Liz was out of the car now, running across the road. Jessie was trying to get to Haagen, struggling through the circle of watching drinkers. Her mouth was half open and her eyes were wide. Her head kept bobbing up and down in the crowd like someone on the point of drowning.
‘Jess!’ Liz was calling her name, quietly at first, then louder and louder still, ‘Jess! Jessie!’
Jessie had nearly made it through the scrum around Haagen. The bouncers had finished with him and laughed as they turned to each other, flexing their fingers, rubbing their knuckles, comparing notes. Miles away, in the distance, Liz could hear the wail of a police siren and the band responded with a hesitant chord or two, then a riff from the lead guitarist, and finally the start of a full-blown number.
Jessie was bent over Haagen’s fallen body. Liz knelt beside her, putting an arm around her, feeling her shiver beneath her touch. Jessie looked up at the ring of watching faces, tears pouring down her face.
‘You’ve killed him,’ she said. ‘He’s dead.’
A youth in a green singlet dropped down beside her. His fingers found the big vein in Haagen’s neck. He was alive. He was breathing. These guys knew when to stop. They weren’t that daft. Jessie looked at him, not understanding. She seemed to be in shock. She shook her head.
‘Dead,’ she repeated. ‘He’s dead.’
The police car rounded the corner in a squeal of burning rubber and Liz heard the slam of the door and the clatter of running footsteps. One of the policemen was still pulling on his hat. The crowd fell back, giving them space. The music had stopped again.
‘What happened?’
Jessie was on her feet, swaying. Her hands were covered in blood. She stared at the nearer of the two policemen then turned away. Liz put her arm around her again, guiding her gently towards the waiting car. Jessie went without complaint, needful obedience, the way a child might. Beside the car, Liz unlocked the passenger door and helped her in, half expecting the police to intervene. Pushing the door shut, she locked it. Seconds later she was behind the wheel, stirring the engine into life, checking her mirror as she accelerated away. Only at the end of the street did Jessie turn in her seat and look back.
‘They killed him,’ she whispered again. ‘He’s fucking dead.’
Hayden Barnaby sat in the Mercedes, enjoying the early-evening sunshine, looking at the Imperial Hotel. For the first time in months, he felt whole again, an abrupt return to the boundless self-confidence that had become, in so many respects, a memory. After a sequence of appalling hands, life appeared to have dealt him a winner.
In the glove box, he found a small packet of cheroots. He slipped one out and lit it, savouring the rich, bittersweet taste of the tobacco, narrowing his eyes as he studied the tall, five-storeyed pile across the road. To his surprise, it looked in better condition than he’d expected. The stucco was stained beneath holes in the guttering, and some of the larger pieces of ornamental plasterwork had seen better days, but the overall impression was still one of elegance and a wildly overstated grandeur. Tall, handsome windows in the dayrooms on the ground floor. An imposing entrance, the ornate canopy supported by fluted pillars, the structure big enough to house a revolving door. The door was chained and padlocked now but the wood panels and the brasswork were still intact and in the right hands, Barnaby thought, it could surely be restored to working order.
He gazed across at the door, remembering the noise it made if you pushed hard enough, the sigh of the runners on the polished floor, the chill on the backs of your legs as the sweep of the tall glass panes sucked in air behind you. On his seventh birthday, his father had arranged a modest family celebration at the hotel and after the jelly and ice cream he’d been allowed to play in the foyer. The porter, Mr Jones, had kept an eye open for other guests while Barnaby had treated himself to a twirl or two, pushing and pushing on the cold glass, eager to see just how fast the thing would go. After the third or fourth circuit, he’d begun to feel sick and it had been his mother, as ever, who’d come to the rescue. She’d appeared from the cocktail bar, talking to Mr Jones, and when he’d woven his way towards her across the foyer she’d opened her arms and scooped him up and called him her little hamster. At the time, he hadn’t got the joke at all but now, trying to imagine the scene, he understood exactly how prescient she’d been. Faster and faster. The little boy in the cage.
