Heaven's Light (11 page)

‘Fucking kids.’ He shook his head. ‘What’s your game, then?’

Barnaby was looking into the room behind him. A new-looking computer stood on a battered desk. Beside it, a half-empty bottle of Seven-Up.

‘Just curious,’ Barnaby said mildly. ‘That’s all.’

‘
Curious
? In here?’ The man stepped closer. ‘Nobody’s just curious. You’ve come for a reason. Everybody does. This isn’t a fucking arcade, open to fucking anyone.’

‘No,’ Barnaby said. ‘Obviously not.’

‘So who are you, then?’ Barnaby could see him eyeing the suit, the polished Guccis, the quietly flamboyant tie. ‘DSS? Fucking benefits mob again?’

‘Again?’ Barnaby stepped back a little, giving himself a better angle on the room through the half-open door.
Above the desk, beside a
Sunday Sport
calendar, was a wooden board with rows and rows of keys on little hooks. On the other side of the desk, on the floor, stood a small black safe. He could hear movement in the room now, a strange scuffling noise followed by a series of whimpers, and he raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Dog,’ the man in the shell suit said gruffly. ‘Big fucker. So what’s all this to you, then?’

‘I told you, I’m curious. I used to come here as a kid.’

‘Yeah?’

‘When it was … you know … a proper hotel.’

‘I bet. Fuck knows, it must have been handsome in them days.’ His face was very close now. He had a neatly trimmed beard and a single gold earring. He waved at the room behind him. ‘I’ve got pictures in there you wouldn’t believe. The olden times. Stuff we found when we moved in.’

‘You live here?’

‘I fucking own it.’

‘Mr Seggins?’

‘Yeah.’ He was frowning now. ‘You
are
DSS.’

‘Not at all. I’m a lawyer,’ Barnaby said. ‘I suspect we may be doing business. Does a Dr Zhu ring any bells?’

Seggins’s frown deepened. Then his hand went to his face and rubbed the pouchy skin beneath one eye, a gesture of infinite weariness.

‘Fuck me,’ he muttered, stepping back into the office. ‘The little bastard must have meant it.’

Jessie lay in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling. The bowl of oxtail soup was cooling on her mother’s lap but she shook her head again at the spoon.

‘Jess, you’ll make yourself ill, not eating.’

‘I can’t eat.’

‘You have to eat, darling. Just a mouthful or two. I’m not nagging, I promise.’

Jessie looked across at her, trying to muster a smile. They’d been back home for an hour now and the pains, if anything, were worse. Her belly churned, her bones ached, her head throbbed, and through the thin nightdress, already drenched with sweat, she could feel every wrinkle on the mattress underneath. She lay back, exhausted, regretting the strength she’d shown earlier. Haagen had scored enough for both of them. Had she said yes, had she been sensible, she could have avoided all this. No pain, no torment, just another fat dose of oblivion.

Liz was trying again with the soup, tasting it herself the way she’d done when Jessie was a kid, and Jessie watched her from what seemed to be an immense distance, deeply sympathetic. Her mum didn’t deserve any of this. She didn’t deserve a shit-filled, skagged-out daughter. She didn’t deserve the grief and hassle of not knowing what to do. Jessie tried to smile again, reaching for her mother’s hand, an expression of solidarity, and she felt the soft, ringed fingers tightening around hers. Their eyes met for a second, long enough for Jessie to begin to compose a list in her mind. Names of pubs. Names of dealers. Clues to places where, God willing, she might just score the tiny twist of brown powder that would bring all the hurting to an end. Maybe Liz cared enough to run her down to Albert Road. Maybe she could lend her the fifteen quid she needed. Maybe she’d wait across the street in the car, ready with the spoon and the lighter and something to tie around her arm. Then she’d see what it was really all about. Then she’d understand.

She got up on one elbow, a sudden clumsy movement,
upsetting the bowl of soup on her mother’s lap. While Liz ran to the bathroom to hunt for a J-cloth, she got out of bed and threw off the nightdress. Shaking the creases out of her dungarees, she began to climb in, reaching over her shoulder for one of the straps, fumbling blindly with the fastener. She was still wrestling with the other strap when her mother returned. She was standing in the open doorway. She had a flannel in her hand.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ve got to go out. You can come too.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Out, I just told you.’

‘But why?’

