You Can't Make Old Friends

by Tom Trott

  I came out of my reverie when someone started banging on Rory’s door.

  ‘Mr Sweet! Open up!’

  I jumped up, unsure what to do. I heard a female voice bark ‘Break it down!’ and the door smashed into what seemed like a million pieces.

  Police officers stormed in and surrounded me, and through the melee I saw the blonde DCI saunter into the room.

  She was looking at me. Me standing there with a bloody knife in one hand and a packet of drugs in the other, and she had a wicked smile on her face.

  3

  Just Another Dead Drug Dealer

  uniforms corralled me to the kitchenette table where the blonde DCI was waiting. I sat down in the chair opposite, doing my best to appear nonchalant. The uniforms closed in around me, blocking any escape. They had the sticky smell of sweat running over “manly” aftershave. Something with a big tattooed sportsman in the advert or a deadly animal on the bottle.

  More officers, the younger uniforms, were making phone calls, trying to get in touch with the landlord and not getting very far. Others were moving between floors, asking the neighbours if they had seen or heard anything unusual recently. Mostly they were getting doors slammed in their faces, occasionally with a kind ‘fuck off’.

  I wondered what they thought I was doing here, in their position it would certainly give me a lot of thought. I wanted to get up and start doing my job, or get out of here and start doing my job. But I was stuck at the table, just listening, and watching the woman opposite me.

  Someone had gone to the effort of making her a cup of tea, and she took her time stirring it, enjoying my captivity, making it plainly clear to me that she was in charge. It may have been my imagination but it seemed as though the splinters from the door were still dancing through the air between us.

  Once she had finished stirring and lightly dinged her teaspoon on the side of the cup, she got straight to the point:

  ‘Breaking and entering is a pretty serious charge. But probably the most common for private dickheads.’

  So, they thought I had picked my way in, that was interesting. I had the key in my pocket and I could clear my name in seconds. But if I gave them the key I wouldn’t get it back, and I might have a reason to visit Rory’s place again, so I kept schtum. I could talk my way out of this. And if I couldn’t, I had the key anyway.

  ‘Apparently,’ she added, ‘you have a history of this.’

  ‘Ancient history.’

  ‘Before you started charging for it?’

  ‘Before the pyramids were built. I use my powers for good now.’

  She turned her head slightly like a schoolmistress, ‘That’s the beautiful thing about past convictions: they never go away.’

  She was wrong about that, I was never convicted. I had got away with my tail burned and I never looked back.

  ‘This,’ she moved on, placing her hand on my flick knife, which was now inside an evidence bag on the table, ‘is an illegal weapon.’

  She had a much softer voice than before. Nicer, and calmer. Maybe she knew what she was doing.

  ‘It’s a tool,’ I said.

  ‘A penknife is a tool. A stanley knife is a tool. A butchers knife is a tool. This is a concealed weapon.’

  ‘It wasn’t concealed.’

  ‘And what about this morning, on the beach? I don’t remember you waving it around then.’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t have it on me then.’

  She sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s illegal to carry any kind of flick knife.’

  ‘Good thing it’s not mine.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I found it here in the flat. I was just using it.’

  She narrowed her eyes, she knew that she couldn’t prove anything, and on the slim chance that she could it would be a lot of effort for very little. Then again, she might do it just to piss me off.

  ‘Shall we call it a draw?’ I asked, ‘Or do you want to go another round?’

  She sighed again and passed the knife to one of the officers, who promptly zipped it away in a black bag. At the very least she had got the knife off me, so I had lost something. Then she leaned back in her chair, sipping her tea.

  ‘I’ve dealt with a hundred guys like you,’ she started, ‘and I’m not impressed by your toughness. I spend every day with tough guys. What I see very rarely is honesty. That’s what impresses me.’

  ‘You have a perfect nose.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘And wonderful eyes.’ She still wasn’t impressed. ‘Just being honest,’ I explained.

