by John Dalton
‘I guess, in a way, I owe you one.’
‘Let’s shake on a renewed friendship.’
Paddy Conroy had cold damp hands. That hadn’t used to be true. The way it goes downhill. Bertha felt another stab of anger.
‘Fuck it, Paddy, we’re stuck and we need change!’
* * *
It was nice not to be stuffing a raucous balti down your throat, feeling the ghee clog your ventricles and wadding in naan against the chilli burn. This was civilized. A tablecloth, napkins and a cute little basket of garlic bread. Des didn’t know where to put his hands, though he secretly knew where he wanted to. Pearl sat opposite him looking glorious in the intimate peach light that shone from the walls. She wore a tight-fitting black dress with an amber brooch which matched her hair perfectly. Des looked into Chinese eyes and thought of clippers sailing the seas of Trinidad, ships from all over the world made one in those eyes. Soft bastard, he thought.
‘You want to tell me about your week?’ Pearl said.
‘Private investigator?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Not really. It’s shit-shovelling, dirty deeds and dirty thoughts and not a lot to feel proud about.’
‘You make money.’
‘Yeh, s’pose so, and it beats driving a taxi or working in a bar, but . . . well, I guess the dirt’s wearing off on me.’
‘I know the feeling.’
‘You want to talk about your work?’
‘Nah, it’s the same story. Shitty, fucked up people, a shitty pimp who screws with my mind.’
‘My, what a pair we are!’
It was an Italian restaurant, and Des went with a pasta and chicken concoction. He made an effort to eat in a composed way. So did Pearl and the result was laughter.
‘Are you trying to make out I’m really a pig?’
‘It’s obvious, Des. Go on, be yourself. Shovel it in.’
‘Of course, you went to some finishing school down south.’
‘I know all about etiquette.’
‘Etiquette. What a bloody stupid word.’
‘I like it, Des. It reminds me of manicured fingers lifting titchy china cups, rich blue-rinse ladies talking posh, you know, afternoon piano sessions and never having to clean the loo.’
‘Such people don’t need to go to the loo, they’re so refined.’
‘Don’t you think it would be nice to be so above it all?’
‘With you . . . yeh.’
Pearl gave off a sweet smile that made Des quiver down to his shoes. It was a good sensation. What the future might hold ceased to concern him.
‘Let’s imagine we’ve all the time in the world.’
‘You’re reading my thoughts, Pearl.’
‘That’s a good sign.’
‘Like just sitting here and enjoying ourselves.’
‘No dirty thoughts.’
‘Well, a few maybe, but nicely restrained.’
‘You sweet me and I’ll sweet you.’
‘Sounds fine to me . . .’
And so it went on, a languid night in a restaurant until they were kicked out at closing time. A strange feeling that Des had with Pearl of wanting but not wanting to touch her. Warm smiles in the dark as he drove her home, smiles not seen but felt. He stopped outside her house. In the streetlight, Des saw Pearl raise a thin eyebrow and smile. ‘All the time in the world, eh?’ he said, their hands briefly touching and then Pearl slipping away from him. Des didn’t drive off straight away. He bathed a little in the good vibes he felt, looked up at the streetlight glow and almost believed it was the sun.
17
You don’t phone a bigwig like Sir Martin Wainwright and expect a meeting. The only thing to do is doorstep. So, not so bright but early, Des headed out of the city to the leafy lanes where most bigwigs live, leafy lanes with no names and long sweeping drives equally anonymous. It was a disconcerting experience. No pavements, or people. Wide tilting spaces being sucked off into a cavernous sky. Dense greenery flopping down over dark places where some kind of pain lurked. Des hunched over the steering wheel and kept his eyes close to the road. It took quite a long time before he found the right discreet drive with its locked iron gates. He stared at a phone and video camera. The signs of privilege and unequal exchange. The ultimate put-down. Des wouldn’t have used the system, even if he thought he could get in. A field full of cows beckoned.
