‘Has he been taken off the case, Guv?’

‘The Commissioner doesn’t want his star pupil bogged down in a boring old murder enquiry when he could be doing something trendy and media friendly, like developing strategies to apply criminal profiling to everyday crimes. So, after three weeks investigating the insides of Dr Richards’ hole, DS Glenn is taking his annual leave, then returning for his promotion.’

I was almost scared to ask: ‘Promotion, Guv?’

‘Oh yes, DS Glenn is being made Commander. I’ve been left to take over his buggered investigation.’

‘Good luck with that, Guv.’

‘I don’t want it, Lynch. Whoever killed Marion has had four weeks to destroy any incriminating evidence and to copper bottom their alibis. I’ve got to go in there now, re-motivate his knackered team and start again, from scratch. As far as I’m concerned, today is day one of a lost cause.’

He sighed for fully six seconds, sniffed then looked at me, properly, for the first time.

‘Anyway, you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with you?’

I tried not to nod too eagerly.

‘They’ve told me I can bring across three of my own. I’m a man short.’

He looked at me expectantly. ‘What do you think?’

‘Well you’ve really sold it to me, Guv,’ I smiled.

He frowned: ‘I’ve been following your progress, Lynch. You’ve done okay. I said you’d make a decent detective. I’ve pulled a few strings. If you feel you’re up to it, you can start at Clapham CID Thursday, Acting Detective Constable. What do you say to that?’

I’d never been lost for words before. My first thought was Mum: how proud she’d be. I then remembered Marion Ryan’s crazed nocturnal assaults on me every time I’d attended the scene of her murder, and my innards cringed. Her spirit, or whatever it was that came to me, must have known all along that I’d wind up on this investigation. That must have been why she came to me in the first place. Another point on the side of the supernatural.

‘I’d love to.’

I then remembered Gabby’s friend Lilian and cursed to myself: ‘There is just one thing, Guv. Thursday mornings I’m booked up for a weekly one-hour session with a specialist that I have to attend. I’ve got one that morning.’

‘Physical?’ asked Shep.

‘More psychological, Guv,’ I said, in a way that made it clear I didn’t care to expand on the matter. Shep tilted his head sideways, either in mockery or sympathy, it was hard to tell.

‘Look, son, I don’t know if a priest had a fiddle with you, or your uncle or whatever, but you know you can talk to me, in confidence. You don’t need to be seeing quacks.’

‘It’s an insomnia thing actually …’

‘I mean I’ve had Irish colleagues, Christ, arses like colanders! They’d more sex before twelve than I’ve had in my entire life so, you know, don’t think you’re alone.’

I nodded: ‘Thanks, Guv. It’s good to have someone who listens.’

‘So, Thursday, I’ve arranged for you to read all the statements, the forensics and pathology reports with a fresh eye, but I want you to assume that Marion’s husband Peter is either the killer or he knows the killer. Understand? I’ve given the rest of the team leave until Friday to recuperate, so it’ll be nice and quiet. When you’ve finished with the paperwork, maybe take a walk around Sangora Road, check it out. You need to know the geography inside out. I want you to call me when you finish that evening and highlight any areas you feel we should re-investigate. Here’s my card with my home number. I’ve called a briefing for the whole team for midday Friday.’

‘I really appreciate it, Guv,’ I said, getting to my feet.

‘Well you can thank your brother actually. He heard I’d been landed with this and gave me a call.’

‘God, I’m in shock,’ and truly I was. I’d no idea Fintan and Shep knew each other. I was about to say so but Shep stood and spoke first.

‘There’s one condition to all this, Lynch. The moment you walk out this door, you don’t know me, right?’

‘Guv?’

‘Glenn’s team know I’m bringing over a couple of people from my team. But they won’t be able to make any connections between you and me. Let’s keep it that way.’

He read my confusion.

‘As far as everyone else on the team is concerned, you’re a random recruit, drafted in by management. You don’t know me. This way, you can be my eyes and ears on the ground in the incident room, okay? Tell me everything you hear, everything you see. I’ll work out a way for you to meet me, regularly and in confidence.’

‘Yes, Guv.’ I held out my hand. He gripped it, pressed hard: ‘From this point on, Lynch, your bony little arse is mine. Understood?’

That rather took the sheen off my dramatic new promotion.

Chapter 14

The Feathers, London SW1

Monday, August 5, 1991; 22:00

I paged Fintan to let him know I was in the Feathers. To ensure he turned up, I announced that I’d be standing him a towering great stack of pints.

‘Congratulations on your promotion,’ said Fintan, spoiling my surprise.

‘How did you … anyway, thanks. I hear you put in a good word.’

‘What are older brothers for, Donal, if not to grease the ladder for those who trail behind?’

It had been preying on my mind: what was in it for Fintan this time? Did he really wield influence over a senior officer like Shep? If so, how and why? When I worked here, I’d assumed Shep was in the Ghost Squad. That’s why I’d helped him.

Now I wondered if Shep was one of those cops Fintan had told me about that afternoon, outside Buckingham Palace. One of his ‘sources’ who used the press to get the public onside. Were he and Shep ‘off-the-record’ allies, running stories that suited both their agendas?

I didn’t want to be a pawn in any more sleazy plays.

‘I didn’t know you were so tight with Shep,’ I said.

‘All crime reporters try to get to know Shep. He’s one of those refreshing exceptions who refuse to put a positive spin on any fuck-up. He’s not so much a loose cannon as a primed, one-man Armada. The Commissioner soon put a stop to him, of course. Officially, Shep’s banned from talking to the media.’

‘Officially?’

Fintan shrugged: ‘You can’t stop a grown man talking.’

‘What’s he like to work for?’

‘From what I hear, Shep likes to see himself as one of the boys,’ said Fintan, lighting up a cigarette to help him reflect, ‘a trap that middle- or upper-class senior officers never fall into. And he tries hard to be funny. Nothing matters more to Shep than making his team laugh, often, which is probably quite exhausting.

‘He has this distrust of anyone well-spoken or university-educated, and don’t even get him started on the new breed of Oxbridge graduates or ethnic minorities being fast-tracked through the ranks,’ he laughed.

Fintan suspected he secretly harboured dreams of making Commander. Maybe even Commissioner. ‘Not a chance. He’s a decent enough cop – in an old-school, all-guns-blazing kind of way. And he’s probably the most determined senior cop in the force. When he gets a sniff of a collar, he goes proper psycho. Like a bloodhound.’

Fintan stubbed his fag out: ‘You’ve got to be careful with him though. By giving you this break, he’ll feel like he owns you. He likes to own people. All of the guys in his team owe him in some way. One is a recovering alky. Another got suspended a few years back for battering someone at the Christmas party. Shep picks up waifs and strays and turns them into his bitches.’

‘Great, so you’ve sold my ass to a man with a God complex.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far: dictator, definitely! Bottom line is, you have to run Shep, but make him think he’s running you.’

I decided to store that away, even if I didn’t entirely understand what he meant.

None of this explained Fintan’s motives for recommending me, or why Shep had agreed to give me the break. Fleetingly, I indulged in the idea that maybe Shep liked me. I knew Fintan well enough not to bother with direct questions. Getting information out of him demanded a complex game of give-and-take. ‘You know Shep used to come to the Feathers every night?’ I said. ‘He’d go off and have these secret conflabs with Seamus.’