The Cold Calling

‘Oh,’ he said.

Tony Parker was known to have a grown-up kid Elham had never seen. A kid raised at the house he’d given his former wife in the nice part of Essex, where a daughter might attend a good school, learn languages, have riding lessons, grow up respectable.

‘Bugger me,’ Maiden said.

Of course, she’d have loved it: doing herself up like a faintly sinister tart: white make-up, little black number to spill out of when she reached for her drink.

He grinned. Surely the first time since his previous life. Was that your idea? The pictures?’

‘Not bad, I thought, Bobby, for a spur of the moment thing. I was quite proud of it. For a while. But then …’

Then, when it started to go badly wrong, the reality of her old man’s world thrown in her face like a bucketful of ice.

After which, she might have been expected to wash off the white-face in a hurry, go running back to Essex to hide under the bedclothes, avoid reading the papers for a while.

Only she hadn’t. A few coloured sparks started crackling across the drabness, the rippling electricity of sex.

‘Tell me,’ he said. What made Riggs decide drastic action was called for?’

‘Oh,’ she said. Well …’ She lay back in the arms of the playground slide, looked up at the darkening sky. ‘All right, what the hell? A guy called Percy Gilbert — I don’t know these people, I don’t spend much time up here — this guy’s a police informer, right? They all know that, but it’s tolerated because it works both ways, in his case, and these days he only grasses up the people they want grassed up.’

‘The little turd,’ Maiden said.

‘So this Gilbert knows you’ve been asking questions about Tony. But it was the Messenger that did it.’

‘The local rag?’

‘You had a brief thing going, word has it — Percy’s word, anyway — with a certain Siobhan Gallagher, journalist with the Messenger.’

‘Oh no,’ Maiden said weakly.

‘Whose boss — Roger Gibbs, Gibson …?’

‘Gibbs.’

‘… was informed by Laurie Argyle, the estate agent, who’s a member of his lodge, something like that, that this Gallagher’s been making inquiries about the unnamed names behind the Feeny Park development.’

Maiden moaned.

‘Not getting anywhere, because the Riggs connection’s buried much deeper. But it caused some anxiety. Not very bright, Bobby, if you don’t mind me saying so, letting your pillow talk stray into areas this dangerous. Mr Gibbs gave Ms Gallagher a very serious talking to and she buggered off back to Belfast anyway. But this is when — I understand — your Mr Riggs suggested it might be better all round, knowing you as he did, if Pa were to have you popped before you did any damage.’

‘You understand? ‘

‘This isn’t something I would normally ever learn about in a million years, because, as far as the little girl is concerned, her daddy is a bona fide businessman, a straight-down-the-line plain dealer. But I was up for the weekend and he was drinking like the proverbial. Worried? I’ve never seen him so worried. It’s not his thing, really it isn’t. The reason he moved up here in the first place was he was winding down. “It’s nothing but drugs,” he kept saying. “Drugs are taking over. It’s all hard kids now. I’m too old.”’

‘Somebody send for a violinist,’ Maiden said.

She scowled, sat up in the slide. ‘I’ll deny all this, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘I said, Have you never tried … you know? “Nah,” he says, “the geezer don’t do the circuit. Stays at home on his days off, apparently, painting pictures, you believe that?” Well, I thought you sounded interesting. I said, I want to meet him. Then I get all this “you’re staying out of it, princess, and that’s final” stuff. But I could always get round him.’

‘You surprise me.’

‘Honest to God, Bobby …’ Emma Curtis stood up. ‘I know when I’ve blown it. I was ready to go crawling back shamefaced that night. Then you just walked into us. Like you couldn’t give a toss. What the fuck came over you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I made Vic stop. I sent him to phone for an ambulance. I ran back. I thought you were dead. I didn’t know what to do. Vic came back. He’d parked down near the main road. When we heard the ambulance, he dragged me away. I’m sorry. I couldn’t be more sorry.’

He saw tears in her eyes. He believed her. She went to sit on a swing, kicked at the ground to get it moving.

‘What happens now, then, guv? They call you guv up here? I’m only au fait with the London vernacular, as you know.’ She found a shallow smile. ‘Life gets complicated, don’t it?’

‘Ain’t got nothing on death.’

‘Really?’

‘Never mind.’

The other side of the playground, Vic Clutton coughed impatiently, stamping on his cigarette end, sparks flying up.

‘He your regular chauffeur?’

‘Pa thinks I need a good, strong minder.’

‘You don’t live with Tony, then?’

‘I’m in one of his single-person’s apartments for the moment. In the, er, Feeny Park development. It’s quite nice, actually. For Elham.’

‘Has it got a bed?’

She stopped swinging. Her eyes widened, but not very much.

‘Bobby, pardon me for saying this, and I don’t wish to sound unflattered or anything, but quite frankly, at this moment, you don’t look like you could screw the cap off a bottle of Ribena.’

‘I meant a spare bed, actually. I’ve got a problem. Just for tonight?’

She bit down on a smile.

XIII

Vic Clutton drove them back towards the town centre. It was dark. Maiden hadn’t thought about death for nearly ten minutes. It was a start.

‘Your poor eye.’ She stroked his hair back, put her fingers on his forehead. ‘State of the health service. A few years ago, they wouldn’t have discharged you like this.’

‘Where’s Mr Curtis?’ He leaned his head back on the parcel shelf, closed his eyes under her hand.

‘Everybody’s allowed one mistake.’

‘Only one?’

‘Mr Curtis was a commodities broker.’

‘And you got tired of being a commodity.’

‘He liked to handle a variety of commodities.’

‘What a loser,’ Maiden said.

‘Thank you.’

They turned into Old Church Street and then left into Telford Avenue.