by John Harvey
While she was settling him, Cordon went downstairs. Tipping what remained of his lager down the sink, he set the kettle to boil and started opening cupboards. There was a jar of instant coffee, untroubled for some time, the granules set in a stiff rind that resisted the first taps with a spoon.
‘Decent stuff he keeps in the fridge,’ Letitia said from the doorway. ‘And there’s one of those filter things somewhere. Try the sink.’
Cordon switched on the radio as he waited for the coffee to drip slowly through. The middle of a news broadcast. The economy. Ethnic clashes in Uzbekistan. Afghanistan. Still Afghanistan. When had it all started, the first Anglo-Afghan war? Eighteen thirty-fucking-nine! Wars without fucking end. It made him angry in a way he didn’t quite understand. It all seemed so far away, another world. But then, even his own life in Cornwall seemed distant now, something seen through bottled glass, a blur. And this — threats of violence, Ukrainian gangsters, recrimination perhaps the world, the real world, was coming to him?
He found Letitia at the back of the house, smoking a cigarette. The sky above was muddy grey. Beyond the garden end the land rose up towards the cliff top and, on the far side, the sea. Dragging over two plastic chairs, he set the mugs of coffee down on uneven ground.
Letitia was staring off into the middle distance, shapeless in those shapeless clothes, scarcely any make-up on her face, no longer young. Despite everything, Cordon thought, she had some desperate kind of beauty. Beyond looking. Some steeliness; resilience, despite everything.
He wondered if this Anton saw the same.
The mother of his child.
His son.
I doubt if he could give a flying fuck.
Cordon wondered if that were really true.
Letitia dropped the butt of her cigarette on to the drying earth and pressed down on it with the sole of her shoe. Taking the chair next to Cordon, she picked up her mug of coffee and gave it a sniff.
‘Sugar?’
‘Two. Two and a bit extra.’
She smiled. ‘What’s that, then? Long memory or just plain luck?’
‘Copper’s instincts. Training. Every little detail.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Never know when it’s all going to come in handy.’
‘Gonna help us here, are they? Your instincts?’
‘Depends.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Last time you spoke to him, Anton, what did he say?’
‘You mean, aside from sweetheart and darling and how he loves me more than life itself?’
‘Aside from that.’
‘If he doesn’t see my ugly whore’s face within twenty-four hours, me and Danny, he’s going to send someone to come and get us.’
‘He won’t come himself?’
‘Too much like begging. Losing face. He’ll send someone. Possibly the twins.’ She grimaced. ‘Give those two bastards an excuse and they’ll slit your throat and laugh about it. Whole world’s a bloody video game where they’re concerned.’
‘You said you’d seen someone already. A car.’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure. Could have been nothing. Imagination. I don’t know. Then again, it could be someone local, someone Anton knows, repaying a favour. Brighton, maybe. He’s got contacts down there. I know. Could be that. Making sure I was still here, hadn’t done a runner, me and the kid. Letting him know.’
He looked at her, the set of her mouth. ‘You’re not going back, are you? You’ve made up your mind.’
‘No.’ Smoke drifted upwards as she lit another cigarette. ‘No, I don’t think so. Not to that.’
‘Whoever it is he sends, you think they’re going to take that laying down?’
‘About the only way they will.’
‘They’ll use force?’
‘What else?’
‘Then we should tell the police, local. They’ll have a patrol car drive by, maybe station someone outside.’
She shook her head. ‘How long for? And even if they did, the minute Anton thinks I’ve done some kind of deal with the police, that’s it. He’ll get to me, no matter what.’
She lit another cigarette. ‘I’ve been around him too long, know too much. He wouldn’t want to take that kind of a risk.’
Know what? Cordon wondered. Too much of what?
‘What could he do?’ he said.
‘Kill me. Have me killed. Take Danny. And you wouldn’t be able to stop him. Even if you tried.’
Cordon started to speak, but she laid a finger across his lips.
‘Listen, it was good of you to come. Daft, but …’ She shook her head. ‘You’re not a bad bloke, for a copper, specially. But this … this isn’t dealing with druggies in the bus station down by the harbour; out looking for someone lost on the moors or hauling bodies back out of the surf. This is something else, Cordon. Another world. Let it go.’
