‘Got it in one. Abigail Fanke, she’s called at this particular juncture.’
‘She’s Peace’s daughter.’
‘Well, he thinks she is. And the court records agree, as far as that goes, because surname notwithstanding there’s a birth certificate on record for her in Burkina Faso, thirteenth of March 1993. Mother: Melanie Carla Jeffers. Father: Dennis Peace.’
‘That’s not long after he got out of prison,’ I said.
‘Good to know you’re listening. Yeah, it is. And armed with that little titbit, I went back to the court records. Which was a bastard, because I don’t need to tell you they were all fucking handwritten. I had to call in a favour or three, but I got there in the end. Melanie Whatever-her-name-is bailed Peace out of jail, and presumably spread those bribes around. Makes more sense, I guess. Like I said before, if he’d had the money himself he could have bought off the judge before he was sentenced, for about half the price. But maybe he didn’t have any money. Maybe he needed an angel.’
‘An angel. Right.’
‘Then they have a night of passionate celebration, and nine months later little Abbie is born. Makes sense, kind of. And now he’s on the run with her – alive or dead, we don’t officially know.’
‘I know.’
‘Sure you do. Only what you didn’t know was that he stopped to murder her mother and the mother’s current boyfriend along the way. And that someone wants him badly enough to make up all this bullshit and get you on board.’
I shook my head, which was aching so badly now it felt like it might fall off. Nicky was affronted. ‘What, did I hurt your professional pride?’
‘No. But you said they wanted Peace. It’s not Peace who’s the point of this, Nicky – it’s Abbie.’
‘Well, from his point of view it’s Abbie, obviously. I mean, it looks like he killed two people to get hold of her. But the guys who are looking for him—’
‘If they’re looking for Peace, why not hire a proper detective? Why come to me?’
Nicky opened his mouth to speak, blinked, shut it again.
‘You see? There’s a whole lot of people out there who could do a better job of tracking down a man who doesn’t want to be found. But finding him wouldn’t necessarily mean finding Abbie. No, to find a ghost you need an exorcist. And that’s what they went out to get.’
I stood up, a little unsteadily.
‘Are you drunk?’ Nicky asked, with the scorn of the teetotaller.
‘No. I think I’m coming down with something.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me a bit, the shit you pour into yourself. Your body may not be a temple, Castor, but it isn’t a skip. Take it from me, if you want to live to be old, you’ll—’
‘Save it up and mail it, Nicky. I’m not in the mood. You serious about that cab?’
‘Dead serious.’
‘To coin a phrase.’
‘Funny.’
‘Whatever. Thanks for your help. The fare’s on me.’
I dropped a couple of tenners onto the table and lurched towards the door. I must have looked right then like one of The Level’s zombie customers: I sure as hell felt like one.
Approaching Matt’s car from the wrong direction, I was able to see first-hand what a mess the Catholic werewolves had made of the nearside wing. I felt bad about that: it seemed like a poor exchange for my brother’s trust. He might even have trouble with his insurance, given that I wasn’t a named driver. The only consolation was that – to the religious mind – adversity is good for the soul.
I got in and drove, trying to focus on the road ahead as dark filaments swam across my vision. Whatever was wrong with me, it seemed to be getting worse rather than better. On the other hand, it had been a hell of a night: I didn’t need to look all that far to find reasons why I might be functioning at less than a hundred per cent.
I really needed to concentrate hard on the road, but I found my mind wandering back over what Nicky had just told me. Little Abbie may not have had much happiness in her life, but she’d sure had a hell of a lot of parents. Two who’d died on Saturday night; two more who’d turned up at my office on Monday morning – and a fifth, Dennis Peace, who didn’t figure in either tally. And then there were the Catholics: the Anathemata wanted her, too – wanted her badly. I got the feeling of wheels turning within wheels, and little fires touching off bigger ones. Whatever was going on, Abbie was the key to something huge: I knew I was right about that. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to be any closer than before to figuring out what that something actually was. ‘Someone didn’t close the circle,’ the werewolf Zucker had said, charmingly mixing his metaphors, ‘and a little bird flew the nest.’ Still sounded like garbage whichever way you played it, but I was suddenly certain that the little bird was Abbie Torrington. Whatever she’d run from, it had to be bad if even being dead didn’t get you free.
It was half past one when I rolled the car into Pen’s driveway. The house was dark, which didn’t mean anything because the windows of Pen’s basement room look onto the garden, not the street: I was hoping she might still be awake so we could make our peace, knock back a glass or two of brandy and I could maybe try her out on some of the stuff Nicky had just dropped on me – see if her credulity was any more elastic than mine.
I never got the chance to find out. I’d taken about three steps towards the door when some headlights went on across the street, pinning me like a butterfly to a board. Some doors slammed, and footsteps sounded from my left and right simultaneously. I bunched my fists, preparing to go down fighting.
‘Relax, Castor.’
I did, but only a little way. It was Gary Coldwood’s voice. A moment later, he loomed out of the light like some negative Nosferatu and clapped a hand on my shoulder, a little too close to my neck. I winced. My head was throbbing so badly now, even that over-friendly touch sent spikes of pain through it.
‘Burning the candle at both ends,’ Coldwood said. ‘You look like shit.’
‘I feel like shit,’ I said. ‘It’s a set.’
He stared at me for a moment in silence. He seemed to want to say something, and it seemed to be something that needed a bit of a run-up.
‘Something about Pauley?’ I prompted him.
He looked blank. ‘About who?’
‘Robin Pauley? Drug tsar and murderer? I’m going to be a material witness at his trial, remember? You told me to look out for frighteners.’
Coldwood nodded and waved the topic brusquely away.
‘Pauley’s dead,’ he said. ‘Three of his lieutenants, too. We hauled them out of the Thames this morning. We’re thinking now that Sheehan’s murder was the first move in a gang war. Sorry, Fix. I should have told you.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, deadpan. ‘You should. And now you have. But next time you could just send me an email. Squad cars on the doorstep in the middle of the night get the neighbours talking.’
He didn’t move. He didn’t really seem to be listening. ‘We go back a long way, Fix,’ he said.
‘No,’ I told him. ‘We don’t.’
He laughed unconvincingly. ‘Hell, you’re right. We don’t, do we? But I’ve sort of come to trust you. I mean, up to a point. Bullshit aside – and you’re a great man for bullshit – I don’t think you’ve ever lied to me.’
There was another silence. ‘So what?’ I said. ‘Did you come out all this way just to hug me?’
Coldwood shook his head. A woman and a man had moved in on either side of me while we spoke, and now he flicked a glance at each of them in turn. I didn’t bother to look: in the glare of the headlights, I couldn’t see much of them anyway. ‘Fix, this is Detective Sergeant Basquiat and Detective Constable Fields. They’ve got a crime scene, and they’d like you to look it over with them. Since I’m your designated liaison, they went through me. I said you’d be fine with it. But I also said, bearing in mind how late it was getting, we might have to ask you to come over in the morning.’
Coldwood’s tone had turned clipped and formaclass="underline" words chosen carefully, for the record. It was that tone more than anything else that made me nod my head – also carefully, to minimise the risk of it exploding or falling off. This sounded like the kind of bad shit that has repercussions: I needed to know what it was about.