Suffer the Children (28 page)

In the Scotsman’s, a few old boys have their elbows on the bar, looking at the racing pages and pinching snuff whilst they grumble about jockeys and how the whole game is a fix. They don’t know why they bother. But they do.

Staffe is sitting in the snug at a table by the window, teaching Harry to play pontoon. It’s not a kids’ pub, but Staffe had reminded the landlord, Rod, of who he was and what happens to people who withhold evidence. Harry has a J2O with a straw and Staffe has a large malt.

As he approaches uncle and nephew, Pulford sees there is further cause for concern: Staffe is smiling, looks thoroughly relaxed, and appears to be at peace with the world.

‘Get yourself a drink, Sergeant,’ says Staffe.

‘We’re already late. The funeral started five minutes ago.’

‘These things go on forever.’

‘Smethurst is there.’

‘Bully for Smet.’

‘I think you’ll need to get your story straight.’

‘Story? I’ll rely on the truth, thank you very much, Sergeant.’

Staffe’s eyes look heavy, but his glint is bright. An easy smile curls in one corner of his mouth. He looks as if he hasn’t had a shower in a week. ‘You need to do what you can, say what you can to protect yourself, sir.’

‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘Sir, I don’t like to say, but … what’s wrong? You seem different.’ Pulford looks at the glass, the sun lighting up its golden barley. ‘How many of these have you had?’

Staffe reaches into his pocket and tosses the empty sleeve of pills on the table. ‘I reckon I’ve had a few too many of these. Where’s Josie?’

Pulford picks up the blisterpack. ‘Shit.’

‘Good shit,’ says Staffe.

‘Where did you get these? They’re not yours, surely?’

‘A parting gift, from an old friend.’

Pulford squints at the small print, says, ‘This is full of
buproprion
. It’s a serious anti-depressant. Jesus.’ And he presses his way through the menu of his phone, tracking a route to Janine in Forensics. He gets the answering machine and leaves a message for her to call back asap. Sooner, if she can.

‘Josie’s outside. She’ll take the boy home and wait with him. Come on,’ he says to Staffe, standing. He extends a hand but Staffe shrugs him away and downs the rest of his whisky in one. Slowly, he gets up from his chair, cajoling young Harry. The boy beams up at his uncle, clearly trusting that there will be many more where these good times come from.

‘Show the way, Sergeant. Show the way.’ And he takes Harry by the hand and leads him to his temporary
child-minder
. For a split second, his altered state is darkened by a snapshot tirade of what Marie will say when she sees Harry sitting in a patrol car, outside the house, in the custody of DC Josie Chancellor.

By the time they get to the funeral, the service in the tiny chapel has finished and the small gathering is forming a line towards the grave. The gravedigger leans on a long shovel, looking disinterested. Leanne Colquhoun is at the front with Calvin and Lee-Angelique – done up like gelled poodles. Debra Bowker is there, too, keeping her distance and looking good in tight black.

Pulford picks out Smethurst and Johnson at the back of the line and they catch his eye. Johnson mouths something to the effect of ‘What are
you
doing here?’ They start to come across and Pulford leads Staffe to a large yew tree with a bench around its base. ‘You sit here. Leave the talking to me, eh, sir?’

‘Let’s see how you go.’

‘Staffe, Pulford,’ says Smethurst. Johnson loiters, a few paces away, kicking at the ground, hands in pockets and looking as though he needs some of what Staffe has had.

‘I believe congratulations are in order, sir,’ says Pulford, trying to muster a smile.

‘That depends.’ Smethurst looks at Staffe, his eyebrows pinching together, the tip of his tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth.

‘What put you on to Jessop?’

‘I’m sure Inspector Wagstaffe knows. Hey, Staffe.’

‘All ears, Inspector Smethurst. All ears.’

Smethurst hands a folded note to Pulford, says, ‘It’s a copy. You can keep it, for old time’s sake. Seems Jessop has a knack with confessions. Except this one’s his own.’

‘Have you got him?’

Smethurst shakes his head. ‘It came registered, posted
yesterday
from Central London at one in the afternoon. We’re checking all the flight lists but I reckon he’s gone. If he can do what he did to Colquhoun and Montefiore, plotting it ahead all these years, he can bloody well get out of the country – on a dodgy passport is my guess, amount of grasses he’s had down the years.’

Pulford reads the note aloud.

