The Cold Calling

Christ, you can’t help thinking about it, can you? Seven grand for a painting, take the money and run, run, run…

‘And maybe in a couple of months’ time,’ Suzanne said blandly, ‘if you were to come up with something else Tony wanted …’

‘Like?’

‘You’re the artist.’

‘Why don’t you spell it out?’ Maiden said easily. ‘We’re both grown-up people. Who else has he got on the wall? Biggish wall, is it?’

‘Look.’ She stood up, smiling at him, kindly, like an auntie. ‘Been a long night, lovey. You must be completely shagged out. You have a nice think about it. You know where to find me.’

Picking up her silk jacket from the block pine coffee table, he moved towards her, knocking over the moon picture.

‘Who else besides Mr Riggs?’ he said.

Shit. Couldn’t believe he’d said that. Too much to drink. Could feel it slipping through his hands like a fish, now, swimming away into the murk.

‘I just wouldn’t like to do anything the boss would seriously disapprove of.’

Disastrous.

‘I’m not following you, Bobby.’ Slinking into the jacket, tucking her hair down the collar, shouldering her bag.

He put his hand over hers on the door catch, noticing that the last light in the communal hall had finally expired, a dead bulb with a dark halo of cobwebs on a frayed wire.

‘Night night, Bobby.’ Suzanne’s voice was lower and harder as she detached his hand from the door. ‘All right?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘The night is positively embryonic. And you are-’

Aw, forget it. You blew it. Worse still, you left yourself wide open.

Members of the jury, the defendant has claimed that he took this woman back to his flat ‘to show her my paintings …’

Stupid.

The day before he retired from the Job, Barry Hutchins had said to Maiden, Some divisions, you find being a tiny bit bent is strongly advisable. Just a spot of oil on the wheels, a tweak on the steering.

Let’s face it, most coppers are introduced to it not by villains but by other coppers. Starts in a small way, like being shown which cafes on your beat will give you a free coffee, which restaurants operate a twenty per cent police discount.

Problem I found is, you never quite know whose toes you might be treading on by not accepting a bung. Know what I mean? You’re walking a tightrope in this town, now.

He stood inside the door, listening for the sound of her feet in the hall. She hadn’t gone.

‘Suzanne?’

He opened the door wide. No sound out there but his own voice dancing around the walls. But she hadn’t gone.

‘Suzanne?’ Maiden called softly into the darkness of the lobby. ‘Just confirm something for me, would you?’

No reply.

‘Tell Tony thanks very much, but why would he need me when he’s got Riggs?’

Once you’d soaked your boats in paraffin, you might as well apply the match.

Martin Riggs. Hotshot from the Met brought in to clean up seedy little Midland town. On a promise. Super’s job if he does well, when old Stan White retires. And Riggs does extremely well, hoovering up a bunch of dealers, pimps, small-time hard men in no time at all.

‘Suzanne …?’

Nothing. But he felt an odd tingle in the dark air.

Always struck him as curiously coincidental that Riggs and Parker should arrive in town around the same time.

And what an amazing clean-up rate. The Elham Messenger loved it. STREET- CRIME DOWN AGAIN. Loved him. POLICE CHIEF’S DRUG WAR PAYS OFF.

‘Everybody’s happy, Suzanne. Dealers working for one boss. Job security, long as nobody gets too greedy. And the toms … better working conditions, more respectable pimps. Much healthier all round.’

‘Not for everybody, Bobby. Not for you, the way you’re going on.’

Even though it was still September, the lobby had a late autumnal damp-plaster smell.

‘Listen, Bobby. Just listen.’ Her voice was different. ‘Do yourself a favour. Shut the fuck up and make yourself scarce. You’re playing well out of your league. Can you-’

Silence.

Like she was afraid of being overheard.

He switched off the light in the flat and slipped outside, found a patch of shadow and snuggled into it.

Click, click of heels. Suzanne making for the front door. He slid after her, back to the wall.

Think.

Riggs will have confirmation now: Maiden knows. Maiden doesn’t like it. Maiden’s not up for a buy-off in regular instalments. Maiden’s not one of the lads. Maiden is well under the feet.

‘Bobby.’ Suzanne’s voice, very low. ‘Look. Go back in your flat and lock the door. You know what I’m saying?’

He could see her shape now, in the doorway.

‘Bobby?’ From outside. ‘I’m not kidding. I like you, OK? I like you, you stupid sod. Can’t you get a transfer or something? Jesus, what a fucking mess.’

Footsteps fading.

Aye, go on, nancy, lock yourself in … go back to your painting.

Not any more, Norman.

Maiden came out quickly in a crouch. Didn’t make for the steps, edged instead around the side of the building where a short passageway ended in an iron gate. Bad move if that was where they were waiting but unless they’d checked out the building by daylight they wouldn’t be.

Nobody grabbed him. His relief came out as a rough sob. He stayed in the passage, breathing in its acrid stale-piss air, until he heard her heels moving down the steps.

At which he moved out into the overgrown, iron-railed garden.

Because, God help him, he wanted to know who was waiting for her.

He crept down the steps.

Seeing Suzanne for the last time when she passed beneath a sodium streetlamp, he felt a confusing pang. How could he possibly …?

Without the Gothic make-up? In different circumstances? Just the two of them, somewhere damp and lonely?

The street was very still. Rundown Victorian villas turned into flats or boarded up. A derelict pub. No parked cars — double-yellow zone.

Maiden came quietly down to the pavement. The streetlamps shimmered in oily puddles, the tarmac still pitted from a laying of new drains. No sign of Suzanne. He stepped off the kerb to peer further up the street.

Out here his head was clearing. Pleasanter now. He began to stroll up the road, hands in his pockets, the essence of peat coming back to him. Damp and lonely. Funny thing, now Liz was gone, now he could go where he liked, he just hadn’t. He’d stayed in Elham, sorting out burglaries and domestic murders, occasionally going out with unsuitable women, building up the Tony Parker file on his home computer.

Waiting for a break. Waiting for something to give. Wondering how it could all have gone so wrong. Thinking that if he could just nail Parker and Riggs he’d walk away from it.

After fifteen wasted years.