The Running Grave, page 30
‘Did she get to see her dad?’
‘Yeah. He didn’t wanna – cunt – but I persuaded ’im.’
‘Good,’ said Strike. ‘Listen, I need a favour.’
‘Name it,’ said Shanker.
‘It’s about a guy called Kurt Jordan Reaney.’
‘And?’
‘I was hoping we could talk about that face to face,’ said Strike. ‘Would you be free later today? I can come to you.’
Shanker being amenable, they agreed to meet later that afternoon in an East End café well known to both of them, and Strike hung up.
33
Slight digressions from the good cannot be avoided…
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Having handed over surveillance of the Franks to Midge, Strike took the Tube to Bethnal Green station. He’d gone barely ten yards along the road when his ever-busy phone vibrated in his pocket. Drawing aside to let other people pass, he saw yet another text from Bijou Watkins.
You less busy yet? Cos here’s what you’re missing.
She’d attached two photographs of herself in lingerie, taken with a mobile in the mirror. Strike gave these only a cursory glance before closing then deleting the message. He had no intention of ever meeting her again, but those photographs might tend to weaken his resolve, because she looked undeniably fabulous in a bright red bra, suspender belt and stockings.
Pellicci’s, which lay on Bethnal Green Road, was an East End institution: a small, century-old Italian-run café where the art deco wooden panels gave the incongruous feeling of eating chips in a compartment on the Orient Express. Strike chose a corner seat with his back to the wall, ordered coffee, then reached for an abandoned copy of the Daily Mail a previous diner had left lying on the table beside his.
Skipping the usual discussion of the Brexit referendum, he paused on page five, where there was a large picture of Charlotte with Landon Dormer, both of them holding glasses of champagne and laughing. The caption informed him that Charlotte and her boyfriend had attended a fundraising dinner for Dormer’s charitable foundation. The story below hinted at a possible engagement.
Strike studied this picture far longer than he’d looked at Bijou’s. Charlotte was wearing a long, clinging gold dress and looked entirely carefree, one thin arm resting on Dormer’s shoulder, her long black hair styled in waves. Had she lied about having cancer, or was she putting on a brave face? He scrutinised the lantern-jawed Dormer, who also looked untroubled. Strike was still examining the picture when a voice above him said,
‘Wotcha, Bunsen.’
‘Shanker,’ said Strike, tossing the paper back onto the neighbouring table and extending a hand, which Shanker shook before sitting down.
Gaunt and pale, Shanker had grown a beard since Strike had last seen him, which disguised most of the deep scar that gave him a permanent sneer. He was wearing ill-fitting jeans and a baggy grey sweatshirt. Tattoos covered his wrists, knuckles and neck.
‘You ill?’ he demanded of Strike.
‘No, why?’
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘That’s intentional.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Shanker, now rapidly clicking his fingers, a tic he’d had as long as Strike had known him.
‘Want anything?’ said Strike.
‘Yeah, I could do a coffee,’ said Shanker. Once this had been ordered, Shanker asked, ‘What d’you want wiv Reaney, then?’
‘D’you know him personally?’
‘I know ’oo ’e is,’ said Shanker, whose extensive knowledge of organised crime in London would have shamed the Met. ‘Used to run wiv the Vincent firm. I ’eard about the job ’e got banged up for. Silly cunts nearly killed that bookie.’
‘Would you happen to know where he is?’
‘Yeah, HMP Bedford. Got a couple of mates in there right now, as it goes.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that. Reaney’s got information that might help one of our investigations, but he isn’t being cooperative.’
Shanker seemed unsurprised at the turn the conversation had taken. The waitress now set down Shanker’s coffee in front of him. Strike thanked her, as Shanker seemed to have no intention of doing it, then waited until she’d moved away before asking,
‘How much?’
‘Nah, you can ’ave this one on me. You ’elped me out wiv Angel’s fing.’
‘Cheers, Shanker. Appreciate it.’
‘That it?’
‘Yeah, but I wanted your opinion about something else.’
