Pain of Death (15 page)

Nick Absolom manages to catch Staffe’s eye as the DI reaches the line of uniformed officers at the back gates of Notre Dame School. This is Hackney, where Kerry and Bridget Kilbride were each schooled and were courted by Sean Degg. Sean came back, a last time.

Clamouring photographers use stepladders to peek above the fence and they hold their cameras high – the opposite of meerkats looking for distant predators – hoping they might capture a snatch of what lies within the screened rectangle in the shadow of the gym.

‘Are we expected to believe that this is an overdose, Inspector?’ asks Nick Absolom, holding his dictaphone by his side. ‘An act of grief? A desire to be with his poor, departed loved one?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘It’s the word. It’s what muppets will print unless advised otherwise.’

‘And what will you print, Nick?’

‘That depends on what you tell me.’

‘Imagine I’m going to tell you nothing.’

‘I’d imagine why Breath of Life would do a thing like this.’

‘Because Sean had evidence to pin Kerry’s abduction on an individual within the organisation.’

‘Hence Lesley Crawford is in hiding,’ says Absolom.

‘So you’re not going with the suicide theory?’

‘I’m in the business of selling newspapers. Murder or suicide? It’s no contest.’

‘What about jeopardising the case?’

‘If I wanted to jeopardise the case I might speculate why you might have been questioning Kerry Degg’s sister. The husband didn’t seem too pleased with your visit.’

‘What?’ hisses Staffe.

‘I wouldn’t mention the Lambs, of course, if I had something decent to run with.’

‘People’s lives are at stake here.’

‘Really?’

Staffe grabs Absolom by the sleeve of his coat and pulls him through the line of officers, where they can’t be overheard. Absolom can’t keep the smug look from his face as he regards his peers, the other side of the line and looking daggers. ‘You’ll get first run. When it’s time to release the information.’

‘You have information for me?’

‘We haven’t found the woman in Liverpool. We have to keep her interests uppermost.’

‘But there’s something else. Let me have a whiff of it. I won’t print anything. I swear.’

Outside the screened area, two women and a man, all dressed casually smart, mill around, shaking their heads. Staffe guesses they are teachers. The oldest one, a woman with steel-grey hair, has clearly been crying.

Can he trust Absolom? He looks at the other journalists peering this way, and he realises that they are his enemy, and Absolom’s enemy, too. He can use that. ‘Take that smirk off your face. Look disappointed and keep your mouth shut until I say you can run this.’

‘OK.’ Absolom already looks pissed off. The supreme deceiver.

Staffe takes a copy of the
News
from his pocket. It is open at Absolom’s latest article, on the resurrection of Vernon Short’s bill. It has a quote from Breath of Life. ‘Just where did you get this quote from?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘We have to scratch each other’s backs.’

‘So you give me something.’

‘There is another child involved. A small child.’

‘Degg’s orphans?’

‘It’s all I’m saying.’

‘A baby?’

Staffe thinks how her association with the spreading misery will suit Lesley Crawford. It will keep the orphaned Grace on the front pages a while longer. Long enough to resurrect Vernon’s bill once and for all? ‘I’ll give you more, as soon as I can.’ He grabs Absolom, makes a scruff of the lapels of his jacket. He whispers, ‘Keep Bridget out of this. You hear,’ and pushes him back through the line of police.

Absolom calls him a ‘Fucking jerk!’ for all to hear. Each man looks angry; each enjoying their part, in different ways, to different ends.

Behind the screens, freestanding boards show photographs of Sean Degg. He had died in a pile, head slumped to his chest and arms outstretched, hands clenched into fists. There is a close-up of a bump at the base of his skull. Behind the ear, a line of dried blood.

‘There’s only one sign of needle intrusion that I’ve seen so far,’ says Janine. ‘I’ll be going over him back at my place later, but he had been drinking, for sure. I think it was circulatory collapse, and there are signs of convulsions. A little vomit, but I need to open him up.’ She taps a photograph of Sean’s face – eyes wide open and pupils like pinpricks.

‘He took a load of speed, is what I heard.’

‘A planeful would be my guess.’

Pulford comes across, opening his notebook. ‘I’ve got Smet getting verification of Given’s whereabouts for the time of death, sir. And I spoke to Ross Denness.’

‘What about Bridget Lamb?’

‘Are you serious, sir?’

‘Too bloody serious.’

