Before she opened the door, Bread Knife went to a cupboard and took out two plastic bags for her grandchildren’s shoes. The children were in their stockinged feet by the time she had slipped the bolts and opened the mortice locks and removed the chains from the door.
“Lo, Nana. Mum’s in London.’
Bread Knife noticed that John’s fingernails were ragged and grimy. They produced a feeling of physical revulsion in her.
‘We’re going to look for her,’ said Mary, placing her shoes in the plastic bag her grandmother was holding out.
‘Well, young lady, you’ve been a bit lackadaisical with the Cherry Blossom, haven’t you?’ said Bread Knife, looking at Mary’s scuffed black shoes through the plastic bag. The children padded through into the living-room and sat on the plastic-coated sofa. Tennis Ball bounced to his feet and greeted them. ‘So she’s in London.’
John said, ‘Yeah, we’re going down there.’
‘Up,’ said Mary, ‘It’s up to London.’
‘Down,’ said John.
‘Up,’ said Mary.
‘Don’t roarm about like that,’ said their little fat tennis ball of a granddad. ‘You’re wrinkling the plastic covers.’
Through the kitchen doorway their grandmother could be seen furiously cleaning their sinful shoes.
30 Sly Closes In
During the time it took Sidney’s erection to subside, Inspector Sly did ridiculous, futile pressing up and down actions on the knobs of the telephone receiver. After twenty seconds of this, he conceded that Sidney had put the phone down at the other end. Sly replaced his own handset and commanded a young dogsbody in uniform to order a car and a driver. He was ‘going to the Smoke’, he said.
He rang Derek at home. Did Derek know if his wife had friends or relations in London? Derek spoke (and thought) of London as being as far away and remote as Saturn. No, they had never been to London. They knew no Londoners.
Inspector Sly said he was travelling down tomorrow, ‘weather permitting’.
He made it sound as though his transportation was to be a team of huskies, pulling a provision-laden sledge. He intimated that the journey would be fraught with dangers, that the elements of air, earth, water and fire would be ranged against him. In a sense he was right. The M1 motorway demanded — and got — human sacrifices every day of the week.
Sly then rang his wife and ordered her to pack a small suitcase. He was ‘closing in on Coventry Dakin’, and ‘might be gone for some time’. Sly’s wife made jubilant, arm-stabbing-the-air gestures at the news of his absence; but was careful to keep her voice under control. Such duplicity was second nature to her now.
She had married Sly twenty-seven years ago, when he had been a police cadet with ideals and she had been a typist with a salary. She’d seen her husband change into a barbarian. It was all those criminals he mixed with, she thought. Mrs Sly went into the utility room and started to iron her husband’s vast cotton shirts.
Detective Inspector Sly started to prepare for the next day. He packed his brief-case with files, floppy discs and fistfuls of photographs in which Coventry could be seen dancing, swimming and digging; with new-born babies; twirling a hula hoop around her waist; sitting on a rug in a park, blinking into the sun; peeling potatoes; changing a nappy; reading the Daily Mirror on a park bench. There was Coventry with Mary, with John; Coventry in trousers, shorts, overcoats, summer frocks; and finally Coventry pointing a gun at the camera, the photograph that Sly had picked out to be used by what he called the ‘meeja’.
31 I Leave the City
‘Geoffrey’s over there.’
Dodo pointed to a distant copse of trees. We were in the country; standing in a graveyard. A dark church glowered over us. Lichened gravestones lurched at crazy angles. We walked through long, wet grass to Geoff’s grave. He was lying under a pink and grey marble slab; his was a designer grave.
A tombstone said:
Geoff is here, he was Dodo’s husband.
She loved him.
Born 1946, died 1985.
A Coca Cola bottle stood next to the tombstone. Beetles swam about in the inch or so of water in the bottom.
I said, ‘A Coca Cola bottle?’
Dodo replied, ‘The villagers nick the vases. Geoff wouldn’t have minded; he had a tremendous sense of humour.’
She had brought a small bunch of freesias and now she stuck them into the bottle and fiddled with them until she was satisfied, then she placed the bottle in the dead centre of the slab and walked away. I caught up with her by the dank yew hedge which lined the path to the churchyard gate. She smiled and said, ‘Right, that’s the husband’s grave visited, now to meet the brother’s plane.’
