by Mark Roberts
‘Yeah?’ said Harrison.
‘Why are you here?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘DCI Rosen, your boss, is an idiot. That’s why you’re here, taking photographs, when you should be down there analysing the evidence.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Harrison.
‘I’ll show you my warrant card if you show me yours.’
A voice, passing in the middle distance, called, ‘Harrison!’ Harrison turned in its direction. It was Feldman. ‘Boss wants us all together in five!’
‘Who are you?’ Harrison repeated, facing the man once more.
‘Who am I? I’m very angry with Rosen, that’s who I am. See you soon.’
The man turned and walked away. Harrison resisted the urge to call him back and instead watched him as he receded, blending into the milling horde in the busy London street for whom ordinary life rolled on.
Harrison raised his camera to take more shots of the faces in the growing crowd at the SOC tape and, behind the lens, he smiled.
——
THE WATER LAPPED at Rosen’s feet, the points of a crooked letter A etched on his mind’s eye. He glanced over his shoulder to where Bellwood and Corrigan were talking over the map, discussing some permutation or other.
Rosen felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
The display registered an inner London landline number.
‘David Rosen?’
He knew the voice immediately.
‘Father Sebastian. I was just thinking about you.’
‘I’m flattered. And I’m happy to say I can repay the compliment, with sincerity. I’ve been thinking about you, too.’
‘You’re – where are you?’
‘I’m in London today. I’m calling from a phone box. Can I see you sometime?’
‘Yes. Where are you exactly?’
‘Are you busy?’
‘Yes, I am busy but I can—’
‘That sounds like bad news. Is that water I can hear?’
‘Why are you in London, Father?’
‘Something that came out of our little chat. I’ve never been to London before. I’m curious. You know, not to see the sights. I want to go and check something, at the British Library.’
‘What would that be?’ Silence. ‘What are you checking at the British Library?’
‘Books.’
Rosen returned the silent treatment while the water behind him churned.
‘I think, if my research goes well today, I can help you out some more.’
‘Put a place and a time on it, Father.’
‘Charing Cross Station, the concourse, five . . .’
And with that the line went dead.
Bellwood approached him, asking, ‘Who was that?’
‘Father Sebastian. He’s never seen you, has he?’
‘No.’
‘If he’s planning on making a journey back to St Mark’s this afternoon, I want you to tail him. From Charing Cross to Canterbury East, the nearest station; it’s miles away, but it’s the closest to St Mark’s.’
‘Why?’ Bellwood sounded perplexed but, more than this, she looked concerned.
‘There’s a possibility he’s a killer.’
‘A killer or our killer?’
‘I’m not certain yet. He may have killed during his time in Kenya.’ Rosen held up his hands. ‘Get to Charing Cross for five. For now, you stay here, Carol; you’re in charge of the scene. I want you to phone the Kenyan police. Start with Nairobi but work out from there into the south-western regions, north of Lake Victoria. Contact the regional police HQ and ask them about Flint’s involvement in some unsolved killings in the nineties. I don’t know how far you’ll get but do your best. I’m taking Mike Feldman with me to the British Library.’
Rosen walked towards the cordon and, as he did so, he dialled the public phone box that Father Sebastian had just called from. The line was busy. Rosen wondered, Who are you talking to now, Flint?
30
It was Rosen’s first time in the new British Library at St Pancras, and he was immediately struck with the contrast to the old one, which he’d visited twice in his lifetime. As the old British Library was a celebration of the circle, with curve and dome; so the new one was a monument to symmetry, the clean line, the square and the rectangle.
On the way over, Feldman had used his iPhone to check the website of the British Library.
‘There are eleven reading rooms. How are we going to know which one he’s in?’ asked Feldman. ‘I don’t even know what the guy looks like.’
‘Stay here,’ said Rosen, indicating the main entrance. ‘When I find him, I’ll take a picture of his face on my phone. I’ll send it to your phone. If he leaves here, you’re to follow him.’
‘How do we know he’s here yet?’
‘We don’t. We only have his say-so.’
‘What’s he done, boss?’
‘He’s turned up at the wrong place and the wrong time: London on the morning of a body drop-off. Between you and me, Mike, he’s starting to make my skin crawl. While you’re waiting here, two things to do. Ask to see the head of security; we need all their CCTV from now: entrances, exits, all their interior stuff. Also, check the locale of this public phone box.’ He showed Feldman the number on his phone.
‘Excuse me.’ A tall, unsmiling librarian said, ‘Put your phones away, please; turn them off and put them away.’
Rosen flashed his warrant card.
‘Oh! It’s not a terrorist threat, is it? I mean, the books, we have some very old books and manuscripts; the Sir John Ritblat Gallery—’
‘Please assist my colleague DC Mike Feldman in every way you can. We’ll alert your security that we’re here. Otherwise, please keep your mouth closed about our presence here today.’
Stacked high with books and teeming with life, the first reading room that Rosen entered surprised him. He’d half expected something scholarly and churchlike. It was more like an elegant shopping mall with only one main product for consumers: the printed word.
