by David Thorne
As far as I knew, Vick had never been abused by her father. But then, it was never anything we had discussed. Our relationship had been strictly good time; we had taken care not to stray into dangerous emotional territory. I did not know what to say to Ms Armstrong, felt as if she had all of the ammunition in this exchange.
‘When will she be able to see her children?’
Ms Armstrong sighed. ‘A day, a couple of days. It shouldn’t be long.’
I was achieving nothing. I moved to leave but Ms Armstrong held up a hand.
‘What puzzles me,’ she said, ‘is the father. The children should be with him, but he doesn’t want to know. Won’t even visit them.’ She looked at me, frowned. ‘Mrs Lowrie tells me that he is a good parent, that he dotes on them. That’s what doesn’t make sense. What is the situation there?’
Leaving Ms Armstrong, I again had to pass the room full of children. They seemed to be moving in slow motion, lethargic, stuck as they were in this institutional limbo, taken away from their families but their future not yet decided. I thought about my own childhood, my neglectful father; often in my life I had wondered why he had not given up on me, thrown me into care. I now believed that the reason he had suffered me all those years was due to guilt about what he had done to my mother, of what became of her and his part in it; as if keeping me on was his own, prolonged act of atonement.
I wondered, too, about what Ms Armstrong had told me, about Vick and her drinking. When Vick had been in my office she had been sober, I was sure of that. I knew what she was like when she had been drinking, how she behaved. But did that mean she was clean? Like Ms Armstrong said, alcoholics lied. And suffered from blackouts, during which they could move furniture, wake up outdoors. Yet I could not see Vick injuring her children; her grief and horror at what had happened had been sincere, her confusion total. Though if I was honest, there was now more than a shade of doubt in my mind about her story.
But she was an old friend, and past ties are past ties. I could not give up on her yet. Not before I had visited her ex-husband and found out just why he had washed his hands of his own children when they needed him most.
5
MS ARMSTRONG MAY have had a point, regarding cycles of abuse, the father’s misdeeds being inevitably re-enacted by the daughter. Perhaps Vick was drinking again, subjecting her children to violence; perhaps her family history meant it was practically preordained. I did not know. But what I did know was that, in cases of family abuse and violence, the perpetrator was more often than not a family member. And if it wasn’t Vick, then the next suspect in line was Ryan. A model parent does not leave his children to be taken into care; he does not wash his hands of them. His behaviour did not seem right, seemed suspect. I owed it to Vick to find him, speak to him, see if I could not make some sense of what had happened to Vick and her children.
Vick had given me Ryan’s most recent address and I drove there after visiting Ms Armstrong. It was becoming dark and he was living above a shop selling white goods whose brand names I did not recognise, light from the forlorn showroom bright against the gloom of the early evening, throwing a dull shine onto the dirty pavement. The shop was on a busy road and I had to park some streets away, walk back. There was a peeling blue painted door next to the shop and I pressed a metal buzzer, listened for an answer through the grille. But either it was not working or whoever lived inside held no fear of strangers because it buzzed me in without asking my name or business. Inside the door was a pile of junk mail like autumn leaves and I stepped through them and up a dark staircase; I could feel my pupils widening in the half-light. A door opened at the top and I could see a figure silhouetted, long hair, a woman.
‘Yes?’
‘Looking for Ryan,’ I said. ‘Ryan Lowrie.’
‘Ain’t here.’
‘Know where he is?’ I was reaching the top of the staircase and I could see that the woman was wearing a dressing gown so short that I instinctively averted my eyes.
‘Ain’t seen him.’
The woman had permed hair and her roots needed attention. Her hair was two colours: blonde at the ends, brown halfway up. She wore no make-up and looked as if she had just woken, although it was almost night.
‘You ain’t coming in,’ she said.
I stopped near the top of the stairs, two steps below her so that I was the shorter of us. I looked up at her.
‘Know where he might be?’
‘Search me. You his friend?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Didn’t think he had any.’
