by David Belbin
When they were done, Sarah’s mind was saturated. There was something else they were meant to discuss, but she couldn’t, for a moment, think what it was. She played for time.
‘I don’t suppose we can look again at the issue of making condoms freely available in prisons? It’s as important as needle exchanges and …’
‘You’re like a stuck record on that topic. I thought we went over this yesterday.’
‘True, but who knows how long I’ll be in this job. I’d like to achieve one solid, life-changing policy before I go.’
‘Then find something less politically sensitive to campaign for. Government is about collective decisions, not individual campaigns. Licensing prisoners to have gay sex, safe or otherwise, in prisons is not the message we want to send out.’
On her way out, Sarah realized that she’d forgotten to tell her boss her decision about joining his drugs reform committee. And he, annoyed, had forgotten to ask her. So he could bloody well wait.
28
‘Is this okay?’ he asks, after buying you a coffee.
‘I guess.’ You’d prefer somewhere more private, but this will do. You’re hardly likely to run into Beany and his crew, or anyone from school, here.
‘Why did we have to stop meeting at the hostel? And where did you get that scratch?’
Two questions, one answer. ‘Shaz.’
He nods like this makes sense. ‘I got a warning from her pimp when I was round on Monday.’
‘Beany’s a prat, but he’s connected. You don’t fall out with him.’
‘We can meet at my place in future if you prefer, after school. It’s just that this morning, my girlfriend’s there, having a lie-in.’
You talk about the book for fifty minutes, then he looks at his watch. ‘Okay, here’s what I want you to do before next time.’ Your phone rings. A couple of the oldsters at the next table give you a look when you answer it. What’s a girl like you doing with an expensive mobile phone?
It’s him. ‘Finished your lesson yet?’
‘I will have in two minutes.’
‘Wait for me outside the casino. I’ll pick you up in five.’
‘Great.’
You arrange to go to Nick’s, after school, the Monday after next. ‘Unless I get a job,’ he says. ‘Doesn’t seem very likely, but you never know.’
‘This is a job,’ you remind him. ‘You’re good at it.’
‘Thanks for that,’ he tells you and, for a moment, you think he’s going to kiss you on the forehead. Then you realize that this is a public place, and you don’t want to be late for your lover, so you hurry out of the library, round the corner and across Maid Marian Way. His car pulls up a few seconds later and you get straight in. He squeezes your thigh before setting off.
‘Did you fire him like I told you to?’ he asks.
‘No. I need a couple more sessions on Dickens,’ you tell him. ‘After that, I can do without him.’
He doesn’t argue, just drives. He doesn’t tell you where you’re going. Which is fine. You’re happy for him to take you anywhere he wants.
Nick let himself into the flat. He was carrying eggs, bacon from the market, sausages and a couple of croissants for good measure.
‘I’m back.’
No reply.
‘Hope you’re hungry.’
Still nothing. She must be in the bathroom. He dumped the food by the sink and opened the bathroom door. Condensation on the walls. Nancy had had a shower, using the rubber attachments connected to the bath taps. But she wasn’t there. He called her name. Then he looked around. No note. Nothing.
Nancy could be erratic. She wasn’t the same woman he knew seven years ago. Then, she was anxious to please, eager to succeed as a teacher. Now, she was anxious only to please herself, eager only to get trashed. Impatient, too, which must be why she hadn’t hung around for him. He’d left no food in. He’d find her at a café down the road. But she might have left a note.
He had her mobile number written down. Nick reached for the pad that he kept beneath the phone. But before he could locate the number, there was a loud banging on the door.
‘Police!’
Nick thought quickly. The dope was stashed outside. He should be safe. Nancy hadn’t had anything with her, so she couldn’t have left stuff lying around. At most they would find a couple of roaches in the bin. But what had brought the police here in the first place?
He opened the door. Two uniforms and two plain clothes, the older one with a narrow, two-inch scar below his left eye. Drug squad, they looked like. And they had a search warrant.
