‘I won’t bite,’ said Tapper. His voice was somehow more Essex than Sam remembered, as if he were reverting to a former incarnation. He wore a white t-shirt and jeans, but his feet were bare. ‘Nor indeed stab. Sit down. We need to talk.’
Sam pulled a chair from the desk and sat opposite Tapper, out of striking distance.
He glanced at his former adversary. Tapper’s tan was dying back and skin that Sam remembered being cleanly shaved now sported a layer of stubble.
‘Do you know where you are?’ asked Tapper, his back resting against a pillow propped against the wall. The cell was warm, too warm for Sam, and he shook off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair.
‘Somewhere they lock up very dangerous people.’
Tapper smiled. ‘We’re in Paddington Green. Where they lock up terror suspects for questioning. Although it’s just me at the moment. They keep them for twenty-eight days in these cells if they want. They even have a forensic pod to examine suspects in sterile conditions. It’s quite something.’
‘You’re that great a threat.’
‘As bad as Al-Qaeda or ISIS.’
‘You stabbed a Cabinet Minister.’
‘I have to say that caught me by surprise. But the truth is, I was raging. Furious with him for starting the whole business, for being spineless, and for trying to shaft me at the ninth hour.’ Tapper’s eyes flared with recollected anger.
There was silence for a moment. Sam’s shirt clung to his now sweat-damp torso. Tapper seemed to be studying him.
‘You’re wondering why you’re here.’
‘Just a bit.’
‘I wanted to thank you.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You’ve set me free.’
Sam cast his eye round the small cell. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Not in the slightest. I can’t tell you how free I feel.’
‘But you’re about to be sent away for life.’
‘I think you’re pre-empting the verdict a little,’ Tapper said, the corner of his mouth curled in mischief.
‘Well you’re not going to get community service.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tapper, ‘I’m being cheeky. You’re right. I’ll get life. But, in a sense, I was already on a life term. Prison, by contrast, will be liberating.’
Sam remained tense and alert. Tapper appeared genuinely calmer – happy even – but Sam suspected the anger was not far from the surface. He didn’t want to be in the stifling, subterranean cell for a second longer than was necessary.
‘I didn’t know how much I hated my life until I was reunited with Pat,’ Tapper continued. ‘You saw how much he meant to me, helped cement that understanding with your little notes. But what you didn’t see was the misery I already felt.’
Sam sensed that playing along was the only way forward. ‘You mentioned it in Dover.’
‘I always felt trapped in my marriage to Yvonne because I was gay. She knew, tolerated my little dalliances, but I was still living a lie. And then there was the whole lifestyle. The exhausting small-talk of drinks parties and functions. The front we presented. The knighted business leader and his pretty wife and their public-school-educated children. The houses in Notting Hill, Cape Town, New York and the Cotswolds filled with artwork that was meaningless to me. The money I could never have spent in ten lifetimes.’
‘You’re saying you’d prefer to be poor?’
‘I made money because I never wanted to become my father. He was piss poor, and bitten so hard by poverty – by his shitty existence freezing his balls off in Romford Market – that he became angry and violent. But you shrinks know that no amount of money can change a man’s DNA. My father will always be in me. I am a man of violence, like him.’
‘And now it feels liberating to accept that part of him that’s in you.’
‘God, you shrinks have a nice way with words.’ Tapper looked genuinely impressed.
‘Yes, that part of my father that’s in me. I might have killed him all those years ago, but he lives on in here.’ Tapper pointed to his head. ‘What was exhausting was the constant denial, the crime that had been buried by my slippery PR people. I’m tired of denying who I am. My violent nature. My sexuality.’ He lifted a finger, almost in lecture mode. ‘And while we’re on that subject, let me just say that it’s not just about the shagging, but about the possibility of love. I felt that for Pat, you’re quite right. And, when I’m ready, I want to feel that again.’
There was a sigh from the corridor outside.
