“Please, it’s Andy. And thank you so much for coming.” Andy pointed at the log pile. “I wasn’t expecting so many logs. I shifted a few barrow loads last night, but then my bloody back gave out.” He rubbed his lower back for effect. “Not as young as I used to be.”
“I know that feeling, Mr Elliott,” Tommy laughed, as did Andy as he turned around and walked into the house. He didn’t look like a man with a bad back to me, but then again why would a guy in his sixties shift a load of logs if there were other people who would do it for him?
“Come on in, we’ll have a quick cup of tea before you two get cracking,” Andy called over his shoulder. I looked at Tommy, who grimaced. We walked through the hallway, following Andy into the kitchen. I watched as Tommy looked around, his practised eyes taking in the interior of the house. I knew exactly what he was doing, and the anger rose in my chest.
Andy made us all a cup of tea in the kitchen before opening the back door and walking through it. There was me thinking we’d all have a nice cup of tea and a chat but no, it was straight down to work.
“I’ve only got one wheelbarrow, I’m afraid,” he said. I’d followed him through the back door before turning to see Tommy examining the lock on the door. He was wriggling the jamb, testing how secure the door was. I knew he would just claim professional curiosity, but I’d not brought him around here so he could case the place.
“Tommy,” I said, louder than intended. He jumped and then followed me onto the patio. I shot him a warning glance, and he pulled a face in return. Like butter wouldn’t melt.
There was a solitary wheelbarrow with a half flat tyre in the middle of the lawn, and a tiny pile of logs stacked up against the wall of the shed. It was more of an outbuilding than a shed and even had double glazing. Even my flat didn’t have double glazing.
“What do you think, mate?” I asked Tommy. “One of us on the barrow, one stacking the logs? Then we can swap over.”
“Sounds good, Gareth,” Tommy replied. “You start on the barrow, though. I need to use the toilet. Just pile them there, and we can stack them against the shed slow time,” he pointed at a spot on the lawn. “I’ll catch up in a second.” He turned to speak to Andy. “Can I use your facilities, Andy?”
“Of course you can, Tommy,” Andy replied. “Follow me.”
As the two of them walked back into the house, I saw Andy slap Tommy on the back as if they were old friends. I wheeled the barrow round to the front of the house and filled it with logs. I moved a couple of loads to the back of the house, not helped by the flat tyre.
“He’s a nice chap, Andy, isn’t he?” Tommy said when he reappeared, his voice bright. “Nice place, too.”
“Tommy, you even so much as think about coming back here I’ll cut your balls off,” I said, emptying another barrow load onto the pile.
“Woah, relax fella,” Tommy said, his palms out in a placatory gesture. “I wouldn’t dare. He’s your family, isn’t he?”
“As good as,” I grumbled. “I mean it though, don’t even think about it.”
“Oh come on, Gareth,” Tommy retorted as he picked up a couple of logs and stacked them on the pile leaning up against the shed. “How long have you known me? You really think I’m going to do over my own?” I knew he was serious, but I’d seen how he’d been looking at the place. I was sure he didn’t need the toilet either but just wanted to have another look to see what was inside the house.
We soon settled into a routine of moving and stacking the logs. Each of us would do five trips on the barrow while the other one stacked them before we swapped over. It was almost therapeutic, doing the stacking. Like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Working out what was the best way to stack them so they all slotted in together was quite satisfying. After an hour, we’d shifted about half of the pile in the driveway and took a break. I poked my head back into the kitchen and called Andy’s name. There was no reply, so I figured he must have gone out. One less cup of tea to make then. Tommy and I stood in the kitchen while we waited for the kettle to boil.
“How long would it take you then, mate?” Tommy asked, waving his hand round the kitchen.
“How long would what take?” I replied.
“To get in,” he said. I raised an eyebrow in response.
“I’ve gone straight, Tommy. Remember?”
“Hypothetically, I mean. If you were still on the rob and wanted to get in here, how long would it take you?” He looked at me with his eyebrows raised.
“Hypothetically?” I said, knowing that Tommy was throwing down a gauntlet to me regardless of whether I’d gone straight or not.
