Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Billy Goodman’s a friend of mine,’ Kate said carefully, ‘if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘How well do you know him?’

  ‘I just told you, he’s a friend.’ She paused. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve been asked to find out, that’s all.’

  ‘Who asked you?’

  ‘The news editor.’ Donna was sounding flustered. ‘Actually, it’s about last night.’

  ‘Last night?’

  Kate was watching her rear-view mirror. The driver had given up with the horn, settling instead for anchoring his car on Kate’s tailgate. Kate tried to ignore him, listening to the Sentinel reporter recounting the details of last night’s incident. A young student had been assaulted in the street. Detectives were questioning a Mr Billy Goodman. A formal charge of some kind seemed more than likely.

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Kate asked.

  ‘We understand he was driving your car.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  There was a brief silence on the line. The driver of the car behind swept past in a blur of obscene gestures. Then Donna was back again, avoiding Kate’s question, asking again about the relationship she shared with Billy Goodman. Kate felt the temperature inside the Audi beginning to rise. Someone must have taken the registration, she thought. And one of the paper’s tame CID contacts must have done the rest.

  ‘Mr Goodman had my car last night,’ she conceded. ‘He was sorting out the radio.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s a mechanic?’

  ‘Yes, he mends things.’

  ‘But he’s a friend as well?’

  Kate didn’t reply. Donna mentioned a string of previous convictions, mainly for violence.

  Kate cursed under her breath. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘GBH and ABH. I’ve got the dates here. Do you want me to read them out?’

  Kate told her not to bother, asking again what possible business it was of hers, but Donna persisted just the same, reciting Billy Goodman’s criminal record, a series of confrontations with sundry right-wing splinter groups. There was nothing serious, nothing to warrant more than a minor jail sentence and, listening to the voice on the mobile, Kate felt strangely proud of the man. It was never going to be the relationship she’d dreamed about but no one would ever accuse Billy of not taking his socialism seriously.

  ‘It’s all political,’ she heard herself saying. ‘Some of us talk. Others fight.’

  ‘Are you defending him? Only the lad last night is still in hospital.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Yes, I was up there this morning. Believe me, his face is a mess. You wouldn’t condone that, would you?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m just saying it’s the way some people are. Why me, though? Why tell me all this?’

  ‘Because we think it’s important, Mrs Frankham.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re supposed to be his partner.’

  ‘Partner? Who told you that?’

  ‘He did, Mrs Frankham.’

  ‘Billy? Billy Goodman?’

  ‘Yes. We asked him the question and that’s what he said. He said you were partners. Have been for a while. That’s why he had the car.’ Kate swallowed hard. Last night, after all, hadn’t been such a great idea. Maybe she should have let Billy stay. Maybe she should have made room for him. ‘The news editor wants a comment from you,’ Donna was saying. ‘We’re running the story regardless but he thinks you ought to have your say.’

  ‘How kind.’ Kate swerved to avoid a cyclist. ‘And when might I expect to see this story?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Probably tomorrow.’ She broke off to answer another phone while Kate tried to work out how serious the damage might be. The Sentinel had recently gone tabloid and carried headlines to match. LABOUR COUNCILLOR’S LIVE-IN THUG, she thought, VICTIM POINTS THE FINGER. She shuddered at the implications. Donna’s voice was on the line again, insistent, unrelenting. ‘So what’s your reaction, Mrs Frankham?’

  Kate checked in the mirror for the cyclist. He was a hundred yards behind now, wheeling his bike along the pavement. ‘No comment,’ she said at last. ‘But I suggest you get your facts right. It’s Ms Frankham, not Mrs.’

  Hayden Barnaby was back outside his office in time to meet his secretary leaving for lunch. The premises occupied the prime position in an elegant Regency terrace overlooking the main university campus. The secretary stood on the pavement, gesturing up at a tall sash window on the first floor.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor.’ She smiled. ‘Made himself at home.’

