by James Oswald
‘I’m putting the kettle on, if you fancy a cuppa.’ I step inside, leaving the front door open, and head through to the kitchen. By the time I’ve filled the kettle and switched it on, I hear the door closing. A moment later she’s standing uncertainly in the doorway.
‘Bain never did tell me your name.’ It’s not the best of introductions, but she already knows who I am. She looks at me for a moment with the kind of quizzical expression you often see on spaniels, then shakes it away with an almost imperceptible tremor.
‘PC Eve,’ she says, then realises how formal that sounds. ‘Karen. With a K.’
‘Con Fairchild. Ignore the mess, will you? Wasn’t expecting visitors.’
‘You get a lot of that?’ Karen-with-a-K hooks a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the walkway outside.
‘Only since . . . well . . . you know. I’m told Roger DeVilliers is good mates with the owner of the paper Stokes and Wentworth work for. Only a matter of time before they started doing everything they can to paint me as an unreliable witness. That’s one reason I’ve been in Scotland over the winter.’ I pour boiling water over teabags, hoping the stench in the fridge isn’t too bad when I go for milk. It’s still there, the rotting garbage smell reminding me of the boy in the hospital.
‘Why’d you come back then?’
‘Seriously? You ever spent a winter in Perthshire?’
‘Never been north of Watford, innit.’
Looking at her, and hearing her East End accent, I can almost believe it. She’d stick out a mile in the Highlands, too. London might be a multicultural melting pot, but the same can’t be said for rural Scotland. There’s a ghost of a smile and a glint in her eye that suggests she’s winding me up though. I’ll take that as a good sign.
‘You’re not missing much. I need to be down here for the trial, too. Key witness and all that. I’ve a meeting with a couple of lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service next week. First of many, I’m sure.’
‘Don’t envy you that. Never much fun being in the witness box.’
‘You done many trials then?’ It’s not surprising, just another part of the job.
‘Enough. Nothing as grand as the Old Bailey though.’ Karen finishes her tea quickly, glances at her watch, then out the kitchen window onto the walkway at the front of the flat. There don’t seem to be any hack reporters trying to peer through the net curtains. ‘Thanks for that, but I should probably be getting back before Bain starts to worry.’
‘Don’t mention it. I should be the one thanking you. Coming to my rescue like that.’
‘Yeah, well. I’ve heard all the chatter in the station, about what you did and all. Seems most of it’s the usual bollocks. You didn’t ask to be on suspension, even if it does piss people off when they’re having to work extra shifts. The rest of it’s just boys being boys, right?’
It’s late afternoon when Karen-with-a-K leaves, and I wonder what’s happened to the day. I should probably go and check no one’s tried to steal my car, but the weather’s set in again and I really can’t be bothered. At least the rain squalls will have driven the last of the paparazzi away, I hope. Knowing my luck there’ll be a couple of them in a flat across the road, just waiting to snap me in my dressing gown taking out the bin bags. Why the fuck are they hounding me? I’m not news. Except that I am. It’s not every day an obscenely wealthy man gets locked up for child abuse and attempting to murder a police officer.
I go through to the kitchen, take the empty mugs to the sink and give them a cursory wash. I can’t make my mind up about Karen. Her initial hostility was understandable enough; nobody likes a troublemaker, and that’s what I am. Can’t deny it, Con. She wants to be a detective though, and I remember that hunger. I’d do pretty much anything to get onto a decent investigation. Karen’s just the same.
It’s easy enough to see what Bain’s doing, too. He’s dangling a juicy transfer to the NCA in front of her, and all she has to do is keep an eye on me. Make sure I don’t do anything stupid. It’s almost enough to make me behave. Last thing I want is to get another constable in trouble, make another enemy on the force.
I’m staring at nothing, the thoughts tumbling through my mind, wondering how I’m going to manage having an inexperienced shadow. I could just do what Bain wants me to do, of course. Behave, keep a low profile, wait for the trial to be over. The idea makes me chuckle. No chance of that happening.
