The Norway Room (16 page)

27

Daytime was tedious. There was only the gym. It seemed like just getting through till the evening. And then it was the job; the Norway. This was Birmingham, his city, he was back. He had friends here, a past. So why was he behaving as if he were an immigrant in a new country? With nothing?

Sometimes he thought about his old mate, Jack Stevens. He was the only real white friend he had ever had. They had done their training together and shared a flat for a time. Jack used to go to Buddhist meditation on Thursdays. Had the piss taken out of him rotten by the rest of the guys. All except Dowd, their gaffer. He respected Jack, made him his number two.

Live in the present
, Jack used to say.
Concentrate on that
. Well that's what he was doing wasn't it? Living in the present. Not thinking about the past. Not thinking about the future. Just the now. Today. The gym. The club. But it wasn't right; he knew it. Because it was starting to feel like he didn't have a past, didn't have a future. And he couldn't live like this for very long. It was like the days in Jamaica after his mother's death. Beaches and bars. Sunshine and music. Freedom. But it wasn't. It didn't work. He needed something else. The answer was probably as simple as getting a job. A real one. This was no life. Sharing a flat on the Mendy with Toga. And not even Toga's flat, it was
a Mendy flat
, he was
keeping it warm
, the phrase round here for occupying someone's place and covering the expenses, while they're inside. When he had asked how long they would be able to stay there, Toga had just smiled and told him it would be a while yet before they had to think about eviction.

These couple of weeks here had been okay. He had liked sharing with someone again. Toga rose late, spent most of his time at the gym or a snooker club he went to, occasionally disappeared somewhere. Carrow didn't ask questions; both men respected the privacy of the other. It was when they got back from the Norway and unwound with a smoke and a drink that they spent time together. And even then, they were careful. The talk was mostly about the night's shift, any door problems, the women that had been in that night, how things were going with the Chinese.

Bit by bit information was leaking out. It
was
the Dragons. They pretty much had the casino scene in the whole of the West Midlands sewn up. Other forms of gambling too. There was a big trade in importing counterfeits. Cigarettes. Perfume. And some drugs. Coke. Heroin. A little bit of pure opium, it was thought when he was on the force, but that was a niche market, very high-class and usually went down south. Now they were moving into the club scene. They had already acquired a couple of places in Wolverhampton without too much trouble and one in Nottingham with quite a lot – a man dead.

Toga was still in bed when Carrow left the flat to head for the gym. He detoured. Made for the Gables instead. He just wanted to see if she was on the same shift this week, if Kieran dropped her off again. If he did, that would explain the other night. He parked his car by the church and walked down the hill. Stopped when he spotted Walsh in an Audi parked up on the other side of the road. Carrow dodged into the shrubbery of the nearest driveway. Walsh was on his own, his fingers tapping the steering wheel.

Carrow watched. Ruthie must be on the morning shift. Walsh had come to pick her up. I might as well piss off, Carrow thought, go to the gym, go back to the Mendy, go and get pissed. She's still with Kieran. The other night – she was just taking the piss.

But he didn't move. There was comfort standing here among the trees and shrubbery, standing in the cold, not even smoking. In the moment. Nothing else. Like working again.

A car pulled up behind Kieran's, a fuck-off maroon BMW, so close Carrow though it was heading for a bump. A whisker away – but a whisker's enough. A woman driving. Grey hair pulled back. Kieran got out of his car. The woman opened her door and Carrow could see Ruthie in the passenger seat. Kieran squatted down beside the open door talking to the two women, Ruthie leaning forward. Then Kieran rose. Ruthie got out of her side of the car and walked round. The woman got out too. Older. Elegant. Perhaps she was Ruthie's mom. She was certainly well off. Not only the BMW but the fur coat she was wearing. Long. Carrow didn't know enough about fur to be able to tell what creatures had copped it to produce her coat, but it looked like film star quality to him.

Kieran watched the three of them chatting. Eventually mommy got back into her car, reversed away from the Audi, did a U-turn and drove down the road and into the entrance of the Gables. Perhaps she wasn't mommy after all. Perhaps she was the owner of the place.

