In a True Light

by John Harvey

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Sloane, you gave him my address. This address. Whatever were you thinking?’

  ‘I didn’t give him anything,’ Sloane said defensively.

  ‘He had it in his goddam hand.’

  ‘I gave it to Connie, just in case … I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  He reached for her and she shrugged him off.

  Sloane and Rachel alone in her apartment, early evening as arranged. Come round, why don’t you? A glass of wine, a bite to eat. It wasn’t intended to be like this. The minute he had arrived, Rachel had launched it at him in the cool space of her living room, unburdening herself of the fear. Trying to.

  ‘At least,’ Sloane said, ‘let me try and explain. If Connie’s ever going to leave Delaney she has to have somewhere to go. Otherwise it’d never work …’

  ‘And so you told her to come here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘All I said, if I wasn’t at the hotel, she might contact me through you. Was that so wrong?’

  ‘Yes, of course it was wrong. You had no right.’

  ‘I only thought …’

  ‘You had no fucking right.’

  Sloane rocked back in his chair and swung himself to his feet. Faint, the sounds of Brazilian music from the apartment below. ‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s a little late for that.’

  ‘Rachel, I don’t think he’ll do anything. Not to you.’

  ‘You don’t think?’

  ‘That’s not what it was about. It was his way of telling me what he could do if I don’t back off and leave Connie alone.’

  ‘And is that what you’re going to do?’

  He looked at her steadily. ‘You were the one, Rachel, telling me to face up to my responsibilities, remember?’

  ‘Jesus, I don’t believe this. I get threatened where I work and you’re putting the blame on me.’

  Sloane pulled on his coat and she followed him to the door. ‘What do I do now? Change all the locks? Hire private security? Tell the police?’

  ‘I’ll handle it. I’ll handle Delaney. You’ll have to do whatever you want.’

  ‘Sloane …’

  But he had gone. Rachel slid the bolts across, slipped the chain in place and turned the key. Back in the easy chair, she sat with her arms held tight between her legs, fingers locked, elbows pressing hard against her womb as she rocked slowly back and forth and back and forth again.

  Sloane went first to the apartment block on Second, but neither Delaney nor Connie was home. The doorman had seen them leave almost an hour before by cab, Mister Delaney’s car was still in the garage. At the club, Connie was backstage getting ready for her first show, Delaney had been and gone. Was he expected back? Most probably.

  Suddenly hungry, Sloane bought a bowl of chicken and vegetable soup at the nearest corner store and ate it in the shadow of a doorway. Having threatened off and on throughout the day, rain began to fall. At intervals cabs drew up outside the club and customers, usually couples, middle-aged, hurried inside.

  When Delaney himself arrived, Sloane stepped forward and called his name clear and loud, and Delaney spun fast, ducking as he did so, shoulders hunched. When he saw who it was, relief flooded his face and he laughed.

  Sloane was level with him in a moment, staring hard. ‘Rachel Zander, keep away. You don’t go near her. Where she works, where she lives. You don’t even look in her direction. Understood?’

  Delaney looked back at him almost carelessly, amusement bright in his eyes. ‘Got your attention, didn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘This is no fucking joke,’ said Sloane.

  ‘I can see.’ Delaney smiling still, taunting.

  ‘Rachel, you leave her alone.’

  ‘And Connie?’

  ‘What about Connie?’

  ‘She doesn’t need you, Sloane. She doesn’t want you. All this crap about the past, her mother, some pathetic little fortune she might come into. It throws her off, gets under her skin. Keep away, Sloane, okay? Right away.’ No hint of amusement now, Delaney with fists clenched, elbows by his sides, voice low in the hiss and bounce of rain. ‘If you don’t, remember how easily I can get to anyone, anyone you care for, anyone you love.’

  The rain falling heavily now, the light from the club doorway reflecting back from the pavement, illuminating both their faces.

  ‘Lay a finger on either of them,’ Sloane said, ‘Connie or Rachel, and I’ll make you pay.’

