Playing for the Ashes

  “What’d you see that night?” she asked softly.

  “He deserved to die.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I’ll say what I want. I got the right. I don’t care that he’s dead.”

  “You care. You do. You loved your dad like nobody on earth, and no lie you tell’s going to change that, Jimmy.”

  He spat a shred of tobacco onto the ground. He followed it with a heavy glob of grey-green sputum. Jeannie refused to let him derail her.

  She said, “You wanted Dad home as bad ’s I did. Maybe worse’n I did because there wasn’t a pricey blonde slag that was standing between you and him like there was standing between him and me. So there was nothing that made you all bollixed up about how you felt and whether you really wanted him back in the first place. Maybe that’s why you’re lying now, Jim. To me. To Mr. Friskin. To the cops.” She saw a muscle suddenly tighten in his jaw. She felt them hovering on the edge of what needed to be said and she went on with “Maybe you’re lying cos it’s easier to lie. Did you ever think that? Maybe you’re lying cos it’s easier than having to go through the hurt of knowing Dad’s gone forever this time.”

  Jimmy tossed his cigarette to the ground and let it smoulder there. He said, “That’s it. You got it dead right, Mum,” and he sounded too relieved for Jeannie’s liking.

  He began to reach for his packet of JPS. Jeannie got to the cigarettes before he did and closed her hand round them as well as round her own. She said, “But maybe it is like Mr. Friskin said.”

  “Mummy?” Shar called from the kitchen door.

  Jim blocked Jeannie’s view of the house. She ignored her daughter, saying instead in a lower voice, “You listen to me, Jim.”

  “Mummy?” Shar called again.

  “You got to tell me why you’re lying. You got to tell me the truth right now.”

  “I already told it.”

  “You got to tell me exactly what you saw.” She reached for him across the birdbath, but he jerked back. “If you tell me that, if you tell me, Jim, then we can think what to do next, you and me.”

  “I tol’ the truth. A hundred times. Nobody wants to know it.”

  “Not the whole truth. That’s what you got to tell me now. So we can think what to do. Because we can’t think what to do so long as you—”

  “Mummy!” Shar called.

  Stan wailed, “Jimmy!”

  Jim spun round in the direction of the door. Jeannie stepped past the birdbath and grasped his elbow.

  Jim said, “Hell!”

  Jeannie said, “No.”

  And Inspector Lynley gently disengaged Shar and Stan from hanging on to his arms. From the kitchen he said, “We have a few more questions.”

  And Jimmy bolted.

  Lynley wouldn’t have thought the boy could have moved so fast. In the time it took Lynley to finish his sentence, Jimmy wrenched himself from the grasp of his mother and dashed to the bottom of the garden. He didn’t bother with the gate. Instead he flung himself at the wall and, with a yelp, he leaped over it. His footsteps began pounding along the path between the houses.

  His mother cried, “Jimmy!” and headed after him.

  Lynley called over his shoulder, “He’s on the run towards Plevna Street. Try to cut him off,” to Sergeant Havers. He shoved his way past the other two children and set off in pursuit of the boy as Havers ran back through the sitting room and out the front door.

  Jean Cooper had wrested the garden gate open by the time Lynley reached her. She clutched his arm, shouting, “Leave him be!” Lynley broke her hold and shot after the boy. She followed, crying out her son’s name.

  Jimmy was racing along the narrow concrete path between the houses. He tossed one look back over his shoulder, then increased his speed. A bicycle leaned against a garden gate one house from the end of the walk, and as he flew by this, he flung it onto the path behind him and vaulted onto the cyclone fencing that edged the top of the brick wall which marked the path’s far boundary on Plevna Street. He scrambled over this and dropped out of sight.

  Lynley cleared the bicycle with a jump and tore to a wooden gate in the wall that the boy had ignored. It was locked. He sprang for a handhold on the cyclone fence. Beyond the wall, he heard Havers shout. Then the sound of footsteps drummed against the pavement. Too many footsteps.

  He pulled himself up and over and dropped to the pavement in time to see Havers flying up Plevna Street in the direction of Manchester Road, trailed by three men, one of whom bore two cameras. He said, “Goddamn,” and took up the chase, dodging a cane-wielding pensioner and a pinkhaired girl eating Indian take-away on the kerb.

