Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1) (22 page)

‘Better
go soon,’ she said later, not relishing having to part company with the soft
bedcovers and Roy’s body.

‘Back
to your boyfriend?’

It
was said not maliciously, but easily, with a benign smile.

She
made a face. ‘You guessed.’

‘The
way you talked about him before. Your boss, right?’

‘As
was until today.’

‘Does
he know?’ Again, Roy spoke with no trace of agitation or jealousy.

‘No.’

‘Welcome
to have a shower before you leave.’

‘Thanks,’
she said, with a sudden flow of gratitude towards this likeable, thoughtful
man. ‘Do I have to go yet?
You
haven’t got someone coming home too, have you?’

‘No,
not me. No rush.’

But
it was getting late. She rose, bathed and dressed, savouring the familiar glow
of satisfaction. Bathrobed, Roy rejoined her as she was brushing her hair.

He
said, ‘One-off, this, right?’

‘Very
probably,’ she smiled.

‘Because
I’m a witness?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Doesn’t
that bother you?’

‘Other
people, perhaps.’

‘Blimey.’
A thought had struck him. She read it before she could stop herself.

‘
If
it comes to court,’ she said,
pre-empting him, ‘and assuming you’re called...’

Their
eyes met and held, and they giggled at their private joke.

‘Just
try and keep a straight face,’ Anne said.

Saturday

There is something
about the architecture of the motion picture theatre that distinguishes them
long after they have been closed down and converted to other purposes. You
could still tell, sometimes with the briefest glance, where the old picture
palaces of Croydon had once been. Some had become bingo halls, others fitness
centres or bowling alleys, theme pubs or thrift shops. One, the old Focus on
Crown Hill that had screened mostly soft porn with a side business in Disney
films and action blockbusters during the school holidays, was now a Hustler
Club. Then there was Barkeley’s Discotheque, on the Brighton Road half a mile
south of Purley Cross. It had once been the Lyric Cinema, an edifice that epitomised
Hollywood’s Golden Age. Outside, if you looked beyond the vulgar chrome doors
and the huge vertical sign with its gaudy flashing lights, it retained its
splendour. It was an entertainment Mecca for the young and young at heart; it
couldn’t very well fail to be. Apart from a 24-hour Tesco and a couple of
characterless pubs, there was precious little else to keep Purley alive once
the sun sank behind the roofs of the semis on Woodcote Hill.

Perhaps
the word was out that a posse of partying coppers was on its way. Barkeley’s
was less than usually packed for a Saturday night, and they had no trouble
getting in. Even the doormen, who normally did their level best to provoke a
fight, smelled bacon and were gratifyingly subdued. There were, after all, perks
to the Job. On the debit side, the doormen would never believe these pigs were
off duty and would spread the word to whomever might be interested, then watch
them uncomfortably from the shadows all night. The team, for their part, knew
this, and knew neither to notice certain people behaving oddly whenever one of
them hove into view, nor to draw attention to themselves. At least, not until
everyone was having too good a time to care.

The
combined stares of Sandra and Zoltan got them a booth. It was still only
mid-evening, but Barkeley’s already throbbed with noise and humanity. The
recipe was deafening trance music, plenty of dry ice and dancing and bar prices
that made Lottery jackpot winners wonder why they’d bothered. Some of the
party, Paul Jackson along with Lucky’s friend Juliet, a thin girl of about the
same age with long mousy hair and John Lennon glasses, made straight for the
dancefloor. Others took a while longer, settling.

Presently
Jasmin Winter descended on Jeff Wetherby. She’d turned up alongside Kim Oliver
with a face like a cancelled wedding and, feeling the way he did about her, the
apparent lifting of her spirits transmitted itself to Jeff’s heartstrings to
produce a painfully harmonious twang. He smiled at her.

‘Can
we wait until something a bit slower comes on?’ he said. ‘You know what I’m
like.’

‘Huh?’

They’d
been through this before. Jeff danced like a three-legged camel with
housemaid’s knee. Jasmin nonetheless seemed possessed of a fantasy of turning
him into a contender for
Strictly Come Dancing
.

‘I
will teach you,’ she said.

‘You
tried that.’

‘Huh?’

‘You
tried
,’ he
bawled over the din.

‘OK,’
she relented. ‘We wait for a slow one. But I will teach you to dance if it
kills me.’

‘Brave
woman.’

