Blood From Stone

by Frances Fyfield

  CHAPTER NINE

  The best of friends, the very best. The day went quick when you had a good-looking mate who understood you. Mates, muckers, something Frank had missed ever since he had been not quite the dimmest boy in school in the Antipodes, but almost. ‘Not academic’, was the way they put it. Dim, but OK enough at sport, although everyone pretended he only cheated for fun, instead of from a perverse instinct just to do it, because he could have won under his own steam without taking short cuts. Always wanted to be a team player; never quite made it and being a short-fused bullyboy with a tendency to hit anyone smaller did not help. Not his fault, always someone else’s. And now, as he told his new best friend, Rick Boyd, he was really, really going to win because of the sister who had always done better and always despised him. What kind of win do you call that, Rick?

  Rick shook his head and patted Frank on the arm.

  ‘A win’s a win, Frank, however it happens. She owes it to you, you know? Just be happy.’

  ‘She wasn’t so bad, was she?’

  Rick shook his head, seriously puzzled. The third bottle was going down nicely. No, not a pub, Rick insisted. Be there, I’ll have champagne on ice, because I’m so sorry I upset you. That posh place round the corner where all the tarts go. Something to look at. They had the same vocabulary when it came to the other sex; they were not girls or women if they were shaggable, they were called tarts. If they were preoccupied, they were called tarts; if they were dressed up or down they were called tarts and if they were over forty they weren’t called anything.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rick said. ‘Was she that bad? I mean, I spent hours with her, you do when you’re on trial. Hours, days, even. And she did everything right by me, believe me, she was very, very good, and I’m not kidding you when I tell you we were close. Wrote everything down, ever so careful. She did well by me, she showed them all up as liars and framers and they had to cave in, finally, because I was innocent and she believed me and I’ve got to be grateful for that, because she really did believe me. She told me she believed every single client she’d ever got off and that’s what worked, her belief. But it was after, when I thought we were friends and it turns out we weren’t. I ask her to come out and have a drink with me, she doesn’t return the call. I write to her where she works, she doesn’t reply. I write to her again saying look, Marianne, I understand, but can you please send me on all those notes you took, all that stuff you recorded with me about everything? And she never did, even though I wrote to her again and said, it is mine, you know, and isn’t part of defending me giving it back so I know I can’t be framed again?’

  He prodded Frank’s arm, affectionately.

  ‘Once you’ve been an informant, see, and you know how they operate, they’ll always be out for you, the cops, which is why I want my stuff back, but never mind about that. It was the way she turned her back on me, not quite finishing the job, like I had some disease or something. Made me feel smaller than this.’

  He held his first finger and thumb a fraction of space apart, close to Frank’s face. Frank’s eyes were slightly blurred, but he nodded and a bit of the old anger resurfaced. Marianne always made him feel so weak. He had the feeling, nudging at something in the back of his skull, that he might have talked too much, but what the hell, this guy was talking back with nothing to hide. You had to trust a bloke who told you he’d been charged with murder.

  ‘Shall I tell you what really pissed me off, Frank? Well, I shouldn’t really, but I shall. She got the cops on me, well, to be honest, I don’t know if it was her or them. Only one call, but the day after she died they came round and asked did I know anything about it? Me? I say, me? I’m getting my life together, selling space like you sell cars, doing very nicely thank you, starting over, when this lot are at the door. Even though there’s no question and no reason why there ever should be, about me; I was at work all night and first thing I ever knew about her being dead was opening up the paper in the morning. And I thought was that you, Marianne, my darling, who doesn’t want to know me? Was the last thing you did to set the bastard cops on me, coming round and saying could you shed any light on this tragedy? All mealy-mouthed, they hated her more than anyone. They were there first thing in the morning. I thought it must be her, fingering me, somehow, but she had no malice in her really, did she? She wouldn’t do that.’

  Frank Shearer was not following entirely. The world was a blur, but Rick had sure as hell brought luck in his wake. He had sold two cars, just like that. It could take weeks or hours, and it had taken what felt like minutes, because he simply didn’t care.

