by Mark Timlin
‘Fuck,’ he said in pain and grabbed at his shoulder as Yellow Hat charged me like an enraged bull and got me one good one on the side of the head with a left hook that made the world go out of focus.
I stumbled to one side, saw his other fist coming round in a haymaker, stuck up my left arm to deflect the blow and hit him hard in the sternum with my right: that took the wind out of his sails and deposited him on the ground. Blue Hat meanwhile got back into the fray and aimed a kick at my balls which, if it had hit the intended target would have finished me off. But I was lucky: as I turned away from him to avoid his foot, my shoe skidded in the muck and I went down on to my knee and the kick caught me on the shoulder. I rolled back, came up, caught his foot and tugged hard. He went down on top of Yellow Hat who was struggling to his feet, and was knocked down flat on his back again in a mess of arms and legs.
I stood and grabbed Peter Jeffries and slammed him back against the wall of the Portakabin hard enough to shake the structure, knocked off his helmet, grabbed him by his hair and said, ‘Stop it now Peter or I’ll fucking do you.’
His face was almost as red as his hard hat and he struggled both for breath and to speak. ‘I never did anything to your mum,’ I hissed. ‘Now you can believe that or not but it’s true. All I wanted was a friendly chat about your brother and his girlfriend. Do you know where they are?’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Blue and Yellow Hat stand up. ‘Stay back, boys,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll do your mate serious damage. Tell ’em, Peter.’
He lifted one hand palm outwards and they stepped back. ‘Good,’ I said. Then to Peter, ‘Well, do you?’
‘No,’ he managed to choke out of his bruised throat.
‘Are you telling me the truth?’ I demanded.
He nodded furiously.
‘See,’ I said. ‘That was it. I’m leaving now, but I may be back. Next time listen before you get stupid. Understand?’
He coughed and spluttered and nodded again. I let go of his hair and skated back to my car through the mud and took off fast before his pals decided to get back into the bundle. I didn’t think I’d be so lucky twice. When I was far enough away to know I wasn’t being pursued I pulled the car into a side street, lit a cigarette with trembling hands whose trembling gradually spread to the rest of my body and sat shaking for a good five minutes.
22
When I’d calmed down enough to drive, I started the engine and went home. I felt sore all over, and my clothes and the driver’s seat of the car were covered in mud. A delightful way to spend a Tuesday morning.
I parked the motor up and limped into the house, dropped my leather jacket on the landing outside my flat door so it wouldn’t get the furniture inside all muddy, and once inside stripped down and put the rest of my clothes into the washing machine and switched it on.
Then I went into the shower and stood under water just hot enough to bear before I checked myself in the mirror.
I cleared the condensation off the glass, pushed my hair out of my eyes and winced at my reflection. The right side of my face was swollen up nicely and the first signs of bruising were beginning to appear. I moved my jaw from side to side and it hurt like hell, but I could tell nothing was broken. There were more bruises coming up on my right shoulder and it was tender to touch. But once again no bones broken. My right knuckles were swollen too, and my foot and leg were aching from where I’d slipped. But it could’ve been worse. A lot worse. I could’ve been dead.
I dried off and dressed in fresh underwear, shirt, socks and jeans, surveyed the wreckage of my shoes that were pretty well past saving and put them into the trash bag. Then I went outside and rescued my leather jacket, which would be fine once the mud was washed off, and sat down with a cigarette and large Jack Daniel’s and considered what had happened.
I’d been pretty stupid and it was more luck than judgement that I’d managed to make it home on my own two feet, or one and a half more like.
I sat there for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go and meet Melanie. I was in no mood to continue the investigation, only in jacking it in pronto. If it hadn’t been for the ear bending I’d get from her I would’ve done it too. But when a woman like her was around, valour was often the better part of discretion.
I put on a suit and tie to go out, and when I checked myself in the mirror again, one half of my face looked like an overripe melon that had taken a good kicking.
Delightful.
I got a cab up to Blackfriars. She was waiting for me in the reception area of her building when I limped in.
‘What have you done now?’ was the first thing she said when she saw me. If I’d been expecting sympathy I could obviously go on expecting it.
‘I went to see Jeffries’ brother,’ I explained.
‘He was obviously pleased to see you.’
‘You could say that. Him and his mates.’
‘Lots of them, were there?’
‘Enough.’
‘Christ. Did you ever consider you were in the wrong job? Every time you take on a case you end up in Casualty.’
‘And whose idea was it that I took it on in the first place?’
‘Don’t blame me.’
‘Christ, Mel. Do me a favour. I’m stiff all over.’
‘All over? Maybe my luck’s changing.’
‘What’s happened to women in the nineties?’ I said. ‘Where’s the compassion? The sweetness and light?’
‘You want me to mop your fevered brow, is that it?’
‘I don’t need aggro, that’s for sure.’
‘Diddums.’
I just sighed. I wasn’t going to win and that was that.
We walked up to a tiny Javanese restaurant we’d discovered on Holborn Viaduct. Or at least she walked and I limped along beside her.
