It Never Goes Away

by Tom Trott

  Traffic flowed through the circus toward the town centre. The loading vans were gone. Early customers visited shops before work. A traffic warden checked permits. The pub finally opened. Four rough-looking pigeons seemed determined to walk around in the road and every couple of minutes a car would swerve or brake suddenly and send them flapping back up into the air where they would hover and circle for twenty seconds before plonking back down on the tarmac. No one suspicious lingered on the road. I left the coffee shop, crossed, and entered the pub.

  It was empty, of course, except for the two drunks that haunt every pub as part of the furniture. I hadn’t seen them enter, but the pub is on the tip of a wedge-shaped block, cut to that angle by two of the five roads that form the circus, and there are doors on both sides.

  I marched up to the bar and startled the craggy landlord whilst he was wiping a glass:

  ‘Alright, Pete?’

  He beamed. ‘Hello, George!’ He always got my name wrong. ‘Haven’t seen you in years. How are you?’

  ‘I’m alright, thanks,’ I said without a care in the world, ‘yourself?’

  ‘Good, good. Can’t complain.’

  ‘Mind if I have back that spare key I gave you?’

  He frowned, thinking. ‘Let me see if I can find it.’ Then he disappeared into the back room.

  ‘Cheers.’

  I glanced around at the drunks. They paid no attention. I moved over to a booth by the wall and looked cautiously out at the road. I couldn’t see well enough through the etched glass so I went upstairs and up to the clear windows. The street entrance to my flat was on this same side of the road, just next door to the pub, meaning the view from this window was the same as from my living room: four-storey townhouses carved into flats, parking squeezed against the pavement, another coffee shop, corner shop, fire station, cinema. On the Duke of York’s balcony one man sat despite the bitingly cold weather. He was the only person up there. He wore a heavy coat, hat, and gloves. He had a coffee in front of him that he didn’t touch once in five minutes. He could have finished it already. Then he pulled a flask up from near his feet and refilled the cup with it, putting the flask back out of sight.

  On Stanley Road, separated by bollard-blocked pavement, a man sat in a parked BMW facing toward me. He wasn’t reading. He wasn’t looking at his phone. Just sitting. He never moved, he just leant back in his seat.

  ‘Here you go, George.’ The landlord appeared behind me.

  I turned from the window and plastered on a smile. ‘Tell you what, Pete, keep hold of it. I’ll be back for it in a few days. Have you got this morning’s Argus?’

  ‘Should have it somewhere.’

  He shuffled off downstairs. I followed him. He grabbed it off a table where one of the drunks was sitting. ‘Here you go.’

  The headline was “COUNCILLOR MURDERED”. He saw my eyes scanning it.

  ‘Terrible, isn’t it,’ he said as he passed it to me. ‘They won’t say whose flat it is yet.’ He jumped suddenly. ‘Here, you’re not involved are you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, trying to keep the tension out of my voice.

  ‘Investigating it,’ he explained.

  I winked. ‘Not officially. Mind if I borrow this?’

  Before he could say anything I was out into the circus again. I exited back onto Preston Road, crossed over back up onto New England Road, and then south behind London Road. I wandered the empty tarmac behind the London Road shops, in the shadows of New England House and the car park with its council flats built on the roof; moving west before St Bart’s to lose myself in the thousand commuter flats below the station, arranged in huge blocks with narrow paths like cracks between great calved icebergs.

  On one of these pedestrian paths I found a bench and sat down to read the article in full. It was by Jordan Murrows, the new chief crime reporter since the last one died, and a man who hated me for some reason. All it said was that the body of city councillor Benjamin McCready had been found in a marina residential property, believed to be the same building that was evacuated due to a prank fire alarm. Colleagues of councillor McCready told this reporter that he had not attended work yesterday and that he had not answered their concerned phone calls. Police confirmed that they are now conducting a murder investigation. They refused to disclose the identity of the property owner due to ongoing inquiries. I was sure my name would be in the evening edition, if I wasn’t in a cell by then. I folded the newspaper and shoved it in my pocket.

