Wasted Years cr-5 Read online

  “Maybe now he’ll pay some attention.”

  She got to her feet. “And maybe not. Anyway, who cares? By then I’ll have moved.”

  “By when?”

  “Week after next.”

  She could read the disappointment in his eyes: just when I’ve found you again.

  “Do you think you’ll catch him?” she asked at the door to her room.

  “Honestly?”

  “Of course.”

  “If he’s a regular, if we pick him up for something else … otherwise, no. Probably not.”

  He stepped out into the middle of the corridor and she looked at him again. “Are you always that honest?”

  “I hope so. I try to be.”

  “Don’t you find that a hindrance in your work?”

  He couldn’t tell from her expression whether she was teasing him or not. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Before he had reached the head of the stairs, she had gone back inside her room and closed the door. Three weeks later a card arrived, the envelope forwarded from Central Station. On the front was a photograph of a saxophone, black and white; on the reverse Elaine had written Maybe you’d like to call round and check the security arrangements? along with her new address.

  Elaine.

  And Ruth James.

  This was their story, too.

  Empty arms and empty promises

  And ten more wasted years

  Sixteen

  “Doner kebabs,” Darren said. “Two Cokes. Cold ones.”

  The assistant shook his head. “Sorry, closed now. Everything switch off …”

  “Closed,” Darren observed. “What we doin’, standing here?”

  “Everything switch off …”

  “Yeh, you said. So either switch it fucking on again or find us somethin’ to eat quick, ’cause we’re fuckin’ starving.”

  With a slow shake of his head, the assistant lifted the lid from one of the metal containers. “Meat,” he said. “No pita, no bread.”

  “So stick it in something else,” Darren said, being reasonable. At least now they were getting somewhere, talking the same language, almost.

  “I don’t know if I want …” Keith began, watching the slices of gray meat being lifted into two polystyrene trays.

  “Course you fucking do,” said Darren. And to the man: “Some of the chilli sauce on there, right? Come on, Jesus, shake the bloody thing! And how about the Cokes? Christ! Call this cold?”

  Darren emptied the contents of his pocket out onto the counter in a clatter of coins. “Have that. ’S’all I’ve got. And, hey! You really want to smarten up your act around here, you know? Sweep all this shit up off the floor and do something about that thing you’re wearing-more stains than Keith’s jockey shorts. And hey, hey! First thing tomorrow, go to one of them places up the market, get a badge cut with your name on, stick it right there, on your lapel. People know what to call you.”

  “Tony,” the assistant said.

  “Tony, yeh, right.” Darren leaned an elbow on the counter and patted him none too lightly on the cheek. “Tony. You remember what I said, huh? Better than having them walking in off the street, Stavros, Stavros, all the time.”

  “Not a bad bloke,” Darren said through a mouthful of meat. “For a Greek.”

  “I think he’s Cypriot,” Keith said. They were walking along Lower Parliament Street, strolling really, taking their time.

  “Same thing,” Darren said.

  Keith shook his head. “Turkish Cypriot.”

  “That’s what I said. Same fucking thing.”

  A black and white cab came towards them, signaling to turn right down Edward Street, and Darren stepped out into the road and waved him down; then, as soon as the driver slowed, he waved him on again.

  “Forgot,” Darren explained. “Skint.”

  Keith nodded and looked at his watch; new battery just last week and it had stopped again. It had to be well past two. “I ought to be getting back,” he said.

  “What’s the rush?” Darren lifted the last of the meat with fingers and thumb, tipped up the container so that the chilli sauce ran into his mouth, belched, and sent the container skimming across the street into the doorway of the gas showrooms. “Tell you what, fucking doner tastes like shit.”

  Keith thought he was going to be sick.

  “Stay over at my place,” Darren said. “Sleep on the floor.”

  “Thanks,” Keith said. “My old man, he’ll be …”

  “What? Waiting to tuck you in?”

