pender belt and stockings.
Pellicci’s, which lay on Bethnal Green Road, was an East End institution: a small, century-old Italian-run café where the art deco wooden panels gave the incongruous feeling of eating chips in a compartment on the Orient Express. Strike chose a corner seat with his back to the wall, ordered coffee, then reached for an abandoned copy of the Daily Mail a previous diner had left lying on the table beside his.
Skipping the usual discussion of the Brexit referendum, he paused on page five, where there was a large picture of Charlotte with Landon Dormer, both of them holding glasses of champagne and laughing. The caption informed him that Charlotte and her boyfriend had attended a fundraising dinner for Dormer’s charitable foundation. The story below hinted at a possible engagement.
Strike studied this picture far longer than he’d looked at Bijou’s. Charlotte was wearing a long, clinging gold dress and looked entirely carefree, one thin arm resting on Dormer’s shoulder, her long black hair styled in waves. Had she lied about having cancer, or was she putting on a brave face? He scrutinised the lantern-jawed Dormer, who also looked untroubled. Strike was still examining the picture when a voice above him said,
‘Wotcha, Bunsen.’
‘Shanker,’ said Strike, tossing the paper back onto the neighbouring table and extending a hand, which Shanker shook before sitting down.
Gaunt and pale, Shanker had grown a beard since Strike had last seen him, which disguised most of the deep scar that gave him a permanent sneer. He was wearing ill-fitting jeans and a baggy grey sweatshirt. Tattoos covered his wrists, knuckles and neck.
‘You ill?’ he demanded of Strike.
‘No, why?’
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘That’s intentional.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Shanker, now rapidly clicking his fingers, a tic he’d had as long as Strike had known him.
‘Want anything?’ said Strike.
‘Yeah, I could do a coffee,’ said Shanker. Once this had been ordered, Shanker asked, ‘What d’you want wiv Reaney, then?’
‘D’you know him personally?’
‘I know ’oo ’e is,’ said Shanker, whose extensive knowledge of organised crime in London would have shamed the Met. ‘Used to run wiv the Vincent firm. I ’eard about the job ’e got banged up for. Silly cunts nearly killed that bookie.’
‘Would you happen to know where he is?’
‘Yeah, HMP Bedford. Got a couple of mates in there right now, as it goes.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that. Reaney’s got information that might help one of our investigations, but he isn’t being cooperative.’
Shanker seemed unsurprised at the turn the conversation had taken. The waitress now set down Shanker’s coffee in front of him. Strike thanked her, as Shanker seemed to have no intention of doing it, then waited until she’d moved away before asking,
‘How much?’
‘Nah, you can ’ave this one on me. You ’elped me out wiv Angel’s fing.’
‘Cheers, Shanker. Appreciate it.’
‘That it?’
‘Yeah, but I wanted your opinion about something else.’
‘I want somefing to eat, then,’ said Shanker, looking around restlessly. ‘Wait there.’
‘The menu’s here,’ said Strike, pushing the card towards Shanker. He had longstanding knowledge of his companion’s usual way of getting what he wanted, which was to demand, then threaten, irrespective of whether his request was possible to fulfil. Shanker brushed the menu away.
‘Wanna bacon roll.’
Having ordered, Shanker turned back to Strike.
‘What else?’
‘There was a shooting last year in Canning Town. Guy by the name of Kevin Pirbright, shot through the head with the same make of gun used in two previous drug-related shootings. The police found drugs and cash in his flat. Their theory is, he ran afoul of a local dealer, but personally, I think they’re working backwards from the gun that was used.
‘The dead guy grew up in a church,’ Strike continued. ‘I doubt he’d know where to get his hands on drugs, let alone start dealing in quantities to disrupt local drug lords. I wondered what your take was – professionally speaking.’
‘What kinda gun?’
‘Beretta 9000.’
‘Popular shooter,’ said Shanker with a shrug.
‘It’s your manor, Canning Town. Have you heard anything about a young bloke getting shot in his flat?’
Shanker’s roll arrived. Once again, Strike thanked the waitress in the absence of any recognition from Shanker. The latter took a large mouthful of bacon roll, then said,
‘Nope.’
Strike knew perfectly well that if the hit on Pirbright had been carried out by a colleague of Shanker’s, the latter was hardly likely to admit it. On the other hand, he’d have expected some retaliatory aggression if Strike seemed to be prodding around in Shanker’s associates’ affairs, which wasn’t forthcoming.
‘So you think—?’
‘Frame-up, innit,’ said Shanker, still chewing. ‘Sure it’s not some bent pig?’
Strike, who was inured to Shanker’s tendency to attribute half the wrongdoing in London to corrupt police, said,
‘Can’t see why the force would want this particular bloke dead.’
‘Could’ve ’ad somefing on a pig, couldn’ ’e? Me auntie still finks it was a copper what shot Duwayne.’
