by David Belbin
‘Can I come in?’ she said. ‘I don’t know where else to go.’
‘Course you can,’ Nick said.
He pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt, then filled the kettle.
‘Why don’t you take that anorak off?’ he suggested.
Then he saw that she was shivering. The girl looked terrified. She shook her head. ‘I’m cold.’
‘Take the hood down at least.’
Nick was still coming round from his alcohol-induced sleep, but he knew that the room wasn’t cold. Jerry seemed to be suffering from shock. He made a large pot of tea. In Sheffield, when he was growing up, there wasn’t much that couldn’t be sorted out with a pot of tea. He didn’t take sugar, but found some to put in Jerry’s mug. He added plenty of milk so that it wasn’t too hot and passed it to her. She swigged the drink like it was beer.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s happened?’ he asked.
She nodded solemnly. ‘Do you know a guy called Paul Morris?’
‘I’ve met him, yes.’
‘This morning, I killed him.’
She shouldn’t drink in the afternoon, but after a couple of Solpadeines, Sarah had a clear enough head to face constituency business. She turned her mobile off. She didn’t want Paul to call, or even text her. She visited a school and gave a few ideas to the city council team who were applying for funding for a new tram system. Sarah was cynical about the cost. It could only be worthwhile if it got commuters out of their cars. Unfortunately, the only route that the council could get a European subsidy for was one that passed through the area with the lowest car ownership in the city.
This was the Friday evening when she gave her monthly report to Nottingham West Labour party’s general committee. Sarah didn’t plan to mention that the Power Project had closed down today. There had been nothing in the Evening Post. Constituency activists, as a rule, weren’t very interested in drugs issues, except insofar as they related to poverty. For them, illegal drugs were a weakness in society that had no ideological solution. Users with more money didn’t move off drugs, they moved on to better ones.
Sarah had seen signs of coke at Labour functions in London. Young advisers sniffing as they came out of toilets, clandestine conversations followed by rapid exits and rowdy returns. Not in Nottingham, where politics retained a certain innocence, even though – according to Home Office research – the city had the cheapest cocaine in the country.
The leader of the City Council walked her out of the building. After the day she’d had, Sarah was knackered. She might cry off going to the pub after tonight’s meeting. She noticed Winston, her agent, waiting by the porter’s desk at the front of the Council House. He looked angry.
‘Not had your phone turned on?’
She shook her head. ‘Been busy all afternoon. Sorry.’
‘The Home Office has been trying to get you. Riot at Wormwood Scrubs. They need you back in the city.’
‘Shit. Did you tell them I need to go to the general committee first?’
‘I’ll give your report. Brief me while I walk you down to the station.’
‘Couldn’t I give media interviews from the local BBC studio?’
‘No chance. They need you there. Let’s get you on a train.’
‘Do you think I should give myself up?’
‘No,’ Nick told Jerry. ‘Let me think for a minute, figure out what to do.’ It didn’t occur to him not to help her. Jerry’s age might get her a lenient sentence, but her life would still be fucked. She was over sixteen and the murder was premeditated. No way would she get the charge lowered to manslaughter.
‘I want you to go through all of the details again. First things first. What did you do with the knife?’
She pointed to a carry-all by her chair. ‘It’s wrapped in the towel I dried myself off with.’
‘Where did you get the idea to strip naked before you picked up the knife?’
‘A book I read,’ she said. ‘Stops there being bloodstains on you. Anyway, he wanted me to get in the shower with him.’
‘Did he struggle?’ Nick asked.
She shook her head. ‘I slashed his throat, from behind.’ She said this calmly, like it was what anyone would have done.
‘He didn’t see you coming?’
‘He knew I was getting into the shower. He was soaping himself. He said, “Hey, babe.” Then I cut him. And he just fell. Like he was nothing.’
‘Why? Why did you need to do it?’
‘He betrayed me.’
