The Unquiet Dead

‘But that’s just it –’ Mark stopped but Jessie had already felt the draught. Her office door was open. She turned. Sarah Klein’s clone was looking at her with a very unnerving expression on her face. Clearly she’d heard what Jessie had said. Her only option was to bluff it. But before she’d even managed to force her mouth into a smile, or utter polite platitudes, the angry woman spoke.

‘That was very unimpressive.’

‘I’m sorry if you think that, but in my experience –’

Mark pushed the back of his shoe into Jessie’s heel. She ignored his warning. She’d had enough of the arrogance of vaguely famous people, assuming they were more important than everyone else and therefore deserving of special treatment.

‘– these sort of situations –’

‘How can you possibly judge the situation when you didn’t ask the right questions?’

‘If you have anything to add, please go ahead.’

Mark pushed her aside and stepped forward. ‘Driver, perhaps you haven’t met –’

‘Careful,’ protested Jessie.

‘I think he is trying to tell you to be careful. Thank you, Mark, but I think we can handle this from here.’

Jessie looked from her colleague to the heavily made-up woman and back again.

‘Handle what?’ asked Jessie.

‘That will be all, Mark. Thank you,’ she said imperiously. To Jessie’s astonishment, Mark nodded curtly and left. A little hole opened up beneath her feet and she looked longingly into it. But the ground was solid; she wasn’t going anywhere.

‘DCI Moore,’ said Jessie, offering her hand. ‘I don’t believe we’ve properly met.’

‘No. Seems you were unavailable to attend my induction yesterday afternoon. DI Ward said you were …’ she paused looking Jessie up and down, ‘indisposed.’

Bollocks was the only word that sprung to Jessie’s mind. Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks.

‘I wouldn’t have got where I am if I didn’t know the difference between indisposed and a hangover. You, DI Driver, have a hangover. I can smell it.’

Jessie opened her mouth, then closed it again. A series of other swear words were now filling the void in her head where fabulous excuses should have been.

‘I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your performance in there is down to your,’ she paused again, ‘indisposition. However, had I been Ms Klein’s lawyer – and for all you knew I might have been just that – I would have advised her to make a formal complaint against you. Don’t ever treat a victim of crime like that again.’

Getting defensive wasn’t going to get her out of this. ‘I apologise,’ said Jessie. ‘I shall take over from Niaz immediately.’

‘Who is this Niaz? What’s a PC in uniform doing here in CID?’

‘He’s been seconded to CID from Putney. He shows true promise and I’m hoping he’ll take the exams.’

‘“True promise” in whose judgement?’

Jessie didn’t reply. She wasn’t going to let DCI Moore tar Niaz with the same brush. Moore turned on her high heel and walked away, leaving Jessie reeling. What bloody induction? Where was Jones? He wasn’t supposed to be leaving for another week. And why didn’t Mark warn her? She kicked Mark’s door open. He held up his hands as if she were wielding a gun.

‘She turned up about an hour after you called in.’

‘Why didn’t you phone me, tell me to come back?’

‘I tried to, but your mobile was switched off.’

Jessie had a vague memory of listening to some messages when she and Bill got home that evening. But by then she’d been drinking for ten hours and was in a fairly shoddy condition.

‘I feel like shit.’

‘You look like shit. I came to find you first thing. I didn’t know she was going to hide in your office like that.’

‘What was she doing there, anyway?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you share a common hobby.’

Hungover and slow on the uptake, Jessie just frowned.

‘Star-fucking,’ said Mark gleefully.

‘I’m not going to dignify that with a response,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘Only because you can’t.’

‘What is it, fuck on Jessie day? And what the hell does “indisposed” mean?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You told that overly made-up harridan that I was indisposed.’

Mark’s eyes suddenly widened and he appeared to swell. Jessie didn’t dare turn around.

‘Mark,’ said the cool voice of DCI Moore over Jessie’s left shoulder, ‘I was wondering if you would give me a tour of the premises. Jones isn’t going to be able to make it in again today.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The words exploded out of him on his pent-up breath.

‘Thank you.’ Jessie heard the heels click away from her; she must have been tiptoeing earlier. The clicking stopped. Jessie braced herself. ‘Incidentally, Driver, you should think of doing something about your hair.’ Jessie turned reluctantly, imagining what it would feel like to turn into a pillar of salt. ‘You may not be in uniform, but you still represent the police force. Most importantly, you reflect your superiors and that means more than getting out of bed in the morning and hoping for the best.’

