It Was You

by It Was You (retail) (epub)

  ‘I think that too.’

  ‘Yes, well. You certainly look all right on it. You’re even thinner than the last time I saw you, you cunt. When was that?’

  ‘A year ago. Maybe more.’

  ‘Was it? Anyway.’ Andy ran both hands back through his black, glutinous hair, reminiscent of a cormorant caught in an oil slick. ‘I’ve had a terrible day, so I hope you appreciate the inconvenience of continuing to discuss police business once my shift is over.’

  ‘I do, Andy, I do.’ I’d known this was coming. ‘Here.’

  Detective Inspector Andy Gold was not the first person I’d called in my efforts to find out background on the murder of Josephine Thomas. I had other contacts on the police and I’d tried two of them first, but one was on holiday and the other, a woman named Coombes, was on a course. She was back Monday and I could have waited but I’d tried Andy instead and he’d agreed to meet me. Who knows? Maybe I actually wanted an excuse to see my former partner. Maybe I wanted to see the kind of man I might have become.

  Andy stuffed the three twenties I’d palmed him into his back pocket and then stretched, showing me a full Scrabble board of filled teeth. He smiled.

  ‘Thought you might be calling me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Not my case but I heard about it. Recognized the name of your building. Victim’s parents was it, hired you?’

  I shook my head. ‘A friend of hers. Another girl from the building.’

  ‘Whatever. Nice little earner for you. Fart around a bit, tell ‘em you’re getting somewhere but you need a bit more cash. Unless you think you can do what twelve murder detectives and thirty odd beat boys can’t?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘The friend’s just in the dark, feeling powerless. I said I’d try to find more background for her, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got that for you. Got some piccies too. And I hope you’re not thinking of eating later or getting laid because these are quite likely to put you off doing both for quite some time.’

  Andy pulled his case onto his knee and played with the combination. Two young women in office clothes squeezed by us and Andy waited until they were past to hand me a hard-backed A4 envelope. I slid my hand inside and pulled out a selection of photographs, which I looked at as discreetly as I could. The first was of a girl lying naked on her back on a mortuary table. The lighting was bright and uncompromising, showing me one deep stab wound in the girl’s side accompanied by five or six shallow, superficial slashes. The stab wound was purple and small, more like a puncture than a fatal wound. The skin surrounding it was a fading, bloodied yellow like raspberry jam stirred into custard. The snap was taken from the side but there were others taken from the top, the other side, the feet and head, the photographer’s flash gun finding its way into each and every pore and fold of the girl’s flesh.

  ‘Nice, huh?’

  ‘Very. You’re not on this, you said?’

  ‘Me? No ta. Carpenter – remember him?’

  ‘Carpenter?’

  ‘Humourless fuck. Pen-pusher, brings the Guardian into the station but you never see him look at it.’

  ‘I remember. Just surprised he ever came to head a murder. Personal hygiene issues?’

  Andy nodded. ‘The only roll-on he’s ever used is a car ferry. He’s got his lot working like tossers doing stuff that’s never going to get them anywhere.’

  ‘Didn’t mind you copying the file?’

  ‘Would have if I’d told him. Not much point, though. I can give you everything Carpenter’s got in two words.’

  ‘Being?’

  ‘Fuck and his good friend all.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. No weapon. Found the girl’s purse but that’s it.’

  ‘Prints?’

  ‘Sure, but no idea whose. He’s got nothing else and he’s starting to panic, especially as some helmet’ll probably crack it when a junkie caught with a bag of H shops one of his mates. You want a Scotch with that?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘OK, but you don’t mind if I get myself one? Looking at PM photos does tend to bring a thirst on. Here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at the size of her.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’ve got a theory. It’s a new terrorist group. They’re Muslims, ultra-thin Muslims.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I reckon they’ve issued a fatwa. A fatwa! Yeah, geddit? A fucking fatwa!’

