The Fall (31 page)

‘I do!’

‘Don’t fucking patronise me.’

‘I didn’t know if you’d go to him! I see you still looking out for him, every time you leave the house. I had to help Dan.’

‘Dan? Dan doesn’t give a shit about you any more and you know it. Dunno why you don’t just give up and go off with your fucking copper.’

Charlotte was going to cry again. ‘I love Dan.’

‘Sure you do,’ Keisha sneered.

Charlotte gave a little sob and dropped her shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t – oh!’

Keisha marched into the little room and started throwing things into her mum’s embroidered bag. The stuff from Mercy’s house, some clothes, whatever. She could hardly see straight. ‘You can just put my stuff out. I’ll come back and get it later.’

‘But you can’t – Keesh, no! I’m sorry!’

‘Well, you should have thought of that before you fucked me over.’ She went out, slamming the door so hard it rattled.

She’d meant to leave. Really she had. The bang of the heavy door shutting in Charlotte’s face had been a good sound. She’d be off, back to her life before Miss Meddling Cow here, with her blonde hair and innocent face. But halfway to the tube Keisha stopped. Ronald had kissed her last night, tasting like ginger cake. If she turned up now at the club, what’d he think?

Write it down, Charlotte had said – interfering cow. Tell the story, you’ll get Ruby back. Was it fair to be cross at Charlotte for keeping secrets, when there was so much Keisha knew herself – so much she had never said?

A breeze went through the trees on Belsize Crescent, and Keisha shivered. This weird time, it was going to end soon. Chris was in jail. Ronald had kissed her. There’d be a trial. And somewhere not far away, Ruby would soon be going back to school.

Ruby.

Keisha picked up her bag and started to walk back. Charlotte was standing on the pavement outside the house, shivering in her shorts and T-shirt.

She started to cry as Keisha came round the corner. ‘I knew you’d come back. Oh God, I’m sorry, I never should have done it, I’m so sorry.’

Keisha put the bag down again. ‘You gotta trust me. Me too – dunno if I can trust you now. You never told me you saw him, and you know he’s after me. He’s after my kid.’

‘You
can
trust me. Oh Christ, I’m so sorry.’ She threw her thin arms round Keisha, the first time they’d hugged – and Keisha could hear the girl’s breath catching like she was trying to stop crying. She stiffened up at the feel of someone so close, but then she patted Charlotte gently on her shoulder. ‘Come on, it’s freezing.’

‘About me,’ Kylie said, blinking her eyes behind her glasses. She looked round the table at the men seated there, and told her story as if she’d done it many times before. ‘So when I was ten my kid brother was killed by a paedo. Big case in Oz. But they got the wrong guy; he was let out after five years, and in the meantime the real perp killed two other kids. So I do miscarriages of justice. Dodgy trials. Screwed-up evidence. No one should have to go through all that twice, that’s what I think.’ She opened her file, businesslike. ‘You can find all this out online so I’m just telling you now. Least over here not everyone knows. Oh, his name was Matthew, by the way, Officer.’

She looked up at Hegarty’s shocked face and said, laughing, ‘I know, and I got Kylie. You’d think it would have been Brad or Jason or something, right? Now, let’s get on with it. OK to proceed, Mr Hunt? Inspector? Now if I can turn your attention to page three . . .’

Around the table in the police station meeting room, the prosecution barrister, Hegarty’s boss, and assorted people from HR and the press office, all turned to the dossier Dan’s new lawyer had put together.

Hegarty wasn’t having a good week. There’d already been that awful ‘chat’ with the boss. The day after Singapore he’d knocked sheepishly on DI Barton’s door.

‘Ah, Matthew.’ The boss was watering his (dying) rubber plant. ‘Good trip? See you caught the sun.’

‘Yes, sir. Er – can I talk to you?’

‘Of course, of course – you heard about Chris Dean then? Lifted him during a drugs bust, believe it or not. We’ve charged him with this Hammersmith assault for now, have to see if he gets remanded.’

‘And the Kingston Town case? The MO’s so similar, and if we can tie Dean to the scene . . .’

The boss winced. ‘Bit of a pickle, Matthew. We’re under a lot of pressure to get a conviction there – community tensions, you know. And all your witnesses said Dean left the club
before
the attack, didn’t they?’

‘Yes.’ The ones who’d spoken up had, at least. And there was no record of the taxi Dean might have got home. But. But but but.

‘Last thing we want is the press in. You up to looking into it? On the QT, so to speak?’