Again, the doors closed behind her. She turned to Mark. ‘I’m fucked.’

He shrugged.

She could have killed him.

Bill and Jessie sat on her sofa, their feet up on the coffee table, tea in hand. Neither her day nor her hangover had improved. Bill had made comforting noises when she finally fell through the door, but Jessie knew he didn’t really understand. He wasn’t a locker-room sort of man, whereas Jessie lived in one.

‘So what have you been doing all day, while I’ve been having my balls busted?’

‘Eating crap food and watching videos. Malcolm X, excellent film. I’d never got round to –’

She lifted the remote control and increased the volume. ‘Shh, this is it.’

‘Our main story tonight,’ said the newsreader. ‘Anna Maria Klein, the only child of actress Sarah Klein, is missing. The schoolgirl was last seen in London’s red-light district –’

‘She won’t like that,’ interrupted Jessie.

‘– where she was supposed to be meeting friends at a coffee shop. Amanda Hornby is there now. Amanda, what can you tell us?’

‘She’s foxy,’ said Bill. Jessie hit him.

‘Good evening. Well, the police are telling us very little at the moment. Anna Maria was reported missing by her mother this morning at West End Central police station. After initially being told to wait and see by one senior officer, the panicked mother was finally taken seriously late this afternoon.’

‘Why the change in approach?’

‘Sarah Klein apparently spent the day calling her daughter’s friends, until she found who Anna Maria was supposed to be meeting. The friends then confirmed that Anna Maria had never arrived at the coffee shop just behind me.’

‘And this had them worried?’

‘No. They say that Anna Maria often changed her plans.’

‘See? Flaky,’ said Jessie.

‘But time is very much of the essence in situations like these,’ redirected the newsreader.

‘That’s right. Every second counts, and it’s true many hours were lost before an investigation into Anna Maria’s whereabouts got underway. Now the teenager is facing her second night away from home and all her mother can do is hope for her safe return. This is Amanda Hornby, Soho, in London, for Channel Five News.’

Jessie quietly shook her head.

‘It sounds serious,’ said Bill.

‘Wait for the CCTV footage and then tell me if you think she’s been abducted. They’ll show it at the end of the bulletin, that way they keep the viewers glued.’

‘This cynicism doesn’t suit you, Jessie.’

‘It isn’t cynicism,’ she said, looking at her brother. ‘It’s instinct. And if I’m wrong, Moore will have my guts for garters.’

The newsreader went on until it was time to go to a break. After the ads, as Jessie had predicted, they showed the CCTV clip. Jessie had rounded up the film from all the public cameras around Soho that covered the coffee shop and its various approaches. She had also checked the ones around the actress’s house. If suspicious circumstances were ever confirmed, Jessie’s next step would be to gain access to the non-public CCTV footage: the cameras outside local shops, garages and offices. Jessie didn’t think it would come to that. By five that afternoon, after hours spent scanning the footage frame by frame, Anna Maria had been caught on film. The cab she had taken from her mother’s house had dropped her at the beginning of Carnaby Street. She had walked through the throng to the corner of Poland Street and Broadwick Street. There, directly under the eye of a surveillance camera, Anna Maria had waited for some time before moving off towards Marshall Street. Once out of range of the camera, she simply disappeared.

Bill and Jessie watched the actress’s daughter, stationary amidst the rushing crowd. She was noticeable by her stillness and her Dolce & Gabbana fur-trimmed coat and high-heeled boots.

‘Obviously she’s waiting for someone. Perhaps she misunderstood the plan with her friends?’ said Bill.

‘If she was waiting for someone she’d be looking around, glancing at her watch, maybe making a call to see where her friends are. She’s doing none of those things; she’s just standing there. And look at the bag.’

‘It’s big,’ said Bill.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘But that’s fashionable.’

‘Bill, you’ve been in the back of beyond for months, how do you know what is fashionable?’

Bill grinned. ‘Didn’t I tell you about the air hostess on the flight back?’

‘You swapped fashion tips with an air hostess?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Remind me not to let you anywhere near my friends.’

