Northern Ex Page 2
The woman nearest the bar stepped behind it to pour the drink. Tension hung in the air thicker than the damp towel and talcum powder smell. The bottle rattled the glass as she poured Robinson’s orange barley water and ran the cold tap. McNulty reckoned all he had to do was be in the room to prevent the situation escalating. A few more minutes at most before the bouncer came out of his back room and ejected Mr Muscles from the premises for manhandling the staff.
McNulty accepted the drink but stayed away from the bar. The woman brought it over. Her hand was shaking. The shouting must have been pretty explosive for McNulty to hear it downstairs. Explosive enough to stun the woman into silence. Even Natasha kept her distance. McNulty swigged half a glass of orange and felt the cold drink refresh him to the core. It was warm in here even with the fire escape door open. Normally he would sit down for his post-massage drink, but he didn’t want to surrender the high ground. To avoid appearing threatening, he faced the open door and closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.
‘Boy. Fresh air’d be better with some breeze.’
He was acutely aware of being alone. No police radio. No backup. Not even a badge he could flash to back the man down. Taking another swig of orange, he glanced at the wall clock. Ten minutes since he’d come up here. Where the hell was the heavy mob? The hired muscle that every parlour employed to stop young tearaways getting too excited on the late shift. A few beers before the massage. A big mouth after.
Well, Mr Big Mouth had one of the girls in his grip and the bouncer needed to pull his finger out. Right now. The situation was beginning to bubble again. McNulty could sense it like static before a storm. The man tightened his grip and the girl winced. Her eyes watered but she gritted her teeth. Refusing to cry in front of strangers. McNulty admired her for that. Hated the man even more. A jerk of her wrist and the man propelled the girl towards the fire escape.
‘Come on.’
‘No. Please.’
Her voice was small. Pleading but without any strength in the plea. Not really believing it would make any difference. McNulty felt heat flush his neck. Anger fuelled the pressure building inside him. Different pressure than before. More destructive pressure. A short temper that had dogged him from Crag View to Mean Wood. And a sense of injustice that had haunted him before that. He despised bullies of any description. Big men who picked on young defenceless girls even more.
The bouncer. Where was he?
Neither of the women said anything. Natasha hung around at the top of the stairs. The other woman retreated behind the bar. The girl knew there would be no help from her colleagues. Didn’t look like there was much help from the customer with the tattoo up his neck either. McNulty could sense her resolve vanish. The acceptance of her fate. The look in her eyes as the man guided her away tore McNulty apart. Once a cop always a cop.
Time to act. Keeping his voice low key and friendly, McNulty stepped towards the bar and passed the empty glass over. He nodded for a refill. The woman began to pour. He looked at the girl and then her captor.
‘Is she goin’ to be free anytime soon?’
Enough orange. Now running the tap.
‘I mean. How long you goin’ to be?’
The man turned away from the fire escape as if he couldn’t believe this idiot was even talking to him. The level of his arrogance edged the odds in McNulty’s favour. The glass of orange squash slid across the bar and McNulty picked it up. The drink had become a non-drink. Something so inoffensive it didn’t even register as the man glared at McNulty.
‘She isn’t ever going to be free.’
McNulty took a mouthful of cool orange and flapped his free hand.
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean free, like gratis.’ The flapping hand indicated apology. ‘I know there’s a price.’
It distracted the man’s attention from the glass.
‘You do know what gratis means, don’t you?’
McNulty gripped the glass tight. His free hand flapped again and the bully’s eyes followed the more obvious threat. He was getting annoyed, but his eyes dulled as he tried to think of a witty retort. McNulty didn’t think he did know what gratis meant. There was a slight lull in the tension as the man decided what to do next. And then McNulty lunged at his face with the glass.
The man was quick. He let go of the girl’s arm and brought both hands up to deflect the glass attack, and it was only then that he realized the glass wasn’t in McNulty’s hand any more. Ice-cold orange splashed in his eyes but the glass dropped harmlessly to the floor. His eyes stung and he blinked them clear. The man was quick but McNulty was quicker. He grabbed the man’s lead hand below the wrist, yanking it towards him and up. He bent the joint down into a gooseneck and the man had no choice but to follow or get a broken wrist. He lost his balance and toppled forward. McNulty slammed the heel of his hand into the exposed throat.
And that was it. Game over. The man hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, both hands gripping his throat. Unable to breathe. McNulty dropped to his knees beside him and moved the man’s hands away.
‘Slow down. Shallow breaths. You’ll be all right.’
The man did as he was told. Shorter breaths helped but he was still struggling against the fire in his throat. His eyes were watering. All the fight had gone out of him. McNulty used his other get-out-of-trouble technique. He talked to the man.
