by David Belbin
‘You’re in good shape,’ she said, as he removed the towel.
‘I got a lot of exercise, the last few years.’
‘What happened last night?’
‘You fell asleep as soon as your head hit the pillow.’
‘And before that?’
‘You won an election.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’
He let the towel drop and came over, kissed her on the forehead.
‘Congratulations again. Why don’t I make you some tea?’
‘That’d be nice.’ Sarah got out of bed and rattled open the blinds. It was a glorious, sunny day.
‘New Labour, new weather,’ she observed. ‘I think I’ll take a shower myself.’
Nick made tea and considered making breakfast, too, but could only find two slices of bread that were at least three days old. No eggs or butter, just marge, half an inch of Old English marmalade and a small jar of Marmite. At least she had milk, skimmed. He checked the hall but she didn’t have a paper delivered.
When he returned to the bedroom, Sarah was still in the shower. He got back into bed and turned on her portable radio. Labour’s majority was 179. Sarah would be one of 419 Labour MPs. John Major had resigned the Tory party leadership. He summed up these details when Sarah returned from the shower, wearing a white towelling dressing gown.
‘This is like old times.’ She hadn’t washed her hair but it was damp at the edges so looked shorter. Sarah swigged her tea, then reached into her night table and put on a pair of glasses with round lenses, like the ones she always used to wear.
‘You look even better now that I can see you properly.’
Sarah lifted up the bed sheets and kissed his flaccid penis, which uncurled at her touch. There was a clicking noise from the hall.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Just the answering machine. I set it to “no rings”. There’ll be a ton of messages. But I’m still in bed.’ She kissed him on the lips.
‘How’s the head?’ he asked, sliding his hand up between her thighs, which were still a little clammy from the shower.
‘I took a couple of paracetamols. I’ll be fine.’ She kissed him again. ‘Now let’s do what we didn’t get round to last night.’
There was a knock on the front door.
Nick waited in the bedroom until the journalist had gone. Then he got dressed. The day was too busy for sex. Sarah toasted stale bread and made coffee. Radio Four announced the appointment of the new Home Secretary.
‘Will you get any kind of job?’ Nick asked, feeling grubby in his clothes from the night before.
‘Me? I’m just one of the masses. I wasn’t expected to get back in, so I won’t figure in anybody’s calculations.’
‘When will you go back to London?’
‘Monday. I was expecting to have to clear my office in a hurry. No need now.’ She cursed. ‘Forgot. I was meant to be meeting this guy for dinner tomorrow – about a job – I’ll get out of it.’
Before Nick could ask who the someone was, the doorbell rang. Sarah returned with a huge bunch of lilies. She read the card.
‘That’s sweet of him. I’ll get a vase.’
While she was gone, Nick couldn’t resist reading the card. Seems you won’t be needing that job after all. Couldn’t be happier for you. Well done. AS. The message had been written by the florist yet Sarah seemed to know who AS was.
When she returned, before Nick could ask about the flowers, Sarah underwent a personality change.
‘I’m going to have to go into work mode for a while,’ she said.
‘I’ll get out of your way,’ Nick said, awkwardly.
‘I don’t want to kick you out. You’ve not got anywhere you have to be?’
‘No. I do a bit of English GCSE tuition, but I don’t have a lesson until Sunday. I’d like to make myself useful. Is there anything you need?’
‘I could really use an Evening Post.’
‘Why don’t I go and get one?’ Nick felt awkward, unsure what to say to her next, and was glad to have an excuse to get out of the flat. ‘I could pick up some food while I’m out.’
‘Would you? That’d be fantastic.’
She was already opening a notebook, arranging it on the table by the phone. The answering machine’s red LED indicated that Sarah had forty-three messages waiting. Nick tried to remember how much money he had on him. He didn’t want to ask Sarah for any. Enough, he reckoned, even after paying for the taxi last night.
‘Don’t be too long,’ Sarah called. ‘I’m starving.’
