Time and Tide: A DC Smith Investigation

by Peter Grainger

  Smith said, ‘That’s a beautiful car.’

  ‘Eff off.’

  ‘Oh, I see. We seem to have got off on the wrong foot. Maybe you misheard me – I said, that’s a beautiful car.’

  Now that he was closer, Smith could see that as well as having a couple of inches and at least three decades on him, the bodyguard’s neck and shoulders were heavily muscled; even the face must have worked out to remain as fixed and as impassive as it presently was. Smith reached inside his jacket, and that produced a slight movement, a crouch of a millimetre or two.

  ‘I am Detective Sergeant Smith from Kings Lake Central police. Feel free to take my warrant card and examine it closely.’

  The eyes read it but the man made no other move.

  ‘My colleague over there is Detective Constable Waters. He’s on his phone, obviously, like young people everywhere… Anyway, I’m here to have a word with Mr Jacobs.’

  That got a reaction of sorts – a blink, an acknowledgement.

  ‘And in order for me to do so, you’re going to need to stand aside.’

  A thin smile and, ‘I don’t think so, grandad.’

  Just a lucky guess, Smith hadn’t told another soul yet.

  ‘I’m afraid that I’m going to have to insist. Stand aside, please.’

  An even thinner smile but now he was looking directly at Smith.

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘I will have to use physical force.’

  The eyes travelled down and up again, appraising and measuring just in case, but there was no way he could take the old boy seriously even though he sounds as if he means it – Smith could see the thought processes at work.

  Then Smith said, ‘Naturally, I’m under no illusions as to the outcome. You’ll give me a right kicking.’

  For the first time, Jacobs’ man was a little off-balance.

  ‘But I do have a plan. You knock me down and I get up. I’ll keep getting up and I’ll keep attempting to enter this property until you’ve done some serious damage. About enough to get you a five-stretch, shall we say? You know how these judges feel about attacks on defenceless old detectives just doing their duty. Of course, my colleague will be filming all this before he then comes over to assist and get beaten up himself. That will get you another year or two. I expect he’s already uploaded pictures to the inter-cloud, or whatever it is they do…’

  Smith stepped forward and to his right, and the younger man made a half-hearted move to stay in his way.

  ‘In case you’re wondering, I’m not here to arrest anyone. To be honest, I’m more interested in speaking to Miss Shapiro than I am to your boss. So, hit me now or get out of the way, son.’

  He had thought there might be another one inside but the bar of The Queens Arms was deserted. It was only the shell of the place he had known with Sheila years ago, as if it had been washed up here on the edge of the creek by some exceptional tide, and left to fall apart slowly in the sun and rain and wind. Smith stood and listened, and for a long time there was nothing but the silence.

  And then a voice upstairs, a man’s voice raised into a question, and Smith thought, well, she isn’t dead then, if he’s still talking to her. He had assumed the bodyguard would follow him in but not so. Presumably Waters was safe enough now that one of them was inside, but the young man does have a certain predilection for getting himself hit. Still, he’s more street-wise than he used to be.

  The stairs creaked but he was making no attempt to hide his approach. When he opened the door to her apartment, she was standing by the great window, looking back at him. She met his gaze and then redirected it with her own to the man sitting in the same chair that Smith himself had occupied when he was here with Detective Chief Inspector Reeve.

  Frankie Jacobs looked every one of his eighty years – that was Smith’s first impression. Time had given him the tonsure of a monk, and the hair that remained around it was thin and grey and a little too long. He wore silver-framed glasses, with the left lens noticeably stronger – without them, thought Smith, he must be pretty much blind in one eye. Jacobs was thin-faced and clean-shaven, with nicks of dried blood under his chin and on the sagging skin of his throat. And he doesn’t shave himself, because the hands that are resting on the cane he’s holding in front of him are trembling.

  ‘Hallo! Who’s this?’

  Jacobs must have been surprised that his security had been breached but he showed no sign of it; he was smiling as if the interruption was genuinely welcome.

  Julie Shapiro said, ‘This is Detective Sergeant Smith from Kings Lake,’ and then to Smith himself, ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Quite right, Miss Shapiro. I thought I’d pop in and see how you are, what with all that’s going on.’

  Jacobs, still smiling broadly as if he was keen to show off the teeth that looked younger than the rest of him, said, ‘Very commendable, sergeant. We may be out in the sticks but that’s what I call public service.’

  Smith looked back at Frankie Jacobs for a long time, and then he turned and said, ‘Are you alright, Miss Shapiro? Is there anything I can do for you? Mark won’t be back tonight, and I told him that we’d keep an eye on the place.’

  Jacobs said, ‘Julie and I are old friends, sergeant – we go way back. I’d be happy to spend the night here and keep her company.’

  Smith wasn’t looking at him now. Julie Shapiro was as upright and graceful as ever, composed and calm but too much so, as delicate and as brittle as fine porcelain – against the pale glow of the western sky, Smith could almost imagine some sort of transparency, as if the light was beginning to pass through her.

  She was, of course, too proud to ask for his help, for Smith’s help, and so he took the decision for her. Turning back to Jacobs, he said, ‘I don’t think that would be advisable – not with the court cases and everything.’

