Intermission

by Graham Hurley

  As part of the Easter celebrations, the local diocese is live-streaming a service from the comfort of the Bishop of Portsmouth’s home. All three of us are sitting in front of the TV, but H has gone to sleep. The bishop is telling us that in these days of national lockdown, the resurrection message is more potent than ever. Light after death, he intones. Light after darkness. Hope from despair. He makes the sign of the cross in front of a wall washed with a rather subtle shade of grey, and there follows a choral performance of an Easter hymn by three brothers from the Portsmouth Cathedral choir. The hymn is ‘Jesus Christ is Risen Today’, which I happen to know well. It’s a wonderful anthem to pain, loss, death and salvation, and I’m singing quietly along when I glance sideways at Malo. He, in turn, is gazing at his father, his cheeks wet with tears.

  Three days later, we’re all beginning to suffer from cabin fever, and I know that Sunil – still at Tim’s flat – feels the same way. H, unusually, seems desperate to get out of Pompey, even for a day, and I run the idea past Tony Morse.

  ‘Does Major Crimes still have us under surveillance? If we do a runner for a couple of hours, will anyone notice?’

  Tony thinks that’s highly unlikely. H is still – technically – in quarantine, and it might be wise to stay in the city until the DNA results arrive for Sean’s T-shirt, but Tony sees no problem with us taking a brief spin in the countryside.

  ‘Anywhere nice?’ he asks.

  ‘Bosham.’

  ‘Ah.’ Tony’s laughing. ‘Give my best to my first wife. She’s married a very rich chap there. Worth a fortune. Happy as Larry.’

  ‘The new husband?’

  ‘My ex-wife.’

  I put the phone down and break the news to H. The realization that I’ve spoken to Dennis Mortimer, and that he’s invited me to lunch, puts a broad smile on his face.

  ‘Den?’ he says. ‘Are you kidding?’

  I phone the Bosham number and broach the idea. All Dennis needs is the assurance that neither H nor I are infectious. Not for his benefit, he says, but for his missus. Sunil, I know, has hung on to half a dozen test kits and I pick them up that same afternoon. By nightfall, both swabs are in the post, en route to the labs in Southampton. The service is priority turnaround and within twenty-four hours, both of us are in the clear.

  I phone Dennis again with the news and promise to bring the lab certifications that have arrived on my phone.

  ‘Tomorrow, then,’ he says, giving me an address. ‘Lovely pad, bang on the water. Big fat flag on top of the pole. The missus is offering sea bass or steak and ale pie. Your call.’

  I put the choice to H. These last few days, his appetite has well and truly returned.

  ‘Steak and ale,’ he growls. ‘With roast potatoes.’

  I’ve never been to Bosham, but the moment we get to the end of the road that leads down through a straggle of bungalows, I recognize the harbour. This much-photographed stretch of water laps against a crescent of pebble beach, strewn with seaweed and driftwood. Houses of uncertain age, many of them in cobble and flint, look directly on to an amazing view. The place feels intimate, as well as beautiful. We’re only fifteen miles from the sprawl of Pompey but it’s like a different world. Even H, sitting beside me, is impressed.

  ‘Trust Den,’ he mutters.

  Finding chez Mortimer is easy. The road bends round to the right, running beside the row of houses, and there’s only one property with a flagpole flying the St George’s cross in the garden. I leave H in the car and push through the garden gate. A face in the window sees me coming and the door opens before I get there.

  ‘Enora?’ This must be Den’s wife. Her name is Cathy. She’s my age, maybe a year or two younger. She has a big, open face and the beginnings of a decent tan. She wants to see the lab certificates and she’s still peering at my mobile phone when Den appears. No one’s shaken my hand for weeks, and it’s nice to have physical contact with a stranger again.

  Den has to be at least a decade older than his wife, and I’m still trying to place the ready smile in my memories of long-ago Antibes when he spots H in the car. Den is wearing what I imagine must be de rigueur in these parts: salmon-pink chinos, and a nice shirt with a light blue cashmere sweater draped around his shoulders. Also, a battered pair of deck shoes, no socks. He’s a big man, tall, thinning sandy hair, not an ounce of fat, and he lopes down the path to help H out of the car. For a long moment, the two of them embrace in the sunshine, and when H comes limping slowly up the brick path, he looks genuinely moved. Back from the dead, I think. Den’s phrase, not mine.

