A Bed of Scorpions (22 page)

He made a beckoning gesture with his head to someone behind the trio of men boxing me in. A woman in uniform came forward with a water cooler plastic cup of water as my questioner turned aside and began to speak to three men in plain clothes. I took the water, but the shaking got worse, and most of it went down my front. That I couldn’t possibly look worse was not a comforting thought.

Once I’d drunk what was left, she took me by the elbow in a gesture that was only partly supportive. She was also escorting me.

‘Where?’ I’d run out of manners.

‘You wanted to wash.’ She was as brief.

We went. I wasn’t allowed my bag, but I washed my hands and face, and I combed back my hair with my wet hands. The cold water helped, and after a while I stopped crying. The woman put her head around the door and spoke to a colleague. Another cup of water was passed in, most of which I managed to drink this time without spilling. Progress.

I straightened what was left of my shirt. One shoulder had torn at the seam, and was only half-attached. I considered ripping it off, but was too tired to complete the
thought. The rest was just dirty, and some buttons were gone. I tucked it tightly into my skirt to deal with the missing button issue. I was still barefoot, but I was a little more together.

That illusion shattered when the door slammed open so hard it crashed against the wall. It wasn’t just me. The policewoman jumped too, and the voices outside broke off. I looked up. Jake. And the angriest Jake I had ever seen. Rage vibrated off him.

I didn’t move, and I didn’t speak. I said before, rather lightly, that I suspected that our relationship, which had begun while he was investigating a murder that involved one of my authors, was probably against police regulations. As he stood silently staring at me, it was brought home that there was no ‘probably’. I couldn’t think of anything that I might do that wouldn’t make things worse, so I did nothing. He looked me over, from filthy hair, slowly down past red eyes and a runny nose, to torn shirt and skirt, to bare feet. Without turning his head, he said to the policewoman, ‘Get her some tea. Four sugars.’

I still didn’t move, or speak. Partly because he was so angry, and partly because the door was open and other people were within earshot. Mostly the former.

His voice was thin with suppressed rage. ‘Our people are on their way now. These’ – he twitched a shoulder backwards – ‘are the armed-response unit; they’ll be handing over. I want you to go with the policewoman when she comes back. I want you to sit where she puts you. I want you to drink your fucking tea and I want you to not fucking move.
Do you understand?
’

I nodded mutely. The policewoman had come back
in time to hear the last sentence. Even that, her carefully blank expression said, was shocking.

He turned and walked away.

I was taken to someone’s office nearby, and we were left there. I drank my fucking tea. I didn’t fucking move. After a while, I asked if I could have my bag. No. My shoes? Those appeared at some point. I borrowed a comb from the policewoman, who I think by now felt sorry for me. Finally, I gave up. The adrenaline that had made me act when I had to had drained away in one swoop, like taking out a bath plug. I put my head down on the desk and went to sleep.

When I woke up, I could tell from the metal taste in my mouth that I had been asleep for a while. In the basement there was no change in the light, and no change in the sounds outside – mostly men’s rumbling voices, with a few women, phones, and tramping back and forth. I sat up and looked at my watch. Just after seven, but I had no idea what time the police had arrived, or how long I’d been in the stacks.

My escort was still with me. ‘Boring job,’ I said.

She looked as blank as she had since she’d heard Jake talking to me. ‘I’ve had worse.’

That was the sum total of our conversation, except when someone brought yet more tea, which I also drank. So much for sisterly bonding. We sat. I can’t remember ever just sitting, not reading, or looking at something, or even thinking. But I didn’t do any of those things. I didn’t pick up the newspaper that was lying on the desk. I didn’t try to work out what had happened, or why. I just sat.

It was nine before anyone came back again. The door opened, and Jake walked in, with two uniformed men, and
two more in street clothes. The policewoman left and they shuffled around the suddenly very small space. The two in uniform found chairs which they moved as far away as possible and sat. One of the other men leant on the door, the second stood next to him. Jake leant against a bookshelf, arms crossed. I stayed where I’d been sitting, behind the desk. It looked like I was interviewing them. Except that there were five of them and one of me. And I felt very small.

