Nothing But Lies

by Lyndon Stacey

  ‘With anyone else, I’d say it was the beer talking,’ Jo-Ji said. ‘But with you I feel strangely reassured. Ready for another?’

  ‘Too many more and it will be the beer talking,’ Daniel warned him. ‘OK. Just to keep you company.’

  It wasn’t until Wednesday morning that Daniel received an envelope from the General Records Office, containing the certificate he’d ordered.

  The certificate recorded the death of David Harrison Allen, aged eighty-five. Cause of death was listed as coronary thrombosis, and the informant one Richard Allen Cardew, of 23a Penny Marden Road, Bournemouth.

  ‘Bingo!’ Daniel said. ‘Ricky. At last, a stroke of luck.’

  ‘So now you know he exists and Boo Travers wasn’t lying, are you happy?’ Jo-Ji asked, looking over his shoulder.

  Tamiko, who was also in the kitchen, looked troubled. ‘Why did you think Boo was lying, Daniel? I thought you liked her?’

  ‘I kind of do, but even nice people sometimes make bad decisions, Tami. I thought she was hiding something – she still may be, which is why I’m going to Bournemouth this afternoon. You’ll be around today, won’t you, Joey?’

  Jo-Ji nodded.

  ‘Yeah. Day off, today. But what do you hope to find out by going to track down this guy? A love-child of Harrison Allen’s grandfather – I mean, how relevant is he likely to be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. ‘That’s why I’m going. But Tami apparently spoke to him that time. Come on, mate. You’re a cop, you know the drill. Chase down every lead – it’s the only way.’

  Daniel arrived in Bournemouth in the early afternoon and using the satnav he’d borrowed from Jo-Ji, quite quickly found himself driving down Penny Marden Road looking for number 23. Whoever Penny Marden had been, he reflected, looking at the unprepossessing properties that lined the street, he couldn’t feel that she would be overly honoured to be associated with it, if she could see it now. It may, at one time, have been pleasant enough, but the building style of the 1970s wasn’t one that improved with age, and now looked merely tired and rundown.

  Number 23 was no better than the rest. Bricks below, ugly boarding above from which the paint was peeling, and big, plain windows with metal frames. At the side of the building a metal stairway climbed up to a door at first-floor level and once Daniel had parked his car with two wheels on the pavement, as several others had, he saw 23a painted crudely on the side wall.

  A net curtain twitched in the window of one of the ground-floor rooms, and after Daniel had knocked without answer on the door of the upstairs flat, he gratified the watcher’s curiosity by ringing their front doorbell.

  The door opened a scant six inches on a security chain and a woman with implausibly red hair and eyes thickly lined with kohl peered through the gap.

  ‘If you’re looking for Ricky, he’s at work.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought he might be,’ Daniel said, roughening his voice a little. ‘Does he still work at the same place? Down at the er …’

  ‘Yeah, down the builder’s merchant.’

  Daniel looked down the road with narrowed eyes, then back at the woman, who had put a cigarette between her lips and now shifted a baby onto her visible hip, so that it also looked at Daniel. It had wispy dark hair that had been pulled onto the top of its head and secured with a bow, and a nose that badly needed wiping.

  ‘So, remind me, love, how do I get there from here? I usually come in from the Christchurch side,’ he said.

  ‘Hang about.’ The woman closed the door and removed the chain, stepping out onto the street next to Daniel in order to point up the road. She wore a spangly pink T-shirt over black leggings, with a pink pair of the ubiquitous Crocs on her feet. At some point in her past she had plucked her eyebrows into extinction and pencilled in two thin black lines instead. Removing the cigarette again, she said, ‘You go to the top and turn left by the kebab shop, then along to the end, past the pub to the main road. Turn left and it’s along there on the right. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ Daniel turned away.

  ‘Why don’t you came back here when you’ve seen Ricky?’ she called after him. ‘There’s only me and the kid here, mostly. I could do with a bit of company.’

  Daniel sketched a kind of salute, before settling back into the car.

