by John Harvey
‘Your wife?’
Kosach halted. ‘Of course, what did you think?’
Cordon could only stare back at him, nonplussed.
‘And as for — what did you say? — being where they do not want to be …’ He gestured back towards the house with a sweep of his hand. ‘Why would they not want to be here? Where they belong.’
‘I know what she told me,’ Cordon said.
‘You heard, my friend, what you wanted to hear.’
When the path divided, they went towards a small stand of silver birch, a robin puffing out its chest on one of the branches until they came closer and it flew away.
‘It is true,’ Kosach said. ‘Letitia and I, there was an argument, a … misunderstanding, I think you would say. She is headstrong. If you know her at all, you will know this. Things were said.’ He shook his head. ‘All that is forgotten. You have, I think, this saying, forget and forgive.’
‘I want to see her,’ Cordon said.
‘I am afraid that is not possible.’
‘Hear her say in her own words this is where she really wants to be.’
Kosach looked at him through narrowed eyes and laughed. ‘Of course. All this time I thought you were some kind of father to her, you look after her, protect, you are policeman, after all, but no, you are in love with her yourself-’
‘The hell I am!’
‘You are in love with her and that is why you think she cannot be happy with someone else.’ He smiled. ‘Believe me, my friend, I understand.’
‘Yeah? Well, understand this, no way am I your fucking friend.’
‘And now you are angry and upset.’
More than anything else, Cordon wanted to punch him in the mouth, shut out the supercilious, patronising crap, the accent that came and went. With an effort, he kept his hands to his sides.
The path circled back towards the house.
Neither man spoke again until they had arrived back at the main door.
‘I want to see her,’ Cordon said again.
‘And I have told you-’
‘She’s here?’
A pause. ‘Yes, she is here.’
‘Then let me speak to her. If she says the same as you, without duress, then that’s an end to it.’
‘An end?’
‘Yes.’
Kosach studied him again, staring at his face. ‘You are a man of your word?’
‘As much as any man.’
‘Very well. Wait here.’
Kosach went briskly inside and the two men who had searched Cordon reappeared and stood, arms folded, on the steps to either side of the door. The help living up to the stereotype, at least.
Five minutes shaded into ten.
Cordon shifted his balance from one foot to the other, flexing the muscles in his calves. A small jet of pain nagging, intermittently, at the base of his left leg, the foot. Achilles heel?
Kosach reappeared at the door.
‘Please. Come inside.’
Letitia stood in the curve of a stairway that swept up from an expanse of tiled floor. Pale, little make-up, some shadowing around the eyes, a bruising of colour across her mouth. Her hair had been dyed a darkish brown and held her face in a tight frame. No smile; no more than a hint of recognition in her eyes. Cordon wondered if she were ill, or merely very, very tired. The clothes she wore, drab shades of grey.
‘Letitia?’
Barely a movement at the sound of her name, his voice.
‘Your friend, Letitia, he has a question to ask. He wants to know if you’re happy here. Are you happy, Letitia?’
‘Of course.’
‘And is anyone keeping you here against your will?’
She looked puzzled, as if the question made little sense.
‘Do you want to stay here?’ Cordon asked.
A flicker of the eyes.
‘Because if you don’t …’ moving towards her, towards the foot of the stairs, ‘if you don’t you could leave with me, now. You understand what I’m saying?You could go, you and Danny, now.’
As if at the sound of his name, the boy appeared on the landing above, and, seeing Cordon, called his name and started to run towards him, two, three steps at a time, until his father’s warning shout of ‘Danya!’ stopped him, teetering, in his tracks.
‘Letitia?’ Cordon said again, but her head was turned towards Kosach, not to him, the look that passed between them then impossible to read.
‘Danya,’ Kosach said, ‘go to your mother. Now.’
Cautiously, the boy retreated up the stairs and clung hold of his mother’s skirt, one of her arms around his shoulders, tight, the other gripping the balustrade, wedding ring in plain sight.