  While Andy was at the bar I went through the rest of the pictures, all the time filtering them into the kind of thing I could talk to Jemma about. There were reasons why the police didn’t tell you things and I was looking at some of them. The next pictures were individual shots of the victim’s clothing, laid out on a white background. All of the garments were blood-soaked, a white vest-type undergarment torn where the knife had gone through. Just a little rip, easy to mend. Following these I was faced with the scene photos, the glimpse under the tarp that the WPC outside the Lindauer had taken. There were ten of these in all, close-ups of the body plus wide shots that told the whole story. I remembered the expression on the WPC’s face and looking at these pictures I understood it more. Jo hadn’t just taken a while to die. She’d tried to drag herself out of the alley, back the way she’d come, onto the road. Smears of blood followed her to her final position. There were small black pools at intervals of five or six feet, where she’d stopped and tried to get her breath. The final one, with Jo’s body lying in it, was the biggest one of all.

  The last picture in the pile was a headshot of Josephine, smiling into the lens. It was a studio shot, taken for acting purposes, and from what I remembered of her it looked about as much like Jo as the slab shots had. When Andy came back I slid it and the rest of the pictures into the envelope and then skipped quickly through the typed notes that were also in there. They were photocopies and Andy said I could keep them. There was detail, the bus route, time of death, but nothing concrete bar the prints: Josephine’s purse had been found in a litter bin half a mile away. I could see why Carpenter was worried and I could also see that, actually, there might be a space for me here. I spoke to kids all the time, kids on the street who heard things. If the perp was a user who’d freaked, it was just possible that I might get a whisper, one that wouldn’t blow the way of a desk hugger like Carpenter. You could paint the word on the street in bright yellow letters ten feet high and he still wouldn’t see it.

  ‘You sure about this? Just a mugging gone wrong?’

  ‘Me?’ Andy laughed. He’d been gazing through the smoke haze at the two office girls. I saw them checking us out. One looked Japanese and she smiled shyly. ‘I’m not sure about anything. Not my case.’

  ‘But that’s what’s being said?’

  ‘At the moment. Anything wrong with that? She didn’t have any enemies, except the thin Muslims. Just unlucky walking home. Shouldn’t have been alone, not in Dalston at that time of night. Perp sees the girl, sticks her and robs her. Her purse was gone.’

  ‘I know, but why do that to her? Hit her with something maybe, threaten, but stabbing her?’

  ‘Billy! Some cunt three days cold, not enough cash for the candy man! He doesn’t think like you.’

  ‘I know. You’re right. But there’s something. I don’t know. Her coat was open. When she was found, in the scene shots.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Seems odd. In the middle of October?’

  ‘She couldn’t be bothered to button it from the bus? It wasn’t far.’

  ‘It was pretty cold that night.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, she can’t be bothered with the fuss of undoing it again in five minutes. Or – what am I saying? – she was being mugged for God’s sake. They were after her money. He stabs her first and then searches her.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m just picking at the edges.’

  ‘I know. But don’t stop, Billy, because I really do hope you beat Carpenter to it. It’d be great to see his face if you
did. In fact, if you do get anywhere why don’t you give me a call? You pegging it is one thing but me doing it on my spare time’s another. If that happened Clay might finally realize what a useless fucker Carpenter is.’

  ‘You’ll be the first person I speak to, Andy,’ I assured him. ‘Aren’t you always?’

  Andy nodded and then a grin appeared on his face. I thought it was at the idea of unearned glory, something he’d always been a fan of, but his gaze had gone past me.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, reaching for his case, ‘if that’s all, which I assume it is, let’s go and see how far those sixty notes you gave me go to impressing those two smart lovelies, shall we? It’s been a pretty frustrating day, but you never know, one of us just might get to bang someone up tonight after all.’

  Chapter Eight

  I didn’t stay long with Andy. Or with Lauren, or Jenny. It was already seven-thirty and I had a date to keep. Andy tried to get me to have just one more but instead I went home, showered, and then slid my arms into a deep pink Turnbull & Asser double-cuff without a tie. Over it I pulled on a forty-year-old Gieves & Hawkes four-button I’d found in a shop up the road on Camden Passage, and which fitted me so well I was instantly converted about reincarnation. By eight-thirty I was walking down Exmouth Market again, this time away from my flat.

