by John Harvey
“You don’t fancy a walk, I suppose?”
A hesitation, then, “Not really.”
“Okay, where d’you want to meet?”
“You know that place we went once before?”
“Last week, you mean? Atlas, is that what it’s called?”
“I don’t even know if they’re open on a Sunday. No, upstairs at Waterstone’s, remember?”
She had been sitting there reading a magazine when he had arrived, latté and pain au chocolat close at hand. She’d been in a bad mood immediately before that occasion, too.
“Yes,” he said, “I think so.”
“Half eleven, okay?”
This time it was Elder who got there first. Quite a few of the seats were already taken, parents with small children, a few middle-aged, middle-class types leafing through the Observer or the Sunday Times. How much of an alternative was this, he wondered, to meeting partners on the Internet?
He ordered his coffee—the third of the day already—and, clearing away the detritus someone else had left behind, installed himself at a small table by the window. When he looked at his watch it was still five minutes shy of eleven. He took out his book and began to read.
Fifteen, twenty pages later, Katherine had still to arrive.
There wasn’t another bookshop, was there? Another bookshop with a café? For God’s sake, he told himself, calm down. All that caffeine going to his head, his heart, making him jumpy. Then, another page and there she was. The same denim jacket and blue jeans, red basketball sneakers on her feet; bag slung over one arm. Her face breaking into a smile.
“Hi, Dad! Sorry I’m late.”
“’S’all right.”
“Here. Let me get you another coffee.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Come on. Have something.”
“Orange juice, then. But you sit down, let me get it.”
“No...” Backing away. “My treat.”
The queue was short but slow, and Elder watched her over the top of his book, standing there as if she didn’t know. Beautiful, that’s what she was. To his eyes, at least. A similar build to Joanne’s, if not quite as tall. Her face fuller, a stronger chin. The same eyes. Beautiful.
“What are you reading?” she asked, sitting down.
He showed her.
“Sons and Lovers? What on earth you reading that for?”
“Why not?”
She stirred sugar into her coffee. “We had to read it at school.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“It was okay, I suppose. Bits of it anyway. The beginning, where he’s always coming home drunk, the father, from the pit, that wasn’t so bad, but later—that bloke—Paul, is that what he’s called?—a real pain in the bum, that’s what he is.”
“He’s really that bad?”
“Always whining on about something or other. And the way he goes on about his mother, how he can’t live without her. Something wrong with him, if you ask me. And as for the way he treats the girl—what’s her name?”
“Miriam?”
“Miriam, yeah. Won’t let her touch him, oh, no, naughty, naughty, keep your hands to yourself—yakking on and on about how it’s all so spiritual, and then when he does sleep with her, soon as he’s had her, he doesn’t want to know. Goes off chasing someone else. Her best bloody friend.” Katherine snorted. “He got that right, anyway. Lawrence. Blokes, to a T.”
Elder smiled. “No one treating you like that, I hope.”
“Let ’em try,” Katherine said with a grin.
“Anyway,” Elder said, “I thought all that had changed nowadays. More equality.”
“You mean now we can treat men like shit as well?”
“Something like that.”
“Like Mum treated you.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Maybe not. But she did.”
Elder sighed. “It was a long time ago.”
“Long enough to have forgiven her?”
“I don’t think about it.”
“Liar.”
He shifted uneasily in his seat. “Look, Katherine...”
“Mind my own business, I know.”
“It is your business.”
“Well, then.”
“It’s just... what happened with your mum... and Martyn... I try not to think about it, that’s all.”
Katherine picked up the book. “In here, right, this woman he has an affair with, Paul, she’s married, yeah? In the end she goes back to her husband. Turns out she’s loved him all along.”
“Thanks,” Elder said.
“What for?”
“Spoiling the end.”
Katherine looked disgusted. “It’s not the book that matters.”
Elder changed the subject. Tried, not quite successfully, to find something about sports psychology on which he and Katherine could converse.
“Where you off to now?” he asked, once they were outside on the street.
“Home, I suppose.”
“The park or your digs?”
“Digs.”
“I’ll walk part of the way with you, if you don’t mind. Stretch my legs.”
“Suit yourself.”
At the top of Derby Road, Elder kissed Katherine on the cheek. “Take care,” he said.
“You, too. And don’t stand there like you usually do.”
“How’s that?”
“Watching me walk away.”
Elder turned first and crossed the road at an angle, cutting through.
THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH, VINCENT BLAINE had people out to his house for brunch. As he was at pains to point out, it was something of an American tradition, and the Americans had to have had one good idea for civilization since the Boston Tea Party, didn’t they? Not that the food was particularly American: There were pancakes, true, as well as grilled bacon, and even, sometimes, maple syrup; it’s just that they were never served on the same plate at the same time. And what across the Atlantic were called mimosas were here known as Buck’s Fizz.
Blaine being Blaine, the people were not just people. Academics from the city’s two universities would mix and mingle with painters and photographers, a scattering of playwrights and novelists, classical musicians, actors who happened to have touched down on a national tour, and members of whichever funding bodies were needed to keep Blaine’s publishing endeavours viable.
