The Stranger You Know (38 page)

‘Need anything else?’

‘No. Thanks.’ I hesitated. ‘And thanks for this. Letting me stay.’

‘It’s a pleasure,’ he said, as if he meant it.

I said goodnight and shut the door firmly behind me, wishing I could lock it. I trusted Derwent but I wanted the security of being behind an unopenable door. He’d stripped the bed while I was in the bathroom and I spent a few minutes making it again, wrestling with the duvet. It was strange to be doing a domestic task in Derwent’s home, his private space, a place I had never imagined being. I could only imagine what Godley would make of it if he knew.

‘Mind out of the gutter, boss,’ I murmured and climbed into Derwent’s bed before switching off the light. I pulled the covers up and huddled, relieved. I was glad that Derwent had trusted me enough to let me stay. I was glad I had stuck by him when Godley and Burt told me to be wary. I was starting to think we might become friends.

Friends with Derwent? Stranger things had happened. But not many.

Despite everything, I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

At ten to four, I woke up, with no idea where I was or what had disturbed me. I didn’t know anything, except that I was scared. It took a couple of seconds for me to remember where I was and why, relief sweeping over me as I reminded myself that I was safe and everything was all right.

A couple of seconds after that, something moved in the room, passing in front of the shaded window so I saw a silhouette for a second. A man.

‘Derwent?’ I said, my voice blurry with sleep. I assumed, I thought that he had forgotten something, or that he’d forgotten I was there. I thought it was an honest mistake.

I thought that until, without warning, he landed on top of me with his full weight, pinned my arms to my sides with his knees, wrapped his hands around my neck and began to squeeze the life out of me. It wasn’t fear I felt, or despair, but anger. I was angry with myself. I’d believed Derwent, and I’d been wrong, and whatever happened was my fault. God, I hated being wrong.

White and red lights burst in the blackness and I couldn’t fight, or scream, or do anything at all.

Anything, that is, except die.

THURSDAY

Chapter 31

I’d love to pretend that I found superhuman strength from somewhere and kicked my way free. I’d love to say that I saved my own life by being quick and clever and instinctively good at fighting. The reality was that I was in serious trouble, as close to dying as I had ever been. I was aware of almost nothing as my brain became starved of oxygen, nothing but a bright light and the dreadful weight on top of me that was crushing my ribs, and the impossibility of taking a breath when my body was crying out for it. And then, suddenly, the weight was gone and I could breathe again, dragging air into my lungs as my knees came up to my chest. My throat was on fire, my eyes full of tears, and the sound of my own heart thumping filled my ears. I rolled onto my side in a tight little ball and wheezed piteously.

It was probably a minute – not more than that – before I came round enough to start making sense of my surroundings. The bright light was the main bedroom light. A scuffling sound interspersed with dull thuds and grunts of pain was a fight happening somewhere nearby. The thumping sound was someone trying to batter the front door in. The urgency of doing something galvanised me: I sat up and saw Derwent on the floor, on the wrong side of a fight that was the definition of nasty. The man struggling with him, anonymous in dark clothes and a beanie hat, was big and angry, and while I was still trying to get my head around what was going on he hit Derwent with a short, nasty jab in the stomach that made Derwent groan. He retaliated by forcing the man’s head back, pressing against his throat, fingers digging for the pressure point that would – in theory – reduce his assailant to a quivering wreck. The guy retaliated by kneeing him in the crotch, missing his target by a matter of inches as Derwent twisted sideways.

It was time to stop watching and start helping, I realised, and looked around for something to use. The bedside light was metal and surprisingly heavy when I hefted it. I unplugged it and struggled off the bed, ready to hit—

I stopped. I had no idea who I should want to win. I couldn’t tell who had attacked me and who had come to the rescue. Derwent caught sight of me and glared, for the split second he could spare, and I could translate it easily enough:
what are you doing, standing there? Get stuck in, Kerrigan
.

Instead, I moved around so I could see his opponent’s face. Derwent pushed his head back again, the muscles standing out in his arm as he stretched his fingers towards the man’s eyes, and I recognised him at last: the Met’s most wanted, Shane Poole. I lifted the lamp and brought it down on the back of his neck, and he collapsed over Derwent like a tower block disintegrating in a controlled explosion.

