Father and Son

by John Barlow

  “I was hoping I might bump into you,” Reid says, loud and confident as he waits for the security gate to grind slowly open. “Don’t worry, I only wanted a little chat with him. He’s fine.”

  John wants to go in, check on his dad. But by the time he’s realised what’s happening, Reid is coming towards him, the gate now closing again. And Reid looks like he wants a word.

  “What do you need to talk to my dad about?” says John, getting in first.

  He knows how to speak to men like this. Growing up in the Ray family taught him that much. Try and be casual, don’t show your fear. It helps being six-two and nearly as wide. And it also helps being Tony Ray’s son. Courage? He’s never really known how much of it comes from within, and how much from the surname. Perhaps he’s about to find out.

  “I came to tell him to shut the fuck up,” Reid says. “I needn’t have bothered. Stroke, was it?” He sniffs, wipes the back of his hand across his nose. “I told him anyway, nice and loud in his ear, just in case. And that goes for you. You keep your gob shut. Anything you find about Roberto, it comes to me and Lanny. Nobody else.”

  “And if I don’t?” John says.

  Reid adopts a ridiculous Irish accent: “Been talking to the lovely Jeanette, eh? Tell yez all about me, did she, Johnny boy?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” John says, irritated by Reid’s humour, but sensing the violence behind it. Too late for fear, though. One of the men responsible for the Leeds bombing is standing in front of him. It’s not the time to back down from evil; he just needs to know how far it extends.

  Reid seems amused.

  “You know what? You remind me of your brother. He was a mouthy twat as well.”

  “What’s this got to do with Joe?”

  Reid says nothing, waits for the penny to drop.

  And it does.

  “That’s right,” Reid says, looking out across the sumptuous grounds of Oaklands Retirement Home as if the sight of its perfect lawns disgusts him. “I knew Joe. And now I’m back to clear up the mess he left.”

  “His mess?”

  Behind them Den’s white Astra has pulled up.

  “Put it this way,” says Reid, watching as she gets out of the car and pulls on her leather jacket. “Joe’s lucky to be dead. You find out who killed Roberto, this’ll stop. It’ll go away, my friend. And we’ll all be a lot happier, you included. Oh,” and he looks John up and down, “I hear you’re a bit of a ladies’ man. Be careful with Miss Cormac. She’ll suck you dry and spit out the pips.”

  “Hi John,” says Den as she approaches, an uncharacteristically cheerful note to her voice, as if she hasn’t noticed the thug in the bad suit next to him.

  “Who’s she?” Reid says, right at her.

  “Talk about manners,” she says, no hint of surprise. She holds her warrant card a little too close to Reid’s face. “Who the fuck are you, Sir?”

  Reid glances at John, weighs the situation up, and turns to go, without another word.

  “Ever met an IRA enforcer before?” John asks her, sotto voce.

  She looks as if someone slapped her in the mouth.

  “Jesus, you could’ve told me.”

  “Yeah, well you could’ve asked before you started waving your credentials around.”

  “You know me. Not one to shy away. And what’s the worst that can happen?”

  He shakes his head, as they both watch Reid walk across the car park.

  “I dunno, but I think we’ll be finding out before long. Anyway, are you OK?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  Reid disappears through the car park gates on foot.

  “I’m fine,” John whispers, as he feels her hand squeeze his.

  “Well, that’s one IRA enforcer who knows not to get his car on the security cameras,” she says, watching him go. “By the way, I’ve been down at Millgarth getting bollocked for interfering in police matters.”

  “Interfering?”

  “Baron threatened to lodge a formal complaint in Manchester. Although, reading between the lines, I think he could do with some help on the Roberto Swales murder.”

  “In other words, he’s cutting you some slack so you can help me.”

  “Yes, John. As usual, it’s all about you. By the way, what did he want?”

  He wants to hold her, to try and make everything right between them. But there’s too much in the way now, and he doesn’t know where to begin to explain. Knowing is one thing, but telling Den is another.

