by John Harvey
‘Both.’
‘Because if you’re only going to take jobs from decent, upstanding citizens with good credit references and all their vowels in the right place…’
‘It’s not that.’
‘What then?’
‘It’s what he wanted me to do.’
‘Go round and talk to her, persuade her to ease off, reach some kind of accommodation.’
‘That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted me to warn her, frighten her.’
‘And now you’re not going to do it?’
Kiley looked at her. Pins out of her hair, it fell across her shoulders, down almost to the middle of her back. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Now you’ve turned him down, what will happen?’
‘He’ll get somebody else.’
‘With fewer scruples.’
Kiley shrugged.
‘Maybe it would’ve been better for her,’ Kate said, ‘if you’d said yes.’ The way she was looking at him suggested that pretty soon he’d be climbing back into his clothes and setting out on the long walk home.
Some housing department official lacking a sense of irony had named the roads after areas of New Orleans. Anything further from the Crescent City would have been hard to find. Kiley walked past a triangle of flattened mud masquerading as a lawn and headed for the first of several concrete walkways. ‘Do Not Let Your Dogs Foul the Estate’, read one sign. ‘No Ball Games’, read another. A group of teenagers lounged around the first stairwell, listening to hard-core hip-hop at deafening volume and occasionally spitting at the ground. They gave no sign of moving aside to let Kiley pass, but then, at the last moment, they did. Laughter trailed him up towards the fifth floor.
Two of the glass panels in the front door had been broken and replaced by hardboard. Kiley rang the bell and waited.
‘Who is it?’
He could see a shape, outlined through the remaining glass.
‘Jennie Calder?’
‘Who’s this?’ The voice was muffled yet audible.
‘Kiley. Jack Kiley.’
‘Who?’
He took a card from his wallet and pushed it through the letter-box. The shape came closer.
‘Who sent you? Did he send you?’
‘You mean Marshall?’
‘Who else?’
‘Not exactly.’
She unbolted the door but kept it on the chain. Through a four-inch gap Kiley could see reddish hair, unfashionably curly, grey-green eyes, a full mouth. She tapped Kiley’s card with the tip of a fingernail.
‘Private investigator? What is this, some kind of joke?’
Kiley grinned. ‘I’m beginning to wonder.’
Out of sight, a child started crying.
‘You here to do his dirty work for him?’
‘No.’
As the crying grew in intensity, the woman looked hard at Kiley, making up her mind. Then, abruptly, she pushed the door to, unfastened the chain and opened it wide enough for him to step inside.
‘Wait there,’ she said, leaving him in a square hallway the size of a telephone booth. When she reappeared, it was with a tow-haired child astride her hip. Eighteen months? Two years? Kiley wasn’t sure.
‘This is Alice.’
‘Hello, Alice.’
Alice hid her face against her mother’s arm.
‘Why don’t we go through,’ Jennie said, ‘and sit down?’
There were pieces of Lego and wooden bricks here and there across the floor, a small menagerie of lions and bears; on one of the chairs, a doll, fully dressed, sat staring blankly out. Toys apart, the room was neat, tidy: three-piece suite, TV, stereo, dining table pushed into a corner near the window.
Without putting her daughter down, Jennie made tea and brought it through, with biscuits and sugar, on a tray.
Only when she sat opposite him, Alice clambering from one side of her chair to the other, did Kiley see the tiredness in her face, the strain behind her eyes. Jennie wearing blue jeans and a soft blue top, no-name trainers without socks; late twenties, Kiley thought, though she could have passed for older.
‘So?’ she said.
Kiley held his mug of tea in both hands. ‘These posters…’
‘Got to him, have they?’ A smile now.
‘You could say.’
‘And you were meant to warn me off?’
‘Something like that. Only I’m not.’
‘You said.’
The tea was strong. Kiley spooned in sugar and stirred it round.
‘Biscuit,’ Alice said, the word just this side of recognition. Jennie reached down and broke a digestive in half. ‘So what are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘If it’s not me it’ll likely be somebody else. I thought you should know.’
