Director's Cut (35 page)

“It’s how I am. I’m never happy unless I have something to worry
about.”

“Well there you are then, I’ve made you happy at last.”

In the corridor at Sheerham nick Cole caught a look from Donna that
asked a question and he ushered her into his office.

“Guv?”

“Donna, you all right?”

“No.”

“You’re not letting it get to you?”

“Not the case, Guv. Other things. You’ve got to me. Being cut short
last night shook me back to reality. I was dreaming. It wasn’t real, was
it?”

“It seemed real enough at the time.”

She shook her head. “It was an emergency, Guv, that’s all it was.”
“I never misled you, Donna. It was you that knocked on my door.”
“Wrong. You opened it before I knocked. But I’m glad I did. In
another way I’m not. It’s nothing to do with you. You never said
anything except come to bed. I’ve got a fiancé who buys concrete
tunnel linings and my favourite DVD is Titanic.” She turned back to
the door then paused. “I’d like to go back to uniform, Guv.”
“Any reason in particular?”

“Maybe it was the phone going, maybe Geoff getting hurt. I don’t
know. Maybe we’ve been saved by the bell.”

“About going back to uniform?”

She offered him a tricky little smile that reminded him where it had
started, then said simply, “Status Quo. My favourite band.” For just a
moment she hesitated then said, “Gotta go,” and with a swirl of skirt
she went and the door closed behind her and with a curious certainty,
he knew that was the end of it.

At his table in the White Horse, partitioned by the stanchions, Rick
Cole sat alone. It was well after closing – three, four, who counted?
And the room was swimming. He’d come out to hear some noise, any
noise, and even Chas Walker’s voice filtering in from the far end of the
room was mildly satisfying.

He considered calling it a day, selling up, selling out, starting
somewhere fresh. But he knew he wouldn’t. It was just Teacher’s talk.
Come the winter’s late dawn he’d be back on the job, poking the bad
men where it hurt.

He thought about Donna Fitzgerald at home with her fiancé, and
Anian Stanford in her single bed. He thought about his own bed and
the wife who’d left it. Ex-wife, now, of course. He checked his watch.
God knows why because he was thinking in years.

It had been a long time ago. Last he’d heard she was living in
Sunshine on the California coast with her American husband, two kids
and an outdoor swimming pool.

Now, where was it the San Andreas fault ran through? His smile
was humourless as he nodded and emptied his glass.

He had blamed the job, and so had she. But that was crap. Staleness
had grown into indifference and from there it was always going to be a
matter of opportunity. And yet it had all started so well – his foot on
the ladder in a job he loved, a quick promotion, the beat of London and
a beautiful young wife. The future had never promised so much.
“I’m leaving you,” she had said. “I never minded you being a
policeman. I just didn’t want the house turned into a police station!”
“Coppers aren’t normal,” she had said.

He’d had enough. He shook away the memories and levered
himself out of the chair. He looked at the door – the exit to reality and
a cold house – then at Big Billy’s excellent daughter, Diane, who stood
behind the bar. She smiled and headed his way and made a fuss of
cleaning his ashtray. Heavy veins ran the length of her long skinny
arms. Nicotine-stained fingers bridged by her old wedding rings
worked furiously with a duster.

“Hello, Princess,” he said.

“You off, Ricky? Can’t you handle it no more?” The H in handle
was left behind somewhere between the river and Hackney.
Rick Cole sighed and sat down again. While she hovered, looking
down at him with a question in her eyes, he settled himself and lit a
JPS. One for the road sounded good.

a sexy, intoxicating feeling of danger. It was amazing what
a bit of dollop could do. It wasn’t a man’s world after all. Men only
thought they were in charge. He wondered whether other women knew
about the power they possessed. Maybe they did. That would certainly
answer a lot of questions. That was a thought.

The thought stayed with him and grew until, as he walked up the
High Road – not forgetting, of course, the swing of his hips and newly
acquired handbag – he was walking on air.