‘We’d like you to make an initial statement, which will be recorded,’ Jake said.

I nodded. I felt hemmed in. Before he could say anything further, heels clicked along the hallway. I stiffened. They stopped at the door and there was a tap. The plain-clothes man moved aside slightly and looked out. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear.

The door opened wider, and Helena appeared. She looked at me calmly. She had probably been warned I was not a pretty sight, although I imagine her expression would have been the same even without the warning. Nothing surprised her. She didn’t kiss me, although whether that was because she was in legal mode, or because she didn’t want my dirt near her was a toss-up. ‘I’ve brought you some clean clothes. You can change as soon as this is over,’ was all she said, as one of the uniforms gave her his chair.

I stared fixedly at the wall.
You are not going to cry again
, I told myself. ‘Tell me where you want me to start.’ I spoke to the air beside Jake’s head.

One of the men by the door replied, and I was relieved to turn to him. ‘We know that you were signed in at 5.15. Several people saw you in the first rooms, and have identified you. Go from there.’

So I did. I told them everything that had happened. I saw no reason not to, and if Helena had wanted me not to say something, she would have told me so.

After I finished there was a brief pause. Then one of the two men by the door, whom I assumed were Jake’s colleagues, said, ‘You keep saying “she”. What makes you think it was a woman?’

‘I said before. I have no evidence. The footsteps were short and sharp, like a not very tall person wearing heels. That, and if someone did try to run me over last week, that was a woman too.’

‘But you don’t know.’

‘No.’ I saw no point in reminding him that I’d just said I didn’t know.

The questioning went on. Had I heard anyone follow me down the stairs? Had I heard an outer door close? How long between going through the door upstairs and the knob turning did I estimate it had been? Had I seen an outside light go on? And all the while, Jake never said a word. He hadn’t said anything since he asked me to make a statement. I looked only at the two men asking the questions.

Finally, when I had said everything at least three times, Helena called a halt. ‘If there’s nothing further that can’t wait? She will be available when you need her.’

The two men conferred briefly, then looked over at Jake before agreeing that no, there was probably nothing further for the day.

‘Come,’ said Helena. And I did. It was that easy.

We drove back to her house without talking. I began to think I might never talk to anyone ever again. I wasn’t tired now, just in a state of suspended animation. When we got
inside Helena handed me a bag and said, ‘Clean clothes. Have a bath and change.’

By the time I got downstairs, I was feeling better; it’s amazing what being clean can do. I was almost ready to say something when I stepped into the kitchen. Jake was leaning on the counter, waiting.

He didn’t look any chattier than I felt. No hello, just, ‘Are you ready to go home?’

I looked over to Helena. She was entirely neutral.
As
you like
, said her face.

Maybe I wasn’t ready to say something. I nodded halfway between them, to the air, and headed for the door. Jake fell in behind and we walked out to the car.

I waited, head down, for him to unlock the door. Instead, his arms came around me and pulled me close. I leant against him, so his voice was more a vibration than a sound. ‘If you ever do that again, I think I’ll kill you myself.’

‘If it happens again, you’ll have to get in line. I’ll kill myself first, and I think Helena’s got dibs on second.’

I
FELL
ASLEEP IN
the five minutes it takes to drive from Helena’s to my flat. Jake woke me, and I walked indoors and got straight into bed without undressing. At some point in the night I woke, and realised that Jake was not there; at another, that he was, and I felt comforted by the knowledge. When he woke me again just before seven, I reconsidered the comfort level. If I’d slept alone, no one would have been able to wake me. I opened one eye and waited.

‘I know,’ he said, as if I’d voiced the thought. ‘But we need to talk, and I have to leave for work.’ He smiled sweetly.

We hadn’t been doing a lot of sweetness lately. I nodded into the pillow. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

I waited until he left the room before I stripped off. I wanted to take stock of my injuries by myself first. I was bruised where the books had fallen on me – my back was
particularly bad, with one or two places where the edges had broken the skin. But the benefit of having had a cycle accident was that my face was no more frightening than it had been the day before. Always a silver lining.

