The Verge Practice Part 30

'Well, some of my friends like . . .' Jay stopped as Shazia, balancing a paper plate of sandwiches and a cup of orange juice, joined them. They didn't get a chance to finish the conversation, and afterwards Kathy wondered what she was getting herself into.

Brock rocked forward on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, absorbing the confrontation between stubble fields and hedgerows out there, and stainless steel and leather cus.h.i.+ons in here. It was a plat.i.tude of modern architecture, he knew, but it still had the power to shock, the unmediated impact of room and landscape through a sheet of naked gla.s.s.

Luz Diaz stood with her back to him, arms folded, smoking angrily. 'I cannot believe that this is permitted in this country. It is worse than Franco.'

'I'm sorry, Ms Diaz. But the coroner . . .'

'f.u.c.k the coroner!' She spun around to face him.

'That's just an excuse. You know what I think? I think you enjoy breaking into people's houses and turning over their private things. I think you are no different from criminals.'

'Did you know that your gardener had an extensive criminal record?'

'George? Yes, of course I knew. Charles told me all about George, ages ago, before I even came here. He met him in prison, when he was working on the Marchdale project. Is that all you see? A man has a record, so that's it? Do you look beyond that? Do you know anything about him?'

'Tell me.'

'He was a model prisoner, doing a degree in horticulture with the Open University. No, he was the model prisoner, that is what the prison governor told Charles-the best, the most responsive prisoner he had ever met. And he had had a terrible life. Did you know that he witnessed his father murder his mother when he was five? Did you know that he was shockingly abused by the relatives who took him in, and then again when he was put into care?'

The blaze of anger in her eyes died a little as she took in Brock's look of concern. 'No, I didn't know that.'

'Well, you should do better research, Chief Inspector.

George is probably the most trustworthy and honest man I know. What do you suspect him of doing?'

'I can't say at present. But your a.s.sessment of his character is very helpful.'

'You're just saying that to calm me down, yes?' But despite her words, Brock saw that her stabs at her cigarette were less violent. 'You believe that once a thief, always a thief, right?'

'I think it's very hard for any of us to change a pattern that's shaped our whole lives.'

Luz frowned at him. 'So you would say that once we have decided what we are going to do with our lives-you a policeman, Charles an architect, me a painter-that those things then lock us into their own patterns? You think after thirty years of thinking and acting in our different ways, we're so shaped by the experience that we simply can't change?'

'Something like that.'

She stared back at him as if trying to provoke him into saying more, then broke into a smile. 'But people do it all the time, don't they? And in your heart I bet you believe that you could still be anything you want. And George is the proof that you can be. He overcame his past and changed himself.'

Brock smiled back. 'We'll see, Ms Diaz. We'll see.' Then he added, 'Is that why George was important to Charles, because he was able to change himself, like a hermit crab throwing off its sh.e.l.l?'

Luz looked startled. 'Why do you say that? That was . . .' She stopped herself and turned away, crus.h.i.+ng her cigarette into a gla.s.s bowl. 'George was a resource, that's all. Charles paid him as a consultant, because he knew everything about prisons from the inside.'

'I see.' There was a thump from the floor below, a m.u.f.fled curse, and Luz stiffened. 'If those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds break anything . . . I have jars of pigment down there from Venice. It's the only place in the world you can get it. You'd better tell them . . .'

'Don't worry, they know their job. And is that why you left Barcelona, to change yourself? Or your painting, perhaps? Your colours are so bright and clear, the geometry so sharp-will that survive this damp English light?' He nodded out to the view, where evening mist was seeping out of the copses.

'I haven't experienced an English winter yet,' she said, lighting another cigarette. 'But perhaps it is the reason, yes.

We all need a change of perspective from time to time.

Something to make us think and feel in fresh ways. A change of palette . . .'

Another dull thud sounded from below and Luz wheeled around and made for the spiral staircase. 'I'm going to see what those people are doing.'

Brock remained in the artist's studio, going over to a shelf of books. Most of them were gallery exhibition catalogues, many with pages marked by slips of paper. When he opened them he found ill.u.s.trations of her work. They dated back over ten years, from private galleries in Barcelona, Madrid, San Francisco and New York.

George Todd's yellow motorbike was spotted early that afternoon, twenty-four hours after he had disappeared, parked outside a small holiday hotel in Bexhill, the place where Charles Verge had supposedly walked into the sea.

