by Rob McCarthy
A uniformed officer was holding the back of a patrol car open.
‘The heating’s on already,’ she said.
‘Where are we going?’ Harry said.
‘Lewisham station,’ said Noble. ‘I’m sorry.’
He wasn’t under arrest.
That was the first thing that Marsden, the saccharin DCI from Homicide & Serious, said when they arrived at Lewisham police station, he on his way in, she on her way out after setting up the incident room. Two detective constables called Deakin and Bambrough interviewed him in a room that was still cold even with the heating turned on full. They brought him tea but he didn’t touch it, and they told him he could leave at any time, and he didn’t need a lawyer, but he could have one if he wanted.
Harry didn’t want a lawyer. He wanted to go to sleep, and to wake up after his Saturday night shift and find that all of this had never happened. He wanted the pieces missing from the back of James Lahiri’s head to be back where they belonged. He wanted a warm room and a shower, and to get the specks of his best friend’s blood off his face. He wanted existence itself to stop.
He told the detectives all of this, and more. They went through everything he’d done that day, from getting up, speaking to Idris’s family, getting bollocked by Traubert, coming to the school with Whitacre and Ambrose, his conversation with Shaquille Dawson. Sitting in his apartment, thinking everything over, getting the call from Lahiri. Setting in motion a chain of events that ended with Lahiri dead and another man fighting for his life, and Harry freezing cold, in a police station, with his friend’s blood on his face.
If he’d just stayed at home, and watched TV, and ignored that call, would Lahiri still be dead?
Probably, Harry thought. There was no way that whoever had turned up to shoot Lahiri could have known Harry would be there, unless they’d been following him. The main question was, was it his fault? However much he allowed himself to wallow in self-pity, there was nothing Harry could have done the moment that bullet had entered Lahiri’s skull. But if he’d heeded the warning given to him the previous evening, in brutally violent fashion, would Lahiri still be alive?
At the start, the older detective, Deakin, had asked him to describe his relationship with James Lahiri. Harry had said simply, ‘He’s my friend.’
Yes, he was your friend. But he didn’t trust you enough to tell you all he’d wanted to on that previous night, when you sat and drank acid wine together.
If Harry hadn’t done what he’d done, maybe Lahiri would still be alive.
Harry knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight, and he knew he’d lie awake for many more trying to answer that question. If the woman in front of him, with her tweed jacket, her perfect teeth and her nasal inflections, did her job and caught the person who’d killed Lahiri, then maybe it would be easier. Maybe there’d be answers.
Hours ago now, Tammas had said, Make the right calls. I always trusted you to do that. That sounded an awful lot like bullshit now.
They finished off by interrogating him about everything that happened on the boat. Harry left nothing out. There was no reason to lie. He recounted every accusation he’d levelled, every punch, kick and slap he’d rained down. Throughout, the two homicide detectives looked at him with poker faces, breaking eye contact only when their sergeant, an overweight East Asian man with a heavy Scouse accent, called them out to discuss something. Their pretence had been that they just wanted the facts, but he knew why he was really there. Firstly, he was their only witness to the murder, and secondly, they needed to rule him in or out.
So he gave them everything.
‘You’re sure Mr Lahiri said that it was just cannabis?’ DC Bambrough said.
‘Dr Lahiri,’ Harry said, for the third or fourth time so far. ‘As far as I can remember, yes.’
‘And he denied that the money was to stop Mr Idris from speaking out.’
‘No. He didn’t deny it. He said Whitacre handled it.’
‘Duncan Whitacre?’
‘I assume so,’ said Harry.
And then he told the rest of the story. How the first shot had missed them both, and then the second had hit Lahiri, and the third had clipped the boat as Harry ducked for cover. There wasn’t much of use there, as Harry couldn’t recall a lot after that. He remembered going in the water, coming out wet, dirty and cold, turning over Lahiri’s body and hearing another shot before he passed out. He might have seen the watchman go down, or the shooter running away, but he wasn’t sure.
‘Can I go now?’
