After the Fire (Maeve Kerrigan) Page 32

  ‘I will,’ Derwent said. He levered off the cap and looked at it. ‘As I thought.’

  ‘What? What did you think?’ Elaine asked.

  Derwent ignored her. He checked the phone was switched on and had reception, then nodded to me. I took out my phone and dialled the number I’d noted from Armstrong’s phone records, the records that had finally turned up about ten minutes before we left the office. The three of us stared at the bedside table, at the phone. Cressida was miles away, floating on a chemical cloud of bliss. The room was so quiet, everyone could hear the purring sound from my phone as the number I had dialled rang, and rang, and rang.

  The phone on the bedside table didn’t so much as beep.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Elaine asked.

  ‘Checking to see if Mrs Armstrong was in contact with her husband before he died.’ I sighed. ‘No luck.’

  ‘What number did you dial?’

  ‘The last number he called.’ I shook my head at Derwent. ‘Out of luck, I’m afraid.’

  I could hear the regular tread of someone climbing the stairs, not quickly. There was a tap on the door and the housekeeper’s worried face peered around it. She held out a phone to Elaine Lister. ‘You left your phone downstairs. Someone called you. Just now. I thought it might be urgent.’

  I thought Elaine was going to smack it out of her hand. She lunged towards the housekeeper and I stepped in the way, shoving her back against a chest of drawers. Framed photographs toppled over and Cressida opened her eyes.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Derwent said, having taken the phone himself. ‘That’s your number, Kerrigan.’

  ‘Imagine that,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Elaine Lister, you are under arrest for the murder of Geoff Armstrong on the twenty-eighth of November of this year. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something you later rely on in Court. Anything you say will be used in evidence.’

  ‘This is insane.’ Elaine twisted in my grip, trying to get free.

  ‘We can work out exactly where the phone has been, you see. And when. We can put you in the flat with Armstrong when he died.’ Derwent looked at Elaine and his expression was cold. ‘We’ve got a witness.’ Who was probably not going to cooperate with us. ‘We’ve got you on CCTV.’ An image so smudgy that she was truly unidentifiable, her head hidden with a scarf. Derwent moved on to more solid ground. ‘We’ve got the cashier’s stamp and initials on the cool grand you dropped on paying off your little accomplice, so we can work out which bank you got it from and check their CCTV to prove the money came from you. Your money, your bank account, your partner in crime who’s in custody even as we speak. We have your phone. And Cressida’s pepper spray has never been used. It’s still sealed. I think we’ll find that yours, on the other hand, was used. And it was used on Geoff Armstrong himself, just before you killed him.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Elaine spat. She tried to struggle away from me but I held on to her.

  ‘Why did you do it, Elaine? Tell us. We know everything else, and we can prove it. You loved him, didn’t you?’ Derwent’s tone was calm. Conversational. Reasonable, even. ‘Why did you kill him?’

  ‘Why were you even there?’ I frowned at her, as if she puzzled me. As if I thought she was pathetic. ‘He didn’t need you. He didn’t want you. So why were you there?’

  The words tore out of her. ‘I wanted to help him. I wanted to rescue him.’

  ‘Did you start the fire?’

  ‘No. No, of course not. I followed him there. I always did. It wasn’t safe for him to be there. I waited downstairs, in case he needed me. And then he did.’ Her face was glistening with sweat and tears and her nose was running. She couldn’t have looked less attractive, less heroic, less like the image of herself she’d had as she charged up the stairs to the rescue. ‘I heard the alarms. I saw the smoke. I called him and he wasn’t going to leave. I mean, I could see flames. It wasn’t just a little fire. It was breaking windows, bursting through the walls. He was in terrible danger.’

  ‘And you went to rescue him.’

  ‘I wanted to help him get out. I saw her.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘The black bitch he was fucking. She ran away. She left him. She can’t have cared about him at all.’

  I didn’t think it was the right moment to explain about Armstrong and Justine and their arrangement.

  In the bed, Cressida stirred. ‘What did she say? Who?’

