In Her Blood Read online

  Nestor had closed the Doyle file but he hadn’t deleted it. He was fanatical about logging every scrap of work they did, even when it came to nothing. The figures mounted up for the all-important Annual Report.

  Keeping an ear out for the sound of the lift approaching, Berlin quickly downloaded all the work she’d done on the man who was now the obvious suspect for Juliet Bravo’s murder: Doyle. She watched the documents sprout wings and fly to her memory stick. It was all there: scanned handwritten notes, data dumps, requests for information. The most remarkable thing about Doyle was that he didn’t exist.

  When she’d caught the call to the Stop Sharks hotline the informant who would become Juliet Bravo reported that Archie Doyle, aka ‘Oily Doyley’, DOB 21 August 1954, was a loan shark who lived at number fourteen in a block of flats overlooking Weaver’s Fields, off Bethnal Green Road. Which made him and Berlin practically neighbours. The informant also said he drank at The Silent Woman in Poplar. As with most first-time callers she had refused to identify herself, but had given a mobile number.

  Impatient, Berlin watched the audit trail of her work flash past: the log of that first call, the date-stamped file she had opened in the Agency system and the initiation of routine online inquiries.

  The Agency’s database had no record of a moneylending licence being issued to an Archibald Doyle. If he was lending money in that name, he was doing it illegally. She had checked the General Register Office for Births, Marriages and Deaths, but came up empty-handed. She had interrogated Experian for a credit history and run a search on the electoral roll, in the unlikely event that Doyle was committed to participatory democracy. She’d scrutinised Companies House records and all the other public domain databases. In accordance with the National Intelligence Model protocol, she had filled in the forms to flag other law enforcement databases. Then she had requested checks from the DVLC, CRIMINT, the local authority, and the Inland Revenue. No driver’s licence, no criminal history, no council tax.

  The Inland Revenue held the most accurate records, of course, but the tax man was always the slowest to respond. She would have had to wait three months or more for a result as hers was a low profile, quasi law enforcement agency. Loan sharks took a back seat to terrorists, although these days the distinction between them was often lost once you moved further up the food chain. Drug money had to be ‘washed’ before it could be used to finance arms deals. Channelling it into loans to small businesses meant the cash that came back appeared legitimate.

  But the file had been closed and the request to the Revenue had been withdrawn. It made very little difference to the outcome. All her other searches had drawn a blank. By normal standards Doyle was the invisible man, at least under that name.

  Just as the last document was winging its way to her memory stick, she heard the door of the stairwell close and footsteps approaching. She snatched the stick out of the port and slipped it in her pocket.

  Coulthard strode across the office towards her.

  ‘What are you up to, madam?’ he said.

  He always wore the same sickly smirk. She quickly stood up, hoping he wouldn’t walk around and see the message on the computer screen accusing her of interrupting its copying operation.

  ‘Just clearing my desk of personal items,’ she said. Both of them knew her workstation was an impersonal wasteland.

  She grabbed the single postcard stuck on the partition: a picture of Alcatraz inscribed ‘Wish You Were Here’. She brandished it at Coulthard as she stalked past.

  4

  SHEILA HARRINGTON OPENED her front door only after checking through the spy-hole. It was that nice Daryl, bringing the kids back. Her ten-year-old, Terry, pushed past her and bolted down the hall in the direction of the PlayStation.

  Daryl Bonnington gave her a soft smile and raised an eyebrow. ‘Kids!’

  He was only a kid himself, thought Sheila. Simon, her eldest, who kept reminding her he was nearly fourteen, hovered nearby. He looked up to Daryl. Which was not a bad thing, she thought. He needed a role model.

  ‘Thanks ever so much for taking the boys while I cleaned up. I couldn’t think of anyone else.’

  ‘Glad to help out,’ he said.

  The sounds of Grand Theft Auto drifted to them. She sighed and it all came out in a rush. She couldn’t help herself. ‘It was that bloody thing, the PlayStation, that caused all this aggravation,’ she said. ‘You know what they’re like, they keep on, all the other kids have got one and I thought it was only a couple of hundred quid, I’d be able to clear it quickly. But it never seemed to end, ten quid a week and that was the Christmas before last and they say I still owe them. But that can’t be right, can it?’

