by David Mark
She reaches across and presses ‘play’ on the answerphone; a light winking on and off as if in code. She hears a voice she doesn’t recognize: nice accent and a bit out of breath, as if she’s talking on a treadmill. Alison falls silent as the message plays.
Yes, hello. I hope this is the right number – I’m working my way through a long list. Erm, I’m looking for a Miss Jardine. My friend, well, he’s more than that, I suppose, but look, my friend found something out about himself a little while ago and I think, or at least I hope, that maybe you could help him find some answers. He’s looking for his birth parents, you see. And we’ve heard the name Pamela Garner and – well, correct me if I’m wrong, please – but I heard you were close. Look, this is all a bit messy. Maybe I’ve made a mistake. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I have. Look, sorry. I’ll call back, maybe. I’m Grace, by the way. My friend is Adam Nunn. Right. Sorry again. Bye.
Vomit rises in Alison’s throat. There is movement in her belly; a constriction at her chest. Her skin feels hot and prickly. Memories flood her; wash away the present and pitch her into a churning sea of yesterdays.
Guilt.
Shame.
Images of two girls laughing and plaiting each other’s hair. Practising kisses and doing one another’s make-up. Seeing how many jelly sweets they can fit in their mouths at once. Holding Dad’s hand. One each. Riding in the big car and writing their names in the condensation on the windows.
That night.
1971.
Her, and what was done to her. Being taken away. Dad closing in on himself, folding inwards like petals at night-time. The child she only learned about through snatches of conversation. The screams coming from the gamekeeper’s cottage in the woods as nine pounds of red, screaming infant clawed his way into a world that didn’t want him.
Pamela’s having a baby, poor lass.
How could she love that thing? After what happened?
Best thing would be to drop it in the river with a brick.
And her face! How will she get a man looking like that?
Jardine does his best by her but every day she’s there it makes him look like he’s making up for something.
Like he’s soft, or guilty …
‘… a tonne would do it, Mum, I reckon,’ says Timmy. ‘See me through.’
There is no reply. He looks at her. Her face has gone pale and there is wetness on her cheeks.
‘Mum?’
Alison looks up and her eyes are red-seamed. ‘Nothing. Just a spot of bother.’
‘Let me sort it,’ he says and straightens his back, fixing his face into hard-man mode.
‘No, it’s nothing. Just a problem to be solved …’
She stutters into silence. She can feel her heart, hear her blood. Her mind is swimming with trite phrases and clichés. Can of worms. Old wounds. Skeletons in the closet. You can never go back …
‘That message, was it?’ asks Timmy, nodding. ‘I wasn’t listening. Give us his name and we’ll sort him.’
‘It’s … it’s nothing like that,’ she begins and stops when she hears the tears in her voice. She picks up the fountain pen with fingers that can barely grip and copies the telephone number onto an envelope. She takes the letter and folds it into four, tucking it inside her bra. She needs a drink. A cigarette. Time to think. Her brain is pounding like a jackhammer.
Pamela.
Pamela.
Pamela.
Like a daddy-long-legs bumbling along a skirting board she clatters out of the room, light-headed, stomach churning, looking for Jimbo and his fags, heading for the optics behind the bar.
FOURTEEN
9.31 p.m.
Timmy scowls at his mother’s backside until she’s out of sight. ‘Bitch,’ he says under his breath. Then, louder, for his own enjoyment, he repeats it. He likes saying ‘bitch’. It’s a punch of a word, meaty and impactful. He says it a lot when he’s hurting people. Says it more when he’s taking his turn with the girls who like to hang around within kissing distance of his wallet.
He walks over to the desk. Slides open the unlocked drawer and takes a half-inch of notes from the pile. Slips them into his pants and enjoys the feeling. He likes the way paper money feels. It’s one of his favourite sensations. Not his absolute, not a cataclysm of sensuality, like bringing down something hard on something soft, but definitely on the list.