The London cab we had come in was waiting for us outside in the narrow lane. The driver was looking around suspiciously at the trees and fields. He looked as though he was in the first stages of an agoraphobic panic attack. We had lured him into the countryside by showing him many twenty-pound notes. He only brightened up when Dodo said, ‘Gatwick Airport, please.’
But before the taxi could draw away a herd of cattle turned the corner of the lane and trotted up to the taxi on their spindly legs. We were soon surrounded by cows who gazed curiously into the cab with their lovely eyes.
‘Who’s in charge of ‘em?’ shouted the cab driver to himself.
‘Cows are so camp,’ said Dodo. ‘Such OTT eyelashes. They always remind me of Danny La Rue.’
‘I hope he keeps his arse cleaner than them,’ said the driver, looking with disgust at the casually excreting animals.
A row of low terraced cottages stood opposite the church. Out of a rustic door came a woman carrying a shallow wicker basket. She stood in the tiny garden watching the cows and then stooped down to pick nasturtium flowers, which she laid in her basket. She looked so simple and charming in her pretty full-skirted dress, her hair tied back with a ribbon. Even the green wellingtons she wore didn’t seem inappropriate. I remarked on her to Dodo.
‘Oh her,’ said Dodo. ‘That’s Veronica Minton. She’s a merchant banker. She’s got a telex in her back parlour.’ Dodo wound down her window and shouted: ‘Veronica!’
Veronica turned around and saw Dodo. She didn’t look too pleased, but she came over to the taxi.
‘Dodo,’ she said. ‘Been to Geoff’s grave?’
‘Yes. How’s the country?’
‘Bloody.’
‘Bloody?’
‘Yes, we’re selling up.’
‘Why?’
‘The noise and inconvenience and the vandalism. You wouldn’t believe it. Have you seen what the village yobs have written on the War Memorial? And these sodding cows. Four times a day they pass our cottage. The shit and the smell and the tractor fumes. And the noise when the village pub chucks out. And, there’s nowhere for the kids to play. And we’ve been burgled three times and nothing will grow.’
‘Your nasturtiums look pretty,’ said Dodo.
‘Yes,’ said Veronica bitterly. ‘They thrive in poor soil.’
‘Where will you be moving to?’ asked Dodo.
‘Somewhere quiet,’ said Veronica, ‘in Clapham.’
A twelve-year-old-looking boy came round the bend in the lane. He was swishing a cane towards a few recalcitrant cows. The taxi driver started his engine and began to creep through the gaps between the animals. The boy shrieked, ‘You mad bugger, watch them cows!’ The driver shook his fist out of the window in classic fashion and shouted, ‘Get them bleedin’ scumbags out of my way, sonny, before I mow the bleeders down.’
Veronica sighed deeply and said, ‘See? The countryside is so unpleasant; it brings out the worst in people.’
As we careered through the village I noticed that the village shop was called a ‘Provision Centre’ and that the War Memorial was covered in graffiti, ‘Veronica sucks’ being the most prominent. Large prairie-like fields stretched into the far distance. Dodo was quiet, only stirring herself to point out a large house just visible through wooded grounds.
&nb
sp; ‘Geoff was born there.’
I asked, ‘Do his family still live there?’
‘No, it’s a retirement home for gentlefolk now.’
‘A long walk to the Provision Centre,’ I said.
Dodo laughed and was silent.
I had never been on a plane, or visited an airport. Gatwick looked like a rat’s maze to me, but Dodo seemed to know exactly where to go and which computerized sign to read. She told me that Sidney’s plane was due to land at 6.10 p.m.
We had three hours and five minutes to kill, so we had a meal in the restaurant. We sat by the window so that Dodo could watch the planes taking off and landing. It looked a risky business.
Four American men came and sat at the next table to us. They ordered steaks in loud, happy voices. They called the old waitress ‘ma’am’ and asked for her advice on their choice of side salads. When she’d hobbled off with their large order, they lit cigarettes and began to talk business. A main in an orange and green checked jacket resumed a previous conversation.
