Smoke and Whispers

by Mick Herron

  But there was the list of names in his room; there was the Roleseekers e-mail in Zoë’s inbox. It was true Sarah had no proof the two lists were the same, but how many coincidences could one hotel hold?

  I didn’t meet your friend. But that didn’t mean they’d not been in contact.

  She wondered how long it would take Vicky to unearth Zoë’s deleted correspondence.

  She wondered other things too, as she made her way downstairs.

  The woman who’d checked her in was on reception. Sarah still didn’t know her name, and it felt too late to ask. She said something about Barry instead. About how rare it was not to see him here.

  ‘He’ll be in later. Did you want him for something?’

  There might have been, Sarah thought, a touch of a leer in that.

  ‘I’m sure you can manage,’ she said. ‘I’ll be staying another night.’

  There were three others having breakfast, at different tables, so there was no conversation. Sarah ate a croissant, drank a cup of coffee, then another while texting Russ. She’d have called, but it would have felt like public speaking. In the end, the text mostly became a promise to speak to him later: there were too many words, too few abbreviations, for all she needed to tell him.

  If she had to break it down to words of one syllable, though, it would be: I can’t leave yet. That would be to ring down the curtain before the stage business was over. It would mean turning her back on whatever Zoë had been caught up in, and while Zoë might have been elusive when it came to the common currency of friendship – birthday cards, phone calls; casual droppings-in – she’d have been first on the scene when Sarah needed help. It had happened before. Guns had been involved.

  She hoped Russ would understand – she wasn’t sure he had last night, with beer under his belt. And there’d been that moment back home, when he’d worried she’d be drawn into whatever Zoë had been involved in. She’d feigned misunderstanding: what did drawn into mean? But it meant this. This was what it had always meant. That she’d be having breakfast alone in a last-chance hotel; text-ing Russ to tell him she’d not be returning yet.

  There were grounds in the bottom of her coffee cup, but that was okay. That meant it was real. You couldn’t argue with proof like that.

  Sarah put her phone away, returned to her room, and took it out again. The thread she’d started tugging at last night could do with another pull. She made the call quickly, before she could change her mind.

  It took a few minutes to get through.

  ‘Ms Tucker? I thought you’d gone home.’

  ‘I decided to stay on a while, Inspector.’

  ‘So what can I do for you?’

  Encouraging words, delivered in a guarded tone. This wasn’t an offer of help. It was an enquiry as to what she was up to.

  She said, ‘Do you know anything about a family named Gannon?’

  ‘Do I what?’

  ‘A family named Gannon. They run a storage firm, used to be a haulage –’

  ‘Yes, I know what they run.’

  She waited.

  ‘Ms Tucker? What’s this about, exactly?’

  ‘It’s just that I’ve met a man named Jack Gannon, and I . . .’ She paused. I what? ‘I heard he had some dodgy connections.’

  Fairfax said, ‘You’re aware I’m a police officer?’

  ‘That’s why I rang.’

  ‘We get 999 calls from idiots whose TVs aren’t working. I don’t remember being asked to check out a prospective date before.’

  ‘He’s not –’

  ‘You’ve been of assistance, Ms Tucker, but that doesn’t put me at your beck and call. We’ll be in touch if there are developments in, in the other matter. Now excuse me, but I’m busy.’ He disconnected.

  She sat stunned for a moment, and then guilt and shame flushed through her. Did he really think she’d called just to check on a new acquaintance’s standing, criminal or otherwise? That she was some, Christ, some flibbertigibbet who thought she had a hotline to the cops because she’d sat in a police car?

  Blood pounding in her ears, Sarah wanted something to throw. But there was no big outdoors here; she couldn’t storm out and romp across the hillsides, kicking stones. She made do with viciously turning her phone off: one pointy stab of the finger. Then turned it on again, in case anyone called. Then went back up another flight of stairs, to knock on Gerard’s door.

