The Sacrificial Man (20 page)

And, turning back to the keyboard, with a single press of a button, Mark deleted the file.

Krishna sat back at his desk, trying not to think of what he had just done. He ignored Mark tapping on the keyboard across from him, picked up his pencil, and immersed himself in numbers.

A female voice roused him. “Can I get you a coffee?” Caroline from Accounts was standing over Mark, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Cheers, Caz. Milk and two, please.”

Caroline glanced over at Krishna, and for a surprised second he thought she was also going to offer to get him a drink. She had done her best to ignore him since he had declined to join her on a trip to the cinema a few weeks ago. She held up a small, brown package. “This was in the post for you. Whoever sent it forgot to use stamps, so it’s been sitting at the sorting office, waiting to be picked up. I hope it wasn’t urgent.”

She threw it on the desk and he saw that the package was marked Private and Confidential. The seal looked as though it had been undone, and then re-sealed as it was uneven and coming loose at the ends. After peeling back the flap, he reached in and felt the shape, something like a pack of gum. Pulling it out he saw it wasn’t gum but a computer memory stick. Wrapped around the stick was a letter, folded in two. Opening it, he saw familiar handwriting. He looked up, expecting Caroline and Mark to be staring at him but she had gone and Mark was still tapping away, oblivious to the fact that Krishna had just received a letter from a dead man.

June 16th

Krish,

I know you’ll look after this. It’s important. Sometimes things don’t work out as we planned, as you and I both know. After all, we deal in improbabilities. By the time you get this I’ll be long gone, but I want to travel light. Keep this safe for me.

I hope to see you again, either here or in another life.

Dave

Krishna slid the USB stick into his computer. If he’d been stunned to read the letter, he was even more freaked out now. He felt like a ghost had touched him, had seen him telling Mark to delete the file on the computer. The title that flashed up on his screen was Robin & Smith.

“There. All finished. I’ll be out of your way now,” said Mark.

“Thanks.”

“No probs, mate. When the police get here, can you tell them I’ve got all the files on a USB for them?”

“Police?” Krishna said, cautiously.

“Yeah. They’re coming to take the computer, check out the workstation. It’s routine, apparently, with a suspicious death. I guess they’ll want to interview you.”

Krishna felt heat rise under his collar. He removed the memory stick from his laptop, and picked up the envelope from the box. He tucked them both into his jacket pocket along with the screwed-up yellow post-it note with the drug dealer’s number.

Detective Inspector Stephen West looked Krishna over, a swift appraisal and dismissal. Krishna felt tense, his shoulders stiffened under his shirt.

“So, you knew him well?” demanded the detective.

Krishna was unable to meet the glowering gaze. “Not that well. We just worked together.”

The man was regarding Krishna as if he were stupid. “Worked in the same office, just yards across from each other, five days a week? You knew him well, all right. Friends?”

“Not friends, exactly,” said Krishna, then, feeling the end of the stick in his pocket, “I mean, I liked him. We got on. We went for drinks after work, that kind of thing. We had a laugh; he was a good bloke.”

The detective looked as if he never had a laugh. Shifting in his seat, Krishna thought of the stick in his jacket, the diary that he had not yet read. He wished Dave had been more explicit in his letter. Had he meant Krishna to give the USB stick to the police? The fact that he couldn’t ask Dave was an unexpected weight to him. He hadn’t realised how much Dave’s regular presence across the desk each day was part of his life. Maybe he should just hand over the stick, the envelope containing the emails, and be done with it. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know what was in the file entitled Robin & Smith, but what if it referred to Krishna using drugs, giving Dave the dealer’s number? With his own criminal record for drugs, he just couldn’t risk that.

The detective was standing over him like it was his fault Dave was dead. Like he could have prevented it. Dave had sent the diary to Krishna for a reason. He had trusted him. And Krishna did not trust DCI West.

“So, what are you looking for?” asked Krishna, cautiously.

“For evidence, lad. Anything to shed some light on this fruitcake’s motive. It’s a strange one, that’s a fact. Not like any suicide I’ve worked on before.”

“But it was suicide?” Krishna asked, still struggling to get his head around it.

“Drug overdose.”

Krishna thought of the screwed up note in his jacket. Was this his fault?

West brought his face to Krishna’s level, both hands on the desk, “Between you, me and the gatepost, there’s something about this whole case that stinks. The girlfriend is saying he wanted to die, but why involve her? I mean, what was to stop him offing himself on his tod, like any regular nut who wanted to do himself in? Why would he want to die? Did he seem depressed to you?”

“No.” Krishna lied with conviction. He’d known Dave wasn’t sleeping; it’s hard to hide fatigue when you work opposite someone. But he hadn’t thought Dave would kill himself. That last month he had been more cheerful than he had been for a long time.

“And,” continued the detective, with quiet intensity, “what kind of sicko actually wants to be eaten?”

Krishna swallowed hard. He’d heard some rumours about this, from office gossip, but deliberately avoided newspaper and TV reports. “She ate him?”

“Not all of him,” said West, straightening up. He shoved his hand in his pocket and scratched his testicles. “What I’m saying is, if some sadist wants his girlfriend to watch him die for some twisted kick, I ain’t gonna weep over it. In fact, it’s none of my business. I just wish he’d found a way that didn’t waste so much police time.” Then his face straightened, and his eyes narrowed. “But if this woman didn’t just watch. If he didn’t want to die, well, that’s murder. And that is my business.”

