To Dwell in Darkness (16 page)

“I bumped into a man and he grabbed me by the shoulder, hard, and told me to get back. He was holding a handkerchief over his face and I realized that he was going towards the victim, too. I identified myself and then he shouted at me to cover my face and we . . . we pushed forward together.”

Watching Melody, Kincaid realized he'd never seen her seem so unsure of herself. It was partly the clothes, he thought—usually she was as smartly turned out as any senior detective. But even off duty, more casually dressed, she'd always presented a breezy confidence made even more noticeable by her hint of reserve.

Melody Talbot had passed the test. She had run into the chaos, as all police officers were trained to do—but one never knew until faced with a crisis whether one had the bottle to meet it. But this experience seemed to have left her shaken and looking . . . ill. With a little clutch of fear, he wondered if the doctors were giving her false reassurance about her exposure to the phosphorus, but he shook it off with a mental admonition not to be daft. Of course they knew what they were about . . .

“Duncan?”

He focused on Melody with a start. “Sorry. Tell me what happened next.”

“We— We got to him. And”—she shrugged—“you saw. There was nothing we could do. He—the man with me, said something . . .” She rubbed at her face. “I can't remember. ‘Too late,' maybe? Something like that. But he sounded so . . . so . . . despairing, and for a moment I felt like I might pass out from the shock. And the smell. It was—horrible. Then I realized people were still screaming. And then I saw that Tam was on fire.” Melody cleared her throat. “You know most of the rest.

“I tried to secure the scene and help Tam and the other victims at the same time. There was a girl, one of the waitresses in the café. She got a fire extinguisher and helped people who were still burning. I'd like to thank her.” Melody sat up a bit straighter.

“And I'll want to interview her,” said Duncan. “She might have seen something beforehand. Did you get a name?”

“No. But she was pretty, with short dark hair. I'd know her again anywhere. I could go with you to talk to—”

Kincaid was already shaking his head. “It's not your case, Melody. You know I can't take you with me on an interview.”

Her shoulders slumping, Melody glanced through the glass at the CID room. “Your new team, of course. Your DI was good at the scene last night. Very competent.” She added, with a rueful smile, “But not Doug.”

“No.” Kincaid was glad that someone liked Sidana.

“He would never say it,” Melody went on. “It would be very un-blokey—but he misses you.”

“You mean he misses all the excitement,” Kincaid said, making a joke, because it was one thing to miss your sergeant but entirely another to admit it.

He considered a moment. He'd told Melody only what he'd told the rest of the team. But who could he trust if not her? “I saw Doug last night,” he said. “He came to the station after he left you at A-and-E.” Lowering his voice, he went on to tell her about the digging Doug had done for him on the victim, Ryan Marsh, and the suspicion they'd begun to form, especially after today's postmortem.

Melody stared at him, eyes wide. “Undercov—” She clamped her mouth shut for a moment, then said succinctly, “Shit.”

“Yeah. My thoughts exactly. Matthew Quinn meets mysterious stranger at a protest. The stranger gives his name as Ryan Marsh, and apparently has street—or group—cred for having been involved in protests. After a few more casual interactions, Ryan Marsh insinuates himself into Matthew Quinn's little group, eventually sleeping in the flat at least part-time. When Quinn acquires a smoke bomb—or what is supposedly a smoke bomb—and wants to use it in a protest, Marsh says he'll do it, although there is some disagreement in their stories about whether the smoke bomb was Quinn's idea or Marsh's. If he gets arrested, Marsh tells them, he already has a record from previous protests. The others can stay clean.

“Except there is no record. There are no arrests. No phone, no driving license, no national insurance, no credit cards.”

“The name isn't uncommon.”

“No. But Doug is thorough and he ruled out other possible matches, as did my case manager, Simon Gikas. And why would Ryan Marsh go to the trouble to make certain he never left anything of himself behind? Not just yesterday—that might make sense if he meant to commit suicide—but every time he left the flat?”

