The Chalon Heads

by Barry Maitland

  He went over to the safe and crouched in front of it, turned the combination lock on the front and swung the door open. He reached inside and straightened up again, holding a white envelope which he handed to Desai without a word. Then he went back behind his desk and sat down, passing a hand across his eyes as if he had many other things on his mind.

  Desai opened the envelope slowly, his reluctance apparent. And now Kathy felt sorry for him. It was as if Brock were forcing him into the role of Judas Iscariot. It seemed that she might not be the only one heading for the outer darkness.

  From inside the envelope Desai brought out the fold of protective cardboard and opened it cautiously. There was nothing inside.

  ‘All right, Detective Desai,’ Brock’s voice seemed a long way away. ‘What do you make of that? Give us the benefit of your deductive powers, why don’t you?’

  Desai cleared his throat again and the pink tongue made a brief reappearance before he spoke. ‘The inference is that Sammy Starling handed over the copy cover for his wife’s ransom, and the kidnappers realised that what they’d been given wasn’t the real thing. So they cut off her head as punishment.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘If that was the case, there are two possibilities.’ His voice had hardened imperceptibly in response to Brock’s needling. ‘The first is that Starling knew what he was doing, and did it deliberately.’

  ‘How?’ Brock insisted. ‘How could he have done it?’

  ‘He was in the upstairs room at Cabot’s with you for about half an hour from the time you pocketed the envelope to when he went out with Gallows and Heath. Then after he left the auction room he came back upstairs and was again in the same room with you until he left to catch the taxi to Heathrow.’

  ‘The room had that overactive air-conditioning, remember?’ Brock said quietly. ‘Even with everyone there it was cool. I kept my jacket on all the time, didn’t I?’

  Desai nodded.

  ‘Sammy Starling has been many things,’ Brock continued, ‘but never a pickpocket, to my knowledge. Is it credible that he could have lifted that envelope from my inside pocket, removed the cover from the cardboard sleeve, then replaced the envelope in my pocket, without me or anyone else noticing?’

  Desai hesitated, then said, ‘Probably not.’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’

  ‘Someone else did it, and gave him the cover to substitute later, in the taxi maybe.’

  ‘The same objection applies,’ Brock insisted. ‘Only one other person in that room really had the opportunity to do what you’re describing, Leon. Me.’

  Desai lowered his eyes and said nothing.

  ‘Well? Am I right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘But you said there were two possibilities. One, that Sammy knew what he was doing. What was the second?’

  ‘That he didn’t.’ Leon looked at Brock unhappily. ‘I’m only putting forward a train of logic, sir.’

  ‘Don’t call me sir. This isn’t the bloody Army, Leon. So where does this train of impeccable logic take us?’

  ‘Someone might have switched the two covers during the half-hour or so that they were both in the same room, between the time the authentic auction cover was brought upstairs after Sammy had successfully bid for it, and the time he left for Heathrow. He then went ahead with the ransom handover, not realising that what he had was the copy.’

  ‘And again, who was this someone?’ Brock demanded.

  But Desai had had enough. He shook his head and shot a glance at Bren, seeking support. Bren looked deeply worried.

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ he began cautiously, ‘but isn’t it possible that someone could have lifted that cover from your jacket somewhere else, Brock? Did you go somewhere that wasn’t air-conditioned, perhaps? I don’t know, the gents or something.’ He saw the look on Brock’s face, and the suggestion died on his lips. ‘Well,’ he said instead. ‘What do we do, then?’

  ‘We go home and get a bath and a drink and something to eat,’ Brock said wearily. ‘Detective Desai writes a report of the conversation we’ve just had, and in the morning he gives it to Commander Sharpe.’ He got to his feet and walked round his desk, picked up his jacket and made for the door. He stopped as he passed Desai and said, ‘Do you want to search me, Leon? Make sure it isn’t about my person?’

  Desai looked at the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry, old son,’ Brock said, gazing down at his bowed head sadly. ‘It’s been a bad day for us all.’ He slung the jacket over his shoulder and walked out, leaving the three of them sitting in silence in his office.

