‘So, Lee,’ Jimmy said, taking a sip of his lager, ‘you’ve got some information about Milly?’ They weren’t there to make friends.
‘I have, Mr Tucker,’ Lee replied. There was a long pause during which neither of them said anything. It was Jimmy who eventually broke the silence.
‘You want to tell me what you know, then?’
‘Sure,’ the other man said. He leaned forward and continued, almost in a whisper. ‘Thing is, I was kind of hoping you could help me out a bit.’
Jimmy put his elbows on the table, barely able to believe what Lee had just said.
‘You serious?’ Jimmy asked.
‘I need some help, Mr Tucker,’ Lee replied, ‘so I was hoping you might see me right. That’s all.’
‘Money?’
‘Yeah. How about it?’
‘How about you tell me what you know, and you’ll get to walk out of here with your face intact?’ Jimmy let a smile play across his face. It was a well-practised look. One which said that although he was smiling, he was being very serious. ‘How about that?’ He watched as Lee glanced nervously around the now almost deserted pub. ‘There’s no one in here that can help you.’
The two men sat in silence. Jimmy reached for his glass and watched as Lee flinched at the movement. The young man was way out of his depth, and to his surprise, Jimmy felt the irritation at his request for help soften. Even though Lee’s clothes were old, unwashed, and threadbare, it still looked as if he’d made an effort for the meeting. Jimmy wasn’t exactly a ‘face’ on the estate, but Lee had to be desperate to try to roll him for some cash.
‘Where do you live?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Piling Park, same as you.’
‘Where?’ When Lee told him the name of the road he lived on, Jimmy hid a grimace. There was a definite pecking order to the streets on the estate, and the one Lee lived on was right at the bottom. The vast majority of people that lived in that part of the estate were junkies, and Jimmy was fairly sure that Lee didn’t fit into that category. Which had to make living in that street challenging.
’Are you working?’
‘No,’ Lee replied. ‘I got laid off a couple of months ago.’ Jimmy watched as the other man took a sip from his drink. ‘I’ve got an interview next week, but if I don’t pay the rent on my bedsit this month, then I’m out on my ear.’
‘Right,’ Jimmy said. ‘Who’s the interview with?’
‘The council. They need a caretaker, and I’m pretty good with my hands.’
Jimmy drained his pint, wondering whether to tell Lee that there’d be a vacancy on the bins in a couple of months’ time.
’Drink up, fella.’ Jimmy nodded at Lee’s half-empty glass. ‘Then let’s start again.’
‘So, where were we?’ Jimmy said a few moments later, placing two full pint glasses on the table. ‘I think you were about to tell me about Milly, weren’t you?’ Lee looked at him, his face glum, and nodded. ‘And if what you tell me is useful, then I might be able to help you out with your rent situation a small bit.’
‘Okay,’ Lee replied, his face brightening. ‘Yeah, sure.’
For the next ten minutes, Lee told Jimmy about his previous job. The one he’d been laid off from. He’d been working in a coffee shop in the centre of the city, in what used to be the banking district but was now full of estate agents, hotels, and coffee shops. Too many coffee shops for Lee’s to keep going. It had been a Sunday night, and Lee was just closing up the coffee shop for the evening.
‘That’s when I saw her,’ Lee said. ‘Milly.’
‘Where, exactly?’
‘She was getting out of a car over the other side of the road. Outside the Royal.’
‘And you’re sure it was her?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Certain.’
‘How do you know her?’
‘I was at school with her.’ Jimmy looked at Lee again. He looked a couple of years older than Milly, but perhaps Jimmy was wrong. ‘I didn’t really know her at school, but I knew who she was. If that makes sense?’ Jimmy wasn’t sure that it did make sense to him, but he didn’t press it.
‘Did you speak to her?’
‘No, I just saw her getting out of the car. Big black thing it was, one of those limousines.’ Lee struggled over the word limousine. ‘She was all dressed up in a posh dress, like for a proper night out. I only saw her for a few seconds, but it was definitely her.’
‘How'd you know?’
‘What, that it was her?’
‘Yeah,’ Jimmy replied. ‘You just said you didn’t really know her, but you still recognised her from a fleeting glimpse. At night, through a coffee shop window.’
