“Don’t we need a lawyer or something?”
“What’s wrong, John?” said Banks. “Don’t trust us?”
“I don’t trust
you
. Anyway, why talk to the monkey when the organ-grinder’s here?”
Banks smiled. It was working. And he hadn’t denied stealing Clayton’s car yet.
“There’s a Crown attorney in the building,” said Gristhorpe, “and he can deal with the particulars about the charges and likely sentences, if you want to talk to him.”
Spinks squinted. “Maybe I’ll do that. What’s the deal?”
“You tell us what we want to know,” said Gristhorpe, “and we’ll see you stay out of jail. Dealing becomes simple possession.”
“That’s not enough. I want all charges dropped.”
Gristhorpe shook his head. “Sorry, son. We can’t do that. You see, the paperwork’s already in the system.”
“You can lose it.”
“Maybe the odd sheet or two,” said Gristhorpe. “But not all of it. The lawyer will explain it.”
Spinks sat silently, brow furrowed in thought.
Banks stood up. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said to Gristhorpe. “I told you it was no use. His brain’s so addled he doesn’t even recognize a piece of good fortune when he trips over it. Besides, it makes me puke sitting with a drug-dealing moron like him. Let him go to jail. He belongs there. Let him catch AIDS. See if I care.” And he headed towards the door.
“Wait, just a minute,” said Spinks, holding his hand up. “Hold your horses. I haven’t said anything yet.”
“That’s the problem,” said Gristhorpe. “You’d better make your mind up quickly, sonny. You don’t get chances like this every day. We can probably get it down to probation, maybe a bit of community service, but you can’t just walk away from it.”
Spinks glared at Banks, who stood scowling with his hand on the doorknob, then looked back at Gristhorpe, all benevolence and forgiveness. Then he put his feet on Banks’s desk. “All right,” he said. “All right. You’ve got a deal. Get the brief in.”
IV
Large raindrops blotched the pavement when Owen left the pub. Lightning flickered in the north and the thunder grumbled like God’s empty stomach. The drinkers out on the muggy street hurried inside before the deluge arrived.
Owen felt light-headed after all the drinks, and he knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. Booze had made him just brave and foolhardy enough to face Michelle.
He walked along the main road past pubs and shops open late, head bowed, jacket collar turned up in a futile attempt to keep dry. Shop-lights and street-lights smeared the pavement and gutter.
Hair that had been damp with sweat before was now plastered to his skull by rain.
He had forgotten exactly where he parked his car, but it didn’t matter. Michelle’s place couldn’t be far.
He stopped a young couple coming out of a pub and asked them where her street was. They gave him directions as they fiddled with their umbrella. As he suspected, it was only a couple of hundred yards up the road, then left, short right and left again. He thanked them and walked on, aware of them standing watching him from behind.
Now he knew he was going to see her, his mind shot off in all directions. She wouldn’t want to let him in, of course, not after what she had tried to do to him, not after what she had said about him.
Did he feel reckless enough to break in? Maybe. He didn’t know. Given the address, her flat would probably be in one of those three- or four-storey London houses. Perhaps if he waited outside for her to go out, approached her in the street … She might have to go to the shop or go out to meet someone. But it was a bit late in the evening for that. Maybe if he waited until one of the other tenants went in, he could get to the door before it locked and at least gain entry to the building.
A white sports car honked as he crossed a sidestreet against a red light. He flicked the driver the V sign, then caught his foot on the kerb and stumbled, bumping into an elderly man walking his dog in the rain. The man gave him a dirty look, adjusted his spectacles and walked on.
He turned left where the couple had told him to and found himself the only pedestrian in quiet backstreets. The houses were all about three storeys high, divided into flats, with a buzzer and intercom by the front door. It wouldn’t be easy.
Many rooms were lit, some without curtains, and as he walked he looked in the windows and saw fragments of blue wall, the top corner of a bookshelf, a framed Dali print, an ornate chandelier, flickering television pictures, two people talking, a cat sitting on the window-sill watching the rain—a panorama of life.
The walk had taken some of the steam out of Owen, but he still wanted to see Michelle face to face, if only to watch her squirm as he accused her of her crimes.
