“Probably?”
“As I said, she wanted to wait here. I suggested the Inspector find a café in Charlotte Street and wait there instead.”
“Not fond of the Met, are you?”
Sophie’s scowl was fierce. “I’m old enough to remember them unarmed,” she said, “before the laws changed. So are you,” she added. “I used to love this city. Now it’s all fake threats and real guns.”
Beside them, Charlie and Neku had stopped to listen. Charlie was nodding, which Kit found interesting. The boy didn’t look like revolutionary politics came high on his list of interests.
“You okay to take this up?” Kit asked Neku, holding out his helmet. “There’s someone I need to see. It won’t take long.”
“Sure,” said Neku. “I’ll get supper on.”
“If he wants,” Kit said, “Charlie can stay to eat.” The boy seemed pleased, although Neku looked entirely noncommittal.
“I suppose you know what you’re doing,” said Sophie, when Charlie and Neku had disappeared in a clatter of feet on the stairs. “She’s cute. And I know she beds down on the roof terrace…I sleep with my window open,” she added, seeing Kit’s face. “I hear the kid stamping around in the night. All the same, she’s in love with you.”
“No,” said Kit. “She likes Charlie.”
Sophie shook her head. “Charlie likes Neku. Neku likes you.”
“She’s a child.”
“No,” said Sophie. “She’s not. Look at her…She’s cooking, cleaning, wearing neat clothes. She’s digging in for the long haul.”
Kit gave a sigh.
“Someone has to say it,” said Sophie. “And whatever you’re really doing in London, it doesn’t feel like something that should involve a kid.”
A kid who’s killed. One who gets an ex-gangster eating out of her hands in the time it takes to make cheese sandwiches, badly. Instead of saying it, Kit just nodded, because all of the above still didn’t make Sophie’s words untrue.
The ground floor to the café on Charlotte Street had three customers, all at a metal table outside. The counter itself was deserted, and the only member of staff Kit could see leaned against a stool, skimming that morning’s Metro.
The floor above was almost as empty. A Chinese student made notes from a biology textbook at a round table at the top of the stairs. And, in the far corner, looking sullen in a black skirt, white shirt, and plain jacket, was a woman in her mid thirties, already climbing to her feet.
“Inspector Avenden?”
Nodding, the woman offered her hand, then let it drop. Maybe it was the way Kit’s voice turned her name into a question. Or maybe it was the fact he refused to shake. Either way, her eyes went flat.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“No,” said Kit, shaking his head.
Honesty, it seemed, was the best policy. At least where Inspector Avenden was concerned, because her wide face regained a fraction of its smile. “Oh well,” she said, a Welsh lilt to her voice. “You always were more interested in Mary O’Mally.”
He got it then.
A kiss that tasted of cheap cigarettes, a footpath fumble and a promise—still unfulfilled—to go clubbing when she got back from somewhere or other. Amy Avenden had hightailed it out of Middle Morton almost as fast as he had.
“Would you like…?”
“Let me get…”
Her laughter might be self mocking as their questions clashed, but her face was more relaxed than when Kit first appeared at the top of the stairs. He got the feeling this meeting was not entirely willing on her part. Which begged the question as to why it was happening at all.
“I’ll go,” said Kit, and she let him.
When Kit returned Amy had put a small notebook on the table and placed a pen neatly beside it. There was something formal about the arrangement.
“Is this official?” Kit asked, putting down the lattes.
“If it was,” said Amy, “that would be a voice recorder. Call it semi official…” She sat back and stared towards the ceiling, collecting her thoughts; collecting something anyway, because when she leaned forward it was to tell Kit his name had been cross linked on the computer.
“Which means what?”
“You sent an e-mail to Japan that put you on one list…a call you took from Kathryn O’Mally put you on another. When you came up a third time during a licence plate check with the DVLA, the machine flagged you as someone to watch.”
“E-mail?”
“Sent from your flat to an e-mail address in Tokyo. The bozozoku have connections with motorcycle gangs in America, Scandinavia, Russia, and Australia. When Scotland Yard checked with Tokyo’s Organised Crime Section they discovered the address belonged to the girlfriend of a foreign resident. Enquiries to Australia showed Tommy Nadif had a criminal record, involving drugs…”
“Got it all sewn up, haven’t you?” said Kit.
“You don’t approve?”
“Not really…” Kit shook his head. “Although it’s obviously good to see you again.”
Amy’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Always the charmer,” she said, her voice making it clear she meant exactly the opposite. She tapped a cigarette from a packet and fired up before Kit had time to offer.
“Can I ask you something?” said Kit.
“You can ask.”
“Is the fact you’re here and we know each other a coincidence?”
Amy had the grace to look embarrassed. “No,” she admitted, blowing smoke towards the ceiling. “I got a call…”
“So you were sent because you knew me?”
“Wrong again,” said Amy. “I was sent because I knew Mary. My boss called the Canterville Gallery to see if anyone had been asking about Mary or Ben Flyte. Your name came up. That was the fourth time you got tagged and every tag shifts you up a level. We’re used to looking for subtle connections and delicate webs of coincidence. Few people hit code red quite as fast as you did.”
Great, thought Kit, the words frying pan and fire coming to mind.
“I need to ask why you’re in London,” said Amy. “And what makes you think Mary O’Mally might still be alive?”
“I don’t,” said Kit. “But her mother does. Unless it’s her father…I’m meant to help them find her.”
Amy sighed. “What do you know about Benjamin Flyte?”
“The cokehead?”
“Her boyfriend,” said Amy. “The one who mysteriously vanished around the same time. Had the two of you ever met?”
“Of course not,” said Kit. “I was in Japan. You think Mary’s disappearance has to do with Ben?”
“No,” said Amy. “We think it’s much more likely Ben Flyte’s disappearance has to do with Kate O’Mally. He wasn’t a nice man,” she added. “And we’ve got a record of the police being called to more than one disturbance. Mary refused to press charges.”
The Chinese student near the stairs made her final note and snapped shut her biology book, leaving in a tiny bubble of concentrated thought that prevented her from even noticing there were other people in the room. A girl in a black tunic arrived to clean up, carrying a broom and a washing-up bowl in which to collect the dirty plates and empty cups that still littered most tables. She seemed fairly surprised to see Kit and Amy. “We’re closing.”
Amy nodded. “I’ll just finish my coffee,” she said. “Then we’ll be gone.” She said this with such casual authority that the girl was nodding before Amy had even finished speaking. “In fact,” said Amy, “you might want to clean up downstairs first…”
Kit watched the girl disappear, still carrying her bowl and broom.
“Unregistered, probably an illegal,” said Amy, with a sigh. “Anyone who sounds as if they can cause trouble gets obeyed.” She shook her head, the first sign Kit had seen that Amy didn’t think everything was great in the world of policing.