Intermission

by Graham Hurley

  ‘And has he given up?’ I ask. ‘As a matter of interest?’

  ‘I fear not.’

  ‘From my point of view?’

  ‘His, my darling. I warned him about you. I told him how discerning you are when it comes to the important things in life. I told him I’ve been trying my very best, my very hardest for years and years, and still no result.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He wasn’t listening. Consistency is normally a virtue, my darling, but I just hope Mr Wren can cope with a major disappointment.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re marking my card?’

  ‘I’m telling you this is a wicked, wicked city, much more complex than you might imagine. At its heart it’s a village, just a handful of players, movers and shakers who might make a difference, and H used to be one of them. Dessie, believe it or not, is another. He and H were close once. It wasn’t a corrupt relationship, far from it, but H helped Dessie out over that kid of his, the one you mentioned, and Dessie is the kind of guy who never forgets a gesture like that. It doesn’t disturb his aim for a moment, not Dessie’s, but you have to factor it in.’

  ‘You said his kid.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Not his godson?’

  ‘Christ, no. Dessie’s missus couldn’t have children. She was barren, my darling, and Dessie always loved kids. As far as Titch is concerned, he’s always been coy about the details, but I gather he was shagging another man’s wife and she obliged him with a son.’

  ‘And this woman’s husband?’

  ‘He’s history, now. Prostate cancer. She lives alone in North End. I get the impression she’s done with men.’

  ‘Including Dessie?’

  ‘The jury’s out on that one. Dessie is a loyal little soul. I know it sounds odd when he’s a serial shagger, but there’s definitely something big and red and glistening in that chest of his. Dessie’s all heart. Whatever he says, whoever it might be, he normally means it. The really devious stuff is for the bad guys. Dessie is a man of limitless appetite. Given the chance, he’d eat the whole world.’

  I’m not quite sure what to make of this phrase, chiefly because I suspect he’s got the verb wrong, but Tony has an enormous respect for the English language and values precision above everything.

  ‘You’re telling me I should trust him?’

  ‘Christ, no. You’ve got our Dessie in a bit of a pickle. He once forbade me to mix business and pleasure. It turned out to be very good advice but just now he should be listening to himself. A week ago, you were the mother of H’s son. You had the decency to give H a little moral support when he came down here to say his goodbyes to Fat Dave. You’ve also stood by him when he got sick himself. That earns you credits in Dessie’s book. He doesn’t think you’re shagging H, and he’s right, but loyalty goes a long way with Dessie, and on top of that, like I say, he fancies you.’

  ‘Should I be flattered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because I think he means it, which – just now – is somewhat ironic.’

  Tony asks me whether I’m familiar with the phrase ‘Crazy Ivan’. When I say no, he insists there’s no shame because he’d never heard of it either, not until lunchtime.

  ‘Today, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. As I explained, Dessie phoned. You’ve definitely got him worried.’

  ‘How? Why?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say, wouldn’t spell it out, but then he mentioned Crazy Ivan. It goes back to his time in the Navy. They’d be tracking some Russian submarine for days on end. This is the Cold War. The games they played really mattered. So, they’d lurk and lurk and make all kinds of recordings that would come in handy later, then the Russians would finally twig that they had a Brit boat up their backsides.’

  ‘So, what happened? What would they do?’

  ‘Russian subs are apparently built like the proverbial. Double hulls? Does that make sense? In any event, they’d pull a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and just come straight for you, kamikaze stuff. You had to dive, go left, go right, surface, anything to get out of the way. It wasn’t subtle but it worked.’ He nods. ‘Crazy Ivan.’

  I try and imagine this piece of submerged theatre, two rival gangs, suddenly head-to-head.

  ‘So what’s any of this got to do with …’ I shrug. ‘Now?’

  ‘He thinks you’re pulling a Crazy Ivan.’

  ‘On who?’

