Rules of Engagement

by Hurley, Graham

  As it happened, there was an ideal vehicle available, in the shape of the local TV station, their good friend Duggie Bullock, and his remarkably compliant Vice-Chairman, a Mr Cussins. The latter, it seemed, was seeking a DoE ruling on yet another marina site. He needed all the ministerial goodwill he could get. He was more than happy to shepherd the programme through. In fact he thought it was an excellent idea.

  Goodman had read the clear message behind Davidson’s casual asides. The film is to be done. The programme is to be made. The journalists will be taken care of. No hard questions. No real investigation. Nothing to get anxious about. Just another dollop of helpful propaganda in the ceaseless battle to get the Government’s policies truly understood for what they were: short-term measures for the long-term good.

  The conversation had ended amicably enough. Davidson had thanked Goodman for his support. One day, he said, he’d have to pop down again. He’d stand Goodman a dinner, reminisce a little, stroll round some of the old locations. It would be very pleasant. He’d look forward to it.

  Now, turning into the recreation ground, Goodman knew there wasn’t the remotest possibility of Davidson ever doing any such thing. Once the film was out, the case made, all criticism safely sealed off, Goodman’s usefulness would be at an end. He’d go back into the drawer with all the other duds. His name would be circulated on some confidential list or other. Be careful about this man, senior officials would warn each other, he’s not quite up to it, can’t quite cut the mustard.

  Goodman smiled, parking the car outside the tiny playing field and watching James dive wildly at the feet of the opposing centre forward. He wasn’t sure he cared any more about all that. Once upon a time he’d fantasized about it, dreaming of the day when he could leave local government, and step into the higher realms of national administration, but after twenty years of worrying about it, two whole decades of trying to reach the top of the pile, he was no longer sure it was even worth the effort.

  He got out of the car and strolled through the gate of the recreation ground. Joanna was jumping up and down on the touchline, Caroline on one side, Charlie in the buggy on the other. He took them by surprise, putting his arm round his wife’s shoulders, watching her turn, seeing the delight on her face, kissing her softly on both cheeks, a continental gesture, a souvenir from Tuscany. She smiled up at him, while Charlie went frantic in the buggy, straining up against the reins, demanding his share of the kisses.

  ‘How was it?’ she said. ‘How did it go?’

  He shrugged, and returned her smile, nodding at the kids on the pitch, with their striped team shirts, and their tiny Puma boots, their faces contorted with concentration and effort.

  ‘Piece of cake,’ he said. ‘Another home win.’

  Gillespie took the detective’s call at home. He was still in the living room, drawing lines on the big foolscap page, testing one possibility against another, wondering quite where to head next. When the phone rang, he picked it up at once. The detective sounded far from friendly.

  ‘John,’ Gillespie said, ‘take it easy.’

  The voice on the phone paused for a moment, then came back. He named a big department store about half a mile from the central police station.

  ‘Menswear,’ he said briefly, ‘second floor. Be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll wait for five. Don’t talk to me. Just take what I give you. OK?’

  The phone went dead, and Gillespie gazed at the pad one final time before heading for the door. His latest line petered out in mid-page, leaving a wilderness of empty white space. He tore off the sheet, screwed it into a ball and lobbed it into the waste paper basket. Then he collected his jacket and walked the length of the hall. Only when he was out on the street, did he realize he was whistling.

  The department store was a mile or so away. Gillespie got there with five minutes to spare, taking the escalator to the second floor. The menswear department occupied about half the floor space, rack after rack of suits and jackets, anoraks and sweaters. Gillespie gazed round. The detective had already arrived. He was standing alone in a far corner under a pair of surveillance cameras, safely out of shot. He was sorting carefully through a rack of long-sleeved shirts, designer colours, pinks and yellows and delicate shades of green. Gillespie skirted the display area, approaching him from behind.

  ‘Suits you,’ he said, ‘angel face.’

  The detective spun round and Gillespie put his finger to his lips.

  ‘Moscow rules,’ he whispered.

