Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Violence.’ She paused. ‘He gets carried away at rallies and demos. He’s not the sort to refuse a challenge.’

  ‘And you think the Sentinel are interested in all that?’

  ‘I think the Sentinel are interested in selling papers. Labour councillor tucked up with convicted heavy is a good story. In this city, especially.’

  Barnaby gazed at the empty champagne bottle. Kate, as ever, was right. Like most local papers, the Sentinel had an appetite for civic outrage. The fact that a prominent local councillor was shacked up with a thug would make compelling reading. And that, in turn, made the story hard to resist.

  ‘OK,’ he said slowly. ‘So what do we do about it?’

  ‘We?’

  Barnaby glanced up. Kate was looking at him, the beginnings of a smile softening the anxiety in her face. He nodded. ‘We,’ he confirmed. ‘How do we get to the Sentinel? How do we phrase it?’ He returned her smile. ‘Just what do I say to Harry Wilcox?’

  The Sentinel was published and printed from a low-rise modern complex in the east of the city. Harry Wilcox, the editor, occupied a glassed-in office at the head of the newsroom. Insulated from the constant trilling of phones, he could nevertheless keep an eye on the shrinking army of increasingly young reporters who generated most of the newspaper’s copy.

  Barnaby followed one of the newsroom secretaries into the office. Wilcox, shirtsleeved, was on the phone. He signalled a greeting with his spare hand and waved Barnaby into a chair beneath an enormous rubber plant. There was a flask of coffee bubbling on the nearby cabinet and Barnaby helped himself while Wilcox finished his conversation. He’d known Wilcox for the best part of three years, first at various Rotary gatherings, latterly on alternate Monday evenings when they joined forces with two other couples and drove out to a regular pub quiz in a pretty village near Petersfield. Recently, they’d enjoyed a series of unbroken victories and the team had become minor celebrities on the local circuit.

  Wilcox put the phone down with a sigh. He was a big man, tall, bulky, physically intimidating, but his career had never kept pace with his ambitions and he made no secret of his belief that Portsmouth was a smaller pond than he felt he deserved. Drunk, five pints down, he could fantasize savagely on the opportunities he’d missed in Fleet Street, and Barnaby knew that he resented the success and the trappings that had fallen to many of his contemporaries. Like most newspapermen in their late forties, he still dreamed of the big story, the ultimate exclusive, and in Wilcox’s case it had become a minor obsession, the springboard that would finally take him away from the south coast and into the big time.

  Barnaby passed him a cup of coffee. Wilcox stirred the thin brown liquid without enthusiasm.

  ‘Liz OK?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Get that bloody wallpaper she was after?’

  ‘Yes, as far as I know.’

  Barnaby pulled a face. The last time they’d met for the pub quiz, Liz had spent most of the evening bewailing the lack of choice in the city’s department stores. She was after something fancy for the spare room. It was very expensive and immensely tasteful and no one in Portsmouth had ever heard of it.

  Wilcox emptied the coffee cup and dropped it in the bin beside his chair. Then he seized a copy of the paper’s noon edition and began to leaf through it, shaking his head as he did so. The Sentinel was the cross he had to bear, he seemed to be saying. Life would be so much simpler if he was excused the chore of trying to knock it into shape.

  ‘Listen to this,’ he said, his finger resting on one of the inside pages. ‘Whole bloody column on some woman’s budgie. A city of 180,000 and we’re driven to carrying stuff like that.’

  Barnaby forced a smile, a gesture of mute sympathy, recognizing Wilcox’s mock-despair for what it really was. The D-Day weekend had been the city’s biggest story for a decade and Harry had masterminded special edition after special edition, splashing the paper’s pages with huge colour photos of the celebrations. By common consent, the Sentinel had risen to the challenge with immense flair and it was plainly Barnaby’s role to find a way of saying so.

  ‘You must be knackered,’ he murmured. ‘Bloody hard work.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Successful, though. Looked a treat.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  Wilcox permitted himself a smile, staring out at his charges in the newsroom.

  ‘So what brings you here?’ he asked, turning back.

