The Cold Calling

XI

Riggs, the boss man, turned slowly and looked into space for a moment before inclining his head. He smiled with all the warmth of a polecat greeting a rabbit.

‘This is my dad, sir,’ Maiden said. ‘Norman.’

Riggs had a thinner man’s face. An oddly sensitive face with fine translucent skin; you could see tiny veins underneath, like the filaments in a light bulb. There was something extraterrestrial about Riggs; you always thought he could read your thoughts, and this struck you anew every time you saw him.

‘Honoured to meet you, sir.’ Norman hung around, like someone waiting to be called into the witness box. ‘Reading about you the other week. Now what did I read?’ He pretended to think for a second or two. ‘Jarvis. You nailed Terry Jarvis. I nicked his dad, must’ve been four times. John Karl Jarvis. GBH mostly. Aggravated burglary, once. By, that were a hard bugger …’

‘Family trait, Mr Maiden. Sit down. I’ll fetch another chair.’

‘I’ll get it, sir,’ Norman said, and he did.

Riggs sat. His narrow, bony face smiling at Norman with its full, genial mouth while its eyes remained cool, occasionally seeking out Norman’s boy.

Who stayed glazed, focused on nothing, smiling inanely from his bed. Playing damaged. Brain in dry dock. Attention-span of a goldfish.

‘You’re looking a bit blurred, Bobby,’ Riggs said. ‘You were lucky.’

‘So they tell me, sir.’

‘Oh, before I forget … Roger Gibbs, managing editor of the Messenger group, was asking me about a picture of you, recovering as it were. Perhaps the two of us together. I wasn’t too happy. Co-operate with the local press whenever you can, always been my motto as you know. But in this case, a wounded hero picture …’ Riggs shrugged. Well … up to you, Bobby.’

It was also, when you were in his presence, impossible to believe Riggs was bent. He always looked fully at you; he was always calm. One day soon, Riggs would be promoted and leave Elham. Within three years, he’d be an ACC, maybe even a chief constable, living a chief constable’s lifestyle and all of it paid for. A cottage here, a villa there and Tony Parker safely retired.

Face to face with Riggs, you knew he was never going to be nailed. He was direct, ruthless, efficient, had important friends; but he was also, oddly, a copper’s copper. Got results but never pinched the credit; the lads liked working for him. Nobody Maiden knew would have wanted Riggs to go down.

‘I was suggesting, sir,’ Norman said, ‘that he should make a list of all the toerags who had it in for him.’

‘Oh.’ Riggs lifted an eyebrow. ‘You think it was like that, do you, Mr Maiden?’

‘Copper gets knocked over, it’s not usually a drink-driver, sir.’

‘Not a drink-driver.’ Riggs pinched his nose. ‘What do you think about that, Bobby?’

‘I wouldn’t know, boss. Would I?’

‘Obviously not. You don’t remember anything, Mike Beattie tells me. Unless something’s come through.’

‘No. Not a thing.’

‘How long before you’re out?’

‘Few days.’

‘Some nerve damage, they’re saying. You may be walking around in a bit of a fog for a while.’

‘Should sort itself out, boss.’

‘Have to see, won’t we, Bobby?’

Norman looked at his watch. Maiden flashed him an imploring glance. Shit, Dad, don’t walk out on me. Whatever this bastard’s really come to say, I don’t want to hear it.

‘By heck,’ Norman said. ‘It’s nearly five o’clock. Be missing me train.’

Surprisingly, Riggs stood up. ‘Yes, I have an appointment, too. Speaking engagement.’ He made a wry face. ‘Magistrates’ Association annual dinner. Just wanted to make sure the lad was all right before I went home. Can I give you a lift, Mr Maiden?’

‘Very kind of you, sir, but I like to walk.’ Patting his stomach. ‘Don’t let retirement get the better of me.’

‘That’s the spirit. Well, I’ll see you again, Bobby.’

‘Thanks for looking in,’ said Maiden.

Watching the two of them, strolling companionably down the ward, smiling at other patients. The visit over almost before it had started.

What’s he going to do to me?

Coincidence.

Riggs and Maiden had arrived in Elham the very same week, Maiden direct from the Met, Riggs after four months in Kent, taking over from a DCI who was facing allegations of corruption. (Yes, he was that hard-faced.) Never thought they’d see each other again after the Met, but here they were.

Suspicions.

Once, when Riggs was a DI, he’d sought DS Maiden’s co-operation in fitting up this troublesome Animal Rights woman for an amateur parcel-bomb at a butcher’s shop in Fulham. Naturally, if the fit-up had gone ahead, it would have been entirely down to Maiden — Riggs merely turning a blind eye; this was how it worked.

Or — to be honest — how Maiden presumed it still worked. He’d never stopped watching Riggs, and he hadn’t got a thing that was rock-solid. Just the names of four small-timers fitted up by Parker’s crew, nicked by Riggs. Three of them figured it was safer to let it go, do their eighteen months, flit to some safer town on release. The other was Dean Clutton who’d topped himself on remand.

‘You stupid little twat!’

Maiden lurched; his eyes sprang open.

Norman Plod’s familiar, leathery breath on his face. Norman Plod hissing in his ear.

‘Dad? What about your train?’

‘Fuck the train.’

Maiden struggled to sit up, but Norman was leaning over him as if he’d just brought him down after a chase.

