Silence.
‘It’s not her fault, you know, all this.’
‘I’m not being funny but why are you here?’ Fly asks. ‘I mean, is it official, are you here as a police officer, or is it, like, personal? Did she send you here? And whose fault is it, all this? Yours? Because it sure as fuck isn’t mine.’
Davy colours. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘In answer to your earlier question, I’m here on both counts. I’m here because Manon asked me to check you’re all right and I’d also like to ask you something, actually.’
Fly has slouched back down.
‘This visit to London. The one where you skipped school and went back to Cricklewood. Is there anything you’d like to tell me about that – for example why you were meeting Paddy Driscoe?’
‘There’s nothing I’d like to tell you about that,’ Fly says. ‘Is that everything? Because I think I’ve got basket weaving right now.’
‘D’you want me to talk to anyone, here I mean, about that?’ Davy says, indicating Fly’s face. ‘I can do something about it, get them to look into it, take action against whoever did it.’
‘Oh yeah,’ says Fly, getting up. ‘That’d definitely make things better for me in here.’
‘He’s been fighting,’ says Neil, swivelling around on his wheelie office chair. ‘That’s why we’ve had to cuff him. He’s got into trouble. A lot of trouble. Conley Woodchurch, mainly.’
‘Did someone tell Fly about Conley’s cell confession?’ Davy asks.
‘I think Conley told Fly about that. And to be honest, you think Fly looks bad, you should see Conley’s face.’
Davy thinks about saying, ‘Yeah, well he had it coming,’ but knows he can’t. Instead, he says, ‘Right. So what are you doing to separate Conley and Fly? To calm the situation down?’
‘It’s up to Fly to control himself,’ says Neil, wheeling back to face his computer. ‘Conley’s done nothing wrong, he’s only reported what Fly said to him. I’ve known Conley a long time. He’s not a bad kid. There’s a culture here; your lad has to learn to fit in.’
What sort of culture? Davy thinks. A violent, racist, threatening culture presided over by Neil’s blind eyes? The sight of Neil’s back enrages him.
‘Right, but Conley’s been here a long time, he’s established here. Fly’s been here little more than a week and he’s got razor cuts up his arms and he’s been beaten up. I think you need to step up when it comes to protecting the new kid, don’t you?’
‘Thought you’d be pleased,’ Neil says, smiling up at Davy. ‘Conley supplied extra grist to your mill. He’s helping your case.’
‘I’d like an interview with Conley Woodchurch please,’ Davy says. ‘Now.’
Conley walks in sporting a black eye, with his arm in a sling. He sits in a blue plastic chair while Davy stands. Paces, in fact.
‘Conley,’ he says, then smiles.
Conley has short hair, almost a skinhead, but it is wet with some kind of gel so that his scalp glows white beneath the slicks. He is pale and spotty. No one cares whether Conley’s getting his five a day.
‘So,’ Davy says, ‘what’s going on between you and Fly Dent?’
‘He started it.’
‘Did he?’
Conley shifts in his seat.
‘I’m surprised to hear that. What was the argument about?’
‘Weren’t no argument. I told the coppers what he said to me in the poppy shop about stabbing that bloke, he’s sore about it.’
‘Right, yes, the poppy shop.’
Silence.
‘Whereabouts were you in the poppy shop? I mean, front table, back table?’
‘Front.’
‘And what were you doing?’
‘Fixing the petals onto the black bit, putting them in boxes.’
‘How many did you do?’
‘Bout 150.’
‘And Fly?’
‘Dunno, didn’t count his.’
‘Fly did none,’ Davy says. He has stopped, leaning over the table at which Conley is sitting, glaring at him. ‘Zero. Nought. Fly wasn’t in the poppy shop. Fly has never been in the poppy shop, you lying git.’
Conley has sat more upright. Davy is feeling very much like a police officer from the Seventies and it is marvellous.
‘You know he was never in the poppy shop, and I know it. Now either you retract your bullshit cell confession or I will personally make sure your indeterminate sentence never ends, you get me?’
Marching out of Arlidge House, he feels so macho there even seems to be a stirring in his trousers. Then he realises it’s his mobile phone vibrating.
‘How can I help you, Mr Carruthers?’ Davy says, looking up at the porridgy sky.
‘Just wondering if you’ve made any progress on Jon-Oliver’s case.’
Davy remains resolutely silent.
Carruthers presses on: ‘You know, we all want to see justice done, see his killer caught. Otherwise, well – what’s the point, know what I mean?’
‘Hmmm,’ says Davy. His hand jangles his keys and coins in his trouser pocket. He waits.
‘Can you tell me who your main suspect is? Is it the Dent boy? Because, I think I mentioned, Jon-Oliver always had his suspicions. Thought he was a wrong’un.’
First thing Davy does back at HQ is knock on Harriet’s door, to which she shouts, ‘Come.’
‘Just had a strange call from Giles Carruthers,’ he says.
She stops writing, looks up at him. ‘Strange how?’
‘Wanted to know about the progress of the case, who we’d arrested. Very keen to stress Fly Dent was a “wrong’un”, as he put it.’
‘Did he now.’ She leans back, flicking her pen between two fingers.
‘Look, boss, I’m not feeling so good about—’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘The Ellie Bradshaw alibi.’
‘I just don’t understand it.’
‘Well, I brought it up with Stanton again and he totally lost it, started shouting about the pathology and the footage at the scene, and saying why would you want to go off on some tangent following a nurse’s trip to the Co-op or whatever it was.’
‘Because that’s what we do,’ says Davy.
‘I know. I’m just explaining how it went when I pushed it. Y’know, Davy, sometimes the top brass gets a bee in their bonnet over something and this is Stanton’s. Best thing to do is accept it, to be honest. Later on, we’ll find out he’s had a steer from the commissioner or whoever’s pulling his strings.’
Davy thinks of Fly’s swollen face and swallows down a bubble of feeling, too much for him to express.
Harriet says, ‘Doesn’t stop you investigating the fuck out of Giles Carruthers though, does it?’
Birdie
Have you ever watched raindrops race down a pane? A single drop – clear bauble reflecting a world – can sit in its fullness for whole moments before it contains too much. Then it bursts and runs down, this way then that, until it is nothing at all.