The City Trap (3 page)

‘So, Jerry, you want to know what happened?’

Since waking, in the back of his mind Jerry had been wondering and hoping that last night had been a flop for Mary. Now she was looking at him as friend and confidant and he was forced to brace
himself.

‘You know, with that guy last night?’

‘Oh, yeh . . . the one with the f-finger m-missing.’

‘Weird and a turn-on. I know he did look a bit slimy but we kind of hit it off.’

Jerry clamped his lips together and tried to look unmoved.

‘His name was Ross, said he sold cars.’ Mary grimaced. ‘
That
was a turn-off.’

‘S-So what h-happened?’

‘You know. I mean, why am I telling you?’

‘The g-geezer stayed the n-night?’

Jerry’s heart plummeted and squirmed with jealousy. He struggled to hide it.

‘See what you miss when you get up late?’

‘S-So,’ Jerry managed to gulp, ‘h-how, how was it?’

‘Interesting. You should’ve heard what he said about his finger.’

‘I – I c-can imagine.’

‘But it wasn’t that good. To tell the truth, at the end of it, he seemed more interested in my darkroom than me, and kept asking if I took dirty pictures.’

‘You said he looked s-slimy.’ Jerry began to feel relieved.

‘Yeh, one down to experience I reckon.’

Mary went back to washing up while Jerry struggled to settle his feelings.
Ponytailed little ponce! Slime bag!
But then he remembered the eyes, the cold little eyes that had sent him
running and he shivered.
Mary, those careless risks she took
. . .

* * *

It was all laid out there in front of him. A pile of beer cans on the living-room floor, overflowing ashtrays and a few roaches stubbed out in a plant pot. The kitchen told the same
story, only this time a bottle of Scotch lorded it above the crumpled balls of paper on the floor. Des stood in the doorway and could feel the pull. The ‘big wallow’ that grinned and
whispered seductively,
Come on, man, sit down and let’s binge
. He did his best at self-control, grabbed a bin bag and flung the mess of the night’s turmoil into it. Outside, the
garbage got squashed satisfyingly into an already full bin. Cautiously, Des breathed in cool air, wondering whether this could be his fresh start. He wiped rain off a plastic chair, sat down and
got out the local newspaper.

The headline on the front page was briefly intriguing. The body of a naked woman, possibly a prostitute, had been found in a lay-by five miles outside the city. Reference was made to the fact
that several others had been found in similar circumstances over the past two years. Des was interested in that. One of the bodies previously found was that of a whore who’d lived just down
the road and at the time he’d put out feelers to see if it could bring him some work. This woman had had no friends or adult relatives, though. Just a five-year-old girl left in the worst of
lurches. Des sighed; he was in the wrong neighbourhood, close to the wrong clientele. He threw the newspaper down. The patio seemed dismal and empty. He stared at the grime on the paving stones and
took a wary look at an insipid sky.

The colour caught his eye first. A hint of red amid the dreary backs of the houses. Des turned his head and saw it properly. A red balloon was bouncing down from his roof. Slowly it drifted and,
catching a current of air from the entry, it suddenly flung itself forwards and landed at Des’s feet. Des smiled slightly at the surprise, but then felt a stab of resentment at the intrusion
and kicked out. A square of polythene was attached to the balloon. Des picked it up. On one side of the square he read:
Open me. I want to be let out! Please!!!!!

Des carefully unstuck the sellotape at the side and drew out a pink card. More writing:
From the mystry? Who loves you and is ready for it – sex. This is from Lisa. I love you. I live
at 108 Kingsvale Tower
.

Des stared at the message. He looked back up at the blanket of clouds. It was then that the ache began to return, that thwarted hunger as chillingly tangible as the need for food.

It took some time to find the
A–Z
, such was the mess of his house. He began to flick through the pages. He must’ve been up that way when he was taxi-driving.
But that was then, when he was with Miranda. Now the lines and letters were just a blur. The map book to the city had a random index and false reference codes. But Kingsvale Tower did exist. The
name finally pointed itself out of the confusion and Des realized that a westerly wind must have brought the balloon two miles through the polluted air. He pondered. Was this luck or just a hoax
from a silly girl? Could it be a real message from a lusting damsel locked up high in a tower? Could this be his escape from the claws that dug into him? Des closed the
A–Z
, put it in
his back pocket and went to the phone.

‘Is Rebecca there, please?’

‘Sorry, she hasn’t been in work for a couple of days.’

