Gallowstree Lane Page 7

  Connor, disturbed perhaps by her tone, stirred. Lizzie patted his back and tried to settle him but Kieran talked on.

  ‘Not in your own home when you’re off duty, that’s for sure.’

  And with that Connor was irretreviably awake with a crumpled hot baby look. His gaze focused and he reached out his arms to his father to take him. Lizzie passed him over and Kieran sat him on his knee, jiggling him up and down as if he was riding a little horse. It was sweet, OK, but the getting-to-sleep moment had been lost.

  Kieran looked up at her and obviously caught her annoyance.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He smiled. ‘I didn’t mean to criticize about the CCTV. Just trying to look after you. There’s all kinds of things wrong with taking this stuff home.’

  If he’d really wanted to look after her, he could have had Connor earlier, like she’d asked him to. But here he was now, not when Lizzie had needed him but when it suited him. She inhaled. She was tired, unreasonable, not thinking straight. She got up and started to move towards the door. ‘I’m sorry. I’m early turn tomorrow. I’ve got to go to bed. If you want to spend time with Connor, can you pop him in his cot when you go?’

  ‘Are you watching the CCTV here because you had to leave work early?’

  The hint of sympathy annoyed her. And the idea that she’d done what he’d told her

  ‘I didn’t leave early.’

  It had been stupid to say that. He was on to it straight away.

  ‘Who had Connor then?’

  ‘My neighbour. Sandy. I’ve told you about her.’

  She could hear the criticism without him voicing it: leaving his son with someone they didn’t properly know. ‘She’s a mum too. We help each other out.’ She rubbed the back of her neck. ‘Look, Kieran, if you can’t help with Connor, then how I sort it is none of your damn business.’

  ‘Have you done any checks on her?’

  ‘If you mean what I think you mean, then no, I haven’t, because that would be illegal.’ She stepped back towards him, stretching her arms out to take their child. ‘Do you know what, give me Connor and let me go to bed, would you? It’s been a long day.’

  He jiggled his son some more. ‘I’m sorry. This has all gone wrong somehow. I didn’t come here to fight. I wanted to talk. Discuss this. See how we can make things better.’

  Lizzie said, ‘You’re winding me up and I need to get to sleep. Like I said, I’m early turn.’

  He smiled at Connor and then looked around at the flat. ‘But this isn’t good, is it?’

  ‘What do you mean, it isn’t good? What’s not good about it? It’d be better if you helped more, but it’s fine.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. I’m fine. We’re both fine.’

  ‘You’re exhausted. You can’t do your job properly. And what about Connor? Even when you’re home, you’re watching CCTV.’

  ‘Give him to me. I’m going to bed.’

  ‘In a minute. I want to suggest something. Something to help.’

  13

  As Kieran drove, he could still hear Lizzie. First her wide-eyed disbelief.

  ‘You and your wife want to adopt Connor?’

  He had expected her to find it a shock. That was fine. But he had also expected her to be a grown-up: to listen. At least to countenance the possibility. But when he’d tried to explain what sense it made – how the back door of his house opened onto farmland and Connor would smell of earth and streams and sunshine rather than petrol, and that Rachel would always be there for him rather than Lizzie having to resort to strangers last-minute to mind him – Lizzie’s expression had changed. An alarming softness in her mouth had hinted at possible tears.

  ‘I’m his mother.’

  This clearly wasn’t the moment to persuade her of the wisdom of the proposal. The thing to do now was to stave off the threatened emotion. They should talk about it another time.

  ‘You’re tired.’

  Ah, but too late! His choice of words had been wrong and, in an instant, the risk of tears transformed. Now she was bent on a row. He could see it from the tight little frown between her eyes.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with being tired.’

  He wanted to be kind, but the truth was he didn’t really understand her when she was like this. So changeable. So unreasonable!

  ‘Connor needs to be with me. I’m his mother.’

  ‘But you could still see him. You’d still be his mother.’

