Deep Sleep Read online

  ‘Get up, man,’ he said sharply. ‘What the hell are you doing here this time of night? Ten o’clock, Duncan. Bedtime by the look of you. Is your car in the yard?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Duncan had struggled upright. ‘I walked, sir. I’m not quite that stupid.’ He was running his hand through his hair as if trying to discover if his head was attached. The words were humble, without a touch of defiance, and, rather to his own alarm, Bailey could see that the man’s eyes were filling with tears. ‘Didn’t even have that much, sir, honest. I went and got some shopping.’ He pointed at two supermarket bags in the corner, toilet rolls and tins spilling from the mouths. ‘Very tired, sir. Bloody tired.’ Bailey looked closer. Maybe Duncan was telling the truth and the manner of his sleeping, as well as the choice of venue, owed more to exhaustion than to alcohol although the latter certainly played a part. There was not a day in Duncan’s life when alcohol did not play a part, but he was always disposed to be truthful. Work, truth, silly bravery, obsession and booze, the keys to a character that only appeared simple on the surface. Bailey liked Duncan, but not all of the time. Sometimes, even as men went, he was revolting. Lack of sympathy with Duncans was part of Bailey’s condition, carefully hidden from mankind.

  ‘You were supposed to be off duty at six. What the hell have you been doing between then and now?’

  Duncan dragged himself straight, yanked up his trousers, and looked at the coat he was still wearing as if he did not recognise it.

  ‘Had a couple of drinks, sir. Late-night shopping.’ He pointed towards the carrier bags again. ‘Then hung around a bit.’

  Bailey sighed inaudibly. He might not join in the gossip, but it was his business to hear enough to have a shrewd notion of what hanging around meant in Duncan’s case. Uniformed officers had slipped him the word once or twice about DC Perry’s distinctive car being parked in the slip road behind Herringbone Parade early in the morning or evening, watching for his wife, and even without that, Duncan’s distress had bleated itself into a dozen ears, month after month. Kimberley Perry was different. Bailey remembered her clearly from an annual party when he had talked to her for a full fifteen minutes, delighted to find an independent woman among the spouses, while Duncan showed her off like a prize bloom at a flower show. She had been brave enough not to run off with someone else. That alone made her uncommon. Christ, Bailey thought to himself. I’m getting cynical.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said gently, ‘you were checking up on Kimberley. Seeing she was OK? And the boy, Tom, isn’t it? Must be a big lad now.’

  Duncan looked like a dumb ox, nodding his head in affirmation. ‘Any chance you’ll make up, you two?’ Bailey ventured even more delicately, as if his remarks concerned nothing more than the weather. ‘I mean, there comes a time, doesn’t there, when you either have to make up or give up. Been a whole year, Duncan, long time.’

  ‘She won’t even talk about it,’ Duncan muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Never a word. I collect the kid, take him back, she smiles, shuts the door, won’t let me do anything for her. Cold as ice, the bitch.’

  ‘She’s not a bitch,’ Bailey interrupted quietly. Duncan turned on him one belligerent eye, sank back against the desk.

  ‘No, sir, she’s not a bitch. I almost wish she was.’

  ‘Nor a fool. She can think for herself. Seems to have made up her mind, doesn’t she? Got someone else, has she?’ He was deliberately harsh.

  ‘Yes. No. I don’t know. I love her,’ said Duncan with sudden intensity. ‘I think she might be having it off with her boss. She can’t do this to me, I bloody love her.’

  This time Bailey’s sigh was not disguised. How often these words were used as cudgels. I love her, therefore she must love me: therefore I must have her and no one else must … That obdurate hope, born and dying in stupidity, of love extracting its own reward. He felt a wave of impatience with Duncan. In front of him there stood a man intelligent enough to know that he could not force a prisoner to talk, make a horse drink or a car start, still thinking he could make a woman love him. There was nothing for Bailey to say.

  ‘Well, you mustn’t make a nuisance of yourself, or there’ll be trouble. Won’t do, you know. Come on, I’ll run you home. You’re on my way,’ he added. Duncan hated favours as much as advice. One did only what one could, accepting that people could not be changed.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Bailey turned away to his own room before the man bent to retrieve his shopping. He had no wish to see what his lone, wilfully miserable officers ate for their suppers; wanted to help without being involved. Wandering outside to wait, he thought bitterly how this had become habit. Stopping people from talking, turning his eyes from suffering which might be stupid, but was still real. Seeing only what he needed to see.

