it, is this little boy – and suddenly that's what he looks like, a little boy – who doesn't quite know what he's done. And that's what convinces me it's real. He doesn't look pleased with himself, like someone who calculated that “Hey, this will be a way to get some extra credit”. He just looks a little bewildered.
‘Until that moment, I had seen this boy as a hoodlum. I know, I know – I of all people am meant to get past “labels” and all that.’ She mimed the quote marks around ‘labels’, leaving no doubt that she was parodying the kind of people who made that gesture. ‘But, if I'm honest, I had seen him as a nasty little punk. I didn't like him at all. And then he does this little thing which is just so good. You know what I mean? Just a simple, good act.’
She fell quiet. Will did not want to say anything, just in case there was more. Eventually Beth broke the silence. ‘I don't know,’ she said, in an ‘anyway’ voice, as if to signal that the episode was over.
They talked some more, their conversation noodling between his day and hers. He leaned over several times to kiss her, on each occasion hoping for a repeat of the open-mouthed treat he'd had before. She was denying him. As she stretched forward, he could see the bottom of her back and just a hint of her underwear, visible in the gap between her skin and her jeans. He loved seeing Beth naked, but the sight of her in her underwear always drove him wild.
‘Check please!’ he said, eager to get her home. As they walked out, he slid his hand under her T-shirt, over the smooth skin of her back and headed south into her trousers. She was not stopping him. He did not know that he would replay that sensation in his hands and in his head a thousand times before the week was out.
Brooklyn, Saturday, 8am
This is Weekend Edition. The headlines this morning. There could be help for homeowners after the Fed's quarter point rise in interest rates; the governor of Florida declares parts of the panhandle a disaster area thanks to Tropical Storm Alfred; and scandal, British style. First, this news …
It was eight am and Will was barely conscious. They had not fallen asleep till well past three. Eyes still shut, he now stretched an arm to where his wife should be. As he expected, no Beth. She was already off: one Saturday in four she held a weekend clinic and this was that Saturday. The woman's stamina astounded him. And, he knew, the children and their parents would have no idea the psychiatrist treating them was operating on a quarter cylinder. When she was with them, she was at full strength.
Will hauled himself out of bed and headed for the breakfast table. He did not want to eat; he wanted to see the paper. Beth had left a note – Well done, honey. Big day today, let's have a good night tonight – and also the Metro section folded open at the right page. B3. Could be worse, thought Will. ‘Brownsville slaying linked to prostitution’, ran the headline over less than a dozen paragraphs. And, in between, was his by-line. He had had to make a decision when he first got into journalism; in fact, he had made it back at Oxford, writing for Cherwell, the student paper. Should he be William Monroe Jr or plain Will Monroe? Pride told him he should be his own man, and that meant having his own name: Will Monroe.
He glanced at the front page of the Metro section and then the main paper to see who among his new colleagues – and therefore rivals – was prospering. He clocked the names and made for the shower.
An idea began to take shape in Will's head, one that grew and became more solid as he got dressed and headed out, past the young couples pushing three-wheeler strollers or taking their time over a café breakfast on Court Street. Cobble Hill was packed with people like him and Beth: twenty-and thirtysomething professionals, transforming what was once a down-at-heel Brooklyn neighbourhood into a little patch of yuppie heaven. As Will made for the Bergen Street subway station, he felt conscious that he was walking faster than everyone else. This was a working weekend for him, too.
Once at the office, he wasted no time and went straight to Harden, who was turning the pages of the New York Post with a speed that conveyed derision.
‘Glenn, how about “Anatomy of a Killing: the real life of a crime statistic”?’
‘I'm listening.’
‘You know, “Howard Macrae might seem like just another brief on the inside pages, another New York murder victim. But what was he like? What had his life been about? Why was he killed?”’
Harden stopped flicking through the Post and looked up. ‘Will, I'm a suburban guy in South Orange whose biggest worry is getting my two daughters to school in the morning.’ This was not hypothetical; this was true. ‘Why do I care about some dead pimp in Brownsville?’
‘You're right. He's just some name on a police list. But don't you think our readers want to know what really happens when someone gets murdered in this city?’
He could see Harden was undecided. He was short on reporters: it was the Jewish New Year, which meant the Times newsroom was badly depleted, even by weekend standards. The paper had a large Jewish staff and now most of them were off work to mark the religious holiday. But neither did he want to admit that he had become so tired, even murder no longer interested him.
‘Tell you what. Make a few calls, go down there. See what you get. If it makes something, we can talk about it.’
Will asked the cab driver to hang around. He needed to be mobile for the next few hours and that meant having a car on stand-by. If he was honest, it also made him feel safer to have the reassuring bulk of a car close at hand. On these streets, he did not want to be completely alone.
Within minutes he was wondering if it had been worth the trip. Officer Federico Penelas, the first policeman on the scene, was a reluctant interviewee, offering only one-word answers.
‘Was there a commotion when you got down here?’
‘Nah-uh.’
‘Who was here?’
‘Just one or two folks. The lady who made the call.’
‘Did you talk to her at all?’
‘Just took down the details of what she'd seen, when she'd seen it. Thanked her for calling the New York Police Department.’ The consultants' script again.
‘And is it your job to lay that blanket on the victim?’
For the first time, Penelas smiled. The expression was one of mockery rather than warmth. You know nothing. ‘That wasn't a police blanket. Police use zip-up body bags. That blanket was already on him when I got here.’
‘Who laid it out?’
‘Dunno. Reckon it was whoever found the dead guy. Mark of respect or something. Same way they closed the victim's eyes. People do that: they've seen it in the movies.’
Penelas refused to identify the woman who had discovered the corpse, but in a follow-up phone call the DCPI was more forthcoming – on background, of course. At last Will had a name: now he could get stuck in.
He had to walk through the projects to find her. A six-foot-two Upper East Side guy in chinos and blue linen jacket with an English accent, he felt ridiculous and intensely white as he moved through this poor, black neighbourhood.
