Charles Cumming - The hidden man

‘… One of the things we do is to appoint a Family Liaison Officer who can provide a designated point of contact with — ’

Ben raised his hand. He was shaking his head. He looked across the table. The policewoman’s lips were pushed out and creased and she was speaking as if from a handbook. Yet her sympathetic expression was more than mere professional courtesy: she seemed genuinely upset.

‘Would you like someone to stay with you?’ she asked.

‘I have my wife upstairs,’ Ben said, and for the first time felt that he was on the verge of tears.

‘I see.’

She hesitated. There was something else she was obliged to add.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘I’m afraid we will need somebody to identify the body. As soon as possible. In your brother’s absence, Benjamin, it’s my understanding that you would be the next of kin. Do you think…?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to come now?’

Again she paused. Edging round his confusion.

‘It would probably be better if you stayed away from the scene for the time being…’

‘I don’t even know where he lives.’

She looked astonished by this.

‘Mark knows. I hadn’t met my father until…’

‘Yes.’ The policewoman’s voice was quiet. She told him that he had lived near Paddington Station and wrote down the address.

‘So why don’t you try to get some sleep?’ she suggested. ‘Or perhaps let your wife know.’

‘Yes.’

She began to stand up. He could sense her relief at leaving.

‘I think it’s best that I go,’ she said. ‘Will you be all right?’

And Ben nodded.

‘We can send a car for both of you in the morning.’

‘That sounds fine.’ His mind was adrift with consequence. He was thinking about breaking the news to Mark, to Alice, and heard the policewoman say ‘Sorry’ as she walked down the steps. When she was no longer visible on the road he closed the front door and then climbed the stairs.

Their bedroom was stuffy, a smell of stale air and cigarette smoke woven into fabrics. He picked up the hot, sweet drift of Alice asleep, a curious blend of perfumes and sweat. Ben crossed the room and opened a window on to the street. Birdsong. Behind him, he heard Alice moan, an impatient sound. She turned over on to her side, exhaling heavily, and he felt reprimanded even from the depths of her sleep. He had been on the point of shaking her awake but something about her impatience made him hesitate. Why do it? Instinctively he did not want Alice to have any part in this. If he woke her, she would complain; as he told her, she would become confused. To involve her now would only complicate matters. He would have to take her feelings into account and, for once, he wanted to act without interference. Ben felt that she might even appropriate the grief for herself, that his father’s murder might become something that he would have to comfort her over, rather than the other way round. She had a habit of doing that, of switching things around, of giving them a cynical emphasis. It was a part of her selfishness.

The room was much cooler now, fresh air from the open window. Ben went back out on to the landing, closed the door, and felt for the car key in his pocket.

He should not have driven.

At the Savoy Ben had drunk the better part of a bottle of wine and a double vodka and tonic. Back home, he had finished off a can of lager and then poured himself a whisky when he couldn’t get to sleep. There had been wine with Alice at eleven and that shot of vodka at eight. As he turned the key in the ignition, he wondered if the police would let him off if they stopped him on the way to Paddington.

The journey touched on the absurd: four times he took wrong turnings, four times he had to pull over and consult an A to Z. Slush fizzed under the tyres of his car. Ben became lost in one-way systems, pulled down side streets which led him further and further from the flat. With the heating on and the chill air outside, the interior of the car quickly fogged up and he was constantly having to wipe the windscreen with the sleeve of his coat. At times he had to crouch close to the wheel and try to peer through the steamed-up glass; then his eyes would be dazzled by lights catching on the slick surface of the road and he feared losing control altogether. As his mind became numbed by the thick, drumming heat in the car, only the sure conviction that he wanted to witness the crime scene for himself, to get as close to his father as he could, drove Ben on.

He parked just after five thirty and had to walk two blocks towards the building where Keen had lived. An entire stretch of street had been cordoned off by the police with lengths of blue and white tape slung across the road. Three men wearing boiler suits and heavy overshoes were coming out of the entrance to the apartment building. Ben thought that he heard one of them laugh. A single light flashed blue in the road, strobing against London brick.

It was as if he was being controlled by forces outside of himself, a bank of instincts making decisions on his behalf. Ben ducked under the police tape and made his way towards a uniformed officer standing near the entrance. The presence of a stranger had unsettled them: Ben could hear the fractious static of voices breaking up on a radio concealed somewhere on the policeman’s uniform.

‘I’m sorry, sir, you can’t go into the building.’

He put a hand on Ben’s shoulder and it felt heavy, capable. The two men looked at one another.

‘I’m Benjamin Keen,’ Ben said. ‘I was his son.’

The policeman withdrew his arm like a static shock and took a step back towards the door.

‘The son,’ he replied, as if in the presence of something cursed. ‘I understood that one of my colleagues visited you at your house this evening.’

‘That’s right.’

‘We didn’t anticipate that you would come here.’

The policeman — Ben saw that his name was Marchant — stared across the street as if in need of assistance. Without looking directly at Ben he added, ‘Can I just say, sir, on behalf of all of us how very sorry I am…’

‘That’s kind. Thank you. Look…’ Ben’s voice was impatient as he asked: ‘Is there any way that I could just go up? I need to see my father. I need to find out what happened.’

‘I’m sorry, but we can’t allow ordinary members of the public…’ Marchant checked himself ‘… even close relatives such as yourself, access to the scene until the forensic examination has been completed. I’m sure you understand.’

A woman wearing a white boiler suit, holding a flash-mounted Nikon camera and a black Hi-8 video, came out of the building and walked across the street. Immediately behind her Ben noticed a man with a moustache dressed in civilian clothing, his dark hair cut short and neat to the scalp.

Stephen Taploe looked to his left and found himself staring directly into the eyes of Benjamin Keen. Already drained by shock, by the shame of losing a joe, he flinched and turned away.

‘That guy,’ Ben said. ‘He’s not part of the forensics. He’s wearing ordinary plain clothes. How come he’s allowed in?’

‘That’s one of our investigating officers,’ the policeman lied. He had first set eyes on Taploe just thirty minutes before, nodding him through under orders.

Uppity, dismissive, shrewd. Your classic grass skirt.

‘Why all the police?’ Ben was asking. ‘How come there are so many people?’

It was a question to which Marchant himself would have liked an answer. When the call had gone out about Christopher Keen, it seemed as if half of London had climbed out of bed.

‘Why don’t I take you over to our vehicle?’ he suggested, trying to deflect Ben’s question. ‘We can sit down there and I can introduce you to some of my colleagues.’