  Barnaby swirled the remains of his coffee around his cup. Anticipating this conversation had made him realize just how little he knew Harry Wilcox. They’d never risked anything as complicated as a real friendship and in his heart Barnaby recognized that bluff pub banter every other Monday night was no substitute. They were middle-aged. They were moderately successful. They pulled good salaries. And that was about it.

  ‘It’s tricky,’ Barnaby heard himself saying. ‘The last thing I want to do is put you in an awkward position.’

  ‘Oh?’ Wilcox was visibly interested. ‘What’s it about, then?’

  Barnaby told him what little he knew about Billy Goodman. The man had some kind of record. He’d once lived with a local councillor, Kate Frankham.

  ‘Lives,’ Wilcox grunted. ‘Present tense.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Wilcox nodded. ‘They’re shacked up in her house. She’s got a nice little pad in King Street. That’s another angle, by the way. The terrace got a conservation grant and technically that falls to some committee she’s on. So,’ he grinned, ‘guess who didn’t declare an interest? And guess who ended up doing the work?’

  ‘Goodman?’

  ‘In one. Spot on.’ He tapped the paper. ‘Hellraiser boyfriend Billy Goodman.’

  Wilcox sat back, pleased with himself, and it occurred to Barnaby that it might be wiser to end the conversation. Kate had mentioned nothing about the conservation grant. More to the point, before she’d left the office she’d told him that the relationship with Goodman was over.

  ‘You know Kate?’ Wilcox was smiling.

  ‘Yes, she’s a friend.’

  ‘Known her long?’

  ‘Couple of years. Long enough.’

  Wilcox said nothing, letting the silence between them speak for itself.

  Barnaby cleared his throat. ‘Don’t get this wrong, Harry…’

  ‘Don’t get what wrong?’

  ‘Me and Kate Frankham. We’re friends, buddies. I owe her a favour or two. And I also happen to think she does a bloody good job.’ He paused. ‘It would be a shame, that’s all.’

  ‘A shame what?’

  ‘Messing it all up for her.’

  ‘Messing all what up? I’m not with you, mate. We’re newspapermen. We’re looking at a story. If the story stands up, we’ll run it.’ Wilcox jabbed at the paper in front of him. ‘Unless you’re saying there’s some good reason not to.’

  Barnaby shook his head at once, acknowledging the weakness of his case. Maybe he should have dwelt on the D-Day weekend a bit longer and given Wilcox the chance to boast about the banquet he’d doubtless attended. What Clinton had said to him. What Hillary had worn. Whether or not she had good legs.

  ‘There’s no reason not to,’ he agreed. ‘None at all.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  Barnaby looked him in the eye, unblinking. He could hear someone laughing in the newsroom outside. ‘I don’t want to see her hurt,’ he said at last. ‘Believe me, it’s that simple.’

  Wilcox shook his head. ‘Nothing’s that simple. Are we talking local politics here? Only you never struck me as—’

  ‘No,’ Barnaby said. ‘It’s nothing to do with local politics. I don’t care a shit about local politics.’

  ‘Then it must be personal.’ Wilcox stuck his thumbs inside his braces.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very personal?’

  ‘That’s not a fair question.’

 
‘Fair question?’ Barnaby heard the braces twang. ‘You come in here and ask me to spike a story? And you’re talking fair question?’

  ‘Touché.’ Barnaby conceded the point, shamefaced. ‘Mea culpa.’

  There was another long silence. The laughter had come to an end. Finally, Wilcox reached again for the paper, folded it up and positioned it on the desk so that Barnaby couldn’t miss the front page. An elderly veteran was saluting on a beach in Normandy. His bent figure cast a long shadow across the wet sand. Over the picture, the headline read A DAY TO REMEMBER.

  ‘You’re right about knackered,’ Wilcox mused. ‘It’s been a bastard. Non-stop.’

  ‘But fascinating, I expect.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he concurred. ‘Pretty bloody special.’ He fingered the paper before looking up. ‘Didn’t make it to the Guildhall, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shame. History in the making. Unbelievable evening.’

  The phone began to ring. Wilcox stared at it then got up, extending a hand. ‘Important call,’ he said, jerking his head at the phone. ‘David Montgomery. Monty’s son. We’re doing a big profile piece.’ He stepped round the desk, and patted Barnaby’s shoulder. ‘No promises, mate, but I’ll see what I can do.’