29
Afternoon turned evening. The temperature dropped, reminding them it was winter still. Clifford Carlin went into town for fish and chips and brought them back wrapped in pages from the local paper.
St Leonards man narrowly escapes being first in Britain to die of snake bite since 1975.
Petula Clark president of Hastings Music Festival.
Carlin hadn’t known she was still alive.
He decanted the food on to plates, offered salt, vinegar, tomato sauce. Buttered bread. Poured mugs of tea. Even lukewarm, the chips retained some bite, the cod flakey inside its batter and pearly white. Danny ate with his fingers, despite his mother’s attempts to get him to use a fork.
Before they’d finished eating, Carlin went over to the record player and slipped a nearby album from its sleeve. Jazzy piano, smooth voice, banks of strings.
‘Christ,’ Letitia said, ‘can’t we get through just one meal without you making us listen to that old junk?’
‘Charlie Rich,’ Carlin said, unrepentant. ‘The original Silver Fox.’
‘You don’t fuckin’ say.’
‘Mum,’ Danny piped up, ‘you said a naughty word.’
‘Just shut it and eat your chips.’
Cordon excused himself, went out into the garden to make his call. Kiley’s voice, when he answered, was slightly breathless, as if he’d been hurrying up several flights of stairs.
‘Jack,’ Cordon said, ‘I need a favour.’
‘Not going to turf me out of my bed again, are you?’
‘No, not that.’
‘Where are you now, anyway? Back down in Cornwall?’
‘Hastings.’
‘I thought that was over.’
‘Yes, well …’
‘Okay, out with it. What do you want?’
‘These famous connections of yours. You don’t know anyone in — I’m not sure what it’d be — Serious and Organised Crime, maybe? Someone involved in keeping tabs on criminals from Eastern Europe operating over here.’
Kiley gave it a moment’s thought. ‘I might have, why?’
‘I need someone to check a name for me.’
‘That’s all?’
‘For now.’
‘Let’s have it, then.’
‘Kosach. Anton Oleksander Kosach.’
‘Say it again slowly.’
Cordon did. Kiley wrote it down.
‘Russian?’ Kiley asked.
‘Ukrainian.’
‘Okay, leave it with me. I’ll get back to you soon as I can.’
‘I owe you one, Jack.’
‘A pint or two when I see you.’
‘Done.’
Cordon heard the click of a lighter and saw Letitia in the doorway, watching.
‘Girlfriend?’
‘Work.’
‘This time of night?’
‘Just checking in. Making sure the neighbourhood’s being properly policed in my absence.’
‘And is it?’
‘Even the seagulls behaving themselves.’
Letitia nodded and went back inside.
Cordon decided on a walk around the block,
a couple of blocks; before he knew it, almost, he was down at the sea road, the shore. Fishermen here and there on the shingle: standing, some of them, feet firmly planted, legs splayed; others seated on small canvas chairs, two or three lines each. One of them whistling quietly to himself. The wink and blur of cigarettes.
He tugged the collar of his jacket up against the wind, felt the round hardness of pebbles beneath his feet. Anton and Letitia. Letitia and Anton. He’d known couples where the woman had left and taken the children with her; just threatening to leave, sometimes that was enough. Some men threw up their arms and said good riddance, some cried; some, a few, arranged to meet on neutral territory, talked it all through, who and how to share, who to pay. And then there were others. Men for whom leaving was a direct assault, a challenge to their power, what they saw as their rights, their self-esteem.
Leave me, they said, and I’ll take the kids, strap them in the car and drive us all off the cliff edge into the sea. Leave me and I’ll kill myself, I swear it. Let you live with that on your conscience the rest of your lousy life.
One man he knew, a trawler owner out of Newlyn, when his wife left him, painted her name in letters a metre high on walls up and down the town, the name and the word WHORE in brightest red alongside. And when she came back six months later, penitent, ashamed, begging forgiveness, he beat her within an inch of her life and threw her out again.
