Kill and Tell (21 page)

Louis looks around, doesn’t know where he is. It’s like a living room, but with too many books; DVDs and newspapers, too. He was in jail and he doesn’t remember getting out. He tries to stand up, but his legs aren’t working and his head feels too heavy for the muscles in his neck. His eyes close again but someone says his name and he blinks and the man he sees is kind of familiar. The man touches him and it feels funny but that’s because the man is wearing gloves, the thin rubber gloves that doctors wear.

‘Come on, Lou, stand up. Stand up, man.’

‘Who are you?’

The man is big and strong and Louis can feel himself standing up. He tries to push the man away, but his arms are too heavy, and now there is something touching his neck, something tight around his neck. The man is making big circles in the air, wrapping this thing around his neck and Louis tries to ask him who he is and what he is doing, but he can’t get his mouth to move. He can’t summon the air to send the words out. He tries to breathe through his nose, but it’s too tight and now his throat hurts. His Adam’s apple is being crushed and he feels as though his head will burst. His face is tight and the blood is pressing up at the surface of his skin. He blinks his eyes and they feel as though they are bulging and now they are wide open he can’t close them again. It hurts behind his eyes and in his temples. The man’s nose is snotty and he says something but Louis can’t hear the words, but he can feel the draught of the air that carries the words, can smell foul meat in the man’s breath. Louis realises that the man is crying, like a baby. He tries to ask the man to help him, but the words turn to dust somewhere between his chest and his head, and then he feels himself fall and the pain in his throat is white hot.

It’s dark now, and silent, apart from a distant sound of water, slowly rising within him. Soon, even this recedes, and Louis makes a final attempt to gasp in some air, but he feels his jaw lock, and then there is nothing.

The door to the house of the man formerly known as Jacobo Sartori opens. For a few long moments, nobody emerges. Staffe slides down in his car seat, keenly watching the house and looking in the wing mirrors and up ahead. The street is empty and Jacobo emerges, fair haired and frail with his turned-up nose sniffing for trouble. Of the triumvirate of survivors, he is the best on his feet and looks nothing like his age. Staffe has a glance at the photograph of the real, brutish Jacobo and mutters, ‘Hello, Maurizio,’ watching Maurizio Verdetti walk down the path. When Maurizio gets to the gate, he turns, waves up to the house and his grandson Maurice emerges, pushing a wheelchair.

Carmelo is all wrapped up, but as Maurice eases him down the step, his head lolls forward. He is unconscious, and Maurizio scuttles back up the path and tends his friend and cousin and saviour.

Together, Maurizio and Maurice push Carmelo down the path, and seeing them this way, side by side, Staffe can’t believe that he didn’t identify the likeness of grandfather and grandson earlier. The fair complexion, the small, turned-up nose, their angular, narrow-shouldered frames.

When they get to the car and begin laying Carmelo down on the back seat, Staffe sees his moment for intervention so he gently closes the car door behind him and crosses the street. Maurizio is the first to see him and he looks afraid. When Staffe gets within five yards, he says, ‘Hello, Maurizio.’

‘Jacobo,’ says Maurizio.

‘Let’s not pretend,’ says Staffe.

Maurice looks up, says, ‘You should go inside,
nonno
. I’ll deal with the inspector.’

‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ says Staffe.

‘There’s no time,’ says Maurice. ‘We’ll follow you.’

‘No way,’ says Staffe.

‘We need to get him there now. He’s dying.’

‘Isn’t that what you want? When Carmelo dies, his secret dies.’

‘I don’t care about his secret,’ says Maurice.

‘Even if it means your grandfather will be exposed as a fraud.’

Maurice gets in the car. ‘You follow me. I’m taking him to City Royal. They know him there.’

‘How can I trust you?’

‘He’s dying, inspector. All he wants is to survive long enough to give you his confession. After all these years, it’s what we all want.’

In the back, Carmelo’s eyes flicker open and he seems to be trying to say something. His eyes plead and he tries to talk, a thick thread of blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

Maurice Greene starts up the engine and Staffe runs back to his car, follows Maurice’s black VW down the steep road, London laid out like a blanket below.

