Kill and Tell (13 page)

Louis Consadine’s brother, Curtis, has perfect caramel skin and luscious locks of dark brown hair, tousled from the night. His eyes are still puffy from sleep and he blinks at Staffe, says ‘What the fuck?’

Beyond, in his student flat, a tiny, beautiful Japanese woman gets out of bed wearing just a T-shirt. When she bends to get juice from the fridge, her butt cheeks show. She turns, smiling, wiggling a carton of apple juice. Curtis is a very lucky young man. Looking back at Curtis, Staffe thinks,
And so are you, young lady
.

He shows his warrant card to Curtis, who merely shrugs. Clearly, this is not the first time for Curtis, even though he has no criminal record and he has just started a BA in economics and statistics at LSE. He got straight A*s from Ernest Bevin in Hackney and is on one of the most competitive undergraduate courses in the country.

‘The fuck you want?’ he says, sounding out of context; sounding just like his little brother.

Staffe says, ‘I’m worried about your little brother, Curtis.’

‘Who are you?’ says the girl, coming up to Staffe and peering at him. Her eyes are like tiny pillows made from silk, to take jewels. She studies him as if he is a rarity. ‘I have to practice.’

‘He won’t be here long, Mako,’ says Curtis, kissing her away. The two men watch her pick up a violin and pad into the en-suite. Once she closes the bathroom door, Curtis says, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Louis. He’s a good boy.’

‘He’s got a different life to you.’

‘I got to the plaudits first, is all. They run out fast where we’re from. Can you
imagine
that? Only space for one freak, man.’

‘I can see trouble coming for Louis. You know Louis is tangled in that Golding murder. You’ll have known Jadus, and Brandon Latymer.’

Curtis shakes his head, slowly, extravagantly. ‘Why exactly are you here, harassing me?’

‘This isn’t harassment, Curtis. I just need to know where Louis was on 18 August.’

‘The fuck would I know?’

‘He says he was with his girlfriend, Leilah Frankland.’

‘She’s a crackhead. Anyone will tell you. But if she says she was with him, she was with him.’

‘Let’s hope so. Where were you, Curtis?’

‘I was out Margate. It was results day, see? You can check that out, and I went to the sea with a bottle of rum and I drank the fuckin’ lot and gave thanks to my mother. I promised her I’d make it and I did. I keep my promises. The Consadines keep their promises.’

‘Your mother passed away?’

He nods his head.

‘And it was just you and Louis?’

‘That was then. He’s old enough to be on his own.’

‘You’re going to be a rich young man is my guess. This city’s going to be your oyster in three years’ time – so long as your brother doesn’t muddy the waters.’

‘I think it’s about time you fucked off, don’t you, inspector?’

The sound of a violin emerges from beyond the door and both men stand dead still, their mouths slightly open as they listen to Mako’s music soar and swoon. Eventually, Staffe says, ‘Bartók.’

‘Number five,’ says Curtis.

‘I can never get the numbers,’ says Staffe.

‘You can’t make two and two make five.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘This is no political environment to be parking your man’s murder on innocent black boys.’

‘Louis isn’t black.’

‘Brandon Latymer is. Jadus Golding was. You know the desired outcome here.’

‘Did Brandon do it, Curtis? Louis could help himself if he just told us what he knows.’

Curtis’s eyes narrow and his fists clench. ‘You can’t force statements like that on innocents. You’ve enough blood on your hands.’ Curtis unclenches his fists and wiggles his fingers, like a boxer.

‘You seem to find this a touchy subject.’

‘I’ll tell you this for fuck all – my Louis did bits and bobs once-upon, but those days are over. See, he couldn’t hurt a flea, my Louis, that’s why he needs to get out of there. That’s the plan. We just need three years while I get the letters after my name and we’re out – so you bear that in mind when you’re trampling innocents underfoot.’ He looks up to the ceiling, as if talking to someone not here. He closes his eyes, takes in the music. It seems to calm him and after half a dozen bars, he says, ‘Listen to that. She’s loose, isn’t she? So fuckin’ loose, man.’