  Bonnington looked genuinely sympathetic.

  ‘They … the dog …’ She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Simon told me,’ said Bonnington and touched her shoulder lightly, a gesture of solidarity. ‘Kids get over things faster if they talk them through.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ said Sheila, thinking that around here talking was the cure that killed. ‘I just don’t know what to do. I’m at my wits’ end,’ she continued, close to tears.

  Bonnington was trained to manage desperation. ‘Let’s go in. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  Bonnington called goodbye to Simon and Terry as he passed the living-room door. Sheila followed him down the hall.

  ‘I’ll be back for the boys later then,’ he said.

  She hesitated for a moment. You heard so much about perverts these days. But then she told herself, don’t be ridiculous. She was losing her faith in people because of recent events, that was all.

  Bonnington checked his watch.

  ‘This meeting is very important. The war on drugs.’

  Sheila could see he wasn’t joking.

  ‘So I’ll see you at about five.’ He touched her arm. ‘Remember what I said. Take some time for yourself, okay, Sheila?’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Daryl. See you later.’

  Sheila watched him go. Her husband was doing ten years. Daryl said the boys would benefit from early intervention. As if they could inherit drug dealing from their father. ‘Everything’s connected, Sheila,’ he’d said. He was well meaning, but a bit peculiar sometimes, she decided.

  She closed the door and put the chain on.

  There was the sound of screeching brakes and a sickening thud. Sheila went cold, then realised it was just the game.

  5

  GEORGE LAZENBY SLAMMED the surgery door behind him and set off across Victoria Park for his daily constitutional, which took him straight to The Approach tavern. He had to prepare for his meeting with the local NHS Trust that afternoon. It was an appropriately grim winter’s day; even the ducks were shivering. It was definitely port and lemon weather. A heart-starter. For medicinal purposes only.

  An hour later Lazenby caught Bonnington’s look as they collided in the doorway of the old town hall where the Trust met. No doubt it was a reaction to the whiff of alcohol he caught on his breath. Bonnington was unfailingly polite, but Lazenby couldn’t stand being patronised. He picked up on Bonnington’s small, rueful sigh. It made Lazenby cross and discomfited, acutely aware of the irony: he was to debate the nature of addiction when he was half pissed.

  ‘Up for it, are we, 007?’ inquired Bonnington mildly.

  Lazenby grunted in response. He did nothing to disguise his distaste for the earnest outreach worker, a bloody God-botherer. Bonnington’s smooth skin, floppy blond fringe and bright blue eyes might beguile some, but Lazenby found his smile cold and unnatural.

  He didn’t like Bonnington’s over-familiar use of his nickname, 007, either. He was aware the allusion was supposed to be witty. His belly hung over his belt, his drooping moustache was tinged brown with nicotine and his shirt frequently bore evidence of his breakfast. He lacked charisma. Anyway, the other bloody George Lazenby had only played the part once, in 1969. The nickname had come from his patients, which to
ld you something about their vintage, and his. He didn’t have a family practice.

  The chairperson of the Trust, an academic with a PhD in the semiotics of accident and emergency signs, indicated that Lazenby and Bonnington should take their seats on either side of her. She droned through the minutes from the last meeting and made her introductory remarks. Lazenby’s gaze drifted up to the public gallery. There was the usual smattering of the homeless in search of warmth, but his eye was caught by a tall woman in a battered Burberry mac, staring into the middle distance. She struck him as very sad.

  Lazenby reviewed his notes. The long, inglorious history of opiates in Britain was one of the good doctor’s interests. His specialist subject, if he ever got to appear on Mastermind. Opium had been the means of forcing the Chinese to trade, back in the days when they were still smart enough to tell the West to fuck off. The Raj grew opium in India and exported it to China in exchange for another great drug, preferred by the British: tea. When the Chinese had objected to half their population succumbing to the pipe’s dreamy charms, the Brits went to war, gave them a good thrashing, then went home and had a nice cup of fully imported oolong.