  We eat in a glorious room at the rear of the property. This is, in essence, a cottage and was probably built for fishermen. None of the rooms are big but this one has been artfully extended and has ample space for a table in front of the window. The view is framed by balls of coloured glass suspended in cradles of tarry rope, a lovely idea, and while Den serves drinks, and Cathy busies in the kitchen, I gaze out at the glistening mud flats.

  In Brittany, we have a bird you often see on the foreshore. It’s a speckled brown and white, nothing remarkable, and it spends most of its life hunting for tiny specks of something to eat. We call them tournepierres, or turnstones, and out of this window I can see dozens of them pecking busily away among the tangle of debris washed up by the tide. As a kid, I always admired their persistence, which seemed to me to be wildly optimistic, and in this setting – especially when you add a nearby raft of shelducks – they perfectly complement the view.

  Cathy serves the steak and ale pie, no hors d’oeuvres. By now, H and Den have done a thorough job on the last twenty years of their respective careers, and I sense that nothing much has changed since we all so briefly met that evening down in Antibes. H has cashed in his winnings from the Pompey cocaine trade and retired to the comforts of Flixcombe Manor. Den has made a fortune from developing out-of-town commercial sites and is looking, he says, for new opportunities in Spain. The spanking-new Agincourt is ready for her maiden voyage, and Den says he can’t fucking wait. There are worse places to weather lockdown than this glorious cottage but him and his missus, they both agree, are getting on each other’s nerves, and he’s gagging to put to sea.

  My favourite stage plays always feature a perfect entrance cue, and this is mine.

  ‘Anywhere particular in mind?’ I ask.

  ‘Marbella. Hand on heart, it’s more business than pleasure. These days you can’t move for fucking Russians down there but if you can put up with the bling, they’re worth getting to know. Most of them are so minted they don’t know what to buy next.’

  ‘And that’s where you come in?’

  ‘For fucking sure. Fancy it, H? Spot of proper sunshine? Seafood to die for?’ he shoots me a look. ‘Margaritas?’

  H is grinning. He has a smear of gravy around the corner of his mouth. I want to lean across and give it a wipe but I know he’d never forgive me. Instead, I try to discreetly semaphore the problem, but he hasn’t a clue what I’m trying to get at.

  ‘You could come, too.’ Den is looking at me. ‘Old times, yeah?’

  I smile and do my best to act disappointed. Alas, I tell him, I still have a career. I explain briefly about Paris, and Dimanche, and Commissaire Danielle Colbert. This sparks real interest from Cathy, who wants to know more, but there’s something else I need to raise while we’re all getting on so well.

  ‘There’s a young guy called Sunil,’ I say. ‘He was one of the nurses who saved H’s life.’

  ‘That’s right, Den.’ H stabs a last cube of steak and pops it into his mouth. ‘Cracking kid. You’d love him, Den. In fact, you’d love them all. Spoiled to death, I was. Or fucking nearly.’

  This makes Den laugh, but he’s still looking at me. I’ve met people like this before. One of the reasons he’s so rich is that he’s always ahead of the game.

  ‘So how can I help?’ he asks softly.

  ‘Sunil has visa issues. It’s complicated, but that’s what it boils down to.’

&
nbsp; ‘He’s an illegal?’

  ‘He’s a fucking nurse, Den, and he saved my life.’ This from H. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘And so?’ Den’s eyes have never left my face.

  ‘I thought you might take him to Marbella,’ I say brightly. ‘When you go.’

  Cathy, I can sense at once, isn’t happy. She catches her husband’s eye and gives him a little shake of the head, but Den ignores her.

  ‘That’s more than possible.’ He reaches for his glass of Rioja. ‘We won’t be going until they say we can, but if he can wait that long …’ He shrugs. ‘No problema.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  This news gladdens me more than I can say. Sunil has been on my conscience from the moment I confronted Dessie about his role in our flat, and now – provided he keeps his head down at Tim’s – I can get him safely out of the country.

