In the Dark Read online

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘I’m just saying.’ Helen felt a little ashamed at her thinking. Tim was nice; and even if Helen herself didn’t like that sort of thing, Jenny certainly did, which should have been good enough. ‘I don’t think you can possibly understand how Paul’s feeling,’ she said. ‘That’s all. I sure as hell don’t, so . . .’

  Jenny raised her eyebrows. She asked a waitress for more drinks, then turned back to Helen with a smile that said: Fine. Whatever you want. But you know, and I know . . .

  Helen thought: You’re younger than me. Please stop trying to be Mum.

  They moved briefly on to other stuff - Jenny’s kids, some work she was having done on the house - but it seemed impossible to talk to anyone for more than a few minutes without coming back to babies. Breast pads and pelvic floors. It was like being a womb on legs.

  ‘I meant to say . . . I spoke to a friend who says she knows some good mother-and-baby groups in your area.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  ‘It’s good to get out and meet other mums.’

  ‘Younger mums.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  Helen had thought about this a lot, and it made her uneasy. All the other pregnant women she’d met at antenatal classes and check-ups had seemed so much younger. ‘There’s women my age who are grandmothers by now, for God’s sake.’

  Jenny sniffed. ‘Women with no lives, you mean. Two generations of pram-faced basket cases.’

  ‘I’m thirty-five,’ Helen said, knowing how ridiculous she sounded, saying it as though it were a terminal disease.

  ‘So? I wish I’d had my two a bit later. A lot later.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  Jenny beamed. Even though there’d been no career to put on hold, Helen’s sister had embraced motherhood with frightening ease. The piss-easy pregnancies, the figure she’d got back without even trying, the stresses that were just problems to be solved. A fantastic role model, albeit a depressing one.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  If there are two of you. The unspoken thought that filled the pause brought them back to Paul . . .

  ‘You know you’re welcome to come and stay for a while afterwards?’

  . . . To his absence.

  ‘I know, thanks.’

  ‘Be lovely to have a baby round the place.’ Jenny grinned, leaned across the table. ‘Don’t know what Tim’ll say when I start getting broody, mind you. I say that, but you should have seen him last year with his brother’s baby. Wouldn’t put the thing down.’

  Helen said nothing. She’d called Paul on her way over. Got the answering machine at his office and the voicemail on his mobile.

  ‘I don’t want to bang on about this, but have you thought any more about the birth-partner thing?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I’d love to do it, you know that.’

  ‘Jen, it’s all sorted.’

  ‘Can’t hurt to have a back-up plan, though, can it?’

  Helen was grateful when a friend of Jenny’s loomed suddenly at their table; drifted off as the two younger women talked about a campaign to ban four-by-fours from the roads around the school. She rubbed at her chest as she felt the heartburn starting to flare up. It was something else she’d grown used to over the last eight months. She thought about how she was going to fill the rest of the day. She could kill some time in Sainsbury’s; try to sleep for a couple of hours when she got home. As it went, she’d have been happy to stay where she was until it started to get dark.

  When she realised that the woman was talking to her, Helen smiled and tried to look as if she’d been listening all the time.

  ‘. . . Bet you’re gagging to squeeze that out, aren’t you?’ Nodding towards Helen’s belly. ‘At least the summer’s not been too hot, has it? Bloody nightmare when you’re that far gone.’

  ‘Reckon there might be a heatwave in the next few weeks,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Sod’s Law,’ Helen said.

  Yes, of course, she was desperate to give birth; was sick to death of carrying a space-hopper around; sick of the interest and the advice. Christ, talk about the weight of expectation . . .

  She wanted a baby that would draw a line under things. Wanted its newness.

  Right now, though, more than anything, she wanted the company.

  Paul left the car in an NCP in Soho, then waited for five or ten minutes in the rain for the taxi to arrive. The black cab’s light was off when it swung around the corner and stopped for him. It was already carrying a passenger.

  The occupant looked serious as he held the door open and Paul stepped in, but it became obvious that, so far, it was only the weather that was pissing off Kevin Shepherd.

  ‘Fucking shocking, isn’t it?’

  Paul dropped onto one of the fold-down seats. He ran his hand through his short hair, shook away the water.

