by John Harvey
“Useful, were they?”
“No,” Levin scoffed, “but that’s not the point. Point is, she put me up for this. First time I’ve been clean since I left school and headed north with nothing but my native wit and GCE Metalwork.”
“You make it sound like the Wizard of Oz.”
“More Dick Whittington, I like to think.”
“Wasn’t he heading for London?”
“Ah, only after he got turned around. Sound of Bow Bells. Remember?”
“And are you really turned around, Alfie?”
Levin clapped a hand to his breast. “God is my witness.”
Resnick set down his Guinness and looked round the bar. “Don’t think he’s in tonight, Alfie.”
“I thought he was everywhere.”
“Ah,” said Resnick, “so you did get religion.”
“Bought an LP by that Cliff Richard,” Alf Levin said. “Does that count?”
“Are you alone?” Grabianski asked.
“Yes,” said Maria, so quietly he hardly heard.
“Sorry?”
“Yes.”
At the other end of the line, she could imagine his smile.
“We’ve got to meet.”
“No.”
“We have to.”
“Why?”
“Why are you pretending?”
She didn’t know: she didn’t try to say.
“How about now?” he asked.
“No. You can’t. It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s that impossible.”
“Harold …”
“Your husband?”
“My husband.”
“What about him?”
“He’ll be home soon.”
“Get out before he does. Meet me.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll come to you.”
“No!” Too hasty, a shout.
She heard him laugh, and then: “All right, then. Meet me tomorrow. And don’t say you can’t.”
Maria could feel the sweat along the palm of the hand which was holding the receiver, knew without needing to see that it was trickling down towards the curve of the mouthpiece. Knew that she was just as damp in other places, damper.
“All right,” she said, eyes closed tight.
Alf Levin decided that since they’d started bringing out all those curry flavors, poppadums and the like, crisp-eating had become a part of international cuisine.
“What it is,” he said to Resnick, who shook his head when Levin offered him the packet, “is you’re asking me to grass.”
“Not in so many words,” said Resnick, wondering how he might put it better.
“Inform on my previous associates, if such they were.”
“Assist. Assist, Alfie. Your duty as a citizen.”
“A reformed citizen.”
“Exactly.”
Alf Levin tipped back his head and shook what was left in the packet down into his mouth; trouble with crisps was, all the buggers did was make you hungry. And thirsty. No matter what the flavor.
“Another, Mr. Resnick?”
“I’d rather have an answer.”
When he pulled back his upper lip, Leven revealed two remarkably long front teeth; strong, as if they could break a weasel’s back with a single bite.
“It’s not as if I mix in those sort of circles.”
“But you could.”
“I could do a lot of things.”
“For the right reasons.”
“How many of them?”
“Righteousness breeds its own rewards.”
Alf Levin screwed up the spent crisp packet and got to his feet. Across the bar, the extras were starting to move, noisily, towards the exit.
“Come on, Mr. Resnick,” Alf Levin said, “before I have to drive that lot back I want a couple of those sausage cobs.” He winked down at Resnick. “Hot snack on wrap.”
Harold Roy stood off on his own, not eating, turning his back with an automatic gesture when he unscrewed the top of his small silver flask and tipped it over into his polystyrene cup of coffee. Resnick, watching, found it easy to sympathize. The director looked like a man with anxieties aplenty; besides which, the coffee was dreadful.
Harold bunched up the empty cup in his hand and dropped it into the refuse sack as he walked past, heading for the lounge. Fair enough, thought Resnick, taking a seat at the bar, three stools along.
Resnick heard Harold order a large vodka and tonic and smiled. That should be me, he thought: every night for supper his grandfather had sat down to a plate of pickled herrings, raw red onion thinly sliced across the top, thick yellow mayonnaise at the side. Black bread. Vodka. Every night.
“Yes, duck?” asked the woman behind the bar.
“Guinness,” said Resnick.
“Pint?”
“Half.”
