by Baker, John
They’d had the works, egg and bacon, hash browns, sausage, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, chips and two mugs of dark brown tea. Ralph had tried to get his teeth round the waitress, a tall girl with a moustache and a black bra showing through a transparent blouse. He’d arranged to meet her in the Museum Gardens when she got off at three, so the snooker was to fill in time until then.
Barney, Geordie’s dog, had crept under the snooker table. He’d been withdrawn and quiet since Ralph had arrived on the scene, but more so when Ralph was drinking. Occasionally the dog’s nose and eyes would appear and he’d give Geordie a dirty look.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Geordie asked defensively.
Ralph was rolling when he came back to the table with another two foaming glasses of lager. It was their fifth pint in an hour and a half, and didn’t look as though it was going to be the last. Geordie tried to think back to when he had drunk so much before, but he couldn’t remember. When he’d been on the street he used to drink cheap wine and worse, whatever was going in fact, but not lager. Maybe he’d drunk around four pints once with Janet, when they first met, but he couldn’t be sure. Sometimes he made up stories like that because it made him sound cool.
Ralph, though, he could drink five or six pints any time of the day or night. If he really went for it, he could probably stand at a bar all night, go through ten or fifteen pints and not even blink. Jesus, he’d been a sailor. On ships.
‘I’d never sue Sam,’ Geordie said. ‘Sam’s the best bloke I met in my life. It wasn’t for him, I’d still be walking the streets. Me an’ Barney both. I’d never’ve met Janet, that was through him as well, and Echo’d never been heard of.’ He supped a couple of inches off the top of the glass.
‘All right,’ Ralph said. ‘Keep your hair on. I’m not telling you to sue the guy. I’m just saying he’s got a nice set-up. I’m making a remark, something to talk about.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘That house he lives in,’ said Ralph. ‘That’s his own house, right? He owns it?’
‘Was Dora’s house,’ Geordie said. ‘Before she died. Sam, he inherited it.’
‘Y’know how much that house’s worth?’
‘Dunno. It’s a big house.’
‘Right. It’s a big house, and it’s planted in the middle of York. I reckon it’d fetch a hundred and fifty grand, maybe two.’
‘No,’ said Geordie. ‘Sam’s gonna give it away. He’s just gotta decide who to give it to.’
‘Why’n’t he give it to you?’
‘No, he’ll give it to a charity,’ Geordie said. ‘Some organization that’ll use it right. Homeless people or kids, something like that.’
Ralph looked at the table. Geordie had set the balls up to play another game, but he hadn’t cued off. He picked up his glass and drank all but the last couple of inches. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘If you told him you wanted to start a charity for homeless types, would he give you the house?’ Geordie laughed. ‘I don’t wanna start a charity, Ralph. I’m in the detective business. Me and Sam work together.’
‘I know you don’t wanna start a charity,’ Ralph said. ‘But if you changed your mind about detectives and wanted to start a charity, would he give you the house?’
‘I don’t wanna...’
‘I know you don’t wanna do it,’ said Ralph with a sudden edge to his voice. ‘What I’m saying is, if you did? If? OK? Would the guy give you the house?’
Geordie picked up his cue and examined the tip. ‘Sam would know I couldn’t do it,’ he said. ‘Run a charity, something like that. I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘OK,’ said Ralph. ‘So you’d have a manager. Someone who knows how to handle money, someone what could give you advice, show you the ropes. Kind of administrator.’
‘Like Celia?’
‘Yeah, you could say like Celia. But I was thinking of a guy. Would he give you the house?’
‘Yeah, I expect he would,’ Geordie said. ‘Sam likes me. If I wanted something and he could help, he’d do it. That’s how he is. An’ I’d do the same for him.’
It was as if Ralph couldn’t help it. Slowly a big smile lit up his face. ‘Y’know what I’m gonna do?’ he said. Geordie shook his head.
‘I’m gonna buy my little brother another pint of lager.’
‘OK, what about this question?’ said Ralph. Geordie watched him hit the white ball and send it round the table. It didn’t connect with any of the reds, but glanced off the green and went into one of the baulk pockets. ‘Fuckin’ stupid game.’
