Suffer the Children (25 page)

‘We knew that.’

‘Tyrone Watkins.’

‘You’d expect that.’

‘Delilah Spears.’

‘Spears? Isn’t that …?’ Staffe rubs his face, hard.

‘The match comes from the transcript of Debra Bowker’s interview.’

‘That’s it! Bowker thought she was a bit strange.’

‘“Poor Delilah”,’ remembers Pulford. He flicks through the transcript. ‘“Her daughter was raped. Poor Delilah. She wanted to go out and kill the bastards. That’s why I left, truth be known. I’d of ended up doing time when it should have been him.”’

‘Have we interviewed Delilah?’

‘Johnson cleared her.’

Staffe looks at the dead TV. ‘You not watching the game?’

‘I might later.’

Pulford takes a deep breath and studies Staffe’s face for the next reaction. ‘Jessop was on the list, sir.’

‘Jessop!’

‘There’s one call to Leadengate and two later ones to his home number.’

‘Jessop?’ Staffe’s face tightens and his bottom lip whorls. ‘He never mentioned he had spoken to VABBA.’

‘They called him.’

‘Maybe it was when they were dropping the charges. When Ruth Merritt let the case lapse.’

‘I checked the dates. The second two, yes. The first – to Leadengate – was a couple of days before the CPS wound the case back in.’

‘J?’ says Staffe, as much to himself as Pulford.

‘Sir?’

Staffe looks at him, as though he is a doorman deciding whether he is good enough to be allowed in. He makes a tight smile and shakes his head. ‘Nothing. Maybe I will have that coffee.’

‘We are honoured.’ Pulford puts the kettle on and while it boils, he tidies up a mess of poker chips on the small, circular dining table.

‘It’s all the rage now,’ says Staffe.

‘I’ve been playing for years.’

‘Playing for money, too?’

‘The way you play football with a ball.’ He can feel Staffe weighing him up, so he adopts a casual air. ‘You should join us for a game one night.’

‘Maybe when this case is done and dusted.’

‘You can have a life and a job, sir.’

‘I beg to differ. You’re young.’

‘And I don’t care enough?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

Pulford puts a dessert spoon of own-brand coffee granules into the chipped mug. ‘You know, sometimes I think it was a godsend, me working for you. You’re …’ He busies himself putting the milk in, stirring the coffee.

‘Carry on, Sergeant.’

‘Sometimes, it’s like you’re the antidote, an extreme. A lesson in how to go too far. You’re so wound up … all the time.’ Staffe is gazing into nowhere.

Eventually, Staffe takes a sip from his coffee and looks at the papers, says, ‘Thanks for doing this. Don’t think it’s not
appreciated
. I’ll have that word with Smethurst. He’s way out of line.’

‘It’s only a case, sir.’

Staffe gives him a rueful look and drops his gaze. He stares at Pulford’s feet then gets up, shows himself out without
saying
another word. When he has gone, Pulford bends forward, sees one of his bank statements on the floor under his chair. Bottom line, eleven and a half grand overdrawn.

Staffe sits behind the wheel, closes his eyes and sees the numbers on Pulford’s bank statement, the look on his DS’s face when he spoke of his poker.

He turns the ignition. Jessop once told him that we are defined by our faults. ‘No problem, no person,’ he said. ‘Bloody Jessop,’ says Staffe, aloud, and he swings the car round in the direction of his old boss’s home. He tries
desperately
to remember if his father had ever supplied him with such maxims for life. But he can’t.

At a red light, Staffe checks the stub again, making sure the
J
couldn’t be another letter – a twitchy
T
, a lazy
l
, a straight
S
. There’s no mistake. He rehearses the questions he will ask Jessop, but he can’t make them sound casual, unthreatening, or remotely respectful: do you think Nico Kashell didn’t kill Lotte Stensson; why
did
the CPS really drop the case; why were VABBA calling you before and after Lotte Stensson was killed – at the station and at home; who is the
J
on the VABBA cheque stub; can I see your bank statements; what were you doing on the night of the Lotte Stensson murder; and what were you doing on the night Karl Colquhoun was murdered, and the night Guy Montefiore was tortured? And can you prove it?

Staffe parks up the road from Jessop’s flat. He leans back against the car and squints up at his ex-boss’s squalid abode. What has he done to the gods to deserve this case?

