Rough Treatment (15 page)

“I got in touch with a few security firms,” Millington continued, “to see if anyone knew what Fossey was into. Sounds as if what he does is chat people up, goes round their homes makes a lot of fuss about the need for a personalized system and more often than not brings in someone else to fit it up.”

“Taking his fee off the top.”

“Naturally.”

“Nice work if you can get it. And if the systems you’ve recommended don’t keep the bad boys out, more work is what you won’t get.”

“Agreed,” said Millington. “But what about the places he gets a good look at and where he isn’t taken on as consultant afterwards?”

“Can we check that out?”

“Difficult until I can get hold of Fossey, find a way of looking through his records. Supposing he keeps them.”

“Worth checking all the security firms, see what contact he’s had with them?”

Millington nodded. “I’ll get someone on it, sir. It’s 137 to 143 in Yellow Pages. Maybe Naylor when he’s through collating the stuff from the insurance companies.”

“And you’ll arrange to meet Fossey on his return?”

“Flight BA435. I’ll make sure he’s welcomed back.” Millington turned away. Patel was still hovering; Resnick pointed towards Divine, still half-listening to an interminable call. “Rees Stanley?”

“Right pissed off, sir. No snow. Came back two days early, like we said.”

Resnick acknowledged the information, beckoned Patel.

“I ran into the PC who went out to the Roy house, sir, the one who took Maria Roy’s statement.”

“Ran into him?”

“I made it seem that way, sir. I thought it was best.”

“And?”

“He thought there was something not quite right at the time. Tried to tell Inspector Harrison, but the inspector wasn’t interested. Told him to write up Mrs. Roy’s statement and forget about it.”

Grabianski had ejected the Roys’ holiday movie and removed it from Grice’s sight. Not that Grice would have bothered watching it a second time: all those goose pimples, all that sagging flesh was enough to give him the heaves. It was common knowledge that where sexual attraction was concerned, one man’s meat was another man’s poison, but what Grice had seen was enough to turn him vegetarian.

Grabianski, who had left that morning like the original good-humor man, was as sullen as a lovesick calf. Sapped. So much for the exchange of bodily fluids. He’d always known that Samson getting his hair cut was a symbol for something else.

“What did she think of the idea? I mean, d’you think she went for it?”

Grabianski really was in a bad way. He hadn’t as much as opened a bird book in hours.

“You pointed out to her the disadvantages of not paying up?”

“Yes,” said Grabianski without conviction.

“You had to be doing something all that time apart from … All right, okay, no offense. No need to get on a spike about it. I just need to be certain.”

“So be certain. I laid it out.” (Grice suppressed a snigger.) “As we planned. Street value of a kilo of cocaine is 24,000 and rising. Back in their hands for twenty, no questions either way.”

“What did she say?”

“I told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“They’ve got as much chance of raising 20,000 in forty-eight hours as England has of winning the next World Cup.”

“She’s a soccer fan?”

“All right, she didn’t say that, not exactly. It was what she meant.”

“Stick to what she said.”

“What she said was, I could sit here till hell freezes over before we could come up with that much money.”

“And what was your response to that? Aside from crossing yourself.”

“I didn’t cross myself.”

“Get to the point.”

“She reckons her husband is stupid for agreeing to hold the stuff in the first place. She says, right now he’s scared out of his wits, looking over his shoulder all the time, terrified the guy’s going to think he’s been double-crossed and come after him. Her Harold’s frightened this dealer’s going to cut his face, break both his legs, you name it, kill him.”

“How’s she feel about this?”

“Maria? She thinks it’s terrific. Especially the latter.”

“She wants her old man killed?”

“Slowly for preference, but she’d settle for a bullet in the back of the head.”

“Christ! What’s he done to her?”

“Recently? Not a lot.”

“Great! She wants him dead so’s you and her can waltz off into the sunset.”

Grabianski got up from where he was sitting and picked up his binoculars, walked to the living-room windows.

“Put those down and listen to me. It’s dark out there. All you can see are street lights and bathroom windows.” He touched Grabianski on the arm. “That’s it, isn’t it? An afternoon of shimi-sha-wobble and she’s packing a suitcase.” He pointed at Grabianski’s crotch. “What you got down there, anyway? A guided missile?”

