Rough Treatment cr-2

by John Harvey

  “Come on, Harold,” the man had argued. “What have you got to lose? I’ll tell you-nothing. But on the other hand, what have you got to gain? Huh? To gain. A percentage, free, more or less free, call it a little storage charge, holding charge. I just can’t look after it at the moment. I’ve got problems, you know how it is. I’ve got to move out, this woman I’ve been staying with, hey, that’s what happens, right? This and that. I’ll find somewhere else, a flat, a room, move into a hotel if I have to. All I want you to do is keep this safe. No touching, no sneaking off the top. You’ll get your share. That I promise. A couple of weeks’, no, a month’s supply. Look, Harold, it’s good stuff. You know it’s good stuff. You should remember that, huh? Look, you don’t, over here, try that, there, one, two, a couple of lines. Hey! Isn’t that just amazing!”

  And Harold had left with the kilo in his case, wedged between his Filofax and camera scripts. If only to stop the man talking: once he’d got wound up, once he’d had a snort himself, he was like a creature with three mouths.

  Couldn’t shut him up.

  “You’re late, Harold.”

  “I know, Mac, I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, don’t worry.” Mackenzie threw an arm across Harold Roy’s shoulders. “Let’s go and get some breakfast.”

  “I already had it.”

  “So did I. Let’s get some coffee.”

  “I thought we had a meeting?”

  “So we have.”

  “Then why are we going off for coffee?”

  “We can talk there more easily.”

  “What’s wrong with here?”

  “Nothing.”

  The production associate and the production secretary stared at the green screens of their VDUs, fingers poised over the keyboards, not moving.

  “This is the production office, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You know it is.”

  “And that’s what we’re going to talk about?”

  “What else?”

  “Then let’s do it here.”

  Mackenzie drew a breath. What had got into the little snot this morning? “You want witnesses, is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying, this discussion, this meeting, I want it to be here. There’s something wrong with that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Fine.”

  “You don’t think coffee would be a better idea? The canteen.”

  “Mac.”

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever you’re going to say, say it.”

  “I’m bringing in another director.”

  “What?”

  “I’m bringing in …”

  “You’re doing what?”

  “Bringing in another …”

  “You can’t.”

  “Harold …”

  “There’s no way you can do that.”

  “Look, Harold, if you’ll give me a chance to explain.”

  “Explain, shit. This is my series.”

  “No, Harold, you’re the director.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s my series.”

  “You hired me.”

  “I know that.”

  “I have a contract.”

  “I know that also.”

  “Then you know damn well there’s no way you can bring in another director.”

  Mackenzie shook his head. Why hadn’t he realized it would be like this? “Harold, it’s done.”

  “What do you mean, it’s done? What’s done? Nothing can be done. There’s nothing to fucking do!”

  “We have to sit down and talk about it. Work …”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Work it out.”

  “Nothing to work out.”

  “Harold, he’s starting this morning.”

  “Who is? Who’s starting this morning? Who?”

  “Freeman Davis.”

  “Freeman Davis?”

  “He’s flying into East Midlands from Glasgow. Eleven-oh-five. I’m sending a car to meet him.”

  “Freeman Davis can’t direct traffic.”

  “He won an award at BAFTA.”

  “The skill is not to win an award at BAFTA.”

  “Cheap shot, Harold.”

  “He’s a cheap director.”

  “No, Harold,” Mackenzie sneered, “you were cheap. How else did you swing this job in the first place? What is it? Fifteen years or more of credits and you’re still cheaper than a Clapham Common scrubber on a slow Saturday afternoon. Davis has cost this production money it can ill afford.”

  “Then instead of sending a chauffeur, send a message. Go back to Glasgow. The Scots need you.”

  “We need him. Which is why, however expensive he is, hiring him is cheaper than seeing the whole series go under.”

  “That’s absurd. There’s no way that could happen. Not this far along.”

  Mackenzie took an envelope from his pocket. “The company had a special meeting in London yesterday. If we go as much as a half-day behind they’ll cancel and cut their losses.” He tapped the envelope. “This was faxed up to me at the hotel last night.”

  He offered the envelope to Harold, who shook his head and stared at the ground.

  “We’re not firing you, Harold.”

  Slowly, Harold raised his eyes.

  “Don’t think that. No way. You couldn’t have imagined that. No. You’ll work together. Freeman and yourself. One of you can be rehearsing the actors, stay down on the floor while the other’s in the control room. Freeman can do editing, not the fine cut, nothing like, just an assembly so that we can see where we are, how much we need. Your supervision, of course. You’re the senior partner, Harold, Freeman understands that. I wouldn’t have offered him the job if he hadn’t agreed to that I think that’s the main reason he accepted, the chance to work with an experienced director like yourself.”