  ‘Him. Ah … resupplies …’

  It’s Corinne. She comes gliding over Tony’s immaculate lawn with a laden tray. A brandy on ice for me. A big plate of canapes in case we get peckish. And an open bottle of Armagnac for seconds. She’s wearing a rather fetching straw hat which she settles on Tony’s head.

  ‘That naughty sun, darling. With no pollution, we have to take care.’

  She bends to give him a kiss, and then heads back towards the house. For a moment, I’m tempted to enquire further, but Tony wags a finger.

  ‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘I’ve adopted a new rule. Never make assumptions. If you ask me where that wonderful woman is taking me, I’d tell you it’s for real. Three marriages would argue otherwise. Best to count your blessings and enjoy the moment. Capisce?’

  I nod. I get it. Conversations like this, especially with Tony Morse, are always a delight but I need to get back to Operation Avocet. Tony, after all, is a defence lawyer. It’s his job to weigh the strength of the enemy’s hand and offer the appropriate advice.

  ‘Avocet’s a Major Crimes thing,’ I suggest. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘And Dessie seems to think they’ve got H where they want him.’

  ‘That’s wish fulfilment, my darling. Nothing happens in court without evidence. They’ll spend a great deal of time and money trawling through all the paperwork they seized at Flixcombe. H isn’t stupid, far from it. I doubt they’ll find anything. That’s partly why they tried to fit him up with Shanti. They knew he needed a lot of money in a great hurry, and they tried to make it easy for him. Thanks to you, not a penny went her way, and we can prove that.’

  ‘And the text that Wesley sent?’

  ‘That was clumsy. If they’re stooping to a stroke like that, then they’re getting desperate. In any event, my darling, they’d need both phones – Wesley’s and H’s – and I’m hearing from you that one’s gone off the Round Tower, while the other’s in the hands of young Sunil. A word in your ear. When you get H’s phone back, bin it. We agree?’

  ‘We do.’ I lift my glass. ‘So, Avocet?’

  ‘They’re playing games. It’ll come to nothing. Trust me.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. Our real challenge is Plover.’

  ‘The cold case? Sammy McGaughy? Dessie’s baby?’

  ‘Exactly. I suspect Dessie thought he was close to a result. The key here is Wesley. That man was never Mr Stable and the way I’m hearing it, he has a grudge against H.’

  ‘That’s probably true. He also killed Sammy McGaughy. I’ve seen the evidence.’

  ‘Which no longer exists.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Tony Morse nods, toying with his glass.

  ‘Dessie has been playing Wes. That’s my assumption. For whatever reason, Wes has agreed to help lay the bait for H. That takes us to Shanti, the Casablanca, all that. In return, Dessie might have agreed to drop the cold case.’

  ‘And meant it?’

  ‘Christ, no. Dessie thinks Wes is vermin. Sadly, Wes has yet to work that out. Dessie will stitch him up royally and see him in court. That’s the way it’s been shaping.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, my darling, there’s something you still haven’t told us. Not me, and certainly not Dessie.’ He raises his glass. ‘To Crazy Ivan,’ he says, ‘or whatever else you have in mind.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Google tells me about Flat 2 on Clarence Parade. I’m standing outside an estate agency
in the middle of Southsea. It is, of course, closed, but according to my internet search, one of the two ground-floor flats in our property overlooking the Common is still listed for rental. I can see the details in the window. Sea views, two bedrooms, retro kitchen, £775 per month, part furnished. The accompanying photo shows the front of the property, which includes a For Rent board wired to the railings.

  A typed notice on the door of the agency advises clients to contact a telephone number in the event of urgent enquiries. The number answers on the third ring, a woman’s voice. I explain that I’m after a rental with sea views. I’ve seen Flat 2 on the agency’s website and want to know if it’s still available. The woman puts me on hold while she checks.

  I spend a couple of minutes outside the agency, idly browsing other properties while I wait for her to come back to me. I’m more than aware that I’m getting out far more than I should, but this has given me a ringside seat on the real consequences of lockdown. Life has suddenly come to a complete halt, whole businesses – like this one – suddenly frozen in a moment of time. Locked doors. Remote phone numbers. Employees banged up with their screaming kids on furlough schemes that will probably have to last for months.