  The other man began to say something but thought better of it. Instead, he reached into his pocket and produced a long brown envelope. He gave it to Gillespie. Gillespie studied it.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said.

  ‘Path repon.’

  Gillespie looked up at him.

  ‘What about the Scene of Crime?’

  ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean it’s gone?’

  ‘It’s not there.’ He paused. ‘Something wrong with your ears?’

  Gillespie ignored the sarcasm.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said.

  The other man shrugged, already turning away, hands amongst the shirts, the browsing shopper spoiled for choice.

  ‘Believe what you fucking like,’ he said, ‘it’s true.’

  Gillespie drove home with the envelope. He didn’t open it until he was back inside his house, the front door shut, the kettle on the stove, the tea-bags in the pot He sat down in the kitchen at the big old table and made a space for himself amongst the litter of bills, and newspapers, and assorted ovenware. Then, at last, he opened the envelope.

  Inside, there was a typed three-page report from the pathologist. It was dated October 2nd, three-and-a-half weeks back. The name at the top read SUZANNE MARGARET WALLACE. It began with a brief four-line paragraph headed History.

  Gillespie scanned it quickly. Suzanne had been found lying on her left side on the ground at the foot of a block of flats. Investigations suggested a fall from a balcony on the ninth floor. Gillespie nodded. So far, so good. Then he read on, quickly at first, then more slowly as the final paragraph sank in. ‘No further police action is anticipated,’ it read, ‘and a routine Coroner’s post-mortem has been requested.’

  Gillespie shook his head, remembering the lounge, the big armchair tipped on its side, the ashtray lying on the carpet, blood on the cold glass. He remembered the door open to the balcony, the curtains bellying in the wind. He remembered the girl sprawled on the concrete, the blood pooling around her ear. And he remembered the other marks on her neck, on the other side of her face. He was no pathologist, but these details told the most obvious of stories. There’d been a fight. Someone else was involved. The girl had been murdered.

  He returned to the report. The paragraph was headed External Injuries. It listed superficial abrasions on the front temporal region below the left eye. It said there was a depression of the left zygomatic arch. It mentioned blood in the left ear. Of the other injuries – the right-hand side of the face and the neck – there was no mention. They’d simply disappeared, cured at the stroke of the pathologist’s pen.

  He leaned back in the chair and turned off the kettle. He read quickly through the rest of the report. Under Internal Injuries, it listed fractures of the skull and the upper arm. There was another fracture of the ribs, and a substantial quantity of blood in the lung cavity. Stomach contents smelled of alcohol, and there was something called extravasation of blood around the left kidney. He paused. Towards the end of the second page, under Genito-urinary System, there was a single sentence. It read The uterus contained a gestational sac with a small foetus 8 cm crown – rump length, foot length 1.3 cm, consistent with a gestation of 13 – 14 weeks. He looked up. He was no expert on the longer words, but the drift was all too plain. Suzanne Wallace had been pregnant. He was investigating a double murder.

  He read on to the end. Under Cause of Death, the report listed subarachnoid haemorrhage and cerebral contusions, followed by fractured sk
ull. These injuries, the report concluded, were consistent with a fall from a great height. Gillespie’s eye drifted slowly to the foot of the page. The pathologist’s name was Mossiter. He pulled the envelope towards him, and wrote the name in heavy capital letters. Then he sat back in the chair for a while, staring at the opposite wall, wondering about the scale of the cover-up, what it really masked, who it really protected. He picked up the report again. A single sentence caught his eye. The brain, it said bleakly, weighed 1310 grammes.

  He got up and went through to the living room. The phone directory had no listing for Mossiter, but he found the hospital number in seconds.

  Albie Curtis was waiting for Cartwright when the secretaries began to emerge from his office, their working day at an end. He sat behind the wheel of his van, watching them hurrying away down the street. Soon, he’d go in and collect. Soon, he’d put the day back on the rails.

