Shit, he thought. You shit.
He was a murder detective, not a cub scout. What next? Would Superintendent Clyde have him shinning up trees to rescue cats? Opening a hedgehog hospital? Marvel didn’t even like animals – any animals – and dogs, especially small fluffy ones with bows on their heads, were his most un-favourite animals of all.
He cleared his throat. ‘And this is your wife, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Clyde, looking uncomfortable at having to admit to something as human as a wife. ‘Sandra.’
Marvel nodded while his mind worked overtime to find the leverage.
‘The dog disappeared in the park,’ said Clyde. ‘While my wife was talking to a friend.’
‘I see,’ said Marvel. ‘So is there a lead attached to it?’
‘No.’
Marvel nodded at the photo. ‘Collar?’
‘No.’
‘Microchip?’
‘No.’ Clyde cleared his throat and made a stab at being in charge. ‘Listen, John,’ he said, and Marvel cringed inwardly at the use of his first name. It made him think of Debbie and his mother in the same mental breath, which was just wrong.
‘Listen John, I know it’s a bit out of the ordinary, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. So I thought I’d put my best man on it, get it sorted and get it over with.’
My best man. That stung like a salted slug. You didn’t put your best man on the trail of a lost poodle.
Marvel had to resist a sudden childish urge to tear the photograph into small pieces and toss them over his shoulder.
Next …
Instead he stared at the photo of the wife and the dog, hoping for divine inspiration that might absolve him from the task at hand. He could call down the rule book, he could call down his value to the South East’s G Team, he could call down the murder of Tanzi Anderson, or any one of his unsolved cases. He could even call down Edie Evans on her Apollo 11 BMX. He should. He should call them all down and nip this bollocks in the bud right here, right now.
The dingy little office reverberated with tense silence. If Superintendent Clyde had had an ounce of pride he would have told Marvel it was all a joke, and he’d almost had him. But what he actually said was, ‘Listen, John, she’s driving me mad about the dog. Day and bloody night. She’s even been to see a bloody psychic.’
Marvel almost laughed. A wife. A poodle. And now a psychic! Out of nowhere, there was so much leverage in this that it would almost be criminal not to exploit it.
Marvel wondered just how much he could get out of it.
As much as a promotion?
He’d only been a Chief Inspector for a couple of years, so it would be unusual to climb another rung of the ladder so soon. But not unheard of. And not unwelcome, now he thought about it. His knees were starting to play up. And the thought of controlling a whole room of murder detectives – of having his finger in every pie – appealed to him. Not to mention getting more money and a fatter pension to sit on his arse behind a desk all day.
Promotion was like committing a crime. You needed means, motive and opportunity, and although Marvel reckoned he’d always have the means and the motivation, opportunity didn’t always knock exactly when you needed it to. But it was knocking now, and he’d probably never get a simpler crack at promotion.
Marvel had no illusions about his chances of promotion to superintendent – or his suitability. He wasn’t a political animal, and knew he’d never be the first-choice candidate. DCI Lloyd would be the arse-creeper at the head of that queue, all things being equal.
But in life all things were rarely equal, and the Metropolitan police force was no exception. Very often, what was more important was a nod and a wink, and friends in high places.
The superintendent was in a high place.
And the psychic was the bow on the gift-wrapped, lever-shaped parcel he’d just been handed by his new friend, who was suddenly looking chinkier than chain mail.
‘I see your problem, sir,’ he nodded sympathetically.
In the face of such sympathy, Clyde’s superintendent-of-police fa?ade momentarily slipped and his real, haggard, haunted face was briefly revealed. ‘I’ll not get any peace until that dog’s found, John. Until it is, my life is going to be an utter bloody misery.’
Then, with a reverberating sigh, he looked Marvel straight in the eyes and added, ‘I’d be very grateful.’
And – only because he was absolutely sure that that was true – Marvel nodded eagerly and said, ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ll find it.’
11
ANNA BUCK WAS on a mission.
Often, after James left for work, she would slide back into sleep. That oblivion was such a temptation to her that sometimes the sound of a child crying was the only thing that could rouse her. Occasionally – in that netherworld between dreams and misery – the crying sounded so like Daniel that she would wake up, run into his room and stand there, naked and shaking beside his empty bed, as brutal reality slowly reclaimed her. It was a car horn, an ice-cream van, the garage radio, or a dog wailing mournfully for its owner gone to work.
But today Anna swung her legs from under the duvet before sleep could reclaim her, quickly pulled on yesterday’s clothes and changed and fed Charlie with an unaccustomed air of urgency.
The gas meter was in the cupboard under the stairs. On top of it was a short stack of 50p coins. The meter was secured with a padlock but they never locked it because it was just them in the house. The landlord, Brian Pigeon, kept spares in the ground-floor rooms – boxes and boxes and boxes. He had a spare front-door key but rarely came in.
Anna twisted the padlock out of the metal loops on the meter and pulled open the little drawer, counting out the money in the sickly yellow glow of a low-wattage bulb.