‘That’s insulting,’ I said, deciding to sit; never afraid to use my initiative.
‘My sentiment, too.’
‘Anyhow, it’s the wrong time of year for hot-water bottles,’ I said.
‘Bottom line is that your request was granted, albeit begrudgingly.’
I was surprised and it must have showed.
‘It’s no favour,’ he said. ‘Pomfrey reckoned Cable would only sulk while you were away and drag her feet; bad for morale.’
‘If he really believes that, then he can’t know DS Cable,’ I said, indignantly.
‘Not the way you do, apparently!’
I’d stumbled carelessly into that pothole.
‘Anyhow, she’ll be here this afternoon and she’s all yours.’ Any innuendo this time was politely concealed. Finally looking up, he said, ‘Anything of worth to report?’
‘Not of worth,’ I replied. ‘But I interviewed Tina Marlowe’s mother yesterday.’
‘I didn’t even know the old girl was still alive.’
‘Tina’s father’s dead, though … committed suicide.’
‘Something else I didn’t know,’ he said, glumly. ‘Doesn’t seem, though, as if any of this is relevant to tracing Tina.’
‘Her mother gave me more leads than she imagined.’
Sharkey raised his overgrown eyebrows. ‘Is she in touch with her daughter, then?’
‘No.’
‘Was she able to tell you if Tina’s married?’
‘No.’
‘Has she any idea where Tina’s currently living?’
‘Seems not.’
‘Does she even know if her daughter’s still alive, dammit?’
‘No.’
‘And this is what you Yard bullshitters call making progress, eh?’ He gave me a so-what-the-hell-am-I-missing now? gesture, arms raised.
‘I said leads; nothing definite, but at least now I have a trail to follow.’
‘All dead ends have a promising beginning,’ he said, negatively; just to be provocative, I surmised. ‘Fancy a drink?’ he added.
‘Too early in the day for me,’ I said. ‘In any case, I’m trying to kick the juice.’
‘That’s not what I heard from Pomfrey. Anyhow, I meant a coffee or tea.’
‘Too late in the morning for that.’
‘Touchez!’ he said.
The time had come for me to beat a retreat. From Sharkey’s office, I took a 200-yard hike in the sun to Folly Bridge, where I phoned Sarah Cable from my mobile.
‘Hi, Mike,’ she said, quick to answer her cell-phone, recognizing my number on the screen.
‘What time will you be here?’
‘About three. Traffic shouldn’t be too snarled through town that time of day. Where shall we meet?’
‘How about somewhere original, like the Nick?’
‘Don’t smart-arse me, Mike Lorenzo!’
‘Spunky as ever,’ I said, blithely.
‘No, that’s your department.’
The template was set for the rest of the assignment.
Sarah Cable, like me, had what’s known among fellow cops as a history, the sort of baggage that was always easier for guys to shoulder than the girls, so it was supposed, though I’m not convinced. She’d been locked in a bad marriage with a fellow cop, who was a coward on the streets but always ready for rough stuff in the bedroom. When she filed an official complaint about his behaviour, she was warned about the consequences of ‘rocking the boat’. Her immediate superior told her to ‘think about it carefully’ and not to do anything that would reflect badly on the force. While reflecting, she was treated to a special beating. Next day, after undergoing repairs in the A&E department of her local general hospital, she returned home to find her husband in bed with a woman police sergeant, who was naked except for her uniform-hat, worn at a jaunty angle. Her husband was also naked, except for the handcuffs that fastened him to a bedpost. Sarah booted the woman downstairs and into the small back garden. Still in a rage, she bounded upstairs and threw the woman sergeant’s clothes out the window, including the key to unlock the handcuffs.
‘Well, well, well,’ she said, suddenly icily calm. ‘How grateful I am to your lady friend! Now I’ve got you exactly where I’ve wanted you these past two miserable, sodding years – totally helpless and at my mercy. Oh, boy! I intend to break your head and your balls. Only two questions remain: what with and in which order?’
She chose his riot-stick, which was hanging behind the door. As for the order, she decided to work her way upwards; sort of symbolic.
