Wasted Years (30 page)

Rose pushed her hands down into her apron and sucked her top plate back against the roof of her mouth. “I’ll have to make one or two calls. You come back here in an hour or two.”

Resnick and Millington were in Skelton’s office. The elements had decided to turn the screw a little and after an oddly humid, muggy morning, rain was now rattling the window panes.

“What degree of involvement are we talking about here?” Skelton asked. He was standing with his back to the weather, the industrial landscape beyond his shoulders disappearing into mist. “How actively involved are we saying Rains might be? Is he planning these robberies? Difficult if he’s spending more time out of the country than in. Are we meant to assume he’s actually taking part? What?”

Resnick looked over at Graham Milhington.

“Er, afraid he’s not too clear as yet …”

“Your informant?”

“Yes, sir. So far he’s not gone into a lot of detail.”

“You think he might?”

Millington took his time in answering, “It’s possible, sir.”

“So, presumably, is the supposition that since you were pushing him hard for a name, he pulled one out of the hat? One he knew it would be difficult for us to check.”

Millington fidgeted on his chair. “Yes, sir. It could be, only …”

“This informant,” Skelton said, “you’ve used him before?”

“Once or twice.”

“And the quality of the information?”

Millington shrugged. “Fair to middling, I suppose you’d say.”

Skelton resumed his seat. “I’d prefer to say something a lot more positive than that, Graham, if I’m to stand behind this as a new line of inquiry.”

What had started out as a cracking day, Millington thought, was losing its sparkle by the minute.

“What happens if we haul him in, this bloke?” Resnick asked. “Lean on him?”

“Might yield something. Then again, might send him back into his shell.”

All three men fell silent and there were only the muted footfalls from other parts of the building, the hiccup of telephones, and the swirling beat of the rain.

“The original investigation, Charlie,” Skelton was moving paper clips around his desk blotter with the precision of a war room general, “when Prior and Churchill were brought to book, let me see if I’m remembering straight. A lot of the preparation of evidence for the DPP, testimony and the like, Rains was responsible for that.”

Resnick nodded. It had been Rains who had come up with the dates and places that had shaken Prior’s alibi; Rains who had dramatically produced details of planning meetings that had taken place in Prior’s house.

“And his connection with Churchill? Enough to imagine some kind of relationship might have been formed between them then?”

“Rains visited Churchill a number of times in prison, when he was on parole. That was when Churchill agreed to corroborate allegations that were still pretty much up in the air.”

“And bought himself a light sentence in return.”

Resnick nodded. Six years to Prior’s fifteen, released after less than three. Yes, Churchill had good reason to think cooperating with Rains was beneficial. Question was, how far had that benefit become mutual?

Skelton was on his feet again, pacing the room. Resnick responded to Millington’s wordless question with a light shrug of the shoulders and a quick sigh.

“You knew him, Charlie. Rains. Worked with him. You were a lot closer to him at the time than either Graham or I. Serious armed robbery—do you see him being involved in that?”

Resnick leaned forward in his chair. “The thing about Rains, one above all others, he was never afraid of pushing hard where others—myself included—would tend to hang back. No matter what else, I always had a grudging sort of respect for that.” Resnick sat back. “About the only thing I did have respect for. Find a weakness, use people, dump them—that was Rains.”

“So if he’s yet to dump Churchill?”

“He’s still using him.”

“And robbery, heavily armed,” Skelton probed, “he’d have no compunction about that?”

“If ever he reckoned the gains worth the risk, I don’t think the thing’s been invented Rains’d have one pennyworth of compunction about.”

The rain drummed and drummed and Skelton rested his head against the upturned fingers of his hand. Millington, sensing the way the wind was turning, allowed himself the beginnings of a smile.

“Okay,” Skelton said, hands now flat on his desk, “Graham, lean on this informant of yours just as far as you think you safely can, your own judgement. Meantime, we’ll chase Churchill up on the computer, last known addresses, whatever we can. Contact Interpol and the Spanish police and see if they can locate Rains, be nice to know where he is. If he’s been traveling here regularly it’s possible he’s been using an assumed name, in which case it might be the one he’s living under over there. Divine’s been checking the flight manifests for this French caper of his, much of the information we want should either be on file, or, better still, on disk.” He looked from one to the other. “Gentlemen, let’s keep this pretty much to ourselves for the time being, but meantime why don’t we run with it as far as we can?”