  The redhead’s assertion that he couldn’t miss it might have been true if the directions she had given him had been accurate, but soon after the kebab shop, he realised that she had missed out at least one turning, and it was only by trial and error that he eventually found himself on the main road she had mentioned. From here, however, the builder’s merchant was easy to locate, being a branch of a well-known franchise.

  He parked in their car park and went through the door into the cool of the showroom beyond, where almost immediately an assistant in black jeans and a short-sleeved purple shirt asked him if he needed any help.

  ‘Er, yes, I’m after a really heavy-duty locking system for a gate,’ Daniel said, thinking on his feet.

  ‘All our bolts and padlocks are along here,’ the lad said, leading the way. ‘What sort of gate is it?’

  Daniel explained about the field gate and was shown a number of impressive locks, from which he selected one. He had noticed that, alongside the company logo, the lad had a name badge on his shirt, which said ‘Darren’. Short of wandering around the showroom until he’d seen all the employees’ badges, he was plainly going to have to take the direct approach.

  Putting his debit card into the machine at the desk, he asked casually, ‘Does my mate Ricky still work here? Ricky Cardew? I haven’t seen him in ages and thought we might catch up when he gets off.’

  ‘Yeah, Ricky. He’s out in the warehouse. Do you want me to page ’im?’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll find him on my way out – if that’s OK?’

  ‘Yeah. No problem,’ Darren said, handing him his receipt. ‘You can’t go in the warehouse, but go to the door and someone’ll find him for you. Have a nice day.’

  Daniel did as he had been told and an overweight teenager listened, shouted ‘Rickay!’ at the top of his voice and then shook his head and waddled off in search of him, hitching his trousers up, Canute fashion, as he went.

  Daniel waited on the threshold of the warehouse, thinking that he might treat Taz, at present waiting in the car, to a run along the beach when his business with Ricky was finished. He wondered which parts of the local coast, if any, might be dog-friendly at this time of the year, while he absent-mindedly watched the neat and efficient movements of the three or four forklift trucks he could see coming and going between the towering shelving and stacks of building supplies.

  After a minute or two, the young man with the trousers appeared from an aisle halfway up the warehouse and began to make his way back towards Daniel, who tried without success to make out from his expression what news he bore.

  It was because of this preoccupation that he didn’t immediately notice that one of the forklifts was not only coming towards him but directly at him, at its top speed of ten miles an hour. It wasn’t until the machine, which was carrying a substantial pallet-load of something shrink-wrapped in plastic, was fifteen feet away and blocking his view of the youngster, that Daniel realised the driver was aiming straight for him with no apparent intention of stopping.

  Someone shouted a warning, even as Daniel leapt swiftly to one side, caught his foot on something and stumbled backwards, sitting down abruptly. He was back on his feet in no time but was hindered in his instinctive move to follow the forklift by a concerned worker who had run across and now fussed round him, showering him with shocked apologies.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, I’m fine,’ Daniel said, pulling away. But it was already too late. Away across the tarmac, the driverless forklift truck was trundling to a halt as its erstwhile operator was racing, on foot, towards a line of parked vehicles that presumably constituted the staff car park.

  As he watched, debating whether or not to make
a run for his own car, Daniel saw the man jump on a bicycle and, pedalling furiously, disappear round the front of the main building, heading for the road. A massive, liveried lorry turned in, hiding him from view and with a sigh, Daniel gave up the idea of trying to follow. Even if the cyclist were still in sight by the time he reached the main road, it would be easy enough for him to disappear into a footpath or alleyway too small for Daniel, in his car, to negotiate. Besides, he only wanted to talk to the man, he wasn’t trying to arrest a wanted criminal. Which begged the question, why had Ricky reacted in such an extreme manner to Daniel’s presence?

  ‘I’m really sorry, sir,’ an assistant wearing a supervisor’s badge was saying. ‘I really don’t know what that was about. He’ll be up before the boss when he shows his face back here, I can tell you. That’s if he does.’

  ‘No, really. Not on my account,’ Daniel said. ‘He must have thought I was someone else. I’m fine. I’ll catch up with him another day. But if he comes back before I see him, please tell him I’m a friend of the family. He’s not in any trouble.’

