Ash & Bone

by John Harvey

  26

  Vanessa had been thinking about Maddy. Oh, not constantly, far from it: too busy for that. A gang of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, bored by the school holiday, had been entertaining themselves by chucking stones from the pedestrian bridge between Churchill and Ingestre Roads down on to the trains below. On the last occasion they had shattered the windscreen, injuring the driver seriously, twenty-seven fragments of glass having to be removed from his face and neck. Then there were the two fifteen-year-olds who, three times in a week, had robbed a local newsagent of the contents of his till, once making their getaway on stolen bikes, twice on skateboards. To say nothing of a plethora of burglaries that needed checking into and logging, crime numbers to be assigned, anxious or angry people to reassure, the whole tedious and largely pointless business set in some kind of motion.

  Still, through it all, there were moments, unbidden, when she would remember Maddy's laugh, Maddy's smile, Maddy's fear. It's not funny. It's not some bloody joke. No joke at all in the end, no joke at all. A statistic, a tragedy, a headline for as long as it was news; the object of an inquiry going nowhere, an absence, a pall of blue-grey smoke rising into the winter air.

  Even at that time of the evening, too late for the last stragglers returning home from work, too early for the raucous and the semi-drunk on their way back from the pub or off for a night's clubbing, she had to push her way through to the doors when the Tube pulled into the Archway. An elbow at her back. A face along the platform she half-recognised. Nobody.

  Coming up out of the station, uncomfortably aware of the waft of her own sweat, she walked through the usual congregation of beggars and Big Issue sellers colonising the pavement, and joined the small crowd of people waiting at the lights. Sometimes she took her life in her hands and crossed against the red, traffic bearing down from several directions, but tonight, after a split shift and a couple of hours of unpaid overtime catching up on paperwork, the energy was lacking.

  On the opposite corner, someone pushed out of the pub just in front of her, and for a moment she jumped, startled, and then, music and voices spilling through the door, considered a quick half before going home, maybe a rum and Coke. But the moment passed and she walked on, crossing the road again, lower down, much the same path, much the same steps Maddy would have taken so many evenings before.

  A chill moved inexorably along Vanessa's arms.

  You're not getting weird on me, are you? Freaking out?

  Turning past the bollards at the top of her own street, away from the noise and the traffic, she laughed. Stupid mare! Silly tart! For God's sake, get a grip!

  Lights showed behind a good few of the windows, blinds on the upper floors left open. The overlapping sounds of TV sets and stereos, indistinct and comforting. A dozen houses shy of her own she started feeling around in her bag for her keys. Stopped to disentangle them from her notebook and the charger for her mobile phone, something made her look across the street.

  Someone was standing in the half-shadow a short distance down the street. A silhouette and little more. Broad and tall against the overhanging hedge. A shape. A man. Though she couldn't make out his face she knew his eyes were focused on her. Watching her.

  Fear froze her, her legs, her voice, and then she hurried, half-ran the short distance to her door; key in the lock, she swung her head round and there was nothing there.

  An empty road, an empty street.

  Dark on dark.

  Inside, she slammed the door closed and leaned back against it, catching her breath, her thoughts, slow, slow, slow, before climbing the stairs towards her flat on the second floor.

  Without switching on the light, she crossed to the window and looked out. A couple were walking along now, arms round one another's shoulders, heads close; further along, a man, smaller, not the one she'd seen, was watching his dog defecating at the side of the road. Her breathing was almost back to normal, her blood ceasing to race. Already she was thinking of what she should have done, how she should have stood her ground, challenged him. She was a police officer, for God's sake. But police officers, she knew all too well, could be victims too.

  It was some while before she left the window, drew the curtains, switched on the light. What had she said to Maddy? Report it, why don't you? You should.

  There was a bottle of white wine half-empty in the fridge.

  Half-empty or half-full?

  Tomorrow, she would report it to the local station, even though she could see already the bored officer, hear his questions. This man, what exactly did he do? Maybe she would even phone Frank Elder, mention it to him? Or Karen Shields?

  She could see the expression on the other woman's face, sympathetic but matter-of-fact: after what happened to Maddy, you're bound to be jumpy for a while. Apprehensive. Imagination in overdrive. Wouldn't be natural otherwise.

