Sam Donovan opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. The fading light cast faint ripples of shadow across it. She had slept fitfully the previous night and most of that day, drifting in and out of sleep, the nightmares that flowed no worse than the nightmare of being awake. The drugs had helped temporarily, dulling the pain. But they couldn’t make it go away entirely and she hated the unfocussed feeling they gave her, her mind like glue. Beneath it all, the pain was still there, every tiny thought and memory a trigger, but somehow, she had to get through it, put the horror of what had happened to one side so that she could help find Claire’s killer. Nothing else mattered.
She put a couple of pillows behind her head and sat up in bed. She had opened the shutters earlier in the vain hope that the daylight might keep her awake; now she stared out at the dark grey sky, watched little bursts of rain spattering against the window like handfuls of fine gravel. Soon it would be dark. She reached across and turned on the bedside light. It was a nice room, with a high ceiling and a large window overlooking the back garden. It was painted white like the rest of the flat, with bare, scrubbed wooden boards and minimal furniture. As a bedroom, it was clean and functional and tidy, the way Tartaglia liked his things. But she found it impersonal. She missed her own room with its mixture of colours and all her bits and pieces, although she was glad to be away from her house for the moment.
She wondered if Tartaglia minded her staying with him and if he had thought it odd her asking. After everything that had happened between them or – more importantly – not happened, it did seem a bit strange, almost surreal, to be lying here now in his bed. Their relationship had never been straightforward: there was a closeness on both sides that went beyond friendship, or at least that was what she had always thought. But things that should have been said, had been left unsaid for too long and eventually it had felt as though an insurmountable gulf had opened up between them. It was just not meant to be, and she had decided that she needed to move on. Since she had last seen him a few months before, she had left the Met and moved part-time to Bristol. Her world had changed and she thought she had too. The change of routine and physical distance had been useful to mark the boundary between the old and the new; it had also been good to forget what Tartaglia looked like for a while. But deep down, whatever their differences, whatever awkwardness had crept between them, coupled with the few months of ensuing silence, she still trusted him more than anyone else. When put on the spot by Steele the previous night, told to move out of her home, his flat was the only place she had wanted to go to.
She glanced at the small digital clock on the bedside table. It was just after three in the afternoon. The day was slipping away and she must force herself to get up. The first forty-eight hours in a murder investigation were crucial and she was wasting precious time. There were things she could be doing, people she should see. She had decided to go and talk to Steele. She had nothing to lose and she needed to find out as much as she could about what had happened. Perhaps there was a role for her to play in the investigation . . . She stretched her arms up above her head, then swung her legs out of bed. As she got to her feet, she felt suddenly giddy and sank back down on the edge of the bed. She noticed that she was still dressed in the T-shirt and jeans from the night before. The combination of wine and pills had knocked her out quickly and she had no recollection of going to bed at all; her last memory was of sitting on the sofa with Tartaglia’s arm around her, her head against his chest. The previous few months of distance between them had melted away and it had felt almost like old times. He must have carried her into the bedroom and taken off her boots, which she now spotted neatly placed in a corner, with her cardigan hung over the back of a chair. He had been caring in every detail and she was pleased again that she had insisted on coming to him. Yawning, she stood up again, took a few moments to steady herself, then went into the kitchen. She put on the kettle and rummaged around in the cupboards until she found an unopened pack of English Breakfast tea. Tartaglia was a habitual coffee drinker, and she wondered how it had got there. Maybe it was left over from someone else who had come to stay, although she couldn’t imagine who. She certainly hadn’t seen any signs of female occupation in the flat so far. Not that she cared about that any longer.
Once the tea had brewed, she added a little milk and went into the sitting room to find Claire’s satchel. It had been sitting in the hall at their house, underneath the small table, and she had spotted the mini iPad she had given Claire for Christmas slotted between a newspaper and a couple of women’s magazines. In all the commotion of their house being searched and of her leaving to go to Tartaglia’s, she had managed to pick it up and bring it with her without it being noticed. They had Claire’s phone and personal laptop to work on, after all, and at least she had Claire’s iPad. The code was probably her sister’s birthday, which she used for almost everything. The iPad was synched with Claire’s laptop and phone and would have a copy of her calendar and contacts.
But before seeing Steele, there was somebody else she needed to talk to; somebody who knew a lot more than she did about the day-to-day minutiae of Claire’s life.
