Ash & Bone (33 page)

Elder stepped aside. 'Be my guest.'

Loftus pushed past and strode away.

* * *

The Merc was parked with its offside wheels on the pavement, outside Elder's flat. Maurice Repton was sitting neat behind the wheel, George Mallory alongside him. The windows on either side had been lowered several centimetres and both men were smoking. Mallory got out of the car as Elder approached and dropped his cigarette to the ground.

'Frank Elder?'

'Yes.'

'You know who I am?'

'I know.'

He was older than he looked in his photograph, Elder thought, heavier too. Ash down the front of his three-piece suit. His eyes were tired, his face a little grey, as if, maybe, he'd not had the best day.

'I thought,' Mallory said, 'it was time we met.'

'Why's that?'

A smile leaked around Mallory's face. 'Don't play dumb with me, Frank. Act the fool. Oh, you might be a puppet of some kind, I realise. Framlingham's toy. His Spring-Heeled Jack.'

He pronounced each syllable of Framlingham's name distinctly, separately, each segment more dismissive than the last.

'Robert Gentleman Farmer Framlingham. Or so he'd have us believe. Streak of piss in his country tweeds. Behind you somewhere is he, working your strings? Well, we've got history, Robert and me, did he tell you that? Came after me once before, when he was with CIB. The Ghost Squad.' Mallory laughed. 'Difficult being invisible when you're seven foot tall with green wellies and a shooting stick. Five charges he brought against me and each and every one of them refuted. Denied. Dismissed. Case fucking closed. Except he doesn't like that, your Robert, so he's got you weaselling about, sucking the pus out of every dirty little rumour, every little half-baked mendacious lie. And you'll do his bidding, won't you, Frank? Have been up to now. Suborned, that's what you are. What you've been. Fucking suborned. Play the cards whichever way you can, as long as what? As long as my hand comes down with the ace of spades? Forget it, Frank. There's nothing there. Just jism floating in the fucking breeze. Fairy dust, Frank. Nothing real.'

He poked his finger hard against the centre of Elder's chest.

Repton chortling in the car, enjoying the show, the boss going off on a rant. Ian Dury crossed with Laurence fucking Olivier. Sir Larry to you. Poor old bastard turning in his grave. Both of them, come to think of it.

Mallory wasn't through. Home-going commuters stepped round them with no more than the odd word, the odd glance.

'Going back through my records, Frank, past arrests. Villains I've put down. Those that've walked away. That fucking anorak Sheridan. Searching for a pattern. Something to hang me with, hang me out to dry. Maddy Birch, you even figured me for that. Come on, Frank, don't deny it, don't be shy. What did you think? I'd climbed into my Ripper kit one night, just for the fun or it? Just for the crack? How you must have been disappointed now it's turned out to be someone else. Wouldn't have been winding young Loftus up this morning, else.'

Mallory took a step closer: no further to go without Elder stepping aside.

'No, Frank. Not my style, that kind of thing. Messy. Too much risk. Here…' He pressed his index finger, once, twice, against Elder's body. 'Head and heart, Frank, head and heart. Ask Grant. He'd tell you if he could.'

Mallory laughed in Elder's face, mint and garlic on his breath. 'You've got a daughter, Frank. Up north. No better than she should be, by all accounts. Drugs, wasn't it? Heroin? Cocaine? I'd look to her, if I were you. Something nasty happened to her once. A shame for it to happen again.'

Elder leaned back and punched him in the face, Mallory forewarned enough to turn his head aside and ride with the blow. A stumble back and blood at the side of his mouth, a smile alive in his eyes.

Repton was out of the car.

'A mistake, Frank,' Mallory said. 'When you look back, if you can, that's what you'll think.'

He spat at the ground between Elder's feet and turned away again.

Moments later, smooth as grease, the Mercedes slid out into the traffic and away.

* * *

'Beautiful, Frank,' Framlingham said, when Elder told him. 'Beautiful. Didn't I tell you we were getting close?'

Elder could still feel the hard bone of Mallory's jaw against his knuckles.

'Repton, that's who we'll go for,' Framlingham said. 'That's the route we'll take.'

'We?' Elder queried.

'Not going to let you have all the fun, Frank. Meetings with the junior Home Office minister or no. Time, I think, for a convenient bout of flu.'

