by John Harvey
Lynnie, it’s your father. Ever since he had to slaughter all those birds, the whole twelve hundred …
She could picture him, a brittle-boned man in a plastic raincoat and wellington boots, back and forth between hen houses, pushing at the ground with his stick.
Christ, Kevin! she thought, wake up!
Harold Roy was feeling so good he was late for his appointment. Negotiating his way to the rendezvous as Alan Stafford had described, his head swam with ideas of liberation. Fuck the business! Fuck Maria! (Well, no, let Grabianski do that-him being so great at it anyhow.) He would invest his money in something solid, buy a cottage in the Forest of Dean, write a book, maybe; get a dog.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Hey!” Harold waved his hands around in a display of intemperate good humor. “What’s a little time between friends?”
“Are you drunk?” Stafford glowered.
“Merry.” Harold pulled his chair closer. Another pub, out-of-date enough to advertise a public bar. There was music, but it was quieter, older. Harold thought he recognized Neil Sedaka. The radio was tuned to Gem-AM. “That’s what I am, merry.”
“You’re fucking drunk.”
“No, no. Not at all.” He poked a finger towards Stafford’s glass. “What’ll it be?”
Stafford straight-armed himself back from the table. They were alone in the bar. He had to hold himself back from punching out at the ludicrous, grinning face in front of him.
“Lager?” asked Harold, lifting Stafford’s glass.
“Forget it.”
Harold was rising to his feet. “I’ll have a vodka.”
“Like hell you will!” Stafford hauled him back down, his face jammed smack up against Harold’s, the bitter odor of those paper-thin cigarettes that he rolled. Pipe tobacco.
“You’re supposed to have things to tell me. Business we’ve got to sort out.”
“That’s right,” Harold beamed. “Just let me …”
Stafford dragged him back a second time. “You make a move towards that bar once more …”
“Okay, okay. You want to get them that badly, go ahead. Large vodka tonic. Ice and lemon.”
It was like stepping into the London Dungeon and discovering you were in Disneyland. Stafford got up and called the barman through from the lounge: vodka and a pint of lager. Jesus! This had better be good.
“Is that …?” Harold began, uncertainly.
“What?”
“Is that…”
“Is that what?”
“Is that Connie Francis or Brenda Lee?”
In the end she had to nudge him gently, wait while he stretched and yawned then stretched some more, embarrassed. Twenty-what? Five going on seventeen? She put a mug into his hands and he was surprised it was still warm.
“I thought I’d been asleep for longer.”
“You had. I poured the first lot away and made fresh.”
“How long …?” He looked at the time and sat bolt upright. “Debbie, she’ll …”
“It’s all right.” Her hand across his arm, easing him back. “I called her.”
Naylor’s eyes moved around the small room, startled. What on earth was Debbie going to be thinking? If ever he was going to be late off shift he always made a point of letting her know. And that was only work, duty; whereas this …
“Don’t worry. She doesn’t think we’re having an affair.” Said it without thinking she would or should; one of those phrases that jumps from your mouth unbidden, a soap-opera cliché. Neighbours. EastEnders. What kids watched with their tea where ten, fifteen years back it would have been making a life-sized model of the Titanic from cornflake packets, how to adopt a tree in the Kalahari Desert Naylor was on his feet, mug between both hands, his eyes still restless.
“Kevin.” She took the mug from him, the soft outside of her hand, there below the littlest finger, brushing his knuckles. Had she meant that and, anyway, what did intention have to do with this? “Kevin, I told her you fell asleep in your tomato soup. I wouldn’t have rung to say you’d fallen asleep again here if there was anything she might suspect.”
Except that you might, Lynn thought; if you were clever enough, if anything had happened, that might just about have covered it.
“I’d better call her,” he said, turning towards the phone.
Her hand again, stopping him; the second time. He was losing what color he had from his face. “Don’t you want to talk?” she said.
