Down into Darkness (25 page)

The boys in the Beamer were cruising the West End, taking it slow because the traffic was backed up, as always, solid metal wherever you looked, but also taking it slow because they were stoned, even the driver was stoned, and things were brighter, louder, funnier.

They were sharing their music with everyone in the street and with people in a few streets beyond. One of them sat in the back seat with his feet out of the open window. He was examining his new toy: a converted Brocock
ME
38. He didn't need it for anything special, just street cred. He aimed it at one of the crew and fired off an imaginary round.

The boy grabbed his heart and grimaced and died an imaginary death. They laughed. They all laughed until they hurt.

Since Bryony's boyfriend, previously her mother's boyfriend, had been on the must-see list, Maxine Hewitt had been making an on/off stakeout of the local benefit offices, a duty that involved sitting in an unmarked car, pretending to be there for no particular reason, eating unwise food and trying not to notice her partner's body odour. Her current partner was Andy Greegan. Andy had noticed the early arrival of summer, the unaccustomed heat and the city's humidity levels, and his concession to all this was to wear a deodorant called ‘Chill'.

Greegan had been on sandwich duty. The best he'd been able to do was cheese on white and two cartons of regular coffee. He lodged his paper carton on the dashboard, next to the enhanced away-day photo of the elusive Chris Fuller. Maxine set her sandwich aside and drank the coffee, which was already cool.

She said, ‘No offence, Andy, but your deodorant smells like machine oil.'

For a moment, Greegan didn't register the remark; then he did. ‘No
offence
?'

‘Absolutely not, no. I'm sure it seemed like a must-buy at the time, but it's clearing my sinuses. Machine oil or else drain-devil.'

‘It's advertised on TV by a godlike young man with a workout body. A girl wearing three handkerchiefs slithers all over him.'

‘Maybe it's an open-air deodorant. I've seen that ad. The young man in question is backed up to a waterfall.'

Greegan looked mournful. ‘Or it smells better on guys that look like him.'

‘Or it smells the same, but girls just don't notice when it's a guy who looks like him.'

‘You think?'

‘I don't know,' Maxine told him. ‘I was looking at the girl.'

‘I could open a window.'

‘On Kilburn High Road?'

‘That guy,' Greegan said, ‘the guy in the ad. He's not so good-looking. It just gym-time: abs and pecs.'

‘The girl was hot, though.'

‘That's what I was going to say.'

Maxine laughed and took a bite of her sandwich. She said, ‘Hey, it's him.'

Greegan looked up, not sure, for a moment, what she
meant. Then he saw a face he knew coming out of the post office on the other side of the road.

The face on the dashboard.

A cop's relationship with a chis is strictly business before pleasure. In fact, pleasure doesn't come into it.

Frank Silano had spoken to three people, and from those conversations came the names of five likely contacts. It was a work-intensive business. He chased down the five and got rerouted to a further four. Of these, two deflected him with the same name, a matching description and the name of a pub in London Fields – which is where Silano now sat drinking a beer and asking awkward questions.

Eventually, the man with the razored sideburns and the dated shades turned up and stood in the doorway. He looked unhappy. Silano nodded, but didn't make a move. Sideburns left. Silano knew that his presence in the pub was making people nervous, but he also knew that Sideburns would be under instruction to solve the problem, so he let the man wait while he finished his beer.

They went for a walk through Hackney's blue haze. Silano said, ‘I'm told you're the armourer. You're the man to see'.

Sideburns gave a little cough-laugh. ‘Yeah? Who tell you that?'

‘Everyone told me that.'

‘Everyone know jack shit.'

‘You sell someone a nine-millimetre weapon recently?'

‘You talking to the wrong man.'

‘I hear you sell most things. I hear this from what I consider reliable sources.'

‘This is people talking crap. This is people don't know me.'

‘They seemed to know you pretty well.'

‘Got their names?'

‘Look,' Silano said, ‘you can either help me out here or
I could turn up at your address with a full squad, a Hatton gun and some dogs with a keen sense of smell. It's up to you.'

‘I don't know, man. I sell stuff, everyone does. Cars, mostly. TVs sometimes. I'm legal.'

‘Of course you are. What did he look like?'

