by Adam Baron
Luke risked his life for me. For various reasons too long to go into a man I’d tried to put away wanted me dead and Luke found out about it. Luke knew the man was coming for me and though he was aware it was dangerous he drove across town to warn me. Because we look alike, and because Luke was driving my car, the man thought my brother was me and he tried to kill him. Some would say he succeeded. Luke risked his life for me and because he did that I knew I could not go on living the life I had been living. That life hadn’t really been much, certainly not worth doing what Luke did to save it. Not worth spending the rest of his life – if you can call it that – lying in a hospital bed, unable to move even his eyelashes, kept alive by a constant stream of liquid nourishment fed through a plastic tube in his stomach, sitting helpless inside himself, a prison cell which, I was assured, he would never be released from. Not into this world, anyway.
I sipped Ally’s coffee and traced my finger around the flower pattern on the vinyl tablecloth. I was sinking back into feelings of guilt, and a vein-searing impotence, shrunk by the image of Luke’s inert body in the wreckage of my car, remembering the helplessness I felt, until time took me by the scruff of the neck and kept me from drowning. It was quarter to four. I shook off the thoughts I’d been having, like water from a raincoat. I got up and asked Ally for two portions of her unbelievable tiramisu to take home with me.
Ally cut one portion, placed it carefully in a cardboard carton, and then went to cut another.
‘And if you could just give me the recipe as well, Ally, I’ll be on my way.’
‘Never!’ she laughed. A long, elegant middle finger rested lightly on the top of the second piece, stopping it falling off the cake slicer. I’d been on at her for years about her tiramisu recipe.
‘Why would you ever buy it from me if you could make it yourself?’ she asked.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to make it, I want to sell it!’
She laughed again and put the carton in a plastic bag.
‘And who,’ she asked, ‘is the lucky girl?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Which privileged female will be sharing my tiramisu after you have cooked one of your famous meals for her?’ Ally’s eyebrows stood up into two neat arches.
‘You should be a detective,’ I said. ‘Maybe I just think I’ll be hungry later.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘you exercise too much. There’s definitely a second party involved here.’
I held up my hands.
‘OK,’ I admitted, ‘you’ve got me bang to rights. But it’s only Sharon.’
‘Only Sharon,’ she said meaningfully. ‘Hmmm.’
I ignored the archness of Ally’s tone, as well as that of her eyebrows, and took the bag from her.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘you wouldn’t make a very good detective at all. Your method of interrogation is far too intimidating.’
We both laughed, and then I left, calling out bye to Mike who was still up to his elbows in soapsuds.
* * *
If you work all day looking for missing people in the squats or doorways of Camden, King’s Cross, Dalston and Hackney, getting sworn at, spat at, threatened, and generally abused, then walking through the front door of The Albion, in Barnsbury, feels like St Peter has held open the door for you. It is an old, ivy-covered haven, with a wooden floor, sofas, horse brasses which somehow manage not to look kitsch, and no jukebox. It has the immediate effect of making you think that you have just been transported into the tranquil heart of the countryside and the one detective you would not be surprised to see there would be Miss Marple. I had a quick skirt around for Andy, ordered a Perrier, and sat at a small, gnarled table, with my eye on the door.
Andy Gold ducked in ten minutes after I had, at twenty past four, and he seemed to bring his day in with him. I waved off his offer of a drink, and he stood at the bar while the barmaid served him a pint of lager and a double whiskey, straight, no ice, which he drank off before coming over to sit down. He needed his other hand to hold his briefcase.
Andy is only about five-eight, qualifying for the Met a year after they lowered the height requirement. He has dark brown hair which he keeps constantly slicked back with its own natural grease, and he has the sort of face which looks like it could do with a damn good shave, immediately after it has been given a damn good shave. Like me his mother was Jewish and his father Anglo-Saxon, but his features are more Semitic than mine, his skin that Mediterranean non-brown, his nose prominent, his thick, bunched eyebrows giving a correct impression of over-anxious intensity. He’s the same age as I am, give or take a couple of months, but he could easily pass for ten years older on a bad day. This, it seemed, was a bad day.
