The Tower E-Book

Kate London

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

She closed her eyes and saw, as if on a loop, a repeating backdrop of square windows, blue sky and concrete spinning and passing, passing, passing. She could not escape the horror of it: falling unstoppably, irretrievably until the hard concrete reaches up. That last glimpse of them at the edge. A long-serving beat cop in the Met and a teenage girl fall to their deaths from a tower block in London's East End. Left alive on the roof are a five year old boy and rookie police officer Lizzie Griffiths. Within hours, Lizzie Griffiths has disappeared, and DPS officer Sarah Collins sets out to uncover the truth around the grisly deaths, in an investigation which takes her into the dark heart of policing in London. Grounded in the terrifying realities of policing a city where the affluent middle-classes live cheek-by-jowl with the poorest immigrants, this is a complex, intelligent, thrilling crime novel by an author who has walked the beat.

Leseprobe

THETOWER

POST MORTEM

Kate London graduated from Cambridge University and moved to Paris to train in theatre. She worked as an actor, writer and director before joining the Metropolitan Police Service. She finished her service working as a detective on the Met’s homicide command, resigning in 2014 to dedicate herself to her writing. Her debut novel, Post Mortem, was published in 2015 and has now been adapted as a major ITV drama under the title The Tower.

By Kate London:

The Tower

Post Mortem

Death Message

Gallowstree Lane

First published as Post Mortem in Great Britain in 2015 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2016 by Corvus.

This paperback edition published in 2021.

Copyright © Kate London, 2015

The moral right of Kate London to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 588 5E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 614 7

Printed in Great Britain.

CorvusAn imprint of Atlantic Books LtdOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

For Uri

17 APRIL

1

Detective Sergeant Sarah Collins and Detective Constable Steve Bradshaw had been close by when the call came out. It had taken them only a matter of minutes to get to the scene, but emergency vehicles already blocked the approach to the service road that led to Portland Tower. Collins stopped the car in the middle of the road, leaving its lights flashing.

‘You control the scene,’ she said. ‘I’ll go to the roof.’

Collins ran ahead. Bradshaw moved more slowly, walking round to the boot of the car to collect his grab bag. Collins, pulling her warrant card out of her jacket pocket, pushed her way through the group of onlookers who were crowding forward, struggling to snatch a glimpse. She pressed through them – the smell of their sweat, their sharp elbows, their panting curiosity.

‘Police. Out of my way.’

As she reached the front, she was hit by the sudden revelation of the bodies, spread on the tarmac of the square in plain view.

Face down was a white uniformed male. Overweight. Late forties, early fifties. One arm was crushed beneath his chest. The other, flung out wide, was clearly fractured. Blood had burst out of the dead man’s stomach and splattered across the ground.

The teenage girl lay face up, head back, arms spread, mouth open, like a pale doll thrown pitilessly on to the concrete. A few feet away from her, incongruous against the paving slabs, was a pink polka-dot backpack. The girl’s face was dark-skinned – North African, Collins thought. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a cat printed on the front. The cat’s head was disproportionately large for its body, with even bigger eyes. It had an arching tail that snaked over the girl’s shoulder. The dead man’s blood had splashed across the T-shirt and the girl’s face. There was something about the blood that was uncanny, the fact that it lay undisturbed, uncleaned.

Collins tried to dismiss the anguish that swept suddenly through her. Briefly it incapacitated her and she stood rooted to the spot. The paramedics were clearing up their equipment. It was only protocol that they had been called: someone had to pronounce life extinct. She looked upwards into the brightness of the cold blue sky. Even imagining the unstoppable fall gave her vertigo. The high-rise loomed above, casting her into shadow. These lives were beyond help, she told herself. She had a job to do; she would concentrate on that. Steve would secure the scene.

A uniformed sergeant was mustering shocked officers to push people back. He had blue plastic gloves on and a roll of blue and white tape in his hand. Directly in front of her was a young Asian officer. He looked drawn and pale. Collins showed him her warrant card and spoke quietly, as if confiding a secret.

‘Detective Sergeant Collins, Directorate of Special Investigations. My colleague Detective Constable Steve Bradshaw will be here in a moment. He’s going to help you establish the scene.’

The officer waved her through and she set off quickly across the open concourse, around the building towards the entrance. In spite of herself her heart was pounding. She repeated her investigator’s mantra. One thing at a time. One decision at a time. Every detail could be significant and every decision she made might prove much later, in a cold and unforgiving court, to have unimagined consequences. The universe was turning and she wanted to slow it down and hold on to every particle, to have time to examine it, to revolve it slowly in the light. Every human action contaminated. Still, she would go to the roof. To hesitate might mean she would lose other evidence. Like who was there right now.