‘I want somefing to eat, then,’ said Shanker, looking around restlessly. ‘Wait there.’
‘The menu’s here,’ said Strike, pushing the card towards Shanker. He had longstanding knowledge of his companion’s usual way of getting what he wanted, which was to demand, then threaten, irrespective of whether his request was possible to fulfil. Shanker brushed the menu away.
‘Wanna bacon roll.’
Having ordered, Shanker turned back to Strike.
‘What else?’
‘There was a shooting last year in Canning Town. Guy by the name of Kevin Pirbright, shot through the head with the same make of gun used in two previous drug-related shootings. The police found drugs and cash in his flat. Their theory is, he ran afoul of a local dealer, but personally, I think they’re working backwards from the gun that was used.
‘The dead guy grew up in a church,’ Strike continued. ‘I doubt he’d know where to get his hands on drugs, let alone start dealing in quantities to disrupt local drug lords. I wondered what your take was – professionally speaking.’
‘What kinda gun?’
‘Beretta 9000.’
‘Popular shooter,’ said Shanker with a shrug.
‘It’s your manor, Canning Town. Have you heard anything about a young bloke getting shot in his flat?’
Shanker’s roll arrived. Once again, Strike thanked the waitress in the absence of any recognition from Shanker. The latter took a large mouthful of bacon roll, then said,
‘Nope.’
Strike knew perfectly well that if the hit on Pirbright had been carried out by a colleague of Shanker’s, the latter was hardly likely to admit it. On the other hand, he’d have expected some retaliatory aggression if Strike seemed to be prodding around in Shanker’s associates’ affairs, which wasn’t forthcoming.
‘So you think—?’
‘Frame-up, innit,’ said Shanker, still chewing. ‘Sure it’s not some bent pig?’
Strike, who was inured to Shanker’s tendency to attribute half the wrongdoing in London to corrupt police, said,
‘Can’t see why the force would want this particular bloke dead.’
‘Could’ve ’ad somefing on a pig, couldn’ ’e? Me auntie still finks it was a copper what shot Duwayne.’
Strike remembered Shanker’s cousin Duwayne who, like Pirbright, had been shot, his killer never caught. Doubtless it was easiest for Shanker’s aunt to lay one more death at the Met’s door, given that her other son had died in a high-speed chase with police. At least half of Shanker’s sprawling family were engaged in some level of criminal activity. As Duwayne had been in a gang from the age of thirteen, Strike thought there were plenty of people more likely to have executed him than the police, an opinion he was tactful enough not to express.
‘The people Pirbright had stuff on definitely weren’t police.’
He was trying to convince himself he didn’t want a bacon roll. Shanker’s smelled very good.
‘Reaney’s scared of pigs,’ Strike said. ‘The animal, I mean.’
‘Yeah?’ said Shanker, mildly interested. ‘Don’t fink we’re gonna be able to smuggle a pig into Bedford, Bunsen.’
As Strike laughed, his mobile rang yet again and he saw Lucy’s number.
‘Hi Luce, what’s up?’
‘Stick, Ted’s got a GP appointment for a week Friday.’
‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll be there.’
‘Really?’ said Lucy, and he heard her incredulity that, for once, he wasn’t saying he’d check his diary or being irritable about being asked to commit to a date.
‘Yeah, I told you, I’ll be there. What time?’
‘Ten o’clock.’
‘OK, I’ll get down there Thursday,’ said Strike, ‘and I’ll ring Ted and tell him I’m coming with him.’
‘This is so good of you, Stick.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Strike, whose conscience continued to trouble him after Lucy’s recent revelations. ‘Least I can do. Listen, I’m in the middle of something. I’ll call you later, OK?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Lucy rang off.
‘Everyfing awright?’ asked Shanker.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, slipping his phone back in his pocket. ‘Well, my uncle might have dementia, I don’t know. My mum’s brother,’ he added.
‘Yeah?’ said Shanker. ‘Sorry to ’ear that. Fuckin’ bitch, dementia. My old man ’ad it.’
