Songbird

by Peter Grainger

  It was after nine when they arrived at the jazz club but the place was not yet half full. Every available door and window was open to allow in some air but it was still a basement in a town square in a heatwave; the atmosphere was that of many deodorants fighting a losing battle. There was a man playing a piano on the tiny stage, quietly and slowly, not intruding on the low hum of conversation.

  Waters had hold of Janey’s hand. He said, ‘Let’s find a seat first, then I’ll get us something to drink.’

  He looked around as if searching the room for a good place to sit, but saw straight away that Jason Diver and a couple of the people he’d met last week were here again, occupying the same table. He went in that direction, and when Jason saw him he waved and called out, ‘Chris! We saved your seat! Who’s this?’

  Waters introduced Janey. She shook hands with Jason and then he said what the hell, came around the table and kissed her on both cheeks. Waters watched and thought, not at all the computer geek of a couple of years ago; Jason Diver had grown up, and maybe that’s what success in your own business does for you. He had a brief glimpse of another world and other opportunities. The police force becomes your life if you let it, but if everything is to change, why not that, too? It could. Nothing is set in stone, and nothing lasts forever. Circumstances alter, people come and go.

  ‘Single malt, Chris?’ Jason said, and he nodded. They had taken an Uber into the town centre and could walk back under the stars. Janey told Jason she’d have a lemonade and lime.

  ‘There’s a trio playing later. Kenny Morton. He’s local, believe it or not, but good. Sort of Bill Evans in style. Do you like Bill Evans?’

  This was Mick, one of the people Waters had met last Saturday – a lecturer at the college in Kings Lake which had, like hundreds of others in the recent past, suddenly discovered that it was after all a university. He was big and bearded, and a few years older than the rest of them, but Waters had already realised that jazz crosses all boundaries – he just wasn’t quite sure yet what it actually was. It seemed to be more of an idea than a sound.

  Mick’s subject was life sciences, Waters remembered, so he introduced Janey, thinking they might find something to talk about other than someone called Bill Evans. It seemed to be working, giving him time to sit back and look around The Blue Note, casually, not for anything or anyone in particular, but then, when he found Jason still at the bar, he realised why fetching the drinks was taking a long time.

  He could only see her from the back and the place was dimly lit, but there could be no mistaking the tall, slender figure of Katherine Diver. The skinny jeans emphasised that figure, and he knew that if she was wearing any sort of heels she would be a little over six feet tall, just an inch or two less than Waters himself. Above the waist of the jeans, could he see a glimpse of bare midriff before a shiny black top, not quite a blouse, not quite a T shirt? He’d always been a little astonished by her choice of attire. She wore things other women stared at in magazines, and they never seemed to fail.

  She was leaning slightly to one side, to her right, resting one elbow on the bar like a man, her left hip out a little, and talking to her brother. Waters watched and wondered, and it was only a matter of seconds before his wondering was done. Jason glanced to his right as they talked, glanced across the tables, and saw Waters watching him. He looked back at his sister and said something – and Katherine did not look, which would be a deliberate choice on her part. She had sent the texts, she had made contact with him, but it was quite possible she had now decided the whole business wasn’t worth her time. Waters wondered too whether she was alone or whether some of the others at the bar were with her. She looked at home here; it was obviously a regular haunt, and now he felt like an intruder. They would have the one drink and leave.

  Mick was saying, ‘… we don’t mind an honorary copper, as long as he doesn’t start bringing all his mates!’

  Janey patted Waters’ arm and said, ‘You don’t need to worry. He’s not your typical detective constable. Ooh, sorry, detective sergeant!’

  Mick said, ‘Years ago, the jazz scene was a lot about drugs. That’s how cannabis made its way into Western society, through the old jazz clubs. And other stuff as well. Lots of the great players were addicted to something or other. Nowadays it’s much cleaner. A lot of the students I teach have got no interest in drugs, they’re actively opposed to them. Come to that, I’d say half of them don’t drink or have sex either!’

  The two of them looked expectantly at Waters, as if he must have something to say about all this, but he didn’t. He was thinking again, this time about how he was not like your typical detective whatever, if that was true, and wondering too whether Jason was ever going to bring that drink because he could do with one now. The piano player got up and wandered off the stage and nobody applauded. Nobody else even noticed as far as Waters could tell.

  And then she was following Jason back towards their table, carrying some of the drinks, moving in that tall, slow way, upright, elegant and provocative. She ignored Waters and spoke to Janey straight away, saying she hoped she didn’t mind but she’d told the barman to put in ice and lemon. Then Katherine took the empty seat next to Janey and asked how often she’d been here before, to which the answer was just twice.

  ‘You should join. I’m not saying that for your benefit, I’m being purely selfish. We need all the support we can get.’

  Still no eye contact with Waters. He had to stop himself from smiling.

  Janey said, ‘We? You mean the other members?’

  ‘Sort of. Lake is a cultural desert, I’m sure you know that. The Blue Note is just about the last oasis. Maybe the arts are threatened by climate change as well… Anyway, the more members, the better. It’s cheap. Only forty quid a year. And there are no benefits, you still pay full price for drinks and tickets.’