Barnaby tapped ash through the Mercedes’ open window and then got out. A broad drive swept up to the front of the hotel and he skirted the potholes before stopping and peering up. There were bedrooms from the first floor upwards and he counted the windows, multiplying by the three floors above, concluding that thirty-two rooms had a sea view. There was more accommodation at the sides and the back, of course, and he reckoned he’d been right and that the hotel had at least a hundred bedrooms.
He looked over his shoulder, down the long tree-lined expanse of Ladies’ Mile, and began to share a little of Zhu’s enthusiasm for the Imperial’s potential. From the upper floors, the view would be sensational: the big green spaces of the Common, the zig-zag of the seafront around the battlements of Southsea Castle, and beyond the wide blue expanse of the Solent, the chalk uplands of the Isle of Wight. Add to this a decent refurbishment – tasteful décor, first-class cuisine, state-of-the-art bedrooms – and the package would be irresistible. A truly world-class hotel at last. And the entire city aware of just who had helped make it happen.
Barnaby slipped a hand into his pocket and began to saunter towards an open door. Close to, the window frames on the ground floor were falling apart. He stretched across the empty flower-beds and dug at the faded paint with a fingernail, feeling the sponginess of the wood beneath. These will have to come out, he thought. All of them. He looked up again, doing the sums for the second time. Thirty-two windows. Hundreds of pounds apiece. He smiled, stepping in from the windy sunshine, wiping his feet on the soiled scrap of matting inside.
He was standing in a narrow corridor. To his right, a flight of stairs. To his left, a row of doors. He tried one. It was locked. He looked at his hand in the half darkness, then lifted it to his nose. The door handle felt sticky to the touch and his fingers smelled suddenly of stale fat. He stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up. The carpet had long gone, and the light, unvarnished wood stretched upwards to a landing on the first floor. A child stood on the landing, barefoot, dressed only in a shabby pair of jeans. He was holding a skateboard in both hands and he turned away, kneeling on the board, pushing himself along the corridor with his hands.
Nearby, a door opened and Barnaby turned to find himself looking at an enormous man in a silver shell suit. His head looked tiny on the cavernous body and Barnaby watched while he bellowed obscenities up the stairs. The noise of the skateboard came to an abrupt halt and Barnaby heard the patter of footsteps as the child ran away.
The man in the shell suit rounded on Barnaby. His feet, surprisingly small, were shod in carpet slippers.
‘Fucking kids.’ He shook his head. ‘What’s your game, then?’
Barnaby was looking into the room behind him. A new-looking computer stood on a battered desk. Beside it, a half-empty bottle of Seven-Up.
‘Just curious,’ Barnaby said mildly. ‘That’s all.’
‘Curious? In here?’ The man stepped closer. ‘Nobody’s just curious. You’ve come for a reason. Everybody does. This isn’t a fucking arcade, open to fucking anyone.’
‘No,’ Barnaby said. ‘Obviously not.’
‘So who are you, then?’ Barnaby could see him eyeing the suit, the polished Guccis, the quietly flamboyant tie. ‘DSS? Fucking benefits mob again?’
‘Again?’ Barnaby stepped back a little, giving himself a better angle on the room through the half-open door. Above the desk, beside a Sunday Sport calendar, was a wooden board with rows and rows of keys on little hooks. On the other side of the desk, on the floor, stood a small black safe. He could hear movement in the room now, a strange scuffling noise followed by a series of whimp
ers, and he raised an enquiring eyebrow.
‘Dog,’ the man in the shell suit said gruffly. ‘Big fucker. So what’s all this to you, then?’
‘I told you, I’m curious. I used to come here as a kid.’
‘Yeah?’
‘When it was … you know … a proper hotel.’
‘I bet. Fuck knows, it must have been handsome in them days.’ His face was very close now. He had a neatly trimmed beard and a single gold earring. He waved at the room behind him. ‘I’ve got pictures in there you wouldn’t believe. The olden times. Stuff we found when we moved in.’
