The Murder Exchange

Sunday, fourteen days ago

Gallan

The station was quiet that morning. The busiest night of the week had come and gone and the cells were slowly being emptied of the drunks, the brawlers, the low-level dealers and anyone else unlucky enough to have had their collar felt. It was another glorious day. The weather woman on the radio had announced chirpily that it was the seventh in a row with more than ten hours of sunshine. Temperatures expected to touch twenty-nine degrees Celsius, eighty-four by the old measurement. No one would be working who didn’t have to, even though crime often went up in heatwaves. Tempers got more frayed, particularly in an overcrowded city; domestic burglary increased as people left their windows open at night. So, too, did rapes, for exactly the same reason. But who wanted to catch criminals on a hot August Sunday?

And that was the thing. I did. I wanted to find out who thought they were clever enough to kill Shaun Matthews and get away with it. I wanted to prove them wrong.

It didn’t seem as though too many of the squad shared my wish, or were at least prepared to break their backs over it, and the incident room for the Matthews murder was empty for the second morning in a row when I walked into it at just after half past eight. Berrin was expected in, as was DI Capper, my immediate boss. It didn’t surprise me that neither had arrived. Berrin had been particularly reluctant to work that day because he’d had to break a date, and had only had one day off in the previous fourteen, so it was unlikely he was going to make it in before nine. As for Capper, he was never on time if his superiors weren’t working. Which was the bloke all over. It was a testimony to his arse-licking skills, and the talent he had for creating a wholly false image of commitment and hard work, that he had reached the level of detective inspector on the back of having absolutely none of the skills required. He was a detective who couldn’t detect, a civil servant who didn’t like to serve, and a man manager who truly couldn’t manage. Every word he ever uttered reeked of insincerity, and his habit of backstabbing colleagues was legendary. He had the luck of the devil, too. His predecessor in the DI’s post had been a guy called Karl Welland, by all accounts a good no-nonsense copper who’d been forced to retire after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, paving the way for Capper to slip into his shoes in the absence of any other suitable candidates. Welland had been dead close to a year now, and Capper continued to thrive in a role he genuinely didn’t deserve. Who said life was fair?

There was a message from Knox on my desk, giving me the telephone number of one of the station’s former CID men, Asif Malik, now of SO7, Scotland Yard’s organized crime unit. Malik had left months before I’d joined, but I knew of him. Everyone knew of him. He’d been the guy who’d worked most closely with Dennis Milne, the part-time hitman. From what I heard, Malik had had nothing to do with any of his former boss’s many crimes and was supposedly as straight as a die, but after what had happened he’d found it difficult to remain at the station, and had transferred to SO7 a few months later. Knox hadn’t been keen initially to get SO7 involved in the Matthews murder investigation because he didn’t want control of the case taken away from him and CID. But when I’d spoken to him the previous afternoon, he’d been interested in the Jean Tanner/Neil Vamen lead and had agreed that someone at SO7, one of whose jobs it was to keep tabs on organized crime figures in London, might at least be able to offer some insights. He’d added on the message (Knox liked his messages) that we were to continue to try to locate Fowler and if necessary widen the search for him, particularly in the light of his continued absence.

I got myself a coffee and tried Malik’s mobile. It went straight to message so I left one, explaining who I was and why I was calling, and asking if we could meet up.

After I’d hung up, I reluctantly phoned my ex-wife. The live-in lover, Mr Crusader, answered, sounding like he’d just woken up. ‘It’s the man whose career you fucked,’ I told him evenly. ‘I’d like to speak to Cathy, please.’ He told me angrily to try phoning later next time as Sunday was their day for lying in. ‘Just put her on,’ I said. ‘It’s about Rachel.’

Cathy came on the line sounding equally knackered and I heard Carrier telling her in the background that I’d sworn at him. You had to hand it to the bloke, he was a born whistleblower. There wasn’t a tale he wouldn’t tell. Cathy told me that she thought we’d got over all the childish name-calling and I apologized, thinking that that would be the easiest tactic, and asked whether I was still having Rachel the following weekend.

‘Well, can you fit it in round your work?’ she asked, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. ‘The last time you were meant to have her-’

‘I know, I know. I’ll make sure I’ve got the time off. I haven’t seen her in close to a month. I won’t let her down.’

‘You promise? I’m not having her looking forward to seeing you and then you dashing her hopes.’

‘He can’t be allowed to do that again,’ said Carrier in the background. ‘Just because he’s unreliable.’

Not for the first time, I tried to understand what Cathy saw in the bastard. I’d always thought of her as a pretty decent judge of character, someone who knew a creep when she saw one, so it was doubly disheartening to have my view proved so emphatically wrong.

‘I promise,’ I said wearily. ‘I mean it. I’ll come and get her Friday evening and bring her back Sunday.’

‘Thanks, that’d be nice. Come about six, can you?’

‘Sure, six is fine.’ I started to say something else but she cut me short, saying she wanted to get back to sleep.

‘See you on Friday,’ she said, trying to sound pleasant, and hung up, leaving me staring at the phone and thinking that she never used to lie in that late on a Sunday.

‘Morning, John. Nice to see you in bright and early.’

I looked up to see Capper come walking in, his suit jacket slung jauntily over one arm, a cheesy smile on his face. There were already sweat stains appearing on the underarms of his faded yellow shirt. It was, I thought, strange how unpleasant people often had unpleasant side-effects to their normal bodily functions. Perhaps it was some sort of divine justice, a punishment from God. I liked to think so.

‘Morning, sir.’

‘Everything all right?’ He motioned towards the phone and I wondered if the bastard had been listening in. Probably.

‘Fine. And you?’

‘Very well. Had a quiet evening in and an early night for once. Done me the world of good.’ He dropped the jacket at his desk, and walked over to the kettle. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘No thanks. I’ve just this minute finished one.’

Capper made general small talk as he prepared his coffee and waited for the kettle to boil, and I played the game, sounding interested and occasionally making comments of my own. The thing about Capper was that he was nice to you if he thought you were going to be useful to him and he clearly thought I had potential, that maybe I wasn’t going to be stuck under him for ever, which I suppose was one good thing. I think he also thought we got on well and, although I couldn’t stand him, it suited me to remain cordial. One thing I’d learnt in the Force was that you never make enemies unless you have to. Pragmatism. That was what it was all about.

Capper grabbed a chair and sat down on the other side of my desk with his coffee. ‘How did it go with the doormen yesterday?’ he asked, after explaining that his absence from duty the previous day had been down to a ‘family matter’, whatever that was meant to mean. Capper was a bachelor who looked like the sort of person any right-minded sibling or parent would avoid like greasy dogshit on the pavement. He sat there now with a think-of-me-as-one-of-the-guys smile, showing yellowing teeth, etched firmly on his face.

I gave him a brief rundown, explaining that we hadn’t got much that we didn’t know already, but mentioning the possible girlfriend lead, as well as John Harris, the doorman who’d fallen out with Matthews.

‘Who’s chasing Harris?’ he asked.

‘The DCI gave it to WDC Boyd. She’s on it today, apparently.’

He nodded, satisfied. I didn’t tell him about the Vamen/SO7 angle. Knox would probably bring it up at the meeting the following day but for the moment it could wait. I didn’t want Capper sniffing round and taking hold of leads I’d worked hard to build up myself. ‘No sign of Fowler yet, then?’ he asked.

‘Nothing at all. He might have a connection to this Jean Tanner, though.’

‘How’s that, then?’

‘You know I said she was a prostitute? Apparently she used to work at a brothel which was or is supposedly run by Fowler.’

‘Really?’

‘A place called Heavenly Girls.’

Capper tried to hide it but I saw immediately that he knew the name, and that for some reason he wanted to keep that knowledge quiet. ‘Hmm, that’s interesting.’ His words tailed off, and we sat in silence for a few moments. ‘Where did you hear about this brothel?’ he asked eventually.

‘From McBride, the one who gave us most of the information.’

‘I’ve never heard of the place,’ he said, a little too forcefully. ‘Do you reckon he was telling the truth?’

I shrugged, not bothering to mention that we’d effectively blackmailed the information out of him. ‘I would have thought so. There’d be no point lying about something like that, would there?’

Capper nodded, acknowledging this fact. ‘No, I suppose there wouldn’t.’