Two
tracks later the DJ considered it about time for a slower one, something newish
by Armin van Buuren. Jasmin stood up, took Jeff by the hand and tugged. He
allowed himself to be towed into the crowd, the merciless giggling of
eavesdroppers ringing in his ears.

‘This
is still a bit fast for me,’ he protested.

‘What,
you want the
Funeral March
?’ She coached, ‘Just follow my feet and keep time.’

He
complied, because it meant he could hold her, and she him. Her warm back
stirred under his hands, like the coiled muscles of a cat poised to spring. Her
arms round his neck were firm and strong; her fingers left a tingle where they
touched him.

‘OK?’

‘Hope
you’re ready for bruised toes.’

‘I’m
used to it.’

Jeff
hoped no-one was watching his efforts at grace too closely. For one thing he
was wearing a suit, which always made him feel uncomfortable, but it was his
balance, or lack of it, that was the main problem. Ideally he liked to see
ahead of him, use the horizon as a reference point. Currently Jasmin filled his
horizon; not entirely conducive to steadiness. Luckily she appeared to have
chosen a spot in the midst of the crowd, away from the main focus of the strobe
lights and the view from the team’s booth.

‘You’ve
perked up a bit.’

‘Huh?’

He
upped the volume. ‘I said you’ve cheered up a bit.’

‘
Ja
?’

‘Aye.
Only you’ve been a bit down in the dumps, past couple of days. I heard about
the, er…’

She
frowned. ‘Dance closer and shout in my ear,’ she advised. ‘It will not fall
off, right?’

‘No,
but your eardrum might burst.’ Nonetheless, he followed her advice. Her spicy
perfume wafted up his nostrils, down into his chest and tickled his heart. He
wondered if she’d consider him forward if he asked her what it was.

She
laughed.

‘That’s
better.’ He smiled with her.

‘What
do you mean?’

‘Like
I said, you’ve been none too happy. I wanted to ask what’s eating you.’

Jasmin
opened her mouth, then closed it again. She seemed to ponder a moment. She
said, ‘You drive here tonight, right?’

He
nodded.

‘You
can give me a lift?’

‘Now?’

She
tutted indulgently. ‘Not
now
. When it’s time to go.’

His
stomach a tight, burning knot, he said, ‘Sure.’

‘I’ll
tell you about it on the way, then.’

He
grunted, unsure what he ought to make of this.

He
was still thinking about it, in depth, when she said, ‘You want to sit down
now?’

He
looked up, snapping back into the real world. Van Buuren was yielding to
something edgy he didn’t think he knew, although the way some of these DJs
worked nowadays he might easily be listening to a mix of McCartney’s
‘Yesterday’ and not recognize it. Now they were drawing attention to
themselves. The floor had almost emptied but for a few engrossed couples
gyrating away to one another’s more vital rhythms. There was some isolated slow
hand clapping from the booth. Separating, gearing themselves for the
piss-takes, they went to sit down.

‘Sorry,’
he simpered. ‘Miles away.’

‘It’s
OK,’ she smiled at him.

Although Paul was
seldom touching base in between forays to the dancefloor, the fact that his
wife had barely even spoken to anyone else either hadn’t gone unremarked. Both
of them seemed edgy and disinclined to be sociable, wary as much of each other
as the company. Word was their marriage was on the tramlines. Sandra, who was
tighter with Nina than any of them, had a tense look on her sharp face, like
someone expecting a balloon to burst. Rather too brightly, she volunteered the
opinion that Nina looked fucking miserable and that she was working on a way of
forcing her to enjoy herself.

Nina
had begun to doubt the wisdom of this evening the moment she’d opened the door
to Paul standing hunched in her parents’ porch. She’d recoiled, as if from a
spider in the bath. He was dressed with ruthless formality and had a weird
light in his eyes which she only later recognised as fear when she saw her own
reflection in the wing mirror. This was the first time they’d been together
since her discovery, and she was desperately trying to work out why he looked
so different. A little thinner, maybe some worry lines on his forehead and
about his eyes, but that wasn’t it.

There’d
been precisely three words between them all evening.

‘I’m
pulling over.’

That
had been halfway here, when Paul had no longer been able to stand the icy quiet
from his wife. Wordlessly she’d watched him pull into the kerb and switch off
the engine. Then she waited. He’d turned in his seat and tried to meet her
gaze, but she’d sat rigid, staring blindly out through the windscreen. Whatever
words he’d prepared died in his throat. Quite right, too, she thought in sudden
wrath. What could he possibly say?

