The Crime Tsar (45 page)

‘Are you all right?' he said to Jenni.

‘I'm fine. Fabulous. Couldn't be better. Why?'

‘No reason.'

He concentrated on his pudding while Jenni chattered. She had, in his experience, been prone to chattering in the past for effect and he could always detect the rapier beneath but now what she was saying seemed to have no point. He made a mental note to have a word with Shackleton after the meal. Couldn't have a suspect wife, too risky.

He was relieved when it was time for the speeches and he was in sight of his official car and home. The evening had been a disappointment. No, Jenni Shackleton had been a disappointment. Her early vivaciousness had given way to a sort of lassitude and, occasionally, she seemed about to go to sleep.

‘I'm sorry. I took rather a lot of stuff to ward of the flu. I think I may have overdone it. But I did so want to be here tonight, for Tom.'

The Gnome was relieved, an overdose of Night Nurse he could cope with. The chairman – husband of the sofa – announced him. He stood up to sufficient but not overwhelming applause.

Five minutes later he came to the important part of his speech: ‘… And now, it is my great pleasure to announce' – he looked at his watch – ‘just too late for anyone to catch the deadline for the last editions.'

Polite laughter.

‘But coinciding with a Downing Street press release, which, I think means full coverage on
Today
, and we all know what that means to the spin doctors.'

More polite laughter, but now with an edge of anticipation.

‘I would like to announce to you all the appointment of the first United Kingdom Anti-Crime Coordinator. On behalf of the government I would like to say how pleased we are that Tom Shackleton has accepted the post for an initial period of five years. Ladies and Gentlemen, Tom Shackleton.'

Tom rose and did not look round the room to see who was applauding wildly and who was sitting on their hands, he simply nodded to the Gnome and touched his lips – it could hardly be described as blowing a kiss – to Jenni. She sat as if she hadn't heard. Away with whatever fairies were now colonising her head.

After the dinner it took the Gnome several minutes to get to the door. He had had a brief word with Shackleton, repeated his congratulations and quietly mentioned Jenni's apparent ill health.
Tom was quick to read the subtext. Don't allow your wife to appear like that in public again. Good note, thought Shackleton, who was quickly swallowed up in a press of well-wishers and favour-seekers.

MacIntyre had forgotten Danny but Danny had not forgotten their silently proposed tryst. They walked together to the car.

‘What did you want to see me about, Mr Marshall?'

Danny was too personally involved to be careful or diplomatic.

‘Geoffrey Carter, sir.'

The Gnome stopped and looked at Danny. Danny ignored the warning in his expression.

‘He wasn't a paedophile, Mr –'

The Gnome cut him off.

‘I admire your loyalty but it's rather an academic question now.'

Danny stood in front of him.

‘I believe someone planted the magazines and those bugs in his house. Someone who needed him out of the way.'

The Gnome was ice cold.

‘And are you anything to do with the Rumour Room, Mr Marshall?'

Danny felt the blood go to his face and was grateful he was black.

‘I think I know who planted that stuff in his house and I think I –'

‘That's enough, Mr Marshall. I'd hate to think of you compromising such a bright future for the sake of speculation. Geoffrey Carter was, sadly, a flawed personality. But now he's dead we must let him rest in peace. Now … why don't you come and see me, we'll have lunch. Strictly confidentially, we're thinking of a caretaker for the Met – give you the time to work up some muscle. A black commissioner is something, I think, London could do with within the next – what? Three years? Four, perhaps …'

The schoolboy in Danny wanted to go on regardless of the carrot and the veiled stick but the first black commissioner of the Met won.

‘He left a letter. For me,' he said, lamely trailing off.

‘Really?'

Few people could invest that word with such honest interest as the Gnome.

‘Perhaps you might let me read it?'

Danny had it in his pocket. He handed it over like an illicit comic to the science master.

‘I've marked the relevant passage.'

