GRAVE MATTER

TWENTY

Two detectives have turned up. One of them is Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Burton, and Inspector Brooks accompanies her; neither of them appears happy.

A paramedic flushes out my eyes with distilled water while I sat on the back ramp of the ambulance, head tilted, while she tapes cotton wool over my left eye.

"You should see an eye specialist," she says. "It takes a week before the full damage is clear."

"Permanent damage?"

"See the specialist."

Behind her, fire hoses snake across the gleaming road and firefighters in reflective vests are mopping up.

My left thigh corked; my knuckles scraped and raw. There are questions. Answers.

The name Mariella Novotny is fresh in their minds after the article.

"Explain to me how come you ended up breaking into the house."

"I came out of the pub and thought I saw a burglary in process."

"Why didn't you call the police?" Burton asks.

"I don't have a mobile phone," I say.

Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Burton looks at me like I was from another planet.

"You'll be telling me you don't have a computer?"

I shook my head, "Nope."

The whole street is awake. Neighbours stood on the pavement as children jumped on a fireman's hose and danced away from a leak that stays silver under the streetlight.

A black cab pulls up outside the ring of fire engines. Blanche emerges. She steps through the circle of rubbernecks, ignoring the constable who is trying to keep them back.

After pausing to appraise the damage, she continues along the road until she reaches me. Unfortunately, the eyepatch makes me look like a pirate with glasses.

"Do you ever have a normal day?" she asks.

"Once. It was a Friday."

She looks at me, concerned as I am putting most of my weight on one leg because of my thigh. Then, surprisingly, she leans forward and kisses me full on the lips, an absolute first. Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Burton and Inspector Brooks look embarrassed and step back from the ambulance.

"I was worried about you," I say quietly.

"You should be worrying about yourself, you soppy old fool."

I smiled, but even smiling seem to hurt.

"How did you get on?"

"Well, I lost our target after about ten minutes on the underground."

"Ten minutes?" I say, surprised. "Where have you been, then?"

"We had a jumper," she says, with a hint of sadness.

"A jumper?" I repeated.

"Yes," Blanche said, "and it was George Charles."

"The millionaire London property agent?"

"None other."

"Bloody hell," I say, "made money in property and led an expensive and expansive lifestyle."

"His life unravelled, however, amid the break-up of his recession-hit business empire and a failed marriage," Blanche reveals.

"I can't believe that," I say, "he made a fortune in the property boom with a successful business run from his North London offices. He had a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce with a personalised number plate and designer clothes. He was famous for crossing the world for parties and business meetings."

"Until divorce and financial problems took their toll," Blanche added. "His main money-spinner was as an agent for letting expensive properties, a booming market. He was a director of 10 firms, Companies House records show. Now, all but one have folded as the pandemic burst the property bubble."

"Bloody hell," I say, "what a mess."

"He suffered from depression; after moving into the Barnet mansion block when his marriage ended, he lived there with his mother and father. Now live in sheltered accommodation in West Finchley."

"Anything on his background?"

"I'm coming to that," Blanche says. "According to the radio reports, he was a cavalier and ebullient businessman prone to highs and lows, making tons of money and spending it. George Charles was a mover and shaker, living the high life, even dating the top celebrity model Jessa Rhodes. His mother had cancer, and he and his father Lokkedafter her, and he somehow managed to pay for the place where they were living. His wife and daughter used to visit. He started the relationship with Jessa Rhodes only recently, giving her a ring and money. Then, more or less the day after, she went to Iran for a photoshoot, and he was distraught."

"But that's not the reason he killed himself?" I ask.

"No, he was connected to Robbie Chase."

"Now, that is interesting," I say.

We're interrupted by Detective Chief Inspector Sandra Burton and Inspector Brooks.

"I want you at the station by midday to make a statement," she says.

"I can go?"

"Yeah."

We manage to hail a taxi and get the driver to take us to Finsbury Park, by-passing using Kings Cross or the Northern Line.

I tell Blanche that Mariella Novotny was already dead in the flat once I'd got inside and wired to a booby-trapped time bomb.

"Then who was I following?" she asks.

"The killer," I say with bluntness.

"Well, that makes a bit of sense, to when I lost her," Blanche says, "I saw her one minute, and as soon as George Charles jumped, she was gone."

"Do you think she pushed him?" I ask.

"Could have done," she replies.

"We need to tell the police to check the CCTV."

"There's one other thing," Blanche adds.

"Go on?" I say, my curiosity is spiked.

"Patrick McNab jumped in front of a train yesterday."

"The Michelin–starred restaurant owner?"

"That's him," Blanche responds, "He was said to be experiencing severe difficulties with his multi-million-pound empire and had long-standing heart problems."

"Family?"

"Two children, and at the time of his death was married for the fourth time, to Tanya Tate, a former fashion editor. He was a keen polo player and owned a polo team."

"The Kremlin is pursuing Robbie Chase's social and business world over massive debts after being scammed over this retail and property deal," I say. "He lost his entire fortune in this Moscow Project.

Have you managed to find out what this project involves?"

"I've only managed to get so far," Blanche responds, "Google can only give away so much. a secretive property development scheme that folded looks like it could have been a scam. Robbie Chase, George Charles and Patrick McNab had all they had to come up with was money between them, somewhere around £160m, although it was only that amount. They asked for the money before being offered a massive deal where other Russians insisted on lending them more money to put in as a deposit, as a loan, matching the original sum. So now they owe the Kremlin at least £320m and increasing the debt. Then the FSB agents working as planners in the Russian government pull the carpet from under their feet and cannot continue with the deal, and all the money just disappeared."

"Where did the money go? That is the question.

