The Mourner Read online

  For Sue Kenyon

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  Rain. Rain bouncing off flagstones, tumbling in torrents along the gutters. The storm made her put off leaving for nearly an hour. She didn’t want to brave it, hated getting wet and windblown, but as with many a good instinct it fell victim to reason. It was close on midnight, so she had to get home. As she stepped out of Portcullis House onto the pavement the sheeting rain engulfed her. Within seconds her rimless glasses were awash. She pulled them off, slipped them into the pocket of her raincoat. At least she had a raincoat, but no umbrella; some intern had nicked hers from the office. The Embankment was quiet – a few cars and a night bus ploughing through the deluge. Two lads scampered across the road to catch it, T-shirts plastered to their torsos.

  Helen wiped her face with her palm, peered myopically down the road – not a cab in sight. She stepped back under the loggia fronting the building. London was supposed to be a city of drab skies and drizzle, not monsoon downpours steaming off the pavement, not in June. But freak weather was the new normal. Apparently the jet stream had moved south. The ‘new normal’: that was a phrase that appealed to the politician in Helen Warner. She’d used it in her election campaign and in her maiden speech. It rolled off the tongue, providing a neat encapsulation of the times, regardless of whether you were going for a negative or positive spin. You could apply it to anything: corporate corruption, cuts in public services, food banks, the weather . . .

  Was there a taxi rank round the corner in Parliament Square? She wasn’t sure. But on a night like this, cabs would be gold dust. Helen concluded her best bet would be to walk south over Westminster Bridge. With luck, she might pick up an empty cab heading back into town. If not she might make the last tube from Waterloo. Mind made up, she tightened her belt, clutched her briefcase to her chest and crossed the road towards the bridge, head down, strands of blonde hair stuck to her face.

  Her by-election victory had caused a modest ripple, even though most people couldn’t be bothered to vote. It was a safe Labour seat but she’d added a few hundred to the majority. The leadership was relieved; she was young, telegenic and handled the combustible ethnic tribes of her northern constituency with tact and charm. Being a lawyer had become frustrating. Now that she’d found her true calling she worked late most nights on the causes that were her passion. Old hands in the party had warned against too much idealism, but she was determined not to drown in the cynical swill of Westminster politics. Still, she was canny. Whether delivering a sound bite for the cameras on College Green or baiting the Tories at PMQs, she was broadcasting one clear message: Helen Warner is a contender.

  She skirted the base of Boadicea’s statue. The galloping hooves of the horses drawing the ancient queen’s chariot reared above her head as she leant forward into the driving rain. Across the river a blue mist shimmered off the old County Hall and round the wheel of the Eye. She was halfway across the bridge when a black cab emerged from the murk heading towards her on the other side of the road. Its yellow light was on. Throwing up her arm and waving furiously she stepped off the kerb to cross. What she didn’t see was a solitary cyclist coming up behind her, pedalling hard. For an instant it seemed inevitable they would collide, but he swerved deftly to avoid her. She got a glimpse of angry eyes under a tight hood.

  Holding up her hand in apology she cried out, ‘Sorry!’

  Her voice was washed away in the downpour. As she reached the far pavement the taxi drew up beside her. She grasped the door handle and pulled down but it wouldn’t budge. She tugged at it a couple of times; the driver jumped out of his seat and trotted round the front of the cab. He was a stocky bloke, powerfully built.

  She submerged her irritation in a smile. ‘God, what an awful night. Your door appears to be stuck.’

  No reply, no reaction – he just kept coming straight at her. A hand flew up towards her face and she caught a glimpse of what looked like a wedge of wet wipes before the sweet-smelling odour of chloroform hit her. As the chemical zapped her lungs, she heaved and gasped for air. Then the limbic brain kicked in. Staggering, she swung her briefcase, catching him squarely in the groin. He buckled and fell back.

  Suddenly both arms were pinioned at her sides. It was the cyclist. He was behind her. His grip remorseless, he slammed her against the side of the cab. As he held her, the driver ground the toxic wipes into her face. She struggled and kicked. The cyclist grasped her head and smashed it hard against the door. Her legs finally gave way and her body went limp, head lolling forward. The cyclist caught her under the arms.

  The taxi driver, still bent double, exhaled and mumbled, ‘Vicious bitch!’

  His accomplice glared at him, glancing quickly around. ‘Let’s just get it done!’

  Shoving the wipes in his trouser pocket, the driver grabbed her feet. She was a lightweight. It took hardly any effort for the two men to hoist her up, swing her over the parapet and toss her into the river. The tide was high, the river swollen with floodwater. She hit the swirling torrent midstream, her raincoat billowing up briefly as she was swept under the bridge. In less than twenty seconds the current had dragged her under and she was gone.

  1

  Nicci Armstrong opened her eyes. Early morning sun leaked through a chink in the curtains, streaked across the duvet, warming and hopeful. She locked on to it, luxuriating in the blissful emptiness of bright white light. And for an instant it held her, suspended her in sweet oblivion. Then she remembered: Sophie was dead. Her child was dead. Buried not burned, with full Catholic ritual, Tim had insisted. Nicci had stood at the graveside, tearless and numb, in a borrowed black coat.