Bambrough, the younger detective, looked at Deakin, the older one, who shrugged and left, presumably to consult the boss. After a while, Harry sipped his cold tea, and Bambrough said, ‘I’m sorry about your friend.’
It was only when Deakin came back in to tell him he was free to go that Harry realised he was crying.
Noble was in the incident room, briefing the Homicide & Serious team on everything they had so far on the investigation, but she stopped mid-sentence when she saw Harry in the door, a blanket still over his shoulders.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
‘Don’t you need to stay here?’
‘Mo’s on his way over. He’ll bring the team up to speed.’
Harry nodded, and they headed silently into the car park. Still it rained. He was shivering again by the time he got into the car.
‘There’s another blanket in the back.’
Harry wrapped it around him. He was wet and cold, a film of dirt covering his face and hands. She had the heater on full and the radio tuned to a classical music station, the volume low. Quiet, brooding violins. As they headed north, through Deptford, Harry began to feel warmer. His fingers hurt, and his chest too. Maybe he’d cracked a rib somewhere in the chaos.
‘Where are we going?’ he said after about ten minutes of silence. There was an advert on the radio about bladder weakness.
‘I’m afraid the Met doesn’t really do those nice safe houses you see on TV.’
‘I wasn’t expecting one.’
‘We’ve got a room at a place near Aldgate. Low-budget, but it’ll do.’
Harry shrugged his shoulders. It was logical to assume that if their shooter wanted him dead, all the expected places weren’t safe. That included the Ruskin and his home, maybe even his friends’ houses, not that he had any who sprung to mind – he could hardly kip on the floor of Marigold House next to Tammas’s bed. No killer, no matter how determined, could search through every hotel in London.
As they drove, Harry realised he had lost all track of time. It had been about four or so when he’d set off for Lahiri’s. Now it could be anywhere from six to midnight, he didn’t know.
‘His parents live in Sussex,’ said Harry. ‘Peacehaven.’
‘We know,’ said Noble. ‘There’s a family liaison officer with them now.’
Harry pictured James Lahiri’s stoic, dignified father, his mother, obsessive and perennially bored, disturbed during their evening to hear the news. The thought brought vomit rising into his throat. Parents didn’t expect to bury their son. Maybe the Lahiris had, when James decided to go to Afghanistan, twice, but the moment that plane had landed, they’d have breathed sighs of relief. Having dinner on his boat, a workday evening. And then dead. All because of what?
Because someone was scared the media would find out they were giving weed to kids?
It still hadn’t sunk in. James’s death. The one who always landed on his feet, who always managed to climb out of whatever hole he found himself in, was on his way to Greenwich Mortuary with a tag on his toe and a bit of his skull missing.
Alice. He wondered who’d tell her. Lahiri’s parents certainly didn’t have any affection for the woman. She hadn’t left any way of being contacted, anyway, if Lahiri had been forced to resort to stalking her via LinkedIn.
He thought about Georgia Henderson, too. It wasn’t his place to tell her, but someone had to. The man she was seeing was dead. These were the people Lahiri’s life had touch
ed, and as their faces circled through his eyes he focused on watching the traffic on Tower Bridge so he didn’t cry. Closed his eyes and maybe slept for a while, or passed out, he wasn’t sure. When he opened them they were on the edges of the City, near Old Street. He reached into his pocket to get his phone, only to realise that it was in the footwell of his car, parked by the front gate of the marina. It would be impounded as evidence.
‘Frankie,’ Harry said through a trembling jaw. The car had ground to a halt, the hotel’s sign bearing over them. ‘I need to call someone.’
‘Who?’
‘His name’s Peter Tammas. He was mine and James’s commanding officer in the army. Mentored both of us. He needs to know.’
‘It’s made the news already,’ said Noble. ‘Word is, one of those boats belonged to an executive at Sky. He was live-tweeting from his cabin.’
Harry looked up at her as they exited the car into the rain. The street was deserted. Noble was scanning it in a certain manner, one which Harry recognised. She was his bodyguard now.
‘He needs to hear it from me,’ Harry repeated. ‘Not the bloody news.’
