‘No, you don’t,’ said Creswell, sounding appeased. ‘Go home, Bill. Have a drink; have two drinks. Do whatever it is a workaholic like you does to relax. And then forget this case — like it never happened, all right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Trave, getting up.
But Creswell called him back just as he’d reached the door. ‘Clayton’ll work with Macrae,’ he said. ‘For continuity. Once it’s over you can have him back.’
‘Good,’ said Trave, nodding.
‘Good?’
‘Yes, good. Thank you, sir. I’ll go and have that drink now,’ said Trave, closing the door.
He passed Macrae in the corridor on his way out of the station, walking by him like he didn’t exist. Macrae paused for a moment and then went over to the window, and his mouth twisted into a smile as he watched Trave get into his car down below. And then, as Trave drove away, he began softly singing to himself an old Great War soldiers’ song, one of his favourites: ‘Oh, we don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go…’
CHAPTER 14
Adam Clayton was still half in shock about all that had happened when he was called into Inspector Macrae’s office early on Monday morning.
He’d hardly slept for two nights. His exhausted brain was like a broken film projector that he couldn’t switch off, endlessly rerunning the scene of his boss’s self-destruction in the courtyard outside Blackwater Hall. Each scene was worse than the next: Trave shouting at Claes; Osman intervening; Trave punching, missing, falling on his backside like a schoolboy when Clayton pulled him back; the look of scorn and disgust on the face of Trave’s wife; and the mad rush to the car before Trave drove away, leaving Clayton standing there in the rain looking like an idiot.
To give Osman credit, he’d made it a lot less awkward afterwards than it might have been. He’d calmed everyone down; thanked Clayton profusely for his intervention; and even shown some sympathy for Trave, calling him ‘the poor inspector’ or something like that; and then finally insisted that Claes drive Clayton back into Oxford. Osman had opened the back door of the Bentley for him, and so he’d ended up sitting behind Claes in the back seat, looking like he was some millionaire magnate being chauffeured around town until they arrived at the police station and he returned to being a humble detective constable again.
Trave had been in Creswell’s office when Clayton had got back; and then, unlike Macrae, he’d missed Trave’s sudden rushed departure after his interview with the superintendent was over. However, it didn’t take long for the station’s gossip mill to start to grind, and by the time the day was over, everyone seemed to know that Trave had been taken off the Blackwater case and been replaced by Inspector Macrae. And, whether he liked it or not, Clayton had a new boss.
‘Good morning, lad,’ said Macrae, waving him to a seat behind an empty desk opposite his own. ‘That’ll be your place. Used to be Jonah’s, but he’s kindly agreed to let you have it, haven’t you, Jonah?’
Police Constable Joseph Wale, sitting silently on a chair in the corner, nodded curtly. He was a big man and the chair seemed too small for him, making Clayton wonder if it might break under Wale’s weight if he stayed sitting on it too long. Wale was a recent addition to the Oxford force. Rumour had it that he’d been a not-very-successful professional boxer in London who’d joined the police after he’d been knocked out one too many times and found that he couldn’t get any more fights. It had soon become apparent that Wale was a loner. As far as Clayton knew, he hadn’t made any friends since his arrival — except Macrae, who had taken an immediate and unexplained shine to the new recruit, given him the nickname Jonah (which Wale surprisingly didn’t seem to resent), and adopted him as his unofficial assistant.
‘Jonah would be the first to admit that paperwork’s not his strongest suit, wouldn’t you, Jonah?’ asked Macrae, glancing cheerfully over at Wale, who gave another brief nod. Clayton thought he had never seen Macrae looking happier: he was wearing a garish white flower in the buttonhole of his jet-black suit jacket — Clayton wondered what it was; it looked like a weird hybrid of a rose and a snowdrop.
‘So record-keeping’ll be your department, Constable,’ Macrae continued, turning back to Clayton. ‘But don’t worry — Jonah has a lot of other talents, some of them quite unexpected. I think you’ll find he turns out to be a very valuable member of our team.’
