also been unfulfilling. The truth was, I liked hunting. For twenty years, prior to my ignominious departure from England, I'd hunted criminals every day, sometimes for insignificant crimes, sometimes for murder, and I'd enjoyed it. I'd enjoyed the chase, the evidence-gathering, the slow but steady peeling away of the layers of fat to reveal the bare bones of the mystery beneath, the one mistake that would ensnare my prey. The fact that the prey usually ended up getting a far lower sentence than his crime deserved was a matter of some disappointment, but never enough to stop me from trying again. And now, free from the constraints of an undermanned and overregulated police force, the prey wouldn't escape so lightly. And I was enjoying the puzzle, too. This was a real mystery — not one of the grimy, pitiful tragedies that make up so much of the world's murder statistics. A series of murders and attempted murders had been committed, yet I still had no initial motive. All I knew was that if I found the motive, all the layers would peel away and I'd be left with my solution. When you're a twenty-year copper, ex or current, you don't turn away from a challenge like that. You revel in it. Even if the stakes were so high.
I walked over to the chair and picked up my coat. 'If you could give me the contact details of the psychotherapist who treated Ann, I'd appreciate it.'
Emma sighed. 'Look, sit down.'
'I thought…'
'I know I ought to let you go, but I've invested a lot of effort in this case; it's something that I've watched the police plod through almost as if they don't want to solve it, and because of that, I've been determined to. And now it seems there's even more to it than I thought. Do you honestly think that Ann's father had something to do with it?'
She returned to her original place on the sofa, so I sat down too.
'Well, this is what we've got,' I said. 'Les Pope ordered and arranged the murder of Richard Blacklip a year ago, very shortly after Blacklip had been charged with offences relating to the sexual abuse of his daughter, Ann, which had taken place some years earlier. Ann was the girlfriend of Jason Khan. Jason Khan was shot just over five weeks ago, along with Asif Malik, after Khan telephoned Malik and called him to a meeting in a cafe. It may well be that Jason had important information he wanted to share with Malik, someone who, according to his brother, he knew from the past. We still don't know what that information concerned. It might have been something to do with Thadeus Holdings, or Nicholas Tyndall and his operations, or Ann herself. Whatever it was, it was something very serious, and Ann was no doubt privy to it as well, because she was killed a few days later. So it's possible it had something to do with the relevations her psychotherapy revealed. But if that's the case, why did Ann live for so long after her father's death without coming to any harm? Why didn't they get rid of her at the time of his arrest if her knowledge was that incendiary?'
'That's why I can't see how it can be anything to do with it.'
'It may not be, but the Blacklip connection's too coincidental to pass up without looking at further. I need to visit the psychotherapist and see what light she can throw on things.'
'Do you think that's a good idea?'
'I don't want you doing it. Barron's right: you are taking a risk if you're seen to still be sniffing around. Leave it with me. I think it'd be wise if you took a bit of a back seat for the moment.'
For once, Emma didn't argue. In fact, she surprised me. She asked me if I was hungry. 'I'm going to cook some spaghetti in tomato sauce. You can stay for some if you want.'
One thing I've learned through life is never to turn down an invitation from an attractive lady. You've always got too much time to regret it.
Which was a pity, really, because had I left there and then, things might have turned out very differently.
30
While Emma prepared the dinner, I helped myself to another can of Fosters and turned the volume up on the telly. Channel 4 news was on and I watched a piece about the rise of obesity amongst the country's schoolchildren, complete with grim footage of waddling kids in gym shorts, before Britain's new Lord Chief Justice popped up to be interviewed by the newsreader about comments he'd made suggesting that prison should only be reserved for the most violent offenders. Apparently, he'd claimed that putting burglars, thieves, even first-time muggers behind bars only made them worse.
The new Lord Chief Justice was called Parnham-Jones, and for the interview he was without the old wig and gown; instead he wore a plain black suit with a sky-blue silk tie and matching handkerchief, and was sitting in an armchair next to a roaring fire in his country home. He was in his early sixties, I'd guess, white-haired, with the bearing and aquiline features of a public-school-educated patrician not used to, or much comfortable with, criticism. I would have bet all the money I'd got stashed in my poky little hotel room that he'd never been on the receiving end of a crime in his life. And commentators and politicians wondered why the public had lost faith in Britain's criminal justice system.
Parnham-Jones defended his comments in soothing, thoughtful tones, but with an underlying steel that brooked no dissent, always making a point of addressing the camera directly. Prison, he explained, was the university of crime. Send first-and second-time offenders there and they were not only likely to reoffend but to move on to more serious offences. Far better to ease the terrible overcrowding in the prisons and give them meaningful community-based sentences instead.
To be fair to the guy, he put his point across well, and with the sort of succinctness that TV interviewers love, but you had to wonder how much he really knew about what was going on out there. In my experience, community-based sentences — painting old ladies' houses, cleaning walls of graffiti, drug-treatment programmes — tended to be a bit of a joke. They were badly administered, the criminals often only turned up when they fancied it, and they never felt much like a punishment. I'm not 100 per cent sure that prison's a lot better in terms of turning people away from crime (in the end, criminals commit their crimes knowing full well they're wrong, but not really being too bothered about that fact, so trying to rehabilitate them's a waste of time), but at least when a guy's banged up he's not actually out there thieving, mugging, or whatever. In that sense, whatever the liberals amongst us might say, prison works.
Emma came back in with the spaghetti and a plate of garlic bread and we ate at the table with the TV off.
You get that sense sometimes, or I do anyway, that things are looking up for you, and that the worst is over. In my experience, it's usually followed by a very heavy fall. But as I sat there demolishing Emma's cooking (and it was very good), while quaffing my second can of Fosters, I couldn't help forgetting about my worries.
After we'd finished eating, we cleared away and she put on a CD of Van Morrison's greatest hits. I asked her how she'd got into journalism.
She smiled. 'I've always liked a good story, and I did English at A level, so that was the foundation. Then when I was at sixth-form college, just before our exams, they had a careers fair where representatives from different industries set up stalls in the refectory so that we could go and talk to them. The journalist who came from the local paper was only a couple of years older than me and he was quite nice-looking, so I got chatting to him, we ended up going for a drink, and he got me a job on the paper. I was meant to go away to uni, but I ended up marrying him. God knows why. I think it was because my dad was so against it. He had all these ideas of what career path I should take. He wanted me to become a lawyer, like him.'
'So where's the husband now?'
'We were young and it didn't last, but by then I'd got a taste for the job. After the split, I moved up to town and I've been working here ever since. The money's not fantastic but it gives me independence.'
I wondered why she wasn't on a national newspaper — she certainly seemed to have enough talent — but chose not to say anything, in case I hit a raw nerve. 'And this place? Is it yours?'
She smiled proudly. 'It is. With a little bit of help from my parents.'
Which was typical. You never saw a poor lawyer. 'You need all the help you can get with the prices these days,' I said, or something equally inane.
She asked me how I ended up being a policeman, and I gave her the honest answer: because at one time I'd thought that it was a useful, socially acceptable job, and I'd genuinely believed I'd make a difference.
