The phone went at a quarter to seven, Kiley not quite awake, wondering if he should turn over again or push back the covers and face another day.
Jennie’s voice was angry, frightened. ‘It’s the police. They’re arresting me. They…’
Abruptly, the line went dead.
Kiley ran the bathroom tap, splashed water on his face, cleaned his teeth and dressed.
They’d taken her to the police station on Hornsey Road, the officer on the desk fending off enquiries like Atherton on the fourth day of the Test. A Jennie Calder had been taken into custody and was currently being interviewed, that was all he would confirm. ‘What are the charges?’ Kiley demanded. The officer’s eyes switched focus. ‘Next,’ he called into the small crowd at Kiley’s back.
Margaret Hamblin’s offices were in Kentish Town. Hamblin, Laker and Clarke. When Kiley had been building up his overtime in CID, Margaret had been a lowly solicitor’s clerk, forever in this police station or that, picking up cases nobody else wanted, learning on the hoof. Now, even if Kiley had still been in the force, overtime was pretty much a thing of the past and Margaret was a senior partner with a taste for good wines and stylish clothes. This morning she was wearing a cord drawstring jacket and chevron skirt from Ghost. She listened to Kiley intently then reached for the phone. Ten minutes later, a car was taking them back to Hornsey Road, Margaret sensibly lyrical about her recent holiday in northern Spain.
This time Kiley got past the enquiry desk but not a great deal further. He was kicking his heels outside the custody suite, trying not to notice the smell of disinfectant, when two officers, one in uniform, one plain clothes, pushed their way through the double doors. Neither looked to be in the best of humour. The CID man had changed his shirt from the previous night in the Royal Arms, but the suit and tie were the same. If he recognised Kiley, he gave no sign.
An hour later, no more, they were sitting, the four of them — Kiley, Margaret Hamblin, Jennie and Alice — in Margaret’s office. An assistant had brought in coffee, Danish and bottled water. Jennie’s face was strained and pale without make-up; Alice, released from the tender mercies of a broody WPC, clung to her mother’s neck, whimpering softly.
Margaret sipped at her espresso and set it aside. ‘Jennie’s charged with keeping a brothel.’
‘She’s what?’ Kiley exclaimed.
Jennie looked away.
‘I persuaded them to release her on police bail, but it seems they’re considering instituting care proceedings…’
They can’t!’ Jennie pressed her face down against her daughter’s head and held her tight.
‘On what grounds?’ Kiley asked.
Margaret leaned back in her chair. ‘That Alice is exposed to moral danger where she is.’
‘Surely that’s a nonsense?’
‘Not if the brothel charge can be made to stick.’
‘How can it?’ Kiley asked.
Margaret looked across at Jennie and Kiley did the same. It was a while before she spoke, her voice shaky and quiet.
‘This friend of mine, Della — we were at school together — she’s been seeing this bloke, married of course. Della, she’s living with her mum, got two kids of her own. Car parks and hotels aside, they didn’t have anywhere to go. So I’ve been letting them use my place, afternoons. Just, maybe, once or twice a week.’
‘And you and Alice,’ Margaret asked, ‘while they were in the bedroom, whatever, you’d both be in the flat?’
Jennie shook her head. ‘Not as a rule. I’d take Alice up the park, swings and slides. You know, a walk.’
‘And if it rained?’
Jennie hung her head; all too clearly, she could see where this was going. ‘If it was really bad, yes, we stayed in.’
Margaret looked across at Kiley, one eyebrow raised.
‘This was an affair, right?’ Kiley said. ‘Two people having an affair. There’s no suggestion of any money changing hands.’
‘Is that true, Jennie?’ Margaret asked.
Jennie paused. ‘Sometimes he’d give me a fiver on the way out. A tenner. So I could get something for Alice. Just as a way of saying thanks.’
‘And your friend, Della? Did he give her money, too?’
‘I don’t know. He might have. Sometimes. I don’t know.’
‘They’re friends,’ Kiley said. ‘They’re never going to testify.’
‘It depends what kinds of pressure are put on them,’ Margaret said. ‘And besides, payment’s not the crucial thing, not according to the law. A brothel is a house, room or other place, used for the purposes of illicit sexual intercourse and/or acts of lewdness.’
‘It’s still not enough, is it?’ Kiley said. ‘Even if they make up stuff about men traipsing up and down the stairs at all hours, it’s not enough.’
Tears began to fall, unbidden, down Jennie’s face.
‘What?’ Kiley asked.
‘Six, seven years ago, I was done for soliciting. King’s Cross.’
‘It went to court?’ Margaret asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And you were fined?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many times?’ Margaret asked. ‘Was it just the once?’
Jennie shook her head.
Kiley reached for his coffee and set it back down.
‘Is there anything else?’ Margaret asked.
An ambulance went shrilly by outside.
‘Della and I, we used to work at a massage parlour. Over Stroud Green. Where I met him, wasn’t it? Marshall.’ She laughed a short, disparaging laugh. ‘Girl like you, you shouldn’t be working in a place like this — I think he’d heard it somewhere, some trashy film on TV.’
‘While you were there,’ Margaret asked, ‘the massage parlour, was it raided by the police?’
‘You’re kidding, right? Only regular as clockwork.’
‘And were you ever charged with any offence?’
‘No, no. Took our names, that was it. Too concerned with getting their freebies, half of ’em, to do much else.’
Margaret called up a car to take Jennie and Alice home and she and Kiley carried on their conversation over lunch at Pane Vino.
‘What do you think?’ Kiley asked. ‘Is any of this really going to stand up?’
‘The brothel charge, no. I can’t see it getting past first post. But the other, getting the little girl taken into care, if they were to really push it, get social services on board, I’m not so sure.’
Kiley forked up a little more chicken and spinach risotto. ‘Let’s take a step backwards, remind ourselves what’s at the root of this.’
‘Okay.’
‘Dave Marshall is angry. He doesn’t like having his name plastered over half the billboards in North London.’
‘Who would?’ Margaret reached across for the bottle of wine.
‘That aside, there’s going to be all manner of stuff between himself and Jennie, unresolved. I think he’s just striking out in any way he can.’
‘To what end?’
‘To see her hurt; have her climb down, leave him alone.’
‘You don’t think it’s a way of getting eventual custody of the child?’
Kiley shook his head. I think that’s the last thing on his mind.’
Margaret drank some wine. ‘So what do we do? Prepare a defence for Jennie in the remote possibility things get to court? File a report with the Child Support Agency, suggesting they re-examine Marshall’s financial position?’
‘The arresting officer,’ Kiley said, ‘that was him leaving the custody suite just before you this morning? Around forty, suit, bright blue tie?’
‘DS Sandon, yes, why?’
‘I saw him having a drink with Marshall last night; Marshall and the guy who trashed Jennie’s flat.’
‘No law against that.’
‘But more than a coincidence.’
‘Probably. But unless you had your Polaroid camera in your back pocket…’
‘I might be able to do better than that.’
‘How so?’
‘Marshall isn’t the only one with friends inside the Met.’
Seeing his expression, Margaret smiled.
At two thirty the following afternoon, they were both sitting in the fifth-floor office of Paul Bridge, Deputy Assistant Commissioner (CID). Margaret, feeling that Ghost might be deemed frivolous, had opted for a Donna Karan suit; Kiley had ironed his shirt.