by Roberta Kray
Michael’s eyes instantly lit up. ‘Ah, sweetheart, that was good of you.’
Iris suspected that he had only left the pub because he’d run out of cash. Her uncle had not worked, at least not legally, since an accident at the car factory over ten years ago. Having sustained a back injury, he was now living off disability benefit. She had witnessed no particular evidence of any lasting damage - he had no problem playing endless games of pool - but it wasn’t her place to pass judgement.
Iris picked up a couple of glasses from the draining board. ‘Hey, why don’t we have a quick drink before I go?’
Michael, perhaps questioning her motives, narrowed his eyes a little. But seeing as she had bought the bottle, he could hardly refuse. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
Iris added a generous splash of water to her whisky, but Michael took his neat. They sat down at the kitchen table and she waited until he’d taken a few sips. ‘So, how are you feeling now?’
‘Not bad,’ he said, his fingers tentatively lifting to touch the cuts and bruises on his face. ‘Not so bad at all. I think I’ll live.’
Iris nodded. ‘That’s good, Michael, because we’ve still got some talking to do. We never did finish our conversation, did we?’
‘Didn’t we?’ he said, acting all innocent.
‘Don’t give me that,’ she said, smiling again. ‘I can read you like a book. You rushed off the minute my back was turned. And I know when you’re lying. Tell me the real reason why you were fighting with Danny Street.’
‘I’ve already—’
‘The real reason, Michael, not that pile of old crap you told me earlier.’ She leaned across the table and looked hard into his eyes. ‘Because something happened in Columbia Road today, something nasty, something that scared the hell out of me. So I want the truth and I want it now. I’m sick of being lied to!’
He stared back at her for a moment. His voice, when he replied, sounded brittle and fearful. ‘Ah, Jesus,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
Chapter Twenty
Michael jumped up after she had told him and started to pace the kitchen. ‘The bastards! The fuckin’ bastards!’
Alarmed by his reaction, Iris stood up and grabbed his elbow. ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘This isn’t achieving anything. Just sit down and tell me what you know.’
‘Did he hurt you? Did he—’
‘No,’ she said. In truth her arm was still aching from where the brute had dug his fingers into her flesh. She made an effort not to rub at it. Her priority now was to calm Michael and find out what was really going on. ‘Please sit down,’ she said again.
This time he complied and sank wearily into the chair. He put his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands. ‘Shit,’ he murmured.
‘I need the truth,’ she said. ‘I’m entitled, aren’t I? Whatever your reasons for lying and I understand that it was probably to try to protect me - well, it’s too late for that now. I’m already involved. I’ve been threatened. And I need to know why this is happening.’ She took a deep breath. There was still the all-important question she had to ask. ‘Is my dad still alive?’
‘No,’ Michael said, immediately removing his hands. He left a short pause and shook his head. ‘No, he can’t be.’
Iris felt her heart leap. ‘You’re not certain?’
He knocked back his drink, reached out for the bottle and poured another generous measure. ‘It’s been nineteen years. Don’t you think he would’ve contacted me?’
‘I don’t know,’ Iris said. ‘I don’t have any clear idea of why he left in the first place.’ Recalling what the man at the market had said, she added: ‘Was he in trouble with the police?’
Michael was obviously surprised by the question. There was a short silence. ‘The police?’ he repeated slowly.
But his surprise, she decided, was more down to the fact that she knew he’d been in trouble than out of any kind of incredulity. ‘He was, wasn’t he? And it must have been something serious or—’
‘It wasn’t his fault,’ Michael said. He rubbed his face again and ran his hands through his dark curls.
Iris felt her heart shift again. ‘So the cops are interested in him?’ She took another drink. The whisky was so diluted she could barely taste it. Perhaps she’d skip the water on the next round. That there would be a next round, she was now in no doubt at all. Michael was up against the ropes, struggling with what he should and shouldn’t say, and she intended to knock the truth out of him. And if that meant staying until every last drop of the whisky had been drunk, then so be it!
