Kevin Brooks - Dance of Ghosts

According to Leon Mercer — from whom I gathered almost all of this information — my father was advised by his union representative to say nothing about these allegations, and that’s what he did. Even when further evidence was produced — including photographs — which proved beyond doubt that he had indeed been having an intimate relationship with Serina Mayo, my father still refused to make any comment.

Two days later, while my mother was visiting her sister for the day, he locked himself in his office at home, drank most of a full bottle of whisky, and shot himself in the head.

In a suicide note addressed to my mother, he categorically denied the allegations of corruption, insisting that the cocaine and cash had been planted in his locker, and that he suspected DI Bishop and possibly DCI Curtis of colluding in a plot to discredit him. But he didn’t deny that he’d been having an affair with Serina Mayo.

‘I’m so sorry, Alice,’ he wrote to my mother. ‘I don’t know how it happened or why. It just happened. It was, quite literally, an act of madness.’

My mother, of course, was devastated.

Five years later, she died of breast cancer.

The corruption charges against my father, and his allegations against DI Bishop, were never investigated.

It was 11.10 when I left my car (unlocked) in a small public car park at the back of the police station at Eastway. I followed a paved pathway round to the front of the building where smooth stone steps led me up to the main entrance doors. A thin grey drizzle had begun to fall, and the yellowing sky was dark and low. I paused on the steps, lit a cigarette, and stood there for a while watching the midweek traffic as it coiled back and forth along the Eastway approach. Headlights flashed dully in the rain, horns beeped, exhaust smoke hazed in the cold damp air. Just in front of the steps was a low-fenced quadrant of town grass, and beyond that a broad pavement with wooden benches and raised stone flower beds. In summer, the stretch of grass attracts school kids and lunching workers who sit around with ice creams and Cokes watching the Eastway traffic as if there’s nowhere else they’d rather be. But now, on this cold October day, the only sign of life was a tramp in a cheap plastic raincoat foraging in bins, and two street youths and a wet dog sitting on a bench in the rain.

I finished my cigarette, headed up the steps, and went through the main doors into a pale and empty reception area of Plexiglas, tile, and pinboards. A uniformed desk sergeant took my name and told me to take a seat. I sat down on a red metal chair that was bolted to the floor, expecting a longish wait, but two minutes later a podgy-faced young man in a thin white shirt came through the security doors and introduced himself to me as DC Wade. As he escorted me back through the security doors and along a grey-carpeted corridor, I could hear muffled sounds coming from behind half-closed doors — the quiet tapping of keyboards, computer beeps, muted voices. It all sounded surprisingly dull, more like a social-security office than a police station.

We took the lift to the third floor, down another grey corridor, and then DC Wade showed me into a room.

‘Take a seat, Mr Craine,’ he said. ‘The DCI will be with you in a minute.’

He went out and shut the door behind him, leaving me alone in the room. I’d never been in a police station interview room before, but I’d seen enough cop shows on TV to recognise one when I saw one: off-white walls, plain table, two hard chairs, a double-decked tape-machine on a shelf. I draped my coat over the back of one of the chairs and sat down.

It was 11.29.

Twenty minutes later, the door swung open and DCI Bishop breezed in, talking the busy-man’s talk as he came. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, John, but something important came up. You don’t mind if I call you John, do you?’ His hurried words stopped when he saw my battered face, and for a moment he just stood there looking at me. Then, after blowing out his cheeks, he gave me what can only be described as a shit-eating grin. ‘Christ,’ he said, sitting down opposite me. ‘I hope we’ve got it on record that you looked like that before you came in.’

I didn’t say anything, I just looked at him. He hadn’t changed all that much since the last time I’d seen him. Same wiry black hair, same hard-set mouth, same cold dark eyes. He had a quarter-inch scar on his clean-shaven jaw, and in the dull light of the room his skin looked hard and white. He was dressed in a dark-blue blazer with silver buttons, a pale-blue shirt, and a burgundy tie pinned with a thin gold chain.

‘Can I get you a coffee or anything?’ he asked me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

He grinned again. ‘Ice pack? Painkillers?’

‘No, thanks.’

He nodded. ‘OK, well … I think I already mentioned that I don’t have all that much time to spare, so if it’s all right with you …’

He paused for a moment as I glanced at my watch, and the corners of his mouth tightened slightly. I looked at him, waiting for him to go on. He said nothing for a moment, just carried on staring at me, and then, after a time, he eased his chair back from the desk, crossed his legs, and casually cocked his head to one side.

‘You used to work for Leon Mercer, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

He nodded. ‘I know Leon, he was a good officer. We worked some big cases together over the years … how’s he doing now? I heard his health’s not so good.’

‘He’s doing OK.’

‘Semi-retired, I hear.’

I nodded.

Bishop nodded back. ‘So when did you start working for Mercer Associates?’

‘Sixteen years ago.’

‘Right … so that would have been …?’

‘About a year after my wife was killed.’

He nodded again, trying his best to look sympathetic, but he had neither the face nor the heart for it. Which was fine with me. I just wanted this charade to be over — him asking me questions that he already knew the answers to, me having to answer them because I wanted something from him …

It was all just a nasty little game.

‘It must have been a really hard time for you,’ Bishop said. ‘First your father, then your wife …’

‘Yeah,’ I said, staring into his eyes. ‘It totally fucked me up.’

‘Well, of course … it would.’ He sniffed and cleared his throat. ‘So … you left Mercer in ’97 and set up your own business — is that right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘No particular reason. My mother died, I came into some money … I could afford to set up on my own.’ I shrugged. ‘It was something to do …’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

I looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Owning your own company … being a private investigator — do you enjoy it?’

‘Does it matter?’

He looked at me for a while, his head cocked slightly to one side, as if he was thinking about something … then he took a breath, leaned back in his chair, and sighed. ‘I checked the case file this morning to see if there’s been any progress on the investigation into your wife’s murder,’ he said. ‘We are still looking for him, you know. We haven’t given up.’

I looked back at him, holding his gaze … saying nothing, showing nothing.

‘We’ll find him eventually,’ he said, his eyes never leaving mine. ‘It’s just a matter of time.’

‘Right…’ I said vaguely, ‘well, that’s good to know. But it’s not what I’m here about.’

Bishop didn’t say anything for a few moments, he just carried on staring at me, his dark eyes unreadable … and then, with an unnecessary sniff and a curt nod of his head, he pulled his chair back to the table, glanced at his watch, and got down to business. ‘Right,’ he said briskly, ‘Anna Gerrish. I take it you’ve been talking to her mother?’