Garibaldi looked at the board behind DCI Deighton. The crime scene photo of Giles Gallen, face down in the cemetery, blood pooled beneath his body, sat in the middle. Beside it was a photo from Gallen’s Instagram profile. Underneath was a map of the area, rings round the Old Cemetery, the Gallens’ house in Ranelagh Avenue and the Glebe Road house of Felicia and Roddy Ireland, the owners of Forum Tutors.
‘Gallen’s parents,’ said DCI Deighton, pointing at the Ranelagh Avenue ring, ‘last saw their son yesterday evening before he went out to meet friends before going to the Forum Tutors drinks party. We don’t know where Gallen met his friends or, as yet, who those friends were, but we do know that Gallen was at that party. We have no idea of his precise time of departure and we don’t know where he went after the party. All we know is that his body was found here.’ She pointed at the ring round Barnes Old Cemetery. ‘It was found this morning by a jogger, a Simon Mulholland, who was taken short towards the end of his run and went into this area …’ She pointed at the ring round the Old Cemetery. ‘… to relieve himself. As he was doing his business …’ 40
Garibaldi smirked. There were things about Deighton he didn’t quite get. Capable, yes. Tough, yes. She must have been to have risen as she had. But she was still an enigma, her private life a mystery, and her prim, schoolmistressy turns of phrase at odds with the brutal realities of her job. Doing his business? She might as well have said big jobbies. Or even, echoing his own crime scene gag, number twos.
‘As he was doing it, he saw the body. This made him throw up. That explains the vomit and faeces found at the scene.’ She pointed at the photos at one side of the board. ‘We’ve taken a DNA swab from Mulholland and wait to have the match confirmed. Doc Stevenson can’t be precise about the time of death, so all we can say with certainty is that it happened between the time he left the party on Saturday night and the time the body was discovered on Sunday morning. So it all comes down to working out what happened to Gallen after he left the Ireland’s house. We’re expecting the post-mortem later today, and we do, of course, assume nothing, but the picture seems to tell a pretty clear story. A fatal stabbing. The search for a weapon continues.’
DCI Deighton scanned the room. Garibaldi looked at Gardner, waiting for her arm to go up. There it was. Always the first to ask a question.
‘That cemetery’s a pretty odd place. Do we have any idea why he might have gone there?’
Gardner’s questions tended to be either a statement of the obvious or unhelpful, often both at the same time. This one was an improvement.
‘You’re right,’ said Deighton. ‘The cemetery’s an odd place. And in years gone by it was a place for drugs and sex. It pulled in some odd birds.’
Odd birds. There she went again. If she’d come out with 41ne’er-do-wells or scallywags it wouldn’t have surprised him. Deighton was teacher-like, but St Trinian’s rather than Grange Hill. Or maybe, fuelled by some strange fantasy of his own, Garibaldi was imagining the St Trinian’s thing.
‘Tidied up now by the Friends of Barnes Common, but still pretty wild.’
‘Any CCTV?’ asked DC McLean from the back.
‘Nothing near. There could be some security cameras at Rocks Lane Sports Centre and there may be some residential cameras on the houses between Glebe Road and the Cemetery. At the moment, the problem is we know nothing about Gallen, and we need to. In particular we need to know about his movements on Saturday night. No phone on the body but we’ve asked for records of his calls and cell site analysis. We need to look at his computer, at his bank transactions. He had friends. He worked as a tutor. There’s plenty to find out about him if we’re going to get some kind of narrative.’
Narrative. A Deighton favourite. Just like ABC. Assume nothing. Believe nobody. Check everything. Incredible how far you could rise from one read of the Ladybird Book of Detection.
‘We need everything we can get on Giles Gallen. Find out how the …’
… victim lived and you’ll find out how the victim died. Garibaldi finished the line in his head.
‘Right,’ said DCI Deighton. ‘Let’s get on it.’
Let’s get on it. Another Deighton gem.