  Barnaby climbed the stairs to his office. Charlie Epple was sitting behind the big antique desk, talking into a mobile phone. A bottle of champagne stood beside the reading lamp, and from somewhere he’d found two glasses. He offered Barnaby a broad grin and waved him into the waiting chair. Barnaby hesitated a moment, then sank into the neatly buttoned leather. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so weary, so physically drained. Jessie’s basement flat had been empty. Of either Jessie or Haagen, there’d been no sign.

  Charlie ended the phone conversation with a playful obscenity and pocketed the mobile. Then he stood up, reaching for the Moët.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘Fucking wipe-out.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘This morning’s little coup. You should meet these guys. Absolutely begging for it.’

  ‘Begging for what?’

  Barnaby stared up at him. The last time he’d seen Charlie had been several hours ago at home, the briefest glimpse through the half-open bathroom door. He’d been standing over the wash-basin, lathering his face, musing aloud about the monarchy. The royal yacht, he’d decided, was wasted on the Queen. Any other nation would have turned it into a disco years ago.

  Barnaby watched Charlie untwisting the wire around the champagne cork, and then remembered the meeting his friend had come down for. Charlie had been pitching for a little business, and the Moët suggested things had gone well.

  Charlie handed him a glass, then raised his own. ‘To local democracy,’ he said, ‘and all you wonderful ratepayers.’

  He swallowed most of the champagne and reached for a refill before settling behind the desk again. The guys from the council had been far sharper than he’d ever expected, and one had even risked sharing the odd home truth. Living in London, even Charlie got to believing that real life stopped at the M25. Now, thanks to his new friends, he knew different.

  ‘I’m not with you,’ Barnaby said. ‘What friends?’

  Charlie was leaning forward now, the Armani linen jacket even more rumpled than usual. He explained about the lawyer, Dekker, and his quiet description of just how bad a deal cities like Portsmouth could expect at the hands of the mandarins in Whitehall.

  ‘There’s real frustration,’ he said, ‘real drama. Faxes at dawn. All that stuff. Our guys are getting shafted, week in week out. The bastards in London are at it all the time. We’re under the boot. Fourth Reich. I kid you not.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yeah, you and me and everyone else in this bloody place. You heard the one about the ferryport?’

  Barnaby felt dazed by Charlie’s fervour. He’d always played it this way, picking up new allies, plunging into new relationships. Men or women, it didn’t matter. Just as long as Charlie had never been inside their heads before. Life, as he never tired of repeating, was one long fucking movie. And it was always the next sequence that really mattered.

  He was talking about the ferryport now, pushing the bottle across towards Barnaby. The berths and the warehousing and everything else was owned by the city. They’d built it, expanded it, taken the commercial risk. The thing had exploded, a huge success, more and more ferries carting more and more cars to France. Year on year, the revenues had doubled, then doubled again. This last year, after paying for everything, the city had stashed nearly five million quid in the bank.

  ‘That’s profit,’ he repeated, ‘real dosh. Yours and mine. Five million.�
��

  Barnaby was still bemused. ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Problem?’ Charlie threw back his head, echoing the word, enjoying his new role, the instant expert. The problem, he said, was simple. The city had made heaps of money from their original docks investment, and now they wanted to push out the boat a little further. Obvious thing to do. Money makes money. So bung in a bit more.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, fuck me, the answer’s no. No can do. Not permitted. Not allowed. Verboten.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘London says. The ministry says. The civil servants. Fuck knows. Makes no difference. The point is this. My new mates up the road work their arses off getting their ferryport together. The thing works like a dream. Everyone’s happy. But when it comes to expanding they can’t lift a fucking finger. Why not? Because this bloody government won’t let them.’ He thumped his fist on the desk. ‘Direct quote. Hot off the presses. To raise money, you need government permission. And the tossers just say no.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Christ knows. Because it looks bad on paper. Because it adds to their borrowing requirement. Because a bunch of non-Tories have got it together and proved public investment works. Either way, it doesn’t matter. These guys down here are local authority. That makes them the enemy. They’re not allowed to make a profit, not allowed to make things happen for you and me. And here’s another quote. Write it down. Those bums in London don’t care a fuck about us. Never have, never will. If they could privatize everything, they’d do it tomorrow.’ Charlie grinned. ‘Remember, amigo, these guys are local government officers, Mr and Mrs Prim, not some bunch of left-wing loonies. So how does that sound, eh?’ He lifted the champagne glass. ‘I’m definitely moving down. Definitely.’

