Kill and Tell (14 page)

On his way to Maurice’s flat, Staffe replays how strangely pleased Sylvie was to hear from him. She said something about fate that didn’t really make sense to him and how nice it was that they could chat like adults and it would be lovely to get together.

The SOCOs have dusted every inch of Maurice’s flat and his writing desk has a stack of clear plastic evidence bags, numbered. The head of the team points to an indexed tabulation of fingerprints, says, ‘Carmelo Trapani’s prints are in the lounge, kitchen and bathroom. And so are Miles Hennigan’s.’

‘Hennigan? What the hell would he be doing here?’ says Staffe, looking at Tatiana.

Tatiana shrugs.

Staffe looks at the summary of items: an old mobile phone with the SIM card bagged separately; an Oyster card; a pair of boots with mud dried to their soles; and an SLR digital camera, with its memory card separately bagged.

He says to Tatiana, ‘We’ll need to see your phone, and your Oyster card.’

‘I need them!’

‘I’ll bring them back as soon as I can. I promise.’

Tatiana opens her handbag, disgruntled in a theatrical way. As she looks for her Oyster card, the head SOCO says, ‘And you might want to see this.’ He takes the photo memory card from its evidence bag, puts it into his laptop and a fast reel of images scrolls down the screen, eventually settling on a sequence of Staffe at Carmelo’s house, and two of him coming out of Leadengate Station.

‘These are Maurice Greene’s?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Staffe points to one image, says, ‘This is the one Jacobo Sartori had.’

Josie appears from the kitchen, holding a clear plastic bag with a pair of boots in it. ‘We’ve just got the match, sir. The mud is from Carmelo’s place, and there’s a matching imprint, too.’

Rimmer says, ‘He wouldn’t take Carmelo. He’s too fond of the old boy.’

‘Yet you think it was Attilio, his own son?’ says Staffe.

‘There’s no love lost there. And Attilio knew he was being squeezed out.’

‘But there’s nothing for him in the will,’ says Staffe.

‘Aah.’ Rimmer reaches into his pocket, pulls out a folded piece of paper. ‘Your friend Martin Goldman sent this through. It’s a petition from Attilio Trapani and Helena Ballantyne, to nullify the last will and testament of Carmelo Trapani.’

‘He told me he would do the honourable thing and not go digging up the past. This isn’t Attilio. This is Helena’s doing. She needs to keep Ockingham Manor. She doesn’t want Abie Myers getting his hands on it.’

‘How would Myers get his hands on Ockingham?’

‘He already has a stake in it through Blackfriars, Rimmer. Do your homework.’ Staffe turns to Tatiana. ‘Does Maurice have a passport?’

‘Of course. We love to travel.’

Staffe says to the SOCO, ‘But it’s not here?’

‘We’ve been through every pocket and every drawer.’

Staffe looks through Tatiana’s bag, sees her passport and says to the SOCO, ‘Make sure you bag this passport and the Oyster and her phone.’ He ushers Tatiana out of the flat. ‘You’ll get your things back when we find Maurice.’

‘What if you don’t find him?’

‘Then you should get a decent lawyer. In fact, get yourself one anyway.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Tatiana, staring hard at Staffe. She doesn’t blink and he is first to look away. ‘We have one.’ She makes her way onto the street, turning towards Kingsland Road.

Staffe has to be at the St John in Spitalfield for twelve noon to meet Sylvie, and woe betide him if he is late.

Tatiana disappears round the corner, towards the Overground, and Staffe legs it to the corner in time to see Tatiana climbing the steps to the Overground platform. As he follows her, he thinks about Attilio, the digging up of the past and the image they sent from Siracusa.

Louis Consadine punches his own chest. His heart is burning from all that fried chicken and over-proof cider, and Leilah is still passed out on the mattress on the floor. No matter how hard he shakes her, Leilah won’t wake up. Whilst he slept, she had finished off their crack. He loves her so much it’s fucked up, but sometimes he wishes she wasn’t so full on.

Sometimes, Louis wishes he could do what his brother Curtis says. Ditch the bitch. A couple of weeks ago, Curtis went round to see Leilah, told her to sling it, but the other day she texted Lou back, even though she’s a year older and could have anyone she wanted.

Curtis doesn’t get her and neither do the rest of his mates. Sometimes, Leilah isn’t a bitch and he sees the bits of her that she can’t reveal to the world, and it’s this that makes him forgive all her sins.

