I only know two people who have been shot. One was a chap I went through police training college with. His name was Angus Lehmann and he wanted to be first at everything—first in his exams, first to the bar, first to get promoted . . .
A few years back he led a raid on a drug factory in Brixton and was first through the door. An entire magazine from a semiautomatic took his head clean off. There's a lesson in that somewhere.
A farmer in our valley called Bruce Curley is the other one. He shot himself in the foot when he tried to chase his wife's lover out the bedroom window. Bruce was fat with gray hair sprouting from his ears and Mrs. Curley used to cower like a dog whenever he raised a hand. Shame he didn't shoot himself between the eyes.
During my police training we did a firearms course. The instructor was a Geordie with a head like a billiard ball and he took against me from the first day because I suggested the best way to keep a gun barrel clean was to cover it with a condom.
We were standing on the live firing range, freezing our bollocks off. He pointed out the cardboard cutout at the end of the range. It was a silhouette of a crouching gun-wielding villain with a white circle painted over his heart and another on his head.
Taking a service pistol the Geordie crouched down with his legs apart and squeezed off six shots—a heartbeat between each of them—every one grouped in the upper circle.
Flicking the smoking clip into his hand, he said, “Now I don't expect any of you to do that but at least try to hit the fucking target. Who wants to go first?”
Nobody volunteered.
“How about you, condom boy?”
The class laughed.
I stepped forward and raised my revolver. I hated how good it felt in my hand. The instructor said, “No, not like that, keep both eyes open. Crouch. Count and squeeze.”
Before he could finish the gun kicked in my hand, rattling the air and something deep inside me.
The cutout swayed from side to side as the pulley dragged it down the range toward us. Six shots, each so close together they formed a ragged hole through the cardboard.
“He shot out his arsehole,” someone muttered in astonishment.
“Right up the Khyber Pass.”
I didn't look at the instructor's face. I turned away, checked the chamber, put on the safety catch and removed my earplugs.
“You missed,” he said triumphantly.
“If you say so, sir.”
I wake with a sudden jolt and it takes a while for my heart to settle. I look at my watch—not so much at the time but the date. I want to make sure I haven't slept for too long or lost any more time.
It's been two days since I regained consciousness. A man is sitting by the bed.
“My name is Dr. Wickham,” he says, smiling. “I'm a neurologist.”
He looks like one of those doctors you see on daytime chat shows.
“I once saw you play rugby for Harlequins against London Scottish,” he says. “You would have made the England team that year if you hadn't been injured. I played a bit of rugby myself. Never higher than seconds . . .”
“Really, what position?”
“Outside center.”
I figured as much—he probably touched the ball twice a game and is still talking about the tries he could have scored.
“I have the results of your MRI scan,” he says, opening a folder. “There is no evidence of a skull fracture, aneurysms or a hemorrhage.” He glances up from his notes. “I want to run some neurological tests to help establish what you've forgotten. It means answering some questions about the shooting.”
“I don't remember it.”
“Yes, but I want you to answer regardless—even if it means guessing. It's called a forced-choice recognition test. It forces you to make choices.”
I think I understand, although I don't see the point.
“How many people were on the boat?”
“I don't remember.”
Dr. Wickham reiterates, “You have to make a choice.”
“Four.”
“Was there a full moon?”
“Yes.”
“Was the name of the boat Charmaine?”
“No.”
“How many engines did it have?”
“One.”
“Was it a stolen boat?”
“Yes.”
“Was the engine running?”
“No.”
“Were you anchored or drifting?”
“Drifting.”
“Were you carrying a weapon?”
“Yes.”
“Did you fire your weapon?”
“No.”
This is ridiculous! What possible good does it do? I'm guessing the answers.
Suddenly, it dawns on me. They think I'm faking amnesia. This isn't a test to see how much I remember—they're testing the validity of my symptoms. They're forcing me to make choices so they can work out what percentage of questions I answer correctly. If I'm telling the truth, pure guesswork should mean half of my answers are correct. Anything significantly above or below fifty percent could mean I'm trying to “influence” the result by deliberately getting things right or wrong.
