A Silent Death

by Peter May

  With clenched fists he retired to the pavement and glanced up. The house was pre-war, roughcast brick, white paintwork streaked brown and in need of a fresh coat after a long winter. It had cost him a small fortune to have it double-glazed. He and Susan shared the large double bedroom at the front, Alex had the room at the back, and Sophia occupied the box room that looked down on to the front garden, such as it was. Net curtains at her window twitched, and a tiny sad face appeared behind the glass, almost obscured by reflections. Mackenzie gazed up at his daughter, consumed by hurt and frustration. Of all the people in the world, it was with this little girl that he had the strongest bond. He tried to smile and raised a hand to wave. After a moment her hand came level with her face and waved tentatively back. And then she was gone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cristina sat in the interview room, elbows planted on the table in front of her, head tipped forward into her hands. She rubbed thumbs into her temples trying to alleviate the ache. Her eyes were stinging. Although they had sent her home after the initial debriefing, she had been unable to sleep.

  Miguel the station chief – or Jefe as he was known to everyone – had been roused from his bed, along with her immediate superior, to take both Matías and her through separate debriefs. It mattered that their stories were in sync, and Cristina saw no reason why they wouldn’t be. Still, she had the feeling that somehow blame was being attached to her, and she had no idea what it was that Matías had told them.

  After the debrief, she had written her report on the computer in the administration room. A blow-by-blow account of everything that had happened from the moment she and Matías left the building here in Marviñas to the shooting at La Paloma. She’d not had sight of the report turned in by her fellow officer.

  A little after 08.00 a call at home asked her to return to the station. There, a ballistics expert from Malaga accompanied her downstairs to the gun room, where she unlocked and removed her gun from its drawer. It was routine, he told her. A check to ascertain whether or not her weapon had been fired.

  ‘I never pulled the trigger,’ she said. ‘There was no reason to.’

  He had smiled and nodded, and placed the SIG Pro in a heavy-duty plastic envelope.

  She had been at the station most of the day since. Much of the time spent here in the interview room. Senior officers were coming from Malaga to question her, the Jefe had told her. But they didn’t arrive until mid-afternoon. Two men in dark suits. One around fifty, with crisply cut steel-grey hair, the other younger, with hair that touched his collar and fell untidily across his forehead.

  They were gone now, after what had seemed like hours. Cristina repeating the story she had already told in detail several times over. She had been exhausted, her mind starting to wander. To her row with Antonio over breakfast when she had told him he would have to drive Lucas to school. To the call she had made to her sister late afternoon, asking her to pick Lucas up at the end of the day. A call she’d been reluctant to make, given all the troubles poor Nuri faced herself.

  Now, all these hours later, she was just numb, wondering who was watching her through the two-way mirror on the wall opposite. There would doubtless be further rows when finally she got home. Issues that could no longer be ignored, but which she had no desire to confront – especially after the events of the last twenty-four hours.

  She sighed, and wondered why she was still here.

  And where was Matías?

  She turned her head as the door opened and a grim-faced Jefe strode in. He was a small man, inclined to portliness, with cropped silver hair that bristled across his scalp. He had a habit of standing with his thumbs hooked into his gun belt, or with his arms folded across his chest. He never pulled rank. Didn’t have to. The insignia on his shoulder, with its single baton and two stripes, spoke for his status. But he carried his own authority with the same ease he wore the cross around his neck, or the Ray-Bans dangling from his breast pocket. He had never been anything but scrupulously fair with Cristina, and courteous, verging on avuncular, and she liked him a great deal. She got to her feet.

  ‘What’s happening, Jefe?’

  ‘Sit down, Cristina.’

  ‘I’ve been sitting on my ass all day, sir.’

  He forced a smile and folded his arms. ‘Malaga have come back to us with an identity on the man who shot the girl in the villa last night.’

  Cristina frowned. ‘But we know who he is. Ian Templeton. The villa is registered in his name.’

  The Jefe nodded gravely. ‘Yes. But that’s an assumed identity, Cristina. His real name is Jack Cleland, and he tops the fugitives list of the British National Crime Agency.’

  Cristina couldn’t stop her mouth falling open just a little. ‘What’s he wanted for?’

  ‘Trafficking in Class A drugs – and the murder of a police officer.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mackenzie’s bedsit was in the attic conversion of a house in a run-down terrace on the outer edges of the borough. It was owned by an elderly couple who had lived there all their married lives and were supplementing their pension by letting out the room their youngest son, now deceased, had occupied as a teenager. When Mackenzie moved in there had still been posters on the walls. Of Nirvana, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Pearl Jam. The couple said they hadn’t had the heart to take them down, but that it was okay if Mackenzie did. He hadn’t had the heart either, so images of Dave Grohl and Flea and Eddie Vedder still presided over the shambles that was now his living space.

  All the furniture had seen better days. An armchair with foam bursting through threadbare upholstery, a Seventies throw disguising the damage wrought by a long-dead dog on an ancient settee. A scarred old office desk stood pushed in beneath the dormer window, books and notebooks and well-thumbed reports accumulating in drifts around a computer screen, its keyboard and mouse buried somewhere deep beneath the disorder.