‘Go ahead,’ he told them. ‘You’ll find nothing here.’
‘They all say that,’ Scarface told him.
He stood in a corner of the room, where he could see what they were doing in both the living room and the bedroom. If they wanted to fit him up, however, it would be their word against his. Who was behind this? Maybe Beany or his boss wanted to set Nick up, believing him to be a rival. The dealers were bound to have bent coppers on their payroll. Nick’s chest hurt, his heart pounded away. A panic attack, brought on by the fear of going back inside. He was out on licence. Get caught for the smallest thing and he could be sent down for the three years of his sentence he hadn’t yet served. Beany knew that when he threatened him on Monday. One roach and a vindictive magistrate could be enough to put Nick back inside.
Nick tried to take short, regular breaths. The police didn’t bother with the bathroom. They seemed to be paying most attention to the drawer next to the kitchen sink, where Nick kept screwdrivers, spare plugs and the like. Scarface seemed surprised when the drawer proved drug-free.
If they were going to set him up, Nick told himself, they would have done it by now. He might be all right. But who would go to the trouble of arranging a bust when there was no guarantee that Nick would get caught out?
The cops looked pissed off. Nick began to breathe more easily.
‘Want to search me?’ Nick offered. Scarface ignored him, but looked at his colleagues. The uniforms shook their heads. So did the other plain clothes. They hadn’t had time to search properly, surely? Scarface clapped his hands together.
‘Okay, let’s call it a day.’ His manner to Nick changed sharply. ‘Sorry to inconvenience you, sir, but we have to act on information received. I hope we haven’t made too much mess.’
Nick shook his head and let them leave. What the hell was all that about? Before he could think it through, the phone rang. Nancy.
‘You had an unexpected visitor,’ she said.
‘How the hell do you know that?’ he snapped.
‘Because I was there when the plant happened. I’m at mine. Can you get down here, now?’
‘Give me ten minutes,’ he said.
‘And if you bought breakfast, bring it with you. I’m starving.’
29
Sarah usually saved her red Home Office boxes for a Sunday, but tomorrow she was due at her mum’s. She might work through this evening. Paul was with his family and she’d had no other offers for Saturday night.
Had Paul really left his wife? Sarah didn’t want to press him about that. He said they were separated but hadn’t told the kids yet. At weekends, he slept in the spare bedroom. So, in theory, he could come out on a late-night booty call. But it was risky. He might be seen.
She opened the box. Wormwood Scrubs had yet to find a new governor. The man in temporary charge had instituted a purge on illegal drug use in the prison. ‘Zero tolerance’ was the stupid American phrase he used in the report. Over Christmas dinner, Sarah had listened to prisoners’ complaints. One of their biggest gripes was about the quality of the toothpaste – the stuff they got was so rough that many had constantly bleeding gums. She looked through the report again. No mention of toothpaste.
Tempting to write a note. But she had to leave decisions, big and small, to the temporary governor.
The phone rang. Eric.
‘I was wondering if you had plans for din
ner tonight?’ the chief constable asked.
‘None. You’d be saving me from a very boring evening.’
‘Excellent news. Where would you like to eat?’
‘Go through it all again.’
‘Christ, Nick, you sound like you don’t believe me.’
‘It’s not you I don’t believe. It’s that I can’t take in what happened.’
The sausages in the pan started spitting. Nancy tied an apron over last night’s dress. She sliced some mushrooms, then told the story again.
‘I’d just got out of the shower when I heard him come in. You’d only been gone a few minutes. I thought you’d forgotten something. I opened the bathroom door and saw his back. He was going through a drawer by the sink. I was naked and I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. So I closed the bathroom door, quietly as I could. Then I locked it, hoping he wouldn’t hear. And I waited. I heard him go, waited a little longer, then got dressed.’
‘How much of him did you see?’
She unwrapped the bacon.