  The wine tasted thin and bitter in her mouth and she poured the remainder down the sink. In bed, she moved the small reading lamp down on to the floor to lessen the glare, but left it switched on through the night.

  27

  Wednesday morning. A fine fall of rain. Elder had driven Karen's car to Hendon early, left it parked, and passed time in the canteen. In the queue, tray in hand, his stomach had rebelled at the sight and smell of sausages and bacon and he'd settled for two slices of toast. There was a copy of the Mirror left lying around and he thumbed through it, not really paying attention. After a while he saw Mike Ramsden come in and he raised a hand in greeting.

  Ramsden carried over a breakfast plate full to overflowing. 'Best meal of the day.'

  'Your boss in yet?' Elder asked.

  'Just arrived.' Ramsden grinned. 'Like a bear with a sore head this morning. Don't know what she was up to last night, but it's left its mark, I'll tell you that.'

  'See you in a while,' Elder said.

  Ramsden mumbled something through a mouthful of egg and beans.

  Karen was sitting at her desk, a large carton of orange juice close at hand. Elder said good morning and gave her back her car keys.

  'What are you looking so smug about?' she said.

  'I didn't know I was.'

  'The girlfriend,' Karen said, 'she's called McLaughlin. Jennifer McLaughlin. Twenty-seven. Works in a chemist's, Muswell Hill Broadway. But not every day.'

  'Today?'

  'That's what I'm waiting to find out.'

  Another fifteen minutes and they were on their way.

  Jennifer McLaughlin was smart in her white uniform, buttoned and belted, reddish hair pulled back in a barrette, pale freckles across her face. If Kennet had a type it wasn't easy to discern what it was.

  Karen showed her warrant card as discreetly as she could.

  The manager agreed to let them use his office.

  'What's this about?' Jennifer McLaughlin said, but the way, even in that enclosed space, she contrived to look neither of them in the eye, suggested that she knew.

  'November just gone,' Karen said, 'you went to Spain.'

  'Malaga, yes. Winter break.'

  'You and Steve. Steve Kennet.'

  'Yes, why? What's wrong?'

  'When did you come back?'

  'Twenty-eighth. End of the week.'

  'Jennifer.'

  'What?'

  'This might be important.'

  She slid both hands up along her neck, fingertips against the roots of her hair. 'We had a row. Stupid, really. About nothing. Where we were going to eat, which cafe. Steve, he lost his temper. Really lost it, you know?'

  'He hit you?'

  She looked at the floor, guilty; as if she had something to be guilty about. 'I said I didn't want to stay, not any more. He could stay if he liked, but I was coming home. He said if I was going, we both were. I phoned the airline to change the flights. Cost a fortune. We didn't talk all the way back, sat in separate rows. Soon as we got back to Stansted that was that.'

  'You've not seen him again?'

  'No.'

  'Which day did you fly back,
Jennifer?'

  'The Tuesday. Tuesday morning. The twenty-fifth.'

  'All right. Thanks.' Karen doing her best to keep any excitement from her voice.

  'Steve,' Jennifer McLaughlin said. 'He hasn't done anything, has he?'

  'Not necessarily.' Karen opened the office door. 'Thanks for your time.'

  Out on the street, the rain had just ceased, leaving the paving stones slippery and dark.

  'Didn't waste any time, did he?' Karen said. 'Flies back on the twenty-fifth and a day later Maddy Birch is dead.'

  'We still don't have proof.'

  'We've got enough to bring him in for questioning.'

  Elder nodded.

  With a broad smile, Karen hit Ramsden's number on her phone. 'Okay, Mike. Bring him in.'

  * * *

  Kennet had finished in Dartmouth Park and moved on. One wing of the Whittington Hospital was slowly being transformed into prestige apartments with views over London, Waterlow Park on their doorstep, a ten-minute stroll to Highgate Village, five more to the Heath. Kennet was sitting on a platform two-thirds of the way up the scaffolding, time out for a smoke and a drop of tea from a thermos. One of his colleagues alongside him, stretched out, the Sun open across his face.