‘I didn’t think he was going to be leading the applause.’
‘Isn’t there somewhere you could go?’ Kiley asked. ‘Until it blows over.’
‘No.’
‘Friends, a relative?’
‘No.’ The child’s piece of biscuit broke and pieces crumbled across her mother’s top. Automatically, Jennie brushed them away and reached for the other half. ‘Besides, who says it’s going to blow over? The day he puts his hand in his pocket, faces up to his responsibilities, that’s when it’ll blow over. Not before.’
For the time being, Kiley was working out of his flat: he had a fax, an answerphone, directories, numbers on a Rolodex. What he didn’t have, the faithful secretary secretly lusting for him in the outer office, the bottle of Scotch in the desk drawer alongside the. 38. When he’d jacked in his job with the security firm — no hard feelings, Jack, keep in touch — he’d contacted those officers he still knew inside the Met and let them know what he was doing. Adrian Costain, a sports agent he knew, had thrown a couple of things his way, but since then nothing. A local firm of solicitors likewise.
Recently, he’d spent a lot of time watching movies in the afternoons, starting paperbacks he never finished, staring at the same four walls. He would have sat diligently doing his accounts if there were any accounts to do. Instead he took out ads in the local press and waited for the phone to ring.
When he got back from Jennie Calder’s flat, two red zeros stared back at him from the answerphone. The people in the flat upstairs were playing ‘Green Green Grass of Home’ again. He had a bacon sandwich at the nearest greasy spoon and skimmed the paper twice. Each time he reached the sports page, Charlton Athletic had lost away.
Still it kept nagging at him. A brisk walk through the back doubles and he was back at the estate, keeping watch on Jennie Calder’s place from below.
He didn’t have too long to wait. There were two of them, approaching from the opposite direction and moving fast. The one at the front, bulkily built, shoulders hunched, wool hat tight on his head; the other, younger, taller, tagging along behind.
By the time Kiley arrived, the front door was half off its hinges, furniture overturned, the front of the television kicked in. Alice was clinging tight to her mother and screaming, Jennie shouting over the noise and close to tears.
‘Company,’ the youth said.
On his way over, Kiley had picked up a piece of two-by-four from a building site, solid wood.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ the big man said.
Just time for Kiley to think he recognised him before swinging the length of wood hard against the side of his head. Twice, and the man was down on his knees.
The lanky kid standing there, not knowing what to do.
‘Get him out of here,’ Kiley said. ‘And don’t come back.’
Blood ran between the man’s fingers; one eye was swelling fast and all but closed. The pair of them stumbled to the door, mouthing threats, Kiley watching them go.
Alice was whimpering now, tears wet against her mother’s neck.
‘Thanks,’ Jennie said. She was shaking.
Bending forward, Kiley righted one of the chairs.
‘You think they’ll be back?
’
‘Not yet.’
Kiley went into the kitchen and filled the kettle, set it on the gas, made tea; he tracked down an emergency locksmith and told him to fit extra bolts top and bottom, metal reinforcements behind both hinges and locks.
‘Who’s going to pay for all that?’ Jennie asked.
‘I will,’ Kiley said.
Jennie started to say something else but thought better of it. She put Alice down in her cot and almost immediately the child was asleep. When she came back into the room, Kiley was clearing the last of the debris from the floor.
‘Why?’ Jennie asked, arms folded across her chest. ‘Why’re you doing all this?’
‘Job satisfaction?’
‘Nobody hired you.’
‘Ah.’ He set one of his cards down on a corner of the settee. ‘Here. In case you lost the first one. Ring me if there’s a need.’ Leaving, he leaned the splintered piece of two-by-four against the wall by the front door. ‘Just in case. And don’t let anybody in unless you’re certain who they are, okay? Not anybody.’
He found Dave Marshall later that evening, at a table in the Royal Arms. Two others with him. The big man was still wearing his wool hat, only now there was a good inch of bandage visible beneath it, plaster sticking to his cheek. One eye was bruised and two-thirds closed. Their companion — loose suit, dark shirt, blue patterned tie — Kiley didn’t recognise.