As Rosen wandered past the wide oak and green-leather-topped tables, he felt the weight of his phone in his pocket, knowing he’d have to call in support, knowing that he should phone Sarah, but also that he must focus on locating Father Sebastian. He felt the sting of conflicted priorities.
Am I going to be a father? he thought, for the first time since leaving the GP’s surgery. Am I going to be a father? Again?
The sheer scale and number of books available was intimidating, and he mourned those autumns spent picking hops when he could have been reading. If all went well, education was going to be the number one priority for their child.
Uncertain that he hadn’t missed Flint in the first reading room, Rosen made his way into the second; and knew he’d have to call for that back-up sooner rather than later.
He stopped behind a young woman logging on to the internet on her laptop. If I bring people in, how will they know what Flint looks like? I’m the only one who does, he thought. If I can’t find him, how will they know?
‘Excuse me,’ said Rosen to the young woman. ‘Can I check something on Google Images?’ It’s a long, long shot.
‘Well, I was just—’
Rosen showed his warrant card. ‘It’s important.’
She stood up and Rosen thanked her as he sat at her place. He typed ‘Father Sebastian’ into the Google search engine and clicked on Images. There were hundreds of thousands of results but, as he scrolled desperately through the first ten pages, absolutely nothing like the man he was after. All kinds of fathers, all kinds of people called Sebastian and so many Flints, but not the one combination of the three that Rosen needed.
‘I’m sorry to have—’ Rosen looked up at the young woman, who made a bad job of looking uninterested, glancing away to the other side of the room.
Blind! Rosen accused himself, silently. Blind! Blind! Blind!
Five rows of desks away, with his back turned to Rosen, a lean, dark-hair
ed man sat alone, reading. Rosen went back in his mind to the first time he’d seen Flint, his sweat-stained back, his worn running shirt riddled with holes. He couldn’t be certain it was Flint, but from behind it looked a whole lot like him.
Rosen got up and picked out a stack of book-laden shelves a metre ahead of the mark, from which he could get a clear view of the man’s face. Casually, he walked to the widest point in the space between reading desks and stacks. He waited and, as a lone and obese man passed him, Rosen slipped into the man’s wake, his bulk shielding Rosen as he passed the dark-haired man. He reached the stack and turned the corner, facing the spines of books.
Father Sebastian sat alone with a small heap of books in front of him, the reading light turned on because of the dull morning, dressed in a smart black suit and a black overcoat, an inverse image of the shabby priest Rosen had encountered on their meeting at St Mark’s.
Rosen took a picture and another and another and, of the three, one was a clear shot of Flint’s face.
He concealed himself behind the stack and quietly called Feldman.
Rosen told him to expect a photo, along with a description and the location where the priest was sitting.
‘He doesn’t know what you look like, Mike, so you’re to tail him and get photographs, particularly of anyone he speaks to or of anyone who sits next to him or near him.’
Rosen sent the photo of Flint to Feldman and then to Carol Bellwood. He followed the photo with a call to Bellwood.
‘Carol, send Dave Gold to the British Library immediately to cover Feldman at the entrance. Send Dave this image of Flint. Mike’s tailing Flint. I want Dave here as back-up. I’m coming back to Albert Bridge Road, but I’ve got to go somewhere else en route.’
‘Where to, David?’
‘I’m going to Brantwood Avenue, to speak to Phillip Caton. Have you called the Kenyan police yet?’
‘Yes. Nairobi gave me a number for the police HQ in a town called Eldoret. I’m going to call Eldoret next, see what comes up.’
‘Thanks, Carol.’
——
IN THE SPACE of twenty-five minutes, Gold arrived to cover the front of the building and Feldman came to the reading room to relieve Rosen. During that time Father Sebastian sat at the table, his only movement that of his eyes as he read and his hands turning pages, but nothing more.
While Rosen watched him, Flint’s stillness was so complete that there were times when he wondered whether he had fallen asleep as he studied the book in front of him. And then slowly he’d move his hands and his eyes a little, subtle motions that filled Rosen with such an inexplicable nausea that a primal part of himself wanted to find the nearest blunt object and bury it in Flint’s skull.
He thought about Phillip Caton and how he was feeling at that moment. But the image at the core of Rosen’s brain was that of Father Sebastian, his eyes raking the text and his hands manipulating pages, otherwise a waxwork dummy in a fancy library.
31
On the surface, everything appeared to be back to normal in Brantwood Road. But as Rosen walked down the path, images invaded his mind of Julia Caton, beached in the mud on the banks of the Thames, her baby ripped out and replaced with a stone – the sudden reversals of the natural order. He could not help but think of his wife Sarah, her womb, dismissed by experts as too damaged by her one full-term pregnancy, suddenly blossoming with their child. It was almost too much to fathom.
As he pressed the bell, he tried to replace the image of Julia with the thought of Father Sebastian in his monastic cell, sweating; in the monastery kitchen, in awe of the wonders of the internet; in the British Library, wrapped up in study.
The door of number 22 opened slowly.