Birdsong flutters from the trees in Appolina and Jacobo Sartori’s garden. It is a compact, nurtured garden and the early sun paddles soft light on it, as if this place might belong to René and Georgia Magritte.

Appolina leans on her stick, drowned in her dressing gown. She says to Josie, ‘So, Jacobo is safe, but you won’t let me see him.’

‘This is a serious situation – for both of you. We want you both to feel safe.’

‘Safe? This is my home, why wouldn’t I be safe?’

‘Because of what Jacobo knows.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like I told you, Abie Myers was trying to abduct Jacobo when we intervened.’

‘Why would he do that?’

Josie pours tea and adds lemon for Appolina. ‘I would love to hear your story – what it was like in Sicily, all those years ago.’

Appolina sits in a wingback chair that faces the garden. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m a Roman girl.’

‘Tell me about the first time you met Jacobo.’

‘It was here, in London. We met through Carmelo. I worked for him and I can remember the first time Jacobo looked at me. Do you have a husband?’

‘I am with someone – sort of.’

‘Give him time. It’s not what people say, you know. Not always.’

‘It sounds to me like you were lucky.’

‘They say you make your own luck. We have a responsibility to our heart, but we’re not beholden to it.’

‘Jacobo has been a loyal husband.’

‘He put me first, you might say. To begin with, he had to go away with Carmelo but gradually he put a stop to that. He never told me anything, though.’ Appolina talks to Josie about life after the war and how gradually everything began to change for the better and Carmelo made more and more money and they came by this house and Jacobo became more and more content as the years passed.

‘But then Carmelo’s wife died. And he never found love again?’

‘Love was never such a thing for Carmelo. I never saw a person who could control his heart the way Carmelo did. He never lost his temper, you know. He always acted with his head. Ice in his veins. Not a bad man, but he didn’t feel things like Jacobo. He spent all his love on Mary and God.’

‘And what about Abie? I heard his wife moved on.’

‘Moved on?’ Appolina stares into the garden. She looks startled and her teacup shakes in its saucer. She holds the cup by its rim and Josie goes to her, takes it from her.

‘It might help, if we could talk to her. It could help Carmelo.’

‘I owe Carmelo nothing. He will take his chances with St Peter. That’s what he always said.’

‘We need to eliminate Jacobo from our enquiries, so you can resume your life. You won’t be at peace until we find who took Carmelo, and Esther could help.’

‘She was crazy, that Esther Myers. She had to move on.’

‘Crazy?’

‘Oh yes,’ says Appolina, turning away from her garden. Her jaw is set and her chin raised, resolute. ‘Really crazy, that’s all I know; but I can tell you I wasn’t sad when I heard we’d seen the back of her.’

In Leadengate, Staffe signs the papers for Jacobo’s release and as they walk to the car park, he says, ‘We need to know why you were watching me in Brighton. Who sent you the photograph?’

‘It arrived at the hotel. I don’t know who from and that’s the God’s honest truth. Then a phone message at the Lancaster to say which train you were on.’

‘You put yourself in the firing line, following me. Not such a good outcome as it turned out.’

‘Well, that’s the truth.’

‘From what I’ve read of Leon Goldman’s memoir, Abie Myers would have known you might be at the Lancaster. But why would Abie come looking for you?’

‘Because I have something he wants.’ Jacobo is faltering now. ‘I don’t know what it is, but you must protect me, inspector. You promised you would.’

‘And you must tell me the truth. You say you stayed in the Lancaster. You’re sure about that?’

‘You’ve seen my statement.’

‘You’re getting tired, Jacobo. Let’s get you home.’

Staffe drives Jacobo home and the motion of the car soon lulls the old man to sleep, but after a while, Staffe pumps the brake, twice and fast, which jolts Jacobo from sleep and he looks warily out of the window. They are driving past Spitalfields Market. ‘This isn’t the way home.’

