The Chalon Heads (41 page)

‘Fine, as long as they don’t alarm him.’

‘Brock! These laddies do this sort of thing every day.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry. But they don’t do it with one of my men on the end of a razor every day. Anyway, look, what I was going to suggest was that when they’ve finished, I go in—’

‘
You
go in? Brock, my dear fellow! What are you dreaming of? Sending you in would be like pouring petrol on a fire! The man wants to kill you!’

And whose fault is that? Brock thought, but bit his tongue.

‘Brock!’ McLarren went on. ‘Leave it all to the negotiating team. They’ve been preparing for this all day. They’ve got their psychological profiles of our Sammy all prepared, and their strategies all mapped out, and they are the experts at this particular part of the job.
You
find the wee bastard, and
they
talk him into coming quietly. Fair enough?’

‘No, Jock, not in this case. I’ve known Sammy for a long time, as you’re aware. I’m quite certain he’s come to the end of his tether, and that he’ll go through with what he’s got in mind.’

‘And what’s that, do you think?’

‘I don’t think he intends to come out of there alive, and if we don’t give him what he wants, he’ll take Leon with him—it’s as simple as that. You can’t develop a negotiating strategy for that—he doesn’t want to negotiate. He just wants to wipe the slate clean before he goes.’

‘And how would you overcome this death-wish?’

‘You’ve got to give him something, and I’m all you’ve got that he wants. Once he’s got me, I can talk him into releasing Leon because Leon will no longer be of any use to him.’

‘And what then?’

‘Then I talk to him, about Raphael, about what’s really happened. He knows me, Jock. Face to face I can talk him round. Yelling at him through a loud-hailer isn’t going to work.’

McLarren thought for a while. ‘Good try, Brock, but I’m afraid not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not? Because people’s lives are at risk, man, and that’s no time to be improvising half-baked schemes, that’s why not! It may make
you
feel better to exchange yourself for young Desai, but in my book it doesn’t improve the situation one wee bit. I’d just exchange one hostage for another, and in the process lose the one bargaining chip I’ve got, namely your unworthy self. Sorry, Brock, we play this one exactly by the book.’

Brock returned to his seat in the front of Kathy’s car. In response to her look he shook his head grimly.

‘Hell!’ Kathy swore softly, and smacked the steering wheel with the ball of her hand. ‘Maybe he’d let me.’

‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Brock murmured.

From the back of the car, Sally perked up. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, Sally. A technical matter. Everything’s fine.’

‘I asked what the matter was,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m not a fool, Mr Brock. I deserve to be told what’s going on.’

Brock looked back over his shoulder at her and smiled. ‘Oh, I was trying to persuade Superintendent McLarren to let me negotiate personally with Sammy, but he won’t allow it. He’s right, I dare say.’

Sally frowned. ‘You don’t believe that, though, do you?’

‘I think I could persuade Sammy to come out quietly, because I know him. But the superintendent rightly points out that we have experts who are very experienced at this sort of thing, negotiating with . . . with—’

‘With what? Lunatics? Mass murderers?’ Sally looked out of the car window at one of the ARVs and saw the men with rifles passing clips of ammunition between themselves. ‘And if they fail, they’ll kill him, won’t they?’

‘It won’t come to that, Sally. The point is that he’s probably in a frame of mind where he would welcome that. We have to give him something to want to live for.’

Sally looked him in the eye, then said, ‘Come on, I’ll talk to your superintendent.’

Brock raised an eyebrow at Kathy and jumped out after Sally. By the time he caught up with her she was rapping with her rings on McLarren’s car window. He opened the door and stepped out.

‘Dear lady . . .’

‘I’d like a word, sir, if you don’t mind,’ she said firmly. ‘In the car.’

He looked at her in astonishment, then at Brock. They got into McLarren’s car.

‘Superintendent,’ Sally said, ‘I’ll come straight to the point. I believe you want to know the identity of Raphael, is that right?’

McLarren suddenly considered her very seriously. ‘Yes, indeed. Can you help us, madam?’

‘Yes, I can. I know Raphael’s identity, and I suppose, looking around, there’s not many left that do.’

