Rough Treatment (28 page)

“Uh-uh, Harold,” Resnick said, the fingers of his right hand tight around the director’s wrist, his left closed around Harold’s best punch, “not a good idea in the circumstances. This time the provocation might be harder to prove.”

“Let him go,” said Mackenzie, but without a great deal of conviction. “He won’t catch me twice and get away with it.”

Resnick stared into Harold Roy’s face until the latter looked away and the tension had seeped from his arm. “We have to talk, Harold and I,” Resnick said to Mackenzie. “If you could make somewhere available.”

“Sure,” Mackenzie said, backing off. “Of course. You want anything? Anything else?”

Resnick shook his head. Down along the corridor, Diane was leaning against the wall, finishing her salad with her fingers. There was a smile in her eyes, brightening the corners of her mouth. How could she stand there dressed like a house painter, thought Resnick, and be so sexy?

For herself, Diane Woolf was still thinking how quickly for a big man Resnick had moved, how fast. Maybe there was something about him after all; something more than those eyes that didn’t want to let her go.

Twenty-six

Harold Roy clenched his fists and stared at his knuckles until they were quite white. If ever there’d been any chance of salvaging his future with this particular company, the last half-hour had blown it. Once the rumors made their rounds, the usual vindictiveness, more than usual exaggeration—couldn’t finish the series, couldn’t keep to schedule, boozed up on the set, taking swings at the producer—he’d be lucky to get a job directing sixty-second promos for satellite TV. Some men in his situation might have somewhere warm and comforting to crawl; someone to hold their hands and pour their vodka, lick their wounds. What he had was a shrew of a wife who was in the process of rediscovering her sexuality in the company of a professional criminal with a semi-permanent hard-on. What he had was a blade-wielding drug dealer who would joyfully slice him down the middle at the first hint of betrayal.

Harold Roy was forty-nine years old and life could have been better. He felt around in his pockets, coming up with a used tissue and spirals of green-and-silver paper.

“Damn!”

“What’s up?” Resnick asked.

“I’m out of mints.”

“Let’s talk about it,” Resnick said, leaning forward, elbows on to the table, arms loosely folded.

Harold pulled at his tie, the idea being to free the knot, but all that happened was he tightened it instead. He looked more in need of a couple of valium than extra-strong peppermint.

Jesus, thought Harold, that’s it. Why don’t I do it? Why don’t I say I’m going to the toilet, lock the cubicle door and hang my stupid self? Why don’t I?

“How about it?” said Resnick.

“What?”

“Telling me what you know.”

Harold’s shoulders slumped, a loud breath slid from his open mouth. There was something forbiddingly final about this man opposite him; the way he sat there, engaging him with his eyes, a big man, solid, something about him that said, it’s all right, Harold. I know everything, know it all. All I want is for you to tell it back to me. Confess. Think how much better you’ll feel once it’s over—as if saying it lifted that weight from your back.

For a moment, Harold Roy could smell the sweetness of the incense, see the swing of the thurible. The shaded profile at the other side of the confessional, never clearly in focus.

Resnick hadn’t moved, didn’t move; enough to watch and wait.

“About all that,” Harold began, the words tumbling out. “Out there just now, that and the other day, all that stuff with Mackenzie, the time I, time I hit him, that’s it, that’s what you want me to talk about. It is, all right? That’s …”

Resnick carefully levered himself back on the chair. A muffled message sounded over the Tannoy. Sweat, only a little of it, slipped along Harold Roy’s forehead, around his eyebrow and on to the side of his nose. Harold picked the crumpled tissue from the desk and dabbed it away. There would be more.

“That’s not it?”

Resnick shook his head.

“Not what you want to talk about?”

“No, Harold.”

“Oh Christ.” His head went down into his hands, as though that was one last way of escaping. Pull the blankets up over your head and the frightening things will all go away. The pulse at his wrist was so fast he could feel it all along his arm.

“The burglary,” Resnick said evenly. “Why don’t you start there? Then, in your own time, you can get to the rest.”

“Okay,” said Harold, almost thankfully. “All right, I’ll start there.”

