Keep Her Close

by M. J. Ford

Ross Catskill cut a more shambolic figure in the interview room this time. The heat of the newly working radiators was reacting with his drying sweat and in the confined space, Jo was regretting not letting him wash first. He’d requested a lawyer immediately, saying he wouldn’t talk until his representation showed up.

  Luckily this gave them time to get a formal statement from Selina March, who, in return for a deal exonerating her, crumbled like a biscuit plunged into a cup of tea. With the duty solicitor’s advice, she gave them everything she knew about Catskill’s operation, including the various establishments he supplied, which happened to include several gyms. She told them what appeared on the books and what didn’t, and how the drug money was cleaned through a string of amusement arcades that Catskill ran. She stuck to logistics mostly, and Jo got the impression quickly that her hands were mostly clean. She insisted she knew nothing about Natalie Palmer or her mother, and suggested that Suleiman may well have been pushing Catskill’s products on the street as well as through the bar. Malin she recognised, though – but her statement only clarified what Catskill himself had told them previously. For a while the two had been fucking and Ross had broken it off.

  ‘She was a druggie,’ Selina said blithely. ‘Ross didn’t like it. He wanted her out of his life. They had an argument at some bar and she took a swing at him.’

  It wasn’t quite the sympathetic story he’d told them at Jukebox, where he’d broken it off gently, but it wasn’t so different either.

  And it’s hardly motive enough to kill her, thought Jo. But maybe it hadn’t been premeditated. It sounded like she’d taken the break-up badly, and that would be compounded further if it limited her access to drugs. Maybe she’d invited Catskill over to talk, letting him in through the fire door. They argued about something, and it became physical. She might even have attacked him again, in which case appealing to the self-defence motive would be the best approach.

  Selina couldn’t tell them much about Alex Maynard either. She’d seen him on the door of various places (‘you could hardly miss him, right?’), but he’d never come to the Calibre offices, and she wasn’t sure he had a connection to her boss, Catskill.

  Stratton arrived in his civilian clothes, straight from the scene at the bar, and Jo filled him in on their findings, especially the new connection between Malin Sigurdsson and Natalie Palmer.

  ‘It’s not really much, is it?’ he said. ‘So Catskill knew Malin personally, and he supplied a bar with a very tenuous link to Natalie Palmer. Doesn’t mean he was involved in either Malin’s disappearance or the hit and run.’

  ‘The dealer from the Lounge has said all their stuff came through Calibre,’ said Jo. ‘Alex Maynard was the enforcer. Maybe Malin had a debt too?’

  ‘Without hearing from Suleiman, it’s tendentious to say the least,’ said Stratton. ‘Have you any idea where he is now?’

  Jo shook her head. ‘We sent officers to his house, but his car has gone.’

  Stratton frowned. ‘Why didn’t you call for back-up earlier?’

  ‘We were just there to observe,’ said Jo.

  ‘Did you do a risk assessment?’

  ‘There was no risk. Selina March showing up was completely unforeseeable.’

  Stratton didn’t reply to that, but the shuck of his eyebrows suggested extreme scepticism.

  ‘Sir, if you ask me, I think DS Masters has got a point,’ said Pryce.

  Stratton shook his head. ‘I didn’t ask you, son.’ He looked up, just as a red-headed woman in a suit was being shown through. ‘Brief’s here. Now get in there and do your job.’

  * * *

  The lawyer, Zara Ripley, greeted Catskill with a kiss on both cheeks, and took an hour to go through things with her client, making studious notes. Jo watched, gritty-eyed with weariness, through the video-feed and saw Catskill alternately standing and pacing and shuffling uncomfortably, sometimes gesticulating with his hands. Ripley had also brought him some fresh clothes, and they allowed him to change in the toilets while Pryce stood outside. When they were all seated again, with the tape rolling, it was Ripley who spoke first.

  ‘My client is willing to admit to the drugs offences and to tell you his supplier in return for bail and being allowed to return to the family home. He’s not a danger, and he has no history of—’

  Jo held up a hand. ‘Slow down. We can get to the drugs in good time. First we need to talk about Malin Sigurdsson.’

