by John Harvey
“Maybe he had.”
“Yeh? Shame they hung around long enough for him to get his tackle out of his Y-fronts, then, might not’ve been so fucking degraded if they hadn’t.”
Nodding, not really listening, Naylor glanced at his watch. He’d get Divine to drop him off at the Paki shop on the corner, pick up a bottle of that Chardonnay Debbie liked, glass or two to put her in the mood.
Terry was not quite asleep when he heard the key in the lock, a smile on his face as soon as he recognised Eileen’s footsteps on the stairs.
“Hello, love. How’d it go?” Reaching up for her as she leaned across him, brushing the top of his head with a kiss.
“Fine. Yeh, it was good.”
“Good tip?”
“Sixty. Not bad.”
Terry pulled her down towards him. “Maybe we should celebrate.”
“Not now. I want to take a shower first, clean my teeth.”
“Okay, sweetheart. Whatever you say.”
But by the time she had come back again, Terry had begun to doze off, so that when she slipped under the covers beside him, what he did was slide himself against her gently, one arm covering hers, the pair of them slotted together like spoons. It was what he liked most: what he missed those nights she stayed away.
From her room along the landing, Sarah had heard Eileen come in too; had lain there listening to the litany of doors – bedroom, bedroom, bathroom, bathroom, finally the bedroom once more. Sometimes, if she tip-toed across the floor, opened her own door just a crack and listened long enough she would hear her dad cry out and know that they’d been doing it. The same sound that Ray-o made, she knew what it meant.
Ray-o. Sarah lifted the covers over her head and said the name out loud. Ray-o. Ray-o. Ray-o. Abruptly, she stopped, realising that she had been shouting and even muffled like that she might be heard, if not by her dad or Eileen, then by her grandmother in the room adjoining hers. Ray-o. If only they knew . . . She remembered the first time she’d gone with him, ages she’d been, deciding which skirt to wear, which top, using this article she’d torn from a magazine to get her make-up just right.
Ray-o had met her in the rec and they’d sat on a bench near the kids’ swings, drinking cider and smoking Raymond’s Silk Cut. After a bit, he’d said how it was getting cold and taken her up to his room. All his mates, the blokes he shared with, had been out. She remembered a smell of sour milk and something else which seemed to come from Raymond himself. When he kissed her he pushed his tongue so far into her mouth she almost choked.
“Wash that stuff off,” he said. “Here.” Offering her a cloth.
“What stuff?”
“That muck you’ve got all over your face.”
When she’d finished, he took the cloth back from her and wet one corner of it with spittle, the way her mum had used to do when she was little; carefully, he wiped away the eye shadow that had smeared her cheek.
“Ray-o,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She’d read somewhere it was a mistake to tell a boy you loved him too soon.
“That’s all right then.” He started to take off his clothes and she thought that she should do the same.
When she was stretched back on the bed, one arm across her face to shield her eyes, she felt him touching her, her breasts and down between her legs. He hurt a little but not much.
“Here,” he said. “Here.”
He was kneeling over her, his thing sticking out, hard and thin. His balls were tight in wrinkled skin. “Here.” He took her hands and placed them on him, sliding them back and forth. After a while he closed his eyes, pushed her hands away and did it for himself. She didn’t know what was more surprising, the way his stuff sprayed across her or the shout that was more of a scream. Concerned, she asked him if it hurt. He lifted the cloth coloured by her make-up from the floor and wiped himself then gave it to her to wipe the stickiness away.
“Ray-o,” she said.
“What?”
“I love you. Honest.” She couldn’t help herself. After all, he hadn’t done it to her the first time; that proved he respected her, right?
Without really wanting to, Sarah ran her hands gingerly over her stomach, the swell of her belly. She was larger each day now, she’d swear it, though when she was standing straight it wasn’t as if she even showed. Her clothes she wore loose and shapeless, just in case. Careful to lock the bathroom door. Ray-o. She couldn’t understand why her dad had flown off the handle when he’d seen Ray’s name written on her arm. Crack! The back of his hand across her face so fast she’d scarcely seen it coming and the next thing she knew she’d been picking herself up from the floor. “You stupid little cow! What d’you want to do a thing like that for?” And when she’d said it didn’t mean anything, only that she liked him, he’d hauled her off the floor and shaken her until her eyes seemed to rattle in her head. “Flesh and blood, you horny little cow! He’s your own flesh and fucking blood!”
