by Neil Cross
Benny hands him a printout.
‘Take disinfectant,’ he says. ‘Plus maybe garlic and a crucifix.’
Bill Tanner watches the lunchtime news, because he always does.
He’s surprised to see the copper who came round the other night sitting hunched behind the desk at some press conference or other, looking trapped and uncomfortable.
Bill feels for him; he’s a decent bloke, and it’s always a sad thing to see a big man made to look small.
Bill turns the telly over but there’s nothing else on. He tries a bit of Radio 2; it’s the same story. He catches snippets of it, knows it’s horrible — a story he doesn’t want to hear, more evidence that the world’s going to hell in a fucking handbasket.
Dot’s better off out of it.
Thinking of her gives Bill that trembly feeling in his shanks. He supposes it’s loneliness, but loneliness is such a silly word, a pop-song word, a Herman’s Fucking Hermits word. It’s got very little to do with the awful feeling in his guts and in the top of his legs. If he sits still, he knows it’ll sweep up his spine and round the back of his head and he’ll start to cry like a fucking baby. In moments like this, he sees that the house stinks of cold and dirt.
He grabs the lead and collar from the hook on the back of the kitchen door. Little Paddy goes mad. He always goes mad for a walk.
Bill shuffles over to grab his grey windcheater and his Hush Puppies. He zips his windcheater to his chin and puts on the bobble hat Dot bought for him.
Then he and Paddy step outside.
It’s all a bit awkward. Bill needs a walking stick and one hand’s still in plaster. So he has to slip the loop of the lead over the plaster and kind of hook it there. Luckily Paddy’s got a bit of arthritis in his hips, Yorkies get that, and he’s happy to trot at Bill’s heel, stopping every now and again to cock his leg. He’s a fearless little thing, and Bill admires that.
Time was, he’d have been embarrassed by little Paddy. He was Dot’s dog, really. He wasn’t a man’s dog; a man wants a companion, not one of these ridiculous fierce fuckers all the young ones have these days, the mean little ones with the tiny eyes and the puffed-out chests and the bandy legs. When Bill was a bit younger, the dogs you were scared of were German Shepherds and Dobermans.
Working on the bins in the sixties and seventies, you’d swap stories of fierce dogs. The dogs you swapped stories about were always black and tan.
But those dogs were intelligent and handsome; even a ratty and half-fed Alsatian had understanding in its eyes, that’s why the police used them. And Dobermans were used as guard dogs for good reason. These muscular little things, all jaw and chest, they looked like fucking idiots, like wife beaters.
Bill and Paddy wander along, a bit shaky but doing all right.
He pops into Mr Patel’s to pick up a copy of the Racing Post and twenty Benson amp; Hedges, then wanders down to William Hill. Even the bookie’s not what it was.
A bookie’s used to have a sorry, collegiate air about it, all the labourers and the cabbies and the alkies. He’d pop in after his shift ended, it was still early. Dot would be at work. He’d spend a pound or two, go home and have a nap. Then he’d tidy round a little bit: Dot always came home to a clean house, although that wasn’t something you talked about down the pub.
But Bill was brought up in the navy, he knew how to keep things neat and tidy and everything in its place — and Dot worked long hours and came home footsore.
Bill never did the laundry, and he never cooked a meal in his life except sometimes a bit of egg on toast for the kids when Dot was poorly. (More often, he’d send them down the chippie and they’d eat a nice bit of cod in front of Nationwide — that Sue Lawley and her legs.)
But he’d happily do a bit of hoovering, wash up the breakfast things, have a tidy round, do a bit of dusting, make the bed (he got satisfaction out of making the sheets drum-tight). He’d clean the windows, have a potter round the garden if the weather was nice. Then he’d spend an hour at the allotment and be home in time for tea.
It seemed to him that that whole world, black and white, three channels, Sue Lawley and her legs, a decent shabby bookies, fried egg sandwiches, a pub without horrible fucking music blaring in your ears all day, it was all gone, like men wearing hats.
Bill bets a few quid, watches a few races, doesn’t make a penny but enjoys himself anyway.
Then he goes out. Poor little Paddy’s tied to a lamp post. His little legs are shaking with cold and the terror of abandonment and he’s looking up at Bill with a kind of pleading relief.