‘You’ve always been one for clubbing in the West End, now let’s see how you enjoy my home-sweet-home version,’ she taunted him.
He pleaded with her to be ‘reasonable’ and not to behave like an asylum seeker; asylum as in a place for the insane.
‘I’m mad, all right,’ she rounded on him, though still composed. ‘And now you’re going to sample my madness. It looked to me as if you were lapping up being roughed up. Bet I can improve on her handiwork, though.’
His subsequent screams alerted neighbours who called the police. Something of a joke, really; a parallel of one of those yarns: I’m going to send for the police. No need, I AM the police.
Sarah’s husband spent two weeks in hospital and a further three months convalescing, during which time she was suspended from duty. Wisely, he chose not to bring charges for assault and battery, a decision that was greeted with much relief by the image-conscious top brass, but disappointed Sarah. The court case would have been very messy and tailor-made for the front pages of the tabloids. Sarah would gladly have gone to prison in exchange for seeing her husband publicly pilloried. Instead of a sordid trial, followed by gaol, she was privately reprimanded and reinstated, then transferred to the Met from her Home Counties provincial force. And that’s how we came to be partners, then pals, and finally something more. Perhaps the reference to finally is somewhat premature. The ending has still to be written. Most of the other cops within my orbit were wary of her. ‘Watch her, she’s bad news; bad as gaol-bait,’ was the kind of malicious warning repeatedly whispered in my ear. I took no notice, of course. My marriage had been reduced to flotsam, washed up on a succession of storm-tides. I was drinking too much, gambling too heavily, and bed-hopping like a flea with an itch of its own. Neither Sarah nor I had any right to be judgmental, which was the one thing we had in common. We respected each other’s demons and tried to give them a wide berth. Skeletons were best left buried. Dig them up and they could be the most troublesome ghosts, more havoc-wreaking than poltergeists.
My problems were somewhat different in that the past trespassed on the present. Marital separation had not yet morphed into divorce and addictions were as permanent as a birthmark; they could be camouflaged and managed, but they were always lurking on the periphery, just waiting for the opportunity to bounce back. I’ll never forget my first attendance at an AA meeting. ‘My name is Mike. I’m married. I have teenage kids. I’m a civil servant. (I couldn’t possibly admit to being a cop.) I have an ongoing alcohol problem.’ What the hell am I doing here among all these derelicts? I was thinking, a typical attitude, I was to discover, of newcomers to rehab groups. You don’t believe that you belong there. You somehow think that you’re very different from the others; that you’re a cut above them. Not until that arrogance is stripped away have you any chance of sanitizing your life and finding a way out of the sewer.
Nowadays, I chance the occasional beer, but I don’t really trust myself. A pub door opens, boisterous conviviality wafts my way and I’m so damned tempted to go on a bender, pulled inside by an invisible hand. Pub sounds can be as seductive and soliciting as those of an accomplished whore. Getting drunk would be tantamount to breaking marriage vows, which I’ve done randomly and without remorse, so why be so steadfast now over this commitment? I’ll tell you why: to hit the bottle again would be to beat myself up irreparably. I’d be pulling the chain on my career and health. My liver has been puni
shed unfairly, but so far it has stood by me, like a faithful friend. One can abuse that kind of loyalty only so long before it lets you go, casting you adrift, leaving you vulnerable to all manner of predators. When you lose the support of your liver, the gravity of the grave quickly kicks in.
Betting shops had been as enticing to me as pubs; in fact, the two overlapped seamlessly. After a drink, I was emboldened to gamble. If I gambled and won, I was emboldened to drink to celebrate. And if I gambled and lost, I sought solace in alcohol, which merely loosened the leash on any last vestiges of caution. The lure is a soft sell. The steps to hell and ruin are paved with cushions and bordered by roses, the thorns of which have been craftily hidden.
