The Money Star

by Jon Lymon

  He had already invited Edgar to the wedding, even though his daughter hadn’t. He’d clear it with Chloe before the big day, of course. She wouldn’t have a problem with him bringing a mate, surely? There was no chance of female company accompanying him. His ex, Chloe’s mum Elena, would be there with her new bloke and Remnant didn’t fancy the chances of the occasion passing off peacefully should he turn up with a female on his arm, especially if both he and Elena put away their usual quota of alcohol.

  Edgar slapped the machine and cursed.

  “I’m not good at standing up in front of people and saying stuff,” said Remnant to Gordon. “What do I say?”

  Gordon was his usual helpful self and shrugged.

  “Just talk about funny stuff that happened when she was growing up,” said Edgar, his back to them and attention on the machine. “Embarrass her a little bit, maybe.”

  Remnant search his mind’s files for Chloe’s Early Years, but any reference points were as hazy for him as they would be for her.

  As he finished his Gates, a fear gripped him. What could he say about her, his only child, his little girl, with her mother there, listening out for any lies, any exaggerations of the truth, any attempts by Remnant to make it look like he’d been a decent father?

  3

  Nearly a generation had passed since the lift in Remnant’s block had worked. And although there were only three flights of stairs to ascend to his flat, each had become progressively harder as he’d aged.

  Invites back to number forty-eight were seldom handed out and even more rarely accepted. He was not proud of where he lived. He was ashamed. The décor was minimalist, but not by design.

  What he’d eaten of the fry up earlier had been digested by the time he returned from The Old Mitre to be greeted by a disappointing lack of options in his kitchen. Two sachets of rice, an old packet of soup and a tin of corned beef in his cupboard complemented the out of date milk in his fridge. He needed something green inside him, something that had grown naturally and tasted fresh.

  He took himself to bed in an attempt to sleep off his hunger, but his mind was still analysing the events of the day. He fumbled in his breast pocket and pulled out the little toy man, its eyes wide and staring. He gripped him, willing sleep to come and find both of them. But it was elsewhere.

  He staggered into his lounge and slumped onto his shapeless sofa. He could stomach some rice, he felt. Rice and soup. It went down yesterday and stayed down. No reason to think today would be any different.

  He grabbed the tin of soup and guided the opener around its rim, watching it twist and cut through metal with ease. He took a gulp of the contents. Garden vegetables apparently. But his insides were tired, repelled, repulsed. An apple, a carrot, something fresh to digest. That’s what he wanted. He launched the tin across the kitchen where it exploded against a wall, processed chunks of potato, cubes of carrot and florets of pale browny-green broccoli all soiled in a tanny, syrupy gloop trickled down the woodchip and over the lip of grout onto the cracked tiling below. Remnant grabbed his jacket and keys and slammed the door on his way out.

  Leather Lane was quiet, save for a small, elderly couple walking a big dog. He paused outside Sanj’s, the local newsagent, security lights casting a dim blue brilliance over the lurid festival of coloured brand wrappings and magazine front covers that were within. He walked on to the supermarket, which was always open, nodding to the guy who was squatting by the cashpoint, his dirty blue sleeping bag over his dirty blue knees, preparing for a night’s begging.

  Remnant grabbed a basket and felt the rush of air conditioned cool as he entered the store. He filled it with fresh broccoli, carrots, potato with soil on their skin, a cauliflower, a pack of six squeaky fresh apples, an orange, a watermelon and four pears. He left room in the basket for the four-pack of Gates which he planned to pick up from the stunted drinks aisle near the tills.

  The staff in the store knew Remnant. He envisioned his face on their monitors right now: ‘It’s him again, watch him, secure the exits, over.’ He caught an exchange of stares between the two cashiers serving cigarettes to an old lady with the shakes and a small bottle of vodka to a young Sunday night clubber on her way up west.

  Remnant stooped to examine the cans of Gates, each emblazoned with a ‘fifteen per cent extra free’ promotion around the top fifteen per cent of the can. This was not only free beer, he reasoned, it was extra free beer and bound to taste that much sweeter as a result.