The door to the stairs was propped open. She paused and considered the Coke can that someone had slid between the door and its frame. She called Steve on her mobile.

‘Get someone on the door, quick. Nothing moves. No one goes up or down. There’s a Coke can here needs seizing.’

She felt in her trouser pocket and took out a pair of blue plastic gloves, identical to those the uniformed sergeant had been wearing. As she put them on, she scanned the length of the building, taking in the CCTV camera that was pointing towards the door. She stepped into the lobby. It was dimly lit by the pallid light seeping through the glass bricks that formed part of the exterior wall. On the right was an abandoned caretaker’s office, in front of her two dark lift doors and to the left, the door to the fire stairwell. She paused to consider which route they had taken to the roof. Had it been the lift or the stairs? She would order a search team to do a fingertip examination of the whole area, but in the meantime she’d risk the contamination and take the stinking lift. She pulled a pen from her pocket and used it to press the request button.

The lift walls were dappled stained metal. There was burnt aluminium foil on the floor. She prayed the lift wouldn’t break down. It creaked steadily upwards, sending vibrations echoing along the shaft. The doors opened on to the final landing. Above her the service stairs climbed into darkness, broken by a square of light that was the opening on to the roof.

As she climbed, she heard distant low voices. Stepping out from the sheltered stairway, she was blasted by the wind. The sheer height made her want to retreat. Clouds were whipping across the blue sky. From where she stood, there was no view of the ground, just the white concrete platform of the roof, and the spinning sky.

A foot away from the edge, a male inspector in uniform faced a female uniformed police constable. The female was young, about twenty-two. Slim, athletic build. She didn’t have a hat on, and Collins could see blonde hair pulled back into a plait. She was sitting down; on her lap, with his arm round her neck, was a small boy in a bear suit.

Collins held out her warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Sarah Collins.’

The inspector stepped towards her. He was tall, a streak of grey in his hair. ‘What are you doing up here? This is a crime scene.’

‘I could ask the same of you, sir.’

Something like anger flushed briefly through his face.

‘Kieran Shaw, I’m the duty inspector. It’s clear enough what I’m doing here. One of my officers is dead. Another is up here on her own with a missing child. I’m here to make sure no one else falls off this fucking roof.’ He turned away and spoke into his radio. ‘Control receiving Inspector Shaw. An officer to close off the stairs with tape immediately. And any other entrances to the building to be closed off. No one else to go up or down. This is a critical incident.’ He turned back to the female officer and the boy in the bear suit. ‘We’ll get you both down.’

Collins considered the female PC. She wanted to speak to her then and there. To spirit her away from this duty inspector and find out what had happened before anyone else could brief her. But the PC was ashen and her lips were blue. She was beginning to shake as though she had been immersed in very cold water for far too long. Collins spoke into her own radio. ‘Control receiving DS Collins, DSI. I’m going to be running this from now on. DC Steve Bradshaw is supervising the establishment of a crime scene. We need medical assistance for an adult female believed going into shock. Breathing and conscious. I’ll meet London Ambulance at the bottom of the stairs.’

Collins left the PC sitting in an ambulance being assessed by paramedics. She noted the officer’s name in her notebook: Police Constable Lizzie Griffiths.

The mother of the boy was waiting in the back of a marked car. Collins let go of his hand and watched the little bear running towards her. As soon as she saw him, she threw open the car door and ran to meet him. She flew him up into the air and then squeezed him tightly against her chest, pressing her face into his until he cried out: ‘Mummy!’ She pulled the bear hood down and buried her nose in him. The uniformed PC who had been driving the car gave them a moment before ushering them both into the vehicle and away from the waiting bank of press. Collins watched it turn slowly away from the scene.

From then on, she knew, it would be a race not to lose evidence, like trying to gather up shells before the tide swept in and claimed them for oblivion. No, not just gathering the shells but also carefully cataloguing and recording the damn things. She looked up. The sky was grey. The weather was turning and the spring sunlight was already paling. They would have to work quickly. She went back to the car, grabbing a forensic suit and a decision log from the boot.

She met up with Steve on the edge of the crime scene. He lit two cigarettes and passed her one. They inhaled together as they stood watching the local officers struggling to erect the white tents that had arrived on blue lights.

‘Never find it easy, do they?’ Steve said.

Together they allocated the many tasks that lay ahead. There was so much to do – informing the families, deciding the forensic strategy, door-to-door, CCTV, witnesses, debriefing the response team. Steve called the bus company and the local-authority CCTV office. He would go with another DC and see if he could grab some footage before the operators went home. Collins checked her watch. People would be looking forward to leaving work. Soon they would struggle to get hold of the civilians they needed. As every moment passed opportunities were being lost to preserve evidence. Secondary-school children were traipsing home, walking along the perimeter of the scene with their scruffy bags and dusty shoes.