‘If it’s what you want, Letitia,’ Kosach said, stepping quickly to the door, throwing it open, ‘you can go.’
Other than tightening her grasp of Danny’s shoulders, she didn’t move.
Still at the door, Kosach shifted his gaze towards Cordon. ‘An end to it, I think that’s what you said.’
The anger that still simmered inside Cordon was cauterised by disillusion, disappointment, lack of understanding.
His shoulders sagged.
‘The driver will take you back,’ Kosach said. ‘I do not expect to see you again.’
52
Karen had promised to meet Carla, early evening, nothing fancy, just the two of them, a small celebration.
‘Celebrating what?’ Karen had wanted to know.
‘Wait and see.’
Carla had suggested the American Bar at the newly refurbished Savoy Hotel, but when they arrived, just shy of eight o’clock, there was already a queue for seats and fighting your way to the bar was, Carla suggested, about as easy as getting to one of the lifeboats on the Titanic.
They made their way along the Strand to the lobby bar at One Aldwych, where, although busy, they not only found two recently vacated high-backed armchairs within minutes of arriving, but had a delightfully camp waiter at their side as soon as they were comfortably seated.
Carla ordered champagne cocktails — at?12 a pop, a small saving on the Savoy — and to go with them, a little something, as she put it, yummy to nibble on.
‘So,’ Karen said, leaning forward so as to be heard, ‘what’s the big news? Don’t tell me at last Hollywood’s come calling? You and Brad Pitt? Leonardo? George Clooney, even. Old, maybe, but not too old.’
‘Better than that, darling.’
‘What’s better?’
Carla was laughing. ‘Me in uniform.’
‘What?’
‘Uniform. Like the one you used to wear. Till, like, I get promoted.’
Karen was looking at her gone out. ‘Just let me get this straight. You’re going to be …’
‘Playing you. Yes, that’s right. I mean, not really you. But someone like you. This black policewoman who starts out walking the beat, but then after she helps solve this specially grisly murder she gets made up to detective. Oh, and I get to sing. Just karaoke, but, you know, real songs.’
Karen accepted her cocktail from the waiter, drank most of it down in a single swallow and ordered two more.
‘It’s ITV, their new series. Black and White. At least, that’s what it’s called for now. Might change. Something a bit more sexy.’
‘And this is all — what? — definite? Definitely happening or …’
‘No, it’s definite. This company making it, the real deal, yeah? Shameless, you know? Skins. That’s them. Tons of stuff. BAFTAs and Lord knows what all over the walls.’
‘And how did you …?’
‘Why me, you mean?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’
‘This guy, one of the producers, saw me at the National, didn’t he? That Jacobean thing I’ve been touring. Got in touch with my agent. Would I be interested in coming along for a chat sometime. Chat, my black arse! Lunch at the Groucho, thank you very much. Ended up more or less offering me the part before he’d signed for the bill.’
�
��More or less.’
‘That was then. Now it’s a done deal. Well …’ She laughed. ‘More or less.’
‘And this part, this role. This black policewoman. How big is it?’
Carla chuckled. ‘Girlfriend, it’s the lead!’
‘Say again? A police series with a black woman in the lead?’
‘Why not?’
‘Come on, Carla, in the States, maybe. What is it? HBO? But here. ITV?’
‘Well, there is this other guy. The whatever, Detective Chief Inspector. He’s white.’
‘And he’s in charge.’
‘Yes. But only in name. And I mean, not really. What they’re going for, you see, is something like the couple in that show that was on the Beeb. Ashes to Ashes? That what it was called?’
‘Ashes to Ashes, great. And you’re what? Keeley Hawes?’
‘I suppose.’
‘But in black face.’
‘Hey! Hey!’
‘Hey what?’
‘Why are you giving me such a hard time?’
