Die Twice

by Simon Kernick

  ‘Ah, the elusive Mr Harris, former stud of the Arcadia. I found him all right,’ she said, sighing theatrically. ‘Eventually.’

  ‘And?’

  She wandered over and sat on her desk a few yards away from mine. ‘And, I don’t think he’s our man.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s been in hospital for the past ten days. He was working the door at a place in Clapham on their garage night and he got caught in the crossfire of somebody else’s argument.’

  ‘That’s south London for you.’

  ‘Too right. It’s bandit country down there,’ she added, winking at me. ‘Anyway, he got shot in the stomach. Apparently the bullet passed straight through him and hit one of the glass collectors inside. That was three days before Matthews was murdered. What a waste of a day. It took me more than four hours to find that out when I could have been sat out in the park sunbathing.’

  I almost said that that would be a sight I wouldn’t have minded seeing, but settled instead for a clichéd, ‘That’s the way it goes sometimes, Tina.’

  She took off her jacket and turned on her PC. ‘How was your day anyway?’

  I grunted. ‘I think I can safely say it was probably even worse than yours.’ I gave her a detailed rundown of all the disasters that had befallen Berrin and me since we’d arrived for work that morning. She laughed when she heard about his slow dance with McBride’s corpse but her look had turned to sympathy by the time I’d finished.

  ‘Blimey, John, you don’t mess about, do you? Marching in and interrogating Neil Vamen?’

  I sighed and shook my head. ‘It was a stupid move. You know, I was thinking this morning how naive Berrin was in the way he dealt with people, but I was far more naive than him over this. I really thought I could rattle Vamen, but in the end I’ve achieved absolutely nothing, except maybe to alert him to the fact that I might know something about what’s going on. And he’s already made a pre-emptive strike to get me off his back.’

  ‘You did your best,’ she said, giving me a supportive smile. ‘Which is a lot more than a few of the people round here.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t work,’ I said, feeling sorry for myself.

  ‘So, what do you think happened? What’s your theory on Matthews and McBride?’

  I’d thought about that a fair amount that day but had yet to come up with anything concrete. ‘I don’t know, Tina. If I had to indulge in a bit of conjecture I’d say that Jean Tanner was Neil Vamen’s mistress and that she was also seeing Matthews on the side. Vamen found out about what was going on and had Matthews killed.’

  ‘And what about McBride?’

  ‘This is where it starts not to make much sense. From what the neighbours were saying, McBride had visited Jean on a number of occasions, so it makes me think that maybe he was seeing her as well.’

  ‘So she was seeing three of them? She gets around a bit.’

  I shrugged. ‘Well, that’s what it looks like.’

  ‘And you think Vamen found out about McBride as well?’

  I spread my arms wide in a gesture of defeat. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because that all seems a bit coincidental, doesn’t it? Him killing off two of his love rivals in the space of a week. All over one woman who’s hardly a picture painting, is she?’

  ‘You know what they say,’ I said lamely. ‘Love’s blind.’

  ‘Not that blind.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever come across a murder case as complicated as this one. One where nothing seems to really lead anywhere. Do you know what I mean? There’s no logic in any of it. I mean, what about Fowler? If he’s got nothing to do with it, then where is he?’ There followed a long silence. We were a long way from any answers. ‘You know,’ I said eventually, ‘it’s been such a long day, I can’t even be bothered to think about it any more.’

  ‘Do you want to go for a drink? Finish up here and grab a beer somewhere?’

  I pondered her suggestion for all of one second. The paperwork could wait. ‘Why not? I could do with one.’

