"I don't know, Adam."
"In Edinburgh?"
TWENTY-ONE
"It's good to be out," Joe said, looking out the car window. Approaching the Odeon cinema, traffic was dense. Getting home was taking forever, but he didn't care. Life was sweet. The petitionary hearing had been cancelled. His ribs hadn't hurt when he'd climbed into Ronald Brewer's car. He had his shoes back. He'd even had the bag he'd taken with him to Orkney returned. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and he was out of jail. The world was getting better all the time.
The lawyer said, "Let's hope we can keep you out."
Nothing like a bit of realism to keep you grounded. Joe turned and stared at the young man. He didn't look old enough to drive. "You think the police don't believe Tina?"
Brewer's face scrunched up and he tilted his head. "It's not just that."
"Mr. and Mrs. Harvey?" Joe's neighbors, an elderly couple, hadn't been prepared to swear it was his voice they'd heard arguing with Ruth. A man's voice, they'd claimed. Of that there was no doubt. And it wasn't the TV. They were sure, absolutely, you see, because the sound had come from the kitchen and, unless she'd installed one recently, Mrs. Hope didn't have a TV in the kitchen. They thought it was Mr. Hope's voice they'd heard, but when asked if there was any possible doubt (all this Brewer had narrated to Joe less than twenty minutes ago) they'd conceded that it might have been another man they'd heard. Unlikely. But possible. Their uncertainty, together with Joe's alibi, had been sufficient to substantially reduce the weight of circumstantial evidence otherwise incriminating him.
Ronald Brewer shook his head as he drove slowly along the Bridges. He bit his bottom lip as a maroon and white Lothian bus pulled into a stop just ahead. "Despite Tina's statement and the equivocal testimony of the old folks, you're still the prime suspect." The street was too narrow to overtake the bus. He put on the handbrake. "There's still a lot of evidence against you. Look at it." Enumerating each item by tapping the successive fingers of his left hand with the index finger of his right, he said, "Your baseball bat. Your car. Your rapid escape to Orkney." The bus indicated and pulled out. He released the handbrake. "The police still think it was you. They just can't prove it." He tucked in behind the bus. "Yet."
"After all this," Joe said, "you still have doubts about my innocence."
"Your alibi is false." The lawyer took his eyes off the road and glanced at Joe. "I know that. The police know that." His hand beat against the steering wheel. "They'll keep questioning Tina until she cracks and then you'll be, excuse my language, fucked."
Joe ran his hand slowly over his face. When he spoke, his voice was unusually quiet. "It buys me time."
"To do what?"
"Whatever I can't do locked in a jail cell."
Brewer said, "So you weren't at Tina's when your wife was getting killed?"
Joe leaned his head against the windowpane and said nothing.
"Off the record, Mr. Hope. You're still my client. Everything you say to me is confidential. Where were you?"
"Maybe I was sleeping off a hangover in a friend's spare room."
"Why invent this elaborate cock and bull story, then? What's wrong with the truth?"
Joe took a deep breath. Faced the lawyer. "The police might not believe my friend."
"They're more likely to believe a prostitute?"
"Tina has no reason to lie."
"And your friend does?" A smile spread across Ronald Brewer's mouth. "You were at Cooper's." He nodded when Joe didn't reply. "And Cooper's your best friend. A man who'd lie for you without thinking twice about it. A man with a well-documented disrespect for the law. You might have a point. Maybe the police wouldn't believe him." He tapped the steering wheel with alternate hands. "Nobody else see you there?"
"Sally. His girlfriend."
"And she'd lie too, would she?"
"If Cooper asked her to."
"You fabricated an alibi because your real alibi sounds fabricated?"
"That's about the height of it. At least, I think so. I won't know until I talk to Cooper. It was his idea. I knew nothing about it till you passed on the message from him."
"Maybe he just doesn't want to get involved."
Joe leaned his head back. "That's a shocking thing to say, Ronald. I should smack you quite hard for saying that."
"I don't hear you denying it."