  This is game, set and match to a tiny speck of virus too small for any of us to picture, and one of my real regrets is that Pavel died too soon to be part of it all. We shared conversations during that last year of his life which were truly apocalyptic. Paralysed, physically helpless, he was still tuned into media he trusted, and he had an almost gleeful conviction that the developed world was writing itself cheques it would never be able to cash. Too many people. Expectations wildly out of line with anything the planet can sustain. And a slow, remorseless melting – not just of the icecaps but of the glue that keeps us all together.

  Pavel, bless him, was putting his own money on one of those big headline events that kick off most disaster movies – a nuclear war, killer hurricanes – and like most of us he’d dismissed quiet warnings from concerned scientists that the real threat might be far more primitive. But Covid is here now. It doesn’t have a conscience. It doesn’t mind how many millions it kills. And the moment a vaccine arrives it will doubtless change its name, adopt some artful disguise, and reappear to create yet more havoc. This, I suspect, would have put the ghost of a smile on Pavel’s face. The world will end, he’d whisper, not with a bang but a cough.

  ‘Ms Andressen?’

  The woman from the agency is back on the line. She tells me that the property is currently tenanted on a rolling monthly contract. To the best of her knowledge, the occupier has every intention of moving on and I’m more than welcome to register an interest if I anticipate renting the place on a more permanent basis. I tell her that this is very much my intention and wonder whether I might take a peek.

  At this point, she laughs. To the best of her knowledge, no one’s allowed to do anything anymore, but if I fancy knocking on the young man’s door, who knows what might happen.

  ‘He has a name? This young man?’

  She departs once again to check the contract. Then she’s back.

  ‘A Mr McGaughy,’ she says. ‘Sean McGaughy.’

  It takes me a while to fully absorb this news, but the longer I think about it, the more sense it makes. I wander across the Common in the early-evening sunshine, and then turn to look back. Sean McGaughy was indeed the feral presence at our door in the middle of the night, and he never left the property because he lives there. Hence the interference in the meter cupboard, and hence – as well – the permanently closed curtains in the front windows of his flat. He’s been in there in the gloom, biding his time, awaiting his chance. H killed his father. And H, in turn, must pay.

  The thought of sharing a house with a killer is truly chilling. The virus we can sort of cope with. Sean McGaughy is a threat of a different order. I remember the night we reeled back from Gunwharf, three bottles down, and the way he paused on every bastion, every redoubt, telling me what had happened here, why the muddle of fortifications had been built, how you never trust a foreigner. The blood of this city runs in his veins, just as it still fuels H, and later – in the darkness of the games arcade – I remember his thin little body shrunk even more by the distorting mirrors. A wisp of a man in his skinny jeans and threadbare hoodie. Pompey warps you, I think. It twists you out of shape. It feeds an insatiable appetite, first for violence, and now revenge.

  I phone Wesley on the one mobile he has left.

  ‘You’re still coming tonight?’ I ask him. ‘Just say yes.’

  Back at the flat, Taalia is still in residence. More importantly, she’s decided that we should all join the rest of the nation in clapping for the NHS at eight o’clock. This invitation includes H, which means we must all wear PPE. H is now using the toilet in the bathroom, but only with help from Malo. He’s unsteady on his feet, having to pause for breath before making it down the corridor, but Taalia thinks it will be good for him to take a look at the world outside.

  With five minutes to go, I’ve finally managed to get the sash window in the front room at least half-lowered so we can hear what’s going on, and Taalia shrouds H in a blanket before Malo and I help him through to the front room. The oxygen cylinders have now been collected, revealing a mirror on the far wall, blackened in one corner. H pauses to study himself for the briefest moment before turning away in disgust.

  ‘Who’s that old bastard?’ he grunts.