2

In the back of the ambulance, a paramedic was talking to Lizzie and filling in a yellow sheet fastened to a clipboard by a large bulldog clip. He leant over and slipped the cuff of the sphygmomanometer around her upper arm. She felt it inflate and constrict the flow of blood. It was as if everything was happening to someone else. The paramedic said something to her. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was definitely a question and he smiled as he spoke.

She said, ‘OK,’ and smiled back.

She found herself very interested in the paramedic’s clipboard – in the diamond hatching of the board and the dark bulldog clip. She wondered how hard it would be to press the butterfly of the clip open. Some of them were very stiff, after all. The door of the ambulance opened. Her sergeant was standing just outside, speaking into his radio. He nodded at her and she nodded back. ‘Sarge.’ She dragged her bottom teeth hard across her top lip. It felt like she’d had an anaesthetic.

A skinny man with a crumpled face stepped into the ambulance. He was wearing a dark blue suit. He flashed a warrant card at the paramedic and sat down opposite her. She noticed nicotine staining on his third finger. The paramedic and the man were talking, but she couldn’t make sense of what was being said. The man leaned forward and put his hand gently on her shoulder.

‘Lizzie. It is Lizzie, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here’s my card, Lizzie. DC Steve Bradshaw. Look, pass me your warrant card. I’ll pop it inside there and then you’ll know you’ve got it. That mobile’s on 24/7 and it’s always OK to ring me. We’ll catch up with you when the medics give us the thumbs-up.’

‘Yes, thank you.’

He smiled. ‘OK, I’ll leave you to it.’

Then he was gone. The paramedic reached over and attached something to her index finger. Another butterfly clip. She noticed that it had a red light on it. Her pulse, the beat of her heart. She closed her eyes. She felt as though she was lying on the bottom of a swimming pool looking up. She allowed herself to relax and look at the surface of the water, how it formed into shifting blue polygons. And then unbidden, and for just a brief moment, she had a sudden flash of the roof. Of the girl, Farah, and of Ben in his bear suit, the blue sky behind them, the clouds scudding past.

Lizzie shuddered violently, as if she had nausea. The paramedic, she realized, was offering her a bowl to vomit into. She could see his wide, kind, tired face. The comforting green of his uniform, those trousers with the side pockets. She had pockets like that, she remembered, but black, not green. She waved him away. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ With determination she brought her attention back to the clipboard. She thought about how old-fashioned they were. Who would have imagined that paramedics still used them?

Inspector Shaw stepped into the ambulance. ‘All right, Lizzie?’

She nodded. ‘Guv.’

She observed him. He was being efficient, she understood that. He was making arrangements for her. He was looking after her.

3

The ambulances and fire engines had gone and Collins had moved her car up into the outer cordon. She sat in the front seat working through the printouts of the linked dispatches that were the police records of the incident. Head down, she scribbled in her counsel’s notebook.

There was a tap on her car window. Detective Chief Inspector Baillie was leaning down looking at her. His thin, intelligent face was dusted with freckles, and above his pale blue eyes was a shock of flaxen hair. He smiled, pleased to have caught her off guard. She flicked open the door lock so that he could join her on the passenger side. As he crossed in front of the car, she saw how his dark pinstriped suit hung off his coat-hanger shoulders. He slid the seat back to its full extent and stretched his legs into the footwell.

‘Bit of a problem, Sarah. Don’t know whether you are aware? We’ve been looking at informing the families. Turns out that Younes Mehenni, the father of the dead teenager, is currently in police custody on remand to court tomorrow.’

Collins felt immediately wrong-footed: she should have known this. ‘I’m sorry, sir . . .’

‘It’s OK, you’ve been a bit busy. I’ve appointed Alice as family liaison. She’s at Farlow nick now, organizing bail on compassionate grounds. We’re going to escort him to court in the morning and see if we can sort it out quickly. The advice is that legally there’s no other way round it. It doesn’t look like it’s a particularly serious matter – criminal damage with a linked malicious communications. We’re just getting to the bottom of it now. What do you have about the dead officer?’

‘PC Hadley Matthews, sir. Fifty-two years old. Three years to go before retirement. Inspector Shaw, Matthews’ line manager, is informing his family. Shaw was the duty inspector today.’

Baillie nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve come across Kieran Shaw.’

‘You’ve worked with him?’

