Sarah had been engaged to Hugo at the tail end of her university career but their relationship just hadn't worked out, they weren't as suited as they had imagined. Maureen had met Hugo briefly when he came up to attend the graduation ball. He was a thick-lipped, overbred, rugby-shirted haw-haw. He didn't seem interested in Sarah, much less in love with her, and Maureen was glad she hadn't married him. Anyway, Sarah got her dream job at an auction house and was working hard and getting promotions and good work to do all the time. It was great and she had the house, so money wasn't a worry. You see, she knew everyone here, in this area, so she had a ready-made circle of friends locally. And the local people were so friendly. They went out all the time. Sarah's lies were so bright and cheerful that Maureen felt sorry for her. She was a nice woman, and Maureen wished something nice had happened to her, but the big house felt cold and Sarah seemed bereft and needy.
"Right," said Sarah, taking a drink of tea and leaving most of the lipstick she had just applied on the rim of the cup, "let's go. Where are you off to?"
Maureen said she was going to Brixton. Sarah frowned at the mention of the area. She said she wasn't headed that way but Maureen could get a train straight there from the station at the bottom of the hill and insisted she'd drive Maureen and drop her. The station was a quarter of a mile away. Maureen wondered why she had invited her to stay at all. She could just have said no. "Sarah," lied Maureen, "you're a pal."
Joe McEwan sat back in his chair and lit his fifth smoke of the morning. He was thinking about her again. The harder he tried to avoid it the more she came to mind. His mother had died a month and a half ago and he knew he was coping badly, losing his temper, working too much, giving into the fags again. Whenever he relaxed or took his mind off his work for any length of time there was Patsy, waiting for him, her hand, her voice, her eyes. He had been sitting at home, alone and maudlin, sorting through her papers, the night before when the call had come through about Hutton. It was exactly what he needed: a big investigation with city wide implications.
Hutton had been killed for dealing on his own. He was one of the new generation pushing their way up the ranks, one of the worst side effects of Operation No-Go. The success of the operation was a mixed blessing. It pushed prices and profits up, turned already vicious men into animals, and it meant more dead junkies in shopping-center toilets. As new dealers sprang up to replace the old ones they sold virtually pure heroin to their first few clients so that word would get around that they did good deals. An OD brought the punters to the dealer's door like an advertising campaign. But the old powers were still battling for control, and the nature of Hutton's injuries was meant as a warning to other aspiring entrepreneurs.
McEwan knew Hutton. He had seen him in court several years before when he had battered his neighbor. The sheriff had asked him why he was nicknamed "Bananas," and Hutton's sodden junkie eyes had darted around the room. "I like bananas," he said, and the public benches laughed. "I could eat them all day." He tried to bring his purported love of fruit into every answer thereafter, laboring the joke, playing up to the public, irritating the sheriff and drawing the court's attention to his confused mental state. It was as if he thought the public benches were deciding his fate.
A sudden knock at the door heralded DI Inness's first visit of the day. Inness had been getting the brunt of McEwan's recent moods. He knew it was wrong, he knew he shouldn't allow himself the luxury, but he found Inness deeply annoying. And the more he bullied him, the more Inness sucked up to him.
"Sir," he said, stepping into the office clutching a piece of paper. Inness always carried a bit of paper, as if his mum had given him permission to be in the police force. It was a standing joke at the station. When he was off duty and didn't have his bit of paper he always carried a plastic bag. "The DI and the DC from the Met are downstairs. D'you still want me to handle it?"
"Yeah, I'll sit in. Take them to conference room two, please," said McEwan, starting the day as he started every day, meaning not to pick on him.
Inness showed them in and DI Williams and DC Bunyan took their seats at the table without being invited. Williams was a pudgy man with a bald head and small gold glasses. Bunyan was a pretty little thing, petite and slim with short blond hair and a modest trace of pale lipstick. They were dressed in smart dark suits, he in trousers, she in a skirt that just reached her knees, and McEwan didn't altogether approve. If they had been from any other region he wouldn't have bothered attending but they were the Met and he wanted them to know whose patch they were on.
"First of all, thank you for your cooperation, sir," said Williams, and McEwan recognized the accent. "It's been very helpful."
"You from the south side?" asked McEwan.
"Aye," said Williams, and he smiled. "My da was a copper. Govan, 'sixty-two to 'seventy-nine."
"Why are you in the Met?"
"Form of rebellion," he said, and McEwan smiled at him. Regional forces resented the Met. They were considered arrogant and lax. Williams's dad would have hated it.
"Did you stay with your family last night?"
"No, they're all gone now. We stayed in a guesthouse in Battlefields."
"That's a bit out of the way."
" 'S familiar, though."
"Yeah." McEwan signaled to Inness to start the briefing.
Inness flipped through the notes in front of him. "There isn't much intelligence on the deceased," he said, "so I don't know how helpful we can be to you. The husband was interviewed when she was first reported missing and he claimed he hadn't seen her since November. Notes say he was a quiet man, very concerned for her safety. The area's not bad – poor but not bad."
"Who's in the frame at the moment?" asked McEwan.
A little startled by the intrusion, Williams sat up. "Well," he said, "the husband beat her up quite badly before, but we can't place him in London and we haven't had the chance to question him yet."
"Didn't you go there last night?"
"Yeah," interrupted Bunyan, "but we couldn't question him because he hadn't told his kids yet."
McEwan ignored the short-skirted woman and continued to look at Williams, answering him as if he were the one who had spoken. "He hadn't told them she was missing?"
"He hadn't told them she was dead," said Williams. He raised his eyebrows.
McEwan tipped his head to the side and sighed. "How many kids?" he asked.
"Four," said Williams.
McEwan shook his head at the notes. "They've always got kids," he said heavily. "All these nightmare couples have got kids."
"Yes, sir." Williams nodded. "Always got kids."
Williams was quietly spoken, deferential but firm, and McEwan thought he might like him if they worked together.
Inness turned the page on his notebook and started reading again. "They've got four kids, which you already know, and you know about the Place of Safety shelter, obviously."
"Yeah," said Bunyan, sitting forward and leaning her hands on the desk. "We're going there later."
Hugh McAskill knocked on the half-open door and looked in. "What is it?" said McEwan.
"They've got Hutton's girlfriend downstairs, sir."
"Well," said Williams, standing up, "I can see you've got a lot on so we'll leave ye to it."
"Right," said McEwan. "Well, let us know how you get on. If we can do anything, you know."
McAskill stood at the door, holding it open for the visiting officers, and followed them out to show them downstairs. Inness lingered in the doorway.