Fan (23 page)

The office still buzzing. Blokes whispering, blokes shaking their heads, blokes being blokes. Spence on a roll.

‘The barmaid.’

‘What about her?’

‘You know they interviewed Harris about it?’

Finchy takes off his jacket, rests it on his seat.

‘Six fucking hours. Right through the night.’

Finchy. Numb in the legs and in the belly and all the way up and down his fucking arms.

‘What do you think?’ continues Spence. ‘Do you think it’s him?’

‘Rumour says he was knocking her off…’

‘Not lately. Word is she’d settled down with that bloke of hers, sorted herself out.’

Spence, setting the letters in the frame. Never fucking rushed or flapping about. Never chasing the clock. Always a step ahead. Bastard.

‘Don’t fucking joke about it.’

‘I’m not joking,’ says Spence. ‘It’s hardly something to joke about.’

Finchy picks up his first pile of letters, starts the day, hands moving on autopilot to one corner of the frame and the next, not reading the numbers, just the names, knowing every fucking name on the route now. Maybe the cunts in time and motion are right. A more personal service, they say. Except it’s shit boring. A fucking machine could do it.

‘I can’t see it,’ he says at last.

‘What?’

‘Harris. I can’t see it being him.’

‘Give me a reason.’

‘Fucking hell. You know the bloke. We all do. He might be a pisshead but he’s not a fucking murderer. He’s not going to strangle some girl, strip her half-naked and dump her in a fucking hedge bottom.’

Spence chews his bottom lip.

‘Why not?’

‘Do you think it’s him?’ asks Finchy. ‘Seriously?’

‘No,’ says Spence.

‘Well then?’

‘Well then, what?’

‘Why the fuck are you asking me if you don’t think it yourself? What the fuck is all this about?’

‘I’m just making conversation. But then I’m not CID, am I?’

‘What’s that meant to mean?’

‘Well, they know what questions to ask. Take the other evening at your gaff for instance…’

Finchy nods. Finchy laughs. Finchy understands now. He doesn’t ask Spence how he knows or where he gets his information. He’s given up trying.

‘It was just routine,’ he says. ‘They were ticking boxes.’

‘Still,’ says Spence. ‘I don’t expect it was very pleasant.’

‘It was just routine,’ says Finchy again.

‘A routine murder investigation…’

‘They were clearing a few things up from last week.’

‘And visiting a few of their suspects, no doubt.’

‘It really wasn’t about me…’

‘Still, can’t have been easy to have the murder squad at your door.’

‘Fuck off,’ he shouts at last. He can’t help himself.

‘Is he off on one again?’ asks Jack Stanley.

‘Aye, Jack,’ says Spence. ‘All set on the hair trigger…’

‘Youth of today…’

Blokes are laughing now. Blokes are taking the piss. Everything’s firing in his direction. He tries to switch off from it, to get on with his prep, but it’s no good. He’s surrounded. They appear from the rows of frames, mischief in their eyes, eager to be part of the wind-up. Harcross appears with a fist full of mail, dumps another hundred letters on his frame.

‘You missed some.’

Harcross turns and ushers the men back to work.

‘Fuck me, you’ll be out until lunch again,’ says Spence, bundling up already, bundling up and packing his fucking bags.

Finchy stares at the frame, at the numbers and the letters, at the thin black segments. Five hundred and ninety-eight bastard gates, five hundred and ninety-eight bastard pathways, five hundred and ninety-eight bastard snapping letter boxes. He closes his eyes, thinking of Hope Close, thinking of Nobber Harris in an interrogation room. A chill runs up his spine.

Will they come for me?

‘Fuck,’ he whispers to himself.

Two hands swoop across his vision and lift a pile of letters in their grip. Stubby fingers shape the pile into a manageable form.

‘Shove over, you daft bastard,’ says Spence. ‘I’ll give you ten fucking minutes and then I’m out the door.’

‘Cheers, mate,’ says Finchy.

Four hands at the work of two.

‘They didn’t charge him, then?’ asks Finchy.

‘Of course not.’

‘What’s his alibi?’

‘Home with the missus.’

‘Six hours to sort that?’

‘I don’t think they believed her.’

‘Right, like his missus is going to protect him from that sort of thing? How do you know all this?’

