Nocturne (23 page)

He was outside the house twenty minutes later. I watched him
getting out of the little white Panda car and straightening his jacket
before he locked the door. There was no sign of Gaynor.

I invited him into the kitchen. I
’
d already put a chair on the table
beneath the hole in the ceiling but he was far too tall to need it. He
peered up.

‘
When did it happen?
’

‘
Last night. I told you.
’

‘
That
’
s when you first noticed it. I asked you when it might have
happened. When he might have made it.
’

It was a daft question, impossible to answer, and he must have
realised that from the expression on my face because he changed the
subject at once.
I
’
d left the kettle on the gas stove.

‘
Are you offering me coffee then?
’

His bluntness touched a nerve. Already, after last night with
Brendan, I
’
d half-decided not to pursue Gilbert through the police and
the only point of returning to the flat was the prospect of meeting
Gaynor. If she had experience of this kind of thing, I was more than
happy to take advice. What I wasn
’
t going to do was encourage the
likes of Dave Hegarty. One obsessive was quite enough for me.

‘
I
’
ve run out of instant,
’
I said.

‘
Tea?
’

‘
That, too.
’

He didn
’
t bother to disguise the fact that he didn
’
t believe me. He
began to inspect the ceiling again.

‘
There
’
s no proof, of course,
’
he said.
‘
No real evidence that he did
it.
It could be anything,
loose plaster,
cracks around that crappy fitting.

These toshed-up places,
’
he gestured dismissively around,
‘
they
’
re
falling apart.
’

‘
You
’
re telling me he didn
’
t do it?
’

‘
I
’
m telling you it
’
s unproven. In the hands of a good brief, you
’
d be
laughed out of court. Assuming it even got that far.
’

‘
Laughed
?’
This was a new departure. To date, I hadn
’
t found
Gilbert remotely comic.

‘
Yeah,
’
Hegarty nodded.
‘
It
’
s a game, love. I
’
ve seen it a million
times, rock solid case, absolutely sincere, torn to pieces. You
’
ve got a
problem? Fine, I believe you. But you need evidence, witnesses,
corroboration. Without that, it
’
s his word against yours.
’

I thought at once of the people in the video shop, the couples in the
street outside. They
’
d been there. They must have seen Gilbert
marching me off. But how would I find them? Where on earth would I
start?

Hegarty produced a baton. With a flick of his wrist, he extended it
full length. I had the impression he practised this a lot. He reached up,
poking at the hole. A big piece of plaster broke off, shattering on the
kitchen table below
.
Great.
The hole was now three or four
times its previous
size.

Hegarty seemed unperturbed.

‘
See what I mean? Crap plaster. Crap workmanship.
’

I was still looking at the hole. At this rate, Gilbert wouldn
’
t have to
use the door to get into my flat. He could shimmy down on a rope. I
began to have second thoughts about the tea. Maybe it would save my
kitchen from further damage.

I filled the kettle and switched it on. Hegarty had returned the baton
to his belt and stepped out into the hall.

‘
Mind if I look round?
’

I didn
’
t say a word. Seconds later, I could hear him moving around
next door. Next door was my bedroom. By the time he came back, the
tea was brewing in the pot. I
’
d recovered the chair from the table and
swept up the plaster. Hegarty sat down.

‘
Is he in, do you know?
’

I said I wasn
’
t sure. I
’
d been out in the back garden looking for the
cats and I
’
d heard or seen nothing of him but that didn
’
t mean he
wasn
’
t up there.

‘
Take a look then,
shall we?
’

I followed Hegarty out into the hall and up the stairs. The back of
his neck was mapped with acne scars. On the top landing I stood to
one side while he rapped on the door. Even if Gilbert was in, I knew
there was no chance of him making an appearance for our benefit.
He
’
d have seen the police car outside. He
’
d probably been listening to
our conversation down there in the kitchen. Why on earth would he
want to take part in this pantomime?

After the second knock, Hegarty turned ponderously away. I had
some faint notion that he might have kicked the door down, or drilled
out the lock, but this obviously wasn
’
t to be.

