by Gavin Smith
“Rory?”
“Wait!” he shouted into the phone as the cistern filled itself torrentially. “Thinking.”
She turned to study Jeremy, who had now re-created the scene of the crime with fully deployed emergency vehicles, as well as cereal boxes for houses and clothes-pegs for people. His glazed, distracted look meant that he was memorising any conversation in earshot.
“Shaz.”
“Here.”
“Sorry. Looking for something to lean on and pushed the flush,” he lied. She could visualise his notes: ‘our PI dept gives cops A1 motive’; ‘what has SJ given them?’; ‘amateur theatrics gives us away?’ He’d given himself some time to simmer down, for old times’ sake.
“Did he actually kill those people?” she said, suddenly tired of choking it back.
“Christ, Shaz, you do pick your times.”
“Could there be a better time?”
“Yes, there could. Over drinks. In an undergraduate moot. In a post-trial debrief.”
“But don’t we need to know right now?”
“What’s got into you, Sharon? What on earth did that policeman do to you? Should I be jealous?”
“You don’t get to be possessive, Rory,” she spat, recoiling from his assumptions. “Besides, he was really just a messenger.”
“Sharon,” Rory sighed, breathing out his last reserves of professional courtesy. “Let’s get back to ethical basics. I’m here to defend him. That’s my job, whether I like it or not. The police have to prove it and I have to put them to the proof.”
Now she was getting lofty indulgence. In every sphere of life, he pushed all the buttons until he found one that lit up.
“I did take the same exams, Rory.”
“So do some revision. Ok, sorry. Look. Yes, he could have done it. We don’t need to know and I certainly don’t want to know.”
“But what if we’re somehow compromised? What if you’re about to take a big gulp from a poisoned chalice?”
“Have you knocked back a few chalices of wine yourself, Sharon? I’m getting worried now. About you.”
She paced another circuit of the kitchen, disorientated and loathing herself for it. One afternoon had turned the detached professional into a needy amateur. Nothing about the fake orderliness of the room consoled her, with its half-empty fridge, oak-effect flourishes and unblemished social calendar.
“Fuck it. Firth may have found out where Murphy lived. Through me.” “Tell me you’re joking.”
“It might be nothing. I mean I always wrote to Murphy care of the prison. I don’t remember telling Firth where he lived. But….”
“But what? Hurry up. Battery’s dying.”
“But I made the link. Discussed it with my mum. I even avoided visiting. Didn’t want to bump into Murphy. Didn’t want him to know we were nearly next door neighbours. But I scribbled the address on a file note.”
“And you let him see it?”
“Of course not. But Nigel told me he’d sort things out himself if I couldn’t. And somehow, he might have done just that. Rory, just think about how this might look if we get investigated. Pass it to another solicitor. You don’t need this one.”
“Sharon, listen carefully,” said Rory, mustering the pained compassion he usually reserved for ageing magistrates. “Paranoia, overwork and conjecture are a toxic mix. Put your files away. Drink a bottle of wine. Take tomorrow off with my say so. When the dust has settled, we’ll have a chat and work out what’s really bothering you.”
“Rory, you’re a patronising arse.”
“He could have found that address in any number of ways. All the police have is a weak, circumstantial case. If memory serves, we wouldn’t have been involved at all if they’d bothered to investigate……”
The connection died; battery failure or a convenient simulation of it. She considered throwing the phone at the wall, then remembered what it had cost her, how many joyless hours it represented.
Instead, she turned the phone off, slipped it under the pink ribbon securing the topmost of the files she’d brought home and heaved the entire stack into the under-stairs cupboard, slamming the door behind it.
“Sharon! What on earth is that racket?”
For half a second, she was fourteen again and fought down an urge to slam something else in answer. Instead, she ignored her mother, turning instead to the wine rack and selecting a pricy Rioja. Did she really crave its toothsome sweetness with memories of sun-parched earth and dark Demerara, or did she simply know from experience that it was a safe and respectable way to get hammered in a hurry?
