by John Dalton
‘Come on now, man. Drink this up, you’re getting there, you’re nearly with us.’
But it was the best part of half an hour before the white face became tinged with colour and blurred eyes began to roam around the room.
‘Sh . . . sh . . . sh-shit.’
‘Yeh, right. Short, but I guess profound.’
‘W-Where a-am I?’
Frederick moved over from propping up the cooker and put his big face close to Jerry’s. ‘My yard, man, you rememba? You got so friggin piss up las night me had to practic’ly carry you home.’
‘Yeh . . . F-Frederick.’
‘Dat’s it, an dere’s dis guy here, an investigator, im want to talk to you, man.’
It was a strain on Des’s patience but eventually Jerry did fully join the world again, a world of sunshine outside and blackness within. He gradually began to tell Des of how keen he’d been on Mary, of how their relationship had been ‘sort of crazy’ but good. It was a stuttering and half-garbled account with Jerry’s eyes fretting all around the room.
‘The really sh-shit th-thing . . .’
His words got stuck for a long time on that one but eventually Des got it sussed out. The really shit thing was that Jerry was in the house at the time of the attack. It was lunchtime and he was still in bed, half-stoned, half-asleep dreams swirling around his head. He sort of heard some noises but they never got through the reveries he indulged in. It was probably an hour later when Jerry crawled out of bed, went squinting to the fire escape and lit up his first fag.
‘Shit, I always f-feel q-queasy on the f-fire escape, b-but I went d-down expecting Mary to c-come out of the kitchen s-smiling. And then I saw the b-broken rail and I l-looked d-down –’
‘That must’ve been really bad.’
‘I – I almost f-fell myself . . . wish I had.’
‘Wouldn’t have helped, Jerry. Just more tragedy.’
‘God, I sh-should’ve b-been awake! I c-could’ve helped her!’
‘You still can, Jerry, that’s the thing, and you’re going to do it. There must be something you know that can help finger the guy who did it.’
The coffee count was getting into double figures. Frederick had to nip out to replenish the fags. Half a slice of toast got nibbled away. Des explained his interest in the case and began to outline some of the things he’d found out. This seemed to help Jerry. A story to focus on. Actions that aimed for redemption. A firmer gaze entered his eyes and his shaking finally ceased. Des told him about the scrap of a photo he’d found and the talk that Mary had done a dodgy job. The comprehension within Jerry then became almost acute. Sharp eyes focused on Des.
‘I – I’ve s-seen those photos!’
‘You have?’
‘Some old g-geezer having it off with a p-pro, d-doggy style.’
‘You recognize them?’
‘N-No, b-but, yeh I remember n-now. It was C-Claudette. M-Mary said she met her down the L-Lime.’
‘And the guy?’
‘I think I’ve still g-got a couple of her prints. She showed them m-me at m-my flat and they j-just g-got shoved somewhere.’
‘Jerry – you can do something, and right now. Get your coat, for fuck’s sake!’
The sunshine was still glorious but for Jerry it must have been insulting. He cowered in the corner of the car as Des set off for Ivor Road. There was no conversation and Des tried not to force it. He reckoned he knew about loss, not as bad, but something of what Jerry was going through. In five minutes Des was back under the trees, watching out for tennis balls and avoiding wobbly bikes. The cops still had the house cordoned off, though there was no one on guard. Des and Jerry slipped under the tape, unlocked the front door and went up darkened stairs.
‘G-Guess I’d’ve had t-to c-come back today anyway.’
‘The cops’ll want to give you the third degree.’
‘S’pose I could be a s-suspect.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t rule you out.’
‘Thanks . . .’
The flat was sparsely furnished, though there was clutter enough at the edges of the rooms with books and magazines precariously piled. Jerry vaguely stared at them.
‘I d-dunno . . .’
‘You’ve got to find them, Jerry. They could be crucial.’
‘Er, I w-was on the sofa and . . .’
With fidgety fingers, Jerry began to turn over the books and magazines on one particular pile.
‘There was this other f-funny scene t-too.’