I got myself to the kitchen only five minutes later than I’d promised, and Jake slid a mug of coffee towards me. There were case notes, files, and documents all over the table: he had to have been working for hours, maybe all night. I looked to see if he’d changed his clothes, but realised I had no idea what he’d been wearing the day before.

He was moving papers around, thinking how to begin, and I understood why when he spoke. ‘It wasn’t Celia Stein. She was with Merriam and the show’s curator the entire time. When your 999 call was logged, the three of them, and Jim Reynolds, were talking to four members of’ – he checked his notes for the term ‘the working party, which seems to be what the people who hang the pictures are called. There was a problem with a painting in one room, and the whole room had to be rehung. She was taking photos with her phone. We’ve looked at the time-stamps. There isn’t even a five-minute gap, and everyone agrees that no one else had her phone.’

I started to speak and found I had no voice. I tried again. ‘Are you saying that
two people hate me that much?’

All of Jake’s formal manner vanished. He was around the table, and I was on his lap before I’d finished the sentence. He hugged me tight. ‘Sweetheart, no one hates you.’ He waited until I took a breath. ‘People kill out of hatred. But that’s not what this is. It’s not.’ He stared at me, to make sure I understood. ‘Someone is afraid. There is no reason to attack you except fear, and the only fear they can have
is of exposure. We need to work out what it is you know.’

I took another breath. I don’t know why someone wanting me dead because they were afraid of me was better than someone wanting me dead because they hated me, but it was. Fear I could deal with. I gave a small nod.
I’m OK
, it said.

Jake moved back to his files. ‘The most obvious thing you know is the colophons, although how anyone knows that, I don’t know. There’s something else we’re missing. I’m going to go over everything once more, and then I’ll need to interview you officially again. I don’t know when. The office will call Helena.’ He looked shamefaced. ‘I don’t know who it will be. You realised, last night …’

He didn’t finish, so I did it for him, as bluntly as it would be said if his superiors found out about our relationship. Right before they sacked him. ‘… that you should have withdrawn the moment you discovered the case concerned your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend? Yes. I didn’t before, which was stupid of me. We can keep it like this for the moment. But you need to straighten it out afterwards. I don’t want to be your dirty little secret.’

He gave me that same sweet smile. ‘That talk we’re going to have “later”?’

‘That one.’ I smiled back. ‘Not to change the subject, but I need to go and get my things together.’ I raised my hands pacifically, stopping the words I saw coming. ‘You can drop me on your way to work, and I promise I won’t leave the building unless you need me to be interviewed. And then I’ll order a cab. Or if you don’t need to talk to me again, I’ll do the same to come home. Believe me, I’m frightened enough to listen to you now.’ He still looked as
if he wanted to argue, so I went for the jugular. ‘I’m too afraid to stay at home alone.’

There wasn’t an answer to that, so we went.

It didn’t really matter where I was, as it turned out, because I wasn’t capable of doing any work. I told Miranda I was diverting my calls to her, and she should only put through Helena or Jake’s office. She looked deathly curious, but didn’t ask any questions.

I closed my office door, and tried to move in logical steps. I may not be smart, but I’m stubborn. Frank and Werner Schmidt were dead because of something to do with the Stevenson estate. That had to be the start. That there were forgeries in the estate also had to be a starting point. That Celia had something to do with it, ditto. Spencer Reichel’s connection to Celia, and to Matt Holder, came into the mix, although how or why was not clear.

In truth, I’m not stubborn. I’m pig-headed. And going over and over the same facts was really pig-headed. It wasn’t helping, I was just too stupid to know when to stop. When Miranda put her head around the door, it was almost a relief. ‘Sam, I know you said you didn’t want any phone calls, but there’s someone downstairs for you.’

I reached for my diary. Had I forgotten to cancel an appointment? I looked. No.

‘Who?’ I was mystified. Publishing doesn’t do drop-ins.