If he doesn’t ask these questions of Jessop, will Smethurst? Staffe knows he has no choice – there is already an innocent man serving life and there is, Staffe is certain, another victim about to be added to the list of the dead and tortured. Jessop brought him up to do precisely this. He locks down the Peugeot and walks slowly up to the front door. He presses the top buzzer, still hoping a plausible and alternative truth will hit him with a rabbit punch. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, tries to see his way through to a brighter end.

There is no answer so Staffe stands back, looks up to the top flat and sees the curtains are half closed. He feels the bunch of keys, still in his hip pocket from the VABBA sortie.

And suddenly, he feels sick. He is meeting Sylvie soon – as if for a first time. He should go home, shower and get ready. It will be the first time they have been out for dinner since he and Jessop were still friends; when Lotte Stensson was alive and Nico Kashell was a free man; when Karl Colquhoun and Guy Montefiore were leaving indelible prints all over the ruined lives of Tyrone, Linda and poor Sally Watkins.

He looks up into the sun and says ‘Come on!’ aloud, then goes back up to the door and presses all the buzzers,
continuously
until someone berates him.

‘The fuck you playin’ at!’

‘Police! Now let me in or I’ll have you for …’

The buzzer sounds and the latch whirrs itself unlocked. Staffe pushes it open and takes the ring of keys from his pocket, strides up the stairs. He smells the same old illegal smells, and notices that the rubbish bags outside the doors on the landings are piling up.

When he gets to the top floor he pounds the door. If only he could let himself in, rifle through his friend’s possessions and find out what he needs to without having to ask. ‘Ask?’ You may as well say ‘accuse’.

Staffe waits, weighs up the locks on the door. There are three. To triple lock a top-floor flat in such a dismal block is abnormal. He looks closely at the wood around the middle lock and runs his finger around the pale, routed subsurface where the lock was fitted. It rubs rough on his finger and he catches a splinter. It’s a new fitting. Very new by the look and feel of it.

He holds up the ring of keys and realises – as he offers them to the new lock one by one – that none match. His heart sinks and he knows Jessop must have something to hide. He knows, too, that he must get to Jessop before Smethurst. The least he can do for his old friend is hear it first – then react accordingly.

Staffe knows he should go straight home and get ready for dinner with Sylvie – after all this time. But first, there is just enough time for another trip down Memory Lane.

Approaching the Scotsman’s Pack, Staffe remembers the
rollickings
he used to get from Sylvie for the Sunday lunches he spent here with Jessop. Sunday dinner was the only meal she ever cooked. A bottle of Aligoté for him, a Brouilly for her. The wrong way round, some might say.

Staffe opens the Scotsman’s door and goes into the dark. The door slams violently behind him. As soon as you walk in through the panelled, narrow corridor, you can feel the appeal. A handful of diehards still slope up against the bar, pulling on pinches of snuff between sips of their halves and house doubles, with trips outside to smoke in the fresh air.

Jessop and he used to sit in one of the tiny snugs – little more than booths – so they could discuss cases without being
overheard
. But today, Staffe maintains a spot at the bar with a pint of Adnams. The landlord, Rod, looks as if he half recognises Staffe but he doesn’t say anything, even when Staffe offers him ‘your own’. When the change comes, Staffe sees he took for one anyway.

He bides his time, looks around with a scratch of the ear, a readjustment of the trousers, a trip to the paper rack. There is no sign of Jessop and Staffe finishes his drink and orders a Laphroaig. It’s the reason they made a habit of coming here. Jessop introduced Staffe to the Islay malt and he couldn’t get enough. Not everywhere has it.

Staffe surrenders to the slow wash of nostalgia. The old times seem happier than they were, now, in the beer’s sepia as the slow roast of the malt takes him right the way back.

He says to Rod, as casually as he can muster, ‘I don’t suppose you remember, but I used to come in here. Used to come in with a friend of mine.’

‘I remember all right. You’re a copper.’

The old soaks down the bar turn, look him up and down and take a drink before they each take a half step away.

‘Bob Jessop. I don’t suppose he still comes in?’

The landlord shrugs and the soaks say nothing. If he didn’t still come in, they’d have said. They know Jessop all right.

‘Not been in today? He used to love his Sunday lunches,’ says Staffe.

Rod turns his back and bends down, comes up with a packet of scratchings from a box and puts it in the one empty clip in the rack beneath the optics.

