Nocturne (26 page)

‘
But I
’
d got the keys back. He must have taken copies.
’

‘
Doesn
’
t matter. You
’
ve given him access to the flat. His fingerprints
will be everywhere. As evidence, they
’
d mean nothing.
’

‘
What about the film?
’

‘
You told me he got the stuff developed.
’

‘
He did.
’

‘
And then gave you the prints.
’

‘
Yes.
’

‘
So where
’
s the offence?
’

I had no answer. Gaynor was infinitely nicer than her uniformed
chum but the message seemed to be the same. By lending Gilbert the
keys, I
’
d effectively destroyed any case I might later want to bring
against him, regardless of what he
’
d done. I went back to the new
stalking laws. Surely they might stand between me and the lunatic
upstairs?

‘
You need two specific incidents. We have to prove harassme
nt on
two separate occasions.
’

‘
I
can do that. I
’
ve told you.
’

‘
And will he admit it?
’

‘
God knows. But say he does? What then?
’

Gaynor asked whether I minded her smoking. I fetched an ashtray,
still waiting for an answer. She produced a packet of Silk Cut.

‘
We can arrest him.
’
She lit the cigarette.
‘
We can haul him off down
the nick. He
’
ll be interviewed. The allegation will be put to him. And if
he admits it, shows remorse
…
’
she tilted her head towards the
ceiling,
‘
…
the paperwork goes off upstairs and a couple of weeks
later he
’
ll be down the nick again.
’

‘
What for?
’

‘
A caution. That means a bollocking from the uniformed inspector.
’

‘
And that
’
s it? No court case? No fine? Nothing?
’

‘
Not unless he
’
s got any previous.
’

‘
You think he might have?
’

‘
No. I looked this afternoon. After you gave me his name on the
phone.
’

I sat back, deflated. Then I remembered a line of Hegarty
’
s.

‘
It might be a fake name,
’
I pointed out,
‘
Phillips.
’

‘
Of course,
’
Gaynor smiled at me.
‘
Do you have another one?
’

‘
No, but…
’
I shrugged, feeling more than usually stupid. How
come I hadn
’
t thought this thing through? How come I had such
primitive faith in the forces of law and order?

Gaynor was looking at the ceiling again.

‘
I
’
ve been thinking about that.
’
She indicated the jagged hole beside
the light fitting.
‘
We could be looking at criminal damage.
’

‘
We could?
’

‘
Yes, and criminal damage is an arrestable offence. Once I
’
ve nicked
him I can go in and look for whatever he
’
s used to make the hole in the
first place.
’

‘
You mean search his flat?
’

‘
Yes. And finding what we
’
re after might take a while. If you know
what I mean.
’

I didn
’
t, and minutes later, beside the front door, I said so. Gaynor
was pocketing her Silk Cut. She put a hand on my arm.

‘
We need to frighten him,
’
she reminded me quietly.
‘
We need to
warn him off. We could try other ways but this one
’
s best, believe you
me.
’

‘
But how do we do that?
’

‘
We
’
ve just done it.
’

‘
We have?
’
.;

‘
Yes,
’
she smiled, and stepped into the evening sunshine.
‘
You
’
re
telling me he wasn
’
t up there listening ?
’

Brendan,
as usual, was on the phone when I got back to his flat. I
slipped a frozen pitta bread into the microwave and dug out the bowl
of hummus I
’
d made at the weekend. I was ladling the stuff over a little
nest of lettuce leaves inside the pitta bread when I felt Brendan
’
s hands
encircling my breasts. Brendan had very distinctive ways of saying
hello. This was one of them.

I offered him half the pitta, wondering where to start with Gaynor,
but Brendan was already off on a gig of his own.

‘
What are you doing tomorrow?
’
he asked me.

I thought of my desk at Doubleact. What nobody ever tells you
about television is the mountain of paperwork. The series might be
over but the truly boring bit was yet to come.

‘
Clearing up,
’
I said,
‘
and then more clearing up.
’

‘
Fancy a trip?
’

‘
Where
to?
’

I looked round at him, waiting for an answer, but half my pitta
bread had already disappeared and it was pretty obvious that we were
in for another of Brendan
’
s gourmet nights. No chance of getting fat, I
thought, following him towards the bedroom.