Todd had apparently booked into the hotel the previous evening. Within half an hour he had been located in a pub less than a hundred yards away, and begun the journey back to London under escort.

Now he sat on the other side of the table, painstakingly rubbing his fingertips with a handkerchief. Brock could see no remaining traces of the ink, but still he rubbed and scoured.

'I thought you scanned them electronically now,' Todd said softly. 'What's the point, anyway? Did you think I were someone else?' A Yorks.h.i.+re accent. He looked up from his scrubbing with a glint in his eye, as if relis.h.i.+ng some private joke. 'Who did you reckon I was then, Charles Verge?'

Brock said nothing. The idea did seem far-fetched now, a clutching at straws.

It was hard not to stare at Todd. There was a fastidious intensity about his gestures, which contrasted oddly with the anarchy of his damaged features. Brock noted the creases down the arms of his s.h.i.+rt, the way he folded the handkerchief neatly before replacing it in his pocket. The crew that had searched his toolshed at Orchard Cottage had commented on how obsessively neat everything was, like in his rented room. Brock had seen it before, the model prisoners who responded to the order and discipline of prison that had been so absent from their early lives. More than one of the a.s.sessors in Todd's file had diagnosed an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

'What were you doing at Bexhill?'

'I wanted a few days' holiday. Decided to go down to the seaside.'

'To the place where Charles Verge was supposed to have disappeared.'

Another private smirk. 'Seemed as good a place as any.'

'When did you first meet Mr Verge?'

'Two, two and a half years ago.'

'That was at . . .' Brock consulted his notes.

'HMP Maidstone. He was doing research.'

'How did he come to meet you?'

'I was picked, by the governor, to talk to him about my experiences. We hit it off. I was able to put him right on a few things.'

Brock wondered if the two men had recognised something of themselves in the other. 'What sort of things?'

'He was interested in how people feel when they're inside, how their att.i.tudes change over time, what makes them tick. Then later on, when he was working on his plans, we talked about them. I helped him design Marchdale.' The claim was made flatly, without bombast.

'Did he pay you for your help?'

'He insisted. He called me a consultant, and put money into an account for me, for when I got out. Don't worry, it were all declared. I paid tax on it.'

'And you got out last January? What did you do then?'

'He invited me to work for his family, as a general handyman and gardener. I got Orchard Cottage ready for Miss Charlotte, painting and wallpapering and repairs, and I do the gardens and other odds and ends for her, and for Mrs Madelaine Verge and Ms Diaz at Briar Hill. Ask them.

I'm a good worker.'

Brock didn't doubt it, and moved on to Todd's whereabouts at the time of Kathy's car break-in and Clarke's suicide. He had been working in Charlotte's garden at the time of the first, he said, though whether she or her grandmother had seen him there all afternoon he couldn't say. As for the second, he thought he had been at home that evening, probably watching TV, but he couldn't be sure. The absence of a firm alibi didn't encourage Brock. None of the teams had found a pair of black gloves, or anything else incriminating.

It was six p.m. before Kathy returned to Queen Anne's Gate from her committee meeting. She pa.s.sed Brock on the front steps. Clearly he was in a hurry, b.u.t.toning his coat against the chill with one hand, the other clutching a briefcase, a preoccupied frown on his face. He grunted h.e.l.lo, unsmiling, and marched off down the street in the direction of headquarters.

Bren was inside in the lobby, consulting the appointments book.

'What's up with the boss?' Kathy asked.

's.h.i.+t and fan have connected, Kathy. Phones have been melting, explanations demanded.'

'The searches?'

Bren nodded gloomily. 'Not a thing. No black leather gloves, no hidden messages, not even a trace of an illicit substance in Todd's medicine cabinet. You heard we found him, did you? Sitting in a pub at Bexhill having a quiet beer. Said he was having a seaside break.'

'Really?' Kathy was stunned, and realised how convinced she had become that Todd and Verge were the same man.

'And he's definitely who he says he is?'

'Sure. We took his prints and DNA, and had his parole officer in.'

'Does he have an alibi for the times on the fourteenth and seventeenth?'

'Convincingly vague. He runs a motorbike, by the way.

Yellow Honda, with a black crash helmet. You don't remember seeing it in the supermarket car park, do you?'

