by David Belbin
‘Sarah, I find you in at last.’ It was the Chief Whip.
‘Sorry, I was out on constituency business, case work.’
‘That’s what local councillors are for. You’d better find some tame, reliable ones quickly, you’ll be needing them. I’m calling on behalf of the Prime Minister. He wants to offer you a job.’
Sarah was to be a Junior Minister. That was a huge deal. As soon as she’d put down the phone, and told him, Nick knew their chances of being together were over.
He congratulated her. ‘That’s an incredibly responsible job. You were made to do it.’
‘There were hints I’d get something, but I was so sure that I’d lose my seat, I didn’t let myself think about them.’ She told him how the job fitted with the areas she’d concentrated on in the Commons. She felt vindicated for campaigning to stop the spread of HIV in prisons. ‘I guess even the Ed Clark thing helped.’
‘I suppose.’ He had to say something, so chose his words carefully. ‘That’s it for us, isn’t it? I’m too big a risk. The quicker I go, the better.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘At least nothing really happened between us,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t have worked, Nick. You can’t go back. We were kidding ourselves.’
‘Sure.’ He smiled ruefully and she went back to talking about her new job. Soon afterwards, he left. It was the dignified way to behave. The future was out of their hands. He couldn’t blame himself for the thing with Sarah going wrong. At least nothing really happened between us, she’d said, forgetting the kisses, the promises made prior to her passing out on election night. The absence of sex made it easier for Sarah to move on. Women were like that. For men, it was the other way round. If he’d made love to her one last time, it would be easier to put this behind him. The more time he’d spent with Sarah this last fortnight, the more he’d wanted her in bed. One night could, at the very least, have satisfied some of his curiosity about how it would be between them. As it was, he knew he would obsess about her for months.
36
When Nick got home on Sunday evening, he rang the Cane Cars office.
‘Has Ed Clark booked a cab to take him to the airport tomorrow?’
‘Yeah. Four-thirty a.m. pick-up to get him to Birmingham. Why?’
‘I need to do the job.’
‘Didn’t you get stopped by the police for driving without a permit?’ Nas asked.
‘I won’t charge him,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll use my sister-in-law’s car, rather than a cab. Just don’t give anyone else the job.’
‘What’s your game? You going to stop Ed having a holiday?’
‘I need a chat with him, that’s all. What’s the address?’
He cycled over to Joe’s, made an excuse and collected Caroline’s car. Then he went to bed and set the alarm. Impossible to sleep, but he mustn’t drink any more. He needed to be sharp when he picked up Ed.
Ed wasn’t leaving from Polly’s place. The address he’d given Nas was a road on the Bestwood Estate, where it was notoriously easy to get lost. Ed’s secret base turned out to be in one of the nicer parts of the estate, near the country park that sat incongruously at its edge. The semi had net curtains and a neat front garden. As Ed came out, with his bags, a sixtyish woman appeared at the door next to him. She kissed him on the lips and Ed hugged her. Only then did Ed turn and call out to Nick.
‘You going to help me wi’ these, then?’
It was dark and the streetlights were sparse. Ed didn’t recognise Nick until he got out of the car and opened the boot. Nick had been worried about this moment, but the presence of Ed’s mother removed all risk of violence.
‘Nice of you to get up early for me, Nicholas,’ Ed said, as he placed the first huge suitcase in the car. ‘T’other one’s too big for this boot. Reckon we’ll put it on the back seat.’
He joined Nick in the front of the car. Ed’s mother, in her dressing gown, waved the two men goodbye. Nick negotiated his way out of the estate. Ed grinned when they drove past Oxclose Lane police station.
‘Whose car is this?’
‘A friend’s.’
‘Didn’t want to risk being seen in a cab? You’re in trouble, a little bird tells me.’
‘I’m not in any trouble,’ Nick said.
‘Your girlfriend got you off, did she?’
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Nick said. ‘Just an old friend.’