Trouble
was, she couldn’t think of anything either.

So
he’d given up, and they’d carried on to Purley in silence. And in silence,
still, Nina sat, an island of unhappiness in a sea of revelry.

‘What’s with those
two, I wonder?’ Helen Wallace watched Paul’s back as it was swallowed up in the
crowd. He’d come back to the booth with Juliet, but had paused only for a few
gulps of lager before walking off again. ‘Doesn’t he know he’s got a wife?’

‘Major
row brewing,’ Lucky suggested.

‘Or
in progress.’ Juliet, trying not to stare, took her seat and hunched forward.

‘Oh,
well,’ Helen sighed, ‘none of our business, eh?’

‘Why
not?’ Lucky demanded at once.

Helen
frowned at her. She seemed irritable tonight, inclined to jump down throats. To
the DS, sub-letting to Lucky one end of her desk, she was an enigma. She’d
thought she had her figured out that first morning, when she’d found the new
trainee to be enchanting company. Lucky had tried hard since then, but somehow
her heart didn’t seem to be in the sunshine and smiles business as much as its
owner would like. It was mystifying, because the obvious explanation - her
feeling she couldn’t hack it - didn’t seem to apply. She’d slogged as hard as
any of them and was, as far as Helen could tell, on top of everything that had
been dumped in her lap. She made an odd contrast to her friend: Lucky in a dark
blue top and Seven jeans, Juliet, ironically, more in keeping with the company
in a strap-shoulder white dress of some satiny material. It seemed Lucky had
misjudged the dress code again, and perhaps that was what was bothering her.
Somehow Helen doubted it was that simple.

‘
Should
be our business.’ Lucky took a
sip of her rum and black and pursued her theme. ‘Nina’s one of us, yeah? I
can’t believe you can say that.’

‘She’s
also an old married woman, and that’ - Helen gestured towards the Jacksons -
‘looks like private business to me. If they want to share, they will.’

‘Right,’
Lucky said, puzzled, ‘and in the meantime don’t let it spoil our fun?’

A
curly head interposed itself. Sandra Jones had overheard some of their
conversation. ‘You wondering about Nina?’

‘Isn’t
everybody?’ Helen said glumly.

‘Bloody
right. Wetherby’s just opened his great cakehole over there - crafty sod always
notices more than he lets on. Chances are this’ll boil over later anyway, so I
might as well forewarn you.’ She stole a guilty glance at Nina, who was staring
at the bottom of a Scotch and ginger. ‘She walked out on him.’

‘What?’
Helen’s eyes widened. ‘Why?’

Sandra
explained.

‘So
what’s he doing here, then?’

‘Buggered
if I know,’ Sandra said with a shrug. ‘Sit back and watch the fireworks, I
would.’

There
was a sudden sharp thump of glass on table and Lucky stood up. To Juliet she
said loudly, ‘I’m going to the bar. D’you want another drink?’

Juliet,
given little say in the matter, went off with her. Sandra peered after them,
then looked at Helen.

‘What’s
got
her
g-string in a twist?’

‘Look, this is
pointless. I’m gonna go.’

Paul
cracked. Conscience had snared him and he’d come back to the booth to sit down.
Grudgingly, Nina had moved up to make room. He was perched on the edge and she
was aware of the muscles of his hip tense against hers. She had oppressed him
into breaking the silence but she felt too bleak inside even to glory in his
discomfort.

‘Bye,
then,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a cab.’

‘This
was your idea.’

‘Bad
idea.’

‘Now
we’re here, can’t we at least - ’

‘What
about?’

‘What
about
?’

‘Two
things.’

‘What?’

‘All
I want to know,’ Nina said, ‘two things. Why you did it, and who she is.’

He
looked around. ‘Can we move somewhere?’

‘No,’
she said. ‘You’ve got something to say, say it here.’

‘Why
are you doing this?’

‘Oh,
you want me to spare your feelings? Like you spared mine?’

‘I
can’t talk with that lot earwigging,’ he pleaded, looking round at the team,
some of whom were already casting odd glances in their direction. ‘It’s none of
their business.’

‘How
do you know?’ she said. ‘Come to that, how do
I
know? How do I know it’s not
one of them you’ve been fucking behind my back?’