  Situations like that, people panicked, even innocent people, tried to do a runner, but Kennet, Ramsden thought, where could he go? Besides, he'd seen them coming, sure enough, and not made a move.

  'Steve,' Ramsden called up, keeping it friendly. 'A word, eh?'

  Kennet shook out what remained in his cup, screwed it back on top of the flask, put the flask in his rucksack, said something to his mate, who was sitting up now, wondering what was going on, and began to climb down.

  'DS Ramsden. This is DC Furness.'

  'Yes, I remember.'

  'Not altogether defective then.'

  'What?'

  'Your memory.'

  'Sorry, you'll have to explain.'

  'At the station.'

  'What? Oh, come on.'

  'No, you come on.'

  Kennet's body tensed and his eyes narrowed just a little and Ramsden readied himself in case, but then Kennet relaxed and said, nodding back towards where he'd been working, 'Give me a few minutes,' and Ramsden said, 'Go ahead,' and then, to Furness, 'Go with him.'

  Ramsden lighting a cigarette and pacing easily up and down, wanting to believe they had him, but not letting himself, not quite, preferring to believe in what they said about when the fat lady sings.

  * * *

  They kept him waiting the best part of an hour, trying his patience, the young uniformed constable as inscrutable as one of the Guardsmen on sentry duty on Horse Guards Parade. When Karen Shields entered, Ramsden and Elder close behind her, the PC stepped outside.

  'You know you can have a solicitor present if you wish?' Karen said, sitting down.

  Kennet smiled. 'No need for that.'

  'And you realise you can leave at any time?'

  Kennet made a play of getting up, then sat back down.

  'You don't mind if I tape this interview?'

  'Be my guest.' Leaning back now, enjoying it.

  We'll see, Karen thought. 'I'd like to ask you some questions,' she said, 'about your recent holiday in Spain.'

  'Great food, lovely weather, iffy hotel.'

  'You stated previously that you and Ms McLaughlin returned to this country on Friday the twenty-eighth.'

  'That's right.'

  'According to Ms McLaughlin, you came back early on the twenty-fifth.'

  Kennet drummed his fingers on the table. Broad fingers, nails cut short. Karen was remembering Maddy Birch's former husband. Working man's hands.

  'Mr Kennet, is that the case?'

  'Sorry, what?'

  'That you flew back to this country on the twenty-fifth?'

  A slight movement of the shoulders. 'If she says so.'

  'What do you say?'

  'All right, yes. Yes, the twenty-fifth.'

  'Then why, when you were asked before, did you claim it was the twenty-eighth?'

  Kennet threw up his hands, rocked back his chair. 'God, woman! Why d'you think?'

  Karen leaned, almost imperceptibly, towards him. 'Tell me.'

  'It's obvious, isn't it? She was killed on the Wednesday, wasn't she? Maddy. And you were going to be going round, all the blokes she'd been out with. Friends. Anyone who knew her. Asking questions, poking into their lives. Easier to stay out of it, right? No harm done either way.'

  'Unless you've got something to hide.'

  'Who hasn't?'

  'Where were you on the evening of Wednesday, twenty-sixth?'

  'See. There you go, right there.'

  'Where were you?'

  'Went to see this film. The Medallion. Jackie Chan. Holloway Odeon. Absolute bloody rubbish. Don't often go and see stuff like that, but sometimes that's what you want, right? Rubbish. Give your brain a rest. But can I prove it? No. Who keeps cinema tickets? No one. Afterwards I went to the pub up the road, set back, past the traffic lights towards the Archway. I don't even know what it's called. Had a couple of pints, went home.'

  'And then what?'

  'Then nothing. Up at six thirty next morning. Off to work, same as usual.'

  'You didn't go out again?'

  'No.'

  'You're sure?'

  'Course I'm sure.'

  'Like you were sure you flew back to England on the twenty-eighth?'

  'I've explained that.'

  'This pub you say you were in, did you talk to anyone?'

  Bloke behind the bar.'

  'Think he'd remember you?'

  'I doubt it.'

  'No witnesses to support what you say you did or where you were.'

  'That's right.'

