The Conspiracy Theorist (14 page)

‘I’m sure there’s still time,’ he
said.
 
‘If you had any evidence of
wrongdoing.’

‘Why did you feel it necessary to put
Sunny under surveillance?
 
For his safety
perhaps?’

Carmody
laughed, giving me a look that said
‘nice try.’
 
Somehow I had played
my hand wrong.
 
He knew I was only testing
the waters.
 
He could see I had
nothing.
 
He took his finger off
the lift button.
 
It dinged.

‘PiTech did not put its own boss under
surveillance, Mr Becket.
 
Other
people might have, of course.
 
You
see dear old Sunny liked to play the field.’

The lift doors opened.
 
The lobby was empty and the
receptionists were making a sustained effort not to look our way.
 
Vincent Carmody lowered his voice.

‘That’s another thing I didn’t mention
at his memorial service.’

And the lift doors closed on him.

Back
at the car, I asked Meg if I could stay at her place in London that night.
 
She asked what was going on.
 
I said I needed time to recuperate.

‘You're not getting any funny ideas,
are you Thomas?’

‘Not the sort you are thinking about.’

I assumed silence was agreement.
 
Without exchanging another word, we
drove up past Gatwick to the M25.
 
We missed the rush hour and drove down the M4 past Heathrow into west
London just as the traffic was beginning to build.
 
At the flat, Meg called the hospital to say she was back
earlier than expected and please could she have some of her leave back.
 
Then she went out to buy some
provisions.
 
I offered to help but
she told me to rest.
 
I presumed
she wanted to be on her own to ring Hammonde.
 
I was pleased.
 
It was not a conversation I particularly wanted to overhear.

She had been with him for over a year
now.
 
Although they had not moved
in together, I assumed it was only a matter of time.
 
After all, she had been with him in the States while he
presented to a conference of other psychoanalysts.
 
You couldn’t get any more committed than that.
 

It must have seriously pissed off Hammonde
that Meg had come running to my bedside.
 
That thought alone made it almost worthwhile getting beaten within an
inch of my life.

After Meg left, I left it several
minutes, put the door on the latch and nipped downstairs.
 
The car was parked in a square outside
the flat.
 
It was in a secure
enough area between the Edgware Road and Kensington.
 
Several rundown hotels traded off the address, but it also
meant the place was well covered by CCTV.
 
Meg’s flat was in a modern block, probably late Sixties with
floor-to-ceiling windows.
 
I could see
right into her kitchen and living room, as I knew from the one occasion, to my
shame, I had followed her and Hammonde there, my mind full of evil
thoughts.
 
I looked around a
bit.
 
All other cars had residents’
permits.
 
No black Range Rovers in
sight.
 

I sat in the Spider’s passenger
seat.
 
My case notes were in the
glove compartment next to my tobacco.
 
I rolled a cigarette—the first in five days, I
calculated—and read through the notes again.
 
Then I added with an unsteady hand:

Meeting
with V Carmody:

Suggestion
that wife had SP under surveillance.
 
How to check?

Knew
what ‘MO’ meant in relation to the mugging.

Modus
Operandi of the ‘muggers’ is to use public spaces.

‘Town
centre like that, too many variables’ said VC.

Question
then: how to minimise the variables?

Involve
local youth.
 
(Weak point: can
testify against you.)

Felt
VC was interviewing me.
 
Losing
touch?

I stopped before it became a diary
entry.
 
Too much introspection
these days, Becket, I thought.
 
Too much by half.
 

The
next day I woke in Meg’s spare bed.
 
Even her box-room looked better cared for than my flat.
 
There was a pile of art books we had
bought together.
 
British art
mainly: Turner, Constable, Bacon, Freud,
Stanley
Spencer.
 
Coffee table books,
glossies made for display, tucked away in a corner of the spare room.
 
Typical no-nonsense
Meg.
 

Lying there, I remembered why I didn’t
like staying with Meg; it reminded me of what I had lost.
 
Although we had shared a much larger
house back then, there was always a sense of order about it; something that
would magically evaporate, even when she went away for as little as a few
days.
 
What this said about me, I
did not know.
 