  ‘No. No, she wouldn’t. And I don’t know where she kept stuff, didn’t know where she lived. She never came to see me. Never deigned to stoop. Never asked me to anything. Never even sent me a customer.’

  His hand wavered towards his glass. A line of coke would do it, Rick thought, but he’s not the type. One more round. Frank Shearer was expensive enough so far, with alcohol his only oblivion-making, confession-inducing substance of choice. Next time, Rick would find a more regular, darker, more atmospheric and cheaper place to work the magic. Get him nearer Thomas Noble. Frank’s memories swam to the surface.

  ‘She did it to me, once. Set the police on me, once, back in NZ. The cow.’

  They drank to that. The last of the day, with Frank knowing he had to turn home to his own little hole in Willesden and Rick knowing something similar, although having drunk half as much.

  ‘I’m sure she had a bloke,’ Frank said. ‘She must’ve done, even looking like she did. We used to call her Frog. Small and jumpy, know what I mean? And, oh boy, did she love to dress up when she was a girl. She had enough clothes to sink a ship, tons of stuff, she dressed up out of the movies and she never looked right. She clocked the boys all the time, I remember, even though they didn’t have much time for her. Always the wrong clothes.’

  Giggles, sniggers.

  ‘Did you ever see her with the white wig they wear in court? Imagine that face with a wig on top, it was a picture, Frank, I tell you. Miss Muppet, frog face in the wig, scared the hell out of them all. Good body on her though, at her age.’

  They sat back and watched the women lined up at the bar. Businesswomen, saleswomen, all laughing. All tarts. Next time, somewhere dark, without the distraction. Somewhere in Rick’s own territory, anywhere near the Old Bailey.

  ‘I think you might be right about that, Frank, about her having a bloke. You can always tell. She’d sometimes look at her watch at four thirty in the afternoon; that’s the time to meet your married man, isn’t it? On his way home from work. Good luck to her. Why not?’

  Glasses were raised. A happy chink, a pause and a grin at one another before they looked towards the bar, thinking of happier times and better times to come. Rick Boyd picked up his glass and sipped, delicately, choosing the right moment.

  ‘Did she ever tell you about her having a baby, Frank?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About her having a baby, once.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Like when she was nineteen or twenty.’

  Frank put down his own glass clumsily, spilling a bit, leaving it still half full, clutching the base of the glass with his hands around it.

  ‘She didn’t. She couldn’t have.’

  ‘No, you’re right, she didn’t have it in her. Not her thing, she’d have been more careful. Only . . .’ He leaned forward, so he was whispering in Frank’s ear, patted his arm again and leant back, looking towards the oh-so-unavailable women, making sure he had Frank’s full attention as he began to absorb this absurd idea, and Rick turned the full focus of his honest blue eyes upon him. Frank’s blood was running hot; he could feel sweat bursting into his hair. Rick leaned forward again. ‘Only it was something she said, in all those hours together. She had to ask me once, did I have kids, and I said, no, not that I know of, and I was a bit sorry about that, but I’d still got time, and did she? And she said, perhaps just to make me feel at home, yes, she�
�d had one, once. Then it was gone, just like she wanted, because she hadn’t wanted it at all, so it went to someone else. It was only her talking, trying to get close. Probably not true. Oh, you do look ill. Had I better get you home?’

  Best friends. United. Nothing freeloading about Rick, he’d paid for it all. He had a job selling advertising space, he said, somewhere along the line, boring as anything, but paid OK if you knew how to sell. Frank liked a man who bought the drinks, and then when he was a bit wobbly, bought another, and waited for him to feel better and then, would you believe, stuffed cash in his pocket towards a taxi. They would meet again, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, ’cos we do have to work, don’t we, Frank? We could check out Thomas Noble’s place, see what he’s up to, don’t trust him, Frank, he’ll shaft you and then we’ll go down to one of those proper pubs round Fleet Street where you see the lady lawyers and bankers, and the booze is better, OK?

  I think she said she had a son, Frank, but it may have been a girl. It wasn’t a gender-specific conversation, it was about kids.

