Neil Cross - The Calling

They reach the tatty Volvo. Luther throws Howie his keys.

The car is cold inside, smells a bit of fast food and rotten upholstery.

Howie starts the engine, works out how to operate the heater. Sets it to full blast. It’s loud.

Luther belts himself in. ‘Any dirt on the victims?’

‘It’s early days yet, but no. From what we know, they seemed to have been devoted. The only dark cloud seems to have been a problem with fertility.’

‘So, what? They used IVF?’

‘That’s the funny thing, Guv.’

‘Boss.’

‘That’s the funny thing, Boss. Five years of IVF. No luck. Then they give it up as a bad lot, start thinking about adoption. Mrs Lambert stops the IVF twelve or thirteen months ago. And then — bingo. She’s knocked up.’

‘They religious?’

‘Mrs Lambert’s C of E, meaning no. Mr Lambert seems to have had some interest in Buddhism and yoga. Tried out a macrobiotic diet for a while.’

‘His dad die young?’

Howie checks the paperwork. ‘Doesn’t say.’

‘Men get close to the age their dad was when he died, they start thinking about diet and exercise. Mr Lambert was in pretty good shape.’

‘Better than pretty good. Played tennis. Squash. He liked to fence, ride mountain bikes. Ran a marathon or two. He was pretty ripped.’

‘Anything else?’

‘We looked into the alarm,’ she says. ‘Tom Lambert used it extensively the first year it was fitted, then gradually his usage dropped off. That’s a pretty typical behaviour pattern, probably applies to four out of five people who’ve had them fitted. His usage drops off almost to zero. Then four or five months ago, he starts using it again.’

‘That might not mean anything,’ Luther says. ‘Mrs Lambert was pregnant. Sometimes men get extra vigilant when their partner’s expecting. It brings out the caveman in us.’

‘Or,’ Howie says, ‘maybe he was nervous about something specific. Something he’d seen or heard.’

‘At work, you mean?’

‘You said it yourself: the people he deals with every day.’

Luther gives her the nod. Pleased, she enters the coordinates into the satnav.

As she drives Luther says, ‘Can I hear the 999 recording?’

She makes a call, passes him her phone.

He listens. Operator: Police Emergency Caller: Yeah, I’d like to report something really weird. I was walking my dog down Bridgeman Road. I heard, like, a noise. And I saw something really weird.

(Sound of typing) Operator: And what’s your name? Caller: I don’t want to say. Do I have to say? Operator: Not if you’d prefer not to. What did you see? Caller: A man. He was, like, sneaking out of this house. Operator: You saw a burglary in progress? Caller: I don’t know. He didn’t look like a burglar. He was too old to be a burglar. Operator: How old was he? Caller: Forties? I don’t know. Like a man in his forties.

(Typing) Operator: Okay. Calm down. What was he doing? Caller: I don’t know. He had something with him. He had like a bundle. He had blood all on him. Blood on his face and that. He sort of ran down Crosswell Street, carrying the bundle. It looked really bad. It looked really, really bad. Operator: Okay, officers are on the way. Can you hold the line? Caller (sobs): No, I can’t. I can’t. Sorry. I have to go. I’ve got to go.

Luther listens to it three times. ‘Have we traced the number?’

‘Number belongs to a mobile phone reported missing by a Robert Landsberry of Lyric Mews, Sydenham. Two days ago.’

‘Mr Landsberry have any idea who nicked his phone?’

‘We’ll re-interview this morning. But not really. He’s not even sure exactly when it was taken.’

‘So what do we think? The caller’s a burglar on the prowl, maybe? Or someone trying to put a deal together, shift a bit of weed?’

Howie shrugs.

Luther chews his lip as they drive. He says, ‘And this is our only witness?’

‘If he hadn’t called,’ Howie says, ‘the Lamberts would still be lying there. Nobody would even know.’

Luther closes his eyes and runs through the checklist: look deeper into friends and family. Extra-marital affairs. Was the child conceived with donor sperm? Were there money worries? Workplace rivalries?

If they don’t get a quick result, the problem won’t be the absence of information but an exponentially increasing super-abundance of it.

He sighs, and places a call to the best technical forensics officer he ever worked with.

‘John Luther,’ says Benny Deadhead down the line. ‘As I live and breathe.’

His real name is Ben Silver, but no one calls him that. Not even his mother.

‘Benny,’ says Luther. ‘How’s Vice?’

‘Depressing. The things people do to each other.’

Luther lets that one go by. He says, ‘Listen, how’s your workload?’

‘Insurmountable.’

‘Anything urgent?’

‘Well, that depends how urgent you mean.’

‘I mean, I need your help with a really bad one. If I get my guvnor to ask your guvnor if I can borrow you, how’s that going to go?’

Benny says, ‘I’m already packing a bag.’

Until yesterday, Anthony Needham was Tom Lambert’s partner in a small, two-man counselling practice near Clissold Park.

Needham’s in his thirties, in wine-coloured shirt, tailored, and grey trousers, neatly gelled hair. He’s tanned, fit and sporting. Expensive watch. He doesn’t conform in any way to Luther’s notion of a therapist. He makes Luther feel grubby and unhealthy.

The room is designed to be agreeable: three comfy chairs arranged in a semi-circle, low bookshelves. A desk, bare but for a laptop and some framed photographs of Needham taking part in an Ironman Triathlon — scowling in muddy agony, running with a mountain bike slung over his shoulder.

Needham opens the window; it’s stiff and doesn’t come easily. Sounds of the city insinuate themselves in here with them, the smell of traffic and the smell of winter.

Luther crosses his legs and clasps his hands in his lap; something he does to constrain nervous energy. Howie observes Needham with silent gravity. She has her notebook in front of her and a pen in her hand.

Needham opens the lowest drawer in his desk, takes out a flattened, mummified pack of cigarettes. He roots around until he finds a disposable lighter. Then he perches on the windowsill, lights a cigarette and takes a puff.

He discreetly dry retches, leans on the windowsill with the cigarette held between two fingers.

He grinds out the cigarette after that one puff, comes back queasy and moist-eyed. He sits in the third comfy chair, hands laced in his lap.

Luther lets him work it through. Turns over a page of his own notebook, pretends to consult an earlier entry.

‘Holy Christ,’ says Needham at length. He’s Australian.

‘I’m sorry,’ Luther says. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in. But I’m afraid these first few hours are critical.’

Needham gets himself together. Luther likes him for it.

Needham swallows, then unlaces his fingers and gestures, meaning: ask away.

‘Well,’ Luther says. ‘You deal with some very troubled young people here. Violent people, presumably.’

‘You do know this is covered by doctor-patient privilege?’

‘I do, yes.’

‘Then I don’t know what you want me to tell you.’

‘Non-specifically — do you know if Mr Lambert was concerned about any of his patients?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Like you say. We deal with a lot of disturbed young people.’

‘Can I be honest with you, here? This wasn’t a random attack. This was a very violent, very personal crime.’

Needham shifts in his chair. ‘All I can tell you is, Tom had some raised levels of anxiety about some of his patients.’