Maurice drives fast, overtaking and undertaking and going through ambers. Staffe goes through on the reds and stays within one car or two, all the way down the Holloway Road. As they approach Highbury, Staffe’s phone rings and he ignores it because Maurice seems to be taking it up a notch, driving on the wrong side of the road to get past a line of buses.

The phone goes again as Maurice goes through a red light and Staffe downshifts, sees both calls are from Jombaugh. Horns blare and he misses a drop-topped TR7 by less than a foot, swerving towards the oncoming traffic and just about making it back, two cars behind Maurice again and almost on the New North Road.

He clicks callback and talks hands-free, asking Jombaugh what he wants. Staffe can tell from the way Jombaugh pauses before answering that it’s not good news. ‘Come on, Jom. What is it?’

‘Louis Consadine is dead, Will.’

‘What!’

‘Suicide.’

A white van pulls out and a bus comes the other way as the middle of the road disappears to nothing.

‘Shit!’ shouts Staffe, braking as hard as he can, the pads squealing and his back end flicks out as the ABS judders and he’s in a skid, pressing the horn hard as he can, still sliding, slowing, coming to a halt just inches from the bus.

On the pavement, a young mother with a pram shakes a fist at him.

‘You OK, Will?’ says Jombaugh.

He’s got nowhere to go and he can just see the black VW turning left up Essex Road, going east, not south towards City Royal.

Staffe gives Jombaugh the registration of Maurice Greene’s VW and tries to get his head around just how Louis Consadine’s suicide will affect Pulford’s situation. As he drives slowly on, he begins to feel dreadfully sad, that Louis thought he had no other way. And he also realises that he must find Carmelo Trapani, hear his confession for the murder of David Myers before he dies.

He knows that Maurice won’t go to his flat or to Carmelo’s house. He has an idea that they could use the room in the Kings Hotel in Brighton. Maurizio had the room key, after all; or, if the plan is to nurse Carmelo to his death so he cannot confess, Maurice might be in cahoots with Abie Myers. Certainly, there is a mutuality of interest there now, especially if Maurice is acting to ensure the liberty of his grandfather.

Staffe calls Jombaugh and asks him to contact Brighton CID, and to also check Abie Myers’ two houses.

An ambulance tears past him, on its way to Pentonville prison, and Staffe pulls in, a hundred yards shy of the jail. He imagines what despair Louis Consadine must have felt, how lost his soul might be now, and that makes him think of Vanya Livorski and her faith and Carmelo’s preoccupation with Saint Peter.

He gets out of the car, and looks up to the heavens, realising what he must do.

Maurice Greene pulls the blanket up to his uncle’s chin. Carmelo sleeps again now, but he had recovered consciousness once since they came here and Maurice gave him some morphine. He told him that he wouldn’t be confessing to the police and that those old crimes would remain unsolved, there being no evidence without his statement.

At this, the old man had wailed and begged.

Maurice had said he was going to get a priest and did he know this diocese.

Carmelo had pleaded with his nephew to bring him his own priest. As he pleaded, he spat blood and Maurice’s heart relented.

Maurice looks back a final time before he leaves, to speak to Father Penetti.

Staffe waits for Vanya Livorski to return with the information. He has baby Gustav on his knee and the young boy runs his pudgy hand across Staffe’s stubble, chortling to himself with bubbles of saliva popping in his mouth. The infant throws back his head and claps his hands together, so funny is this ticklishness on the man’s face.

‘He likes you,’ says Vanya, coming back in. She kneels in front of her alabaster crucifix and figurine and lights another candle.

Staffe offers Gustav to her.

‘In a moment. You hold him while we pray. Come on, join me. We shall pray for Carmelo’s soul and then you can have your precious information.’

When they are done, Vanya takes baby Gustav from Staffe, in exchange for a piece of paper. He says, ‘This is the only way I can think of to save him. It’s the only way I can find him and if I don’t, as I have told you before, he will die alone. They will let him die.’

He reads the name ‘Father Penetti’ and the address.

Vanya says, ‘Are you a father, inspector?’

‘No,’ he says.

‘You should be. You would make a good one and you are full of love, I can see that. You shouldn’t try to cover it up. Love is no use if you are alone. You must love God, of course, but he wants more for us than that.’