  I emerged onto Blackman Street, where, between it and Whitecross Street, Theobald House, a twenty-storey brick tower block, rises out of another car park, ignored by the people who never look up. Then I was into the few residential roads of North Laine, before it all becomes commercial, and then Bond Street and past the Theatre Royal stage door, and then out onto busy North Street in the thick of the crowds; albeit slightly thinner crowds this time of year.

  I crossed over between two buses and I was into Meeting House Lane, approaching my old office. I could see from as far away as Doyle’s the jewellers that there was a police seal on the door. I walked past and round the corner, knocking on Lambton’s. They buzzed me in and the owner gave me a happy smile.

  ‘Joe! We haven’t seen you in ages, are you keeping well?’

  ‘I’m very well, thank you. And you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Can’t complain.’

  ‘Do you mind if I have those keys to next door I gave you?’

  ‘Sure, sure, they’re here somewhere.’ He moved to the back room and called from there whilst he rooted through drawers. ‘There’s been a hell of a commotion out there today, police and all sorts were packing up when we got in. They’ve not been in yours, have they?’

  ‘I hope not,’ I joked.

  He appeared with a smile and handed me the keys. ‘There you go.’

  I stepped out and crept cautiously toward my door. Tourists squeezed past without taking notice. I touched the seal, ready to rip it from the door. But it had already been broken, slit with a sharp blade so that it wasn’t noticeable at a glance. The police could only have been gone a couple of hours. I slipped the key into the lock as quietly as I could. I must have looked strange. The pins clicked silently, the barrel turned quietly, but the door stuck. It always stuck. I increased pressure with my hip, hoping to unstick it gently. It jerked inwards with a rattle of the letter box and a loud scrape on the doormat. What was the point? I pushed it hard open, then slammed it behind me.

  No one came running out of the office. I tiptoed up the stairs, which creaked, onto the landing, which creaked, and toward the door with the rippled glass that said “j. grabarz” and beneath it “No.1 Private Detective”. No shapes moved behind the glass, no silhouettes lingered. Without trying to be quiet I unlocked it and let it swing inwards. There was no one in the outer office. A thick layer of dust covered Thalia’s old desk, the old pot plant was a dead stick, and the print of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks was faded in the only corner that saw sun. Another layer of dust coated the floor. Footprints as clear as those in snow marked a flat-soled intruder’s path from the outer door to my inner office door. That door was shut. No footprints led back out.

  The office was like a walk-in freezer. The single-paned windows with their rotting wooden frames let in the cold breeze and let out the heat. There were a couple of logs left in the basket next to the little fireplace. I threw them in the firebox and began scrunching pages of newspaper into balls, then stuffed the balls into the grate. I looked around for something to light them with. Sitting on the mantelpiece was my old Zippo lighter. I had left it there when I closed up the office, in the past. There was no fuel left in it but I used the flint to throw sparks on the paper. The fire was roaring in no time.

  I dragged the chair from Thalia’s old desk over to the fire and sat as close as I could, facing my office door, warming up. No sound came from inside. After five minutes I spoke, still holding my hands out to the fire.

  ‘Do you want to come ou
t, or should I come in?’

  There was a moment of silence, then I heard a chair being pushed back, two footsteps, and then my door opened. Charlie leant in the doorway with a defeated grin on his face.

  ‘You spotted the seal, I guess,’ he remarked.

  ‘Of course: anyone coming in would go to cut it like you did and couldn’t not notice. You should have got rid of it.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Did you pick both locks yourself? They don’t look forced.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I nodded, mildly impressed. ‘I guess the police did the same, I’ll have to replace the street one with a laser-cut and a code.’ I yawned. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What do you think? I knew this would be the first place you’d come.’

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

  ‘When I learnt you still owned this place I figured you had some kind of stash here,’ he explained, ‘you’re not the sentimental type.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘A stash?’

  ‘Some getaway money, maybe a change of clothes, fake beard, who knows?’ He grimaced. ‘Whether you fired me or not, I should have guessed my days were numbered.’