  The bed was unmade, sheets and pillowcases long overdue a spin in the washing machine. He could see the impression of his head still pressed into the pillow, the grease stain left by his hair. It took an effort of will to get into bed at night.

  There was a chipped porcelain sink in one corner with a mottled mirror above it. His shaving gear and soap and deodorant crowded a tiny shelf along with his toothpaste and brush and an aggregation of hair and whiskers.

  It was only fifteen minutes from his family home, but a world away from the life he had known until just a few weeks ago, when Susan had finally insisted he move out.

  He had his own toilet on the landing outside his room, which his landlady insisted he clean himself, and he shared the kitchen on the ground floor. Although he never used it. He had quickly developed a dread of being engaged in conversation by the couple, and came and went as discreetly as possible to avoid bumping into them on the stairs or in the hall. He had cornflakes and long-life milk for breakfast in his room, grabbing a coffee at Costa’s on the way to work, and bringing a carry-out home with him at night.

  Home! He was unable to think of it like that. It was a space he inhabited, striving to avoid actual physical contact with it whenever possible.

  It was dark when he got in, two hours spent brooding in a pub before summoning the energy to take a Chinese back to his room, tiptoeing up a gloomy staircase so they wouldn’t hear him.

  He never used the overhead light. A gathering of 100-watt bulbs that predated the ban and somehow survived illuminated the room like floodlights in a football stadium. He remembered how his aunt and uncle had lived their latter years, too, under the insufferable burnout of overpowered bulbs. Mackenzie preferred not to confront the reality of life as it now was, and an old standard lamp and a bedside anglepoise splashed dull light among pools of darkness in his room.

  He placed his carry-out on the desk and cleared away some papers and a copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War from his armchair. He slumped into the seat to open the mail he had collected from the hall table on his way up. Circulars. And letters that Susan had redi
rected. A utility bill for him to settle. A letter outlining pension entitlements from his former employer. An envelope edged in black, embossed on the flap, weighty and silky smooth between his fingers. He didn’t have to open it to know what it was, and depression settled on him like dust.

  He had never counted the years since turning away from his native Glasgow. Never wanted to. If life could be said to have chapters, then the first seventeen years of his were a prologue he would rather have cut from the text. For him, real life had begun on chapter one, with his arrival in London.

  It was with a sick feeling in his gut that he ripped open the envelope. He ran his eye down the order of service. He had never disliked his aunt, or had much in the way of feelings for her one way or another. Unlike the hatred aroused in him by his uncle. She had always done her best in the difficult circumstances her husband created. He couldn’t say why, but somehow he felt obliged to attend her funeral. Or maybe, somewhere deep down that he didn’t like to admit, knew that there would be some satisfaction in going back twenty years on, just to stick it to the old man.

  If only his career in the Met hadn’t come to such an ignominious end. Of course, there was no way that his uncle would know that.

  Still . . . it would be a fresh beginning after the funeral next week. Another chapter. And maybe this would be a better opening to the book of his life. Although there was a limit to how many times he could fashion a new beginning, and he couldn’t help dreading the turning of yet another page. A new job, a whole raft of new colleagues to alienate. Life would be so much easier if it weren’t for other people. He remembered with a jolt that he had not yet informed HR that he couldn’t start until Wednesday, and made a mental note to call tomorrow.

  And then, of course, there was the breakdown of his marriage. It would be only too easy for his uncle to point the finger of failure in his direction. But the old bastard didn’t have to know about that either.

  Mackenzie and Susan had met during the early years of his career in the police while she was working as a researcher for a Member of Parliament who sat on the Justice Select Committee of the House of Commons. It had been lust at first sight. Six months of non-stop sex – or so it had seemed looking back on it. Brought to an abrupt halt by her first pregnancy, only to resume again soon after the birth of Alex. The arrival of Sophie, though, had changed everything, their appetite for sex diminishing along with the constant crying and sleepless nights. Family responsibilities had predominated, and it was only then, during long nights and weekends and holidays at home, that they had really started getting to know each other. Neither of them, it seemed, had cared much for what they learned.

  Susan began to find fault with everything he did and said, as if only now noticing how socially ill-adjusted he was, counting up the friends they had lost, the people he had insulted, the senior officers who had promoted him sideways to claw him out of their hair. Where the children were concerned she had become increasingly possessive, coveting their affections and excluding him from the mother–children trio.

  His response had been to retreat into himself, sitting up late at night alone in his attic office – when not on shift – immersing himself in study, as if somehow knowledge could fill all the empty spaces he had inside. It had become an obsession, from which only little Sophia was able to distract him. For some reason, she loved him, and Mackenzie knew only too well how love for a father had neither rhyme nor reason.

  He felt his phone vibrate against his chest, and retrieved it from the breast pocket of his shirt with thumb and forefinger. It was Sophia on Facebook’s Messenger app.

  – Hi daddy.

  He wedged the phone between his hands and typed with his thumbs.

  – Hi darling.

  – Miss you.

  – I miss you, too, sweetheart.

  – Sorry mummy’s not speaking.

  He paused on that one.

  – Well, I’m sure she will in time.