He climbed the steps and looked at the list by the door. M.E. Chappel, Flat 4. Would that be on the first or second floor? He didn’t know. He crossed the street and looked up. Both second-floor windows were in darkness, as were those on the ground floor. On the first floor, bluish light filtered through the curtains of one, and the other was open to reveal a William Morris wallpaper design. That wasn’t Michelle at all. The blue room was more like her.
He stood in the shadows wondering what to do. Rain drummed down, an oily sheen on the street. He didn’t feel as brave now as he had on leaving the pub. The booze had worn off, and he had a headache. He needed another drink, but it was close to eleven; the pubs would be closing. Besides, Michelle would probably be going to bed soon. Now he was here, he couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
A man and a woman huddled together under an umbrella approached the house, turned up the path and climbed the steps. The way they walked, Owen guessed they were a little tipsy. Probably unemployed and didn’t have to go to work in the morning. He shrank back into the shadows. The man said something, and the woman laughed. She shook out her umbrella over the steps. It wasn’t Michelle.
When she turned back to the door, Owen hurried across the street behind them. It was a hell of a long shot, but it might just work. They had their backs turned, the street wasn’t well lit, and they couldn’t hear him because of the rain and the rumbles of thunder. Adrenalin pumped him up and seemed to rekindle some of the earlier bravado. He was close now. It all depended on how slowly the door closed on its spring behind them.
As soon as they were both inside and the man let go of the door, Owen dashed on tiptoe up the steps and put his hand out. He stopped the door just before it had completely swung back and relatched.
He looked around at the houses across the street. As far as he could make out, nobody was watching him. He heard another door open and close inside the building, and the lights went on in one of the ground floor flats.
Softly, Owen pushed the front door open and slipped inside.
V
Stafford Oakes quickly assured Spinks that the charges against him could be reduced to a manageable level—the drugs, especially. Add that he had no prior record, that he had been upset over a missed job opportunity and any number of other mitigating circumstances that affected his stress-level when he stole and crashed the car, and he’d probably get a few month’s community service. Lucky community.
“So,” Banks asked him when Oakes had left. “Why don’t you tell us about it? Then we’ll get the Crown to put the lesser charges in writing. More coffee? Cigarette.”
Spinks shrugged. “Why not.”
Banks poured from the carafe he had had sent up. “Off the record,” he asked, “did you steal Michael Clayton’s car on 20 August last year?”
Spinks snapped the filter off the cigarette and lit it. “I don’t remember the exact date, but it was around then. And I didn’t
steal
it. Just borrowed it for a quick spin, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Because he treated me like shit, that’s why. Fucking snob. Like I wasn’t good enough to wipe his precious goddaughter’s nose with.”
“This was just after he and Lady Harrison found you and Deborah drinking wine in the back garden?”
“Yeah. We weren’t doing no harm. Just having a barbie and a drop or two of the old vino. He acted like it was too good for the likes of me. It was only a fucking bottle of wine, for Christ’s sake. He’d no call to be so rude to me, calling me an idle lout and a thickie and all that. It’s not my fault I can’t get a job, is it?”
“And you did some damage to the car, for revenge?”
“No. It was an accident. I was still learning, wasn’t I? That car’s got a very sensitive accelerator.”
From what Banks had heard of Spinks’s driving history so far, it might be a good idea if the court could somehow prevent him from ever getting a licence. Not that it seemed to have stopped him so far.
“Did you also take a notebook computer out of the car?”
“It was in the back seat under a coat.”
“Did you take it?”
Spinks looked at Gristhorpe. “It’s all right, sonny,” the superintendent said, “you can answer any question Chief Inspector Banks asks you with complete impunity.”
“Uh? Come again.”
“No blame attached. It’s all off the record. None of it is being recorded or written down. Remember what the solicitor told you. Relax. Feel free.”
Spinks drank some coffee. “Yes,” he said. “I thought it might be worth something.”
“And was it?”
He shrugged. “Piss all. Bloke on the market offered me seventy-five measly quid.”