It’s a cold day, biting, but Krishna doesn’t notice. He has too much on his mind, and has to think about making his way from Ipswich station to the Crown Court. He’s on a mission. Since the day it arrived on his desk Krishna has kept the USB close, usually in his jacket pocket, except when he’s at home, when he puts it on the shelf next to the elephant god, and tries to understand what Dave wanted him to do with it. He’s read the diary, but only once. It wasn’t easy reading. It’s a burden, this knowledge. He hadn’t known what to do with it, so in the end he did nothing. But he has been a fool; he sees that now. Today a woman will be before a judge for sentencing. Holding onto the memory stick hadn’t kept him neutral. He was still affecting the outcome of the case, just by doing nothing. He’d been too worried about how he might be implicated to see the bigger picture. He can’t keep the stick to himself any longer. Today he will hand it over. Whether to Alice or to the police, he still isn’t sure. All he knows is, when he gets the train back to London later today, he’ll no longer have the black stick of plastic in his jacket pocket. And that will be a relief. Krishna walks through the doors at Ipswich Crown Court feeling like a criminal, waiting for the detection machine to beep as he passes through, watched by the stocky security guy, who despite the threat of snow is in a short-sleeved shirt. Krishna feels himself under familiar scrutiny. “Name?” the guard asks, lifting a pen to the list of defendants. The last time he was in a court his name was on that list, for drug possession. His palms sweat at the memory.

“You won’t have my name. I’m not a defendant. I just want to watch.”

The guard’s assumption that he’s one of the accused doesn’t surprise him. White faces and plumy accents surround him. The fact that he’s an actuary means nothing when people judge by the colour of his skin. In this place, what else could a black man be but a criminal? Unlike at the magistrates court where he had been tried, professionals outnumber the criminals here. Fewer cases, but more serious, so they have larger legal teams. It isn’t hard to tell which side of the law folks were on: serious people in smart suits and carrying briefcases stand in the hallway while on the benches across the hall sits a man in a cheap-looking double breasted jacket and jeans, twisting a tie around his fingers, occasionally looking up as if waiting for a call. Next to him is a younger man, maybe only nineteen, hunched over and holding a baseball cap between his knees. He looks up at Krishna and scowls.

Krishna feels distinctly uncomfortable. “Where do I go to watch?” he asks the security guard, who points a brawny arm to the sign that says Public Viewing Gallery above an arrow indicating a wide staircase. He mumbles thanks, struggles past the solicitors and their clerks, with their armfuls of files and cups of dispenser-machine coffee. As he walks, he accidentally knocks a woman’s arm, sending her coffee cup tumbling, the coffee splattering her jacket. “Oh! I’m so sorry.”

“Shit! You should watch where you’re going.” She looks at her jacket, holding the paper cup away from her as the stain darkens the blue fabric.

Krishna rummages in his pockets. “Here,” he hands her a clean hanky, taking away the half-spilt cup of coffee to enable her to wipe herself down.

“Shit,” she says again, “that’s all I need. I’m in court in a few minutes.”

She’s flustered, her cheeks are flushed. She hands back the wet hanky, and stalks off down the corridor. Krishna watches her go, still holding the remains of her coffee.

The viewing gallery is a large balcony overhanging the main courtroom below. It is rather grand, with a wooden balustrade, oversized benches and desks. The gallery has three rows of wooden benches, with backs at ninety-degree angles. Whoever designed this place didn’t want observers to get too comfortable. Krishna is alone and he relaxes slightly, choosing the bench nearest the balustrade. Even at his height he can only just see over to the room below. Peering down, he grits his teeth together. He’d vowed never to enter a court building again but he’s curious and wants to hear how his colleague, his friend, died. It’s the one thing the diary didn’t reveal. Now he wants the truth.

In the room below a few people are chatting. He can see the backs of their heads and the long black gown of one man who is holding a clipboard. He’s surprised to hear laughter, and thinks it disrespectful, given why they are here. It has come from a striking woman, blonde hair pinned into a bun high on her head, wearing a smart cream suit that sets her apart from the others who wear sombre colours. She looks professional and groomed, a slick of scarlet on her lips and pearls on her ears. He guesses she’s someone important, maybe a barrister. The kind of woman he tries to avoid: self-assured, conscious of their beauty. He’s known women like that, and it always ends badly.

Behind Krishna an elderly couple in matching beige macs shuffle in. The woman has that pinched look his mother gets when she has a migraine. The man supports her elbow, but he looks no better. His face bears the bloody marks of a clumsy shave. If observing trials is what they do for kicks, Krishna thought, they’d have been wiser to stay home in front of the television and watch
Murder on the Orient Express.

A rush of people arrive, jostling over the bench behind him, open notebooks and mobile phones on cords round their necks or attached to belts. Reporters here for the show. A discreet figure is sat in the corner, unobtrusive despite a severe haircut and bulky leather jacket. A military look. From their intent and fixed expression, this is someone else with a great interest in the case.

In the courtroom below Krishna spies the back of the woman’s head, the one whose drink he’d spilled. She finds a place at a desk, and shuffles papers. She glances at the striking woman with the blonde hair, who is watching her intently. He doesn’t know if they’re on the same side. Before he can see any more, a loud buzzer trills and the man in the black cloak says, “All rise.”

The reporters, used to these theatricals, are already on their feet. The elderly couple leans on the railings and, as they peer over, the striking woman in the cream suit nods at them, smiling confidently. The old man bows his head in acknowledgment, but she turns away. They aren’t here out of mere curiosity, they know the woman in cream. Then Krishna realises that the woman in cream isn’t a barrister after all. She’s the defendant. She’s Alice Mariani. She is Robin.