by David Belbin
‘I suspect it has something to do with Frank Davis being out of circulation and Tall Paul getting a job in London.’
‘Paul was trying to work his way out of the business, which had the unfortunate effect of drawing me back in.’
‘And there was I thinking you were coming to see me.’
‘I wish.’ Andrew smiled. ‘Noticed any changes in the drugs game since you got out?’
‘It’s changing all the time.’ Nick thought for a moment. ‘In the six months I’ve been doing drugs work, there are more guns in the city. Yardies fresh out of Jamaica are moving into St Ann’s, Sneinton …’
Andy nodded. ‘The traditional city crims are starting to want a piece as well. What you – we – used to do – the middle classes selling to each other, if you like – is on the way out. The city’s being divided into territories rather than client groups. The estates are run by white working-class thugs. They have grow houses springing up all over the place. I won’t work with them.’
‘So who do you work with?’ Nick asked.
‘A tight unit. We’ve never needed to use guns. But soon, if we don’t fight, with whatever means necessary, our historic customers – students, professionals, hippy types – are going to have to buy from the Yardies or the thugs.’
‘Are you still just selling dope? Or everything?’
A wry smile. ‘I was never just selling dope. Just growing dope was your contribution. As far as supply’s concerned, things have changed since the early nineties. These days, the whole business is run on a cell basis. Remember that movie we watched twice in the second year at uni?’
‘The Battle of Algiers? I’m not likely to forget it.’ Nick had always thought of the film as a primer for terrorists, not drug dealers. ‘How many people know who you are?’
‘Now Paul’s gone, there’s just one. The back-up, who I’ve been coming to see. And you, of course. Paul only dealt with three people, including him. Each of those three …’
‘… only dealt with three people.’
‘And none of the cells was bigger than four. So, the question is, are you interested in a taste?’
Nick had seen this coming. ‘You want me to courier gear?’
‘No. Money. And most of that is done with bank transfers.’
Nick wasn’t surprised by anything Andy had told him. He was only surprised that his friend hadn’t made this offer earlier. Maybe he’d been waiting to see how Nick handled being out of prison. Nick was still waiting to find this out himself.
‘I don’t know, Andy. I’m on licence. The police probably keep an eye on me. There’s something I haven’t told you.’
He explained how he was sure that Paul had set up the raid because he wanted to make sure that Nick didn’t tell Sarah about his past.
Andrew listened intently. ‘Sounds like something Paul would have done. But the job would have been sent down a couple of levels. No way would Paul go near a bag of crack. You’re lucky he didn’t come after you again.’
‘Maybe he figured that I’d got the message. Stupid thing was, I didn’t recognize him at Sarah’s. Even when I found out who he was, I didn’t suspect him, not at first. Another drug dealer and my girlfriend’s ex both had it in for me. So I had enough suspects to be going on with.’
‘Paul couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t grass him up,’ Andrew said. ‘If he’d come to me, I’d’ve set him straight. But the higher up you go, the more security conscious you have to be. In his position, I’d’ve done the same, or worse, just to be on the safe side.’
Nick didn’t ask what worse might mean.
‘What happened to the stuff he planted?’ Andrew asked.
‘My ex-girlfriend’s working her way through it.’
‘You’re well rid, then.’ He was waiting for Nick to respond to his offer, but as Nick was keeping his own counsel, Andy kept talking, the way he always did. ‘I’ve given you a lot to think about. I can promote my back-up guy, but I’d much prefer you. We have an absolute trust. Plus, you’ve already got respect in the city and you’re smart. Sometimes we have to work with other organizations. I’d trust you with negotiations. And the rewards are immense. I’d help you to hide your assets securely, better than you did before.’
‘Your back-up guy wouldn’t happen to be called Wayne, would he?’
‘No. Who’s he?’
Nick told him about the job offer he’d received back in November.
‘Do you remember the date?’
Nick told him.
‘That would be just after Frank Davis was arrested.’
‘I guess so.’
‘The offer to you probably came from someone in Frank’s operation. You should be flattered that your reputation reached them. Back then, I didn’t think you were ready to return to work. But by now the police must be convinced that you’re clean. In fact, you’ve become very well-connected.’
Nick had a few more questions. If he said no, this could be his last opportunity to find out all that Andrew got up to.
‘What proportion of your business is this? Most of it?’
‘You don’t need to know that,’ Andy said.
‘Is it just Nottingham, or other cities, too?’
‘Nottingham’s quite enough for me, thanks very much.’
‘And that currency dealing you’ve been getting into, that’s for laundering money, isn’t it?’
‘More or less.’
‘The property developing that the Tory MP helps you with?’
Andrew smiled. ‘In the long run, property’s where the big profits are. A boom is coming. I’ll be out of the drugs trade before long. By the millennium, who knows? I could hand it all over to you.’
‘I haven’t said that I’m in yet.’
‘I’m not twisting your arm. But this feels like fate to me, Nicholas.’
Andrew was the only friend who ever used his full name. He used it in a way that suggested only he knew Nick’s full, true self.
‘How long have I got to decide?’
‘A week, tops.’
‘I’ll think it over.’
