Pain of Death

by Adam Creed

  ‘Tommy’s a friend, is all.’

  ‘In the music business?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘And a friend of Kerry’s, too, I bet.’

  ‘They know each other. Kerry knew a lot of people and so does Tommy. This isn’t such a big city, you know.’

  ‘We were talking about Kerry and her men the last time I was here,’ says Josie.

  ‘Do you know who Tommy is?’ Cello sneers.

  ‘We can do you a favour,’ says Josie. ‘We can get you out of this mire you’ve talked your way into.’

  ‘I’m in no mire.’

  ‘Without you, there’s no way we would have linked Tommy Given to Kerry. I suppose if he asked, we’d tell him that you led us to him.’

  Cello Delaney sits down heavily in a chair at a small table in the corner of her kitchen. She lights up a cigarette and says ‘Fuck,’ as Pulford makes them all a cup of coffee.

  Eventually, Cello says, ‘How can I trust you?’

  ‘How can you not?’ says Josie.

  ‘I don’t know anything. Not really.’

  ‘Give us what you’ve got and you’re safe.’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘Just like Sean. You’re the one who said Sean was being looked after. It’s Tommy who makes him safe, right?’

  She nods, appraising the tip of her cigarette.

  ‘And what about Kerry? What did Tommy Given do for her?’

  ‘Got her that residency, is all I know.’

  ‘At Rendezvous? Why would he do that?’

  Cello shrugs. She takes her coffee from Pulford and lobs her cigarette into the sink; sparks up another.

  *

  Staffe walks away from Anthony Bright’s dream home. From what Alicia Flint has told him, it was always Anthony’s dream, to have a home like this. The garden suburb is where a certain sort of aspiring couple would want to be. He notices the apple blossom is out. It’s too soon. There could still be a frost and then there will be no fruit.

  He thinks about the row he had with Alicia Flint after Anthony’s assault on himself. Whether it was a cry for help or a flight from interrogation, Alicia Flint had blamed Staffe for pushing Anthony too far, but they both know Anthony had come to the interview with his pencil device. He had come prepared.

  The street is tree-lined and no two houses in this interwar garden suburb are alike. Birds shrill and retired folk and housewives potter and stoop in their gardens, readying for the summer.

  He looks at his map and turns left and right and left and right again, crossing the green and weaving a way to the outer skin of the unreality of the estate until he can see the clock tower that stands proudly at the head of Wavertree High Street, leading to the city proper. Now, he sees what he wants – his first CCTV camera. Gone are the curtain twitchers, here are the mechanical eyes. He refers to the master sketch of the security web that Alicia Flint’s DC had given him and he ticks off each camera from here all the way to the railway station. Whenever and wherever possible, Zoe Bright took the train rather than the bus – as borne out by the contents of her bin and by her husband.

  When he gets to the station, Staffe sees that by changing once and travelling under the Mersey, then getting a bus, he can get to Parkgate in just over an hour. He buys his ticket and calls into Flint’s DC with the co-ordinates of the coded CCTV positions. He gives the date and time frame of Zoe Bright’s disappearance.

  He can’t help feeling that the real key to this case is that unholy pair Vernon Short and Lesley Crawford. Or must he simply dig so deep into Kerry Degg and Zoe Bright’s pasts that the truth will emerge – like drilled oil?

  The unwelcome truth, he knows, is that sometimes you have to engage as deeply as you can on each and every front of enquiry – until a theory becomes untenable. For now, much as he is beginning to miss his own city, he gets the train, changes, and then a bus.

  *

  Zoe might have been seen on the streets here in Parkgate. She might have been with somebody that day. He takes out the cartons Zoe chose to cling onto: the potted shrimp and ice-cream tubs, somehow harking back to a previous age. A childhood in which she was never fully indulged?

  His phone goes and it is an unknown number.

  ‘Sorry, chief. They only keep the video data for three days,’ says the DC.

  ‘Shit,’ says Staffe.

  ‘You know how many CCTV cameras we have? And someone’s got to watch the stuff.’

  ‘Someone watches it all?’

  ‘They fast-forward it. Up to twenty-four times. That’s an hour to cover a day. We’ve got sixty cameras. Do the maths.’

