Jake found Mr Grubb in his office with Detective Inspector Stanley seated on the corner of his desk. She disliked him almost instinctively. He was large and fat, but despite his expensive suit, his gold watch and his cigar, you could still see the grubby little schoolboy underneath the man. He was well-named.
‘You the Chief Inspector?’ snarled Grubb.
Jake kept the hand with the knuckles hidden for the time being.
‘That’s right,’ she said breezily.
‘Then tell your bit of prick to get off my back. It’s no good him threatenin’ me with fire and safety officers. I didn’t see nuthin’, all right?’
Jake looked at Stanley. ‘Leave us alone for a minute,’ she told him.
Stanley nodded uncertainly, and then stepped out of the room.
‘I’m sorry, but what did you say you saw?’
Grubb grimaced at her. ‘What are you? Deaf or something? I said, I didn’t see nuthin’.’ He laughed at her and set about re-lighting his cigar.
‘If you did not see nothing,’ Jake said, ‘that means that you did see something.’
‘Eh? What you talkin’ about?’
‘Don’t you see? The two negatives cancel each other out. You know I’m glad you’re going to help us because if you had said that you didn’t see anything, I’d be worried that something might happen to you.’
‘You threatenin’ me, darlin’?’ He spoke without even looking at her, as if in contempt of her.
‘Yes,’ said Jake flatly.
‘I’ve done nuthin’. You can’t scare me, luv.’
‘No? I bet I could scare you, Mr Grubb. I bet I could have you begging for mercy.’
Grubb smiled. ‘There’s only one way that a girl like you could have me beggin’ for mercy,’ he said suggestively.
‘Oh? And what’s that?’
He laughed. ‘Use your imagination, sweetheart.’ Then he shook his head and, getting up from his desk, advanced towards Jake. ‘You know, I do believe you’re tryin’ to get hard with me: is that right?’ There was quiet menace in his voice.
Jake held her ground and nodded.
Grubb pushed his fat schoolboy’s face closer to Jake’s until she could smell the tobacco on his breath.
‘Don’t make me laugh. You don’t—’
Jake thumbed the bezel on the grip of the knuckles and brought her fist up through a short arc. The knuckles emitted a low electronic hum as they accelerated through the air, but this was abruptly lost in Grubb’s howl of pain and surprise as, with a small blue spark, her fist connected with his stomach. He doubled over, almost collapsing on top of her, but still finding himself able to flail at her with one fist. Jake neatly sidestepped the clumsy blow, and pulling the punch just a fraction, she caught Grubb on the side of the jaw. He collapsed onto the ground.
Jake stood over him, and grabbing him by the tie, she pulled his head clear of the floor and then let it drop a couple of times.
‘How’s your memory now?’ she asked. ‘Anything yet?’
‘All right, all right,’ Grubb moaned, rubbing his jaw. ‘I did see him. No need to get violent.’
‘Good,’ said Jake. ‘I’m glad you’ve decided to cooperate.’ She twisted his tie tighter. ‘I don’t much like your business and I don’t much like the crumbs like you who run it. It’s lucky for you that I’m busy today, otherwise I’d ask some of the girls who work here about you. And if I found that you were the type who slaps them around, well that would really make me angry. Let’s hope for your sake that I never have to come back here, eh?’
Jake yelled out for Stanley. He returned to the room and smiled when he saw Grubb lying on the floor at Jake’s feet.
‘Take this man down to the Yard, Stanley,’ she said. ‘Seems like he’s remembered something after all. And the girl too.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Stanley helped a stunned-looking Grubb off the floor. ‘What’s the matter with you, then? Fall over, did you, sir? Come on, up you get.’ Stanley nodded almost appreciatively at Jake and then led Grubb out of the office to the car.
Jake switched off the knuckles and dropped them back into her bag. Her high police rank sometimes left her on the slippery ice of intellectual detective work, constructing elaborate aetiological theories, with little or no friction underfoot. She enjoyed the almost academic conditions of her work. But it felt good to be back on rough ground again.
It was dark by the time Jake parked her BMW in the small car-park surrounding her apartment building. Before she got out of the door she put her head through the strap of her bag and adjusted it across her chest. Then she unzipped the bag and put her left hand inside, so that she had hold of the Beretta’s neoprene grip even before she had pulled the door-handle. Now that he had her address she was more careful about her security. Was it possible that she might have even met Wittgenstein in her own building?
With this one thought in her mind Jake crossed the car-park and gained the front door without incident. The doorman glanced up from his evening paper. There was lipstick on his cheek.
‘Evening, miss,’ he said.
Jake released the big gun and zipped her bag.
‘Good evening, Phil,’ she said. Now she saw the headline on the paper. Another man found murdered.
‘This serial killer, miss: what makes someone do it?’ said Phil. ‘The wife says he must be gay or something, but none of these men who’ve been killed have been touched, right?’
Jake pressed the lift button and shook her head. ‘None of them,’ she said. ‘That’s right.’
‘Myself, I reckon it’s a woman who’s got it in for men. Someone raped her when she was a kid maybe. You know the sort of thing.’
Jake said she did.
‘I don’t mind telling you, miss, I’m careful about how I go home now. I used to walk along the river, when the tide was out. But not now. No fear.’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much, if I were you,’ said Jake.
At the same time she told herself she had no way of knowing if Phil might be a potential victim or not. All sorts of people were VMN-negative. Chung had told her that there was even someone in the Home Office who was rumoured to be VMN-NEGATIVE. So why not her own doorman?
‘Still it’s wise to take a few precautions,’ she added.
The lift arrived, but Jake remained where she was.
‘Phil, you know that if you’re a copper there are always a few weirdos who might want to get even with you.’
‘I can imagine, miss.’
‘If ever you saw someone hanging around here, someone strange, you would tell me, wouldn’t you? I mean you needn’t worry about scaring me or anything. I should want to know.’
‘’Course I would, miss.’
‘There hasn’t been anyone hanging around, has there, Phil?’
‘No, miss. Not that I’ve noticed.’
Jake smiled at him. ‘Goodnight, Phil.’
‘Goodnight, miss.’
Alone in her flat Jake made herself a cup of coffee and curled up in her favourite armchair to read. Normally she would have been reading a thriller, but for the past week she had been occupied with Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein, in which the great philosopher had set out to correct the mistakes of his first book, the Tractatus.
In the book, Wittgenstein investigated the concepts of meaning; of understanding; of propositions; of logic; and of states of consciousness. It was a more difficult read and Jake found that she had to make a few notes in order to maintain her concentration; however, she considered that there was more in it for the detective than was to be found in the Tractatus. She wondered if she might not have some of the things she had noted down printed up, as slogans for the wall of her office in New Scotland Yard.