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  ‘Easier ways, are there not, to bring oneself to the door of heaven or hell? No point in suicide, really.’ He did not sound entirely convinced. ‘Now, let me tell you; there’s a fellow down the corridor, poor bastard, had a circumcision earlier. Can’t get his thing down lower than a flagpole for six hours. And you think you females have problems. How’s the cigarette?’

  ‘Wonderful. Awful.’

  ‘You’ll be purified yet. Time for the needle. Then you’re fit for heaven.’

  ‘Oh no, not heaven. Hate white clothes.’

  His chuckle, amazingly comforting and infectious, emerged from beyond the bed. Something signified the presence of a nurse, presenting a dish towards hands which now smelled of soap. After a split second’s sharpness, the injection spread into a warm glow from behind her hip, pushing out pain, closing the eyes. The picture of the chemist’s shop came back, unthreateningly, something in there teasing at her memory, the haunting smell of medicine. Dr Hazel looked down at the sallow and attractive features of his patient, distinguished by thick, dark hair, a faded scar to her forehead, then folded Helen’s arms across her chest. He turned the strong face to one side to aid breathing, wondered objectively if he could describe her as beautiful, decided he could, uncrossed the ankles to aid circulation and pulled the single sheet to chest height, all with a swift economy of light movement at variance with his age.

  ‘You’d make a good nurse, doctor,’ said the voice of the acolyte nurse. He sighed and patted her shoulder.

  ‘Pity I wasn’t. All very well for a boy today, but in my own time, darling, it just wasn’t the done thing.’

  Four-thirty in the morning and this was certainly no task for a man. Geoffrey Bailey, without a single witness to his activities, felt silly, and because of the three whiskies he had used to dose his sleeplessness, slightly elated. The fact that Helen’s persistent pain had proved curable, albeit by the savage means of surgery, made him enormously relieved. He was fiddling, far from efficiently, in the cheerful, chipped kitchen of her basement flat. On the draining board was a block of what he could only think of as flower-arranging foam, into which he understood he had only to stick stems of things in order to obtain a perfect result every time, according to the instructions. ‘Destructions,’ he corrected. Bailey had crept out to the garden like a thief, careful not to alarm the neighbours, found two large and frayed winter roses, but otherwise sparse foliage for his purpose, and the result was looking bare and crooked, jaunty in defiance of ever becoming elegant. He was only attempting to translate part of Helen’s precious but untidy garden into her hospital ward, but this was pathetic; looked like the work of a person too mean to buy a bunch of proper flowers. Which, swathed in polythene, he would hate as much as she. Little failures loomed large and this was not his forte. Geoffrey crossed from kitchen to living-room in pursuit of the Irish whiskey.

  Living in Helen’s flat without Helen’s presence was an odd sensation which he rather liked as long as he knew she was safe. They had keys to each other’s apartments, his in the East London warehouse so very different from her own, an eyrie as light and bare as this was comfortably full of mahogany, pictures and colour. The fire in the living-room lit the red walls, casting shadows from the overflowing plant in a brass urn standing to one side as if needing the heat. Helen’s daily books were stacked to one side where she sometimes worked; Archbold Criminal Pleadings, forty-fourth edition: Stone’s Justices’ Manual, Wilkinson on Road Traffic Offences, Cross on Evidence, referred to as necessary in preparation for the next day along with an untidy heap of law reports which he longed to straighten and give some sort of index, but he would never presume. Stock in trade to a criminal lawyer, perhaps more especially a prosecutor, although it was impossible to imagine her in that guise now, not quite stripped of the dignity she never quite lost, even playing the fool. Bailey liked this frail Helen as well as her strong counterpart, the one with a will of iron and a useful tongue, though he conceded liking was a weak description of their mutual condition. Why else would he be in her place in her absence, touching her things with such affection? He rarely expressed sentiment in her presence: but here alone he could feel as he pleased. They spent the weekends vacillating between their two abodes, half the week as well, but this was different. An unmarried married couple, he had often said, sometimes with more grace than others. There might have been a better formula, but for now there was not, since one year living together out of London had been no improvement on this status quo. He knew better than to question any arrangement which worked, most of the time.

  Bailey stepped away from the fire, went into the bedroom where sleep had evaded him, sorted a few items into an overnight bag. She would need things, such as the clean nighties she did not possess, face cream, a dressing-gown and a couple of books. The selection of these he could manage, packing quickly, jealous of her privacy. Then he settled back by the fire with one of the hundreds of books, ready to wait for morning. No visitors a.m., Sister had said. To hell with that; he wasn’t a policeman for nothing. Helen, darling, I may rarely say it, but I do love you; miss you like my right arm and I must not have any more of this whiskey. Thank God I believe you love me back, though there are times when I do wonder.