Bill feels a bit guilty. He says, ‘Sorry there, boy. Was I gone a long time? Was I?’
He doesn’t care who’s listening. He’s an old bloke with an old dog, fuck them all.
It takes him a long time, but he stoops and lets the dog jump into his arms. Little Paddy cringes into his barrel chest, like he’s trying to push inside Bill.
A Sikh kid, the first softness of dark beard round his chops, eases up to him. ‘You all right, mate?’
When Bill was this kid’s age, he’d never in a million years, a hundred million years, have considered calling an elder ‘mate’. He’d have been clipped round the ear. But the kid doesn’t mean any disrespect, in fact he means the opposite of it. Bill responds by saying, ‘Yes, I’m fine thank you, mate.’
A twelve-year-old and an eighty-five-year-old calling each other mate. There’s got to be some good in that, hasn’t there?
The kid says, ‘Are you sure?’
Bill says, ‘I’m a bit stiff, but I’m all right.’
The kid nods, a bit embarrassed Bill thinks, and walks on.
Bill makes his way home. He’s knackered now and his legs hurt, he needs to pop a couple of pills. But he’s glad he got some fresh air. Paddy’s light as a bird and, cuddled to Bill’s chest, he radiates a kind of desperate satisfaction, a bliss just to be there.
Bill’s nearly home when the two big blokes step out of the alley between the blocks. The big white one, Lee Kidman, in his leather jacket and his dyed hair, the fat Asian-looking one, Barry Tonga, in his baggy shorts and oversized white trainers, a fucking handkerchief or something tied round his head.
The first thing that happens, before Bill can open his mouth is that he pisses himself in fear. He hardly knows it’s happening — there’s a big, warm spread across his pants and down his leg and then straight away it goes cold. It’s probably been more than seventy years since Bill wet himself but he knows the feeling straight away and it makes him want to weep in rage and shame. He cuddles the little dog to his chest because he doesn’t want it to see. He knows how stupid that is, except Paddy’s the last part of Dot that he’s got, she loved the little fucker and the little fucker loves Bill, and he’s a weak little thing really, all skin and bone.
The thugs chest-push Bill into the alley.
‘You silly old cunt,’ says Kidman. He looks like he fancies himself; one of them blokes who thinks he’s God’s gift, but who actually gives women the creeps.
The other bloke, his big moon head on massive shoulders, he’s a mystery. He’s got tattoos all up his arms and down his legs. He’s wearing three-quarter-length shorts. In this weather.
Kidman grabs Bill’s bad wrist and a jolt of agony shoots up his arm. He says, ‘Take his offer. Take his money. Look at you. Pissing yourself. You should be in a home.’
‘You fucking prick,’ says Bill, and is horrified to note that he’s weeping. He doesn’t want to but he can’t help it. And he can’t think of anything to say. He’s lain in bed for hours planning what he’s going to say to these geezers, should they come for him again. He’d rehearsed it again and again, the withering contempt, the dignity he’d stand on. But now all those words are gone and he’s standing there dripping with his own piss and he’s crying; the words are flown straight out of his head. He cuddles the little dog. It cringes there. It shakes and shivers, feeling Bill’s fear.
Kidman shoves Bill into the wall. Bill stag
gers back. Kidman plucks the skinny dog from Bill’s arms, holds it to his face, makes queer little kissy-kissy noises.
‘Who’s this, then?’ he says in a mincing poof’s register, horrible coming from such a big man. ‘Who’s this liddle thing, this little precious thing, then?’
‘You leave him be,’ says Bill. ‘He’s only a dog.’
Kidman doesn’t address Bill directly. He speaks to the quivery, wet-eyed Paddy, tickles him under the wishbone chin with a great spatulate finger, manicured and pink-nailed.
‘I am going to fuck you up,’ Kidman says to Paddy. ‘I am going to fuck you up, liddle doggie, yes I am.’
‘Don’t,’ says Bill. ‘You leave him alone.’
‘Because your daddy didn’t listen to my daddy,’ says Kidman, ‘no he didn’t. He didn’t, did he? And now I’m going to fuck you up, little doggie. I am going to fuck you up. Say bye bye now. Say bye bye to daddy!’