Kieran pulled his cigarettes from his jacket. Gave one to Ruthie, popped one in his own mouth and lit them both. They stood smoking and talking beside the car, leaning against it, leaning against each other. And when the cigarettes were finished, Kieran kissed Ruthie before she pulled away and walked towards the Gables. Kieran watched her. At the drive she turned and waved. Kieran waved back before he got into his car and drove away.

Carrow emerged from the bushes. Took a slow walk down to the Gables. The BMW was in the visitors' parking area. No sign of either its driver or Ruthie.

There weren't many in the gym. A group of blokes sparring in the boxing section, a couple on weights, both very serious about their workouts and recording their performance in their phones. Everyone knew he was an ex-copper. He ran into faces there he had come across in the past. A nod or two, sometimes an ironic grin, but no one said much. He should join a proper gym, where they had women doing aerobics and a café and a swimming pool. This was just a muscle factory. He stopped thinking and got on with it. Don't let the brain take the strain.

He took a drive out to Handsworth to visit Miss Rosa Quirk, his only relative in the city, a cousin of his mother. It was something to do with the afternoon. He and his mother had lived with Miss Rosa until he was eleven when they were given a place of their own. When his mother returned to Jamaica she tried to persuade Miss Rosa to go with her, but she had a son who had been killed at ten, buried here in Witton Cemetery, so there was no way she was going to leave. Eventually she would be placed in the same grave, and when she used to talk about it, it seemed to Carrow that she was looking forward to that day.
Placed
, that's how she used to say it.

Both Rosa and his mother had been proud when he joined the force and did well. Occasionally he stopped by Rosa's place in uniform. Afterwards she immediately rang his mother in Jamaica to tell her how fine he had looked, how well he was doing –
Be proud, sister
.
Your son a fine man. The Lord has blessed you well.
Rosa had always been big on religion. A stalwart of her church.

The area hadn't changed, and the old instincts were still there. Carrow watching what was happening. Doorways. Street corners. Between parked cars. See if he could spot deals. And what would he do if he did see something? Nothing – he was just a tourist now. But the instinct? The looking? Just habit. He knew where he was then; he had reasons. And it was with this nostalgia that he took a spin down to Brewery Street where the Doberman Crew had their base.

A line of flash cars parked outside 114, Linton's place. There was a meathead kid sitting on the wall, in shorts despite the cold day, swinging his legs, drawing in on a spliff. Only a kid but strong, well built. Attitude you could feel from across the street. A white baseball cap and serious-money trainers. No hoody up – too proud to hide. Carrow smiled. Obviously there to keep an eye on things – a trainee. But a promising one if he was on the gate. If Carrow were still on the force, this kid would be one to watch.

‘It is not the place it was any more. Gangs. Gangs and guns and drugs. There has been killin' in this street. I tell you, Craig, people's hearts are hard now. Ruthless hard.' Miss Rosa Quirk was stirring the dutchie, heating up her Saturday soup. Carrow hadn't wanted any food, he wasn't hungry, never was after a workout, but Miss Rosa had insisted. ‘Boy, you don't step in my house and not get fed. House rule.' And now it was nice, sitting comfortably in Miss Rosa Quirk's kitchen, the table laid, the smell of the food, being looked after.

Miss Rosa looked across to him. She had eyes like a bird of prey, hooded; softened by her slack mouth. ‘Your mommy, she loved my Saturday soup. I do the soup and the bread puddin'. She do the pork jerk, rice and peas. You remember?'

‘Yes, I remember.'

‘Happy days.'

‘Yes.' And Carrow wished now that he had arrived with a gift, some flowers, a box of chocolates, some gesture. Why was he so thoughtless?

‘Well, now she rests in Santa Cruz. Back in the parish of Saint Elizabeth. Where she started. Where she'll always remain. And I am glad she is there. In her own place, among her own kind.'

Carrow recalled filling in his mother's grave with the help of friends, distant relatives, the sons of her neighbours, as is the tradition. He dropped the first shovelful of earth in, and he laid the last. Thrust in the spade to show the job was done; the other men followed suit. Then they walked away to join the women of the family. He wished now he had taken a photograph of the grave, to bring to Miss Rosa. Outside the kitchen window English rain was falling.

Miss Rosa ladled soup into a bowl and put it on the table. She cut bread for him. He could smell patties warming in the oven. Being fed like a little boy. Miss Rosa sat opposite him.

‘You're not having anything?' he asked.