Des smiled with relief. ‘Could you tell her Mr McGinlay rang, yeh?’

‘Certainly.’

Des grabbed his coat and hurried to the front door. As he opened it, two burly policemen stopped and stared at him. One had a scar that halved his nose.

4

The cop with the scar-spliced nose leaned over towards Des and snarled. You could tell he’d had his fair share of abuse about his deformity and toughed it out. In fact,
he wore it with pride.

‘Look, when Miranda said “shove it”, she didn’t mean shove a house brick through the windscreen of her car!’

‘But, I didn’t . . . I don’t –’

‘Were you out last night?’

‘In most of the time though I did go for a bit of a walk.’

‘Pissed, were you?’

‘I suppose I was a –’

‘Stoned?’

‘You don’t expect me to –’

‘Yeh, too bloody high to know it. Too red with rage to care.’

‘Come on, she lives six miles from me. You think I’d walk there and back, twelve miles in the pouring rain, just to smash a car window?’

‘She’s a tasty bird, Miranda. You must be pretty sick at losing her.’

‘And smashing her car will help me get her back?’

‘It was a cry from the heart, attention-seeking; and you got it too. Miranda clocked you, mate.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe I did do it. But if I did, it was a mistake. I was pissed and –’

‘That’s no defence.’

‘Oh sod it, man. Miranda won’t press charges anyway.’

The cop ceased to flaunt his disfigurement. He eased back in his chair and allowed an indulgent smile to soften his mean interrogator’s face.

‘Well, if you did do it, and Miranda does press charges, then you’re in deep shit, aren’t you?’

‘What you mean?’

‘This Mickey Mouse licence of yours, “private investigator”. Business good, is it?’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Oh yeh? Well, mate, your days of snooping on unfaithful wives could be over. Mickey Mouses ain’t supposed to have criminal records.’

‘Ha bloody ha.’

‘So, we’d better get the charge sheet filled out, and a statement written down.’

* * *

There comes a time, in the stages of splitting up, when lost love becomes hate. When all those yearning touchstones of desire are turned on their head and become foul urges to
destroy. As he walked out of the police station, Des got a sense of that, like a sudden spurt of acid through his veins. But, valiantly, he clung to hope and dived for the first phone box he
found.

‘Is Miranda there, please?’

‘It is me.’

‘Yeh? Well this is Des, I’ve just got out of the cop shop!’

‘You mean they haven’t locked you up?’

‘Come on, Miranda. I was pissed and angry.’

‘I don’t want you harassing me. I don’t want you anywhere near me!’

‘Look, I’ll pay for the windscreen and everything.’

‘I don’t want this phone call, Des.’

‘You’re not really going to press charges, are you?’

‘Oh yes I bloody well am! I’d press for the death penalty if I had the chance, anything to get you out of my hair.’

‘Jesus, you don’t have to be such a shit. I could lose my PI licence and be stuck down the Fedora for the rest of my life.’

‘Look, Des, I’m sorry, but it is over, and your day in court will hopefully make it plain to you that it is finally and totally finished. So please, just get off the phone and get on
with your own life.’

Des stared at the silent mouthpiece and the streaks of grime around its rim. He sensed something within him that was becoming familiar. A draining away inside, a feeling that the ground beneath
his feet was turning liquid.

‘I’ve got to do something!’

Des dashed up the road, clambered into his rusty old Lancia and sped off.

He knew where he was going but didn’t want to admit it to himself. Instead, he began to wonder whether he would lose his licence and whether or not it was worth having anyway. Business was
barely ticking over. He hadn’t actually been properly paid since he’d sorted out Calvin Westmoreland, the guy with the gammy leg who’d ripped off Sister Bethany’s savings.
True, he did have a case on the go, if only he could get round to working on it.

‘I’m sure my husband is having an affair, Mr McGinlay, and I just need the proof. And if he is, I’m going to get a divorce. I’m going to bleed the rotten bugger
dry!’

Fine. Posh Rebecca had the means and Des was keen to provide the ammunition. But Rebecca’s prospective ex proved to be slippery as well as rotten and Des had yet to get conclusive
proof.

‘What am I paying you for, Mr McGinlay?’

‘I’m sorry, but your husband plans his shagging like he’s a frigging spook in the Kremlin.’

‘You have two weeks or I go elsewhere!’