He raises Paddy’s paw between thumb and forefinger, makes Paddy wave to Bill.
‘You fucking bully,’ says Bill. ‘You horrible fucking bully.’
‘I am,’ says Kidman. ‘I am a horrible bully, aren’t I, liddle doggie? I am a howwible, wowwible, liddle bully.’
He takes Paddy’s neck in one hand, Paddy’s hips in the other, then he twists like he’s wringing out a towel.
Paddy yelps as his spine breaks. He voids his bowels and his bladder. Kidman laughs and skips backwards to avoid it, dropping Paddy to the ground.
Paddy makes a horrible noise of a kind Bill has never heard before. He wouldn’t even know what to call it.
Bill howls. He draws back what used to be a feared fist, a great hammer of a knuckle sandwich, but now it’s freckly and tremulous. He takes a step anyway.
But Tonga waddles in and grabs him in a full nelson. Bill can smell his sweet aftershave.
‘Stop now, Poppy,’ says Tonga, almost kindly. ‘Stop now.’
Bill flails and windmills, he tries to stamp on Tonga’s feet. He howls again.
Kidman looks down at Paddy, then looks at Bill and winks.
‘You fucker,’ says Bill. ‘You mean fucker. You horrible fucker.’
Kidman cackles. Then he draws back his great foot and kicks Paddy fifteen feet down the alley.
Paddy’s still alive when he lands. Bill can tell because his wet eyes are looking at him with adoring incomprehension, as if Bill could stop this happening with just a stern command and a point of the finger. Because Bill is God to little Paddy, his Dot’s Yorkshire terrier.
Kidman saunters down the alley, grinning and self-conscious. He puts his big, handsome, horrible face to Bill’s and says, ‘Where’s your wife buried?’
Bill doesn’t understand.
‘I said, where’s your wife buried?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It is if I want to dig her up and fuck her.’
Bill struggles, but Tonga holds him until all the strength is gone. When Tonga lets go, all Bill can do is sag to the ground, sit with his back to the alley wall, his legs out before him.
Kidman and Tonga watch for a bit without speaking. Kidman is grinning ear to ear. Tonga looks a bit more sombre. But then, he’s got a sombre face.
Then Tonga checks his watch and chin nods. Places to be.
They walk away.
Zoe leaves work the second she can. She takes the glass lift to street level and steps outside, belting her coat.
She walks. She takes a right, then a left. There’s a little road at the bottom, a crooked lane. And that’s where Mark’s car is waiting; a tired-looking Alfa Romeo. Mark is at the wheel. Her heart swells to see him.
She slides in next to him, the smell of old vinyl and leather and roll-ups. The ashtrays overflow with crushed cigarettes.
They drive to his place, a big double-fronted Edwardian in Camberwell. They light candles and sit at his kitchen table in the remodelled basement. The table is scarred, antique, beautiful.
He pours them each a glass of wine, then concentrates on skinning up a joint.
She sips her wine and says, ‘What am I going to do?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I could take you there. To the police station.’
‘If he’s not answering his phone, it’s because he doesn’t want to talk.’ For half a minute, she concentrates on tearing a cigarette paper to shreds, flattening the pieces in front of her, making them neat. ‘This is it, see? This is what happens. When things are fine, it’s fine. But when things go bad, he just ups and disappears. Surely if he’s going through all this, surely this is the time he should need me around?’
‘Maybe he doesn’t want to worry you.’
‘I’m worried enough. I’m frightened for him. I’m tired of being frightened for him. I don’t know.’ She looks at her lap, the shreds of paper. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s pretty intense,’ says Mark. ‘Everything he’s going through.’
‘So you’re defending him now?’
‘Christ, no. But I didn’t come here to bury him, either. I feel for the man. I watched him cry over a dead baby today. And here I am, sleeping with his wife.’
She gives him a flirty smile. ‘Don’t be presumptuous.’ She moves her wine glass around on the table like a planchette on a Ouija board.
She bites her lower lip, thinking it over. Then she says, ‘Can I tell you something?’
‘Anything you want.’
‘My worst confession? It’s pretty bad.’
‘Is it something you did?’
‘Shit, no. I’ve never done anything. I’ve been good my entire life.’
