Death’s Jest-Book

‘And are you going to dial 999?’

She rubbed the side of her head where the silver blaze shone in the rich brown hair.

‘What’s the point?’ she said. ‘You lot will only make more mess. Best just to tidy up, get some better locks.’

‘Your choice,’ he said, not wanting to force the issue. ‘But maybe you ought to make absolutely sure nothing’s missing before you make up your mind. You won’t be able to claim unless your insurance company sees a police report.’

‘I told you, nothing’s missing!’ she snapped.

‘OK, OK. Right then, let’s do a bit of tidying up, or would you like a drink first?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. Look, I’ll do the tidying up myself. I’d prefer it.’

‘Fine. Then I’ll make us a coffee …’

‘Christ, Hat!’ she exclaimed, her hand at her head again. ‘What happened to that guy who was so oversensitive he couldn’t make a pass? I’ll spell it out. I don’t want a fuss, Hat. I’ve got a headache, Hat. I would rather be alone. Hat.’

Of course she would. He forced himself not to glance towards the shattered vase.

He nodded and said brightly, ‘I think I’ve got that. OK. I’ll ring you later.’

‘Fine,’ she said.

He went to the door, stood looking down at the lock, and said, ‘Thanks for a great weekend. I had the best time of my life.’

She said, ‘Me too. Really. It was great.’

He looked back at her now. She managed a smile but her face was pale, her eyes deep shadowed.

He almost went back to her but had the wit and the will not to.

‘Later,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk later.’

And left.

As Sergeant Wield approached Turk’s his clear and well-ordered mind, long used to separating the various areas of his life into water-tight compartments, had no problem with setting out what he was doing.

He was an officer of Mid-Yorkshire CID, on duty, going to meet a nineteen-year-old rent boy who might possibly have information which would be of interest to the police.

He was alone because said rent boy was not a registered informant (which would have required the presence of two officers at any meeting) but a member of the public who had indicated he wanted to speak to Wield only.

So far, so normal. The only abnormality was that he was having to remind himself!

Then through the grubby glass of the cafe window, he saw Lee sitting at the same table they’d occupied on Saturday night, looking like a kid who’d bunked off school, and he broke his stride to remind himself again.

Turk returned his greeting with his usual glottal grunt and poured him a cup of coffee. Lee’s face, which had lit up with pleasure or relief on Wield’s entrance, had resumed its usual watchful suspicious expression by the time the sergeant sat down.

‘How do?’ said Wield.

‘I’m fine. Survived your sarney then?’

‘Looks like it.’

There was silence. Sometimes in such circumstances, Wield let the combination of the silence and his un-readably menacing face work for him. Today he judged that whatever point was going to be reached would require a path of small talk. Or maybe he just wanted to talk.

He said, ‘Lubanski. Where’s that come from?’

‘My mam’s name. She were Polish.’

‘Were?’

‘She’s dead. When I were six.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah? Why?’ His tone was sceptically aggressive.

Wield said gently, ‘Because no age is good to lose your mam, and six is worse than most. Old enough to know what it means, too young to know how to cope. What happened then?’

He didn’t need to ask. Like Pascoe in pursuit of Franny Roote, he’d done some research that morning. Lee Lubanski had a juvenile record, nothing heavy: shop-lifting, glue-sniffing, absconding from a children’s home. Nothing there about rent-boy activities. He’d been lucky, or clever, or protected. A conscientious social worker had pieced together a brief family history when the boy first went into care. Grandfather was a Polish shipworker active in the Solidarity movement. A widower with dodgy lungs and a fifteen-year-old daughter, when General Jaruzelski cracked down on Walesa and his supporters in 1981, Lubanski, fearful that he wouldn’t survive a spell in jail and fearful too of what might become of his daughter if left to run loose, had somehow got out of the country on a ship which docked at Hull. Seeing no reason why the UK authorities should be very much different from those back home, he’d slipped through the immigration net into the murky waters of metropolitan Yorkshire, only to find that what he’d fled from in Poland awaited him here. After a few months of precarious existence, he died of untreated TB, leaving a pregnant daughter with a basic knowledge of English and no obvious way of making a living other than prostitution, which was her profession when Lee slithered into this unwelcoming world.

The new mother touched surface just long enough for her son to be registered officially and for her to get the minimum benefits offered by a caring state, but then her father’s fear of authority took over and she slipped out of sight again until Lee came of school age. Now the Law got a line on her, but by the time it was ready to pronounce on her status as an illegal alien, she was too far gone with her father’s illness for there to be argument over anything but who was going to pay for the coffin.

Her son too was, as might be expected, tubercular, but happily at an early enough stage for treatment. The assumption of the social worker’s report was that he’d been the product of an unprotected encounter with a client, but in this alone did Lee’s fragmented account differ from what Wield had read.

‘My mam were going to get married, but she couldn’t ’cos she were only fifteen, so she had to wait till she were sixteen, and something must have happened with my dad …’

Had some bastard lied to the girl in order to get her into bed for nothing? Or had she lied to her son so that he wouldn’t have to grow up thinking he was the product of a five-quid shag up against a garage wall?

Whatever, it was clearly important to the boy. To the young man. To the nineteen-year-old male prostitute who’d got him here on the promise of useful information.

Wield sat up straight and looked at his watch to break the thread of confidentiality.

‘OK, Lee,’ he said. ‘I’ve got things to do. So what did you want to see me about?’

For a moment Lee looked hurt, then his features became watchful and knowing.

‘Thought you might like to hear about a heist that’s coming off,’ he said with an effort at being casual.

‘A heist?’ said Wield, hiding his smile at the use of this Hollywood word.

‘That’s right. You interested or wha’?’

‘Won’t know till you tell me a bit more,’ said Wield. ‘Like, what? Where? When?’

‘Friday. Security van.’

‘Good. Any particular security van?’