But maybe that was where I needed to insert the lever. If I could make her consider the possibility, just for an instant, that someone else might have killed Abbie, then maybe I could put that same ruthless zeal to work on something positive.
‘The second gun,’ I said, pointing a finger at Basquiat. She didn’t like the finger and she nodded to Fields, who took my hand and placed it firmly – a little too firmly, maybe – down on the table. ‘The gun that killed Melanie Torrington,’ I repeated, leaning past Fields’s unattractive bulk to maintain eye contact with the sergeant.
‘What about it?’
‘You must have the forensics lot on it by now. So check it. Check it against the bullets that were sprayed around at the Oriflamme.’
‘What will that prove?’ Basquiat asked, coolly.
‘It won’t prove a damn thing. But Peace’s gun will be a match for the weapon that killed Steve Torrington. I’m betting that the second gun was present at the Oriflamme, and that you’ll find bullets in the wall behind Peace. Or maybe in the floor. I just want you to – think about it. That’s all. Think about my version of what happened. Okay, you’re going to charge me whatever I say. But check the ballistics, and if they pan out ask yourself this: was I blazing away at Peace with two guns, like some fucking cowboy? Or was someone else involved, both at the Torrington house and when Peace was killed?
‘Then if you’re in the mood, look up Anton Fanke. Find out if he’s in the country on a US passport. He’s got Abbie Torrington’s ghost, and if you don’t do your job, he’s going to kill her again – only more so. He’s going to kill her soul. That’s what’s at stake, detective sergeant. So just – think about it.’
Basquiat stared at me in silence for a moment or two. I waited. There was nothing else I could do.
‘Detective Constable Fields?’ she said at last.
‘Yes, sergeant?’
‘I’m formally charging this man – Felix Castor – with the murder of Dennis Peace. Please read him his rights.’
‘Yes, sergeant.’
Well, it had been a long shot. I wasn’t really surprised: just filled with a sick sense of absolute failure and helplessness. Basquiat stood up and busied herself with collecting her things and putting the pen back in her handbag.
‘What about my phone call?’ I demanded, talking to her back view.
She glanced around, briefly. ‘This is a hospital, Castor. They just have one of those payphones on wheels that they trundle around the wards. I’ll tell one of the duty constables to watch out for it when it comes this way. You’ll get your statutory phone call.’
‘Think about it,’ I said again.
That was a bridge too far. Basquiat dropped the file, which she’d only just picked up, and spun round to grab a double fistful of the thin fabric of my hospital gown. Her face came up to within half an inch of mine – which might have been pleasant in some circumstances but was downright threatening right then.
‘You don’t get to tell me what to do, you son of a bitch,’ she spat out. ‘In a perfect world, you’d already be dead. Or there’d be prisons in England like the ones in the States, where you’d get fucked up the arse a couple of dozen times on your first day. There isn’t anything that can happen to you that you haven’t deserved. Anything. So do not – do not frigging push me any further than you’ve pushed me already. Or I’ll get Fields to hold your head down on the ground while I kick your teeth down your throat.’
Detective Sergeant Basquiat walked out before I could think of a snappy comeback. As a matter of fact, I’m still working on it.
Back on the secure ward, I counted up my options and got as far as zero.
I was three floors up, and the windows were all barred. The lock on the door was a trifle as light as air, if I could improvise a lockpick, but the two boys in blue standing right outside were a different proposition. And even if I could figure a way to get past them, it wasn’t going to help me much once the APB went out. I’d be running for my life in a white hospital gown: no shoes, no underwear, no money, and nobody I could turn to for help even if I could get to them on foot.
There had to be another way. And I had to find it fast.
Sometime in the afternoon I hammered on the door and demanded my phone call again. The cop who I was demanding it from looked so bored and vacant it was a mystery what was keeping him awake. He said he’d see what he could do. Half an hour later I repeated the performance, with similar results.
Half an hour after that, Basquiat came back. Without Fields. One of the uniforms unlocked the door and held it open for her and she stepped in, giving him a curt nod. He closed it and locked it again behind her.
I was sitting in the one chair in the room, reading a two-year-old copy of What Car? I closed it and threw it on the bed. ‘Ford are bringing back the Escort,’ I commented. ‘That’s good news for families with exactly two-point-four kids.’
‘Shut up,’ said Basquiat. ‘Okay, you were right about the other gun, and I admit that’s an odd detail. This guy Fanke? He’s meant to be in Belgium, but we can’t raise him there. All we get is the run-around from a whole lot of nice-sounding people who say he just left or he’s just about to arrive.
‘We’ve also verified that there were at least four other men inside that burned-out club last night. I’m still working on the assumption that they were all friends of yours – but for the sake of argument, tell me about Anton Fanke. In fifty words or less.’
‘He’s a Satanist,’ I said. ‘He founded a Satanist church over in America. He raised Abbie Torrington to be a human sacrifice, but Peace was the father and when he found out what was going down he objected. Everything else that’s happened comes from that.’
‘Fanke was at the – whatever you called it? The place where we found you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You and Peace agreed to meet him there?’
‘No. He was using me as a sniffer dog.’ Basquiat looked blank, so I dropped the metaphor. ‘My landlady Pen Bruckner sent him. I called her to ask if she could bring some antibiotics for Peace’s wounds. She called Fanke because he was posing as a doctor. Or maybe he really is a doctor. Certainly some of his friends seem to be able to lay their hands on prescription drugs without too much trouble. Anyway, he told Pen he’d come along and help, and she bought it. She led Fanke right to us. Or right to Peace, which was what he’d wanted all along.’
‘Peace’s wounds.’
‘What?’
‘You said you needed medicine for Peace’s wounds. How did he get hurt?’
I hesitated. I had her taking me seriously now, at least enough to walk it through, and I didn’t want to put too much of a strain on her credulity by talking about Catholic werewolves.
‘Some guys set on him outside the Thames Collective,’ I said, evading the issue of who and why and with what implements. ‘You can ask Reggie Tang about that. He must have seen at least some of what happened from up on the deck.’
‘Okay. Say I swallow any of this, even for a moment. Where is Fanke now?’
I threw my arms wide. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Get some exorcists onto it, Basquiat. Not me, obviously: whoever else the Met calls in on murder cases. Get hold of something that belonged to Abbie and put them on her trail. Peace was blindsiding me because the Oriflamme had built-in camouflage. But she’s not in the Oriflamme any more, so she ought to be easier to find now, unless—’
I didn’t finish that sentence. Unless it was already too late, was what I meant. Unless Abbie had been used up in a repetition of last Saturday’s ritual.
Basquiat was talking again: I had to wrench my mind off that train of thought and try to stay focused. ‘Do you know where we could lay our hands on anything that belonged to Abbie?’ she was asking me.
‘Yeah,’ I admitted. ‘I do. And bear in mind, if I was guilty, I wouldn’t be telling you this – because it makes me look even guiltier.’