by Ian Mayfield
‘Thank you all,’ she managed to say, surrounded by wrapping paper, wishing she’d prepared better for the dreaded moment someone yelled out, ‘Speech!’ ‘I’m going to miss working here - but not half as much as I’ll miss a sergeant’s pay if I ever have to come back.’ Jeers greeted this remark.
‘Gone half one,’ Sandra called out dramatically, and it was the signal for the ceremony to end, for urging Anne to make herself scarce before someone found her some more work to do. And so Acting Sergeant Anne White, arms full of gifts, walked on a tide of farewells out of the office, and out of the team.
‘Special Crime,’ Sophia’s voice rang out behind her, suddenly businesslike, ‘stay put. It’s not quite the weekend yet.’
The last Anne heard before the door closed behind her were the groans as they shuffled back to their desks.
Life for an Anne-less Special Crime Unit lost no time in going on as usual. Jasmin Winter, who had missed both the prank and the presentation because of a previously scheduled appointment, returned looking glum and dove into an impressive pile of paperwork before anyone could engage her in conversation. Zoltan Schneider received a call from DI Beaumont, who informed him that Darren Pegley had just appeared at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court, charged with rape and several offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act, and had been remanded to Wandsworth pending court dates to be determined. Acting on a tip from an informer, Helen Wallace went to a house in Thornton Heath and brought a 26-year-old man of Turkish Cypriot descent and his two mobile phones in for investigation in connection with a number of anonymous calls placed the previous Sunday to a Mr Muhammad Siddiqi, in the course of which, Siddiqi had alleged, a threat had been made to petrol bomb his mosque. At five-thirty precisely, Zoltan ordered a highly reluctant Jasmin to stop what she was doing and go home immediately. And shortly after that, the forensic laboratory in Oxfordshire rang Sophia to let her know that the previously unidentified DNA of the blood sample from the Paragon Road squat had been matched with the cheek swab taken recently at Charing Cross police station from one Philip Rex Meredith, last known at that address.
Anne flexed her back against the softness of the bed and allowed herself to dwell momentarily on the fact that the man inside her was not Zoltan. Sensing something, he paused and looked into her eyes. But she closed them and, encircling him, drew him closer, bearing down as she drove towards orgasm. She felt him join her in a tight coil of pleasure; then they separated and lay recovering and reflecting beneath the covers.
As always seems the way, she’d found the perfect dress almost as soon as she’d set foot inside Harrods. The gift voucher accounted for, the rest of the shopping expedition was an anti-climax, and she caught herself wandering up and down Oxford Street thinking despondently that all the shops nowadays were the same as in Croydon, only bigger. Her failure to tie up her Special Crime affairs was still nagging at her, and she decided to shelve a visit to a museum in favour of one task she could still perform.
A courtesy call; that, she insisted to herself on the way to Camberwell, was all it was. Communicating thanks to a helpful witness. But when she reached Meadow Music a strange face was behind the counter. Roy Gillam had taken the day off. He might be at home; his flat was in Greenwich. She thanked the youth and drove there.
Pleasantly surprised, Gillam set aside the accounts he’d been trying to balance and invited her to share a bottle of wine, it being Friday after all. Flirting seemed as easy across his kitchen table as sitting side by side in the shop, ploughing through receipts. The table was small, the brushing of legs a frequent, ultimately deliberate occurrence. Easy, too, to make hand contact under, then over, the table. Not long after, they stood up. They wasted very little more time before moving to the bedroom.
Anne often wondered about this aspect of her nature. It wasn’t the first time since she’d been going out with Zoltan that she’d stretched the definition of flirting beyond its limits. Zoltan, she suspected, knew nothing of these dalliances, and would not wish to know. He had her heart; he should not begrudge her lending out, from time to time, her libido. Oddly, the only thing that concerned her now was the million to one chance that next time he sat in her car, he’d notice the extra mileage.
