Top Hard

by Stephen Booth

  "Tell you what, Stones - he doesn't give a toss, this Perella bloke, does he?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, those lads that did the ram raid. They could easily have gone down, couldn't they? And there's Rawlings and Lee too."

  My brain was running now. They did work these meetings, after all.

  "Slow, do you reckon he's worried enough about what I know to follow me?"

  "Well, maybe."

  "I'm thinking about the other night, when we left the Ferret."

  "Wasn't that the cops?"

  "How do we know?

  "You're right, we don't. But, shit, they were amateurs all the same."

  There was a pause.

  "So you're trusting him, then," said Slow Kid.

  "What? Me? Who?"

  "Eddie Craig."

  "Never in this world. What makes you say that, Slow?"

  "I mean, we don't really know that all this isn't just Craig trying to close us down."

  "Craig all along? Yeah?"

  "And he's fed you this stuff to send you looking for someone else. Could be, right?"

  I sighed. "We do have interests in common."

  "Like shit."

  I rubbed my bruises as I stood up from the computer desk. I still had my memories of Craig and his mates. But you have to let bygones be bygones sometimes. When you're on the same side.

  Suddenly, I was struck by an unpleasant mental picture of Lump Hammer Stan. In my vision, he was lurking in some bushes near a car park at Hardwick Hall.

  "Off you go then, lads. I'll catch up with you later."

  I took a quick glance at the paper for the results of the National Lottery draw. My numbers hadn't come up. Well, I was gobsmacked. Just when things were going so well, too.

  * * * *

  I made it to Hardwick in record time, irrationally worried about whether Lisa would be there. In fact, I saw her coming out of the staff exit as soon as I arrived. She was surprised to see me, and I thought she looked around a bit uneasily, as if expecting someone else. The thought went through my mind that maybe she'd already seen Lump Hammer Stan or some other charmer stalking about the grounds. We stood for a few minutes under the big lime tree.

  "Hi, love."

  "Hello, Stones. What are you doing here?"

  "I thought you might like to go for lunch, so I came to pick you up. Or, if you've got your car here, we could meet up somewhere. Where do you fancy?"

  "I'm really sorry, Stones, I've got other plans today."

  "Oh yeah? Funny, you seem to be the only person round here who's got plans that don't involve me."

  "What do you mean?"

  I really wanted to tell Lisa what was happening, but I couldn't. How could I warn her she might be in danger without explaining why? And she wouldn't be in danger anyway, if I did what Craig wanted.

  "I'd like to know what you're going, Lisa. It's important."

  "What's the matter with you, Stones? You seem edgy today."

  "I'm all right."

  "Still sore from last night?"

  "I'll be fine."

  "I still don't understand why you went for a walk in the woods in the first place. Not on your own."

  "I was just thinking."

  "You were on your own, weren't you, Stones?"

  "Honest, love."

  "Mmm."

  "Look, don't worry. I've got everything sorted out."

  We walked together across the gravel towards the car park. There were visitors arriving constantly, being directed by car park attendants onto the grassy area. I wondered for a second why Lisa had parked her car out here with the public, instead of in the staff section.

  "Stones," she said suddenly. "You've been in some sort of trouble recently, haven't you? I can tell."

  "Yeah, but it's nearly over now."

  She smiled. "I get the feeling someone's going to regret it if they've been causing trouble for Stones McClure."

  "You bet. There's a bloke out there got it coming very soon."

  Careful. That was close enough.

  "Just take care, won't you?" she said. And she sounded really concerned.

  "Anyway, how's the detective work going? The Cavendish job."

  "Very well, thank you."

  "Found lots of clues to his relatives?"

  "They're adding up."

  "Are they? Two and two?"

  She frowned. "There's definitely something wrong with you."

  "Why?"

  "You haven't made any crude remarks about Michael Cavendish yet."

  "Why should I?"

  "Because you're an inverted snob, that's why. And you're jealous of him."