There was nothing else to say. Nick looked out of the bedroom window. It was an impressive panorama, with what felt like the whole city spread out beneath him.
‘I’ve got errands to run,’ Andrew said. ‘Shall I leave you here or drop you off somewhere?’
Nick wanted to see Jerry, but he needed time to think first. ‘I’ll walk. Are you going to leave those deeds and keys with me?’
‘Sure. Like I said, there shouldn’t be any way this place can be connected with Paul, but there is one other thing.’
‘What?’
‘The boys who turned over Paul’s place made it look like a break-in went wrong. They’ll have been heard leaving. The body is bound to be found soon. Tell your girl to be on her guard.’
*
You sit in your room, trying to read. This has been the longest two days of your life. You can’t concentrate. You can’t think of anything except your dead lover. You can’t believe what you have done. You dream about him. You dream of being arrested. But nothing happens.
Beany shows up on Sunday. Shaz isn’t around. She’s in a rented room somewhere, working for him. Some men pay extra to screw pregnant girls. Beany offers you a pill, which you refuse. You sit outside, in the sun. You take a beer off him, share a spliff. Then you let him feel you up. You can’t be bothered to resist. It’s only Beany. He’s harmless. You let him grope your tits, over the bra, but you don’t let him kiss you. Kissing means something.
‘You’re the best-looking girl in this city,’ he tells you.
‘No, I’m not. My legs are too scrawny and I’ve got zits.’
‘You got great legs. Zits’ll be gone soon.’
You hear Nick’s bike coming. It has a particular squeak.
‘Gotta go,’ you tell Beany and jump off the wall. Only it’s not Nick. It’s somebody else who doesn’t oil their chain. You go back to your room, wait. Somehow you fall a
sleep. When you wake, Nick is sitting beside you. It’s like you’re still dreaming.
‘I don’t think they’ve found his body yet,’ Nick tells you. ‘But it’s probably a matter of hours. What we don’t know is whether there were any witnesses. Can you remember if anyone saw you, anyone at all?’
‘I sat in this all-night caff a long time. Apart from that, the only person who saw me was the MP woman. She was so keen to get away from Paul that I don’t think she noticed me going in.’
Today your lover’s death has become real. But you don’t feel like you had anything to do with it. You feel like a victim. You look at Nick. You’re good at reading people. You can tell he’s holding something back.
‘What else is there?’
‘There is something, but I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it.’
‘I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,’ you say.
‘I got some guys to search the flat, make sure there wasn’t anything around that linked him to you.’
‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’
‘They found one thing.’ He hands you some papers. Then he hands you two sets of keys. ‘Geraldine,’ he says. ‘That’s some name.’
‘I hate it. I’m going to change it when I’m old enough.’
You look through the papers. You can tell what they are. You see the address. You know exactly where it is. You remember making love there, beneath a skylight. You realize what all of this means.
‘He did love me,’ you say. ‘He bought this flat for me.’ It begins to sink in. ‘No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.’ For the first time since it happened, you cry. ‘He really loved me, he really loved me.’
Nick stays until the tears dry up a little. Neither of you speaks. After a while, just before the warden’s shift is due to change, he kisses you on the forehead. Then he leaves quietly, leaves you all alone.
43
Prison Minister’s questions were hairy. Wormwood Scrubs was the first riot since the new government’s election. The opposition felt entitled to have some fun, tearing apart the minister on whose watch it had happened. Sarah was glad that she had spent the weekend dealing with the situation. By now, the prison had settled down. The acting governor had learned his lesson. The prison’s previous, relatively lax regime of drug monitoring would be quietly reintroduced. This could not be said in public, which made Sarah’s statement in the House problematic, but she got through it. She was learning the crucial skill of lying through her teeth without telling an outright, demonstrable untruth.
‘Sarah, can I have a word?’ the Home Secretary asked.
‘Of course.’ Sarah followed him out of the debating chamber. She was expecting her boss to congratulate her on the speech she’d just made. The riot had ruined her weekend, but at least it was over. No prison officers had been seriously hurt and the coverage hadn’t been too damaging. Indeed, today’s papers all reckoned that the prisons minister had come out of the situation with her reputation enhanced.
The Home Secretary, however, looked serious, as though he were the bearer of bad news. Had something happened to Mum? Her operation was on Wednesday. Sarah had cleared her diary for the second half of the week to be with her.
‘There’s somebody who needs to speak to you urgently,’ her boss said, when they were alone. ‘Could you go with Sir Robin?’
The senior civil servant was standing, discreetly, by a large bookcase filled with the biographies of Sarah’s fellow MPs. His look was inscrutable, but tense. He didn’t say a word to her while they walked through the corridors, into a part of the Commons estate that she had never visited before.
‘Can you tell me what this is about?’ Sarah asked.
‘I’m afraid not. It’s an informal interview, but I would advise you to be very careful about what you say.’
Sarah began to worry. She racked her brain to think what this could concern. Presumably she had fucked something up. But what?
‘An informal interview with whom?’
Sir Robin knocked on an unlabelled door. He ushered her into the tiny room. There were no windows or pictures on the walls. The office had barely enough room for her to sit on one side of a large, cheap, wooden desk.