‘An hour at most,’ he shouted. Outside, he marvelled at the cherry blossom cascading onto the Park’s wide, sun-drenched streets, covering the paving stones in a shower of pink snow. He began the brief walk into town, a spring in his step, filled with thoughts of Sarah.
He was back at the flat an hour later, festooned with Marks and Sparks bags. Nick gave Sarah a smile as wide as the Trent when she opened the door. He watched Sarah try to mirror the smile back. She failed.
‘You look like you’ve been at that table since I left,’ he told her.
‘I only just got through my messages,’ she said. ‘Listen to this one.’
She played him one from a bloke with a nasal, educated voice.
‘Eric here. Delighted you got back in. I understand you’ll be swamped but I need to discuss something with you. It concerns a taxi driver you vouched for last night, an ex-con called Nicholas Cane. I wanted to check what you know about Cane before we decide whether to go ahead with the case against him.’
‘Who’s Eric?’ Nick asked.
‘The Chief Constable. I need to decide how to reply to Eric, see if I can stop them putting you back inside.’
‘I’d appreciate that,’ Nick mumbled, the old dread settling on him. Sarah picked up the phone.
‘I’ll put him on speaker so you can hear, but keep quiet.’
All the affection had left her voice. He was part of her caseload now. She had the Chief Constable on speed dial, Nick noted. At times like this, he wished he was a praying man. If this call went badly Nick would be within spitting distance of forty before he got out of the big house. ‘Eric’ answered on the second ring. Sarah accepted fulsome congratulations.
‘We’re expecting big things of you now that you’re in government,’ the Chief Constable said. ‘Very big things indeed. What can I do for you?’
‘Two things,’ Sarah said. ‘I think they’re connected. The taxi driver I vouched for last night: do you know who reported him?’
‘An anonymous tip, I think. There’s not enough evidence for a prosecution, but since he’s out on license, we can take him back in for any infringement. Do you still want to vouch for him?’
‘He’s an old friend who’s trying to turn his life around,’ Sarah said. ‘He was taking his sister-in-law to have her first baby. I’d appreciate it if this could go away.’
‘Done. What was the other thing?’
‘I think I know who had it in for Nick Cane – my bad penny, the one that keeps showing up: Ed Clark.’
‘What’s the connection. A prison feud?’
‘No. Something that happened since then. Trouble over a woman.’
‘Trouble usually is,’ the Chief Constable said, in his thin voice, which managed to be both obsequious and authoritative at the same time. Surely senior police weren’t usually this cosy with local MPs. But Sarah used to be a police officer. Maybe that made a difference.
‘When we spoke last week you said you’d look into the Shanks case again.’
‘I spoke to the officers involved. The evidence against him wasn’t strong enough for the appeal court, but we’re still sure Clark did it. Looking for somebody else would be a waste of time.’
‘So he got away with murder?’
The Chief Constable didn’t attempt to conceal his impatience.
‘What else did you expect when you campaigned for his release?’
‘I thought a retrial would get
to the bottom of the matter.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, that’s a very naïve point of view.’
‘Ed wrote to me. So did a couple of other people who were convinced that he was innocent. I thought they were right and that’s why I started the campaign. There was no real evidence against him.’
‘Nothing concrete enough for a conviction, but there’s plenty of proof, if you know where to look. There was a lot of tenuous stuff that never made it into court. Most of it pointed in his direction, too.’
‘Terry Shanks wasn’t the only police officer responsible for Ed being sent down.’
‘That’s right. But he was the only officer whose sister was having it away with Ed.’
‘I wish you’d told me that before,’ Sarah said. ‘Polly Bolton played me for a fool.’
‘We kept her name out of the robbery trial, at her brother’s insistence. Bolton wasn’t relevant to Clark’s first or second case – involving her would have muddied the waters.’
‘What would you say if I told you that Polly’s going out with Ed Clark again?’
‘I’d say pull the other one.’
‘I’m pulling hard,’ Sarah said. ‘He’s been seeing her for at least a couple of weeks.’
