by Marjorie Orr
Why was she so scared for him this time? Erica’s death forcing her to face mortality? No, she’d been worried about him before that. She reached back to pull a book off the shelf beside her desk and flipped it open. Pages and pages of numbers and symbols like a railway timetable. Two months to a page. She found March/April and ran her finger across.
Merde, that’s why. There were violently explosive aspects between Mars, Uranus and Pluto moving towards a peak in two weeks’ time. They came round once in a while, but were worse than usual this year. For people living normal lives that would mean bad temper and minor accidents. But out in the world there would be major atrocities, disasters and plane crashes. Even more than the usual churning chaos that he was perpetually drawn to.
Her hand hovered over the desk drawer, where she kept a folder of personal charts. She stopped herself. Why bother? His astrology wouldn’t tell her if he was going to die, just whether he would be in danger and that was a given.
By 8 am she was showered, dithered about what was suitable wear for a police interview and settled for a white T-shirt under a tailored pinstripe jacket with jeans and ankle boots. Her hair was cut short for easy management and blew dry in a few minutes, after which she ran her fingers through it. Make-up was also a minimum exercise with a dash of creme foundation and mascara; lipstick could wait till she was ready to go out.
She prowled. Christ, she hated being depressed. Work was her defence against falling into black holes. But there was nothing she wanted to tackle despite the pressure of an approaching deadline. If necessary, a couple of overnight stints when her brain had steadied would see the Sanchez book finished.
Her boot stubbed against a heavy cardboard box full of papers, financial data, court transcripts and press cuttings: background for a possible exposé of a pharmaceutical company. Maybe she could start on that? She bent down and picked it up, her jacket straining at the shoulders. Not a hope. It was a boring weekend’s speed-read. She took three steps, then dropped it beside her desk and turned to head kitchen-wards for more coffee.
As she reached the door, a thud followed by a clattering slide made her spin to see the surface of her office desk cantilevering upwards. The box, having landed awkwardly on one corner, then righted itself to push into the end T-support. A fast dash grabbed her laptop before it concussed itself on the floor, as she muttered curses about the removers who had lost the bolts that fixed the desktop to its moorings. Force of gravity had kept the sturdy laminate surface in place for four years. But one-legged it stood no chance.
A laugh forced itself upwards as she surveyed books, papers, pens and ashtray deposited on the floor, festooned over boxes and a filing cabinet. Sod’s law. Days that started badly usually got worse.
A knock on the front door followed by a voice made her jump. Neighbours, no doubt. She opened it, still clutching her laptop, to find Herk, toolbox in hand.
‘Was next door. Heard a bang. You OK?’ He rubbed a thumb up his nose leaving a smear of dust, his blue eyes red-rimmed and puffy.
‘Just the man I need,’ she said, waving him in. ‘Minor mishap. A meteor demolished my desk and it’s too heavy for me to lift back into place.’
‘That right?’ he said, standing at the office door, clicking his tongue. ‘In the window and back out without leaving a trace. Your lucky day. Apart from…’ He pointed a stubby finger at the pile-up in the corner and sniffed. ‘Nothing to do with that box having fallen over, I s’pose, or the fact that the table was assembled by a gorilla.’
‘Removers.’
‘Nuff said.’ His lips pursed in a soundless whistle. ‘Don’t suppose I could blag a tea?’
In the kitchen she laid down her laptop out of harm’s way and switched on the kettle.
‘Rough night?’ she asked.
‘Too little sleep. Was helping a mate out with a pick-up at Heathrow. His wife is sick so he couldn’t go. Sodding plane was hours late. I didn’t get back from Hampshire till five this morning.’
She stirred his mug with the teabag vigorously, assuming he liked it brewed black, switching on the Nespresso machine with her other hand to fill her own mug.
‘Stars must be out of sorts then, today.’ His deadpan tone managed to blur the line between question and statement.
Her hackles rose. ‘You’ve been grubbing round in my office?’
