“Ha fucking ha.”
The other chair creaked as Gristhorpe leaned forward. “My chief inspector might be acting a little harshly towards you, son,” he said. “See, it’s personal with him. He lost a son to drugs.”
Spinks squinted at Banks. “Tracy never said nothing about that.”
“She doesn’t like to talk about it,” said Banks quickly. They had decided to improvise according to responses and circumstances, but Gristhorpe had thrown him a spinner here. He smiled to himself. Why not? Play the game. As far as he knew, Brian was alive and well and still studying architecture in Portsmouth, but there was no reason for Spinks to know that.
“Like everyone his age,” Banks went on, “he thought he was immortal, indestructible. He thought it couldn’t happen to him. Anyone else, sure. But not him.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands. “Now, I don’t give a tinker’s whether you smoke so much crack your brains blow out of your arsehole, but I do care very much that you’re selling to others, especially to a crowd that at one time included my daughter. Do we understand one another?”
Spinks shifted in his chair. “What’s this all about? What you after? A confession? I’m not saying anything. My brief-”
“Fuck your brief,” said Banks, thumping the rickety metal desk. “And fuck you! Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Spinks looked rattled. Gristhorpe cut in again and said to Banks, “I don’t think it’s really appropriate to talk that way to Mr. Spinks, Chief Inspector,” he said. “I’m sure he understands you perfectly well.”
“Sorry, sir,” said Banks, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “Got a bit carried away.” He fumbled for a cigarette and lit it.
“You his boss?” Spinks asked, turning, wide-eyed, to look at Gristhorpe. “He called you ‘sir.’”
“I thought I’d already made that clear,” Gristhorpe said, then he winked. “Don’t worry, son. I won’t let him off his leash.”
He looked back at Banks, who had removed his jacket and was loosening his tie. “He ought to be locked up, that one,” Spinks went on, emboldened. “And his mate. The fat one. Hit me once, he did. Bounced my nose off a fucking table.”
“Aye, well, people get carried away sometimes,” said Gristhorpe. “Stress of the job. The thing is, though, that he’s right in a way. You are in a lot of trouble. Right now, we’re about the only friends you’ve got.”
“Friends?”
“Yes,” said Banks, catching his attention again. “Believe it or not, John, I’m going to do you the biggest favor anyone’s ever done you in your life.”
Spinks narrowed his eyes. “Oh yeah? Why should I believe you?”
“You should. In years to come you might even thank me for it. You’re eighteen now, John, there’s no getting around that. With the kind of charges you’re looking at, you’ll go to jail, no doubt about it. Hard time. Now I know you’re a big boy, a tough guy and all the rest, but think about it. Think. It’s not only a matter of getting buggered morning, afternoon and evening, of giving blow-jobs at knife-point, maybe catching AIDS, but it’s a life of total deprivation, John. The food’s lousy, the plumbing stinks and there’s no-one to complain to. And when you get out-if you get out-however many years later, you’ll have lost a good part of your youth. All you’ll know is prison life. And you know what, John? You’ll be back in there like a flash. It’s called recidivism. Look it up, John. Call it a sort of death wish, but someone like you gets institutionalized and he can’t survive on the outside. He gets to need jail. And as for the blow-jobs and the buggery…” Banks shrugged. “Well, I’m sure you’d even get to like that after a while.”
Banks’s monologue produced no discernible effect on Spinks, as he had suspected it wouldn’t. It was intended only to soften him to the point of accepting a deal. Banks knew that Spinks was already doomed to exactly the kind of existence he had just laid out for him, but that he couldn’t, wouldn’t, recognize the fact, and wasn’t capable of making the changes necessary to avoid it.
No. What they were about to offer was simple, temporary relief, the chance for Spinks to walk free and keep on doing exactly what he was doing until the next time he got caught, if he didn’t kill himself or someone else first. A sprat to catch a mackerel. Very sad, but very true.
“So what is this big favor you’re going to do me?”
“First,” said Banks, “you’re going to tell us the truth about what happened last August. You’re going to tell us how you stole Michael Clayton’s car and his computer and exactly what happened after that.”
Spinks paled a little but stood his ground. “Why would I want to do something like that?”
“To avoid jail.”
“You mean confess to one crime and get off on another one?”
“Something like that.”
“Christ, you’re worse than the bloody criminals, you lot are.” He turned to Gristhorpe. “Can he do that?” he asked. “Has he got the authority?”
“I have,” said Gristhorpe softly. “I’m a superintendent, remember?”
“Don’t we need a lawyer or something?”
“What’s wrong, John?” said Banks. “Don’t trust us?”
“I don’t trust you. Anyway, why talk to the monkey when the organ-grinder’s here?”
Banks smiled. It was working. And he hadn’t denied stealing Clayton’s car yet.
“There’s a Crown attorney in the building,” said Gristhorpe, “and he can deal with the particulars about the charges and likely sentences, if you want to talk to him.”
Spinks squinted. “Maybe I’ll do that. What’s the deal?”
“You tell us what we want to know,” said Gristhorpe, “and we’ll see you stay out of jail. Dealing becomes simple possession.”
“That’s not enough. I want all charges dropped.”
Gristhorpe shook his head. “Sorry, son. We can’t do that. You see, the paperwork’s already in the system.”
“You can lose it.”
“Maybe the odd sheet or two,” said Gristhorpe. “But not all of it. The lawyer will explain it.”
Spinks sat silently, brow furrowed in thought.
Banks stood up. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said to Gristhorpe. “I told you it was no use. His brain’s so addled he doesn’t even recognize a piece of good fortune when he trips over it. Besides, it makes me puke sitting with a drug-dealing moron like him. Let him go to jail. He belongs there. Let him catch AIDS. See if I care.” And he headed towards the door.
“Wait, just a minute,” said Spinks, holding his hand up. “Hold your horses. I haven’t said anything yet.”
“That’s the problem,” said Gristhorpe. “You’d better make your mind up quickly, sonny. You don’t get chances like this every day. We can probably get it down to probation, maybe a bit of community service, but you can’t just walk away from it.”
Spinks glared at Banks, who stood scowling with his hand on the doorknob, then looked back at Gristhorpe, all benevolence and forgiveness. Then he put his feet on Banks’s desk. “All right,” he said. “All right. You’ve got a deal. Get the brief in.”
IV
Large raindrops blotched the pavement when Owen left the pub. Lightning flickered in the north and the thunder grumbled like God’s empty stomach. The drinkers out on the muggy street hurried inside before the deluge arrived.
Owen felt light-headed after all the drinks, and he knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. Booze had made him just brave and foolhardy enough to face Michelle.
He walked along the main road past pubs and shops open late, head bowed, jacket collar turned up in a futile attempt to keep dry. Shop-lights and street-lights smeared the pavement and gutter. Hair that had been damp with sweat before was now plastered to his skull by rain.
