Midnight Fugue

by Reginald Hill

  ‘You mean the fat bastard’s up to his old tricks?’ she said. ‘Need-to-know rules, except he’s usually the only one who needs to know?’

  ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘I know. Come here!’

  She put her arms around him and drew him close, crushing him against her body. This had nothing to do with mellow fruitfulness. This came out of the dreadful awareness that only when she had him in her grasp like this could she be sure of him. Out of her sight he was at the mercy of whatever malignant Fate cared to hurl. She would never forget, could never forget, the moment they had come to tell her that he’d been caught in the same explosion that comatized Andy Dalziel.

  ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘Or I may have to do you for perverting the course of justice.’

  ‘Do me any which perverted way you like, so long as you come back safe,’ she said.

  He broke away and went out of the front door. Without his supporting strength she felt faint and dizzy.

  How much easier life would be without love, she thought. The Holy Joes are forever preaching that it’s love that makes the world go round. It isn’t. It’s love that stops the world in its tracks. Be faithful in love, they tell us, and all will be well. Travel with love in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.

  They’re right. You’ll have a shadowy companion, invisible only at the moments of greatest ecstasy, but otherwise constantly present. His names are fear and loss and pain.

  One way or another, love always betrays.

  13.35–15.25

  By the time Fleur Delay got back to the hotel, she was close to collapse.

  The adrenalin rush of having to deal with the aftermath of Vince’s violence had kept her going till they reached the car. Then she’d said, ‘You drive,’ and sank into the passenger seat.

  Vince said anxiously, ‘You OK, sis?’

  ‘Yes, sure, I just banged my head.’

  She put her hand to her brow and looked in the rear-view mirror. There was a small cut there with a trickle of blood which she wiped away with a tissue.

  Vince, reassured, drove carefully away from Loudwater Villas. He was normally a flashy driver, but he knew that his sister would get seriously pissed if he did anything that drew attention.

  Sometimes Fleur felt it as a blessing that he was so easy to fool. Sometimes it filled her with fury and resentment. Anyone else living as close to her as he did would have been aware for a couple of months at least that there was something seriously wrong. There had been times after the fatal diagnosis when she had come close to telling him that she hadn’t been away from home for a minor woman’s operation, that the drugs he sometimes saw her taking couldn’t be bought over the counter at the local chemist’s, that the wigs she’d started wearing weren’t a belated fashion statement in reaction against the onset of middle age. If she could have hoped for loving support and comfort, she might have given way to the temptation. But she knew that when the time came to say, ‘Vince, I’ve got news for you. I have an inoperable brain tumour and I’m going to die,’ the support and comfort would be all one way.

  She wanted to have him safe and secure when she told him, she wanted him to be a long way away from London, and most of all she wanted him to be a long way away from Goldie Gidman. Spain wasn’t all that far, but it was as far as she could hope to remove Vince, and even then she had found it hard to get him to share her enthusiasm for the idea of buying a villa on the Costa del Sol and settling down there. For a holiday it suited him very well with its sunny beaches, cheap booze, and unending supply of succulent bimbos who’d left their inhibitions behind at Luton Airport. But as for living there…!

  She’d countered with economic arguments. This was the perfect opportunity for them to invest some of their hard-earned savings in a bit of truly palatial real estate. The Spanish property boom had gone into a nose-dive as the credit squeeze left lots of ex-pats unable to keep up payments. Making a sale even at a substantial loss was better than repossession and for someone with Fleur’s long experience of the economics of distress it had been easy to snap up a real bargain: four bedrooms, sea views, private garden, swimming pool, games room, all mod cons, at just over half the price the owners had paid three years ago.

  The deal was close to completion, but the way she’d felt over the past few days, the sooner it was done the better.

  ‘We’re here, sis,’ said Vince.

  She opened her eyes. They were in the Keldale car park.

  In the next row she spotted the red Nissan, so that was all right.

  She said to Vince, ‘Take the laptop up to your room. You can keep a check on her in case she goes out again.’

