by Simon Mason
‘Joel didn’t see it that way,’ PJ said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Anger was Joel’s constant companion.’ PJ smiled a long, wide smile. ‘He went around telling everyone how someone had got him the rubber elbow.’
‘He blamed someone else?’
‘That’s it. Went on and on about it. Someone had set him up. Deliberately done him over. He wasn’t going to make his rent, he said.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Impossible to make it out. Sound and fury. But he was definitely pointing the finger at someone. He was going to make them pay.’
‘Who?’
PJ gestured Pope-like with his upturned hands. ‘There was no one to blame but himself.’ Blaming was in the lost child’s nature. ‘Thing is,’ he added, ‘some lost children you can help. Others, sad to say, are beyond it. You have to move on, let them awaken on their own.’ Wreathed in the sweet-bitter smoke of the spliff, PJ contemplated the grey cladding of the garage ceiling.
Smudge caught up with the conversation at last. ‘Yeah, but. What we wanted to know is, had this Watkins fellow been hooking up with our man Damon in some way?’
Garvie nodded. ‘To the point as usual, Smudge.’
PJ raised his upturned hands again as if to show there was nothing in them. ‘No idea. I don’t recall Joel ever mentioning a Damon. But who knows? What I do know is, they were both lost boys – lost to themselves. If you ever find your friend Damon, send him to me. I think I could help him.’
He closed his eyes and seemed to drift off, and after another ten minutes or so they quietly left him there, serene in his squalor, at peace with his karma, and went out again into the night.
They stood for a moment by their van, Smudge admiring it in the moonlight. Occasionally touching it. Near them were the grave-like trenches and piles of earth where the police diggers had searched for Amy’s body. The fine silhouettes of treetops around the clearing swayed faintly against the cloud-hazed sky. Once, far off, a fox barked, cold and sharp. Mist stood among the trees, as if the earth were letting out its breath.
Amy said, ‘How did you know PJ and Joel both worked for One Shot?’
Garvie grunted. ‘It got mentioned.’
‘Ah yes. The boy who doesn’t forget. But it doesn’t look like Joel and Damon were still in touch. PJ was close to Joel. He would have known.’
Smudge opened the door, closed it for the pleasure of hearing it shut, and opened it again. He got in at last and settled himself behind the wheel.
‘Fact is,’ he said, ‘we only learned a couple of things. First one: this PJ’s a bit nuts. I got friends at One Shot. None of them are as out of it as he is.’
‘Very good point, Smudge.’
‘Second one: this Joel’s got a temper.’
‘Put your finger on it, again.’ Garvie said. ‘Quiet Man turns out to be Mr Angry. That’s interesting.’
‘Angry with whoever he thought got him the sack,’ Amy said. ‘Not Damon. Damon had absolutely nothing to do with him being sacked. It would be better if we could find Damon before the police do.’
Smudge agreed. He had mates on the alert all over the city. Sooner or later they’d turn something up.
Garvie sighed, shook his head.
‘Well, what do you think we should do?’ Amy asked him.
But for the next half an hour he said nothing, staring out of the window as they went back along the potholed track, around the lanes, and down at last into town, where Smudge pulled up again at the corner of Pollard Way and Town Road.
‘Think I might go back to Pirrip Street tomorrow,’ Garvie said at last.
Amy frowned. ‘What for? Damon left there ages ago.’
‘I told you, I’m not interested in where Damon is.’
‘If you go then,’ Smudge said, ‘mind the dog.’
‘It’s OK. It’s not his landlady I want to see.’
He said no more, just got out and without saying goodbye strolled away in the direction of Eastwick Gardens.
‘Is he always like this?’ Amy asked Smudge.
‘Not really,’ Smudge said. ‘He can be much worse. Personally, I think it’s why he doesn’t get the girls.’
35
Morning sunlight showed Pirrip Street to itself through a fine screen of dust. The sunshine was warm, the dusty air smelled of hot broken glass, the true smell of the city, which lay all around, haphazard, ugly and reassuringly vast.
