The man didn’t look remotely impressed. ‘Keep talking, sonny, because I ain’t.’
There was a sound of footsteps outside the flat. Shadows crossed the window, the frosted glass making the silhouettes unidentifiable. I caught a rumble of conversation in the hall and heard Godley’s voice.
Derwent had noticed too. ‘If you won’t talk to me, maybe you’d like to have a word with an old friend.’
The man looked up, suddenly interested, as Godley appeared in the doorway. They locked eyes immediately. I looked from the arrested man back to Godley and flinched at the expression on the superintendent’s face. Never usually easy to read, his demeanour was openly hostile – murderous, I would have said, had it been anyone else. He sounded calm, though, when he spoke.
‘John Skinner. This is a surprise. It’s been a long time.’
I jumped, wondering if I had misheard. I looked at Derwent, who was watching me, waiting for my reaction. I got it now. I understood why he had been so excited, even if I didn’t understand anything else. John Skinner was a notorious murderer, armed robber and kidnapper, a violent thug and career criminal who had fled to the Costa del Sol to fight extradition on a whole collection of outstanding warrants. Now he was sitting in the living room of a convicted paedophile in a back street of Brixton, and I couldn’t begin to imagine why.
Skinner smiled thinly. ‘Inspector Godley. Sorry – it’s Superintendent now, isn’t it? I find it hard to keep up.’
‘Understandable.’ Godley’s eyes were watchful. ‘I never thought you’d leave sunny Spain again.’
‘I had my reasons.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
It was Skinner’s turn to let his mask drop. Strain twitched a muscle in his cheek. ‘You’ve got to let me go, Godley. I’ve got business.’
‘No chance.’
Skinner’s upper lip lifted, showing his canines in what might have been a smile if it hadn’t been so clearly a snarl. ‘You haven’t changed. I’d have thought you’d be sympathetic. You got a daughter, don’t you? Isabel. Lovely girl. Takes after her mother. And how is Serena anyway?’
Godley shook his head. ‘This isn’t about me.’
‘On the contrary. If you stop me from doing what I need to do, it’s all about you.’ Skinner paused a moment, then said: ‘It’s Moorcroft Road, isn’t it? Number forty-seven, Moorcroft Road, NW3—’
He broke off as Godley moved, lunging across the room, completely oblivious to the shouted warning from the armed officer as he crossed in front of him. The room turned to chaos in an instant. The older man pushed off the sofa and grabbed for the machine gun while the young one fought the other officer for control of his Glock, only mildly hampered by the cuffs. I had time to see that Godley had pulled Skinner off his chair and was systematically punching the living daylights out of him before Derwent cannoned into me, pushing me to the ground. I fell awkwardly, whacking my face against the edge of the TV table, and saw stars.
‘Stay down!’ Derwent ordered, going past the armed officers to try to separate Godley from Skinner. Dazed, I wondered why he didn’t bother with the others, but then again, Skinner was the important one. And then one of the armed officers stepped back onto my hand and I was too busy trying not to pass out to pay much attention to anything else. I was only dimly aware of reinforcements arriving, of the younger man being hit with a Taser just as he got hold of the handgun and turned to wave it at the officers who were coming in. The big man got a dose of CS spray that put him on the floor, rolling from side to side. He had an unexpectedly high-pitched voice and he bleated, ‘My eyes! My eyes!’ until someone took pity on him and led him outside. Skinner went too, with blood dripping from his mouth and nose, attended by a paramedic on one side and an escort of armed officers.
Hands took hold of my arms and dragged me to standing. I put up as much resistance as a rag doll; I was feeling about as robust.
‘Are you okay?’ Derwent’s voice. I nodded, speechless. ‘Better get your head looked at. It’s bleeding.’
It was the least of my worries. I looked past him to where Godley was sitting, head bent, his phone jammed against his ear. He was leaning his head on one hand and his knuckles were red-raw from the fight. He looked defeated, as if he and not Skinner was the one who had been beaten. His voice sounded unlike I’d ever heard it before, close to panic, and what he was saying over and over again explained why.
‘He knew my address, Bill. How did he know my address? How the hell did he know my address?’
