John Harvey - Last Rites

Finney not looking at her now, bored, staring idly at the cream-painted walls. This interview room like the others, like the whole two floors of the old General Hospital into which the Serious Crimes Squad had moved, had yet to lose its surface sheen.

“Paul?”

“Mm?”

“You know what he does, Valentine?”

“Of course, it’s my job to know.” Finney looking at Siddons again, Khan, like a pet beside her. If she thought this was a way to get under his skin, the same questions over and over again, she could forget it. He knew this game, this and all the others. It was his training, too; what he did best.

Displaying a certain degree of weariness, Siddons opened the file and read through the top sheet with exaggerated care. “Can you explain,” she said eventually, “the circumstances in which Valentine, having been taken into custody on four separate occasions on suspicion of being in possession of significant quantities of a controlled substance, more than could reasonably be ascribed to his personal use, should have been set free without any charges having been filed?”

Finney shook his head.

“No?”

“No.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember those incidents clearly.”

“Well, let me refresh your memory.” Siddons lifted the page from the desk. “Twenty-seventh of October 1996. Fourteenth of February 1997. Fourth of June 1997. First of April 1998.”

Finney shook his head.

“Are you telling me you don’t recall anything about those occasions?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What about the most recent, April of this year?”

“Without my notebook, case notes, I’m afraid …”

“Do you take me for a fool?”

Despite himself, Finney smiled.

Siddons got up from her chair and paced the room, four paces to the rear wall, four to the side, four more to the door. Khan kept looking at Finney, the confidence behind his eyes. When Siddons sat back down, she took out her cigarettes and offered one to Finney, another excuse for him to shake his head.

“When did you last see him, Valentine? And don’t tell me you don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember.”

“It was three days ago, three nights.”

Finney allowed himself mild surprise. “It was?”

“At a restaurant, Hyson Green. The Cassava.”

“Red-pepper soup, they do a really good red pepper soup. Spicy.”

“You were there with Valentine.”

“I was?”

“Good buddies, bosom pals. You were seen on the pavement outside, back slapping, shaking hands. Best of friends.”

Finney smiled. “It’s my job.”

“Palling up with drug dealers?”

“Letting them believe that to be the case. How else are you going to find out what’s going down?”

“And that’s what you were doing? What you do?”

“Of course.”

“Getting on the inside track?”

“Yes.”

“So why is it this inside track you’ve been cultivating so assiduously with Valentine hasn’t resulted in a single arrest? A single case going to court? Being proved?”

Half smiling, Finney shrugged.

“Not, surely, because you are not very good at your job?”

“Not for me to say.”

“And not because there was any advantage to you in Valentine staying free?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe he could give me information others couldn’t.” Finney tapped the edge of the file. “You see how many arrests are down to me, cases which came to court, got a result. How many dealers off the street.”

Siddons blew smoke off to one side. “Leaving the field clearer for Valentine.”

“That’s nature, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Abhorring a vacuum. Maybe sometimes it’s a case of better the devil you know.”

“What you’re saying, there was a deliberate policy, on behalf of the Drugs Squad …”

Finney held up a hand. “I didn’t say that …”

“On behalf of the Drug Squad …”

“That wasn’t what I said.”

“On what? Your own behalf, then? Unilateral. Pick up a few crumbs from Valentine, bang up a few street corner dealers, strictly small time, let Valentine go free. Is that it? Paul, is that what happened, what’s been happening?”

Finney shifted his weight, almost imperceptibly, from one buttock to the other.

“What else has been in it for you? Some other gain? I mean, I’m sure your friend Valentine must have felt inclined to show his gratitude in some way you both could understand? Or am I supposed to believe it was all in kind, I scratch your back if you scratch mine? That and the odd bowl of soup thrown in.”

“I never,” Finney said, “accepted a free meal. Not policy. Always paid my way. I expect I’ve got the receipts at home somewhere, if you’re interested, filed away.”

“Like the wives, the children, each in their own compartment, is that what you mean?”

Finney’s eyes narrowed. “You stay away from that, you hear? Steer well away. That’s nothing to do with what we’re discussing here.”

Siddons blew a lazy smoke ring. “Maybe you could tell me, Paul-I’m sure you’re familiar-exactly what the law says about bigamy?”

Finney scraped back his chair, started to stand, but she caught his sleeve. “When you were with Valentine three nights back, did he tell you he was expecting some kind of delivery the next day? Is that how come somebody knew exactly where and when to go wading in there, waving guns? Whose back were you scratching that evening, Paul, other than your own?”

Slowly, Finney released a long breath, a smile. Yes, he thought, you nearly did it that time, didn’t you? Almost got me going and no mistake. Carefully, he sat back down.

“I rather think the informal part of the proceedings is now over, don’t you? Before we go any farther, I’m requesting the opportunity to speak to my immediate superior and my Police Federation representative. Any more questions, I’m afraid they’ll have to be asked in the presence of a solicitor.”

Resnick was standing up at the bar in the Borlace Warren with Millington and Vincent, Millington describing the welter of bruises to Evan’s body, blows that had damaged him severely before those that had killed him. Officers from the Met had contacted his mother, but in her confusion she’d had no satisfactory explanation for why Evan was in the East Midlands.

Vincent was getting a round of drinks when Norman Mann pushed through the crowd and spun Resnick round by the shoulder. “If anyone had told me, you of all people, setting up one of my team behind my back. Not got the guts to tell me to my face.”

Resnick stood his ground, kept his silence: there wasn’t a great deal he could say.

“Well? What’s the matter, Charlie? Run out of halftruths, lies?”

“DCI Siddons,” Resnick said. “If there are questions you think need answering, maybe you’d be best off speaking to her.”

“What? You what?” Mann’s face contorted. “You shiftless bloody coward, hiding behind that tart’s skirts. You …” And he swung a fist.

Off balance, Resnick took the force of the blow high on his arm and it sent him stumbling back. Mann moved in for another punch, and Vincent and Millington grabbed him by the arms and held him fast.

“All right, all right. Okay. Let me go. Let me go.”

Millington glanced toward Resnick, and Resnick, straightening himself, nodded.

Freed, breathing heavily, Mann stood there a moment longer before turning on his heel and stalking away.

“Ought to control that temper of his,” Millington said. “Man of his age, overweight, drinks a bit, I dare say. Past forty.”

Resnick grinned.

“You okay?” Millington asked.