The Verge Practice Part 5

Kathy hurried into the room, forty minutes late.

Everyone was sitting round a table studying doc.u.ments, and they looked up and stared at her. For a moment she felt exactly as she had on the first day of primary school, when her mother had got lost on the way and they'd arrived long after the cla.s.ses had started. Then a man at the head of the table got to his feet and offered his hand with a warm smile. 'You must be Kathy. I'm Desmond. Welcome. I've been appointed the chair of this working party.'

Desmond was West Indian and in police uniform, the twin stars of an inspector on his shoulders. He introduced her to the others, and she shook their hands in turn. There was one other person in uniform, Shazia, a woman constable wearing the new Hijab headdress for Muslim officers.

Next to her was Rex, wearing a Sikh turban, then a young white man with cropped hair, narrow gla.s.ses and a cool, slightly myopic gaze. He was Nathan, apparently, and next to him was Jay, a young white woman, also with cropped hair and narrow gla.s.ses. Finally, Desmond introduced her to a man seated by his right hand, Robert; the oldest person in the room, Robert was a middle-aged administrative officer appointed to service the working party. He gave Kathy a small, incurious smile, as if he already knew all about her.

'I'm sorry about the short notice for the meeting,' Desmond went on. 'It's been sprung on all of us. Apparently time is short. I hope it didn't put you out too much.'

'No, I'm sorry I'm late. I've just been put on a new case and I got caught up.'

'I hope it's something interesting,' Shazia, the WPC, beamed enthusiastically.

'Yes, it is.' Kathy hesitated and they all looked at her expectantly. 'The Verge inquiry, actually.'

'Oh, how exciting! Has there been some new development?' 'No, just some changes in the team.'

'Well, at least they've put a woman on it,' Jay, the other woman, chipped in. 'The men wouldn't want to catch the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. They all believe his wife must have deserved it.'

Desmond coughed tactfully. 'Let's get back to business, shall we? Robert has prepared a package of material for each of us, and we've been scanning through that.' He indicated a plastic folder sitting at the remaining empty chair. Kathy took her place and opened the package, heart sinking at the thick wad of material within-agenda, terms of reference, summary of background, briefing papers, photocopies of press cuttings and statements . . .

She paused at a page outlining the CVs of the members of the working party. Desmond was in the personnel department of the Metropolitan Police, and Shazia had recently joined the Race Hate Unit at Rotherhithe. Rex was a civilian member of a community policing committee, Nathan was a lawyer with a large private charity and Jay represented a body called Gay Victim Alliance. Looking at the six names, Kathy thought how careful someone had been with the selection. There were three men and three women, three white and three coloured, three police and three civilians. It was a masterpiece of balance; whatever happened, no one could accuse its convenors of bias, except perhaps in age, for they were all young.

'Let's turn to the agenda, shall we?' Desmond suggested.

'I've put the program as the first item, because that is the most critical thing at present. Our immediate deadline is the next meeting of the Joint Conference in three weeks.

Each of the working parties will be expected to present an interim working paper at the conference, with some initial a.n.a.lysis and ideas . . .'

There was a buzz of consternation round the table.

'Three weeks?' 'That's ridiculous!' 'Are you joking?'

'I know, I know,' Desmond said soothingly. 'It's just unfortunate how the timing has worked out. Believe me, I'm as concerned about it as you. As chair, I'll be the one who has to present our paper.'

Rex had been silent up to this point, but now he cleared his throat loudly and the murmur died away. Kathy noticed that he was resting his clenched fist on a newspaper folded to a large colour photograph. She recognised it because it had been in the paper she'd been reading on the tube into work that morning, a picture of the family of an Asian boy trampled by a police horse during a riot up north over the weekend.

'We cannot be steamrolled,' he said, in a deep, powerful voice that held everyone's attention, 'by some ridiculously short, artificial deadline, into producing half-baked ideas.

I didn't agree to join this committee on those terms.'

'Yeah, that's right.' Jay nodded her cropped head vigorously. 'Of course, Rex, but I don't think . . .' Desmond tried to calm things down, but the Sikh hadn't finished.