  ‘Lerve … is a many splendoured thing …’ Oh yeah? At six-fifteen, Duncan Perry, Detective Constable, Met Police, leered away from his own reflection in the cracked mirror of the tiny bathroom, avoiding an expression flushed by alcohol with eyes puffed from lack of sleep. The face was one of which he had once thoroughly approved, but he no longer thought it handsome as he pulled his chin into a better shape for the blunt razor. Overused blades were better for the early morning shave since there was less chance of small nicks to the skin covered with salmon pink toilet paper, adornments he tended to forget until reminded in public, but the current disposable left his chin feeling scraped. The place was overwarm, largely the result of his failure to turn off the gas oven in the kitchenette cheek by jowl with the bathroom. Inside the oven lay a desiccated steak and kidney pie, forgotten the night before.

  Tiptoeing out of his flat although there was no need, the quiet steps a result of constant training and an endless sensation of defending his back, Duncan broke into a jerky sprint for his car, the slight sweat freezing on his forehead as he stuffed his hands in the pocket of his suit. He sat inside at the wheel for the few minutes it took for the windscreen to clear, conscious of the solidity of the car around him; it was one of his few remaining possessions, one of the few things which had not gone the same way as his wife, his family and his face, all of which were cheaper to maintain. Kim never asked for a bloody penny, and while that was a relief, it was also insulting. He would get used to living in one and a half rooms sooner or later, but he was not reconciled, not yet.

  Six-forty-five, too early for early turn, parade at seven-thirty and not his first task. Duncan drove south from Highbury where he lived, skirting the emptiness of the City, through Shoreditch and into Whitechapel. Jack the Ripper country, now known as little Bengal, hit for the third time in a century by the newest wave of immigration. The first Chinatown, then the Jewish capital, and now dusky, full of spices, coronaries and striving poverty. Hit by a thousand bombs in the war, rebuilt and rebuilt again. Where did they all go when they moved on, he thought. Where am I supposed to go? Nowhere in particular but just Somewhere Else, where you won’t be an embarrassment. Well he wouldn’t. You didn’t treat a dustbin like Kim had treated him, fuck it.

  He turned the car into a service road behind a parade of shops, stopped and looked up expectantly. There were flats above the shops, nasty concrete structures of the boom-building sixties, at odds with the wider pre-war stuff, their only advantage the reasonable space inside that offset the stained exteriors and cumbersome balconies, the ugly steps from the street. He was looking for a light in the third one from the end, the unconscious early-morning signal of his wife’s presence as she got ready for her own long day. If he could stay where he was until seven-thi
rty, he might just see the animal arrive, something supposed to be a childminder, a grunting, yawning, shambling man who, to Duncan’s anxiety, seemed to take his effeminate child to school. Detective Constable Perry did not like any of the choices made by his wife, but there was nothing he could do.

  OK, estranged wife as his solicitor so nicely put it, pompous bastard. Also estranged, one smallish package of truculent child named Tom, whose parentage Duncan had questioned in the course of a blazing row with Kim, a row that ended with her saying, yes, she was going now, leading to the door the boy who was Duncan’s spitting image, as if he had ever seriously believed otherwise. The eyes, green eyes, remained with him still, in accusation, along with many other regrets.

  Perry could see the shape of her head, or what he hoped was her head and not the skull of some unknown overnight visitor, framed against the frosted glass of the bathroom window. He clenched his fist on the wheel of the car, shut his eyes for an instant. A man in residence might just send him over the edge; the thought made him want to vomit, but she wouldn’t, no she wouldn’t. Not until she’d qualified, got what she wanted from that poxy shop where she started work so early. She wasn’t half determined, he had to hand it to her, worked like she fought, no holds barred. Perry started the car and crept down the street, aggressive, holstering his energies and his jealousy by slanging her under his breath, ashamed.

  Helen awoke by seven, not exactly refreshed but considering herself far from dead. Her customary gesture of pushing the hair out of her eyes with her left hand was defeated by the tube attached to the back of the wrist, such a surprise that she looked at it in consternation, swore softly. She also looked at the clock on the wall, remembered that today and on several succeeding days, she would not be in her office by nine o’clock. The thought was a mixed blessing. Work did not evaporate, it simply accumulated, but the hospital cocoon was suddenly appealing, all wrapped up like this and waiting for someone to bring tea. But then the nurse came with her whiff of antiseptic and Helen, remembering some of the files on her desk, groaned out loud.