  We wandered round the corner to the Roving Wolf and I ordered the first round: a pint of Pride for me, a pint of Fosters for her. That was another thing I liked about Boyd, she didn’t have any airs and graces. She might have been a college girl like Berrin but she was still one of the lads. The interior of the pub was quiet at this hour with most of the hardened drinkers and passing trade sat at tables outside on the street, so we found ourselves a table away from the bright rays of evening sunshine streaming through the windows and chatted a while, enjoying the fact that the working day was over and there was nothing and no-one to pressurize us. She bought the second round and I realized I was enjoying things just a little too much. She was good company, and single, too. I couldn’t help but think that maybe I ought to make an exception to the rule I’d placed on myself never to have an office fling. That had been after an affair I’d had with another WDC ten years earlier, when Rachel had been little more than a baby and I’d been getting the married man’s yearning for something new. It had all got very messy. The WDC had demanded I choose between Cathy and her, and I’d done the inevitable and chosen Cathy. The atmosphere between the WDC and me, and in CID as a whole, where everyone knew what had been going on, had been sour for more than a year afterwards until she’d finally asked for a transfer and got it, much to my relief. I might not have been married any more but I still thought it best to keep to the rule, remembering all too well the hassle of having to work with someone you’d pay good money to avoid.

  So when Boyd asked if I fancied grabbing a curry somewhere, I was pretty torn. But with the grim memories of the previous night and Celebrity Stars in their Eyes still fresh in my mind, I concluded that life was definitely too short to say no. Boyd suggested a curryhouse she liked down near King’s Cross station and, while I would have preferred the continental ambience of Upper Street to the dodgier end of the Euston Road, I didn’t make a fuss. To be fair to her, I ended up pleased with the choice. The food was good, which I suppose it would have to be given its location, and I found myself relaxing in a way I hadn’t in female company for a long time.

  As they cleared away the remains of the food, I told her about Capper’s reaction to my mention of Heavenly Girls. ‘Do you think he’s been paying recreational visits down there? He definitely knew the place.’

  She pulled a face. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s the sort you can imagine visiting toms. He’s got that perverted look about him, don’t you think? Like the sort of bloke you’d find in a peep show. I bet he gets them to spank his arse.’

  I laughed. ‘That’s your boss you’re talking about. I hate to think what you say about me.’

  ‘Oh, it’s worse. Definitely worse.’

  ‘I bet it is as well. But I can tell you quite categorically that no-one’s ever spanked my arse. Even my mum was against corporal punishment.’

  ‘There’s always a first time,’ she said, with a coy smile. The woman was definitely flirting. I wasn’t sure whether to be worried or pleased. She took a packet of Silk Cut out of her handbag. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  I watched as she lit one and took a long, relaxed drag that gave me a fleeting reminder, even years later, of how good a cigarette tastes after a decent meal. ‘What you’ve got to remember,’ she said, blowing the smoke out above my head, ‘is that if Capper was, or is, a customer down there, then it’s possible that he knows Fowler.’

  ‘I was thinking about that earlier, but I don’t really go for it. He’s too keen for us to find him. He keeps going on about it.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, taking another drag (it’s amazing how elegant a woman smoking can look), ‘but there’s always the possibility that he might have been put in a compromising situation. If someone down there found out he was a copper, then they might have been able to use it against him, and perhaps it’s that someone who wants to find Fowler.’

  ‘And who do you think tha
t someone might be?’

  She shrugged. ‘God knows.’

  I shook my head. This was one complication too far. ‘No, I think it’s more likely he’s just a pervert.’

  She blew more smoke over my head. ‘So do I, but nothing’s set in stone, is it? Maybe it’d be worthwhile watching what you say around him.’

  I nodded, thinking that it was funny how when you’re talking to another copper, even one who’s female and attractive, you always end up back on the subject of work. For once, I just wanted to forget about it. I wanted to talk more about her. What she was interested in. What made her tick. What she looked for in a man. And whether she really was flirting.

  But the opportunity had passed, and a couple of minutes later she stubbed her cigarette out and said that she ought to be getting back. We split the bill fifty-fifty and headed outside. Night was falling and the lowlifes who inhabit King’s Cross after dark were coming out of the cracks in the pavement and looking round for customers and victims. I suggested we share a cab back but she told me she was perfectly capable of getting herself back on the Tube. ‘I am a police officer, you know, John,’ she said dismissively.