‘You can’t be friends with a good-looking woman you’re not related to,’ Ed said. ‘Not without thinking about sticking it to her all the time.’
He was right, so Nick shut up. With the roads empty, the journey to the airport only took forty-five minutes, less if you didn’t stick to the speed limit. Nick didn’t want to spend that time talking about Ed’s philosophy of sex. He wanted to talk about murder. But it had to be Ed who brought the subject up.
‘What time’s your plane?’
‘Seven-thirty. Plenty of time for check-in.’
‘And you’re going to . . .?’
‘Far, far fucking away. The land of five-star fuck-and-suck with constant sunshine and warm seas on tap.’
‘Not taking Polly?’
Ed didn’t reply.
‘I suppose her and her kids would cramp your style.’
‘What the fuck is it to you?’ Ed asked. ‘You want her back?’
‘Why, have you finished with her?’
‘I won’t be using her for the next three weeks anyways. You offering to keep her in training for me?’
‘We were okay until you showed,’ Nick said, keeping his eye on the road ahead.
Ed laughed. ‘Look on your face, when you walked in on me and her. You had no idea, did you?’
‘Why should I? Did you think she’d have told me?’
‘Told you what? That she were kicking you into touch, or that she were fucking me before I got sent down the first time?’
This was the opening Nick needed to seize on, but his brain was slow at this time of the morning, whereas Ed seemed his usual self: bold, teasing, arrogant. He chose his words carefully.
‘What about when you got out the first time. Were you fucking her then, too?’
‘What do you think?’
‘The way Sarah tells it, you were arrested for the murders within two weeks. And wasn’t there a working girl in the story too? Doesn’t give you much time to see Polly.’
‘Her husband had gone by then, just her at home wi’ the two kids. She had all the time in the world for me.’
‘Was it then she told you Terry Shanks had been recording you?’
Ed turned to look at him but Nick kept his eyes on the road. ‘Where’d you hear that?’
‘Sarah. She said that was how you got caught.’
Ed was silent. Nick glanced round to see his reaction. Blank. He took a right turn at the roundabout by Nottingham University. The Derby Road was only a single carriageway, with the university on one side and Wollaton Park on the other, but it was wide enough for him to easily overtake a milk float.
‘I could tell you it all,’ Ed said as they bypassed Beeston.
‘Go on.’
‘But then, after we got to the airport, I’d have to kill you.’
Nick laughed unconvincingly. ‘It’s Polly I’m interested in,’ he said, ‘not getting you to confess what you did or didn’t do.’
‘Good thing,’ Ed said, ‘’cos I’ve got the money now, free and clear. And if you think I’m coming back to this shithole, you’ve got another thing coming. There’s enough in the kitty for me to start up again anywhere. Offshore account. No tax, high interest. What’ve you got to show for your five years inside?’
‘Fuck all. You mean it? You’re not coming back?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘You work for my brother.’
‘That’s not it. You want to get back together with Poll. I’ll bet she’s the best you ever had.’
Nick played along. ‘We seemed to be getting close, for a while.’
&
nbsp; ‘You don’t get close to Poll,’ Ed says. ‘She keeps it all in.’
For a moment, Ed seemed to have stopped boasting. Nick had to be careful not to force it. ‘I thought she needed me,’ he mumbled.
‘She pulled the old hard-done-by routine on you, did she?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Aye, me too. I was a real sucker for her. All that time inside, thinking about when I got out, knowing she were on her own, waiting. Then, when I go to see her, she’s not interested.’
‘What do you expect when she thought you’d killed her brother and sister-in-law?’ Nick said, taking the exit for Long Eaton and the M1.
‘I didn’t mean the second time,’ Ed muttered.
Nick considered what he was saying. Polly had given Ed the cold shoulder when he got out of prison after doing six months for theft. Was that a motive for murder? Ed killed Terry and Liv to get back at Polly? It didn’t add up.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Ed said, ‘your life’s so fucked up, maybe you deserve a bit of advice.’