He puts the sole of his Nike Shox on her shoulder and rocks her. She grunts, turns over, shows her backside because all she is wearing is a bra. Her hair is matted and she has drooled in her sleep.

When Brandon pays him off for getting that policewoman’s dabs on the gun, he will take Leilah away; get clean. But first, he has to sort Curtis. They have a plan and it all relies on Curtis keeping his nut down, studying and getting that job.

Louis checks Leilah’s purse and counts out her money. She’s got seven quid, an E and a wrap of MDMA for when she comes round. Louis knows how much he’s got. Fuck all. He looks down on the gasworks and all the way across the Isle of Dogs to the Naval College. He’s so high he thinks he might see the sea. It’s Leilah’s sister’s place. She’s doing a bit of time in Holloway at the moment but she told him once she could see the sea from her place in the Balfron.

This isn’t his manor and he’s scared to go out, unsure where he stands round here, and he wonders when Brandon will come. They need food and Nurishment – some weed, maybe. No more crack, not yet. Maybe a bit of Valium or tam. Christ, now he hopes Leilah won’t wake up because she’ll be a nightmare, and then he looks at her peach. He lies next to her and feels her soft skin and, just now, that seems like it might be enough.

He’ll be sixteen in two weeks. That’s a game-changer and he wishes he was young again. He holds Leilah tight, just wanting her to hold him. He puts his hand to her gynie. It’s stubbled. She says she shaves it for him, but he doesn’t care about that. He just wants her to say something right into his ear: soft and warm and not dirty.

Tatiana is in the next carriage and Staffe sits on the same side as her, so she won’t clock him if she looks over. A group of loud young girls get onto Tatiana’s carriage at Haggerston, which means he can steal glimpses of Tatiana, jaw set, as if she knows precisely what she is doing.

As they pull into Dalston, Tatiana beckons one of the girls over to her – an Asian with dyed-pink Mohican hair. She offers a twenty-pound note to the girl and a commotion seems to ensue. Eventually, the girl with the Mohican hands Tatiana her phone and the other girls form a semicircle around her, but Tatiana says something to make the girls back off.

The SOCOs kept Tatiana’s mobile phone so she must be telephoning a number that is in her own memory. Tatiana finishes her call and the girls shift to block the doors, so she hands over another note – presumably for a second call.

The train slows into Canonbury and Tatiana moves to the doors, not giving the handset back, and when the girl reaches out for her phone, Tatiana – despite the fact that she is outnumbered five to one and these girls seem equipped to handle themselves – shows the back of her hand to the girl, as if she might slap her, and the girls move away, as one. Tatiana steps out, ending her call and tossing the phone into the carriage so it skids along the floor. Staffe checks his watch. It is twenty to twelve and he has to be back in Shoreditch for noon.

Two of the five girls want to get off and slap Tatiana. The other three don’t fancy it. Tatiana turns her back and walks quickly to the escalators.

The train beeps and the doors begin to slide. Staffe has to decide.

He could follow Tatiana and see where she is going. It might simply be to see a friend or it might be to meet Maurice or even Carmelo; but he knows that if he lets her go and throws in his lot with the group of girls, he can see who Tatiana has called. He wishes he had the data from her Oyster card, which would confirm if Canonbury is a regular haunt, but he has to decide.

The door slides.

The train jolts away and he watches Tatiana go, in her short fur jacket and her soft leather boots. He walks to the girls, says, ‘I’m police and I need to see that phone.’

The girl with the phone says, ‘I fuckin’ done nothing.’

‘I know, but I need to see that phone.’

‘You can frisk me, if you want,’ says another girl and the rest of them snigger.

Staffe checks his watch again, plucks the phone from the girl and jots down Leadengate’s address, tells her she can pick it up tomorrow. Or they will send it round to her house, if she prefers.

‘My dad’ll fuckin’ kill me if there’s filth to the house.’

At Highbury and Islington, Staffe steps off as the train pulls away and the girls mimic fellatio and give him the finger.

The Overground skims Staffe back into the East End and as he comes into Haggerston, running late for his lunch appointment, he has a sense of looking at London through a different lens, directly into lives suspended above the streets. In new conversions that back onto the lines, he watches an old trendy at a stove, a young couple rising from their sheets, a middle-aged woman hunkering over an analogue typewriter.