‘You’ve been reading too much Shakespeare. People betray each other all the time. They don’t go round killing each other or …’
‘Or there’d be a lot less betrayal,’ she said.
He thought she might cry, but she remained frozen, her expression blank. He got her another mug of sweet tea and thought about what she had told him. He was less surprised about Jerry and Paul than he had been by Sarah and Paul. According to Sarah, Paul was married with kids, and had been back when Nick used to know him.
What was it with the pimps and dealers who liked to screw underage girls? Ego, probably. Guys like that needed to be unconditionally adored. Older, less vulnerable women saw the dealers for what they were: unscrupulous users, bullies who got rich off the weakness of others. Young girls took them at their own valuation: glamorous gangsters who deserved to be treated like gods.
Nick knew he’d been lucky with his contacts in the drugs trade. He’d never had any need to use violence. What divided him, Andrew and Paul from most people in the drugs trade was that they had an alternative. They were highly educated. All sorts of careers were open to them. But nothing as lucrative as what they were doing on the side. Paul had his seat on the county council, then his government job in London. Did that mean he’d got out? Or was all that a cover, like the Crack Action Team was for Frank Davis? In either scenario, Paul would have had a strong incentive to want Nick out of the way.
The drugs business had qualified Paul to do the job that he’d been doing, just as Nick’s past qualified him to work at the Power Project. Paul’s shady past wasn’t what had killed him. What had killed him was jealousy, a blind rage that Jerry was only just emerging from.
She slurped her tea and began to speak again.
‘It was like I was somebody else. All the time I was getting undressed, and getting into the shower, and stabbing him, and clearing up afterwards, I wasn’t me. I was really calm, but I wasn’t me.’
Nick had heard such descriptions before. Inside, the career crims didn’t discuss their crimes with the likes of Nick, only traded tips with each other. But the wife murderers, the drunken manslaughterers, all had similar stories to tell. Temporary disassociation. Ferocious passion. They either gave themselves up or left so much evidence that they were caught within hours.
‘There are bound to be traces of you,’ Nick told Jerry.
‘I don’t think so. I tidied up. There were too many papers to go through, but we never wrote to each other. Never did photos either.’
‘There’ll be his phone, with your number.’
‘I took his phone. Anyway, he bought my mobile, paid for all the credit, so it’s in his name, if it’s in anybody’s name. Do you think we should turn it on, see if there are any messages?’
‘No!’
Nick wasn’t sure how traces worked with mobiles, but he did know that they couldn’t be traced when they were switched off.
‘Give me his phone,’ he told her. ‘Yours, too.’
She did as he asked. ‘I’ll get rid of them. And the stuff in the bag. If you get caught, say you threw the knife and the towel into the Trent. It’s a five-minute walk to Trent Bridge from the station. You went there as soon as you got off the train from London.’
‘They’re bound to catch me, aren’t they?’
‘Not necessarily. You say nobody at the hostel knew you were sleeping with him. Let’s hope that’s true. But you’ll need an alibi for last night.’
He could lie for her. She
was over sixteen now, so it wasn’t a crime for them to be lovers. But chances were Jerry would be caught by forensics, or CCTV. Nick’s fake alibi would be exposed. Then he would go back inside, serve his remaining three years plus whatever they gave him for being an accessory. That was too big a favour to offer.
‘Nobody will have noticed I wasn’t home. Things are dead slack there. The only warden who took any interest in me was Alice, and she’s left.’
Nick thought for a moment. ‘Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. Go back to the hostel. Make sure you’re seen. If anyone spotted you were missing, hint that you were seeing the bloke you normally see, celebrating the end of your exams. But don’t tell them who it was.’
‘Some of them think it’s you, still.’