‘You’ll have to if you’re going to be burning the midnight oil on this case.’

‘Bill, there isn’t a case, unless it’s a prosecution for wasting police time. I offer you my final piece of evidence.’ She passed him a copy of the previous day’s Evening Standard. ‘You find me a programme at five o’clock that a sixteen-year-old girl would leave her friends for to return home and watch. There isn’t one. Anna Maria Klein is up to something, and it’s possible her mother is directing the show.’

‘I don’t know, Jess, she looked distraught on the news piece I saw.’

‘She’s an actress. It’s her job to convince people.’

2

Jessie woke early to wash her hair. Determined to rectify the situation with DCI Moore, she dressed with her new boss in mind. She wouldn’t stretch to a skirt; not just because they made chasing criminals very hard, but because the piss-take she’d receive would be extreme. More extreme than normal. Instead, she opted for her black trouser suit, hoping it would endear her to the woman. If looking good was important to her new boss, well, this suit made Jessie look good, even if she said so herself. DCI Moore was obviously a hard nut. Fair enough, you had to be hard to succeed in this game. Jessie would dance to her tune. The line of command was more important than personality.

Clipping her hair off her face with slides, she put on enough make-up so that a woman would notice but a man wouldn’t. If Anna Maria hadn’t reappeared from wherever she was holed up, there was the possibility Jessie would be in front of the camera before the day was out. But when she saw herself in the hall mirror she nearly tore it all off. Dressing like this went against her self-imposed laws of survival. Rule number one: camouflage. You can’t attack what you can’t see.

Bill appeared from his bedroom in his boxer shorts, smiled at her sleepily and went to the bathroom. She envied him his fitness. The more she progressed in the police force, the more sedentary her life was becoming. She made a promise to herself that she would run home from work at the end of the day and went into the spare room to fetch her kit.

‘Jesus, Bill, you should think of opening a window occasionally,’ shouted Jessie. ‘It stinks in here.’

‘Sorry,’ replied a voice as the loo flushed. ‘Give me a second and I’ll buy you breakfast.’

Jessie glanced at her watch as Bill entered the room.

‘Come on, just a quick fry-up round the corner. It’s still early.’

‘Don’t you want a lie-in?’

‘This is a lie-in. I’m used to getting up at five.’

‘Well, all right – but we’d better make it quick.’

Jessie walked down the deserted hallway of the CID unit and felt very uneasy. She sat at her desk and listened to the sound of traffic from the street below. No doors opened and closed, no radios crackled, no phones rang, so she got up again and went upstairs to Jones’ recently vacated office. A group of her fellow officers were coming out of his room; perhaps she was being paranoid, but they appeared to be giving each other knowing looks.

‘What’s up, Fry?’ she asked one of the passing detective constables.

‘Best you ask the new boss,’ he muttered before shouting to another group of officers about meeting them in the canteen. When Jessie got to the office door she saw Mark sitting at the former DCI’s desk. He was looking out of the window, which offered a remarkable view across Mayfair to Hyde Park. In the evenings it filled with the rarely seen light of the setting sun. Jones had always had the blinds down, but Moore obviously had other decorating plans.

‘Hi, Mark, you been promoted after all?’

‘No,’ said a now familiar voice. DCI Moore walked into the office from the secretary’s side room.

‘Morning, ma’am. Have I missed something?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

Okay, so the woman was a hard nut and didn’t mince her words. All good qualities in a commanding officer, Jessie told herself. ‘What’s going on?’ she continued.

‘Don’t you think, given the circumstances, it would have been wise to get in early?’

It was only eight thirty, but Jessie didn’t think it ‘wise’ to argue.

‘Sorry.’

‘I’ve spoken to you twice, Driver, and twice you’ve had to apologise. Is this going to be a running theme with you?’

‘No,’ said Jessie, stiffening.

‘Good. DI Ward has made some rather interesting discoveries regarding the Klein case. Mark, although it’s a waste of your time, would you mind telling DI Driver what you told everyone this morning?’

He tried to look humble, he even tried to look sympathetic, but neither look could hide the way his body inflated slightly. The man was enjoying this more than he should. Jessie saw months of team-building slip away from her and wondered if he had really tried as hard as he claimed to track her down. Even if her mobile didn’t have any reception, she had a pager and he hadn’t called that.