  ‘I thought global warming was supposed to sort this shit out,’ Shepherd said.

  Paul smiled, was jolted forward as the cab lurched away and turned left onto Wardour Street.

  ‘I’ve got a little place in France,’ Shepherd said. ‘Languedoc. You been?’

  ‘Not lately,’ Paul said.

  ‘Days like this, I remember why I bought it.’

  ‘Decent investment, I would have thought.’

  ‘Aside from that.’ Shepherd looked out of the window, shook his head sadly. ‘Only reason I don’t go more often is the food, tell you the truth. Terrible stuff, most of it. I’m not just saying that because I don’t like the French. I mean, I don’t, obviously.’ He laughed. ‘But I swear it’s overrated. Italian, Spanish, even the Germans, God help us. They all piss on the French when it comes to food these days.’

  The accent was almost neutral, but there were still Barrow-boy burrs around the edges he hadn’t quite filed off.

  ‘There’s a French place round the corner from me,’ Paul said. ‘Sauce all over everything.’

  Shepherd pointed at him, delighted. ‘Spot on. And white spuds. Really white, you know? Sitting there on your plate like an albino bulldog’s bollocks, with all the taste boiled out of them.’

  Shepherd had collar-length, blond hair; looked a bit like that actor in the Starsky and Hutch movie, Paul reckoned. The smile wasn’t quite so charming, though. He wore a light pink shirt with one of those oversized, trendy collars and a mauve tie. The suit had to be four figures’ worth and the shoes cost more than everything Paul was wearing.

  The taxi drove west, heading along Oxford Street. Shepherd hadn’t said anything, but the driver seemed to know where he was going. It was one of the newer cabs, with a fancy speaker system in the back and a screen showing trailers for forthcoming movies, adverts for perfume and mobile phones.

  ‘Can I see your warrant card?’ Shepherd asked. He watched as Paul dug into his pocket. ‘Make absolutely sure who’s getting the free ride.’ He reached across and took the small leather wallet in which Paul also kept his Oyster card and stamps; examined the ID. ‘Intelligence, you said on the phone.’ Paul nodded. ‘Heard all the jokes, I suppose?’

  ‘All of them.’

  The cabbie leaned on his horn, swore at a bus driver who’d swerved away from a stop as he was about to overtake.

  ‘So, tell me just how intelligent you are,’ Shepherd said.

  Paul sat back, left it a few seconds. ‘I know that in the middle of February this year, you were approached by a Romanian businessman named Radu Eliade.’ He watched Shepherd blink, adjust his tie. ‘He came to you with three hundred thousand pounds, which he’d acquired through a series of credit- and debit-card scams, and which needed a little “cleaning up”. “Placed”, “layered” and “integrated” into the system. I think those are the technical terms.’ A smile from Shepherd. Definitely not as charming as his film star lookalike. ‘I know that you and several associates rented a yard and a warehouse in North Wales and spent the next few weeks at au
ctions buying industrial plant equipment for cash, which you sold on a week or so later. I know that Mr Eliade got his money back, nice and squeaky clean, and that you didn’t even have to charge him commission, because you made a tidy profit selling your diggers and JCBs on to small businesses in Nigeria and Chad.’ He paused again. ‘How am I doing?’

  Paul had watched Shepherd’s expression change as he was talking. It had hardened immediately, as the man sat trying to decide if Eliade had been nicked and done the dirty on him, or if one of the associates Paul had mentioned had been the one to roll over. Then the change: the sweet wash of curiosity as Shepherd asked himself why, if one of the Met’s intelligence officers really knew all these things, he was still walking around.

  Why he hadn’t yet had his oversized, trendy collar felt.

  They drove on in silence for a while, the cab rumbling north along the Edgware Road towards Kilburn. The shop-fronts getting that bit scruffier, the Mercedes count dwindling.

  ‘Looks like it’s brightening up,’ Shepherd said.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘What about the long-term forecast, though?’ Shepherd was trying to find Paul’s eyes, to make sure he understood the implication. ‘Maybe I should be thinking about spending a bit more time in Languedoc. What d’you reckon, Paul? You’re the one in the know.’

  ‘Depends,’ Paul said.

  The cab pulled over suddenly, stopping outside a parade of shops on Willesden Lane to let two men in.

