Mary's Prayer Page 5

  He had managed to get past the desk sergeant by claiming to be an insurance investigator working on behalf of Nicholson Griffin Harwood and Howe; he had to speak to Detective Inspector Henry Moir about an urgent matter. After much to-ing and fro-ing he had eventually been allowed in.

  They reached a door, half-paned with frosted glass; the constable stopped and knocked. Finding no one in, he went to search for Moir, leaving Larkin alone.

  Larkin stood impatiently for a few minutes until a large shadow loomed up behind him and eclipsed the light in the corridor. He looked round.

  Moir was a big bloke – not a man, a bloke – about six feet tall and the same width, but he carried his size with authority. He was wearing a suit that managed to fit where it touched – which wasn’t in a lot of places. It had probably once been a pleasant shade of Coventry City blue, but years of neglect, sweat and police work had turned it a rather sinister shade of battleship grey. Ominous stains decorated the front. His shirt, too, had seen better days – perhaps when Harold Wilson was in power – and the ensemble was completed by a garish Jamaican sunsplash of a tie thrown round his neck. His hair was cut into a Sweeney Todd special.

  ‘Inspector Moir?’

  ‘Who are you?’ A gruff Scottish accent.

  ‘Larkin. Stephen Larkin. I’m working with Nicholson Griff—’

  ‘You a reporter? ’Cos I don’t talk to reporters.’ He turned to enter his office, signalling that the interview was at an end.

  ‘I’m working on behalf of a firm of solicitors dealing with an apparent suicide. I believe you were in charge of the case.’

  ‘So?’

  Larkin tried not to let his exasperation show. ‘I’d like to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Would you, now?’

  Larkin wanted to hit the man. ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  Moir turned, grinning, showing an intelligence and cunning that could easily have been missed. Larkin imagined lesser mortals had done so at their peril.

  ‘Come in,’ said Moir, and unlocked the door.

  The room was no bigger than a broom closet; Moir had filled it to bursting point with a seemingly random assortment of files, paper, old coffee mugs, books and dirt. Despite the mess, Larkin would have betted that Moir knew exactly where to lay his hands on anything of importance.

  Moir unearthed a chair from the chaos and pointed at it vaguely. ‘Sit down.’

  Larkin sat, dusting it surreptitiously first with the palm of his hand.

  ‘So what was it you wanted to see me about, Mr Larkin?’

  ‘It’s about the death of Mary Torrington – rather, Mary Greene.’

  Moir mentally grasped the file. ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been hired by her solicitor—’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Charlotte Birch.’

  ‘Yes. Continue.’

  ‘By Ms Birch. To investigate Mary Greene’s death.’

  ‘I’ve already done that. Why would you want to bother?’

  ‘Because Ms Birch has reason to believe that Mary Greene didn’t commit suicide.’

  The idea seemed to amuse Moir. ‘And why’s that?’

  Larkin took a deep breath. ‘She believed that the man Mary Greene was involved with abused her to the point where she was emotionally and mentally destroyed. In that state she took her own life. So, morally, he’s the murderer.’

  Moir sighed heavily, as if he was weighed down by a burden even bigger than himself. ‘Mr Larkin. When someone takes their own life, it is often hard to understand why. Those left behind to grieve sometimes feel a scapegoat must be found. It’s a sad fact of life – but there it is.’

  ‘Didn’t you try to find her lover?’

  ‘We informed her next of kin. Since she and her husband were divorced, that was her two brothers. Case closed.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  Larkin was stopped in his tracks. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Newcastle.’

  ‘But you’ve lived away for a few years.’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Thought so. Your accent betrays you. Will you be staying long?’

  Larkin felt like the accused. He was supposed to be asking the questions … ‘Why? Are you the sheriff that every lone gunslinger has to report to?’

  ‘I don’t know. Are you a lone gunslinger, Mr Larkin?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Good. Then leave this alone. The case is closed. I expect you can see yourself out.’ And Moir picked up a pen and began rifling through the papers on his desk. Larkin didn’t move.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Larkin.’

  Larkin stood up, left the room and strode angrily down the corridor. What an arsehole, he thought.

