Oh, I was fascinated. Is it really Joseph you’ve found?’

‘Looks like it.’ Kathy showed her the three pictures.

‘That’s Joseph all right, and that’s Walter. But I don’t know who that is.’

‘How did you know them?’

‘We all used to go to Studio One, up on Maxfield Street. Oh, it was a terrible dive, a hellhole really.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘A dance and drinking club, a shebeen, down in the basement, always packed out on a Saturday night.We knew the DJs. And that music! The Pioneers, The Roots Radics, Rankin’ Dread-you remember “Hey Fatty Boom Boom”?’ She laughed. ‘No, course you don’t.Anyway,for a time there Joseph and me were,well,close.’

‘You went out with him?’

‘Yeah. I was really soft on him, but it was no use. All the girls went for Joseph, and he loved us all, young and old, black and white, but especially white, so I didn’t have much chance.’

Kathy saw the wistful look in her eyes. ‘You still think of him, eh?’

‘Sometimes, I must admit.’

‘When did you go out?’

‘I was trying to remember that. He hadn’t been here long and he spoke with a really broad Jamaican accent. The weather was cool, not as cold as now, but I remember him complaining about how grey and cold it was.’

‘He came over towards the end of September.’

‘Yes, that would be right. I saw him around a few times, like in the market, then we got together one night at Studio One and bang, that was that. His mate Walter had a room in this squat and we hardly left it for a week. My mum and dad went spare. It was before Christmas, I think-yes, definitely before Christmas, because by then he’d moved on to other girls and I was sobbing into the mince pies.’

‘He was a bastard, was he?’

‘No! He was lovely, funny, sweet. He just couldn’t say no to girls. He loved it over here, said he was going to be rich, some hopes. There wasn’t a nasty bone in his body. Not like Walter. He could be very mean.’

‘Do you remember Walter’s surname?’

‘Yes, it came to me on the way over here. Isaacs, I think that was it,Walter Isaacs.’

‘Good. Did you see much of them after you broke up with Joseph?’

‘I stopped going to Studio One for a while after he dumped me, but it was hard not to catch sight of them, or hear from someone who’d seen him there with his latest flame.’

‘What about April of the next year, 1981, the time of the Brixton riots, do you remember that?’

‘Not in connection with Joseph.Was he involved in that?’

‘We think he was murdered that night, April the eleventh. He was seen at a pub in Angell Town, and said he was going to Brixton. He seemed to be running away from someone. Do you have any idea who that might have been?’

‘Not specifically. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d upset people. He would do things without thinking. Like I remember him telling me how he’d made the moves on this girl right after he arrived, and she was the girlfriend of one of the Spangler boys across the tracks. He was lucky to talk his way out of a knifing.’

‘Apart from girls, what else was he into?’

Mrs Parker lowered her eyes, then nodded.‘Yes, they were into drugs. I don’t just mean ganja.When I was with him in Walter’s place I woke up one morning and the room was stinking of that horrible bitter smell of crack, the two of them smoking their first pipes before breakfast. It was Walter, I’m sure, got him into it. He was older and he’d been over here longer.’

‘And they dealt as well?’

‘Yes, I’m sure they did. Joseph brought some cocaine with him when he came over, and Walter had some girls he called his “yard ants”, smuggling for him.’

‘Did they work with anyone else?’

‘There was a third guy they were friendly with, but he didn’t look like this picture here. Didn’t have a beard for a start.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Older than the other two, tougher, more serious. Made Joseph look like a little boy.’

‘How tall?’

‘Not quite as tall as Joseph; maybe six foot? Fit looking. He wore a black Kangol flat cap and plenty of gold cargo, oh and he had a gold tooth, too.’ She tapped one of her front teeth. ‘The three of them would greet each other that way, you know, like the ghetto kids, touching closed fists and saying “Hit me, star!” or some such.’

‘Did he have a name?’

Mrs Parker pondered.‘Robert? Bobby? Robbie? Yes,that’s it, Robbie.’

‘Surname?’

‘No, sorry.’

‘Did Joseph tell you anything else about himself that might help us? Any plans he had, or people he knew?’

The woman shrugged vaguely, and Kathy had the feeling that her store of memories-apart, perhaps, from some fondly remembered intimacies-was pretty much exhausted.

‘You mentioned the pawnbrokers that were here. I believe they were owned by a local family called Roach. Do you remember them at all?’

She hesitated as if some faint memory stirred, but then shook her head.‘Sorry, no.’

‘Well, you’ve been very helpful, Mrs Parker. There is one more thing. I’d really appreciate it if you’d sit down with our computer artist to make a picture of this Robbie.Would you do that?’

‘Ooh, that sounds like fun, though I don’t know if I can do it after all this time.’

Kathy got on the phone.When she’d made the arrangements she asked Mrs Parker one last question.‘Did they have guns,those boys?’

The woman nodded sadly. ‘Oh yes. Look, when I think back it’s no wonder my parents were mad with worry about me. The things you do, eh, when you’re young and foolish? Joseph’s gun looked shiny and new. He was always stroking and cleaning it, like it was his pet. He even called it a name, Brown Bread. Is that stupid or what?’

The next three women to see Kathy were all in their fifties and had some memory of Joseph. Two had worked in the market and could remember his good-natured cheek, and one had been a barmaid in the Ship and recalled Joseph drinking amicably with the Roach boys. The fourth visitor, also a woman, was older and had a far grimmer memory. Joseph had befriended her son, who used to walk through the market on his way home from school, and had given him his first taste of crack. Within six months of Joseph’s death the boy, too, was dead, thrown from the window of his home on the tenth floor of a council block by Yardies from whom he’d tried to steal drugs.

None of the women were able to add anything concrete to Kathy’s search, and none remembered ‘Robbie’, although one thought that a girl called Rhonda may have gone out with someone of that name.

The last person on the list was the only man and, according to Kerrie, the only white person, and he didn’t show up. Kerrie said he’d left a phone message that he couldn’t leave work at a building site about a mile away, where he was site manager, but that Kathy was welcome to call there for a quick chat. She thanked Kerrie and the other women and drove to the place, an extension to the rear of a supermarket. She parked nearby and made her way down a narrow back street, squeezing past two concrete trucks waiting outside the wire gates, where the site hut was pointed out to her. Inside she found the manager,Wayne Ferguson.

‘Sorry I couldn’t get over,’ he said. ‘We decided to take a chance with the weather this morning and go ahead with the main concrete pour, and I had to be here. So, Michael said I might be able to help you.’ His attention shifted to the window, through which they could see men hosing concrete like porridge over a bed of steel mesh.

‘You knew Joseph, did you?’

‘Who?’

‘Joseph Kidd, in 1981.’

Ferguson looked blank and Kathy pushed the pictures in front of him, making him turn away from the window.

‘All the usual suspects, eh? No, don’t recall them.’

‘Well, I-’

‘I was on the bar at the Cat and Fiddle on the night of the riots. Part-time job.’

‘Ah. But you don’t remember seeing this one?’

‘No. It was packed out that night. The only ones I remembered-I told Michael-were the two Roach lads, the oldest one and one of the others.I knew them ’cause I’d seen all three of them come onto the site I was working on in my day job. I was an apprentice then. They were looking for somebody, and there was a bit of a barney with the boss, almost a fight. He told me afterwards who they were and to steer clear of them.When I saw those two come into the pub I thought there might be trouble.’

‘And was there?’

‘Not as far as I know. I lost sight of them after that. Don’t know what happened to them. Not a lot of use, is it? Sorry. I told Michael, but he said you might be interested anyway.’

‘Yes, I am. Thanks.’

‘Great feller, Michael.’

‘How do you know him?’

‘He used to be a union man, UCATT. That’s how he started to get noticed. He helped us sort out a few problems. His heart’s in the right place. There should be more like him in parliament.’

Kathy thanked him and made her way back to her car,wondering how she was going to get the muck off her shoes. As she sat sideways in the driver’s seat, wiping her feet with tissues, she caught sight of a blue car sliding out of view at the end of the street.

For the rest of that week, Kathy and three other detectives worked across the Borough of Lambeth, following up leads to people who might have been in the right place in 1981. Most were cooperative and interested, happy to nudge their memories back in their own ways. ‘Ricky Villa’s magic goal against Manchester City, remember that?’ ‘Sheena Easton, right? “My baby gets the morning train.” Loved that one.’ ‘I do remember hearing the news, that someone had shot the Pope.’ ‘Chariots of Fire, that was my favourite.’ But it was too long ago. If any of them had ever known anything useful, it had faded and gone.

The other two teams were luckier. The search of old TV footage and newspaper archives had yielded two unpublished photos of the early stages of the fire at the Windsor Castle, before Brock had arrived. They clearly showed two white men in black jackets, frozen in the action of running towards a black man who was staring at the flicker of flames visible through the pub window. When enhanced, the faces made a convincing match with those of Mark and Ivor Roach, and Joseph Kidd.

Bren and Tom’s team, meanwhile, going back through the Brown Bread shootings, had reinterviewed the Asian witness, Mr Singh, to the car theft outside his shop in 1986.

