by Adam Baron
Sal was shaking her head. ‘No. It was because he thinks so much of you that he couldn’t tell you, not that he doesn’t value you. He knew he was being greedy. And weak, and stupid. And he didn’t want you to think those things about him. Anyone else, not you. That’s why he waited until he had to tell you. It’s tough, Billy, to admit who you are to people. It’s easier to go on and pretend and hope it’ll work itself out. I bet there are things you’ve never told him.’
I shook my head. ‘Maybe…’
‘And why didn’t you? Because you want to present to him the side of yourself that you want him to see. Not the crap.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, and I nodded to myself. I’d never told Nicky about sleeping with Sal. It had happened the night I’d started seeing his sister. I smiled. ‘You’re right. He knows I box, for instance, but I’ve never bothered telling him that Des picks me apart most nights, makes me look like Joe Bugner fighting Ali. But when I finally land one on him that gets his arse dusty I’ll tell Nicky about it.’
‘Exactly. So don’t be too hard on yourself.’
‘No.’
Sal shifted in her chair and gave me a wry smile. I was reaching for my coat.
‘So,’ she said. ‘You think you can?’
‘What?’
‘Get the better of Des.’ I laughed. ‘Dazzling Des Formay? Former pro. The training he does makes you look like a housewife trying to get her figure back for her hubby. And he’s quick. Quicker than you.’
I smiled. ‘Better see you tomorrow night, then.’
‘You had, Mr Rucker, you had. And many, many more nights after that.’
Outside a big hand had turned the world upside down and given it a shake. Fat wet snowflakes were twisting in the wind. I thought the snowfall looked out of place in the middle of the city but changed my mind. Through the flurry and the shake, pedestrians scurried for cover, cars edged through lights, hooting, pushing, a laden bus lumbered off, its windows steamed, a jet of diesel blasting out. And in my mind the events of the last few days whirled too. Everything seemed as confused and random as the snowflakes, jostling for space in the white air. But the snow became uniform when it settled and somehow all the rest knitted together too, the cars got through, the people got to work and the buses made it back to the depot. The only difference was that the city never stopped. There was never a time when it was peaceful and still, quiet, unmoving.
I stood for a second watching it all. I’d hate to have to come to you and ask you for money you didn’t have. I wondered – if someone owed her and wasn’t paying, how far would she go? I saw the drop of blood, taking an age to drip down from the lip of Nicky’s garage door. How far would she go if the person not paying her was me?
Everything in Britain seems to be devastated by an inch or two of snow as if nothing like it has ever happened before but I, for one, was prepared. With the peaked hood of my Norwegian ski jacket in place I pounded up the hill to my flat, the Recco system in my sleeve emitting radar messages all the way. All of a sudden it felt very comforting to have it there. Avalanches tend to be caused by people skiing off-piste, bringing down walls of snow in their wake. Since my chat with Sally I realized that now, that was exactly what I was doing.
So. I’d bought Nicky a few weeks. Now I had to decide how to use them. I didn’t get a whole lot of time to think about that, though, just the ten minutes it took me to walk back up to Exmouth Market. I didn’t take much notice of the bike courier, leaning on the wall of the magazine company next door to my flat. The hood of his orange waterproof was up and a breathing mask covered his face. He was out of my mind as fast as he’d come into it, even though it was still snowing and it was odd that he should be standing there. Can’t be an easy job, in this weather. I’d walked past him, about to reach for my keys, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
‘Billy,’ Draper said. ‘Billy. I have to speak to you.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘I didn’t fucking do it!’
We were standing in the deep, covered porch of the magazine publishers. He’d wanted to come up to my flat but I’d told him no. God knows why I was even speaking to him. I could have been under surveillance, anything. Draper kept his hood up though he’d pulled his mask down. I told him I didn’t want to talk to him.
‘I was framed, set up…’
‘I don’t care.’
‘What do you mean!? What do you mean, you don’t care?’