  7: Tracings

  Having left Moir’s office full of rage and indignation, Larkin decided to go for a therapeutic drive. He had nowhere particular in mind, so he let the car choose the route, and eventually he found himself up on the Scotswood Road. Rather than head over the river and risk getting lost in Blaydon, he turned the car round at the abattoir and, aiming for the city, ventured into Scotswood itself.

  He remembered the area as being bad – but nothing like as bad as this. No longer the jolly, holiday landmark depicted in a century-old folk song – although he doubted that place had ever existed – what he saw now was rotten to the core. It looked like the leftovers of a particularly wild party, a celebration that had been pissed on and burnt up by gatecrashers while the party’s organisers had lain drunk, dreaming of glorious futures, while their proud creation was pummelled into rubble.

  It was all the result of broken post-war promises and dodgy land deals, Larkin knew. A bright new day, a new deal, had been promised for the trusting inhabitants of Scotswood. So their terraced homes were torn down and the hapless owners relocated into vast concrete monoliths. This was the future, they were told. This was the way the world was heading. A teeming, optimistic generation had gone willingly, two by two, into the new Ark, happy with a view of the Tyne that stretched all to the way to the Team Valley Trading Estate. But then things started to fall apart: the lifts, the walls, the ceilings. Then came the rats, the fires, the burglaries, the muggings. Potential danger lurked in every poorly designed cranny. The people began to feel like prisoners, afraid to leave home, unable to move, abandoned. Like packs of wolves, gangs of ravening humans started to roam the estates. And Scotswood had become a crumbling high-rise hell, with tormented souls on every level. Abandon hope? They’d done that years ago. Now going to the shops for a pint of milk was considered an act of heroism.

  Larkin drove slowly; he had no choice. Apart from the refuse, the everyday detritus of existence, the streets were strewn with sleeping policemen and chicanes, designed to stop the joyriders. Clearly the scheme had failed. He gazed round sadly as he drove. Concrete edifices that could never have been called homes looked like front-line barricades; some were burnt-out husks, some boarded up, some cemented over with breeze-blocks, as if, in a deranged quest for novelty, the council had employed as many different ways as they could of sealing up the buildings. Every now and then he came across a terraced street that had somehow escaped; or, more accurately, been granted a temporary stay of execution.

  Yet for all this there were some small signs of human spirit amidst the despair. A Community Centre (a misnomer if ever there was one) advertised a children’s daycare scheme; posters called for residents to form a City Challenge group, in order to force the council not to abandon them. Larkin knew they would have a struggle on their hands. Suddenly remembering his meeting with Andy, he gunned the car up a gear and drove back to his hotel. He needed a shower and a beer.

  So there he was, in The Forth, on his second pint. When he’d last drunk there, years ago, it had been a desolate but comfortably run-down dive for whores and losers. Now it seemed desolate in a different way. Split-level, open-plan, concealed lig
hting, padded seats. On the CD jukebox Michael Bolton was getting himself all worked up over nothing in particular. In short, it had become just like any other brass-arsed city pub. It had no identity – or not one that Larkin wanted to share.

  On entering, he had ordered his drink and taken a trip to the toilet, surprised to find it now at the top of a spiral staircase and newly tiled in gleaming grey and white. As he returned to the bar he overheard a customer chatting with the barmaid, enthusing at the speed with which the vicious Stanley-knife stabbing in the toilets a couple of nights ago had been cleared up. At Larkin’s approach they both fell silent, keen not to spoil a stranger’s impression of their local. Larkin took his beer to his seat, smiling to himself. You can tart up the pub, he thought – but you can’t change the people.

  He sat in contemplation. He tried not to spend too much time in reflection, but he had cut himself off from humanity to a point where he distrusted emotional involvement, found it painful even. His relationship with Lindsay provided him with sexual gratification, if nothing else, and his job put food in his mouth. But that was the present. He was still so bound up with the past that he didn’t dare think about the future.

  And then there was Charlotte. Her presence puzzled – if he was honest, frightened – him.

  He was still deep in thought when Andy appeared.