'There are a number of basic issues we have to address before we can even begin to think about producing statements. Such as the make-up of this committee.'

Kathy realised she wasn't the only one who'd been studying that. But how could he object to it?

Desmond clearly thought the same. 'Well, I wasn't involved in the selection process, Rex, but I must say, looking at who's here, that it seems extremely well balanced.

I think Robert and whoever else was involved have done a pretty good job.'

'The fact that it's so evenly balanced makes the position of chair especially crucial. Presumably the chair has a casting vote, right?'

'The aim is to reach consensus, Rex. I would hope that we don't ever have to get to the stage of taking votes . . .'

'All the same, the chair is important, symbolically and practically.' Rex was sitting very upright and still, not meeting their eyes, but staring down at the newspaper by his hand as he spoke. 'And right away we're giving the wrong message by having the committee chaired by a member of the police. I thought the whole point of this exercise was to listen to the community?'

'Yeah,' Jay agreed, watching Rex with interest.

'But the community just isn't going to give credibility to policies coming from committees set up and chaired by the police, with a few token community reps to make them look respectable.'

Desmond took a deep breath. 'I wasn't involved in the decision-making process that led to my appointment as chair. Can you throw any light on the thinking behind that, Robert?'

Robert looked mildly surprised to be brought into the sc.r.a.p, but he smiled benignly and said, 'Well, I rather think that the argument is that this whole exercise is being carried out by the Metropolitan Police in order to improve its performance and level of service to the community at large.

So it is essentially a police process, informed by the highest possible level of input from community representatives, whose contributions will of course be absolutely crucial.

The chair of each committee must have an understanding of the context within which new policies will be framed. In other words, the chairs must understand how the police service operates, and must be able to present the ideas of their committees in a way that the police hierarchy can understand and take on board.'

Rex suddenly rose to his feet, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the newspaper report of the weekend riots and threw it onto the table in front of Robert. 'I think we all understand very well how the police service operates, thank you. And if the police hierarchy is so b.l.o.o.d.y stupid that they can't understand the words of ordinary members of the community without having them dressed up and interpreted, then I'm not interested in having my name a.s.sociated with this bit of whitewashing.'

He turned and marched out of the room.

The meeting sat in stunned silence for a moment, then Desmond got hurriedly to his feet and ran after the departed Rex. Robert looked shocked, unused, perhaps, to displays of naked anger in his usual line of work, or possibly contemplating a committee-selection disaster. Everyone else was silent, reluctant to speak out now in front of the bureaucrat. Robert must have sensed his isolation, and with an embarra.s.sed little cough rose to his feet. 'Excuse me,' he murmured, and made for the door.

'Well,' Jay said, 'maybe this'll be more interesting than I expected.'

Brock's visit to Charles Verge's doctor was less contentious.

The surgery was in a quiet cul-de-sac mews in Belgravia, and the doctor had a grave dignity to suit. 'I made a statement some months ago, Chief Inspector. I don't really see what I can add.'

'We're going back over some of the old ground just to make sure nothing was missed.'

'You're still no nearer to finding Charles, then? I really don't think I can throw any light on where you might look.'

And as Brock took the doctor back over his earlier statement, he tended to agree. Charles Verge had been his patient for over ten years, during which time he had seen his doctor two or three times each year, for an annual check-up and for other minor ailments-a recurring tennis elbow, some lower back pain, a couple of viral infections, and a spell of about a year following his divorce when he had been prescribed an anti-depressant. The only remotely unusual thing about the record was the fact that Verge hadn't seen his doctor at all in the twelve months leading up to his disappearance, a longer gap than any previously.

'I put that down to everything going well-with his marriage I mean.'

'You noticed a difference when he remarried?'

'Certainly. He seemed rejuvenated.'

'You were Ms Norinaga's doctor, too, weren't you?'

'Yes, since their marriage. The last time I saw her was a month before the tragedy.'

Brock consulted his notes. 'That was for a prescription for a contraceptive pill, wasn't it? Did she discuss her s.e.x life with you?'