At that moment, Berrin came in, looking dishevelled but considerably better than he had the previous morning.

‘A bit late, Berrin,’ said Capper, getting to his feet.

Berrin quickly apologized to both Capper and me in that order, and took a seat. Capper told him bluntly to get his house in order and went back to his own desk. He might have thought that I was potentially useful, but he clearly didn’t feel the same way about the younger officer. Plus, Berrin was a graduate, and, though he never said as much, Capper didn’t like graduates. Berrin looked suitably chastised for a couple of seconds, then pulled a face at Capper’s back, before sitting down in the chair he’d just vacated.

As the two of us went over the day’s itinerary, I stole an occasional glance at the DI, who was now staring intently at his computer screen. I couldn’t help but wonder what he knew about the Heavenly Girls brothel and how much of a bearing his knowledge might have on the investigation as a whole.

Roy Fowler wasn’t answering any of his numbers; the Arcadia was closed; it was proving impossible to locate any outfit called Heavenly Girls; and the day was getting progressively hotter as Berrin brought the car to a halt about twenty yards short of Jean Tanner’s apartment building. According to the Land Registry, she’d bought it in 1998, while it was still being built, and now owned thirty per cent of the equity, while the other seventy belonged to her mortgage lender. According to them, she’d never missed a payment. Obviously Jean was getting quite a lot of money from somewhere, which pointed perhaps to a relationship with a wealthy gangster like Neil Vamen, who was going to have a lot more cash than most of the punters she’d ever been with. The question was whether he cared for her enough to kill a possible love rival like Shaun Matthews.

However, once again she wasn’t responding as I pressed the buzzer on the flashy-looking intercom system for the third time.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Berrin eventually.

‘What all coppers have to get used to doing,’ I told him. ‘Wait.’

‘She might have gone away. We could be waiting for days.’

‘Look, Dave, I’m not driving back out here again, and I’m not phoning her and giving her advance notice of us turning up just in case she’s got something to hide, so, for the moment at least, we’re going to stay put.’

‘But even if she is Vamen’s girlfriend, where does that leave us?’ he asked, leaning back against the wall of the porch. ‘We don’t even know if she was seeing Matthews. And where does Fowler fit into it?’

‘I don’t know is the short answer,’ I said, thinking that he had a point. ‘But at least we can hear what she has to say. If Vamen’s got something to do with it, and if she thought more of Matthews than he deserved, then maybe she’s feeling bad about it, and we may be able to get her to talk.’

Berrin nodded wearily. ‘Fair enough. Shall we go and get a cup of tea from somewhere while we wait? I need to rehydrate.’

‘Were you out again last night?’ I asked him in vaguely disgusted tones. I think I was jealous. He told me he was. Out drinking in the West End with one of the station’s more attractive WPCs. He started telling me all about it, but I couldn’t handle that, not after a night alone in front of an excruciating edition of Celebrity Stars in their Eyes, so, on a whim, I pressed the buzzer below Jean’s. Three seconds later a none-too-youthful male voice came on the line. I told him who we were, pointing my warrant card at the camera above our heads, and asked if we could come up.

‘Of course,’ he said, sounding interested.

We were greeted at the top of the stairs by a very short gentleman in his early seventies who had a very wide head that was far too big for his spindly body, giving him more than a passing resemblance to ET. He had large amounts of fine white hair, tinged with orange bits, and big black heavy-rimmed glasses. A taller lady, about ten years younger, with a tent-like flowery dress on, stood behind him. They both smiled as we approached.

‘Good morning,’ said the man, as we produced our warrant cards. ‘We’re the Lackers. Peter and Margaret.’ He shook our hands formally with a surprisingly firm grip.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ said Margaret Lacker with an easy smile.

‘Yes, thanks, that’d be nice,’ I said, wishing there were more people I dealt with like the Lackers. Polite, accommodating, and not totally pissed off to see you.

They led us into their richly decorated apartment and motioned for us to sit down in their lounge, a place that looked more like a drawing room of old. ‘So, how can we help you?’ asked Peter Lacker, sitting down in a chair opposite. ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong.’

‘Nothing at all,’ I said, smiling. ‘We’re just interested in one of your neighbours, a Miss Jean Tanner. I understand she lives on this floor.’

‘That’s right. Next door. She’s all right, isn’t she?’

‘I certainly hope so. We need to speak to her in connection with a matter she might have some information on.’ Suitably vague, I thought. ‘We called yesterday but she wasn’t at home and she doesn’t appear to be at home now. Do you know if she’s gone away anywhere?’

‘I don’t think so. She was definitely there last night. We heard her.’

‘Heard her?’

He looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Jean’s a good neighbour, don’t get me wrong, please, but she does have male visitors and sometimes she can have disagreements with them. There were some loud voices last night.’

‘What? Like an argument?’

He nodded.

‘How many people were involved?’ asked Berrin.

‘Just two of them. Jean and someone else. A man. I didn’t immediately recognize the voice.’

‘She’s not in trouble, is she?’ asked Mrs Lacker, coming in with a tray containing a china teapot, four puny-sized china cups and a selection of what looked like custard creams.

I smiled reassuringly as she sat down in a chair next to her husband. ‘Not at all, but it is important we speak to her. You haven’t seen her this morning, then?’ They both shook their heads. ‘How violent was this argument you heard last night?’

‘It wasn’t violent as such,’ said Mr Lacker. ‘It was just quite loud.’

‘It didn’t last that long either, did it?’ added his wife, passing me a cup. ‘Jean tends to keep herself to herself. She’s not a difficult neighbour at all. Is she, Peter?’

‘No, not at all. She’s lived here for a long time. Three or four years, I think.’

I asked them how often she received male visitors but they were vague on this. Now and again, said Mr Lacker, adding that he and his wife were sexually liberal and so of course didn’t disapprove of such arrangements, which as far as I was concerned was one detail too many. They were also vague on how often Jean had had violent disagreements with said visitors. Mr Lacker backtracked somewhat on his earlier statement and said not very often at all. Mrs Lacker said she couldn’t remember the last time before the previous night.

I couldn’t help feeling vaguely concerned about what I was hearing. I took a sip from my tea and put the cup down. ‘I’d like to try her flat again, if I may,’ I said, standing up. Berrin, who was munching on one of the custard creams, followed suit with only limited enthusiasm. It looked like he’d been enjoying his sitdown. ‘Can you show me which one it is, Mr Lacker?’

‘Of course,’ he answered, and led us back out into the hallway. He pointed to a door at the far end. ‘That’s it.’

I stepped past him with Berrin following and knocked hard on the door. Nothing. I waited a few moments, then tried again. If she was in there, she would definitely be able to hear me. I put my ear against the door and listened to the silence. I tried the handle but it was locked. Then I had an idea. A highly irregular one, but on a day like this I wasn’t going to be fussy. ‘Have you got a key to Miss Tanner’s flat, Mr Lacker?’

‘I have,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure I should be-’

‘I have reason to believe that something might have happened to her,’ I told him, ‘and I need to see if this is the case or not. To do that, I need access to her flat. You can come in with us if you want to satisfy yourself that we’re not doing anything in there that we shouldn’t be.’

‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘I’d better go and get it.’

He turned and went back inside and Berrin looked at me quizzically. ‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ Which of course were famous last words if ever I’d heard them.

A few seconds later, Mr Lacker emerged with the key in his hand and a worried-looking Mrs Lacker in tow. ‘I do hope everything’s all right,’ she said to me. ‘She always seemed such a nice young lady.’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ I said, taking hold of the key, ‘but I think it’s best to stay on the safe side.’ With everyone crowded behind me, I turned the key in the lock and slowly pushed open the door.

The layout was different to the Lackers’ place and the door opened directly into a spacious lounge with an open-plan, newish-looking kitchen to the right. A wide-screen plasma TV hung from the wall in front of two expensive-looking leather sofas, and the whole effect was very minimalist but also very tasteful. It also looked very unlived in. There were no dirty cups or dishes and the large glass ashtray on the coffee table in the centre of the room was clean and empty. And no evidence at all of a row.

‘Well, she’s not short of a few bob,’ said Berrin, looking round admiringly at the furnishings, particularly the TV.