  Harold knew that they were looking at him, all of them, waiting for him to speak, but he no longer knew what to say. He’d stood his ground, argued his case, no one could say he’d done less than that. Now the inside of his body felt hollow and if he did open his mouth he was afraid that whatever sound came out would be too faint for anyone else to hear.

  After some moments he turned around and quietly left the room.

  Mackenzie tossed the envelope he’d pulled from his pocket across to the production secretary. “Better file that. Never know when we might be needing it again.”

  When the secretary slid the folded piece of paper from inside the envelope it was blank.

  It was a red VW with a soft top, and a green sticker on the side window proclaiming the use of unleaded fuel. The driver was tall, five eight or nine, and the shoes that she wore added an inch of their own. She grabbed a creamy white three-quarter-length coat from the back seat and slipped it over her shoulders; the doors locked, she dropped the keys down into the leather case she was carrying, dark and soft and with a strap that swung low as she walked with it tucked beneath her arm.

  “Do I know you?” she said, barely breaking her stride.

  “No, no, I don’t …”

  “The way you were staring at me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “As if you thought you might know me from somewhere.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  She stopped then and looked at him, the broadness some pounds short of overweight, the suit with more shine than his shoes.

  “I was going to ask for directions.”

  She nodded. “To?”

  “I’ve got an appointment”

  “Reception’s around the corner from that white building over there.”

  “Harold Roy.”

  “Ah.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yes. We’re working together, the same show.”

  “Perhaps you could take me to him.”

  “I think, maybe, you should still go via reception.”

  “Wouldn’t this be quicker?”

  She
began to walk and Resnick fell into step alongside her; if they had a long way to go, he thought he’d have trouble keeping up.

  “What are you seeing Harold about?”

  “I probably shouldn’t say.”

  “You’re not his agent?”

  “No.”

  She stopped by a single door marked No Entry. “He does know you’re coming, I suppose? I mean, what I don’t want to do is steer you past security and find you’ve come to deliver a writ or something.”

  “I can promise you it’s not that. And, yes, I did phone ahead to say I was coming.”

  “Fine,” she pushed the door open and held it as Resnick walked through.

  “You’re not the police, are you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Do I look like a policeman?”

  “No.”

  They were walking down a long corridor, narrow, with walls that had been painted a muted shade of lime green. For no apparent reason, a typist’s swivel chair sat midway along, unoccupied. Resnick allowed her to gain half a pace on him so that he could look again at her hair, the way it shifted slightly as she walked, dark and then darker shades of red.

  “You’re not expecting Mr. Roy to be arrested?”

  She turned her face towards him. “Only on grounds of taste.”

  “His clothes?”

  She stopped. They were almost at the end of the corridor. “Have you seen any of his work? Anything he’s made?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “If you had …” Her mouth moved into a smile and for an instant the tip of her tongue pressed against the underside of her lip. “Forget I ever said it. I never said that, okay?”

  “Right”

  “Not a word.”

  Resnick nodded his agreement. Her eyes were green and they were brown and although she was no longer smiling there was still amusement in those eyes.

  The first corridor opened out on to a second, broader, photographs and posters from programs framed along both walls.

  “You go down here and take the first right. The Dividends production office is at the end.”

  “Dividends?”

  “The show Harold’s directing.” Resnick moved away, not too far. “If he’s not there, he’s already in the studio. That’s Studio Three. Back on to this corridor and keep going, you’ll see the signs.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Diane Woolf,” she said. “In case we’re ever in another car park.”

  Resnick wanted to offer her his hand, but wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. Before he could make up his mind, she was making her way through the door into the ladies: he hadn’t as much as told her his name.

  There were two people in the production office and neither of them was Harold Roy. Resnick found him close to the studio entrance, slamming down the receiver to end a call with his agent. His late agent. Who’d be stupid enough to carry on shelling out 10 percent to a mealy-mouthed former child star with a receding hairline, whose idea of doing business was sitting around the Groucho Club half the day, reading Screen International? Especially when the only advice he was prepared to give in a situation like this was to keep talking and watch your back.

  “Mr. Roy …”

  “Harold …”

  “Harold …”

  Resnick had arrived at the same time as Robert Deleval, now waving another few pages of script, and Chris, the first assistant, still in star-spangled baseball boots.

  “Mr. Roy, I wonder if …”

  “Harold, we’ve got to do something about this dialogue.”

  “Five minutes, Harold, and we’ll be ready to go.”

  Harold Roy slapped both hands against his ears, closed his eyes, opened his mouth and let out an almost soundless scream. When he looked again, Chris had hunched her shoulders and bounced away, leaving Resnick and Robert Deleval as they were.

  “You heard what she said, five minutes.”

  “Not with this script, Harold.”

  “What’s wrong with the script? Aside from the fact that you wrote it.”

  “Not this one, I didn’t.” Deleval fanned Harold Roy’s face with the page. “Not this load of crap.”

