Dying Words, page 5
The DI sat back in his seat.
Shit. Here we go.
Stowe leaned forward, tapping a piece of paper on his desk.
‘This is the cost of your little chase across London,’ he said accusingly. ‘At least twenty vehicles damaged, many of them written off completely. Numerous instances of property destroyed and at least twenty-seven people injured, five of whom are still in hospital. A grand total of almost one point two million pounds’ worth of damage. And that doesn’t include any civil actions that may be taken against you personally and the department as a whole. Not to mention the fact that you endangered the life of a hostage.’ Stowe’s tone was disarmingly even but Birch could see a vein throbbing angrily at his superior’s left temple.
‘There was no way I was letting Sanderson escape,’ the DI explained. ‘And, as for the hostage, he was going to kill her, sir. I did the only thing I could to save her life.’
‘Well, that woman whose life you saved is threatening to sue for everything from unreasonable behaviour to post-traumatic stress disorder.’
‘Why? Because some fucking ambulance chaser’s told her she can make a few bob?’
‘After the way you behaved on that platform, Birch, she’s lucky she’s not in a bloody coffin, let alone an ambulance.’
‘I wasn’t the one trying to kill her, sir. The only reason she’s alive now is because of me. Sanderson would have cut her throat.’ Birch could feel his heart pounding hard against his ribs.
‘That’s something we’ll never know, isn’t it?’ Stowe reminded the younger man. ‘The fact remains that the chief suspect in a murder case will never come to trial because, according to the pathologist’s report I have before me, he was thrown on to the live rail of a Tube track.’
‘He fell, sir,’ Birch said quietly.
Stowe stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘The evidence doesn’t support a fall. It reinforces the belief that Malcolm Sanderson was pushed from that platform by you. My only option is to suspend you, pending further investigation. That suspension to be effective immediately.’
14
‘It doesn’t pose a threat to Megan.’ Frank Denton shook his head and took another sip from his wine glass.
‘I wish I could agree with you, Frank,’ Maria Figgis answered. ‘But I’ve had reservations from the beginning.’
‘Why are you so worried about it, Maria?’ Megan asked.
‘Because the two books are published on the same day,’ Maria continued. ‘Yours and John Paxton’s.’
‘Paxton’s is a horror novel,’ Megan reminded her. ‘The audiences for his book and mine are completely different.’
‘I’m well aware of that, Megan. It’s the fact that Paxton and his book will be receiving so much hype and coverage in the media at the same time as your book is being promoted. I voiced my concern at a lunch months ago when Frank told me that the publication dates coincided.’
‘And I disagreed with you that publication of The Seeds of the Soul should be moved on account of Paxton’s book,’ said Denton. ‘As Megan said, hers is non-fiction. Academic.’
‘You know what it’s like whenever a new book of his is released,’ Maria persisted. ‘There’s a media circus around it and him. Every other book published at the same time gets chewed up in the feeding frenzy irrespective of the subject. The film of his last book opens worldwide two weeks before publication day. The media will barely have finished crawling all over that before the new book appears. You won’t be able to turn on a television or open a magazine or newspaper without seeing John Paxton somewhere.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Megan countered. ‘He’s one of the biggest selling authors in the world.’
‘He gives the public what they want,’ Denton said. ‘I suppose you have to admire him for that. He’s been at the top of his game for more than fifteen years now. There isn’t another horror writer who can hold a candle to him.’
‘I was speaking to his agent the other day,’ Maria said. ‘She says this new book, The Fairground Phantoms, is the best thing he’s ever written.’
‘The usual offering, I would imagine,’ Denton sneered. ‘Violence, sex, horror and more violence?’
‘It works for him and it works every time,’ Maria pointed out. ‘He’s found a very successful formula and he sticks to it. He’s not the only writer who does that.’
‘So, he’s been repeating himself for the last fifteen years. Am I meant to be impressed?’ Denton asked.
‘There’s more to his writing than reworking the same ideas over and over again, Frank,’ Megan said, running two hands through her shoulder-length blonde hair. ‘You should know. You worked with him at one of his publishers.’
‘Yes. On three books. Not the most edifying experience I’ve ever enjoyed as an editor and I don’t mean just the writing.’ He drank some more wine. ‘For some unknown reason he still sends me signed copies of all his new books. His latest opus arrived this morning.’
‘And you still don’t like him?’ Megan queried.
‘As a writer I suppose you can’t deny his talent. But as a person he’s opinionated, confrontational and aggressive,’ Denton told her, holding up his hands. ‘Shall I stop there or would you like me to go on?’
‘And he swears a lot.’ Megan chuckled. ‘Don’t forget that.’ She finished what was left in her coffee cup. ‘Well, I’ve always found him rather attractive. He says what he thinks and he doesn’t care who he upsets. That’s one of the things that makes him attractive. He genuinely doesn’t give a fuck.’
‘When you’ve got as much money as he has you don’t have to give a fuck,’ Maria added, smiling.