‘Robbie’s been over there. Can’t keep a fucking thing to himself.’

He laughs.

‘Surprised they haven’t had you in,’ says Spence.

A lurch in the belly.

‘Why the fuck would they do that?’

‘It’s your patch.’

‘So what? What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Maybe you saw something.’

‘I didn’t see a thing.’

‘You’re a Bell man.’

‘So are half the lads in the town.’

‘Single male. Desperate for a bit. Sexy barmaid…’

‘Desperate? Fuck off.’

‘… no alib—’

‘I stayed in. That’s an alibi.’

‘Well, that’s what you told them.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘Of course it is, mate. Of course it is. Then there’s trying to implicate others…’

‘Eh?’

‘Telling all and sundry her personal history…’

‘Fucking hell. It’s common knowledge. I didn’t tell them anything they didn’t know. Three blokes I mentioned. Three blokes.’

‘Old Arnie’s well fucked off with you.’

‘What for?’

‘Telling them he’d had a bit…’

‘What makes him think I told them?’

‘They told him. They asked about you…’

‘Fuck off. They knew about him already. They asked me what I knew.’

Spence, laughing away, a source of amusement to himself.

‘You’re a prick,’ says Finchy. ‘You know that?’

‘Fucking hilarious, though,’ says Spence. He slips the last letter into its slot. ‘There. How’s that?’

Spence in shirtsleeves, heaving his bag over his shoulder.

‘Four,’ he says.

‘Eh?’

‘You said three. It’s four.’

‘Four what?’

‘Four blokes.’

‘Who?’

Spence shakes his head.

‘I’m not a stirring bastard,’ he says. ‘You know me better than that.’

Spence winks in Finchy’s direction.

‘Who is it?’

He shakes his head again, taps a finger against his nose.

‘Not so long ago, either.’

And then he’s away, down the line of frames, around the end of the row and out of sight. Finchy turns back to the frame, to sorting the bundles, finds a rogue fucking letter in the first slot, another and another and another.

Spence. Practical fucking joker.

Finchy jumps from his seat and runs out the door. No sign of the cunt at the bike sheds. He hops off the ramp, jogs across the yard to the gates. Spence is a hundred yards away, pedalling furiously in the direction of the railway bridge. Spence looks over his shoulder and waves.

Cunt.

Finchy turns back and heads inside. Harcross gives him a look and taps his watch. He goes back to the frame and works his way through the bundles rectifying Spence’s wind-up, thinking about the lads, trying to decipher who number four might be, trying to remember what the fuck occurred in the hours with the American bird and afterwards, how the fuck he wound up crashed at the bottom of the stairwell sporting bruises to his arms and legs, covered in shit, cursing his flatmate for keeping dodgy fucking beans and the American lass for making him bite off more than he could chew.

In the locker room, sorting his bags, he doesn’t hear Arnie Burrows come up behind him, doesn’t know he’s there until the little bastard has him cornered.

‘Oi, what the fuck have you been saying about me?’

‘Eh?’

‘You fucking know. To CID. What the fuck have you been saying?’

He tries to speak, to explain, but he can’t get a word in.

‘I’ve got a wife and kids,’ says Burrows.

Red face. Wide eyes. Dark black circles.

‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ says Finchy.

‘Well, you fucking told them something. Because at 3 a.m. this morning I was in the nick answering their fucking questions and now my wife thinks I’ve been dipping my wick where it doesn’t belong and she’s took the kids to her mam’s, so you said fucking something.’

‘Rumours,’ he says. ‘I told them they were rumours.’

‘You didn’t have to tell them anything.’

‘They already knew.’

‘Is that right? Is that the fucking case? That’s not what they told me. They said you’d been naming names, pointing the finger.’

‘Arnie,’ he says. ‘I didn’t tell them anything. They’re
chasing shadows. They don’t have a fucking clue…’

Jack Stanley comes in to get his bags. He stops at the door, leans against the frame, folds his arms.

‘Aye, well, it doesn’t matter,’ says Burrows. Then he starts laughing.

Finchy steps away, steps back.

‘One piece of advice,’ says Burrows. ‘If you’re going to tell tales, make sure your own story holds together, eh? Because I told them a few things myself. About what you were up to that night. About where you were and where you said you were. I’d be expecting another visit if I were you.’