“Yeah,” he replied. “How long?” I shrugged in response before replying.
“Two minutes,” I said. “Tops.”
“That long?” he said. “I reckon a minute. Loads of different ways in, and some nice stuff in here, too. There’s a Bose sound system hooked up to the telly in the front room. I could shift that for a couple of hundred easy, and probably another couple of hundred for the telly as well. I can see the look on Big Joe’s face if I turned up with that for The Heartsease.” I gave Tommy another dark look, as mean as I could get without looking constipated.
“Come on, Gareth,” he said. “Don’t give me the look. You know I wouldn’t even think about it. I’m just saying, that’s all.” Tommy regarded me, his expression one I’d known for years. One I couldn’t help but love, but also one I wouldn’t trust an inch. “You should tell him,” he said.
I laughed. “Yeah, sure. Andy? In my professional opinion as an ex-burglar, your house is wide open to pikeys like me. I can see how that would go.”
“You don’t have to tell him that, Gareth,” he said, grinning.
I made tea for us both and threw a tea bag into another cup for Andy when he got back. I was thinking about what Tommy had just said as I was stirring the cups when something struck me.
“When did you go into the lounge?” I asked. “You went to the toilet, but that’s off the hallway. You can’t see the telly from the hallway.”
“Er, I saw it through the glass door,” Tommy replied.
“I think I need to go your opticians, mate,” I said. “I can’t see a thing through frosted glass.” Realising his mistake, Tommy laughed. Despite myself, I soon joined in.
We took our cups outside and got back on the case with the wheelbarrow. It took about another hour, but eventually, Tommy put the last of the logs onto the now impressive stack against the shed. We were both sweating in the sunshine even though it was still cold.
“Job done, fella,” Tommy clapped me on the shoulder. “Time for a pint, is it?” I looked at my watch. It was almost one, and we’d not eaten yet.
“We could get a bite to eat and then have a cheeky pint I suppose,” I said, walking back toward the house. As I stepped into the kitchen, I saw Andy sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper.
“All done?” Andy said, looking over the top of his glasses at me. He got to his feet and looked through the kitchen window at the logs piled up against the shed. “Wow, fantastic job. Thank you so much. At least I’ll be able to get the car out now.”
“No problem, Andy,” I replied. The number of brownie points that this would get me with Jennifer made it well worthwhile. “I’m just nipping to the toilet, then we’ll be on our way.” I walked through the hallway to the toilet, glancing at the frosted glass door to the lounge as I did so. I smiled to myself as I used the toilet before returning to the kitchen to find Andy and Tommy deep in conversation. They stopped talking as I walked back in, and I stood looking at the pair of them for a few seconds.
“So, er, Gareth,” Andy said eventually. “Tommy tells me you’re concerned about my security?” I looked at Tommy, who was wearing his butter wouldn’t melt expression again. I frowned at him before replying. Had he mentioned something to Andy about our area of expertise?
“Well, kind of,” I said. “There are a few areas you could look at.”
“You think?” Andy replied.
“Fancy a flutter?” I wasn’t sure where Andy was going with this. “Tommy here reckons that you could get in here in under a minute.” That was a lie. I’d said two. Andy reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet before throwing a couple of twenties and a tenner onto the kitchen table. “If you get in here in under a minute, you can keep it. Just don’t break anything.”
“That’s really not my thing, Andy,” I said. “I don’t do that sort of security.”
“Oh, come on,” he replied. “I’m sure that you’ve got some, let’s call them hidden talents. From the past, perhaps?” I looked at Jennifer’s father, wondering how much he thought he knew about me. Was I that transparent? Jennifer didn’t seem to have any idea, but did Andy? I glanced again at Tommy, but he was still expressionless.
Even though a silent alarm bell was ringing in my head, I’d always been a sucker for a challenge so I stepped outside the kitchen door and watched Andy through the glass as he locked the door, pushing a bolt across it. He mimed starting a stopwatch on his wrist. It wasn’t the money. I knew I wouldn’t keep it, but Andy had thrown down a glove and I’d never refused a challenge like that from anyone yet.
