‘I’d say the reaction was mixed. On one hand, pregnancy provides hope…’
‘And on the other?’
‘Well, obviously it can lead to envy.’
‘Did it make anyone in the group feel like that?’
‘It would be surprising if it didn’t. Women often find this aspect of it all, the apparent randomness of it, to be very difficult. They see it in terms of fairness — or unfairness, however you choose to look at it.’
‘And the men?’
‘Their response is often-’ She breaks off, looks at Luther. ‘The male reaction can be very primal. Potency and fertility can be central to a man’s sense of gender identity.’
Luther thinks of the timid people in the support group: the shocked women, grieving for children who would never be conceived, would never be born, would never die. Sad people in Gap jeans and Marks and Spencer’s blouses sitting in a circle on plastic chairs. The shabbiness of the room. The hairs on their forearms, the freckles. The intimacy of their sex organs. Hair sprouting from unbuttoned collars. Men seeking to lose weight, lose their guts to increase their fertility, looking one to the other, pondering who was potent and who was not, cuckolding each other in the imagination.
And Sarah Lambert, terrified to tell of her good fortune in case the baby didn’t latch on to existence but instead let go, allowing itself to be carried downstream by time: a bundle of cells, a tumbling ball of life.
He thinks of a small piece of plastic he once found behind the bin in his bathroom.
‘I can’t go into details,’ he says, ‘but there are special circumstances surrounding this case. This was a crime of rage. And about as personal as you can get. The best lead I have right now is this support group.’
‘Then I really can’t help you.’
‘I know. But perhaps you’d be willing to ask members of the group to come forward, allow themselves to be eliminated from the enquiry?’
‘I can do that,’ she says. ‘Absolutely. Happy to.’
He makes as if to leave. Then he says, ‘There’s just one more thing.’
She waits.
‘There may have been a couple you didn’t feel right about?’ Luther says. ‘They could have been regular attendees. Or one-offs.’
‘Didn’t feel right about in what way?’
‘Well, that’s something you can tell us. I’m not asking you to judge. But you’re familiar with every kind of behaviour that goes hand in hand with infertility. So did one couple maybe strike you as being, I don’t know — atypical? Outliers? Was there anyone, maybe you couldn’t put your finger on it, but they were wrong somehow?’
‘That’s not really for me to say, is it?’
‘Just for once, it might be.’
‘Well, there was Barry and Lynda,’ she says.
Luther sits back. He crosses his legs. Smooths his trousers over his knee. He knows this is a tell, the sign of a man trying not to show agitation. He’s working on it. ‘Who are Barry and Lynda?’
‘They came once or twice. Didn’t say much.’
‘When was this?’
‘I don’t know, three or four months ago?’
‘So — during Sarah Lambert’s pregnancy?’
‘I suppose so, yes. It must have been.’
‘And what about them made you feel uncomfortable?’
‘They were just — wrong. As a couple. He was very trim. Wiry. Like a marathon runner. Suit and tie. Overcoat. Short hair, worn very neat. Side parting.’
‘And the woman? Lynda?’
‘Well, this is what struck me as strange. She was obese.’
Luther nods. Waits for more.
Howie says, ‘We know it goes against the grain to judge people in any way but this is so important. If this couple had nothing to do with what happened, they’ll never know that you pointed us in their direction. If they did then believe me, you want us to catch them.’
Pope laughs. She’s uncomfortable. ‘We have so many training courses,’ she says. ‘So many awareness sessions.’
‘Us too,’ Luther says.
Pope laughs, a bit more openly. ‘I suppose you must.’
‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ Luther says. He smiles and tells her, ‘They want to put a tea vending machine in the station because they think we’ll electrocute ourselves if we’re allowed to have a kettle in the workplace.’
Pope opens her drawer, takes out a mint and unwraps it.
‘They just seemed wrong,’ she says. ‘For one member of a couple to be that fit and the other… Well, the other to be that fat. It struck me as odd, like a couple on a saucy postcard. Besides which, if you’re obese and having problems with conceiving, you’re told to lose weight. A lot of IVF clinics refuse treatment to obese patients until they’ve reduced their body mass index.’
‘So you were surprised by this woman’s size?’
‘I think we all were.’
Luther makes a note to check all applications to the IVF programme, see who’s been rejected for obesity. It’ll be a long list, but it could take them somewhere.
He says, ‘What was their story?’
‘In what sense?’
‘I mean, what did they tell you about themselves?’
‘This isn’t Alcoholics Anonymous. We’re a drop-in centre. We don’t pressure new couples. For a lot of them, just coming along is a giant step. If they want to sit in silence, fine.’
‘So how did they behave, Barry and Lynda?’
‘She was… sweet.’
‘When you say sweet,’ Luther says, ‘you say it with certain emphasis.’
‘She was… she was very pretty, in a strange way. But there was something grotesque about her. I don’t mean in terms of her weight. I mean there was something — Shirley Temple-ish. She wore very girly clothes, pinks and ribbons. Knee-high socks. And she had this teeny, tiny, little mousey voice.’
Luther’s heart is hastening. He says, ‘And him?’
‘He was-’
‘Dominant? Submissive?’
‘Neither. He was distant. They just didn’t feel like a couple.’
‘So he wasn’t paying attention to his partner?’
‘No. They sat next to each other. She was smiling at everyone. Little rosebud lips.’
‘And he was…’
‘Smug and over-assertive. Sat there like this, with his legs splayed.’
‘I’m sorry to be vulgar,’ Luther says. ‘But a crotch display like that, a certain kind of man thinks it’s a turn-on. He’s sitting with his legs wide apart, advertising the goods. So were there any innuendos, any double-meanings, off-colour remarks? Joking offers to get women pregnant, maybe?’
‘None of that,’ Pope says. ‘Besides which, I know how to tread on that pretty quickly and pretty efficiently.’
Luther bets she does. He nods, once, in professional recognition. ‘So I wonder — did Barry pay any particular attention to any member of the group?’
Pope’s eyes head up and to the right. She searches her memory.
Then she looks at Luther.
She considers her answer for a long time.
‘He sat there,’ she said, ‘leering at Sarah Lambert like she was a ripe peach. He made them both uncomfortable. Tom and Sarah. I think that’s the last time they came to the group.’
Luther and Howie walk into the blaring London noise, the grit and filth.
Luther says, ‘You ever think about it? Kids?’
Howie shrugs. ‘What about you?’
‘Nah,’ he says. ‘My wife and I had a pact. When we got together.’
‘Seriously?’ Howie says. ‘Whose idea was that?’
‘Both of ours, I think.’
‘And it still stands?’
‘Apparently.’
She flashes him an enquiring look.
‘Who knows,’ he says. ‘The stupid things you say when you’re twenty-one.’
Howie says, ‘Are you okay, Boss?’
He snaps out of it. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘miles away.’
Detective Sergeant Justin Ripley, curly hair and a trusting face, has been seconded to the Lambert investigation. He drives to Y2K Cleaning. He’s partnered with Detective Constable Theresa Delpy.
Y2K Cleaning is run out of an office between a newsagent and a dry cleaners on Green Lanes.
Ripley badges the elderly receptionist. He and Delpy wait for ten minutes, sipping cups of water from the cooler and reading trade magazines — Cleaning and Hygiene Today, Cleansing Matters — until the owner appears: a short, bearded, fat man in a plaid tank top.