"Off the record," Joe said. He shook his head. "Never mind." What he didn't say was that the same thing had occurred to him. The lights turned red as they approached the High Street and the car trundled to a stop. "People have a habit of dying around me, Ronald." Joe placed his hand on the lawyer's leg. Gave it a gentle squeeze. "Breathe a word of this — to anyone — and you'll be joining them."
The lawyer surprised Joe by placing his left hand on Joe's leg and gently tightening his grip. "You don't have to be so melodramatic, Joe."
"What're you calling me Joe for?"
"You called me Ronald, Joe."
"You really think I'm being melodramatic?" Joe removed his hand from the lawyer's leg and noticed the cut he'd sustained from Cooper's whisky glass. Seemed like it happened weeks ago. The cut had almost healed. When he pressed his thumb against it, it didn't hurt. He pressed harder. Nothing much. If he wanted pain he could always pay Tina to take a baseball bat to his ribs.
The lights changed and Ronald Brewer started to drive off. "I'll forgive you," he said. "You have a lot to be melodramatic about."
"Let me out," Joe said.
"Here? If that's what you want."
"It is what I want."
"Okay. Sorry if I offended you."
"Nothing to do with you."
"You don't want to go home?"
"Not such an attractive proposition."
"Must be difficult, Joe."
"Save the sympathy. I don't need it. What I need is to see Cooper and find out what was so important he couldn't come pick me up at the station. I want to know why he paid Tina for an alibi. I want to know why he doesn't want to admit I was at his house that night. And I don't think I can wait to find out. The more I think about it, the more I want answers right now."
"You want to phone him, see if he's in?"
"Don't have a phone."
"Use mine." Ronald wriggled in his seat. After a series of painful-looking contortions, he handed his phone to Joe.
Joe dialed Cooper's number. After a couple of rings Sally answered, sounding pleased to hear Joe's voice. Joe asked after the baby. Hairy ears, poor little bastard. She started to chuckle when he referred to it as Cheetah. He let her laugh for a while, then asked to speak to Cooper.
She told him to hang on a minute.
Joe hung up. "He's home," he said to the lawyer.
"Tell me where he lives. I'll take you there."
"Don't you have anything better to do?"
"Better than this?" Ronald said. "You must be joking."
TWENTY-TWO
Joe had never mentioned her infidelity. Or should that be infidelities? He suspected she'd been unfaithful more than once, but he had no proof. He'd caught her only on that one occasion at university. Standing outside the door, listening, as an ache spread through his bones. He could knock on the door. It probably wasn't locked. He could walk right in and say, "Hello, baby, who's this you're fucking?" But the thought of a confrontation made him feel old and tired.
Shortly afterwards he sought out Cooper. Asked him if he had any jobs going.
Cooper had just quit his half-arsed attempt at studying law and was making enough on the side now to have decided he didn't want to be a lawyer, anyway. Too easy to get disbarred, he said. "You any good with a baseball bat?" he asked Joe.
Joe thought, well there's an easy way to handle confrontation.
Part of the reason Ruth's infidelity had hurt so much was that she'd persevered with him. At the outset it took a couple of weeks of her coaxing him before he managed to keep it up long enough to do anything with it. It wasn't physical. Fair enough, the prob
lem manifested itself as a limp dick. But his problem was centred in the notion that the sex act itself was going to be painful for her. He was convinced of that. Not that she was special. He imagined it would be painful for any woman. What she coaxed out of him was the idea that he was going to hurt her. The thought had been with him for a couple of years. Having a stiff cock inside you has got be painful. He didn't know where the notion came from. He didn't like to think about it. When they finally fucked, when he finally came, it was a relief. And maybe that was the greatest pleasure of all. He tried to be caring, considerate, always asking her if she was comfortable, if she was wet enough, if he was too heavy, if he was going too fast, too slow, too deep, not deep enough. Surprising, retrospectively, that his regard for her comfort hadn't annoyed the tits off her. Maybe it did, eventually. Something did. Maybe that's why she fucked somebody else.
Pity she wasn't around to ask. Now that it was too late, he wanted to find out. He was ready to cope with her reply, whatever it was.