On the drive back to their offices in Barnes, Minderedes gave Tartaglia the gist of his interview with Richard English’s first wife. Although she had added nothing new to their knowledge of her former husband, she had at least confirmed the picture of him painted by Lisa English, as well as corroborating the fact that English was definitely intending to divorce Lisa and that they were not on speaking terms. The clocks had gone back just over a week before and it was already dark as they crossed the Thames at Hammersmith Bridge. Nestled in a sharp loop in the river, Barnes was an absurdly rural pocket of London, more village than city, populated by professionals and media types, and with a remarkably low crime rate compared to most other London boroughs. Their offices were located half way along Station Road, in between the Green and the Common. The long, low brick building belonging to the Met dated from the Seventies and was considered a bit of an eyesore amongst the traditional, late Victorian housing that surrounded it. The building was closed off to the public from the road, with the main entrance through a car park at the rear, protected from the street by solid and anonymous high wooden gates. Few of the locals even knew the police worked there. There had been talk of the building being sold for redevelopment and the squads being relocated to more modern premises, but that had been going on for as long as Tartaglia could remember. In the meantime, they had to put up with the cramped and basic working conditions, the temperamental heating system that left a pervasive smell of damp in the winter, and the lack of decent air conditioning in the summer to cool the dusty, dirty, oven-like conditions. He counted himself lucky to spend more time out of the office than in it.
Once inside the gates, he left Minderedes to worry about where to put his car – somebody having taken what he considered to be his parking space – and walked across the yard to the main entrance door. The air was damp and it was threatening to rain again, a few warning drops falling on his face as he headed for the entrance. He heard a series of explosions coming from somewhere close to the road and caught the sulphurous whiff of gunpowder, along with wood smoke, carried by the wind. It was Guy Fawkes Night, he suddenly remembered. Although only late afternoon, fireworks parties were already starting and he wondered for a moment what his young nephew and niece had planned.
He went inside and up the main stairs to the first floor where the two murder squads, part of Homicide West Command, were based. The small, open-plan office at the front of the building was half full and he found DC Justin Chang sitting at his desk, leafing through some papers. Chang, in his early thirties, was originally from Hong Kong but had gone to school and university in the UK and had travelled the world before joining the Met.
Chang looked up. ‘This is the man,’ he said, handing Tartaglia some printouts.
Tartaglia leafed through them quickly. The mug shots showed the acne-scarred face and shaved head of forty-two-year-old ex-con Jake Patrick Finnigan; the record outlined a career in burglary and theft. It was a familiar story of a man who had spent more time in jail than out of it since his late teenage years, and there was nothing remarkable about it apart from the contrast with Richard English. Both came from humble backgrounds, but that was where any similarity stopped. What could possibly be the connection between them – if, indeed, there was one?
‘He was paroled just over six months ago and hasn’t been seen or heard of since,’ Chang continued.
‘Who are the next of kin?’
‘According to the file, there’s a wife in White City. The local station is sending someone round to break the news, as we speak. Her address is on the back page.’
‘Thanks. I’ll go and see her now. Any news on the other body parts?’
‘Dave is still chasing.’ Chang jerked his head in the direction of Dave Wightman, phone cradled under his ear.
‘I’ll be back for the meeting later on. Any news on the Dillon case?’
‘Haven’t heard anything, they’re all out.’ Chang hesitated before adding, ‘How’s Sam?’
Tartaglia stared at Chang, knowing that it was a loaded question, but Chang’s broad face gave nothing away. ‘She’s not good, as you can imagine. You should go and see her.’
Chang nodded vaguely. ‘I’ll leave it a few days, let her have some space. Send her my love.’ He swung back to his computer.
It was well known that Chang and Sam Donovan had had some sort of relationship before she left the Met, and it had possibly continued for a while after, although he had also heard via the grapevine that she had broken it off and that Chang had been upset about it. He had no idea why Donovan hadn’t stuck with Chang. He was tall, nice-looking and bright, and had the settled air of someone comfortable in his own skin with nothing to prove. From a male perspective, he came across as a decent sort and interesting to talk to, although Tartaglia had long since given up thinking he could anticipate what a woman, and particularly Sam Donovan, would find attractive in another man. As far as he could tell, Chang was a much better bet for a long-term relationship than most, himself included, but Donovan had never seen sense on that score. He remembered a time when she had been edging towards some sort of involvement with another policeman, Simon Turner, a dysfunctional, difficult man and a serial adulterer. He had been totally unable to fathom what had attracted Donovan to Turner. At least Turner was well out of the picture, but it was a shame that things hadn’t worked out with Chang. He wondered how Chang felt about it, and if Chang minded Donovan staying in his flat. No doubt Chang wasn’t happy with the idea; he himself wouldn’t have been, in Chang’s place.
‘Call her,’ he said firmly to Chang, before turning to go. ‘She needs her friends around her.’ He knew it was a disingenuous remark, but what else could he say? The more people who went to visit Sam the better, and he was sure Chang was man enough to cope.