by David Thorne
My mother died two nights after I left her side, although Mr Latimer has told me that she was happy at the end and that, just an hour before her organs failed her, she had been talking about me; she had called me her miracle. I had been due to visit her again the following day, and Mr Latimer had called me with the news while I was packing a small bag. His voice had broken as he told me that she was dead and I knew that he was crying; he made no attempt to hide it. I had been holding a polo shirt and after I put the phone down I did not know what to do with it. My bag was open on my bed and I stood with the dead phone and shirt in my hand for some minutes before I picked my bag up and threw it into the mirror in my room, cracking it.
Now, my mother’s coffin is lowered into the grave and earth thrown upon it. I wonder how I will be able to stop thinking about her; wonder how long before I can forget I ever met her.
*
Back at the Latimers’ house, the dining-room table is covered with snack food just out of its packaging and people are balancing plates and glasses in their hands and trying to stand as close to corners as they can. I attract glances and nervous smiles but nobody tries to speak to me, and I cannot blame them. One of my eyes is bloodshot and both are black and the bridge of my nose is split. My tongue hurts where Baldwin hacked at it, and my mutilated finger throbs. They can only begin to imagine how I would respond to a polite greeting.
I stand next to the table, unsure what to do, as uncomfortable as a single man at a nightclub. My hands feel big and clumsy and I don’t know where to put them, in my pockets or behind my back, and I pick up a glass of water to give them something to do. I wonder how soon I can get away. I only knew her for three days; we were barely acquaintances. Half an hour should do it.
Penelope is talking to a couple of old ladies, shaking their hands and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. In the church, she had really let go, huge racking sobs as the vicar gave us some schtick about the immortal soul. She will not look in my direction. Fuck this, I think, and turn to leave but Mr Latimer stops me in the hall.
‘Daniel.’
‘Harold.’ Our conversation is as stilted as that between a young man and the father of the girl whose knickers he’s trying to get into. We are still strangers. He is wearing a black suit and he looks feeble, diminished by the events; an old, old man.
‘You’re leaving?’
‘I don’t feel like I should be here.’
‘If not you, then who?’
I grudgingly thank him inwardly for this unaffected welcome, yet it changes nothing. ‘It’s difficult for me.’
‘For all of us,’ he says. ‘But before you go, we do need to talk. Follow me?’
He leads me down the hall to his office, a small room with a surprising amount of clutter. I would have imagined a room with polished fitted bookshelves and leather-bound books, leather-upholstered chairs, a desktop covered in leather. But Mr Latimer has an IKEA desk, books and papers everywhere, a tower computer with one side missing. I can see the fan working inside, circuit boards. I imagine he spends a lot of time here, has done for years.
‘Your mother left a will,’ he says. He opens a drawer of his desk and looks inside, takes out a plain white envelope. He hands it to me.
‘A will?’
‘Yes. Rather recently, as you can imagine.’
I do not understand. I look down at the envelope in my hand. It is made from thick paper. It looks expensive. ‘Well, open it,’ says Mr Latimer.
I lever it open with a finger and take out a piece of paper. On it is some writing, and there is a cheque attached. I look at Mr Latimer.
‘She saved everything she ever earned, or at least very nearly,’ he says. ‘Originally it was earmarked for her charity, but then…’ He sighs, a light, surprised sound. ‘Then you turned up.’
The sum is large. I wonder how my mother ever earned it. ‘You paid her?’
‘Of course I paid her,’ says Mr Latimer, slightly affronted. ‘You think I expect people to work for me for nothing?’
‘Then this is your money,’ I say.
‘No,’ Mr Latimer says slowly and I can see that he is genuinely upset now. ‘No, this is, was, Marcela’s money. She earned it and she was free to do with it as she wished. And now it is yours. Please do not insult me.’
I nod and tuck the letter and cheque back into the envelope, tuck the envelope into my inside jacket pocket. I cannot think of one thing to say to him.
