âI have to tell them they're wrong. I could do that now. I could do it with a clear conscience, because I know you'd do nothing to compromise a police action. But I may not be believed by people who don't know you unless I can give them facts. How often have you seen this man? How long have you spent with him? Why?'
She didn't answer immediately. âThis is down to Donovan, isn't it?'
Shapiro sighed. âHe saw you at the wharf. I had to drag it out of him like pulling teeth. I hope I don't have to get it out of you the same way.'
Liz had been angry with superiors before. She controlled it then and she controlled it now. Her eyes speculated on his face. âVery
well, sir,' she said deliberately. âThe facts are these. I've spoken to Michael Davey on three occasions. The first was at Queen's Street, in your presence, after the riot in The Jubilee. The second was in the Castle Hotel yesterday: I went to find out what time he left the hotel the morning Alice Elton was killed. After I'd established his alibi I saw him in the foyer and, still wondering about Brady's involvement, asked about his work. Because it was lunch-time we talked over a ploughman's in the bar. I left the hotel about one-thirty.
âI saw him again this afternoon.' Her eyes smoked. âOf course, you know that. I was on my way to see Donovan when Davey came over. I didn't want to draw attention to the surveillance so I said I was going for a walk and he invited himself along. We talked about his mission, about the state of society and the prevalence of crime. He did most of the talking.' Deadpan, she added, âHe made no attempt to obtain information from me.'
âHow long did this take and where did you go next?'
Her resentment was unmistakable. âHalf an hour, forty minutes? We came back along Brick Lane, then I returned here and I suppose Davey went back to his tent.' Her lip curled. âI was back on duty by four o'clock. I think you'll find it takes longer than that to have an affair with a man in a wheelchair.'
Shapiro was embarrassed, but more than that he was concerned. âLiz, nobody's suggesting that. But you know how even a casual friendship can be misconstrued if it's with the wrong person at the wrong time.'
âThere is nothing wrong with Michael Davey!' she snapped, exasperated. âWe suspected him of inciting the attack on Carver but the evidence is that he didn't. We wondered if he could have killed the girls, but the evidence is pretty conclusive on that point too. Now Donovan's got some crazy idea about drugs, and because Drugs Squad are co-operating even less than usual you've convinced yourselves that they're watching Davey and because I've talked to the man three times they think I'm a security risk.
âIt's nonsense, Frank. Even if it was true, the timing's all wrong. If Drugs Squad are watching the mission they were doing it long before I met Davey; they'd have told you then if they were going to. Either they're not interested in him, or they never had any intention of involving us. Like so many things, this is a figment of Donovan's imagination.'
She was right about the timing. Shapiro squirmed. âIt's not Donovan's fault. Maybe it's something we cooked up between us,
but he wouldn't have said anything if I hadn't insisted. And yes, Drugs Squad do tend to act as if the rest of us were a different, not wholly compatible species. But Liz, that still doesn't make it sensible for you to be seen with this man. Donovan has been known to be right, on rare occasions. If he's right this time Davey's distributing illegal substances. That's one good reason to avoid his company.' He nodded towards the house. âBrian's another. You're a married woman.'
She gasped with indignation. âYou think I need reminding of that? How dare you, Frank? You're my chief inspector, not my confessor or my marriage guidance counsellor; and in fact if you were all three it would still be none of your business. How often do I have to say it? There is nothing going on between me and Michael Davey. Nothing to compromise my work, nothing to threaten my marriage, nothing to stir my conscience. I can't say it plainer than that. I'm amazed at having to defend myself against so frivolous an accusation.'
Shapiro raised a hand, half in apology, half to ward off her fury as if it were a blow. âLiz, I was worried about you. If you tell me it was a misunderstanding then of course I believe you. But you don't need me to remind you how disastrous an indiscretion can be for a police officer. It's like Caesar's wife, isn't it? â if we're not above suspicion somebody with an axe to grind will find some way of capitalizing on it.'
âThat's just it, isn't it?' Liz said quietly. âCaesar's wife. When did you last have this conversation with a male detective? If I was a married man, and I'd met a woman we'd ruled out of our inquiries, and we'd had a sandwich in a hotel bar and walked for half an hour by the canal while she told me about other people who'd come under suspicion, it wouldn't have occurred to you I was doing anything but my job. You certainly wouldn't have discussed it with a junior officer.'