‘Well, now . . .’ McLarren’s face brightened in a rare smile of pure unmitigated joy. ‘I’m absolutely delighted to hear it, Mrs Malone. Please, give me the name.’

‘I will tell you, Superintendent,
after
you have allowed Mr Brock to meet with Sammy and try to bring him and the police officer out of there, but not before.’

‘What?’ McLarren’s smile turned to something less pleasant. He looked suspiciously at Brock, who said quickly, ‘Sally, this isn’t the way. If you know who Raphael is, you must tell us.’

‘Thank you, Brock,’ McLarren said, through clenched teeth. ‘Come, Mrs Malone . . .’

No, sorry. That’s my deal. If you don’t agree, I shan’t tell you, not now and not ever.’ She folded her arms determinedly.

‘Mrs Malone,’ McLarren said softly, in control again, ‘let me assure you that if I thought for one moment that DCI Brock’s way was best I would leap at it. But it is not. You don’t realise what you’re asking. To let Mr Brock go alone to speak to Sammy at this juncture would be tantamount to serving Brock a death sentence. Sammy would as like kill him, and DS Desai, and then himself.’

‘No, he won’t,’ she replied firmly, ‘because Mr Brock won’t be alone. I’ll be with him.’

‘What?’ McLarren and Brock spoke simultaneously.

Sally let them go on for a while, then she lifted a hand and they became quiet.

‘There are certain things,’ she said, ‘which I know, and which nobody else knows. They are things that Sammy has to hear. He wants to hear them, because only that way can he start to live again. That’s why I have to go with Mr Brock to speak to him, Superintendent. There’s really no other way.’

McLarren stared at her, impressed despite himself. ‘What are these things, Mrs Malone?’

‘That’s all I’m prepared to say.’ She set her mouth in a firm line.

At 11.30 p.m., with police marksmen, floodlights and medical team in position, Brock and Sally climb up to the third floor and make their way along the access gallery. They walk carefully and slowly in the dark, for the route is littered with shards of bathroom fittings and glass from the period when the flats were trashed before being sealed up and sold to the developers. When they reach the flat from which the police team has heard the sounds of movement, Brock knocks on the plywood sheet that seals the door. He tries to make it sound neither frighteningly loud, nor timidly soft, but somehow confident and open. It is a lot to expect a knock to communicate, and for a full half-minute they wait in silence. Then he knocks again, and this time speaks. ‘Sammy, it’s David Brock. I have Sally Malone with me. She thought I might find you here. There’s just the two of us on the walkway. The others are keeping their distance, so that we can talk.’

He says all this with his mouth close to the timber sheet, not sure how much will get through.

Then there is a sound of scraping, and the door to which the plywood has been nailed swings slowly open. In the darkness beyond, Brock can just make out the nose of a rifle barrel, pointing at his chest. The rifle recedes into the darkness, and Brock and Sally step cautiously inside. It waves them to the right, and they stumble through another doorway into a room.

‘This was the living-room,’ Sally whispers, and they hear the sound of the front door shutting and bolts being drawn into place. Then a battery camping light clicks on, filling the space with soft light. It illuminates a bare room, and the figure of Leon Desai crumpled in the corner, wide adhesive tape covering his eyes and mouth and binding his wrists and ankles.

Starling is standing by the door, covering them with his gun. He says, ‘Sit down on the floor,’ and they hear the agitation in his voice and also a hoarseness, perhaps through lack of fluids.

They obey, and then Brock says, ‘Thanks for seeing us, Sammy. It’s important that we talk.’

‘No!’ the voice is shrill. ‘We’ve got nothing to talk about.’

‘I’m your hostage now, Sammy,’ Brock goes on, softly. ‘Let the other fellow go, will you? He’s got nothing—’

‘
Shut up!
’ Sammy screams, and it is a scream, so harsh and shocking that Brock and Sally flinch and go rigid where they sit. ‘Don’t you say one more word, or I’ll kill you right there. I mean it!’

Clearly he does. Nobody says a word. It is impossible to tell what shape Desai is in. He is so still that he may be dead, suffocated by the tape, perhaps, or choked on his own vomit, without Starling even aware that he has killed his hostage.