Well, he wasn’t. He was only her cousin. In the bible, cousins did it all the time. She’d read it at primary school.
Through the wall Sarah could hear her gran’s low, reverberating snore.
More months passed. The first frost caught Resnick by surprise. Opening the front door to retrieve the bottles (yes, still bottles) the milkman had left on the step, his feet nearly went from under him. Then he saw that the leaves that had collected in the lee of the wall were rimmed with white along their brittle edges; Dizzy’s coat, when he ran his fingers along it, bristled cold and dampish to the touch.
Back in the kitchen, coffee ground and ready, he warmed the milk for all four cats before pouring it into their bowls. While the rye bread was toasting, he sliced Jarlsberg cheese and pulled the rind away from several rounds of Polish salami. The local weather forecaster was predicting a further drop in the temperature of five to ten degrees, but clear and sunny skies. One of the pullovers he had neglected to take to the cleaners had a bronze stain all down one side; the other was coming unravelled beneath the left arm. In the back of the drawer he found a sleeveless cardigan and he put this on over his pale blue shirt and beneath the brown tweed jacket he’d bought seven or eight years before, at a shop which now sold charity Christmas cards and next year’s calendars with twelve different pictures of Madonna or Ryan Giggs.
The previous night he’d been listening to some Gerry Mulligan – the California Concerts from the early fifties – and he fancied hearing a handful of the tracks again, but there wasn’t time. He had arranged for Graham Millington to give him a lift into the station, and, sure enough, there was the sergeant now, punctual as ever, sounding his horn.
“Cold enough to frighten brass monkeys,” Millington said, as Resnick climbed into the car.
“Happen we’ll be busy, Graham. Take our mind off the weather.”
Millington stubbed his Lambert and Butler out in the ashtray between the seats and set the car in gear.
Busy wasn’t the word for it. Aside from the ongoing investigations in which all the officers in Resnick’s team were involved, the cold night had fostered a flurry of activity through the early hours. Amongst the items stolen from the good burghers of the city were seven fur coats, including two minks and one sable, two cases of five-star brandy, three electric blankets and a state-of-the-art gas fire with full three-dimensional coal effect, neatly removed from its marble fireplace home. And this was without the usual plethora of jewellery, CD collections and VCRs, most of which would, even now, be exchanging hands as part of the system on which the invisible economy depended. How else were people supposed to get pissed, book holidays in Spain, buy something decent for the kids, score weed, pay the tally man, eke out child support, place a bet or put a little aside for a rainy day? If they didn’t win the lottery, that is.
“Then there’s this, boss,” Divine said. They were sitting round the CID room, tea getting stewed, blue cigarette smoke frescoing the ceiling. “British Telecom van broken into, two
gross of new DF50 fax machines gone missing.”
“Soon be a lot of those around on discount, then,” mused Millington. “Shouldn’t mind one myself.”
“All right,” Resnick said, getting to his feet. “Let’s keep our eyes peeled. Known fences, second-hand dealers, car-boot sales, any of these fly-by-night merchants sailing along by the seat of their pants. Graham, we’ve got a list, let’s parcel it out. And while Lynn’s off on that course, you’d best put a few my way as well.”