  ‘Sister’s gone off,’ the nurse hissed in conspiracy. ‘So I’m letting your husband in for a second. OK?’

  ‘He’s not sterilised,’ Helen said, ‘not for dust, anyway, not in my place … And he’s not my …’ she began, ever a stickler for detail, but was stopped by her desire to laugh at the picture of Bailey being let into the room like a lion into a pen. There he was, sidling round the door almost shyly, a broad smile on a tired-looking face and in his hand two decadent winter roses.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘OH come on, Tom, please, lovey. What’s the matter with you?’ Kimberley Perry knew her voice was sharp, and was sorry, without being able to do anything about the edge. Or about the fact that Tom was only ten years old, with a face far older, a large head on thin shoulders. Nothing ever fitted Tombo, even today’s stained tracksuit which she privately considered too cold for December but which was de rigueur in his school, or so he insisted. The material bunched at the waist and hung over training shoes which had been the subject of intense pride when new: the exact make, the flashes on the side, the colour of the laces all of paramount importance and he had worn them as if they were silk shot with gold. And similar expense, his mother had considered wryly. Tombo knew more about the rules of dress and behaviour than he did about the school curriculum, she thought as she fought the impulse to empty pockets where the marbles and other invaluable detritus looked like twin hernias. She also yearned to brush his spiky hair for him, but both actions would have been insults. Tombo might look like a baby on more endearing days, or behave like one, flicking his toast across the table as if firing a gun, Kchoo! Kchoo! a bullet imitation noise which sounded like a sneeze, but he was not a baby in his needs. Kim’s early morning glances were full of guilt, irritation and a very brusque love. She might have killed for him, but at the moment he was unlovely.

  She got up, shoved the dishes in the sink, splashing the front of her sweater with hot soapy water, making Tombo giggle provocatively at her swearing. You should have better clothes, lovey, she was telling him under her breath; better school and better mummy. Only a month or two more till I’m qualified and I’ll make it all up to you. Don’t look so sulky, please. You little sod.

  ‘Is Daddy coming today?’

  ‘You know very well he isn’t. Next weekend.’ Sharp, again.

  Kim smoothed her skirt. Maybe it was a little too tight for the shop but she could not resist that colour. Life was dull enough. Duncan had always laughed at her tight skirts, high heels, big bosom, big behind, but then he had laughed at everything. All her years of study met with nothing but scorn. ‘A chemist, love? You? Oh, ha, ha, ha … Sorry about that, sweetheart, didn’t mean to laugh, but ho, ho, ho; Kim the Chemist? See, it rhymes! Kim the Chemist who can’t even take cough medicine.’ So what if it was a big change from happy-go-lucky, down the disco Kimberley with punk hairdo and micro skirt, a person quite grateful to be pregnant, married and apparently out of it all by the age of nineteen. Until Tombo was two and she found herself bored out of her skull, the brain her teachers had despaired of idle and frustrated. Working part-time in a pharmacy, beginning to think, why not me, why shouldn’t I learn how to do this? Duncan would have been forgiven anything (since she did not have high expectations of the married state) if he could have begun to understand her excitement. Kimberley from the East End, cheeky girl without an A level, ex school truant making good. Almost a proper pharmacist all these years later, a new kind of rebellion channelled into hard, hard work, rewarded by the kind of love which tried to thwart her in case she should grow up and escape. Taunting all the time, always putting her down.

  Great big handsome ape. So she snapped the leash between them, already frayed by argument. He thought her walk-out was spontaneous, but she had planned it. Don’t ever laugh at me, she told him: I’ve got a place, a job. I mean what I bloody say. Don’t you laugh at me.

  ‘You’ll turn that boy into a pansy,’ he had shouted.

  ‘Better than a pig,’ she shouted back. Repeating that cold comfort in her mind as she watched him now.

  ‘Don’t want to go to school. Kchoo! Kchoo! Kchoo!’ More crumbs flew into Tom’s milk.

  ‘Oh come on, yes you do, lovey. You like it really.’