‘Come on, Michael,’ she urged. ‘This has gone too far. You have to talk to me.’
He gave a small nod, reaching for his glass again. ‘Your dad . . . well, he got himself into a bit of a fix.’
‘A fix?’
‘He had money problems and . . . and he was in deep and looking for a way out. I told him not to get involved, but he wouldn’t listen.’ Michael shook his head. He paused as if unsure whether to go on. Iris waited patiently. Eventually, he gave a sigh and continued. ‘You ever hear of a guy called Davey Tyler?’
She thought about it. ‘No.’
‘He was a local villain, nothing big time. He made a living out of robbing warehouses mainly - electricals, stuff like that. Your dad and him, well, they weren’t exactly mates, but they used to drink in the same pubs. Acquaintances really, rather than mates. But they got talking one night and . . . and Tyler made Sean an offer. He needed a hand with a job and offered to split the profits with him.’
‘A job?’ Iris said. ‘You mean a robbery?’
Michael nodded. ‘And not at some warehouse. It was a private house Tyler had targeted this time.’ He hesitated again. ‘Sean wouldn’t have considered it normally, but he was desperate for cash. He had the loan sharks on his back, making all kinds of threats. Sean made a mistake, love, a really bad mistake. Sure, he’d been in trouble in the past - we’d both done stretches inside, both mixed with the wrong sort of people - but he’d turned his back on all that. From the moment he met your mum, everything changed. He didn’t want to be involved in that stuff any more.’
Iris topped up his glass and hers. She took a large gulp of whisky, certain that what she was going to learn next would be best heard with more alcohol flowing through her veins. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘The house,’ Michael muttered, ‘well, it wasn’t just any old house. It was Terry Street’s place.’
‘What?’ she spluttered.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘It was crazy, bloody crazy. And if I’d known what the two of them were planning, I’d never have let Sean go ahead with it. I’d have found a way to stop him. Tyler had a grudge you see; he was sick of Terry Street and his firm poncing off him, coming round to take a share whenever he pulled off a successful job. This way he reckoned he could get his own back. He knew the place must be swimming in cash, full of all sorts of other goodies too. It was alarmed, of course, but Davey Tyler was a dab hand at disabling most of those systems; they weren’t as sophisticated as they are these days. He reckoned they could be in and out in twenty minutes and half a million better off.’
Iris raised her eyes to the ceiling. She was trying to stay cool, to take it all in, but her mind was doing somersaults. ‘I take it things didn’t go exactly to plan?’
‘You could say that. It was a Saturday night and the Streets were supposed to be out. There was a charity do in Hackney, some boxing event, just an excuse for a piss-up really, but the local press were going to be there and Terry always liked having his face in the paper. It wasn’t Lizzie’s scene so she was at the Hope, keeping an eye on things. The boys were all sleeping over with mates. Terry dropped them off on his way, but Liam changed his mind at the last minute, decided he wanted to go to the boxing do instead. Anyway, something happened - Liam wasn’t feeling so good, I think - and Terry had to take him home. They turned up just in time to—’
‘Catch them in the act,’ Iris whispered.
/>
Michael gave a soft groan. ‘He was never the violent sort, love, you know that. Sean wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Iris felt her stomach shift. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He had no idea that Tyler was carrying.’
She jumped back in her seat. ‘Jesus! He had a gun?’
‘And Terry, having found a strange van parked up in his drive, walked in with a sawn-off. I don’t know where he got it; perhaps he always had one handy in the boot of his car. Tyler panicked, started firing, and the next thing Sean knew, the two of them - Terry and Liam - were both on the ground. Tyler scarpered pronto, but your dad tried to help. The kid was already dead, but he did all he could to save Terry. And he called an ambulance from the house phone before he left.’
‘He left him there?’ Iris said, her eyes widening.
‘He was scared, sweetheart. He was terrified. He did his best but . . . he didn’t know what else to do.’
