‘I don’t see why somebody would go to the trouble of trying to steal this,’ Eve said, closing Dan’s file on the Sean Farrell case and handing it back to him.
She had leafed through it and, although it was full of interesting material relating to Jane McNeil’s murder and Sean Farrell’s trial, none of it was new to her, and none of it particularly sensitive. Bar the interviews with Farrell and various members of his family, most of it was in the public domain, if somebody had the will and the nous to look for it.
‘There’s got to be something else they’re after,’ she said firmly, studying Dan. But there was no visible reaction.
He stared at the cover blankly for a moment, then tossed it down on a pile of other papers beside him. They were in his office in Earl’s Court, Eve sitting on the sofa under the window, Dan perched on the edge of one of the desks facing her, chain smoking. Even though she’d opened the window a few inches, the air was thick with smoke and the smell was making her feel nauseous. Zofia was at her desk, behind where Dan was sitting, typing something at considerable speed into her computer. Occasionally she would glance down at a notebook, which lay open beside her on the desk, but most of the time she stared fixedly at the screen as though engrossed in what she was doing. However, it was clear from little sideways movements of her eyes that she was listening closely to their conversation.
Eve decided she didn’t care. Zofia could listen in as much as she liked. It had been a long day and it was the least of her worries. Shocked by what had happened to her, as well as in a cloud of despondency about the imminent ruling by the CCRC on Sean Farrell’s case, Dan had been happy to keep her company and act as her chauffeur for the day. He had waited patiently for her outside the hospital while Margot had examined her, then had driven her back to her flat, where he had again waited outside without complaint for three quarters of an hour while she showered and changed. He was even prepared to drive her back to Marlborough, if that was what she wanted, but she had decided to stay in London. She couldn’t face returning to the cottage. Luckily, he had understood not to try and probe her about what had happened, although at one point she feared he was going to put his arms around her to hug her and she had turned quickly away. She felt too fragile. Even the smallest kindness, the warmth of human touch and sympathy might make her fall apart. However difficult, she had to try and block out, for the moment, what had happened.
A gust of wind rattled the window above her as a burst of icy rain peppered the glass like a handful of lead-shot. She shivered and wrapped her cardigan tightly around herself.
‘OK, Dan. Answer me this. Did you take the Sean Farrell file from Mickey Fraser’s flat?’
A look of genuine surprise crossed his face. ‘No. I told you, the files were thrown on the floor. I had no idea what was there. Is it missing?’
‘Apparently so.’
‘How do you know? Did the police tell you?’
She nodded. ‘Fagan said it’s the only file unaccounted for in Mickey’s flat, when they put everything back together. I’d say whoever took it – let’s assume it’s Mickey’s murderer – came here, or sent somebody here, to get your file too. Which means there’s something they want, that they think might be in your file perhaps, or in your possession. Once again, Dan, have you any idea what it could be?’
This time doubt and stubbornness clouded his face. She leant forwards towards him and met his gaze, lowering her voice, as though it were just the two of them in the room.
‘We have to trust each other, Dan. We’re all we’ve got. If it will help, short of your having actually murdered Mickey, which I’m sure you didn’t, you have my word that I won’t tell anybody, without your permission, whatever it is you’ve done. But I know you’ve done something, or got something you shouldn’t have, so don’t try and bullshit me.’
She stared at him for a moment, wondering what it would take to get through to him. In his eyes, she was a stranger and, worse still, a policewoman. Years of ingrained mistrust were hard to overcome.
‘The stakes are already very high, and getting higher,’ she continued. ‘Think it through. Mickey was murdered, he was tortured, presumably to extract information. His flat is turned upside down and a file is missing. I start asking questions about Jane McNeil’s murder and look what happens to me. Next thing we know, your office is broken into and somebody tries to steal your file. It all points to Mickey having found out something – some hard evidence, possibly – that relates to Jane’s murder and Sean Farrell’s innocence.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ he said morosely.
‘Where it is now is anyone’s guess, but they clearly want it badly and think you have it. They’re likely to come back again.’
There was no reaction on Dan’s face. He took out the pack of Camels from his pocket and, hand trembling slightly, lit up again, blowing a couple of perfect rings into the air.
‘You smoke too much,’ she said, waving away the smoke as it drifted towards her.
