Talking to the Dead (8 page)

“Hey, Fi,” he says.

“Hey.” I grimace at him. An attempted smile really, except I’ve got my head full of Jackson’s bollocking and my hands full of photos of dead people.

“All right?”

“Yes. You? Sorry about yesterday.”

“That’s okay.”

“I was in a muddle last night. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t trying to—”

“That’s okay, don’t worry.”

“Maybe we could do it again sometime. A drink. I’ll try my honest best not to make a complete pig’s ear of it.”

He grins. “Good. Half a pig’s ear would do fine. Definitely. Sometime soon.”

“Okay. Good. Thanks.”

I don’t want Brydon poking around my pile of photos, so I put them facedown on the desk and sit on them.

“You’re okay? You’re not looking your normal relaxed and untroubled self.”

“Jackson just gave me a bollocking. About, um, seven out of ten. No. Six out of ten.” I try to calibrate the bollocking, benchmarking myself on the assumption that the whole kneecap thing was worth a ten.

“Oh, who’s in hospital this time?”

“Very funny. No, listen, could you do me a favor?” I shove some papers at him, the ones I’ve been working on for Penry. “If I get some teas, will you add up this list of figures and tell me what you get?”

I set him to work with a pencil and calculator, shove the photos in a drawer, and go to get tea. When I come back, Brydon has an answer, the same as the one I had, and about forty thousand pounds higher than it ought to be.

“Problem?” he asks.

“No. Not really. Just too much of a good thing.”

“You know, if you get stuck with this, you should get the accountants in. No reason for you to do all the number crunching.”

I nod, too lost in my own world to tell him that we’ve already got some accountants involved, and they’re coming in for a meeting tomorrow morning. A shortage of accountants is not my problem.

“Who the fuck steals from their employer to buy one-sixth of a racehorse?” I say out loud. Brydon probably answers me, but if he does, I don’t hear him. I’m already reaching for the phone.

8

I work like a bluebottle all that day. At half past twelve, Bev Rowlands passes my desk on her way down to lunch and invites me to join her. I’d like to, but I’ve got a mountain of work to climb if I’m to have half a chance with Jackson, so I tell her that I’m going to eat a sandwich at my desk, and I do. Feta cheese and grilled vegetable. Bottled water. Consumed in a nice little hum of busyness. I don’t even let any chargrilled aubergine slip from the sandwich down into the keyboard, a faultless exhibition of desk-lunching technique.

I find out lots of things I never knew. Things about Thoroughbred registers. How racing syndicates work. Where the money gets paid.

I find out things I didn’t want to know. Things that disturb me when I find them. Things that I wouldn’t have bothered to look for if Jackson hadn’t given me a kicking. By the end of the day, I’ve done nothing at all on Mancini’s damn Social Services reports and my desk is awash with printouts from Companies House and Weatherbys Thoroughbred breed register.

The phone rings, and I answer it, absently.

It’s a Lohan caller, one of only five that day. The case has had plenty of publicity, but it’s a sad fact that, despite April’s death, the public aren’t much moved by the killings. The death of a mother and child would normally generate upward of a hundred calls in a day. Because of Janet’s murky past, however, this case has generated almost nothing.

The caller introduces herself: Amanda; knew Janet slightly; only calling up because her daughter had been friends with April—same age, same school.

“I didn’t know whether to phone or not, then thought I might as well. Hope that’s all right.”

“It is. Any information can make the difference.” I run through the questions I’m meant to ask. Known associates, stuff like that. Amanda’s as helpful as she can be, but she doesn’t know much. The only “known associates” she knows are other school mams, none of whom sound like obvious sink droppers.

“Did she have a reputation?” I ask. “You know—did other mothers talk about her as being a bad sort, or a bit wild?”

Amanda pauses. That’s usually a good sign, and it is now. Her answer is reflective and considered.

“No, I wouldn’t say so. I mean, the school was quite mixed. I don’t mean race-wise, though that too. I mean, there were the yummy mummies, the dolled-up chavs, the ordinary mums, everyone. Janet—well, she wasn’t well off, was she? She was never going to get invited along to the next yummy-mummy coffee morning, or whatever. But she was okay. She used to worry over things. Like she asked me how Tilly—that’s my six-year-old—got on with her reading. I think she felt she should be doing more to help April, but didn’t quite know how. But a couple of times Tilly went over to April’s after school, and there’s no way I’d have let her go if I’d had any worries.”