‘I’m sure I shall,’ said Clayton, who had no idea what Macrae was talking about.
‘Good. Now, before we begin, Constable, a word of caution. If it was up to me, Bill Trave would have been suspended for what he did the day before yesterday. He’s brought the whole of the Oxford police force into disrepute.’ Macrae paused, looking Clayton in the eye. Clayton flushed and was about to rise to the challenge, feeling a sudden instinctive rush of loyalty to his old boss, but then thought better of the idea and bit back his response. Macrae was watching Clayton carefully and now smiled icily, leaving Clayton with the uncomfortable impression that the inspector had read his mind.
‘But it’s not up to me,’ Macrae went on in the same steely voice. ‘And Inspector Trave lives to fight another day. But he has been taken off this case, removed from it once and for all. And what that means is that you’re not to talk to him about it. Your loyalty’s to me now, Constable. Do we understand one another?’
Clayton felt the eyes of not just Macrae but also the silent Wale on him. He resented the aspersions on his professionalism implied in Macrae’s words, and it angered him that Macrae should have raised his concerns in front of a junior officer like Wale, but at the same time it was true that Trave had made an unholy mess of the Osman case. The investigation needed to follow the evidence, not spurious coincidences, and that meant focusing on David Swain. Trave hadn’t been prepared to do that, and it was right that he had been replaced. Clayton knew that his personal antipathy toward Macrae shouldn’t get in the way of doing his job. Catching Swain was the priority. Macrae had a reputation for getting results, and he was entitled to rely on Clayton’s support for achieving them.
‘You can count on me, sir,’ said Clayton.
‘Thank you, Constable,’ said Macrae, looking pleased. ‘Now fill me and Jonah in on what’s been happening. You’ll find we’re good listeners.’
Macrae wasn’t exaggerating. Wale remained characteristically silent throughout Clayton’s briefing, and Macrae only asked one or two questions. Curiously, he seemed most interested in the fact that Trave had visited Swain twice in Brixton Prison the previous year.
‘So Trave doesn’t just think Swain is innocent of the Mendel murder, he’s also gone and told him so?’
‘I don’t know if he actually said that,’ said Clayton. ‘He told me he wanted to see if Swain could shed any light on the note or the other aspects of the case that he was worried about, but Swain couldn’t.’
‘And he went twice. You’re sure of that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting.’ Macrae stroked his chin with his long, thin forefinger for a moment, thinking, and then nodded as if he’d come to a decision. ‘Thank you, Constable,’ he said. ‘You’ve been most helpful. And now…’
‘Now, sir?’ asked Clayton when Macrae didn’t finish his sentence.
‘Now, let’s have a press conference,’ Macrae said, snapping his fingers with sudden energy. ‘Two o’clock this afternoon sounds good. And get as much media as you can over here. Jonah’ll help you with the phoning. He’s good at that.’
David lay on his bed listening to the radio. It was his ninth straight day inside the shabby hotel at Number 10 Parnell Avenue, and he didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. The physical pain in his shoulder had largely disappeared now that the wound caused by Claes’s bullet had almost entirely healed, but the mental anguish that he was suffering now was fast becoming unbearable. Every minute of every hour he sat waiting for a knock on the door or the sudden shout from a police megaphone. His body was rigid and his mind was exhausted with the waiting. It was worse, far worse, than the prison. O’Brien might have been a religious maniac, and Eddie was a treacherous, lying bastard, but at least they were human beings he could talk to, and there was a life of sorts outside the cell — in the canteen or the exercise yard or the rec room. Here the fear intensified when he went outside. Hunger and claustrophobia had driven him out to the convenience store at the end of the road three times since he’d moved in. He’d worn his jacket collar turned up around his face, and he hadn’t shaved since his escape, but still the last time he’d been in there he could have sworn that the little Indian man behind the counter had been about to recognize him. David’s hand had been shaking as he took his change, and it had been all he could do to
