Barbara altered her position to pull her notebook from her shoulder bag. She flipped through the pages to find her notes of the earlier interview with Trevor Ruddock. As she did this, she saw Rachel's eyes catch the movement in her peripheral vision. The girl's hand stopped smoothing her skirt, as if she'd suddenly realised that any motion was liable to betray her.
Barbara refreshed her own memory on the subject of Trevor's evening with Rachel, then she turned to the girl. She said, “Trevor Ruddock claims you were with him. He gets a bit vague with the details, though. And details are what I'm trying to suss out. So perhaps you can fill in his blanks for me.”
“I don't see how.”
“It's easy enough.” Barbara held her pencil in an attitude of expectancy. She said, “What did you two do?”
“Do?”
“On Friday night. Where'd you go? Out for a meal? For coffee? To a film? Perhaps you went to a caff somewhere?”
Two of Rachel's fingers pinched the peacock's crested head. “You're making a joke, aren't you?” Her tone was bitter. “I expect Trev told you where we went.”
“He might have done,” Barbara admitted. “But I'd like to have your version, if you don't mind.”
“And if I mind?”
“Then you mind. But minding's not such a good idea when someone's been murdered. When someone's been murdered, the best thing to do is to tell the truth. Because if you lie, the rozzers always want to know the reason. And they generally keep chipping away at you till they get it.”
The girl's fingers pinched her skirt more tightly. If the camouflaged peacock had been real, Barbara thought, he'd be gasping his final breaths.
“Rachel?” Barbara prompted. “Have we got a problem? Because I can always let you go back to the shop if you need to have a think before we talk. You can ask your mum what you ought to do. Your mum seemed real concerned about you yesterday, and I'm sure if she knew that the cops're asking about your whereabouts on the murder night, she'd give you all the advice you want. Didn't your mum mention to me yesterday that you—”
“All right.” Apparently, Rachel didn't need Barbara to offer more clarity on the subject of her mother. “What he said is true. What he told you is true. All right? Is that what you want to hear?”
“What I want to hear are the facts, Rachel. Where were you and Trevor on Friday night?”
“Where he said we were. Up in one of the beach huts. Which is where we are most Friday nights. Cause no one's around up there after dark, so no one sees who Trevor Ruddock's decided to let blow him. There. Is that what you wanted to know?”
The girl's head turned. She was red to her hair. And the harsh and unforgiving daylight emphasised each of her facial deformities with a brutal precision. Seeing her fully, neither hidden by shadows nor in profile any longer, Barbara couldn't help thinking of a documentary film she'd once watched on the BBC, an exploration of what constitutes beauty to the human eye. Symmetry, the film concluded. Homo sapiens is genetically programmed to admire symmetry. If that was the case, Barbara thought, Rachel Winfield didn't stand a chance.
Barbara sighed. She wanted to tell the girl that life didn't need to be lived the way she was living it. But the only alternative she herself had to offer was the life she was leading, and she was leading it alone.
“Actually,” she said, “what you and Trevor were up to doesn't much interest me, Rachel. It's your call who you want to do and why. If you're chuffed at the end of an evening with him, more power to you. If you're not, move on.”
“I'm chuffed,” Rachel said defiantly. “I'm properly chuffed.”
“Right,” Barbara said. “So what time did you find yourself so chuffed that you staggered home? Trevor tells me it was half past eleven. What d'you say?”
Rachel stared at her. Barbara took note of the fact that she was biting her lower lip.
“What's it going to be?” Barbara asked her. “Either you were with him till half past eleven, or you weren't.” She didn't add the rest, because she knew the girl understood it. If Trevor Ruddock had spoken to her, he'd have made it clear that her failure to corroborate his story in every detail would shine suspicion's spotlight on him.
