Suffer the Children

by Adam Creed

  Crossing the road, he is stopped in his tracks. The E-Type is parked up a few doors down. It has a parking ticket and when he gets inside, he opens an envelope with the bill from the garage and the keys.

  He makes a rooibos tea, whips up some eggs for an omelette and puts some porcini mushrooms on the soak with the final slug of white wine that Josie left last night. He picks up his messages and hears an echo of the way his name sounds in her mouth, telling him Leanne Colquhoun is about to be released on bail.

  He calls her straightaway. ‘Is she out yet?’

  ‘Some time soon,’ says Josie. ‘Do you want a tail on her?’

  ‘Get Pulford to wait outside the Limekiln. Tell him to keep close tabs on her. He’s had plenty of sleep.’

  ‘I checked up on the CPS and it was a Ruth Merritt that dealt with Stensson.’

  ‘Merritt? I know that name. I’m sure I do.’ He runs a hand through his hair, closes his eyes.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Good night, Josie.’ He hangs up, trying to dredge a story to go with the name. Ruth Merritt. He presses ‘messages’ again, wanting there to be more but he gets only silence after the long beep. Without thinking, he taps out Sylvie’s number. She answers and his heart misses a beat. ‘Hello. Hello? Who is that?’ she says.

  He hangs up and turns his phone off, goes back into the kitchen and puts cling film over the soaking mushrooms. His appetite is gone and he pours the egg mixture into the sink, runs a modicum of hot water. In the lounge, he leafs through his Muñoz file and begins to read about the Extbatteria brothers, goes back through the clippings of their father’s pièce de résistance: the Bilbao bombing of 1986.

  Old man Extbatteria was hardcore ETA, raised by poverty-stricken grandparents in Franco’s Spain. When the old General died, he soon became a part of the inner sanctum of the rebel Basques, hellbent on independence.

  Staffe can understand that in the scheme of things, a little misery inflicted on the few might be justified by a greater good. Liberation from a cruel dictator. But what of the lost and lonely lives of those left behind in the carnage of the bombs deliberately aimed at the innocent, not the enemy.

  He leans back in his father’s straight-backed Sheraton and hears an ancient creak that whispers of many, many evenings. He didn’t tell his parents he loved them that last time at the ferry. All he had wanted was to burn the E-Type up the A3 to a houseful of party. He calls Muñoz but all he gets is a mechanical, foreign voice, presumably telling him that Muñoz is out for the night.

  A red light flashes a missed call. It is from Sylvie. She didn’t leave a message. Suddenly, blood prickles in his veins. All chance of sleep is gone, so he puts on his suede jacket and picks up the keys for the E-Type, takes a night drive.

  He remembers the day his father turned up with the E-Type and his mother went up the wall. But young Will also saw the truth beyond his mother’s words, saw the smile that lurked: how much she loved his father. Even then, when he was fifteen and not wanting to have anything to do with them, he saw the kind of a man his father was and feared he would never come up to scratch. He made himself come up to scratch, though, and once asked Jessop what he thought of him. ‘You’d pass muster,’ Jessop had said. It made him want to weep.

  Staffe turns the ignition off and looks up at the Barbican. Rosa’s curtains are only half shut and he knows she’ll be alone. As he presses and waits, he doesn’t quite know how he came to be here. When he says who he is, she kind of gasps his name. ‘Will,’ she says, ‘you should have let me know. You should call.’

  ‘Let me in.’

  The lock clicks open. He takes the stairs slowly and by the time he gets there the door is open. She’s playing Bessie Smith and when he sees her, dressing gown open and a tiny pair of white lace pants through which he can see her shaven pubis, he knows she has been drinking.

  ‘I’ll put something else on.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘You’ve come to talk, right?’

  ‘I don’t know, Rosa.’

  ‘Let me get you a drink.’ She puts a hand on his chest and goes up on tiptoes, kisses him full on the mouth. She tastes of lemon and booze.

  He takes off his coat and walks into the bedroom, sits on the edge of the bed and removes his shoes, socks. ‘You got some whisky?’ he calls, lying back on the bed. He can feel the beat of his heart. The light above turns off and he hears her pad up to the bed.

