As he watched Doug put his laptop on the table, Kincaid’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Taking it out, he saw that it was Jasmine Sidana, his DI from the team at Holborn. He frowned, debating whether to take the call, but he knew Sidana would never ring him for something trivial. Scooting his chair back a bit, so as not to disturb Doug, he answered.
“Sir,” said Sidana. “I know you’re tied up with family matters. But we’ve just pulled a body out of the canal at King’s Cross. And there’s something I think you’ll want to see.”
“I’m back in London, actually.” Kincaid glanced at his watch, calculated how long it would take to walk from the club to the station. “I could be there in about half an hour.”
When he rang off, he found Doug frowning at the computer screen. “What is it?” he asked.
“The memory card. It’s just pictures. A jumble. Makes no sense to me.” He slid the computer round so that Kincaid could see the screen.
Kincaid scrolled through the dozen images. As each photo popped up on the screen, his dismay grew deeper. He recognized the cluster of buildings in the village center. He knew the pub. And the church, with its distinctive lych-gate. “Dear God,” he whispered. “It’s Hambleden. It’s Angus Craig’s house.”
It was the house as he’d first seen it, unscathed by fire, and the leaves on the trees surrounding it were the russet of late autumn. Doug, he realized, had only seen the aftermath, when the Craigs were both dead, and the house a smoking ruin.
Chapter Eighteen
July 1994
They had made love on the kitchen floor, amid the spread newspapers and tins of paint. It had felt illicit, and so consuming that when he turned up at the Tabernacle hours later, his body was still tingling.
It left him totally unprepared for the long faces of the group hunched over their coffee cups in the Tabernacle café. Annette Whitely was there, and Marvin Emba, a studious-looking black man, as well as half a dozen other regulars.
“What’s happened?” he asked, sitting down, his coffee order forgotten.
“Where have you been?” Marvin challenged him, his chin thrust out. “We’ve rung your flat half a dozen times.”
“I had a job.” He was unprepared for this, too, and he hated not having a scenario worked out. “North London,” he added, rubbing at a suddenly noticed paint smudge on his hand and trying not to think about how it had got there. “What’s happened?” he asked again, doing a mental head count. None of the regulars were missing.
“It’s Whitewatch,” said Annette. Whitewatch were the most extreme of the smaller fascist groups that had popped up in London recently, and one he was sure Special Branch had an eye on. “They’ve said they’re going to march at Carnival. People are going to get hurt.”
“We have to do something,” Marvin chimed in. “Protest. That’s what we’re about.”
“Then someone really will get hurt,” Denis said, as calm as he could make it. Notting Hill Carnival had been plagued by racial violence since its inception. This year’s celebration was only a few weeks away. The police would be out in force, but they couldn’t stop every flare-up from turning into a vicious brawl.
“You know what they’re like, Den.” Annette, usually his ally, was glaring at him. “We can’t just do nothing.”
Whitewatch was not only as racist as their name implied—they also particularly targeted biracial people, calling them “abominations.” People, he thought, like Annette. “Look,” he said. “Engaging with these people is like throwing petrol on a fire. It’s what they want. We know that. The only effective message we can send is a peaceful one.”
“Then we can march peacefully,” said Deirdre. A schoolteacher, with the frizzy hair and huge glasses popular a decade earlier, she liked to feel she was in charge. The others, however, looked at him expectantly. He’d never wanted—or meant—to be considered the leader of the little group. But he’d found—as he suspected had most of the undercover cops—that being a policeman gave one a natural authority that was difficult to camouflage.
“We can march,” he agreed, “but I think we’d be better served getting out leaflets and handbills, encouraging people to keep things peaceful. Nothing will get better if there’s a riot.” There were reluctant nods, but he sensed mutiny brewing. “Where did you hear this?” he asked. “Are you sure it’s not just a rumor?”
“My brother,” said a woman called Beverley, “works in an auto repair shop with a bloke who hangs round the group. This bloke was bragging about how they were going to kick heads at Carnival. And, get some, you know . . .” Beverley, like Deirdre, was white, and the white members of the group were always uncomfortable repeating racial epithets.
“Maybe it’s just talk, then. But we’ll keep our eyes open, right?” This time the nods were more enthusiastic, but he didn’t trust any of them, even Annette, not to start spreading the rumor. And the more talk, the more the potential for violence would rise.
As much as he hated to, it was time he made a report to Red Craig. It was his job.
Leaving the Peacocks’, Gemma and Kerry walked along Cornwall Crescent. As they approached the Sus’ house, Gemma’s spirits felt inexplicably heavy. She wasn’t looking forward to talking to this couple who’d lost a child and whose method of dealing with their grief seemed to be making enemies of all their neighbors.
The front of the house was architecturally identical to the others on that side of the terrace, but while most had some adornment, polished brass knockers or topiaries or window boxes, the Sus’ house was stark. It felt like a blind eye.
Kerry charged up the steps and pressed the buzzer. She had to press a second time before there was an answer.
Gemma had been expecting both the Sus to be Chinese, but the woman who answered was white, as blond and thin as Pamela Peacock, but with none of her natural elegance. Her face was hard, and her mouth was compressed into a thin, red, unwelcoming line. When Boatman introduced them and showed her warrant card, she looked at them blankly, then said in a high, strident voice, “This is too bloody much. Who did they pay off to get detectives to harass us?”
It was Kerry’s turn to look blank. “Mrs. Su?” she asked, recovering. “Mrs. Lisa Su?”
“You know perfectly well who I am or you wouldn’t be here. I’m not talking to you—”
“Mrs. Su, there seems to be some misunderstanding. What is it that you think we’re here about?”
“The extension, of course.”
Lisa Su, Gemma decided, might have been pretty if not for what seemed a perpetually angry expression. Her eyes protruded slightly, as if pushed out from the pressure within.
“This has nothing to do with your extension,” said Kerry. “Is your husband at home?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to disturb him.” Mrs. Su looked suddenly uncertain. “Really, can’t you just tell me what this is about?”