  Harold snatched them from his hand. “This load of crap exists because what you delivered in the first place was a real load of crap. And I now have four minutes and a few seconds to turn this crap into television.”

  He pushed the script back at the writer as he turned towards the outer studio door. Resnick placed himself so that the door would open no more than six inches.

  “I phoned,” he said.

  “Four minutes,” said Harold, “and counting.”

  “That might be enough,” said Resnick, “though I can’t promise.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Burglary, sir.”

  “Burglary? What …” And then he remembered. “You’re, em …”

  “Resnick. Detective inspector.”

  “Oh, shit!” Harold looked at his watch, at the green light above the studio door. If Mackenzie was really intending to produce Freeman Davis, Harold certainly intended to have things in hand when he arrived. Two scenes wrapped, at least, and another ready to go this side of lunch.

  “I can see you’ve got a lot on,” said Resnick, “but there are one or two things I need to check.”

  “My wife …”

  “I know. It’s a matter of verification, really. It needn’t take long.”

  In his mind’s eye, Harold Roy could see himself kneeling up on the bed and pushing the packet containing the cocaine to the back of the safe.

  “As soon as it’s sorted,” Resnick said, “we can get out of your hair for good. Shouldn’t be any need to trouble you again.”

  Harold leaned back against the wall alongside the door. “Inspector, bear with me. Let me get this first scene finished. It’s not complicated. An hour at most. While they’re setting up for the next, we can talk.” He eased himself off the wall. “It’s the best I can do.”

  “All right,” agreed Resnick. “If I could make a couple of calls from your office …”

  “Help yourself.”

  Harold Roy walked through into the studio and when Resnick started back along the corridor he found that he had Robert Deleval at his side.

  “You’re a detective?”

  “Inspector. Yes, that’s right.”

  “Murder-you deal with murders?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “In that case I might be seeing you again.”

  Resnick looked at him. “How’s that?”

  “Because,” said Deleval with feeling, “if that bastard continues to murder my scripts the way he has up to now, I might end up by killing him.”

  Twelve

  All the way in the taxi he hadn’t touched her: not then, nor down the pebble drive, nor on the step behind her while she nervously fitted her key into the lock. Which was why, when he set his hand, spread flat and wide, against the small of her back, the shock nearly jolted her off her feet.

  “Wait,” she said. Maria. “Wait.”

  Her head was being pressed awkwardly back against the wall; a table, low and spilling with circulars and misdirected post, cut into the backs of her legs.

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  But already his thumbs were moving against her nipples, his head bending towards her breasts.

  “What’s your name? I don’t even know your name.”

  “Grabianski.”

  “No, your other name.”

  “Jerzy.”

  “What …?”

  “Jerry.”

  “But you said …”

  “It’s what I was christened, baptized. Jerzy.”

  “When did you change it?”

  “When I stopped going to confession.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I couldn’t go on embarrassing the priest any longer.”

  She looke
d across at him, waiting for his smile. She was propped against pillows, little makeup left on her face. She had not bothered to collect her other things from the foot of the bed, the carpet, the stairs; had slid, instead, inside a half-slip, creamy silk.

  “Jerzy,” she said quietly.

  “Okay,” he grinned, “now are you going to give me absolution?”

  She moved so as to stroke the skin inside his upper arm, soft and surprisingly smooth. So much of him was like that, the smoothness of a younger man, never slack. She wriggled some more and rested her face against his shoulder, one of her breasts squeezed against his ribs. She said something else that he couldn’t hear. Grabianski knew that if they stayed in that position for long, he would begin to get cramp. Already he was wanting to pee.

  “Maybe she’s not the brightest woman in the world,” Harold Roy was saying, “but on a good day she can tell black from white. Smoked salmon she might forget, come home with mineral water and some fancy new knickers instead, but that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?”

  He offered Resnick an extra-strong mint, placed one in his own mouth and, almost at once, crunched it with his teeth. Always a disappointment, preferring them to last till they were wafer thin, a sacrament. Jewish father, Catholic mother, the nearest he got nowadays to religion and ritual was this: communion with a plainclothes officer while balancing fragments of peppermint on the back of his tongue.

  “She would have been frightened, Mr. Roy.”

  “Terrified. Out of her wits. Any woman would be.”

  “In the circumstances, she might easily have panicked.”

  “It’s an awful situation.”

  “It could have been worse.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “For your wife, I mean.”

  Harold Roy closed his eyes for several seconds. “I don’t like to think about it,” he said.

  “Even so,” Resnick continued, “when she spoke to the constable, it’s possible she was still in a state of shock.”

  “Confused, you mean?”

  “Exactly.”

  Resnick watched as Harold Roy popped another mint. The booze and all the other junk you use to pickle what once might have been a brain. He didn’t suppose that Mackenzie had been alluding to Trebor Extra-Strong.

  Harold knew the time without looking at his watch; he was ahead and needed to stay that way, had to be back in the studio inside ten minutes, less.