  The Chair invited Bonnington to open the discussion. Game on.

  ‘Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, members of the community. Dr George Lazenby, FRCGP, is a dinosaur. In a nice way.’

  A couple of members of the Trust smothered their titters. Bonnington smiled at Lazenby, who tried to take the jibe in good part.

  ‘He is one of no more than seventy medical practitioners in the whole country licensed to prescribe diacetylmorphine for addiction. And the Home Office informs me that there are only about forty left who actually do so – stalwarts who refuse to prescribe the universally favoured substitute, methadone. Dr Lazenby needs a special licence to give heroin to registered addicts, and the agreement of his local NHS Trust. That is the reason we are here today.’

  Lazenby pretended to listen. He’d held his licence for a bloody long time and it wasn’t easy for them to take it away. None were being issued these days. He half-heard Bonnington droning on about narco-terrorism. This was the mantra of the drug lobby these days, that massive industry of law enforcement, clinics, rehab facilities, academics and public sector policy wallahs whose livelihoods depended on illegal drugs. The marriage of convenience between the war on terror and the war on drugs.

  Lazenby blew his nose loudly. The Chair glared at him. Lazenby knew the Trust was in sympathy with Bonnington’s views because heroin cost more than methadone. It was always about money. But 007 regarded methadone as nasty stuff, and so did his patients, who were well-adjusted working people taking maintenance doses of pharmaceutical heroin. Their general health was better than his bloody own, thought Lazenby, reaching for his cigarettes before remembering where he was. He groped instead for an Extra Strong Mint. He became aware that Bonnington’s tone had gone up a notch and tuned back in to what he was saying.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the continued sad decline of our community is hastened by heroin. The trade in this substance generates and supports crime locally and globally. Crime that threatens our way of life. Should we be using our taxes to buy a drug that is synonymous with immorality and dissipation? Or should we insist that those afflicted participate in a regime that will help them overcome their frailties and arrest the decline of our civilisation?’ Bonnington’s delivery was measured, but urgent. His message was clear.

  Bonnington sat down to a smattering of applause from Trust members, which Lazenby thought was entirely inappropriate. The little bastard seemed so reasonable. The Chair nodded at him; it was his turn. He stood up. So did the woman in the Burberry mac.

  Then she pointed a gun at him.

  Lazenby felt as if his heart was going to burst out of his chest. Frozen to the spot, his gaze riveted on the small, snub barrel, he sensed the tide of fear that swept through the members of the Trust as, one by one, they turned their heads to the gallery.

  ‘Murderer!’ screamed the woman.

  Lazenby lunged to one side as a sharp crack rang out. The sound of terrified pigeon wings beating against the thick glass atrium melded with the din of the Trust hitting the floor and the thundering feet of the fleeing homeless. One pair of feet ran in the opposite direction, taking the stairs of the gallery two at a time.

  When Lazenby finally looked up he saw it was Bonnington, now sprinting towards the woman. She turned to face him, the confusion in her expression quickly replaced by fear. She held the gun loose in her hand, her arm extended into space over the ornate wooden balustrade. Bonnington launched himself at her.

  Lazenby couldn’t really see what happened next; it was so fast. They seemed to struggle, Bonnington reaching out to grasp the woman’s extended arm and hold it rigid. They could have been about to waltz.

  Then the woman toppled over the balcony as if performing a cartwheel. As she ploughed headfirst into the oak conference table her neck snapped.

  The starting pistol slid from her hand.

  6

  IT WAS EARLY evening, but already black as midnight on the old tow path that ran beside the canal. It was the quickest route to the other side of Victoria Park, where Berlin had an appointment at six-thirty. She’d barely missed one in twenty years, come hell or high water. It would be hell if she did.

  She kept her eyes on the cracked path in front of her and tried to ignore the sound of gentle lapping and the dark, floating shapes that loomed at the edge of her vision. Eventually she emerged onto a quiet street with a row of terraces. All had been smartly renovated. With one exception.