  The evening was warmer than the day had been, something I’ll never understand. I buttoned my jacket against the breeze and sank my hands into my trouser pockets. I stopped for a second outside Fred’s, a cafe/bar at the top end of Exmouth Market, to sympathize with Max, the owner, who was scrubbing at the graffiti some kind soul had chosen to bless his establishment with the night before. He turned to say hi to some locals walking into the already humming bar and then we both looked down the street at the probable culprits: a group of ten boys and girls from the estate on Margery Street. Mouths open, seemingly invertebrate in fake, over-sized Tommy gear. They were all smiling, one of them buzzing Max with one of those really witty pens that send out a red laser beam. Max held a hand up against it and dirty laughter burst out of them like a squeezed blackhead. I let out a breath, thanking God Mike wasn’t there. Fourteen years of self-sacrifice and you end up with that. The comedian with the laser pen turned it off as I moved towards him.

  When I got to Moro, Exmouth Market’s top, chic eatery, I stopped and looked through the window, pulses of relief running through me. Relief because I wasn’t looking at slab shots with Andy Gold or going over Mike’s domestic woes. I smiled to myself in anticipation of the night I had planned, the night I’d had planned for two weeks now. The events of eight months ago had put a serious dent in the relationship between myself and the man I consider to be my best friend. I’d started them by going out with his sister and ended them by persuading a Maltese crime lord not to kill him. Things had been strained between us but now that we’d done more talking than Ricki Lake and Oprah stuck in a lift, all we needed to do now was to go out on a big one. To eat well and drink well. To buy over-priced champagne for under-dressed women, one of whom Nicky would probably take home, the other I’d end up boring to death about my distant girlfriend. This was something that would definitely make treacle time go by, as would the hangover that was even then rubbing its hands together in anticipation.

  I waited at the smooth, steel bar for my friend and hoped he wouldn’t be long. I couldn’t shift the grim pictures of Josephine Thomas’s last movements from my head; added to that I had Sharon to think about. There had been a message from her when I’d got back from seeing Andy and she’d sounded strange, her voice betraying distance beyond the literal. Maybe it was because of seeing Mike yesterday, but her voice had watered the vague irrational doubts that I hadn’t even realized were within me, but which had sprouted up like weeds. Would she come back and tell me, sorry, she’d made a mistake? Would I lose her again, just when I thought I’d got her back? I told myself I was being stupid. I ordered a cold Spanish beer and watched the barman get it with the anticipation of a Tuareg herdsman looking up at a bank of gathering rain clouds.

  I downed half the beer and thought about Mike. He hadn’t called, which I told myself was a good sign. Then I told myself it was a bad sign. Admitting to myself that I had no idea what kind of sign it was, I turned to see Nicky making his way through the thin crowd lining the bar like David Niven’s moustache.

  I couldn’t believe it. I was dressed as I was because Nicky has the sort of dress sense that would have had Cary Grant fiddling with his tie. Not today. He was wearing a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt with a rip in the sleeve.

  ‘Fuck me!’ Nicky chuckled as he ran expert fingers inside my lapel. ‘You could have said.’

  ‘You mean you could have said. You normally get dressed up to go down the chip shop.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Nicky was laughing now. ‘But I figured you’d be your usual undercover self.’

  ‘Undercover self. Charming.’

  ‘I didn’t want to look like your accountant. I could go home and change.’

  ‘I’m hungry. Sit down. That’s if they let you stay. But don’t walk too close to any of the tables. People might think you’re the bus boy.’

  ‘Get me a drink and shut up. And don’t think that wearing that admittedly fine suit makes you look anything other than an unconvincing extra in one of those shite British gangster movies. Anyway, a beer? I thought we were going out. Excuse me, my love, can we have two vodka martinis please?’

  We ate at the bar. The food was good and the red slid down easy as a kid in velvet shorts down a polished oak banister. Over coffee I told Nicky about Jemma and about meeting Andy Gold. He was more interested in what was going on with Sharon and I told him I’d find that out when she got back. Nicky picked up on my doubt and told me to stick at it, and I remembered the troubles that Mike and Ally had got through a couple of years before they were married. How they’d split up, but had to keep working together. How Mike had hooked up with an ex and how Ally had had a brief fling with Andy Gold of all people. They’d got through all this and come out the other side, only to face more stress now. Nicky narrowed his eyes, his look telling me there was something he thought he knew, and had done for a while.