  ‘See, you’re just the same as the rest.’

  ‘Oh no, I’d say it to any of the guys too, if it were true. But sadly they’re ugly as fuck.’

  I felt them twitch. They wanted to smack my head into the table.

  ‘I’d love to spend more time with you,’ I got up, making sure to push the chair backwards into the officers behind, ‘but it puts me off when people are watching.’

  One of them tried to block my way, so I grabbed him and pushed him back. Hard. I headed away from the kitchenette, closer to the sofa where there were some younger officers standing by the coffee table. I spoke so that everyone could hear me.

  ‘That body on the beach is a man called Rory Sweet. He was attacked here in his flat. Right where your men are standing.’

  I looked at the officers by the coffee table and they froze. From their faces and their glances over my shoulder I could tell that she was subtly gesturing for them to move, which they quickly did. That would teach her.

  I heard her whisper ‘Get the CSI team in here.’ There was a moment of inaction and then ‘Now!’ People jumped like George had and an officer headed out of the room with that little skip that you put in when you’re in a hurry. Everyone started to get to work, or least did a good impression of it.

  ‘He doesn’t leave,’ she told her men whilst she slipped out to make a phone call.

  They stared at me for a few moments, willing me to try and leave so that this time they could smack me into the table. Like a pack of three dogs, squared up to me, waiting for the moment when I would look away or turn to run and then they would rip me to shreds. They were salivating as though I was a steak they were about to devour, eyes on every part of me.

  ‘Are you guys trying to steal grooming tips?’ I asked. ‘I’ll give you one, it’s called soap.’ They smirked, and I swear one of them licked his lips. ‘And by grooming, I don’t mean that thing you guys do where you pick bits out of each other’s hair.’

  ‘You’re a funny man, Grabarz,’ one of them growled. ‘Maybe you should be a comedian. That might pay your bills.’

  ‘Everyone got an email,’ another one added, ‘the bosses don’t want anything to do with you.’

  ‘You were the one guy the force took seriously,’ the first one continued, ‘so what does that make you now? People want someone to tail their wife, they hire Alderney. They want someone to do some tough guy shit they hire Clyde.’

  Perry Clyde, one of the other two detectives in the city, and a big thick lump of meat with veins popping out everywhere like a penis being squeezed in a vice.

  ‘And yet here I am,’ I said, ‘I know who the victim is, and I’m the one who found the crime scene, and I’m the one your boss is going to look to for answers.’

  ‘She knows what you are, Grabarz.’

  ‘And you, Lurch.’

  He took a step towards me, but she returned at the same moment and he stopped where he was, as though he just liked the coffee table more than the others. I milked the moment for everything I could. She gave them a few, uninteresting orders, and then she moved towards me and I pretended to look around.

  ‘So…’ she was fishing for information, ‘you must have known him pretty well to recognise him like that.’

  I kept up the act of studying some obscure vinyl on his record shelf.

  ‘So? How did you do it?’ She wasn’t giving up, she really wanted to know. In which case, it w
asn’t something I was going to give away for free.

  ‘I’ll tell you. But I want something.’

  ‘No, no. I’m not doing deals.’ She seemed disgusted at the idea.

  I kept staring at the wall, as though I really didn’t mind either way. ‘Suit yourself,’ I added.

  I could almost hear her thinking, she really did want to know. I guess she thought it might be important.

  She turned to the officers and spoke with the nicest tone she’d used yet, ‘Guys, go have a fag.’

  They all gave each other a quick nod and promptly filed out, the younger ones relieved both at the opportunity to have a break, and to get out of this awkward situation. The atmosphere was definitely of something you were better off not knowing about. Meanwhile, the big lumps gave me dirty looks, as though it was somehow them she should be speaking to. I was to be avoided. I was a con artist to them. A time-waster.

  ‘What is it you want?’ she asked once we were alone. ‘Bearing in mind there’s not much I’m willing to give.’

