‘Coughlan didn’t know?’
‘Some blokes,’ Ronnie said, leaning a shade closer to Resnick as if letting him into a greater confidence, ‘get off on the idea their bird’s fresh from shagging someone else. Whether Coughlan’s one of those, it’s difficult to tell. But him and Cookie, still speaking. Doing business.’
‘You think Coughlan’s going to be looking to his old pal Terry, then, to help him offload from the other night?’
Ronnie paused to applaud a particularly nice piece of piano. ‘Wouldn’t you, Charlie? What friends are for.’
Resnick bought another large brandy, nothing for himself. ‘Any word Breakshaw might have been involved?’
‘Norbert? Not so’s I’ve heard. But it’d make sense. Evil bastard. When he kicked inside his old lady’s womb, he’d have been wearing steel-capped Doc Martin’s.’
The hand Resnick slipped down into Rather’s jacket pocket held three twenty-pound notes. ‘Look after yourself, Ronnie.’
Ronnie nodded and leaned back, closing his eyes.
When Terry Cooke arrived, waved through the lock-in on Coughlan’s say-so, Eileen was down on all fours on the bar, waving an unzipped banana above her head and asking, should she put it in, if there was anyone there man enough to eat it out.
When Coughlan had phoned, the last thing Terry had wanted to do was be seen drinking with him so soon after the break-in and what had followed, but Coughlan had assured him it was a private party. Mates. No prying eyes. He hadn’t said anything about Eileen. Maybe he hadn’t known. Maybe he had.
Now Coughlan gripped Terry firmly by the upper arm and led him into a corner, some distance from the core of the chanting crowd.
‘You’ll not be bothered,’ Coughlan said, ‘not seeing the show. Nothing you won’t have seen before.’
Terry looked into Coughlan’s face but, heavy and angular, it gave nothing away. In a wedge of mirror to his right, Terry could see the shimmer of Eileen’s nearly nude body as she lowered herself into a squatting position, facing out. The banana was nowhere to be seen.
‘What’s up, Terry? Nothing the matter?’
Terry shook his head and tried to look away.
‘Come over all of a muck sweat.’
‘Bit of a cold. Flu, could be.’
‘Scotch, that’s what you need. Double.’
The crowd, grinning, egging one another on, clapped louder and louder as Eileen arched backwards, taking her weight on the palms of her hands, the first brave volunteer being pushed towards her by his mates.
‘Not hungry yourself, Terry?’ Coughlan enquired, coming back with two glasses of Bells. ‘Had yours earlier, I daresay.’
‘What’s going on?’ Terry asked, feeling his own perspiration along his back and between his legs, smelling it through the cigarette smoke and beer. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘Marjorie sends her love,’ Coughlan said. ‘Told her I’d be seeing you tonight.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Coughlan!’
‘Exactly.’ Coughlan’s hand was back on his shoulder, like a vice, and Terry, the glass to his lips, almost let it slip from his hand. ‘Bygones be bygones, eh, Terry? So much shafting under the bridge. Besides, things change, move on…’ There was a loud roar from the jubilant crowd and then cheers. ‘…Musical beds, you might say. Keeps things fresh. Revives the appetite.’ Coughlan looked pointedly towards the mirror, turning Terry so that he was forced to do the same. ‘Lovely young girl like that, Terry, shouldn’t take much persuading to get her round my place of an evening. Once in a while.’ His face twisted into a smile. ‘Genuine redhead, natural. I like that.’
Terry held his glass in both hands and downed the Scotch.
‘I could have let Norbert loose on you, Terry. He’d have loved that. But no, this way’s best. Pals. Pals, yes, Terry?’
Terry said nothing.
‘And then there’s the stuff from the other night. ‘Course I don’t expect you to take it all. Dozen sets, say? Sony? VCRs? Stereo? Matt black, neat, you’ll like those. I’ll have them round your place tomorrow night. One, one-thirty. Norbert, I expect he’d like to make delivery himself.’
Terry Cooke looked at the floor.
‘I shouldn’t wait around, Terry, to take her home. Someone’ll see she gets a lift, you don’t have to fret.’
Back on her feet and shimmying along the bar to ‘Dancing Queen’, Eileen caught sight of Terry for the first time as he pushed through the door, spotted him and almost lost her step.
There was a light burning on the landing, another in the back room, and Eileen stood for a full minute on the step, key poised, running over her excuses in her head. She’d half expected to get back and find her bags on the pavement, clothes flung all over the privet hedge. Thought, when she got inside, that he might be waiting with a knotted towel in his hand, wet, she’d known men do that; at least his fist. But he was sitting, Terry, in the old round-backed chair that was usually his mother’s, cup of tea cold in his hand.
Terry, I…’
‘You get on,’ Terry said. ‘Time you’ve had your shower and that, I’ll be up.’ He didn’t look her in the face.
Twenty minutes later, when he slid into bed beside her, the backs of her legs were still damp from the shower and he shivered lightly as he pressed against her.
Terry?’
‘Yes?’
‘Put out the light.’
Resnick and Millington were in the shop when Terry Cooke arrived, not yet ten-thirty and Millington poised to buy a nearly-new book club edition of Sense and Sensibility for his wife, while Resnick was thumbing through the shoebox of CDs, looking for something to equal the set of Charlie Parker Dial sessions he’d bought there once before.
Terry’s nephew, Raymond, stood in the middle of the room like a rabbit caught in headlights.
‘Ray-o,’ Terry said, ‘get off and see a film.’
They don’t open till gone twelve.’
Then wait.’
‘You know why we’re here?’ Resnick asked once Raymond had gone.
‘Maybe.’
‘We’ve heard one or two whispers,’ Millington said, making himself comfortable on a Zanussi washing machine. ‘Concerning a certain nasty incident the other night.’
‘Not down to me,’ Terry said hastily.
‘Of course not,’ Resnick assured him. ‘We’d never believe that it was. But others, maybe known to you…’
‘You see, we’ve heard names,’ Millington said. ‘Confirmation, that’s all we need.’
‘Though if you give us more…’
‘Confirmation and more…’
Terry felt the muscles tightening along his back; he ought never to have missed his morning swim. ‘These names…’
‘We thought,’ Resnick said, ‘you might tell us.’
‘Remove,’ Millington said, ‘any suggestion that we put words into your mouth.’
Terry felt the pressure of Coughlan’s hand hard on his shoulder, remembered the sick leer on his huge face when he had talked about sharing Eileen. ‘Coughlan,’ he said. ‘Him for certain.’
‘And?’
‘Breakshaw. Norbert Breakshaw.’
‘Thank you, Terry,’ Resnick said, letting a Four Seasons anthology fall back into the box; just so many times, he thought, you could enjoy ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’.
‘Here,’ Millington said. ‘How much for this?’
‘There’s something else,’ Terry said, ‘something else you’ll want to know.’
When Norbert Breakshaw parked the van close to the back entrance to Terry Cooke’s business premises, he wasn’t alone; Francis Farmer and Francis’s brother-in-law, Tommy DiReggio, were with him. Norbert had brought them along, partly for the company, partly to help him shift the gear; they had been with Norbert and Coughlan at the original break-in. Francis had hung back once Norbert had started swinging the sledgehammer and things got a little out of hand, but Tommy had enjoyed the chance to let fly with an iron bar, get the boot in hard. There’s a light on,’ Norbert said. ‘He’s waiting for us.’ Not quite right. What was waiting for them was a team of some twenty officers, two of them, Millington included, having drawn arms just in case.