  Delaney’s eyes focused in on him hard and Sloane tensed, waited for whatever was to come, but then Delaney was laughing again and stepping away, shaking his head as if to clear the rain from his eyes and, still laughing, disappeared through the doorway and into the club, leaving Sloane alone.

  When he turned and crossed into the street, Sloane was shaking. A car he’d failed to see braked hard and honked, and Sloane raised a hand in acknowledgement and waved the driver past. He was on the opposite pavement, walking away, when a second car slowed alongside him, windows down.

  ‘Get in,’ a man’s voice said from the rear.

  Blinking through the rain, Sloane shook his head and continued to walk, picking up his speed. The car kept pace and this time a woman leaned across from the driver’s seat. ‘Come on, don’t be such a hard-ass, get in the car.’

  Sloane could see now the shield the man in the back was holding up towards the light. The car stopped and he climbed into the vacant front seat.

  ‘Detective Catherine Vargas,’ the driver introduced herself. ‘And this is my partner, Detective John Cherry. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.’

  37

  The squad room was quiet, almost empty. Vargas sat with her chair pushed back on to its hind legs, boots resting on the edge of the desk, blue jeans and a black turtleneck. Cherry had folded his suit jacket neatly over the back of his chair, but failed to notice when it slid to the floor. Sloane, faded blue shirt pushed back to the elbows, sat diagonally across from the pair of them, sipping a cup of stale coffee and waiting.

  ‘You and Delaney,’ Vargas opened, ‘it looked as if you were having an interesting conversation.’

  Sloane said nothing.

  ‘What you might want to do,’ Vargas said, ‘run down your basic relationship, the two of you.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Because,’ Vargas said, ‘Vincent Delaney is the subject of an ongoing police investigation.’

  ‘And because,’ Cherry said affably, ‘we can’t imagine you’ve anything to hide.’

  Sloane took a breath and told them, as succinctly as he could, about Connie and Jane, about Rachel, the reason for that evening’s confrontation with Delaney. Not wanting to incriminate Connie unnecessarily, he didn’t say anything about the incident in Portland, Oregon.

  The detectives listened patiently, not interrupting, one or the other occasionally scribbling down a note.

  ‘Your friend,’ Vargas said, ‘Rachel. Delaney didn’t actually threaten her?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘Offer violence? Raise his hand?’

  Sloane shook his head. ‘He got to her, though. Frightened her. And Rachel’s not a timid woman; I doubt if she frightens easily.’

  Vargas swung her feet down from the desk and settled her chair squarely on all fours. ‘And Connie – she is your daughter or she isn’t?’

  Warily Sloane smiled. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Surely it is. Either she isn’t or she is.’

  ‘I don’t know. Not for certain. I mean, it’s possible. More than possible. But I don’t know. Not for a fact.’

  ‘There are tests,’ Cherry said. ‘Maybe not cheap, but thorough. And quick. Way it works, far as I know, you just walk in off the street. Give a little blood, a little this and that, maybe.’

  ‘A few hundred bucks,’ put in Vargas. ‘They sift your DNA through the computer. Wave a couple of wands. A few hours later,
a day at most, you know the truth. If, that is, you want to know the truth.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Sloane asked.

  ‘I suspect,’ Cherry said, smiling slightly, ‘this isn’t the time or place for that conversation.’

  Somewhere back along the corridor a door was opened and slammed shut.

  ‘There are a few things about Delaney,’ Vargas said, ‘we should share with you.’

  Eschewing unnecessary detail, they laid out the bare bones of the case they were building against Delaney. First, they were increasingly convinced that for years he had been steadily laundering illegal funds through a number of establishments that he either part owned or managed. And second, he was responsible for serious assaults on two women, Marianne Burris and Mary Jane Flood, and the murder of a third, Diane Stewart.

  ‘You can prove this?’ Sloane asked. ‘Any of it?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Vargas replied.

  ‘Not yet,’ Cherry said.

  ‘On one hand,’ Vargas started to explain, ‘it’s a matter of resources. Personnel. Time. The only way we could hope to go after Delaney on the money laundering, for instance, would be to convince the Department of Justice to set up a strike force. FBI, ATF, DEA and ourselves. And chances of that are slim. In their book Delaney’s just so much small potatoes.’