Iris swallowed the rest of her drink and poured another. This was all too much to take in. The man Michael was talking about bore no relation to the father she remembered. That man had been sweet and gentle, full of love and affection. It was hard to reconcile him with this stranger who had broken into someone else’s house, witnessed a killing and abandoned a man who could have been dying.
Seeing the expression on her face, Michael reached out and covered her hand. ‘I swear he didn’t know about the shooter. But once it was done, there was no going back. He had to make a run for it.’
It was then she started to think about the terror her father must have felt, the horror. She swallowed hard. ‘So Terry must have seen him? He knew who was there that night, who killed his son?’
‘That’s why Sean had to take off; he had no other choice. If Terry pulled through, he was dead meat. And even if he didn’t make it, the cops had a recording of Sean’s voice from when he called 999. Basically, he was up shit creek without a paddle.’
‘So what did he do? Where did he go?’ Iris said.
Michael shook his head. ‘I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. If I was to take a wild guess, I’d say Ireland - plenty of quiet places there where you can keep your head down for a while. But I could be wrong. Tyler got on a plane and pissed off to Spain. Maybe your dad did the same.’
‘With what?’ she said. ‘I thought he was broke. I thought he didn’t have any . . .’ She stopped dead and stared at Michael. When she spoke again her voice was full of incredulity - and revulsion. ‘Ah, Christ,’ she murmured. ‘It was the money from the house, right? He’d just seen two people shot, seen a kid killed, but he still walked away with the cash.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Michael said.
‘So what was it like?’ she said, angry now. She couldn’t accept what her father had done. This was the man she had longed to see again, whose face she’d searched for in the street. That her own flesh and blood could commit such a callous act . . . She pulled her hand away from Michael’s. She felt like weeping.
‘It wasn’t that . . . planned,’ he insisted. ‘Everything happened so quickly. After he’d tried to help Terry, he . . . he just picked up the holdall again. He didn’t even think about it. It was only a few thousand.’ As soon as the comment had slipped from his mouth, Michael pulled a face, knowing it had been the wrong thing to say.
Iris raised her hand to her mouth and chewed on her knuckles. There were so many more questions to ask, but first she had to absorb all of this. Although what she needed was a clear head, she automatically took another drink. There was still part of her that was in denial, a part that wanted to blunt the sharp edges of what she was learning.
Michael had the sense to keep silent for a while.
Eventually, Iris looked at him again. ‘I want to know everything, ’ she said. ‘What happened next? He came to you, right?’
Michael furrowed his brow as if trying to recall the exact chain of events. ‘He called me about an hour later. By then I already had a fair idea of the amount of trouble he was in. I’d been at the Hope, having a drink with Lizzie, when the cops arrived. I could see that it was going to be bad news. They told her there had been a break-in, that . . . that Liam had been—’
‘And then?’ Iris interrupted, not wanting to hear that word killed again.
‘I put two and two together, didn’t I? I knew Sean had been out on a job, that he’d been doing over some house with Davey Tyler. I prayed it was a coincidence. Fuck, I prayed that it wasn’t the Streets’ place, but in my heart . . . well, I guess I knew. I went home and waited for him to call.’
Now Iris waited too, giving him time to get his thoughts together.
Michael cleared his throat. Like a drunk on the wagon, he gazed longingly at his glass, but didn’t take a drink. Perhaps, just for once, he felt the need to be sober. ‘When he called, I arranged to meet him at Bethnal Green Tube. I could tell from his voice what state he was in. He was at his wit’s end, love, completely desperate.’
Iris nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘I knew he was going to have to leave sharpish so I packed a bag for him. It was a change of clothes, nothing much, and a bit of cash in case he needed it.’
‘Which he didn’t,’ Iris said sarcastically.
Michael looked at her and shrugged. ‘Okay,’ he said understandingly, ‘I know how you must feel. This is a lot to take in, but what you have to remember is that your dad wasn’t a bad man. He made mistakes, Iris, big mistakes, but if he could have turned back the clock on that night he would.’