In the warm aftermath of sex she dismissed the notion and snuggled up to Roy, gratified that she couldn’t tell what was in his thoughts. In bed, she found the copper’s habit of trying to read people’s minds a liability. She stopped herself by kissing him. She felt him go hard, and herself wet, and they made love again.
‘Better go soon,’ she said later, not relishing having to part company with the soft bedcovers and Roy’s body.
‘Back to your boyfriend?’
It was said not maliciously, but easily, with a benign smile.
She made a face. ‘You guessed.’
‘The way you talked about him before. Your boss, right?’
‘As was until today.’
‘Does he know?’ Again, Roy spoke with no trace of agitation or jealousy.
‘No.’
‘Welcome to have a shower before you leave.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, with a sudden flow of gratitude towards this likeable, thoughtful man. ‘Do I have to go yet? You haven’t got someone coming home too, have you?’
‘No, not me. No rush.’
But it was getting late. She rose, bathed and dressed, savouring the familiar glow of satisfaction. Bathrobed, Roy rejoined her as she was brushing her hair.
He said, ‘One-off, this, right?’
‘Very probably,’ she smiled.
‘Because I’m a witness?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’
‘Other people, perhaps.’
‘Blimey.’ A thought had struck him. She read it before she could stop herself.
‘If it comes to court,’ she said, pre-empting him, ‘and assuming you’re called...’
Their eyes met and held, and they giggled at their private joke.
‘Just try and keep a straight face,’ Anne said.
Saturday
There is something about the architecture of the motion picture theatre that distinguishes them long after they have been closed down and converted to other purposes. You could still tell, sometimes with the briefest glance, where the old picture palaces of Croydon had once been. Some had become bingo halls, others fitness centres or bowling alleys, theme pubs or thrift shops. One, the old Focus on Crown Hill that had screened mostly soft porn with a side business in Disney films and action blockbusters during the school holidays, was now a Hustler Club. Then there was Barkeley’s Discotheque, on the Brighton Road half a mile south of Purley Cross. It had once been the Lyric Cinema, an edifice that epitomised Hollywood’s Golden Age. Outside, if you looked beyond the vulgar chrome doors and the huge vertical sign with its gaudy flashing lights, it retained its splendour. It was an entertainment Mecca for the young and young at heart; it couldn’t very well fail to be. Apart from a 24-hour Tesco and a couple of characterless pubs, there was precious little else to keep Purley alive once the sun sank behind the roofs of the semis on Woodcote Hill.
Perhaps the word was out that a posse of partying coppers was on its way. Barkeley’s was less than usually packed for a Saturday night, and they had no trouble getting in. Even the doormen, who normally did their level best to provoke a fight, smelled bacon and were gratifyingly subdued. There were, after all, perks to the Job. On the debit side, the doormen would never believe these pigs were off duty and would spread the word to whomever might be interested, then watch them uncomfortably from the shadows all night. The team, for their part, knew this, and knew neither to notice certain people behaving oddly whenever one of them hove into view, nor to draw attention to themselves. At least, not until everyone was having too good a time to care.
The combined stares of Sandra and Zoltan got them a booth. It was still only mid-evening, but Barkeley’s already throbbed with noise and humanity. The recipe was deafening trance
music, plenty of dry ice and dancing and bar prices that made Lottery jackpot winners wonder why they’d bothered. Some of the party, Paul Jackson along with Lucky’s friend Juliet, a thin girl of about the same age with long mousy hair and John Lennon glasses, made straight for the dancefloor. Others took a while longer, settling.
Presently Jasmin Winter descended on Jeff Wetherby. She’d turned up alongside Kim Oliver with a face like a cancelled wedding and, feeling the way he did about her, the apparent lifting of her spirits transmitted itself to Jeff’s heartstrings to produce a painfully harmonious twang. He smiled at her.
‘Can we wait until something a bit slower comes on?’ he said. ‘You know what I’m like.’
‘Huh?’
They’d been through this before. Jeff danced like a three-legged camel with housemaid’s knee. Jasmin nonetheless seemed possessed of a fantasy of turning him into a contender for Strictly Come Dancing.
