He showed him the defunct credentials that Sally had sent back to him, and the police constable sucked his moustache into his mouth. “Met, eh? Good pay down there is it?”
“You get by,” Sean said, giving him a grin.
“Danger money, isn’t it, though?”
Sean nodded in the direction of the police van. “You say that, but...”
“Aye. It happens all over, I suppose. Go on then, before my sarge catches me.”
Sean clapped him on the shoulder and he and Emma slipped through the cordon. He led her down a narrow walkway parallel to the main road. Tough-looking men and tougher-looking women watched their progress, tight- lipped from bedroom windows and back gardens. Dogs barked at them from behind every gate.
They caught a glimpse of some of the trouble as they neared Billy’s house. Two factions were pointing at each other and arguing heatedly. A policewoman was trying to broker some kind of peace. Two or three of her colleagues were standing by, sniggering into their hands. On its back, smouldering in the centre of the road, was a Ford Ka.
Sean rang the front doorbell and, too late, remembered how Billy had escaped the last time. A willowy woman poked her head out of the upper window and asked him what the fuck he wanted. Ash from a cigarette clamped between her lips dusted Sean’s beanie. A child was crying inside with rare athleticism. The sound drew goosebumps onto Sean’s skin.
“Billy,” he said. “Is he in?”
“He’s playing fucking footie. Try down the park. Now fuck off.”
The window slammed shut. As they walked away, they heard the woman berating the child, whose response was to take the shrieks up a notch.
The park was five minutes’ walk from Blackwood Crescent. They could hear the exhortations of the crowd and the snapped instructions of the players. They found a path through some wintry trees to what was little more than a morass with a few blades of green sticking up through it. Labouring in the mud, two teams whose identities had been lost to the plates of dirt that covered their strip, made the air steamy with sweat and foul language. On the touchline, two desolate-looking girlfriends tried to keep warm with cigarettes and gossip.
“Which one’s Billy?” Emma asked.
“I couldn’t say. We’ll have to hang around till they’ve finished.”
Sometimes the muddied ball seemed to get lost, camouflaged by the grey-blue miasma. But then a player would kick it into the air, more often than not falling onto his backside in the process. Tackles were going in all over the pitch; it didn’t seem important for there to be a ball involved sometimes. Minor skirmishes erupted. The referee blew his whistle but nobody noticed. Both goalkeepers leaned against the goalposts as though waiting for a bus. The lack of interest permeated the crowd, who both wandered off towards the pub. When the referee called an end to the match, nobody seemed to know who had won. Everyone trooped towards the squat changing rooms.
“Wait here,” Sean said, and followed the mudmen through the door.
The showers were already on, hot jets filling the changing rooms with acrid steam that tickled the craw. A malty smell of naked, damp bodies mixed with the harsh odours of cheap soap and shampoo. Talk was turning away from the football, to what was going to happen later that night. The pubs they would meet in, the girls who would be up for it, the men they wanted slain.
“Billy?” Sean called. Three men said: “Yeah?”
“Billy Morgan?”
“He’s outside,” said one of the other Billys. “Taking down the nets.”
The sweat that had been driven onto Sean’s skin by the steam froze instantly when he returned to the freezing pitches. He saw Emma mooching under the trees, looking at the flowers and the mushrooms. She waved at him and then shrugged as if to ask:
A more distant figure was struggling to unhook the nets from the goalposts. Sean pointed at him and motioned for her to stay where she was. Emma threw back her head theatrically but gave him a smile that made him forget all about the cold.
By the time Sean reached him, Billy had managed to divest the goalposts of their net and was bundling it up into a manageable shape to carry back to the sports centre.
“Want a hand?”
Billy froze as Sean approached, the net dangling from his grasp, giving him the bizarre appearance of a cheated fisherman. Billy scrutinised the stranger, the gauze over one eye, the black beanie, the way he favoured one leg over the other as he approached. “Who are you?”
Sean smiled. If Billy bolted before he was within arm’s length, he’d never catch him. “The name’s Sean. We’ve met before.”
“I don’t thi–” But now the eyes widened a little and the net fell from his arms. “Fuck off. I’m finished with him now. That Lord. That
Sean held his hands up, kept the smile in position. “I know, I know. I wanted to apologise to you.”
“You
“Apologise, Billy. I was working for Vernon Lord, but I didn’t know what it was he was up to. I still don’t. I thought he was a debt collector. I swear. That’s all.”
“He was,” Billy said. His voice had calmed down, but he was still taking steps backwards, keeping the distance between himself and Sean. Sean stopped. Billy stopped.
“But you said, that day, that it wasn’t money...”
“It was never money,” Billy said.
“Then what?”
“Why should I tell you? You caught me that day. Gave me a hiding. Set me up for that bastard.”
“I’m sorry, Billy. I was... I’m a private investigator. I was trying to find out who killed a girl.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you are. You’ve spoilt me for life. I’m a wreck.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I hope you never have to.” Billy walked around Sean in a wide arc, as if fearful of a repeat attack.
“Billy–”
“Fuck off.”
Sean trudged after him as he returned to the changing rooms. The others had finished cleaning themselves and were standing around outside, hair nicely combed and glinting in the pale sunlight, sports holdalls slung over shoulders, car keys clinking in their fingers. Billy dumped the nets and went inside. Sean followed.
“I want to help you,” Sean said. “I want to get Vernon Lord. I think he had something to do with the death of this girl.”
Billy said nothing. He slowly peeled the kit from his filthy body. Sean turned away. “Who was the other guy who turned up after I left you that day, Billy? The man in the mask?”
He heard Billy snort behind him. The squeal of a tap was followed by the blast of water on tiles. Sean turned to see Billy eclipsed by a cloud of steam as he began to soap his body. “That was Dr. Chater.”
“Dr. Chater?”
Billy’s hair stood up in soapy tufts. His eyes closed as shampoo creamed across his face. He looked impossibly young. “Yeah,” Billy said, spitting out water. “Vernon has a deal sorted out. He finds prime cuts and Dr. Chater comes to harvest them.” The steam from the shower dissipated under a breath of air from outside.
There was still plenty of moisture in the changing rooms, sluicing along the floor, hanging in the air, but none of it could help the dryness that stripped Sean’s throat in the second that Billy’s body became visible.
Billy stood in the cubicle, rinsing his gelded body with a flannel. Wintry sunlight diffused by the frosted windows turned his flesh to powder; the spasming striplights arranged on the ceiling softened him to such an extent that it seemed the angles of his bones had been sanded down. Sean stared at the mangled nub of his pubis, beribboned with shining scars, as if a slug had made criss-cross journeys across him. And then he noticed Billy was watching him. As Sean made to say something (what comfort could he have offered?) Billy made a barely imperceptible shake of his head and, bringing his finger to his lips, locked the words Sean might have uttered deep inside him for ever.
