Deadly friends, p.7
Deadly Friends, page 7
‘Sophie? I thought she was at a party.’
‘She just rang to say it was boring, so Dave’s gone to fetch her. At least, that was her excuse. She’ll be upset when you’re not here.’
‘I doubt it,’ I said.
‘Charlie,’ Shirley began, ‘don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that your goddaughter has an almighty crush on you.’
‘Er, no, can’t say I have.’
‘Well she has.’
‘Oh heck. What do we do about it?’
‘Nothing. We’re hoping she’ll see the light. Are you sure you can’t come round?’
I wanted to. These days invitations are rarer than apprenticeships at the Job Centre. I nearly made a joke about having me for a son-in-law, but decided not to. It was a delicate subject. ‘Listen, Shirley,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell Sparky – Dave – but something’s cropped up. I’m going to the nick for an hour, see if I can help, that’s all.’
‘Oh, right. So what shall I say when they come in?’
‘Tell Sophie that I’m curled up in front of the fire with a mug of cocoa and the latest Jeffrey Archer. That should do it.’
‘Aversion therapy.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Thanks, love. And be careful.’
The town centre was crowded with groups of young people, singing and swaying, spilling into the road as they toured the pubs. Some wore funny hats or strands of streamers round their necks. Nobody wore a coat. They breed ’em tough, these days. The wind had swung again, away from the Pole, but it was still thinner than orphanage custard. Fortunately, alcohol is a good antidote. Tests have shown that vast quantities of it slopping around in the stomach are equivalent to wearing two vests and a jumper.
I eased the car through the crowd, towards the Tap and Spile. The sexes were still segregated, but the time for mass pairing-off was rapidly approaching. A group of giggling girls sharing hardly enough clothes for one staggered into the road. I stopped and waved them across, and the one who got the blouse blew me a kiss. A party of young men in Tshirts shouted at them. Love was in the air, empathy was running high, but it could all change at the drop of a lager bottle or a misunderstood come-on. It was just a matter of time.
Darryl’s silver Mondeo wasn’t in the Tap’s car park. If he had any sense he’d have used a taxi, tonight of all nights. I eased out into the street again and worked my way round most of the town-centre pubs, without finding him. Uniform branch were out in force, but I didn’t speak with them.
Once I was clear of the throng I hot-wheeled it to the fancy canal-side development where Darryl lived. It had started life as a wool warehouse, a century and a half ago, when buildings were made to last but there was still something in the budget for ornamentation. It escaped the vandals in the town hall by the thickness of a small bundle of tenners and was now a highly desirable block of upmarket apartments, complete with security gates and private moorings. Most of the parking spots were occupied, but not by Darryl’s car. I noticed that some of his neighbours were doing a lot better than he was.
I telephoned the nick and asked for all cars to look out for him. If anyone radioed in with a contact, tell them, I said, to check if he was with a woman. If he was, they had to ruin his chances. I can be a heartless so-and-so. If Charlie’s not getting it, nobody gets it.
I drove back to the Tap. The streets were quieter, with everybody inside the pubs, pouring the last desperate drinks down their throats, as if prohibition came in on the chime of midnight. A minibus of women pulled out, leaving a big parking space for me.
I’d forgotten how crowded pubs could be. Did I once enjoy this? I couldn’t believe I ever had. It was shoulder to shoulder, with a pall of smoke hugging the ceiling. At my height I was getting a superdose. I looked around and started to fight my way to one of the anterooms that branched off the main saloon, in search of a drink, or some air.
The landlord was behind the main bar, serving drinks to the four-deep throng like a robot. An order would be shouted at him or one of his staff and a tenner passed across. Pints were pulled and a handful of coins given back. Then on to the next customer. Nobody checked their change. The sumo wrestler was dressed in red, her hair piled impossibly high. She looked as if she should have been standing at the far end of a bowling alley.
It was marginally quieter in the far room, except for the constant procession to the toilets. I yelled an order for a pint of lager over someone’s head. He turned indignantly, found himself staring at my chest and decided to wait. The barman passed me a can.