‘Keep your shirt on. I threw out the recycling yesterday and there was a paper on top that had zodiac whatsits. It was labelled Iraq, which is what caught my eye. I didn’t know you could do astrology on countries.’
This wasn’t a conversation she wanted, which must have registered on her face, since he started to move towards the door. She put a hand up. The table needed to be put back together.
‘Sorry, sorry. No big deal. I just kind of like to keep my interest secret.’
He resumed his position leaning against the counter, blowing ripples across the surface of his tea. ‘Why is that, then? You believe it, you should stick up for it.’
‘Long story,’ she said with a rueful grin, stretching out a foot to tap on the cooker. ‘But you’re right. Shitty day.’
There was silence. ‘Tricky chat with my boyfriend,’ she said, examining her boot. Might as well let him know she was spoken for. ‘And I have to give a police statement later about a friend.’ Her shoulders pulled back. ‘Killed in a hit and run two nights ago.’
‘You were there?’
‘No, no. Gawd, no.’ A tremor went down her spine, causing her arms to twitch and the coffee mug to lurch. She put it down. ‘I was with her at the theatre just before and she shouldn’t have been there – where she was killed, I mean. She said she was going straight home.’ Why was she telling him this? A complete stranger.
On second thoughts, maybe a practice run wasn’t a bad idea so she wouldn’t disgrace herself at the police station by bursting into tears.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he said, swilling down the rest of his tea.
‘I’m going to get the bastard who did it.’ She thumped the counter top with a closed fist and banged the tile floor with her heel.
‘Calm down, now.’ He walked past her and filled himself another mug. ‘You can’t charge into the police and tell them you’re going to do their job. Best get it out of your system before you go.’
Taking a deep breath, she said: ‘Erica was… a criminal barrister.’ He rolled his eyes and nodded his head. ‘There were always running threats. Domestic violence, child abuse, human rights cases. She never mentioned specifics.’
‘And you think it might have been one of them? Where was the accident?’
‘Hammersmith, by the river. I went to see it yesterday.’ The bloody wall imprinted itself on the cabinet door opposite, shimmering like a laser image.
‘I thought you looked as if you’d seen a ghost when you came back.’ He slurped his tea noisily and scuffed his desert boot along a grout.
She continued in a rush, her panic rising, ‘And she might have been raped. There was a news photographer there who…’
‘C’mon, c’mon. You don’t want to believe everything that lot say. They just like frightening people. Wait to see what the facts are.’ For a moment his calmness disarmed her and she almost believed him.
CHAPTER 6
An hour later she was sitting in the hinterland of Hammersmith police station, corridors away from the classy Grade II-listed façade, in a bare, grey-walled room. Facing her across the desk was Sergeant Joe Roberts, her comforter of the day before. A young female constable, with an urchin cut so severe it was close-shaved, stood by the door. Without his visibility jacket, Roberts looked slighter than she expected. He offered his condolences again, but his crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt, black tie and formal manner suggested a short, sharp interview and out. Prising information out of him would not be easy.
After she’d given a brief statement, she asked if he had spoken to Sebastian Crumley, Erica’s boyfriend. He looked surprised and said: ‘Not personally. An
other officer did, but he’s got nothing to do with the accident. He was working overnight, as I understand it, with an important client.’
‘Are you following up threats made against Erica because of her work?’
He shook his head and gave a bland smile. ‘Not our department. That’s another division. We just chase up immediate witnesses and try to trace the vehicle involved and, where necessary, hand it over.’
‘And how many hit and runs do you solve every year?’
His mouth tightened and his moustache splayed out as he puffed out his cheeks. ‘As many as we can,’ he said firmly.
Bad tactic getting him on the defensive.
‘But,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t like to get your hopes up.’
‘Her mobile phone?’
After a hesitation, he said: ’No help there, I’m afraid. No calls on it that night.’
She lowered her eyes, half-turning her body towards the female constable. ‘You won’t know whether she was raped yet?’
