‘That does sound fairly convincing,’ she admitted. ‘And now I’m sort of embarrassed.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ve done my job, that’s why. How would you feel if I did your job?’
‘Anyone can do my job. Being a football manager is just selecting the best eggs.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Look, don’t you want the collar? This will be a big feather in your cap, I’d have thought.’
‘Well, yes. Of course. But—’
‘I’d much prefer you to get the credit than the bitch you’re working for. I’d rather not tell anyone than tell her.’
‘Jane Byrne? Yes, she is a bit of a bitch, isn’t she? But you know I really should inform her of what’s happening. Otherwise she’s going to have my guts.’
‘Why don’t you wait until we’ve confirmed my suspicions? You can tell her you didn’t know what I was going to do until I’d done it. That you had no choice but to wait for me to make my play.’
She thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘All right. You’re the manager.’
‘Besides, you owe me this after the way you handled telling me that it was Drenno’s friend Mackie who raped Mrs Fehmiu.’
‘That’s true.’ She winced. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’
‘It looks like I’m working tonight after all.’
I grinned at her. ‘Did you have other plans?’
‘I did when I got into this car. Now they’ll have to wait. It’s disappointing.’
‘That’s how I feel about it, too.’
‘Good. I’m glad.’
‘But I have to see this all the way through. For Zarco’s sake.’
‘Don’t worry. I understand all that. But you’re going to have to make this up to me.’
‘How?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ She nodded. ‘Yes. When this is all over, I’d like you to take me to your lovely flat and do whatever you like to me for twenty-four hours. I would say forty-eight hours, but I know you’ve got an away game against Everton on Saturday.’
‘That’s quite an invitation, Louise.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘Anything?’
‘Anything at all.’
‘Christ,’ I said. ‘No one has ever said anything like that to me.’
I turned down a side street and stopped the car.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked. ‘Why have you stopped?’
‘I’m a bit old-fashioned,’ I said. ‘I can’t think about doing anything until I’ve kissed you.’
‘Neither can I,’ she said and then let herself be kissed; she even allowed my hand up her skirt.
‘Put your finger inside me,’ she said after a while. ‘Every time you touch your face I want you to know exactly what you missed having tonight.’
49
I pulled up outside Toyah Zarco’s big white house in Warwick Square and turned off the ignition. The car’s engine pinged like a pinball machine and the trees in the communal gardens shifted uneasily in the breeze. The policeman still on duty outside Toyah’s front door eyed us patiently. In his thick coat and protective vest his body looked too big for his legs; he might have made a good goalkeeper. The press had cleared off; somewhere else there was probably another widow in tears they wanted to film and harass with questions. A man walking his dog hauled the animal away from the tyres of my car before it could piss on them. The light from the full moon shone on a neat row of Boris bikes in front of the nearby church; it looked like a series of fitness machines in some weird, twenty-four-hour gym, as if the stained-glass window of Saint whatever-it-was might at any moment turn into a giant television set. But the church reminded me that I was going to Drenno’s funeral on Friday and that I was dreading it.
‘Do Drenno’s family know what Mackie did?’ I asked. ‘And that Drenno helped cover it up?’
‘No,’ said Louise. ‘Not yet.’
‘Let’s leave it that way, can we?’ I asked. ‘At least until after the funeral.’
She nodded.
‘Thanks.’
‘This feels weird,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘It feels weird that it’s you who’s going to try to get a confession and not me.’
‘Relax. I already got a result tonight. I’m in the groove. Besides, I’m hoping I won’t have to say very much at all. That copper standing behind us should give us all the leverage I’m looking for.’
‘Just be careful. That’s all I want to say. This isn’t a game.’
‘What, and you think football is? After a match like the one you just saw you should know better than that.’
‘Maybe you’re right. What do you want me to do?’
‘You’ve got your ID?’
‘Of course.’
‘Just flash that copper your badge and put him under your command. I’m hoping you’ll do the same when you come to my flat. I like dominant women.’
We got out of the car and walked up to the policeman. Frankly, he looked pleased to see us, like a dog that has been left for too long outside a supermarket.
‘Evening, sir,’ he said. ‘Good result tonight. Mr Zarco would have been very proud.’
I’d forgotten the copper was a City fan. That was handy. ‘Thanks, Constable,’ I said. ‘I think he would.’
‘5–3. I just hope my Sky Plus was working.’
‘Let me know if it doesn’t and I’ll send you a DVD.’ I gave him my card; I was softening in my old age. I figured it was the effect that Louise Considine was having on me; she was living proof that not all coppers were bastards. Maybe there was still hope for me to become a decent, law-abiding member of society.
She showed him her ID. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Considine,’ she said, ‘from Brent CID. What’s your name?’
‘Constable Harrison, ma’am. From Belgravia Police Station.’
‘You wouldn’t have thought they needed one in Belgravia,’ I said.
‘I need your help, Constable,’ said Louise. ‘Will you come with us, please?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, smartly. ‘What’s it all about?’
‘I’d rather not say yet,’ she replied.
I led the way down the street, to the opposite side of the square.
The mural of a house in front of number twelve rippled in the January wind as if a seismic event was about to take place in the quiet streets of Pimlico; and in a sense it was, at least for the inhabitants of the house next door. All of the lights were switched on. After the twenty grand I’d handed over they probably figured they didn’t need to worry about the electricity bill. As I mounted the front steps I glanced through a chink in the curtains drawn in front of the big window and saw Mrs Van de Merwe and her daughter reading while, sitting on the sofa, was a man watching television. But it wasn’t Mr Van de Merwe; it was another, younger, fitter man and he was watching the edited highlights of the match from Silvertown Dock on ITV. It’s odd how different a match you’ve seen live looks when you see it on television.
I rang the ancient bell and we waited a while before the bolts were drawn and the door opened to reveal Mr Van de Merwe. As he caught sight of the policeman standing behind me his Adam’s apple shifted under his collar like a small, sleepless man.
‘Oh,’ he said, in a tone of quiet resignation. ‘You’d better come in.’
The three of us trooped into the hall. Constable Harrison closed the door behind us and immediately made the house seem small. There were several suitcases on the floor, as if the Van de Merwes were going somewhere — South Africa, probably — but if I was right, a passport to Pimlico was all they were going to need for the present.
We went into the sitting room, where the sight of Constable Harrison brought everyone to their feet. Mariella folded her arms and turned away immediately, while her mother stifled a short wail with the back of her hand, and sat down again; she took out a dainty embroidered handkerchief and started to cry.