Sins of the Fathers (29 page)

The girl’s embarrassment only made George McQuarrie even more excited. He gestured around the empty booths of the dimly lit Signal Bar. ‘But we’re the only people here.’

‘What about the waiters?’

‘When was the last time you saw one? They’re all in the back having something to eat. Don’t worry, no one will catch us.’ Not that it would bother him if they did; he’d always quite enjoyed an audience.

Still blushing, she shuffled up close on the banquette.

‘George McQuarrie?’

As Umar and Savage approached the table, the man looked up, annoyed. His female companion jerked backwards, sitting up straight as she wiped her hand on a napkin. Umar stepped in front of Savage and flashed the couple his ID.

Pulling the table towards him, McQuarrie shifted in his seat. ‘What do you want?’ For once, Carlyle was right; he was a big bastard – easily six foot two and by the looks of things in quite good shape as well. Even with the two of them, it could be a struggle if he put up a fight. Umar glanced at Savage, wondering if his partner could take a punch. Maybe, he thought ruefully, they should have brought some uniforms along for the ride. He thought about calling the station but discarded the idea immediately. It was too late now.

Dressed immaculately in a Richard James grey pinstripe, with an off-white shirt open at the neck, McQuarrie eyed the policemen suspiciously from under a mop of curly blond hair.

Umar adopted his most formal tone. ‘We need you to come with us, please, sir.’

‘Oh you do, do you?’ McQuarrie grabbed his wine glass and gave them a mock salute before throwing the last of the drink down his neck.

‘We just have a few questions.’ Savage leered at the girl.

McQuarrie placed the glass back on the table. ‘But do you have a warrant?’

‘We can get one,’ said Umar lamely.

‘Well, fuck off and get one then,’ McQuarrie roared, going red in the face.

Hayley looked anxiously at the two policemen. ‘George, for God’s sake.’

‘They can piss off,’ McQuarrie harrumphed. Grabbing her hand, he pulled it onto his lap. ‘Now, where were we?’

‘George,’ her face went crimson, ‘please.’ She tried to pull her hand away but he gripped it tightly. ‘Ow, let me go!’

A waiter stuck his head out of the kitchen door to see what was going on then quickly disappeared again.

‘Release the lady’s hand, Mr McQuarrie,’ Umar said firmly.

‘Or what?’ McQuarrie sneered, rubbing her hand against his crotch.

‘Or I will arrest you for sexual assault.’

‘And,’ Savage grinned, ‘we will let your little friend here know what we want to talk to you about.’

Umar scowled at his colleague as Hayley finally jerked her hand free.

‘What
do
you want to talk to him about?’ she asked.

‘The murder of Julian Schaeffer.’

The girl looked at him blankly.

Savage jerked his thumb at McQuarrie. ‘Schaeffer’s the husband of one of his other girlfriends.’

Umar shook his head. ‘Well done.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ Jumping to her feet, Hayley squirmed out of the booth and fled towards the door.

‘I’ll see you later on,’ McQuarrie shouted after her, apparently amused by the scene.

By way of reply, Hayley waved the middle finger of her left hand in the air as she disappeared into the street.

‘Thank you for that,’ McQuarrie grimaced as he readjusted his trousers.

‘Our apologies for interrupting your lunch,’ said Savage, with a complete lack of sincerity.

‘It wasn’t the food I was worried about.’

‘So, are you coming?’

McQuarrie thought about it for a moment.

Umar gestured at the clock on the wall behind the table. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’

Shaking his head disgustedly, McQuarrie got himself up from the table. ‘Okay, okay.’ Turning away, Umar took a step towards the door. As he did so, something seemed to trip in the big man’s brain. Grabbing the empty wine bottle by the neck, he smashed it off the side of Umar’s head. Umar staggered but did not fall. Rushing forward, McQuarrie punched him twice in the face, sending him flying across a nearby table. His blood up, McQuarrie pounced on the statuesque Savage, sending him straight to the floor with a vicious head-butt that pulverized his nose.

‘Fuck!’ Rolling on the floor, Savage held the crimson mask of his face. Trying to force himself to his feet, Umar only succeeded in vomiting all over his jeans.

