by David Belbin
‘I’m not in the car tonight.’ Nick wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to speak to Sarah while she was standing by Tony Bax. But he didn’t want Sarah to think he’d deserted her. Had she seen him in the audience? Probably. There was something else. The last time he was at Polly’s, before she’d finished with him, he’d meant to tell her that Ed Clark was working for his brother. Polly would want to avoid getting her taxis from Cane Cars. Now was the time.
‘Before you go . . .’
Nick stepped further back into the shadows. Polly misinterpreted.
‘Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking? You dirty sod.’
‘No, I . . .’ Nick paused, because he could see that the idea turned her on. And at another time, it would turn him on too, a knee-trembler down the side of a building, only yards from a busy road. Polly pushed him back towards the wall.
‘You’ve never had better, have you? All right then. One last time.’
She was right. He wanted raw, real Polly rather than the packaged, permed New Labour edition of Sarah he’d seen tonight, the Sarah he could see walking out of the ICC, accompanied by Tony Bax and a small black bloke. Sarah glanced in his direction. For a moment, Nick thought she’d noticed him. Polly stared daggers at her.
‘I’ll get her good, one of these days.’
‘You already got her,’ Nick said.
‘What do you mean?’
Nick didn’t explain. He knew what he wanted. It was over in two minutes. When he’d zipped himself back up, she ruffled his hair. ‘Gotta run. I like fighting with you. The sex is better.’
He’d still not told her about Ed Clark. Maybe Ed would fail his city council test, and the problem would go away. Nick walked down Mansfield Road. He glanced through the window into the snug at the Peacock. Sarah was drinking red wine, smiling politely, not having fun. Nick could go in, take her out, and tell her about his sentence before she got it from Tony, or anybody else. But he didn’t. He turned around and walked hurriedly, building up a sweat as he cut through back streets, heading for his flat on Alfreton Road. When he got in, he left a message on her answering machine, apologising.
‘I met somebody who needed my help,’ he said, cryptically. ‘Sorry. You did well tonight. Catch you soon.’
It was only after four drinks that Sarah worked out a way to ask Tony Bax the question. Her constituency chairman had praised the fluency of her performance and done his best to persuade Sarah that all was not lost. A stream of party members and well-wishers stopped at Sarah’s table, congratulating her, urging her on. It was good for morale, but by ten to eleven, Sarah and Tony had run out of conversation. He walked her to the taxi rank outside the Victoria Centre. This was her last chance.
‘I thought I saw someone I used to know in the ICC, a guy called Nick Cane. Have you come across him?’
‘Nick, yes. Lovely guy. Very active in the party in the late eighties. Were you at university with him?’
‘That’s right.’ Sarah stopped herself saying more. ‘We were friends. I thought he might come over afterwards.’
‘Nick had a bit of bother with the law. Maybe he thought you’d heard about it, wouldn’t want anything to do with him.’
‘He should know I’m not like that.’
‘People change,’ Tony said.
Did they? Sarah could never decide. People were always changing, the way she saw it, but only in superficial ways. As they got older, many relaxed into themselves, stopped pretending to be what they weren’t. Others took on airs or gravitas. But they seldom seemed to change.
‘What was the trouble?’ she asked.
‘Drugs. He probably didn’t want to embarrass you, being seen with him, so close to an election.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I expect that’s right.’
‘Still, it was good of him to turn up. I always had a lot of time for Nick. I hope he manages to turn his life around.’
They had beaten the pubs’ throwing-out time, so there was no queue for a taxi. Sarah was home in five minutes. She played the message that Nick had left on her machine. Cryptic. Tony was probably right. Nick was being tactful. So he’d been busted for possession, so what? Sarah was hardly going to go all moral on him. She picked up the phone, intending to see if he was home. But that would make her seem pushy, or a pushover, Sarah wasn’t sure which. It was late and she was a little drunk. She went to bed.