He took the first sip, the flavor rich and the temperature pleasingly cool beneath the creaminess of the head. From outside came the sound of engines starting up, but not everyone was leaving. Clusters of people came in, their voices shriller than usual, the occasional “fuck” for emphasis beautifully articulated. Close to Resnick’s right shoulder a young man with a gold stud in his ear and a leather jacket artistically dabbled with paint asked for a St. Clements and got a hard look.
“Cheer up, Harold!” Someone clapped him on the shoulder. “Could be a lot worse.”
Evidently Harold didn’t think so; he didn’t acknowledge the remark at all. Coins had found the jukebox and for the first eight bars a few voices sang along with Tom Jones. For some little time Resnick had been aware that he wasn’t the only one with an interest in Harold Roy. Leaning back against the wall, between the cigarette machine and a large plastic yucca, a prematurely balding man wearing a loose-fitting leather jacket was talking to a pretty, dark-haired girl in moon boots, every now and then sneaking a look over the top of her head towards the bar. If he doesn’t want a word with me, thought Resnick, it must be Harold. Advice or condolences, either way he was being polite, waiting for the perfect moment, biding his time.
Some people were not so restrained.
The producer of Dividends was in a hurry to get to his director, but he still managed to shake a few hands, squeeze a few shoulders, smile a few smiles between the entrance and where Harold was sitting, slump-shouldered, on his stool.
“What went wrong?” he asked, slipping on to the seat alongside Harold. “This time.”
“Don’t start, Mac,” Harold replied, not looking up from his glass.
“No one’s starting, Harold.”
“Good.”
“No one’s starting anything.”
Harold nodded wearily, pushed his glass along the counter towards the barmaid, gesturing that he wanted another.
“Nobody seems to be getting close to finishing, either.”
“I thought you weren’t …”
“I’m doing my job, Harold. It’s a pity you don’t seem capable any longer of even pretending to do the same.”
Those of the crew and cast who had come into the bar were very quiet now; from the other bar there was the persistent, irregular click of balls from three pool tables. Tom Jones had become Elvis Presley: he wished.
Harold Roy’s eyes were heavy and red, an amalgam of alcohol and anger, a strong leavening of shame. There was a moment when Resnick thought Harold might have shouted, thrown a punch, the fresh contents of his glass. It passed. As he looked away, twenty people seemed to take a breath.
“How many scenes were we down, Harold?”
Harold shook his head. “Can’t we talk about this in the morning? In the office?”
“How many?”
Mackenzie’s voice was relentless; Resnick couldn’t see his face, didn’t need to know bow much he was enjoying the act of humiliation.
“One? Only two this time? What was it?”
“Four.”
“What was that?”
“Four.”
“How many?”
“Four!”
Harold caught his heel against the stool as he tried to jump to his feet; it swayed for a moment and fell heavily. He stumbled awkwardly, glass in hand, vodka splashed across his clothes.
“It’s a wonder,” said Mackenzie, “the booze and all the other junk you use to pickle what once might have been a brain, it’s a wonder you can stand at all.” Mackenzie moved until he was close to Harold, close enough for Harold to have taken a swing at him, taunting him, maybe, to do exactly that. “In case it’s slipped your memory, we have a program we’re supposed to be getting ready for transmission. You let any more fall off the back end of the schedule and we’ll be down to fifteen-minute episodes. Instead of an hour.” The look he gave Harold was all contempt, no pity. “In the office,” he said. “Eight-thirty. We’ll get it sorted.”
Mackenzie left with the same speed as he’d come in and this time there were no handshakes, no good words. Just a direct stride and a hand that came out fast as he stiff-armed one side of the door. A lot of people began to talk at once. Resnick finished his Guinness and denied himself the scotch he really wanted. Harold was back at the bar, back at his stool, waiting for another large vodka. I wonder what are the chances, thought Resnick, of him leaving his car here and calling a cab?