Even down the phone, Elder could sense the broadness of Framlingham's smile.

Repton was wearing a three-button charcoal grey suit with a faint red stripe, narrow lapels and a single vent at the back; seven years old now and just beginning to take on a little surface shine around the elbows and the behind. His black Oxfords he'd buffed for fully five minutes while listening to yet another foolish politician digging the ground from under himself about Iraq. Why hadn't Blair and his cronies realised all they had to do was say we want to go in with the Yanks, kick the shit out of Saddam, secure the oil, and give our boys a good workout into the bargain. Sixty per cent of the population would have said fine; a few thousand others would have marched up and down waving banners, but no more than did anyway, and once the initial push was over and we were in without too many casualties, that sixty per cent would be up around seventy.

Of course, he thought now, lighting a Benson's for his trudge across the car park, go in alone next time, instead of waiting for the bloody Americans, and the number of our casualties would be cut by more than half.

Friendly fucking fire!

At the door, he nipped the half-smoked cigarette, blew on the end carefully, and dropped it down into his side pocket for later. Waste not, want not. Any luck he'd be at his desk before George put in an appearance. Stuff been hanging around his in-tray long enough to have grown whiskers.

As soon as he pushed open the door to the long, open-plan office, he saw his luck was in. And out. No George Mallory, but that long streak of piss Framlingham and Frank Elder along with him.

What the fuck was this all about? Payback for last night?

'Maurice, good to see you.' Framlingham's voice could have been heard three fields away, never mind between those walls. 'Frank and I thought it was time for a little chat.'

'What about?'

'Oh, you know, this and that. Loose ends. I don't doubt we'll go into details later.'

'Bollocks,' Repton said, shaking his head. 'I'm not going anywhere. You've got no jurisdiction. You —'

Framlingham lowered a friendly hand on to Repton's shoulder. 'Maurice, Maurice. No need to be hostile. Whatever this is, I'm sure we can work it out to the best of your advantage.' He gave the shoulder a squeeze. 'Yours at least.'

Repton glanced around: several heads turned in their direction, others bent judiciously over their desks. everyone listening.

'Come on, Maurice. We'll take my car, what do you say?' And then, as they were walking towards the door. 'Nice suit, Maurice. Good cut. You must let me have the name of your tailor.'

* * *

Up in Nottingham, Dave Eaglin was still stonewalling like a tail-ender facing up to Australians at Trent Bridge. Stubbornness, grit, and a dodgy technique. Self-preservation uppermost in his mind. Sooner or later, his interrogators would slip one through his defences and that would be that. Game over.

In another similarly airless and anonymous room, Ricky Bland was playing a different game. More attacking, more imaginative but mired in risk. Ian Botham. Andrew Flintoff. You scored your ton against the odds or went down fighting.

'Wait, wait a minute, Charlie. Wait. That tape, the conversation you claim I had with Summers —'

'Claim? It's your voice, Ricky, clear as day.'

'Maybe, maybe.'

'No maybes about it.'

'Okay, for the sake of argument, let's say it could be me.'

'Ricky.'

'Could be, okay?'

'We've got photographs of you and Summers talking, timed. We've got the tape, timed. What do you think? Right. They coincide. It's you on the tape, tapping Summers for information, offering him a deal.'

'Come on, Charlie. Wise up. Get your head out the sand. What d'you think? We get what we need out of this scum without offering them something in return? What d'you think's going on out there, Charlie? It's not helping old ladies across the fucking road. There's a serious fucking drug problem that we're just about keeping the lid on. Just. And never mind the odd handgun, there's thirteen-year-old kids out there riding round with grenades and fucking rocket launchers. It's a war, Charlie, a fucking war.'

'With rules.'

'Fuck the rules!'

'Exactly.'

'Fuck the fucking rules!'

'Exactly.'

Bland lurched forward. 'Okay, listen. You know how long I've been out there, on the streets? Down in the smoke and then up here. You know how long?'

'Too long?'

'Not so fucking long I'm losing my fucking brain. What? You think I'd let that creep Summers cut some kind of a deal in his favour? Let him run rings round me? I was out there doing this stuff when he was still crapping his fucking nappies, for fuck's sake. You know that? Promise him stuff, of course I promise him stuff. Promise him whatever he fucking wants. Ten per cent of cash? Okay, finder's fee. Half the drugs to go back out on the street? Why not? It's all baloney, Charlie, you know that. Use your common sense. Use your brain. It's not real, it's never gonna happen. Summers, he's gonna get fuck all. It's just what I need to say to bring him along, make sure he plays ball.'