  ‘Oh, I see. That’s the way of things, is it?’

  ‘Yes, it is. And you need to get back anyway. I think DCI Lilley is anxious to have another word or two with you.’

  ‘Ha! For a chap who just popped in, you seem to be very well informed, Sergeant Smith!’

  Still the smiling, but it was more than that, it was a grin, a fixed, insufferable grin, and Smith wasn’t sure then just how much longer he could suffer it. If wiping that grin off with his fist was only going to cost him a part of his lump-sum, it might be worth it, whether the man was eighty years old or a hundred and eighty.

  He said, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Shapiro but I can never resist a cliche – is this man bothering you?’

  When she smiled, her face lost twenty years in a moment.

  ‘No, sergeant, not any more. But this is the man who ruined my career. If only I’d had someone around to look out for me all those years ago. And do call me Julie.’

  Smith said, ‘I expect it was a case of being young and foolish.’

  ‘Very much so. And of falling in with the wrong crowd. Very, very wrong.’

  Jacobs did not like this, the two of them talking across him, ignoring him. When he interrupted, there was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before, and the grin was fading.

  ‘I didn’t ruin it – without me, you wouldn’t have had that ‘career’.’

  ‘I was successful before I ever met-’

  ‘You’d sold some records and got on the TV because you were a looker in a short skirt!’

  Jacobs looked at Smith then, and said, ‘Next we’re going to hear about how she was going to appear in ‘Godspell’. It was me who lined that up, I had the contacts. She knows all this. She knew it at the time, that’s why she was so grateful,’ with a leer that saw Smith’s jaw tighten as his teeth clenched, ‘but when the going got tough, she couldn’t hack it! She could sing a bit but she didn’t have what it takes to claw your way to the top and stay there.’

  Julie Shapiro was standing perfectly still, a mannequin save for her eyes, which were shining and fixed on Frankie Jacobs.

  Jacobs said, ‘So now sh
e’s looking for a different sort of attention. She wants to tell her story to the world, as if anybody gives a stuff about that. A story about a has-been, a seventy-year-old wannabee who can’t let it go.’

  Smith said, ‘If nobody’s going to give a stuff about it, Mr Jacobs, I can’t see why it’s bothering you. First the libel case, then Bernie Sokoloff, then two gorillas in a Lexus and finally here you are yourself. With you going to all that trouble, I’m beginning to think it must be quite a story. I’ll definitely be buying a copy.’

  Now the smile was on Smith’s face. The hands that clasped each other at the end of the walking cane were shaking a little more.

  ‘Not this effing Bernie business again! I told that DCI that-’

  ‘So what is it, Frankie? Defending your own reputation, you being a legitimate businessman these days, or are some of those contacts and connections you just mentioned leaning on you to sort this out? They don’t fancy the serialisation in the Sunday papers? Of course, these days that’s not even the half of it – once these things get onto the internet, there’s no stopping them.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re getting involved with, you jumped-up piece of-’

  ‘Going viral, they call it. Spreads everywhere and contaminates everything – like a nasty disease. Ironic, isn’t it?’

  Old as he was, Frankie Jacobs still had the fight in him. He went to get up then, his face white with anger, but the rest of his body failed him and he sat back down, beaten by his own disease. He breathed heavily two or three times before he said, ‘Like I said, you don’t know what you’re poking your nose into. She does. She must be effing mad to take these people on. You think I’ve got lawyers? You’ve no idea!’

  Smith said, ‘So? That’s Miss Shapiro’s choice – she’s entitled to make it without threats from people like you. Let the courts decide. Except that you don’t give a toss about any of that, not really. This is all about you – your business, your reputation, your connections and contacts. It always has been, hasn’t it, Frankie? You first, your whole life.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  Both men turned to look at Julie Shapiro.

  ‘That’s Frankie Jacobs, sergeant! And you’ve only known him for five minutes!’

  Yes and no, thought Smith – it feels like I’ve known him forever.

  ‘He said I couldn’t hack it when the going got tough, didn’t he? Shall I tell you what he means by that? Late in that year, when it was all happening for me, I got pregnant. It was his, revolting though the idea is now when I look at him. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I might have it but he said no, put your career first, you can have that later, and I thought he meant it, that he cared about my future. My future! All he cared about was his own skin. His wife put up with his women but that would have been too much, wouldn’t it?’

  Jacobs had himself back under control. He looked from one to the other and said, ‘Bitter and twisted.’

  ‘Leave it to me, he said. I know the best doctors, he said, Harley Street and all that. I expect he handed over a bundle of notes. One of these best doctors took away that child, and he also took away my chance of ever having another.’

  Jacobs said, ‘You got unlucky. It happens. Stop whingeing about it for Christ’s sake! You were whingeing then and you’re still whingeing now. Get over it! I put you in a nice flat, gave you all the time you needed to get back on track, I-’

  She took a step towards Jacobs then, and Smith readied himself – the hatred in the apartment was a tangible thing that had been feeding on itself for almost half a century.

  ‘And while I was in that flat, safely locked away, what were you doing?’