I pondered this as I
lay in bed staring at the white ceiling, my head throbbing, and my stitches
itching.
 

The bandage had slipped from my head in
the night but luckily the dressing had held firm.
 
I was relieved there was no blood on the freshly laundered
sheets.
 
It was early, so I dressed
as quietly as I could and tried to leave without waking my hostess.

But I was out of luck.
 
Meg caught me at the flat door and
ordered me back inside for breakfast.

I watched her, as I had the night
before preparing dinner.
 
It was
like a work of art.
 
I enjoyed it
for its own beauty and the sense of stability it gave me.
 
But I knew it was an illusion; knew
that it would not and could not last.
 
I knew that the night before when she said I needed to face up to myself.
 
Why did I get so angry?
 
Why did I lose control?
 
It is only people who are very close to
you who think they have the right to say such things, although knowing Meg she
probably said it to her more recalcitrant patients.
  
She was stronger than me.
 
I accepted defeat and said I needed to sleep.
 
When I had heard her bedroom door close,
I had nipped downstairs for another cigarette, rehearsing all the things I
should have said, resolving to leave as early as I could in the morning.

Now, watching her butter some toast, I asked,
‘What do you know about Rohypnol, Meg?’

The question wasn’t as strange as it
seems.
 
Time was when I’d quiz my
wife on all sorts of drugs and their criminal usage.
 
Meg took it in her stride.

‘It’s a brand name for a particular genus
of benzodiazepines—opiates to you.
 
Why do you ask?’

‘Would it be picked up if I had been
given it?’

‘When?’
  
She put the plate in front of me.
 
‘Have you been date-raped, Thomas?’

‘I keep thinking back to the
mugging.
 
How I couldn’t fight
back, how I couldn’t even
think...’

‘Someone slipped you a Mickey Finn, is
that what you mean?
 
This man Janovitz.
 
Why on earth would he do that?’

‘I don’t know.
 
I just wondered if it would be picked
up at the hospital.
 
They seemed to
know exactly how much alcohol I had consumed.’

‘Well, they would have run a common
toxicology screen.
 
That would have
picked up alcohol, THC—that’s your cannabis—amphetamines as well,
and the major opiates.
 
If they
were looking for the presence of Rohypnol in your bloods then they would have
found it.’

‘And if they weren’t looking?’

‘They probably wouldn’t.’

It
was a beautiful morning.
 
The continuing
dry weather and warm September sun made London seem a more exotic city than it really
was.
 
On the Edgware Road, men in
brown suits sat outside cafes smoking from hookahs on brass stands.
 
I put the Spider’s lid down and drove north.
 
I was going home via the Alconbury
Estate.
 
As far as I understood my own
motivation, it was probably the reason I had asked to stay at Meg’s.
 
I had to check something out in person,
when I knew a phone call would not be enough.
 
But the blood test was a bonus.
 
Meg said she’d take the sample into the lab when she went on
shift that afternoon.
 
Sometimes
things just fall into place, I thought.

Before I left the flat, Meg had changed
the dressing on my forehead.
 
She
fingered through my hair like a mother looking for nits:
Your scalp is absolutely full of cuts, Thomas.
 
I had forgotten what it was to have
such intimacy in my life.
 
The ownership of another human being, where they touch your body as
if it were their own.
 
But I
didn’t dare to reach out and touch her, as she stood so close to me in her
kitchen.
 
I breathed in her scent
and contented myself with that.

I shook the cobweb of thoughts from my
head and pulled into the Alconbury Estate.
 
I parked outside the Community Office in Coolidge, soon to
be Obama, Court.
 
It was still too
early and the place was closed: metal shutters and warnings of Smart Water
inside.
 
I decided to wait until
someone turned up, hopefully it would be Reuben Symonds.
 

The newsagent next door was doing a
brisk trade in lottery tickets and tabloids.
 
Construction workers in hardhats came out with pre-packed
sandwiches.
 
Everyone had a glance
at the Spider and the idiot with the bandaged head sitting in it, hood down
like he was on Brighton front, smoking a roll-up.

