Talking to the Dead

by Harry Bingham

  “That the first time you’ve found a corpse?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Pretty grim, isn’t it? I’ve found four in my time. No bloody fun at all.”

  “I had D.S. Alexander there. I’d have found it worse without her.”

  “You did the right thing. I shouldn’t have assigned Jim Davis to that interview. You were right to prepare. I think we can take it as a given that Stacey Edwards was our anonymous caller.”

  “We’d have got to her alive if we’d gone straight out.”

  “Maybe. You don’t know that. You might not have found her. You don’t know where she was last night. We had no reason to think she was under threat. And even if you had gone out last night, she might still have been killed this morning.”

  “I know.”

  “You need counseling?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “It’s there if you need it. You just need to say.”

  The teas arrive. Mine’s chamomile with the bag removed, so it’s probably had about ten seconds to steep, not five minutes. It tastes like hot water with a very slight edge of hay, so Jackson’s orders were obeyed to the letter.

  “Go on, then,” he says, snouting up some tea. “Shoot. I know you’ve got a headful of theories, and I’m dying to hear them.”

  “Not theories. Nothing as advanced as that.”

  “Right. Well, my theory and everyone else’s theory pretty much fell apart today. That theory held that some punter killed Janet Mancini—deliberately or on purpose, who knows?—then killed the kid to shut her up. No forethought. No planning. No point. No follow-up. I’d say that theory is pretty much fucked.”

  “I don’t have a theory. I really don’t.”

  “But …?”

  “But here are the bits and pieces as I see them. One, Brendan Rattigan’s card was in that house. That’s a hell of a strange place for a rich man’s debit card to be. Two, his wife pretty much told me that he liked rough sex. She obviously didn’t share that taste, she wasn’t cool with it at all, but he did.”

  “That’s still speculation.”

  “This is all speculation really. None of this is courtroom evidence.”

  “Okay, but let’s go with it. Let’s say that Rattigan knew Mancini and used to visit her. Somehow or other she got hold of his platinum card.”

  “Right. Number three, Brian Penry. Wild speculation, remember.”

  “Go on.”

  “Okay, the thing that was making my head explode with that case was that he seemed to have stolen more money from the school than the school knew about. I just couldn’t figure out how he’d bought all the stuff he had.”

  “That’s hardly the point.”

  “No, I know. We had evidence enough to convict him on a dozen counts of embezzlement, so it was curiosity more than anything that kept me scratching. That, plus a feeling that I’d been doing my sums wrong.”

  “But you hadn’t.”

  “No. Or rather I had, because I’d managed to miss the fact that Penry owned shares in more racehorses than we knew about. He’d taken some very basic steps to disguise his name, that’s all. His horses all seem to be co-owned with Brendan Rattigan or his chums. Logical deduction: Rattigan was paying a corrupt ex-policeman for something. Must have been something big, because the payments were big.”

  “Why didn’t you report this earlier?”

  “Um, a few reasons for that. One, I’ve only just found out the full picture. Two, I have reported it. It’s in my most recent batch of notes, and it’ll be in my report for D.C.I. Matthews when I present it. But three, it’s hard to investigate a crime when you don’t know if there’s even been a crime, and when we’ve already got easily enough evidence to bang Penry up for embezzlement. I thought if I’d come out with it straight, you and D.C.I. Matthews would have told me to forget about it.”

  “Maybe. And you don’t know that it was Rattigan making those payments. Could have been anyone.”

  “Could have been. Except for the coincidence of shared ownership of those horses. And the money. I haven’t yet had time to chase the value of those extra horses, but Penry’s share must have been worth tens of thousands, minimum. You’ve got to be rich to toss out that kind of money.”

  “But Rattigan is dead. Which rather removes him from the list of suspects.”

  “Presumed dead. I spoke to the AAIB—the air accidents investigation outfit—and asked if there was anything funny about the crash.”

  “You have been busy.”

  “And the answer was no not really, only maybe yes a bit.”