  “John?” she says, sensing that something’s wrong.

  “You remember the bombing here in 1990?” he says, staring down at the ground. “Supermarket? Baby died?”

  “I was only eight. But I’ve read about it,” she says, her hand instinctively slipping into his again.

  “Roberto was involved. I’ve got no proof, but that’s what this is all about. And he wasn’t the only one.”

  “The monkey in the suit?”

  “Him as well. That’s why he was here.”

  “Who else?” she whispers. “Who?”

  “Joe.” He looks across at the nursing home, at his dad’s room on the corner. “I dunno about him.”

  She exhales. Takes a second.

  “Come on, then.” She takes his arm. “Let’s go and ask him. But remember,” she says, yanking him around until they’re facing each other, “this isn’t about you, John. Whoever was involved, this was nothing to do with you. Remember that.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  For a moment John stands outside the French windows. He can see his father inside, alone in his armchair, asleep. But it’s not his father, not the man he knew. The life has been draining away from him gradually, ever since Joe was killed. It had been a slow process, almost imperceptible, like a plant that stops flourishing and by degrees withers, its roots doing enough to keep it alive, but nothing more.

  Tony Ray had always flourished. He never went unnoticed, no matter where he was. When he walked into a room people would resolutely try not to strain their necks. Tall and well-dressed, with a dark complexion and his hair Brylcreemed back, he was warm and effortlessly engaging. Whoever he was talking to, his eyes would look straight into theirs, pinning them for just a moment.

  But a moment was enough. He was interested in people. When he talked to you, you sensed it straight away, that he was trying to understand you, to see things your way. He’d ask you questions, where you came from, what you did, your opinions… He had the natural naivety of a foreigner, of someone eager to learn absolutely everything he could. Five minutes with Tony Ray and you’d do whatever he wanted. They used to say he could have persuaded a bank manager to bundle himself into the safe and lock the door from the inside.

  Yet there was another side to him, one which people never saw. He had a simple, childlike curiosity about every object he touched, becoming absorbed in understanding it, whatever it was. There’d be long evenings at the kitchen table of the old terrace house in Armley, taking apart an old alarm clock, seeing if he could put it back together; or huddled over the latest test prints of ten and twenty pound notes, an old bedside lamp and a magnifying glass close by. Come here, he’d whisper, and John would lean in close, until he could smell the coffee on his father’s breath. See that printing there? It’s called intaglio. The machines that can do that cost half a million pounds each. Look, it’s a work of art…

  His real fascination, though, was with life itself, and it was all-consuming. Had circumstances been different he might have been an inventor, or a scientist. Who knows, even a politician. But he was none of these. He was Tony Ray, the one they never managed to convict, an old-school racketeer that even the coppers chuckled about, a notorious figure in Leeds whose reputation, whilst not exactly a matter of civic pride, was a lot rosier than anything London or Glasgow could boast. And when his obituary is written, it will dwell on just one element in his long and successful criminal career: the modern alchemy, money counterfeiting.

  “I don�
�t know what I’m going to ask him,” John says.

  “Do you want me to do the talking?”

  “No, I want you to be watching him, see how he reacts. You’ve got the experience.”

  “I can do both. Come on,” she says, pushing open the doors. “Tony!”

  Tony doesn’t respond. He’s in his chair, same as always, but his head is slumped forward, chin on his chest. The jacket of his purple jogging suit is open, and down the front of his vest is a patch of yellow vomit. More of it snakes out of his mouth. He sits there, shaking slightly, and makes no attempt to call for help, his eyes unfocussed.

  Den rushes to him, feeling for a pulse. “He’s alive.”

  She lifts his head, looks into his eyes. They roll in their sockets, as if he’s being dragged from a deep sleep. But he’s not dead.

  “There’s nothing in it,” she says, urgent but matter of fact, her nose up close to the vomit. “Just bile.”

