by Adam Baron
‘You’re so transparent,’ she sighed, getting back into bed. ‘All of you. So easy to tell what you want.’ Her hands began to move again, slowly, over my body. ‘What a way for a detective to behave. Coming into a girl’s house, looking at her like that. I could hardly pour the coffee. I felt like a little rabbit, caught in the headlights.’
‘And then the little rabbit jumped out of the headlights, hopped upstairs to the bedroom and took all her clothes off. What sort of way is that for an employer to behave?’
‘I guess you’re right.’ She buried her head in my chest and shivered again. She had become very cold, in just a minute. ‘But can this be your fault?’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘I can take the blame, if that’s what you want.’
‘I do,’ she said, sliding on top of me.
‘What about this, though?’
‘Oh,’ she said, her voice getting deeper. The points in her eyes seemed to dance. ‘This is totally down to me.’
Chapter Seventeen
I was glad I hadn’t taken Jack Draper’s money. I was thinking of incriminating him with the police and I’d drunk his special coffee. Then I’d fucked his wife. Twice. It didn’t seem right that he should suffer financially because of any of these things. Taking his wife’s money had been strange enough, though I did take it.
‘I told you,’ she insisted, as we sat back down in the living room, me dressed, her in a dressing gown. ‘I’m not a nutter. I wanted you. Now I want you to do something else. Much as it would have been worth it I’m not paying you a thousand pounds for making me come. I’m paying you to look into a murder my husband might be guilty of. So here.’
‘Okay,’ I said, tucking the cheque into my back pocket. ‘But making you come is a job I could get used to. And I wouldn’t even charge the whole thousand.’
She laughed and blushed a little. ‘It was the first time I’ve done that.’
‘Then you have natural talent. Or beginner’s luck. And your child is a miracle.’
‘You know what I mean.’ Her hand went to her wedding ring again. This time, very consciously, she left it there. ‘I’ve wanted to now and then. More for the idea of it than the person, I think.’
‘Was that what that was?’
She looked down at her lap. A car droned by outside, like a long sigh of pleasure. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. There was something there. You know there was.’ Her eyes shifted focus for a second and she looked bemused. ‘I never imagined it like that, though. I thought it would be in a hotel, or in a bedroom at a party, in five minutes flat. When I was mad at Jack. I always wondered how I’d feel, afterwards. Whether I’d, I don’t know, feel dirty.’
‘And?’
‘I felt good. Warm.’
‘And?’
‘And horny.’
‘Now?’
‘The same.’
I smiled and she put a reassuring hand on my knee. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll let you go.’ She left the hand there. ‘Do you think you should go?’
‘Probably.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
There was a long silence during which we both smiled at each other and Louise left her hand on my leg. I stood up and she withdrew it, that terrified look returning for an instant before she pushed it aside. Her life, rushing back in. I followed her through to the kitchen where she stood with her back to the door I’d come through.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Richard will have left his back door open. Can you lock it when you go in? The front door will lock itself.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘And you have my number. I left it on the table.’
‘Good. Good.’
There was a short, heavy moment, then I made to go.
‘You’re very sweet, Mr Rucker. In every sense of the word.’
‘Mr Rucker?’
‘Yes. I think it’s Mr Rucker from now on.’ Her eyes were timid, asking. She wanted me to tell her something she knew I wasn’t going to tell her. I reached for her but she drew back.
‘You can just go, you know. I told you, I don’t want anything. You don’t have to…’
‘I know.’
We kissed for a long time. I could feel her gown slipping open and me wanting her again. The kitchen table stretched invitingly behind her. But then my eyes fell on a pair of binoculars, hanging from a hook by the kitchen window, and I thought of the photographers besieging her house. If one of them pointed a long lens over the back wall it wouldn’t do either of us any good. The angle would have been less than flattering too. I turned and opened the door.
‘I’ll let you know if I get anywhere.’
‘Yes. Thank you. Not for… Oh, you know.’ She laughed. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Draper.’
She put a hand on my wrist.
‘Let me know if you find my husband,’ she said.
* * *
No one seemed to notice that the parcel courier had taken somewhat longer than usual to get a signature. I sat in my car for ten minutes, my hands on the wheel, watching a cat picking apart a starling it had caught. Then I started the car and drove up past the house. I drove through Victoria Park towards Leyton High Road. I parked outside the ground and wandered in through the front gates, following signs to reception. I was in a long thin room split down the middle by a perspex partition. On the other side of it was an office space where three women sat typing, and answering the telephones.
At my approach the youngest of the women stood, and stepped up to the counter. She was an attractive girl with an unconvincing blonde dye, her face a lurid palette of far too much make-up, all the wrong colours. When she spoke to me it was a little unsettling, especially given my disjointed state. As if a Kandinsky had suddenly smiled at me in the Tate.
