Reginald Hill - Midnight Fugue

‘Don’t take it to heart, Mick You weren’t to know it would give me grief,’ said Gidman, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘And have I ever reproached you with it? No way. Anyhow, he did good work till he went sick in the head. Got well paid for it, too. That’s what put us on to him in the end, the money. Funny thing about cop amnesia, you guys can forget everything except where you put the money.’

He laughed melodiously.

‘All these years, I could have closed that account, got myself a full refund, but I didn’t need the money. Hell, it was small change anyway. So I thought, leave it, Goldie, my man. That’s where he’ll go if ever he shows his head again. And that’s what he did. Unfortunately, he just used the account to make a transfer to some hotel up there in the sticks. I thought maybe he’s working at this hotel, or staying there, so I sent my gal Fleur to take a look. After a couple of days she says she can’t get no lead on him. But I knew he was there, I could feel it. And that’s when I got the notion of using your lady friend Gina to flush him out.’

‘Not one of your better ideas, Goldie,’ said Purdy. ‘That’s why I’m here. Tell them to stand down till I get Gina back home.’

‘Does you credit to worry, Mick, but believe me, the nearest they’ll get is to see if she leads them to Wolfe. Then they’ll have a quiet chat with the guy, just check him out, know what I mean? No need for anyone to get hurt.’

‘You know, Goldie, I think you probably got that right. No need for anyone to get hurt. No need for any of this. If Alex is up there, and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence yet, what kind of risk is he likely to be? He’s been away for seven years. Why should he want to show up and cause a fuss now? And if he did, what the hell can he say anyway?’

‘Well, he could say that it was you recruited him on to my payroll. Now I wouldn’t like that. But over the years I got used to people trying to put shit on me and no one’s ever been able to make it stick. So I might be an incy bit embarrassed. You, though, Mick…’

He shook his head sadly, regretfully.

‘What about me?’

‘Hey, you know better than me what them whitewashed sepulchres you work for are like. Even if they couldn’t prove anything, it would mean goodbye to your career, Mick. You done well. And you’ve done it clean, for the most part. Why risk throwing it away? And what about your lady friend? How do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out the guy who’s fucking her now had fucked her husband a long time ago?’

Purdy said quietly, ‘I didn’t come here to listen to your crap, Goldie. I came here to tell you, anything happens to Gina, you’re going to be a lot more than embarrassed. I’ll raise such a shit storm, you’ll end up in the Bailey and that boy of yours won’t be a rising star at Westminster, he’ll be a rising stink.’

For a moment Gidman sat stock-still, then he raised his cigar again, setting the heavy gold bracelets on his wrist jingling against the broad gold band of his Rolex.

‘How you going to do that, Mick?’ he asked. ‘Macavity couldn’t do it. And the Daily fucking Messenger can’t do it. And all them professional ferrets at Millbank been over me with microscopes and even my shit came out smelling like roses. You think those guys are going to let themselves be proved wrong? No, I got tank-proof protection, Mick. So what can you say to hurt me?’

‘You’re forgetting I was around way back before you went corporate, Goldie. I was around when you were just a jumped-up loan shark, screwing your own neighbours into the ground. I watched your back then, God help me! Remember when that Polish tailor reported you for crushing his fingers with a hammer? It was me who warned you what was going off so you had time to fix the witness he cited, your lovely Miss Delay.’

‘Got to interrupt you there, Mick. Fleur didn’t need fixing. I said nothing to her, just wanted to see how she’d react when you interviewed her. ’Course, if she’d blabbed, I’d have had to send Sling round to arrange another accident. But she did the right thing without needing to be told, and I knew I’d got myself a treasure. You’ve met her; you know how good she is, right?’

Purdy ignored this and said, ‘Talking of Sling and accidents, you shouldn’t forget it was me who did the tidying up after him back then. When he burnt the tailor’s family to death, it was me spotted the butane spray he’d used to get things going and got rid of it before the fire inspection team got on the job.’

‘Hey, man, didn’t burn the whole family-the little girl got rescued, remember?’ interrupted Slingsby indignantly.

‘That’s right, Sling,’ said Gidman soothingly. ‘Mick got it wrong, and I’m sure he’s sorry. Right, Mick?’

Purdy felt the pressure of the knife at his throat intensify and he grated, ‘Right.’

‘Good,’ said Gidman. ‘Let’s clear up this other thing while we’re at it. You saying you kept that butane can all these years or something, Mick? Don’t believe you. And even if you had, don’t see how it can be tied in to Sling and me after all this time, not even with the wonders of modern science.’

‘That will be for the courts to decide, Goldie. And it’s not the only story I’ve got to tell.’

Goldie stubbed out his cigar and scratched his chin reflectively.

‘Sounds like you’re threatening me, Mick, That’s not a friendly thing to do.’

‘Just warning you, Goldie. The old days are over. For Christ’s sake, you must see that. You can’t go back to using your hammer again without it coming back to you. The Delays have killed one man already. The Yorkshire police know there’s a link to you.’

‘A very old link, Mick,’ said Gidman. ‘Let’s see, how will my press statement go…?’

His voice changed, became deeper, almost pontifical, as he intoned, ‘“Miss Delay once worked for me as an accounts clerk. As my affairs grew progressively more complicated, I found I needed a different kind and quality of financial help and she became redundant. So I let her go with a generous settlement well over a decade ago. Naturally I’m sorry to hear she’s got herself into trouble, but really I don’t think I can help the authorities any further in this matter.” How’s that sound to you, Mick?’

‘Sounds like a load of crap,’ said Purdy. ‘Goldie, I’ve said what I want to say. I came here to give you the chance to start tidying up while you still can. You’ll be stupid not to take it.’

‘Threatening me in my own house is what I call stupid, Mick,’ said Gidman. ‘As for tidying up, at the moment the only untidy thing I can see is you. Now give me a moment, I need to take a moment to think…’

It felt to Purdy as if the knife at his throat was nicking his skin. Certainly he could feel something warm trickling down his neck. Had to be sweat or blood.

‘Take as long as you like, Goldie,’ he said. ‘As long as you like.’

And through his mind ran the thought that finally the fatigue of the weekend operation and the pills he’d popped to counter it had taken their toll. What the fuck had he been thinking of, coming out here? This figure sitting before him might have adopted all the trappings of wealth and influence and respectability, but the very fact that he’d sent the Delays up to Yorkshire to clean up for him should have been a reminder that, beneath the surface, Gidman was the same ruthless, amoral gangster he’d always been.

It suddenly felt that it was going to take a divine intervention to get him out of this hole.

Sometimes what Orphic music would fail to soothe, a simple panic bellow can freeze in its tracks.