The food was good and I told her the story of my day as we ate. She was a bit kinder after that, but not much.
When I’d paid the bill we cabbed over to Gerry’s club in Dean Street for a drink, but I was feeling lousy by then. A bit of delayed shock, I reckoned. More like a dodgy prawn in the fish curry, she thought.
We caught another cab back to mine and we were tucked up in bed by eleven-thirty, and if she thought I was going to do all sorts of macho things to her she was very much mistaken.
There’s only so much a man can take in one day.
23
But of course I couldn’t sleep. My face and shoulder hurt like hell and I kept thinking about the Khan case. Melanie, on the other hand, was asleep in minutes whilst I tossed and turned next to her. Eventually, to avoid disturbing her I got up again.
I switched on the weak light that sits on top of my television set and hunted for my cigarettes. I lit one and went and stood by the window looking out into the dark and deserted street outside, massaging my bruises and wincing at the pain I felt from them.
It had started raining on the way home in the cab, the sound of the tyres splashing through puddles and hissing on the wet tarmac almost drowned by the throb of the diesel engine and some fools nattering on the radio in the front.
It was still raining as I stood there, the drops on the window pane outside rolling down like tears and making the glass into a mirror so that I could see Melanie lying in bed behind me. The distortion of the rain and the blackness of the sky outside changed the colour of her skin in the dim light from the lamp and for a moment I imagined she was dead lying there, and I shivered as I thought about what Khan had said about death – it being our constant companion. And of course he was right. As the Bible puts it: in the midst of life etc. etc.
I think about death a lot now. I should, I’ve seen it often enough. Once, a long time ago, I refused to acknowledge it. I was young then and thought that I’d live for ever like all young men do.
Then, when I realised that I wouldn’t, I was in fear of de
ath. It hovered over me like a scourge. But now, with so many I’ve loved gone on that journey before me, it no longer frightens me. In fact, in a strange, perverse way I almost welcome it. It’s the last unknown. The only taboo subject we seem to have left in a world I’ve seen change so fast as we head for the new century. The only subject that people don’t talk about. We’re in this life for such a short, precious time, but we don’t treat our time as precious. We squander it on meaningless things and I’m so tired of wasting time. So that when death finally comes to me I want to embrace it. Love it like I’ve never managed to love anything or anyone properly in my time here in the land of the living.
Suddenly, outside a car door slammed as loud as a pistol shot and I almost ducked. Melanie woke up. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked in a voice thick with sleep.
‘Thinking,’ I replied.
‘What about?’
‘Nothing much.’
‘Come back to bed.’
‘In a minute,’ I said, and she rolled over and was asleep again almost immediately.
But I carried on talking as if she could hear me. ‘I have dreams of leaving, you know, Mel,’ I said softly. ‘Dreams of a better place, but I doubt now if I’ll ever find it. Sometimes I wonder if a better place even exists for someone like me.’
I knew what she’d say if she could hear me. ‘Then go and find it.’ But it’s not that easy.
I turned back and looked into the glass again and watched myself watching myself. I didn’t like what I saw. A middle-aged man who’d never fulfilled his promise or ambitions and now never would. A man who’d made so many mistakes that all the regrets and apologies that could be made would never wipe the slate clean. I pulled a clown’s face at myself and knew that self-pity was the lowest of the emotions, but sometimes the only one that fitted the moment, especially on a rainy autumn night with the leaves falling outside and swirling down the gutters in the streets like the dreams of lost youth.
I lit another cigarette, went into the kitchen and found some juice in the refrigerator and filled a glass. I drank the juice standing by the stove then turned off the light and crawled back into bed and tried to warm the cold knot inside my belly with the nighttime heat of Melanie’s body, but it was still there when I finally fell asleep as a distant clock chimed two.
24
Wednesday morning, after Melanie had gone to work I stood under the shower for a long time to ease the ache in my shoulders and legs. ‘You’re getting much too old for this lark,’ I remarked to my reflection afterwards in the mirror as I shaved. But at least in the light of a new day I didn’t feel as desperate as I had in the small hours when the spirits are always low, and the face I saw didn’t repulse me quite as much, even with the lovely black eye that was maturing fast, so that was something. I grinned a wry grin through the shaving foam and wondered what to do next.
My mind was made up for me when the telephone rang as I was chewing on a slice of toast and raspberry jam twenty minutes later, still trying to finish the previous day’s Telegraph crossword.
I dropped the paper, still doubtful about fifteen down, swallowed some tea to clear my mouth and picked up the receiver. ‘Sharman,’ I said.
‘Is that the detective?’ a male voice asked tentatively.
For one second I thought it might be Paul Jeffries and all my troubles about finding him and Meena were over. ‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Hello,’ the voice said. ‘My name’s Henry. Henry Thorne.’
‘You’re Paul’s friend?’ I said, although his mother hadn’t supplied a surname.
‘That’s right. I spoke to his mum last night. She said you wanted to talk to me.’
‘I’m surprised you agreed.’
