It was early evening when I arrived for my shift with Sutty. We met in the city centre and he landed heavily on to the passenger seat.
‘Anything you wanna tell me, pal?’
I didn’t know which part of my day he was angry about, but if he knew I’d been talking to an owner of the Palace without him I was in for a long night. I decided to start at the beginning.
‘I spoke to Ali—’
‘The Super. You were talking to the Super.’
‘Against my will,’ I said after a beat.
‘Don’t piss in my eye and tell me it’s raining. If you’re coming at me, come at me straight.’
‘It was nothing to do with you, Sutts.’
‘Why else all the cloak and dagger? Tell him I was sat at home, did ya?’
‘No.’ I thought about it. ‘If you know he picked me up then the driver must have told you …’
‘Dave’s an old pal.’ This was the police force now. A fucking infinity of Daves.
‘So why don’t you ask him what it was about?’
Sutty sniffed. ‘He couldn’t hear very well.’
‘He should keep his mouth shut, then. I didn’t know I was seeing Parrs this morning, either. One of the guards you had on Ali must have reported my presence upward. He was just warning me off Cartwright, anyway.’
‘Warning you off who?’
‘The man I questioned in the Quays last night.’
‘You and those fucking girls …’
‘It’s not the girl, it’s him. I guess he’s a big deal.’
‘Why? What is he?’
‘New media, I don’t know. Someone more important than us.’
‘An ever-growing list,’ he grumbled.
‘Parrs suggested I focus on the dustbin fires …’
‘Hur-hur,’ said Sutty. ‘Big case. Needs his best man on it.’ He breathed heavily for a few seconds, deciding if he believed me. ‘So? Tell us about Ali.’
‘Says he heard voices, went to investigate and got clocked.’
‘Believe him?’
‘He’s a first-year immigrant from Aleppo. Scared of talking to the police. Yeah, I believe him. Any word on the day-shift guard yet?’
‘Two words, actually. Fuck all.’
‘It sounded like there might be some tension between him and Ali.’
‘Oh?’
‘When I pushed Ali for his meaning, he said I should check the bins on the third floor of the Palace. I found a condom wrapper …’
‘Marcus has been testing the bedsprings, eh?’
‘Maybe. The room looked like it had been made up in a hurry. I’ve asked SOCO to go over it.’
‘What about the wrapper itself? Too much to hope for prints?’
‘Too soon to say, I only just found it. You’re probably about to get a phone call about me attempting to access the crime scene …’
‘Stromer?’
‘She’d left instructions.’
‘Well, I can’t say I blame her. We should have a poster made with your face on it. Unwanted. Speaking of which,’ he said, opening the door and climbing back out. ‘Why don’t you take my dinner break as an opportunity to get rid of that.’ He nodded at Sophie’s jacket on the back seat, which I’d taken from Cartwright’s flat the night before. ‘Take the car. I just don’t want to see any new scratches when you get back …’
‘How would you even tell?’
‘I meant on you, hot stuff.’
8
I parked up and crossed the grounds of Owens Park. I had the same transient feeling as the day before. Like I was stepping back in time, somehow. Like the lights might hit my face on the other side and make me young again, able to live my life over. I went to Sophie’s building and buzzed her flat, thinking about what Parrs had said, to forget about Cartwright.
I’d forgotten so many things for him, already.
No doubt he’d go Fukushima if he knew where I was now, but there was something else, beyond Parrs’ wrath, that pulled at me. Stromer’s antipathy? That had been expected. The dustbin fires? Just background noise. My mind went all the way back to that morning. That first phone call. A few seconds of silence, some breathing and then the dial tone. Calls to my landline were rare, and anyway, the breaths hadn’t been incidental. They’d been the point of the call. Expelled directly into the mouthpiece for no reason other than menace. I thought about the day preceding the call. Guy Russell, Ollie Cartwright and the smiling man.
All new enemies.
I buzzed the first-floor flat again and, after a few seconds, the bolt on the door thunked open. I went up the stairs. The only part of the day that made sense to me was the disturbed man on Ali’s ward, screaming in fear and confusion at the world.
When I reached the first-floor flat, I could hear young voices, music, fun. I turned off the hallway and into the communal space where I’d waited for Sophie the night before and saw Earl, on duty, making four cocktails at once. He noticed me and stopped. He was the focal point of the room, and a few heads turned in my direction. He lowered the bottle he was pouring from and his friends booed.
‘Patience,’ he said, holding the S sound. He walked towards me, widening his eyes to propel me back into the hallway. I stepped out and he drew the door closed behind him. ‘What was your name again? Heavy?’
‘Waits,’ I said. ‘Is Sophie around?’
‘You can’t just walk in here.’
‘Sophie, is she in?’
‘Nah,’ he said, leaning into the wall and blocking my way.
‘Her bike’s in the hall.’
‘Well, she’s not here.’
‘Is her room open?’
‘No.’
I knew he had a problem with the police so I tried not to push it. ‘I’ve got her jacket,’ I said, holding it up.
‘Oh.’ He was surprised. ‘Well, I can give it to her?’
‘OK. She shouldn’t have any more problems with this guy, but she’s got my number if she needs it.’ I could see that he wanted me to expand on what had happened but I handed over the jacket and turned to leave.
‘Thank you,’ he said, to my back.
‘You’re a friend worth having, Earl. Keep an eye on her.’
I went down the stairs, through the pressure cooker hallway, passing through ambient sounds of conversation, laughter and music.
‘Hey, Heavy,’ said Earl, following me down the stairs. ‘You dropped this …’ He handed me a folded slip of paper and I opened it.
Oliver Cartwright. Ollie. Mid-thirties.
Thinning red-brown hair, some paunch. Incognito. 7 p.m.
The note must have fallen out of Sophie’s jacket, which I’d had folded over my arm before passing it to Earl.
He scowled at the sheet. ‘You know that prick?’
‘Cartwright? No, do you?’
‘Just the name. Runs that alt-right site, Lolitics. We went to a protest outside their offices once.’ Something occurred to Earl. ‘Hang on. He’s not the guy who Sophie got with?’
I was shaking my head. ‘No, this is another case I’m working on.’
‘Your lot should pull the fucking flush on him,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing he doesn’t hate.’ He turned and went back up the stairs, disappearing into the communal space, meeting a cheer from his thirsty friends. I left the building and crossed the block with the note still in my hand. Sophie’s handwritten description of Cartwright implied she’d known who he was before she set out for the club, perhaps even that she’d targeted him. If that was the case, she’d been lying to me about how they’d met, and why.
9
I drove back into town and decided to check in with Sutty. He was assisting the stompers, the force’s tactical response unit, in bringing a violent bar fight to a close. If I knew him, he’d probably started it as well. I felt restless with new, unfamiliar energy. Like my brain had been reactivated after too many months dormant.