A Good Day To Die (26 page)

Boyd asked Emma whether she knew of anyone fitting that description who might have had links with the case.

Emma said she didn't, and I offered her a silent
thank-you. But I wondered how long it would take them to link the description to the man who'd been involved in the Soho shootings. A while yet, I hoped. There was a lot of CCTV footage to go through and I'd been wearing completely different clothes. But it was a worry.

'What did you think Jamie Delly could tell you about Jason?' asked Boyd, her voice louder and clearer now.

Emma said this was her business, but Boyd replied that given what had happened that morning it was police business as well.

'I'm still interested in finding a motive for the murders,' Emma explained. 'It's a high-profile case but it doesn't seem to be moving very fast. I thought Jamie might be able to shed some light on things. I was going to visit him tomorrow.'

'Well, he's not saying anything to us,' said Barron, 'so if you get any information out of him, please let us know.'

Emma said she would.

The conversation continued with Barron and Boyd trying to find out where Emma was with her own investigations. Barron then suggested that, given the tone of her articles, she should be extra vigilant in case she herself became a target, which was when she told them about the break-in the previous night and the bloodied doll that had been left behind as a warning. After admonishing her for not reporting the incident, and asking to see the
doll, he became even more forceful in his warnings. His tone was genuine enough, though, and I was confident that the main reason he was saying all this was because he was worried for her. I wasn't sure I could say the same about Boyd. Her manner was more hostile, which I suppose was understandable. As a woman she wouldn't be so easily impressed by a pretty girl, and, like most coppers, she didn't like journalists nosing into her investigations, particularly when those journalists were being critical.

'We can offer you police protection if you like,' said Barron, promising to take the doll to the station for further examination, but Emma declined.

Boyd then asked if she could use the bathroom. I heard her get to her feet as Emma told her it was first left at the top of the stairs.

As Boyd climbed the stairs, I retreated into Emma's bedroom and went round to the far side of her bed, feeling like a kid again as I sunk to my hands and knees and made myself as inconspicuous as possible in the darkness.

I heard her reach the top of the stairs, but rather than go straight on into the bathroom, she stopped. A second later, the door to the bedroom made a scuffing noise as it was pushed open, and I could sense her in here with me. She moved swiftly across the carpet and I suddenly wondered what on earth I'd do if she discovered me here: the man she'd seen that morning at Delly's place,
hunched on the floor in front of her. I began to sweat.

A few more steps and she was almost on me. I gritted my teeth and remained as still as possible, silencing even my breathing and resisting the urge to go for my gun.

It was only when her legs were three feet away from my head that she stopped, and I could see her looking around Emma's desk. She opened the desk drawer and had a quick poke about inside. It looked like she had plastic police-issue gloves on.

I stayed as still as a statue, knowing that she only had to turn her head ever so slightly and drop her gaze downwards and the lives of the four people in this house would be changed for ever. One tiny movement; such huge ramifications.

But she didn't. Instead, she shut the drawer without removing anything, turned on her heels, and left the room. A few seconds later I heard the toilet flushing and Boyd heading back down the stairs. It was at that point that I finally started breathing properly again.

They didn't stay long after that. I couldn't hear what they were saying because I remained in the bedroom, but I heard the front door open and shut, and after what felt like a suitable interval, I got to my feet and emerged from my hiding place.

When I returned to the lounge, Emma was smoking a cigarette and looking stressed. 'I ought to bloody well kick you out,' she told me bitterly.
'What if they talk to my neighbours and one of them saw you coming in?'

'No one's seen me round here and I'll be very careful that they don't in future,' I promised her, before changing the subject. 'Did you know that when DS Boyd came upstairs she rifled through your desk drawer?'

Emma frowned. 'Did she? What do you think she was looking for?'

'I don't know. Sources, information, anything, I suppose.'

'Isn't that illegal?'

'It is, and anything she found would be inadmissable in court, but it's the sort of thing that happens now and again. The police are like anyone else: they want results, and sometimes they're prepared to cut corners. But I was surprised she felt the need to do that. I mean, most of the sources for your articles on this case have been cops, haven't they?'

She nodded, still frowning.

'Is Barron one of your contacts?' I asked, assuming by the way he'd been talking to her that he was.

'Yes, he's been helpful on this case.'

'I don't recognize the name. Is he based at Islington?'

She shook her head. 'No. He's retired, technically, but they brought him back for this case because the Met's so short of detectives. They're doing that a lot these days.'

'And who was the other guy? The one you
phoned about Delly's address?' Again, it had been a name I hadn't recognized.

'John Gallan. He's a DI at Islington. A nice guy, and helpful too, but he'd still arrest me like a shot if he knew I was harbouring you.'

It was then that I realized quite how much danger I was putting her in by using her as my unofficial assistant, and I knew it was going to have to stop. 'Look, I know I'm causing you problems with my involvement in this, so I'm going to say goodbye now. Thanks for all your help, and if I do end up finding out the motive behind the Malik and Khan killings, I'll let you know. All I'd ask in the meantime is that you don't tell anyone I'm back here.'

'It's not safe for you either, Dennis. My advice would be to return to the place you came from while you're still in a position to.'