‘And for God’s sake, don’t look so angry,’ Mr Latimer says sharply. ‘You think she’d have wanted that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The question was rhetorical. You know very well she would not.’
I do not answer. Anything I could say would only make things worse.
I leave immediately after, without saying goodbye. Why would I ever go back? Why would the Latimers want to see me again? On the way to my car, crunching over gravel, I check my phone and see that I have missed a call. It is Halliday; he has left me a message.
‘Connell, Halliday here. You, my son, are trying your luck. Trying my fucking patience an’ all. I’ll see you tomorrow at the property, ten o’clock. Be late and it’ll be your last mistake. Understand?’
I get into my car, adjust the rear-view mirror, look at myself. I smile and the corners of my eyes crinkle but they hold nothing but malice. Fear is an emotion I can no longer imagine. I start the car and pull on to the road, back to Essex. This, all this, ends tomorrow.
32
ANGER IS OFTEN described as a negative emotion; rage, merely destructive. But as I head into my meeting with Halliday I cannot imagine any emotion that will be more useful, considering what it is I am about to do. I am consumed with fury and part of me cannot wait for our encounter, even though I have no idea how it will pan out and even less whether I will survive it. The death of my mother, the injustice of losing her so soon after finding her, and Halliday’s culpability in it all; I would like to tear the skin off his bones. Halliday, untouchable, protected by layers of people and networks of influence and the constant and imminent threat of violence; it means nothing to me. Waiting for him to arrive, I do not feel apprehension, nerves, pre-fight jitters. Instead, I already feel the all-consuming anger that clouds my judgement and renders me impervious to pain; it is as if I am already in the fight, seeing red, charged on adrenalin. My fists are bunched and I cannot stop pacing. Bring it on.
I am standing in the ground floor of the building Halliday intended to buy. It is a large house of red brick just off the centre of town, built at the turn of the century for a now defunct order of nuns. All of the windows are covered with weathered plywood, but inside it is in decent condition; I have been assured that it is a prime rental location and that it represents a potential financial goldmine, although just now, abandoned as it is, it seems merely sad, drab and hopeless, testament to our collective loss of faith in things spiritual. I am standing in the kitchen, which is huge and has three walls of dilapidated cupboards, a sink, a broken cooker. Dust coats everything.
I hear a sound behind me and there is Halliday, wearing only a shirt, although it is raining outside. Behind him Eddie is putting down an umbrella, which I assume he has been holding over Halliday’s head. My opinion of him, which was not high before, sinks even lower. Why abase yourself to a man like Halliday? Behind Eddie is another man and I do not recognise him, though I recognise his type. He is about my size with a shaved head and a neck wider than his jaws, perhaps forty; his face looks like it gave up smiling in his teens. He has hands as big as boxing gloves and looks as solid as a freezer. Hired muscle, which probably means two things. One, Eddie has warned Halliday that I am no pushover. And two, Halliday means me harm. But this does not bother me. At least we are both up for the fight.
Halliday walks up to me with his agitated, barely-in-control stride and stands too close, looking up at me with his chin thrust forward and his eyes bright and venomous. He is aggravated.
‘Fuck me, you came. Thought you’d
dropped off the fucking planet.’
‘I’m here.’
‘Good fucking job too,’ says Halliday. ‘Or I’d have sent someone to find you.’
‘Saved you the trouble,’ I say.
Halliday’s eyes flick over my face and, just like in his bar, I have the impression of a snake coiled to strike. Time seems to slow as he weighs up his options, then he steps back, the moment over. He looks over to Eddie. ‘Right. What do we need to know?’
Eddie comes over, eye fucking me. Halliday laughs. ‘Not your best friend, is Eddie.’
‘What’s he want, a cuddle?’ I say.
‘What we want to know, wanker, is whether we’re ready to complete.’
‘Ah,’ I say.
‘Ah? The fuck does that mean?’ Eddie steps towards me but I stand my ground.
‘Interesting place, this,’ I say. ‘It was built for nuns, you know that?’