We were over at Napier Road by half past six next morning. It took
me a couple of minutes to find my passport, and then we were off to
Heathrow. I was still none the wiser about where we were going but
Terminal Four was a bloody good start. The first seven destinations on
the Departures board were all in other continents.

Brendan picked up a couple of
BA tickets at a desk near the
door.
When he put them on the counter while he hunted for his credit card I
had a chance to sneak a look. I
’
d never been to New York before and
the grin on my face must have told him so.

‘
It
’
s a thank you,
’
he said as we joined the queue at gate seventeen,
‘
for changing my life.
’

That line was typical of Brendan, completely over the top, and it
does me no favours to say that I loved it.
By the time we
’
d left the west
coast of Ireland behind, I
’
d forgotten entirely about Gilbert, and
Napier Road, and poor Mark
’
s attempts to sell the place, preferring to
wallow in the comforts of Club World. We were onto our fourth glass
of champagne. Sunshine was pouring through the window beside me.
Best of all, I was heading for the city of my dreams, coco
oned in a little
bubble of mid-A
tlantic luxury, and there was - it seemed - a yet bigger
treat awaiting me on the other side. Quite what it might be, Brendan
wouldn
’
t say but I was certain that it had something to do with work.
One of Brendan
’
s ma
ny gifts was the ability to marry
pleasure with
more or less every other aspect of his busy, busy life. He very seldom
did anything without at least half a dozen ulterior motives.

And I was right, of course. We touched down at JFK in the early
afternoon and took a yellow cab downtown. The Triboro Bridge gave
me my first grandstand view of Manhattan and I was still on mental
overload when we booked into the Sherry Netherlands Hotel. Our
suite was way up on the sixteenth floor. From the window, I could see
right along Central Park West towards the gothic battlements of the
Dakota Building. The Dakota Building was where John Lennon had
met his death. For little me, the video-queen from the Bournemouth
(Hons) Media production course, this was truly the biz.

Brendan had ordered coffee and club sandwiches. When the guy
from room service arrived, there were four cups on the tray. Brendan
was on the phone, talking to the office back in London. God knows
who was still there.

‘
Due any minute,
’
I heard him say.
‘
Can
’
t wait.
’

Can
’
t wait for what? I was still trying to prise the odd clue from
Brendan when there was another knock on the door. Brendan was
across the room in seconds. When our visitor came in, something
told me that he and Brendan hadn
’
t met before. Not, at least, in
person.

‘
Meet Everett,
’
he gestured grandly at his new chum.
‘
Everett, meet
Jules.
’

Everett was a tall, fit-looking American in his early thirties. He had a
strong handshake and a big smile that never quite got as far as his eyes.
His eyes were the lightest blue.

We sat down around the low coffee table, Everett unbuttoning his
jacket. It already felt like a business meeting. I handed round the
sandwiches.
Everett declined.

‘
Forgive me,
’
Brendan had his hand on Everett
’
s arm.
‘
You mind if I
put Jules here in the picture?
’

‘
She doesn
’
t know?
’

‘
It
’
s a surprise.
’

‘
Sure.
’
Everett looked briefly amused.
‘
Go ahead.
’

Brendan shot me the look I always got when there was a pressie in
the offing. Then he began to talk about what I first assumed was a
programme idea but the deeper he got into it, the more I realised that
he was way, way past what we TV folks call
‘
development
’
. The big
juicy bone that Brendan was depositing at my feet was a pilot for a
series, fully worked out and - more important still - fully funded.

The notion, in essence, was simple. It took a bunch of kids from one
of the rougher big city council estates and put them under the care of
an ex-SAS instructor for a month. While he worked the special forces
magic, a similar bunch of kids, this time American, were jumping
through the same kind of hoops with an ex-Green Beret. This brush
with th
e world
’
s top supermen might just counter
s
ociety
’
s belief
that problem kids today were - in Brendan
’
s phrase -
‘
under-
challenged
’
.