  She posted a sad face. Kids are not easily fooled.

  – Will you be at my school concert on Tuesday night?

  He hesitated, and almost as if she had read his mind, added,

  – I’ll tell mummy it’s ok. Everyone else’s daddy’ll be there.

  – Of course I’ll come, darling. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  – Got a whole song to myself.

  – I can’t wait to hear it. Pause. Baby, shouldn’t you be in bed?

  – I am. A happy face.

  – Under the covers?

  – Shhhh. Several happy faces.

  – You put your phone on the charger, baby, and go to sleep, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.

  – Okay, daddy. Pause. Love you.

  – Love you, too, darling.

  In so many ways he didn’t want the conversation to end. If he’d been at home, he’d have sat on her bed, running his fingers gently through her baby-soft hair until she closed her eyes and drifted off. He waited a long time, almost willing her to say something more. But the cursor blinked emptily, and finally he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

  He eased himself out of the chair and crossed to the desk to open his takeaway. It would be cold by now, and his appetite for it had passed. Still, he needed to eat.

  It was only then that he noticed a red light winking on his desk phone, almost obscured by a stray sheet of paper lying across it and diffusing the light. He picked up the phone and thumbed the message-replay button.

  ‘Mackenzie, it’s Bill Beard here. I know you don’t start with us until Monday, but I wonder if you could come in tomorrow morning for a briefing?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The London headquarters of the National Crime Agency was tucked away in Citadel Place in a sprawl of industrial buildings south of the railway lines between Vauxhall and Lambeth. It was an unremarkable structure of brick and steel and glass. It came into view as Mackenzie walked along Tinworth Street, and he was overcome by the same depression which had afflicted him the previous evening. And not a little anxiety. Whatever he had believed or imagined when first joining the Metropolitan Police, he could never have envisaged ending up here.

  Spring sunshine sprinkled light across the floor tiles in reception and he told the girl behind the desk that he had an appointment with Director Beard. She asked him to wait and lifted a phone. ‘Someone will be down in a few minutes.’

  Six minutes and thirty-three seconds, to be exact. Mackenzie had watched every passing second counting itself off on his watch. He had arrived on time and was aggrieved that his new boss could not organize his schedule to reciprocate.

  It was a woman in her early thirties who came through the door to greet him, offering a firm dry handshake. She was thin, with an awkward gait, blue tights beneath a grey skirt, and hair drawn back untidily. ‘Ruth Collins,’ she said. ‘You’re here to see Mr Beard.’

  It seemed more like a statement to Mackenzie than a question, so he didn’t respond.

  They entered the lift in an awkward silence, and Collins made a brave stab at breaking it as she selected a button for the third floor. ‘You start next week,’ she said, as if he might not have known. Again he felt no need to reply and she seemed a little disconcerted. She tried again. ‘Have you met the boss before?’

  He nodded. ‘At the interview.’

  She smiled. ‘Tread carefully, then. He can be unpredictable. Everyone calls him Mr Grumpy, and he’s not in the best of moods this morning.’ Mackenzie nodded, and they lapsed again into silence until they debouched from the lift on to floor three.

  Beard had a corner office with windows on two walls. He was on the phone when Collins showed Mackenzie in, and he raised a finger to indicate that they should wait a moment. They stood uncomfortably just inside the door, unable to avoid eavesdropping on his side of the conversation.

  ‘Well, fucking tell him to get the finger out!’

  And as Beard listened to the response from his caller Mackenzie took a moment to make an appraisal of him. His new bos
s was a big man, a mop of curly fair hair above a florid round face. It was clear he was running out of patience. Steel-blue eyes turned chilly.

  ‘If the report’s not on my desk by noon I’ll squeeze his balls till his eyes pop.’ He slammed down the phone and looked at Mackenzie. But his mind was elsewhere. Then suddenly he was with them, and his expression changed. ‘Mackenzie. Grab a seat.’

  Mackenzie nodded and sat down. ‘Good morning, sir.’ He attempted a smile. ‘I can see why they call you Mr Grumpy.’

  Beard’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who fucking calls me Mr Grumpy?’

  ‘Everyone, apparently.’ Mackenzie glanced at the flushing Ms Collins, who appeared to have found a spot of extraordinary interest on the carpet.

  Beard cocked an eyebrow and managed a tight little smile. ‘Do they, now?’

  Collins decided to meet his eye and brazen it out with a grin. Beard flicked his head towards the door. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  As she turned her back on Beard she darted a venomous glance in Mackenzie’s direction before slipping out into the hall. Beard leaned back in his swivel chair and eyed Mackenzie cautiously.

  ‘You’re a bit of an arsehole, Mackenzie, aren’t you?’

  ‘I have been told that, sir.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘But I’m not sure you can describe an arsehole in increments, sir. Which bit of the arsehole are we talking about? Is it a big bit, or a small bit?’

  ‘In your case, Mackenzie, quite clearly it’s the whole fucking thing.’

  Mackenzie looked as if he might respond, but was overcome by a rare moment of restraint. Beard reached across his desk to lift a folder from an untidy pile of them. He pulled it towards himself and flipped it open.