This was all clearly wonderful for Tapper – the great unburdening – but Sam was beginning to feel sick and breathless, as the tiny, airless cell began to close in on him. Just as he was ready to scream, Tapper got to the point.
‘I owe you. And I want to shaft them.’ Tapper nodded towards the open door. ‘Grab that, will you.’ He pointed to the manila folder on the desk.
Sam reached behind him and retrieved the file.
‘Don’t open it yet. I want to explain first. You see, I have something stored away in a private security box in one of my many bank accounts that has turned a cut-and-dry case on its head. Don’t get me wrong, I will still go away for a long time, thank God. But I have a bargaining chip.’
‘Which is?’
‘A video I made on the boat.’
Chapter 83
Paddington Green police station, London
Sam gasped.
Tapper continued. ‘Thorpe liked to film himself in action, the little perve. So I’ve got him in flagrante. Which is bad enough. But then he went and stabbed that man.’
Strickland poked his head inside. ‘Can you keep your fucking voice down?’
‘Piss off!’ Tapper hissed.
Strickland, like an admonished child, retreated back outside. Tapper clearly had them by the balls.
‘You’re right about Thorpe, by the way. Shame made him stab Abel. Shame and self-loathing. On the surface, he was a chiselled, upper-crust heterosexual, the future of the party. But inside, he was gay. And he hated that.’
He lifted his head, as if proud of his own honesty.
‘Anyhow, like I said, people in the party had high hopes for him. And I can tell you, if he’d reached Number Ten, we would have heard lots more announcements like the one he made in Dover. He used to talk about reclaiming the right-wing agenda, re-packaging it in more palatable ways. Given his looks and persuasive manner, I think he could have got away with it. He had some pretty radical ideas.’
Tapper looked briefly wistful. ‘The big one he wanted to drive through was privatising large chunks of the police force – something that would have swelled my firm’s coffers, I can tell you. The Border Force – which he was slowly undermining – would have been the first to go.’
He laughed joylessly. ‘He was a cunning bastard too. Always feeding his favourite hacks juicy details about race and religious hate crimes – stuff that had slipped below the media radar. Anything that gave the impression of a country overrun by minorities – and a police force overwhelmed. He was an expert at sowing the seeds of fear so he could present himself as the solution.’
Sam thought of the blonde journalist at the press conference in Dover. The woman had literally lapped up Thorpe’s words.
‘Anyhow, with his accession to the Home Office, he realised that his life was going to become a lot more scrutinised. So he went for it that night. Kind of a last hurrah. Brought a lot of coke he’d somehow managed to score in Palermo through an Italian pal of his.’
Tapper shifted on the bed. ‘We had a slap-up meal on the sun deck. Champagne, lobster, a couple of bottles of Montrachet. Then we dismissed the staff. Told them to come back in the morning. We got high in the saloon. Thorpe put his favourite 80s dance tracks on – ghastly music – and some porn on the TV and, well, you don’t need me to spell it out.’
It happened, like so many swings of mood, quite suddenly. It was the way Tapper so casually spoke of that murderous evening – the way h
e was so happy to paint Thorpe as the villain and him, somehow, as righteous – that made Sam snap. There were acts Tapper needed to take responsibility for.
‘Blameless, are you?’
The nonchalant demeanour appeared to fade a fraction. ‘I’m sorry?’
If Sam had just unsettled a man capable of murder, he no longer cared. ‘You seem so confident sitting here – the newly liberated gay man, the newly liberated murderer – convinced of your own rectitude. That killing Thorpe was right. As justified as snuffing out nasty, wife-beating dad.’
Tapper shrunk into the room.
Strickland appeared in the doorway. ‘Is this a good idea?’
Sam swung in his direction. ‘Not now!’
The lawyer slunk back out, nervously scanning up and down the corridor.
Sam turned back to Tapper. ‘And what about the solicitor, Fitzgerald? What about my girlfriend, Eleanor?’