Thoughts of Pearl kept him going. Smooth amber brightly glowing in a cosy place where memories had been banned. That restrained anticipation of delight got him through the squalor of the field. The midges and thistles, the shit and blowflies, the mad-eyed cows gushing piss. He made it to the security of a copse of trees and a wooden fence topped with barbed wire. But this didn’t prove much of a barrier. An overhanging branch provided a lift up and Des soon worked his way over. Then he was crunching forecourt gravel, feeling more at home, and running his fingers along the lines of a Jaguar. He reached for the front door bell. Des kicked the mud off his shoes and smiled.
The housekeeper who answered the door was not pleased. ‘How did you get here?’ she said belligerently. The backwoods twang seemed comical to Des.
‘Walked up the drive.’ Des smiled. ‘Your gates are wide open.’
‘What? Well, they shouldn’t be, and you shouldn’t be here.’
‘You’d better send someone down to sort it out then, and in the meantime, you can announce me to Sir Martin.’
‘What? Well, who are you?’
‘McGinlay, private investigator.’ Des pulled out a grubby card. ‘I’m engaged in a private and delicate matter that Sir Martin alone knows about, so, you’d better inform him I’m here. It concerns a certain Claudette Turton.’
Des was beginning to enjoy himself. Talking to a maid no less! He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and grinned. She looked apprehensive but eventually scuttled off, leaving Des to gaze at a rusty suit of armour that seemed to serve as a hat stand. After a few minutes, a pale beanpole of a man in a black suit came into the hall, evidently to keep an eye out. But Des wasn’t perturbed. He cast his eyes around the candy-striped hall and thought Sir Martin’s pile was no huge deal. Six bedrooms maybe, who gives a fuck? And then the maid returned, her brow a spider’s web of frowns.
‘Sir Martin will see you. Will you please come this way, sir?’ she said with half-hearted politeness.
Des smiled anyway and ambled his way after her.
‘I admire your etiquette,’ he said as he was shown into a side room.
Sir Martin was, well, grey. He had a full crop of grey hair, a neatly clipped grey moustache and he wore a grey suit. His face, too, was tinged with grey. He didn’t look any different from the pictures in the newspapers – as if the guy was walking front-page news. He sat at a small table and beckoned Des to sit down.
‘I don’t really know why I’m doing this, Mr – er – McGinlay. I don’t recall ever having requested your services. However, I do sometimes have reason to turn to private investigators so maybe your name has slipped my mind.’
Sir Martin was getting flabby. But Des didn’t need the tight suit to tell him that. He’d seen photos of the real thing. He put his hand inside his coat and felt the envelope. Sir Martin’s burnt-umber eyes waited, burnt eyes above a high-boned precipice of pitted flesh, a mouth resolutely small. Des hesitated. He didn’t feel comfortable with the eyes, feeling there was something odd about them, distant but also rudely penetrating. Des felt himself shrinking back but he managed to check himself. Sod the deference, he thought, and so launched in.
‘It’s a difficult situation this.’ Des fumbled for a fag and then lit up. The room was practically empty, a kind of cold-shoulder reception place for tradesmen and the unwanted such as himself.
‘I’ve been on this case, chasing a bare arse halfway across the city and not knowing who it belonged to. But it seemed like an important arse because two people who saw it ended up dead.’
The grey face remained impassive and the eyes still drilled,
though Des thought he saw a slight smile beneath the clipped moustache.
‘Now of course, I don’t believe that this arse has the capacity to shoot bullets or anything like that. I mean, I guess you could say that it’s just a good-time arse having fun.’
‘I think you’d better get to the point, Mr McGinlay.’
‘You’re right.’ Des slipped the envelope across the table. ‘Take a look inside. I’m sure you’ve seen them before. Did Claudette mail them through the post to you, or did she nobble you outside your political headquarters?’
Sir Martin was a man of perfected calm, Teflon exterior. His trade no doubt cultivated that. He looked at the photos and then dismissively pushed them away.
‘Fakes, Mr McGinlay. I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time.’ The mouth hardly moved beneath the moustache.
‘Come on . . .’ Des was nearly speechless. ‘Is that what you’re going to say to the police and press when I hand these bleedin prints in?’
‘Such fabrications have been known. It’s easy to transpose one face for another, happens all the time in the photographic world.’