Iris flapped a hand, not wanting to hear any more about her father’s so-called conscience. ‘So what about Mum,’ she said. ‘When did she find out about all this?’
Michael frowned again, a deep wrinkling of his brow, as if that particular memory was still raw in his mind. ‘I went to see her straight after. I told her everything. She was . . . she was devastated, shell-shocked. I remember her sitting there and . . . that look in her eyes. It was as if all the light had suddenly gone out of them.’ He visibly shuddered and this time reached for his glass. He swallowed the whole of his drink and quickly poured another. ‘I told her she should leave, take you and get the hell out of there. It wasn’t the cops I was worried about so much as Terry’s men. If they caught a sniff of who’d been at the house they’d be straight round to see her.’
‘She must have been terrified,’ Iris said.
‘Yeah, she was. Of course she was.’
Iris shuddered. ‘So Dad couldn’t even talk to her himself? He couldn’t even bring himself to do that? He left you to do his dirty work.’
‘There wasn’t time,’ Michael sighed. ‘And anyway, he knew it was pointless. What he’d done - well, she was never going to forgive him. It was over between them, finished.’
‘And me?’ Iris couldn’t stop herself from asking. ‘Was he finished with me, too?’
‘Ah, love,’ he said softly, ‘that was the hardest thing he ever had to do, leaving you behind. You were his little girl. He loved the bones of you.’
Iris twisted the glass between her fingers. She felt like smashing it against the wall, throwing it on the floor. Her teeth were clenched tightly together. ‘But not enough to stay.’
‘Would you have preferred it if he’d put his hands up and admitted what he’d done? If he’d gone to court, got sent down?’
‘At least I’ve have got to see him,’ she said bitterly.
‘You don’t mean that.’
And he was right. She didn’t. Not really. How could she have wanted him to be locked behind bars? ‘But he could have found a way to stay in touch. It’s been nineteen years, Michael, without a single bloody word.’
‘That’s why I’m sure he can’t be alive. He’d never have done that to you - or to me.’
But Iris wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t sure of anything now. Half an hour ago she’d have sworn her father wasn’t capable of the kind of actions Michael had described. Her world had been turned upside down and she was starting to l
ook at things differently.
‘So,’ she said, ‘that’s when we left Kellston? That’s when Mum took me away?’
‘No, I couldn’t persuade Kathleen to leave that night. She was scared, but she was stubborn too. She said that if she ran, she’d look guilty, and she didn’t intend to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.’
Iris wondered if that had been a brave or stupid decision. What would she have done in the same position? It was a question she didn’t have an answer to.
‘Anyway,’ Michael continued, ‘it was another week before Terry Street was well enough to be able to talk to the cops. Not that he did - do much talking, I mean. Terry liked to sort things out his own way. He told them there had been a couple of guys in the house, but he hadn’t seen them clearly; it had been dark inside and it had all happened too fast.’
‘And they believed him?’
‘I doubt it,’ Michael said. ‘But what could they do? There weren’t any useful forensics, fingerprints or the like. So long as Terry stuck to his story, the cops could only make their own enquiries, start checking out the likely suspects and calling on their grasses for any interesting rumours that might be doing the rounds. Both Davey Tyler and Sean eventually got added to their list, but it was a bloody long list and they weren’t exactly at the top of it. Neither of them had a record for breaking into houses, and Terry Street had plenty of enemies.’ He paused, his eyes darting around the room. ‘It was over two weeks before they turned up on your mum’s doorstep, asking after Sean.’
‘What did she tell them?’
Michael took a while before answering. ‘What we’d agreed,’ he said. ‘That they’d split up a few days ago, that he was a useless good-for-nothing loser who’d taken off with some slapper. The neighbours could have told them otherwise, especially about the length of time he’d been missing - they couldn’t have seen him for over a fortnight - but they were never too fond of the filth. Anyhow, I don’t think any of them would’ve believed that Sean was involved.’
‘And the police accepted that?’