I dug into my pocket and pulled out my keys. Selecting a standard Chubb key, I stepped up to the outside of the kitchen door and worked the end of the key into the cracked putty surrounding one of the panes of glass. The putty fell out almost instantly, just as I knew it would, and I worked the key around the glass until the whole pane fell outward into my other hand. I put the glass down on the path and leaned my arm in through the gap it left, releasing the bolt and opening the door. As I stepped through it, Andy looked at his watch, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Under thirty seconds,” he said in a quiet voice. Tommy was standing behind him, his eyes on the fifty quid on the kitchen table. No doubt he was considering how to persuade me why we should go halves on it.
“And where, Gareth Dawson, did you learn how to do that?” Jennifer’s voice, as cold as ice, rang across the kitchen. I’d not seen her come in, but she was standing by the door to the hallway, arms crossed tight across her chest. There was a look of absolute thunder on her face, and the twin red spots on her cheeks told me she was very, very pissed off.
Shit.
8
“I knew it, I bloody well knew it,” Jennifer said, leaning up against the sideboard in the kitchen of her flat. “Every bloody time,” she sighed. “Just when I think I’ve met a decent bloke, he turns out to be an arsehole.” I stood in front of her, not sure what to do with my hands. We’d argued before, but nothing like this. The way it was going it could well be the last argument we ever had.
“Jennifer, please?” I said, trying not to sound too desperate. “It’s not how you think.”
“Oh, really?” She laughed, but there was no humour in it. “I nip round my dad’s house to see how you and your mate were getting on, and I find you giving my dad a lesson on breaking and entering.”
That’s exactly what she had just found. After she’d seen my little demonstration of how insecure Andy’s house was, Jennifer had left without saying another word. Tommy and I had gone to the hardware shop to get some window putty so we could fix the pane of glass I’d taken out. On the way to the shop, I’d made the mistake of asking Tommy for his advice. I should have known by then that Tommy’s advice was, while well-meaning, almost always rubbish.
“All she saw, mate,” Tommy said, “was you taking out a pane of glass so you could open the door. It’s not like she caught you red-handed leaving his house wearing a striped top and carrying a large bag marked ‘swag’, is it?”
“Thanks, Tommy,” I’d said. “That’s really helpful. What the hell am I going to say to her? You saw the look on her face.”
“Fair one,” Tommy had replied. “She didn’t look thrilled, did she?” That was the understatement of the century.
“Shit, Tommy. What the hell am I going to do?”
“Not much you can do, mate,” he replied, unhelpfully. “You’re nicked, I reckon. Just a case of waiting to see what the sentence will be. You might get off lightly, no sex for a couple of weeks or something like that. Or you could be out on your ear.”
“Thanks a bundle,” I said. “You’re wasted as a crook mate, you should train to be a bloody marriage counsellor.” Tommy laughed in response. It wasn’t supposed to be a joke.
“Well, you’re not married,” he paused for a second before continuing. “But I don’t think I’d need training, anyway.” I looked across at him, his smug face irritating me, before I returned my eyes to the road in front of us, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel.
I dropped Tommy back at Andy’s house, warning him to play nicely and just fix the window, before carrying on to face the music back at Jennifer’s flat. When I knocked on the door, not wanting to use my key, she opened it and just walked back into the flat. I followed her through to the kitchen.
“Jennifer,” I pleaded. “Listen just for a minute.” I watched as she folded her arms across her chest and pushed her lips together until they could barely be seen. This would be a tough sell.
“Go on, I’m all ears,” she said, arching her eyebrows as if no matter what I said she wasn’t going to believe it. Which was probably true.
“I admit that, when I was younger, I did some stuff I’m not proud of now,” I said. “But that’s not me now.”
She glared at me, her eyes piercing. “It explains a hell of a lot,” she said. “How you suddenly have spare cash floating about every once in a while, for example.”
“I’ve told you, Jennifer,” I said. “I’ll have a flutter on the horses, and sometimes they come in.” As Jennifer looked at me, I realised that she knew I was lying through my teeth.