‘He wants to trick me, I know!’ Starling goes on, talking to Sally. ‘He steals Eva’s ransom, and now he wants to trick me. I told them he must come with Raphael, but he brings you instead! Why did you come?’

‘There were things I had to say to you, Sammy,’ Sally says, very gently. ‘Important things for you to understand.’

‘If you’ve come here to soft-soap me, or tell me bad things about Eva . . .’ He turns the gun towards her.

‘I want to tell you some hard things, Sammy, some bad things, if you think you can cope with them. Bad things about me, as well as Eva.’

His mouth sets in a grim little line as he faces her.

‘But perhaps I was wrong to come. I didn’t realise how hard all this has been for you. You see, I’m sorry, but I really believed that it must have been you who killed Eva, until Mr Brock here told me I was wrong.’

Both of them on the floor watch Starling’s face in the torchlight, trying to make out his reaction to this, but it remains inscrutable as ever. Then the light catches a glint of moisture at his eyes.

‘I didn’t kill Eva,’ he says eventually.

‘I know that, Sammy. I know that now.’

‘Go away, Sally,’ he said leadenly. ‘I don’t want to have to kill you too.’

She sighs, and her gaze moves slowly round the room. ‘It’s easy to imagine, in this light, how it used to be, isn’t it, Sammy? Over there was Dad’s chair, and over there was the table where Mum did her sewing. And where you are was where we kept your little chair. Do you remember that? You probably don’t—you were too young to remember. You do remember our Mum sitting at the window, though, don’t you? I can see her there now, Old Mother Hubbard . . .’

‘Stop it, Sally,’ he says, more sad than angry.

‘You know, you were her favourite. Oh, I don’t mean like Andy exactly—Mum worshipped Andy. But in another way. And you were my favourite too, my own little brother, my little Sammy China. I was so proud, taking you out with me, Sammy and Sally—I thought our mum had chosen your name special to be like mine. I didn’t realise you already had it when you came.

‘Isn’t it funny how a place can bring it all back? That’s why you came here, is it, Sammy? It’s almost as if the memories have soaked into the walls, and when you sit here you can feel them oozing out again. Like you and your stamps—I’d forgotten you were collecting them even then. I can see you now, in your short trousers, at the table by the window, with Mum at one end doing her sewing and you at the other concentrating so hard on your stamps.’

‘Andy collected stamps,’ Starling says, in a whisper.

‘So he did! That’s how you got started, wasn’t it? He came home on leave and talked you into it—gave you some stamps.’

‘American stamps, air mail, with planes, 1941.’

‘You do remember!’

‘The best stamp in Andy’s collection was a Great Britain 1929 Postal Union Congress, one pound black.’ Starling’s voice is oddly detached, unnaturally pitched, as if it really is a voice from the past, the voice of a small orphan boy. ‘It was a wonderful stamp, big and black, with a picture of St George in armour on a horse killing the dragon with his lance. I loved it so much, I stole it. That was the first thing I ever stole. I couldn’t help it. I don’t know what I thought I would say when Andy came home and found it gone. Only Andy didn’t come home . . .’

Sally purses her lips, and says softly to Brock, ‘He was in bombers. Shot down over the North Sea.’

‘He was a hero,’ Starling says. ‘Then you gave his whole collection to me. For a long time I couldn’t bear to look at it. It was years before I started collecting again.’

‘Is that right, Sammy? I never knew that.’

He looks at her with immense sadness and whispers, ‘Please go now, Sally.’

‘Sammy, you said you wanted Mr Brock to bring you Raphael. Well, he didn’t cheat you. I’m sure he’s never cheated you. He did exactly what you asked.’

‘What?’ Sammy looks at her, perplexed.

‘I am Raphael, Sammy. At least, part of him. Me and Rudi Trakl, together we’re Raphael.’

Starling looks at Brock as if this is his preposterous idea, but sees the same astonishment as he feels on Brock’s face.

‘You feel guilty about Andy’s stamps, Sammy,’ Sally goes on. ‘Well, let me tell you something that I feel guilty about that’s much worse than that. When you threw me out of your home—yes, you did, Sammy, as good as, accusing me of stealing Eva’s jewellery—no!’