“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
I asked Foster what was on the body and he told me “nothing remarkable”. I bent down to get a closer look at the corpse. The belt was fastened about two holes too loose and one of the laces on the canvas sneakers was untied. This could have been the result of the body being searched and I was going to ask Foster about it when the stretcher bearers arrived. They came down the steps and we all stood aside. They lifted the body onto the stretcher, covered it with a dark blanket and secured the load with broad straps. The procedure finished off the process of the elimination of a person that had begun with the first shotgun shell.
The drizzle had stopped. We watched the men in their pale blue uniforms carry the stretcher up the steps and back along the causeway. On the bridge, with the long, flat burden between them, they looked like a strange monster, low backed, with a high, pale rump and head.
The cameraman assembled his gear and unhinged the stand. I thanked Foster for his co-operation then the girl and I started back to the land – where this had all started and where the reasons for it lay. Her high-heeled boots thudded on the wooden planking and I glanced down at them; they gave her an extra three inches; without them she would only have been medium tall. Lost in the duffel coat, she looked small and young, and I wondered about what having your dream man shot to death when you were seventeen did to you. It couldn’t be good.
Courtenay and Balt and the ambulance had gone. The car for the photographer and forensic man was parked a little further on and it made me think of Ricky’s Biscayne, the car you couldn’t miss. Where it was and how it had got there would be important. I’d have to get Grant Evans’ help on that. We got back into my car and she huddled in the corner again.
“Home?”
She snorted. “If you can call it that.”
“They your parents?”
“No.”
“Is your name Sharkey?”
“Is now.”
I started the car and drove back through the wet, empty streets. The pubs were still open, letting out a fitful light and a trickle of people. I pulled up in front of the house. The girl shrugged out of the duffel coat and folded it before putting it on the back seat. She opened the door.
“Just a minute,” I said. “You can help me.”
She raised her eyebrows, theatrically bored and sceptical.
“How?”
“What did Ricky and Noni talk about down here, what did they do?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“You want Ricky’s killer caught.”
“I know who killed him.”
“The girl, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I doubt it.”
“You would. What would you do if it turned out to be true?”
“I’d let it be that way.”
She sneered. “Why?”
I was getting tired of the conversation and let some impatience come into my voice. “I’m not a crusader and I’ve cooked the books in my time, but I let the facts alone unless there’s very good reason not to. I can’t think of any reason to do differently in this case.”
She turned her head and studied me through the gloom. The inside of the car smelled damp and old; it didn’t reek of high-priced corruption or the sweet smell of success.
“All right Mr Cliff Hardy,” she said slowly. “Maybe you’re telling the truth. I can’t tell you much anyway. All I know is that Ricky’s father was a crim and he dropped out of sight about twelve years ago. No-one knows what happened to him. For the last couple of years Ricky has been driving people mad around here with questions about his father. I don’t know what he’s found out.” She let the sentence hang there.
“That’s interesting, but not much help. There’s something else you can tell me?”
“Yes. It’s just a feeling. I went around with Ricky a bit and saw him talking to people. I got the feeling he wasn’t only interested in his father. He seemed to be almost looking for someone else as well.”
“Can you make it clearer?”
“Not really, it was just a feeling. He seemed to stare at people, men, who couldn’t have known his father because they were too young. Men his own age, you know?”
I nodded and stored the information away. It could mean something but I felt tired, my head hurt and I remembered that I hadn’t had a drink for too many hours.
“Thanks, I’ll think about it. Tell me about the girl.”
“Noni?”
“Yes. What’s she like?”
She clenched her hands in her lap to stop them from flying about like angry birds. When she spoke her voice was full of malice with a note of fear. Maybe she believed Noni had actually killed the boy.
“She’s a blonde, thin, a bitch and a bloodsucker. She acts freaked-out, you know? But she’s really ice-cool. Know what we call her down here?”
I shook my head.
“White meat,” she hissed. She opened the door and started to get out of the car.
“See you Penny,” I said.
“Not here you won’t.”
She slammed the door and moved off. I watched her go through the collapsed gate and up the overgrown path. She was an elegant parcel of brains, bone and muscle wrapped up in hate. Seventeen. I drove away.
7
I had two fast Scotches in a pub in Kensington and bought a half bottle for company, so I was feeling better when I parked in the lane beside the Capitol theatre. The Capitol is a grimy old matron on the outside; it hasn’t had a face-lift for a good many years and the layers of old posters splattered over its walls seemed to mark its age like the rings in tree trunks. The posters for Saul James’ musical were up now covering over last year’s spectacular and greatest shows on earth long forgotten.
A chink of light showed through the door at the side of the building. I pushed the door open and went up a flight of stairs that ascended nearly as steeply as a ladder. I moved slowly, smelling unfamiliar odours, not the usual urine and garbage smells you get on dimly lit stairwells, but something richer, more exotic. The stairs ended at a corridor that had rooms going off it on both sides. One of the rooms was showing a light and I could hear soft voices. I paused outside and placed the odour, a combination of perfume and the sweet herbal smell of marijuana smoke. The door at the end of the passage opened out onto a backstage area behind a massive green velvet curtain. A few props, a coffee table, some chairs, a bookcase and a wheelchair, were scattered around. Against the wall, on the floor, was a big tape deck flanked by two king-size speakers and connected by a heavy cable to a power point that bristled with double adaptors. I could hear voices through the curtain and I stepped forward to where its two sections met.
“It has to go in there,” I heard a woman’s voice say. “If you move it it’ll be out of place and you’ll cut it later. I know you bastards.”
“We won’t Liz.” a high voice, wheedling. “I swear to you darling that the song stays in, whatever happens.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice rose to a near-shriek and I took a peek through the curtains. She was wearing body paint and a spangled G-string; her nipples, showing through the paint and tinsel, looked linked and obscene. She was lean and sinewy like a stockwhip and she was stalking up and down in nervous, gliding strides. Saul James, wearing jeans and a striped, matelot-style T-shirt, was sitting on a turned-around chair. Another man squatted on the stage. His fat thighs bulged in brown corduroy and his body was heavy and gross inside a flowered Hawaiian shirt.
“It’s an essential song Liz,” James said quietly. “It won’t be cut, it can’t be. You do it superbly.”
The woman stopped prancing. James’ mild tone seemed to calm her down and I was interested to see that he had some authority when operating professionally. She moved smoothly up to the actor and stood in front of him, her breasts almost touching his chest.
“Alright Saul,” she purred. “I’ll take your word for it, and if the song doesn’t stay in I’ll hold him responsible.” She pointed to fatty who got creakingly to his feet. The stage lights were dim but I could see the flesh shaking on his red face.