The Big Snow

by David Park

  Squirms of candlelight fluttered against the glass and there was the glow of a fire flitting and fidgeting in the room, but he couldn’t distinguish anyone inside. He checked the number again and knocked at the door. He knew immediately that the man who stumbled to the door had been drinking and he peered out as if he couldn’t see who had just knocked. ‘Mr McGrath?’ Swift asked, looking at the stubble-flecked face that stared through him. The man was unsteady on his feet and held to the door frame for support. He was wearing layers of clothes that frothed out over each other with a belt across his waist to hold it all in place, giving him the ragged appearance of a scarecrow.

  ‘Hell’s bells,’ the man said, ‘you must be desperate, to be out on a night like this. Must be far gone for you to be thumpin’ the door in the middle of this fuckin’ winter wonderland.’

  ‘I’m desperate, all right,’ Swift said, already piecing things together in his head. He wished he had a hipflask in his pocket to offer as a ticket of admittance.

  ‘So you’re here on business?’ the man asked as he stared up and down the empty street. ‘I can always tell, no matter what, I can always tell.’ Swift nodded, the man lurched a little, then steadied himself and wordlessly signalled him inside. He followed into the jittery, smoky front room, which stank of stale beer and something similar to the smell of a wet dog. The man he assumed to be McGrath flopped into the chair closest to the fire and pushed his feet against the tiles of the fireplace. ‘You didn’t bring any drink with you?’ he asked. ‘Well, more’s the pity, for you can’t even get out for a jar, and if you do you’re liable to break your neck on the way back or end up freezin’ to death up to your uxters in snow.’ He spoke to the fire but now he turned and leered at him. ‘Well, who’s been a dirty dog, then? Been dippin’ your wick and got caught out?’ He dropped his feet and they clattered against empty bottles. The light made his eyes yellow and his skin slippery and sallow like the grease from the candles. ‘There’s always a price to pay, son, for a bit of fanny and you better have it ready. Mrs McGrath doesn’t do charity cases.’

  ‘Shut your drunken mouth!’ a woman’s voice shouted, as like some spectre, she appeared in the room out of nowhere, ‘Shut your mouth before I do it for you.’

  ‘I was only tellin’ the lad how it is, I was only—’

  ‘Shut your bake now or I’ll have the tongue out of your head!’

  McGrath shrugged and lapsed into silence, occasionally holding up his hand as part of some silent defence. The woman was thin and wiry, the force of her words contrasting with her physical strength, and she turned to Swift and bristled herself tight and aggressive, demanding to know who he was and what he wanted. When she moved her arms, the shadows stuttered and fretted across the walls like the dark wings of a bird.

  ‘Swift,’ he said. My name’s Swift and maybe you can help me.’

  ‘Swift?’ the man said sniggering, ‘That’s a good one – I’d say you’ve been a bit too swift, son. Rushed right in and now she’s up the duff.’

  ‘Who sent you here?’ the woman asked, stepping closer to see him more clearly.

  ‘A woman I know said you could help. I can pay.’

  ‘How far gone?’ asked the woman.

  ‘About two months,’ Swift said. He paused a moment, then added, ‘Her name’s Alma Simons and mine’s Detective Constable Swift.’

  Even in the trembling half-light he could see her face blanch with fear and her eyes blink and skitter round the room looking for an escape. McGrath slumped forward in his chair and gave a low moan before repeating over and over, ‘God in heaven.’ But she turned to him, telling him to hold his tongue, and her voice was hard again and in control. Swift knew already that the man was a surer bet but he knew, too, he had them both.

  ‘We’ve never heard of any Alma Simons,’ she said, folding her arms across her narrow chest.

  ‘That’s strange, for her name’s been all over the news and on the front of every paper. You see, somebody murdered her.’

  ‘We don’t pay any heed to the news – we just keep ourselves to ourselves,’ she said, shaking her head in denial of whatever he was about to put to her. A sudden draught made the candles flicker. Swift stepped into the middle of the room with his broadened shadow thrown on the bare screen of the wall.

