The Disappeared

'It's none of her business . . . Why didn't you just put her through to me?'

Alison gave her a look which said: isn't it obvious?

'She's asking you to spy on me for her?'

'It wasn't expressed in quite those terms.'

'I'll deal with her,' Jenny said.

'That puts me in a rather awkward situation.'

'I won't mention your name.'

Alison looked doubtful.

'Honestly. Trust me. Anything else?'

Alison sucked in her cheeks and agitatedly flicked some imaginary fluff from her lapel. 'You know I wouldn't normally say anything like this . . .'

'Hello? Anybody home?' an unmistakable voice - McAvoy's - called through from the outer office.

Alison flashed Jenny an accusing look. 'What's he doing here?'

Jenny shrugged. 'I've no idea.' She got up from her desk.

Alison stepped between her and the door. 'Please, Mrs Cooper - let me see to this. I told you you shouldn't have anything to do with that man.'

'He's come up with the only new lead we've got.'

'You can't trust him. He's poison. I sat in on his interviews.'

There was a knock on the office door.

'Mrs Cooper?'

Jenny said, 'Hold on a moment.' She turned to Alison. 'At least let me see what he wants.'

She stepped past and out into reception. McAvoy was standing in the waiting area idly leafing through Alison's church newsletter.

'Mr McAvoy—'

'Sorry to arrive unannounced,' he said, with a mock formality imitating hers. 'I wonder if we might have a quick word about Mrs Jamal.'

Alison came to Jenny's shoulder. 'I really wouldn't advise it, Mrs Cooper. Mr McAvoy is a witness. You don't want to run the risk of tainting your inquest.'

'Good to see you again, Mrs Trent,' McAvoy said, with more than a hint of irony. 'It's been a fair wee while.'

Alison took a step forward, squaring up like the detective she had once been. 'You should know that Mr McAvoy was imprisoned for perverting the course of justice. He arranged a false alibi in a violent armed-robbery case - and that was just the time he got caught.'

McAvoy smiled and tossed the newsletter back on the table. 'I've heard that your old boss Dave Pironi claims to have found Jesus. In my humble opinion it may be a little too late. He was one of the dirtiest, most corrupt policemen I ever met. He sent that wee lassie to me, and I think you know that.'

Alison said, 'See what you're dealing with?'

McAvoy said, 'Did you ever ask yourself why my office happened to be bugged on that day? Or why, when any sane person wouldn't touch CID with a shitty stick, that witness couldn't do enough to help them?'

Jenny said, 'Can we stop this now, please?' She turned to McAvoy. 'Should you really be here?'

McAvoy said, 'This case has already cost me my liberty and career—'

Alison gave a dismissive grunt.

He ignored her and continued. 'And if you remember, it was immediately I got on the trail of that Toyota eight years ago that your officer and her colleagues fingered me.'

'That was nothing to do with it,' Alison said.

'With respect,' McAvoy replied, raising his voice, 'as a DS you wouldn't have had a fucking clue, Mrs Trent. Pironi and whoever was working him put me away to stop that car ever being identified. And then this call the other day - the guy asking what did I know, and threatening to put me in a casket. And the call before I went down, the American with the same question: what did I know?' He looked at Alison. 'He makes this crap up for a living, that's what you're thinking. But what about Mrs Jamal? And look who's in charge again.'

'Her flat's on his patch,' Alison said.

'And how long's he been there? Three months I heard. Transferred about the same time she lodged her application to have her son declared dead. Now I don't like to accuse a fellow believer of a mortal sin, but it does start to make you wonder.'

'He had nothing to do with Mrs Jamal's death,' Alison snapped.

'I'm sure you're an intelligent woman, Mrs Trent, but even an ex-copper should have learned that evil bastards don't always go around in black hats.' He nodded to the newsletter he'd dropped on the table. 'I couldn't help noticing that you and he get a mention in the church news there —’

Alison marched across the room, snatched her coat from the peg and thumped out of the office.

McAvoy picked up the newsletter, turned to an inside page and handed it to Jenny. 'Adult baptism's a wonderful thing, but it kind of takes the shine off . . .'

He pointed to the notices section. Mrs Alison Trent was listed as one of five new members of the Body of Christ baptized the previous Sunday. She had two sponsors - the adult equivalent of godparents - one of whom was named as Mr David Pironi.

McAvoy said, 'It's pretty low, even by his standards. How'd he pull that off? She hasn't got a terminal illness or something, has she?'

'No,' Jenny said, 'just some family troubles.'

They talked in Jenny's office. McAvoy said a long-running trial he was involved with had been adjourned for the day because the judge had to conduct an all-day sentencing hearing: eight members of a paedophile ring each claiming they were tricked into it by the others. Thinking about Mrs Jamal had kept him awake most of the night. It was deep in the small hours, when he was running low on cigarettes, that he had started to put the pieces together. He'd called an old contact inside the police who'd told him about Pironi's recent transfer to New Bridewell. The same detective had also tipped him off about Pironi's church-going - he'd been at it since his wife died, apparently, still fitting up and whoring on weekdays like he always had, but born again afresh every Sunday.

Speaking with McAvoy like this, businesslike, across a desk, Jenny's doubts about him began to recede. He was measured, logical and always gave a self-aware smile after he'd lapsed into hyperbole. She didn't feel he was pulling conspiracies from the air: like her, he was simply trying to arrange the pieces into an order that made sense. After she had gone with him to see Madog, Jenny had been almost convinced by Alison's insistence that he was inventing evidence to further his own agenda and prise his way back into the solicitors' profession. Looking him in the eye, she couldn't believe it. How did Alison's theory fit with Mrs Jamal's death? Would she argue that McAvoy was involved, that he'd persecuted her with late-night phone calls? And for what - merely to discredit Pironi?

No. The man now leaning towards her open window smoking a cigarette was no monster. He was too edgy, too weathered and grooved by life, too obviously worn down by conscience to be a psychopath of the kind Alison imagined. Ruthless people had charm; McAvoy had warmth. It was of an erratic and slightly hazardous kind, a naked flame which guttered then flared, but she could feel it burning in him nonetheless. She was convinced that his passion for justice, or his brand of it at least, was real and heartfelt.

Jenny showed him the list of Toyotas Alison had produced and the ones she had circled. He ran through them with the criminal lawyer's eye. If you were going to spirit someone away, you wouldn't do it in a privately registered car, he said. You'd most likely hire a vehicle using false documents, a trail you could cover. On the list there were only two cars registered to hire companies. One was in Cwmbran, south Wales, the other was thirty miles to the north in the small city of Hereford on the English side of the border.

Jenny reached for the phone, intending to call them.

McAvoy said, 'Do you think that's a good idea? You never know who's listening.'

Jenny said, 'You're right. I'll pay them a visit.'

It was time to draw the meeting to a close. McAvoy met her gaze as she tried to find a tactful way of saying so.

Before she spoke, he said, 'If I didn't want to upset your officer any more I'd ask if I could come along for the ride.'