‘Didn’t know that,’ said Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Shanker. ‘Early onset. Last time I saw ’im, ’e never ’ad a clue ’oo I was. Mind you, ’e ’ad that many kids, he could ’ardly remember ’oo I was even when ’e weren’t senile, randy old fucker. Why ’aven’t you ’ad any kids?’ asked Shanker, as though the thought had only just occurred to him.
‘Don’t want them,’ said Strike.
‘You don’ wan’ kids?’ said Shanker, his tone suggesting this was akin to not wanting to breathe.
‘No,’ said Strike.
‘You miserable bastard,’ said Shanker, contemplating Strike with incredulity. ‘Kids is wha’ it’s all abou’. Fuckin’ ’ell, look at your mum. You free was everyfing to ’er.’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike automatically. ‘Well—’
‘You should see fuckin’ Alyssa, wiv Angel bein’ ill. That’s fuckin’ love, man.’
‘Yeah – well, give her my best, OK? And Angel.’
Strike got to his feet, bill in his hand.
‘Cheers for this, Shanker. I’d better get going. Got a lot of work on.’
Having paid for the coffees and the bacon roll, Strike headed back up Bethnal Green Road, lost in not entirely productive thought.
You free was everyfing to ’er.
Strike never thought of Leda as having had three children, but his old friend had reminded him of the existence of somebody whom Strike probably thought about once a year at most: the much younger half-brother who’d been the product of his mother’s marriage to her killer. The boy, who’d been given the predictably eccentric name Switch by his parents, had been born shortly before Strike left for Oxford University. The latter had felt literally nothing for the squalling baby, even as a beaming Leda insisted her older son hold his brother. Strike’s most vivid memory of that time was his own feeling of dread at leaving Leda in the squat with her increasingly erratic and aggressive husband. The baby had been merely an additional complication, forever tainted in Strike’s eyes by being Whittaker’s son. His half-brother had just turned one when Leda died, and had then been adopted by his paternal grandparents.
He felt no curiosity about Switch’s current whereabouts and no desire to meet or know him. As far as he knew, Lucy felt the same way. But then Strike corrected himself: he didn’t know how Lucy felt. Perhaps Switch was one of the half-siblings with whom she maintained contact, hiding this from the elder brother who’d arrogantly assumed he knew everything about her.
Strike re-entered Bethnal Green station, burdened with guilt and unease. He’d have called Robin had she been available, not to bore her with his personal problems, but to let her know Shanker was prepared to help loosen Jordan Reaney’s tongue, that Shanker, too, thought the police were wrong about Pirbright’s murder, and that the Frank brothers had gone out in disguise to buy rope. Once again, the fact that she was unavailable, and likely to be so for the foreseeable future, made him realise just how much the sound of her voice generally raised his spirits. He was ever more conscious of how much he, the most self-sufficient of men, had come to rely on the fact that she was always there, and always on his side.
34
It is a question of a fierce battle to break and to discipline the Devil’s Country, the forces of decadence.
But the struggle also has its reward. Now is the time to lay the foundations of power and mastery for the future.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Robin was craving solitude, sleep and food, but the routine at Chapman Farm was designed to give as little of all three as possible, and some recruits were starting to show the strain. Robin had witnessed green-haired Penny Brown being berated by Taio Wace for dropping some of the large pile of clean folded sheets she’d been carrying across the courtyard. Becca Pirbright ushered Fire Group quickly onwards towards the pig pen, but not in time to prevent them seeing Penny break down in sobs.
In subtle and not so subtle ways, an apocalyptic note began to creep into the critiques of materialism and social inequality with which new recruits were being bombarded. The lack of contact with the outside world served to heighten the sense of being in a bunker, with church members delivering regular bulletins on the horrors of the Syrian war and the slow death of the planet. A sense of increasing urgency permeated these briefings: only the awoken could possibly head off global catastrophe, because the bubble people were continuing, selfishly and apathetically, to hasten humanity’s doom.
