46
By the time I got home, an unmarked Volvo was already bumped up on the pavement outside the gates of my house. When I was about twenty feet away, both doors opened and two plain-clothes officers got out. From the passenger side came a woman in her early forties: skinny in a black trouser suit, short blonde hair tucked behind her ears, a sharp, angular face and eyes like puffs of ash. But it wasn’t her I cared about, it was the man who got out from the driver’s side. I slowed to a halt as Eddie Davidson pushed his door shut, looked at me, then leaned against the side of the car, a smirk on his face.
He’d been one of the cops wrapped up in what happened on my case the October before, and he’d disliked me pretty much from the first moment we met. He saw me as a hindrance, as Healy’s crony and collaborator. Things had only got worse as the case went deeper. When I’d left Healy at Hammersmith, he’d warned me again that the Snatcher team would be coming to my house, and that they’d ask me to close down my search for Sam – and he’d told me Davidson would probably want to be a part of that. I’d never been much of a believer in destiny, but I wasn’t surprised he was back. Life had a way of binding you to certain people, and when it did, it became hard to extricate yourself from them.
The woman approached me first.
I guessed this was Craw, the senior investigating officer. She wore a tired look, worn down by months of trying to chase the same man, but I got the impression straight off the bat that she knew nothing about me beyond what Davidson had told her. He wouldn’t have painted me in my best light, which was why I assumed she’d taken on a fierce, stern expression, as if she expected me to create problems as soon as I opened my mouth.
‘Mr Raker, my name’s DCI Craw.’ She got out her warrant card and held it up. I didn’t bother checking it, just looked at Davidson. He was dressed pretty much the same as the last time I’d seen him: jeans and trainers, T-shirt and black leather jacket, his stomach like a planetary mass, his face oddly proportioned: small eyes, big nose, wide mouth. He winked briefly and then stepped away from the car. ‘I think you know DS Davidson.’
‘Unfortunately I do.’
Craw didn’t respond. ‘We’re here to talk about Samuel Wren.’
‘Well, you’d better come inside then.’
We sat in the living room, Craw stiff on the edge of the sofa, Davidson perched in a chair on the other side of me, so we were in a triangle with me as the apex. It was a classic move; an effort to cramp me in the place I should feel most comfortable.
‘We understand you’re doing some work for Julia Wren,’ Craw said.
I looked at her, then at Davidson. He was on his best behaviour with the boss around, face unmoving, eyes fixed on me. ‘She asked me to look into Mr Wren’s disappearance. I’m in the preliminary stages of doing that. What is it you want to know about him?’
A little snort from Davidson.
Craw glanced at him, then back to me. ‘We don’t need anything from you. We’re here today to ask you to halt the search for her husband. I’m not at liberty to discuss the reasons why, but unfortunately this isn’t a process that’s up for negotiation.’
‘Has Mrs Wren agreed to this?’
‘Ultimately, it’s not up to her.’
I shrugged. ‘Fine.’
Both of them looked at me.
‘Fine what?’ she said.
‘Fine. Do what you have to do.’
Davidson came forward on his seat. ‘That’s it?’ he asked, the first thing he’d said since they’d arrived. ‘You’re just gonna sit there and let us take this away from you?’
‘You’re the police. What choice do I have?’
‘Is this a joke or something?’
‘DCI Craw just asked me to halt the investigation.’
‘That never stopped you last time.’
I looked at him. ‘You’re right. It never stopped me last time, because last time you’d f*cked things up so badly I had no choice but to try and put them right.’
Anger flushed in Davidson’s face. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard what I said.’
‘You almost destroyed our case.’
‘I found you a killer.’
‘You’re not even a f*cking cop.’
‘Well, I guess that makes two of us.’
Before Davidson could come at me again, Craw stepped in, hand up. ‘Okay, okay, that’s enough of that crap.’ She glanced at Davidson, giving him a look that said, Calm down, and then shifted closer to me. ‘Mr Raker, I want to be quite clear with you that if you cross us on this, we will have to take you down. You need to step back completely.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘You will be charged.’
‘I understand.’
Davidson eyed me. ‘What aren’t you telling us?’
‘DCI Craw said she didn’t want to hear what I had on Wren.’
‘No, I don’t mean that,’ he said. ‘Whatever you’ve found out about Wren, we’ll find it too, and we’ll find more and do it better. We’re better at this than you, Raker, just remember that. No, I’m talking about what else is going on in that head of yours.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Bollocks.’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘You’re full of shit, Raker.’
‘Do you want me to say that you’re better than me, is that it? You’re not better than me. You’re half a cop. You don’t use the badge as a way to understand people, you use it as a way to intimidate and bully. That’s why you could never find the guy who was taking those women last year – and that’s why you’ll never find the Snatcher.’
Davidson erupted. ‘Who the f*ck do you think you’re talk–’
‘How do you know that?’ Craw interrupted, her voice even and calm, looking at me. Davidson glanced at her, aghast, cheeks flushed, beads of sweat dotted across his face.
‘What?’
‘That Davidson’s working the Snatcher?’
‘I must have read it in the papers.’
‘He heard it from Healy,’ Davidson said, almost trembling with rage.
‘Last time I saw Healy, he was burying his girl in the ground,’ I said to Davidson. ‘Do you think he’s calling me up to relive old times? We hardly even talked when we were working together, so a catch-up is pretty low on my list of priorities.’
‘Have you got anything you want to tell us?’ Craw asked.
I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You say you read the papers, so I guess you know who I am, you know who Davidson is and apparently what case he’s working, and you know we’re here about Sam Wren. So I’m going to credit you with enough intelligence to put two and two together.’
‘You think Wren is involved in the Snatcher case.’
A gentle nod of the head.
‘No, I haven’t got anything to tell you,’ I said.
But her eyes lingered on me. Maybe she believed me, maybe she didn’t, but she was smart and switched on – and I knew instantly that this was a different sort of cop from Davidson and Healy. She was in control of her emotions, able to sit back and analyse.
And that made her dangerous.
I was going to have to watch Melanie Craw.