  ‘I think you better sit down,’ he said, his voice low but strong. ‘And no, I don’t want you to say anything, because it’s important that you listen to what I have to say, for there’s only two roads stretchin’ in front of us now and you need to decide which one you want to go down. No, don’t say anything, just listen to what I’m saying to you. For you see, I already know all about the dirty little business you run here, but right at this minute all I’m interested in is Alma Simons. So what I need you to decide is which road you’re goin’ to go down. No, don’t say anything but you need to know that the only good road for you both now is the truth – you need to trust me with the truth. And if you do that, I’ll do my best by you.’

  ‘Tell him, Arlene,’ McGrath whispered, his voice thin and reedy and laced with pleading.

  ‘Just shut up,’ his wife said, ‘just say nothin’ and let me think. You start blabbing and you’ll be sittin’ in Crumlin Road.’ The man’s feet squeaked and clinked the bottles. ‘Tell him, Arlene – he knows it already,’ he said, turning to stare at her.

  Swift’s heart was drumming in his chest; he felt he was at the very edge, about to step over into the truth.

  ‘The truth is,’ she said slowly, ‘we don’t know anything about Alma Simons, nothing at all.’

  ‘That’s not what I want to hear,’ Swift said, a rush of disappointment pushing out the words. ‘And in case you aren’t aware, for what you run here, there could be real heavy punishment. You’re lookin’ it right in the face.’

  ‘She’s tellin’ you the God’s honest truth,’ McGrath whimpered, ‘honest to God. We never even seen this woman, never even seen her.’

  ‘She came here – I know she came here,’ Swift said, trying to scatter and press his guesses into reality.

  ‘She never came,’ the woman said.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘She was supposed to come but she never did.’

  ‘Maybe we should stop right now and start again down at the barracks,’ Swift said. He felt it was slipping away from him and he let his anger rush him into whatever words scribbled across his mind. ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten this is a murder case and that you’re up to your necks in it. So just maybe she came here and there was an argument about the money – was that it?’

  ‘The money was already paid,’ McGrath said. ‘Over the odds but he could afford it.’

  ‘Shut your face!’ his wife shouted, but when she tried to stand up Swift pushed her down again.

  ‘She’s tellin’ you the truth. We never saw her. The money was paid but she never came. On the Bible, she never came. Listen, Mister, we take good care of the girls – don’t just throw them back out on the street when it’s over, like some do. It’s the best for them in the long run. We take good care of all of them but this girl, she never came. Honest to God.’

  ‘Who paid the money?’ Swift said, going to stand over him. ‘Who paid it?’

  ‘Shut your bloody mouth!’ she screamed from the settee, the thin wing of her arm beating into shadow.

  ‘It’s too late for that now,’ Swift said, as calm as he could muster. ‘Who paid the money?’

  ‘Older guy, stank of money. I put the arm in for him lookin’ down his snotty nose at us. It were us doin’ him a favour, not the other way round. Drove a car. Big and fancy.’

  As his wife fell finally silent, Swift dragged as many physical details from the man as his addled memory could muster. Wearing a suit and a hat, dark-haired, in his fifties, plenty of money. There wasn’t much more. But it was something, something important, and then when McGrath’s words drained away into a stammering repetition of the meaningless, Swift thought of what went on upstairs or in the
back room and he shivered. He was glad she hadn’t come here, so very glad, because sometimes he had found himself beginning to think of the child as his own. Their child. One of the candles puffed out with a final twist of smoke. There was nothing more to be done – the rest would wait for later – and he cautioned them with a promise that they’d be hearing from him again. He wanted to be gone, and as he spoke his final words the room suddenly surged with light, making his shadow collapse and the radio start to yammer. Like the flash of Beckett’s camera. And although he tried not to look as he headed for the door, he knew that the photograph of what he had just seen had in that moment been added to his own collection and printed in his memory with all the force of its sordid misery.