He looks at the two numbers which Tatiana had called: a mobile and a Brighton landline. He texts the numbers to Jom and when it’s sent, he looks at the image that Siracusa police had sent – a brutish youth, tall with a shock of black hair and a broken nose, from a bygone era.

When the doors open at Hoxton, a church somewhere near chimes noon. He paces up and down the carriage, already late, waiting for Shoreditch, and when they get there, Staffe runs to Spitalfields, starting off at what was his usual pace – before the shooting – but he is soon out of breath, bent double and wheezing before he can even see the market. Is his heart too weak to pump the blood? Is he simply out of condition?

He gets to the St John in Spitalfield at twenty past twelve and Sylvie is paying the waiter for her drink. When she sees Staffe, she packs her phone and magazine into her bag, stands and puts on her coat. It is a light, mustard-coloured mac he bought her three birthdays ago.

‘Don’t even say it, Will.’

He puts a hand on her forearm, says, ‘Please.’ The waiter returns with her change. ‘Don’t let me spoil it. The soft-shell crabs are the best in London. At least have those and then go.’ He turns to the waiter. ‘Am I right?’

The waiter gives Sylvie a lop-sided, apologetic look. ‘He’s right. They are the best. They’re very good with Chablis.’ He winks at her. ‘I have a
premier cru
.’

They both laugh, and Staffe says, ‘A bottle of that, then.’

A silence develops. Eventually, Sylvie says, ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I popped into the station. I had a client at Franckesbanck. It’s only round the corner.’

‘You went into the station and—?’

‘I ran into that woman you work with. The pretty one. She said she was worried about you and said if I spoke to you, perhaps I could have a word.’

‘She’s no right.’

‘Not unless she cares about you. Don’t be a bloody idiot, Will. Now, have you seen a doctor?’

‘There’s no need.’

‘Well, I’m not here to bang my head against your brick wall. God knows, I’ve enough brain damage from that already.’ The waiter brings the Chablis. ‘Tell me about David. He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’

‘I thought so. But lately, he’s giving in, and I know what that can look like to a jury.’

‘You don’t think he did it, do you?’

Staffe shakes his head.

‘But you haven’t got another suspect?’

‘Everyone’s treading on eggshells. I can’t say too much.’

‘But you’ve got to do your best for him.’

Staffe hisses, ‘Don’t you think I know that?’

Sylvie raises both her hands, palms facing him, and for a while they each look around the light, high-ceilinged dining room: bleached wood and a lively young crowd.

He says, ‘Have you been seeing anybody?’

Sylvie nods. She closes her eyes as she drinks the Chablis, says, ‘This
is
divine. I forgot about your good points.’

‘Who is he?’

‘He was kind and he loved me. He asked me to marry him, in fact.’

‘What?’ It is only a couple of years since she wore Staffe’s ring.

‘So now I’m not seeing anybody,’ she laughs, feebly. Sylvie replenishes her own glass, takes another sip. She drinks nervously, is out of character.

‘Are you all right, Syl?’

‘Not really.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘You fucked me up, Will. This man I was with, he was everything I should want. He’s got his own business and he’s young, honest and reliable.’

‘What business does he have?’

‘Why would it matter?’ Sylvie drains her glass and pours herself another, looks past Staffe, watching people on the street. A couple of hip young mothers talk, with toddlers at their feet and babies in buggies. Beyond them, trendy Spitalfields spins round at a million miles an hour. She seems unfocused, says almost under her breath. ‘He isn’t you.’

‘You don’t want me,’ he says.

Sylvie raises a napkin, covers her face. Her shoulders rise and fall and she sighs, heavily. The crabs arrive and she remains like that until the waiter is gone.

She removes the napkin from her face and her eyes are pink but she has a forced smile upon her face. ‘No, I don’t want you, and sometimes that means I can’t have anything and that—’ Her chin trembles. ‘That’s just not bloody fair. It’s not fair, Will. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I didn’t do anything but love you.’

‘I loved you.’

‘Not enough.’

‘I thought I did.’

Sylvie looks out of the window again. She has parted her hair on the side and it makes her cheekbones seem wider, like a dark, young, Debbie Harry, he thinks.

‘What about you?’ she says, still looking into the street. ‘What about the pretty policewoman. Josie?’