Broken Lines (23 page)

He didn't answer right away. Liz saw reluctance in his eyes but also recognition. Finally he sighed. ‘Yes.'

Liz breathed steadily for a moment. ‘I think so too.'

‘What do you think she's done?'

‘Oh, nothing too awful. I think she lied about how many people were in the van that hit her, and I think she did it to make trouble for my sergeant. His account of what happened hinged on the driver being the only occupant of the van. But Mrs Taylor said she saw two faces. It undermined DS Donovan's credibility; it was part of why he was taken off the case. We believed Mrs Taylor because we thought she had no reason to lie. But maybe she had after all. She thought Donovan let her down. Maybe in her current state of mind that seemed reason enough.'

Shapiro went alone into The Jubilee. He gave a little thought first to whether a show of force or an appeal for reason was most likely to succeed, decided that he'd lose more than he stood to gain by throwing his weight around. If the moment came when he thought Donovan's safety required him to search every room, cellar and outhouse in the six streets, somehow he'd find the manpower and the authority to do it. But he judged that moment had not yet come. If this could be caught at the silly-buggers stage, before Donovan or anyone else got hurt and while any charges could be kept to the minimum, the ill-feeling afterwards would be less of a problem.

He didn't expect Roly to be at home, and he wasn't. Thelma answered the door. Neither of them wanted to hold this conversation on the step: she asked him inside.

He couldn't be sure how much she knew: probably some of it but not all. She knew about the vigilantes at the wharf last night. She knew, and seemed relieved, that they hadn't got what they went for. She didn't seem to know until Shapiro told her that they might have got it this morning.

‘The last time anyone saw DS Donovan was about nine o'clock this morning when he visited Mikey in the hospital. He was there for a while, then he disappeared. But he didn't leave the way he came – his motorbike's still in the car-park.'

Thelma didn't insult his intelligence by asking what this had to do with her. She said, ‘Roly hasn't been home for twenty-four hours.'

Shapiro nodded slowly. ‘So far as you know, would he have been at the hospital around nine this morning?'

‘So far as I know, he's been there for the last four days, except for a few hours here and there. He hasn't slept at home since it happened.'

‘I've had people looking,' said Shapiro. ‘He doesn't seem to be there now.'

Thelma Dickens had used up all the emotion she could muster. Now she seemed drained, utterly weary, too exhausted to worry any more about either her grandson or her son. ‘That's your answer, then.'

‘You think he'd do that? Kidnap a police officer?'

The thin shoulders shrugged inside her cardigan. ‘Mr Shapiro, nobody knows for sure what somebody else is capable of. If you'd asked me a month ago if Roly would do GBH on a policeman I'd have thought you'd been drinking. If I'd asked you a month ago if your sergeant would beat the living daylights out of a nineteen-year-old boy you'd have thought the same about me.

‘In the normal way of things it's not Roly's style. He may not be Citizen of the Year material, but he's not a fool. But now his youngest son's lying in the hospital and the chances are he'll only leave it in a box. And that wasn't an accident, or even something that got out of hand. It was deliberate – intentional. Somebody meant to beat Mikey to death.

‘And the only name anybody's come up with so far is Mr Donovan's. Mrs Graham said she didn't think he'd done it, and unless you've found out who actually did it that's about as far as you can go too. We started off by believing her. But things have happened since to make us wonder. Can you tell me they haven't made you wonder too?'

Shapiro wouldn't lie to her. ‘We wondered. We looked into it. Mrs Dickens, I can't tell you yet who attacked Mikey but I don't believe it was Detective Sergeant Donovan. There are too many things that don't fit. He said someone was framing him, and that's what it looks like. Plus, this isn't
his
style.

‘What I can tell you is that we now have the gun used in the garage robbery. It makes a nonsense of Mikey's defence. We can prove that Mikey was no innocent bystander but in fact carried out that robbery. I hope one day he'll be fit to stand trial for it.'

‘From your mouth to God's ear,' murmured Thelma; which rather surprised Shapiro, who hadn't heard that since he was last in Golders Green.

