Wasted Years (11 page)

He doubted that.

He finally found it inside the sleeve of another record, Serge Chaloff’s
Blue Serge
—not bad, Resnick thought, for an impromptu overcoat. A four-track EP with a laminated cover, soft-focus picture of the singer, head bent, before the microphone.
Ruth James & the Nighthawks.
1972.

Resnick slid the record onto his hand: a memory of her hand struggling to push back the air. The pallor of her face, auburn of her hair. He dispensed the worst of the dust and set it on the turntable, changed the speed. The stylus stuck near the start and when Resnick eased it gently on the vocal had already begun.

All those dreams and wasted tears,

Every minute, every second,

The worst of all my fears

He had been called to a burglary, January seventy-four, one of those big houses off the Mansfield Road, divided into flats and then divided again. A warren of rooms in which clothes hung drying in front of a two-bar electric fire and every squeak of conversation came through the partition wall. Cooker behind a screen in one corner, the bathroom down the hall—only hot water enough to cover your knees, the plughole circled round with other people’s pubic hairs. A rusting fire escape that climbed up from the overgrown garden at the side. Too many windows with a faulty catch. One man, working alone; he had got through four rooms before Elaine came out of hers to go to the toilet and there he was, trying the door across the hall.

“What the hell d’you reckon you’re about?” she’d shouted, grabbing at his arm.

The burglar—dark shirt, jeans, wearing gloves—had bolted for the stairs, out through the main door, the lock of which he’d slipped as soon as he’d got inside.

“Sure you’re okay?” Resnick had asked, self-conscious inside her room, Elaine sitting on the only chair.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. Fine.”

“You were lucky.”

She looked at him then, questioning.

“When you reached for him, that he didn’t react.”

“He ran.”

“I know. What I meant, he might have felt provoked. He might have hurt you.”

She smiled. “Like you, you mean?”

Resnick’s eyes had smiled back. “I didn’t know if you’d remembered?”

“Someone your size? All over me? I had a bruise on my instep that lingered for weeks. Not to mention my big toe.”

“Bruised, too?”

“Worse.”

He gave her an inquiring look.

“It came off.”

“The toe?”

“The nail.”

“Oh.”

She continued to sit there and he continued to stand where he was, watching. Somewhere above, a cistern was noisily refilling,

“Shouldn’t you be looking for clues?” she finally said.

“That fire escape,” Resnick said, embarrassed, “it’s like an open invitation.”

She smiled again; it was a good smile, strong, not ingratiating. “Sooner burgled than burned.”

“What I was thinking, window locks …”

“We’ve been on to the landlord for months.”

“Maybe now he’ll pay some attention.”

She got to her feet. “And maybe not. Anyway, who cares? By then I’ll have moved.”

“By when?”

“Week after next.”

She could read the disappointment in his eyes: just when I’ve found you again.

“Do you think you’ll catch him?” she asked at the door to her room.

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“If he’s a regular, if we pick him up for something else … otherwise, no. Probably not.”

He stepped out into the middle of the corridor and she looked at him again. “Are you always that honest?”

“I hope so. I try to be.”

“Don’t you find that a hindrance in your work?”

He couldn’t tell from her expression whether she was teasing him or not. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Before he had reached the head of the stairs, she had gone back inside her room and closed the door. Three weeks later a card arrived, the envelope forwarded from Central Station. On the front was a photograph of a saxophone, black and white; on the reverse Elaine had written
Maybe you’d like to call round and check the security arrangements?
along with her new address.

Elaine.

And Ruth James.

This was their story, too.

Empty arms and empty promises

And ten more wasted years

Sixteen

“Doner kebabs,” Darren said. “Two Cokes. Cold ones.”

The assistant shook his head. “Sorry, closed now. Everything switch off …”

“Closed,” Darren observed. “What we doin’, standing here?”

“Everything switch off …”

“Yeh, you said. So either switch it fucking on again or find us somethin’ to eat quick, ’cause we’re fuckin’ starving.”

With a slow shake of his head, the assistant lifted the lid from one of the metal containers. “Meat,” he said. “No pita, no bread.”