‘Go ahead,’ Nick said, adrenaline making him accelerate to ninety, before he remembered that he needed to make this journey last as long as possible.
‘If Sarah’s not interested, don’t go after Polly. She might have you, but she’ll lie to you, use you, take what she can, fuck you up and spit you out. She can’t help herself.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ Nick said.
‘I’m tired of talking. Put radio on.’
Ed didn’t say another word during the journey. When they got to the part of the news where Sarah’s appointment was announced, he turned to Nick.
‘You knew about that?’
Nick nodded. Ed laughed long and hard.
Fifteen minutes later, Nick pulled up outside Departures at Birmingham Airport. They’d made good time. He would be back in Nottingham by six, when the sun rose.
‘You’re really not coming back?’
‘To Nottingham? Never. Police there’ll do me for the smallest thing, first chance they get. I’ll see what I find. I hear word Cuba’s opening up. My money’ll go a long way over there. I might get into tourism.’
‘There’s still one thing I don’t get,’ Nick said.
‘Only one?’ Ed asked, getting out of the car.
Nick put the hazard lights on and helped Ed unload his heavy bags. ‘Killing Terry makes sense. Revenge for putting you inside. But waiting around to kill the wife was such a big risk. It screwed your alibi. The kids could have been with her.’
‘Is that why you drove me here?’ Ed asked. ‘You thought you’d talk me into some kind of confession?’
‘They can’t try you again,’ Nick pointed out.
‘But they can try the real killer,’ Ed said. ‘It weren’t me killed Terry, all right? I’ll tell you one thing about Liv. The photos in the paper didn’t do her justice. She were right fit.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I like it best when they’re frightened.’
Ed loaded his stuff onto a baggage trolley.
‘I can manage from here,’ he said. ‘Hold on. I owe you something.’
Ed reached into his pocket.
‘I don’t want . . .’
‘Did you think I’d forgotten?’ Ed interrupted, as Nick stood, unguarded, in front of him.
He kicked Nick in the balls, hard. When Nick fell to the ground, in agony. Ed leant over him.
‘You’re lucky I’m only wearing trainers,’ he said. ‘If I’d known you were driving, I wouldn’t have packed me boots.’
37
Sarah took the 8.03 train to St Pancras. At least travelling first-class gave her a measure of privacy and peace. She needed quiet after sleeping badly, her mind alternating between excitement at her new job and sadness at being forced to dump Nick so soon after starting things up again. She’d had no choice and he’d understood. That didn’t stop her feeling bad about it.
‘Mind if I join you for a few minutes?’
‘You mean until they come and inspect the tickets?’ Sarah waved Brian Hicks into one of the free seats opposite her.
‘I did a nice piece about you for today’s paper.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’ The Evening Post had just gone to press. Her constituency office would fax her any important local stories by midday.
‘One story that isn’t in the paper today, I thought you’d want to know. Ed Clark.’
‘What about him?’
‘Got his compensation through. A quarter of a million he settled for. Could have held out for more, given the strong implications that the police fitted him up for killing one of their own, but he was in a hurry for the money, evidently. I’m surprised he didn’t call to thank you.’
‘Maybe he left a message at my office,’ Sarah said, not revealing she already knew about Ed’s ill-gotten gains. ‘Unlike you, he doesn’t have my home number.’
‘Word is, he’s gone to the Caribbean,’ Brian told her. ‘In the air now. I spoke to his mother just before I left the office. She says he bought a one-way ticket, doesn’t know when he’s coming back.’
‘Was he on his own?’
‘That’s what I heard.’
Sarah wondered if Polly knew about the one-way ticket. But she’d exhausted her sympathy for the bereaved sister.
‘I rang the police after I heard about the compo, asked if they’d reopened the case.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Sarah said. ‘You were given the usual we are not pursuing any other suspects.’
‘No, even they realized that was a bit tactless in the circumstances. They said, off the record, that we’d never know if Liv Shanks killed her husband, or not.’