He casts his eyes over the paperwork on the desk. Looks at the phone; old-fashioned and plastic. Plays the recording again and listens to the message. A smile creases his unpretty features. They always try and push him to one side. He’d shown them, hadn’t he? Lay in the dark in the loft of The Rose, sweating and cramping up and desperate for a piss. Had done what Irons told him to and hadn’t hesitated when the moment came to release the old ceiling joist. He’d known there’d be no remorse. No guilt. His mother and her geriatric bodyguard think it was his first kill, and Timmy has no plans to educate them. He likes being underestimated. That was, nobody ever sees him for what he really is until it’s already too late. Keeping himself from going mad, that’s the hard part. Killing time until it’s his turn to take over. He likes the blood and crunch of confrontation. Likes how it feels when a person comes apart in his hands. He’d love to perform such a service for his grandfather, but in the meantime, he’s trying to be the best version of himself he can be. That means taking care of things that need taking care of. And the voice on the phone certainly seemed to have ruined his mother’s day.
He picks up the pen and writes the names on his hand, then sits back in his mother’s chair, still warm from her arse, snooker cue resting across his knees.
Opportunities keep falling into his lap. He’s making a habit of being in the right place at the right time. The Old Man needs men like him. His mum’s good at the business side of things but she hasn’t got the stomach for the rough stuff. He hadn’t liked seeing her flaunt herself in front of Kukuc. Doesn’t like hearing the noises that come from her room when she lets Jimbo stay over. And she’d looked white as sour milk as she’d hurried from the office, all upset and undone by a voice that doesn’t sound important to him.
He lets himself revel in a memory. The voice at the end of the line. The frightened, half-mad plea for help. Something had gone wrong. He needed to call in a favour. He needed Mr Jardine …
Timmy had stepped up. Done what was needed.
He reaches into his trousers and cups the money with one hand.
The other makes a fist around the cue.
He’s going to make the family proud.
‘I don’t know what I wanted to happen. Maybe I was ready to leave things alone …’
‘You said you wanted to know! I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.’
‘No you didn’t, you thought this was all exciting and wondered what you could find out while you didn’t have Tilly strapped to your leg. Well, well done you. I’m so impressed.’
‘Don’t be like that, Adam. I hate it when you’re cross with me. We know now. At least we know …’
Grace is trying not to cry. Adam is doing his best not to shout. Tilly, still strapped into her car seat, plonked like a throne on top of the coffee table, is watching the back-and-forth like a tennis umpire – occasionally offering helpful phrases from her limited vocabulary: shurrup, mine and, somewhat incongruously, ham.
‘You had no right!’
‘I was trying to help, Adam! I’m sorry, but you wanted answers …’
‘And I’ve got them now, have I? Now you’ve had a chat with some plastic gangster who can’t keep a secret if his life depends on it? Now you’ve phoned a snooker club and spilled the beans to whoever’s fucking listening …’
‘Please, don’t be cross, I was thinking of you …’
‘What a fucking day. What a fucking day!’
‘Shurrup.’
‘Tilly, don’t say that – it’s rude.’
‘Ham.’
‘Jesus.’
‘No, ham.’
‘What’s that word?’
‘Hone? Oh, phone. Phone!’
Grace, grateful for the distraction, fumbles with her mobile. She puts it on speakerphone so that Adam will stop yelling at her.
A London voice, cocksure and young, crackles through the speaker. ‘Yeah, you left a message on the answerphone? Is that Grace?’
‘Yes,’ she mutters. Then, louder: ‘Yes.’
‘Nice one, nice one. Look, seems a tricky thing to chat about over the phone. Why don’t you tell me where you’re based and I can come see you. I work for the family, you see, and as you can imagine it’s a sensitive subject. If we could have a little meeting – what do you call it, a tête-à-tête? Ha, yes, then we could progress things from there.’
Grace looks at Adam, his face pale, eyes dark. He gives the tiniest of nods.
‘We could come to you. London, yes? It’ll just be Adam, of course. I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend personally …’
‘Oh, what a shame …’
‘But Adam would be keen to find some answers, if that’s convenient …’
‘Can’t wait. Give me half an hour and we’ll arrange something. At our expense, of course.’