  ‘Oi! Where’s my fuckin’ pint, then?’

  Larkin jerked out of his reverie.

  ‘Don’t matter, I’ll get them.’ His colleague looked at him. ‘Still the same miserable face. What’s the matter with you, then?’

  Andy was framed by the fading light spilling in from the doorway. His mousy hair was scraped back into its inevitable ponytail; his beard was neatly trimmed; the earring in his left ear glittered; his Levi T-shirt and jeans were immaculately faded. Cat boots and Chipie suede bomber completed the ensemble. Every inch the South London wide boy. Larkin saw the smattering of early evening drinkers eye Andy with mistrust; through centuries of Northern in-breeding, they had instinctively rejected him. Everybody’s pal, Andy Brennan, had become another outsider – just like Larkin.

  Andy didn’t notice their hostility, however, as he ordered drinks for himself and Larkin, his South London accent at full decibel. The barmaid eyed him like a laboratory specimen as he returned to Larkin with the drinks.

  ‘Bit of a fuckin’ borin’ cow, ain’t she? Don’t they teach them manners up here?’

  ‘They do, but only in relation to other Geordies. Southerners always get the cold shoulder.’

  ‘And how far south d’you have to go to be considered a Southerner, then?’

  ‘Durham, I think.’

  Andy took a deep drink, nodding seriously. ‘Yeah, figured. Why do they hate Southerners so much?’

  ‘Well, traditionally it’s because Tory landowners from London fuck us over so many times. But …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I think it’s because they keep beating us at football.’

  Andy laughed. ‘Used to, you mean.’

  ‘Yeah, right. More to it than that, though,’ said Larkin pensively. ‘When my dad used to go to work on a Monday – he was a mechanic at the Northern bus garage – if Newcastle had won over the weekend then he knew he was in for a good week. But if they lost it would be awful. That’s what football means to people up here.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Andy paused and drank, then grimaced. ‘I’m not surprised it means so much to them. The beer’s shit.’

  Larkin shook his head and tried to ignore him.

  ‘So what’s she like, then?’

  ‘Who?’ Larkin knew full well who.

  ‘This bird you went to see. What’s she like?’

  ‘She’s a lawyer. Involved in the Edgell case. I thought it would be helpful if I spoke to her.’ He was trying to sound convincing, dismissive, but he couldn’t help remembering Charlotte’s breasts constrained by the lacy bra underneath a sheer cream silk blouse …

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Charlotte was now tantalising in a leather basque straight from Mary’s collection.

  ‘Was it helpful?’

  ‘It might be. I’m … we’re having dinner together.’

  Andy beamed, his eyes glinting. ‘You sly bastard! Always the quiet ones you’ve got to watch out for, eh? Oh, well, bang goes my idea for the night’s entertainment. I thought we could go on the pull, but if you’re sorted I’ll have to make other arrangements. That bird at the hotel was giving me the eye—’

  To change the subject Larkin said, ‘What did you find out?’

  Andy jumped straight in, head-on. ‘Got the name of that guy who killed Edgell. Gary Fenwick. Know him?’

  Larkin ran it through his memory. ‘I think Char – the lawyer mentioned it. Keep going.’

  ‘Apparently, from what I could gather, Fenwick walked up to Edgell and just knifed him. Witnesses, the lot. It was about two in the mornin’, just down an alley from a taxi rank outside a nightclub. In Grimley.’ He paused and thought. ‘Christ, I’m surprised they’ve got a nightclub in a shithole like that.’

  ‘How did you learn all this?’

  ‘Went to the library. They keep newspapers. Didn’t you think of doing that, Mr Reporter? Anyway, I went out to Grimley.’ He shuddered. ‘Never seen a place more aptly named. I can see now what’s made you such a sullen bastard.’

  From the murderous look in Larkin’s eyes, Andy realised he had said the wrong thing.

  ‘Sorry. It was just a joke.’ Larkin nodded almost imperceptibly; Andy took that as a cue to continue. ‘Put it this way – it’s a bit depressing. And that nightclub, it looks risky enough in the daytime – I bet it’s fuckin’ dangerous at night.’ He paused and took a drink. Larkin knew the place. He held it a matter of personal pride that he had never set foot in it.