Tapper’s mouth moved but no sounds came out.
‘What about the other immigrants?’
‘What other immigrants?’
‘Don’t fucking lie! Abel tied their boat to The Leopard. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice them.’
Tapper’s face crumbled. He buried his head in his hands.
‘Let me guess,’ said Sam. ‘You kicked Abel and Zahra’s bodies off the boat. And then, as you watched them float away, you turned to the other small problem ruining your evening. The witnesses sitting just feet from the murder scene.’
‘It wasn’t like that!’
Tapper had emerged from the cocoon of his hands. He was crying. ‘You’re right, we pushed their bodies off. But we never saw any boat. It was pitch-black beyond the rear of the vessel. But I did see the rope tied up at the back at that point. In all this time, I hadn’t considered the possibility of other passengers. It was just too quiet.’ The tears rolled down Tapper’s cheeks. Sam felt his stomach churn with nausea.
‘I grabbed the rope and gave it a tug,’ Tapper continued, ‘expecting it to be light. But it was incredibly heavy. So Thorpe helped, and slowly the two vessels came together.’
Sam was certain he was going to vomit. He was about to have the haunting images he’d been seeing for days made concrete.
‘The boat emerged from the darkness. There were dozens of people staring at me. Vacant, skeletal faces, open mouths, hollow eyes. But alive.’
Tapper shuddered, his face shiny with tears.
‘There was a pole lying on the platform, with a docking hook on the end. Thorpe grabbed it and began smashing the fragile timber of the boat with the hook. Weak hands emerged from the vessel to stop him but the pole was out of their reach. If anyone did get close, he just moved to a different section. Timber splintered. Screams rang out. I could see the boat sinking before my eyes.’
Chapter 84
Paddington Green police station, London
Sam flung the file on to the bed and rushed to the basin, where he vomited.
Strickland reappeared in the doorway, his face white. Sam wiped his mouth on a towel. He returned to his seat, took a deep breath, trying to extract some oxygen from the dead air. Strickland remained in the doorway.
‘You didn’t think to stop him?’ asked Sam finally.
‘I knew I would lose everything. The firm, the money. All the stuff that once meant so much to me.’
‘And so you stood by.’
‘Well, not exactly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Thorpe untied the rope and gave the boat a shove with the pole and it began drifting off into the sea. The people on board were panicking. But with every frantic movement, they just made the boat more and more unstable. It capsized. And that’s when some of them started swimming towards us.’
Sam thought to ask why it hadn’t occurred to Tapper to throw a life vest into the sea, but he knew that was a silly question.
‘By now Thorpe was screaming at me to move the boat. I did what he asked. I rushed to the flybridge, typed in the start code the captain always shared with me, and moved the boat forwards slowly. The last thing I saw when I turned around was flailing arms in the water. And Thorpe watching them drown.’
Sam had been certain the two men murdered the immigrants. Their boat had been tied to the rear of The Leopard but somehow, on a still, calm sea, it had ended up as splintered chunks of wood, its passengers all dead.
The images that had tormented Sam the past days had changed with every hour as he weighed up different grisly scenarios. But what Tapper had just described was worse than anything Sam could have imagined.
‘You murdered them,’ said Sam, barely able to breathe.
‘We did. And believe me, it has haunted me ever since.’
‘I thought you embraced your violent side.’
Tapper was silent, like a stunned animal.
‘Reni said that ninety-six people died that night. Ten of them were children. Can you imagine the terror they experienced at that moment? Their hope of reaching safety dashed in the most vicious and heartless way imaginable. And as they started to drown, the last thing they would have seen was Thorpe coldly watching them from the deck. And you driving the boat away.’
Tapper blinked. Swallowed hard. ‘That night will never leave me.’
The rejuvenated, born-again lag was long gone. His head had sunk into his chest, and he looked up at Sam as if begging for some forgiveness the therapist would never in a million years grant.
‘That’s why I’m using the tape.’
