Duke was still talking. “But you’ll be back for the inquest, of course. And the trial.”
“What’s that, Sarge?”
“The Wang murder. The limelight has sought you out, Rita. Chelsea, brutal death, eminent foreign doctor. The beautiful WPC Nashe gives her evidence at the Old Bailey. Press’ll go ape.”
“Yeah. Well, let’s catch Kindred first,” she said, dryly. “Or there won’t be a trial at all. See you at The Duchess.”
“I’ll be there, Rita,” he said, his voice heavy with lustful implications. “Wouldn’t miss it, love, not for the world.”
Shit, she thought as she picked up her bag and left the station, regretting the party idea already. Vikram was waiting at the main door, affecting coincidence badly.
“Going to miss you, Nashy.”
“Don’t call me Nashy, Vik.”
He gave her a peck on the cheek. “Sorry. Anyway, thanks for everything. Couldn’t have done it without you.” Vikram had just been confirmed as a full-time police constable, his days as a special — a hobby-bobby — over.
“See you at The Duchess, eight o’clock.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Rita stepped out of Chelsea Police Station for the last time and decided to take a taxi home to Nine Elms. This move was a triumph, even though of small order — maybe not in the ‘dream-come-true’ category but it was going to be a key change in her life, and one for the better, she hoped — so a small indulgence was called for and justified.
The taxi dropped her at the boatyard and she walked down the metal gangway towards TS Bellerophon with a light heart. The tide was rising and the sun was shining through the lime trees above her on the river bank, turning their leaves almost unbearably green and fresh — and she suddenly had the feeling that this change in her life was going to be a successful one. To her vague surprise she acknowledged what she was experiencing: she was happy.
Then she saw her father on the foredeck leaning on his arm-crutches. She climbed up the steps to join him.
“Hi, Dad.”
“I hate you coming home in uniform, you know that.”
“Too bad.”
“It freaks me out.”
“What a shame.” She stopped and put her bag down. “What’s wrong with you, then?”
“I had a fall, done my back in, again. Couldn’t find my crutches so I had to call Ernesto.”
“You should have texted me. I know where everything is — no need to involve him.”
As they went below she noticed that her father managed to cope with the steep stairs with little fuss or effort. He eased down into his chair in front of the television, saying how knackered he was, thought a lumbar disc must be protruding, then flipped his pony-tail over his shoulder and rummaged in the little chest of drawers beside the chair — where he kept his things.
“You can’t smoke skunk, Dad,” Rita warned him, going along the companionway to her room. “I’ll arrest you.”
“Pig!” he shouted after her as she closed her door.
She changed out of her uniform and into jeans and a T — shirt. When she emerged she was pleased to see that her father wasn’t smoking a spliff, though he did have an extra-strength Speyhawk lager in his hand.
“Medicinal,” he said.
“Enjoy.”
“So what’s happening to you?” he asked. “Becoming a detective?”
“You know.”
“It means nothing to me.”
“I told you: I’m transferring — to the MSU.”
“MSU, USM, MUS, USA, FAQ, AOL—”
“Marine Support Unit. We’re having a farewell party at The Duchess. Why don’t you come along?”
“To a pub full of policemen? You must be joking.”
“Suit yourself. Can’t say you weren’t asked.”
She started to climb the stairs to the upper deck.
“I don’t want to know about your police life,” he said. “It depresses me. What does the Marine Support Unit do?”
“We go up and down the river,” she said. “I’ll toot when we pass by.” She smiled at his discomfort. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Daddy-O.”
She went up on deck. The Bellerophon was an ex-Royal Navy, World War II mine-sweeper, ‘Bangor’ class. It had been refurbished in the 19605 and stripped of all its bellicose appurtenances — guns, depth charges, mine sweeps — to reveal a plain and sturdy ship and one that made a roomy, narrow home permanently, immutably moored on the Battersea shore of the Thames, by Nine Elms Pier.