‘I'm sure you have,' murmured the Gnome. ‘Well, goodnight, Mr Marshall. And be assured. The dead will always find a voice. But we can only speak for ourselves. I shall take good care of this and … I'm sure we'd all like to surf the net in future without risking our shins on rocks in the shallows.' He tucked the letter into his inside pocket. ‘Goodbye, Mr Marshall. I look forward to our meeting again and giving some thought to your future …'

With that he slid into his car and was gone.

Danny stood looking at the place the car had been, disgusted with himself but unable to quiet the voice in his head that said: Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. After all he'd done all he could to clear Carter's name but he was dead. Danny Marshall had a whole life ahead of him.

Tom put Jenni to bed at about three o'clock in the morning. She had been so strange he'd thought it better to get her home than risk another night at the university, where the walls were none too thick or soundproof. She was barely able to keep awake in the car but too agitated to sleep. She seemed frightened of what was waiting for her if she slept.

When they reached the house it was deserted. Jason, hating being alone there, had gone off to stay with friends in the country for the week. He was learning quickly that his good looks and public-school manners made him an ideal house guest and were the passport to a life away from the tensions of life at home.

Shackleton laid Jenni on the bed and went to her bathroom cabinet. The shock of what he saw was so great he didn't react at all. He simply stood and looked at the instantly recognisable array of tranquillisers and drugs undisguised in front of him. Small packets of cocaine and wraps of heroin. He didn't know how long he'd stood there before he heard the chink of bottle on glass. He turned – Jenni was pouring vodka into her bedside water glass.

‘Bring me one of the little yellow ones. Come on. Bring it now!'

She was so far gone she didn't even know who it was she was commanding. He looked for the yellow ones. They were tranquillisers in massive doses. He knew she couldn't have got these from their doctor, and the rest of the powders, crystals, and tablets owed more to a chemistry set than the prescription pad.

As Shackleton stood there, almost unable to move, he felt the beginnings of a deep cold anger. The anger and bitterness that he'd suppressed so completely since the night he saw Jenni with another man in a nameless car under a whorehouse-red street light. The feelings he'd turned in on himself so completely they'd fuelled his career now threatened to run out of control. And then, just as suddenly, he shut them down, frightened of what such unleashed emotion might do. Not to her. To himself. To all he had made of his life.

He closed his fist over the bottle of pills and took them to her. She was sweating now and clutching her stomach, mumbling she couldn't sleep and that she was hurting. He sat on the edge of the bed and almost tenderly pulled a strand of hair from her face, laying it across the pillow. He had always liked her hair, its smell had reminded him of … what? Tenderness? Kindness? No, those were just imagination.

Except with Lucy.

Lucy seemed in all this like a dream of what might have been. Jenni reached for the pills. He took off the top and gave her the bottle. Greedily, like a child with Smarties, she emptied them on to her hand. Then, delicately, she selected one and washed it down with the watered vodka. The effect was instantaneous.

Knowing relief was coming she relaxed and smiled at him.

‘Thank you. Don't leave me.'

So he sat there holding her hand, watching her drift off to sleep, not wanting to stay and not wanting to go. Thinking of what might have been if they hadn't both been so damaged and determined not to let that damage go. He didn't know how long he'd been there when he heard a ‘tink'. The smallest press of the doorbell. He looked at his watch. Four o'clock. Automatically he went downstairs and opened the door.

Lucy, frightened and wrapped in an old jacket, looked up at him.

‘Oh, I'm sorry, Tom. I saw the light. I didn't think you were coming home tonight… And Jason said he was … I didn't want to call the police before I'd made sure … I'm so sorry.'

She turned to go.

‘It's all right, Lucy. Come in.'

She protested for a moment then stepped into the hall. He closed the door.

‘Jenni's not well,' he said.

There was an awkward moment, then Lucy said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?'

And at that moment he thought there was nothing he'd like more than a normal cup of tea with a normal woman in a normal home. He nodded, pursing his lips.

Lucy bustled about the kitchen in a comforting, mumsy way while Shackleton sat at the table watching her. She put his tea down in front of him with a few biscuits on a plate. And that was too much. That was the image that broke into him. Her ordinary, unmanicured hand putting down a plate of digestives.

‘You can dunk them if you want, I won't tell,' she said.