‘It was a beautiful car,’ he said, ‘a red Porsche 911, just like I used to dream about. A young blonde lady parked it right outside the shop. She was a looker, too, no mistake. She saw me standing in the shop doorway and gave me a lovely smile, then took off across the road to the hair salon over the way. Dad was in the back storeroom and he called out to me and I was about to go in when suddenly, quick as greased lightning, these two men appeared out of nowhere and went to the Porsche. One bent over the lock in the driver’s door and in two seconds he’d got it open. I was amazed, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. He got in, opened the passenger door, against the kerb, and the other man went to get in. I stepped forward and I said, quite politely,“Excuse me, sir. Is that your car?” The man was as close to me as you are, face plain as day, one foot still on the pavement. He looked at me for a moment, then at the shop behind me, then up and down the street, all very calm and deliberate, see? Then he took a gun out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at me, just like that . . .’ The man pointed his finger at Bren’s stomach. ‘I thought, I can’t believe this, it’s just like a film. Then he pressed the trigger. I didn’t feel the bullet go through me. I just passed out.’

The man’s recollection was so fluent that Bren was sceptical. ‘You seem to have a very clear memory of this, Mr Singh. It happened a long time ago.’

‘Have you ever been shot, Inspector? It was the biggest thing that ever happened to me. I had to go over it again and again, for the police, for my friends, for the newspapers, and then, afterwards, in my head and in my dreams, again and again.’

‘And you helped the police make an image of the man.’ Bren showed him the drawing of a scowling face that could have been anyone.

‘Yes. The other one’s face was a blank, but this one was vivid in my mind-it still is.’

‘Still, nearly twenty years later?’

‘Oh yes.You see, I saw him again, about eight years ago.’

‘I don’t have a record of that.’

‘No.’ The man looked sheepish. ‘I never reported it. My dad decided he wanted to get himself a new Volvo, so I went with him around the showrooms.We’d just walked into this one when I saw him, sitting there at the manager’s desk in a smart suit and tie. It hit me like a blow. I managed to turn and run, and when I got outside I was sick, sick as a dog, in the gutter. My dad had to take me home. I couldn’t get out of bed for days. I couldn’t tell the coppers about it. This is the first time I’ve talked to anyone, apart from Mum and Dad.’

‘Where was this showroom?’

‘Eltham. Roach Motors.’

Bren showed him a picture of Ricky Roach,son number three.

‘Oh my God. That’s him.’

Commander Sharpe was not comfortable. He twisted in his seat, twitched his narrow pointed nose, rubbed his long pianist’s fingers fretfully before he set Brock’s report back on the desk with care, as if it might draw blood.

‘You’re aware of the history of our dealings with Mr Roach, of course.’

‘Of course.’ Brock felt curiously free. The ship was now launched and others would want to have a hand in steering it. There was still much detective work to do, but others would have their say in that, too.

‘Looks fairly damning. Pretty obvious, I suppose, the Roaches. Cut-throat mob back then. Different story now, mind you. Penny bought her sports car at that showroom, dammit. Nearly had a fit when I saw the name on the invoice. Several of her smart friends buy their cars there, apparently. Action?’

‘We have no choice in the matter of Ricky Roach. A credible witness, a clear body of circumstantial evidence, a previous record.’

‘Mm.’

‘The same can be said of Mark and Ivor.We can place them in pursuit of Joseph Kidd on the night he was murdered. They have to be questioned.’

‘All a matter of identification, though, isn’t it? You say Mr Singh is credible?’

‘Credible but nervous. I’ve offered him protection, but he’s worried about his parents and his business. I’ve persuaded him that none of them will be safe until he helps us put Roach behind bars.’

‘And Ferguson?’

‘Solid.’

‘So the first step is identification parades, yes? Conducted by uniformed branch, of course.’ Sharpe took a breath, as if relieved that at least that would be out of his hands.‘Who do you suggest? Eltham?’

‘The offences took place in Lambeth.’

‘Of course, yes.You’ve heard of KCG Resources? They have mines, Canada and South America. Their shares are hot at the moment. Resources boom. The DCC told me to buy some. Safe bet, he said. The Roaches are major shareholders.Where do you buy your wine? Paramounts? They’ll have an off-licence down your way. One of the Roaches’ companies.’

‘I know it won’t be easy.’

‘And you seriously think that they were physically involved in the murder of those two kids recently? Wealthy, respectable men like they now are? It beggars belief.’

‘I think when faced with something personal they reverted to type. But I can only connect them to those murders through the gun that was used.We have to go for the old cases.’

‘But something else worries me.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You, Brock.You’re not happy, are you?’

‘I know I’m right about the Roaches.’

‘But?’

‘But I know how slippery they are in a corner. I’m reluctant to show our hand until we’ve got a watertight case.The trouble is,we’re not going to get one without getting close to them and stirring them up. It’s all just too long ago. The evidence isn’t out there any more.’

‘Let’s get the question of identification sewn up, then we’ll talk again.’

Three days later Brock was summoned back to his boss’s office. This time Sharpe had a third person on hand, Virginia Ashe, prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service. She grinned and barked a greeting.

‘Brock! Good to see you again. How’s tricks?’

‘Fine, Virginia. Congratulations, I saw you on the news last week.’

‘Oh, that. But you’ve been beating me on airtime lately. Everybody loves a grizzly corpse; three old skeletons and two young girls is unbeatable. Absolutely royal flush.’

Sharpe broke in.‘Sit down,please.I’ve asked Virginia to assist us with our discussion, Brock.You’ve heard the results of the lineups? Three clear identifications. Fine, so we consider the next steps. Interview Mark and Ivor, I take it, warrants if necessary, and a warrant for the arrest of Ricky? You’ve read the summaries, Virginia.You agree?’

‘Ye-es, but we are on thin ice with the first two, don’t you think? I mean Brock has done brilliantly constructing a chain of evidence of their movements on that night, twenty-four years ago. Amazing really, but it doesn’t actually prove anything, does it? If they don’t want to cooperate, there’s not enough for a case to be brought for murder. Unless you could prove they still have the gun, say.Where is the gun, by the way? Does anybody know?’

‘No,’ Brock said.‘I think we have to assume that it’s well and truly disposed of by now. But we certainly need to search their compound at Shooters Hill. Virginia’s right. Let’s concentrate on Ricky.We have a witness who saw him use that gun in 1986. He’s the one to start with.’

‘Mm.’ Sharpe stared at the ceiling.‘The way my thoughts are going is this. Given the publicity surrounding the case, it would make sense for criminal proceedings to be instituted by the DPP, would it not?’

‘By us?’ Virginia looked sharply at him. ‘Rather than the police? By laying an information?’

‘Yes.With our full resources behind you,of course.’

Brock saw that Sharpe had been doing some homework and probably taking advice. If ‘an information’, as the case for an arrest warrant was called, was laid by the police, it would be done not in the name of the police force as a body, but in the name of an individual officer, a chief constable or someone designated by him. Commander Sharpe didn’t want his name on that document.

‘Well,’ Virginia said. ‘I’ll take it to the boss, shall I?’ She shot Brock a deadpan look as vivid as a wink.

‘Yes, why don’t you do that, Virginia,’ Sharpe said, getting to his feet.‘Excellent idea.’

Ricky Roach sat facing Bren Gurney and another detective across the table. He was much plumper and sleeker than in the old photographs, with more scalp showing through the well-groomed hair, but with the same contemptuous curl to his mouth. Beside him sat Martin Connell.

Brock, not wanting at this point to disclose that they had made the link of Brown Bread between the Cockpit Lane murders and the shooting of Mr Singh, had decided not to carry out the interview himself and was sitting at Kathy’s side. Virginia Ashe was also there, keenly watching the screen.

Bren opened the proceedings with the standard preliminaries, then said, ‘We’re investigating a series of thefts of luxury cars during the 1980s.’

Roach looked at him in disbelief.‘Oh yeah? The 1980s? Are you serious?’

‘Perfectly.You were in the car business at that time, I believe. You had a sales yard and workshop in Lewisham, yes?’

‘I don’t believe this.’ Roach turned to look at his lawyer. ‘The 1980s?’

‘I thought the charge was attempted murder,’ Connell said.

‘We’ll come to that. The matters are related. We want to examine your business records for the period 1979 to the present.’

Roach laughed.‘No way.’

‘They don’t seem very worried, do they?’ Virginia said.

Bren was laying three documents on the table in front of Roach and Connell.‘These are copies of warrants to search your business premises at Eltham, your accountant’s offices in the City, and your home at Shooters Hill. Officers are executing these warrants as we speak.’

Roach picked up one of the sheets. ‘You’re searching Ivor’s office? He won’t like that.’ He smirked.

Connell had picked up another of the warrants and had turned away from the camera, pulling out his mobile phone. After a short conversation he snapped it shut and turned back to face Bren.

‘My client’s wife is asleep.’

Bren looked mystified.‘What?’