  It’s early evening before I’m sober enough to drive back to Pompey. The afternoon at Den’s place has been an orgy of reminiscence, story after story, and I know it’s done H immeasurable good. He needs to rebuild his bridges to those buccaneering glory days, to reframe the legend he still believes in, and Den – with amazing deftness – has made that happen. H, he told me quietly before we left, always had that special touch. In any trade, any profession, he’d have hit the motherlode. That it happened to be cocaine was incidental. And they all had a lot of fun.

  Now, H wants to know more about Sunil. I’ve never told him about the way he ratted us all out, and I’m not about to start now. H has never had much time for paperwork, and even less for any arm of the government, but his admiration for people who get off their arse and make a new life for themselves is unfeigned. As is Sunil’s decision to bail out of the UK.

  ‘Fucking country’s on the skids,’ he grunts. ‘Who’d blame him?’

  Back in the flat, I decide to wait until the morning to pass on the good news to Sunil. I spend a very happy couple of hours in front of the TV, watching a National Theatre production of Jane Eyre. Taalia is staying the night once again, but her presence cheers Malo up no end and I’ve decided to stay in denial about poor Clemmie. Thanks to a call from Tony Morse, moments after the end of Jane Eyre, I now know that Sean is banged up in the remand wing at Winchester prison, and that knowledge makes for a perfect night’s sleep.

  Next morning, I get up early to beat the queue in the Waitrose car park and buy a small mountain of food to keep Sunil going over the next month or two. Weighed down with two bags of shopping, I make the usual call from my pay-as-you-go phone before I climb the stairs to Tim’s flat. Sunil takes an age to answer, and when he finally picks up I know at once that something bad has happened.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Come,’ he says. ‘Please.’

  Sunil has the key to the flat, and has to let me in. He stands uncertainly in the open doorway. He’s wearing a pair of scarlet boxer shorts and not much else. His bare feet are curling on Tim’s sanded floorboards, and his face is shiny with sweat.

  ‘You’re ill, Sunil?’

  ‘Sick.’ He nods.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Yesterday.’ He begins to cough. ‘Maybe the day before.’

  ‘Why didn’t you phone?’

  He shrugs and turns away. He doesn’t know.

  I follow him into the flat, bolting the door top and bottom, and leaving the shopping on the floor to sort out later. Sunil has already gone back to bed. He’s dropped the blinds against the brightness of the morning sun and he’s lying on his side, his face to the wall, his hand to his mouth as he tries to stifle another bout of coughing. I’ve seen H like this, exactly the same symptoms, the day I phoned Tony Morse for help.

  I fetch a wet flannel from the bathroom, circle the bed, and settle beside him. His flesh is hot to my touch. I bathe his face and tell him that everything’s going to be fine.

  ‘PPE,’ he mutters. His eyes are closed, and as I watch, his whole body begins to tremble. When I ask him what hurts, and where, his hand strays across his body. Legs. Belly. Head. And especially his chest. ‘It’s like sunburn,’ he says. ‘Inside.’

  Like sunburn. Inside.

  I shudder. H was never this graphic but I know exactly what Sunil means. As a trained nurse, he knows. Covid has stolen into yet another corner of our lives.

  I make Sunil as comfortable as I can. I leave him with iced water at his bedside and open the window to get a little air into the room. Back at our flat, we have two complete sets of PPE left over and I manage to get them both into Malo’s rucksack. There’s no sign of Taalia, but when she finally emerges from Malo’s bedroom, I swear her to silence and then break the news about Sunil. She wants to help, and she promises to get more PPE and maybe drugs from the agency. Also, if possible, more priority testing kits. When I press her about the drugs, it turns out that she’s talking about ibuprofen. We still have lots of these and I add two packets to the rucksack. As an afterthought, she returns to Malo’s bedroom and emerges with a thermometer. Anything above 105 degrees, she says, and I must call for an ambulance.

  H joins us in the front room, the first time he’s made it without help. When he asks what’s going on, I tell him about Sunil. Somehow or other, he’s picked up the virus. In less than forty-eight hours, he’s become a very sick man.

  ‘The boy needs help,’ he says at once. ‘Get the agency in. I’ll pay.’

  I shake my head. For the time being, I’ll do what I can. If he gets any worse, I’ll definitely have to seek proper advice. I bend for the rucksack, and half-turn to make for the door. H is staring at me.

  ‘How long?’ he says. ‘How long will you be gone?’