Rachel looked away, back to the fountain. The girl pouring water was lithe and graceful, with perfect features and downcast eyes. Her hands were small and her feet—just visible at the bottom of the drapery that she wore to cover her body—were shapely and delicate like the rest of her. Gazing upon the statue, Rachel Winfield seemed to make up her mind. She said, “Ten o'clock,” with her vision fixed on the fountain. “I got home round ten.”
“You're sure of that? You looked at a clock? You couldn't have misread the time somehow?”
Rachel gave a weary one-note laugh. “You know how long it takes to blow some bloke? When that's all he wants and that's all you're likely ever to get? From him or anyone? Let me tell you. It doesn't take long.”
Barbara felt all the wretchedness of the girl's painful questions. She flipped her notebook closed and considered how best to reply. Part of her said that it wasn't her job to hand out advice, to salve psychic wounds, or to pour oil generously where soul waters roiled. The other part of her felt a kinship with the girl. For Barbara, one of life's most difficult and most bitter lessons had been the slow recognition of what constitutes love: both giving it and receiving it in turn. She still hadn't learned the lesson completely. And in her line of work, there were times when she wondered if she ever would.
“Don't put such a give away price on yourself,” she finally settled on saying to the girl. She dropped her cigarette to the ground as she spoke, extinguishing it with the toe of her high top trainer. Her throat was dry, from the heat, the smoke, and the tautness of muscles fighting to hold back what she didn't particularly want to feel and even less want to remember about her own low prices and when she'd offered them. “Someone's going to pay that price, sure, because it's a bargain. But the price you pay is bloody well higher.”
She rose without giving the girl a chance to reply. She nodded her thanks for Rachel's cooperation and began to head out of the small park. As she followed the path to the gate, she saw a young Asian man affixing onto one of the wrought-iron railings a yellow paper that he took from a stack which he carried. By the time she reached him, he'd moved on and she saw him farther down the street, fixing another notice to a telegraph pole.
Curiously, she read the poster. The large black letters on yellow were hard to miss, and they spelled out a man's name across the top: FAHD KUMHAR. Beneath this was a boldly rendered message in both English and Urdu, BALFORD C.I.D. WANT TO INTERROGATE YOU. DO NOT SPEAK TO THEM WITHOUT LEGAL REPRESENTATION. JUM'A WILL PROVIDE THIS. PLEASE PHONE. These four sentences were followed by a local telephone number, which was repeated across the bottom of the page vertically so that it could be torn off by a passer-by.
At least they now knew what Muhannad Malik's latest move was, Barbara thought. And she felt a mixture of satisfaction and relief at what the yellow notice inadvertently revealed to her. Despite having good reason for doing so, Azhar hadn't betrayed to his cousin her slip of the tongue of the previous night. Had he done so, the only town in which the notices would have gone up was Clacton, and they'd have been concentrated round the market square.
She owed him one now. And as she walked back in the direction of the High Street, Barbara couldn't help wondering when and how Taymullah Azhar would call in the debt.
CLIFF HEGARTY COULDN'T concentrate. Not that concentration was really required in applying the jigsaw to the coupling men who would form the latest puzzle on offer from Hegarty's Adult Distractions. The machinery was programmed to run on its own. All he had to do was set the prospective puzzle in the correct position, choose which one of half a hundred designs he wanted the jigsaw to work in, turn a dial, flip a switch, and wait for the results. All of which he was used to doing as part of his daily routine when he wasn't taking telephone orders, preparing his next catalogue for the printer, or packing off one or
another innocently wrapped item to some randy bloke in the Hebrides with an appetite for tasty diversions that he'd rather his postman not know about.
But today was different and for more than one reason.
He'd seen the cops. He'd even talked to them. Two detectives wearing plain clothes and lugging a tape recorder, clipboards, and notebooks had gone into the mustard factory right at opening time. Two others had arrived twenty-one minutes later, also in plain clothes. These two started making visits to the other businesses in the industrial estate. So Cliff had known it was only a matter of time—and not very much of it—till they got to him.
