When You Are Mine(50)

There is a long silence. I can hear her breathing.

‘She has three sisters,’ I say, trying not to make it sound like a question.

‘No, just the one – Agnes.’

‘What about Elizabeth?’

‘I don’t know who you mean.’

The silence is mine. I have so many questions but I’m now frightened of the answers.

‘What does Mr Brown do?’ I ask.

‘He’s an engineer. He works at the Belfast Docks.’

‘Was he ever a soldier?’

‘No, dear. Maggie has been telling you stories. She can be terrible that way.’

‘Why does she make stuff up?’

‘That’s a good question. She’s always liked to pretend. Even as a little girl she’d dress up and we’d all have to play along. One day she’d be Amelia Earhart and the next she’d be Buffy or Britney Spears or Sporty Spice. We always thought it was quite harmless – until her attachment issues started.’

‘What issues?’

‘Has she mentioned Mallory Hopper?’

‘No, who is she?’

‘Someone Maggie used to know.’

Elsa quickly changes the subject, asking where Tempe is living and what she’s doing. How did we meet up again? Does she have other friends? I feel like I’m being squeezed for every last drop of information, by someone who has been thirsting for details for too long.

‘Can you tell me where she’s living? Her phone number?’

‘I don’t feel comfortable doing that,’ I say. ‘Not without her permission.’

‘I understand. What if I came to London? Would you take me to her?’

‘I can’t make that promise. Perhaps if you told me more about what happened … why she left Belfast.’

‘I can’t, I’m sorry. Maggie can tell you. Ask her about Mallory.’

Elsa makes me wait while she gets a piece of paper to jot down my contact details – a phone number and an email address.

‘I need to sort a few things out. I’ll call you in a few days,’ she says. ‘In the meantime, can I ask you for a favour, PC McCarthy?’

‘You can call me Phil.’

‘Don’t tell Maggie that you called me.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t want her running away again.’

It’s only later, when I’m recounting the conversation to Henry, that I realise how odd it is for a mother to talk about a grown-up daughter ‘running away’. She used the word ‘again’, as though it had happened before. Who was Tempe running from?





27


We lost a fifteen-year-old schoolboy today. Bashir Khan was attacked outside a fish and chip shop on Tower Bridge Road by a gang of five youths wearing masks, who dragged him off a number 42 bus and stabbed him to death in front of horrified passengers. We had emergency response teams swarming over the area within minutes, but the attackers had melted away.

Bashir died at the scene – another victim of knife-crime in London, which is an epidemic rather than a pandemic. Machetes, box-cutters, scalpels, razors, flick-knives – widow-makers and child-takers. Bashir worked part-time at a small off-licence owned by his parents, who emigrated from Pakistan twenty years ago. The store has been robbed three times in the past year.

Female officers are considered better at delivering bad news, which is why I get so many death knocks, but I had no answers for Bashir’s family. His mother collapsed when I told her what had happened. She sobbed and beat her fists against her husband’s chest, as though blaming him for bringing her to such a cruel and lawless country.

Now I am back at my desk, typing up notes. Nish is sitting opposite me, searching the footage from traffic cameras and CCTV from the bus. Two suspects have been identified using the Gang Violence Matrix database, which gives suspected gang members a rating of either red, amber or green, depending on their level of risk.

It is four days since my run-in with Darren Goodall and the grazes have all but healed. I haven’t made an official complaint or followed up on the text messages being sent to Tempe.

I glance up at Nish.

‘If you suspected a fellow officer of illegally accessing databases, would you inform on him?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘The reasons, maybe. I mean, they could be harmless.’

‘What if you suspected this officer was stalking his former girlfriend?’

‘Leave it alone, Phil.’

‘Are you advising me, or answering my question?’

‘Both,’ he says, glancing over his shoulder, worried we might be overheard. ‘This is about Goodall.’

‘It’s a hypothetical.’

Nish doesn’t believe me. I swivel my chair away and go back to the screen.

The radio chatter from the control room has increased in volume. Heavy boots echo in the corridor outside. The shift sergeant is at the door, yelling across the room.

‘We have an address. We’re moving.’

I feel my adrenaline spike.

‘Can I go, Sarge?’

He takes a moment, rolling his shoulders. ‘Briefing in five.’

I dash upstairs and grab my stab vest and helmet before joining the others. The officer in charge is a chief inspector, Jack Horgan, who I haven’t met before. He’s shaven-headed, with a rumbling voice, and is dressed entirely in black, bulked up by a bullet-proof vest.