The Murder Bag

by Tony Parsons

  But Guy Philips wasn’t looking at Mrs Jones. He was looking at Rosalita.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘it’s the same housekeeper. She’s aged a bit.’

  The minister was talking: ‘Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.’

  When the coffin had slid into the flames and the curtains had primly swished across the mouth of the furnace, I stood up.

  ‘Are you off?’ Philips said. ‘Very pleasant talking to you, constable.’

  ‘We haven’t talked yet, Piggy,’ I said.

  As I walked down the aisle to the front the few mourners coming in the opposite direction eased out of my path with the instinctive cringe of people who are used to getting out of the way.

  I found Mrs Jones contemplating the empty spaces.

  ‘We should have waited before starting the service,’ she said. ‘More people might have come.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Rosalita said. ‘We had our time slot, ma’am. Forty-five minutes, ma’am. We had to begin, didn’t we?’

  Mrs Jones smiled weakly when she saw me. ‘You came,’ she said. ‘How thoughtful.’ She took my hands. ‘I enjoyed our talk.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you again,’ I said. ‘About the old days. When Adam was a boy.’

  She was suddenly distressed. ‘It’s all so long ago,’ she said, pulling her hands away, turning to the woman by her side. ‘I don’t remember. Rosalita, tell him, will you?’

  Rosalita put her arm around Mrs Jones, and glared at me.

  ‘You upset her now.’

  ‘I just don’t remember,’ Mrs Jones said.

  ‘Of course not, ma’am, why should you?’ Rosalita said. ‘That’s all right.’

  They disappeared into a side room to collect the sad little pot containing the final remains of Adam Jones. I looked back for Guy Philips, but he had gone. Everyone had gone. I sat in the front row for a long time, feeling my face burning with the heat of the flames.

  The crematorium’s car park was almost empty by the time I drove away. But at the end of a quiet green lane I saw Rosalita waiting at a bus stop.

  I stopped, rolled down my window.

  ‘I remember,’ she said.

  I took her to a small café in Golders Green and bought her tea. She said she had to send a text message.

  ‘My son,’ she explained. ‘He pick me up.’

  I sipped a triple espresso as she typed and sent it. Then I watched her staring at her tea. I thought she was already regretting speaking to me.

  ‘What do you remember, Rosalita?’

  She nodded, relieved to begin.

  ‘Adam’s friends. The brothers. The Indian one. I remember all of them. And the one who died. And the one who was there today. I saw him. A man now. I saw him sitting at the back with you. And I remember.’

  ‘But what do you remember?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘They would come in the summer. The boys. All the boys would come. When Mr and Mrs Jones were away.’

  ‘When Adam’s parents were on holiday, his friends would come? They stayed at the house when his parents were away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  Silence. Then she shook her head.

  ‘They were not good boys.’ How old was she? Mid forties. Two decades ago she would have been in her twenties. Two decades ago she would have been young herself.

  ‘Adam was a good boy. When he was little. A sweet boy. But he was not good when he was with them.’

  ‘What happened? Did something happen?’

  She stared at her tea.

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  ‘Did they – did they do something to you?’

  She looked up as a young man walked into the café. Early twenties, the blue overalls of a garage mechanic. He spoke to his mother in Tagalog.

  ‘We don’t want no trouble,’ he said, taking his mother’s arm, lifting her from her seat.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Where are you going? What’s wrong?’

  ‘We don’t want to talk to the police,’ he said. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’

  ‘What are you worried about?’ I said to him. ‘You don’t have anything to worry about.’

  But they were not listening to me now. They were arguing in their own language. Rosalita’s son still had her by the arm.

  ‘Are you worried about your visa status?’ I tried. ‘You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t care about that stuff. I can help you with all that.’

  But they were leaving.

  ‘Rosalita,’ I said, ‘what happened at that school?’

  She turned at the door of the small café.

  ‘It all went to hell,’ she said.