‘Don’t you know the rules? “In determining when to make a search, the officer in charge must always give regard to the time of day at which the occupier is likely to be present, and should not search at a time when the occupier or any other person on the premises is likely to be asleep.” I quote. My client’s wife is recuperating from recent surgery and is currently at home asleep. I have advised her sister,who is with her,not to permit entry to her home. Then there is Mrs Adonia Roach, my client’s sister-in-law, also resident at The Glebe, who is recovering from a street robbery in which she was seriously hurt. I suggest you advise your officers to withdraw.’

There was a moment’s silence, then Kathy said flatly, ‘They knew. They were expecting this.’

Brock’s phone rang. He listened, then turned to the others. ‘The team at Shooters Hill. They’re being refused entry to The Glebe. It seems the construction of the perimeter gates and wall is more problematic than they anticipated. They’re going to have to bring in heavier gear.’

Virginia Ashe stared at him.‘He’s right,you can’t break in.It’s our warrant, Brock. Tell them to back off.’

For a moment it looked as if Brock wouldn’t agree.

‘Please,’ she said.

Brock nodded and spoke into his phone.

On the screen Bren was questioning Roach about his movements and operations in the mid-eighties. To every question Ricky replied,‘Don’t remember.’This went on for some time,the same reply given again and again until Bren’s exasperation began to show. Then Connell broke in.

‘This isn’t getting us anywhere. Can we cut to the quick? These warrants mention the evidence of a witness as grounds for a search.Who is this witness?’

‘We’re not prepared to disclose their identity at this stage.’

Connell sat back, fingers laced across his belly. ‘I think we’re wasting our time here, don’t you?’

Brock had persuaded Mr Singh and his wife to take a holiday with cousins in Birmingham. The witness had become increasingly anxious after his first conversation with Bren, and was on a variety of medications against panic attacks and hypertension. Brock had noticed the way he unconsciously fingered his side where Roach’s bullet had hit. When the couple finally agreed to leave London, Brock made arrangements with the police in Birmingham to keep watch on the cousins’ home.

On the day of Ricky Roach’s arrest,the patrol car parked across the road watched a white Volvo registered to Mr Singh’s father draw up outside the cousins’house.This was expected,as the police had monitored a phone call that morning from the older man to his son saying that they would drive up from London to pay him a visit.The elderly couple got out of the car and entered the house. An hour later a second patrol saw two people return to their car and drive off.

When Brock phoned later that day to speak to Mr Singh, his cousin answered and said that wouldn’t be possible, as he was lying down with a severe migraine.When Brock asked to speak to his wife, that also was refused on the grounds that she was in the bath. There was something about the conversation that made Brock uneasy and he called the Birmingham police.When officers called at the house they found the cousins and the elderly parents, but no sign of the Singhs.

Brock got a fast patrol car up the motorway with lights and siren going.When he arrived at the suburban house there were already three police cars there, and West Midlands detectives were questioning the four occupants of the house. Brock chose the elder Mr Singh, who had so far refused to say a word.

‘Are they safe, Mr Singh? That’s our first priority.You must tell us that.’

The old man, back straight, very dignified in his black turban, blinked at the clock on the mantelpiece and murmured,‘I believe they are, sir, yes. But I can say no more.’

At that moment a detective hurried into the room and glared at the Indian.‘They took a flight to Paris, sir, five hours ago.We’ve just heard.We found the Volvo at the airport.’

It was another hour before it was established that in Paris the Singhs had transferred to an Air India flight to Mumbai.

‘It was too much to ask, sir,’ Mr Singh said sadly to Brock.‘You don’t know what it was doing to him. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. He lost eight pounds in a week.’

‘He didn’t receive any direct threats though, did he?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘What about you? Did they threaten you, Mr Singh?’

‘As to that, sir, I cannot say.’

Brock regarded him carefully. It was as if the man couldn’t bring himself to tell an outright lie.

‘I understand. But it would help me to know when this unspoken event took place.We arrested the man who shot your son at nine this morning, and you and your wife must have left for Birmingham at, what, nine-thirty? Not much time for a visitor this morning.’

‘There were no visitors this morning.’

‘We can trace telephone calls, discover when tickets were purchased . . .’

‘There’s no need to trouble yourself, sir. There have been no strange telephone calls. I myself purchased plane tickets for my son and his wife last night, on the internet.’

‘So you had a visitor last night.’ ‘As to that, sir, I cannot say.’ ‘Thank you, Mr Singh. How long does your son intend to stay

in India?’ ‘Hard to say. There are many relatives. It may be a long trip.’

Later that evening, on the insistence of Virginia Ashe, the charges against Ricky Roach were dropped and he was released from custody.At about the same time,Kathy took a call from the builder, Wayne Ferguson. He just thought he should let her know that, although he was absolutely clear in his identification of the two Roach brothers at the line-up, because of course he had seen them before, he was less sure now about whether it was actually that particular night that he’d seen them in the Cat and Fiddle. It was such a long time ago, and if he were put under cross-examination he couldn’t honestly swear that it couldn’t have been some other night.

‘Has somebody been talking to you, Mr Ferguson?’ Kathy asked.

‘No!’ He sounded offended. ‘Certainly not, no way,’ he protested, too much.

She called Brock, on his way back down the motorway. He sounded tired and flat, as they all did.

When he got back to London,Brock spent a couple of hours in his office dealing with urgent paperwork. A note from Dot told him that a meeting with Commander Sharpe had been scheduled for first thing the following morning. He put a sheaf of signed documents on her desk and left the building. It was a cold but dry night, and he walked the length of Whitehall to Charing Cross station, stopping on the way for a glass of whisky at the Red Lion, a stone’s throw from Big Ben.He caught his train home and walked from his station to the high street, where an archway gave access into the cobbled courtyard that led to the lane in which his house stood. In the far corner, at the beginning of the lane, stood a large horse chestnut tree, its black skeleton silhouetted against the dim clouds. A man was standing motionless beneath its branches, watching him approach.Brock looked around and was able to make out a second figure in the darkness against the wall of the old warehouse.

Brock walked on. The man under the tree had both hands in the pockets of a long coat, a scarf around his neck, face hidden in the shadow of the brim of a hat, and it wasn’t until he cleared his throat with a spittly grunt that Brock realised, with a surge of heat to his face, who it was.

‘Mr Brock.’

‘Spider Roach.’

‘You remember me, then? Course you do. Thought we should talk.’

The voice was weaker, hoarser, but still with something of its old menace. And as the man moved Brock recognised, even muffled by the winter clothing, the angular frame, all elbows and knees, with its stealthy stretching and sudden pouncing gestures, that was the source of his nickname.

‘That business today, with Ricky, what was the point of it?’

‘Solving crimes is what I’m paid to do.’

‘Settling old scores, more like.Your recent visits to Cockpit Lane must have stirred up old memories, eh? Put you in mind of old times. But it’s a mistake to look back, Mr Brock. That way you trip over what’s bang in front of you.’

‘You’re bang in front of me, Spider.’

‘Times have changed.Me and my sons are respectable businessmen.You’ll find that out if you do your homework properly.You and I are very different people now, older and wiser, I hope. I have ten grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, imagine that. What about yourself? That attractive wife of yours still around?’

‘She found someone better a long time ago.’

‘Too bad. And no new wife waiting for you at home, no children, no grandchildren . . .’ It wasn’t a question, Brock realised. Spider Roach had always been careful to keep himself well informed about the opposition.‘Pity,they put things in perspective. Without a family to give him a sense of proportion, a man can get obsessive about things that don’t really matter. Still, there must be other attachments, people you care for. Everyone has those.’

‘It’s cold out here, Spider. Too cold to listen to the ramblings of an old man.What do you want?’

‘What I want …’the voice was suddenly hard,‘…is to never hear of you again. Make an effort to see that happens, eh? Make an old man happy.’

Spider Roach strode past him towards the archway, the other shadow falling in behind. Brock followed them, watching them get into a black Mercedes four-wheel drive. The interior light showed him the face of Mark Roach, the eldest son, getting in behind the wheel. As they drove away, Brock turned and walked home, thinking over Spider’s words. Inside he went from room to room, but found no signs that they had been there. He poured himself a whisky and sat down. The conversation had brought back two distinctive things about the way Spider used to work. He always took a lot of trouble to gather information about his victims, so that by the time he pounced he would know all about their family and business networks. Brock had no doubt that Spider had brought himself up to date on his situation. The other distinctive thing about Spider was the way he exerted pressure, by threatening someone close to the target, leaving them no choice. He pondered on that, and the throwaway comment about ‘other attachments, people you care for’, and the more he turned the phrase over in his mind, the more uneasy he became.

He made a list of people he cared enough about to interest Spider. It was very short, mostly connected with work. He began by phoning Kathy, then continued through the names. No one had heard from the Roaches. Finally, there was just one name left.

He hesitated, poured another drink, thumbed through his address book and dialled a long number.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, is that Doug?’

‘Speaking.’

‘This is David Brock, Doug, in London. Suzanne’s friend.’ Was that the best choice of words?

‘Oh …well,well.Hello,David.What can I do for you?’

‘Is Suzanne there?’

‘No, I’m afraid she’s not with us any more.’

‘What?’ Brock gripped the phone more tightly. ‘What happened?’