‘We won’t know that for several days,’ he said in an even tone. ‘Once we have any information that can be divulged, Mary will be in touch.’ He nodded towards the door and stood up. Interview over. His parting words were kindly meant, but conveyed a resigned acceptance that progress was likely to be slow. More likely non-existent, she thought.
At the front entrance, Tire turned to the young woman who was escorting her and said urgently: ‘What do you think are the chances of finding the sod who did this?’
A quick glance over her shoulder to check no one was watching them, and the young constable leant forward with an embarrassed shrug and whispered: ‘Not great to be honest. There’s no CCTV down there. The vehicle will have been cleaned and repaired by this time. Unless the autopsy turns up anything.’ She sighed. ‘My cousin was raped two years back, got the full evidence kit and they still don’t know who did it.’
By the time she had walked down Shepherd’s Bush Road past the green, its trees and grass dusted brown with pollution from a trillion exhausts, Tire’s conviction was growing that the police investigation was going to run into a dead end. They hadn’t the resources and their will had been sapped by hundreds of similar cases that had never been closed. If they did stretch themselves to dig into Erica’s cases, they’d meet a stonewall of polite disdain from her legal colleagues. Client confidentiality first, justice and truth poor seconds in their game.
Erica was her friend and she wasn’t going to let her death hang like a plaintive ghost begging for an audience. She had the will in spades, wasn’t limited by police regulations and could wheedle answers out of the antichrist, as Jin had once joked. She’d find the evidence and the authorities would have to follow up. Time was a problem since her schedule was packed. But there were twenty-four hours in the day and seven days in the week; she’d manage somehow. She always did.
The vast Westfield shopping centre was all echoing marble, chrome and garishly lit plate glass. A temple of commerce filled with wandering souls seeking salvation through the latest iPhones, glitter lipstick and designer handbags. Mercifully it also had a coffee shop with outside tables, which was why she had suggested it as a venue.
Erica’s long-time secretary Susan was sitting huddled at a corner table in a tweed coat, with a plaid scarf bunched round her neck and chin and with a matching wool hat pulled down on her forehead, so only her swollen eyes and red nose were visible. A sodden handkerchief was clutched in one hand.
Ten minutes of commiserations and more tears followed before Tire could get any sense out of her and start asking questions.
‘I’m not allowed to talk about cases,’ she whispered, waving a feeble hand at teenagers chatting four tables away.
‘Listen, Susan.’ Tire pushed sympathy aside and adopted a commanding tone. ‘I intend to find out why Erica was in Hammersmith and who did it, which means you need to tell me about the threats she received. You do want the person responsible caught, don’t you?’
Two more coffees arrived and when Susan was blowing her nose discreetly away from the table, Tire dropped another two sachets of sugar into her cup. Waken her up.
She reached down to find a fresh handkerchief in her bag and emerged with a diary. Once she started talking, it all poured out.
‘To be truthful,’ she said, ‘I’d been thinking the same thing. Though I didn’t know who to tell. I wrote the worst of them down to tell Mr Crumley, though he didn’t seem to be very interested. He was quite snappy with me. Maybe he was distracted because that was later the first day. He looked terrible.’ She sniffed and twisted a ring round her finger nervously.
‘Fire ahead. I’m interested.’
Susan’s secretarial training kicked in and she read off the list with only a few gulps.
‘There was the Pakistani father. Erica rescued his daughter from a forced marriage and found her a new identity. The father harassed Erica for months, trying to find out where their daughter was. The police had to be called eventually.’
Tire lit another cigarette, waving her on when she paused.
‘A lawyer who had escaped from Kubekistan. He was an activist and they wanted him on fraud charges that Erica said were trumped up. She thought their secret police might be here looking for him. That one wasn’t handled in the office. She worked pro bono in the evenings on human rights cases.’
The ‘good die young’ came into Tire’s mind and her attention wandered for a few seconds before she pulled herself back.
‘Then there was the brother of a man who had been killed by his wife. Erica got her off on self-defence. He’d beaten her for years so it was perfectly justified. The poor woman was completely broken down.’ She looked up indignantly.
‘The brother threatened Erica?’