  Malo has fired up the TV, and already the news presenter is preparing us for the big event. He promises live pictures from every corner of the kingdom and as we watch, the coverage cuts to Belfast where families are flooding out of a row of terrace houses. Mothers are carrying babies. Kids are waving Union Jacks. One pensioner offers her neighbours slices of sponge cake. In the background, a pair of giant yellow cranes.

  I join H at the window. Below, in the street, knots of people are beginning to gather. Among them, I recognize the old man downstairs. He’s looking as wild as ever, and he’s still wearing the lifejacket I saw before. There’s a plastic whistle attached to the lifejacket and the moment eight o’clock comes, he raises it to his lips and starts to blow while everyone around him claps. Then comes the wail of ships’ sirens from the dockyard, and a couple of toots from a passing car, and when I look out across the Common, I can see a couple of policemen in hi-vis jackets, stock-still except for their gloved hands. Maybe they’ve come to deal with Sean McGaughy, I think. Or maybe this is part of Operation Avocet’s surveillance operation. Either way, they’re wasting their time.

  H, hunched in his blanket, is having difficulty taking any of this in and for the first time, I sense the weariness in him. It was Sunil who warned me about Covid’s reluctance to call it a day, about the mess it leaves behind, about the weeks and maybe months when patients like H will have to cope with recurrent bouts of exhaustion. To his credit, he stays at the window for the full five minutes, and towards the end he even deigns to clap, but I can tell his heart isn’t in it.

  Finally, the noise of clapping from the street below thins and dies. On the TV, families are once again closing their front doors on the world. Kids appear in front-room windows, mugging for the camera beside yet another crayoned rainbow. Then it’s over, and Fiona Bruce has joined us to present a semi-virtual edition of Question Time.

  H stares at her for a moment, then he shivers and turns away. ‘Wes?’ he says.

  Wesley doesn’t turn up until gone ten. Taalia lets him in downstairs, and he appears in the front room. He’s wearing jeans and a tracksuit top tonight, and he’s carrying a small rucksack. He gives me a brief nod and says he wants to talk to H. When I offer him PPE, he shakes his head.

  ‘No need.’ He smells of whisky.

  H is glad to see him. ‘Sit down, Wes.’ He pats the side of the bed. ‘You want something to drink?’

  Wesley produces a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from his day sack. I fetch a couple of glasses from the kitchen. ‘Where’s yours?’ Wes is staring up at me.
/>
  ‘Later, Wes.’

  ‘Later when?’

  ‘Later when we’ve got this thing over.’

  ‘Thing?’ H is sharper than I’d thought. ‘What thing?’

  I tell them about our new tenant in Flat 2. In my view, I say, this is the guy who turned off the power, and tried to get into the flat last night.

  ‘Why the fuck would he want to do that?’ This from H.

  ‘Because he’s got a grudge, H.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because you killed his dad. Sean McGaughy? Sammy?’

  H is staring at me. Then he reaches for Wesley.

  ‘Get down there, Wes. Sort the little fucker out.’

  This happens to be my plan, too, but the night is still young and a conversation with Sean can wait. In the meantime, I need to clarify another issue.

  ‘The police think you were going back into the cocaine business, H.’

  ‘They’re right. I was.’

  ‘With Shanti. And Wes, here.’

  ‘Right again.’

  ‘But it turned out to be a set-up, H. A trap. Enticement.’ I’m looking at Wesley now. ‘So how much did you know about all this? Be honest.’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Setting Shanti up. Getting her to source drugs. Getting H to pay for it.’

  ‘It was H’s fucking idea. He just told us.’

  ‘Yes, but you helped it along. Maybe at the invitation of our police friends.’

  ‘You’re telling me I grassed H?’ He’s staring at me. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Asking. I’m asking. That’s all.’

  ‘Then wash your fucking mouth out. I don’t need any of this. I came here to do you guys a favour. I’ve been digging H out of the shit all my fucking life, and tonight’s no different. You want me to sort this situation? No problem. But never use that word again.’

  ‘Grass? That was your word, Wes, not mine.’