In The British Mr Lawrence was thinking about the gender-benders,
the phthalates with their endocrine-disrupting chemicals that could be
absorbed through the skin and were present in soaps and perfumes and
deodorants and shampoos and just about everything that was made of
plastic; even tablets from the doctors were coated in them. He nodded.
Maybe they were the cause…

In The British the priest from The Church of our Blessed Virgin stood
at the bar. He was in civvies. It was the first time the others had ever
seen him in civvies. His face was flushed and he was clearly angry.
They overheard him talking to the manager.

“Would you believe it? Could you believe it? Even I don’t believe
it. Give me a large scotch. Make it a treble.”

“Ice?”

“Forget the rocks.”

“Water?”

“I washed already.”

Roger nodded and said, “Straight it is. So what is it you can’t
believe, Father? Surely not your belief in…?”

“No, no, no, not that at all, at all. What I’m having trouble coming
to terms with is that anyone could rob their own priest. They broke into
the church and stole my best frock. My frock! My working clothes,
would you believe! A curse on them all.”

Roger shook a sad head. “There’s trouble all over,” he said. “The
late colonel was probably right in that it has to do with the ending of
conscription. As a matter of interest, perhaps you can help me on
another point, a point that has been troubling me? When God speaks to
you is it in His voice or your own and, does he continue to talk to you
even after you’ve taken the pills?”

The priest narrowed his eyes, then shook his head and said, “Make
that two doubles, or whatever it is that four is called.”

Paul stood in The British like a common slapper but no one recognized
him. Except for Mr Lawrence.

Just goes to show. There isn’t much difference. Just clothes and a
smudge of eye shadow and lipstick. And some tissues down your
chest. If only they knew, these geezers giving him the eye, wanting to
give him something else. Bastards, mostly. If only these old men could
see themselves, if only they knew how pathetic they looked as they
strained for eye contact, conscious of every move they made in their
alcoholic haze, flexing their flabby muscles, hiding their blemishes,
pulling in their heavy beer bellies.

We girls should sympathize, really, and feel sad for them. How
awful it must be to be old while the heart cries out to be young. How
awful it was to be old in today’s rushing world. A world where there’s
no such thing as maturity, not in the mind, where men’s thoughts are
never seasoned or mellowed like a ripe cheese. Old wrinkled bodies
with childish minds. Life’s a joke, innit? Only thing is, the punchline,
death, ain’t so funny.

A tart, innI? An A-listed long-legged slapper.

And half the bar fancied him. And the other half was jealous.
But the clothes…the clothes he wore, wonderful! The rich blue
figure-hugging dress he’d nicked from Acadamy, the poxy air
whistling up his legs, the soft lace moving against his…his… Check it
out. He’d borrowed all that from…from…the model… Anthea. Right?
And now he was excited just being alive. Just standing there. Being
clocked by all the geezers. You wouldn’t believe the feeling. You
wouldn’t believe it. It was like…exciting, being looked at like you
were a celebrity or something. Madonna. Yeah.

Dressed like that, keeping in the shadows, it’s like chess, see? A
solid move. A Yaya defence. A defensive move. A modern defence.
Take your time, build, wait for a weakness, strengthen your position,
wait and see what the opponent’s got in mind and then, go for it.
Counterpunch. Crunch!

Together they walked back to the shop, the artist and his neophyte.
Paul was getting used to the heels and had even fashioned something
of a sashay. Being a tart, a crumpet, a…a…goddess, that’s it, was a
doddle, a piece of cake. You just had to learn to moan about everything
and men in particular. There was nothing to it at all. He would have to
work on the voice and the quick and easy put-downs but they would
come in time.

“Timing, Paul,” Mr Lawrence had told him. “Timing is important.”
“Know what you mean. Keep the opposition. Like chess, see? Like
the old Reti. Follow a plan. Endings. More important than anything
else. They’re even more important than the openings, Mr Lawrence.”
“I’ll take your word for that, young Paul, even though, in my
experience, openings are pretty important. Off you go then. The
woman from India is due at any moment.”

“India? I thought she was a Paki.”

“No difference, not really, just a border with a few thousand guns
and the odd nuclear bomb.”

“Will you finish the painting?”

“Yes. Just the final detail. It won’t take long.”