  Elaine ignored her, thankfully. She was absorbed in her own difficulties, her own sacrifices.

  ‘I went to save him, even though it was dangerous.’

  ‘And he didn’t appreciate it,’ I said quietly. ‘He shouted at you.’

  ‘He called me a moron.’ She sobbed, once. ‘I had the pepper spray in my hand. I don’t know what I was thinking. It just made me so angry that he spoke to me like that. I’ve given him everything. I was risking my life for him. I sprayed him with it and he was completely furious.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘The things he said. He shouted. I couldn’t bear it. He was kneeling down at my feet, rubbing his eyes, and I put my scarf around his neck and pulled. I wanted to make him take me seriously. I wanted him to be scared of me. I wanted him to know how angry I was. I wanted him to realise he couldn’t speak to me that way.’ She blinked. ‘It was only supposed to scare him. But then – then he died …’

  She broke down, weeping and raging at us, at Cressida who was struggling to understand what was going on. The housekeeper wept too, in the hall, sitting on a chair with a hand over her mouth. Reluctantly, Derwent handcuffed Elaine for our safety and her own, with her wrists in front of her. Something about being handcuffed made her calmer, as if it made it all real in a way it hadn’t been before. I helped her down the stairs as Derwent called for a van to transport her to the nearest police station. He phoned Una Burt too, to give her the good news, and he wasn’t standing quite far enough away from the house as he spoke, the ring of triumph all too audible to me. Elaine Lister shivered like a puppy beside me in the hall. I watched her in a great gilt-framed mirror that hung on the wall, not quite able to stare at her directly. She was gulping air in a way I recognised.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I think – I think I’m going to be sick.’ She jumped up and I stood too. ‘There’s a cloakroom here – if I might – Oh, God …’

  It was a tiny room, a sink and a lavatory and nothing but a framed print on the wall. I let her go in and stood outside with the door open, listening to the too-familiar retch and spatter.

  Derwent came through the front door and raised his eyebrows. ‘Escaped, has she?’

  ‘Being sick,’ I said, glancing at Derwent. Better here than in the van, we were both thinking, and we thought it for a second too long. I heard the crack and tinkle of glass breaking and I knew what it was before I even turned around: she had used the handcuffs to smash the thin picture glass to long, cutting shards. I moved as quickly as I could, hurling myself through the doorway, and it was too slow but I was never going to be fast enough to stop her.

  I got a hand to the rigid bar that linked the cuffs and dragged it down with as much force as I could muster, pulling her hands down, away from her face, yanking her into the hall to sprawl on the carpet. I put my foot on the cuffs, holding her hands down as Derwent carefully drew a four-inch piece of glass out from between her fingers.

  ‘She’s bleeding,’ he said. ‘Check her.’

  I turned her over, not seeing any injury. Her eyes were closed, her face shuttered. As I bent over her she coughed fat droplets of blood that splattered against my cheek, my neck, my shirt.

  ‘Oh shit.’ I forced her mouth open as wide as I could and peered in. Her mouth and throat were filling with blood. ‘I think she swallowed some glass.’

  ‘Right.’ Derwent bent down and gathered her into his arms. He carried her out to the car, at speed. She was limp, semi-conscious or pretending to be. />
  I ran to open the back door. ‘Should I call an ambulance?’

  ‘No point in waiting. We’ve got blue lights too.’ He laid her on the back seat and straightened up. ‘Sit in the back with her. Stop her from falling off the seat if you can. And don’t let her get away with anything else.’

  I put a hand to my head, distraught. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘Not now,’ he snapped and I had to be content with that, and the murderous look that accompanied it.

