With everyone busy, I walk back as fast as I can to my official office at the other end of the station. It seems to be as I left it, the other two desks still empty, the baseball bat still leaning against my desk. I replace the bat on its shelf, then unlock my desk drawer and take out the plastic bag holding Amy Matthews’ diary.
At first, Tina doesn’t want to answer the door to her flat. She’s so nervous, she even seems to hesitate at my name, but then she lets me in and locks the door carefully behind me.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Amy’s boyfriend?’ I ask.
‘Her boyfriend?’
‘Darjus Javtokas.’ I hand her a printout of one of the pages from Amy Matthews’ diary. ‘DJ – at first, I thought she was writing about some club DJ she liked, but she means Darjus Javtokas, doesn’t she?’
Tina gazes at it in some confusion. ‘Yes, but no. No. Not a boyfriend.’
‘That’s what it looks like.’
‘He would have been. He’d have lain down in front of tanks for her, but Amy didn’t go in for serious boyfriends. Or girlfriends. Amy preferred a hundred friends to one. Dazza was just for fun.’
I sit awkwardly on the arm of a sofa. Tina’s place is not much more than a bedsit, two small rooms that she’s worked on hard to make her own, with spray-paint pictures of sunsets and deep purple throws over the chairs. Did I know it? Did I come here?
‘And Crystal? Was she going with him?’
Tina waves her hands. ‘Crystal would have preferred Amy.’
‘So why would Darjus want to kill me?’
‘Kill you?’ Tina stares at me.
‘He was the one who tried to knife me in the hospital.’
‘I don’t believe it. He’s just a kid.’
‘We also found him standing over Crystal’s body.’
‘Crystal’s dead?’ Tina’s hands stop moving. She looks fragile and uncertain. Just one lonely trannie.
‘No, she’s in a coma. I’m on my way to see her now. But when I interrupted him, Darjus ran. Where might he have gone?’
She’s not listening. ‘What happened?’ she says, though I don’t feel she really wants to know. I hardly want to say it myself, but I’ve found out that fear is the way to get Tina to talk. I’m not proud of it, but I describe Crystal’s wounds in detail – and watch Tina flutter around the room, tidying up loose CDs and open magazines, trying to conceal her anxiety. When I feel the truth has sunk in sufficiently, I ask where he might be hiding.
She shakes her head and comes to rest finally in a torn armchair.
I smack the arm of the sofa, making her jump. ‘This isn’t a joke, Tina.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t really know him much at all. Dazza’s just a kid that hangs around. Amy liked his jokes.’ Tina stops and gropes in her sleeve for a lace handkerchief, then blows her nose. ‘They’d see each other for a drink or they’d go to a movie and she’d say it was like being a normal person for two hours. No one sick or dying. He made her laugh. He had a temper but it was kind of sweet, like a young kid going red in the face and turning into the Incredible Hulk. He did do stupid things at times–’
I hold up my bandaged hand. ‘Like stabbing me.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Like what then?’
She runs her fingers through her hair. ‘Lost his rag at the club once and smashed a couple of mirrors before they stopped him.’ She adjusts her bra strap. ‘He paid up after.’
‘How? How does he afford that?’
‘His aunt gives him everything he asks for. But I don’t see him hurting Amy or Crystal, Ross. He would have sold his soul for them.’
I find myself warming to her. Beneath her fragility, Tina has an intuitiveness she keeps forgetting to hide. She’s brighter than she wants people to think she is. What was it she said about Amy earlier? Something about being both clever and stupid. Clever about what and stupid about what? And why was it me who Amy phoned when she was afraid?
‘Tell me about myself,’ I say.
‘You, Ross?’
‘Why do you trust me?’
Tina inspects me with care. ‘You really don’t remember anything?’
‘I’m starting to remember some things. It’s not easy.’