‘Hiatus.' She swept her hand across her stomach. ‘I keep to very regular times.'

She watched him eat. He didn't need to tell her it was good, his appetite was back. Then without warning she said: ‘So they killed the child.'

Carrow opened his mouth in surprise. Soup spilled over his lip on to his chin. He wiped it away with his hand. Miss Rosa pushed a napkin he hadn't seen towards him. He wiped his fist, dabbed his lips, his chin.

‘Eat your soup, boy. One of the last telephone calls I had with your mommy. She tell me how badly affected you were.' His appetite was gone but he kept his eyes down and spooned soup into his mouth. He had always thought of Miss Rosa as wise. Was that what he had come for, her wisdom? Saturday Soup with Miss Rosa on a Tuesday afternoon. He looked up into her face: wrinkles; lines; her skin was taking on the dustiness that comes with age. What had he come here for?

‘Guilt, she said. Said you felt guilty. That it was your fault.'

‘Not my fault. I was on duty, that's all. I took the boy and his nanny to the kindergarten. It happened on my watch.' He might have expected images of that day in Amsterdam to flash through his mind again. They were always there, waiting for a gap. But instead what he saw was himself lying in the hot sun of San San Beach, the day after his mother died. Lying there. Trying not to think. Not thinking. Trying.

He cast his eyes down to the bowl. Put the spoon in. Waited. ‘You have had it hard, Craig. Very hard. And just a year ago everything was going so well.'

She shouldn't have said that. He closed his eyes hard shut. He felt the burn in them like pepper. He kept his head down, spooned soup into his mouth. Miss Rosa rose, opened the oven door; the smell of patties escaped. Taking them from the oven, she tipped them on to a plate and carried them across to the table. There were two of them. ‘Be careful, boy. They hot inside.'

She took his soup bowl to the sink and washed it with some other dishes. He cut into the patties, let the steam escape from the green and red and yellow chopped vegetables and started to eat.

A year ago everything was going so well. He first met Martin Okker through his old mate Simmy Turner, an ex-copper who had made a career for himself in personal security. The Dutchman was still playing for Villa at the time. That was five years ago and for a while Carrow was just part of a group of guys who did the nightclubs together. Being with Okker got them noticed. Got them in anywhere. Attracted the girls. Eventually Okker was sold to United and while he was there he married Marjie Veay, the Dutch actress. Turner looked after security for them. By the time Okker retuned to Holland to see his career out with Ajax she had been nominated for her Oscar and they were about as high profile as it comes. All over the celebrity magazines. As Turner said,
Go to the States, the only Dutch woman anyone's heard of is Marjie Veay, and everyone's heard of her. They can't name the Queen of Holland, that's if they know there is one, but everyone's heard of Marjie
.

When Turner put together a small personal security team for the couple he offered Carrow a job. Simple as that. A hell of a lot more than he earned on the force and a lifestyle that excited. He remembered when he told Dowd, and Jack, and Trevor the desk sergeant; he felt like he had won the lottery.

Marjie's kid, six years old, was called Magnus. A picturebook kid. Blond hair, blue eyes. He wore specs when he went to school that made him look clever. Carrow used to see him in the garden sometimes, dressed in an Ajax strip, chasing a football around.

Mostly it was Okker who Carrow was assigned to: he drove him to training, to business meetings – he was the face of a national chain of gyms, had interests in the bulb industry and a stud farm; he was determined to be a successful businessman when his footballing days came to an end.

Okker worked hard but he knew how to enjoy himself too, and Carrow was one of a trio of men he took with him on his nights out in Amsterdam. Sometimes Carrow might be called upon to accompany Marjie, but she had a cousin on the team who was always her first choice of escort. Sometimes, but not often, he would take Magnus and his nanny somewhere: to kindergarten, to a kids' party or, at the weekends when the nanny was off, to his grandparents in Leiden.

Tuesday 17th May. 08.45. At the start of the short drive to the kindergarten they were ambushed as they turned out of Princengracht. A white van in front of the car he was driving, a four-wheel behind. All three were hauled out of the car at gunpoint. Carrow on the ground, face hard against a paving slab. A boot in the balls, a foot in his back, a gun in his ear. He heard Margnus yelling, the nanny screaming. He knew the kid was being bundled into the van. Then a whack to the side of his head and the lights went out.