Rough Treatment

Eight

“Your DI not still around, I suppose?”

Millington jumped at the sound of the superintendent’s voice; his knee caught the edge of the table and, though he held on to the mug at the second attempt, most of its contents splashed over his hands, the magazine he’d been reading, the floor.

“No, sir. Not seen him since this afternoon.”

Skelton nodded and surveyed the room: halfway between a grammar school staffroom and the men’s locker facilities at the private squash club where he was due on court in twenty minutes.

“Any message, sir?”

A curt shake of the head, dismissive. “’Night, Sergeant.”

Graham Millington forced out his polite reply, watching the super turn back through the doors, sports bag in his hand. Five games with some sweaty barrister and then a couple of G and T’s before he drives home to whatever his wife’s keeping warm for him. All right for some. Millington’s own wife would be at her second-year Russian class and he’d stop off at the chippy on the way back, either that or a toasted ham-and-cheese in the pub, couple of quick halves.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the desk top, wiped between his fingers. That the superintendent should find him the only one left in the office, working late, was fine-but why did he have to come in when Millington was drinking half-stewed tea and browsing through the copy of Penthouse he’d found in Divine’s in-tray?

“Know about your form, do they?”

“Midlands,” said Alf Levin, “they’re an equal-opportunity employer.”

They were sitting at a corner table in the lounge, keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and a bunch of extras who were boasting about how many times they’d worked with Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins.

“How long?”

“Eighteen months, no, getting on two years, must be.”

“Sounds like a sentence.”

Levin lifted his pint, flicked away the beer mat that had stuck to the underside of the glass. “That was a twelve.”

“Out in nine.”

“Less.”

“Good behavior.”

“Overcrowding.”

Resnick leaned forward, one elbow resting close to his Guinness, largely untouched. “Nice to see that it works sometimes. Sets you back on the straight and narrow.”

“Wasn’t the nick.”

“You’re not going to tell me you found religion?”

“No. A good probation officer.”

“Needle in a haystack.”

“Sharp as one. Found me a place to live, made sure I kept the appointments, even got me along to a couple of meetings, counseling sessions.” His thin face wrinkled brightly; with that wig he looked a lot less than his forty-odd years. “Me, counseling sessions!”

“Useful, were they?”

“No,” Levin scoffed, “but that’s not the point. Point is, she put me up for this. First time I’ve been clean since I left school and headed north with nothing but my native wit and GCE Metalwork.”

“You make it sound like the Wizard of Oz.”

“More Dick Whittington, I like to think.”

“Wasn’t he heading for London?”

“Ah, only after he got turned around. Sound of Bow Bells. Remember?”

“And are you really turned around, Alfie?”

Levin clapped a hand to his breast. “God is my witness.”

Resnick set down his Guinness and looked round the bar. “Don’t think he’s in tonight, Alfie.”

“I thought he was everywhere.”

“Ah,” said Resnick, “so you did get religion.”

“Bought an LP by that Cliff Richard,” Alf Levin said. “Does that count?”

“Are you alone?” Grabianski asked.

“Yes,” said Maria, so quietly he hardly heard.

“Sorry?”

“Yes.”

At the other end of the line, she could imagine his smile.

“We’ve got to meet.”

“No.”

“We have to.”

“Why?”

“Why are you pretending?”

She didn’t know: she didn’t try to say.

“How about now?” he asked.

“No. You can’t. It’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s that impossible.”

“Harold …”

“Your husband?”

“My husband.”

“What about him?”

“He’ll be home soon.”

“Get out before he does. Meet me.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll come to you.”

“No!” Too hasty, a shout.

She heard him laugh, and then: “All right, then. Meet me tomorrow. And don’t say you can’t.”

Maria could feel the sweat along the palm of the hand which was holding the receiver, knew without needing to see that it was trickling down towards the curve of the mouthpiece. Knew that she was just as damp in other places, damper.

“All right,” she said, eyes closed tight.

