Rough Treatment cr-2

by John Harvey

  Divine dropped his topcoat over the back of a chair and headed for the kettle. There was work enough to do before Resnick and Millington came nosing around. Details of the night’s other burgla ries, movement of prisoners in the police cells, messages received; all had to be sorted and filed and ready to be placed on the inspector’s desk, together with his mug of tea, strong, no sugar.

  Back page, front page, page three: what he’d really like was ten minutes to put his feet up, relax with the paper.

  Some chance.

  “Ideas?” said Resnick, looking round.

  Millington, Divine, Naylor, Kellogg, Patel-none of them seemed eager to offer an opinion.

  “Family away for its winter fun and high-jinks and all there is by way of security is an alarm box on the wall which hasn’t functioned these last eighteen months. Much the same as the Roy job. What d’you make of that?”

  “Luck?” offered Divine, shifting his chair a shade further from the inspector’s desk.

  “Whose?” said Resnick.

  “Lucky they didn’t get turned over before now,” said Millington. “What’s the point of an alarm that’s not wired up?”

  “The appearance, sir,” Patel said, sliding his fingers together. “That is the deterrent.”

  Millington turned his face aside, ignoring him.

  “Didn’t work that way this time, did it?” said Divine. Resnick drummed a two-fingered pattern on the underside of his desk.

  “If it wasn’t fortuitous, sir,” Lynn Kellogg began.

  “Wasn’t what?” interrupted Divine.

  “Fortuitous. You know, like you said, luck. A lucky chance.”

  “Don’t they have that word in the Sun?” asked Naylor, a smile crossing his face, rare these days.

  “Only in the crossword,” said Millington, a Mail man through and through.

  “Well, if it wasn’t, sir,” said Lynn, looking at Resnick, getting back to the point, “I mean, if whoever did it was working on some kind of information, why did they leave it till the last minute?”

  “Maybe they came back early,” said Divine. “The Stanleys.”

  “Right,” said Resnick positively. “Good point. Maybe they did. Make sure you find that out when you’re there.”

  Good God! Mark Divine was thinking, he actually agreed with something I said.

  “Ask about that duff alarm. Who fitted it in the first place, who disconnected it, why?”

  “Sir,” said Graham Millington, “wasn’t there a …”

  “Lloyd Fossey.”

  “Yes, Lloyd. Expected him to be black with a name like that.”

  “Or Welsh,” said Divine.

  “Wasn’t either. Sutton-in-Ashfield, born and bred. Shifty little bugger. Something wrong with one eye.”

  “Fossey worked for one of the local security firms until he was sacked,” Resnick explained. “We thought he might have been working out a grudge …”

  “Using what he knew to supplement his dole money,” chipped in Millington.

  “But we couldn’t ever tie him in to anything.”

  “Slippery bastard.”

  “Better luck this time, Graham,” Resnick said.

  “Do what I can, sir,” said Millington, “after I’ve got this Chinese business sorted.”

  “Another lot of slippery bastards,” said Divine, low-voiced.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Patel.

  “Nothing,” said Divine.

  “But you said …”

  “Forget it.”

  “No, I should like …”

  “Not now,” Resnick said evenly. “I’m due to see the superintendent in ten minutes and that doesn’t leave us enough time to offer Mark guidance in avoiding the pitfalls of racial prejudice.”

  “What prejudice?” asked Divine, aggrieved. “All I said was …”

  Resnick gave him a hard look and he didn’t say any more.

  “I could try and fit it in this afternoon,” Millington said.

  “Good. If there’s a problem, see that it’s handled by someone else.” Resnick checked his watch. “Mark, make the Stanley house your first call. Anything that seems important, phone it back in before you move on. Kevin, it would be interesting to know if this place and the one the Roys are renting are insured by the same company. Check back on that last outbreak of similar break-ins, see if there’s any connection there. They’d have access to a lot of information any self-respecting burglar would give a great deal for. See if you can find out who, if anyone, came out to check the properties before insurance cover was agreed. If this is the same team as last time and if they are working on inside knowledge, we won’t be satisfied just catching them, we want the source as well. All right?”

  Resnick stood up, signaling a shuffling of feet and scraping of chairs.

  “Lynn,” he said, as the officers were filing out, “are you back in the shopping center?”

  “Yes, sir.” She sounded less than enthusiastic.

  “I might pass through later. I’ll let you buy me a coffee.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Resnick touched Patel on the arm and the young DC jumped. “You were right to pick up Divine,” he said. “Not that I suppose he understood.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Perhaps I should have let you try to explain.”

  Patel looked back at him without responding.

  “Maria Roy,” Resnick said. “How did you find her story?”

  “Shaky, sir.”

  “Inconsistent?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The two men who broke in-she’s still maintaining they were short and black?”

  “Tall, sir. Tall and black. They were growing taller all the time I was with her.”

  “But still black?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  Resnick winked at him. “Maybe she’s color-blind?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Not so many people are. In my experience.”

  Resnick nodded. “Then I wonder why she’s lying.”

