Pain of Death (27 page)

The singer finishes the first half of her set and comes to the bar, sits on a stool between Staffe and Finbar and the barmaid brings across the chilled Veuve Clicquot.

‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ stays Staffe.

‘Don’t go,’ says Finbar.

‘I know you from somewhere,’ says the singer to Staffe. Fin has a hand on her hip.

Staffe thinks right back to the beginning of this case. Some have passed and some been born. He says to the singer, ‘You know
The Blue Angel
?’

‘Of course. I just sang something from that.’

Staffe says to Fin, ‘Thanks for trying. We’re even.’

‘No!’ says Finbar. ‘I’ll never be even. Not with you.’ He takes his hand from the singer’s hip and grips Staffe’s shoulders. ‘And that’s the bastard truth.’

*

The night is quiet and as the door of the Boss Clef closes behind him, the music from inside shuts to almost nothing. Staffe skirts around the Old Street roundabout, making his way past Peerless. He looks up to the Limekiln Tower beyond. Jasmine is there, with Millie, her man on the run and hopes all gone to dust.

For some reason, he walks on up towards Flower and Dean. It is warm and his thoughts won’t slow. Nor can he impose any order on them. The melodies, the staccato rhythms of Brel and Schultze, the ghosts of Dietrich and Lori Dos Passos, stay with him, snagged.

On New North Road, he pauses outside a row of shops. The line about the lonely child who is hungry and cries in the night swirls like wind in a cove. He stops and he looks, feels a familiarity. These shops are run down, but they serve. There is a fruit and veg shop, a newsagent’s. Then two carcasses, a caff and a bookie’s. Finally, a hairdresser’s. Cutz. He knows this place, and the familiarity takes shape. The reason he has, subconsciously, brought himself here becomes apparent.

Above the shop, a dim light glows within, presumably from a room at the back. He crosses the road and works his way round along the narrow road that runs along the back of the shops. He counts the units as he goes and, right enough, there is somebody in an upstairs room at the back of Cutz.

He calls Jombaugh and gives precise instructions, saying he wants a 10–39 to Cutz on the New North Road.

Jom asks what is wrong and Staffe tells his sergeant it is a matter type five. Under no circumstances must the officers get out of their car. He hangs up and waits. He thinks of what Finbar had said to him about them never being even and how he might have changed since that sequence of events, those years ago. For sure, Finbar has changed and Staffe wonders what perverse circumstances can contrive to make a sad man happy.

The squad car’s response is quick and as he hears the siren grow gradually louder, like a first movement, he wonders if he is correct; how prepared he really is.

He positions himself by the back gate and he waits. His muscles harden and his breathing deepens. The blood pumps faster and only now does he fear the worst.

The police car is out front already, wailing, and the light in the upstairs back of Cutz flicks to black. A couple of beats and he hears the back door open and then a curse and heavy footfall. The bolts on the other side of the gate are shot and the door opens inward.

‘Jadus,’ he says.

‘Fuck.’ Jadus smells of coconut oil and his hair is slicked back. The moon catches it, silver and black. He closes and opens his eyes, slow; makes an ironic and disparaging slow shake of his head. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘The officers out front aren’t coming. Don’t worry. Don’t do anything stupid – it’s just me and you. I want to be the one.’

‘Not you,’ says Jadus. ‘Not you, man.’

‘It has to be,’ says Staffe.

Something glints in Jadus Golding’s hand. ‘You’re not taking me. Not you. Not any fucker.’ He sounds like a boy, a frightened boy.

The gun rises and Staffe takes a step back. All he can think to say is, ‘Please.’

‘You going to let me go?’

‘I can’t.’

‘You have to.’

‘You can’t do that, Jadus. You can’t do that to Jasmine, or Millie. Put it down. Come of your own accord.’

Jadus shakes his head again. He is rueful, resigned.

Staffe recognises the look. He thought he knew him.

The sound is fearsome. He feels the sound and it is all he feels. And then another.

He was wrong.

The street comes to meet him and he can’t feel the bang to his head, just the worst stitch you ever had in your chest. He looks up and in the indigo sky, sees a constellation, close. He tries to keep his eyes open, but he can’t. He feels himself being lifted and held: the warmth of a fellow man. And then he falls back to ground, but the ground doesn’t come.