I know enough about statistics to see the objective. The chance of someone with memory loss answering only ten questions correctly out of fifty is less than five percent.
Dr. Wickham has been taking notes. No doubt he's studying the distribution of my answers—looking for patterns that might indicate something other than random chance.
Stopping him, I ask, “Who wrote these questions?”
“I don't know.”
“Guess.”
He blinks at me.
“Come on, Doc, true or false? I'll accept a guess. Is this a test to see if I'm faking memory loss?”
“I don't know what you mean,” he stammers.
“If I can guess the answer, so can you. Who put you up to this—Internal Affairs or Campbell Smith?”
Struggling to his feet, he tucks the clipboard under his arm and turns toward the door. I wish I'd met him on the rugby field. I'd have driven his head into a muddy hole.
Swinging my legs out of bed, I put one foot on the floor. The linoleum is cool and slightly sticky. Gulping hard on the pain, I slide my forearms into the plastic cuffs of the crutches.
I'm supposed to be using a walker on wheels but I'm too vain. I'm not going to walk around in a chrome cage like some geriatric in a post office queue. I look in the cupboard for my clothes. Empty.
I know it sounds paranoid but they're not telling me everything. Someone must know what I was doing on the river. Someone will have heard the shots or seen something. Why haven't they found any bodies?
Halfway down the corridor I see Campbell talking to Dr. Wickham. Two detectives are with them. I recognize one of them: John Keebal. I used to work with him until he joined the Met's Anti-Corruption Group, otherwise known as the Ghost Squad, and began investigating his own.
Keebal is one of those coppers who call all gays “fudge-packers” and Asians “Pakis.” He is loud, bigoted and totally obsessed with the job. When the Marchioness riverboat sank in the Thames, he did thirteen death-knocks before lunchtime, telling people their kids had drowned. He knew exactly what to say and when to stop talking. A man like that can't be all bad.
“Where do you think you're going?” asks Campbell.
“I thought I might get some fresh air.”
Keebal interrupts, “Yeah, just got a whiff of something myself.”
I push past them heading for the lift.
“You can't possibly leave,” says Dr. Wickham. “Your dressing has to be changed every few days. You need painkillers.”
“Fill my pockets and I'll self-administer.”
Campbell grabs my arm. “Don't be so bloody foolish.”
I realize I'm shaking.
“Have you found anyone? Any . . . any bodies?”
“No.”
“I'm not faking this, you know. I really can't remember.”
He steers me away from the others. “I believe you, Vincent, but you know the drill. The IPCC has to investigate.”
“What's Keebal doing here?”
“He just wants to talk to you.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
Campbell laughs but it doesn't reassure me like it should. Before I can weigh up my options, Keebal leads me down the corridor to the hospital lounge—a stark, windowless place, with burnt-orange sofas and posters of healthy people. He unbuttons his jacket and takes a seat, waiting for me to lever myself down from my crutches.
“I hear you nearly met the grim reaper.”
“He offered me a room with a view.”
“And you turned him down?”
“I'm not a good traveler.”
For the next ten minutes we shoot the breeze about mutual acquaintances and old times. He asks about my mother and I tell him she's in a retirement village.
“Some of those places can be pretty expensive.”
“Yep.”
“Where you living nowadays?”
“Right here.”
The coffee arrives and Keebal keeps talking. He gives me his opinion on the proliferation of firearms, random violence and senseless crimes. The police are becoming easy targets and scapegoats all at once. I know what he's trying to do. He wants to draw me in with a spiel about good guys having to stick together.
Keebal is one of those police officers who adopt a warrior ethic as though something separates them from normal society. They listen to politicians talk about the war on crime and the war on drugs and the war on terror and they start picturing themselves as soldiers fighting to keep the streets safe.
