The Reckoning (41 page)

‘Poor Patricia. I don’t know if it’s the benefit of hindsight, but she looks like a victim-in-waiting to me.’

‘Maybe that’s what her kidnapper thought too,’ Liv said soberly. ‘If he was looking around online, she has “add to basket” written all over her. It’s upsetting.’

‘It’s not just that. I can’t shake the feeling that if someone had listened to Patricia’s parents’ concerns sooner, and had gone to the trouble to find out who took her, Cheyenne might still be alive.’

I stared into the missing woman’s doe-like eyes in the second picture, wondering who she had trusted and what they had done with her. She didn’t look evil to me; she didn’t even look as if she had the potential to become evil.

‘Come on.’ Liv nudged me. ‘You said you needed a drink. I’d say now would be ideal. Sort your head out and start again tomorrow.’

I looked around the squad room, suddenly aware that it had emptied around us while I’d been on the phone. Even Godley had left. It was later than I’d thought – almost six – and the energy of the morning had petered out when the post-mortem results came back. There no longer seemed to be an urgent need to follow up on John Skinner’s complicated professional life and I could understand why Liv was pushing to get involved with Patricia’s case.

‘I should probably stay,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I do have a few things to chase up.’

Liv tilted her head to one side as if she was considering taking offence, then smiled. ‘Okay. No worries. I just thought you might want a break.’

‘Well, I do,’ I admitted. I had a headache and the jacket of my stupid suit was riding up. I tugged it down, annoyed.

‘If you change your mind, let me know.’ She walked back to her desk and I watched her shut down her computer. I was sorely tempted. There was nothing on my desk that couldn’t wait until the next day, and I really needed to read DS Rai’s file on Patricia before going any further. The flat in Stoke Newington had been cleared out and rented again a few months after she disappeared; the only way I could see what she had left behind was to look at the pictures DS Rai had assured me were in the file. And she had been gone so long that the trail was stone cold. Persuading witnesses to recall where they had been eighteen months before would not be easy. Whenever I tackled it, I would struggle.

‘I’ve talked myself into it.’

She looked up from doing up her jacket. ‘Seriously? Excellent. Where do you want to go?’

‘I hardly ever go to the pub, but the traditional drinking place for the squad is the Silver Hook. It’s a bit dingy, but it is nearby. And it should be pretty quiet.’

‘Fine. Let’s try there.’

It was the obvious choice, but it was also a mistake, as I realised the minute we walked in. The first person I saw was Peter Belcott, who proved to be propping up the bar with Chris Pettifer, Harry Maitland and Art Mortimer. We were not the only ones to decide the day needed to be rounded off with a pint, but we were a few drinks behind the others. And since the others were not the most congenial members of the squad, I smiled at them and moved confidently to the other end of the pub, followed by Liv. There was a booth tucked into the corner, out of their line of sight, and I dumped my coat in it.

‘What are you drinking?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Is it too much of a cliché to have white wine?’

‘Nope, and that sounds good to me too. Something dry?’

‘Sauvignon blanc if they’ve got it.’

‘They should,’ I said slightly dubiously. ‘I’ll get a bottle.’ It had the added advantage that we wouldn’t need to go up to the bar as often. I braced myself and went to order.

Obviously prompted by one of the others, Belcott swung around. ‘Kerrigan. Aren’t you and the lovely Liv going to join us?’

‘We’re just in for a quiet drink.’

‘Us too.’ He was swaying slightly and his eyes were already unfocused. Some beer slopped over the edge of his glass and ran down his fingers. ‘Oops.’

‘I think we’ll stay where we are.’

‘You know, Kerrigan, I’m beginning to think you don’t like me very much.’

It didn’t take a great intuitive leap to spot that, not that I would have expected Belcott to be anything but oblivious. I looked at him without answering, waiting until he got tired of staring at me and turned back to the group. He made some remark that was answered with a loud shout of laughter and I felt annoyance prickle at the back of my neck. It wasn’t worth a confrontation. But one day, I would properly lose my temper with him, and he would deserve it.

I went back to Liv with the wine in a bucket of ice and two glasses.

‘Problem?

‘Why do you ask?’

‘You’ve gone pink. And I saw the lads talking to you.’

‘Belcott was talking to me.’ I rolled my eyes.

‘I think he fancies you,’ she sing-songed.