  My God! thought Maria Roy. What is it that’s the matter with me? I should be seeing some kind of doctor, some psychiatrist, not standing here, hiding in doorways, waiting to meet a man I don’t know. A criminal. She thought her breath was coming so quickly, so loudly, that the other women moving past her, in and out of Debenhams, could surely hear. She took her hands from her pockets, pulled off her gloves, finger by finger, returned her hands to the pockets, gloves bunched inside them. What had she chosen this coat for? It didn’t even look smart. She put up the collar and then pulled it down again; it made her look like a spy and besides, it didn’t do a thing for her color. The hands on the clock high above the Council House were taking forever to reach eleven. And even then she had no way of knowing for certain that he would come. No: that she knew.

  She was refastening the top button on her coat when she saw him, Grabianski, threading his way between shifting gray clusters of pigeons in the square.

  Resnick liked to sit on the end stool, either that or the one next to it. That would be the side of the stall that placed him close to the perspex container of orange juice and the milkshake maker, not the heating unit that kept sausage rolls and pasties lukewarm.

  “Ten minutes,” said Sarah, one of the two girls who worked there. “All right?”

  Resnick gestured with the upturned palm of his hand, all right. The espresso machine was like an old-fashioned train; every so often you had to wait for it to get up steam.

  Two ladies in their late fifties sat down and dumped their bags of shopping, ordering cups of tea as they lit their cigarettes. Most of the other customers were stallholders in the indoor market, drinking from their own mugs which were kept beneath the counter, making jokes.

  Resnick was thinking about what Skelton had said as he was leaving the superintendent’s office: “The source of this information, Charlie, if there is a source-you don’t suppose it could be closer to home?”

  “Stop it,” Maria said.


  “Stop what?”

  “You know what.”

  “What?”

  “Staring.”

  They were upstairs above a card shop, a place that called itself a tearooms, though neither of them was drinking tea. They had the window seat and a view down across the city center, the square with its latter-day punks and its alcoholics sharing the spray from the fountains, the splendid gray stone of the Council House at the far end, the municipal mosaic and the carved lions at either end of broad steps. A bus, green and two-thirds empty, slid by, turning up the sloped street that would lift it towards the columns of the renovated theater. A news vendor shouted the arrival of the first edition. A flotilla of truant kids sailed by on roller-skates. Couples paused beside a rail of leather coats, reduced. Young men in shirt-sleeves, mustaches and tattoos. Ordinary people doing ordinary things.

  “Don’t!”

  It was only whispered, an exclamation all the same, sudden, like a hiss of brakes.

  Still, heads turned. Grabianski only smiled the same eager, sure smile. His hand rested on her knee, the hem of her skirt where he had pushed it high, not moving, only the thumb moving, the soft ball of it making soft circles against her leg, the slight catch of her tights, round and round below her knee, the meeting place of calf and thigh.

  “Is everything all right?” asked the waitress, showing bored concern.

  Maria could only narrow her eyes, arch back her head and sigh.

  “Why don’t you go away?” Grabianski said pleasantly enough. “We want anything, we’ll call.”

  “What are we doing?” asked Maria. It was minutes later and Grabianski’s thumb was still and she could speak.

  “Morning coffee,” he smiled. “Elevenses-isn’t that what it’s called?”

  It’s some kind of torture, Maria thought, that’s what it is. He started to pry with his thumb again and she caught at it, leaving her fingers meshed in his. He brought the outside of his left leg inside her right and pressed so forcefully she had to push back or be turned around in her chair.

  “People are watching us.”

  “You only think that.”

  “They can see.”

  “What?”

  “What you’re … doing.”

  “What am I doing?”

  Driving me crazy, Maria thought.

  “They’re spreading butter on their teacakes,” Grabianski said, “making neat little ticks on their shopping lists, wondering if they should go for a pee. They’re not watching us.”

  “Look,” she started.

  “Yes?”

  “You still …”

  “Yes?”

  “You haven’t told me …”

  “What?”

  “You said, on the phone, you said … there was something you wanted.”

  Grabianski laughed deep in his throat and Maria was surprised by the sound, almost a growl, and she imagined him in bed beside her-well, not beside her, quite. He laughed again and squeezed her leg. How does he know, Maria worried, whatever it is I’m thinking?

  “Excuse me,” said Grabianski. The waitress had her black-uniformed back towards him, taking someone else’s order. “Excuse me.”

  “Yes?” She was tired and young and there was a dull wedding ring on her finger, at the front of the shiny black dress was a frilly white apron of the kind Maria thought were only worn in the pornographic videos her husband sometimes found exciting after just enough cocaine.

  “The bill.”

  “In just a moment, sir, I’m …”

  “We’re leaving.”

  “I’ll be with you in …”

  “Now.”

  The waitress looked down at the pad that hung from her waist, made a fuss of fumbling back and forth, snatched at a sheet and ripped it down the middle, tore away the rest and set both parts on the table alongside Grabianski’s second, untouched, cup of coffee.

  “Thank you,” he said, placing a five-pound note into her hand and steering Maria around her and towards the stairs. “We’ll be sure to come back again.”

