36
It was not over.
The two surviving members of the Hanging Club were on remand in Her Majesty’s Prison Holloway, sometimes known as Holloway Castle, where they would remain in single cells until brought to trial at the Central Criminal Court, almost always known as the Old Bailey.
Jean Wilder and Piper Maldini could avoid a trial by entering a plea of guilty on all counts of murder, but it was not going to happen – we had already been informed by the Crown Prosecution Service that both women would be entering pleas of not guilty. Jean Wilder and Piper Maldini wanted their day in court. They wanted, I guessed, to tell the world exactly why they had murdered Mahmud Irani, Hector Welles and Darren Donovan. Like all true believers faced with the end, they dreamed of armies rising behind them.
This final stage of the investigation meant that our Murder Investigation Team would be confined to our desks on the top floor of 27 Savile Row for the next couple of months. You hear a lot about the Golden Hour after a murder is committed. Well, these were the bread-and-butter weeks of arrest to trial – collating evidence and preparing statements, long days of snatched meals eaten at workstations and a waterfall of coffee.
The paperwork had just begun. Prosecutors from the CPS would come and go as they built their case. The police detect, investigate and arrest and the CPS make it stick in court. At least, that is the theory. So our investigation was not over but we were in the home straight.
And that’s why when I entered MIR-1 on the morning after the arrests of the surviving members of the Hanging Club, I found Tara Jones clearing her desk.
There was nobody else around. I stood before her as she pushed the shining veil of hair from her face, her wedding ring gleaming like a sliver of gold on black velvet. She did not smile at me as she placed files in a cardboard box.
‘Buy you a coffee?’ I said. ‘Bar Italia? Your favourite?’
‘And then what happens, Max?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
Your mouth, I thought. Coffee-flavoured kisses. Your eyes looking into my face. Your hands in mine. And then another triple espresso before I have to come back to work. That sounded good to me.
I reached out to touch her arm just above the elbow. With the temperatures suddenly dropping, she was wearing a sweater today, and my fingertips brushed cashmere. She did not pull away but TDC Billy Greene came in just then, calling a jaunty ‘Morning all!’ as he swung his backpack on his desk, got out the sandwiches that his mum had made him, and powered up his computer. I stood there staring at Tara and there was something in her eyes that I knew I would never get past.
‘Shall I tell you what happens, Max?’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper, although Billy was already leaning forward, lost in his screen, munching one of his mum’s sandwiches. ‘If we get what we want, it will not make us happy.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said, even though I knew exactly what she meant.
‘There are no happy endings, Max. Whatever we do. Whatever lies we tell. Whoever we hurt. It’s not meant to be for you and me. And you know it’s true.’
‘I just want a triple espresso,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t deny a man a triple espresso, would you?’
She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘But first I have to do something. Pat Whitestone’s son is coming home today. Will you wait for me?’
She touched my hand and smiled at last. ‘Please, Max,’ she said. ‘Go.’
* * *
I waited outside the main doors of the Whittington Hospital, alone apart from a hollow-eyed man in his dressing gown sucking on a cigarette like it contained the only air on the planet.
I was expecting Pat and Justin to come out with some kind of farewell committee of doctors and nurses, but they came through the big glass doors alone, Justin in dark glasses, his mother lightly guiding his arm, the pair of them the same height now, Whitestone holding a small suitcase and a paper bag from the pharmacy. They seemed to move in careful slow motion, adjusting to this new reality. Neither of them said much and what they did say concerned the practicalities of getting into the big BMW X5 that I had parked in a doctor’s bay, the diesel engine running in case I had to move it.
And then I drove them home. From the Whittington Hospital, at the north end of the Holloway Road, to their two-bedroom flat in Islington, at the other end of that road, the kebab shops slowly making way for cafés and the junk shops for antique emporiums as we got closer to the Angel.
I drove. That’s all I did. It didn’t feel like much. In fact, it felt like nothing. I wanted to do more. I wanted to say something to Pat Whitestone that she could hold when she went forward. But I drove in silence, watching the teenage boy in his dark glasses in the back seat with his small, fair-haired, bespectacled mother, the traffic sluggish on the Holloway Road, and all of their new lives before them.
Whitestone helped Justin to his bedroom and when she returned to the living room I told her the only thing that I had to offer.
‘Tara Jones talked to me about being deaf,’ I said. ‘She told me that the way she had always dealt with it was by acting as if she had a difficulty and not a disability.’ I shook my head. ‘I know it’s easier said than done, Pat.’
But Whitestone nodded. ‘I know what she means. You don’t have to be defined by the worst things that happen to you. No matter how hard it is, it doesn’t have to be the whole story.’ She smiled. ‘I look at him, Max, and he’s still my boy. It’s still him. Still my Just. That doesn’t change and it will never change. He’s still my baby.’ She laughed, took off her glasses and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘That sounds corny.’
‘It sounds true,’ I said.
I indicated her laptop on the dining table. ‘Can I show you something?’
‘Go ahead.’
I went online.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said. ‘Look.’
On the screen was a logo of two white figures – a human and, by his side, a dog.
‘Someone goes blind in this country every hour,’ I said. ‘But the guide dog service help thousands of people – the blind and partially sighted – every year. They train the dog – a cross between a Lab and a Golden Retriever works best – and then the dog stays with you for six or seven years until they retire. Some people have eight dogs in a lifetime. And I think you and Justin . . .’
‘It’s something to think about, Max.’
I scrolled down the page. There were images of dogs who seemed to combine great beauty with intense seriousness.
‘We will not rest until people who are blind or partially sighted can enjoy the same freedom of movement as everyone else,’ I read.
‘Max?’
I looked at her.
‘You’ve done enough,’ she said.
We stared at each other.
And I saw that she knew. Perhaps she did not know everything about the night that Jackson Rose and I came to the Angel to confront the leader of the Dog Town Boys. But she knew enough. Of course she knew. DCI Pat Whitestone is the best homicide detective in West End Central.
‘We’ll be all right,’ she said, staring out of the window. ‘The pair of us.’
I nodded to the window. It was one of those strange moments when the city seems totally empty.
‘It’s a good neighbourhood,’ I said.
‘It is now,’ said Pat Whitestone.
I drove back to West End Central, just about resisting the urge to put on the blues-and-twos. I parked my BMW X5 under the big blue light outside 27 Savile Row and, too impatient for the lift, I ran all the way to the top floor.
But MIR-1 was empty.
I looked at my phone but there were no messages. That was all right. I was happy to be spared a text message. It really wasn’t necessary. Because I got it. The day grew cool, the shadows long, and soon the lights would be coming on in the big Georgian houses of Canonbury Square.