There was a long pause before the Chief Constable responded. ‘Clark managed to convince you he was innocent,’ he said. ‘Maybe he pulled the same stunt on her. But I’ll pass that information on. Tell your taxi driver we might have a few questions for him, but he’s off the hook.’
‘I will, Eric. Appreciated. Thanks.’
She hung up. Nick wanted to hug her, to thank her, to go to bed with her.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘It was nothing.’ Sarah’s face was serious, glum. She was already focused on Ed. Nick’s problem was in the past. He had to help her in the present.
‘Perhaps Ed really is innocent,’ Nick said. ‘If he convinced Polly . . .’
‘It would be much better all round if he were innocent,’ Sarah said. ‘But I think he killed those people. I think I made a terrible mistake.’
Nick had no reply. Sarah got up and put the kettle on. While she was waiting for it to boil, she looked at the papers.
The Guardian talked about a late swing to the Tories not being enough to prevent a Labour victory. The local paper had OUT OUT OUT in a red strip below its masthead. Next to each word was the photograph of a defeated Tory MP. The main headline was LABOUR ROMP IN. A list of local results showed Five Labour gains. The only East Midlands seat the Tories had managed to hang on to was across the Trent in rich, middle-class West Bridgford, where the Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer had held on to his seat with a much reduced majority. On page five was a picture of an ecstatic-looking Sarah with the caption: BONE BREAKS BY-ELECTION JINX. The paper reminded its readers that, according to statisticians, seats lost in by-elections always reverted to the losing party. Not anymore.
Sarah made coffee. They sat together, reading papers, like the cosy couple they had once been. At five, Sarah put on the news, listened to the latest cabinet appointments. The new parliamentary term started on Tuesday. Nick would lose Sarah then, if not before. He didn’t know what to say to her.
As afternoon became evening, she kept answering the phone, turning down invitations to drinks, parties, meals, earnestly discussing the make-up of the new government. Every so often someone asked about her prospects of a government job.
‘Not a chance, but I have to stay near a phone just in case,’ was her standard reply. ‘Me and every other bugger who got re-elected.’
Nick phoned the hospital. Caroline had already been sent home. In Sherwood, his brother answered the phone.
‘It’s mad here,’ he said. ‘When are you coming round?’
‘Tomorrow, I guess. I’m with somebody.’
‘You pulled last night? Lucky bugger.’
‘Did you straighten things out with Caroline?’
‘In a manner of speaking. I’ve had to agree to let Nas go. Turns out she’s known about it for months.’
‘She doesn’t miss much, Caroline.’
‘Baby’s crying. Come to lunch tomorrow. Gotta run.’
Perhaps fatherhood would make a new man of Joe, though Nick doubted it. While Sarah made more calls, Nick prepared her dinner: cold chicken with potato salad, vine tomatoes and crusty French bread, washed down with Sauvignon Blanc. They ate with gusto.
‘What am I going to do with you?’ Sarah asked, as she finished her meal and poured each of them a third glass of wine. ‘I can’t be seen with you here. Everybody knows you’re fresh out of prison.’
‘Take me to London with you,’ Nick suggested.
‘And find you a job, with a serious criminal record? Not easy.’
‘I could be a house-husband,’ Nick said, not entirely joking, ‘taking care of your every need.’
‘I’ve got a tiny one-bedroom flat in London. There’s barely room for one, never mind two. And you’re hardly the house-husband type. Even if you were, we can’t go leaping into that kind of a relationship.’
‘I could,’ Nick said.
‘You’ve got less to lose than I have,’ Sarah said, softly, apologetically.
‘I’ve got nothing to lose,’ Nick told her.
‘Except your freedom. Again.’
‘Oh. That.’
33
Somehow it got to be midnight on the second of May and Nick was still there. Sarah knew he expected to spend the night with her, as he had the one before. When the phone calls finally fizzled out, and the TV coverage finished, Sarah found herself exhausted. The campaign had caught up with her. She would prefer to sleep alone, but couldn’t throw Nick out. He’d think it was a rejection. Easier to make love to him.
