“Wooo-weee!” shouted another comedian from the back. “Let’s go git them injuns!”
Gray pulled into the pub car park, the van’s headlight illuminating a row of customised Triumphs and Nortons.
“I’ll go in the front,” he said, “you lot can bring up the rear. Like usual.”
Gray entered the door nearest to the Market Row end of the pub, stooping as he did so. At the time this had been built, none of the patrons had been much over five feet tall.
His back filling up the doorframe, he took in the dimly lit room. The ceiling had low, black beams running across it up to the half-timbered, copper-topped bar; beyond that were partitions of wooden alcoves. A jolly roger was draped above the optics, and between the two rows, a mirror with the Confederate flag etched across it reflected the face of a whiskery barman raising a glass and pouring a measure of bourbon. Two men leant across the counter, their backs towards Gray, wearing black leather jackets with patched denims over the top of them, covered in the flags and regalia of their outlaw clans – skulls, wings, dominoes, dice, rearing cobras and naked women. All covered in a fine layer of dirt, the proof that they were no newcomers to the scene. Both had open-face motorcycle helmets at their feet.
The alcoves to his left and right took up much of the rest of the space and he had to walk forwards into the room to see who was seated inside them, which he did slowly, keeping his head low, a hand across his brow. The first was empty. The second contained a collection of lads from the local art
college, Gray could tell from their long, ’50s-style overcoats and quiffed hairdos, the packets of rolling tobacco on the table in front of them. In the midst of an earnest conversation about last night’s John Peel show, none of the four young men even looked up as he passed.
From the room beyond, a pool ball ricocheted into a pocket and someone cheered. One of the bikers at the bar looked up, caught Gray’s reflection in the mirror and started to turn his head, as “Radar Love” by Golden Earring came thumping out of the jukebox.
She was seated in the most concealed part of the room, the last alcove nearest the wall. He saw the Dutch sailor first, his pinched face instantly recognisable from the mug shot. He was bent forwards, his arms hidden beneath the table. As Gray grew closer, a black head came into view, the shiny, luxuriant tresses snaking across leather-clad shoulders. He looked down and saw her draw her left arm up beside her, stow something between her seat and the wall. Then she turned her head, a smile dying on her lips.
“What you got there then, love?” Gray said, positioning his body so that neither of them could easily get past, and flashing up his warrant card in the palm of his hand.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” her black eyes sparked incredulous.
“What is this?” the Dutchman’s head snapped up.
Gray heard a whoosh at the side of his head and ducked instinctively. Two bodies barrelled into him, knocking him so that he had to reach out his hands and grab the side of the partition to avoid being pitched into Gina Woodrow’s lap. In the split second that it happened, he saw her push the packet out from beside her and kick it backwards under her seat. She had the deft movements of a snake.
“Police,” shouted Kidd from behind him. “Stay exactly where you are.”
Then there was a mighty crash, as the biker whose arm Kidd had twisted behind his back seconds before he’d tried to brain Gray with his motorbike helmet, toppled into the table of art students, sending glasses and ashtrays flying. The air became thick with shouting.
Gray hauled himself upright as the sailor stood up, knocking his barstool over, and launched himself away. He didn’t have time to think. As Knobel tried to veer past him, Gray threw his entire weight down on him, pitching them both onto the floor at the same moment a barstool and several glasses went flying over their heads and smashed against the wall, sending splinters of wood, glass and foaming beer down on them.
The Dutchman opened his mouth but no sound came out; Gray had knocked all the wind out of him. He wilted beneath the detective and, satisfied he could offer no further resistance, Gray shifted himself upright, swivelling his head to see what had become of Gina Woodrow. But all he could make out was a mess of legs.
Kidd had a biker pinned down over the table, his knee in his back, yanking his arms backwards to cuff him while the art students staggered out of their alcove, wiping beer from their clothes and grinding broken glass into the carpet. Blackburn had another one in an armlock, but this one wasn’t going down easy, he was spinning around in a circle, taking Blackburn with him, knocking into one of the younger PCs who tried to come to his aid and pitching him over a table. Whoops, hollers and curses rent through the air, building to the crunching crescendo from the jukebox.
