The Fall (25 page)

‘Hiya, Matty.’ Matty. Oh no. Apart from his mother, only one person called him that. He turned away from the lake’s moonlit beauty. ‘Hiya, Danni.’

Danielle, his first girlfriend. Last girlfriend, if you didn’t count anything under a month. Her face was pasty in the dark. ‘All right?’

‘Yeah, how’re you?’ Crap, he’d better hug her. Her feathery hair thing tickled his face. She smelled the same, of Peach Schnapps and sweat. ‘You look nice.’ You had to say that to women at weddings, even if they were poured into a pink strapless dress a size too small for them.

Danielle smiled a bit. ‘Ta. You too. Hoped you’d be here.’

He said nothing.

‘Your mam said you was doing well for yourself, down there.’ She spoke of London like it was another country. ‘You don’t miss it here?’ Her nod took it all in, the glittering lake, the mountains, the stars in a dark, orange-free sky, and also the Girls Aloud and the recycled
Sun
opinions of his family.

‘Sometimes. The fresh air, at least.’

‘And your family? Your mates?’ She stepped closer. Crap.

‘How’re you, Danni? Any, er, romance on the scene?’

‘Was seeing Paul – you know, Paul Gregg from school. He had that Star Wars bag?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘But I finished it. Didn’t feel it, you know. The spark. Like in
Sex and the City
.’

‘Sure.’ He’d rather stick pins in his eyes than watch
Sex and the City
.

‘Hear you’re going out to Tom’s wedding in Australia.’

‘I am, yep. You?’

‘No. Didn’t really keep up with him after you and me split.’

The music had changed. Robbie Williams, ‘Angels.’ Enough to make you vomit, but Danni’s face had softened. ‘You want to dance, Matty? For old times’ sake?’

Crap. This was what cigarettes were for. Why had he quit? ‘Sure, in a minute.’

She gave him sort of a half-smile over her shoulder. ‘Well, find me.’

He watched her walk away, remembering her slim back under her T-shirt, that first disco they went to at fifteen. What was wrong with him? Danielle was a lovely girl, if a bit heftier than she had been. There were lots of girls here, pals of Nicola’s, girls he’d known for years. But all he could think was how that one was too big, that one too skinny, that one’s blonde hair too fake. None of them were
her
. That was the problem.

It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d expected to happen. Normally the women he saw on arrests were rough as, stringy hair, missing teeth, shouting at him and sometimes throwing things. So when he burst into the flat that morning, and she was there with her silk nightie, all that hair round her bare shoulders, it was a shock. He’d tried not to look but it wasn’t easy. And then later, he’d interviewed her and seen her name written down in front of him: Charlotte Miller.
Charlotte
. Even in her jeans and her face tired and confused, she’d been lovely, just so lovely he had to force himself to look at his notes and remember it was her fiancé who’d most likely stuck the guy in the club like you might slice up a juicy steak. He remembered how she’d fiddled and twisted the diamond flashing on her thin finger, as if she’d lost weight and it was too big for her.

Inside, the families were making a circle round Nicola, her strapless dress falling down to show her tattoos, and her lumpish new husband busting out of his hired waistcoat. What would Charlotte’s wedding have been like? If he hadn’t turned up at her door, she’d have been married for a while now, and happy, most like.

The glass doors opened and it was his dad, smaller and wirier than Hegarty’s loud uncles. ‘Your mam’s looking for you. What you at out here, lad?’

He looked at his father, Mike Hegarty, aka Maverick Mike, ex of the Cumbrian Police Service. A suit that was too big for him and, underneath, muscles now softening with age.

‘Dad? Can I ask you something?’

‘Make it quick, lad, buffet’s out.’

‘Did you ever . . . Did you ever worry that you’d got the wrong guy for a case?’ It came out in a rush.

His dad peered at him. ‘You in some kind of trouble at work?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ At least, he hoped not. He’d tried to follow it up, hadn’t he? But the trail had gone cold, and anyway everything pointed to Stockbridge. Didn’t it?

‘Let me tell you something, lad. You will get the wrong fella. Even if it’s not now, you will. And you’ll wonder, did I bang up some innocent man? But it’s not your decision, is it? You just bring them in, son. Let the courts decide.’

But it was his life, Dan Stockbridge’s. And hers. ‘Dad? You met Mam on the job, didn’t you?’

‘I did that. Lifted her fella for drunk and disorderly, took your mam out the next night.’ ‘Oh.’