The two men on the other side of the desk introduced themselves. Sarah was too flustered to take in names, but she got their ranks. One was a detective chief inspector, the other a detective superintendent. So this was serious. The DCI asked the questions.
‘We need some sensitive information, Minister.’
‘About what?’
‘Your relationship with Paul Morris.’
Shit. She should have told her boss about the affair, but it was too late now. But why the cloak and dagger approach? Sarah’s mind went into overdrive as she tried to figure out all the angles. Nick had told her how Paul used to be a dealer. Suppose he still was? Suppose this interview had something to do with him working with Frank Davis and the police had erroneously connected her with it?
Whatever, she’d done nothing wrong. She would talk her way out.
‘I see,’ was all she said.
‘How would you describe your relationship with Mr Morris?’ The DS had a kinder, more urbane voice. A former copper, Sarah knew this routine well. She would treat both men as equals, whom she wanted to help … within reasonable bounds. And she would never, ever go near a married man again.
‘A professional one. We serve on some of the same committees.’
The DCI opened his briefcase and reached into it. ‘Perhaps, to save time, I should show you an item we found in Mr Morris’s flat. Can you confirm that these are yours?’
He held up an evidence bag containing a pair of pale blue knickers with a navy ribbon bow. Hers. No point in holding anything back, if they’d gone to the lengths of searching his flat. He must be in serious trouble. When she replied, Sarah’s voice came out quietly.
‘Possibly. I do own some underwear like that.’
‘And can you confirm that you left Mr Morris’s King’s Cross apartment at twenty-five to eight last Friday morning?’
She knew then that they had a witness. This was like an old-fashioned divorce court. Was the new government so holier than thou that they were going to hound every minister who slept with someone they weren’t married to?
‘Yes, I did.’
‘I take it you weren’t there for a business meeting.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘Can you tell me what state Mr Morris was in when you left that morning?’
‘Angry. I’d just dumped him. So, from then on our relationship became purely professional, which is why I characterized it in that manner just now.’ As soon as she’d blurted out that bit of crappy legalese, she regretted it.
‘You’re sure that he was the angry one, not you?’
What was this, relationship counselling? ‘I never get angry, Inspector, except for effect. Maybe angry’s not the best word for the state that Paul was in. He was miffed, insulted, eager to change my mind.’
‘Change your mind about what?’
‘About my not seeing him again.’
The men exchanged glances. When the DCI spoke, there was a new, sarcastic edge to his voice. ‘And you won’t be seeing him again, will you?’
‘Not outside our professional relationship, no. But I don’t understand what you’re getting at. What has Paul done?’
‘Just to reiterate, he was in good health when you left him?’
‘He was. Very good –’ Sarah stopped herself. ‘Wait. Are you telling me that …’
The superintendent took over, speaking in formal, measured tones. ‘Paul Morris was murdered, Minister. Some time on Friday morning, according to the pathologist. You were seen hurrying down Pentonville Road with what passers-by referred to as a “distracted air” at around twenty to eight the same morning. Is that accurate?’
Sarah tried to keep herself together. ‘Before we go any further,’ she said, as soon as she was able to get the words out, ‘I think I’d better consult my soli
citor.’
The super gave a laconic smile. ‘That’s your right, Minister, but I suspect the fewer people who know about this, the better. Unless, that is, you intend to confess to murder. In which case, I advise you to speak no further and seek representation at once.’
Sarah paused to take in what he had said before she replied. ‘Where and how was he killed?’
The men looked at each other again. The superintendent nodded and the DCI spoke. ‘In the shower. With a kitchen knife or similar.’
‘How can I be a suspect? Paul followed me into the street when I left. He was trying to get me to go back. Somebody must have seen me leave.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ the DCI said. ‘But we will, of course, look for witnesses. Have you anything to add? Perhaps you’d care to tell us the length and the nature of your affair with Mr Morris.’
Sarah considered. She wanted to grieve for Paul, but now wasn’t the time. She needed to save herself. Should she tell them about Paul’s drug-dealing past? Then she’d have to explain how Nick had told her about it, the same day that she had dumped him.
She was innocent, and the police were right. She had a career to save. The fewer people who knew about this, the better. Honesty was the best policy, but she had to set a few ground rules.
‘I’ll tell you what you want to know. But off the record. No recording and, when you’ve established that I’m not responsible for Paul’s murder, I need you to promise to keep my name out of it. There’s no reason to upset Paul’s wife and kids by telling them about the affair we had.’
The super nodded. ‘If we can firmly establish that you are not involved, we’ll respect your confidence. That is, after all, why we are meeting here, rather than at New Scotland Yard.’
Sarah answered their questions as honestly and as openly as she was able. She wasn’t sure if they believed a word she said.
Paul Morris’s murder made the Monday evening news. The body had been found the previous evening. Police were appealing for witnesses. Nick wondered whether to contact Sarah, and how much to say. After some thought, he rang her mobile. Straight to voicemail. He left a message:
I heard what happened. If you want to talk, or I can help at all, you know where to find me.