There were also a few, a very few, old friends.
Food was prepared by outside caterers and served, when the weather allowed, from beneath a canopy set up at the back of the house. Guests wandered in and out, somehow balancing glasses and plates while practicing a certain kind of provincial one-upmanship.
And all the while, Vincent Blaine moved to and fro, adding a footnote to a conversation here, an elegant put-down to another there. If he thought it important, important for himself, that the regional director of Arts Council England spoke to the new visual arts officer for the county, he would engineer it without apparent effort. He ate less than almost anyone else and, the odd glass of chablis aside, drank very little. Everyone’s name and function was noted down on the card index he kept inside his head; if they were of no specific use to him now, well, they might be in the future. It was one of the ways he survived financially.
Anna, who knew many of the same people, usually found these occasions pleasant, even though, to her, Blaine’s networking was less subtle than he liked to think.
Today, an indifferent spring day, Blaine had opted for black—black trousers, black shirt, black shoes—so that, to Anna, he resembled nothing as much as a spider, weaving purposefully between his guests.
She wanted to talk to him, but knew it would have to wait until later, when, everyone else gone, she would first have to sit and listen as Blaine picked over the occasion with almost total recall.
Moving outside now, into the garden, she was surprised to see Blaine’s old accountant, Brian Warren—the first time he’d been at a brunch
for the better part of a year.
Warren, shabbily imposing in a Donegal tweed suit, was watching Blaine also, and the moment his quarry came near, he wrapped a firm but friendly arm around his shoulders and steered him toward the far end of the garden where the roses were beginning, reluctantly, to bud.
“Brian,” Blaine said, “it’s good to see you, naturally, but...”
“We need to talk.”
“Yes, of course, but later.”
“No, now.”
Blaine looked into his face. “Very well.”
Only then did Warren withdraw his arm.
“What’s so important?” Blaine asked.
“That policeman. Elder. The one who was in charge of that business at the hotel.”
“What about him?”
“He came to see me. A week ago.”
“He saw me, too. It’s nothing. He’s just raking over old coals. Not even a proper policeman anymore. It’s not important, believe me.” Blaine made a move as if to walk away.
“It wouldn’t pay,” Warren said, stopping him, “to underestimate him as much as you do everyone else.”
“That’s nonsense,” Blaine said. “And besides, what is there to be afraid of? There’s nothing.”
Warren moved closer, so that he seemed to loom over him. “How long have we known each other, Vincent? Fifteen years? More? All that time and you don’t think I know when you’re telling the truth and when not?”
Blood rushed to Blaine’s cheeks. “Telling the truth about what?”
Warren lowered his voice. “That night at the hotel. There was another woman there, remember? Aside from the poor woman who got killed. Christine Dulverton. Elder went to see her, too. She told him Irene had taken a bit of a shine to me...”
“Well, that’s nonsense.”
“Is it? I don’t think so. You may not have much of a sense for these things, in fact I doubt very much if you do, but I’ve still got some blood beating in my veins. Least I did, back then. And there was something there, all right. Between us. At least I liked to think there was.”
“You’re exaggerating. Romanticizing.”
“Am I? When you went off for a piss, I asked Irene what she’d think if I came up later to her room. She laughed and touched my hand and said, ‘Why don’t you try it and see?’”
“It was a joke, that’s all. She was just having a bit of fun.”
“That’s not the way it seemed at the time.”
Two of the other guests came cheerily down toward them and, reading the seriousness of their conversation, turned and went back toward the house.
“After I left you at the hotel,” Warren said, “I went home, showered, changed, argued with myself back and forth, should I, shouldn’t I? I was excited as hell, just the idea of it, I don’t mind telling you. But I knew there was no point in getting back there too early. Had to judge it right. And I thought I had. She was having dinner with you first, after all. When I got back to the bar there she was, sitting all on her own. Delighted to see me, an’ all. Laughed out loud. ‘Give me half an hour or so,’ she said. ‘Finish this and then go upstairs, make myself presentable.’ I told her she looked fine as she was, but no, she insisted. Gave me the number of her room.
“I went off for a stroll around the block. Took my time. No one saw me come back in, I’m pretty certain of that. When I got up to the room, I knocked, but nobody answered. Thought maybe she was in the shower or something and tried again. Still nothing. So I tried the handle on the door and it came open. An inch or two, no more. They’d put on the chain but forgotten to lock the door. The main light in the room was off, but one of the others—the bathroom most probably—had been left on. And I could see her, with somebody else, on the bed. On top of him. Just the outline. I couldn’t see who it was. The man. I stood there for a minute, gobsmacked, then turned round and buggered off smartly, tail between my legs. So randy, I don’t mind telling you, I got a cab up to the Forest, got myself a tart.”
“A prostitute?”
“Don’t sound so bloody disapproving. Clean your pipes as well as anybody else. Better, if you’re lucky.”
