The safe house

I showed him around upstairs and it was all lovely and saleable in the extreme.

‘I haven’t really tackled the garden,’ I said.

He shook his head.

‘A challenge for the adventurous gardener,’ he said.

‘That sounds a bit off-putting.’

‘Joke,’ he said. ‘Estate-agent speak.’

‘As you can see, we’re only a short walk from the sea.’

‘Good point,’ he said. ‘Very attractive. Buyers like that. Sea views.’

‘Well, not exactly.’

‘Joke. Estate-agent speak again.’

‘Right. I don’t know what else I should tell you. There’s a loft and a shed. But you handled the sale last year, so you probably have the details on file.’

‘Yes, we do. But I wanted to come for a look. Sniff the air, get a feel for the property.’

‘You were going to give me a valuation.’

‘Yes, Dr Laschen. Do you remember what you paid for the property?’

‘Ninety-five.’ His eyebrows rose. ‘I was in a hurry.’

‘That’s an interesting figure,’ he said.

‘You mean it was too high. I wish you had mentioned that a year ago when you showed me round.’

‘The east Essex market is soft at the moment. Very soft.’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘An opportunity,’ he said and held out his hand. ‘Good to meet you, Dr Laschen. I’ll ring you this afternoon with the valuation. We need to price this aggressively. I’m sure that we’ll have some people to take round by next week.’

‘I won’t be here. My daughter and I are going back to London on Saturday.’

‘Just so long as we have a set of keys and a phone number. In a hurry to get away? What’s the matter? Don’t you like the countryside?’

‘Too much crime.’

He gave an uncertain laugh.

‘Joke, right?’

‘Yes. Joke.’

That week consisted of nothing but things that needed doing. I sat down with Elsie and asked her if she would like to go back to London and see her old friends.

‘No,’ she said cheerfully.

I left it at that. The rest was just a process of working my way down a list: telling Linda and Sally, who seemed inured to any more shocks, and paying them in lieu of notice; making arrangements with utility companies; getting boxes out of the attic and putting things into them that, it seemed, I had only just removed from them.

I spent too much time on the phone. When I wasn’t trying to track down somebody at the council I was being phoned once more by journalists and doctors. I said no to all the journalists and maybe to most of the doctors. I gradually thinned down the maybes into probablys and by the end of the week I had a temporary-contract consultant post in the Department of Psychology at St Clementine’s in Shoreditch. I had phone calls from Thelma asking me what the hell was going on and Sarah telling me that I’d done the right thing and that a friend of hers had gone to America for a year and did I want to borrow his flat in Stoke Newington which was just a couple of streets from the park. I did. The only problem was that it was near Arsenal’s football ground and was overrun on alternate Saturdays and occasional weekends and did I mind? I didn’t.

In the gaps I kept phoning Chris Angeloglou. They were waiting for the laboratory results. Chris was out and yes, so was DI Baird. They couldn’t be reached. They were in a meeting. They were in court. They’d gone home. On Friday morning, the day before I was to move out, I rang Stamford police station once more and was put through to an assistant. Unfortunately DC Angeloglou and DI Baird were unavailable. That was all right, I said, I just wanted to leave a message. Did she have a piece of paper? Good. I wanted to warn Angeloglou and Baird that I was about to offer an interview to a national newspaper in which I would give the full story of the Mackenzie murder case as I saw it, together with my indictment of the police role in failing to reopen the case. Thank you.

I replaced the receiver and began to count. One, two, three… On twenty-seven, the phone rang.

‘Sam?’

‘Rupert, how are you?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want to know what you’re doing.’

‘Do you think it’s constructive to make wild threats?’

‘Yes, and I’ll tell you what I really want. I want a meeting at Stamford police station.’ There was a long pause. ‘Rupert, are you there?’

‘Of course. We’d be happy to see you. I was about to ring you anyway.’

‘Apart from you and Chris, I want Philip Kale there.’

‘All right.’

‘And whoever was in charge of the case.’

‘I was.’

‘I want to talk to the organ-grinder, not his monkey.’

‘I’m not sure that the organ-grinder is available.’

‘He’d better be.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Ask Kale to bring his autopsy reports on the Mackenzie couple.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, Sam, and ring you back.’

‘Don’t bother. I’ll be with you at twelve.’

‘That’s too little time.’

‘You’ve had lots of time, Rupert.’

As soon as I identified myself at the front desk, a young WPC hustled me through the building and into an empty interview room. When she returned with coffee, Angeloglou and Baird were with her. They nodded at me and sat down. It felt as if it were my office, not theirs.

‘Where are the others?’

Baird looked questioningly at Angeloglou.

‘Kale’s on the phone,’ Chris said. ‘He’ll be along in a minute. Val just popped up for the Super.’

Baird turned to me.

‘Satisfied?’ he asked with not too much of a hint of sarcasm.

‘This isn’t some kind of game, Rupert.’

There was a knock at the door, then it opened and a man peered in. He was middle-aged, balding, obviously in charge. He held his hand out to me.

‘Dr Laschen,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I’m Bill Day. I’m the head of the Stamford CID. I think we owe you an apology.’

I shook his hand.

‘As I was just explaining to Rupert here,’ I said, ‘I’m not conducting some personal campaign here and I’m not interested in claiming credit. It’s just about catching a murderer.’

‘Well, that’s meant to be our job,’ Day said with a laugh that turned into a sort of cough.

‘Which is why I’m here.’

‘Good, good,’ said Day. ‘Rupert said you wanted me to be here and that’s quite understandable. Unfortunately I’ve just popped out of a very important meeting and I must pop back. But I can assure you of our full cooperation. If you are dissatisfied in any way, I want you to contact me personally. Here’s my… er…’ He rummaged in his pockets and produced a slightly dog-eared business card and handed it to me. ‘I’ll leave you in Rupert’s capable hands. Good to meet you, Dr Laschen.’ We shook hands once more and he drifted out, almost bumping into Philip Kale as he did so. The four of us sat down.