'Like in Forest Fields, just over a week ago.'

'What?'

'Crack, heroin, nine thousand in cash. Another tip-off from Summers, I believe.'

Bland angled back his head and laughed. 'There was never nine grand, nothing near. A few hundred, as I remember. Enough crack to keep you and me and a couple of others happy for the rest of the day. Whoever told you anything else's a fucking liar.'

'You didn't give Summers some of the proceeds of that raid?'

Just for a moment, Bland hesitated. Front foot or back?

'A few grams of H, that's all. Keep him sweet.'

'You knew he'd sell it back on the street?'

Bland shrugged.

'What if I told you instead of selling it, he handed it over to the police?'

'I'd say someone was lying or Summers has lost his fucking mind.'

'And the rest of the proceeds from that raid, Ricky, the rest of the drugs, the cash, they're where? Logged somewhere? Evidence? Search and seizure?'

'They're safe, that's all you need to know.'

'Safe? Safe where?'

Bland leaned back and tugged his tie even looser at his neck; the front of his shirt was dark with sweat. 'Hot in here, Charlie. How about a fucking drink?'

* * *

The pub was at the bottom of Hornsey Rise, set well back from the pavement, a board promising hurling and Gaelic football on large-screen TV. Its wood-and-glass fascia had seen better days. A ratty nondescript dog, tied to one of several outside tables, barked at Furness and Denison as they approached the door and nipped hopefully at their ankles.

The interior was dark and smelt of disinfectant and stale beer.

At a round table close to the window, an elderly black man with white hair was playing patience with a dog-eared pack of cards. A woman of similar age and classic dimensions, the kind Furness thought only still existed in old seaside postcards, was sitting on a patched mock-leather seat near the fire, nursing a small drink in a tall glass.

It was the kind of pub, Furness thought, people meant when they said, admiringly, it's a real old-fashioned local, not been tarted up like the rest. Said that and then headed off for the bright lights and shiny wood of a Pitcher and Piano, an All Bar One.

The barman had his shirtsleeves rolled back and tattoos snaking up both arms, a silver ring piercing the corner of his left eyebrow and a stud through the centre of his lower lip.

'Get you?' he said, affably enough, glancing up from a well-thumbed copy of
Love in the Time of Cholera.

Furness nodded at Paul Denison and Denison took out the single sheet, showing Kennet full-face and profile.

'Don't suppose you've seen him?'

The barman barely gave it a second glance. 'Not for a good while now. Other side of Christmas, certainly.'

'You know him then?'

'Used to come in here quite a bit. After work, like, you know. Pint of Guinness, maybe two, and then he'd be on his way. Lived around here, that'd be my guess.'

'The other side of Christmas, you said. You couldn't be more specific?'

The barman folded down a corner of his book and let it fall closed. 'Time and date, you mean? I don't think so. Early December, maybe? No, wait, wait, it was November, the end of the month. I know because…' He looked past them, towards the man playing cards. 'Ernest, your seventieth, when was that exactly?'

Ernest placed a black ten on a red jack. 'Tuesday, the twenty-fifth day of November, 2003.'

'We had a bit of a party for Ernest, got some food in, dug out the Christmas decorations early. Picture of Ernest in his prime here over the bar. Full uniform - what was it, Ernest?'

'Second Royal Fusiliers.' Red queen on black king.

'What's all this got to do with Kennet?' Furness said.

'Who?'

'Kennet.' Tapping the picture. 'Him.'

'Oh, right. He came in, didn't he? Next day. Later than usual. Eight thirty, nine? Asked me about the photograph, I remember that. Still up, you see. Started to pour him his Guinness, but no, whisky he said. Doubles, two of them. Standing there, where you are now. Quite chatty he was, more than usual. Bit hyper I thought. Just back from Spain, he said, holiday.'

'He didn't say anything about meeting someone? Later?'

'Not to me, no. Not as I recall.'

'How about where he was going? After this, I mean.'

The barman shrugged. 'Home, I suppose.'