A Lovely Way to Burn (13 page)

‘Sorry, love, normal service has been suspended.’

Derek had often boasted that police officers retired early, but the man behind the counter looked beyond pensionable age. Stevie placed the bag containing the laptop on to the counter.

‘I need to speak with someone. I’ve got evidence that might be crucial in a murder investigation.’

‘I’m sorry, darling.’ The policeman glanced at the bag but made no move to take it from her. ‘I can see you’ve been through the mill, but there’s no one here that can be of use to you tonight. The best thing you can do now is go home, lock your doors and stay put.’

Stevie clenched her grazed palms; the pain felt good.

‘What do you mean?’

The policeman’s stubble was a day or two old and a shade greyer than his hair.

‘I mean there’s no one here to take a statement from you.’

It was an effort not to vault the desk and shake him.

‘There’s you.’

‘No,’ the policeman said with the kind of patience usually reserved for children or the mentally challenged. ‘I’m not here.’

His hands rested on the reception desk, fingers splayed on the plastic countertop. Stevie touched one. The flesh was cold, but it was alive.

‘Yes you are.’

He slid his hand free.

‘No I’m not. Everyone here is dead.’

She looked into his eyes, and she could almost believe he was a ghost.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’d go now, if I were you. Before anything else happens to you.’

His tone was gentle but Stevie thought she could detect a threat in his words. She shouldered her bag and took a step backwards.

‘I know an officer who works here, Derek Caniparoli.’

‘Yes,’ the policeman nodded, ‘he’s dead too.’

‘No, he’s not.’ Her voice was rising. ‘He sent me a text ten minutes ago.’

The man’s smile slid into a smirk.

‘A lot can happen in ten minutes.’

‘Fuck you.’ Stevie turned on her heels. ‘Fuck you and fuck your police force.’ She halted at the door and faced him. ‘First sign of trouble and you fall apart. I’ve witnessed more shit in the last three days than you’ve seen in your whole career and I refuse to let it beat me.’

‘Good for you.’ The policeman’s smile was the dead calm of a sea just before a tsunami and Stevie was suddenly aware that they were alone. ‘But remember what I said: a lot of people are dying, one or two more’s not going to be missed.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You’re in a bit of a state, but you’re still a good-looking girl beneath those bruises. I’ve been very patient but I suggest you go home now, before someone decides they’d like a last thrill.’

This time Stevie didn’t hesitate. The pain in her leg was still there, but she banged out of the police station and half jogged the short distance to her car, scanning left to right as she ran, like a soldier making for fresh cover.

Seventeen

Stevie slammed the driver’s door, checked the locks, took out her phone and found Joanie’s number. She hoped Derek still had his wife’s mobile with him and that it was turned on. She pressed call and listened, swearing under her breath as it rang out. She tried again. This time Derek picked up.

‘Stephanie, yes.’

His voice was brisk and she could hear a bustle of activity in the background.

‘Derek, I’m sorry about Joanie.’

‘Me too.’

There was nothing else to be said and not-quite-silence hung on the line for a moment, a blackbird starting off the dawn chorus at her end, a babble of voices at his.

‘I’m outside your station.’

‘I’m not there.’

‘I know. There’s no one there. Just a mad-looking policeman who told me he was dead.’

‘That’ll be Phil. He should be on sick leave by rights.’ Derek gave a bitter laugh. ‘By rights most of us should be on sick leave, but it’s all hands to the pump. The Guvnor reckoned Phil would be more of a hindrance than a help out in the field, so we left him to mind the fort. I take it he’s not doing a very good job?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Best to keep out of his way. Look, Stevie, it was good of you to phone but I need to go.’

‘Wait a moment.’

‘I can’t, sorry.’

‘Derek, someone killed my boyfriend.’

His sigh sounded as if it had travelled across aeons to reach her. Stevie remembered what the policeman had said of Derek, ‘He’s dead too’, and the back of her neck tingled.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ His voice was heavy. ‘But things are in a bit of a mess, in case you’ve haven’t noticed. I’m afraid he’s not the only one.’

‘This is different. Someone deliberately organised Simon’s death and arranged things to make it look natural. Simon sent me a note, telling me he’d hidden a laptop at my flat and to deliver it to a colleague he trusted at the hospital, but his colleague caught the sweats and died before I could get it to him.’

‘Repeat that more slowly for me, please,’ Derek said. She did as he asked and he gave another sigh. ‘Are you sure?’

The question bewildered her.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Joanie said you had a habit of hooking up with rich fuckwits, all flash and no heart was how she put it. Are you sure someone isn’t playing a joke on you? Some Hooray Henries have peculiar ideas of what’s funny.’

‘Simon wasn’t a Hooray Henry, he was a surgeon and yes, I’m sure. I found Simon’s body. I smelt him before I saw him. Is that authentic enough for you?’

She thought Derek was going to find another objection, but he swore softly, ‘Jesus Christ,’ and asked, ‘What’s in the laptop?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t get past the password.’

‘Stevie, this is what a psychiatrist would call displacement activity. You’re fiddling while Rome burns. I’m sorry your boyfriend’s dead. I’m even sorrier Joanie’s dead. Whatever you think of me, I’d walk through fire to bring her back. But there’s nothing any of us can do. Forget it. Go home and keep safe. Someone told me vitamin C is good for staving off the sweats. Buy a few cartons of orange juice and then lock yourself in.’

‘It’s not as simple as that, Derek. I think someone’s after me. I was attacked by a man outside work tonight. He pretty much kicked the shit out of me. I think he would have killed me if it hadn’t been for the security guard. He saw what was happening and managed to beat him off.’

‘Are you okay?’

