Hold Back the Night

by Hold Back the Night (retail) (epub)

  My reveries were broken by the sight of the top of the street I was headed for. I looked at the corner where the boy had slammed into me. It seemed strange to be back there. I turned into the sun-baked road and drove along slowly, passing the house in which I had found Lucy. There were plenty of spaces but I parked right at the bottom and walked back up. I stopped outside the door. The door was bolted tight with industrial padlocks, and there was also a cross of fluorescent tape announcing the fact that the police would be very grateful if persons did not try to enter the premises or touch the locks in any way. I heeded the request, going only so far as to lean against the wall of the house while I took some sheets of paper out of my jacket pocket, the ones I had removed from Andy Gold’s file. The sheets were stapled in the top left-hand corner and I flipped them over until I’d got to the page I needed.

  The house I was standing outside of was registered in the name of a Mrs J. Anthony, a woman who had died five years earlier. At the time of her death Mrs Anthony was not officially divorced and the house had reverted to her estranged husband, a Mr Henry Anthony who, if he was still alive, was now resident in Auckland, New Zealand. Mr Anthony had apparently been informed of his good fortune at the time of his wife’s death but had made no effort to claim the house, and it had remained empty for a year or so before, as a couple of residents who had been there a while reported to the police, some young people moved in. They were soon replaced by other young people, leading to a succession of different ‘tenants’ during the intervening period, all of them young.

  The curtains in the front window were open a touch and I peered through the gap into the living room. It was dark, so I couldn’t see very much, not that there was very much to see. I thought about what the report said; a succession of young people. I was surprised. A good squat like this was a gold mine, I couldn’t imagine why people would leave it. Also, it had a phone, as well as gas, water and electricity, so someone had been together enough to pay the bills on time. This didn’t seem too plausible if the kids living there only stayed for short periods.

  I walked back down the street to number fourteen, and knocked on the door. No one answered. I looked down the list again. There were five other houses in which residents had lived for more than five years and I crossed the road to number twenty-three. My hand went up to the brass knocker but the door was opened before I could reach it.

  ‘You from the Sun then?’

  I stopped and shook my head.

  ‘Saw you looking through the window over there. We’ve had a few like that. Must say you’re the most normal looking, which is why I knew you were one of them paparazzi. We’ve had all sorts of fucking weirdos. Right morbid if you ask me.’

  ‘I’m not from a newspaper,’ I said. ‘I’m investigating the murder that took place over there.’

  ‘Blimey,’ the woman said, closing the door a fraction. ‘Haven’t your lot asked enough questions round here?’

  ‘You can never ask too many questions,’ I said, as seriously as I could.

  The woman standing in front of me was in her mid to late thirties. She was small, barely over five feet, and quite chubby. She used one hand to shield her eyes and the other to hold a cigarette. She wore large, gold earrings and was dressed in a loose white tee shirt with thin red stripes, which she evidently felt was long enough to simultaneously perform as a dress. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. I took out the sheets of paper, letting the woman see the Met’s logo on the top, and then asked her if she was Mrs Iris Chortney.

  ‘Juliet Chortney,’ she said. ‘Iris is my mother-in-law, for my sins.’

  ‘Right,’ I nodded. ‘Can I ask you whether you knew the woman who used to own the house where the murder took place? A Mrs Anthony.’

  ‘Who?’ Juliet squinted, and looked past me into the street. ‘I didn’t think anyone did own that place, I always thought it was a squat. I know one thing, it was full of little druggies…’

  At that moment there was a movement behind the woman, and I looked over her head into the dim hallway. An old lady was struggling into the passage from a doorway on the left-hand side, manoeuvring a Zimmer frame in front of her with head-down determination. Juliet followed my eyes round towards her.

  ‘Mum!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing?’

  The old lady didn’t look up. ‘I’m not your mother. I heard my name.’