Karen shook her head and sighed. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry, I-’
‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Well, I am …’
‘Pleased for me and well, I guess, pleased ‘cause of what it is. You know, someone — well, someone like you … Oh, you know what I mean.’
‘A positive role model?’
‘Yes.’
‘If that’s what it turns out to be.’
‘At least, give it a chance.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just …’
‘Just what?’
Karen shrugged.
‘Not a great time, you think, for being a role model for women of colour. Out in the real world, that is.’
‘Something like that, yes.’
The operation to arrest the suspects identified in the killing of Hector Prince had been carried out that morning. Five addresses in the Wood Green area raided, one hundred and fifty front-line officers involved, thirty of them armed, with three teams of firearms officers in reserve. As things had played out, there was considerable local resistance, in the course of which seven officers were injured, one seriously, when a length of stone coping was thrown from the ninth-floor balcony of a block of flats. When the ambulance arrived to provide assistance, it was attacked with bricks and bottles and, in one instance, a home-made firebomb.
Media comparisons were made to the killing of PC Keith Blacklock on the Broadwater Farm Estate back in ’85. The Sun, Mirror, Sky News, all had a field day.
In a different situation, the spectacle of Mike Ramsden, blood running like a dark zigzag down his face from where a chunk of brick had torn his forehead, seizing the microphone from some hapless young reporter and telling her to stick it up her scrawny arse, might have been one to cherish. As it was, for Ramsden a sore head and a serious reprimand were in order, with Karen, as his senior officer, not exempt from the latter.
And what proliferated were accusations of black mob rule.
No, not a great time.
‘I’m sorry,’ Karen said, ‘and it’s great, you’re right.’ Leaning across, she gave Carla a hug. ‘And I am really pleased for you, okay?’
‘You better be. ’Cause once this show gets rolling, it’s you I’ll be relying on for on-the-spot research. You realise that? In fact, why don’t I see about getting you taken on as some kind of special adviser? You’d be perfect.’
‘Thanks, Carla.’ Karen held up both hands. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’
‘We’ll see.’
Leaning back, Carla sampled one from a nicely overpriced dish of salted anchovies. Karen looked around for the waiter, refills needed.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘if you’re the black in this, who’s the white?’
‘The guy?’
‘Yeah, the guy.’
‘They’re not sure. A lot of names, but nothing yet nailed down.’
‘Names, like who?’
‘Oh, Damian Lewis, that was one. And that guy from The Wire, the cop, you know?’
‘McNulty?’
‘Yeah, him.’
‘The Irish one?’
‘Yes, but he’s not Irish. Well, his mother was, I think. But he’s English. Went to Eton. How much more English can you get?’
‘You’d never know it.’
Carla smiled. ‘Nothing’s what it seems, girlfriend. You should know that by now.’
Karen thought she was probably right. After one more round, the sound around them rising up to the high ceilings and reverberating back down, they decided to call it a night. Go their separate ways.
Her head less than clear and nursing the beginnings of what might be a hangover, halfway towards Holborn station Karen hailed a cab. When she alighted outside her flat some fifteen minutes later, there was a car she didn’t recognise parked a little way down, someone in shadow behind the wheel.
Karen hesitated, thought for a moment about going over, banging on the car window, showing her warrant card, but why bother? Just someone sleeping it off.
Fishing her keys from her bag, she went, without hurrying, up the steps towards the front door. As the key turned in the lock she heard the sound of a car door closing, steps approaching.
‘Thought you were never coming home. Thought I’d be stuck there all night.’
Alex. Alex Williams. Holding what looked suspiciously like a bottle of single malt.
53
‘Auchentoshan.’
‘What?’
‘How you say it, apparently. Aw-ken-tosh-an. At least, that’s what the guy in Oddbins told me.’
‘And he’d know.’
‘Doubt if he’s been north of Luton in his life.’
Karen had fetched two glasses; tumblers, but heavy bottomed enough to be close to the real thing.