‘You live here?’
‘I fucking own it.’
‘Mr Seggins?’
‘Yeah.’ He was frowning now. ‘You are DSS.’
‘Not at all. I’m a lawyer,’ Barnaby said. ‘I suspect we may be doing business. Does a Dr Zhu ring any bells?’
Seggins’s frown deepened. Then his hand went to his face and rubbed the pouchy skin beneath one eye, a gesture of infinite weariness.
‘Fuck me,’ he muttered, stepping back into the office. ‘The little bastard must have meant it.’
Jessie lay in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling. The bowl of oxtail soup was cooling on her mother’s lap but she shook her head again at the spoon.
‘Jess, you’ll make yourself ill, not eating.’
‘I can’t eat.’
‘You have to eat, darling. Just a mouthful or two. I’m not nagging, I promise.’
Jessie looked across at her, trying to muster a smile. They’d been back home for an hour now and the pains, if anything, were worse. Her belly churned, her bones ached, her head throbbed, and through the thin nightdress, already drenched with sweat, she could feel every wrinkle on the mattress underneath. She lay back, exhausted, regretting the strength she’d shown earlier. Haagen had scored enough for both of them. Had she said yes, had she been sensible, she could have avoided all this. No pain, no torment, just another fat dose of oblivion.
Liz was trying again with the soup, tasting it herself the way she’d done when Jessie was a kid, and Jessie watched her from what seemed to be an immense distance, deeply sympathetic. Her mum didn’t deserve any of this. She didn’t deserve a shit-filled, skagged-out daughter. She didn’t deserve the grief and hassle of not knowing what to do. Jessie tried to smile again, reaching for her mother’s hand, an expression of solidarity, and she felt the soft, ringed fingers tightening around hers. Their eyes met for a second, long enough for Jessie to begin to compose a list in her mind. Names of pubs. Names of dealers. Clues to places where, God willing, she might just score the tiny twist of brown powder that would bring all the hurting to an end. Maybe Liz cared enough to run her down to Albert Road. Maybe she could lend her the fifteen quid she needed. Maybe she’d wait across the street in the car, ready with the spoon and the lighter and something to tie around her arm. Then she’d see what it was really all about. Then she’d understand.
She got up on one elbow, a sudden clumsy movement, upsetting the bowl of soup on her mother’s lap. While Liz ran to the bathroom to hunt for a J-cloth, she got out of bed and threw off the nightdress. Shaking the creases out of her dungarees, she began to climb in, reaching over her shoulder for one of the straps, fumbling blindly with the fastener. She was still wrestling with the other strap when her mother returned. She was standing in the open doorway. She had a flannel in her hand.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’ve got to go out. You can come too.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out, I just told you.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I have to. Because …’
Jessie looked at her mother, pleading, knowing already that it was going to be tough. Abandoning the strap, she searched half-heartedly for her Doc Martens then shook her head, cursing, tormented again by the pain of it all. From Old Portsmouth to Albert Road was twenty minutes on foot. She’d find the money somehow. Borrow it, maybe. Or do a deal with one of those understanding American sailors. They were everywhere. Haagen had been chatting them up all weekend. The black ones were the nicest. They practically invented the stuff. Her mother was still blocking the doorway. ‘You’re not going out,’ Jessie heard her say. ‘You’re staying here.’
‘I have to go out.’
‘No.’
‘Please, please,’ she tried again, screaming to get the word out in one piece. ‘PLEASE.’
Liz stepped into the room and Jessie watched the blow coming in slow motion, the palm of her mother’s hand opening as it swung towards her, the meaty smack of flesh on flesh. Her fingers found her cheek. Her cheek felt hot to the touch. She began to rub it wonderingly. Then her mother’s grip, stronger than she ever remembered, was lifting her bodily backwards, pushing her onto the bed, tearing at the dungarees. She closed her eyes, resigned, helpless, half aware of the rough tug of denim on her bare skin. She could hear her mother grunting with the physical effort and then, quite suddenly, the dungarees were off and she was naked on the damp sheet, her knees drawn up, her back turned. She began to shiver again, her nose inches from the Doors poster she’d Blu-tacked to the wall all those months ago, and she wondered vaguely what had happened to Haagen, whether he was dead or not, whether she really cared. Of course she cared. Of course she did. Haagen would have stopped the pain by now. Because Haagen knew.
