According to his colleagues the interview had been going on for several hours. Only latterly had the man availed himself of the duty brief. But that was all that anyone knew.

  Jordan was reading a piece about how Old St Paul’s had burnt to the ground during the Great Fire of London when Brown and Pinker arrived. The whole investigative team, including Jordan, gathered around them.

  Brown said, ‘The fifty-six-year-old man we now had in custody has been released.’

  Someone said, ‘Shit! Isn’t he that baby’s father?’

  ‘He’s submitted to another DNA test this evening, in addition to the one we have on record. But,’ Brown said, ‘he has admitted that he could be the child’s father. Bunked up with a woman whose name he can’t recall about nine months ago, round the back of a pub called The Jolly Sailor in Bermondsey. He claims to have had no further contact with this woman after that night. Now he, Mr Colin Macbeth, reckons this pub is his local, so I want us in there.’

  ‘In there how, guv?’ one officer asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet, Dean,’ Brown said. ‘We have to tread carefully.’

  Jordan said, ‘So you don’t believe him then, sir?’

  Brown looked at Pinker and then he said, ‘I may be wrong, but I’m disinclined to believe him, yes Whittington.’

  ‘Why’s that, sir?’

  He looked at Pinker again, who this time said, ‘All you need to know is that Macbeth is a person of interest. We need to find as much out about him as we can. We also, and this could easily get lost amongst our desire to find this child’s killer, need to be aware that its mother is out there too and she could be in trouble. She’s a black woman; DNA suggests she is probably of Caribbean heritage and she’s probably quite young. Any contacts between Macbeth and a woman like that are of interest to us.’

  Jordan said, ‘Did this man talk about this woman’s race at all, sir?’

  Brown shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Admittedly I didn’t say anything about that to him, but I also think he’s keeping that to himself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Fuck knows,’ Brown said. ‘But my gut’s telling me, it’s deliberate. I’ve no idea why. But I think it means something.’

  ‘And if the new DNA sample proves he isn’t the father, what then?’ an officer called Mabel Onoja asked.

  Brown smiled. ‘It won’t,’ he said. ‘Trust me.’

  When they got back out onto the street, Wilko and Lee lit fags.

  Lee, who had been sitting on what he knew during their talk with Danielle Saint, said, ‘So she’s the Danielle Mumtaz met.’

  ‘She says not,’ Wilko said. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Mumtaz has a habit of writing down random bits of information on post-its in the office,’ he said. ‘Mess of it, but what can you do? So I found one with Danielle’s name written on it, plus a load of other scribble and then the word Saint.’

  ‘So it weren’t written as like her surname?’

  ‘No. But bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?’

  Wilko smiled. He didn’t believe in coincidence any more than Lee did.

  ‘What did you make of the boyfriend?’ Lee asked.

  ‘Mr Blizzard …’ Wilko shook his head.

  Both men had thought that Henry Blizzard would be more concerned about his pregnant girlfriend, but he hadn’t been. In fact his attitude towards her had been formal if anything, and quite cold.

  ‘Posh – much posher than her,’ Wilko said. ‘Bit obsessive compulsive if you ask me. You see the state of that place? Like a fucking operating theatre! Not that you probably noticed …’

  Like most people who knew Lee Arnold, Wilko was aware of his ‘clean’ thing.

  Lee said, ‘I was lost in admiration, Wilko.’

  ‘You would be.’ He shrugged. Then he continued his description of Blizzard. ‘Professional – brief, ain’t he? Good-looking bloke. Jewish.’

  ‘Jewish? Christ, Wilko, not every brief …’

  ‘No! Doughnut!’ Wilko said. ‘Mezuzah! One of them little cylinder things with some parchment in them Jews attach to their doorposts. One large as life as we come in the front door.’

  ‘Was there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wilko said. ‘Blimey, you call yourself a PI.’

  ‘I just want to find Mumtaz,’ Lee said.

  This was all moving way too slowly for him. He just wanted to find Mumtaz and then forget about boys with blood on their faces and dead babies. All he wanted was her. And Wilko knew it.