‘Anna Maria Klein has form,’ said Mark.

‘At her age?’

‘At her age an official warning is as close to form as you can get,’ said Mark indignantly.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t look into this yesterday,’ said Moore sternly.

Jessie wasn’t going to apologise again. ‘What was it for?’ she asked Mark.

‘Possession.’

‘Dope?’

‘That doesn’t lessen the charge,’ said Moore. ‘Buying any kind of drug at fifteen is a serious concern.’

‘I don’t dispute that, but there are often extenuating circumstances. Buying it once to show off to your friends about how “showbiz” you are is not the same as mugging pensioners to get a crack fix.’

‘Do you know Dufour’s Place?’ asked Moore, ignoring Jessie’s observation.

‘Yes, it’s a cul-de-sac at the back of Marshall Street, it doesn’t go anywhere.’

‘It may not go anywhere, Driver, but it houses rather a historic building, as Mark has been explaining to us all this morning.’

Jessie looked to Mark for back-up and was saddened when she saw that he was busy with the papers on his knee. She waited. He didn’t look up.

‘I presume you’re referring to the Marshall Street Baths. I believe it was built in the twenties as a communal bath house, and was still in use up to the end of the nineties as a public swimming pool. Then Health and Safety closed it down. The City of Westminster has been trying to work out what to do with it ever since. It’s a listed building –’

‘Used by addicts and dealers,’ said Mark, cutting Jessie short.

‘I thought the drug unit had cleared up that problem?’

‘Drugs are a recurring problem,’ said Moore, sitting on the edge of Jones’ old desk.

‘Normally the baths are patrolled and checked by a caretaker called –’ Mark checked his pad – ‘Don Firth. But he’s been off sick for three weeks.’

‘We have reliable information that the addicts are back,’ said DCI Moore.

This was all getting a little chummy for Jessie’s liking. ‘So what are you thinking, Mark?’

‘Anna Maria makes a prearranged rendezvous with her new dealer. He doesn’t show, so she goes to Marshall Street Baths where she knows she can score.’

‘It’s all chained up,’ said Jessie disagreeing.

‘If the addicts and dealers can get in, so can anyone.’

Jessie didn’t think so, not in those heels.

‘We think something happened to her inside the building,’ said Moore.

‘I see,’ said Jessie. And she did. ‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked. Knowing the answer. It was in those knowing looks.

‘Nothing. It’s DI Ward’s case. It’s a high-profile assignment, Driver, so it’s probably better handled by Mark until last year’s debacle is forgotten about.’ Jessie tried to remain passive. ‘Aren’t you pleased? You didn’t seem very interested in it yesterday.’

She wasn’t pleased. Being uninterested and being uninvolved are two different things. She’d messed it up with Moore, she admitted, and it was her own fault, but she couldn’t understand why Mark was so happy to put the boot in. Just in case she was being paranoid, she tried a final litmus test. Principles of reason.

‘Ma’am, there was nothing in Anna Maria’s body language to indicate that she was waiting for anyone,’ said Jessie. ‘The poor creatures in Marshall Street Baths aren’t going to attack anyone. They’re there because they’ve got the money, they’ve scored, and the only thing they can think about is the fix, which once administered renders them impotent.’

‘That does not apply to the dealers,’ contradicted Mark. ‘And Anna Maria stood out like a sore thumb.’

‘Exactly. You don’t buy drugs in broad daylight in a fake-fur coat and six-inch heels.’

‘You didn’t see what she was wearing when she got busted last time,’ Moore interjected.

Jessie knew when she was outnumbered. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Search Marshall Street Baths,’ said Moore. ‘As soon as possible.’

‘And you really expect to find her in there?’

This question was followed by an exchange of glances between Ward and Moore. ‘We just hope it’s not too late and she’s still alive.’

They’d failed the test. She wasn’t being paranoid.

