John Harvey: Off Minor

“Someone’s taken her, haven’t they?”

“We don’t know that.”

“Some bastard’s taken her.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We don’t know bloody anything!”

Sudden anger flared her cheeks. With a swift wrench of the controls she turned the television volume almost to full, then sharply off. Without explanation she left the room, to reappear moments later with a long-handled mop, the end of which she banged against the ceiling hard.

“Turn down that sodding row!” she screamed.

“Mrs. Summers …” Resnick started.

Someone above turned up the sound still further, so that the bass reverberated through the room.

“I’ll go up and have a word,” offered Resnick.

Edith sat back down. “Don’t bother. Soon as they see you go, it’d be twice as bad.”

“Gloria’s mother,” Resnick said, “there’s no chance she might be with her?”

Her laughter was short and harsh. “No chance.”

“But she does see her daughter?”

“Once in a while. Whenever it takes her fancy.”

“She lives here, then? I mean, in the city?”

“Oh, yes. She’s here all right.”

Resnick reached for his notebook. “If you could let me have an address …”

“Address? I can give you the names of a few pubs.”

“We have to check, Mrs. Summers. We have to …”

“Find Gloria, that’s what you’ve got to do. Find her, for God’s sake. Here. Look, here.” She was on her feet again, picking up first one photograph then another, cutting her finger on the edge of the glass before she could free one from its frame.

Resnick held in his hands a round-faced little girl with a pale dress and spiraling curls. It was the picture that would appear on the front pages of newspapers, that would be beamed into millions of homes, often accompanied by Resnick himself, or his superintendent, Jack Skelton, looking suitably severe and patrician, pleading for information.

The information came; for almost two weeks they were flooded with sightings and rumors, accusations and prophecies, but then, when little seemed to happen, attention waned. Instead of the photograph of Gloria there was now a single paragraph at the foot of page five, and, after the police had followed every lead, sifted through everything, they had been told there was nothing.

No clue.

Nowhere to go.

No Gloria.

The photograph could still be found on posters round the city, smeared, stained and torn, ignored.

Some bastard’s taken her.

Sixty-three days.

Whenever Raymond lifted his fingers to his face, he could smell it. Living there. His arms, too, inside, where the meat slapped against him as he struggled to free it from the hooks that swung from the conveyor running along the covered yard. No matter how hard he scrubbed, scoring his skin with pumice stone, harsh bristles of the brush, he could never drive it out. Fingers and arms, shoulders and back. Smell of it in his hair. Never mind the shampoo, the soap, deodorant and aftershave, splash on, spray or douse, Raymond carried it with him, a gray film, a second skin, like gristle.

“Here, Ray. Ray, c’m here. Listen. You want, I can fix you up.”

“Leave him, Terry, leave him. Don’t waste your breath.”

“No, no. Serious. I’m serious. He wants a job, I know this bloke, I can put in a word.”

“Wanted a job, he’d haul himself out of bed of a morning.”

“He hasn’t got the need …”

“My boot up his arse, that’d give him need enough.”

“Jackie, he’s not a kid any more, he’s a grown man.”

“Grown! Look at him.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“What’s bollocking right, more like.”

“All he wants is a job.”

“And the rest.”

“Jackie!”

“Any road, he’s not interested. Jobs, he’s had them till they were running out of his ears. And how long did he ever spend in any of them? Three weeks, no more. Maybe a month. Once, I think maybe once, he stuck it for a month. I tell you, Terry, son of mine or not, put yourself out for him and you’re the one’ll end up with his hands in the shit. He’s not worth it.”

“Your flesh and blood.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Jackie!”

“What?”

“Give the boy a chance.”

“You’re so keen, you give him a chance.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I can help him. Ray, Raymond, here, listen. This bloke I know from snooker, I could pull a favor, only one thing, you got to promise not to let me down.”

“Some chance.”

“Jackie!”

“What?”

“What about it, Ray? You interested or what?”

Raymond’s father and his uncle Terry talking about him in the public bar of their local, almost a year before. A pint of Shippos, pint of mixed, for Raymond a half of lager he’d been sitting over the best part of an hour. Not wanting his old man going on at him for never paying his whack, standing a round.

“Butcher’s. Wholesale. Over by the County ground.”

“That’s the abattoir,” Raymond’s father said.

“It’s near the abattoir.”

“I don’t fancy working in the abattoir,” Raymond said.

“You don’t fancy working anywhere,” his father said.

“It isn’t in the abattoir,” said his uncle. “Near it. Close. Suppose you could say, alongside.”

“Handy,” his father said.

Raymond had walked past there at night, turning right by Incinerator Road: steady hum of electricity through the wall, a warm smell that seeped into the air, sometimes so strong that you choked and held your breath and hurried past before your stomach heaved, your eyes began to water.

“Ray-o,” his uncle said, draining his glass as he stood to get in another. “What d’you reckon?”

“Tell you what,” said his father, passing up his own glass, “he thinks when he can carry on sponging off me a bit longer, why bother?”

“Talk to him,” Raymond said to his uncle. “Tell him I’ll do it.”

“Good on you!” His uncle grinned and scooped up Raymond’s glass too.

“What the fizzing heck you want to do that for?” his father hissed, face close into his. “Why the hell d’you want to tell him you’ll work in the sodding abattoir?”

“Least it’ll get me out from under your feet,” said Raymond, not looking into his father’s eyes. “Stop you getting on at me all the time.”

“You great pillock! Half the time you’d never think to wipe your arse without someone there to tell you.”

“We’ll see.”

“Aye, we’ll see right enough. See you come whinging home with your tail between your legs, that’s the only thing we’ll like to see.”

“Here we are then.” Raymond’s uncle splashed the drinks down on to the table. “Sup up. Let’s drink a toast to the new working man. Good as.” And he reached down and gave Raymond’s ear a tweak and broadly winked.

The house was in a cul-de-sac east of Lenton Boulevard, nursery school to the right, pub to the left. High-rise blocks of graying concrete poked from the grass and Tarmac ground behind. Like most of the terrace, it had been bought cheap, barely renovated, rented out to working men or students-“professionals” or “graduates” graced the Park, the suburbs, lived in flats instead of rooms.

Raymond’s was the first floor back. Space for a narrow bed, a melamine wardrobe and three-drawer chest, a chair. The landlord’s promise of a table had never materialized, but supper was something eaten on his knees, eyes fastened on the faintly flickering images of a black and white set, breakfast instant coffee and curled toast he swallowed down while getting dressed. What else might he want a table for?