I am. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Jones smiled. ‘You nearly did.’
They’d taken over a room above a local pub. There were barrels of beer, bottles of whisky and endless sausage rolls. The three ingredients to make a perfect policeman’s party. There was a huge roar of respect and admiration as Jones entered the room. DCI Moore turned and looked at Jessie and Jones. Jessie smiled and moved straight for the whisky.
‘Is it true?’ asked Niaz.
‘Is what true?’ Jessie accepted a tumbler from the PC behind the table and took a sip.
‘What the SOCOs are saying.’
‘What are the SOCOs saying?’
Niaz lowered his head to one side. Something he did when he was concentrating or confused. Tonight he was confused. ‘Boss, why are you angry? This is a party. DCI Jones has had many years in the service. You should respect that by making sure he has a very good party. And good parties require happy people.’
‘Sorry, Niaz, I fear I’m losing my only ally. I’m suddenly quite afraid,’ she said, speaking honestly before she had the good sense to stop herself.
‘Please, ma’am, don’t speak of such things. I am your ally. I will always be your ally. And before you respond, remember this: it is just as important to have support from below. A general is nothing without the respect of his foot soldiers. Her foot soldiers.’
Jessie patted Niaz on the back. ‘We’re a small army,’ she said.
‘I grant you that.’ He clasped his hands together. ‘But a strong one.’
A young man approached them. He introduced himself to them both, though they knew exactly who he was: Ed from SOCO. ‘We met in Richmond Park when they found the body of that artist.’
‘Eve Wirrel,’ said Niaz. ‘PC Niaz Ahmet, at your service.’
‘Hello, Ed,’ said Jessie.
‘Hello, Detective Inspector Driver. How’s it going?’
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Really? I heard you’d unearthed a ghost.’
Jessie frowned.
‘Yeah, rumour has it that place in Soho is haunted. The lads tell me the lights kept flickering on and off.’
‘That’s called a problem with the electrics. Nothing more.’
‘Don’t be so sure. There was a house in our village that was haunted. The light in the top bedroom went on and off for no reason. Story was that a woman gave birth to an illegitimate child. The child was suffocated and it’s the woman who keeps coming back to look for her kid.’
‘That’s nonsense, Ed.’
‘My mate here says there was definitely a bad air in the place. And what about the roof falling in just as the body was found?’ Ed nudged his friend, who nodded in collusion. They were joined by others, some of whom Jessie recognised from the Marshall Street Baths search that day. All agreed that the place had a strange feeling about it.
‘It’s a derelict swimming pool in the middle of Soho. Of course it feels weird,’ said Jessie. ‘It is weird. Empty swimming pools always are, even without the slime effect, the echo and, of course, the dead body.’
‘What about those lights?’
‘The caretaker told me the electrics never work properly when it’s raining. And as you are all demonstrating by your damp hair and sodden collars, it is raining at the moment – harder than usual.’
There was sniggering as some of the men picked up a double entendre from nowhere.
‘My aunt lived in this old house in the middle of nowhere, right,’ said a voice from the crowd. ‘One day her daughter – she was seven or eight at the time – said to my aunt at breakfast, “Mum, who is the old lady who comes and sits on my bed every night?” God’s honest truth.’
‘You shivered,’ said Ed, pointing to Jessie.
‘I did not,’ she replied.
‘You’ve got goosebumps.’
‘I’m soaking, what do you expect?’
‘A friend of a friend of mine once …’
Jessie walked away from the group as they began telling each other increasingly far-fetched tales of ghouls and ghosts. Niaz caught up with her halfway across the room.
‘Don’t you believe in spirits?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said.
‘So you don’t believe in God?’
‘Mine or yours?’
‘Either. They are one and same, it’s just the semantics that are different.’
‘If only that were the case – there would be a lot less murdered people in the world.’
‘Religion isn’t to blame,’ said Niaz.
‘It’s killed more people than any disease.’
‘No. Men have killed in the name of religion; that is not the same thing.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘What do you believe, then?’
‘That’s a very personal question, Constable.’
‘I think it is a universal question, Inspector,’ said Niaz.
‘All right. I believe in upholding the law. I believe that killing is wrong, as is beating someone to a pulp, stealing a car and killing a baby through reckless driving, strapping a child to a radiator, injecting someone with the AIDs virus, robbing a house and raping the daughter while forcing the parents to watch … Shall I go on?’
‘You didn’t answer the question,’ said Niaz.
‘I thought I just did. And don’t give me that crap about God giving us freedom of choice, because I just don’t buy it. If he’s around, he isn’t listening.’
‘So you do talk to him.’
‘No, Niaz. Trust me, I don’t.’
‘Who do you go to for guidance?’
My mother. ‘Myself.’
‘I concur on one point,’ said Niaz solemnly. ‘No one knows for sure whether we survive death. This is true. But belief in some kind of life after death provides the basis of religions that stretch far back into antiquity. Surely you are too intelligent to dismiss such overwhelming evidence?’
‘It was merely a way to suppress the poor and uneducated and scare