Bloody hell
, thought Gray,
it really is like a Wild West saloon
. He got to his feet, another glass whizzing past his ear, and saw her, in the midst of the students, weaving her way towards the door. He took one more look at the prostrate Dutchman and made after her. On the threshold of the exit, he caught hold of her arm and swung her back round.
She used the impetus of the motion to land a punch with her free arm, boxing his left ear so hard he almost let go of her.
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with!” she said, and spat into his eyes.
Gray tightened his grip, dragging her back into the room.
“That in’t me who want to see you, girl,” he said. “It’s the boss requested a special audience. You know, DCI Rivett.”
Her expression of outrage relayed her disbelief at this statement and her mouth opened to protest. But then, as if drawn by magnets, her eyes rolled past Gray’s head towards the shape that had filled the open doorway.
“Oh dear, Gina,” said Rivett, “you have been a naughty girl.”
As the DCI stepped forwards into the room, all the noises seemed to stop. Tongues were stilled; the song on the jukebox gurgled to a conclusion and there was a final tinkling of breaking glass before silence descended. Rivett looked down at the Dutchman and shot Gray an approving glance.
“Good work, detective. I knew you were the right man for this job.”
Then he turned to Kidd, who had by now got cuffs on his own assailant.
“What’s that, then?” he said, eyeballing the biker like he was staring at a reptile in the zoo. The biker returned the compliment with his own venomous gaze, spitting on the carpet
that separated them. “Ah, don’t tell me,” Rivett smiled. “That’s Rat, in’t it? Known to your old Ma as Raymond Runton.”
“He was trying to obstruct an officer from carrying out his duties,” said Kidd, “with a motorbike helmet.” He toed the offending article so that it rolled across the floor.
“Tsk, tsk,” Rivett shook his head, then turned back towards Gina, who had gone completely still in Gray’s grasp. “Where is it?” he said.
She stared back at him with blazing eyes.
“Where’s what?” she said.
“If you’ll allow me,” Gray ducked underneath the alcove, found a plastic bag wrapped around a package stuck between the partition where she had kicked it.
“I think you mean this,” he said, passing it to the DCI.
Gina’s face twisted into an incredulous frown. “Never saw that before in my whole life,” she said. “You just planted it. You all saw him!” she turned to scream at the room.
“All right,” Rivett addressed the young PCs, “take down the names and addresses of everybody present, will you, lads?” He slapped his hand down on Gina Woodrow’s shoulder. “And as for you and your gentlemen friends, I think it’s time we moved this party down to the office. We can all get more cosy there.”
* * *
“What the fuck was all that in aid of?” Gina demanded, once they were in the interview room. She was rubbing her right shoulder. Underneath the leather, the imprints of Rivett’s fingers would soon be showing through her white skin like a purple bouquet.
“Your little Dutch boy,” said Rivett, “has caused me a spot of bother, as if you din’t notice. Two dead junkies in the
park, found by a young mother out walking her pram last Wednesday morning. Turned bright fucking blue they had, poor cow’ll probably never get over the sight of it. And then another one,” he leant across the table, “Friday night, who had the temerity to do himself in right in the middle of the Victoria Arcade. That in’t the sort of image the Lord Mayor of Ernemouth want to project, now, is it?”
Gina stared back at him but said nothing. The tape machine had not been turned on, after all, and there was no one else here. The door had been locked from the inside.
“You see, Gina,” said Rivett, “what your toerag friends do in the privacy of their own council homes is no concern of mine. They want to kill themselves with this shit, that’s fine – so long as they do it out of my sight. But they cross a line, like these sorry bastards have just done, and I’m afraid I find myself duty-bound to investigate, don’t I? And, as you should know by now, Gina, it don’t take me long to suss anything out. Thought you’d been back here long enough to start pulling the wool over, did you? Go freelance?” Rivett got to his feet, started to walk around the table. “A bit on the side that I wouldn’t hear about. In
my
town …”
Gina stood up, knocking her own chair over, backed away slowly across the room.
“Trouble is,” he said, mirroring her steps, his cigar breath in her face, “that gear your clog-wearing friend’s now touting – it’s a little bit too good, too pure for the Ernemouth palette. Them stupid skagheads didn’t mean to kill themselves. They just didn’t realise they were taking three times as much as they normally get.”
Gina felt the coldness of the wall behind her. She did her best not to look scared as the DCI loomed over her, but her
pupils were dilating as her heartbeat quickened, Rivett’s huge hands splayed flat against the wall, one on each side of her head.
