Andrea clammed up again after that, as if she sensed she'd said too much. And I guess she had, because by now I was beginning to get an angle on things. Grant clammed up as well, and although I kept them there for another ten minutes, I didn't find out anything else of interest.
Before they went, Andrea told me that they just wanted to be left alone, and implored me to respect their wishes. I said I would, feeling sorry for them as I watched them leave with their heads down and shoulders hunched, fearful of the consequences of my unwelcome entry into their lives. But I wasn't sure it was a promise I could keep. They knew a lot more than they were telling me, and I could only assume that Ann Taylor had told Andrea something, which Andrea had then told Grant; something that with Ann's death they'd sworn to keep quiet.
Ann's father, Richard Blacklip, had appeared in a photograph with Les Pope. Pope had ordered the deaths of Malik and Jason Khan. Khan was Blacklip's daughter's boyfriend. Connections. Plenty of connections. But where, and to whom, did they all lead? Fifteen minutes later I was walking down the Essex Road, not really thinking where I was going as I talked on the phone to Emma. She hadn't found out anything of great interest about Thadeus, or any links they might have had with either Malik, Pope or Nicholas Tyndall, and was still waiting for her contact to come back with the phone numbers listed on Slippery Billy's mobile. When I told her I needed details of Ann Taylor's illness, and who had treated her, she was none too pleased.
'I've got a lot on, Dennis. We've got an editorial meeting at three o'clock and I've got to be home at five thirty for the window guy. I've already spent hours on this.'
'Please. It's important.'
'Why? What's it got to do with the case?'
'Just trust me on this, OK? This once. Honestly, Emma, I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it could lead to something.'
She sighed loudly, but said she'd do what she could and I said I'd call her later.
I hung up and realized that I was standing outside the Half Moon pub. I'd drunk in here a few times back in the old days and it was less than half a mile from the police station where I'd spent so much of my working life, and only a few hundred yards from Islington Green and the bright lights of Upper Street. I stopped and peered in the window. Two old guys were sat at the bar laughing and smoking, while a barman I didn't recognize polished a glass behind them. I'd known the landlord here once upon a time. I'd pop in on the occasional afternoon after I'd worked an early shift, and we'd have a few pints together and a chinwag in the welcoming half-light of the lounge bar. I wondered if he was still here and even thought about going in. Thought about it seriously for a couple of seconds. It looked warm and inviting.
It was also too close to the old stomping ground. Too risky. Even letting it cross my mind was a stupid idea. I could never go back in here. Not now. Not in a month. Not ever. It was the past and the past for me was a closed book.
But the past never truly lets you go, even the parts you wish to forget. In the three days since I'd returned to this city, the yawning chasm that had been the days, the months, the years away, had shrunk to nothing. Every step, every smell, every familiar street had dragged me backwards through time, and now, with Andrea's mention of Coleman House, the ghosts of my last bitter days here were rising to haunt me again: the innocent dead; the guilty dead; and, of course, the mysterious and beautiful Carla Graham, the woman who for a few fleeting moments I'd felt closer to than any other.
I stood there in the pale winter sunlight for longer than I should have done, until the cold began to seep beneath my skin. Finally, I turned and retraced my steps, pleased to be escaping from reminders of the old days. But as I walked, the ghosts of the dead shifted and swirled around me, reluctant, as always, to release me from their grip.