‘No, not at all. Don’t worry, no conflict of interest there. But from what I’ve heard, he’s a good man.’ Baillie stretched his arms behind his head. ‘All right, Sarah, I’ll let you get on. We’ll use Farlow nick as our base for the initial response. I’ll see you back there for a more detailed briefing. How much time do you need? Shall we say twenty hundred hours?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Baillie nodded reluctantly towards the outer cordon, where the bank of press were loitering. ‘And in the meantime, I need to face that lot. Any suggestions as to what I might say to them?’

Collins turned in the direction he had indicated and saw a thicket of zoom lenses pointed towards the scene.

‘As little as possible as far as I’m concerned. We are still investigating. All lines of inquiry still open, that sort of thing?’

There was a brief silence. Baillie palmed his car keys and flicked the door lock open.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Our first job together, you and me, and it’s a big one. I hope you’re a safe pair of hands.’

4

The marked car drew up outside PC Lizzie Griffiths’ flat. Arif was in the driving seat, Lizzie beside him. He switched the engine off.

‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right?’

‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’

Arif, like Lizzie, was young in service. In fact, because she had just a couple of months’ more experience than him, Lizzie was even the slightly senior officer. She knew he had been first on scene, had probably even seen the fall. She wondered how he was coping. They sat together in silence.

‘I don’t know,’ Arif said finally. ‘It just doesn’t feel right. Leaving you. I can sit with you for a bit if you want. We can have some tea.’

There was a pause.

‘Or something stronger.’

‘No, Arif. It’s all right. I’ll be fine. Thanks.’

She got out of the car. She was aware of Arif waiting, watching her while she walked down the driveway and then fumbled with her keys. She had a ridiculous sensation, as though she were pretending to unlock the door. When she had got it open, she turned and waved. Everything was hunky-dory. Still, he hesitated for a moment before nodding and driving off.

As soon as the door was shut, she crouched down on the floor and put her head in her hands.

Lizzie sat motionless on the edge of her bed. She didn’t know how long she had been there and had no recollection of how she had navigated the distance from the hallway to her bedroom. Her mind felt like a wide-open blank. She picked up her phone and glanced at the screen. She had seven missed calls. She had been distantly aware of the phone ringing, but it had not crossed her mind to answer.

Tapping on the images application, she flicked through the pictures until she found a picture of herself with PC Hadley Matthews, his arm round her. She considered this for some time until the phone rang again, interrupting the screen.

Unknown number.

Immediately she rejected the call. She could think of no one to whom she could speak. She could think of nothing.

She tried to pull herself together.

In the back of the ambulance, a female detective constable had seized her uniform and put it into brown evidence bags. Lizzie was sitting now in a white top, white tracksuit bottoms and black pumps provided by the detective when she took her uniform. Lizzie knew these clothes. They were the type given to prisoners in custody when their own clothes were seized for forensic examination.

Her mind scanned around like a slow computer system conducting a search that never resolved. Or like a freeze frame that wouldn’t play. The edge of the roof, the wind blowing across. In spite of the futility, she kept on struggling to find a way to make it not true, to make it come right, like a dream dreamt again. She could almost see the rainbow wheel in her head endlessly whirring and reaching no conclusion. No results. Disk irretrievably damaged.

Suddenly she felt that the clothes she had been given were repulsive to her. She got up and changed into some of her own jogging trousers and a T-shirt. She threw the clothes she had been given into her bin.

The small effort had exhausted her. She lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She couldn’t see any way forward beyond this present moment.

5

Collins stepped out of the scene tent that sheltered the body of PC Hadley Matthews. She peeled her forensic suit down to her waist, removed her plastic gloves and reached for her cigarettes. Both bodies were ready at last to be bagged up and moved.

At the outer cordon onlookers were still standing. What on earth, she wondered, could they be hoping for? There was nothing to see now except the tents, and the officers and SOCOs moving around in forensic suits. Nevertheless, it was the usual street party that accompanied catastrophe. Mixed-race and white boys in hoodies were fooling around and giving the uniformed officer on the tape a hard time. An elderly lady in a hijab and a cardigan was staring with fixed concentration towards the concourse. Collins would task one of the PCs to make sure this woman’s details had been taken. A white man wearing the paint-splashed dungarees and boots of a decorator was filming it all on his phone. A TV cameraman was also still lingering, hoping probably for footage of the bodies being moved into the vans and driven out. She should warn the forensic team about him. They could back the van right up to the tents, obscure the body bags.

Collins lit her cigarette then moved over to her car. She pulled out her notebook and, leaning against the vehicle, glanced down at her list of actions. A box was inked and doodled around the words ‘PC Lizzie Griffiths’. The young female constable from the roof had to be the next priority.

Collins radioed Control and then waited on the spare channel while the operator checked the dispatch.

‘PC Griffiths hasn’t gone to hospital, Sarge.’

‘Not gone to hospital?’

‘No, Sarge.’