‘Yeah, and I drink too much too. But who’s counting? Don’t you have any vices?’
He stared at her challengingly, his eyes watering and a little bloodshot, which made the blue of his irises even more intense.
‘Of course. But we’re getting off the point.’ More pressing than anything was what Dan knew, what he was holding back.
He gave her a weary look. ‘OK. What about the man in Covent Garden? I mean Nasser, the one who died, who wanted me to follow him. Where does he fit in? And what about the other one, the younger man, who called me on Mickey’s phone and said he was Mickey’s friend?’
‘I don’t know. I need to speak to Andy to see if he’ll tell me exactly what happened, if he’s found out who they are and what their connection to Mickey is.’
‘You think they killed Mickey?’
‘If they did, or worked for whoever did it, I don’t see the point of getting in touch with you and luring you to Covent Garden.’
He nodded. ‘That was what I thought.’
‘Either they had some scam of their own going on the side, or it’s just possible they had nothing to do with the murder. Which begs the question, why, apart from wanting money, get in touch with you? You say he knew Mickey was dead?’
‘Yes. The younger one, Hassan, did, at least. He sounded genuinely upset.’
‘Maybe he was Mickey’s friend. But how come he has Mickey’s phone, unless he stole it? You really have no idea who this man is?’
He looked affronted. ‘No, I do not,’ he said emphatically and, for once, she believed him. ‘How the hell do we go about finding him?’ he asked after a moment.
‘We don’t. We need to stick to what we’re doing for Sean and forget about the rest. Leave it up to the police.’ Fagan would be throwing all his resources at finding the man. ‘Come on, Dan. There must be something. There has to be. It’s me, Eve, you’re talking to. Not the police.’
‘You are the police,’ Zofia muttered from behind her computer.
Eve looked over at her. ‘No, Zofia. I’m not here as a policewoman.’
Zofia shook her head knowingly, still staring at the screen. ‘Once police, always police.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Eve said.
Zofia swivelled around in her chair to face Eve, her face red with emotion. ‘I don’t get why you here. Who sent you? Why you interested in Sean Farrell, may I ask?’ She gesticulated with her hand for emphasis.
‘No Zofia, you may not ask,’ Dan said sharply, twisting around to look at her. ‘I told you before why Eve’s here.’
‘I don’t believe her,’ Zofia said, her chin jutting out like a stubborn child’s.
‘Well I do,’ Dan said. ‘And that’s all that matters. So, just shut the fuck up for once.’
Zofia shook her head angrily. ‘OK. But you are fool, Dan. You see. She get us all in trouble.’ Her ample chest heaving, she faced her computer again, muttering something to herself in Polish, the apparently universal words ‘idiot’ and ‘cretin’ discernible in the mix.
Eve stood up and stretched her arms and shoulders. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I’m off home. You’re on your own now, Dan.’
‘You’re chucking in the towel?’
‘No. I’ll carry on doing whatever I need to do. I’m just finished working with you, unless you come clean. It’s your choice.’
Dan studied her for a moment. She saw a mixture of emotions cross his face. Perhaps he thought she didn’t mean it, or perhaps he didn’t care any longer. Zofia was staring at him, eyes stretched wide, willing him to keep quiet.
Eve picked up her bag and coat and turned to go. She was almost out of the door when Dan called out.
‘Wait!’
She turned around. He stubbed out the remains of his cigarette and slowly and stiffly stood up.
‘Don’t trust her, Dan,’ Zofia shouted, springing to her feet and taking a step towards him as though she physically intended to restrain him.
Dan shook his head. ‘She’s right, Zofia. We’ve got to trust her. We’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘You being bloody stupid, Dan,’ Zofia shouted.
‘Maybe. It won’t be the first time. But there’s nowhere left to go. It’s just one more week.’ With a loud, throaty sigh he turned his back on Zofia and walked over to where Eve was standing. ‘Let’s go and get a drink.’
He grabbed his coat from the hook by the door, waited for Eve to put on hers, then followed her down the stairs and into the street. They walked in silence for a couple of blocks until they came to a pub just after the Tube station. ‘This will do,’ Dan said abruptly, holding open the door for her.
