Dance of Ghosts

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘I saw Bishop on the news,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘I know. Tell me all about it.’

  *

  I told him everything then – from the moment Helen Gerrish had come into my office, to Bishop’s unexpected visit earlier that day … I told Leon everything. He listened in silence, his head bowed down, his eyes closed, not saying a word until I’d finished. And even then, when he slowly looked up at me and opened his eyes, he still didn’t say anything for a while. He just looked at me, deep in thought, digesting everything I’d told him … then he picked up his brandy glass, took another measured sip, licked his lips, put the glass down, and finally – after delicately clearing his throat – he let out a long sigh and began to talk.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to me earlier about this?’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘I didn’t have any evidence … there was no proof –’

  ‘You don’t have any evidence now. All you’ve got is a dead girl, Viner’s DNA, and a bellyful of bad feelings about Bishop.’

  ‘I know Viner didn’t kill Anna,’ I said slowly, looking Leon in the eyes. ‘It’s simply not possible.’

  Leon didn’t say anything for a moment, he just held my gaze, and as he sat there looking at me, I tried to let him see the unspoken question inside my head. Was it you, Leon? Did you send me that message about Viner all those years ago? Do you know what I did to him?

  ‘What we really need to know,’ he said quietly, neither answering nor not answering my unspoken question, ‘is why Bishop is lying to you. That’s the key to it all.’ He opened his laptop and started tapping keys. ‘The trouble is, Bishop’s nowhere near as one-dimensional as he likes people to think. Believe me, I’ve known him a long time, and it’s taken me years and years to realise that, in his own twisted way, he’s a very complicated man.’ Leon looked over the lid of his laptop at me. ‘You probably don’t think he’s particularly intelligent, do you?’

  ‘It depends what you mean by intelligent,’ I said. ‘I doubt if he’d be a stunning success on University Challenge –’

  ‘Exactly,’ Leon said, smiling. ‘But for the last thirty-odd years he has been a stunning success as both a serving police officer and a highly efficient criminal, and that takes some doing.’

  ‘You think he’s a criminal?’

  ‘I know he is.’ Leon glanced at the laptop screen, then back at me. ‘Corruption is a crime, John. It’s not just a breach of trust, a bending of the rules, an abuse of power … it’s a crime. A corrupt police officer is a criminal, it’s as simple as that. And Bishop … well, come over here and look at this, see for yourself.’

  As I got up and went over to his desk, Leon angled the laptop so we could both see the screen. At first, I couldn’t quite make out what I was seeing, but when I looked closer I realised it was a stilled image from a poor-quality video. The resolution was terrible, the definition non-existent, and the colour was more grey-and-grey than black-and-white. But despite all that, I could still just about make out the four figures on the screen: a man tied to a chair, another two men standing behind him, one of them with a baseball bat in his hand, and Bishop …

  I looked at Leon. ‘Is this what I think it is?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s a copy of the CCTV video that your father gave to DCI Curtis, the one that shows Bishop and the others torturing the man in the chair.’

  ‘Shit,’ I said quietly, looking back at the screen.

  ‘You don’t need to see all of it,’ Leon said. ‘And I’m sure you know what happens anyway, but I just wanted to let you see what Bishop is capable of … are you ready?’

  I nodded.

  Leon tapped the keyboard and the video started up. Bishop was standing in front of the man in the chair, and as the video began, I saw him leaning down and yelling violently in the man’s face. There was no sound, so the yelling was silent, but there was no mistaking the fury in his voice. The man in the chair was screwing his eyes shut and stretching his head back in a vain attempt to get away from Bishop, but Bishop just kept on screaming at him. And then, suddenly, he stopped. And with no hesitation at all, he drew back his arm and punched the man viciously in the face. The blow was so hard that the man – still tied to the chair – tumbled sideways to the floor. The two other men immediately picked him up again, and while they were doing that, I saw Bishop lighting a cigarette. He took a few hard puffs on it, said something to the man, now upright in his chair again, and as the man began shaking his head in wild-eyed fear, Bishop calmly stepped forward and speared the burning cigarette into his right eye.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I whispered as Leon stopped the video.

  ‘And that was only the beginning of it,’ he said, pressing more keys.

  ‘He’s a fucking madman.’

  ‘No,’ Leon said. ‘That’s the thing, I don’t think he is … I think he just does whatever he has to do to get what he wants … whatever that may be. But I don’t think he enjoys it. He just does it.’

  ‘Do you think he’s capable of killing someone?’

  ‘Everyone’s capable of killing someone,’ Leon said, and for a fleeting moment I thought I saw a knowing look in his eye. ‘But if you’re asking me whether Bishop could have killed Anna Gerrish …?’ He paused for a few seconds, thinking about it. ‘Well, yes … I’m sure that he could. If he had what he thought was a good enough reason to kill her, he’d do it just like that.’ Leon snapped his fingers. ‘But I can’t see him killing just for the thrill of it … and even if he did, he would have made absolutely sure that no one found out.’ Leon turned his attention back to the laptop screen for a moment, fiddled with the touchpad, then looked up at me. ‘The men who beat you up outside The Wyvern … you said you didn’t get a look at them?’