  Jackson considers that for a moment, then says, “No. People don’t vanish like that. Especially not people worth a hundred mill, or whatever. Unless you’ve got anything else you want to tell me.”

  Those chip shop texts don’t really count. The look on Penry’s face won’t count. Neither does the fact that his Yaris has rust on its wheel arches or that there’s no sheet music for his piano.

  “No. No, I don’t think so.”

  Two other things actually, but so small they almost don’t count for anything. Number one, Penry’s last extravagant purchase—the conservatory—came fifteen weeks after Rattigan’s reported death. That was well after his last illegal withdrawal from school funds.

  Number two, although Rattigan was wealthy by almost any standard, his business had been having a rough old time of it. His highest ranking on a sterling rich list came in 2006, when he notched up a supposed value of 91 million pounds. But his businesses were steel and shipping, among the industries worst hit by recession. At the time of his death, in December 2009, both halves of his company were losing money, and he was seeking to restructure some of the debt associated with the steel business. Given the credit markets at the time, that was like asking to be beaten over the head by his creditors, then robbed. After the hurricane had passed, the Financial Times estimated the value of the remaining business at just 22 to 27 million pounds. I’m not sure how you think about those things if you’re a Rattigan type. Are you sad because you’ve just lost 65 million pounds? Or happy because you’ve got 25 mill and you’re still in the game? And would any of that make you fake a plane crash? And how does any of that connect with murdering Janet Mancini, and her child, and Stacey Edwards? I don’t know.

  Then another thought bubbles up, and this one I do volunteer.

  “The StreetSafe people say that Stacey Edwards had a particular hatred for the Balkan types who have been taking over the city’s prostitution rackets. Her death has an organized crime feel to it, I guess, so maybe there’s a connection there. And Rattigan’s shipping interests were mostly in the Baltic trades, whatever that means. From Russia to the U.K. anyway. Maybe some kind of drug connection. Who knows? If you did want to smuggle drugs, then owning a shipping line would be a nifty way to do it.”

  “Seems rather cumbersome, though, doesn’t it?” Jackson laughs at me, but it’s a friendly laugh. “Going to all the trouble of making yourself a shipping millionaire just so you can run drugs into the country.”

  “I know. None of it makes sense.”

  “Okay. Thank you. That’s all helpful. Extremely speculative, but you did warn me. We might yet get something helpful from Forensics on Stacey Edwards. Meantime, we need to talk to every prostitute we can find to talk to. You getting on all right with Alexander?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. Then the two of you can stay working as a team. I’ll see if we can drag some other female officers in to help as well. Brian Penry. What do you think we should do with him? We could drag him back here and give him the third degree.”

  “Won’t do any good. He told us sod all last time. And it’s not as though we can connect him to this inquiry in any meaningful way.”

  “No.”

  That’s a big, round, Welsh, senior officer no. An end-of-the-conversation no. A go-home-and-get-some-sleep no. A no that doesn’t bother to wonder why a certain D.C. Griffiths wakes at fi
ve every morning with a prickling feeling running through her body, like a premonition of murder.

  Jackson checks his mug for the third time, only to find it still empty. He bangs it down on the desk.

  “We forget Rattigan. He’s dead. He’s not a part of this. We forget Penry. We’ve got nothing to connect him to it and he won’t crack, anyway. As you say, this looks like an organized crime thing. Somewhere out there, there’ll be people, probably prostitutes, who know what’s going on. We find them. We hit the forensics hard. We get our killer. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, as in ‘I hear what you say but I propose to ignore it’ or yes as in ‘yes’? You know. The old-fashioned sort.”

  I smile. My mug’s still full. I don’t like watery hay. “I’ll make it the old-fashioned sort, shall I?”

  “Good. Good. What day is it tomorrow? Christ, Sunday already? You had any time off this week yet?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Take tomorrow off. Go home. Do whatever you do to relax. Sleep in. If you feel up to coming in on Monday, then it’d be helpful. But look after yourself. You need to pace things. Big cases like this, you’ve got to look after yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I stand up and say good night. Because that’s the thing about life. There’s nowhere to go but forward.