‘He says his name is Sam, but he won’t give a last name.’ Sam? I didn’t know a Sam. ‘When I told Bernie that you weren’t seeing anyone, he said you’d see him. I went down, because he wouldn’t say where he was from, or what it was about. He’s …’ her teeth worried at her lips. She wasn’t
sure how to phrase the next part. ‘He’s young. Not old enough to be working.’

My eyes opened wide. Sam. Viv’s Sam. ‘Seventeen or so? South-East Asian, dyed blonde hair, trousers around his bum?’

Now Miranda’s eyes popped wide too. Her ‘not old enough to be working’, I realised, had been a euphemism for,
Isn’t he a bit young for you but what else could he be?
She recovered quickly. ‘That’s him.’

I picked up the phone. ‘Hi, Bernie. Is Sam still there for me? Ask him to come up to the first floor.’ And I was off down the corridor like a shot, Miranda pretending, very discreetly, that she was going to the loo, and following hard behind.

I got to the head of the stairs as Sam was coming into sight. ‘Hey, Sam. Thanks for coming.’ I wasn’t going to say more there. Seventeen-year-olds were not part of our daily lives. Everyone at every desk we passed was watching.

He was a quick study. He nodded, as though he dropped by publishing offices every day of the week, and then he put out his hand. Grown-ups shook hands. So we did.

As we walked past the kitchen I paused. Office manners. ‘Do you want something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?’

A very quick study. ‘I don’t suppose you have a beer?’

‘No beer. That’s why this is called “work”, not “fun”.’

‘Damn.’ And we smiled. For some reason, we understood each other.

When we got to my office I closed the door and sat, waving him to the visitor seat. He took his time, looking at the wall of books, the files. ‘This is what you do?’

‘I work for a publisher. We make books.’

‘My sister reads.’ In the same tone you’d say,
My sister
likes Mongolian throat-singing.

‘It happens. There’s no shame in it. Not even a Twelve-Step Programme that I know of.’

‘Girl stuff. Romance.’

He wasn’t ready to sit down yet. I poured myself coffee from my coffee-maker, waving the pot at him in question, giving him time. Then I sipped quietly. He’d tell me whatever it was when he was ready.

‘I saw her.’

I sat forward so fast I sloshed hot coffee all over my hand. ‘Shit.’ I wiped it quickly, never taking my eyes off him. ‘Where? When?’

He sat down now. My desk faced the wall, so that when I had a visitor I swivelled round and there was nothing between us. I hitched my chair forward, and we sat knee to knee.

‘Yesterday. Around nine o’clock. On the High Street. I was going to the kebab shop. You know, the good one?’ He paused questioningly. I didn’t, but I nodded. ‘She was going into the restaurant next door. It’s Italian. Expensive, my mum says.’

I sat back, crushed. This wasn’t going to help. Someone in a restaurant. How did that identify her the next day?

‘I tried to ring you on the number you gave me.’ He looked at me accusingly.

I started to reach for my phone – had I even checked my messages? – and then I remembered. I had no handbag, so no phone. The armed response unit had decided it was essential to hold onto my tampax to make sure I didn’t detonate them and destroy democracy as we know it. I can’t say I exactly
followed their reasoning, but when I had been on my own I was too traumatised to argue; by the time Helena arrived, I’d forgotten. All I had now was twenty quid I’d borrowed from Jake that morning. Everything else, phone, credit cards, money, was in the death-grip of the police.

‘There was a problem last night. The police have my bag, and it has my phone.’

‘You were arrested?’ I’d gone up in his estimation.

I grinned. ‘Nah. Questioning. My mum’s a lawyer. She was there to see fair play.’ Then I sobered up. ‘Thank you for coming and telling me. That’s really kind of you. I guess we can keep an eye out for the woman there. Or maybe the police can ask at the restaurant.’

He was insulted. ‘I didn’t let her go.’

‘You followed her?’

Now he thought I was just plain stupid. ‘Course I did. Me ’n’ my mates.’ He shrugged. ‘We went to the kebab place and had something to eat while we waited for her to come out.’

I didn’t know how to put this diplomatically. ‘Didn’t anyone notice you?’