As was becoming depressingly normal after a big arrest, I ended up in hospital. The only thing to be said for this particular occasion was that I was walking wounded rather than flat-out unconscious, and I was only there for a check-up. One of the paramedics had taken a look at me at the scene and declared that I probably wasn’t concussed, probably didn’t need stitches and probably hadn’t broken any bones in my hand, but all Godley heard was ‘probably’ and ordered me to do as I was told and go to A&E. Which was fine, except that it drew attention to the non-heroic role I’d played in John Skinner’s escape attempt and meant I missed out on celebrating Skinner’s arrest with the rest of the team. The really annoying part was the three-hour wait nursing my bruises, watching more seriously damaged people jump the queue. My only distraction was a magazine someone had left behind. It was the kind that featured lurid true-life stories so they could use eye-catching headlines on the cover. Mostly, the headlines turned out to be bollocks when you got down to it. Nonetheless, I spun it out, reading every word of ‘I Gave Birth to My Grandfather’s BABY’ and ‘I Lost FIFTEEN Stone by Eating BURGERS’. The alternative was a poster about malaria. Needs must.
I got as far as the horoscopes and was so annoyed by mine – ‘You don’t like taking advice, but it’s time to listen to someone close to you. On this occasion, they’re right and you’re wrong!’ – that I couldn’t stand to read another word. I tossed it onto the chair beside me and looked up to see Godley standing in the doorway scanning the room, tall and grave, his iron-clad composure back in a big way. Surprised, I put my hand up and waved until he spotted me. His face lightened. He half-turned and said something over his shoulder and I felt even more unsettled as Derwent appeared beside him. As they made their way across the crowded waiting room I forced a smile. I didn’t like being seen at a disadvantage, by either of them. I wanted Godley to see me as a reliable member of his team, not a liability, and I wanted Derwent to see me as little as possible. Whatever weakness he noticed, he would use against me, and I was on my guard at once.
‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ I asked as soon as they were within earshot. ‘Don’t you have somewhere better to be?’
‘We’re at the end of a long queue of people who want to talk to John Skinner. The earliest we’re going to get to talk to him is tomorrow morning. And we wanted to make sure you were all right.’ Derwent was doing his sincere face, his forehead crinkling with concern. ‘Has anyone seen you yet?’
‘Just a nurse to see if I needed urgent attention. And I don’t,’ I added quickly. ‘In fact, I could probably go home.’
‘Stay where you are.’ Godley sat down on the chair opposite me with a blink-and-you’d-miss-it wince.
‘Are
you
okay?’
‘A few bruises from earlier. Nothing serious,’ he said shortly, and I instantly regretted drawing attention to it. After a couple of seconds, he cleared his throat, as close to awkward as I had ever seen him. ‘About what happened. I wanted to apologise.’
‘To me? There’s no need.’
‘There’s every need. I should apologise for my unprofessional behaviour to every police officer who was at the scene. It put everyone at risk. But I do want to apologise particularly to you, since you were injured.’
‘Injured is putting it a bit high,’ I began but he held up a hand to stop me.
‘You have a gash on your forehead, a bruised hand and possible concussion, and you had a serious head injury last year, Maeve, so don’t make light of this, please. It’s my fault and I’m going to take responsibility for it, whatever you say.’
‘Actually, it’s not your fault. It was Inspector Derwent who pushed me. If anyone should apologise, it’s him.’ I spoke lightly, hoping to God Derwent had a sense of humour.
‘Forget it. I’m not going to apologise. It was for your own good.’ He smiled at me, then glanced at Godley and I saw concern on his face. The superintendent was looking shattered, and it was more than simple fatigue. I leaned forward impulsively.
‘Sir, you mustn’t be too hard on yourself for what you did. It’s completely understandable, given what he was saying.’
‘I doubt that, Maeve, but thank you.’ A short, painful pause. ‘I take it you’ve worked out what Mr Skinner was getting at.’
I was reluctant to put it into words, but the superintendent waited me out. ‘He was saying that he knows where you live. And he knows all about your family. I sort of guessed that he was threatening them.’
‘He was. And I didn’t help the situation by attacking him. It was hardly calculated to get him on my side.’
Derwent laughed. ‘Seriously, boss, you have no chance of managing that unless you’ve got a time machine.’
‘Why is that?’ I looked from one of them to the other. ‘What happened?’
Instead of answering, Godley stood up. ‘I’m going to get a coffee. How about you?’