‘Like I told you. I have other things to think about…’
‘What? That’s bullshit, looking for missing kids? Bollocks. You really don’t care? It wasn’t me, I didn’t do it.’
I sighed. ‘Do what, Jack?’
‘You fucking well know what. I didn’t do it. You went to see Janner. I called him. He said someone had been to see him. He wanted to know why you were sure I wouldn’t play on Thursday. He wanted to know what you knew.’
‘And I want to know what you know. Last time, you didn’t exactly tell me much.’
‘You didn’t give me time.’
‘Bullshit. You could have told me you were screwing around any time you liked. But somehow, you forgot to mention that, didn’t you?’
‘Okay, I wasn’t going to tell you. But why the fuck should I have, eh? I didn’t think Alison had anything to do with what I wanted you for.’
‘And doesn’t she?’
‘I don’t know. No. Yes. How the fuck do I know?’
‘You tell me. Come on, Jack. Speak to me. For instance – tell me how you found out about it. About what had happened to her. If you didn’t kill her. Hear it on the news, did you? Someone call you?’
I knew how he knew. I’d followed him right to the place. I just wanted to know if he was going to have another go at shitting me.
‘How did you find out? Janner said you were fishing around long before it was in the news.’
‘I used to be a copper. I hear things. Come on.’
‘Shit. Shit.’ He shook his head, his hands on his hips. His face closed in on mine. ‘I found her. I was there. I walked in and she was…she was cut up, okay? I probably left my prints. Christ. There were loads of them there anyway. It comes out in the paper I was seeing her and then she’s dead, she’s fucking dead. What the fuck am I going to do?’
‘Go play for a side in Mexico. Or deal with it. If you didn’t kill her—’
‘I didn’t. I did not kill her!’
‘Then why go round there?’
‘Why?’ He laughed like I was seriously stupid. ‘Why the fuck d’you think? I was fucking the girl, okay. I had a bust up with my wife and I went round, I went round to fuck her.’
He stopped me with that. I’d assumed he’d found out about his forthcoming appearance in the Sun. I’d assumed he’d gone round because Alison had betrayed him. I didn’t know whether to believe him.
‘Then why did your wife leave you?’
‘What? How…?’
‘I was outside your flat. I saw you. She steamed out with your baby and you drove off to Hoxton. I saw you go into Alison’s building.’
‘Jesus…’
He was trying to take it in. What it meant. I didn’t let him.
‘So why did she leave? Did you tell her about Alison?’
‘No, I told her about you. That cat’s head freaked her out. She’d said I had to tell the Bill. I persuaded her I’d get you to do it. When I told her you’d turned me down she left. She said you were right.’
‘I was.’
‘I know. I know. And it wasn’t because I thought you’d rumble me about seeing Alison. I just wanted it low-key.’
‘Oh sure. Right.’
‘Oh okay, so I didn’t want anyone with a line to the tabloids sniffing round. Of course I didn’t want it to get out about Alison. But Christ, you’ve never banged someone you shouldn’t have?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe bullshit. So. What am I going to do? More to the point what are you going to do? Tell them you saw me going into her p
lace?’
‘I won’t need to do that, Jack.’
‘My prints are there, I know. But I could say they were from before…’
‘It’s not that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I got stopped by the Bill.’
‘What?’
‘On Hoxton Square. My back light was out. I saw you park. I saw you going into the place while they were booking me. They must have seen you too. They must have.’
‘What?! Oh fuck. Oh no.’
He had gone white. He had a serious case of stubble burn again, and it stood out like a silk scarf. His face twitched. I thought he was going to lose it. He took a deep breath that juddered out of him.
‘You should have seen her, Billy. She was so messed up. You should have seen what the bastard did to her.’
‘Not you, then?’
He didn’t answer me. He’d pushed himself right up close to me. He was wired, almost insane. It was either the look of an innocent man staring at fifteen years or that of a guilty man too freaked to believe what he’s done, what his anger has led him to.
‘They’re going to do me for it. They’re going to fucking do me for it, aren’t they? They saw me, going in? You have to help me. Okay? You have to help me, Billy.’