‘We’ve no glasses,’ he shouted.
‘Does that make it cheaper?’
‘No.’
I handed him a pound coin and said: ‘Call it right.’
‘It’s eighty pence short,’ he replied.
‘They’re only seventy-five pence in Safeway’s,’ I protested.
‘Then go do your drinking there,’ he told me.
I gave him another pound and turned away.
A bunch of women were filing into the ladies’, handbags at the ready. I stood back for them and found a piece of wall to lean on. Darryl might have been there, but I couldn’t see anyone who fitted the picture I’d formed of him in my mind. Sometimes, that’s a misleading thing to do. I wiped the top of the can with my shirt cuff and took a swig. It was warm.
The first of the women emerged from the loo and stood waiting for her friends, so they could form a united assault on the wall of bodies they had to negotiate. I looked, then looked again. She had the kind of figure and face that turn brave men into quiche eaters. I sidled towards her, noting that she looked nervous, out of her natural habitat, in that crowded place.
‘Anyone would think it was New Year’s Eve,’ I said, pulling up alongside her. Might as well go straight into the clever stuff.
She gave me a little smile. ‘I saw you come in,’ she replied. ‘How did you manage to get served so quickly?’
‘Influence,’ I replied. I waved my free hand expansively and glanced around. ‘I, er, just happen to own the place.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ she laughed. ‘You’re Pete Stringfellow.’
She had a large face, with shoulder-length wavy hair, streaked with blond. Her eyes, nose and lips were all extravagant, giving her an earthy appearance, but her shoulders, bare apart from the thin straps of her dress, were narrow and delicate. It wasn’t really a dress, more like an underslip, in a silken material that clung to her curves as if by static electricity.
‘His son, actually,’ I said. ‘If you’ll let me buy you a drink I could demonstrate how I did it.’
‘Thanks, but I’m all right. We’re just leaving.’
‘That’s life,’ I said, resignedly.
‘We’re going to a party. Well, it’s not really a party. Just a few girls having a laugh, sort of thing.’ After a pause she added: ‘You could always come to let the New Year in …’
It was tempting, but I heard myself saying: ‘Thanks all the same, but I’d probably spoil your evening.’
‘Yes, you probably would,’ she replied, smiling.
‘Is this your local?’ I asked, choosing my words carefully to avoid the oldest chat-up line in the world.
‘No. First time I’ve ever been in. Is it yours?’
‘Similar. My third time in about twenty years. Probably my last, too.’
One of her friends came out of the loo, retrieved a champagne glass with a cherry in it that she’d left on a table, and joined us. She had wild frizzy hair and spectacles with luminous green frames. ‘You’re a dark horse, Jackie,’ she said. ‘So who’s this you’ve been keeping a secret, hey?’
Jackie of the generous lips stared into my eyes with a pair that looked as if they’d been sculpted from porcelain and glass by a mad scientist. Eyes like that are not just windows to the soul, they are an expression of the glory of creation – like the first buds of spring, or the Milky Way seen through a telescope. The lashes that framed them were long and heavily mascaraed, but they were all her own.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘he’s just an old friend. He’s called, er, Hugo.’
‘Hello, Hugo,’ Green Specs said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve another friend for me, have you?’
I decided to play it strong and silent. I said: ‘No.’
There was a crash and a scream from the other room, and we all turned to look. A youth came barging towards us, chased by several others, fighting their way through the crowd that was parting like the Red Sea. They dragged him down and fists and feet started going in. The first youth’s buddies rallied to his support with chairs and bottles and soon the air was filled with flying missiles and the screams of women.
Jackie’s friends coming out of the ladies’ came up against another bunch trying to get in, away from the violence. I pushed open the door to the gents’ and said: ‘In here,’ propelling Green Specs and Jackie through it. I held it open until all the women were inside and followed them.
The blokes shaking the drops off were bemused by the sudden influx of talent into their sacrosanct space. ‘Come to help me, luv?’ one of them said.
‘Who do you think I am,’ a girl replied, ‘Tinkerbelle?’