‘OK, what does it say on the dispatch? Where has she gone?’

Collins scratched her forehead irritably while she waited for the operator to get back to her. Finally the radio crackled. ‘The officer has been dismissed from duty. The CAD shows a car taking her home.’

‘Home? Who authorized that?’

‘The duty officer, Sarge. Mr Shaw.’

Collins threw her cigarette on the ground and lit another onehanded. ‘OK. Thank you, Control.’ She dialled into her mobile. ‘Steve, Lizzie Griffiths, the female PC—’

‘It’s all right, Sarah, I called for an update myself. Tried to talk to her in the ambulance but the paramedic said she wasn’t ready. She’s on her own, apparently. God knows what Shaw was thinking. I’m on my way; turning into her street right now, actually.’

‘Thank God. Take her over to Victoria House. We don’t want her anywhere near her own nick. I’ll meet up with you as soon as I’ve seen Baillie.’

6

Lizzie had fallen into a stupor and the knock at the front door startled her. For a moment, she froze. Then she began to act swiftly, throwing her phone, some pants, a couple of T-shirts and a utility bill into a small backpack. The plate of the letter box lifted quietly and she paused. A cop at the door, then. There was no access to her garden from the front of the building. She would be OK if she moved quickly.

A male voice called into the hallway.

‘Lizzie?’

She stopped moving, hoping he would not realize she was at home. After a pause, the voice continued.

‘Lizzie, it’s only me, Steve. You remember me? I came and said hello to you in the ambulance . . .’

The letter box shut. Lizzie bent down and quietly slipped some trainers on, but as she did so, her phone began to ring. Beginner’s mistake. She heard the letter box open again.

‘Lizzie, I know you’re there. I can hear your phone ringing.’

Lizzie reached into her bag and grabbed her phone. She rejected the call and switched it off. Then she threw the bag over her shoulder and ran into the hallway. She had to go this way to get out of the French windows into the garden. She could see the fingers of a white male hand holding the letter box open. She heard his voice again.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lizzie. I can see you. This looks terrible, me talking to you through the door and you running away. It’s bloody silly, for a start. We’ll both look bad.’

She hesitated. He spoke again.

‘Lizzie, look, I understand. You feel dreadful. You’re still in shock. Stay and talk to me. You can trust me . . .’

She turned away from the front door and began to run down the hall. Behind her she could hear the unmistakable sound of the detective constable trying to force his way in. The door was shaking in its frame. He would be in the house within a minute. Quickly she opened the French window and slipped into the garden. The side entrance was protected by a tall fence. The gate at the back led into the park. She unlocked it and pulled the hood of her tracksuit top up. Sunset was beginning to draw in. The fading city sky was streaked with vapour trails and pink clouds. She broke into a run, crossing the darkening park and turning towards the high street.

Her bank was already closed. She withdrew the maximum amount from the cashpoint. She paused, instinctively looking up and around for CCTV cameras. Then she decided it didn’t matter.

She turned off the high street and ran about a mile along the back streets, towards the offices under the railway arches.

7

Afat PCSO pointed Collins in the right direction. Baillie had commandeered an office at Farlow police station, up some stairs and along a corridor. As she struggled through the station with her heavy old laptop and her pile of papers, Collins could feel the local officers’ eyes clocking her lanyard. The door of the office was half-glazed, and before she knocked, she caught sight of the back of Inspector Shaw. He was sitting down, facing away from her towards the desk, where, presumably, Baillie was also sitting, just out of view. She hesitated, then tapped on the door and entered.

Baillie smiled at her. ‘Sarah.’

‘Boss.’

Inspector Shaw had stood up, and now he turned and offered Collins his hand. The top button of his shirt was open and his police tie was threaded through the retainer on his shirt. He looked exhausted, but he was a good-looking man, she realized. Tall, athletic. Hair streaked with grey.

‘Sergeant. Collins, isn’t it?’

She felt the DCI’s eyes on her. ‘Sarah,’ she said, accepting Shaw’s hand.

‘Sarah.’ He paused. ‘Kieran.’ He waved her towards the seat he had been sitting in. ‘No, please, sit. I’m on my way now anyway. I was just updating the boss before I go off duty. Unless you need anything from me?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

He turned to the DCI. ‘With your permission then, sir?’

‘Yes, thanks for your help.’

Shaw turned to go, then hesitated. ‘Look, Sarah, I’m sorry if we got off to a bad start. I was in shock myself.’

Collins nodded. ‘Yes, of course you were.’

‘I’ve never lost an officer before.’

‘Really, I understand completely. It’s terrible.’

There was a pause.