  ‘What are you saying, Will?’

  He looks up at her, kneeling on the bed, smiling down at him. ‘You decide.’ He reaches out and puts his hand on her face. She turns her head and takes his forefinger in her mouth. She sucks on it and looks him dead in the eye. He feels her, through her pants. She pulls her mouth away, takes a slug of whisky and kisses him, lets the spirit trickle into his mouth. She probes him deep with her tongue. He can feel her getting wet, feel her blowing the lid off what prostitutes are supposed to do.

  ‘Don’t leave it so long next time,’ says Rosa. She steps into a pair of jeans and breathes in as she buttons up. ‘I’ll be fatter and older and then you’ll just want to talk.’

  ‘What do we talk about, Rosa?’

  ‘Can’t you remember?’

  ‘I ever tell you about my father?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘Maybe next time.’

  ‘Or your girlfriend.’

  He puts on his shoes. ‘You got anyone coming round later?’

  ‘Why are you so angry, Will?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Most of the time.’

  ‘We don’t know anything about each other, do we?’

  ‘Maybe that’s the beauty.’ She comes up to him and kisses him, full. She puts her hand inside his trousers.

  ‘You be careful, Rosa,’ he says, not knowing what to do – whether to offer her money. Surely not.

  ‘You go, Will. And don’t be a stranger.’

  He walks through the living room, closing the door without taking a look back. He takes the stairs two at a time and steps into the street, feeling brisk.

  Then he sees it.

  ‘Bastards!’ he says, walking towards the E-Type. He studies the meticulously spray-painted, stencilled message.

  WATCH YOUR BACK

  ‘Watch your back,’ Staffe repeats, leaning on the E-Type’s roof. He closes his eyes, feels his pulse quicken as he realises they have spoken down his phone line, peered through his windows and now they have etched themselves on his father’s pride and joy.

  *******

  Staffe checks the padlock and can’t help feeling the vandalising of the E-Type is some kind of back-handed slap from a higher authority. He shouldn’t have gone to see Rosa. He shouldn’t have done what he did there. He likes her, but could never love her – if he knew what that was. He has never been cruel to her, he tells himself.

  He walks away from the lock-up and round to the front of the Kilburn house. He is certain he can hear someone following him, but when he turns around, the streets are empty all the way to Shoot Up Hill. Up above, the lights are on and the house has a warm glow, as if it were a home to someone. Staffe resolves to be civil to Paolo and, as he knocks, he hopes Johnson hasn’t left too vile an imprint on the man his sister loves.

  When she opens the door, Marie breaks into a smile. Her eyes sparkle – none of it tallies with what Staffe knows of the recent events in her life.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ he says.

  ‘Everything is just great, Will. I’m so glad I came to you when I did. So glad.’ She stands to one side and welcomes him in with a sweep of her arm. ‘We’re having supper. Paolo has done saltimbocca. We’re having it on our knees.’

  Paolo appears in the doorway to the lounge, holding a large plate and a small ream of napkins, as if he is waiting on them with canapés. He takes two long strides up to Staffe and holds out the plate and offers a napkin. His eyes are both black and his pupils glisten from within the slits of the swollen flesh. His smile glints with gold.

  �
��Christ! What happened to you?’ says Staffe, taking a slice of the pork. It has a leaf of sage and a smear of prosciutto.

  ‘I cross the wrong people,’ he says casually, still smiling.

  ‘It’s a sign, Will. It’s all a sign. He’s away from those people now.’ She links an arm through his and rests her head on Paolo’s shoulder, looks up at her brother. ‘We’re together.’

  ‘Here, I keep my head down.’ Paolo is six foot and lean. His arms are wiry in a vest top and his jeans are trendy shabby. His hair is black and shiny and long. Even though he is all beat up, Staffe can see what a sister might see in him. Paolo places a soft hand on Staffe’s forearm. ‘How’s the saltimbocca?’

  The pork and ham and sage have melted in Staffe’s mouth. ‘It jumps in the mouth,’ he says.

