The Business Of Dying

by Simon Kernick

  Welland was in a ward at the back of the hospital and they’d got him a private room. He was sitting up in bed in his pyjamas reading the Evening Standard when I knocked and went in. He was much paler than usual, like he was a bit seasick, but he didn’t appear to have lost any weight, and all in all he didn’t look quite as rough as I’d expected.

  He looked up and managed a smile when he saw me. ‘Hello, Dennis.’

  ‘How are you, boss?’

  ‘I’m sure I’ve been worse, but I can’t honestly remember when.’

  ‘Well, you look all right for it. Have they started the treatment yet?’

  ‘No, it’s been postponed until tomorrow. Lack of specialist staff, something like that.’

  ‘That’s the NHS for you. They make the Met look overmanned. Here, I brought you these.’ I put the wine gums and magazines down by the side of the bed. He thanked me, and with a quick gesture offered me a seat.

  I sat down in a threadbare chair next to him and said something else to the effect that he looked remarkably healthy given the circumstances, which is the sort of inane bullshit you have to come out with at times like this, even though no one ever believes it. I once remember telling a girl whose face had been partially melted by acid thrown at her by an ex-boyfriend that she’d be all right in time. Of course she wouldn’t and neither would Welland.

  ‘It’s good of you to come, Dennis. Thanks.’ He sat back further into the pillows, looking tired, and I noticed that he sounded short of breath when he spoke.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say it was a pleasure, sir, because visiting a hospital never is, but I wanted you to know we hadn’t forgotten about you or anything.’

  ‘How is work? I miss it, you know. Never really thought I would, but I do.’

  ‘It’s the same as ever,’ I told him. ‘Too many criminals, not enough coppers. Plenty to keep us busy.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s a hiding to nothing sometimes, isn’t it?’

  ‘It sure is that,’ I agreed, wondering where this conversation was going.

  ‘You know something, Dennis. I’ve always thought you were a good copper. You know the job, you know what it’s all about.’

  He turned his head and looked at me just a little bit too closely for my liking. I had the feeling this was going to turn into one of those deep conversations about life and policework I could really do without.

  ‘I’ve always done my best, sir.’

  ‘We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yeah, we have. Eight years you’ve been my boss now.’

  ‘Eight years . . . Christ, is it that long? Time just goes, doesn’t it? One minute you’re a young copper with it all in front of you, and before you know it . . . before you know it, you’re this . . . Sat in a hospital bed waiting to begin the treatment that could save your life.’ He was no longer looking at me, but was staring up at the ceiling, seemingly lost in his thoughts. ‘Funny how things go, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, it is.’ It was. ‘Eight years.’ I shook my head. ‘Shit.’

  ‘You know, these days they’ve got so many new faces. All these graduates who’ve come in with their new ideas. A lot of them are good blokes, don’t get me wrong, and women . . . but they don’t really understand the fundamentals of policework. Not like you and me. We’re old school, Dennis. That’s what we are. Old school.’

  ‘I think we’re a dying breed, sir. In a few years’ time we’ll be gone altogether.’

  ‘And you know what? They’ll miss us. They don’t like us, they think we’re dinosaurs, but when we’re gone they’ll miss us.’

  ‘People never get appreciated until they’re gone,’ I said.

  ‘That’s exactly it. These new people – these men and women with their degrees – they just don’t understand policework. Not like you and me, Dennis. They don’t know that sometimes you’ve got to bend the rules to get on.’

  I felt a sudden sense of shock. I’d always been very careful not to involve Welland in any of my murkier dealings, and as far as I was aware he knew nothing about any wrongdoing I’d ever committed.

  ‘I’ve always tried to play it fair, sir. Sometimes I’ve had to lean hard on people, but it’s always been by the book.’

  ‘Sometimes you’ve got to do these things,’ he said, continuing as if I hadn’t spoken, still staring up towards the ceiling. ‘People don’t realize the sort of job we have to do, the sort of scum we have to deal with the whole time. They just take the whole thing for granted. Do you remember when the Home Secretary visited that time?’

  I remembered all right. Two years ago it had been. He’d marched in all smiles, pumping hands left, right and centre. Telling us how he was going to increase recruitment and how he and the government were going to introduce legislation to make it easier for the police to gain convictions and harder for the criminals to avoid the long arm of the law, which, needless to say, had never happened. Come to think of it, he’d used the phrase ‘taking the war to the criminals’ as well. Maybe that’s where Knox had got it from.

  ‘Who could forget?’ I said.

  ‘He talked about how he really empathized with us, how he knew how hard the job we had to do was. But he didn’t. None of them do. If they did, they’d untie our hands and pay us more. Make it worthwhile upholding the law.’ He sighed. ‘Sometimes you’ve got to bend the rules a bit, make a few pennies here and there to supplement things. If a piece of evidence goes missing, who’s going to notice? In the end, it’s only going to get burned anyway. Why not make something out of it?’