‘She never said what she did for a living,’ said Mrs Lacker, who had come in behind us. Her husband, meanwhile, hung back in the doorway. ‘It’s very nice, isn’t it Peter?’

Peter nodded. ‘I expect that kitchen cost a pretty penny,’ he said. ‘Those are granite worktops in there. They cost a fortune.’

Berrin looked across at me, presumably for guidance as to what to do next, now that we were in the place. The problem was, I wasn’t sure. I’d hoped there might be some clues to her where-abouts lying about — not that I was quite sure what — but there was nothing. It looked like the apartment had been cleaned from top to bottom — a slightly worrying sign in itself.

To our left, a short hallway ran down to the rest of the apartment. ‘Let’s take a look down here,’ I said. Berrin looked at me like he wanted to say something but was unable to do so because of the presence of the Lackers. I knew what it would be as well. Something along the lines of ‘What the hell are we doing here and what would a defence lawyer have to say about it?’ A good point, but I’d worry about that one later.

‘I’ve never been in here before,’ said Mrs Lacker, wandering into the kitchen area and looking up at the metallic pots and pans hanging there. ‘It’s very nice.’

‘Don’t touch anything, please,’ I told her. ‘Either of you.’

We started off down the hallway. Mr Lacker meanwhile remained standing in the door, looking around with just a hint of suspicion, as if he too was trying to work out what Jean Tanner did for a living and how she’d managed to accumulate such pricey belongings. It looked like he was jumping to correct conclusions, and was perhaps realizing that he wasn’t as sexually liberal as he’d previously thought.

There was a bathroom on our left with the door slightly ajar. I pushed it open with the key while Berrin stepped past. I noticed that two tooth-brushes were out on the sink and the lid was off the toothpaste — not that any of that was much use. The shower, however, had been used quite recently, certainly that morning. The curtain was damp and there were still drops of water in the bath tub.

I stepped back out of the bathroom and saw Berrin, who’d put on gloves, opening the door to one of the bedrooms. At the same time he removed another of the Lackers’ custard creams from his pocket and began munching it surreptitiously.

I followed him into the bedroom, conscious that Mrs Lacker was coming up behind me, doubtless for more of a nose about. I was just turning round to tell her to stay back when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Berrin stop in front of an imposing dressing-room cupboard at the end of the double bed, and pull a face. He started to say something but his mouth was full of custard cream and it came out like gibberish. And then, the next second, he was opening the door.

There was an immediate crash as the naked corpse came tumbling stiffly out, arms at its sides, like something out of The Mummy Returns. It smacked straight into Berrin, who let out a high-pitched howl, spitting crumbs everywhere, and fell back on the bed with it on top of him. I yelled too, and jumped back as he instinctively shoved it away from him, unfortunately in my direction. It bounced loudly against the corner of the cupboard, then came crashing down by my feet, face upwards, and right in the doorway. Mrs Lacker saw it immediately, let out the biggest scream of the lot, then put her hand on her face and fainted dramatically, hitting her head on the bathroom door as she fell backwards.

‘What’s going on?’ yelled Mr Lacker, running over to his wife.

‘Stay back!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t touch anything! This is a murder scene!’

Then I looked across at Berrin, whose hair was now standing on end. His face was as white as a ghost’s and he was staring off into space. ‘Oh my God,’ he kept saying, over and over again.

I looked down at the blank dead eyes gazing up at me, then at the familiar tattoos on the upper and lower arms. A Chinese dragon on the left, a military emblem on the right. ‘Shit,’ I said as I stared down at the corpse of Craig McBride and wondered why on earth he should be lying dead in the apartment of a woman he was not even meant to know.

I called Capper from the Lackers’ apartment, where Mr Lacker was mopping Mrs Lacker’s brow with a damp cloth, while Berrin sat bolt upright in his original chair, sipping the tea Mrs Lacker had poured him five minutes and one cuddle from a corpse ago. He didn’t look too good, which was hardly surprising.

Capper answered on about the tenth ring and I told him what had happened. ‘What the hell was McBride doing in her flat?’ he demanded, as if it was somehow my fault.

‘I don’t know.’

‘And there’s no sign of her anywhere?’

‘Nothing that I can see.’

‘Have you touched anything in there?’

‘No, we’ve secured the scene, but you’re the first person I’ve called.’

‘Any indication how he died?’

‘Well, there was no blood but I didn’t really look too closely. Put it this way, he was all right this time yesterday so, whatever it is, I wouldn’t think it’s natural causes.’

‘All right, wait where you are and make sure no one contaminates the scene. What’s the address?’

I gave it to him, said my goodbyes, and put down the phone. I looked over at the Lackers. Mrs Lacker appeared to be coming back to earth. ‘It was horrible,’ she said as her husband continued to dab her brow. ‘Something like that in a respectable neighbourhood like this.’

‘I know this is a difficult question, but did you happen to recognize the deceased? Is he someone you’ve seen here before?’

Mrs Lacker gasped melodramatically as if I’d just asked for her bust measurements. ‘I don’t know, I didn’t see. All I remember was him falling into the doorway and then … And then, that’s it.’ She finished the sentence with another gasp and her head fell back on the seat.

‘Mr Lacker,’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t see either. I was too busy looking after Margaret.’

‘That wasn’t what I was going to ask. I know it’s not going to be easy but I’d appreciate it if you could come in with me, view the deceased, and let me know whether you’ve ever seen him here before. It could prove very helpful.’

‘What do you think’s happened to Jean?’ asked Mrs Lacker worriedly.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, thinking that I wouldn’t mind an answer to that question as well. ‘Mr Lacker?’ He nodded and stood up. ‘Dave, you stay here and look after Mrs Lacker. OK?’

Berrin nodded, beginning to look slightly healthier now. ‘Sure.’

I led Mr Lacker back into Jean’s apartment, again reminding him not to touch anything, and walked back through the darkened hallway to where the body lay. Mr Lacker paused a few feet behind me, and put his hand against the wall to steady himself. ‘It’s so stifling in here, isn’t it?’ he said, sounding breathless. ‘I don’t know how you can do this sort of thing every day, I really don’t. I’ve got nothing but admiration for you.’

‘It’s not an everyday occurrence, thank goodness,’ I told him, thinking that it was a rare day anyone said they were full of admiration for me. ‘If it was, I don’t think I’d be able to handle it.’ And I wasn’t sure if I would have been. The longer you’re in the job, the more you become hardened to the horrors around you, but the sight of Craig McBride’s stiff, lifeless body, sucked dry of personality, of everything, depressed me in a way I find difficult to describe. Particularly as the previous day I’d been holding a conversation with him. It might not have been a very pleasant one, but that was hardly the point. He’d been alive, now he was gone. Permanently.

I stepped out of the way so Mr Lacker could see Craig’s face. He looked quickly, then looked away, still standing a few feet back. ‘Take your time,’ I told him. ‘There’s no hurry.’

He stayed where he was for a couple of seconds, then steeled himself, took a couple of steps forward, and looked again. ‘Yes, I’ve seen him before,’ he said, turning away. ‘On two or three occasions.’

‘Thank you for that,’ I said, leading him back towards the front door.

At that moment, there was a commotion from outside, the front door opened, and a giant of a man about ten years my senior, dressed in an illfitting black suit, stepped inside. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he barked. ‘This is a crime scene. Who are you?’

‘I’m DS John Gallan,’ I said, stopping in front of him. ‘And this is Peter Lacker, the neighbour.’

‘Well, I’m DI Burley and I’m taking over from here. And you two are contaminating a crime scene. Have you touched anything?’

‘No.’

‘Well, get out then. SOCO are going to be here in a few minutes and we’ve got to seal everything off.’

He motioned bluntly towards the door with his head, and we stepped past him into the hall where several uniformed officers were standing. Burley followed us out. After I’d led Mr Lacker back into his own flat, he put a large, hairy hand on my shoulder and half-pushed me over to the top of the stairs. I was going to tell him that as far as I was aware we were on the same side, so he could ease up if he liked on the tough-guy routine, but I never got the chance. He was talking before my lips even parted.

‘What were you doing back in there with the neighbour? Seeing if you could fuck up the crime scene as much as possible? Have you forgotten what the procedures are, or did you just never bother to learn them?’

