Read Online Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham - Free Book Online Page A

long discussion, in which he said all the right things and I said all the right things—or most of them, at any rate—and the right forms were filed and the right procedures followed. Five weeks later, I found myself on a course in Hendon with officers from all over the country on Managing Dangerous and Ambiguous Situations, the general gist of which was that you are supposed to talk firmly to people before dislocating their kneecaps. There were eighteen officers present on the course. I was one of just three women and the only one who didn’t look like a lesbian. The lessons must have worked, since I’ve never disabled anyone since.
    “It’s not really about sorry, is it now, Fiona?”
    “No, sir.”
    There’s a long pause. I’m normally okay with pauses. I can pause with the best of them, but this one is weirding me out because I don’t know what Jackson is doing with it.
    “If I may,” I say. “I think it’s significant, the reports we’ve had about April Mancini at Allison Street.”
    “We haven’t had any reports of her there. Not a dicky bird.”
    “Exactly. There’s this window seat in the front window there. One of the SOCOs told me that they found piles of April’s pictures dropped down behind the back. She must have sat there for hours, drawing. Hours and hours. In the front window.”
    “Yes, but there are curtains across those windows. Doesn’t look like they were ever opened.”
    “That’s what I mean. What kid wouldn’t open those curtains up when Mam went out? You get a good view from the front of the house. I mean, good for Butetown. You see everything that’s going on. Most kids, even if they weren’t allowed out, would be sitting in that window staring out. April didn’t. I think she was terrified, and I think she was because her mother was. It was fear that took them to that house, and whatever it was they were frightened of caught up with them and killed them. I mean, I know we can’t be positive, but it seems like a theory for now.”
    Jackson nodded. “Yes. Yes, it does.”
    We seem to have tumbled into another pause, but I decide that it’s Jackson’s turn to get us out of this one, so I just stay sitting with my mouth shut, trying to look like a good, professional detective constable, a little half smile on my face by way of defense.
    “Fiona. I don’t want you on Lohan. Not properly. Not while I’m in charge. If you want to continue working on Lohan in a support capacity, then that’s fine with me, as long as I don’t get any more calls like the one I had this morning—”
    “No, sir—”
    “And as long as you don’t injure anyone, piss off D.C.I. Matthews, make a mess of any work you don’t enjoy doing, get on well with your colleagues, and in general act like a good, capable, and professional detective constable.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Any fucking around and you’re off the case altogether. You’re this far from being a phenomenal officer.” He opens the finger and thumb of his right hand a couple of inches. “And you’re this far from being a right pain in the arse.” He holds up his left hand, and his finger’s resting on his thumb and not going anywhere.
    “Yes, sir.”
    Another pause kicks off, but I’m all out of exciting pause strategies and I just sit there waiting for it to end.
    “I think you could be right about April. Why nobody saw her. Poor little bleeder.”
    Yes, poor little bleeder.
    Little April, drawing flower pictures in a stinking room. Little April, told never, ever to open those curtains. Little April, whom Farideh never saw. Little April, invisible to everyone except her killer.
    Jackson nods to say I can leave, so I go downstairs and pick up my photos from Tomasz.

7
    Back at my desk, I run into Brydon. Our drink together last night confused me. When I’d got his text yesterday, I’d assumed that the drink was a coppers’ night out sort of affair. The kind of thing that happens at least once a week, a bunch of people