Geordie took the white out of the pocket and placed it in the D. ‘Four to me,’ he said. ‘What question?’
‘I was on this ship, once, and we had a guy who fell into the hold. He was normal as you and me when he went down, but when they brought him up he was a cabbage.’
‘Poor guy.’
‘Yeah, poor guy. And you know what happened to him? He went out on the streets begging, that’s what. There was this charity, there. This was in Portsmouth, and there was this charity there that specialized in head cases, guys falling off ships or cranes, and into holds like this guy had done. But they was full up. The charity was sitting there, and could’ve cured the man, but they couldn’t take him because they was full up. So he went begging. Last I heard he was dead. That was Christmas, couple of years back.’
‘This is life,’ said Geordie, coming over philosophical. Barney was peering out at him from under the table.
‘But it doesn’t have to be like that,’ said Ralph. ‘If someone wants to do something about it, really do something. That could save a lot of misery in the world. If I had a place, I could do it.’
‘You?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ralph defensively. ‘Something wrong with that?’
‘You really mean it?’ Geordie asked. ‘You’re not putting me on?’
‘Hey, Geordie. I’m your brother, right? I’m not likely to set you up with a cock-and-bull story. Today I’ve had a few beers, and I’m not so hot on explaining myself. But if this mate of yours is so keen to give his house to a charity, then I’ll be happy to help any way I can.’
‘You want me to talk to Sam about it?’
‘Hold it there for a couple of days, bro. Don’t let’s go tearing away at it without thinking it through. We’ll talk round it for a while, just the two of us, see what it looks like when it’s matured.’
‘OK, time to go,’ Ralph said. He downed the rest of his pint and swept his cue through the balls remaining on the table. Geordie rubbed his hand over the long chalk mark on the cloth, glanced around guiltily, as though it was he who had done it rather than his brother.
‘Where to now?’ he asked. ‘I’d better be getting home. Janet’ll wonder where I am.’
‘Museum Gardens,’ said Ralph. ‘Get a piece of that waitress action.’
‘Not me,’ Geordie told him. ‘That’s your date.’
‘Come on. She’ll have a friend, they always do. Or we’ll take turns.’
Geordie shook his head. He got down on his hands and knees to put Barney’s leash on. ‘Janet’s really gonna love that, isn’t she? I go out and get pissed in the afternoon’s one thing. Come home falling over all the furniture. But she’s not gonna get over some waitress in the park. We’d end up, she’d kick me out and get a divorce and take Echo to Australia or somewhere I couldn’t see her.’ He tugged Barney out from under the table and started in the direction of home. ‘Besides which,’ he said, ‘I don’t wanna meet no waitress in the park, even if she does wear her underwear on top. What d’you think I am, Ralph, a philanderer?’
Ralph shook his head and held out his arms. ‘Philanderer?’ he said. ‘I dunno what you are. Christ, Geordie, I just offered to share a bit of nooky with you, you start talking Greek. How’s Janet gonna know about it? I’m not gonna tell her.’
‘It won’t make any difference if she knows or not,’ Geordie said. ‘I’ll know, won’t I? And I’ll have to live with it, knowing that I’ve bee
n a creep.’
‘Fuck me,’ said Ralph.
‘Yeah, fuck you,’ said Geordie. ‘You’re my brother, Ralph, and there’s lots of ways you’re a good guy. But you shouldn’t’ve done that with the cue, marking up the cloth like that. And this thing with the waitress, you’re way out of line with that.’
‘What’ve I done?’ said Ralph. ‘A bit of chalk on the table. It’ll brush off. You don’t wanna get your end away before supper, that’s fine, but I’ve got a real boner just thinking about it.’
Geordie knelt down to tickle Barney’s throat. He looked up at Ralph. ‘D’you know what ethics are?’ he asked.
Ralph shook his head. ‘I ain’t got a clue, Geordie. I only know it’s not gonna stop me shagging that waitress.’
‘Uh-oh,’ Janet said when he walked in the kitchen. She was at the table with a paring knife and a bowl of potatoes. Geordie dropped Barney’s leash, and Janet put the knife down and took the leash from Barney’s collar.