  ‘It pissed you off that, didn’t it?’ Nicky smiled at me.

  ‘What did?’

  ‘Ally. Her and Andy Gold.’

  I couldn’t see any point in denying it. ‘Too right,’ I said. ‘And not because of Mike. Something had to give. But I mean her and Andy. You’ve met him?’

  ‘Oh yes. But women don’t actually care what men look like. Not really. Something that should be of great comfort to you.’

  ‘Why, thank you. It still amazes me that she did it, though. With him! I really judged her at the time. I don’t know why. I mean, it’s not as if you’ve never slept with a girl I didn’t actually think much of. I don’t judge you, so why should I judge Ally? Because she’s a woman?’

  Nicky shook his head. ‘Because, Mr Rucker -’ he turned to me with his arms folded – ‘you were jealous.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were jealous. Because when she slipped it was with that no-mark, not your good self.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘I’m right, but don’t feel bad about it. You can’t help fancying your mates’ girlfriends. Take you and me.’

  ‘You. And me.’

  ‘That Sharon, now she…’

  ‘Alert. Warning. You are entering a highly dangerous area!’

  ‘Hey.’ Nicky held his hands up, his smile even bigger. ‘It’s not my fault I can see she’s stunning. If I didn’t know there was something wrong with her I’d be in like Flynn.’

  ‘Wrong with her?’

  ‘To paraphrase Groucho Marx: I’d never want to join a club that would have you as a member.’

  ‘I see. Oh, look, the bill. Blimey. Somehow it all got put on your credit card. How the hell did that happen?’

  * * *

  It was four a.m. and we standing outside a club de
ciding what to do next. We were caned. We were 24-carat, full-fat, Ivy League hammered. Mike was with us. He’d called just as Nicky and I were walking out onto the Market. I’d thought straight away that it was another cry for help. One which I would heed, however pissed off I’d be. Instead Mike told me he was embarrassed, really embarrassed, that he just couldn’t believe the way he’d acted yesterday.

  ‘I’m calling to apologize, Billy. I feel like such a twat.’ I could almost see him shaking his head. ‘Things are pretty intense at the moment. I’ve been working too hard, I think. You really put me straight. Ally and I had a great chat. I’m really beholden to you and I was wondering – can I buy you a few pints to make up for yesterday? Ally said I should go out, won’t get many chances soon. How about it?’

  The question surprised me. I was relieved Mike was OK, but I didn’t want to impose my friend on Nicky. But Nicky could read my thoughts and he put his thumbs up.

  ‘Tell him to stick a suit on, though,’ Nicky called out. ‘Then you’ll look like my minders.’

  We’d met Mike in Soho, in a bar that was full of ‘well pukka’ fellas and trainee IT girls, so we didn’t stay long. After that Nicky took us to the Soho House on Dean Street, where most of the British film industry were standing around looking at each other and where Nicky informed us that he had a not inconsiderable amount of cocaine about his person.

  ‘None for Billy, though,’ Nicky said. ‘He fell into the cauldron when he was a baby.’

  After an hour at the House Nicky’d decided that he knew too many people and there was a new place he wanted to try. We walked up Wardour Street to another members’ bar and as usual I tried not to be impressed. As a former purveyor of high-class narcotics and the current owner of a hip Smithfield bar and restaurant, Nicky gets into all the places he ever wants to go. I have my own network of after-hours booze haunts but they tend to be below porn shops or up badly lit stairways over cab offices. Lacking the vases of gardenias and the pretty girl to sign you in. In contrast, Sixty-Two was a smooth, tastefully lit, first-class lounge with a restaurant attached. We walked up a flight of stairs and down a long thin corridor before Nicky produced a swipe card, which he used to open the door. I expected to see a team of hard-working rocket scientists on the other side of it but I didn’t. Instead we were greeted by a large, busy room with a pale wooden floor, covered by low leather sofas and even lower smoked-glass tables.