  Bren was the first to move. He stood up, went to the door and looked down the empty corridor. Then he let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘What the bloody hell’s got into the old man? I’ve never seen him like that before.’

  Desai looked up and said in a low voice, ‘He shouldn’t have said that, about me wanting to search him.’

  ‘No,’ Kathy said. ‘He shouldn’t have said that.’

  They both looked at her, almost as if they hadn’t been conscious of her being there before.

  ‘Well, what do you reckon, Kathy?’ Bren said, with a hint of accusation in his voice. ‘You were there yesterday, right alongside him. You didn’t seem to have much to say.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I was still in shock, actually, Bren. Just as we arrived here he suddenly told me he wanted me out of the team. He said he was transferring me to Jock McLarren in Fraud, as of first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘What?’ A look of dismay filled Bren’s face. ‘Jesus! Why?’

  ‘I think the term he used was “a matter of judgement”. Apparently he hasn’t been happy with me being on this case from the beginning.’

  ‘What the hell’s got into him?’ Bren’s face expressed appalled incomprehension, as if something absolutely dependable, like Christmas or the BBC Six o’Clock News, had failed to occur.

  Desai, who’d had longer to think about this, said quietly, ‘Maybe it’s exactly what he said to Kathy—a question of his judgement. Perhaps he’s lost it.’

  Bren stared at him in disbelief. ‘I don’t buy that.’

  ‘A breakdown, then.’

  ‘Breakdown? Brock?’ Bren looked scandalised.

  ‘It can happen to anyone,’ Desai said. ‘It’s just a matter of applying enough pressure for long enough. Everyone buckles eventually.’

  ‘What form, exactly, do you think this breakdown may have taken, Leon?’ Kathy asked.

  He avoided her eye. ‘There are some parallels between Brock and Starling, one could say. I mean, their careers have run in parallel to an extent. On the one hand Starling, a man who’s been a thief and a parasite all his life, and on the other Brock, a faithful servant of the public good. It would be very hard—impossible, I would say—for Brock not to think that Starling has no moral right to all that money he’s putting up for his wife’s ransom, no more than the kidnappers have a right to it.’

  ‘You’re saying you believe he did steal the cover?’ Bren’s outrage was apparent in his eyes, although he kept his voice even.

  ‘I think it’s possible, yes,’ Desai said.

  ‘That, Leon old chum, is the most preposterous thing I’ve heard coming from you yet.’ Bren’s voice was low and dangerous. ‘And if I hear you spreading it about, I’ll rip your bloody tongue out. Have you understood so little in the time you’ve been working with us?’

  ‘What’s your solution, then, Bren?’ Desai said coolly.

  ‘Someone picked his pocket.’

  ‘That just isn’t credible, Bren. Brock said it. What about you, Kathy?’

  Kathy was looking around the room, as if she might spot some clue as to what was going on inside Brock’s head. It was simply furnished, yet chaotically untidy within confined areas, as if someone who yearned for clean and Spartan surroundings was constantly battling with inundations of paper. There appeared to be no personal mementoes from his years in the force—no group photographs, no framed certificates, n
o souvenirs or trophies. No evidence at all of the journey from Tottenham to here that she could see.

  ‘Bren’s right,’ she said at last. ‘It’s unthinkable that Brock would steal the stamp . . . And if he had, we wouldn’t have known about it.’

  Bren gave a short laugh, his anger fading as quickly as it had come.

  Desai looked unconvinced. ‘So?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kathy said. ‘And it doesn’t look as if I’m going to be able to help you find out either.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him in the morning,’ Bren said. ‘I’ll get him to change his mind about transferring you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Kathy said, without conviction.

  On her way out, she stopped at her pigeonhole in the general office. There was the latest copy of the Job, an invitation from the Christian Police Association to attend their next meeting, a call for nominations for the Equal Opportunities Committee, and a typed note from Brock’s secretary Dot.

