Dying Fall (28 page)

From Lloyd House one of the quickest ways to Harborne is, oddly enough, an indirect one. You go through the Queensway underpasses on to Bristol Street, the route Khalid had taken the other night. Then you turn right at the big McDonald's and explore the leafier parts of Edgbaston. It was not such a good choice this morning because the traffic was still messy, and Tina flicked the radio in irritation to the police wave-length. I hardly listened. I'd found the tunnels claustrophobic.

‘Vincent Drive?' she said. ‘Here, Sophie, isn't Vincent Drive near you?'

‘Not specially. It runs between the university and the medical school.'

‘How far from you?'

‘A mile or so. Why?'

‘Sounds like there's summat up. Shall we take a look?' And she swung the car around with an ease that Tony or Chris would have approved and put her foot down. Hard. The nearest cars could get was Somerset Road; but when Tina spoke to the constable redirecting the traffic he waved us on into Pritchatts Road. It was where Farquhar Road crosses Pritchatts Road and becomes Vincent Drive that the accident must have happened. She threw the car half on to the verge, behind a couple of patrol cars and a fire appliance.

‘Stay there, Soph,' she said over her shoulder, as she slammed the door.

But I'd heard the ID over the radio too, and I couldn't. Chris found me as I was retching up nothing in the gutter. I'd got rid of everything in the previous bout of vomiting.

‘Serves you right,' he said. ‘I left orders you weren't to come anywhere near.'

‘No one told me,' I said, groping for a tissue.

He helped me to my feet and steadied me. Just for once I didn't shake him off.

‘Will the bus driver be all right?'

‘Should be. Eventually.'

We looked again at what remained of his cab. The impact that had torn his arm so badly had sheered the metal back. But it was hard to see details because, like the rest of his bus, it was charred and twisted. There was a grotesque mess Chris said was a motorcycle. Then they started to erect screens.

‘Funny,' he said. ‘I came to pick her up – and they've had to scrape her up.'

I looked at him sharply. But his face told me he was only trying to cope with it his way.

‘She was my friend,' I said quietly.

‘How would she have survived all those years in gaol?'

‘Oh, Chris.' I thought of the flat; her money; her love of music, however limited compared with George's. ‘All the same.'

‘Very, very quick. Quicker even than George's or Wajid's.'

‘What was that they were saying about an explosion?' I asked.

He gestured: there would be, wouldn't there?

‘But I heard someone say – I know I did – the poor driver insisted there was an explosion. Impact, explosion, more destruction.'

He looked at me and was about to speak when a colleague summoned him. He was to talk to the press. Tina was on the other side of the road, looking pale. Perhaps Chris had already found time to tell her what he thought of bringing me here. If he hadn't, now was perhaps time for a judicious retreat. In any case, I wanted to bounce ideas off someone. I caught her eye and we went back to the car.

‘If the bus driver was right,' I said, fastening my seat belt, ‘why would there have been an explosion?'

‘Fuel,' she said promptly. ‘Look, Sophie, I know she was a friend of yours and all but she wasn't a nice lady. I've seen what drugs do to kids. Slow death. Not a nice quick one. And their families and all.'

I nodded: I'd lost precious students that way. ‘But why should she choose to explode on a road leading to the university?'

‘Why not? Good place – awkward road junction, they're always having accidents there. And diesel, perhaps, on a wet road. Visibility poor. Textbook, our Soph.'

‘But why here? Not in Erdington or Moseley, but here. On a road leading to the university where Khalid was supposed to do his hacking.'

‘Bloody hell, don't be so – so …'

‘Paranoid? But just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they're not out to get you.'

‘Soph, for pity's sake. She was a bad woman. Killed your mate and that kid. She got what was coming to her. Period. Here – you teach English: what d'you call it when you get what's coming to you?'

‘Nemesis.'

‘No. Summat to do with hoisting. That's it. When you try to blow up someone's castle and the bomb goes off too soon?'