‘Thank fuck.’ Derwent pushed at Shane’s shoulder, trying to lever him off. ‘You took your time. Were you waiting for an invitation?’

‘Is he still alive?’

‘Yeah. Out cold. Nice job.’ Derwent wriggled out and sat up, leaning his arms on his knees as he tried to get his breathing back under control. He looked past me. ‘This must be my night for unwanted guests.’

Two men were standing in the doorway when I looked round, one small and one big, both in leather bomber jackets, both so obviously policemen that they might as well not have bothered being in plain clothes.

‘We saw him break in. We were waiting for backup to come, but then we heard the fight so we opened your door.’

‘Do much damage?’ Derwent asked.

‘Just a bit.’ The larger one lifted up the battering ram he’d used. ‘You might need to get the hinges fixed.’

‘Fucking marvellous.’

The smaller policeman lifted his radio. ‘One in custody. We’ll need an ambulance, please. Two ambulances,’ he said, looking at me, and I put a hand to my neck, suddenly aware that it was throbbing.

His big friend bent over Shane Poole and put him in the recovery position, then cuffed him, hands in front. ‘Not to take any chances,’ he said to me. ‘Amazing how quickly they recover when they want to.’

‘What was he doing here?’ I asked Derwent.

‘What are these two doing here?’ he shot back. ‘Were you watching me?’ He looked at me. ‘Did you know about this?’

‘I knew there was going to be surveillance on you. I didn’t know they were here.’

‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?’ He looked utterly incensed.

‘Because I still owe some loyalty to my boss and he told me not to. My career is already in tatters. What do you think Godley would have done if I’d warned you about the surveillance?’

‘Sacked you.’ Derwent shrugged. ‘Not my problem. My problem is being lied to.’

‘Get over yourself.’ I turned to the plain-clothes guys. ‘What did you see?’

‘We were parked on the corner. We saw matey here having a look at the place a couple of hours ago and then wander off. He didn’t look dodgy enough to stop – all he did was look. We didn’t know who he was, obviously, or we’d have had him. He went over the wall at the back about ten minutes ago and in through the bathroom window.’

‘Damn it,’ Derwent said. ‘I bet he’s broken it.’

‘Sounded like it.’

‘Ten minutes ago?’ I was stuck on the timings. ‘Was that all?’

‘He was only in here for a minute before I put the light on,’ Derwent said. ‘I heard him in the hall. Knew it wasn’t you because you don’t make that much noise, walking around. He came in to the sitting room first but I wasn’t in a position to tackle him then.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Behind the sofa.’

I tried not to laugh, and failed.

‘I wasn’t
hiding
. I was trying to sleep there.’

‘Oh, sure,’ I said. ‘I believe you. You thought you’d wait until he was distracted and then take him down.’

‘I am just out of hospital,’ Derwent said, hurt. ‘I’m not at my best.’

‘You did all right,’ the larger of the two policemen said. ‘Not a bad effort.’

Derwent’s chest expanded a couple of inches. ‘My trouble is I don’t know when I’m beaten. I keep fighting even when the odds are against me.’ He looked at me. ‘That’s the definition of a winner, Kerrigan.’

‘Sounds like the definition of a moron to me.’ I was sailing very close to the edge of what Derwent considered acceptable repartee. I rushed to change the subject. ‘So why was he trying to kill me?’

‘That’s what we’ll have to find out.’ Derwent looked down at the body at his feet. Shane groaned, but kept his eyes closed. Derwent stuck a toe in his ribcage experimentally and got no response. ‘If he ever comes round. Bloody hell, Kerrigan, how hard did you hit him?’

‘Very. I imagined it was you.’

Although the paramedics tutted over Shane’s head and took him to hospital where he was scanned, tested, prodded and poked, he was concussion-free when he woke up, and passed as fit to be interviewed later that afternoon. I sat in the nearest police station to Derwent’s house in a room that was too small for comfort, with Derwent, Maitland, Godley and Una Burt. Derwent was in an edgy mood, inclined to bicker, and more than once Godley had to tell him off for being rude.

‘Sorry, guv. This is pissing me off, though. I don’t understand why you won’t let me speak to him.’

‘Because you are far too involved. Maitland and I will handle this and you can watch the video link.’

‘Don’t do me any favours,’ Derwent said under his breath.