‘I will teach you,’ she said.
‘You tried that.’
‘Huh?’
‘You tried,’ he bawled over the din.
‘OK,’ she relented. ‘We wait for a slow one. But I will teach you to dance if it kills me.’
‘Brave woman.’
Two tracks later the DJ considered it about time for a slower one, something newish by Armin van Buuren. Jasmin stood up, took Jeff by the hand and tugged. He allowed himself to be towed into the crowd, the merciless giggling of eavesdroppers ringing in his ears.
‘This is still a bit fast for me,’ he protested.
‘What, you want the Funeral March?’ She coached, ‘Just follow my feet and keep time.’
He complied, because it meant he could hold her, and she him. Her warm back stirred under his hands, like the coiled muscles of a cat poised to spring. Her arms round his neck were firm and strong; her fingers left a tingle where they touched him.
‘OK?’
‘Hope you’re ready for bruised toes.’
‘I’m used to it.’
Jeff hoped no-one was watching his efforts at grace too closely. For one thing he was wearing a suit, which always made him feel uncomfortable, but it was his balance, or lack of it, that was the main problem. Ideally he liked to see ahead of him, use the horizon as a reference point. Currently Jasmin filled his horizon; not entirely conducive to steadiness. Luckily she appeared to have chosen a spot in the midst of the crowd, away from the main focus of the strobe lights and the view from the team’s booth.
‘You’ve perked up a bit.’
‘Huh?’
He upped the volume. ‘I said you’ve cheered up a bit.’
‘Ja?’
‘Aye. Only you’ve been a bit down in the dumps, past couple of days. I heard about the, er…’
She frowned. ‘Dance closer and shout in my ear,’ she advised. ‘It will not fall off, right?’
‘No, but your eardrum might burst.’ Nonetheless, he followed her advice. Her spicy perfume wafted up his nostrils, down into his chest and tickled his heart. He wondered if she’d consider him forward if he asked her what it was.
She laughed.
‘That’s better.’ He smiled with her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Like I said, you’ve been none too happy. I wanted to ask what’s eating you.’
Jasmin opened her mouth, then closed it again. She seemed to ponder a moment. She said, ‘You drive here tonight, right?’
He nodded.
‘You can give me a lift?’
‘Now?’
She tutted indulgently. ‘Not now. When it’s time to go.’
His stomach a tight, burning knot, he said, ‘Sure.’
‘I’ll tell you about it on the way, then.’
He grunted, unsure what he ought to make of this.
He was still thinking about it, in depth, when she said, ‘You want to sit down now?’
He looked up, snapping back into the real world. Van Buuren was yielding to something edgy he didn’t think he knew, although the way some of these DJs worked nowadays he might easily be listening to a mix of McCartney’s ‘Yesterday’ and not recognize it. Now they were drawing attention to themselves. The floor had almost emptied but for a few engrossed couples gyrating away to one another’s more vital rhythms. There was some isolated slow hand clapping from the booth. Separating, gearing themselves for the piss-takes, they went to sit down.
‘Sorry,’ he simpered. ‘Miles away.’
‘It’s OK,’ she smiled at him.
Although Paul was seldom touching base in between forays to the dancefloor, the fact that his wife had barely even spoken to anyone else either hadn’t gone unremarked. Both of them seemed edgy and disinclined to be sociable, wary as much of each other as the company. Word was their marriage was on the tramlines. Sandra, who was tighter with Nina than any of them, had a tense look on her sharp face, like someone expecting a balloon to burst. Rather too brightly, she volunteered the opinion that Nina looked fucking miserable and that she was working on a way of forcing her to enjoy herself.
Nina had begun to doubt the wisdom of this evening the moment she’d opened the door to Paul standing hunched in her parents’ porch. She’d recoiled, as if from a spider in the bath. He was dressed with ruthless formality and had a weird light in his eyes which she only later recognised as fear when she saw her own reflection in the wing mirror. This was the first time they’d been together since her discovery, and she was desperately trying to work out why he looked so different. A little thinner, maybe some worry lines on his forehead and about his eyes, but that wasn’t it.
