‘Doesn’t it seem an odd coincidence that his father-in-law died in such a similar accident so very recently?’
Hopper shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything more about Litchfield than I’ve read in the paper and seen on the news. But I know about Carver because I’ve got the reports right here in front of me…’ He patted some papers on the right of his desk. ‘Which you’re welcome to see and have a copy. I’ve got eight reliable witnesses – two trained squad-car cops from this very precinct whom I know and whose judgement I trust completely – all telling roughly the same story. For no reason, Carver suddenly runs off the sidewalk in front of a car, yelling and shouting, in the direction of the police car. The truck driver doesn’t stand a chance. Can’t be anything but an accident.’
‘Roughly the same story?’ pressed Hanlan.
‘Couple of the witnesses thought they saw Carver push by some guy, knock him over.’
‘The squad-car guys?’
There was another head shake. ‘They only saw him when he started coming towards them. The two who saw the guy go over heard the first shout.’
Hanlan hoped that Ginette up in Litchfield and McKinnon, out in Brooklyn, were doing better than he was. ‘What was the shout… the words?’
Hopper got up to refill his mug. Hanlan held up his hand against the gestured offer. Hopper said: ‘No words. Just the noise.’
‘What about the guy who might have got pushed over. Is he one of your witnesses?’
‘No,’ conceded Hopper. ‘On balance I don’t think there was such a guy. You know how it is, situation like this. Guy gets squashed into the ground, everyone screaming and shouting, people’s memories play tricks.’
‘What about the car?’
‘Car?’
‘You said Carver ran in front of a car before he went under the truck. How come he didn’t get hit by the car?’
There was the familiar head shake. ‘Haven’t thought about it. Had time to get by, I guess. But not the truck.’
‘I don’t see the sequence,’ protested Hanlan. ‘The truck has to be following the car, right? So if he gets clear in front of the car, how come he’s hit by the following truck? Unless, that is, the car’s stopped and the truck’s overtaking. Any of your witnesses make that clear?’
‘Gene, I’m trying to do all I can to help here. I truly am. So how about a little in return. You want to tell me why the Bureau’s here, making traffic reports?’
Hanlan recognized the beginning of the usual resentment. ‘We got a tip, sounded good. Big-time money laundering. The Northcote firm was referred to. We didn’t get the promised call back, with more information, but the new head gets killed not a month after Northcote himself…’
‘What workable evidence you got?’ broke in Hopper.
‘That’s what I’m trying to find,’ admitted Hanlan.
The uniformed man spread his hands. ‘Best of luck getting into a firm like Northcote’s. But you ain’t going to do it with what happened on Wall Street. Like I told you, I don’t know what made John Carver jump in front of a truck the size of Manhattan itself: I guess we never will. What I do know is that Carver’s actual death was a one hundred per cent kosher accident…’ That shrug came again. ‘You want me to tell you amazing coincidence stories or do you watch them on television?’
‘I’ve got an instinct about the tip.’
‘Run with it then.’
‘I need more.’
‘Times like this I’m glad I do what I do and not what you guys do. You want I introduce you to our detective division along the corridor?’
‘The crimes, if there are crimes, are federal.’
‘Just a thought.’
‘Anything comes up, you give me a call?’
‘Nothing’s going to come up, Gene. I got an arm-waving jaywalker didn’t look where he was going.’
‘Towards a police car, trying to attract their attention.’
‘Best of luck. You’ve got my number.’
Hanlan offered his card across the battered desk. ‘And here’s mine.’
‘Like to think I could help you by calling it,’ said the other man.
Martha hadn’t made contact when Hanlan reached Federal Plaza but George McKinnon was back from Brooklyn and Ginette Smallwood had called in to say that she was on her way from Litchfield. Hanlan and McKinnon were just finishing their review of the crime report on Janice Snow’s hanging when Ginette came into the office and at Hanlan’s insistence they went completely through it again in the hope that Ginette would isolate something they’d missed. She didn’t. Every time the telephone rang they paused and looked up, hopefully, and every time got a mouthed ‘no’ in return from whoever in the support staff answered. It took them longer to go through the dossier on George Northcote’s death, because the autopsy report was more detailed and there was the additional house- trashing burglary, which they studied just as intently.
There still hadn’t been any contact from Martha by the time Hanlan reluctantly and finally pushed all the files aside, looking from one to the other of the two field agents for a reaction.
McKinnon said: ‘Enough for a Saturday-night movie mystery, with some mighty jumps of logic to link it all together. But not enough, objectively, for us to initiate an official investigation.’
Ginette said: ‘I agree. I don’t know – but I’d sure as hell like to sweat Mystery Martha to find out – how and why she comes on to us two hours before John Carver throws himself in front of a truck…’ She waved to the file Hanlan had brought back with him. ‘But we can’t buck the evidence of eight reliable witnesses, two of them police officers, that that’s what happened. We’ve got more than enough for suspicion but not enough to move on it officially.’
‘I still think we visit the Northcote office, see how they react to us,’ suggested Hanlan.
‘However and whichever way they react to us would be – or could be – explained as the shock of losing their founder and his successor, as they have,’ insisted Ginette, who’d gone through all the psychological training courses at Quantico. ‘We wouldn’t be able to make any sort of assessment from whatever anyone said or did.’
‘What sort of harassment or grief-intrusion action can you imagine they’d bring, if one of us said something just a tad wrong or out of line?’ demanded McKinnon, his retirement benefits in mind.
Hanlan tapped the Carver file and said to Ginette: ‘We got the addresses there of the two who say they saw Carver push a guy over. Go see them, talk to them again. Hear it the way they want to tell it.’
‘OK,’ sighed the woman. It was better than chasing all over Manhattan trying to catch Martha on the telephone, she supposed.
‘I’ve got a feeling,’ insisted Hanlan.
‘Then take it to Washington DC,’ said McKinnon. ‘Set it all out, let legal counsel decide if we can risk looking at George W. Northcote International. They say no, it’s no. But it’s not our asses on the line if they say yes.’
‘Where the hell is Martha?’ said Hanlan.
Alice Belling was, in fact, hunched foetus-like in a cushioned chair that smelled of too many previous users in a plywood-furnished room of a tourist hotel on Eighth Avenue where security guards confirmed key tags at a turnstile between the reception area and the accommodation and upon every floor of which there were CCTV monitors. She’d balled herself up in the chair with her arms clutched tightly around her, unsleeping, throughout the previous night, for most of it crying so hard and so uncontrollably that her stomach and ribs ached by early morning. Until then she had refused to think, her mind locked on a single awareness. John was dead. Arrogant, stubborn, stupid, wonderful, loving John was dead. Gone forever. She didn’t have him any more. Would never have him any more. Gone. No goodbye. She couldn’t remember if they’d kissed when he’d left her apartment for the last time. Never kiss him again. Touch him again. Feel his body again.
John was dead.
She had finally to get out of the chair to use the bathroom. When she moved her body ached more and she felt sick, from not eating. Something else she couldn’t remember, when she’d last ate. Her mirrored reflection was almost grotesque. Her hair was straggled and lank around a face gaunt with grief, tear-red eyes sunk dark-ringed into sallow, greasy skin. It was almost difficult for her to recognize herself.