‘Did you get out of bed the wrong side or are you always this charming?’

I thought he was going to pick me up then and chuck me down the stairs. I’m not a small bloke — I’m close to six feet tall — but there was no questioning the fact that he could have managed it. His sharp little eyes, by far the daintiest features on his long, heavy-jawed face, blazed angrily. ‘That’s another thing you obviously haven’t learnt then, that a DI’s a superior officer to a DS and therefore a DS should speak to a DI with a measure of fucking respect, and address him as sir. And apologize when he fucking forgets that.’ His words were spoken in a loud hiss through teeth that looked like they usually spent their time gritted, and whether I liked it or not (and I didn’t, I can assure you), what he was saying was correct. I took solace in the fact that a man as rude, angry and clearly stressed as DI Burley was not going to live to a ripe old age, surrounded by loving relatives hanging on to his every word of wisdom.

‘I was just doing my job, sir,’ I told him, emphasizing the sir. I held his gaze, knowing that the only way a person gets intimidated is if he lets himself. I’d done way too many miles for that to happen.

‘Well, you’re not doing very fucking well. So, I understand you know who the corpse is, is that right?’

‘That’s right. His name’s Craig McBride. We spoke to him yesterday in connection with a murder.’

‘But he doesn’t live here?’

‘No, the apartment belongs to a Jean Tanner. We came here to see her, but she wasn’t here. He was.’

‘What were you interested in her for?’

I explained what we knew in short, sullen sentences, giving him more of an overview of the Matthews case than the bastard deserved. As I was finishing, Berrin came over to join us. Burley turned round and saw him. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’ he said. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Not used to stiffs, then?’

‘I’m all right,’ said Berrin belligerently.

‘Well, I want you both to know that we’re taking over this case now. This is our patch and we’re investigating it. Thanks very much for alerting us to yet another fucking suspicious death in the division, but we won’t be needing any more help from you. So, if you’ll excuse us …’

‘Hold on,’ I said, ignoring the murderous glare he shot me. ‘We need to speak to Miss Tanner regarding the Shaun Matthews murder case. It’s important. Sir.’

‘When we locate her, Sergeant, you’ll be given the necessary access to question her about your own case, if you follow the procedures. Now, we’re very fucking busy so I’d like it if you could be on your way before you mess anything else up. I’ll inform your superiors when and if we have her in custody.’

‘I’d also like access to the results of the postmortem on McBride.’

‘You’ll get the information when we have it,’ he said. ‘Now, goodbye.’ He turned and stalked back towards the open door of Jean’s apartment, leaving the two of us standing there like lemons.

Sometimes you genuinely wonder why you bother. When even your own people don’t seem to want to help you, then you really are kicking a lead door. I’ve met plenty of coppers like Burley — far too many, if the truth be told — and, like him, they’re generally the older guys with too many years on the Force who’ve never quite done as well as they think their talents deserve, and who hold a grudge because of it. They’re also the ones who are most prone to corruption. I wondered briefly whether there was more to Burley’s eagerness to get us off the premises than he was letting on. It also seemed strange that he’d got here so fast. As if he’d been waiting just round the corner.

‘Where to now?’ asked Berrin with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

I sighed, forcing down the frustration. When one avenue fails, try another one. ‘Let’s go and see Neil Vamen,’ I told him.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea, Sarge?’ said Berrin. He still looked sick. Sick and nervous.

It was twelve-thirty and we were walking towards the Seven Bells, a pub in Barnsbury which, according to the profile we had on him, was supposedly the Sunday lunchtime haunt of Neil Vamen. The place, no doubt, where he felt most at home among ‘his people’. Barnsbury, the traditionally working-class, now partly gentrified district of south Islington that encompasses the area between the Caledonian and Liverpool Roads north of Pentonville, was in many way the spiritual home of the Holtz organization, since it was there that all the senior members had grown up and plotted their first scams together. Most had long since moved out to larger, more ostentatious properties in the suburbs, including Vamen, but he apparently still retained a special affection for the area, not least because his mother still lived there, and he visited regularly.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to go and see him. After all, I didn’t expect him suddenly to blurt out everything he knew about the death of Shaun Matthews and Craig McBride, as well as the whereabouts of his alleged girlfriend, Jean Tanner. As Berrin had pointed out more than once this morning, he might have known nothing about any of it, but I wasn’t so sure. Jean had been linked to him by a man who was now dead. She’d been seeing another man who was also now dead. At least one of those deaths, and almost certainly both, were not from natural causes, and now Jean was missing. I didn’t have any particular theory of what Vamen’s involvement might be, it was still too early for that, but at least by turning up out of the blue we might be able to rattle him. Particularly if he thought we knew more than we actually did.

‘I don’t honestly know if it’s a good idea or not but I don’t see any alternative. I mean, who else is there left to talk to? We’ve got a murder inquiry where everyone we want to interview is either missing or dead. Have you thought about that? Fowler’s nowhere to be seen, McBride talks, then twenty-four hours later he’s dead, and now Jean Tanner’s disappeared into thin air. At least Vamen’s still capable of opening his mouth.’

‘I’m not criticizing, Sarge, but don’t you think we ought to have checked it out with Capper first?’

‘Look, this is just a friendly little chat, following up on a lead. We’re just using some initiative, that’s all.’

We stopped outside the pub, a small, old-fashioned place with grimy windows and a battered door that fitted in snugly in the quiet, slightly run-down street of terraced housing just off the southern end of the Caledonian Road. The windows were open and we could hear the steady buzz of conversation and the occasional clinking of glasses. It’s a sound I usually like because it’s welcoming, but I had a feeling the welcome here wasn’t going to get much above frosty. We’d both taken off our jackets in deference to the intense midday heat but now put them on again. It was best to be formal.

‘I’ll do the talking,’ I said, thinking that at that moment Berrin looked like a student in a suit at his first job interview. ‘You just stand up straight and don’t look too queasy.’

‘They’re not likely to try to rough us up, are they?’ he asked, showing a worrying naivety. Sometimes I couldn’t help but think that it was only the shortage of detectives in the Met that had put Berrin in plain clothes, and that he’d been promoted above his experience. In the fight against crime, you didn’t like to think that the front line was made up of too many men like him.

‘He might be a nasty bastard, Dave, but he’s still a businessman. He won’t want to do anything that brings him unwanted attention. Now, come on.’

I stepped inside with Berrin following. The interior was deceptively large and seemed to go back a long way, as is often the way with London pubs. It was split into two bars, the right-hand one near enough empty except for a handful of old geezers in caps smoking pipes and generally not taking too much notice of one another. Two of them were playing cribbage and they were the only ones who looked up as we arrived.

The other bar, in contrast, was a lot younger and a fair bit livelier, although it was still early so nowhere near crowded. A jukebox played one of the numerous covers of the Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody’ and three or four groups of people — mainly men, but some women — milled about in a way that suggested they all knew one another. Most of them were in their thirties and forties, and at the far end of the bar, closely watched by Jack Merriweather and two powerfully built bodyguards, stood Neil Vamen. He was talking to another of the groups — two middle-aged men and their younger, pneumatic blonde partners — who were hanging on to his every word. Vamen was smiling broadly and I got the feeling he was telling a joke.

That all stopped as soon as we stepped inside. In fact, everything stopped, bar the music, the singer continuing to warble boringly while the whole bar gave us what I can only describe as the evil eye. I suppose we just looked like coppers. The barman studiously ignored us and for a couple of seconds I simply stood there, thinking that it might actually have been a big mistake coming here.

Confidence. It’s all about confidence. You can command the respect of anyone, even a room full of gangsters, if you walk like you know the walk. So, trying to ignore the fact that I was sweating, I ambled casually through the crowd, Berrin behind me, and stopped when I reached Neil Vamen. His bodyguards tensed but made no move. Jackie Slap’s lip curled in an expression of distaste, as if the very presence of police officers caused him to experience an allergic reaction, which it probably did. Vamen, meanwhile, eyed me with a mixture of mild contempt and idle curiosity, his turquoise eyes twinkling playfully. I could almost feel the stares of every other person in the place on my back, and I hoped Berrin didn’t do anything stupid, like faint.