Hegarty Senior laughed a tobacco-stained rattle. ‘You’re only human, lad. Now come on in before the sausage rolls get cold.’

He could never tell his father anything, never tell anyone that he was out here thinking about a suspect’s girl. A man he’d put away, his biggest case, and he couldn’t stop thinking about his girlfriend’s hair and her mouth and the tears drying on her face.

He cleared his throat. ‘Coming, Dad.’

In his pocket was his phone and on it the message Charlotte had sent him earlier, five weeks to the day since he’d first seen her.
Hi
, it said.
It’s Charlotte Miller. Wondering if I could call you when you’re free? I really need your help
.

So there it was, her text.

All typed right, spelled right, none of that
dat de u
stuff from her. Hegarty didn’t write much. He spent hours on his police reports, using a dictionary, even a thesaurus sometimes, just trying to get the words right. ‘Rainman’, they called him, which was sort of unfair ’cos the point of Rainman was he was a natural genius. He wouldn’t need to use a dictionary, would he? But the only thing harder than stopping a nickname was trying to start your own.

Hegarty was back at his desk in London, still aching and hungover from the wedding and the nearly worse trip back on Virgin Trains. Now he was picking his way through a packet of Nurofen and drinking his fifth cup of rank station coffee, and in his head turning over and over Charlotte’s short text. What did it mean? What could he help her with?

‘Back from the north, Rainman?’ Susan was so close he could smell her cheesy breakfast roll.

He winced. ‘Shit, don’t sneak up on me like that.’

Not much put Susan off. ‘Gorra hangover?’ She leaned in. ‘You wanna try my supplements, you do.’

Susan believed firmly in the power of herbal healing – that and Jesus Christ. Hegarty wasn’t convinced about either.

‘Yeah, yeah. You want me for something?’

‘Boss wants to see you.’

That couldn’t be good. But there was no way the boss could know about Charlotte’s text, could he?

DI Bill Barton was rubbing his stomach when Hegarty went in, staring at the huge pile of paper in front of him. Hegarty noticed an open pack of Rennies on the desk.

‘You wanted me, sir?’ Although the boss did his best to be friendly and informal, it was still a sir and last name kind of place, and there was no changing that.

‘Matthew. Hi.’ Genuine warmth. ‘Everything ticking over, any problems?’

‘Nossir.’ Apart from a ranging hangover and a developing obsession with a suspect’s missus, that was.

‘There’s been another incident. Like the one at Kingston Town.’

Hegarty’s mouth fell open. ‘A bottle stabbing?’

‘No, a knife this time.’ The boss clutched his stomach and winced. ‘Same as before, guy in a bar, in the neck, though. Word is he owed money. But someone got to him in time, lucky sod.’

‘Not dead?’

‘No. Can’t make an ID though. Forensics is in.’

‘So – what’s it mean, sir?’

‘You never found that other witness, did you? The white guy in the photo?’

‘From Kingston Town? No. No, he scarpered.’ Hegarty sighed – he couldn’t explain he’d got an ID on the guy, working on the side, and then lost the trail. ‘You think . . . you think there’s maybe a chance it wasn’t Stockbridge?’ Saying out loud what he’d been thinking for so long almost made him gasp.

‘Now, I didn’t say that, Matthew. The evidence, as your report put it so well, was weighty and compelling.’ Hegarty blushed at this reference to his wordy flourishes. The boss spoke slowly. ‘There are, how can I say it . . . a lot of people who want this Kingston Town case wrapped up. Race relations, class struggle. Not good for London.’

‘Nossir. Did we ever get that other CCTV I mentioned? You know, from the dry-cleaner’s across from the Kingston Town club?’

The DI looked blank. ‘I’m sure we followed up every angle, Matthew. While always being mindful of resources.’

‘Yessir.’

‘But look into this other one, will you?’

‘You want me on it?’

‘Want you leading it, Matthew.’ The boss beamed like he’d just given Hegarty a Christmas present. And it was true, it was a good sign to be asked to lead an investigation.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Bloody hell. He was well on his way to that promotion. His own team! No more Susan and her Bible, her breath! Hegarty went back to his desk and dialled Charlotte’s number.

She looked like she was about to cry again, he thought, when he met her in the café on Mornington Crescent. He’d dodged buses to run across the road from the station, then ducked in to the greasy spoon looking for other officers; this was the place for them. ‘Charlotte?’ It was the first time he’d called her that and not Miss Miller.