‘You saved my life. As good as. One night last year, I got picked up by a copper. It happens every few months. Like paying my dues. I try to be patient and go through the process and shell out for the fine. But this time it was different.’ She chews her lip. ‘His name was Innswood and he was new to the area. Said he’d give me a warning and drove me back here, but once we got inside he started hitting me, called me a faggot trannie, said he was going to get me thrown out of my flat, probably jailed, if I didn’t… you know. The full works.’
Tina is gazing at her shoes as she talks. ‘He did it again each week. But one night you saw me at the club – you didn’t really know me, but you spotted the black eye and the cuts, despite my make-up. You made sure I got a proper medical and saw to it that I didn’t get evicted. You finally did him for other stuff, so I didn’t have to be dragged into it, for which I was eternally grateful, Ross. But I was in a bad way and if you hadn’t stopped him I probably would have done something unusually stupid. As opposed to the more usual stupid things I do.’
So, R had a good heart, did he? The picture I’m getting of him is growing more complicated. Some found him tough. Some clearly didn’t like him at all. But then he went out of his way to help Tina, a trannie hooker he barely knew. There’s a question, though, that I scarcely know how to ask.
‘Did I–’
‘No, for Christ’s sake, no. You’re a perfect gentleman. No demands. Though I wouldn’t want to get on your bad side.’ She gives a nervous sniff.
‘And Amy? Did I help her too?’
‘No, you hardly knew her. I don’t think you ever spoke to her much till about two weeks ago.’
‘I asked you before, what happened two weeks ago?’
Tina shrugs. ‘I never got that memo. You really think Dazza did all you said? I don’t see it.’
‘I’ve got the scars.’ As I stand up to go back to the hospital, I look around and say offhand, ‘Have you been buying?’
‘No. I don’t get off on drugs anymore. Well, only a little weed. I need all the cash I can save. The best high is going to be having tits and a vagina and I’m halfway there.’
I take a chance and ask, ‘You couldn’t spare some of that weed, could you?’
She wrinkles her nose in amusement then, going to a painted sewing box in the corner, she takes out a small bag. I get a whiff of the aroma, spicy though slightly rancid.
‘Medicinal purposes,’ I say. ‘And Rizlas?’
29
I remember winter, many years ago. A freezing day walking with my father, him marching across a snow-covered park under heavy clouds, me close behind, clutching a painted metal tray, a frantic lunge at having some fun.
The tea tray had been a wedding present and it was produced on snowy days with great ceremony. ‘Time to slide,’ Paul would announce, and we’d discuss at length which hills in the neighbourhood provided the greatest speed for the longest stretch. My mother stayed at home on such occasions. She was already weaker, still able to move around the house but not going out so much. I’d make her cups of tea which she drank with much fuss and gratitude as if I’d personally picked the leaves and milked the cow. Champagne wouldn’t have tasted better, she said, and patted the sofa next to her for me to sit and tell her stories. Any story would do, something off the TV news or out of a magazine. If it was a good story, she’d laugh happily but if it was a bad event she’d close her eyes and groan. I learned quickly only to tell her about happy events.
One Sunday after church, she’d been in bed for a week and the doctor was due. ‘Time to slide,’ my father announced. Curiously, I can’t remember sliding anywhere on that tea tray of theirs that day, though I must have. What I remember is coming home and finding my mother was no longer there. He
r bed was empty, sheets pulled back, but I could smell the doctor had been, his aftershave mixed with antiseptic. And her hospital bag, always kept ready-packed in the corner of the room, had gone.
The car’s wipers push the thin wet snowflakes as I drive. Charlie Toth has booked me an unmarked Honda saloon, unprepossessing and muddy brown, but it has four wheels, which is all I need. The breakdown service has messaged to say Laura’s Prius is being towed to a garage but can’t be repaired before tomorrow. I should text her, but I put it off.
I have fifteen minutes before I’m due to see the consultant about Crystal. So, as I drive, I place Tina’s stash on my lap and roll myself a joint one-handed. I try to remember if the websites said that any kind of grass could help fight amnesia or if it had to be a special type. Will this be my direct line to R?