‘Is this guy a doctor?’
‘He’s not involved,’ said Harry.
‘On Monday, you said that about Lahiri.’
‘Well, here’s a fucking alibi for you, then,’ Harry said. ‘He’s been bedridden for near on two years. There’s a bullet in his spine. How’s that?’
Noble looked back at him, pain on her face, then threw him her mobile.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Don’t go out of my sight.’
‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.
They stepped through the automatic doors into the warm hotel lobby, the sight of a man in wet trousers and covered in blankets instantly drawing puzzled looks from the staff. Noble headed up to the desk. Harry leant against the wall and a cleaner passed him, catching the smell of the Thames and throwing him a dirty look. He got the operator at Marigold House and from the voice thought it was the receptionist with the dreadlocks he’d seen on Sunday night. He was put through quickly.
‘Harry?’
He said nothing. The rattle indicated that Tammas was trying to speak.
‘What’s. Wrong?’
He closed his eyes and tried to force himself to say the words, to say what he said to people all the time. It was routine, if awful, when it was someone else’s mother, who’d fought her failing body for decades, and was finally succumbing in A&E. Here, the false reality collided with the other one, like the paradox about the cat in the box who was both dead and alive until you opened the box and found out. If Harry said the words, they would become true.
‘James is dead.’
Harry had never heard someone cry through a tracheostomy tube before. It sounded like a wet iron gate being scraped along tarmac.
‘No!’
Spoken like a father. Harry waited for the ventilator to cycle, for Tammas to speak.
‘How?’
‘Someone shot him,’ said Harry. ‘On his boat.’
‘Have they caught . . . No. God. No. No. No. No.’
Harry’s head fell forward to touch the cold metal of a leaflet rack. Tammas’s sobs echoed out of Noble’s mobile, each one a hammer striking the anvil inside his chest. Each one a fresh explosion of pain out of his side, a piercing wind through him.
‘Was he. Involved?’
‘I don’t know. It was something to do with the kid.’
‘Fucking. James. Fucking. Stupid. Fucking. Fucking. Bastard.’
Tammas’s anger burst through, his voice collapsing into a hoarse fit of spluttering. Harry overheard a brief conversation as a carer burst into the room, asking him if he was OK.
‘Fuck off. Leave me. Alone. You nosy. Little shit.’
‘Boss, listen—’
‘No!’ Tammas roared.
Harry was silent. He pushed his forehead into the metal until it hurt. He could picture Tammas, filled with incandescent rage, but with no working muscles below the neck with which to express it.
‘Who did it?’ Tammas spluttered.
‘I don’t know. Someone he was working with, someone who wanted to keep it quiet. I’m going to find out.’
Tammas’s breathing was laboured, every word spat as though it could be his last.
‘Find. Him. I don’t. Care. What. James. Did. You find. Who. Killed him.’
‘OK, boss.’
‘You find him. And you. Make. The Bastard. Pay.’
Harry felt water running down his face and looked up to see if it was rain or snow, then realised that he was standing indoors. He wiped his tears on the corner of a blanket. ‘I will, boss,’ he said.
Another wail, this one louder and more piercing than the last. ‘Oh, Jesus. Harry. You can’t. Hear me. Like this.’
‘Boss, I—’
Tammas had hung up.
The hotel room had twin beds either side of a small table, walk-in cupboards and a badly designed bathroom where the shower door opened into the toilet. Harry sat on the bed nearest the window, the blanket still around his shoulders. Noble had turned the heating up fully and he wasn’t as cold any more; two cups of tea rolled around inside his stomach. She was sitting on the edge of the other bed, fingers dancing over the keys of the iPad on her lap.
‘What size are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’m getting Mo to drop you off some clothes.’
‘Medium,’ Harry said. ‘Thirty-four waist.’
‘I’ll get him to bring some food too, you must be starving.’
Harry said nothing, just nodded. He wasn’t hungry. In fact, he couldn’t picture himself ever eating again.
‘Shoe size?’
‘Ten.’
