Bleeding heart yard, p.14
Bleeding Heart Yard, page 14
It’s a cosy evening. They eat fajitas in the kitchen and then, at Jeanne’s suggestion, go to her room to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Harbinder has never really got into the series and finds it rather confusing, especially as Jeanne is on season six, but she enjoys sitting on Jeanne’s bed watching the teens battle with the undead. Mette lies on the floor with her feet on a chair. Her legs are so long that they seem to stretch the length of the room.
‘This reminds me of my high school,’ says Mette.
‘Was that a portal to hell too?’ asks Harbinder.
‘Sometimes.’
‘Finsbury Park High definitely is,’ says Jeanne.
Harbinder thinks of Manor Park school twenty-one years ago, ruled over by The Group, as they called themselves. Had that made it hell for other pupils? Working class students like Anna and David? Cassie is not exactly working class – her father was a GP – but she wasn’t raised in luxury like Garfield Rice. What was the exact relationship between Garfield and Cassie?
She realises Mette is talking to her.
‘I like Willow, don’t you, Harbinder?’
‘Which one is Willow?’
‘The one trying to kill Warren and his friends,’ says Jeanne.
‘She seems a delightful person,’ says Harbinder.
When Harbinder finally goes to bed, she finds it hard to sleep. It’s still raining hard outside. Vampires and werewolves chase around her head accompanied by Mette in Lycra. She’s almost relieved when her phone buzzes at three a.m. It’s the duty officer at the station.
‘DI Kaur? A body has been found in Holborn.’
‘Where in Holborn?’ Harbinder is already reaching for her clothes.
‘Place called Bleeding Heart Yard.’
25
Harbinder
Wednesday morning
Harbinder dresses quickly. She puts on her heaviest coat and slips her phone and notebook in the pocket. Then, just in case, her vest with body cam over the lot. Carrying her boots, she tiptoes past her flatmates’ rooms. Jeanne’s light is on. Harbinder hopes she isn’t having nightmares about Year Eight. Mette’s room is in darkness.
The squad car is waiting for her outside. The drive through the empty streets takes very little time. The rain has stopped but the traffic lights reflect on wet pavements. Red, amber, green. Stop, go. Apart from a large urban fox near Portobello Road Market, the only living creature they see is a barefoot man in a pin-striped suit wandering along the Westway.
‘Did you see that?’ Harbinder asks the driver.
‘Lots of nutters about,’ is the answer.
Should she alert social services? But what can they do? Maybe he’s just a tired businessman coming home from a corporate dinner.
Flashing lights illuminate the entrance to Bleeding Heart Yard. Harbinder’s first thought is that the space is not as evocative as its name. The buildings look square and corporate. She marches up to the police tape and shows her badge to the scene log officer.
‘DI Kaur.’
The SLO steps back and calls, ‘Guv!’
A large square shape looms. ‘DI Kaur. I’m DI Akinyemi. I’ve got a notification to inform you of anything that happens in this area.’
‘Yes. It’s part of an ongoing investigation.’
‘Come in then and watch your step.’
DI Akinyemi accompanies his words with a sweep of his torch.
‘Shit,’ says Harbinder. ‘What’s that?’
‘Looks like a heart,’ says Akinyemi laconically. ‘The body’s over here.’
Harbinder walks carefully across the cobbles, no longer attributing their slipperiness just to rain. Slumped against a doorway is a human-looking shape. Akinyemi’s torch shows a man in a suit and coat, open to show a white shirt with a red mark in the centre. The ace of hearts. Brown lace-up shoes. His face is pale but oddly peaceful.
‘That’s Henry Steep,’ says Harbinder.
‘The MP?’
‘Yes. I’m sure of it.’ She leans closer. ‘The heart. It’s not . . .’
‘No. Looks to me as if the victim was killed by a single knife wound. There’s not much blood. And no sign of dissection. My guess is that the heart on the ground isn’t human.’
His voice is calm. Harbinder thinks that her colleague could have shared this presumption with her sooner. After the three a.m. phone call, she had been expecting a bloodbath, a shambles. She is proud that her voice, too, is quite steady.
‘Who found him?’
