Pain of Death (9 page)
‘I don’t know. I can’t be sure. I didn’t know it was her, then. How could I?’
‘You saw her?’
‘I didn’t wipe it. I kept it. Christ, I didn’t twig it was her.’
‘You kept the tape?’
‘I’m sure I did. This one was with an old fella. Having a ruck, they were. A right set-to. Not to blows, like, but waving their arms. She kind of pushed him and he was trying to grab her, trying to hold her, like. That’s why I paused it. Looked like it might develop, you know.’
‘An old fella?’
‘Old enough to be her father, I’d say.’
*
It has become a beautiful day and the gulls have come up the estuary to feed on what the visitors discard. A line of Scandinavians forms outside the seafood shack now, mostly wearing the red replica tops of Liverpool Football Club. They spill onto the road, like an isthmus, almost as far as the low wall of the faux prom.
Staffe wishes he could surrender to the day, let it take him like a tide and maybe book into a guest house, look out across the marshes to the Welsh hills and lose himself in a book: Iris Murdoch, perhaps. Or Toni Morrison.
He slips away from the crowd. Far away to his left, where the estuary meets what he thinks must be Cheshire, he can make out a sprawling industrial complex which rises from the distant horizon like a cold, steel city. He squints, brings into focus tall and thin tubular chimneys which expectorate. He turns back towards the Welsh hills. A long plume of mist comes in from where the sea must be. It works its way into a fold in the hills, like giant, parted thighs.
A heron flies directly towards him, its giant wings flapping slowly. It arcs away, head high, towards a copse of trees way down on a swathe of high grasses. There, amongst the trees, he sees a redbrick Victorian building. He thinks it might be a water tower – where the sea once was. How strange. And he wonders if those same Victorians had done something to drive the estuary away; whether they had gone engineering mad.
His phone rings and he sees it is Finbar, which makes his heart a little gladder.
‘What’s up?’ says Finbar.
‘I’m on the Wirral.’
‘Aaah.’
‘You know it?’
‘Sailed past it a few times. Good sailing but it’s a bastard if you don’t know what you’re doing.’
Staffe recalls the one time that he went sailing with Fin, a year or so before his friend’s calamity. The phone is quiet for a long moment and each man decides to give that subject a wide berth.
‘I’ve got something for that pal of yours,’ says Finbar.
‘Jadus?’
‘You can pick ’em, for Christ’s sake.’
‘You met him?’
‘Got one of my muckers in the post room to take a look at him. They’ve got something in the non-con.’
‘Non-con?’
‘Safe matter. Non-confidential. We have two kinds of waste here.’
‘Waste?’
‘It’s recycling. That pal of yours can do his bit to save the world. It’s only seven quid an hour, I’m afraid. That’s the best I can do.’
‘You’re a star, Fin. I’ll make it up to you.’
‘I’ll make sure of that. Don’t doubt it. Got to go.’
Staffe is kind of sad not to talk to Finbar for longer and he feels a tug back to London, looks back towards the estuary and sees that the mist has come further up. He looks for the water tower, can’t see it any more even though he squints for it. He thinks his eyes might be playing up.
*
The baby has been heavy on Zoe’s bladder all morning and now it kicks her. She puts her hand to her stomach and swallows away a curse, reminds herself of what she owes this baby; the second chance it brought her. Not the other way around.
That happiness soon fades, is replaced by fear as to what will become of her. She tries to concentrate on what would have become of her had she not had this baby. At university, she used to think of the footprints she would leave in the sand. Then, she had gone back to Liverpool. She hadn’t meant to stay, but she had bumped into Anthony again. It had seemed only a small surrender in a constant and sometimes pointless struggle. She thought she knew what she was, but that night, it had seemed easier not to be and she allowed him to tell her he loved her and always had.
A mist has come in, fast from the sea, and she watches as the heron glides away from her, swallowed up by the sea vapours that race up the River Dee.
She goes back to the big cushion and sits with her legs apart, stroking her belly, thinking the baby will come sooner than anyone thinks. For an odd moment, she wishes Anthony was here, wishes she could have loved him the way he deserves. If only she could be held, for a moment or so, or a whole afternoon. If only her father was here and she was young again, before it all happened.