‘Still, no excuse for not being professional. What is it they used to say to us at training school?’ He gave a half-laugh. ‘You only get one chance to make a first impression?’ He smiled complacently at the worn-out cliché. It was a reference to a shared experience – training school, years of policing – an appeal perhaps to Collins’ better nature, but she was not put at her ease by his confidence and the cliché, she realized, cut both ways. She too, of course, had made a first impression, one that she felt sure he hadn’t liked.

‘Yes,’ she said, attempting a smile. ‘That’s right.’

‘You getting all the help you need? My team being cooperative?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘I’ll let you get on then, but if you need anything, call me.’

‘Yes, I will. Thank you.’

Collins’ eyes flickered involuntarily towards the DCI. He caught her glance and held it as the door closed behind Kieran Shaw.

‘Not like him much?’ Baillie said.

Collins shrugged. ‘No opinion. Don’t know the man yet, sir.’

It took them a moment to get the laptop plugged in and up and running. The password was the usual struggle, but eventually the media programme opened. They leaned over the computer, watching.

First: jump frames of colour CCTV. Farah and Ben on a bus. A dark-skinned teenage girl in a cat-print T-shirt and a small boy in a bear suit. Farah holding on to the standing rail. The boy sitting separately but close to her on one of the high seats at the front. Passengers getting on and off. Farah jumping Ben down from the seat in three bites of images. Then, a different media file: council CCTV, black and white. Farah and Ben walking hand-in-hand through the estate. Now, by the entrance to the estate. Then a remote view: the slight figure of a teenage girl and a small boy crossing the central square. A local-authority camera showed two marked police cars entering the estate separately. Their flashing lights flared, whiting out the grey tones of the film.

The media window went black. Collins closed the program.

Baillie said, ‘That it?’

‘Yes, sir. That’s all we’ve managed to recover so far.’

‘Still, not a bad effort. Is there anything you need to tell me about it?’

Collins picked up the sheaf of papers she had left on the seat of her chair. She handed them to Baillie.

‘Just the timings, sir.’

Something wary, something usually hidden, flitted across Baillie’s face, and Collins thought, No one gets to DCI without some steel in the soul. He sat at the desk, put on his reading glasses and glanced at the papers. After a minute he removed the glasses and held them in his right hand. He looked up at Collins.

‘It’s going to be quicker if you explain this to me.’

‘The first printout, sir, top of your bundle. The 999 call shows that the boy’s mother, Mrs Stewart, called police at 15:48 hours to report Ben missing. At 15:51, the incident goes out over the radio with a description of the boy and a request for officers to attend the home address to take the report. No one knows the location of Ben at that time. In all likelihood he’s already at Portland Tower with the girl, Farah. We’ve got CCTV of them already on the bus before the mother dials 999. In any case, the unit reports Ben as a high-risk missing person. At 15:54, the duty inspector deploys units to conduct a search of the area surrounding the boy’s home address.’

Baillie leafed through the papers. ‘OK.’

‘If you turn to the next dispatch, sir . . . At 15:53, a new report has opened. It’s a member of the public calling 999. She’s seen some figures standing on the roof of Portland Tower. The informant’s not good on description, but she’s sure there are two people, and thinks one may be a child. She’s run into her home to make the call and can no longer see the roof. That’s transmitted over the main channel at 15:56. The call’s treated as an immediate suicide risk, and at 16:00, two units are dispatched on blue lights. No one links the two incidents at this point, at least not officially they don’t.’

Collins felt Baillie’s eyes flick to her. She found herself swallowing before continuing. It was important not to seem worked up.

‘So, neither PC Hadley Matthews nor PC Lizzie Griffiths is on the log as putting up for either call. I’ve examined the duty slate – that’s the fourth printout, sir. PC Matthews is assigned to a nonsuspicious death and he’s shown making his way to that call. PC Griffiths is shown in the police station, unavailable. Her sergeant has told us she was assigned to complete an outstanding file for court. There’s no indication why she suddenly abandons her case file and drives on blue lights – for which, incidentally, she’s not authorized – to Portland Tower.

‘If you go back to that earlier dispatch . . . At 16:07, the first unit to attend Portland Tower notifies Control that it has arrived. At 16:09, this same unit radios. The officer can see three figures on the roof. Two together and one slightly further off. The figure standing a little further off is wearing a police uniform. The officer on the ground cautiously identifies this person as PC Matthews.

‘Control calls PC Matthews on his radio. There’s no reply. Then if you go to the radio log – at the back of your bundle, sir – at 16:10, PC Matthews switches his radio off.’

Baillie put the papers down on the table. ‘Sarah, where’s this going?’