  We were standing on the grass now. I couldn't see Lisa's Fiat, and she was looking from left to right among the cars as if she couldn't spot it either. It still didn't click with me.

  "You've got me all wrong. I've got nothing against the bloke. It's just his hyphens I don't like. They're bad taste, like having furry dice in your car window."

  "That's more like it."

  "I suppose you've got to keep seeing him. To report on progress or something?"

  "Actually, it's him I'm meeting."

  "Ah."

  "In fact, he's taking me for lunch."

  "I see. Somewhere nice, I suppose."

  "Goff's at Langwith."

  Very nice too. No pub lunch, then. Something a bit better than I'd be tackling later on, anyway. I watched a gold-coloured Range Rover nose its way onto the grass a few yards down. Michael Cavendish got out and began to stroll casually towards us, brushing his suit as if he'd got bits of real life on it from having to use the same car park as the plebs.

  "So I'm a spare part?"

  "Don't be like that, Stones. I'll make it up to you some time."

  She put her hand on my arm. She thought I was being jealous again, when I was only concerned about her safety. I couldn't have cared less if she'd zoomed off with Cavendish in his Range Rover to live in his mansion and never come back. But would he be able to protect her from Lump Hammer Stan and his mates?

  Cavendish hesitated a few yards away, as if he didn't want to speak to me for some reason. But now Lisa saw him and gave a wave, and he kept coming.

  "Hello, Lisa. Hello, er... old chap."

  "Stones they call me. As in rolling, standing and you can't get blood from."

  "Ah yes. And what are you doing at the moment, rolling or standing?"

  "Well, just standing, I suppose. As you do."

  "A change from last time we met here, then."

  I stared at him. The bugger was being cleverer than me. In another minute I might have to call on all my intellectual reserves and punch his lights out.

  Cavendish smirked. "Are you ready, Lisa? There's nothing keeping you, is there? Our table is booked."

  "I'm ready," she said. She looked at me a bit nervously. "I hope you really do get your problem sorted out, Stones."

  "Oh? What's that?" asked Cavendish, his ears pricking up for further signs of my inferiority.

  "Nothing to do with you," I said. "It's not something that can be sorted out with a cheque book."

  "You never know, old chap. I might be able to help. I could suggest an alcohol addiction clinic, for example. A good psychiatrist. I've had some experience in welfare work. I doubt if I can do anything for your dress sense though, I'm afraid."

  "Piss off."

  "Or your lack of vocabulary. Shall we go, Lisa?"

  They walked off and got in the Range Rover. Cavendish revved the engine and gave me a little toot of the horn as they went past towards the gates. Lisa stared at me, almost expressionless. Somehow Cavendish had got the better of me, and I'd let him do it. What was wrong with me?

  Well, Lisa was the only person I could have asked a question like that. But she wasn't there any more.

  * * * *

  I met up with Slow Kid and Dave and we went to the Cow's Arse. The usual crowd were in, some of them looking at me a bit sideways and keeping clear. Word soon
gets around when you're in trouble. But word getting around was just what I had to rely on.

  I went to the bar myself to get the drinks. Baggy Prentiss has known me a long time, and he's not about to snub a good customer.

  "Hey up, youth. Everything all right?"

  "Between you and me, I've been having a few problems recently, Baggy."

  "Aye, I heard."

  "But I've got it all sorted now. I've worked out the situation, like. Spotted where the problem is."

  "That's good, Stones."

  "Me and some good mates, know what I mean?"

  Baggy slid the glasses onto the bar. "I know what you mean."

  "So things are going to be picking up again very soon."

  "Bloody marvellous. That'll be five quid twenty-eight then."

  I took the drinks back to the table, where we chatted loudly about how good things were going to be again and laughed about someone being sorted. On the way to the loo I passed Moggie Carr and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. He almost spilled his beer on my feet again, but I dodged in time.

  "I just want to say thanks, Moggie, old mate."

  "Eh? What for?"

  "The bit of information you gave me the other day. It really helped."

  "Yeah?"

  "I know who I'm dealing with now."