  ‘I’ll have to talk to someone, just must. Oh God, I can’t go on. Is he going mad, or am I?’ Kimberley Perry stifled the feeling of panic, stopped herself running to the phone, running from one room to the other. Nothing to be achieved by that apart from waking fractious Tombo, who had sulked into sleep. There was no one to tell: Kim’s stance on the subject of her own marriage alienated her family, pride made them the least likely of chosen confidants, and her thoughts turned to Pip. No, far too personal to tell Pip, as well as unfair, no extra burdens for such a new, if brave widower. Which meant that she could really do nothing at all if Pip were not to know, because even changing the locks on what was, after all, his flat, would be a signal of alarm. She knew what he would do, kind Pip: call me, he would say, whenever you’re worried; I’ll be round in two seconds. Pip was everybody’s helper. For Christ’s sake, it was not as if she had done anything wrong in coming back reasonably late, not as if she’d been out dancing till dawn with a rose between her teeth – only out for a drink, for God’s sake. But it was the very fact of her being somewhere out of sight that Duncan seemed to dislike so much. Wanted to punish, so he must have crept into the flat with the keys they had agreed he keep against any emergencies on the understanding he never used them otherwise. Crept in here like an alley cat as he brought Tom home from an outing, sniffed around, marking her territory. Taken souvenirs, crept away. Bastard.

  ‘Oh shit. Fucking hell.’ Her voice, deep and strident, better suited for joking but no stranger to swearing, sounded harsh and defeated to her own ears, the fury in her tinged with guilt. She need never have suffered this if she hadn’t been such a silly cow. Flitting round the flat, feeling sorry for herself, wanting a reminder of being a girl and not a motherly drudge. Searching for that special nightie, a thing of gossamer and satin, bought in headier days, honeymoon stuff, so frivolous it befitted a trousseau. Wanting it now to make herself feel lighter, prettier, even to an audience of no one. A reminder that she was getting out of this hole, going up some day soon and although she tried to pretend the nightie might not have been there in the bottom drawer where she had left it, she knew there was no mistake and it was gone. Along with two pairs of sheer stockings, and, left in place, a single small bottle of the type of perfume Duncan had unfailingly produced on Christmas and birthday. Looking into the drawer, Kim was afraid to look anywhere else, at least until daylight. The evidence of his obsession made her sick.

  Who to tell, then, when all this became too much? There were few reserves of fortitude left to manage this new departure of Duncan’s, the watchful jealousy worse since she had let him stay, just that once. The night after she found Margaret. Who to tell? There was no reporting policeman Duncan to his fellows and having him jeered down the street. Then an idea illuminated the darkness of the panic, a face swam hopefully into vision and her brow cleared slightly. Bailey, that man Bailey, Duncan’s boss. The one she had talked to at the last Christmas party, the only one who listened to what she wanted to do and seemed to know by instinct how tough a time she had with a bleeding drunk spouse like Duncan. A man who had said, let me know if I can help, I doubt if I can, but talking is better than silence. And a man who might, just might be able to exert some control.

/>   ‘No. Stuff it.’ No one helped. No one ever had and no one ever would. You’re on your own, gal, silly bitch. Broken all the rules. You, a chemist, don’t make me laugh. She scrubbed at her face in the mirror. I’ll handle this, sod you all, you wankers. I don’t want nothing so leave me alone. Twenty-fucking-nine with eyebags and a maniac husband. Oh Christ. Kim thrust her bosom forward through her pyjamas to intimidate her reflection, the way she would with an awkward customer. She would cope. She would have to.

  She knew her silhouette was visible from the window and did not care. The building site was empty, a newly established crane swinging silent. No one whistled and she missed the sound.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘ANY signs of life in here? Yes? No. Oh well.’

  How easy to feel extremely silly. In the atmosphere of soporific indifference which pervaded Helen’s office, there had been no point in staggering beyond the portals wearing at the time a flashing bow-tie provided by one of her godchildren; pretending not to be tired while repeating a few thoughts. How awful to be here. No; I think I like it here some of the time. Possibly not today. The ten days’ absence felt more like a decade, and in a minute someone would come in that door, look a little sheepish and say, Nice to see you and now you’re better would you like to go to court this afternoon? She wanted to be able to say, look, buster, I could have swung the lead on the strength of one small operation and stayed off till after Christmas according to Civil Service rules; as it is, conscience got the upper hand so here I am, but don’t push your luck. Seen this tie? Wish it was me with the spare battery. If it weren’t for having only half a file on Mrs Carlton, I would have stayed home. Where the hell is everybody?

