A white sports car honked as he crossed a sidestreet against a red light. He flicked the driver the V sign, then caught his foot on the curb and stumbled, bumping into an elderly man walking his dog in the rain. The man gave him a dirty look, adjusted his spectacles and walked on.
He turned left where the couple had told him to and found himself the only pedestrian in quiet backstreets. The houses were all about three stories high, divided into flats, with a buzzer and intercom by the front door. It wouldn’t be easy.
Many rooms were lit, some without curtains, and as he walked he looked in the windows and saw fragments of blue wall, the top corner of a bookshelf, a framed Dali print, an ornate chandelier, flickering television pictures, two people talking, a cat sitting on the window-sill watching the rain-a panorama of life.
The walk had taken some of the steam out of Owen, but he still wanted to see Michelle face to face, if only to watch her squirm as he accused her of her crimes.
He climbed the steps and looked at the list by the door. M.E. Chappel, Flat 4. Would that be on the first or second floor? He didn’t know. He crossed the street and looked up. Both second-floor windows were in darkness, as were those on the ground floor. On the first floor, bluish light filtered through the curtains of one, and the other was open to reveal a William Morris wallpaper design. That wasn’t Michelle at all. The blue room was more like her.
He stood in the shadows wondering what to do. Rain drummed down, an oily sheen on the street. He didn’t feel as brave now as he had on leaving the pub. The booze had worn off, and he had a headache. He needed another drink, but it was close to eleven; the pubs would be closing. Besides, Michelle would probably be going to bed soon. Now he was here, he couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
A man and a woman huddled together under an umbrella approached the house, turned up the path and climbed the steps. The way they walked, Owen guessed they were a little tipsy. Probably unemployed and didn’t have to go to work in the morning. He shrank back into the shadows. The man said something, and the woman laughed. She shook out her umbrella over the steps. It wasn’t Michelle.
When she turned back to the door, Owen hurried across the street behind them. It was a hell of a long shot, but it might just work. They had their backs turned, the street wasn’t well lit, and they couldn’t hear him because of the rain and the rumbles of thunder. Adrenalin pumped him up and seemed to rekindle some of the earlier bravado. He was close now. It all depended on how slowly the door closed on its spring behind them.
As soon as they were both inside and the man let go of the door, Owen dashed on tiptoe up the steps and put his hand out. He stopped the door just before it had completely swung back and relatched.
He looked around at the houses across the street. As far as he could make out, nobody was watching him. He heard another door open and close inside the building, and the lights went on in one of the ground floor flats.
Softly, Owen pushed the front door open and slipped inside.
V
Stafford Oakes quickly assured Spinks that the charges against him could be reduced to a manageable level-the drugs, especially. Add that he had no prior record, that he had been upset over a missed job opportunity and any number of other mitigating circumstances that affected his stress-level when he stole and crashed the car, and he’d probably get a few months community service. Lucky community.
“So,” Banks asked him when Oakes had left. “Why don’t you tell us about it? Then we’ll get the Crown to put the lesser charges in writing. More coffee? Cigarette?”
Spinks shrugged. “Why not.”
Banks poured from the carafe he had had sent up. “Off the record,” he asked, “did you steal Michael Clayton’s car on August 20 last year?”
Spinks snapped the filter off the cigarette and lit it. “I don’t remember the exact date, but it was around then. And I didn’t steal it. Just borrowed it for a quick spin, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Because he treated me like shit, that’s why. Fucking snob. Like I wasn’t good enough to wipe his precious goddaughter’s nose with.”
“This was just after he and Lady Harrison found you and Deborah drinking wine in the back garden?”
“Yeah. We weren’t doing no harm. Just having a barbie and a drop or two of the old vino. He acted like it was too good for the likes of me. It was only a fucking bottle of wine, for Christ’s sake. He’d no call to be so rude to me, calling me an idle lout and a thickie and all that. It’s not my fault I can’t get a job, is it?”
“And you did some damage to the car, for revenge?”
“No. It was an accident. I was still learning, wasn’t I? That car’s got a very sensitive accelerator.”
From what Banks had heard of Spinks’s driving history so far, it might be a good idea if the court could somehow prevent him from ever getting a license. Not that it seemed to have stopped him so far.
“Did you also take a notebook computer out of the car?”
“It was in the back seat under a coat.”
“Did you take it?”
Spinks looked at Gristhorpe. “It’s all right, sonny,” the superintendent said, “you can answer any question Chief Inspector Banks asks you with complete impunity.”
“Uh? Come again.”
“No blame attached. It’s all off the record. None of it is being recorded or written down. Remember what the solicitor told you. Relax. Feel free.”
Spinks drank some coffee. “Yes,” he said. “I thought it might be worth something.”
“And was it?”
He shrugged. “Piss all. Bloke on the market offered me seventy-five measly quid.”
And the market vendor was reselling it for a hundred and fifty, Banks remembered. A hundred and fifty quid for a six-thousand-pound computer. “So you sold it to him?”
“That’s right.”
“Before you sold it, did you use it at all?”
“Me? No. Don’t know how to work those things, do I?”
“What about Deborah?”
“What about her?”
“She was a bright girl. Studied computers at school. She’d know how to get it going.”
“Yeah, well…”
“You were still seeing Deborah at that time, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“And did she ever visit your house?”
“Yeah. Once or twice. Turned her nose up, though. Said it smelled and it was dirty.” He laughed. “Wouldn’t use the toilet, no matter how much she wanted to go.”
“Right,” said Banks. “Now what I’d like to know, John, is did Deborah have a go with the computer?”
“Yeah, well, she did, as a matter of fact.” He turned to Gristhorpe, as if for confirmation that he could continue with impunity. Gristhorpe nodded like a priest. Spinks went on, “Yeah. Deb, she was with me, like, when I…you know…went for a ride.”
“Deborah was with you when you stole Michael Clayton’s car?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Only don’t use that word ‘stole.’ I don’t like it. See, it was even more in the family with her being there wasn’t it? Just like borrowing the family car, really.”
“Did you ever tell him it was the two of you who’d ‘borrowed’ his car?”
“Course not. You think I’m stupid or something?”
“Go on.”
“Anyway, she didn’t like the idea at first. No bottle, hadn’t Deb. But soon as I got us inside, quiet as could be, like, and got that Swedish engine purring, she took to it like a duck to water, didn’t she? It was Deb noticed the computer. Said she was surprised Clayton let it out of his sight given as how he was the kind of bloke couldn’t even jot down a dental appointment without putting it on his computer. I said let’s just leave it. But she said no, she wanted to have a go on it.”