The Crime Tsar (46 page)

He had the family. Maybe he could start again with the next generation, the uncritical love of grandchildren.

He put on his shoes and tied the laces. He watched his hands, strong and quick, to his eyes ugly. Square, so unlike the priest's hands of Geoffrey Carter. Abruptly, to dislodge the thought, he stood up and poured a cup of coffee. Carefully, so as not to spill a drop into the saucer – she couldn't stand that – he took it up to Jenni. He stopped at her door. What if?

What if she'd forgotten the pill he gave her and had taken one more. Two more. The whole bottle. What if he opened the door and she was dead. Why had he left those little yellow tablets so close to her? Because he hoped she would take them. Because he hoped he'd be free this morning. Free to start his life again. In less than seconds she was buried and he'd moved to London, away from the memory of his wife and from the body of his lover. If he could open that door and find her life had ended … what could he offer to the devil in exchange for that? His soul was already gone: there was nothing left to bargain with. He opened the door.

The bed was empty and the bathroom door shut. He could hear water running. The disappointment was tempered with surprise.

‘Jenni? … Jenni? I've brought you some coffee.'

He put it down on her dressing table and turned to go. The bathroom door opened and Jenni slumped against the jamb. She stared at him.

‘I had a dream last night.'

Shackleton didn't want to hear about it, he had enough of his own, the vivid repetitive images of Carter pleading for mercy.

‘No. Not about … that. About you.'

She pushed herself upright and walked towards him.

‘I dreamed Lucy came in here. She woke me up. But I couldn't speak to her, I wanted to ask her about something … what? I don't know. Making pastry, I think. Stupid. So I got up, I was going to follow her. I went down the hall and your door was open. Just a crack. I pushed it. I couldn't see anything, it was dark. Pitch dark. But I heard you. Listened to you humping Lucy. She made silly gurgling noises, like a blocked drain.'

He felt he'd stopped breathing. What did his face look like?

‘And?' was all he could say.

‘Nothing. Nothing else. I went back to bed. Strange dream. But it was a dream. Must have been. She said she loved you and you said, “Oh, that's lovely.” What a stupid thing to say. “Oh, that's lovely.” Why would I dream that, Tom?'

He looked as blank as he could.

‘No idea, Jenni. Look, I must go, Gordon'll be here in a minute. Will you be all right? Do you want me to phone Lucy and ask her to come over?'

Jenni snorted.

‘Not after last night. I couldn't look her in the eye.'

‘It was only a dream, Jenni.'

She was angry.

‘I know that. But the dreams I have are more real than life. You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? It must be so nice to have no subconscious. Even dogs dream! But not you. Not Tom Shackleton, oh no, he's superhuman. No weakness there.'

Her voice was rising, the sound of nails on a blackboard.

‘No way in to the great Tom Shackleton. Don't look at me like that. Stop it. I did it for you … and now I'm being punished for it. Not you, no. You just go on. Tom …'

Her tone shifted suddenly, to pleading.

‘Help me, please. Don't shut me out. Tom …'

To his horror she sank to her knees, crying, and wrapped her arms round his legs.

‘I only did it for you. It wasn't meant to be like that. I didn't know he'd die. It was an accident. Tom. Talk to me, Tom. Tell me it's all right. Take it away. Please, Tom, please.'

She dissolved on to the floor. He stepped away from her, repulsed.

‘Don't go. Please don't go. I can't stand being alone. Help me, I can't take any more …'

He walked to the door. To him she was being histrionic: her suffering was too operatic to be real.

‘I'll call Jacinta, tell her to come over.'

Her reply was instant. ‘No, don't.'

There was a pause then she sat up. The drama dropped away and she said quite simply and coldly, ‘I slept with Robert MacIntyre.'

He stopped and turned to look at her.

Now she had his full attention, she was triumphant, back in control.

‘To get you the Met, but do you know what? I was so good he made you Crime Tsar. Don't you turn your back on me! Tom Shackleton, Crime Tsar – made between his wife's legs. Watch my lips – Robert MacIntyre gave it to you because I let him fuck me. Couldn't have done it without me, could you? I put you where you are by letting him put his cock up my arse.'

She waited, sure of bitter victory.

When he spoke, it was quietly, with no emotion.

‘Thank you. I hope it was worth it.'

He bowed his head briefly and left the room, closing the door behind him. Jenni stayed on the floor, unable to move, her eyes fixed on nothing.

Tom arrived at police headquarters to a barrage of press enquiries. Would he do the news on One, Two, ITV, Four, Sky, radio, broadsheets, tabloids? Instant stardom insulated him from thought and feeling. The day was cleared to make way for camera crews and interviews. The PM's spokesman was on the phone. The Home Secretary wanted him to return his call. The Home Secretary, the Gnome. Shackleton pushed the pictures of him with Jenni to the
farthest, most stagnant unexamined backwater of his mind and joined the circus.

All day he spoke fluently, convincingly, modestly, of the need for a national database of criminal intelligence. The necessity in the twenty-first century of facing major international crime in a less parochial way. The importance of DNA and scientific advances. The world was a global village plagued with crime that respected no local boundaries. His responsibility was to coordinate the national response to national and international crime.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon before he had a moment alone. He instructed Janet to get the Home Secretary on the phone. He sat back and waited, his hands on the desk. Those expressive, capable hands. And on the third finger of his left hand a thin gold ring. Bought with money borrowed from his mother because Jenni had insisted they both wore rings.

‘I want everyone to know you're married. I don't trust men who won't wear them. I always wonder why.'

She'd looked so beautiful as she concentrated on putting it on his finger. When he'd still been in awe of her. Grateful to her for rescuing him from ridicule and loneliness. He took hold of it in his right thumb and forefinger. He'd never taken it off since that Saturday morning, in his hired suit and squeaky shoes. He moved it up to his knuckle, resistance for a second, then it was free.

