by PJ Adams
“Times change, Reuben,” I said. I was well out of it now, particularly from what Reuben seemed to feel the need to share with me that night.
“We used to know where we stood,” he said.
“And how fucking dull would that be, eh?”
“Sometimes dull is good.”
“Whatever.”
I’d been walking upstairs as we talked, onto the main landing, up another flight until now I pushed at the door and stepped into the attic room, my sanctuary. Somewhere in the distance I could see the lights of a boat, out on the North Sea.
“So what is it, Reuben? Why you calling me like this? Don’t get me wrong, it’s sweet to hear your little voice, but... well... it’s not us, is it? We don’t do this.”
“How long you been there? Wherever ‘there’ is?”
I couldn’t tell if he was pretending he didn’t know where I was or not; I’d covered my tracks, but I hadn’t exactly gone far to hide myself away. I didn’t think he was digging.
“What... four months, maybe?” I said. My life had changed completely in that time; it felt much longer. “And no, I don’t miss the old life. Not at all.”
I knew where he was going. That day when I’d left London, we’d shaken hands and he’d told me I’d be back within a month, I’d never take the boredom.
Strange thing was, he was wrong. Just me and the sea, the seals and fossils and cliffs that looked like they’d had great chunks bitten out of them and then spat out on the beach... It wasn’t exactly a happy existence, but I’d managed to avoid boredom, at least.
“You should come back, Owen. The place misses you. We need you to bring these upstarts into line again.”
He actually meant it.
“You know that’s not going to happen, Reuben. You can’t turn back the clock.”
“The place ain’t the same without the Bailey Boys keeping the order.”
“The old-school London firms are history, Reuben. You and I both know that. This is a brave and shitty new world and you just have to soak it up.”
“You can’t hide forever, man. You know that.”
He didn’t have to say that out loud.
“You killed one of theirs. One day they’ll come for you.”
“I did them a favor,” I told him. “You know what they’re like, fighting among themselves. Me taking out Putin and then clearing off just made it easy for them. They owe me a fucking medal.” Say that often enough and I might even start to believe it.
Silence, then: “The two Russians left running things, they’re at each other’s throats without Putin to keep the peace. The place is a mess – you just don’t know what they’re going to do next.” Another pause, then Reuben added, “You should be back here, where you belong. You’re missed.”
“I’m flattered, Reuben. Really I am.”
And I was. It’s not every day the cops beg you to come out of retirement, after all.
4
Today Owen Bailey was in an even darker mood than usual, and the weather had chosen to match it. Maggie had walked along the cliff path from the town of Tidingham, her hair whipping around her face. It was a 45-minute walk, but cheaper than the irregular bus service along the coast road and she liked the wildness.
The house appeared as a dark block against a steel gray sky, rain slanting down as she paused to gather her hair into a ponytail. She saw him up at the attic window, dark clothes and pale face, staring out to sea.
When she got inside and shucked her coat, she did a quick tour of the ground floor. He hadn’t done much to the house last night, which was unusual.
It was funny the way they operated, the unspoken switch-over where she could leave a job half-done and he would automatically pick it up and finish, and come the morning she would do the same with anything he had left to be completed.
Today, she saw that he’d started to paint the woodwork up the main stairs, but he’d only got partway before giving up for the night. Maybe he hadn’t been in the mood, or maybe he’d been interrupted – she didn’t know of the house’s comings and goings when she was not here, although she’d be surprised if he ever had any house guests. He seemed to lead such an isolated existence, a monk or a hermit undergoing some kind of penitence.
She found the paint, the brush he’d covered in plastic wrap to stop it drying out, settled herself partway up the stairs and began to paint, doing her best to match his meticulous brushstrokes. She always worried that the differences would show, the contrast between his careful work and her own, less refined finishing.
She’d come here to clean, and to dig, to see if this man who went by the name of ‘Owen Butcher’ to the outside world was really the oldest of the Bailey Boys, the man responsible for so much violence in his previous life.
And now... now she found herself caring about the details. The finish of her painting, the hang of the curtains, the alignment of wallpaper. Losing herself in those details, perhaps. She liked to get things right.
Mid-morning, he went out, brushing past her on the stairs and then stopping at the bottom, turning as if to apologize but not doing so.
Maggie smiled, faltered, then said, “Everything is okay?”
He opened his mouth, but said nothing, just closed it again, nodded, and turned away. Seconds later a gust of wind rushed in and then the door thudded shut.
She knew that if she went to one of the north-facing windows she would see him out there, following the cliff path, occasionally stopping at the edge to look down. As if he was looking or waiting for something. Fate, perhaps.
She turned back to the painting. She had almost reached the top of the stairs.
§
She was in the kitchen washing brushes in the Belfast sink when he returned.
His mood seemed to have lifted a little. He dropped a fresh pod into the coffee machine and set it going, then turned to the fridge.
