‘I took myself as my “lawful wedded wife”, according to that young curate chap, who did the whole bloody thing at a kind of lean, and who – by the way – I think may have an intimate relationship with the kind of gin that is odourless.’
‘Thank God for Jordan Callintree,’ said Edward, inadvertently taking the conversation back to where it had been five minutes earlier. ‘He’s the reason we’re here, by the way.’
‘Oh!’ said Kim. ‘I thought it was because you wanted the disaster.’
‘Did you order it?’
‘What’s that?’ asked Stevie.
‘It’s what he calls the jalfrezi.’
‘The car park’s nice though,’ said Stevie.
The curry came in stages. Edward drank too much. Tongue loosened by the Kingfisher, he told Kim and Stevie: ‘Pretty much everything I report is from Jordan. He would normally be discreet. But he can’t get his officers motivated on the case. He’s lost the dressing room.’
He could have listed the scoops. He had had chapter and verse on the speed of the Met’s withdrawal. A little more was known about the isotope, Actinium-224, although it wasn’t good news. Anyone could have made it: there were now centrifuge machines you could store in a garage, but it was a dangerous game.
‘That’s the first report I ever broadcast which I couldn’t understand myself.’
The view being taken by Devon Police was that this was not terrorism. The motorbike rider was transporting dangerous material (yes, it was still very dangerous) for some illegal private purpose. They had found drugs paraphernalia in the flat (bloodstained tubes). But none of it led to any firm conclusions. They wondered if a farmer was using unconventional means to destroy a herd, but the carcasses would still have to go to an abattoir, surely?
‘And those bloodstained tubes were for drugs?’ repeated Stevie.
‘They had some sort of taps on them, blue and red, to control the … what, heroin going into the vein, I guess.’
‘Wait, no,’ said Stevie. ‘You’re bringing something back to me. When I was at the hospital, before Nina died, Jordan was speaking to the panicking mum. Andrea. He was trying to give her information because she was so upset. He showed her a picture of those tubes – which is why I knew about them – and he said they were for drug use and she said, “Not that”. What did she mean, I wonder?’
‘What do you think she meant?’ asked Kim.
‘At the time I thought it was just a way of saying, “Oh my God, not that as well”.’
‘What else could she have meant?’ Edward asked.
‘It’s rattled around in my bloody head. “Not that”. What if she said “Not that” to mean “No, you’re wrong, it wasn’t that”? Meaning the policeman was wrong about those tubes? They weren’t for drugs but something else?’
‘I wonder what she thought she was seeing,’ Edward said.
‘She’s been through so much, she probably won’t even remember herself,’ Stevie said. ‘Poor lass.’
They ate for a bit, and he said, ‘OK, so this is probably a good moment to tell you why we’re here.’ He tore a corner off the naan bread, thought better of putting it in his mouth just before trying to speak, and placed it on the edge of hisdinner plate. The orange jalfrezi sauce began to creep into it like a bloodstain on a carpet. He pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. ‘This is a rental agreement that Jordan sent me. Confidential. I printed it out. The landlord’s name is Cammell-Curzon. See, on the front.’
‘Can I touch it?’ asked Stevie.
‘Sure. Why on earth not?’
‘I was thinking prints.’
‘Fingerpr—?’ Edward began, about to say, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, this came off my home printer,’ but then he saw she was joking. They were playing detective, the other two. But this was not a game. This was about Nina Lopez.
‘What sort of a name is that?’ Stevie asked. ‘Richard Cammell-Cordon?’
‘Cammell-Curzon,’ I think, said Kim, reading over her shoulder.
‘This eye doesn’t see too well.’
‘Yes, Richard Cammell-Curzon is the landlord,’ Edward confirmed.
‘Should just be DICK TOSSER-PRAT.’