  ‘Me?’ said Vince dubiously. Like following Blondie and Tubby into the cathedral, this wasn’t the kind of task he was usually given. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to get cleaned up, then I’ll take a close look at the stuff I took off that guy you shot, and then I’ll report in to The Man. That OK with you, Vince?’

  She spoke sharply. She’d always felt the need to be firm with Vince, but lately firmness had drifted into irritability.

  ‘No need to get in a strop,’ he said. ‘All I meant was, how long will you be? If the guy I offed is our man, we’ll be heading for home, right?’

  He sounded hopeful.

  She said, ‘Maybe.’

  She checked herself in the mirror. She looked a bit pale, but the cut on her forehead had stopped bleeding. Taking a deep breath, she got out of the car and willed herself to walk steadily towards the hotel.

  It seemed to take an age, but finally she was in her room with the Do not disturb sign on her door. She kicked her shoes off, went into the bathroom and bathed her face in cold water. Then she took a couple of tablets. How many had she taken today? She couldn’t remember.

  Back in the bedroom she looked longingly at the bed. It invited her to lie on it. Instead she spread across the duvet the trophies she’d brought with her from Loudwater Villas. A hip wallet, a mini recorder, and a phone.

  First she examined the contents of the wallet.

  A few pounds. A pack of condoms. Cards in the name of Gareth Jones.

  Jones. Not Watkins. Was that good or bad?

  Then she listened to the conversation on the recorder.

  Nothing she heard there surprised her.

  Finally she checked the incoming and outgoing numbers on his phone, wrote them down, accessed his messages, checked out his phone book and made notes.

  She tried to make sense of what she’d found, or rather make of it the kind of sense she wanted to make. It was no use. No way she was going to sell this to The Man as job done. Best she could look for was damage limitation.

  She took out her phone and rang Goldie Gidman.

  When he answered she gave no name but started straight in with her report, editing out all references to timings and her collapse, and editing in a version of events that made Vince’s reaction absolutely essential. She was as selective as she dared to be with the details of the contents of the wallet and the info she’d gleaned from the phone, but she needn’t have bothered. He’d always had the knack of smashing through no matter how thick a coating of verbiage to the essential truth of thing. At least he wasn’t close enough to reinforce the process with a hammer.

  ‘It’s not the guy,’ he said.

  ‘Probably not,’ she agreed wearily. ‘So what shall I do now?’

  There was a long pause. In her mind’s eye she could see him sitting there, the phone in his hand, staring into space. His mind would be checking over the known facts, formulating the possible outcomes. Eventually he would reach a decision about the best course of action. She’d known the process to take several minutes. She’d learned early not to interrupt with speech or movement, not even if your bladder was bursting or the ciggie in your fingers had burnt down to the skin.

  He said, ‘Where’s the woman?’

  ‘In her room. Vince is keeping an eye on her
.’

  ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t decide to shoot her.’

  A joke, or serious? Without a video phone, she couldn’t tell. The plus was, he couldn’t see her sitting here, bald as a snooker ball.

  If he was waiting for a laugh, he was disappointed.

  He said, ‘Question is, if it wasn’t Wolfe, why the fuck was he bugging Gina?’

  ‘Don’t know, Goldie.’

  ‘Makes no odds, I still need Wolfe. And fast. Don’t let the wife out of your sight.’

  The phone went dead.

  She looked in the dressing-table mirror and saw that the dome of her head was beaded with sweat.

  ‘You look like you just landed from Mars,’ she told herself. ‘Pity you don’t have a return ticket.’

  She had a sense of things falling apart, but when you felt like that the only thing to do was stick with the plan. Not that there was much of a plan. Follow the woman. If Vince saw the tracker moving on the laptop screen he’d bang on the door. Fleur hoped to hell the blonde cow stayed put for another hour at least. She needed the rest.

  She swept the Jones/Watkins trophies to the floor, fell across the bed, rolled over to wrap the duvet round her, and closed her eyes.

