Death in the Sun (25 page)

Staffe walks up the Caledonian Road, towards Pentonville prison‚ which skulks like an angry, Victorian giant.
Later, he will go into Leadengate, to trawl through all the interviews DS Pulford has ever conducted with any member of the e.gang, and to document all the calls his sergeant made, from home, mobile, and the office, going back through all the months between Staffe being shot and his shooter, Jadus Golding, being murdered.
A part of him wishes he could amble on, towards the sky at the end of the street, but he knows what he must do and he churns the questions he must ask his sergeant. As he does it – as if he is being whispered to, from across a Spanish desert – he touches his chest, where his scars are almost done.

*

DS Pulford is led into the visitor centre by a sneering PO who takes delight in confiscating the sergeant’s clutch of books and folders. ‘Bit old for school aren’t you?’ he says.
Pulford puts a brave face on it, sits opposite Staffe and says, ‘I came straight from the library. I only get to go once a week. Today, they had a book I was after, but the choice isn’t good.’
‘What are you up to, David?’ says Staffe.
‘I’m studying for an MA.’
‘I mean with these damned charges. There’s talk of this having to go to trial if we don’t come up with some evidence soon.’
‘I’ve got a supervisor at UCL – one of the most eminent criminologists . . .’
‘For God’s sake! You need to focus.’
‘That’s precisely what I’m doing.’
‘You didn’t kill Golding,’ says Staffe.
‘Is that a question?’ says Pulford.
‘It would be good to hear you say it.’
‘Do I need to?’
‘Unless we can come up with some evidence, you will have to say it to a jury.’
‘You’re not a jury.’
‘Say it.’
‘I didn’t do it.’ Pulford says it the way a teenage boy might goad a parent.
‘Christ, Pulford! This isn’t a game.’ Staffe looks at his Sergeant, sees that his mouth is weak. Pulford breathes deep, shakes his head and shoulders, the way you do when the body bobs up from the freezing sea. ‘Are they looking after you?’
‘Some of the POs are all right, but I’m a copper.’ He nods at the PO who brought him in. ‘That’s Crawshaw. He’s a bit of a twat.’
‘Have they got you in isolation?’
He nods. ‘But I don’t want that. It makes them think you’ve something to be afraid of.’
‘And have you? There’s two members of the e.gang in here. Did you know?’
Pulford gives Staffe a withering look. Jadus Golding, whose murder the DS stands accused, was a member of the e.gang. ‘I know all right.’
‘Christ, Pulford. Is there anything you can think of that you’ve not told us . . . that could get you out of here?’
Pulford looks away.
‘There is!’
‘I’ve told you everything I can, sir. And that’s the truth.’
‘The truth can’t hurt you – if you’re innocent?’
‘Sometimes, on the Force, you only see half the story. It’s the perspective we have. Do you see that?’
‘Tell me what you’re afraid of, Pulford.’
Pulford says nothing. His eyes say, ‘Plenty.’
‘There’s a number you kept calling from your mobile. It’s unidentifiable, but I called it the other day and we got a trig on it before they could turn it off. It was somewhere on the Atlee. These calls were all made at times you weren’t on duty. Who were you phoning?’
‘If I could, I would say.’
‘At least tell me why you can’t.’
‘There is something you can do.’
‘Tell me.’
Pulford hands him a piece of paper. ‘Can you download me this article? They don’t let us access the internet.’
‘My God! How long are you planning on being in here?’

*

As soon as he sees him, Carmelo knows the time has come.
He turns away from his visitor and out of habit, calls for Jacobo to make drinks. ‘Jacobo!’ he calls with a trembling voice that cracks. But perhaps Jacobo isn’t here. Carmelo had a nap after he telephoned Goldman and isn’t sure how long ago that was. He clears his throat and shouts again; this time at the top of his voice. ‘Jacobo! Come!’