Nursing an outsize glass, savouring her first ripe mouthful and relishing the sanguine gloss of the wine and its tears of evaporating alcohol, Sharon wandered into the lounge to find her parents enacting their usual tableau of suffering: Her mother adjusting her father’s oxygen cylinder, checking the seal on his mask, mopping his sweat-speckled brow, holding his hand, praising his ruddy complexion with total belief and cooing assurances.
Her mother had left the tabloid newspaper she religiously subscribed to lying open on the sofa, displaying stock photos of hoodies and pregnant teenagers alongside brightly coloured pie-charts and graphs of inevitable decline.
“What was all that about, dear?” said Marjorie, glancing momentarily over her shoulder. “Trouble at work?”
“Nothing, mum. Just….nothing.”
“Isn’t it a bit early for wine, dear?”
“The day I’ve had, I’d say it was a bit late.” Sharon slumped heavily onto the sofa and switched on the enormous LCD TV which seemed to make the whole room feel smaller.
“Do we really need that noise, dear?”
Her father’s hand rose from the arm of the sofa, a claw of bloodless white. With a quivering effort, he pulled aside the oxygen mask and let it dangle, hissing into his ear.
“Her. House,” he gasped, drawing breath between each word. “Sharon. So. Sorry. Know. It’s. Your. House.”
“Stop it, Tony,” chided Marjorie,
“Your. Mum. Me. Grateful.”
“I know, dad,” she said, stretching out her arm and squeezing his hand to leave the memory of her warmth on his flesh. “You’re very welcome. You know that.”
“Fancy. Glass. Myself.” He motioned weakly at her wine glass and tried to smile.
“No, love. No, you can’t,” said Marjorie, checking the seal on the oxygen tube for the fiftieth time that day. “It contra-indicates with your anti-biotics. You know how poorly that would make you.”
“Get. Drunk. Die. Happy.” His brow crinkled and something sparkled behind his eyes as he winked at Sharon. It was as if the ghost of her dad had repossessed this ghoulish doppelganger.
“Don’t you talk like that, Tony. It’s just not fair.”
Marjorie hooked the strap and replaced the oxygen mask firmly over his mouth and nose. He let his hand drop palm-first in submission, closed his eyes and was absent again.
“You shouldn’t encourage him, Sharon.”
“Why ever not?”
“He’s got to save his strength.”
“What on earth for?”
“He’s not deaf, you know.”
“No, but he’s practically mute, isn’t he?”
“Whatever do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. Forget it. Anyway, mum, do you need me to pop out and get anything for dinner? I’m going to have to work tonight but the three of you should be as comfortable as possible.”
“No, dear.” Marjorie sat upright and crossed then uncrossed her hands as if finding herself perched in a hard place. “You should never have taken on that case, Sharon. I mean, I heard you talking just now.”
“That was nothing.”
“I know, dear. But you’ve mentioned it before. Dale, next door to us, and that lad you represent, the arsonist. Do you think it’s all connected?”
“No, of course not. Look, shall I do a salad, maybe whip up something with pasta?”
“Asbestos.�
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“Not again, mum.”
“A few harmless fibres. In our walls for years, generations nearly. Something you just.” She shrugged. “Live with ‘til it decides to try and kill you. Course your dad was a grafter. Building hospitals, shops, car parks, making this city live again. Breathing all those silicates in. Shredding his lungs.”
“Mum, I know all this.”
“I know, dear. But that’s the problem. Don’t you see? You became infatuated with the law when old Fitch won the claim for your dad. You got drawn in. I became distracted. With the money. With Jeremy. With your dad. Should have stuck to nursing. Always less personal there.” There was a quavering edge to Marjorie’s voice now, laughter vying with tears.
“I’ve asked before and I’ll ask again and one day I pray you’ll say yes. Mum, for God’s sake, liberate that damn settlement money. Buy a big house. Hire some help. Use it to get your life back.”
“And I’ve said before and I’ll say again that the money has got to last for as long as your dad and Jeremy are around to need it. The house is our home and we don’t need to move. And as for hiring a nurse, who could be better than me?”