‘I think he hates me and all I represent.’ I poured. ‘If you stick around long enough, he might come to hate you too.’

‘Oh, he can’t stand me already, but I’m used to that.’ She said it as she raised her glass to drink and I couldn’t see her face clearly enough to know if she meant it.

‘I can’t imagine that you’re generally unpopular.’

‘Only with homophobes. They don’t seem to realise in advance. When they find out I’m gay, they act as if I was trying to trick them or something.’ She sipped again, slightly edgy in her movements, and I realised she was nervous about my reaction, which was funny. She was hardly the only lesbian in the police, even if she was more feminine than some I’d encountered. I wasn’t exactly shocked by her revelation, more mildly surprised that I hadn’t picked up on it, but then I had been cross-eyed with worry that she was going to make a move on Rob.

‘Well, you don’t fit into the usual stereotype, do you? That’s just misleading. The least you could do is wear comfortable shoes.’

She laughed and the tension suddenly evaporated. ‘I really don’t try to hide it. I think most of the people on the squad know by now.’

‘I didn’t know. I thought you were interested in Rob,’ I admitted sheepishly.

‘Not even a little bit. I have a girlfriend.’

‘Do you? Is she in the job?’

Liv nodded. ‘Back at my old stamping ground in Special Branch.’

‘Did you get together while you were working in the same team?’

‘No. After I left. She had me round for dinner to say goodbye and one thing led to another.’ Another sip. ‘Okay – I seduced her.’

I leaned in and lowered my voice. ‘You realise that predatory lesbians are probably one of Belcott’s favourite fantasies.’

She snorted. ‘It wasn’t like that. She’s just come out of a long relationship so she wasn’t looking for another girlfriend. And neither was I, really. But these things happen.’

‘What’s her name?’ ‘Joanne. She answers to Jo at work, but I like to call her

Joanne.’ She looked blissfully happy as she said her girlfriend’s name and I grinned.

‘You’re properly in love, aren’t you?’

‘Aren’t you?’ The dreaminess disappeared. ‘What’s going on with you and Rob?’

I would have put my head down on the table if it hadn’t been slightly sticky to the touch. ‘I fucked it up.’

‘Come on. It can’t be that bad.’

‘It is. I don’t come out of it well.’

She filled up my glass. ‘Have a drink, and tell Auntie Liv all about it.’

I did as she said. And then I had another drink, and another, while Liv tried to persuade me that Rob wasn’t playing games, that he was a really good person and that he hadn’t fallen madly in love with Rosalba Osbourne and forgotten all about me, especially since he’d cancelled his date and had gone out drinking with some friends instead.

‘He was pretty clear about it. You have to prove that you’re willing to give a proper relationship a go.’

‘How exactly am I supposed to do that when he won’t talk to me?’

She looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know him well, but that doesn’t sound like Rob.’

‘I didn’t talk to him either,’ I admitted.

‘You’re going to have to make the first move. You’re going to have to do something that shows him you want to be with him.’

‘He might not feel the same way.’

‘That’s the point. You’ve got to take the risk. Make the effort. He’s worth it.’

The second bottle disappeared more quickly than the first. I reeled up to the bar to get some water and discovered that Maitland and Belcott were the only ones left. Belcott leered.

‘Having a nice time?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.’ He put his fingers either side of his mouth and flicked his tongue. I shuddered and looked away.

‘What are the chances, Harry?’ Belcott said loudly, slurring slightly. ‘Two women on our squad. One of them’s a dyke and the other one’s Kerrigan. That’s worse than having no women at all.’

‘Come off it, Peter,’ Maitland said what I had been thinking. ‘Don’t be an arsehole all your life.’

‘I’m just saying.’ He sounded injured.

‘Well, don’t.’ Maitland turned back to me. ‘Ignore him. You ladies have a nice time. Here.’ He dug in Belcott’s pocket and came up with twenty pounds. ‘Drinks are on him.’

I risked a look at Belcott who was looking down, apparently wondering what had just happened.

‘I can’t take it.’

‘I insist.’ He held it out to the barman. ‘Same again.’

So we shared a third bottle, which turned out to be my second mistake of the evening. My third was not having anything to eat apart from a packet of dry-roasted peanuts. My fourth was not leaning over far enough when I was being sick in the alleyway outside so I splattered my shoes and the cuffs of my trousers.

