Born Guilty - Reginald Hill

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mickey like I often do. Usually we have a good laugh but he got quite ratty. So I thought, hello, Vansovich has said something and it’s something he doesn’t want to talk about, so I let it drop. I did begin to wonder if maybe this thing had gone all the way and that maybe this jerk-off asking the questions was some sort of cousin of mine. Then Mum brought Grandda back from the club a couple of days later and I could see he was upset. I asked Mum about it and she said she’d called in at the supermarket on the way home, and when she came out to the car park, there was this guy talking to Grandda through the car window. Mum said he was holding the glass down with his fingers while Grandda was trying to wind it up inside. Mum heard him say, where’s the harm in a few facts, Mr Kovalko, if you’ve got nothing to hide? Then Mum asked him what the hell he was playing at? And he said sorry, he was just asking for directions, and took off. Since then, Grandda’s hardly been out of the house.’

      She paused, picked up a teacake, examined it, put it back on the plate.

      Joe said, ‘So what do you want me to do, Gallie?’

      ‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ she said. ‘I want you to find out who this guy is, what he’s after.’

      Joe said gently, ‘But it sounds like your grandfather’s got some idea who he is and what he wants. Why not just ask him?’

      ‘Because … because he won’t say anything! He doesn’t want to tell me.’

      ‘In that case …’ said Joe.

      He was beginning to have a suspicion what this might be all about, but he’d learned the hard way about looking before he leapt. If the girl didn’t tell him what was on her mind, no way he was going to play guess-guess.

      ‘I think he’s frightened, and I don’t like people going around frightening my grandda,’ she said fiercely. ‘I want him stopped!’

      ‘So have a word with the police,’ he said.

      ‘You’re joking!’ she said with a dismissive scorn. ‘Listen, Mr Sixsmith …’

      She put a hand on his, and looked him straight in the eye. It probably looked like uncontrollable passion to the lynx-eyed tea drinkers, but Joe could see she was bringing herself to the point of telling him the truth. He found himself hoping she wouldn’t make it.

      But she was there.

      In a flat, rapid voice she said, ‘I know it sounds stupid but I was reading in one of the supplements about this debate whether they should prosecute old war criminals. And the article said there were half a dozen they were pretty certain of living in this country, and several more they suspected, and a lot of them were eastern Europeans, Ukrainians and others, who’d served in those concentration camps and came here as displaced persons after the war …’

      Her voice dried up as though articulation had made her fully aware for the first time of the enormity of what she was saying.

      He said, ‘Hey, look, I don’t know much about it, but there must be thousands of people like your grandda came here to settle after the war. They were victims, they needed help. Why should anyone suddenly start thinking … I mean, there must be a hundred other explanations …’

      ‘That’s what I want you to do. Find one,’ she said. ‘But if there’s someone out there trying to pin something like this on Grandda, I want the bastard sorted out!’

      She spoke with a fierce intensity that took him aback. This was mainly why he said he’d help. He had the feeling that if he didn’t, she might look elsewhere for assistance in taking more direct action against the inquisitive stranger.

      He’d got a description. Young, red-haired, nice smile, really charming (the last two were Mrs Vansovich’s), medium build, big feet, blue check jacket, black trousers, lime-green windcheater (he’d had this on in the car park), some kind of accent (Irish/Scottish?). And now a swollen nose.

      He’d changed their meeting place to the Glit after that first encounter. The friends she sat with confirmed Joe’s suspicions that she mightn’t be short of assistance if she decided to have a pop at this guy herself, though every time he saw her in the building society, he couldn’t believe what he was believing!

      But he had no difficulty in believing after that first all too public encounter in the Sugar ’n’ Tongs that, as sure as the fall of a sparrow is known to the living God, not even the protective cover of the Glit could hide their further meetings from Mirabelle.

      ‘So how are things going?’ she now breathed in his ear. ‘Any progress?’

      He said, ‘I’ve got one of my operatives working on a lead in London. I’m expecting a report any time. Can you call round my office lunchtime tomorrow and I’ll let you know if anything comes up.’

      Anyone who dared go out dressed like Gallie had nothing to fear from his mean street, and it was as far out of the public eye as he could hope to get.

      ‘OK,’ she said.

      She leaned away from him, tipped her head back, stuck the bottle in her mouth and drank. It was the kind of shot TV advertisers sold their souls for.

      Won’t wean me off Guinness, thought Joe, but I get the subliminal!

      On the other hand, by the time he left the pub an hour later, he’d completely forgotten the name of the drink.

       4

      The following morning as Joe pushed open the door of the Bullpat Square Law Centre, he recalled his phrase ‘one of my operatives’ with a certain unease.

      Truth was, Joe had operatives like politicians have principles – he latched on to whatever was free, useful, and handy. It wasn’t guilt that caused the unease, just fear that somehow the woman he was going to see might discover how she’d been categorized.

      It was only eight o’clock but the Centre didn’t keep social hours.

      ‘Morning, Joe,’ said the young man at the reception counter.

      ‘Morning, Harry,’ said Joe cautiously. He had difficulty differentiating the tribe of young helpers.

      This one seemed happy with ‘Harry’ so Joe went on, ‘Butcher in?’

      ‘Here when I arrived,’ said Harry proudly. ‘Got her first punter too.’ The helpers, drawn in roughly equal numbers from idealistic law students and the unemployed, adored Butcher. The Centre’s motto was: Law helps not hurts which drew the odd wry grimace from those who’d had their legs chopped off by Butcher in full flight, but she didn’t draw blood except when necessary. A Social Security snoop who’d been foolish enough to hack into the Centre’s accounts in an effort to prove ‘unemployed’ helpers were getting paid more than out-of-pocket expenses had found himself teetering on the edge of a career-ending court case. The cheers as his head dropped into the basket would have been heard in Hertfordshire. But Butcher had held back, and now the man came in on his day off to give advice on knotty benefit cases.

      It was this capacity for making friends in unlikely places that had got her elected as ‘one of Joe’s operatives’. Casting around for ways of discovering whether in fact there was any official interest in Galina Hacker’s granddad, he’d recalled Butcher’s wet Wykehamist. This was a Tory MP who’d been damp enough to be sacked from a junior ministerial post under Thatcher and too intelligent to be offered another under Major. Even with these pluses, it was still difficult to see the common ground on which he and Butcher (who dated the new Dark Ages from 1979) might meet. But meet they did from time to time, and out of Government didn’t mean that Piers (Piers!) was out of touch.

      Joe had mentioned his problem. Butcher had said she would be going to town in a couple of days and might bump into Piers and if so she might mention Joe’s problem too. For a consideration.

      ‘What consideration?’ Joe had asked.

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