Hegarty decided not to say he already had been. ‘Well, sir, thing is – I need to take myself off the case.’

The boss’s eyebrows shot up. Hegarty ploughed on. ‘I need to declare an interest.’

‘On what grounds?’ The poor plant was drowning under a flood of water.

‘Er, personal, sir. Being personally compromised. In the PACE codes – you know.’ He tailed off.

The eyebrows nearly disappeared into the sandy hair. ‘Is there something you need to tell me, Matthew? Has something happened?’

‘Nossir.’ He remembered her lips on his face at the harbour in Singapore, the slight catch from her gloss as she pulled away. ‘Nothing yet.’

Even though he was off the investigation, Hegarty had to testify in Dan’s case, as arresting officer, and so he’d been hauled in by this – this bloody Aussie woman, the lawyer Charlotte had found in Singapore. Tiny, she sat behind the desk like a little kid and went through the evidence over and over. Usually the police wouldn’t give the defence the time of day, but after Hegarty’s ill-timed confession, the powers-that-be had decided to play nice. So here they were, along with the prosecution guy, this Adam Hunt QC. Poker up his arse and fond of himself, you could tell.

Kylie said, ‘So talk me through the procedure, Officer. What led you to Daniel Stockbridge on the morning of May tenth?’

‘I told you,’ Hegarty said impatiently. ‘We found his employee credit card on the desk in the office, and we checked with his workplace and got the address. It was very simple.’ In fact, Haussmann’s had been only too keen to give up all they had on Daniel Stockbridge. That was one of Hegarty’s dad’s famous warning signs:
Ask yourself why they want to help so bad, son
. But he hadn’t asked, had been so keen to crack his first big case.

‘Other than the card, did anything tie him to the incident?’

‘It was a murder, actually. He’d been seen by many witnesses going out back with the victim.’

‘The alleged victim . . .’

‘. . . with the
dead man
, and a taxi driver identified him as a pick-up he made at the club shortly after.’

‘How could you be sure it was him?’

‘Two witnesses picked him out of a parade, and he subsequently admitted to assaulting Mr Johnson at the scene. We then decided to proceed with the charge.’

She clicked her pen on and off for a while. ‘That was Johnson’s sister, and his girlfriend, yeah, your witnesses? Bet they were upset.’

Hegarty had been in court before. ‘Hearsay. I’m not answering that.’

‘No matter. Anyhoo, Mr Stockbridge confessed to what exactly?’

‘A light punch. He said in his statement that the victim was fine. You can read it yourself.’

‘The
alleged
victim. Right. And Forensics found only a small trace of blood on the defendant’s shirt, right?’

‘Right, but—’

‘Just answer the question, Officer.’ She winked at him, and he looked away, grinding his teeth. ‘So there was no blood to speak of on the shirt.’

Hegarty glanced at his boss, who nodded slightly. ‘No. But his prints were on the bottle. We felt it was enough to bring a charge.’

‘Yes, the alleged weapon had the defendant’s print on it, and it was identified as a bottle of Red Stripe sold to him – or rather, not sold, as his card was declined. Oh-kay. Foot imprints. Talk me through what happened there.’

He’d been a bit worried about that. The crime scene had been stamped all over with prints, but none could be found that matched Stockbridge’s. ‘There were a number of footprints in the blood – it was a mess, really, no one stopped staff going in to help. They tried CPR, of course. Stockbridge’s could have been obscured, or maybe he just didn’t step in it.’

‘You yourself stepped in the blood, in fact, did you not?’

Hegarty took a deep breath. ‘Unfortunately, as I was first on the scene, I proceeded straight in to ascertain if the victim’s life could be saved. Sadly, it could not, but in the process, my, er, my footwear became contaminated.’ How did lawyers talk like this every day? His tongue felt tangled in knots.

He tried to focus on what Kylie was saying. ‘Not usual, is it, that you’d make the arrest if you’d been at the scene?’

Again he looked at the boss, who wore an expression of deep pain. Whether at his bowels or Hegarty’s incompetence wasn’t clear. ‘Unfortunately, as it was a Friday night, the Force was rather overstretched at this point,’ Hegarty ploughed on. ‘It was felt that – to avoid the risk of the defendant fleeing . . .’ He’d just gone, was what he meant. Tearing off, bad as Maverick Mike himself. Friday night in Camden wasn’t the best time to get murdered. He tried not to think about what he’d seen when he crashed into the office, the blood leaking from the guy’s neck, the sprays and splashes up and down the walls.

