The King's Shilling

by Fraser John Macnaught

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I might have to.”

  “Trying to corrupt a police officer, I could do you for that too!”

  “Are you wearing a wire?”

  “You watch too much telly.”

  “Well, you could be, under that shirt!”

  “How long are you staying?”

  “I don’t know. You’re right. Maybe I am barking. I don’t know what I’m doing here really. I just had to come. But there’s no reason for me to stay.”

  “Keep away from Neil Morgan.”

  “Why? I mean, I have no intention of seeing him again, I don’t think…”

  “Just leave him be.”

  “How did Greville Hartley die?”

  “He drowned… why? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m just asking, I didn’t know…”

  “He drowned in the canal. Fell in, apparently. Couldn’t swim.”

  “Yeah, I knew that.”

  Dave was about to say more but didn’t.

  “Was Neil Morgan around back then?”

  Dave laughed.

  “You never stop, do you?”

  “Was he?”

  Dave drained his glass and held it up and nodded towards the bar.

  “Your shout.”

  “Was he?”

  “Actually, he was, yes. He met Greville before he met Sarah. Some business function or other.”

  “Mmm.”

  “And because we’re not as dumb as you seem to think we are, we’ve actually considered that. So we checked out where he was when Greville drowned. And he was in fucking Bali for a week either side of the incident.”

  “Oh… very convenient.”

  “Fuckin’ hell! Give it a rest! Get me another pint. And a packet of cheese and onion. And make it snappy!”

  “He’s got two mobiles.”

  “You what? Who? What are you on about?”

  “Neil Morgan. He’s got two mobiles.”

  “How would you know?”

  “When I was there, a mobile rang, and he dug into his trouser pocket for a moment, and then his jacket pocket. He must have mixed up the ring tones…”

  Dave banged his fist on the table, surprising them both by the force of it.

  “Leave it, Paul… Just leave it. Forget Neil fucking Morgan. You’re doing your own head in. For nothing. You’re gonna go fucking mental over this. You’ve suffered enough already… Sarah Hartley’s gone… from your life, anyway… Get over it, move on. You’re only 33, mate. You’ve got a lot to look forward to. You’ve got a future. Stop living in the past.”

  “So I should get a life? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Your words, not mine.”

  Paul looked down at his legs, stretched out. He looked down at his shoes, scuffed and needing new laces, and he looked down at a piece of chewing-gum stuck to the carpet. It made him think of a phone box. And a fridge. And of surviving.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  And he got up and went to the bar, wondering where Sarah was and if she was safe.

  PHONE INTERCEPT 1

  Translated from the Dutch by DI Peter Kepler

  Tuesday 23/4 22.16

  - Is it done?

  - No… not yet.

  - Why not?

  - We said a week, it’s still big news.

  - I can handle it.

  - Soon, then.

  - No problems?

  - It’s working a treat. Hook, line and sinker.

  - Ok. Stay safe… and soon, right?

  - Right.

  Chapter 14

  Wednesday April 24th 2013

  The morning came cold and wet despite the forecasts for seasonal temperatures and no rain.

  The sky hung low over the hills. As usual.

  The clouds were like a roof here, Paul thought, as he swept the curtain aside and looked out of his bedroom window at seven o’clock the next morning.

  Like a low, lowering oppressive ceiling, pressing down, just a few hundred feet up, a blanket of lead-grey gloom hanging over the landscape. A heavy weight on people’s shoulders and hearts and minds more than three hundred days a year, the Pennines the cause. The winds blew in from the west and settled over the moors and the erosion-ground peaks, gathering moisture, building in height and density, a constant menace, threatening wet rain and damp air and another day without sunlight, without life.

  He had never missed it.

  He had rejoiced in the light and the high airy skies in so many other places.

  The sun, the sky… the blueness, the whiteness, the greenness… the pure air, the vastness of the light, the sheer space… he had seen and sensed all that and he had drunk it in and he had believed he was free. He had breathed and smelt and felt the air and even begun to imagine that a new day could bring promise and renewal.

  But not here.

  Never here. Or at least, not for a long time.

  This was no way to live… this was nowhere to live… not without something else to make it worth living.

  He washed and shaved and dressed quickly with little care.

  He left his room and went downstairs to the restaurant where breakfast tables were being laid by a young man with a bad haircut and bad breath.

  “Good morning”, Paul said.

  The man said nothing.

  “Can I sit here?”, he said and he pointed to a table by the window, as yet unset.

  “If you must”, breathed the man with a pointed sigh.

  He tutted and mouthed something inaudible.

  “I can feel a Trip-Advisor post coming on”, Paul said, smiling at him.

  The man looked blank and Paul felt petty.

  He sat down and looked out of the window. He could see a dry-stone wall and a single sheep in a field, grazing mindlessly on a few blades of yellow grass. Further away, the hills were purple in the early light. He heard a horn toot, and saw a woman pass in front of the window, running towards a van, off to his left, mouthing words to someone inside. A few seconds later she came back carrying a large brown envelope and she disappeared from view. He looked at the sheep again. It was still chowing down on the yellow grass. Chewing and chomping, mechanically. Just to the right of the sheep’s mouth, maybe two feet away, were some fresh green shoots, standing tall, bending in the breeze. They looked tempting, to Paul’s eye; lush and sweet and juicy. Why didn’t the sheep go for them, instead of munching on the yellow stuff?