18
The morning was wet. Sarah put on a trouser suit for her meeting with the Chief Constable, then changed her mind. There would be TV and the outfit made her look too wide on camera. She didn’t much like the yellow dress she replaced it with. The dress had been picked for her by a party image consultant when she fought the by-election. Evidently the colour worked well on telly. More importantly, it flattered her legs and bum, making the former seem longer and the latter smaller. It would do.
She and Eric met at police headquarters in Arnold. ‘The Dream Factory’ was what the plods called it.
‘You look wonderful,’ Eric announced, when she was shown into his office. He would have said that if she was wearing an anorak and combat trousers. The Chief Constable was fiftyish and not above flirtation when he judged you might be receptive to it. Sarah wasn’t above flirting back.
‘Let’s wait for a glimpse of sunshine before we take the photos,’ Eric said. ‘Central News aren’t here yet. Quick coffee?’
Sarah accepted. Her head was still a little bleary from the night before. She took the offered seat and decided to say what was on her mind, even though it might undo the good relationship she’d built up with Eric.
‘Terry Shanks’ sister was at the debate last night. I didn’t have anything to tell her.’
‘That’s probably because we got the right man first time around.’
‘The evidence against him didn’t hold up,’ Sarah reminded Eric.
‘It’s possible he was innocent, I’ll grant you. But everybody else with a motive was in prison at the time.’
‘The murder of Shanks might not have been connected to Clark and his associates,’ Sarah suggested. ‘Suppose Shanks interrupted whoever raped his wife, got shot with his own gun?’
‘As I recall, Clark’s lawyers used that angle in the trial but there was forensic to suggest that Shanks died up to an hour before his wife.’
Their coffee arrived. Sarah waited until they were alone, gathering her thoughts before she continued.
‘The prosecution tried to suggest that Ed killed Terry then hung around for the best part of an hour until Liv returned from work. But he had nothing against Liv, apart from her being married to the man who had him put away. It made no sense, him taking a risk like that.’
‘An evil sod like Clark doesn’t have to make sense. Don’t expect us to wrap the whole case up in ribbons for you. We’ll never be sure what happened. We rarely are, when there are no witnesses.’
‘Suppose the intended victim wasn’t Terry, but his wife? Ed had no motive to hang around and kill Liv.’
‘But he did,’ Eric said. ‘Liv knew what her husband had done, condoned it.’
‘Condoned what?’
‘I’ve said too much. Ask Polly Bolton. We tried to keep her out of it. Biscuit?’
Sarah took a Viennese Whirl, coated at each side in plain chocolate. Before she could press him about Polly, Eric called the press officer.
‘They’ll be ready for us in five minutes. There was something else I wanted a brief word about. I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.’
‘Words that usually precede an insult.’
‘The thing is, I do hope you get re-elected.’
‘Nice of you,’ Sarah said, irritated that he was giving her no opportunity to press him further about Ed Clark. ‘Me too. I appreciate your arranging this photo op.’
‘But your chances are, shall we say, slender?’
‘So they tell me.’
‘Have you thought about what you’ll do if you don’t get back in?’
‘I’ve had one or two offers, but nothing I’m committed to.’
‘You’ve impressed many people in the police community.’
‘Getting Ed Clark out on appeal? You surprise me.’
‘You talk hard on law and order as well as human rights. You’re pragmatic about prisons. And you know the job.’
‘I got out of the job.’
‘The police aren’t allowed to be politicians, for good reason. But we don’t always present ourselves in the best possible light. When the new government comes in, we need a good relationship with them.’
‘I don’t think you’ll have a problem there. Tough on crime, we have to prove we mean that.’
The phone rang and Eric answered it. The cameras were ready. ‘Two minutes,’ he said, then continued. ‘The Association of Police Officers is looking for a new chairman, someone who’ll give the force a sharper, more modern image. A woman, ideally.’
‘Doesn’t the chairman have to be a Chief Constable?’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t recall there being many women in that job.’