  'As an alibi, it doesn't begin to stand up, does it?'

  Kennet smiled. 'Now you know why I lied.'

  * * *

  'So what do you think?' Karen asked.

  They were in her office, herself, Elder and Ramsden. Late afternoon, early evening. Furness was babysitting Kennet in the interview room.

  'I'd like to smack him in the face,' Ramsden said.

  'Frank?'

  'Would he be that sure of himself if he were guilty? I don't know.'

  'You don't think he's covering up something?'

  'Probably.'

  'Well?'

  'I don't know if it's what we want it to be.'

  'Half an hour alone with him,' Ramsden said, 'I'd bloody find out.'

  Karen laughed despite herself. 'Mike, you're such a sweet old-fashioned thing.'

  'Bollocks,' Ramsden said. Adding a mock-deferential, 'Ma'am.'

  'Well, I'd like to have another go at him, ask him about his relationship with Maddy. See if there isn't something we can shake him on there.'

  Elder was just about to say something when his mobile started to ring. Turning away, he listened briefly. 'Five minutes. I'll call you back.'

  'I'm sorry,' he said to Karen, 'something I have to deal with. You carry on.'

  As he turned away, she wondered what could have brought the concern so clearly to his eyes.

  28

  Elder had recognised Maureen Prior's voice instantly, her tone preparing him for something bad but not for this.

  'It's Katherine.'

  For an instant Elder's heart had seemed to stop.

  'She's been arrested.'

  Of all his fears, not the one he would have most suspected, not the worst.

  'Okay, Maureen,' he said now, standing close against the car park wall. 'Let me have the details.'

  'She was arrested for possession.'

  'Cannabis? Ecstasy? Out clubbing and —'

  'No, Frank.'

  'What then?'

  'It was heroin.'

  'Jesus!' The word expelled with a hiss of air.

  Elder closed his eyes and brought his head forward against the corner of the wall. He could hear Maureen's breathing at the other end of the line.

  'How
much?'

  'Five grams.'

  'They're charging her with intent to supply?'

  'Not yet.'

  'Not yet? Either they have or they haven't, I don't see —'

  'It's not so straightforward, Frank. There's someone else involved.'

  'Okay, I'm coming up.'

  'It's not my case, Frank. They're holding her at Canning Circus. I could put you in touch if you want. Perhaps if you just had a word…'

  'No. I'm coming up.' Stepping back, he checked his watch. 'I can be there in a couple of hours.'

  'All right. You'll call me?'

  'Sure. If not tonight, tomorrow, first thing.'

  'Good. And Frank…'

  'Yes?'

  'If you're driving, take care.'

  Elder grunted and broke the connection. At least where he was, he was close to the M1, though by now the volume of traffic would be building steadily.

  Sweating a little, he dialled Joanne's number.

  'You've heard?' he said before she could speak.

  'Of course.'

  'Why didn't you call me?'

  'Frank —'

  'Why in God's name didn't you call me?'

  He heard the clink of a glass. 'I'm sorry, Frank, I —'

  'What? You didn't think I'd find out? You didn't think I wanted to know?'

  'It's not that, Frank, it's —'

  'How is she?'

  'She's all right. I mean, I suppose she's all right. It's difficult, Frank, you don't —'

  'I'm driving up, leaving now. I just wanted you to know.'

  'Don't, Frank.'

  'What else d'you expect?'

  'She won't talk to you, you know.'

  Elder wanted to hurl the phone into the far-flung reaches of the car park. Instead, he pocketed it carefully and made himself stand there for some moments, perfectly still, controlling his breathing, before reaching for his keys.

  * * *

  The first fifty miles of the motorway were nightmarishly slow; after that it cleared enough for him to pick up some speed, only to close down again beyond Leicester Forest East. Finally turning off at the exit for Nottingham South, he skirted the river and then drove along Maid Marian Way on to Derby Road, turning left again just past Canning Circus and into the police station car park.

  There was a small fracas going on outside the entrance, a beleaguered PC standing amongst a group of angry women, doing his best to calm things down. Inside, a balding man with blood on his shirt was standing with his back against the wall, pressing a square of bandage against the gash in his head.