The Escort braked sharply, and stopped no more than ten yards from the Wolseley. The headlights stayed on, and one of the doors opened. Kingdom was still crouching behind the Wolseley’s boot. Someone got out and began to walk towards Kingdom. Only when he was very close did Kingdom let him see the gun.
‘Stop there,’ Kingdom said, ‘Put your hands on your head.’
The man did what he was told. Against the headlights, his face was a mask of darkness.
‘What’s this about then?’
Kingdom peered at him, saying nothing. It wasn’t the voice he’d expected. It wasn’t a voice from the Falls, or the Ardoyne, but a London voice, youngish, flat, slightly muffled by a heavy cold.
‘Well?’ the man said. ‘You gonna tell me or what?’
Kingdom, still crouching, shifted his bodyweight. In the Escort, the driver had the radio tuned to the police control frequency. Even at ten yards, Kingdom could hear enough to know it was authentic, though it might still have been a ruse, a cassette tape recorded earlier, or one of the cheap scanners available everywhere.
‘Police?’ Kingdom said warily.
The figure in front of him nodded. ‘Yeah …’ He paused. ‘CID.’
‘Prove it. Tell your mate to call in.’
The man in front glanced over his shoulder at the driver in the car.
Kingdom heard the driver start mumbling into the handset. ‘Speak up,’ he shouted, ‘I can’t hear.’
‘Juliet Three,’ the driver said, ‘corner of Blackstone Road and Park View. I/C One. Thirty. Thirty-five. Tall. Thin. Estimate six-one, six-two. Black hair, long. Jeans. Leather jacket. Bloke’s armed.’ He paused, ‘Urgent assistance.’
Kingdom looked hard at the man in front of him. ‘Urgent assistance’ was a call for the cavalry, the balloon you sent up when you were facing a thousand drunks, or a tooled-up drug dealer. Under different circumstances, it might have been funny. Now, it was anything but.
The driver signed off. There was a silence.
Kingdom stood up. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘My mistake.’
The man in front stepped forward and extended a hand. Kingdom shook it.
‘The gun, you clown. Give me the fucking gun.’
Kingdom stared at him a moment, then did what he was told. The detective briefly examined the gun. Then he tucked it into his waistband and told Kingdom to turn round and put his hands flat on the car roof.
‘Why?’
‘I’m going to search you.’
‘Why?’
The detective didn’t bother answering. After the search was over, he patted the butt of the gun.
‘What’s with this, then? What’ve we spoiled?’
Kingdom felt in his jacket and found his ID. ‘SB,’ he said briefly, ‘The name’s Alan Kingdom.’
The driver from the Escort joined the detective beside Kingdom. They both examined the ID in the glare of the headlights, then the driver took it back to the car. Kingdom could hear him on the radio, checking the details. The man beside him was very close.
‘Been on the hit and miss, have we?’ he muttered. ‘Life getting a bit dull?’
‘Listen …’ Kingdom began.
‘No, clown, you listen–’
The detective pulled Kingdom round, the top of Kingdom’s shirt bunched in his fist, the gun in his other hand, an inch from Kingdom’s ear. Kingdom looked at him, wondering whether he hadn’t been right all along, two hit-men, hired locally, with a personal message from the folk across the water. Clever, he thought, eyeing the Escort. Fucking clever. The driver left the car and joined his colleague.
‘What they say?’
‘Kosher.’
‘Oh …’
The detective let Kingdom go, pushing him away, disappointment sopping up the last of the adrenalin. Kingdom brushed the sleeve of his jacket, the night air suddenly cold on his face.
‘So why the pull?’ he said after a while. ‘Why the aggro? Why all this?’
The two detectives exchanged glances.
Then one of them patted the Wolseley. ‘Nice motor,’ he said. ‘We’ve got it down as nicked.’
TWO
Charlie Truman was reading a copy of the Daily Telegraph when Kingdom finally made it to the office. Kingdom sat in front of his desk, his trench-coat dripping rain onto the worn square of Afghan rug. He’d come across to Ilford by bus, a journey of eight miles that had taken just under an hour. Charlie looked up, one finger still anchored in the middle of the front page. Upside down, Kingdom could read the headline. ‘MP SHOT DEAD,’ it went, ‘HUGE POLICE HUNT.’