At number 8b Garvie leaned against the house wall, waiting. From inside the house he heard occasional chaotic dog noise, but he comforted himself, eyes half-closed, with Benson & Hedges. He didn’t know how long he would have to wait. He reckoned maybe three cigarettes. But he was only halfway through the second when he heard the cough nearby.
He glanced round.
‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Not today.’
‘You said that last time,’ the kid said, his fists still up.
‘I meant it for today.’
The kid appeared exactly as before, the same saggy short trousers, the same middle-aged man’s face, the same bland determination to take the world for granted. Clearly, he would be like that till the day he died.
‘Give us a cigarette then,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll batter you.’ A cunning look came across his face, making him look half-witted. ‘I know you’ve got them because I can see one of them in your mouth.’
‘Sharp today,’ Garvie said. ‘And looking good, by the way. But I can’t give you one.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause I don’t want to.’
The kid examined that thought from a number of angles and gave up. He was obviously used to giving up, and he did it with a sort of forlorn dignity.
‘Anyway,’ Garvie added, ‘they’re bad for you.’
This seemed no surprise to the kid, who nodded as if to say that bad things were his familiar friends.
‘Well, Brainstorm,’ Garvie said. ‘Anything else to say?’
The kid thought about that. Nodded. ‘Something to ask you.’
‘Go ahead with your question. In your own time.’
‘Is he dead?’
Garvie looked at him with new interest. ‘Who?’
‘Damon.’
‘Why do you ask that?’
‘The police been round. They do that when someone’s dead. They did it with my dad,’ the kid said.
‘Well,’ Garvie said after a moment. ‘You got me. I don’t know if he’s dead.’
The kid nodded as if that settled it. ‘I liked Damon,’ he said. ‘He said he thought he was going to die,’ he added after a moment.
‘Did he now?’
The kid nodded.
‘You’re full of interesting things today. You must have had a good breakfast.’
‘Monster Munch.’
‘What did Damon say exactly?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Come on. You are a bright and thoughtful boy. Don’t give up now. Keep it going.’
But the kid became shy; he put his thumb in his mouth and refused to say any more.
‘Did he say someone was going to kill him? Did he say he was going to die because he was sick? Did he say he was going to kill himself?’
The kid just stared at Garvie expressionlessly. After a while he took his thumb out of his mouth, and said, ‘Wait here,’ and disappeared down the alley at the side of the house.
Garvie waited. It was even quieter in the street now. He sucked on a Benson & Hedges, lifted his face to the sun and thought about Damon thinking he was going to die.
‘Here.’ The kid held out an envelope.
‘What’s this?’
‘From Damon.’
Garvie opened the envelope. Inside was a plain piece of paper with a message written on it in capital letters in black felt-tip. Very low-tech: typical Damon. The message said: LEAVE ME ALONE. IM WARNING YOU DONT PUSH ME MAN. ITS NOT MY FAULT.
Garvie and the kid stared at each other for a bit.
G
arvie said, ‘Damon left this note with you?’
The kid nodded.
‘When?’
Time seemed to be a conceptual problem for the kid. He shook his head.
‘He left it with you to give to someone?’
The kid nodded.
‘For me?’
The kid shook his head.
‘For someone else who was going to turn up looking for him?’
The kid nodded again.
‘Did Damon tell you who the guy was, who was going to show up?’
The kid shook his head. Looked inscrutable.
Garvie thought for a while. ‘Do you know who it was?’
The kid nodded. Same blank expression.
Garvie said, ‘You are polite and highly intelligent. How do you know who it was?’
The kid briefly took his thumb out of his mouth and said, ‘He came before. Damon said he was going to come back.’
‘I see. But he never did?’
The kid shook his head. Silently, without his expression changing, he began to cry.
‘What now?’
‘Didn’t like him.’
‘The guy who came? Did he frighten you? Was he nasty?’
