Later that evening my dad and the Irregulars struck up ‘The Sidewinder’ and I got to spend a good thirty seconds admiring the way Beverley moved before she dragged me out and made me dance with her. When the set finished she put her arms around me and kissed me – she smelt of new mown grass and heated car wax, like old deckchairs and plastic hosepipes – like a hot summer’s day in a London garden.
These days my mum doesn’t let my dad hang around after a gig, so I stuck them in an Uber and joined the Irregulars, plus girlfriends and boyfriends, plus Beverley and her friends in the bar. The manager of The Bull’s Head had been a fan of my dad’s almost as long as my mum, so we were treated to a lock-in and drinks at cost. The band, or at least Daniel and Max, predictably took this as a challenge, as did their and Beverley’s friends – musicians and students – you’d think the manager would have known better.
‘Given he’s such a skinny lad,’ James said after watching Daniel’s boyfriend sink yet another Guinness, ‘you’ve got to ask where it’s all going.’
James was the drummer and so by tradition it was his van that the band tooled around in – this was causing some friction.
‘I don’t want to invoke national stereotypes but I’m bloody dying for a drink here,’ he said staring meaningfully at Daniel and Max. They were less than sympathetic.
‘You should have taken up the sax,’ said Max.
‘You only dare say that cause you’re pure steamin’,’ said James. ‘The world’s full of wannabe sax players, but jazz drums – that’s a vocation.’
Bev’s friends tried to match the jazzmen drink for drink, and as a result had to be poured into the back of James’ van with the rest of the band plus hangers-on. James promised faithfully to see them safely back to their digs. As the van lurched off I noticed that it was riding well low on its suspension and hoped, ironically as it turned out for me, that they didn’t get stopped.
It was breezy out by the river, the cold finding its way down the back of my jacket. It was high tide and I could practically feel Beverley’s mother slapping at the embankment, looking for cracks – nothing malicious, you understand, just doing what comes naturally – so it didn’t surprise me when Bev vaulted onto the parapet and started taking off her clothes.
She turned to look at me, wearing just her knickers and the red silk bra that I knew for a fact she’d nicked from her sister Effra and was two sizes too small.
‘Race you home,’ she shouted and, turning, dove into the river.
I gathered up her clothes and threw them onto the passenger seat of the Asbo before setting off down Barnes High Street at a swift but totally legal speed. I considered using my blues and twos but that would have been cheating. I’d have beaten her home, too, if I hadn’t been pulled over by a pair of uniforms on the Kingston Road ‘on suspicion’ and had to flash my warrant card.
‘What were you thinking?’ I asked. ‘Me in a Ford Focus – what was it? The colour?’ I’d stopped using the Orange Asbo for covert work – for obvious reasons – so it had become my off-duty transport.
‘To be honest,’ said one of the uniforms, ‘you just looked so bloody cheerful – it was suspicious.’
I stayed polite, although I did make a note of their collar numbers because you never know.
Driving while cheerful, I thought, that’s a new one.
Still, it did mean Beverley was waiting for me in bed when I arrived.
4
Obligatory Audience Participation
The next morning it was my turn to slip out of bed leaving Beverley behind, invisible under the duvet except for a spray of dreadlocks across the pillow. I had a text from Stephanopoulos – My office @ 7 briefing TST Albertina Pryce.
The police are well aware of the subtle degrees of intimidation they can exert, from the veiled menace of the ‘friendly chat’ to turning up at dawn with a battering ram, a van full of TSG and a documentary TV camera crew. Being asked to show up at a nick first thing in the morning to ‘clarify a previous statement’ is a signal that the police have reason to believe that you are a lying little toerag, but are willing to give you a second chance to come clean. It’s also a signal that a sensible body would bring a brief – just to be on the safe side.
So it says something about Albert Pryce, multiple Booker Prize shortlistee and a man whose appearances on Radio 4 were so frequent that Broadcasting House had given him his own entry pass, that he decided that he himself would be an elegant sufficiency with regards to legal representation for his daughter.
Stephanopoulos and Seawoll, ever alive to the nuances of interpersonal dynamics as they pertain to screwing evidence out of potential suspects, decided to send me in alone.
Normally when you’re handling the rich and powerful you stick them in the ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) suite, which is fitted with pastel furniture and throw cushions designed to make vulnerable witnesses feel more comfortable. But either they were all in use or Stephanopoulos had actually read A Filthy Trade – Pryce’s Booker shortlisted novel of crime and punishment. Which, according to the Times Literary Supplement, beautifully inverted Dostoyevsky’s premise in its portrayal of a man who, having murdered his wife out of sheer exasperation, proves to have a higher degree of morality than the corrupt and degraded detectives who pursue him. By another completely unrelated coincidence we ended up in Interview Room Three which was usually reserved for Belgravia’s more fragrant customers. I’m not saying you were going to slip on sick when you walked in, but there was a marked old-hospital smell of disinfectant and wee.
We left them in there for half an hour while we – me, Stephanopoulos and Seawoll – discussed interview strategy. ‘Go in there and be your usual charming self,’ said Stephanopoulos.
‘We want the dad to stay nice and smug,’ said Seawoll.
So I made a point of carrying in a stack of papers and faffing with them for a bit before introducing myself and shaking their hands.
I was beginning to think that there must be a factory somewhere stamping out dangerously skinny white girls with good deportment and a nervous disposition. Albertina Pryce had long blonde hair framing a narrow face with a pointed chin. She wore a pink sweat shirt that was too big for her and skinny blue jeans. Her handshake was limp and I could feel the small bones in her hand under my fingers.
Mr Pryce was surprisingly short, but broad-shouldered. He had the same fair hair as his daughter but with a square, blunt face. He wore a well-tailored suit jacket over a crisply ironed white shirt but no tie, and his top two buttons were undone to reveal a centimetre of greying chest hair. When he stood to shake my hand I saw he was wearing pre-faded jeans. His shake was firm but the skin of his hand was soft. I knew from my notes that he was sixty-three, but he looked as if he were desperately clinging to fifty with both hands.
‘Grant, eh?’ he said as we settled. ‘Dad from the Caribbean, yes?’
He waited impatiently while I gave his daughter the caution plus two, and interrupted me before I had a chance to ask my first question.
‘Can’t we just get on with this?’ he asked.
‘I’m sorry sir. Legally we have to do these things,’ I said.
Albertina glanced nervously at my pile of papers and then off to the left – away from her father – as he gave me a sympathetic nod.
‘Bureaucracy,’ he said sagely.
‘Sir,’ I said, because Stephanopoulos wanted me to encourage him but not too much.
‘I know it’s hard, Peter,’ she’d said. ‘But if you could contain your erudition and ready wit for just a little while we’d be most grateful.’