I leant on the door, holding it closed against the hammering on the other side. A toilet flushed and a big chap, about six-six, came out of one of the stalls, stuffing his shirt into his waistband. His first thought when he saw the women was that he’d been in the wrong toilets, and his expression of panic reduced us all to a mass fit of helpless giggling. Jackie fell shaking against me and I wrapped my arms around her and sobbed with laughter into her hair. I enjoyed that bit.
When the thunder of war had rolled away I took a tentative peek out, then pulled the door wide open. The place looked as if it had been hit by a pre-emptive strike by the Sandinistas. Every table and chair was overturned and people stood around dazed by the suddenness of it all. Girls wept and boyfriends comforted them with cuddles and braggadocio. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, as if from cannon fire, and the clock behind the bar showed one minute past midnight. We’d missed it.
A small crowd stooped around a figure sitting on the floor near the bar, so I walked over, feet crunching on broken glass, to see if assistance was required. It was the landlord, bleeding profusely from a head wound. There is a God, I thought.
‘Got ’it by a can,’ a youth explained.
‘Not light ale, I hope,’ I replied.
‘No, it looked like Webster’s to me.’ I was obviously in the presence of an aficionado.
A hand slipped into mine and I turned to find Jackie with me. ‘We’re going,’ she said. ‘Our taxi’s here. I just wanted to say goodnight. And Happy New Year.’
She tipped her head back and stood on tiptoe, for a kiss. I planted one smack on those gorgeous lips, like I’d wanted to do ever since I’d first met her, sometime last year. Her eyes were sparkling, literally – a million fireflies whirling and spiralling in them in some ritual dance of passion. I pulled her closer and revelled in my newly acquired power over women. The floor was sparkling, too. I looked up and saw that we were standing under the globe of mirrors, which had been turned on for extra atmosphere.
‘Happy New Year,’ I sighed, stealing an extra squeeze. ‘I’ll come out with you. Where’s your coat?’
‘I haven’t brought one.’
‘You’ll freeze to death. And mind your feet on the glass.’ As we reached the door a pair of bobbies in flak jackets strolled in, big and intimidating. I winked and received a brief nod of recognition. In the car park I said: ‘It’s Charlie, by the way. Hugo’s identical twin.’
‘Hello, Charlie. And goodbye. I’m Jacqueline. Are you sure you won’t come to this party?’
‘No. I’d better not.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘But you have a girlfriend?’
‘Yes.’
‘I bet she’s rather special, isn’t she?’
Her friends were squeezing themselves into the back of a white Granada. ‘This is ours, Jackie,’ one of them called to her.
‘Yes, she is,’ I said.
‘Ah, well,’ she sighed.
Jackie was shivering with cold. My jacket was unzipped and I enfolded her in it as we kissed for the last time. Her lips parted ever so slightly before she took them away. The curve of her back, the silken material under my hands, and the smell of her reached parts of me that no fizzy lager ever did.
‘Either put him down or bring him with you,’ Green Specs was saying. We disengaged reluctantly and Green Specs gave me a cherry brandy peck. She was still holding the champagne glass. I reached out and took it from her.
‘Jackie!’ I called as she moved towards the taxi.
She turned back to me. ‘Be careful,’ I said, quietly. ‘There’s some nasty people about.’
‘Are you a policeman?’ she asked.
I stooped until my lips were next to her ear. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I’m a policewoman in disguise.’
Her laugh was every bit as generous as the rest of her. ‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘They knew you.’
‘Listen,’ I went on. ‘If you ever come across a man called Darryl, run away, drop him, fast as you can. Understand?’ She looked concerned and nodded.
‘And tell your friends.’
‘Darryl. Right. And you be careful, too, Charlie.’
As the taxi drove away three faces turned in the back seat, pale in the street lights, and hands waved. I waved back and cursed myself for being fifty kinds of fool. There was a footfall beside me, and one of the PCs said: ‘Trust the CID to get all the perks.’
‘Life’s a bitch,’ I said, planting the champagne glass in his gloved hand. ‘Here, have one on me.’
