Cori wasn’t sure it was, but he continued,
‘Well, life is never that simple; and believe me, Sergeant, she gives as good as she gets. See that huge TV on the glass stand? That’s his pride and joy, but not his first… a week ago she put his silver pistol right through the screen of its immediate predecessor.’
‘He’s got a gun up there?’ called Cori? This situation was going from bad to worse.
‘Not a real one, it’s a cigarette lighter, solid silver,’ explained Nash with a smile, Cori then remembering seeing the receipt earlier, from an up-market-sounding store in town. Nash continued, ‘He doesn’t ever use it though, doesn’t smoke even, just waves it about occasionally. He’s got a bit of an Al Capone fixation, or maybe Al Pacino? I don’t know who he thinks he is, but that screen’s big enough for us to make out most of the films he watches on it: and it’s a good job DVDs don’t wear out, or he’d be buying a new copy of Scarface every other week.’
‘But all this money they have to splash around,’ Grey was still struck by the evidence of their spending. ‘I thought he was just a kid selling amphetamines?’
‘He may have been when he worked in your town. He’s moved on now, moved up in the world, or so he thinks. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. He’s not selling sweets to school kids anymore. How do you think a major-league drug dealer operates?’
‘He smashes up expensive televisions,’ started Grey, lost in the fog of the conversation.
‘She smashes…’
‘Okay, but it doesn’t really matter. Forget about the televisions — they could put an ashtray through a dozen of them each for all I care. What about Isobel? Is that a head injury?’
‘Yes, there did seem to be a cut, but the redness has faded somewhat.’
‘How… how can you just say that?’ asked Cori. Despite the gloom, Grey just knew Cori was burning with indignation beside him.
‘You think I don’t care?’ Nash jumped to his own defence. ‘I’ve been watching her alone up there, nursing that wound, for two days now.’
‘No one ever died of delayed concussion, at least that I ever heard of,’ uttered the hidden Sullivan.
Cori sat there in the darkness feeling her concerns brushed aside; but before she could say anything, somewhere in the formless space of the dark room a radio crackled, prompting Sullivan to ask Nash, ‘Can you get them out of here, sir? I’ve got to speak to Central.’
Grey hardly noticed the insult, as, with an arm around his shoulder, Nash continued to talk to him as he led him back to the dimly lit landing. In the confusion Cori had been left at her nocturnal viewing post, her eyes focused on the languid frame of Isobel Semple sprawled across the leather sofa.
On the landing Nash continued, ‘Inspector, you think I’m being heartless. I get it, I really do. We’re sitting here watching a woman in acute distress, and doing nothing. I can see how that confuses you. Her suffering appeals to your innate humanity, and especially so with her being the woman you’ve been searching for so long. Now, I’ve shared a lot of our operation with you this evening, but I fear I also have to share a few home truths. You will not enjoy them.
‘One: Isobel is not an innocent in this. She knows exactly what her partner does. She doesn’t pack his lunch and think she’s waving him off to the office each morning.
‘Two: we are not their guardian angels. We are only here to stop them doing the bad things they are doing to other people; and if as a result of our operation we see bad being done to — or amongst — the criminals themselves, well, as I say, this viewing post isn’t here to jump to their aid the moment a perpetrator comes to harm. We play a long game, Inspector, and sometimes short term kindnesses must be forgone for the greater good of the exercise.
‘Now, I’ve seen Carman commit a hundred acts against a hundred people; and I have had to step back, let it happen, and know in my bones, that I will have enough after six months to put him and other much worse people behind bars for many, many years. Think of the thousands whose lives will be the better for that.
‘Now, is there one part of what I’ve said so far that you are not on board with?’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Grey. ‘Enough of the humanitarianism. I’m prepared to credit you with doing what you’re doing here with the best intentions. But please, tell me what happened on Tuesday.’
‘Very well,’ began Nash in reserved tones, as if resigned, Grey felt, to knowing things couldn’t move on until the story had been retold to the Inspector’s satisfaction. ‘Not long after receiving the phone call from the hotel on Tuesday morning, Isobel left the flat; we thought either just to go shopping or see friends or have a coffee in town as she often does…
‘And you lost her?’
‘As I said before, surveillance isn’t tailing someone all day and all night. We don’t have the manpower for a start, and it offers too many opportunities to give ourselves away and for the subject to get suspicious. Rather, it is about establishing patterns of behaviour, knowing where someone is likely to be going, and where they are likely to next appear, and what they are likely to be doing there. You would be surprised how effective this is, how routine even criminal lives become. Where the system falls down however, is when a canny person, perhaps knowing they are being trailed, makes a one-eighty degree turn, goes right off the expected route and vanishes from the radar screen.’
‘And this is what she did?’
‘Well, all I know is that we didn’t see her again until the same time on Wednesday. And that’s not alclass="underline" later on Tuesday daytime, after she had left, Carman came home; and after five minutes stormed right out again.’
‘And that was the last you saw of him?’
‘No, he seemed agitated, and so we did tail him; at least as far as to the home of another his associates we are watching, where he borrowed a car.’
‘And did you follow the car?’
‘No need. Cars are easy — the numberplate is logged every time they’re picked up on a traffic camera. The last trace was on the motorway, southbound, probably the same road you travelled northbound on to come here this evening. Our bet guess was he turned off it soon after though, at least before the next camera placement; and carried on either along minor roads, or else stopped very close by, before he had travelled far enough to be picked up at a traffic lights or major junction.’
‘Somewhere like a motorway services?’
‘It was a possibility. However, we didn’t want to enlist your forces in a search, and risk revealing our interest, until, well…’ The man’s mood had darkened considerably, ‘To tell the truth, Inspector, we were hoping beyond hope that you would turn up some trace of Carman at the hotel; that you could tell us that he had met someone there, maybe whoever it was who called from there earlier. Perhaps Isobel may have been there too? Who knows.’
He had only known him one evening, but Grey thought this was about as despondent as the Nottingham man was ever likely to get.
‘So how did she get hurt?’
‘We don’t know,’ Nash sat down on a small chair by the bedroom door. ‘She came back with what looked like a cut, but nothing too serious. Of course we were worried, but she seemed fine in herself, and then spent most of that day in bed. It wasn’t until the evening, when Carman still hadn’t returned, and she was up and about and looking groggy, that we worried. And then today, I have to admit, has been a bit of a nightmare.’
Grey wasn’t purposefully tormenting Nash here, it was just the run of negative answers the man was being forced to give. However, just then Sullivan emerged from the shadows, and asked for a moment alone with his boss; Nash offering Grey his apologies as the pair of them entered the boys’ bedroom and shut the door.
A moment later, free at last to break cover, Cori followed Sullivan from the lightless room to speak to her colleague in the now empty landing,