  ‘Fond of her, are you?’ the older man asked.

  Lee looked away. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Nice lady,’ Wilko said. ‘Intelligent.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Pretty too,’ he said.

  Lee didn’t say anything. This was taking it out of him. He wanted to just push his way into Arthur Hobbs’s house and look for her.

  Because he knew she was there.

  The boy put his plate down on the ground and then drank from the can of Coke the old man had brought him. When was his dad coming to get him? He didn’t like this place. Putting aside the things he’d seen here, it was because of this place that his dad had turned into some sort of raving lunatic.

  Although that wasn’t strictly true. His dad had always been a bit of an idiot. He was the dad who lost his rag at Sunday kids’ football and embarrassed himself. He was the one who’d caused all that trouble at school when it was time to choose options for GCSEs. Loads of boys had opted to do Food Prep and Nutrition. His mum had been delighted. Chefs at the top of their game earned a bucketload. But his dad had caused a massive scene, shouting his mouth off about how only ‘funny’ boys did ‘cooking’. He meant gay boys. He hated them, called them ‘poofs’ and ‘bumboys’. His mum told him to shut up, accused him of being a dinosaur. She was too good for him. He’d thought she should leave years ago.

  Maybe if he ever got back to her and told her what the old man had done, she would? The thought of his mum brought tears to his eyes, but he was determined not to cry. What would that achieve? Soon the old man would be back to take his plate away. Generally he had someone with him, one of them. But if by chance he didn’t, maybe he’d tackle him. It was that or pretend he was suddenly on board with what they’d done, and that was risky.

  If he wanted to get out of this place, he’d have to fight for it.

  THIRTEEN

  Lee Arnold had gone straight from EC4 round to the flat Shazia shared with her boyfriend Krishnan. Krish as a serving copper knew all too well about the legal impediments around gaining entry to a suspect’s property, even if Shazia raged about the injustice of it.

  ‘If Amma’s in that house, you should be able to go in!’ she yelled.

  Her boyfriend held her close. ‘Babe, Lee can’t just go barrelling in,’ he said. ‘Not even this Wilko can do that. What evidence is there?’

  ‘That was where Amma said she was when she disappeared!’

  ‘Doesn’t mean she’s in that house,’ Krish said.

  ‘Wilko’s gonna try and get a warrant,’ Lee said. ‘It hinges on whether there’s reasonable grounds for suspicion.’

  ‘Reasonable …’

  ‘Sssh.’ Krish rocked her in his arms and said, ‘Come on baby, you know how these things work …’

  She pulled away from him. ‘My mother is missing, Krishnan!’ she said. ‘How the fuck would that make you feel?’

  And then she cried. After further assuring her he was doing everything he could, Lee left to go back to Forest Gate, where he fell into his bed exhausted in the early hours of the morning. Now awake again, he took his first coffee of the day into his living room and sat down. No news from the coppers it seemed. His stomach was tied in knots. Where was Mumtaz? He opened his laptop on the coffee table to the sound of Chronus singing ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ and regretted ever having taught the bugger to talk.

  He opened his emails and saw that Gary Connor had, as promised, sent him something. Apparently his wife, Fallon, when confronted with the pictures Lee had taken of her and Gary’s stepbrother snogging, had taken Gary’s kid and decamped to Dagenham. Now with the brother, Dillon, and his mum Cindy in a house in Dagenham Heathway, Fallon had started divorce proceedings against Gary, citing her main reason as his ‘continual use of violence’ against her. If a lie, and Gary said that it was, it was a low blow on her part. Fallon had struck first, probably with a view to getting her hands on both Gary’s millions and his brother. At least that was what Gary believed. Now he wanted to pay Lee to keep ‘an eye’ on Dillon, Fallon, the baby Harrison and Dillon’s mum. But mainly Dillon. If Gary was right, his stepbrother was a nasty bit of work. A racist, a thug and a benefits cheat. Not the sort of person Gary wanted raising his son. Not the sort of person a court would deem suitable to do so. There was an address and the registration number of Dillon’s car, plus the name of his current ‘off the books’ employer. The kid apparently worked on a fruit and veg stall.