Back in the kitchen, he spooned sugar into his tea.

‘
Diver, are you? Keen on the old watersports?
’

‘
Windsurfing.
’

‘
Ah,
’
he nodded.
‘
I
clocked the wetsuit. Funny that, I thought.
’

‘
Funny?
’

‘
Keeping it in the bedroom.
’
He smiled a private smile,
‘
Good fun, is
it?
’

I was still thinking about the wetsuit, hanging on the back of my
bedroom door.
I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to continue this conversation.
I changed the subject, asking about Gilbert again. What were the
police proposing to do? And why wasn
’
t Gaynor on the case?

‘
Flu.
’
Hegarty smothered a yawn.
‘
I
’
m double-shifting to cover her.
She
’
s back next week. I
’
ll pass on the file.
’

I thanked him, all gratitude, remembering our conversation in the
interview room at the police station. Judging by what litt
le he
’
d
bothered to write down,
Gaynor would be inheriting one of the
thinner files.

‘
What can she do? What
’
s the procedure?
’

‘
She
’
ll do what I
’
ve done. She
’
ll come round, ask you a few
questions, try and raise chummy upstairs. Normally, she
’
d talk to the
Social Services people, too, but I
’
ve done that already.
’

‘
And?
’

‘
They
’
ve never heard of him. Mind you,
’
he frowned,
‘
we
’
ve only
got the name and address to go on. The address is obviously kosher,
but the name? You tell me.
’

‘
You think it
’
s not Phillips?
’

‘
I
don
’
t know,
love,
and you don
’
t, either. Anyone can invent a name.
Names mean nothing.
Two a penny, names.
’

I tried to work out whether this was a bid to impress me, another
piece of macho street lore, and decided it wasn
’
t. It must be strange, I
thought, having to operate in a world where nothing was certain,
nothing was beyond doubt.

‘
Phillips is pretty common, too,
’
he was saying.
‘
Must be thousands
of them. If you wanted to disappear, Phillips is exactly the kind of
name you
’
d choose. You with me?
’

I said I was, then I brought the conversation back to Gaynor. Say
something else happened?
Say I suddenly needed help?

‘
She may give you a bleeper. Little hand-held thing.
’

‘
What would that do?
’

‘
Bring us running.
’
He favoured me with a rare smile.
‘
Lucky thing.
’

After Hegarty had gone, I sat down and, forced myself to think. The
instinct was to rush back to work and plunge into that deep, deep pool
of manic phone calls and impossible deadlines, the best anaesthetic I
’
d
yet found for the very real pain that living beneath Gilbert had
become. But immersing myself in Doubleact was simply postponing
the moment when I
’
d have to make a decision and last night had
brought matters to a head. Thanks to Gilbert, I knew I was facing at
least the possibility of violence. But thanks to Brendan, I now had a
very agreeable alternative. He wanted me to move in with him. He
wanted to turn last night into real life.

I sat through another cup of tea, weighing the pros and cons, trying
to imagine what lay the other side of either decision. Might last night
have equally frightened Gilbert? Might he now, at last, behave
himself? And might it, therefore, be wiser to hang onto my hard-won
independence? On the other hand, might Brendan turn out to be the
man I
’
d always, deep down, been wanting? Someone strong, and
warm, and funny? Someone who
’
d know how to unlock me? Someone
genuine who really cared?

I piled the questions up, did my best to sort them out, then returned
the cup to the kitchen sink. Being me, like being more or less everyone
else on the planet, you can only take so much of all this rational shit.
Then you just get on and do it.

I met Sandra by the photocopier at Doubleact that same afternoon.
Sandra has a hard disk instead of a memory. She forgets nothing. She
told me she needed to ball-park the spend on the last four programmes
in the series. We
’
d done that three days ago.

Sandra
’
s office was on the same floor as Brendan
’
s. I sat across the
desk from her. When she got really angry she had a habit of
compressing her lips so her mouth became a thin white line. Just now,
it was practically invisible.

The nonsense about budget estimates was, as I
’
d thought, a pretext.