‘They never proved that those were her fingerprints on the gun,’ Sarah pointed out, angry and a little bored that the police were trotting out a theory she had always avoided as being in bad taste.
‘The fingerprints on the gun were smeared, but a close match nevertheless. She could have shot him, then shot herself.’
‘With the best part of an hour between the shootings? It still doesn’t make sense.’
‘There was a blow to the head before the shooting. Maybe Liv knocked Terry out, then went hunting for the gun. It took her a while to find it, to work up the courage to finish him off.’
‘And the motive? Marital rape?’
‘That we’ll never know,’ Brian said. ‘But it makes as much sense as Ed Clark having hung around to kill Liv. I thought you’d like to know what the police were saying, so you could put it behind you. Congratulations on the job. You’ll be in the cabinet before you know it.’
‘Thanks, Brian. I appreciate your support.’
‘You’d have beaten Barrett Jones easily even without my help. You know that?’
‘Probably,’ Sarah said, aware that Brian was none-too-subtly reminding her she owed him a favour. ‘Water under the bridge. Anyway, if there are any stories I can put your way, I will.’
‘Appreciated,’ Brian said. ‘I’ll let you get back to your work.’ He left for second class. Sarah opened her copy of the Guardian but didn’t read. She thought about Ed in the air. He was gone for good, with any luck. She could put that behind her now. There was work to do.
Nick managed to catch a couple of hours’ sleep before seeing his probation officer. He apologised profusely for missing his meeting of the week before.
‘No problem,’ said Dave Trapp. ‘I expect you were ill.’
Dave liked to treat Nick as an equal. They were two guys with degrees and careers, only Nick had taken a wrong turning: that was Dave’s approach, one that Nick found easy to go along with. He was about to tell the truth when he remembered that failure to provide a legitimate excuse resulted in a warning, three of which would put you back inside.
‘I came down with some kind of fever, lost track of time.’
‘Been to the doctor?’
‘No. I was too ill to go out. When I felt better, it was the weekend so the doctor
wasn’t open. Didn’t seem much point in going today. I had a lie-in, but I seem to be on the mend.’
‘You don’t look too bad now,’ Dave said. ‘But, next time, do yourself a favour, get a doctor’s note.’
‘Will do,’ Nick said. He was being treated with respect but still felt humiliated, a naughty schoolboy forced to sustain a trivial lie.
‘Any work?’ the probation officer asked.
‘Just the two private tutees I told you about.’
‘No problems there?’ They had discussed at their last meeting whether Nick was required to disclose his convictions to the parents. He’d have to disclose them were he applying to work in a school. Dave had reached the conclusion that this wasn’t necessary, so long as Nick didn’t lie if asked. Probation wanted him to work. Statistically, Nick was much more likely to reoffend if he was unemployed.
‘None at all.’
‘All this free time isn’t giving the devil work for idle hands?’
At least he hadn’t asked the awkward question he’d asked in their first few meetings: Keeping off the wacky baccy? Smoking it wasn’t the same as growing it. According to Dave, Probation Services assessed Nick’s biggest risk factor as a return to some kind of drug dealing.
‘My sister-in-law just had a baby. I’ve been round there a lot.’
‘Good to hear. Have you thought about doing some voluntary work? It’s a good way of getting recent references for a job you like. In the long run, with someone of your experience and intelligence, it could lead to a full-time job. Drug counselling, for instance.’
‘That’s a thought,’ Nick said.
‘I’ll give you some leaflets. Think it over. That’s it, then. Another couple of weeks and you’ll be down to once-a-fortnight interviews.’
After that it would be once a month, until Nick reached what would have been the three-quarters point in his sentence: six years. Beyond that, he would no longer be on license. He could still be recalled to prison if he was convicted of another crime – but only if a punitive judge decided to embellish his sentence with the unused time from his previous sentence. It would be two and a half years before Nick was completely clear. Even then, as he’d served more than five years, the law said that he would always have to declare his conviction on application forms, no matter how inconsequential the job.