‘I need a piss,’ Geordie said. He went towards the bathroom.
‘I’ll hold the fort,’ Janet told him.
He pissed into the bowl, resting his forehead against the tiles. As soon as he’d finished he needed a shit, so he dropped his pants and waited while his back plumbing evacuated a small lake of sewage, fast. It was somehow under control. He couldn’t have stopped it - paused, say, and then gone back to finish it off. It wasn’t that much under control. But he was sitting on the pan. That was something to smile about. As long as the pan didn’t overflow, he’d be all right.
When everything that was going to come had arrived, his stomach began heaving. He’d got rid of the egg and bacon and mushrooms and tomatoes and a good quantity of the chips by the normal route, but the hash browns, sausage, beans, the rest of the chips and lager all wanted to come out the way they’d gone in.
Geordie slipped to the floor and rested his chin on the lip of the bowl. His forehead was dripping with sweat. He glanced at his watch. Four o’clock in the afternoon. He retched and a stream of digested vegetable matter ripped through his throat and hit the pan. He looked at it, just managed to catch sight of several vital organs before they disappeared under the water. One of them was his heart.
He didn’t hear Janet open the door and come into the bathroom. She placed something over his shoulders, felt like a blanket, stopped his teeth from chattering.
‘When you’ve finished here,’ she said, ‘go upstairs. Get your head down for a bit. I’ll call you when the stew’s ready.’
32
The note read:
five grand and I’ll go away. Get the
cash and wait. Or you are dead.
The letters and phrases had been cut out of a magazine and stuck to the page with Sellotape.
‘What d’you make of it?’ Sam asked. He was at his desk in the office. Celia, JD and Marie were standing behind him.
‘Weird,’ said JD. ‘It’s like something out of a book.’ Celia was shaking her head. ‘How did he expect her to read it?’
‘Yeah,’ said Marie, looking at JD. ‘The guy’s seen too many movies.’
Sam had been wearing a smile of disbelief since he’d first seen the note. ‘In a horror movie it’d be written in blood,’ he said. ‘What I don’t understand is why someone would go to this much trouble, when he could’ve contacted her by phone.’
‘She might know him,’ said Celia. ‘Recognize his voice.’
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘Maybe. It’s fairly easy to disguise a voice on the phone.’
‘You use a hanky,’ JD said with a wink. ‘Bogie always did anyway. Muffles the voice. Wasn’t there a film where the bad guy used a tape recorder and slowed it down, then played it through the telephone?’
‘What we’re saying,’ Sam said, ‘if we’d been trying this on, we’d all have done it better?’
‘Anyone’d do it better,’ said Marie. ‘If it has to be a note, it’d be better to write it on plain paper in capitals. Pen and paper from Woolies, virtually untraceable. But this -’ she indicated the note on Sam’s desk - ‘imagine what a forensic scientist is going to make of it.’
‘The name of the magazine for a start,’ said Sam. ‘That’ll narrow it down.’
‘And the Sellotape’ll have all kinds of bits and pieces attached,’ said JD. ‘They’ll probably be able to describe his front room.’
‘Fingerprints?’ said Celia.
Sam nodded. ‘That might be too much to hope for. But the guy seems stupid enough to’ve left some.’
‘Even DNA,’ JD pointed out. ‘He hasn’t used scissors on the tape, probably bitten it off the roll.’
‘Are you going to give it to the police, Sam?’ Celia asked.
‘Yes, see what they make of it. I’ve got a few good photocopies. Marie, how d’you feel about finding the source of the letters? The magazine they came from?’
‘I’ll go down to Smith’s,’ she said. ‘Been meaning to catch up on some reading.’
‘Have a word with Sly Beaumont at the Evening Press. We don’t want anything published yet, but show him the letters, he’s a bit of an expert on typography. Probably won’t know where they’re from, but at least he’ll point you in the right direction.’
‘I’m on the case,’ she said, reaching for her coat. ‘I’ll ring you at home later.’