  ‘And is anything kept?’

  ‘Too right. Just the juice, though.’

  ‘And that day – between midday and four in the afternoon – the three cameras I told you about?’

  ‘They’re all on Greavo’s watch. I can’t tell if he saved anything or not. You can ask him. He’s in tomorrow.’

  ‘Get hold of him.’

  ‘He’s on leave.’

  ‘Get hold of him and give him my number.’ Staffe hangs up, looks across at the Welsh hills. There should be sea between here and them; instead, a silted estuary with marshes and sandbanks. A different country, altogether.

  Parkgate’s promenade is flanked on one side by a fine terrace of mid-nineteenth-century houses and on the other by wrought iron. But beyond the railings, where there should be a beach and a sea, there is only grass. The sea is gone. The pub is called the Ship and there is an old-fashioned fish and chip restaurant, a café that would have been a Lyons or Forte in its day, an ice-cream parlour and a shrimp-and-cockle shack. But no sea. Gulls are above and salt is in the air. And no sound of surf, nor the rattle of shingle beneath the tide.

  The trippers have come nonetheless and they cluster against the dry breeze, stabbing their cockle and whelk tubs with thin blades of wood; they lick at ice-cream, and Staffe follows the trail, goes into the shrimp shack, checking the livery on the empty tub he purloined from Zoe’s house. This is the place.

  He shows the youth behind the counter his warrant card and the queue disperses. The boy tells Staffe, ‘I fuckin’ done nowt. You lost me them customers.’

  Staffe holds the photograph of Zoe up and sees the youth instantly clam up, tight as a live shell. ‘I think she used to come here, maybe every couple of weeks, so if you don’t tell me when you last saw her, I’ll bring you in – all the way across the water and then you’ll have no fucking customers for the whole day. Maybe longer.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her,’ says the youth.

  Staffe shuts the door, turns the sign around to show ‘Closed’ to the outside. He picks a tub of potted shrimps from the counter and leaves a fiver, sits on a low, three-legged stool and stabs the buttered flesh. It melts in his mouth, tastes of a near shore. He lets the shrimp go its own way and spears another and another, savouring each and every one. Traces of mace enrich the flesh. He takes out a tenner and takes two more pots. ‘You don’t know what you’ve got here,’ he says to the youth.

  ‘But I don’t like ’em.’

  ‘Sick of the sight?’ Staffe looks up at him. ‘I’m only trying to help her.’

  ‘She’s in trouble?’

  ‘You could help save her.’

  ‘She never says much,’ says the youth.

  ‘She come with a friend?’

  The youth shakes his head. He has dry skin that flakes around his eyebrows and on his forehead and chin. ‘I only seen her on her own. She looks sad.’

  ‘She’d come on a certain day?’

  ‘Sunday mornings, most often.’

  ‘But not last Sunday?’

  He shakes his head again.

  ‘And not with her husband?’

  ‘She got a husband?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she?’ says Staffe.

  ‘He must like rollmops, then. The husband.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘She always took rollmops, wrapped. She’d have the shrimp f
or herself. Like you. But she said she can’t abide rollmops. That’s what she said.’

  ‘Give me a couple of rollmops,’ says Staffe, thinking it might brighten Anthony’s day – for an instant.

  Staffe’s phone goes and he stands, leans on the counter and the youth takes a step back, as if he might catch something. Outside, a line of five people has formed, waiting for the shop to reopen.

  ‘They come from miles around,’ says the youth.

  ‘Inspector Wagstaffe? It’s Sergeant Greaves. I’m on leave, I …’

  ‘Second of April. Between one and four o’clock. I’m looking for a woman on cameras WH 3, 4 and 5. Hang on a second …’ Staffe takes his herrings and the shrimp and leaves the money, winks at the youth as he turns the sign back round on his way out. ‘… The woman is Zoe Bright. You’ll have heard of her, I’m sure.’

  ‘I know her all right. At least I do now.’ The phone goes quiet, fills up with background chatter, as if Greaves is outside a pub, and Staffe can tell he is smoking, breathing heavily. ‘What’s wrong, Greaves?’

  ‘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 h
er 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.’

  Sixteen

  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.’