The first comment I got was from an old
man pushing a shopping trolley crammed full of black bin bags.
 
He advised me not to hang around too
long in the area if I valued my possessions.
 
I thanked him for his concern.
 
The sun was up behind the flats now and it was hot on my
forehead.
 
I thought about putting
up the sunroof but that would have defeated the object of me sitting there in
full view of Presidents Kennedy, Coolidge, Carter and Lincoln.
 
The estate was waking up: the canyon
calls of large apartment blocks, the resounding clank and echo of bins being
emptied, a paperboy free-wheeling past staring at me open-mouthed.
 
I stared back: newspaper deliveries in
this part of London, things must be looking up.

A few minutes later the boy came back,
without his bag.
 
Instead he had
another youth on the back of his BMX, standing up, his hands in his friend’s
shoulders.
 
They circled me like a
baby shark.

‘You lost, mate?’ he called.

‘No,’ I replied.
 
‘Are you?’

He spluttered a half-laugh.
 
‘We live here.’

The larger boy jumped off the
back.
 
He looked about fourteen, as
much as anyone does these days.

‘Nice car,’ he said.
 
‘What is it?
 
Spider?’

‘You got it.’

‘I got it,’ he said.
 
‘I thought I’d got it.’

‘Why don’t you run along to school and
stop taking the piss?’

The boy on the BMX said, ‘Cos it’s
Saturday.
 
D’uh!’

The other boy was stroking the
paintwork.
 
I had often done the
same myself.

‘You about to make me an offer?’

This time he didn’t laugh.
 
His face was somewhere else.
 

‘Nice motor for a copper, anyway.’

‘Well when I left the police I found I
could afford such things.’

‘You a paedo or something?
 
Looking for little boys?’

The younger one edged closer on his
bike.
 
‘He was here the other day
talking to Reuben.’

‘What happened to your face?’ asked the
larger boy.

‘Someone didn’t like it.’

‘Asking too many questions,’ volunteered
the boy on the BMX.

‘Shut up, Leon.’

Other youths were joining us by one by
one.
 
They had a feral quality
about them, creeping closer by soft degrees, like hyenas looking for brunch,
and then backing off.
 
Fortunately
they kept their hands off the car.
 
There were probably enough of them now to pick the Spider up and deposit
us both in the Grand Union Canal.
 
I
kept talking to the larger youth, ‘Do you know Djbril or Darren?’

‘Which Darren?’

‘The one who saw the old man killed.’

‘What do you want to know?’ someone called
from the back of the crowd.

It is always worrying when they don’t
show their faces.
 
It means they
have thought of the next step they might need to take.
 
And it might involve them doing
something that they don’t want to be identified for in the future.

‘I just want to know who hired you to
distract the old man.
 
How much they
paid you, that sort of thing.’

This prompted some shouting.
 
I wasn’t sure if it was at me.
 
It sounded more like they were
squabbling amongst themselves.
 
I
assumed some of them didn’t know about the money.
 
It was a long shot but I had hit the rattle.

‘The Russian guys,’ I added.

‘I thought Reuben told you,’ the voice called
out.
 
‘We just came along after.’

‘No, you see I’ve seen what they do
first hand.
 
They get someone to
distract the victim before they come along with baseball bats.’

‘How much this car worth?’
 
It was different voice this time.
 

I didn’t answer.

‘Isn’t that the case, Darren?’ I called
out.

But Darren, if that was he, had gone
quiet.
 
The new voice said, ‘I’ll
give you fifty quid for it.’

He stepped forward: wiry, almost
six-foot, ebony unhealthy looking skin, wearing a cap under his hooded sweatshirt.

‘That how much they pay you, Djbril,’ I
asked him.
 
‘Fifty
quid?
 
Hundred quid?’

He didn’t say he wasn’t Djbril.
 
He didn’t look at me either.
 
His manner suggested that my words did
not count.
 

‘But I want a test drive first.
 
Hand over keys.’

He held out his hand.

‘He’s police, Dee,’ someone said.

‘He
ain’t
.
 
Ain’t
you
heard him?
 
He ex-police.
 
Which mean they hate him too.’