Andy sat down and took a long pull on his beer. He looked a wreck. His suit was creased to shit and his eyes were two boiled eggs in a dish of ketchup. He loosened his already loosened tie, sat forward in his chair, pushed his head forward and ran his nails hard over his scalp. Then he sat back and yawned, not bothering to cover up the fact that he had had a tonsillectomy at one point in his life, and had eaten too many sweets as a teenager. He drank his pint down to about an inch before taking any notice of me. I waited.
‘So,’ he said eventually, ‘the MP doesn’t think his bro was a homo.’
‘No,’ I said.
I reached into the back pocket of my trousers and pulled out two fifty-pound notes, which I let Andy see before slipping them quietly into the side pocket of his jacket. Andy nodded almost imperceptibly. Then he reached down for his briefcase which he placed on his knee and snapped the clasps on. He took out a brown folder which he laid on the table in front of me.
‘You never saw this,’ he said, as my hand reached out to open it.
Chapter Four
I pan-fried the sausages very quickly to brown the skins, and then I put them in the Le Creuset which Sharon had bought me last Christmas. I’d picked the sausages up from Molise’s on the Farringdon Road, along with a couple of tins of Italian tomatoes, the ones that don’t have acetic acid or any sugar added, and the smell of which makes you think of Tuscany, whether or not you’ve actually been there. I opened the tins and tipped the contents over the sausages, along with a large glug of extra virgin, six crushed cloves of garlic, a little white wine, a splash of Lea and Perrins, and two small dried Indian chilli peppers. I mashed the tomatoes up with a wooden spoon, remembered the tablespoon of honey, and then put the pot on to bubble for an hour. I made up some polenta, mixed it with two chopped, steamed leeks, and put that on to bake. Then I sat down on the sofa with some photocopies of material from the file which Andy Gold had been kind enough to show me.
It was clear that my friend and his colleagues had no doubt about Edward Morgan’s murder being part of the series of gay slashings which the tabloids had taken such great delight in over the past six months. Teddy’s details were in there alongside the details of the other two deaths.
John Evans was killed in the cab of his lorry. He was parked in a lay-by on the A1, just south of Stamford, and current theory believed that his assailant was probably a hitchhiker who he had propositioned, and who reacted with greater energy than the usual yes or no. Two severe contusions just above the hairline show that Evans was rendered immobile with what forensic scientists are certain was his own ten-pound hand wrench. Evans was then attacked with a broken bottle, receiving abdominal and chest injuries, which caused internal laceration severe enough to cause his heart to fail before he had time to bleed to death. The absence of any glass fragments in Evans’ cab, to match those found in his body, led to the conclusion that the attack was to a large degree premeditated, because the assailant clearly had the weapon ready before he got into the lorry. Why a bottle was used in this way instead of a knife, is not known. These days, seriously effective knives are just as easy to get hold of as beer bottles. If the attackers were teenagers, then a knife would actually have been easier to obtain than a beer bottle.
As for motive, the report stated that a theory o
f simple violent robbery was hard to sustain. While it is true that John Evans was robbed of what is believed to be about a hundred pounds, Evans had no defence wounds on his arms and hands, nothing to show that he had tried, as would be natural, to stop whoever it was from stabbing him to death. He was, therefore, unconscious, or at least completely defenceless before he received the wounds to his stomach area which killed him. A mugger would usually have taken what he wanted after immobilizing his victim, and then left him unconscious. He would avoid murder if he could help it, and in this case it seems that he definitely could have done.
But he didn’t.
The police appealed for witnesses, posting pictures of the driver in service stations and truck stops up and down the A1, and they interviewed all of Evans’ friends and workmates. But nobody came forward with anything useful. The murder was privately put down to a crackhead getting carried away, and while the usual amount of manpower was still spent on it, it was assumed that the perpetrator would get caught sooner or later for doing something else. At this stage of the investigation no homosexual link was established.