  Every window of the decrepit Georgian house she approached was barred, but the faded green door was always on the latch. There were no cameras above the cracked portico.

  Berlin pushed open the door and, without hesitation, she crossed the threshold of respectability and walked down a dim hall into an even dimmer room.

  She plucked a magazine from the table and took a seat. Time’s Man of the Year in 1986 was Deng Xiaoping. Time stood still here. A well-dressed citizen of her own vintage usually had the appointment before hers. They had never spoken and had exchanged only the gravest of nods in recognition of their bond. Living up to the room’s purpose. Waiting. But today he wasn’t there.

  His absence added to her unease. It was as if the wheel on which her universe turned had jumped a cog. Discovering a mutilated corpse before breakfast will do that to you, she thought, as she waited for the green light above the consulting-room lintel to come on, indicating that the current patient was leaving by another door. The last receptionist had fled years ago.

  Fifteen minutes later the light still hadn’t come on. Berlin was irritated. It didn’t take that long. The surgery was silent apart from the dull rumble of the Central line emanating from deep beneath the foundations, a little plaster dust raining from the cracked cornice as each underground train sped through the darkness. Irritation turned to anxiety.

  Berlin knocked on the consulting-room door. ‘Hello?’

  She knocked again, louder, then turned the handle. The door opened, but not far. Something was blocking it. Berlin put her shoulder against it and shoved, peering through the gap. A body was the obstacle. Lazenby. Her first thought was dead drunk. Then heart attack.

  But as she lunged at the door and the body shifted enough for her to squeeze through the gap, the dark Axminster carpet rucked up, revealing the sheets of old newspaper beneath it. They were a sodden, wine-coloured mess. Vomit? Then she saw the small hole in his chest. Lazenby wasn’t dead drunk, he was just dead.

  Berlin took a quick step back and the newspaper slid underfoot. She put her hand out to steady herself and closed her eyes. The intense human emotion that had been absorbed by the wall for nearly forty years seemed to ooze into her palm. She snatched her hand away and tried to focus. She remembered to breathe and gulped for air. She had only one thought. Shit.

  The door of the drug safe hung open. It was empty. She bent to touch Lazenby, but didn’
t dare. She had known him for more than twenty years, but he wasn’t her friend. He was her salvation.

  Panic enveloped her as she realised the implications of his death. Her phone was in her hand, although she couldn’t remember how it got there. Instead of dialling 999 she put it back in her pocket and tore a bunch of prescriptions off the pad on the desk. Habit took her to the other door. She ran through the self-administration room, back down the hall and out into the world. Its edges suddenly seemed sharper.

  Berlin and Mrs Ranasinghe, the local chemist, had grown world-weary together. Mrs Ranasinghe had stood her ground against many threats, from vandals and armed robbers to the machinations of corrupt councillors and their dodgy development schemes. She had met all comers with a placid taciturnity. The shop was a veritable fortress.

  Sadly now she was to be brought to her knees by a bright, clean, shiny, soulless Asda supermarket, which was to incorporate a bright, clean, shiny, soulless pharmacy. Berlin couldn’t see Asda providing addicts with a dispensing service. Buy one get one free?

  ‘Plasters?’ asked Mrs Ranasinghe.

  Berlin frowned, confused, then followed Mrs Ranasinghe’s gaze to her hand, which was smeared with blood from the surgery wall. She had a sudden vision of her perfect hand print inscribed in the spatter from Lazenby’s aortic spurt. ‘Oh no, thank you, it’s fine,’ she said, and wiped her hand on the sleeve of her black overcoat. It had seen worse.

  Mrs Ranasinghe seemed unfazed until she glanced at the bunch of prescriptions that Berlin thrust at her. Lazenby’s signature was on all of them. She managed Lazenby’s diamorphine supply and also provided the surgery with bulk sterile syringes and other necessary paraphernalia. Mrs Ranasinghe knew the score.

  ‘This is most unusual, Miss Berlin,’ she said.

  ‘Holidays, Mrs Ranasinghe,’ came the quick reply.

  Mrs Ranasinghe raised an eyebrow. A registered addict, travelling?