  Still he wouldn’t look at me. I felt increasingly uncomfortable sitting there in that shitty little room listening to things I really didn’t want to hear. In a way, he sounded as though he was rambling, but I knew he wasn’t.

  ‘What are you trying to say, sir?’

  ‘You know what I’m trying to say, Dennis. I know you’ve bent the rules in the past—’

  ‘I’ve always tried to play it fair,’ I said, repeating the phrase I’d used earlier, but it sounded lame now, and I knew it. ‘I don’t think I’ve—’

  This time he turned and faced me. ‘Dennis, I know you’ve done things in the past you shouldn’t have. I know it. No question. Stuff’s gone missing, sometimes bad stuff like dope, and you’re the only person who could have taken it.’ I tried to say something, but he put up a hand to stop me. He wanted to say his piece, and nothing was going to stop him. ‘You’re a good copper. You always have been. But I’m not blind. And I’m not stupid. I’m not saying you’re bent, not by any means, but I know you’ve cut corners and made a bit of illicit cash here and there; done a few dodgy deals. Fair enough, I say. You’ve worked hard over the years. You’ve put away a lot of very nasty people, people who’d probably still be free if it wasn’t for your efforts. I know that in a couple of cases you’ve had to use – how shall I put it? – unconventional means to put people down. And I understand that, I really do. The law’s a straitjacket sometimes. I know it and you know it, because we’re old school. These new people, they don’t have a clue how it works ...’ He turned away again, presumably signifying that he’d got what he wanted off his chest.

  For a moment I just sat there, not sure what to say. What could I say? He had me bang to rights, and the thing was, I’d never seen it coming. Maybe I’d just been far too cocky for my own good. I exhaled slowly and wished I could have a cigarette.

  ‘You know what I like about you, sir? You never mince your words.’

  ‘No point. Not when you’re in my position.’

  ‘What have the doctors said about the ... the er ...?’

  ‘The cancer? You can say the word, you know.’

  ‘Do they think they’ve got it early?’

  ‘It doesn’t look too good, Dennis. It might be all right, but the odds aren’t in my favour. I’m not sure how much they’re in yours either.’

  I felt an immediate spasm of fear. ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  He sighed, an
d there was a short silence before he continued. ‘I want you to be careful, Dennis. I’ve always liked you, you know. A lot more than sometimes I’ve let on. I liked the way you never backed down. You’ve got guts, and that’s something in very short supply these days.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, sir?’

  He turned to face me again. ‘I’m saying, watch your back.’

  ‘And what’s making you say that?’ I asked, my voice steady. ‘What have you heard that I ought to know about?’

  ‘I had visitors earlier.’ There was a pause. I didn’t say anything. He sighed. ‘Two men from CIB.’

  So they were on to me. In a way it had always been coming, ever since they’d issued the e-fit, but I still had difficulty containing my shock. ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They asked a lot of questions.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘About your background, your attitude ... all sorts. They wanted to know whether you had more money than might be expected of a serving copper, whether there’d ever been any suggestion of ... corruption.’ He emphasized the last word, taking his time pronouncing it.

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them you were a good copper, that I couldn’t think of a bad word to say about you except that maybe sometimes you were too eager to get a conviction.’

  ‘Thanks, sir.’

  ‘Whatever it is you’ve done, Dennis, be careful. Because they’re on to you.’

  I sat there for a couple of seconds as the full magnitude of his words sank in. In a strange way, I felt relieved that Welland hadn’t linked me with the e-fit. I don’t think I could have handled receiving the odium of someone I respected. Not after everything else.

  ‘Don’t worry, sir. It’s nothing serious. I promise.’

  ‘Sure. I understand.’

  Again there was a silence, this time broken by me suggesting it was time to leave. ‘I need to think about things,’ I told him.

  ‘You’ve got to get yourself back on track,’ he told me. ‘Be a good boy for a while.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘You’re a good copper, Dennis.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And it was nice of you to come and see me. I appreciate it. I really do.’

  I stood up and patted him gently on the arm. ‘It was no more than you deserve. Thanks for saying good things about me.’

  He gave a nod of acknowledgement, and I turned to go.

  ‘One thing that was funny,’ he said as I reached the door.

  I stopped and turned back. ‘What was that, sir?’

  ‘Just that for some reason they seemed really interested in your firearms training.’

  I shrugged, not giving a thing away. ‘You know how it is. They’ve got to ask these things. Maybe they want to fit me up for a few murders as well.’

  He managed a weak smile. ‘You never know with the lot they’ve got up at CIB.’

  I turned away from his gaze, hoping I’d imagined the knowing look.

  26

  Unravelling. It was all unravelling, so fast that I couldn’t keep up with it. With each passing hour, my room for manoeuvre was becoming more limited. The gates to freedom were closing, and unless I made the right decision, and made it quickly, my life was effectively finished and I could look forward to the rest of my days behind bars, segregated from the bulk of the prison population for my own protection. And how long would that be? Thirty years? At least. Triple murder. Maybe even quadruple murder. Thirty years without a single taste of freedom.