  Charlie Epple was still packing his bag when he heard Liz at the front door. He went to the head of the spiral staircase, watching her come in. She’d been to Waitrose and she was carrying a heavy box of shopping. Charlie clattered down the stairs, relieved her of her load, and closed the door with his foot. He could see at once that she had been crying. Like Charlie, she’d been to the hospital. And, like Charlie, she’d found Jessie gone.

  Liz went at once to the kettle, filled it and plugged it in, walling herself away behind the simplest domestic routines. Charlie pulled a stool towards him, perched on it and inspected the contents of the cardboard box. Someone ate a lot of tinned tomatoes.

  Liz turned round and bent to the fridge for a carton of milk. ‘She loves pizza,’ she muttered, ‘or used to.’

  Charlie nodded. Jessie had always been a favourite of his, a child so gentle, so ready to listen, so eager to please that she seemed to belong to another planet. Maybe that’s why she’d taken to hard drugs, he thought.

  ‘She’ll be back,’ he said aloud. ‘I know she will.’

  ‘You think so? You really think it’s as simple as that?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Liz gazed at him, wanting to believe it. ‘It’s as if she’s died,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s as if she’s dead and gone. She’s not the same any more. She’s different. She’s someone else. Jessie would never have done that. Not her. Not Jess.’

  ‘Are you blaming her?’

  ‘I’m blaming nobody. Except that bloody Haagen. Him and his wretched dog.’ Liz reached into the cardboard box for a packet of biscuits and tore angrily at the wrapping. She emptied them onto a plate and Charlie took one, trying to piece together in his mind the exact order of events. Haagen had been a client of Barnaby’s, a local kid up on a theft charge. Barnaby, for some reason, had thought the world of him and had promised the magistrate he’d give him a job as one of the conditions of a deferred sentence. The kid had evidently performed well in the office and Barnaby had brought him home for the odd meal. Jessie, a year older, had fallen for him at first sight. Much to Liz’s disbelief.

  Liz was filling the caddy with tea-bags. According to her, Haagen had been trouble from the start.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was just something about him. You could sense it the moment he walked in. He was… dangerous. Do you know what I mean?’

  Charlie eyed her across the breakfast bar, helping himself to another custard cream.

  ‘You mean different?’

  ‘No …’ She trailed off, thinking. ‘Yes, different, of course, but something else as well, something more than that. He was looking at you all the time. He made you feel, I don’t know, awkward. It wasn’t anything he ever said. He wasn’t abusive or rude or anything like that. It was just… as if… I don’t know… he didn’t like us. Nothing especially personal, just on principle. He’d made up his mind before he’d even met us. We were there to be disliked, hated even.’

  The tea-caddy was full at last and she tried to force the lid down, angry again. Charlie was watching her.

  ‘And Hayden?’ he said. ‘Did he feel the same way?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask him? Talk about it at all?’

  ‘No, never.’ She looked up suddenly as if she’d betrayed a confidence and flushed.

  ‘This Haagen?’ Charlie said slowly. ‘Where does he figure now?’ Liz scalded the tea-pot with hot water.

  ‘God knows. They share a flat together, some ghastly basement. I’m sure that’s where it all started, the heroin, whatever it is.’ She looked up, the kettle still in her hand. ‘She should have gone away. That’s what’s so silly. She should have gone away to college somewhere and got on with her life. Staying here, she’s just a sitting duck. You should see them together. She’ll do anything for him, absolutely anything. It’s pitiful. I hate it. God, how I hate it.’

  Charlie thought about trying to change the subject but knew there was no point. Jessie and her junkie boyfriend had become a running sore, a boil on the face of Liz’s marriage, and her fingers would return to it again and again.

  ‘What are you going to do,’ Charlie enquired, ‘when she comes back?’

  ‘If she comes back. If.’ Liz sighed. ‘I don’t know. That’s the frustration. I went to the police this morning, asked them.’

  ‘The police? What did they say?’

