the lobby of a hotel in Bays water he talked about the dependence of the hotel and catering trades on migrants from Somalia and South-East Asia; and at the port of Dover he made allegations of corruption and bribery running through Customs and Immigration and penetrating right up to the highest levels of the police.
‘That’s the thing about Kramer,’ Masters said, watching a video of the programme in Jenkins’ office high above the Thames. ‘He always has to go that little bit too far.’
Two days earlier, with the assistance of officers from the Cambridgeshire force, they had arrested two of Alen Markovic’s fellow field workers for his murder. The foreman, they claimed, had given them no choice: get rid of him or get sent back. They had clubbed him to death with a spade and a hoe.
In one of his last actions as a minister before being shuffled on to the back benches, Hugo Forester announced a further toughening of the laws governing entry into the country and the employment of those who have gained access without proper documentation. ‘The present system,’ he told the House, ‘in its efforts to provide refuge and succour to those in genuine need, is unfortunately still too open to exploitation by unscrupulous individuals and criminal gangs. But the House should be assured that the introduction of identity cards to be announced in the Queen’s speech will render it virtually impossible for the employment of illegal workers to continue.’
Coordinated raids by the police on safe houses and farms in Kings Lynn and Wisbech resulted in twenty-seven arrests. Two middle-ranking officers in the Immigration Service tendered their resignations and a detective chief inspector stationed at Folkestone retired from duty on medical grounds. A warrant was issued for Sali Mejdani’s arrest on twenty-seven separate charges of smuggling illegal immigrants into Britain. Mejdani, travelling under the name of Aldo Fusco, had flown from Heathrow to Amsterdam on the previous morning, and from there to Tirana where he seemed, temporarily, to have disappeared.
Adina was duly given a student visa and enrolled in a course in leisure and travel at the University of North London.
Hugo and Helen Forester announced a trial separation.
Kiley, feeling pleased with himself and for very little reason, volunteered to treat Kate to one hundred and thirty-eight minutes of Mystic River with supper afterwards at Cafe Pasta. Kate thought she could skip the movie.
When she arrived, Kiley was already seated at a side table, Irena bending slightly towards him, the pair in conversation.
‘Ordered the wine yet, Jack?’ Kate said, slipping off her coat and handing it to Irena. Irena blushed and backed away. ‘Oh, and bring us a bottle of the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, will you? Thanks very much.’
‘She was telling me about Adina,’ Kiley said.
‘How was the film?’ Kate asked.
‘Good. Pretty good.’
Irena brought the wine and asked Kate if she would like to taste it, which she did.
‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’ Kate said as Irena walked away.
‘Who?’
‘Irena.’
‘Is she?’
JUST FRIENDS
These things I remember about Anna Shepherd: the way a lock of her hair would fall down across her face and she would brush it back with a flick of her hand; the sliver of green, like a shard of glass, high in her left eye; the look of surprise, pleasure and surprise, when she spoke to me that first time — ‘And you must be Jimmy, right?’
The way she lied.
It was November, late in the month and the night air bright with cold that numbed your fingers even as it brought a flush of colour to your cheeks. London, the winter of ’56, and we were little more than kids then, Patrick, Val and myself, though if anyone had called us that we’d have likely punched him out, Patrick or myself at least, Val in the background, careful, watching.
Friday night it would have been, a toss-up between the Flamingo and Studio 51, and on this occasion Patrick had decreed the Flamingo: this on account of a girl he’d started seeing, on account of Anna. The Flamingo a little more cool, more likely to impress. Hip, I suppose, the word we would have used.
All three of us had first got interested in jazz at school, the trad thing to begin with, British guys doing an earnest imitation of New Orleans; then, for a spell, it was the Alex Welsh band we followed around, a hard-driving crew with echoes of Chicago, brittle and fast, Tuesday nights the Lyttelton place in Oxford Street, Sundays a club out at Wood Green. It was Val who finally got us listening to the more modern stuff, Parker 78s on Savoy, Paul Desmond, the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.
From somewhere, Patrick got himself a trumpet and began practising scales, and I kicked off playing brushes on an old suitcase while saving for the downpayment on a set of drums. Val, we eventually discovered, already had a saxophone — an old Selmer with a dented bell and a third of the keys held on by rubber bands: it had once belonged to his old man. Not only did he have a horn, but he knew how to play. Nothing fancy, not yet, not enough to go steaming through the changes of ‘Cherokee’ or ‘I Got Rhythm’ the way he would later, in his pomp, but tunes you could recognise, modulations you could follow.
The first time we heard him, really heard him, the cellar room below a greasy spoon by the Archway, somewhere the owner let us hang out for the price of a few coffees, the occasional pie and chips, we wanted to punch him hard. For holding out on us the way he had. For being so damned good.
Next day, Patrick took the trumpet to the place he’d bought it, Boosey and Hawkes, and sold it back, got the best price he could. ‘Sod that for a game of soldiers,’ he said, ‘too much like hard bloody work. What we need’s a bass player, someone half-decent on piano, get Val fronting his own band.’ And he pushed a bundle of fivers into my hand. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘go and get those sodding drums.’
‘What about you?’ Val asked, though he probably knew the answer even then. ‘What you gonna be doin’?’
‘Me?’ Patrick said. ‘I’m going to be the manager. What else?’
And, for a time, that was how it was.
Private parties, weddings, christenings and bar mitzvahs, support slots at little clubs out in Ealing or Totteridge that couldn’t afford anything better. From somewhere Patrick found a pianist who could do a passable Bud Powell, and, together with Val, that kept us afloat. For a while, a year or so at least. By then even Patrick could see Val was too good for the rest of us and we were just holding him back; he spelled it out to me when I was packing my kit away after an all-nighter in Dorking, a brace of tenners eased down into the top pocket of my second-hand Cecil Gee jacket.
‘What’s this?’ I said.
‘Severance pay,’ said Patrick, and laughed.
Not the first time he paid me off, nor the last.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
That November evening, we’d been hanging round the Bar Italia on Frith Street pretty much as usual, the best coffee in Soho then and now; Patrick was off to one side, deep in conversation with a dark-skinned guy in a Crombie overcoat, the kind who has to shave twice a day and wore a scar down his cheek like a badge. A conversation I was never meant to hear.
‘Jimmy,’ Patrick said suddenly, over his shoulder. ‘A favour. Anna, I’m supposed to meet her. Leicester Square Tube.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Any time now. Get down there for me, okay? I’ll see you at the club later.’
All I’d seen of Anna up to that point had been a photograph, a snapshot barely focused, dark hair worn long, high cheekbones, a slender face. Her eyes — what colour were her eyes?
She came up the steps leading on to Cranbourne Street and I recognised her immediately; tall, taller than I’d imagined, and in that moment — Jesus! — so much more beautiful.
‘Anna?’ Hands in my pockets, blushing already, trying and failing to look cool. ‘Patrick got stuck in some kind