“So your horse is on at five to two against, and you put ten pounds down each way. It comes in second. How much do you win?” She looked at me, her eyebrows arched again. I hadn’t got a clue what the answer was. What I knew about horses could fit on the back of a postage stamp and still leave room for what I knew about betting.
“Er, well,” I replied, trying to buy some time so I could come up with a convincing answer. “So, it’s five to two against?”
“Don’t even bother, Gareth,” Jennifer barked at me. “It’s a stupid bet. You wouldn’t win anything. I’ve never seen you go anywhere near a bookie, or study the form in the newspaper, or any of the things that people who like horses do. That money is coming from your little sideline, mugging old ladies or whatever you do to get it.”
“Jennifer, I promise you, I have never mugged anyone in my life,” I said, in a desperate attempt to defend myself.
“You’ve lied to me, Gareth Dawson. You let me believe that you’re a decent bloke, but you conveniently forgot to mention that you’re not.” She shouted the last two words of the sentence, and her words cut through me. I looked at her, and saw a tear appear in the corner of her eye. Jennifer brushed away before it could fall down her cheek, but for some reason the sight of that tear ripped me apart. “So what are these things you did when you were younger?” she asked. “Please, enlighten me.” There was no way around it. This would be difficult.
“Come on, let’s sit down and I’ll tell you everything,” I said. Perhaps if I could get her to sit down things would calm down a little. Jennifer wasn’t having any of it, though.
“I don’t want to sit down, Gareth. I just want you to tell me the truth,” she replied, her voice half an octave higher. I took a deep breath.
“When I was younger, I admit that I used to very occasionally break into places and steal stuff.” There, it was out in the open. Well, some of it was out in the open. I looked at Jennifer, knowing full well that she had me on the ropes. The look on her face was not one I ever wanted to see again. “But,” I said. She laughed — a sharp laugh with no humour at all — so I carried on talking. “But I never, ever hurt anybody. I never broke into anyone’s house. I never took anyone’s personal possessions. It was only ever businesses, a
nd it was only when I was desperate and didn’t know what else to do.” That last part was a lie, but the rest of it was true. Jennifer’s stare bored into me, as the two red spots on her cheeks reappeared and grew.
“When was the last time you broke into one of these businesses?” she asked, using her index fingers to put air quotes around the word ‘businesses’: “Exactly how much younger were you?”
I looked at her, not wanting to reply. If I lied, she’d almost certainly know I was lying, but if I told the truth, I didn’t know what would happen. I could say nothing, but that would be about as bad as telling the truth.
“Gareth,” she said in a quiet voice. “I asked you a question.” I took another deep breath as I decided to front this one out and tell the truth.
“About three months ago.” It wouldn’t take her long to do the maths and realise that this was after we’d got together. A second after I’d said three months, her mouth opened and then shut again. I was right, it hadn’t taken her long at all to do the sums. “But I’ve quit, Jennifer. That’s not me, not now. I’ve quit all that.”
“After we’d met,” she said. This wasn’t a question. I looked at the floor. I wasn’t just on the ropes here. I was in the corner getting the crap beaten out of me, and it was all my fault. My mind was racing as I tried to figure out the best way to tell her that was the past, that I’d gone straight, but I never got the chance. Jennifer spoke in a very small voice, and as I looked up, I could see that she had her hand outstretched with the palm up.
“Give it to me,’ she said. “My door key. Give it to me and get the hell out of my flat.”
9
The weeks after Jennifer threw me out of her flat were an absolute nightmare. I’d tried calling and texting her, but she ignored everything. I was sure that the relationship was over before it had begun. The only thing I knew for certain was that I missed her so much that it hurt. I wanted to go round to her flat, lean on the doorbell until she had no choice but to answer the door, and then just tell her how sorry I was, and that I loved her. To make her understand. The only thing that stopped me, apart from my stubbornness, was the thought of coming across as an absolute arsehole when I’d been caught bang to rights lying through my teeth.
Gareth Dawson Series Box Set Page 6