  In the room next door Vince had obediently set up the laptop. He realized he didn’t have its mains lead. That would be in Fleur’s room, but he didn’t want to risk worsening her mood by disturbing her. It wasn’t that he was scared of his sister, but no denying she could be scary! There was plenty of juice in the batteries anyway, so it didn’t matter.

  The pulsating green dot that showed the Nissan’s position remained steady in the car park. He turned his TV set on, keeping the sound low. There was nothing on the sports channels that he wanted to watch, so he checked out the hotel’s entertainment channel and accessed an adult movie. Its title promised a lot more than it gave. A few nice boobs, no pubes, and the kind of simulated passion that wouldn’t have fooled a myopic nun; all it did was put him in the mood for something that was really for grown-ups! After ten minutes of grunt and groan, he switched the set off and turned his attention to the laptop. The green dot was still in the car park.

  Most likely the blonde tart was in her room, sitting on Tubby’s face, he told himself. The thought did more for him than the movie had, and he ran his fingers over the keyboard and a few moments later he was into one of his favourite sites. He rose, went to the interconnecting door between his room and Fleur’s and made sure it was bolted. Then he stripped his clothes off and lay on the bed with the laptop to enjoy the fun.

  Over the next ninety minutes, he fetched himself off three times. The first had been an almost spontaneous reaction to the images on the screen, the second came after a long languorous build-up as he navigated his way through progressively more extreme sites, and the third time had been pretty mechanical to confirm that his recovery speed was as good as ever. Shooting that guy in the face had really turned him on; stuff like that usually did. Some hotels he knew, he could have come back and whistled up a woman, but the Keldale didn’t feel like it offered that kind of service, particularly on a Sunday afternoon. Anyway, with Fleur next door and likely to come calling, it was out of the question, so it had to be DIY time.

  He glanced at his watch. Coming up to half three. Rest a bit then go for number four? No, this movie stuff was all right and often provided some instructive tutorials, but it didn’t come close to a real woman. Blondie now, he wouldn’t mind an hour of grunt and groan and maybe a bit of slap and scream with her.

  The thought reminded him he was supposed to be watching the tracker screen.

  He exited his porn site and there it was, the green spot pulsating merrily in the car park. Probably still trying to coax Tubby into his first orgasm, he thought complacently. Might appreciate a real man.

  But no point thinking about that with Fleur calling the shots. Bit of a prude, old Fleur. He assumed she must have had it, because on the streets he grew up in, he’d never met any tart over fourteen who hadn’t. But where or who with he had no idea. Maybe The Man had given her one. He certainly wasn’t going to ask.

  He rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom. Nice refreshing shower, then downstairs for a cup of tea and a club sandwich. He sang ‘Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner’ as he soaped himself. He felt surprisingly happy. And why shouldn’t he be?

  Soon, with a bit of luck, they’d be out of this godawful town heading back to the civilized south where people knew who he was and showed him respect and didn’t speak like a bunch of fucking sheep with hiccoughs.

  And one thing was certain.

  Like with prison, once he was out of fucking Yorkshire, no way he was ever going back in!

  14.45–15.45

  Every time David Gidman the Third tried to prise himself away from the new community centre, someone got in his way. Several times he’d thrown Maggie Pinchbeck a desperate glance, appealing for rescue. All he got in return was an encouraging nod of the head.

  But at last he made it to the car. The charming smile with which he said farewell to his civic escort did not flicker till Maggie had driven beyond the range of prying eyes, then it broadened into a huge yawn.

  ‘God, that was mega boring,’ he said.

  ‘I noticed. Let’s hope no one else did.’

  Exaggerating his sulkiness because he feared he couldn’t altogether hide it, he said, ‘OK, sharp-eyes, on a scale of ten, how did I do?’

  ‘Six out of ten, six point five, maybe,’ she said promptly.

  He chewed on this for a while, then said, ‘Why do you imagine that relentless honesty makes your job more secure than fulsome flattery?’