He'd have liked to say she was talking rot. But there was some truth in it. He spread his hand in another of those hereditary gestures. âWhat can I tell you? You're right but it doesn't alter anything. It's the burden you carry. You have to be twice as good as any male officer before people will admit you're up to the job; you have to be three times as good as any male applicant before you'll get your promotions; and you have to be four times as sure as any man that there's no overlap between your professional and private lives or people will say that was always the risk with using women in CID, that they'd become emotionally involved.
âI'm not saying it's fair, I'm saying it's a fact. It was how things were when you joined the police, how they were when you joined CID, and if it's going to change it'll be by your efforts and those of women like you. And to get into positions where you can make changes you have to play by the existing rules. I know it's hard. I told you ten years ago you were going to find it hard.' He smiled suddenly, remembering. âYou told me that if all you had to be was twice the man of any toe-rag currently sitting behind an inspector's desk it'd be a doddle. Minutes later you stuck your head back round my door and said, “Present company excepted”.'
They were able to laugh at that and it eased the uncharacteristic tension between them. Shapiro said, âWhat should I do about Drugs Squad? I can call them and put them straight. But if you're right it could do more harm than good.'
âDo nothing,' she said. âDrugs Squad don't know me from a hole in the wall. I don't think they know Davey: they're just covering themselves in case there's something going on they should have been aware of. I imagine that by now they've checked, decided there's nothing in it and thrown away the piece of paper with your number on it. There never was anything to support the idea. Some crime figures whose very nature is to fluctuate seemed to be fluctuating in a significant way. All right, it was worth querying. But I can't think why we're spending so much time on an imaginary drugs connection when we've got the ripped bodies of two teenage girls in the morgue.'
As if reaching a decision Shapiro gave an emphatic nod. âYou're right â let's get our priorities straight here. If Donovan doesn't come up with anything tonight I'll reconsider the surveillance. Davey's people are out of the frame as far as the murders go; if Drugs Squad aren't interested either I can't justify the time.' He paused then and his eyes slid away as if he were wondering whether to add something. âErâ'
Liz gave a tight-lipped smile. âNo, Frank, I have no plans to meet Michael Davey again. But for the record, I won't hurry up side-streets and hide behind dustbins if I see him coming.'
She walked him back to his car. As he was getting in she leaned over and said quietly, âBy the way, Frank, you've just spent half an hour alone in a secluded outbuilding with a married woman.' His startled glance as he drove off was all the reward she needed.
After nightfall the glow of the marquee was almost the only sign of life on the waterfront. The people in the houseboats kept their curtains drawn and their hatches locked in these uncertain times. Any dogs that needed walking were being marched up and down within sight of their owners' front doors, and anyone with business that couldn't wait either drove or got a taxi, however short the distance.
But people still came to the mission. Perhaps not in the huge numbers of that second night, with the horror of a murdered child fresh in their eyes, but still enough of them to count the crusade a success. At least in its own terms. A cynic might have asked what it would actually achieve, treating Jennifer Mills' crime statistics with the same misgivings as the local CID.
But if it achieved nothing else, for the two hours that they were there people who would have been troubled and afraid sitting in their own living-rooms took comfort and courage from the nearness of so many others sharing their anxieties. They didn't know where it was all going to end but they knew they didn't have to face it alone. Thousands of people in Castlemere felt as they did.
The man in white wheeling himself round the low dais was almost unnecessary. They felt better just for coming here and sitting all together, raising shaky unpractised voices in hymns of salvation. But when Michael Davey began to speak, in that slow deep voice that built up its power like a rolling stone turning into an avalanche, expressing their half-formed feelings in words that were both strong and simple, assuring them that what they believed instinctively was right and good and could be harnessed for action, night after night it came as a revelation.
So it wasn't mere nostalgia to think that the world they lived in had been going steadily downhill since they were children! It was so, and clever articulate men like Reverend Michael Davey thought so too, and even knew what to do about it. Not that he
claimed, or they expected, to resolve the world's problems in a fortnight of meetings in a marquee. But he gave them confidence in their judgement, a determination to be heard, powerful arguments that might not have occurred to them and a sense of the importance of what they were doing. He filled them with the heady joy of communal zeal.
The power of the man filled their breasts and brains and left them thinking they could tackle anything â vice, violence, malice, malevolence and greed â while the power of his words rang in their ears. He fed them his strength and they grew great with it. It acted on them like wine: with his words and the sheer scale of his personality rolling over them they caught a glimpse of glory.