  Take no notice, Frank, I’ve upset you again, but I’m here to help, really. Why should it matter one way or another, might be nice to be an uncle, now that she’s dead, no, perhaps not.

  Why did she tell you, Rick? Because we had hours together, waiting for things to happen and you get talking, you know? She was good at getting people to talk, open up, you know?

  On the way home, feeling sick again, but not too sick to notice the time and find it still early enough for recovery by morning to be a distinct possibility, Frank thought, And you’re not so bad at that, either, in the briefest moment of suspicion which passed, quickly. They had that in common, he and Rick Boyd: they could both talk the talk and there was nothing wrong with that. He was thanking his lucky stars that Rick had come along because he knew he had found a friend, just at the time when the lack of them weighed on him. He was lonelier than a lost soul in hell, buoyed up by hope of redemption, which just at this moment looked awful shaky. Fancy him coming straight from fucking Thomas Noble as soon as he knew, the very next day. His head had cleared, only now it felt like a hollow drum, supported by his shoulders, with someone banging on it.

  The rules of intestacy, Thomas had said, doing his pompous, finger-wagging lecture that had accompanied his first introduction to the client, mean, as follows: If parents are dead, all goes to children. If no children, to brothers and sisters in equal shares, if none of them, cousins etc. Children first, they take all, so you’re a lucky chap, she didn’t have any, not her thing. Otherwise, you’d be out of the loop. Nada. And my client would not be you. It would be him or her. Or them.

  Frank’s head jarred against the window of the cab, the driver treating him with contempt, cornering fast, lurching around with a prepaid customer, hating the route north away from the fleshpots of Mayfair. Fat chance of picking up another fare in Willesden for the route home. Frank clutched the door handle, steadied himself upright and automatically checked his heart, his wallet and his balls, finding all intact. Not a bad day all round before that last bit, still winning, been dreaming of living in Marianne’s all-white flat in Kensington, debt-free, new suits, new opportunities. Before this spectre introduced itself in the form of a grown-up bastard bent on taking it all away with a prior claim of blood that would nullify his. The last revenge of his hateful sister would be this and he could hear her laughing. I really got you going there, didn’t I, Frank? Only nothing was ever yours.

  Rick’s words, over the last round, like, I didn’t mean to upset you, and then Frank had found himself explaining the point. If Marianne had a child still alive and known, I’m fucked, Rick, I really am.

  ‘No, you’re not. Not if it’s not interested. Not if it’s dead. Not if it lives in another country. Not if what she said in passing wasn’t true. Just a woman boasting.’

  ‘Thomas Noble will find It. If he knows there’s an It, a legal inheritor, he’ll find It. He’ll regard it as his bounden duty, the prick.’

  ‘Well, we’d better find It first, hadn’t we, Frank? And what business is this of Mr Noble’s? Who’s going to tell him? Everything’s confidential with me, Frank.

  Here we go; see you, when did we say? There’s better pubs down the City end. More intimate. Better tarts, we’ll go there Wednesday, drink here tomorrow? Don’t worry, we’ll sort it out. I’ve got your number. Go easy, friend, phone me in the morning.’

  We. Frank’s first instinct had been right. Rick Boyd was the bearer of bad news, but also the bringer of good tidings. He was like a tidal wave of reassurance, bringing the not-so-good news and also the solution. Don’t shoot the messenger, or ignore him.

  When Marianne was twenty, she was here, in London. He was still in NZ with Mummy and Daddy; none of them would have known.

  Rick Boyd watched the taxi trundle away into the distance and hugged his coat around his body. It was a good coat and he was fond of it. He had found it in the open cloakroom of a club into which he had invited himself and selected it on the way out as being far warmer and better-fitting than the one he had worn on the way in. He was trying to remember which club it was: the Groucho, the Travellers or the Reform. It was an old man’s coat, indistinguishable from many others; no one would recognise it again. The visiting of such clubs was the cautious part of a wider plan on which he had been working ever since his acquittal. The strategy had formed itself in prison, where his incarceration with exclusively male company had made him realise that maybe he had got it wrong, because men were easier to con than women, equally gullible while demanding less. They required a different approach, sure; none of the physical seduction, although he didn’t rule it out; only the befriending, the playing of the role, and so many men were lonely, willing to compromise with the virtual, rather than the actual embrace.