  ‘I don’t. But if it doesn’t, I don’t want to work for you anyway.’

  He gave her a smile which if it had been any tighter might have cracked his teeth.

  OK, she was never going to give him the kind of comforts the two-metre model could provide, but at least she might do the occasional bit of ego-stroking.

  He said accusingly, ‘You didn’t warn me Jones was going to be there.’

  ‘That’s because I didn’t know. He wasn’t in church. In fact, I’m sure I saw Gem Huntley there, but she vanished afterwards. Not feeling well, he said.’

  ‘Yeah. You believe him?’

  ‘No.’

  She waited to see if he’d follow it up, but he didn’t.

  She drove in silence for a while then said casually, ‘That stuff Jones was spouting about wolves from the past biting you, what do you think that was all about?’

  He wasn’t surprised she’d latched on to it. She had a very sensitive radar.

  He said, ‘How the hell should I know? Probably came along for the free sandwiches. Why does the bastard hate me so much? I never did anything to harm him.’

  Maggie let this pass. After a moment she said, ‘Still, it’s strange. And he did give the impression he thought he was on to something.’

  ‘Part of his trade,’ he said dismissively. ‘The others call him Nine Ten. Knows more about tomorrow than he does about today. And he’s probably rattled his brain to jelly shagging Beanie the Bitch.’

  He closed his eyes and pretended to doze for the rest of the journey to his Holborn flat. You should live in the constituency, Maggie had advised. Not fucking likely, he’d replied. Holborn was a concession.

  As he got out, Maggie said, ‘Shall I come in? There’s stuff we need to go through for tomorrow.’

  ‘Later,’ he said. ‘I’m knackered. Think I’ll get my head down.’

  Not on Sophie Harbott you won’t, thought Maggie, who’d arrived early enough that morning to see the woman departing in what looked like high dudgeon. It was a liaison Maggie disapproved of more than most of her boss’s adventures. If the tabloids got a sniff he was shagging the wife of the Labour spokesman on religious affairs, they would fall over themselves to top each other’s headline: WHO’S CONVERTING WHO?…CROSS-BENCHING MODERN STYLE…COALITION COITION…the possibilities were endless.

&
nbsp; But that was, literally, Gidman’s affair. She’d made it clear that, so far as his love-life was concerned, she wasn’t getting involved in either arrangements or clean-up.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Six thirty? Seven?’

  ‘Whatever. By the way, did you get hold of the Chuckle Brothers?’

  This was the term he used for Kuba and Drugi, the two young Poles who’d done the work on his shower that had completed the cooling of Sophie’s ardour. They had been recommended by Maggie, who said she’d met them when working for ChildSave on immigrant families. Gidman had not been altogether displeased to have been able to complain about an arrangement made by his usually tediously efficient PA.

  ‘They’ll be there tomorrow,’ she promised.

  ‘Meanwhile I’ll just have to take a cold shower, I suppose,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Might do you good,’ she said. ‘See you later.’

  David the Third watched her drive away, then went up to his flat. For once he had time on his hands. He could do a bit of work on a speech he was making next week. Or read a book, watch a bit of telly, or even ring Sophie, see if she’d be interested in taking up where they’d left off. Probably not. Anyway, he didn’t feel much interested himself, in that or any of the other options. Jones the Mess had really got to him, he realized. What he needed were answers, and there was only one place to get them.

  Ten minutes later he was in his Audi A8 heading north. There are no good times for moving through London outside the small hours, but Sunday afternoon comes close and it wasn’t yet half three when he came to a halt before the high gates of Windrush House.

  The camera on the gate column viewed him for a moment then the metal gates swung silently open and he sent the car moving slowly forward up the long drive, careful as always not to provoke his father’s wrath by spraying gravel over the manicured lawns.

  As Gidman went up the steps to the front door, it was opened by a young black man dressed in immaculately creased burgundy slacks, a beautifully cut suede jacket and a white shirt so bright it made you blink.