Carmelo waits, listens, hears nothing and shuffles slowly across the marble floor in his carpet slippers.
‘Perhaps you gave him the afternoon off‚’ he says smiling eagerly. ‘You are perhaps too generous for your own good. For a supposedly bad man, you can sometimes have a very kind heart.’
‘And you should know.’
‘I know plenty.’
‘You know where the drinks are kept.’
The visitor looks at the cocktail cabinet. ‘The one they stripped from Mussolini’s palace in Firenze. How did you lay your hands on it?’
‘How the hell do you know that? I never told you that.’ Carmelo is curious and a little angry, but he musters a smile. ‘Help yourself to some Grappa while I’m gone. I’ll just be a minute or so.’
‘It’s not my cup of tea.’
‘It’s all I have. It’s how I lived so long.’
‘Then maybe I should try a little.’
Carmelo turns, excuses himself. He takes the lift to his bedroom. It reminds him of his uncle’s house in Palermo. Carmelo moves a little faster now he is on his own. It pays to be one step ahead.
The dressing table is all the way across in the bay window, looking over the garden. The nearest neighbour is a hundred yards away, beyond large trees that have always been here. He opens the drawer, picks up the pistol from alongside his tortoiseshell brushes. It feels heavy in his hands and he places it on the dressing table’s walnut glaze.
Carmelo looks at his hands, the middle finger of his left hand cut off just above the bottom knuckle. He switches the gun to his right hand, all liver-spotted now; he thinks how much more Saint Peter might hold him to account for, had life gone another way. He used to be left-handed, but he adjusted and now he pushes out the release catch and pulls out the magazine with his right, discharging the bullets from their clip. He replaces the empty magazine and pulls on the trigger, manages it fine. The hammer clunks heavy in the lonely house. As he returns the bullets, he thanks God for the Italian marble that constitutes his floors. There will be blood, but Jacobo can mop. Together, they will wipe clean this smear of new history.
Now the day has come, now this final bit of business is demanded of him, his blood courses a little faster. It feels nostalgic and to stiffen his ardour, he thinks of the bad things his visitor wishes to pass, and rekindles all the malice which comes with that territory. He has no choice, he really doesn’t. These days on earth are just a part of our scheme: a mere section for the soul.
Tomorrow, when they have erased this execution – for that is what it is – Carmelo will confess. He will confess his ancient crime. Nobody can silence him, not all these years on.
Carmelo walks quite briskly to the lift. The blood is really shifting now, across the fibres that line his arteries. The gun is heavy in one hand and Carmelo presses the G button in the lift with the index finger of his other, but steps quickly backwards, out of the lift as the doors close on the empty chamber, and instead he takes the broad, oak staircase, peeking to see if his visitor is waiting down below for the lift. He wouldn’t be surprised if he was. But as Carmelo descends, coming level with the chandelier and seeing the whole of the hallway sprawling out below, he sees that the hall is empty, the door to the drawing room still closed.
He opens the door slowly, the gun behind his back and his finger on the trigger. The visitor is standing by the French windows. He half turns, sips from his grappa, saying, ‘I poured you one.’
Carmelo reasserts the grip of his right hand on the pistol, wishes his house was not so grand, its rooms not so large. He doubts if he could even hit the French windows with his shot, let alone the visitor standing in front of them, so he walks to the cocktail cabinet – just five yards or so from the target. He reaches out with his left, picks up the grappa. Carmelo holds it with his thumb and three fingers, wants to be one pace closer, to make sure. He raises the glass, suddenly wanting a taste of the aquavite, its effect; and the spirit stings his lips.
His eyes water and the grappa burns Carmelo’s throat. The visitor smiles, comes towards him, reaching out, and Carmelo brings the pistol from behind his back and tries to lift it. He tries to point it at his quarry but his hand is suddenly loose. The grappa really burns him now and he hears the pistol crash onto the marble and his legs give way. When his head smashes on the marble, he thinks he might blemish it.
Carmelo brings his knees to his chest and he tries to make himself sick, but he can’t.
From above, he looks like a question mark on his fine marble floor. Today, there is a thin vein of red, where Carmelo’s blood makes its slow course.