‘Hello, Mr Vamen. My name’s DS Gallan and this is DC Berrin.’ I produced my warrant card and saw out of the corner of my eye Berrin produce his. ‘I believe we’ve met before.’

Vamen made a casual gesture. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘We’d like a word with you in private, if we may.’

‘No.’

And that was that. The word wasn’t delivered rudely but there was a finality about it I really should have expected. Behind me, I heard one of the pneumatic blondes snigger.

‘Any particular reason why not?’

He smiled. ‘Because I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

It’s difficult when you rely on the authority that comes with your position to coerce people into doing things, and then come up against someone who has no fear of it or you. Particularly when they’re on their home territory and you’re a long way from yours.

‘If you don’t talk to me, I might have to conclude that you’ve got something to hide,’ I told him, meeting his gaze.

That made him laugh. ‘Your lot have been concluding that for the past twenty years.’ Further laughter reverberated around the bar, and someone shouted, ‘You tell him, Neil.’

‘Ain’t you got nothing better to do?’ sneered the Slap. He was wearing a black New York Yankees baseball cap to cover up what he hadn’t got. I ignored him. At that point, I didn’t have to be told that I was losing this one.

‘Fine. We’ll talk here, then. Your girlfriend, Jean Tanner. We found a man dead in her apartment and we want to know where she is. Any ideas?’

Vamen’s face hardened and his eyes lost their playfulness. For two, maybe three seconds the silence was deafening. When he spoke next, his voice was calm and slow, but dripping with menace. ‘I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about, or where you’re getting your information from, but I’m telling you this: it’s bollocks. Now, you want to discuss anything with me, you go through my lawyer. His name’s Melvyn Carroll. You might have heard of him.’ I had. The Holtz family brief. As crooked as a busted rib. ‘Otherwise, unless you’re arresting me — which you’re not, are you?’ He paused for a moment to let me answer.

‘Not at the moment.’

‘Well, then, unless you’re arresting me, you can fuck off out of here and leave me alone. And if you don’t, DS Gallan … is that right? Gall-an?’

‘Gallon of what?’ some wag called out.

‘That’s right, John Gallan,’ I said, determined to hold my own.

‘And what’s your name again, sonny?’ He aimed the full force of his personality at Berrin, who was probably now wishing he’d taken the advice of his university careers adviser and joined an insurance company.

‘We’ve already told you who we are,’ I said.

‘Berrin, wasn’t it?’ he said, ignoring me and eyeing him closely, like he was probing for signs of weakness, and doubtless unearthing many. ‘Well, DS John Gallan and DC Berrin, if you harass me like this again with no good reason, and I can tell you now you do not have a good fucking reason, then my brief will be paying your superior a visit, and he will then be kicking your flimsy little arses for upsetting a well-established local businessman instead of doing what you’re paid to do, which is catching fucking criminals, of whom there are plenty a-fucking-bout. Do I make myself clear?’

‘That you don’t want to co-operate with us? Yes, you do. Crystal.’

He gave me a look like I was something annoying stuck between his teeth, then turned his back. At the same time one of his bodyguards, who was a good four inches taller and probably a foot wider than me, stepped between us and stared blankly down at the top of my head. The other one then joined him, forming a wall that effectively blocked off all contact. Jackie Slap stayed where he was, a nasty grin on his face. I could have tried to push them out of the way, hassle Vamen a bit more, let him know I wasn’t fazed, but in the end there was no point. He had the run of me and he knew it. I knew it, too. The important thing now was to find Jean. Then, possibly, we could move forward. For now, the meeting was over and I had to work hard to overcome the sense of impotence I felt in the sure knowledge that Neil Vamen was a criminal and a murderer who’d become rich by ignoring the laws I was supposed to uphold, who could pay my mortgage off a hundred times over, and yet, when it came to a confrontation between the two of us, he was the one who held all the cards. Some people say there’s no justice in the world. If they say it in front of me, I tell them they’re wrong, that the bad almost always get what they deserve in the end, even if the wait’s long. But at that moment in time, standing in a room where everyone was revelling in our powerlessness, I didn’t really believe it.

‘Gentleman gangster, my arse,’ I said in Vamen’s general direction. I looked up at the wall of flesh in front of me. ‘And you need to change your aftershave, mate.’ Puerile, but at least it made me feel a bit better. Like I’d salvaged something from the wreckage of this meeting.

Jackie Slap continued to grin, but I resisted addressing him by the name he allegedly hated. It would have reeked too much of desperation. Instead, I turned on my heel and motioned for Berrin to lead us out of there. He bumped into one of the blondes who’d deliberately positioned herself in front of him, and mumbled some sort of apology. She, for her own part, made some snide comment regarding the poor quality of his eyesight, which he ignored. She started to say something to me but I told her not to bother and kept walking, trying hard to ignore the catcalls and victory whoops that accompanied our exit.

On the four-hundred-yard walk back to the car through the terraced backstreets of Barnsbury, we didn’t speak once. When we finally reached it, I looked across at Berrin, who still didn’t look too good. I couldn’t blame him. It had been a shit day all round. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, leaning against the bonnet. ‘I think I might be coming down with something.’

Berrin wasn’t the hardest worker in the world and he’d already had several short bouts of sick leave in the few months he’d been with CID, but this time I wasn’t going to begrudge him. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you home.’

He didn’t argue.

Two hours later I was still trying hard to keep a lid on my frustration but it wasn’t working. The humiliation of the meeting with Vamen, combined with the heat and the knowledge that nothing about the Shaun Matthews case was going right, including the way I was handling it, was serving to sever the last threads of my patience. I just knew that right now my ex-wife would be sat in the garden, the one I’d helped pay for, soaking up some rays alongside the man who had gone out of his way to wreck my life, while my daughter played happily in front of them, maybe even fetching him a nice cool beer to enjoy while he worked out whose balloon he was going to burst next. And the thing was, I could have handled it. I could have handled pretty much anything if I’d thought that by putting in all these extra hours on the job, hours I’d been putting in since I was eighteen years old, I was actually getting somewhere. But it just wasn’t happening. For every weak, staggering step forward we took, there always seemed to be a larger, more confident one backwards. And now I had to deal with an idiot like Capper, who seemed incapable of providing the remotest bit of help.

‘We need to be involved, sir. We interviewed the dead man yesterday and it was his testimony that led us to the flat today.’

Capper sat back in his chair, trying hard to look like he was sympathetic to my plight. The act didn’t work. ‘I’ll have to talk to the DCI about it, John, and that’s going to be tomorrow now. I don’t want to bother him at home. Not over this.’

‘With due respect, I think it’s important. I feel certain that this man’s death is linked to that of Shaun Matthews, and therefore-’

Capper raised his arms and waved them from side to side like opposing windscreen wipers, an annoying habit of his indicating silence to the individual being gestured at, in this case me. I forced myself to fall silent. ‘John, it’s DI Burley’s patch, so at the moment it’s his investigation. There’s nothing I can do about that. We’ll certainly be able to liaise with them if there’s a consensus that the two cases are linked.’

‘Which they’ve basically got to be.’

Capper nodded noncommittally. ‘There’s definitely a possibility there.’

‘More than a possibility. Two bouncers from the same nightclub, whose owner’s been missing for days, both murdered within a week of each other.’

‘Are we sure McBride’s was murder?’

‘Definitely. He was OK yesterday. For all we know, it could even be the same poison that killed Matthews.’

‘Could be, John, could be. But it’s also possible that it’s natural causes.’

‘How? He was in a cupboard.’

‘We’ve just got to wait and see what the autopsy reveals. What we’ll do is discuss what happened at the meeting tomorrow morning and then maybe the DCI’ll get on the phone to their nick and see if there’s any scope for information sharing. In the meantime, you need to bring all the records up to date. Where’s Berrin, by the way?’

‘I took him home. He was feeling sick.’

‘Again. That’s the third time since he’s been in CID. What’s wrong with him this time?’

‘I don’t know, summer flu or something. He’s been a bit under the weather these past few days,’ I lied.

Capper nodded with some scepticism, an annoyingly serene smile on his face. ‘Well, let’s hope he gets better soon,’ he said, sounding like he didn’t mean it at all.

‘Is that everything, sir?’ I asked, starting to get to my feet. I couldn’t hack any more of Capper than I had to.