‘This is so good of you – I was frightened I’d made a terrible mistake …’
‘Not at all. Cheers.’
The silence is heavy, crackling with the forked lightning of things unsaid. It seems like an age before Adam crosses to where she stands and puts his arm around her shoulders; pulls her close and kisses her cheek, her forehead, the edge of her mouth.
‘Thank you,’ he whispers. ‘Thank you.’
FIFTEEN
Portsmouth Central Police Station
10.17 p.m.
‘You like him for it?’
DCI Bosworth takes a moment before she replies. Just keeps staring at the screen of her laptop. Adam Nunn glowers back at her, unshaven, dark-eyed, his expression captured somewhere between angry and afraid. She can’t read him. Can’t work him out. He’s good-looking, in a dishevelled sort of way, but she can’t imagine giving him a second glance if she passed him in the street. He has the look of somebody without a destination, but in a hurry.
‘Cass?’
She ignores the voice, focusing on Nunn until the pixels spin and blur and swim in her vision. She can’t even make up her mind whether she finds him charming. He’d done his best to act the hard man during the interview but it had seemed curiously affected, as if he’d learned the role from watching gangster movies. He’d only seemed true to himself in his moments of concern. He’d seemed genuine in his unhappiness at Larry’s death – had looked positively ashamed when she had read out his list of convictions, all but patting at the air and urging her to keep her voice down lest somebody should hear about his indiscretions, even while attempting to revel in the role of thuggish enforcer. She finds it easier to imagine him reading bedtime stories to his offspring than taking an axe to an enemy, but she’s been in the job long enough to know that few people have murder in their eyes. ‘Cass?’
She glances up at the rather bland mass of Detective Sergeant Pat Deakin. He’s Irish, middle-aged, and his prematurely grey hair gives him the look of a judge who’s forgotten to take his wig off. He’s wearing a blue pinstripe suit over a checked shirt and the clash of patterns strikes Bosworth as one of the main reasons for her repeated headaches since inviting him onto her unit. He’s holding out a beige plastic beaker full of something that might be tea.
‘Twenty pence from the machine,’ says Deakin, pulling up a chair and plonking himself down beside her. ‘Tastes like tramp piss but you can’t argue with the price.’
Bosworth takes a sip. It’s wet and warm and helps rid her mouth of the taste of stale air. She’s been sitting in this little interview room since before lunch and her tongue feels too big for her mouth. It’s a despairing cube; the ceiling tiles eaten through in places and patterned with damp in others. The carpet feels like cold toast against the soles of her bare feet. The bosses here at Portsmouth nick are accommodating them as commanded, but offering up the minimum of comforts. She’s considered asking to be moved to a cell.
‘You briefed him yet?’ asks Deakin, nodding at the mobile phone on the table top.
She purses her lips and blows out a sigh. She hadn’t had much to tell their boss and he’s never been great at keeping his disappointment out of his voice. Nunn had seemed like a decent suspect. He’d been the reason she had made the drive from their London HQ to this knackered old town on the south coast.
‘I emailed it over but he rang straight back,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘Prefers to listen than to read – you know how he gets. Too many words and he drifts off. But I gave him the bullet points.’
‘And they are?’ asks Deakin.
‘He’s a viable suspect, but until we can pin down a time of death he’s got alibis aplenty, and he’s got a perfectly good reason why that number should be on the dead man’s hand.’
Deakin pulls a face. ‘Does he, though? I mean, Paris did a job where you’d be in the habit of keeping proper notes, don’t you think? Just strikes me as odd.’
‘It’s only odd when you view it as a copper,’ says Bosworth, grimacing as she sips her tea. ‘On a normal day, to a normal person, scribbling a number down on your hand doesn’t instantly point to its owner being a murderer. It’s just something you do.’