The day’s post is waiting on the little table in the entrance hall where I dumped it when I escaped the paparazzi earlier. Mostly bills, by the look of things, but a thicker, squarer envelope gives me a horrible sense of dread. I knew this was coming, but even so I never wanted it to happen. Never wanted to have to deal with it.
I slip my finger under the flap and tear the envelope open as I walk through to the kitchen. A scent of something expensive wafts up to my nose, temporarily fighting off the malodorous pong from the fridge. How like Charlotte to add a spritz of Chanel N°5 to her wedding invitations. And that’s what this is.
Mrs Roger DeVilliers requests the pleasure of your company at the wedding of her daughter Charlotte to Mr Benevolence Fairchild.
I scan the rest of the card, noting idly that Margo still uses her husband’s surname. I’ve not spoken to her since that fateful day, but I’d have thought she’d be looking for a divorce, and a few tens of millions to go with it. More, even. The date for the wedding is sooner than I’d imagined it would be, too. Normal form is to give guests at least six weeks to come up with an excuse. It’s the other details that sink me into the nearest chair and fill me with a gloom far deeper than having to deal with the tabloid press. Too much to hope that Charlotte and Ben might elope somewhere. No, they’re going to get married in Harston Magna, and the reception will be at the hall. My parents’ house.
I’ll have to go home.
I’ll have to speak to my mother.
6
‘You’re nothing but a trouble magnet, Fairchild. You know that?’
Another morning meeting at the station. At least this time I managed to get to DCI Bain’s temporary office without running into any of my old colleagues and their ill-hidden grievances against me. It’s a shame that Bain is making up for that with his own.
‘I don’t know—’
‘Of course you don’t. You never do.’ He’s sitting in his chair on the other side of the desk, headmaster-style. Leaning forward, he grabs the first from a small pile of newspapers heaped up in front of him. I’d call them tabloids, but I don’t think even the better rags print on broadsheet any more. This one has a red banner at the top though, so I don’t expect much. The headline says it all.
‘Posh Cop Lashes Out!’
‘Posh Cop? Is that the best they can do?’ I’m trying to cover my fear with bravado, but Bain’s not falling for it.
‘Word is you broke one of their cameras. About ten grand’s worth, apparently.’
I scan the few words that accompany the photograph, taken of me climbing out of the squad car, one hand up in what looks like an attempt to cover my face. I’m no celebrity, but you wouldn’t know that if, like most of the folk buying the paper, you don’t actually read.
‘Ten grand?’ Bain’s words finally sink in. ‘Like fuck.’
‘Normally I’d be sympathetic, Fairchild. Nobody likes these twats.’ He picks up the next paper from the stack, unfolding it to reveal an even less flattering image of me. ‘But this is exactly the reason why I can’t have you poking your nose into any active investigation. However much you might want to. Even if it did happen around the back of your block.’
‘Will they ever leave me alone?’ I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a member of the Royal Family to fall pregnant more than I do right now. Either that or for some reality TV star to be caught with his pants down. Literally, not metaphorically.
‘Once the trial’s done they’ll lose intere
st. But you need to keep a low profile until then. It would have been better if you’d stayed in Scotland, to be honest.’
‘I can always go back.’ I’m not exactly overjoyed at the prospect, although I could try and blag expenses to stay in Edinburgh rather than disappearing into the Highlands.
‘No. Annoying though it is, you need to be here. There’s too much to go over, and the CPS won’t send lawyers up to speak to you in the middle of nowhere. Better if you’re here. Just keep your head down, OK?’
‘I’ll do my best, sir.’ But it’s not even forty-eight hours since I got back and I’ve already stumbled on a crime scene, been accosted by the paparazzi and I haven’t even told him about the big society wedding that’s coming up soon. My brother getting married to the daughter of the man I’m testifying against. The press will just love that. I open my mouth to break the bad news, but Bain interrupts me.
‘They reckon he’ll live. The lad you found. Still don’t know who he is, mind you, but we’re working on that.’
‘About the hospital yesterday, sir. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have gone there.’
