The City Trap (14 page)

It was what he needed, the air and the exercise. Back on the move, eyes alert, on the lookout for Jerry Coton. He crossed Stoney Lane and entered the terraced streets, all yellow glare, deep
shadow and covered windows hinting secrets. A taxi prowled past him looking for its fare. Then a pair of black ghost forms appeared. Purdah robes. Wary, they hugged the house walls and then
scurried past Des. He caught the merest flicker of a furtive eye. Further on, Des had the feeling he was being followed, but there was no one to see. He shrugged. Just bad feelings on his tail. In
that yard behind the wall, a death that should’ve been avoided. Over in the shop doorway, fear pretending to check out the small ads. And further back, in deeper cover, Miranda was doggedly
clinging on. He gritted his teeth. Nothing much else could be done. It was a test of nerve.

Friday night and there was no Stevie Kitson down at the Lime Tree. This night seemed to attract mostly black clientele so Des didn’t feel especially hopeful. Still, he
pushed his way through the throng and wondered whether a drink would dispel the night creatures that followed him. He decided it would and ordered a large whisky. As he did so, he caught
Eileen’s eye and beckoned her over. It being pay cheque night, it was a while before Eileen came. Des surveyed the bar. There were few faces he recognized.

‘Can’t talk long, Des, what can I do for you?’

‘Sorry, Eileen, just a quick thing. You seen Jerry Coton here tonight?’

‘The tall guy who stutters?’

‘Yeh, guess that’s him.’

‘Surely, he was here earlier on, but then went off with Frederick.’

‘Old grey Frederick?’

‘Huh-uh.’

‘No idea where?’

‘I think Frederick sometimes goes down the George.’

‘Right.’

Des downed his whisky in one go. Then he felt a little something give him a tug.
Big wallow here. See all those smiling faces, that warm amber glow? How about, you know, another little shot
before you think to leave?
Des stood up abruptly. ‘No way,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘No way I fall for that again.’ And he made his way through the crowd.

So it was once more out into the city streets where bad vibes prowled like ghosts in black. He went up a street of shuttered shops, all riot and ram-raider proof, and then turned the corner at
the Dodyal Sweet House where bullet holes could still be seen in the concrete wall. He kept his head well down. Eyes on automatic de-select. If you don’t see the shit, the world looks better.
He didn’t even look into the window of the all-night taxi office where grey-faced drivers kicked heels, chewed fat and went goggle-eyed in front of the TV box. Being this withdrawn, Des
didn’t see the guy coming round the corner. He couldn’t stop his shoulder sending Vin St James flying.

‘Jesus fuck, man!’ Vin had landed on his backside. He angrily glared up at Des. ‘It you! You the bleeda who sock me before. You the bastard who los me bes blade!’

‘Sorry, man. Shit, let me help you up.’

‘Don’t you dare touch me, man!’

‘You look like you need help. I mean, what happened, Vin?’

Vin was certainly struggling to get to the vertical. His left arm was in a sling and there seemed to be something wrong with one of his legs. He managed to get his weight on his good arm but
then struggled to get his feet to move.

‘Shit!’ he gasped.

Des moved over, grabbed him under the armpits and pulled Vin up like a pillow. But he didn’t get any thanks, merely a suspicious, surly look as Vin dusted himself down. Des noticed a set
of stitches right across his brow.

‘So what happened then, eh?’

‘It ent nuttin feh you to know bout.’

‘Come on, you know my interest. I’m still working for Bertha.’

Vin looked up and down the street. His shoulders seemed droopier than before and his cheeks more hollow. The guy had aged a lot in a week.

‘Yeh, what the fuck,’ Vin muttered.

‘Did you get clobbered because of Claudette?’

‘You t’ink me s’pose fi know dat?’ The shoulders drooped more. ‘Yeh, man, it probably was. Look, man, you put it togedda. Me go an see Ross Constanza, ask im if he
know anytin bout what Claudette she up to. Im don’t know. Few day later, Scobie turn up on me plot an me end up in a hospital wid me whole crop a trash.’

‘Scobie?’

‘Wha? You mean you don’t know im?’ Vin kissed his teeth. ‘Scobie im Ross bad bwoy, im muscle. Man, me pull firs an im still get me.’

‘I’m really sorry, Vin, but, you know, why would this Ross guy know anything?’

‘Come on, you ain’t that dumb, or is you jus playin the fool?’