‘Everyone’s got friends.’
She snorted like I had made a joke. ‘I’m getting ready for work. He ain’t here.’
‘Must be somewhere.’
‘Everyone’s somewhere,’ she said, ridicule in her voice. She looked down at me and sighed. ‘Best bet’s the bookies,’ she said, then laughed. ‘Best bet,’ she said, amused by her unintentional joke.
‘He’s gambling?’
‘Ain’t doing much of anything else,’ she said. ‘Far’s I can tell. He works, he gambles.’
I thanked her and turned on the staircase, headed back down. I stopped, turned back to her. ‘Your intercom not working?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Might want to use it. Can’t trust everyone.’
The woman laughed softly, although backlit by the door I could not see her expression. ‘Go on, Saint whoever-you-are,’ she said. ‘Piss off. I’ve got to go to work.’
She closed the door and I could no longer see anything, blind on the stairway.
I had seen Ryan around, knew him by sight but had never spoken to him. But of course you cannot live in my neighbourhood without hearing things, and I knew a little about him, his history. At one time he had been an inveterate and well-known gambler and, at least latterly, not a successful one; I remembered stories of trouble with local bookies, of warnings, murmurs that he was earmarked for a fall. But that was years ago, when he was still a young man; he had straightened himself out since then, joined the army, made something of himself.
I wondered whether his history of compulsion, and his success in beating that addiction, was what had made him such a steadying influence for Vick. Nobody before had been able to handle her, but he had helped her clean up. I had been invited to their wedding but had not gone; I was not somebody who enjoyed revisiting his past and I had no fond memories of my time with Vick. Still, I had been happy to hear that she had met somebody and that her life was getting back on track. Why, then, was it now so completely derailed? Was it down to Ryan?
Where I lived it sometimes felt that bookies were the only industry keeping the shopping streets a viable economic proposal, although how long-term prosperity could be secured through exploiting the poor and desperate was a strategy I had difficulty understanding. Every third shop had odds in the window, images of horses, footballers, the seductive promise of a glamorous win. I visited three bookies, asked bored young women behind the counters whether they had seen Ryan. One of them did not know who I was talking about. The other two did, but hadn’t seen him that day, although they told me that he had been in frequently over the last weeks. Something in their expressions, a softening of their professional indifference, suggested that his was a hard-luck story that touched even their seen-it-all souls.
The fourth was a shabby, carpet-tiled outfit, empty except for a black man asleep on a hard chair underneath a screen that was switched off, and an older white man pushing a vacuum cleaner. He turned it off when I walked in, said, ‘Closed.’
I nodded. ‘Just looking for someone.’
He looked at the man asleep on the chair. He was snoring. ‘Unless you’re after Chambers, you’re out of luck.’
‘Know Ryan Lowrie?’
‘Ryan Lowrie,’ he said, peering up at the polystyrene-tiled ceiling as if looking for the answer there. He looked at me. He wore thick gold-rimmed glasses, which made his eyes seem huge. Looked like he’d been wearing them since the seventies. �
��Don’t know.’
‘I think you do,’ I said. ‘Just want to talk to him.’
‘And you ain’t the only one,’ he said. ‘Leave me out.’
‘I’m a friend,’ I said. ‘Friend of his wife, Victoria.’
‘Yeah?’ He wiped a watery eye with a finger, pushing his glasses to one side. He looked back at me, this time with more scrutiny. ‘He’s married?’
‘Was.’
‘Things they don’t tell you,’ he said. ‘Why d’you want him?’
‘To do with his children,’ I said. ‘Can’t say any more. I’m a lawyer.’
‘That right? Don’t look like one. No offence.’
‘None taken. You seen him?’
‘He was in earlier. Hit a good run.’
The man on the chair, Chambers, snored so loudly that he woke himself up. He sat up, looked around him. The man I was speaking to lifted his hand to him, said, ‘Home time, my friend.’