‘But it is.’ A few trendy revellers smoke outside the Lion as Staffe turns onto Cable Street towards Shadwell station with the overground tracks running above them on the left. On the right, St George’s Town Hall and its enormous mural of the Battle of Cable Street; the plaque for the men and women who joined the International Brigade: ‘They went because their open eyes could see no other way.’

‘I brought you the scenic route.’ He slows the car down as they pass the high, proud tenements on the left, just where you would turn up to Stepney Green and Abie’s place. He watches in the rear view as he makes the turn and slowly, ever slower, they crawl past Abie Myers’ house where the lights are on. Outside, a couple of SOCOs load their gear into a van. ‘He didn’t move far, did he?’

‘Who?’ Jacobo’s voice is weak. He is clearly afraid to be here.

‘Abie. He has a fancy place up in Stanmore, but he chooses to live here.’ Up ahead, the non-stop traffic of the Mile End Road rumbles by, hammering in and out of the city. A short distance across the East End is Carmelo’s home. ‘Times change, but they didn’t move on.’ Staffe turns off the engine.

‘We can’t stop here.’

‘Tell me about Cable Street, Jacobo.’ Staffe jabs his thumb over his shoulder. ‘You were there, weren’t you?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘A quarter of a million people came. They rose up against fascism. It was one of our greatest days. Are you sure you weren’t there? You’d remember.’

‘I wasn’t there.’

‘OK.’ Staffe turns on the engine and they move slowly away. As they go, a frail figure comes to the first-floor window, peering out. ‘If you say so.’ Staffe puts a hand on his heart, feels the papers that came through from the Archive, confirming that Jacobo Sartori had come from Sicily to England on Sunday 23 September 1936, just two weeks before the Battle of Cable Street gladdened the heart of the free world. The address he gave to Customs? 45 Cable Street. His home town? Siracusa, the opposite side of the island from Carmelo Trapani.

Maurice pulls up the collar of his overcoat against the sea wind. He takes out his phone and looks at the photograph of Tatiana on its screen. His stomach is hollow and his thoughts meander, always turning back to her. He watches people board the boat and makes up his mind. He is so close to the end, he can’t take flight yet, so he tears the ticket in two and makes his way back to town.

As a final group of people rush past him towards the Dieppe crossing, dragging cases and children, Maurice unwraps the memories of his father, Claudio, and plays back the old story he told him: too old to be sitting on his old man’s knee, but happy nonetheless to smell the fat of the ham in his sweater and let the gravelly words slip into each other. The story changed a little every time. He always expected a proper ending but he never got one and now he pauses, takes out the photograph of his father’s father and Carmelo Trapani and Jacobo Sartori, in Tilbury dock, October 1936.

His blood courses a little faster and his mind becomes clear.

Pennington hands Staffe the three files and leans back. As Staffe flicks through the papers, Pennington feels the cases and the criminals from all down the years pressing down on him as if the ether is heavy with paper and dark souls.

One file contains the original immigration papers for Maurizio Verdetti, the grandfather of Maurice Greene, who arrived in England on 7 September, a couple of weeks before Carmelo Trapani and Jacobo Sartori. Maurizio, born in Palermo, just like Carmelo.

In another file, the births and deaths of the families are all detailed. In a third and final file, the academic records of Maurice himself, there being no criminal records, nor employment history. He doesn’t own a car, has never troubled the Revenue.

‘Has Rimmer seen these?’ asks Staffe.

‘Don’t you worry about Rimmer. Stay focused on finding Carmelo Trapani.’

‘While Rome burns.’

‘What? Aah. Pulford. There’s news, I’m afraid. We have a date for trial.’

‘He can’t be going to trial.’

‘The evidence is all one way, Will. Maybe this will shake the tree and he’ll spill some beans. Internal Investigations have done all they can to help him, believe me.’

‘Bollocks! They’re hanging him out to dry, trying to show we’re whiter than white. He’s being threatened, for God’s sake.’

‘He hasn’t filed a complaint. Internal Investigations sent a man down there, but Pulford refused to speak to him.’