  Now she couldn’t stop it, her brain clicked in
to playback mode: the call on her mobile, using her warrant card to get past the young plod on the police cordon. Sophie lying across the kerb, one arm twisted behind, her fine fair hair in the gutter, dipping in a puddle of dark arterial blood. One paramedic stood over her, filling in his chit, the other was unfolding a blanket onto a stretcher. But where was the urgency? Why weren’t they saving her? As Nicci lurched forward, the burly arms of a traffic cop ensnared her. She didn’t remember screaming, although they told her later that she did.

  In the many vodka-soaked nights that followed, she searched obsessively through the paperwork for clues. Printed in splodgy biro at the top of the RTA report: ‘DOA’, dead on arrival at A&E. But had they even tried to revive her? CPR, the paramedic was trained in it, but Nicci had seen him with her own eyes, standing there so calmly with his clipboard, filling in the form.

  Nicci threw back the duvet and willed herself out of bed. The questions would always be there, questions but no answers firing across her synapses, following the same well-worn loop. She stepped into the shower. Often she found that just standing under the warm cascade of water and fixing her gaze on the white tiled wall helped clear her head. She discovered, with practice, she could simply let her mind rest on the snowy emptiness of the tiles; eventually the nagging cacophony would fade and she could get on with her day.

  The flat was in Newington Green, newly built, open-plan sitting-room-cum-kitchen, one bedroom and a small balcony that overlooked a gated yard filled with bins and a couple of bikes. Nicci had installed a glass-topped table, flat-packed from IKEA, two chairs, a bed plus a luxurious deep-seated sofa from Heals. The sofa was second hand, a present from her old neighbour, Maggie, who’d insisted it was absolutely no use to her any more – Nicci was doing her a favour taking it.

  The sofa was the one item of opulence in the bare flat. It dominated the wall facing the balcony, its plush velveteen fabric a chocolate brown island in a sea of bleached blonde wood. Nicci would sink into its soft cushioned folds, curl up and stare out of the window at the ever-changing sky. After the booze, the rows, the recriminations, she’d sold the old place; she couldn’t bear to stay there, and this was the solitary cell she’d retreated to. She’d tried therapy, pills – it was all crap. The loop just kept playing in her head. Now she wasn’t even sure she wanted to lose it; it was all she had left. It connected her to Sophie.

  As she emerged from the bathroom her mobile vibrated and jerked on the kitchen counter. She keyed in the PIN, a text popped up. It was from Blake: Check out news feeds – Warner case.

  Nicci opened her iPad and the home page brought up the BBC’s website. She carried it over to the sofa, settled herself in a corner and scanned the screen. Under ‘Breaking News’ the third headline to flash up read: Coroner’s Inquest to open in Warner case.

  She clicked on it. The pixelated image dissolved momentarily and rearranged itself. Now the face of Helen Warner dominated the page, on the podium, in mid-flow, at the last Labour Party Conference. Nicci stared at the screen for a few seconds, then picked up her phone, texted back: So?

  The kitchen was hardly more than a run of cabinets plus a hob, a sink and a microwave set along one wall. But it was serviceable. Nicci got up, filled the kettle and placed a green teabag in a small ceramic pot. Keep yourself fit and healthy she’d been told. People wanted to be kind; instead they’d inundated her with stupid advice. Every acquaintance had a helpful strategy to offer. Bereavement, she discovered, put you at the mercy of everyone’s half-baked ideas.

  While she waited for the kettle to boil she scrolled idly through the dozen or so emails in her inbox, mostly targeted sales pitches for goods or services she didn’t want. But there, as every other morning, she found a cheerful missive from her mother. It ran to nearly half a page: the dog had needed a visit to the vet; he was beginning to feel his age, poor old boy. But the lawn was doing much better this year; having it aerated and treated may have cost a bob or two, but Dad had come to the conclusion it was probably worthwhile. As Nicci continued to skim through her mother’s desperate efforts at contact, her phone buzzed.

  Blake again: Partners coming in. could do with yr input. 10:30. The message ended with a smiley face.

  Nicci poured boiling water over the green teabag, watched it turn the colour of pale piss. She sighed, stared at the tea and decided she’d pick up a takeaway coffee en route. Three shots; she had a feeling she was going to need it.

  Since moving in Nicci had realized how fortunate it was that her flat was at the rear of the building. The front entrance opened directly on to the bustle of Green Lanes. As she stepped out of the door to the block a posse of schoolgirls barged by, loudly joshing each other. Nicci had to duck back into the doorway to avoid the burning tip of a cigarette arcing in her direction as one of the girls flung her arms akimbo. ‘. . . Then he goes, “You minger!” So I goes, “Fuck you!” ’n grabs his fucking phone and chucks it under a bus!’