Strike remembered Shanker’s cousin Duwayne who, like Pirbright, had been shot, his killer never caught. Doubtless it was easiest for Shanker’s aunt to lay one more death at the Met’s door, given that her other son had died in a high-speed chase with police. At least half of Shanker’s sprawling family were engaged in some level of criminal activity. As Duwayne had been in a gang from the age of thirteen, Strike thought there were plenty of people more likely to have executed him than the police, an opinion he was tactful enough not to express.
‘The people Pirbright had stuff on definitely weren’t police.’
He was trying to convince himself he didn’t want a bacon roll. Shanker’s smelled very good.
‘Reaney’s scared of pigs,’ Strike said. ‘The animal, I mean.’
‘Yeah?’ said Shanker, mildly interested. ‘Don’t fink we’re gonna be able to smuggle a pig into Bedford, Bunsen.’
As Strike laughed, his mobile rang yet again and he saw Lucy’s number.
‘Hi Luce, what’s up?’
‘Stick, Ted’s got a GP appointment for a week Friday.’
‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll be there.’
‘Really?’ said Lucy, and he heard her incredulity that, for once, he wasn’t saying he’d check his diary or being irritable about being asked to commit to a date.
‘Yeah, I told you, I’ll be there. What time?’
‘Ten o’clock.’
‘OK, I’ll get down there Thursday,’ said Strike, ‘and I’ll ring Ted and tell him I’m coming with him.’
‘This is so good of you, Stick.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Strike, whose conscience continued to trouble him after Lucy’s recent revelations. ‘Least I can do. Listen, I’m in the middle of something. I’ll call you later, OK?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Lucy rang off.
‘Everyfing awright?’ asked Shanker.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, slipping his phone back in his pocket. ‘Well, my uncle might have dementia, I don’t know. My mum’s brother,’ he added.
‘Yeah?’ said Shanker. ‘Sorry to ’ear that. Fuckin’ bitch, dementia. My old man ’ad it.’
‘Didn’t know that,’ said Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Shanker. ‘Early onset. Last time I saw ’im, ’e never ’ad a clue ’oo I was. Mind you, ’e ’ad that many kids, he could ’ardly remember ’oo I was even when ’e weren’t senile, randy old fucker. Why ’aven’t you ’ad any kids?’ asked Shanker, as though the thought had only just occurred to him.
‘Don’t want them,’ said Strike.
‘You don’ wan’ kids?’ said Shanker, his tone suggesting this was akin to not wanting to breathe.
‘No,’ said Strike.
‘You miserable bastard,’ said Shanker, contemplating Strike with incredulity. ‘Kids is wha’ it’s all abou’. Fuckin’ ’ell, look at your mum. You free was everyfing to ’er.’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike automatically. ‘Well—’
‘You should see fuckin’ Alyssa, wiv Angel bein’ ill. That’s fuckin’ love, man.’
‘Yeah – well, give her my best, OK? And Angel.’
Strike got to his feet, bill in his hand.
‘Cheers for this, Shanker. I’d better get going. Got a lot of work on.’
Having paid for the coffees and the bacon roll, Strike headed back up Bethnal Green Road, lost in not entirely productive thought.
You free was everyfing to ’er.
Strike never thought of Leda as having had three children, but his old friend had reminded him of the existence of somebody whom Strike probably thought about once a year at most: the much younger half-brother who’d been the product of his mother’s marriage to her killer. The boy, who’d been given the predictably eccentric name Switch by his parents, had been born shortly before Strike left for Oxford University. The latter had felt literally nothing for the squalling baby, even as a beaming Leda insisted her older son hold his brother. Strike’s most vivid memory of that time was his own feeling of dread at leaving Leda in the squat with her increasingly erratic and aggressive husband. The baby had been merely an additional complication, forever tainted in Strike’s eyes by being Whittaker’s son. His half-brother had just turned one when Leda died, and had then been adopted by his paternal grandparents.
He felt no curiosity about Switch’s current whereabouts and no desire to meet or know him. As far as he knew, Lucy felt the same way. But then Strike corrected himself: he didn’t know how Lucy felt. Perhaps Switch was one of the half-siblings with whom she maintained contact, hiding this from the elder brother who’d arrogantly assumed he knew everything about her.
Strike re-entered Bethnal Green station, burdened with guilt and unease. He’d have called Robin had she been available, not to bore her with his personal problems, but to let her know Shanker was prepared to help loosen Jordan Reaney’s tongue, that Shanker, too, thought the police were wrong about Pirbright’s murder, and that the Frank brothers had gone out in disguise to buy rope. Once again, the fact that she was unavailable, and likely to be so for the foreseeable future, made him realise just how much the sound of her voice generally raised his spirits. He was ever more conscious of how much he, the most self-sufficient of men, had come to rely on the fact that she was always there, and always on his side.