  Rick Boyd did well in custody. Model prisoner, barrack-room lawyer since law was his hobby, benign influence on the younger inmates, got even fitter in the gym – done wonders for his upper body strength – and even the warders liked him. Rumour had it he was in for fraud, he looked so smart. That was what gave him the idea, because if you could fool a screw, you could fool anyone. Conning men would be easier than conning women; he should have seen it before. Either way, you got the trust and when you couldn’t keep it any longer or the game was up, or they turned sour, you turned on the pain. Picking the target, working out the scam was the hardest bit. You needed someone already halfway to corruption. Rick was congratulating himself. Sweet Marianne Shearer had handed him an heir.

  He walked through Jermyn Street, passing the shirtmakers’ and shoemakers’ shops, into Regent Street to Oxford Circus, passing Aquascutum, Austin Reed with the January sales notices in the windows. Displays of clothes never tempted him any more than the clothes themselves, except for the sweet cleanliness of anything new. He liked the smell of new, unused things; he was rigorous to the point of neurosis about hygiene. That was where prison had hurt and where the humiliation of it was excruciating, the constant smell of men, but at least it did not enrage him like the smell of an unwashed woman. It was the stench of their misery that made him want to hurt them; no such complications with men. Rick was not going to get that close and he was sick of any kind of flesh.

  He took the Central line at Oxford Circus for the long, stop-start ride to home. Leytonstone. Still not late, the ten o’clock lull, with most of the passengers not yet stinking of drink, and plenty of space. He eyed the women. London was one hard city for a small-town man, but tonight, he felt positively fond of it; tried to stop himself smiling. Smile on the Underground and people thought you were mad.

  Priorities. Frank. Frank as victim, Frank as weapon; Frank as the means to an end, rich Frank. Frank made to think Henrietta Joyce was the enemy . . . Even the daughter? Implant the idea of a daughter? One more session with Frank would do it. One more day.

  He looked down to find he had clenched his fists, unclenched them and let his hands lie in his lap, peacefully. Henrietta Joyce, the t
hief of liberty, pride and possessions, who also had something of his.

  Then there was the Lover of whom he had been jealous. When his Marianne rushed away, she should have had eyes only for him, should have been concentrating on him, not looking at her watch. He had copied the name of the Lover from the open page of an address book in all those hours together. Hate him. The Lover might have the stuff, might be the keeper of Marianne’s things, like all the letters she surely meant to send to him.

  Rick looked down at his hands, admiring them and himself. Fancy the law giving him the lever. Inspired to suggest that Marianne might have spawned a sprog, the merest suggestion of it enough to turn Frank into putty and make him, R. Boyd, indispensable.

  The Lover was definitely true; you could see it in her face some days, the existence of some other priority, someone she loved better. And the bitch; she’d never once mentioned a child, why should she? She never confided anything. She thought she was immune to him, the bitch, but she wasn’t, not really. Just pretended she was.

  It was a brilliant piece of invention.

  A child, specifically a female child, a daughter.

  An invention Frank would pay to eradicate.

  He wondered idly, why the hell did she jump?

  Must have been him. Couldn’t bear life without him.

  Continuation of cross-examination of Angel Joyce by Marianne Shearer, QC

  MS. When you first moved with Mr Boyd to Birmingham, you were happy, weren’t you?

  AJ. Yes.

  MS. Insofar as you’re capable of such a thing. So happy that you freely gave him your money. Where did that money come from, incidentally?

  AJ. My parents.

  MS. Who liked my client enough to trust you with ten thousand pounds? They must have been very keen to get rid of you, weren’t they?

  AJ. Whispers. Yes, they must have been.

  MS. Sick of you sponging off them? Final payment? Good riddance?