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘One other thing. There’s a connection between Angeles and ice skating. It’s probably nothing, but keep it in mind.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘We were talking about sport. She was telling me how she does horse riding and skiing, all these physical activities, and I happened to mention ice skating. She reacted strangely. The words stopped her.’
Marie shrugged and left and JD excused himself and followed her down the stairs, said he’d be back in a minute.
Celia sighed deeply, connected with Sam’s eyes and shook her head.
‘He’s still got it bad?’ said Sam.
‘And it’s going to lead absolutely nowhere. Marie’s quite certain they’re not going to be anything but friends.’
‘He’ll get over it,’ said Sam. ‘Sometimes takes a while.’
‘It’s been more than a year already.’
‘Yeah, about the same time Dora died, wasn’t it? Seems like yesterday.’
‘Do you miss her, Sam?’
He shook his head, his body wanting to deny any dependence or vulnerability. He said, ‘I miss her at night. That’s the worst time, when I wake up in the middle of the night and she’s not there.’
Celia reached down and patted his good hand.
The truth was he missed her during the day as well. He missed her when he was hungry and when he wanted a drink. He missed her when there was a gap between cases and when he woke up in the morning and made coffee for one.
It would pass, he knew that, just as JD’s infatuation with Marie would pass. And he wanted it to pass, to go away and leave him free. Not that he’d ever forget her. But he wanted to remember her on his own terms, not as someone else who had been wrenched away from him. He wanted to remember someone he’d shared a life with, someone who had been so close that they’d dared to make plans.
And it would come in time, an anaesthetized memory, something like those wedding photographs you see in studio windows: soft-focus jobs, the couple fading into the background on the very day they’ve made their vows. The couple, the background, the day itself being dimmed down to make room for the future.
The telephone rang and Celia went to her desk to answer it. JD came back up the stairs, his mouth set but his eyes alive and twinkling behind his thick spectacles. ‘How are we going to make sure she’s safe, Sam? The guy obviously knows she’s living at your place.’
Sam shrugged. ‘We can only watch her. I’ve told her not to answer the door unless she knows who’s on the other side. When she goes to work they pick her up in a car and bring her back the same way. If we don’t get this guy soon, we might have to think about moving her
somewhere else.’
‘Going backwards and forwards to work isn’t a good idea. Does she have to?’
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘She has to. She doesn’t want the guy to turn her into a prisoner.’
‘What strikes me about this,’ JD said. ‘All of a sudden we’re talking about this guy as if he’s a nerd. But before the note we were thinking he was intelligent.’
‘What’re you saying?’
‘Well, the killing of Isabel left us without a clue. This is someone who can get hold of veterinary drugs, knows how much to use in a syringe. He could keep a watch on the two sisters but never be seen himself. He’s a clever guy.
At least he’s shrewd. But then he comes up with a dork note like that thing on your desk.’
‘It’s true,’ said Sam. ‘I’d never’ve thought the guy was after money. Seemed like we were dealing with a psycho.’
‘Dual personality, then?’ asked JD. ‘Is that possible?’
‘Yeah, it’s possible, but remote. Takes us back to the realms of fiction.’
‘How about two guys? A clever one and a dork. The clever one’s a nutter, into some kind of obsession, and his mate’s trying to make a buck out of the situation. Could even be brothers, which is why the clever one got fixated on two sisters.’
Sam was leaning with an elbow on the desk. With his thumb and forefinger he got hold of his top lip and pulled it out and away from his face like a deformity. ‘Dunno,’ he said, still holding the lip. Then he let it go and sat back in his chair. ‘Some moments in life have too many possibilities in them to live all at once. You have to take the time and work your way through them. One man, two men, clever or stupid, hell, for all we know this note could be a sick hoax.’
‘Whatever,’ JD said. ‘It’s certainly made the thing more complicated.’
‘Murder’s never simple,’ Sam said. ‘Not when you get down to it. Usually it’s the last resort, and by that time it’s a burning passion. Sometimes it’s not the last resort at all, it’s the first response to a situation. But that doesn’t make it simple, the kind of mind that arrives at murder as a first response is as twisted as the stuff in a breaker’s yard.’