'Very little. She was a woman of few words, and it wasn't a language problem. She was very articulate and spoke English fluently. She was just very private.'

'There was no suggestion of any difficulties with her husband?'

'Not at all.'

'Tell me about this period when you prescribed antidepressants for Mr Verge.'

The doctor consulted his file. 'It was seven years ago, around the time of his divorce. I do recall him saying that he had experienced periodic spells of what he called "despair" before, when he lost confidence in himself, but this instance was clearly related to the breakdown of his marriage.'

'I'm surprised. I mean, the picture I've been getting is of a man with supreme confidence in himself.'

'Mmm, he certainly gave that impression, but the marriage breakdown took its toll. His symptoms were cla.s.sic-sleeplessness, lack of energy, poor appet.i.te. I had him on Zoloft for fourteen months, moderate dose, then he came off it and the symptoms didn't recur.'

'And nothing more recently?'

'No.'

As he showed Brock out, the doctor seemed to feel a sudden surge of sympathy for the policeman with his rather weary stoop and disappointed frown. 'Haven't been much help, have I? But to be honest, you're not likely to catch him now, are you? He's probably sunning himself on some distant beach, and really, what good would be served by dragging him back here and going through all the trouble and expense of a trial and a gaol term, eh? He did a terrible thing, and he's lost everything as a result. He's no danger to anyone now.'

Brock guessed that a lot of people shared the doctor's opinion. Large sections of the press seemed to mask this view with only the barest of nods to notions of justice.

'I doubt if the victim's family feels that way, doctor.

Thanks anyway for your help. Oh incidentally . . .' a thought seemed to strike him, '. . . you wouldn't know if Charles Verge had a doctor in Barcelona, would you? He visited there quite frequently.'

'Sorry, no idea. But it's not likely that there's a medical explanation for any of this, is it?'

'No, you're probably right.'

Brock turned and strode away, taking a deep breath of the warm afternoon air and catching just a hint of the tang of turning leaves and approaching autumn.

When he got back to his office he opened the book that Clarke had given him on the work of the practice. It was obviously a high-quality production, printed on thick paper with a fine satin surface. The greater part consisted of beautifully printed photographs and plans, with a couple of introductory essays-the first, according to the dust jacket, an a.n.a.lysis of Verge's work by an internationally acclaimed author of numerous seminal works on architectural theory.

If Brock had hoped for enlightenment from this he was quickly disappointed, for the text was, to him at least, largely incomprehensible. He had always held that, if the giants of modern theory-Darwin, Marx and Freud-could write lucid prose, then so should everyone else, but he realised that he was in a minority. After struggling to comprehend the private meanings and convoluted phrasing of the first couple of paragraphs, he gave up and, like most other people he a.s.sumed, turned his attention to the pictures.

The essay was peppered with little images-a Mongolian yurt, a Zeppelin airship, grain silos, a j.a.panese teahouse, a seash.e.l.l, a glider-but what these had to do with Verge's philosophy of architecture Brock wasn't certain. He noticed a phrase that Madelaine Verge had used, 'hybrid architecture', which apparently had something to do with yin and yang and postmodernism and generally having the best of all possible worlds. He turned with relief to the photographs and plans of Verge's buildings. The sequence of plans was introduced by a quote from Le Corbusier, 'The plan is the generator', and although Brock found it impossible to interpret how they worked, for there was no lettering on them to identify the function of the rooms, he was struck by their abstract beauty, like densely worked cartoons or X-rays, some long and spiky, others gridded and square. The accompanying photographs were impossibly ravishing, like images from a fashion magazine or cookbook.

Leon was cooking when Kathy returned to her flat in Finchley that evening. He had been doing this a lot lately, and despite the resulting debris that made the small flat seem even more crowded, she'd encouraged it, although it made her feel bad, since she only provided takeaway pizza.

Also, she wasn't sure of his motives. Sometimes she felt he was trying to prove that living so long with his parents hadn't left him incapable of looking after himself, but at other times she wondered if it was insurance, in case it didn't work out between them. His own explanation was that it was therapy, and tonight she could believe it. He'd had another sticky day, he said, his black hair flopping forward over his eyes, voice barely audible above the thump of the knife chopping the parsley. Two kids, pre-teen, found with some syringes under a pile of cardboard boxes that someone had set alight. With some alarm, Kathy realised that he was preparing roast chicken.