  He gave her a look of withering scorn and the silence was ominous. Then a noise on the stairs, a groan announcing the arrival of Daniel. Daft Daniel was another worry with his empty morning face and that sickly pale skin. Duncan would kill her if he knew what Daniel was and it was only a matter of time before he found out from Tom. Just a bloke, this Daniel, she had informed Duncan. Just a man, helps in the shop with boxes and things, helps up and down the street, takes Tom to school and meets him sometimes when I can’t; stop interfering. She did not say how Daniel was simply omnipresent in the Parade, calling in at all the shops in one endless perambulation, but invariably at the pharmacy for his daily prescription of methadone. Daniel was twenty-five going on sixty, sweet-natured, curious, argumentative about his drugs, but Duncan could not see any strange man, especially a stabilised drug addict, as harmless. Kim was defensive about Daniel, reacted to him as one lonely and truculent soul to another, even fed him sometimes (beans and chips, their favourite fare), and also reckoned that beggars could not be choosers. Daniel was big enough to stop Tom getting thumped and that alone made him better than nothing.

  ‘How are you doing, Dan?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘’Lo, Danny.’ A surly greeting from Tom. Dan was a sort of a friend, but not much fun.

  ‘’Lo.’

  Daniel was designed to sit without much movement, and take Tom to school with a tribe of others whose rude remarks passed over his head like clouds. Standing there now, puffing the cold out, smiling a stupid smile while Kim snatched her bag, planted a kiss on the time bomb that was her son and hurried away, guilty, but relieved.

  ‘Don’t let him go on the site, will you? Or pick up rubbish, will you
?’

  ‘Nope.’

  There was no direct access from the shops of Herringbone Parade to the flats above. Some of the shopkeepers owned the upstairs accommodation, including Philip Carlton the pharmacist who owned his own larger flat and the one next door, rented out to Kim. To get into the street, upstairs occupants had to descend their steps, turn left or right through the litter of the service road which served their own front doors and then turn back. In Kim’s case, she arrived beneath her own bedroom windows. The Carltons had been generous in letting Kim rent the flat: she knew they could have got more, and while wages were low, the arrangement suited her well. She reminded herself not to think of ‘the Carltons’ plural. Since that frothy, bossy little Margaret had died in her sleep four weeks ago without anyone understanding why, there was only one. Kim tried to push this out of her mind along with the vision of dead Margaret in bed, not for lack of rough sympathy, but because she could not afford her concentration to be rocked. Life was far too complicated as it was: death and sentiment presented crises she could not afford.

  As she clattered down the steps, knowing she would regret the high heels later in the day, a workman en route to the site whistled. Kim stuck her nose in the air, ignored the compliment, but her large backside wiggled as she walked, unconsciously, blissfully sexy. Gruff and irritated she may have been, but Kimberley Perry in the morning was a sight which glowed in winter.

  Seven-forty-five, and only three lights glowed in Herringbone Parade. The view here was an improvement on what she saw from the back, a dirty service road, feeding the back of the shops and flanked by a building site. An improvement zone, old houses, left damaged since the war, finally coming down. You could hear the rumbling of a cement mixer creating filling for foundations, and, some time next year, there would be two dozen new homes which people in the Parade were unlikely to afford. Bitter for those who could remember the bombs which had put their neighbourhood into a twilight zone for two generations. Never mind, the Parade was proud. There were twenty small shops in one unbroken row, and, whenever she thought about anything not related to the minute she was in, Kim thought that was plenty. The lights which glowed so long before conventional opening hours were those of Carlton’s Caring Chemist, while three doors down Mr Oza’s newsagent and tobacconist was already doing trade. Five doors beyond was Cyril’s Caff, renowned for bacon rolls and lorry drivers’ breakfasts, the inside windows already steaming. Next to that, though not yet open, was Sylvie’s Hair Salon, half-price to pensioners Thursdays only, hotbed of gossip. The other shops included a greengrocer, a butcher, two Indian takeaways open only at night and one slightly famous Chinese restaurant on the other side. There was also a baker’s, an emporium of discount electrical goods run by Ahmed, and a toy shop which Tombo scorned as hopelessly untrendy. Alongside that was an off-licence and on the other side of the hardware store, the boutique and shoe shop, selling discontinued lines from shopping catalogues and a few other things besides. No shop was streamlined; there were socks in the hardware store, videos for hire in the off-licence, and everything under the sun on the two days a week when the street outside became a market. Herringbone Parade was an enclave against the world, providing all the urban soul could ever require, filling a gap wherever a gap was mentioned, ordering anything which might sell. Pip Carlton, the Caring Chemist, was easily the worst at this game. He could not bear to be found lacking and the shop burst at the seams in tribute to his passion for pleasing. No wonder Margaret had complained.