‘True,’ I said.
 
‘But you’re not having my car, Djbril.’

Becket, the voice of reason.

‘You gone stop me?’ Djbril said.

He sauntered up to the car.
 
I could have probably stopped him, if I
could get out of the car.
 
But it
would not be me against Djbril.
 
These boys have a fine sense of collective endeavour, I thought, the
sort of thing you are looking for in new recruits.
 
They all would have stopped me.

I asked, ‘Have you a licence, Djbril?’

‘I don’t need one.
 
I can drive.’

‘Okay I will drive you to a place where
you can have a go.
 
But first you
need to tell me...’

Two youths jumped into the back seats.
 
One of them flicked the top of my ear
with a fingernail and laughed.

Suddenly Djbril was in my face, ‘
And
I tell you, old man.
 
I don’t know nothing about no Russians pay anyone.’

The boy behind me flicked my ear
again.
 
I half-turned,
off balance.
 
Djbril jerked
the door open and I fell sideways into the road.
 
It was a soft landing, but all my bruises shouted at me at
once.
 
The boys laughed like it was
the funniest thing they had seen in a very long time.

‘Should always wear a seatbelt,’ Djbril
said.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me up.

Face to face, I was slightly taller
than him, but he knew he could take me.
 
He had that look on his face.
 
He jabbed me hard in the chest.
 
I thought about grabbing his finger, but again I froze: nothing
happened.
 
Once you think about it,
the moment is gone.
 
I just wanted
to be away from that place, to slink away cursing my own folly for getting
involved.
 
He smiled at me knowing
I was defeated.
 
He could smell it
on me.
 
With the flat of his hand
he moved me gently aside, and sat in the car.
 
Someone got in next to him.
 
A white boy, stocky, muscular, a rash of
acne on his neck.
 
I
wondered if this was Darren.
 
Djbril looked at him as if to say,
See,
this is how you handle things
.

Aching, I leant over and removed the
keys from the ignition.
 
Djbril
moved quicker than I expected, grabbed my shirt and pulled me down towards
him.
 
I almost cried with relief as
I felt my hand slide out and touch the side of his neck below his ear.
 
He froze.
 
I whispered in his ear.
 
‘You're not good enough to do this Djbril.
 
You’re just not tough enough.
 
In thirty seconds you will be
unconscious and I bet I'm the only one around here who knows CPR.’

I could feel him struggle.
 
But the pressure point held.
 
He seemed a strong enough lad; I hoped
it would not be tested.
 
There was
no sign of him giving up.
 
The
blood would still be coursing to his brain, but slower.
 
He could endure the pain.
 
He had known greater pain than
this.
 
He was not going to give
in.
 
But then, neither was I.

I heard the sirens.
 
The other lads scampered out of the
back of the car.
 
Darren gave
Djbril a glance and was gone—perhaps I was wrong about collective
endeavour—and I waited until someone with a keen sense of civic duty
knocked me sideways.

At
least it wasn’t a cell this time.
 
True, the interview room was locked but at least they had left me with
my possessions and I had not been charged with anything.
 
Yet.
 
I was being treated as a witness, possibly even a victim,
but one who was not going anywhere.
 
I wasn’t complaining.
 
It was
no more than I deserved.

I had spent ten minutes in the company
of the duty sergeant, a detective, who had his foot in plaster so presumably
was on light duties.
 
He told me,
in an accent redolent of the South Wales valleys, that he was looking forward to
a quiet Saturday, some shoplifters perhaps, a little filing and listening to
the football on the radio before I had spoiled it all.

I asked for my call.
 
He told me to go ahead and then chuckled
when my phone couldn’t get a signal.
 

‘Well, you tried,’ he said.

He looked at my details.

‘Says here you used to be in the
Met.
 
Directorate of Professional Standards,
no
less.
 
Detective Chief
Inspector, it says here.’

‘You're overdoing the London Welsh a
bit, aren’t you?’

He ignored me as if I were a naughty schoolboy.

‘Says here that you left under a bit of
a cloud.’

‘You can’t imagine how much I miss it.’

‘I heard an officer you were
investigating killed himself.’