  ‘They asked me if I was making a complaint.’ She snorted, a short, mirthless bark of laughter. ‘Actually, that’s unfair. The man on the desk said that. I met someone else afterwards, someone from the drugs squad. He was nice. We just talked about it. He gave me his number. Told me to ring any time.’

  ‘I bet.’

  Liz looked up, catching the innuendo, and Charlie winked at her, Mr Nice Guy, no offence meant.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ she said suddenly. ‘You do wonders for Hayden.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, you make him laugh. He doesn’t do much of that these days.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’ She glanced across at him and then slipped the tea-cosy over the steaming pot. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  There was a long silence and Charlie thought about getting back to London. The fast trains left at four minutes past the hour. The taxi he’d ordered would be here any minute. ‘Hayden can be a head case sometimes,’ he said lightly, ‘but that just makes him normal.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I know it. He worships you. He’d be lost without you. No kidding.’

  ‘Really? You think that’s true?’

  ‘Yeah, and if it isn’t then he’s even more of a head case than I thought.’

  Charlie slipped off the stool. His bag was at the top of the spiral staircase, ready for the off. He reached past Liz for the jacket he’d left on the back of a chair. She had a second cup in her hand. She was looking surprised.

  ‘You’re going?’

  ‘Fraid so.’

  ‘No time for tea?’

  Charlie bent to kiss her, shaking his head. Liz tilted her face, catching his hand, giving it a little squeeze, telling him he was welcome back any time. Hayden would love to see him. She knew he would.

  Charlie heard the beep of the taxi’s horn in the street outside. ‘Fuck Hayden,’ he murmured, heading for the stairs.

  Chapter Four

  Barnaby stood at the window of his office, inspecting the long black Daimler double-parked in the street outside. Already the traffic was backed up towards the one-way system while the driver of the Daimler – a short, stocky Chinese – helped an older man out of the back. He, too, looked Chinese and Barnaby checked the name of the afternoon’s appointment list as the two men below squeezed betw
een the row of parked cars and made for the office door. Raymond Zhu rang no bells. Barnaby knew perhaps half a dozen Chinese in the city, men who ran restaurants and takeaways and the odd speciality food store, but none was called Zhu.

  He slipped behind the desk, reaching for a fresh pad, wondering vaguely whether Mr Zhu might be bringing any work with him. Most of his business with the city’s immigrant population was commercial. The domestic stuff – wills, probate, conveyancing – they tended to keep close to their chests, using family networks, but the Chinese were born entrepreneurs and whatever legal help they needed was almost entirely connected to their passion for establishing new enterprises. Barnaby would never make his fortune arranging commercial mortgages or applying to the magistrates for a liquor licence, but he had a healthy respect for these people. They worked bloody hard for their money and one or two of the city’s Chinese restaurants offered food as good as Barnaby had ever tasted.

  Hearing a soft knock on the door, Barnaby got to his feet. The door was an inch or two ajar but when he called, ‘Come in,’ nothing happened. He crossed the room. The older of the two Chinese he’d seen in the street was standing outside in the corridor. His tunic jacket was buttoned to the neck and a pair of baggy trousers hung limply on his thin frame. He had a high forehead and a receding chin and his face carried an expression of mild detachment. Unlike the other Chinese Barnaby knew, he looked slightly bookish, a man born not to commerce but to something infinitely more academic.

  ‘Mr Zhu?’

  The Chinese accepted Barnaby’s handshake. He spoke English with great care and a certain gravity, which made him sound slightly old-fashioned. He was pleased to meet with Mr Barnaby. He’d heard some excellent reports. Unused to such a formal compliment, Barnaby found himself offering Zhu a tiny inclination of the head, almost a bow, which rather surprised him. In a matter of seconds, Zhu had set the social tone. At this rate, they’d spend the rest of the afternoon swopping courtesies.

  He stepped back into the office, inviting Zhu to take a seat. Zhu declined his offer of tea or coffee and Barnaby reached for the intercom. He told his secretary they wouldn’t need refreshments, studying Zhu while the Chinese examined the plaster rose on the ceiling. There were liver spots high on both temples but the rest of his face betrayed nothing about his age. No wrinkles, no laugh lines, nothing obvious to indicate the passage of time.