  As Swift returned to the barracks he was determined to have it out with Gracey and, for better or worse, put all his cards on the table. Things had gone too far to keep them secret and he tried to tell himself that after the initial shock Gracey might just be grateful, but the thought carried no conviction. What he had discovered didn’t prove that Linton hadn’t murdered Alma Simons, but it did place another man in the picture and that would have to be investigated. He rehearsed the moment of disclosure in his head and each time he tried to ensure that it was free of smugness or any outward sign of pleasure in having put one over on Gracey, but knew it wouldn’t be easy to hide it entirely. ‘Can I have a word, Sergeant Gracey?’ he’d say, then usher him somewhere quiet in a conscious display of discretion. Or maybe he’d just arrive at the front desk and tell Maguire to summon him, tell him the case had taken a new turn and it would be in Gracey’s best interests if he got himself to the station in double-quick time. Then for a delicious second he imagined by-passing Gracey all together and going straight to the Head Constable. But the flurry of pleasure these imaginings brought him was shortlived and soon edged with apprehension, as he remembered Gracey’s earlier warnings.

  So when he walked into the barracks, much of his earlier confidence had drained away and been replaced by a foreboding that left him nervous and uncertain as to how he should approach Gracey. After the night cold, the sudden heat of the station flushed his face. A couple of reporters were conferring over cups of tea and scribbling in notebooks. Three or four constables were getting ready to go out on duty and trying to think of as many last-minute checks as possible, in the hope that these would delay their departure. One flicked his torch round the walls while another fiddled with the buttons of his coat. ‘Off you go now, lads,’ urged Maguire, ‘and don’t be worrying – if you get lost we’ll send the huskies out for you.’ Swift stood aside while they filtered past and heard them draw in their breath, like men who were about to plunge into deep water. As he stood watching there was a heavy slap on his back that sent him stumbling forward a few steps.

  ‘Out buildin’ snowmen, Swifty boy?’ Burns said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘You’re never about when things are on the boil.’ Swift stared at him and saw the delight in his eyes. ‘Well, none of us need be traipsin’ round in the bloody snow any more and it’s money in the bank for all of us. Maybe yer man’ll even forget those paintings in the light of this.’

  ‘In the light of what?’ Swift asked, opening the top buttons of his coat.

  ‘In the light of Linton havin’ spewed his guts about an hour ago. Signed, sealed and delivered. Gracey gave him one blindin’ hell of a squeeze and the bastard’s coughed up and signed on the dotted line.’

  ‘You mean he’s admitted it?’

  ‘You should be a detective, Swifty, you’re so sharp.’

  ‘Linton admitted it?’ Swift asked again, fighting for breath.

  ‘What’s wrong? You’re not tellin’ me that you’d started to believe that little weasel’s fairy story? God, you had, hadn’t you? You’ve a lot to learn, boy,’ Burns said, as he took a cigarette out of his pocket and fished around for a lighter. ‘Just as well it wasn’t all down to you, wasn’t it? He’d be back walking the streets by now, laughin’ his balls off instead of sittin’ in that cell blubberin’ like a bloody child.’

  ‘So what did he say, then?’ Swift asked, staring at Burns’s brown-stained fingers as they struck the match.

  ‘What do you mean, what did he say? I’ve told you – he coughed up, said he done it. Some sort of argument about her not goin’ away with him. He was spewin’ it out so fast I could hardly keep up with him. Shittin’ his pants, he was. What she ever saw in him, I don’t know. Bloody nancy boy. But listen, Swifty boy, there’s more good news – Gracey says we’re gettin’ tomorrow off in lieu of all these hours we’ve put in. He’s cleared it higher up, so you’ll be able to get out your sledge and play in the snow to your heart’s content.’

  Swift watched him put on his overcoat and the way he gingerly swapped the cigarette from hand to hand. After Burns had disappeared through the doors a thin curl of smoke still hung in the air. Swift felt a surge of anger but all he did was slice his hand slowly through it, trying to make it vanish.