“And this man, the one you say was in the room, you’re sure you don’t know who it was?”
Warren laughed. “Don’t worry, Vincent. Even if I had, I’d never say.”
“What do you mean?”
“After I left the hotel I wandered round a bit before I found a cab. Passed your car, right where you’d left it. Still there.”
The colour had drained from Blaine’s face. “You think... I don’t know what you’re suggesting... you think that was me? In the room?”
“Could’ve been the archbishop of bloody Canterbury, for all I know. All I could see. But that yarn of yours about driving yourself home, back by midnight—from where I’m standing, Vincent, that was a lie. And I’d have to say, I wonder why?”
Blaine’s throat was dry. “You told Elder all of this?”
“Not a word.”
“Why not?”
“And implicate myself in a murder? What would be the point of that? Better to play dumb. There’s no way, as far as I can see, they can find out what happened, neither Elder nor anyone else. No one saw me going in or coming out, I’d swear it. And besides, it’s best not say anything that might get old friends into trouble, eh, Vincent? Not good form.” He winked. “If you got to the trough before me, good on you. More of a man than I took you for. Just wanted you to be on your guard, that’s all.”
Reaching past Blaine’s shoulder, he lifted a branch of the nearest rose bush and inspected the leaves.
“Aphids, Vincent, you want to get whoever looks after this lot to get ’em sorted or you’ll see no blooms at all.”
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, PRIOR HAD THE PLACE VIRTUALLY to herself. Across the street, somewhat incongruously, someone was playing Radio 3 full blast, Beethoven sailing in through the partly opened windows. The Fifth, the one everybody knew, even if they didn’t know exactly what it was. She had called Elder half an hour before and when he arrived it was with two cups of lukewarm coffee and an egg mayonnaise sandwich to share.
“Generosity, Frank? Your middle name?”
Elder grinned.
Prior unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. “Thanks, Frank. Now pull over a chair and look at this.”
The front page of the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, was up on her computer screen. Beneath a headline Elder couldn’t readily understand were the separate photographs of two men, one with an aquiline nose and dark hair slicked back, a raised scar across his right cheek; the other, younger than when they had last seen him, but immediately recognizable, was a white-shirted Wayne Johns.
“As far as I can make out...”
“Using your fluent Spanish.”
“Exactly. They were involved in some sort of fracas in a hotel restaurant. This one here...”
“The one who looks like a bullfighter?”
“He accused Johns of having an affair with his wife. But he isn’t a bullfighter, he’s some kind of government official. At least he was when this happened. Look at the date there.”
“November 1993.”
“A year or so before Johns came back to the UK.”
“Interesting.”
“Earlier today, I spoke again to the man Johns worked with in Spain. Ruiz—that’s his name. Speaks perfect English, thank heavens. Seems this wasn’t the first time Johns had been in similar sorts of trouble. One of the women he was involved with—and this is interesting—claimed that Johns had had sex with her against her will.”
“He’d raped her?”
“That’s what she claimed. I asked Ruiz if it had been reported to the police and he said he thought so, but didn’t think any charges had been filed. I’m checking that with the Barcelona police. But meantime, I think there’s more to learn about Johns than we can get over the phone.”
“You’re going to go out there? Talk to this Ruiz?”
Prior grinned. “No, Frank, you are. As
suming your passport’s still current, that is.”
“You want me to go to Barcelona?”
A smile brightened Maureen Prior’s face. “How does thirteen forty-five tomorrow sound? From Stansted? Change trains at Luton, I believe. Unless you want to drive.”
BRUNCH OVER, BLAINE HAD DISAPPEARED UPSTAIRS. As much for something to do as anything else, Anna helped the caterers collect the glasses and generally set things in order. By midafternoon they had packed and gone, and Blaine had still not reappeared.
Anna made herself a cup of tea and leafed through a magazine.
Eventually, she went up and knocked on the bedroom door.
No reply.
Softly, she called Vincent’s name.
Still no reply.
Uncertain, she turned away, but at the head of the stairs turned back. The handle of the door turned easily and she stepped inside.
The curtains were drawn across.
A step into the room and she could see his shape beneath the covers, curled toward the edge.
“Vincent.”
Moving closer to the bed, she could see his eyes were closed, one hand resting on the pillow, fingers splayed.
Leaning down, she whispered his name again.
She touched his hand and his hand was cold.
“Vincent!”
She shook him by the shoulder and this time he stirred.
“Vincent, wake up.”
For an instant he opened his eyes. “Who is it? Is it you?”
“It’s me, Anna.”
“Anna?”
“I was worried.”
He was looking at her now and even in that poor light she could see his face was pale.
“What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
She made as if to feel his forehead and he moved his head away.
“I’ve got a headache. A migraine. It’ll go.”
“Let me get you something. Some paracetamol.”
“No.”
“A glass of water then...”
He lurched toward her, seizing her wrist. “What don’t you understand? I want to be left alone.”
Back outside, in the light, she could see clearly the imprint of his fingers on her skin.