“How many times have you put your life on the line, Ruiz? You think any of the bastards care? The left call us pigs and the right call us Nazis. Sieg, sieg, oink! Sieg, sieg, oink!” He throws his right arm forward in a Nazi salute.
I stare at the signet ring on his pinkie and think of Orwell's Animal Farm.
Keebal is on a roll. “We don't live in a perfect world and we don't have perfect police officers, eh? But what do they expect? We have no fucking resources and we're fighting a system that lets criminals out quicker than we can catch them. And all this new-age touchy-feely waa-waa bullshit they pass off as crime prevention has done nothing for you and me. And it's done nothing for the poor misguided kids who get caught up in crime.
“A while back I went to a conference and some lard-arse criminologist with an American accent told us that police officers had no enemies. ‘Criminals are not the enemy, crime is,' he said. Jesus wept! Have you ever heard anything so stupid? I had to stop myself giving this guy a slap.”
Keebal leans in a little closer. I smell peanuts on his breath.
“I don't blame coppers for being pissed off. And I can understand when they pocket a little for themselves, as long as they're not dealing drugs or hurting children, eh?” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I can help you. Just tell me what happened that night.”
“I don't remember.”
“Am I correct in assuming, therefore, you cannot identify the person who shot you?”
“You would be correct in that assumption.”
My sarcasm seems to light a fire under Keebal. He knows I'm not buying his we're-all-alone-in-the-trenches bullshit.
“Where are the diamonds?”
“What diamonds?”
He tries to change the subject.
“No. No. Stop! What diamonds?”
He shouts over me. “The decks of that boat were swimming in blood. People died but we haven't found any bodies and nobody has been reported missing. What does that suggest to you?”
He makes me think. The victims probably had no close ties or they were engaged in something illegal. I want to go back to the diamonds, but Keebal has his own agenda.
“I read an interesting statistic the other day. Thirty-five percent of offenders found guilty of homicide claim amnesia of the event.”
More bloody statistics. “You think I'm lying.”
“I think you're bent.”
I reach for my crutches and swing onto my feet. “Since you know all the answers, Keebal, you tell me what happened. Oh, that's right—you weren't there. Then again—you never are. When real coppers are out risking their lives, you're at home tucked up in bed watching reruns of The Bill. You risk nothing and you persecute honest coppers for standards that you couldn't piss over. Get out of here. And next time you want to talk to me you better come armed with an arrest warrant and a set of handcuffs.”
Keebal's face turns a slapped-red color. He does lots of preening and flexing as he walks away, yelling over his shoulder. “The only person you got fooled is that neurologist. Nobody else believes you. You're gonna wish that bullet did the job.”
I try to chase them down the corridor, hopping on one crutch, and screaming my head off. Two black orderlies hold me back, pinning my arms behind me.
Finally, I calm down and they take me back to my room. Maggie gives me a small plastic cup of syrupy liquid and soon I'm like Alice in Wonderland shrinking into the room. The white folds of the bedclothes are an arctic wasteland.
The dream has a whiff of strawberry lip gloss and spearmint breath—a missing girl in a pink-and-orange bikini. Her name is Mickey Carlyle and she's wedged in the rocks in my mind like a spar of driftwood, bleached white by the sun—as white as her skin and the fine hairs on her forearms. She is four feet tall, tugging at my sleeve, saying, “Why didn't you ever find me? You promised my friend Sarah that you'd find me.”
She even says it in the same voice that Sarah used when she asked me for an ice-cream cone. “You promised me. You said I could have one if I told you what happened.”
Mickey disappeared not far from here. You might even be able to see Randolph Avenue from the window. It's a solid, redbrick canyon of mansion blocks built as cheap Victorian housing, but now the flats cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. I could save for ten years or two hundred and never afford to buy one.
I can still picture the lift, an old-fashioned metal cage that rattled and twanged between the landings. The stairs wrapped around the lift shaft, turning back and forth as they rose. Mickey grew up playing on those stairs, holding impromptu concerts after school because the acoustics were so good. She sang with a lisp because of the gap in her front teeth.