  ‘That’s Nigel,’ Shepherd said, nodding towards the man who was taking the fold-down seat next to Paul. He was a big man; fifty or so, with greased-back grey hair and an expression that looked as if it had been kicked into position. Paul grunted a greeting. Nigel, who all but spilled over the edges of the seat, said nothing. Shepherd patted the seat next to his own. ‘And this’ - he beckoned over the second man, a rather less confident individual in a shit-brown overcoat - ‘is Mr Anderson. He’s a bit friendlier than Nigel.’

  Anderson squinted across at Paul from behind thick lenses. ‘Who’s this?’ A soft Irish accent. Not a whole lot friendlier.

  Shepherd leaned forward, shouted to the driver: ‘On you go, Ray.’

  The chat started as the cab eased away. Shepherd and Anderson talked about a black-tie bash they’d both attended a few nights before; a blue comic who used to be on TV but was now well past his best.

  ‘Just filth, you know?’ Shepherd grimaced. Dirty jokes were clearly up there with French food. ‘Lowest common denominator.’

  He asked Paul if he had a family. Paul said it wasn’t any of his business and Shepherd told him that was fair enough.

  ‘Nothing but bloody trouble anyway,’ Anderson said.

  The cab moved expertly through heavy traffic as Kilburn gave way to the more affluent streets of Brondesbury. Then, further, the houses shrinking and getting closer together as they entered Cricklewood.

  ‘How do you two know each other?’ Anderson asked.

  Before Paul could answer, the cab turned sharply off the main road, and, after a few minutes of zigzagging down side streets, rattled onto a rutted path and slowed. Paul craned his neck and saw that they were approaching a huge complex of old buildings, dark against a sky that was just showing the first faint traces of blue. He could see the graffiti and the lattice of cracks and holes in all the windows.

  The disused waterworks at Dollis Hill.

  The cab drew up outside gates fastened with a heavy chain and padlock. Ray killed the engine and took a newspaper from the passenger seat. Nigel moved every bit as casually and Paul watched Anderson’s head drop when he saw the Stanley knife appear in the big man’s hand.

  The Irishman sounded tired as much as anything else. Said: ‘Oh Jesus, Kevin. Do we have to?’

  Nigel was already bending down to pull out a small piece of wood, a foot or so square, from beneath Shepherd’s seat. Shepherd shifted to make room as Nigel grabbed Anderson and dragged him onto the floor of the cab, yanking his arm across and pressing his full weight down on to the back of the Irishman’s hand, spreading the fingers on the board.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Kevin, somebody’s been winding you up,’ Anderson said.

  Nigel pressed Anderson’s face down harder and looked up, all set.

  ‘An inch should do it,’ Shepherd said.

  There wasn’t a great deal of blood, and the noise was pretty well muffled by the carpet. Shepherd leaned down afterwards and passed a handkerchief to Anderson, who pressed it to his hand and slowly pulled his knees up to his chest.

  ‘That’s one finger you’ll be keeping out of the till for a while,’ Shepherd said. He drew back his feet to avoid making any contact with the man on the floor, and looked across at Paul. ‘Like he’s not doing well enough. Three new cars he’s had in the last eighteen months. Silly bugger.’

  ‘Most people want a bit more,’ Paul said. ‘Only natural.’

  Shepherd thought about that for a few seconds, then looked at his watch. ‘You don’t mind making your own way back from here, do you? We need to crack on. Don’t want this one bleeding all over Ray’s upholstery.’

  Paul guessed that he could walk to Willesden Junction in about twenty minutes. At least it wasn’t raining. He waited.

  ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you Mr Hopwood,’ Shepherd said. ‘There’s still plenty I’m in the dark about here. Plenty about you. But I am a touch clearer about one or two things. What you know, or think you know, for example.’

  ‘It’s understandable.’

  ‘Here’s the thing, though. I know a few coppers pretty well, and watching you while Nigel got busy was pretty bloody interesting. See, some coppers, whatever they were doing or supposed to be doing, wouldn’t have been able to stand by and let that happen. They’d have been jumping about, shouting the odds and making arrests, what have you. See what I’m saying?’

  ‘What if I had?’