  He slotted the cans next to the watermelon in his basket and headed toward the end of the short queue for the till, which he bypassed at the last minute, striding head down and heart racing out through the door and onto the street, autumn’s darkness almost totally fallen now. He ran toward High Holborn, basket in hand, Gates four-pack rattling, scraping against the basket’s plastic sides.

  He threw the beggar a pear on his way past, but was gone before he could hear the ‘thanks, mate’.

  They’d be after him now, for sure, grabbing coats and weapons, short, sharp words into their handsets. Don’t look back, keep going he thought. He grabbed a pear for himself and crunched into it, jogging now, holding the basket out in front of him so it didn’t bang his knees or scrape his thighs. He was dribbling, the flood of saliva the pear had unleashed unprecedented, the sensation of something fresh and moist unfamiliar to his tongue and taste buds.

  He reached Hatton Garden and sheltered in the darkened doorway of one of the many bookies that had stores there. They knew this was the place to pick up a steady trade. Several independent turf accountants mingled with the nationals intent on taking the rich pickings from along a road with tributaries that wrapped themselves around blocks of non-descript offices like giant necklaces. The bookies called out to Remnant and the area’s many council tenants who lived in layer upon layer of residential flats. Foreboding abodes merely metres above the jewellers, the poor so agonisingly close to the rich.

  The bookmakers were forever subtly tempting these lofty tenants into their lairs. The lairs of liars who promised riches but delivered debts. ‘Who knows, your luck could change.’ ‘Get lucky on a computerised nag or a mustard-arsed greyhound and you could leave our shop flush with riches and pop next door to buy one of the gems on show for that special person in your life.’ Cheesy dreams that suckered in. And Remnant was once one such suckered-in sucker.

  But he didn’t gamble for him. He gambled what little he had for her, he told Elena. Get Chloe a nice pram, a pretty school dress. Send her on that field trip, get her that computer she wants for her studies, buy her a car before the lure of motorbikes gets a grip, send her to university. All dreams Remnant dreamt of financing, if only that nag would romp home and the one in the next race and the next. The three-horse accumulator that so often fell at the first, the scrunch of the ticket, the clamp-shut of the eyes and the clench of the jaws, the look back to the form and the nap of that tipster, the trickster.

  Catching his breath in the shadows, a distant siren from up west silenced and froze him. He listened close to assess if the siren was for him. But it soon faded into the soundtrack of another London night and he breathed again. He reached into his jacket and pulled out plastic bags bearing the logos of various supermarkets and small-time grocers, one now defunct. He transferred the food to these worn bags, fumbling in the dark, pausing and retreating into the shadow when a car pulled up at the lights on Holborn Circus. It was away at the first hint of amber, and Remnant finished packing his shoplifting, being careful to wipe the handles of the basket thoroughly before leaving it in the doorway and heading home.

  As he walked back to his flat, his phone vibrated and he feared reading ‘unknown caller’ on the screen. But it was Chloe. ‘Not a good time, baby. Not a good time. Not feeling good about myself right now,’ he thought to himself. He was feeling the anger and impatience brought on by hunger. ‘Let me eat and I’ll call you back later.’ He replaced the still vibrating phone in his pocket, yearning for the call to end as he entere
d his block of flats and ascended three storeys of spit-scarred, chewing gummed circled, alcohol stained stone steps.

  4

  Bread. Where was the bread? Its absence confirmed Remnant’s suspicion that as well as being a failure at almost everything in life, he was a failure as a thief. He knew something of the theory, having learnt it from watching listening talking to the regulars in The Old Mitre. But he let himself down on the practical side. He berated himself for not possessing the required calmness, and lacking the coldness of heart.

  He put all the shopping straight into the fridge on his return to the flat. Everything save a can of Gates which he immediately opened. Fifteen per cent extra free tasted like a small victory, somewhat diluted by the fact that his entire shop had been free in a manner of speaking. He made short work of a second pear and first apple, abandoning the orange after finding it too difficult to peel. Then his phone vibrated.