Maggie had never seen so many boxes in a fridge outside a supermarket. She watched as he fished out one that claimed to be authentic Italian spaghetti carbonara, then stepped over and put a hand on his arm. “I cook, yes?”
He didn’t quite snatch his arm away, but she felt the muscles twitch. He peered at her.
“I make my lunch,” she said. “I make enough for two. No trouble.”
She stepped away, went over to where she’d left her shoulder bag, found eggs, onion, cheese, sour cream. As she diced the onion and set it to soften in a little butter, she was aware of him watching her.
She hadn’t thought it through, didn’t consider it strange to be doing this. She always brought her own food – it was much cheaper and healthier that way – but she had never cooked before him, let alone for him.
When she glanced up he was smiling. At least she thought it was a smile.
“We call it kiaušinienė,” she told him. “My mother, she teach me.”
“Did she teach you how to wire a house, too?”
“Yes.”
He opened his mouth to say something more, but then stopped.
She mixed the eggs and sour cream, added a little flour from a plastic pot she carried, and poured them into the pan, stirring the onions through.
“That bag of yours,” Owen said now. “You’re like Mary Poppins. You know what I mean?”
She left a gap for him to continue.
“Old film. Julie Andrews played a nanny. Had a bag that had everything in it: shoes, clothes, a magic tape measure that showed how the children measured up, a mirror, a pot plant, a hat stand...”
“You kidding me.” She laughed, not so much at the story but at the fact that a man like Owen had such clear recall of a childhood movie.
They both laughed now, perhaps the first time they had laughed together – this was one of the few times they had shared the same space for more than a minute or two.
He nodded at the pan, its contents starting to thicken. “That... what did you call it?”
“Kiaušinienė.”
“Yeah, that. In English it’
s an omelet. Kind of.”
She added slivers of cheese and let them soften, before folding the omelet, dividing it into halves and sliding them onto plates.
Handing one plate to Owen, she hesitated, another moment of awkwardness as she tried to work out whether it would be appropriate to sit at the big kitchen table with her aloof employer or not.
She sat, and a second later he did, too.
“Your mother,” he said. “Sounds like quite a lady. I knew a few like that back in Poplar.”
“Poplar?”
“London. East End.”
If he was hiding here, he was not trying very hard.
“What does your family think of you coming over here? Your mother?”
“She died.”
“Oh.”
“Some years ago. She was not well, and then...”
“Sorry. What about your old man? Your father?”
“He died... more recently.”
Owen shook his head. “Light conversation over lunch, eh? Sorry. Again.”
“My brother, he travels, so there is nobody else. So I decide to travel, too. Come here to England.”
“You need to hang onto whatever you have. Family.” He looked down at his plate when Maggie’s eyes tried to find his. Then, when she thought he had fallen silent, those dark eyes flipped up and fixed on her, and he said, “I know what it’s like to lose them. My mother died a few years back, too. My old man’s locked away in prison, has been for years. My brothers – two of them – we used to be real close. Did everything together. I looked out for them when our mum passed on. The old man was already locked up by then, so it was just the three of us. I always kept an eye on them, always knew what was going on.”
“Not now?”
“I fucked up.”
Silence again, looking down at his plate.
“You don’t want to fuck up family,” he said finally. “If you lose them you’ve got nothing else.”
“Can you talk with them?”
“I double-crossed them. Thought I was doing them a favor but I wasn’t. They’re not even in the country any more. Haven’t seen them in months.”
“Can you call them on the...?” She mimed a telephone held to her ear.
He looked down at his plate, and this time the silence drew itself out.
5
I sat alone in the attic room, in the deep easy chair to one side of the Blüthner.
I’d had an entire stretch of roof removed to accommodate these wide picture windows. Today the view was gray upon gray upon gray. The day had started wild and deteriorated; the sky the color of scrubbed steel, the sea dark slate, all color drained from the vegetation along the top of the cliffs.
I cradled my cellphone in my lap, the screen blank, awaiting my attention.
Maggie had been right. I should reach out to Dean and Lee. Try to recover at least a fraction of what we’d had. Talking to Reuben last night had only underlined that: he was pretty much family and even that tentative, awkward exchange had been enough to remind me of what my life had once been. The family – immediate and extended – I’d lost.
I should call them.
If you lose them you’ve got nothing else.
Had Maggie said that, or had I?
Whatever, it was true.
I picked up the phone for the hundredth time, and thumbed ‘Recents’. Reuben was top of the incoming numbers, then Fearless Lloyd was listed as the most recent call out. I tapped his name and the screen switched to ‘Dialing’.
He’d always been ‘Uncle Fearless’ to us when we were growing up.
Nobody knew if ‘Fearless’ was a nickname or if he’d actually been christened with it, but equally nobody knew him by any other name. Back in the day he’d been a fixture of the East End, a big slab of a man with ebony skin, fists full of chunky gold rings and a neck weighed down with equally heavy gold chains. My old man’s partner in crime and mischief, his enforcer and clearer up, the perfect foil to Dad’s spiky energy. You couldn’t have made him up.