DS Gardner drove out of the station car park up onto the Shepherds Bush Road and turned right towards Hammersmith Broadway. ‘I’m beginning to forget what it was like to drive over the bridge.’ 42
‘It’s OK for you,’ said Garibaldi, ‘you live north of the river.’
‘OK for the station but not much use when you need to get to Barnes.’
Garibaldi laughed. Barnes had always felt cut off – a historical result of the loop in the river that enclosed it – but its sense of isolation had been accentuated by the closure of Hammersmith Bridge to traffic. Being a non-driving cyclist, it made little difference to him as you could still get across the bridge by bike or on foot, but for the majority of Barnes residents it was a major inconvenience. Drivers had to cross the river via Chiswick or Putney, while those using public transport had to get off on one side and walk across to the other.
Nothing – war, famine, terrorism, injustice – had angered the good people of Barnes as much as the bridge’s closure. Nothing had come as close in uniting them in communal protest or in bringing them to the brink of insurrection.
‘You know what?’ said Garibaldi. ‘You’re right.’
Gardner gave her head a small turn, as if she was surprised to hear such words come out of her boss’s mouth.
‘About the bridge?’
‘About Barnes Old Cemetery.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. It’s a strange place, and we need to know what Giles Gallen was doing there. We also need to know what he was doing before and after that drinks party. All we’ve got is that he was tutoring in the afternoon.’
‘Funny thing, tutoring, isn’t it?’ said Gardner.
‘Can’t say I’ve given it much thought. All I know is it’s big business.’
‘So you never got Alfie a tutor?’ 43
Garibaldi laughed. The idea had never crossed his mind, though he knew it had crossed Kay’s.
‘I mean,’ said Gardner, ‘I can understand it if your kid’s fallen behind badly or needs some special help or you think they need a leg-up because they’re not getting what they need at school, but from what I gather, everyone does it. I’ve got a friend who gets a tutor in for her kids and she said something like a quarter of school kids in the country get private tuition of some sort, and when it comes to London, it’s more than that – it’s nearly half! That’s crazy. And a lot of these kids are already at private schools. People fork out millions in fees and then fork out more for a private tutor. I don’t get it.’
‘Money and ambition,’ said Garibaldi. ‘It’s a heady cocktail. The world’s full of parents wanting the best for their kid and being prepared to pay for it. And when I say wanting the best for your kid, read wanting your kid to do better than everyone else’s.’
He thought of Alfie moving schools for A Levels. Had that been the best thing for him? Was that why he had ended up at Oxford? And was that why he had changed so much in his first year there?
‘What’s more,’ said Gardner, ‘my friend says loads of these tutors aren’t even properly qualified. Young. Just out of university. They could be completely useless. She says the whole thing’s a jungle and you have to be careful. A load of firms are out to rip you off.’
Garibaldi nodded his agreement. ‘Everyone’s out to rip you off.’
They drove in silence towards Chiswick.
As they crossed the bridge Garibaldi asked, ‘So how’s it going with Tim?’
Something about sitting beside DS Milly ‘Uber’ Gardner, 44their eyes on the road ahead rather than on each other, made it easier to ask such questions.
‘Three months now,’ said Gardner.
‘So you’re counting, then?’
‘Yeah. Is that good or bad?’
‘Depends what the three months have been like.’
‘They’ve been good.’
‘Count away, then.’
Garibaldi glanced sideways and was pleased to catch the end of a smile. Ever since he’d accepted that nothing would, or should, happen between them, he’d developed an almost paternal protectiveness towards his sergeant.
‘Yeah, it’s all going well. Except that I sometimes worry …’
She broke off, as if thinking better of what she’d been about to say.
‘Worry about what?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Really?
‘OK,’ sighed Gardner. ‘This is going to sound silly, but sometimes I worry that I might not be good enough for him.’
‘Good enough for him? Don’t be ridiculous! Surely the question is whether he’s good enough for you?’