‘Well, I’m glad you think so highly of him,’ Denton muttered.
‘Let’s see if you still hold him in such high esteem if your own book gets lost in his slipstream,’ Maria said.
‘You’re worrying needlessly,’ Megan insisted. ‘I expected better of you than that, Maria. A little more fighting spirit.’ She grinned. ‘I didn’t expect the voice of doom.’
‘We’ll see,’ the agent told her.
Denton looked at his two guests then held up a hand to summon a waiter. The rest of the dining room at Joe Allen’s was empty. ‘If you two ladies have finished I’ll get the bill.’
15
For long moments, neither man spoke. The chill in the room generated by the air-conditioning seemed to deepen as they gazed unblinkingly at each other.
It was Commissioner Stowe who broke the silence.
‘I would require your warrant card and your ID,’ he said, holding Birch’s gaze.
The DI reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin leather wallet. He slapped it down on his superior’s desk top.
‘I would require them if I was suspending you,’ Stowe continued. ‘Under the circumstances, that’s not my intention.’
Birch looked puzzled. ‘So, am I suspended or not, sir?’
‘Did you push Sanderson off that platform?’
‘No, sir.’
Stowe smiled. It was a gesture that Birch hadn’t been expecting. One that lit up his superior’s features for brief seconds.
‘Of the seventeen men on that platform at the time, including your partner, Detective Sergeant Johnson, not one single man has reported seeing you push Sanderson on to the track. The hostage saw nothing; she was being helped away at the time. All I have that says Sanderson was pushed is a somewhat vague pathologist’s report. I couldn’t justify an investigation into what really happened on that platform. There’d be no point. There are no witnesses. I’d simply be wasting public money.’
The older man pushed the slim leather wallet back towards Birch, who nodded, picked it up and slid it into his jacket once again.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.
‘Obviously, I can’t be seen to condone what happened, but speaking as one copper to another, and not as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to one of his detectives, if you were somehow responsible for Sanderson’s death then that is, of course, reprehensible. Speaking as one man to another, I’d like to think I’d have done the same. I know what it’s like on the streets, Birch. I worked them for eleven years, the same way you do now. I haven’t always been insulated inside an office. I know what goes on day to day during investigations.’
‘Sanderson said that he’d probably get off with an insanity plea.’
‘Judging by the nature of his crimes, I’d say he was right. A good brief would have got him fifteen or twenty years in Rampton. Not really what you’d call justice. And I certainly don’t think the families of Sanderson’s victims would have been satisfied with a sentence like that, do you?’
‘No, sir, I don’t.’
There was another long silence, broken again by the older man.
‘What are you working on at the moment?’ he enquired.
‘The Paedophile Unit were investigating what looked like a trafficking ring. They think kids from Africa are being smuggled in and used as human sacrifices. Could be up to three hundred a year. They’ve had a suspect under surveillance for a couple of months. They think he might already have killed three kids himself. The others he’s farming out to whoever pays the highest. They asked for my help.’
Stowe grimaced. ‘You’d better get back to work then,’ he said.
Birch nodded and got to his feet. He turned and headed for the door. As he reached it, the sound of Stowe’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
‘David?’
It was peculiar to hear his superior call him by his Christian name. Birch turned to face the other man.
‘Yes, sir?’ he said.
‘Off the record. Man to man.’ Stowe smiled. ‘Did you push him?’
‘Off the record?’
Stowe nodded.
‘You know what it’s like, sir,’ the DI said, the faintest trace of a smile on his own lips. ‘In the heat of the moment, sometimes little things slip your mind, and, for a copper, I’ve got a lousy memory.’
Stowe grinned. ‘Get out.’
‘Thank you, sir. It was good to talk to you.’
He closed the door behind him.
16
‘You don’t like him, do you?’
Maria Figgis spoke the words through a fixed grin as she waved in the direction of the taxi. The cab pulled away and Frank Denton glanced out of the rear window to wave back at the two women standing on the pavement outside the restaurant.
‘He’s a good editor,’ Megan Hunter said, also watching as the cab turned the corner of Exeter Street and disappeared out of sight.
‘That wasn’t what I asked.’
‘Maria, I don’t have to like someone to work with them. Anyway, what makes you ask a question like that? Did I say or do something during lunch that made you think there was some kind of antagonism between me and Frank?’
‘Is there?’
Megan cracked out laughing. ‘You should be the writer.’ She grinned. ‘You’re the one with the overactive imagination. Thinking I don’t like Frank Denton. I work with him for a week or two on each of my books. I occasionally have lunch with him if he asks me.’
‘I think he’d be happier if it was a little more than lunch.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I haven’t got time to be standing on street corners idly chatting. I’ve got clients to look after. I should be getting back to the office. Here comes a taxi now.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Megan told her, injecting as much mock indignation into her tone as she could muster. ‘You’re coming with me. You can explain yourself more fully.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Round the corner to the Savoy. We can sit and chat over a pot of tea.’
