Deception on His Mind (82 page)

Barbara considered this information in light of everything else they knew, what they had seen, and what they had heard. “Querashi had immigration papers in the Barclays safe deposit box, didn't he, Em? Is there a connection in that? And even if there is, is there also a connection here?” She gestured round the shipping department.

“That,” Emily said, “is exactly what I intend to find out.” She stepped off the shipping dock. “Keep with the search, Barb. And if Malik shows his mug, drag him over to the nick for a natter.”

“And if he doesn't show up?”

“Then check at his home. Run him to ground. Find him one way or the other. And bring him in.”

A
FTER THE COPS
returned him to the industrial estate, Cliff Hegarty decided to officially declare himself on holiday for the rest of the afternoon. He used a sheet of polythene to cover his current Distraction—a jigsaw puzzle under construction, featuring a large and pendulously breasted woman together with a small elephant in a most fascinating if physiologically impossible pose—and he packed his tools away in their stainless steel chests. He swept up the fine sawdust, polished the surface of his display cabinets, emptied and washed the tea mugs, and locked his door. He hummed contentedly all the while.

He'd done his part to bring Haytham's killer to justice. True, he hadn't come forward at once like he might've done on last Friday night, when he'd seen poor Hayth go head over arse down the face of the Nez, but at least he knew he
would've
come forward had circumstances been different. Besides, he hadn't been thinking only of himself in hanging back from making a statement to the rozzers. There was Haytham to think of as well. Had Cliff made it known that the murder victim had gone to the Nez for a bit of brown, what would it have done to the bloke's reputation? No sense in tarring him once he was gone was Cliff's way of thinking about it.

And there had been Gerry to consider as well. What was the point in stirring up a hornets’ nest of worry in Ger when it wasn't the least bit necessary? Ger talked about fidelity all the time, like he really believed in his heart of hearts that being true to one's lover was the number one topic on his mind. But the real truth was that Ger was scared shitless about HIV. He'd been getting himself tested three times a year since the scare began, and what he believed was that plugging only one bloke for the rest of his life was the key to survival. If he knew that Cliff had been doing the business with Haytham Querashi, he'd only worry himself into a state and probably bring on symptoms of some crazy disease that he didn't even have in the first place. Besides, Haytham always took precautions. Hell, there were times when taking it in the arse from Haytham was so antiseptic that Cliff had found himself tossing round the idea of setting up something with a third bucking bronco just to add a bit of salt to the mash.

Not
that he would have done it, mind you. But there were times …Just now and then when Hayth would wrestle with that flaming Durex for about ten seconds too long for Cliff's liking …

However, those days were now behind him. Cliff made this decision as he strode to the car. Across the rutted lane, he could see six police cars sitting in front of the mustard factory, and he gave thanks that his part in the investigation was now at an end. He'd head for home and forget about it all, he decided. He'd had a close call, and he'd be a real boofhead if he didn't see what had happened in the past few days as a gilt-edged invitation from on high to turn over a new leaf.

He found himself whistling as he drove south through Balford, buzzing along the seafront, then cruising up the High Street. His life was definitely looking up. With the Haytham business completely behind him and his head finally straight on what he intended to do with the rest of his life, he knew he was ready to devote himself to Gerry. They'd been through a bad patch—him and Ger—but that's all it was, plain and simple.

He'd had to bring to bear all the fancy dancing he knew in order to convince Gerry that his suspicions were groundless. He'd begun his efforts at placation by using anger. When his lover had brought up the idea of being tested for HIV, Cliff's response had been outrage, finely tuned to illustrate that a grievous blow had been dealt him.

“Are we going to have this one again, Ger?” he'd demanded that morning in the kitchen. “I'm not cheating on you, okay? Jesus Christ. How d'you think it feels—”

“You think HIV can't touch you.” Gerry was the maddening voice of reason as always. “But it can and it will. Have you watched anyone die of AIDS, Cliff? Or do you leave the cinema when that scene comes on?”

“Is there something wrong with your hearing, mate? I said I'm not cheating. If you don't believe me, maybe you ought to tell me why.”