‘Let them think that, but don’t confirm it. Give me a call in a couple of hours and we’ll meet. No, scrub that, best if you don’t ring me. There’s this drop-in centre, near the station …’
41
Nick decided not to wait until dark, for the days were long and twilight was still some way off. He needed to do this before he changed his mind. He took a look at the towel, covered with Paul Morris’s blood. It was wrapped around the Sabatier kitchen knife that had killed him. Jerry said she’d wiped her fingerprints off the knife. Nick cleaned it again all the same. Then he put the knife back inside the towel and placed both, with a bit of brick, into a plastic bag. He planned to drop the bundle into the River Trent, exactly where he’d told Jerry to say she’d dropped it. If she were to be caught, at least her story would add up. She could argue that she got rid of the knife while still in shock. Some juries might buy that.
He turned on the Channel 4 news in case Paul’s murder featured. Was a Home Office adviser and former county councillor sufficiently important for the evening bulletin? Probably, if his body had been found.
The main story was about a prison riot. Several wardens were trapped inside Wormwood Scrubs. A crackdown on cannabis use was blamed for the outbreak of violence. Prisons Minister Sarah Bone was en route to the prison, hence unavailable for comment. Her predecessor was interviewed instead.
Normally, at this point on a Friday evening, Nick would roll himself a joint, open the window and bliss out. It was tempting to do that now. The high would help him think through the trail of decisions he had to make. For instance, should he tell Sarah that her lover was dead? More critically, how far was he willing to help Jerry? He could catch a train to London, make sure that there was no evidence in the flat that would link her to him. Too far. However, he knew someone who was already in London. Someone who might have much more to lose than he had. Nick was already part of one criminal conspiracy where Paul Morris’s death was concerned. He might as well make it two.
Andrew answered on the second ring.
‘Nick. Nice surprise.’
‘Call me back using a line you’re sure is secure,’ Nick said.
‘Oh.’ Andrew hung up immediately. A minute later, Nick’s phone rang.
‘What’s up?’
Nick told him about the murder, leaving out Jerry’s name. He didn’t mention Sarah’s affair with Morris. Andy didn’t need to know that.
‘That’s very interesting,’ Andrew said when Nick had finished. ‘But, forgive me if this sounds rude, you’re telling me this why?’
‘The body’s unlikely to have been found. I don’t know if you had any ongoing involvement with Morris, but I thought you’d want a heads-up. In case there are any loose ends you need to tidy away. The girl said there was a lot of paperwork in the flat.’
Andrew changed his tone. ‘There shouldn’t be. What about the girl?’
‘I’m trying to keep her out of it. She’s just a hurt kid.’
‘Noble of you, but potentially deeply foolish. Where are you this weekend?’
‘Here.’
‘I’ll need to visit Nottingham on Sunday. I’ll come to you about three.’
‘You’re on.’
‘And thanks for the heads-up. I could always count on you.’
He didn’t ask for Paul’s address. Nick put down the phone, attached cycle clips to his jeans, strapped an old knapsack to his back, then hauled his brother’s bike down the narrow metal stairs to the alleyway. It was downhill all the way to Trent Bridge. He would be there in less than ten minutes.
You hang out with Shaz and Beany, smoke a spliff, drink Diamond White, which is a bit dry for you. Mustn’t have too much, you’re seeing Nick later, but you need something to help you relax. Nobody’s mentioned your being gone last night. Shaz, showing heavily now, is on about this flat that the social are getting for her. Maybe you can move into it. Yeah, right. Beany will turn it into a knocking shop before a week’s gone by.
‘Have they offered you anything yet?’ she asks.
You shake your head. You haven’t pressed for an accommodation decision because you thought that your lover was getting you a flat, though how you’d have explained that to your social worker, you never figured out.
‘I think they’re waiting to see what my GCSEs are like. If I’m doing A levels, they’ll put me in a place nearer college, or something. I don’t know.’
‘It’d be all right if you lived with me,’ Shaz says. ‘We’d have a laugh and you’d make sure I didn’t … you know.’
She glances sideways at Beany, who is rolling another spliff on the top of the wall, oblivious.
‘You’ll be all right,’ you tell Shaz, convincing her even less than you convince yourself. ‘I’ll come and see you.’