Mark doesn’t comment in the way that most men would, working in a double meaning, an undercurrent of sex. He just holds her gaze for a moment, scratches at his short beard, lights the joint.
‘Do you ever get these thoughts,’ Zoe says, ‘these feelings, that go round and round your head at three in the morning and you’re ashamed of feeling them?’
‘Everyone does.’
He takes a few puffs, then passes the joint to Zoe. She hesitates before accepting it.
‘Sometimes I actually wish he was dead,’ she says. ‘I lie in bed and fantasize about him actually dying. Because it just seems so much easier that way. My problems would be solved — I could mourn John, and be free, and not hate myself for it. And everyone would feel bad for me, instead of thinking I’m a total bitch.’
She inhales, holds her breath for as long as she can, then exhales a thin plume of smoke. Passes the joint to Mark.
‘Thoughts like that don’t make you a bitch,’ he says. ‘They’re just an escape fantasy. We all have them. The same thing happens with the spouses of terminal patients. It doesn’t make them bad, either. It’s just one of the ways we cope.’
They smoke for a while. The candles flutter, throw black dancing shapes on the wall.
‘I’m leaving him,’ she says. ‘I’ve had enough of this bullshit. I’m leaving him.’
‘Good,’ Mark says.
He reaches out, takes her hand. They finish the joint and go upstairs.
CHAPTER 15
Vasile Sava, the baby broker, rents a basement apartment in Maida Vale.
Howie and Luther take the short steps down to the front door, check out the grilled windows.
Howie knocks. She’s got a good police knock.
They wait.
It’s 5.37 p.m.
At 5.38, Howie knocks again.
At length, Sava comes to the door. He’s barefoot in an old muscle T-shirt and faded Levis, a little ragged at the cuffs. He’s pumped up like a bouncy castle, brown hair waxed into a vaguely military flat-top. He looks like he should be forcing ethnic minorities to kneel before shooting them in the base of the skull and rolling their bodies into a ditch.
Actually, he runs a company called Primo Minicabs.
Luther and Howie badge him, ask if they can come in and talk.
They spend a
few moments doing the dance: What about? W e’d just like to ask you a few questions. Then Sava gestures with his head: Follow me.
Sava looks like he’s doing okay. It’s a nice flat, somewhat gloomy with dark wood and Turkish-looking rugs. A 46-inch widescreen with hi-gloss bezel.
The open-plan living room and kitchen has a humid smell, not quite unpleasant. Across the longest wall are arranged a number of large glass terrariums.
Luther digs his hands in his pockets, ducks down to look. ‘What’ve we got here?
‘Death’s head cockroaches,’ Sava says. His English is good, just the hint of an accent. He’s been here for eighteen years.
‘Blimey,’ says Luther. ‘They’re big sods.’
‘Scary big. But easy to care for.’
‘What’s this?’
‘Chilean centipede.’ Sava kneels, points out a segmented, multilegged blue horror the length of Luther’s hand. ‘These over here, they’re red-kneed tarantulas. Over here, that’s a Mexican black king snake.’
Luther meets the impassive yellow eye of the black snake. He casts a glance at Howie.
She’s over in the kitchen, arms crossed, trying not to look grossed out.
Luther considers the iguana in the largest tank: a sand-coloured creature, dewlapped and spiny, on a bone-pale branch. Then he ambles over to join Howie while Sava fusses like an old maid round the kitchen, making coffee. He says, ‘So why are we here?’
‘Because we need advice.’
‘On what?’
‘Stolen babies.’
Sava’s busy grinding coffee beans. The machine makes a high dentist noise.
‘We’re not here to go digging up old allegations,’ Luther says. ‘We honestly just need some guidance.’
‘So I guess this’ll be the baby that was taken. The crazy radio guy. The dead lady, whatever.’
Luther nods.
‘Then you’re talking to the wrong man,’ Sava says. ‘The baby trade goes in the other direction. Babies move from Eastern Europe to England. Not the other way round.’ He reads Luther’s expression, the curled lip. ‘What? You don’t like that?’
‘Not much.’
‘Of course! Human rights activists are outraged! It’s wrong to buy or sell a person! Traffickers are interested only in money. They’re scum. Where were you born, DCI Luther?’