“I'm not stupid, okay? I work days at the pier. I work nights at that house. Want to tell me what you do while I'm gone?”

Cliff had felt ice running in his veins, so close was Gerry coming to the truth, but he'd rallied well enough. “You want to tell
me
what you're on about? What's your point? Just spit it out, Ger.” This demand had been a calculated risk. But in Cliff's experience, the time to bluff was when he had absolutely no idea what cards his opponent was holding. In this case, he knew what Gerry's suspicions were, and the only way he could sway Gerry to see those suspicions as groundless was to force them into the open in order to beat them down with a decent display of righteous rage. “Go on, then. Spit it all out, Gerry.”

“Okay. All right. You go out when I'm working nights. And we haven't been doing it like we used to. I know the signs, Cliff. Something's going on.”

“Shit. I fucking do
not
believe this. You expect me to sit here and wait for you, right? But I can't sit here with nothing to do. I start climbing the walls. So I go out. I have a walk. I take a drive. I have a drink at Never Say Die. Or I work on a special order at the shop. D'you want some proof for all this? Should I get the barmaid to write me a note? How ’bout setting up a time clock at the Distractions so I could punch in and out for you?”

This explosion achieved a nice effect. Gerry's voice altered, a subtle gentling that told Cliff he was well on his way to having the upper hand. “I'm saying that if we need to get tested, we need to get tested. Knowing the truth is better than living a death sentence without even knowing it.”

Gerry's alteration in tone told Cliff that an escalation of his own passion would douse even more of his lover's. “Great. So get tested if you want to, but don't expect me to do the same, because I don't need a test, because I'm
not
bloody cheating. If you're going to start sifting through my business, though, I sure as hell c'n do the same to you. And just as easy. Believe me.” He raised his voice further. “You're gone all day on the pier, aren't you, and half the bleeding night pounding away on some bloke's house—// by the way that's what you're really pounding on.”

“Hang on,” Gerry said. “What's that supposed to mean? We need the money, and as far as I know, there's only one legal way to get it.”

“Right. Fine. Work all you want, if that's what you're doing. But don't expect me to be like you. I got to have breathing room, and if every time I need to have space you're going to think I'm fucking some bloke in a public loo—”

“You go to the square on market days, Cliff.”

“Christ! Jesus! That really cuts it. How else am I going to do the shopping if I don't go to the square on market days?”

“The temptation's there. And both of us know how you are round temptation.”

“Sure we know, and let's both get straight on
why
we know.” Gerry's face grew red. Cliff knew that he was inches away from scoring the definitive goal in this verbal football match they were engaged in. “Remember me?” he taunted. “I'm the poofter you met in the market square loo when ‘taking precautions’ wasn't near as important as buggering any bloke willing to have you.”

“That's in the past,” Gerry responded defensively.

“Yeah. And let's have a look at the past. You liked your cottaging days as much as I did. Giving blokes the eye, slipping into the loo, doing the business on them without even finding out their names. Only I don't wave those days in front of your face when you don't act like I want you to do. And I don't take you through an inquisition if you stop by the market square for five minutes to pick up lettuce.
If
that's what you're picking up, by the way.”

“Hang on, Cliff.”

“No.
You
hang on. Cheating works both ways, and you're out more nights than me.”

“I already said. I'm working.”

“Right. Working.”

“And you know how I feel about fidelity.”

“I know what you
say
about fidelity. And there's a hell of a lot of difference between what blokes say and what they feel. I figured you might understand that, Ger. I guess I was wrong.”

And that had been that. Deflated when his argument had been turned against him, Gerry'd backed off. He'd sulked for a while, but he wasn't a man who liked to be at odds with anyone, so he'd ended up apologising for his suspicions. Cliff hadn't accepted the apology initially. He'd said gloomily, “I don't know, Gerry. How can we live in peace together—in harmony like you always said you wanted—when we get into rows like this?”

To which Gerry had said, “Forget it. It's the heat. It's getting to me or something. I'm not thinking straight.”