‘Because I have to. Because …’

Jessie looked at her mother, pleading, knowing already that it was going to be tough. Abandoning the strap, she searched half-heartedly for her Doc Martens then shook her head, cursing, tormented again by the pain of it all. From Old Portsmouth to Albert Road was twenty minutes on foot. She’d find the money somehow. Borrow it, maybe. Or do a deal with one of those understanding American sailors. They were everywhere. Haagen had been chatting them up all weekend. The black ones were the nicest. They practically invented the stuff. Her mother was still blocking the doorway. ‘You’re not going out,’ Jessie heard her say. ‘You’re staying here.’

‘I have to go out.’

‘No.’

‘Please, please,’ she tried again, screaming to get the word out in one piece. ‘
PLEASE
.’

Liz stepped into the room and Jessie watched the blow coming in slow motion, the palm of her mother’s hand opening as it swung towards her, the meaty smack of flesh
on flesh. Her fingers found her cheek. Her cheek felt hot to the touch. She began to rub it wonderingly. Then her mother’s grip, stronger than she ever remembered, was lifting her bodily backwards, pushing her onto the bed, tearing at the dungarees. She closed her eyes, resigned, helpless, half aware of the rough tug of denim on her bare skin. She could hear her mother grunting with the physical effort and then, quite suddenly, the dungarees were off and she was naked on the damp sheet, her knees drawn up, her back turned. She began to shiver again, her nose inches from the Doors poster she’d Blu-tacked to the wall all those months ago, and she wondered vaguely what had happened to Haagen, whether he was dead or not, whether she really cared. Of course she cared. Of course she did. Haagen would have stopped the pain by now. Because Haagen knew.

She rolled over onto her back, letting her mother tuck the blankets around her, grimly submitting to the busy hands. Outside, at the window, it was still daylight and a phrase drifted back to her, newly minted from her childhood.

‘Is Daddy back yet?’ she muttered. ‘Is Daddy home?’

Hayden Barnaby walked the last fifty yards to Kate Frankham’s house. The terrace was deeply shadowed in the last of the sunshine but the wind had dropped now and the air was warm. He ran up the steps to the front door, turning to watch a couple of kids playing football while he waited for an answer to his knock. At length he heard footsteps along the hall and he spun round in time to see the grin on Kate’s face as she opened the door.

She reached up, utterly natural, kissing him on the lips.

‘You,’ she said. ‘Nice surprise.’

She stood to one side and Barnaby stepped into the narrow hall, letting the smell of the place envelop him. Sunshine and flowers, he thought, and the scent of something herby from the kitchen upstairs. He looked round. Everything had changed. Different paint scheme. Different pictures on the wall. He paused by a framed poster of Barcelona. It showed a heavily ornamented building climbing into a vivid blue sky. He ran his fingers over the extravagant rococo detail.

‘Gaudi,’ he murmured. ‘Bloody wonderful.’

Kate dug him in the ribs, propelling him up the stairs, and he grinned back at her. She said she’d been brushing up her Spanish at night school. The classes were the high spot of her week.

‘In here?’

Barnaby was at the door next to the kitchen. Kate had always done most of her living in the big room at the back of the house. It was full of the favourite pieces she’d rescued from her marriage: a big old leather armchair, a couple of pine bookcases, a beautiful Indian rug and an ancient upright piano. The room looked south, over a tiny walled garden, and in the evenings there was a grandstand view of the setting sun.

Now she reached past him, opening the door, apologizing for the state of the place. She’d been out counselling clients. She hadn’t expected anyone round. Living alone turned you into a slut.

Barnaby was standing by the bow window. The sunset was perfect. Kate knelt quickly at his feet, tidying the litter of papers on the rug. A skinny black cat yawned and arched its back as Barnaby reached towards it.

‘Hey, remember me?’

The cat studied him from a distance. Kate was on her feet again.

‘I owe you a big thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you cracked it but I’m really very grateful. I mean it.’

Barnaby dismissed her thanks with a smile. The meeting with Wilcox already belonged to another life.

‘Everything OK?’ he enquired.

‘Better than OK I’ve got mates on that bloody paper, believe it or not. One of them phoned tonight. She tells me the story’s off the computer. Dead in the water. Sunk without trace.’

‘Is that the end of it?’