Papa J and the UHC were now openly described as the world’s best hope. Though Wace hadn’t appeared since the first dinner, Robin knew he was still present at the farm because church members made frequent mention of the fact in hushed, reverent voices. The infrequency of his appearances seemed to fuel rather than quench his followers’ adoration. Robin assumed he was holed up in the farmhouse, eating separately from the mass of members who, in spite of the church’s stated allegiance to organically produced and ethically sourced food, ate meals largely composed of cheap dehydrated noodles, with small amounts of protein coming in the form of processed meat and cheese.
On Wednesday morning, Mazu Wace, who unlike her husband was often to be seen gliding through the courtyard, conducted a joint session in the temple with Fire Group and Wood Group. A circle of lacquered chairs had been placed on the central pentagon-shaped stage, and when all had taken their seats, Mazu gave a brief speech about the need for spiritual death and rebirth which, she said, could only take place once past pain and delusion had been accepted, healed or renounced. She then invited the group members to share injustices or cruelties perpetuated on them by family members, partners or friends.
After some prompting, people began to volunteer their stories. A young member of Wood Group called Kyle, who was thin and nervy-looking, gave a detailed account of his father’s furious reaction on hearing that his son was gay. As he told the group how his mother had sided with her husband against him, he broke down and cried. The rest of the group murmured support and sympathy while Mazu sat in silence, and when Kyle had finished his story, she summarised it while eradicating any words relating to familial relationships, substituting the terms ‘flesh object’ and ‘materialist possession’, then said,
‘Thank you for being brave enough to share your story, Kyle. Pure spirits are untouchable by materialist harms. I wish you a hasty death of the false self. When that’s gone, your hurt and your suffering will depart, also.’
One by one, the other group members began to talk. Some were clearly struggling with profound hurt caused by outside relationships, or the lack of them, but Robin couldn’t avoid the suspicion that some were dredging up and even exaggerating trauma, so as to fit in better with the group. When invited by Mazu to contribute, Robin told the story of her cancelled wedding and her family’s disappointment, and admitted that her fiancé’s abandonment had left her bereft, particularly as she’d given up her job to go travelling with him once they were husband and wife.
Those in the circle, many of whom were already tearful after sharing their own stories, offered commiseration and sympathy, but Mazu told Robin that placing importance on professions was to connive at systems of control perpetuated within the bubble world.
‘A sense of identity based on jobs, or any of the trappings of the bubble world, is inherently materialist,’ she said. ‘When we firmly reject the cravings of the ego and begin nourishing the spirit, hurts disappear and the true self can emerge, a self that will no longer care if flesh objects pass out of its life.’
Mazu turned last to a skinny girl with a heart-shaped face who’d remained conspicuously silent. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest and her legs were crossed, the upper foot hooked behind her lower.
‘Would you like to share with the group how you’ve suffered through materialist possession?’
In a voice that shook slightly, the girl replied:
‘I haven’t suffered anything.’
Mazu’s dark, crooked eyes contemplated her.
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No, nothing.’
Robin judged the girl to be in her late teens. Her face was reddening slightly under the censorious scrutiny of the circle.
‘My family’s never done me any harm,’ she said. ‘I know some people here have had really awful things happen to them, but I haven’t. I haven’t,’ she repeated, with a shrug of her stiff shoulders.
Robin could feel the group’s animosity towards the girl as surely as if they’d declared it openly, and willed her not to speak again, to no avail.
‘And I don’t think it’s right to call, like, parents loving their kids “materialist possession”,’ she blurted out. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think it is.’
Several group members, including Amandeep, now spoke up at once. Mazu intervened, and gestured to Amandeep to continue alone.
‘There’s a power dynamic in all conventional family structures,’ he said. ‘You can’t deny there isn’t coercion and control, even if it’s well intentioned.’
‘Well, little children need boundaries,’ said the girl.
Most of the group now spoke up simultaneously, some of them clearly angry. Vivienne, the girl with spiky black hair who was usually at pains to sound as working class as possible, spoke loudest, and others fell silent to let her carry on.
