Post Mortem (38 page)

Steve and Lizzie leaned on the railing, the river was flowing fast beneath their feet. Steve reached out and put his hand briefly on Lizzie's. She glanced at him. He was a man whose face invited truth-telling, but she knew that this impression was deceptive. He was a cop, not a priest, and there would be no value to either of them in a confession. They had both worked out the consequences and they were too great.

Steve said, ‘Don't resign, Lizzie. Stay in the job and be a good cop.'

They were quiet.

Then Lizzie said, ‘Thanks. For everything.'

‘Just doing my job.'

He offered her his hand and she shook it.

He turned and walked away, a thin, anonymous man in an anorak and sensible Clarks shoes. As he made the turn on the bridge's sheltered steps, he threw a coin into the beggar's hat.

The day was dimming and the city's lights were glinting, triggered by a million cadmium cells. They glimmered pinkish against the nacre sky.

Still Lizzie could not think of the roof.

She remembered the uncertain voice on the end of the phone:
You an' me . . . We're not bad people. We're good people
. After all, everybody thought they were good. Lizzie had thought she was good when she wrote the statement backing Hadley.

The Thames swept out beneath her, grey and cold. She leaned against the balustrade as if she would allow the wind to snatch her away into the water. She imagined the pull of the current, the impersonal muscle of the river rolling her up with indifference into the to and fro of its tides.

49

‘
D
o you want to tell me what you said to her when you found her on Portland Tower last night?'

Steve was hanging up his coat. He paused momentarily and then finished what he was doing before he turned back to the detective sergeant. She was sitting with her desk covered in papers.

He put his head a little to the side. ‘What?'

Collins did not move. ‘Lizzie's performance in interview was very assured all in all. What did you say to her on the roof?'

‘It's in my statement, Sarah. Read my statement.'

Collins picked up a piece of paper from the desk. ‘I have read it. You received the phone call from her at 01:53 hours but you didn't book her into custody until 03:12. Even allowing time for you getting there, that's a long interval.'

Steve shrugged.

Collins felt she should not put these suspicions into words, perhaps, but she could not stop herself.

‘Stopped off at a twenty-four-hour Maccy D, did you, for a bit of unofficial disclosure, or did you just drive the long way round? Told her what we had, talked her through the interview, how to handle it? Something like that? It wouldn't be a big deal, would it? Not interfering with evidence, nothing like that. Just a bit of advice. When we stopped the interview and you put her in her cell, did you have another little word with her? A bit of encouragement, some advice perhaps, something to get her through the difficult part?'

‘Don't be ridiculous.'

‘Ridiculous? You walked with her on to the bridge just now. I saw you from the roof.'

‘Yes, I did. So what?'

‘
So what
? Because the interview was everything we had: our only chance. You knew that, and if you helped her get through it, if you told her there was nothing to worry about, if you advised her to simply deny everything, not to hesitate to show Farah in a bad light . . . well then, that offers a very good explanation of how well she did.'

Steve placed his index finger on his lips in the universal gesture for silence. ‘I would stop now if I were you.'

Collins went on. ‘And all along, Baillie has known everything I've done. I thought it was Inspector Shaw's friends, but it wasn't, was it? It was you.'

Steve's face flushed. ‘Reporting the progress of an investigation to a senior officer—'

Collins interrupted impatiently. ‘Is that how you see it?'

He inclined his head slightly. ‘Yes. How do
you
see it?'

There was silence.

Then Steve said, ‘I feel sorry for you.'

Collins could feel her jaw tightening. ‘That makes sense.'

‘Even if I had done what you've said, so what?'

‘Steve, really.
So what
?'

He replied with an impatient flick of his hand. ‘Yes, so what, Sarah? The girl's in her twenties.'

‘And she's a police officer.'

‘Have you ever seen those cases reported on the news? Have you read what the judge says in his sentencing remarks when he sends them down to live with the nonces for three years?'

‘You'd put away a shoplifter—'

‘Sarah . . .'