Chambers patted the pockets of his leather jacket, reassured himself that whatever was important to him was still there, got up, unsteadily left. We watched him leave, watched the glass door bang close behind him.
‘My clientele,’ the man said softly. He did not say anything else, just stood there, one hand on his vacuum cleaner.
‘Ryan Lowrie,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said, blinking his way back to the here and now. ‘What about him?’
‘Looking for him.’
‘You said. And like I said, he was in earlier. Won big.’ He paused, reconsidered. ‘Well, won.’
‘Know where he is now?’
For the first time the man showed some animation. He took his glasses off, rubbed them on his diamond-checked sweater. ‘How the hell’d I know that?’
Fine. I’d had enough; seen the inside of enough bookies, tasted enough of Ryan Lowrie’s tawdry life. I’d told Vick I’d help, but everybody has a limit. I nodded, turned to go, put a hand on the aluminium handle of the glass door.
‘I’d hope he’d spend it wisely,’ the man said to my back. ‘Pay some people back. What he owes.’
I turned and the man pinched the bridge of his nose, a sad gesture. ‘But people like Ryan…’ He sniffed. ‘It was me, I’d be trying the casino.’
I have never been to Monte Carlo but once with my previous lawyers’ firm we had flown by private jet to Le Touquet, a well-to-do holiday resort in northern France and a weekend destination of choice for high-rolling Parisians. The casinos there had been everything I had expected and more: hushed, dark, swaddled in rich velvet, served by noiseless waiters and ministered by female croupiers in black dresses and gorgeous diamonds provided nightly by the management. One of the managing partners of my firm had lost £10,000 on one spin of the roulette wheel, laughed, bought everybody Champagne. Easy come, easy go.
My local casino had little in common with those places. Two huge Eastern European men gave me the once-over before unhooking a scruffy velvet rope and letting me into a black-painted lobby where a middle-aged woman in a nylon shirt asked me for ten pounds just to get in. I handed it over and pushed through double doors that shared a wire-reinforced glass circle.
Whoever claims that casinos are places of glamour and excitement should visit the Four Aces. I followed luridly carpeted steps down onto the floor of the casino, lights up too bright, I assumed so that the management could better keep an eye on the clientele who were, at first glance, anything but high-rolling. Middle-aged men in coats and plastic shoes played one-armed bandits mechanically, like technicians operating machines at the end of a sixteen-hour shift. Past them, croupiers and gamblers put down cards and raked in chips at tables as if they were in a hurry; a hurry to get to the end of a hand, to get the bad news over with. There was an undercurrent of desperation, an absence of joy: people were here not out of choice but compulsion or the lack of any other plausible means of making money.
I did not see Ryan on the casino floor but at the other side of the room was another flight of stairs leading up to a mezzanine. I passed blue baize tables, the smell of sweat and dismal drone of conversation, and walked up. At the top were more tables but here the lights were lower and it was quieter. There was a bar along one wall with backlit optics and a barman who looked up when I appeared. The players were better dressed and played with an intentness which suggested that up here there was more at stake than disappointment.
I went to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic and when it arrived I looked over the tables and the players. I recognised a couple of faces, one an acquaintance of my father’s who had done time for importing drugs, I could no longer remember what or how. On a table to my left, next to the balcony overlooking the main floor, I could see Ryan. He was playing poker and there was a stack of chips next to his elbow. There were four other players at the table, facing a pretty croupier who was too good for this place and looked like she knew it. Ryan’s stack was higher than theirs. Clearly, the luck he’d enjoyed earlier had continued to the poker table.
Now I had found him I could only wait for him to get bored or run out of money. From what I knew of compulsive gamblers, I’d better hope he ran out of money soon, or I could be waiting a long time.
‘You want another?’ the barman asked me, arms resting over the bar, both of us watching the action, or what there was of it.
‘No,’ I said. ‘That Ryan Lowrie?’
‘Might be,’ he said, cagey. ‘Why d’you want him?’
Why did everybody ask that? ‘Personal.’