Outside on the wharf, where the only light was the glow of the tent and the only sound the swell of voices lifted in praise, a dark figure moved silently between the shadows.
Â
Liz and Brian moved the last chest into the last space in the hall, fitted the last drawer, plonked the last potted plant on top and declared the move complete. It didn't matter that the sideboard would have to be resited if they hoped ever to seat more than three at their six-seater dining table, that the television was sitting on the carpet in a nest of its own wires or that the spare room was so full of furniture that wouldn't go anywhere else that even the smallest, most uncritical guest could only have been inserted with a shoe-horn. For now it would do. They could live like this until they had the time and energy to do better.
They opened a bottle of wine to celebrate, couldn't find the glasses, collapsed on the settee with the bottle and a pair of pottery mugs.
After a while Brian said, âWhat was Shapiro being so furtive about?'
It was a moment for relying on gut instinct. She could tell him what had passed between them, or give him the abridged version. If she told him it might cost him some fleeting concern; no more, she didn't think he'd believe it. But she could spare him even that by keeping her silence. She didn't think gossip on the subject would reach much further than the Queen's Street canteen.
She smiled, lying into his shoulder as they sprawled on the couch. âThat was Frank being tactful. He's a very good police officer: it's personal relationships that give him problems.'
Brian's chin was on top of her head: she could feel him chuckle. âIf it's personal perhaps I shouldn't ask.'
âActually,' she said, squirming round so she could see his face, âyou should. It's personal to me, not to Frank. He's afraid I'm being swept off my feet by an evangelist in a white suit and a wheelchair.'
She told him what had happened: all that had happened and all that anyone thought might have happened. She was watching his eyes all the time. He knew it wasn't as light a matter as she made out; but he seemed to know too that there was nothing she wasn't telling him. He said soberly, âIt must be difficult working under a magnifying glass like that.'
She shrugged. âIt is a bit. But we're used to it, all of us. We always have one eye on how our actions might look to an outsider. It just hadn't occurred to me that as a woman I was especially vulnerable. Perhaps it should have done.' Her head tilting, she looked at him from the tail of one eye. âIn the same way that male teachers have to guard against the fertile imaginations of teenage girls, I suppose.'
Brian's expression was scathing. âOh, sure. They queue up after Home Economics to make passes at me. Listen, all the way through the Permissive Society everyone was talking about free love and the death of morality, and I was wondering when I was going to get my share.'
âAnd?'
âStill waiting,' he said lugubriously.
Liz thought the subject dropped, but after a pensive silence he came back to it. âWhat's he like, this preacher?'
She took a moment to arrange her thoughts. âLarger than life, but somehow it's all real. Your first impression is that it's an act. But as you talk to him, listen to him rather, you realize that's how he is: that isn't a line he's spinning you, it's what he believes.
âHe's a very big man physically, and that spills over into everything he does. He shoves himself around with these big powerful hands, and when he can't express himself in words alone he stops wheeling for a moment to make some grand gesture. But it isn't rhetoric: he's absolutely sincere. The words rush out of him as if his brain's boiling them up too fast to catch them, but even in full flow he's totally coherent. You have the feeling of a huge agile intellect caged inside that vast crippled body.'
âDo you like him?'
Again she took a moment to think. âI don't know. I find him â fascinating, I suppose. The sheer chained power of him. It's like standing on a volcano and feeling the rumble. He's an intensely
passionate man. You start off thinking it's rather immature to feel that strongly about things, but next thing you know he's grabbed you by the mind and shaken your ideas to the roots. When you listen to him you begin to understand how Hitler could turn a sophisticated modern nation into a barbarian tribe essentially by oratory alone.'
âCharisma,' suggested Brian.
For a moment Liz thought of the little tom with her slashed throat and didn't understand. âOh â yes. Yes, certainly. A dangerous thing, charisma.'
A little later still Brian said quietly, âFrank was right about one thing, wasn't he? You are just a little in love with this man.'
Liz twisted like an eel in his arms and stared up at his face, and couldn't for the life of her be sure if he was joking.
Â
It was a night for confidences. After the gospel meeting broke up Davey and Jennifer Mills left the crew to finish and set off for their hotel. Because Davey's car, unlike a motorcycle, couldn't slot between the bollards on the walkway they headed up the towpath to Cornmarket and back by Brick Lane. Given the roughness of the ground, it took them longer to drive from the wharf to the Castle Hotel than it would have taken a fit man to walk.
