Mike Carey - Vicious Circle

‘Listen to me,’ I said. ‘I was approached by a couple who claimed to be Abbie Torrington’s parents. They wanted me to—’

‘When was this?’ Basquiat interrupted.

‘Monday. Three days ago. They wanted me to find Abbie. They told me she was already dead, but they said Peace had somehow taken her ghost – her spirit – away from them, and they wanted her back. There are other witnesses to this. A man named Grambas: he runs a kebab house on Craven Park Road. He saw these two even before I did. He gave me their phone number.’

‘By Monday the Torringtons were dead. They’d been murdered two days before, on the same evening that Abbie died.’

‘I know that. I think these two were the killers.’

‘That’s funny. I had you and Peace down for that, as well.’

‘For the love of Christ, Basquiat!’ I was starting to lose it now. ‘Are you going to put me down for Keith Blakelock and Suzie Lamplugh while you’re at it? I didn’t have any reason to kill the Torringtons, and you can’t even place me there!’

‘We’re working on that,’ Basquiat said equably. ‘We can place Peace, by the way. We’ve got his prints now. On the bodies themselves, and also on a lot of the stuff that was torn up or thrown around.’

‘He was looking for Abbie,’ I said through my clenched teeth. I had to make Basquiat believe me, and I didn’t know how. ‘But he found out that she was already gone. She’d been taken, I mean – to that meeting house, where she was going to be sacrificed. Peace got the address of the meeting house from Melanie Torrington and he went tearing off there. Either he already had the assault rifle with him or he picked it up on the way.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Fields threw in from over my shoulder, just to show that he was still listening.

‘Why do you think?’ I snapped back, without sparing him a glance. ‘Because he knew he was going to be outnumbered about thirty to fucking one, is why. And he left Melanie Torrington alive,’ I added, groping for nuggets of fact that might make Basquiat at least consider another possible scenario. ‘She was killed later, right? Later than Steve, I mean. She was murdered by a man named Fanke. Anton Fanke. He killed her because she caved in and told Peace where to find Abbie. He’s the one who’s really behind all this.’

Basquiat blew out her cheek. ‘And it’s this Fanke who killed Abbie?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Peace?’

‘Yes!’

‘And Suzie Lamplugh?’

I opened my mouth to speak but gave it up. I suddenly saw the hopelessness of the situation. It wasn’t even just regulation police-issue blinkers: Basquiat was on a moral crusade. She wanted someone to pay for the murder of Abbie Torrington, and she’d already decided that that somebody was going to be me.

But maybe that was where I needed to insert the lever. If I could make her consider the possibility, just for an instant, that someone else might have killed Abbie, then maybe I could put that same ruthless zeal to work on something positive.

‘The second gun,’ I said, pointing a finger at Basquiat. She didn’t like the finger and she nodded to Fields, who took my hand and placed it firmly – a little too firmly, maybe – down on the table. ‘The gun that killed Melanie Torrington,’ I repeated, leaning past Fields’s unattractive bulk to maintain eye contact with the sergeant.

‘What about it?’

‘You must have the forensics lot on it by now. So check it. Check it against the bullets that were sprayed around at the Oriflamme.’

‘What will that prove?’ Basquiat asked, coolly.

‘It won’t prove a damn thing. But Peace’s gun will be a match for the weapon that killed Steve Torrington. I’m betting that the second gun was present at the Oriflamme, and that you’ll find bullets in the wall behind Peace. Or maybe in the floor. I just want you to – think about it. That’s all. Think about my version of what happened. Okay, you’re going to charge me whatever I say. But check the ballistics, and if they pan out ask yourself this: was I blazing away at Peace with two guns, like some fucking cowboy? Or was someone else involved, both at the Torrington house and when Peace was killed?

‘Then if you’re in the mood, look up Anton Fanke. Find out if he’s in the country on a US passport. He’s got Abbie Torrington’s ghost, and if you don’t do your job, he’s going to kill her again – only more so. He’s going to kill her soul. That’s what’s at stake, detective sergeant. So just – think about it.’

Basquiat stared at me in silence for a moment or two. I waited. There was nothing else I could do.

‘Detective Constable Fields?’ she said at last.

‘Yes, sergeant?’

‘I’m formally charging this man – Felix Castor – with the murder of Dennis Peace. Please read him his rights.’

‘Yes, sergeant.’

Well, it had been a long shot. I wasn’t really surprised: just filled with a sick sense of absolute failure and helplessness. Basquiat stood up and busied herself with collecting her things and putting the pen back in her handbag.

‘What about my phone call?’ I demanded, talking to her back view.

She glanced around, briefly. ‘This is a hospital, Castor. They just have one of those payphones on wheels that they trundle around the wards. I’ll tell one of the duty constables to watch out for it when it comes this way. You’ll get your statutory phone call.’

‘Think about it,’ I said again.

That was a bridge too far. Basquiat dropped the file, which she’d only just picked up, and spun round to grab a double fistful of the thin fabric of my hospital gown. Her face came up to within half an inch of mine – which might have been pleasant in some circumstances but was downright threatening right then.

‘You don’t get to tell me what to do, you son of a bitch,’ she spat out. ‘In a perfect world, you’d already be dead. Or there’d be prisons in England like the ones in the States, where you’d get fucked up the arse a couple of dozen times on your first day. There isn’t anything that can happen to you that you haven’t deserved. Anything. So do not – do not frigging push me any further than you’ve pushed me already. Or I’ll get Fields to hold your head down on the ground while I kick your teeth down your throat.’

Detective Sergeant Basquiat walked out before I could think of a snappy comeback. As a matter of fact, I’m still working on it.

Back on the secure ward, I counted up my options and got as far as zero.

I was three floors up, and the windows were all barred. The lock on the door was a trifle as light as air, if I could improvise a lockpick, but the two boys in blue standing right outside were a different proposition. And even if I could figure a way to get past them, it wasn’t going to help me much once the APB went out. I’d be running for my life in a white hospital gown: no shoes, no underwear, no money, and nobody I could turn to for help even if I could get to them on foot.

There had to be another way. And I had to find it fast.

Sometime in the afternoon I hammered on the door and demanded my phone call again. The cop who I was demanding it from looked so bored and vacant it was a mystery what was keeping him awake. He said he’d see what he could do. Half an hour later I repeated the performance, with similar results.

Half an hour after that, Basquiat came back. Without Fields. One of the uniforms unlocked the door and held it open for her and she stepped in, giving him a curt nod. He closed it and locked it again behind her.

I was sitting in the one chair in the room, reading a two-year-old copy of What Car? I closed it and threw it on the bed. ‘Ford are bringing back the Escort,’ I commented. ‘That’s good news for families with exactly two-point-four kids.’