  Juliet moved down towards her but the old lady was head on to me now and moving with the steady determination of a glacier. She didn’t slacken her pace. Juliet hovered in front of her.

  ‘Go and sit down, Mum, or this nice policeman’ll think that we don’t need our care allowance.’

  ‘There’s no such thing, not any more. And what do I care what he thinks?’

  ‘Mum—’

  ‘Get out of my way,’ the old lady said. ’And put something on before you open the door to strangers.’

  The younger woman made a strangling gesture with her hands that she didn’t bother hiding from the old lady, but she gave up the fight. I put my notebook away and waited for the old lady to make it down towards me. Once she’d established herself at the door she stopped and leant against her frame, getting her breath back. I looked down at her. Mrs Iris Chortney was almost bald, wisps of white hair like wool caught on barbed wire providing scant cover for the liver spots that gave her head the look of an old football. She had once been taller than her daughter-in-law but was now about the same height. When she finally looked up at me, raising her head with apparent effort, I could see through her glasses that there was a brightness in her milky-blue eyes, which managed to fight its way through two heavy, crusted lids. The old lady’s hands gripped the frame like an old vine clinging on to wrought iron.

  ‘What do you want now?’ she snapped. Juliet, behind her, stood leaning against the wall, shaking her head, pulling on her fag. I hesitated.

  ‘Before I ask you anything, Mrs Chortney,’ I said, ‘I’d like to say that I’m not a police officer.’

  Her eyes narrowed until there was almost nothing there. ‘What are you?’

  ‘I’m a private detective. I’m working for the family of the girl who was killed. Lucy Bradley. Across the street. They’re very keen to know what happened to her.’

  Behind her, Juliet raised her head.

  ’It’s all right for them after, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Feeling guilty. What about before? It’s the families I blame for not looking after ’em. Well-off too, weren’t they? I read it in the paper.’

  The old lady grimaced as though she had a bad taste in her mouth.

  ‘They already asked me lots of things,’ she said, shaking her head. Her voice was a good ten years younger than she was. ‘But I was asleep, of course I was. I don’t go to bed till late most nights, but not that late. All I knew was when the lights were all flashing and they started knocking on the doors. I’d like to help you but how am I to know what happened…?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Chortney,’ I said. ‘I understand. I’m not interested in that. How could you know anything?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I smiled and nodded. ‘But what I’d like to know is whether you knew the woman who used to live in the house. Before.’

  ‘Kids,’ she said. ‘All kids. Nice enough, most of them.’

  ‘A Mrs Anthony,’ I said, ‘who died some time ago? She lived here before the last five years, before the kids moved in. She lived here all her life as far as I know. Do you recognize the name? Mrs J. Anthony?’

  The old lady seemed surprised. ‘June? June Anthony?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Did you know her?’

  Mrs Chortney looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes I did. Of course. In those days you did know people. June, you want to talk about?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Well then you’d better come in,’ she said. ‘No use standing out here, is there?’

  Juliet shook her head and drew a sharp intake of breath. She muttered to herself as she and I proces
sed behind her mother-in-law as the old lady made her way back down the hall and into the front room, where she eventually backed herself up into her chair like a forklift. In a voice laced with sugared irritation Juliet asked the old lady why she hadn’t just stayed there all the time and let me come through to her.

  ‘You’ll wear yourself out, Mum,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll wear you out, you mean. Care allowance! Sitting on your fat backside all day or else gadding about all night. How do you care for me? If I hadn’t come out you’d have stood there all day trying to chat this man up and he would never have found out what he wanted.’

  The younger woman looked at me as if to apologize for her mother-in-law and smiled. I just nodded. She came and sat a little too next to me on the springy sofa, but was soon informed that the best thing she could do was get out of our hair and make some tea. She gritted her teeth but did what she was told. When she came back into the small, neat room, with its flower pattern brown wallpaper and photos on the mantel, and I took a sip of the tea she handed me, I wondered if she had a part-time job in catering at the police station on Calshot Street.