  ‘No, Kieran. No, no, no. I’m not going to do what you tell me. Forget about it.’

  Connor, tethered to his mother’s mood like a carriage to an engine, had started crying. His face was crumpled. It was the last thing Kieran had wanted. The exact opposite.

  ‘You need to calm down,’ he said. ‘You chose to have Connor. Now we both need to think rationally what’s best for him.’

  ‘I already know what’s best for him. He needs to be with me.’

  That wasn’t really an argument, was it? It was emotion.

  ‘Like I said, he would be with you. Some of the time. When you’re not working.’

  It wasn’t exactly what Rachel had suggested. But still.

  Lizzie’s face had a different expression now. Something almost serene and detached. ‘And the rest of the time he’d be with your wife?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at her, finding her hard to read. ‘Do you see? You’d have the best of both worlds. You could see Connor …’ Here he offered what he hoped was a sympathetic smile. ‘And you could also put your running shoes back on and start enjoying life again.’

  Her expression remained the same but grew perhaps a little more intense.

  ‘I understand it’s hard for you, Lizzie. I do. I’m grateful to you for even considering this. But think of Connor. He’d be safe and happy. I know he would. And your own life would be so much easier. Rachel’s a brilliant mother. It’s not easy for her either, but she’s prepared to do it.’

  Ah, he understood her expression now. What an idiot he’d been. It was contempt. Of course it was. Still he soldiered on, because now he’d started, he found he couldn’t stop.

  ‘Think what it’s like for Rachel for a minute.’

  Lizzie shook her head, almost as if bewildered. ‘But the most important thing is what it’s like for you, isn’t it? That’s always the most important thing.’

  And then, suddenly, he was the one raising his voice. Because she was being so selfish. And petty. And childish.

  ‘Connor would be living with a woman who wouldn’t be trying to squeeze him between shifts. And he’d be living with his sister. Think of that. That’s what a family looks like. Not like this. Not a one-bedroom flat and dumping him with the neighbours when you can’t get home from work.’

  ‘You could have helped me today.’

  ‘I was busy. I never said I wanted another child.’

  ‘Get out, Kieran. I’m early turn tomorrow. I don’t want to hear any more of this. Get out.’

  Thank God she’d said that, because at that point getting out of there had been exactly what he’d needed to do. A flood of anger was building within him. Last thing either of them needed was raised voices and the police called by a nosy neighbour.

  Driving away, the engine roaring, he was possessed by indignation. The thought of lawyers popped into his head. Yes, that was what he’d do.

  He braked. Up ahead, a pedestrian crossing light had turned red even though no one was actually using it. Why was every damn light against him? They took so bloody long to change, and so often it was for no good reason. Roadworks with long delays too, and no one actually passing. Christ. Suddenly the present felt infinitely frustrating and unlikeable.

  He waited by the empty crossing, hating himself for his own obedience to the pointless signal – meaningless compliance – and thought in a frustrated rush of Lizzie and Rachel. It was almost as if they were in a conspiracy against him. He wouldn’t mind, but a conspiracy to achieve what? That
was the thing: what did they actually want? He knew what he wanted: to do the best by Connor. He allowed himself a moment’s hatred for Rachel, his supposedly long-suffering wife.

  She wasn’t like Lizzie. She got her way through quietness. The first hint she had given on the matter was asking to see the pictures of Connor. She had sat by the window in their home, overlooking the long view across the hills and swiping through his phone thoughtfully.

  So manipulative.

  Then there had been the first demand. She hadn’t even been looking at him when she’d made it. He’d been home after a set of shifts. Her back was turned: her sharp knife chopping spring onions in a rapid staccato. Samantha, she’d said, should know her brother.

  He had waited for the answer to that command to come to him. How on earth was Samantha to be introduced to Connor? Sometimes he thought his marriage was over. He’d screwed up, OK, but whatever Rachel wanted, it couldn’t be done.