I didn’t get a chance to answer. Suddenly Draper’s eyes had flicked to the street, to the blizzard. Then he turned his back to it and his eyes found mine, locking straight in. They were asking me. A little confused, I broke his look. I wasn’t confused for long. I turned to follow the police car that was slowing to a stop, only five yards from us, slowing to a stop outside my flat.
His eyes found mine again like a jet fighter’s lock-on. The question never left them. He took a step back from me. The car had stopped. Slowly, he pulled the cycling mask up to his face. I took a breath. Draper didn’t so much as blink. He tightened his hood until all that was left were a pair of dark eyes drilling into mine. I felt like a keeper, looking at the last pen in the shoot-out. Draper took another step back. Suddenly remembering, he held out a package that he was holding.
‘I didn’t know if I’d find you.’
He pushed the package forward and I looked at it. My hands closed round the padded envelope. Draper stepped back towards the street, his eyes staying fixed on mine. Behind him I could see the doors of the patrol car, opening. Two plain-clothed officers were stepping out of the back. My mouth opened. Draper stopped. He raised his chin. His head twitched towards them and his hands went to his hips as if to say, ‘Well, well then?’ They were slamming the car doors. I didn’t move. After a long second Draper turned away. He took a couple of steps towards a mountain bike standing on the pavement, leaning up against the wall of the building.
As Draper emerged from the porch, the female officer glanced at him. She looked to be having the same thought I’d had. Tough job. Her younger partner wasn’t paying any attention. Draper had his back to them. The woman who had been looking at him glanced away. She followed the other officer up to the door of my building and watched as her partner pushed the buzzer. She rubbed her hands together and moved on the spot. Draper got on his bike. I watched the other copper, pushing my bell again, as Jack Draper pedalled off towards Rosebery Avenue, his orange jacket gradually fading into the blizzard.
Chapter Fifteen
They only stayed ten minutes. They hadn’t connected me to Draper, something I’d known as soon as I spoke to them. They were too polite. I was just a motorist who happened to have been in the Hoxton Square area, which they knew because I’d been stopped. They did ask me what I was doing there but I wasn’t a suspect, they already had one of those. Just trying to get home, I told them. The fact that the police car had followed me into the square and then straight out again, as they’d thought, was also on my side. All the while the envelope Draper had given me sat in the centre of my coffee table between us.
The senior officer, DS Coombes, was a brisk woman with short ginger-brown hair and a thin, fox-like face. Her skin was wafer pale, covered in flat, smeared freckles, her lips non-existent. She had taken off a thin raincoat and was wearing a maroon trouser suit that couldn’t have been a worse colour for her, with a gold sateen blouse beneath. A red metal badge in the shape of a ribbon was pinned to her lapel. Her assistant looked like he was on work experience from primary school, his permanent scowl about as intimidating as a plastic truncheon.
Coombes asked me if I’d seen anything suspicious that night and I laughed – I said it had been raining too hard to see much of anything. She wanted to know if I’d happened to notice a blue Jeep Renegade on the square but I told them there had been too many cars around. I asked her what had happened in the square and she was a little surprised that I didn’t know. They told me that a neighbour had found the body of a model, Alison Everly, the morning after I’d been there.
‘Jesus,’ I said, doing a nice crinkle with my forehead. ‘Alison Everly? Don’t I know that name?’
Coombes nodded. ‘She was in the papers yesterday, sir. Having an affair with a footballer.’
‘Right. Yeah, that’s it. Draper? Jack Draper? Super…’
‘That’s right.’
‘Shit. Sheee-it. And he killed her?’
‘We don’t know that yet.’ Coombes put her notebook away and reached for her coat. ‘It’s too early to say. But between you and me, sir, I reckon the next team he’ll be playing for won’t have stripes on their shirts.’ A glint came into her eye. ‘They’ll be arrows.’
