Ash & Bone

It was a peerless winter's day. Elder had considered driving, but in the end had opted for the train. Not so much over an hour and a half, an hour and forty minutes, and he was in the centre of the city, walking past the canal and then the bus station, one edge of the Broad Marsh Centre taking him on to Lister Gate, Castle Gate and Maid Marian Way. The Castle sat on rock, not a child's idea of a castle with turrets and narrow windows and now-crumbling arches, the castle of Robin Hood and King John, sword fights and bows and arrows, but something more recent, more four-square and municipal.

The grounds were as neat and cared for as Elder remembered, the earth in the flower-beds newly turned, the wood of the bandstand looking as if it might have been given a fresh lick of paint, or maybe that was just the untrammelled winter sun, pale but warm enough to lift the chill.

Katherine was standing by the lower wall, leaning against the parapet, staring out. She turned her head as Elder approached, what looked like a man's fleece zipped up almost to the neck, trainers, baggy jeans.

Elder hesitated, bent to kiss her cheek and, as she turned her head aside, kissed the ragged crop of her hair instead.

'Not a bad morning,' he said, needing something to say. 'Nice coming up on the train. Bright, you know. Quick too. No sooner've you glanced at the paper, had a cup of that dreadful tea, than you're here.'

He was babbling.

There were the same dark patches around her eyes that he'd noticed before. The oversized fleece made her look undernourished and small. Unwell. Not so much more than a year ago she'd been running for her county, she'd been… He stopped himself, stopped the thought.

'Last night,' he said. 'You sounded worried.'

'Yeah, well… Let's walk. Can we just walk?'

They set off slowly along the path that would wind them, eventually, up to the Castle itself.

'You've got to promise me,' Katherine eventually began.

'Promise what?'

'You've just got to promise, that's all.'

'What?'

'That you won't snap your rag, get angry. Just let me… let me finish, okay?'

'All right.'

It was a while more before she began again. 'When you came up before, the heroin, it was Rob's, you were right. Well, not his exactly, he was holding it for someone. No, wait, wait. Remember what you said. Calm down, okay? Chill.' Katherine stopped, head down, arms hanging loose by her sides. 'I knew this was a bad idea.'

'No, it's fine,' Elder said. 'Go on, go on.'

They set off again, walking slowly.

'It was my fault, really stupid, if I'd kept my mouth shut we'd have got away with it, nothing would have happened. But once we were at the station and that bastard from the drug squad got involved…'

'Bland?'

'Yes. Him. He'd been on Rob's case for ages, picking him up for this and that, you know, threatening him. How they were going to find him with this huge stash in his possession, get him sent down for a long time. Never actually doing anything – I mean, he could have arrested him plenty of times for little things, but all he ever did was keep on needling him.'

Katherine stopped on the curve of the bend, looking back down towards the gate and over the town.

'Then, after last time, when you came round, he was there a few days later, half-six in the morning, him and some pal of his…'

'Eaglin?' Elder interrupted, recalling that Maureen had mentioned his name.

'I don't know. They didn't stop for much in the way of formal introductions. Turned the place upside down. Rob, he tried to stop them and they punched him, knocked him down and kicked him.'

'They had a warrant?'

'So they said.'

'You didn't see it?'

'I didn't see anything. Just crashing and shouting from upstairs while I was trying to see to Rob. He was bleeding from a gash to the head.'

'And this was when?'

'Two days ago. Monday.'

'What happened then?'

'They came back down, grins all over their rotten faces, waving this bag of crack cocaine. Got you, you bastard. Talk your way out of this one. Claimed they'd found it under the boards in the bedroom.'

'Is that where he kept it?'

'They'd planted it. It wasn't his.'

'Like the heroin in the car wasn't his.'

'No.'

'No? It's no use covering up for him, Kate…'

'I'm not. Not this time. Not about this. I mean…' Angling her head up towards the sky, down towards the ground, avoiding his eyes. 'I mean, that was where he kept stuff, yes, all right, sometimes, but not crack, he didn't deal crack, not ever, hardly ever, and honestly it wasn't his. It wasn't.'

There were tears running down into the hollows of her cheeks. While Elder fumbled in his pockets for a clean tissue, Katherine wiped her face with her sleeve.

'What happened after they arrested him?' Elder said.

'That's it, they didn't.'

'Why not?'

'Because they wanted him to make a deal.'

'What kind of deal?

'They wanted him to give them information.'

'About what?'

'What do you think?'

'Who was supplying him. Other dealers, maybe. I don't know.'

Katherine had started walking again. 'Suppliers, yes. If there was a safe house they used. That was what they seemed to want more than anything.'

'And he told them?'

'There wasn't a lot else he could do.'

They were at the high wall which overlooked Castle Boulevard, the canal and the Meadows. A small flock of birds, six or seven, too white almost to be pigeons, took off from the rock face and scattered out in a random curve before alighting on the roof of the Brewhouse Museum below.

'Rob gave them the address of this flat in Forest Fields, he didn't think they were still using it, it was all he could think of to do. Turns out they were. Bland and his mate went round just as it was getting dark. What we heard they got close on nine thousand in cash and God knows how much crack. H too. If they ever find out it was Rob gave them away, they'll kill him.'

'Where is he now?'

'In hiding.'

'As well as the money and drugs, Bland and Eaglin, did they make any arrests?'

'Not as far as I know.'

For a moment she let him hold her hand.

'Where are you staying?' he asked.

'At Rob's, why?'

'Go home. Go home to your mum's.'

'No.'

'Do it, Kate.'

'But if he wants to get in touch with me…'

'He'd be stupid coming there. He can ring you on your mobile, surely?'

'I suppose.'

'Is there anything you need to collect?'

'No, not really.'

'Then go now, I'll walk along with you.'

'And then what?' Her face thin and pleading. 'Is there anything you can do?'

'I don't know. I can try. What I can't do is promise. Okay? You understand?'

She nodded, sniffing, hands in pockets, so forlorn she was a child again, agonising over a broken toy, a favourite doll lost, her friends had refused to play with her at break time, or she had lost a glove, grazed her knee. He'd never come to terms with loving her as much as he did: never would.

'Come on,' he said. 'Let's go if we're going.'

38

The sun persisted behind a thin skim of cloud, but close to the Trent the air bit sharp into unprotected skin. Maureen wore scarf and gloves, her anorak zipped and buttoned. She had met Elder on the south side of the bridge, near County Hall, and they had set out along the river towards Wilford, the City Ground at their backs.

A few runners and the occasional dog-walker aside, they had the path pretty much to themselves.

'You believe her?' Maureen said.

'I believe her, yes.'

'Not Summers?'

'Without speaking to him face to face, it's difficult to know. He was obviously lying to me before.'