‘But you don't have the balls to put away a police officer who has perverted the course of justice?'

She had raised her voice and immediately regretted it.

Steve looked at her for a moment as if considering whether to go on. Then he said, ‘So that's what you would charge her with, is it? Perverting? Because she was inexperienced and backed a colleague? That's all she did.'

‘It isn't all she did, although lying is serious enough. They took the phone—'

‘Lizzie didn't take the phone.'

‘As good as.'

‘No.'

Collins raised her voice. ‘Farah Mehenni, a desperate, vulnerable teenager, is dead.'

There was silence. Then Steve said gently, ‘And I'm sorry for that.'

Collins tried to order her thoughts, to speak calmly.

‘Lizzie's inexperience is just mitigation. Mitigation is none of our business.'

They had stopped speaking. Collins sat at her desk as if she had some work to get on with. Steve went back to the peg to get his coat. He was still for a moment and then, with his back turned, he said quietly, ‘No wonder you're so fucking lonely.'

‘It's our job to put the evidence in front of a court.' She had thought she was insisting but was shocked to hear that her voice sounded pleading.

Steve turned back to her. He blew out his cheeks. ‘Is that what you joined to do? To send such an inexperienced and young woman to prison for making a stupid mistake. To destroy her? Who else would pay such a price for such a mistake?'

Collins was furious. ‘It's not for us to start deciding what our damn job is, and it's for the court not us to consider mitigation . . .'

‘Oh really. I repeat my question. Is that what you joined to do?'

‘To do my job? Yes, it is. Why? What did you join to do?'

‘Well not
this
, that's for fucking certain. It wouldn't give me any pleasure at all to put that girl in front of a court. No pleasure at all. I joined to put away the bad guys—'

‘Lying, bullying cops – they
are
the bad guys. A teenage girl is dead—'

‘And I'm sorry for that, but her own fault it is too. Her own fault.'

Collins' head swam. What was this bloody thing she insisted on? It was over. No further action. Did she just not like being bettered?

After a silence Steve said, ‘Sarah, I've put in for a move.'

Collins nodded downwards, as though it was the desk that had spoken to her and she agreed with its hard, implacable surface.

‘Bet you've got it too, have you?'

She knew it was petty. She wished she could think of something else to say.

Steve was pulling on his anorak. ‘I've not had much sleep. I was going to suggest a drink, but instead I'm going home to the beer in my fridge.' He threaded his second arm into the sleeve. His tone was discursive now, as though they were both sharing experiences.

‘I remember when I worked on murder squad. Tavena Smith – I'll never forget her. A little black girl shot by accident by some rude boys showing off in a chicken takeaway in Hackney. We knew who they were but we couldn't get the bastards: every line of inquiry followed up and still getting nowhere. Made me long for the time when we could have a word with them in the back of a van. Then the boss spent about half a million on a forensic review and some conscientious boffin found a droplet of blood on one of the suspect's jackets. God, the satisfaction a few corpuscles can give a man, I tell you. That droplet – it gave me a fucking hard-on. Go to prison, you bastards.'

Steve zipped his anorak up. He felt in his pocket for his warrant card, flipping it open as though checking it was still his face inside.

‘Can't think I'd ever get that satisfaction from a mobile phone recording of some fat copper saying
Bin Laden
. Particularly when the fat copper in question is dead. What about you?'

He slipped the warrant back into his pocket.

An unvoiced argument rose inside her. She remembered something unrelated: how in the playground she had ushered the boys away from a daddy-long-legs but then had not known what to do with its writhing, tortured body. Steve had walked towards the door. His hand was on the handle but he turned back.

‘You're a very good detective, Sarah, really you are. But your talents are wasted. Any complaints you have about me, put them down on paper. I'm going home. I've got the kids this weekend and I'm taking them go-karting. Probably drink too much Coca-Cola and eat too many chips. What are you doing, Sarah? Anyone to see? I am sorry for you, that much is true.' He paused as if considering his next comment. ‘Get yourself a dog. Yes. That's my advice to you.' He looked her clean in the face. ‘Get yourself a fucking dog.'