He’ll kill me, Letitia had said. Have me killed.
Cordon could see the lights from the amusement arcades along the front, the distorted sounds of Chicory Tip from the early seventies. ‘Son of My Father’.
Time to be heading back.
Danny was long in bed, fast off; Carlin had disappeared up to his room. Letitia was sitting, curled up, at one end of the settee, a bottle of wine on the small table close by, a glass in her hand. The television was switched on, the sound low, some programme about old England by the look of things, church spires, market halls, baptismal fonts, an earnest young man gesturing enthusiastically as he mugged for the camera.
‘Thought you’d sodded off,’ Letitia said. ‘Done a runner.’
‘Sorry to disappoint.’
‘Here,’ she slid the bottle towards him. ‘Get yourself a glass, have a drink.’
He did as he was told.
She tucked her feet up tighter beneath her. ‘Have a seat.’
‘You watching this?’ Cordon asked, pointing at the set.
‘Not so’s you’d notice.’
Cordon switched it off with the remote; sat at the opposite end of the settee, legs crossed at the ankle. Letitia had replaced her father’s old sweater with something of her own, softer, closer fitting, a skirt instead of blue jeans. Let down her hair.
‘You’ve not heard anything?’ Cordon asked. ‘Anton, no calls?’
A shake of the head.
‘Maybe he’s calmed down, seen sense.’
‘Yeah. An’ pigs can fly.’
The curtains had been pulled most of the way across, leaving space enough for the lights of the odd passing car to shimmer through. Quiet enough to hear the occasional cat cry, the footsteps of someone out walking their dog. Cordon thought he could hear, lifted on the wind, distant and indistinct, the occasional taint of music from the town, but he was never sure.
He reached down and refreshed Letitia’s glass and then his own.
‘Anton,’ he said. ‘You want to tell me about him?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. Anything. You and him, for instance.’
‘What? Our romance? How true love found Letitia at last? Rich Ukrainian sweeps her off her feet like Cinder-fucking-rella.’
‘If you like.’
‘Fuck off, Cordon.’
Cordon shrugged, took another drink.
‘You want to know the truth?’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘Up to you.’
‘The truth is this, this story, I’m the Ugly Sister, right? Running some knocking shop in Streatham. Nursemaid and matron to scabby little whores from every godforsaken bit of Eastern Europe, selling their skinny arses to send money back home an’ pay off what they owe. Forever bitching and bloody complaining. Not that I blame them.
‘Anyway, one night there’s this big party. Anton’s there, guest of honour, fifty-pound notes spilling out of his pockets like bloody Kleenex, everyone kowtowing to him like he’s something special. Coke. Champagne. Enough pills to start a fucking Salsa band. The girls putting on some kind of lezzy sex show. Anton, he’s got the pick of the crop, and fuck if he don’t choose me. “What I want’s a real woman,” he says. “Not some kid, doesn’t know what it’s all about.” Crap like that. As if I’ve got any choice. So, anyway, I show him, don’t I? Not a lot to lose. Wants to see what a real woman can do, why not?’
She grinned, remembering, enjoying the discomfort on Cordon’s face.
‘Only sent for me again after that, didn’t he? Couple of nights later. Bloody great limousine. Roses in his hotel room. Coke laid out on the pillow like them little chocolates the maid leaves, hoping for a tip. More fucking champagne. Wants me to blow him in front of the mirror while he pretends to slap me around. No pain, no gain, right?’
A quick glance at Cordon to see how he’d take that, make sure he was paying close enough attention.
‘After all that palaver, instead of chucking me out he says he wants me to go and work for him. Reckons he can trust me. This place in Feltham, out near the airport, that’s where it was first. Hostel. Sort of. Finsbury Park came after. Asylum seekers, that’s what it was, mostly. Little more than kids, some of them. A lot of them. They’d stay there a few weeks, month maybe, then move on.’
‘Move on where?’
‘I don’t know.’
Cordon looked at her until she looked away.
‘Move on where?’