‘No bloody wonder you don’t remember owt.’ Voice loaded with contempt.

‘What did he say to you, Dad?’

‘Drink-driver. Drunk driver? Put me bloody size nines in it that time, didn’t I? Heh. Drunk bloody pedestrian, more like.’

‘Oh shit,’ Maiden said.

‘A good man, is Mr Riggs. A damn good senior officer. Better than you deserve. Telling me on the quiet. Copper to copper. Save me any more embarrassment.’

‘All right,’ Maiden said, ‘I’d had a few drinks.’

‘A few drinks. You bloody little toerag. Five Scotches and four pints. You were lucky you could bloody stand up.’

‘That’s not quite true, Dad. No beers.’

Norman looked down on him, breathing through his teeth. ‘You were in a club called the Saint Moritz, that right?’

Maiden said nothing.

‘Where you picked up a brass.’

‘Not quite right.’

‘And where you drank five Scotches and four pints. The barman remembers every one, lad, because he recognized you. Then you and the brass left, wi’ your hand up her jumper.’

‘No.’

‘You got in a minicab and you went to your flat. About an hour later, a witness saw you come out chasing t’brass. What were up, lad? Wouldn’t she take a credit card? By Christ, I always knew you weren’t up to much. I were bloody amazed when you made DI. Bloody amazed.’

‘Dad-’

‘I thought you’d maybe sorted yourself out at one time. When you married Elizabeth. Bonny lass. Woman wi’ a bit of go in her. Could you keep her? Could you buggery. You’re a dead loss, lad. A bloody dead loss.’

Norman took his weight off Maiden’s chest. Moved away, brushing at his jacket in case bits of his son had come off on him.

At the foot of the bed, he looked over his shoulder, Sporting Life and the farter both watching keenly.

‘You left your front door open, son,’ Norman said with a visible sneer. ‘But it’s all right. Nobody wanted to nick your pictures.’

The storeroom was full of boxes of paper towels and toilet rolls, cartons of soap, bleach, industrial cleaning fluids. All the non-human hospital smells began here.

Maiden stayed behind the door as someone went past with a trolley. He was sweating. His left side had shut down. The blue-white light from the fluorescent tube was squeezing his head like an accordion.

Sister Andy had told him, You won’t be walking a straight line for a wee while.

Take it slowly. This was the furthest he’d been; taken himself to the lavatory and that was it. He looked down at his trousers. No bloodstains, anyway. Somebody had given the suit a brush. There was a hole in his grey jacket below the breast pocket. It would do.

Normal thing would have been for the suit to go to forensic; always a small possibility of paint traces. Somebody obviously wasn’t trying very hard to find the car that ran him down.

He still needed a sweater or a shirt. The crash team had obviously torn his off in a hurry to get at his chest. Maybe he could find some kind of surgeon’s smock in here.

He had no watch. He opened the door a crack to look up at the clock at the end of the corridor. Five-thirty. Teatime. They’d be missing him soon. Checking out the toilets and the day rooms. Could have tried to sign himself out, but that would have led to arguments, drawn too much attention. Especially with the state he’d been in …

… when, not five minutes after Norman’s final exit, there’d been this sudden activity down the ward and the screens went up again round the old man’s bed, and there were murmurs, the ward darkening, the air clotting with death, a purple-grey cloud almost visible over that bed. Maiden’s stomach had gone cold with dread. He had to get out of here. Out of the hospital, out of the town, out of the grey, out of the cold. The need stifling him.

… take a breath before you jump in …

No. He’d found his suit in the locker, rolled it up into a ball around his shoes. Made his exit before they removed the body.

He found the T-shirts wrapped in Cellophane in a box marked Liquid Soap.

The T-shirts were white, all one size. He held one up. Across the chest, it said, ELHAM GENERAL HOSPITAL LEAGUE OF FRIENDS FUN RUN 1997.

Maiden put one on, his jacket over the top. Switched off the light and relished the darkness, until he realized he was going to sleep, even though he’d spent most of the bloody day asleep.

All you have to do, Bobby, is rest, rest and rest.

Wondering if he could ever really rest again.

Anybody to look after you at home? Girlfriend? Mother?

Liz would have known how to look after him. Would’ve known all about the care of head injuries. But he knew that if he’d still been with Liz she’d have sent him straight back to the hospital in a taxi. Then told Riggs. Liz liked there to be a framework, structure, hierarchy, organization, rules, discipline …

He clutched his head, suffocating. No wonder Norman liked her.

When the lift let him out in the reception area, his legs felt weak. The place was full of visitors and cleaners and auxiliaries. There was a small shop selling tea and coffee and snacks, a few tables and chairs, and he sat down for a moment, eyes going at once to a framed print on the cream wall opposite.

He knew the painting. Turner. Staffa: Fingal’s Cave. Skeletal ship in an angry, glowering maelstrom of sea and sky and rocks. Small, struggling sun. There was a sudden heaviness in his chest, a memory rolling around in there like an iron ball. It meant something, this picture. It had the essence of something. He felt its violence.

The picture was groaning with half-spent violence and the threat of more to come.

More to come. Maiden felt sick, as though he was on that ship among the black elements.

Couldn’t look at it any more. Stood up. Didn’t hang around, didn’t look to either side until he was in the hospital car park, on the hillside overlooking the town and the dying sun.