Sam stood. ‘I’m not interested.’
Strickland pressed his hands together. ‘Please. You should listen.’
‘I can’t.’
Still blocking the doorway, Strickland exhaled. ‘They’re not going to let us out till you hear what he has to say. I won’t let them.’
Still standing, Sam reluctantly turned to face Tapper again. Strickland stayed at the door.
Tapper’s voice was quieter when he next spoke. ‘Thorpe thought I’d destroyed the tape. But I always sensed he might be slippery, might try and shaft me. So I kept it.’
Tapper took a deep breath.
‘As you can imagine, the video not only incriminates him but, by association, the Government too. Imagine the reaction if this film got leaked. Most governments can survive the odd scandal, if they can be contained. But this would show a future Home Secretary with psychopathic tendencies, cold-bloodedly murdering immigrants.’ His voice was gathering strength again, as if drawing comfort in once more apportioning blame to Thorpe. ‘What does that say of those that promoted him to high office? Who allowed a man like that to run the Home Office? There would be multiple demands for justice from his victims’ families. Column after column of all-consuming news coverage. The Government would never recover from a scandal of this magnitude.’
‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’ said Sam.
‘For Christ’s sake, Keddie,’ muttered Strickland behind him.
‘I’ve made a few demands,’ said Tapper. ‘Which have been met. There’s something for you. It’s all in the file.’
Sam flinched, felt the anger flare up in him again. ‘What is this? An apology? My girlfriend is not going to recover from her injuries. Unless you have the power to reverse that, I’m not interested in anything you have to offer.’
‘Please!’ wailed Tapper.
Sam stood. ‘I hope you rot in here.’
He barged past Strickland, out into the corridor. Behind him, he heard a muted exchange between Strickland and a tearful Tapper. Sam reached a locked door, and hammered on it with his fist. A moment passed. As he was about to beat the door again, the lawyer appeared at his side with the female officer, who unlocked the door. They walked in silence back through the building to the car park. He saw that Strickland was holding the file.
As the vehicle rose out of the gloom of the car park, Strickland spoke.
‘That was news to me.’
‘What?’
‘The other immigrants.’
�
��There’ll be no justice for those ninety-six people, will there?’
The lawyer shook his head.
There was a pause. Then Strickland said: ‘I understand how you feel about Tapper.’
‘Believe me, you have no idea.’
‘If you can set aside your feelings, you should at least look at this.’
The file sat unopened on the seat all the way back to Stoke Newington.
As Sam opened the car door and stepped on to the pavement, he heard Strickland call out from inside the vehicle.
‘The file, Mr Keddie. Just take a look. It really is in your interest.’
Sam pushed the gate open and walked the short distance to his front door. He could hear the car’s engine purring behind him. Strickland wasn’t budging.
Sam pulled his house keys from a pocket and inserted them in the lock.
As their first meeting had demonstrated, Strickland was a man with powerful connections. And now he was almost grovelling. Clearly Tapper had made them very frightened. What he’d extracted from them would be significant, of that Sam was sure. But how could it possibly benefit him? He didn’t want money. He just wanted Eleanor back.
Clearly Tapper was desperate to somehow make amends. Sam felt his stomach turn at the thought of accepting anything from him.
A breeze, some hint of spring in the milder air, blew down the street, sending his thoughts off course.
He always encouraged his clients to look at problems from different angles. Nothing was ever black and white.
While Sam might have despised the person who’d achieved this turn-around, those who’d contemplated covering up Thorpe’s heinous crimes were no less monstrous.
He paused, key in lock. Then turned around.
Chapter 85
Asmara, Eritrea – a month later
After a connecting early evening flight from Cairo, and then an endless sea of Sahara – undulating waves of golden sand that eventually disappeared at nightfall – the plane touched down at 3am. Sam stepped on to the tarmac by a small terminal building, the air cool and breezy.
Denial (Sam Keddie Thriller Book 2) Page 27
