The Shut Eye (16 page)

They were a dozen people behind Richard Latham in the queue at the Marks & Spencer café. They’d gone to his little terraced house and knocked on his front door until his neighbour had come out and told them where he’d probably gone.

‘He goes there all the time,’ she’d added.

‘Yeah?’ Brady had said. ‘Why?’

‘The company, I think.’

Now Marvel looked around at the coldly corporate café and wondered how that could be true. The low ceiling, pale floor and dark chairs made the place feel cold and unwelcoming. There was a long line of mostly elderly people shuffling slowly towards the till, sliding their trays along a system of rails so they didn’t have to carry them and walk at the same time. Inappropriate pop muzak encouraged them to pick up the pace a bit, but they weren’t having any of it.

The King’s Arms it wasn’t.

‘Anything to eat, my love?’

A middle-aged woman smiled cheerfully at Marvel. She wore the round-collared tunic of a performing monkey, complete with a matching hat that was not unlike a fez. Before Marvel could even hesitate, she took the glass covers off two huge cakes and held them up like cymbals. ‘Lovely bit of carrot cake?’ she said. ‘Ever so moist.’

‘OK then,’ he heard himself saying without thinking, and she laughed as if he’d made her the happiest woman in Bromley, and chose the biggest slice there was for him.

‘Put it on your tray,’ Marvel ordered Brady.

Latham was already at the till. His tray had a teacake on it.

Marvel watched the be-fezzed woman behind the till beam at him. Over the music, he heard her say, ‘Morning, Richard!’

Marvel couldn’t hear the response, but there was a friendly exchange. The woman giggled and chatted while Latham handed over his money and got his loyalty card stamped. Marvel watched him shuffle along a bit and pick up a cup and a pot of tea, then stand there for a moment, looking around – apparently for his company.

Was it friends?

A woman?

The accomplice who knocked on the church ceiling?

Latham walked across the café and Marvel saw for the first time that there was something wrong with his feet, or legs. He had a strange, lilting walk, a slow bounce to his gait. He kept his elbows high to avoid spillage, and people turned their heads absently to watch him pass, even as they talked and ate.

He put his tray down on a table for two, alone.

The queue edged forward.

‘Lucas! Hold on to the
handle
or you won’t get any
cake
!’

Marvel turned to see a woman behind him with a pushchair. A boy of about three was beside her. Lucas.

The boy sidled back over and fixed his chubby fist around the metal bar of the pushchair, and when his mother set off to catch up with the queue, his arm jerked and he had to jog a few paces to keep from falling.

Marvel stared at the child. When
he
was that age, his mother had kept him on reins. Like a pet pony. Years after they had grown out of them, Marvel and his brother had taken turns using them around the house – riding each other from room to room, flapping the reins to go faster and pulling them back and going
whoa!
to stop, then pawing the air with their hands to show they were rearing up. Reins were much safer – much more fun – than having to hold on to the handle.

‘Can I help you?’ Lucas’s mother was looking at him in a challenging way.

‘No,’ said Marvel. ‘I was just wondering, whatever happened to reins for children?’

The woman narrowed her eyes at him and tutted, then put a hand around Lucas’s wrist in a belt-and-braces gesture that almost made Marvel laugh. Parents saw danger in all the wrong places. Children were stupid and easily distracted, and predators were alert to the slightest opportunity. There wasn’t much anyone could do about that fatal combination; it was the luck of the draw.

He picked up the file marked
Evans, Edith 23778/SE-G
off Colin Brady’s tray and – under the suspicious eye of Lucas’s mother –peeled out of the queue and walked over to the table where Richard Latham was shaking a sachet of sugar.

‘Mr Latham? DCI John Marvel.’

Latham squinted up with big uneven eyes, and Marvel sat down. He never bothered to ask if he could, because nobody ever said yes.

‘Can I help you?’ said Latham.

‘Yes,’ said Marvel, and laid down the photo Anna Buck had brought in. ‘What can you tell me about this?’

Latham blinked so hard it was close to flinching. ‘I don’t …’ he started. ‘I … What do you mean, what can I tell you?’

He was rattled. Marvel liked that.

Colin Brady put his tray on the photo. There were two slices of carrot cake on it, a cup of coffee and a glass of water. Brady was on a diet and had decided that drinking water before eating anything – however calorific – was the way to do it.