‘Go on then. The office can wait for another hour or two.’
The two women began walking, Megan’s high heels clicking loudly on the pavement. She could feel the hot tarmac through the soles of her shoes. The sun was still beating down mercilessly. As the two of them emerged into the Strand it bathed them in the full fury of its heat.
They hurried across the road and into the welcoming shade of Savoy Court, the glittering edifice of the hotel towering above them. The flags above the main entrance fluttered slightly in the dismally ineffective breeze.
The doorman doffed his top hat and smiled a greeting at them as they passed through into the foyer of the hotel and onwards, down a flight of marble steps to an area just outside the dining room where a number of tables were draped with gleaming white tablecloths. The two women sat at the nearest unoccupied one.
Megan reached into her handbag and took out her cigarettes and lighter.
‘So, tell me what you mean about Frank,’ she said, blowing out a stream of smoke.
‘You know as well as I do, Megan. The guy is infatuated with you.’
Megan nodded slowly. ‘I’m flattered,’ she said. ‘But not interested. He’s nearly twenty years older than me for a start.’
‘Age is no barrier to desire.’
‘Very profound, Maria.’
‘I’ve found that over the years my philosophy tends to fall on deaf ears. Just be careful.’
Megan looked at her agent with something close to irritation in her expression.
‘Careful of what?’ she wanted to know. ‘How I conduct myself around him? How I speak to him? What’s wrong, Maria? Are you afraid I’m giving off the wrong signals?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Megan stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray, watching the plume of smoke rising lazily into the air.
‘I’m not a naive teenager, Maria,’ she said. ‘I’m thirty-five, and in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve already got one broken marriage behind me and more failed relationships than I care to remember.’ She looked around her at the other people taking tea. ‘Everyone seems to be in a couple,’ she murmured distractedly. ‘I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with me.’
‘Perhaps you should give more thought to Frank Denton then.’ Maria smiled.
Megan didn’t return the gesture.
‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘And if you’re right about him being infatuated with me that’s his problem. Not mine.’
Complications
When the woman woke she found her situation a little ironic. She’d been awake during the birth. She’d insisted upon that. Only afterwards had there been the need to sedate her.
Now she sat up in bed sipping from the plastic beaker of water the doctor had handed her.
The private room she was in was spacious and comfortable but as she looked from the doctor to the father of her child, comfort was the last thing occupying her mind.
There was a cot beside the bed but no child within.
She asked where her child was.
The doctor explained that there had been complications. That the child
(a boy)
was being cared for in another part of the hospital.
She asked him what kind of complications and he told her there were problems with the child’s breathing.
The woman looked at her partner angrily and asked if he had seen the boy yet but he assured her that he wouldn’t look at their son until he could do so with her at his side.
She asked the doctor if they could see their son but she was all too aware of the stitches now holding her stomach together after the Caesarian. Soon she would be encouraged to get up and out of bed, but the doctor told her that he would prefer her not to over-exert herself just yet.
She wanted to know when she could see her child. She wanted to hold it like any other mother who has just given birth.
She didn’t care for the expression on the doctor’s face when she asked the question and she could feel herself becoming increasingly uneasy.
She wanted to know exactly how bad her son’s breathing problems were. She demanded to know if she was being told everything. Her partner too was becoming more agitated by the doctor’s vagueness.
If they could not visit their boy then why couldn’t he be brought to them? They had a right to see him. The hospital couldn’t keep their baby from them.
The doctor warned them that the child’s breathing had yet to stabilise, and when the woman realised that more than four hours had passed since the birth her heart began to beat faster. She insisted on knowing the condition of her son. And she wanted to see him.
The doctor was silent for longer than either the woman or her partner was comfortable with.
Then, finally, he told them that it wasn’t just the child’s breathing that was causing concern.
Yes, there was fluid in its lungs that needed to be drained.
Yes, the nasal passages were malformed.
(The woman swallowed hard at the mention of the word.)
But there were other matters to be taken into consideration too.
The man demanded to know what those matters were. Was their son’s life in danger? What was being kept from them?
The doctor said it would be simpler to explain once they’d seen the child. He suggested that it could be brought to the room in a portable incubator in an hour or two, and he would speak to them in more detail then. He would explain everything. They could see for themselves what was wrong with their son.
The woman and her partner wondered why the colour had drained from the doctor’s face. Why his mouth had suddenly become dry and why his hands had begun to shake.
17
When Birch opened his front door he found five envelopes lying on the mat. Wearily he scooped them up, glancing out at the evening sky for a moment. The sun was bleeding to death in the sky, spilling its colour across the firmament, but despite the approach of night the heat that had been so unbearable all day was barely dissipating. The temperature was still high and a cloying mugginess now also filled the air.
Birch was grateful that at least the house was cool. He walked through from the hall, dropped the envelopes on the kitchen table and then filled the kettle. As he passed the radio on the worktop to his left he switched it to a news channel, then he made his way through to the sitting room where he flicked on the television.
