The Kill (39 page)

‘Velcro Kerrigan strikes again.’

‘Stop talking now,’ I said.

‘Does he know you’re single?’

I glowered.

‘Sorry, that you might be single. Have you heard from the wandering boyfriend?’

‘Nope.’ I tried to sound carefree, as if I didn’t mind and it didn’t matter, when really I did mind, a lot, and it was mostly what I thought about when I wasn’t thinking about work. Not a text message, nor an email, nor a voicemail. Nothing at all. I was worried about Rob, and angry with him, and still cross with myself, no matter what Derwent had said about it not being my fault. I just couldn’t bring myself to get in touch with him, or – worse – Deborah Ormond.

Derwent looked as if he was about to say something but, most rarely for him, didn’t. He kicked his desk a couple of times instead. ‘So, you’re single. Should I tell him?’

‘You shouldn’t speak to him. About anything. He’s a sweet boy and you’ll corrupt him with your dirty mind.’

‘Interesting. I would not have said he was your type.’

‘He isn’t.’

‘You can’t be that desperate yet.’

‘I am desperate for you to stop talking to me about this.’ I sat back in my chair. ‘Terence Hammond.’

‘No.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘But—’

‘Tony Larch and Michael Knaggs are in custody. We have a backlog of work that will take me until March to get through, because very inconsiderate people kept killing one another while we were worrying about getting shot ourselves. Don’t say Terence Hammond to me.’

‘I’m just not sure.’

‘I hate you.’

‘I know.’ I tapped the end of my pen on my notebook, thinking. ‘It’s the woman that bothers me. Larch and Knaggs are good at what they do, but where did they get a woman who was prepared to help?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe they hired her. I don’t want to shock you but there are women who will do that kind of thing for money.’

‘Conspire to kill people?’

‘Get them off in parked cars. You know, Knaggs was a regular at that club in Soho.’ Derwent snapped his fingers. ‘You are a genius. I’ve got a reason to go and I’m going.’

‘It won’t be open now.’

‘What time, do you think?’ He checked his watch. ‘Soon?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ I went back to work, still thinking, and after a few minutes of fidgeting Derwent threw down the file he was reading.

‘You are ruining my life.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m finished with this case. Hammond is over. Done and dusted.’ He took his notes out of the folder and spread them across his desk according to his own arcane system. It was eerily close to tarot, as I’d told him before. ‘One last look.’

I left him chewing it over and went to an interminable meeting chaired by Una Burt, who liked to read things out loud, at length. She was not a good reader and I spent my time fantasising about screaming, throwing my papers in the air and walking out. Something was bothering me. Something Derwent had said. He said so much, though, and most of it was troubling one way or another.

I came out of the meeting room with a suggestion for him but he wasn’t at his desk. The tarot layout was gone, the file closed with a stapler resting on top of it like a cross on a vampire’s grave.
Do not open
. He really wasn’t interested any more, and that was fine, but I couldn’t let it drop, even if it meant doing something I found repugnant. Like talking to Peter Belcott. I went across the room to the big noticeboard which Belcott was stripping of its photographs and notes.

‘Tidying up?’

‘What does it look like?’ He was stacking the information neatly on the desk beside him.

I pointed at the stack. ‘Do you mind if I have a look through this?’

‘Why?’

‘I want to see if there’s anything about Terence Hammond’s career. Complaints or enquiries.’ I was shuffling through it as I spoke. Belcott’s hand slammed down on top of the pile.

‘You’re making a mess. Anyway, it’s not there.’

‘Oh. Does that mean there wasn’t anything?’

‘No, there was. I just didn’t put it up. By the time I got hold of it, the Maudling Estate shooting had happened and it didn’t seem important.’ He dropped a couple of tacks into a box and went over to his desk, where he unearthed a thin cardboard folder. ‘There you go. Knock yourself out.’

‘Thanks, Pete.’ There were three pages in the file and I was skimming through them already. As I turned the first page a name jumped out at me. I hadn’t been consciously expecting to see it but I wasn’t surprised, all the same. I sat down at my desk and read through the file properly, a few times, until I was sure I’d taken it all in, and then I lifted the phone.