Staffe kisses Gustav on the top of his head and leaves, checking the address, knowing he doesn’t have a moment to waste if he is to catch Father Penetti before he is called away.

Staffe watches the priest press the bell of the grand house in Canonbury – a three-storey affair at the end of a lane by the new river walk. Maurice Greene lets him in and Staffe calls for back-up, tells Jombaugh it is urgent and not to let Rimmer get wind of it.

Earlier, he had raced around to the church of Our Lady Bernadette in De Beauvoir just in time to see Father Penetti leave the chaplaincy, clearly in a hurry. Penetti had walked briskly up Northchurch Road and across Essex Road. He had paused briefly on the new river walk to make a call from his mobile and after that had prayed, crossing himself, before walking slowly up to the house.

From here, it seems you might be able to leave the house from the rear and when he looks at the map on his phone, Staffe sees the garden leads back round towards Essex Road. The fences are prohibitively high and he hopes the back-up will arrive in time.

In the dark room on the top floor, Father Penetti chastises Maurice Greene for not taking his uncle to hospital. He kneels beside Carmelo and traces the cross with his thumb on Carmelo’s forehead. Carmelo blinks and Maurice takes two steps backwards.

‘Are you police?’ says Carmelo, his voice brittle and thin.

‘It is Father Penetti,’ says the priest. ‘And I am here to pave your way to Saint Peter. Like we talked about,
figlio
.’

‘Can’t you bring the police?’ says Carmelo.

‘Forget it, uncle,’ says Maurice.

‘You should take him to a hospital.’

‘And you should administer what God pays you to do,’ says Maurice. ‘Know your place, father, and save my uncle’s soul.’

‘He can’t,’ says Carmelo. ‘I must confess to the police. Have pity, Father.’ Carmelo musters what life he can. He knows he can’t take any more morphine. He’s no fool.

‘My hands are tied,
figlio
,’ says Father Penetti.

‘But mine aren’t,’ comes a voice from the dim entrance.

Maurice turns, sees Staffe and walks quickly towards him, pulling a flick knife from his waistband. The steel fizzes as the blade releases and Staffe stands to one side.

In the hall, two uniformed officers in body armour flex into defensive positions.

‘Please!’ says Father Penetti.

‘Thank God,’ says Carmelo, his voice cracking. He raises his arm, limply, and beckons Staffe to him.

Maurice takes a step towards his uncle.

Staffe shouts, ‘Don’t, Maurice.’

Maurice says to his uncle, ‘Please, uncle. Think of Maurizio. Think of him and his life and what you owe to me. You sent my father away. You ruined him. Let Maurizio enjoy his last days in peace, without this shame. They could prosecute him, still.’

‘I must tell the truth,
figlio
,’ says Carmelo.

‘Think of Maurizio in this life, not yourself in the next.’

‘This is for us all, in the next. We must do the right thing, no matter how late.’

Staffe comes to Carmelo, holds out a dictaphone as Carmelo begins to relate the events of 4 October 1936, and as he does, in the background, in words from another land, Father Penetti speaks the sacraments. As Carmelo tells his story, so Father Penetti concludes and with the viaticum still warm on his lips, Carmelo’s hand slips from his chest.

Rimmer and Pennington stand shoulder to shoulder, each regarding the front page of
The News.
A picture of Carmelo Trapani dominates. It was taken in the sixties and shows him sharp as a knife in a suit and fedora. Now, he is laid out in front of the two police, a pale and withered shadow of the man in the picture, all wired up to nutrients and antibiotics.

‘It’s very decent of you, Frank,’ says Pennington. ‘Letting Staffe interview Esther Myers.’

Rimmer nods, earnestly, trying not to smile, but inside, he is overwhelmingly happy. ‘We’re a team. And we should all be there when we get Abie Myers.’

‘We have enough evidence to convict him for the murder of Jacobo Sartori?’

‘We need to reverse Esther’s sectioning. The Crown is keen, but only if we can absolutely prove beyond reasonable doubt.’

‘So you need Maurizio Verdetti to testify?’

‘If he doesn’t, we’ll prosecute him for accessory and deception. Once we get Esther Myers under oath, she will do the right thing. David Myers was the love of her life.’

‘Abie’s brother?’