‘Sir, the timings should be just the usual recording of a team responding to an emergency. But the dispatches look wrong for that. The log of the movements of PC Matthews’ car show that at 15:57, without notifying Control, he diverted from his assigned call. That’s just one minute after the transmission of the call from the member of the public regarding the suicide risk. So, the instant it’s broadcast, Hadley Matthews decides to divert. And he must have driven like the clappers. He arrived at Portland Tower at 16:00. That’s just four minutes after he hears the report of the figures on the roof, and seven minutes before any other officer arrives. In short, sir, the behaviour of PC Matthews and PC Griffiths seems irregular to me. They both get to Portland Tower too quickly.’

Baillie tidied the papers and added them to his case file. ‘It doesn’t seem much, to be honest. If it’s suspicious, I’m going to need a lot more than a couple of PCs getting there quickly.’

‘Of course. I understand that.’

It wasn’t a good time for Collins’ phone to ring. Steve’s name flashed up on the screen. Baillie waved his hand for her to take the call.

‘Right, OK. Thanks, Steve. I’ll tell the DCI. I’m with him now. Ask Jez to obtain an out-of-hours warrant. I’ll get back to you in a moment.’

She closed the call.

The DCI said, ‘An out-of-hours warrant? What’s that for then?’

There was no avoiding it.

‘Sir, I’m sorry. I’ve got bad news.’

8

Lizzie had been aware of this place and its big orange sign, but she had never been inside before. She knew it was where the drug dealers went to get their cars when they had a stash to sell. The man behind the counter leaned away from her as if to take a better look.

‘Wolverhampton Wanderers,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You’re wearing Wolverhampton Wanderers colours.’

‘Oh.’

He seemed pleased with his joke, if that was what it was, smiling to himself as though he had said something very funny. He took his time filling out the paperwork and checking her driving licence.

‘Doesn’t do you justice,’ he said, handing back the photocard and casting his eyes over her approvingly. ‘Going anywhere special?’

‘Not really.’

‘Fancy some company?’

She gave a laugh and said, ‘You’re working.’

‘I’m off in a moment. You were lucky to catch us open, actually. I’m waiting for a customer, then I’m out of here.’

He passed her the card reader. She tapped in a number and then shook her head. How could she have been so stupid? She tried again, but she could not for the life of her remember her credit card PIN.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said.

‘Don’t put it in again. You’ll lock it.’

‘Oh shoot.’

‘You got any other card?’

‘Not really. Should I risk trying it again?’

‘Up to you.’

‘Don’t suppose you’d take cash?’

‘Against the rules, love. I need a card as a deposit.’

‘Damn. I’m going to a funeral tomorrow and I’ve got to be there first thing in the morning. I really need a car. Mine’s suddenly gone to shit. I think it’s the clutch.’

‘Sorry about that, love.’

‘If it helps . . .’ She pulled out her warrant card.

‘Oh. I see.’ He took in the fact of it with something like disappointment. ‘I would never have guessed.’ He considered her with an appraising eye, as though her appearance and the warrant card contained confusingly contradictory information. ‘One of those volunteers, are you? You’re too pretty to be arresting people.’

She smiled. ‘Look, I know it’s a bit irregular, but I can pay cash and leave you my credit card number for the deposit.’

He tapped his cheek with his index finger. ‘OK. How long do you want it for?’

‘Just a couple of days.’

‘It’s more than two hundred quid. You’ve got that much cash?’

She started to open her purse. ‘Thanks, really. You’ve got my details and you know you’ll be able to find me. I am a cop, after all. I’ve just got myself into such a state.’

Even at this time of night, the traffic crawled. The suburbs rolled slowly past: shuttered dress shops, twenty-four-hour corner shops with metal grilles, the empty tarmac expanses of superstore car parks. Lizzie’s hands were shaking on the steering wheel.

After about forty-five minutes, she pulled over and went into an all-night café. There was a strong smell of cooking fat. An overweight woman with a purple chiffon scarf on her head was sitting in the corner. She had a small white dog on her lap. It had pink weepy eyes and its skin showed through its fur. The man standing at the counter swiftly stubbed out his cigarette and stashed the ashtray. He waved his hands about in a vain attempt to dispel the smoke.

‘Sorry, darling.’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘No, not a problem. Buttered toast and coffee, please.’

‘White bread’s all we’ve got.’

‘That’ll be fine.’

At the table was a well-read Evening Standard, probably abandoned by some other customer. She unfolded it and saw that the story had made the front page of the late edition. Police officer and teenage girl in death fall. The man came over with her order and she put the paper down. He wiped the table with a dirty rag.

‘You look as though you need a bit more than coffee and toast.’

‘No, that’s great. Looks delicious.’

She stared at the photo on the front of the Standard. It was the usual impersonal crime-scene cliché: blue and white plastic tape, the concrete concourse, figures in white forensic suits, and in the background, the tower itself.