“It’s not what you’ve got …” Grabianski began.

“I know,” finished Grice, “it’s what you do with it. Lectures on the joy of sex I can do without. Where I get most of mine, I just lay back and leave it all to massage lotion number nine. Like the masseuse, I’m more interested in the money.”

“She’ll tell him, try and get him to go along. She promised me that.”

“I’ll bet. Crossed her heart and hoped her beloved Harold would die.”

“No, she’ll tell him straight.”

“You think he’ll make an offer?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I’d offer twelve, wait for you to come back seventeen and a half, hope against hope to settle for fifteen. Then start to worry about finding it.”

“He can sell the car, talk to his bank manager, cash in an insurance policy, that’s what he can do,” Grabianski said. “I think he can find the fifteen.”

“I hope so. Sitting here with a kilo of cocaine isn’t good for my nerves.”

“You don’t have any.”

“Correction: didn’t.”

“Don’t worry. He’s half as scared as she says he is, he’ll pay up.”

Grice’s stomach made a low rumbling sound, like a bowling ball being rolled slowly along wooden boards.

Grabianski glanced over at the soup and sardines. “We going out to eat?”

“Later.”

“What’s wrong with now?”

“You’re not the only one with things to do.”

“Where this time? Studio Heaven or the Restless Palms?”

“I’ve got to see a man about some property.”

“Renting or buying?”

“Burgling.”

“Want me to come along?”

“Suit yourself.”

“I’ll leave it to you. Take a bath.”

“Okay. Why don’t you meet me in the Albany bar? We can have a couple of drinks, go up to the Carvery.”

“The drinks are fine. Let’s eat somewhere else.”

Grice shrugged: okay.

“What I really fancy,” said Grabianski, “is a good Chinese.”

Fourteen

There were two tramps who roamed the city, both of them big, belligerent men whose clothing flapped away in shreds and patches. When they cursed, most people looked the other way and laughed or tutted. Scarce a day he was on duty, Resnick didn’t pass either of them, both: so visible it was easy to think they were the only ones. Never mind the centers for the homeless, the hostels, bed-and-breakfast families in the disinfected smell of small hotels, the squats; the city council’s plans to build no council houses in the coming year. He tried to remember when he had first been stopped by a young man, hand out-thrust, begging—343 jobs in today’s paper, the placards had read. Why don’t you clean yourself up a bit, Resnick had thought, get yourself one of those? “Spare change,” the man had said. “Cup of tea.” Resnick had made the mistake of looking at his face, the eyes; he doubted if he had been eighteen. “Here.” A pound coin, small, into the cold of the young man’s palm. Now there were more of them, more each day. And still 343 jobs in the paper: audiotypists, VDU skills, computer operators, clerical assistants, lockstitch machinists (part-time).

He indicated, slowed, locked the car and left it at the curb. How many security firms had Millington said there were? Enough to fill half a dozen yellow pages. A lot of people with a lot to lock away, defend. Every Englishman’s right. Put it in bricks and mortar, wasn’t that the saying? Every Englishman’s home his castle. Lloyd Fossey with his electronic moats and drawbridges, television scanners, remote-control.

Safe as houses: another saying.

He turned the key in the lock and as he did so his breath caught and held. Someone was already inside the house.

Resnick stepped into the hall, soft; eased the door back against the jamb, not closed; the keys he slipped into his side pocket. Listening, he wondered what had alerted him, wondered if he had been wrong, imagination conjuring games for him to play. No. Water dripping on to plastic, the bowl in the kitchen sink, the washer he was always meaning to renew. Not that. Where were the cats who should have padded out to greet him, pushing their heads against his feet?

They were in the kitchen, four of them, heads dipped towards their bowls, feeding. What else would have kept them so occupied? Claire Millinder was wearing a different sweater, blue-gray with puffy white sheep grazing across it, the same short skirt over today’s mauve tights, same red boots. She stood watching the cats, can-opener in her hand.

“Hallo.”

The opener flew from her fingers as she turned, one bowl was kicked against another, milk spilt; Pepper jumped inside the nearest saucepan, Miles hissed and sprang on to the tiles beside the oven, Bud cowered in a corner while Dizzy, undeterred, finished his own portion and started on another.