  Kathy,

  DCI Brock has asked me to pass on to you the following. You are to be reassigned to Department SO6 as from midnight Sunday 13 July. Please report at 9.00 a.m. on Monday to the office of Superintendent McLarren, level 5, Cobalt Square.

  Paperwork will follow.

  Best wishes and good luck,

  Dot.

  Kathy walked slowly through the deserted Westminster streets, under a sky darkening once more beneath a new belt of thunderclouds. She tried to shake off the numbness that she had felt in Queen Anne’s Gate. It was the numbness of reality suspended, of watching the familiar going haywire all around her, and she tried to ease it off carefully, for it could easily be replaced with anger or self-pity. She could feel both working just beneath the surface, growing on the painful knowledge that she had been discarded, without proper reason or explanation, on the judgement of the one person whose judgement she had most trusted. But neither anger nor self-pity would help her understand what was going on.

  The thought of finding food, of returning to her empty room, made her heart sink. She imagined Helen Fitzpatrick in her snug cottage deep in the woods, cooking something for her dogs, perhaps, discussing with her husband the awful events of the day for the tenth or twentieth time, each debriefing the other companionably over a glass of sherry.

  She stopped, feeling the spit of the first fat raindrops, and frowned at her pale reflection in the glass of a darkened shop window.

  ‘No life, no home,’ she said out loud. It took her a moment to recall that the words were Marianna’s, describing Eva.

  She wondered vaguely if she was only now reacting to Eva’s shocking death. Delayed shock. She turned the idea over slowly, without enthusiasm.

  Paperwork will follow.

  It didn’t make her angry. Just depressed. She recalled the odd way Brock had looked at her in the car. Had he really lost confidence in her?

  She was conscious of a car approaching down the deserted street. She heard it slowing as it drew near, and saw the outline of its reflection gliding to a halt in the shop window, but didn’t turn round. It wasn’t Brock’s car. What now? she thought. A mugging would round off a perfect day. The car door clicked open. A dark figure slowly approached her in the reflection, the face dark, as if masked, but still she didn’t turn round.

  ‘Kathy?’

  She took a deep breath and turned. ‘Hello, Leon,’ she said brightly.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Since when have you been interested in surgical appliances?’ ‘I was just thinking. Something struck me.’

  She turned and looked back at the shop window, seeing its contents dimly, for the first time. She smiled at him.

  ‘Anything that’ll help us?’

  She realised that he must be feeling as exposed as herself, and felt guilty at being so self-engrossed. ‘Probably not. You off home?’

  ‘Not really. Couldn’t face it right away, not after that.’

  She was interested that he was reacting in the same way as herself.

  ‘I thought I might get a drink somewhere,’ he said. ‘You don’t fancy one, do you?’

  Yes, she thought, and heard herself say, ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Can I run you anywhere, then?’

  ‘I’m just going to the tube station.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Her manner made him uncertain. ‘Get in, if you like.’

  She got in.

  ‘Which station?’ he asked.

  She didn’t answer at first, then said, ‘Can I change my mind about the drink?’

  He drove across the river. They were somewhere in Lambeth, she realised, but she had never been in the street before, lined with seedy commercial and light-industrial premises with high-rise flats looming behind. She’d never seen the little corner pub before either.

  ‘It has the advantage that coppers don’t use it,’ Desai said, as he opened the door into a small, quiet and comfortingly subdued bar, and later, when he had bought them drinks, he explained that he sometimes came here from the forensic science labs, which weren’t far away in Lambeth Road.

  They drank in silence for a while, then Desai said, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  Kathy roused herself. ‘If you like.’

  ‘You look worn out. Are you sure?’ He sounded calm and concerned, the way she would like to sound. She thought how very black and sleek his hair was, like a cat’s, and wondered what it would feel like to stroke.

  ‘No, no. I’m fine.’ She took another sip of the brandy and nodded emphatically.

  ‘So Brock really did fire you, did he?’

  She took the note from Dot from her jacket pocket and handed it to him without a word.

  ‘Well, well.’ Desai seemed impressed.