Alf Levin decided that since they’d started bringing out all those curry flavors, poppadums and the like, crisp-eating had become a part of international cuisine.

“What it is,” he said to Resnick, who shook his head when Levin offered him the packet, “is you’re asking me to grass.”

“Not in so many words,” said Resnick, wondering how he might put it better.

“Inform on my previous associates, if such they were.”

“Assist. Assist, Alfie. Your duty as a citizen.”

“A reformed citizen.”

“Exactly.”

Alf Levin tipped back his head and shook what was left in the packet down into his mouth; trouble with crisps was, all the buggers did was make you hungry. And thirsty. No matter what the flavor.

“Another, Mr. Resnick?”

“I’d rather have an answer.”

When he pulled back his upper lip, Leven revealed two remarkably long front teeth; strong, as if they could break a weasel’s back with a single bite.

“It’s not as if I mix in those sort of circles.”

“But you could.”

“I could do a lot of things.”

“For the right reasons.”

“How many of them?”

“Righteousness breeds its own rewards.”

Alf Levin screwed up the spent crisp packet and got to his feet. Across the bar, the extras were starting to move, noisily, towards the exit.

“Come on, Mr. Resnick,” Alf Levin said, “before I have to drive that lot back I want a couple of those sausage cobs.” He winked down at Resnick. “Hot snack on wrap.”

Harold Roy stood off on his own, not eating, turning his back with an automatic gesture when he unscrewed the top of his small silver flask and tipped it over into his polystyrene cup of coffee. Resnick, watching, found it easy to sympathize. The director looked like a man with anxieties aplenty; besides which, the coffee was dreadful.

Harold bunched up the empty cup in his hand and dropped it into the refuse sack as he walked past, heading for the lounge. Fair enough, thought Resnick, taking a seat at the bar, three stools along.

Resnick heard Harold order a large vodka and tonic and smiled. That should be me, he thought: every night for supper his grandfather had sat down to a plate of pickled herrings, raw red onion thinly sliced across the top, thick yellow mayonnaise at the side. Black bread. Vodka. Every night.

“Yes, duck?” asked the woman behind the bar.

“Guinness,” said Resnick.

“Pint?”

“Half.”

He took the first sip, the flavor rich and the temperature pleasingly cool beneath the creaminess of the head. From outside came the sound of engines starting up, but not everyone was leaving. Clusters of people came in, their voices shriller than usual, the occasional “fuck” for emphasis beautifully articulated. Close to Resnick’s right shoulder a young man with a gold stud in his ear and a leather jacket artistically dabbled with paint asked for a St. Clements and got a hard look.

“Cheer up, Harold!” Someone clapped him on the shoulder. “Could be a lot worse.”

Evidently Harold didn’t think so; he didn’t acknowledge the remark at all. Coins had found the jukebox and for the first eight bars a few voices sang along with Tom Jones. For some little time Resnick had been aware that he wasn’t the only one with an interest in Harold Roy. Leaning back against the wall, between the cigarette machine and a large plastic yucca, a prematurely balding man wearing a loose-fitting leather jacket was talking to a pretty, dark-haired girl in moon boots, every now and then sneaking a look over the top of her head towards the bar. If he doesn’t want a word with me, thought Resnick, it must be Harold. Advice or condolences, either way he was being polite, waiting for the perfect moment, biding his time.

Some people were not so restrained.

The producer of Dividends was in a hurry to get to his director, but he still managed to shake a few hands, squeeze a few shoulders, smile a few smiles between the entrance and where Harold was sitting, slump-shouldered, on his stool.

“What went wrong?” he asked, slipping on to the seat alongside Harold. “This time.”

“Don’t start, Mac,” Harold replied, not looking up from his glass.

“No one’s starting, Harold.”

“Good.”

“No one’s starting anything.”

Harold nodded wearily, pushed his glass along the counter towards the barmaid, gesturing that he wanted another.

“Nobody seems to be getting close to finishing, either.”

