I think I blushed. ‘Well, ask your questions and we’ll see, shall we?’
‘Were you surprised to hear Joshu had died from an overdose?’
Straight to the point. No small talk to warm me up. I understood the gambit. I’d used the ambush technique myself more than once. ‘He’s been into drugs for as long as I’ve known him. Which is just over three years. So in that sense, no, it wasn’t a surprise. But I was quite shocked because he always struck me as someone who knew what he was doing.’ I sighed. ‘It’s hard to explain, but I never quite believed Joshu was as out of control as he wanted people to think. I always thought there was something quite calculated about his behaviour. I never saw him as a candidate for an overdose. But that’s the thing about drugs. People think they’re in charge of their abuse when actually they’re not. Joshu might have believed he was managing his drug use when the truth was he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.’
Nick gave me a shrewd look. ‘I can’t argue with that analysis.’ It was a lot later when I discovered why he spoke with such feeling. ‘Did he always seem to have plenty of money?’
‘He was always flash. He earned a lot, I know that. But from what Scarlett said when they were divorcing, he spent it as fast as he made it.’ My smile this time was wry. ‘Scarlett said he’d found out the hard way how expensive cheap women were. I think he kept his head above water, but I don’t know whether he had much in the way of assets. He didn’t have a house, for example. He had a lock-up for all his work gear, but he used to crash with friends or shack up with whoever he was dating.’
‘He didn’t have any money worries that you knew of?’
I shook my head. ‘He could always earn good money. When he came round to pick Jimmy up, he always seemed flush.’
‘In that case, why would he steal drugs? It’s not like he was some junkie on his uppers, from what you’re saying.’
‘I think you’re asking the wrong question.’ I realised I was talking to Nick the way I would to someone I knew. Someone I trusted. But it felt natural, so I didn’t rein myself in. ‘It’s not why he would
Taken aback, he scratched his head. ‘Yeah, why not?’
I raked around in the fridge, all the while answering apparently pointless questions about Joshu and Scarlett. I ended up with two chicken salad wraps with Caesar dressing which I plonked on plates in front of us. ‘Not very exciting, I’m afraid. This is not the home of haute cuisine.’
He chuckled. ‘I imagine not.’
‘We have a very fine collection of home-delivery menus, however.’
‘Did you think Joshu and Scarlett would ever get back together?’ he asked through a mouthful of sandwich.
‘No chance,’ I said. ‘She loved him, but she knew she was better off without him. Getting cancer reset the zeros for her. She reordered her priorities and bad relationships was number one on the list of stuff she wasn’t going to do any more. She hasn’t so much as had a date with anyone since the divorce, never mind her diagnosis.’
He raised his eyebrows in a polite expression of dubiety. ‘Not according to the tabloids,’ he said.
I felt the sudden clench of horror in my chest. I’d let my guard slip and said something deeply, deeply stupid. It hadn’t been Scarlett in the papers. It had been Leanne putting on a show, of course. Was I so pathetic that a kind and attractive man could dismantle my careful barricades as if they were made of paper? ‘Not everything that’s in the tabloids is true,’ I said hastily. ‘It’s part of her job, to keep her name in the tabloids.’
He looked mildly scornful. ‘I suppose.’
I tried not to show my relief at having apparently got away with it. And it seemed Nick had run out of questions. So I took my chance. ‘How did you get to be a cop?’
‘I did a psychology degree. And I didn’t want to be any of the things people usually do with a psychology degree. The idea of being a detective interested me but I didn’t know if I could hack the journey to get there. I signed up without really knowing if I could cut it.’ He grinned and shrugged. ‘So far, so good.’ He finished his sandwich and stood up. ‘Thanks for feeding me. And thanks for filling in the background.’
‘It was an accident, wasn’t it? You don’t think it was deliberate?’
‘It’s not for me to say. I just present the information to my boss.’
‘Not even a hint?’
His eyes flicked from side to side. ‘Not even a hint. I’m sorry. I hope the kid’s OK. It’s hard to lose a parent that young.’
I was touched by his concern. But as he drove away, I found myself wishing Joshu’s death wasn’t quite so open and shut. I know it was a shitty thought, but I really wished I had an excuse to see Nick Nicolaides again.
37
Nick lingered outside Asmita Patel’s flat, leaning against his car in the chilly night air. There was a whiff of curry spices from a nearby restaurant on the breeze and the constant hum of London traffic. He thought about getting something to eat, but he was too antsy for food. He could go home and pick up a guitar and play till his fingers tired. But that wasn’t going to help Stephanie or Jimmy. Maybe if he went back to the office, he could find something useful to do.
The overhead lights were turned off in the squad room but a couple of pools of illumination revealed where colleagues were working late. As Nick made for his desk, a lone voice called out to him. ‘Jammy bastard, how did you get out of the bloody bunker?’ Davy the Fat Boy Brown had been assigned to the phone hacking and police corruption inquiry at the same time as Nick and he was even less suited to being stuck indoors with a bunch of suits.
‘I found a shittier stick to get hold of,’ Nick said, dropping into his chair and waking his computer from its hibernation. ‘Running errands for the FBI. As glamorous as Dagenham on a Sunday morning.’
Davy lumbered across to Nick’s desk. ‘You got a cup?’ He produced a bottle of Scotch with a couple of inches remaining.
‘You keep it,’ Nick said. ‘I’m too bloody tired already. If I have a drink, I’ll fall off my perch.’
Davy shambled off, grumbling. ‘I thought you Manchester lads were supposed to like partying?’
‘True, Davy. But you don’t have the right kind of tables for dancing on.’ He clicked on his message queue to see what was waiting for him. He scanned the list of incoming mail, ignoring anything related to the task he’d been temporarily spared. There were three others that promised relevance to what he cared more about. The first was from Cambridgeshire Police. The woman Nick had dubbed Megan the Stalker had ended up in a secure mental hospital in their force area so they’d been his first port of call. The email was short and to the point. Megan Owen had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act but she had been released six weeks previously. She was currently living in a supported hostel, where she had been abiding by the terms of her release. At eight o’clock that evening she had been in the common room watching a TV soap with three other residents. She definitely was not in Chicago kidnapping Jimmy Higgins.
That was a relief. It was never good news when nutters got their hands on small children. One down, a couple to go. According to West Yorkshire Police, Chrissie and Jade Higgins were both at home in the house Scarlett had bought for them. Neither woman seemed to be particularly bothered by the news of Jimmy’s abduction.
The other pertinent message was from the local nick in Peckham, which he’d asked to check on Pete Matthews’ whereabouts. Again, the message didn’t waste words. Pete Matthews was not at home. He was working