‘Who fucking cares?’ says Eddie. Evidently not a man of learning.
‘Then it fell empty, when the order disappeared. Left empty for years, before it was converted into a care home. You know that?’ Eddie shakes his head, more in bewilderment than in response to my question. I turn to Halliday. ‘You knew that, right?’
‘Just get to the point. When’s it mine?’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘the thing is, I’ve been away.’
‘So I noticed. Where the fuck were you, anyway?’
‘I went to find my mother,’ I say.
Halliday doesn’t react at first, just watches me, expressionless. I let the silence drag on. Halliday still doesn’t react, and Eddie and the muscle soon pick up on something unsaid, something in the air that they’re not part of. Things have taken a strange turn and they have been left behind; this is now between Halliday and me. But Halliday is a man to whom bravado is second nature and it does not take him long to regain his composure.
‘Yeah?’ he says indifferently. ‘You find her?’
‘I did,’ I say. ‘She said to say hi.’
‘Mr Halliday,’ says Eddie. ‘Everything all right?’
Halliday ignores him. ‘That’s got nothing to do with this.’
‘How much did you get for her?’ I ask.
‘Nothing to do with you.’
‘She’s my mother.’
‘You want to leave this.’
‘No I don’t. How much?’
‘Can’t remember. Can’t have been much.’ Halliday smiles. ‘She weren’t up to much, your mother. Useless bitch.’
I nod to myself. This is the moment. I walk over to the sink and take out a heavy wrench I have put there, cross quickly to Halliday’s hired muscle and hit him as hard as I can with it on the side of his shaved head. He tries to put up an arm but he doesn’t have time and the wrench makes a meaty sound as it connects and he goes down in a heap.
Eddie looks shocked and I can tell that he has no stomach for this fight, but he has no choice and he walks towards me cautiously and unwillingly like a child approaching a big dog he’s been dared to stroke. I step towards him and he puts his hands up to ward off whatever’s coming and I throw the wrench at him and, as he ducks away, follow up with a punch in his throat that has him bent over, choking. I drive my knee up into his face and he falls down. I do not know if he is unconscious but if he isn’t he’s doing a good job of pretending. His face certainly hurt my knee.
Halliday has had enough of this; he is walking towards the door but I catch up and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Uh-uh,’ I say. ‘Not yet.’
Halliday turns and I don’t see any fear in his eyes, just a kind of awed disbelief. These things don’t happen to men like him. It doesn’t make sense.
‘You know you’re a fucking dead man,’ he says. ‘You know that?’
I hit him in the stomach and lower him to the floor where he sits, breathing as best he can. After some time, he takes a long shuddering breath and spits out dribble on to the ground next to him, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Better?’ I say, but Halliday just looks at me with hatred. ‘Good. Now then, about this property. A few things have come to light. One of them is that, underneath where we’re standing, are the bodies of Michael Connor and Gavin O’Dwyer. But you know that, don’t you? Because you put them there.’
Halliday still doesn’t answer, watches me warily.
‘Must have done it while it was being renovated. What, you knew someone who was pouring the concrete?’ I don’t wait for a response; Halliday has given up talking for the time being. ‘Which is why you wanted to buy this property. Because if this place is ever demolished, and those bodies are found, you’re going down. See, I thought you wanted it to launder money, set up some fake tenants and pay yourself their rent. But you just need it to protect yourself. You’ve got through one trial. You won’t get through another.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Of course it had been Xynthia, but there is no way I am going to tell Halliday that. She has suffered enough at his hands.
‘I’ll find your mum,’ he says. ‘I’ll kill her.’
‘Too late,’ I say. ‘She’s dead. And say anything more about her and I’ll put that wrench down your throat.’
Halliday thinks about saying something, changes his mind. You don’t get to where he’s got without a sharp instinct for self-preservation.
‘But she left me some money,’ I say. ‘And you know what I did with it?’ No answer. ‘I bought this place.’ I smile. ‘Oops.’