‘With your press?’ Bain chucks the paper back onto the pile. ‘Too bloody right you shouldn’t. We’ve managed to keep a lid on it for now. Just another gangland beating as far as they’re concerned, and that’s not as worthy of a front page as some twenty-something model slipping out of her dress in public. Won’t last though, if they find out we discovered the body outside your apartment block.’
‘Yeah, well. Not much I can do about that if I’m staying in London. Not unless you’ve got a safe house going spare.’
I meant it as a joke, but something about the expression on the DCI’s face makes me think he’s taking the idea more seriously. There’s still two months to go until the trial though. No way I’m going to let them confine me to some shitty apartment in Peckham, with an ever-changing rota of bored detectives for company. I’d rather run the gauntlet of the press.
‘It’s a possibility. If they start making life difficult. Meantime I’ll make sure there’s a uniform somewhere nearby you can call in if you’re being harassed.’
I can imagine that will go down well with Karen-with-a-K. But at least it shows Bain is on my side. Nobody else has done anything for me except complain that I’ve made their lives difficult. As if I was the one who’d been running a protection racket from within the department for the past thirty years.
I’m still half an hour’s walk from home, still fuming at the way I’m being treated by people who are meant to be my colleagues, when I get the feeling I’m being followed. Walking across London’s not quite the same as yomping through the glens of Perthshire, but it helps to calm my rage and focus my thoughts on how to deal with the problem. It also lets my subconscious notice things, apparently.
My first thought is to stop walking, look around. Training keeps me moving, but I begin to study my surroundings a bit more closely. Knowing my luck it’s another bloody reporter or paparazzi photographer. I can’t understand what the interest is, but then I’ve never understood why people buy tabloids and those weird magazines at the checkout in the supermarket. Maybe I’m just old before my time, but I’d rather watch a film on TV than some reality show or soap opera, rather lose myself in a book than spend hours on social media. And I’d rather pay attention to what’s going on around me than stare at my phone as the bus bears down on me.
Which is why I spot her before she knows.
She’s on the other side of the road, so she’s put a bit of thought into following me. She’s not particularly skilled at tailing though, and I recognise her too. There’s no reason why the girl from the hospital should be in this part of London at exactly the same time as me unless she’s following me. What I can’t understand is why.
A little further up the street there’s a café. It’s too cold for sitting outside, but they’ve set out a couple of hopeful chairs and a table anyway. I guess some people still like a cigarette with their espresso. It’s a little later for coffee than I’d like, but I go in anyway, order a latte and tell them I’ll be outside.
The girl’s staring blankly at a shop window almost directly over the road and partly obscured by one of London’s many plane trees when I step outside. The chairs have been tipped forward to keep the seats dry, but there’s still enough moisture clinging to the metal surface that I can feel it through my jeans when I tilt one back and sit down on it. I drop my bag onto the table and search around inside it for my phone, all the while keeping one eye on the girl. Whatever’s in that shop is clearly fascinating, which is odd since all I can see is a ‘Closing Down Sale’ banner and emptiness beyond.
My coffee arrives with a light shower of rain, what I’d call a Scotch mist if I was being pretentious and wasn’t in England. The nice lady serving me asks if I wouldn’t rather be inside, as she shivers in her white T-shirt and coffee-stained apron. It takes a moment to explain to her that no, I’m fine out here, and when I look back across the road the girl is gone. For a second or two I consider leaving the coffee I’ve just paid a king’s ransom for and going to look for her. Then she appears on my side of the road, not more than ten metres away. She makes no pretence about staring straight at me, so I push the other chair out with my foot.
‘Want a drink?’
‘You fuzz?’
The girl eyes me with the kind of deep suspicion only teenagers can manage. This is the first time I’ve mustered a half decent look at her, and I reckon she’s not much older than sixteen, if that. Small, her face is very pale, features more Asian than Caucasian. Her heavy black coat drops almost to the ground, and glistens with damp. Little droplets of rain cling to her tangles of black hair too. She looks dishevelled, but in a manner that’s more cultivated than due to circumstance.