‘Yeh?’
‘M-Mary, she had a one-night stand with this g-guy who k-kept asking if she t-took dirty p-pictures.’
‘You know who he was?’
‘Can’t remember, b-but he had a f-finger missing from one hand.’
‘Won’t be many guys like that.’
Jerry stopped searching for a moment. ‘I feel f-funny, you know, about out there.’
Des followed the movement of his head. Through a door, he could see the kitchen and the fire escape beyond.
‘Perhaps you should go back to Frederick later.’
‘W-Wait, g-got it, this is the stuff!’
Des sat in silence looking at the two photos for a long time. It could be, he thought, that these were the cause of two murders. Two lousy shots of a guy indulging in whim or fantasy. Des didn’t think they were particularly shocking, even though he recognized the faces. Dirty thoughts made real, dirty thoughts everyone has. But such is hypocrisy. Dirt found out is crime. It’s crime that leads to greater crime which makes the dirt more guilt-ridden and cloaked in secrecy. He suddenly remembered his own stupidity, the red balloon madness when he went hunger-driven into the night. Des sighed. Well at least he’d put a face to the arse he’d been chasing.
‘Y-You know who the g-guy is?’
‘Sure, don’t you?’
‘N-No.’
‘God, man, don’t you read the papers?’
‘T-Too right I d-don’t.’
‘This lunging stag here, Jerry, this rutting prick is none other than Sir Martin Wainwright.’
‘Er, think I’ve heard the n-name.’
‘Jesus! The guy’s a bigwig businessman: car components, property development and all that shit. But he’s high profile, this guy, spends his pocket money pushing for withdrawal from Europe and true independence for our beloved nation. His friggin face is never out of the papers.’
‘Oh f-fuck . . .’
‘Look, I’m gonna have to have these, yeh? This is important stuff, could get Claudette’s and Mary’s killer.’
But Jerry Coton seemed to have stopped listening. He dismissed the photos with a wave of his hand and slumped down onto the sofa. He gave the far wall of the room a venomous glare. Des slipped the photos beneath his shirt and made ready to leave.
‘Don’t tell anybody, huh? You don’t know anything about them. These snaps, they attract death as surely as death attracts vultures.’
Jerry continued staring at the wall.
‘You OK there?’
‘God, I w-wish I c-could kill the bastard!’
* * *
Jerry took to the streets. It wasn’t as if he wanted to be there, but home had lost its secure veneer, home had split open and left brains on the floor. He had no trouble walking away until he realized that the streets might be equally risky. Snooping eyes and damned pigeons. Panic whiteouts beneath dripping trees. But as he walked briskly on, he knew he would probably be immune. All that aching within, all that nausea, it brought a compulsion strong enough to resist spooky streets and lamp posts looming like sinister birds. He headed for the emptier places of the city, away from shops, cluttered stalls and the claustrophobia of suburbia. Like an animal in flight, Jerry went for wasteground and the empty acres of expressways where no one walked and people sped past, anonymous as flies. He found himself on Camp Hill. A six-lane highway that swept down through brick factories and onwards to glittering office towers. Jerry stopped and stared.
‘Nothing to d-do with m-
me . . .’
He felt completely alone then. The moving machines became almost invisible, a blur of sound, a background drone within the morphology of the landscape. He was on the edge of a cliff looking down at the scenery. Human structures had become weird geology. The city was a plateau of rutted stone. He sat down on a wall and all the lousiness he felt began to overwhelm him. One of those times. Deep blues. No jobs, friends or prospects. Body abused and beginning to overheat. Self-pity awash with seediness. And inside, like a balled claw gripping his guts, there was the broken balustrade and the black horizon below. This was the place he’d seen, the place of death, and he was horrified. Jerry could not look down there again; he didn’t dare consider his own demise. But from the insular broodings that the fucked-up Jerry indulged in, a kind of suicide did arise. Jerry wasn’t going to be Jerry any more. With ingenuity born of necessity, like a ghost stepping from a corpse, a new person eventually stood up from the seated figure and walked off towards the rutted plain. Discernibly, this person was no different. He had the same hangdog looks and shambling gait. But there was light glimmering somewhere in the vacant eyes. Two faint lights of purpose projected towards a dim horizon. One light for a name yet to be found. Another, bitter and vengeful, for a half-realized love wrenched away.