She rolled over onto her back, letting her mother tuck the blankets around her, grimly submitting to the busy hands. Outside, at the window, it was still daylight and a phrase drifted back to her, newly minted from her childhood.
‘Is Daddy back yet?’ she muttered. ‘Is Daddy home?’
Hayden Barnaby walked the last fifty yards to Kate Frankham’s house. The terrace was deeply shadowed in the last of the sunshine but the wind had dropped now and the air was warm. He ran up the steps to the front door, turning to watch a couple of kids playing football while he waited for an answer to his knock. At length he heard footsteps along the hall and he spun round in time to see the grin on Kate’s face as she opened the door.
She reached up, utterly natural, kissing him on the lips.
‘You,’ she said. ‘Nice surprise.’
She stood to one side and Barnaby stepped into the narrow hall, letting the smell of the place envelop him. Sunshine and flowers, he thought, and the scent of something herby from the kitchen upstairs. He looked round. Everything had changed. Different paint scheme. Different pictures on the wall. He paused by a framed poster of Barcelona. It showed a heavily ornamented building climbing into a vivid blue sky. He ran his fingers over the extravagant rococo detail.
‘Gaudi,’ he murmured. ‘Bloody wonderful.’
Kate dug him in the ribs, propelling him up the stairs, and he grinned back at her. She said she’d been brushing up her Spanish at night school. The classes were the high spot of her week.
‘In here?’
Barnaby was at the door next to the kitchen. Kate had always done most of her living in the big room at the back of the house. It was full of the favourite pieces she’d rescued from her marriage: a big old leather armchair, a couple of pine bookcases, a beautiful Indian rug and an ancient upright piano. The room looked south, over a tiny walled garden, and in the evenings there was a grandstand view of the setting sun.
Now she reached past him, opening the door, apologizing for the state of the place. She’d been out counselling clients. She hadn’t expected anyone round. Living alone turned you into a slut.
Barnaby was standing by the bow window. The sunset was perfect. Kate knelt quickly at his feet, tidying the litter of papers on the rug. A skinny black cat yawned and arched its back as Barnaby reached towards it.
‘Hey, remember me?’
The cat studied him from a distance. Kate was on her feet again.
‘I owe you a big thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you cracked it but I’m really very grateful. I mean it.’
Barnaby dismissed her thanks with a smile. The meet
ing with Wilcox already belonged to another life.
‘Everything OK?’ he enquired.
‘Better than OK I’ve got mates on that bloody paper, believe it or not. One of them phoned tonight. She tells me the story’s off the computer. Dead in the water. Sunk without trace.’
‘Is that the end of it?’
‘She says yes. She’s made some enquiries and it’s definitely been spiked.’
‘What about…’ Barnaby was still looking at the cat ‘… our young friend? In hospital?’
‘I sent him some flowers. She gave me his name.’
‘Flowers?’ Barnaby laughed. ‘What on earth did you say?’
‘Nothing. I sent them from an admirer.’
‘How old-fashioned.’
‘How cowardly, you mean. Still,’ she frowned, ‘it wasn’t me who put him there.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
Barnaby let the sentence hang in the air between them. He’d come to clear up one or two things. By far the most important was Billy Goodman. ‘It’s none of my business …’ he began.
Kate shook her head. She was barefoot and wearing tracksuit bottoms and a loose singlet. She tilted her face up to Barnaby’s. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘It is your business. I’ve made it your business by being pushy enough to beg a favour. I’m only sorry you had to waste your time like that.’
‘It wasn’t time wasted. Talking to Harry is never time wasted.’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly.’
Heaven's Light Page 10
