The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

Dunning retrieved the photograph, replaced it in his file. ‘What next?’ Proust asked.

The bad feeling Simon had about all this intensified with each question. ‘I went to get a kebab from a takeaway I’d passed on the way in-don’t ask me where or what it was called. Junction of Ruskington Road and Muswell Hill Road, turn right, keep going for about four hundred yards or so. I got my kebab, then I drove back to Ruskington Road, sat in my car and ate it, waiting for Seed to come back.’

‘In effect, you staked out Mr Seed’s car, and 23 Ruskington Road,’ said Proust.

‘Yes.’

‘Did Mr Seed return?’

‘Yes, sir. At about half past nine. He and the woman I’d seen at the meeting, the speaker with the tied-back brown hair, they walked up the road together towards the house-number 23.’

‘Were they speaking as they walked?’ asked Dunning.

‘She was.’

‘Did you hear any of what she said?’

‘No.’

‘Her tone? Could you gauge her mood?’

‘Good,’ said Simon without hesitation. ‘She was prattling on, like people do when they’re happy or excited. They stopped by Seed’s car and he opened the boot, took something out…’

‘What?’ Dunning pounced.

‘I couldn’t see-there was a van in the way. Whatever it was, he carried it into number 23. The woman unlocked the door and opened it for him, and they both went in. A light went on in that window, the one you were asking about. I moved my car, drew level with the house to try and see in, but I had to move after a few seconds-there were cars coming up behind me. There’s traffic parked along both sides of Ruskington Road, so overtaking’s impossible. All I saw before I had to move was the woman drawing the curtains, still talking, and Seed standing behind her.’ Simon looked at Dunning. ‘After that, I called it a night, drove back home.’ He cleared his throat, realising he’d inadvertently lied. ‘Actually, I… I drove to Sergeant Zailer’s house.’

‘Does the name Len Smith mean anything to you?’ asked Dunning.

‘No.’ Simon had had enough. This man was a detective, like him. Cooperation ought to work both ways. ‘What’s going on? Did something happen at the house after I left?’

Dunning produced another photograph from his file and thrust it in front of Simon’s face. ‘Have you seen this person before? ’

Simon found himself staring at a heavily made-up woman with short hair that seemed to sweep back from her face in waves. It was a completely different look, but he recognised her all the same. ‘Yeah. It’s her, the speaker from Quaker Quest.’ Olive Oyl.

‘The woman you saw enter 23 Ruskington Road in the company of Aidan Seed?’ Dunning clarified.

Simon nodded.

‘Her name’s Gemma Crowther. She was killed last night,’ said Dunning. From his tone, he might have been filling Simon in on the football results. ‘Shot. In her dining room, some time before midnight-that’s when her partner, Stephen Elton, came home and found her. He’d been at Quaker Quest too, but he stayed to clear up after the meeting.’

‘The fat bald guy?’ Simon asked.

‘No.’ Dunning dropped Olive Oyl’s picture on Proust’s desk and pulled out one of a young man-perhaps as young as early twenties, or else the photo was an old one-with prominent cheekbones and shoulder-length dark blond hair. All he needed was some of his girlfriend’s make-up and he could have been the front man of a glam rock band. ‘Did you see him?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

Dunning continued to hold the photograph aloft as he said, ‘So you saw Gemma Crowther alive and well at half past nine…’

‘Seed killed her,’ said Simon. As he was saying it, it occurred to him that he ought to wait, oughtn’t to give Dunning the impression that he was someone who leaped to conclusions in advance of having all the facts. Too late. ‘Have you got him?’

‘You’re not hearing me, DC Waterhouse. As things stand, I’ve got you, by your own account, as the last person to see Gemma alive.’

‘You mean apart from Aidan Seed?’

Dunning carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ve got two witnesses telling me you were behaving suspiciously near her home-looking through windows, hanging around in your car, watching the house. They made a note of your car registration, thought you were a would-be burglar, picking your moment to break in.’

‘I’ve explained what I was doing there.’

‘I’ve got no one’s word but yours that Aidan Seed was at Quaker Quest or at 23 Ruskington Road yesterday, and I know you think nothing of lying. I just heard you lie to your guvnor when he asked where you were yesterday. I’ve also heard you’ve got a history of, among other things, violent outbursts and obsessive behaviour. You’ve been a detective for longer than I have-you put all that together and tell me what you come up with.’

Simon had trained himself, over the years, to see keeping his temper in check as a feat of strength. Dunning was trying to get a rise out of him; he needed to pour the full force of his anger into resisting. These days he knew how to turn himself into a rock-impermeable. It didn’t feel like weakness any more, not hammering people to the ground with his fists when they pissed him off.

‘I don’t understand why you’d care enough to tail Aidan Seed to London instead of making your and everyone else’s life easier by following through on the action you’d been assigned,’ said Dunning. ‘That’s something you’ll have to explain to me. A man who’s committed no crime…’

‘Hasn’t he? If Gemma Crowther’s dead at midnight and I saw Seed with her at half past nine…?’

‘There were thirty-seven people at the meeting at Friends House,’ said Dunning. ‘Unless they’re all lying, not one of them knows the name Aidan Seed. According to them, and to Stephen Elton, Gemma’s partner, she left the meeting with a Len Smith, a social worker from Maida Vale who’d become a good friend of hers.’

‘Does the physical description match Seed’s?’ Simon asked. ‘A social worker from Maida Vale? I take it you’ve had no luck finding him.’

‘I’m told Smith has been attending regularly for several weeks.’

‘There is no Len Smith! It was Seed-he’s your killer. I saw him go into that house with her. Unless one of your witnesses saw him drive away while she was still alive…’

‘Neither of them saw you drive away when you say you did,’ Dunning announced with a smug smile-his first. ‘Shortly after half past nine.’

‘I didn’t leave then or they weren’t looking then?’ said Simon angrily. ‘There’s a difference. Ask your witnesses if they saw Seed’s car outside the house. Get a photo of Seed and show it to the Quaker lot-they’ll tell you he’s the man they know as Len Smith.’

Dunning gave him a look he’d used himself many times, on scrotes who wouldn’t talk.

‘You’re not serious?’ said Simon. ‘Me? I’m on your side of the fence. I lock up the killers.’ Proust sat hunched over his desk like a stone effigy, saying nothing.

‘I’m part of a team of twelve,’ said Dunning matter-of-factly. ‘In my team, we stick to our tasking briefs. Different detectives are handling different aspects of the investigation into Gemma Crowther’s death, and guess what? I got you, babe. Which means you and I are going on a little trip to the Big Smoke, and you’re going to elaborate on the story I’ve just heard from your DI about you and Sergeant Charlotte Zailer-who’s also your fiancee, I believe?’

Simon hated the way he said it as if it were somehow questionable, as if his and Charlie’s engagement meant neither of them could be trusted. Babe? Had Dunning called him that, or had he imagined it?

‘… your and Sergeant Zailer’s fixation on Aidan Seed, his girlfriend Ruth Bussey and a woman called Mary Trelease.’

‘All people you should be speaking to,’ Simon told him. ‘Are you?’

‘You’re going to make me understand why you care so much about all these people, and let’s hope the story