‘They killed his mother’s dog.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘Brandon Latymer is back in circulation. It’s only a matter of time before he gives himself away. We’ve already sighted him with the mother of Jadus’s child. He wanted Jadus out of the way.’

‘His lawyer will say it is a tryst born of loyalty and shared grief. It’s not uncommon.’

‘My arse.’

‘The CPS are prepared to play ball. Everybody wants a swift conclusion.’

‘You’re not talking about a deal?’

‘It’s what’s best for Pulford. You know it’s like tinder out there on the estates. We can’t have another Summer ’11 on our hands.’

‘Not with people’s careers at stake.’

‘Look, Will. If Pulford didn’t do it and he’s holding out on us for whatever reason, he is bringing this on himself. Don’t blame me. Don’t blame anyone else.’

‘I’ll blame the people who killed Jadus Golding. And I’ll catch them. If you’d forgotten, that’s what we’re supposed to do. Pulford didn’t kill Golding.’

‘You can’t know that.’

Staffe doesn’t want to tell Pennington, but knows he has to. Every hour he delays, the greater the repercussions will become. ‘We’ve seen the gun. The e.gang has the gun. It’s a Browning, the one Golding used on me.’

‘Where the hell is it?’

‘They have it.’

‘How do you know this? I told you to stay away.’

‘We just know it, sir. We’ve seen it.’

‘We? You and Rimmer? I can’t believe Rimmer would transgress like this.’

‘Not Rimmer, sir.’

‘Aah. Your precious Chancellor.’

‘It’s nothing to do with her. It was my call.’

‘Where the hell is this gun?’

‘Chancellor touched it, sir. The e.gang have it.’

‘They have the murder weapon and it has Chancellor’s prints on it? Sweet Jesus, man.’

‘We need a warrant, sir.’

‘I’ll be the bastard judge of that.’ Pennington stands, turns his back on Staffe. His shoulders rise and fall and his hands hang by his sides in tight fists. ‘You need to get out of here, Staffe. Take those papers and bring me Carmelo Trapani.’

‘Something for the front pages?’

‘Don’t be so bloody facetious. We all want the same thing, including Pulford. I should never have brought you back.’

Staffe tries to stand, but the breath in his throat gushes away and nothing comes in its stead. He gasps, sucking at the air. He reaches for the desk and hears Pennington say something. He puts the other hand on the desk and bends double, gulping air.

For a moment, his lungs won’t work and the blood in his body seems to stall. He makes an almighty effort, sucking at the air and finally, it comes. It rushes into him like the ocean and he stands double, feels his belly clench.

‘What the hell’s wrong, man?’ says Pennington.

Staffe’s heart batters at his skin now and in his gut he is sick. Sick at what might happen to Pulford.

‘I heard you’ve not been so good. You’d better see someone.’

Staffe goes to the washroom, leans on the basin and splashes water onto his face. He tries to get his brain working but it stalls, keeps coming back to the mirror.

He calls Josie, but there is no reply.

Staffe puts a hand to his heart again. All alone, with just tiles and mirrors, he watches Josie’s name fade from his phone and his fingers work away, of their own accord, until a voice comes to him. It is a voice he has loved. His last resort.

‘What time is it?’ Sylvie sounds drowsy and he pictures her smudged smile.

He says, ‘I’m in trouble. Can we meet? Please.’

A line of inmates walk across from the wings to Gym and Workshop. There is something weird about the light today – a light mist in the air and the sun paints unlikely haloes around the hunched shapes of the cons.

Pulford has been watching the day since its first tweet of dawn. For hours, the place has chirruped, from window to window, dragging him down. This is not going to get any better. His first thought when he woke had been the trial.

Last night, his brief had told him the Crown is very confident of a conviction now. There is, apparently, a collective will to see this put to bed, and he pictured himself being led up – by a colleague, a look of disappointment in the officer’s eyes.

He has been expecting it for weeks, but it was still a punch to the belly. He spent most of the night up and down to the toilet, squatting on its cold steel rim, coming up empty but his guts twisting.

