The Thing Itself

NINE

It didn’t take Sarah Gilchrist long to find the name of Donna Cassidy’s husband through her marriage certificate and Sarah Jessica’s birth certificate. She blinked at her computer screen.

‘Listen to this, Reg,’ she called across the office to DI Williamson, standing by the open window with a mug of coffee in his hand. He was peering intently down at something on the street outside, but she was pretty sure he was really standing there because he’d had a curry the previous night and they’d both been suffering the consequences. ‘Donna Cassidy’s husband is one Bernard Edward Grimes of Lewisham. Stated occupation “handyman”.’

Williamson turned to look at Gilchrist and raised an eyebrow.

‘Actual occupation “scumbag”. Last heard of in Milldean en route to the south of France.’

He walked over to peer at Gilchrist’s screen.

‘How the bloody hell did everyone miss that?’

The Milldean armed intervention that had gone so disastrously wrong the previous year had been designed to apprehend Bernie Grimes, dangerous armed robber. He was believed to be staying in a house in Milldean prior to taking the ferry to Dieppe en route to his hideout in the south of France.

He was not in the house they’d stormed. Other people were. These people had been shot and killed, though by exactly which of Gilchrist’s colleagues it was still not clear. There was no trace of Bernie Grimes in the house or any indication that he had ever been there.

‘The bastard wouldn’t need to stay in that house given his ex-wife and kid were living down the road. You and your guys were truly shafted.’

‘What’s her address — maybe it’s similar to that of the house we raided?’

Gilchrist tapped some keys, shook her head.

‘Nope. Donna Cassidy’s address and that of the house we raided are nothing like each other.’

‘How the bloody hell did everyone miss that?’ Williamson repeated. ‘I mean that’s major information.’

Gilchrist phoned the Met Police and after being passed around eventually reached a serious crime unit that had a particular interest in Grimes. She spoke to a detective sergeant for ten minutes, Williamson back at the window.

When she put the phone down, she walked over to join him.

‘They don’t have any information about Grimes having a wife and child — and certainly not one living in Milldean,’ she said.

Williamson gave her a long look.

‘They’ve got a rat in their unit, deleting stuff.’

‘That’s what the detective sergeant was realizing.’

‘So they’ll be heading down here.’ He reached for his jacket. ‘We’d better get to her first.’

Donna Cassidy was not pleased to see Gilchrist and Reg Williamson on her doorstep in Milldean.

‘I’m just going out,’ she said, her voice even throatier than Gilchrist remembered from the hospital.

‘We can do this down at the station if you want, love,’ Williamson said.

‘Who the fuck are you calling “love”, fatso? And stop staring at my tits.’

Gilchrist knew that Williamson was always imperturbable when faced with insults, especially about his paunch.

‘I’ll take that as an invite to enter the premises, shall I?’ he said, stepping forward.

Cassidy gave him a hard stare, then barked a laugh.

‘I’m not making you a bloody drink, though,’ she said, moving back into her entrance hall. They squeezed by a table piled with opened and unopened mail, past the open sliding door of a toilet under the stairs and into a large square living room.

‘You’ll know why we’re here,’ Gilchrist said as Cassidy walked over to a pink sofa and plonked down.

‘You’ve found the little monsters who tried to kill my daughter?’

‘We’ve found out who you’re married to,’ Williamson said, from the middle of the room.

‘I knew I’d said too much at the hospital,’ Cassidy said, glancing down at her breasts pushing out of her blouse.

‘We’re not interested in catching him,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Though there’ll be others coming from London to question you, I’ve no doubt, who will have other ideas. We just need to know when he was last in Milldean.’

Cassidy turned to look at her and almost snarled: ‘And you think I’ll tell you that?’

‘OK, not that,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Look, we’re not out to get him or you. But you know that Milldean thing last year?’

‘When you lot shot a house full of innocent people?’

‘We were there to arrest Mr Grimes.’

‘Shoot him more like, if what actually happened is anything to go by.’

‘Definitely not,’ Gilchrist said. ‘I was there. I was downstairs when it happened. I want to find out why and how it happened.’

‘And you want me to help how exactly?’

Gilchrist stepped closer.

‘We heard your ex-husband was staying in Milldean in that house en route to the south of France. Was he? Or was he staying with you? Or was he not in Milldean at all?’

‘Why should I tell you something like that?’

‘Because you owe DS Gilchrist the life of your child,’ Williamson said. ‘As does Bernie.’

Cassidy looked at him.

‘How do you reckon that, fatso? She just found her and called for help.’

‘It were a bit more than that-’

‘Reg-’ Gilchrist said.

‘Those girls were still attacking your daughter when DS Gilchrist, off duty, passed by. She saw off ten of them on her own, out of uniform. If she hadn’t, your Sarah Jessica would be dead.’

Cassidy looked at Gilchrist.

‘That true?’

‘Something along those lines,’ Gilchrist said. Thinking: if you miss out the bit where the three Balkan gangsters turned up and scared the bejesus out of the kids, then tried to kidnap me.

Cassidy looked off to one side for a long moment.

‘And you’re not going to try to hang something on Bernie?’

‘It’s other people we’re after,’ Williamson said, unconsciously stroking his paunch. Cassidy watched his circling hand.

‘He was in Milldean and he was with us, and the next day he did go off to France,’ she said. ‘He never went anywhere near that house.’

‘Did he know about it?’ Gilchrist said.

Cassidy gave her a sharp look.

‘That sounds like the start of a new line of questioning.’

‘Or a way of clearing him of all suspicion of complicity in what happened,’ Williamson said.

‘You’d have to speak to him about that,’ she said, with an odd twitch of the lips.

‘Love to,’ Williamson said. ‘Can you give us his number? Or, better still, his address? I’m fond of the south of France.’

‘I think it’s time you went,’ Cassidy said. ‘I think you’ve already got more than you deserve.’

‘Was that a loo down the hall?’ Williamson said. ‘Do you mind if I use the necessities?’

‘On your way out,’ Cassidy said.

‘Well, DS Gilchrist has just one final question for you,’ Williamson said, striding off down the corridor.

Gilchrist, startled, smiled uneasily at Cassidy.

‘Er, I just wondered when Sarah Jessica was coming home from hospital?’

Cassidy gave her a calculating look.

‘End of the week, they think.’

‘Remembered anything more?’ Gilchrist said.

Cassidy shook her head, looking beyond Gilchrist as Williamson emerged from the downstairs loo, his jacket over his arm.

Gilchrist followed her look.

‘Right then,’ she said. ‘We’ll be off.’

Cassidy followed her down the corridor. Williamson was on the doorstep.

Gilchrist joined him and turned back to Cassidy.

‘By the way, I found your marriage certificate and I found your daughter’s birth certificate. But I couldn’t find your divorce registered anywhere.’

Cassidy looked from one to the other of them, smiled slowly then closed the door.