Tina Brent took her time coming to the door, and when she did, she took one look and shook her head. 'If you're selling bibles, I've got one already.'
Tina wearing loose sweatpants with a broad stripe down the sides and a V-necked short-sleeved top. If she recognised Catherine, she gave no sign.
'We're here to talk about your husband,' Karen said, identifying herself.
'Again? I told one of your lot already. I got no idea where he is.'
'Fine,' Karen said. 'Now you can tell me.'
They followed her inside. From the look of things, Tina had taken it into her head to give the house a bit of a spring cleaning and run out of steam partway through. The room into which she led them was airless and smelled of too many cigarettes. Karen noticed the photograph of the dead girl on the mantelpiece and flowers close by it that were starting to droop and fade, petals in the hearth.
'This is all about that policewoman who was shot, yeah?' Tina said, a definite edge to her voice.
Karen said that yes, it was.
'All I can say, it's a shame you never took as much trouble when my Kelly was killed. Didn't put yourself out then, did you?'
'Mrs. Brent,' Catherine Njoroge said, 'I don't think that's true.'
Tina looked at her as if she were beneath contempt.
'Your husband,' Karen said, 'according to what you've said, he just left, no excuse or explanation, no note, nothing?'
'Yeah. Right.'
'He didn't give you any indication-'
'Jesus! How many more times? That's Howard, right? The way he is. He's done it before and he'll do it again.' She reached for the packet of cigarettes resting on the arm of the nearest chair. 'One time he didn't come back for five fucking years.'
'You're not worried, then? About where he might be?'
Tina sneered. 'If I worried about everything that bastard got up to, I'd've killed myself long ago.'
She lit up and drew hard on the cigarette, holding the smoke down in her lungs.
'Your husband, he's originally from Jamaica?' Karen asked.
Tina gave her a look. 'What of it?'
'He's still got contacts there, then? Friends? Family?'
'Friends, yes, 'course he has. Family, but I don't think they've spoke in years.'
'And you think that's where he might be? Visiting these friends in Jamaica?'
'Visiting friends in bloody Timbuktu, for all I know.'
'According to our information,' Karen said, 'your husband boarded a flight to Jamaica last Sunday. Montego Bay.'
'Then you already know, don't you? Why keep pesterin' me about it?'
'We thought you might be able to tell us exactly where he was. Where he might be staying. So that we could make contact.'
'You're joking, right?'
'A number where he could be reached.'
Tina's laugh splintered into a brittle cough. 'I'm the last person he'd give any bloody number to. Out there with some sodding baby's mother, most likely, never mind his own kids back here. Spent more time with Kelly, brought her up proper, set some kind of example, she might not be fuckin' dead.'
Anger twisted her tight little face.
Karen thought she wasn't going to get any further; aside from maybe jolting Tina Brent a little, she wasn't sure if she'd got anywhere at all.
'If, by any chance,' she said, 'you do speak to him-if, for whatever reason, he gets in touch, please tell him we want to talk to him. If he wasn't involved in any way in DI Kellogg's death, then we can eliminate him from our enquiries and move on. Okay?'
Tina sucked in her cheeks still farther.
'Tina, okay?'
'Yeah, okay.'
They were on their way to the front door when Catherine thought to ask Tina whether or not Marcus was at college that day.
'Not this afternoon,' Tina said. 'He's fillin' in at his dad's shop in Hockley. But you'll be wastin' your time askin' him anything. He knows even less'n I do.'
'Catherine, you go and talk to him,' Karen said once they were outside. 'I ought to get back to the office.'
The shop was in one of the narrow streets leading off Goose Gate, not far from the sauna and massage parlour where Nina Simic had been murdered the year before. The door was open out on to the pavement and Catherine recognised the music that was playing: Augustus Pablo's King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown. A few years back, she had gone out with a teacher on a graduate-training programme who had played it all the time.
The interior was dark and crowded: row after row of albums and 12-inch singles along both side walls, CDs racked at the centre. Posters on the walls. Marcus stood behind the counter wearing an oversize T-shirt with the logo will fuck for drugs writ large in white letters.
Appealing, thought Catherine.
There were no other customers.
Marcus looked at her with the beginnings of a smile.
A moment later, he cut the volume on the stereo enough to hear the sound of his own voice.
'Like this, yeah? King Tubby? How 'bout this? You seen this?' He lifted a CD from where it lay on the counter. 'New. Essential Dub. Fourteen tracks, i'n it? Traditional, fusion, hardcore. Virgin, HMV, cost?6.99. Minimum. Yours for a fiver. Okay?'
Head cocked a little to one side, he held it towards her.
'I don't think so. But thank you.'
'No? What you lookin' for, then?'
'Benga, you have any of that?'
'Bangra?'
'No, no. Benga. It's from East Africa, where I come from. Kenya. Suzzana Owiyo, she's one of my favourites. Jane Nyambura, too-Queen Jane.'
Marcus looked at her, uncertain.
'Your father,' Catherine said, 'we'd like to get in touch with him.'
Marcus's face screwed up into a frown.
Catherine held out her warrant card, but he scarcely gave it a glance. 'Your father, we thought you might know where he was.'
'What's this all about, then? This about Kelly gettin' shot?'
'In a way.'
'Thought that was all sorted,' Marcus said.
'It is. Mostly.'
She looked at him and he looked away, turning the stereo down, then up again so that the sound filled the shop, the bass reverberating off the walls.
Catherine continued to stare at him, unperturbed, until he turned the music back down.
'Thank you,' she said.
Marcus shuffled nervously behind the counter.
'Do you know where he is? Your father? It's quite important that we speak to him.'
'Jamaica, i'n he?' Marcus said.
'You know where? Where he might be staying?'
'Jokin', right? How should I know?'
'You're his son.'
Marcus snorted. 'Ask Michael, why don't you? Tell anyone, that's who he's gonna tell. Not me. He don't trust