  ‘You know,’ says Paolo, wrapping an arm around Staffe and guiding him into his own living room. Staffe reasserts his preconceptions: that this man is bad; bad for his sister and bad for him.

  ‘Where’s Harry?’ asks Staffe.

  ‘He’s flopped out, listening to his music. He’s never without that iPod you got him,’ says Marie. ‘Go see him later, when you’ve eaten. You can put him to bed, but don’t wake him.’

  They sit and chat and Staffe lets his mind wander to the vandalising of the E-Type. He looks at Paolo and tries to work out if he knows who did for him. He pictures Paolo being kind to Marie and tries to imagine her driving him berserk, giving him little choice than to take a hold, shake her out of it. He feels his blood heat up and he stands, shakes his arms down. As he does, he thinks he hears something outside, but the curtains are drawn.

  ‘Stay, Will. You and Paolo need to get to know each other.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘She told me all about you, Will,’ says Paolo. ‘The man who has it all. Her big brother.’

  ‘I haven’t got it all. Far from it.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ says Paolo.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Go see Harry. See your nephew.’

  When he goes upstairs, Staffe looks out of the landing window. Two street lights are out and the double-glazing is too good to let any sound in. He’s sure somebody is out there, but there’s no evidence.

  Harry has fallen asleep in the space that was intended to be Staffe’s music room. The alcoves either side of the Arts and Crafts fireplace are shelved at thirteen-inch intervals to accommodate his vinyl. Sylvie picked out the fireplace a couple of years ago on a weekend that re-established them as friends. That soon faltered. But the room is a success and as if to prove its purpose, young Harry has music piping through his Apple white buds as he sleeps.

  Staffe wonders what his mother’s grandson is listening to, but daren’t disturb the flow. He gets gooseflesh when he thinks what his dead parents would have given to hold their grandson.

  Harry is lighter than Staffe expects, like marshmallow. Staffe smells the clammy crook of his neck. He hopes he will be big when he grows up, not take any shit. But he questions this and revises his wish. He says a quick prayer that Harry is everything his mother’s mother would want him to be. As they stand in the half light, tears run down Staffe’s stubbled jaw and fall on his nephew’s hair. He has no clue what his mother would wish for her grandson. He doesn’t dare think how wide of that mark his own life has been.

  He carries Harry out of the room and sits on the stairs. He rocks gently back and forth and whispers a story. He makes it up as he goes along and in the end young Harry saves a princess who didn’t ever know who Harry was. She lived happily ever after.

  ‘What the fuck!’

  Staffe jolts from his repose.

  It is a woman’s voice.

  ‘I’ll kill the fucker. I’ll kill the fucker!’ shouts Paolo, running to the front door. He is holding a baseball bat, flicking it expertly from the wrist.

  Harry’s eyelids flicker and Staffe holds him closer, hears the fizz of the tune being piped in. He watches downstairs as Marie rants into the letter box. Paolo is behind, readying himself. ‘Open the door, Marie. Open it!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I can’t take this no more. They kill me. They kill me.’

  Marie turns round, looks up at Paolo and Staffe sees the pale horror in her face. He puts his hands over Harry’s ears and shouts down, ‘No! Wait.’ He rushes to the music room, lays Harry down gently and throws himself at the stairs, touching the tread three times the whole way down. He crashes into the door surround. ‘Give me the bat. Give me the bastard bat, Paolo!’

  Staffe takes a grip of the bat, takes in a lungful of the air and shouts ‘Let’s have you!’ and pulls open the door. He swings the bat as he launches himself out of the door and he trips, commando-rolls down the steps and into the front garden. He waits for the punches – and worse – but nothing comes. As he blinks up towards the house, he can’t believe his eyes.

  There, sitting cross-legged and weeping, is the only ginger-haired Indian he knows.

  ‘Sohan?’ says Staffe. ‘Sohan Kelly? What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘They are going to kill me, Mister Staffe. And your promises aren’t helping. No way your promises good for what you say.’

  ‘What made you come here?’

  ‘They’re going to kill me. They said so.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘You know I can’t change what I say. You have to tell your Pennington.’

  ‘You tell him.’

