Killing Time (28 page)

He stood up, gesturing Hart before him. He thought it wasn’t going to work – Candy let him get right to the door before she spoke – but at last she said uncertainly, ‘Wait a minute.’ He turned back enquiringly. She was chewing her lip, and there were beads of sweat like cloudy tears lying in her eye-sockets. ‘Gimme a minute. Lemme think. I can’t think!’ she protested. Slider nodded to Hart to stay by the door, as if ready to leave on the instant. He took a step back into the room and waited, holding his breath.

‘Are you telling me straight – about Jonah? That you don’t think he did it?’

‘Straight,’ Slider said. ‘I don’t think he did. You’ll be doing the right thing by him, telling me the truth.’

Her mouth turned down. ‘I don’t care about that black bastard. I hate him! Y’wanna see how much I care about him?’ With a violent movement she dragged up her baggy sweater. She was naked underneath, and her small bare breasts flipped rubberily as the hem caught them. The sweater held up around her neck, she turned herself this way and that, like an art dealer tilting a painting to catch the light. Her narrow back and greyhound ribs were an impressionist sunset of black, red and yellowish green. She looked like a late Turner. ‘He done this to me. He said he didn’t hafta be careful ’cause I wasn’t working.’ She dropped her sweater and turned to look straight into Slider’s eyes. ‘He don’t leave no marks, usually. He knows a lotta ways a hurtin’ you without it showing.’

‘You don’t have to take this sort of thing, you know,’ Slider said. ‘You don’t have to put up with it.’

Tears stood out suddenly in her eyes. She held her arms out from her sides, turning her palms up. ‘What are you talking about? Look at me! He’s four times the size of me.
How d’you fink I’m gonna stop him, you stupid, shit, fucking, man, copper!’

She flopped down on the settee and put her head in her arms and sobbed loudly. Hart watched impassively, her arms folded. After a moment Slider sat down beside the girl and put a tentative arm round her, and she flung herself with a fresh burst to cry noisily on his shoulder. Slider waited. She was so small and bony and young, so young to be already one of the Lost and Damned. It wasn’t the prostitution that bothered him. Unlike some of his colleagues, he had no problem with prostitution: providing it was all consenting, he thought it was people’s own business. It was her hopelessness, the fact that so near to the beginning of her life she had decided that there was nothing to be had in life but money and the comforts it bought; that there was nothing to be done about anything, nothing to strive for or stand against.

Eventually she stopped, sat up, groped about her hopelessly for a tissue. The box on the coffee table was empty. Slider was about to part, sighing, with another handkerchief, but Hart the practical darted out and in again with a handful of bog roll from the bathroom. When the mopping up was done, Slider said to Hart, ‘Make us some coffee, will you?’ The tiny kitchenette was off the lounge, the door just beyond the end
of the sofa: she would be able to both see and hear while in there.

And Candy Williams turned to Slider and said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you what I know, but it ain’t much.’ And she scanned his face for response, for approval perhaps, or at least for some sign that he was taking charge of her. She was born to be a victim, he thought. Chronically unable – either congenitally or because of her upbringing – to take responsibility for herself, she was there for the taking for anyone who would tell her what to do next, and by humping her, hitting her or buying her presents give some sense of structure to the terrifying formlessness of existence.

The first part of her story had been true. Jonah had come home from work at about half past four, his usual time after work. He hadn’t been sacked by Yates. ‘That was balls. He was just told to say that. It made him mad. He didn’t want to have to tell anyone he’d been sacked. And not for wearing a dirty shirt. I fink Mr Yates said that just to put him on.’

‘So he came home in a bad temper?’

‘No, that wasn’t then. All that come later. Listen.’ She seemed distracted by his lack of understanding.

‘All right, I’m listening. What did he do when he got home?’

‘He went to bed, like always. We done it—’

‘You had sex?’

‘Whajjer fink? Then he went off to sleep. I fell asleep as well, but then the phone rang about eight o’clock. Not his flat phone, his mobile. That meant it was Mr Yates. He started talking to him, and it was yes, Mr Yates, no Mr Yates at first. Then he started to get annoyed. He got out of bed and was walking up and down and like clenching his fists. And then he kicked a chair out of the way. I knew I was in trouble then.’

‘Was he arguing with Mr Yates?’