16
There were no tamarisk trees near the base of Cofton Tower and not the slightest trace of a beach. A few litter-swamped shrubs and the rain-washed lines of builder’s sand were all it had to offer. But Des was not too disheartened. The job was going well, he had news enough to satisfy a hungry Bertha. He walked briskly through the sunshine and up to the main entrance. The stinking lifts were given short shrift. Des was up the stairs in no time and knocking on Bertha’s door.
‘Well, mister, I reckon I’ve missed you.’
Before Des had time to cross the threshold, Bertha had her arms around him and was rubbing up close. It was awkward. All that intimacy out in the cold, impersonal hall. And Des knowing he wanted the impersonal but was being pulled in deep.
‘Easy now, Bertha, I’ve only just got here.’
‘You mean you’re not glad to see me?’
‘No, but, you know . . .’
Des reciprocated without much feeling, or rather he did so disregarding the lust that was beginning to stir. With fondling hands, he guided Bertha into pink frilliness and got her down on the sofa.
‘So how come you’re so hot to see me?’
‘Come on, several hungry nights have passed.’
‘I’m surprised you’re not pissed off.’
Des plonked a few kisses on Bertha’s cheeks and wished he hadn’t. He wiped the make-up off and tried to work out what was going on in her eyes.
‘I’ve learned you need a long lead, and that’s all right, as long as you come back and give me my due,’ she told him.
‘That’s what I’m here for.’
Before Bertha had a chance to pull him back down into a clinch, Des eased the photos out from beneath his shirt. This was his strategy. Divert attention and get back to strictly business.
‘You might want to prepare yourself for these.’
‘What are they?’
‘Your daughter at work, I’d guess you’d say.’
‘Oh God . . .’
The photos had their effect. Bertha sat on the sofa all straightened out with her skirt down to her knees. She didn’t touch or look at Des but silently stared with damp eyes at the ridiculousness of sex. Des began to feel sorry for her yet again. This was no memory a mother needed. This was wildlife safari, copulation and death on the rutted plain.
‘When you see it like this . . .’
‘Yeh, nothing special in one way, but in this context, awful. I’m sorry.’
The lousiness that Des suddenly felt spread quickly. He began to think about the last time he handed over photos and posh Rebecca’s quivering chin. Images worse than words, worse than witnessing infidelity. These were mere fragments of truth, compressed, ambivalent and haunting. And Des could’ve been the one to snap Claudette, a seedy little snooper out to break people’s hearts. Fuck it, that Irish git Liam was right; we should photograph the night.
‘I guess I’ve seen worse in my life,’ Bertha lamely muttered. ‘So, go on, tell me, who’s the man?’
‘Sir Martin Wainwright.’
‘Jesus! I thought I knew the face.’
‘Couldn’t get anyone much bigger in the city.’
‘So Claudette and maybe this Gary Marlow thought they’d make a bundle.’
‘Could be, though someone else could be involved. Maybe someone else set up the session and found out what was going on.’
‘And do we know who this might be?’
‘Not yet. The boyfriend of the dead photographer reckons it might be a guy with part of a finger missing. That ring a bell?’
‘N-No . . .’
‘Then of course there’s your ex, Ross Constanza. He beat the shit out of Vin St James just because Vin had the nerve to be suspicious.’
‘Huh, that’s Ross for you.’
‘So, what do you think then, Bertha?’
She seemed to be struggling. Fingers writhing around the hem of her dress, eyes burning the carpet. When she spoke, she sounded too cool.
‘I think you’re doing well, Des. We now know why, and you’re going to find out who, right?’
‘I’m on my way.’