  ‘Not this again!’ said Catskill. ‘I told you, Malin was just a fling.’

  ‘We think there might be more to it than that,’ said Jo. ‘She was a user, too, wasn’t she?’

  ‘So what?’ said Catskill. ‘I bet half your fucking colleagues are too.’

  Zara gave a pinched smile. ‘You’ll understand my client is simply worried about his family.’

  ‘Did you supply her with drugs?’ asked Pryce.

  Ripley leaned over and whispered something in Catskill’s ear.

  ‘No comment,’ he said.

  Jo laughed. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

  Ripley leant forward. ‘Have you any leads on the disappearance of Ms Sigurdsson?’

  Jo wasn’t in the mood to give much away. ‘We’re still working on the assumption she was murdered. We know that your client had a public argument with Malin in a bar a few weeks before her death. An argument in which she slapped him. Ring any bells, Mr Catskill, or do you get slapped a lot?’

  He scowled. ‘She was upset that I was breaking it off.’

  ‘And why was that again? You thought she was getting too attached?’

  ‘I didn’t need the hassle.’

  ‘But you must have been worried too. I mean, this unstable young girl knew you were involved in drugs, right? Did she try to blackmail you perhaps?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let me put a scenario to you. Malin calls you to talk. You don’t want it on your turf – not after last time – so you go to her college.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She lets you in, but it goes just the same as before. You argue, she gets physical, starts to come at you. You lift your hand to protect yourself and she hits her head. It happens all the time. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy.’

  Catskill actually laughed.

  ‘You try to revive her but it’s too late. You panic.’

  Ripley took a deep breath. ‘You have no witnesses. You have no evidence in Malin’s room. Come on, detective – this is risible.’

  ‘And Malin wasn’t like that,’ said Catskill. ‘She wouldn’t blackmail anyone. She was a good person, despite her issues.’

  It was almost exactly what Anna Mull had said.

  ‘You said before that Malin was stubborn. What did you mean?’

  ‘Just that … she knew her own mind. She was driven. Wanted to get places.’

  ‘An aspirational smack user?’

  Catskill looked introspective. ‘I sometimes got the impression she did the drugs because she knew how much it pissed off that MP guy. It was her way of rebelling.’

  ‘But why would she want to piss him off? The way we heard it he took care of her when her dad died.’

  ‘Did the mother tell you that?’

  Not exactly, thought Jo. ‘What did Malin say?’

  ‘She hated the sight of him. Said he used to walk round in the buff when she was little.’

  Jo tried to shake the image away, but couldn’t. This is an interesting development. ‘Are you saying he … did something sexual to her? Molested her?’

  Catskill shrugged. ‘She never said that exactly. She said he used to look at her funny.’ Jo let him continue. There was a chance he was just leading them down the garden path, distracting them from himself, and though what he was saying rang a kind of truth, she was wary of letting her prejudices run away with her. ‘You’ve seen pictures of Malin,’ said Catskill. ‘I think she was about five or six when that old lech came into her life, and he was around while she was growing up. He watched her become a beautiful young woman.
He was obviously into Malin’s mother. Is it that hard to imagine he might have had a thing for her too?’

  Stratton appeared at the door, and crooked his finger.

  ‘Maybe we should take a break,’ said Pryce.

  * * *

  Jo should have known the DCI would be listening in. He shook his head several times in a way that reminded Jo of her nephew Will, when he’d been three years old in his high-chair, refusing mashed cauliflower, even though she’d pretended it was a train and his mouth was a tunnel, complete with chugging sound effects.

  ‘No, no, no. How many times? This is not about Nicholas Cranleigh.’

  ‘Sir, we can’t ignore it. We need to talk to him again.’

  ‘Absolutely no chance,’ said Stratton. ‘On the back of what? The word of a desperate drug dealer? He’ll say anything to get out of this fix. And Ripley’s a canny piece of work too. They’re leading you around by the nose. The depressing thing is, you’re letting it happen.’

  Jo looked at Pryce, and for once, he didn’t seem to know what to say. He was probably beginning to regret supporting her before.