“So, if you think you’re gonna walk away from this one,” he said, “I’m gonna need something special, very special indeed. Turn around, Gina.”
* * *
Gray stood in the car park in the first grey light of dawn, gingerly touching his ear. It had come up like a cauliflower; he’d need to sleep with a packet of frozen peas on it now.
He took a last drag and then dropped his cigarette, toeing it out on the concrete, the events of the night before replaying in his mind as he walked to his black Vauxhall Astra. Knobel began squealing almost as soon as they had him in the interview room, naming Raymond Runton as his connection. The biker, also held in custody for attempted assault on a police officer, vehemently denied it. He claimed he had merely been coming to the rescue of what he believed to be a damsel in distress.
Meanwhile, the contents of the Dutchman’s package had gone off to the lab for analysis.
Rivett, Gray couldn’t help but notice, had taken on the task of grilling Gina himself. He hadn’t seen him since they had clocked off their shift.
Getting to his car, he squinted up at the gradually lightening sky, the rooftops a gloomy vista rendered in pale grey, wondering if Gina was sent down, where it’d leave her kid. He hadn’t been able to shake Corrine from his mind.
“Poor little mawther,” he said to himself, turning the key in the ignition. Some people might say she’d be better off in care, but Gray would not be one of them.
He had looked up the book she had been reading. Mr Farrer had been most surprised that Gray should consult him about such a rare and esoteric tome. When he said he’d seen it in the possession of a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, it was the first time Gray had ever witnessed the little old bookseller rendered speechless.
* * *
Gina bit hard into the leather belt Rivett had strapped across her mouth. It stopped her from screaming as her vision went black and her legs buckled beneath her, the huge hands of Rivett’s on each side of her arse the only thing still keeping her upright.
It took a few seconds for her vision to clear, for her to realise he was saying something.
“… the sort of performance we’re after.”
He pulled out of her, letting her topple forwards. Gina steadied herself with her hands against the wall, inching her way upright as the spasms rebounded through her body. Rivett watched her, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping off the condom with it so he didn’t have to touch where she’d been, zipped up his flies. She pulled up her black leather knickers, and slowly unbuckled his belt from around her mouth, handed it back to him, slick with her saliva.
Folding the handkerchief over, he rubbed the spit off before threading it back through the waistband of his trousers.
“I’ll let you know the venue,” he said, “when it’s all arranged.”
Gina ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her eyes and her mouth.
“The fuck you on about now?” she said.
“Don’t you ever listen to a word I say?” said Rivett.
“How can I, when you’re fucking my brains out?” Gina pouted. “Big boy.” She said it with all the scorn she could muster.
Rivett chuckled. “Well, I can’t promise it’ll be as good as that, obviously,” he said. “Seeing as it in’t gonna be me playing the leading man. But we both know what a good actress you are, so you’ll just have to close your eyes and think of Leonard when whatever spotty young dick sinks it in you. I reckon we’ll keep the strap, though. I like the idea of you wearing a scold’s bridle. Might be a good lesson in there for you, and all.”
Gina swallowed. It suddenly sunk in exactly what it was he was saying.
Blue movies. He wanted her in a blue movie.
It was one thing to fuck the big ape for favours; their brutal couplings had been the perfect mix of business and pleasure that had served her purposes very well since she’d returned to Ernemouth.
But this …
“Ready for your close up?” Rivett reached forward and stuffed his dirty handkerchief, condom and all, into the top pocket of her leather jacket.
Francesca and Sean sat in the empty newsroom, facing the picture editor’s monitor screen, staring five years back in time at an image of five smiling men. The occasion, the retirement of Ernemouth’s Detective Chief Inspector Leonard Rivett after thirty years’ loyal service to the town. Congratulating him on his achievement, the Lord Mayor, Mr Ernest Coleman, the Chief of Police for Norfolk, Sir Richard Meadows, the Head of the Board of Tourism and Commerce, Mr Peter Swift and the then Editor of the
Ernemouth Mercury
, Mr Sidney Hayles. With the exception of Mr Swift, who looked as polished and thrusting as any member of Tony Blair’s cabinet, these were the faces of old men, with thread veins and protruding eyebrows.