  Helen recognised that talking to oneself had all the ingredients of eccentricity, just as expecting some sort of welcome from her colleagues bore witness to an optimism which was futile at eleven a.m., most other times too. She dropped on a chair one polythene-wrapped hanger bearing newly collected dry cleaning, breathed in the dust with appreciation.

  The emptiness was not surprising. There were never enough staff in any inner city office of the Crown Prosecution Service, such a romantic, well-chosen name, she had always thought. Made them sound remarkably like the firm which cleaned the towels, King’s Laundry, or any other syndicate which happened to sweep up rubbish. At your service, sir, Prosecutions Incorporated, imprisonments recommended, also cheap eats and good excuses. Helen’s untidiness hid her efficiency, and, though the office would have liked to make the same claim it found itself famous instead for failing expectations and losing papers. Justice on a shoestring, poor pay and lousy prospects. Being indifferent to ambition and careless about money, Helen had been in her post far longer than most, and was relied upon by beleaguered colleagues to do the work which no one else had ever done before, the big cases no one else knew how to tackle, the tedious dribs and drabs which had no real place anywhere and precious little interest either. She also supplied shoulders on which to cry (her own excuse for wearing shoulder pads), and, sometimes, the silly jokes.

  The battery for the flashing bow-tie was uncomfortable against her skin and the effort of the tube journey more tiring than she expected. Rubbish, she was tired of being tired. One of the reasons for this pretend complete recovery was to avoid solicitude, far worse than any illness. Only as an adolescent had she craved to be pale and interesting like the consumptive heroine of a novel, but now when feeling fragile, she applied the maquillage of perfect health. Bailey had been so kind, so instinctively sensitive, that the attention provoked little but guilt. She was also sick of the idea of resting herself into boredom and drinking nothing but barley water. The door opened. Into the room staggered the case clerk, Mika, under a weight of files.

  ‘Oh. ’Lo, Miss West. Where you been? Got some stuff for you. Redwood thought you might be back. Going to court this afternoon are you? Been poorly? Oh, look.’ She pointed to the bow-tie, smiling but bewildered, as if the tie had nothing to do with Helen herself. Mika did not understand jokes. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It monitors my heart beat, Mika. How are you?’

  ‘You joking, miss? Oh yes you are. Oh yes, yes, yes. Joke. Shall I tell him you’re in? Oh here, Darren wants to see you. And Lefty. Shall I tell …’

  ‘Give us a minute, Mika. Don’t tell Red Squirrel until after lunch, right? I want to do a bit of reading before he catches me.’

  ‘Right. Gotcha.’ Mika grinned, to accompany an elaborate stage whisper, and pushed off to the clerk’s room with the good news and her own bustle.

  ‘Well, well, cover blown,’ said Helen aloud, not waiting for the queue to form, but knowing, without self-congratulation, that it would. Case clerks, typists not suffering from flu, disgruntled doorman et al would all sidle in, one way or another. They did because they knew how much they could widen her eyes with their gossip or their problems. She could do nothing but listen, of course, but that was maybe better than nothing. The same way she listened to witnesses, defendants in waiting who tended to trust her more than their own representatives, and anyone else with a voice. Helen was a time-waster, Redwood said: appalling subject for a time and motion study. What’s more she encourages the others.

  Silence fell, the silence of the office inside court hours, an interlude for contemplative study. Helen did not want to contemplate, would have preferred to talk, but reading was mandatory and she had flogged in here purely to read. What had puzzled her so much about the Carlton file, blurred over in hospital, was the fact that it was incomplete. Tantalisingly so. A fine case of a Chief Inspector doing his beleaguered best with a bad grace. There was neither the need nor the official requirement to report an unnatural death to the Crown Prosecutor for the area, but if one did so, long before he read of it in the paper over breakfast and called for a report, then at least no officer of the law could say his back was not clear and he had not done his duty. But the indifference of this particular report was evident, an exercise in writing a few paragraphs to a person in whose existence he did not entirely believe and whom he certainly disliked. A little like the mad letters they got quite often, copied to the Queen.