  I yawned again. ‘Am I supposed to understand that?’

  ‘The only people who have getaway plans are people who know they’ll need one. You’re a fatalist.’

  I took my hands from the fire and rubbed my eyes. ‘I’ve had very little sleep. I have no idea what you’re talking about. What is your plan exactly, ambushing me here?’

  ‘Turn you in, of course.’

  ‘For revenge?’

  He stood up straight, shifting to an aggressive posture. The firelight flickered in his eyes. ‘Revenge is just a bonus. I was going to wait until there was a reward, but with the size of manhunt they’ll catch you before then. No, instead I’m going to make my own agency out of this.’

  ‘How, exactly?’ I sighed.

  ‘The same way you did: get on the front page. Become the man that can find people no one else can.’

  ‘Like your previous employer? That doesn’t sound very impressive.’

  He gave a snort of derision. ‘Yeah, well, I can spin it.’

  ‘And what then, you set up an agency and become as successful as me?’

  He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Something like that.’

  I slipped off my trainers and stretched out my legs until my feet were in danger of getting licked by the flames. ‘Your dad is a policeman, isn’t he? Quite an important one.’

  There was a beat. ‘So what?’

  ‘You never thought of joining the family firm?’

  He didn’t answer. I wasn’t even looking at him, I stared into the fire.

  ‘Or did you try that already?’

  He still wouldn’t answer. I heard him take a step toward me.

  ‘So it’s not just revenge on me you’re getting. It’s all of them.’ I swivelled in the chair to face him. ‘Take me through the plan, Charlie, how are you going to turn me in? Were you waiting behind my door to hit me over the head with something?’

  ‘No.’ He said it like a naughty schoolboy.

  ‘Were you going to tie me up, carry me out?’

  He went back to not answering. I’d never seen him this silent.

  ‘Chloroform was probably your best bet, especially waiting behind the door. Then you could call the police using my phone. But how would you explain breaking in? You could say you followed me in, but how would you explain knocking me out? The police don’t tend to approve of those kind of things. You’d have been better off coating my doorknob in superglue. But you wanted your PR photo, your front page, you wanted to be like me.’

  ‘I don’t want to be anything like you!’ he spat.

  I leant back in the chair. ‘Do you think I killed Clarence and McCready?’

  ‘Why not? There are enough dirty rumours about you.’

  I snorted in derision. ‘You haven’t thought about it, what a surprise. You see, that’s why you’re such a lousy detective, Charlie, you don’t think, only feel. You want what I’ve got without having to be me, but you can’t have what someone has without being them. I don’t know why I’m giving you advice, maybe because in some pathetic way you remind me of myself, I’m pathetic too in many ways. I used to be like you; I mean, smarter, stronger, not as good-looking; but like you in the way that counts.’

  He was unimpressed. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Young,’ I drawled. I stared deeper into the fire, it was dying already. ‘There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself,’ I whispered.

  ‘What?’ he demanded, taking another step toward me. The room was barely four steps wide.

  I turned, smiling at him wistfully. ‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I can’t make them all right, but I can do what I can do, and I’m going to, and let me make it clear to you, Charlie,’ I had raised my voice, standing up out of the chair, realising I was still wearing socks, ‘not the police, not Max, and least of all you, are going to get in my way!’

  I swang at him, catching him on the side of the head. He went down.

  He screamed in pain on the floor. ‘WHAT THE FUCK!?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I apologised, ‘that was supposed to knock you out. It used to.’

  Curled up in a ball, he started heaving, but mercifully nothing came up.

  I put my shoes back on, then marched quickly into my inner office. I used my fingernails to wedge up the loose floorboard under my desk, reached into the void, and grabbed the small drawstring bag from inside, slinging it over my shoulder. I should have left right away, but I couldn’t resist sitting in my old chair, hearing its familiar creak. I glanced at the dusty venetian blinds, the dusty shelves, emptied in the move. The place had always been spartan, but now it was stripped. However, I knew I had left one thing behind: I opened the deep bottom drawer and fingered the brandy bottle inside. The office bottle had to stay in the office. I squeaked the cork out and smelt the tang of the alcohol. Memories came rushing back, but I put the cork in them and checked the other drawers. The middle one was empty. Something slid along the wood as I opened the top one. My brass knuckles, gleaming even in the feeble light. I slipped them on and felt the familiar chill around my fingers, against the webbing. I put them in my pocket.