  Keith thought, chances were, if his old man was up at all, a good bollocking was all that was on the cards.

  Darren took Keith’s silence for assent. “You know what I hate?” he said. “Walking round without money in my pockets. Where’s the nearest cash machine?”

  They waited until a punter in a loose gray suit, late from one of the clubs, punched in his personal number and withdrew a hundred pounds.

  “Got a light?” Keith said, blocking his way.

  Darren hit him from behind: twice was enough, the third one just for fun. Five crisp twenties, never saw the inside of the bloke’s wallet. Thank you for your custom, please come again.

  A little after four, Keith woke on Darren’s floor with a sore back and a stiff neck and the certain sure knowledge that he was going to die. An hour later he was still cuddled up to the toilet bowl, head resting on the chipped enamel. There can’t be any more, a small long-suffering voice told him. But there always was.

  Divine and Naylor were parked along the street from Rylands’s house; two or three people had entered, lodgers most likely, none of them any chance of being Keith.

  “Know what we ought to do when we’re relieved?” Divine said. “Get ourselves out on the old Nuthall Road. See if there’s any talent hitching a lift back Heanor way.” Divine winked. “Help ’em out, right?”

  Naylor looked through the windscreen towards the soft glow of lights that hung over the city center.

  “How long’s it been, Kevin?”

  “Since when?”

  “Since your precious Debbie took herself off to her mum’s? Your kid along with her.”

  Naylor shook his head. “I don’t know.” Only the months, weeks, days.

  “Hardly makes you a married man, then, does it?”

  “That gives me the right to go picking up sixteen-year-olds?”

  Divine winked. “Give you the right to a bit of fun.”

  “Your idea of fun, not mine.”

  “Jesus, you’re a miserable bugger. No wonder she upped sticks and left you.”

  “Look …” Divine was really getting his rag “… she hasn’t left me. That’s not the way it is.”

  “No? How is it then?”

  “She’s staying at her mum’s while we work things out.”

  Divine laughed in his face. “Never sodding talks to you. How can you be working anything out?”

  “That’s rubbish.”

  “Is it? Go on, then, you tell me. When were you last round there? See the kiddie? Talk, the pair of you, without her old lady gobbing and gawking?”

  Naylor got out of the car and mooched up the street towards Queen’s Walk. As if it wasn’t bad enough his father having a go at him over the telephone, his mother writing those letters: Kevin, she is our granddaughter …

  “Tell you what,” said Divine, when Naylor climbed back into the car. “All the women I’ve had since joining the force. Names, vital statistics, likes and dislikes. And, hey! Outside the knickers don’t count, okay, Kev?”

  By the time Millington and Lynn Kellogg took over it was the coldest part of the night. Lynn had brought a large Thermos of tomato soup and Graham Millington had four spinach pasties his wife had bought from Sainsbury’s, reheated and handed over wrapped in foil. The car engine they ran intermittently, needing the heater to stop all feeling from leaving them below the knees.

  “The wife’s talking about Corsica this year,” Millington said, “but I’m not so sure.�
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  “You know that bloke I used to go out with?” Lynn said.

  “The cyclist?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Had a card from him the other day. Heard nothing in over a year. Did I have anything fixed for my holidays and, if not, what did I feel about the Tour de France?”

  “Too hot, that’s what concerns me.”

  “France?”

  “Corsica?”

  Lynn gave the Thermos a shake before pouring out what remained. Her mother had been angling at her, nothing direct but making it clear all the same, next leave Lynn got she should spend it at home with them. It’s your dad, Lynnie, he’s not what he was … What he was was a stick of a man, old before his time, wandering between the hen houses instead of sleeping. Likely as not, out there at this moment, checking for foxes, flicking his torch on and off and all the while talking softly, as if his presence not only scared off predators, it kept the birds safe from salmonellosis, aspergillosis, and blackhead.

  Outside the light was flirting with the sky.