  Barnaby nodded, sipping the champagne. After twenty years, sharing the city with Charlie would be a novel experience.

  ‘So what will you be selling?’ he asked. ‘Frustration? Anger? Home rule?’

  Raising his glass, Charlie narrowed his eyes. ‘If only,’ he said.

  Kate Frankham parked the Audi across the road from the long sweep of Regency terrace, asking herself again whether this was such a great idea. A discreet phone call to a contact on the Sentinel had confirmed the editor’s intention to run the Billy Goodman story. It was, in his phrase, entirely legitimate. So given the near-certainty that the wretched piece would appear, shouldn’t she just accept the inevitable? Grit her teeth and brave it out? She got out of the car and gazed at the dents in the Audi’s door, irresolute. Then she pulled her jacket around her and stepped off the kerb. You got nowhere in life by simply letting things happen. What mattered, what made a difference, was getting in there and sorting it out.

  The receptionist’s desk on the ground floor was still empty. Kate consulted her watch. A bellow of laughter floated down to her from somewhere overhead. Last time she’d been here, a year and a half ago, Barnaby’s office had been the first door on the right at the top of the stairs. Given most men’s reluctance to change things round, he was probably still there.

  Kate made for the stairs, happy to take the chance that she’d find him in. On the first-floor landing, she paused for a second or two, looking at the careful line of eighteenth-century prints that hung on the walls between the offices. She’d had a hand in selecting them, bowing, in the end, to Barnaby’s insistence on something local. The selection she’d come up with had included a couple of real-life studies in social deprivation, half-starved kids begging in the streets, harassed-looking women caged by poverty, and she saw now that those had been replaced by something altogether less offensive: panoramic views of the nineteenth-century dockyard, a quaint engraving of bathing machines on Southsea beach.

  Kate smiled to herself, hearing the sound of Barnaby’s voice. He was sharing a joke with somebody. There was more laughter.

  She knocked lightly on the office door and stepped inside. Barnaby was sitting with his back to her. Behind the desk was someone she’d never seen before. He was in his mid-forties. He had wild hair and a beautiful jacket. Something in his grin spoke of a sense of infinite mischief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at once, ‘I’m intruding.’

  Barnaby eased round in his chair. He had a glass of champagne in his hand and for the second time in two days she watched that same look ghost across his face. He hadn’t expected to see her. He was, in some curiously vulnerable way, disadvantaged.

  He got to his feet, doing the introductions. Charlie Epple, a mate from London. Kate Frankham, a friend. She smiled at the word. How exact it was, a relationship emptied of anything remotely dangerous. Kate lingered by the door, aware of Charlie watching her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, ‘barging in like this.’

  Barnaby was charging his glass with the remains of the champagne, and offered it to her. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Have some fizz.’

  Kate accepted the glass, wondering how to explain her sudden appearance. She remembered Charlie’s name now. Barnaby had talked about him often, telling her that Charlie was the closest he’d ever come to meeting real genius. He worked in London. He wrote adverts, spun dreams, earned pots of money.

  Kate raised her glass. ‘Cheers,’ she said. ‘Here’s to D-Day.’

  Charlie responded at once. His glass was empty. ‘Fuck D-Day. Here’s to the revolution.’ He was grinning again.

  There was a long, awkward silence. Then Charlie got up, stretching his arms wide. He was tall, taller than Barnaby, and the sunlight through the big sash window caught in his hair, gilding it. He shot Barnaby a meaningful look and said he had to move on. He’d catch up later. There was sure to be word from Jess. He crossed the room, heading for the door, and Kate listened to the clatter of his footsteps on the stairs and the crash of the door as he stepped out onto the street.