  Mrs Chortney and I spoke for an hour. She was an entertaining old lady with a sharp sense of humour. She told me a lot of stories about people who lived on the street, sometimes remembering that it was Mrs Anthony I was interested in, sometimes not. Though most if not all of what she told me was just by-the-by, I did enjoy listening to her. I think she enjoyed the chance to remember.

  I put together a picture. Mrs June Anthony was the only daughter of a tailor and had lived in the house opposite ever since both she and Mrs Chortney were little girls. Though they went to different schools, the girls were friendly. June, who had changed her name with each of her marriages, was, apparently, a rather large lady, and had had three husbands, the first of whom Iris could only describe as a spiv. He had tried to avoid serving his country, she told me, but had eventually ended up in Burma in 1945. He didn’t come back.

  ‘At least not to her,’ Iris said, leaning forward in her chair. ‘Though my late husband Frank swore on his very life that he saw him one day on Oxford Street, right as rain, live as you are, in a nice new whistle and a shiny pair of shoes. Frank reckoned he just got one of his mates to write the letter so he could hop it. He never told June though, Frank didn’t. He said she was better off out of it.’

  Mrs Anthony was left with a son, but married again soon, this time to a man who didn’t leave her until fifteen years later, when he definitely was dead.

  ‘I helped lay him out,’ Iris said. ‘Frank told me to offer. He said he would never be able to be sure if I didn’t, the silly old fool.’

  Iris began to laugh at the memory, and then became a little subdued at the thought of her husband. She got herself together though and then told me that June had married again, but had been left by her final husband who had gone to live in Australia, she thought. That was ten years before she died.

  ‘She was very sad after that, June was,’ Iris said. ‘And her son didn’t help, only coming round when he wanted money off her, the mean sod. Right piece of work he was, though Juliet was friendly enough with him if I can remember right, weren’t you, dear?’ The look she gave her daughter-in-law left no doubt as to what she meant. Juliet didn’t say anything. ‘She saw to him though, June did. Never even left a will as far as I’m aware. He certainly didn’t get the house. It’s something which I’m considering myself if the truth be told.’ Mrs Chortney’s face looked deadly serious as she turned once again to her daughter-in-law.

  ‘Seriously considering.’

  I ignored the tea as politely as I could and if Juliet was offended in any way she chose not to show it. When I stood up to go Mrs Chortney insisted on showing me out, telling Juliet to stay where she was.

  ‘Your Australians are on soon, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t want to miss them, would you, dear?’

  Mrs Chortney told me that her son would be home soon, if I needed to speak to him, but I told her I probably wouldn’t. When we finally got to the door I thanked her for her time and said that I hoped very much to see her again some day. She gave me that look old people sometimes give you when you say that, accompanied by a nod and a distant smile. She stayed standing in the doorway while I walked back down to the Mazda, and then held up a hand as I drove past. I waved back to her. In the window I could see Juliet using the telephone. I slowed a little. Then I hit Leonard Cohen again and drove up towards Agar Grove.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I got home I unlaced my shoes rather than my trainers, eased my tie loose, and returned my suit to the hanger instead of pulling a tee shirt over my head. It made me feel like someone who had a real job. I poured myself a vodka and tonic and thought how much I’d actually got done in one day. And there was more to come. It reminded me of being on the Force and I remembered those intense periods, trying to break a case, working all hours God or the devil sent. For a second or two I even missed it and Ken Clay’s words came to mind about why I left. Was he right? Was I just running away? Would it have been better after all to have stayed and got on with it? No. I only had to look at him to know that in many senses I’d been lucky. I’d have become just like him. A slicker version maybe but no different; using the most sensitive parts of people to get to them, making people hate me on purpose just so they would tell me things. I might even have become like Andy Gold, hustling the odd fifty quid out of his contacts, making dodgy plays for every woman he went anywhere near. It must just be the heat, I decided. I got under the shower and let an almost painful torrent of water pound the thoughts out of me.