  “Dad,” John says, standing square in front of him, trying to take it in, to read the signs. “Dad, what’s this about? What’s happened?”

  Tony shakes his head a little, the hair thin and grey, cut to an inch all over, like a convict. He says nothing, seems not to be listening.

  John finds a towel in the bathroom and starts cleaning him up.

  “I’ll tell you what this is,” he says, his hands trembling as he tries to control the anger within him. “This is Joe. It’s Joe’s fault. They’re trying to make sure nobody says anything, about the bomb, and they think Joe might have told Dad.” He’s got most of the vomit off his dad’s vest now, but he keeps on rubbing with the towel. “That’s all this is. This is Joe, hundred per cent. Look at Dad! Look what they’ve done to him!”

  “Perhaps,” she whispers.

  “What does that mean?”

  She shakes her head, still checking Tony over. “Nothing. Only, perhaps you’re not the best person to be dealing with this.”

  “Who let Reid in, that’s what I want to know,” he says, digging down the side of the armchair and pressing the alarm.

  “Just take it easy,” she says, smiling at Tony as she straightens his collar. “There you are. Back to your best!”

  “Everything okay?” asks a young male nurse, appearing at the door.

  “Where’s Holt?” John says.

  “Andrew? Just gone off duty.”

  “You seen him?”

  “Me? No, I’ve just got here.”

  They say their goodbyes to Tony, who continues to sit motionless in his chair, unable to speak. And in all the time they’ve been there, he hasn’t looked his son in the eye once.

  John marches down the corridor towards the reception, head down, a stormtrooper looking for a storm.

  “Nice and calm, remember,” she says, struggling to keep up.

  He doesn’t need reminding. By the time he places both hands on the counter, his anger has disappeared beneath that familiar half-smile, something a little bit naughty, the smile of casinos and cigarettes and late-night whisky.

  “Hi Terry!” he says as a middle-aged woman looks up from her keyboard.

  Her face brightens immediately. Den watches Terry’s midriff reduce instantly as the woman sucks herself down a couple of sizes.

  “Hello young man!” she says. “Was your dad behaving himself today?”

  “Good as gold. Andrew Holt about?”

  “Haven’t seen him for a while.” She consults a rota. “He was off ten minutes ago. Shall I page him?”

  “That’d be grand.”

  She taps in his number, and all three of them wait there for the phone to ring.

  “This is Denise, by the way,” he says. “Friend of the family. Although I do keep trying to convince her to marry me.”

  Terry shakes her head until her double chin seems to work itself free of the rest of her face, the good work with the midriff now completely undone.

  “The worst thing, love?” she says to Den. “Plenty of women fall for it. I’ve seen nurses swoon over a bit of the old Ray charm.”

  “Oh, he’s a charmer, I’ll give him that.”

  “Where’s Andrew got to?” Terry says, picking up the phone. “He might be out of range. I’ll try his mobile.”

  They wait as Terry’s call to Holt goes unanswered.

  “Did your dad enjoy seeing his nephew?” she asks, finally giving up on Holt.

  “Yes. Yes, he did. Hadn’t seen each other for quite a while. I bumped into him as he was leaving. How long was he here?”

  “That’s the funny thing,” she says, looking down at the visitor log. “Can’t have been more than a couple of minutes. Never signed out, either. Went straight out the gate.”

  John follows her finger as she finds the entry on the log: Dave Brown. Is that the best Reid could do? Dave Brown? Some old ID he had lying about, perhaps. Growing up in the Ray family has taught John that most criminals are not known for their creative thinking. That’s why the jails are full of ’em. Not many stay out indefinitely. Just the odd one, like Dad. And Lanny Bride.

  “We should be going,” Den says, elbowing John in the ribs, staring past Terry at four small security monitors that stand in a line against the back wall.

  One of the screens shows the car park. A white van has just pulled up, and out jumps Graeme Thornton.