‘Well, well,’ Charlie said, ‘I was beginning to worry.’
Kingdom muttered an apology, explaining about the bus. Truman studied him, the newspaper abandoned.
‘They took your licence? Last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they definitely charged you? You’re sure about that?’
Kingdom pulled a chair across the room and sat down. The rain had penetrated the trench-coat, and his trousers were streaked with damp stains.
‘Do me a favour, Charlie,’ he said, ‘I’m a policeman.’
‘Just.’
‘Very funny.’
Charlie reached for a switch on the intercom and asked for two coffees, and Kingdom watched him as he turned to a small trolley beside the desk, piled high with paperwork. At school, Charlie Truman had been small, pugnacious, loyal, and famously brave. Quite why he should have ended up as a solicitor, Kingdom had never understood, but the passing years had changed him very little. The same tight cap of curly black hair. The same crooked teeth. The same ready grin. The same habit of moving his body from the waist up, bending into the conversation, enjoying it.
‘We never see you at the reunions,’ he said, still working his way through the files. ‘Abandoned us, or just shy?’
‘Neither. I’ve been away a lot. Most of the time, in fact.’
‘The job, still? Is that it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Abroad? Somewhere nice? Somewhere glitzy? Miami? Las Vegas? Bogota?’
Kingdom pulled a face. ‘Belfast, mostly,’ he said, ‘if you call that glitzy.’
‘Yuk.’
Charlie found the file he wanted, and put it on the desk. Kingdom noticed that he was trying to grow his nails.
‘I don’t suppose I made much sense on the phone,’ he began, ‘but I expect you caught the drift.’
Charlie nodded. ‘I got the authorised version this morning,’ he said. ‘I gave the station a ring and spoke to the duty sergeant. According to him it was pretty straightforward. You were pissed and you’d been driving a stolen vehicle. They arrested you. They took you in. They stuck you with the breathalyser. And then they charged you.’ He paused. ‘Sub-plot?’ he said. ‘Something I missed?’
Kingdom shrugged. ‘Not really,’ he said.
‘You were pissed?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the car had been reported stolen?’
‘Yes,’ Kingdom nodded, ‘I’m afraid so.’
Kingdom put his head back so it rested on the top of the chair, his long body sprawled towards the desk. All his conversations with Charlie Truman seemed to develop this way, Kingdom on the defensive, semi-apologetic, stuck for words. Charlie was a success: solid marriage, good business, lovely kids. His life was the best possible evidence that you could – with a little luck and a lot of effort – get it right. But Kingdom had never got it right, not Charlie’s kind of right, and as time passed he’d begun to realise that he didn’t much want to. The hole you ended up in, as his dad used to say, was the hole you probably wanted to dig.
Charlie was still looking at him.
‘So what about the car?’ he said. ‘How do you explain that?’
Kingdom closed his eyes a moment. The office was warm, the central heating on full blast, and he could feel his coat beginning to stiffen around him.
‘You remember my dad, Charlie?’
‘Ernie? Of course I do
.’
‘You remember the kind of bloke he was? Sharp? Funny? Give you the clothes off his back?’
‘Yes. Lovely man.’ Charlie was leaning forward now, genuine concern. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
Kingdom opened one eye, shifting his weight in the chair, hearing the secretary juggling cups in the corridor outside.
‘It was his car,’ he said, ‘Ernie’s car. The Wolseley.’
‘The grey one?’
‘Yeah. He thought I’d nicked it, and he reported it stolen.’
‘Why did he do that?’
Kingdom gazed at him a moment, wondering quite how to phrase it, not wanting to spoil Charlie’s memories of his father. Then he shook his head, seeing no point in dressing up the truth.
‘He’s gone mad, Charlie,’ he said. ‘It’s the saddest thing you ever saw.’