‘A night watchman on his rounds. He called it in about an hour ago. Forensics are on their way. Now that we have an identification, we can get on to next of kin.’
‘He has a husband,’ says Harbinder. ‘I’ve got his details.’ She reaches for her notebook.
‘You can fill me in on the case,’ says Akinyemi. ‘There’s obviously more to this than meets the eye.’
‘And there’s quite a lot to meet the eye,’ says Harbinder.
As dawn rises over Bleeding Heart Yard, it reveals the older form of the courtyard. The curved wall of the pub with the same name, the brick walls intersecting the modern structures, the hidden archways and dark alleys. Harbinder and Akinyemi, whose first name is Daniel, sit at one of the pub tables and drink coffee from his flask.
‘First rule of crime scene investigation. Bring a flask. Then find out where the nearest Costa is.’
‘How long have you been a DI?’ asks Harbinder.
‘Eight years. I think I’ve hit the glass ceiling. The one for people of colour anyway.’
‘It’s amazing they let us work together. Does this mean there’s a fault in the matrix? Somewhere, somehow, a white supremacist is dying.’
The crime scene manager has arrived and is supervising the erection of a canopy over the body. The yard will remain sealed off, with just one exit and entry point. A family liaison officer has been dispatched to the home of Henry’s husband, Stephen Hill.
‘Do you really think this is linked to that other MP’s death?’ says Daniel.
‘Different MO,’ says Harbinder, blowing on her hands to keep them warm. ‘Garfield Rice was injected with insulin. Henry Steep was stabbed. But they were friends. At least, they were friends once. They had recently attended a school reunion. Garfield used to meet his cronies here, at that restaurant behind us. There has to be a link.’
The logo of the restaurant shows a heart behind bars. Such a neat shape, the cartoon heart, thinks Harbinder. Nothing like the mess of blood and tissue on the cobbles, a few metres away, now with a neat crime scene number beside it. An expert from London Zoo is on the way to see if they can identify the species.
‘The heart,’ says Daniel. ‘That’s making the link for us.’
‘Garfield Rice received anonymous notes saying bleeding heart,’ says Harbinder. ‘This place has to be significant.’ She can hear Mette’s cool Danish voice. ‘A woman was murdered there and her heart was found on the cobbles, still pumping out blood’. She must trace the source of this legend.
‘Or someone wants us to think it’s significant,’ says Daniel. ‘Misdirection. Like in the magic tricks.’
Neil used to talk about misdirection, remembers Harbinder. What is it about men and magicians?
‘Looks like the cavalry have arrived,’ says Daniel.
Harbinder sees Kim’s red hair gleaming in the weak morning light. She’s accompanied by a uniformed PC carrying a cardboard tray from Costa. The rising sun slants through the high buildings, making them look like ministering angels.
Back in her office, Harbinder demolishes two blueberry muffins and another cappuccino with an extra shot. Then she googles ‘Bleeding Heart Yard’. She learns that the place probably took its name from a pub sign showing the Virgin Mary pierced by five swords (Christian imagery really is weird) and was mentioned in Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. In Victorian times the area was downmarket, even dangerous. Nearby Saffron Hill was where Fagin lived with his pack of child thieves. Dickens describes the yard as being inhabited by poor people but still retaining ‘some relish of ancient greatness.’ If you say so, Charlie, thinks Harbinder.
Mette’s legend is slightly more difficult to find but eventually Harbinder locates a website called InBloodSteppedSoFar which tells her of a seventeenth-century beauty called Elizabeth Hatton who was wooed by the Spanish ambassador. When she jilted him, he killed her and her body was found in Bleeding Heart Yard. He would probably still get off with manslaughter today, thinks Harbinder, especially after claiming diplomatic immunity.
Another version has Elizabeth selling her soul to the devil for the usual gifts of untold wealth and a house in the SW1 postcode. The demon then whirls Elizabeth away in a fiendish foxtrot and, the next morning, her bleeding heart is found on the cobbles. A poet called Richard Barham immortalised this pleasing scene in a book called The Ingoldsby Legends.