Lee looked at Jimmy for a few seconds, as if he was deciding exactly what to say.
‘I, um, I used to like her.’
‘Did you two go out?’
‘No, no,’ Lee replied, shaking his head quickly. ‘It was never like that. I never even spoke to her, to be honest. I just liked her. A lot.’ Jimmy thought back to when he was at school. It was a long time ago, but he still remembered what it was like. He raised his glass and drained it.
‘Is there anything else?’ Jimmy asked, picking up the empty glasses.
‘Nope, not really,’ Lee replied. Jimmy got to his feet and walked to the bar to retrieve Milly’s phone and return the empties. As he waited for Joe to finish serving a customer, he thought about Lee’s awkward attempt to ask for money. In exchange for scant information about a fleeting glimpse of Milly—a girl he’d never even spoken to.
‘There you go, mate,’ Big Joe interrupted Jimmy’s thoughts by putting the phone on the bar in front of him. ‘I think it’s got enough juice to use. Haven’t you got an iPad?’
‘Er, yeah,’ Jimmy replied, not sure where Joe was going.
‘You know it’s the same charger, don’t you? Good job you never finished that college course, mate. You’d have made a shit electrician.’
Feeling foolish, Jimmy walked back over to where Lee was standing by their table waiting for him. He’d laughed off Joe’s comment about the charger but felt stupid at the same time.
‘Come on, Lee,’ Jimmy said, shrugging his shoulders into his coat. ‘I need to pop to the cashpoint.’
The two men walked in silence to the bank over the road from the pub, Lee hanging back a couple of feet from Jimmy. When Jimmy had put his card into the machine and entered his PIN, he turned to Lee.
‘How much is your rent?’ When Lee told him, Jimmy grimaced. That was a lot for a bedsit in one of the shittiest streets in Norwich, but Jimmy doubled the amount and entered it on the keypad. As he handed Lee the cash, Jimmy continued. ‘Put that away nice and safe, pay your rent for the month and buy some decent clothes.’ He put his hand out and squeezed Lee’s shoulder. A young man who’d never had the courage to speak to a girl he liked. ‘Get yourself a decent suit for that interview. You hear me?’
They shook hands and went their separate ways. Jimmy lived at the top end of the estate, while Lee was at the bottom. Jimmy didn’t particularly want to walk with him, anyway. He had things to think about.
Jimmy was only a couple of hundred yards away from the pub and just into the estate itself, when he heard running feet behind him. He turned, but not quickly enough to avoid the baseball bat that was coming toward his head.
Chapter 18
Jimmy raised his arm as quickly as he could. Not quickly enough to deflect the blow completely, but enough to make sure he didn’t get hit at full force around the head. The beer in his stomach didn’t help with his reflexes, and the baseball bat clattered off his forearm and caught him a glancing blow above his ear. He felt the skin split and was distracted enough by the instant pain that he couldn’t deal with the return blow.
The bat caught Jimmy on the other side of his head. It wasn’t as powerful as the first one would have been if it had connected properly, but it was hard enough to put him on his back on the pavement. He rolled onto his front and pushed down with his forearms to try t
o get back to his feet when a hard boot caught him in the stomach. Jimmy retched and then opened his mouth to vomit on the ground. As he tried to catch his breath, he felt a pair of hands patting him down.
‘Not so funny now, is it Grandad,’ a nasal-sounding voice said. Jimmy tried to look at his assailant, but couldn’t see anything beyond a hooded silhouette. He felt his wallet slip out of one trouser pocket, before a hand reached into the other one and removed Milly’s phone. ‘Nice, thanks for that.’ Jimmy retched again, and as he did so he reached out a hand and grabbed his attacker around the ankle. He was going to pull the other man off balance and down onto the pavement with him.
‘Hey! Hey!’ a booming voice echoed down the street. Jimmy glanced in the direction the voice had come from to see Big Joe thundering down the pavement, fists clenched and pumping hard. Jimmy tightened his grip on the ankle and received a further kick in the ribs for his trouble. His fingers loosened involuntarily, and by the time Big Joe arrived, the mugger was fifty yards away and sprinting hard into the darkness of the estate. ‘Fuck’s sake, Jimmy,’ Joe gasped, breathing hard. ‘You okay?’