  If you ever want to know what true fear is, I highly recommend being in a car driven by Josh Derwent on a blue-light run. I gnawed through my bottom lip, hanging on to Elaine Lister for dear life as we cut through the north London traffic like a scalpel. It took us three or four minutes to get to the hospital, the one where the burn victims had been, with the sirens screaming all the way. I cradled Elaine, who was silent except for an occasional cough that racked her body. I sacrificed my jacket to cover her mouth, to catch the spray of blood that each cough forced out of her. Her breathing was shallow and a gurgling sound accompanied every breath: her lungs and airway filling with blood, I guessed, and I didn’t mind how fast we went or how many close calls we had on the way, as long as she didn’t die in my arms. Derwent swung in through the ambulances-only entrance and pulled up outside the A & E department, jumping out of the car almost before it had stopped.

  ‘Bit of help here, please,’ he shouted, summoning paramedics who lifted Elaine and transferred her to a trolley, checking, assessing but most of all moving her as fast as they could towards proper medical care. We went with her, as far as we were allowed to go, Derwent fumbling with his handcuff key as the triage nurse tutted at the cuffs.

  Elaine was our prisoner, still.

  When they moved her to surgery we went too, occupying one of the rooms for relatives. Una Burt arrived with Chris Pettifer and Mal Upton and Liv and pretty much everyone who wasn’t doing anything else, and they listened while I explained how it was I’d managed to allow a murderer enough space to harm herself just minutes after she’d confessed. Derwent neither damned me nor defended me until Chris Pettifer made a crack at my expense.

  ‘She did all right.’ Derwent didn’t look in my direction. His focus was all on Pettifer, on putting him in his place. ‘She got the situation under control quickly and safely. Couldn’t have asked her to do much more.’

  Liv patted my hand, unseen by everyone else, and I was grateful for the support. Somehow, brusque though it was, what Derwent had said meant more to me than anything – more than Liv’s sympathy, or Una Burt’s muttered reassurance.

  It felt like an endless wait until the surgeon was finished with Elaine Lister, in a room that got increasingly stuffy. Derwent went out at one point, too restless to sit still, and I went after him. He was striding down the corridor, away from me.

  ‘Hey,’ I called.

  He looked back. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Thanks for sticking up for me.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘No, really. I – I made a mistake. I know I did.’ I caught up with him. ‘But you were kind about it and I appreciate it.’

  ‘You did make a mistake. But so did I.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘Never cuff them in front, no matter how meek and mild they seem to be. I know that. You know it too. If she’d been cuffed with her hands behind her, we wouldn’t be here now. We’d be home and dry.’

  ‘My home,’ I said. ’Don’t get too comfortable.’

  ‘Technically, it’s your boyfriend’s home. Your ex-boyfriend, I mean.’ Derwent raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you even pay rent?’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ I said, stung. ‘And if you don’t move out soon, I’m going to start charging you rent.’

  ‘I make a valuable non-monetary contribution to your life and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  He flashed a grin at me that lit up his face for a second. Then he dismissed me with, ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Coffee,’ Derwent said, walking away.

  ‘I drink coffee too.’

  ‘Don’t follow me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t follow me. I mean it.’ He turned to frown at me. ‘Stay. Good dog. Stay.’

  I stood and watched him until he was out of sight. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Derwent wanted to be alone.

  After all, he was one hundred per cent full-blooded diva.

  Chapter 32

  I LASTED ANOTHER fifteen minutes in the waiting room before I began to fantasise about killing everyone around me, slowly. Ordinarily I would never have followed an example set by Derwent, but it seemed to me he had the right idea. I slid out of the room without saying anything to anyone about where I was going. I wasn’t altogether sure myself.

  I wandered through the familiar corridors and stairwells until I reached the ward where the fire’s victims had been. Only Mary Hearn was left now. The police officer’s chair outside the door was unattended. I stood and looked at it for a moment, wondering when Una Burt had given the order to stop guarding Mary Hearn. When she had outlived her usefulness? When Una had run out of hours to spend on guard duty? When the case had moved on? When it had become clear to me – and I presumed everyone else – that we had made no progress whatsoever on identifying the arsonist? It was unlikely that we’d track them down now, I thought. All the secrets of Murchison House – all the sorrow, and pain, and hidden hurt – had drifted away from me like smoke, to dissipate against the clear blue winter sky. The building would be repaired. The flats would fill up with new residents, or the old ones bravely returning. Everything would be the same as it was before, except for the Bellews, and Geoff Armstrong, and the unknown women who had died there.