  I shook my head. ‘It all happened too quickly.’

  ‘But you mentioned that the man who hit you first had rings on his fingers.’

  ‘Yeah …’ I said, my mind suddenly flashing back to that night – leaving The Wyvern, walking down Miller’s Row in the cold night air, the distant doomp-doomp, doomp-doomp from the nightclubs, the drunkenness whirling in my head … and then a voice calling out to me from the shadows of an alley, Got a light, mate?, and almost immediately the heavily-ringed fist hammering into the side of my head …

  ‘Yeah,’ I told Leon. ‘He had rings on his fingers. One of them had a skull on it.’

  Leon angled the laptop towards me. ‘Is that him?’

  The figure on the screen was a close-up still from the video. It was the man with the baseball bat, and Leon had frozen the picture just as he was raising the bat, so not only could I see the man’s hard-bitten face, but also his hands. The picture was blurred and grainy, and it was hard to make out any details … but when I leaned in closer to the screen and squinted at the big silver ring on the man’s right index finger, I knew that I was looking at a skull.

  ‘His face doesn’t mean anything to me,’ I told Leon. ‘But I’m pretty sure that’s him. Who is he?’

  ‘His name’s Les Gillard, he’s been working for Bishop for years.’ Leon nodded at the screen. ‘When that happened he was just a PC, only been on the job a few years.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell. He moved up through the ranks pretty quickly, and for the last ten years or so he’s been making a name for himself in various Special Ops forces – SO12, SO13, 15 … you know, the kind of units who like to keep themselves to themselves. But whatever Gillard is now, I know that Bishop’s still got some kind of hold on him.’ Leon closed the laptop and looked at me. ‘That’s how it works with Bishop. He gets something on you, something he can use against you … and once he’s got it, you’re his for life, whether you like it or not. You’d be amazed at how many people he’s got in his pocket – police officers, criminals, politicians, businessmen … he’s a very powerful, and very dangerous, man.’

  I nodded. ‘So do you think it’s possible …’ I paused as Leon suddenly
closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and groaned. ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, quickly getting to my feet as he doubled over, holding his abdomen. ‘Leon? Leon!’ As I moved round the desk towards him, he painfully straightened up and opened his eyes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘Honestly, I’m all right …’

  ‘You don’t look all right –’

  ‘It was just …’ He looked at me. ‘Please, John … sit down. It’s OK, really. It happens sometimes, that’s all …’ As he reached for the brandy glass and took a drink, I moved back round the desk. He looked up at me again. ‘Will you please sit down, John?’

  I sat.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe I’d better go,’ I suggested.

  ‘In a minute … there’s a few more things I want to go over with you first.’

  ‘I can come back –’

  ‘This name you got from the registration of the Nissan … Kemper, was it?’

  ‘Charles Raymond Kemper.’

  ‘Have you got any further with that?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m seeing Cal again tomorrow, but so far he hasn’t come up with anything.’

  ‘OK … and you haven’t found anything at all that links Bishop with the Nissan or Anna Gerrish?’

  ‘No.’

  He looked at me, his mind seeming to wander for a moment. Then his eyes regained their focus and he said, ‘Do you need any help with the drink-driving charge?’

  I smiled. ‘My solicitor got it thrown out last week. Procedural errors.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You’re tired, Leon,’ I said, getting to my feet again. ‘You need to rest.’

  He nodded. ‘I know, I know … but before you go, John …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leave Bishop to me for now, OK? I’ve still got a lot of close contacts in the job. I’ll make some enquiries, see what I can find out, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. But in the meantime … well, just don’t go fucking around with him, that’s all.’

  ‘OK.’

  He smiled at me, a sad and weary smile that seemed to take an awful lot out of him. ‘And listen,’ he muttered. ‘Listen …’

  His eyes were closing even as he spoke to me.

  I turned quietly and started to leave. But just as I got to the door, I heard him speak to me again.

  ‘You see this picture, John?’ he said.

  I turned round and saw him looking up at a framed photograph on the wall. It was a picture of Leon and my father, taken shortly before Dad died. They were together at a barbecue somewhere – red-faced in the sun, drinks in their hands, both of them smiling broadly at the camera.

  ‘If ever you have any questions, John,’ Leon said, ‘and I’m not here to answer them … just remember that picture.’

  I looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  He smiled again. ‘You’re a detective … you’ll work it out when the time comes.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand –’

  ‘You know, John,’ he said vaguely. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time … something I’ve been thinking about …’

  ‘Leon,’ I said. ‘I really think you should get some rest now –’

  ‘You see, what I can’t understand, what I’ve never been able to figure out …’ He looked at me, his entire body quite still. ‘When your father killed himself in his room … why did he lock the door?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense, does it? If you’re going to kill yourself, why make a point of locking the door first? What purpose does it serve?’