  Screeches of laughter greeted this revelation as the girls sailed on. Nicci paused to savour the passing whiff of nicotine and wondered how long it would take before she succumbed. She’d never been a smoker before . . . But then she’d never been a lot of things. The last year had turned her into a person she hardly knew. She recognized the face in the mirror but the blank grey eyes belonged to a stranger.

  The day was bright but overcast, a temperamental summer day, the grey flagstones still slick with overnight rain. Nicci crossed the road, passed the Turkish bakery, made an effort to ignore the newsagents and the fine array of cigarettes they kept behind their counter. She headed for the 73 stop, where a queue snaked out under the shelter. Why did Blake always do this – whistle her up, demanding her presence at short notice? He insisted on trying to operate as they’d always done, as if nothing had changed. But of course everything was different.

  The bus queue was orderly but sullen; it was a clammy London morning of crawling traffic, kamikaze cyclists, lorries parked in bus lanes and a general taint of diesel and carbon monoxide on everyone’s lips.

  Nicci recognized the old lady ahead of her in the line; they lived on the same floor. Somewhere in her eighties, she leaned heavily on her stick and her arthritic knuckles clutched the handle of a shopping trolley. She gave Nicci a smile. Nicci returned it with a curt nod. She wasn’t about to become the Good Samaritan, the kindly neighbour prepared to fetch and carry for every OAP in need of support from the non-existent community around her.

  But the old lady wasn’t easily rebuffed. ‘Settling in?’ Nicci nodded in acknowledgement. ‘You look out over the back, don’t you? Much less noisy. I face on to Albion Road. You hear the traffic all night.’

  Nicci turned away, glancing across the main square of Newington Green to where a bendy bus was inching its way round a parked van.

  The old lady followed her gaze, her look turning baleful. ‘Now whoever thought those bloody things were a good idea wants their heads examining! Look at ’em, always getting stuck. Course they’re bringing in a new version of the old Routemaster. But who’s gonna pay for that, eh?’

  Nicci reached into her pocket, her fingers closing on her last tab of nicotine chewing gum. It wasn’t much of a breakfast, but she could feel her annoyance and needed something to quell the impatience rising inside her, so she pulled out the gum and popped it in her mouth.

  The old lady’s battered shopping trolley had shifted and come to rest half on, half off the kerb. As she tried to haul it back on the pavement, three youths came loping by, avoiding the bus queue by walking in the road. The first was a gangling lad and he caught the edge of the trolley with his foot. The trolley toppled sideways into the gutter, sending the old lady tottering as she tried to hold on to it. Reflexively Nicci grabbed her arm and steadied her.

  The old lady was shaken but she wasn’t fazed. ‘You wanna look where you’re going, boy!’

  The youth wheeled round to face her. He was possibly fifteen. The crotch of his jeans hung almost to his knees, his hoodie was regulati
on issue for every young urban male in the globalized world. ‘And you wanna shut your mouth, bitch.’

  He emphasized the point by depositing a large gob of spit on the pavement in front of the old lady and Nicci.

  Rewarded by a smirk from his two companions, he hiked his jeans, rearranged his package and was about to move on when Nicci stepped forward. Before he realized what was happening she was in his face, hardly an inch from the end of his nose.

  Her gaze was steady, a hard slate-grey stare, but a deep well of icy rage lurked beneath the surface. She scanned his face calmly: his soft tawny skin pitted with a few spots, the beginnings of a downy beard. He really was quite a handsome lad.

  ‘I think you owe this lady an apology.’ Nicci’s tone was even, unhurried.

  The lad reeled, took an involuntary step back. Then he laughed. ‘Fuck off, bitch!’ He turned to his companions for reassurance. ‘Can you believe this fucking bitch?’

  Nicci took another step towards him. Again their faces were inches apart. ‘I’m serious.’

  The boy’s eyes flickered, he couldn’t hold Nicci’s steely gaze. But he couldn’t back off. His shoulders jerked, he lurched back, pulling a knife from his jeans’ pocket. He flicked it open to reveal a narrow stiletto blade about four inches long.

  He waved it at Nicci. ‘Yeah, then suck on this, you stupid motherfucker!’

  Nicci gave the knife a dispassionate glance and smiled. She felt perfectly calm except for the rage. It was curled in her lower belly, an alien creature biding its time. ‘What’s that supposed to be? Your weapon? A little penknife to match the size of your little dick?’

  The boy lifted the blade, his hand shaking as he pointed it at Nicci. ‘Ain’t no fucking penknife, it’s a shiv – and sharp enough to stick it to you, bitch!’

  Nicci’s smile widened. But her eyes continued to bore into him. The creature inside liked this. It was what it craved. Now the anger was surfacing, shimmering around her like an aura. ‘Okay, so let’s see you try. I haven’t broken anyone’s arm in a while. This could be fun.’

  The boy hesitated. His mates were watching. The whole bus queue was watching. His chin quivered. ‘I ain’t kidding.’

  ‘Neither am I. I usually go for a clean break of the ulna – that’s your lower arm. You’ll hear it snap. It’ll probably end up protruding from the skin, so there’ll be blood.’