As the number came to an end, a tenor cadenza over bowed bass, Resnick walked back across the room and placed the brandy down alongside Rather’s empty glass.
‘Cheers, Charlie.’
‘Pleasure.’
Ronnie nodded in the direction of the band. ‘Heard Mel Thorpe do his Roland Kirk, have you?’
‘Not recently.’
Ronnie tasted his brandy and lemonade and smiled. ‘Considering he’s not black or blind, he does a pretty fair job.’
On flute now, the soloist sang, hummed and grunted as he blew, spurring himself along with intermittent shouts and hollers which raised the temperature of the playing to the point that one or two of the audience began drumming on their tabletops and the barmaid set aside her crossword puzzle in favour of polishing glasses. The applause was sustained and earned.
‘I saw him, you know, Charlie. Roland Kirk. St Pancras Town Hall. Nineteen sixty-four.’
Resnick nodded. He had seen Kirk once himself, but later, not more than a year before the end of his life-Birmingham, he thought it had been, but for once he wasn’t sure. The musician had already suffered one stroke and played with one side of his body partially paralysed; it had been like watching a tornado trapped in a basket, a lion shorn and bereft in a cage.
‘This business with the copper, Charlie. The girl…’
‘Mary Duffy.’
‘If you say so. I don’t like it, treating women like that.’
Resnick allowed himself a smile. ‘One of nature’s gentlemen, that what you’re saying, Ronnie?’
‘Oh, I’ve known a few in my time, Charlie. Young women, I mean.’
‘I’ll bet you have.’
‘And never raised a finger, not to any of them. Not one.’
Resnick nodded again, drank some beer. The band were playing a ballad, medium tempo, ‘The Talk of the Town’.
‘Bumped into Terry Cooke,’ Ronnie said, ‘cafe by the market, Victoria Park. Soon as I mentioned it, the break-in and that, he turned all pale and couldn’t wait to be on his way.’
‘You don’t think he was involved?’
‘Terry? Not directly, no. Have a heart attack minute anyone said boo to him in the dark.’
‘What then?’
‘Mates with Coughlan, isn’t he?’
‘And this was Coughlan’s job?’
‘Word is, on the street.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Resnick said, ‘Cooke and Coughlan were close.’
‘Who Cookie was close to,’ Ronnie explained, ‘was Coughlan’s wife.’
‘Second or third?’
‘Third. Marjorie. Cookie was having it away with her the best part of a year. That was before he cottoned on to this young bit of skirt he’s got now. Anyway, while all this was going on, he got himself into a card school with Coughlan. Poker. Dropped a lot of money there on occasion, so I heard. His way of paying for it, I suppose.’
‘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.’