Full of Money (13 page)

‘The boyfriend?'

‘It wasn't a long-time thing, him and me, but he thought he had like ownership. I played along, for a while.'

Crude as snot, was he? Esther left it unspoken.

‘Nor my parents wouldn't want it – heavies at the house, asking things,' Belinda said.

‘You live on Temperate?'

‘Even if your lot came in a plain car – it's not good. This would be a topic. Man or woman cop, it wouldn't matter. And I don't want to come in there, to the nick. This also could be seen. Or you've got officers in the building who might put a word to where I wouldn't like to have a word put – Harold Perth Amesbury.'

‘No, no, it wouldn't happen.'

‘Which you've got to say. But it might. I fancy living a bit more of the future, you know. It's not guaranteed though.'

‘Well, I'll meet you somewhere away from here and from Temperate. Give me a place and time.'

‘Just you?'

‘Just me. Belinda what? I'm Esther Davidson.'

‘Yes.' Belinda said a friend ran a hairdressing saloon, Scissors Movement, off the estates, but not far. There was a back room for tea-making and stores. Iris didn't mind if they used it. Belinda had told her that Esther worked in debt management, and that her parents would worry if they thought she had problems. ‘Iris doesn't know much about police, but put on something a bit gaudy so you don't seem plain clothes.' Belinda might get something done to her hair before or afterwards to make the visit look ordinary and reward her friend. That would be only decent. ‘You could, too, if you like. She's pretty good. Customers of all ages.'

‘Well, perhaps,' Esther said.

‘Better than spilling it all on the phone.'

‘Much.'

‘As long as it's one-to-one.'

‘It will be.'

‘Making poke-about visits to my house and work and Tribe definitely unnecessary?'

‘Definitely.'

Esther arrived a couple of minutes before Belinda at Scissors Movement. She must have decided to have her hair done after the meeting, not before. Leatherette, tubular armchairs. They sat opposite each other near the gas ring. Esther wore a purple T-shirt with ‘Pamplona' in silver letters across the front. Iris made them tea. The shelving behind Belinda had a scatter of fresh towels, bottles of shampoo and dye, a green first-aid box, spare bits of equipment, a tattered
Hello!
magazine. That sweet, slightly acrid hairdresser smell.

‘This Gervaise – cool name, yes? – this Gervaise, he was asking questions and coming out with names, just like they were just ordinary names. Casual? You don't go around speaking names in Tribe, not the sort of names he was speaking,' Belinda said. ‘Men.
Their
names. They're not gay, but I asked him if he was, because of an interest in men, but I guessed he wasn't. I knew he must either be pissed or media. When I asked him if he was gay, it was really to shut him up, spouting these names, spouting these names to me, like I'm going to help him with them. I mean, he's only just met me, or hadn't really met me properly at all, just bumped into me. It's dangerous. People don't like it.'

‘Which people?'

‘The people whose names he was asking about.'

‘These would be people from the Temperate firm, would they?'

‘You know the names. You're chief of detectives. You must know these names, even though you can't . . . even though they . . . even though they and the firm keep going all right.'

‘Camby. Laidlaw.'

She stared at Esther for a couple of seconds but didn't speak or give any sign in her face.

‘You'd recognize these people?' Esther said.

‘Of course I'd recognize them. Any regular at Tribe would recognize them – what they looked like, why they're there. But I didn't let on to him I knew. That could have made it look like I was helping him. I wouldn't want that, would I?'

No, you wouldn't, Belinda.
Again, unspoken, though.

‘At Tribe, you should be careful not to get tied in with people you don't know.'

‘Obviously.'

She stopped, sat back hard in her chair and pointed a finger at Esther. ‘Hey – you don't ask what we talked about,' she said. ‘You know already, do you? He left notes? That's what they do, his sort. Reporters. They write stuff down, or on a laptop. In the press and on TV they said he was a reporter.'

‘But afterwards,' Esther replied, ‘when you'd finished talking, what did he do then?'