“Amanda, do you know how they died?”

“Pardon?”

“How and where. They were in a squat. It was filthy. There was just one mattress upstairs, which they must have shared. No sheet. One not very clean duvet.”

Another long pause. I worry that I’ve cocked up again. Said too much. Been untactful. Upset someone who’s now going to go and call Jackson. I think maybe Amanda is crying on the other end of the line. I try to put things right.

“Sorry, Amanda, I didn’t want to—”

“No, it’s okay. I mean, what happened, happened.”

“I was only telling you because—”

“I know why. You wanted to see if I said, Well, that just proves that Janet Mancini was a loser after all.”

“And?”

“And she wasn’t. She
wasn’t.
You know, I didn’t
like
her particularly. I’m not saying I disliked her, we just didn’t have much in common. But she lived for April. I know she did. If she took April to a place like that—well, she must have been terrified of something. That, or her whole life just fell apart for some reason. Even so,
I’d
have looked after April. Course I would. I can’t believe it. Sorry.”

By the end of this, Amanda is crying outright, apologizing, then crying some more. I listen to her sob and say the things that I’m meant to say. I might even have said the words “All right, all right” at some point, which sounds stupid to me, but Amanda seems okay with anything.

I’ve never cried once during my time on the force. Indeed, that hardly says it. I haven’t cried since I was six or seven, ages ago anyway, and hardly ever even then. Last year, I attended a car accident, a nasty smash on Eastern Avenue, where the only serious casualty was a little boy who lost both his legs and suffered significant facial injuries. All the time we were getting him out of the car and into the ambulance, he was crying and holding his little tiger toy against his neck. Not only did I not cry but it wasn’t until a few days afterward that I realized I was meant to have cried, or at least felt something.

I reflect on all this as Amanda cries and I say “It’s all right” like a mechanical toy, wishing one day to find some tears of my own.

Eventually she’s done.

“Amanda, would you like to come to the funeral? We don’t yet know when it’ll be, but I could let you know.”

That sets off another round of crying, but Amanda manages a “Yes, yes, please. Someone ought to be there.”

“I’ll be there,” I say. “I’m going to be there.”

The call ends, leaving me faintly dazed. I’m going to the funeral, am I? That’s the first I knew of it, but I realize that I do really want to go. I’ve also got D.C.I. Jackson’s comments from earlier buzzing in my ears. Was that the good D.C. Griffiths, the one with the great interview technique? Or was that an example of the bad one, a fingernail’s breadth away from triggering another complaining phone call to the boss? I don’t know, and right now I don’t care.

I’ve got too many things in my head and don’t know where to put them all. The racehorse that Penry co-owned had five other owners. Four of those five were individuals. One was an offshore, privately held company, with no publicly available information about its ultimate ownership. But it had two directors and a company secretary—D. G. Mindell, T. B. Ferrers, and a Mrs. Elizabeth Wilkins, respectively—who were also directors and company secretary at one of Brendan Rattigan’s shipping companies. One of the individual co-owners of the racehorse was also a senior executive at Rattigan’s steel company. A second man was godfather to one of Rattigan’s children, something I learned from a Google search that took me to various gossip magazines. I couldn’t trace any links between the other two owners and Rattigan, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

And besides, even the links I knew about seemed to imply something. A company, almost certainly belonging to Rattigan, owned a chunk of a racehorse, as did one of his company executives and one of his oldest friends.

As did Brian Penry.

Maybe that was just coincidence. Maybe he had nothing to do with Rattigan and he was just there to make up the numbers.

Or maybe not. Penry had spent about forty grand more on his bullshit purchases than he had stolen from the school or than could be accounted for from his salary. It was, I reckoned, just about possible that Penry had found some way to cash in his police pension in order to fund his purchases, but who on earth would do that? And why?

Why, why, why?