  ‘I’m trying to be open-minded, sir,’ said Jo. ‘But that means exploring all possibilities. One of which is that Cranleigh might have done something to his step-daughter. Tried to silence her. She was being followed before she disappeared.’

  Stratton looked heavenward. ‘And pray, remind me, where did that piece of information come from?’ Jo sighed. ‘Oh, that’s right! Ross Catskill.’ He softened his stance. ‘Jo, please. Don’t make this decision for me. I want you to do a good job. For your sake.’ He let the threat hang. ‘Keep Cranleigh out of it. Focus on what we actually know. We’ve got this guy. Let’s use him wisely.’

  ‘Sir.’ Jo turned and strode away.

  In the toilets, she splashed water in her face. She knew she was close to the edge, dog-tired and maybe not thinking straight, but still …

  She considered, for a mad moment, directly contravening Stratton’s orders. What would he do? Drag her out of the interview room and suspend her on the spot? Maybe. She might be able to lay a few home truths at his door, but the satisfaction would be short-lived before the reality of professional suicide hit.

  There was a soft knock at the door, and Pryce spoke through it. ‘You all right, Jo?’

  She thought it was the first time he’d called her by her first name, instead of ‘ma’am’. It sounded strange in his mouth.

  ‘Just give me a minute,’ she replied.

  With more water cupped in her hand, she washed off the remains of the mascara, and all her other make-up. Having done so, her real face exposed, she actually felt better. She didn’t need war-paint to do her job, and getting hyped up wouldn’t help. She remembered what Ferman had said the night before. Solve the case. Prove yourself. She dried her face with a paper towel, and smiled at her reflection. They’d brought in about four kilos of cocaine from Lounge Bar, and hopefully taken one of the city’s major suppliers off the street. Not bad for an evening’s work.

  ‘Glass half full, Josephine,’ she muttered. ‘Glass half full.’

  * * *

  ‘Okay. Let’s talk about Natalie Palmer.’

  ‘I don’t know who that is,’ said Catskill.

  ‘Take a minute to think.’

  ‘Detectives,’ said Ripley. ‘My client has been as helpful as he can be in relation to the findings at Lounge. And indeed to Malin Sigurdsson. Throwing out random names is wasting everyone’s time.’

  Jo opened the file in front of her, showing the close-up photo of Natalie’s frozen face, and turned it around. ‘Jesus!’ said Catskill. ‘Why are you showing me that?’

  ‘To jog your memory maybe,’ said Jo. She revealed the second photo, one taken from Susan Palmer’s house, with Natalie beaming.

  ‘I’ve never seen that woman before,’ he said.

  ‘We think you supplied drugs to her mum through Qadir Suleiman,’ said Jo. ‘We think she was killed because her mum owed money.’

  ‘Look, I don’t tell Suleiman or anyone else how to run his business. I swear I’ve never seen that woman before.’

  ‘And let me guess, you don’t know Alex Maynard?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Detectives, please …’ said Ripley. ‘This is getting silly.’

  Jo showed him a picture of Maynard.

  ‘To be honest,’ said Catskill, ‘I’m glad I don’t know him.’

  Jo knew instinctively he wasn’t lying. The suave and confident playboy they’d first met in Jukebox had gradually been stripped back to this. A slightly smelly, desperate man looking to save his family and freedom. He almost certainly didn’t drive a white van, and the idea of him actually getting his hands dirty at all was almost unthinkable. The only people drug dealers cared about were those directly above them, and those directly below by one remove. Those they owed, and those who owed them.

  She suspected Stratton, for all his infuriating condescension, knew it too. Trying to tie their open cases through Ross Catskill wasn’t getting them any closer to solving either. Drug connections were an invisible web that could link countless people in the city, so maybe it wasn’t such a big surprise that one character had a peripheral connection to Malin and Natalie, even though they were coming from two such different places in life.

  ‘I’ve told you everything,’ said Catskill. ‘I really don’t know anything about Malin or the other girl.’

  Jo stood up, gathering her things. ‘That’s a real shame,’ she said, ‘because it means I can’t help you at all.’

