Cold Light (25 page)

Happy New Year.

Thirty-two

Michelle opened her eyes to see Karl staring down at her, his face close enough to hers for her to feel the faint warmth of his breath. How long he had been standing there she didn't know. Through the gap at the top of the curtains, the street light shone a muted orange. Karl started to speak but she shushed him and smiled and pressed her finger lightly against first his lips and then her own. As usual, Gary had fetched up close beside her in the bed and Michelle eased herself sideways, slipping out from beneath the weight of his arm and leg.

“I not sleep,” said Karl on the stairs. “Cold.”

Michelle tousled the tangle of hair on his head and shooed him into the living room. Natalie had bunched herself sideways along the top of her cot. When Michelle reached under the covers to move her she was shocked by the child's coldness. Natalie stirred, whimpered, fell back to sleep.

“Come on,” she whispered to Karl, “let's go and make the tea.”

Even with slippers and two pairs of socks, the damp seemed to seep up through the kitchen floor. While she watched, Karl took two slices from the packet of sliced bread and placed them on the grill to toast; once she had swilled almost boiling water around the pot and emptied it down the sink, he lifted two tea bags from the box and dropped them inside.

“Good boy,” Michelle said encouragingly.

“'ood boy.”

“Soon be able to do all this by yourself. Bring me and Gary breakfast in bed.”

Karl looked uncertain. The swelling at the side of his face had mostly gone down and even the bruise was beginning to fade.

Michelle caught herself yawning and when she moved her hand to her mouth she realized she was nursing a headache. She and Gary had been to the pub last night, along with Brian and josie. Where Brian got the money from to spend on drink she couldn't imagine, didn't want to know. Generous, though, she'd say that for him. Even if, when he'd had his fair share, he wasn't above pushing his leg against hers under the table, once or twice sliding his hand along her thigh. Michelle had mentioned it to Josie when they were on their own and Josie had just laughed. Brian having a bit of fun. Gary wouldn't laugh, not if he knew, she was certain of that. Gary saw him as much as put his little finger on her and he'd kill him for it.

She pulled out the grill pan just in time before the toast started burning. “You're supposed to be watching that,” she said. “What d'you want? Marmalade or some of that strawberry jam?”

Pam Van Allen was at work early, earlier than usual; only her senior's Escort was in the car park ahead of her, right-on slogans occupying a goodly proportion of its rear window. Although no more than thirty yards from the entrance Pam wrapped her scarf around her neck before reaching to the rear seat for her briefcase and
Guardian
, and locking the car door. Chilly again this morning, but at least it was bright.

Neil Park was in his office, leafing through reports on green and yellow paper, sipping at the first of many cups of Maxwell House. He called a greeting as Pam walked past reception and while she was making coffee for herself, he came out and joined her.

“Some offices,” Pam said, “have a decent coffee machine. Real coffee.”

“But we have biscuits,” Neil said, offering her the tin. Inside were a couple of plain digestives, the wrong half of a coconut cream, a Rich Tea, and a lot of crumbs.

“Good night last night?” Pam asked, opting for one of the digestives.

“Terrific, Mel and I fell asleep in front of the TV. Woke up and it was next year.”

Pam smiled. After failing to interest any of her friends in joining her in a search for something to eat, she had settled for a chicken and black-bean takeaway and the remains of a bottle of white wine. It had been the ideal opportunity for watching those programs she'd taped about the lives of women between the wars. These were so depressing, she had found a documentary about the Sequoia National Park and watched it through twice.

“Who've you got today?” Neil asked. “Anyone interesting?”

“Gary James, first thing.”

“Oh, well,” Neil said, wandering off with the last half of coconut cream, “start as you mean to go on.”

Gary was close to fifteen minutes late, par for the course in his case, though less than desirable. Old Ethel Chadbond was out there already, spilling herself and her belongings across three seats in the waiting area and already imbuing everything with a healthy smell of methylated spirits and Lysol.

Pam restrained herself from looking too pointedly at her watch. “Gary, take a seat.”