Naylor reached out his hand. “Yes,” he said. “Another time.”
“Let me get this straight, Harold.” What was he doing? An hour here, watching this media-type in poncey clothes down vodka like it was going out of style; listening to him, taking him seriously for God’s sake, and now calling him Harold. Like they were friends, or something. Partners. What did he think he was doing? He knew what he was doing. Waiting to find the best way of getting his hands back around a kilo of cocaine. The real thing. Serve him right for thinking stupid in the first place. Look, Harold-no, he hadn’t called him that, not back then; he was just another over-age yuppie who’d started in because it was smart, because if it was that expensive, well, it had to be good. Dipped his nose a little too far a little too often and got hooked. Look, Stafford had said, I’ve got this problem, why don’t you earn yourself a bonus, help me out, keep the supply flowing? Free-market economy, that’s what we’re all in favor of, isn’t it? Crest of the wave we’re all riding home on.
And he had handed Harold the bundle and said keep it safe.
Now he was getting a lot of pressure from people to deliver, pressure to come up with more cash, keep his end of several bargains, ripples that were noticed way back down the line.
You don’t stay in there, Alan, a lot of other guys watching for the break. Not only them. Already he’d had to move his stash, switch his place of operations. Three times in as many weeks. Two steps ahead of the drug squad, one wasn’t enough.
“Harold …”
“Hum?”
“What you’re saying is this. The package I left with you for safekeeping was ripped off and now the guy who ripped it off wants to meet with me and sell it back.”
“At a discount.”
“You don’t say!”
“Two-thirds of what it’s worth.”
“Two-thirds, shit!”
“How much then?”
“Ten thousand.”
Harold laughed in Stafford’s face; actually, it was more of a giggle. In the background Dion was singing about being a lonely teenager in love. Was that with or without the Belmonts? Harold could never remember.
“Twelve.”
“I have it on good authority,” Harold said pompously, “this merchandise is worth exactly double that.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Sorry.” Quietly, “Double that.”
“Maybe that’s what it’s worth to me. Maybe. To you and this dickhead friend, it’s worth nothing but a serious spell behind bars.”
“Aha,” said Harold, “you’re trying to frighten me.”
I’d like to take you outside and kick the shit out of you, Stafford thought. “Fourteen thousand,” he said. “That’s it. Beginning and end.”
“Fifteen.”
Alan Stafford snapped shut his tobacco tin, drew on his cigarette. “Bye, Harold,” he said, beginning to walk away.
“All right.”
“All right what?” Turning back, but taking his time about it.
“What you said. Fourteen.”
Stafford sat back down. “Couple of days. I’ll need that to raise the money. I’ll phone you.”
“No,” said Harold hastily.
“What d’you expect me to do? Advertise?”
“It’s just that …”
“What?”
Harold had a hazy idea that he might not be around that long. Hell, he’d have to be. Sitting downstairs waiting for the phone to ring while Maria and her Polish burglar were up above humping.
/>
“Phone me,” he said.
“That’s what I said I’d do.”
“Two days?”
“Somewhere around there.”
“You want another drink?”
“No,” from close to the door, “I don’t want another drink, Harold.”
Fine, who cares? Buy myself a drink. Vodka. That’s the stuff. He wished he had some of that kilo back in the bedroom, but that had gone. He laughed. Stolen. What was lost has now been found: rejoice! “Hey,” he said to the barman, “you know the parable of the prodigal kilo?”
“Vodka?” asked the barman.
Harold nodded, pushed across another five-pound note. “Great music,” he said.
“Gets on my tits,” said the barman.
Harold shrugged and stood there at the bar, leaning against it, alone and thinking about what kind of dog he might choose. Had that been Patti Page or Lita Roza? He never could decide.
Twenty-two
Lennie Lawrence had been born in St. Anne’s. Before the buggers knocked it all down and modernized the guts out of the place. Resnick had never quite grasped what was so wrong about giving folk bathrooms, indoor toilets; besides, buying a detached house in Wollaton didn’t smack of a hankering for the good old days of back-to-backs.
