She awoke at two. Back to the landing window. Still dark at Lol’s, but perhaps he’d come in, gone to bed. A vehicle crossed the square, but it was a light-coloured van. She’d rung Lol’s landline twice, finally leaving a message, just asking him to ring her back, whatever time he got in. Now she wanted to ring Danny, but it was far too late; Greta at least would be in bed, and Greta had to work in the morning and…
…oh God, the Maundy service.
The next time she awoke she was in a corridor.
Sporadically lit, lumpy with pipes and the smell was of antiseptic and bleach, and there were double doors and an old leathered bench, and the need for a cigarette.
I’m afraid you can’t smoke in here.
Breathing. The uneven respiration of the chronically sick. A dim and wobbly light. Grey-white sleepers.
We’ve always had him in a side ward.
An iron bed. Tubes.
Brace yourself…
Lowering herself into a clammy vinyl-covered bedside chair, summoning reserves of compassion as she peered below the hair dyed black, into the reptilian eye-slits. Green tubes curling up either side of the nose like a smile. Hands out of the sheets, rubbery snaking hands, and the smell…
Don’t wake up, don’t wake up, see it through, don’t wake up, and Jesus, don’t let him touch Jane with his…
Curling nail on yellowed finger. Scritch, scratch…
The air rushed through the corridor like a hollow scream, trailing an awakening into half-light and… exhaust.
Merrily sat up to find the dawn gleaming like raw meat in the bedroom window.
Part Five
…they’re all mad in one way or another. There’s Kev, who knows he’s a reincarnated Viking. There’s Si, who only reads books about the paranormal… Only a few of the boys are normal, but they’re so normal that they’re weird. What a bunch of crazies we are. And we go out with our lethal weapons every day.
Frank Collins
Baptism of Fire (1997)
47
It was nearly light but not quite, the sun still below the Tesco clock turret, when Bliss raided the Plascarreg Hilton.
DC Vaynor with him and three of Rich Ford’s uniforms, two of them women. No enforcer, they just rang the bell, and a worried-looking Asian lady let them in, and then Goldie was there, halfway up the reduced baronial stairway in a yellow kimono with pink dragons on it and matching turban.
‘Wassis, wassis? You won’t find no drugs yere, Mr Francis, and that’s a damn fact! We en’t never had no drugs, and anybody yere who says we ’ave-’
‘Norra problem, Goldie.’ Bliss opening out his arms with transparent generosity. ‘We find any dope, you can keep it for those quiet nights in.’ Turning now to his team. ‘Colleen, ground floor with Darth. Kath and I will accompany you to your boudoir, Goldie, while PC Timlin will hang around the hall in case any of the guests try to leave without settling the bill.’
Goldie stood her ground, arms folded like a very mature geisha, as Bliss mounted the stairs.
‘Come on now, Goldie, how much more considerate could Her Majesty’s filth be to a respected senior citizen?’
‘What is this? What’s it about?’
‘Clothing and fancy goods, Goldie. We’re collecting for Oxfam.’
‘Gotter warrant, have you?’
‘Has Stevie Hawking gorra GCSE in physics? Now, back off, you old witch.’
Within half an hour they had quite a little boutique going in the hallway: designer tops, silk scarves, perfume, odds and ends of jewellery. Much of it still in the wrapping, labels intact: River Island, M amp; S, Fat Face. Harriet’s, of course, and a couple of quality shoeshops. Bliss was made up, the Mersey going tidal in his vocals.
‘Just like me bairthday all over again, Goldie.’
‘All paid for, Mr Francis. I got all the receipts. Somewhere.’
‘How much did they owe you?’
‘Who?’
‘The gairls! How many weeks’ rent for that nasty little room?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yeh.’ Bliss smiling kindly down at the old girl. ‘You’re well known for having no head for business.’
They were sitting in extravagant peacock wicker chairs in what Goldie called the breakfast room. Just the two of them. Nobody breakfasting yet. It was just gone half-seven. Bliss was due to meet Karen at Gaol Street at nine. He’d had four hours’ intermittent sleep. Flying on blind rage – so much cheaper than crystal meth.
‘All right,’ Goldie said, ‘a few weeks, thassall, swearder God, and I never pushed hard for it. Some weeks I let them off it, I did!’
‘Yeh, that’s why, the morning they were missing, you were all over the estate after them because it was rent day.’
‘I never-’
‘Shurrup. You know what I think? I think – and it just kind of came to me in a flash, the way these things do – I think that you told them ways they could pay in kind.’
‘If people wants to give me presents…’
Goldie had shrivelled herself into the wings of her wicker throne, hair like brass curtain-rings escaping from the pink and yellow turban. Bliss shook his head sadly.
‘An’ I never had them on no streets!’ Goldie said.
‘Only ’cause they wouldn’t bloody do it, as decent icon-carrying Russian Orthodox-Oh, the shame of it, Goldie.’ Bliss leaned towards her, sniffing at the perfume she evidently wore in bed. ‘Oh, the ignominy of one of Hereford’s leading hoteliers nicked for fencing leggings and camisoles.’
‘What you want?’
‘… and all the extra menial offences which might come to light.’
‘ What you want off me? ’
‘All right.’ Bliss lifted a calming hand. ‘Let’s stand back a little from this. Allow me to bring you up to speed on West Mercia’s investigation of the murder of the Marinescu sisters.’
Leaning back into the silly chair, Bliss talked very simply and with compassion about an old lady whose handbag had been stolen by two young women in a mail-order surplus store and who’d been so upset that she’d subsequently passed away.
‘This old lady,’ Bliss said, ‘her name was Cynthia Wise, from Bobblestock. She had five children and, I think, sixteen or seventeen grandchildren?’
All this background had been waiting for him when he’d arrived at Gaol Street, well before dawn. A little fizz in the air at a normally cheerless hour.
‘I never knowed her, Mr Francis. I never goes near Bobblestock.’
‘Yeh, but what a tragic story, eh, Goldie? Could be you, couldn’t it? In a year or two. Y’know, if that was my gran, God rest her little old soul, I’d feel more than a bit aggrieved at these people coming from the fringes of the Euro-heap, as good as murdering innocent pensioners for a cheap handbag and a couple of twenties. Cause the death of a decent, much-loved old lady and what happens to them if they get nicked? First offence. Bugger all! What kind of justice is that, Goldie?’
‘I still don’t know…’ Goldie’s cold eyes jittering just enough for him to know he was in ‘… what you wants.’
‘Well, I haven’t actually made up me mind, yet, but I’m… you know, I’m wairkin ’ on it.’
‘Always helped you out, Mr Francis, you knows that.’ Goldie folding her arms, hands vanishing into the opposite sleeves. ‘I do’s everythin’ in my powers to help the police.’
Bliss sniffed.
‘Not done much at all, the more I think about it. Nor’enough to melt me stony heart on this one.’
‘Well, I don’t know about no handbags.’ Goldie so far back in the chair now that you could hear its fibres twisting. ‘You won’t find no handbags yere, thass a damn fact.’
‘Well, no, the only place I’d expect to find a stolen handbag is at the bottom of the Wye with a brick inside.’ Oh yes… closing in. ‘I suppose you could try talking to me. Maybe a few anecdotes you’ve heard from your clientele and the gentlefolk around the Plas. Bearing in mind that I don’t care where it comes from if it’s sufficiently entertaining and contains an element of verifiable truth, and… You’ve gone quiet, Goldie.’