When the phone first went, Maria was in the shower and didn’t hear it until the tone was almost an afterthought; the second occasion, she was stretched out on the settee, midway through an article in
Good Housekeeping
about watching your weight while still being able to indulge in those little lip-smacking secrets. She should say! By the time she’d finished the sentence, got her feet inside her slippers, it had stopped. Ten rings: who the hell hung up after ten rings? Surely not Grabianski. He had a little more staying power than that.

Disgusting, all those bottles sitting there, waiting to be opened. Her hand shook at the wrong moment and gin ran over the rim of the glass down on to the front of her robe, her hand, the floor.

“God, Maria! You’re becoming a sloppy drunk.”

She knew that what she should do was call a cab and go into the city, see a movie. There had to be something decent on, something with a taste of good old-fashioned adultery; Kirk Douglas leaving his architectural plans on the table to go pussy-footing after Kim Novak, forever dropping off her kid at the school bus-stop in a backless red dress and no bra. What was the name of that film?

Harold would know. She’d have to remember to ask Harold. One thing he was good for, any movie between, oh, ’32 or ’33 and the end of the sixties. Harold could tell you who starred, directed, the name of the studio, date, sometimes even the cinematographer. The only thing he wasn’t so hot on, the writer. Even so, pretty impressive. The kind of mind
Trivial Pursuit
was made for. Just so long as everything stopped with
Easy Rider.
The pre-baby-boom period.

Pretty trivial, that was Harold. She dipped the tip of her tongue into the glass. That way it could last her as long as an hour, more. No, she was being unfair to the bastard. The way he’d handled bursting in and finding the two of them in the bath. Good as. Jerry jumping out, standing there, holding out … actually holding out his hand.
Let’s go outside, we’ve got a lot to talk about.
Leaving her there, alone, trying not to wee into the bathwater.

When the phone went again, she half-stumbled, nearly lost her footing. “Where’ve you been? Here I am, sitting around all day, worried sick, waiting for you to call. What’s happening with you?”

“I did call,” Grabianski said. “Twice.”

“That was you?”

“You were there? Why didn’t you answer?”

“I tried.”

“Somebody was there with you?”

“Nobody. I’ve been going crazy all day.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“So you’re going to tell me I can’t drink now?”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“You’ve been drinking, that’s what you said.”

“I only said it, that’s all. Not: look, don’t do it; stay sober. Just a fact, that’s all, you’ve been …”

“I know, I know, I’ve been drinking. What d’you expect me to do? Hanging round here since this morning. You told me you were going to call.”

“I did.”

“That was this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry. I was busy.”

“Planning another burglary?”

Grabianski didn’t reply.

“Is that what you’ve been doing, getting ready to … Jerry, look, don’t, you can’t. I’m worried about you.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s not nice. I wasn’t made to sit at home, worrying.”

“Then don’t.”

“I can’t help it.”

Silence again. Maria tried to picture him, imagine what he was doing. Whether he was in a call-box or not. These days, modern phones, you couldn’t tell the difference.

“The police were here,” she said.

“What did they want?” Trying to keep his voice calm, on the same level, and not quite making it.

“They know I lied.”

“How can they?”

“They know, that’s all.”

“No way can they know.”

“He stood there and told me: the statement you made, we know you were lying.”

“That was what he said? I mean, exactly?”

“We have reason to believe that you falsified your statement on the whatever whatever, in particular as far as the identification of the two men were concerned.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I asked him how he thought he knew that.”

“And?”

“He sort of leered at me.”

“Jesus!”

“Exactly.”

“He didn’t say you had to go to the station, make a fresh statement?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“Not at this juncture.”

“He said that? Juncture?”

“It could have been junction.”

“You didn’t go along with this? I mean, you didn’t agree to change what you’d said?”

“Nooo.”

“Which means you did?”

“I said it was possible, looking back on it, I might have made a mistake.”

Grabianski swore.

“Jerry, I only said, might.”

“Yes, yes. This police officer, plainclothes? A detective?”

“Detective constable.”

“From which station?”

“How should I know? We didn’t stand around exchanging addresses.”