  A mug clinked behind her, and she looked around to see one officer still by the kitchen units. He was making himself a cup of tea, of all things. She shot, what I could only imagine were daggers, at him.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ he managed feebly.

  ‘Get the fuck out of the here!’

  He did that little jump that they were all going to have to get used to and quickly moved to the door. Halfway he realised he was still holding the empty mug and turned back to the kitchenette.

  ‘Just put it down!’ she screamed.

  He put it down on a chair and mumbled ‘sorry’ as he ran out the door.

  I took this moment to admire her from behind as she huffed and pushed loose strands of her golden hair behind her ears. She looked incredibly fit. Well-trained too, I guessed. Perhaps she had been a tactical officer, or in the Forces somehow. I could see the shape of strong shoulder and back muscles beneath her suit, and I could imagine her toned stomach. Powerful women have always been my weakness, and she was no exception. But she scared me a bit too. She reminded me of a black widow, and I thought that if I ever did get to fuck her she’d probably eat me afterwards.

  What did I want from her? What did she really have to offer. I already knew the victim, and how he died would hardly solve who killed him. So the autopsy results would be useless. I could find out about the drugs easily enough, so that was a no. There was only one thing.

  ‘I want the blood work,’ I said quietly enough to make clear to her that this was just between us.

  ‘What blood work?’ she scowled, something else she didn’t know?

  ‘This blood. Here. That’s all over the floor. You just can’t see it.’

  I guess, in her defence, the CSI guys hadn’t been in yet, and I hadn’t spotted it until it was on my knife. They would spot it in a heartbeat.

  I could see her mulling the deal over for a second, but she didn’t want to appear weak.

  ‘Fine. So tell me.’

  Did she think I was stupid? ‘When I get the blood work.’

  I made it plainly clear with my eyes that this was the way these things worked. If she really was new to this way of operating, she needed to learn quickly.

  ‘Then fuck off.’ Her voice was louder now, and unhappy. ‘There won’t be any blood work. This murder is second tier now.’

  My face must have been a picture. ‘Second tier!?’ I almost bellowed. What the fuck did that mean?

  ‘Yes, second: as in less important.’

  ‘Is this from you or on high?’ I already knew the answer to that. “Second tier” was not the kind of term that would come out of her brain. No, something so couched in bullshit language had to be from up above. If she really was the Chief’s special project then it was probably him she had called. Reporting directly to the top. She had updated him on the case and he had determined that this was not the sort of thing that his precious new investment should be dealing with. Either that or murder wasn’t a big concern anymore. Not this murder anyway.

  ‘Does it matter?’ she replied.

  ‘What exactly makes a murder “second tier”?’

  ‘A lot of things.’ She changed her footing, ready for any reprisal, ‘The likelihood of a result. The public interest. The profile of the victim—’

  I cut her off right there and then, ‘So that’s it!’ I yelled. I really didn’t care at this point if the officers outside could hear me. In fact, I hoped they could. ‘Just another dead drug dealer! Who cares!?’ And then I really kicked, ‘If the killer had been one of your boys they’d’ve given them a medal.’ And I stormed out.

  I made it down the stairs without strangling anyone; realising that for a second time I hadn’t got her name. That was a standard piece of detective work, I must be off my game. Being around her was like putting a magnet next to a compass. I needed to get away from here, to my office, where I could be alone and just think for a while. Everything had happened so quickly this morning that I had no idea what I made of it yet. And no idea what I was going to do about it.

  I came out the back, where I was parked up. The cold winter sun was filtered through thin clouds like a lamp through a veil, over-lighting everything but throwing no shadows. The road was almost completely empty, everyone’s cars were at work. Chattering, screeching seagulls shouted to each other from the rooftops. The sound of someone drilling in a road far away bounced off the walls of houses. A train rolled over the bridge, moving between London Road and Moulsecoomb stations, and then out of here towards Lewes and Eastbourne. That would be nice.