‘Hoist with your own petard.' I laughed, but not with amusement. ‘I rest my case, m'lud. Still, I'm sure your colleagues will turn up something interesting, like they did on Bristol Road.' And then I said, ‘Take me to the fitness centre. Now. Fast.' It was the tone I use when I don't want any argument. I didn't get any.

‘Funny thing that,' said Elaine, one of the other instructors, ‘you're the second person to ask after Dean.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Like I told him, this man, we don't normally disclose that sort of information.'

‘I know he's not at home. He wants to see me. It's a matter of life and death.'

She walked slowly over to her desk. ‘H'm. Funny, must be his day. That bloke, he said he'd got to pay him some money, or something.'

I felt colder than ever. ‘Settle a debt or something' would be more like it. ‘Now,' she said slowly, dithering with little heaps of paper, ‘where'd I put it? Can't think, for the life of me.'

I'd never done this before; I thought it was only done on TV. But I fished a crisp new twenty-pound note from my purse and rustled it. In a second it had gone, to be replaced by a scrap torn from a paper bag. An address in Handsworth.

Even as Tina turned the car I knew we wouldn't get there in time. I used my teaching voice again. In a second, Tina was summoning support. When someone at the other end balked, she added, with a voice like mine, ‘On DCI Groom's authority. Now.'

On the whole I was glad I hadn't had to say that.

There is no quick route to Handsworth. There are canals and railway lines to cross, for one thing, and that means bridges, old and narrow bridges. So the maximum of traffic is funnelled on to the Outer Ring Road. Which is where we were sitting now. The traffic lights changed and changed again. If we couldn't get through, how would anyone else?

‘Motorbikes and blue lights,' said Tina tersely. ‘But,' she added, catching my fear, ‘getting an ambulance through might be trickier. Why the bloody hell they can't afford that sky ambulance is beyond me. Dave, he's my other brother, he's on the ambulances, top end of the M5, he says –'

But we were moving again. And Tina put all her concentration into forcing her way to Dean.

We were too late, of course. But a motorbike paramedic patrol had got to him, and there was hope, they said. The only question was whether to take him to the nearby Dudley Road Hospital or to the Accident Hospital, further away but with a specialist major-injuries unit. They chose the latter. Six motorcycles accompanied his ambulance to close roads so he could pass. Renal damage. Ruptured spleen. A fractured skull. The sort of damage boots can do. And it was all Chris's responsibility. At least that was what he said. He should have taken that phone call, should have taken time to listen.

‘I shouldn't have got him involved in the first place,' I said.

‘Why did you?'

‘I just had this hunch about Jools. One I was afraid of voicing. In case … in case I was right.'

‘You never told us who he fingered. Sophie, why can't you trust me?'

‘It's not that I don't, it's just – Chris, it's loyalty, isn't it?'

‘Sometimes misplaced. Come on. I have to know what Dean found so we can nail the bastards that –'

‘– that may have killed him. OK.' I told him all I knew.

‘Did you say video shop? Address?'

‘I never knew, not all the details. Chris, I didn't want it to be Iqbal's.'

‘You didn't want it to be Iqbal's. Jesus, Sophie, we've had Iqbal's little place under surveillance for months. Why d'you think we let him go to Amsterdam? Not for his health! What can you get in Amsterdam?'

I turned away – I didn't want him to see the shame on my face.

We stood there together, in the mean street, letting the rain soak us. I hoped it would never stop. Suddenly I thought of another family.

‘Chris – Khalid's family! What about them? What if anyone's found out? They must know his registration number – what if they trace him?'

At last Chris turned to me, his face softening into the grimmest amusement. ‘No need to worry about them, Sophie. As soon as I heard about – about this, I sent a patrol round. Armed, before you ask. Sophie, they're safe. Safe, I tell you.'

But at this point the world folded in on me, and not even Chris's smelling salts could bring me round.

I came to in time to stop Chris dashing me to hospital. Food and a drink were what I needed, I insisted. But not necessarily in that order. Somewhere warm. Despite Chris's jacket round my shoulders I was still shaking, and words I should have been able to say disappeared in a chatter of teeth.