  12

  PC BILLY GREENE lifted the twelve-ounce gloves in front of his face and marched slowly across the ring in a totally straight line. Fred was waiting for him. My heart sank as I watched from ringside.

  It was the Charge of the Light Brigade in there.

  Fred stuck out a jab and Greene, looking heavier after long days on desk duty, blocked it high on his gloves. There wasn’t much force behind the blow but it was hard enough to slap Greene’s gloves back against his face.

  Above the gloves and inside the thick leather headguard, I saw Greene’s eyes blink with surprise, the bridge of his nose grazed red. Fred danced sideways, light and springy as a dancer on the balls of his feet, arms dangling loosely by his side. Greene plodded after him.

  Fred fired a flurry of jabs. They all detonated harmlessly on Greene’s tight, high guard. Emboldened, he stuck out a shy jab of his own. Fred’s head seemed to whip sideways as if on a string and the punch sailed harmlessly over his shoulder.

  Now Fred was in the corner. He waved Greene forward, grinning, the blue mouthguard showing. Flat-footed, Greene accepted the invitation. He threw another jab. When he wanted to, Fred had a guard as cosy as a nuclear bunker – hands held high and close together, elbows tucked into his ribcage, chin down. He bounced against the ropes, inviting Greene to hit him. And he did. Jab. Hook. Jab. All of it unanswered by Fred.

  Greene’s confidence visibly rose.

  He unloaded a right, as slow as a fat man leaving a buffet. Fred slipped the punch and, more from instinct than malice, dug a short left hook into Greene’s ribcage. The air came out of him with a whoosh and he sank to one knee, his head hanging down, his elbow tucked into his side, as if trying to understand the source of this sudden and terrible pain.

  Fred was immediately kneeling by the bigger man’s side, a protective arm around his shoulder.

  ‘I know I should be able to hit a bit harder,’ Greene said, his face contorted with pain. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not about how hard you can hit,’ Fred said. ‘It’s about how hard you can get hit and then keep going.’

  At this hour the gym was almost empty. They went on the pads, Fred holding up the worn leather mitts for Greene to hit, all the while giving him instructions.

  ‘Get that jab out faster. Don’t let the punch fade away. Harder, faster, sharper. Keep your guard up. You’re so lucky to be training!’

  And behind it all, there was the secret knowledge that boxing gives you. There is good stuff inside you. You are better than you know.

  Outside Fred’s gym, I shuddered in the cold night air, and hunched my shoulders inside my leather jacket. On the far side of Charterhouse Street the men of Smithfield had begun their night’s work, and as they laughed and shouted at each other, their breath came out as steam. Winter was no longer coming. Winter was here. The full yellow moon of October hung low over the dome of St Paul’s. You only see that moon once a year. A hunter’s moon, they call it.

  I turned up my collar and hurried home to take over from Mrs Murphy.

  The next day I left Savile Row in plenty of time to make my two p.m. appointment with the Right Honourable Ben King, MP.

  The address I had was just the other side of Piccadilly on St James’s Street and
it should not have taken me more than a few minutes to get there. But I walked up and down the street staring at windows and doors and the address in my hand, feeling like a fool.

  Because Ben King’s club was behind one of the many unmarked doors on St James’s Street and if you did not know it was there then you were never meant to find it.

  Through one window I glimpsed silver heads, all men, dipped behind newspapers. I took a chance, and this was the place. Inside there was a counter where a uniformed porter took my coat. He had hung it up on what looked like a row of old school pegs before he noticed I was still waiting.

  ‘Anything else, sir?’ he said.

  ‘Ticket?’ I said, already sensing that I had made some stupid mistake.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Don’t I need some sort of ticket for my coat?’

  There was another porter behind the front desk and I saw him smiling to himself. The porter who had hung up my coat grinned with hideous good humour.

  ‘Oh, no tickets in here, sir,’ he said. ‘Your coat is quite safe with us.’