In the excitement, he hadn’t noticed the man who’d been rolling his cigarette slipping away. Whatever he had wanted to say to Harold, he’d made up his mind it could wait until a better time. Resnick checked his watch and agreed: apart from anything else there were four cats at home anxiously waiting to be fed. Anxious save for Dizzy, who, by now, would have scavenged off and found his own.
“’Night,” he said, turning away.
“’Night, duck.”
Harold Roy’s head moved sideways, his eyes passed over Resnick but they didn’t really see him. The booze and all the other junk, Mackenzie had said. Resnick thought about that as he unlocked his car and slid behind the wheel. He also thought about Mackenzie and what it was that made men like that relish wielding the power they enjoyed so publicly. He had come across officers like that in the force, enough to have realized they were more than an odd phenomenon. For three years, back when he’d been in uniform, he had served under one; never happier than finding an excuse to give you a bollocking in front of the other officers, wipe his feet all over you and then expect you to smile and hold the door. Christ! thought Resnick. If I ever found myself getting that way I’d jack it in. No question.
He changed up into second and turned on to the main road. In less than ten minutes he would be back in the center of the city.
The problem is, he thought, you probably don’t know that you’re doing it. Although—he grinned at his reflection in the driving mirror—between young Lynn Kellogg and Jack Skelton, there’s no shortage of folk to tap me on the shoulder, steer me back towards the straight and narrow.
Straight and narrow, straight certainly, that was the superintendent: if Resnick ever found out Skelton’s parents had made him wear a brace on his back through his formative years, he’d be less than surprised.
Jack Skelton sat in the armchair, forward, his back to the curtained window. The traffic on the road seemed distant, quiet. He hadn’t bothered to get up and switch on the light. He could see the outline of his sports bag where he had left it, smell the faint sweat of his squash clothes. This time he had lasted eighteen minutes without looking at the ticking clock.
Nine
Miles met Resnick the instant his feet touched the pavement; the cat had recognized the sound of the car’s engine from the end of the street and come running. Now he made his welcoming cry from the irregular stones atop the wall, strutting, tail hoisted high as he presented, turn upon turn, his fine backside. Resnick reached up a hand and stroked the smooth fur of the cat’s head, behind and below the ear.
“Come on,” said Resnick. “Let’s get something to eat.”
Miles ran along the wall before jumping to the ground, wriggling between the bars of the gate even as Resnick was opening it.
Before he reached the front door, Resnick was aware that Dizzy was there, too; as usual, silent and seemingly from nowhere, he had materialized at the crucial moment. Right now he was nudging Miles out of the way, laying claim to be the first through into the house.
Resnick switched on the light and bent to scoop the post from the carpet. Four envelopes and a business card. He set the chain and slid the bolt.
It struck cold walking through the hallway, and Resnick tried to remember when he had last bled the radiators; maybe it was later than he’d thought and the system had closed itself down for the night.
Pepper had wedged himself between bread bin and coffee maker, two paws protruding. The tip of Bud’s tail showed, a muted white, curling past a leg of the kitchen table.
Miles and Dizzy nudged against either side of Resnick, meowing shrilly.
“Hush,” he said, knowing that it would do no good.
Tin opened, he forked some into each of the bowls, green, blue, yellow, red, then sprinkled a shower of dried heaven-knows-what over the top. The full-fat milk he gave them, keeping the semi-skimmed for himself. What time was it? Once he’d ground two handfuls of dark beans and poured in the water, he felt relaxed enough to remove his coat, loosen his already loose tie, unfasten and ease off his shoes. In the living room he selected some Lester Young from the shelf and switched the stereo on low. New York City with Johnny Guarnieri: three days past Christmas ’43 and just shy of New Year, shining and plump like a fat, silver apple. Back when everything must have still seemed possible. “I Never Knew.” “Sometimes I’m Happy.”