‘If you’ve got this I suppose you might think you’ve got me. But you haven’t. It’s too late now and all I can say is things got out of hand, turned on their head. You couldn’t know what it was like but if you’d known Stensson, you might have done what was done. Someone showed how and I had to follow, but don’t follow me, there’s nothing to be achieved. What’s done is done. The law is an ass but you won’t pin a tail on this old donkey. J.’

He hands it to Staffe and says, ‘Short and sweet.’

Staffe reads it through, but the words don’t quite make sense to him. He watches the graveside scene take shape. Even from fifty yards away, he can see that Leanne Colquhoun is shaking. Her head is dipped and her children are clutching at her legs, hiding their faces. Ross Denness comes across and puts his big arms around them. He looks around, not
comfortable
with what he is doing – but doing it nonetheless. It makes Staffe want to respect him, just for now. But as he is looking around, Denness clocks Staffe. He double takes and his face goes hard, as if he could kill. His lip curls and he
doesn’t
blink. Staffe smiles and Denness mouths something that might be ‘stay away’. He looks different and Staffe feels that he could somehow trust him. But he quickly reminds himself that his mind has been altered; that he shouldn’t entirely trust himself.

To Denness’s left, Debra Bowker walks up to Leanne. She walks with her back straight in short, stiletto steps. She is wearing a tailored frock coat and a matching black miniskirt. Her hair shines and her nyloned legs shimmer. She crouches, back still straight and puts her arms around the children. They respond, wrapping their arms around her. Leanne Colquhoun moves her hand towards Debra Bowker and takes a hold of her shoulder. She rubs Debra’s neck and Debra looks up at her. They smile, sadly, at each other. Tears smudge Leanne’s mascara. Still, Denness looks at Staffe, beseeching him to go away.

Staffe considers the possibility that the world is a better place for Jessop having betrayed his law. These poor people are now somehow coming together in a safer world. In the shade of the yew, he says an instant prayer for Sally and Tyrone Watkins, for Nico and Greta Kashell, and thanks God that Jessop got to Tanya Ford in time – so many steps ahead of the wheels of justice.

But can it be right? And if it is right, then what does he do with his own life?

Smethurst and Pulford have been talking. ‘We’re still holding her,’ says Smethurst.

‘Holding who?’ says Staffe.

‘Greta Kashell,’ says Smethurst. ‘I checked up on Nicoletta’s counselling history. She only went for a few weeks, then Greta signed her off so I sent someone to interview her down in Hastings at her grandparents’ place but she wasn’t there. They said she went missing over two and a half years ago, not long after Nico went down. Greta lied.’

‘Oh Christ,’ says Pulford.

‘She held Jessop responsible, for getting that confession out of Kashell and when Nicoletta disappears, she gets hooked on revenge. Lotte Stensson was already dead, so she uses VABBA.’

‘She uses VABBA to source the victims?’ says Pulford. ‘And Jessop’s motives?’

‘The bloody fool, he didn’t know how much he’d bitten off. My guess is that when he got Stensson’s charges dropped he knew what Nico would do. But Nico can’t bring himself to do it, so they come up with that mad pact. When Kashell gets sent down and Greta finds out about Jessop, she starts to blackmail him, says she’ll tell the authorities unless he does more, for VABBA.’

‘You put them on to Jessop, Rick.’ Staffe looks Johnson straight in the eye. He doesn’t sound angry. He says it as if he is saying ‘Canberra is the capital of Australia’. Johnson looks at the ground, chews at his lip.

Smethurst looks at Staffe as if he doesn’t really know him. ‘You should hear Greta Kashell when she talks about what happened to Colquhoun and Montefiore. She gets high on it. You heard what Debra Bowker said about her.’

‘It’s all consistent with a different truth.’

‘What?’ Smethurst turns to Pulford, says, ‘What’s he on?’

Pulford says, ‘We should go, sir.’

‘What does Greta say about the fourth quadrant?’ says Staffe.

‘What?’

‘The website.’

‘Aah.’ Smethurst looks at Staffe as though he is ailing for something.

Staffe scratches at his head, and talks as if someone behind the scenes is feeding him lines. ‘If your man has slipped the country and still a fourth one dies, that wouldn’t be good.’

Staffe recalls someone telling him the website was set up in Guy’s name, from his address. He feels light, his feet still not quite touching the sun-parched golden grass beneath. Debra Bowker and Leanne Colquhoun walk away from Karl’s grave, linking arms.

Smethurst is saying something else now. He’s getting irate, thinks Staffe. He knows it would probably be better to get his head straight, but he beckons Smethurst for a private word, walks away, from under the yew shade.