‘I also hope, very much, that Roly isn't going to be in the court next door on charges arising out of today's events. Or that if he is, we're talking unlawful imprisonment not murder. There's not much either of us can do to improve Mikey's chances, but together we may be able to help both your son and my sergeant. What do you think?'

She didn't have to think. ‘If I knew where they were I'd tell you. I don't; and I don't know anything else that might help you find them.'

Shapiro believed her. ‘All right. Then, if Roly gets in touch will you let me know?'

That she did give a moment's thought; then she nodded. ‘If you'll promise me – promise, mind, Mr Shapiro – that whatever he's done you'll look after him. You won't let anyone hurt him.'

Could he promise that, Shapiro wondered. Whatever he's done? If he's laving his grief right now in Donovan's blood? This was a man Shapiro had known for eight years, who'd driven him mad for eight years but who had also earned his gratitude and respect. He thought, What if we find him how we found Mikey? If we find him dead? If Roly's killed him? – tortured and killed him? What price then my promise to Thelma?

Actually, it would alter nothing. Once Roly was in custody it was Shapiro's job to protect him, and he would have no qualms about doing it. ‘I promise. Once he's under arrest he's safe: my word on it. But first we have to find him. Can you think of anywhere he'd go if he needed not to be disturbed?'

‘I'm a bit out of date with these things,' admitted Thelma. ‘But he wouldn't come back to The Jubilee. You can't do anything here without being seen, and not everybody turns a blind eye. Walshes wouldn't – Walshes'd let you know, if only to do Roly a bad turn. Even some of our people'll think he's gone too far this time.' She gave a dry chuckle, a little desperate sound. ‘If his own mother's prepared to grass him up—!'

‘It isn't like that,' Shapiro said quietly. ‘The state he's in, he needs help as much as Donovan does. If he was himself he'd know this was a bad mistake. He needs you to do his thinking for him.'

She didn't really need convincing, but she appreciated it just the same. ‘Maybe he wouldn't go anywhere in particular. I mean, he doesn't need to. He's got the Transit with him, you could entertain half Queen's Street in there. Maybe all he needs to do is drive out into The Levels and park off the road somewhere. It could be days before someone stumbles across them.'

Shapiro knew the big black van she was talking about. She was right: it was as near a Black Maria as you could get on the open market. Maybe better: they moved even top security prisoners by hire coach these days. It wouldn't be soundproof, but then he wouldn't be parking it in Castle Place. Deep in the woods, or out on The Levels, they could make all the noise it took and no one would hear. A Transit van was good enough for his purpose, for as long as whatever Roly had in mind would take.

‘I'll start looking for it,' he said.

‘Tell your people,' said Thelma, the thin old voice insistent. ‘Tell them what you told me. That you'll look after him. That he isn't to be hurt. Whatever he's done.'

‘I'll tell them.'

The same place he found the scalpel Roly had acquired a family-sized reel of surgical strapping. He'd bound Donovan's wrists behind his back with it, and strapped his ankles together. Lengths of it blinded and gagged him. He lay on his side, the only movement he was capable of a sort of maggot wriggle. Not that it got him anywhere. There wasn't much room in here, he bumped into things almost immediately. Mostly he did it to check if Roly was still there, because he kicked him if he was.

Sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn't. The only sense Donovan had left was his hearing, and he listened for the door as Roly came and went. But sometimes he got it wrong – Roly opened the door without going out, perhaps to check if there was anyone around – and then Donovan got a dig in the ribs to stop him fidgeting. He bore it stoically. It wasn't much of a dig, and the wriggling wasn't getting him anywhere anyway.

Worse than a bruised rib was not knowing what was coming. He hadn't seen Roly's face since this began: at first the blade under his jaw kept him from looking, then the tape over his eyes did. The man must have skipped a gear, which wasn't altogether surprising, but Donovan needed to know if it was only a temporary aberration. If an opportunity had presented itself and for just a moment he'd been crazy enough to take it; since when he'd been sitting with his head in his hands wondering how to get himself out of this mess. Or if the madness went deeper and he really meant to avenge himself on the man he blamed for his son's condition. If the eyes watching him were bestial with hate; if Roly had no thought for the consequences and the only reason he hadn't yet waded in was that he was brooding on what to do, how much and how quickly. Whether there was more satisfaction to be had from hurting him slow or fast.