‘She says yes. She’s made some enquiries and it’s definitely been spiked.’

‘What about…’ Barnaby was still looking at the cat ‘… our young friend? In hospital?’

‘I sent him some flowers. She gave me his name.’

‘Flowers?’ Barnaby laughed. ‘What on earth did you say?’

‘Nothing. I sent them from an admirer.’

‘How old-fashioned.’

‘How cowardly, you mean. Still,’ she frowned, ‘it wasn’t me who put him there.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

Barnaby let the sentence hang in the air between them. He’d come to clear up one or two things. By far the most important was Billy Goodman. ‘It’s none of my business …’ he began.

Kate shook her head. She was barefoot and wearing tracksuit bottoms and a loose singlet. She tilted her face up to Barnaby’s. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘It is your business. I’ve made it your business by being pushy enough to beg
a favour. I’m only sorry you had to waste your time like that.’

‘It wasn’t time wasted. Talking to Harry is never time wasted.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly.’

Kate nodded, stepping back into the pool of yellow sunlight beside the window. ‘So what did you say? As a matter of interest?’

‘I said you were a friend of mine. I said I didn’t want to see you hurt.’

‘You said that?’ She sounded surprised.

‘Yes.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said that you and this Billy were shacked up together, living here, more or less full time.’

‘That’s not true. Actually, it was never true, not that it’s any of his business.’

Barnaby smiled, looking down at her. She was naked under the singlet, and he could smell the lemony gel she used in the shower.

‘So tell me about Billy.’

‘Nothing to tell. He’s gone.’

‘It’s over?’

‘Yes, very much over. His doing as well as mine. I can be a cow sometimes. As I’m sure you remember.’

Barnaby knew it was true. ‘Harry said something else as well. He said you’d applied for some kind of conservation grant.’

‘He’s right. We all did. The whole terrace. Is that illegal? Wanting to make the place look nice?’

‘No, but he also said the grant had to go through your committee.’

‘And I didn’t declare an interest?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s bullshit.’ She turned away, staring out of the window, visibly angered. ‘Why don’t these bloody people ever check their facts? Why do they always believe the first bit of gossip they hear?’

‘You’re saying it’s not true?’

‘Too right it’s not true. Of course the grants go through committee. Everyone knows that. But this particular application was tabled last spring.’

‘Before you were chair?’

‘Before I was even a bloody councillor.’ She pulled at a lock of hair. ‘Can I sue? Mr Lawyer?’

‘Only if they print.’

‘Would it be worth it?’

‘Definitely.’

‘And will you represent me? Get a result?’

‘No question.’

‘Usual fee?’ She glanced round at him, the grin back on her face. ‘Or are we talking money?’

She gazed at him a moment then put a playful finger to his lips, buttoning his mouth. Seconds later she was in the kitchen, throwing open the hatch between the two rooms.

‘You want to be careful,’ she said. ‘I’m a single woman. Single women can be dangerous.’

‘I know. I remember.’

‘Yeah, and so do I. You brought me lots of grief, Mr Lawyer, but you’re still a nice man and I owe you anyway.’

‘What does that mean?’

Kate didn’t answer. Barnaby heard the fridge door open and close and then she was back again, showing him a bottle of white wine. ‘It’s Chablis,’ she said. ‘I was going to drop it in tomorrow but since you’re here …’

Barnaby stayed until nearly eleven. The first bottle led to another and over the second they shared a big bowl of pasta with a tomato and courgette sauce, sitting on the floor in the little bay window, balancing the plates on their laps.

Barnaby did most of the talking, his jacket off and his head back against the wood-panelled wall. He told her about Raymond Zhu, his last client of the afternoon, the big fat windfall that had dropped so unexpectedly into his lap. He sensed, he said, that the man had serious money and serious ambitions. The deal he’d struck for the Imperial was beyond belief. If he applied the same talent to other acquisitions, the prospects were virtually limitless.

‘Prospects for what?’ Kate asked.

‘Success. Money.’

‘And you want to be part of that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why?’

Barnaby smiled. One of Kate’s many gifts was the ability to phrase the perfect question and to know exactly when to ask it. It was doubtless the talent that had taken her to stress counselling, and given her the basis for a surprisingly good living.

‘Why?’ he repeated. ‘Why do I want to be successful?’

‘No. Why do you want to be rich?’