‘I don’t know. Wherever he wanted them. Could be anything. Anywhere. Anything he had a hand in. Him and his brothers, the guys they used to hang around with. Pizza parlours, that’s where a lot of ’em went, this chain of pizza parlours, all across the fuckin’ Midlands. Working twelve-hour fuckin’ shifts. Some, they went off to cannabis factories, worked there, least that’s what I heard. Never knew for sure.’
‘And brothels? Massage parlours? How about those? Like the one in Streatham.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And that was okay?’
‘Okay? How d’you mean?’
‘Helping pimp these people — kids, isn’t that what you said? Little more than kids. Pimping them into prostitution.’
‘Christ, Cordon! Listen to yourself, will you? When did you take holy fucking orders?’ She brought her glass down hard against wood and the wine splashed up over her hand. ‘Let me tell you about those girls, yeah? Over here from Bela-bloody-Rus or somewhere, illegal, broke, barely speak half a dozen words of the fucking language, it’s either lay back and spread your legs or get sent home and freeze your arse off on some autobahn, looking to suck off lorry drivers for the price of a salami and a loaf of bread.’
Cordon was slowly shaking his head. ‘Social Services, then, that’s what it was? What you were doing? Picking up the slack from the local council. Part of what’s his face’s Big Society?’
‘Sod off, Cordon, you sarcastic bastard.’
‘Yes, right, fine.’
He got as far as the window, lifting back the curtain to look out. The street lamp nearest to the house was no longer working. Lights were still showing faintly, here and there along the street; the darkened silhouettes of parked cars. Then, deep in the shadows, a movement. Cordon tensed, uncertain. Someone local, she’d said, a possibility, someone he’d used before.
He looked again: there was nothing.
His imagination.
The boy whimpered in his sleep and as Cordon turned, Letitia got to her feet.
No further sound, she sat back down.
‘Danny,’ Cordon said, with a glance towards the stairs. ‘You and Anton, having a
child together, that seems like something serious.’
Letitia reached for her cigarettes.
‘Once I was there, working, Feltham, things running smoothly, I didn’t see him for weeks at a time. One of his brothers, sometimes; Parlo usually. Checking up. Then, when he did come by, Anton, sometimes he’d ignore me, part of the furniture, sometimes not.’
Smoke lingered at the corners of her mouth.
‘One of those times, I got careless.’ She smiled a rueful smile. ‘Got myself knocked up. Okay, I thought, stupid cow. Termination. Not the first time, likely not the last. Made the mistake of saying something and it got back to him. And, course, when he learns it’s a boy, he’s bloody beside himself. Next thing you know he’s waving flowers, making promises, threatening what he’ll do if I abort his child. Sets me up in a flat he’s got in Pimlico and insists on this gynaecologist with umpteen letters after his name and fingers like spiders. Soon as Danny’s born and we’re out of hospital, he takes us into this place of his outside London. Down in Surrey. Like a bloody mansion, i’n it? Swimming pool, Jacuzzis, the whole bit. Woods all around.’
She set down her cigarette, sipped some wine.
‘So there we are, we’re living together, right? Two, three months it’s like fucking paradise. Then he starts getting bored, you can tell. Bored with me, bored with the kid. Half the time now he’s not there, and when he does come home, four in the fucking morning, I can smell these other women all over him. First I tell myself I don’t care, but then I realise all I am’s a fucking nursemaid and housekeeper, so I try and have it out with him and he loses it, each time I try and talk to him about it, he loses it …’
‘He hits you.’
‘He loses it and wants to throw me out, but there’s Danny, and by this time he’s crawling around, bumping into things, breaking things. In the end he suggests I go and look after this place in Finsbury Park, take Danny with me till he can go to nursery. For a time, this is fine. Finsbury Park’s a dump, the house is filthy, falling apart. But at least it’s calmer. Anton’s — well, Anton’s being really nice again. Charming.
‘Then things start to go wrong. I don’t know the ins and outs, so don’t ask, never did. Some kind of dispute, that’s all I know. Business. Anton and me, we have this furious row. So bad, I’m frightened — for the first time, truly frightened. I lost it, totally lost it and did a runner, an’ he sent some of his people after me. Dragged me back.’
