Phil had been with Moyra for three years before that Italy trip. He adored her and wanted to marry her, had wanted to after the very first date. Moyra had been the pampered only daughter of a wealthy builder and she had been just seventeen when she met Edward Myers. They had married six weeks later. Myers had just appeared one night, she told Phil, in a pub her crowd used to go to, and she had no memory of anyone even introducing them. Phil had had to coax the background of her marriage out of Moyra. She found it hard to discuss, harder still ever to come to terms with Myers’s leaving her. Her parents had been against the marriage but had bought them the house as a wedding present.
Phil looked around the kitchen he’d redecorated. In fact, he reckoned there wasn’t much left of the bastard, it was their home now, but while he could throw out all the objects, the furniture that had been part of Myers’s life with Moyra, what he had never been able to do was rid the house, or Moyra, of her memories. Phil had even made her put all the wedding photos in the trash, and she had agreed, but what he didn’t know was that she had retrieved them later, and hidden them. She couldn’t part with them, and even though she had married Phil, there was some part of her that had never let Eddie go, some part of her that always hoped he would come back. But that had ended after Italy.
After the Italy trip, after seeing the body, it was easier, she had no hope, and she had agreed to marry him. Phil made a pot of tea and fetched a tray, which he carried up the stairs. He stood outside the bedroom and listened. She was still crying, so he went back to the kitchen and drank the tea alone. He didn’t know what to do, how to comfort her, he knew it must be a terrible shock. It was to him. Christ, they weren’t even legally married. He shook his head, wishing he could have just ten minutes with the bastard. He’d like to squeeze the life out of Eddie Myers, thump the living daylights out of him, not just for himself, but for his Moyra.
Moyra never knew, would never know how tough it had been for him. It had taken so long for her to forget Eddie, so long for her to admit that she loved Phil, but even when she had said it, it wasn’t quite what he had wanted, or hoped it would be like. She was so beautiful, like a perfect china doll, and that bastard had broken her heart. Her parents had told him she’d had a nervous breakdown after he’d walked out, she’d refused to eat, would stay up all night waiting, sure he was coming home again.
“How can you still love him, Moyra, after what he did to you?”
She had given that sweet soft smile, turning away from Phil, and he had gone to her, put his arms around her tightly. “I love you, Moyra, you got to forget him, if you don’t we don’t stand a chance together.”
Moyra had turned in his arms, rested her head against his big wide chest, and it was as if he held a fragile bird, her whole body quivered and shook. “I will love you, Phil, I do love you, but don’t ask me about Eddie, don’t keep asking me, because every time I hear his name, something happens in my heart. It’s like somebody punches me all the time, and it hurts, no matter how long ago, you just say his name and... and I hurt inside... Oh, Phil, I loved him so very much, it was like he had some kind of magic.”
Phil had tried to make a joke of it, saying he was no competition for a magician, he was just an ordinary bloke, a plumber, and all he had was his love...
Moyra had reached up and touched his face. “I don’t want magic, just honesty, I want to care for you, and I want... I do love you, Phil.”
He had contented himself with that, it was enough, but it had taken the body in Italy to make her agree to marry him. They would get through this scene, get over that bastard coming back from the dead.
At the interrogation session that same morning — conducted with both men sitting cross-legged on the floor, Larry looking particularly crisp in a borrowed cotton shirt — Von Joel confirmed the details of three more robberies with which he’d had a slender connection, all of them committed over a fourteen-month period. He also mentioned an incident concerning a shotgun, bought by George Minton for use in a robbery, which turned out to have been used earlier to kill a security guard during a raid in Hounslow. Minton had thrown a fit when he found out the gun was hot, and eventually he threw it into the Thames at Tower Bridge. The story was important and as the lunch break drew close Larry went over it again. He was curious to know if the gun might still be recoverable from the water.
“You said in your first statement you can remember the exact spot...”
“That’s right.” Von Joel nodded. “I was with Minton when he chucked it, wrapped in a sack with a weight to keep it in the drink. It took only a second — he stopped the car, got to the parapet, flung it in.”
“Do you know who sold Minton the shooter?”
“I don’t know.” Von Joel rubbed his chin, thinking. “It was definitely the same gun that knocked off that security officer.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Maybe...” He looked at Larry. “Bingham. Yeah, it could have been him.”
It seemed to Larry a good time to stop. They withdrew to the kitchen, where Von Joel insisted that he make lunch for them both. He prepared rice dishes again, plus an elaborate salad and — the French mustard now being on hand — a spectacular dressing. The heart of the meal was monkfish with steamed fresh vegetables.
Larry confessed his misgivings. He had never eaten monkfish — in fact he had no clear idea what it was.
“Monkfish are any of about ten or twelve species of shark,” Von Joel told him. “They all form the one group with the Latin name Squatina. The one we’re having today, which tastes like very superior scampi, is a Mediterranean variety called Squatina squatina — angel shark.”
Larry tasted a piece. It was delicious.
“That’s something else I’ve found out I like,” he said.
Von Joel winked. “Wait till you taste my calamari.”
As they sat down to eat Larry asked if Von Joel’s wife had taught him to cook. The question appeared to amuse him, but apart from saying no, he had nothing further to offer on the subject. As before, he moved nimbly on to something else. He put two small capsules on the table in front of Larry. They were B vitamins, he explained.
“Take them tomorrow before warm-up. Keeps your blood in good condition. Food okay?”
DI Shrapnel put his head around the door.
“They picked up Minton,” he reported brightly. “Bastard was hidden in his cellar all the time. He said he was doing some home improvements!”
Larry watched Von Joel. For a moment he registered sadness, perhaps remorse; he recovered quickly and carried on eating.
A few minutes later, as they were finishing the meal, Von Joel said, “I hope McKinnes’s security’s tight. Minton’s got a lot of friends.”
“Scares you, does he?”
“It’s not me I’m worried about, Larry.” Von Joel chewed in silence for a moment. “You’ve got a wife and kids.”
Larry stared at him, his appetite dying.
Later that afternoon DCI McKinnes paused to watch a small procession of uniformed officers lead three handcuffed men along a corridor outside the incident room at St. John’s Row station. As he stood there DI Falcon appeared at his side. They waited until the prisoners passed, then walked together down the corridor.
“Did you get the message?” Falcon asked. From McKinnes’s expression it was obvious he hadn’t. “Eddie Myers’s ex-wife, she got a call, doesn’t know who it was from, but the caller asked if she knew where Eddie was. No name, like I say, but she freaked. So. Her husband contacted the local police, who contacted us. I went along to see her this morning. She was hysterical, howling her eyes out. I’m running a check on her husband, he looks a tough bugger...”