‘You know, if this was a film I’d be asking what movies you’d been in. Like in Get Shorty. Remember? After Travolta gut-punched Gandolfini – before he did the Sopranos – and asked what movies he did? ’Cos Gandolfini’s character had been a stunt man.’
The man was breathing better now. McNulty looked into his eyes.
‘You aren’t a stunt man are you?’
The man shook his head. McNulty stood up and helped the man onto the nearest settee. Asked for another drink. The aftermath of violence always made him thirsty. His hands shook with adrenaline dump. The anger had gone and for a moment he struggled to remember what had set him off. When he did, he looked around for the girl to see if she was OK.
She had disappeared.
A waft of cool breeze came in through the fire exit door. It was wide open. He tried to remember in which films the hero had rescued the girl from thugs only for her to run away. And couldn’t come up with any.
Two
By the time the adrenaline dump had cleared McNulty was back in his hotel room. Cheap and cheerless and as faded as his jeans. The sun was down and evening drawing in. Being a creature of habit, he preferred late afternoon for his massage parlour visits, mainly because that’s when they used to do them when he was still in the job. Less trouble on an afternoon than at night. Fewer drunks to deal with.
Thinking about that depressed him. About the job he was no longer a part of. He was thirty-six years old, thirty-seven by the end of the year, and taking into account his eighteen years’ service that meant he’d spent half his life in the police force. Add on the year since he’d left under a cloud and he was only just into the debit side.
Damn.
He looked out of the window at the thin wedge of view between the building behind the Victoria Hotel and the pub that was already pumping out mind-numbing music. Park benches around a patch of lawn the size of a snooker table. Metal railings with ten coats of black paint to hide the rust. Half a dozen trees already shedding leaves as autumn began to bite.
The leaves depressed him even more. Not the end-of-season feeling that the dying foliage normally engendered but the spindly black fingers of the branches they left behind. He touched the tattoo up the side of his neck. The house silhouetted against the red sun.
To cheer himself up he thought about Natasha. About the little role-playing game he acted out with himself. Going undercover at a massage parlour where he could still feel like the copper he used to be. Until the payoff. That was the only improvement. He could actually accept the payoff. Natasha had been very good. The payoff would have been worth the wait. Maybe he’d have to break his own rules and go there again.
But he knew he wouldn’t. He stripped off his sweatshirt and jeans and went into the tiny box-room the hotel called en-suite. He drew back the shower curtain and twisted the control. Water belched out of the mixer tap into the bath. McNulty examined the complicated plumbing and pulled the chrome knob on top of the tap. The plumbing burped, stopped, and then water spurted out of the shower attachment. He adjusted the temperature and went back into the bedroom.
The unexpected interruption had not only spoiled the payoff with Natasha but, after his little rough-and-tumble in the lounge, had robbed him of his post-coital shower. His body still smelled of scented oil and talcum powder. Just the sort of thing the married punters had to guard against. Imagine turning up home to the wife smelling like a whore’s handbag. McNulty smiled. Hiding his passion had never been a problem for him. He had nobody to hide it from. Couldn’t remember ever having anybody. It was a failing and a blessing. He was happy with his own company and didn’t crave the long-term commitment that so many needed.
His suitcase was on the bed. It was medium sized with zipper compartments and a pull-out handle. A pair of wheels. The sort of case that flight crews pulled behind them at the airport. McNulty never used the wheels. Unless you were part of the flight crew you just looked a prat. Anywhere other than airports the cases should be banned, but for McNulty it was the ideal size. He didn’t have a massive wardrobe, just two pairs of jeans and an assortment of polo shirts. One faded sweatshirt.
The midsize zipper compartment held his toilet bag. He took it out and the dog-eared map caught in the zip. It fell on the bed. A folded Ordnance Survey map of the North of England. He considered checking his progress now but decided to wait until after the shower. He turned the bedside radio clock on instead and froze as the familiar guitar intro flooded the room.
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I’m one
My mother was a tailor
She sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gamblin’ man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he’s satisfied
Is when he’s on a drunk
— organ solo —
Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I’m goin’ back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I’m one
Hot water stung his face as he ducked under the showerhead. As with most of the hotels he’d stayed in, the shower above the bath was intended for midgets or extras from The Lord Of The Rings. He stepped back and squirted a dollop of Foam Burst shower gel into the palm of his hand. Soaped himself all over while he sang his way into one of the verses.
‘Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun.’