‘I got you an Americano, sir.’

‘Take the tray off the bloody photo, will you!’

Brady raised the tray so that Marvel could slip the photo out from underneath. But, annoyingly, it had given Latham a chance to regain his composure. Now he was looking away from Marvel and up at Brady instead.

‘Hello, Sergeant.’

‘Mr Latham.’

‘This photo,’ insisted Marvel. ‘Nothing mystical. Just, what can you tell me?’

‘Nothing mystical, eh?’ Latham tipped the sugar into his tea. His movements were deliberate, and Marvel knew he was playing for time.

He took a bite of teacake, then leaned forward and peered at the photo. ‘Well now, let’s see.’

He stared at the photo for so long that Marvel could almost hear his brain formulating an adequate answer.

Finally Latham said, ‘Yes. I believe this lady comes to our church.’

‘You know her name?’

‘Errrr … Sandra.’

‘And?’

‘And I can’t tell you much, I’m afraid. She lost her dog and thought I might be able to help her find it.’

‘And did you?’

‘I still hope I can. I believe the dog is alive, so that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

‘Depends,’ said Marvel, ‘on how much you like dogs.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Latham. ‘I’m a cat person myself. How about you?’

Marvel said, ‘Did Sandra give you a photo too?’

‘As I recall she gave out a lot of photos of the dog. I probably had one.’

‘This one?’

‘I really can’t remember.’ Latham looked around the room as if for an exit, and pushed his glasses up his nose.

Sweating.

‘Do you recognize anyone else in this photo?’

Latham studied it again. ‘No,’ he said.

‘OK,’ said Marvel. He slid the photo away from Richard Latham, and saw the relief in his eyes as it went. He loved it when a suspect thought the hard part was over.

‘Mr Latham, how do you know Anna Buck?’

‘Who’s Anna Buck?’

‘Young woman,’ said Marvel. ‘Came to your church a few weeks back for the first time.’

Latham looked blank.

‘Had a baby in a buggy. Never cried.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Latham. ‘I remember.’

‘So that’s how you know her then.’

‘Well, I didn’t know her name.’

‘Did you talk to her?’

‘No.’

‘She says you spoke.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘She says—’

‘Bit of cake, Richard?’

They all looked up at a woman in a fez. She was clearing tables and held a damp rag in one hand and a teapot in the other.

‘No thanks, Denise. The teacake will be fine for now.’

‘You sure now, darlin’? Don’t want you wasting away!’ Denise laughed and looked at Marvel and Brady and said, ‘Richard used to be much larger, you know, but now he’s only a medium!’

She cackled and patted Latham’s shoulder with the damp rag before bustling away, leaving an awkward silence in her wake.

‘She says she spoke to you about her son,’ Marvel started again.

‘Oh yes,’ said Latham. ‘She did.’

‘Then why tell me she didn’t?’

‘You weren’t specific. She didn’t speak to me the first time, but a week later she came back. She wanted a private consultation.’

‘In return for a donation to the church-roof fund, I presume?’

Latham’s composure wavered again. Only a flicker, but it was there – and Marvel noted it.

‘No,’ said Latham. ‘I couldn’t help her.’

‘Why not? Isn’t it your job to help her?’

Latham sighed and shook his head. ‘That’s not how it works, Mr Marvel. Spirits choose what to show, and whom they show it to. I can only be open to them – a conduit for communication. But I’m not the one in control.’

‘If you’re not in control, who is?’

‘The dead,’ said Latham. He gave a grim smile. ‘The dead are in control.’

‘Great,’ said Marvel. ‘Maybe I’ll take this up with them.’

‘Maybe you should.’

Marvel resisted the temptation to continue the childish exchange. Latham had started out shakily when he’d seen the photo, but was getting more comfortable now, and Marvel needed him off balance again, where he might trip over his own ego, if not his own lies. ‘You know what else Anna Buck saw in this photo, Mr Latham?’

‘No.’

‘Edie Evans.’

Latham frowned. ‘Where?’

Marvel put a finger above the blurred image and Latham bent down until he was just inches from the picture. ‘How can you tell?’

‘I can tell,’ said Marvel. ‘Trust me.’

‘Really?’ said Latham. ‘I wouldn’t have recognized her.’

‘What did you tell Mrs Buck about Edie?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You didn’t discuss the case at all?’

‘No. Why would I?’