He put his face against her soft, untoned belly and tried to cry but his sobs were dry, the comfort of tears denied him. And she, who'd dreamed of him one day doing this, held him in silence. Afraid of losing the moment.

She held him close and whispered in the same voice she'd used to comfort Carter, ‘I love you, Tom, don't cry. Don't cry. Sweetheart, don't cry.'

And she rocked him, like a child, until they were both silent and still.

With his face against her, he said, ‘Don't love me, Lucy. There's nothing to love. There's nothing in me, nothing. You're warm. Alive. And I'm dead.'

She squatted down beside him and stroked his face so gently it hurt.

‘Don't, Lucy. Don't. Please …'

But his words had no force and his eyes looked to her like the eyes of a child. She was where Lucy had been born to be, mother and lover, the only one for whom he'd ever been the best.

He offered no resistance when she led him up to his room. He stood by the bed making no move to lie down or undress, lost in his unhappiness.

Lucy, always mindful of duty, went along the corridor and looked in on Jenni. The light was still on and Jenni lay asleep, like a waxwork breathing gently, sound asleep. Quietly Lucy went over to her and turned off the bedside light. Jenni muttered and found her way back into her dreams.

Lucy went out and closed the door.

Tom was still standing by the bed when Lucy reached up and kissed him. As if returning from a great depth he responded then held her to him as if his life depended on it. He wasn't gentle with her that night. He struggled to get inside her, trying to escape the demons in his head. Not trying to fuck her brains out but his own. And still she said she loved him.

After, he was reluctant to withdraw and lay on top of her, holding her for comfort. He was breathing fast, his heart beating through her own chest. She held him and soothed him, kissing him, comforting him. Knowing she'd betrayed Gary and not caring.

Stroking his hair she said, ‘You're not dead, Tom. Hold on to me, my love. You're not dead. We're alive. We are, we're alive …'

Eventually he fell asleep, her chin resting on his head as she held him, his right hand holding on to her left shoulder, his right leg across her. She held him as if carrying him.

Lucy dozed but knew she had to go. The birds were starting their day and Gary would be waking soon. Softly she tried to move away from him. He let her go immediately. She wanted him to stop her, to say something, but she knew that wasn't part of the deal. She had something of what she wanted; it had to be enough.

‘Lucy?'

He held her wrist lightly.

‘If I could love you, I would. Only you.'

And that was it. Lucy had the heart, the inarticulate, unformed love of Tom Shackleton. She knew those words would be with her for the rest of her life. Nothing he could do or say, nothing that parted them, would be able to take those words away from her. As she went across the road to her house and her husband, she knew, for the first time in her life, what unqualified happiness was. And all because a man had said he couldn't love her.

Tom woke after three hours of dreamless sleep, the first since Carter's death. For a minute his mind was clear, undisturbed, then he saw his clothes scattered on the bed and floor. The sight of his underwear crumpled on the bedside table, with his tie, depressed him, and opened the door to the greyness that had dogged him for so long. It was as if fog had settled in his bones. On the bedside table was a folded piece of paper, his name written on it. He picked it up. Inside was a small Russian wedding ring, the one Lucy wore on the third finger of her right hand.

He read the note: ‘If you're going to be a Tsar then this will bring you luck. I give it with my love and hopes you will give it back one day in different circumstances.'

He was embarrassed by the gesture, knowing how little he deserved it. He picked it up, its three rings lay in the palm of his hand, then put it back on the table. It fell into interlinked solidity. A wedding ring.

He got up and put on a dressing gown. Coffee, shave, shower, dress, the reassuringly mundane. He was cleaning his shoes, putting off the moment of waking Jenni. The small, circular, particular rubbing in of the black polish was soothing.

He allowed himself to think about Lucy. Life would be so easy with her, so ordinary. What if? What if? He tried to imagine what it would be like to be married to Lucy and saw only his life with Jenni. It would only be a matter of time before Lucy turned into her. It would be inevitable, it was what he did to people. Women. They always wanted more than he had to offer and their disappointment at his inability to respond made him withdraw into himself, made them hate him. There was no point. No point in thinking about Lucy.