Three years have passed since then. The world has tuned out her story because there are other crimes to titillate and horrify—dead beauty queens, the war on terror, sportsmen behaving badly . . . Mickey hasn't gone away. She is still here. She is like the ghost who sits opposite me at every feast and the voice inside my head when I fall asleep. I know she's alive. I know it deep down inside, where my guts are tied in knots. I know it but I can't prove it.
It was the first week of the summer holidays, three years ago when she entered my life. Eighty-five steps and then darkness; she vanished. How can a child disappear in a building with only five floors and eleven flats?
We searched every one of them—every room, cupboard and crawl space. I even checked the same places over and over again, somehow expecting her to suddenly be there, despite all the other searches.
Mickey was seven years old with blond hair, blue eyes and a gap-toothed smile. She was last seen wearing a bikini, a white headband, red canvas shoes, and carrying a striped beach towel.
Police cars had blocked the street outside and the neighbors were organizing searches. Someone had set up a trestle table with jugs of ice water and bottles of cordial. The temperature reached 30°C at nine o'clock that morning and the air smelled of hot bitumen and exhaust fumes.
A fat guy in baggy green shorts was taking photographs. I didn't recognize him at first but I knew him from somewhere. Where?
Then it came back to me, like it always does. Cottesloe Park—an Anglican boarding school in Warrington. His name was Howard Wavell, a baffling, unfortunate figure, who was three years behind me. My memory triumphs again.
I knew Mickey hadn't left the building. I had a witness. Her name was Sarah Jordan and she was only nine years old but she knew what she knew. Sitting on the bottom stair, sipping from a can of lemonade, she brushed mousy brown hair from her eyes. Tiny crosses clung to her earlobes like pieces of silver foil.
Sarah wore a blue-and-yellow swimsuit, with white shorts, brown sandals and a baseball cap. Her legs were pale and spotted with insect bites pink from her scratching. Too young to be body conscious, she swung her knees open and closed, resting her cheek against the coolness of the banister.
“My name is Detective Inspector Ruiz,” I said, sitting next to her. “Tell me what happened again.”
She sighed and straightened her legs. “I pressed the buzzer, like I said.”
“Which buzzer?”
“Eleven. Where Mickey lives.”
“Show me which button you pressed.”
She sighed again and walked across the foyer through the large front door. The intercom was just outside. She pointed to the top button. Pink nail varnish had been chipped off her fingernails.
“See! I know what number eleven is.”
“Of course, you do. What happened then?”
“Mickey's mum said Mickey would be right down.”
“Is that exactly what she said? Word for word?”
Her brow furrowed in concentration. “No. First she said hello and I said hello. And I asked if Mickey could come and play. We were going to sunbathe in the garden and play under the hose. Mr. Murphy lets us use the sprinkler. He says we're helping him water the lawn at the same time.”
“And who is Mr. Murphy?”
“Mickey says he owns the building, but I think he's just the caretaker.”
“Mickey didn't come down.”
“No.”
“How long did you wait?”
“Ages and ages.” She fans her face with her hand. “Can I have an ice cream?”
“In a minute . . . Did anyone come past you while you were waiting?”
“No.”
“And you didn't leave these steps—not even to get a drink . . .”
She shook her head.
“. . . or to talk to a friend, or to pat a dog?”
“No.”
“What happened then?”
“Mickey's mum came down with the trash. Then she said, ‘What are you doing? Where's Mickey?' And I said, ‘I'm still waiting for her.' Then she said she came down ages ago. Only she never did because I've been here the whole time . . .”
“What did you do then?”
“Mickey's mum told me to wait. She said not to move, so I sat on the stairs.”
“Did anyone come past you?”
“Only the neighbors who helped look for Mickey.”
“Do you know their names?”
“Some of them.” She counted quietly on her fingers and listed them. “Is this a mystery?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“Where did Mickey go?”
“I don't know, sweetheart, but we're going to find her.”