  He himself went for the oak-smoked, free-range, un-dyed, preservative-free kippers that had no doubt led wonderfully happy and fulfilled lives in the North Sea before volunteering to be caught and transformed into someone’s breakfast, and a pot of fair-trade, hand-picked, low-carbon-footprint Assam tea from a non-profit-making, Unicef-approved collective in the Brahmaputra Valley. It wasn’t bad. It tasted like tea.

  He packed and settled his surprisingly low bill and loaded up the car and set off, intending to pay one last visit before he headed south.

  He had looked in a local phone book and found an address. He’d tried ringing the number but it had been disconnected. He decided to go there anyway.

  It was a grubby terrace house in Elland, its front door opening onto the pavement, three doors up from a curry house and two doors down from a kebab restaurant. Paul smelt stale oil and burnt grease and his kippers were repeating on him.

  He knocked on the door of number 27 and after a few moments he heard footsteps padding across a carpet or a rug. Or the feet had slippers on them.

  The door opened. Uncle Frank peered out and screwed his eyes up, trying to focus.

  “Fuckin’ hell, I don’t believe it!”

  “Hiya Frank, how are you doing?”

  “Jesus fuckin’ Christ! What are you doin’ here? You’re not dead then?”

  “As you can see.”

  “Fuck me! We thought you were, you know. No news for ten years.”

  “Twelve, actually…”

  “Twelve years, and not a word, and we tried
to get in touch with you…”

  “I suppose I owe you an apology.”

  “You suppose fuckin’ right, son! Although I’m not sure I want to accept it!”

  “Can I come in?”

  Frank straightened up a bit. He looked frail and weak and stooped and Paul felt a wave of something rush through him. Shame, perhaps. Guilt, or pity…

  “I’m not goin’ to turn you away, son… I believe in family, even if you don’t…”

  He held the door open and let Paul squeeze past without looking at him.

  The house was filthy. Worn shoes and dirty socks were lying on the floor on a threadbare carpet. The wallpaper was peeling. There were smells of cat and tobacco and grease and damp. Paul let Frank guide him along the corridor into a living-room where three cats were curled up on an ancient, sagging sofa. They watched as Frank pointed to an armchair across from a gas-fire, unlit, despite the chill.

  “Sit yourself down. D’you want a cuppa?”

  “Go on then.”

  Paul heard Frank muttering to himself and the sounds of crockery and cupboard doors.

  On the low table in front of him were three crumpled beer cans and an empty pizza box and some unpaid bills covered in crumbs.

  Above the gas fire, on the mantelpiece, was an urn. An ugly cheap pot with a plastic name-plate with “Bessie” hand-written on a paper label. Next to it was a framed photo: Frank and Bessie’s wedding picture. They looked young and carefree and happy. Standing next to Frank was Alan, his brother, Paul’s father.

  He wiped his eyes and thought about Neil Morgan wiping his.

  Frank appeared with two mugs in his hands.

  “I’ve run out of sugar, you’ll have to take it as it comes.”

  He put the mugs on the table, gently swept the cats off the sofa, and sat down, stiff and wheezing. His pants were worn and shiny around the knees. His beige cardigan had holes at the elbows. His slippers looked older than the sofa. And his glasses looked like the same ones Paul had seen in 2001.

  “So what have you got to say for yourself then? Why are you here? What do you want? And why should I even fuckin’ care?”

  Paul didn’t know where to start.

  He started at the beginning. On the day the shit had hit the fan. He told Frank what had happened that day and why, and tried to explain how he had felt when he was sent away and when he was released and why he had never wanted to come back or even make contact with anyone who might remind him of where he had come from and who he had been and what he had lost.

  The words seemed to spill out almost of their own accord and he said things he didn’t know he was capable of saying. He revealed emotions he didn’t know he was even capable of feeling and Frank saw this and said nothing. He still hadn’t looked Paul in the eye.

  When he’d finished, his tea was cold and he hadn’t touched it.

  “I’m sorry, Frank.”

  “I dare say…”

  “I suppose I was pretty fucked up… I suppose I still am.”

  “You had no-one left, lad… but you had me. You had me and Bessie, who looked after you at a time you needed a mother and your own mother wasn’t there for you.”

  “I know.”

  “But your Mum was there… when you got out.”

  Paul looked at him and Frank looked back.

  “She went to meet you, at the prison. Only they’d sent her the wrong date. You’d been let out the day before. And you were gone…”

  “You’re shitting me…”

  Frank shook his head.

  “And then three years later you showed up for the funeral and then you were gone again. And you didn’t leave us an address. Nothing.”

  Paul stared at the table in front of him. He tasted salt at the corner of his mouth. He wiped his eyes again.

  “We tried to find you… we looked everywhere for Paul Boyd… not just me and Bessie but lawyers and other people… and Paul Boyd didn’t exist any more. He’d disappeared.”