‘My boyfriend returned from the toilet. He'd been buying. He'd snorted some off the back of his hand. It's a skill. You need a wide hand and it's got to be steady or you're wasting half of it on the toilet floor. I didn't know him very well, but when he'd had a snort it usually made him cheery for a while, but you can't be sure on something like that, can you, so I had moved away from that Gervaise Etcetera? It seemed safest. Quite a crowd there, and the lights dimmed down, so I couldn't see him for a while. I think he must have left. And then we get this development.'

‘Which?'

‘A situation.'

‘Which?'

‘Someone comes over.'

‘Camby? Laidlaw?'

‘This is me, standing with the boyfriend, and someone comes over and is asking who was the guy I was talking to not long ago when the boyfriend was not there.'

‘Which of them?'

‘You get how awkward it is, do you?' she replied.

‘Because you hadn't told the boyfriend?'

‘“Who was the guy you were talking to for quite a while previously?” Most likely it'll be on the CCTV and you'll see who came over and asked this question. I don't want to say who it was. I'm not a grass. I just want to stop you coming around my place and so on. Why I'm talking. Only that.'

‘Nobody's going to say you told us.'

‘Nobody's going to say I told you, because I haven't told you and I won't. So, Vernon hears this question about the other guy.'

‘Vernon's the boyfriend?'

‘Was. It folded.'

‘I'm sorry.'

She gave a small wave with her right hand, perhaps meaning their break-up didn't matter much – not to her. She'd be about twenty with a round, mobile, clever face, her hair dark and short and in need of a bit of shaping from Iris. She wore a knee-length denim skirt, cerise blouse and battered looking trainers. Whatever drinking and doping she did, it hadn't dulled her grey-green eyes. She watched Esther as though she needed watching, in case she tried some ploy, even on away ground picked by Belinda.

‘If it's on CCTV, you'll see how Vern's really shocked and angry because some other guy has been mentioned. He says: “Which guy, Belinda? You never told me about a guy.” And this is
so
correct. This other guy – not Gervaise Etcetera, but the one who came over and asked the question—'

‘Camby. Or Laidlaw.'

‘He doesn't give a monkey's that he's bringing me trouble. A bit of delicacy is not his game, is it? All he cares about is finding out about this guy I talked to when Vernon was in the toilet. “Who was he?” he says.

‘Of course, I don't know who he was, not at that time I didn't, not even his name. So, that's what I tell them.'

‘“Some guy just comes up and talks to you?” Vernon said. He's doing his “You looking at my bird?” act. “Where is he now?” Eyes gone narrow, mouth so tight, breathing ferocious. Nice blurring from the snort all gone.'

‘They don't believe you?' Esther said.

‘Don't believe what?'

‘That you didn't know him,' she replied.

‘Vern thinks I've been fratting with some stranger who tried his luck because I looked solo. That's going to niggle. He's been in the toilet, faithfully doing nostrils duty, and I'm among the crowd, making myself available. He'd consider it . . . well, indelicate. And the other guy, the one with the questions—'

‘Laidlaw? Or Camby?'

‘He thinks the guy – that's the one who turns out to be Gervaise Etcetera – he thinks this guy's been dredging for stuff about Tribe and some of the people there because he's on a big dig mission.'

‘Which was true,' Esther said.

‘So, I say he's a cruising gay who wants to know can I show him any others in Tribe. I tell Vernon this was why I never mentioned it – because it didn't seem important, a gay searching for gays. But is he going to believe that – a gay asking a woman about other gay men? Maybe not, but I had to try
something
. The questions keep coming, like, What did we talk about? And I say I told him I couldn't help because I didn't have a clue who was gay, except I knew Vernon wasn't. And then he says – I mean, not Vernon, but the one who'd come over – he says I seemed to talk to him for a long time. Was it only to say I didn't know if there were gays about? He asks do I have a name for him, or an address, especially an address. And, of course, I haven't. But Vern says, “Did he want you to meet him somewhere else some time? That what it was about?” I say, “No,” but does he believe this, either? He keeps on with it, even in bed later, and, afterwards, he's going through my clothes and bag in case I wrote down a number or something for the one I was talking to while he was in the toilet. In a way, jealousy like that is nice – it shows he cares, but it's also insulting. So I get rid. He was common as underarms anyway.'