  Then, in bed a couple of days later, Rachel had said how she had always wanted a boy. The miscarriage had been a boy, and as they lay side by side in the darkness, that unborn child was there with them, a great unhealable sadness. After the stillbirth, Rachel had cried so endlessly that her face was red raw. Now Kieran lay open-eyed as the words tumbled out of his wife as rapidly as water rushing over stones. His heart filled with something – what was it? His own sadness? Or a horror at the sadness of women? He wasn’t sure. It would be hardest for Lizzie, he heard Rachel say, but they would include her. They would be kind. Lizzie could visit, maybe have Connor some weekends. It would be unconventional but they could make it work. Families were different nowadays.

  He sighed. He had an operation to run, for God’s sake. Perhaps Rachel and Lizzie should sort it out amongst themselves. Have a meeting and tell him what the decision was. He’d just go along with it, whatever the fuck it was.

  The light still hadn’t changed. He wasn’t this kind of person. He wasn’t a bogged-down kind of man. But here he was stuck in front of a red light feeling like he couldn’t do right for doing wrong. Like there was no bloody answer. What sort of a life held that feeling? How had he let that happen?

  His phone buzzed with a voicemail. Rachel, perhaps, asking how the conversation had gone? Furious Lizzie? He didn’t want to look at it. The light was still red; the only thing using the crossing was tumbleweed. He put the phone to his ear, almost hoping some plod pulled him for using it. Someone to be rude to.

  But as he listened, the London street began to suffuse with its latent pleasures. The sheen of the tarmac. A launderette with a woman sitting in a bowl of light. A group of young men walking down the pavement. The hidden potential for incident and action.

  The surveillance report was in and it was good news. Shakiel Oliver was finally getting his shit together. God love him. The time for the weapons handover wasn’t fixed, but it would be soon. Next couple of days.

  What a relief!

  Here was something he was good at. And something important too.

  Kieran smiled. That scene from Jaws. All the children on the beach, playing – as if that was the important thing – holding buckets maybe with little fish trapped inside them, swimming around in their own anxious circles of silver flashes. But all the time, out in the depths, the unheard threat of that pulsing water. He knew what the poor cop in that holiday town had also known: you can’t allow yourself to be distracted by what’s happening on the beach. You need to nick the bloody shark. If you want to keep London safe – real London, where the real people work and live – concentrate on the existential threat. Keep cutting down organized crime and stop them getting guns.

  The traffic light changed and the car moved forward. Kieran’s thoughts now were all about Perseus, skating over the next forty-eight hours as if they were frozen water. This was his natural element. Work both calmed him and gave him the clarity he had lost.

  He’d got sucked into a muddle of emotion, but when he thought again of Connor and Lizzie and Rachel, he was thinking of them as a number of problems that needed to be managed and prioritized. This was a better mindset. It was no different from Perseus: the long game. Bide your time, be patient. See how it plays out. He shouldn’t be allowing himself to be pushed into confrontations. He saw Connor on his sturdy little legs. His son had a huge unabashed smile and laughter that pealed in your chest like bells. He needed his father and Kieran would not abandon him. He would find some way to gather him in. He could afford to wait to see what exact shape that would take. Perseus, after all, had taken two years.

  In the meantime, he had a few positive ideas about how to move forward. He diverted his journey towards Marylebone nick.

  14

  In life, Spencer Cardoso had probably been one of the loudmouthed boys, but on the metal mortuary table he was a silent child, his body brimming with the health of boyhood. He looked like an athlete, and Sarah thought of asphalt tracks and muddy fields churned up by studded boots. His muscles were sculpted, his skin evenly toned, so perfect, as if – but for the neat wound in the upper thigh – life could still be breathed into him. He would put his arms behind him and lean his weight into his hands, sit up on the table, swing his legs to the floor and run off into his future.

  She clicked through the remaining post-mortem photos. Here was the section of the wound, the neat slice through healthy muscle and flesh that showed with clinical dispassion how deeply the knife had penetrated.

