“The wife likes Islington Boys’ Club. She’s meeting me here after work.”
Strike had never met Wardle’s wife, and while he had never given the matter much thought, he would have guessed her to be a hybrid of Platinum (because Wardle’s eyes invariably followed fake tans and scanty clothing) and the only wife of a Met policeman that Strike knew, whose name was Helly and who was primarily interested in her children, her house and salacious gossip. The fact that Wardle’s wife liked an indie band of whom Strike had never heard, notwithstanding the fact that he was already predisposed to despise that very band, made him think that she must be a more interesting person than the one he had expected.
“What’ve you got?” Strike asked Wardle, having secured himself a pint from an increasingly busy barman. By unspoken consent they left the bar and took the last free table for two in the place.
“Forensics are in on the leg,” said Wardle as they sat down. “They reckon it came off a woman aged between midteens and midtwenties and that she was dead when it was cut off—but not long dead, looking at the clotting—and it was kept in a freezer in between cutting it off and handing it to your friend Robin.”
Midteens to midtwenties: by Strike’s calculations, Brittany Brockbank would be twenty-one now.
“Can’t they be any more precise on the age?”
Wardle shook his head.
“That’s as far as they’re prepared to go. Why?”
“I told you why: Brockbank had a stepdaughter.”
“Brockbank,” repeated Wardle in the noncommittal tone that denotes lack of recall.
“One of the guys I thought might’ve sent the leg,” said Strike, failing to conceal his impatience. “Ex–Desert Rat. Big dark guy, cauliflower ear—”
“Yeah, all right,” said Wardle, immediately nettled. “I get passed names all the time, pal. Brockbank—he had the tattoo on his forearm—”
“That’s Laing,” said Strike. “He’s the Scot I landed in jail for ten years. Brockbank was the one who reckoned I’d given him brain damage.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“His stepdaughter, Brittany, had old scarring on her leg. I told you that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember.”
Strike stifled a caustic retort by sipping his pint. He would have felt far more confident that his suspicions were being taken seriously had it been his old SIB colleague Graham Hardacre who sat opposite him, rather than Wardle. Strike’s relationship with Wardle had been tinged from the first with wariness and, latterly, with a faint competitiveness. He rated Wardle’s detective abilities higher than those of several other Met officers whom Strike had run across, but Wardle still regarded his own theories with paternal fondness that he never extended to Strike’s.
“So have they said anything about the scarring on the calf?”
“Old. Long predated the death.”
“Jesus fuck,” said Strike.
The old scarring might be of no particular interest to forensics, but it was of vital importance to him. This was what he had dreaded. Even Wardle, whose habit it was to take the mickey out of Strike on every possible occasion, appeared to be experiencing something like empathy at the sign of the detective’s concern.
“Mate,” he said (and that, too, was new), “it’s not Brockbank. It’s Malley.”
Strike had been afraid of this, afraid that the very mention of Malley would send Wardle careering after him to the exclusion of Strike’s other suspects, excited at the thought of being the man who put away so notorious a gangster.
“Evidence?” Strike said bluntly.
“Harringay Crime Syndicate’s been moving Eastern European prostitutes around London and up in Manchester. I’ve been talking to Vice. They bust into a brothel up the road last week and got two little Ukrainians out of there.” Wardle dropped his voice still lower. “We’ve got female officers debriefing them. They had a friend who thought she was coming to the UK for a modeling job and never took kindly to the work, even when they beat the crap out of her. Digger dragged her out of the house by her hair two weeks ago and they haven’t seen her since. They haven’t seen Digger since, either.”
“All in a day’s work for Digger,” said Strike. “That doesn’t mean it’s her leg. Has anyone ever heard him mention me?”
“Yes,” said Wardle triumphantly.
Strike lowered the pint he had been about to sip. He had not expected an affirmative answer.
“They have?”
“One of the girls Vice got out of the house is clear she heard Digger talking about you not long ago.”