Troy phoned Anna.
‘I need to see you.’
‘And I you. In fact I should really see you about once a week. But . . . you know . . . Fitz dying . . . you know.’
He had not called her. It had not occurred to him to call her. Anna and Fitz had been partners – the closest of friends – for more than fifteen years. Some plainclothes copper on Jack Wildeve’s squad would have called on her, Troy now thought, to give her the bad news, ask her the bad questions and leave her with the bad things in life. Troy had not tried to imagine her grief.
‘I’m going back to work.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going into the Yard in the morning.’
‘Troy, you’re mad! You have to be crazy to want to do that.’
She came round to his house. Late in the afternoon. Saddened and concerned. Mistress and physician. Pain had left her pale and quiet, scored the lines about her eyes that bit the deeper.
‘I can’t sign you off. You know I can’t.’
‘You don’t have to. Kolankiewicz has already done it.’
‘Then you’re both crazy. You’re acting just like you did when I met the pair of you twenty years ago. You’re the most unholy alliance I can think of. You’ve no respect for your own body and he’s no respect for anything. The world isn’t your oyster, it’s your cadaver!’
Ah, so this was living death?
‘I can’t make it alone.’
Anna looked at him, utterly baffled by his last remark. Her black eyes looking into his black eyes in total disbelief.
‘I need something to get me through the day. Or I’ll be worn out by lunchtime.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘A pill. Something. Anything.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You got me into this. Now get me out of it.’
She said nothing. The muscles in her neck seemed to stiffen with resolution. She knew he was blackmailing her.
‘Clover’s dead. Jack’s been taken off the case. If I don’t investigate, no one will.’
He saw tears start up and roll down her cheek.
‘When?’
‘Same night as Fitz.’
She sat down, put her face in her cupped hands and wept. If the Murder Squad had not told her it was murder, she surely knew now. Troy waited until she looked up. He knelt down and took her hands in his. ‘Helpme,’ he said.
She tore her hands away. Fresh tears spilled out across her reddened face. But these were tears of rage. For a moment he thought she would hit him.
‘Damn you, Troy. You complete fucking shit. You’ve never asked me for anything in your entire life. Don’t say “help me” as if you’re the fucking victim, the weak one. You’ve never been the weak one. You’ve never been the victim. Never. You always get what you want. You always take what you want. Don’t start whining at me now! It doesn’t ring true. What do you want? Benzedrine? Dexedrine? A nice little upper to go with your nightly downer?’
‘Yes,’ he said, his voice a whisper in the wake of her anger, ‘that’s exactly what I want.’
Anna took out her pad and scribbled out a prescription for a hundred Dexedrine tablets.
‘I meant what I said, Troy. It’s one of the laws of thermodynamics: you cannot get something out of nothing. You know, the myth of perpetual motion and all that. Taking amphetamine doesn’t make you superman. All the energy you’ll feel comes out of your system. Sooner or later you’ll crash. It’s nature’s way of telling you “no free lunch”.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
She tore the sheet from the pad and pressed it into his hand. She got up, turned her back on him, took out her compact and dabbed at her face.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Clover sooner? Did you think I couldn’t take one more death after Fitz?’
She glanced at him over her shoulder.
‘Clover was Onions’ granddaughter. I’ve told nobody.’
She turned around, swept a lock of hair from her eyes.
‘You know, I don’t think I can cry three times in five minutes, even for you.’