‘Not quite, John,’ he answered, still wearing the smile. It made him look like a brain-damaged Buddhist. I stopped mid-crouch and waited for him to continue. ‘I got a call this afternoon from a Mr Melvyn Carroll. He says that you and DC Berrin were harassing his client, Neil Vamen. What on earth were you doing talking to Vamen?’

‘He’s a possible suspect in the Matthews case,’ I said, sitting back down.

‘Let me get this right. A man with a lengthy criminal record, now deceased, suggested that Vamen was the boyfriend of a woman who visited the home of Shaun Matthews, and was possibly, just possibly, Matthews’s girlfriend as well, and this makes him a suspect?’

‘Yes, it does. He’s certainly a possibility, so he was worth talking to.’

‘Neil Vamen. I trust you know who he is?’

‘Yes, and that’s another reason to consider him a suspect. He’s got the resources and the ruthlessness to kill Shaun Matthews and Craig McBride.’

‘He’s also someone who’s had years of practice in knowing how to cover his tracks, so he was never going to talk to you. Even if he is involved, which I doubt, because I don’t think he’s the type to get sentimental about a woman, it’s going to be extremely difficult to prove anything.’

‘That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.’

‘The point is, Vamen’s a big fish and it’s SO7 and the NCS who are responsible for building prosecution cases against him and his associates. They’re not going to take kindly to you throwing your weight about with him. I thought you were meant to be talking to SO7 about the case.’

‘I am. I’m waiting for a call back from Asif Malik.’

‘Well, go that route, then.’

‘Look, I was doing the right thing-’

The arms started swinging from side to side again and once more I forced myself to button it. ‘You’re a good copper, John,’ he said, talking to me like I was an office junior rather than one rank and only a handful of years below him, ‘and we’re all pleased with your progress here, but don’t start to get ahead of yourself. You’ll end up causing problems both for yourself and for CID. Understand?’

I sighed, knowing that he was right and that it was a mistake to go to see Vamen, but longing for the moment when I was a DI again and didn’t have to report to him. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said reluctantly.

‘In future I don’t want you going to see Neil Vamen or any of his associates without speaking to me about it first. OK? I don’t want to sound like I’m not supporting you, but I think it’s the best way.’

I nodded, but didn’t bother responding. The conversation over, I stalked back to my desk and began the torturous task of bringing everything up to date. Only once did Capper interrupt me, to ask if we were still trying to get hold of Fowler. I said that we were but that we were still having no luck.

‘He’s the one we’ve got to concentrate on,’ he said, nodding his head as if he was agreeing with himself — another of his annoying habits, most likely brought about by the fact that no one else did. I didn’t bother to comment.

At exactly five o’clock, Capper left for the day, telling me helpfully that I shouldn’t work too hard. ‘You need to unwind sometimes,’ he said with another irritating smile. ‘That way it won’t all get on top of you.’

I didn’t bother telling him that it was a little too late for that. Instead, I put my head down and felt glad for the opportunity of some space and quiet.

Paperwork can be a therapeutic process. It’s repetitive and it’s mundane, but when there’s plenty of it to do, the person doing it can sometimes lift himself spiritually from the pile in front of him and reach an almost Zen-like state where the hand simply writes automatically and the brain sails away to calmer, happier waters where there are no interruptions and no will-sapping and pointless confrontations.

I’d reached that point and was probably wearing a serene smile as idiotic as Capper’s when the door to the incident room opened and WDC Boyd walked in. Now, I liked Boyd. She was my kind of woman: attractive, amusing, but definitely no push-over. We got on well, too. I think that if it hadn’t been for the fact that we worked together, I would have definitely fancied her, and might even have tried my luck — not that I tended to have a great deal of it where love was concerned. She appeared to be a bit worn out and hot, but her short black hair, cut into a cute bob, looked like it had come straight out of a cheesy shampoo ad, and her grey trousersuit was spotless. For a woman who’d been out tramping the dirty, sweating streets of London, she carried herself remarkably well.

It was ten past six. She smiled, looking genuinely pleased to see me. ‘Hello, John, you still around?’

‘I could ask the same question,’ I said, looking up. ‘Did you manage to get hold of John Harris?’

‘Ah, the elusive Mr Harris, former stud of the Arcadia. I found him all right,’ she said, sighing theatrically. ‘Eventually.’

‘And?’

She wandered over and sat on her desk a few yards away from mine. ‘And, I don’t think he’s our man.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s been in hospital for the past ten days. He was working the door at a place in Clapham on their garage night and he got caught in the crossfire of somebody else’s argument.’

‘That’s south London for you.’

‘Too right. It’s bandit country down there,’ she added, winking at me. ‘Anyway, he got shot in the stomach. Apparently the bullet passed straight through him and hit one of the glass collectors inside. That was three days before Matthews was murdered. What a waste of a day. It took me more than four hours to find that out when I could have been sat out in the park sunbathing.’

I almost said that that would be a sight I wouldn’t have minded seeing, but settled instead for a cliched, ‘That’s the way it goes sometimes, Tina.’

She took off her jacket and turned on her PC. ‘How was your day anyway?’

I grunted. ‘I think I can safely say it was probably even worse than yours.’ I gave her a detailed rundown of all the disasters that had befallen Berrin and me since we’d arrived for work that morning. She laughed when she heard about his slow dance with McBride’s corpse but her look had turned to sympathy by the time I’d finished.

‘Blimey, John, you don’t mess about, do you? Marching in and interrogating Neil Vamen?’

I sighed and shook my head. ‘It was a stupid move. You know, I was thinking this morning how naive Berrin was in the way he dealt with people, but I was far more naive than him over this. I really thought I could rattle Vamen, but in the end I’ve achieved absolutely nothing, except maybe to alert him to the fact that I might know something about what’s going on. And he’s already made a preemptive strike to get me off his back.’

‘You did your best,’ she said, giving me a supportive smile. ‘Which is a lot more than a few of the people round here.’

‘Well, it didn’t work,’ I said, feeling sorry for myself.

‘So, what do you think happened? What’s your theory on Matthews and McBride?’

I’d thought about that a fair amount that day but had yet to come up with anything concrete. ‘I don’t know, Tina. If I had to indulge in a bit of conjecture I’d say that Jean Tanner was Neil Vamen’s mistress and that she was also seeing Matthews on the side. Vamen found out about what was going on and had Matthews killed.’

‘And what about McBride?’

‘This is where it starts not to make much sense. From what the neighbours were saying, McBride had visited Jean on a number of occasions, so it makes me think that maybe he was seeing her as well.’

‘So she was seeing three of them? She gets around a bit.’

I shrugged. ‘Well, that’s what it looks like.’

‘And you think Vamen found out about McBride as well?’

I spread my arms wide in a gesture of defeat. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Because that all seems a bit coincidental, doesn’t it? Him killing off two of his love rivals in the space of a week. All over one woman who’s hardly a picture painting, is she?’

‘You know what they say,’ I said lamely. ‘Love’s blind.’

‘Not that blind.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever come across a murder case as complicated as this one. One where nothing seems to really lead anywhere. Do you know what I mean? There’s no logic in any of it. I mean, what about Fowler? If he’s got nothing to do with it, then where is he?’ There followed a long silence. We were a long way from any answers. ‘You know,’ I said eventually, ‘it’s been such a long day, I can’t even be bothered to think about it any more.’

‘Do you want to go for a drink? Finish up here and grab a beer somewhere?’

I pondered her suggestion for all of one second. The paperwork could wait. ‘Why not? I could do with one.’

We wandered round the corner to the Roving Wolf and I ordered the first round: a pint of Pride for me, a pint of Fosters for her. That was another thing I liked about Boyd, she didn’t have any airs and graces. She might have been a college girl like Berrin but she was still one of the lads. The interior of the pub was quiet at this hour with most of the hardened drinkers and passing trade sat at tables outside on the street, so we found ourselves a table away from the bright rays of evening sunshine streaming through the windows and chatted a while, enjoying the fact that the working day was over and there was nothing and no one to pressurize us. She bought the second round and I realized I was enjoying things just a little too much. She was good company, and single, too. I couldn’t help but think that maybe I ought to make an exception to the rule I’d placed on myself never to have an office fling. That had been after an affair I’d had with another WDC ten years earlier, when Rachel had been little more than a baby and I’d been getting the married man’s yearning for something new. It had all got very messy. The WDC had demanded I choose between Cathy and her, and I’d done the inevitable and chosen Cathy. The atmosphere between the WDC and me, and in CID as a whole, where everyone knew what had been going on, had been sour for more than a year afterwards until she’d finally asked for a transfer and got it, much to my relief. I might not have been married any more but I still thought it best to keep to the rule, remembering all too well the hassle of having to work with someone you’d pay good money to avoid.