A sob forms in the back of her throat and she swallows it away, heaves herself to her feet, not able to keep still. She wants to be out amongst the world. She craves a conversation and reaches for the door, twists the handle but it resists, locked. ‘Let me out,’ she calls, banging on the door. The baby kicks again and nobody is there, save the life inside her.
*
Pulford hands across the free tickets that Phillip Ramone had given him. The transvestite on the kiosk flutters his thick lashes at the bashful young sergeant, gives him the knowingest of looks. ‘New blood,’ he purrs in a gravelly voice that comes between glazed, red lips.
‘Is Phillip in?’ says Pulford, trying to avoid the transvestite’s look. Instead of looking him in the eye, he unwittingly diverts his attention to the thoroughly convincing cleavage.
‘Oh my,’ murmurs the transvestite. ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t take visitors.’
Josie leans across, shows her warrant card.
‘Aah. I see.’ He looks Pulford up and down. ‘Make sure you come in uniform next time. I’m Juanita, if you need to know.’
They press against the crowd in the bar and force through onto the dance floor. Above, and in front of his office on the mezzanine, Phillip Ramone sits alone at a small table alternately sipping champagne and sucking on a replica cigarette. He looks washed out, perusing his punters like the curmudgeonly judge on a talent show.
Jimmy Somerville is belting out his version of ‘I Feel Love’ and Bronski Beat’s furious rhythm fills the dance floor. The crowd spins round, hands behind their backs, as if they are handcuffed dervishes.
‘You didn’t waste any time cashing in your freebies,’ says Phillip Ramone.
‘Events have overtaken us,’ says Josie, pulling up a chair and sitting alongside Ramone who pours them each a glass of champagne. She notices it is vintage Taittinger and can’t help taking a sip. Looking down at the dancing crowd, she suddenly feels energised.
They sit close together, so the three of them can hear each other.
‘Events?’
‘It’s a shame you didn’t tell us how Kerry came to get her residency.’
‘I never said my memory was perfect. Did I?’
‘Somebody persuaded you to take her on. On Sean’s behalf.’
Bronski Beat fades to nought and is replaced by the effortless boom of Rick Astley’s masquerading soul.
Eventually, Ramone says, ‘You should watch yourselves.’
‘We need to hear it from you, Phillip.’
‘Somebody’s been shooting their mouth off. He’ll find out, and woe betide the poor fuckers when he does.’
‘Did they meet through you, Phillip?’ asks Josie.
Ramone shakes his head. ‘You’re City police, right?’
Josie nods.
‘And he’s a west London boy, as you know. If I were you, that would be my excuse to leave well alone.’
‘I’ll make it easy for you,’ says Josie, leaning forward, taking another sip of Taittinger. ‘Was Tommy Given seeing Kerry Degg?’
Phillip Ramone appears to shudder.
‘You have to tell us, Phillip,’ says Pulford. ‘We won’t be dropping this and soon we’ll be sitting down with Given.’
Ramone shakes his head. He looks down on his dancing clients but can’t derive a smile from the joyous abandon. Tonight, he remains uninfected. ‘He wouldn’t do that to Sean.’
‘He looked out for Sean?’
‘That’s how it seemed to me, is all I can say. And it’s all I will say. Tommy’s clean,’ says Ramone, standing up. ‘Always has been. And that’s official.’
Michael Flanagan looks kind of defeated when he spots Staffe, waiting for him by the pond in Princes Park. He sits alongside Staffe on a bench and for a few moments they watch two young men cast their lines. They are set for the day and have a windshield and cool boxes and chairs. They chat and laugh, like old boys.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you saw Zoe the day she was taken?’ says Staffe.
‘I was ashamed.’
‘You had a row. What was it about?’
‘What makes you think we had a row?’
‘What makes
you
think I won’t do everything I can to save Zoe? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘She doesn’t love him, you know. Can you imagine what it must be like, to carry the life of someone you can’t stand? The first baby nearly killed her. I don’t care about no more grandkids.
