“Whatever you need,” Grabianski said. “If I know the answers … if I can help, fine.”
“That’s good. That’s great. Eh, Charlie? Cause now we can go feed our faces knowing we’ve got that far along the line.” He rested a hand on Grabianski’s shoulder, close to the neck, and squeezed. “Then we can talk about the rest.” He squeezed harder. “I’ve got to be honest, when I first heard this one, when Charlie tried it out on me, I never thought you’d go for it. Honest. Not that it isn’t a good deal; for you, I mean. It is. What it was, I didn’t think you’d have the bottle. Someone who gets his kicks turning places oven like he’s dressed for a Masonic dinner. But, no-” He leaned his face close to Grabianski’s “-you’ve got the bottle, all right.” He straightened and stepped away. “Bollocks like a bleedin’ rhinoceros.”
Thirty-three
Loscoe Miners’ Welfare Silver Band. the bottom edge of the poster, yellow over-printed in black, curling away now, catching in the shrill wind. Last concert of the previous summer. The sun was out, January warm for the time of year didn’t have to mean warm, not when you were sitting on a bench facing the deserted bandstand, waiting for somebody who might never show.
It had taken forty-eight hours to set up the meeting and there hadn’t been one of those in which Grabianski hadn’t felt his mind changing, regretted what he’d agreed to do.
Wearing a wire, wasn’t that what they called it?
He remembered a television program, documentary, two detectives leaning on a prisoner to give them information, neither of them knowing of the hidden tape recorder, evidence against them spooling unseen. A film, also, more than one, TV again, Cagney and Lacey, Hill Street Blues, the cop pretending to be the bad guy, going in with a microphone taped to his chest. Sometimes they were found out, sometimes got away with it. A.45 Magnum in the face on a citation from the commissioner, a medal-the way it went depended on status, who was playing you this time around. Whether you were needed for the next episode or not. Exactly who you were in this story: hero or villain.
Late morning and there weren’t too many people around. An elderly man in a raincoat sitting, hands in pockets, at the other side of the circle, staring off into nothing that was there. Two girls from one of the nearby offices taking an early lunch, baked potatoes forked from pale plastic boxes. A ragged crocodile of primary-school kids was making its way along the steeply angled path towards the castle; pieces of paper flapped back from their hands, duplicated questions about Mortimer’s Hole, a space to make a sketch plan of the moat and bailey. The teacher was hanging back, discouraging one of the boys from digging up the early crocuses with his foot.
Look at it this way, Resnick had said, people like Stafford, you don’t want them out on the streets any more than we do.
“Look at it this way …” Resnick was standing behind the chair, hands in pockets, waiting until Grabianski did just that, looked at him at least. “People like Stafford, they’re as close to vermin as you can get; you don’t want them out on the streets any more than we do.”
“Who’s arguing?” Grabianski said. It was the same dim room, the same claustrophobia. Gray smoke collected beneath the low ceiling in coils: Norman Mann chain-smoking now, lighting one from the nub of the other. “You’re right. What you’ve told me, he should be put away …”
“He’s a piece of shit,” put in Norman Mann.
“Arrest him,” Grabianski said. “Lock him up.”
“We need your help.” Resnick lifted one leg, set his foot down on the seat of the chair, holding Grabianski with his eyes. Grabianski knew what he was trying to do, this Polish cop with the edges of an East Midlands accent; trying to make him feel guilty, that’s what he was doing, wanting to get him involved. What was it to be? Solidarity? Poles apart?
“You’ve got the cocaine,” Grabianski said. “Harold Roy, Maria, they’ll testify Stafford was selling the stuff, that he’d been supplying them.” He looked from one detective to the other. “I don’t see your problem.”
“Problem is,” said Norman Mann, “if we go that way, the only thing likely to stand up is letting this Harold have a few grams here and there and maybe, if we’re lucky, possession of a kilo.”
“So?”
“So what’ve we got to sit on Stafford and squeeze him? Next to nothing. He comes across as strictly small time, pleads guilty and waits for his parole. What do we learn?”
The drugs-squad detective used his middle finger and thumb to make an emphatic zero. He ground his cigarette out beneath his shoe and headed for the door. “I’m going for a piss,” he said.
Strange how one person saying it, thought Grabianski, makes you want to go yourself.
“The cocaine that comes into the country,” said Resnick, “the shipments that matter, two to three hundred kilos at a time, they’re broken down and spread out, city to city, broken down again. Someone like Stafford, in that process he’s not major, but we think he is big enough to know names, contacts, procedures. Putting him away for a few years isn’t enough. Nobody that matters will get touched. As far as they’re concerned there’s a hundred Staffords each way you turn; they’ll sacrifice him as soon as spit on the street. They can trust him not to talk and as long as we’ve nothing more on him, they’re right.”
Grabianski didn’t like the way Resnick was looking at him, expecting some response; he wasn’t comfortable with it. He’d look away, but whenever his head swung back again there was Resnick, staring, waiting.
“I don’t see it,” Grabianski said. His hands should have been sweaty, but they were dry, the palms were dry circles, beginning to itch. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t see what I can do.”
“If we could help you with that …?”
“Help?”
“Find a way where you could help.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Forget it.”
Resnick moved close and Grabianski rose to his feet: two men, big men, tall. Less than an arm’s length apart. “All we need is proof that Stafford’s part of something big. Not unwittingly, knowingly. That’s all.”
“Proof?”
“A tape.”
“No.”
Resnick touched Grabianski on the arm. “Jerry, you said you don’t want him on the streets any more than we do. Vermin. Worse.”
“Next you’ll be telling me it’s my duty.”
“Isn’t it?”
“As an honest citizen,” Grabianski laughed.
“Why not?”
Grabianski could feel Resnick’s breath on his face, feel the inspector’s hand on his arm, increasing the pressure. “You’re already helping us with a large number of previously unsolved crimes; if you were instrumental in a major drugs arrest …”
“I’d have my face razored before I’d been inside an hour.”
“Then we must do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Once I’m in there, there’s nothing you can do.”
“I meant, to make sure time isn’t what you do.”
Grabianski held a breath, turned slowly away, released it. From somewhere there was a dull humming in his ears, making it difficult to think.
“You’re serious?”
Resnick didn’t need to answer.
Still Grabianski shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“It’s not just Stafford. There’s people behind him making millions. You’ve got no more time for them than I have. You’d feel good, knowing they were locked away.”
“Stop accusing me of morality.”
“Why else jump in front of an ax for a woman you’ve never seen before? Why risk prison giving artificial respiration to a perfect stranger?”
“Because I didn’t think about it. I was there, in the situation. I did what I did. What you’re asking, it’s different.” Grabianski looked past Resnick towards the door. “I need the toilet,” he said.
“Right.” Resnick opened the door and nodded at the young constable standing there. He had escorted Grabianski out of sight when Mann came back in.