‘Interesting,’ said Marvel. ‘Because when Anna Buck looked at this photo she had a vision.’

‘Did she?’ said Latham. ‘Well. Good for her.’

‘Of a garden.’

Blink.

‘Just like you did.’

Blink.

‘And do you know what she said about the garden?’ Marvel waited for Latham to respond, but when he didn’t, he flipped open his notebook and read from the interview with Anna Buck. ‘She said,
There was just something a bit wrong with it. Like it wasn’t real
.’

He closed the notebook. ‘Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?’

Richard Latham looked down at the spoon stirring his coffee.
Click, click, click
. ‘A garden is a common spiritual motif, Mr Marvel.’

‘You remember what you said when you were shown Edie’s picture a year ago?’

‘Not really.’

‘I do,’ said Marvel. He didn’t bother opening the file. ‘You said,
She’s looking at a garden through a window, but there’s something
strange about it. As if it’s not real
.’

He looked steadily at Latham, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged and said, ‘Well.’

‘That’s some coincidence.’ said Marvel.

‘If you believe in coincidence,’ said Latham.

‘I don’t,’ said Marvel,

‘Nor me.’

‘Well then, Mr Latham, it can’t be a coincidence that Anna Buck comes to your church. It can’t be a coincidence that she has a private consultation with you about her missing son, when you were involved in the hunt for another missing child. And it can’t be a coincidence that a few weeks later she has the same so-called vision as you claim to have had a year earlier.’

‘I grant you, that
is
strange,’ said Latham.

‘I don’t think it’s strange at all,’ said Marvel. ‘I think it’s a logical progression with one important step left out. You told her about the Edie Evans case.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘You tell her, she tells us, we tell the family. And, somewhere along the line, somebody pays you for more of your useless information. Simple.’

‘But I didn’t tell her.’

Marvel gave a grim smile. ‘This is all in a day’s work to you, Latham. You squeeze suckers over lost dogs and dead relatives every week at your so-called church. But missing kids pay better than dogs, don’t they? You know
that
, if anybody does.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Marvel. I’m not in this for the money.’

‘Yeah, but it never hurts, does it?’ sneered Marvel. ‘Puts a few slates on the church roof, right?’

Latham shrugged. ‘It’s a big roof. And a small church. All donations are gratefully received.’

Marvel lowered his voice menacingly. ‘You took two grand off us and gave us nothing.’

Latham looked at him with amphibian eyes. ‘I did all anyone could for Edie Evans.’

Maybe,’ said Marvel. ‘Maybe not. Or maybe Anna Buck is just better at this psychic stuff than you are. I mean, if you
didn’t
tell her about Edie Evans … if she really
did
see something in this photo that even you can’t … Maybe
she’s
the real shut eye, Latham. Maybe you just weren’t up to the job.’

Latham’s lips tightened and Marvel knew he’d scored a direct hit on the man’s fat ego.

‘You forget something, Mr Marvel,’ said Latham. ‘First and foremost, it was
your
job to find Edie Evans.
Your
job. And you couldn’t do it.’

Marvel’s fist twitched. ‘
Excuse
me?’

Latham shrugged and went on. ‘I’m not
blaming
you. I’m sure you did your best, but I suppose you can’t win ’em all.’

‘You can’t win ’em all?’ said Marvel angrily. ‘That’s your answer?’

Latham shrugged, picked up his napkin and carefully wiped his buttery fingers. ‘Either way,’ he sighed, ‘it makes no difference in the end.’

Marvel wanted to smash his face in. ‘It made a big difference to Edie Evans!’ he shouted. People were looking at them now; Marvel didn’t care. ‘Your stupid fantasies about white wheels and broken glass. Wasting our time. Wasting
her
time.’

‘You’re wrong about wasting time,’ said Latham, who had somehow regained an infuriating air of calm. ‘To people like you, life’s a long line that starts
here
and ends
there
. But existence is a continuum of life and death, a grand circle, and a circle never ends. Life and death are one and the same, and time is irrelevant.’

Marvel snorted and Latham smiled. ‘You snort at Einstein, Mr Marvel. Did you know that his theory of general relativity postulates that the past and the future may exist simultaneously? So is it so unscientific to think that some of us can see that nexus, right here and now? And I do see it. Not all of it, and, believe me, I don’t always
want
to see it. But—’