Good Morning, Midnight

‘Sure.’

She called, ‘It’s Jase. Pal’s stood him up. He wants to know if he’s left a message here.’

‘No, nothing – tell Jase to get himself something at the Club like he usually does – don’t want him spoiling our evening just because Pal’s spoilt his.’

‘Jase, did you get that?’

‘Yes. Who needs phones when you’ve got a wife who could yodel for Switzerland? OK, tell her I’ll get myself a pasty, then go up on the balcony and see if I can find a couple of sweaty girls to watch. How are you keeping, Kay?’

‘Mustn’t complain.’

‘Why not? Everyone else does. Probably catch you before you leave. Bye.’

Kay put down the receiver and stood looking at her reflection in the gilt mirror on the wall behind the phone table. Her face wore the contemplative almost frowning expression which Tony had once caught in a snap which he labelled La Signora Borgia checks her guest list. She relaxed her features into their normal edge-of-a-smile configuration and went back into the lounge.

4 (#ulink_18da5305-e00b-51d0-906e-fea4ae2e2d03)

an open door (#ulink_18da5305-e00b-51d0-906e-fea4ae2e2d03)

‘There we go,’ said PC Jack ‘Joker’ Jennison, placing the two newspaper-wrapped bundles on the dashboard. ‘One haddock, one cod.’

‘Which is which?’

‘Mail’s haddock, Guardian’s cod.’

‘That figures. What do I owe you?’

‘Don’t be daft. Chinese chippie two doors up from the National Party offices, they’d pay good money to have us park outside till closing time.’

‘Then they’ll be getting a refund,’ said PC Alan Maycock. ‘We’re out of here.’

He gunned the engine and set the car accelerating forward.

‘What’s your hurry?’ asked Jennison.

‘Just got a tip from CAD that Bonkers is on the prowl. Don’t think he’d be too chuffed to find us troughing outside a chippie, so let’s find somewhere nice and quiet.’

Bonkers was Sergeant Bonnick, a new broom at Mid-Yorkshire HQ who was hell bent on clearing out its dustiest corners. Also he was big on physical fitness and had already been mildly sarcastic about the embonpoint of the two constables, saying that watching them getting into their car was like seeing a pair of 42s trying to squeeze into a 36 cup.

‘Not too far, eh? I hate cold chips,’ said Jennison, pressing the warm packets to his cheeks.

‘Don’t fret. Nearly there.’

They’d turned off the main road with its parade of shops and were speeding into the area of the city known as Greenhill.

Once a hamlet without the city wall, Greenhill had been absorbed into the urban mass during the great industrial expansion of the nineteenth century. The old squires who bred their beasts, raised their crops, and hunted their prey across this land were replaced by the new squires of coal and steel and commerce who wanted houses to live in that had land enough to give the impression of countryside but without any of the attendant inconveniences of remoteness, agricultural smells or peasant society. So the hamlet of Greenhill became the suburb of Greenhill, in which farms and cotts and muddy lanes were replaced by urban mansions and tarmacked roads.

From the naughty nineties to the fighting forties, many of the great and the good of Mid-Yorkshire paraded their pomp in Greenhill. But after the war, the rot set in. Old ways and old fortunes faded, and though for a while the makers of new fortunes still turned their thoughts to what had once been the arriviste’s dream, a Greenhill mansion, there rapidly developed an awareness of their inconvenience and a sense that they were at best démodé, at worst crassly kitsch, and by the seventies Greenhill was in steep decline. Many of the mansions were converted into flats, or small commercial hotels, or corporate offices, or simply knocked down to make room for speculative development.

Some areas hung on longer than others, or at least by sheer weight of presence managed to preserve the illusion that little had changed from the glory days. Chief among these was The Avenue, which, if it ever had a praenomen, had long ago shed it as superfluous to general recognition. Here on nights like the present one, with mist seeping in from the already shrouded countryside to blur the big houses behind their screening arbours into vague shapes, still and awe-inspiring as sleeping pachyderms, it was possible to drive slowly down the broad street between the ranks of leafy plane trees and imagine that the great days of Empire were with us yet.

In fact, driving slowly down the Avenue was still a popular pursuit among a certain section of Mid-Yorkshire society, but they weren’t thinking of Empire, except perhaps metaphorically. The shade against the elements provided by the trees, the privacy afforded by many of the dark and winding driveways, plus the thinness on the ground of complaining residents, made this a favourite parade ground for prostitutes and kerb crawlers. In the misty aureoles of the elegantly curved Greenhill lampposts, the Avenue might look deserted. But set your car crawling sedately along the kerbside and, like dryads materializing from their trees at the summons of the great god Pan, the ladies of the night would appear.

Except if the car had POLICE written all over it, when the effect was quite other.

Jennison hadn’t been able to last out and was already unfolding his parcel, releasing the pungent smell of hot battered fish and vinegary chips.

‘Can’t you bloody wait till I get parked?’

‘No, me belly thinks me throat’s cut. This’ll do. Pull over here.’

‘Don’t be daft. We’d have the girls throwing bricks at us for frightening off the punters. I know just the spot. Bonkers’ll never find us here.’

He swung the wheel over and ran the car under the plane trees into a gravelled driveway between two stone pillars. Stumps of concrete at their tops suggested that they had once been crowned with some ornamental or heraldic device but this had long since vanished, probably at the same time as the ornate metal gate. Its massy hinges were still visible on the right-hand pillar, however, while on the left, graven deep enough in the stonework to be still readable though heavily lichened, was the name MASCOW HOUSE.

Leaning over the high ivied garden wall was an estate agent’s board reading FOR SALE WITH VACANT POSSESSION.

Maycock drove up the length of the drive till he could see the house. Its complete darkness and shuttered windows confirmed the promise of the sign that there was no one here to disturb or be disturbed by.

‘That’s funny,’ he said as he brought the car to a halt.

‘What?’

‘Isn’t that door open?’

‘Which door?’

‘The house door, what do you fucking think?’

The two men strained their eyes through the swirling mist.

‘It is, tha knows,’ said Maycock. ‘It’s definitely open.’

Jennison leaned across, dropped the warm newspaper packet on to his colleague’s lap and switched off the headlights.

‘Can’t see it myself,’ he said. ‘Now shut up and eat your haddock afore it gets cold.’

They munched in silence for a while. Then the radio crackled out their call sign and a voice they recognized as Bonnick’s said, ‘Report your position.’

‘Shit,’ said Maycock.

‘No sweat,’ said Jennison.

He switched on his transmitter and said, ‘We’re in the Avenue, Sarge. Checking out an unsecured property.’

‘The Avenue? Which Avenue?’ demanded Bonnick, sounding irritated. ‘Use proper procedure, full details when reporting location.’

Jennison grinned at his partner and replied mildly, ‘Just the Avenue, Sarge. In Greenhill. Thought everyone knew that. The property’s called Moscow House. It’s on the left-hand side as you’re heading east, about one hundred and five metres from the junction with Balmoral Terrace. There’s a name on the gate pillar. Moscow House. That’s M, O, S, C, O, W. Moscow. H, O, U, S, E. House. Bit misty out here but if you get lost, there’s one or two helpful young ladies around who’ll be glad to show you the way. Over.’