‘Thanks, boss. White, no sugar.’
‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ I said hopefully, but he shook his head.
‘Better not have caffeine before you see the doctor.’
‘Tea won’t do me any harm,’ I protested half-heartedly. I knew it was a lost cause, and all I got from Godley was a reproving glower before he stalked out of the room. He turned heads as he usually did. I doubted that he was aware of it. He certainly wouldn’t have cared.
Derwent had been watching me watch Godley. ‘Don’t take it personally that the boss didn’t want to stick around. We’ve been telling this story all afternoon. He can’t stand to hear it again.’
‘What’s going on? Did he arrest Skinner back in the day or something? I wouldn’t have thought that would make him hold a grudge. From what I know of Skinner, he’s been arrested by every London copper over a certain age.’ It had been sort of a rite of passage, until Skinner spoiled everyone’s fun by moving to Spain.
‘Don’t believe a word of it. Everyone likes to boast about catching John Skinner, but there aren’t that many who actually have. Godley is one of them, but that’s not why Skinner hates him. Being arrested is part of the game for him.’ He leaned closer to me and lowered his voice so no one else could hear what he was saying. The waiting room was not an ideal place for confidential discussions. ‘You know Bryce and I used to work with the boss on the Central Task Force? He was our inspector when I was a DC and Bryce was a sergeant. At the time, John Skinner was single-handedly skewing the crime stats. He was making us look really bad – pretty much every serious crime that was committed in East London came back to him, but we couldn’t get anyone to give evidence officially. It didn’t even get as far as witness tampering; no one would risk annoying him by talking about him on the record. The bosses were screaming for us to do something, but we needed to catch him in the act of committing a crime. Godley got assigned to run an undercover operation targeting Skinner.’
‘And arrested him.’
Derwent shook his head. ‘Not a chance. Skinner behaved like a choirboy. He went about his business and the bodies kept piling up. He had such a strong hold on his gang that he didn’t need to tell them what to do. They could keep things ticking over the way he wanted even if he was banged up in solitary. We watched him for weeks and then the bosses decided they’d spent enough time and pulled us off it. You can imagine what it was costing. Twenty-four-hour surveillance doesn’t come cheap.’
‘I’m not seeing how this pissed off John Skinner.’
‘Give me a chance. Godley was a bit annoyed that he hadn’t got anything on Skinner. He decided the best thing to do was to put pressure on him some other way. We’d seen Skinner’s father driving a stolen car during the surveillance. It was enough to arrest him, and we were lucky with the judge. Dean Skinner was deemed a flight risk and not allowed bail. His son was furious.’
‘Well, that was the idea.’
‘Yeah. But it turned out not to be the best idea Charlie ever had.’ Derwent looked around ultra-casually, checking to see Godley wasn’t on his way back yet. ‘Mr Skinner died on remand. He had a massive stroke the night after the hearing where he was refused bail. He was still alive when they found him, but in a coma, and he never came round. John was distraught. He knew his father was only in that situation because of him, but he blamed the boss, not himself.’
‘Naturally.’ I was wondering how Godley himself had felt about what had happened. From what I knew of him, he would have been as unforgiving to himself as Skinner had been.
‘Skinner has something of a gift for vengeance – he’s left a trail of bodies behind him since he was a teenager. Never forgives, never forgets. He went after Godley in a big way. His family have had to move house twice and they’ve got alarm systems like you wouldn’t believe – panic buttons, CCTV, the works. Godley’s daughter changed schools a few times. She couldn’t have any friends back to the house, couldn’t tell anyone anything about her dad or his work. She even had to change her surname so there was nothing to make a connection with the boss. As you can imagine, his missus was not happy with all the upheaval, not to mention the effect it had on Isabel. Godley went to pieces for a while. He almost left the job. Gradually, he came to terms with it and managed to settle things with Serena, but I don’t think it was easy, then or now.’
‘Is that why he doesn’t have any pictures of his family in his office? To keep his private life separate?’
‘Got it in one. That was the agreement he reached with Serena. He never talks about her or Isabel. He’s ex-directory – never gives anyone his home number, does it all off his mobile. He works long hours in the nick because he refuses to take the job home with him. And he doesn’t let many people – including other coppers – know where he lives.’