Kill and Tell (16 page)

Mister Crawshaw leads Pulford into the visits area. He says, ‘Ten minutes and not a fuckin’ second over.’

Staffe wants to collar Crawshaw and pin him to the wall, remind him that Pulford is a good guy who shouldn’t even be here and that they are – in this unwinnable battle between law and disorder – supposed to be on the same side.

Crawshaw takes up a position between the door and the alarm bell and puffs out his chest, chin up, lip sneering, holding his keys as if they are a weapon. Staffe couldn’t wait to get out of his uniform when he was accepted into CID. He’d like to ask Crawshaw if he really wanted to be a copper but wasn’t the right stuff. He says to Pulford, ‘Are you all set for court?’

Pulford can’t even meet Staffe’s eye.

Staffe lowers his voice, hisses, ‘It was Brandon Latymer, wasn’t it? Brandon shot Jadus Golding.’

Pulford mumbles, ‘They haven’t got enough on me.’ He looks up. ‘Have they?’

‘It’s time to speak up, tell us everything you know. Don’t let them get this wrong.’

‘They want me to plea.’

‘We need another suspect, David. Throw us a bone.’

‘I don’t have any bones. I don’t know who did it. But it wasn’t Brandon Latymer.’

‘What!’

Crawshaw flinches; tightens up his stance and barks, ‘Keep it down!’ He takes a step closer.

‘They’ve made me a good offer,’ says Pulford.

‘There’s no such thing if you’re innocent.’

‘I’ll be put into a soft jail within a couple of months. Out before I’m forty. People live to a hundred now, don’t they, sir? That’s a whole life waiting for me.’

‘But you’re a copper. That will be over.’

Pulford leans forward, says, ‘What’s in the bag?’

Staffe takes out the papers, gives Crawshaw an index of the contents, says, ‘Governor number two approved them. Look, there’s his signature.’

Crawshaw sneers, ‘Plenty time for your studies now.’

Pulford leafs through the papers greedily. ‘Wow! This is all about Sabini and the razor gangs. Illegal books were a licence to print money and all kinds of operations from different backgrounds carved up the action. They learned to coexist in peace and harmony.’ Pulford smiles, looks more like himself, as if he can be content in this parallel life of papers and books.

‘How’s it going with Carmelo?’

‘I came across one of his cousins today. A chap called Verdetti. Maurizio Verdetti.’

‘Verdetti?’ says Pulford.

Staffe turns over some of the papers in Pulford’s pile, shows him the photograph of an angelic young man beaming into camera, wearing a
yarmulke
and an easy smile. ‘Have you come across this fellow – Abie Myers?’

‘Is this to do with Carmelo Trapani?’

‘The Italians and the Jews worked together, didn’t they?’

‘That’s time,’ says Crawshaw.

‘Five more minutes.’

‘No way.’ Crawshaw takes a step to his left, within reaching distance of the alarm.

Pulford taps the photo of Abie Myers. ‘
Abie
Myers? You’re sure it’s Abie?’

‘Dead sure.’

‘It rings a bell, the Myers name. They were gangsters, right?’

‘Perfectly respectable now,’ says Staffe. ‘He’s got holding companies all over the tax-free world.’

‘There’s another Myers. A David Myers. He had a run-in with Sabini.’

‘Time!’ shouts Crawshaw.

‘Do you know about the new evidence?’ Pulford looks sheepish, now, all the confidence draining away. He can’t look at Staffe as he says, ‘They’ve got the gun.’

Staffe feels sick with guilt, says, ‘What do forensics say? Are there prints on it?’

‘We all know my prints are on the gun it. And Josie’s.’

‘How did they find the gun? And where?’

‘It was handed in by some dog-walker – directly to the Prosecution.’

‘You’ve got five seconds,’ says Crawshaw.

‘Brandon Latymer got you to hold the gun, didn’t he?’ whispers Staffe.

Crawshaw says, ‘I warned you.’ He reaches across and with a broad smile spreading across his face, he points a single finger at the alarm and presses. The bell is piercing. It drills bright and deep in the evening gloom and the fast tramp of feet follows swiftly.

Pulford leans forward, trying to get beneath the noise, says, ‘Brandon is clean. Clean as a whistle, you hear?’ He says it as if someone’s life is at stake.