She’s
my baby.’
‘She was going to get rid of her baby, wasn’t she, Michael?’
‘It’d be a life sentence, to bring it up when you think where it came from. A constant reminder. I can see how she saw it.’
‘But you wanted her to keep the baby, even so?’
‘That’s because I just can’t imagine her not. You know, what that involves.’
‘I need to know exactly what you did that day. Where you were.’
‘I wouldn’t harm her. I couldn’t. I just didn’t know what to do for the best.’ He stands up, takes a marbled blue notebook from his pocket. It has an elastic band around it and when Michael removes the band, he takes a stack of betting slips from the back of the notebook. ‘It’s my weakness. She thinks I don’t do it no more.’ He laughs: the weak satisfaction of a meaningless victory. ‘I keep track, see, of what I stake and what I win.’ He flicks through the pile of pink slips and picks out half a dozen. ‘All losers from that day.’ He reads out the names and the racecourses and the times, even the odds, from the 1.05 handicap chase at Wincanton to the 5.43 dog race at Walthamstow.
‘But I had a winner.’ He flicks through the notebook. ‘Thrice in Bundoran. I had two quid on at fifteen to two. I ended the day a quid down. Not much, for a whole afternoon’s entertainment.’
‘You could have got these slips from off the betting-shop floor.’
Michael looks hurt, says, ‘Ask in the shop. They know me.’ He sits back down and they watch the two fishermen for a while. ‘She came to me for help and what did I do? I made it worse. I said she had to let it run its course. I was worried for her. You should have seen her the last time, when she lost it. I couldn’t bear the thought of her having that done to her. I was being selfish, that’s what it was.’
‘Anthony knew, didn’t he?’
‘She was scared and she came to me. He knew all right, the bastard.’
‘What do you think he might have done?’
Michael shakes his head.
Staffe says, ‘Anthony told me he couldn’t ever hurt Zoe.’
‘He did that to her, though – when she wasn’t interested.’
‘Do you think …?’
‘Don’t!’ says Michael. ‘I can’t think about that. I’d kill him. Fucking kill him.’ His hands turn into fists and he bites his lip. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. I don’t swear. Not normally.’ After a while, Michael stands up and says, ‘I turned a blind eye. It’s not what a father should do.’
*
Josie watches DI Smethurst walking down from Putney Bridge to the riverbank. He is Smet, to his friends – not that he has many – and he’s with the Met; and some kind of a mucker of Staffe’s, though Josie would never put them together.
Every so often, Smet tries to hitch his belt a little higher, but it doesn’t last more than a dozen paces. He sucks on a cigarette and has a sheen of sweat on his forehead and jowls. As he gets close, it is clear that he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, so Josie stands up from the low wall that runs between the Duke’s Head and the Thames and says, ‘DI Smethurst?’
His eyes light up and he can’t help himself look her up and down. ‘Chancellor? Have we met?’
‘I was in uniform.’
‘Is he here?’
‘Given? He’s inside.’
‘You have got the all-clear to do this?’
‘Yes,’ says Josie, looking away, across the river.
‘You spoke to Staffe. He said it was OK?’
‘Yes.’ She turns quickly, pouts at him, watches him blink.
‘Good. This
is
a favour, you know.’ Smethurst leads the way between the luncheon stragglers and the early bar, through the dining room and right into the front snug. There, dappled in the low spring sun, is a suited heavyweight with a steely mop of golden hair. He has an open shirt with thick gold around his neck and jewels on most of his fingers; a loose-fitting watch the size of a manhole cover. He is flanked and faced by cronies who are in tucks of laughter at something he has said. The table is littered with empty and full
heavy-glassed
tumblers of whisky and half-pints of lager.
‘To what the pleasure?’ Tommy calls to Smet, raising a glass. He doesn’t see Josie straight away, but when he does, he stands, cuffs his neighbour and offers her the chair.
‘Maybe not here,’ says Smet.
‘I’m drinking.’
Smet leans down, puts a hand on Tommy’s shoulder as if they are on the same side and whispers something.
‘This lot can fuck off,’ says Tommy. ‘Ten minutes?’