  “Ah-ha, the carpet man! He is one of Holt’s flock, by the way. He told me all about it…”

  They watch as Thornton stops. Something in the windscreen of Den’s Astra catches his attention.

  “It’s my police parking permit,” she says under her breath.

  Thornton glances over at John’s Porsche, then at the Astra’s windscreen again. A second later he’s back in his van reaching for the ignition.

  “Come on.”

  By the time they are out in the car park the van has gone. Den sprints over to the exit, peeping around the stone gate post, then stepping right out and looking down the road. A second later she’s running back towards the Astra.

  “Get in,” she shouts. “He’s going back towards town.”

  John is impressed. His instincts had been to go straight to the car, by which time the van would have been out of sight.

  He jumps into the passenger seat, still impressed. But then, as they pull away, he realises that he’s in a fifteen-year-old Astra and Den’s at the wheel. And no one is ever going to call her driving impressive, even the man who loves her to death.

  Chapter Thirty

  Den keeps three or four cars behind the white van. It has made its way out onto the Ring Road, and is now heading east, down through the Seacroft housing estate. They lose sight of it from time to time. She doesn’t panic, just looks in her mirror and drops down a gear, smoothly leapfrogging whoever’s in front, making sure the van is in her sights again, then settling back into the flow of the traffic.

  It was a wise move to come in Den’s old rust-bucket, which is far less conspicuous than a silver Porsche. Also, despite his trepidation, John notices how controlled she is behind the wheel. Not like when they first met. She used to drive as if she was auditioning for a part in Mad Max.

  “You been on a course?” he says.

  “Yes, as it happens.” She looks in the mirror again, as a blacked-out Honda screams past so fast you can hear the doppler effect on the massive pumping bass coming from it. “Been on a few courses actually.”

  “One was patience and forgiveness, was it? Because a year ago you’d have been screaming through the windscreen at that wanker.”

  “That wanker,” she says, watching the Honda as it swerves gracefully around car after car ahead of them, “is catching the attention of Mr White Van. The more stuff happening on the road, the easier it is to stay unnoticed.”

  “Christ, you’ve read the book as well.”

  “I’ve been reading a lot of books. Thinking of applying for fast-track.”

  First she makes sergeant, now she’s looking at more promotion? In Manchester? He should be happy for her, she’s sti
ll young enough to make a new life for herself without him. But he’s not happy. He wants her back, here in Leeds. The longer she’s away, though, and the more promotions she gets, the less likely that is.

  He wants another go at explaining to her what went wrong last year, all the stupid reasons he had for getting caught up in a bloody counterfeit scam, after a lifetime on the level. The level? Not any more. He’s up to his neck in it again, although this time it’s someone else’s shit. He just doesn’t know whose.

  “Why didn’t you tell them who Reid was?” she asks, as the white van slows at a roundabout and takes a sharp left onto the A64 to York.

  “Back at the home?” he says, straining to remember what exactly he had said. “I dunno. Trying to keep things simple, I guess.”

  “If someone like Reid’s involved, and he’s up there putting the frighteners on your dad, there’s got to be a reason, John. You can’t protect him from the truth.”

  “I’m not trying to. I just need to understand it first.” They take the York road. “Anyway, where’s carpet man going? I don’t suppose you could, y’know, the van…”

  “What? Ring it in? Ha!”

  Five minutes later the van turns off towards the village of Barwick in Elmet, only a few miles out of Leeds, but another time and place.

  “Wow, this is nice,” she says.

  “Never been here?” he asks.

  She shakes her head as they pull into the side of the road, right next to a forty-foot Maypole. Ahead of them the van disappears around a bend in the road.

  “Number six, Church Lane, is my guess,” she says.

  “So you did check up?” he asks.

  “Yep. Got an old mate to do it. See-you-later, remember? The van is owned by Mrs Alice Carr. She has a dry cleaning business. The premises are back on the A64, just out of Leeds. We passed the place a couple of minutes ago. Happy now, Sherlock?”