The door of the house Strike was watching opened. Plug emerged, holding a large, wriggling puppy. Strike took a few photos from the shadows and was about to tail Plug back up the street when he suddenly remembered where he’d seen the van driver before.
A few years previously, Strike and Robin had investigated a cold case that had brought them within the orbit of a pair of violent criminals called the Ricci brothers. The pair visited their father, Niccolò (a gangster who’d been known as ‘Mucky’ in his pimping and pornography-making heyday), every Sunday at his nursing home. Strike could now visualise the group turning up, children and wives smartly dressed, the two men in suits. The older brother, Luca, had had the more fearsome reputation, but Marco, the younger of the two, and the man who’d just driven a van into Brian Judge Scrap, had his own respectable tally of acid attacks and knifings.
A powerful instinct was telling Strike to stay put, rather than tail Plug, so he watched Plug out of sight without following. Now alone on the otherwise deserted street, Strike asked himself what he was playing at, but had no answer, except that his subconscious, having revealed the identity of the man in the van, seemed to be trying to tell him something else.
He resumed his position in the first patch of shadow in which he’d lurked, on the opposite side of the street to the scrapyard. Ten minutes passed, with Strike staring at the sign giving the junkyard’s name. Then, rather as scrap itself may slide and settle, something in the depths of his mind shifted, and he saw what had lain hidden, and knew why he’d stayed.
Cockney rhyming slang.
Brian Judge.
Judge.
Barnaby Rudge.
As he felt in his pocket for his mobile, a Renault glided to a halt in front of the gates. Marco Ricci slid back out of the yard, got into the car, and it drove away. From inside the scrapyard came a rumbling sound. An odd time to start the noisy business of compacting a vehicle or firing up an incinerator, but under certain circumstances, such jobs might be a matter of urgency.
Shanker answered Strike’s call within thirty seconds.
‘’S’up, Bunsen?’
‘Wanted to ask you a question. Do you, personally, have any stake in Barnaby’s?’
When Shanker spoke again, he sounded cagey.
‘Why’re you askin’?’
‘Answer me.’
‘I ain’t ever used it, personal,’ said Shanker. ‘No.’
‘So the police couldn’t tie you to anything in Haringey? Specifically, Carnival Street?’
Strike waited for Shanker to deny that Barnaby’s was in Carnival Street, but instead, in an ominous tone, he asked,
‘Woss goin’ on, Bunsen?’
‘I’m giving you a heads-up, in return for the one you gave me a few months back.’
‘’Oo’s grassed?’ said Shanker furiously.
‘Someone was tailed and certain suspicious activity was observed,’ said Strike.
‘Fuck,’ said Shanker. Then, ‘You ain’t wiv a pig right now, are ya?’
‘You think I’d call you if I had a copper with me?’ said Strike.
‘’Ow do I know? Know enough o’ the fuckin’ cocksuckers, dontcha?’
‘They speak highly of you, too,’ said Strike. ‘All right. Just wanted to give you advance warning.’
‘Awright, cheers,’ said Shanker grumpily, and he hung up.
91
… forgive me! I abase—
Know myself mad and monstrous utterly
In all I did that moment; but as God
Gives me this knowledge—heart to feel and tongue
To testify—so be you gracious too!
Judge no man by the solitary work
Of—well, they do say and I can believe—
The devil in him…
At exactly the moment Robin heard Murphy’s key turn in the lock of the front door again, Strike called her mobile. She refused the call and waited, feeling sick, for Murphy to reappear in the sitting room, which he did seconds later, phone in one hand and a curry in his other.
‘Got you chicken Madras,’ he said, smiling and holding up the bag.
Then his eyes fell on the open water bottle Robin had positioned on the coffee table in front of her.
‘What’s that doing there?’
‘It spilled,’ said Robin. ‘In your sports bag.’
‘What were you doing rummaging in my—?’
‘It leaked out onto the floor,’ said Robin. ‘I was mopping it up when I realised what it was.’
She stared up at him, waiting, feeling strangely shivery, like someone in the early stages of flu.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked at the bottle with its vodka dregs, back at Robin, then said,
‘I…’
Robin had imagined his possible reactions while waiting for him to return. She’d wondered whether he’d try and pretend this was a one-off lapse, even that someone else had filled the bottle without his knowledge. Life had taught her there were few limits on the lies desperate men were prepared to tell.
Murphy’s eyes filled with tears. He dropped the takeaway and sat down in an armchair, face in his hands, and began to sob. There was no question that his tears were genuine: he was making noises that were barely human; strangled, whooping wails, his whole body shaking.
Robin had never seen him cry before, but she offered no comfort. She wanted to hear what he had to say, how many more untruths he was prepared to tell.
At last, he began to talk in broken sentences, not looking at her, and still crying.
‘Those kids who were shot… I fucked up… it was all on me… I thought the eyewitness was bullshitting… went and arrested the wrong… it was all on me, I did it… I was sure the fucker had done it… I got rough with him… investigation… complaints…
‘I had a beer in the pub… just one… couldn’t stop… couldn’t fucking stop… you’re going to leave, aren’t you?’
He looked up at her, red-eyed, face wet.
‘You’ve gone on and on about honesty,’ whispered Robin, ‘and all this time, you’ve been drinking…’
‘Not all the time – I swear, not all the time, it’s been stop-start – I kept trying to – I’m going back to AA tomorrow. I’ll throw all the booze I’ve got out, you can watch me doing it.’
‘You’ve got more, in this flat?’ said Robin, testing to see what he’d say.
‘Yeah, in – in the wardrobe,’ said Murphy. ‘I’ll do it right now. Robin, you’re literally the best thing that happened to me, I’ll make this up to you—’
‘What about that night?’ she said. ‘The night I got pregnant?’
‘I wasn’t drunk then,’ he said quickly. ‘It started after that.’
She didn’t believe him. Getting up off the sofa, she went into his bedroom to fetch the overnight holdall she’d already packed, and her coat. When she returned, Murphy was on his feet.
‘Robin, I swear I’m going back to AA tomorrow, it’ll stop—’
‘I need… not to be here,’ said Robin, pulling her coat on. Her insides felt icy. For months now she’d felt guilty about lying to him by omission, while he’d been hiding this gigantic secret.
‘Is this it?’ he said, sounding panicked. ‘It’s over?’
‘I need some time,’ said Robin.