  Sitting alone that night at a corner table in the Chinaman, the drink doing little to calm my nerves, I tried to consider my options. They clearly had me down as a suspect, I could no longer doubt that. The copper at the roadblock had seen the e-fit and had put two and two together. Doubtless, by now they’d have got hold of a recent photo of me to show their main witness, the girl at the hotel, and presumably she’d picked me out as the killer. The question now was whether this, on its own, was enough evidence to secure a conviction. At the moment they clearly felt there was no point snatching me off the streets and charging me. There could have been several reasons for this, the most obvious being that they wanted me to lead them to whoever it was who had ordered the killing. Another would be that they wanted to gather further evidence against me without my knowing it, then spring their trap. Obviously, given my integral role in the saga, they would know there was no point offering up the carrot of a more lenient sentence for cooperating. I had no incentive whatsoever to tell them anything, however hard they leaned on me, and they’d know that.

  It was a potentially embarrassing situation too. A serving police officer in a reasonably high position within the Force, and a background that included seventeen years’ pretty much unblemished service, being arrested on suspicion of three counts of murder. No one in authority wanted that scenario, not until they were truly convinced that I was the man they were looking for. This at least gave me a slight chance of escaping the fate that was otherwise in store. But the fact remained that I was almost certainly now under close surveillance.

  Even more embarrassing than having me arrested was not having me arrested and news leaking out that I’d been in the frame but had slipped through the net.

  I finished the scotch and water I was drinking and casually surveyed the pub, looking for anyone who didn’t belong. Police surveillance teams can be good, especially if they’re using the best people they’ve got, but if you’re aware that you’re under their gaze it makes their job one hell of a lot more difficult. I clocked a middle-aged guy at the far end of the bar in a cheap-looking black suit with his tie askew and the top buttons of his shirt undone. He was talking animatedly to Joan, the landlady, and it looked like he was telling her a joke. I watched him for a couple of seconds, then scanned the rest of the bar. A few stools down from him were a couple of businessmen types I recognized, and down from them were a group of younger blokes, only just out of their teens, clustered around the jukebox. Two couples were at separate tables just in front of the bar: one of them I recognized, the other I’d never seen before. The second couple were sitting there looking bored and not really saying much to each other, so they were probably married. The woman looked up and caught my eye, but there was no momentary sense of concern there at being rumbled. She wasn’t police. In fact, she actually appeared quite pleased I’d been looking at her and shot me the briefest of smiles. Her husband, or whoever he was, didn’t seem to notice, so I smiled back before turning away.

  There were maybe a dozen other people in the place all told, sprinkled across the tables, all seemingly involved in their own private conversations. I didn’t concentrate my attention on anyone for very long. The last thing I needed was for the surveillance team – if, of course, there was one – to realize I was on to them. The moment that happened, I’d be straight into custody, and they might even be able to trace my awareness of their operation back to Welland, and I didn’t want that to happen. The DI had done me a favour by covering my arse and letting me know what was happening, particularly when you took into consideration the fact that they’d been asking about my firearms experience. A lot of people would have forgotten their loyalties at this point and blurted out everything they knew. But not Welland. He knew the score. Or thought he did, anyway. Thinking back, I was sure that I’d imagined the look of suspicion on his face. There was no doubt that had he realized the full extent of my crimes it would have been a different story. One of the things going in my favour was that few people were ever going to think me capable of mass murder, which probably wasn’t something to brag about, but was at least useful.

  I lit a cigarette, thinking there was nothing to hold me back from running. This whole thing wasn’t just going to go away. Not now. The investigating officers were going to keep sniffing around until they had the information they wanted. Then, one way or another, they were going to pull me in. And if Jean Ashcroft heard about any of this, she was likely to tell the co
ps about Danny, and then the shit really would hit the fan.

  Danny. I’d tried his mobile again when I’d left the hospital, hoping he’d pick it up and tell me he was sitting on the beach sipping a pina colada, but it had still been switched off. I tried it again now, dragging on my cigarette as I waited vainly for a response. The longer he didn’t respond to calls, the more I was forced to conclude that something bad had happened, and this left another problem. Raymond and his associates didn’t need to keep me alive either. If they too got wind of what was going on they would definitely come for me – if they weren’t coming already. Either way, my future looked grim so long as I stayed put.

  But running away from everything – my career, my life: it was a big step. And then there was Carla Graham. Maybe she didn’t want anything serious, but it was just possible that I could change that. Amid all this, she was the only positive thing keeping me going.

  I picked up my mobile and thought about calling her. I was aware I might piss her off, but events were moving too rapidly for me to sit back and be patient. If she rejected me now it wasn’t actually going to make a great deal of difference. I stared at the phone for maybe ten seconds, then put it down. I’d wait until tomorrow.

  I finished my cigarette, then went up to the bar to get another drink. Joan was still chatting to the middle-aged man, and they were laughing like old friends, though you could tell from the way she excused herself from the conversation that they didn’t actually know each other.