  It was a ten-second effort to pass the journalists. Another five seconds caught him up to Havers.

  “Where?” he asked.

  She pointed and kept running and Lynley saw him. He’d jumped another fence that bordered a park on the corner of Plevna Street. He was ripping along a curved brick path, set in the direction of Manchester Road.

  “Fool to go that way,” Havers panted.

  “Why?”

  “Manchester substation. Quarter mile along. Towards the river.”

  “Phone them.”

  “Where?”

  Lynley pointed ahead to the corner of Plevna Street and Manchester Road where a squat brick building bore two red crosses and the red word surgery along a white cornice. Havers ran towards it. Lynley raced round the park’s perimeter.

  Jimmy emerged through the park gates onto Manchester Road and sprinted south. Lynley shouted his name and as he did so, Jean Cooper and the journalists rounded the curve of Plevna Street and joined him.

  The journalists cried out, “Who’s—” and “Why’re you—” while the photographer lifted one of his cameras and began to shoot. Lynley again set off after the boy. Jean Cooper shrieked, “Jimmy! Stop!”

  Jimmy bent into the run with more determination. The wind was blowing in from the east, and when Manchester Road veered slightly to the west, he was easily able to lengthen the distance between himself and his pursuers. He was running wildly with his feet flying outward and his head tucked low. He passed an abandoned warehouse and started to swerve towards the street as he approached a florist’s shop where a green-smocked elderly woman was in the process of moving containers of flowers from the pavement indoors. The woman gave a startled cry as Jimmy hurled himself past her. In response an Alsatian charged out of the shop. The dog howled in a fury, launched itself at the boy, and locked teeth round the sleeve of his T-shirt.

  Lynley thought, Thank God, and slowed his pace. Some distance behind him, he heard the boy’s mother screaming Jimmy’s name. The flower seller dropped a bucket of narcissi onto the pavement, shouting, “Caesar! Down!” and dragging at the Alsatian’s collar. The dog released Jimmy just as Lynley yelled, “No! Hold him there!” And when the woman turned round with her hand dug into the Alsatian’s fur and an expression of fear and perplexity on her face, Jimmy streaked away.

  Lynley thudded through the narcissi as the boy broke to the right thirty yards ahead of him. He scaled yet another fence and disappeared into the grounds of the Cubitt Town junior school.

  Not even winded, Lynley thought in amazement. The boy was either propelled by terror or a distance runner in his spare time.

  Jimmy tore across the school-yard; Lynley followed him over the fence. Heavy construction was underway on a new addition to the dun brick school, and Jimmy bolted through this, weaving through piles of bricks, stacks of timber, and hills of sand. The school day was over by at least two hoúrs, so there was no one in the yard to impede his progress, but as he approached the farthest building beyond which lay the playing fields, a caretaker sauntered out of the weathered double doors, caught sight of him, and gave a yell. Jimmy was past him before the man had a chance to act. Then he saw Lynley, shouted, “What’s this?” and planted himself directly in the path that Jimmy had taken.

  “Hold on here, Mister.” The night watchman barred the way, arms akimbo. He
looked beyond Lynley to Manchester Road where Jean Cooper was dropping over the fence, with the journalists not far behind her. He shouted, “You! Stay where you are! These grounds is closed!”

  Lynley said, “Police.”

  The caretaker said, “Prove it.”

  Jean staggered up to them. “You…” She grasped Lynley’s jacket. “You leave him…”

  Lynley thrust the watchman to one side. Jimmy had gained another twenty yards in the time Lynley had lost. He was halfway across the playing fields, rushing in the direction of a housing estate. Lynley set off again.

  The caretaker yelled, “Hey! I’m ringing the police!”

  Lynley could only pray he would do so.

  Jean Cooper stumbled along behind him. She was sobbing, but for breath and not with tears. She said, “He’s going…He’s home. Going home. Can’t you see?”

  Jimmy was indeed circling back in the direction of Cardale Street, but Lynley was unwilling to believe he’d be such a fool as to run directly into a trap. The boy had looked behind him more than once. Surely he would have seen that Sergeant Havers wasn’t with those who were trailing him.