It wasn't wasted time. It gave them space to talk.
âIt was a good night,' Mills began, blandly enough, lighting a cigarette.
Davey smiled bleakly into the blackness ahead. âThere's nothing like the fear of God to get hands into pockets.'
Mills didn't glance at the cash-box on the back seat. âYes, it was a good collection. I'll count it later. But that isn't what I meant. I meant, you were good tonight.'
He refused to be mollified. Some internal irritation was gnawing away at him. âAccording to you I'm always good.'
She turned her head, smiling at the side of his face lit by the instruments. âAre you picking a quarrel, Michael?'
He shook his head wearily. âDon't mind me. I'm â a bit out of sorts, that's all.'
For a moment she said nothing more. Then, her voice flat, stripped of the humour that lubricated the occasional friction between them, she said, âDo you wantâ?'
âNo,' he said quickly. âThat's not it.'
âI don't mind.' The least edge on her words suggested however that this was not wholly truthful. âIf it'll help.'
Davey shook his head again. âNo.'
She peered at him, trying to read his expression in the dimness of the car. âWhat is it, Michael? What's troubling you? Is it that man who got hurt?'
âNo, not really. I mean yes, I am bothered by it, I still think I should have seen it coming, done something to prevent it. I mean, I got those people there: I must bear some responsibility for what they did.'
Mills turned her slim body towards him, demanding his attention although the rough road required his eyes. âNo, Michael. With all due respect to you, they came because of what's been happening in this town. If they hadn't come here they'd have gone somewhere else: a bar, a street-corner, somewhere. Instead of singing hymns they'd have got drunk. They'd still have got angry, the boy would still have been hurt. You're not responsible. Blame whoever killed those girls; blame the police if you like, for stumbling round blindly when they should have the killer behind bars; but don't reproach yourself. You do nothing but good wherever you go.'
He put out one bear's paw to touch hers. âDear Jenny. What would I do without you picking me up when I fall, kissing the sore bits better?'
âI can't imagine,' she said briskly. âNow tell me: what's really bothering you?'
He gave up trying to keep it from her, tried to make light of it instead. But the shake in his laugh betrayed him. âI think I'm in love.'
Jennifer Mills froze from the inside out. Ice-water bathed her spine; premonition stole her breath away. âMichael. Who? How?'
âI â I can't,' he stumbled, a gleam of tragedy in his eye. âIt's not possible.'
She governed all his days. Whatever he needed, as a preacher and as a man, she obtained for him. She didn't believe he could have been seeing a woman without her knowledge, so it was not so much intuition as deduction that led her to the improbable truth. She still hadn't breath enough to do more than whisper, but the pitch of her whisper soared. âThe
policewoman?'
As if he'd slapped her she turned her face from him, her body quivering with fury. She anticipated difficulties all the time. It was her job, to anticipate and forestall them. But she had not anticipated this, and she was shaken to the core.
When she got her brain back in gear it was the practical implications she turned to first. âHow far has it gone?'
He darted her a glance at that, desperate and haunted. âIt hasn't. How could it? She's conducting a murder investigation and I'm in a wheelchair: we can't exactly slip away and book into a motel as Mr and Mrs Smith.'
âBut you'd like to?'
âOh, Jenny,' he said, and the unhappiness in his voice stabbed her to the heart. âIt's like â having half of something all your life. And you get used to having half, and tell yourself half is enough, and maybe the other half doesn't even exist. And then by sheer chance one day you find that other half. Only it belongs to someone else and you've no right to it. But you
feel
like you have a right, you know? â as if having the half of it all this time entitles you to the rest.' He glanced at her uneasily, unable to fathom her expression in the near darkness. âAm I making any sense?'
She understood him well enough. She'd have liked to tell him to stop feeling sorry for himself, that it was nothing but spring fever and the best thing he could do was get on with his work, but she couldn't. She knew it went deeper than that, that hopeless as the wanting was it was anchored in his soul by roots so strong that ripping it out would leave a great bloody crater. She sat as rigid and white as a woman carved in marble, and inside she was raging with a passion that would have startled those who knew her at the monstrous unfairness of it. She knew what it was to want something you couldn't have.
But she didn't answer him until she had the turmoil under control and could open her mouth without giving vent to it. âYou hardly know her.'