  “Come on,” Millington said, firing the engine, “he’ll not show now. Let’s get back to the station. Get a decent cup of tea.”

  They’d been gone scarcely fifteen minutes when Keith came round the corner, walking slow. Darren had got fed up with the sounds of Keith throwing up and when the diarrhea had kicked in that had been enough. “Here,” throwing him some Ajax and a balding lavatory brush. “Clean that mess up and then fuck off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Keith let himself into the house quietly but not quietly enough. His father was on the cellar stairs with a jack-handle in his hand. “Figured you for a burglar.”

  “Figure again.”

  “Christ, you look awful!”

  “Thanks,” Keith mumbled and just got to the toilet in time.

  “Thought you’d like to know,” his dad said through the door, “police were round earlier, looking for you. I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but when you get out there, I’ve a good mind to give you the hiding of your miserable life.”

  What happened later that morning meant that, as far as the police were concerned, Keith Rylands was all but forgotten.

  Seventeen

  The time switch on the main safe was activated to open at nine-fifteen. Road works, caused by the need to replace thirty meters of sewage piping, had brought about a traffic bottleneck and the security van delivering cash for the start of business was slightly delayed. It finally appeared at nine-thirteen, three minutes late. The bank guard set aside his copy of the Express and moved to unlock the outer door. Two men wearing blue-gray uniforms and sky-blue protective helmets climbed down from the cab of the van, called out a remark about the traffic, and proceeded to unlock the rear doors.

  A bottle-green Granada drew up across from the security van and a woman wearing a high-collared wool coat got out of the passenger seat and began to walk towards the bank.

  The first security man was inside the van, passing down sacks of coins to his colleague, who was loading them, side by side, into a low wooden trolley.

  The bank guard set the ramp against the stone step and used the side of his shoe to edge it into place.

  “I’m sorry, madam,” he said, turning towards the woman in the woolen coat, “I’m afraid we’re not open till half-past nine.”

  The woman, who was a man, pulled a sawn-off shotgun from inside the folds of her coat and jabbed the barrel ends hard against the guard’s neck, beneath his jaw.

  One of the security men was wheeling his laden trolley across the pavement.

  “Move,” the armed man said clearly, “and this one’s dead.”

  The Granada was reversing towards the front of the van, two wheels on the pavement, two on the road. A second car, a gray Volvo estate, swerved around the corner and headed towards the rear of the van fast. Before it had come to a standstill, three men, wearing track suits and costume masks, had jumped out.

  The security man inside the van had started to leave, one leg over the tail, and now he was back inside, struggling to lock the doors. A blow with an iron bar fractured his wrist, a second, across his shins, fetched him to his knees.

  The man in woman’s clothing forced the guard to walk backwards into the center of the bank. Two masked men sprinted past them, heading for the safe. The cashier nearest to them was barged aside.

  “If anyone tries to be a hero, they can be the second to die. After this one here.”

  Shotgun forcing back his head, the guard kept both eyes clenched tight.

  Inside the security van, both men, helmets removed, back to back, had their mouths and eyes taped shut.

  The contents of the safe were being emptied into double-strength polythene sacks.

  By nine-nineteen it was over: a yield, per person, somewhere in excess of three thousand pounds per minute.

  Resnick was on his way to a meeting with the Home Office pathologist. The remains of a middle-aged man’s body had been found in some woods northeast of the city and the possibility was that they might correspond with a missing person case Resnick had been working on. They were almost there when the news came over the radio. He leaned forward and touched his driver on the shoulder, instructing him to turn round. Parkinson and his corpse would have to wait.

  “Boss, you want Kev and me back out at the Meadows or what?” Divine was on the first landing of the police station, eager and open-mouthed.

  “Get a couple of uniforms round there,” Resnick said, hurrying past. “You’ll be needed on this.”

  In the CID room phones were ringing, some being answered. The furniture had been replaced, the boards-save those in Resnick’s office-had been relaid. It was as cold as before, if not colder.