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That was the idea.”

Claire stared at him, waiting for her breathing to steady back to normal. Give me his measurements and several hundred pounds, she thought, there’s a lot I could do for the way he looks.

“You thought I was a burglar,” she said.

“I thought you were my wife.”

Resnick coaxed Pepper out of hiding, nuzzled the scrawny Bud behind the ears, the animal’s heart still pumping against its delicate ribs; he dropped handfuls of beans into the coffee-grinder, shiny and dark.

“You’re at home here, aren’t you?”

“This house?”

“The kitchen.”

Resnick took two-thirds of a rye loaf from inside a plastic bag, margarine from the refrigerator. “How about a sandwich?”

“Most men I’ve come across, even the ones who are good at it, good cooks, they never seem really comfortable with what they’re doing. Like it’s some kind of challenge. All those ingredients lined up in order to use; lists of times stuck over the cooker like something from an organization-and-methods seminar.” Claire shook her head dismissively. “It’s not natural.”

“A sandwich?”

“Sure.”

Sandwiches, in Claire Millinder’s experience, were neat slices of wholemeal bread pressed around cheese rectangles or turkey breast, augmentations of tasteless salad and a smear of low-calorie mayonnaise. For Resnick, they were more satisfying on every level: two major ingredients whose flavors were contrasting but complementary, sharp and soft, sweet and sour, a mustard or chutney to bind them, but with the taste all its own, finally a fruit, unforced tomato, thin slices of Cox or Granny Smith.

“May I use your phone?”

“Through there and on the left, help yourself.”

She was finishing the call when Resnick came into the room, two mugs in one hand, plates balanced on the other.

“God! When you said a sandwich, I wasn’t expecting …”

“Here, can you take one of these?”

“Okay, got it.”

“You don’t have to eat it all, you know.”

“No, that’s all right. It looks wonderful.” She eased back into the armchair. “Good job I just canceled my dinner date.”

Resnick looked at her curiously. Tarragon mustard was about to drip over the edge of the plate and automatically he caught it on his finger and placed it on his tongue.

“Steak or scampi with a feller from a building society. All he’ll want to do is talk mortgages and try and smile his way inside my pants. I’m glad for an excuse to be out of it. But not them.”

That’s what I am, thought Resnick: an excuse.

“Sorry.” She tried the coffee. “I didn’t shock you?”

“No.”

“A lot of men, they don’t like women to be outspoken.”

“The same men who cook by numbers?”

She gave him a warm, crooked-toothed smile. “I’ve been mixing with the wrong types, obviously. It’s the job that I do. Everyone expects a commission on everything. It’s all a hustle. No percentage: no sale.”

A car alarm went off somewhere down the street. Miles came across the carpet to sniff the leather of Claire Millinder’s boots and went on his way, disapprovingly. When Rachel had sat there, Resnick remembered, the cats had jumped up into her lap and purred.

“Look, you didn’t mind? I mean, it’s a bit of a cheek, I know …”

“As long as you were here …”

“Not feeding your cats, I didn’t mean that. I meant my still being here when you came home. I should have left with my clients, made sure the house was locked behind me.” She set down her plate on the arm of the chair, crossed one leg over another. “I wanted to snatch some time to myself. I don’t know, it felt good here, sort of … the place I’m living, three or four years old, one of those studio apartments where the bed folds back into the wall and there isn’t room to swing … well, you know what I mean. This is different, a bit shabby, but it’s large, lived-in. You feel that things have happened here.”

With the outside of his shoe, he pushed at the nursery door. Something stopped it and it would open no further.

“That’s it,” Claire repeated, “lived-in.”

Resnick glanced at the phone, willing it to ring. One half of Claire’s sandwich remained untouched. He got up and moved towards the stacks of records. “I’ll put on some music.”

“No. No, don’t”

“Sorry, I thought …”

“I’d rather talk.”

He looked down at her, the crossing and re-crossing of legs, the smile, a little uncertain now. “I think I’d rather not.”

Claire drew a slow breath, lowered her head. For some moments neither of them moved and then, with a nervous laugh, she got to her feet.

“Funny, isn’t it?”