  ‘As to the rest,’ Cherry said, ‘without clearer evidence we’d be laughed out of court.’

  ‘We wouldn’t get into court,’ Vargas said. ‘Not even close.’

  ‘Which means what?’ Sloane asked. ‘Delaney carries on as before, scot-free?’

  Vargas and Cherry exchanged glances.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Cherry said.

  The misinformation he’d arranged to have fed down the line to Delaney’s associates seemed to have taken its effect. The watch he and Vargas had been able to keep on Delaney these last few days, partial as it was, had shown a man with troubles, real and imagined, on his mind; someone who was forever looking over his shoulder in the clear expectation of more. A man whose mood changed faster than the weather: who could never be still.

  ‘Which way d’you think she’ll jump?’ Vargas asked. ‘Connie.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sloane said.

  ‘Do you think she’d ever give evidence against him?’ Vargas asked.

  Sloane shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Not unless something changed.’

  ‘Okay.’ With something of a spring, Vargas was on her feet and holding out her hand. ‘Thanks for the cooperation. I’ll give you a card. Anything else that occurs to you, anything happens, be in touch.’

  Sloane told them where he could be reached and shook both their hands. ‘Connie,’ he said. ‘You think she’s in real danger?’

  ‘While she’s with Delaney?’ Vargas replied. ‘Oh, yes. Don’t you?’

  They watched Sloane walk away along West 20th, slender and tall, head lowered slightly against the wind, which seemed to have cleared the earlier rain away.

  ‘You think he told us everything?’ Cherry asked.

  ‘No more than he had to.’

  ‘And Connie, you think she’s really his daughter?’

  ‘I think right now he wants her to be. Maybe that’s more important.’

  Cherry moved away from the window, back towards the centre of the room where a telephone was ringing unanswered. He made no attempt to pick it up.

  ‘Connie,’ Vargas said, ‘I think she might need a little nudge. I’ll try to get her on her own, see what I can do.’

  ‘You don’t think that might be pushing her too hard?’

  Vargas raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s a risk you take.’

  38

  Connie was in her dressing room when Delaney came in; one set to go and she was exhausted already, smoking a cigarette, legs crossed, eyes barely open.

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look like shit, that’s what.’

  Connie swivelled in her chair and stubbed out the cigarette. ‘You’re a charmer, Vincent, you know that? A real way with words.’

  For a split second, when she saw his arm move, she flinched, waiting to be struck, but all he did was take a small opaque tube from his pocket and shake a couple of pills out on to the dressing table near her arm.

  ‘What are those?’

  ‘What do you care? Just swallow them. And for God’s sake make yourself look like something, after you close we’re going out.’

  Connie hung her head. ‘Not tonight, Vincent, I’m bushed.’

  Delaney gripped the sides of her chair and slowly swung her round. ‘Marchetti’s out front. He’s taking us to dinner after the show.’

  ‘Vincent …’

  ‘He loves you, you know that.’ Carefully, Delaney tilted up her face with the tips of his fingers, kissed her bruised cheek. ‘Connie, I need this.’

  When he stepped back, she reached for a bottle of water and swallowed the pills.

  ‘You were good tonight, sweetheart,’ Marchetti said. They were sitting in a back booth, the same restaurant Marchetti had been going to for close on fifty years.

  ‘Not really,’ Connie began. ‘I …’

  ‘Listen.’ Marchetti reached across the table, seizing her hand. ‘I’ve seen them all and believe me, you’re good. Among the best.’ He chuckled deep in his throat and gave her fingers a squeeze. ‘Then I’ve always loved you, you know that.’ He winked and leaned back into his chair, wiped the corners of his mouth. ‘I keep waiting for Vincent here to really screw up, know what I mean? Then I can move in, take you down to Grand Cayman, just the two of us, what’d you think?’ And he winked again. A network of tiny veins criss-crossing his nose, loose flesh hanging off his neck, yet his eyes still clear. Sixty-seven years old.

  Connie smiled. ‘I think that might be nice.’