Staffe turns to the SOC officer, asks what was found on Sean Degg’s person. ‘Person’ – an odd term for a dead soul.

‘A quarter-bottle of vodka, empty. A few crumbs of rolling tobacco and half an eighth of resin, and two hundred-mill wraps of MDMA. There were four empty wraps and a syringe, too. It looks like crystal meth and we found some ice on him.’

Janine comes across, says, ‘From the pre-theatre inspection, he’s no meth mouth. It doesn’t seem to add up. And no tracks on his arms. Just the one mark.’

‘Anything else?’

The SOCO says, ‘One pound eighty in twenty pences in a coin bag in his back pocket, Yale keys and a book. Here.’ The officer hands Staffe a clear plastic bag with a notebook in it. On the cover is a pen and ink drawing of an angel in a basque.

‘Kerry’s,’ says Staffe, recognising it from his visit to Flower and Dean. ‘There’s a receipt from an off-licence down on the New North Road. The time was 19.43.’ He turns to Pulford, says, ‘Check that out and make sure you speak to the person who served Degg and get them to describe anybody else who was in the shop at the same time, or just before and just after.’ He turns to the SOCO. ‘Let me see the money.’

The SOCO shows him the plastic bag of twenty-pence pieces.

‘See if there’s a phone box nearby. Whichever phone is closest to that off-licence – in each direction – I want the details of all calls made two hours either side of when Degg was in the off-licence. Run the numbers through the case data filter.’

‘I thought you wanted me to bring in Bridget Lamb?’

‘I’ll do that.’

When Pulford is gone and the SOCO has returned to his painstaking documentation of the scene, Staffe whispers to Janine, ‘That injection. Was it administered in a professional way, would you say?’

‘It’s a perfectly clean entry and no signs of tourniquet shadowing. But all kinds of people are expert in IV these days. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason. Not really.’

*

Pennington rubs the corners of his mouth with thumb and forefinger. He hasn’t spoken since Staffe came to his office. He sighs.

Eventually, he says, ‘This Sean Degg thing, Staffe. You know, it does stack up as a suicide.’

‘Of course it could, sir. His wife died, in awful
circumstances
. There’s overwhelming evidence that he loved her.’

‘I said “does”, not “could”.’

‘I’ve looked into Sean Degg’s life as deeply as I can and I know the man was a scumbag, but nobody has ever mentioned that he was into speed. And he has just become a father – the first time. He actually had something to look forward to.’

‘He was on the run. Some might say he had plenty to feel guilty about, don’t you think?’

‘Are you suggesting he might have killed Kerry, sir?’

‘There’s more than enough circumstantial. Just try presenting the argument – for argument’s sake.’ Pennington laughs at his quip.

‘And maybe he took off with Zoe Bright. And fired off a threat to Cathy Killick?’

‘You know we don’t have to conflate that case with this.’ Pennington leans back, looks Staffe in the chest as he says, ‘At least present the argument.’

‘It seems you already have, sir. Perhaps you can tell me who sold him the speed.’

‘He moved in those circles.’

‘We’ll need to know precisely who. Evidence, sir.’

‘You know where to look. Be sure you take DI Smethurst with you.’

‘Given? You want me to shake that tree?’

‘Keep Smet in the loop, Staffe.’

‘If I’m doing this, I need to know what exactly it is that grants Given his immunity.’

‘I don’t know he has immunity.’

‘We know he has an alibi.’

‘Test it,’ says Pennington. ‘And you’ll need to scratch around. He doesn’t get his hands dirty.’

‘I’ll need a warrant – for a DNA test.’

‘Present the argument and it’s yours.’

‘You’ve changed your tune, sir.’

‘If Given had anything to do with what happened to Chancellor, we’ll fuck him over with all our might. You can count on that.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Do you really think he is the father of Kerry’s first children?’

‘Sean was protected by Tommy Given. They had some kind of pact.’

‘Under pain of death?’

‘Sean was in hiding. They would have needed to know where he was. It would have been someone he was talking to.’

Pennington folds his arms. ‘Let’s imagine it wasn’t suicide. For argument’s sake. Just who do you think did kill Sean, Staffe?’

‘That’s easy, sir. Same as whoever killed Kerry. Someone with the irrepressible need.’

*

As Staffe drives down to Cobham in blossoming Surrey, he thinks about how he would like to swerve into Thames Ditton and call on Bridget Lamb, then take things up with Eve. The thought of that conversation makes him nervous.