Of poor Lady Hatton, it’s needless to say,
No traces have ever been found to this day,
Or the terrible dancer who whisk’d her away;
But out in the court-yard – and just in that part
Where the pump stands – lay bleeding a LARGE HUMAN HEART!
Was Henry’s body found near where the pump used to stand? wonders Harbinder. Had the murderer read this poem? At any rate, there’s clearly a significance to the place where the victim’s body was discovered. Forensics will have to discover if Henry was actually killed there or transported from another location. Harbinder remembers the brown lace-up shoes. She’s betting that Henry Steep was still wearing his work clothes. What did he do between politicking at the House of Commons and being found dead in Holborn?
And she hears the voice of Pete, Cassie’s husband. ‘You’ve had a few missed calls.’ And the name ‘Henry Steep’ appearing on the cracked screen. Henry’s phone had not been found with his body.
A knock on the door. ‘Boss?’ Kim’s head appears. ‘The team are all in the incident room.’
Harbinder brushes off crumbs. ‘Let’s get on with it then.’
26
Cassie
Tuesday evening
‘Are you all right?’ Pete asked me, as we stood at the door watching the slight figure in a leather jacket dodging the gridlocked traffic on our street and disappearing into the night.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s just all so horrible. Gary dying like that. And now my own team are investigating it.’
‘Are they sure he was murdered?’ said Pete. ‘On the news they just said the police were treating it as suspicious.’
‘That means murder,’ I said. ‘They’ve given it a name and everything. And now they’ve found a syringe at the site and I’m a person of interest.’
‘A suspect?’ Pete had picked up enough police jargon to know what that meant. ‘Surely not? I mean, they know you. You’re one of the team.’
‘Harbinder doesn’t know me,’ I said. ‘And she suspects everyone. She’s right to, of course.’
‘What was she saying to you when I came upstairs?’ said Pete. ‘You sounded upset.’
‘She was asking about David,’ I said. ‘You know, the boy in our year who died? It still gets me. You know, his mum killed herself a year later? I’m still in touch with his dad. I send him Christmas cards.’
I sent Mr and Mrs Moore a condolence card. I hadn’t wanted to but my mum insisted. She even bought the card, white lilies on a green background. I was in my second year at Sussex when Mum rang to tell me that Barbara Moore had committed suicide while I was sitting on Brighton beach, celebrating the new millennium and drinking Champagne from the bottle. The next day I ran for miles along the misty coast road, wanting to outrun my memories. When I reached Newhaven I collapsed and had to be driven back to the flat in an ambulance. Freddie was angelic. He didn’t know about David, of course, only that a friend’s mother had died. He made me soup and we watched Friends on the TV. ‘Cassie’s so sensitive,’ I heard him saying on the phone, ‘she takes everything to heart.’
Now Pete puts his arms round me. He’s so big that his hugs are both stifling and incredibly comforting.
‘You’re so soft-hearted, babe,’ he said. ‘It’s in the past. Let it go.’
Pete knew about David’s death. Everyone did. But Pete had left school by then and was away at university in Loughborough. He found out about it when he was working out at the university gym. This was in the days before you could listen to music on your mobile phone, plugged into the treadmill. There was one screen showing the day’s news with subtitles. Tragic Death of London Schoolboy. Something like that.
What with everything that had happened, you might have thought that I’d run a mile from someone who’d attended the Manor. But that, too, was part of the attraction. Pete knew me by sight (he said he’d always fancied me) but he didn’t know any of The Group. He occasionally saw Gary at sports reunions, but that was it.
I felt safe with Pete. He was familiar. He came from the same part of London and from a similar middle-class family, although his was Irish Catholic. His father had been in the army and was now a civil engineer. His mother was a dental nurse. They liked me. Apparently his previous girlfriend, a fellow student who played women’s rugby, was ‘too opinionated’. I was the opposite, I rarely spoke in their presence except to agree with his mother’s views on feminism going too far. I agreed to convert to Catholicism and to have the children baptised. I was also, in his father’s often-expressed opinion, a ‘pretty little thing’.
Pete’s size and strength made me feel safe too. On one of our first dates we came across a crowd gathered outside a hotel.
‘Who are they waiting for?’ I said. ‘Do you think it’s someone famous?’