‘Never mind.’ Staffe drains his Laphroaig. ‘See you again.’ He goes into the dark, narrow corridor that leads outside and opens the door. The brilliant day floods in. Staffe lets the door swing its violent slam, shut. But he remains in the corridor, his back to the panelled wall. He holds his breath and listens hard. After a minute, maybe more, Staffe begins to feel foolish, makes to leave. But then, just a few feet away, he gets what he wants. Rod starts to talk, telephone loud.

‘He’s been in. Longish hair, yeah. He asked after you, straight out. No. Not a dicky bird.’

Having heard enough, Staffe opens the door and walks into the light, closing the door ever so gently behind him.

He has to meet Sylvie in San Giorgio, round the back of Leicester Square, in less than an hour. He can’t be late, not after all this time. Instead, he goes west, to Hammersmith.

The Viva room is on AMIP’s sixth floor. Viva is the case’s code word. Victimvengeance.
Viva
. In some places ‘Viva’ means ‘life’.

‘Ahaa,’ calls Smethurst across the room as Staffe enters. ‘You grace us with your presence.’ Everyone in the room sees the funny side. Even Johnson joins in the craic of Smethurst’s laughing policemen.

‘Just thought I might be able to help.’

‘We’re getting on just fine, Inspector. But it’s nice of you to pop in.’

Smethurst walks right up to Staffe and puts a hand on his back, ushering him to a quieter place. If the officers in the room didn’t already know, it shows them exactly who’s boss. Staffe wants to shrug him away, but he fights his instincts and simply flexes his shoulders, walks with Smethurst into a small meeting room.

‘We’re pushing ahead with this now, Will. Say what you like but we’ve already got our killer for Lotte Stensson and with a bit of luck, if he doesn’t top himself, he’ll get his parole in a few years.’

Staffe tries to work out whether Smethurst has tied Jessop into the case. And if he has, what is he doing about it? ‘I wanted a word with Johnson.’

‘Maybe you can persuade him to go home. He’s a good man, but he’s done in. Most of the continuity work is finished. I’ll send him in.’ Smethurst turns at the door. ‘Oh, and Will.’

‘Yes.’

‘I understand if you don’t want to be involved. I wouldn’t want to – if I was you.’

Staffe says nothing. As he waits for Johnson, he smells drink on himself. It reminds him of younger days in smoky pubs that supposedly smelled of Wormwood Scrubs. ‘And too many right-wing meetings …’ he says, aloud.

‘Talking to yourself, boss?’ says Johnson.

‘It’s a song.’

‘The Jam.’ Johnson looks as if he’s been kept awake every night for a month.

‘How’s the case going?’

‘This website should blast it open. The techies are working on it now.’ Johnson looks around, uncomfortable. Staffe thinks about the needle and makes a mental note to check with Janine precisely which narcotic his DS has been injecting himself with.

‘Any fresh leads?’

‘I heard you went to see Kashell.’

Staffe nods.

‘We’re not going down that road,’ says Johnson.

‘What about Delilah Spears?’ As he asks the question, Staffe studies Johnson for his response.

His face flickers then breaks into a grimace, then a coughing fit.

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘You taking something for that? Or is that the problem?’

‘I don’t have a problem, sir.’

‘She’s on the VABBA list. A bloke called Errol Regis raped her daughter, Martha Spears.’

‘What makes you ask about her?’ says Johnson.

Staffe shrugs, says, ‘Her name cropped up, in the Bowker transcript.’

‘Like I said, DI Smethurst is going his own way.’

It feels like a first date. Walking down Gerrard Street. Staffe pictures Sylvie the last time they were together. Her hair was short in a French bob, shiny black and fashioned into sharp curves that came together on her pale, pale neck. Her eyes – green as new shoots in spring – were dewy wet from him being too much of a bastard once too often. He had a reason, but like she said, he always had a reason.

He is shown towards their table by the maître d’ who seems to recognise Staffe. Sylvie is sitting by the window, looking out and twirling the ice in her Campari and soda. He should have got here first, but then he wouldn’t have seen her this way, the sun flitting across her, through her flimsy cotton dress.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, sitting. ‘So sorry.’ A waiter hovers, asks him what he would like to drink. ‘A Bloody Mary, please,’ he says.

‘You look as though you’ve had a few.’