Rita had created a sizeable container garden on the foredeck — where the main Bofors gun-mounting had been — and she fitted the coiled hose to the standpipe and watered her plants carefully — the palms, hydrangeas, tuberoses, plumbago, oleander. Beneath her feet she sensed the Bellerophon shift on its mooring as the tide rose, lifting the keel off the mud. She felt herself calming after the emotions generated by her departure and the endless farewells and looked around her, enjoying the silvery gleam of light coming off the river in this late afternoon. Downstream she could see the green glass blocks of the MI6 building and the gull-wing roofs of St George’s Wharf. Over her left shoulder were the four chimneys of Battersea Power Station — one of the chimneys thick with scaffolding — and, turning her gaze upstream, she could see a train crossing Grosvenor Railway Bridge and beyond that the twin peaks of Chelsea Bridge’s suspension cables.
Seeing Chelsea Bridge made her think of Battersea Park, and Gary and that day she had spotted him there. An old lady had been knocked flying by a cyclist in the park, some lad illegally cycling along the Embankment front. The old lady’s dog had been injured in the collision and the police had been called. Once Rita had overseen both victims’ departure in an ambulance and the cyclist charged, she went in search of an ice cream. It was a hot early May day and the sun shone with a fresh strength, clear and vigorous. She cut across the car park, heading for the tennis courts where she knew there was an ice-cream van parked in the afternoons and as she emerged from the trees she had seen Gary — her Gary, Gary Boland, Detective-Constable Gary Boland — lying on the grass with another girl.
They were lying head to toe, the girl — blonde, short-haired — leaning back against Gary’s raised knees. Rita stepped behind the trunk of a plane and watched them talking. She didn’t know the girl, didn’t recognise her, but everything about their familiarity with each other told the story and nature of their relationship thus far, and its clear intimacy. Not even the most plausible and inventively persuasive Gary would have been able to convince her of its innocence. But what upset her most was the way Gary had his hand resting on her knee. She could see his thumb gently, reflexively beating out a rhythm against the girl’s kneebone — the rhythm of some song in his head. This was something Gary did, on table tops, against the sides of coffee mugs, the arms of chairs, as if he were some frustrated drummer from a rock band — a sign of his nervous energy, she supposed, pent up. This is what Gary used to do to her when they lay in bed in the mornings, he would gently tap a rhythm with his thumb on her bare knee, on her shoulder. She had filed it unconsciously in her mind under his name — this was what Gary did with her — its banal intimacy was one of those factors that made their relationship uniquely individual. She looked at the girl and imagined her filing it away in her mind also: Gary Boland, always beating out a rhythm, any knee would do. And now that it had lost its exclusivity for Rita she saw it suddenly as an irritating habit and her heart went cold and passionless. She watched him stop his drumming, change position and kiss the girl full on the lips.
She had confronted him that evening and broken off their relationship five minutes later — maturely, resignedly, sadly — she thought. They would see each other all the time, police business made their paths cross inevitably, so there was no point in becoming hysterical and accusatory about it. Maybe that was giving her the extra pleasure she was experiencing about her move to MSU: she wouldn’t see Gary any more and she would stop continually thinking about that afternoon in Battersea Park, as indeed she was now…Angry, she forced herself to change the direction of her thoughts and she tried to imagine herself, in a day or so, powering up river in a Targa launch of the MSU looking over at the TS Bellerophon at its moorings as she cruised by. How strange that would be — but she liked the idea of policing London’s river, rather than London’s streets, and indeed the idea seemed to her to be somehow miraculous, given that she had lived on this boat on this river almost her entire life. She heard her father calling for her and ignored him — not wanting to spoil her mood: she felt suddenly blessed — no one could be this lucky. Then she thought of the party at The Duchess — just a few hundred yards away. Would Gary come? She’d asked him — they were grown-ups — no hard feelings and all that. What would she wear? Something to make him realise what he’d—