John Harvey: Cold Light

“No,” put in somebody else, “I’ll tell you what. Best present they could have, both clubs. Christmas morning, chairmen of directors gets ’em both, Cloughie and Warnock on the phone, wishes them a Merry Christmas and tells them they’re both sacked.”

“What? They’ll not sack Cloughie, they’d never dare. They’d have a full-scale bloody riot on their hands.”

“Aye, maybe. But not as much as if they go down.”

Resnick smiled and reached between two of the men, setting his cup and saucer back on the counter. On his way out of the market he’d buy a little Polish sausage to go with his duck, a chunk of Gruyere and some Blue Stilton, a good slice of apple strudel and some sour cream to take the place of a Christmas pudding.

Down below, crowds were pushing their way from store to store and last-minute shoplifting was in full swing. Even more people than usual were gathered around the Emmett clock, holding up small children to see the fantastic metal animals revolve and laugh with wonder as streams of water splashed off its gilded petals as they opened. Again, again, again.

Suspended from the high ceiling, a Santa on a bright red sledge chased polypropylene reindeer through stale air.

Resnick was out on the street when he heard the first siren.

Nancy Phelan had emerged from her office at the sound of shouting, curious to know whoever it was making all that noise. Besides, she could do with a break from her present assignment, explaining to a couple with an eighteen-month-old kid that by leaving the damp basement room for which the girl’s mother had been charging her a robbery of a rent, they had made themselves voluntarily homeless.

“Voluntarily sodding homeless,” the man kept saying. “What in buggery is that?” Not loud, not even angry, simply swearing by rote.

What it bloody is, Nancy had thought, and not for the first time, was an almost meaningless form of words dreamed up by some official to get the housing authority off the hook.

That hadn’t been what she’d said to her client; what she’d said was, “Sir, I’ve already explained it to you several times.”

Several? Haifa hundred.

Whatever disturbance was going on outside, it had to be more interesting than that. A little light relief.

Wrong.

Gary James-Nancy thought she recognized him, thought he might even be one of hers, though she could never have put a name to him-was standing pretty much in the middle of the corridor, both hands holding a chair above his head. The metal kind with the canvas seat and back. The receptionist, Penny, was cowering against one wall, bent forward, arms folded up in front of her face. He’d either hit her with the chair or was about to.

Howard, the security guard, was down at the far end of the corridor, squinting hopefully in their direction. Nancy knew for a fact he could scarcely see his own hand in front of his face without his glasses on.

“You!” Gary called over one shoulder.

“Me?”

“It’s you I want to see.”

Oh, God, Nancy thought, it would be. Her second application to join a TEFAL course, train to teach English to polite, suited businessmen in Hong Kong or Japan, had just been turned down. This morning she’d been convinced-though it was difficult to tell-that one of her stick insects had died. And if that wasn’t enough she was three days late.

Now this.

“You’re the one me and Michelle saw before, right? About getting us out of that dump you moved us into.”

“I said I’d try yes …”

“Look! I’m telling you. You’d better do more than fucking try. And you, just stay where you fucking are or I’ll take this tart’s head off her fucking shoulders.”

Penny flinched and stifled a scream and Howard retreated a few feet more than he had advanced.

“Do you have an appointment?” Nancy asked, keeping her voice as normal as possible.

Gary shot her another glance. “What do you think?”

“Well, if you’ll wait till I’ve finished with my present clients, which shouldn’t take long, I’ll be happy to review your situation.” Nancy, thinking all the while she was speaking that she’d picked up so much official gobbledegook, she sounded as if she’d learned English as a second language herself.

Gary swung the chair through a half-circle and brought it crash against the wall, close enough to Penny’s head to make her hair curl.

“All right,” Nancy said. “Why don’t we talk now?”

“Yeh?” said Gary, panting just a little. “What about Clint Eastwood down there?”

“Howard,” Nancy said. “It’s okay. I’ll see Mister …” She looked at Gary hopefully.

“James.”

“I’ll see Mr. James in my office. There’s no need to be concerned. But you might look after Penny here, see that she’s all right.”

Gary was watching her, uncertain. This woman not much older than himself, if that, taking control, coping. She didn’t seem frightened at all. Tall, Gary thought, five eight or nine, likely had something to do with it. Not bad looking, either. Standing there in her smart bluejacket and the pleated skirt, waiting for him to make his next move.

When he said nothing, Nancy turned to the couple she’d been interviewing, now agog outside her door, and explained to them this was something of an emergency and if they wouldn’t mind waiting a while, she would talk to them again and see if they couldn’t sort something out. From her purse she handed them some coins and suggested they try the drinks machine on the next floor.

“Please,” she said to Gary, holding open her office door. “After you.”

A shade hesitantly, Gary lowered the chair to the floor and walked in. For the briefest of moments, Nancy hesitated; up to now she’d been working on instinct, training, defusing the situation without any special regard to herself. Only now did it strike her, the degree to which she was placing herself in danger. She made a quick face down the corridor that said, do something, and then stepped smartly after him, closing the door behind her.

“Lock the door,” he said.

“What?”

“Lock the door.”

Nancy sweating a little now, wondering what she’d got herself into. “It’s against regulations …” she began, but she could see Gary, increasingly edgy, looking round the room for something to break. Something to break over her. Quietly, she slid open the small drawer to the right of her desk and took out the key.

No sooner had the door been locked and Nancy sat back down than the phone rang, once, twice, three times; looking at Gary for a sign that she should pick it up.

“Hello,” she said into the receiver. “Nancy Phelan here.”

A pause, then: “No, I’m fine.” Glancing across the desk to where Gary was still standing. “We’re fine. Yes, I’m sure. No. Bye.”

Deliberately, she set the receiver down and, as she did so, Gary bent towards the floor and pulled the wire from its socket above the skirting.

“Well,” Nancy said, “why don’t you sit down?”

But Gary was staring round her office, taking it all in. The postcards from foreign holidays she’d Blutacked to the filing cabinet, the ivy that needed repotting near the window, the overflowing in-tray, a color photograph of her cousin’s twins. In a clear plastic container with an air-tight lid, green leaves and pieces of thin twig. Gary picked it up and shook it.

“Don’t!” Nancy cried, alarmed. Then, more quietly, “I’d rather you didn’t do that. There’s something … there are stick insects in there. Two of them. I think.”

Gary held it up to his face and gave the container an experimental shake.

“They were a present,” Nancy said, uncertain why she felt the need to explain. “A client.”