‘We put her on a plane last night. Ironic, isn’t it? After all this time, and you miss her by a few hours. She’s on her way home.’

‘Oh . . .’ He let out his suspended breath.‘Is she all right?’

‘Yes, fine. She’s having a couple of day’s stopover in Tokyo on the way back. Do you want to know when she gets in to Heathrow? I’ve got it here somewhere.’

Brock waited, feeling his heart rate subside. Doug came back on the line with the information.‘Better make it a big one,mate,’ he added.

‘What?’

‘The bunch of roses.You’re not exactly flavour of the month.’

‘No, I can imagine. Thanks.’ He hung up and sipped at the Scotch.

Even if Roach’s words had been meant as a threat, there was no possibility, surely, that he would have known of Brock’s friendship with Suzanne.Coming upon him like that,the silent figure waiting in the dark, the familiar features, the toneless voice, Brock had been abruptly transported back two decades, and the experience had unsettled him more than he’d have thought possible. He remembered another winter’s night,long ago,when he had gone to see a snout who provided regular low-level gossip and rumour about the gangs. As usual, they were to meet beneath a spreading plane tree on the edge of a local park. As he approached, Brock could see the man standing there, moonlight casting shadow stripes across his pale anorak, but there was something odd about his posture, the tilt of his head. Closer still and he made out the taut vertical of a rope connecting the man’s throat to the heavy branch above.Brock’s foot crunched on gravel and the figure twitched and gave a hoarse cry.

‘Help me!’

They had made him stand on tiptoe on a brick set on its edge, and had pulled the rope so tight that if he’d lost his footing he’d have been finished. When Brock found him he’d been standing there for twenty minutes and was on the point of passing out. He refused to say who’d done it, but the style was obvious to Brock- the grim joke, choking off the talker, and the indifference as to whether he lived or died.The man never spoke to the police again.

Brock recalled that the last bit of information the man had given Brock at their previous meeting was that the Roaches employed children to take down the numbers of cars driving in and out of the secure yards of local police stations, and now had a comprehensive list of unmarked police cars operating in the area. Spider’s intelligence had always been depressingly good. And still was, obviously. They had known about Singh and Ferguson before Brock had made his move.Did they have a friend at the local station who had told them who had attended the identity parades? Or had they been shadowing Kathy and Bren, himself too, perhaps, as they made their way around the neighbourhood, asking questions? He recalled the blue Peugeot waiting across the street when they’d left Father Maguire’s presbytery.

He had been disturbed by Spider Roach’s unexpected appearance, but Roach had also been unsettled. The case had already collapsed,yet he had felt the need to warn Brock to back off.Something fragile, important, needed to be protected from blundering coppers. Brock wondered what it was.

Commander Sharpe was philosophical about the Roach case. It was unusual to see him in his office on a Saturday morning, and it was clear from the way he fingered his shirt cuff and the file set out ready on his desk that he had more important things on his mind.‘Good try, Brock, but the odds were stacked against us. Look at it another way, the three unsolved murders go into the 1981 results, not this year’s. So they make the current dismal figures look marginally better, by comparison.’

‘All the same, I’ll keep one or two people working on it for a day or two, tidying up loose ends.’

‘Mm.’ Sharpe’s attention had returned to the cover sheet on his file. ‘You’ll let me have a one-page summary, will you? The OCLG want it on record.’

Brock frowned, puzzled. The Organised Crime Liaison Group was a subcommittee of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the central body for interdepartmental intelligence, reporting directly to the Prime Minister’s office.‘Is the OCLG interested?’

‘Apparently there’s a standing brief on friend Roach. I’ve warned Penny that she’ll have to go elsewhere for her next motor, but it’ll be hard to avoid Paramounts. Have you seen their latest prices for Cote de Beaune?’

‘I didn’t know they had a file on Roach.’

‘Nothing that would have been useful to us.You know what their research office is like, Brock-hoarders of inconsequential trifles, stamp collectors.’ Then, as if changing the subject completely, Sharpe added,‘You mentioned that MP in your earlier report, Michael Grant. Has he been in touch again?’

‘He gave us some help in tracking down possible witnesses. Useful.’

‘Mm. Admirable fellow by all accounts. Very supportive of Trident,strong anti-drugs and anti-crime stance in his constituency and in the House. Bit of a fanatic, though, I’m told. Cuts corners, ruffles feathers. All right for him, of course, he’s protected by parliamentary privilege. For the rest of us, it’s best to be wary.’

Dismissed, Brock descended to the street and began to walk back to his office in Queen Anne’s Gate. There was a deceptively spring-like lift to the morning, pale sunlight sparkling off wet pavements, a feeling that heavy coats might soon be discarded. He picked up a cappuccino along the way and continued past the end of his street and across Birdcage Walk into St James’s Park, where he crossed the grass to an empty bench in the sun. A military band was playing in the distance, some children chasing along the edge of the lake towards Duck Island, groups of tourists drifting towards the palace. As he sipped at his coffee his phone burbled in his pocket.

‘Chief Inspector Brock? It’s Michael Grant here. How are you? Were my contacts any help?’

‘I was just thinking of you, Mr Grant. They were very useful, helped us put together good likenesses as well as personal information for all three bodies on the railway land.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen the posters.What about the killers?’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t been so successful in that area. Not yet, anyway.’

‘There’s talk in Cockpit Lane that one of Spider Roach’s sons has been charged. Is that not true?’

‘He was arrested yesterday morning, but released later for lack of evidence.’

‘Ah.’ Silence for a moment, then, ‘I can’t honestly say I’m surprised. Are you very busy today?’

‘I’m currently sitting on a bench in St James’s Park contemplating the ducks and envying their simple life.’

Grant chuckled. ‘How do you fancy lunch at my factory? I think I can offer you something better than stale bread.’

‘Sounds interesting.’

‘Do you know the Red Lion pub on Parliament Street? Behind it in Cannon Row there’s an entrance to Portcullis House. I’ll meet you there at twelve-thirty, okay?’

Brock made his way there at the appointed time and found the MP chatting to the security staff at the rear entrance to his ‘factory’, the Houses of Parliament. Further down the lane loomed the striped brickwork of the old Norman Shaw building in which the Metropolitan Police had once had their headquarters, and Brock recalled old photographs of his predecessors in that place, waistcoated, moustached and bowler-hatted men like Chief Inspector Walter Drew, snapped digging with his team in Dr Crippen’s garden in Hilldrop Crescent. A hundred years later, he thought, and we’re still digging.

‘You don’t need to worry about this one, Artie,’ Grant said. ‘He’s a copper.’

‘Seen you on telly, haven’t I, sir? Britain’s Most Wanted, was it?’ He chuckled.‘See you later,sir.’

Grant led the way down a corridor that came out into the glazed-roofed atrium forming the centre of Portcullis House, the modern annexe of Parliament across the street from Big Ben. The court was busy with people, groups talking at tables, individuals hurrying to appointments. Brock recognised famous faces among them, one of them stopping to say hello to Grant.

‘Charles, let me introduce you to Detective Chief Inspector Brock.’

‘Ah yes.’ The Home Secretary beamed at Brock, shaking his hand. ‘My wife’s a great admirer of yours, I assume because we both have beards. I hope Michael’s not wasting police time press-ganging you onto his committee, is he?’

Grant laughed.‘It’s not my committee, Charles.’

‘No, just feels like that sometimes.’ He clapped Grant on the shoulder and they moved on.

‘All chums together,’ Grant murmured as they reached the far side of the atrium and entered the corridor leading under Bridge Street to the Houses of Parliament proper. They emerged briefly into the watery sunlight to see a long queue of women in hats moving slowly across New Palace Yard.

‘Widows of war heroes,’ Grant said. ‘The Queen’s holding a reception for them in Westminster Hall. Have you been here before?’

Brock hadn’t.

‘I’ll give you a quick tour, if you like.’

He led the way again,through the Victorian Gothic splendours of the Palace of Westminster, its corridors and lobbies, chambers, libraries and committee rooms, pointing out its treasures with a kind of hushed glee that reminded Brock of a small boy taking a friend into the forbidden haunts of his father’s den.

‘The Death of Nelson, see? Never mind the quality, feel the width-all forty-five feet of it. Look at the ceiling above . . . Can’t show you the only really old bit,unfortunately,Westminster Hall. Can’t crash Liz’s party.’ He chuckled.

They finally arrived at the Strangers’ Dining Room, where they took a table by the window against the terrace overlooking the Thames.

‘This view is very important, very symbolic,’ Grant said.‘Over there is the real world.’ He nodded at the bulk of St Thomas’ Hospital across the river. ‘That’s where they took the boy who found the bodies, wasn’t it? And beyond that, a short ambulance ride, is Lambeth and Brixton and Cockpit Lane. The river is like the Styx, separating the living world from the beyond. Monet captured it perfectly. He sat over there on the south bank and painted the towers of Westminster across the river,glowing through the fog like the city of heaven. Over there people die violent deaths; over here we are immortal.Did you know that?’He grinned.‘Truly.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s a tradition. Nobody dies in the Palace of Westminster. If one of us has a fatal heart attack or stroke, we remain, be we stiff as a board, technically alive until the ambulance crosses the river to St Thomas’, where we are pronounced dead.Whereas on the other side, the boy was found dead on the railway tracks and brought back to life in St Thomas’s. A nice symmetry.’