“He wasn’t the same one you saw before?”

“Before there was an inspector and two constables. He wasn’t any of those.”

“And you say he didn’t ask you to make a fresh statement?”

“He sort of invited me.”

“You declined?”

“Haven’t I told you?”

“But you did say you might have been wrong?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“What did he say to that? I mean, at the end. How did he leave it?”

“He said, if those clever buggers were black, I’m a baboon’s uncle.”

It wasn’t immediately that Maria realized the connection had been broken. Almost as soon as she did, the phone rang again.

“Did you hang up?”

“It wasn’t Harold, was it?”

“Did you just hang up on me?”

“It wasn’t Harold?”

“What wasn’t Harold?”

“Told them about this? Go round and lean on my wife. I think she’s lying?”

“He spoke to Harold, yes.”

“He what?”

“But that was outside, before. Right before he came to the house.”

“Then Harold did tell him.”

“Why would he do that?”

“The fact that he found the pair of us …”

“Harold doesn’t give a toss about us, whatever we were doing.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that.”

“What?”

“Give a toss.”

“I’m sorry. Not ladylike. I was forgetting you were the sweet, old-fashioned kind. Only liked women who said please first, thank you afterwards and refused to unbutton their blouses while the lights were on.”

“You know that isn’t true.”

“I know.”

“Which doesn’t alter the fact that Harold …”

“Harold has made a deal to fix you up with his drug-pusher. That doesn’t come off, he’s going to be walking round minus his balls. The last thing he wants is for the police to get on to you.”

Silence. Grabianski was thinking.

“Jerry?”

“Yes?”

“It’ll be all right, won’t it?”

“Yes, sure.”

“I mean, there’s no other way they can get at you, is there?”

“They haven’t so far. Not as much as a sniff.”

Maria sighed. “I’m glad.”

“I’ll call you,” Grabianski said. “Tomorrow.”

“You’re not coming round?” “It’s too late.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“I don’t know. I’ll see.”

“You’re not pulling out on me, are you?”

“No.” He said it quickly enough for Maria to believe him.

“Jerry…”

“Um?”

“Be careful, won’t you?”

He made a kissing sound down the line and hung up again and this time he didn’t ring back. Maria didn’t know whether to have another gin or soak in the bath. In the end she found a dog-eared Jackie Collins that she’d read before and decided to do both.

By the time Harold Roy had stopped talking to Resnick he felt twenty pounds lighter and his head, instead of aching, was a whole lot clearer. Walking out at the back of the studios, the light was darkening to purple across the rooftops. The only things Resnick hadn’t done, instructed him to make a perfect act of contrition, say five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, hear the final words of absolution.

Those would come.

Twenty-seven

“Lager, please,” Patel said.

“Draught or bottle?”

“Er, draught.”

“Pint or half?”

“Half.”

“Didn’t think your lot drank.”

“Oh, yes, some of us do.”

“Against your religion or something, alcohol.”

Looking over his shoulder, Patel saw the man he had followed, Grice, feeding coins into a gambling-machine that flashed lights and emitted an electronic jingle. “Thanks,” he said, collecting his change, picking his glass off the counter.

Not exactly according to instructions, this, but, mild for the time of year or not, standing around was leaking the cold into his back and shoulders. Three times the elderly woman with the astrakhan collar had been back down to him, when was he going to go and arrest the man who kept looking into her bedroom with his binoculars? She didn’t feel safe taking a bath, getting undressed.

When Grice had come out, standing by one of the parked cars for a few moments, deciding whether to take it or walk, Patel had made up his mind. The target had moved off right and Patel had stayed down behind the phalanx of green bins, calling into the station, before following.

Grice had walked fast, hands jammed into his topcoat pockets, not breaking stride until he reached the pedestrian lights at the head of Castle Boulevard. Behind them, the castle itself, the rebuilt seventeenth-century version of it, held its ground high on weathered rock. Patel followed over and almost immediately right, past the Irish Center where they sold Dublin papers on a Sunday morning, where lines of mostly English students queued on a Saturday night, eager to dance and drink into the early hours.