I showed Coombes and her colleague out and then watched them through the kitchen window, stepping into the blizzard, clenching their bodies tight as they jogged the few yards to their Escort. A strong wave of guilt flooded through me. So, my former colleague Andy Gold hadn’t got my message after all. It was left to a neighbour to find Alison. My mind went back to her. I didn’t know who had stumbled across her body, I didn’t know what kind of person they were or what they did for a living. All I knew was that the image of Alison lying back on that sofa had twisted my guts into a knot, had forced its way into my dreams and branded itself on my brain. Even though I’d been a policeman, even though I’ve seen other things like it. I didn’t like to think what effect it had had on a friend, just calling round for a coffee, or seeing the door open. Once again I told myself that if I hadn’t been there, which I very nearly wasn’t, then the neighbour would have found her anyway. Once again I told myself that it had nothing to do with me. I watched the patrol car pull away tentatively into the traffic on Rosebery Avenue, leaving a rectangle of wet black tarmac behind it. The patch had been warmed by the car’s engine and the flakes wouldn’t settle. They blew onto it and disappeared like they were falling into a grave.
I stood for a second as the car moved off the way Draper had, trying to figure out what I was going to do that day. Yesterday I was pleased that there was nothing I could do yet. Today, it left me frustrated. There wasn’t anything I could do for Nicky, not until I had the money from Sally. I needed to do something. I looked at the package in front of me, then opened it. There wasn’t much inside, just a short note. In it Draper protested his innocence. He begged me to help him and told me to buy the Evening Standard. He also told me to speak to his wife, and gave me a number to call. I thought for a second. Nicky would be resting, I could see him later, tell him what Sally had said. I heard Jack’s wife’s voice, heard the letter box clapping behind her. I made two calls then grabbed my coat.
When I walked on to the market again the snow had nearly stopped, just the odd flake like empty nags coming home in the National. It was also a touch warmer, though the low grey sky still looked heavy as an alcoholic’s suitcase. I walked round to the newsagent on the market and bought all the tabloids, plus the first edition of the Evening Standard. I took them to the Sand Bar, a stripped-out coffee place halfway along the market, with big tables, great cakes and staff so miserable the place is usually nice and quiet. Apart from the guy from the second-hand bookshop next door, leaning against the counter
, there was no one in. I took a double espresso and some raisin bread over to the far corner, pushed aside a magazine on architecture and went through the papers, starting with the publication that had first featured Alison Everly, the Sun.
It would keep me from fretting over Nicky, at least. The tabloids all ran with Draper as lead story, even though the Standard had got the fact that his lover had been murdered the day before. That’s the way it goes sometimes, with papers put out later in the day than the nationals. It all depends on when the story breaks as to who gets the best of it. The editor of the Sun probably felt aggrieved. He’d set the story up, had created the story if you like, building the girl, paying the girl, making her news. Then her body was found at nine the next morning and it fell into the Standard’s lap without them having to do anything.
A lot of what the Sun and the Mirror had was a rehash of what had been in yesterday’s Standard, and on the television news. In the Express, it was the only story on the front page:
FOOTBALLER’S MISTRESS FOUND DEAD
The shot the Express had of Alison was different from that which had appeared in the Sun. They’d obviously bought it from a photo library. Alison Everly was a model, there were plenty of pictures of her about. It was shot from the side, Alison turning her face to the camera, smiling, her naked arms folded over her breasts. The picture had been cropped just above her hips, but low enough to tell that she wasn’t wearing anything.
All of the tabloids went into the past of Alison Everly, noting her choice of career, all copping to the fact that she had appeared in several of the Leyton Orient match programmes modelling team kit. The Sun even reproduced one of their own Page Three shots of her, and my eyes ran over the naked breasts of the dead girl. It felt like the worst thing I’d ever done.
None of the papers came out and actually accused Draper of having killed Alison but there was no way that wasn’t what they were trying to put across. There were shots of Jack, grinning, next to shots of the outside of Alison’s apartment building. All the papers concentrated on the fact that Jack was missing. He hadn’t been seen since the killing. The Mail reported the police as being anxious to speak to him while the Star made the point more vividly.
