'Too long?'
'Not so fucking long I'm losing my fucking brain. What? You think I'd let that creep Summers cut some kind of a deal in his favour? Let him run rings round me? I was out there doing this stuff when he was still crapping his fucking nappies, for fuck's sake. You know that? Promise him stuff, of course I promise him stuff. Promise him whatever he fucking wants. Ten per cent of cash? Okay, finder's fee. Half the drugs to go back out on the street? Why not? It's all baloney, Charlie, you know that. Use your common sense. Use your brain. It's not real, it's never gonna happen. Summers, he's gonna get fuck all. It's just what I need to say to bring him along, make sure he plays ball.'
'Like in Forest Fields, just over a week ago.'
'What?'
'Crack, heroin, nine thousand in cash. Another tip-off from Summers, I believe.'
Bland angled back his head and laughed. 'There was never nine grand, nothing near. A few hundred, as I remember. Enough crack to keep you and me and a couple of others happy for the rest of the day. Whoever told you anything else's a fucking liar.'
'You didn't give Summers some of the proceeds of that raid?'
Just for a moment, Bland hesitated. Front foot or back?
'A few grams of H, that's all. Keep him sweet.'
'You knew he'd sell it back on the street?'
Bland shrugged.
'What if I told you instead of selling it, he handed it over to the police?'
'I'd say someone was lying or Summers has lost his fucking mind.'
'And the rest of the proceeds from that raid, Ricky, the rest of the drugs, the cash, they're where? Logged somewhere? Evidence? Search and seizure?'
'They're safe, that's all you need to know.'
'Safe? Safe where?'
Bland leaned back and tugged his tie even looser at his neck; the front of his shirt was dark with sweat. 'Hot in here, Charlie. How about a fucking drink?'
The pub was at the bottom of Hornsey Rise, set well back from the pavement, a board promising hurling and Gaelic football on large-screen TV. Its wood-and-glass fascia had seen better days. A ratty nondescript dog, tied to one of several outside tables, barked at Furness and Denison as they approached the door and nipped hopefully at their ankles.
The interior was dark and smelt of disinfectant and stale beer.
At a round table close to the window, an elderly black man with white hair was playing patience with a dog-eared pack of cards. A woman of similar age and classic dimensions, the kind Furness thought only still existed in old seaside postcards, was sitting on a patched mock-leather seat near the fire, nursing a small drink in a tall glass.
It was the kind of pub, Furness thought, people meant when they said, admiringly, it's a real old-fashioned local, not been tarted up like the rest. Said that and then headed off for the bright lights and shiny wood of a Pitcher and Piano, an All Bar One.
The barman had his shirtsleeves rolled back and tattoos snaking up both arms, a silver ring piercing the corner of his left eyebrow and a stud through the centre of his lower lip.
'Get you?' he said, affably enough, glancing up from a well-thumbed copy of Love in the Time of Cholera.
Furness nodded at Paul Denison and Denison took out the single sheet, showing Kennet full-face and profile.
'Don't suppose you've seen him?'
The barman barely gave it a second glance. 'Not for a good while now. Other side of Christmas, certainly.'
'You know him then?'
'Used to come in here quite a bit. After work, like, you know. Pint of Guinness, maybe two, and then he'd be on his way. Lived around here, that'd be my guess.'
'The other side of Christmas, you said. You couldn't be more specific?'
The barman folded down a corner of his book and let it fall closed. 'Time and date, you mean? I don't think so. Early December, maybe? No, wait, wait, it was November, the end of the month. I know because…' He looked past them, towards the man playing cards. 'Ernest, your seventieth, when was that exactly?'
Ernest placed a black ten on a red jack. 'Tuesday, the twenty-fifth day of November, 2003.'
'We had a bit of a party for Ernest, got some food in, dug out the Christmas decorations early. Picture of Ernest in his prime here over the bar. Full uniform – what was it, Ernest?'
'Second Royal Fusiliers.' Red queen on black king.
'What's all this got to do with Kennet?' Furness said.
'Who?'
'Kennet.' Tapping the picture. 'Him.'
'Oh, right. He came in, didn't he? Next day. Later than usual. Eight thirty, nine? Asked me about the photograph, I remember that. Still up, you see. Started to pour him his Guinness, but no, whisky he said. Doubles, two of them. Standing there, where you are now. Quite chatty he was, more than usual. Bit hyper I thought. Just back from Spain, he said, holiday.'
'He didn't say anything about meeting someone? Later?'
'Not to me, no. Not as I recall.'
'How about where he was going? After this, I mean.'
The barman shrugged. 'Home, I suppose.'
'Thanks for your help,' Furness said.
'Drink before you go? On the house.'
Furness gave Denison a glance. 'Yes, why not? Small Scotch, maybe.'
'Lee,' Denison said.
'What?'
'Better not.'
Furness shook his head and stood away from the bar. 'Another time,' he said.
'Suit yourself,' said the barman and opened his book.
'Blessed are the pure at heart,' Furness said, as he followed Denison through the door. 'Blessed and thirsty, too.'
'What the flying fuck,' Mallory said, 'is going on?'
'Not here,' Repton said.
'Not here? Not fucking here? Farmer fucking Framlingham and that deadbeat Elder come waltzing in without so much as a by-your-leave, and next thing you're going off with them in Framlingham's fucking four-by-four. Nice little drive, Maurice? Giving the motor a spin? Got the picnic basket out later? Spot of lunch? Hamper in the fucking trunk?'
'Not here,' Repton said again.
Mallory's face was puce, fingernails digging deep into his palms.
'Then you'd better say where, Maurice, and soon.'
Karen's call tracked Elder down at his flat, late afternoon.
'We've placed Kennet near the scene of the murder, the day after he came back from Spain. Had a drink in a pub on Hornsey Rise, close to the time. Right between his flat and the place Maddy was killed. He could have walked from there to the community centre in five minutes, ten tops.'
'Good work,' Elder said. 'I mean it. Really good work.' And then excused himself to go across to the entryphone. There was a parcel downstairs waiting for collection.
50
By the time he had arrived downstairs, whoever had delivered the package was nowhere in sight. A padded envelope the size of a hardback book, with his name printed on the front. Elder shook it, prodded it, carried it back upstairs. Inside the envelope the contents were swathed in bubble wrap, a video tape with a title handwritten on the edge. Singin' in the Rain. Just that and a date.
Who, Elder wondered, was sending him home-taped movies and why?
Not certain when he'd last eaten, Elder thought he'd do it right; phoned out for a pizza and some garlic bread and, when they arrived, opened a bottle of Becks from the fridge.
A mouthful of pizza, and he slotted the tape into place; pressed 'play' and leaned back. For a copy, the picture quality wasn't too bad. Fine, in fact, until the scene, maybe a quarter of the way through, when Debbie Reynolds, in her pink cap and little pleated skirt, pops up out of the cake. Then abruptly the image twisted, caught and jarred, and changed to black and white. An interior, blurred and poorly lit. Some kind of party scene. Men in dinner jackets, black tie; others with jackets discarded, white shirts, braces. Women in low-cut dresses. Champagne. And, as if on cue, a face Elder knew. Like watching a veteran actress in her heyday, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, wearing a pale dress that reached to the floor, Lynette Drury crossed the room and, for one moment, looked directly at the camera, as if she were the only person present who knew that it was there.