The City Trap

by John Dalton

‘This is it, isn’t it, Errol? Like you get your fat pay cheque every month no matter what you do, catch the crims or no. But me? Jesus, they should privatize the police and bring in payment by results. Professional cops and vice kings? Cut out the cosy status quo I say!’

  ‘You don’t believe that bollocks, do you?’

  ‘Ner, just jealous.’

  ‘Look, Des, we go way back and I’m happy to help, but you gotta go careful on this. You’re sorta green, man, and you got no back-up, no place to hide, an if it do turn out local . . . you know what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yeh, well I guess I have been a bit don’t-give-a-shit reckless lately.’

  ‘So I see . . . and how is Miranda?’

  On his way back to Argent Street, Des felt that the bubble in the spirit level was getting centred once more. He didn’t know what kind of trouble he was driving into, but the fact that he was driving made him feel he was on the mend. Besides, one problem could possibly be solved. Errol had said he would have words with Miranda. Pull the wool about Des being useful to police investigations which could be seriously harmed by a court case. And Des could even pay for the windscreen now and throw in a few extra bob for compensation. Just get her quarantined out of my mind. Concentrate on work and I’ll be a happy man. Ha, ha. If only . . .

  * * *

  If only . . . It was the question that sometimes haunted Vin St James. That letter when he was seventeen from Eustace, his dad.

  Dear Vincent

  We are settle now an doin well and want for you to come to England and be wid you folk. We have nice little house to keep we warm in winter an I have jus got me firs car . . .

  Vin gave off a bitter smile as he parked outside the Conference Cars showroom. Yeh, if only. He maybe wouldn’t have known so much about money and all the fancy trimmings of ‘civilization’ but shit, a country boy without pressure might be a decent thing to be. Vin carefully concealed his knife and then gave his short hair a smooth as he looked in the rear-view mirror. The grim expression of his mouth said I ain’t neva gonna give up. That was the way it had to be, but somewhere inside, Vin wasn’t so sure. He suddenly felt weary as he got out of the car and sauntered as coolly as he could up to Ross Constanza’s domain.

  The road outside was its usual daytime busy. Half a mile up the long straight was the Inland Port and every few minutes a container lorry trundled up or down. Vin stood looking out of the showroom window and wondered whether Ross had a design in siting his business there. Specialist cars, high-class whores, why not import/export too? The one dat succeed, dem is always the arsehole, thought Vin as he heard the clatter of leather shoes coming towards him. Ross Constanza wasn’t a big guy and he looked the car salesman in his grey suit and pink striped shirt. He even feigned the chummy banter that such gits give off which makes you feel you’ve just had an encounter with an ice cream. But it was all show. Vin knew the stories. The junkie who lost a finger in Kathmandu. The hard-case street-fighter who got off with manslaughter over a territorial spat. The self-made wheeler-dealer who had the edge on everyone. Vin felt his stomach churn.

  ‘Long time no see, our Vincent.’

  Ross’s voice echoed in the showroom. Glass vibrated behind Vin as lorries trundled past. It was disconcerting, as was the sight of big Gus, Ross’s bodyguard.

  ‘Don’t take it personal, eh Vince, but Gus is going to polish up the Bentley here while we chat. Call it standard procedure, eh.’

  ‘Guess so . . .’

  As Vin stood with his back to the glass, Ross propped himself against the Bentley and sullen Gus began to smooth away. There was five foot between them and it seemed it had to stay that way. Ross’s dark eyes beckoned Vin to speak.

  ‘Yeh, glad you could see me, man.’

  ‘You know me, Vincent. Don’t like to forget my roots.’

  ‘Well, it a tricky subject, you know, an me ain’t expressin no doubt bout you, Ross, but me worried, man, an felt me had to see you.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your girl, Vince. D’you need any help, like with the funeral or something?’

  ‘No, man, it like . . . me can’t figure it out, you know, how she got kill. Sometin ain’t right bout it . . .’

  ‘That’s bound to be, mate, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘Yeh, but, me need to know sometin, right, to put me mind at res, like me owe it to me an she.’

  ‘What’re you trying to say, Vince?’

  ‘Shit, me jus wanna know whether she was two-timin me, out graftin on the side, mebbe wuckin feh you.’