  Here was the police van, open at the back, with the large packet of pills split open, and all the small bags lying around. The big lumps were surrounding it and when they saw me they all shoved their hands in their pockets. They might as well have started whistling for how convincing the act was. I didn’t know if they were planning to take them personally, sell them back to the dealers, or to new customers and run a racket themselves. Whichever way, my faith in the police of this town sank one notch lower, if that was even possible. I think I must have muttered ‘Jesus Christ’, and just kept walking.

  4

  Everyone Has to Pay Rent

  i rode down from Rory’s place back toward my office. One of the good things about Brighton is that if you have a car or a motorbike almost everything is within five or ten minutes reach. I kept a couple of rooms above Lambton’s jewellers in the Lanes. I liked being there as it was both easy for clients to find and easy for me to disappear amongst the network of interconnected pedestrian alleys that is perhaps the city’s best feature. Superior to either the Pier or the Pavilion, they conjure up Brighton’s past far more vividly than a tourists’ promenade or a royal summer house ever could. The Lanes were part of the Old Town and were where the real people had lived. You can see this history on a map, where the Lanes are bordered by North Street, East Street, West Street, and the sea, and cut down the middle by Middle Street.

  Like all pieces of history they get their fair share of tourists. In Meeting House Lane they used to faint with horror at the bricked up cell where the Grey Nun was buried alive. The story went that she had eloped with a soldier. Silly nun, you might think, but even sillier tourists: walk a few steps further down the lane and it’s obvious the “bricked-up cell” is actually a bricked up doorway in the garden wall of the Quaker meeting house. Which is not the same meeting house that gives the Lane its name, by the way, even if people tell you it is.

  The cottages that make up most of the Lanes were of course built for the fishermen, seeing as that was the industry the town was pretty-much founded on. Now they consist mostly of jewellers and cafés, with the odd pub, restaurant, or some specialist shop thrown in, and that’s why the tourists flock there now.

  A shopping district it may be, but in every cellar and hidden hole you can feel the influence of Brighton’s smugglers, which in many ways had been a bigger industry than fishing ever was. The real place the tourists should flock to is
Black Lion Lane where hidden down a twitten barely wide enough for one person are the oldest surviving buildings of the Old Town. Although not as old as some people claim. Estate agents especially. I had my eye on one, it would be great to live in a piece of history. Especially one so close to the office.

  I parked in my lock-up and headed into a café. I couldn’t really afford breakfast at the moment but the place round the corner had accepted credit from me in the past. It was very-Brighton: avocado toast, with a pickled-radish slaw. Soda bread, of course, normal bread just won’t do. I really wished the greasy spoon would accept credit, but I guess they weren't that naive. And I suppose I was coming around to avocado toast. A man with a moustache wider than his head made me a really fantastic coffee, which I’ll admit is something hipsters are so much better at, and after I had used it to wash down the breakfast, I wandered toward the office.

  Rory was dead. What did that mean for me? It felt like it should mean everything, but I hadn’t seen him in years. Eight, nine, even ten perhaps. Is it possible to be that good a friend and not see someone for a third of your life? Was I just kidding myself?

  No. No I wasn’t. Rory had done so much for me when we were young. If we hadn’t seen each other it was because I was a lousy friend. I was too proud. But then what about starz?

  He was selling starz. So maybe he didn’t deserve my sympathy at all. I had seen what they could do, first hand. They killed people. If you knew they killed people, and you still sold them then you were as good as a murderer in my book. That’s what I had told myself the last few months. My brain told me that nothing had changed just because Rory turned out to be one of them. Fuck him. It just felt different.

  All these thoughts and more were swirling through my mind as I passed the little alcove where Lenny often makes his camp. He was there again, in his trademark ushanka and Army Surplus coat. It was because of that combination that people nicknamed him Lenin when he first appeared on the streets, despite him being from Liverpool and not Saint Petersburg. Later it got shortened to Lenny and he went by it now. His real name was John.