“What’s your interest in this assault then, Charlie? Not desperate to break into the media, are you? Television pundit?”
“Harold Roy,” said Resnick. “I’d like a chance to have another crack at him. Something fishy about a burglary out at his place. Wife’s statement, it didn’t gel.”
“Out to rook the insurance, are they?”
Resnick shrugged. It was one of several possibilities, though it didn’t explain Maria Roy’s blatant misidentification.
“Good luck to ’em, eh, Charlie?”
“Maybe, sir.”
“God, you’re a cautious bugger! Never mind you’ve this reputation for setting your track the wrong road up one-way streets, you don’t like to put yourself closer to the wind than the rest of us. Not where rules are concerned; regulations, right and wrong. Bit of a bloody puritan, that’s you, Charlie Resnick.”
“Maybe, sir.”
“Maybe, sir.” Lennie Lawrence mimicked him. “Not a man to give a lot away, either, are you?”
“Is it all right, then, this complaint? Can we handle it? Keep your lads in the picture.”
“You better, Charlie.”
“Yes, sir.”
Resnick was at the chief inspector’s door when Lawrence called him back. “The old man …”
“Skelton?”
“Any idea what’s getting his bollocks knotted?”
Resnick shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Lost his temper the other morning. Nothing in particular. Just went. Not like him at all. Most likely male-what d’you call it? — menopause. Hot flushes. All right, Charlie. Keep me posted.”
“Sir.”
Resnick walked past the door to Jack Skelton’s office, half wondering whether he should knock, ask the superintendent what was the matter. He didn’t, of course; would have been too much like going up to the Queen at one of her garden parties and making a polite inquiry about the state of her bowels.
The Midlands minibus was parked across the street, between two of the regulation plane trees that rose slowly up the hill, curving to the right. Alf Levin saw Resnick’s approach in his wing mirror, stubbed out his cigarette and tossed it towards the gutter.
“Known worse weather in May,” he said, coming diagonally towards the gate.
Dizzy was parading his backside up and down the stone wall, making imperious noises.
“Selling up, then?” Alf Levin gestured towards the sign.
“Trying.”
“Talking to this bloke back at the studio. Come up from Elstree when they closed it down. Like a lot of them, he bought this place out in Lincolnshire. Small village, like. Couldn’t believe it at the time, how cheap it was. Wouldn’t have got a kennel, back south. Anyway, right pissed off he’s got with living out there. Local pub doesn’t do a decent drop of bitter and when the wind’s in the east there’s not a lot between him and Siberia. Old lady and electric blanket, you’re still cold at nights. Even this weather.”
“Is there a point to this, Alfie?”
“Only that he’s had it on the market eighteen months. Can’t shift it, love nor money.”
“Thanks. You’ve made a good day feel a lot better.” Levin lit another cigarette, automatically cupping it inside his hand after the first drag. “This might, Mr. Resnick.”
Resnick eased the end of his forefinger through the short fur behind Dizzy’s ear and waited.
“It’s not that I’ve changed my mind, grassing. Not that I know anything you’d want, break-ins. Anyone who might be on a bit of work, I know less about it than you lot.”
“What is it then, Alfie?”
“That feller you was interested in, the one hanging around.”
“Thin on top. You didn’t care for his footwear.”
“Name’s Stafford. Drugs, that’s his mark. And not just the funny cigarettes.”
“You’re sure?”
“God is my witness.”
“You wouldn’t like to …”
“No, Mr. Resnick. I never said nothing, never saw you. Haul me up in court and I’ll play stum. But that sort of thing, the thought of him, the Lord knows what it leads to, needles, all this HIV business. Locking away, that’s what he wants.”
Dizzy jumped down impatiently and headed for the front door.
“I owe you, Alfie.”
