“Yes.”
“But he isn’t … He’s …”
For the briefest of moments, Resnick put his hand on her shoulder and she rested her cheek sideways against it and closed her eyes. Resnick’s breathing seemed unnaturally loud in the darkening room. And then she got her bag and her coat and said good night and Resnick said see you in the morning and after the door had closed he went into his office and read the note.
Reg Cossall was standing at the bar-no, more leaning-face round and broken-veined and wreathed in smoke. Angled above his head the highlights of a women’s soccer match were being played out, rise and fall of the commentator’s voice barely audible beneath the whir of the cash register, blur of voices.
Other faces Resnick recognized, greetings offered and shared.
“Message got through to you, then?”
Resnick bought him a pint of Kimberley and a large Bell’s, shaking his head at the offer of ice. For himself, a ginger ale.
“Not drinking, Charlie?”
“Not tonight.”
“Bad news, then, is it?”
“Likely. You tell me.”
One word had been written on the slip of paper, other than the details of where and when Cossall wanted to meet.
Prior.
“Up for parole, Charlie. Two-thirds of his sentence down the pan.”
Resnick glanced up at the screen. A woman with fair hair pinned close to her head was writhing on the ground, tackled from behind. Some things changed, some remained the same.
“He’ll not get it,” Resnick said. “He’ll be turned down.”
“Not what I’ve heard. Not this time.”
“Offenses like his. Violence …”
“Not automatic, but like I say …”
Resnick swallowed down the ginger ale and before the glass had been set back on the bar, Cossall had beckoned the barman, ordered him a vodka, double. The bank of video games beside the entrance jingled and hummed. From the adjoining bar, the click of pool balls and a juke box recycling the Jam.
“How long, Charlie? Ten years?”
“Nearer eleven.”
I have no doubt that the reaction of the public to these offenses of which you have been convicted is one of the gravest horror and disgust. Motivated solely by greed and with an absolute lack of compunction towards anybody who stood in your way, prepared to threaten and use violence with a callous disregard for the safety of others, you and the men convicted with you terrorized sections of the community in the pursuit of personal gain. As the undisputed ringleader of these men, I have no alternative other than to punish you with the full force of law at my disposal.
The public had been so disgusted that sales of the Sunday paper to whom one of his accomplices sold his story showed an increase of twenty-three percent. Prior’s mother, convalescing in a nursing home after a stroke, was interviewed by both major television news programs; a photograph that showed him as a child, receiving his school’s annual prize for good citizenship and endeavor, was widely syndicated. A prostitute, who claimed to have been his lover, auctioned her kiss-and-tell expose to five bidders.
“You think he’ll come back here?”
“Would you?”
“No,” Cossall said, chasing his whisky with a long swallow of beer, “but then I’m not a nutter.”
“That what you think he is?”
“Don’t you?”
Face to face in the garage, the two of them, himself and Prior, both near to breathless, the garage doors partly open, the car ready to go. Resnick had followed him through the house, the side door from the kitchen, Prior’s hands disappearing behind the open boot of the car and when next Resnick saw them, they were holding the shotgun steady, angled towards his chest and face.
Outside were voices, torches, shouts of inquiry, warning. All Resnick saw was the narrowing of Prior’s eyes, the tensing of the index finger of his right hand. There were things he had been trained to say in this situation but he said none of them.
The tension in Prior’s eyes had relaxed a little as he brought the shotgun up towards his own body and for a moment Resnick thought he was going to rest the barrels beneath his own chin, take his life. Instead he had reversed the weapon fully and handed it across the roof of the car for Resnick to take hold of, stock first.
“No,” Resnick said. “He’s not that.”
“Happen you’re right,” Cossall shrugged. “’Sides, maybe all that time inside taught him a lesson. Back out a changed man, anxious to become a useful member of society. That what you reckon, Charlie, eh?”
“Get you another, Reg? I’m going to be on my way.”
Cossall shook his head, opened his hand over the top of his pint glass. “Shouldn’t be too difficult to find out where he’s likely to head for, what his intentions are. That’s if it happens. Still, best forewarned, eh? Make plans.”
“Thanks, Reg.” Resnick offered his hand. “Owe you one.”
“Yes,” Cossall growled. “You and the rest of the sodding world.”
Over his head one of the teams had just scored what looked a lovely goal, only to have it disallowed.
Pip Hewitt came into the kitchen after speaking to her mother on the phone, to find her husband, Peter, sitting at the broad oak table, account books open near him, drinking black tea laced with rum.
“You’re worried, aren’t you?” she said, resting an arm along his shoulder. “Losing that last milk order.”
Hewitt squeezed her hand. “It’s not that.”
She pulled round one of the chairs and sat close beside him.
“The parole review committee’s meeting tomorrow and …”
“If you can’t go, phone them. After all the work you’ve put in, they should understand.”
Hewitt drank from the thick stoneware mug, holding it out first to his wife, who smiled and refused. “One of the men I interviewed-Prior-he’s serving fifteen years, armed robbery …”
“Was anybody hurt?”
Hewitt nodded. “The last raid before they were caught, a security guard …”
“Shot?”
“Paralyzed down one side.”
Pip Hewitt’s eyes reflected shock and pain. “And this man …”
“Prior.”
“He was responsible? He shot him?”
“He says no, claims it was one of the others. Two weapons were discharged, but the police were never able to establish who fired which gun. Not without a shadow of a doubt. The shotgun Prior had with him when he was arrested, ballistic reports don’t match it up with the injuries to the guard.”
Pip took the mug from between her husband’s hands and slowly sipped the laced tea.
“I wish I knew what to do,” Hewitt said.
She gave his hand a squeeze. “You take everything so seriously.”
“It is serious.”
“I know.”
“What’s left of a man’s life …”
“Darling …” Still holding Hewitt’s hand, she got to her feet. “ … finish your tea, come to bed, let’s have an early night. You’ll do the right thing. You always do.”
Nine
Music-Darren had never understood what all the fuss was about. Loud or soft, fast or slow-how much else did you need to know? Keith, now, if he wasn’t out hot wiring some car, he was walking around with his Walkman on, tinny little sound leaking out, mouthing the words as it went along. Rap? Who gave a rat’s arse about rap. Keith, for one. Outlaw. Gang Starr. X–Clan. Caveman. Least the names were okay, cool. What had he been playing the other day? Arrested Development. Darren laughed: Keith to a T.
Outside Michael Isaacs’s nightclub, he gave himself a quick onceover in the glass: chinos, white shirt pulled out loose above the waist, sleeves rolled back, silhouette of hair tinged purple in the light.
The dance floor was three-quarters full, blokes leaning back against the downstairs bar, suits some of them, carelessly watching him as he climbed the stairs.
As the DJ upped the tempo, Darren leaned over the balcony, nursing a lager top, checking out the talent. Two black blokes getting all the attention down below, buckling their legs and doing all that fancy stuff with their hands, kung fu sign language in overdrive.