It sounds like a way of obtaining cash from a group of wealthy British businessmen whilst putting them into massive debt. However, it is something that the Kremlin could do quite well considering the rise of the new middle class in Moscow with money to spend. On paper, it was probably a good idea, but they got sucked in, as did others."

"Do you think this was the reason Robbie Chase was given a warning by the FSB two years ago when they hung him out of a hotel window and told them they would drop him if he did not come up with some money?"

"Probably," I say.

"Also, last month Nigel Burch died after falling off a shopping centre in Norwich, although I am unaware if he was involved in the project, he probably was."

"Wasn't he married to the TV presenter Jasmine Jae?" I ask.

"Yes, but she divorced him over his addiction to painkillers after suffering a motorbike accident in his thirties. A female witness drove into the car park and saw Nigel Burch lying down on the ledge of the building. When she got closer to him and asked if he was okay, all he said was, I'm fine. I'm just having a rest. You can go inside. She walked towards the shopping centre to try and get some help. The sad thing is Burch was sectioned two weeks before his death under the mental health act, doing precisely the same thing, at the same car park. A policeman drove Burch for a mental health assessment at the hospital on that date and had confessed to him while they were waiting and told him: I'm depressed because I've lost a lot of money in terrible investments. He had lost everything, and he didn't know what to do. He felt stupid trying to kill me, but I didn't know what I'm going to do. He had got nothing left. The hospital released him, but he returned to the same car park just over a week later."

On this occasion had been escorted away by security staff. The coroner's report found he had high levels of painkiller drugs in his system at his death. The medical cause of death was multiple trauma, and drug use was a contributing factor. The coroner concluded that Burch intended to commit this deliberate act, determined to take his own life."

I looked at Blanche, impressed. "You've been busy."

She looked at me to see if I was patronising her. When she saw that I wasn't, she leant over and kissed me, and I felt the coolness of her lips on mine.

"What's that for?" I ask.

"For just being you."

The taxi stops at Blanche's home, and she invites me in, which I dutifully accept. I don't want to be alone. Blanche lives in a listen Georgian terrace converted into the six flats overlooking Pymmes Brook parallel to Crescent Road in East Barnet. Her apartment is on the ground floor and has a walled garden with trellises and a small patio dotted with terracotta pots.

After giving me a tour of the garden, she pours two glasses of wine before pointing to the sofa, where we sit, sipping our wine. In the next breath, she puts her arms around my neck and pushes her stomach against my thigh, kissing me urgently, wetly. Next thing she's pressing my hand between her thighs, grinding her crotch against my knuckles, and I'm reacting like a man dying of thirst who has crawled a hundred miles across a desert to be here.

The kiss continues as Blanche pulls me up. Standing and kicking off her shoes, she edges me towards the bedroom. Breathlessly, we toppled backwards onto her bead, and she lands on top of me with a grunt.

"Ow!"

"What?"

"Your elbow."

"Sorry."

Blanche slips her fingers beneath the elastic of her knickers, pushing them over her thighs. I try to negotiate the zipper of her dress.

"My hair is caught! Don't move."

She sits upon my thighs, reaching behind her to loosen the zip.

"It's jammed."

"I'm sorry."

She laughs. "We're hopeless."

"It appears to be a lot easier in the films."

"Maybe we should start again."

"I'll just use your bathroom."

Rolling off the bed, I escape for a moment, feeling the cold tiles through my socks. The bathroom is nicely renovated, with a wall-to-ceiling mirror. There are shelves of shampoos, pastes, powders and moisturisers, which Blanche appears to be stockpiling.

I study myself in the mirror. My mouth smudged with Blanche lipstick. How long has it been? Two years without s*x: more a drought than a dry spell. I've crossed the Sahara and forgotten how to drink.

She'll be under the covers now, waiting for me, which is depressing rather than exciting. I look at my p***s and wish it were more significant, and I want it to boss me around more often and stop me rationalising things.

I'm not a perfect human being. I know more about feelings than I do about the physical world. It's easier for me to understand passion than to experience it.

Blanche has brought another bottle of wine and glasses to the bedroom. She's also wearing lingerie, lying self-consciously, trying to show herself to the best effect. I take off my clothes and lie down next to her. She doesn't let my doubts linger, taking my hand and pulling me next to her. Her tongue moves against my teeth.

Then she straddles me, squeezing me between her thighs, her breasts against my chest. I ran my hand down her back and traced a finger over her curves. She lifts her hips, wanting me to touch her, but I glide my finger away, moving higher and then drifting lower again.

"Don't tease me," she whispers, her voice vibrating.

I let my fingers sweep across her mound, and she traps my hand beneath her, grinding her pelvis against my knuckles.

Her lips pressed to my ear, whispering what she wants.

I feel a familiar stirring. Don't forget. It's like falling off a bike or falling off a cliff, or falling for someone. Even so, my lack of practice is quickly apparent. And I mean fast.

Blanche doesn't mind. We have all night, she says. The next time is slower, more deliberate, less urgent, better, and for just a moment, all the loneliness and thoughts of my late wife leave my memory. The only sounds are the squeak of bedsprings under our weight and the gentle slap of Blanche's stomach against mine. I cry out involuntarily, more like a woman than a man, lost in the scent of her hair and heartbeat.

I leave Blanche sleeping, breathing softly. All men hope to do that. She looks like a child curled up in the disordered be, one arm covering her eyes. There is a tiny mole on her shoulder blade; her upper lip is more prominent than the lower; her eyebrows are shaped; she makes a soft humming noise as she sleeps and the gentle swell of her stomach is strikingly feminine.

Creeping through the house, dressing quietly, I let myself out. Having slept with someone other than my late wife, touching and tasting another human being is an odd feeling. I don't know what I feel. Relief.

Guilt. Happiness. Loss.