Post Mortem (11 page)

‘Mr Mehenni, if you won't let me speak, I'll have to stop the interview.'

There was a moment's silence. Mehenni folded his arms across his chest and gave her a look of fury, as if waiting for her explanation.

‘Mr Mehenni,
I'm
interviewing
you
. I understand you've made a complaint. You have a solicitor. That matter will be dealt with, I can assure you, but separately, not by me.'

Mehenni denied all offences. Lizzie couldn't caution him and she couldn't charge him either – she needed to get the data for the threatening phone call to Carrie Stewart. She had no choice but to bail him. She had a word with his solicitor in the corridor.

‘Please, try to explain to him. The best thing is for him just to stay away from Carrie Stewart. Tell him to think of his family.'

Bailing Mehenni had made her late. As she entered the bar, Sergeant Thompson, wearing a bright red wig, and Superman underpants over his trousers, was holding forth. Other drinkers were casting nervous glances at him.

‘Lizzie!' Thompson shouted to her as though she were the most ardently wished-for member of the company, as if her arrival at last made the celebration complete. She smiled at the welcome.

‘Drink, anyone?'

It was a large order: she paid with a card. The bar was crowded and dark. At the table they were reciting Monty Python sketches. She drank steadfastly, getting determinedly into the spirit of things. Thompson was making a speech. He was off to pastures new, where the women were better-looking and – more significantly – no one knew him yet. He held up the framed Polaroid photos they had given him of the team and waved the bottle of whisky.

‘Seriously, thank you for this. It's been great. A very difficult decision to leave. If you believe that, you'll believe anything.'

Lizzie found the photo frame in her hands. Among the images was one of herself and two of the other girls draped across the bonnet of a police car.

‘So that's how you spend your time,' commented Arif over her shoulder.

‘Nobody knows exactly what
you
do all day,' she countered. ‘Hiding in cupboards, is it?'

‘I'm not hiding in any cupboards.'

‘No, that's true enough.'

They clinked glasses. At a far table Hadley was drinking stolidly. He gestured to a tall glass standing on the table and waved for her to come over.

‘You won the bet after all. Surprised me, well done. Bloody Mary your poison, isn't it?'

It was possible that, for all Sergeant Thompson's brief enthusiasm, Hadley was indeed her natural companion at this event. She took a seat next to him.

‘Sorry I couldn't help you out with Mehenni,' he said. ‘Guv'nor thought I ought to leave it alone. In view of the complaint, that is.'

‘Yes, no worries.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Denied it.'

‘Charge him?'

‘No, on bail.'

‘That's not a good idea, is it?'

‘I need to get the phone data. Since Carrie Stewart put her oar in, the Superintendent's been taking an interest – told me I couldn't let the malicious comms drop because Mehenni wouldn't accept responsibility for the crim dam.'

Another Bloody Mary had appeared in front of her. Furtively someone passed Sergeant Thompson's card under the table for her to sign. She saw written,
Never liked you
and added her own inevitable insult:
Good riddance to bad rubbish
.

She glanced across at the other officers. Thompson had been given a plastic cock and it was being passed around, in and out of trouser flies. The team was like a pack of dogs, each fitting in as best they could, neither sweet-natured nor nasty, just a member of the group. She longed to merge herself in this identity and pull the sledge with the others. They were a breed apart, mysteriously but somehow unavoidably tainted by their labour. If you were one of them, it was best to be truly one of them.

Hadley was talking. ‘I wanted to ask you about the complaint.'

It was a weary subject and she didn't want to get drawn in, but she was tired and it was easier to stay here than to make the effort
to join in with the others. All that cock business would be really trying. Her fatigue was compounded by the increasing effect of alcohol. Perhaps she should give up and go home to her bed, but, she told herself, it would look bad to leave so early. Besides, as she barely admitted, even though it was silly, she couldn't help herself waiting, hoping. She glanced around the room. She could not see Shaw.

Hadley muttered into his beer, ‘I've got a board coming up.'

‘Yes?'

‘It's for training school. If I get it, it'll take me off the streets.'

‘You gonna be a shiny arse?'

‘All right, Cagney, give me a break. I'm too old for early turn and freezing crime scenes. Only three more years to go and then I'm off.'

She glanced at her watch. If Shaw didn't turn up, she would give up and leave in five minutes. Then she saw him, standing at the bar. He was away from the main crowd, talking to one of the skippers. He glanced over to her and made a drinking gesture. She tapped her glass and gave a thumbs-up. There, in spite of herself, was that involuntary hope again, that excitement that was almost physical and had nothing to do with anything she had dared to even think through.

Hadley was still speaking. ‘If you could just say you were in the room the whole time . . . Say it's not true what she's claiming.'

Arif gestured to her to come and join him in some dancing. He had somehow got hold of a feather boa. She waved back at him.
Later
. The evening's prospects were improving.

‘But Hadley, I
wasn't
there . . .'

‘It's not bloody true what she's saying – I'll tell you exactly what happened and you just repeat it in a statement. Then it'll be resolved locally. Otherwise it'll take bloody ages. The bloody inspector could have knocked it on the head, but he's got an eye on promotion.'

‘That doesn't sound like the guv'nor.'

‘I didn't mean
our
guv'nor. I meant Inspector Grosz. It wasn't passed to Shaw, was it? He wasn't allowed to deal.'

She remembered vaguely the mention of a solicitor at the front desk. Perhaps he'd insisted on a different, independent inspector.

‘Hadley, it'll all get sorted . . .'

‘But too late for the board.'