“So stick it in something else,” Darren said, being reasonable. At least now they were getting somewhere, talking the same language, almost.

“I don’t know if I want …” Keith began, watching the slices of gray meat being lifted into two polystyrene trays.

“Course you fucking do,” said Darren. And to the man: “Some of the chilli sauce on there, right? Come on, Jesus, shake the bloody thing! And how about the Cokes? Christ! Call this cold?”

Darren emptied the contents of his pocket out onto the counter in a clatter of coins. “Have that. ’S’all I’ve got. And, hey! You really want to smarten up your act around here, you know? Sweep all this shit up off the floor and do something about that thing you’re wearing—more stains than Keith’s jockey shorts. And hey, hey! First thing tomorrow, go to one of them places up the market, get a badge cut with your name on, stick it right there, on your lapel. People know what to call you.”

“Tony,” the assistant said.

“Tony, yeh, right.” Darren leaned an elbow on the counter and patted him none too lightly on the cheek. “Tony. You remember what I said, huh? Better than having them walking in off the street, Stavros, Stavros, all the time.”

“Not a bad bloke,” Darren said through a mouthful of meat. “For a Greek.”

“I think he’s Cypriot,” Keith said. They were walking along Lower Parliament Street, strolling really, taking their time.

“Same thing,” Darren said.

Keith shook his head. “Turkish Cypriot.”

“That’s what I said. Same fucking thing.”

A black and white cab came towards them, signaling to turn right down Edward Street, and Darren stepped out into the road and waved him down; then, as soon as the driver slowed, he waved him on again.

“Forgot,” Darren explained. “Skint.”

Keith nodded and looked at his watch; new battery just last week and it had stopped again. It had to be well past two. “I ought to be getting back,” he said.

“What’s the rush?” Darren lifted the last of the meat with fingers and thumb, tipped up the container so that the chilli sauce ran into his mouth, belched, and sent the container skimming across the street into the doorway of the gas showrooms. “Tell you what, fucking doner tastes like shit.”

Keith thought he was going to be sick.

“Stay over at my place,” Darren said. “Sleep on the floor.”

“Thanks,” Keith said. “My old man, he’ll be …”

“What? Waiting to tuck you in?”

Keith thought, chances were, if his old man was up at all, a good bollocking was all that was on the cards.

Darren took Keith’s silence for assent. “You know what I hate?” he said. “Walking round without money in my pockets. Where’s the nearest cash machine?”

They waited until a punter in a loose gray suit, late from one of the clubs, punched in his personal number and withdrew a hundred pounds.

“Got a light?” Keith said, blocking his way.

Darren hit him from behind: twice was enough, the third one just for fun. Five crisp twenties, never saw the inside of the bloke’s wallet.
Thank you for your custom, please come again.

A little after four, Keith woke on Darren’s floor with a sore back and a stiff neck and the certain sure knowledge that he was going to die. An hour later he was still cuddled up to the toilet bowl, head resting on the chipped enamel. There can’t be any more, a small long-suffering voice told him. But there always was.

Divine and Naylor were parked along the street from Rylands’s house; two or three people had entered, lodgers most likely, none of them any chance of being Keith.

“Know what we ought to do when we’re relieved?” Divine said. “Get ourselves out on the old Nuthall Road. See if there’s any talent hitching a lift back Heanor way.” Divine winked. “Help ’em out, right?”

Naylor looked through the windscreen towards the soft glow of lights that hung over the city center.

“How long’s it been, Kevin?”

“Since when?”

“Since your precious Debbie took herself off to her mum’s? Your kid along with her.”

Naylor shook his head. “I don’t know.” Only the months, weeks, days.

“Hardly makes you a married man, then, does it?”

“That gives me the right to go picking up sixteen-year-olds?”

Divine winked. “Give you the right to a bit of fun.”

“Your idea of fun, not mine.”

“Jesus, you’re a miserable bugger. No wonder she upped sticks and left you.”

“Look …” Divine was really getting his rag “… she hasn’t left me. That’s not the way it is.”

“No? How is it then?”

“She’s staying at her mum’s while we work things out.”