The call that had begun it so many weeks ago had come over the airwaves graded Soon. The traffic had been moving sluggishly that day too, and the police car had nudged forward slowly. It had not been an emergency, not something requiring an immediate response, just an outstanding dispatch from the day before that the night duty had managed to avoid. It had been routine activity. Anyone could have taken it.

The early-morning streets had been busy with the legitimately purposeful: the employed making their way to work, shopkeepers rolling up blinds and setting out vegetable stalls on lead-drenched pavements. The tall buildings, like needles on a sun dial, had cast sharp cold shadows on the waking streets. The name of the ubiquitous London Road suggested that the city was not here but further on: a place to which one journeyed from a rural village. But the streets with their pastoral echoes had long since merged into the metropolis. Heath Lane, Chase Road, The Green: all were concrete and tarmac, lined with halal takeaway shops, cash converters, pound stores, Tesco Metros.

Lizzie had turned her head and read, Unblock your phone here. This was the place where robbers came to offer up their pickings, BlackBerries and iPhones that had made their owners suddenly vulnerable and fearful. The premises were still shuttered: the shops’ suppliers would be sleeping. Staring at the cold streets, Lizzie imagined them in their Victorian squats, in 1930s estates, in 1970s tower blocks, sprawled across unmade beds, on sofas, prostrate on floors, sleeping off the effects of late-night fighting and crack use. But the police were always on duty and they woke early. Alarms prodded them from their beds before the light had broken and they dressed in the other room so as not to wake their partners. The marked cars cruised aimlessly, five at a time flocking to any Immediate call that promised action. Police officers drifted around in the morning sunlight like tired crows, waiting to see if they were needed and dreaming of breakfast.

She could so easily have ignored the call – as indeed all the other cars had – but she liked to work and for the team to know she was working, and so she had put up for the uninspiring dispatch that everyone else was avoiding.

‘OK for that?’ she had said to Hadley, and he had put his blue lights on just to make the traffic give way and to turn the car in the direction of the call.

‘Yes. OK. Why not?’

Number 5 Kenley Villas was part of a Victorian terrace on one of the gentrified streets of the borough – media types living next door to drug dealers. A street that was asking for trouble. Lizzie noticed that it had a heavy Victorian-style door – hardwood, with leaded lights in the top panes.

Hadley turned off the engine.

‘We’ll do this,’ he said, ‘and then go back to the nick for breakfast. See if you can get it done in fifteen minutes. I’ll set the alarm on my watch. If you succeed, I’ll buy breakfast. Otherwise it’s on you.’

Lizzie slipped quickly out of the car. Hadley followed slowly behind. In a gesture of anticipatory politeness, he hitched up his trousers – a useless action, the belt fighting its habitual losing battle with his belly. His gut had a physical presence as solid as a watermelon, and Hadley’s bulk created the impression of settled indolence, however urgent the call.

Carrie Stewart answered the door. She was pleasantly scruffy in an affluent, educated style: leggings, blonde hair tied back with a scarf, green cardigan. Without make-up her face was pretty, faintly dappled with freckles, and tired. There was a dog, a spaniel, jumping up behind her. A boy with the same colour hair as his mother pulled the dog back by its collar and said, ‘Charlie, Charlie.’ The boy was wearing a bear suit. He stared at the police officers, his cheeks red from heat. The dog wagged its tail enthusiastically.

‘He won’t take it off,’ the woman said, her hand on her son’s shoulder. She led the way along stripped wooden floorboards, past some large framed black-and-white photos in the hall: children on swings, the perspective making their feet big, Carrie Stewart herself in a white linen suit and a just-too-large hat, the glamorous incarnation that was implicit in her house and her clothing. ‘He even wants to sleep in it. I don’t know what to do.’

She stepped down into the kitchen.

‘Can I get you tea?’ she asked. Her voice was low and the accent was what Lizzie’s fellow officers would call well-spoken.

‘No thank you,’ said Hadley.

‘A glass of water would be nice . . .’

Carrie’s back was turned as she reached for a glass. The shelves, Lizzie noticed, had no Delia Smith or Jamie Oliver on them, but a cut above – torn covers of River Café, olive-oil-stained Marcella Cucina. Crowded amongst them were novels, Booker Prize winners, a commentary on the Middle East, a history of the Ottoman Empire. Through the wooden-framed windows the garden was shady. York stone dusted with moss. A wrought-iron bench; beside it on the ground a discarded novel. A trough of bluebells not yet flowering. A red plastic child’s tricycle. Hadley caught Lizzie’s eye and tapped his watch face.

As the glass filled with water and bubbles, Lizzie said, ‘Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?’