  ‘Don’t say that too loudly round here.’

  ‘And don’t keep going on.’ Her face broke into a smile. ‘Look, I had a good time tonight. We’ll have to do it again sometime.’

  I nodded. ‘Definitely.’

  We had an awkward moment when we thought about shaking hands, but didn’t quite go through with it, and then she said goodbye and headed off towards the Underground, while I looked around for a cab that would take me back to Tufnell Park.

  Part of me thought that maybe I should have tried to kiss her, or at least shown that I was interested, but the other part kept telling me that by taking a little pain now I was avoiding a lot more down the line.

  Iversson

  ‘So how did you meet your ex-missus, then?’ asked Elaine.

  It was Sunday morning and we were sitting up in her bed, naked and drinking coffee. The clock on the bedside table said half eleven and her right hand was on my thigh, which made me think she probably wasn’t going to kick me out just yet.

  ‘I was a double-glazing salesman.’

  Elaine laughed. ‘You? Now that I would have liked to see.’

  ‘It was just after I’d left the army. I was pretty shit at it, to be honest with you. I mean, they taught you all these ways to get the customer to sign on the dotted line, get him fired up and interested and all that, but in the end, as far as I could see, all I was doing was shifting windows. You know, people either wanted them or they didn’t. Anyway, my ex was a secretary there and for some reason she took a fancy to me.’

  ‘Well, you’re not bad, Max.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re too kind.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So we started going out, one thing led to another, and somehow we ended up getting wed. Christ knows how it happened. I still don’t think either of us cared that much about each other – it was just one of those things. Anyway, it didn’t last. We went to Majorca on the honeymoon, it rained nearly every day, she went on sex strike after I said something about her mum she took offence to, and it went downhill from there. I think we managed about four months, no more than that. I got sacked from the company and she took it worse than me. I was quite pleased, but with her it was a pride thing. It made her look bad in front of her mates in the office that her husband wasn’t good enough to flog double-glazing, and she really let me know it. In the end I just thought, fuck it, we’re never going to work it out so I might as well make the break. So one day, while she was at work, I packed up all my stuff, which wasn’t a lot, and walked out. I only saw her once after that, and that was in the divorce courts. She got half of everything I owned, which was nothing. I got my freedom back. It was a fair swap, I thought.’

  ‘How did you get into the mercenary game?’

  ‘My partner, Joe, he’d been doing it for a couple of years. He was working for an outfit who were always on the look-out for people with good military backgrounds to send out to all these places. I put a call into him, he put me in touch with his boss, and three days later I was on the plane to Sierra Leone.’

  ‘Where the hell’s that?’

  ‘Somewhere you don’t ever want to go. A backwater shithole in Africa. And I’ll tell you this, you have to see the place to believe it. I was there four months altogether, but I reckon I lost count of the number of mutilated corpses I saw within four days. We were working for the government, or what passed for the government. To be honest, it was just a bunch of young NCOs who’d overthrown the last bloke, and most of them couldn’t run a bath, let alone a country. We were meant to be helping the Sierra Leonean army secure the area around the capital city and capture the diamond mines in the interior from the rebels, the RUF.’

  ‘So who were they rebelling against, the RUF?’

  That made me chuckle. ‘Anyone who wanted to take the diamonds off them. That was about as radical as they got. They might have said it was all about creating freedom and democracy and all that shit but, like most politicians, all they really cared about was lining their own pockets. It’s what most of those wars are about. Some people have got the diamonds and the money, some others want it. Instead of sitting round the table and carving up the proceeds, like they do over here, they get the guns out and start shooting.’

  ‘Did you ever kill anyone?’ she asked evenly, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and offering me one.

  I took one and let her light it for me. ‘Would it matter if I had?’ I answered, hoping that she wasn’t the sort of girl to get offended by her new lover’s tales of mayhem and murder.