30 APRIL

50

T
he streets were bordered with a black ribbon of police uniforms. On the route approaching the church the officers chatted and killed time. Some occasionally stamped their feet to keep warm. All were in dress uniform with white gloves. Their black shoes had been worked to a military shine. Motorcycle outriders in fluorescent jackets and white helmets appeared first, moving slowly round the turn in the road. Behind them, the round headlights of the Daimler came into view. As the motorcade approached, the officers fell silent, and as the cortège drove slowly past, they all came to attention. The hearse's polished window reflected back to them their black uniforms and silver buttons. Then, as the hearse turned at a bend further along in the road, the light switched and they caught sight of a wreath of white and red carnations spelling out Hadley's shoulder number.

The graveyard was carpeted with daffodils. Among the grass and the lichen-stained headstones the flowers shone like fragments of yellow glass. Six officers acted as pallbearers. Hefted to their shoulders, the coffin – draped in a Union Jack with a police helmet on the top – made its way slowly up the path. Ten officers from Hadley's response team formed a guard of honour at the entrance to the church.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner McFarland stood in the suburban graveyard and read a prepared statement to the press. Collins stood next to Baillie in the background. She wore a Marks
& Spencer trouser suit and a dark silk shirt. McFarland's uniform was perfectly pressed. His white shirt gleamed. The wind blew across his face, lending him an air of determination. He spoke into a microphone, which blustered with the buffeting of a wind that threatened to snatch his words away. ‘PC Matthews spent his professional life serving and protecting the people of this great city. The thoughts of all of us are with his wife and four children.'

Hadley's wife, Mandy, was seated at the front of the church. On either side of her were the four children. Two already young adults. The other two, Collins knew, were aged eight and ten. Richard and Ian. Two blond boys usually dressed in football strips but today smartly turned out in miniature jackets. One of them had inherited Hadley's thatch, and it was already springing up and mocking the hairbrush. Officers approached the family. They shook hands with Mandy and the children. Mandy thanked them and smiled, although her face, when it relaxed, was drawn. It was easy to conjure the disturbed sleep, the crying and worrying since Hadley had died.

Collins glanced over to the pews on her left. Carrie Stewart was there, seated beside Ben. She had dressed him smartly in a suit. In Ben's lap Collins could just see the ears of a brown teddy. PC Lizzie Griffiths was nowhere to be seen.

As the coffin entered the church, a sound system blasted out ‘Glory Glory Man United'. Everyone made their way back to their seats. The officers placed the coffin on the catafalque in front of the congregation and the music faded out on the words
Wem-berley! Wemberley!

The vicar said ‘Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

Collins recalled Younes Mehenni's words: ‘Every soul shall taste death.' In her wallet was the black-and-white photograph he had
given her of his daughter. Perhaps he had not intended for her to return it, but she would.

The family approached the coffin and placed flowers. The children left a Manchester United scarf. Carrie Stewart went forward with Ben. He placed a police teddy on the gleaming surface. Carrie reached out a hand and touched the wood with a flat palm.

Inspector Shaw got up to give the tribute.

‘Hadley would have wanted me to say something funny . . .' He glanced at the coffin, and Collins saw, with surprise, that his eyes had filled. He struggled for a moment, swallowing hard. ‘I'm sorry, Hadley. I can't for the life of me think of anything funny.' When he looked back towards the congregation, he had composed himself. ‘All I will say – and I know, Hadley, you would have wanted this – is that I haven't run what follows past senior management. So I hope that's acceptable.'

There was a rustle of approving laughter from the congregation, and Shaw acknowledged it with a slight nod before continuing.

‘After Hadley Matthews died, I went to empty his locker. Mandy had found it too painful to consider doing it herself. When she rang me on my mobile, she asked me if I'd mind. She said, “You know Hadley. It'll be a complete mess and there'll probably be something in there that shouldn't be.”