So when Boyd asked if I fancied grabbing a curry somewhere, I was pretty torn. But with the grim memories of the previous night and Celebrity Stars in their Eyes still fresh in my mind, I concluded that life was definitely too short to say no. Boyd suggested a curryhouse she liked down near King’s Cross station and, while I would have preferred the continental ambience of Upper Street to the dodgier end of the Euston Road, I didn’t make a fuss. To be fair to her, I ended up pleased with the choice. The food was good, which I suppose it would have to be given its location, and I found myself relaxing in a way I hadn’t in female company for a long time.

As they cleared away the remains of the food, I told her about Capper’s reaction to my mention of Heavenly Girls. ‘Do you think he’s been paying recreational visits down there? He definitely knew the place.’

She pulled a face. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s the sort you can imagine visiting toms. He’s got that perverted look about him, don’t you think? Like the sort of bloke you’d find in a peep show. I bet he gets them to spank his arse.’

I laughed. ‘That’s your boss you’re talking about. I hate to think what you say about me.’

‘Oh, it’s worse. Definitely worse.’

‘I bet it is as well. But I can tell you quite categorically that no one’s ever spanked my arse. Even my mum was against corporal punishment.’

‘There’s always a first time,’ she said, with a coy smile. The woman was definitely flirting. I wasn’t sure whether to be worried or pleased. She took a packet of Silk Cut out of her handbag. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘Be my guest.’

I watched as she lit one and took a long, relaxed drag that gave me a fleeting reminder, even years later, of how good a cigarette tastes after a decent meal. ‘What you’ve got to remember’, she said, blowing the smoke out above my head, ‘is that if Capper was, or is, a customer down there, then it’s possible that he knows Fowler.’

‘I was thinking about that earlier, but I don’t really go for it. He’s too keen for us to find him. He keeps going on about it.’

‘Ah,’ she said, taking another drag (it’s amazing how elegant a woman smoking can look), ‘but there’s always the possibility that he might have been put in a compromising situation. If someone down there found out he was a copper, then they might have been able to use it against him, and perhaps it’s that someone who wants to find Fowler.’

‘And who do you think that someone might be?’

She shrugged. ‘God knows.’

I shook my head. This was one complication too far. ‘No, I think it’s more likely he’s just a pervert.’

She blew more smoke over my head. ‘So do I, but nothing’s set in stone, is it? Maybe it’d be worth-while watching what you say around him.’

I nodded, thinking that it was funny how when you’re talking to another copper, even one who’s female and attractive, you always end up back on the subject of work. For once, I just wanted to forget about it. I wanted to talk more about her. What she was interested in. What made her tick. What she looked for in a man. And whether she really was flirting.

But the opportunity had passed, and a couple of minutes later she stubbed her cigarette out and said that she ought to be getting back. We split the bill fifty-fifty and headed outside. Night was falling and the lowlifes who inhabit King’s Cross after dark were coming out of the cracks in the pavement and looking round for customers and victims. I suggested we share a cab back but she told me she was perfectly capable of getting herself back on the Tube. ‘I am a police officer, you know, John,’ she said dismissively.

‘Don’t say that too loudly round here.’

‘And don’t keep going on.’ Her face broke into a smile. ‘Look, I had a good time tonight. We’ll have to do it again sometime.’

I nodded. ‘Definitely.’

We had an awkward moment when we thought about shaking hands, but didn’t quite go through with it, and then she said goodbye and headed off towards the Underground, while I looked around for a cab that would take me back to Tufnell Park.

Part of me thought that maybe I should have tried to kiss her, or at least shown that I was interested, but the other part kept telling me that by taking a little pain now I was avoiding a lot more down the line.

Iversson

‘So how did you meet your ex-missus, then?’ asked Elaine.

It was Sunday morning and we were sitting up in her bed, naked and drinking coffee. The clock on the bedside table said half eleven and her right hand was on my thigh, which made me think she probably wasn’t going to kick me out just yet.

‘I was a double-glazing salesman.’

Elaine laughed. ‘You? Now that I would have liked to see.’

‘It was just after I’d left the army. I was pretty shit at it, to be honest with you. I mean, they taught you all these ways to get the customer to sign on the dotted line, get him fired up and interested and all that, but in the end, as far as I could see, all I was doing was shifting windows. You know, people either wanted them or they didn’t. Anyway, my ex was a secretary there and for some reason she took a fancy to me.’

‘Well, you’re not bad, Max.’

‘Thanks. You’re too kind.’

‘I know.’

‘So we started going out, one thing led to another, and somehow we ended up getting wed. Christ knows how it happened. I still don’t think either of us cared that much about each other — it was just one of those things. Anyway, it didn’t last. We went to Majorca on the honeymoon, it rained nearly every day, she went on sex strike after I said something about her mum she took offence to, and it went downhill from there. I think we managed about four months, no more than that. I got sacked from the company and she took it worse than me. I was quite pleased, but with her it was a pride thing. It made her look bad in front of her mates in the office that her husband wasn’t good enough to flog double-glazing, and she really let me know it. In the end I just thought, fuck it, we’re never going to work it out so I might as well make the break. So one day, while she was at work, I packed up all my stuff, which wasn’t a lot, and walked out. I only saw her once after that, and that was in the divorce courts. She got half of everything I owned, which was nothing. I got my freedom back. It was a fair swap, I thought.’

‘How did you get into the mercenary game?’

‘My partner, Joe, he’d been doing it for a couple of years. He was working for an outfit who were always on the look-out for people with good military backgrounds to send out to all these places. I put a call into him, he put me in touch with his boss, and three days later I was on the plane to Sierra Leone.’

‘Where the hell’s that?’

‘Somewhere you don’t ever want to go. A back-water shithole in Africa. And I’ll tell you this, you have to see the place to believe it. I was there four months altogether, but I reckon I lost count of the number of mutilated corpses I saw within four days. We were working for the government, or what passed for the government. To be honest, it was just a bunch of young NCOs who’d overthrown the last bloke, and most of them couldn’t run a bath, let alone a country. We were meant to be helping the Sierra Leonean army secure the area around the capital city and capture the diamond mines in the interior from the rebels, the RUF.’

‘So who were they rebelling against, the RUF?’

That made me chuckle. ‘Anyone who wanted to take the diamonds off them. That was about as radical as they got. They might have said it was all about creating freedom and democracy and all that shit but, like most politicians, all they really cared about was lining their own pockets. It’s what most of those wars are about. Some people have got the diamonds and the money, some others want it. Instead of sitting round the table and carving up the proceeds, like they do over here, they get the guns out and start shooting.’

‘Did you ever kill anyone?’ she asked evenly, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and offering me one.

I took one and let her light it for me. ‘Would it matter if I had?’ I answered, hoping that she wasn’t the sort of girl to get offended by her new lover’s tales of mayhem and murder.

She shrugged, and looked me in the eye. ‘It was your job, wasn’t it? That’s what you’re trained for. No, it wouldn’t matter.’ It seemed she wasn’t, then.

I leant back on the pillow and took a drag on the cigarette as her fingers drifted across the hairs on my belly. I got the impression she was horny again. This girl had an incredible appetite.

‘I shot at a lot of people,’ I told her, ‘and quite a few of them fell down, but I couldn’t ever say for sure that it was me who killed them. There were always other people fighting alongside me. But I suppose, probability wise, I must have taken out a couple. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of.’

‘But you shouldn’t be ashamed either. Sometimes it’s just a case of you or them, isn’t it?’ Out of the corner of my eye, I was conscious of her watching me as she spoke.

‘That’s right. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done. I shot at people who were shooting at me. I never killed anyone in cold blood, and I suppose you could argue that one way or another they all deserved it. They were no angels. None of them. Not the RUF, nor any of the others I ran into on my travels.’