‘Hey –’

‘Look, Ross im run girl too, at the posh end a the market. Me jus thought she might a gone to im feh extra dough. Turn out she was fuckin roun wid some other guy, but dat don’t
bother Ross. You ain’t s’pose to question Ross.’

‘You got any proof?’

‘Man, me know nuttin right, cept me a fuck up bad an feelin pressure.’

‘Well, thanks for the info anyway.’

‘Don’t t’ank me, man, cos it could be a curse.’ Vin suddenly turned a shifty eye up and straight into Des’s gaze. ‘Scobie, the rat, im coulda come after
you!’

A half-hearted laugh came out of Vin’s mouth as he turned and limped away. Des leaned back against a wall. For a moment he was encouraged by what he’d heard about Ross Constanza.
Another connection, another snippet of information that made the case move. But then he sighed loudly. ‘Just another sordid little fix really,’ he muttered to himself. ‘So why am
I roaming the streets?’ Des set off once again for the George. ‘Could it be because I don’t want to go back to Bertha?’

The George Inn was considerably quieter than the Lime Tree. This was a Sikh-run pub and was known to be stricter in adhering to the rules. The clientele, therefore, were perhaps a bit more
respectable. That, or they were serious drinkers unconcerned with pick-ups or partying. Des got himself half a bitter. He asked at the bar about Frederick but got the same story that he’d
been and gone. He found a fairly quiet corner and slumped down. The temptation was to start picking over the case, and that would probably have happened, if a woman hadn’t stared him out of
his thoughts. She wouldn’t stop looking, a ginger-haired mixed-race woman with mocking eyes and the prominent thighs of a girl in the trade. Des began to get shifty. Her face was
familiar.

‘You clocked it yet?’

‘I’m working on it.’

‘Could be a delicate matter, certainly embarrassing.’

‘That’s probably why I’ve forgot.’

‘Think of precious jewels.’

‘Rubies?’

‘Better than that.’

‘Diamonds?’

‘No, this has a sea connection.’

‘Oh no . . .’

It was the kind of situation that might have got Des running, but there was something about Pearl that made him smile.

‘I’m kind of surprised you remembered. One limp john must look like any other,’ he said.

‘You didn’t come over as any john. You didn’t even seem like a john, more like a guy who was having a bad time. A bit like now, huh?’

‘Very perceptive.’

‘It’s useful to know how to size a guy up.’

‘In one minute flat?’

‘Often that’s all the time there is.’

Des found himself beginning to relax. It was weird, her just sitting there and latching onto him, but there seemed no angles, no shit to be stirred. Is this friendliness, Des thought, that I am
warming to?

‘Do you normally do this? I mean, talk to ex-clients?’ he asked. ‘I guess this is your time off.’

‘Too right it is. I come here for some peace and quiet. And you? Well you, I guess, aren’t really an ex-client. I kind of respect a guy who isn’t into cold sex.’

‘Yeh?’ Des wondered whether he was blushing. ‘Well, it’s nice to meet you, Pearl.’

‘You too, mister.’

They both shook hands and Des suddenly thought of the sea and of a beach of yellow sand yet to be visited.

15

Old grey Frederick lived on the second floor of a converted Victorian house. A housing association job, Des could tell. He stood on the porch on a bright sunny morning and rang
the relevant bell. It was almost a good mood day. He’d stayed away from Bertha. And there was a new spirit to warm up his weary heart. They hadn’t stayed chatting for long, and it was
just routine stuff about living in the city, but Des had actually made a date with Pearl. OK, so she was a pro and had a nasty pimp hanging around. She wasn’t exactly a good catch, but for
Des the date seemed like an achievement in the aftermath of Miranda and the deal he had with Bertha. He rang the bell again. Nine o’clock. It was disgustingly early he knew, but this was a
good mood day and there was a big case to work on. ‘Put it there,’ Des said to a scruffy cat that came out of the shrubbery. He held out his hand. The cat sniffed it but then moved on
to wait by the front door. ‘You want him too, huh?’

The old guy did eventually come down and open the door. A black face, sallow and bereft of shine, Frederick peered out at the sunlight and groaned.

‘Err . . . wha the fuck is it, man?’

‘Your cat’s hungry, Frederick.’

‘Huh, neva nuttin else.’ A red eye prised itself a little further open. ‘Who the fuck are you, man, and why the fuck you wekin me up at dis lunatic hour?’

Des almost felt like launching into some kind of Jehovah spiel and taking the piss, but he managed to keep in a work mode.

‘Yeh, sorry about this, but, well actually I want to see Jerry.’

‘How’d you fin me, man, an im for dat matter?’