‘Coming.’ The voice came from quite a long way back inside the flat. ‘I’ll be there in a second.’

I waited on the doorstep, thinking that there was no need to hurry. I wasn’t going anywhere.

After a great deal of unlocking Philip Gregory opened the door and hopped backwards a little. ‘Sorry, it’s the crutches. They slow me down. What can I do for you, Maeve Kerrigan?’

‘You remembered my name.’

‘I never forget a good one. I recognised you as soon as I saw you on that thing.’ He pointed at the intercom, which had a tiny camera for checking who was at the door. ‘This is going to sound rude but why are you here?’

‘I wondered if I could have a word with you about Terence.’

He gave me a puzzled smile. ‘I think I said at the church that I wasn’t in touch with him. I really don’t have any information that would be useful for you. And I thought you’d got the guys anyway.’

‘We have two in custody,’ I said. ‘You know what it’s like. I’m just chasing up some loose ends.’

‘And I’m a loose end, am I?’ He smiled again. ‘Honoured. It’s cold out here. Do you want to come in?’

‘Thanks.’

It was a small flat and Gregory obviously lived in it alone. He dragged a basket full of ironing off one of the armchairs.

‘Sorry about the state of the place. I wasn’t expecting a visitor.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m always surprising people. At least you were dressed.’

‘There is that.’ He lowered himself into his chair and slotted the crutches underneath it.

‘How are you managing with those? Getting used to them?’

‘Not so you’d notice.’ Again the likeable smile. ‘I’ll get the hang of them about a day before the plaster comes off.’

He was being very friendly but I thought he was nervous all the same.

‘Right. The reason I’ve come is because I wanted to clarify a couple of things that were bothering me.’

‘Sounds ominous,’ he said with an edgy little laugh.

‘Probably not. It was just that one of my colleagues took me back to the crime scene in Richmond Park a while ago because he said that was where it all started, with Terence’s death. And it made me think that he was wrong. It wasn’t where it started.’ I was watching him closely. ‘It started with you.’

He pulled a face. ‘Glad I was the dress rehearsal, in that case. They didn’t have their hand in yet.’

‘It definitely didn’t work out the way they intended.’

‘Look, I know what you’re saying but it doesn’t seem likely, does it? Someone had a grudge against the police, saw me crossing the road like an idiot, saw red, hit the gas. I didn’t jump far enough out of the way and I got a broken leg. They drove off. The end. That’s not the same as Terence being shot, or the PCSO having her throat cut. It’s not skilful.’

‘No, it’s not.’ I leaned forward. ‘Why did you lie about it?’

‘What?’

‘You said you’d given them a pretty good description of the car but they didn’t pick it up anywhere on CCTV – there was no car matching that description in the area at the time you were attacked.’

‘The guys were professionals. They must have dodged the cameras.’

‘No. You sent the cops looking for the wrong vehicle. You didn’t want to find the person who attacked you.’

‘That’s just stupid,’ he said forcefully. ‘Why on earth would I want to avoid it?’

‘That’s what I was wondering. Then I realised you’d lied to me too.’

‘No.’

‘Small tip.’ I took the folder out of my bag. ‘Don’t lie to a police officer, especially about something that’s easy to check and even more especially if you don’t have to.’

‘What are you talking about?’ There was a sheen of sweat across his scalp.

‘You said you’d never been crewed with Terence Hammond when you worked in the same team. You said you weren’t even friends. I spent quite a bit of time today on the phone talking to people, including your old boss. You and Hammond always worked together and you were thick as thieves. Now, why would you lie about that unless you were trying to hide something?’

‘Like what?’

I tapped the folder. ‘This is a report into an investigation carried out by the DPS in 2001. You and Terence Hammond got in serious trouble, didn’t you?’

Gregory swallowed. ‘Everyone’s forgotten about that.’

‘You haven’t. Tell me about Annabel Strake.’

‘I can’t.’

‘I know she was fifteen. I know she had problems with depression and alcohol abuse and that she’d attempted suicide twice. I know she’d gone missing from her home and you and Hammond were supposed to find her.’

‘We did find her. We had a hunch she might be hiding out in an abandoned factory because it was raining and that was where the local kids tended to go.’

‘What happened?’