McNulty didn’t agree with the sin and misery part going hand in hand. For him the misery came from somewhere else. The sin made him happier than a dog with two dicks. And who was to say what constituted sin anyway? As far as he was concerned sex was the best thing since sliced bread. Provided it occurred between consenting adults, where was the sin in that? No. The song had it all wrong. It felt like he’d been listening to it all his life and was one of his favourites. One of the few pieces of music outside of a film soundtrack that brought goose bumps to his skin. He had even looked up its history once. Some kind of traditional ballad dating back to the 1920s. The phrase ‘House of the Rising Sun’ was a euphemism for brothel, although why Americans couldn’t simply call a brothel a brothel he didn’t know. He’d always thought it was a gambling house himself. In any case, for him, ‘House of the Rising Sun’ meant something else. Somewhere else. A place he tried to forget but would always remember. Whenever he heard the song.
He turned his back to the shower and rinsed the lather off. He had to duck again to catch his shoulders. Then he faced front and blasted the spray into his eyes. Stood like that for a few minutes. Massage parlours had come into his life through his work in the vice squad but stayed because they satisfied his urges without the hassle of dating, drinking and dining out. You even got a free shower. Most times. He stepped back so the spray hit his love muscle. Swilling that off too as he sang the final verse.
‘Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I’m one.’
Only it wasn’t brothels or New Orleans he was thinking about. His eyes closed but his mind opened up as it remembered a house on a hill. A darker place. Darker times. Where there had definitely been many a poor boy.
Sitting naked on the bed, McNulty flicked channels with the TV remote. This being a downmarket hotel, that meant five terrestrial channels and Sky News. Two of the terrestrial channels were fuzzy and unwatchable and the rest had gone into the evening soap opera hour, so he settled for the news. He turned the volume low and dropped the remote on the pillow. The map was spread across the bedspread with a red felt-tip pen.
International news washed over him in the background. Famine. Terrorism. An eight-lane motorway bridge that had collapsed into the Mississippi. Big stories with zero impact on the seedy hotel room in the northern mill town. McNulty concentrated on the map. It was part of a two-map set covering England, Scotland and Wales. This part covered the North of England and all of Scotland. Main roads and motorways stood out like veins across a body so you could get from one town to the next, but the minor roads were barely visible. That was OK for McNulty. He had his own routine once he arrived at a new town. This map was simply to get him there. And record where he’d been so he didn’t double up. It was amazing how many massage parlours some of these small towns had.
Rescue workers in fluorescent jackets tried to winch survivors to safety on Sky News. The info bar scrolling across the bottom of the screen said seven were confirmed dead but the death toll was expected to rise. To remind viewers how tragic this was they kept replaying footage of the dramatic collapse.
McNulty picked up the felt tip pen. The map was spotted with red dots like one of those join-the-dots magic pictures. He wondered what shape it would reveal if he joined the dots from number one to number whatever-he-was-up-to-now. In the order of his massage parlour visits over the last six months.
Six months. Half a year. Add the previous six months and you had a year that had begun with him being kicked out of the police force and his world crashing down. Eighteen years’ service brought to nought. He glanced at the TV. Still international news. Then back to the map. He clamped his jaw tight shut so he wouldn’t sigh that defeatist sigh.
The first six months had been the worst. Overcoming the shock of being ejected from his family. McNulty had taken it hard. Once the shock wore off came the sadness. The feeling of not belonging any more. Eighteen years is a long time to be part of one organization. You become set in your ways. Reliant on the safety net of in-house support. He’d heard that men who served a long time in the army found it difficult to adjust to civilian life because everything had been provided for so many years.
The same applied in the police force. You felt a part of something special. Some said it was a power kick, having the power of liberty or freedom, even life and death in some cases, but for McNulty it wasn’t power but authority. When you walked into a room you had authority. A right to be there and the power to put things right. Protect and serve. It said so on the patrol car doors so it must be true. Protecting had always been the main part for McNulty. And that meant arresting the bad men who hurt innocent victims. Burglars and car thieves and wife beaters. At the ground level police work wasn’t littered with criminal masterminds, just greedy men and bullies. He liked arresting the bullies most.
Or had liked. Not any more.
Working the mean streets of Leeds was a thing of the past and whenever he saw a crime scene on the news he felt sad and aimless. Like a ship without a rudder. He watched policemen guarding the scenes of rapes and murders. Watched patrol cars blocking off roads after fatal accidents. Listened to SIOs explaining the state of an investigation and asking for any witnesses to contact them with information. He saw all these things and his mind still felt connected. When someone complained about some police action or other he felt personally offended. When a newsreader criticized police inaction he wanted to tell them how life was on the streets. How hard it was to prove the case instead of simply knowing who did it. He wanted to scream, ‘It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove in court.’
Mainly, whenever he saw things like that on the news, he felt empty.
For the first six months. Then he’d shaken himself down and come up with a plan. The massage plan. Looking at the red dots on the map it looked as if the plan had been a huge success. Incorporating the two things he loved most. Sex and policing. And a free shower. Entering a parlour undercover put a spring in his step that had been missing for six months. Getting his body oiled put a spring into something else and a smile on his face. What could be better than that?