‘You don’t argue with Mr Yates,’ she said flatly. ‘But I could tell he didn’t like it. He was saying why, and why’s it gotta be done that way, and stuff like that. And when he finished he threw the phone across the room and shouted “Bastard!” And he looked at the clock and he shouted, “He waited till I was asleep, the bastard!” and then he threw the clock across the room an’ all.’

‘Why would Mr Yates do that? Wait until Jonah was asleep, I mean?’

‘Just to make him mad. He’d know he’d be deep asleep at
eight o’clock and it’d be the worst time to wake him. He’s like that, Mr Yates – especially with Jonah. He likes annoying Jonah, ’cause he knows Jonah can’t get back at him. He thinks it’s funny. He’ll laugh out the other side of his face one day.’ She looked seriously at Slider. ‘Jonah’ll kill him one day, I mean it, and I just wanna be around to see it.’

There were too many painful implications to that thought for Slider to comment on. He put her gently back on the track. ‘Did Jonah tell you what Mr Yates wanted him for?’

‘Did he! I got the lot. He ranted and raved about it.’ She frowned, trying to put the story in order. ‘Apparently this bloke come in to the club the night before – posh geezer – and give Jonah a load of money, just shoved it in his hand, four hundred, all in twenties – to go round this other bloke’s house and give him a real fright. Like, maybe rough him up a bit, but nothing too bad, just scare him.’

‘Yes, I know about that. I’ve had it from the posh geezer.’

This seemed to reassure Candy. ‘Oh, you know him, do you?’

‘I know him. And was Jonah intending to do what he asked?’

She looked scornful. ‘Was he buggery! Jonah thinks it’s all a big joke, seeing he’s four hundred up. This bloke was well plastered, and Jonah reckons he’s never going to remember next day where he left the dosh. Apparently he was swaggering round the club telling everyone, the great stupid bastard, and Terry – he’s the manager, one of Mr Yates’s spies – he tells Mr Yates about it. Because apparently this posh geezer’s somebody really important?’

Slider gave a nod in response to the slight question mark.

‘Well, anyway, apparently Mr Yates phones Jonah to tell him he wants him to do what this geezer asked after all. Jonah asks him why but Mr Yates ain’t telling. He gives Jonah chapter and verse how to do it and when, and then he says – this is what really makes Jonah mad – he says that Jonah mustn’t be working for him when he does it. So that’s when he tells him to say he was sacked at four o’clock, and about the dirty shirt an’ all. I bet it was that Terry thought that one up.’

‘If Jonah hated the set-up so much, why would he do it? What was in it for him?’

‘Well, he’s one of Mr Yates’s boys, isn’t he? And Mr Yates would see him all right.’

‘But he’d sacked him.’

‘I told you, that was just the story. A course he was still working for him, only it hadn’t to be official, so that if there was any trouble it wouldn’t come back on Mr Yates. Like I say, he’d see Jonah all right. And if there was any trouble, Mr Yates’s solicitor would get him out.’

This was a nice angle on Stevens, Slider thought. ‘Go on. So what was the plan?’

‘Well, Jonah was spose to go round there at eleven, so as to mix with the chucking-out crowds. And I was spose to give him his alibi. That’s why he told me about it, see?’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I was scared. I said I never wanted nothing to do with it.’

‘But if the plan was only to scare this man – where was the harm?’

She shook her head, folding her arms round herself as if she was cold. ‘I see the temper he was in. I fought this bloke was gonna get a pasting, and I never wanted it coming back on me. I told Jonah I wouldn’t do it, and he started shouting at me, but I was so scared I said I was going, and then he really went mad. He punched me in the stomach and knocked me across the room, then he picked me up and banged my head on the ceiling, and whirled me round and round over his head, and I fought he was gonna chuck me out the window. I was shit scared. I fought I’d had it. But he only frew me on the bed and jumped on top of me and started hitting me. That’s when he said he didn’t need to be careful ’cause I wouldn’t be working for a while. But he was careful not to hit my face – nothing that wouldn’t be covered by my clothes.’

She told it so matter-of-factly, as though she was describing the steps of a dance. Perhaps in a way that’s what it was to her.

‘Go on,’ Slider said. ‘What happened next?’

‘Well, hitting me give him a hard-on, so he did – you know what. And then he wanted to go to sleep. But he said he couldn’t have me sneaking off while he was asleep, so he tied me up to the bottom of the bed, and tied a rope round my neck and went to sleep holding the other end.’ She examined Slider’s expression.
‘It wasn’t so bad, ’cause he couldn’t tie the ropes too tight, in case they left a mark. Only I was desperate for a pee, that was the bad bit. Anyway, when he woke up he untied me and let me go to the bathroom, and told me to bring him breakfast in bed.’