“I thought you weren’t …”

“I’m doing my job, Harold. It’s a pity you don’t seem capable any longer of even pretending to do the same.”

Those of the crew and cast who had come into the bar were very quiet now; from the other bar there was the persistent, irregular click of balls from three pool tables. Tom Jones had become Elvis Presley: he wished.

Harold Roy’s eyes were heavy and red, an amalgam of alcohol and anger, a strong leavening of shame. There was a moment when Resnick thought Harold might have shouted, thrown a punch, the fresh contents of his glass. It passed. As he looked away, twenty people seemed to take a breath.

“How many scenes were we down, Harold?”

Harold shook his head. “Can’t we talk about this in the morning? In the office?”

“How many?”

Mackenzie’s voice was relentless; Resnick couldn’t see his face, didn’t need to know bow much he was enjoying the act of humiliation.

“One? Only two this time? What was it?”

“Four.”

“What was that?”

“Four.”

“How many?”

“Four!”

Harold caught his heel against the stool as he tried to jump to his feet; it swayed for a moment and fell heavily. He stumbled awkwardly, glass in hand, vodka splashed across his clothes.

“It’s a wonder,” said Mackenzie, “the booze and all the other junk you use to pickle what once might have been a brain, it’s a wonder you can stand at all.” Mackenzie moved until he was close to Harold, close enough for Harold to have taken a swing at him, taunting him, maybe, to do exactly that. “In case it’s slipped your memory, we have a program we’re supposed to be getting ready for transmission. You let any more fall off the back end of the schedule and we’ll be down to fifteen-minute episodes. Instead of an hour.” The look he gave Harold was all contempt, no pity. “In the office,” he said. “Eight-thirty. We’ll get it sorted.”

Mackenzie left with the same speed as he’d come in and this time there were no handshakes, no good words. Just a direct stride and a hand that came out fast as he stiff-armed one side of the door. A lot of people began to talk at once. Resnick finished his Guinness and denied himself the scotch he really wanted. Harold was back at the bar, back at his stool, waiting for another large vodka. I wonder what are the chances, thought Resnick, of him leaving his car here and calling a cab?

In the excitement, he hadn’t noticed the man who’d been rolling his cigarette slipping away. Whatever he had wanted to say to Harold, he’d made up his mind it could wait until a better time. Resnick checked his watch and agreed: apart from anything else there were four cats at home anxiously waiting to be fed. Anxious save for Dizzy, who, by now, would have scavenged off and found his own.

“’Night,” he said, turning away.

“’Night, duck.”

Harold Roy’s head moved sideways, his eyes passed over Resnick but they didn’t really see him. The booze and all the other junk, Mackenzie had said. Resnick thought about that as he unlocked his car and slid behind the wheel. He also thought about Mackenzie and what it was that made men like that relish wielding the power they enjoyed so publicly. He had come across officers like that in the force, enough to have realized they were more than an odd phenomenon. For three years, back when he’d been in uniform, he had served under one; never happier than finding an excuse to give you a bollocking in front of the other officers, wipe his feet all over you and then expect you to smile and hold the door. Christ! thought Resnick. If I ever found myself getting that way I’d jack it in. No question.

He changed up into second and turned on to the main road. In less than ten minutes he would be back in the center of the city.

The problem is, he thought, you probably don’t know that you’re doing it. Although-he grinned at his reflection in the driving mirror-between young Lynn Kellogg and Jack Skelton, there’s no shortage of folk to tap me on the shoulder, steer me back towards the straight and narrow.

Straight and narrow, straight certainly, that was the superintendent: if Resnick ever found out Skelton’s parents had made him wear a brace on his back through his formative years, he’d be less than surprised.

Jack Skelton sat in the armchair, forward, his back to the curtained window. The traffic on the road seemed distant, quiet. He hadn’t bothered to get up and switch on the light. He could see the outline of his sports bag where he had left it, smell the faint sweat of his squash clothes. This time he had lasted eighteen minutes without looking at the ticking clock.