Then he turns and leaves the locker room, leaves Finchy staring at Jack Stanley and Jack Stanley staring at Finchy.

‘Having some trouble?’ asks Jack.

Finchy shakes his head.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Everything’s fine and dandy.’

When he reaches Hope Close, it’s all he can do not to stare at the hedge bottom, the car park, the remnants of blue fucking tape still strung from the trees. There’s a car parked on the kerb, a blue fucking Sierra. There’s some fucker sat in it. He can’t tell if it’s Mr Moustache or Mr Notebook and he doesn’t dare look too closely in case it is. He keeps his head down, wanders his route, spends the rest of the morning going over and over it all in his head, what Burrows might know, what Spence might know, how any of them could know anything. He tells himself the answer is nothing. He tells himself Burrows is on a wind-up, desperate to get his own back. He tells himself these things but what if Burrows does know something? What if he knows about the American bird, about the pills, about what happened in the dark and black fucking hours, about the streaks of dirt and shit on his jeans.

What if Burrows knows about those things?

What the fuck happens then?

The blue Sierra appears outside his flat that evening. He’s staring out of his window when he spots it across the way. The blue Sierra sits there for nearly an hour. He closes the bedroom curtains, shuts out the light and peeks through the gap, watches the blue Sierra, half expecting at any moment for Mr Moustache and Mr Notebook to appear, to inform him they’ve had some new information, to ask him to go over the Friday evening again. The woman across the way is wandering around her flat in just a T-shirt. When she goes to the kitchen to fix tea he can almost make out the pert curves of her backside. He thinks of her fucking his flatmate, screaming the fucking place down. He’s meant to be watching the Sierra but he can’t help watching her. When he looks back down at the road, the Sierra is no longer there.

Days come and days go, days of blue Sierras, twitching curtains, rooms cast in shadow, disturbed sleep. Jen’s a distant figure, a captive in her own home. When he tries to call he can’t get at her to talk. When he waits in for her to call around she doesn’t appear. But they’re not over. They’re still not over.

Despite everything.

The weekends are different. The weekends are his time. Finchy and the boys on the town. Finchy and the boys on their weekly meanderings, pub to pub, bar to bar. Finchy and the boys, then just Finchy. He heads to the club alone, queues up alone, takes to the dance floor alone. In the toilet cubicle he takes one of his flatmate’s beans from his pocket and swallows the fucking thing.

He returns to the dance floor and throws himself about.

He’s out of control. He doesn’t give a shit.

He takes up with some brunette, leads her out of the door and into the night. There’s the ungainly scrape of her heels on the pavement as he pulls her through the sheltered housing, waking the oldies with her giggles and laughter. He doesn’t give a monkey’s toss.

On the bridge above the river, the dark allotment behind, he has her pressed against the rail, her hands in his jeans, his hands on her tits, his hands on her arse, his mouth on her mouth, her tongue on his tongue. Breathing hard he pulls her up the narrow street to the flat, up the slope between the terraced houses, fumbles for the key, fumbles at the door, stumbles on the steep stairs. Her skirt’s riding up. Her with no knickers in his flat, in his room, his mouth on her neck, on her tits, on her nipples, his teeth on her nipples, the black dress peeling away. On the floor, naked, his face on her cunt, his tongue in her cunt, his boxers around his ankles, her mouth at his cock. And then the two of them fucking, her squatting on top, her underneath, her on all fours. No fucking condom. No fucking sense. Just fucking.

Her skin against his skin in the single bed. Her soft skin. The wondrous texture of her bare backside against him in the single bed. The glow of the alarm clock. Him pressed against her, feeling the excitement and clarity of it, the relief and release.

Guilty of everything.

In the morning things are stirred up again, skin against skin, mouth against mouth, sweat against sweat. He goes about his business whilst thinking about Jen. They’re over in every sense of the word and yet they’re not over.

Even now.

He takes the brunette home, drops her off, heads to work, knackered, thinking he should take a sickie, not able to, all that three strikes and out bollocks.

Fucking beans.

He wants to be back in bed but he’s at the frame instead, a country route he hardly knows with its farms and its cottages and its nonsensical place names. He has a headache, a deep, throbbing headache. He’s feeling sick in his stomach. Thoughts of the night before jostle for attention. His cock stirs despite the rest of him.