Grant leaned forward, lowering the volume of his voice a little, though not its intensity. ‘I’m not playing with words, David. This distinction is a living thing for me. It is what motivates everything I do. My mother and father met briefly in Kingston docks. She was a whore and he was possibly an American sailor,though she was necessarily vague about that. They exchanged infections-she gave him clap and he gave her me, which was worse for her. As soon as I was born she did what she’d done with my brother before me and gave me to our grandmother, who made some kind of an honest living from the Dungle in Riverton City,which I think I mentioned to you.I grew up on a rubbish dump,literally.It sounds like some Victorian fable, doesn’t it? But it’s true. So when I look at myself sitting here, when I show a visitor around my palace, when the Home Secretary jokes with me in the corridor, I am in a state of suspended disbelief, and it is very important that I should remain so.’

Their lunches arrived, fish and chips and a bottle of Paramounts’ white burgundy.

‘Old parliamentary joke,’ Grant said. ‘The Lord Chancellor hired a new research assistant called Neil. He told him to report for work in the Central Lobby-remember it? The one with the statue of Gladstone and the golden chandelier. Seeing him there the next morning, the noble Lord, resplendent in wig and scarlet gown, cried “Neil!” And all the tourists did.’

Grant grinned, pouring the wine. ‘You see my point? For a while I’ve joined the immortals, and while I’m here I have to do what I can for those people on the other side, in the world where people kneel to get a bullet in the head.’

‘Father Guzowski must be very proud of you.’

‘I like to think he would be. He died several years before I got into parliament, gunned down by a young kid stoned on crack. But I still feel him here, at my shoulder.When I get too big for my boots I feel him turning my head back, across the river.’

‘I’m told you have a reputation for cutting corners.’

‘That depends on where you stand. If you come from a comfortable background and believe the world is basically on track, give or take some minor adjustments, then yes, I take outrageous liberties. But if you grew up on a rubbish dump and know that most people are doomed to spend their whole lives in some version of the Dungle unless somebody does something about it, then no, my methods are painfully law-abiding and slow. And I do abide by the rules.When we arrive here, freshly elected and full of ambition, along with our security pass and our Parliamentary Intranet access, they give us a book, the Members’ Handbook, which tells us the rules of their gentlemanly game. I studied that book very closely, believe me.’

They ate for a while in silence, finishing their fish.‘Pudding?’ Grant offered. ‘Treacle pudding and custard for a cold February day? It’s extremely good.’

‘That sounds hard to refuse. I don’t know how you keep so lean, Mr Grant.’

‘Michael, please. I use the gym in the old police buildings across the road, and I don’t usually eat lunch.’

‘Then why am I so honoured?’

Grant laughed.‘Down to business,eh?’

‘You said you weren’t surprised that we hadn’t been able to press charges against the Roach brothers.’

‘Let me guess-obstructive tactics by the best lawyers money can buy, intimidation of witnesses, fabricated alibis, inside information on police moves . . . Am I right?’

Brock nodded.

‘It’s all happened before. So what do you do now? Are you giving up?’

‘As things stand, I have no hard evidence that any of the Roach clan were involved in the murder of those three men on the railway ground. But the case is open; I’m still looking.’

‘Another symmetry-three Roach sons and three victims. One side lives and flourishes, the other dies. But maybe there’s another way to even the score.’

‘You think so?’

‘Oh yes. I’m a very low form of life in this great institution, David. There are 659 MPs and I’m one of the youngest and most junior of them, but even so, I have important resources available to me. I have my own research staff and access to a remarkable range of information sources through the House of Commons Library. I am also a member of committees, in particular the Home Affairs Committee, which I mentioned to you when we last met. It is one of eighteen committees set up by parliament to scrutinise the work of government departments, in our case the Home Office, and we’re broadly interested in anything to do with public order, including organised crime and its impact on the community.We don’t investigate crimes,of course,but we can affect the climate in which they are investigated.We have the power to call witnesses and have them give evidence under oath.We can broadcast their evidence on live webcast and through transcripts, and we can do all this under the cover of parliamentary privilege-you know what that means?’

‘They can’t sue you.’

‘Exactly. Of course privilege mustn’t be abused, but what is permissible is open to interpretation. The chair of our committee is Margaret Hart.’

Brock knew of the veteran socialist politician and union activist, famous for her frankness.

‘Margaret gives me plenty of leeway, much to the disgust of the more conservative members, and I’ve had a few successes that have made people sit up.I don’t need the hard chain of evidence that you do in order to pursue Roach, but I do need solid information to persuade my committee that it’s in the public interest that his affairs should be brought out into the bright light of public scrutiny.That’s my primary interest. Not what Roach and his people may or may not have done twenty-odd years in the past, but what they’re doing to our community today.’

‘You said that before, but I thought the Yardies controlled the drug market in your area?’

‘They’re his partners. That’s the point. To begin with, they supplied him, but now it’s the other way around. The days of the Yardie mules and swallowers, the women coming over on free plane tickets with a few ounces of coke in their stomachs, they’re finished, David. Now it comes over by the hundredweight in containers, through legitimate import companies like those owned by Spider Roach. Roach sells it on to the Yardies, who turn it into crack and peddle it on the streets. I’ve been collecting material on this for some time, but I need more.’

‘I don’t think I have any information that would help you, Michael.’

‘You have access to the police files.’

‘As I say, I haven’t seen anything that would help you. The Trident people don’t seem to have anything on Roach.’

Grant looked disappointed and unconvinced.‘What about the JIC files?’ He saw the sudden attention in Brock’s eyes and went on, ‘The Joint Intelligence Committee gives us briefings from time to time, but they’re a cagey lot.’

‘What makes you think they have a file on the Roaches?’

‘I know that Special Branch, Customs and Excise, and MI5 have all taken an interest in them at one time or another. It seems inconceivable that they haven’t pooled their information, don’t you think?’

‘Even if it exists and I could access it, I couldn’t possibly pass on confidential JIC material to you,Michael.Can’t you approach them through your committee, or through the Prime Minister’s Office?’

‘I’ve tried that, but they’ve had their fingers burnt by Roach before. They say they have nothing of relevance to the Home Affairs Committee. Look, I’m not asking you to break any confidences,just to compare notes informally,give each other pointers. I’m willing to share what I know with you,and in the light of what you may know from JIC sources or wherever, you may be able to provide a critique,help me focus my arguments.We’re very much on the same side, David, approaching the same problem from different directions.’

Brock wasn’t sure about the consistency of that last sentence. ‘There is another difficulty. If you use police evidence on your committee, there’s a risk, isn’t there, that you could compromise a future criminal trial?’

‘Our guidelines cover that. The key phrase is “matters currently before a court of law”. At the rate the police have been going, how long will it be before that happens?’

Brock nodded.‘Point taken.’

‘But I appreciate the sensitivities, and in view of that I’d like to suggest that we don’t communicate directly on this. How about you nominate a member of your team to chat from time to time with my research officer, Andrea? Keep things at arm’s length.’

It seemed innocuous enough, and Brock agreed.

On the way out they passed through the Central Lobby again, midway between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and Grant stopped suddenly,staring at a line of people waiting at an information counter.

‘Kerrie?’

The only black woman in the queue turned, looked embarrassed for a moment, then broke into a big smile.‘Michael!’

Grant introduced her to Brock. ‘Kerrie’s the manager of my constituency office in Cockpit Lane.’

‘Yes, hello. I’ve been helping Sergeant Kolla contact people.’

‘But what are you doing here, Kerrie?’

‘I’m doing the PDVN course.’

Grant looked blank.

‘The Parliamentary Data and Video Network course, Michael.We talked about it,remember? Andrea set it up for me.’

‘Oh yes, sorry. There’s this big divide between the staff in the House and staff out in the constituencies,’ he explained to Brock.

‘It’s very important for people like Kerrie to come over and get brought up to speed.’

‘Apart from which I can move your constituency office broadband and email onto the central system and save you money.’

‘And access the intranet, yes. So what’s the problem?’

‘I can’t find the room.’ She showed Grant the memo.

‘That’s Norman Shaw South,’ he said.‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

He led the way down the steps to the lobby in front of the entrance to Westminster Hall, now screened by a temporary partition, beyond which they could hear an excited hum of conversation.

‘Sounds like the widows are having fun,’ he said, and continued on through St Stephen’s porch into the sunlight of Parliament Square, where he shook Brock’s hand and said goodbye.

That evening Tom Reeves took Kathy to a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film Breathless at a New Wave movie festival that was running at the National Film Theatre. She hadn’t seen it before, and Tom promised that she would find it interesting. She did, both for itself and for what it told her about Tom. At first it had seemed paradoxical, to say the least, that a cop should be so enthusiastic about the Jean-Paul Belmondo character, Michel, a crook who murders a cop. But then she began to notice subtle reflections of Tom in him-witty but also moody, and with a laconic smile that seemed to suggest unshakeable scepticism about the world and all its works. Even their looks found an echo, vaguely roguish and battered, though no one could look quite like Belmondo, with his concave boxer’s nose and thick Gallic lips.