  I get my things, head downstairs, blip open my car, and get in. Just sit there, door open, mind and body vacant. Do whatever you do to relax. What do I do to relax? Illicit smoking in my garden is the obvious answer, but that seems too solitary. It leaves my head too much room to cause havoc. I need people.

  It’s not as hot as it has been. Sometime this afternoon there was a breeze from the west and a few sudden, dense showers of rain. Big raindrops hitting the street like a rattle of hail. The clouds have cleared now and the car park has steamed off, but you can tell the change in the atmosphere. The evening seems sharper and brighter than the last few we’ve had.

  I can’t help but remember last night on the Taff Embankment, watching prostitutes disappearing into the darkness. I can’t imagine living that life. I can’t imagine dying that death.

  People come and go. Some of them—those who know me and don’t dislike me—raise a hand to say hi. I raise a hand back.

  I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to pop over to my mam and dad’s. I don’t want an evening out with a colleague. I’ve got more family—aunts and cousins—out in the farms beyond the city. The real Wales. The old Wales. The one that looks at this crazy, crowded coastal strip with incomprehension. I’d like that. A day or two of getting up at milking time. Hill walks, with buzzards curling overhead and plovers strutting pompously through the bilberries. Mending fences and feeding chickens.

  Another time. I wouldn’t have time to unwind there. Instead, I swing the door shut and get the car into gear. I drive out of town just as far as Penarth. Saint Vincent Road.

  Commuterville. Victorian houses, tidy gardens. Seaside shrubs which I don’t like: viburnum, euonymus, and my least favorite, escallonia. The damn things seem to be all about survival, not about beauty. I’d rather have something that lived fast and died beautiful. A winter jasmine that dropped dead in the blast of the first December gale. At least it’d have tried, not just held on.

  I park and make a call.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ed. It’s me, Fi.”

  “Hi, Fi, good to hear from you. How are you?” His voice is enthusiastic. Energetic.

  “Yeah, not bad. What are you up to?”

  “This minute, this evening, or in my life generally?”

  “The first two of those.”

  “Pouring whiskey, settling down to watch an Inspector Morse repeat on the box.”

  “Which episode and have you seen it before?”

  He tells me which episode, and no, he hasn’t. I tell him the name of the murderer, the critical clue, and how Colin Dexter handles the misdirection. I hear the TV snap angrily off in the background.

  “Thanks, Fi. Well, you’ve really freed up my evening.” He doesn’t sound completely thrilled.

  “Good. I was hoping I could drop by, maybe. But I didn’t want to watch Inspector Morse.”

  “Whereabouts are you?”

  “Peering in through your front window. Is that a new sofa?”

  He whips around, sees me peering in, and his expression is mixed, but at least two-thirds welcoming. Good enough. He chucks his phone down on the possibly new sofa and goes round to the front door to let me in. We kiss, cheek to cheek, but warmly.

  “It’s not the best Morse, anyway. Saggy middle.”

  He rubs my back, the way you’re allowed to do with someone you once slept with. “Come on in. You’re looking tired. Drink?”

  “I’m knackered, but I’m not sleeping. A big case that I’m finding a bit freaky.”

  “Is that a cry for whiskey?” His hands are hovering over a collection of bottles and glasses.

  I hesitate. I used to avoid drink completely. My head was fragile enough that I didn’t take anything that might unbalance it. These days, I’m a tiny bit more adventurous, but only a tiny bit, and my head doesn’t feel too solid at the moment.

  “Um. Too alcoholic. I want something that tastes alcoholic but isn’t.”

  “Gin and tonic, with lots of tonic and just a smell of gin?”

  “And ice and lemon. Sounds perfect.”