Wasn’t it more likely that Penry had another source of cash and, if he did, then wasn’t it also possible that Rattigan was in some way the origin of that cash? And if so, and if Rattigan did have some connection to Mancini, then didn’t that imply that Penry was in some way involved with the Mancini murders?

If, if, if.

It’s five o’clock.

Because I haven’t made any progress on the Mancinis’ Social Services records, I decide to take them home. Little Miss Perfect has a minor issue of conscience there. The records are confidential, and we’re not meant to take confidential data out of the office on a laptop, but that’s the kind of rule which is broken all the time and I feel the need to get home reasonably early. Tonight is meant to be a gym and ironing and tidying up sort of night, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be nothing of the kind.

Before I leave, though, I decide I need a bit of human contact. I go on the prowl and come across Jane Alexander, who’s just back from house-to-housing. I find Jane a bit scary, if truth be told. The sort of person who always manages to find outfits that are seasonal and fashionable, but also affordable and sensible, simultaneously professional and CIDish, yet at the same time gently calling attention to her gym-bunny physique. Plus her hair is always perfectly blow-dried. Plus she never gets food stains on things. Plus she doesn’t make perfectly helpful witnesses cry for no reason, and I bet she can go years at a time without kneecapping perverts. She doesn’t disapprove of me exactly, but I can’t believe that she approves of me, and I’m always 5 percent scared when I’m with her.

On the other hand, right now Jane seems genuinely pleased to see me. She complains about the day she’s had and how she still has to get her interview notes up on Groove. I’m a much faster typist, so I offer to help in exchange for some tea. It’s a done deal. She gets us tea. I type. She sits on the desk and interprets her writing whenever it’s hard to read, and in the gaps we gossip and fall silent or drop our voices whenever a male colleague strolls by. It’s a nice way to spend time.

At the end of the type fest, I say, “It’s pretty skinny stuff, isn’t it?”

For a second Jane thinks I’m criticizing her notes, and I fall over myself trying to set her straight. It’s not her notes I’ve got an issue with, it’s the lack of leads that seem to be coming from all our work.

“Oh, but the forensic stuff will give us a few names. Maybe CCTV. A few interviews. Something will start to come out. That’s the way these things go.”

Jane’s attention is wandering away from me now. Jacket on. Hair flicked in one blond shampoo-ad movement out from the collar. A quick inspection to make sure that every fold of fabric is obeying orders. Handbag, mobile, purse check. Perfect lifestyle all present and correct. Spaceship Alexander is ready for blastoff.

“See you tomorrow,” I say, already scared of her again.

She gives me a nice big smile, bigger than regulations require, although also one that shows very orderly white teeth, nicely arranged against exactly the right shade of lipsticked lips.

“Yes, see you tomorrow. Thanks, Fi. I’d have been stuck here for ages otherwise.”

“You’re welcome.”

And she is welcome, truly. She blasts off to wherever it is she berths for the night. She has a husband and a young son.

I have neither and go back to my desk to pick up my stuff. My computer is still on. Brendan Rattigan’s platinum card is catching a last ray of evening light.

Janet Mancini was so scared of something that she took her daughter to that house of death.

Brendan Rattigan liked rough sex with street prostitutes. His wife didn’t tell me with words, but she said it every other way she possibly could.

Brendan Rattigan died in a plane wreck, but his body was never found.

His card was reported lost, but Janet Mancini had it.

Brian Penry bought a horse with stolen money, and Brendan Rattigan, it seemed, was one of its co-owners.

Five thoughts buzzing round my head like flies in a glass jar. No one but me appears to care about these things, but that doesn’t make the flies go away.

I Google around and come up with the names of some racecourse photographers who do a lot of work at Chepstow. Also one who works at Ffos Llas in Camarthenshire, and another couple who work at Bath. I make some calls, get through to four voice mails, and leave messages. Get through to one real person—Al Bettinson, one of the Chepstow boys—and make an arrangement for tomorrow.

I don’t have a good feeling about any of this, but there’s at least one fly I reckon I can squash, so I do my best to squash it. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch reports on every plane accident in the U.K., no matter how small the plane or how minor the incident. All AAIB reports are available online, so I call it up, print it off, and shove it into my bag, along with my laptop, the photos, and a bundle of papers.