‘At the end of shooting,’ Tom explained, ‘the American girl, Jean Seberg, was so disgusted by the whole thing that she said she didn’t want her name attached to it, and Belmondo, too, was appalled by the amateurishness of Godard’s production. Then the film came out and everyone went crazy about it, and they both realised that it was the most important thing they’d ever done. That’s genius, you see. The masterstroke that no one recognises until it’s been pulled off.’

The way he said it, it didn’t sound so much like a bit of film criticism as a statement about life. Kathy wondered if Michel would have put it like that.

Tom had another quote about Belmondo. ‘He said that women over thirty are at their best, but men over thirty are too old to recognise it.’

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but took it as a compliment, and as he drove her home she found herself warming to the thought of him coming up to her flat. She even got as far as trying to remember if she had any eggs to give him for breakfast, but when they reached her door he kissed her tenderly for a long moment, then said he couldn’t stay.

On Monday morning Brock reassigned his team to other cases. No one referred to the Roach episode, as if it was over and best forgotten. But by the end of the briefing Kathy and Tom hadn’t been mentioned. Brock nodded to them as the meeting broke up and they followed him up to his office.

They noticed that he hadn’t removed his own copies of the Brown Bread material from the big wall facing his desk. Kathy was struck by the symmetry between the pictures of the Roach family on one side and of the Brown Bread victims on the other, like the line-up for opposing soccer teams.

‘Despite what I said downstairs,’ Brock said, pouring coffee, ‘I still believe that discovering the truth behind the events of twenty-four years ago will be the key to finding Dee-Ann and Dana’s murderers. So . . . your boss says you can stay with us for a while longer, Tom.’

‘Glad to be rid of me, is he, Chief?’ ‘He didn’t say that exactly. It was my request. You all right

with that?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

Brock smiled benignly, passing the cups around, but Kathy wasn’t fooled. He was watching their body language, the way they chose seats and leaned in together for the milk, trying to work out what was going on between them. Or maybe she was just being hypersensitive, the three of them together like that in his room.

‘Good. I didn’t mention it downstairs, but I’d like you two to stick with Brown Bread for a while longer, tie up some loose ends. Tom, you’re our Roach expert now. Commander Sharpe has asked for a summary of our investigation to put on file for the Organised Crime Liaison Group. Did you ever come across an OCLG or JIC file on Roach?’

‘Don’t recall one.’

‘You might use your Branch contacts to see if there is such a thing-informal approach, nothing official.’

‘Okay.’

‘Did you meet the MP, Michael Grant? His office in Cockpit Lane helped Kathy track down the identity of our victims. Grant is also interested in Roach. He’s a bit of a crusader against drugs and crime in his community, and he’s convinced the Roaches are still operating, in partnership with the local black gangs.’

‘Really?’ Tom looked doubtful. ‘News to me. The Trident people didn’t think it likely, did they?’

‘No, but still, Grant claims to have information that he’s willing to share with us. I want you to talk to his research officer, Andrea.’ He handed Tom her card. ‘See what you think. They’ll want some quid pro quo, I daresay, but don’t give them anything without talking to me first.’

‘Haven’t really got much to give, have we?’

‘True. Kathy . . .’ He put his hands flat on the desk, as if at a

loss.‘What do you think?’ ‘Loose ends? Well, who pressured the Singhs and Ferguson?’ ‘Yes. Anything else?’ ‘Neighbours? Rainbow?’ ‘Ah, Rainbow, of course. How did we manage without it?’ ‘I’ll have a look, shall I?’ ‘Please . . . By the way, did Michael Grant put you in touch with Mrs Lavender among his contacts, by any chance?’

‘No, he didn’t.’ ‘Mm, she may have passed away by now. All right. Let’s meet again tomorrow afternoon, see how we’re doing.’ On the stairs, as they turned a tight corner, Tom slid an arm around Kathy’s waist and gave a squeeze.‘Did we pass scrutiny?’ ‘You felt it too, did you?’ ‘We must have a talk sometime, about your relationship with the old man.’

Kathy arranged to visit the Rainbow Coordinator at the area command that covered the elder Singhs’ home in Streatham. There they identified the cameras operating in the immediate area. There were none in the Singhs’ street, but a local council camera covered its junction with a shopping street at one end, the most likely direction of approach. As she talked to the coordinator, Kathy began to appreciate the difficulties.What exactly was she looking for? She had a list of cars registered to members of the Roach family, but Ricky was a car dealer and could presumably lay his hands on any number of other vehicles. Then there were the unknown associates and employees who may have been sent to give the Singhs the message. In the end, the coordinator agreed to try to provide a list of all the vehicles that had passed through the junction over a four-hour period on that night.

‘You realise that’ll probably be a couple of thousand? Who’s going to authorise the request?’

Kathy gave Brock’s name and returned to her office, where she found two phone messages, one from forensic services and the other from a Mr Connell. She stared at the name, feeling a slight flush in her face, then rang the first number.

The man at forensic services began by apologising for the delay. ‘We’ve had a rush of work and you did say it wasn’t top priority.’

Kathy didn’t at first recall the job, and the man had to remind her about the cigarette end she’d found behind the fence overlooking the railway site.

‘That spliff you sent us. Interesting smoking mixture, must try it some time-tobacco and marijuana, half and half, with a garnish of cocaine. Prime sensimillia ganja, too, nothing cheap. Mr Murray has the right connections.’

‘Murray?’

‘The smoker. We’ve got his DNA on file. George Murray. Done for possession in a raid on a South London nightclub eight months ago.Charges dropped due to processing irregularities.We should have wiped the record. Oops.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘Eighteen Cockpit Lane, SW9. Know it?’

Kathy did. She could picture the sign over the window, WELLINGTON’S UTENSILS EST. 1930.

She thanked him and then, more cautious this time, pressed the numbers for the second call, a mobile.

‘Martin Connell, hello?’

The voice still had that sonorous tone, which could be so skilfully adjusted to each occasion: a TV news soundbite, a judge, a former lover.Kathy waited a beat before revealing which one it was.

‘Hello, Martin.’

‘Kathy! It’s so good to hear your voice again. Seeing Bren Gurney the other day made me think of you. How are you?’

‘Fine.You?’

‘Yes, great.You know what I was thinking, while Gurney was going through all that nonsense?’ He said it as if he knew perfectly well that she’d been watching.‘I was thinking how really good it would be to see you again, have lunch, catch up.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I know, you’re frantically busy and we’re just old history. But we were important to each other once,and I think it’s wrong to lose contact completely with people who have been important in your life, don’t you? Christ, there aren’t that many of them when it comes right down to it. I don’t suppose you heard about Daniel?’

It took a second for Kathy to remember.‘Your brother?’

‘That’s right.We buried him last month. His heart packed in, just like that. It was a hell of a shock-makes you stop and think, Kathy.’

‘I’m very sorry.’ She’d never met Daniel, but she remembered the tone Martin’s voice took on whenever he spoke of his elder brother, a mixture of admiration, envy and intense frustration.

‘Well, anyway, maybe you’re a little curious, eh? To catch up?’

She laughed. He’d perfected that inveigling pitch at an early age, she’d once decided, to get whatever he fancied-his brother’s cricket bat or his mother’s undivided attention-and it still worked a treat with juries and impressionable younger women.

‘What do you really want, Martin?’

‘Just to buy you lunch, and talk to an old friend, and maybe pass on a little gossip for our mutual entertainment. How about tomorrow?’

She agreed. The key words were ‘pass on’. Martin was a messenger. And he was right, she was curious.

Within an hour the weather had turned bitterly cold again, dark clouds looming overhead. Kathy parked her car in a side street, pulled a woollen beanie down over her ears,turned up her coat collar and paced briskly towards Cockpit Lane. The market was deserted, the stalls stripped back to metal frames, cardboard boxes stacked ready for collection. There was a light showing in Winnie’s shop window and Kathy pushed open the door. The old woman heard the buzzer and emerged from the back,wiping her hands on a towel.

‘Hello, dear,’ cautiously.‘What can I do for you?’

‘Hello, Winnie. I wondered if George was around. There’s something I need to ask him.’

Winnie’s face fell.‘He’s not here. Maybe I can help you?’

‘I’d really like to speak to him. Any idea where I can find him?’

The woman’s brow creased like an old glove as she shook her head.‘He’s gone, he don’t work for me no more and I haven’t seen him in over a week.’

‘Oh?’

‘We had a row, a week ago last Saturday it was. I wanted him up early to get things ready for the market, but he was out till four or five o’clock the night before, doing goodness knows what. He said some wicked things and walked out. I haven’t seen him since. What is it you want to ask him? Is he in trouble?’

‘I don’t know.We got some reports that someone was watching us when we were digging up the railway bank, from across the other side, in one of the gardens. Whoever it was was smoking drugs, and now we’ve learned that it was George.’