  I shrug. I tell him I don’t know. Sunil is heavily infected. Quarantine lasts two weeks. Who knows? It might even be longer.

  H nods. Then turns on his heel and totters back towards his bedroom.

  ‘You need food?’ This from Taalia.

  ‘No.’ I shoot her a wry smile. ‘That’s the least of my problems.’

  I shoulder the rucksack and say my goodbyes. I feel, in this moment, like some soldier off to fight a foreign war. Then H is back. He thrusts a Waitrose bag at me. Inside is his tablet, plus a charger.

  ‘Take it,’ he says. ‘You’ll go mad otherwise.’

  Back at Tim’s, Sunil appears to be asleep, his cheek on the pillow, his beautiful hands folded between his thighs. I stand by the bed for a while, looking down at him, knowing that I need to get into the PPE, then his body convulses with a fresh spasm of coughs, and he’s left gasping for air. H, I think again, just hours before the oxygen arrived.

  I retire next door and sort out the PPE. Gowned and masked, I’m soon back beside Sunil, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. This is almost second nature now, my default setting, but what’s different is the total absence of everything else I came to take for granted when H was so ill. No bedside equipment to tell me about his saturation levels. No drip for the antibiotics. And no oxygen to feed the mask on his face. Instead, it’s just him and me against the virus. I gaze down at his long body curled on the damp sheet. He’s found a perch on the cliff face that is the UK, and he’s doing his very best to hang on. God knows what happens if his grip begins to weaken.

  Around midday, after a fitful sleep broken by fits of coughing, he opens one eye. The sight of me beside the bed seems to come as a relief.

  ‘You’re staying?’ he whispers.

  ‘For as long as you need me.’

  He nods, swallows, winces. I sense he’s got something to tell me, and it turns out I’m right.

  ‘HIV,’ he mutters. Talking clearly hurts.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Me,’ he points to his chest.

  ‘You’ve got it? HIV?’

  He nods, swallows again, closes his eyes. Another cough is coming, and I lean back in anticipation. What little I know about HIV and AIDS tells me that it does no favours to the immune system. Having it leaves you wide open to any passing infection – the worst possible ne
ws if an intruder as clever as Covid happens by.

  While Sunil tries to sleep again, I retreat next door. I take off my visor and face mask and check out HIV on H’s tablet. I’m right. If you’re positive for either HIV or full-blown AIDS, you’re strongly recommended to take special precautions under lockdown. I sit back, wondering if Dessie knew anything of this when he made friends with Sunil and shepherded him towards the nursing agency. In the first place, it would have been grossly irresponsible for any patient Sunil happened to be nursing. And in the second, it might well turn out to be a death sentence for Sunil himself.

  I shake my head, slumped in Tim’s armchair, and for the first time I become aware of the last chess game Sunil and I played. We never quite got to the end, and Sunil must have saved the pieces for later, because I can see the board stored carefully under the occasional table that is laden with books and magazines. I was black. I lost both rooks very early on, an act of carelessness on my part, and once Sunil unleashed his queen, I was in deep trouble.

  Now, staring at the board, I can’t help thinking about the jigsaw we found when we first arrived at Tony Morse’s flat. That, too, had been incomplete, just a teasing glimpse of Nelson’s finest moment. No one touched it, no one added to it, and until the cleaning company arrived it served as a kind of relique, an amulet against the worst of times. The same applies here, I think. Part of me is tempted to tidy up the chess pieces and return them to their wooden box but, listening to Sunil coughing next door, I realize how important it is to believe in a future for both of us. Leaving the pieces on the board is an act of faith. One day, we’ll get to finish that game. And, in all probability, Sunil will win.

  Time ticks slowly by. It starts to rain, and then stops again. The sound of a car engine in the street below is a major event. A phone rings somewhere downstairs, ignored. Seagulls dance above the rooftops as the wind gets up again. I have only a sentimental attachment to religion – a decent hymn, the Berlioz Requiem – but by dusk I’m praying for the virus to leave Sunil in peace. I’m back in my mask and visor now, stationed at his bedside, and I know he’s seriously ill. Mid-evening, he tries to get up, helplessly clawing at the air, then collapses back again. When I ask him what he wants, what he needs, he gestures wordlessly at his groin. He needs the toilet. Badly.