Melody shrugged Andy's big coat a little tighter, even though it was warm in Kincaid's office. “Why would anyone bother with Quinn's little group? Who would bother? If it was Counter Terrorism, SO15 wouldn't have turned it over. Vice?”

“With no evidence of drugs, other than a little personal use? Or gambling. Or prostitution. Even if Matthew Quinn was pimping the girls—or the boys—it would be small potatoes.”

“It doesn't make sense,” Melody agreed, frowning. “But . . .” She sat forward, a little more color in her cheeks. “I have an idea. Can you send me the photos of the group?”

“Yes, but—”

“Let me do a little digging in the
Chronicle
photo files. Not for Ryan Marsh specifically, but for anything Matthew Quinn or his group might have been involved in. You say they were protesting Crossrail tunneling and damage to London's historical sites. If they got themselves into any photos, I'll bet I can find them, and it's possible Marsh might have been photographed with the rest of the group.”

Kincaid pushed the prints on his desk into a neat stack, thinking about the individuals he'd interviewed. “They may not be willing to identify him. No one picked him out from the CCTV shots we showed them this morning. There's something going on in the group dynamic that I don't understand.”

“Is there someone else who could?”

He looked up at her, an idea dawning. Medhi Atias, the chicken shop proprietor, who saw them all come and go. “Yes. Yes, I think there might be.”

“Great.” Melody started to stand. “I'll—”

“Can you do this without anyone at the paper knowing what you're up to?”

She nodded. “I'm sure I can. I can access the files from my laptop.”

“And don't talk to anyone about it except Doug. Not even Andy.”

“But— You don't mean I shouldn't speak to Gemma—”

“No, of course I didn't mean Gemma. Although I haven't had a chance to talk to her since last night, so I'll need to fill her in.” And, he thought, given that Melody was Gemma's officer, as well as her friend, Gemma might not be too happy at his pulling Melody away from her duties and into the fray of this case. But he needed help, and he didn't want to go through official channels until he had some idea of what he was dealing with.

“All right,” he said. “Just be careful. And look after yourself, will you?”

He had just seen Melody out when his office line rang again. “Bloody hell,” he muttered as he hurried back to his desk to pick it up, thinking it was his chief superintendent—if not the AC Crime himself—ringing to tell him he'd made a balls-up of the press conference and demanding a progress report.

But it was the desk sergeant again, sounding apologetic.

“Sorry, sir, but there's a young woman here. She's that upset. She says she saw you on the telly—on the midday news—and she insists it's you she wants to speak to. She says her boyfriend's been missing since that protest yesterday and she's worried something's happened to him.”

If the Directors and officers of the Midland Company had pooled their collective experience with a view to securing a site for their London station that would combine the greatest possible number of difficulties, they could hardly have fixed on anything better than the one they chose at St. Pancras.

—Jack Simmons and Robert Thorne,
St. Pancras Station
, 2012

He left the dark blue Ford in the car park at Didcot Parkway railway station sometime before dawn. You weren't likely to be noticed coming or going from a railway station car park at odd hours, nor was the car likely to be thought abandoned if left for a few days.

A few days . . . Who was he kidding, after what had happened at St. Pancras? Maybe forever. But he couldn't think about that, not yet, and at least in a railway station car park it would be some time before the car was tagged and towed, and even then nothing in it should link it to him.

After a quick check to assure there was no one else about, he stowed the supplies from the boot in his big pack. Then he wiped down everything he'd touched with a clean cloth, locked the car, and pocketed the key.

He stood for a moment, adjusting the weight of his heavy pack on his shoulders, gazing at the deserted station platform. Even in the dark he could see the towers of nearby Didcot power station. Ironic, that, as he'd participated in the protests that had got Didcot A shut down. And what had it mattered, in the end?

A train horn hooted in the distance, the sound carried on the bitter wind. He shuddered. He couldn't bear trains now.

He turned east, towards the Thames, and began to walk.