  He gained the far side of the playing field. It was bordered with a hedge. He crashed right through it, but he lost several seconds when he stumbled and fell to his knees on the other side.

  Lynley’s chest felt banded round with heat. He hoped the boy would stay where he was. But as Lynley closed the gap between them, Jimmy surged to his feet and stumbled on.

  He raced across a vacant lot where a burnt-out car sat on rotting tyres amid empty wine bottles and rubbish. He burst from the lot onto East Ferry Road, and dashed to the north in the direction of his home. Lynley heard the boy’s mother crying out, “I told you!” but even as she cried, Jimmy darted across the road, dodged a motorcycle rider who skidded and slid to miss him, and flung himself up the stairway to Crossharbour Station where even now a blue train from the Docklands Railway was sliding to a halt on the elevated tracks.

  Lynley stood no chance. The doors of the train were closed on the boy and the train itself was pulling out of the station as Lynley thundered onto East Ferry Road.

  “Jimmy!” his mother screamed.

  Lynley fought to catch his breath. Jean Cooper reeled to a stop against him. Behind them, the journalists were fighting through the hedge. They were shouting as much at each other as they shouted at Lynley.

  “Where’s he going?” Lynley asked.

  Jean shook her head. She gasped for breath.

  “How many stations are left on the line?”

  “Two.” She dragged her hand across her brow. “Mudchute. Island Gardens.”

  The railway line was straight, Lynley saw, running parallel to East Ferry Road. “How far to Mudchute?”

  Jean dug her knuckles into her cheek.

  “How far?” he demanded.

  “A mile? No, less. Less.”

  Lynley gave the train a last look as it disappeared. He couldn’t run it by foot. But Cardale Street emptied into East Ferry Road sixty yards to the north, and the Bentley was sitting in Cardale Street. There was a slight chance….

  He ran in the direction of the car. Jean Cooper followed hard behind him. She was crying, “What’re you going to do? Leave him be. He’s done nothing. He’s got nothing more to tell.”

  In Cardale Street, Sergeant Havers was leaning against the Bentley. She looked up at the sound of Lynley’s approach.

  “Lose him?” she asked, as Lynley gasped, “The car. Go.”

  She clambered inside. Lynley started the Bentley with a roar. Stan and Shar darted out of the house, their mouths forming cries that went unheard over the engine, and as Shar fumbled with the latch on the front gate, Jean Cooper rounded the corner and waved them back.

  Lynley stomped on the accelerator and swung from the kerb. Jean Cooper leapt into the path of the car.

  Havers cried, “Watch it!” and grabbed on to the dashboard as Lynley slammed on the brakes and swerved to miss her. Jean pounded her fist against the car’s bonnet, then stumbled along its side and pulled open the back door. She fell inside, gulping, “Why…why’n’t you leave him? He’s done nothing. You know that. You—” Lynley took off.

  They careened round the corner and sped south on East Ferry Road. They whizzed past the journalists who were limping breathlessly in the opposite direction, towards Cardale Street. Above them and just to the west of the road, the tracks for the Docklands Railway ran, making a clean line for Mudchute.

  “Did you get the Manchester Road substation?” Lynley’s words came out in fits and starts.

  “They’re on it,” Havers said.

  “Police?” Jean cried. “More police?”

  Lynley sounded the horn at a lorry in front of them. He swung into the right lane and shot past it. The fashionable housing of Crossharbour and Millwall Outer Dock gave way to the dingy brick terraces of Cubitt Town, where flags of laundry fluttered from clotheslines strung width-wise across narrow back gardens.

  Jean’s hand clutched the back of Lynley’s seat as they veered round an old Vauxhall that puttered along the road like a hedgehog. Her voice was insistent when she demanded, “Why’d you ring the police? You’re the police. We don’t need them. He’s only—”

  “There!” Sergeant Havers’ arm shot out in the direction of Mudchute, where the land rose away from the road in knolls created over generations from the silted mud of the Millwall docks. Jimmy Cooper was scurrying up one of these knolls, scrambling southeast.