  She shrugged, and looked me in the eye. ‘It was your job, wasn’t it? That’s what you’re trained for. No, it wouldn’t matter.’ It seemed she wasn’t, then.

  I leant back on the pillow and took a drag on the cigarette as her fingers drifted across the hairs on my belly. I got the impression she was horny again. This girl had an incredible appetite.

  ‘I shot at a lot of people,’ I told her, ‘and quite a few of them fell down, but I couldn’t ever say for sure that it was me who killed them. There were always other people fighting alongside me. But I suppose, probability wise, I must have taken out a couple. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t be ashamed either. Sometimes it’s just a case of you or them, isn’t it?’ Out of the corner of my eye, I was conscious of her watching me as she spoke.

  ‘That’s right. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done. I shot at people who were shooting at me. I never killed anyone in cold blood, and I suppose you could argue that one way or another they all deserved it. They were no angels. None of them. Not the RUF, nor any of the others I ran into on my travels.’

  ‘Where else did you go, then?’

  ‘I did six months in the Congo, three months in Colombia, and a few weeks in Liberia.’

  ‘What was it like? Was it fun?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not really. Most of the time we were boiling alive in the jungle, getting constantly attacked by all kinds of horrible insects and never knowing what kind of tropical disease we might pick up. The most exciting part was when we actually saw some action, but it didn’t happen very often.’

  ‘It still sounds better than what a lot of people do to earn their living.’

  ‘It was better than selling double-glazing, I’ll give you that, and I suppose it was a bit of an adventure getting the chance to finally use all my training in a real-life situation, but the reality was a lot more boring than the expectation.’

  ‘It always is, Max. Haven’t you noticed that yet?’

  ‘I suppose so, but the money wasn’t that much good either. Everyone thinks mercenaries earn an arm and a leg, but it’s nothing really. Especially when you think how much you’ve got to risk. Joe felt the same way, so we decided to set up the company.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

&nbs
p; ‘It’s not my name, honestly. It’s his.’

  She smiled. ‘Go on, what is it?’

  ‘Tiger Solutions.’

  Her laughter bounced off the walls of the bedroom. ‘What the fuck sort of a name is that?’

  ‘A bad one, but Joe wanted it and I couldn’t think of anything better, so I didn’t bother to argue.’

  ‘Max, anything’s better than Tiger Solutions. What sort of solutions does a tiger offer anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know. Fearsome ones?’

  She continued laughing and I chucked one of the pillows at her. It bounced off her head and landed on the other side of the room. ‘If you ever meet Joe, you have a go at him about it. I swear it had nothing to do with me.’

  We were silent for a few moments, and even though I didn’t want to have to say it, I knew there was no point putting it off. ‘Look, Joe gave me some money so that I could get out of town for a while, enough to keep me going for the foreseeable future. So I can be out of your hair by tomorrow.’

  She smiled at me. ‘You don’t have to go yet, Max. I like the company.’

  ‘I appreciate it, but you’ve done enough for me already, and we can’t carry on like this for ever. I’ve got to go out and get some fresh air fairly soon otherwise I’ll go stir crazy.’

  She put her hand on my arm. ‘You go when you want, but not before. Not on my account. It’s no problem for me, you being here. Honest.’

  Well, there was no way I was going to argue. Not with the sort of accommodation I was getting. So I gave her my best smile and said that, OK, maybe I’d stay a couple of days longer. At that moment, the phone rang out in the hall and she jumped off the bed. I watched as she went out the door, her rear waggling seductively. There was a little red devil complete with trident tattooed on the right cheek. He was grinning. So was I.

  When she came back a few minutes later, she told me that it had been the club on the phone. ‘I’ve got to work tonight,’ she said, getting back on the bed. She lit two more cigarettes and passed one over. You get my drift about the standard of accommodation. Naked women even firing up your smokes for you.