She had a cup of soupy tea in front of her, and the plastic table was gritty and sparkling with sugar. ‘Was it bad to contact you? I didn’t know if I should.’

‘It’s OK.’ He’d decided it was a witness interview, nothing wrong in that. Even if the case was officially closed. ‘What was the problem?’

‘This.’ Sighing, she laid a thin piece of paper on the table. ‘It went to Dan’s parents, but they won’t help – they say they’re too far away to come. He didn’t even ask for me.’ She looked miserable.

Hegarty examined the paper, a letter from the prison. ‘He’s been ill, then.’

She nodded. ‘More blackouts, they said. He’s been moved to solitary.’ She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘That means he’s been in trouble, doesn’t it? People have been hurting him.’

She was staring at her hands like she might cry any minute. He was shocked at the change in her. She’d put on some weight, and her clothes were drab, her hair dull. But still. Didn’t make a blind bit of difference. He put his hand under the table to stop from touching hers. ‘He’ll be OK. It’s not like you see on telly, prison. They look after them.’

‘But I don’t know that! That’s what’s so hard – I haven’t seen him in weeks. I’ve no idea how he is . . . I can’t get through to him at all. I suppose you’ve seen the papers. All that Banker Butcher stuff, it’s awful.’

Hegarty didn’t know what to say. ‘Must be hard, and you on your own.’

‘I’m not really on my own. That’s the other thing.’

For a second he thought, oh crap, she has a new man. But why’d she be here, then, trying not to cry?

‘Long story. A friend sort of moved in. She – well, it doesn’t really matter how. But she knows stuff. Keisha? I think you interviewed her once. After the court.’

Hegarty stared at her. The angry girl from the hearing, Chris Dean’s missus! All this time she’d been up in Hampstead with Charlotte? ‘Didn’t know you knew her.’

‘No, I didn’t. It’s kind of a long story, like I said. But I do now, and she knows stuff. That’s what I wanted to tell you. She really knows, but she won’t come forward.’

Hegarty sat back. He’d heard of this happening before, a family member or spouse of someone you arrested would come to you weeks or months or even years later with some ‘new’ evidence showing that the person they loved could never have done this terrible thing. They’d set up websites, they’d send huge packets of documents without enough postage and you’d have to pay the difference. He should walk away, he should take his manky tea and leave. ‘What is it you want from me?’ He said it as kindly as he could.

‘I thought – would you come and see her? She thinks you’re all out to get her. But I promise you, she really does know things.’

Hegarty was leaving. He really was. But he thought of the new stabbing, and the picture of Chris Dean he still had in his desk. ‘You think there’s new evidence?’

She nodded earnestly. ‘I honestly wouldn’t waste your time if I didn’t.’ She paused. ‘After you came round that day, I just felt . . . Well, I knew you would help me. I just sort of felt it.’ She stared down at her tea, embarrassed.

So somehow he found himself agreeing to go to her house the next night. He didn’t tell anyone at the station, they’d only laugh.

Hegarty’d had a bad day. First he had to go and interview the cleaner who’d found his boss gurgling blood all over the floor of a pub in Hammersmith. This one also had predictable gang connections, and money owed. The boss himself was still in hospital and too weak to talk, and Hegarty got nowhere with the cleaner, who didn’t know much English and was clearly terrified of the police.

‘I no see,’ he kept saying, swivelling his eyes back and forth. One of those ‘asylumseekersbenefitsscroungers’ as his uncles would have said.

Hegarty tried again. ‘You found the owner on the office floor, bleeding. What happened then?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened? Did you see anyone else come out?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

Hegarty sighed. ‘Listen to me, Mr, er . . .’ Crap, he could see the surname written down but it had too many letters in it. ‘Er, Mr. Did you see anyone?’

‘Bloods. Much bloods.’

‘Yes, blood, but was there a person? Did you see the assailant – eh, the person who did it?’

‘Yes, bloods. Yes.’

So he gave that up as a bad job. It would take them ages to find a translator who could speak whatever African language it was, even if they could scrape up the funds, and it turned out the bar CCTV was just for show and hadn’t worked in months. Typical. He looked at his watch; time to follow up the other angles. Was that even what he was doing? Hegarty wondered about these little side trips of his – the club, Charlotte’s house. Why do that when he had his suspect nicely locked up on remand? He told himself it was the legendary policeman’s hunch his dad had always talked about, and not just because Charlotte Miller had asked him for help. With that he headed up to leafier Belsize Park, and Charlotte herself.