Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

Stapleton Road has notices stuck to power poles warning against kerb crawling and drug dealing. It’s early and the crack whores and street dealers are still in their coffins. We park in Belmont Street around the corner from the mosque. A Muslim woman with letterbox eyes waddles past us, pushing a pram. She could be seventeen or seventy-five.

The Royal Hotel is a crumbling three-storey building with metal bars on the lower windows. An old black man sits in the sunshine on the front steps. His hands are dotted with liver spots and they shake slightly, not with Parkinson’s but some kind of palsy. He’s reading a newspaper, holding it at arm’s length. An unwrapped sandwich rests half-eaten on a brown paper bag.

‘Morning,’ says Ruiz, ‘beautiful day.’

The cleaner blinks and shields his eyes with a hand. ‘You right about dat, mon.’

‘You taking a break?’

‘Been cleanin’ since first ting.’

Ruiz sits on the steps. ‘I’m Vincent and this is Joe.’

The old man nods. ‘Dey call me Clive.’

‘Like Clive Lloyd.’

‘Well, he from Guyana and I’m from Jamaica, but dat’s close enough.’ His chuckle sounds like he’s playing a bassoon.

Folding his newspaper casually, he takes another mouthful of his sandwich, wondering why two white men are interested in talking to a hotel cleaner when most people treat him like he’s invisible.

Ruiz raises his face to the sun and closes his eyes. ‘I’m a former police officer, Clive, and we’re looking for a man with dark hair, slicked back, and tattoos on his face like he’s crying black tears.’

The old cleaner reacts as though he’s been scalded. He gets up from the steps and shakes his head so that his thin frame quivers.

‘Don’ talk to me about dis biznezz.’

‘Why not?’

‘The Lord gonna call his chillun home before dat man bring anyting good to dis world.’

‘Is he staying here?’

‘He’s got himself a room. Don’ know if he sleeps in it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’ see him much. I mind my own biznezz.’

‘But you clean his room?’

Clive shakes his head. ‘He don’ want no cleaning. He puts a sign on his door says, no cleaning. Suits me. Dem pay me by de hour not de room.’

The cleaner taps the newspaper against his thigh. ‘Well, I better be gettin’ back to work.’

‘The man with the tattoos - do you know his name?’

‘No, mon.’

‘You ever talk to him?’

Clive shakes his head, his forehead full of creases. ‘Mon like that, don’ wanna talk to someone like me. He don’ like my colour.’

‘What gave you that impression?’

‘Couple of black kids were breaking into his motor. Dey was running away, but he caught dem. Made one of dem boys eat dog shit. Made him kneel on de ground and chow down. Never see dat before. D’other boy won’ be eating solids for a while. His mama gonna be feeding him strained bananas.’

Swallowing drily, he leans down to rewrap his sandwich, no longer hungry.

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ says Ruiz, shaking the cleaner’s hand. Clive looks at the ten-pound note in his palm. Closes his fingers. Opens them again just to be sure.

‘Maybe you could do one more thing for us,’ says Ruiz. ‘This guy must have signed something. You could show us the hotel register.’

Clive pockets the money, putting it deep inside his jeans, and then glances up and down the street before shepherding us into a tired-looking reception room with faded wallpaper and worn carpet. The register is a long rectangular book with ink stains on the cover. Opening the pages, he runs a knobbly finger down the room numbers.

Room 6. Paid for in cash, a month in advance. A signature rather than a name - but he included the registration number for the Audi.

It doesn’t help us.

Clive closes the book, sliding it into a desk drawer. ‘Well, I got work to do.’

‘You should clean Room 6,’ says Ruiz.

The old cleaner looks horrified. ‘Don’ you be tinking like dat.’

‘Like what?’

‘Tinking I’m gonna open up dat mon’s room.’

Ruiz tilts his chin to the ceiling and sniffs. ‘You smell that?’

Clive raises his chin. ‘Don’ smell nothing.’

‘Smoke,’ says Ruiz.

‘There ain’t no smoke.’

Ruiz vaults up the crazy network of stairs runs between the floors. He stops on the first landing. ‘Definitely smoke; coming from one of the rooms. Might be a fire.’

The cleaner drags himself up to the same level. Ruiz is outside No. 6.

‘I think we should call the fire brigade and evacuate this place.’

Clive is shaking his head back and forth. ‘No, no, no, don’t be doing dat, mon.’

Ruiz touches the door. ‘Feels a little warm. Maybe you should open up - just to be sure.’

‘Get away with you.’

‘You ever heard of something called probable cause, Clive? It means you have the right to enter if you think there’s a good reason.’

‘But there ain’t no fire!’

‘You don’t know that for certain.’

The keys jangle on the cleaner’s belt. He looks at us sadly and shakes his head in surrender.

The key turns and the door opens into gloom. Ruiz reaches for the light switch. The bed hasn’t been slept in and the curtains are drawn. There’s a wardrobe with double doors and a mirror in between. A side table next to the bed, a suitcase pushed under the springs. I can hear a dripping sound, which might be outside the walls or within.

Ruiz is moving through the room, opening the wardrobe and the drawers, peering beneath the bed. There is a strange smell to the place that tightens the nostrils and crimps the lips.

‘Ain’t nuttin here, mon.’ says Clive. ‘Let’s go.’

Somewhere below I hear a door open. I glance over the railing, down the stairs, but can’t see anyone. At that moment a pigeon takes off from the window ledge, battering its wings against the glass. My heart takes off as well.

‘Maybe we should leave,’ I say.

Ruiz has pulled the suitcase from under the bed. He uses a handkerchief on the handle and covers his fingers as he slips each latch, lifting the lid, exposing the contents.

There are folders of newspaper clippings and photographs. Street scenes. Faces. Headlines. I recognise Bristol Crown Court. Protesters are waving placards and banners. Police are shown confronting the crowd, pushing them back. A face is circled with red marker pen: a woman in a grey jacket with an ID card around her neck. Police are allowing her through a checkpoint. I recognise her. Another juror.

Ronnie Cray doesn’t want to meet us at Trinity Road. This is unofficial, off the record, deniable. She chooses a snooker club in the old part of the city where the buildings look like compacted teeth and sacks of rubbish have stained the footpaths. The baize tables are upstairs and I can hear balls being racked up and broken.

Cray is waiting at a table in the bar, nursing a cup of tea. She glances at me, then at Ruiz, her eyes neutral, then picks up her cup and takes a sip.

‘I thought you’d gone back to London,’ she says to Ruiz.

‘Still sightseeing.’

A long bar runs down one side of the room, most of it in darkness except for a plasma TV screen showing sporting highlights. The exposed beams are decorated in old Christmas tinsel and squashed paper bells.

We start at the beginning, telling Cray about seeing the jury foreman being roughed up outside a pub.

‘He met with the guy I told you about - the Crying Man - the one who’s been sitting in the public gallery during the trial, chaperoning Novak Brennan’s sister.’

Cray doesn’t react. Her short-cropped hair is sprinkled with grey and the lines on her face seem deeper today.