When Gemma reached the police station, she found that DC Shara MacNichols had placed the two girls, Izzy Lamar and Deja Harriott, along with Izzy's mother, in the family suite used for sensitive interviews or when dealing with the grieving families of victims.

In the initial round of interviews after Mercy's death, it had been these two girls who had reported that Dillon Underwood had paid special attention to Mercy, and that they thought Mercy had fancied him. Glancing through the room's glass door, Gemma refreshed her memory. Izzy was white, a little chubby, with breasts already developing and clothes a bit tighter than Gemma thought appropriate. Her shoulder-length hair was dirty blond and she wore just a suspicion of makeup—the sort Gemma remembered wearing and thinking her mother wouldn't notice. Her mother, of course, had made her go and scrub her face as soon as she caught sight of her. Later, her younger sister, Cyn, had somehow managed to get away with her experiments.

Izzy's mother, also blond, but with the help of professional highlights, wore a dark olive-colored suit that did nothing for her coloring. She looked tired and distressed, and as if the last thing on her mind was Izzy's amateur attempt at blusher and lipstick.

The other girl, Deja Harriott, was black, thin, and gawky, with hair scraped back into a tight knot and clothes that looked as if she'd outgrown them. She sat opposite the mother and daughter, her hands held awkwardly between her knees.

“The mother, what's her name?” Gemma asked Shara MacNichols.

“Emily,” said Shara, without consulting notes. “She's a loan officer in a bank. She came forward when Izzy admitted to having a photo on her phone.”

“And you saw the photo? You're sure it's him?”

“Clear as day. But Mercy is partly turned away from the camera.”

Gemma frowned. “Right. Well, let's see what we've got.”

Opening the door, she went in with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Mrs. Lamar, thank you for coming. And you as well, girls.” She pulled up a slightly battered conference chair, positioning it so that she would see both girls' faces. Izzy shifted on the sofa, moving almost imperceptibly away from her mother and closer to her friend. On closer inspection, Gemma saw that Izzy's eyes were puffy and red—she'd been crying.

Gemma turned to the other girl. “Deja, where's your mother today?”

“Teaching,” Deja whispered. “She teaches year nine English at our school. She gave me permission to leave as long as I was with Izzy's mum.”

“You two and Mercy were all in the same year at school, is that right?”

Both girls nodded, and Izzy said, “Year seven. It's bl”—she glanced at her mother, coughed, then substituted—“awful.”

“I appreciated you coming, Deja,” said Gemma, “but I can't interview you without your mum present.” Glancing up at Shara, she added, “DC MacNichol, could you have someone get Deja a cup of hot chocolate from the vending machine? She can wait in the vestibule.”

“Can I—” began Izzy, then trailed off when her mother frowned.

“Of course you can have some chocolate, too. Mrs. Lamar, some coffee?”

“Oh. But I have to get back to wor—” Emily Lamar sank back in her chair and sighed. “Okay. With sugar, please.”

When Gemma saw the look that passed between the girls as Deja followed Shara out, she was glad she had an excuse to interview them separately. There was something going on here and she suspected she was more likely to get at the truth if she questioned them one at a time. She wished she could interview Izzy without her mother present, but then anything the girl told her would be inadmissible.

Gemma made small talk while waiting for Shara's return, asking Izzy what subjects she liked best at school, hoping to relax both Izzy and her mother.

When Shara came in with their hot drinks and settled with her notebook, Gemma leaned towards the girl. “Izzy, why didn't you tell us about the photo when we talked to you before?”

“It was from a couple of weeks before—” Izzy broke off, her eyes filling.

“Before Mercy died?” asked Gemma.

Izzy nodded. “I didn't remember I'd taken it.” Gemma must have looked skeptical, because she added defensively, “I have a ton of photos on my phone. And we were doing an art class project, so I'd been taking more pictures than usual.”

Gemma didn't believe for an instant that Izzy had forgot she had the photo, but she didn't press her. “Can I see it?” she asked.

Reluctantly, Izzy pulled an iPhone from her jeans pocket, woke it up, and scrolled down the screen. “Here.”