‘If you want, you can give us some idea of how you would handle the interview. We might find it useful.’

‘Ask him why he wanted to find me in the first place. Ask him what all of this has to do with Angela. Ask him if he killed her and the other women. Ask him why he started killing last year.’

‘This is revelatory,’ Burt said, borrowing Derwent’s trademark sarcasm and making it work for her. ‘No one would have thought of asking such comprehensive questions without your input.’

‘Okay, so maybe I’m not coming up with anything you haven’t thought of, but you can’t ask it the way I can. You walk into the room and he’ll be … I want to say
appalled
, but it won’t be because he’s intimidated by you. He’ll laugh at you.’

‘
Josh
,’ Godley snapped. ‘I’m
warning
you.’

Derwent ignored the interruption. ‘When it comes to me, on the other hand, he’s scared shitless. I go in there and ask him these questions and he’ll give up. I can make him angry. Get under his skin. I
know
him.’

‘You used to know him,’ Godley said, glancing up as Colin Vale came in holding a file. ‘You haven’t spoken to him for twenty years. You knew him when he was a teenager and now he’s a successful businessman.’

‘You’re talking about Poole?’ Colin checked. ‘Well, if now’s a good time, I can tell you exactly how successful he is.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s turned the bar from a seedy local to one of the reliable earners in that street. Talking to the neighbouring businesses, it’s all his hard work. He works insane hours, lives for the business, spent a long time putting any profit back into the bar rather than living it up. He’s meticulous about his records, which is useful for me, and as a business the place is on the up. It’s also on the market.’

‘Since when?’

‘January. Not a good time to sell, unfortunately, with the downturn in the economy. He’s got a high price tag on it, but he’s right, according to those who know. He’s prepared to wait until someone comes along who’ll pay him what he deserves and in the meantime he’s keeping back more of the profit to divert into savings and investments. Or he was.’

‘What do you mean?’ Godley asked.

‘Well, it’s a funny thing. You noticed the cash thing, Maeve, didn’t you?’

I nodded. ‘He doesn’t seem to use his bank card for personal purchases; everything is in cash, in-person transactions that we can’t trace.’

‘That’s a relatively recent development,’ Colin said. ‘He started that last year too. So something made him start hiding what he was doing then.’

‘Getting ready to start killing,’ Burt said.

‘Or putting the business on the market,’ I pointed out, playing devil’s advocate. ‘If it sold, the due diligence would have involved all of his records. Maybe he wanted to keep a few things to himself.’

‘But this is his personal account we’re dealing with,’ Burt snapped. ‘Nothing to do with the business.’

‘You don’t know he wasn’t paying some casual employees cash in hand to keep down the staff costs and make the place look more appealing to an investor,’ Colin said. ‘Staff are the curse of catering because even on the minimum wage they cost a lot, and you have to cover their National Insurance contributions. If you’re just taking some money out of the till, on the other hand, they don’t have to pay income tax and you can make your overheads a lot smaller.’

‘That sounds possible,’ I said, remembering the Nigerian cleaner who had looked scared of me.

‘He’s trying to hide something to do with the killings,’ Derwent said, sounding bored. ‘Do we really have to fanny about providing him with innocent reasons for using cash all the time?’

‘I hate to agree but I feel the same way.’ Burt turned to Godley. ‘You must think he’s a credible suspect.’

‘Must I?’ Godley looked amused. ‘He could be. I’m going to wait until I’ve spoken to him to see.’

‘I want to sit in on the interview.’ Burt didn’t look at Derwent as she said it, but it was her loss because his face was a picture. It was an obvious power play – a reminder that she was senior, and closer to Godley than him as well. To give him his due, Godley saw it a mile off.

‘I don’t want anyone there who doesn’t have to be. I want to speak to him. I want Harry with me because he’s a trained interrogator and the best I have on my team.’

Maitland looked pleased. ‘Too kind, boss.’

‘Please, both of you – all of you – watch the interview. We’ll take breaks so you can give us a steer if we miss something. I do value your input but I don’t want you in there.’

Burt got up, muttering something about having to make some calls, and stumped out of the room. Godley and Maitland followed, heading for the interview room to set it up as they wanted it. Derwent laughed and stood up, wobbling as he found out the hard way his leg wasn’t working well enough to pace about.