Sarah looked good. Seeing her made me feel better, like a pick-me-up tonic. She was dressed for the street: tight jeans, russet, ankle leather-boots, a loose, white silk blouse knotted at the waist, and her lucky horseshoe amulet around her slender, stem-like neck. You’d never believe from looking at her that she could flatten a heavyweight thug without working up sweat or raising her pulse rate by even one extra beat a minute. Her femininity was genuine, but her delicate appearance was a dangerous trick of nature, designed to trap those who stupidly took her for easy prey. Her sable hair was unrestrained; she chose to allow it to be blown by the wind, like the mane of a galloping horse or a flag fluttering in the breeze. On calm days and when she was indoors, her hair would cover large parts of her dainty features like a hanging, beaded curtain. Most people thought she had a hard, snappy and hostile face; a bird of prey. This was only partially true. She’d survived a very nasty war on the home front. The wounds and scars were inside her head, etched on her psyche. What you saw on the outside was armour, her bulletproof vest. There were very few people with whom she let down her guard and I considered myself privileged to be the front-runner. Her opalescent eyes could have the look of death about them and then, in an instant, light up a room with sunny mischief. She wasn’t a moody person, just introspective; too human, sensitive and incorruptible for the likes of Pomfrey. Too mentally and morally strong, as well. Pomfrey preferred his underlings, especially women, to be pliable and readily manipulated. In that respect, he’d long ago given up on Sarah. And, in other respects, he’d long ago given up on me, until he needed something akin to a miracle. That’s when I was known variously as ‘The Sorcerer’ or ‘The Magus’, but only when it suited Pomfrey. At other times, his names for me weren’t so flattering.
Sarah, as my partner, mostly worked undercover. She came dressed for the street because she’d had no briefing from Pomfrey. All he’d said, apparently, was, ‘You’ll be teaming up again with that reprobate partner of yours, DI Lorenzo. He’s in Oxford, not his usual kind of low-life scene. The only degree he’s heard of is the third. He’ll give you the story, no doubt doctored, on your arrival.’
‘Good to see you,’ I said.
She smiled, almost coyly. ‘Looks like I could be underdressed,’ she said, noting my suit, even a necktie, though it was loosened, knot resting on my chest instead of throttling me.
‘No, you’re fine,’ I said, ‘at least for today. And probably for most of this assignment.’
‘Pomfrey said you’d give me the story.’
‘Book at bedtime insinuation, huh?’
‘No, for once he didn’t even hint at that; just said your account would be doctored, no doubt. Snide as ever.’
‘You hungry?’ I asked.
‘Sort of.’
‘Let’s get a bite,’ I suggested, wanting out of my closet.
We walked together, shoulders rubbing like a couple of tourists, away from the police station, up the hill of St Aldate’s. A right turn into the High for a couple of hundred yards, before cutting left through narrow Turl Street, passing Lincoln, Jesus and Exeter colleges, and finally ducking into the compact and intimate News Café in Ship Street.
We ordered tea and cakes, and occupied a corner table-for-two, under a muted TV that was showing silent pictures of a contemporary newscaster, not Charlie Chaplin.
‘So, what’s the pitch?’ she said, finally, putting on her neutral, business voice.
For half an hour she listened and asked intelligent, probing questions, exactly what I anticipated from her.
When I’d finished, she said, as if there had to be more, ‘And that’s it?’
‘Sum total,’ I said, adding sardonically, ‘Nice one, huh?’
‘Certainly a new angle – find the victim.’
‘I thought it might appeal to you.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then it does indeed appeal to me!’
The rapport between us was often oxygenated by serrated sparring, not because we were at odds but because it kept our wits sharpened and oiled.
She poured the tea, knowing just how much milk I liked and the fact that I had sugar only in coffee. Any PI commissioned to do a job on us would have known the score even before the kick-off.
‘You believe the mother?’ she said, as soon as all the serving was complete.
‘Absolutely.’
‘No chance that she does know her daughter’s whereabouts and they’re in touch, reciprocating birthday and Christmas cards?’
‘Why should she lie – and so elaborately?’
‘For Tina’s sake. Even for her own sake.’
‘Go on,’ I encouraged.
‘Maybe Tina wants it all behind her. She could be married. Got a family. Her husband and his family may know absolutely nothing about the events here, in Oxford, all those years ago.’