Smet nods and the cronies gather up their drinks. As one, they take out their packs of cigarettes, no doubt glad of the relief.
Josie figures that Smet must have told Tommy they were here about Sean Degg, and that Sean isn’t a subject to be discussed in front of that particular group of hangers-on.
Tommy holds up his hand towards the barman and makes a rapid gesture with a twist of his golden hand. By the time Josie and Smet have settled into their seats, three whiskies and three halves of lager have been brought to the table and the occupants of the neighbouring table ushered away.
Tommy clinks glasses with Smet, then Josie. Smet necks his whisky and Josie follows suit, swallowing away her flinch.
‘Didn’t take you long,’ says Tommy.
‘You’ve read about Sean’s wife?’ says Josie.
‘Who’s running this?’ says Tommy, swiping Josie with a sideways, dismissive glance.
‘This is DC Chancellor, City CID,’ says Smet. ‘I’m only here for the beer.’
Tommy laughs from deep within his keg chest, says, ‘Constable skirt, hey? I must be going down in the world.’
‘Sean Degg has gone missing,’ says Josie. ‘He’s a suspect for his wife’s murder and we know that we’d find him in no time if people would talk to us. It seems that people won’t talk about Sean, though. Some say that Sean is a
low-life
and would have got his comeuppance years ago if it wasn’t for you.’ She tries her damnedest to hold Tommy Given’s look.
‘Tongues wag in the strangest ways,’ says Tommy.
‘Maybe Sean told us about you and him.’
Tommy plays with his heavy watch and looks past Josie as he addresses her. ‘You’ll get to hear some fucking shit in your line of work, Constable. People might call Sean “low-life”, but take it from me, he’s not. He has integrity. That’s a hard thing to find.’ Tommy curls his lip.
‘What makes you and him so close?’
‘What makes a tight little missy like you want to work with scum like Smet?’
‘Whoah, Tommy.’
‘You steer clear. You go asking questions about me and I’ll know. It’s bad for business.’
‘Sean’s in trouble, Mr Given. He needs to hand himself in. Why do you protect him?’
‘Fuck off.’ Tommy raises his hand again and flicks his wrist. The barman collects the empty glasses and the hangers-on come back in. They sit close to Josie, eyeing her up and getting lewd.
Josie says, ‘You’re a part of this investigation, Mr Given – until you can prove we’re wasting our time.’
‘You just try, missy. See what happens.’
‘Come on, Chancellor,’ says Smet, taking her by the arm.
She wrings herself free, watches him weave his way out through the crowded bar, and then follows him – at a distance.
*
Staffe persuades the constable at Liverpool General to let him see Anthony Bright, dark-eyed and with his left wrist heavily bandaged. He is pale, seems to have lost much weight this past week.
As soon as Anthony sees Staffe, he can tell the inspector means business. He drags a chair up to Anthony’s bed, talks fast, in a raised whisper.
‘We need to go way back, to when you first impregnated Zoe. Shall we call it that? I guess we could call it a lot of things, couldn’t we? How long were you with her before you realised she found you vile? Before you had to persuade her because you just didn’t do it for her? You must have felt small.’ Staffe brings his finger and thumb almost together, right in front of Anthony Bright’s eyes.
Bright looks up at the uniformed PC by the door. He leans right back in his bed, but Staffe leans further forward – still in his face. ‘It’s a strange kind of love, that, isn’t it, Anthony? You’ve got your house and that’s a two-
year-old
car in the drive. But it doesn’t count for much when your wife won’t carry your baby unless you force her, hey, Bright?’
‘Get away from me.’
Staffe reaches into his hip pocket, puts the parcel on the bed. He unwraps it, painstakingly. Immediately, you can smell it. The herring skin is grey and silver. It is shiny and the smell of its souse is sweet and acidic. ‘For you,’ says Staffe, offering Anthony the rollmop.
‘Get it away from me. I hate that shit. Why d’you bring that? Why?’
Staffe reaches into his inside pocket and slams a piece of paper on the desk, followed by a pen. He turns to the uniformed officer, shouts, ‘Get this bastard’s lawyer in here. He needs to think again about his statement. Now!’