Ten minutes later, as I turn into the hospital car park, I don’t sense any new memories coming, just the same wired fatigue I’ve felt all day. I fan in fresh air with the car door, but I can still smell a residual aroma on myself, so I take off my jacket, then text Becks to meet me in Crystal’s ward on the fifth floor.
Sunday lunchtime, the hospital is quiet, and limping towards Intensive Care I find someone has stopped the door from closing with a wad of paper towels. A cleaner’s trolley stands nearby, but there is no cleaner in sight. Inside, the place is silent, except for the muffled sounds of medical machinery – the controlled mechanical terror of ill health. No nurses can be seen – and my gut tightens.
The single rooms are arranged along corridors that lead off the main ward. I have no idea where Crystal is, so I rapidly check them, looking for one with a police guard. In each lies a different body, some young, some old, most unconscious, some gazing vaguely ahead.
I turn a corner and outside one of the doors sits an empty chair. In a panic, I run into the room. The automatic pump still moves but Crystal lies flat, a mask over her face, and to my horror some of the machines seem to be switched off.
Urgently, I press the alarm, then phone Becks, leaving a voicemail for him to get up here fast. After a long minute, I hear footsteps and a ward assistant wanders into the room, not fussed, small and dumpy and holding a kidney dish with two used syringes.
I show my warrant card. ‘Is she alive?’
The ward assistant frowns. ‘Yes.’
‘But those displays – the ones with no read-out–’
‘You a doctor?’
‘I want you to check that this patient… Has anyone done anything to her? Has anyone interfered with the equipment?’
The assistant hesitates and calls a senior nurse with a clipboard, who tells me I shouldn’t be here. Medical staff only.
‘This woman is a witness,’ I say. ‘And under police protection. I need to know she’s okay.’
She nurse-humours me. ‘The patient is doing as well as can be expected.’
‘Look, there’s supposed to be a policeman on guard all the time. Where is he?’
She gazes at me blankly. ‘Your policeman is your concern, not mine. I have enough to do.’
‘And why’s the door to the ward not locked?’
She repeats with some considerable degree of irritation that they’re all far too busy with their own jobs. As for the door, who knows? Maybe housekeeping. Or one of the porters. They’re not supposed to, but they do.
I stay alone with Crystal and the machinery. Becks calls back. ‘I’m on my way up right now. I got delayed.’
‘No rush. Any time this century will be fine. I can guard her myself. I don’t have much else to do.’
‘The guard’s not there?’
‘There’s no one fucking here. What’s happened to the twenty-four-hour watch, not even leaving to take a piss, you said?’
He sounds shocked and says he’ll raise CO19 and find out what’s going on.
‘Do that, sodding well do that.’ Maybe the tension has got to me, because I normally keep my temper under control.
I limp to the door and look along the ward in both directions. Is there someone who knows how to get doors unlocked when he needs to?
Three minutes later a young PC comes rushing in, a mousy-haired kid, scared out of his wits. He says he was in the hospital canteen. This is PC Vincent, armed guard, and he’s followed by Becks, who looks like shit.
I pull Vincent over to the bed. ‘Hospital canteen? See this woman? See her? Someone wants her dead. She trusted the police to protect her and you betrayed her trust.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘For all I know, these machines were tampered with while you were downstairs necking your burger and chips. Does that make you feel good?’
‘No, sir.’
‘What’s to stop me throwing the fucking book at you?’
‘Is she okay?’ Becks asks from by the door, but I ignore him. Vincent’s shaking. His face has gone from pale to bright pink to pale again and there’s a part of me that feels briefly sorry for him. He lets me continue in this way for a minute and then he says he got a phone call from Kentish Town CID.
This comes like a slap in the face. ‘A phone call?’
‘Yes, sir. An order. To leave her and have my lunch, sir.’
I get him to repeat it, word for word. I’m boiling. Becks is quiet, but Vincent is getting the measure of the situation.
‘I had this call, sir, and an officer from the borough told me I wasn’t needed for an hour and a half. I asked if I had to wait for someone to take over, and he said no need, sir, it wasn’t necessary, just piss off, sorry sir, go off and get yourself something to eat, he said, the victim will be okay.’
