‘At work, you mean?’
‘You said it yourself: the people he deals with every day.’
Luther gives her the nod. Pleased, she enters the coordinates into the satnav.
As she drives Luther says, ‘Can I hear the 999 recording?’
She makes a call, passes him her phone.
He listens. Operator: Police Emergency Caller: Yeah, I’d like to report something really weird. I was walking my dog down Bridgeman Road. I heard, like, a noise. And I saw something really weird.
(Sound of typing) Operator: And what’s your name? Caller: I don’t want to say. Do I have to say? Operator: Not if you’d prefer not to. What did you see? Caller: A man. He was, like, sneaking out of this house. Operator: You saw a burglary in progress? Caller: I don’t know. He didn’t look like a burglar. He was too old to be a burglar. Operator: How old was he? Caller: Forties? I don’t know. Like a man in his forties.
(Typing) Operator: Okay. Calm down. What was he doing? Caller: I don’t know. He had something with him. He had like a bundle. He had blood all on him. Blood on his face and that. He sort of ran down Crosswell Street, carrying the bundle. It looked really bad. It looked really, really bad. Operator: Okay, officers are on the way. Can you hold the line? Caller (sobs): No, I can’t. I can’t. Sorry. I have to go. I’ve got to go.
Luther listens to it three times. ‘Have we traced the number?’
‘Number belongs to a mobile phone reported missing by a Robert Landsberry of Lyric Mews, Sydenham. Two days ago.’
‘Mr Landsberry have any idea who nicked his phone?’
‘We’ll re-interview this morning. But not really. He’s not even sure exactly when it was taken.’
‘So what do we think? The caller’s a burglar on the prowl, maybe? Or someone trying to put a deal together, shift a bit of weed?’
Howie shrugs.
Luther chews his lip as they drive. He says, ‘And this is our only witness?’
‘If he hadn’t called,’ Howie says, ‘the Lamberts would still be lying there. Nobody would even know.’
Luther closes his eyes and runs through the checklist: look deeper into friends and family. Extra-marital affairs. Was the child conceived with donor sperm? Were there money worries? Workplace rivalries?
If they don’t get a quick result, the problem won’t be the absence of information but an exponentially increasing super-abundance of it.
He sighs, and places a call to the best technical forensics officer he ever worked with.
‘John Luther,’ says Benny Deadhead down the line. ‘As I live and breathe.’
His real name is Ben Silver, but no one calls him that. Not even his mother.
‘Benny,’ says Luther. ‘How’s Vice?’
‘Depressing. The things people do to each other.’
Luther lets that one go by. He says, ‘Listen, how’s your workload?’
‘Insurmountable.’
‘Anything urgent?’
‘Well, that depends how urgent you mean.’
‘I mean, I need your help with a really bad one. If I get my guvnor to ask your guvnor if I can borrow you, how’s that going to go?’
Benny says, ‘I’m already packing a bag.’
CHAPTER 4
Until yesterday, Anthony Needham was Tom Lambert’s partner in a small, two-man counselling practice near Clissold Park.
Needham’s in his thirties, in wine-coloured shirt, tailored, and grey trousers, neatly gelled hair. He’s tanned, fit and sporting. Expensive watch. He doesn’t conform in any way to Luther’s notion of a therapist. He makes Luther feel grubby and unhealthy.
The room is designed to be agreeable: three comfy chairs arranged in a semi-circle, low bookshelves. A desk, bare but for a laptop and some framed photographs of Needham taking part in an Ironman Triathlon — scowling in muddy agony, running with a mountain bike slung over his shoulder.
Needham opens the window; it’s stiff and doesn’t come easily. Sounds of the city insinuate themselves in here with them, the smell of traffic and the smell of winter.
Luther crosses his legs and clasps his hands in his lap; something he does to constrain nervous energy. Howie observes Needham with silent gravity. She has her notebook in front of her and a pen in her hand.
Needham opens the lowest drawer in his desk, takes out a flattened, mummified pack of cigarettes. He roots around until he finds a disposable lighter. Then he perches on the windowsill, lights a cigarette and takes a puff.
He discreetly dry retches, leans on the windowsill with the cigarette held between two fingers.
He grinds out the cigarette after that one puff, comes back queasy and moist-eyed. He sits in the third comfy chair, hands laced in his lap.
Luther lets him work it through. Turns over a page of his own notebook, pretends to consult an earlier entry.
‘Holy Christ,’ says Needham at length. He’s Australian.
‘I’m sorry,’ Luther says. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in. But I’m afraid these first few hours are critical.’
Needham gets himself together. Luther likes him for it.
Needham swallows, then unlaces his fingers and gestures, meaning: ask away.
‘Well,’ Luther says. ‘You deal with some very troubled young people here. Violent people, presumably.’
‘You do know this is covered by doctor-patient privilege?’
‘I do, yes.’
‘Then I don’t know what you want me to tell you.’
‘Non-specifically — do you know if Mr Lambert was concerned about any of his patients?’
‘No more than usual.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Like you say. We deal with a lot of disturbed young people.’
‘Can I be honest with you, here? This wasn’t a random attack. This was a very violent, very personal crime.’
Needham shifts in his chair. ‘All I can tell you is, Tom had some raised levels of anxiety about some of his patients.’
‘What kind of anxieties?’
‘Would counselling actually help them? Could he actually stop them victimizing? Would one of them lose his temper once too often?’
‘That happens? They lose their temper in here?’
‘These are angry young men. Introspection isn’t in their nature, but we encourage them to confront difficult personal issues. It can be hard.’
‘Issues like violence?’
‘And usually the history of abuse that led to it.’
‘A lot of kids are abused,’ Luther says. ‘That doesn’t give them licence to hurt other people.’
‘Nobody said it did.’ Needham has the infinitely patient air of a man who’s answered this indictment a thousand times. ‘Life’s about choices. We try to give them tools to make better choices.’
Luther refers to his notes to break the eye contact. ‘So, no specific worries? No threats, no funny phone calls?’
‘None that he discussed with me.’
‘He wasn’t drinking a little more? Maybe self-medicating some other way? Sleeping pills? Cigarettes?’
‘Nope. None of that.’
Howie steps in. ‘What about young women?’