  Jason Diver said, ‘Not much of a sales pitch, is it?’

  Janey smiled and Mick said to her, ‘They’re not being entirely honest. They’ve got shares in the place.’

  Waters took a sip of the whisky, noting that it was at least a double, but he didn’t take his eyes away from Katherine’s face. Still not a flicker of recognition.

  Katherine said, ‘We do not. That’s a vicious rumour put about by members of the International Socialist movement who teach at second-rate, provincial universities.’

  Mick laughed and drank some of the capitalist pint that Jason had provided.

  She went on, ‘Last year the club was in a spot of bother with its cash flow, and we made a donation. That’s all. International Socialists are allowed in on condition that they never contribute to political discussions – it’s the only way to undo some of the damage they’ve done since 1945. Mick is allowed to talk about football, science and jazz, and as he knows nothing about football, the situation is tolerable. Janey, you’re not a socialist, are you?’

  Katherine had allowed her hair to grow a little longer since Waters had last seen her, more than two years ago – it was long enough to show a natural wave or two, but most women would still have described her hair as short. It was the same natural golden-blonde with darker low-lights that one would swear had been created by a stylist, but it was not so. He could remember her telling him the story of her hair and how at fourteen she had decided to cut off the tresses that reached to her waist because she’d realised she would be in servitude to them for two or three hours a week for the rest of her life, and she had better things to do with her time. When her mother refused, Katherine had begun the job herself with a pair of dress-maker’s scissors. There had been tears followed by hysteria followed by her parents almost divorcing over the matter. She made it sound absurdly funny but Waters knew her well enough by then to think it was almost certainly all true.

  Janey had no political opinions that he was aware of, and so she passed the test easily enough. Unexpectedly, she seemed to have taken a liking to Katherine – though she could not be unaware that this was the same Katherine whom W
aters had dated in the past – and she asked about their business. Was it exciting, the world of private investigation?

  ‘Most of the time, not nearly as exciting as people imagine. It’s either very technical these days – Jason is sad and loves that side of it – or it’s very routine. We’ve employed two more people to do those bits, so now I just get to drive around in fast cars and go to meetings.’

  Waters drank a little more of the whisky, which as far as he could judge was decent and one that Smith might not have dismissed out of hand, and reflected on what he was hearing. The fast cars were true without a doubt – he’d been in one or two of those with Katherine, and surviving the experience was enough to make you reconsider your rejection of the Christian faith. But we’ve employed two more people… We made a donation to the jazz club… Diver and Diver Associates were doing considerably better than surviving, by the sound of it. Smith had said they wouldn’t last three months, even though they obviously had money. He said they’d get bored by the routine and bureaucratic nature of a highly-regulated business. Waters was curious, and would have asked questions if Katherine had acknowledged his existence.

  ‘… but we’ve been lucky as well,’ Katherine was saying. ‘We had a job that took me to Amsterdam. I was at a meeting in one their cafés, you know, the grown-up sort we’re not allowed in the UK, and that led to an introduction to some Americans. It turned out they were looking for someone to operate on their behalf over here. Their licences aren’t the same as ours, so there are regulatory problems. Anyway, it’s all to do with the hi-tech boom in the golden triangle – Cambridge, Oxford, London. For the Americans, we check out applicants for sensitive appointments, and,’ after a warning glance from Jason, ‘various other things.’

  Janey said, ‘Well, that sounds pretty exciting to me. And interesting if it isn’t exciting.’

  Katherine said, ‘What do you do?’

  Janey blushed at the sudden attention and said, ‘Me? I suppose I’m a chemist.’

  Mick added, ‘Pharmaceuticals.’

  Katherine said, ‘The legal sort, obviously. We sometimes get involved with the other kind but I’m afraid we don’t have a vacancy for a chemist – sorry. You could always join the police. It’s mostly graduate entry these days, isn’t it? So I’ve been told…’

  Then she was looking directly at Waters, not disguising where she might have learned such a thing. There are faces we never forget. Earlier he’d remembered Janey in the bows of the Lady Ann; now it was the face of the young woman who had climbed out of the Ferrari and knocked on Mrs Fellowes’ door as he and Smith sat outside in the old Peugeot. She had looked improbably beautiful and out of place among the run-down social houses and broken fences of the Roydon Hill estate, and she had not changed. She was still improbable and beautiful.

  ‘Actually,’ Janey said, ‘I think I’ve already got a job…’ and they asked her about that and about life at the university. It was the most Janey had ever said to any of his friends, if indeed that’s what these people were. Waters bought the next round of drinks. The piano, bass and drums trio appeared one by one on the stage and began to play relaxed, free-form tunes, and The Blue Note slowly filled up with as diverse a collection of people as one could imagine. You could listen to the music, which was, as Mick had promised, rather good, or you could talk around your table – nobody minded.

  After an hour or so, Janey said she’d go to the ladies’ room, looking expectantly at Katherine. In a normal world, of course, Katherine would have gone with her, but this was not a normal world, or even close – Janey just hadn’t realised that. Instead, Katherine waved a hand and said it was over there, to the left of the bar. Jason got up, said he was going to the bar for another round and that he’d show her, and the two of them picked their way through what was now quite a crowd.

