John Harvey - Ash & Bone

'You're asking me?' Elder said.

'Asking you, yes, that's right.'

'And Katherine?'

'She can walk. I'll make the call. Go and get her if you like. After this.'

'All right,' Elder said, getting to his feet. 'Thanks for that at least.'

'We're all right about Summers?'

'Won't lay a hand on him, you've got my word.'

Bland swallowed down some more lager, belched, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'Need a lift back into town?'

Elder shook his head. 'It's a nice enough day, I'll walk.'

Bland followed him through to the front door. 'Where did you get this address?' he asked.

Elder hesitated. 'Maureen Prior.'

'Wasting your time there,' Bland leered. 'Had it sewn up when she was seventeen. I can put you in touch with several blokes counted the stitches, if you like.'

Elder had to restrain himself from thumping him hard.

The custody sergeant made Katherine sign for the contents of her pockets and her purse. As soon as she and Elder were outside, she began to walk away.

'Wait. Katherine, just wait,' Elder said.

'What for?'

'We need to talk.'

'I don't.'

He took hold of her arm and she shook him off. 'You need to talk, phone the Samaritans. See a shrink.' Anger blazed in her eyes. 'I did. See what a lot of bloody good it did me.'

He stood and watched as she strode towards the far pavement, forcing the traffic to swerve and brake: one moment she was walking past the corner of the Circus and then she was lost to sight.

He had a good guess where she would go and it wasn't home.

Don't rock the boat, Bland had asked him, leave Rob Summers alone, leave him to us. The curtains at the front of the house in Sneinton were drawn again, the same ginger-and-white cat sitting on the window ledge alongside the door. When Summers answered it, Elder pushed him back into the hall.

'Something you forgot to tell me,' Elder said. 'Left off your CV. Teaching, writing poetry, the odd story. Somehow you left out the fact you deal drugs on the side.'

'She's not here,' Summers said, 'if that's what you're thinking.'

'Of course she's bloody here.'

'All right. But she's upstairs, lying down. She's exhausted, right. Worn out.'

'Whose fault's that?'

'She's taken something to help her sleep.'

'No need to ask where she got that from.'

Summers shook his head. 'Come though here and sit down. Or do you want to stand yelling in the hall?'

The room was the same jumble as before, the same sweet afterwash of cannabis in the air. Summers switched on the stereo, but turned the volume low.

'Okay,' Elder said, 'start talking.'

Summers retrieved a packet of Rizla papers and a tin of Old Holborn from one of the shelves and began rolling himself a cigarette. 'When I was at Uni I traded a little dope, right. Mostly to friends. It's no secret.'

'You were arrested. Charged.'

'Someone ratted me out.'

'Some honest citizen.'

'Some creep.'

'You were found guilty.'

'Of possession.'

'Still a crime last time I looked.'

'Come on,' Summers said. 'A few ounces of cannabis resin. These days all that'd get you would be a nod and a wink, keep it out of sight.'

'And you got what? A suspended sentence? Probation?'

'Something like that.'

'But that's not all.'

'I don't…' For a moment, Summers seemed genuinely confused. Then, shaking his head. 'Jesus, you're dredging that back up?'

'Assault, wasn't it?'

'Affray. A demo on the university campus. Some arse-hole American right-wing Christian anti-abortionist coming to speak at the Student Union. I'm just sorry I didn't get in a few good punches while I had the chance. He's probably in some think-tank now, advising Bush on social policy.'

'And you're what?'

'We've just been through all that.'

'As much as five grams of heroin, more than enough for personal use.'

Summers shook his head, more emphatically this time. 'Not mine.'

'You saying it was Katherine's? Is that what you're telling me?' Elder's voice reverberated in the confines of the room. 'You're saying she's on heroin now?'

'Of course she's not.'

'Because if she is, I'll know who turned her on.'

'Relax, she's not. She won't go near the stuff.'

'Then how did it get into her bag?'

'I don't know. We were at a party the night before.'

'And this was what? Somebody's idea of a joke? A party bag? Smarties and a piece of cake, three balloons and a stash of H?'

'I don't know. Maybe it was a mistake.'

'A mistake?'

'All right, all right. More likely, someone trying to set me up.'

'And why would they do that?'

'Look,' Summers said. His roll-up had gone out and he lit it again. 'Believe this or not, it's up to you. Eighteen months or so ago, I was stopped in the street. Stop and search, right? Coming down through Hockley. Late at night. Happens all the time. Well, you know. You should. Two blokes in plain clothes, Drug Squad or so they said. Of course, they didn't find anything, there wasn't anything to find.' A few stray ends of tobacco flaring up from his cigarette. 'Maybe I was a little mouthy, I don't know. Whatever reason, it put a hair up their arse. Been on my case ever since. Oh, not all the time, every day. Just once in a while, when they've got nothing better to do. Pull me over, pat me down. Reason to believe… you know the drill.'

'That's why you take precautions.'

'That's why I'm clean.'

'The reason you make sure you're not caught carrying your own stuff.'

'There is no stuff.'

'No?'

'No.'

'This place stinks like a cafe on some backstreet in Amsterdam.'

Summers threw back his head and laughed. 'I'll have to take your word on that.'

Elder reached forward quickly and took hold of Summers's arm between elbow and wrist. 'I don't give a damn what you do, how much skank and scag and shit you shift. But you get my daughter involved once more, any way at all, and I'll see you pay. That understood?'

'Let me fucking go,' Summers hissed.

Elder increased the force of his grip and then pulled his hand away.

'I mean it. If Katherine ever gets into trouble again because of you, I'll be back. And you'll regret you ever saw the light of day.'

An hour later, he was on the motorway, heading south.

Karen woke before the alarm and lay there listening to the wind rattle the windows and the occasional vehicle going past on the wet road outside; once, twice, she turned over, pulling the covers higher, trying for another ten minutes' sleep, but it wasn't to be. Sooner or later she would have to brave the first cold journey to the bathroom, the shower.

'What's the matter with you, child?' her father had said when he'd visited. 'All this promotion, chief inspector now, and you're still content to live like this.'

Child! She wondered if she would ever reach an age when he ceased, automatically, to call her that? Only when and if, she supposed, she had a child of her own. But there was some truth in what he said, she could afford to move, a bigger flat, bigger mortgage, but where would she move to? And why?

She was happy here. The damned cold aside. What she should do, she told herself for the thousandth time, was pay to have those old windows, which had been there since the days of Methuselah, taken out and new, double-glazed ones put in. Sort out the damp. Get the central heating overhauled, radiators with individual thermostats attached. Radiators, for God's sake, that worked.

In the bathroom she splashed cold water into her face, shivered, and squeezed toothpaste on to her brush.

One reason she didn't do these things, she knew, was the inevitable hassle and disruption. Finding a building firm that wasn't going to mess her around or, worse, rip her off, was the first thing; workmen who would actually turn up to time and do the job until it was finished, instead of the usual two days here, two days there, now you see them, now you don't; the place left looking like a tip while they juggle jobs all over half of London. Someone you could trust.