Kathy thought. 'Sorry, no. And the women have complained?'

'Long and loud, in person and through legal representatives, and to higher authorities. Brock's just been called in to see Sharpe. h.e.l.l, it isn't as if we couldn't have seen it coming. What was in his mind, do you know, Kathy? It was almost as if he believed that Charles Verge was still alive.'

Kathy shook her head.

'I can just hear Sharpe telling him he's being obsessive.

And it's true. Well, isn't it?'

'I don't know, Bren. I really don't.'

'And how certain is this match of the leather fibres?' Sharpe demanded.

'Ninety-seven per cent,' Brock replied.

'Ninety-seven per cent certain of what?' Sharpe insisted.

'That they're from the same glove, or from the same type of glove, or from a similar piece of black leather?'

'A piece of leather processed in the same way, using the same dye.'

'And that covers what percentage of the total number of leather items on sale in London?'

'I don't know.'

'There could be hundreds of matches for these samples, yes? Thousands maybe. One might be from a bag and the other from a glove, or the sleeve of a jacket, or a shoe. You see my point?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And you must have realised this, yet you persisted.

Why?'

'I said when we met a week ago that I felt it was premature to close the investigation, sir, especially in the absence of a body.'

Sharpe's face hardened, his voice taking on a repet.i.tive stress as if he were reciting an obvious truth or a nursery rhyme. 'And I made it quite plain to you that the case was over. I congratulated you on a brilliant result. I made it crystal clear that everyone was completely satisfied.' He reached for a file and slammed it down in front of Brock. It was open at a record of a meeting dated the twentieth of September. The wording was almost identical to what Sharpe had just said.

'You seem intent on shooting yourself in the foot, Brock. Almost obsessional about it. Why is that?' Sharpe stopped pacing and sat down. 'I've a.s.sured the three women that neither they nor their gardener will be disturbed again, and that the case is closed. You'll write to them yourself, today, and confirm this, and apologise for any inconvenience and distress. All right?'

'Yes, sir.' He felt ten years old again, in the headmaster's study, the only one of the Black Hand Gang to have been caught wiping boot polish on doorhandles on April Fool's Day.

'And I want a copy of the letters for my file.' Sharpe filled his lungs and relaxed slowly. 'Anyway, on a brighter note, your DS Kolla seems to be acquitting herself extremely well on the Working Party committee. Robert is very pleased with her, tells me she's taken it by the scruff of the neck and made it perform. Excellent leaders.h.i.+p qualities, he says. Focused. Sound.'

Sound was Sharpe's favourite quality, Brock knew. He was in no doubt that his own soundness quotient had taken a dive.

'You might learn a thing or two from her, Brock.'

He stopped for a double scotch at a pub on the way back, a little place packed with office workers in no hurry to get home. They jostled and laughed too loudly at their own jokes, shouting their orders through the smoke to the girls behind the bar, and after ten minutes Brock felt a little better. He fought his way out onto the street and continued back to the annexe in Queen Anne's Gate. It occupied a four-storey brick terrace of what had once been indiviual houses, later connected by a warren of doors and corridors and converted to offices, most recently belonging to a publisher. In a few years it would change its use again, Brock thought, and no one would remember or care what he and his people had done here.

He stopped at an office on the second floor when he saw Kathy inside working at her computer. 'Sorry I was a bit abrupt earlier,' he said. 'Was in a bit of a hurry.'

'Bren said there was trouble.'

As she looked up from the screen Brock was struck by how dark the shadows around her eyes seemed, how hollow her cheeks. Or perhaps it was just the light. 'A call to order from above. The Verge case is closed. Drop it, forget it.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Oh, maybe they're right. We had our chance. Look, I've got some paperwork to clear up, but do you fancy a meal later on?'

'Yes, okay. That would be fine.'

After he'd gone she sat for a while thinking about the Verge case, then, inevitably, about Leon, then back to Verge.

She thought of Brock's conviction that they'd got it wrong, his fear that Verge might strike again, and her absurd notion about Todd. It was so easy to see threats and shadows where none existed.

Her phone rang, Brock's voice, but sounding odd, asking her to come to his office. When she got there she was startled to see the blank, stunned look on his face.

'You all right?' she asked.

'Sit down.' He shook himself, ran a hand across his eyes.