  Habib saw her first. Not that there was any actual bruising; it was more that Kym’s face had changed shape. And she looked as if she was about to cry. Her false lashes even glistened with moisture.

  Not a popular boy with his contemporaries, Habib found it difficult to find anyone who knew Kym who would talk to him. But then there was Mercy.

  ‘Oh Habib, she’s really upset,’ she said when he asked her what had happened to make Kym look so miserable. ‘A boy she was seeing told her dad lies.’

  Everyone, without exception, liked Mercy. She was a clever, kind, generous and beautiful black girl who could be funny and even cheeky sometimes but was also an out and proud Christian. Even those kids who envied her, trusted her.

  ‘What lies?’ Habib asked.

  ‘About her getting pregnant,’ Mercy said. ‘She’s not.’

  ‘Isn’t she?’

  ‘No!’

  Mercy clearly hadn’t caught the news about Kym and Loz.

  ‘Imran Riaz, who left last year, told her dad that Kym had let some loser have sex with her and now she was pregnant. But it’s just not true,’ Mercy said.

  ‘So what did her dad …’

  Mercy placed her head close to Habib’s and whispered, ‘Her dad beat her up. Tried to kick the baby out of her, Kym said.’

  ‘But there is no baby …’

  ‘No! Of course not. But you know what Kym’s dad’s like, he’s mad. That’s why she looks so … weird.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He punched her in the face,’ Mercy said. ‘Imagine your own dad punching you in the face!’

  The Jolly Sailor was one of those pubs that opened early. This was just as well considering the fact there were punters standing outside from 9.30 a.m. onwards. As soon as the doors opened at ten, a group of five men, plus Jordan Whittington, went inside.

  When the young officer had left home earlier his grandfather, Bert, had wondered why he looked such a state. His hair uncombed, wearing his oldest jeans, a raincoat that Bert recognised as one of his own and a pair of trainers slated to be taken to a charity shop, he looked as if he might accost passers-by for some loose change. But Bert knew better than to ask and so Jordan had left home without attracting comment.

  He went up to the bar and ordered a pint of cider. Not some poncy Belgian brew in a bottle, but a pint of the bog-standard cheap cider alcoholics frequently resorted to when they were down on their luck. He flung some coins on the scarred counter and then sloped off to the ‘beer garden’ round the back – a soggy patio featuring wet garden furniture – to join the other men. All the other punters smoked. Jordan could take it or leave it, but he’d come armed with a small packet of tobacco and some Rizlas and so he set about making a roll-up.

  The old man had brought him breakfast. He’d asked about his dad and when he was coming to get him but had received no reply. The man had been alone, but he’d lost his nerve and so he’d just taken the gloopy-looking scrambled egg on toast from him and then got on with the job of eating.

  There was so little down there. But then that was part of his punishment, the boredom. Being a ‘poof’ had consequences. He needed to say that he wouldn’t be a ‘fairy’ again, but he knew that he wouldn’t. His dad was trying to make him in his own image and he wouldn’t do it. What was more, if he did ever get out of this place, he’d go straight to the police.

  He finished his scrambled eggs and drank some of the bitter tea the old man had brought him. Today the miserable old sod had just plonked the stuff down and then buggered off quickly. Soon he’d be back again to collect the plate and the cup. He looked at the door that was the only way in and out of the chamber, and it was then he noticed it was very slightly open.

  They all knew each other and so The Jolly Sailor early doors brigade looked at Jordan with some suspicion. He was so unlike them. Firstly he was young, secondly he was black and thirdly they didn’t know him. But he had something that one of them, a bloke who called himself Fitzy, wanted. He had tobacco.

