Shadow Play Read online

  They didn’t drink. Despite her much-vaunted knowledge of West End drinking parlours, gleaned from young policemen (and Helen heard more of them anon), Rose’s wisdom proved deficient on the availability of booze outside regular hours and there was no need for a drink while each felt strangely high. Helen made a phone call to the office, on behalf of them both, announcing their absence rather than deigning to explain it. Then they went shopping. The mood of confidential euphoria lasted for several hours and left in the wake of all its conversations the sweet scent of friendship and a large bill.

  They looked like mother and daughter, small, neat and dark, chattering like sparrows.

  ‘Have you got any kids, Geoff?’

  For once, the diminution of Bailey’s Christian name which had been standard procedure for the length of his long career, failed to irritate him. He sat not in the college bar, but in a pub not far from the precincts. To his left was Valerie, the detective from West End Central, on his right was a local woman who happened to be a friend of hers, and opposite them both was Ryan, grinning like a fox who had managed to marshal a flock of hens into a pen. It was early Friday afternoon and lectures had finished for the day. ‘Playtime,’ said Ryan, ushering sir towards his car. At first Bailey had assumed he was being offered a lift back to London, but the detour was scheduled and he found he did not mind in the least. It was Valerie’s divorced lady friend who was asking him about kids, a gentle probing into his background. He normally resented personal questions of almost any kind, but mellowed by the ambience of an oak-beamed pub, a succession of pleasant faces and the sensation of being liked, he did not mind at all.

  ‘No. None. My wife and I had a child, but it died when it was a baby. We never knew why and we didn’t survive it either.’ As soon as he had spoken, he wished he had not. Such a statement contained an invitation to pity which he neither courted nor felt he deserved. Bailey’s failure with his young spouse so many years ago, his ignorance in the face of that misery of hers which had turned into madness, his failure to keep or cure her, still haunted him. It had haunted him through the several liaisons which had prefaced his fragmented existence with Helen, whom he loved profoundly, although he did not mention her name in this company.

  On his first pint, he remembered the optimistic phases of his life as a truly single man, after the second, he remembered his age and ordered a whisky; but the euphoric sense of freedom did not pass, it intensified. Oh yes, he was bound for home this weekend, but there was no harm in the delay. And there was always next weekend. The woman on his left laid a light hand on his arm.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said with the same quickness of touch. ‘It must have been terrible. Mine spend most of their time with their dad, but I’m glad they’re alive.’ She removed her hand as imperceptibly as she had placed it, a nice woman, called Grace. Ryan rose to get another round. They all laughed and offered him money, a sensible confederacy of classless, adult friends, who all knew about life and spoke a common language. Ryan was delighted by the passivity of his master. They might convert him yet.

  The afternoon faded again, with its usual lack of glory, until school came out. Logo had parked his trolley in the graveyard, so ungainly no-one would steal it or even play with it; full of bits and pieces lifted from skips, an old chair to be cut into kindling for Margaret, his whisky, his Bible and a couple of other things he didn’t want shown the dim light of day. It was some distance from the school gates but, despite himself, he went to watch. Then, again despite himself, he chatted to a girl he had watched before, dark as himself, with old-fashioned plaits fraying at the edges, her thick curly hair not quite tortured into submission. She might have been a foreigner, most of them were, but she still looked like his daughter. It made him over-react.

  Despite the anxiety, Logo usually found he got a buzz from being arrested. Ignorant of drugs, but not of the whisky he carried round in little bottles with all the silent glee of a successful smuggler, he knew that the sharp excitement of a chase was better than booze tingling in his veins. He was incredibly strong for his size without being swift, he could scarcely run at all, but he loved the brevity of his futile sprints for freedom, that fierce joy in the initial confrontation with the policeman, his neck bent like a penitent until they were off guard enough for him to pull away, giving himself just a small headstart because he always meant to be caught in a few yards. Logo’s long, untidy hair would flap round his eyes as he ran, sometimes whooping and screaming enough to frighten the pursuer to a standstill before they pounded in his wake, and all to feel that last, delirious moment of surrender.