‘That’s him,’ the barman said. ‘But…’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing,’ the barman said and turned around, arranged bottles. I sat in silence and drank, watched Ryan push a stack of chips across the table, watched the croupier rake more chips back to him. His luck had not run out yet, or his money. I signalled the barman over.
‘Do coffee?’
The barman did not answer, just smiled at the absurdity of my question. ‘You know him?’ he asked me, nodding over at Ryan.
‘Kind of.’
‘Listen…’ He hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘Just, he’s damaged goods. Stay clear. ’Specially in here.’
‘Owe money?’
The barman nodded. ‘In here, it’s not what you might call… It ain’t exactly Vegas, know what I mean?’
‘No.’
‘Put it like this. Ain’t the management running this place. Not really.’
‘Right,’ I said, but then his face closed up and he turned away, went back to arranging bottles on the backlit ledge behind the bar. I looked around. At the top of the stairs two men had arrived. They did not look British: too dark, stubble too thick, black leather jackets and jeans, trainers, fashion sense of the Eastern Bloc. They looked around and saw Ryan, walked towards him.
‘Friends of yours?’ I said to the barman.
He turned back to me, half smiled, something apologetic. He did not want to get involved. He was probably making the minimum wage; I could hardly blame him. One of the men walked to Ryan’s table, bent down to him, said something in his ear. Ryan listened, nodded slowly. He slid a chip over to the croupier, said something. She smiled back nervously. Ryan stood up and the man picked up his chips, had to use two hands. Ryan walked towards me, didn’t notice me. At the table, the man leaned over, said something to the croupier. She picked up the chip Ryan had slid to her. Put it in the man’s hands. He turned to follow Ryan. The table watched him go. I had seen enough. I downed my drink and headed back down the stairs, didn’t look back.
I had parked behind the casino and by the time I had got to my car and pulled around in front of the building, Ryan was coming down the front steps, the two dark-haired men each side of him. I stopped, left the engine running. Got out, walked around the car onto the pavement.
‘Get in,’ I said to Ryan.
He looked at me, took a second to register who I was. Frowned, confused.
‘Danny?’
‘Who are you?’ one of the
men asked. He was in his early thirties, short, solid.
I did not answer. ‘Get in,’ I said again to Ryan.
Ryan moved to go and the other man put his hand on Ryan’s arm.
‘Let him go,’ I said.
Both men looked at me. Both were smaller than me but their attitude and eyes were all purpose and aggression. I did not know where they were from. But wherever it was, I accepted as a given that they had seen more than me. Done more. Done worse, far worse.
But ultimately that was mere hoodoo. The fact was that I was bigger than them. We were on a busy street. Some things were worth it. Looking at Ryan, his bowed head and cheap jacket, I could not imagine that he was. Not to these men. The man holding Ryan let go and I backed up around my car, stood at the door.
‘Get in,’ I said one more time. Ryan opened the door, slipped swiftly inside like a scolded schoolboy. I lowered myself in, closed the door. Hit the locks and pulled away. In my rear-view mirror, the two men watched me until I turned a corner and disappeared.
I pulled up in the car park of a pub and killed the engine. Ryan had not said a word since I had driven away from the casino. Just looked out of the window, occasionally said something to himself in a whisper I could not hear. I had now been looking for him for hours. He was an absent father, a failed husband, a compulsive gambler. It may not have been fair, but looking at him I could feel nothing but contempt.
‘Who were they?’ I said.
‘People I owe money to.’
‘Gambling?’
Ryan laughed, didn’t smile. ‘D’you think?’
‘What were they, Albanian?’
‘How’d I know? Who cares?’
‘Ryan? I just saved you from a beating or worse. You want to tell me what’s going on?’
He took a breath, put a fist against the car window. Turned to me. ‘What, four nights ago? I burn out at poker, lose it all. This woman next to me, gorgeous, says, “You want to borrow some chips?” Like, she’s beautiful and she’s letting me gamble. You know?’