He crossed the floor towards them.
‘What the fuck…?’ the big man started, half out of his seat.
The one in the suit reached out and caught hold of his arm, gave a slow shake of the head. Grudgingly, the big man sat back down.
‘You’ve got some balls,’ Marshall said.
‘I told you to go and talk to her,’ Kiley replied. ‘Sort things out. Not this.’
Marshall nodded. ‘You said you didn’t want to get involved, an’ all. Remember that?’
‘Talk to her,’ Kiley said again.
‘What is this?’ Marshall scoffed. ‘Marriage guidance? Social fuckin’ services?’
Kiley shrugged and took a step away.
‘You,’ the big man said, lurching back to his feet. ‘Your life ain’t worth livin’.’
Which was when Kiley knew who he was, the place, the occasion reminding him, the family resemblance now clear.
‘Nealy, isn’t it?’ Kiley said.
‘Eh?’
‘Nealy.’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘What’re you fixing to do? Get those boys of yours? Wade in mob-handed like you did with Nicky Cavanagh?’
Nealy moved close enough for Kiley to smell the sourness on his breath. ‘I’ll fuckin’ have you,’ he said.
‘Bob,’ loose suit said quietly from the table. ‘Let it go.’
Reluctantly, Nealy lowered his hands to his sides.
Kiley took a last look at each of them, turned and left.
The phone went at a quarter to seven, Kiley not quite awake, wondering if he should turn over again or push back the covers and face another day.
Jennie’s voice was angry, frightened. ‘It’s the police. They’re arresting me. They…’
Abruptly, the line went dead.
Kiley ran the bathroom tap, splashed water on his face, cleaned his teeth and dressed.
They’d taken her to the police station on Hornsey Road, the officer on the desk fending off enquiries like Atherton on the fourth day of the Test. A Jennie Calder had been taken into custody and was currently being interviewed, that was all he would confirm. ‘What are the charges?’ Kiley demanded. The officer’s eyes switched focus. ‘Next,’ he called into the small crowd at Kiley’s back.
Margaret Hamblin’s offices were in Kentish Town. Hamblin, Laker and Clarke. When Kiley had been building up his overtime in CID, Margaret had been a lowly solicitor’s clerk, forever in this police station or that, picking up cases nobody else wanted, learning on the hoof. Now, even if Kiley had still been in the force, overtime was pretty much a thing of the past and Margaret was a senior partner with a taste for good wines and stylish clothes. This morning she was wearing a cord drawstring jacket and chevron skirt from Ghost. She listened to Kiley intently then reached for the phone. Ten minutes later, a car was taking them back to Hornsey Road, Margaret sensibly lyrical about her recent holiday in northern Spain.
This time Kiley got past the enquiry desk but not a great deal further. He was kicking his heels outside the custody suite, trying not to notice the smell of disinfectant, when two officers, one in uniform, one plain clothes, pushed their way through the double doors. Neither looked to be in the best of humour. The CID man had changed his shirt from the previous night in the Royal Arms, but the suit and tie were the same. If he recognised Kiley, he gave no sign.
An hour later, no more, they were sitting, the four of them — Kiley, Margaret Hamblin, Jennie and Alice — in Margaret’s office. An assistant had brought in coffee, Danish and bottled water. Jennie’s face was strained and pale without make-up; Alice, released from the tender mercies of a broody WPC, clung to her mother’s neck, whimpering softly.
Margaret sipped at her espresso and set it aside. ‘Jennie’s charged with keeping a brothel.’
‘She’s what?’ Kiley exclaimed.
Jennie looked away.
‘I persuaded them to release her on police bail, but it seems they’re considering instituting care proceedings…’
They can’t!’ Jennie pressed her face down against her daughter’s head and held her tight.
‘On what grounds?’ Kiley asked.
Margaret leaned back in her chair. ‘That Alice is exposed to moral danger where she is.’
‘Surely that’s a nonsense?’