Yet they couldn’t stay together. The papers would have a field day – RISING BACKBENCHER DATES CONVICTED DRUG DEALER. For Sarah to be with Nick, she’d have to steer clear of law and order issues, or the media would attribute her liberal leanings on penal policy to her relationship rather than her principles. Nick must realize this.
As she stared at the weather forecast, he got out his brother’s tobacco pouch.
‘A smoke to help you sleep?’ he offered.
‘I don’t think I’ll need much help. But don’t let me stop you.’
He put it away. ‘Do you want me to go?’ he asked, tenderly.
‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’
‘Glad I’ve got such a decisive MP.’ Nick stood up. ‘I’d best leave.’
Sarah reached over and squeezed his hand. ‘It’s just that I don’t know whether I should sleep with you.’
‘Has something changed since last night?’
‘I’m sober. I won an election I wasn’t expecting to win. I know I said I could see you if I won, but I was fooling myself.’
‘I could be your back-door man,’ Nick argued, trying to inject some humour into his voice. ‘Your secret bit of stuff in the constituency. In time, I’ll become more respectable. I’m not quite sure how, but I will.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Sarah said. ‘But that doesn’t change now. The tabloids would tear me apart.’
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll go home.’
‘Not like this.’
‘There are no journalists camped outside.’
‘We can’t leave it like this,’ Sarah said. ‘And there’s still something we both want to work out.’
‘Is there? I’m nearly past caring who killed Terry and Liv Shanks.’
‘Can we talk it through one more time?’ she asked.
‘Okay,’ Nick told her. ‘Maybe I will have that joint after all. Weed helps me think.’
Maybe a joint would help her think, too. They smoked on the balcony of her flat, overlooking the gardens of the Park and, beyond, the outskirts of the city: County Hall, Colwick Park, the football grounds.
‘Suppose,’ Sarah said, ‘Polly was playing an elaborate bluff. She was with Ed all along and only came protesting to
me because she felt it would look bad if she didn’t?’
‘If she was with Ed all along, why did she start seeing me?’ Nick asked.
‘Because you’re irresistible,’ Sarah said, stroking his face. ‘What bothers me is why you started seeing her.’
‘An attractive woman was offering commitment-free sex,’ Nick said, adding, ‘at the time, she was the best I could do.’
‘I find that hard to believe. What’s she like in bed?’ Sarah asked.
‘You what?’ Nick said. ‘You must be stoned, to ask me that.’
He was right. This stuff was much stronger than the hash they used to smoke together. Nick answered regardless.
‘We didn’t do it much in bed. Carpet, sofa, standing up, leant over the cooker, you name it. She likes to be treated rough. She scratches, and hits, and kisses like a vacuum cleaner. It never lasts long.’
He paused, as though realizing that he was using the present tense.
Nick’s description of the relationship was the same as the one Polly had given her, albeit with changed nuance. Polly might be over Nick, but he still had some feelings for her. He was even jealous of Ed. Sarah stubbed the joint out on the terrace railing then threw the roach onto the soil below. Smoking dope had always made her randy, never more so than tonight. The stuff made her brain rush too.
‘I can’t believe Polly was acting when she protested about Ed, when she started seeing you. Something happened to change her mind. Ed must have given Polly a really compelling reason to stop seeing you and take up with him again. She wouldn’t explain it to me, beyond saying that Ed had told her who really killed Terry and it wasn’t him.’
‘I thought that everybody else who had a motive for revenge was inside at the time?’
‘Contract killing?’ Sarah suggested.
‘If so, why wait until Ed was released?’
‘Maybe . . .?’ Sarah was on the verge of grasping something, then a wave of tiredness overcame her. ‘I think I’d better go to bed.’
‘You look exhausted,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll go. Can I see you tomorrow?’
‘Yes, please.’