I turned the page.
A young lad with smooth light brown skin and a big, goofy grin stared out at me from an A4 blow-up of a studio photograph. I could just make out a blue shirt, and a red and green striped school tie. I looked at the shot for a second or two, not really wanting to turn the page again. Then I put the picture aside.
James Waldock worked as a male prostitute, probably controlled by a Brixton outfit called the 22 Crew. The 22 are an enterprising bunch of dudes who hang out in a cafe on the Railton Road, and are gradually maturing into an efficient whores and scores team, expanding operations as far as the Yardies will let them and as long as they give them a big enough piece of the action. For a male prostitute in the City of London and its boroughs James was a couple of years older than the estimated average. He was fourteen.
James Waldock came from what the report politely termed a deprived background. Free of any fatherly influence, his mother was a user, and it was probably she who introduced him to her own profession, anxious that at his age he should begin to pay his way. His form teacher’s report, which was in the file, stated that he was a quiet, surprisingly bright kid who, when he did attend school, was always attentive and liked to ask questions. He was, however, easily led by older boys, and he often tried to hide his intelligence behind an assumed bravado which didn’t seem to come naturally to him. This happens a lot to young black males, so the teacher reported. White males too, I thought. I see it all the time. The peculiarly harsh way in which some boys aged fourteen or so rebuke the child in them, as if they hate the naivety within themselves, a naivety which has conned them into some sort of hope which they begin to see can only cause them frustration and disappointment. I remembered it myself, how I’d once challenged my father to a fight, just him and me, after he’d used his belt on Luke for coming home ten minutes late. How he had kicked the shit out of me. This tacked-on manfulness can look ugly and be dangerous, but it usually passes. If the kid is left alive long enough to grow out of it.
James was conscious through most of what happened to him. His body was found in the basement of a condemned block of council flats which is being taken down slowly, floor by floor from the top. Police believe that he was being buggered in a standing position, and that during or immediately after this, his head was battered hard against the wall he was being pushed up against. His nose was broken and scrapes of dry paint were found on his skin and in his mouth. Nonoxynol, the chemical used to lubricate certain brands of condoms, was found inside his anal canal, as well as two types of semen, along with the two types found in his stomach. The presence of the semen suggests that James was not exactly Aids aware, and that the Nonoxynol came from his attacker, the wearing of the condom being his attacker’s idea; a way of avoiding DNA profiling. The condom was not found.
Cuts on both the inside and outside of James’ wrists, and on his hands, show that he tried to defend himself against the Lucozade bottle which was repeatedly thrust into his chest, face and neck, and eventually left embedded deep in his stomach. The amount of cuts James received suggest that it took him some time to die, although it is impossible to say how many of them he received after he was actually dead. Once again, no trace of the bottom of the bottle, or the lid, were found. Like Evans, James was also robbed. It was clear that he had had at least four other clients that night, but there was no money on his body when it was found. The police, however, couldn’t say for definite that it was his assailant who took the money. There are people who will rob a corpse, even if the corpse is that of a fourteen-year-old boy lying in a dismal basement, on top of enough blood to fill a bathtub. Some of these people, I thought, as I went to turn the heat down from under my Le Creuset, are police officers.
The picture they had of Edward Morgan, or Teddy, as his brother had referred to him when we parted from each other, and he urged me to do all I could to find out who killed him, could have been lifted straight out of the BA catalogue. Teddy was tan, fortyish, squared-jawed and blue-eyed. I could see no resemblance to his older brother. Teddy looked just the man to get you down safely when they had trouble with an engine, or calm your nerves during turbulence with a joke about rollercoaster rides. Perfect white teeth. I’d always wanted teeth like that. It seemed strange to think of such a confident, strong-looking person as a victim, someone weakened, viciously humiliated. Murdered. Looking at his clear, open face, I tried to decide whether or not I thought he was gay. The picture didn’t tell me anything.