Realizing that neither policeman was about to get back up, McQuarrie paused to admire his handiwork and get his breathing back under control. Tossing the wine bottle onto the banquette, he kicked Savage twice in the ribs, promoting another outbreak of screams from the hapless sergeant. Trying not to make it seem too obvious, Umar rolled behind the collapsed table in order to escape the same fate. In the distance, he could hear the sound of approaching sirens. Someone in the kitchen must have called 999. The sergeant gave silent thanks for the immediate response of his colleagues.

Looking up, he realized that he could only see out of his left eye. McQuarrie caught his gaze. ‘Saved by the bell.’ He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. ‘If I ever see either of you two bastards again,’ he said, stepping over Savage’s prostrate body as he strolled towards the door, ‘rest assured, I will kill you. And that’s a promise.’

‘Fuck you too.’ Rolling on to his back, Umar stared up at the ceiling with his one good eye, waiting for the sirens to drown out the sound of Savage’s moans.

As he said he would be, Daniel Sands was sitting outside the Diana Memorial Playground watching a steady stream of children enter the front gate of the Peter Pan-themed area. Ordering a double espresso from the kiosk, the inspector glanced down the list of rules, painted on a board by the entrance:

• Supervise your children at all times

• Glass bottles or jars are not allowed

• Cycling, rollerblading and ball sports are not allowed

• Smoking is not permitted in the playground

• Alcohol is not permitted in the playground

• Only registered Assistance Dogs will be permitted

That just about covers it
, he thought, as a smiling woman of indeterminate origin handed him his coffee. It was piping hot and he took a cautious sip. Sharp and bitter, it would do. Holding it carefully, he walked over to Sands’s table, sat down and gave a nod of acknowledgement.

‘Nice spot.’

‘I like it.’ Sands smiled sadly. ‘Of course it wasn’t here when . . .’ His voice trailed away and the inspector gazed into his coffee.

‘No.’ When Carlyle looked into the man’s face, he was shocked to see that Sands had aged ten years or more in the last twenty-four hours. Seemingly, he had made the transition from a lively pensioner to a frail old man waiting for his health to fail. The inspector wondered if he would be able to cope with what was to come. He had promised Simpson that he would obey her instructions to the letter, but he seriously doubted if he could be responsible for bringing Sands in. Maybe he would have to let the Commander down again.

‘The problem is,’ Sands said ruefully, ‘if you’re a man sitting here on your own, everybody wonders about you.’

‘Yes.’

As if on cue, two young women walked past, each pushing an expensive stroller that looked as if it might have been designed by scientists at NASA. Without breaking their conversation, they looked the two men up and down suspiciously. While Carlyle glanced away, Sands gave them a modest wave. Blanking the greeting, the women quickened their stride as they walked away.

‘See what I mean?’

Carlyle nodded.

‘Everyone is in their own little bubble.’ Sands gestured at the retreating women. ‘They push their kids around in nine-hundred pound buggies and gabble away to each other on their mobile phones and then they look at me and think: Who is that man? Why is he hanging round a playground? Is he a pervert? Is he playing with himself under the table? Is he going to try and steal my child?’

‘It’s a public park,’ Carlyle said. ‘You have every right to be here.’

‘Yes and no.’ Sands sighed.

Finishing his coffee, Carlyle placed his empty cup on the table only for a gust of wind to almost blow it away. Snatching it back, he crumpled it in his fist.

‘If you are a parent there is always the fear – always,’ Sands said.

Carlyle knew exactly what he meant. ‘Yes.’

‘The great terror – for all of them – is that something could happen to their child, just as something happened to mine.’ Sticking his hands into his pockets, Sands leaned back on the bench. ‘Of course, I only ever had the one. I often wonder if having more makes you worry less about each one individually.’

It was something that Carlyle often thought about too. So much of his life, his hopes and fears were tied up in Alice that it scared him. It scared him because he knew that he could only protect her so far, for so long. It also scared him because he wondered if, ultimately, not being able to suppress his fears made him a bad father. Gazing skyward, he watched a lone cloud scudding across the sky, heading east. Lost in thoughts about his own family, he felt sick to his stomach that he could do nothing to help this man.

For a while they sat in silence, listening to the happy screams of the children playing on the pirate ship and the climbing frames.

‘Mr Sands,’ Carlyle said finally, ‘I am very sorry about this.’