‘The thing is he’s … he’s a bit like you.’
‘A bit like me?’
‘Yeah. Clever.’
Garibaldi knew his reputation. A bit of a smart-arse, fond of showing off his learning, not averse to making the occasional literary reference, a novel always tucked away in the inside pocket of his jacket (currently a Muriel Spark). And a recently developed habit of pointing out grammatical errors. He tried to rein himself in but sometimes he couldn’t 45stop himself. And all, according to his ex-wife, because he never went to university and needed to overcompensate.
‘You shouldn’t think like that.’
‘I try not to,’ said Gardner, ‘but when we’re talking about things I sometimes think what I say’s a bit, you know, obvious.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll be watching a film or some TV programme or talking about something and he’ll come up with these comments and I’m like …’
Was it Garibaldi’s fault? Had he in some way contributed to her feelings of inadequacy? He’d resolved many times to encourage Milly rather than criticise her, but he knew he’d often fallen short.
‘I mean,’ said Gardner, ‘I know lawyers are clever, and I know I’ve read less books than him …’
The word ‘fewer’ knocked on the doors of Garibaldi’s lips. He had the good sense to keep them shut.
‘… but we get on really well, even if we’re from different backgrounds.’
‘It’s a myth,’ said Garibaldi.
‘What is?’
‘That you need to have similar interests and be from similar backgrounds to work as a couple. Often it’s better to be different.’
He knew his own experience proved otherwise. He never had much in common with Kay and look how that turned out. And in Rachel he’d found a woman who loved Townes Van Zandt.
‘Maybe I should get myself a tutor.’
Garibaldi laughed. ‘No, Milly, whatever you do, do not get yourself a tutor. You don’t need to do an Eliza Doolittle!’
Gardner looked baffled and Garibaldi kicked himself. 46
‘Eliza Doolittle as in Pyg … as in My Fair Lady. You know, the musical.’
‘I don’t think I’ve seen it.’
‘You haven’t seen My Fair Lady?’ He kicked himself again.
‘I’m sure Tim has though.’
‘What you’ve got to remember, Milly, is people are never as clever as they think they are or as you fear they might be.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, really.’
‘Does the same go for you?’
‘The same goes for everyone. The thing to do,’ said Garibaldi, ‘is trust your instincts and do what you want. Don’t be swayed by what you think your opinion should be about things. Just say what you think.’
‘Yeah, but whenever I do that …’
‘Milly, believe me, if there’s one thing you don’t need it’s a tutor.’
‘You’re right. I mean, I could always ask you for a few lessons, couldn’t I?’
‘That’s a joke, right?’
There were limits to how much he wanted to encourage her advancement.
‘The thing is,’ said Gardner, ‘it’s all very well to say you should say what you think, but what if what you think’s a load of bollocks?’
‘You’ve been in team briefings, haven’t you? Just think how much of what’s said in them is a load of bollocks. The thing is if everyone waited until they knew what they were about to say was going to be one hundred percent on the money, no-one would say anything.’
‘But in meetings we’re coming up with ideas, testing them out, asking questions.’ 47
‘Exactly, and how’s that any different from anything else? So, when smartypants Tim—’
‘He’s not a smartypants.’
Smartypants? Where had that come from? He sounded like Deighton.
‘You know what I mean. Whenever he talks about books and things just say what you think. Don’t hold back.’
‘But what if you haven’t read the books he’s talking about? What if you haven’t heard of whatever he’s referring to?’
‘Just be honest. It’s the only way.’
‘But then he’ll think I’m …’
‘The worst thing to do is pretend.’
Gardner fell silent, as if weighing up the advice. She didn’t seem convinced.
‘But if you really do want private lessons,’ said Garibaldi, ‘I’m sure I can arrange reasonable rates.’
He winked. It was as difficult to stop himself flirting as it was to stop himself pointing out grammatical errors.