Two raps at the door and he steps away from the window. He hears a low murmur of voices and the bolt is shot. The door opens, revealing Beef.

For a moment, Beef looks as if he really doesn’t want to be there, and then his expression tightens and his eyes come to life – in a bad way. ‘I’m like your copy of the
Daily
fuckin’
Mail
. Got some news for you.’ He advances towards Pulford.

‘I already heard. I’ve got a court date.’

‘You’ve got a date with the grim reaper, is what you’ve got. You can’t do life, Pulford. You’re a pussy.’ Beef is in his face now, standing toe to toe.

‘I won’t be doing life.’

‘There’s new evidence.’

‘You’re a lawyer now, are you?’

‘Don’t be fuckin’ clever, you pussy.’ When Beef says ‘pussy’, he showers a light spray of spittle in Pulford’s face. His breath is rank and it makes Pulford want to heave. ‘But they got new stuff on that gun, see? That gun with your prints on it? Well, that’s in the fuckin’ evidence now. They call it “discovery”, you know – that whole scene of sharing what everybody knows. I know my law, and I can tell you, that gun – the one that’s going to shoot you in the face—’

‘I can explain how those prints got there.’

‘Your prints are not the only ones on that gun, is what they just discovered.’

‘Brandon’s are on it.’

‘’Course they are. Everyone knows Jadus came running to Brandon when he shot your mate. But how did that pretty little copper get her dabs on my man’s weapon?’

‘What?’

‘She’s a fine piece of pig, that Chancellor. How d’you think she got her fingers on my man’s heat?’

‘She had nothing to do with Jadus Golding. It was me. Just me.’

‘The two of you were in it together. Why else would she have her prints on the gun?’

‘I was working alone.’

‘You’re going to have to convince the judge. Not me,’ says Beef, who must see something he didn’t bargain for in Pulford’s eyes because he steps back and taps the door.

Crawshaw appears.

Beef backs out of the door, saying, ‘You going to have to do what we say. You best listen up.’

Pulford rushes at Beef, but Crawshaw steps across, catches him across the jaw with an elbow. Pulford crashes to the deck and looks up, watches them retreat. He tries to get up, to have another go, but his legs have gone and Crawshaw closes the door, shoots the bolt for what sounds like a final time, but Pulford doesn’t feel that lucky.

It might just be the last day of the long summer and Staffe sits in a deck chair by the open-air swimming pool at London Fields. He wants to get into Maurice Greene’s place, but not until the SOCOs are all done; he also wants to have heard back from the
polizia
in Siracusa.

A bloke in a suit chats with another fellow in a Hawaiian shirt and combat shorts. They both have sunglasses on and they each call out to their children every now and again. Staffe wonders how a child might fit into a grown person’s life. He never really understood how it did for his own father.

The two men seem to be making friends and each takes out a handset and taps in some data. Are they exchanging numbers? He pictures the two of them maybe doing a bit of spliff or going to a game, and the delight that would ensue when their partners also rub along quite nicely.

His phone beeps and he watches as the message comes up. First, the text. Then the picture, but the glare from the sun obscures the image so Staffe puts the handset up his shirt and peers down at the screen, inside his shirt.

It’s clear enough, this photo they have sent at the click of a button from the south-eastern tip of Sicily. It will be less fuzzy when he sees it on his desktop, but even in this light, the truth is crystal clear.

‘The fuck you up to?’

‘Fuckin’ pervert!’

Staffe pulls his head out of his shirt, looks up at the new friends in the suit and Hawaiian shirt bearing down on him, their children stood by the edge of the pool, shivering.

‘I was looking at a picture,’ says Staffe.

‘Call the police, Marcus,’ says the one in the suit. ‘I’ll keep holda the cunt.’ His suit is eight hundred quid, the accent pure Canning Town.

Staffe knows they’re not the enemy, but he stands up and shrugs the man off, holds out his warrant card like it’s Mace. ‘I’m police. Sorry.’ He looks at the two children. One is afraid, the other is loving it. ‘I’m so sorry.’