Thinking straight was what everything was all about, in the end. And Cliff was finally doing that. He shot along the country road between Great Holland and Clacton—where the summer wheat languished under a sky that hadn't produced a drop of rain in four scorching weeks—and he realised that what was called for now was a rededication of the self to another. Everyone received a wake-up call sometime during his life. The key was to recognise that call for what it was and to know how to answer it.

His answer would be straightforward fidelity from this time on. Gerry DeVitt, after all, was a good enough bloke. He had a decent job. He had a house five steps from the sand in Jaywick. He had a boat and a motorcycle as well. Cliff could do a lot worse for a permanent situation than hooking up with Gerry. Hell, Cliff's past was a veritable study on that point. And if Gerry was a bit of a bore sometimes, if his compulsion for neatness and promptness began to wear against one's natural grain now and then, if he clung too closely so that one wanted to swat him into the next time zone every once in a while …weren't these in reality small inconveniences compared to what Gerry had to offer in return? Certainly. At least they seemed to be.

Cliff turned along the seafront in Clacton, spinning along Kings Parade. He always hated this stretch of going home: a line of seedy old buildings nudging the shore, a score of ancient hotels and decrepit nursing homes. He hated the sight of the doddering pensioners, clinging to their zimmers with nothing to look forward to and only the past to talk about. Every time he saw them and the environment in which they lived, he renewed his vow never to be among them. He'd die first, he always told himself, before he ended his life this way. And always as he came in sight of the first of the nursing establishments, his foot pressed down on his old
Deux Chevaux's
accelerator and his eyes shifted to the undulating mass of the grey-green North Sea.

Today was no different. If anything, it was worse than usual. The heat had brought the pensioners out of their caves in herds. They were a bobbing, teetering, careening mass of shiny bald heads, blue hair, and bulging varicose veins. And traffic along the shore was halted, so Cliff was treated to a lingering look at what the happy golden years of old age had in store for the unfortunate.

Restlessly, he tapped the car's steering wheel as he watched them. Ahead, he could see the flashing lights of an ambulance. No, two. Or was it three? Brilliant. A lorry had probably ploughed right into a group of them. And now he was going to be treated to a nice long sit as the paramedics sorted out the living from the dead. Not that they all weren't half dead already. Why did people continue to live when it was so clear that their lives were useless?

Shit. Traffic was going nowhere. And he was parched with thirst. If he drove with two of his wheels on the pavement, he could make it up to Queensway and cut into the town from there. He went for it. He had to use the horn to clear the way, and he was treated to a few raised fists, one tossed apple, and some shouts of protest. But he gave two fingers to anyone who hassled him, and he made it to Queensway and headed away from the shore.

This was definitely better, he thought. He'd crisscross through town. He'd drop back to the shore just beyond Clacton Pier, and then he'd have only a quick jaunt from there to Jay wick Sands.

Moving along again, he began to consider what he and Gerry could do to celebrate his conversion to monogamy and lifelong fidelity. Naturally, Gerry couldn't
know
that's what they were celebrating, since Cliff had been smiting the air—if that's what the word was—with major protestations of his fidelity for years. But a subtle celebration was certainly in order. And afterwards, with a little wine, a nice steak, a fresh green salad, some lovely veg, and a jacket potato oozing butter …Well, Cliff knew that he could make Gerry DeVitt forget any suspicions he might have ever entertained about his lover's roving eye. Cliff would have to dream up some phony reason why they were having a celebration, of course, but there was time to think of that before Gerry came home.

Cliff zipped into the traffic on Holland Road, turning west in the direction of the railway tracks. He'd shoot beyond the tracks and make his next turn into Oxford Road, which would eventually take him back towards the sea. The scenery was grotty as hell going this way—nothing but dusty industrial estates and a couple of recreation grounds long gone the colour of straw in the deadly, continuing summer heat—but looking at filthy bricks and dying lawns was a damn sight more appealing than watching the old farts down by the shore.

Okay, he thought as he drove along, one arm out the window and the other hand resting easily on the steering wheel. What to tell Ger about the celebration? A big new order came into the Distractions? What about a legacy left by old Aunt Mabel? Or perhaps an anniversary of some sort? That last sounded nice. An anniversary. But was there anything special or significant about today's date?