  Drying myself off I took a look at my leg and at my hand and saw that they were both a lot better. I cut up a banana on a bowl of cereal and ate it quickly before pulling on some sweatpants and a tee shirt. I packed a bag, locked up my flat, decided against the bike and walked downstairs to the car.

  It felt good to put in a workout and then get in the ring. I was tentative at first, feeling my way into my body like it was a new pair of shoes. But I soon got into it. Being able to move freely felt like repossessing myself, getting control of my limbs again. It gave me a real sense of freedom to be able to work out, or stand up opposite another person, to push my body to do things it naturally resisted but naturally responded to at the same time. I was pretty fucked after a couple of hours but I felt invigorated, and I told myself to make sure that I reinserted my training into my schedule. It’s as easy to get out of good habits as it is to get into bad ones. Sal said it was nice to have me back off my holidays.

  Before taking a shower I stood in front of the mirror. I don’t cultivate an overly bulky physique but I do like to be trim, and I saw a slight decline from the previous month, caused no doubt by my lay-off. It was something that was probably only noticeable to myself, but it was there. Something else was noticeable too, a faint though still visible area of purply-green bruising just below the hip bone on the top of my left leg. I touched it with my hand and it was a little tender. I wondered for a second where I’d got it. It hadn’t come from the ring and nor was it a remnant from the fight I’d had. Odd. Then I did remember where it came from and the memory made me smile. Bad lass. I could even remember the sharp, sweet pain. The memory was then followed by another response, an immediate one that made me glad that I’d ducked out of training a little earlier than usual and that none of the boys were about to see it. It might have given them the wrong idea.

  * * *

  I sat in the car outside the place for a while, watching people coming in and out, waiting to see if George Curtis did either. I thought about the kid, sneaking in the back to rob his freezers. Maybe he did, and maybe Curtis caught him as he said. Right now, nothing seemed amiss. There were the usual sort of customers, lads going to or from the pub, and also four or five men dressed in suits or else still quite smartly, who didn’t look like they were used to frequenting scuzzy little fast food joints. They probably knew the boss, I reasoned, and this impression w
as enhanced by the fact that only one of them actually bought anything, and this just a can of Coke. None of them stayed long so I figured Curtis was out, though I sat in the car for an hour to make sure. Then I moved the car to a side street and walked back down the High Street, tucking three photographs into the back pocket of my Levi’s.

  I stood in front of the counter behind a couple of lads wearing Jamaica football shirts. When they’d been served I stepped up and the man who was serving asked me what I wanted. He was a small, thin man with lank greasy hair tied up in a sad attempt at a ponytail. A Shetland ponytail. I told him I wanted a chicken kebab with salad and chillies in pitta, no mayonnaise. He nodded his head but didn’t say anything. He picked up a long knife and started slicing top to bottom down the cone of processed meat, sending long strips of greasy white chicken curling and then falling into a catch-tray at the bottom. I took the opportunity to glance beyond him into a kitchen area, but I couldn’t see anyone. The man picked a pitta up off the grill and split it, before using his fingers to add salad from a row of plastic tubs between us. I leant against the counter.

  ‘George in tonight?’ I asked, with a yawn.

  The man behind the counter rested his eyes on me as he stopped what he was doing. He left a second.

  ‘No, he’s out.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Who shall I say’s calling?’ the man asked.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  I looked at him. ‘What does it matter? You said he was out.’

  ‘Never mind,’ the man said. He got the meat from the tray, assembled the kebab, laid three pickled chillies on top and then asked me for as many pounds. I handed the coins to him, took the food and left.

  Camden was beginning to really smell now. The trash was piled up like trenches so that in some places you could hardly see over it onto the street. They were really going to have to do something about this soon. The sticky odour that hung in the breathless night air all around me even made the thing in my hand smell tempting. Almost.