Simon Kernick - The Murder Exchange

It was early evening and Elaine had yet to reappear by the time Joe said he had to go, and there was something a bit gloomy about the formal handshake we shared. As if we both knew that for some reason nothing between us was ever going to be the same again.

Gallan

The station was quiet that morning. The busiest night of the week had come and gone and the cells were slowly being emptied of the drunks, the brawlers, the low-level dealers and anyone else unlucky enough to have had their collar felt. It was another glorious day. The weather woman on the radio had announced chirpily that it was the seventh in a row with more than ten hours of sunshine. Temperatures expected to touch twenty-nine degrees Celsius, eighty-four by the old measurement. No one would be working who didn’t have to, even though crime often went up in heatwaves. Tempers got more frayed, particularly in an overcrowded city; domestic burglary increased as people left their windows open at night. So, too, did rapes, for exactly the same reason. But who wanted to catch criminals on a hot August Sunday?

And that was the thing. I did. I wanted to find out who thought they were clever enough to kill Shaun Matthews and get away with it. I wanted to prove them wrong.

It didn’t seem as though too many of the squad shared my wish, or were at least prepared to break their backs over it, and the incident room for the Matthews murder was empty for the second morning in a row when I walked into it at just after half past eight. Berrin was expected in, as was DI Capper, my immediate boss. It didn’t surprise me that neither had arrived. Berrin had been particularly reluctant to work that day because he’d had to break a date, and had only had one day off in the previous fourteen, so it was unlikely he was going to make it in before nine. As for Capper, he was never on time if his superiors weren’t working. Which was the bloke all over. It was a testimony to his arse-licking skills, and the talent he had for creating a wholly false image of commitment and hard work, that he had reached the level of detective inspector on the back of having absolutely none of the skills required. He was a detective who couldn’t detect, a civil servant who didn’t like to serve, and a man manager who truly couldn’t manage. Every word he ever uttered reeked of insincerity, and his habit of backstabbing colleagues was legendary. He had the luck of the devil, too. His predecessor in the DI’s post had been a guy called Karl Welland, by all accounts a good no-nonsense copper who’d been forced to retire after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, paving the way for Capper to slip into his shoes in the absence of any other suitable candidates. Welland had been dead close to a year now, and Capper continued to thrive in a role he genuinely didn’t deserve. Who said life was fair?

There was a message from Knox on my desk, giving me the telephone number of one of the station’s former CID men, Asif Malik, now of SO7, Scotland Yard’s organized crime unit. Malik had left months before I’d joined, but I knew of him. Everyone knew of him. He’d been the guy who’d worked most closely with Dennis Milne, the part-time hitman. From what I heard, Malik had had nothing to do with any of his former boss’s many crimes and was supposedly as straight as a die, but after what had happened he’d found it difficult to remain at the station, and had transferred to SO7 a few months later. Knox hadn’t been keen initially to get SO7 involved in the Matthews murder investigation because he didn’t want control of the case taken away from him and CID. But when I’d spoken to him the previous afternoon, he’d been interested in the Jean Tanner/Neil Vamen lead and had agreed that someone at SO7, one of whose jobs it was to keep tabs on organized crime figures in London, might at least be able to offer some insights. He’d added on the message (Knox liked his messages) that we were to continue to try to locate Fowler and if necessary widen the search for him, particularly in the light of his continued absence.

I got myself a coffee and tried Malik’s mobile. It went straight to message so I left one, explaining who I was and why I was calling, and asking if we could meet up.

After I’d hung up, I reluctantly phoned my ex-wife. The live-in lover, Mr Crusader, answered, sounding like he’d just woken up. ‘It’s the man whose career you fucked,’ I told him evenly. ‘I’d like to speak to Cathy, please.’ He told me angrily to try phoning later next time as Sunday was their day for lying in. ‘Just put her on,’ I said. ‘It’s about Rachel.’

Cathy came on the line sounding equally knackered and I heard Carrier telling her in the background that I’d sworn at him. You had to hand it to the bloke, he was a born whistleblower. There wasn’t a tale he wouldn’t tell. Cathy told me that she thought we’d got over all the childish name-calling and I apologized, thinking that that would be the easiest tactic, and asked whether I was still having Rachel the following weekend.

‘Well, can you fit it in round your work?’ she asked, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. ‘The last time you were meant to have her-’

‘I know, I know. I’ll make sure I’ve got the time off. I haven’t seen her in close to a month. I won’t let her down.’

‘You promise? I’m not having her looking forward to seeing you and then you dashing her hopes.’

‘He can’t be allowed to do that again,’ said Carrier in the background. ‘Just because he’s unreliable.’

Not for the first time, I tried to understand what Cathy saw in the bastard. I’d always thought of her as a pretty decent judge of character, someone who knew a creep when she saw one, so it was doubly disheartening to have my view proved so emphatically wrong.

‘I promise,’ I said wearily. ‘I mean it. I’ll come and get her Friday evening and bring her back Sunday.’

‘Thanks, that’d be nice. Come about six, can you?’

‘Sure, six is fine.’ I started to say something else but she cut me short, saying she wanted to get back to sleep.

‘See you on Friday,’ she said, trying to sound pleasant, and hung up, leaving me staring at the phone and thinking that she never used to lie in that late on a Sunday.

‘Morning, John. Nice to see you in bright and early.’

I looked up to see Capper come walking in, his suit jacket slung jauntily over one arm, a cheesy smile on his face. There were already sweat stains appearing on the underarms of his faded yellow shirt. It was, I thought, strange how unpleasant people often had unpleasant side-effects to their normal bodily functions. Perhaps it was some sort of divine justice, a punishment from God. I liked to think so.

‘Morning, sir.’

‘Everything all right?’ He motioned towards the phone and I wondered if the bastard had been listening in. Probably.

‘Fine. And you?’

‘Very well. Had a quiet evening in and an early night for once. Done me the world of good.’ He dropped the jacket at his desk, and walked over to the kettle. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘No thanks. I’ve just this minute finished one.’

Capper made general small talk as he prepared his coffee and waited for the kettle to boil, and I played the game, sounding interested and occasionally making comments of my own. The thing about Capper was that he was nice to you if he thought you were going to be useful to him and he clearly thought I had potential, that maybe I wasn’t going to be stuck under him for ever, which I suppose was one good thing. I think he also thought we got on well and, although I couldn’t stand him, it suited me to remain cordial. One thing I’d learnt in the Force was that you never make enemies unless you have to. Pragmatism. That was what it was all about.