‘So you’d tell the judge?’
‘Nah, I’d tell the police.’
‘Will you help us?’ I ask.
Eddie laughs. ‘Now there’s a fucking hypothetical!’
42
Tuesday morning, sunny and warm - the forecast said rain. The roads are quiet on the drive to Bristol. Ruiz has one hand on the wheel and an elbow propped on the window.
His contact in the Met got back to him overnight. The name Mark Conlon threw up one match - a bank manager from Pontypool who lost his licence four years ago for drink-driving. Five ten. Brown hair. No tattoos. He’s not the Crying Man. The plates on the Audi were either stolen or copied. We’re back to square one. Maybe Ronnie Cray will have more luck.
We decide to breakfast near Queen’s Square in a modern place full of chrome furniture and hissing steam. The waitresses are Romanian girls in short black skirts, who slip outside for cigarettes while it’s quiet. Ruiz orders a fried egg and bacon sandwich (‘On proper bread not that sourdough shit’). He flicks through the paper. The Novak Brennan trial is still page one.
Marco Kostin will resume giving evidence today. I can picture him in the witness box with hyper-real clarity, every tremor and blink and turn of his head. The cross-examination is still to come and three barristers will be queuing up to pick holes in his story.
The door opens. A tangle-footed teenager comes in wearing cycling gear. Multicoloured. A courier. He talks to a Romanian waitress. Kisses her lips. Young love.
‘I got a strange feeling about yesterday,’ says Ruiz.
‘Which bit of yesterday are we talking about?’
‘When I was following the freak with the tattoos, I stayed well behind him. I wanted to make sure he didn’t know he was being tailed. When he dropped off the pavement princess. When he picked her up. When he went to the shithole hotel. I stayed out of sight.’
‘What’s so strange about that?’
‘It’s probably nothing.’ Ruiz shrugs. ‘I just got an impression that maybe he knew I was there. Once or twice he seemed to slow down, like he didn’t want the lights to change and for me to miss them.’
‘He knew he was being followed?’
‘That’s what it seemed like.’ Ruiz pushes his plate away. ‘Maybe we should check out his gaff before we talk to Cray. We could take a run over to the hotel; have ourselves a sticky.’
‘What about the trial?’
‘It’s not going to end today.’
On the street outside, Ruiz drops a coin into a busker’s hat and keeps walking, crossing the pedestrian precinct. We pull out of the underground car park, passing over the floating harbour to Temple Circus where we turn north along Temple Way. Taking the exit at Old Market Street, we pass close by Trinity Road Police Station on our way to Easton.
Stapleton Road has notices stuck to power poles warning against kerb crawling and drug dealing. It’s early and the crack whores and street dealers are still in their coffins. We park in Belmont Street around the corner from the mosque. A Muslim woman with letterbox eyes waddles past us, pushing a pram. She could be seventeen or seventy-five.
The Royal Hotel is a crumbling three-storey building with metal bars on the lower windows. An old black man sits in the sunshine on the front steps. His hands are dotted with liver spots and they shake slightly, not with Parkinson’s but some kind of palsy. He’s reading a newspaper, holding it at arm’s length. An unwrapped sandwich rests half-eaten on a brown paper bag.
‘Morning,’ says Ruiz, ‘beautiful day.’
The cleaner blinks and shields his eyes with a hand. ‘You right about dat, mon.’
‘You taking a break?’
‘Been cleanin’ since first ting.’
Ruiz sits on the steps. ‘I’m Vincent and this is Joe.’
The old man nods. ‘Dey call me Clive.’
‘Like Clive Lloyd.’
‘Well, he from Guyana and I’m from Jamaica, but dat’s close enough.’ His chuckle sounds like he’s playing a bassoon.
Folding his newspaper casually, he takes another mouthful of his sandwich, wondering why two white men are interested in talking to a hotel cleaner when most people treat him like he’s invisible.
Ruiz raises his face to the sun and closes his eyes. ‘I’m a former police officer, Clive, and we’re looking for a man with dark hair, slicked back, and tattoos on his face like he’s crying black tears.’
The old cleaner reacts as though he’s been scalded. He gets up from the steps and shakes his head so that his thin frame quivers.
‘Don’ talk to me about dis biznezz.’
‘Why not?’
‘The Lord gonna call his chillun home before dat man bring anyting good to dis world.’
‘Is he staying here?’
‘He’s got himself a room. Don’ know if he sleeps in it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’ see him much. I mind my own biznezz.’
‘But you clean his room?’
Clive shakes his head. ‘He don’ want no cleaning. He puts a sign on his door says, no cleaning. Suits me. Dem pay me by de hour not de room.’
The cleaner taps the newspaper against his thigh. ‘Well, I better be gettin’ back to work.’
‘The man with the tattoos - do you know his name?’
‘No, mon.’
‘You ever talk to him?’
Clive shakes his head, his forehead full of creases. ‘Mon like that, don’ wanna talk to someone like me. He don’ like my colour.’
‘What gave you that impression?’
‘Couple of black kids were breaking into his motor. Dey was running away, but he caught dem. Made one of dem boys eat dog shit. Made him kneel on de ground and chow down. Never see dat before. D’other boy won’ be eating solids for a while. His mama gonna be feeding him strained bananas.’
Swallowing drily, he leans down to rewrap his sandwich, no longer hungry.
‘You’ve been very helpful,’ says Ruiz, shaking the cleaner’s hand. Clive looks at the ten-pound note in his palm. Closes his fingers. Opens them again just to be sure.
‘Maybe you could do one more thing for us,’ says Ruiz. ‘This guy must have signed something. You could show us the hotel register.’
Clive pockets the money, putting it deep inside his jeans, and then glances up and down the street before shepherding us into a tired-looking reception room with faded wallpaper and worn carpet. The register is a long rectangular book with ink stains on the cover. Opening the pages, he runs a knobbly finger down the room numbers.
Room 6. Paid for in cash, a month in advance. A signature rather than a name - but he included the registration number for the Audi.
It doesn’t help us.
Clive closes the book, sliding it into a desk drawer. ‘Well, I got work to do.’
‘You should clean Room 6,’ says Ruiz.
The old cleaner looks horrified. ‘Don’ you be tinking like dat.’
‘Like what?’
‘Tinking I’m gonna open up dat mon’s room.’
Ruiz tilts his chin to the ceiling and sniffs. ‘You smell that?’
Clive raises his chin. ‘Don’ smell nothing.’
‘Smoke,’ says Ruiz.
‘There ain’t no smoke.’
Ruiz vaults up the crazy network of stairs runs between the floors. He stops on the first landing. ‘Definitely smoke; coming from one of the rooms. Might be a fire.’
The cleaner drags himself up to the same level. Ruiz is outside No. 6.
‘I think we should call the fire brigade and evacuate this place.’
Clive is shaking his head back and forth. ‘No, no, no, don’t be doing dat, mon.’
Ruiz touches the door. ‘Feels a little warm. Maybe you should open up - just to be sure.’