  ‘Very effective,’ the pathologist had commented as his plastic-gloved fingers traced the line of the wound. ‘When it’s punctured, the femoral artery retracts into the body. Nothing the paramedic could have done to stop him bleeding out.’

  Sarah drew her hand across her face.

  Every London homicide team’s caseload carried too many of these: young men bleeding out on London’s streets. They merited usually only a short paragraph in the Evening Standard. A photo of the victim – a promising footballer or popular at school and liked by his teachers.

  The murders were covered mainly as representative of something else – of bad parenting or the decline of society or the state of the government or the failings of the black community or the shortcomings of the police. The specifics of the dead boys did not generally capture the public’s imagination. There was no intrigue, no particular story. These were, in the main, one-act dramas and not very good ones either: no complication, no twist to make them interesting, no learning for the persons involved. The odd name lingered in the public’s memory due to the victim’s extreme youth, or his utter innocence – the horror of wrong place, wrong time that any London dweller could relate to – but mostly the identities of these boys were soon forgotten.

  But Sarah could remember their names, every single one she’d worked – David Hendrick, Kyle Loughlan, Omar Begum …

  Now she would add Spencer Cardoso.

  Death had been as indifferent to him as it was to ants. Like the doctor said, it had been a matter of physiology: the femoral artery retreating into the body like a snapped rubber band, Spencer’s healthy heart pumping his life out onto the street. Quick and final, but just enough time for him to have feared what was happening.

  Alone in her office, she took off her glasses and rested them on the table. It didn’t do to be sentimental. Spencer had been getting into trouble, the low-end stuff that could peter out as he grew older and wiser or escalate into something worse: violence, prison. Now he was dead. That had always been the other option.

  Gently she slapped her cheek a couple of times to wake herself up. She put her glasses back on. She and the rest of her team had worked the murder through the night, into the following day and onwards. She’d snatched a couple of hours’ sleep in her chair, but twenty-four hours was coming round on her shift and she was slowing down. She clicked back on the Word document. She needed to finish the situation report so that the DCI and the team would be able to catch up on any new developments while she went home to grab some proper sleep.

  Very early on, the job had beg
un to feel doubtful. Spencer had even been difficult to identify; the local officers had had to use a fingerprint machine at the scene. All the usual easy gives had been negative. The camera on the corner shop hadn’t recorded. The victim had had no phone on him. The ANPR camera only half a mile away had yielded no hits. There was a witness but they didn’t know who he was.

  It was at this point that Sarah had thought to try to mobilize a bit of publicity; early information might make all the difference. To break the wall of silence, she needed to lift Spencer out of the ranks of the anonymous dead.

  Some victims had families that knew football players or actors who would agree to be photographed by the street shrines stinking of flowers rotting in cellophane. Some were the associates of crime families who would walk with the family behind the coffin to demonstrate to the community that there was support for naming the killers.

  But the first recourse was always an appeal by the parents. Sarah had supervised a few of those. It was always awful. She remembered poor Kyle Loughlan’s mother, a tiny, thin woman beset by grief and confusion, in a desperate attempt to break the wall of silence admitting through sobs that her son had been ‘no angel’. She’d softened the implication – the truth was that Kyle had convictions for violence and weapons and had been caught up in a vicious postcode war – with those desperate, tragically clichéd words: ‘But he didn’t deserve to die.’

  As if any of them deserved to die. All the victims seemed to Sarah to have been way out of their depth as they swam out into adulthood with no sense of the power of the sea or how to navigate it.

  It was early to put the family through a press conference, but things weren’t looking good on a breakthrough. The quicker they were able to identify suspects, the easier it would be to secure and preserve evidence. They were still in the stage of trying to establish Spencer’s next of kin. Elaine had a good way about her with the families of the victims – down-to-earth, honest, compassionate – so before going into the post-mortem, Sarah had tasked her with the grim job of persuading the mother to do an appeal.