  I was escorted into the dining area with my face burning. It was more like a room in a private house than a restaurant. Solitary diners muttered to themselves behind broadsheets. An elderly man in a three-piece pinstripe suit sipped a glass of red wine. Another dozed peacefully, a bowl of rhubarb and custard cooling before him.

  And Ben King, the youngest man in the room, Member of Parliament for Hillingdon North, was rising with a smile to greet me.

  He was alone at the table but the waiter was clearing away two places. Because of the timing, I had assumed I was going to be offered lunch. Apparently not. The clean-picked bones of a grilled fish were on one plate, a scrap of bloody steak on the other.

  ‘DC Wolfe,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry this was so difficult to schedule. My apologies. Please.’

  We ordered coffee, black for both of us – I couldn’t risk asking for my favourite, a triple espresso, fearing more blank stares followed by suppressed laughter – and King fixed me with a frank but friendly gaze, leaning forward, giving me his full attention.

  ‘My office is here to help your investigation in any way it can,’ he said. ‘As, of course, am I.’

  He had a smooth, clean-cut, untouched version of his brother’s face. He was a reassuring presence. I could understand why someone would vote for him.

  ‘This must be a very traumatic time for you,’ I said, ‘losing two close friends in a short space of time.’

  He smiled sadly. ‘We lost Adam many years ago.’

  There was a pause as the coffee was placed before us.

  ‘I had been dreading that phone call for years – the one telling me he had gone. But Hugo – that was a blow, yes.’

  ‘So you were not in contact with Adam Jones?’

  ‘A few years ago he approached me for money – or rather my office. I didn’t see him.’

  ‘And you didn’t give him any money?’

  ‘I would have given him money for rehabilitation. I would have given him money for treatment. I wasn’t giving him money for heroin. I think he approached a number of old friends. Guy saw him.’

  ‘He told me,’ I said, and the thought rushed in – but you knew that already. ‘It’s a tragedy that he couldn’t get help. What a waste.’

  Ben King looked at me. And I saw that he had a way of looking at someone as if he was suddenly seeing them clearly for the first time. He cocked his head to one side, as if readjusting his gaze, as if I had just said something unique, or momentous, or true. As if I were suddenly a man of substance in his eyes, coming out with things that had never been said before. He looked at me as if I were the last man left alive. That was the way he looked at me. But perhaps all politicians do that.

  ‘That’s three of your old school friends who have died before their time,’ I pointed out.

  He thought about it for a moment.

  ‘You mean James? That was a tragedy. As I get older, I find myself thinking of James constantly.’ For the first time he seemed genuinely moved, the eighteen-year-old suicide somehow a wound that was more raw than the two recent murders. ‘Hugo and Adam,’ he said. ‘Are their deaths connected?’

  ‘That’s our conjecture,’ I said, echoing Mallory. ‘We’re going to be visiting Potter’s Field in due course.’

  He sipped his coffee before speaking again. ‘But why would you go to our old school?’ His voice was calm and quiet.

  ‘It’s just one of the leads we’re pursuing. As far as we know there’s only one thing that links Mr Buck and Mr Jones – the past. Did anything happen during your school days that—’

  ‘Might make someone want to kill them?’ King said. The practised smile drew some of the sting from his words. He was trying not to laugh at me. ‘You’re talking as if their murders were somehow justified, detective.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to give that impression.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ he said, forgiving me. He let his eyes drift away, as if remembering. ‘We were just ordinary boys,’ he said. And then back at me. ‘But if anything occurs, then of course I will immediately get in touch. I want what you want. Could I possibly have your card?’

  I gave it to him, and realised that I was being very politely dismissed. And that there was someone else being brought in to see him. A dishevelled, overweight man blinking with awe behind his greasy specs, some kind of journalist, there for an interview, looking like a tourist. All hot and flustered, as if it had not been easy to find the unmarked door of a gentlemen’s club on St James’s Street. And then I was standing up and shaking Ben King’s hand and thanking him for his time and the coffee.

  I collected my coat from the smirking porters and I was back on St James’s Street before it sank in that the MP for Hillingdon North had scheduled a meeting for every course of his lunch.