‘Bullshit.’
Silence descended on the room. The almost motionless Sir Martin stared down at the table; only his little finger moved, waggling the air like a flailing worm. Des let him work out an angle. He looked out of a small window and got a view of a swimming pool.
‘Maybe, and without conceding anything, maybe I should buy these photos from you, these and any others there might be. A worthwhile sum that reflects their collector’s value?’
‘Yeh, that’s interesting. And what is the going rate for collectable porn?’
‘Shall we say . . . two thousand?’
‘Mmmm, that’s not bad for a few prints.’
‘Well, you look like a man who could do with a few extra bob. It’s a grubby business at the sharp end, making ends meet. I’ve been there myself a long time ago.’
‘Well, I guess it’s an option I should keep under review . . .’
And Des did see the possibilities. A bit of bargaining and he could make it five. Almost half a year’s pay and a chance to bugger off to a sun-soaked island. Pearl on the beach drinking spiced wine. But that thought became alarming. Pearl was a dream. The job, he knew, was his only reality.
‘. . . But keep under review only along with all the other aspects of this case.’
‘I’m sure there is nothing else I can contribute.’
‘Well, it would be nice to know how you met Claudette. I presume someone set it up for you. The nice Mr Constanza maybe, or was it Gary Marlow? And it would be nice to know who did the blackmailing and who said they’d sort it out for you?’
‘There’s nothing more I can say.’
‘Maybe I’m getting a bit too complicated. Maybe it was just you, Mr Wainwright, who bumped off Claudette and Mary Holmes?’
The big businessman and Euro bête noire stood abruptly. His umber eyes spat contempt as he went over to the door and pressed a buzzer. Then he turned, his face more ashen but his eyes exuding cold power.
‘This is the last time we meet, Mr McGinlay. Any further interaction you might wish, deal with my lawyer. Just take your filthy dross and bugger off!’
Des rose too and stashed the photos away. He realized then that it would be sensible if he got copies made.
‘It’s up to you, Mr Wainwright. Help me and I’ll see if I can keep it all quiet. Go with your procurer and the whole world will know what a dirty fucker you are. A dirty fucker who’d kill to keep his reputation clean.’
Des walked out of the room, just as several men came down the hall to usher him out.
‘I’ll give you a day to come up with a reply,’ he called back defiantly.
And so Des left the sanctuary of wealth and went back to the city. A sliver of fear pierced him as he drove and it made his heart flutter. He realized his knees were shaking. Jesus. Who knows what a guy like that could do? Then he looked out and saw gentle hills in the distance, viridian-washed beneath charcoal skies. It seemed a lifetime since he’d seen such things. They didn’t mean anything.
* * *
The Jag and the Bentley were parked carelessly on the grass space at the end of an unmetalled lane. Two men stood by the cars, their hands thrust in pockets, their shoulders hunched against an unseasonable chill wind. The lane ended abruptly at a ten-foot chain-link fence. Behind this there was a long, squat line of lights that marked the end of the airport runway. In the distance, the terminus could be seen and behind its white tower, the whole enormous spread of the city.
‘Bit fucking dramatic, ennit, coming up here? Jesus, these sort of places give me the creeps.’
‘Well, Ross, the situation demands extreme caution.’
‘Huh, any bleeding snooper with binoculars could watch us. It took me ages to find the place.’
‘I used to own a section of this land and made a million plus selling it.’
‘Most people reminisce about their sexual conquests.’
‘Yes, well maybe I should’ve stuck to land deals. We have a deeply serious situation on hand.’
Sir Martin Wainwright leaned back onto the bonnet of his Jaguar and looked over at a jet airliner being hauled to a far-off terminus. He clenched his teeth and then told Ross Constanza about a certain private eye.
‘Oh no . . .’ Ross groaned and ground his foot into the turf. He wished he hadn’t. The turf was squelchy. It seemed indicative of the sinking feeling in his gut. He looked sideways at Wainwright. Dark-eyed and cold; dangerously so, and not to be underestimated. ‘I did hear of someone snuffling around, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.’
