Robert Young - Gatecrasher

Stiff and cold.

Monday. 4pm.

‘Its me,’ said Drennan.

When the reply came the policeman’s voice was lower than the bright clear tone he’d used to answer the phone. ‘Mr Drennan. What’s up?’

‘Now why would there have to be something up? Maybe I just like the sound of your voice.’ The tone was mocking, confident. Tyler watched him talk and found that even he was riled by that smirking arrogance just listening in.

‘Fuck off. What’s up?’

‘I understand you have a bit of a mystery caller down there. A very cold one.’ The line went quiet and Drennan prompted irritably. ‘Saturday night.’

‘Nobby-no-mates from Fulham? You heard about that?’

‘I did.’ A pause. ‘Who’s dealing with it? You?’

‘I got landed with it. How d’you know that?’ the policeman asked sounding guarded. Drennan hadn’t known but had taken a guess, which had paid off.

‘Not married are you?’

‘No.’

‘Well I already know what your kids names are going to be.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know everything. You going to get to the point?’

‘Listen, don’t break your back trying to find out who it is.’

‘Do what?’

‘Let’s just say that it won’t reflect poorly on you should your enquiries not lead to any firm conclusions. He was a scumbag. You don’t need to waste your time and resources. You’re a busy man. Lots of other things to do.’

Silence.

‘You do understand me?’

‘I’m not sure I want to hear more than I have, but I’m not sure I can help you.’

‘You don’t need to do anything,’ Drennan said as if he thought that perhaps the other man was stupid. ‘This case is no longer in your in tray.’

‘I mean, I already know. Things have, uh, developed.’

‘Developed how?’

‘Found his wallet. We already know who he is. You want to tell me what the fuck this is about?’

The question was ignored.

‘Well you want to know who he is exactly…? No. No I suppose you already know that. Otherwise you wouldn’t be on the phone asking me to pretend he’s nobody.’

‘No I don’t suppose I would. Who knows?’

‘Just me and DC Samuel. We’re already checking his records and looking for known associates.’

‘Congratulations. Where was the wallet?’

‘He gatecrashed some house party in Fulham. Pissed as a fart after the Chelsea game. Anyway, seems he had an accident with a wine glass and managed to impale himself on the thing falling over in this guy’s kitchen. Wallet was in the garden. Dropped it climbing over the wall.’

‘Address?’

Another pause, longer this time. Apprehensive.

‘It’s just some nobody. Some bloke having a party — never knew the guy, never seen him before.’

‘Address.’

‘For God’s sake. Why? What happens to this guy if I give you his name? What does he know? More to the point what does MI5 care about this?’

‘Address.’ Firmer, impatient.

‘Christ. Look, I’ve spoken to him, he doesn’t know a fucking thing. He got burgled while he was in giving his statement! He’s had enough shit without you on his case too. Leave him alone Drennan you bastard.’

‘Burgled? That is bad luck isn’t it?’

Monday. 6.30pm.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the controller has just told me that there is a signalling problem up ahead and we are in a queue so it might be a few minutes before we get into Hammersmith station. I do apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you and thank you for your patience.’

Hammersmith. Campbell was surprised that he was nearly at his stop. He had lost track of where he was as the train passed through the stations and he had stared absently into space. Stiff and cold.

People around him groaned and shook their heads but nobody said anything and some people even smiled a here-we-go-again sort of smile. Just another tube ride.

Campbell rolled his head back onto his shoulders and tried to grind out some of the tension in his neck. The afternoon in the office had dragged even more after that flash of memory had come stumbling in on his consciousness and nobody had complained when he up and left a little earlier than everyone else. Most people knew about the party — some of his colleagues had even been there — and about the burglary that morning. More than one person had remarked that they were surprised that he’d come in at all but Campbell knew that he had to escape the flat.

As he closed his eyes the driver came over the speaker to advise that they would be moving into Hammersmith station shortly and repeated his apology. Campbell saw the same image again, the same instant replay of that blood-matted head lifting itself up slowly and uncertainly and the words: stiff and cold. He was sure that was what it was. He thought that he had then told the man not to worry about being stiff and cold, that the ambulance was coming. But he couldn’t be certain what he’d said exactly. In that state it wouldn’t have sounded much like anything.

The train jerked to a halt and the doors hissed open and Campbell swung himself up and out of the seat and through the doors. It was getting dark now and chilly too. People were wearing long shapeless clothes again and holiday tans had faded pale.

Up the escalators he worked his way out to his bus stop and stepped out of the doors to join the queue. It always seemed to be a strange bunch here, perhaps because the bus stopped outside the Charing Cross hospital down along the Fulham Palace Road and Hospitals often attracted the oddballs. He knew all about that.

As one bus pulled up he surrendered quickly to the swarm of people that surged for the door and realised that he would be lucky to get on this one, let alone find a seat so he hung back and let the crowd fight amongst themselves. Two minutes later his patience was rewarded as another bus swung around the corner to sweep up the small group of people that had been unable or unwilling to squeeze themselves onto the previous one.

Touching his oyster card against the card-reader Campbell moved along the aisle to the rear toward a seat where he saw a discarded newspaper which he picked up for something to read for the ten minutes or so it would take before his stop. To his mild disappointment it was a local, not a national paper, but the sports pages carried a couple of stories about Fulham Football Club so he skimmed through them and then turned it over to read from the front.

There was nothing of interest for Campbell as flipped the front page over and then skimmed past the headlines: something about house prices, something about a spate of muggings near the Hammersmith underground station. Both of which he could well believe and the thought occurred to him that perhaps there might have been some connection and police searching for leads on the latter should look up some local estate agents since Campbell certainly felt as if he’d been mugged when he bought his flat. He smiled, amused at himself and flipped again. Something in a smaller side column caught his eye. The headline read: Break-in at Griffin Holdings.

Campbell stared into space for a minute, sure that it meant something.

Griffin Holdings. Did a friend work there? No, that wasn’t it. They heard so many company names at work when analysing stocks, perhaps that’s where he’d heard it before? Perhaps, but he didn’t think so.

Then why did it sound familiar? Campbell started to read the article and then stopped again as it hit him.

Stiff and cold. That’s not what the man had said.

Monday. 7pm.

It was raining now and the wet road reflected the glare of lights from shops and traffic alike. Campbell hardly noticed though. His mind had gone into high gear now and his head ached. A thousand, million thoughts flashed at him as he walked, about the gatecrasher and what he’d said. About what he’d read in the paper, the break-in. Were the two linked? Was he being paranoid? Surely that was just a coincidence. Surely.