Blondie had said pretty much the same thing to me two days ago and, like Emma, he'd had a point. But I was getting close now, I could feel it, and I didn't want to let go. For the last three years life had been easy, but it had also been unfulfilling. The truth was, I liked hunting. For twenty years, prior to my ignominious departure from England, I'd hunted criminals every day, sometimes for insignificant crimes, sometimes for murder, and I'd enjoyed it. I'd enjoyed the chase, the evidence-gathering, the slow but steady peeling away of the layers of fat to reveal the bare bones of the mystery
beneath, the one mistake that would ensnare my prey. The fact that the prey usually ended up getting a far lower sentence than his crime deserved was a matter of some disappointment, but never enough to stop me from trying again. And now, free from the constraints of an undermanned and overregulated police force, the prey wouldn't escape so lightly. And I was enjoying the puzzle, too. This was a real mystery - not one of the grimy, pitiful tragedies that make up so much of the world's murder statistics. A series of murders and attempted murders had been committed, yet I still had no initial motive. All I knew was that if I found the motive, all the layers would peel away and I'd be left with my solution. When you're a twenty-year copper, ex or current, you don't turn away from a challenge like that. You revel in it. Even if the stakes were so high.

I walked over to the chair and picked up my coat. 'If you could give me the contact details of the psychotherapist who treated Ann, I'd appreciate it.'

Emma sighed. 'Look, sit down.'

'I thought . . .'

'I know I ought to let you go, but I've invested a lot of effort in this case; it's something that I've watched the police plod through almost as if they don't want to solve it, and because of that, I've been determined to. And now it seems there's even more to it than I thought. Do you honestly think that Ann's father had something to do with it?'

She returned to her original place on the sofa, so I sat down too.

'Well, this is what we've got,' I said. 'Les Pope ordered and arranged the murder of Richard Blacklip a year ago, very shortly after Blacklip had been charged with offences relating to the sexual abuse of his daughter, Ann, which had taken place some years earlier. Ann was the girlfriend of Jason Khan. Jason Khan was shot just over five weeks ago, along with Asif Malik, after Khan telephoned Malik and called him to a meeting in a cafe. It may well be that Jason had important information he wanted to share with Malik, someone who, according to his brother, he knew from the past. We still don't know what that information concerned. It might have been something to do with Thadeus Holdings, or Nicholas Tyndall and his operations, or Ann herself. Whatever it was, it was something very serious, and Ann was no doubt privy to it as well, because she was killed a few days later. So it's possible it had something to do with the relevations her psychotherapy revealed. But if that's the case, why did Ann live for so long after her father's death without coming to any harm? Why didn't they get rid of her at the time of his arrest if her knowledge was that incendiary?'

'That's why I can't see how it can be anything to do with it.'

'It may not be, but the Blacklip connection's too coincidental to pass up without looking at further. I
need to visit the psychotherapist and see what light she can throw on things.'

'Do you think that's a good idea?'

'I don't want you doing it. Barron's right: you are taking a risk if you're seen to still be sniffing around. Leave it with me. I think it'd be wise if you took a bit of a back seat for the moment.'

For once, Emma didn't argue. In fact, she surprised me. She asked me if I was hungry. 'I'm going to cook some spaghetti in tomato sauce. You can stay for some if you want.'

One thing I've learned through life is never to turn down an invitation from an attractive lady. You've always got too much time to regret it.

Which was a pity, really, because had I left there and then, things might have turned out very differently.

30

While Emma prepared the dinner, I helped myself to another can of Fosters and turned the volume up on the telly. Channel 4 news was on and I watched a piece about the rise of obesity amongst the country's schoolchildren, complete with grim footage of waddling kids in gym shorts, before Britain's new Lord Chief Justice popped up to be interviewed by the newsreader about comments he'd made suggesting that prison should only be reserved for the most violent offenders. Apparently, he'd claimed that putting burglars, thieves, even first-time muggers behind bars only made them worse.

The new Lord Chief Justice was called Parnham-Jones, and for the interview he was without the old wig and gown; instead he wore a plain black suit with a sky-blue silk tie and matching handkerchief, and was sitting in an armchair next to a roaring fire in his country home. He was in his early sixties, I'd guess, white-haired, with the bearing and aquiline
features of a public-school-educated patrician not used to, or much comfortable with, criticism. I would have bet all the money I'd got stashed in my poky little hotel room that he'd never been on the receiving end of a crime in his life. And commentators and politicians wondered why the public had lost faith in Britain's criminal justice system.

Parnham-Jones defended his comments in soothing, thoughtful tones, but with an underlying steel that brooked no dissent, always making a point of addressing the camera directly. Prison, he explained, was the university of crime. Send first-and second-time offenders there and they were not only likely to reoffend but to move on to more serious offences. Far better to ease the terrible overcrowding in the prisons and give them meaningful community-based sentences instead.

To be fair to the guy, he put his point across well, and with the sort of succinctness that TV interviewers love, but you had to wonder how much he really knew about what was going on out there. In my experience, community-based sentences - painting old ladies' houses, cleaning walls of graffiti, drug-treatment programmes - tended to be a bit of a joke. They were badly administered, the criminals often only turned up when they fancied it, and they never felt much like a punishment. I'm not 100 per cent sure that prison's a lot better in terms of turning people away from crime (in the
end, criminals commit their crimes knowing full well they're wrong, but not really being too bothered about that fact, so trying to rehabilitate them's a waste of time), but at least when a guy's banged up he's not actually out there thieving, mugging, or whatever. In that sense, whatever the liberals amongst us might say, prison works.

Emma came back in with the spaghetti and a plate of garlic bread and we ate at the table with the TV off.

You get that sense sometimes, or I do anyway, that things are looking up for you, and that the worst is over. In my experience, it's usually followed by a very heavy fall. But as I sat there demolishing Emma's cooking (and it was very good), while quaffing my second can of Fosters, I couldn't help forgetting about my worries.

After we'd finished eating, we cleared away and she put on a CD of Van Morrison's greatest hits. I asked her how she'd got into journalism.