  ‘Didn’t you believe me?’ she asked.

  ‘I . . .’ He hesitated. ‘All sorts of possibilities have been going through my mind in the last couple of hours, Kathy.

  Sorry.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you were part of whatever game Brock’s playing.’

  Kathy frowned deeply at her glass.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Desai repeated. ‘I’m completely in the dark. And I thought, well . . .’

  Again he hesitated, and again Kathy prodded him. ‘You thought what?’

  ‘Well, it’s been suggested . . . that you and he have something going.’

  Kathy looked at him in astonishment. ‘Suggested by whom?’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘No one important.’ He waved a hand. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Not by Bren . . . or Dot?’

  ‘No, no. No one like that. No one at Queen Anne’s Gate. But you just seemed very close, the two of you, and I suppose people speculate, more out of mischief than anything, and it isn’t as if I know you that well.’

  ‘I thought we knew each other, Leon,’ Kathy said.

  She met his eyes: they were disconcertingly mesmeric, dark, intent and unblinking. Then, finally, he smiled, ruefully perhaps, regretfully. ‘Not really,’ he said quietly, and turned his attention to his drink. ‘It’s been a rough day,’ he went on. For you especially. Did you get any lunch?’

  ‘No.’ She realised that that was probably why the brandy seemed to be working so fast.

  ‘We could get some food here. It isn’t too bad.’ He offered the idea cautiously, then half withdrew it. ‘Sorry. You’ve probably got plans.’

  ‘No, that sounds fine. Maybe just a sandwich or something.’

  He went back to the bar. He returned with two more brandies, which he set down on the table, and then took a mobile phone from the pocket of his black leather jacket. ‘Excuse me a moment.’

  He walked over to the open door of the bar and stood there with his back to her, making a call. Her heart sank as she watched him. He’s cancelling some other arrangement, she thought, and had a vivid picture of a pretty Indian wife and several children, beautiful girls perhaps, dark-eyed like their father, waiting patiently for him to come home.
/>   When he returned to his seat facing her she said, hearing the edge in her voice, ‘I hope you’re not cancelling something on my account, Leon. I’d just as soon get back.’

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ he said. ‘I really couldn’t face the family hearth right now. I’d much rather talk things over with you.’

  His coolness shocked her. ‘Don’t they mind you being away all weekend?’

  ‘They’re used to it. Sometimes, if I’m working late at the lab, or just don’t want to go home, I stay here. There’s a couple of rooms upstairs here. I’m one of their regulars— they give me a good rate.’

  ‘I see. Very convenient.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She studied him as he reached for his drink. This was a side of Desai she hadn’t seen before. She was half-way through her second brandy, and was beginning to feel less fragile, able to take a more detached and expansive view of the world. ‘Tell me, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly do you say to her? Do you actually tell her that you can’t face coming home?’

  He smiled. ‘No. She wouldn’t appreciate that. And I didn’t say I’m having a drink with an attractive blonde from work, either. That would give her ideas.’

  ‘I’m sure it would.’ She tossed back the end of the drink and clenched her teeth. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Her name?’ He looked at her as if this was an odd question. ‘Indira,’ he said, off-hand.

  ‘And how many children does Indira have?’

  ‘Two,’ he said. He looked as if he didn’t want to pursue this and made to get up. ‘I’ll get you another brandy.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ she said firmly. ‘My round.’ She got to her feet and had to make an effort to steady herself as she walked to the bar.

  When she returned she said, ‘Is she very pretty?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who? Indira, of course.’

  He looked perplexed, then said, ‘I suppose she was once. Now you’d call her, what? Homely, I suppose.’

  Kathy’s eyes widened. ‘God, Leon!’ she breathed. ‘That’s a hell of a way to talk about your wife.’

  Desai looked at her without expression, then said, ‘Indira is my mother, Kathy. I spoke to my mother.’

  For a moment Kathy imagined an extended Indian family, three generations or more, and thought, This is getting worse. Then he added cautiously, ‘I live in Barnet, with my mum and dad. I don’t have a wife.’