‘Sure, singing telegrams are kinda old news. I mean, you know you’re gonna get one on your birthday, yeah?’
The other three Americans said: ‘Yeah.’
‘And other happy occasions. Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So the market’s saturated with two-bit outfits all over Europe, and they got King Kong-o-grams, Roly-Poly grams, Kisso-grams …
Another main with a mad haircut cut in: ‘Sure, we know, Wayne. Jeez, he’s here in England one week and the guy is so slow already.’
Wayne laughed with the others. ‘Yeah, I guess I caught it from the British Railroad Company.’
Laugh? They couldn’t stop. Eventually Wayne was able to go on. After wiping his eyes he said, ‘So the market’s static, there’s no innovation … agree?’
‘Sure for Chrissake, Wayne …!’
‘Hey don’t push me, Conroy. I gotta explain. I’m gonna spring a new concept on ya. You ready?’
‘So, spring.’
‘Singing telegrams for unhappy occasions.’
‘Unhappy?’
‘Yeah, divorce, bereavement, splitting, telling a chick she’s too fat or some’pn’ . . . hey, Steel, what’s the worst thing you’d ever have to tell your mother?’
‘That I’m Aids positive?’
‘No, we’re talking hypothesis here. This bad news is to do with her. She’s old, she’s ill …’
‘She’s dying?’
‘Yeah. You don’t wanna tell her, do you, Steel? … She’s terminal.’
‘No sir.’
‘The doctor don’t wanna do it …’ ‘Uh-huh.’
‘So you ring and order a terminal-a-gram. ‘‘A what?’
‘A terminal-a-gram.’
Wayne stood by Steel’s chair; he started to sing to the tune ‘Whistle While You Work’:
Oh happy, happy day!
You’re going to pass away …
Steel burst out, ‘Wayne, that is grossly gross.’
Conroy said, ‘Cool it, Steel. This could be. Got something for announcing a divorce to your wife?’
Wayne thought for a moment and stood again and sang to the tune of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’:
Your husband doesn’t love you:
He’s been to see a lawyer.
The hearing’s in November
Inside a crowded room…
The fourth man burst out: ‘It’s phenomenal. Think of it! Driving examiners don’t have to worry about failing candidates; they have regular depot-based bad-news-o’-persons to do it for them.’ He sang to ‘The Lady Is a Tramp’:
You took that corner so dangerously fast,
You passed a red light,
So, gal, you ain’t
Passed.
Wayne whooped and slapped the fourth man on the shoulders and said, ‘Burdock, you’re beautiful. I know it’s gonna work. Fifty thousand dollars each and we can do it. Open the first office in London, the time’s right.’
Their meal arrived and Steel and Conroy and Wayne and Burdock fell onto the tiny English steaks with grunts and blunt knives.
‘Hey, ma’am,’ shouted Wayne to the waitress. ‘You gotta bottle of good French wine there? We gotta celebration here.’
The waitress brought a bottle of Niersteiner which, Dodo whispered, was German, but the Americans didn’t know or didn’t notice. They were happily engaged in singing little ditties about life’s more unpleasant aspects:
Yesterday, all your troubles seemed so far away,
Now the cops have towed your car away! …
32 The Good Policeman Horsefield
Sly had ordered the police driver to pull over onto the hard shoulder of the motorway. They were just outside Newport Pagnell. He confronted the young policeman as they swopped places round the bonnet of the car.
‘What are you, a nancy boy? What’s with this ninety miles an hour pussyfooting around crap? I’m in a hurry, boy. This is a murder investigation.’
‘There’s a lot of traffic on the road, sir,’ the young man said, looking at the lorries hurtling by in unbroken convoys.
‘I’ll show you how to manage bleedin’ traffic,’ snarled Sly. ‘Get in the passenger seat.’
In the back seat of the police car sat Detective Sergeant Horsefield. He had known this was going to happen. Something like it always did. But he feared Inspector Sly more than he feared death on the motorway, so he whispered a prayer to Our Lady under his breath and braced his feet on the floor and closed his eyes. Sly pulled straight out in front of a juggernaut, causing it to make an emergency stop. Then he overtook (on the inside) a minibus full of brass band players and swerved violently into the fast lane, where he stayed by means of the police siren and by forcing the cars ahead to move out of his way. At times the speedometer touched a hundred and twenty miles an hour.