  “I changed my name.”

  “And no-one knew who you were or where you were.”

  “A mate of mine knew… that’s all.”

  “But we didn’t know… and the fuckin’ lawyers didn’t know… and I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the inheritance…”

  “What inheritance?”

  “Your parents’ will.”

  “I told you I didn’t want anything.”

  “I know you did. But what’s rightfully yours is yours. If you don’t want it you have to take it first and then give it away but the lawyers were lookin’ for you… and they still are, officially”

  “Really?”

  “Your parents had an insurance policy. Paid up over the years, and mostly by Greville Hartley, I reckon… blood money…”

  “What do you mean, blood money?”

  Frank turned away… bitter, disgusted. He shook his head and said nothing. Then he turned back.

  “There’s money in a bank. They couldn’t find you, and there was some business about having you declared dead, so it would go to the next of kin, which would have been me. But I said I didn’t want that, so it’s still sittin’ there.”

  “Money in a bank, that you haven’t touched? How much are we talking about?”

  “Fifty grand or so…”

  “Jesus Christ! If I’d known…”

  “Too fuckin’ right, if you’d known… but you didn’t. You didn’t give a shit about anyone but your own fuckin’ self!”

  Paul looked at his uncle, 68 years old now. His father would have been 64. Frank didn’t look much older than the last time they’d met, 12 years before, but he didn’t look well. He’d been a gas-fitter and a plumber and it had been a hard life which had taken its toll. Paul could remember when he’d been as fit as a butcher’s dog and had run cross-country races for the local athletics club.

  “I’ll take the money, Frank. The blood money… and the guilt will be mine. And then I’ll give you what you need.”

  Frank started shaking his head…

  “Get a decent urn for Bessie. Buy yourself some new glasses. So you don’t need fucking sellotape to hold them together. See a doctor. Get someone in here to clean up. Get a new hall carpet and some new wallpaper. Pay your gas bill and your telephone bill. Take a holiday. Treat your mates to a pint or three. And I’m not taking no for an answer. You’re right, I only thought about myself for years. I didn’t have a lot of choice, but I suppose I did have a choice, and that’s the one I made. That’s the way it was, but it’s not now. I’m here, I’m sorry, and you are my family now. You’re all I’ve got. I want to make it right.”

  Frank picked at a ragged cuff on his sweater and coughed back something in his throat.

  “There’s something else you should know, too…”, he said.

  “What’s that?”

  Frank was sitting with his elbows on his knees, rubbing his fingers together, as if he were rolling an invisible cigarette in each hand. He was thinking of what, and how much to say.

  Perhaps if he’d spoken out there and then things would have been very different.

  “Greville Hartley died.”

  “I know, he drowned.”

  “Good fuckin’ riddance.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you.”

  “He left you the Cottage.”

  “What?”

  “In his will… the Cottage is yours. Same lawyers, same fuckin’ story… they couldn’t find you.”

  “He left me the Cottage?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Well… he didn’t say, did he? Not to me, any how. He might have told someone, his wife maybe… Sarah… but who the fuck knows? It’s yours, son… your house… your home…”

  The word almost made Paul flinch.

  “He had his reasons”, Frank said.

  Paul was surprised by the certainty in his voice.

  “Your Mum and
Dad would be pleased to know you came back. They missed you, you know.”

  “I can’t believe that shit about the wrong release date…”

  “Woulda changed summat, would it?” Frank’s voice was dripping doubt.

  “Maybe…”

  “Happen…”

  “‘Happen’’…. I haven’t heard that word in a while…”

  “Happen not…”, and Frank managed a smile. He’d be needing to see the dentist too, Paul thought.

  “But as I say, Alan’d be glad to know you were taking over the house. He worked hard on that place…”

  “I know.”

  “Woodwork, painting, gardening… he was good with his hands…”.

  A cloud passed over his face.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nowt. Just thinking about your Dad…”

  “Your little brother.”

  “Aye. You look like him, you know… same colouring, same hair, same fuck-you look in your eyes.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But you got your Mum’s nose.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Fuck you, I have the Boyd nose too. But you don’t have her eyes… you have your Dad’s, steely blue.”

  Paul thought about his father. He wondered what he had really inherited from him.

  “He was a good lad, your Dad. Our Alan… Bit of a scrapper when he was younger, but as soon as he met your Mum he sorted himself out in no time. Got it together. Made an effort. Learnt how to say the right things.”

  “Happen”, said Paul.

  Frank laughed. And coughed as a result.

  “Dad was a scrapper?”

  “Oh aye… tough as they come. Never started owt but always finished it.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Course you didn’t. He settled down. But I remember one time, must have been around 1970… when he came up against Cracker Booth…”

  “You’re kidding, the bloke who broke everyone’s fingers?”

  “The very same. Your Dad was in a pub somewhere, and a mate of his was getting’ some grief off Cracker… and Alan stepped in…”

  “How old was he?”

  “Oh, 21, 22, summat like that… Cracker were quite a bit older, and a fuckin’ wild man. Everyone knew it, but your Dad didn’t give a monkey’s, he just waded in.”