Smet is smoking out of the window and reading the
News
. When he’s not smoking, he is reading the
News
and scratching his balls. Coming off the A3, he happens upon an article about Vernon Short’s bill and how church groups in Reading and Plymouth, Wolverhampton and South Shields have put petitions together supporting the resurrection of the change in the statute governing abortion. There is talk of a national campaign and even a march on Parliament. A spokesperson for Breath of Life says, according to Nick Absolom, that if a country can march to save a fox, they can march to save a human life.

‘The way they put it – it seems to kind of make sense,’ says Smet.

‘I spoke to Absolom and asked him who his source is. He wouldn’t disclose. Sometimes, the bloody law’s against us, not with us.’

‘And did you read the bit about the woman in Liverpool?’

For the briefest moment, he considers telling Smet about Lesley Crawford having tutored Zoe Bright. ‘There’s nothing happening up there.’

‘They’ve got that Flint woman working the case, I heard.’

‘Flint woman?’

‘Oh, yes. I know her, all right. Had to mentor her when she came down for her assimilation training. She made inspector a couple years ago. A bright cookie. But you know that, don’t you, Staffe?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I heard you’ve been to Beatleland. She’d suit you, that one.’ Smet laughs.

Staffe looks at him, not amused.

‘Just your type.’

‘What’s my type supposed to be? I don’t have a bloody type.’

‘You do.’

‘So what is it, my type?’

‘I’m not saying.’

‘I’d tell
you
,’ says Staffe, looking across to Smet who is delving beneath his belly, scratching at his balls.

‘I don’t have that problem.’

He thinks about what it must be like, being Smet. Are his chances all behind him?

Smet says, ‘I’m no student of relationships. Christ, none of my mates have even had a sniff in years, but … no, forget it.’

‘Go on.’

‘It just seems to me, you go for women who you know won’t work out. And who can blame you? Just enjoy it.’

‘Piss off, Smet.’

‘Suffer for the rest of us. Pull in. We’re here.’

Staffe pulls off the road and stops in front of Tommy Given’s electric gates. He stares up the driveway, watches Smet talk into the videophone and as he does, Staffe’s phone goes. It is his sister, Marie. Which won’t be good news, he’s sure. He lets it ring out, prays it’s nothing bad about Harry. He loves his nephew; the closest he’s got to a child of his own.

Smet gets back in and as they drive up towards the house, gravel grinding beneath, he says, ‘If you want relationship advice, you should ask this pillar of the bastard community. Have you met his wife and kid?’

‘Why would I? You’re the one who looks after our friend Mr Given, eh, Smet?’

‘Look after? What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Just saying what I see. Is there anything you want to tell me?’

‘Just that I don’t come here a-prying. I’ve had no need.’

Staffe gets out of the car, sees the dog coming. It is a killer dog, and the ground resounds as it bounds up, spittle spraying the air.

‘Shit,’ says Smet.

Staffe makes himself limp and goes down onto his knees, holds his arms out and lets the dog bowl onto him. It licks his hands and face, and Staffe stands, rubbing its skull, scratching at its neck. ‘You getting out of the car, Smet?’

‘Is it safe?’

‘I’d say you’re safe.’

‘Nobody’s safe,’ says Tommy Given, walking up to the car, frowning, his first gambit gone awry. ‘Not from police molestation. What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘You didn’t call ahead?’ says Smet, to Staffe.

‘Why would I?’

‘I’m sorry, Tommy. I thought he had called.’

‘We’re not here to apologise. I’ve just come to drop this off.’ He hands a sheet of paper to Given.

‘What is it?’

‘It requires you to provide a sample of your DNA. Quite painless.’

‘Why the fuck do you want my DNA?’

‘Sean Degg is dead, Tommy.’

‘I heard. I’ve told you where I was.’ Tommy is thoroughly convincing with his grieving expression. He even appears to be a shade of pale.

His beautiful wife, Sabine, appears in the porch with her young daughter beneath a trellised arch of honeysuckle. She rubs her hand on the pronounced bump of her unborn child, looks a million euros, maybe more.

Tommy says, ‘Go into the house,
chérie
.’

Sabine looks at Tommy as she does as she is told. For an instant, they are locked in an exchange of togetherness. She twinkles her fingers and the little girl clutches at the tight calf of her leggings.