  Thus it had always been, five or fifteen times, each time of the many he had been arrested, some gentle old hand with the fingers on his arm or, just as comfortably, some lone novice sent out in a miniature car on a call like this to a mere local nuisance, stepping out of his toy vehicle with grave self-importance, straightening his new uniform before they all ran a few steps of their ritual dance in front of their spectators who all but clapped. Both of them destined to get a little hot in the chase before Logo could compose his face into an expression of terror so pale he looked like a man in front of a firing-squad and they all went peacefully home to the nick where he would recover and protest his innocence, and then ask, sneering, Why did you never find my wife and daughter? That’s how good you are, what have you ever done for me?

  He should not have asked the child to step into the graveyard with him, nor told her he had something for her in his trolley, nor promised her a ride, but she was delicious. The cunning little brute smelt him downwind and said she wanted to go to the sweet shop first, so they did that instead and on the way, met her mother. The child screamed as if he had in fact touched her, although she had not been remotely anxious before, and the mother, screaming too, blocked him into the door of the shop, while someone called the police. Now Logo was at the end of the ritual, and there had been no gentleness in it, not this time, none of the usual contemptuous patience which had dignified the other occasions.

  The rookie cop had grabbed Logo by the jacket after he ran, holding a fistful of shirt as he yanked him backwards. The frayed collar bit into his throat and he gasped for breath as an arm jerked his chin into the air. It was more than enough to subdue a man who wanted to be subdued, but the boy officer thought otherwise. The pressure on Logo’s neck increased until he thought he saw stars, and it was then he began to struggle in earnest, kicking, hearing the satisfying crack of his foot against a shin, digging back with his sharp elbows, twisting like an eel, almost free, screaming as soon as he found the breath. He turned in surrender, but the sight of the other face frightened him more than the touch. Logo felt his elbows pinioned from behind, his still flailing legs kicked away and his body crashing to the ground, landing painfully half on one side. He screamed again as his arms were twisted up his back, the blades of his shoulders standing out like chicken wings, he felt something tear. The handcuffs locked around his crossed wrists. His fingers splayed in a futile agony of resistance. A radio crackled. Logo whimpered. ‘Shut up, you bastard.’ Logo’s whimpering rose a pitch: he must have an audience. ‘Help me,’ he muttered, but all he felt was his hair held, his half-turned face raised and then let drop against the sharp gravel of the road, pressing into the surface.

  The shock of that deliberate cruelty made him close his mouth against the punching, saving his teeth but not the kick to his throat. There was a numbness which was the forerunner of real pain, and when he opened one eye he saw his spittle in the dirt of the gutter and, inches from his face, the remnants of damp cigarette packets from a spilt bin. He felt he was on the level of a large dog turd and all his own litter, while the half-frozen wetness of the road seeped into his bones and his own blood and urine seeped back.

  They were not saintly, the boys in blue, they always put on the handcuffs too tight, but they were not unkind either. They did not usually yank him into the back of a van and lie him face down as if he was a true man of violence. He knew later he
had not imagined either the kicks to his ribs and one which seemed to connect with his face by accident, or the foot on his neck and the taunting from the officer who had arrested him. ‘Bastard,’ said the voice. Kick. ‘Leave my balls alone, you pervert.’ Kick. ‘Going after girls, are we?’ Kick. There were two others in the back of the van where he lay between the seats. He could sense their youthful disapproval in their silence; he reckoned they would save him if the kicking got worse, but not until it did.

  The custody sergeant had time to stop and stare at a small, prematurely old man, wet and filthy, with one eye shut, blood seeping from his nose and forehead to mingle with the dirt and the snot on his torn shirt; a man breathing with an alarming, rumbling sound, a tiny, dilapidated creature.

  ‘Take the cuffs off him for Christ sake.’

  ‘He’s very violent, sir.’

  The sergeant looked at the oddly triumphant face of young PC Williams with a weary loathing, noting the absence of filth or even damp on the barely ruffled uniform.

  ‘I bet he was,’ he said heavily. ‘Take them off. You!’ he barked towards Logo. ‘Sit down over there.’