  Which was ajar.

  Someone was moving inside, but she could tell it wasn’t Gerard. No one who’d drunk the quantity Gerard had put away last night would be capable of movement without lumbering. They wouldn’t be humming, either. Sarah pushed the door gently. The humming stopped.

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said.

  A young Indian woman was stripping the bed.

  ‘Ah . . . Did you want me to see to your room?’

  ‘No. No, I was looking for –’

  But it was clear that the man she was looking for was no longer there. Yesterday’s clutter: those nests of charging cables; the briefcase, suitcase, laundry bag – all of it had gone. A vacuum cleaner stood by the bathroom door. The maid held a pillow; had paused in the act of coaxing it from its cotton slip.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sarah said. ‘I have the wrong room.’

  She returned to reception, where she rang the bell, because the woman was nowhere to be seen. Ten seconds later, she rang it again. She’d have rung it a third time, but the woman appeared: a little flustered; a bit pissed off, too, as if she didn’t appreciate the summons. Sarah would care about that later. Round about the time it occurred to her she was taking out Fairfax’s rebuff on an innocent party.

  ‘Has Mr Inchon checked out?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Inchon. You haven’t got that many guests. Has he checked out?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Yes, he left early this morning.’

  ‘How early?’

  ‘Before I came on. I mean, pretty much the middle of the night. I suppose he had a flight to catch.’

  ‘A flight?’

  ‘I can’t think why else he’d leave at three thirty in the morning.’

  The woman had recovered some poise. Her tone suggested she could actually think of a few good reasons, most of them standing in front of her.

  ‘Did he leave a message?’

  ‘A message for you?’

  ‘A message of any kind,’ Sarah said through gritted teeth.

  The woman took her time. Looked through the few papers scattered on the desk; checked the pigeonholes behind her. She all but whistled while doing so. ‘I’m sorry, Ms Tucker. There doesn’t seem to be anything.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He didn’t push a note beneath your door?’

  ‘Well, if he had,’ Sarah began, but could see it wasn’t worth it. ‘No. Thanks.’

  She left the desk, heading for the front door; realized almost immediately she had no special need to be heading that way, but couldn’t face pulling a U-turn under the receptionist’s scornful gaze. I’ve given her quite enough merriment for the moment, Sarah thought, and stepped on to the street coatless, into the path of a withering wind.

  This really is not my best morning . . .

  Gerard had gone home, she supposed. Last night’s conversation had brought that about; Gerard, in the cold light of morning, couldn’t face seeing her with pity in her eyes. Which was fair enough. Sarah was reasonably sure she’d have been able to regard him without a trace of visible concern, but it would have been there; the memory of a fireside conversation in which he’d opened his heart, and showed it in splinters. There were friendships which such a moment would have strengthened, but not the kind she and Gerard shared. She wasn’t even sure ‘friendship’ was the word. And while she was questioning terminology, ‘cold light of morning’ didn’t work either: there’d have been precious little light at three thirty. She was surprised Gerard had been able to stand, let alone pack.

  Cold, thoug
h. There’d have been cold enough to go round. And plenty of it yet, come to that.

  The Big Issue man was nowhere to be seen. Office hours, though, didn’t apply. As she stood there, a detail occurred to her: Gerard had checked out before the woman had come on duty. So who checked him out? It must have been Barry. Poor guy. He’d closed the bar; probably hoped to see his shift out having a nap in the office. But instead had to deal with a drunken Gerard, who would no doubt have had a complicated bill to deconstruct, and probably wasn’t in the best of moods.

  What was it Barry had said about his job? It beats flipping burgers. Probably he’d reconsidered that, back in the early hours.

  As she re-entered the hotel, her phone rang.

  She answered it climbing the stairs.

  ‘Ms Tucker?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s DS King. From yesterday morning.’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt her vocal cords tighten: what now? An official reprimand for misuse of police time?