‘Not if the brothel charge can be made to stick.’
‘How can it?’ Kiley asked.
Margaret looked across at Jennie and Kiley did the same. It was a while before she spoke, her voice shaky and quiet.
‘This friend of mine, Della — we were at school together — she’s been seeing this bloke, married of course. Della, she’s living with her mum, got two kids of her own. Car parks and hotels aside, they didn’t have anywhere to go. So I’ve been letting them use my place, afternoons. Just, maybe, once or twice a week.’
‘And you and Alice,’ Margaret asked, ‘while they were in the bedroom, whatever, you’d both be in the flat?’
Jennie shook her head. ‘Not as a rule. I’d take Alice up the park, swings and slides. You know, a walk.’
‘And if it rained?’
Jennie hung her head; all too clearly, she could see where this was going. ‘If it was really bad, yes, we stayed in.’
Margaret looked across at Kiley, one eyebrow raised.
‘This was an affair, right?’ Kiley said. ‘Two people having an affair. There’s no suggestion of any money changing hands.’
‘Is that true, Jennie?’ Margaret asked.
Jennie paused. ‘Sometimes he’d give me a fiver on the way out. A tenner. So I could get something for Alice. Just as a way of saying thanks.’
‘And your friend, Della? Did he give her money, too?’
‘I don’t know. He might have. Sometimes. I don’t know.’
‘They’re friends,’ Kiley said. ‘They’re never going to testify.’
‘It depends what kinds of pressure are put on them,’ Margaret said. ‘And besides, payment’s not the crucial thing, not according to the law. A brothel is a house, room or other place, used for the purposes of illicit sexual intercourse and/or acts of lewdness.’
‘It’s still not enough, is it?’ Kiley said. ‘Even if they make up stuff about men traipsing up and down the stairs at all hours, it’s not enough.’
Tears began to fall, unbidden, down Jennie’s face.
‘What?’ Kiley asked.
‘Six, seven years ago, I was done for soliciting. King’s Cross.’
‘It went to court?’ Margaret asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And you wer
e fined?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many times?’ Margaret asked. ‘Was it just the once?’
Jennie shook her head.
Kiley reached for his coffee and set it back down.
‘Is there anything else?’ Margaret asked.
An ambulance went shrilly by outside.
‘Della and I, we used to work at a massage parlour. Over Stroud Green. Where I met him, wasn’t it? Marshall.’ She laughed a short, disparaging laugh. ‘Girl like you, you shouldn’t be working in a place like this — I think he’d heard it somewhere, some trashy film on TV.’
‘While you were there,’ Margaret asked, ‘the massage parlour, was it raided by the police?’
‘You’re kidding, right? Only regular as clockwork.’
‘And were you ever charged with any offence?’
‘No, no. Took our names, that was it. Too concerned with getting their freebies, half of ’em, to do much else.’
Margaret called up a car to take Jennie and Alice home and she and Kiley carried on their conversation over lunch at Pane Vino.
‘What do you think?’ Kiley asked. ‘Is any of this really going to stand up?’
‘The brothel charge, no. I can’t see it getting past first post. But the other, getting the little girl taken into care, if they were to really push it, get social services on board, I’m not so sure.’
Kiley forked up a little more chicken and spinach risotto. ‘Let’s take a step backwards, remind ourselves what’s at the root of this.’
‘Okay.’
‘Dave Marshall is angry. He doesn’t like having his name plastered over half the billboards in North London.’
‘Who would?’ Margaret reached across for the bottle of wine.
‘That aside, there’s going to be all manner of stuff between himself and Jennie, unresolved. I think he’s just striking out in any way he can.’
‘To what end?’
‘To see her hurt; have her climb down, leave him alone.’
‘You don’t think it’s a way of getting eventual custody of the child?’
Kiley shook his head. I think that’s the last thing on his mind.’
Margaret drank some wine. ‘So what do we do? Prepare a defence for Jennie in the remote possibility things get to court? File a report with the Child Support Agency, suggesting they re-examine Marshall’s financial position?’