‘I saw a man in that pub back there. Few days ago. He was looking for something. I told him I couldn't help him, you know?'

‘Sure. What did he look like?'

‘People come up here, they want all kinds of stuff. Do I know them? Do I know who the fuck they are? No.'

‘I believe you. What did he look like?'

‘White man, it seem to me.'

Silano sighed. ‘We're running out of time,' he said, ‘or you are.'

They had turned off the street into a shopping mall. Sideburns stopped and leaned up against the window of a media store. Fifteen plasma screens were showing an afternoon movie in which John Wayne was taking on a regiment of gooks. Gooks died. Gooks were mown down and blown up and ploughed under.

‘For fuck's sake, man, does it matter to me? What do you think? I'd give him up, no problem.'

Silano said, ‘So go ahead.'

‘I think he had long hair.' Sideburns shrugged.

‘It was that long ago?'

Sideburns laughed. ‘I was stoned. Okay? That's all there is. I was off my fucking face.'

‘What did he sound like?' Sideburns shook his head. ‘Young or old?'

‘You want a guess? Young.'

Silano wiped a hand across his eyes. ‘Was it a nine millimetre?'

Sideburns said, ‘Whoever this man was, he's fuck-nothing
to me. If I knew, I'd tell you. Like I need this shit from you.' He spread his hands. ‘I was wrecked, you know? I was nailed.' He pushed himself off the window. ‘Don't come with me, man. Don't come any further.' As he walked away, he looked over his shoulder. ‘What kind of gun?'

‘Nine millimetre.'

A faint smile. ‘Yeah…'

TV images flickered at the corner of Silano's eye. John Wayne shooting from the hip. John Wayne winning the war.

Collier was running the briefing. Stella sat on a desk, to one side, head down, saying nothing. Collier, on the other hand, was saying everything from ‘We're going nowhere' to ‘Make it happen'. ‘Get results' was also high on his list, though if he had a method for doing this, he wasn't sharing it. The whiteboards were covered with the front pages of national tabloids, all of which, one way or another, said
MAD DOG SERIAL KILLER AT LARGE
–
COPS WORSE THAN USELESS
–
EXPECT MORE DEATHS
–
IT COULD BE YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES NEXT
.

The squad room was littered with crisp packets and chocolate-bar wrappers and water bottles. Bar of the day was Galaxy. Stella waited until Collier had run through his list of grievances before stepping up to say that DCs Hewitt and Greegan had arrested Chris Fuller.

‘As I remember,' she said, ‘you considered him our prime suspect.'

It was clear from the expression on Collier's face that he didn't appreciate Stella's timing. He said, ‘And I wasn't told about this because –'

‘Sorry, Boss.' Stella gave the perfect imitation of a little, helpless shrug. ‘I thought I'd be giving this briefing. It was top of my agenda.'

Stella and Harriman sat down with Chris. The air in the interview room was stale and tepid. Harriman switched on a free-standing fan that pushed the air round without releasing it. The enhanced post-mortem photograph of Bryony
Dean was on the table between them. Chris had looked at it, then replaced it, face down.

‘You knew it was Bryony,' Stella said; ‘the girl in the tree.'

‘Not at first. She just didn't come back.'

‘Which is why you reported her missing.'

‘Yeah.'

‘As Elizabeth Rose Connor.'

‘She changed her name.'

‘No,' Harriman said, ‘she didn't change it, she used both. I expect you're doing the same – four identities, four socialsecurity payments.'

Chris had nothing to say on the subject.

‘How did you find out that it was Bryony?' Stella asked.

‘She had some friends over at the Kensals, I –'

‘No, no…' Harriman shook his head. ‘Don't bother with all that. We know she was on the game, we know that you were pimping her, we know that she used to work the Strip.'

Chris's hand jerked on the table, as if he'd been stung. ‘I went up there looking for her. It had gone round that she was dead, that she was the one in the papers.' He massaged his eyes with finger and thumb and didn't speak again for a full minute. Finally, he said, ‘I didn't like her doing that. I didn't ask her to.'

Harriman snorted. ‘Sure. You pimped for her, you pimped for her mother.'

‘Think it was simple as that?' Chris's voice was sharp with indignation. ‘You don't know. What do you know? Fuck all.'