  It was Chloe again.

  Three strikes would surely mean out; he had to answer this time.

  He breathed deeply, nerves flooding his stomach.

  “Sorry darlin’,” he said. “Saw your calls earlier, meant to call you back.”

  There was a pause, filled, Remnant presumed, by a hand gesture to her fiancé that illustrated Chloe’s lack of belief in what her father had just said.

  “Are you drunk?” she asked.

  Remnant put down his can of Gates.

  “No, I ain’t had a drink all weekend. Did you hear about the raid?”

  “What raid?”

  “On the jeweller’s. DT’s. Two lads on a moped dressed as an alien and pirate.”

  “No, what happened?”

  “I saw it all. I even chased after them.”

  “You didn’t catch them?”

  “Nearly. Well, no. They were on a moped.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence.

  “The owner reckons he could give me some kind of reward, you know, as a thank you for trying to catch the thieves.”

  “Ah, that’s good.”

  “Yeah, could buy me a new suit and help me put some money behind the bar for drinks at the reception.”

  “I’ve told you, Dad, you don’t need to worry. Carl’s paying for all that.”

  Remnant grabbed another mouthful of Gates.

  “I want to do it. It’s a father’s job. Oh, and I know someone who knows someone who can put stuff in the clouds, to stop it raining on your big day.”

  “Yeah, Carl’s got those guys on standby already.”

  Another silence that Remnant filled with Gates.

  “Listen, Dad, the reason I’m calling is that the wedding rehearsal is on the 18th. Have you got a calendar or diary to hand?”

  “I’m just writing it down now, darlin’. Wedding. Rehearsal. 18th.”

  Remnant had neither pen nor paper just a furrowed brow that was desperately trying to commit the date to memory.

  “Is it a dress rehearsal?” he asked. “Do I need a suit, ‘cos I’m not sure if that reward money will come through that quick.”

  “No, it’s just a run through, you can wear what you like.”

  “Will your mother be there?”

  “Of course she’ll be there.”

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t know if she’ll bring him along to this. He’ll probably be working.”

  “Oh, but you’ve invited him to the wedding?”

  “Look, Dad, I just need you to be there on the 18th so we all know what we’re doing on the day. Can’t you just be my Dad for once? No hitches or arguments with Mum?”

  “Yeah, of course. I’ll be there darlin’, don’t you worry about that. You getting nervous yet?”

  “Listen, Dad, I’ve got to go.”

  “Yeah, right. Sorry, er. Take care. See you on the 18th. Love you, darlin’.”

  The line had already gone dead and with it his appetite.

  At one minute and fourteen seconds, that weighed in as one of the longest conversations he’d had with his daughter. He always reviewed his telephone calls with Chloe, trying to keep them going for as long as he could, mentally making a note of which lines of conversation elicited the longest response. He knew it was a desperate attempt on his part to make up for lost time.

  So, his ex-wife’s new bloke would definitely be at the wedding. That would make the need for a stiff drink or two ahead of the speeches even more essential. But it would also mean Chloe would have two Dads there, one real, one fake. And Remnant wasn’t sure which one he was.

  5

  Remnant’s exceptional Sunday had one more trick up its sleeve. It was delivered just after 11pm as he was hacking into his watermelon with a blunt bread knife.

  Like Remnant himself, his intercom had long given up working, so visitors were forced to ascend the three flights of stained stone stairs. It was usually enough to put off everyone bar the most determined of souls.

  Consequently, a knock at his door always shocked Remnant. It was like an invasion of his privacy, almost unbelievable that someone should want to see him so badly they’d come all this way. And this late meant it could only be bad news.

  He wiped his hands on a dirty tea towel and walked to the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Police.”

  He grimaced and envisaged a warm night in a cell (not his first). At least there’d be someone to talk to and a half-decent breakfast to look forward to.

  He edged open the door.