“The final moves, eh? The end game, like I said, Innit?”
As Paul went out the woman came in. She didn’t recognize him, but
then, why should she? Paul was Paula now, and dressed for the
occasion.

DS Sam Butler checked her handbag for a third time, making certain
that the head of a tiny microphone was concealed beneath the flap.
“Where did you get it,” she had asked.

“Don’t ask questions, girl,” he had answered.

He hid the quick cuffs and a small canister of CS spray beneath a
flimsy headband she’d supplied. She had turned up half an hour earlier
and he’d been freshly astonished at the sight of her in the loose flowing
dress. Something in his chest fluttered. He tried to remain indifferent
but he didn’t fool her, not for a moment.

“Sam…”

He started the car and turned toward the High Road, supermarket
end.

“Sam, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not realizing you cared.”

he
toothache.”

“I never meant to be frivolous with you, Sam, or to give you the
wrong idea.”

“You didn’t.”

They met the High Road. He drove past the supermarket. The car
park was full. People struggled with bulging trolleys full of Christmas
crackers and fancy tins of sweets and a bottle of last-minute sherry for
the old neighbour who might drop in. And the guys selling Christmas
wrapping paper were running out of time – their voices were louder:
twenty sheets for a quid.

“It’s been a tough lesson, and I’ve learned it late. You might think
you’re in control but you never are. All it takes is a special person, a
little smile, and all your planning can go out the window. Everything
you hold dear becomes secondary and you’d put it all on the line. For a
dream. You’re a special person, Anian.”

“Oh, Sam…”

On the left the lonely pet shop window slid by. In the distance the
Carrington loomed. The pavements were packed. It was getting close.
“OK, so let’s concentrate. We’ve been over it a dozen times, I
know. This is a bad idea. We’re supposed to be experienced coppers.”
“Sam, it’s now or never. We’re in too deep to pull out now.”
He grunted.

“It’s my fault, I know. I got us into this but it’s too late to give up.
And really, we’ve got nothing to lose. If nothing happens no one will
ever know.”

His nod was reluctant. He wondered how on earth he had landed in
such a position, blinded by a fantasy, a dream that in reality he would
never have allowed to happen.

“Sam, don’t say anything, but this is going all the way, understand?
Whatever it takes. Don’t you come blasting in unless I’m in big
trouble.”

He nodded and said, “Go easy on the wine.”

“He’s not going to drug me.”

He made a left and then a sharp right into the dark run-down road
behind the Gallery. The Doll’s House slid by on the left, the old office
buildings were in front. He pulled to a slow stop.

“This is it.”

She turned to face him full on. She flicked him a little smile then
she was opening the door, struggling out, leaning back in for her
handbag.

“Be careful,” he said. “I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt.”

“I’m not getting hurt, Sam.”

Her eyes levelled on him for one more time, blinked, once, twice,
and she murmured, “See you in a bit.”

And then she was off.

He turned and watched her walk away the way they’d come, the
brown dress picking up a breeze, hugging her thighs enough to make
him shiver. She didn’t look back. She turned left and, with a little skip,
like a shooting star that was sudden and unexpected and excellent, she
was gone.

She breezed in and reminded him of the Indian subcontinent, colourful
and exotic and enigmatic, full of riches and poverty, of strict morals
and great wickedness, God’s own country, no less. And as with the
country she had come from nowhere and was suddenly a major player,
just one of the billion people, give or take, all wanting a piece of the
action. Paul passed her on his way out but if she recognized him it
didn’t show. Mr Lawrence locked the door behind her. “We won’t be
disturbed,” he said.

“You’ve lost your assistants?”

“Paul is on an errand and Laura is asleep. She came in very late.”
While he set up his trappings she flitted about the studio, glancing
at the covers of huge books that contained prints by David Davis,
Corot and Hobbema, peering through the grimy windows at the back
of the shop, checking that the back door was unlocked, flicking
through a pile of sketches that had been half-concealed by the wall
curtain but not really looking at the sketches.

“Where does this lead?”

“The cellars. They housed the electricity meters until they were
moved under the stairs. In Victorian times the coal was emptied
through the pavement grating. The Victorian coal dust is still down
there.”