The kid swallowed and nodded and wiped his eyes as the memory faded.
‘Don’t suppose you know this guy’s name?’
Another shake of the head.
‘Never mind. You are a clever and interesting boy with a brilliant future.’
The thumb came out for a moment. ‘Why?
‘Because you are going to answer my next question. What did this guy look like?’
For a long time the kid thought hard, then he said fluently, ‘Big, tall, dark hair.’
Garvie thought about that. ‘How short was his hair?’
The kid put the tips of his index finger and thumb very close together.
‘What about here?’ Garvie touched his upper lip.
‘Lots.’
‘This is the man Damon left his note for?’
The kid nodded.
‘Final question. Was this man angry with Damon?’
The kid nodded energetically.
‘I think you must be the most brilliant child of your generation. What’s your name?’
‘Smith.’
‘Good. A good name. My name’s Smith too.’
The kid smiled. It might have been the first time he’d ever done it. He didn’t do it very well, but it looked like he enjoyed it. Then he closed his mouth and stared at Garvie impassively again. He stood there looking like the poorest person Garvie had ever seen.
Garvie said, ‘You’re such a good kid, I’m going to give you something.’
The kid nodded. ‘A cigarette.’
‘No. Something else.’
‘What else?’
Garvie put his hand in his pocket and took out his wallet. He removed from it a thin thread of silver chain still scented, very faintly, with ‘Alien’ by Mugler, which he put back in his pocket.
‘Here,’ he said, holding out the wallet. ‘You can have this. As it happens, due to an unforeseen development in my career, I don’t really need it at the moment.’
The kid’s expression didn’t change. He stared at the wallet, as if confronted with something utterly beyond his comprehension.
‘It’s a wallet,’ Garvie said. ‘The person who gave it to me … well, let’s just say she means a lot to me.’
‘Is it full of money?’ the kid asked at last.
‘You get to take care of that bit yourself,’ Garvie said. ‘But that’s not the point.’
‘What’s the point?’
‘The point is that everyone needs to be given something once in a while.’
The kid fixed his unvarying stare on Garvie. ‘Why?’ he asked at last.
‘You really are sharp today,’ Garvie said. ‘’Cause that’s a question I just can’t answer. I just know it’s true.’
For a minute or more the kid struggled to fit the wallet into the pocket of his saggy shorts, and after a while gave up and stood there with it clenched in his fist, gazing at Garvie.
Garvie began to grin. It must have been catching because the kid began to grin as well, and they stood there grinning at each other.
36
In the café area near Communications and Records the TV was showing breaking lunchtime news. One or two men in uniform glanced at Garvie as he sauntered by, a boy in a scuffed black leather jacket, out of place among the back-room offices; but he soon turned away, slipping up the stairs, past Senior Management, to the floor above. He’d left Smudge in Reception causing a diversion, and was keen to put space between himself and the disturbance.
Upstairs, he strolled along another corridor between post rooms and storage facilities until he came to a windowless door featuring a temporary cardboard sign: DIDI Singh. Not bothering to knock, he went inside. And found Detective Inspector Dowell behind the desk.
A moment of disquiet for both of them.
Neither spoke for a moment. Dowell shut the desk drawers with his good hand and leaned forward in the chair, propping his sling on the desktop. His piggy eyes shrank.
‘Well, well,’ he said at last. ‘Garvie Smith. Come in to have a cosy chat with your man?’
‘Looking for my uncle. I was told he was here.’
‘Your uncle, yes. Mr Spots and Stains. Certainly he’s friendly with young Raminder.’
They silently looked at each other for a while longer.
‘Here’s the thing,’ Dowell said, all soft menace. ‘We’re all looking for this lad Walsh.’
Garvie nodded. ‘And you want me to tell you where he is?’ He lowered his voice and Dowell instinctively leaned forward. Garvie said, ‘Somewhere you won’t find him. Thing is,’ he added, ‘you’re working at a disadvantage.’