Inside, the lighting was dim. The cavernous, high-ceilinged room was almost empty, apart from a middle-aged man sitting at the bar reading a copy of the Evening Standard and a pencil-thin young girl, who looked no more than sixteen, wearing an apron, who was busy lighting the myriad of candles scattered around the room.
‘What will you drink?’ Dan asked.
‘Let me get these.’
He held up his hand. ‘I can afford to buy you a drink,’ he said sharply. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘Diet Coke then, with ice and lemon,’ she replied, wondering if he was usually so touchy about everything.
While he went up to get their drinks, she chose a table in a far corner of the room and sat down on a comfortable-looking velvet sofa. Van Morrison was blaring cheerily through the speakers, something about precious time slipping away, which was ironic, Eve thought. She hoped Dan wasn’t listening. She watched as he had a brief interchange with the young girl, who was now behind the bar, making her laugh flirtatiously at something, as he placed his order. His face lit up in response, giving her a wide, confident smile. Momentarily he looked like a very different Dan to the version she was used to dealing with.
‘Come and sit down here,’ she said quietly, pointing to the seat beside her when he returned with their drinks. She shifted her bag and coat to a nearby chair and moved over to make room. ‘I don’t want anyone to hear what we’re talking about.’
He sank down next to her, leaned back heavily against the cushions and put his feet up on the seat of a chair opposite. He took a large mouthful of his drink then, with a heavy sigh, turned to face her.
‘I don’t know why you still want to carry on, after what’s happened to you.’
‘Because I have to,’ she said. ‘I’ll survive.’ As she said it, she knew she would. It struck her that she didn’t feel altered as a person, less of a woman, less able to confront the world, less anything, whatever somebody had done to her. She would not be defined or broken by what had happened, however fragile she felt inside. The will to keep going and move forward was still reassuringly there. ‘There are worse things.’ Seeing the shocked look on his face, she added: ‘Think about what happened to Mickey.’
‘I think of nothing else.’ He took another swig then put the glass down on the coffee table. ‘We’ve had difficult and disappointing cases in the past. But nothing ever like this. Four of us set up 4Justice, hence the “four”. Myself, Kristen, and two other journalists. We raised money for the charity and co-opted a load of experts as advisors, who were prepared to give their time for free. We thought we had it made, that we’d set the world to rights. Maybe we were naïve, seeing ourselves as crusaders for justice and that sort of crap, thinking we could really change things. We’ve helped free a number of people who shouldn’t have ever been put inside, so it hasn’t all been wasted. We have made a difference …’
‘Of course you have.’
‘Thank God we don’t have the death penalty in this country. Sure, we got it wrong sometimes. But the bottom line is we were just trying to do an honest, decent job for people who’ve been badly let down by the system. End of.’ He met her gaze. ‘I never signed up for anything like this. Finding Mickey … All the heavy stuff with the police … What happened in Covent Garden … Even though it was an accident, the man died almost in front of me. I can’t stop thinking about it, particularly Mickey. The flat. The darkness. How I found him. The disgusting smell of it all.’
‘It’s normal to feel that way after what you’ve been through.’
‘Is it?’ He looked at her as though she was from an alien world.
She said nothing. She had no wish to explain why she was so familiar with the trauma he was describing. Maybe over time the memories would fade a little and lose their immediacy, but whoever said that time was a healer had lied. There was no peace. The images would always be there, like splinters dug deep into the skin, festering away. Worse still were the nightmares. She thought of her drugged visions the night before and with a shudder, tried to force them again from her mind. The horror, the terror of those memories, which sleep had brought alive again with a new and terrible freshness, would never leave her. Even though she had told herself over and over again that she looked completely different now, unrecognizable from her twelve-year-old self, and that there was no way anybody would be able to find her, the illogical fear was still there. She had no advice to offer him.
‘You feel responsible for Mickey’s death?’ she asked after a moment.
He turned to face her, eyes burning. ‘Of course I do.’
‘You mustn’t think like that, Dan. You can’t blame yourself. Mickey was a pro. He knew the score.’
‘And I’m some sort of stupid, dabbling amateur, well out of my depth.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘But it’s how I see myself.’ He spread his hands. ‘What good am I doing? How is any of this helping Sean Farrell? It’s hopeless.’ His hands flopped to his sides and he tilted his head and looked up at the ceiling for a moment as though expecting some sort of divine intervention. ‘I should probably just call it quits. The charity’s on its last legs anyway, unless I can find a new source of funding.’