‘We’re thinking of going outside the force, hiring someone with political experience and PR skills. Someone like you.’
‘I’m only thirty-five years old,’ Sarah said, surprised and flattered. ‘Aren’t I at least twenty years too young for the job?’
‘Youth is an extra qualification. Every time you appeared on television, especially when wearing a dress like that, you’d be a valuable recruitment tool.’
‘I’m not sure I want to be a tool,’ Sarah said, keeping her tone light, weighing up the surprising offer. ‘What’s the salary?’
‘Negotiable. Chief Constable scale, I would hazard a guess.’
More than an MP earned. Quite a lot more.
‘I’ll certainly think about it,’ Sarah said.
‘The current chairman would like to talk it over with you – after the election, obviously. We couldn’t try to poach a sitting MP. But you’re not entirely averse to the idea?’
‘Not entirely averse,’ Sarah repeated. She had never considered returning to the police. Yet, as a career move, it made more sense than working for Andrew Saint. If she took the job, police rules meant she wouldn’t be able to look for another parliamentary seat. That might be a relief. She didn’t want to spend the next three or four years hoping to step into a dead man’s shoes at another by-election. But the job would probably rule her out of the next general election, too.
‘We’d better go and present these safety awards,’ Eric said, picking up his jacket from the hook behind Sarah, gently brushing her left breast as he did so. As they rattled along the uncarpeted corridor, Sarah made sure to ask after his wife and children.
Nick watched the local lunchtime news before going to meet his probation officer. Seeing Sarah on the telly reinforced his feeling of the night before. She inhabited a different planet from him. Sarah’s smile was confident but plastic. Nick had begun the process that made her what she was today, but she had long since left him behind, reinvented herself.
The Probation service gave Nick his weekly reminder that he was only free on license. Small, dapper Dave Trapp was about Nick’s age, with sandy hair brushed over a bald patch and a jutting-out chin. Had Nick made a different choice on leaving university, he could be where Dave was now. Dave was okay. He treated Nick like an equal. Their meetings so far had been short and cordial.
‘Settling into the new flat?’
‘It’s fine. Convenient for town.’
‘Good of your brother to help you out with the deposit. Are you getting enough private tuition work to cover the rent?’
‘Not really.’
Dave started talking about benefits, but Nick had no intention of claiming. He’d signed off at the first opportunity. It was one thing, driving a taxi without a permit, another doing it while drawing the dole: they’d add time to his sentence for that.
‘I get by,’ Nick insisted.
‘You have to understand that we don’t want to see you drawn back into the way you earned a living before going to prison.’
‘I was a school teacher for six years,’ Nick reminded him. ‘I did the other thing for less than two. It was a blip. I’m not likely to start again.’
‘What about when you can’t afford to pay the rent?’
Nick had five grand of Andrew Saint’s money, but he couldn’t tell Trapp that without explaining why Saint owed him.
‘It was never about money, why I started in the first place.’
‘What was it about then?’
It was about looking thirty in the eye and realizing that he had made nothing of himself, working himself into the ground for crap wages while money poured into the hands of flash gits who did big city jobs where the only qualifications required were greed and a lack of scruples. But this was not the whole truth. Nor was it what Dave Trapp wanted to hear. Nick had to pretend that what he’d done was wrong.
‘It was about temptation,’ he said, ‘and greed. Finding those caves beneath the flat was too good an opportunity. But the flat’s sold, and I’m told some very heavy people have moved into the homegrown game while I was away. I’m not that greedy, or that brave.’
‘Is that how you got caught?’ Dave asked. ‘Grassed on by a competitor?’
Nick shrugged. This was new territory between them. Probation weren’t supposed to be interested in his original arrest. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You’re a bright guy. The business you were in, the clever ones usually keep a distance from their supply and get away with it. I wondered how you got caught. It’s not in your notes.’
Dave gave off an air of genial, low level competence but Nick suspected a hidden agenda. Did he think Nick was after revenge?