Jimmy rolled himself into a seated position, away from the puddle of vomit. He put his hand to the side of his head and wasn’t surprised when it came away covered in blood.
‘Little bastard,’ Jimmy said. ‘He’s got Milly’s phone.’
‘Can you stand? Do you want me to get an ambulance?’
‘No, just help me up would you?’
Joe reached down and grabbed Jimmy under his armpit, steadying him as he got to his feet.
‘Hit them hard, hit them first,’ Jimmy said as he stood for a second. ‘But I’ve never kicked a man when he’s down.’
‘Come on, fella,’ Joe said. ‘Let’s get you back to the pub.’
As they walked back down the road to the Heartsease, several curtains twitched closed as they walked past the darkened houses. It wasn’t the sort of street where people got involved. About half-way back to the pub, they met Lee who was standing underneath one of the few working streetlights.
‘He come running in,’ Joe said, nodding at Lee. ‘Said you were being done over.’ Jimmy looked at the frightened young man, who didn’t look as if he’d ever been in a fight in his life. Even if Lee had tried to help, getting Big Joe—who could roll with the best of them once he finally arrived at a ruck—was probably the smart thing to do.
‘Thanks,’ Jimmy mumbled, spitting out a glob of phlegm onto the pavement.
‘I mean, I wasn’t sure what else to do,’ Lee said, his voice quick. ‘The Old Bill would take ages, if they bothered to turn up at all.’
‘You did the right thing, son,’ Joe replied. ‘You coming in for a drink?’
‘No, I’m good, thanks. I’d better get going.’
‘Next time you come in, mate,’ Joe said, ‘I’ll sort you out, yeah?’
‘Okay, thanks.’
As Lee wandered off into the gloom of the estate, Jimmy and Joe made their way over the road to the Heartsease. The door to the pub was wide open, but few of the locals would think about popping in while Joe was out.
Joe held Jimmy’s arm to steady him as he made his way into the pub. Once Jimmy was inside, Joe shut the door behind them and turned to face him.
‘Let me have a look at your head, mate,’ he said, gently tugging at Jimmy’s hand which he had clasped to the side of his head. Jimmy winced as Joe tilted his head to one side to get the area he wanted to look at into the light. ‘That cut looks nasty, fella,’ Joe said. ‘He caught you a good one.’
‘Joe,’ Jimmy said in an unsteady voice. ‘I need to sit down.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Joe said, sounding like Jimmy’s mother used to when he’d fallen off a swing and scraped his knee. He led Jimmy over to the same seat that he’d been sitting in earlier when he was talking to Lee. ‘You okay sitting? Or do you want to lie down?’
Jimmy took a seat at the table and pressed at the side of his head opposite to the cut. A soft egg was forming a couple of inches above his ear. He pressed it with a finger and then wished he hadn’t as a wave of nausea rolled across him. Joe turned on his heel and made his way behind the bar, picking up a tumbler and emptying a generous measure of whisky into it. Jimmy watched him while he waited for the nausea to subside.
‘I don’t really want a drink, Joe,’ Jimmy called to his friend.
‘It’s not for you, mate,’ Joe replied. ‘It’s for me.’ He lifted the glass to his mouth. ‘I’ve not run that fast since I beat you in the hundred metres on sports day.’ Despite the situation, Jimmy smiled. Even though that race had been almost fifty years ago, Joe still would not let him forget it. Joe took a large slug from the glass, exhaled loudly, and then took another one.
Jimmy untucked his shirt and ran his fingers up his abdomen to the area where his assailant had kicked him. He prodded at his ribs, which were as sore as anything, but he didn’t think anything was broken. He took a deep breath, which didn’t make the pain any worse, but it did make him start to wheeze. He coughed and then coughed again. The coughing was rewarded by a sharp stabbing pain in the back of his head, and the words of the doctor at the hospital flooded back to him.
‘I’m going to call Robbie,’ Joe said, his phone already in his hand. Jimmy tried to speak, but he couldn’t catch his breath properly. While he fished in his coat pockets for a tissue to mop up the blood on the side of his head, he could hear Joe talking on the phone. Jimmy took a deep breath and pressed the tissue to his mouth before coughing as gently as he could.