  “Are you always like this?” Maria asked once they were out on the street.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Excited. Full of yourself.”

  “No,” he replied, “I don’t think so.” He was heading her towards the taxi rank on the south side of the square. “No.”

  “You’re not on anything, are you?”

  “On?”

  “Yes, you know.”

  Grabianski shook his head. The Asian taxi-driver broke away from the conversation with his friend and helped open the door of his cab. “Never seen the need,” Grabianski said, climbing in after her.

  They sat there for several seconds, the driver looking at them over his shoulder.

  “Go on, then,” said Grabianski.

  Maria turned to him, uncertain.

  “Give him your address.”

  Resnick had finished his two espressos, skimmed the local paper, exchanged with Sarah their ritual sentences. A glance at his watch told him there was no time to wait for Lynn, still feigning interest in the coming fashions at Miss Selfridge or Next. He stopped at the first delicatessen for a pound of smoked sausage, a quarter of dried mushrooms (an extravagance that went a long way), two ounces of dill and a slice of poppy-seed cake; from the greengrocery stall adjacent to the fish market he bought a January King cabbage and half a cucumber; at the cheese stall he chose feta, Jarlsberg and a strong cheddar; finally he bought pickled herring, horseradish and sour cream from the delicatessen near the exit. Here, as at the first, the saleswoman spoke to him in Polish, knowing that he understood, and Resnick answered in English.

  There were idle moments when he thought he should do more than sell the house, sell up altogether, apply for a transfer to another city, another town.

  He knew he could never do it: this was his life.

  Here.

  Beyond the other end of the market, close by the escalator and the Emmett clock, a dozen or so Poles stood in overcoats and checked caps, cigarettes cupped inside their hands, talking of the past. Medals and military campaigns: bortsch and cold winters. The airfields or the mines had brought them here and they had stayed. Vodka for these men would always carry the taste and scent of tarragon or bison grass, cherry or wild honey.

  When Resnick had been a young man the only vodka he had known had been made in Warrington.

  He pressed the button for the lift, descending to the car park. Ten minutes would see him at Midlands Television, hopefully speaking to Harold Roy.

  Eleven

  Mackenzie had been up since five to six. Two freshly squeezed orange juices, cereal sprinkled with wheat-germ and bran-before that he had swum lengths of the pool for twenty minutes, up and down, thinking his way through the day. Now he was on his feet in the production office, crease in his trousers, gold clip attached to his tie; in the smoked glass of the partition window he saw himself reflected, a straight-shouldered man in a blue wool blazer, double-breasted. Not a day over thirty-five: ten years less than truth.

  He sat at his desk, swiveling the chair towards the television monitor and leaning forward to slot a cassette into the VCR. The first scene from the previous day’s shooting appeared on the screen.

  Mackenzie pulled a stiff-backed book towards him, uncapped his pen and began to make notes. He was hoping that Harold would remember their 8.30 appointment-if it was necessary to come down on him heavily, he would prefer that it happened before the others arrived. Not that he would find their presence off-putting; merely, experience told him that rumor made legends faster than fact.

  He grimaced at a scene on the street and wondered how many viewers would pick up the slight flinch, the moment of hesitation before the leading man went into a fierce clinch with his leading lady. Even then, they might put it down to her bad breath rather than his sexual preference.

  “Mac…”

  Mackenzie depressed the pause button as he turned.

  “Mac, I wanted
to catch you …”

  “In early this morning, Robert.”

  “This scene, I wanted you to take a look at it.”

  “Ah, Robert, I would if there were any chance.”

  “It’s not a lot, only a few changes.”

  Mackenzie shrugged. “I’ve got to review what we shot yesterday before the others come in. Meeting at 9.15.” He treated Robert Deleval to a dismissive smile. “You know how it is.”

  Deleval glanced down at the green script pages in his hand. “Maybe I should have a word with Harold, then?”

  “Don’t you think he’s got enough on his plate already?”

  Deleval shook his head. “But Mac, these lines, they just don’t stand up as they are. I’m not sure they even make sense.”

  “Little late to decide that now, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t even see them till yesterday. Somebody’s changed them since the run-through.”

  “Somebody?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea who?”

  Robert Deleval looked at the producer for some seconds before replying, “No,” he said.

  “I’ll talk to Harold about it, don’t worry. Leave it to me. We’ll get something sorted.”

  “It’ll need a rewrite.”

  “Leave it to me.” Mackenzie held out his hand and waited for Deleval to give him the half-dozen pages. He waited until Deleval had left the room and walked along the corridor before tearing the pages into two, then two again and dropping them into the nearest bin.

  “Writers!” he announced to the empty office. “The world would be a better place without them.”

  Harold Roy had forgotten the arrangement with his producer. He had woken up late, sweating and appalled by the smell of his own sheets. Maria was swanning around in that housecoat of hers, looking abstracted, except when she was gazing at herself in mirrors. There was still a missing kilo of close-to-pure cocaine hanging over Harold’s head, and each time he turned a corner or went through a door he was expecting to come face to face with its owner.