"Why did you have to fuck somebody else?"
"He was better than you."
"In bed?"
"And out."
Or:
"Why did you have to fuck somebody else?"
"I never liked you. You were a project."
Or, most likely:
"Why did you have to fuck somebody else?"
"I always wanted to fuck somebody else. You were my second choice."
Well, fuck that. It was over. He had to stop thinking about it.
The car was turning into Cooper's street. "Black door two along," Joe said to Ronald Brewer.
The lawyer pulled into the curb.
"Thanks for the lift," Joe said.
Ronald turned off the engine. "I'll come in with you if you want."
"Don't know if that's a good idea."
"Make sure you don't do something you'll regret, Joe. You're in enough trouble."
"Jesus Christ," Joe said. "I never really knew my mum. But if she was anything like you, I'm glad."
"I'll wait here for you."
Joe opened the door and stepped onto the pavement. He really didn't need all this shit bubbling up from the past. He walked along the path towards the block of flats where Cooper lived. Not now. Fuck. Once it started, it didn't bloody stop. His hand was shaking. You turned on the tap and it stuck and the tank emptied. He tried to hold his finger steady on the buzzer.
After a moment, Cooper said, "That you, Joe?"
Joe felt like he'd spent a week at the bookies, filling his lungs with second-hand smoke, shouting encouragement for horse after horse, yelling, yelling above the rage of other voices. He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead. "No sir, it's your pussy snorkel delivery man." Not a trace of humor.
After Cooper finished laughing, he buzzed Joe into the building.
It was dark, the air colder than outside. The soles of Joe's shoes scraped against the stone floor. In one of the flats, someone was preparing dinner and the smell of frying sausages mixed with the antiseptic odor of stair cleaner. Maybe with a hint of lemon.
The silver nameplate on Cooper's door was the size of a laptop. Joe made a fist, ready to knock. He brought his arm back just as the door opened.
Cooper's head poked through the opening. Stubble peppered his chin. "The fuck you so miserable about?" he said. "You're out of jail, eh? Should be dancing like a dog on a hot floor. Look at you. Miserable git." The door swung open. Unlike the last time Joe had seen him, Cooper was wearing more than just his underwear. A lot more, in fact. He rested his baseball bat against the doorframe and zipped up his padded coat.
"Cut the crap, Cooper. I'm not in the mood."
"If you hadn't hung up I'd have told you not to bother coming round. Good to see you and all that, but I don't have time to chat." He rubbed his hand over his chin. "What did they do to you in there? You don't look too great."
"I'd feel better if I knew what was going on."
"I don't follow." Cooper pulled his gloves out of his coat pocket.
"Don't lie to me. Something's going on."
"You've been caged up, Joe. I don't know what fantasies have been running riot in your brain, but I'll tell you, I'm trying to help. That's all I've been doing. I've only done what's best for you, eh? There's no secret. No conspiracy. You think I'm in direct contact with the CIA or something? Just say the word into my little wrist mike and a black helicopter'll land in the street outside?" He chuckled. "You been doing drugs in there, Joe?"
"You got Tina to alibi me."
"Exactly. Cost a lot of money, that did. I don't say you're not worth it, but she isn't cheap." He slid his fingers into one of the gloves. "I don't expect any gratitude, you know, but I don't like what I'm hearing."
"What was wrong with my real alibi?"
"Full of holes, Joe. Hardly an alibi at all. Thought you'd prefer something more substantial, given the evidence stacked against you." His eyes probed Joe's. "Want me to explain, you ungrateful bastard?"
"Maybe you better."
Cooper put on his other glove. "You're forgetting something about your real alibi." He paused. "I never saw you leave my flat. I was up early, visiting someone in hospital. I was seen there. I can't lie about it. You could have left any time. What kind of an alibi is that?"
"Sally saw me. Her word's good enough."
"Better than Tina's?"
"Just as good."
