Kevin Brooks - Dance of Ghosts

I looked up then as I heard Claudia Mercer coming down the stairs.

‘Hello, John,’ she said, smiling. ‘How are you, dear?’

‘Not bad, thanks, Mrs M.’

‘I’ve told Leon that you’re here. He’s in his study.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’

‘No, thanks — ’

‘Something to eat?’

I shook my head.

She smiled again. ‘Well, let me know if you change your mind.’ And with that she wandered off down the hallway.

‘She’s never that nice to me, you know,’ Imogen said, smiling.

‘I heard that,’ her mother called back.

Imogen looked at me. ‘Don’t spend too long with Dad, OK? He tries to hide it, but he gets tired really easily these days.’

I nodded. ‘I just want a quick chat with him.’

‘Will I see you later?’

I smiled. ‘You can give me a lift home, if you want.’

‘It’s a date.’

Leon’s study was a small but cosy room at the far end of the landing on the third floor. It was fairly cramped, filled to the brim with too much furniture and too many bookshelves and all kinds of clutter all over the place — files, papers, magazines, newspapers. He had a desk against one wall, a writing table against another wall; a plush leather armchair in one corner, a cushioned wicker chair in another. There were cupboards and filing cabinets, framed photographs and certificates on the wall, a small flat-screen TV on a black glass table, with stacks of DVDs piled up next to it. Half a dozen lead-crystal decanters were lined up on a narrow mantelpiece above the blackened grate of a small open fire, and the black of night was showing through a small square window in the far wall. Leon was sitting at his desk when I went in, a laptop open in front of him. ‘John,’ he said warmly, closing the laptop and getting to his feet. ‘Come on in, sit down …’

I went over and shook his hand, then sat down in the armchair.

As Leon lowered himself back into his chair and removed the reading glasses he was wearing, it was hard to keep the shock from my face. He was so much frailer than the last time I’d seen him, and that had only been two or three months ago. He’d looked like the same old Leon I’d always known then — big, strong, solid, bright-eyed. But now … well, he’d lost a lot of weight, for a start. But not in a good way. His yellowing skin hung loosely from his frame, giving his face a gaunt and haggard look, and the weight of it seemed to drag him down. His shoulders were stooped, his head bowed down. His eyes had dulled, too. And every movement he made was stiff and slow and obviously painful.

‘I know,’ he said, giving me a stoical smile. ‘I’m a fucking sight, aren’t I?’

‘You don’t look great,’ I admitted, unable to lie to him. ‘What is it — cancer?’

He nodded. ‘Pancreatic.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No,’ he said, reaching for a brandy glass on his desk. He took a sip and swallowed slowly. ‘It tastes better than morphine,’ he explained.

I nodded.

‘Help yourself,’ he said, glancing up at the decanters.

‘I’m all right, thanks,’ I told him.

‘Sure?’

I nodded again.

He gazed into his glass for a moment, gently swirling the brandy, then he leaned forward and carefully put it down on the desk. ‘So,’ he said, looking over at me. ‘How’s it all going, John?’

I smiled. It was the same question he always asked me, and it always meant the same — are you drinking? not drinking? are you keeping away from the drugs?

‘I’m doing OK,’ I told him.

‘Yeah?’

‘A few lapses now and then.’

He nodded. ‘I can smell it on your breath.’

I looked at him. ‘I’m doing OK.’

He held my gaze for a few moments, looking for the truth, and all I could do was look back at him, not really knowing what my truth was … but, whatever it was, I was happy to let him see it. And if he’d wanted to say anything about it, that would have been perfectly fine with me too. But he didn’t. He just took another small sip of brandy, coughed quietly, and slowly leaned back in his chair.

‘I saw Bishop on the news,’ he said.

‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘I know. Tell me all about it.’

I told him everything then — from the moment Helen Gerrish had come into my office, to Bishop’s unexpected visit earlier that day … I told Leon everything. He listened in silence, his head bowed down, his eyes closed, not saying a word until I’d finished. And even then, when he slowly looked up at me and opened his eyes, he still didn’t say anything for a while. He just looked at me, deep in thought, digesting everything I’d told him … then he picked up his brandy glass, took another measured sip, licked his lips, put the glass down, and finally — after delicately clearing his throat — he let out a long sigh and began to talk.

‘Why didn’t you come to me earlier about this?’ he said.

I shrugged. ‘I didn’t have any evidence … there was no proof — ’

‘You don’t have any evidence now. All you’ve got is a dead girl, Viner’s DNA, and a bellyful of bad feelings about Bishop.’

‘I know Viner didn’t kill Anna,’ I said slowly, looking Leon in the eyes. ‘It’s simply not possible.’

Leon didn’t say anything for a moment, he just held my gaze, and as he sat there looking at me, I tried to let him see the unspoken question inside my head. Was it you, Leon? Did you send me that message about Viner all those years ago? Do you know what I did to him?

‘What we really need to know,’ he said quietly, neither answering nor not answering my unspoken question, ‘is why Bishop is lying to you. That’s the key to it all.’ He opened his laptop and started tapping keys. ‘The trouble is, Bishop’s nowhere near as one-dimensional as he likes people to think. Believe me, I’ve known him a long time, and it’s taken me years and years to realise that, in his own twisted way, he’s a very complicated man.’ Leon looked over the lid of his laptop at me. ‘You probably don’t think he’s particularly intelligent, do you?’

‘It depends what you mean by intelligent,’ I said. ‘I doubt if he’d be a stunning success on University Challenge — ’

‘Exactly,’ Leon said, smiling. ‘But for the last thirty-odd years he has been a stunning success as both a serving police officer and a highly efficient criminal, and that takes some doing.’

‘You think he’s a criminal?’

‘I know he is.’ Leon glanced at the laptop screen, then back at me. ‘Corruption is a crime, John. It’s not just a breach of trust, a bending of the rules, an abuse of power … it’s a crime. A corrupt police officer is a criminal, it’s as simple as that. And Bishop … well, come over here and look at this, see for yourself.’

As I got up and went over to his desk, Leon angled the laptop so we could both see the screen. At first, I couldn’t quite make out what I was seeing, but when I looked closer I realised it was a stilled image from a poor-quality video. The resolution was terrible, the definition non-existent, and the colour was more grey-and-grey than black-and-white. But despite all that, I could still just about make out the four figures on the screen: a man tied to a chair, another two men standing behind him, one of them with a baseball bat in his hand, and Bishop …

I looked at Leon. ‘Is this what I think it is?’

He nodded. ‘It’s a copy of the CCTV video that your father gave to DCI Curtis, the one that shows Bishop and the others torturing the man in the chair.’

‘Shit,’ I said quietly, looking back at the screen.

‘You don’t need to see all of it,’ Leon said. ‘And I’m sure you know what happens anyway, but I just wanted to let you see what Bishop is capable of … are you ready?’