  I was dessert.

  ‘That little gang,’ I said back at the incident room. ‘It was all about the King brothers, Ben and Ned. They were the alpha males. Ben looks like the pack leader.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Mallory said.

  ‘The mess he made of his brother’s face. Guy Philips was their pit bull. Salman Khan was their poodle. Hugo Buck was their jock, their star athlete. Adam Jones – I think he just tagged along. Let them run wild at his house when his parents were away. Adam was their mascot. Their lapdog.’

  ‘And what about the one who killed himself? James Sutcliffe.’

  ‘They all seem to love him,’ I said. ‘Died young. Good-looking corpse and all that. I doubt if it was so different when he was alive. And he was the one genuine aristocrat among them. The Honourable James Sutcliffe, younger son of the Earl of Broughton. These boys – these men – they all come from money. Even Adam, with his music scholarship, grew up with money. But Sutcliffe was the only true toff, the only one of them that came from a family where the money had been there for generations. He was their hero.’

  We looked up at the photograph of the seven soldiers, and at the boy dead centre, dark glasses, unsmiling, hair swept back off that high forehead. I pictured him folding his clothes on the beach at Amalfi and walking into the sea.

  ‘If they don’t hate each other,’ I said, ‘then who does?’

  Mallory said, ‘Oh, everyone hates them.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It’s that very British hatred with class resentment at its core. We pity the small boys packed off to their boarding schools where they wet the beds and cry for their mothers but we end up wanting to be them, because they have something that the rest of us will never have.’

  Mallory considered the big screen and the grinning boys in their uniforms.

  ‘It’s more than confidence,’ he continued. ‘It’s more than the sense of entitlement. It’s the total and unequivocal certainty that tomorrow belongs to them.’ He smiled at me. ‘Who wouldn’t want to feel like that?’

  The next day I drove us to Potter’s Field.

  13

  ‘NOW GET
DOWN on the ground,’ Guy Philips said.

  Fifty boys, shivering in their running shorts and vests, stared at their sports master. They grinned foolishly at each other, still hoping that he might be joking. A bitter wind whipped across the school playing fields. Three in the afternoon and it already seemed to be getting dark.

  ‘Now!’ he screamed.

  And they saw he wasn’t joking.

  Slowly they got down on all fours. The rugby pitch had been churned to mud by ten thousand studmarks and their hands and knees made squelching sounds as they tested the ground. Philips walked between them in his pristine white tracksuit, a grin spreading across his red face. He was enjoying himself.

  ‘Not doggy style, toads. On your bellies. On your backs. Roll around in it. That’s good. Now on your back, Knowles. Give it a good old wriggle, Jenkins. Come on, Patel, you big girl, rub it a bit harder than that!’

  Soon their running gear – white shorts and vests trimmed with the purple and green of Potter’s Field – was rank with mud and damp. But Philips left them down there as he strode across to where we were watching.

  ‘A five-miler through the woods and I’ll be with you after a shower,’ he said to Mallory. ‘Should be an hour plus another thirty minutes or so for the retards. That all right?’

  Mallory nodded, and Philips jogged back to his boys. The sports master was in a good mood.

  ‘Get up, get up!’ he barked, as if it had been their idea to roll around in the mud. ‘Now you don’t have to worry about getting your knees dirty, do you?’

  ‘Sir, no, sir,’ they chorused.

  ‘Then let’s get cracking. Across the fields, through the woods to the Old Mill and back in time for evensong.’

  They took off across the playing fields, Philips pristine in his tracksuit among the small muddy figures. By the time they reached the woods he was flanked only by the fastest runners while the bespectacled, the fat and the surly trailed behind.

  We started back to the school.

  Potter’s Field was mostly a great jumble of redbrick Victorian buildings but there were also more modern blocks that were clearly residential, and some more ancient buildings, black and crumbling, that looked like something from the Middle Ages. You blinked your eye and a hundred years went by.