Attilio Trapani lies on his bed, counting the beams on the ceiling. There are fifteen, and he has moved the bed a few inches so he can lie directly beneath the eighth where the chandelier hangs dead centre. He enjoys the sense of alignment.

Again, he puts the barrel to his mouth. It doesn’t taste metallic any longer and curiously, the longer he has been lying here, deliberating, the more ridiculous it seems to even attempt to persevere with life. It is absurd, to continue when the odds are so heavily stacked against him, and death has been between him and his shadow since he ever took his first breath – in the same short moments his mother took her last.

He removes the barrel, rests the Mossberg on his chest.

In the absence of siblings (how could he have had siblings when he determined a life as an only child so irrevocably?), death has been like a brother to him all the years, which makes him think of Maurice, left to fend for himself in Sicily and up in Lancashire with the Jesuits, brought up on Claudio’s tall tales of the mother country and the old East End.

He thinks he hears a car, purring to nothing.

Yes, once Maurice’s mother died and he was left in mad old Claudio’s charge, the boy began his own journey of running towards the past and a truth that reflects ill on everyone. This re-stiffens Attilio’s resolve, so he picks the Mossberg off his chest a last time and holds it aloft, turning the stock away from him and opening his mouth, feeling for the barrel the way the young might blindly reach for the tit – not that he ever did that.

This time his heart knows it – beating in pitter-patters now. He puts his thumb to the trigger and pushes. The skin beneath his nail turns white from the pressure. He reaches further out and presses the trigger some more. Mary mother of God, this Mossberg pulls heavy.

He makes the final press to the trigger and he prepares for a light to blind him, for the pearls of lead to explode through the roof of his mouth, and to smell the shot and to taste smoke, and for the backs of his eyes to burn and his brain to be wrested from itself and blood and flesh to discharge into the riding helmet; the green and white and red of his father’s colours, stolen from the Italian flag.

And somebody comes into the room, he thinks. A door opens.

A shaft of amber scrolls onto the bed and Attilio can’t help himself. He wrests the gun quickly away from his mouth and the gun explodes. He feels a dull throb in his ear, hears nothing at all.

Helena is standing in the doorway. She looks like an angel. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is fast but he can’t hear what she shouts. She stoops, then reappears, holding a piece of skin. It looks for all the world as if it might be the pendant lobe of an ear. Then he sees a darkness, fears it is temporary.

Josie is in the Hand and Shears with Conor, just like Jombaugh told Staffe she would be. They are leaning towards each other. She looks sad and neither of them notices Staffe come in.

He orders a pint of Adnams and mulls how he might break the news to her – that Pulford is being coerced into a plea bargain on account of her fingerprints on the gun, which has now miraculously appeared as part of the prosecution’s evidence, but the words keep getting muddled. The conversation he just had with Sylvie in St John is getting in the way. Did he really volunteer to father her child? Looking at Josie now, he can’t see how he might navigate his way to such a union.

Conor leans across and puts an arm around Josie, obscuring Staffe’s view of her. She pushes him away, but he goes again and she snaps at him. Behind the bar, April raises her eyebrows and nods her head sideways, encouraging Staffe to go across and intervene, but he bides his time. Josie’s eyes are red and Staffe thinks this is what the end of a relationship looks like, so he asks April to give Josie a note when she leaves. He writes: ‘Research Maurizio Verdetti death on day of Cable Street (4 Oct ’36) and look for other deaths – esp. a David Myers.’

Out on Cloth Fair, he gets a cab and within five minutes he is in a different world. The City has a ring of invisible portals, like so many railway arches to different dimensions. Perversely, you can pass easily from shiny to dark, like the bankers who slip down Shoreditch for a bit of the other, but try going the other way. It’s nigh impossible. Just looking at the glimmering towers is enough to cast your life in shadow, which prompts an image of Curtis Consadine at the LSE, one million and four miles from the Limekiln Estate, but with a key to the vault, it would seem.

And this is why Staffe couldn’t live without this job: living a life that constantly passes from one world to the other. This freedom of the City.

The Limekiln Tower looms high. There are other towers that are taller, but none with such gravity in Staffe’s world. Looking up from the Limekiln courtyard, he picks out Jasmine’s flat. A peachy glow within.

