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He was helping police with their inquiries Strike re the phrase on the nehen he had been a small boy, obsessed by every aspect of police work His e early preoccupation on her brother, Ted, ex-Red Cap and fount of (to Strike) thrilling stories of travel,police with their inquiries: as a five-year-old, Strike had iive up his tinifying glass and truncheon and allowed hilamorous anonymity
This was the reality: a siven to him by Wardle, whose attitude towards Strike was devoid of the animosity that crackled from Carver’s every open pore, but free of every trace of former friendliness Strike suspected that Wardle’s superior did not know the full extent of their previous interactions
A small black tray on the scratched desk held seventeen pence in change, a single Yale key and a plastic-covered bus pass; Strike’s card was discolored and crinkled but still legible
“What about her bag?” Strike asked Carver, as sitting across the desk, while Wardle leaned up against the filing cabinet in the corner “Gray Cheap and plastic-looking That hasn’t turned up, has it?”
“She probably left it in her squat, or wherever the fuck she lived,” said Carver “Suicides don’t usually pack a bag to jump”
“I don’t think she jumped,” said Strike
“Oh don’t you, now?”
“I wanted to see her hands She hated water over her face, she told led in the water, the position of their hands—”
“Well, it’s nice to get your expert opinion,” said Carver, with sledgehammer irony “I knoho you are, Mr Strike”
He leaned back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head, revealing dried patches of sweat on the underarms of his shirt The sharp, sour, oniony smell of BO wafted across the desk
“He’s ex-SIB,” threw in Wardle, fro cabinet
“I know that,” barked Carver, raising wiry eyebrows flecked with scurf “I’ve heard fro medal Quite the colorful CV”
Carver removed his hands froether on the desk instead His corned-beef cos under his hard eyes were not flattered by the strip lighting
“I knoho your old man is and all”
Strike scratched his unshaven chin, waiting
“Like to be as rich and famous as Daddy, would you? Is that what all this is about?”
Carver had the bright blue, bloodshot eyes that Strike had always (sincea major in the Paras with just such eyes, as subsequently cashiered for serious bodily harm) associated with a choleric, violent nature
“Rochelle didn’t jump Nor did Lula Landry”
“Bollocks,” shouted Carver “You’re speaking to the two h every bit of fucking evidence with a fine-toothed fucking co that poor sod Bristow for all you can get Why are you fucking s at me?”
“I’ to look when this interview gets reported in the press”
“Don’t you dare fucking threaten me with the press, dickhead”
Carver’s blunt, wide face was clenched; his glaring blue eyes vivid in the purple-red face
“You’re in a heap of trouble here, pal, and a faet you out of it Hoe know you didn’t scare the poor bitch into fucking ju? Mentally ill, wasn’t she? Hoe know you didn’t ? You were the last person to see her alive, pal I wouldn’t like to be sitting where you are now”
“Rochelle crossed Grantley Road and walked away from me, as alive as you are You’ll find soet that coat”
Wardle pushed hied a hard plastic chair over to the desk and sat down
“Let’s have it, then,” he told Strike “Your theory”
“She was black Lula Landry’s killer”
“Piss off,” snapped Carver, and Wardle snorted in slightly stagey amusement
“The day before she died,” said Strike, “LandryHill She dragged Rochelle straight into a changing cubicle, where shesomebody toThat call was overheard by an assistant at the shop; she was in the next cubicle; they’re separated by a curtain Girl called Mel, red hair and tattoos”
“People will spout any amount of shit when there’s a celebrity involved,” said Carver
“If Landry phoned anyone from that cubicle,” said Wardle, “it was Duffield, or her uncle Her phone records show they were the only people she called, all afternoon”
“Why did she want Rochelle there when sheher friend into the cubicle with her?”
“Women do that stuff,” said Carver “They piss in herds, too”
“Use your fucking intelligence: she wasthe call on Rochelle’s phone,” said Strike, exasperated “She’d tested everyone she knew to try and see as talking to the press about her Rochelle was the only one who kept her irl was trustworthy, bought her a istered it in Rochelle’s naes She’d had her own phone hacked, hadn’t she? She was getting paranoid about people listening in and reporting on her, so she bought a Nokia and registered it to soive herself a totally secure means of communication when she wanted it
“I grant you, that doesn’t necessarily rule out her uncle, or Duffield, because calling thenal they’d organized between the Rochelle’s number to speak to somebody else; soot Rochelle’s mobile number Find out what network she ith and you’ll be able to check all this The unit itself is a crystal-covered pink Nokia, but you won’t find that”
“Yeah, because it’s at the bottom o
f the Thames,” said Wardle
“Course it isn’t,” said Strike “The killer’s got it He’ll have got it off her before he threw her into the river”
“Fuck off!” jeered Carver, and Wardle, who had seement, shook his head
“Why did Landry want Rochelle there when she made the call?” Strike repeated “Why not make it from the car? Why, when Rochelle was homeless, and virtually destitute, did she never sell her story on Landry? They’d have given her a great wad for it Why didn’t she cash in, once Landry was dead, and couldn’t be hurt?”
“Decency?” suggested Wardle
“Yeah, that’s one possibility,” said Strike “The other’s that she wasthe killer”
“Boll-ocks,” moaned Carver
“Yeah? That Muppet coat she was pulled up wearing cost one and a half grand”
A tiny pause
“Landry probably gave it to her,” said Wardle
“If she did, shethat wasn’t in the shops back in January”
“Landry was a model, she had inside contacts—fuck this shit,” snapped Carver, as though he had irritated himself
“Why,” said Strike, leaning forwards on his arms into the miasma of body odor that surrounded Carver, “did Lula Landry make a detour to that shop for fifteen minutes?”
“She was in a hurry”
“Why go at all?”
“She didn’t want to let the girl down”
“She got Rochelle to coirl she usually gave a lift hoed her into a cubicle, and then walked out fifteenher to make her oay home”
“She was a spoiled bitch”
“If she hy turn up at all? Because it orth it, for some purpose of her own And if she wasn’t a spoiled bitch, she must have been in some kind of emotional state thatwitness to the fact that Lula begged somebody, over the phone, to co There’s also that piece of blue paper she had before she went into Vashti, and which nobody’s ad seen since What did she do with it? Why was she writing in the back of the car, before she saw Rochelle?”