The Chameleon's Shadow (27 page)

‘Certainly
did
,’ said the old man in an affronted tone. ‘Me and Walter both. A couple of uniformed coppers took statements from everyone in here the day after Harry was found. We told them you should be looking for blacks . . . but nothing’s been done. Sometimes wonder if you lot are as afraid of them as the rest of us.’

The superintendent took a sip from his own glass. ‘You’ll have to accept my apologies on this one, Pat,’ he murmured diplomatically. ‘It seems that none of your information has got through. You have my word I’ll look into it.’

‘No need to cause a ruckus. You’ve got it now.’

Jones nodded. ‘Except I’m having a problem understanding why Harry would invite the same young black man back to his bedsit a month after he stole money from him.’

‘Who’s saying the boy was invited? Maybe him and his mate came back for a second helping.’

‘Harry’s bedsit was on the second floor of a block. He had to use an intercom to let people in and he had a spyhole in his door. We are as sure as we can be that his killer was there by invitation.’

‘Never went to his place. Didn’t know that.’

‘What about Walter? Would he invite a black man into his house after what happened to Harry?’

The old man shook his head. ‘Can’t see it.’

Jones nodded. ‘What about a young white guy? You said Walter was scared off by what happened to Harry . . . but would that have applied to
all
young men, irrespective of colour?’

In the absence of an answer from Pat, who seemed to flag when his long-held belief that blacks were responsible was undermined, it was Derek Hardy who spoke.

‘He brought a lad in here one time,’ he said. ‘The kid wanted a lager but I refused to serve him alcohol because he didn’t look eighteen and he didn’t have any ID on him.’ He nodded to the notice on the bar. ‘Walter was pretty annoyed about it and took him away.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Not sure. A couple of months?’

‘Can you give me a description of the lad?’

‘Ginger hair . . . bit of a beanpole . . . fifteen or sixteen at a guess. He may have been one of Walter’s grandchildren. They seemed pretty close and the kid was carrying a rucksack. I got the impression he’d come to London on a visit.’

* It was arguable who was more put out when Jackson suddenly appeared at the other end of the bar and signalled to Derek Hardy

– she, Jones or Beale. Certainly, none of them looked pleased to see each other. Jackson cursed herself for not recognizing their back views as she came in, and Jones cursed the fact that she was the one who’d interrupted his conversation with the landlord. He wondered how much she’d heard before they noticed her.

‘Drinking on duty, Doctor?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘I might ask you the same, Superintendent.’

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

Hardy glanced from one to the other with a look of curiosity on his face. ‘What can I do for you, Jacks? If it’s Mel you’re after, she said she’d be back by ten.’

Jackson glanced at the clock above the bar but seemed in two minds about what to do.

Jones, who thought of her as a decisive woman, couldn’t resist a barbed comment. ‘Would you like us to move to a table so that you can speak to this gentleman in private?’ he asked. ‘Presumably it’s something you don’t want the police to hear.’

‘You have a suspicious mind, Superintendent. You’ll draw the wrong inferences whatever I do.’

He watched her for a moment. ‘I’ll admit to being curious about where the lieutenant is. According to Dr Campbell, he’s safe as houses . . . couldn’t possibly harm anyone . . . because
you
never go out without him. Should I be concerned that you’re on your own?’

‘He’s in my car.
’
‘Then we don’t have a problem.’ Jones glanced at his inspector.

‘Invite the lieutenant in, Nick. I’d hate Dr Jackson to think I inferred anything from Charles’s absence.’

Jackson gave an abrupt sigh. ‘He’s vomiting into a sick bag . . . and my car has a crumpled offside wing and a flat tyre,’ she said. ‘As things stand, I can’t change the wheel unless someone helps me lever out the wing. I’m running late, I don’t have time to wait for the AA, and I was hoping Derek would lend me a hand. I also need to report a damaged bollard fifty yards down the road that’s likely to cause an accident.’

‘All of which sounds right up our street,’ said Jones with a smile as he eased off his stool. ‘We’d better take a look, hadn’t we?’

W
HILE
DI B
EALE WENT
to check on the bollard, the superintendent accompanied Jackson to the BMW, which was parked on a double yellow line beyond the Crown. The passenger door was open and Acland was sitting immobile in the seat, with his hands in his lap and his head pressed back. The fact that he’d put his jacket back on was of no interest to Jones, who was unaware that he’d ever taken it off, but Jackson noticed it.