Divine laughed in his face. “Never sodding talks to you. How can you be working anything out?”

“That’s rubbish.”

“Is it? Go on, then, you tell me. When were you last round there? See the kiddie? Talk, the pair of you, without her old lady gobbing and gawking?”

Naylor got out of the car and mooched up the street towards Queen’s Walk. As if it wasn’t bad enough his father having a go at him over the telephone, his mother writing those letters:
Kevin, she is our granddaughter …

“Tell you what,” said Divine, when Naylor climbed back into the car. “All the women I’ve had since joining the force. Names, vital statistics, likes and dislikes. And, hey! Outside the knickers don’t count, okay, Kev?”

By the time Millington and Lynn Kellogg took over it was the coldest part of the night. Lynn had brought a large Thermos of tomato soup and Graham Millington had four spinach pasties his wife had bought from Sainsbury’s, reheated and handed over wrapped in foil. The car engine they ran intermittently, needing the heater to stop all feeling from leaving them below the knees.

“The wife’s talking about Corsica this year,” Millington said, “but I’m not so sure.”

“You know that bloke I used to go out with?” Lynn said.

“The cyclist?”

“Yes, that’s right. Had a card from him the other day. Heard nothing in over a year. Did I have anything fixed for my holidays and, if not, what did I feel about the Tour de France?”

“Too hot, that’s what concerns me.”

“France?”

“Corsica?”

Lynn gave the Thermos a shake before pouring out what remained. Her mother had been angling at her, nothing direct but making it clear all the same, next leave Lynn got she should spend it at home with them.
It’s your dad, Lynnie, he’s not what he was …
What he was was a stick of a man, old before his time, wandering between the hen houses instead of sleeping. Likely as not, out there at this moment, checking for foxes, flicking his torch on and off and all the while talking softly, as if his presence not only scared off predators, it kept the birds safe from salmonellosis, aspergillosis, and blackhead.

Outside the light was flirting with the sky.

“Come on,” Millington said, firing the engine, “he’ll not show now. Let’s get back to the station. Get a decent cup of tea.”

They’d been gone scarcely fifteen minutes when Keith came round the corner, walking slow. Darren had got fed up with the sounds of Keith throwing up and when the diarrhea had kicked in that had been enough. “Here,” throwing him some Ajax and a balding lavatory brush. “Clean that mess up and then fuck off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Keith let himself into the house quietly but not quietly enough. His father was on the cellar stairs with a jack-handle in his hand. “Figured you for a burglar.”

“Figure again.”

“Christ, you look awful!”

“Thanks,” Keith mumbled and just got to the toilet in time.

“Thought you’d like to know,” his dad said through the door, “police were round earlier, looking for you. I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but when you get out there, I’ve a good mind to give you the hiding of your miserable life.”

What happened later that morning meant that, as far as the police were concerned, Keith Rylands was all but forgotten.

Seventeen

The time switch on the main safe was activated to open at nine-fifteen. Road works, caused by the need to replace thirty meters of sewage piping, had brought about a traffic bottleneck and the security van delivering cash for the start of business was slightly delayed. It finally appeared at nine-thirteen, three minutes late. The bank guard set aside his copy of the
Express
and moved to unlock the outer door. Two men wearing blue-gray uniforms and sky-blue protective helmets climbed down from the cab of the van, called out a remark about the traffic, and proceeded to unlock the rear doors.

A bottle-green Granada drew up across from the security van and a woman wearing a high-collared wool coat got out of the passenger seat and began to walk towards the bank.

The first security man was inside the van, passing down sacks of coins to his colleague, who was loading them, side by side, into a low wooden trolley.

The bank guard set the ramp against the stone step and used the side of his shoe to edge it into place.

“I’m sorry, madam,” he said, turning towards the woman in the woolen coat, “I’m afraid we’re not open till half-past nine.”

The woman, who was a man, pulled a sawn-off shotgun from inside the folds of her coat and jabbed the barrel ends hard against the guard’s neck, beneath his jaw.

One of the security men was wheeling his laden trolley across the pavement.

“Move,” the armed man said clearly, “and this one’s dead.”