‘Did anyone tail Tasker from Tribe?'

‘Wouldn't know. I lost him. I didn't see him leave.'

‘He might have still been in the club when Camby came over to talk to you. Or Laidlaw?'

‘Yes, he might have been there when someone came over. Like I said – crowded, lights down.'

‘So, Camby could have tailed him after speaking to you and Vernon? That's Camby or Laidlaw.'

‘You're stuck on those two names, aren't you?' Belinda said.

‘They're wrong?

‘Somebody could have tailed him, if Gervaise Etcetera was still in the club.'

‘Or one of their staffers?'

‘Whose staffers?'

‘Camby's. Or Laidlaw's. They'd have had people there, wouldn't they – pushing stuff? But are you saying those names are wrong?'

‘I'm not saying anything as to names of personnel,' she said.

‘At least tell me if it's neither of the two.'

‘Gervaise Etcetera did leave some notes, then, did he? An account of the scene? The CCTV might tell you if he was still in the club.'

‘It's important for us to know what happened afterwards.'

‘That right?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Someone gets beaten up and murdered and put on show in a kids' playground – yes, I can see this might be regarded as important.' She stood. ‘I've got an appointment with Iris. I can't help with afterwards. I've told you everything I know.'

‘I ought to have your surname and address. And Vernon's.'

‘Not on. I know you can find them if you want to, but I'm not giving them. It wasn't that kind of meeting.'

‘Which kind was it?'

She took the magazine off the shelf and held it up. ‘Hello. Goodbye. This kind,' she said.

‘The club CCTV missed you entirely,' Esther said.

Belinda frowned. ‘Couldn't you have told me earlier?'

‘Of course I could have.'

That evening, Esther went to hear Gerald playing in a concert at the Silurian Hall off Oxford Street in the West End. He really loved her to be in the audience. She knew he regarded it as bringing her to heel. As he'd see it, the prime prat, she was there because of him. Only because of him. And, of course, this couldn't be more true. He and the bassoon controlled her leisure for anything up to five hours, taking into account the travelling and an interval. In addition, being a wife, she would have to clap the performance sincerely for a good while, which meant he also controlled her hands during this spell of loyal applause, not like when they were belting each other and he might get a sudden, very startling set of knuckles over the heart or in his throat.

One of the most useful things about Esther was, although she could have done without all classical music, she didn't detest any particular work or composer more than the rest – certainly not the embittered way Gerald detested JS Bach and Copland. For instance, she would sit right through this concert and maintain a look of perfect interest, even appreciation: no bored-as-buggery shifting about on her chair, no get-lost-for-God's-sake coughing. And Vivaldi – she could spot a bit of almost tune in the piece of his they did. And then Elgar. Taking into account what composers could be like, she considered he kept things reasonably sane and genial in his stuff.

Gerald's main exposure came in a Paul Hindemith sonata. Esther did not find this intolerable, or even close to intolerable. She shouted ‘More!' at the end, although he hadn't pre-asked her to. He wouldn't, because that would empower her, as though calling the sommelier for another bottle. ‘More!' she yelled, and they replayed a bit of the Hindemith. Esther decided she could get used to Hindemith eventually if she stuck at it, which she might not, though.

At the end of the concert, Esther made her way down the hall to speak to Gerald and give him her production-line congratulations. ‘Precise, meticulous, yet by no means unimpassioned, Ger,' she said.

‘This is a balance I always seek.'

‘And find.'

‘Yet I ask myself, is music about mere balance?'

‘What answer do you get?'