Both Resnick and Millington got to their feet and turned to leave.

“Graham,” Skelton said, calling him back. “Good work. Much more of this, we’ll run out of excuses to keep you where you are.”

Millington was so chuffed, he came close to colliding with the door on the way out.

Forty-Five

When Darren had arrived back at the shop, Rose told him he would have to wait a couple of days. Darren couldn’t believe it. No wonder private enterprise was going to the dogs if you couldn’t get hold of a shooter without going through a lot of red tape and standing in line. It was nearly as bad as signing on for the dole.

“No,” he’d said. “No way. Not two days. I want it now.”

“Fine,” Rose had said, “there’s somewhere else you can get the same, good luck to you.”

But Darren didn’t know anywhere else.

“Look,” Rose said, lowering her voice to avoid being overheard by a couple who were mulling over the purchase of a gas fire. “Look, don’t be a stupid boy. What’s so important it has to be done the next couple of days? Eh? Someone’s slipping your girl friend a little something on the side and you want to catch them at it, don’t you think he’s still going to be the day after tomorrow? There’s a post office you’ve got your eye on, a betting shop perhaps, it’ll still be there, believe me.”

Darren felt like whacking her around the head for suggesting that he was stupid, but she patted him on the arm as if he were a recalcitrant child. “You come by, oh, not too early, eleven, eleven-thirty, I’ll have it all arranged. Okay?”

Darren had grunted that it was okay.

“Good boy!” And she patted his trouser pocket with a laugh. “You keep tight hold of it now. Don’t go spending it on all the wrong things.”

Now Darren was waiting on a patch of disused land close by the canal, across from a disused warehouse from which the letters spelling out British Waterways were steadily peeling. Pigeons bunched on the sills of broken windows, launching themselves without warning into sudden flumes of flight. Darren tightened his hand around the iron bar beneath his jacket for comfort. Half-ten the meeting had been set for and his watch had passed that nearly fifteen minutes ago.

Not far from his feet the water lapped gently and above his head the moon slipped in and out of cloud. If Rose was setting him up, he’d go back to the shop and turn her face to mush.

Even as he had that thought he heard the car engine slowing on the road, the crunch of gravel as it turned towards him. A moment later he was caught in the uneven circle of dipped headlights and the car was slurring to a halt.

One man was black, the other white. Lethal weapon’s right, Darren thought with a nervous grin. Wearing short jackets and jeans, one with Converse basketball boots, the other tan deck shoes, neither of them looked that much older than he was himself.

“Got the money?” the white bloke asked.

Darren nodded: yes.

“Show.”

Darren had a fleeting thought that they were going to mug him and drive off, pitch
him
into the canal.

“I’ve got it,” Darren said, “you don’t have to worry.”

“Okay,” the young black man said, turning back towards the car, “we wasting our time.”

“No.” Darren lifted the roll of notes from his pocket and held it for them to see.

The men exchanged looks and made their decision. The boot of the car was unlocked and snapped open. Resting on the spare wheel was a canvas duffle bag and it was this that the black man unfastened and reached inside.

There were two guns in thick polythene, bound at each end with wide brown tape. The tape was prized loose from one end and pulled back, the weapons shaken out onto the bag.

“Pistols, right? That’s what you said?”

“Yeh.”

“Okay, this one …” lifting it for inspection “ … Browning. Like new, hardly been fired. Well good. This—PPK, nothing better. Here, cop a feel.”

Darren took first one, then the other weapon into his hand; they felt alien, cold, heavier than he’d expected. He didn’t want them to know this was his first time, but there was no way they couldn’t tell and their eyes found each other in the dark and shared their amusement at his expense. The white man lit a cigarette and the smoke from it showed light upon the air.

Darren liked the heft of the PPK in the palm of his hand. “How much?”

“Seven hundred.”

“You’re joking.”

The black one held out his hand for the pistol. “Joking,” his companion said, “not something we do a lot of.”

The PPK was replaced carefully inside its polythene sheath.