‘But she has nothing to be ashamed of – over the attack on her, anyhow. She wasn’t raped or sexually assaulted. There’s no shame or embarrassment of any kind attached to it.’
‘Not in your eyes, Mike, but we’re not talking about you. We’re not even talking logic or objectivity. You’re seeing it purely from a cop’s perspective.’
‘But of course. That’s what we are, Sarah.’
‘We can skew things, though. We haven’t a clue how muggles see it. For all we know, Mike, it could be the mother who wants the whole thing buried. She’ll be coming at it subjectively.’
‘Everything you say is possible, even plausible, but I think you’re wrong, Sarah. All the old girl’s reactions, including emotions, were natural and spontaneous.’
‘She’s had years to rehearse them,’ countered Sarah, always a testing devil’s advocate.
‘Don’t forget, she told me much, much more than she needed to. She could quite easily have left out all the seedy escort agency stuff.’
‘True,’ she conceded, giving an inch, but no more. ‘But by doing so, it’s made her tale all the more credible. She could be cuter than you give her credit for.’
‘But let’s be generous and give her the benefit of the doubt, shall we?’ I said, democratically canvassing her vote.
‘You’re the boss.’ Now that was a concession. ‘Where do we start?’
‘No one can simply vanish from the planet these days,’ I said, maundering, my mouth lagging well behind my brain.
‘But Tina didn’t disappear in these days.’ Sarah was a long way from hoisting the white flag of surrender.
‘We’re talking thirty years – less from the time she left home – not the Ice Age,’ I pointed out, somewhat enervated by now. ‘She must have had a bank account, National Health Service and National Insurance numbers and an Inland Revenue file.’
‘But no mobile phone,’ said Sarah.
I gave that some thought. ‘She’ll have one now, doubtlessly.’
‘If she’s still alive. And if she is, she won’t be Tina Marlowe, bank on it,’ she said.
‘And if she’s dead, we’re wasting our time, because Richard Pope will be well and truly off the hook. At the time of Tina’s disappearance, credit cards were in circulation, but not cellphones, so you’re right about a mobile trail being a non-starter, unless she has kept her maiden name.’
‘And credi
t cards were nowhere near as rife back then as they are today,’ Sarah elaborated on the points she’d been making.
‘So let’s start plodding, Sarah.’
She waited, like a sniper, for her next target at which to fire.
‘Records of marriages and deaths,’ I said, in a tone that translated into, I sincerely hope that this isn’t as exciting as it’s going to get.
She considered this proposed starting-point for a moment.
‘Beginning with which year?’ she said, stoically.
‘The year of her father’s death,’ I suggested.
‘Too far back,’ Sarah opined.
‘Maybe not even far back enough, if your hypothesis is right and her mother’s lying. If the escort agency yarn’s a fable, Tina could have married soon after leaving Oxford.’
She grinned. ‘You got me there, bastard! You want me to hunt the thimble in the marriages and deaths registers?’
‘Please. It could be productive, like some coughs. I’ll tackle the Inland Rev, banks, and also the escort agency, if it’s the one I suspect.’
‘Has any escort agency ever lasted that long?’
‘There are one or two long-runners. The well-organized ones.’
‘And what might well organized be a euphemism for?’
‘Usually gangster controlled.’
‘That’s what I thought. And you reckon they’ll do Old Bill a favour?’
‘More so than a legit outfit, if there is such a thing in that particular meat trade. The last thing they want is heat on their backs, sniffing around, balancing their turnover against their tax returns.’
‘So which agency is your money on?’
‘Well, Mrs Marlowe believed it had the word Venus in its name.’
‘Unless her story was plucked from the fiction shelves.’
‘Quite,’ I said, my voice transmitting the message that Sarah was labouring her point. ‘Venus for the Lonely has been around since the days of the Kray twins and the Richardson brothers. If my memory hasn’t started on the slope to senility, thirty years ago the agency was run by an ex-prostitute who’d gone prematurely into whore-management. She was living with one of the “directors”, a Maltese slimeball, related to “Big Frank” Mifsud. Heard of him?’
The One a Month Man Page 5