  Sohan Kelly looks up at Staffe, rocking to and fro and shaking his head. ‘I can’t go back to him. Not him. I can’t.’

  And it is clear to Staffe that Kelly is more afraid of Pennington than the e.Gang. It is also clear that Kelly won’t tell him why this is, or what hold Pennington has over him. It is enough, in the warm balm of the hot summer night, to make Staffe’s blood turn cold.

  He looks back at the house and beyond the distraught Sohan Kelly, Paolo wraps his arms around Marie. She is weeping tears of joy. Behind them, young Harry, earphones in, comes downstairs slowly, singing a syncopated ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’, which makes Staffe think the child’s mother might be doing something right.

  Friday Morning

  Pulford has been sitting in his unmarked car at the entrance to the Limekiln estate since 6 a.m. From here he can see up to the fifth floor where Leanne Colquhoun will soon be reunited with her two children. He clocks everyone going into the estate, watches for them appearing on the fifth-floor deck.

  A bashed-up Mondeo parks opposite and a horribly familiar face appears. Nick Absolom is one of Fleet Street’s worst, climbing over bodies to get to the top at the News. Leanne Colquhoun has been free for twelve hours and the vultures are already descending.

  Pulford is torn. If he gets out and tells Absolom to scratch his poisonous pen across some other poor soul’s life, his cover would be blown. If he stays put, Absolom will sink his teeth into Leanne and spread her story all across the front pages. He waits until Absolom appears on the fifth deck and calls Staffe.

  ‘That slimy bastard,’ says Staffe when Pulford calls him. ‘Jesus, this is all we need.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Pennington will go berserk. I’ll have to ask him to have a word with the editor at the News. He didn’t want her released in the first place.’ Staffe thinks of that other conversation he has to have with Pennington about Sohan Kelly.

  ‘What can Leanne tell Absolom that’s not already out there?’

  ‘We questioned her about Montefiore. The press would have a field day putting the two cases together.’

  ‘Hang on,’ says Pulford. A shiny purple Clio pulls up and Carly Kellerman gets out. She has a document case under her arm.

  ‘What is it?’ says Staffe.

  Carly Kellerman ushers two children out of the back of the car. The boy has a zigzag pattern shaved into his hair and the girl has a high-up ponytail.

  ‘It’s the Colquhoun children.’ The kids look around, nervous, not sure whether to smile
or snarl. They look up at the high decks of the tower. ‘It’s Absolom’s lucky day.’

  ‘No luck involved, Pulford. This was set up,’ says Staffe. ‘You stay put and don’t let Absolom see you. I’ll send a uniformed WPC round with a counsellor. They’ll get Absolom to scarper and hopefully Leanne won’t find out we’re watching her.’ He slams the phone down, curses Pennington, Nick Absolom and the day he came back for this case.

  *******

  ‘I knew we shouldn’t have released her till you had another viable suspect,’ booms Pennington, not even bothering to look at Staffe. ‘Jesus! This is going to be all over the press now. It’s day three of your seven and you’ve got nothing. Where are you going with this?’ He glares.

  Staffe considers telling him about Kashell. ‘We’re chasing up Colquhoun’s first wife and Montefiore’s previous victims.’

  Pennington’s glare morphs into an incredulous stare as he looks his DI up and down, sees the state he is in. ‘Are you all right, Staffe? You look like shit.’

  ‘I had a visit from Sohan Kelly last night.’

  ‘He’s taken care of.’

  Staffe recalls the horrified look on Kelly’s face when he uttered Pennington’s name. ‘How exactly did you take care of him, sir? He didn’t seem “taken care of”.’

  ‘You know what that scumbag is capable of. He’s a grass for crying out loud. He’ll find a way to disappear. He certainly won’t turn crook’s evidence. Don’t you worry about that.’

  There is a knock on the door and Josie comes in and Staffe can tell straight away it’s not good news.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ She looks at Pennington, then Staffe, as if for permission to drop him further in it. Staffe nods at her. ‘The WPC couldn’t get into Leanne Colquhoun’s flat. There was nobody home. No answer at the door. No sound, no lights or anything.’