‘Something will happen to Montefiore and there will be a fourth victim,’ says Staffe, turning round to make sure Pulford and Johnson can’t hear what he is saying to Smethurst.

‘Look, Will! I don’t know what you’re on, but take it from me. You let this sleeping dog lie.’

‘You know Jessop didn’t do it.’

Smethurst looks round. ‘I know nothing of the sort. You need to watch what you’re saying, Will. Take some rest.’

‘Did you help him get away?’

‘You should go home. He was your friend, for Christ’s sake!’

‘All I want is the truth.’

Smethurst leans forward, hisses into Staffe’s ear. ‘There’s no such thing. There’s just the stuff that people tell you. That’s all there is. Now, I don’t know what you think the game is here, but we’ve got our man.’

‘What if there’s another killing?’

‘We can’t be sure Jessop’s not still around. And anyway, it’s gone crazy out there. Who’s to say what people might do – to copy him?’

‘There’s a fourth quadrant. You’ve seen the website.’

‘That could be Jessop. It could be anybody. Those images of Colquhoun and Montefiore have been published. Anybody could use them.’

Staffe turns his back, beckons Pulford towards him.

‘Watch yourself, Will,’ calls Smethurst.

‘What was that name, Sergeant?’ he says to Pulford. ‘The young black girl. It was a Tom Jones song.’

‘Spears? Martha Spears was the girl. The mother was Delilah.’

Staffe looks back at Smethurst. He’s talking to Johnson and losing his rag. Johnson looks as if he can’t take much more. ‘Did you say Janine is coming?’ says Staffe. As he says her name, he remembers she has Johnson’s syringe.

‘We’re meeting her at my flat.’

Staffe looks all around, back at the graveyard, across to the flats behind and the broad hint of London spreading itself out to the blue horizon. So many lives.

Walking back to Pulford’s MR2, Staffe stops, turns to see the young sergeant, stock still, by a news-stand.

The guy pushing the news looks at his own gear and then at Staffe, back to the paper. On the front page is a photograph of Staffe: looking worse for wear.

The headline says:

Beneath, the strapline is:

Pulford comes towards him, newspaper in hand, and wraps an arm around and turns him to face the MR2. The lights flash on and off, the car makes a beeping noise. Pulford shows Staffe the passenger side and once Staffe has bent his frame into the low seat, the DS shuts the door gently.

Staffe tries to work out when and where the photograph was taken. The hanging baskets in the background are from the Steeles. The jacket is the one he’s wearing now. The stubble is a day behind.

‘Bastards?’ He says it quizzically, as if he is unsure whether he is right. The story dissects everything that has gone wrong with the case. It suggests Staffe had been protecting a suspect. He looks up at Pulford. ‘Fiddling? What do they mean?’

Pulford says, ‘Like Nero. While London burns.’

‘Nero,’ says Staffe. He stares out of the window, as if in a trance, at people, shops, building sites, schools, offices. Some trees beyond.

Staffe says, ‘Do you have to stick me?’

‘It will be faster this way,’ says Janine, tapping at Staffe’s bare upper arm with the second and third fingers of her left hand. She holds the syringe between her teeth, as if it might be a rose.

‘What is it?’ says Pulford.

‘An ampakine, kind of like Modafinil, but industrial strength.’

Staffe sits on a dining chair in Pulford’s flat, his face riven with fear. His shirt is pulled off, draped at his feet. ‘I hate needles.’

Janine takes the syringe from between her teeth. ‘Be a brave boy,’ she says. She holds the needle aloft, gets some liquid out and eyes Staffe’s upper body. He looks after himself but you’d still have him at forty, plus. He could do with a haircut. It suits him long but the layers have grown out. His body goes tense as she takes aim at the reddened skin she has been softening up and as she slides the needle in, his whole body quivers, as if he’s in the last throes of something. She pulls it out and his body goes slack.

‘I gave you a needle,’ says Staffe.

She says to Pulford, ‘It will take hold very quick. Get a glass of water and mix it up with a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt. You’ll need to be vigorous.’

Staffe gets up from the chair and looks around the room as if he is clocking it for the first time. His legs go weak and he reaches out for the sofa, flops on to it. His chest rises and falls, high and deep and he starts to blink. Janine pulls up a chair and crosses her legs, clasps her hands together in front. ‘It was morphine – the syringe you gave me. You thought it was smack but it was only morphine.’