Charisma by Jo Bannister Page B

didn’t know what he could say that would justify a police presence here. For a long time he stood undecided on Tara ’s deck, feeling the electricity in the air grow even as the light faded. Then he made a move towards the tent. There was no longer much point in avoiding Brady and he’d have a better idea what needed to be done if he could hear what was being said.
    He never got there. As he moved across the dark wharf, doing nothing to attract attention to himself, a hand reached out of the shadows and hooked his elbow, swinging him into the alley where he’d found the body of Charlene Pierce. Another clapped over his mouth. He had a powerful sense of déjà vu.
    Brady hissed in his ear, ‘There’s going to be trouble here. They’re saying you had the man who killed those girls and you let him go. Is that right?’
    Donovan shook off his hand. ‘No. We talked to a guy but it wasn’t him, it couldn’t have been: he was in somebody else’s bed at the time.’
    â€˜Well, the people in there have convinced themselves he’s the one. You know what folk are like in these situations: they don’t wait to hear the details. You people questioned him at the park
after the little girl was found, then you sent a squad car for him. Did you think no one’d notice? That’s a public park, a dozen people must have seen you arrest him. Before you had him cautioned the experts in every bus queue and every supermarket check-out in town had him tried and convicted. And now they think you’ve let him get away with it. There’ll be no trouble as long as Reverend Mike keeps talking. But he’ll be done soon and they’ll leave, and not all of them are going to go straight home.’
    Donovan stared at what he could see of the man in the dark. ‘You think they’ll go after him? Jesus Christ, he only lives off Brick Lane.’
    â€˜I don’t know what they’ll do,’ said Brady. ‘But in that tent right now there’s a strong smell of hemp rope. If they start to move, and they know where to find him, you, me and a couple of wooden-tops aren’t going to stop them. You know where he lives. Get him away before they go for him.’
    Donovan started to say, ‘I’ll call Queen’s Street—’ but Brady interrupted. ‘There’s no time. I’ll call the police, tell them what you’re doing. But if you’re not away from here before they come out of that tent you’ll never get past them. And there’s nothing you can do from behind.’
    Donovan waited no longer. ‘I’ll take the motorbike.’
    He took the walkway up on to Brick Lane. Traffic was theoretically barred but a motorbike could squeeze between the bollards and Donovan judged the situation urgent enough to break a bylaw or two. He accelerated between the parked cars and did a dirt-track turn, his knee centimetres from the tarmac, into Jubilee Terrace.
    It was like entering a walled city. The six streets, all with classic Victorian names, formed an enclave to which the only way in was Jubilee Terrace. The dwellings were modest little back-to-backs with yards separated by narrow alleys, called in the local argot ginnels, but apart from Philip Pierce’s they were respectable enough and no one who lived there thought of the place they called The Jubilee as a slum. It was quiet, there was no through traffic, the kids could play in the streets – normally they could – and nobody complained if a man kept a few pigeons. For those with no great ambition it was an easy place to live.
    Donovan gunned the bike to a halt in front of Carver’s house and hammered on the door, dragging his helmet off as he did so. Best of all, he thought, was if the man wasn’t at home – was out celebrating with June May, for instance. But if he was here, the sooner he’d answer this bloody door the better.

    He was there. Donovan