  ‘Nice? Nice is right. You just make sure he keeps treating you right. You treating her right, Vincent, huh?’

  Delaney nodded and kept his head down, eating his way through a plate of veal with Parma ham. Before they’d got into the car there had been this kid with a wall eye and a swagger, Marchetti’s driver – twenty? twenty-five? – leering at Connie like she was old meat, breathing garlic all over Delaney as he patted him down.

  ‘Back in the old days,’ Marchetti was saying, ‘I knew Vincent’s old man. I ever tell you that?’

  Connie shook her head, though he had told her, several times.

  ‘Jeez, what a fuck-up, what a loser!’ He pointed his knife across the table. ‘First time I saw you, Vincent, remember? First time we did business. What I said. Keep out your old man’s shadow, you don’t want to end up the same way.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Vincent said beneath his breath. He kept the thought to himself.

  At the end of the meal the waiter brought brandy, cigars. ‘Connie, sweetheart,’ Marchetti said, ‘why don’t you go and powder your nose a while, let me and Vincent talk a little business here?’

  Squeezing out a smile, Connie did as she was told.

  Marchetti clipped the end from his cigar. ‘Vincent,’ he said, ‘you playing straight with me?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Dipping your hand into the till, skimming off the cream?’

  ‘No more than usual.’

  Marchetti looked him in the eye and laughed. ‘I’ve got your word on that?’

  ‘Of course you’ve got my word.’

  ‘Only I’ve been hearing all kinds of things …’

  ‘What kinds of things?’

  ‘All this bullshit about how you’re looking to get rich at my expense. Offshore accounts, who knows?’

  Delaney leaned across and lit the older man’s cigar. ‘It’s garbage, what can I say? Someone stirring trouble, the fuck knows why.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘I swear. And I’ll get to the bottom of it, you see. Watch it all go away. Nice and peaceful, like it was before.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Like I say, you got my word.’


  Marchetti drew on his cigar, swirled brandy around the bottom of his glass. When he saw Connie heading back, he leaned forward. ‘That bruise on her cheek, Vincent, I don’t like to see that. A man can’t keep his woman in line without hitting her, he’s a weak man. That’s what I’ve always believed.’

  And then, half rising from his chair, ‘Connie, sweetheart, we were just talking about you. Sit yourself down, have some brandy. Relax. Vincent, why don’t you pour the lady a drink?’

  The next day, afternoon, Connie was in the basement of HMV uptown, fingering her way through the racks of jazz CDs. For days now she’d been carrying a folded-over piece of paper in her purse, a list of people Wayne thought she should listen to. Joshua Redman. Dave Douglas. Brad Mehldau.

  ‘These are singers?’ she’d asked and Wayne had shaken his head. ‘That’s not what you need. You already know how to sing.’

  Connie had found herself smiling; now that things had settled down on the bandstand, Wayne was one of the few people who could make her smile.

  ‘Like, it’s a matter of a sensibility,’ he had said, ‘a way of phrasing, sounding now. What you don’t want to risk, getting caught up too much in this nostalgia thing. The whole lounge bit. Next thing you know, you’ll be playing cruise ships round the Bahamas care of Club Med, Alzheimer’s Division.’

  Connie had laughed and pushed the piece of paper down into her purse. She didn’t think cruising round the islands with an inexhaustible supply of vodka tonic was such a bad idea.

  Standing there now in front of the ‘M’s, Connie recalled the pressure of Wayne’s finger against her skin, the closeness, the scent of him as he leaned towards her face.

  ‘Hi!’ Vargas said brightly, stepping alongside Connie and lifting an album out of the rack. Mingus Ah Um. ‘Know anything about this? I think maybe I could use a little advice.’

  Connie shook her head and moved away, Vargas following.

  ‘Hey,’ Connie said, ‘what is it with you? This some kind of pick-up scene, ’cause if it is …’

  ‘Marianne Burris,’ Vargas said, ‘that name mean anything to you? Mary Jane Flood?’ She took a photograph from her bag and held it out. ‘Diane Stewart, Connie. You know who she was, don’t you?’