The Bat(68)

He held up Andrew’s bunch of keys with the leather holder. For a moment the boy looked at the keys in bewilderment, gasping for air.

‘He died suddenly last night,’ Harry said. The boy stood in front of them with his arms hanging by his sides and his eyes slowly moistening. Harry realised the two of them must have known each other well. He’d been told Andrew had lived at this address for almost twenty years, and it occurred to him the boy had probably grown up in the big house. An involuntary image appeared to Harry: the little boy and the black man playing with a ball in the garden, the boy being given money to run and buy an ice cream. Perhaps he had been raised with well-intentioned advice and semi-true stories about the policeman in the cottage, and, when he was old enough, he would have found out how to treat girls and throw a straight left without dropping his guard.

‘Actually, that’s wrong. We were more than colleagues. We were friends, we were friends too,’ Harry said. ‘Is it all right if we go in?’

The boy blinked, pinched his mouth and nodded.

The first thing that struck him on entering the small bachelor pad was how clean and tidy it was. In the frugally furnished sitting room, there were no newspapers lying around on the coffee table in front of the portable TV, and in the kitchen no dishes waiting to be washed. In the hall, shoes and boots were lined up with laces inside. The strict order reminded him of something.

In the bedroom, the bed was made immaculately, white sheets tucked in so tightly at the side that getting under the blankets required an aerobatic manoeuvre. Harry had already cursed this arrangement in his hotel bedroom. He peeped into the bathroom. Razor and soap were laid out in military order next to aftershave, toothpaste, toothbrush and shampoo on the vanity shelf over the sink. That was all. No extravagant toiletries either, Harry observed – and suddenly became aware of what this meticulousness reminded him of: his own flat after he stopped drinking.

Harry’s new life had in fact started there, with the simple exercise of discipline, based on everything having its place, shelf or drawer and being returned there after use. Not so much as a biro was left out, not a blown fuse in a fuse box. In addition to the practical application there was of course a symbolic significance: rightly or wrongly, he used the level of chaos in his flat as a thermometer for the state of the rest of his life.

Harry asked Lebie to go through the wardrobe and the chest of drawers in the bedroom, and waited until he had gone out to open the cupboard beside the mirror. They were on the top shelf, neatly stacked in rows and pointing at him, like a warehouse of miniature missiles: a couple of dozen vacuum-packed disposable syringes.

Genghis Khan had not been lying when he said Andrew was a junkie. For that matter, Harry had been in no doubt either when they found Andrew in Otto’s flat. He knew that in a climate that generally necessitates short sleeves and T-shirts a police officer cannot walk around with a forearm covered with needle holes. Therefore he had to insert the syringe where the marks wouldn’t be seen, such as, for example, on the back of his legs. Andrew’s calves and the backs of his knees were full of them.

Andrew had been a customer of the guy with the Rod Stewart voice for as long as Genghis could remember. He reckoned Andrew was the type who could consume heroin and continue to function almost as normal both socially and professionally. ‘That’s not as unusual as many like to think,’ Genghis had said.

‘But when Speedy discovered round and about that this bloke was a police officer he got paranoid and wanted to shoot him. Thought he was an undercover cop. But we talked him out of it. The bloke had been one of Speedy’s best customers for years. Never any haggling, always had his money ready, kept arrangements, no chat, never any shit. I’ve never seen an Aboriginal deal with dope so well. Bloody hell, I’ve never seen anyone deal with dope so well!’

Nor had he seen or heard any rumours about Andrew talking to Evans White.

‘White hasn’t got anything to do with the customer side down here any more. He’s a wholesaler, that’s all. He pushed stuff in King’s Cross for a while – I have no idea why, he earns enough as it is. Apparently he stopped – had some trouble with a couple of prostitutes, I heard.’

Genghis had spoken openly. More openly than was necessary to save his hide. In fact, he had seemed to find it amusing. He must have reckoned there was no great danger of Harry going after them as long as they had at least one of his colleagues on their books.

‘Say hello and tell the bloke he’s welcome back. We don’t hold grudges,’ Genghis had grinned at length. ‘Whoever they are, they always come back, you know. Always.’