He slouched sideways, soccer shirt, jumper, jeans jacket, jeans. Gave her that look that said, so, what do we do now?

“That interview I arranged for you, at the training center.” Pam picked up the sheet of notepaper as if it were relevant. “You didn't go.”

“No.”

“You mind me asking why?”

On and on for a further fifteen minutes, Pam's questions, remarks, suggestions, all of them fielded with the same sullen indifference; part of a ritual both knew they had to go through. God! Pam thought, sliding open a drawer for something to do, coming close to slamming it shut, was this the first day of a new year? Another three hundred and sixty four days of this?

“Gary!”

“What?” He sat bolt upright, eyes wide open and she realized she had shouted, startling him.

“Nothing, I'm sorry. It's just …”

It's just you're getting your monthlies, Gary thought.

“It's just we seem to be going over the same ground, you know. Over and over.”

He breathed heavily and leaned back in his chair: what d'you expect me to do about that?

“The house,” Pam asked, “have you made any more progress finding somewhere else?” She knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth it was the wrong thing to say.

“That poxy fucking place,” Gary said. “Ought to be against the fucking law bringing up kids in there.”

“Gary …”

“You know how cold it was this morning when I got out of bed? D'you know? Put my hand on the baby's face and I thought she was fucking dead! That's how cold it was.”

“Gary,” Pam said, “I'm sorry, but I've told you before, that's not really my province. That's the Housing department's responsibility, it's not …”

He was on his feet so fast, the chair skittered backwards beneath him and collided with the wall. His fists were so close to her face, Pam let out an involuntary shriek and covered herself with her hands.

“You know what fucking happened when I went to the fucking Housing. You know about that, don't you? Eh? One of these bits of bloody paper'll've told you all about that.” With a sweep of his arms, he cleared everything from the desk: pens, paper, diary, telephone, paper-clips. Pam was on her feet, backing away, staring at him. There was a panic button underneath the ledge of her desk, but no way now could she reach it. “You and that tart up at Housing, that dirty cow as used to spread her legs for my brother's mates every chance she got, you think you can shit on me like I'm nothing, don't you? Eh?” He walked on into the table and it jarred sideways off his thigh. “Nice Gary, good Gary, here Gary, good dog, Gary.”

He snorted at her in his anger, took another step towards her before moving suddenly sideways to the door. “You wouldn't treat one of your pets the way you treat ‘Chelle an' me.” He wrenched at the handle and pulled the door wide open. Neil Park was standing anxiously outside, wondering whether he should intervene. “None of you.”

Neil Park had to step back quickly to get out of Gary's way.

“You all right?” he said finally, walking into Pam's room.

“Terrific.”

“Here, let me give you a hand with this,” he said, taking hold of one end of the desk.

“Tell Ethel Chadbond I might need a few more minutes,” Pam said, when most things had been rescued from the floor.

“You want me to see her?”

“No, it's okay. Thanks.”

Once Neil had gone and she had closed the door, Pam sat for some little while thinking about the abrupt violence of Gary's anger, the nature of the remarks he'd made about Nancy Phelan, that tart, that dirty cow, wondering whether or not she should telephone Resnick, tell him about this latest outburst.

Thirty-three

Resnick had woken full of good intentions. He would write a note to Marian, apologizing for last night, wishing her all the best for the New Year. On his way to work, drop in at the market and order some flowers, arrange for them to be delivered. Three attempts at the brief letter and when he'd almost got it right, a thick splodge of apricot jam slid between the cream cheese of his breakfast bagel and obliterated Marian's name and half the first sentence. Sitting at the coffee stall later, he changed his mind about the flowers; a bouquet, over-dramatic, open to misinterpretation. Besides—sipping his second espresso—flowers arranged in that way always made him think of his father's funeral. The coffin laden with them: and afterwards, laid out near the rose garden at the back of the crematorium. “Don't let them do that to me, Charles. A priest and a requiem mass. A coffin for my ashes to wither away in.” At the end, when so many people come to God, his father had lost his faith. “A bit of fertilizer, let me do that much good at least.”

