Blind Date (34 page)

She looked at the label on the bottle with regret. What a waste. She had once thought she could drown in that stuff, and recognized the fact it could happen again. You are a pretender, Joe, and I don't know what you are. She took a bottle of red from the table, along with the carton of cigs, and tucked them inside her elbow as she left. He looked sweet and safe and she felt guilty. The yellow light of a taxi beckoned outside: she had the vague address of where Jenkins had come to live. The man with the yellow light would be able to decode it. She had taken both the keys, locking up as she went,
but there was no sweetness in revenge.

J
enkins would be in at the time he regarded as appropriate for a meal. He was a man used to accommodating his food long before night fell and the eight o'clock shift began. He was such a dark soul, she had always imagined that he preferred the black hours, so that he could merge. The steps up to his flat were broad and deserted, everyone else indoors, eating. I had a basement once, Jenkins had told her. Hated it: never live underground and never be afraid to open your door, even if your time is up.

He would always open the door for her and for anyone. That was the advantage of size. He did not seem surprised to see her and, for a brief moment, looked positively pleased, as if he had been waiting with pleasurable anticipation. “Skinny Lizzie,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Skinny little Lizzie. Well, well, well.”

His home smelt of cooking—something fried—and the dishes had been washed and put away before he had finished eating it; a man following the alcoholics rule of never get hungry, but unable to find any interest in what he ate because it had the sole purpose of spoiling the thirst. He observed the wine under her arm. Shook his head.

“Ah, Lizzie. Do you hate me so much?”

“Yes. So much.”

Uncle. Mentor. Father, friend, rogue. He had played all those roles. Son of Machiavelli, spoiled priest. She had thought of him with such venom: she had conversed with him in her head, written letters to him in her mind, all filled with hate and accusation. You wicked bastard: why did you string me along like a puppet, watching and listening like the voyeur you became? Come on, you old cesspit, tell me why.
What was it made you hate the suspect so much? Or did you want me to succeed to cover yourself in glory? Or was it me you hated? Now all the questions were abandoned because they were irrelevant. She no longer needed to know why and she did not hate him, either. Hatred was a fleeting taste on the tongue when it was mixed into a cocktail of so many other reactions. Elisabeth could define hate, but no longer knew what it was. She put her arms around him, briefly. It was both the most and the least she could do to acknowledge him and to recognize the fact that although he had lied to her, she had also lied to him. They had both exaggerated the evidence: they had both believed in it.

“Drink the wine, Lizzie. I'll watch. Will that be torture enough for me?”

“Give me some coffee.”

“Sit down. You make me nervous.”

They lit their cigarettes in unison, smoked at the same pace. She sipped the coffee, as bitter as she remembered, although it was the whisky and the wine she remembered more. In those days he may as well have given her an intravenous drip of the stuff and she had needed it. Peppermints before meeting Jack. Looking at Jenkins now, she wanted to weep and knew that would run the risk of making him despise her.

“Go on,” he said, reading her mind. “Cry if you want to cry. That's what women do best. You deserve to cry, Lizzie. I wish I bloody could.”

She was furious with him again. This was no sentimental reunion, this was business.

“Who the fuck is Joe? Why the hell did you talk to him?”

Jenkins shrugged. “I thought he was a nice man. He was the link in the first place, I felt I owed it to him. You knew there was a link: the man who took photos of the similar victim, led us to
Jack. You knew about that, although you never saw the man. Joseph Maxell wouldn't have meant anything to you then. I still think he's a nice man. So I sent him down to Devon to look you up. Bring me back a photo. Look out for you. He was willing enough.”

She was breathing deeply, as if she had run up the stairs. There was scarcely the breath to scream her sense of outrage.

“I think he could be a thief,” she said. “I think he could be looking for exactly the same thing Emma's killer could have wanted. With the difference that I doubt he'd kill for it. Wrong temperament. Like Jack.”

Jenkins shook his head. “What would he want to steal from you? Your father's mythical gems? But you said they never existed.”

She averted her eyes, did not answer, went on. “All right, you set him up. You're amazingly clever at that. Joe, Jack… me, what's the difference? But why the hell else has he made himself an ally? What's the trick? What does he want?”