She raised her voice unnecessarily. ‘Best I could do on the parking front, Superintendent Jones,’ she said loudly. ‘All the other spaces were taken.’

Jones watched the lieutenant’s head jerk away from the seat rest and turn to look at them, but the sudden movement set him heaving into the bag he was holding. There was no question he was ill. The undamaged areas of his face were deathly white, making the grafted skin of his tapering scar seem more prominent than usual, and his hands shook visibly as he lowered the bag into his lap when the bout of nausea ended.

Jones squatted in the open doorway to take a closer look. He thought he could make out areas of bruising around the young man’s jawline – a faint blue flush under the skin – although Acland’s growth of stubble created its own shadow. There was certainly no mistaking the diagonal weal of the seat belt on the left-hand side of the neck, or the raw split along his bottom lip where his teeth had sliced the flesh. ‘You seem to have come off rather worse than the doctor, Charles. She doesn’t have a mark on her.’

Jackson spoke before Acland could. ‘He didn’t know it was going to happen,’ she said, propping her hand on the side of the car and dropping to her haunches beside the superintendent. ‘He couldn’t see the bollard from where he was sitting.’

‘Have you called an ambulance?’

‘Not yet.’

Gingerly, Acland opened his mouth. ‘I don’t want an ambulance,’ he slurred. ‘It’s migraine.’

‘You look as though you could do with a hospital trip to me. What do you say, Doctor?’

Jackson addressed Acland direct. ‘I’d be happier if you went for an X-ray,’ she told him. ‘That was quite a bang you took to the side of your head. I’d hate to think there are any more fractures in that cheek of yours.’

His mouth lifted in a ghost of a smile. ‘Hardly felt it.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not taking you with me,’ she said firmly, as if to pre-empt any such request on his part. ‘The choice is a trolley in A&E or a bed here for the night . . . assuming Derek agrees to put you up. I can give you an anti-emetic before I go, and you can make your own way to the Bell in the morning. But I’ll have to tell Derek you’ll need watching. You understand that, don’t you?’

Acland nodded. ‘Nothing will happen.’ He drew a cross on his chest. ‘I promise.’

Jackson straightened abruptly, but Jones thought he saw annoyance –
incomprehension?
– in her face before she stepped back. ‘People can die from inhaling vomit,’ she said to neither in particular. ‘It’s important to keep an eye on them.’

‘You’re the expert,’ Jones remarked lightly, using the armrest on the door to push himself upright. ‘Shall we take a look at the wing?’

The damage wasn’t as bad as he was expecting. The collision had been absorbed by the BMW’s front offside impact unit, although it was clear that the side of the car had scraped along the bollard for several feet before Jackson managed to steer it free.

The bodywork was dented and scratched from the front wheel arch to the rear door, but to Jones’s eye the problems were cosmetic. The flat tyre was genuine, but he was highly doubtful that an untidy chassis would have prevented Jackson from changing the wheel.

‘You hit the kerb good and hard,’ he said, pointing to a four-inch distortion in the alloy rim. ‘A tyre can’t hold air when the rubber loses contact with the metal.’

Jackson took a breath. ‘I’m aware of that,’ she said, struggling to keep the irritation out of her voice.

Jones smiled. ‘Interesting accident, Doctor. The lieutenant has some strange injuries for an offside collision. Nearside or front-on, I might accept because of the seat-belt burn –’ he touched the left side of his own neck – ‘but
offside
? If the impact was hard enough, he should have spilled to the right.’

She shrugged. ‘I expect he did initially. I wasn’t looking. I was more interested in trying to control the car.’

‘Trying?’

‘Controlling the car,’ she corrected herself. ‘What I was
trying
to do was avoid the bollard.’

‘Naturally, but why were you driving towards it in the first place?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Doctor?’

‘Temporary loss of concentration,’ she said, ‘for which I hold my hands up. I was looking at Charles when I should have been looking at the road. I’ll inform my insurance company and the council that any damage to public property is my responsibility. Do you want me to take a breathalyser to prove that I was competent to drive?’