‘Does it matter? You’re the one following me, not the other way round.’
‘You was at the hospital. Place was crawling with filth.’ She takes a few steps closer, but still doesn’t sit.
‘And you went there anyway. Went to see that poor boy. You know him?’
‘Sort of.’ She’s got a rucksack slung over one shoulder, hands in her coat pockets, but shrugs anyway. ‘Not really.’
‘You know his name?’ One question too many, I see her eyes narrow, the slight tension in her body as the flight response starts to kick in.
‘You are a cop, aren’t you.’ It’s not a question.
‘Detective constable. Currently on suspension, so I can’t show you my warrant card.’ I pick up my coffee, lean back in my seat. Not the most comfortable place for a meeting, but it’s better than nothing.
‘Wot you do then?’ She pulls out the chair and perches on the edge of it. Still wary, still ready to run at the slightest hint of trouble.
‘What did I do? Where to start.’ I take another sip of my coffee. It’s not bad, but not as good as Mrs Feltham’s.
‘I used to work undercover. My boss got killed and they tried to blame that on me. Turns out it was his boss who was bent all along. Never trust a copper, right? And the whole thing got really interesting when an old friend of my dad found out about it and tried to take over. Only he had a bit of a thing for young children.’
I can see her eyes glazing over as I speak, perhaps not the effect I was looking for, but at least she’s not running away. Then she snaps out of it, thin painted-on eyebrows shooting up towards her scraggly hairline.
‘You’re her. I seen you in the papers, right? Sent that old kiddie fiddler down. Remember them talking about you.’
‘Them?’ The word is barely out of my mouth before I can see it’s the wrong thing to ask. Her enthusiasm had been growing, and with it the chance of finding out some more information about the young boy in the hospital. She shuts down almost as quickly as she lit up in the first place. Stands up and shoulders her rucksack.
‘Be seeing you, copper.’ She turns awa
y from me and starts to walk away. I consider trying to stop her, but it would be a waste of time. She’s younger and fitter than me. Street smart. It doesn’t stop me calling out to her though.
‘Hey. You got a name?’
She stops, turns back to face me. Starts to say something, then corrects herself. ‘Anna. And his name’s Dan. The boy you found. Daniel Jones. He was OK. Wasn’t fair what they did to him. Wasn’t right.’
I open my mouth to ask more, but she’s already walking away.
7
The local park’s not somewhere I’d consider visiting for a picnic. It’s not really what I think of when someone mentions that word anyway. Park, to me, means a place of grass and trees and watching where you tread in case of dog mess. This is more of an open square of cracked and weedy paving slabs, arranged around a small children’s play area that never seems to have any children playing in it. There’s a frame where a couple of swings used to hang, but the swings themselves are long gone. As is the merry-go-round, just a lump of pipe sticking out of the ground that would have been its axle and is surely much more of a safety hazard than the rotating platform that sat on it. In the summer this place is full of homeless people huddling under cardboard sheets and eking out their meagre supplies of cheap booze. In the winter it’s full of homeless people trying their best not to die of the cold. A little island of despair, cut off from the surrounding houses and shops by arterial roads feeding the city centre, it’s best avoided if at all possible.
It is, however, on my way back home, and I make a habit of walking through whenever my route takes me that way, if only to see what’s going on with the local addicts. Having a regular police presence, even if it’s only an off-duty detective constable, tends to discourage the dealers too. A shame I’ve been away for so long.
The first thing I notice is the man, slumped forward on one of the bird-shit-spattered benches. My immediate thought is that he’s dead, so awkward is his posture and total his stillness. Where others would probably give him a wide berth, hope that ignoring the problem will make it go away, I approach. I’ve already pulled out my phone, ready to call this in, when he sits up with a lurching movement more spasm than coordinated. For a moment he looks at me with unseeing eyes, and then he slumps again, a thin line of drool escaping from the side of his mouth. Judging by the state of his trousers, this has been happening for a while.