I wanted company, too. There would be no escaping yet another statement, so I couldn't just bunk off and seek comfort with Shahida or – if I thought about my friends, I would cry. I mustn't cry. I wanted George to hold me while I sobbed out the truth about Jools.

‘Sophie. Sophie?'

I turned blindly: Chris was shaking my arm gently.

I made a great effort. All his colleagues who weren't cordoning off the street – rather belatedly, surely? – were enjoying a ringside view of their boss making a spectacle of himself. I found I cared too much for him to become a laughing stock: I'd have to find enough energy to make an effort. I managed to grin.

‘Food,' I repeated. ‘Have you got time to have a bite with me? There must be some pub round here.'

The one we found must have been the worst in the Midlands. Quite blatantly the other drinkers tried to work out my price. The tables were dirty, the mats, pretentious with hunting scenes, filthy. We ought to have got up and walked out. But we stayed there, and chose – waitress service! – from a greasy menu. I found I couldn't face meat. But they microwaved my chicken-and-Stilton pie so long it was empty by the time it reached me. Chris ordered another, and pushed around chunks of his steak while we waited.

Clearly a little conversation was called for, if only to disguise the culinary inadequacies. And I'd have to talk about Jools some time.

‘I can accept that Jools killed Wajid – and I suppose you lot have broken her alibi?' I demanded, forgetting that Chris wouldn't have followed my thought processes.

He blinked hard, made an obvious effort to catch up, and repeated, ‘Alibi?'

‘That Tuesday. When the orchestra were playing at Lichfield and Wajid was killed.'

‘She went on the coach to Lichfield but was late on to the platform.'

‘So the assumption must be that she had left her motorbike somewhere in Lichfield, came back in their tea break, met Stobbard, killed Wajid and hurtled back to Lichfield.'

‘Not all that much of a hurtle on a motorbike. Not too much traffic at that time of night. But she was late on stage.'

‘Why didn't you tell me all this?'

‘Because I didn't see why we should worry you until we'd got absolute proof. And we haven't yet. But we will.'

I nodded. I hoped they would. But one thing still bothered me: ‘So why should Jools alter the signs in the Music Centre?'

He was ready to bluster.

‘I just can't see why she should have changed the signs,' I insisted. ‘Can you?'

‘Of course. To lure George out into the open so she could commit the perfect murder.'

‘But we have a witness to say she left by the front door.'

‘There isn't any reason why she shouldn't have killed him first and then left by the front door. And then joined you at the pub. You said she was late.'

‘But not muddy. If she'd been out in all that mud, it would have stuck to her clothes. And her shoes.'

‘You keep a spare pair: she might. If not in a disgusting carrier bag.'

I wished he'd stop smiling at me like that. Every muscle of his face betrayed him, and embarrassed me for him. I glowered at my plate. ‘I told you: something scared her that night. Scared her.'

‘In your judgement.'

‘OK. In my judgement. Let's ask another question. Why kill George?'

‘Because he'd found out what she was up to.'

‘George wouldn't have found out.'

‘Surely if someone had given him the wrong case –'

‘He wouldn't even have opened it. He'd have known his own in the dark! His own instrument, anyway.'

‘OK. So it was dark and he opened it. And he found out it wasn't his, but as he fastened it to return it to its owner, he discovered a substance which made him tackle her.'

‘I suspect,' I said slowly, ‘that if he thought there was any drug involvement he might have called you people straight away. Even if Jools were a colleague.'

‘Are you sure you should use the subjunctive that way? Shouldn't it be “was” a colleague?' asked Chris.

I shrugged, unamused.

‘All right. Perhaps she knew he was going to call us.'

‘How?'

‘Or perhaps George hadn't even noticed but she thought he must have done, and decided not to risk it.'

‘There are an awful lot of perhapses, Chris.' I gave up on the second pie, and pushed it and the cold chips away. What I'd really like was a nice, comforting, sticky pudding: sago made with extra cream and golden syrup instead of sugar, or Bakewell pudding, or treacle tart with custard. ‘The other thing is, Tony does know one or two things about her. He told me he was going to tell you everything today.'