  The supervisor repeated his assertion that such behaviour couldn’t be allowed to go unpunished, so Daniel waved a hand and walked away carrying his purchase, leaving the warehouse workforce fairly humming with speculation. The incident would be the topic of the week, he guessed.

  He was just unlocking his car when a voice said hesitantly from behind him, ‘’E wouldn’t mean to ’urt you, Ricky wouldn’t.’

  Daniel turned and raised an eyebrow. A thin, gaunt-faced lad with spots stood twisting an oily cloth between his hands. His badge labelled him as Neil.

  ‘Don’t be ’ard on ’im – when you find ’im, I mean. Darren paged ’im to warn ’im you was comin’, see? An’ I reckon Ricky thought you was a repo man. That’s why ’e ran.’

  ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

  The lad nodded. ‘I’m new ’ere an’ ’ees bin good to me. The others, they can be mean sometimes. But Ricky’s nice.’

  ‘OK, Neil. Thanks for telling me,’ Daniel said. ‘And look, if I don’t catch up with him today, tell him I’m not a debt collector. I just want to talk to him. Family stuff – no trouble. Will you do that for me?’

  Neil scratched his chin with none-to-clean fingernails and nodded.

  Unwilling to go to the trouble of coming back another day, as he’d suggested he might, Daniel decided to drive back to Penny Marden Road and see if Ricky eventually turned up there.

  With the redheaded curtain twitcher in mind, he parked several doors further down the street and with words of apology to Taz, who was by now heartily fed up with the whole outing, settled down to wait, sipping a takeaway coffee that he’d had the forethought to purchase on the way back.

  The coffee was long gone and Daniel’s patience had almost followed it, by the time his quarry finally put in an appearance.

  Riding his bicycle up the street, he stopped on the opposite side to his flat and scanned the building, giving Daniel the opportunity to observe him for the first time. His age was the biggest surprise. With David Allen having passed away seven years previously at the age of eighty-five, he had expected Ricky to be closer in age to his father’s legitimate children, Boo and Steven, who were in their mid to late forties. The man on the bike he estimated to be nearer his own age – certainly closer to thirty than forty.

  From his imperfect vantage point, Daniel couldn’t tell if he favoured his half-brother and -sister, but he could see that he was of average height and had dark hair, receding at the temples. At some point he’d changed out of his purple warehouse overalls and now wore stonewashed jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, perhaps to make himself less recognisable to the ‘repo men’.

  Apparently satisfied after peering across the street for a moment or two, Ricky got off the bike and wheeled it across to the bottom of the steps, where he hoisted it onto his shoulder and started to climb.

  Daniel let himself out of his car and praying that Taz would behave after his long incarceration, opened the back and hissed, ‘Heel!’ at him.

  Taz launched himself from the car, totally ignored his command and proceeded to relieve himself against a lamppost for ten long seconds.

  Daniel felt guilty. ‘Oh, sorry, mate,’ he muttered.

  Partially hidden from Number 23a by the car, he looked to see if Ricky had reached his front door. It would be a great deal harder, he imagined, to persuade him to talk once he attained the relative security of his flat.

  However, fate was on his side, for once. Ricky’s redheaded neighbour had emerged from her ground-floor flat and was even now standing at the foot of the outside stairs, engaging him in a conversation that Daniel imagined probably revolved around a description of his own earlier visit. The baby with the snotty nose was nowhere to be seen.

  Calling Taz to heel once more, he began to saunter up the pavement, for all the world as if he was merely out for an evening stroll, and because Ricky hadn’t had a decent look at him at the warehouse and the redhead had her pink-clad back to him, he was able to get level with the house before either of them noticed him.

  He stopped and said in a clear voice, ‘Boo Travers sent me.’

  The redhead nearly jumped out of her pink spangles. She turned, saw Taz and screamed, flattening herself against the wall at the foot of the stairs.

  Taz joined in the fun, producing the most blood-curdling growl in his repertoire until Daniel told him to shut up. At his stern words, the redhead stopped screaming and whimpered. Taz did as he was told but kept her under strict surveillance.