He sighed, got up and paced the room. He had done that in his office, making her disorientated. His eyes strayed to the wine bottle.

“No,” she said. She threw the carton of cigarettes towards him. He caught them neatly, tore of the cellophane with the eagerness of a toddler with a gift.

“I asked him to find you,” he said, slowly, “because he was curious. And a truly curious man has a gift. He watches. He sees things. He wants to know purely for his own satisfaction. There's something complete about him. I like him. That's why I asked him. I was worried about you.”

“Bit late for that, wasn't it? Who asked you to worry? I didn't. How much did you tell him after he turned up the first time
with the link that led to the suspect? He flattered you, I suppose, so you kept him posted. Long after you showed him photos of my dead sister.”

“I had to do that. To verify the similarity. Besides, he was interesting and he was knowledgable, so I also showed him pictures of your sister when she was alive. God knows, I was so excited by what he gave us, I needed an unbiased mind. He was helpful. Yes, I showed him too much.”

Elisabeth was tugging at her hair in frustration. The slide which held it on top of her head came loose.

“And then, of course it all went undercover until the judge chucked it. That was when Joe came back. Upset. Told me that although he certainly hadn't realized it at the time he put the finger on him, our suspect, now dead, was someone he had known. He felt guilty.”

She leapt to her feet in agitation, knocking the ashtray to the floor. “He knew Jack? Oh, Jesus Christ, you're kidding me. Don't tell me. He
knew
Jack? That's enough to make him hate me. He
knew
Jack? What were they? Best friends? Blood brothers?”

Jenkins shook his head. “Nope. Nothing like that. An old mate. The fallen-into-disuse kind of mate, but still, an old mate. Some work-based band of brothers. You've been in the Fuzz; you know the kind of thing. Blokes, working and playing together. Not often as close as it looks.”

She was silent. Lies and more lies.

“I didn't tell him anything much when I first got in touch,” Jenkins continued. “I wouldn't. But I did tell him how to find you, and said why don't you ask her? He keeps coming back with questions.”

“And you believe in him,” she spat. “You believe that he puts an old mate in the frame without knowing he did so, then agrees
to do whatever you ask, and then gets curious all over again? That's some gift, isn't it?”

There was an eloquent shrug of the shoulders.

“Yes. I believe him. So should you. Stick with him, I should. He's your best chance. A good man. Who else will listen to us, Lizzie? Who else? We're tainted, Lizzie. Failures.”

“But why? Why does he seem to want to stick with
me?
What is it? Am I a freak show for some kind of pervert?”

She was tearing at her hair, twisting it into ringlets. He sighed.

“Don't do that, Lizzie. It makes you look demented. And stop saying why, why, why, you silly little fool. Can't you get it under your thick skull that someone could simply like you? Love you on sight, even? I hoped he would. God knows, I did. We all did. You just never knew.” There were angry tears standing in his eyes: he brushed them away, lit another cigarette and coughed, long and loud. Elisabeth squatted by his chair, took one large hand in both her own and chafed it until it was warmer, using the action to distract herself from the renewed urge to weep herself silly. Then she rose, paced the room as he had done, shivering, as if the cold of his hands was infectious.

“No. I can't have that, Jenks, really I can't. I can't accept that he has a gift of curiosity and nothing else. I can see guilt and curiosity mixed. Layers of guilt. Guilt for a friend and,”—she puffed furiously, excited—”and you know what else I can see? I can see it now, clear as daylight, can't you?” She stabbed her finger towards his chest.
“He
was the one who sent the photograph of poor, dead Emma to Jack, wasn't he?
He
found out his old mate was in trouble which
he'd
caused.
He
knows enough about the law to know what would sabotage the whole damn thing.” She paused. “Maybe
he sent the photo to Jack for fun. He had the access: you let him look at the things. I can see him now, putting an album in his pocket. He doesn't regard anything as confidential. For an old mate. For a memento. For shame. Anything to stop what he'd started.”

“No.”

“What do you mean,
no?”