  He swung his legs up onto the long bench seat and lay back against the door. After his encounter with Gillespie, he’d toyed with going to hospital. He knew his nose was broken, and he’d found three teeth on the floor under the steering wheel, but in the end he’d settled for a couple of aspirin, and a treble Bacardi from the pub at the end of the road. The combination had made him slightly light-headed, and when he’d finally run Mick to earth, three in the afternoon at a busy traffic intersection near the railway station, he’d had a lot of trouble getting things in quite the right order.

  That it was Mick behind the steering wheel, he’d no doubt. But what was he doing driving Cartwright’s old car? He’d parked the van in the middle of the road, and run through the traffic to find out, but then the lights had changed, red to green, and by the time he was abreast of the big white Jaguar, it was already easing away. He’d banged on the boot, and he was certain that Mick had recognized him in the mirror, but it had made no difference. The car had accelerated away, leaving Albie surrounded by angry punters. He’d turned on his heel, two-fingering the lot of them, and when the traffic warden had arrived to remonstrate about the van, he’d told him to fuck off.

  Now, half-past five, the last of the secretaries had gone. Albie swung his legs off the seat and got out of the van. He crossed the road and pushed in through the office door. The big outer area was empty. There was a flight of stairs in one corner. He went up them. Cartwright’s office was on the first floor. The door was open and he went in. Cartwright was sitting at his desk, eating a packet of crisps and absently looking at a copy of the Radio Times. He looked up as Albie walked in, unsurprised, unimpressed.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ he said.

  Albie sniffed. It wasn’t the reaction he wanted. He’d have preferred something a little more anxious, a little more apprehensive. Not a man eating crisps. Not this. He stood in front of the desk, leaning over it, hands flat on the polished rosewood.

  ‘Pay day,’ he said, ‘like we agreed.’

  Cartwright took another crisp and put it in his mouth. Then he shook his head.

  ‘There is no money,’ he said, ‘and there never will be. You should understand that. Save us both a lot of time.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Cartwright shrugged, a vague, regretful twitch of his upper body. He picked tiny flakes of crisp off his jacket. Albie glared down at him, beginning to lose his temper.

  ‘The paint’s still at my place,’ he said. ‘Where do you want it?’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘You haven’t got a choice, mate. It’s yours. You’ve paid for it. Or you will have in a minute or two.’

  Cartwright adjusted his glasses and sat back in the big leather chair.

  ‘You’re threatening me,’ he said carefully, ‘and we have three options. One, you can leave. Two, I can call the police. Three, you can do whatever you have in mind, and later – assuming I survive – friends of mine will break your legs …’ He smiled. ‘Slowly.’

  Albie hesitated. Threats of the police had never bothered him. He knew most of them on first-name terms, and two brief spells in prison had given him a mild affection for lukewarm porridge and powdered eggs. The third option, though, was very different. He’d acknowledged from the start that Cartwright had some very heavy friends. He’d known most of them for years, and respected their talents, but it had never occurred to him that his own name would ever figure in any job they’d take on. It just didn’t work that way. Not in this city.

  Now, though, he wasn’t so sure. Cartwright had big money. Big money talked. The boat scam proved it. So maybe he should listen to the little man, while he still had a nose at all. Albie looked at him a moment, then he changed his mind again. Bollocks, he thought. Bollocks to it all. He lifted a heavy glass paperweight and brought it down, crash, on the desk. One last try.

  ‘Ten grand,’ he said, ‘now.’

  Cartwright didn’t move. Then he rubbed his eyes, both hands, and yawned. Long day at the office. One last problem to deal with. He opened his eyes.

  ‘Go on then,’ he said, ‘do it if you must.’

  Albie looked at him for a long time, his hand closing on the paperweight again. He had a lot to get off his chest. Then a thought occurred to him. Yet more aggro.

  ‘Mick Rendall,’ he said, ‘how come he’s got your motor?’

  Cartwright shrugged.

  ‘Is that any of your business?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. Too right it is.’

  ‘He bought it.’

  ‘He can’t have. He’s got no money.’

  Cartwright smiled.

  ‘Who’s talking about money?’ he said.

  Albie frowned. There was one last flake of crisp, an inch below Cartwright’s tie knot.