‘I can’t, sir. I …’
The PC looks around, shifts from the doorway, standing to one side to let DI Alicia Flint into the room. ‘Inspector Staffe,’ she says. ‘A word.’
In the corridor, Staffe and Flint face each other.
She says, ‘You shouldn’t be here. Not after the other day. Not without me.’
‘I got him herring. He doesn’t like it.’
‘What?’
‘Zoe used to buy rollmops in Parkgate. They should be for him, but he doesn’t like them.’
‘You need to leave him to me, Inspector. You really do,’ says Alicia.
*
Catherine Killick hangs her keys on the coat stand’s hook in the Minton-tiled hallway of her fine cottage on the outskirts of the New Forest. The nights are beginning to draw out and she makes her way into the large farmhouse kitchen, listens to her security aide manoeuvre his way across the gravel drive and drive away, into town for the Chinese.
She places her red ministry box on the scrubbed pine table and kicks off her shoes. Miss Etheridge has been in and set the fires, and a smell of burning wood hangs in the house. She rubs her stomach and opens the box, flicks through the papers. She will do them first thing in the morning, knows she will rise at first light, if not before; she doesn’t have to be at the hospital until ten.
Cathy wonders how the press – or, God forbid, the people – will react to Vernon Short’s bill being laid to rest; and what of the missing woman in Liverpool? Will she be superseded by some different kind of news altogether?
Her husband, Alex, is in Brussels until Friday and she misses him. He should be back tomorrow, and she was quite cruel when he left. She wants to take back what she said. He is a good man, will be a good father.
The wood crackles in the grate and she eases herself slowly down to her knees and removes the guard, riddles the fire, feels its heat on her face. This baby is a long time coming. Upstairs, the floor creaks and she looks behind her. For a moment, she thinks Alex might have come home early, but then the radiators rattle and she realises it must be the house groaning as it warms through.
Cathy watches the flames and loses herself, wonders how much time she will ever have for this baby. She will be
forty-two
next year and when she found out she was heavy with child she had cried tears of unrestrained joy. Alex had been shocked, said he didn’t know why she was so happy, said that she had never said she wanted a baby so badly; had said nothing about the baby that she could have had, fourteen years earlier when she was first shortlisted for that safe seat in East Hamlets.
She stands, heaving herself up on the brass coal box at the side of the fire, not wanting to think about that. Cathy puts a milk pan on the Aga and pours in some blue top. She watches it begin to roll, sliding it off the heat so it doesn’t boil, and she thinks what a wonder it is, that she has made it so far – to here. All she ever dreamed of. She tips a wary glug of whisky into the pan and puts it on the table, lets it sit until the spirited milk forms a skin, which she will skim. She will sleep well tonight.
After the first sip, her head feels gladder, as if she is better prepared for what’s coming at her.
The floorboards creak again, and again she turns around, hoping she might see Alex in the doorway and she gasps, thinks for a moment that he is here. She actually puts her tongue hard on the roof of her mouth to say the ‘D’ of ‘Darling.’
The eyes of the man in the balaclava are wide and mad, and his lips are the red of pillar boxes. His teeth are yellow. ‘Sit down,’ he says, coming towards her and tapping a leather cosh against his thigh.
Cathy cannot move. The baby presses down on her bladder as the man takes her by the arm.
His breath is sweet and bad. He places the end of his leather cosh on her stomach.
Cathy misses her breath and her heart misses two. Her mouth loses its form and her lungs are empty. ‘Why?’ she whispers, unable to look at him.
‘You know why. You can’t pick and choose just to suit your own fancy.’
He touches her and she makes tiny steps as he directs her towards an armchair beside the dresser. He takes out a phone, presses a number and she hears her own tone pipe up from within her handbag. It is ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac and for an instant she catches a scent of that young girl. Less blemished.
The man grabs her bag and takes out the phone, then removes the battery. He throws the two parts of the phone on the fire. Curiously, Cathy calls out, ‘You can’t do that.’ She doesn’t actually know what happens if you put batteries on a fire, just that it’s bad.