  ‘Vincent, come on, I’m not into that and you should know it. Jesus, man, you think I might use street girls, ten-quid blowjobs and all that crap? Come on, what is this I’m standing next to, eh? A bleeding Bentley, Vince!’

  ‘Me a tell you, Ross, don’t tek offence. Dere was rumour, dat is all, some a dese rich shits dey like a common tart an, well man, me jus wanna know whether Claudette she was fuckin me aroun.’

  ‘She probably was, Vincent, but not with me. I get to hear the rumours too, pal, and the way I heard it, your loving woman had another fella, like she must have had one hell of an appetite that bird.’

  Two lorries thundered past. The road, the glass, his whole back seemed to shudder as Ross’s words echoed away across the flash, second-hand cars.

  ‘You kiddin me, man.’

  ‘That’s what I heard, mate.’

  ‘Shit, me can’t . . . it ain’t. Shit . . .’

  Vin went away stunned. He barely knew he was walking to his car. All he could feel was a strange void, a straining emptiness that he knew was about to collapse. He had been conned! As he got into his car, he didn’t see Ross and Gus looking at him through sky-reflecting glass. Even without lorries thundering past, he had no way of knowing what Ross said.

  ‘You better get Scobie onto this, Gus. Give it a few days, yeh, and don’t make it obvious. Scobie can pick a fight or something, but our Vincent, well, he could do with some disability benefit.’

  * * *

  So Des was back in the doorway of the Lime Tree, just like that night when the rain made puddles in Claudette’s eyes. But Des wasn’t feeling quite so panicky. He was on the job now. He had some kind of protection. The last time he’d spent any time there was at one of Stevie Kitson’s dos and he’d been with Miranda. Bad scene. He’d kind of conned her down with overtures of ‘let’s be friends’ but really he was trying to persuade her back to him. It had ended in shouts and tears. So Des kept away. The Lime Tree was the ‘Slime’ from then on.

  But now he was going through the well-worn doors again, scanning the nicotine walls and coming face to face with brassy Eileen, the landlady queen.

  ‘Well, Jesus Mary, look what the cat dragged in.’

  ‘You’re looking as gorgeous as ever, Eileen, like you’ve just come in from milking the cows.’

  ‘I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment, Des, though I think it’s better than being a bedraggled mouse.’

  ‘Certainly is. So how’s it going? Still the cops’ favourite mother figure?’

  ‘Come to my bosom still.’

  ‘And what a bosom.’

  ‘And out of bounds to you. Still whisky, is it, Des?’

  ‘Yeh. Is Bertha Turton around, d’you know?’

  ‘Surely, just around the corner.’

  Des was rather surprised. Bertha looked different. She wore a long floral dress and make-up that had somehow dissolved the pale weariness of her face. Bertha was dolled up and Des was quite impressed.

  ‘Bit early in the day, isn’t it, to be thinking of going out on the town?’

  ‘I was pissed off. A bit of war paint can make you feel better.’

  ‘Yeh, little tricks for depressed hearts, eh.’

  ‘God, don’t go on like that, Des.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re definitely in then?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘OK, but I want to be kept up-to-date, right? And I want to know eve
rything you find out.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Des eased himself round to the seat next to Bertha. He took a whiff of perfume and started to feel strange. Being so close to such a display of femininity was a distraction. Des strained to remain focused.

  ‘So, how about we start with Vin?’

  ‘Small-time trash, Des. He’s a likeable guy and I mean he really cared for our Claudette but, you know, he’s a bit slow on the uptake, got no drive. Vin just wants to drift and Claudette hated that.’

  Des was vaguely aware of a similar experience but he brushed it aside. ‘No big arguments or bones of contention?’

  ‘Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t know for sure. I have to say, Claudette was no angel. She was headstrong and not a little sly.’

  ‘I wonder where she got that from?’

  ‘Des, come on, we were going along fine.’

  ‘Forgive me. Cynicism, it comes out every so often like an unwanted fart. So Vin isn’t out of the frame. What about other pals?’