Dowell’s expression didn’t change.
‘Being stupid,’ Garvie said. ‘Makes everything harder. I think Smudge’ll find him first.’
Now the policeman’s expression changed; it got thicker, bigger, it filled his face. He shifted his eyes slightly downwards.
‘What’s in your pockets, son?’
‘Nothing much.’
‘Why don’t you put it on the desk for me?’
Garvie hesitated. ‘Don’t you have to have a warrant to search my pockets?’
Dowell stood up. He was not a big man but he was big enough.
Garvie put the contents of his pockets on the desk.
Cheap disposable lighter. Pack of Benson & Hedges. A fine and faintly scented silver chain. Piece of paper folded in two with a note on the inside reading LEAVE ME ALONE. IM WARNING YOU DONT PUSH ME MAN. ITS NOT MY FAULT.
Dowell said nothing. He reached across and took the note and put it, unread, into his top jacket pocket. A ghost of a smile passed across his lips. He lowered his face with a bull-like movement, and stared at Garvie for a moment. Then left the room.
One floor below, in the chief’s office, Singh stood in silence.
‘It’s about using the proper channels,’ the chief said at last.
‘Yes, sir. Though the information has now been formally disclosed.’
‘The rules are there for a purpose,’ the chief said, ignoring him. ‘A good defence lawyer will have a case thrown out if information is shown to have been obtained first unofficially.’ He looked at Singh with his usual lidless disapproval. ‘Wasting months of expensive police work.’
‘I understand, sir.’
The silence went on even longer than usual.
The chief said quietly, ‘We don’t rely on unofficial sources. And we don’t, ever,’ he said in an even quieter voice, ‘share our information with third parties.’
Singh hesitated. ‘No, sir.’
The chief fixed him with his gaze. ‘At one time, Inspector, you were a’ – he sought the right word – ‘stickler for the rules. It was the secret of your success, some would say. Which has been sadly lacking lately.’ The chief considered for a moment longer, then nod
ded and bent to his desk, as if Singh had already left his office.
Going across the open-plan to the staircase and up to the floor above, Singh reflected. The chief’s warning had been clear: he knew about Singh’s conversations with Paul Tanner; much worse, he may have heard something about his unorthodox dealings with Garvie Smith. This thought filled him with foreboding. He’d become careless; he needed to be more disciplined again. No one must suspect anything about his relationship with Garvie. It must be kept absolutely secret.
He went into his office and there found Garvie lounging in his chair with his feet up on his desk, fingering a cigarette.
‘Do you think I’m good with people?’ Garvie asked. ‘Be honest.’
Singh found his voice, a hoarse whisper. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ He hastily shut the door behind him.
‘Helping out. Thought that’s what you wanted me to do.’
‘I mean, what are you doing in my office? People will see you.’
‘Like Dowell, you mean? Yeah, I was chatting to him just now. I think I must have got on the wrong side of him somehow. Smudge is right, you know, I need to improve my people skills.’
‘Chatting? To Dowell? Here? Oh my God.’ Singh went briefly pop-eyed and let out a groan of dismay.
‘I mean, I know we’re never going to be close – but I really hated it when he took Damon’s note off me.’
Singh’s expression stopped in the middle of another contortion. ‘What are you talking about, “Damon’s note”?’
‘Brought specially for you. A present. But Dowell took it. And the weird thing is,’ he paused thoughtfully, ‘he seemed to know I had it.’ He got up and walked around thoughtfully.
Singh was struggling to control himself. ‘None of this is good, Garvie.’
‘I know. Least of all my people skills.’
‘OK, OK. Let’s be calm.’ Singh made calming gestures with his arms, at odds with Garvie’s extreme calmness.
Some moments passed.
‘OK,’ Singh said in his normal voice. ‘Tell me, slowly, what is this note?’
Garvie told him.
Singh was silent for a while. ‘And you think Damon left it for Joel Watkins?’
‘The kid described Joel to a tee. Mr Frightening.’