  Lynn Kellogg rose from her desk to intercept him. “Just had a call from the hospital. Harry Foreman, seems he’s out of danger.”

  The concern that had leaped to Resnick’s eyes faded almost as fast. “Thankful for that, at least. Make a note to get out there and take a statement.”

  “Today?”

  Resnick was already moving on. “I doubt it.”

  Reg Cossall appeared alongside him in the long corridor, matching Resnick step for step. “What I hear, this is the same team, buggers’ve changed their MO. Christ knows what we’re dealing with now. Bunch of bloody transvestites wearing Mickey Mouse masks. Next we know, sodding students’ll be putting their hands up, stunt for charity. Rag week. Awareness of tossing AIDS.”

  Resnick pushed open the door to the incident room and let his fellow Dl enter before him. Most of the chairs were already taken and the air was thickening with smoke. An officer was pinning Polaroids of the two abandoned cars, the Granada and the Volvo, to the board on the side wall, beside the map showing the route of the gang’s escape-that which was certain, that which was conjecture. On a second map the location of the robbery had been newly flagged, joining the five others.

  Out front, Malcolm Grafton was shuffling through his desk of six-by-four cards prior to the briefing. Alongside him, Jack Skelton was rehearsing what he would say in front of the TV cameras in an hour’s time, wondering if he had made the correct decision in going with the double-breasted blazer instead of the suit.

  The door opened again and Detective Inspector Helen Siddons came into the room, acknowledging both Resnick and Cossall with a nod, before moving towards the far end of the rows of chairs.

  “Looking for a bloke in drag,” Cossall muttered, “there’s our man.”

  Malcolm Grafton coughed a few times and brought the meeting to order. Jack Skelton got to his feet and began to speak.

  “Hundred and twenty thousand,” Darren said. “More, depending which version you heard.”

  Keith’s face showed no understanding; his skin was the color of old putty and his eyes were glazed over.

  “What’s up with you?” Darren said. “Don’t you ever listen to the news?”

  Keith shook his head: not quickly, not far.

  “Over a hundred grand in the time it take
s you to wipe your arse.”

  Across the kitchen, Rylands turned his head, but decided to say nothing. He hadn’t taken to Darren the first time he set eyes on him, less than five minutes ago when a hammering had brought him to the front door, Darren standing there like a skinhead with a serious personality problem.

  “Hey, look,” Darren said now. “You got a radio over there. Switch it on, bet there’s some bulletin. Something new.”

  He was staring at Rylands, pointing at the portable Sanyo on top of the fridge.

  “It doesn’t work,” Rylands said. “Needs new batteries.”

  It had needed batteries for weeks and he’d bought a fresh set, EverReadies, last time he’d been to the corner shop, but he’d be buggered if he was going to let Darren know that. Ordering him around in his own house. He wanted to find out the news, let him spend his own money, buy a paper.

  “Less than ten minutes,” Darren was saying to Keith, “and they were out of there with over a hundred thousand quid. You know how come?”

  Keith squinted up at him. “’Cause they planned it?”

  “Course they planned it, lamebrain. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Less of the names,” Rylands said.

  “They got away with it,” Darren went on “because they didn’t go in empty-handed. They were tooled up. They had a gun. Shotgun. No one argues with that.”

  “Who d’you think you are?” Rylands said. “You ever stop to listen to yourself? Something out of The Untouchables?”

  “What the fuck’s that when it’s out?”

  “See what I mean? Don’t even know you’re born.”

  “Come on,” Darren said, moving back towards the kitchen door. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “Keith’s not well,” Rylands said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Bollocks.”

  “I am feeling rough,” Keith said.

  Darren took hold of the front of his sweater and hauled him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

  “You,” Rylands said. “Let him alone.”

  Darren’s face tightened, eyes suddenly tense and dark-then he laughed. “C’mon, Keith,” he said, still looking at Rylands with the cocky grin the laugh had become. “We’re off.”