  Bertha urged Des to check on a couple of girlfriends, but there was little else he noted. And by then Des’s mind was beginning to wander. It was over there, by the horse brasses on the wall, where they had sat. A stab of pain hit him and he shuddered. He knew he should never have seen her that last time. Places, they get covered in all sorts of things, like the hidden smells that dogs sniff. Des tried to pull himself around; he had an inkling Bertha was saying something interesting.

  ‘. . . On the game myself, God, must be twenty years ago now. So I knew the score, could tell her what a bloody fool she was but couldn’t really argue against it.’

  Des struggled for words. Bertha put a hand on his thigh and smiled.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything, luv. I’m a survivor and don’t ask for any sympathy.’

  Des noticed she had a gold ring on each finger and that her skin was beginning to close around them. He too tried to smile and began to wonder what was going on.

  ‘You still with that Miranda, then?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Ceceline said she was a stuck-up bitch.’

  ‘Ceceline would.’

  ‘Fancy something a bit more posh, did you? Satin sheets and silk pyjamas?’

  ‘It was hardly that, but why not anyway?’

  ‘Come on, Des, you’re supposed to be savvy, I bet you just got bleeding used.’

  ‘Huh, you tell me a deal where people aren’t used?’

  Bertha looked Des in the eyes, those brown bullet eyes that made him shrink. She patted his thigh before taking her hand away, and then she gave a wry smile.

  ‘You’re not so likely to be used, Des, when you’re the one who walks.’

  7

  Why Chinatown? Des found himself thinking as he drove around Small Heath looking for Vin St James. How many Chinese are there that every big city should have one? Why not Pakistanitown or Punjabville or the Azaad Kashmir quarter? What is it with these Chinese folks that the top bods in the Town Hall and the tourists just love em so much? Des was going up the Stratford Road at the time, checking out the balti houses and Islamic bookshops that lined the street. He was on the job and feeling good. It was a bit like he was seeing the city for the first time. He stopped at a set of traffic lights and got come-on eyes from an Asian girl in tight pants. ‘Yeh,’ he said with near enthusiasm as he then turned left into Golden Hillock Road and thought of minarets in fields of ripened corn. Vin hadn’t been seen at the Lime Tree for over a week. Nor had he been at the house he shared with Claudette. But Des had got a sort of lead at the Earl. A group of dope-smoking brethren suggested he try the Vine. It was Vin’s regular circuit and now Des was doing it, making straightforward progress as a prospective customer looking for a high.

  The Vine was a little bit of Kingston amid the nation states of Small Heath (one of the smallest, along with the principality of South Yemen). It was there that he struck lucky. He met Tone, one of the Iwah crew, who Des had once taught self-defence. Tone had gone down the tubes quite a lot since he’d last seen him. His face was pinched thin and there was a chemical look to his complexion. But he remembered Des and was happy to help. Out came the mobile phone. Des played it straighter this time, told Tone to mention a business deal and the name Bertha. With Tone overdoing the recommendations, Vin had to accept and he named a time and place.

  ‘Many thanks, Tone, I ought to get a mobile.’

  ‘E-ssential, man, gotta keep ahead of the game.’

  ‘Don’t it piss you off, beeping and stuff?’

  ‘Look, if me a block up me don’t hear it anyway; an if me, you know, doin it, me ansa it feh a laugh. All the res a the time it business, man.’

  ‘I guess, just like the boss of ICI.’

  ‘Yeh man, you can bet the guy im get stone an fuck im women an run im business the res a the time, jus like me.’

  ‘You could be up there, Tone.’

  ‘Me a knockin on the door, man.’

  Heaven’s door, thought Des as he got into his car and drove off to see Vin.

  It had to be sign of a paranoid man. A cul-de-sac, lost and forgotten in the arse end of town. There were a couple of derelict workshops on one side of him and the unbroken back end of a factory on the other. Des got out of the car, but could see no one else. The factory brick wall was lavishly daubed with unintelligible graffiti. Looking back at the street he’d come down, all Des could see were galvanized railings and some sort of dumping ground for dead engines behind. He kicked brick detritus aimlessly and began to wonder whether he was in a trap or just ditched once again. Then he heard the voice from behind the fence.

  ‘You ain’t carryin, are you?’