  The other two officers hung back, afraid to touch and anxious to be gone. Logo shambled slowly across to the bench against the wall and sat heavily. There was an argument, raised voices, which he heard without registering the words and then he was placed, with strange solicitude, in the cell he occupied now.

  ‘My trolley,’ he croaked. ‘Look after my trolley. You’ll get me sacked.’

  ‘Yes. Anything to complain about?’

  Logo looked at the sergeant levelly. ‘No.’

  For that he was brought a blanket and hot, sweet tea, but he sat on the bench, weeping and seething, waiting for the doctor who would cure nothing.

  It was all her fault. Everything. She had been his nemesis from the start, the black-eyed angel he had loved so much. Find her, bring her back, kill her. She had organised this; she stopped his very attempts to find her. The whole world blocked his attempt to find her. The cell smelled of urine which was not his own.

  By teatime on Friday, Margaret Mellors began to believe that life had taken a definite turn for the better. Yesterday, she had written a reply to her treasured letter. If she found it peculiar to send it to the address on the back of the envelope, an office called CPS something, which made her think of the gas bill, she did not dwell on it, and in the thrill of arranging a meeting, the mechanics did not seem to matter. The writing of the letter had been laborious: the posting of it had been a special expedition to the main post office, because she needed to believe the service for this missive would be first rate. That done, at vast expense, with a special-delivery sticker, Margaret breathed easier. It was also easier, she now felt free to confess, if several hours or even days could pass between her sightings of Logo. She had heard him go this morning with his dreadful rumbling trolley, and although visits home mid-afternoon were rarities, the absence was a relief. He might have caught her writing her letter and she did not want that at all. In her mind’s eye, there was still the strong image of that suitcase upstairs; when she was braver, she knew she would have to go and look again, but not yet, please God, not yet.

  Then there was the second surprise. A letter from the hospital, inspired by her visit to the doctor. Yes, she was still on the waiting list, shouldn’t be long, it said, might be short notice, it said. The impact of this news made her head swim: it meant that within weeks she might be able to walk as other people walked, behave as others of her spry age behaved, go further afield. Go to see Mabel in Croydon on the bus, go to visit Mary Cruft in Enfield, go to the house of George’s brother, recently widowed, in Brighton. ‘Help me,’ said Margaret, fluffing her hair in front of the kitchen mirror. ‘Help me get through this, there’s a life out there, I always knew there was.’

  There was also life indoors. The fire was lit. All the excitement had made her feel extravagant enough to coax her hearth to life in the middle of the afternoon, before dark, even. She settled herself with her box, to work out who she would visit in a month or two from now, who to tell the good news, and also to work out if the cure of her hip was going to cost her money if she lost the disability allowance which was currently helpful. Never mind, there were always children to look after and houses to clean if you were fit. She was knitting a sweater: she was always knitting something, making her hands work. There was a moment of doubt when she wondered if the operation was worth it, but the faith in doctors as gods and carpenters reasserted itself. The only worry was that Logo and child-minding didn’t go together.

  Then came the third delightful surprise to mitigate her money worries for the future. As surprises went, it did not rank with those of the last twenty-four hours, but it wasn’t bad, in the scale of things.

  Sylvie the hyperactive stood at the door, snivelling and clutching the hand of her father, who looked for all the world like a man leading a savage dog, while she in turn looked as if she had already bitten the hand which fed her many, many times. Sylvie did not smile until Margaret smiled, but she did not snarl either. When Margaret said, ‘Hallo! How lovely to see you!’ the child looked at her inturned feet and raised her father’s wrist to wipe her wet nose, while the corners of her mouth turned up in some semblance of pleasure. The father let go of her hand hurriedly.

  ‘I think I may just have some Smarties back here,’ said Margaret without fuss. ‘If your dad says you can, that is. My, you are a sight, you little rascal. What have you been doing then? Playing in a pond?’ By some strange sleight of movement, the child’s hand had become transferred to Margaret’s apron pocket. Sylvie did not want to be here, but she liked it at home even less. The father let out a great, juddering sigh.