“No. Joe doesn't volunteer the truth, but he isn't devious. God knows, angel, he's far more of an innocent than you are, far more. You think he might think like you would think: he can't. Can't do sabotage. Couldn't steal. Isn't prurient. He didn't send it.”

“Well who did?” she howled. “Who made it finish like that? Finish without even a trial to establish the truth and let us all go free, you, me, Jack?
Who
sent it?”

Jenkins got up. Held onto her shoulders, bracing himself. There was pleading in his eyes. For hope, forgiveness, recognition, understanding: she did not know for what.

“I did!” He was shouting. “I fucking sent it! It was the only fucking way to end it.”

His voice dropped, wearily. “Oh come on, Lizzie. Grow up. I couldn't rely on a jury to acquit him. Who could ever rely on a jury? And I couldn't tell you.”

The silence sang. Finally, she nodded. Pushed him back into his chair. Then she uncorked the wine by his kitchen sink: let him listen as she poured it away.

The flats in which Jenkins lived seemed to have come alive with the onset of darkness. Doors stood open: televisions blared. Elisabeth wanted to run, but she could only walk and go on walking. Down the stairs, into the stret, into the warm light of the Underground, with dangerous, shouted words, echoing along with the train. He fell in love with a photo of your sister. An old mate. He's a nice, generous man, that Joe.

There were
lights in windows as she walked up her own street. Someone was having a party. The quality of the cars was improving over the years, the place on the cusp of change into something more genteel. The owners might want her home back, soon. There was scaffold on half the houses, heralding a better-moneyed congregation moving in. Regeneration was beginning: it was their turn.

She looked up at the tower, grateful for its substance and its remoteness, as she always was. Stopped.

The clock said ten to four.

D
rugs of any
kind had never accorded with the mixture of blood, muscle and confusion which was Joseph Maxell. Pharmaceuticals worked all too well. So much for trying to be Joe the juvenile lad with a poly bag full of dope, the effect was giggles and sleep; likewise the first tranquilliser advised by a dentist who feared being bitten. It was absurd for a large boy to be so sensitive to these exaggerated, short-lived effects; he had always been ashamed of it. Mix a benign dose with a smidgeon of booze plus an ounce of fatigue and then, he was anybody's. Joe could hear Elisabeth saying what she had done with the Mogadon and he wanted to kick her, but it was too late for that, so he listened instead to her stepping around him with a bit of hand-wringing and did not even care any more. Sleep, proper sleep, without evocative dreams and the sound of the dead clock, had been rare lately and he needed it. He was born with a shortage, slept on his couch now with a variety of visions as the sun faded and the slant of fading light in his eyes made him twitch and the dark finally woke him to a groggy hunger. And a boy's voice, wailing a message into the answermachine. “Where are you, skinny Lizzie … where are you?”

No old
mate would do this to him, only a woman. He was cold and disorientated; cross without the energy to be angry. A couple of hours, she said, but for all he knew, he had slept for twelve and the time could have been dusk or dawn. Joe stared up at the ceiling and worked out where he was and what hour of the day he was in. Still the evening. The growling of his stomach seemed inordinately loud: it was the only incentive to move. Until he heard the other sounds.

Someone there. Coming up the steps. Joe listened intently. He was not going to call her names: he was going to remind her what a poor, mean creature she was, and when Elisabeth reached the foot of his couch, he would kick her as she passed, not hard, but hard enough to make a point. He closed his eyes, finding it all too easy to feign sleep, because he felt as if he was made of lead.

Lead in the roof of this church … amazing it was still there. He thought of Elisabeth with her pathetic sharpening of the knives and the question rose in his fuddled mind as to whether she had gone out with one of these weapons, such as the vegetable knife, and what kind of mission had it been, anyway? Listening, he opened his eyes to the slow realization that they might not be her footsteps coming towards him. These sounds were so uncertain, made by someone who scuffled and lost the way, paused at each step, feeling the wall for support. All too slow for Elisabeth, although she could not move fast; oh Lord, how he wanted to see her run. Slow as she was, she was never that deliberate, never so uncertainly precise.