  Chapter 16

  It was almost half past three in the morning when she let herself into the flat. Lucas was a heavy sleeper, but she crept in quietly anyway, taking a fresh set of clothes from the wardrobe, and her make-up bag from the dressing table. She had a quick shower, but managed to drop the shampoo, which clattered into the tray with an astonishing bang.

  Fuck.

  She climbed out. Hopefully he hadn’t stirred. She was drying herself when the door opened, and Lucas walked through, squinting into the harsh light. He pulled up the toilet seat and started pissing.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked, bleary-eyed.

  ‘Late,’ said Jo.

  He registered her clothing hanging from the drying rail.

  ‘Are you heading back out?’

  ‘Working a case,’ she said.

  He finished, and went to the sink. ‘Have you slept?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  As he was drying his hands, he said, ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘Really? Not coming over the other night, being weird at lunch. Running off again. It’s like you’re avoiding me.’

  ‘I can’t just drop everything. My job’s more important than a lunch.’

  ‘Hey, I know that. But I don’t think this is just your job.’

  She felt silly being naked while she argued, so put on her bra even though she was still a bit damp. She continued to dress, with him standing there. As she reached for her trousers, he put his hand on them.

  ‘Talk to me, for God’s sake.’

  She snatched the trousers away. ‘Fine. I came to the college, Lucas,’ she said. ‘Two days ago, when we had the leak. Spoke to Bob. He didn’t seem to think you’d been there that morning.’

  ‘You were checking up on me?’ he said.

  ‘I was trying to find you,’ she said.

  She could barely read his face in the half light. He’d been caught lying, and he wasn’t coming up with any excuses. With each second that passed, she felt more detached from the scene unfolding as she shrank into her shell. Self-preservation, Josephine.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said.

  ‘Isn’t it? I deal with liars every day. Everyone has their reasons. What’s yours?’

  When he didn’t answer, she left the bathroom. She’d not been planning to walk out, but she found herself grabbing an overnight bag. Stuffing clothe
s in. Focus, Jo. Be dignified.

  Lucas entered the room.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  He came to her, and moved the bag aside. ‘Jo, listen, I’m sorry – I shouldn’t have lied, but let me explain.’

  ‘Just leave me alone,’ she said.

  A fleeting expression she’d never seen before crossed his features. ‘At least hear me out.’

  ‘I’ve really got to get to work,’ she said.

  ‘I wasn’t at the college, you’re right. I was at the travel agent’s.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The specialist winter sports place, out in Summertown. I’ve used them before.’ She let him continue. ‘I know you’ve been wanting to go away, and well, you said you hadn’t skied before. I wanted somewhere we could go together. And something flexible, because well … your job. I talked to Heidi …’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Sure. I wanted it to be a surprise. And I needed an idea of what time off you could get … I didn’t want to go to your boss, but I thought Heidi might be able to help me organise things. I guess I should have said rather than trying to do it behind your back. I’m sorry.’

  Jo groaned inwardly. So that’s what Heidi had been saying, the other day.

  … you’ve fallen on your feet with that guy …

  He looked so contrite she felt even more stupid and unreasonable than before. ‘You were booking a holiday?’

  ‘Trying. Then all this missing girl stuff kicked off.’

  She stared at the bag on the bed, wishing she could crawl inside.

  ‘Jo, what’s going on? I mean – and don’t take this the wrong way – it’s a bit paranoid.’

  ‘Comes with the job,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who should say sorry. Can we just forget it?’

  ‘Of course.’ He tossed the bag off the bed, and put his arm around her. ‘Maybe actually getting some sleep would help?’

  She smiled coyly. ‘Maybe.’

  With the light off again, she undressed once more, and lay on her side with Lucas’s body pressed up against hers, his breathing quickly settling into a slow rhythm. For some reason, she felt more awake than ever, with the same questions on a loop in her head. How could she have got it so wrong and misjudged him so harshly? Her history with Ben was one thing, and on the surface it went some way to excusing her trust issues, but that wasn’t the thing that really ate away at her. It was the speed and ease with which she’d leapt to her conclusions. She’d gone from thinking everything was fine to full throttle paranoia on the basis of almost nothing. That didn’t speak to someone in control.