‘Yes, at the end of the trial. Said he’d get her.’ Tire put a firm hand on Susan’s arm when she threatened to dissolve into tears again.
‘Keep going.’
The diary was snapped shut and Susan sat up straighter, attempting to smile. ‘That’s it.’
‘No it isn’t. There was another name at the bottom,’ Tire said, pinning her with a straight look.
Susan shuffled uneasily on her chair, her hands twisting together. Gales of laughter from a faraway table made her flinch. Eventually, she said with a croak in her throat: ‘It was very difficult. Delicate. A girl, a young woman, came to Erica saying she had been abused by her father. He was… is very important. Successful, a public figure.’ Her face sagged, worry lines deepening making her look ten years older, and a blush reddened her cheeks.
‘Erica supported the daughter,’ Tire prompted.
‘Yes. She wasn’t sure at the start, but from what the girl said there was a case against her father. Medical evidence and she had told a teacher at school.’ She lowered her eyes and fiddled with her coffee cup, then looked away across the mall. When she turned back she leant closer. ‘The awful thing was the girl backed out, said it never happened and it left Erica in a terrible position.’
‘She recanted?’ Tire rolled her eyes and shrugged. ‘It happens. She’d get scared.’
‘But by this time the father knew and he was threatening to take legal action against Erica.’
‘Unlikely. It would drag it into the open. No, I take that back. That sort are relentless. When was this?’
The diary opened and Susan bent over it. ‘There was a meeting with his lawyer scheduled for next week.’
Tire sat back, eased a crick from her neck with one hand and took Susan’s diary out of her hand. ‘I need the contact details of all these people. And... ’ she dropped her voice an octave, ‘…no argument. Email them to me from your home PC. Final question. Who was Erica’s lover, the married one?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t know that.’
‘Yes, you would. You were her secretary. He was a lawyer. Spill.’ Tire put an arm round her shoulders and gave a small tug.
‘Justin Burgoyne. At Lowsdon Street Chambers.’
Back at her office, the desk had been reassembled, with, she noted, new brackets underneath holding it together. The spilled contents were neatly piled on top, the ashtray cleaned and cigarette ends swept up off the floor. The day wasn’t turning out so badly after all.
Susan’s list would be a start. Had she been too hard on her? Probably. But she wasn’t a bereavement counsellor. Needs must if the end result was useful information.
With a pang of guilt, she absorbed how risky much of Erica’s work had been, especially the pro bono cases. The version she had shared on their weekly meets over a bottle of wine had been heavily diluted and peppered with jokey comments.
A possible honour killing, a violent thug’s brother, Kubek secret police, child abuse, and those were the only ones Susan had mentioned. There would be more. Drat! She’d forgotten to ask about the Greengate case. That would have to be picked up later.
For now she must push on with the Sanchez book and clear it off her plate. It wasn’t her normal subject, but the publishers had leapt at it. The impulse had come through an encounter with a hitman she had met by chance in an isolated roadside motel in northern Mexico. Her rental car had broken down so she had to kick her heels overnight waiting for a replacement. She had heard groans from the next room and gone to investigate. A badly injured man lay on the bed, blood seeping through makeshift bandages across his chest and on one leg onto the grubby sheets. He shook his head vehemently when she said she’d go for a doctor, and the motel owner refused point blank to help.
His name, he said, was Jesus Ernesto Sanchez, a contract killer for one of the drug cartels. He’d been shot by an undercover US drug team and was wanted by a rival cartel so he couldn’t be seen. The motel owner was a distant cousin but he was terrified of upsetting the local gang by calling in their doctor, the only one in the area. Sanchez knew he was dying and once he’d learned she was a writer said he wanted to tell his story.
For four days she listened with her tape recorder on as he told of a brutal abandoned childhood, living rough on the edges of a rubbish dump in the slums of Mexico City, his initiation into the local gang that gave him an identity and growing status as his tally of kills mounted. She hated what she heard, but wondered how she would have reacted in an environment where only the ruthless survived.