Levin shook his head.
“Cup of tea, at least.”
Alf Levin looked towards the house. “Some other time, Mr. Resnick. Studio canteen. Not here.” He edged away, shoulders hunched. “Don’t mind me asking, you married?”
“Not any more.”
“Just you, eh.” He glanced again at the house. “Must rattle around in there like a pea in a drum.”
“Thanks, Alfie.”
“Nothing of it.”
Resnick was already thinking about Norman Mann, the sergeant he knew with the local drug squad: wondering if he had Mann’s number, if it was unlisted or whether it would be in the book?
Don’t mind me asking …
For some moments, no longer than it took him to lay three slices of smoked ham across toasted bread, mustard, slivers of Jarlsberg cheese, Resnick regretted that he had torn up his wife’s letter, his ex-wife’s letter, he still assumed it to have been hers, before reading it.
… you married?
If he moved from here, where would he go? Somewhere her letters wouldn’t find him. Not that they were many. The first, this, in several years. Before that there had been three, close together. One threatening to take him to court for more money; another apologizing, claiming a bout of nerves, despondency, a job that had been pulled out from under her-sorry, Charlie, I won’t bother you again. A gap of three months before she sent an oddly distant description of the house she shared with her estate-agent husband, views of Snowdon through the upstairs bedroom window. As if she were writing to a second cousin once removed. Resnick had no sense of why she had sent that, what she had been thinking. That they might, perhaps, be absent friends, nods and glances across a hundred and more miles by courtesy of the postal services. Whatever her reasons, they had not been followed through. Years was a long time between letters, even for absent friends.
Not any more.
There were two signs Resnick had grown to recognize, markérs of his mood: one when he couldn’t drink coffee, the other, when his fingers ran back and forth along the spines of his record collection without pulling anything out.
A man who is sick of jazz is sick of life. Has somebody said that? And if they had, would that make it any more or less true? Charlie, he said to himself, I don’t like you so much when you’re like this.
He found Norman Mann’s number and left a message asking that the detective call him b
ack. Ground some coffee anyway, Colombian dark, and sat while it dripped through the machine, Miles and Bud curled on his lap, eating the last half of his sandwich. When the doorbell rang he had almost forgotten about Claire Millinder, her self-invitation to call.
“I took a chance on the red.” She was standing just a little way back from the door, a smile brightening her face and a long wool coat, dark blue, open over a short black skirt, broad striped tights. The top was beige, loose around the softness of her shoulders; except that she didn’t seem the type, she could have knitted it herself. “I tried to find some New Zealand”-walking past him into the broad hallway-“but I had to settle for this. Murray Valley. Aussie Shiraz.” She swiveled to face him. “It’s not plonk. Good stuff.” Now she was holding the bottle out towards him. “I’ve been keeping it warm on the journey.”
Resnick accepted it from her; at the door through into the kitchen, he stood aside to let her by. There was a high flush to her cheeks, a definite shine to her eyes; her shoulder brushed him as she passed.
“Good day?” Claire squatted close to the floor, stroking the diminutive Bud. It was difficult for Resnick not to look up her skirt.
“So-so.”
“Tired, I’ll bet?”
Resnick didn’t answer. He uncorked the bottle and set it down; there was some etiquette about waiting for it to breathe, but he had never been certain for how long or why.
“You’re not a wine drinker, are you?”
“I’ve got a corkscrew.”
“I’ve got a tennis racket, but I’m not going to make Wimbledon.” Bud scampered away from her feet as she moved. “What I meant was,” glancing at his waistline, “I see you as more of a beer drinker.”
“D’you want to leave this for a while?”
Claire smiled, her mouth broadening with amusement, “Now would be just about fine.”
He sat and cradled the glass between his fingers, watching her as she toured slowly around the room. The records, his books; haphazard, a pile of local newspapers waiting to be thrown out; the absence of anything hanging from his walls.