  Des turned. He couldn’t see anyone. ‘Er, no. Hey, where the hell are you?’

  A trilby then rose above the fence, followed by Vin’s worn and suspicious face.

  ‘Jesus, is this a joke?’ Des said, shuffling his feet.

  ‘Me know you, ain’t it? We done business some time in a past.’

  ‘Sure, man, you know me.’

  ‘So who you a wuckin feh?’

  ‘No one. Look, we can’t talk like this. You want to come out? I’ve got no axe to grind with you.’

  Vin continued to give Des some heavy scrutiny and then nodded his head. ‘You come to me, man. The plank wid the mark on it dere, it push through.’

  Heaving a big sigh, Des moved over, pushed and made an opening. He got a glimpse of a canal behind. It was a bit of a squeeze and when he’d finally got most of himself through, he suddenly found himself intimate with a knife.

  ‘So who you wuckin feh?’

  Finally clear of the gap in the fence, Des was now backed up against the boards. The knife was five inches from his throat. Vin looked coldly determined to keep the situation that way.

  ‘Come on, Vin, what is this?’

  ‘Who you wuckin feh?’

  It became too much. Des felt violated. He darted his head suddenly to look down the towpath. Vin’s eyes did the same and so missed the left uppercut that thundered to his jaw. Des had the knife in no time and a foot on Vin’s chest too.

  ‘You stupid bugger. I came here to talk, maybe even help you. Sod it, man, no one pulls a knife on me!’

  Vin groaned. Des stooped down, pulled Vin up and propped him against the fence. He looked around. Deserted. On one side, ancient factories. Des could see plants growing out of the crumbling walls. The towpath side was bordered by fencing and, further down, coils of razor wire. Des looked at the gloomy water and shivered with the sudden feeling of fear that he might fall in.

  ‘Shit, you pack a bleedin punch.’

  ‘So you ain’t dead, are you, Vin? I mean, do I look like I’m about to cause you grievous harm?’

  ‘Me don’t trust nuttin an no one at the moment, man.’

  ‘Just check this, right. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired to find out about Claudette’s death. All I want to do is ask you some questions, off the record, confidential, no comebacks �
� however you want it.’

  ‘Huh, waste you time, me don’t know nuttin bout it. Wish me did.’

  ‘Come on, why’re you acting so scared?’

  ‘Heat, man. Me was close to the fire, an some fucker out dere’s gonna tink me was the one wid the matches.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Course not! She jus went out to she fren. Dat’s all me know bout it till she turn up dead.’

  ‘And who was the friend?’

  ‘A tart call Pauline, but she neva went dere.’

  ‘Never went or never got there?’

  ‘Me dunno, man. Shit, me don’t even fucking care now. Me reckon the bitch she was jus shaftin me.’

  Des got a little niggle of emotion at the word shaftin. He gripped hard onto Vin’s knife and thought about giving the fence a stab.

  ‘No ideas who with?’

  ‘Me ain’t neva really hurt anyone, man, but if me knew dat . . .’

  ‘So why’re you so scared?’

  ‘Me tell you, man! The pigs, whoever did feh Claudette, shit, whoever Claudette was mixed up wid.’

  ‘You got anyone in mind?’

  ‘It ain’t the sorta ting me’d like to know.’

  Vin’s shifty eyes seemed to imply that it was the sort of thing he might know, but he didn’t want to admit it, and for sure he wasn’t going to tell Des. He stared down at the parched grass he was sitting on and left the next move up to Des. Des didn’t have one. He tried to think what to do – get heavy, get physical – but his heart wasn’t in it. Vin’s hat had come off when he’d socked him and now Des looked down at a shaven head. It looked vulnerable and tired. He sensed that maybe Vin was only out to survive and just wanted to be left alone. Des sympathized.

  ‘Shit. This place gives me the creeps,’ he said and moved towards the hole in the fence. ‘If you come up with anything you think I should know, get in touch, eh, there might be dosh in it.’

  ‘What bout me blade, man?’

  ‘I’ll throw it back over the fence.’

  And so Des squeezed out from one dump of a place and into another. He unlocked his car and then remembered the knife. He got it over the fence OK, but too well. He heard the splash but didn’t wait for the curses that were sure to follow.