‘Just his back. He was wearing jeans and a blue hoody, with the hood down. His hair was quite short, shaved I think.’
‘What colour?’
‘It matched his skin. Black. My first thought was to get out, in case he came back. Then I tried to work out what he was looking for. I mean, you don’t have much, but there was stuff he could have taken. The stereo. I’d left my purse on the table. But he’d hardly had time to look in more than that drawer. I wondered what you kept in there.’
‘Just tools, tape measures, stuff like that.’
‘That was all I noticed at first. Must have taken me a good … oh, two seconds to spot that he hadn’t taken anything at all. He’d put something in.’
‘What?’
Nancy ignored the question. ‘I looked out the window in case the police were already there. Then I got dressed, let myself out of the flat and waited until there was a bunch of people walking by on Alfreton Road, so I could slip in behind them, in case anyone was watching. All the time I was waiting for a bus, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was sure someone would know what I had on me.’
‘What?’
‘I put it under the bin, outside.’
There was a small yard at the back of Nancy’s house, big enough for the bin and a few potted plants. Nick went out and lifted the bin, saw the plastic bag. This was what the police had been looking for. The bag was full of paper wraps. There must have been a hundred of them. Nick didn’t pick it up. He didn’t want to get his fingerprints on it. He knew what would be inside. Crack cocaine. Ten pound wraps. Over a grand’s worth. Enough to put him back inside and give him a new sentence the same length as the old one.
Somebody wanted him out of the way. And wanted it very badly indeed.
‘Did you look inside?’ Nick asked when he returned to the kitchen.
‘Of course I did. I wanted to be sure. But I wore my kitchen gloves. Why didn’t you tell me, Nick?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘He just walked in. He had a key.’
Nick shook his head. ‘No key. The lock on that door’s pretty pathetic. A credit card might have done it. A palette knife, used the right way, would slide it open.’
‘You don’t have to lie to me. He was making a delivery. You’re dealing again.’
‘If you really think that, why did you take the stuff?’
Nancy hesitated, turned the bacon in the pan over. ‘In case I was wrong. In case someone was trying to get you into trouble.’
‘You saved my skin.’ He told her about the attempted bust.
Nancy sliced two tomatoes in half and threw them into the pan. ‘Why would anybody want to set you up like that?’
‘That’s what I’m asking myself.’ He didn’t mention Beany, because he reckoned he was the guy she bought her coke from. But wouldn’t she have recognized him? ‘It might have been the guy who beat me up last month.’
‘Planting crack is a lot more serious than beating you up.’
‘I suppose.’
She put in the mushrooms, a little too late. He liked them cooked to a crisp. ‘You can’t stay there,’ she said. ‘You’d better stay with me for a while.’
‘Thanks. I really –’
‘You’ll soon get fed up of me,’ she interrupted. ‘Men always do.’
‘Not me,’ Nick promised, recklessly, for she had just kept him out of prison.
‘Do you want fried bread?’
He did. She cut a couple of slices and somehow fitted them into the pan, putting the bacon on top so that it made space and didn’t overcook. Nick ran through the list of people who had grudges against him. There weren’t many. Beany. Beany’s boss, whoever that was – somebody in a long chain that probably ended with Frank Davis, or whoever supplied the former head of the Crack Action Team. Who else? Wayne, who had offered Nick a job a few months ago, wouldn’t do something like this. Nick’s turning him down wasn’t a strong enough motive. It had to be connected to Beany.
Didn’t it?
Tonight, Sarah fancied a curry. The best to be had was at the Saagar, on the edge of Sherwood, a mile or two out of the city on the Mansfield Road. Its humble location and purple flock wallpaper belied the outstanding quality of its food.
Her only complaint, if complaint it could be called, was the menu’s insistence that every customer order a main course. The portions were enormous and she was trying to watch her figure. It was weeks since she’d been to the gym, which was the only exercise she got. She ate her niwabi lamb and all but a quarter of her Peshwari naan. Then she pushed the plate aside.