  Mick had turned his chair around so he could watch the band, and he was talking to people at the adjacent table, whom he clearly knew. So then it was just the two of them, with Janey’s empty seat in between. After a little while, she said, ‘Hello, Chris.’

  ‘Hello, Katherine.’

  Nothing more for what seemed like a long time, and then, without taking her eyes from the Kenny Morton Trio, Katherine said, ‘She’s very sweet.’

  There were taxis parked in the market square but Waters said they should walk home. His flat was fifteen minutes from here, and they would be there by midnight unless Janey wanted to stop off somewhere for a kebab. He said this as a joke but she didn’t respond to it. She took his arm and began guiding him across the square, as if without her support he might not be able to find his way home. She seemed to be under the impression he’d had more than enough to drink, but this was not so; he knew he’d had a few but his mind was surprisingly clear.

  They hadn’t gone far before she said, ‘Well, I quite enjoyed myself tonight.’

  ‘Good. We should get out more.’

  He felt her glance up at him.

  ‘I have to say, she’s not someone you’d forget in a hurry, is she?’

  He thought, you can say that again but this would have been a foolish thing to utter aloud, so he made no comment. It was possible that Janey was using the “you” in the singular rather than the plural sense. When under cross examination, avoid the yes or no answer trap and never answer a question that could conceivably be a rhetorical one.

  Janey said, ‘I mean, she’s…’

  Yes, he thought, it’s hard to find the words.

  ‘She’s overpowering, isn’t she? I can’t believe you went out with her, really.’

  Or maybe you can’t believe she went out with me is probably what you’re trying to say. Politely. Always politely… But he couldn’t believe it himself, if he was honest. Seeing Katherine tonight brought things back. He remembered Smith and Murray threatening to detain him in a cell for his own safety when he first told them whom he was dating. Smith said he knew people who could have him sectioned under the Mental Health Act. The whole thing had been a little insane.

  Janey was looking up at him again, and he was aware that he wasn’t saying very much. They had reached the far side of the square when his mobile announced the arrival of a text. He stopped and took it out, seeing first that he had had missed calls before this. The basement of The Blue Note was probably the equivalent of being in an underground bunker as far as Lake’s mobile phone signals were concerned. Then he went to texts and saw that this one had been sent over an hour ago.

  He said, as he touched the screen to open it, ‘It’s work, from Serena.’

  ‘Chris! It’s your weekend off. You can’t answer it, it’s nearly midnight!’

  He read Dear party animal, tried to call you but gave up. The Simms case blew wide open tonight. Don’t want to put names into a text. Ring me when you want to know what’s happened.

  Waters started tapping letters and then changed his mind. He went to his phonebook, found her mobile number and pressed dial. Janey let go of his arm and took a few steps away from him.

  Four, five, six rings before he heard Serena say, ‘Christ!’

  ‘No, it’s Chris. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in bed! Where do you think I might be?’

  ‘I’m not getting into that now. What’s happened? What’s the name you wouldn’t put into a text?’

  He could hear the rustle of bedclothes and something squeaked as she either sat up or got out of the bed. She’d been asleep but he felt a curious lack of concern that he’d disturbed her. Maybe authority had gone to his head at last.

  Serena said, ‘Hold on, just a minute. I went to bed early for once so I could get up and go into the station. And then you wake me up.’

  ‘You’re not on duty until Monday.’

  ‘I know. But I reckon this will kick off tomorrow, so…’

  Whatever it was, she didn’t want to miss it, to miss being involved.

  She said then, ‘Right. I need to give you a bit of background. Mike and O’Leary had the late shift, starting this
afternoon. You know Wilson’s running the desk on Michelle Simms, and he’d told them to file any stuff that came in over the weekend, ready for Monday. But then O’Leary was talking to someone he knows in Norwich, chasing up something on another case from months ago, and this person said to O’Leary, what about the result from the DNA screening we did at Pinehills. O’Leary being O’Leary says er, what result? To cut it short, the lab sent the results across to Lake this morning, on a bloody Saturday! O’Leary had filed them without looking to see what they were. And they’ve been sitting there all day.’

  Waters said, ‘Alison said Allen put some pressure on them. Perhaps he carries more clout now he’s a DCS. What sort of result from the screening?’

  Janey was staring into a shop window. Across the square there was some of the usual drunken shouting, the apes saying goodnight to each other in the concrete jungle. As soon as this was done, he’d grab one of those taxis.

  ‘So Mike called Wilson and told him, and he said open the file, tell me what it says…’

  ‘And?’

  Waters had a momentary diversion into wondering, when Serena had someone staying the night, how long it took her to remove her apparel. This wasn’t the first conversation he’d had with her that resembled an old-fashioned striptease.

  ‘And – Mike did. There’s a direct hit on the DNA samples Terek took from the caravanners. Well, not the caravan people exactly… Forensics found saliva traces on Michelle’s blouse. Then they went to Robinson’s post-mortem samples and tested the obvious ones, including her mouth and facial skin. Another hit, the same match. Are you sitting down?’