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‘That explains why you don’t look anything like a copper.’

She smiled. ‘How is a copper supposed to look, then?’

‘Not like you. You look like you just finished your law degree.’ I smiled. ‘I read your business card. Or at least a picture of it on my iPhone. LLB, wasn’t it?’

She raised an eyebrow at me. ‘I do have flat feet. And I can say fuck a lot. If that helps.’

I brought her the coffee and then sat down opposite her.

‘It makes two cups at once. Fuck.’

‘Time is precious.’

‘Isn’t it?’ She tasted her coffee and nodded with appreciation. ‘Mmm. Good, too.’

‘Java beans. From the Algerian Coffee Stores, in Soho.’

‘I love that place. I should warn you: I’m liable to come here again. This is much better than my local coffee shop.’

‘And I should warn you, I don’t much like the police.’

‘Yes, I know. I was warned about that by my chief inspector. And from what I’ve read about you I’m lucky this coffee isn’t poisoned.’

I smiled. ‘I should wait and see, if I were you, Miss Considine.’

‘I don’t blame you at all for thinking ill of the police. I’m sure I’d feel the same way if I’d been wrongly convicted of something.’

‘I was fitted up. That’s what happened.’

‘But the Met is very different today from how it was, even a few years ago.’

She had a sexy way of talking, as if she knew the effect her voluptuous mouth had on things as ordinary as words; every sentence seemed to end in a pout. She sipped her coffee and glanced around the room again.

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Please do. I was very sorry to hear about Mr Drennan. But if I’m honest, it seems that I only ever knew him as someone who was famous for being drunk and getting himself into one scrape after another. It’s hard for me to connect someone as clownish as him with top-level sport.’

‘What you have to remember is that a lot of footballers — and I do mean a lot — are just overgrown schoolboys. Every team has someone who’s as much of a comedian as Drenno was. But there are very few teams that have someone as talented as him. In his day Drenno was perhaps the most outstanding player in the country. Look, there are a lot of wankers in football — just watch Soccer AM — but Matt Drennan wasn’t one of them.’

‘Yes, I read your tweets about him. And watched some of his goals on YouTube.’ She shrugged as if she was hardly impressed with what she’d seen.

‘Do you follow a team?’

‘Chelsea.’

‘It figures.’

‘Does it? Oh dear. That makes me sound very predictable. Unlike Matt Drennan. I mean, I know he was your friend and I’m sorry to say this, but to me he always looked like an accident waiting to happen.’

‘Not like that.’

‘No?’

‘I certainly never expected him to go and hang himself, if that’s what you want to know.’

She nodded. ‘It is, among other things.’

‘I expect there will have to be a post-mortem and an inquest,’ I said.

She nodded again.

‘Will I have to give evidence?’

‘Perhaps. Did you know his wife, too?’

‘Yes. I was at the wedding. Actually, I was at both his weddings.’

‘She says she’d already thrown him out. For good this time, according to her. And that was before he beat the shit out of her.’

‘So I believe. How is she, by the way?’

‘At home now. Avoiding the newspapers and the newspapermen who are camped out at the bottom of her drive.’

‘I tried calling her, but...’

‘She’s not answering the phone. Now, I appreciate that this might be difficult for you, but I need to ask you some questions about exactly what happened when Drennan was here. After all, you were one of the last people to speak to him before he killed himself. At least according to Maurice McShane you were. It was on your behalf that he contacted us, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. It was. I wanted to help with your enquiries.’

‘Of course.’

‘And I think I was, probably, one of the last people to see Matt.’

I told her precisely what had happened.

‘So he was drunk and he was depressed,’ she said.

I nodded. ‘Definitely. I even offered to drive him to the Priory. I could see he was in a bad way. But he wouldn’t let me. I mean he was pissed, but he wasn’t that pissed. Not by his standards. I mean he wasn’t legless. Besides, he’d been before — to the Priory — and it didn’t work.’

‘Did he say what he was depressed about?’

‘How long have you got? The fight with his wife would have depressed him. He’d lost his diamond stud, from his ear — like I told you. He told me she’d thrown a boot at him but he didn’t say he’d assaulted her. I suppose that might have resulted in a custodial sentence because he’d assaulted her before. That would have depressed him, too.’ I shrugged. ‘What else? Not being able to play football any more. Getting older. His health. Drinking again. Being broke. Life in general. It’s a typical football story, I’m afraid. Look, he certainly didn’t mention that he was going to kill himself. But if he had I’m not sure what I could have done about it.’

‘You could have kept him here and talked him out of it, perhaps.’

‘Clearly you didn’t know Matt Drennan. You couldn’t talk him out of an off-licence or a last game of bar-billiards, let alone what you’re suggesting, Miss Considine.’

‘So he didn’t say anything to you about his best friend from Glasgow, Tommy MacDonald.’

‘Mackie? No, nothing at all.’

‘You know he was in the army. In Afghanistan.’

‘Kind of. Hey, has something happened to Mackie?’

‘Sergeant Thomas MacDonald was blown up on patrol in Helmand Province last Tuesday.’

‘Christ.’

‘He died later on, in hospital.’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’ I nodded. ‘But it certainly explains a great deal about Drenno’s mood. He never really talked all that much about Mackie. At least not to me. But I know he and Mackie were close. You might even say they were partners in crime, since they were always in trouble for one thing or another: fighting, vandalism, practical jokes that went too far, general bad behaviour. It was nearly always drink-related. When Mackie joined the army I think my old club Arsenal were more than a little bit relieved. They figured he was a bad influence on Drenno. But actually I’m sure it was the other way round. Mackie joined the army to get away from Drenno and the drinking. At least that’s what Drenno always said.’

‘Did you know Sergeant MacDonald?’

‘I met him a few times. I couldn’t say that we were friends, though. We weren’t. I didn’t like him, to be honest. I’m sorry he’s dead. He served his country and you have to respect anyone for that.’

‘Why didn’t you like him? Any particular reason?’

I shrugged. ‘Like I said, I thought he was a bad influence. Frankly I was very surprised when he went into the army. He’d spent a lifetime sponging off Drenno and he was the most ill-disciplined sod you could hope to meet. A typically belligerent Scot. It was hard to see why he should suddenly have decided he wanted to do something like join the army. Unless it was just to get away from Drenno.’

‘Tell me, what was Matt Drennan wearing when he came to see you?’

‘You mean was he wearing an England shirt?’

‘No, I mean what was he wearing?’

‘Leather jacket. Jeans. Trainers. Plain white shirt. There was blood on the collar. And on his earlobe. I already explained that. Was he wearing an England shirt when he hanged himself?’

‘I’m really not at liberty to say.’

‘It was in the Daily Mail.’