Over coffee, Kingdom explained the situation, where the last two years had taken him, his lack of money, what he’d found at home when he’d returned from Northern Ireland. For the time being, he said, he was looking after his dad, but soon he knew he’d have to make other arrangements. The legal position, he suspected, was dodgy. In Kingdom’s opinion, his dad was no longer sane enough to cope.
‘Meaning?’
‘He’ll have to go into some kind of home. Local authority. Private. God knows.’
‘And who pays?’
‘That’s the problem. That’s really why I’m here, Charlie. Sod the drunk-in-charge. I need advice about Ernie.’
‘But does he have money? Apart from his pension? Does he have any savings at all? Investments?’
Kingdom laughed. ‘Ernie? Investments?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘No? You’re saying no?’
‘I’m saying I doubt it.’
‘Then ask him.’
‘I can’t. He won’t tell me. He won’t tell me anything about money, the house, savings, whatever he’s got stashed away. He keeps it all secret, locked away, literally. Fucking great briefcase. Carts it around the house with him, everywhere he goes.’ Kingdom paused. ‘You know? Room to room? In his tatty old dressing gown? With a briefcase?’
Charlie nodded, not looking at Kingdom, rolling his pen up and down the blotter on his desk. ‘My aunt got like that,’ he said, ‘Barking.’
‘Mad?’
‘No, that’s where she lived. Barking.’ He looked up. ‘Drove my Uncle Frank round the bend.’ Charlie sighed and stood up, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, staring out of the window. Charlie’s premises were a couple of streets back from the High Road, typically modest, typically sensible.
‘So what do I do?’ Kingdom asked. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘You need Power of Attorney,’ Charlie said at last. ‘He should agree to let you decide his affairs. There’s a form. It’s very straightforward.’
‘He’ll never do it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he won’t, Charlie. He barely knows me. Last night, after all the nonsense, I came in. I wasn’t raving. I wasn’t even angry. I just wanted to know how come he’d phoned the police in the first place. They had the call logged. They showed me. Five past three in the afternoon. He must have been onto them the moment I laid hands on the car. That’s how long it took him to forget who I was. I’m telling you, Charlie, he’s lost it. His memory lasts five seconds. By the time he gets out of the armchair, he’s forgotten where he’s going. He’s shot. Cream crackered. All he’s good for now is carrying that bloody briefcase around …’
‘And keeping an ear for the car?’
‘Yeah,’ Kingdom nodded, ‘and that. I’m telling you, he’s on patrol. All day. Every day. He doesn’t trust anyone. Not me. Not the milkman. Nobody. We’re all out to get him. He doesn’t need a house. He needs a bloody trench.’
Charlie nodded, sympathetic, tilting the blotter towards him, catching the pen as it dropped off.
‘The house,’ he began, ‘could be a problem.’
‘How come?’
‘If he goes into a home, he’ll have to pay for it. Unless he’s down to his last few quid.’
‘How much is that?’
‘Eight grand. They total up your assets.’ He frowned. ‘He owns the house?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Same place you used to live? Mafeking Street?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is there a mortgage on it?’
‘Dunno. Maybe. Maybe two.’
‘What’s it worth?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Seventy grand? Give or take? Top whack?’
Kingdom shrugged.
‘OK, seventy grand. Plus whatever else. All that goes to the nursing home. At three hundred quid a week, minimum …’ he paused again, reaching for a calculator, ‘that’s fifteen grand a year, at least.’
Kingdom frowned, doing the sums. Charlie was right. Whichever way you looked at it, the house would have to pay for the rest of his father’s life, leaving Kingdom with nowhere to live.
Kingdom looked up. ‘What if he gives me the house?’ he said. ‘Transfers it into my name? So it’s no longer his?’
‘And he still goes into a home?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Doesn’t work. There has to be a six-month gap. Otherwise it’s a fiddle.’
Kingdom nodded, another door shut in his face. He looked up again. ‘But what if I get him certified? What does that take?’
‘Two independent psychiatrists.’
‘Shrinks?’
‘Yes. And they both have to agree.’
‘OK,’ Kingdom nodded, ‘so they both look him over and agree he’s a fruitcake. Clinically insane. Then what happens?’