‘Do you see much of Paul Morris in London?’ Eric asked, casually.
‘We’ve had dinner a couple of times,’ Sarah replied. She didn’t want to sound guarded about this, nor to rub Eric’s face in her new relationship. ‘He gets lonely, stuck in the smoke all week.’
‘Yes. He must miss Annette and the kids. They grow up so quickly at that age. Do you come across him at the Home Office?’
‘No.’ She needed to shift topic. ‘How’s the new chair of the police committee shaping up?’ Sarah asked, trying to remember who it was.
‘Solid enough. It’s not an enviable position, for a politician.’
‘I suspect Paul was glad to have an excuse to dump it.’
‘I suspect he got exactly what he wanted to get out of the post,’ Eric said, his eyes not meeting hers. Did he know about her and Paul after all? Time to tackle a sensitive subject, Sarah decided. The restaurant was full and noisy. In their corner table, they would not be overheard.
‘Thanks for your advice on the Power Project, by the way. Looks like it’s winding down, so there’s no need for me to extricate myself. God knows what, if anything, will replace it.’
‘In time, other agencies will soak up the funding, fill the gap.’
‘Yes, and Kingston Bell will manage to make it look like another achievement on his CV. He was promised an honour if he took it on.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Eric said. ‘Never hurts to have a coloured OBE.’
‘Black,’ Sarah said sharply. ‘Nobody uses “coloured” any more.’
‘We’re always behind the times in the police force. By the way, are you still in touch with your former friend, who used to work with Kingston?’
‘Not for a while. Why do you say used to?’
‘Some of my lads had reason to visit his home today. He gave them to understand that he was no longer employed at the Power Project.’
Instantly, Sarah went on to high alert. ‘Visit Nick. Why?’
‘A tip we couldn’t ignore. He was accused of dealing crack. The caller told us exactly where to find his supply.’
‘Crack? That’s absurd,’ Sarah said, her anxiety mounting. But was it so preposterous that Nick would return to selling drugs, given his lack of other opportunities? Had she let her feelings for him blind her to his recklessness, his addictions? ‘He would never … what did you find?�
��
‘Nothing. He’s good at squeezing out of trouble, is Nick Cane.’
Sarah felt an immense sense of relief. The waiter came to take away their plates and returned with a basket containing two hot white flannels. She took one and slowly wiped her face, neck and hands with it, calming herself down.
‘Who gave you the tip about Nick, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘A confidential informant, according to one of my officers. It’s a scummy business. The officer himself is under surveillance.’
Sarah knew that there were corrupt officers on the force, hard to know how many. Eric had made it his mission to eradicate them, but it was a slow, difficult process.
‘Under surveillance for what?’
‘I can’t tell you. Let’s just say that, when the matter came across my desk for approval, I made sure the suspect officer didn’t go on the raid. Possibly that helped your former friend.’
Sarah gave Eric her warmest smile. ‘I really appreciate that, Eric. Nick doesn’t deserve to go back to jail. But I’d still like to know who tried to set him up. A dealer maybe? Somebody with a grudge against Nick because of his work?’ Sarah remembered that Frank Davis was said to have several quite senior officers in his pay. ‘Could it have been someone connected with Frank Davis? Can he control things from prison?’
‘Prison staff confiscated a mobile phone from Davis early on. Since then, they’re meant to have kept a close eye on him, but prison officers are poorly paid and notoriously corruptible. Davis is only on remand, where conditions are less strict. But I can’t think why he would have it in for Cane.’
‘When does he go to trial?’
‘The case has been delayed twice, but it’s currently scheduled to start in a week’s time.’
‘Loads more bad publicity for drugs work in the city.’
‘It’ll be a good time to bury the closure of the Power Project, if that’s what you plan to do.’
‘I guess. It feels bad, putting people out of work.’
‘And Cane was once a good friend, I know. But while he may be innocent in this case, your continued association with him could end up costing you dearly.’
