King of the Badgers. Philip Hensher
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I all right like this?’ Micky said. ‘Should I put on my new shirt?’
‘You’re all right,’ Heidi said. ‘It doesn’t look good if you’re changing your clothes every five minutes. They’ll be showing this in conjunction with the footage from the press conference, I reckon.’
‘I don’t honestly think it matters all that much,’ the policewoman said.
‘Mr Calvin,’ Heidi said.
‘Yes, Heidi?’
‘I like your bag.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s unusual, what it’s made of, isn’t it?’
‘It’s ostrich skin, I think.’
‘I’ve never seen one like that before. I thought it was a design at first.’
‘No, that’s how ostrich skin looks. You mean the sort of puckers, the marks. That’s where the feathers were.’
‘Yeah. Where did you get it?’
‘Milan, I think. I got some gloves from the same place in ostrich skin. They’re to die for, fabulous, honey.’
‘Heidi,’ the policewoman said—she was not quite used to Mr Calvin’s outbreaks into voices just yet.
‘There on holiday,’ Micky asked.
‘No, on business,’ Mr Calvin said. ‘I shouldn’t have got it—it was far too expensive. I do love it, though.’
‘I didn’t know you were in business,’ Micky said. ‘I thought you did—’
‘What did you think he did, Micky?’ Heidi said grumpily.
‘I thought he did’ —Micky gestured around him at the inside of the car, its cramped quarters of need and disaster— ‘I thought he did this.’
‘Heidi,’ the policewoman started again. ‘I just want to explain to you and Micky what we’ve been doing today to find China. And what we’re going to do tomorrow.’
Heidi slumped against Micky resentfully. ‘I heard you’ve been asking after Hannah’s dad.’
‘Marcus,’ the policewoman said. ‘Yes, that’s right. We had to make an enquiry there.’
‘And Micky’s brothers, too, they said you’d been asking them where they’d been.’
‘Dominic and—’ she consulted her notes ‘—Vlad, is that right?’
‘Vlad’s not his brother,’ Heidi said.
‘That’s right,’ Micky said.
‘Vlad’s his sister’s boyfriend. Avril. He’s from Poland.’
‘Ukraine, he told us,’ the policewoman said. ‘You understand we have to ask everyone with some connection to China where they were, even if it’s just to eliminate them. I’m sure you can explain that to people if they feel we shouldn’t investigate them. I understand that if people are concerned and working hard on behalf of China, they may feel upset if we seem to be regarding them as suspects.’
‘I don’t give a shit about them,’ Heidi said. ‘But I don’t want you going near Marcus. He’s scum. I don’t want him turning up and saying he’s worried about China. He’s not been in touch for years. Ruth hasn’t heard from him for years, either. I don’t know what happened to him. I don’t want him any part of this.’
‘Heidi, you understand we have to pursue every possibility?’ the policewoman said. Heidi looked for a moment as if she were about to challenge this, but then just turned her sulky face to the window and watched the fields go by. ‘And then,’ the policewoman continued, ‘we’ve been making good progress on the door-to-door.’
‘Does that mean you’ve found some indication of who might be involved?’ Mr Calvin said.
‘No,’ the policewoman said. ‘It means that we’ve managed to cover a large part of the community and speak to a large proportion of those in the immediate—’
‘Well, that’s frankly not very—’
‘We’ve been concentrating,’ the policewoman went on in her stolid, uninterruptable way, ‘on known sex offenders in the county.’
‘Sex offenders,’ Calvin said.
‘People on the sex-offenders register, yes,’ the policewoman said.
‘In our area, these are,’ Heidi said. ‘Who are they, then?’
‘You know we can’t share that information,’ the policewoman said. ‘Not even with you. I don’t know that we’ve got any very strong leads through that inquiry, but we are still investigating three or four people of that cohort who couldn’t give a good account of themselves for that afternoon. They might have perfectly good reasons, or just have been on their own in peace. We’re still conducting door-to-door inquiries, as I said. That will go on for the next two or three days. There’s a search of land in the immediate area which we’re going to expand as the search goes on and’ —hurrying on rather— ‘we will be wanting to interview both of you and Ruth and the children again in the next few days. Nothing at all sinister, just that often when you talk over events for a second or third time, little details pop up that can be quite helpful to an investigation.’
‘I’ve told you everything I can think of,’ Heidi muttered, her hands clutching her arms. ‘More than once.’
‘Wasting time interviewing her and me,’ Micky said. ‘Should be out there locking up the sex offenders. I want to know who they are. I’ll go round there and beat it out of them. No one’s told us there were sex offenders on the estate. One of them’s taken China.’
‘Yes, well, Micky—’ the driver began, without turning round.
‘Don’t think about it too much,’ Calvin said. ‘The police know everything about everyone these days. They ought to be able to find China, with all the information they’ve got. Everything’s on computer files nowadays—who’s got a conviction for looking at dirty pictures of children, who’s changed their name, who’s not paid for their television licence, who buys what from the supermarket. What do you think loyalty cards are for? To keep an eye on you, and the police can use that information. If they’ve committed a crime, the police have got their DNA. If they’ve been taken in on suspicion, the police will have their DNA. If I had my way, everyone in the country would have their DNA on file. Then we’d know straight away who had committed a crime if they’d left just one hair at the scene. You can really leave the police in charge these days, Heidi.’
‘Police,’ Heidi said. ‘What have they done for us?’
‘I’m as impatient as you are,’ Calvin said. ‘But sometimes you’ve got to leave it to the professionals. And here we are.’
The car slowed as it turned into Heidi’s street. A bundle of photographers, television crews, idle observers and small boys, curious on bicycles, were waiting as if for visiting royalty. They all turned expectantly, made way for the car. Mr Calvin, with his lovely blond attaché case, and the policewoman got out. They shielded Heidi and Micky all the way to the front door. Through the front window, a BBC camera crew could be seen setting up. A short brilliant burst of floodlight illuminated the street from within. The two policewomen—the one at the door, the other from the car—nodded at each other. The door shut on the observers. Heidi went through to face her close-up.
‘That’s me done for the day,’ the policewoman said, sitting back in the front seat of the car. ‘Are we going back to the station now, then? I was hoping to get to Marks and Sparks before they close.’
‘There’s posh.’
‘I