  “He’s going to his gran’s,” Jean asserted as Lynley pulled to the edge of the road. “In Schooner Estate. My mum’s. That’s where he’s going. South of Millwall Park.” Lynley thrust open his door. Jean said, “I tol’ you where he’s going. We can—”

  He said, “Drive,” to Havers and set off after the boy as his sergeant climbed over to his seat. He heard the engine rev behind him as he struck the first knoll and began to sprint up its side. The ground was moist from the last of April’s rain, and his shoes were leather. So he slipped and slid in the crumbly earth, once stumbling to his knees, twice grasping on to the white dead-nettle and the ratstail that flourished in the uncut grass. At the top of the knoll, the wind gusted unimpeded across the open expanse of land. It flung back his jacket and watered his eyes, and he was forced to stop and blink to clear his vision before going on. He lost four seconds, but he saw the boy.

  Jimmy had the advantage of the trainers he was wearing. He’d made it through the knolls and was descending into the playing fields beyond them. But it appeared that either he thought he’d lost his pursuers or he’d given in to exhaustion, for he had slowed to a lopsided lope and he was grasping his waist as if he had a stitch in his side.

  Lynley ran south along the top of the first knoll. He kept the boy in sight as long as possible before he had to descend and scale the second knoll. At the top of this, he saw that Jimmy had slowed to a walk, and with good reason. A man and a boy in matching red windcheaters were giving two Great Danes and an Irish wolfhound some exercise in the playing fields, and the dogs were tearing round in ambitious circles, from which they barked, snapped, and attempted to snare balls, rubbish, and anything else that moved. Having already experienced the Alsatian on Manchester Road, Jimmy wouldn’t want another run-in with an overlarge canine.

  Lynley seized the advantage. He scaled the third knoll, half slid down its side, and began to sprint across the playing field. He gave the dogs as wide a berth as possible, but as he came within twenty yards of them, the wolfhound caught sight of him and began to bark. The Great Danes joined in. All three dogs headed in his direction. Their owners shouted. It was enough.

  Jimmy looked over his shoulder. The wind took his long hair and threw it in his eyes. He shoved it away. He began to run.

  He pounded out of the playing fields and into Millwall Park. Seeing the boy’s direction, Lynley allowed himself to slow. For beyond the park, Schooner Estate spread out its two-tiered blocks of grey and tan flats like
a hand stretching fingers towards the Thames, and Jimmy headed unerringly towards this. He wouldn’t know that Sergeant Havers and his mother had anticipated his movements. By now they would have reached the estate. Intercepting him would be easy enough if he headed into the car park.

  His course through the park was unveering. He raced across the grass and thudded through the flower beds that lay in his way. It was only at the final moment at the car park’s edge, that he feinted a run towards the flats to the east only to bring himself round at the last moment and charge south instead.

  Over the wind, Lynley could hear Sergeant Havers’ shout, followed by Jean Cooper’s cry. He flew into the car park in time to see the Bentley storming after the boy, but Jimmy had the advantage over the car. He charged into the loop of the horseshoe that formed the southernmost section of Manchester Road. A lorry there crashed on its brakes to miss him. He skipped round it, gained the pavement on the other side, and hurdled over the metre-high fence that bounded the grey, prison-like expanse of the George Green Comprehensive School.

  Havers propelled the Bentley onto the pavement. She was flinging herself out of it when Lynley caught her up. The boy had raced along the front of the school and was rounding its western corner.

  Jimmy had an unimpeded course on the empty school-grounds, and he made the most of it. As Lynley and Havers gained the corner of the building, the boy had already crossed the yard. He’d used a rubbish bin as a mount for the back wall, and he was up and over it before they’d run twenty yards.

  “Take the car,” Lynley said to Havers. “Go round. He’s heading for the river.”

  “The river? Bloody hell! What’s he—”

  “Go!”

  Behind him, he heard Jean Cooper crying out something inarticulately as Sergeant Havers dashed back in the direction of the car. Her cry faded as he made for the wall. He grasped the top of it, used the rubbish bin to launch himself, and went over.

  Another road lay behind the school. On its north side, it was faced by a wall. Its south side was built up with trendy river housing: modern brick communities with electronic security gates. These buildings ran along the crescent of the road in a nearly unbroken line. They ended at a stretch of lawn and trees, bordering the river. This was the only possibility. Lynley ran towards it.