I blinked the girl into focus, found a smile for her and asked to see Janner. I told the girl that I’d spoken to him earlier, though we hadn’t fixed a time. While she phoned up to his office I stood, rubbing my face, looking at the photographs plastering the walls around me. There were past players, past managers, a big shot of the ground in the 40s, heaving with fans, all standing, all dressed in suits and ties. The current squad were up and my eyes moved along them until I was looking at Draper. His big face was split into a confident grin. I looked away. The biggest shot was of the man I’d seen in the Jag on Wanstead Flats. He was standing with the gates of the club at his back, smiling even wider than Draper was, both thumbs up to the camera.
I followed the young girl up a flight of stairs and along a neutral, modern office-block corridor to Janner’s office, which she showed me into before leaving. Janner stood from behind his Ikea desk and shook my hand. I was surprised to see him in a suit and tie, just like the fans of yesteryear, in which he looked about as natural as a pit bull in a little tartan jacket.
We sat and I declined a cup of tea. Janner knew all about Alison now, and he was shocked. He’d also read the Standard and couldn’t believe the fuss his star player was stirring up.
‘Fuck me. Fuck me. Super Jack. Not so super to a lot of folk when they read this, eh? There’ll be one or two fellas getting a little hot under the collar when they buy the Standard of an afternoon over the next few days.’
I looked at him. He met my look with a broad grin.
‘Not me, though. For one thing I’ve never had dealings with Draper before the last five months and for another I’m as tight a Scot as you’ll find. And our Mr Korai is worse, he must have some jock in him somewhere. He’d fight the devil for a ha’penny on the flagstones of hell. Give a bung – forget it. As for taking one, my missus is a Presbyterian and if she ever found out I’d done something like that then hell is the place I’d be heading – fast. And before you ask me who Jack might be about to name, I’ve got my thoughts, but then so must every other footballing man in the country. And I’m keeping them to myself,’ he added.
I thanked Janner for taking time to see me, and he said that was okay, though he didn’t have long. He asked me how I’
d known about Alison so early. I looked him in the eye and fed him a line about a tip-off. He made an attractive moue with his lips, but let it go. I told him what I wanted and he thought for a second before giving me a short nod. He was grateful for the advance warning about Draper, he said, and he couldn’t see the harm. As he punched some commands into his computer he sighed. He told me that Draper wasn’t the only absentee from his squad for the forthcoming game against Crewe – he had two others out with the flu. He’d set his sights on automatic promotion but wasn’t sure that was going to happen. He sat back and looked up at me.
‘You’re not a left back by any chance?’
I thought about my performance on the market the night before last and told him I wasn’t.
Janner shook his head with phlegmatic frustration as the printer handed the two pages of Draper’s biog to him, which he handed to me.
‘I knew he was a risk signing,’ he told me, shaking his head.
‘But it was his hamstrings that concerned me rather than any psychopathic tendencies he might have. Hey, that’ll get managers wondering from now on. Does he have the skill to match his pace and is he likely to carve anyone up? The police were here all yesterday. It’s amazing to think that someone you know could actually do that. Not that I’m saying he did, mind. Just that he might. You don’t know where the little bugger is by any chance?’
‘I was going to ask you.’
‘Ha! If I knew that he’d be out on that pitch, believe me, half of Scotland Yard after him or not. I’d make him play if his hands were still red and sticky. I still haven’t given up on the Manager of the Month, you know.’
I smiled.
‘I tell you what, though. If our Jack didn’t do it, and he misses the rest of the season because everyone thinks he did, the fucker who slashed that lass had better hope the police get to him before I do. If they don’t, he’s a fucking dead man.’
As we walked downstairs I asked Janner if he’d known Alison and he told me no, but he had seen her a couple of times, once at a birthday party for Mr Korai, the chairman. He’d had no idea Jack was ploughing her, as he put it. I followed Janner out onto the pitch where his squad was assembled, all suited up like he was. They were putting together a souvenir programme for when Newcastle came in the Cup. The air was clear and clean and the sun was out, the snow on the pitch already almost gone. The day put me in mind of Shulpa, who seemed to go through each of the four seasons every second hour, with all the permutations in between.
I followed Janner to the centre circle, where a photographer and his assistant were setting up and the players I’d seen training the day before were milling around. The young goal-scorer was there, in a floppy double-breasted number that was a perfect fit – for a rectangular man a good six inches taller than he was. He looked nervous and jumpy, fiddling with the gold chain over his tie. There were also a couple of girls, chatting to each other, wearing long coats that I didn’t imagine would stay on once the photo session got underway.
Janner took no notice of me as I went among the players, handing out my card. Seeing them there in their suits, my mind went back to the photograph in Alison’s kitchen, and I recognized several of the faces that had been crowded round her. I wondered why Jack wasn’t in the shot then realized that he’d probably been behind the camera. Knowing he was seeing the girl he’d probably done it on purpose, to be careful. Not careful enough.
None of the players denied knowing Alison, though all claimed ignorance of her affair with Draper. They didn’t need encouraging to speak, all competing as to who had met her first, who’d seen her last, telling me little things about her. Willie, the big centre back, said he’d been at school with her. She was a really nice bird, quieter and far more shy than you’d expect for a Page Three girl, he insisted. She liked to have a laugh but it often seemed like she was pretending, she wasn’t very happy. The others agreed. They all shook their heads, assuring me they couldn’t believe it, they really couldn’t. She was too nice, too nice for someone to do something like that to her.