‘I’m local, Frederick. I know who to ask.’

‘Yeh . . . well, man. Jerry, im stone cold out, got block up to im eyeball las night cos im woman got kill.’

‘I know, that’s why I’m here.’

Frederick opened the door a little wider. Des saw a white shirt half stuffed into jogging pants. He also saw unshaven white fuzz on Frederick’s jaw and thought then of Wayne, wondering
whether he should get a match out and strike up for his first fag of the day.

‘Well, man, me guess you can try an wek Jerry up if you want, but it’ll prob’ly tek all day.’

Frederick turned towards the stairs, the cat at his ankles and Des following behind.

It could almost have been that Jerry Coton had joined Mary Holmes in the garden of rest. He lay on his back on the bed, white and totally immobile. His mouth resembled the last gasp of a fish
drowned in air. Des did light up his first fag of the day and pondered the arts of resurrection. His first impulse was to want to shave off Jerry’s straggly beard and comb his knotted hair as
if he was an undertaker out to groom a corpse. But the sun was shining and urgent in his heart and Des was impatient to get on. Frederick muttered, ‘What the fuck?’ as Des got out the
ice-cube tray and returned to the laid-out Jerry. A cube for each of the eyes, several slotted in the mouth and then the rest piled on a hardly moving chest. Des squeezed Jerry’s nose and
waited. Like a train approaching in the distance, a few vibrations began in Jerry’s body, a few twitches and stifled snorts and then a more distinct and continuous writhing until Jerry jolted
upright, spat out water and coughed raucously.

‘Welcome back . . .’

‘Wha –?’

‘To the land of the living, man.’

Bloodshot eyes glanced briefly at Des in incomprehension before the coughing fit resumed. Des knew he was only halfway there.

The cornmeal porridge sitting before Jerry Coton looked more like an oral excretion than breakfast food. Des concentrated on plying coffee. It was the third top-up and still
Jerry hadn’t spoken a word. His elbows were pinioned to the table while the rest of him shivered, his red eyes staring implacably at a sugar bowl and the brown coffee stains that marred its
contents.

‘Come on now, man. Drink this up, you’re getting there, you’re nearly with us.’

But it was the best part of half an hour before the white face became tinged with colour and blurred eyes began to roam around the room.

‘Sh . . . sh . . . sh-shit.’

‘Yeh, right. Short, but I guess profound.’

‘W-Where a-am I?’

Frederick moved over from propping up the cooker and put his big face close to Jerry’s. ‘My yard, man, you rememba? You got so friggin piss up las night me had to practic’ly
carry you home.’

‘Yeh . . . F-Frederick.’

‘Dat’s it, an dere’s dis guy here, an investigator, im want to talk to you, man.’

It was a strain on Des’s patience but eventually Jerry did fully join the world again, a world of sunshine outside and blackness within. He gradually began to tell Des of how keen
he’d been on Mary, of how their relationship had been ‘sort of crazy’ but good. It was a stuttering and half-garbled account with Jerry’s eyes fretting all around the
room.

‘The really sh-shit th-thing . . .’

His words got stuck for a long time on that one but eventually Des got it sussed out. The really shit thing was that Jerry was in the house at the time of the attack. It was lunchtime and he was
still in bed, half-stoned, half-asleep dreams swirling around his head. He sort of heard some noises but they never got through the reveries he indulged in. It was probably an hour later when Jerry
crawled out of bed, went squinting to the fire escape and lit up his first fag.

‘Shit, I always f-feel q-queasy on the f-fire escape, b-but I went d-down expecting Mary to c-come out of the kitchen s-smiling. And then I saw the b-broken rail and I l-looked d-down
–’

‘That must’ve been really bad.’

‘I – I almost f-fell myself . . . wish I had.’

‘Wouldn’t have helped, Jerry. Just more tragedy.’

‘God, I sh-should’ve b-been awake! I c-could’ve helped her!’

‘You still can, Jerry, that’s the thing, and you’re going to do it. There must be something you know that can help finger the guy who did it.’

The coffee count was getting into double figures. Frederick had to nip out to replenish the fags. Half a slice of toast got nibbled away. Des explained his interest in the case and began to
outline some of the things he’d found out. This seemed to help Jerry. A story to focus on. Actions that aimed for redemption. A firmer gaze entered his eyes and his shaking finally ceased.
Des told him about the scrap of a photo he’d found and the talk that Mary had done a dodgy job. The comprehension within Jerry then became almost acute. Sharp eyes focused on Des.