  I went through the doors and headed over to the nurses’ station, where a middle-aged nurse gave me a not particularly welcoming look. I held up my ID.

  ‘I just wanted to check up on Mary Hearn. How is she?’

  The nurse’s manner warmed slightly. ‘She’s much better. She’s talking to us now. Much more like her old self.’

  ‘Is she still mentally all there?’

  ‘She’s still sharp as anything.’ The nurse half-smiled. ‘She doesn’t let us get away with much, I can tell you.’

  I smiled, relieved. ‘That’s a sign she’s on the mend.’

  ‘It is. Mind you, she’ll need to do a lot of physio. The stroke affected her left side. She’s very weak. She won’t be running any marathons for a while.’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘Of course. She’s in room 310. Her daughter is with her at the moment.’

  I had started to move away, but I stopped. ‘Her daughter?’

  ‘Yes, she’s just arrived. I think she was abroad or something. She got here about two minutes before you did.’ The nurse smiled up at me. The smile faded from her face. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘She doesn’t have a daughter. Which way is her room?’

  She pointed to the left and I ran, almost crashing into a doctor as I rounded the corner. I ignored him, skirted a patient who was edging along on a walking frame, and hurled myself into room 310.

  It took me a second to orientate myself: the curtains were drawn around the bed and the window blind was down so the light was dim. I slid between the curtains and saw a figure bent over the bed, standing between me and Mrs Hearn. From the end of the bed it looked innocent – touching, even. But Mrs Hearn was trying to struggle, her legs moving weakly under the covers. The woman didn’t look around even when I shouted, ‘Get back!’

  She was intent on what she was doing, the effort vibrating in her arms and across her shoulders. When I got close enough to grab her I could see her hand was over Mrs Hearn’s mouth, her fingers pinching the old woman’s nostrils closed, cutting off her air. I got hold of her wrists and elbowed her back from the bed, pushing her through the curtains so I could pin her against the wall as I shouted for h
elp. It wasn’t long in coming: the nurse from the desk had followed me. She exclaimed in horror at the sight of Mrs Hearn, her eyes closed, her lips blue, her cheeks sunken. The nurse pressed an alarm button that brought running feet from all over the ward, and competent medical staff who swung into practised routines to knock Death’s hand off Mrs Hearn’s shoulder.

  As they worked on her I struggled with my prisoner, who was desperately trying to get free, and I hadn’t the least idea what was going on but I’d recognised her as soon as I laid hands on her. She was shorter than me, and thinner, and her hair had loosened so it fell into her eyes, and none of that helped her. She raked at my face, her nails gouging my skin even though I jerked my head back. I got tired of that very quickly and kicked her leg as hard as I could, knocking her off balance enough for me to get her onto the floor where she was easier to control. I knelt on her shoulder, trying to stop her from fighting without hurting her. A solidly built male nurse squatted on her legs, which helped. I needed both hands to hold her wrists behind her, since my cuffs were two floors down in the waiting room near the operating theatre.

  ‘Get off me,’ she howled. ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’

  ‘That’s a lot of shouting for someone who can’t breathe,’ I observed. I was trying to see how the doctors were doing with Mrs Hearn. The bed was surrounded by people in scrubs barking observations and instructions at one another, and all I could conclude was that they were still trying to keep her alive, so there had to be a chance they’d succeed.

  ‘You’re killing me,’ the woman sobbed.

  ‘Nope. Arresting you.’ And I did just that, reciting her rights, all the while wondering what the hell was going on.

  Eventually some security staff arrived and took over for me, so I could call Una Burt. I was still out of breath from fighting the woman, and my cheek stung like a bastard.

  When the chief inspector answered her phone, she sounded irritated. ‘What is it, Maeve? Where are you?’

  ‘I’ve got one in custody,’ I said, trying not to pant. ‘Room 310.’