She was becoming convinced that he shouldn't be in the police force, at least not in the forensic area of laboratory liaison. His working hours revolved around the nasty end of the business, constantly confronted by the worst in life, a never-ending stream of crime scenes and their aftermath.

Unrelieved by contact with living clients, he met only victims dehumanised by violent death, and she thought it was beginning to tell on him. He finished chopping and stood for a moment, as if wondering what to do next, looking forlorn and troubled and beautiful, and she was on the point of taking hold of him and telling him how much she loved him, when he suddenly shoved his hand inside the chicken carca.s.s and began to sc.r.a.pe out the sc.r.a.ps of offal inside.

And she felt guilty, because he had had an escape plan and she had been one of the reasons he had abandoned it.

As a laboratory liaison officer he couldn't rise above sergeant, so he had planned to go up to Liverpool University to do a master's in forensic psychology and move into a more open career path, perhaps in the private sector. Kathy had felt that she would lose him if he left, and had made it easier for him to stay than to go.

'You've got a lot of reading to do?' Leon nodded at the pile of doc.u.ments she'd dropped on the table, and she told him about the first meeting of the Crime Strategy Working Party. After some hiatus Desmond had returned with Robert, but without Rex, and they had agreed to postpone the meeting until something could be worked out. Kathy tried to make it sound funny, but Leon didn't respond.

'The Asian kid is paralysed,' he said gloomily. 'The one who got kicked by the police horse. It was on the news.

He'll likely be a quadriplegic. I shouldn't think this is a very good time to be starting up your committee.'

Kathy felt mildly deflated. 'Well, it would suit me if they forgot the whole thing.' She changed the subject. 'Did you call your mum today?'

He nodded, stuffing a whole lemon into the chicken.

'You can open that wine if you like.'

'How's your dad's tummy?'

'Okay. The doctor said he was pleased with the way it's going.'

'Good. I'm going to be out that way tomorrow. I thought I might call in on your mum.'

Leon looked at her in surprise.

'Just to see how she's coping. What do you think?'

'Fine . . .' Leon looked extremely doubtful. 'Afternoon would probably be best. Do you want me to call her?'

'Don't worry, I'll do it once I know how my time is going. Do you want some help with that?'

'It's all under control.'

She thumbed reluctantly through the pile of her doc.u.ments and, coming to the sc.r.a.pbook that Brock had given her, pulled it out and opened the cover. Inside was the t.i.tle, Dossier on the Murder of Miki Norinaga and Disappearance of Charles Verge. Compiled by Stewart and Miranda Collins, aged 9 and 6, of 349A High Street, Battle, East Suss.e.x. She smiled to herself and began to turn the pages of cuttings.

Later, relaxed by the wine and a surprisingly competent meal, they lay together in the darkness in the large bed that almost filled the tiny bedroom, and into Kathy's mind returned the question Brock had asked and she had glibly deflected. Why had Charles Verge marked a pa.s.sage describing an eighteenth-century architect identifying their crimes from the heads of dead criminals? She pictured the bizarre and macabre scene, and wondered how Verge might have interpreted it. Was he taken with the idea that somehow our worst acts were stamped on our faces? Or, if the faces preceded the acts, were we doomed to commit the crimes that our heredity or environment had conditioned us to? Or was it something to do with the idea of Verge's new prison, that you had to reconstruct the whole person, physically as well as spiritually, in order to free it from its criminal fate? She was on the point of drifting off, when the idea suddenly hit her. She blinked awake and sat up.

'He's changed his face,' she said.

'What? Who has?' Leon muttered.

'Charles Verge. He's had plastic surgery or something.'

'Very likely . . .' Leon turned over and buried himself under the bedclothes.

She subsided back onto her pillow. Then another disturbing thought occurred to her. Just when had Verge marked the pa.s.sage in the book?

6.