‘He says he’ll be here in fifteen minutes,’ Joe said as he walked over to join Jimmy. ‘What’s that, mate?’ Jimmy looked aghast at the tissue in his hand, and the fluid seeping into the soft paper. ‘Is that blood?’
‘He booted me in the ribs while I was down,’ Jimmy explained, folding the tissue paper into a tight wad and stuffing it back into his pocket. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Right, I’m calling an ambulance,’ Joe said. ‘That’s not nothing. That’s like, internal bleeding or something.’
‘Joe,’ Jimmy half got to his feet and put his hand on his friend’s forearm. ‘Trust me, it’s nothing. I don’t need an ambulance.’ Joe stared at him disbelievingly. ‘Please?’
‘Robbie can’t deal with internal bleeding. He was only a sodding medic in the Army, not a doctor.’
‘I’ve not got internal bleeding, Joe.’
‘Yes, you bloody have. You just coughed up half a lung. Are you sure the little fucker hasn't stabbed you?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Only you don’t always know that you have. It doesn’t always hurt.’ If anyone would know that, it was Big Joe. He’d been knifed a couple of years ago during an attempted burglary in the Heartsease, and no one—including Big Joe himself—had realised until he’d collapsed while the police were interviewing him about the two unconscious burglars tied up on the floor of the pub.
‘Something’s not right here, Jimmy,’ Joe replied. ‘I might be a bit thick sometimes, but I’m not stupid.’
‘Maybe I will have a drink after all?’
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘Get me a whisky, and I’ll tell you everything.’
While Joe went back to the bar to fill a couple of tumblers, Jimmy sat back and took a deep breath, hoping it didn’t set him off coughing again. It was time to come clean, at least with Joe. He was his oldest friend, he was worried about him, and Jimmy would need his help to get Milly’s phone back.
‘There you go, mate,’ Joe said as he put the glasses on the table a moment later. ‘Cheers.’ He clinked his own glass off Jimmy’s. Jimmy picked up the glass and took a small sip, grimacing as the white-hot fluid trickled down his throat. ‘So, old timer,’ Joe continued. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m dying, Joe.’
Joe paused, his own glass half-way to his mouth.
‘What?’
‘I’ve got a big bastard aneurysm in my head. Could pop at an
y time.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Not joking, fella,’ Jimmy replied. Joe laughed—a short, sharp bark of a laugh.
‘I thought you looked a bit peaky, but didn’t think it was serious.’ He paused, regarding Jimmy through inscrutable eyes. ‘Is it treatable?’
‘Christmas.’
‘What, they’re not going to treat it until Christmas? That’s taking the bloody piss, that is.’
‘They reckon I’ll be dead by Christmas.’
There was another silence between the two men. Jimmy looked at Joe, but his friend seemed to be having trouble looking back at him. Not unexpected, Jimmy supposed, under the circumstances. Joe was looking down into his lap, and as Jimmy watched, his oldest friend lifted his hand to his eyes to flick something away. When Joe looked back up at Jimmy, tears rimmed his eyes. In all the years Jimmy had known him, and all the trouble they’d been in, he had never seen Big Joe cry.
‘What the fuck are you crying for, Joe?’ Jimmy said with a smile. ‘I’m the one that’s dying.’
Chapter 19
When Robbie opened the door to the Heartsease, the first thing he saw was Jimmy and Big Joe locked in an embrace in the middle of the pub. Jimmy looked at him over Joe’s shoulder and saw his friend’s face break into a broad smile.
‘Bloody hell, Joe,’ Robbie said, closing the door behind him and putting the holdall he was carrying on a chair. ‘When did you turn this place into a gay bar?’ Jimmy didn’t reply, but shook his head over Joe’s shoulder to get him to shut up. Robbie got the message, as the smile on his face disappeared fast.
Joe slapped Jimmy on the back with one hand, his other clenched in the fabric of Jimmy’s jacket. He slapped him again, more gently, and then disentangled himself before making his way back behind the bar where he picked up another three tumblers. Jimmy smiled, wondering what was wrong with the glasses they’d already drunk from. Joe could have just got a fresh one for Robbie.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ Robbie asked. Without Jimmy realising, he’d crossed the floor of the pub and was now standing right next to him, examining the wound on the side of his head.
Finding Milly Page 12