‘I’ll do it,’ Des grumbled to himself. ‘Miranda may have stabbed me in the back and left me writhing, but I’ll bleeding well do it.’

That was a week ago and Des had barely been sober since.

* * *

Night was falling fast around the Kings Road Estate. Already towerblocks were dark monoliths, and menacing stars were piercing the clear sky. Des shivered in the exposed grass
spaces he roamed across. The towers, as their lights came on, began to seem almost homely. Kingswood, Kingsriver, Kingsacre (renamed Kingsarse by some local hood) and then, finally, Kingsvale. Des
clutched his little pink card and looked up. No desperate face at the window, no balloon escaping to the stars, but Des chose to remain optimistic and blind.

Empty corridors and landings. Resolutely closed doors. There’s something ferociously hostile about a towerblock, as though when entering you defile the dead or taunt their living, ghostly
spirits. Des had always hated towerblock calls when he drove his taxi. Standing on a cold landing late at night, hearing dogs growl, feeling eyes at spyholes, screams and laughter echoing down the
pipes. He almost chickened out as the lift shuddered open at Kingsvale Tower, but he doggedly took the plunge. Maybe it was a stupid waste of time or maybe a sniff of adventure, but it was
something that took him away from
her
. Des stood outside number 108, took a deep breath and rang the bell.

She could’ve been sixteen, Des thought, perhaps even seventeen. It was hard to tell, the way young girls bloom. She could’ve been twelve.

‘Yes? What d’you want?’

‘Hi there. Your name Lisa?’

‘Who’s askin?’

Whatever her age, the young lady had all the components of a perfectly formed body; and she’d made the effort to let the world know this by wearing a dress that clung to her like a coating
of smooth, erotic moss.

‘Well, hope you don’t mind but . . .’

‘Yes?’

Lisa – this girl was surely her – was beginning to retreat from the door. She had a pretty face but her lips were sulky and there was hardness in her eyes.

‘I reckoned it was a good idea, this card. Literally out of the blue. Risky, yes. Crazy, but . . . you know, nice. Like the lottery, seeing what comes up – me.’ Des tried a
charm smile but he was fast realizing that perhaps Lisa didn’t quite appreciate him turning up. He suddenly noticed a picture of a blue Madonna hanging like a warning sign in the hallway.

‘Oh my God! Jesus! Look, you just get –’

‘The name’s Des – I was wondering, why don’t we throw caution to the winds and meet up some time?’

‘It was a joke, you daft –’

As Lisa began to hiss and close the door, Des saw a man’s face peer into the hall. A father’s face, no doubt, large and stern-looking.

‘What’s going on, Lisa? Who is that?’

‘Dunno, Dad,’ Lisa called back and then turned to Des. ‘Just piss off, will you?’

‘You don’t reckon, huh?’

‘It’s not one of your boyfriends sniffing around, is it?’

‘No, Dad, it’s some stranger. But – he’s talking dirty, Dad, bout me.’

‘What?’

Des caught her malicious little smile before the extent of his own stupidity hit him like a punch in the gut. Seeing a burly father come down the hall towards him, he backed away, looking for a
hole to jump into.

‘Let me see this bloke.’

‘I – I think he’s a bit funny, Dad.’

Des took one more step back, hit a wall and then realized that the only honourable thing to do was run. The door to 108 was flung open as Des frantically rushed to the stairs.

‘Is that the bleeder?’

‘Yeh, I think he’s one of them perverts.’

‘Eh, you, come here!’

Des pushed through the stairwell doors, footsteps pounding behind him. The rest was madness. Zigzagging pell-mell down ten sets of stairs. His steps echoing, and heavier, more menacing footsteps
close behind. And then the shouts, the raucous shouts that seemed to fill the whole tower, bringing blunt shafts of embarrassment to Des’s ears.

‘Just let me get you! . . . Fuckin perverts should be trashed! . . . Gonna beat the livin shits outa you! . . . Bastaaard!!’

* * *

Vin St James sat down beside a clump of rosebay willowherb and thought about being a suspect for murder. He felt calm enough. He hadn’t done the deed but he knew that
didn’t count for much if a sucker was needed. Vin knew he was sitting pretty for that, a dumb-arse black pimp would do fine if the real killer couldn’t be found. There was a lot to
think about and the patch of wasteground wedged between two canals and a factory yard was the only place he could go to think. It was his place and the ganja plants that gracefully swayed in the
darkness were his winter supply. Vin took out his knife and stabbed at the ground.