For some reason, Raymond had caught himself thinking about Sara: not his cousin Sarah, Sarah with an h, but the Sara he used to go out with a couple of years before. The one who had been with him when . . . well, some of what had happened back then Raymond didn’t like to remember. That little girl who’d gone missing and then all that business with the Paki copper as got knifed . . . but Sara, he didn’t mind thinking about her. Nice, she was. Pretty and posh, sort of posh. Clever, too. Never able to understand what she’d seen in him, Raymond, and after a month or two, neither had Sara herself. She’d written him this letter, full of words he didn’t properly understand – except he knew what they meant. She was dumping him, that was what. Raymond had tried to talk her out of it, get her to change her mind, but it hadn’t been any good. “I’m sorry, Ray, but I’m afraid my mind’s quite made up.” And she’d walked off to where one of her customers was waiting to pay for a large bag of mixed soft-centres, head stuck in the air in that toffee-nosed way she had.
He hadn’t been good enough for her, that’s what it was. Of course, she hadn’t come straight out and said it, Sara, not in so many words. She wasn’t like that, better brought up. Whereas his cousin Sarah, she was pathetically grateful if you as much as looked at her, never mind anything else. Always hanging round though, that was the trouble. Wouldn’t leave him alone. Not even indoors; in her house, his Uncle Terry’s house. There they’d been, one day, Raymond feeling her up on the settee, thinking Terry was clear and instead he’d come breezing in, nearly caught them at it. “I shouldn’t like to think, Ray-o,” Terry said after Sarah had scarpered upstairs, “that you were taking advantage of me.”
After that, of course, Raymond had backed off and told Sarah to do the same. Stop mooning after him, finding excuses to come to the shop, looking at him all the time like he was God’s fucking gift – though from Sarah’s point of view, most probably he was. Raymond couldn’t see anyone else fancying it, scrawny little tart with a bony arse and tits like doorbells. Mind you, having said that, he thought she might have been putting on a bit of weight lately. All that ice cream and chocolate she was stuffing herself with, Raymond thought, making up for the fact that he wasn’t giving her any. He was near the back of the shop, chuckling about that, when the street door opened and Detective Inspector Resnick walked in.
Raymond recognised him right off and the blood flew to his face. Half-turning a clumsy step away, he sent a clock radio crashing to the floor. The plastic top splintered clear across and the radio started playing Jarvis Cocker’s ‘Underwear’.
“Raymond, isn’t it?” Resnick said, letting the door swing to behind him. “Raymond Cooke.”
Down on one knee, mis-hitting the control buttons and switching on the alarm instead, Raymond mumbled yes.
“So, what you up to these days?” Resnick asked, flicking idly through a shoebox of second-hand CDs. “Keeping out of trouble?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve got a job?”
“Yes, here. I work here. My uncle, he . . .”
“Uncle Terry?” Resnick asked. “Terry Cooke?”
“Yeh.”
“His place, then?”
“Yes.”
“And you, you’re what? Helping him out?”
“No, no, like I said, I’m here all the time. Live here, too. Upstairs.” Raymond pointed towards the ceiling, past a couple of slightly battered kiddies’ mobiles and a string of plastic onions that could have done with a dust.
“Nice,” Resnick said. “Handy.”
“Yeh.”
“Of course . . .” Resnick had taken one of the CDs from the box now and was studying the writing on the back. “. . . not so handy for the park, the rec, watching little girls on the swings.”
“I don’t . . .” Breath caught high in Raymond’s throat and for a moment he thought he wouldn’t be able to breathe.
“Don’t what, Raymond?”
“I’m not . . .”
“Yes?”
Raymond steadied himself against a tumble drier, cleared his throat, found a screwed-up tissue in his pocket and blew his nose. “I’ve got a girl friend,” he said. “Going steady.”
“That’s nice, Raymond,” Resnick said pleasantly. “Anyone I know?”
“No, no. Shouldn’t think so, no.”
“You’re not . . .” Resnick looked upwards, “. . . living together?”
Raymond shook his head. “Thinking about it, you know.”
Resnick reached out suddenly with his free hand and, as Raymond flinched, flicked something from the shoulder of the youth’s leather jacket. “Treat her well, I hope, Raymond?”
“Yeh, yes, of course.”
Raymond gulped air and Resnick stepped back and glanced at the CD in his hand. “How much?”
“Fiver.”
“Good condition is it? I mean I’m not going to get it home and find it doesn’t play?”