  Shepherd shrugged. ‘Pain in the arse, but not a problem. I don’t think Mr Anderson would be making a complaint. Nigel keeps himself to himself and Ray’s going to say fuck all.’ He leaned forward. ‘That right, Ray?’

  Ray said fuck all.

  ‘A couple of hours wasted at some police station and a couple of days’ paperwork for some idiot who could be out catching suicide bombers. That’s about it.’

  Paul couldn’t argue.

  ‘Then there’s the copper who can’t be seen to give a toss, because he’s playing some smart-arse game. Trying to ingratiate himself, whatever. All the same, something like that’s going to get a reaction, right? He doesn’t just sit there like he’s watching Jamie Oliver cutting up a fucking parsnip.’ Twice, it seemed as though Shepherd were about to smile, and twice it died at the corners of his mouth. He looked like someone trying to see the joke but not quite making it.

  At the nod from Shepherd, Nigel moved across and lurched out of the cab, holding the door open for Paul.

  ‘We should talk again,’ Shepherd said.

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Definitely, because I don’t quite get it yet. I will, but not yet.’ He pushed at the knot of his tie, picked at something on his lapel. ‘Because you’re a different sort altogether, Paul. You sat there and you watched . . . that, and you didn’t even flinch.’

  FOUR

  Javine was feeding the baby when Theo got in. Cradling him in the crook of her left arm, reaching around to keep the bottle where it should be, and flicking through the pages of a magazine with her free hand.

  Theo stood in the doorway, held up the takeaway he’d picked up on his way back.

  ‘Let me get him off first,’ Javine said.

  Theo carried the bag through to the kitchen, then came back and sat next to his girlfriend. Dug around the sofa cushion for the TV remote.

  ‘OK day?’

  He flicked through the channels. ‘Weather was good anyway. Something.’

  Something, when you’re spending eight hours standing on one corner or another. Looking out. Running backwards a
nd forwards.

  ‘Yeah, it was nice.’ Javine stroked her son’s cheek with the back of her fingers. ‘I took him over the park, met up with Gemma.’

  Theo nodded, watched the baby guzzling for a minute. ‘He’s seriously hungry, man.’

  ‘The powder’s not expensive,’ Javine said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You get it in bulk, same as nappies.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Theo turned back to the TV. ‘It’s good, you know? A good sign.’

  They watched most of EastEnders while the baby finished, and when Javine took him through to the bedroom Theo put the food in the microwave and took out the plates and forks. King prawn and mushroom for her; chilli beef for him. Egg fried rice and prawn crackers, cans of lager and Diet Coke. Some other soap on Sky Plus while they ate off their laps; that one up north with the farmers and shit. Theo couldn’t keep up.

  ‘Gemma was talking about going out one night next week,’ Javine said. ‘Some new club in Peckham. Says her brother can get us in.’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘I said.’

  ‘I’ll leave the bottles in the fridge.’

  Theo pushed some rice around. ‘Maybe I could ask Mum.’

  Javine sniffed and said ‘fine’, meaning that it wasn’t.

  ‘Only if something comes up, you know?’

  ‘Whatever.’ Javine let her fork clatter onto the plate. ‘But I don’t think one night would hurt you, and I think it would be a good idea to save the babysitting up with your mum a bit more, until we really need it, yeah?’ She stood and started to gather up the plates. ‘Like if the two of us ever go out together, you know?’

  ‘I get it, it’s cool, OK?’ He finished his beer. ‘No need to get riled up, man.’ It wasn’t cool, not really, but what else was he going to say? Nearly six months since the baby had arrived and he knew that the park or the playgroup was as exciting as her life got. Gemma was the only friend she’d made since he’d brought her back here and he knew she’d left plenty else behind.

  Javine carried the plates into the kitchen. ‘You want tea?’

  Theo and his family had moved from Lewisham to Kent five years before, when Theo was twelve. The old man had swapped his job on the Underground for one on the buses and they’d upped sticks to a place in Chatham with an extra bedroom for Theo’s little sister, Angela, and air that was a bit less likely to aggravate her asthma. Everyone was happy. It was near the sea, which the old man had liked, there was bingo and a decent boozer over the road, and though there was a bit of trouble at school to start with, Theo and his sister had settled down quickly enough.