He could have left, but that would not only have postponed the inevitable, it would also have encouraged the cops to make a run south to Jaywick Sands in order to track him down at home. And he didn't want that. Holy shit, he couldn't have that, and he was willing to do just about anything to prevent it.
So when they came in his direction after having a go at the sailmakers and the mattress works, Cliff girded himself for the coming interview by removing his jewellery and rolling down the sleeves of his T-shirt so the tattoo on his bicep was hidden. Cops’ hatred of queers was notorious. The way Cliff saw it, there was no sense in announcing himself as a poofter while there was a chance they might think otherwise.
They'd shown their identification and introduced themselves as DCs Grey and Waters. Grey did the talking while Waters took notes. And both of them gave the eye to a display case featuring two-headed dildos, leather masks, and penis rings of ivory and stainless steel.
It's a living, mates, he wanted to say. But wisdom suggested that he hold his tongue.
He was glad of the air conditioner. Had it not been blasting away, he would have been sweating. And while the sweat would have been due in large part to working inside a structure fabricated from corrugated steel, in smaller part it would have come from nerves. And the less he displayed any symptoms of anxiety in front of the fuzz, the better he liked it.
They brought out a photograph and asked him if he knew the subject. He told them sure, it was the dead bloke from the Nez, Haytham Querashi. He worked at the mustard factory.
How well did he know Querashi? they asked next.
He knew who Querashi was, if that's what they meant. He knew him well enough to nod and say Good morning or Bloody hot day, i'n't it, mate?
Cliff was careful to appear as casual as possible. He came round the counter to answer their questions and he stood with his arms crossed beneath his chest, with one leg taking most of his weight. This posture emphasised the muscles in his arms, which he thought was a good idea. A muscular body equated to masculinity in the eyes of most straights. Masculinity equalled heterosexuality as well, especially in the view of the ignorant. And in Cliff's experience, most cops were about as pig-ignorant as you could get.
Did he know Querashi outside the industrial estate? was their next question.
Cliff asked them what they meant. He said that sure, he knew Querashi outside the industrial estate. If he knew him here, he'd know him elsewhere. He wouldn't exactly have a memory loss when it was after hours, would he?
They weren't amused by this remark. They asked him to explain how he knew Querashi.
He told them he knew Querashi outside work the same way he knew Querashi inside work. If he saw him in Balford or anywhere else, he said hello, he said Bloody hot day, he nodded in recognition. That was the extent of it.
Where might he have seen Querashi outside work? they asked him.
And Cliff saw once again how cops twist everything to suit themselves. He hated the bastards in that instant. If he didn't mind his every syllable, they'd have him strolling with Querashi in the same pair of knickers before they were finished.
He kept his temper and told them that he hadn't seen the bloke outside the industrial estate. He was merely telling them that if he'd seen him, he'd have known who he was and he would have acknowledged him the way he acknowledged anyone he recognised. He was that sort of chap.
Friendly, the cop called Grey remarked. He let his gaze wander over to the display case of goodies to make his point.
Cliff didn't challenge them with a belligerent What's that supposed to mean? He knew that cops liked to cause aggro because feeling aggro put you off-guard with them. He'd played this game more than once with the rozzers. It had only taken him one night in lock-up to figure out the importance of staying cool.
They changed gears on him, then, asking if he was familiar with someone called Fahd Kumhar.
He told him he wasn't. He admitted that he might recognise Fahd Kumhar on sight because by sight he knew most of the Asians who worked in the mustard factory. But he didn't know their names. Those names they have just sound like a slew of letters put together to make up noises and I can never remember them, he explained. Why don't those people give their kids proper names? What about William, Charlie, or Steve?
The cops didn't pick up on this friendly aside. Instead, they went back to Querashi again. Had he ever seen Querashi with anyone? Talking to anyone on the grounds of the industrial estate?
Cliff couldn't recall, he told them. He said he might have done, but it wouldn't have registered. There were people in the grounds all the time, lots of coming and going, lorries arriving, deliveries being made, goods being shipped.