‘What time was that?’

‘About half past twelve. And then when he’d et it I had to get in with him ’cause he wanted sex again, and then he got up and had a shower.’

‘And what time did he go out?’

‘Not till evening, about half past ten.’

‘You’re sure about that? You’re quite sure? You’re telling me the truth now?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, and the word was a sigh, like someone accepting a sentence.

‘He didn’t get up until half past one, and he was indoors, in your presence, all day?’

‘I should know,’ she said succinctly. ‘He watched the telly all afternoon. He started drinking as soon as he was dressed, and by the time ten o’clock come he was steaming. I was shit scared. If I could’ve run away I would’ve, but he never let me get near the door, and the one time he thought I was trying he thumped me again. Then about half past ten he got up and turned the telly off. He was so lit up and so mad by then, I thought meself, this is gonna turn bad, he ain’t never gonna be able to stop himself. I mean, he’s that strong he can break your arm just shaking your hand if he’s not careful – and he wasn’t in the mood to be careful. I thought he was gonna go out there and kill this bloke, whether he meant to or not. So he went, anyway, and he locked me in so I couldn’t run while he was gone.’

‘Did you try telephoning anyone?’

She shrugged. ‘Who was there to telephone? I just waited. Anyway, about half past midnight he comes back, and I knew straight away it had gone bad. I never seen him like that before. He was jumpy and weird, laughing one minute, scared the next.’

‘Did he tell you what had happened?’

‘Nuh. He just said, “Candy baby, you and me’s going for a little trip.” And he reminded me what I had to say if anyone asked, and then he said let’s go to bed.’

‘And you went to sleep?’

She gave a short, unamused laugh. ‘I wish. He was really wired up. I never seen him like that before. He was just humping me all night. I could hardly walk the next day. He fell asleep in the end when it got light, and then he woke up about nine o’clock and we left the flat about half past and come here.’

She came to a halt and was silent a moment, and then she looked at Hart, remembering where she was and who she was telling. ‘When I saw in the papers, I thought he’d done it. He never said nothing to me, but when he saw me looking at the news about it, he just laughed, like a really weird laugh. He never said it wasn’t him. I thought I was living with a murderer. I mean, he went out there and come back – and now you say it wasn’t him?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Slider said.

She looked bewildered. ‘Then what the bloody hell’s going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘Did he talk to Mr Yates at all, after he came back that night?’

‘He’d been talking to him already, in the car, driving back after doing it. When he got in he said he’d got his instructions. That’s all he said. And he never talked to nobody after that. He never left the flat, and that’s the truth. I tell you, it was a relief when your lot turned up. It was like being shut in a cage with a mad animal.’

Slider tried to look solid and reassuring, though his mind was going round like a hamster on speed. What the hell was going on? ‘You’ve done the right thing telling me all this, Candy. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.’

‘If you want to make a complaint against Jonah, we’ll go all the way with you,’ Hart put in.

Candy looked from one to the other. ‘You don’t get it, do you? It’s not Jonah I’m afraid of, not now.’

If there was anything in the world that demonstrated the futility of human endeavour, Slider thought, it was a Function in a Hospitality Room. The characteristic feature of hospitality rooms is their inhospitableness; and a gathering for social purposes of a group of people who have nothing in common but business is bound to be dysfunctional.

‘Why do I get the feeling I’ve been here before?’ he muttered
to Hart. She, he noted with a strange pang, was looking eager, as though expecting to enjoy herself. She had changed in the loo at the station, and was now extremely fetching in a black dress so short and so full-skirted she looked like a nineteen-twenties illustration of Violet Elizabeth Bott, but in negative.

‘There ain’t many females here,’ she muttered back to him. ‘Are you sure you should’ve brought me?’

‘Quite sure,’ Slider said. Having a pretty young woman beside him at a do like this was the only point of difference: the weary staff, the wearier canapés, and the choice between white wine that tasted like thinner and red wine that tasted like turpentine, were all too familiar. A rapid scan of the room, however, revealed that he didn’t recognise a single face, which was a little odd. He couldn’t even see Honeyman, though he supposed he must be lurking where the guests were thickest. He was still hovering uncertainly when a youngish man he didn’t recognise approached him and addressed him in French, with the colonial accent of Croydon.