‘Do you want to see?’ said Pete. And he lifted me up, right over the heads of the rubber-neckers, just in time to see Geri Halliwell’s red hair disappearing into a taxi.
Freddie, my university boyfriend, had been kind and gentle. He was just what I needed after David and the one-night stands who had followed. But he didn’t really stand a chance against Pete. I finished with him the day Pete stopped me by the rowing machine and asked if I’d been to Manor Park.
It helped that I had to keep busy that evening. I made pizzas for Lucy and her friends. I consoled Sam after a bruising day at football and saved the pepperoni one for him. Pete and I had margheritas and a glass of wine each, breaking our normal midweek rule. When Sasha and Rosie’s parents came to collect them, I offered them drinks too and we all sat in the kitchen talking about GCSE choices and whether the head of year was having an affair with the caretaker. I remembered Harbinder’s look of horror when she saw the mess in our hall and heard the noise coming from the kids in the playroom. She’s single with no children. She probably lives in a minimalist flat with monochromatic furniture and soundproof walls. Does she have a boyfriend? No one knows. Pete said that he thought she was quite attractive but I’d never really considered Harbinder in that way. She’s the boss, every bit as sexless as Dean Franks before her.
Later, I persuaded an overexcited Lucy and a still rather tearful Sam to have baths and get into bed. Pete was finishing the leftover pizza when I got downstairs. I picked up a crust and ate it.
‘Now I’m really worried,’ said Pete. ‘What happened to the calorie-controlled diet?’
‘I know,’ I said, because I’m normally very careful about what I eat because of the diabetes. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing today.’
‘Cup of tea?’ Pete reached for the kettle.
‘Yes please.’ I really wanted more wine but knew that wasn’t a good idea. ‘I’d better have herbal,’ I said. ‘I think I’m going to have an early night.’
‘We’ve got to watch Game of Thrones first.’
Pete and I had become obsessed with the series, although I normally hate anything with sword-fighting or dragons in it. But even Tyrion couldn’t distract me tonight. I went to bed at ten. Lucy was still texting her friends. ‘Go to sleep,’ I said, kissing her. ‘No screens after nine.’ I don’t know why I keep pretending we have this rule because no one sticks to it. Sam was well away, mouth slightly open, one arm round the teddy he still slept with. I dropped a kiss on his forehead, noticing that the bath hadn’t completely obliterated all traces of mud. Suddenly my love for my son was so fierce and so protective that I wanted to go round and arrest the boy who had tackled him roughly, causing Sam to cry and be laughed at by everyone, even his so-called best friend Rhys.
I climbed the stairs to our luxurious attic bedroom thinking of custodial sentences for Rhys. I was still awake when Pete came up, slightly unsteady after finishing the wine. I shut my eyes so that he wouldn’t try to initiate drunken sex. He did kiss my neck and cup my breast, but I kept my breathing even and Pete turned back to his phone, the blue light reflecting on the ceiling.
He stirred briefly when I got up, a few hours later.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to sleep on the sofa.’
‘Can’t you take a sleeping pill?’
‘I’ve run out,’ I lied. The pills had been given to me after a previous bout of anxiety, but I didn’t like taking them. Pete grunted and turned over. I crept downstairs, past the children’s rooms – Lucy muttering in her sleep – took a picnic rug from the cupboard under the stairs and lay down on the sofa in the sitting room. Kevin, who gets shut into the kitchen at night, heard me and whined softly. I let him in and he heaved himself up beside me. I think I slept but it was fitful, disjointed, Kevin twitching beside me.
‘I feel there’s something you’re not telling us, and I think it’s about David Moore.’
I saw David falling to his knees in front of me, heard the rush and roar of the train, like one of Daenerys’s dragons emerging from its lair. All night, in my dreams, I heard the door opening and shutting and my friends appearing, one by one. Henry, Izzy, Anna, Chris and, finally, Gary.
‘I know what you did that day,’ said Gary.
I invited all The Group to the wedding. I don’t know why unless it was just a way of keeping tabs on them. As I said, I liked to know where everyone was. My Christmas card list was a way of doing that.
