by John Harvey
A mound of the day’s papers, including the Independent, for whom Kate wrote a weekly column, was on a chair near the door, and Kiley carried them across to the padded seat in the window bay. Through the glass he could see the usual dog walkers in the park, joggers skirting the edge, more than one of them pushing those three-wheeler buggies that cost the price of a small second-hand car.
Automatically, he looked at the sports pages first to check the results and saw, with no satisfaction, that one of the teams he used to played for had now gone five matches without scoring a goal. Below the fold on the front page, the second lead was about the wife of a Home Office minister being attacked and robbed not so very far from where he was now.
‘In the early hours of yesterday morning, Helen Forester, wife of …’
What in God’s name was she doing, Kiley thought, wandering around the nether end of Stoke Newington at two in the morning? He checked the other papers. Only the disintegrating marriage of a B-celebrity soap star prevented the story from making a full sweep of the tabloids, ‘Minister’s Wife Mugged’ and similar dominating the rest in one-inch type. A library photograph of Helen Forester accompanying her husband to the last party conference was the most popular, her narrow, rather angular face strained beneath a round, flat-brimmed hat of the kind worn by Spanish bullfighters, her husband mostly cropped out.
‘Mrs Forester was found in a dazed state by passers-by and taken to Homerton hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries and shock.’
‘I know her,’ Kate said, looking up from her work. ‘Interviewed her for a piece on politicians’ wives. After all that fuss about Betsy what’s-her-name. I liked her. Intelligent. Mind of her own.’
‘Must have been switched off when this happened.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You think there’s more to it than meets the eye?’
‘Isn’t there always?’
‘You’re the journalist, you tell me.’
Kate shot him a sour glance and went back to the piece she was writing — ‘No More Faking It: the rehabilitation of Meg Ryan in In the Cut.’
‘At least it makes a change,’ Kiley said, ‘from MPs caught out cottaging on Clapham Common.’
But Kate had already switched him off.
By midday the Minister concerned had issued a brief statement. ‘My wife and I are grateful for all of the flowers and messages of support…’
The Shadow Home Secretary materialised long enough to fire the usual tired salvos about the unsafe streets of our cities and the need for more police officers on the beat. Nothing yet about what the unfortunate Mrs Forester had been doing out alone when she might more properly have been tucked up alongside her husband in the safety of their Islington flat or at their constituency home. That, Kiley was sure, would come.
Cafe tables were spread along the broad pavement north of Belsize Park underground station, and Kiley was sitting in the early autumn sunshine nursing a cappuccino and wondering what to do with the rest of the day.
Almost directly opposite, above the bookshop, his small two-room office held little attraction: the message light on the answerphone was, as far as he knew, not flickering, no urgent faxes lay waiting, any bills he was concerned with paying had been dealt with and his appointment book, had he possessed one, would have been blank. He could walk up the hill on to Hampstead Heath and enjoy the splendours of the turning leaves or stroll across to the Screen on the Hill and sit through the matinee of something exotic and life-affirming.
Then again, he could order another cappuccino, while he considered the possibility of lunch. Irena, the young Romanian waitress who moonlighted two mornings a week as his bookkeeper and secretary, was not on duty, and he caught the eye of a waiter, who by his accent was Spanish and most probably from Latin America. At one of the nearby tables, a May-November couple were holding hands and staring into one another’s eyes; at another, a man in a ‘Fight Global Capitalism’ T-shirt was listening contentedly to his iPod, and just within his line of vision, a young woman of twenty-two or — three, wearing dark glasses and a seriously abbreviated cerise top, was poring over The Complete Guide to Yoga. In small convoys, au pairs propelled their charges along the pavement opposite. The sun continued to shine. What was a seemingly intelligent, middle-aged middle-class woman doing, apparently alone, at the wrong end of Stoke Newington High Street at that hour of the morning? Like a hangnail, it nagged at him and wouldn’t let him rest.
Dusk prevailed. Lights showed pale under the canopy as the last supermarket loads were packed and readied. The workers, most of them, stood huddled around the vans, the faint glow of their cigarettes pink and red. Mud on their boots and the backs of their legs, along their arms and caked beneath their fingernails. The low line of trees at the far field edge was dark and, beyond it, the cathedral was black against the delicate pink of the sky.
The foreman had counted his men once and now was counting them again.
One short.
He’d had a shouting match with one of them earlier, some barrack-room lawyer from Dubrovnik or some other Godforsaken place, there was always one of them, mouthing off about rest periods and meal breaks.
‘You,’ he said, poking the nearest with a gloved finger. ‘That mate of yours, where is he?’
The man shook his head and looked away. The others stared hard at the ground.
‘Where the fuck is he, that fucking Croat cunt?’
Nobody answered, nobody knew.
‘Okay,’ the foreman said finally, the driver with his engine already idling. ‘Get ’em out of here. And tomorrow, be on fuckin’ time, right?’
