‘I’m sorry, Superintendent.’
He looked at me. His raw, exit-wound eyes. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere,’ I said.
‘Correct answer. Get in.’
3
Climbing out of the daylight and into the cool darkness of the BMW, I felt like I was stepping out of life itself. Being enveloped by something larger than me. I sat beside Parrs on the enormous back seat, leaving just enough space between us for a man to lie down and die. In my peripheral vision I could see his grey hair, grey clothes. The driver started up and I stared straight ahead, waiting.
With Superintendent Parrs you were always waiting.
He was a wiry, fatalistic spider of a man who played chess with the people around him. He was a strategist and a people user, as likely to ruin your life as to save it. He’d done both of those things with mine, before dispatching me, permanently, to the night shift. To what he must have assumed was my death or resignation. I knew that in living, in refusing to leave, I must have surprised him. And that surprising Parrs was the worst thing you could do. By not going one way or the other, I’d denied him an outcome that must have seemed inevitable. I knew that to Parrs, a man who operated several months, several moves ahead, my survival could only be interpreted as a betrayal.
The driver pulled out of the car park and smoothly into traffic.
The engine was so quiet that I could hear myself breathing, thinking. Waiting.
Parrs still didn’t speak, and I was grateful not to be looking at him. Those unreadable red eyes, embedded in grey skin. All I could see were his hands. Long, thin fingers and knotted, blue-grey veins. He clenched and unclenched them, then he leaned forward and sighed.
‘Seat belt,’ he said. I risked a sideways glance. He was staring out the window, his face doing the approximation of a smile. ‘We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.’ I pulled the seat belt around me and he went on. ‘There’s a lot hanging over your head, Aidan. Not many men in your position would have made it through the last few months.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘It wasn’t a compliment, and try not to speak again unless I ask you a question.’ I swallowed, lowered my head. ‘You seem to have been learning to keep your mouth shut, though. Reports have even reached my ears that you’re making a go of things with Detective Inspector Sutcliffe …’ He paused. ‘How are you getting along with the Elephant Man’s ball-sack?’
‘Famously.’
He exhaled through his nose. ‘Don’t be glib with me. I asked you a question.’
‘We weren’t put together to get along, sir.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I accused him of planting evidence and he offered to testify against me when I was suspended.’
‘And you’ve decided to hold a grudge …’
‘I’ve decided to remember it.’
We drove on for a minute before Parrs spoke again. ‘It’s water under the bridge, son.’ With some dead bodies under the water, I thought. He looked at me suddenly, like he could hear what I was thinking.
I looked back.
He had a hard, gaunt guillotine for a jaw, which he clenched and flexed before he spoke. ‘Don’t sit there mean-mugging me. When I wipe the look off your face I’ll take the fucking skin with it. Remember that every day you draw breath and a salary is borrowed time, donated directly out of the goodness of my heart.’
I turned, stared straight ahead again and nodded. ‘Can I ask why you wanted to see me, sir?’
‘Quite the opposite. I thought it might be beneficial for you to see me. You’ve been testing your eyesight again, Aidan. Trying to see around corners.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘You had an interesting night. Tell me about it.’
I swallowed. ‘At 1 a.m., Detective Inspector Sutcliffe and I were called out to the Palace Hotel. The intruder alarm had been tripped and the security guard was missing. When we searched the premises we found the guard unconscious. He’d been assaulted. A blow to the head from a fire extinguisher. As I was tending to him I saw an intruder fleeing the scene. I pursued the intruder to the fourth floor but they were able to escape through a fire exit. When I retraced my steps along the corridor I found that one of the rooms was open. Making a search of that room I found the dead man.’
‘Go on.’
‘He had no identification on his person. No labels in his clothes.’
‘And the Palace is shut down …’ he mused. ‘Vagrant?’
‘No, sir. Smartly dressed.’
‘What do you think?’ said Parrs, sounding vaguely interested.
‘The guard regained consciousness this morning. He says he heard an argument, two voices. I think there were two intruders and, for whatever reason, one of them killed the other.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘Too early to say.’
‘Could be natural. Could be suicide …’ He said it like the lesser of two evils.
‘It’s possible, but even so, his presence is unexplained. And then there’s the second intruder. I definitely saw someone else.’
‘Hm,’ said Parrs.
‘We’re currently trying to locate the other security guard as well, the day man, Marcus Collier.’
‘He could well be your second intruder,’ said Parrs. I nodded. ‘So what about the owners?’
‘They’re trying to get rid of the place. Last night we dealt with a solicitor handling the sale.’
Parrs thought for a moment. ‘Talk to them anyway. If our dead man has some connection with the Palace he might be on their radar. And let’s leave Detective Inspector Sutcliffe out of that line of enquiry for the moment.’
‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that, sir.’
‘I’m not sure I care. Sutty has a certain talent for taking a room’s temperature, but only by sticking a thermometer up its arse. Might not go down so well with old money. Speaking of rectal temperature, do we have the time of death?’
‘Around midnight.’
‘I take it you’re liaising with the day shift?’
‘I’m assisting DS Lattimer with his enquiries, sir.’
He snorted at that. ‘Sounds like you’ve got yourself a case. It’s fascinating stuff, but when I asked about your interesting night I was referring to your altercation with a Mr Oliver Cartwright.’
I looked at him, confused. Those unreadable red eyes.
‘I’d hardly call it an altercation …’
‘What would you call it?’
‘A conversation.’
‘A conversation taking place after midnight. Some flight of fancy from a teenage girl …’
‘Cartwright had spent a night with her—’
‘Consensually, go on.’
‘He filmed the encounter. He suggested it might leak out on to the internet unless she went back for more.’
‘And you don’t think she’s being dramatic?’ I started to speak but he cut in. ‘A re-run of your little problem from last year?’
‘What are you asking me, sir?’
‘I’m wondering if there’s a more innocent explanation for all of this …’
I paused for a moment. Thought about it. When the silence became excruciating I said: ‘No, there isn’t. I saw the message myself.’
‘Has the girl made an official complaint?’
‘It’s sensitive. She doesn’t want to make trouble. I thought I’d give Cartwright the same courtesy. A word in his ear rather than his name in the papers.’
‘Unless the girl makes an official complaint, it’s none of our concern.’
‘You know she won’t do that.’
‘Case fucking closed, then.’
‘I take it that Oliver Cartwright’s someone important.’
Parrs turned. ‘I don’t think I like what I’m hearing, son.’
‘I don’t like saying it, sir.’
He exhaled through his nose. ‘Mr Cartwright is a media figure who deserves better than my worst man dragging him out of bed at gone midnight. Candidly, though, you’ll find his name in the address book of every ambitious riser in town, including Chief Superintendent Chase. So I repeat, unless the girl makes an official complaint, it’s none of our concern.’
‘Sir.’
‘Still,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Sounds like you’ll have your work cut out for you anyway. Have you got anyone for those dustbin fires yet?’