  ‘The boss said you’d rung.’

  ‘It’s not important.’

  ‘I doubt you’d have called if it wasn’t. He goes off the deep end sometimes, but, well, you know. It’s a stressful job.’

  ‘Give him my commiserations.’

  ‘So he mentioned it to me. That’s his way of making sure he wasn’t too hasty.’

  ‘So why didn’t he call back himself?’

  ‘Now that, that’s not his way. So. Jack Gannon. How’d you come across him?’

  She took a breath.

  ‘Ms Tucker?’

  ‘I met him at the hotel. In the bar.’

  ‘That’s the same hotel Ms Boehm was staying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you don’t think that’s a coincidence.’

  ‘You’re aware that Zoë – that Ms Boehm was a private detective?’

  ‘We’d established that, yes.’

  ‘Good for you. I think she was up here on a job of some kind. I think that job involved Mr Gannon.’

  ‘Who was her client?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She could have given him Gerard – if Gannon was involved, so was Gerard. But something held her back. Call it loyalty; that plus the knowledge that she’d misjudged Gerard in the past. He deserved a hearing before she threw him to a wolf.

  ‘She was investigating criminal activity?’

  ‘I don’t know what she was investigating.’

  ‘Because the reason we have a police force in this country –’

  ‘I know why we have a police force, Sergeant. I don’t know what Zoë was doing. But it seems likely that whatever it was, it had something to do with Jack Gannon.’

  ‘And you thought we should know.’

  ‘I thought Inspector Fairfax might be interested. It turned out he wasn’t.’

  ‘He gets a little uptight when he thinks people are trying to do his job.’

  ‘If I was interested in impersonating a police officer, I’d wait till I was needed, then make myself scarce.’

  He said, quite mildly, ‘I suspect your stereotype’s out of date.’

  Sarah took a breath. She’d reached the landing, down the corridor from her room. ‘Whatever. The point is, I found out what little I know inside five minutes on the web. It’s not as if I blundered into a top secret investigation.’

  His silence sounded like a point conceded.

  ‘Tell your boss I’m sorry I bothered him.’

  He said, ‘The Gannons are a well-known Walker firm. I’m not talking about haulage. Back in the seventies and eighties, when Michael Gannon was ruling the roost, they were basically your North Tyneside crimelords. Mostly robbery, mostly big delivery – if a lorryload of fags or booze got knocked over, it was the Gannons behind it. They also supplied fruit machines to local clubs, along with door security and working girls. You didn’t get involved in after-hours entertainment from Wallsend to Benton without rendering unto the Gannons, if you catch my drift. One or two tried, and found out what the blunt end of a closed shop feels like.’

  ‘Gannon was tried for kidnapping and assault.’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘So that was then. What about now?’

  ‘Michael G’s still among the living, but he had a series of strokes in the early nineties. The eldest son, Tony, tried his shoes on, but was hampered by being a stupid dick-head, pardon my Dutch, and spent five years contemplating his misdeeds in Durham. By the time he came out, the other brothers had, ah, diversified their interests. Gangstering’s not the prospect it used to be. I like to pretend that’s not because I’ve joined the force since, but you can’t argue with the facts.’

  ‘Your modesty does you credit. And Jack Gannon’s behind their shift into legitimate business?’

  King said, ‘He’s never broken any laws we’ve found out about. But the way I look at it, the money he’s investing, the business he’s helping run – all that capital came out of crime. Doesn’t matter how often it’s been washed, it’s dirty money.’

  ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘I have, as a matter of fact. At a charity auction, raising funds for a police cadets’ gym. He bid large for a painting my three-year-old nephew could have done. Only he’d have called it colouring, not art.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’

  ‘I thought he was a charming man.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I don’t like charming men. I always wonder what they’ve got to hide.’

  ‘That makes your boss an open book.’