  "Who's that?"

  "Oh, can't say." I gave him a big wink, right there in the middle of the pub. "But you'll probably hear."

  "Right."

  Across the room, Slow Kid had got into conversation with a couple of drivers he knew. They were all nodding knowledgeably, tipping bottles back and looking cool. Metal was leaning over to the next table, where a thin bloke in overalls was sitting with a Guinness. I had a suspicion they were probably talking about car engines. Nobody was talking to Dave, of course. He was just there for decoration.

  Next I sent Slow Kid and Metal down the Q Tip snooker club for a game while I went with Dave to the Ferret. Mick Kelk wasn't playing pool today, just watching. This was probably to do with the plaster cast that he wore on his arm and the swelling over his eye that limited his vision.

  "I don't know nothing," he said straightaway. "I didn't know nothing then, and I don't know nothing now. I told those blokes of Craig's, I haven't got any names."

  "That's all right, Mick. I just came to say thanks for your trouble. We managed to get what we wanted in the end."

  "It was nothing to do with me."

  "Here - this is to pay for the cue that Dave broke, and a bit extra to buy a few drinks for you and your mates."

  Kelk looked at the fifty quid note. I thought he was going to refuse it. But he couldn't have been doing much driving recently, not with one arm. He pocketed the note with his left hand. I stood back to make sure his mates saw him do it.

  We didn't hang around at the Ferret, but got in the car and drove back through the village. As we passed St Asaph's I saw activity in the churchyard and pulled in.

  "Morning, Councillor."

  Welsh Border straightened up from the grave he'd been tidying. Dad's plot is near the east side. Not the newest graves, but still well tended. The older memorials are crumbling with the effects of weather and general neglect. Some of the dead are long forgotten by their descendants. Now and then vandals visit and smash up someone's stone for a bit of fun. If they ever do that to my dad's grave, I'll stick their baseball caps so far up their arses the elastic will get stuck on their teeth.

  "What do you want, McClure?"

  "I'd just like to shake your hand, Councillor."

  "What?"

  "I know we haven't seen eye to eye sometimes, but we can't bear grudges, can we? Not on church premises."

  Border glowered at me. He made no move to put down his garden shears, let alone take off his work gloves to shake hands.

  "Mr Bowring said there was some trouble here yesterday," he said. "Was that caused by you, McClure?"

  "Did the Rev say it was?"

  He pulled his face. "He was vague about it. But I have my suspicions."

  "Actually, the Rev has been helping me work through some personal problems. I won't bother you with the details."

  "I don't want to know."

  He took a step towards me, not to shake my hand, but to peer more closely at my face. He was clutching the shears like a bayonet and he smelled of soil and freshly cut weeds.

  "Have you been fighting, McClure?"

  "Like I said, I've had some personal problems. But I'm on the way towards getting them sorted out. That's why I wanted to make peace with yourself, Councillor. What about it?"

  "I can't ever tell what you're on about," said Border. "You're just taking the micky again, aren't you? You're always taking the micky out of the vicar."

  "Not at all. We're practically best mates."

  He snapped his shears together irritably. We stared at each other for a bit.

  "Oh well," I said. "If that's the way you feel. It's just that I thought we might be able to make a fresh start."

  "All this means nothing to me."

  "Maybe. Maybe."

  "I'm in regular touch with the police, you know, McClure."

  "Yeah? That's nice." I made a mental note to ask Teri Brooker about him. Somebody had been talking about me, isn't that what everybody said? Just at the moment, I couldn't think of anybody more likely to go around bad-mouthing me than the Born Again Accountant. "I suppose you have a lot to talk with them about, Councillor? People you've seen dropping cigarette packets in the street? Old ladies whose wheelie bins are obstructing the pavement? Or have you hit the big time and nailed somebody with their telly on too loud?"

  Welsh began to work the blades of his shears violently, as if decapitating flowers that had dared to bloom in the wrong place. The clack of the blades punctuated his words.