  ‘You’re bullshitting again,’ he said at last.

  ‘Am I? Then why don’t you go and ask him yourself?’

  Albie lifted the paperweight. It fitted smugly into his hand. Right shape. Right size. He measured the distance between himself and the little accountant, wondering whether to go for the head straight off, or to confine himself to the body, nasty, short little jabs, bang, bang, bang, thirty seconds’ worth. He hesitated a moment longer, until the last of the fantasy melted, then he turned away and stormed out of the office, dropping the paperweight into the waste bin as he went. Cartwright watched him go, reaching for the crisps again.

  Gillespie was already in bed, drifting slowly into sleep, when he first heard the noise downstairs. He’d been reviewing the day’s events in his head, planning the next steps forward. Tomorrow, he told himself, he’d go running. Tomorrow, he’d find the pathologist. Tomorrow he’d follow the smoke slowly upwind, no matter how difficult the country, until he found the source of the fire. Already, in his own mind, he’d narrowed the field to two names. By the end of tomorrow, with patience, and with luck, he’d be down to one. Only then could he confront the real problem. Evidence.

  Now, he lay quite still, in the dark, listening. The noise again. Metal against metal. The front door creaking open. He swung his legs slowly out of bed. He padded softly across the room, and onto the top landing. Albie Curtis, he thought, come to help himself. He stepped briefly into the spare room, the one that Sean used when he stayed over. There was a short length of solid mahogany hanging on a strap behind the door. He used it to stun the bigger fish. Congers. Rays. He reached for the baton, wound the strap round his wrist.

  There were footsteps on the stairs, hesitant, light. He positioned himself behind the door. The footsteps paused a moment. A shadow fell across the carpet, someone smallish, Albie’s size. Gillespie took a shallow breath, winding himself up, then kicked the door and swung left. His arm was already plunging down, a short, definitive blow, when he became dimly aware of the big Afro haircut, and the pale, sallow face. Annie screamed and covered her head with both arms. Gillespie stopped dead, and let the baton fall to the floor.

  ‘You,’ he said.

  Annie nodded, peering out under her arms.

  ‘Me,’ she agreed.

  Gillespie kicked the bato
n back into Sean’s room. He heard it roll across the carpet and clatter against the skirting board. He put his arms round Annie.

  ‘Just pretending,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

  Gillespie had gone, next morning, when Annie woke up. She blinked at the bedside alarm clock and swore softly. Seven-thirty. Most of the filming was now finished, but she’d promised the editor they’d make an early start. Eight o’clock, she’d said. On the dot.

  She got out of bed and went downstairs, half-hoping to find Gillespie in the kitchen, or the bath. She’d never got the relationship quite straight in her head, but she knew that it worked whenever they met, and if neither of them chose to put it at risk by sticking a label on it, then that was probably just as well. He appeared to have forgiven her for taking the roll of film. In fact, he’d dropped the subject completely, rolling her over in the big double bed and attending to her with some skill when she’d mumbled yet another apology for being so crass. Afterwards, she’d fallen asleep, and now she realized how badly she’d needed the rest.

  She walked into the kitchen, and smiled. There was a single bowl on the table, with a small white plate beside it. There was a spoon, and a knife, and half a pound of butter, and a choice of three cereals. There was a loaf of bread on the bread board, and a jar of thick-cut marmalade. It was very Gillespie.

  She got milk from the fridge and sat down at the table. Then she saw the note, propped against the cereal boxes. It was written on a brown envelope. It said Good Morning, and called her a lazy cow. It hoped she’d slept well and asked her to feed the cat. There was a big G at the end, and a single scrawled kiss.

  She turned the envelope over. There was a name with a line under it, big capital letters. She peered at it, MOSSITER. She turned the envelope over again, looking for a postmark, some other clue, but there was nothing. She gazed across the kitchen through the open door, up the hall. He was at it again. She knew he was. And he wasn’t telling a soul. She shook her head. Mossiter, she thought. Where the fuck does that get me?