He’d left the country when the old man got nicked back in the late ’90s, resurfacing on Spain’s Costa del Crime some time later, just as my two kid brothers had done earlier this year when the heat had got too much after our little Russian stand-off.
“Hey, Fearless.”
“Owen? That you? Good to hear from you, man. So how’s things? Any word from Eddie?”
Eddie Bailey. My old man. Fearless always asked after him, even though he probably had more contact with him than I did these days.
“He’s good, Fearless. He’s good. So how are things down in Puerto Libre? How are those two reprobate brothers of mine?”
“They’re good.”
It had come to this. Banality. Platitudes. The conversation I’d had with Maggie over lunch was the closest to a real exchange I’d had in weeks. Even Fearless was treading softly around me.
“You keeping an eye out for them like you promised?” The kids might not be talking with me these days, but I could never shake off that role I’d taken on when the old man was locked away, even if I had to do it through a proxy for now.
“’Course I am, boy. What do you take me for?”
“So what’s been happening?”
“Oh, this and that.” A slight hesitation and then: “Lee wants back in the game. He’s doing a bit of work here on the Costa. I’m holding his hand, making sure he doesn’t get involved with the wrong sorts.”
I remembered Reuben telling me I could never stay out of the business for long. The same was true for Dean and Lee: they’d made it out of the country with a nice little nest egg and the opportunity to make a clean break, but it was a slippery slope. We’d only ever known the one life. We were the Bailey Boys. There was good reason why everyone around us could never believe it when we said we were getting out of the game.
“He okay?”
“Sure he is.”
“And you’re keeping an eye out?”
“I am. We’re family, right?”
A pretty strange, mixed-up, torn-apart fucking family, but yes: we were family.
“Is he still seeing that Imelda?”
“Oh yes. Head over fucking heels. Smitten.”
“What about Dean and Jess?”
“They’re doing well. Lovely little place down the coast at San Pedro. Spot of bother with a protection racket but Lee helped sort that out. I didn’t believe it when they showed up here back in the summer and Dean said he was making a fresh start. A clean start. But so far...”
So maybe it was possible. Retiring from the game. Stepping away. Maybe.
“You’re on it?”
“I’m on it.” That deep, gravelly voice was as reassuring as it was possible to be.
“What about you, kid?” Fearless went on. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay.”
Why was it that if I was sat in a bar with Fearless the two of us would talk until the early hours? Old stories and reminiscences, random discussions sparked by what was going on around us, all kinds of speculations and gossip. And yet put us either end of a telephone and it was stilted, circumscribed by what needed to be said and not going far beyond.
“You should come down here, son. Get a bit of sunshine. Talk to your brothers. You might actually like it down here.”
“Maybe one day.”
“Yeah. Maybe one day.” He knew I was bullshitting him.
“You take care, Fearless, you hear?”
“One day, son, you hear me? One day I’ll get you down here and we’ll sit on the terrace overlooking the sea and we’ll line ’em up and it’ll be like old times. You promise me that? Once you’ve got through whatever it is you’re getting through right now.”
“One day, Fearless.”
“Just don’t leave it too long, okay?”
6
She listened in.
She’d never done anything like this before. The skulking around. The hovering outside closed doors, fearful that every slight movement mig
ht betray her with the creak of a floorboard, that she might be standing there with her ear to the door when it swung open and he would be standing there.
How would you explain a thing like that? Would a man like Owen Bailey even give you the chance?
But today she’d felt compelled to dig further... Today he had come as close as ever before to telling her about himself, to dropping the flimsy – and rather macabre – façade of ‘Owen Butcher’ and confirming his true identity. He’d revealed some of his past – life in Poplar, the dead mother, the father in jail, the two brothers. It all fit.
She’d meant it when she told him he should call his brothers, talk to them again. But also... there was a guile in her words that surprised her. When he’d retreated to the attic room, clutching his cellphone in one hand, she had found a reason to be working on the upper floor. From there it was easy to slip up the next flight of stairs, and pause by the door at the point where she’d paused the day before when she’d realized it was the perfect place to hear what went on in the attic room.
He was talking – she could just about hear one side of a telephone conversation.
At first she thought he must have taken her advice and called one of his brothers, but then she worked out he was talking about his brothers, not to them.
She couldn’t work him out. The way he hid from the world. The way he waited.
Something had happened, something that had torn his previously close family apart.
Everything about him and his life here was a sense of limbo. Whatever happened, he would not be living this life in six months, a year.
He was a puzzle, for her to work out.
She returned to the top of the main staircase, stooped to gather a bundle of dustsheets they’d used to protect the finished woodwork on this level, and when she stood and turned he was there, studying her. She clutched the bundle to her chest, as if it might protect her. Had he heard her on the stairs outside his room? Did he know she had been eavesdropping?
“I–”
“You were right,” he said, interrupting her. “Family. You need to hang on to what you have, don’t you?”
“I...” She shrugged. “I guess.”