She couldn't see what the fuss was about. He could survive three more years of crime scenes, surely? This was the bit where cops were supposed to keep their head down and bide their time in anticipation of the handshake.

A Bloody Mary was placed on the table in front of her. The guv'nor joined them, taking a seat opposite her. She took a sip of her drink, trying not to betray her pleasure in his arrival. She had to work out how to enjoy rather than suffer these five minutes of his company.

‘All right?' he said to Hadley.

‘Yes, guv. Just heading home, as a matter of fact,' Hadley said, getting up. ‘See you tomorrow, Lizzie.'

‘Yeah, see you, Hadley.'

So they were to be alone for a moment. Lizzie resolved to get a grip on her feelings. Luckily, at the bar, voices were raised. ‘What's the commotion?' she said.

‘Arif's been ordering drinks on someone else's tab.'

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Whose?'

‘Sergeant Thompson's.'

She laughed. ‘Definitely not wise.'

‘No.'

‘Still, you've got to admire the boy's courage.'

‘True enough.'

They fell into silence. Lizzie stopped herself from making forced conversation. Her nervousness risked spilling out into unconstrained babble. Her fluster, she knew, did not stem from the inspector's
rank. She had an ingrained contempt for grades of all varieties. She had an uneasy feeling, nevertheless, that she might be being seduced by a different variety of job bullshit. There were rumours that, before making inspector, Shaw had done interesting things, confidential stuff. Another man might have bragged, but not him. He might have stories but he was not telling them.

The silence had extended for too long and she began to feel a need for words. She took another sip at her drink and considered making her excuses, but this time he broke the silence.

‘Enjoying yourself?'

Usually this kind of question was a form of team requirement, a kind of grand hurrah.
Are you enjoying yourself? Are we all enjoying ourselves?
However, this time it had the air of genuine enquiry about it. The guv'nor, she noticed, was drinking orange juice. He was stone-cold sober. To her surprise, he returned her gaze with steadiness. She laughed nervously at the imagining of kissing him that came unbidden to her, and said, with some truth, ‘Yes.'

‘I didn't think it was ever as simple for you as that.'

‘Well, I'll admit I don't usually enjoy police piss-ups, but I'm enjoying this one.' She had nearly said
now
. She wanted to stay but decided to go before she made a total embarrassment of herself. She grabbed her bag. ‘Got to get up in the morning. I'd better be off.'

He reached out and touched the back of her hand.

‘Don't go yet.'

The touch was – she had to admit, cliché as it was – like electricity. She blushed and then couldn't stop herself grinning. She had considered herself totally immune to the charms of any man with the power of arrest. How utterly
bored
she had been. She suddenly speculated what he would be like with his clothes off. She laughed again, and he laughed too.

‘Or if you do have to go, let me drive you home. You're not far from me, are you?'

She tried to banish her imaginings. She summoned the image of his child. He had brought her into the station one Saturday: a blonde-haired girl with pink Crocs on her feet.

‘I'll be fine on the tube. Really.'

He smiled. ‘But it is a bit silly, isn't it – you getting the tube when I'm leaving too and only live a few streets away?'

She gathered her bag and her jacket. They were leaving unexpectedly quickly. It had turned out to be so easy. Was it the effect of the alcohol? She hoped she wasn't going to make a fool of herself. As she walked past the others, Arif caught her eye and winked. She wagged her finger at him with mock severity.

Shaw drove a Land Rover Discovery. She had to step up to sit in its plush leather seat. The darkness of the road was a change in key, and Lizzie felt the mood had shifted. She sat back in her seat and watched the orange tungsten of the street lights flaring rhythmically over the bonnet of the car.

But Shaw had not apparently caught the mood. Perhaps she had misread the lift home. He said, ‘I took a look at your statement – the one about the incident at Mehenni's house. You hardly talk at all about the stuff before Mehenni turned up, before all the drama. Perhaps you just need to do a short further statement – clarify that you were with Hadley all the time when you were inside the house and that he didn't say anything offensive. Just a few lines, shouldn't take you long.'

Lizzie's attention shifted sharply, like a driver sobering up quickly when pulled over by a marked car.

‘But I wasn't with him all the time. I was in the back garden for most of the time he was with Farah.'

Shaw nodded and sighed. ‘Oh, OK.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘Hadley wrote in his statement that you were with him the whole time.'

For a brief moment Lizzie could not think at all. Then, all at once, she was furious. Suddenly everything made sense. Hadley had lied in his statement and now he needed her to lie too! That was why he had been going on and on. Immediately another, insidious suspicion dawned on her. Was that why he had been so quick to leave when the guv'nor sat down? Had they been discussing his little difficulty? Was that why Shaw had offered her a lift home, so they could talk about this? She felt cheated, stupid, humiliated.

‘Why on earth would Hadley say I was there?' she said angrily. ‘If he wanted me to lie, he should at least have asked me first.'

Shaw glanced in his mirror and indicated right to overtake an old Metro that was ambling along at 20 mph, apparently in no particular hurry to get anywhere. His tone was affable: he was, he seemed to imply, concentrating on his driving.

‘Lizzie, slow down a moment. Don't jump to conclusions. You've been in the job long enough to know that people remember things differently. Perhaps he thought you were with him all the time. Perhaps he forgot you went into the garden.'

Lizzie sat back crossly in her seat. Hadley had thought she was there? Slowly she conceded to herself that yes, that was possible. She knew well enough how two people could have entirely different recollections of the same event. It was, after all, the everyday sport of defence lawyers. And the later incidents had seemed so much more important. Mehenni making off. Farah jumping on to the car bonnet. That had been the stuff she had been concerned to cover in her statement, the stuff that had worried her.