  Ricky, who had stopped halfway up the steps, retreated to the top and lifted his bicycle above his head, as if preparing to throw it down on Daniel’s head.

  He put a hand up to halt him. ‘Ricky, don’t! I’m not a repo man, I promise. I’m a friend of Boo’s. She’s your sister, right?’

  ‘Half,’ Ricky said, keeping the bike where it was. ‘Half-sister. What do you want? She didn’t send you. She doesn’t talk to me, none of them do.’

  ‘It’d be a shame to smash up your bike for nothing,’ Daniel went on. ‘I only want to talk. It won’t take a minute. Come on, put the bike down. Even if you threw it, the dog could get to you before you got the door open.’

  Slowly, Ricky lowered the bicycle.

  Taz, who had been dividing his attention between the redhead and the man at the top of the steps, decided to concentrate on the woman again, and licked his lips.

  ‘He’s a bit funny about pink,’ Daniel said wickedly, and the woman raised wide eyes to his face for a moment before looking back at the dog. ‘Tell you what, I’ll hold his collar while you get back inside, if you like,’ he offered.

  In less than ten seconds, the door slammed shut behind her.

  ‘I wish I could get rid of her that easily,’ Ricky said with the beginnings of a smile. His voice was a great deal more educated than his surroundings would have suggested it would be.

  ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t think we needed her,’ Daniel told him with a friendly wink. ‘Look, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions, that’s all, and you’ve answered one of them already. I won’t go into details but I saw your sister with someone who she claimed was you but I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to check.’

  ‘Sure it wasn’t Steven, her real brother?’

  ‘He’s in Australia, apparently.’

  Ricky shrugged. ‘Don’t know then, but it wasn’t me, for sure. They might have forgiven Dad his lapse – on the surface, at least – but they’ve never forgiven me for being born, even though it was me who gave up university and looked after him when he was getting old and unable to cope. They rarely came near him in the last few years, except sometimes on birthdays and Christmases, but he was still going to leave them his money. I was supposed to have the house but in the end, after the care bills and the nursing home and such, there wasn’t much left of anything. They blamed me for that, too. I think they thought I’d taken it or something.’ He shrugged again, the bitterness plain
to see. ‘To be fair, I always thought it was Steven more than Boo. He always was a selfish bastard! Anyway, I haven’t seen either of them since Dad’s funeral.’

  ‘Thanks for that. Sorry I gave you a fright.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have driven at you earlier, but I panicked. I suppose I’ll have to start looking for another job, now.’

  ‘I’ll ring your boss and try and make it right,’ Daniel promised, but Ricky wasn’t hopeful.

  ‘It’s all health and safety, these days, and I broke just about every rule in the book today. Bill, my supervisor, won’t let it go. He’s never liked me. It sounds crazy but it’s like he’s got an inferiority complex and I think he feels threatened by me.’

  ‘Because of your education?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. But I don’t want his bloody job, anyway. I was only there ’cos I couldn’t find anything else.’

  ‘What were you reading at uni?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Law,’ Ricky said. ‘Took after Dad, I suppose. Can’t afford to go back now though.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve buggered up your job,’ Daniel said, genuinely so.

  ‘S’OK. I was bored out of my mind, anyway. It’s just … well …’

  ‘You needed the money.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s a long story. Look, if you don’t mind, I’m doing a shift at the pub, later …’

  Daniel took a card from his back pocket and held it up. ‘My number’s on here. Give me a ring in a week or two, if things get bad. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll put some feelers out, OK?’

  Ricky didn’t move, it seemed he still didn’t totally trust Daniel or maybe it was the dog, who was gazing up at him in that disconcerting way that German shepherds have.

  ‘I’ll leave it here,’ Daniel said, wedging the card behind the bracket for a light fitting on the wall just above his head. ‘Good luck, mate.’

  He called Taz to heel and turned away.

  Ricky called after him. ‘Was that true – about the pink, I mean?’

  ‘Nah,’ Daniel looked back with a smile. ‘I made it up. He’s pretty much colour-blind anyway.’