  ‘I don’t know …’ I said, confused. ‘I’ve never really thought about it …’

  He smiled distantly. ‘Perhaps you should.’

  ‘Are you trying to say –?’

  ‘I’m sorry, John,’ he muttered, his eyes beginning to close again. ‘Would you mind asking Claudia to come up here? I think … I think I’m …’ He sighed hard. ‘God, I’m so fucking tired.’

  22

  ‘How long has he got?’ I asked Imogen.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ she sighed. ‘But you know what Dad’s like, he refuses to talk about it.’ We were in her car – a ridiculously expensive black Mercedes – and she was driving me home. ‘He has his good days and bad days,’ she went on. ‘Sometimes he’s OK, other times … well, you saw what he was like tonight.’

  I nodded. ‘Is he at home all the time now?’

  ‘Just about. He struggles into the office every now and then, and he still insists that I keep him up to date with everything that’s going on with the business, but he spends most of his time in his study now.’

  ‘What does he do up there?’

  ‘I’m not sure … he’s got a few things he’s been working on for years – old cases, I think. He’s forever emailing people, speaking to old colleagues …’ She sighed again. ‘He just can’t seem to give it up.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing … at least it’s better than just lying around feeling sorry for yourself.’

  ‘I suppose so …’

  I glanced at her, realising how much she’d changed over the years. She didn’t look all that different to the seventeen-year-old girl I’d once thought I loved – the same shiny black hair, the same graceful features, the same overall air of almost aristocratic elegance. But she’d grown up now. She was a married woman. She ran a business. She was confident, capable … she could deal with the world.

  ‘What?’ she said, smiling as she noticed me looking at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing … I was just …’

  ‘What? Just looking at me?’

  ‘Sorry …’

  She laughed. ‘I’m not complaining.’

  I gazed out of the window for a while, not saying anything. We were driving through the town centre now, and the night was alive with drinkers and clubbers – groups of girls, groups of men … short skirts, drunk eyes, T-shirts, no coats …

  ‘So,’ I said to Imogen. ‘How’s Martin?’

  Martin was her husband, Martin Rand. A financier of some sort, he worked in the City, commuting to London every day. Apart from the fact that he was sickeningly energetic, and grotesquely good-looking, and unbelievably rich, I didn’t really know very much about him.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ Imogen said.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘We split up.’

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded. ‘A couple of months ago … I thought you knew.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘That’s why I’m living at home at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, right … I thought you were just visiting.’

  She looked at me. ‘Are you sure I didn’t tell you? I could have sworn …’

  ‘I would have remembered if you’d told me,’ I said. ‘So what happened …? Or don’t you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s no big deal. It was just … well, lots of things really. We just grew apart, I suppose.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘And, you know … Martin had always wanted us to have kids …’

  ‘And you didn’t?’

  She glanced at me. ‘I wanted a family, yeah … but I wanted to carry on working too.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to stay at home all day, changing nappies and cleaning up sick, while Martin carried on living his life, swanning around all over the world.’

  I nodded, not sure what to say.

  Imogen smiled at me. ‘You never liked Martin, did you?’

  ‘I never really knew him that well.’

  ‘Yeah, but you still didn’t like him.’

  I looked at her. She was smiling at me.

  I said, ‘Are you doing all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, nodding. ‘Yeah, I really am.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘How about you? I mean, apart from all this stuff that’s going on at the moment
. How are you doing?’

  ‘Well, you know …’

  ‘The business OK?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘What about the rest of it?’

  ‘The rest of what?’

  ‘Your life …’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered, inexplicably embarrassed for a moment. ‘I get up in the morning, you know … go to work, come home, do stuff …’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just stuff … the same kind of stuff that everyone else does. Read, watch television, eat, sleep …’

  ‘Are you seeing anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  I sighed.

  Imogen looked at me. ‘Sorry … I didn’t mean to –’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘I’m just … I worry about you, John, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, grinning. ‘But I enjoy it.’

  I smiled at her, and for a moment I was reminded of how close we used to be, and how different things used to be. Back then … it was a ghostless time – the spring before the summer, when the leaves that were falling now had yet to even form.

  I looked out of the car window and saw that we were nearing the turn-off to my street. ‘You’d better drop me off here,’ I said to Imogen.

  ‘Why?’ she said, still smiling. ‘Don’t you want to be seen with me?’

  ‘There were reporters waiting outside my house when I left,’ I explained. ‘And a TV crew too. If they see you with me … well, you know how it works.’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘But it’s 10.30, John –’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot … they all go to bed at ten o’clock, don’t they?’

  She nodded, pulling in at the turning to my street and parking expertly at the side of the road. The engine of the Mercedes purred quietly, and for a second or two we just sat there in the warmth of the car, sharing an intimate silence. ‘I’ve got a hat and scarf in the back of the car,’ Imogen said after a while. ‘It’s not the most subtle disguise in the world, but if you wanted to invite me in for a drink, I could leave the car here …’