  There were no further falls of snow during the night but a heavy frost baked and crusted it into a brittle expanse of crystal. ‘You know what will happen when this lot thaws,’ Maguire said to him in the morning, when he saw him about to leave the barracks. ‘There’ll be such a flood that you’ll need an ark to get up the road. It’ll be like Venice out there, so don’t be losing your boots, Mr Swift. Here, Swifty, do you know the world’s worst job?’ Swift shook his head. ‘A bookie’s runner in Venice. Do you get it, Swifty? Do you get it?’ He nodded his reply, only to hear Maguire call after him, ‘A sense of humour goes a long way in this job. Keeps you sane – you should remember that, Swift, son.’

  The sun reflected so brightly off the frozen snow that it dazzled his eyes and for a second he had to shade them with his hand. The whole world seemed smoothed and polished into a fierce glitter which was veined and flecked with glints of blue and yellow. Underfoot it felt granular and crisp, lisping and squeaking as he walked. More of the main roads had been cleared and the snow thrown to the sides in thick, brown-crested waves. Swift lifted his face and felt the sun touch his skin. Perhaps it was the beginning of the end. Part of him didn’t want it to be true, for when it was over he would be back in a familiar world whose predictability already threatened to crush his spirit. And he would always associate her with the snow. The two of them together, safe and warm, sheltering in the wilderness, cut off from the world and locked together in an embrace of love. The sun brushed his face lightly like the touch of her hand. Her breast white as the snow and veined with blue. And her love only for him, not shared with anyone else. Just for him.

  By the time he reached the City Hall he was sweating lightly and feeling suffocated by his layers of clothes. The air was still cold, but in comparison with the past days there was a noticeable rise in temperature. Things felt as if they were loosening, beginning to stir and unlock themselves from the tight grip that held the city, the whole country, frozen and still. There were more people about and it looked as if they were beginning to reclaim what had been taken away from them, but it was unpredictable and after the snow it wasn’t possible any more to feel secure about what lay ahead.

  The great green domes of the City Hall had shed their thin skein of snow and glistened in the sun but everywhere else was edged and layered in white. Every ledge and balustrade was badged and shadowed by crests of snow, and the building stood behind the white-cloaked statue of Queen Victoria like a giant wedding cake ready to be cut. Swift walked round to the rear and took directions to the office he was looking for. After walking in snow the tiled corridors felt intensely solid under his feet and his rubber boots felt clumsy and out of place amidst the polished wood and elegant Victorian formality. He had made enquiries already and they had all led here. It was her house he was thinking about. At first he had thought Mrs Graham had been mistaken when she had said it was a Corporation house, but he had checked it out with the local housing department and eventually found that it was, but that no one had been allocated to it after the de
parture of its former tenants. It was as if Alma Simons had simply walked in the front door and lived there without anyone knowing about it.

  The woman behind the partially open frosted glass could see him but made no attempt to acknowledge his presence or deal with his enquiry. He knew that the allocation of houses in the city was a convoluted and murky business, where deals were done and strings pulled by those small-time politicians and their confederates who found themselves with the luxury of permanent power. He knocked on the glass, causing the woman to lift her head but make no other move. He knocked again and this time she opened the glass a few more inches and peered out at him. ‘We’re closed,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to come back in the morning.’ She was about to close the glass again when he blocked it with his arm. ‘Excuse me!’ she said, her face tightening into thin furrows of anger. Without moving his arm he pulled out his warrant card and showed it to her, watching as she stared at his face.

  ‘You don’t look like a policeman,’ she said.

  ‘I’m a detective and I want to speak to someone about one of your houses,’ Swift said.

  ‘Have you filled in an application form?’ she asked, still inspecting him.

  ‘I don’t want a house. I’m part of an investigation into a murder and I want to speak to someone who can answer some questions. So if you could find someone, I’d be grateful.’