You tell them you’re meeting someone and walk down to the drop-in centre near the station. Nick’s there, but he’s busy. You have to wait a while to get a word with him. When you plonk yourself down on the chair opposite him, he looks frazzled. That’s all your fault.
‘Well?’
‘Nobody noticed I was gone.’
‘Good. Sit tight. Don’t speak to anyone else about it. Not anyone, understood?’
‘Promise.’
‘I’ll come see you on Sunday, probably late afternoon. Be in.’
‘Okay. Did you …?’
He nods.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.’
He puts a finger to his lips. ‘Enough. Go.’
You go. All the money you paid him, Paul’s money, a few hundred quid at most, is nothing compared to what he has just done for you. You want to tell him he’s the best, to say that you’ll do anything for him, pay him back for the rest of your life. But how? He doesn’t want your body. He seems to be doing this because he likes you, because he cares about you. The only way you can repay him is by doing exactly what he tells you to do.
42
Andrew parked his four-by-four on double yellows outside the flat, with the hazards on, then phoned Nick to come and join him.
‘Where are we going?’ Nick asked, climbing in. Andrew moved a black briefcase from the front passenger seat.
‘Not far,’ Andrew assured him. ‘You’ll want to see this.’
He turned onto Forest Road West, then cut down Burns Street, displaying a remarkable familiarity with city short cuts for someone who hadn’t lived here in fifteen years. They turned up the steep hill to Waverley Street. Below them, to the right, was the arboretum. Above were a bunch of grand Victorian buildings belonging to Trent University. The left-hand side, where they parked, was shabbier. The huge houses had once been owned by lace manufacturers and wealthy merchants, but were now either cheap hotels or divided into bedsits. Andrew took him into one of the bedsit houses, bringing the briefcase with him. He got two sets of keys out of his trouser pocket.
‘I knew that you were buying up property, but I didn’t realize any of it was round here,’ Nick said.
‘I was lying when I said I was here to look at houses. Prices in London rise more reliably than in Nottingham. This place belongs to someone else.’
They climbed the stairs to the top floor. The first three floors were divided into two flats each, but the atti
c floor held just one. It was roomy in a way that modern flats weren’t, with high ceilings and ornate plasterwork. There were two bedrooms, a living room with an open-plan kitchen in one corner, a separate bathroom and toilet. A lot nicer than where Nick was living at the moment.
‘Why are we here?’ Nick asked.
Andrew opened the briefcase. ‘Have a look at these.’
Nick had once owned a flat, although he’d had to sell it. He knew what property deeds looked like. These were unusual.
‘It seems to be some kind of trust.’
Andrew nodded. ‘That’s because you’re not allowed to own property until you’re eighteen. I’ve had it checked, though. The contract’s watertight.’
The deeds related to the flat they were sitting in and the trust was in favour of a name he didn’t recognize. ‘Who’s Geraldine Spenser?’
‘Look at the address.’
Nick did. The hostel in Alexandra Park. The flat belonged to Jerry.
‘Tall Paul bought it for her?’
Andrew nodded. ‘Is she the girl who …?’
Nick couldn’t lie to Andrew. ‘Afraid so.’
‘Quite a way to repay him. You’re not … with her, are you?’
Nick shook his head. ‘I never went for the young, impressionable ones. That was always more your thing.’
‘More trouble than they’re worth,’ Andy said. ‘As our friend Paul found out.’
‘Was there anything else in the London flat?’
‘There was nothing in the paperwork to tie him to her, no. But there were things it would be better if his family didn’t see. Bank records under fake names, the account numbers of some very heavy people.’
‘Is what he did bound to come out?’
‘Hard to say. Paul covered his tracks. He paid for this place in cash, used a bent solicitor. It’s not likely the police will track it down. Paul’s name doesn’t appear on any of the paperwork.’
‘What about his connection with you?’
Andrew grimaced. ‘You’ve probably worked out why I’ve been visiting Nottingham so much these last few months.’