A thousand arguments and counter-arguments revolved around Jessie’s head as she returned to her office. We think something happened to her? We hope she’s still alive? We? Moore had only been in the building twenty-four hours and already they were a ‘we’. Where the hell was Jones? Surely he wouldn’t leave her like this, surely he’d have given her a heads up, some warning that DCI Moore was one of those women who pulled the ladder up behind them. Obviously Jessie wasn’t going to appreciate Moore’s legs folded provocatively over her desk, so of course Mark should get the case. It stood to reason, thought Jessie as she unconsciously pulled the slides out of her hair and let her fringe fall across her eyes. She would have been willing to dance to Moore’s tune, but not if she was the only one dancing. Jessie slumped into her chair, deflated and a little scared. Jones had made the differences between Mark and herself work. Under his guidance, Ward and Driver were quite a good balancing act. Not good cop, bad cop, but old cop, new cop. With Moore and Ward in bed together, it would turn what had been complementary back to being contrary. A horrendous thought passed through Jessie’s head. Mark and Moore in bed together, actually in bed together.

‘If that happens, I’m putting myself in for a transfer,’ she said aloud.

‘If what happens?’

Jessie looked up. Mark had pushed the door open with his foot. He was holding a box of files.

‘Gee, thanks for the support back there, Mark.’

‘What did you want me to do, climb up on the gallows next to you?’

‘No. Just act like a reasonable human being and take your nose out of Moore’s arse.’

‘Oh dear, are you a little worried because you’re not the teacher’s pet any more.’

‘Mark, listen to yourself.’

‘You’ll put yourself in for a transfer if what happens?’

She tried to defuse the tension by smiling. ‘Don’t get all excited, I’m not going anywhere.’

But Mark didn’t want it defusing. ‘If what happens?’

‘If you find Anna Maria’s body in Marshall Street Baths,’ she replied coolly.

‘Would you be willing to make that into an official wager?’

‘What is wrong with you? You’ve been bolshie for days,’ said Jessie.

‘It isn’t rocket science. If we find her body at the baths, you get your arse transferred out of here.’

‘And if you don’t?’

‘Name it,’ he said confidently.

It dawned on Jessie then what Mark was doing with the box of files. They were his files, from his office. His old office: the matching shoebox across the hall from hers.

‘I get your office.’ He looked back over his shoulder and smiled. ‘No, Mark. Your new office. Upstairs.’

‘Who told you?’

Jessie smiled sadly to herself. Was his professional opinion of her really so low? The fact she’d seen him sitting at Jones’ desk in the presence of the new DCI, the fact that he was now carrying a packing box, these giveaways were obviously not enough. ‘A white rabbit,’ she said. ‘Okay. Deal: my transfer for your office.’ Jessie stood up.

‘Are you prepared to shake on it?’ demanded Mark.

‘Is this for real, Mark?’

Mark set the box down on Jessie’s desk.

‘Yes,’ he said, putting out his hand. Somewhat dazed, Jessie shook his hand. As she did so, he laughed. ‘And by the way, Jessie, this isn’t a transfer out of CID, this is a transfer out of West End Central. That way I can get you out of my hair once and for all.’

‘Mark, you haven’t got any hair.’

Mark glared at her. It was her turn to shrug. ‘What? You started this. Remember that, won’t you?’

Mark had officers stationed around the perimeter of the building, up on the roof and on the top storey of the Poland Street car park. The drug squad had sent a team and they now joined Mark’s men outside the chained double doors of the old public baths. Everyone was wearing body armour. The handcuffs glinted against the black flak jackets, radios crackled with expectation. A SOCO team waited by their van. The street was cordoned off, which gained the attention of workers in the adjacent offices. Everyone was waiting for the whistle.

Jessie sat in the surveillance room and watched it all live via a video link. She was tuned in and ready to go. A slightly stooped man with a thick moustache inserted a key from a large selection into the padlock that held the chains in place. He turned the key and pulled; the chain slithered to the ground like a boa constrictor dropping from a tree. The team entered in twos. Jessie watched as the video camera followed them in. The first room was a foyer complete with a wood-and-glass kiosk. One of the doors hung haphazardly from its rusting hinge. The floor was laid with intricate diamond-shaped tiles worked into a graphic design, the type you see in the entrances of elegant Victorian terrace housing. Peppermint. Cobalt. Burnt sienna. Black and white. The once majestic windows were coated in grime and protected by a thick wire mesh. The camera automatically adjusted to the reduction in light. They’d gone through the portal of a time machine and entered a long-forgotten era. Victorian bath houses, where the great unwashed came to bathe en masse. The team moved further into the building. The screen went fuzzy, then a new image came into focus.