‘Why do you keep going? Why does it matter so much to you?’
He sighed and looked down at his hands. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m mad. But it’s just something I have to do. Something I believe in.’
‘There must be more to it than that, surely?’
He looked up and met her gaze. ‘My brother’s in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. I don’t want to go into the details and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I’ve had to accept that that’s just the way it is. But at least I can help other people. At least I feel I’m doing something.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’ She now understood why his career had taken such a dramatic turn and why, in the face of everything, he still cared so much when most people would have given up.
‘It’s not something I talk about. It’s really nobody’s business. But I’m also not the only one who has had first-hand experience of the failings of the justice system. Zofia has an uncle and a cousin in jail in Poland, both imprisoned on trumped-up charges of political corruption. She comes from a little town near the Ukranian border. Her father used to be mayor there, until the scandal hit and, although he escaped jail, he was forced to resign and was financially ruined, even though she says he did nothing wrong. Maybe things are a little different in Poland, but when you’ve been through what we both have, justice is a very tainted word.’
She saw tears in his eyes, perhaps of bitterness or frustration or hopelessness, and she felt for him. ‘You mustn’t give up. Why don’t you move to a cheaper office, or something? The rent and rates around here must add up to quite a bit.’
He shook his head. ‘We get the office and flat upstairs for free for the time being, thanks to one of our benefactors.’
‘There must be some other way to cut costs and keep going?’
‘We haven’t got the human resources. Kristen’s sensibly fucked off elsewhere to do more important things, which just leaves me and Zofia, when she isn’t working on her thesis, and a couple of very part-time helpers. We haven’t paid ourselves in months and I’m broke. I should go and get a proper job.’
Eve sighed. ‘Fine. If that’s what you want to do, nobody would blame you. But I have no choice. I have to continue. I need to find out if Sean Farrell murdered Jane McNeil, whatever it takes. There’s a lot riding on this for me. That’s why I have to know what you know.’
He turned to look at her. Suspicion again filled his eyes. He downed his glass and slammed it on the table in front of him. ‘You know, Eve, that’s something I never understood. What exactly is “riding on this” for you?’
‘I told you …’
He waved her away with his hand. ‘Yes, I know you gave me some story about doing a favour for someone, this bloke who gave us some money. I knew at the time it was a crock of shit, but I let it pass. It didn’t really matter then. But it does now. Honesty is a two-way street.’ He leaned forwards towards her, his face only inches away from hers, and looked her straight in the eye. His breath was hot and thick with alcohol. ‘If you want me to trust you, tell you everything I know, you need to trust me first. You need to come clean with me.’
She gazed at him for a moment, weighing it all in her mind, then she nodded. What was the harm in telling him, she decided. She should trust him.
‘What are you drinking?’ she asked.
‘Stolichnaya.’
She went up to the bar and bought them both another drink, then she sat down again, facing Dan this time. She told him about Jason’s murder, about her contact with Duran and about what a dangerous man he was. She described in some detail his brutal killing of Stanco Rupec and how she had helped to put him in jail. She then explained how Duran had told her that she had been deliberately tricked into going to the house in North London, looking for an informant who wasn’t there, and how she and Jason had disrupted an ongoing, high-level, covert police investigation. She said how Duran had promised to give her the proof she needed, if only she would look into Sean Farrell’s conviction. Dan listened in silence, his eyes fixed on a distant corner of the room as though he were being told an extraordinary story that he wasn’t quite sure was true. Perhaps it did sound farfetched to someone who wasn’t part of her world.
When she finished, he turned to her and said, ‘Why does this man, Duran, care? What’s Farrell to someone like him?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t work it out.’
‘So you’ve chosen to ignore it? To turn a blind eye?’
She nodded. ‘He won’t tell me the real reason, other than that he’s dying and has developed an altruistic streak. I don’t buy it, but in the end, I decided where’s the harm? I know I was set up. If I can help Sean too …’
‘You mean the end justifies the means?’
She met his gaze. ‘In this case, yes.’
‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe the end is all that matters.’ He reached into the depths of his jeans pocket and fished out a little red memory stick. ‘This is what I found in Mickey’s flat.’