I read what had happened to him, what had been done to him. Already my mind was trying to see it, to see it happening as if it were a scene from a film. I read the statements given by the co-pilots, the stewardesses, the barman at the airport and then I read the scene of crime report. I read how his wife had discovered his body and a statement from her saying that she had no idea that her husband was involved in homosexual activity. Possible images of death flitted into my head like the ghosts of pinned butterflies. I was just getting to the forensic report when the door buzzer sounded.
* * *
It was very good to see Sharon. I was surprised by how well she was looking, and how delighted I was to see her standing in my doorway with a bottle of wine in her hand. We kissed hello. I took the bottle from her and she followed me into the kitchen, towards the smell which she was already congratulating me on.
I’d done a quick tidying-up job and my place didn’t look too bad. I live in a converted photo-studio with black blinds, a small open-plan kitchen and floorboards which I haven’t got round to sanding yet. Sharon has often promised to come round and help me do the place up a bit, and to this end she bought me a framed Salgado print for my birthday which is the only thing breaking the purity of the whitish walls. Every time she comes over she tells me my flat looks like I’ve just moved into it. She uses the words shelving, cupboards, uplighting and Ikea a lot.
I poured Sharon a glass of the Rosso di Montalcino she’d brought with her and then put some broccoli on to steam. As we sat on the sofa chatting I couldn’t help thinking of how I had met her, and the thing that bound us to each other. The reason we have dinner once a month or so, go to the theatre or the movies every so often. The reason why sometimes she is the only person I can, or want, to talk to, or why I spend ages looking for her Christmas present. Why, once in a while, on a particular date perhaps, she calls me in the middle of the night, her voice breaking, and asks me to drive over.
I never used to get on particularly well with Sharon but in the last few years that has changed. Sharon was my brother Luke’s fiancée. As a matter of fact she still is, technically. She certainly hasn’t actually broken it off with him. It has been nearly four years since Luke was injured and if I think about it I know that Sharon must have seen somebody else in that time. But on the occasions that we meet she is discreet enough not to mention anything. I still see her as Luke’s girl, though I would completely understand if one day
she turned up at my flat with a nervous-looking man who she would like me to meet. It might be strange, but I would understand.
Luke and I were sharing a flat at the time he met Sharon, and as soon as he started to tell me about her I could tell it was something special. Luke was working in a bar on Camden High Street at the time, having yet to establish himself as the new star of the British stage, and Sharon had come in for a coffee. Luke said that when he saw her he just knew, and he was so nervous that he spilled her cappuccino all over the table. He wasn’t too nervous to make sure he had a chat with her and find out her name though. Sharon, a law student. Sharon was immediately embarrassed about her name and assured Luke that she wasn’t the stiletto sort and that her parents had been into the Bible; the Rose of Sharon. In that case, Luke said, it suits you. When Sharon got up to leave he told her to make sure that she came in again soon, and Luke put himself on the rota practically every hour the place was open over the coming week to make sure that he didn’t miss her. He needn’t have bothered, however; she came in again next day.
When I first met Sharon I was pretty sceptical. I couldn’t believe that all the hyperbolic nonsense issuing from my lovestruck little brother’s mouth was actually true. I just didn’t venerate women the way he did. I’d asked Luke what it was about her and he’d spent hours trying to tell me. It wasn’t so much that she was drop dead beautiful, he said, but that she had a constant, radiating warmth inside her, a kind of simple, mesmerizing energy which made him feel slightly childish. She also had a steely quality that kept Luke spellbound when, over dinner in our flat, she told us about what she wanted to do with her life, how most people went into the law to make money, or because they couldn’t think of anything else to do. I thought it sounded just a little prissy, but when Sharon told how she wanted to make a difference, to use the legal system to help people, it actually was quietly inspiring. She asked me if that was what I felt about being a policeman, which I still was at the time. I remember feeling uncomfortable under her earnest glare, unable to match Sharon’s fervour but then telling her yes, it actually was, and being happy and surprised to know that I was actually telling her the truth. Then.