  ‘Anyway, they closed it down after the stabbing. Looks like something they should have done years ago. Took some snaps, though.’

  He delved into the leather file he had brought with him. Larkin looked through the photos; they brought it all back. There were shots of the high street – in reality the only street. It looked deserted, even on a Saturday afternoon. The shops were more or less the same; maybe a few more video stores, another Chinese takeaway, the innovation of a kebab shop. It all looked much starker in black and white. Then the nightclub, an old Victorian Gothic building more suited to an asylum than a dance hall. The windows had been blacked out, the brickwork was stained and discoloured, and the gaudy neon sign announcing the legend CONNEXIONS had more than a few letters missing. The taxi rank was outside the main entrance and there was a maze of alleyways around the building, dark even in daylight. Larkin handed the photos back to Andy. They had made him even less keen to go back.

  ‘Where’s Fenwick now?’ asked Larkin, trying to take his mind off the bleak images.

  ‘On remand waiting for his trial. Open-and-shut case, apparently.’

  ‘What about Edgell? Anything on him?’

  ‘Yeah. Lived in London for a few years. Must have gone south to make his fortune.’

  ‘Lot of it about,’ said Larkin. ‘Doesn’t always work out, though.’

  ‘Too right, mate. Streets of London aren’t paved with gold.’

  ‘No. They’re paved with Big Issue sellers.’

  Andy looked at Larkin. ‘Yeah … Well, anyway, after a few years he came back up here, moved into his old man’s flat in Grimley. His parents are divorced – mother went down under with some Australian, so to speak. Looks like our boy was setting things up for a big London firm to move in. Funny that. I’d have thought they’d be here already.’

  ‘They are. But you know Northerners, how insular they are. Even their drugs dealers have to be local.’

  ‘You want to watch yourself, mate. You’re nearly developing a sense of humour.’ Andy smiled; Larkin smiled; happy times. Andy continued, ‘Anyway, Edgell Senior didn’t mind his son bein’ there. Helped himself to the profits and turned a blind eye. Proud of th
e fact that his son had made something of his life, even if it was short.’ He took a drink and sighed. ‘I dunno. Some people.’

  ‘So what now?’ asked Larkin. ‘Gang war?’

  ‘Looks like it. North against South.’

  ‘So what else is new? At least it’s not football.’

  ‘Ha, fuckin’ ha.’ Andy took a drink. ‘Did you know this Wayne Edgell, then?’

  ‘Not really. I never hung out with him or anything. We were in the same class at school, that’s all. About the only thing we had in common was the fact that we couldn’t wait to get out of Grimley. Us and half the school.’

  ‘What about the other half?’

  ‘Oh, they were staying put. Grimley was where they were born and Grimley was where they would die.’

  ‘Looks like the place has beaten them to it.’

  ‘It used to be a prosperous mining community, Andy. North versus South. Remember that.’

  Andy snorted. ‘I can’t figure you out. You say you couldn’t wait to get away from this place, but you won’t hear a word against it. What’s the matter with you? If you liked it so much, why did you move away in the first place?’

  Larkin looked around at the refurbished pub. It had changed almost beyond recognition – but maybe if he’d stayed here he wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe he’d have gone along with it, embraced it, been part of it. Maybe things would have been different.

  Maybe not.

  ‘Dunno. I don’t feel at home in London, I don’t feel at home here.’

  ‘And you want to? Fit in, I mean, either here or there?’

  Larkin stood up. ‘Who knows? Who fucking cares? Have a nice evening, Andy. I’ve got to go.’

  Andy looked disgruntled. ‘Yeah sure.’ Then, just as Larkin was turning to go, ‘This solicitor bird, how d’you know her? She your ex?’

  Larkin sat down again. ‘Yeah. I met her at university.’

  ‘What, Newcastle?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You didn’t travel far.’

  ‘Neither did she.’ Larkin got back up.

  Andy’s face was downcast; he didn’t want to drink alone. He said, without much enthusiasm, ‘Give her one for me, right?’