  ‘Sir. (The fact that the addressee may have been a woman did not enter into the rough calculations of politeness.)

  ‘I beg to report the following incident …’

  Who begs, thought Helen. I beg, you beg. To be heard, understood or have enough for dinner, he has no need to beg.

  ‘Mrs Margaret Carlton (deceased) was found dead in bed on Nov third 1990. Her husband had been away for the forty-eight hours before the discovery of her death, he being a pharmacist, attending a drugs symposium/ conference at a central London hotel. Since he had been unable to raise Mrs Carlton by telephone, he had alerted first his assistant, who lives next-door to the flat the couple occupied; she in turn alerted the local police the next morning, at his request. Police Constable Jones forced entry into the flat with Mrs Perry and they found Mrs Carlton dead in bed, but looking quite normally asleep. Since there were no signs, other than those caused by PC Jones himself, of forced entry – here Helen paused and smiled: Jones had obviously entered with all the gentle force of a battering ram – nor were there any signs of struggle or burglary, it was assumed that Mrs Carlton had died in her sleep of natural causes and her doctor was called. He confirmed that she was who she was, a woman of forty-six with no health problems apparent from his own records. She had been married to Philip Carlton, proprietor of the chemist’s shop below the flat, for five years prior to her death, and by all local accounts, the marriage had been very happy. Mr Carlton was a bachelor who had spent many years nursing his own mother. The deceased owned the freehold of the shop and assisted in it. Routine postmortem carried out, mindful of the fact that the deceased was living above a stock of drugs, but nothing untoward was found. Her husband says that on the probable night of her death they had consumed a meal cooked by himself: he then left for the conference. The departure is confirmed by his assistant. The deceased was not missed u
ntil the following evening, when Mr Carlton tried to phone her and got no reply. (Continues page two …)

  There was no page two. The rest of the file consisted of a statement from the doctor and PC Jones, plus one from another doctor at the local hospital who had done the post-mortem, plus two bald descriptions from two ambulancemen, and a statement from someone who watched Mr P. Carlton identify the body of his wife. Helen could see the reason for the report, or thought she could. Chief Inspector whatever he was had some reason to believe there was something wrong here somewhere, didn’t like chemists for the good reason that chemists had dealings with drugs, so a certain bad smell must always follow the unexpected demise of anyone near. Or whatever it was, this chemist was not to be taken lightly, according to information received, but all the same, the report, its bitty if formal preparation with all the crossings out, the case itself, starring PC Jones, had never been given the status of any kind of homicide. So where was the rest, if there was any rest. And why, apart from hospital nightmares, did it bother her so much? Slop, rubbish, voluminous, time-wasting things, were the stuff of daily life here; who picked whose pocket. Anyone who thought they joined to deal all the time with real crime etc., soon found out to the difference. But it was that damned shop, or a shop so like this shop, which fixed an uncomfortable, immovable image in her mind.

  To say that Helen liked shops was an understatement. Shops and markets without discrimination. The liking was more of an addiction and one which Bailey failed to understand. Shop, she said to herself. Not necessarily the same shop, but she was sure she had remembered the ugly lettering on the outside, ‘Carlton’s Caring Chemist’, with a market outside. Some weeks before hospital, which now seemed another life, driving back from Bailey’s flat on a Saturday morning, a journey she could manage with her eyes half-closed and often did, she had found the market, stopped mid-stall with a pair of green tights in hand, arrested by the pain, walked into that shop, and up to the counter, muttering, ‘Nurofen, please, anything that works.’ Only then did she notice the dizzy interior of the place. Socks hung above the counter, frilly undies, every patent medicine under the sun, one poster showing flossed teeth in a wide smile, another showing the state of a smoker’s lungs. The effect of this brightly illuminated variety, plus all the posters, warnings and directions, as well as the condescension of the proprietor – ‘Got a headache, have we?’ – had the same effect on Helen as psychedelic décor inflicted on a hangover. So much so she had only mumbled her thanks, taken her purchase and fled to the car. Swallowing pills and pulling faces at the taste, she forgot the image, the funny smell which was talcum powder, vitamins, bleach, dispensary scents, all mixed up with the sugary, bitter taste in the mouth. Then, in hospital nightmares, the same scents carried in by nurses and impregnated in the sheets, reminded her again.