And the market vendor was reselling it for a hundred and fifty, Banks remembered. A hundred and fifty quid for a six-thousand-pound computer. “So you sold it to him?”
“That’s right.”
“Before you sold it, did you use it at all?”
“Me? No. Don’t know how to work those things, do I?”
“What about Deborah?”
“What about her?”
“She was a bright girl. Studied computers at school. She’d know how to get it going.”
“Yeah, well …”
“You
were
still seeing Deborah at that time, weren’t you?” “Yeah.”
“And did she ever visit your house?”
“Yeah. Once or twice. Turned her nose up, though. Said it smelled and it was dirty.” He laughed. “Wouldn’t use the toilet, no matter how much she wanted to go.”
“Right,” said Banks. “Now what I’d like to know, John, is did Deborah have a go with the computer?”
“Yeah, well, she did, as a matter of fact.” He turned to Gristhorpe, as if for confirmation that he could continue with impunity. Gristhorpe nodded like a priest. Spinks went on, “Yeah. Deb, she was with me, like, when I … you know … went for a ride.”
“Deborah was with you when you stole Michael Clayton’s car?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Only don’t use that word ‘stole.’ I don’t like it. See, it was even more in the family with her being there wasn’t it? Just like borrowing the family car, really.”
“Did you ever tell him it was the two of you who’d ‘borrowed’ his car?”
“Course not. You think I’m stupid or something?”
“Go on.”
“Anyway, she didn’t like the idea at first. No bottle, hadn’t Deb. But soon as I got us inside, quiet as could be, like, and got that Swedish engine purring, she took to it like a duck to water, didn’t she? It was Deb noticed the computer. Said she was surprised Clayton let it out of his sight given as how he was the kind of bloke couldn’t even jot down a dental appointment without putting it on his computer. I said let’s just leave it. But she said no, she wanted to have a go on it.”
“So what did you do?”
“After we’d finished with the car we went back to my house. My mum was out, as usual, and I was feeling a bit randy by then, after a nice fast drive. I fancied a bit of the other, but she went all funny, like she did sometimes, and after a while I didn’t even want it any more. She had a way like that, you know. She could be really off-putting, really cold.”
“The computer, John?”
“Yeah, well once Deb got it going I couldn’t drag her away from it.”
“What about the password?”
“Whatever it was, if there was one, it didn’t take her very long. I will say this, though, she seemed a bit surprised at how easy it was.”
“The password?”
“Whatever it took to get the bloody thing going.”
“What did she say?”
“‘Well, bugger me!’ Not exactly those words, mind you, but that was the feeling. She didn’t like to swear didn’t Deb. More like gosh or golly or something.”
“And then?”
Spinks shrugged. “Then she just played around with it for a while. I got bored and went upstairs for a lie-down.”
“Was she still playing with it when you went back down?”
“Just finishing. It looked like she was taking something out of it. One of those little square things, what do you call them?”
“A diskette?”
“That’s right.”
“Where did she get it from?”
“I don’t know. The computer was in a carrying case and there were a whole bunch them there, in little pockets, like. I suppose that’s where she got it from.”
“What did she do with it?”
“Put it in her pocket.”
“Any idea what was on it?”
“No. I asked her what she was up to but she told me to mind my own business.”
“Did she do anything else with computer?”
“Yeah. She tapped a few keys, watched the screen for a while, smiled to herself, funny like, then turned it off.”
“And then?”
“She told me I could sell it if I wanted and keep the money.” He looked towards Gristhorpe. “I mean, she practically gave it to me, right? And it was in the family. Well, he was her godfather, anyway. That has to count, doesn’t it.”
“It’s all right,” Gristhorpe assured him. “You’re doing fine. Just keep on answering the questions as fully and as honestly as you can.”
Spinks nodded.
“Did she tell you at any time what she’d found on the computer?”
“No. I mean, I didn’t pester her about it. I could tell she didn’t want to say anything. If you ask me she found out he’d been fiddling the books or something.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Stands to reason, doesn’t it?”
“Did she ever refer to the incident again?”
“No. Well, it wasn’t much more than a week or so later when her mother caught us in bed. Then it was cards for me. On your bike, mate.”