When I made it home, much later on, I abandoned my suit on the floor, too out of it to investigate whether dry-cleaning might save it. My stomach ached from the acid in the wine and from the physical effort of throwing up. My head was throbbing and I drank two glasses of water, holding on to the kitchen sink to try to stop the room from spinning around me.

‘In what sense is this supposed to be fun?’ I said aloud, to the no one in my flat. Then I went to lie down and wait for my bed to stop impersonating a roller-coaster so I could get some sleep.

The morning after the night before is never a lot of fun, especially if you don’t drink much as a rule. I woke up at ten past five with a Saharan mouth and a tongue that seemed to be twice its usual size. Pawing blindly at the bedside table, I discovered I had forgotten to put a glass of water there before I went to bed. I lay back on the pillow, trying to gather the energy to swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand up. Getting up was sadly a necessity. Even if I hadn’t needed a drink, my headache was too bad to ignore.

With the power of prayer, I made it to vertical and staggered into the kitchen, holding on to the wall for support. There was aspirin in the kitchen somewhere, I knew. I had seen it in a drawer. Moaning quietly, I rifled through the handfuls of cutlery, instruction manuals and loose bits of hardware that I had dumped in the drawers and forgotten about. The box was in the last one I tried. I took two tablets, washing them down with a pint of water that tasted metallic.

I stood wondering what to do while I waited to feel better. There was no way I was going to be able to go back to sleep while I felt as rank as I did. I curled up under a blanket on the sofa instead and watched the branches waving in the park while I concentrated on breathing slowly and regularly in an effort to combat the nausea. After the first hour, I had recovered enough to risk a bath. After the bath, I managed a cup of tea. After the tea, I checked the messages on my answering machine and experienced a dip in morale as my mother’s voice filled my head.

‘Maeve, would you ever call home? I’ve been trying to contact you. It’s important. And your mobile phone doesn’t seem to be working.’

That was a regular complaint. She just didn’t like leaving messages on it because I never responded to them. The answering service on my mobile was generic, anonymous. I could pretend she had called a wrong number, or that it had failed to record her message. With my landline, she knew she had reached my personal voicemail. If you listened carefully to the message I had recorded for it, you could hear the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. I had known who would be using it most frequently, and why …

The next message was the same, except her tone of voice was shriller. By the third call, she had obviously given up on speaking to me in person.

‘It’s a good thing it wasn’t a medical emergency of some kind as you don’t seem to be contactable.’ There was always time for a telling-off, I reflected, no matter how important the call was. ‘I was ringing because I wanted you to know your brother has decided he’s not going to go ahead with the separation. He says he forgives her.’

‘Her’ being Abby, I presumed.

‘I don’t know how he can think it’s going to last when she’s cheated on him once, but he says it’s not worth upsetting the kids for the sake of punishing her.’

A smile spread over my face.
Good old Dec. True love can conquer all
.

‘I can’t decide if he’s stupid or too romantic for his own good or both. Probably both. Anyway, I thought you’d like to know.’ She sounded slightly shifty all of a sudden. ‘And I hadn’t told anyone. In the family. So I think we should just forget all about it and not mention it to your aunts. I’m not sure they would understand.’

As usual, I was both amused and irritated by my mother, but that was drowned out this time by my relief that Dec and Abby were giving it another try. Dec had far more reason than I did to run away, but he was holding firm. He was too stubborn to give in – too stubborn and too devoted to what he wanted his life to be. I thought Abby was luckier than she deserved, but I wouldn’t give her a hard time, for Dec’s sake. And also, I had to admit, because Mum could punish her enough for all of us so I could sit back and let her do the hard work.

The last message on the machine was a hang-up. I dialled 1471 to see who had rung me, and recognised the number straightaway. The wayward DC Langton had phoned at ten past eleven the previous night. He had called, but he hadn’t left a message. Still huddled in my blanket, I rolled off the sofa and went to find my bag. My mobile phone was right at the bottom, and when I pulled it out, the screen told me I had seven missed calls with six messages. I scrolled through them, seeing two calls from Rob, one from Liv and four from Mum. Liv had left a message with blurry-voiced thanks for a top night out and I would have been amused if I hadn’t had a vague recollection of having to repeat myself several times to make the taxi-driver understand my address. I didn’t want to think about the figure I had cut with my wrinkled clothes and dishevelled hair. I was too old to behave that way. And I currently looked at least ten years older than that, with my morning-after complexion.