It was later that evening, after a warming dinner of lamb shanks with aubergine and cinnamon and the best part of a bottle of Cotes du Ventoux, the moon plump in the sky, that Audrey Herbert left her husband to load the dishwasher, donned her Wellingtons and waterproof jacket and took the Labrador for its final walk. Halfway along the track that ran beside the second field, the dog started barking loudly at something in the drainage ditch and Audrey thought at first he had unearthed a rat. It was only when she shone the torch and saw the body, half-submerged, that she realised it was something more.
Kate stood Kiley up that evening to have dinner with Jonathan Sayer. Sayer, until a rather public falling-out and resignation, had been press officer to the Prime Minister and still had close connections with the inner sanctum of government.
‘Seems the PM went ape shit,’ Sayer confided. They were in an Indian restaurant in Kentish Town, a table well away from the door. ‘Tore a strip off the Home Secretary right outside the Cabinet room. Told him if he couldn’t keep his underlings and their bloody wives in order, he’d replace him with someone who could.’
‘Bit of an overreaction?’
Sayer shrugged. ‘You know how he is, scared about weevils coming out of the woodwork. Or wherever it is they come from.’
Kate thought it was flour.
‘His ratings, this past six months, last thing he needs now is a juicy bit of scandal.’
‘Is that what this is?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Sayer smiled winsomely. ‘How’s the tarka dhal, by the way?’
‘A little too runny, actually.’
‘Shame.’
‘So. When’s it going to hit the fan?’
Sayer looked at her appraisingly. ‘First editions tomorrow, most likely.’
‘Are you going to make me wait till then?’
‘You could always phone your editor.’
‘I’m having dinner with you.’
Sayer sighed. ‘It seems Helen Forester has not been averse, shall we say, to seeking a little solace on the side. When her husband’s work has made him less than attentive.’
‘She screws around.’
‘Not compulsively.’
‘Anyone notable?’
Sayer named a junior MP and a writer whose dissections of political life under the Tories had come close to earning him a CBE. ‘That’s over a per
iod of ten or twelve years, of course. Restrained by some standards.’
‘And Forester knows?’
Sayer nodded. ‘There was some talk of divorce, I believe, but all the usual factors came into play. Children. Careers. Forgive and forget.’
‘So the tabs are going to dish the dirt, encourage their readers to join the dotted lines. What else was she doing in the wee small hours if she wasn’t on her way home from some love nest or other?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Any names being bandied about?’
‘Ah…’ Sayer leaned back in his chair. ‘I was rather hoping you might help me there.’
‘Me?’
‘You interviewed her recently, got on famously by all accounts.’
‘And you think she might have been a little indiscreet?’
‘Two women chatting together, relaxed. It’s not impossible she’d have mentioned a name or two, purely in passing. Besides, it’s what you’re good at. Getting people to say things they’d rather keep to themselves.’
Kate smiled and let a piece of well-spiced lady’s finger slide down her throat. ‘It’s you, actually, Jonathan. Fancies the balls off you, she really does. Maybe I’ll give my editor a call as you suggest.’
There were times and recently a goodly number of them, when Kate despaired of her profession. The following morning, when the press spewed up a mess of private folly and unsubstantiated rumour, was one of them. In the cause of public interest, the tabloids took their usual lead, while the broadsheets, keen to maintain their superiority, merely reported their assertions in words of more than two syllables.
After a decent interval, Kate phoned the number she had for Helen Forester but there was no answer. By the time she tried again later, mid-morning, the line had been disengaged. Jonathan Sayer’s mobile was permanently switched off. Kiley, she remembered, had promised to do a little background checking on the client of a solicitor friend. She wondered if a visit to the Olafur Eliasson sun installation at Tate Modern might lift her into a better frame of mind.
It was late afternoon before Kiley reported to the offices of Hamblin, Laker and Clarke, a summary of his findings inside a DL manilla envelope, along with a bill for his services. Margaret Hamblin, quietly resplendent in something from Donna Karan, came out into the reception area to thank him.
‘I would suggest a glass of wine, Jack. There’s a quite nice white from Alsace I’m giving a try. Only there’s someone here who wants to see you. Special Branch. You can use my office.’
Someone was plural. One brusque and unsmiling, slight hints of a Scottish accent still lingering, the other, bespectacled, mostly silent and inscrutable.
‘Masters,’ the first man said, showing identification. ‘Detective Superintendent.’ He didn’t introduce his companion.
‘Jack Kiley.’
‘You’re a private investigator.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you can make a living doing that?’
‘Some days, yes.’
In the parlance of Kiley’s recent profession, Masters was a skilful midfielder, not especially tall, wiry, difficult to shake off the ball. He nodded and reached into his pocket. The by-play was over. Inside a small plastic envelope was one of Kiley’s business cards, dog-eared and far from pristine.
‘Yours?’
‘Cheaper by the thousand.’
‘There’s a phone number, just above your name.’ He held it up for Kiley to see. It was Margaret Hamblin’s number. ‘Is that your writing?’
‘Seems to be.’
A Polaroid photograph next, head and shoulders, a deep gash to one side of the temple, lifeless eyes.
‘Anyone you know?’
‘No.’
‘He was found dead in a field last night. Village outside Ely.’
Kiley shook his head.
‘Here,’ Masters said, handing Kiley the envelope containing the card. ‘Turn it round.’