Daniel Sands reached over and gave him a comforting pat on the arm. ‘Don’t worry about it, Inspector. None of this is your fault. I don’t really know how we quite ended up here.’

Carlyle smiled sadly. ‘Me neither.’ He felt the caffeine buzzing in his system and wondered how this thing would play out. Nothing came to mind.

‘It should never have come to this.’

‘No.’

They watched a couple of laughing girls, maybe eight or nine, running towards the playground gate.

‘In just over three weeks’ time, it will be Lillian’s birthday. She would have been thirty-seven.’ Sands’s eyes filled with tears as he gazed into the middle distance, focusing on something that Carlyle could not see. ‘It’s funny,’ he sniffled. ‘On the one hand, she will always be the child you remember her as.’

Carlyle stared at the pigeons.

‘On the other, you can’t help but wonder, if she was sitting here now – what kind of woman would she be? Would she have been a lawyer? That’s what she talked about. Would she be married? Would she have children of her own?’ A fat tear ran down his cheek. ‘Would I have been a granddad?’

A plane floated across the sky, heading for Heathrow, low enough for Carlyle to be able to make out its Qantas logo. Trying to banish thoughts of his own hopes and fears, he pondered what Daniel Sands had said. Maybe, after what had happened with Lillian, Sands should have had another kid or two; found a new girlfriend and got her knocked up as quickly as possible; found something else to occupy his time – use up his energy, burn up his fears.

He let the jet glide beyond his line of vision. ‘We have to get going.’ Standing up, he dropped his crushed coffee cup in a nearby bin.

‘Yes.’ Sands got to his feet.

‘Do you have an Oyster card?’

Sands looked at him quizzically. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. We’ll take the tube. No cars, no flashing lights. We’ll go in the back way, in case there are any press.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The station should have called your lawyer by now – they’ll get him to meet you there.’

Sands nodded. ‘Thank you. But a lawyer is optional. I will be pleading guilty to the charges. The authorities may not bring Fassbender to justice, but at least I can name and shame him in open court.’

Carlyle put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘I am telling you, you have to think about this very carefully. You must speak to your lawyer before doing anything rash.’ He realized that he had no idea who Sands’s lawyer was; he sincerely hoped that it was someone decent.

Sands shook his head. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘I never said that I did,’ said Carlyle, a bit too sharply. ‘Look,’ he sighed, moderating his tone, ‘you can tell your story on the steps of the police station just as easily as you can from the witness box.’

‘I want people to know what I did,’ Sands said doggedly. ‘I won’t tell you who helped me, of course, but I want everyone to know that it was me behind it. I want them to know that I didn’t give up. And I want people to ask why, even when that monster was handed to the police on a plate, he was still able to walk free once again.’ He looked enquiringly at the inspector. ‘And maybe you can tell them.’

‘That,’ Carlyle said quietly, ‘is a question way above my pay grade.’ Despite his pig-headedness, he still admired the old man’s boundless determination. Maybe he had got it the wrong way round; maybe that was the very thing keeping him alive.

So many
maybes
.

They resumed their walk, leaving the calm of the park behind for the grubby urban chaos of Bayswater. The lights were against them as they reached the road. Sands nudged Carlyle as they waited at the crossing.

‘You know he did it, don’t you?’

Carlyle shrugged as a taxi barrelled by, inches from his face. ‘None of us
know
anything.’

‘But there’s the evidence.’

‘You can interpret the evidence almost any way you like – that’s what lawyers do. They construct a story and try to sell it – sell it to the police, to the judge, the jury, to the press, to their client.’ The lights changed and he took Sands gently by the arm, leading the old man across the road, towards Queensway tube station, and back to Charing Cross police station, to face the music.

‘Are you sure that you want to sign this?’

‘Yes.’ Sands gestured for the inspector to hand him the biro. Carlyle glanced at Sands’s lawyer, a fresh-faced chap called Gavin Potts. Frankly, he would have preferred to see a lot more grey hairs. There was very little doubt that, if it came to it, Nathalie Kelvin QC and her flunkies would make mincemeat of the young fellow.

Avoiding eye-contact, Potts showed no emotion either way. ‘I have explained to my client the implications of his statement,’ he said mechanically, the nervousness discernible in his voice. ‘He has made it clear that this is how he wishes to proceed.’