Back in the kitchen Resnick lifted Dizzy away from Bud’s bowl before slicing bread, rye with caraway. He scooped the contents from a tin of sardines in soya oil, sliced a small onion and spread the rings across the fish; there was a large enough piece of feta cheese to be worth grating. He picked up the business card and took it, with his sandwich, towards the music.
Claire Millinder’s signature, diagonally across the bottom of the card, red felt-tip, was rounded and neat. Tried contacting you, work and home, it read. Why don’t you get yourself an answerphone?
“A microwave, that’s the answer,” Graham Millington had told him. “That way, you wouldn’t have to eat those sandwiches all the time.”
“Never quite understood, Charlie,” Jack Skelton had said one strangely slack afternoon, “what it is you’ve got against CD. Exactly.”
“The way Debbie sees it,” he had heard Naylor explaining to Lynn Kellogg, “if we invest in a dishwasher now, the extent to which we’re going to find use of it, well, it’s going to get more instead of less.” Resnick couldn’t remember if that was before she’d had the baby, or after.
Lester was bouncing through “Just You, Just Me,” the first chorus almost straight, a trio of those trademark honks marking his place near the end of the middle eight, perfectly placed, perfectly spaced, rivets driven in a perfect line. Intake of breath, smooth and quick, over the flick of brushes against Sid Catlett’s snares, and then, with relaxed confidence and the ease of a man with perfect trust both of fingers and mind, he made from that same sequence another song, another tune, tied to the first and utterly his own.
What are these arms for?
What are these charms for?
Use your imagination.
The reason Resnick didn’t get an answerphone: how else to keep bad news at bay? The messages that you didn’t want to hear.
He had seen a photograph of Lester Young taken in 1959. He is in a recording studio, holding his horn, not playing. The suit he is wearing, even for those days’ fashions, seems overlarge, as though, perhaps, he has shrunk within it. His head is down, his cheeks have sunk in on his jaw; whatever he is looking at in those eyes, soft, brown, is not there in the room. His left hand holds the shield with which he will cover the mouthpiece, as if maybe, he is thinking he will slip it into place, not play again, it is possible that the veins in his esophagus ha
ve already ruptured and he is bleeding inside.
The coffee would be ready. In the kitchen Resnick picked up the envelope that was not brown, the address on which had not been printed via computer. He was trying to work out how long it had been since he had seen that writing. How many years. He wanted to tear it, two and four and six and eight, all the multiples until it was like confetti.
“Here.”
He lifted Bud with one hand and set him back in his lap. The cup of coffee was balanced on the arm of the chair. The first take of “I Never Knew” ended abruptly; some saxophone, a piano phrase never finished. Lester is standing there, tenor close to his mouth, but now he is looking away. As if something has slipped suddenly through that door in 1943, unbidden, out of time. A premonition. A ghost.
Ten
The call came through, as they tended to do, a little shy of seven o’clock. More often than not it was couched in tones of sleepy bewilderment, the voice of a householder who had found, before the day’s first cup of tea, the rear window forced, the front door wide open, either, both. Usually it took a while for the anger to seep through. Rees Stanley had been angry already. The snow at Obergurgl had been piss-poor: ten centimeters on the lower slopes (ten!) and only fifty centimeters of shallow powder higher up. His wife and teenage daughter had wallowed in exorbitant après-ski at his own great expense, his younger son had contrived to break all the toes on his left foot and the ruse of taking the au pair along had been a complete waste of time and money.
The drive from Gatwick had been, for Rees, a silent vigil, a struggle to keep awake and in the outer lane, while those around him slept and stirred and snored.
And then this …
The duty sergeant wrote down the details laboriously, editing out the expletives. “Here, Mark,” he said, holding out the sheet of paper towards Divine as the DC passed through, “one for you.”
“Cheers.”
Divine glanced at it as he took the stairs two or three at a time. Why was it that sensible people kept so much indoors instead of in the bank? If it’d been some old-age pensioner, fifty quid stuffed under the mattress, he could have understood it, poor old sod. But this …