Deakin makes a face. ‘Did you get the message from Gray? He’s got enough for a briefing note for the Home Office so he’s happy to let us slip away. Too late to go tonight but there’s a hotel by the harbour …’
‘I don’t like doing half a job,’ mutters Bosworth, and the sentiment feels genuine. She thought this might be an easy case. Something with a bit of glamour and glory. Instead it is making her feel positively sad, and she left CID to get away from such inconveniences.
‘Can you imagine?’ she asks, half to herself. ‘Finding out you’re not who you think you are …’
‘He went to university to study science,’ scoffs Deakin. ‘Must be half blind if he didn’t spot the inconsistencies.’
‘Must be hard, that’s all I’m saying. I’m tempted to go ask the parents, but in all honesty, what’s the good? In terms of our own brief, we’re onto a loser. No point being twats for the sake of it.’
‘Maybe forensics will come up trumps,’ says Deakin. ‘A partial print. A skin cell. God, we could find the hammer and put the whole thing to bed.’
‘You think that’s likely?’
‘Well, no …’
‘The boss said the same thing,’ mutters Bosworth, slumping in her seat and staring up at the ceiling.
‘We could lean on the missus,’ continues Deakin. ‘Or the mum. Get him to stop playing silly beggars.’
Bosworth looks back at the man on the screen. Glares into the dark pupils and sees herself looking back. She reaches out and pointedly minimizes the image. ‘I take it you don’t like him,’ she says, stretching.
‘Too cocky by half,’ says Deakin. ‘Good punch on him, I’ll give him that. Local plod’s having his jaw wired.’
‘It was the wrong approach,’ concedes Bosworth. ‘Turning up mob-handed like that. We’d have got more out of him with a conversation.’
‘He’s the one who lost his temper. Guilty conscience, I reckon.’
Bosworth shrugs. ‘I reckon we’re onto a loser here, Pat. It’s lost a little of its flavour.’
Deakin nods. They’d leapt at the chance to take over when the body was found at Dedham Vale, both half convinced that they’d found a gangland corpse from long ago. They hadn’t been prepared for looking into the murder of a private detective from the far side of the country. Their brief is to investigate organized crime, and while the investigation has thrown up a possible link to the Jardines, both officers’ careers would be better served by finding the absent Nicholas Kukuc. Adam Nunn is small-time in comparison, and Bosworth likes to think big.
‘We
going to throw it back to CID then?’ asks Deakin, jerking a thumb over his shoulder as if pointing the way. ‘Keep a watching brief, make sure it comes back our way if anything, well …’
‘If it gets juicy,’ says Bosworth, smiling. She can’t see the point of being able to pick and choose her cases if she can’t throw back the ones she tires of. ‘I think we’re as well heading back to HQ. We’ve got Nunn’s DNA swabs but they’ll not be processed for a few days. Until then, I don’t know what good we are here.’
‘There’s nothing to compare it to anyway,’ says Deakin. ‘Forensics can only do so much.’
Bosworth chews her cheek. Closes an eye. Decides to take a leap. Reaches forward and enlarges the image of Adam. ‘Am I going mad here, or does he remind you of somebody?’
Deakin looks at the image. Leans forward in his seat. ‘I thought that myself,’ he says, under his breath. ‘In the interview. When he cocked his head. It’s the eyes.’
Bosworth glances behind her. Returns her attention to the screen. Her fingers move over the keys as she logs in to the secure database that the Serious and Organised Crime Agency has spent an ungodly amount of money installing, and which is slightly less effective than the cheap one she used to use as a detective constable. She calls up a black-and-white image: a police mugshot from 1964. It shows a tall, dark-haired man: big collar, tattooed chest, somebody else’s blood on his lapels. Handsome, in a dishevelled sort of way, his eyes staring up from beneath neat brows; a little angry, perhaps a little afraid.
‘Before he lost his looks,’ says Deakin, under his breath. ‘Before they went to work on him …’
‘Somebody told me it was pigs …’ she muses.
‘No, that was the Geordie lad. This poor sod got carved the old-fashioned way. Bayonet, ground glass and a psycho with a temper. Never said a word.’