Derek sounded genuinely concerned and Stevie found herself blinking away tears.

‘A bit bruised, but I’ll live.’

‘What makes you think it wasn’t a straightforward mugging? The sweats is a call to all the scum of the earth to crawl out of their holes.’

It was the way Derek had always described the crowds he policed. Demonstrators, football supporters, rioters; he reduced all of them to zombies. Easier to push people around, Stevie supposed, if you thought that joining a crowd neutralised your brain. She couldn’t believe she was calling on him.

‘It wasn’t a random attack, Derek. There’s nothing and no one around the studio. This guy wasn’t just passing by, he was waiting for me. He wanted to get his hands on the laptop and he didn’t care if he killed me in the process.’

‘You should have given it to him.’

For all his shtick about law and order, that had always been Derek’s advice:
If you can’t outrun them, hand over your valuables and live to fight another day.
Stevie tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.

‘Maybe I should, but he doesn’t know I’ve not seen whatever it was Simon hid on it. As far as he’s concerned, I’m in on the whole story.’

She wanted to ask Derek to help her for Joanie’s sake, but Joanie was dead.

‘Hold on a minute, Stevie.’ She heard the faint sound of someone talking to Derek on the other end of the line. He said, ‘I’m going to put you on hold.’ And she was left with the hiss of dead air. When Derek returned he sounded out of breath.

‘You found one body. That was my twelfth. We’ve been in and out of houses all night checking on people reported missing.’

‘I thought you would be excused, because of Joanie.’

‘I told you, all leave’s cancelled. That includes compassionate leave.’ Derek sighed. ‘Not that I deserve much compassion.’ There was a pause and then he said, ‘You were a good friend to Joanie. You were always there for her.’

Stevie knew what Joanie would have wanted her to say and so she said it.

‘She still loved you, Derek.’

‘I didn’t deserve her.’ The policeman’s voice was gruff. He cleared his throat and asked, ‘You really think you’re in danger?’

‘I wouldn’t have phoned you otherwise.’

‘I guess not.’ He took the phone away from his mouth and Stevie heard him ask someone, ‘Have you checked the other rooms?’ There was the sound of a dog barking. Derek shouted, ‘Could someone lock fucking Fido up?’ and then he was back on the line. ‘Are you still living in Camden?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go home, lock the door and don’t open it to anyone except me. If the doorbell rings, ignore it, same for the landline. I’ll get there as soon as I can, but it may not be for a while.’ Derek’s voice had regained the sense of certainty that used to exasperate her. Now it was reassuring. ‘I’ll call you on your mobile, so make sure it’s charged. I’m just a beat bobby so don’t expect me to be Sir Galahad. If you don’t answer, I’ll assume you’ve pissed off.’

‘Thanks, Derek.’

‘Don’t thank me, I’ve not done anything.’

The line died abruptly and Stevie was left alone with the sound of birdsong. She sat there for a moment, watching the sunrise turning the tops of the high-rises pink. They looked mystical, like giant standing stones deposited there by some cosmic ancestor. She wondered if there would ever come a time when people would marvel at the civilisation that had created such giant structures, and ponder on what they had been trying to express.

Eighteen

A wind was rising and Stevie could hear the cord of the window blind
tap, tap, tapping
against the pane. She had kicked the covers off in the night and a chill had crept into her bedroom and across her body. She reached out blindly and pulled the covers up.
Tap, tap, tap
, the sound of plastic hitting against glass. She knew she should get up and close the window before the storm arrived and rain blew in, but she was wearier than the dead, and sleep kept towing her under.
Tap, tap, tap
. Stevie looked towards the sound. The blinds were raised, the window closed. Simon stood on the other side of the pane, his face pale and slack, his index finger tapping against the glass.

He mouthed, ‘Let me in.’

Stevie made to move, but then she remembered that he was dead and floating miraculously outside her third-floor window.

‘No!’

Stevie’s head shot up. She was still in her car outside the police station.
Tap, tap, tap.
She looked groggily at the passenger-side window and came face to face with a young woman.

‘It’s my Nan.’ The woman’s voice was muffled, her features absurdly close. ‘She’s not well.’

Stevie rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. The woman was still tapping on the window, an insistent rhythm. Her short nails had been tipped with French-polished falsies, a few of which remained.

‘You’ve got to help me.’

The stranger’s pupils were tiny. She was strung out, though whether it was from fear or something more chemical, Stevie couldn’t be sure. She lowered the window an inch.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘I don’t know, do I? I’m not a doctor. She needs to go to hospital.’

It was a scam, Stevie was almost certain of it, but a small sliver of doubt niggled at her. She took her bag from the well of the passenger seat. There were three tens and a twenty tucked inside her purse. She slid the tens free and posted them through the gap in the window to the woman.

‘Take a taxi.’

‘The lifts are off. I need help to get her down the stairs.’

The key was still in the ignition. Stevie started the engine.

‘Ask a neighbour.’

‘None of those bastards will help me.’

The woman had tucked the money into the pocket of her jeans. Her fingers were back at the window, not tapping this time, squeezing through the gap, trying to force the glass down.

‘Let go.’ Stevie pressed the button to raise the window again, but the woman’s hands were in the way and it refused to close. She looked around for something to swat them with. All she could find was the ice scraper that had sat in the pocket of the driver’s door since last winter. She waved it at the woman. ‘I’m telling you to fuck off.’

‘Language.’ The woman was laughing now, a crazy sound, cutting through the dawn, but her fingers were persistent and the window shifted a little beneath their pressure. Stevie rapped the invading knuckles with the ice scraper and the woman shouted, ‘That fucking hurt.’

Stevie took off the handbrake and let the Mini roll slowly back, but the woman was tenacious.