‘There’s something called the Court of Protection. They appoint a Receiver. That could be you. But it doesn’t solve the problem.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because one, the shrinks might not see it your way. And two, you’d still have to sell the house. Whatever happens, if he’s got more than eight grand he’s down to pay.’
Kingdom was leaning forward now, his elbows on Charlie’s desk. The rain had made the ends of his hair go curly.
‘Not see it my way?’ he repeated. ‘The shrinks?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Meaning they’d think he was normal? Going on like he does? Sane one minute? Nuts the next? All the stuff in his room? All the things I haven’t told you about?’ He paused. ‘You know how many locks he’s put on his door?’
‘No.’
‘Four. Four locks. Two bolts. Two padlocks. Locks himself away. Literally. If the place catches fire, he won’t have a prayer. I tell you, Charlie, it’s a mess. Him. Me. Every fucking thing.’
Charlie nodded, ever-patient, saying nothing. The last time Kingdom had asked him for advice had been over his divorce. Then, Charlie had told him to be tough, to hang out for half of everything and ignore the voices in his head, but Kingdom had dismissed the advice, telling him that conscience meant more to him than cash. Charlie had laughed at the phrase, telling him he was talking nonsense. No father with a conscience left his kids. That wasn’t the way it worked. You want to stay in the marriage, he’d said, you stay. You want to play the field, then take half the money and run. The conversation had ended when Kingdom pushed back the chair and stormed from the office, but now – two years later – Kingdom knew that Charlie had been right. Whatever you do, do it properly. Even if it meant betraying more or less everyone who’d ever loved you.
Kingdom shook his head, lost for words. The copy of the Telegraph still lay on the desk, neatly folded, the top half of a photograph clearly visible. Kingdom reached for the paper, spreading it flat. The photograph showed a man in his early forties, a studio pose, narrow face, purposeful expression. Underneath, the caption read ‘Max Carpenter, slain MP’.
‘So what do I do?’ he said. ‘Poor old sod.’
‘You or him?’
‘Him, Charlie, him. My dad. Ernie. What happens next?’
‘You�
�ve tried the doctor?’
‘Hopeless. Rushed off her feet. Too busy.’
‘Social services?’ Kingdom shook his head. ‘Try them. You’ll need a reference from the GP. They draw up something called a Care Plan. It’s an obligation. They have to do it.’
‘And where will that get us?’
‘Back here, probably. But it’s a start.’
Kingdom hunched deeper into his trenchcoat, then glanced at his watch. Nearly twelve. Time for a pint. He got up and extended a hand. Standing in front of the desk, he could see the photo Charlie kept by the phone, three kids arranged in a formal pose like notes in a descending scale, each of them perfect replicas of their father: eager, bright-eyed, hungry for life. Charlie was leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head.
Kingdom began to button his coat. ‘Pint?’ he said.
Charlie shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Later?’
‘Maybe.’
The two men looked at each other, knowing full well that the invitation would never be taken up. Not on Kingdom’s terms. Not on Charlie’s. Then, abruptly, the phone began to ring. Charlie reached for it.
‘No calls?’ he said briskly. ‘Didn’t I say no calls?’
Kingdom could hear the receptionist downstairs making her apologies. Then another voice, older, male. Charlie’s frown had gone. He was nodding now, following the drift of the other man’s conversation. Finally, he glanced up at Kingdom.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I’ll pass it on.’ He put the phone down. ‘Your dad,’ he said.
‘Ernie?’
‘Yes. Says your boss has been on. Says it’s urgent. Says you ought to call him.’ He paused, then indicated the phone. ‘Sounded OK to me.’
Kingdom took the tube to St James’ Park, and walked the few hundred yards to New Scotland Yard. Allder’s office was on the nineteenth floor. It always felt bigger than the rest of the offices on the corridor, partly because it occupied a corner of the building, and partly because Allder himself was so small.
Kingdom knocked twice and went in. Allder was sitting behind a desk by the reinforced, blast-proof windows. He was wearing the dark three-piece suit he favoured for television interviews and press lunches, and there was a small white carnation in his buttonhole. His face looked newly pinked, as if someone had just given him a good scrub.
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