  Most of the others were down to their last strands of baccy and so Fitzy, who spoke with a Scottish accent, could beg and plead as much as he liked – he wasn’t getting any. A tall, thin man with one wrist in a plaster cast told him to ‘Get your own, you mean old cunt!’ Jordan watched the man edge closer to him. Smoking a thin ‘one strander’, Jordan wanted to give the impression of an ex-con. Although smoking had been banned in UK prisons for some time, there was still a roaring trade in black economy baccy as well as vape fluid inside. Smokes were used as currency, exchanged for food, drugs and sexual favours.

  His baccy on the table in front of him, Jordan watched while Fitzy hovered. The other men talked about some hostel in Rotherhithe. Fitzy, his need eventually overcoming any suspicions he may have had, said, ‘Pal, can I get some of your baccy?’

  As Jordan looked up, one of the other men called out to him, ‘Don’t give him nothing, son! He’s a mean old bastard!’

  But Jordan pushed the tobacco pouch towards Fitzy, who said, ‘You’re a gent!’ and then sat down.

  He rolled himself a smoke in silence while the other blokes muttered amongst themselves. When he finally lit up he breathed in and closed his eyes in what looked like bliss. Having downed their pints, the other men went inside to get more booze.

  Fitzy looked at Jordan and said, ‘They just got their benefits.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Then he said, ‘Not seen you round here before.’

  Brown had told Jordan to play it cool. He said, ‘Not been here before.’

  ‘Ah.’ There was a pause, then the Scotsman said, ‘So … you new then, eh?’

  Jordan said nothing at first and just looked at the other man with blank eyes. Then he said, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Fitzy smoked and drank and so did Jordan. Then the other men returned. While they drank their pints, again quickly, and got ever more plastered, Jordan and Fitzy sat in silence. There were, Jordan reckoned, other reasons why the men shunned Fitzy that went well beyond his alleged meanness. As a person who might know something useful about The Jolly Sailor, Jordan wondered whether Fitzy was actually a good bet.

  ‘Lee?’

  He was on Dagenham Heathway when his phone rang, opposite the Tube station, walking towards the shopping centre where Gary Connor had said his brother had a stall. A mixture of almost countrified single-storey shops selling tans, vapes and takeaways contrasted with the actual shopping centre – where Dillon Connor worked – which specialised in cheap stuff. It was just as well it did, because very few people who lived locally could afford much. In spite of high house prices, Dagenham was still a place where a lot of people were poor.

  ‘Wilko,’ Lee answered. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I took it all the way to the top, but no joy,’ the older man said.

  He’d failed to get a warrant to enter the house in Carter Court from his boss, Superintendent Cryer.

  ‘Funny handshake brigade,’ Wilko said by way of explanation.

  It was well known that a lot of policemen, particularly senior officers, were also Freemasons. Personally Lee dismissed a lot of the wilder conspiracy theories punted around about them by some people, especially Wilko, but he took his point. Although whether the Masons were involved in Mumtaz’s disappearance was doubtful to say the least.

  Lee, who although engaged in work for Gary Connor, knew he’d drop it in a second to find Mumtaz, said, ‘I have to get in there. Tonight she’ll have been off the radar for forty-eight hours.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Wilko said. ‘She is officially missing.’

  ‘Wilko, something bad’s happened. You know it, I know it …’

  ‘Yeah, you’re—’

  ‘I know I’m right!’ Lee said. ‘My reasons may be mainly in my gut, while yours are about alchemy and fucking religion …’

  ‘Look,’ Wilko said. ‘I get off at four. Meet me at Liverpool Street, the Costa opposite Platform 13.’

  ‘And do what?’ Lee asked. Although he’d got to Dagenham without any bother, now he was listening to Wilko he was agitated again. What was he even doing at work?

  ‘Get inside that house,’ Wilko said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ll get a mind bigger ’an either of ours onto it,’ Wilko said. And then he cut the connection.

  Lee, stationary now, put his phone back in his pocket.

  ‘Oi, mate!’

  Instinctively he looked around to see whether someone was calling out to him. But it was just a taxi driver, parked on the pavement, getting a man in a caftan and welly boots to move out of his way.