Even without his eyes, Donovan could have made a fair guess if Roly had talked to him. Or shouted at him, or called him names. But he didn't. Instructions murmured in his ear until they were past the risk of discovery, and after that the only communication was between Donovan's ribs and the toe of Roly's boot. He might have provoked a response had he not been restrained by the sort of bondage usually associated with Tory MPs. He might hum, or sneeze, if he had a mind to but those were about the only freedoms left to him.

At some point, presumably, Roly would strip the tape from his mouth so he could answer questions. You couldn't beat a confession out of someone rendered mute. He would, of course, deny laying a finger on Mikey; Roly, of course, would not believe him. He'd set about making it easier to admit it than to hold out. It was important that Donovan didn't yield to the temptation. If this was about revenge, what Roly would do to a man who denied maiming his son was nothing to what he'd do to one who admitted it.

Donovan could take a beating. He had before, he could again. He could keep his mouth shut and take the punishment, and hope to wake up in Castle General with only some interesting new scars to show for it. But if he made the mistake of thinking a free and frank confession would end this, he wouldn't wake up at all. If the situation deteriorated that far, denial to his last conscious breath was his only hope.

Shapiro would be looking for him. He wouldn't know where to look, so he'd pull in every favour he'd ever earned to amass enough manpower to look everywhere. If Roly purposed his death, he clearly didn't purpose it right now or he'd have made a start. Time was on Donovan's side. It might not always feel like it, particularly once Roly started hurting him, but time was his friend.

The door opened and closed again. Donovan waited, feeling his nerve endings sharpen and twitch.

Roly's big hands fastened in his clothes and propped him upright. Thick strong fingers fastened in his jaw; He could feel Roly's breath on his face. When Roly ripped the tape off his mouth it took with it two days'growth of beard.

The man's voice was low and measured, oddly precise, as if Roly was choosing his words with uncommon care. ‘Now, Mr Donovan, let's see if we can get to the bottom of this.'

‘First we need to set the ground rules,' said Mikey Dickens'father. ‘The ground rules are, you answer my questions or I thump you. You lie to me and I thump you. You tell me the truth and—' He paused a moment, considering. ‘Well, I might still thump you,' he admitted, ‘depending on what the truth is, but at least you've got a chance that I won't. Clear?'

Donovan's mouth was dry. He'd lost track of how long he'd been lying here, gagged, blindfolded and trussed like a chicken, but it felt like hours. He croaked, ‘Makes the Marquis of Queensberry look like Mother Teresa.'

That rumble low in Roly's jowels was a chuckle. But Donovan didn't read any more into it than that. The man hadn't come so far with this only to give up at the first smart remark. Besides, he might have earned a chuckle this time; next time he said something smart he'd probably get thumped.

‘You know why?' said Roly. ‘The Marquis of Queensberry was a sporting man. I'm not. He was looking for a fair fight; I'm not. He wanted to be entertained; I don't. I want to know who beat Mikey. I want to know if it was you, and if it was—' He stopped. This was a man who ran his business on the basis of casual threats, following up just enough of them to keep people in line, and he was reluctant to say what he would do to the man who beat his child. That told Donovan more than any threat.

He said, ‘It wasn't.'

Blinded by the tape, he got no warning. Roly hit him across the mouth with enough force to snap his head over. The unexpectedness of it was shocking. He felt blood trickle down his chin.

‘Sorry,' said Roly calmly, ‘forgot one. You bullshit me, and I thump you.'

He knew what he was risking but it seemed important to Donovan to set some rules of his own. When his breathing steadied he said thickly, ‘It still wasn't me beat up on Mikey.'

He waited for Roly's fist, his nerves screwed tight, but nothing happened. ‘Well,' said the big man thoughtfully, ‘we'll come to that. Let's start with an easy one. What were you doing in the hospital?'