‘You should’ve told me. He’s knocking on my door, Ross.’
‘I thought we’d covered all the angles, but some of the snaps must’ve got into third-party hands that none of us knew about.’
‘All of this is your fault.’
‘Come on . . . I’ll sort it. It’s a loose end that can be quickly snipped.’
‘I want no more killing. You didn’t tell me about the photographer.’
‘It was a mistake. She just flipped and had an accident.’
‘I want this McGinlay deprived of the photos or forced to do a deal. Nothing more.’
‘I’ll handle it myself.’
‘You’ll do it properly or else all the deals we might have in the pipeline are off.’
‘That’s my motivation, Wainwright. Otherwise, who gives a shit if you hit the News of the World?’
‘Don’t –’ Sir Martin suddenly pressed a pointing finger at Ross. ‘Don’t get cheap with me, Constanza. I’ve got you well and truly trussed should any of this get out.’
‘Look, you made the deal with Claudette in the first place. If you’d’ve come through me there would’ve been security. Jesus, it’s me who’s helping you out of a hole.’
‘OK, she was highly persuasive and I was reckless, but don’t forget we’re both tied together.’
A plane began to descend onto a runway on the far side of the airport. Sir Martin watched it for a few moments, unfazed by the open space, and then looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go. Day full of meetings, I’m afraid.’ He opened the door of his Jaguar. ‘I want a regular update on developments, OK?’
Ross watched the car drive off, then turned and looked at the airfield. What a wind shit of a place, he thought with a shudder, and a shit situation, as shitty as when I landed in the nick. He knew then he should’ve ditched Wainwright the moment he was told of Claudette’s scam. God, he should’ve joined in with her and bled the bugger dry. Ross felt his shoulders sag. He could well have backed the wrong side, but knew he had no choice but to see things through. He looked down at his soggy shoes and then over at the airport terminal. Too much open space. Vulnerable to sniper fire. Makes your head spin.
* * *
She had short shaven orange hair, a nose full of rings and a large stomach that squeezed out of a tatty black T-shirt. Her breasts were quite large to
o, flopping at all angles as she got ready to lift. But Jerry was most taken with her eyes, pale blue and playful, inquisitive but non-judgemental. He grabbed his end of the mattress and was already beginning to feel at home.
‘OK, you just keep it up and I’ll pull.’
And another thing, this woman was strong. She braced her silver Docs onto the stairs and easily heaved the mattress up, almost pulling Jerry with her.
‘One more pull and we’ll be on the first landing.’
Since first arriving with his stuff, she’d taken more things up the two flights of stairs than Jerry, carrying two boxes of books to his one. This was perhaps just as well since Jerry felt frail and run-down, and a simple walk up the stairs made him puff.
‘W-We g-going to be able to get this round the c-corner?’
‘A piece of piss. When I get it on the landing, we’ll pull it round fast so it doesn’t stick.’
‘Sounds l-like you’ve d-done it before.’
‘In this place, loads of times. We get more turnover than the YHA.’
She braced herself again ready to pull.
It was a stroke of luck that Jerry should be doing what he was. Out on Argent Street, wandering like a lost dog, he’d met a casual acquaintance and blurted out he was fearful of going home. ‘I c-can still see her, m-man, all m-mashed up,’ he kept saying. The guy he’d met, Paul, happened to be one of those people whose connections spread wide around the city. He knew all about 65 Anselm Road.
‘It’s a long-established squat, man. Been going years. Owned by some rich old dear who can’t get her act together. You’ll get a room there, man. The people are cool, yeh. They’ll help you get through the shit.’
Jerry wasn’t sure he wanted that kind of help, but he knew he had to move away to stop himself totally flipping. Then it was a question of following Paul around a few pubs until he was introduced to Jed, one of the long-term squatters, who readily offered him a room. Jerry then persuaded Frederick to drive his stuff over, a pile of cases and boxes crammed in the old Ford with the mattress flopping around on the roof rack. It all happened so fast and yet it felt to Jerry as if it was part of a plan. He gave a huge sigh of relief when Frederick drove away. A strange house in an unfamiliar part of the city. It was all right.