  Ten seconds later I had stepped over Charlie and was back out into the Lanes. I stopped into Lambton’s again and asked if I could use their phone to make a private call. I called 101, the non-emergency number, and told the officer on the other end that I had just seen a man cut through a police seal on a door on Meeting House Lane. Then I hung up.

  I kept my head down as I marched out of the Lanes to the screaming of seagulls, feeling in the drawstring bag to check everything I needed was there, into the cold winter sun.

  22

  Killing the Cat

  As I pulled down the door of my little lock-up, I finally felt the confidence to pull the key from the drawstring bag. Fumbling in the darkness I unlocked the car and squeezed my way into the driver’s seat. The Primera was eighteen years old, silver, lightly dented, with gaffer tape on the gear knob. Still, it only had eighty thousand miles on the clock and the engine purred like a kitten. I prayed it would start. On the third try, it did.

  I turned on the dim yellow light by the rear view mirror as I let it idle, warming up, and went through the contents of the drawstring bag. There had been the key, four burner phones (I had already been to four different shops to top them up with the minimum amount of credit), one standard three-pin mains plug phone charger, one car cigarette lighter charger, and a thousand pounds in cash: eight hundred in twenties, and two hundred in tenners and fivers. The tens and fivers were useless now. How was I supposed to know we were going to move to polymer notes? I was lucky they hadn’t done the twenties yet.

  I tried to think of a plan. Max had a plan. What was he up to? I was on borrowed time. And I was in the dark. A bloodhound without a trail to fol
low. Or was I?

  I grabbed one of the burner phones, plugging the charger into the cigarette lighter to give it some juice. I could only make four calls. This seemed like a good use of one. It rang for less than a second.

  ‘Joe?’ Thalia breathed.

  I smiled. ‘Before we say anything else: I didn’t do it.’

  ‘I know that. Where are you?’

  I didn’t answer.

  She didn’t miss a beat. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Tired. I need you to find me Mrs Swan’s address.’

  ‘Mrs Swan?’

  ‘The woman who hired us to run background on Mr X.’

  ‘I know who she is.’ I heard her rummaging. ‘What are you up to?’ There was a beat. ‘That’s rhetorical, by the way, but I hope you know what you’re doing.’

  She found the address and read it to me.

  ‘Thanks.’ I thought for a second. ‘You can tell them about this call, if they ask.’ Then I hung up.

  ✽✽✽

  Mrs and Mrs Swan’s house was on Wanderdown Road in Ovingdean, a village near the Eastern fringe of the Brighton & Hove unitary authority (the area within the city council’s jurisdiction). Its church, St Wulfram’s, dates from the twelfth century, but there’s very little else of the old village left, subsumed like a pearl grown around a speck of dirt. Except the village is a pearl and the new stuff is dirt. New buildings and new roads have grown in fronds from the nucleus like a crystal in a petri dish; twisty lanes of tasteless country houses for the retired rich, and straight rows of bungalows for the retired poor. Not that anything is cheap anymore.

  Wanderdown Road is one of these straight rows of bungalows, placed in the middle of fields like someone’s mouse slipped playing Sim City. Unlike Woodingdean and Rottingdean, Ovingdean is a thoroughfare to nowhere, meaning every street is constantly deserted and every new vehicle instantly suspicious. The Swans’ 1960s bungalow was red brick with a protruding tapering chimney and white wood panelling rising from the top of French doors to the pitched roof. A white panelled porch at the side held the white front door, next to the white garage. I had parked down the street, watching to see if anyone came or went, but this was Ovingdean, so of course they didn’t. Still, I waited.