  PC Ramage looked a little older than Remnant remembered him, a few more greys on the sides and sideburns and lines around the eyes.

  “It’s been a while, Mr Remnant.”

  “Can it be a while longer and wait until the morning?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Remnant widened the door enough to allow Ramage in. As is a policeman’s wont, the PC’s eyes explored the flat, searching for anything that might have been lifted, diverted or illegally imported. Remnant watched him, wondering if he should own up to the shoplift now and go quietly.

  “You’re to be commended on how clean you’ve kept your nose recently, Mr Remnant.”

  Pinpricks of relief spread across his nerve-ridden guts.

  “I’ve been keeping my head down, getting on with me life. Me daughter’s getting married soon, did you know?”

  “I did not. Congratulations. I imagine weddings are exceptionally expensive for fathers these days. Lots to pay for.”

  “I’m doing my bit, but her boyfriend is paying for most of it. He’s a lawyer.”

  “Ah, so he can well afford it, I suspect. Still, you’ll want to get your daughter a nice present.”

  Ramage picked up the sheet of paper on which Remnant was writing his father of the bride speech from a half empty bookshelf and nodded his approval. He put it down and picked up a post-it note next to it, on which were written the letters ‘IOU’.

  “It’s to go in her wedding card,” said Remnant. “The way things are going, there ain’t going to be no present. But I’m working on it.”

  “And how exactly are you working on it?”

  “Stopping gambling. Cutting down on the drinking. Looking for work down the market. Are you here to arrest me, because if so, let’s go. I’ve had a long day and could do with getting me head down.”

  Ramage held up his hands in mock surrender.

  ‘”I’m just wondering why you left the scene of a crime this morning without giving us a statement, Mr Remnant.”

  He felt like he’d dodged one bullet by walking into the path of another.

  “I didn’t know I had to give a statement.”

  “It’s police procedure, Mr Remnant. We like to gather the facts while they’re fresh in a witness’ mind.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was a bit all over the shop. I needed a drink after getting whacked on me shoulder.”

  He instinctively grimaced and rubbed that area.

  “I hope there’s no permanent damage.”

  “It�
��ll be all right. Just takes a while to heal at my age.”

  For the first time since entering the flat, Ramage looked Remnant straight in the eye.

  “Why would Mr Terku suspect you were part of the gang that raided his shop?”

  Remnant had to stop his anger from surfacing. “I can’t believe he’s said that, accusing me. Where’s his evidence? I’m not taking the blame for this.”

  “Mr. Remnant. No one is blaming you. We have to assess the facts and analyse the situation before apportioning blame to anyone.”

  “I tried to stop the thieves, for f…flip’s sake.”

  “But you failed to get a look at them.”

  “They had masks on.”

  “Another witness says you were sitting outside the cafeteria next door for in excess of an hour before the raid.”

  “I was having me breakfast. No law against that, is there?”

  Ramage shook his head. His eyes had examined every item in the Remnant lounge.

  “May I take a quick look around?”

  “I’ve nothing to hide.”

  Remnant walked over to the window as Ramage poked about. The London sky was its usual brown self, most of the stars hidden by a veil of pollution and the yellorange light leaking from streetlamps. Down below, the streets were deserted, the calm before the storm of another week of commuters, shoppers, travellers, chancers. Another week of flat pub flat pub flat pub flat.

  Remnant gave himself a quick team talk. This was not the time to be feeling sorry for himself.

  “Good to see you’re eating healthily, Mr Remnant.”

  He swung round to see Ramage nodding in the direction of the fruit stained kitchen worktop.

  “I like to treat myself every now and then.”

  Ramage nodded to himself. Remnant doubted whether he’d even heard his answer to the question. He knew a bit about how a policeman’s mind worked, how some of their questions were carefully phrased to trick you into revealing information you’d rather keep hidden. But Ramage took things a stage further. He’d stand there, saying nothing for ages. Waiting for you to break the silence, to blab a little too much. Here he was, at it again, and after about a minute thirty, he broke Remnant.