There’d been precisely three words between them all evening.
‘I’m pulling over.’
That had been halfway here, when Paul had no longer been able to stand the icy quiet from his wife. Wordlessly she’d watched him pull into the kerb and switch off the engine. Then she waited. He’d turned in his seat and tried to meet her gaze, but she’d sat rigid, staring blindly out through the windscreen. Whatever words he’d prepared died in his throat. Quite right, too, she thought in sudden wrath. What could he possibly say?
Trouble was, she couldn’t think of anything either.
So he’d given up, and they’d carried on to Purley in silence. And in silence, still, Nina sat, an island of unhappiness in a sea of revelry.
‘What’s with those two, I wonder?’ Helen Wallace watched Paul’s back as it was swallowed up in the crowd. He’d come back to the booth with Juliet, but had paused only for a few gulps of lager before walking off again. ‘Doesn’t he know he’s got a wife?’
‘Major row brewing,’ Lucky suggested.
‘Or in progress.’ Juliet, trying not to stare, took her seat and hunched forward.
‘Oh, well,’ Helen sighed, ‘none of our business, eh?’
‘Why not?’ Lucky demanded at once.
Helen frowned at her. She seemed irritable tonight, inclined to jump down throats. To the DS, sub-letting to Lucky one end of her desk, she was an enigma. She’d thought she had her figured out that first morning, when she’d found the new trainee to be enchanting company. Lucky had tried hard since then, but somehow her heart didn’t seem to be in the sunshine and smiles business as much as its owner would like. It was mystifying, because the obvious explanation - her feeling she couldn’t hack it - didn’t seem to apply. She’d slogged as hard as any of them and was, as far as Helen could tell, on top of everything that had been dumped in her lap. She made an odd contrast to her friend: Lucky in a dark blue top and Seven jeans, Juliet, ironically, more in keeping with the company in a strap-shoulder white dress of some satiny material. It seemed Lucky had misjudged the dress code again, and perhaps that was what was bothering her. Somehow Helen doubted it was that simple.
‘Should be our business.’ Lucky took a sip of her rum and black and pursued her theme. ‘Nina’s one of us, yeah? I can’t believe you can say that.’
‘She’s also an old married woman, and that’ - Helen gestured towards the Jacksons - �
�looks like private business to me. If they want to share, they will.’
‘Right,’ Lucky said, puzzled, ‘and in the meantime don’t let it spoil our fun?’
A curly head interposed itself. Sandra Jones had overheard some of their conversation. ‘You wondering about Nina?’
‘Isn’t everybody?’ Helen said glumly.
‘Bloody right. Wetherby’s just opened his great cakehole over there - crafty sod always notices more than he lets on. Chances are this’ll boil over later anyway, so I might as well forewarn you.’ She stole a guilty glance at Nina, who was staring at the bottom of a Scotch and ginger. ‘She walked out on him.’
‘What?’ Helen’s eyes widened. ‘Why?’
Sandra explained.
‘So what’s he doing here, then?’
‘Buggered if I know,’ Sandra said with a shrug. ‘Sit back and watch the fireworks, I would.’
There was a sudden sharp thump of glass on table and Lucky stood up. To Juliet she said loudly, ‘I’m going to the bar. D’you want another drink?’
Juliet, given little say in the matter, went off with her. Sandra peered after them, then looked at Helen.
‘What’s got her g-string in a twist?’
‘Look, this is pointless. I’m gonna go.’
Paul cracked. Conscience had snared him and he’d come back to the booth to sit down. Grudgingly, Nina had moved up to make room. He was perched on the edge and she was aware of the muscles of his hip tense against hers. She had oppressed him into breaking the silence but she felt too bleak inside even to glory in his discomfort.
‘Bye, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a cab.’
‘This was your idea.’
‘Bad idea.’
‘Now we’re here, can’t we at least - ’
‘What about?’
‘What about?’
‘Two things.’