Inside the car nobody spoke. Horsefield wished now that he had made his will, as his wife had often suggested. Horsefield was a nice man. He believed in the law and justice, but not necessarily in that order. He had a degree and an educated accent and, despite these handicaps, had made friends and even influenced people in the police force. Horsefield was secretly and devoutly religious. He said his prayers in the bathroom at night, kneeling on the bath mat and folding his hands together like a child.
33 About to Land
Sidney Lambert was never happier than when he was on an aeroplane: nobody could get to him. He had food, drink; his beloved wife was sitting in the next seat; and, best of all, throughout the flight there was the titillating threat of sudden death, which always added a tang to life. Sidney leaned back in his seat, squashing the person behind him. He and Ruth were wearing all white, essential for showing off the tan to the October pasty faces back in England.
Above his head, stowed away in the baggage cupboards, were the crudely painted souvenir plates and bottles of vinho verde he’d bought in the duty-free at Faro Airport. Ruth was wearing a new gold and diamond ring, a present for being a good girl, which cost well above the allowance permitted by poxy English Customs. So that was all right. He was happy, Ruth was happy and the rest of the world could go and screw itself.
To tell the truth he wouldn’t actually mind dying now — if he had to die — was forced to by God. Yes, he’d choose now. Fold Ruth into his arms and go down in the water, or up in the flames together. There’d be time for a last drink, wouldn’t there? And if Ruth started screaming, he’d knock her out. He didn’t need Ruth to be conscious, she just had to be there.
Shame about poor old Coy. What a poxy mess she’d got herself into! Still, it wasn’t his mess. He’d do his best to help her, of course he would, but only up to a point. Be fair. He and Ruth had their own lives to lead, and nothing was going to get in the way of that. No way. If the police were at the airport it wouldn’t bother him that much, not really. He’d talk his way out. Wouldn’t he? Christ. Bloody baby started crying. He’d give it two minutes, no, one minute and then he’d ring for the stewardess and c
omplain. If there was one thing he couldn’t tolerate, stand, it was a bloody baby crying. Good job Ruth had been sensible, listened to reason about those abortions. Would they have had foreign holidays, villas and private swimming pools if they had babies to cart round, plus all the gubbins babies need? No. Course not. And would their house be the immaculate white-carpeted little palace it was with toddlers breaking the joint up? No way. Look how kids had ruined their wedding day, shouting out in church and fartarsing about during the reception. He’d told Ruth’s mother to put ‘strictly no children’ on the invitations, but the stupid cow-faced bag had said it would ‘offend the mutual families’. He was glad that Ruth had seen the light about her mother.
‘Right, kid, you’ve got five seconds of screaming left before your Uncle Sidney presses his buzzer. I mean for Jesus Christ on earth’s sake, the little moon-headed bleeder’s travelling free. I’ve paid eighty-nine pounds return, twice.’
Ruth tried to divert Sidney from the horrible noise. ‘Poor little kiddie,’ she thought, ‘I’d soon stop it crying, bless it.’
‘Sidney, how long before we get to Gatwick?’
‘An hour.’
‘Lovely. Thank you, Sidney.’
In a cafeteria at Gatwick Airport Detective Sergeant Horsefield watched Detective Inspector Sly shovel eggs, bacon, fried bread, mushrooms, baked beans, chips and bread and butter into his rapacious mouth.
‘I’ve seen wild boars with better manners,’ thought Horsefield. He picked at his own, more austere, food and didn’t look up again until he’d eaten every leaf, pulse and grain. Then he placed his knife and fork on the empty plate, as though they were religious artefacts. Sly pulled a banana split towards him and plunged a spoon into the baroque squirts of cream with which it was decorated. He spoke:
‘Ri—, ‘ets ge— ‘orted.’
‘Sorry?’
Sly swallowed four hundred and fifty calories and said: ‘I said, let’s get sorted. His plane lands in forty-five minutes, right? So when we’ve had our coffee we’ll liaise with the uniformed plods and airport security and sort out who’s doing what, right? Are you listening, Horsefield? I said right.’