There was a knock on the door. Before he could say anything his secretary came in. She was sheet white and seemed to have tears streaming down her face.

‘What's the matter, Janet?'

He stood up, aware that the woman lived with her elderly mother. It was going to be inconvenient organising all this media interest if she wanted time off to care for her or bury her. The old lady's timing had always been immaculate – she'd had a stroke the day Shackleton had needed Janet to work on a report he was preparing for the standing committee on prostitution. But he was all solicitude; Janet was too good to lose. He wondered, if the old lady had finally gone, if she'd consider coming to London with him.

‘Your wife … Mr Shackleton … she's dead.'

Gary had been due to go to hospital to be assessed for cannabis pain-control trials at one o'clock, so Lucy had him ready in his wheelchair by a quarter to, ready for the ambulance. As it had had to collect two motor neurones and a Parkinson's it didn't arrive until two-fifteen, by which time Gary was tetchy and in pain, physical and mental. If he was accepted on to the trial he would have hope again but the thought of hope being refused him was agony. Lucy was kind and sweet but Gary wanted to lash out at her, to hurt someone as much as he was hurting. He told her he didn't want her with him, that he could manage, to stop treating him like a bloody cripple. He hadn't told her about the trial, though she'd nagged for months about getting on to it. He just told her he had to go in for a routine checkup. The thought of disappointing her again stopped him saying more, and he covered his fears with anger. If he was rejected by the cannabis trials she may finally, all hope lost, reject him too. He poured more anger on his doubt and shook her off.

As soon as he was bolted on to the ambulance floor by the smiling Sikh driver he felt sorry. He wanted to get off and apologise to Lucy, to wipe away the look of wounded incomprehension in her great animal eyes. But he couldn't get off, he couldn't do anything for himself, he was helpless, useless. He knew she'd understand but he didn't want that, he wanted righteous anger at his juvenile nastiness. But he wasn't well so she smothered him in patience, every gesture eloquent with martyred stoicism. There had been another subtle shift in their relationship. They couldn't even row any more.

Lucy went back into the house with tears in her eyes. Tears of guilt and confused love. She'd make it up to Gary tonight. Again she resolved like an addict she wouldn't see Shackleton again. They'd move away. She'd always wanted to try her hand at writing short stories – maybe this was the time to start. She got out the hoover and vacuumed every inch of carpet in the house, the noise of the machine deadening her thoughts.

Through it she heard the doorbell faintly. She went to answer it and got there just before the lanky youth drove off in his delivery van. Reluctantly he climbed out and brought her a polystyrene box.

‘It says if no reply deliver it here. You'll have to sign for it.'

Lucy saw it was addressed to Mrs Shackleton and labelled ‘Downside Farm, Organic Meat and Poultry'. Lucy signed and the lad drove off.

Glad of something to do she took the box across the road. The burglar alarm wasn't on – she'd have to speak to Tom about that. Recently Jenni had taken to going out and forgetting to set it. Once in the kitchen she slit the tapes and unloaded the contents into the fridge. Then she left a note for Jenni telling her what she'd done. She got as far as the hall before the temptation to go upstairs to Shackleton's room overwhelmed her. She wanted to touch the pillows, to see if she could smell him on the sheets, to see if their little love was still in the bed.

Jenni was crouched, naked, at the door to her bedroom. Curled over like a beggar by a roadside. Lucy spoke her name but there was no response. As soon as Lucy touched her she knew she was dead. There was no similarity between live flesh and dead. Jenni felt the same as the slabs of meat Lucy had just been handling. She lifted her chin and was fascinated by the absence in Jenni's face. It looked like Jenni but wasn't her. The skin on the nose seemed to have been sucked in to the bone and cartilage and the lips were open in the way Lucy had seen dead rabbits' mouths gape in butchers' windows.

Time went out of step. She didn't know how long she knelt there, fascinated by the difference between life and death. She didn't want to leave Jenni there but knew she mustn't move her. Eventually she went to the airing cupboard and got out a clean white tablecloth. A beautiful expanse of embroidered cotton. It was warm. Lucy tucked it around the body. At first she had draped it over Jenni but thought the effect was too much like furniture covered by a dust sheet, so she rearranged it as if dressing an icon. Then she called Janet. She knew she couldn't tell Tom. He might hear the guilty hope in her voice. The gladness shining through the shock. After she'd spoken to Janet she sat down to wait.

She didn't want to leave Jenni alone. Jenni had always hated being alone.

Janet's self-control collapsed immediately after telling Shackleton the news. She simply stood in the middle of the room overwhelmed by the tragedy of the death of one so young, so good and so beautiful. Mrs Shackleton had always been so kind to her.

Tom didn't offer comfort. In this situation he didn't even know how to perform the platitudes. He just stood as well.

Finally, at a loss, he said, ‘Janet, why don't you take a break. Till you feel better.'

She left the room grateful, though guilty she couldn't be more help.

Shackleton phoned his home. Lucy picked up after two rings.

‘Lucy.'

Her voice was calm.

‘Tom. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?'

‘Nothing. I'm on my way. Don't do anything.'

‘Shouldn't I call the doctor?'

He hesitated. If he said no there would be questions as to why he'd delayed. He calculated how long it would take him to get there.

‘Yes. Call her. The number's by the phone.'

He rang off. If it was a drug overdose … He knew Jenni well enough to know this might be her final gesture, calculated to damage him. He could see the headlines: ‘New Crime Tsar's Dead Wife Junkie'. Bitch. But only hours ago he had been wishing for this. But then he hadn't thought of the implications. She shouldn't have died now. Not today. After. After she'd seen him crowned King. He didn't need this today.