  ‘Mrs M, it’s very rude of me to disturb you, but …’ He wiped a hand across his brow and tried to grin. The worry lines seemed impossible to erase and she felt suddenly sorry for his youthful cares. He was a handsome man, and you were never too old to notice that.

  ‘It’s my mother-in-law, you see. She came to stay last week, and now she’s been taken ill. Very ill. She had cancer last year, we thought she was all better, but anyway, we had to take her to hospital today, and we’ve just been called in now. Got to go, there’s a football match tonight …’

  ‘She’s going to die,’ said the child matter-of-factly, and with a shade of satisfaction.

  ‘Hush, you,’ said Margaret without shock or rancour. ‘Or no Smarties.’ She turned her large, reassuring face to the father, put her hand on the child’s neck, reaching for that small cranny underneath the messy hair where her touch could control the child. Margaret was suddenly firm. In the last twenty-four hours, she had become a person of greater consequence.

  ‘Of course she can stay here while you go to the hospital. I hope your mother-in-law’s going to get better.’ They both knew it was a formal wish, but the words helped. ‘Try and get back by eight, if you can. It’s my neighbour, you know, he can be a nuisance.’ There, she had said it, but she added the rider because she had no choice. ‘If you can’t don’t worry. We’ve got plenty to eat. Would you like a cup of tea, or something?’

  The man shook his head. Instead of words he made a vague salute and disappeared up the alleyway which he had told his wife he despised, but did not notice now. Behind him, he left his daughter, who went straight for the drawer which held the knives. Margaret stopped her. She took out the drawer and put it out of reach on top of the cooker. ‘Silly,’ Margaret said, with a note of authority the child had not heard before. ‘Very, very, silly.’

  It was the same syndrome as strangers on a train, a silly desire to confess which somehow did not diminish the third stop for coffee. There weren’t many shoppers in Oxford Street, post holidays and post sales. They could move freely from one mammoth department store to another. They smelt of the perfume counters where both had sampled in plenty, buying nothing but aftershave as a preliminary to the second coffee, but they were warming up to it. Helen joked to herself and to Ros
e that they were like two negatives making a positive. Rose didn’t get the joke.

  ‘OK. Who’s the aftershave for? Your dad?’

  Rose flinched, buoyant enough to recover quickly because it was only a send-up. She was getting used to the fact that Miss West teased a lot, she rather liked it. It was better than being serious.

  ‘My mum and dad split up when I was little,’ she said quickly. ‘Mum lives up north, Dad died. No, the smelly stuff’s for my … boyfriend.’

  Helen stirred her coffee. ‘Ohh, is that the one I spied you with the other day? The tall good-looking one with the nice face? Great big chap?’

  Rose flushed with pleasure. ‘Sounds like Michael,’ she said. ‘Yeah, that’ll be him. Anyway, there hasn’t been anyone else for two weeks and there won’t be neither.’

  ‘Is he as nice as he looks?’

  Rose blushed pinker. ‘ To tell the truth, Miss West—’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, my name’s Helen.’

  ‘Well I can’t get my mouth round that, Mum. I shall have to call you Aunty after today, but you don’t meet your aunty in the pregnancy clinic, do you? Nor one of your bosses.’ She giggled. They had both been finding anything and everything immoderately funny.

  ‘My Michael?’ She stressed the possessive with enormous pride, speaking as if she could burst. ‘He’s brilliant, just brilliant, that’s what he is. I can’t get over him. I can’t get over my luck. When he touches me, I go all funny, but he doesn’t try anything, honest. He treats me special. He says we’ve got to be friends before anything else and he wants to take me to places, show me things. Meet his mum!’ Rose pealed with the laughter of delighted incredulity. ‘But he knows what I’ve been like,’ Rose continued, somehow assuming Helen knew too. ‘He found me in the section house after all, he says he don’t care who I’ve been to bed with before, as long as there’s no-one after. But I haven’t yet.’ She looked at Helen challengingly. ‘Only you know what? I know he holds back. I know when he touches me, just holding my hand or giving me a hug, he goes all funny too. I can feel him trembling, you know. When he looks at me sometimes, I think I could die.’