‘Didn’t the perpetrator stand on the victim’s hand, crushing it? You released that to the media.’

That was another sticky point. ‘Someone did. No way to know who.’

‘R-i-i-ght.’ She flipped over the paper. ‘Tell me how you approached the defendant’s workplace. You didn’t get a court order to release.’

‘Well, they were quite open. There was a complaint on file about racist bullying in the team, from a young female intern.’

‘And this intern, she got a payout of a hundred thousand pounds in compensation, right?’

Peevishly, Adam Hunt QC said, ‘Miss McCausland, how is this relevant?’

‘She did, you know. Oh-kay. Find any evidence about Mr Stockbridge’s blackouts?’

‘HR said he’d had memory lapses at work.’

‘Were you aware that the defendant has been diagnosed with stress-related epilepsy?’

‘I wasn’t at the time, but now, yes.’

‘R-i-i-ght.’

‘I was also aware he’d taken a large quantity of cocaine.’ Hegarty saw the boss wince, and shut his mouth before he could say more.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Kylie smiled. ‘Charlotte gave the game away on that, didn’t she.’ She read from the transcript. ‘ “I don’t even do drugs.” And speaking of Miss Miller, you stepped down from the case recently. Why?’

Around the room, the men stiffened. Hegarty swallowed. ‘I felt I was too involved.’

‘R-i-i-ght. You met with Miss Miller several times? Coffee, dinner, and on holiday?’

He gaped at her. ‘Er, is that relevant?’

Adam Hunt sighed. ‘It will probably come up, Officer.’

‘I . . . thought the case was closed. She was upset.’ His Irish skin was flushing like a Belisha beacon, as his mum would say.

‘I’ll make sure it comes up,’ Kylie said cheerfully, making notes. ‘May as well know what you’ll say.’

‘Right.’ He stared at the table.

‘OK, mate,’ Kylie said, all smiles. ‘That’ll do for now. See ya in court.’

Outside the door Charlotte was waiting, pretending to read the
Law Gazette
. She looked tired and anxious, and when she saw him she flushed red. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ He held his coat awkwardly in his hands.

‘You OK?’

‘Yep.’ He realised after a while he should say it back. ‘Er, you?’

She bit her lip, but then Kylie opened the door, her long cardigan draped round her small compact body. ‘Come on in, Charlie. Time for your grillin’.’

This Kylie was just so irritating! Everything about her – that she wore flip-flops with a designer suit, that her baby-soft hair fell over her face all the time and she blew it away. That she scrunched up her eyes as if she needed glasses, and she chewed her pen all the time – even chewed his pen when she borrowed it off him. That she seemed to know everything – every time she mentioned Charlotte she gave him this big smile, as if to say,
I’m onto you, mate!
See you in court, she’d said. That would be the next thing. He would also be seeing Charlotte in court. And Stockbridge, of course. Her fiancé, still.

Charlotte was a bit flummoxed by Kylie, if she was honest. When they’d met in Singapore she’d seemed so nice. A short girl with hair falling over her face, making scribbled notes on napkins in Starbucks. But now this barrage of questions, it wasn’t what she expected. She’d expected fireworks between Kylie and Keisha if anything, when she finally persuaded her reluctant flatmate to talk to the lawyer. But Keisha had come out of her interview in a good mood, for her. ‘She’s not bad, that Kylie. Not full of shit and long words like most lawyers.’ And when Charlotte had phoned her after, Kylie was still laughing.

‘She’s a riot, your mate. Mouth like a sailor on shore leave.’

A bit put out, Charlotte asked, ‘She say if she’d testify?’

‘We-ell, no. She still won’t let me put her on my list. But we’ll see. Never say die, eh, Charlie?’

‘They could arrest her, couldn’t they? If she won’t do it?’

Kylie sounded surprised. ‘I don’t think they’ll do that. No need to worry.’

But that wasn’t quite what Charlotte had meant. It didn’t exactly worry her. She wasn’t sure what she’d meant, in fact.

Today when she’d gone into the station for her interview, supervised by the CPS and police, Hegarty was coming out, and Charlotte had gone shaky and red. She was sure Kylie noticed. She’d smiled at Charlotte and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m just grilling you.’

She felt like a burger, flipped and dropped. The girl who came out of the questions wasn’t someone she recognised. Someone who’d take drugs, and shout at detectives, and doggedly stand by a man everyone else thought was a murderer. Who’d engineer a meeting with the arresting officer just because that man wouldn’t let her visit him in prison.