Winnie nodded resignedly.‘Dat don’t surprise me.The drugs, I mean. He wasn’t even tryin’ to hide it from me no more. And it’s true, for over a month now he’s been disappearing for hours at

a time, just when I need him.’

‘Why would he spy on us? There wasn’t much to see.’

‘Once, when I asked him where he’d been, he said I wasn’t the only one prepared to pay for his services.’

‘Any idea who he’d be working for?’

The old lady shrugged as if to suggest the worst.‘All I can tell you is that one of my friends in the market said the other day that she’d seen him with some girl. Maybe he’s staying there. I don’t know. She lives over the laundrette in Cove Street, back of the tyre place, you know?’

Kathy knew very well from their abortive raids on Mr Teddy Vexx. She hurried back to her car and drove to Cove Street, then turned into the laneway that led past the tyre yard. From there she could see the back of the block of shops and laundrette. Stairs led to an open access gallery to the flats above. There were lights on in one and Kathy was about to get out when its front door opened and a young woman,heavily wrapped against the cold,manoeuvred a child’s pushchair out onto the deck.She reached back into the flat to turn the light off, then carefully locked the front door with three separate keys before pushing the chair towards the stairs. Kathy guessed that there was no one left in the flat, and stayed where she was as the girl struggled down the stairs. Kathy realised why it was such an effort when she emerged into the lane and Kathy saw that the pushchair was a double one,with a pair of little pink hats visible under the hood. Kathy locked her car and followed.

After a couple of blocks the woman slowed at a shopfront beside a bus stop. There was another struggle as someone on the inside opened both doors and helped lift the pushchair’s front wheels over the threshold. The sign stencilled on the front window read CAMBERWELL GUM CLINIC. Kathy continued walking towards it as the woman disappeared inside, and as she reached the front door it opened again and she saw into a room crowded with women. A smaller sign on the other window said GENITOURINARY MEDICINE.

Kathy guessed the woman was going to be there for a while,and picked up a paper at the corner shop before crossing to a cafe over the road, where she bought a mug of tea and a toasted sandwich.

An hour and a half later the girl re-emerged. As soon as she was out on the footpath she lit a cigarette and blew a great puff of relief into the frosty air, then headed off again along the street, turning eventually into a grim little park where she released the tiny twins to totter around on the soggy ground while she sat on a bench and lit another cigarette. Kathy checked the name of the place, Tallow Square, then followed the narrow road around the edge, convinced now that she was wasting her time. The sky was growing darker and more threatening by the minute, and she was on the point of turning back when she noticed parked ahead of her a car that she recognised, an electric-blue Peugeot convertible. It looked remarkably pristine and sleek among the battered dustbins and graffiti-covered walls on this more derelict side of the park, as did the glossy red BMW sports car behind it. At that moment a man stepped from the mouth of a lane midway between Kathy and the cars.

Kathy stopped dead, recognising George. The tree trunks behind her were as black as her coat, otherwise he would surely have noticed her. Instead, his attention was caught by the figures in the park. He gave a shout and trotted towards them, and at that moment the sky overhead flickered with light, followed almost immediately by a massive bang of thunder. Kathy came abreast of the lane from which George had appeared and caught an image of battered fences topped by barbed wire and a faded sign, REILLY’S USED CARS. She heard the savage howl of a dog, then the first heavy raindrops hit the ground.

She hadn’t noticed cameras, but she kept her head down, shoulders hunched,and continued past the cars,noting the number of the BMW and of several other cars further up the street.The rain turned into a torrent and she broke into a run.

When she got back to Queen Anne’s Gate she phoned DS McCulloch to see if he knew anything about George Murray, who didn’t have a police record. He said he’d check and get back to her. Then she decided to see how Tom was doing. She found him in a room in the basement where he had taken all the material they had accumulated on the Roach family. Cold and vaulted like a crypt, he called it The Roach Room, and had covered its walls with photos and diagrams.

‘Take a seat,’ he offered. ‘Your hair’s wet. Did you get caught in that downpour?’

‘Yes,’she sniffed.‘I think I’m getting a cold.’

He plugged in the electric heater he’d brought down there and she moved closer to it, looking around at the images on the walls.‘Why are they all dressed in black?’

‘The most recent pictures were taken at a funeral four years ago, when the whole family turned out to farewell Cyrus Despinides, who happened to be a friend of someone else Special Branch were interested in. Cyrus Despinides was an old business partner of Spider, and his daughter Adonia is married to Ivor Roach, the second son, the accountant.’ Tom pointed to a family tree diagram.

‘Yes, I’ve met Adonia, and her daughter Magdalen.’

‘How come?’

Kathy explained.

‘So you’ve actually been inside the family compound, The Glebe?’ There was a plan and an aerial photograph among the pictures on the wall.

‘Yes, strange place, like a fortified village trying to pretend it’s just an ordinary bit of posh suburbia. But I suppose that’s what they mean by a gated community.’

‘It is a bit odd. They had it purpose-built for themselves. I mean, you’d have to think there was something a bit pathological about a family wanting to stick so close together. Imagine being one of the women,marrying into a deal like that.And they do stick together. Neither Spider nor any of the boys have divorced.’

‘The only other member of the family I’ve seen is the youngest son, Ricky, when we interviewed him.’

‘Right.’Tom pointed to the pictures of the brothers.‘They’re all in their fifties now. Mark, the eldest, the big-shot businessman, travels a lot,owns a lavish holiday villa on the north coast of Jamaica and an apartment in Hong Kong. He’s married with five children and three grandchildren. Ivor, the second son, is an accountant in his own practice, which is effectively dedicated to the Roach business operations.Ricky,number three,has the luxury car dealership in Eltham, wife and four kids.

‘And then there’s the old man,Edward “Spider”Roach.He was widowed eight years ago and had a brush with cancer shortly after. Since then rarely seen in public except as a regular churchgoer, but known to be a generous donor to a variety of charitable and political organisations,including the Catholic Church,Save the Children and the Conservative Party.’

‘So what are we looking for?’ Kathy asked.

‘Points of weakness,’Tom said.‘I’m meeting Michael Grant’s researcher, Andrea, tomorrow.We’ll see what they’ve come up with.’

That evening Kathy spoke to her friend Nicole, who mentioned that they’d received a request from Brock that day, to unearth old files relating to a surveillance operation back in the early eighties.

‘What kind of operation?’ Kathy asked, curious.

‘A funeral parlour,’ Nicole said, laughing.‘Maybe he’s writing his memoirs. Anyway, how’s it going with Tom?’

‘All right. I’m just getting used to having him around the office all the time.’

‘Mm, but apart from that? You’re not seeing him tonight?’

‘No. It’s fine.’

‘He’s not being a bit slow, is he?’

Kathy changed the subject, and they agreed to try to get together the coming weekend.

There were two reports waiting for Kathy the following morning. One had arrived by fax during the night from the police in Kingston, Jamaica, regarding her inquiry about the three victims,Walter Isaacs, Joseph Kidd and Robbie X. From the details taken from their passports when they entered the UK, the JCF had been able to identify the first two. It seemed that both had died, Isaacs in 1970 and Kidd in 1976, long before they arrived in London.

The second report was on her computer, a long string of vehicle numbers from the Rainbow Coordinator in Streatham. She poured a cup of coffee, pondered, and decided to begin with a shortlist of those that appeared more than once, on the basis that anyone visiting the Singhs would have first come, then gone. She set about comparing these with the list of numbers they’d compiled of cars known to belong to the Roach family.

Towards noon, when Brock came by, she’d found no matches. She told him what she was doing and the result from Jamaica, and he just nodded, preoccupied.

After he’d gone it occurred to her that the big point of all this wasn’t so much to prove that the Singhs had been intimidated by the Roaches-that probably wasn’t going to be possible. Rather, it was to prove that there was a continuing connection between the Roaches and the black gangsters of Cockpit Lane. She opened her notebookto the rain-wrinkled page where she’d writtenthe numbers of the cars at the park the previous day, and started comparing them with the Streatham list. Disappointingly, neither Teddy Vexx’s Peugeot nor the red BMW came up,but then,just as she was checking her watch and deciding it was time to go, one of the other numbers on her screen showed a match.It was that of a Ford Mondeo parked further up the street. A minute later she had the name, Jay Crocker, known to them as an associate of Teddy Vexx. She reached for the phone to tell Brock but found that he had left the office.

Martin Connell rose to his feet as she approached his table. The monitor hadn’t lied about the extra pounds, and there were other subtle signs of time passing about the corners of his eyes and mouth. She saw that he was making a similar appraisal of her. Ten years had put their mark on both of them.She hoped his success hadn’t made him pompous.Whatever else he’d been, he’d never been that.

‘Great view.’ She looked out at the sweep of water.

‘I hope it wasn’t too far.’

‘No.’ She’d been glad that the place he’d suggested was some way up-river from the office. ‘I’ve heard of this place, of course. But I’ve never been here.’ Not at these prices, she thought.

‘I’m very glad you’ve come. Really, I didn’t think you would.’

The smile of course, racy and ironic like . . . well, Belmondo perhaps, or even Tom a little. She made a mental note to work that one out later.‘I’m not sure why I did.I mean,we’re not interested in each other’s private lives, are we? And we can’t talk about work. Doesn’t leave much to fill in the odd hour.’