‘I think one of the neighbours saw something, called the police.’
Dave nodded. ‘Unlucky. Anyway, I’m glad things are going so well. Only one more weekly meeting to go, then we’ll be down to once a fortnight. Can we move next week’s appointment to Friday? I have a family thing.’
‘Sure.’ Nick made a note of the new date and time, midday on the day after the general election.
19
Nick didn’t call on Wednesday. Sarah wanted to ring him, but didn’t. Soon she’d be on her way: either to Surbiton or to work for his ex-best friend. Maybe she could reunite the three of them: her, Nick, Andy. But not if she worked for the Police Association. Their figurehead couldn’t hang out with two notorious dopers. She remembered that time she’d saved their bacon, fifteen years ago. If Sarah had been caught then, she wouldn’t have a parliamentary career now. The thought caught her up short. The last three years had been frustrating a lot of the time, but she wouldn’t have missed them for anything. To work in London but not be an MP would be a kind of purgatory. She couldn’t stay in Nottingham either. With the proceeds from her two flats, she could buy somewhere pretty decent, but first she’d need to decide where. Surbiton sounded anonymous. She looked it up – inside the M25 but a long way from London. It was near Esher, where one of the Beatles used to live. How did she know that? From the fund of useless knowledge she’d picked up when going out with Nick.
She was tired. The last week of the campaign was always the hardest, the most frantic. She had a busy diary, but none of it was essential any more. The voters would do what the voters decided to do. Sarah entertained a fantasy of going into a travel agent’s, booking a week’s cheap break somewhere, returning just in time for the count on Thursday night. The party workers could get on with it. They were a masochistic lot, who enjoyed going from door to door, irritating the apathetic, risking their fingers every time they shoved a leaflet through a letterbox. It was, she’d often thought, some kind of substitute for religion. She’d done it herself, of course, paid her dues: but that was all it was, paying dues so that she could become a candidate, and then an MP.
There were no travel agents in the Maynard Estate, the part of her constituency with the lowest turn-out. Sarah joined the doorknockers for a
n hour, then back to the Labour Committee Rooms. A wind was getting up. Light drizzle splashed the wheely bin by the back door. Sarah went to the loo and when she got back, the drizzle had become a downpour. Winston was talking to someone.
‘Probably only last a few minutes. Hold on and have a tea before you go out.’
‘I don’t mind getting wet,’ said a familiar voice.
‘It’s not you I’m worried about, it’s the leaflets. Have you met the candidate? Sarah, this is . . . sorry, didn’t catch your name.’
‘We’ve met,’ Sarah said. ‘Winston, this is an old university friend of mine. Nick Cane.’
The agent left them alone. They stood awkwardly, neither embracing, nor shaking hands. Sarah’s hair was windblown. Up close, she didn’t look plastic. She didn’t look much different from the last time they met, thirteen years before. Nick didn’t know what to say.
‘Sorry about the other night,’ he managed. ‘Something came up.’
‘Polly Bolton. I saw. How do you happen to know her?’
‘You meet a lot of people, driving a cab. But it wasn’t just that. There are reasons why you might not want to be seen in public with me.’
Sarah put a calming hand on his upper arm, gave him a small squeeze. ‘I spoke to Tony Bax in the pub. He told me about your trouble, said that was probably why you were keeping your distance.’
‘I’m glad you know.’ Nick was relieved Sarah was still talking to him, even being friendly.
Sarah put on an air of forced jollity. ‘Are we going to catch up then? I mean, it’s nice of you to come and leaflet but it’s pissing down. There’ll be fifty people showing up in an hour who’ll be hacked off if there’s nothing for them to do and, anyway, I’m going to lose. So I’d much rather go for a drink with you.’
‘How can I refuse?’ Nick said.
‘Drinks will have to be on you, though.’
‘I remember. Candidates aren’t allowed to buy drinks for other people during an election. I’m on foot. Is there anywhere good nearby?’