‘You fucking did what?’
‘So I suggest you’re nice to me. Because if anything happens to me, like, I get hit by a car, or fall off a balcony, even if I die of natural causes, this place is getting donated to the Essex Police Force. And the first thing they’ll do, if they read my will properly, which they will do, is get the jackhammers out.’ I am pacing now, and Halliday is following me with his eyes from the floor where he is sitting. ‘The second thing they’ll do is lock you up and throw away the fucking key.’
Halliday shakes his head slowly, laughs softly to himself. ‘Oh, son. Oh dear.’
His attempt to patronise me only makes me more angry and I walk towards him, not thinking clearly, and hold him by his chin, jerk his head up so that he is looking at me. I do not know what to do, and cast about with my eyes. I see the wrench and I pull Halliday across the floor towards it, my hand around his neck. I do not notice his weight; it is as if I am dragging an insignificant piece of luggage. I pick the wrench up and Halliday, for the first time since he arrived, looks genuinely scared.
I think of my mother and her miserable, desolate life, which was all down to this man and his indifference to suffering, his intrinsic lack of humanity, and I desperately want to make him feel something, experience some of the pain he caused my mother and me. I take his wrist and press it to the floor. He is too old to offer much resistance and I pick up the wrench with my other hand and lift it and bring it down on his fingers, once, twice, three times and he is screaming and screaming and it is only then that I realise that I am crying and I don’t know how long for. I throw the wrench away and walk out, past a moaning Eddie and the unmoving body of Halliday’s ineffective muscle, leaving Halliday bellowing in rage and holding up his wrecked fingers, splay-legged on the floor like a child that’s had its toys taken away. Baldwin may be dead. But I have just made an enemy for life.
33
EVEN THOUGH IT is not warm, we are sitting outside the clubhouse because inside Ray has had one too many and started telling his usual lies, before moving on to his favourite subject of immigration. Gabe is drinking Coke and Maria has a glass of wine. Gabe and I have just handed a supposedly up-and-coming doubles pair the battering of their lives and are basking in the realisation that we still have, perhaps, something to offer the game of tennis. Maria is watching us with amusement; boys who can only find self-worth in handing out beatings. She is more right than she knows.
‘Nice shot,’ I say.
�
��Which one?’ says Maria, who clearly appreciated our performance despite herself.
‘Gabe knows which one,’ I say.
When I was fourteen, I was challenged to a fight by a boy two years above me, a challenge that involved not only my facing up to the prospect of going toe-to-toe with somebody who outweighed me by over two stone, but also a bus journey across town to the venue of his choice; a clearing in the wooded land of a local park, frequented by drunks and littered with beer cans and the remnants of old fires. I told nobody about the fight and turned up expecting to be battered; in the event, I was not far wrong. But I put in some decent shots myself and it ended with me more or less on my feet. After the older boy and his entourage had left, I was using dry leaves to stem the blood from my nose when, from the higher wooded ground, I saw Gabe sauntering down towards me. ‘What?’ he said. ‘You didn’t think I’d look out for you?’
Now Gabe finishes his Coke and gives us a quick goodbye, before disappearing into the gathering darkness. We watch him go because we both know that, once he has gone, it will be just us.
‘He looks better,’ says Maria. ‘Not quite so mental.’
‘Yeah.’ It’s true that the last week has seen a transformation in Gabe. I have heard speculation that he is seeing somebody, but I have no doubt that the truth is darker. Gabe once told me that, when he was in the Army, he spent six months on attachment to a reconnaissance unit where he was taught infiltration techniques, how to lie in one position for days and how to pick off targets at long range, what he described as the zen of sniping. The bullet that killed Baldwin was a 7.62 NATO round, the same used by the British Army. I will never ask Gabe if he shot Baldwin; what would be the point? I know him too well, have known him too long; I know he did it, and he knows that I know. Any mention would only embarrass him and compromise our tacit acknowledgement. He will always look out for me.
