Page 60 of Safe Enough

“That should be back in the lockup,” I said. “With a new case number. Or it should be on Kelly Key’s wrist.”

“I gave her the ninety quid,” he said. “I decided I’m keeping the bracelet.”

“Why?”

“Because I like it.”

“No, why?” I said.

“Because there’s a pawn shop I know in Muswell Hill.”

“You’re going to sell it?”

He said nothing.

“I thought this was about the numbers,” I said.

“There’s more than one kind of numbers,” he said. “There’s pounds in my pocket. That’s a number too.”

“When are you going to sell it?”

“Now.”

“Before the trial? Don’t we need to produce it for evidence?”

“You’re not thinking, kid. The bracelet’s gone. He fenced it already. How do you think he came up with the bail money? Juries like nice little consistencies like that.”

Then he left me alone at my desk. That’s when the conscience attack kicked in. I started thinking about Mason Mason. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to suffer for our numbers. If he was going to get medical treatment in jail, well, fine. I could live with that. It was wrong, but maybe it was right, too. But how could we guarantee it? I supposed it would depend on his record. If there was previous psychiatric treatment, maybe it would be continued as a matter of routine. But what if there wasn’t? What if there had been a previous determination that he was just a sane-but-bad guy? Right then and there I decided I would go along to get along only if Mason was going to make out OK. If he wasn’t, then I would torpedo the whole thing. Including my own career. That was my pact with the devil. That’s the only thing I can offer in my defense.

I fired up my computer.

His name being the same first and last eliminated any confusion about who I was looking for. There was only one Mason Mason in London. I worked backward through his history. At first, it was very encouraging. He had had psychiatric treatment. He had been brought in many times for various offenses, all of them related to his conviction that he was a recon marine and London was a battlefield. He built bivouacs in parks. He went to the toilet in public. Occasionally he assaulted passersby because he thought they were Shi‘ite guerrillas or Serbian militia. But generally the police had treated him well. They were usually kind and understanding. They got the mental health professionals involved as often as possible. He received treatment. Reading the transcripts in reverse date order made it seem like they were treating him better and better. Which meant in reality they were tiring of him somewhat. They were actually getting shorter and shorter with him. But they understood. He was nuts. He wasn’t a criminal. So, OK.

Then I noticed something.

There was nothing recorded more than three years old. No, that was wrong. I scrolled way back and found there was in fact some very old stuff. Stuff from fourteen years previously. He had been in his late twenties then and in regular trouble for public disorder. Scuffles, fights, wild drunkenness, bodily harm. Some heavy-duty stuff, but normal stuff. Not mental stuff.

I heard Cameron’s voice in my head: He rarely drinks. He’s pretty harmless.

I thought: Two Mason Masons. The old one, and the new one.

With an eleven-year gap between.

I heard Mason’s own voice in my head, with its impressive American twang: Sir, eleven years in God’s own Marine Corps, sir.

I sat still for a minute.

Then I picked up the phone and called the American Embassy, down in Grosvenor Square. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I identified myself as a police officer. They put me through to a military attaché.

“Is it possible for a foreign citizen to serve in your Marine Corps?” I asked.

“You thinking of volunteering?” the guy answered. “Bored with being a cop?” His voice was a little like Mason’s. I wondered whether he had been born in Muncie, Indiana.

“Is it possible?” I asked again.

“Sure it is,” he said. “At any one time we’ve got a pretty healthy percentage of foreign nationals in uniform. It’s a job, after all, and it gets them citizenship in three years instead of five.”

“Can you check records from there?”

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