  Good old Ed. He mixes me the perfect drink, knows to ask me if I’ve eaten, isn’t surprised that I haven’t, and digs out some spinach and ricotta tortellini for me, serves them warm with a splash of olive oil and a bowl of green salad.

  “Homemade,” he says, indicating the tortellini. “I’ve been playing with my new pasta maker.”

  “God, I like the English middle classes,” I say with my mouth full. “Who else has homemade tortellini waiting for drop-by waifs and strays?”

  “The Italians?”

  “Don’t quibble. Their homes would be full of grandmothers and screaming babies. Give me the divorced English middle classes any day.”

  Ed has moved from whiskey to red wine, presumably in accordance with some bit of English etiquette that he knows and I don’t.

  We have an odd relationship, him and me. We first met when I was a heavily medicated teenage nutcase in the hands of shrinks who thought their job was to pour more pills down my throat if I showed any sign of independent thought, movement, emotion, or argument. Especially argument. Ed—Mr. Edward Saunders—was a clinical psychologist who believed that maybe independent reasoning was a positive sign in a patient, even if that reasoning tended to suggest that all mental health professionals, and psychiatrists in particular, should be towed out to sea in a big boat, which would then be surrounded by sharks and scuttled. And then depth-charged.

  As for Ed—well, he just spent time with me. I don’t know how many weeks or hours were involved, because time was so unclear for me back then. But he treated me like a human being, and eventually I became one again. It wasn’t only his help that brought me round. It wasn’t even mostly him. I owe more to my family and my own bollocky stubbornness. But of the entire mental health crew, Ed was the only one that I’d have airlifted to safety from that boat. He kept the faith. Faith in me. That was precious to me then, and still is now.

  Then we lost touch. I went to Cambridge. Ed went on being a solid gold nugget in the heap of manure which is the South Wales mental health service. He’s a home counties boy—solicitor father, brother who’s something tedious and lucrative in the City—but he wound up in South Wales and seems to have stuck. We met again, because he had some temporary research gig in Cambridge for a couple of terms. We bumped into each other on the street. One thing led to another. His marriage had essentially died but was still in the process of completing its funeral rites. We began a friendship, then thought since that was going well we ought to go to bed together. We did, off and on for a few months. It was nice. Ed was a good lover as a matter of fact. I didn
’t know they bred them that passionate in Hertfordshire. But we were never really meant to be lovers. The sex got in the way of the friendship, so we eased back to where we were and have been there pretty much ever since. We see less of each other than we ought to, because he’s busy and I’m busy, but also maybe because he’s got some funny feelings about having had a sexual relationship with an ex-patient of his.

  I eat up like a good girl. It turns out that I’m famished—when was the last time I ate a hot meal?—and I wipe out his entire stock of tortellini, make a serious dent in his salad reserves, and do considerable damage to an apple crumble which I find in the fridge. Ed has this idea of me as someone who eats all the time. That just shows what a bad scientist he is. If he made the experiment of having no food in his house, other than some old salami and tomatoes decorated with two different types of mold, he’d get a more balanced view of my eating habits.

  Ed puts some cheese on a plate—Cheddar, Welsh goat, and a squishy French one—and we go back to the living room. Ed has two kids from his marriage, a boy of ten and a girl of eight. He’s got photos of them both at different ages around the place, and for some reason I’m fascinated by them. There are a few of the girl—Maya—at about the age that April was when she died. These in particular catch my attention. There’s a vital difference between these ones of Maya and the ones I have of April. There’s some tantalizingly important discrepancy between the two, but I can’t seem to reach it.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Just trying to figure something out, that’s all. How are the kids?”

  Ed starts to tell me. They’re fine. Doing well at school. Having problems with their stepfather, a property developer in Barry. Blah blah.

  We pick away at the cheese, chat a bit, cuddle on the sofa, and end up watching the last half hour of Morse. I announce all of the essential plot points before they arise, and Ed rumples my hair or, if I’m being particularly annoying, pulls my ears till I say “Ow.” When Morse runs out, we segue into Newsnight.