'Hi, Gavin. Yes, I was. Thanks for ringing, but I spoke to Mrs…
Petty, was it? She answered my question.'
'It's Mrs. Pettit, actually. Yes, she told me, but I've just had a look at the file and she didn't give you the full story.'
'Oh, go on.'
'She said Purley died of TB and pneumonia, but what she didn't tell you was that they were AIDS-induced. I don't suppose it makes much difference, but Don Purley had full blown AIDS.'
'Jesus, thanks. What was he doing injecting?'
'Probably, plus a bit of shirt lifting 'Shirtlifting? Bet you didn't put that in your report.'
'Not in those words, so don't quote me. Anything else?'
'Yeah. His wife, Rhoda. What happened to her?'
'Still in Heckley, as far as I know.'
'We tried her name alongside the electoral roll and she didn't show.'
'Oh.' He was silent for a few moments before he said: 'What name did you try?'
'Well, Rhoda Purley,' I answered.
'Hang on a second.' I could hear the rustle of sheets as he riffled through the file. 'Here it is. Name of spouse or partner Rhoda Flannery. Common-law wife, as we called them in those days. They weren't married.'
'Bugger!' I spat the word out. 'You've been a little treasure, Gavin.
Give me his release address, please.'
'Forty-nine, Attlee Towers.'
'Got it. I owe you a pint.'
'You're welcome. I know you don't believe it but we are supposed to be on the same side, you know.'
I rang Heckley Control and spoke to Arthur again. 'Bring up the local electoral roll,' I told him, 'and check for a Rhoda Flannery. Then find out what car she drives, please. I'm at home.'
He rang me back in a few minutes. She still lived at Attlee Towers and drove a 1988 Ford Fiesta, colour grey. Ah, well, I wasn't far off. He told me the registration number. I grabbed my jacket and picked up Sparky's radio from the hall table, where I'd left it the night before.
The rain had started again.
Attlee Towers is on the mean side of town. Once, rows of terraced houses stood there; two-up, two-down and back-to-back. No hot water, shared closets, and washing strung like bunting across the cobbled streets. But now people remembered them with affection, for there had been a sense of community that vanished when the bulldozers moved in.
They'd been replaced by vertical warrens with unlit stairwells and cardboard walls.
There are four blocks on the estate, all named after giants of the Labour movement. It was a lot worse than I remembered: Attlee Towers was in its death throes.
It reminded me of some eccentric art gallery, with all the paintings on the outside, like a forerunner of the Pompidou Centre. Most of the windows and doors were covered by sheets of plywood, on which the graffiti artists had demonstrated their talents with enough stolen aerosols of paint to give Heckley its own private hole in the ozone layer. The wooden sheets were portrait-style over the doors, landscape on the windows, and the artists had worked with a flair and urgency that showed in the results. Some of them were bloody good, but I'd never admit it in front of the Super. Here and there dingy curtains indicated an occupied flat.
Forty-nine is on the fourth floor, but it was a coincidence, not good planning. Four floors is about the limit of my endurance these days, but I didn't trust the lift. The stairway was narrow and dark, and stank of urine. An empty drinks can clattered away from under my feet, the noise echoing unnaturally loudly as it rattled down the concrete steps.
Huddled on the landing of the third floor were two youths. They stared at me with blank expressions on their spotty faces. The air was pungent with the smell of solvent and one of them was trying to hide a plastic bag.
Tut that where I can see it,' I told him.
He made no effort to do so. I fished my ID from my pocket and held it in front of his nose. 'Now!' I yelled. He placed the bag on the floor, alongside where he was sitting.
'OK, now let's see what you're using.'
He produced a tube of glue big enough to make a full-scale replica of the Spruce Goose. Half of it was gone.
'Now you,' I told the other one.
'I 'aven't got anyfing, mister,' he said.
'No? So open your jacket.'
He reluctantly unzipped his bomber jacket. I put my hand in the inside pocket and found a cylinder of lighter fuel.
'How old are you?' I demanded.
'Fifteen,' they replied, not quite in unison.
'Well, if you keep on using this stuff you won't make sixteen. Now get out of it.'
They sidled off down the stairs, backs to the wall as they looked up at me. As they vanished round the landing below, I shouted: 'Stick together,' after them, and immediately hated myself for it.
They inhale the lighter fluid butane by operating the valve against their teeth. It is under pressure in the cylinder and injects straight into the lungs, reaching the brain in seconds. It's an act of desperation, with no safety margin between a good trip and an OD. I pressed the cylinder against the metal banister until it was empty, the tube growing icy in my hand as the pressure inside dropped and the smell of the gas nearly knocking me over. Then I squeezed the rest of the glue out. Neither container had a price ticket indicating which shop had supplied it.
The fourth floor. External corridors radiate out from the main structure, each with three flats along it. I chose the wrong one first: 44, 45 and 46.
Forty-seven, this was more like it. All the windows were boarded up and defaced. Forty-eight, just the same. Window, door, window, all covered and spray-painted; but the design on the last sheet of plywood stopped me in my tracks.
It was a skull, done in red on a white background and edged in black.
It was the artist's tour de force, the prize exhibit in the gallery.
He'd captured that grin that mocks the living surprisingly well, for the teeth were comprised of four letters. They spelt: AIDS.
Chapter 22
Rhoda Flannery would have to pass that skull every time she went out, every time she came home. I edged by it, and found myself outside number 49.
All the curtains were closed. I knocked on the door. Something told me that nobody was in, the same mysterious sense that tells you that nobody will pick up a telephone. It can be wrong, though. I hammered, again and again, but I couldn't conjure her up.
Fictional detectives carry little bundles of bent wires that enable them to bypass the most sophisticated products of the lock maker craft.
Or if it's a Yale lock they just slip a credit card in and hey presto!
But this wasn't a Yale. My own preferred method is to borrow a key.
It's common knowledge that there are only about ten different keys for all the locks on these flats. An old customer of mine, called George Dunphy, lived in one of the other blocks. He was also an old-style cat burglar; no bricks through windows for him. I radioed control and asked for his address. It took a couple of attempts as the radio was on the blink.
He was in. 'Hello, George. Remember me, Charlie Priest?' I said when he answered the door.
'Mr. Priest? Well, blow me down. What can we do for you?'
'Well, you could invite me in.'
He lived in Bevan Towers, and the council had elected that this block should house the more responsible