‘She said you were all right. That you’d told that Paki fucker up the road to leave her alone.’
Khan’s words in the restaurant came back to haunt me. Maybe we are all racist in this little country of ours. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that. I had a word. That’s all.’
‘Bloody good job. Then Peter phoned too. You know, Paul’s brother.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘He warned me off talking to you. I never did take to him. Bit of a bastard if you ask me.’
‘I’ve met people I prefer,’ I agreed.
‘You’re not alone there.’
‘Well thanks for calling anyway,’ I said.
‘You ain’t going to hurt him, are you?’
‘Who – Paul or Peter?’
‘Paul of course. Peter can look after himself.’
‘With a little help from his friends,’ I remarked. ‘And then it can still go wrong.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Long story.’
‘I mean it. I won’t talk if Paul gets into trouble.’
‘He already is, if I’m any judge.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I know what you mean, and I’m not in the business of getting people into trouble, Henry,’ I said soothingly. Although from my past record that wasn’t strictly true. ‘I try and get them out of trouble most of the time.’
‘Right. I’ll talk to you then. For what it’s worth. Probably not much.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘OK.’
‘When?’ I asked.
‘Today if you like. I ain’t working. Got nothing else to do. You can buy me a drink.’
‘It’ll be a pleasure.’ Although I somehow doubted that after the Paki crack. ‘Where?’
‘You know the Greyhound?’ he asked.
‘Streatham Common?’
‘That’s the one. The big bar in the front.’
‘One o’clock suit you?’
‘Fine. How will I know you?’
‘I’ve seen your photograph,’ I said. ‘I’m a detective. I’ll find you.’
25
I got to Streatham Common at ten to one. I parked the car on a side street a minute or two’s distance away from the Greyhound and looked at myself in the rearview mirror after I’d switched off the engine. I was doing a lot of that lately – looking in mirrors. You do when you stop recognising yourself. These days I was seeing my grandad looking back at me. And sometimes, which was worse, my grandma. Yet in my youth I’d resembled neither of these dead relatives. I shrugged and ran my hand through my hair that was greying at the sides, shrugged again, left the car and walked to the pub.
It wasn’t full and it wasn’t empty and I stood inside the door and scoped the bar. I saw Henry after a moment and he saw me and raised an eyebrow. I think I would have recognised him from the photograph, but now his hair was much shorter, almost a crop, and instead of a suit he was wearing a pale blue Fred Perry shirt, a nylon windbreaker in a darker shade of blue, Levis with turn-ups and monkey boots. In front of him was a hardly touched pint, a pack of Superkings and a throwaway lighter.
I walked over to where he was sitting on a stool by the bar. ‘Henry?’ I said with a question mark.
He nodded.
‘Nick Sharman.’
‘Thought so.’
We shook hands. His palm was warm and wet.
‘Drink?’ I asked, surreptitiously wiping my hand on my thigh.
‘Whisky chaser.’
I ordered a large Scotch for him and pint of lager for myself. The pub was warm, well lit and smelt of food from the hot plates on the far side of the bar. It was as easy being there as anywhere else on that chilly Wednesday lunchtime.
Whilst I waited to pay for our drinks I pulled up a stool and sat down next to him. Henry took a cigarette from the packet on the bar in front of him and offered me one. ‘I’ll stick to these,’ I said and found my Silk Cut. But I took a light.
When my pint was in front of me and Henry’s Scotch next to his pint, I said. ‘So, have you heard from Paul recently?’
‘Not for months.’
‘Where was he?’
‘Manchester. Working in a restaurant.’
‘With Meena’s brothers.’
He nodded.
‘Did he tell you about her?’
‘He was full of it. Told me he’d met the love of his life.’
‘And?’
‘And he didn’t know what to do about it.’
‘Did he tell you his options?’
‘Sure. He was on the phone for ages.’
‘And what were his options as far as he knew?’
‘Easy. Forget all about her or for them to run away together.’
‘And what was your advice?’
‘I told him to get out. He was asking for trouble getting webbed up with a Paki girl.’
‘Indian,’ I corrected him.
‘Whatever.’
‘You don’t like Asians. Is that it, Henry?’ I enquired.
‘Can take them or leave them as long as they don’t interfere with me.’
‘And you think Meena would’ve interfered with Paul.’
‘Yeah, I do as a matter of fact. Even if she was as beautiful as he said she was.’
I took the photo of Meena out of the envelope I was carrying in my pocket and showed it to him.
He pulled his mouth down. ‘Tasty,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that. But Paul could never look after her proper. He’s never had a steady job as long as I’ve known him. And you know what people think of mixed marriages.’
‘Do they care much these days? Haven’t times changed?’
‘They care round here, I can tell you that. Shout out after them, call the kids all sorts.’
‘So you told him to forget it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘No wonder he’s not been in touch. Of course, you know that he ignored your advice and left Manchester with her.’
‘Sure I do. Stupid bastard.’
‘And you haven’t got any idea where they are?’
He shook his head.