As he climbs the dark and echoing stairwell, he has the strongest feeling that he shouldn’t be here. But what can he do? Regardless of Pennington’s warnings, he needs to do whatever he can to find Louis Consadine before Pulford stands up in court.

He takes pause outside Jasmine’s flat. It is eerie tonight on the Limekiln’s deck. Nearby, someone hammers on a door shouting, ‘Open up or I’ll have you, you cunt!’ They bang on the door some more, repeating the self-defeating pledge. On the first floor deck, a family of Asians kneel on little mats. They fall forwards, hands outstretched, in unison, showing the way East.

Staffe presses an ear to Jasmine’s door, hears a man’s voice but realises it is only Jamie Oliver. Staffe knocks on the door, takes a step back, prepares a smile. He needs to get in.

The door opens. ‘You can fuck off,’ says Jasmine.

‘I have good news.’

A gust whips across the Limekiln and Jasmine shivers, says, ‘Be quick.’ She looks at her watch. ‘You’re letting the cold in.’ She stands back and immediately picks up Millie. She hugs her tight, as if the child might somehow keep her mother safe. ‘So, what’s happened?’

‘I know who killed Jadus. They’ve found a gun.’

‘I heard. Got a copper’s prints on.’

‘And do you know how the prints got on there?’

‘Shooting my J.’

‘Why wouldn’t they just rub the gun clean and get rid of it?’

‘’Cos coppers are fucking stupid, man. Think they’re above the law. Well, not any more. This is time for justice and if you cover this up, we won’t take it. You know it.’

Staffe smiles at Millie and says to her mother, ‘There’s a young man, a fellow called Louis Consadine. He lives on the Limekiln and I think he can help put away the person who did for your Jadus.’

‘You’ve got the man who did for my Jadus.’

‘If Sergeant Pulford is guilty, then Louis can help us prove it.’

‘You’re shitting me.’

‘You know where he is, don’t you, Jasmine?’

The door from the bedroom opens and Brandon Latymer takes a step into the lounge. He hasn’t bothered to put a shirt on and is wearing just a pair of Sean Pauls, low as can be and showing almost all of the V of his loins. When she sees him, Millie chortles and reaches out. He takes her.

‘Cosy,’ says Staffe.

‘You leave her alone.’ Brandon has knife-wound scars above his heart and two on the opposite ribs. He has fresh stitches in a wound to his hip and two perfectly round hollows in his left shoulder, which are clearly old bullet wounds. He looks at Staffe as if he can’t be damaged by him or his law. Staffe knows that Brandon has never done time. This is a man who knows his law.

Millie, in his arms, snarls at Staffe, as if she knows wrong from right.

Staffe says, ‘Jadus lost his nerve and shot a policeman – he’d become a liability and you don’t need someone like that. You certainly don’t need to be cutting him in every month. How much was he costing you? Three, four grand a month?’

Brandon sneers at Staffe. ‘You know shit.’

Staffe looks at Jasmine, but talks to Brandon. ‘And here you are, Millie’s father still warm in his grave. If he is the father.’

‘Watch your mouth,’ says Jasmine.

‘A man’s entitled to follow his heart. Jasmine and me were always fond. We was together when we was neck high, anyone can tell you that.’ He goes to Jasmine, hangs an arm over her shoulder. ‘I had the decency to wait till her man passed before I came here.’

Staffe’s phone vibrates and he sees it is Pennington, texting. ‘You and Chancellor in my office, 9 a.m. Meeting with Commissioner. CSPD.’

CSPD. Clean, sober, properly dressed.

As he reads it, Brandon reaches into his pocket and Staffe flinches.

Brandon smiles, wiggles his phone. He dials a number and says, ‘Police. Yes. We have an intruder.’

‘I’m going,’ says Staffe.

‘Shame,’ says Brandon.

‘Shame on you for coming in the first place,’ says Jasmine.

On the way back into the City, Staffe picks up a copy of
The News.
Under a street lamp, he scrutinises the article which Nick Absolom has run on Carmelo Trapani. Absolom seems to be questioning where the case lies in the priorities of City police.

‘Bastard,’ says Staffe, looking across the Old Street roundabout to that different world of drunken lunches and galloping deadlines, where they make up the news.

His phone beeps and he checks another text message, this time from Josie. It says: ‘Come leadengate now attilio trapani suicide. Failed.’