‘Where else did you go, then?’

‘I did six months in the Congo, three months in Colombia, and a few weeks in Liberia.’

‘What was it like? Was it fun?’

I shook my head. ‘Not really. Most of the time we were boiling alive in the jungle, getting constantly attacked by all kinds of horrible insects and never knowing what kind of tropical disease we might pick up. The most exciting part was when we actually saw some action, but it didn’t happen very often.’

‘It still sounds better than what a lot of people do to earn their living.’

‘It was better than selling double-glazing, I’ll give you that, and I suppose it was a bit of an adventure getting the chance to finally use all my training in a real-life situation, but the reality was a lot more boring than the expectation.’

‘It always is, Max. Haven’t you noticed that yet?’

‘I suppose so, but the money wasn’t that much good either. Everyone thinks mercenaries earn an arm and a leg, but it’s nothing really. Especially when you think how much you’ve got to risk. Joe felt the same way, so we decided to set up the company.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘It’s not my name, honestly. It’s his.’

She smiled. ‘Go on, what is it?’

‘Tiger Solutions.’

Her laughter bounced off the walls of the bedroom. ‘What the fuck sort of a name is that?’

‘A bad one, but Joe wanted it and I couldn’t think of anything better, so I didn’t bother to argue.’

‘Max, anything’s better than Tiger Solutions. What sort of solutions does a tiger offer anyway?’

‘I don’t know. Fearsome ones?’

She continued laughing and I chucked one of the pillows at her. It bounced off her head and landed on the other side of the room. ‘If you ever meet Joe, you have a go at him about it. I swear it had nothing to do with me.’

We were silent for a few moments, and even though I didn’t want to have to say it, I knew there was no point putting it off. ‘Look, Joe gave me some money so that I could get out of town for a while, enough to keep me going for the foreseeable future. So I can be out of your hair by tomorrow.’

She smiled at me. ‘You don’t have to go yet, Max. I like the company.’

‘I appreciate it, but you’ve done enough for me already, and we can’t carry on like this for ever. I’ve got to go out and get some fresh air fairly soon otherwise I’ll go stir crazy.’

She put her hand on my arm. ‘You go when you want, but not before. Not on my account. It’s no problem for me, you being here. Honest.’

Well, there was no way I was going to argue. Not with the sort of accommodation I was getting. So I gave her my best smile and said that, OK, maybe I’d stay a couple of days longer. At that moment, the phone rang out in the hall and she jumped off the bed. I watched as she went out the door, her rear waggling seductively. There was a little red devil complete with trident tattooed on the right cheek. He was grinning. So was I.

When she came back a few minutes later, she told me that it had been the club on the phone. ‘I’ve got to work tonight,’ she said, getting back on the bed. She lit two more cigarettes and passed one over. You get my drift about the standard of accommodation. Naked women even firing up your smokes for you.

‘Again? Haven’t they heard of workers’ rights down there? You need a night off occasionally. Can’t you throw a sickie?’ I remembered how bored I’d been the previous night. For some reason, Elaine didn’t have Sky, which had severely limited my options. The high point had been Celebrity Stars in their Eyes, if you can call some bird who used to be on EastEnders massacring my mum’s favourite Patsy Kline song a high point. It wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat.

‘You know as well as I do that it’s a difficult time at the moment, Max. Perhaps in a couple of days.’

‘What’s going to happen at Arcadia? Now that Fowler’s not coming back.’

‘It’s all pretty much up in the air at the moment, especially as everyone thinks he is coming back, except me, you, and the people who had him killed.’

‘Is there any sign of the Holtzes yet?’

‘No. I don’t think we’ll see them for a bit. Not with the police still sniffing around asking questions about the doorman who got poisoned.’

‘Well, they’re going to start coming out of the woodwork pretty soon. Blokes like them aren’t the sort to be hands-off about a big investment like the Arcadia. So when they do, make sure you watch yourself.’

She sat up and eyed me coolly, like it was me who ought to be watching myself. ‘It’s nice to know you care, Max, it really is. But you don’t need to worry about me. I know what I’m doing.’

Elaine was a feisty lady and definitely not someone to be messed with, but at the same time her words didn’t do much to reassure me. I remember the American commander of another mercenary unit in Sierra Leone saying exactly the same thing just before he disappeared into the jungle on a one-man reconnaissance near the diamond fields of Bo.

The next day an RUF patrol ate him.

In the end the weather was too decent to be indoors, especially as I hadn’t set foot outside Elaine’s apartment for getting on for forty-eight hours. Joe was right: I probably wasn’t the Old Bill’s top priority. Yes, I’d slapped a couple of them, plus got one inadvertently pissed on, but people do that to them all the time. It’s all part of being a copper, getting slapped in the line of duty. It’s like soldiers — it’s what they join up for. The action and all that shit. Granted, they were probably looking for me, but I didn’t think my crime was so heinous that they’d be scrambling the helicopters and plastering up the Wanted: Dead or Alive posters just yet, so that afternoon we went out for a stroll round Clerkenwell, arm in arm like true romantics, taking in the sun and the warmth, enjoying it the way the tourists do.

On the way back to the apartment we stopped at an Italian deli and I bought some ingredients: anchovies, black olives, fresh oregano, canned Italian tomatoes and, most important of all, a six-pack of bottled Peroni. I found some spaghetti in Elaine’s food cupboard and, after a bit of exercise of the bedroom variety, cooked us both a pasta dish my ex-wife had taught me to make years back on one of the few occasions we’d been talking. Puttanesca. Whore’s spaghetti, the fiery sauce unfaithful Latin wives would make for their husbands because it tasted like it had taken hours to prepare when in reality you could knock it together in twenty minutes, leaving yourself ample time for an afternoon’s shagging. Perhaps she’d been trying to tell me something.

Elaine had to be at the club at nine-thirty, and before she went I told her I’d feel happier if she left the place, which I know was a bit cheeky, given the fact I hardly knew her, but to be honest with you I was beginning to think that maybe something could come of this.

‘You’re a talented woman,’ I told her, assuming that she was. ‘You know how to run a place. Why don’t you look for a job somewhere else?’

She stopped in front of me and gave me a look which said: Don’t push your luck, sonny. In the heels of her black court shoes, she was only an inch below me in height. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Max, and I will leave. But it’ll be in my own time. Understand? I’m a big girl now, I can look after myself. Thanks for the concern, but save it for people who really need it.’

Which was telling me.

After she’d gone, I sat demolishing the Peroni and trying desperately to find something decent to watch on the TV, which, not for the first time, turned out to be a fruitless task. I ended up watching a programme about a family of chimpanzees living in the African jungle. It all started off quite nicely as well. The chimps were messing about, grooming one another and generally acting all cute like they do in the zoo, and I was even musing about what a nice, laid-back life it would be being a member of the ape fraternity when all of a sudden everything went a bit mental. A friendly-looking gibbon appeared up in the trees near the chimps’ camp, and one of them spotted him. Well, the next second the whole lot of them were howling and shrieking like a bunch of Millwall fans on angel dust, and before I had a chance to even work out what was going on, they were charging after him through the undergrowth, much to the excitement of the breathless narrator.

After a dramatic five-minute chase they cornered him up on one of the branches, and then, to my horror, ripped the poor little sod apart, disembowelling him with their bare hands while he stared mournfully up at them. They then began to eat him alive, as casually as you like, which to my mind was really quite disgusting. Especially as it was on TV when kids could be watching. And to think these beasts are meant to be our closest relatives.

One of the chimps was staring cockily at the camera while he munched on a hefty piece of gibbon offal, and I got a nasty sense of deja vu because he really reminded me of that treacherous toe-rag Tony, sitting up there like he owned the place with what looked suspiciously like a smile on his face.

Maybe the bastard had been reincarnated.

I switched over at this point, having no desire to get into a staring match with a familiar-looking monkey, and cracked open another Peroni. It made me wonder what I’d have been doing that night if I’d never agreed to take on the Fowler contract. Probably sitting alone at home watching something a lot better. Life would have been a lot easier, that was for sure, but then again it would also have been a lot more boring. And sometimes that’s worse.

What I didn’t know then, though, and what I do now, is that my troubles were only just beginning.