Raymond shrugged. “Far as I know it’s okay.”
“You’ve not heard it then?”
“Jazz, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Look, you can have it for four. Three-fifty.”
“You’re sure? Only I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble with Uncle Terry.”
“He doesn’t mind. What I do in the shop here, it’s up to me.”
“Responsibility.”
“Yeh.”
Smiling, Resnick gave him a five pound note and waited for his change. “You wouldn’t have anything in the way of fax machines, I suppose? You know, the kind with the telephone. Integral.”
Raymond’s face brightened. “Terry did say something, yes. I reckon we’ll be getting some in, the next couple of days. You could always call back. You know, if you were passing.”
Resnick hesitated for a moment at the door. “All right, Raymond, I might. Maybe you could even put one aside.”
Sarah had shut herself in the bathroom, the cabinet where her dad kept his aftershave and deodorant, his spare razor blades and his condoms pulled over against the door. There were days – most days – when she could forget what was happening to her, happening to her inside, but this wasn’t one of them. Sometimes the pain was so sudden and sharp, she had to bite her bottom lip to stop the screams; sometimes she almost went as far as thinking she would call her gran, ask her to help, but she knew she wouldn’t do that. Not really. What she wanted – if she couldn’t have Raymond – were friends to turn to, girl friends to ask for advice, but none of the girls at school would give her as much as the time of day.
After a while, she didn’t know how long, she heard her gran going down the stairs, on her way to the early evening bingo. Her dad was already out, had been most of the day, she didn’t know where. Squatting in the bath, Sarah bore down on the toothbrush she had placed across her mouth and bit it clean in half.
Millington was laughing as Mark Divine set down fresh pints between Resnick and himself. “And that’s what he said? Come back in a couple of days and I’ll have one here ready?”
“More or less.”
“Daft twat!”
Resnick nodded. The more he thought about the way Raymond had reacted when he’d walked into the shop, the more he thought the lad might have something to hide, something he might like to ease off his chest. He doubted if it were anything as straightforward as a few BT fax machines.
“Turn him over, shall we?” Millington asked. “What d’you think?”
Resnick set down his glass. “Why not? Take Mark here and Kevin; pay them a call. Out of shop hours. But
, Graham . . .”
“Yes?”
“This Cooke youth, Raymond, let’s not drop him in it, not with the uncle. Let him stay clear.”
“Plans for him, have you?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged heavy shoulders. “Stay on his good side for a while, that’s all.”
Millington tapped the last Lambert and Butler from the packet; no sense in buying any more now till the morning, not with the wife how she was about him smoking. “Just as you like.”
They went in with a warrant two days later; still not light. They had the door down before Raymond, deep asleep, could stumble down the stairs to let them in.
“Your uncle here?” Millington asked sharply.
Standing there in boxer shorts and an Oasis T-shirt, one hand cupped across his balls, Raymond just shook his head.
“Call him. Then get yourself back up there out of the way.”
The DF50s were in the store room on the first floor, below where Raymond slept. Two dozen, neatly boxed. All in all, they hauled away a van load of stuff, mostly electrical; nice job that would be for someone, checking them against the stolen goods inventory.
“Course,” Millington winked, “you’ve got the paperwork on all this lot.”
Beside him on the pavement, hands deep in pockets, no time to grab a topcoat, freezing bloody cold, Terry Cooke didn’t say a thing.
Sarah sat there in the room, curtains closed tight. She didn’t know if it were day or night. Her eyes were open and then her eyes were closed. The pain came and then it went. Slowly, she reached from the side of the bed down into the drawer and lifted the baby with both hands. So small and light. So cold. Carefully, she unbuttoned her blouse and pressed him to her chest, the spongy top of his head soft against the nub of her breast.
Seeing it on the table where it had been left, poking out from the pages of last night’s Post, Resnick realised he had never got around to playing his bargain price CD. Charlie Parker: from Dizzy to Miles. Pouring himself a glass of the bison grass vodka he had won in a raffle at the Polish Club he took the CD from its case, set it on the machine and pressed play.