Des didn’t get very far. It was Bertha’s eyes that did it. All that pain and defiance that wouldn’t turn away, that wouldn’t blink or deferentially look down. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook. Des felt quite detached at that moment. He knew he shouldn’t, and mostly didn’t want to. The job could soon be complete; he wanted a cheque and an uncluttered goodbye. He could also see that Bertha was no slave to her emotions. Temporary needs, her own sensual power and the cash made Des more than just a hired hand. He didn’t know why, but Bertha had to have him doubly tied. But then his thoughts turned full circle. Shit, she was having a bad time and Des didn’t feel much better. Comfort had to be grabbed wherever it came in the cold city where the only horizons are those in strangers’ eyes. And so seedy photos fell to the floor and new calls of hunger were heeded. Clothes ripped off in haste. Worn flesh grappled with.
* * *
The weather had changed. The wind was up and large white clouds were bundling across the sky. Bertha watched their distorted movement in the mirrored glass of the Hyatt as she sat in City Square waiting for Paddy Conroy. It seemed to her a strange place to meet, but Paddy had been adamantly against going to a pub. Still trying to keep off the sauce, or maybe it was just too intimate, thought Bertha. Paddy did have an experiential edge over Des McGinlay. She looked around the empty brick spaces and struggled to light up a fag. The buffeting wind and the comforting cigarette seemed to sum up her mood. Comfort that she still had Des on board and proof near at hand. But a disturbing swirl of feeling too, as she thought once more of the photo and Ross Constanza’s four-fingered hand, which was surely somewhere behind it. It didn’t seem a question of old anger but one of profound grievance in the here and now. But Bertha tried to keep those feelings back. She knew she needed a plan and a cool mind to carry it out. Paddy Conroy planted his sturdy backside down next to her.
‘You’ve got a bloom to your cheeks there, Bertha.’
‘It feels more like frostbite, you arsehole.’
‘Just being courteous.’
‘Sounds like that woman has got you tied up in knots.’
‘It’s for my own good. I had a stroke a while back.’
Paddy was wearing a crumpled cream suit and a bright blue shirt that was stretched tight against his gut. He sought to smooth the thin strands of hair he had left but eventually gave up. Bertha didn’t think he was a patch on Des.
‘So what are these developments you spoke of, Bertha?’
‘It goes something like this, Paddy. Ross has built up this business of providing tarts to high-class punters. Now, one of these high
-class punters got set up and was put in a very compromising position. Well, you know Ross and his extreme solutions. He’s been trying to murder his way out of trouble and it hasn’t come off.’
‘How come you know about this?’
‘I’ve got a guy working for me. We’ve got the compromising information and near enough proof against Ross.’
‘Is this to do with Claudette’s death?’
‘You knew?’
‘Didn’t like to say anything when you came round that time but . . . I’m really sorry, Bertha.’
‘Ross was in at the birth and in at the death.’
‘I guess you’ve got cause enough to want him fixed.’
Bertha looked at the distorted clouds and the windswept square. She shivered with disquiet.
‘It seems like it’s everything, Paddy. What he did to me then, what he’s done to me now and what he’s deprived me of in between.’
‘So what have you got in mind?’
Bertha paused briefly. ‘Well, it wouldn’t do just to bump him off, or get him nicked.’
‘Hah, that’s no easy task, Bertha.’
‘I’ve got someone in mind who might do it, this guy who works for me, but I was thinking first that we should try and take the business off him.’
‘You mean kind of blackmail him out of it?’
‘Why not? If we’ve got him linked to murder . . .’
‘It won’t be easy.’
‘. . . And I’ve got some cash. With your help we could set ourselves up with a nice number.’
‘I don’t know. It’s nice in theory, but in practice – well think of the man, Bertha. You know him well enough.’
Bertha felt a stab of anger. Paddy had gone all soft, tucked away in the suburbs and wanting the quiet life, no doubt holding on till some friggin pension becomes due.
‘Come on, Paddy, you want the guy, there’s money in it too. Those cheap sauna joints you run can’t pay that much.’
‘So what do I have to do?’
‘Nothing. I’ll do the doing but I need you as a backer.’