Gregory took a moment to answer, reliving it. ‘Nothing. We found her. Terence found her, actually. We took her home.’

‘What happened before you took her home?’

‘Nothing happened. But that’s not what she said.’

‘She said you sexually assaulted her.’

‘Not me. I didn’t do anything.’

‘But Terence?’ I let the question hang in the air as Gregory struggled with his conscience.

‘He was exonerated by the DPS. Annabel Strake was using us to get out of trouble with her parents. They were older, very strict, thought she was the devil incarnate for getting into a bit of trouble here and there. And she was an old fifteen, let me tell you. You’d never have guessed she was a child.’

‘No one believed Annabel, did they? You gave evidence that contradicted her statement. Were you telling the truth or was she?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Terence is dead,’ I said. ‘Tell me what really happened in the factory.’

‘We split up. Terence went up to the top floor where there were offices. I stayed down on the ground floor. It was dark, and cold. The place was condemned. Full of rubble and pigeon shit.’ He shivered, remembering. ‘I wandered around for a bit. I thought Terence was taking ages to search the place. Then I heard them coming back. He’d found her on the top floor.’

‘And?’

‘He’d had sex with her. It was her idea.’

‘Is that what he told you?’

Gregory shrugged. ‘It’s what I believed. Terence was having real trouble at home. He and his wife weren’t sleeping together – she wouldn’t, after the car accident that injured Ben. Terence was frustrated, and Annabel was a little slut. She told him to shag her and he went for it.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘She was laughing when she came down. I mean, she was off her face. We found a couple of joints on her, and some pills, and she’d been drinking.’

‘And she was
fifteen
.’

‘Like I said, you’d never have known.’ Gregory glared at me. ‘Don’t make this my fault. I didn’t know anything. I wasn’t even involved in what happened. I got in trouble then but I’m not going to get in trouble now.’

‘Even though you lied to the DPS.’

Gregory put a hand down, dropping it casually on to the crutch that was under his chair. He was tense, the adrenalin running high. I watched him.

‘I don’t know what you’re planning to do with that, but people know where I am and why.’

‘I wasn’t planning anything.’ He drew his hand away, though, and let his head fall back against the chair, defeated.

‘So Annabel complained about Terence Hammond’s conduct and you protected him. What happened to her?’

‘She died. She went back to the factory about three weeks later and jumped off the roof. It was nothing to do with Terence though. She was a very mixed-up kid.’

Anger was making my hands shake but you would never have known I was anything but detached. My voice was calm. I was all-seeing, all-knowing. He needed to think that he couldn’t lie to me, that there was no point in trying.

‘Has someone been threatening you?’

‘Why would you think that anyone would threaten me?’

‘Because you stopped working with Terence, changed jobs and lost touch with him soon after all this happened, even though you were friends. Because you deliberately misled the police investigating an attempt on your life, as if you didn’t want anyone to find out why you might be a target. Because you came to his memorial service and you spent your time looking over your shoulder for anyone you recognised. Because you have serious locks on your front door and a video-based intercom for a flat which, let’s be honest, is not a burglar’s dream. You live like you’re scared. Why are you scared?’

Gregory closed his eyes. ‘Leave it alone. It was a long time ago.’

‘I need to know. And you need to tell me. Did you think the attack on you was related to Annabel?’

‘Of course. I’ve been waiting for it for a long time. Always looking over my shoulder. Always being afraid someone would catch up with me. Keeping a low profile, not looking for promotion.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I made a mistake a long time ago. I trusted Terence and he fucked up. It wasn’t my idea, and it wasn’t my plan, but I take responsibility for not admitting what had happened. We should have told the truth.’ He gestured to his leg. ‘And then this happened and I was scared it was the beginning of the end. I lied to the detectives who interviewed me, just in case there was a connection. Either it was random or it was aimed at me. I couldn’t tell which until Terence died. Then it seemed even more important not to talk about Annabel.’

I stood up and gave him a notebook and a pen. ‘Write me a statement. Start with Annabel and make it the real story, please, not the invention that you’ve stuck with for twelve years. And give me a proper description of the car that hit you. We’re probably too late to recover most of the CCTV but we might be lucky.’