He grinned again. ‘Everyone. But no one. Everyone hates kids hanging about, and no one pays any attention to us except to say we’re a nuisance.’

He was right. People walking past, or looking at them through the restaurant window, would have thought,
Bloody kids, drinking and eating and making noise on the street
. Not a single one would have been able to say what any of them looked like.

I stared up at him, puppy-dog eyes. ‘Tell me you saw where she went.’

He was regretful. ‘They drove off, so we couldn’t follow her. But …’ He held out his hand. Written in biro on the palm was a registration number.

I pumped my fist. ‘Yes.’ I wanted to kiss him but I thought he’d faint.

‘It wasn’t her car, though: she wasn’t driving.’

‘Doesn’t matter. This is a huge help.’ I copied the number down. ‘You are my hero, Sam. Thank you. And thank you for coming all the way here to tell me.’ I paused. ‘How do I get in touch with you? I want to pass this on to the police. I’ll say again, if it’s connected the way I think it is, I don’t think the hit-and-run will matter much. But if they need to speak to you – um, my boyfriend is at Scotland Yard.’

He considered that. ‘A copper’s missus.’

I laughed out loud. ‘I’ve never thought of myself that way. And we’re not married so I’m nobody’s missus. What I meant was, it won’t be the local PC Plod who will be looking at this.’ I suspected that this would make it better, not worse, but I wasn’t sure. It did.

He nodded, and picked up the pen and wrote his mobile number beside the registration number.

He looked around, as if he’d suddenly realised he was in a small, enclosed, and very unfamiliar space with a woman old enough to be his mother, but he couldn’t work out the mechanics of getting away. I stood. ‘Thank you again,’ I said, and moved to the door.

As we passed the assistants’ desks in the space outside, I said, ‘Hold on a minute.’ Publicity was just around the corner, and I went and scanned their shelves, grabbing half a dozen titles. ‘I’ll order you up some new ones,’ I called to the intern looking daggers at me. These were advance copies
to send out to newspapers for reviewing, and no one was supposed to take them, although everyone did. She wasn’t appeased, but she didn’t have the seniority to challenge me outright, either. While I was at it, I filched a T&R bag and dumped everything in, returning to Sam. In the thirty seconds I’d been gone, Miranda had befriended him. He was leaning against her filing cabinet, chatting and entirely at ease.

‘Here,’ I said, handing the bag over. ‘For your sister. I don’t do anything I think you’d like.’

He put his head on one side. ‘Motocross?’

‘You’re just saying that because of the way I dress.’ It took him ten seconds to work out that that was a joke, and by that time, he and I and Miranda had got to the front door.

‘See you,’ he said, slinging the bag on his shoulder. Job done.

‘And I’m taking early lunch, if that’s OK,’ said Miranda.

I’d said ‘Sure’, and was halfway up the stairs before I looked at my watch. Eleven o’clock, Miranda? I hoped to God he was eighteen. A young-looking twenty would be even better.

Back in my office, I rang Jake. Voicemail. I hung up, and emailed instead. ‘The boy who saw the hit-and-run came through. He saw the woman again on the High Street. She got into a car, not hers,’ and I added the registration number. Then I thunked myself on the forehead and added. ‘Also, I’m never going to make inspector. I have no idea what the boy’s last name is, and forgot to ask. First name Sam, and I have his phone number. According to neighbourhood gossip he’s been “in trouble” with the police. He says he’ll talk to you, though. Let me know.’

Then I thought about last night again, and sent him another email. ‘Dear DI Field, Yesterday evening a neighbour who witnessed the hit-and-run I was involved in on Castleton Street last Saturday saw a woman he recognised as the driver. He saw her get into a car in Camden, and although she wasn’t driving, he took down the registration number (attached), in the hope that it will help to identify her. I’m afraid that for the moment he isn’t willing to give a statement. Yours, Samantha Clair.’ If the hit-and-run ever became part of a case, Jake was going to need to show how he got the information that led to an arrest. Paperwork. Registration numbers. Phone numbers. All documented. Documentation was good. I admired my own neat and tidy files. And then I sat up again. Documentation.