Next morning I awoke with a hangover. At first I blamed the monosodium glutamate in the Chinese, until I remembered the large gin and tonic I’d taken to bed with me. I’ve never done that before, and it didn’t start out as a large one. It was just that some adjusting of quantities was required after the initial sip, and before I knew it the tumbler was full. Annabelle had left greetings on the ansaphone, and I was missing her. The g and t was compensation.
After breakfast and a shower I rang the number that Pete Drago had given me for Herbert Mathews, and Mrs Mathews answered. After the introductions and explanations I asked: ‘Do you think he’ll be well enough to talk to me?’
‘Oh, he’ll be delighted,’ she said. ‘What he’s missing most of all is shop talk. He’s been a bit better over Christmas, but he’s still in bed at the moment. We had a late night, last night. When would you like to come?’
‘This afternoon, about two?’ I asked, tentatively.
They’d moved house, after Herbert’s retirement, to the bungalow in the country. Now they lived halfway between Burnley and Keighley, on the edge of Bronte country. The little brick cottage stood in a quarter of an acre and would have had long views if it hadn’t been for the neighbours’ cypress trees. I’d have chainsawed the lot the first time they went on holiday.
When I saw Herbert he reminded me of my father. He’d made an effort, bless him, and wore a shirt and tie, with a fawn cardigan over them. But there was no disguising the sunken cheeks and the claw-like hand he extended, or the plastic pipe that ran across his face, bleeding oxygen under his nose to enrich the air, because his lungs were down to twenty-five per cent. I’d seen it all before. The muscles of my jaw tightened as I shook his hand, and hardly any sound came out as I tried to say hello. I sank into an easy chair opposite his shrunken figure and Mrs Mathews went to put the kettle on.
I said: ‘Welcome to Yorkshire, Herbert. Was it a lifetime’s ambition to live this side of the border?’
‘Property prices are lower,’ he retaliated. ‘And now I know why. Coming here gave me this.’ He tapped his chest, trying to smile and cough at the same time.
‘I’d have thought all this fresh air would be good for you.’ ‘You would, wouldn’t you? But it’s too late for that, even if it were so simple.’
We chatted about the weather and the job for a while and his wife brought the tea. I told him that Pete Drago sent his regards. He wasn’t impressed.
‘How long have you to go, Charlie?’ he asked.
‘Couple of years. A bit less.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘I never rated Drago,’ he said. ‘Thought he was a waster. But now I’m prepared to admit I might have been wrong. He knew what he wanted from life and he went for it. Didn’t care who he hurt. I don’t agree with that, but I wish I’d been a bit more like him. If there’s anything you want to do, Charlie, do it now. Don’t put it off or wait for it to happen.’ He reached out and put a hand over his wife’s and I raised the teacup to my lips, to hide behind.
‘And another thing,’ he went on. ‘Choose your friends carefully. How many from the job do you think have visited me since I finished? Go on, have a guess.’
‘Not many, I don’t suppose.’
‘None. Not one.’
He became agitated and started to cough. Mrs Mathews passed him a handkerchief and told him not to upset himself.
When he’d recovered I said, lamely: ‘It’s a bit out of the way, up here.’
‘We haven’t always lived up here, Charlie. Believe me, once you leave, you’re history. Nobody wants to know you.’
I had another cup and enjoyed a piece of Christmas cake with Lancashire cheese. It was nearly as good as Wensleydale. When we’d finished I said: ‘Down to business, Herbert. What can you tell me about a character called Darryl Burton, or Buxton?’
His eyes widened and his body stiffened. ‘Darryl Burton,’ he repeated. ‘Darryl Burton. Don’t tell me you’ve managed to pin something on him?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. But with your help I’m hoping to.’ ‘What’s he done?’
I related the story of the Christmas Eve attack and told him what we knew about the mysterious Darryl.
‘It’s Burton all right,’ he asserted. ‘He’s changed his name. It’s him, as sure as God made little green apples.’
‘Drago said he’d done something similar a few years ago. Is there anything else we ought to know?’