‘It was years later, when Esther discovered what happened to David that she supposedly went insane. Abie had plenty of influence so it was no problem to put her away.’

‘And we have the recording of Carmelo’s statement, too. Nice work by Staffe.’

‘I wonder how much quicker we might have solved this one, sir – had Staffe not been distracted.’

Pennington puts a hand on Rimmer’s shoulder blade, squeezes until Rimmer grimaces. ‘Your old man would be proud. Let’s keep it that way.’

Staffe runs up the Farringdon Road, checking his heart rate on the wrist device that Josie bought for him. He’s ticking over at more than 150, which should be his maximum. His T-shirt is drenched and his shins have started splinting but he’s in range of Leadengate now. He stops and leans against the craggy flint wall of St Barts church, waiting for the reading to tick down to 139. When it does, he kicks on for a final interval.

He wonders how long it will be before they can secure Pulford’s release, and how he will fare when he is back on Road. Will he even come back into the fold, given the way he has been treated? There’s every chance he’ll face a disciplinary, too, for his treatment of Jasmine Cash.

And what of Louis Consadine? He didn’t have it in him to take his own life, surely.

Staffe puts on a final spurt, the sweat pouring down his forehead and into his eyes. The salt stings and his heart burns. He checks the monitor as it clicks from 159 to 160 and he slows, jogging into the Leadengate car park. He leans on the bonnet of his battered Peugeot, just a few yards away from the clutch of Internal Investigations Officers sucking on cigarettes and untroubled by the rigours of the real world.

Staffe bends double, gulping for air. He can hear them laughing about something, probably him, but his thoughts have snagged. He can’t stop thinking about Louis Consadine.

The head of Internal Investigations comes across. ‘It’s us supposed to punish you, Staffe, not yourself.’

‘Very funny. Just trying to extend my life.’

‘So are we. But you don’t seem to listen.’

‘You should be pleased we got a confession from Jadus Golding’s killer. Surely, you wouldn’t want to see the wrong man convicted, for the sake of a little police work. You are aware the words can be used together? Police. Work.’

‘Now who’s being funny?’

‘It’s not fucking funny. You’d have seen Pulford sent down just because it suited the police to be seen to be addressing themselves. Can you imagine—’ Staffe slumps onto his haunches and clasps his chest.

‘You all right?’

‘Imagine Pulford—’ He struggles for air. ‘—shooting a man? Twice in his heart?’ Staffe recalls what Louis Consadine had said and done when he confessed. Two fingers on Staffe’s chest. ‘Brap Brap.’

‘It wasn’t the heart,’ says the man from Internal Investigations.

‘It was the stomach,’ says Staffe.

‘We need to speak to you, about precisely how you came to get that confession out of Louis Consadine. If there’s any hint of coercion—’

‘You’d love that, wouldn’t you?’ says Staffe, standing, feeling light in the head.

‘Come on, we need to talk.’

All he can think of is what Louis Consadine said: ‘Brap! Brap! Two bullets straight to the heart.’ ‘It
was
the stomach, wasn’t it?’ says Staffe, seeing Josie coming down Cloth Fair and before she clocks him, he discerns a look of quiet despair in her eyes and he feels a yearning to save her from that. In this moment, he wants to go to her and wrap his arms around her.

‘Are you listening to me?’ says the man from Internal Investigations.

He waves to Josie and her eyes brighten as he walks towards her. ‘You’re running again.’

He wiggles the device on his wrist. ‘Within strict parameters.’ He takes hold of her arm. It is warm and soft, nutty brown still, from the summer. ‘If those guys from Internal ask where I’ve gone, say I’m going to see Nick Absolom at
The News
.’

Josie says softly, ‘You scare me.’

‘I have to go.’ He moves off, his hand sliding along her arm. Briefly, they hold hands and he hears a shout. He breaks into a jog, looking at Josie now, seeing a new angle of her jaw, the flow of her hair and the sun catching.

The men from Internal Investigations call after him as he runs between the slow-moving cars and buses, then down the steps from the Viaduct and up to Ludgate.

He is in a good cadence now, running in the gutter, between the traffic and the pedestrians, his thoughts synchronising with the rhythm of his stride. His heart is smooth and the truth comes, in glimpses and phrases.