“Mum, it’s been a really long day. Share a glass with me and let’s watch some trash on TV.”
“It was easier before Ethel and John moved out. They were our sort of people. And so quiet. But these new neighbours…” Marjorie gasped and clasped her hand to her mouth. “Oh my Lord, I am losing my marbles. It’s all changing again. Like I was saying to you just now, it starts with asbestos. Then the claim. Because of that, you’re a lawyer now. And because you’re a lawyer, an arsonist comes to our street. Then we’re here in this state and the police are at my door.”
“My door, mum! My very own door, with my name on the deeds!”
She took a breath, brushed the hair away from her burning forehead and clenched her mouth shut.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I just think you’re over-tired. You need time away from caring for others.”
“Caring for this man is my life.” Marjorie had stiffened. “You think because you’ve got a career, and phone calls at two in the morning, and late hours and high pressure this, that and the other, that you can judge the rest of us. Well this is marriage, Sharon, this is what it costs. Not as simple as your hire-purchase boyfriend scuttling off to his real family when it suits.”
“Mum!” shouted Sharon, on her feet now, the wine somehow spilled and blotting into the beige carpet at her feet, as if she were bleeding from a wound she hadn’t yet felt.
“Stop. Just stop. Why all this? Why now?”
Her father’s fogged mask was muffling groans of protest. Sharon turned and walked into the kitchen in search of kitchen roll. There were no arguments in her family. There were no rules of engagement because they’d never needed any. Best to concentrate on practical matters. Was salt the best thing to soak red wine out of a carpet? Was petrol the best thing to burn the whole chiding, jibing, burdensome mess to ashes that would blow away on the breeze and leave her free?
Would the asbestos needles permeating her dad’s flesh make him fire-proof, cursed to a perpetual half-life while his world burned and fumed and seared around him?
Jeremy had added a cordon to his crime scene, a taut line of pink ribbon. He gently rocked on a kitchen chair, apparently studying his handiwork. On the kitchen counter, her thick, irreplaceable files, each one representing hundreds of hours of toil, lay equally spaced and suspiciously free of rips, bulges and post-it notes.
“Tidied up for you SJ. Legal erroneousness much simplified. Sifted and sorted and sequestered into logical symmetry. All better now.”
CHAPTER TEN
Silver bubbles burst into being and beat for the surface of the ale to explode silently in the musty air. That breath of yeast and malt, cigar smoke and varnish, delirium and stupor, permeated the old bones of the snug bar. It hardly mattered that the etched mirrors, horse shoes and signed photographs of barely remembered footballers and snooker players had probably been picked up on eBay and could well have been younger than Slowey. Old-fashioned boozers had nothing to do with real life after all; this place was a bolt-hole, a refuge from reality, a confessional without penance.
Slowey propped his chin on his stacked fists and stared into the murky depths of his third pint of the Friars Vaults’ guest ale, a subtler concoction than its name – ‘Old Warlock’s Ball Breaker’ – suggested. This beer, he thought, is the one for me. It and I have so much in common. Artfully crafted complexity; sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter. Dark and moody; well, not compared to some but he had his moments. Smelled like a sugary armpit; he couldn’t deny that after the day he’d had.
“How are we liking the guest ale, officer?”
Someone was speaking to him, their bifocals joining the optics in a spangling light-show. Maybe he should have stopped after his first pint. Maybe he should have had a diet-lemonade. Barry, that was his name. Had to scratch around for that detail. Slowey remembered the tonnage of yellow gold nestling in his chest hair, and the perpetual knocking of his testicles like an Einstein’s cradle as he bawled to his wife about the copper who’d been beaten up in the car park. That had been twelve hours or a short lifetime ago.
“Very pleasant. Toothsome, in fact.” Slowey cursed.
In his forebrain, the words had been clear and crisp, but they came out of his mouth with the exaggerated care of a dental victim or a drunk.
“How about that chef’s special then? Hungry? Anything you want from the board. We owe you. Not many would have had the balls to tackle them thieving bastards.”
