tiaras and “the grateful thanks of a nation”. Of course, we’re virtually the only members of the British police force to have actually read a novel, which places us at a disadvantage. If you’re in public service, it never pays to reveal a sense of imagination.’
May drained his cup and set it down. ‘I suppose that’s a good enough reason for staying with the unit. Where else are we going to find cases that aren’t just about drunken brawls outside pubs or crackheads stealing from each other? God knows I covered enough of those during the two years we were separated and returned to regular duty. How I hated it.’ The unit had once been disbanded on the orders of Margaret Thatcher until it could provide ways of turning a profit. Nobody wanted to remember those times. ‘What have we got on today?’
‘Ah yes, Raymond’s caseload. A couple of Iranian guys found an anaconda in a Bankside fried-chicken outlet—looks like a war between business rivals; a priest set fire to a number of cars at the Elephant and Castle, because Satanists have been causing trouble in a fetish nightclub that’s opened in the precinct of his church—Longbright’s sorting out that one; the King’s Cross Prostitutes’ Collective is complaining that the new one-way system is ruining their trade, and they’re threatening to reveal a client list that includes several MPs—could we look into it? There’s that thing with the deaf circus midget. And of course, your granddaughter April is starting as our researcher at the unit tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps we should take her for a pie at the Nun and Broken Compass. What deaf circus midget?’
‘He was a pimp for some Russian dancers who were caught doping greyhounds with tainted cough mixture at Catford Stadium. They hung him inside the bell of St Mary’s church until the noise ruptured his eardrums. He’s demanding compensation from the bell-ringers, who were bribed to leave the belfry door unlocked.’
‘Oh. Business as usual, then.’
‘Funny how we’ve always attracted peculiar cases. Do you remember that fighter pilot during the War who couldn’t be placed at a murder site because he’d been found tied to the back of a cow in Regent’s Park?’
‘My goodness, I’d forgotten about him. Hell of an alibi.’
‘Hell of an alibi.’
‘Yes.’ May accepted a length of liquorice from Bryant and chewed it ruminatively. ‘I suppose it hasn’t been all bad.’
‘When we were in the St Pancras Basin, I saw something scratched on to the wall of an arch. It showed up in my torchlight. Do you know what Gezellig means? It’s a Dutch word, one of those words that has no exact equivalent in the English language. It means “the comfort of being with friends”. They made their bonheur there, their happiness, even in such a depressing place. Everyone has to find peace somewhere. They have to find home.’
‘Gezellig. I like that. That’s like us.’
The pair remained side by side, sitting in silence as the golden sunlight of the morning grew around them.
52
* * *
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Heather sat in the bare white interview room with her bag open at her feet and her compact mirror in her hand, carefully repainting the edges of her lips. It was essential, in every circumstance, to maintain one’s poise and keep a smart appearance. There was no reason to stop looking one’s best, simply because one had been arrested for multiple murder. No blanket over the head upon emerging from the station, thank you, nothing less than grace under pressure and calm before the cameras.
The room was so absurdly bright; she felt sure that the flaws in her make-up showed. Institutional furniture and hard-faced officers talking to each other about last night’s television, as if she wasn’t even there. The entire experience was designed to alienate and isolate. But it didn’t, because she had never felt at home anywhere—not with her parents, not with her husband, certainly not at Balaklava Street. A numb void opened in her heart the moment her expectations were not met.
Boring, stupid police, guards and doctors. They would only ever see a selfish criminal, when they should have been looking for a disappointed child, promised so much and given so little—not that she expected or demanded sympathy. They would never understand how few options she had been given, and she would never let them see inside, no matter what they did to her. The truth of the matter was that the taking of life had hardly disturbed her at all. It wasn’t as if