I feel it – a mix of dread but also anticipation. ‘Show me your mobile.’
‘It came through the nurses’ desk.’
‘Didn’t that make you suspect something?’
‘No. They often do that.’
‘Would you recognise his voice?’ I watch Vincent carefully. ‘If you heard it again?’
Vincent isn’t sure; no, it wasn’t a good line. ‘But he gave his name.’
‘His name?’
‘Yes, sir. He said he was the senior investigating officer in charge of this case. DI Ross Blackleigh.’
30
A nurse clicks past towards another room, carrying a tray of steel medical instruments. Becks rubs a hand across his face. As for Vincent, I say to him, ‘Blackleigh. That’s my name.’
‘Shit. Sorry, sir.’
‘Did he fucking sound like me?’
‘Not really, sir.’ Vincent bites his lip. ‘Sorry, sir. But it was a bad line and I didn’t know what you sounded like.’
‘So what did he sound like?’
‘Normal. London accent as far as I could tell. Muffled.’
‘Like he might have been disguising his voice?’
He gives a slow nod. ‘It’s possible, sir.’
I look at my watch.
‘Yes, shit. How long were you away from this room?’
‘Getting on for three quarters of an hour.’
‘Someone went to the trouble of getting you away from here for an hour and a half. That leaves another forty-five minutes when they could turn up.’ I tell Vincent to find somewhere out of sight and watch everyone who arrives, including medical staff. Then I take Becks to a recess on one side, stacked with abandoned drip stands. ‘How many people knew there was an armed guard?’
Becks jiggles nervously on the spot. ‘I didn’t put out a press release.’
‘Who’s at the station now? I want a list.’
‘I’ll have a dig around,’ he says. There’s a hesitation.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘I’m pulling all the favours I can.’
I turn to go and then I say, ‘I’m starting to get a picture of this man. He’s clever enough to disguise his voice. He knows the safest way to phone the guard without making him suspect anything’s wrong. And I’d bet my house that when we track down the call it’ll have come from an empty office.’
‘Also clever
enough to beat up Crystal, search the flat and leave next to no forensic trace on her body.’
‘But he didn’t finish her off. Why not?’ I take a moment. ‘I’m pissed off with this. So far, he’s been one step ahead of us all the time. We need to start taking action. I want to surprise him for once. I’m going to see Gerry Gardner. We’ll put out a public appeal. I want us to go on TV to say Javtokas is wanted, may be dangerous and may be working with others.’
‘Are you sure, sir?’ Becks speaks even more quietly. ‘Gardner’s going to want to bring in the DPS to find out who made that call.’
I consider this for a moment. The last thing I want is the DPS flying in and asking all kinds of difficult questions. Like what can I remember. ‘It’s a risk I have to take. I can’t come up with anything better. Meanwhile, you watch for anyone who comes visiting in the next forty-five minutes – no matter who.’
Becks looks as if he’s going to say something but thinks better of it and scratches his leg instead.
Vincent has put himself in a corner that won’t be seen by the killer if he comes. He’s turned back automatically into armed guard mode, his eyes slack, like a machine waiting to be switched on, or a gun waiting to be fired. I leave him and Becks on surveillance and take the lift down to reception.
Am I also a machine that hasn’t been properly turned on? Is there a part of me, R, who knows the truth? I try to contact it – him – deep inside myself. It’s like praying. Sending a message to some invisible person who may not reply, may never reply, may not even exist.
The driving is easier than I expected. The traffic on the main roads has churned the snow into slush and, as I head out to the suburbs, most of the cars are coming the other way for Sunday shopping. I feel muzzy with the after-effects of the spliff, but no more memories have come back. No messages from R.
Deciding food might help settle my head, I drop into a Lidl to buy a chicken sandwich. At Gerry’s, I park a short distance away and tear open the card and cellophane packaging.
Room 15: a gripping psychological mystery thriller Page 16
