‘Excuse me,’ he called out, in a loud voice. ‘I have a question for you.’
Heads turned. There he was, Jim Fearby, the one who’d been obsessed with the case for years. A journalist who’d been around for decades, one of the old breed who got hold of a story and wouldn’t let go. He was in his sixties now, stooped and silver-haired. He looked a bit like a bird of prey, with his beaked nose and pale eyes, wind-blown and weather-blasted.
‘Mr Fearby,’ said the inspector, smiling with no warmth. ‘Yes?’
‘Now that George Conley has been released, an innocent man …’ he paused to let the words fill the room ‘… can you tell us what steps you will be taking to find out the real perpetrator? After all, a young woman was brutally murdered.’
The inspector coughed again, a hard and hacking sound to give him time to prepare his answer. ‘At present, there are no new leads,’ he said eventually.
‘At present?’
‘As I said. Any more questions?’
Fearby drove home through the gathering dusk. Conley’s last prison, unlike his previous ones, had been quite close to where he lived – in a small town just outside Birmingham. When Sandra had left him, he’d thought he would perhaps go somewhere different – the Lake District, perhaps, or even further north, where cold, clean winds blew off the hills. He could begin again. But in the end he’d stayed, surrounded by his files, his books, his pictures, his DVDs of old films. It didn’t matter so much where he lived; it was just a place to sleep, to think.
He went into his study and gazed at the piles of notebooks and folders that were filled with the evidence of his obsession: police reports, legal reports, letters sent and received, petitions … He poured himself a large slug of gin because he’d run out of whisky and added water because he’d run out of tonic. What sailors used to drink, he thought – a sad, solitary drink to get you through the hours. He must have fallen asleep in his chair, because when the phone rang it felt at first like part of a dream.
‘Is that Jim Fearby?’
‘Who is it?’
‘I saw you at the press conference. Are you still writing about the case?’
‘What’s it matter?’ Fearby still felt only half awake.
‘I want to meet you.’
‘Why?’
‘You know a pub called the Philip Sidney?’
‘No.’
‘You can find it. I’ll be there at five tomorrow evening.’
I tried to call you. When we see each other, I’m going to give you a short lesson in how to use your mobile! (Mainly, leave it turned on and have it with you.) Now it’s probably too late to try again. You’ll be asleep. Or perhaps you’ll be stalking the streets of London with that frown on your face. Speak soon and until then, take care of your dear self. S xxxxx
THIRTEEN
Karlsson sat opposite Billy Hunt. ‘You must be the world’s worst burglar,’ he said.
‘So you saw I was telling the truth?’
‘Busy Bees,’ said Karlsson. ‘Apart from the fact that it’s a nursery school that is being built for little children, and that stealing from them doesn’t seem right, what the hell did you expect to get from them? Stuffed toys?’
‘There was building work going on,’ said Hunt. ‘I thought there might be some tools around.’
‘But there weren’t.’
‘No. I didn’t find anything.’
‘On the bright side,’ said Karlsson, ‘it was a building site, which meant there were plenty of CCTV cameras and I saw the best images I’ve ever seen. You could have used some of them for your passport photo.’
‘I told you I was there.’
‘But, as we know, you were also at the murder scene. You need to tell us about that.’
Hunt bit the side of his thumb. ‘If I tell you everything, will you drop the burglary charge?’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Karlsson. ‘I’m not even sure we’re dropping the murder charge. Just tell us everything and stop messing me about.’
Hunt thought.
‘I needed some cash,’ he said. ‘I owed someone. Look, I’ve told you all this before.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘I ended up on Margaretting Street. I rang on a few doorbells, and when someone answered, I asked if Steve was in and then said I must have the wrong address. I got to that house. There was no answer. I got in.’
‘How?’
‘I picked half a brick off a skip and smashed the window next to the front door. Then I opened it.’
‘Weren’t you surprised it wasn’t double-locked?’ said Karlsson. ‘Or locked on a chain?’
‘If it had been double-locked, I wouldn’t have been able to get in.’
‘But if it isn’t double-locked,’ said Karlsson, ‘that suggests someone is at home.’
‘But I’d already tried the doorbell.’
‘Forget it. Go on, then.’
‘I went in. Took some stuff from the kitchen. Then I went into the other room and … you know.’
‘What?’
‘She was lying there.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hunt. ‘I was in shock.’
‘Why didn’t you call an ambulance?’
Hunt shook his head. ‘The alarm was going off. I just got out.’
‘Except you took the cog.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Although it had been used as the murder weapon and was covered with her blood.’
‘I had a couple of plastic shopping bags from the kitchen.’
‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ said Karlsson.
‘Because I was being a burglar,’ said Hunt. ‘I mean, I’m not a burglar but at that moment I was in the middle of taking things. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I got out. Ran away.’
‘And then?’
‘I had this stuff to sell. I told you, I needed cash.’
‘So you sold all the silver?’
‘Right.’
‘Except the cog?’
‘It needed, you know …’
‘The blood cleaning off it?’
‘I felt bad about it,’ said Hunt. ‘Seeing her there. What was I meant to do?’
Karlsson stood up. ‘I don’t know, Billy. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
FOURTEEN
‘Frieda?’
‘Hello, Chloë.’ Frieda walked through to the living room with the phone and eased her sore body into the armchair by the hearth where in the winter she lit a fire every day. Now that it was spring and the weather was balmy, the sky a delicate washed blue, it stood empty. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I need to see you.’
‘Before Friday?’ Friday was the day that Frieda taught her chemistry, which Chloë loathed with a scowling intensity.
‘Now.’
‘Why?’
‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
It was nearly six o’clock. Frieda thought of the pot of tea, the slice of quiche she’d bought from Number 9 for her supper, the quiet evening in the dimly lit cocoon of her house that she’d planned, sitting in her study with her soft-leaded pencils and her thick-grained paper, the answering machine turned on and no demands on her, then the softness of her pillows and the sealing darkness. Maybe no dreams, just oblivion. She could say no.
‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
‘I’m not at home. I’m in a café near the Roundhouse. You can’t miss it. It’s got this giant upside-down aeroplane hanging outside and it’s an alternative art gallery as well.’
‘Hang on, Chloë –’
‘Thanks, Frieda!’ Chloë interrupted enthusiastically, then ended the call before Frieda could change her mind.
The café was named, for no obvious reason, Joe’s Malt House, and there was indeed a large upside-down plane nose-diving down its outside wall. Frieda pushed open the door and went into a long, dark room, cluttered with tables and mismatched chairs, the walls hung with paintings she could barely make out in the gloom. People were sitting at tables and milling about at the bar that cut across the middle of the room. Music played, throbbing and insistent; the air was thick with the smell of beer, coffee and incense.