  "I know..." Clack. "Things..." Clack. "About you..." Clack. "McClure." He lunged past me with the shears and slashed off the head of an inoffensive hydrangea. The shears looked pretty sharp, all right. "And I'm not afraid..." Clack. "To stand up and be counted..." Clack. "In the cause of justice." Clack, clack, clack.

  I backed away towards the car, fearing some accidental pruning of my personal twigs and branches.

  "He's not on the right bus, that bloke," said Slow Kid, eyeing Welsh Border as he stood snapping his shears in the graveyard.

  I don't know why I equated Welsh Border with the likes of Moggie Carr and Mick Kelk. But I knew he could talk, and I was covering all the options. I wanted word to get around that Stones McClure had his eye fixed on a target. I was hoping somebody would get worried. I wanted them to feel they needed to know what I was up to.

  We went back to the Cow and had lunch. Dave would have fainted otherwise. While we ate, I tried to detect any changes in the atmosphere around us. I listened for whispering, any sudden silences. I watched for curious glances, a knowing tilt of the head. But there was nothing that I couldn't honestly put down to pure paranoia.

  * * * *

  Eventually I took Slow Kid with me and we drove the Subaru under the viaduct, heading out of Medensworth. It was Sunday after all, and I made it a rule to visit the Sunday market every week, just in case.

  We'd crossed the A60 at Cuckney and were winding our way towards the Derbyshire border before I realised we were at Langwith. Here, Goff's Restaurant is set back off the road in a converted mill overlooking a pond.

  "Pull in a second, Slow."

  We parked across the road and I examined the car park. I couldn't make out Cavendish's Range Rover among the BMWs. In any case, it was after two o'clock. Surely they'd be long gone from their business lunch. Unless it involved more than business, of course. I dialled Lisa's home number, but the phone rang and rang. Maybe she wasn't quite home yet. Maybe she had some shopping to do. Or possibly she was just avoiding answering the phone, in case it was me.

  But if she was with Cavendish, at least she should be safe. In a way.

  At the Sunday market, the same bloke in the blue suit and short
haircut had the usual admiring housewives gathered round his demonstration.

  Ernie and Stella were still busy. "What can I sell you?" said Ernie. "Nice leather waistcoat?"

  The brothers, Carl and Vince, weren't so busy. Watches and jewellery weren't the choice today. "It'll build up for Christmas, I reckon," said Carl, hopefully.

  Marlene had three or four kids with her today. They were okay too. But it was Marky Benn's stall I wanted to see.

  Marky watched me sideways out of his blotchy eyes as I poked about among the radios and hair driers, electric alarm clocks and toasters. And CD players. Although he was dealing with a customer, I could feel his eyes flicking towards me as I picked up boxes and turned them over to look at the serial numbers and names of manufacturers.

  "All right, Stones?" he asked. He had other customers browsing further down the stall, but he wanted to know what I was doing. Was it my imagination, or did he look worried? Who could tell with eyes like that?

  "Where did these CD players come from, Marky?"

  "What?"

  "These CD players. French make, aren't they? Where did they come from?"

  "Can't remember, Stones. They'd be in a batch I got off your lot, wouldn't they?"

  "I don't think so, Marky."

  He shrugged. "I get most of my stuff from you, Stones. You give the best deal."

  "Yeah, I know. That's what keeps you in business, Marky. If you had to pay full whack, you'd never make a profit."

  He glanced nervously at the women fingering some heated hair curlers.

  "You sure the CD players didn't come from you, Stones?"

  "I'm so sure I can smell it."

  "I'd have to look it up in the books, then."

  "Do that, will you, Marky? And let me know. Give me a ring, or have a word with one of the boys. Don't make me have to come round and ask you again."

  I picked up Slow Kid down the end of the aisle, where he'd been lurking near a display of conservatories.

  "Just Jean to check on, then we're off, Slow.

  "Brill."

  The smell from Jean's stall was overpowering. Her perfumes and cosmetics were getting sampled big time. But Jean had something she wanted to tell me.