attract, but when she breathed in she felt as though she’d been punched in the nose. Oh great, it could be hay fever time.
The rushing sound she heard was the wind hissing through the trees, washing over her.
‘Diane?’
Kewley took off the cap, revealing thinning hair streaked with grey. A warm breeze wandered through the plane trees, stirring a lock of his hair. When he raised a hand to push it back, she noticed that it wasn’t as steady a hand as it once had been. The cumulative effects of thirty years in the job? Or was Andy Kewley drinking too much, like so many others?
‘You’ve lost more weight since I saw you last,’ he said.
‘And you were never exactly the biggest lass in Brum, were you?’
‘No.’
Fry looked around at the site he’d chosen for their meeting. In the middle of the cemetery, they were standing at the top of a terrace of curved brick walls. Two of the walls had rows of small, sealed-up entrances built into them, like arched doorways.
‘What is this place? I thought it was a cemetery.’
‘Yes, and these are the catacombs,’ said Kewley. ‘Built into the side of an old sandpit. Don’t you think they’re interesting? They always remind me of a sunken amphitheatre. You can imagine gladiators fighting to the death down there on the grass. The only difference is, the spectators are already dead.’
‘Long since dead,’ said Fry. ‘These places make my flesh creep.’
Kewley laughed. ‘They’re harmless. Just our ancestors taking a bit of trouble over their final resting place.’
‘Only those who could afford it, I suppose.’
‘There’s another cemetery to the north of the station — Key Hill. That one has catacombs too. Joseph Chamberlain is buried there.’
‘Really?’
Fry wasn’t sure who Joseph Chamberlain was. There was a monument of him in Chamberlain Square, of course, and she’d passed a clock tower named after him on the corner of Vyse Street, near the Rose Villa Tavern. She thought there was even a Metro tram with his name on its side. But he was just one more Victorian, wasn’t he? Dead beyond living memory. She imagined him with a monocle and mutton-chop whiskers. Part of Birmingham’s vanished past.
‘I don’t like Key Hill so much. It has a campaign group who are busy restoring it. The Friends of Key Hill Cemetery. There are fences and gates, and they lock it up at night to keep people out. Oh and there are too many trees.’ Kewley gestured around him. ‘This one doesn’t have any friends. Just the drunks. Just the dead and the desperate. And you can see who’s coming fifty yards away.’
Fry imagined him using this cemetery for years to meet his informants. But it wouldn’t be wise to keep coming here after he’d left the job. Too many people might remember. Too many of them might have a grievance to settle. Maybe it was just one of those eccentric fancies that overcame old coppers when they retired. Some had a mad hankering to run pubs, or to look for a quiet life in Northern Ireland. Others chose to hang around in Victorian graveyards.
‘They say unhealthy vapours from these catacombs led to the Birmingham Cemeteries Act, which required non-interred coffins to be sealed with lead.’
The upper walkway looked down past two tiers of catacombs to the circle of grass in the centre. From the safety rail, it was quite a vertiginous drop. Lower down, part of the wall had collapsed, scattering gravestones. It was supported by steel props, awaiting some future repair. The cemetery had been well used. Victorian gravestones marched across the slopes, lurked in the hollows and hid beneath shrouds of ivy. Some memorials were large, horizontal stone slabs that she couldn’t help walking over as she found the way down to the lower levels.
On the circle of grass stood two or three dozen memorials under the shade of the trees.
Andy Kewley had been a frontline detective, hardened by thirty years’ experience. According to his own story, he wasn’t the kind of officer who was afraid of work, but he’d started to want more routine, a bit of stability. The constant changes had unsettled him, made him wonder whether he was appreciated properly. Every officious memo he received had made him count the days to his retirement.
‘Sorry to be out of the job, or not?’
‘I miss it,’ admitted Kewley.
‘You know there’s still a lot of demand for more civilian staff. Prisoner handling, statement taking, file preparation. There are always cases under review. Any experienced officer can take his full pension and complete his Staff 1 at the same time. Unless you’re planning on retiring to the Costa del Sol?’
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
His expression said otherwise. He’d probably heard it all before. His eyes suggested that he was a man who’d heard everything before.
‘Cases under review.’ He laughed. ‘You can say that again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they re-opened the Nielson and Whittle enquiry, just to look as if they’re doing something.’
‘Donald Nielson and Lesley Whittle? They’re just relics of the 1970s, aren’t they? Most of the present West Midlands coppers weren’t even alive then. The Black Panther is as much ancient history to them as Jack the Ripper. Things move on, Andy. Times change.’
‘You can say that again. Brum was a British city once.’
Fry grimaced, but didn’t answer.
‘I know,’ said Kewley, without even having to look at her face. ‘I’m not allowed to say things like that. If I was still in the force, you’d report me to the DI and I’d be suspended by tomorrow morning. Probably lose my job and my pension entitlement, too. Just for speaking the truth, eh?’
‘Andy — ’
‘Well, thank God I’m not on the force any more. I got out at the right time, I reckon. It’s you poor bloody sods who have to button your lips and take the shit.’
‘No, it’s not like that, Andy. Not really.’
‘Oh? What, whiter than white up in sainted Derbyshire, are you? I thought I heard you had some very active BNP areas.’
‘Andy, what did you want to tell me?’
‘I thought I might be able to help you.’
‘How?’
‘Did you know there was an arrest after your assault? I was responsible for that.’
‘You produced a suspect?’
‘Let’s say I provided intelligence. It was good intelligence too, as it turned out. This wasn’t one of the primary suspects, but he knew who was involved, all right, and he helped to cover up. A real piece of work. He was as guilty as anyone I ever met.’
‘So what did you do?’
Kewley shrugged. ‘We needed information, and we didn’t want to spend days dragging it out of him bit by bit, with a brief at his elbow telling him to do the “no comment” stuff. So we fast-tracked the interview.’
‘Fast-tracked…?’
Kewley looked at her, gave her no more than a conspiratorial glance. But she understood.
‘I don’t want to know any more,’ she said.
‘No, of course you don’t. You wouldn’t want to be contaminated.’
‘But you got what you wanted to know?’
‘Not entirely. We never got the names out of him.’ Kewley smiled. ‘But if we had…what do you reckon, Diane? Would the ends have justified the means, or not?’
‘What was he charged with?’
‘Attempting to pervert,’ said Kewley. ‘Pervert the course of justice, I mean. Obviously.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Miscarriage of justice. He got a “get out of jail free” card and a few quid in his pocket, and off he went.’
‘It’s hardly the first time, Andy.’