“The other one, then,” Darren said. “What was it? Browning, yeh. How much for that? That can’t be as much, right?”

The pistols were already out of sight.

“What we were told,” closing the boot, “you were serious. Must’ve been a mistake.”

“Six hundred,” Darren blurted. “I can manage six hundred.”

The white man in the deck shoes had the driver’s door open. “Six and a half.”

“Ammunition. I’m going to need …”

“Half a dozen shells.” He was back in front of Darren, holding out his hand. Behind him, the boot door popped up and the duffle bag reappeared.

“You won’t regret it,” the man said, counting out the notes. “Will he?”

“No,” his mate said, shaking six shells loose from a cardboard box. “I doubt it.”

“This is it?” Prior said, staring up at the house.

Pam Van Allen nodded. “This is it.”

A large building originally, it looked as if extra rooms and sections of roof had been added piecemeal, to accommodate unexpected children or, more likely, a live-in gardener, an undermaid. Ivy clung to the face, thick around the windows and above the polished oak door. At any one time there were a dozen ex-prisoners housed there, occasionally more.

Pam walked with Prior into a high, wide entrance hall with the original patterned tiling still on the floor. The staircase would have allowed four people to ascend it side by side without touching.

“You’re lucky, you’ve got the room at the back. There’s a really nice view.”

One of the two beds were already occupied, though not at that moment; the covers had been carelessly pulled back and there were clothes bunched on it in small piles, shirts and socks, a pair of jeans.

A transistor radio had been left playing and Pam walked over and switched it off. “See what I mean,” she said, pointing out over a ragged patchwork of allotment gardens and unclaimed land, down towards the center of the city.

But Prior had already blocked her out. He was sitting on the other bed, hunched forward, rolling himself a cigarette.

Darren had picked up the girl at Madisons. Outside, actually. She had been leaning up against the brick wall opposite the stage door of the Theatre Royal, forehead pressed down against one hand, while with the other she fumbled for a tissue inside her bag. She was wearing a blue dress with a high neck but a deep V slashed out of it that gave Darren a good view of her breasts.

I’ve seen her around somewhere, Darren thought, and as she realized he was watching her and stood away from the wall, ready to challenge him, he remembered where.

“How about,” Darren said with a grin, “a meat feast with extra cheese, garlic bread with mozzarella, and a large coke?”

“Do I know you?” the girl blinked. It wasn’t long since she’d stopped crying and her makeup had smeared.

“Delia, right?” Darren said, moving in closer. “Pizza Hut. Manageress.”

“Trainee,” Delia said, close to a smile.

“Not for long. I’ll bet.”

Aware that he was staring down the front of her dress, Delia pulled the gap together with her hand.

“How come you’re out here?” Darren said. “What’s up?”

“My boy friend’s in there dancing with somebody else, that’s what I’m doing out here.”

“Wants his head seeing to.”

“You think so.”

“I know so.”

Della blew her nose into a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “Well, I might as well be going.”

“No,” Darren smiled, shifting his balance enough to set himself in her path. “’S’early yet. Why don’t we go over the Café Royal? Have a drink?”

“I’m not stopping long,” Delia said, turning on her low heels to look round the room. It reminded her of boarding houses she’d been to stay in with her parents when she was younger, Southport or Filey or places like that. It didn’t look like a room in which somebody actually lived.

“How many sugars?” Darren called from the shared kitchen.

“One,” Delia said.

Darren appeared in the doorway with a mug in either hand.

“I shall have to be going soon,” Delia said, taking one of the mugs and standing in the center of the room. Last mistake she was about to make, go over there and sit on the bed.

“’S’okay,” said Darren, “Lot to do myself tomorrow as it is. Tell you what, though …” sitting back on the bed himself“…’fore you go, you won’t believe what it is I’ve got to show you.”

Forty-Six

Millington wanted to get out of the car and give his legs a stretch; he wanted to take a pee and not into the plastic bottle which he’d swiped before his wife could put it away for recycling, fresh orange juice it said on the label, produce of more than one country. He wondered if he weren’t getting a bit long in the tooth for this kind of obs, all right for youngsters like Naylor, sitting alongside him, working his way through an old issue of
The Puzzler.