There was a standard lamp with a shade in an odd colour of lime green in one corner; a small anglepoise on one of the shelves near the stereo. The curtains were drawn across, shutting out the London night.
With a choice of the one easy chair or a two-seater settee which abutted it at right angles, Alex had taken the chair. A low table sat between, cluttered with several unopened brown envelopes, the previous week’s Highbury and Islington Gazette, a book of short stories by someone with the unlikely name of Maile Meloy, and a letter from Karen’s mother in Jamaica. Karen dumped them all on the floor and set the glasses down in their place.
Alex swivelled the stopper from the bottle, leaned forward and began to pour.
‘I shouldn’t, you know,’ Karen said.
‘On the wagon?’
‘Just the opposite.’
‘Heavy night?’
‘Champagne cocktails at One Aldwych, if you please.’
‘Date? Celebration?’
‘Not a date. My friend, Carla.’
‘That’s the actress, right? I met her once. Some party?’
‘God, that was years ago. How on earth d’you remember?’
Alex smiled. ‘Collect information, store it away, it’s what I do.’ She tapped a finger against her temple, pushed a hand up through her short crop of hair. ‘All here, in the hard drive.’
Karen sat back, glass in hand. ‘You’re lucky. All I’ve got in there is mush.’
‘You say.’
The whisky was bright, not peaty, slightly sweet and went down a dream.
‘So what do you think?’ Alex asked.
‘About what?’
‘This.’ Alex held up her glass.
‘It’s good. Very good.’ She lifted the bottle. ‘Not heard of it before. More of a vodka drinker, I suppose.’
‘It was Roger introduced me to this. Couple of Christmases back.’
‘How is he? Roger?’
‘Fine. Off to Whitby with the kids. Bit of a half-term ritual. Stiff sea breezes and walks along the pier. Thinks it’s character forming.’
Karen laughed. Carla aside, it was with Alex, she supposed, that she felt most relaxed. Alex herself ce
rtainly looked relaxed enough, feet tucked up beneath her, wearing what seemed to be her usual off-duty outfit of blue jeans and a denim shirt, worn out and unbuttoned over a pale lavender vest. Her coat she’d shucked off the minute she came through the door.
In comparison, Karen, still in her glad rags, felt overdressed.
‘I guess,’ Alex said, leaning forward again to top up their glasses, ‘I should have brought something to go with this. Something for ballast. Fancy crisps, at least.’
‘Oh, wait. Wait.’ Karen jumped up, heading for the kitchen, then wished she hadn’t moved quite so fast. ‘I’ve got crisps out here. Sea salt and something or other. Two for one in Tesco. And there’s salami in the fridge. At least, I think there is. And cheese.’
She scurried round, unwrapping, finding plates, ferreting out a jar of olives from where it had got trapped behind the Tabasco and the soy sauce. When she turned, Alex was there, standing in the doorway. Just leaning, leaning sideways against the frame, one foot crossed over the other, hands by her sides.
‘Need some help?’
The light from overhead was catching the red in her hair.
‘No, thanks. It’s okay, I’m fine.’
From nowhere, Karen wanted to touch her hair.
Alex smiled: stayed where she was.
Pearl of her skin.
Karen fumbled a fork and it clattered to the floor.
‘It’s okay,’ Alex said, taking half a pace forward. ‘Leave it where it is.’
Karen caught her breath. And then she was touching her, touching her hair, the crown of her head, the ends where they tapered softly down towards her neck. The corner of her mouth. Then kissing her.
Oh, Christ!
Alex’s hand on her breast.
When Karen woke it was past four. A line of sweat zigzagged, dry and crystalline, from her navel to the hollow of her neck. Beside her, one arm raised up towards her face, Alex slept. Mouth slightly open, a faint whistle of breath.
Karen needed to pee.
As she swung her legs round from the bed, Alex stirred.
‘It’s early,’ Karen said. ‘Go back to sleep.’
But when she returned, Alex was sitting up, pillows propped at her back, smiling sleepily.