This might well have been a man Querashi would have been talking to, Waters told him. And with a nod towards the display case, he asked Cliff if he and Querashi had ever done business.
Querashi was a ginger, Grey added. Did Cliff know that?
This question cut a little too close for comfort, the way a knife blade can nearly slice into one's skin. Cliff closed his mind to the memory of his conversation with Gerry in the kitchen on the previous morning. He shut his inner ears to their words: accusations on one part and angry denials and defences on the other.
What about fidelity? Where did that go?
What about fidelity? All I know about it is what you say about it. And there's a hell of a lot of difference between what blokes feel and what they say.
Was it the market square? Is that where it happened? Did you meet him there?
Oh right, too right. Have it your way.
And the crash of the door put the full stop at the end of what went for their conversation.
But he couldn't betray any of that to the cops. No way could he let these blokes near Gerry.
No, he told them steadily. He'd never done business with Haytham Querashi, and it was news to him that the bloke was queer. He thought Querashi was supposed to be marrying Akram Malik's daughter. So were the cops sure they had their facts sorted out?
Nothing's ever sure in an investigation till a suspect's in the nick, Grey informed him.
And Waters added that if he remembered anything that he thought the police needed to know …
Cliff assured them that he'd have a proper think. He'd phone if anything popped into his head.
You do that, Grey told him. He gave a final look round the shop. When he and Waters stepped outside, he said, Flaming dung-puncher, just loud enough to be certain that Cliff overheard it.
Cliff watched them walk off. When they disappeared into the joinery across the pitted lane, he allowed himself to move. He went behind the counter, where his order desk was, and he thunked down onto the wooden chair.
His heart was racing, but he hadn't noticed while the cops were there. Once they left, though, he could feel it pounding so hard and so fast that it felt like it might leap straight through his chest to lay throbbing on the blue lino floor. He had to get a grip, he told himself. There was Gerry to think of. He had to keep his mind on Gerry.
His lover hadn't slept at home on the previous night. Cliff had awakened in the morning to find his side of the bed unruffled and he'd known at once that Gerry had never returned from Balford. His guts greeted this knowledge with a sickening twist. And despite the early heat of the day, his hands and feet had gone cold as dead fish at the thought of what Gerry's absen
ce might mean.
He'd tried at first to tell himself that the other man had simply decided to work through the night and into the next day. After all, he was trying to complete the pier-end restaurant before the next bank holiday. And at the same time, he was working after hours on that house renovation in Balford. So Gerry had a good enough reason to be away from home. He might have gone directly from the first job to the second one, which was something he did quite often, in fact, sometimes working till three in the morning if he was anywhere close to completing a stage of the second project. But he'd never worked round the clock before. And in the past whenever he'd planned to work late into the night, he'd always phoned.
He hadn't phoned this time. He hadn't come home. And as Cliff had sat on the edge of the bed that morning, he sought clues within his last conversation with Gerry, details that might tell him of Gerry's whereabouts and of the condition of his heart and his mind. Except he had to admit that they hadn't had so much a conversation as an argument, one of those verbal brawls in which past behaviours suddenly become a bench mark for measuring present doubts.
Everything about their shared and individual pasts had been dragged out, aired, and laid down for a lengthy and intimate examination. The market square in Clacton. The gentlemen's toilet. Leather and Lace at the Castle. Gerry's endless work in that pishposh Balford house. Cliff's infuriating walks and his drives and his pints of Foster at Never Say Die. Who used the motorcycle had been brought up, as well as who took the boat out and when and why. And when they'd run out of accusations to hurl, they went on to shout about whose family accepted that one of their sons was a poofter and whose dad would try to beat the living shit out of his son if he knew the truth.
Gerry usually backed down from a fight, but he hadn't backed down from this one. And Cliff was left wondering what it meant that his lover—usually so mild and so earnest—had altered into a yobbo ready to take him on if taking him on was necessary.