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‘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 them into submission.’
‘You are wrong. God is hope. Their belief is deeper because they have more to hope for.’
‘Please, God,’ said Jessie sarcastically, ‘I hope you will save me from this conversation with Niaz.’
Niaz looked over Jessie’s shoulder.
‘What?’ asked Jessie, knowing a self-satisfied look when she saw one.
‘God works in mysterious ways, but rarely this quickly,’ said Niaz softly, before moving aside. Jessie turned. It was DCI Moore. She was being punished for her sarcasm.
‘DI Driver, you must be terribly sad that Jones is retiring.’
A cunning question. One that required dexterity of mind. To agree meant insulting Moore and to disagree meant insulting Jones. ‘Surprised, more than anything. I thought he’d be commander of the Met one day. It is a great loss to the entire police force that he is going.’
‘Indeed,’ said DCI Moore. Jessie noticed that she had dressed up even more than usual for the occasion and applied a new coat of lipstick: red. Her hair, dyed and coiffed, had been pinned up in a chignon, and she wore a tight pencil skirt with a silk shirt. Her stockings and high heels were black.
Jessie fiddled with her hair. Now her smart trouser suit felt dowdy. She couldn’t win with this woman.
‘I’m glad to see that the leather trousers you were wearing yesterday have been discarded. Not very officer-like.’
‘Sorry to disappoint, but I wear them more often than not.’
‘Really? That’s fashionable, is it?’ she said as if she were talking to a sixth-form student.
‘No. But it’s safer.’
‘Safer for whom?’
‘Me. I ride a bike to work.’
‘Really. And you wear leather for a bicycle?’
Jessie laughed. ‘It’s not a bicycle.’
‘Oh, I see, a moped –’
‘No, ma’am, it’s a motorbike. A Virago 750cc –41 horsepower, 0–60 in 3.2 seconds,’ she said, unintentionally puffing out her chest.
DCI Moore eyed Jessie up and down. ‘You’re a biker,’ she said incredulously. Then she seemed to relax, looked at Jessie’s hair and nodded to herself. ‘OK, I see,’ she laughed. ‘They always say you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers. My mistake. I should have