John Harvey - A Darker Shade of Blue

‘All right, all right. When are they getting in touch again?’

‘Five this evening.’

Kiley looked at his watch. One hour fifteen to go. ‘Try and stall them, buy another twenty-four hours.’

‘They’ll never wear it.’

‘Tell them if they want payment in full, they don’t have any choice.’

‘And if they still say no?’

Kiley rose to his feet. ‘In the event the shit does hit the fan, I assume you’ve damage limitation planned.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you should make sure your plan’s in place.’

‘So what did you think of her?’ Kate asked. ‘Ms Teen Sensation.’

‘I liked her.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

They were lying, half-undressed, across the bed, Kate picking her way through an article by Naomi Klein, seeking something with which to disagree in print. Kiley had been reading one of the Chandlers Kate had bought him for his birthday — give you some idea of how a private eye’s supposed to think — and liking it well enough. Although it was still a book. Before that, they had been making love.

‘You fancied her, that’s what you mean?’

‘No. I liked her.’

‘You didn’t fancy her?’

‘Kate…’

‘What?’ But she was laughing and Kiley grinned back and shook his head and she shifted so that one of her legs rested high across his and he began to stroke her shoulder and her back.

‘You got your extra twenty-four hours,’ Kate said.

‘Apparently.’

‘Is that going to be enough?’

‘If it’s someone close, someone obvious, then, yes. But if it’s somebody outside the loop, there’s no real chance.’

‘And he knows that, Costain?’

Kiley nodded. ‘I’m sure he does.’

‘In which case, why not involve the police?’

‘Because the minute he does, someone inside the force will sell him out to the media before tomorrow’s first edition. You should know that better than me.’

‘Jack,’ she said, smiling, ‘you’ll do what you can.’ And rolled from her side on to her back.

Victoria’s mum, Lesley, was a dead ringer for Christine McVie. The singer from Fleetwood Mac. Remember? Not the skinny young one with the Minnie Mouse voice, but the other one, older, more mature. Dyed blonde hair and lived-in face and a voice that spoke of sex and forty cigarettes a day; the kind of woman you might fancy rotten if you were fifteen, which was what Kiley had been at the time, and you spotted her or someone like her behind the counter in the local chemist or driving past in one of those white vans delivering auto parts, nicotine at her finger ends and oil on her overalls. Rumours. Kiley alone upstairs in his room, listening to the record again and again. Rolling from side to side on the bed, trying to keep his hands to himself.

‘Won’t you come in?’ Lesley Clarke said. She was wearing a leisure suit in pale mauve, gold slippers with a small heel. Dark red fingernails. She didn’t have a cigarette in her hand, but had stubbed it out, Kiley thought, when the doorbell rang; the smell of it warm and acrid on her as he squeezed past into the small lobby and she closed the double-glazed Tudor-style external door and ushered him into the living room with its white leather-look chairs and neat little nest of tables and framed photographs of her granddaughter, Alicia, on the walls.

‘I made coffee.’

‘Great.’

Kiley sat and held out his cup while Lesley poured. Photographs he had expected, but of a triumphant Victoria holding trophies aloft. And there were photos of her, of course, a few, perched around the TV and along the redundant mantelpiece; Cathy, too, Cathy and Trevor on their wedding day. But little Alicia was everywhere and Lesley, following Kiley’s gaze, smiled a smile of satisfaction. ‘Lovely, isn’t she. A sweetheart. A real sweetheart. Bright, too. Like a button.’

Either way, Kiley thought, Victoria or Cathy, Lesley had got what she wanted. Her first grandchild.

‘Vicky bought me this house, did you know that? It’s not a palace, of course, but it suits me fine. Cosy, I suppose that’s what it is. And there’s plenty of room for Alicia when she comes to stay.’ She smiled and leaned back against white vinyl. I always did have a hankering after Buckhurst Hill.’ Unable to resist any longer, she reached for her Benson amp; Hedges, king size. ‘Coffee okay?’

‘Lovely.’ The small lies, the little social ones, Kiley had found came with surprising ease.

They talked about Victoria then, Victoria and her sister, whatever jealousies had grown up between them, festered maybe, been smoothed away. Trevor, was he resentful, did he ever treat Alicia as if she weren’t really his? But Trevor was the perfect dad and as far as money was concerned, since his move to Luton, to Vauxhall, some deal they’d done with the German owners, the unions that is, and Trevor had got himself off the shop floor — well, it wasn’t as if they were actually throwing it around, but, no, cash was something they weren’t short of, Lesley was sure of that.

‘What about Victoria’s father?’ Kiley asked.

Lesley threw back her head and laughed. ‘The bastard, as he’s affectionately known.’

‘Is he still around? Is there any chance he might be involved?’

Lesley shook her head. ‘The bastard, bless him, would’ve had difficulties getting the right stamp on to the envelope, never mind the rest. Fifteen years, the last time I laid eyes on him; working on the oil rigs he’d been, up around Aberdeen. Took a blow to the head from some piece of equipment in a storm and had to be stretchered off. Knocked the last bit of sense out of him. The drink had seen to the rest long since.’ She drew hard on her cigarette. ‘If he’s still alive, which I doubt, it’s in some hostel somewhere.’ And shivered. ‘I just hope the poor bastard isn’t sleeping rough.’

Paul Broughton was working for a record company in Camden, offices near the canal, more or less opposite the Engineer. Olive V-neck top and chocolate flat-front moleskin chinos, close-shaven head and stubbled chin, two silver rings in one ear, a stud, emerald green, at the centre of his bottom lip. A amp; R, developing new talent, that was his thing. Little bands that gigged at the Dublin Castle or the Boston Dome, the Rocket on the Holloway Road. He was listening to a demo tape on headphones when Kiley walked towards him across a few hundred feet of open plan; Broughton’s desk awash with take-away mugs from Caffe Nero, unopened padded envelopes and hopeful flyers.

Kiley waited till Broughton had dispensed with the headphones, then introduced himself and held out his hand.

‘Look,’ Broughton said, ignoring the hand, ‘I told you on the phone-’

‘Tell me again.’

‘I ain’t seen Vicky in fuckin’ years.’

‘How many years?’

‘I dunno. Four, five?’

‘Not since she told you she was carrying your child.’

‘Yeah, I s’pose.’

‘But you’ve been in touch.’

‘Who says?’

‘Once you started seeing her picture in the paper, those ads out on the street. Read about all that money she was bringing in. And for what? It wouldn’t have been difficult to get her number, you used your mobile, gave her a call.’

Broughton glared back at him, defiant. ‘Bollocks!’ And then, ‘So what if I did?’

‘What did she tell you, Paul? The same as before? Get lost.’

‘Look, I ain’t got time for this.’

‘Was that when you thought you’d put the bite on her, a little blackmail? Get something back for treating you like shit?’

Broughton clenched his fists. ‘Fuck off! Fuck off out of here before I have you thrown out. I wouldn’t take money from that stuck-up tart if it was dripping out of her arse. I don’t need it, right?’