On the back, smudged but still readable was the name ‘Adina’. Just that.
‘Ring any bells?’
It rang a few. Adina was a friend of Irena’s from Costanza on the Black Sea coast of Romania. Smuggled into the country, she had worked as an exotic dancer, paying off the exorbitant fee for transportation. She had got into a little trouble and Kiley had helped her out. That had been a year ago. Somewhere in that time she had sent Irena a postcard from Bucharest.
‘You rode to the rescue,’ Masters said. ‘Knight in shining armour.’
‘Dark armour,’ the second man corrected, as if to prove he’d been listening. “A knight in dark armour rescuing a lady”.’
‘Harry Potter?’ asked Kiley guilelessly.
‘Philip Marlowe. The Big Sleep.’
‘You know where she is now, this Adina?’ Masters asked.
‘Romania?’
‘I don’t think so. And Alen Markovic…’
‘Who’s that?’
‘The man in the photo.’
‘The dead man.’
‘Exactly. You’ve no idea how or why he might end up in a drainage ditch with your card on his person? Complete with the name of an illegal immigrant you befriended and the telephone number of a solicitor with a reputation for handling appeals against deportation. And let’s discount, shall we, pure chance and coincidence.’
‘If I had to guess,’ Kiley said, ‘I’d say he got it from Adina.’
‘You gave it to her, she gave it to him.’
‘Something like that.’
‘In case of trouble, someone to contact, someone to ring.’
‘It’s plausible.’
‘He didn’t call you?’
‘No.’
Kiley wondered if they were merely following up stray leads; he wondered if the one blow with a thick-edged implement to Alen Markovic’s head had been enough to kill him. On balance, he thought both less than likely.
‘We could always try asking this Adina,’ Masters said softly, as if the suggestion had just that second occurred to him.
‘If we could find her,’ Kiley said.
‘If she isn’t still tied to a tree,’ said the second man. He really did know his Chandler backwards.
A light rain was beginning to fall. Most of the outside tables had been cleared. Kiley intercepted Irena on her way up from the Tube. Masters stood a little way off, coat collar up. Through the pale strobe of headlights climbing the hill, Kiley could see Masters’ colleague in the bookstore opposite, innocently browsing through this and that.
‘What is it?’ Irena said. ‘What’s happened?’
Kiley moved her close against one of the plane trees that lined the street. Her features were small and precise and the rain that clung to her short, spiky hair made it shine.
‘Adina,’ Kiley said. ‘Is she back in England?’
‘No, of course not.’
Kiley waited, fingers not quite touching the sleeve of her coat. Her eyes avoiding his. ‘I shall be late. For work.’ Absurdly, he wanted to run his hand across the cap of dark, wet hair.
‘Why? Why do you want to know?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Is she in trouble?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘She made me promise not to tell you. She thought, after everything you did, she thought you would be angry. Upset.’ There were tears on her face or maybe it was only the rain, which had started to fall more heavily. ‘She is working at a club. I think near Leicester Square. I don’t know the name.’
‘You know where she’s living?’
Irena took a set of keys from her pocket and put them in his hand.
‘She is living with me.’
Kiley watched her walk away, head down, and then waited for Masters to join him. The dark blue Vauxhall was parked in a side road opposite.
Masters’ bibliophile friend was standing by the car, a plastic bag containing several paperbacks clutched against his coat. ‘You’re lucky,’ he said to Kiley. ‘More than decent bo
okshop, that close to where you work.’ The glow from the overhead light turned his skin an unhealthy shade of orange.
‘You’ve got a name?’ Kiley asked.
‘Several.’ He took off his glasses, shook them free from rain, blinked, and put them back on again.
‘How about one that matches some ID?’ Kiley said.
‘Jenkins?’
‘And you’re Special Branch too?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Let’s get in,’ Masters said. ‘We’re wasting time.’
At the lights by Chalk Farm station, Masters said, ‘All we want from your friend is a little information, clarification. We’ve no interest in her immigration status at this stage.’
Kiley trusted him like he trusted the weather.
Irena lived in two rooms off Inverness Street; actually a single room let into the roof and divided by a rickety partition. A small Velux window gave views towards the market and the canal. Kiley had been there once before, a party for Irena’s friends, enough of the Romanian diaspora to cover every available inch of floor and spread back down the stairs.
He had hardly let himself in when Adina came bounding after him, scarf tied round her raven hair, cursing. She was wearing a bustier beneath a flimsy cotton top, skin-tight emerald green trousers and what, after several visits to Cinderella at an early age, would, to Kiley, forever be Dandini boots, folded back high above the knee.
‘Oh, my God!’ she exclaimed, seeing him. ‘Oh, my God, what are you doing here?’
‘It’s all right,’ Kiley said. ‘Irena gave me a key.’
‘I am just here,’ Adina said breathlessly, ‘for visit. Holiday.’
‘Irena said you were working.’
Adina dumped her things on the floor and threw herself into a chair. ‘Work, holiday, what does it matter?’
The headline on the evening paper read ‘MINISTER’S WIFE’S MIDNIGHT ASSIGNATION’. What was an hour or so up against some nice alliteration?