He turned away and stared down at the floor. Stella gave Harriman a look. To Chris, she said, ‘So why did she do it? Why did she go whoring?'

‘She wanted things, you know, the usual.'

‘What?'

‘The stuff they advertise. The stuff everybody wants.'

‘So it was just down to her.'

‘We needed money. She had something she could sell.'

‘Bryony was reported missing once before,' Stella observed.

‘I know.'

‘But she wasn't really missing on that occasion, was she?'

‘We wanted to be together, you know how it is…'

Harriman said, ‘I know you were shagging both the mother and the daughter.'

Chris sighed. ‘It wasn't like that.'

‘No? According to Melanie Dean, it was exactly like that.' Harriman paused. ‘Why didn't you just tell her that you and Bryony were going away together? Why piss about?'

Chris looked at him as if he ought to know the answer. ‘I didn't want the fuss.'

‘Did you kill Bryony?' Stella asked him.

He had been expecting the question. ‘She was stripped naked and hung up in a tree' – he turned the photo over – ‘she lost her eyes. Those aren't her eyes. What happened to her eyes?'

‘Birds,' Stella spoke softly.

Chris stared at her a moment, then looked away. ‘Why would I do that to her? Why would I do anything to her? We were together, you know? We'd decided on that.' He was doing everything but use the word ‘love'. ‘I'm not violent, all right? Ask anyone. Ask Melanie.'

Stella and Harriman exchanged a glance. Chris said, ‘What?'

‘Melanie killed herself,' Stella said.

The tape rolled. Chris sat with his head down, his shoulders up, his arms folded, as if a chill had suddenly come over the room.

He said, ‘Both. Both dead.' After a moment, he said, ‘You don't know. You know fuck all.'

*

Aimée lay spread-eagled and heavy. Woolf had made love to her long and hard, and she had taken it as evidence of his passion, evidence of his love. Now he was unloading items from the fridge and making a cold platter. She had bought beer and wine and food they might, she thought, cook together while they talked about the future.

She heard the raised voices and rapid-volley gunfire of a TV show and got off the bed to walk naked into the kitchen. Being naked in front of him was a particular luxury. He was sitting at the table watching the show, and she leaned over him, her breasts grazing his back, to roll a slice of ham. On the screen were burning cars and civilians yelling and soldiers looking edgy. It might have been the news. She ate the ham; it was cold from the fridge; she took a swallow of his beer.

He said, ‘I thought we could go away somewhere, take a break… Could you do that?'

She said yes without thinking; then, ‘How long for?'

‘A couple of days; three, maybe.'

She turned his face to hers and kissed him. ‘Of course; of course I can do that.'

She went back to the bedroom and found a light robe. When she returned he was staring at the screen, his beer halfway to his mouth, a look on his face that was something like outrage. A man was talking politics, his subject war and the pity of war; also its inevitability. A caption brought up his name: Neil Morgan, MP.

Aimée said, ‘Are you okay?'

‘What?' Woolf turned towards her quickly, his reverie broken.

‘Just the way you were looking at him.'

‘Who?'

She gestured at the screen, though Morgan had now been replaced by a newscaster. ‘That guy.'

‘No.' Woolf shook his head, thinking fast. ‘What guy?'

‘You looked upset.'

He smiled at her. ‘I was thinking.'

‘Unpleasant thoughts…'

‘Just something I remembered I have to do.'

He got up and put his arms round her, the smile still in place. ‘So it's okay – you can get away? A couple of days.'

She nodded. Already she wanted him again. That hunger, that fierceness of need, had never happened to her before. ‘Whenever you say.'

‘Soon,' Woolf promised, ‘a week or so. Soon.'

It was 3.30 a.m. when Sorley called. London was still awake, and so was he. Stella, on the other hand, had been asleep and caught up in a dream in which Delaney was on the deck of a ship throwing streamers while she stood on the dock, waving. The streamers were blue and white police-tape and printed with the words
DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE
. As she watched, the ship started to move. This happened in freeze-frame moments. Each time the ship was a little further off from the dock, and Delaney's face a little less clear. Then it was night, and the moon was up; shadows danced on the water and Delaney stood beside her, looking at the ship, a dot on the horizon.