A middle-aged woman stood there, a version of what Julia should one day have been. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector David Rosen.’
‘Yes, I know, Victim Liaison have already been here. You’ve found my daughter’s body.’ She shut her eyes tightly, as if trying to block out the world, and hung on to the door frame with the fingers of one hand, her knuckles white. To Rosen’s eyes, it looked as if the door was all that stood between her and total collapse.
‘Yes.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘I’ve come to offer my condolences.’
‘Come inside then.’
On the arm of the sofa in the front room, a tall bald man – Julia’s father Rosen supposed – sat slumped forward, head down, staring at a picture in his hand. He wasn’t crying but he looked as if he’d only just stopped, after hours and hours of weeping, his face scarlet, his nose shining and wet.
‘Dan, this is David Rosen, he’s a police officer.’
Rosen was grateful that no one invited him to sit down. He wondered where Phillip Caton was.
‘Was she wearing any clothes?’ asked Julia’s dad, abruptly.
‘No.’
‘Is it the same as the other women?’
‘I’m afraid so, yes.’
Her father held his hand out to Rosen and said, ‘Here.’
Rosen took the picture from him. It was a scan photograph of Julia’s baby.
‘Our first grandchild.’
‘And our last,’ added Julia’s mother. ‘She was an only child, Julia.’
As Rosen looked at the photo, he felt the return of the old weight of his own grief over Hannah. He remembered the compulsion to scream and never stop. And he recognized the hollowness in the eyes of Julia’s mother and father. He handed the photograph back to Julia’s mother.
‘Are you any closer to catching him?’ asked her father.
‘There have been some significant developments—’
‘Yes, but are you any closer to catching this . . . thing?’
‘We know more than we did four days ago. We have forensic evidence. We have a clearer understanding of the killer’s modus operandi. Things are moving forward.’
‘But do you know who did it?’ In a nanosecond, Julia Caton’s father shifted from first to fourth gear, his voice rising in anger. ‘And are you in the process of arresting and charging the fucking bastard?’
‘OK, Dan, please don’t shout—’
‘No,’ said Rosen. ‘We aren’t.’
A silence, dense and ugly.
Julia’s father stood up and looked directly at Rosen. As quickly as his anger had gained momentum and volume, it diminished into a chilling softness.
‘Then what is the point of you? Get out, just get out.’
At the front door, Rosen turned and faced Julia’s mother in the hallway.
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Rosen. ‘We’re doing all we can.’
Julia’s mother said nothing.
‘You have the details for Victim Liaison?’
‘We don’t want them, thank you.’
‘If there’s anything we can do . . .’
‘Catch the person who’s done this to her, to us.’
‘Is Phillip around?’
‘He’s upstairs.’
‘Can I talk to him?’
‘He’s asleep, and I don’t want to wake him up. Don’t worry, Mr Rosen, as soon as he’s awake and in a position to understand, we’ll tell him the news.’
‘I’m deeply sorry.’
She looked as if she was searching for the right words. Rosen stayed where he was, waiting.
‘One second, I wish I was blind and deaf,’ she said, ‘so that I couldn’t see or hear any of this. But then, the next second, I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up again. I want that to happen so badly. I don’t think you will ever understand what it’s like to be in my shoes.’
Rosen nodded and dropped his eyes. There was simply nothing he could say, though he wished there were.
As she opened the front door to let him out, Rosen’s eyes fixed on a patch of darkness on the hall carpet, just beneath the wedding photo of Phillip and Julia. It was the scan photograph of their baby that must have fallen from his grandmother’s hand.
Rosen stooped, picked it up and handed it to Julia’s mother.
She looked at the image and turned her eyes on Rosen.
‘I guess that’s the end of us, then.’
As soon as he stepped outside the house, Rosen heard the door closing behind him. As he paused at the gate of 22 Brantwood Road, he noticed a small tag of blue and white scene-of-crime tape, a fragment of the recent police presence. Although Julia’s home was no longer a crime scene under investigation, for those left behind it would always be a place of tragedy – where something unbearable had happened, something they must always endure.
He got into his car, but didn’t drive away immediately. Instead, he did the thing he’d been aching to do all day. He called Sarah on his phone.
‘Hi, David?’
‘Sarah, where are you?’
‘I’m in school.’ He was pleased. It was a safe place to be. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’ve just been to visit Julia Caton’s parents.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Are you all right, Sarah?’
‘I’m not all right. I’m amazed, I’m overjoyed, and I’m frantic with worry. You?’
‘All of those things.’
‘Will you be able to make it this afternoon for the ultrasound?’
Her words seemed to stream around his head.
‘David, are you still there?’
‘Yes, I am, I’m here.’
‘Will you make the scan this afternoon?’
‘Yes,’ he said, with a certainty he didn’t feel. His copper’s instinct told him something foul lay close by, something he could not ignore. ‘I love you,’ he said, guilt making his entire scalp crawl.
In the background, a bell rang harshly and Sarah said, ‘I’ll meet you in reception, St Thomas’s, at three. Got to go!’
And with that she was gone.