Resnick walked away from the market with a heavy heart and indigestion. He would give Marian a quick call from the office, maybe later in the day. Or tomorrow.

Divine's fascist night out had been a shade disappointing. No major rucks, no riots, not even many arrests. Most of the evening, bad music and easily shepherded bands of youths wearing BNP badges and off-the-peg Nazi regalia; the worst Divine had thrown at him, taunts and a half of warm lager. On the plus side, be had found himself cheek by jowl with a couple who answered the descriptions of Raju's and Sandra Drexler's attackers to a T: fair, sandyish hair, St. George and the Dragon tattoo.

Along with six or so other officers and a couple of dogs, Divine had stopped a dozen or so likely lads passing by outside the Town ground and ordered them back against the wall to be searched. Three blades, two lengths of chain, a piece of two-by-four with a nail protruding from it, one manky sock stuffed with sand, a handful of pills. Nothing spectacular.

The youth with the tattoo had been in the middle of the group, combat trousers and jeans jacket, mouthing off about police harassment. Divine had chanced to kick him in the back of the calf, pure accident. Instinctively, the youth had rounded on him, fist raised.

Bingo!

The noble St. George, lance at the ready, right before Divine's delighted eyes. Not enough to prove anything on its own. But when, at Divine's polite inquiry as to whether he'd taken any good taxi rides lately, the youth and his mate panicked and tried to do a runner, well, dead giveaway, wasn't it?

Shame was, in the ensuing scuffle, Divine didn't get to land as much as a solid punch. The lads, though, had spent a mournful night in Mansfield nick and were on their way down to the city that morning. Positive identification and they'd be up in front of the magistrate without a leg to stand on. Trouble was, instead of getting banged up, doing some real time, more than likely some soft sod on the bench would give them all of six months' community service, a supervision order, be good boys and talk politely once a week to your probation officer.

Made you wonder, sometimes, why you bothered.

Divine wished he'd given the little shits a good thumping while he'd had half a chance.

There were several reasons for liking Jallans at lunchtime, not least they did a chicken club sandwich which easily outstripped anywhere else in the city. Not only that, on a good day you might go from Miles Davis to Mose Allison to Billie Holiday, one CD after another slipping on to the player behind the bar. Resnick thought he was there before her, but no sooner had he picked out a table over by the far wall than he saw Pam Van Allen making her way between the tables from the other side of the room.

“Is this okay?” Resnick asked.

“Fine,” Pam said, pulling out a chair. “Fine.”

“I didn't see you …”

“I was in the Ladies'.”

She was looking, Resnick thought, more than a little strained. Smart enough in her striped wool jacket and gray skirt, well-cut silver-gray hair, but the makeup she discreetly wore failed to lessen the tiredness, disguise the jumpiness around her eyes.

“I already ordered,” Resnick said, “at the bar.”

“Me too.”

“You said you wanted to talk about Gary James,” Resnick said. “You've seen him again?”

She held Resnick's gaze before answering. “And how,” she said.

The waitress brought over Resnick's chicken club with salad and for Pam a jacket potato with prawns; Resnick asked her if she wanted anything to drink and she shook her head. He was drinking black filter coffee himself.

“That stunt he pulled at the Housing Office,” Pam said, spreading a little extra butter over her potato, “he came close to doing the same with me.”

Resnick listened as she took him through what had happened, picking up half of his sandwich every now and then and trying not to let too much of the filling spill down his sleeves. “And this anger,” Resnick said when she was through, “d'you think it would disappear almost as suddenly as it came? Or was it the kind he'd cling on to?”

“Like a grudge, you mean?”

He nodded and she took his meaning, knew what he was thinking: the anger he felt towards Nancy Phelan, could he have held on to that for close to ten hours, harbored it long enough to go out and find her, let that anger out?

Pam took her time. A group of women from the Victoria Street branch of the Midland Bank, all wearing their uniform blouses under their coats, settled at the long table behind them. “I don't know,” she said. “I really don't know.”