He laughed.‘We never had any trouble filling in the odd hour, Kathy. I did mean what I said on the phone. Since Daniel . . . Okay, you’re not interested, but I got to thinking, if it had been me instead of him, what would I look back to, most of all? And what came into my mind was you-no, don’t look at me like that, it’s true.You were very important to me. And I thought how sad it would be if we never had another chance to sit together at a fine white tablecloth with a glass of wine, and talk.’

As he spoke, using that persuasive voice, Kathy realised that the differences she’d noticed in him had disappeared and he now seemed the same as he’d always been. Or perhaps he was a little more mellow, a little less obvious in making known what he wanted. He had no difficulty in finding funny, neutral things to amuse her with. The river was a cue for a story of an evening with fellow lawyers (no mention of wives) on an evening cruise, being serenaded by a famous operatic soprano, whose improvised stage at the stern had buckled under her considerable weight, almost tipping her into the river. The theme of punctured human dignity led on to a courtroom story from his early days, and then to a convoluted account of a meal with a senior Tory member of parliament (wives included this time), whose well-known habit of ending a good story with a flourish of his pocket handkerchief had come unstuck when the handkerchief, like a magician’s prop, had been followed by a pair of ladies’ black silk knickers-not, so his wife calmly observed, her own.

The food was excellent too-French new wave, he said, as if he’d read her mind about Belmondo. An hour passed in no time, then another, before he looked regretfully at his watch and called

for the bill.

‘You mentioned gossip on the phone,’ Kathy said.

‘Did I? Oh yes,there was something . . .But you were right,no shop. There is one thing I will say, though. It’s absolutely ridiculous that you’re still at the same rank as when we . . . as before. I mean, it just makes me angry, Brock keeping you tucked under his wing at DS when everybody knows you’re the best thing he’s got, far better than Gurney. I mean, he won’t be there forever, Kathy, and when he goes . . . It could be sooner than you think, they’ll move someone in, maybe already have . . .’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s the way big organisations work, Kathy. I know. You’ve got to look out for number one.’

‘You didn’t buy me lunch to give me a lecture on ambition, Martin.What is this all about, really?’

‘I told you what it was. I realised I was mortal, and couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing you one more time.’

He gave her a lift back to the West End and left her, mystified. Altruism wasn’t Martin’s style, and though he’d always been generous, there was always a motive.

Brock chose a spot towards the back of the waiting crowd and to one side, where he could see the arrivals without making himself obvious. One by one, then in a steady stream, they came around the corner, bent to their laden trolleys, eyes expectantly scanning the confusion of bobbing faces. Then she appeared.

If he’d intended it as a test of his own feelings, it would have rated as a complete success.The sight of the familiar face,the intelligent searching eyes, the determined chin, instantly dispelled all the doubts that had haunted him these last months and sent a warm surge of blind relief and affection through him. He saw with concern the fatigue in the shadows around her eyes, and began to push towards the end of the railings so that he could wrap his arms around her and tell her that it was good, so very good, that she was home at last.

Only she wasn’t pushing a trolley,and then he saw her face light up, not at him, but at someone on the far side of the crowd. Then he saw two children break out of the crush and run forward into her arms. Suzanne’s grandchildren, he realised, followed by a smiling woman he didn’t recognise. He watched Suzanne embrace her too, then turn to make a gesture of introduction to the man pushing the trolley behind her. He shook hands all round, grinning broadly; a tall man, tanned and good-looking, fitter and younger than Brock. The crowd shifted and surged and Brock lost sight of them, then he saw them off to the side, talking together in an excited cluster before moving together towards the exit doors, the woman explaining with hand signs where her car was parked.

He stood for a while, a fixed point in the swirling mass, letting the bitter sick feeling subside, then he followed them out into the chilly afternoon.

Kathy made her way to the office of the Streatham Rainbow Coordinator, who set her up in front of a monitor to watch the tapes of the junction at the end of the Singhs’ street. There was a gap of half an hour between the two appearances of the Mondeo, the second timed just a few minutes after the elder Singh had made the online plane bookings for his son and daughter-in-law. In both clips it was apparent that there were two occupants in the vehicle, bulky men who seemed to fill the car’s interior.

On the way back to Queen Anne’s Gate,Kathy got a phone call from Tom. He sounded rushed and there was a lot of background noise, as if he was in a train station.

‘How’s it going, Kathy?’

‘Fine, I’m just heading back. I found one or two-’

‘Great, me too. Look, I’ve only got a minute . . . Oh, got to go. See you later.’

‘Where-?’ But he was gone.

Back at the office, Kathy tapped on Brock’s door. He was at his desk, bent over a file, one of a stack of faded buff folders of a type she hadn’t seen in years.

She sat down and told him what she’d learned and he listened in silence.

‘So Michael Grant is right,’she said.‘We can show a connection between Roach and suspected drug dealers in Cockpit Lane. Should we tell Trident?’

‘Not yet,’ Brock murmured. He seemed still absorbed in whatever he’d been reading.‘What other checks can you make on Vexx and his crew?’

‘Phone records, and I could speak to the lad, George Murray, try to find out why he was spying on us.’

Brock nodded.‘Yes, do that.’

‘What’s Tom up to, do you know?’

‘He’s been spending time with Grant’s research officer. Apparently they’ve got quite a lot of stuff-press cuttings, company information, things like that. But he’s not sure if any of it will help us.’

She turned and left, thinking how tired and preoccupied he looked.

There was a pile of material on Kathy’s desk relating to two other cases she’d put on hold. Now they needed urgent attention, a file report and preparation for a court appearance at the impending trial for another murder case, and several phone calls and a briefing document to the CPS in relation to a serial rapist.She sat down and worked through till almost nine before she headed home, picking up some Chinese on the way.

She was sitting on her sofa in front of the TV when she jerked upright, conscious of having fallen asleep. The empty plate was on the coffee table in front of her, a subtitled movie playing on the screen. Then a rap on the door. She assumed that was what had woken her. She got up stiffly and looked through the spy hole to see Tom’s face grinning back at her.

‘Saw your light on from the street,’ he said, bringing a gust of cold outdoors and other smells in with him. There was a bottle in his hand and his voice sounded loud and cheerful. He gave her a kiss.‘Someone let me through the front door.’

‘Oh . . . I fell asleep in front of the box.What time is it?’

“ ’Round Midnight”.You know that one? Thelonious Monk. Classic.’ He was searching for glasses, humming to himself.

She checked her watch. It was just after three. ‘You sound happy.Where have you been?’

‘Working, working. We never sleep.’ That seemed to be the cue for another melody while he worked on the cork, filled the glasses and collapsed on the sofa.

‘Phew, I’m bushed. Cheers.’

She joined him. She hadn’t seen the shirt before, purple silk with a dark pattern of some kind. Not a work shirt. He smelled of cigarette smoke, and something else.

‘Cheers. Did you drive here?’

He looked penitent.‘’Fraid so.Shouldn’t have.Won’t be able to drive home after this. Can I stay here?’

‘Of course.’

‘Wonderful.’ He put his glass down with a bump that splashed wine across the table, then laid his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes.‘You are wonderful, you know that, don’t you?’

Kathy got up to wipe the spilled wine.‘What was that all about this afternoon, your phone call?’ she asked, but there was no reply and when she turned back he was asleep. She looked down at him for a moment, at the self-absorbed concentration on his sleeping face, and wondered if she really knew him at all. She spread a spare blanket over him and went to bed.

When she got up in the morning he was still there, curled up beneath the blanket. He woke to the sounds of her making coffee and toast, and sat up with a groan, rubbing his face. She handed him an orange juice and he said he was sorry.

‘What happened?’ she asked.‘Where had you been?’

‘Oh . . . I met somebody, had a few drinks. Sorry.Was it very late? Did I wake you up?’

‘Don’t worry. How’s your head?’

‘Nothing a shower won’t fix. Thanks, Kathy.’ He checked his watch with bleary eyes and jumped to his feet. ‘Hell, I’d better move.’

He had a fast shower,pulled his old clothes back on again,kissed her and ran out the door while she was still making breakfast. As she sat at the window munching her toast she contemplated the smell on his jacket. Cigarette smoke, curry and something else, something familiar.She got up and shook out the crumpled blanket on the sofa and a small white handkerchief fell to the floor.It didn’t look like a man’s handkerchief. She picked it up and was aware of that scent again . . . J’Adore, that was it. J’Adore perfume, she was almost sure. She wondered what perfume Michael Grant’s research officer-what was her name? Andrea-wore.

She went to the window and looked down at the car park.

Tom’s Subaru was parked at an odd angle in the corner. She watched him get in, reverse and head for the street, and as he accelerated away she noticed a dark green car take off after him. She reached for the phone and dialled his number.

‘Yes?’

‘Tom . . .’ She looked down at the handkerchief in her hand, then tossed it aside.‘Is there a green Mondeo on your tail?’

‘What? Hang on . . . No, Kathy, don’t think so.’

‘All right. See you later.’