  ‘Interesting-looking man,’ she said absently, settling into the chair in front of the desk.

  Barnaby was standing by the window, watching Charlie thread a path through the afternoon traffic. Kate could hear his whistle through the open window, a tune emptied of everything except a kind of manic jauntiness. Barnaby turned back, making no effort to sit down, and Kate thought again how pale he looked. Not just vulnerable but exhausted. She glanced around her. The shelves of leather-bound legal books. The rows of carefully indexed Law Reports. The piles of annotated typescript, hole-punched and threaded with green fasteners.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she said. ‘I should have asked yesterday.’

  Barnaby looked round as if he’d never seen the room before. ‘It’s going fine,’ he said. ‘It’s a struggle, of course, but that applies to pretty much everyone. Nothing’s easy any more, as I’m sure you know.’

  Kate ducked her head, hiding her face. When she looked up, Barnaby was staring out of the window again. ‘It’s none of my business,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t help wondering.’

  ‘Wondering what?’

  ‘Jessie.’ She ran her finger round the top of the champagne glass. ‘Nothing the matter, is there?’

  For a moment Barnaby didn’t answer. When he finally turned round, pulling the chair towards him and sitting down, there were tears in his eyes. He put his head in his hands, then reached out blindly when he heard the scrape of her chair as she got up and stepped round the desk.

  ‘She’s a junkie,’ he whispered. ‘She’s sick.’ He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, turning away his head. Kate bent over him and put a hand on his shoulder, telling him how sorry she was. She’d no idea. He should have told her. Yesterday. At the health club.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he said, his face contorting again. ‘Can you believe that? Months and months of it and I didn’t bloody know. What kind of father does that make me? Eh?’

  He didn’t wait for an answer, accepted the proffered tissue, blew his nose and shook his head angrily as if something had come loose inside. Kate retrieved the champagne from the table beside her chair and held it out. Barnaby looked at th
e glass. ‘That’s no answer,’ he said, ‘but thank you anyway.’

  ‘It’ll make you feel better. I promise.’

  ‘You think so?’

  He gazed up at her, that same imploring look she saw on some of the clients she counselled. Tell me it won’t hurt any more. Tell me the pain will stop.

  ‘It’s going to be OK,’ she said quietly. ‘Truly.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  ‘Scout’s honour.’ She bent to him, kissing him lightly on the forehead. He reached for her hand again, holding it tightly. Then he took a deep breath, cleared his throat and made a show of pulling himself together. She’d obviously come for a purpose. He was sorry about being so emotional.

  ‘Don’t be.’ She held his hand a moment longer, then stepped back towards the chair, Barnaby watching her as she sat down. He looked, she thought, utterly bereft. ‘I’ve got a problem too,’ she said brightly. ‘But I feel embarrassed even mentioning it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s about…’ she frowned ‘… Billy.’

  ‘Billy?’

  ‘Billy Goodman. My so-called partner. Actually, not my partner at all. More …’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes, sort of.’

  Barnaby remembered the leather jacket in the back seat of the Audi. The image was like a spongeful of cold water, forcing him to concentrate. This man of hers. Billy. He listened to her telling him about the incident outside the pub. Billy had been involved in some kind of fight. The other man, a young student, had been badly hurt. The police were involved. And now the local press.

  ‘So what?’ Barnaby asked, when she paused for breath. ‘Where’s the problem?’

  ‘They’re going to run an article. I’ve no idea why and I’ve no idea what they’re going to say but it won’t be helpful. I know it won’t.’

  ‘But what can they say?’

  When she was nervous, Kate had a habit of playing with a lock of hair and she was doing it now, winding it around her little finger and then letting it uncurl.

  ‘Billy has been living with me on and off,’ she muttered, ‘and he has a criminal record.’