Slowey wanted badly to snigger but instead glanced at his watch, willing it into focus. Time must have galloped away from him and he’d only a vague idea how long he’d been welded to the stool. Awake for thirty-six hours, give or take. Bruised, battered, hungry and tetchy. Braced for yet more hours of plodding work. He couldn’t have resisted the booze if he’d wanted to.
“Fuck it,” he muttered, remembering his note-book which now lay on the bar soaking up a slick of ale. “Sloppy, boozy bastard.”
“I’ll come back.”
“No, no.”
Slowey forced himself to his feet, blinking as his brain sloshed around behind his forehead, visualising Suzanne Murphy’s sawn-off skull and the grey, wrinkled mass within weeping blood and cerebral fluid over the unpeeled face. He sat down again.
“Bring me the stodgiest thing on the menu. With extra stodge. And black coffee.”
“Is that pint off, mate? You’ve gone green.”
“Pint’s nice.” Slowey dragged a damp handkerchief across his brow and gripped the brass rail in front of the bar tightly. “I’ve been acting green though. Probably time I woke up a bit.”
An hour ago, Barry had let Slowey install himself in the snug, promising to send through anyone who might have anything useful to say about last night’s events. So far, Slowey had only glimpsed three other living souls; Barry, his vomit-supping bull terrier and the resident alcoholic, who wedged himself behind his usual corner table, glazed, delicate and frantic, and drank pint after pint as he worked off the tremors.
Unfortunately, the alcoholic hadn’t patronised the Vaults last night. He’d taken umbrage at the notion of patronising a public house on the Sabbath; on the Lord’s day, heavy drinking should be confined to one’s own parlour.
Slowey read through his own notes, reviewing the snatches of interview Barry had given him between tending to his dog, pulling pints and shouting at his blocked pipes.
“That fucking toe-rag son-of-a-whore was a card-carrying wanker. A bigger shit-soaked pissing pig of a screw I have not met in my entire three-score years of fucked up life. Good customer though.”
Barry had plenty to say, some of it relevant and none of it clean.
Slowey had supped his first pint left-handed while his right recorded the ramblings of Barry. Murphy had been loud, leering and lary, unpopular with the regulars and dreaded by the female bar st
aff. He wore his job on his sleeve and spoke to anyone, loudly and at length, about “who he’d done with his fists and his dick.” He’d had no obvious friends, just a handful of acolytes who either liked his stories or didn’t have the nerve to ditch him.
“Could be he’s offed his own kiddies, you know. I always thought he was bent. Evil. You know, head full of pissed monkeys.” Barry had ruminated over a triple measure of cheap scotch between assaults on the pipes with a wrench. “Good customer though. Hundred quid a week easy.”
Barry had also known Braxton, senior and junior, “rough diamonds but trouble-free punters.” He hadn’t thought it odd that prison officers, brawlers, burglars and drug users rubbed shoulders in what he’d called his “very broad church.”
On the subject of saloon-bar contraband, Barry had become suspiciously adamant. Given his customer base, Slowey wandered how well Barry enforced his prohibition on drugs and stolen gear: “I won’t stand for any of that shite under my roof, officer.” Then again, he had invested in a CCTV system; the disconnected wires and jacks behind the bar and the blindly gazing camera mounted on the ceiling testified to that. But every system had its blind spots.
Still smarting from the loss of his new technology, Barry could offer no more help with the dawn raid on his cigarette machines: “Cost me a fucking grand, that hard-drive set-up. A grand! Should have stuck with video, then they could have just nicked the tape. Still, at least you kicked shit out of one of them. Only kind of justice these wankers understand.”
Barry had drifted away every ten minutes to serve the alcoholic, knowing the man’s poison of choice without having to ask, and gentling him with anodyne small-talk while he counted out payment with juddering fingers.
Slowey quickly gulped down the scalding black coffee that had appeared in front of him, then sopped the spilled ale from his notes with a bar towel. Rolling up the notebook and carrying it with him, he relieved himself at amazing length against the echoing, metal urinals, then allowed his own reflection in the mirror to sober him up a little more.