As for Draper, he kept himself very much to himself, being a bit of a prima donna, and while no one actually said they didn’t like him, I didn’t get the impression that he was going to walk off with the Most Popular Player Award as well as the Leading Goal-scorer trophy at the end-of-season dinner. I asked them if they thought Draper was the kind of man to do what he’d been accused of. None of them could answer that.
I thanked the players, wished them good luck for their next game and left them to Leyton’s answer to David Bailey. The girls were getting ready now, one of them chatting to the photographer, the other seemingly lost in her own thoughts. I’d noticed her looking my way as I’d been chatting to the players – now she was shrugging off her coat, before standing bravely in shorts and a bra top. I smiled as I walked past her but she didn’t meet my eye.
Before leaving I had a last chat with Janner.
‘The Bosman ruling. It means you can go where you like when you’re contract is up, yes?’
‘That’s it.’
‘So why ever sign for any longer than a year?’
‘Why? Because you might break your leg and then be fucked. Or else start playing like a ladyboy and binned for that. It gives you security.’
‘But Draper only signed for one year?’
‘It was all we offered him. He’d have gone for more. He’s no spring chicken and we didn’t know how it would go – he could have lost his speed, could have easily broken down after a couple of games. Thought it was a mistake a week back, not giving him three years, but now, who knows? I wonder if we’ll still have to pay his wages when he’s in Parkhurst.’
Back in the office I was met by the same young girl.
‘I was wondering if Mr Korai was around. The chairman.’
‘Oh no, he’s not in today,’ the girl said. ‘And you definitely would need an appointment to see him. He’s busy as sin is Mr Korai. Would you like to see the general manager? Is it about sponsorship?’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Really. Thanks for your help.’ I had a thought. ‘Mr Korai, that’s the same guy who owns a chain of supermarkets, right?’
‘That’s him. Done wonders for this place he has.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m sure. Thanks a lot.’
A phone rang behind her and the girl turned to answer it. I smiled goodbye and walked to the exit. A grinning Mr Korai gave me the thumbs up as I walked past him.
Chapter Eighteen
I left my car outside Nicky’s closed garage and walked towards his flat, my footsteps crisp on the wet concrete. The night was dark and damp and a gusting wind rattled through the guttering like someone trying to get a note out of a horn. I had my coat on but it was still very cold. A sharp half-moon cut quickly between massive, bulbous clouds like the dorsal fin of a great white in a heavy, grey swell.
No one jumped me.
Nicky had given me his spare key and I used it in the back door before calling the lift. The hallway was almost as cold as the street, and I stood, my hands buried in my pockets. Then, as the lift rose to five, I played over what had happened that day. Her body. Slim, malleable, her sharp elbows against my chest. Her smell. The look on her face, the determined tight look as she moved atop of me, the way her belly felt on mine. Jesus. I wasn’t in the habit of screwing the people I had gone to interview. It wasn’t the first time that the opportunity had presented itself – hookers will often offer a cop a blow job if he’ll turn a blind eye, so to speak – but I’d never yielded to such ‘temptation’. Nor had I taken advantage of any of the vulnerable women I’d sat across from over the years, the widows, sisters or girlfriends who were in some way connected to the cases I’d been on. All lost and confused, all in need of a measure of comfort that would bring life crashing into the instant, make the Big Black Reason why I was talking to them go away for a while.
I wondered if that was what I had just done – taken advantage of a confused and needy woman. I didn’t
think so. Louise Draper had needed comfort all right, but it was she who’d chosen what form it arrived in. She wanted me to take the blame but she knew what she was doing. So I didn’t feel bad, exactly, about what had happened. Just confused. Confused as to why then confused when I thought of Shulpa, because when I did I didn’t feel any guilt, none at all. Nothing. This was a surprise to me but, I reasoned, it was just something that happened. I hadn’t looked for it, I hadn’t expected it to go the way it had. It was rounded off and contained, within and of itself. It wasn’t about Shulpa, of course it wasn’t.
But as the lift door opened I suddenly wondered if I’d have done the same thing had I still been seeing Sharon. Sharon was my brother’s fiancée. They were about to be married when he had the accident that left him, and still leaves him, in a persistent vegetative state, or coma. Some years after Luke’s accident Sharon and I had been unable to play down our feelings for each other, and had become an item, until the weight and difficulties of the situation got too much for Sharon and she’d bailed out. I hadn’t seen Sharon for six months.
The thought stopped me, because I knew the answer straight away. No. No I wouldn’t have done what I had. And Louise wouldn’t have gone upstairs to wait for me either, because the signals I would have been giving off would not have been the same. So, maybe it had something to do with Shulpa after all but I couldn’t understand that. I was mad about her, or at least I thought I was, something that had actually been worrying me. Was I looking for a way out, or a way of protecting myself against the feelings I had for her? It was something I didn’t have time to think about.
‘Billy, you’re here. Thank God. Now what the hell’s been going on? He won’t tell me. Please, Billy, let me know. I can help, I know I can.’