"You think so?" Cooper nodded. "Let's say the police believed she was telling the truth. Let's say, for the sake of argument, they believe that the teenage girlfriend of an infamous crook who just happens to be your best friend saw you leave her flat the morning after the killing. Let's take a giant leap and suppose they buy that pile of crap. Okay. Now, this is a big flat. Costs enough to heat, I should know. Anyway, we're in the bedroom at the end. You're in the spare room near the front door." He stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "What's to stop you getting up in the middle of the night, leaving the door on the latch, killing Ruth, coming back, going to bed and getting up after I've left, claiming to Sally that you slept like a log?"
"You'd have heard me."
"Positive?"
Joe thought about it. He shrugged. It was possible he could have done what Cooper suggested. "How is Tina's alibi any different?"
"Ah," Cooper said. "At Tina's you were in her bed. Very difficult for you to sneak out and beat somebody to death without Tina knowing about it."
"Not impossible."
"The law's based on the opinions of the reasonable man. Did you know that?" Occasionally, as a result of spending less than a year studying law, Cooper would produce a nugget of legal information and throw it at Joe. Cooper clasped his gloved hands together.
Joe said, "You want a wig or a round of applause?"
Cooper's hands parted. "What's your problem, Joe? I'm trying to help you here."
"I've got a real lawyer waiting outside."
"A real alibi, now a real lawyer. You prefer his company? Fuck off, then."
"More friendly advice?"
Cooper pulled back his coat sleeve and showed Joe his watch. He tapped it three times. "I'm late." He barged past Joe.
Joe pointed his foot at the baseball bat, still propped against the doorframe. "Don't you want your bat?"
"Won't need it. Client's a woman. Put it in the bedroom for me, would you?"
Joe nodded. "What is it you were going to tell me about that reasonable man?"
"Don't know why I'm bothering," Cooper said, turning. "It's like this. A reasonable man would think it unlikely you'd have been able to commit a murder without Tina knowing about it. That's all." He paused. "I mean, what you going to say when she asks where you've been?"
"I had a bad stomach?" Joe said.
Cooper flung his hands in the air. "You're out of prison and you have a credible alibi. Thanks to me. If you don't appreciate what I've done for you, Joe, then just get out of my face." He strode down the corridor. "And shut the fucking door when you leave."
TWENTY-THREE
This time Joe invited Ronald Brewer to join him. The lawyer was proving to be an excellent chauffeur. Which was convenient, since Joe wasn't going to see his own car for a long time. He'd been told he'd get it back as soon as the scene of crime officers were finished with it. When's that? he'd asked. When they're finished with it, he was told. In case you've forgotten, the twat had added, a dead woman was stuffed in the boot. Not something Joe was likely to forget in a hurry. In fact, every time he looked at the car it was going to trigger that memory. The dickhead could keep the car for as long as he liked.
"You want to call her?" Ronald asked.
What kind of question's that, Joe thought.
He must have looked confused. Ronald said, "You want to call Tina?"
Ah, yes. "I'd rather surprise her."
"What if she's, you know, with somebody."
"Unlikely. She doesn't work from home."
"Except with you?"
Joe didn't respond.
When they arrived, the main door was open. They climbed the stairs and rang Tina's bell. No answer. Joe tried again. Still no answer. They were on the point of leaving when they heard her voice.
"Who is it?"
"Bob," Joe said.
"As in Joe?"
Of course, Joe thought. She knew his real name now. "Yeah," he said. "Joe Hope."
The chain rattled and the door clunked open. Tina's face was extremely pale. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, vulnerable without their usual protective layer of blue mascara. Her lips were thin, the color of starved earthworms. Without makeup, there was nothing to draw attention from her nose. It was bigger than he remembered. You could poke your thumbs up her nostrils without touching the sides.
"They let you out," she said.
"Bunch of fools," he said. "You okay? You don't look well."
"It's how I look," she said. "Who's your friend?"
"My lawyer, Ronald Brewer."
Tina opened the door wider. "What happened the last one?"
"I'm not with you. Ronald's the only lawyer I've had."
"We playing games here?" she said. "You coming in? Draft's blowing right up my crotch."
Kiss Her Goodbye Page 11