  Jacobs was silent. Again, he looked at them both, and then, unforgivably, he smiled.

  Julie Shapiro looked at Smith and said in a voice that was half a whisper and half-broken, ‘My sister…’

  Jacobs said brightly, ‘How is Michelle? I haven’t heard from her in years. Is she still-’

  Smith had him out of the chair by the lapels, as if he weighed only ounces, and then he propelled Jacobs backwards to the doorway. The stick clattered to the floor, and when he let go of the old man, Jacobs slumped sideways, grasping the door-frame.

  Smith said, ‘Take my advice, Mr Jacobs. Don’t say another word. You need to leave now.’

  He turned, picked up the cane and thrust it towards its owner. Jacobs had been taken completely by surprise. After a moment, he reached for the stick with one hand and straightened that expensive suit jacket with the other. Then he said, in a different voice, ‘That’s assault. You’ll be heari-’

  ‘From your lawyer? Go ahead – we all deserve our day in court. Write to your MP as well. But for now, leave. Mind how you go on the stairs. I’d hate to see you take a tumble.’

  Jacobs was backing away, the stick in one hand, the other on the wall.

  ‘Better coppers than you have been trying to trip me up all my life.’

  ‘No doubt. And no doubt they all played by the rules. But if you don’t do as I say and leave now, you’ll find yourself in a heap at the bottom of those stairs and no-one’s going to question how that came about, are they? A sick old man like you?’

  ‘She was younger than me, only eighteen when she followed me up to London. And prettier, too. More beautiful than pretty, to be honest. She only came because I was there, so I felt responsible, and I looked after her. The big sister…’

  They were sitting down, and Julie Shapiro had made him a cup of green tea. It was awful stuff but he sipped at it and listened as she told her story.

  ‘I looked after her pretty well, kept her out of the worst of it, but then I got very ill, after – you know, what I was talking about when he was here. I broke down, and that’s when he took advantage. He was thirty five or thirty six and she was nineteen… By the time I found out, it was too late, I realise that now, but I tried so hard. He’d taken her to those dreadful parties, where they… She had started using. She was a heroin addict within six months, and then he dropped her, of course. They all did.’

  Smith nodded and said, ‘It’s an all-too-familiar story, Julie. It’s still happening in every town that I know. It’s the curse of our age. A tidal wave of misery.’

  ‘I did my best. Even my brother came up from Wales to help. We put her into private wards, detox – what they call rehab nowadays. Easy little word, isn’t it? Rehab. Two syllables, but unless you’ve seen it first-hand, you cannot imagine the horrors. Seeing someone you love in that state. And blaming yourself, always thinking, if only… I paid for everything. I tried everything.’

  For the first time, she was crying, and Smith realised then that she was wearing no make-up – that the ageing beauty the world could still see was all her own. In some strange and perverse way, those long years of pain, suffering and regret had preserved the very thing that had caught the attention of the world in the first place. Or perhaps those years had wrought her will to such a fine and yet frightening pitch that she simply would not let go of all that she had been and might have been.

  He said, ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Oh, she didn’t die as young as one might have expected. She made a sort of life for herself. She lived in a community for years, you know, making pots and bracelets or something, and growing organic vegetables. But we drifted apart. I think in the end she came to blame me…’

  ‘I don’t think you should blame yourself – that’s the main thing. It’s pretty obvious who was to blame.’

  She reached out and touched the back of his hand with her long, white fingers.

  ‘You are so understanding, and so kind. I do blame myself, of course, but thank you.’

  ‘When did she die?’

  ‘Six years ago. She’d always needed medical help ever since… She died from the complications of long-term hepatitis. We hadn’t been in touch for a while but they found me. I sorted it all out, you know, all the arrangements. And I sang at the funeral. After that… After that is when I decided I would wr
ite my book. It’s all in there.’

  Someone was climbing the stairs, someone who could easily manage them two at a time. The door opened cautiously and Waters’ head appeared.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ to Julie Shapiro, and then to Smith, ‘They’ve gone, so I thought I’d come up and see if you need any help. Is everything OK?’

  Julie said, ‘Another kind and thoughtful young man!’

  Waters glanced at Smith and then looked around the room for the other one.

  Smith said, ‘Just a minute, detective constable. Julie, where’s Marjorie?’

  Her smile dropped away into disappointment.

  ‘She has left us, I’m afraid. When she came back from Kings Lake, she said she couldn’t stay on. I don’t really understand why, but Mark let her go.’

  ‘Do you have her phone number? We’ll give her a ring. You ought to have some company – you don’t want to be here alone.’

  She turned away for a moment and looked through the window. Over the marsh, the clouds had broken apart and a low sun was reddening in the west.

  Then she said, ‘She won’t come, sergeant. And in the end, we’re all alone, whether we want to be or not.’

  ‘Miss Shapiro, we’re about to have our first disagreement – I think she will come. Where is the number?’

  She looked back into the room and said, ‘There is a board behind the bar with the staff’s telephone numbers. It should still be on there.’

  ‘Good. Detective Constable Waters will make the call and explain the situation. He can mention my name but under no circumstances is he allowed to impersonate me. Is that clear, Waters?’