  He said, ‘I think that theme’s run its course. Anyway, the Gannons. Like I say, Jack’s never broken any laws we’ve heard about.’ He paused, giving himself room for a shrug. ‘If Ms Boehm was investigating him, she knew something we didn’t.’

  ‘Thanks for calling.’

  ‘I’d like to know what you’re planning.’

  ‘I’m not planning anything. I just don’t want . . . I don’t want things to fade away. I guess.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘I got the impression you were regarding this as a suicide.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Sergeant?’ It sounded odd, saying that. But she could hardly just call him King. ‘Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Ms Tucker –’

  ‘Or an accident. But you didn’t know Zoë. She didn’t have accidents.’

  ‘This wasn’t an accident,’ he said at last.

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘We’re sure.’

  He’d come this far, she thought. She only had to wait. He’d give her the rest.

  ‘She drowned,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But it wasn’t river water in her lungs.’

  Sarah closed her eyes; tried to shut out the image this information provided.

  ‘Ms Tucker?’

  ‘I see. I see.’ She saw. She saw Zoë being held down in a bath; strong hands forcing her head underwater.

  DS King fell silent.

  Sarah had to say something – she couldn’t just hang up. So she said, ‘Thank you,’ though it came out more quietly than she’d intended. She cleared her throat. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said again. Then she ended the call, walked down the corridor to her room, let herself in, and lay on the bed.

  Closing her eyes did not help. Sarah opened them, and stared straight up. Thin cracks threaded outward from the corners, forming a faint road map on the ceiling. It didn’t direct her anywhere she wanted to go.

  But when she closed her eyes again, the view was worse: was of Zoë, forcibly held underwater.

  Zoë had always struck Sarah as the strongest person she’d met, but strength wasn’t necessarily a factor. Not for a woman. A woman could be strong, and still be no match for the wrong kind of man. Sarah hadn’t allowed herself to wonder about how Zoë had ended up in that river, but the thought had sneaked up on her a time or two; catching her off guard, like an unexpected car rounding a corner. What she’d
seen had been swift, and shrouded in darkness. Zoë on a quayside or towpath; looking down towards water on which starlight trembled. And something coming out of nowhere behind her: a glancing blow on the head, then more darkness.

  In this version, Zoë entered the water without a ripple. It happened swiftly, and the first Zoë would have known about it was the last thing she’d ever know. But it hadn’t happened like that. Sarah closed her eyes again. And this time it was all struggle and violence, with Zoë well aware of what was happening, and doing her damnedest to make it stop. And it happening anyway.

  She’d have tried to shout; tried to fight. And she’d lost. It happened anyway.

  The road map to nowhere dissolved as Sarah’s eyes filled. For a moment she was teetering on a brink, and if she let herself fall now, the landing would shatter her. She had to pull back: a willed enaction of that involuntary spasm found on the edge of sleep. Going to pieces was not an option. Going to pieces would let Zoë down. She had to be strong. If their roles were reversed, Zoë would have grieved, might even have wept, but she would not have fallen apart. Not before discovering what had happened.

  I’ll do my best, Sarah thought, as if Zoë were in the room with her. Then she said it aloud. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  She sat up. Dried her eyes. Planned her next move.

  Of the fragments of information she’d gathered – she supposed you could call them clues – none cast special light. What she’d learned about Jack Gannon made it clearer than ever that he couldn’t be Talmadge: he couldn’t float around the country, assuming different guises, at the same time as steering his criminal family into the legitimate world. That Gannon was part of what happened to Zoë, Sarah had no doubt. But she couldn’t see where he fitted. It was as if she’d been given something to glue back together without having been told what it was. She had to keep choosing pieces, testing their shape. Propelled into action by the thought, she moved from the bed. In the bathroom, she splashed water on her face.

  Gerard had vanished for the time being, but he couldn’t simply disappear. She’d find him when she needed to. For the moment, there were other threads to follow through the maze.

  There was Gannon, and then there was John M. Wright.