‘Not my area,’ he said with an amused smile, ‘but if Inspector Beale’s called the traffic police, you may have to.’ He bent down to inspect the wheel arch. ‘You’re lucky the bollard wasn’t concrete or you wouldn’t have driven away from it. Which bit needs levering out?’

‘It’s not as bad as I thought.’

‘No. More of a scrape than a collision, wouldn’t you say? The only real damage is to the wheel rim . . . and to Charles’s face, of course.’ He straightened again. ‘I think the best thing we can do is take him off your hands. Will Ms Wheeler have any objection to keeping an eye on him if we return him to the Bell?’

‘She won’t be able to. She’s running the bar.’

‘The same applies to Mr Hardy.’ He paused, waiting for an answer. ‘It’s a genuine offer. The inspector and I can drop the lieutenant off on our way back to the station.’

‘He’ll need help getting upstairs.’

‘I’m sure we can provide that.’

‘He needs to lie down as soon as possible. If you’re really willing to help, then give me a hand getting him into the Crown. I don’t have time to debate alternatives.’

Jones smiled slightly. ‘Why do I get the feeling you don’t want to leave Charles alone with your partner, Dr Jackson? What are you afraid he’ll do?’

‘I’m a lot more worried about how Daisy will react,’ she said tersely. ‘If we end up in another row over the stresses Charles is putting on our relationship, I could find myself homeless.’ She bared her teeth in a sarcastic smile. ‘It’s a lesbian thing, Superintendent.’

* Beale’s reaction to the damaged bollard echoed Jones’s view of Jackson’s car. Not as bad as he’d been expecting. It was on a raised island in the middle of the road, one of two indicating a pedestrian crossing point between them, and if its twin was anything to go by it had been illuminated before Jackson hit it. The white plastic casing had split longitudinally and the steel structure underneath leaned drunkenly to one side. But it was hardly a hazard to the irregular passing traffic. He phoned the information through as a low priority, then, much as his boss had done, read the accident from what he could

see. Visible tyre tracks before the still-intact bollard suggested Jackson had been braking hard as she approached the first island; fresh scarring along the concrete kerb suggested contact with one or both of her offside wheels; while the state of the second bollard suggested the car had still been steering to the right when she impacted with it.

Intrigued, he approached a young couple who were standing at a bus stop on the other side of the road. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘Long enough.’

‘Did you see a car hit that bollard?’

They both nodded. ‘It was two blokes fighting,’ said the girl.

‘What kind of fighting?’

‘The guy who was driving smashed the other one in the face.’ The girl shivered. ‘We’d be dead if he hadn’t. The car was coming straight for us.’

Beale phoned Khan as he walked back towards the Crown. ‘Ahmed? Yes, yes . . . still with the boss. I need a couple of favours, mate. Can you get hold of Dick Fergusson and find out if he knows of any crack operations in Kitchener Road? Alongside or behind a pub called the Crown. Right . . . ASAP. The next one’s a long shot. Have you ever seen the film
Gattaca
? No? Then you’ll have to Google it for me.G–A–T–T–A–C–A. Put in Uma Thurman and bring up her movies.’

He came to a halt while he waited. ‘That’s it. You should have a cast list with Jude Law and Ethan Hawke at the top. Great. What’s the name of the character Uma Thurman plays? Irene Cassini? How’s the Cassini spelt?’ He listened for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he agreed slowly, ‘that’s what I’ve been wondering. The boss and I saw her an hour ago and she was wearing an identical outfit to the one Uma Thurman wears in the movie. Right . . . try the hostess sites first.’

He was about to ring off when Khan spoke again.

Beale sighed. ‘No, of course I haven’t read the
Evening Standard
. I’ve been working non-stop since I left the house twelve hours ago.’ He listened again. ‘Chalky? Only the description Dr Jackson gave us. Dark-haired . . . bearded . . . mid-fifties. I can’t remember the rest of it but it’s on the computer. I put out a general alert to the neighbouring forces.’

His face tightened with irritation as Khan went on. ‘And you’re seriously telling me you only know about this body because you read it in a
newspaper
!’