Facts were good. He could answer questions about facts, as he had done with the detectives at Lewisham. Noble tapped some more on her iPad.
‘Remind me again why we have to share a room?’
Noble lifted the lapel of her jacket to reveal the holster and the gun underneath. ‘Look at yourself. You shouldn’t be alone tonight,’ she said. ‘But more than that, you could be in danger. And I’m sure you’d rather have me watching your back than some gorilla from Protection Command.’
Harry threw off the blankets and headed into the bathroom, where he studied his reflection in the mirror above the basin. His face was smeared with dried blood, not all of it his. The laceration on his right cheek was superficial. It had stopped bleeding but there was a sizeable sliver of laminated wood embedded in the wound, and his stubble was matted with dried blood and shit from the river. He started running the hot tap. He had some antibiotics in his bag at home.
‘How come you’re carrying?’ he called through the open bathroom door.
‘I told you, I used to work Central Task Force, the undercover unit,’ Noble said. ‘We all got authorised when we joined. Our last op went wrong, we lost track of some paperwork, and we ended up raiding a drugs shop in Finsbury with an expired warrant. And some very nasty people who were meant to go to prison didn’t, and now they know my face. It’s a standard precaution. In case they come after me.’
Harry winced as he eased the splinter out, and a line of fresh blood scored the white basin.
‘That really happens?’
‘They came after one of my team, the guy who’d been my inside man. Shot him up as he was coming out of the pub in Chiswick,’ Noble said. ‘He spent four weeks in St Mary’s. So yeah, it does.’
Harry craned his head awkwardly to get his cheek under the tap. The hot water stung. He knew the tone of voice Noble was trying to put on, the one that implied she knew how he was feeling. The trouble was, he wasn’t feeling. The system had reset. He was numb. He heard his own voice echoing in his head, telling Tammas. James is dead. Still it didn’t sound real.
‘I’m gonna take a shower,’ Harry said, wiping his bloodied face with a towel. He retched again when he saw the mess he’d made – watery blood, and the greasy brown-black shit
that coated his face and neck. ‘That OK?’
Noble nodded and Harry locked the bathroom door, pulling off his damp trousers and underwear and starting the water. The hot steam rose up and filled the cubicle, the smell of shit that clung to his skin slowly giving way to whatever aloe vera rubbish they’d put in the shower gel. The water turned brown and grey and translucent as it ran down his body and pooled in the shower basin, swirls of dirty colour that mixed like the thoughts in Harry’s head. He expected to feel more than this. Maybe it was shock, perhaps. Or maybe this was what grief was. A void.
The shower gel burned the wound on Harry’s cheek, but he didn’t particularly care. He folded slowly until he was cross-legged in the shower, staring down at the flecks of rusty red-brown in the water, Lahiri’s blood spiralling into the drain. He stared for a few minutes, then closed his eyes, trying to shut down, to free up some bandwidth in his mind, but it didn’t work. First the vomit came, then the tears, and then Harry rested his head against the perspex and both his body and soul shook.
It was a few minutes before he realised he was speaking, the same phrase being forced through trembling lips.
‘I’m sorry.’
It took a while, but then he was done, and he stood up slowly, shut off the water and ran his hands through his hair, working in shampoo and bringing out twists of moss and slime. At least now the police couldn’t drag their feet. A rich doctor was dead on his luxury houseboat. The Met would have to bring all of their resources to bear.
Harry stepped out of the shower and looked in the mirror. The cut on his face had stopped bleeding, but his eyes were red and raw. He recognised the look. The pain had been replaced by a deep hunger, and all he really wanted to do was sleep. He suspected that he would be unable to do that, and he longed for any chemical that would assist. Alcohol, a benzodiazepine, anything.
He could hear voices: Noble’s and someone else’s. He edged the bathroom door open and saw her standing with DS Wilson, who was holding a bag from Marks & Spencer and a small rucksack. Coca-Cola and pizza boxes.
Wilson passed him the M&S bag and Harry inspected the shrink-wrapped underwear, dark chinos, T-shirt and navy crewneck jumper. The rucksack had a change of clothes for Noble.