* The superintendent was alone when Beale resumed his seat beside him. Pat, the elderly man, had left, the only member of staff on duty was serving a customer at the other end of the bar and there was no sign of Jackson, Hardy or Acland. Jones pushed Beale’s untouched pint towards him. ‘Drink up,’ he said, ‘we may have something to celebrate. The doctor parked the lieutenant on a seat over there before she and Mr Hardy took him upstairs, and Pat recognized his undamaged side. Says he saw him in here several times last year when Harry Peel was still alive.’ His number two took a tentative mouthful of beer, expecting it to be flat, and it was. ‘With his girlfriend?’ Jones shook his head. ‘Always alone, but Pat’s fairly sure he would have spoken to Harry. Harry used to hand out cards for his taxi service, apparently . . . claimed face-to-face contact was the best advertisement.’ ‘What are we going to do? Take him back to the station?’ ‘He’s in no fit state to go anywhere at the moment, and not just from migraine either. He’s sporting a cut lip and a seat-belt burn.’ Jones raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘How hard did they hit the bollard?’ ‘More of a glancing blow. They can’t have been going very fast. The doctor was braking hard enough to leave rubber on the road.’ Beale repeated what the young couple had told him. ‘At a rough guess, I’d say the lieutenant grabbed the wheel and the only way the doctor could regain control was to punch his lights out. They missed one bollard and hit the other.’

Jones nodded. ‘I came to the same conclusion. Any ideas on why he’d want to grab the wheel?’

‘He doesn’t react well to migraine?’ Beale suggested. ‘He seems to lose his temper when the pain first starts. He lost it with the Pakistani in the pub and he lost it with you. It’s only when the retching begins that he becomes incapacitated.’

Jones shook his head. ‘He lost it with me because I touched him . . . The same was true of the Pakistani. He may be less able to control his anger when he has a migraine, but I don’t think it’s the reason he kicks off. He didn’t have a migraine outside the bank when Walter poked him, but he still reacted angrily.’

‘And walked away without doing anything stupid, Brian,’ Beale pointed out. ‘Maybe the migraine isn’t the initial trigger, but it sure as hell contributes to the violence of his responses. He needs to carry a warning sign . . . steer clear when my head hurts.’

‘He’s in a bad way at the moment,’ said the superintendent thoughtfully. ‘The doctor’s pumped him full of an anti-emetic and gone off to change her tyre. I think he’s expecting her to wash her hands of him.’

‘Is that likely?’

‘It depends whether she thinks he was trying to kill her. She’s covering his arse at the moment by claiming it was her fault – probably because she knows she provoked him – but she may change her mind by the morning. She’s mighty pissed off . . . and
very
reluctant to leave him alone with her partner.’

Beale used a finger to stir the beer in his glass, hoping to energize some fizz. ‘I had a mate who tried to kill himself in a BMW,’ he said idly. ‘He drove into a brick wall at forty miles an hour, and walked away without a scratch. Claimed afterwards that he forgot about air bags and didn’t know that BMWs were built like tanks.’

‘You think Acland was trying to kill himself?’

‘He’s a mess . . . bit like my friend . . . Can’t handle what’s happened to him. According to Dr Campbell, he’s been trying to end it for months through slow starvation while kidding himself it’s a lifestyle choice. Maybe he opted for the more direct approach

tonight and decided to take Dr Jackson with him.’

Jones didn’t say anything.

‘You don’t buy that?’

‘Some of it,’ the superintendent said. ‘He’s certainly a mess and it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up dead somewhere, but I wouldn’t expect it to be through suicide. One day he’ll take on someone who’s angrier and more messed up than he is.’ He paused. ‘You could describe that as a death wish, I suppose.’

‘So he was taking the doctor on? He wanted her to punch him?’

‘Not exactly. I think he wanted to
test
her . . . see how she’d react if control was taken away from her. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s why he put a half nelson on me. Pay-back for depriving him of his liberty for six hours.’

Nick Beale was doubtful. ‘What was he planning to do if the doctor lost control?’

Jones shrugged. ‘Pull on the handbrake . . . Hold the wheel steady . . . Prove his nerve was stronger than hers. They can’t have been going more than twenty, not from the damage I saw, and he’s been trained to drive a Scimitar at high speed across rough terrain.’

‘Then by rights we should notify traffic and tell them a criminal offence has been committed. Whatever his reasons, Acland interfered with the safe operation of a moving vehicle. He’s damn lucky the doctor did what she did before they ploughed into those kids at the bus stop.’