Off who? When? Looked like Riley had been conducting his own little investigation. Into Frankie’s past.
‘Same difference,’ Frankie said. ‘But no thanks,’ he told Chloe. ‘Not for me.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Riley said. ‘But at least you still like a drink.’ He sloshed another slug into Frankie’s glass, before nodding at Chloe, who chopped him out a long fat line on the table.
‘Cheers, love. Now scoot,’ he told her. ‘Me and Frankie here, we need to have a private chat.’
Frankie watched her go. Riley hoovered up the gear with a rolled-up fifty.
‘Phwoar, fucking lovely,’ he said, wiping his glistening eyes, before leaning in towards Frankie. ‘Now this person you’re keen to meet,’ he said. ‘It might be possible to discover where they are.’
Frankie waited. His pulse began to race.
‘But there’ll be a cost,’ Riley said.
‘I thought you said you’d help me . . . That proving Jack’s innocence and getting the cops off your back was in your interest too.’
‘I did and it is and I will, but this is different. Doing this particular favour for you now, I’m personally putting my own neck on the line.’
Was this about money? About how much the information was going to cost? ‘How much?’ Frankie said. However much it was, he’d find it.
Riley laughed. ‘No, no, no, son. I don’t need your money. Particularly,’ he added, ‘when you ain’t even got enough to pay your rent on the club.’
‘Yeah, about that . . .’ Frankie started to say.
Riley cut him off with a wave of his hand. ‘We can talk about that when this is over. But back to this favour: when I say cost, I don’t mean money. I’ll cover that part myself.’
‘Then what is it you want?’ Frankie said.
‘You.’ Riley stared at him,
‘Me?’
‘Your time. Not all of it. I do hear you when you tell me that you’re not ready to work for me.’
Ready. Another dangerous word. Every bit as bad as yet. Riley was pretty fucking sure of himself, wasn’t he? That one day Frankie would change his mind.
‘A favour, Frankie,’ he explained. ‘Me doing this for you now means you’re going to owe me a favour, and one day – and I don’t even yet know myself when it’ll be – but one day I’m going to call it in. So . . .’ he said, looking Frankie over. ‘How about it, son? Have we got a deal?’
He leant forward across the table and stuck his hand out. Again Frankie hesitated, but again he took it. And shook. What other fucking choice did he have?
They talked a while longer. Both had another whiskey. Riley did another line. Frankie told him about the petrol and the note left at the club. Riley seemed genuinely surprised, angry even, which rather muddied Frankie’s theory about Snaresby maybe being in his pocket, because he’d have already told him, surely, if he was. It left him wondering too, if it wasn’t Snaresby who’d be getting him information about this witness, then who the hell was it, and how?
Finally, Riley walked Frankie back to the top of the stairs and sent him on his way. As Frankie walked back down to reception, he became aware of Chloe watching him. She got up from behind her desk and walked over to join him at the front door.
‘It was nice meeting you,’ she said, shaking him professionally by the hand.
He’d not been expecting that. Looking down, he saw she’d palmed him something, a folded up piece of paper.
He said, ‘Thanks. You too.’
‘I don’t work here like the rest of them, you know,’ she said. ‘Not in that way.’
She meant she wasn’t a pro.
He told her, ‘Right.’
‘But you don’t seem interested in, well, that kind of girl either.’
‘I’m not.’
She smiled. Seemed genuine. Nothing like the business one she’d given him before.
‘So maybe I’ll see you around,’ she said.
A question? A promise? Shit. He couldn’t tell.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sure. Why not?’
She opened the door for him. He stepped out blinking into the sunlight, suddenly feeling the whiskey, wondering what else he should say. But by the time he turned back round, the door was already shutting, and she was nowhere to be seen.
As he walked up the street back towards Soho, he unfolded the piece of paper she’d given him. It had her phone number on it.
He pictured Sharon, how she’d been last night, lying there afterwards, asleep in the moonlit bed beside him. He remembered gently pushing away a lock of her hair from her face before spooning up close behind her, and how she’d sighed so deeply and that had been the last sound he’d heard before he’d slept.
But he remembered her this morning too. How she’d looked when they’d said goodbye. More like how she hadn’t really looked at him at all. And when he drew level a few seconds later with a Borough of Westminster bin set into the curved cast-iron railing of a private garden square, instead of chucking Chloe’s number into it, he folded it up and put it back in his pocket to keep.
29
A prisoner on remand is allowed three one-hour visits a week. That’s what Kind Regards had told Frankie when he’d told him the good news that Jack was being put on remand here in London. Didn’t sound like a lot. That’s what Frankie had reckoned sitting there in Kind Regards’ snug little office when he’d first heard it. But sitting here now in the Wandsworth Visitors’ Centre waiting for Jack to turn up, it felt like an eternity.
Doing time. Not a cliché at all. He’d learned that all right, the last ten minutes he’d been sat here, sipping this piss-awful, sand-flavoured coffee. More like a truism. Which, if his memory from his aborted English A-level served him correctly, meant a phrase that captured the very essence of something and couldn’t be improved on, no matter how many times it was used.
Time here passed evilly slow. Slower than on a deserted railway platform when you were wasted and tying to get home. Slower than watching an empty driveway for your mum to come home. Slower than it took for a jury to return a verdict at a trial.
He looked round the faces of the other prisoners and their visitors. It wasn’t shame you saw in here. Or guilt or resentment or hate. It was just fucking unhappiness. Sadness. Of a mum for a son she still remembered as a school kid in shorts. Of a girlfriend for her man who she wanted back home. Of poor people divided because of desperation, stupid mistakes and miscarriages of justice. The same horrible sick sadness Frankie felt for the old man but had never had the guts to say out loud whenever he’d visited him, in case it had embarrassed him and made him look like a twat.
He’d hoped Jack and the old man might have ended up in the same prison. He’d pictured them together at meal times, or watching films in some echoing, flickering communal hall, or reading well-thumbed books in a dusty library – all fucking clichés, of course, culled out of Shawshank, which he’d watched in the Odeon in Leicester Square only last year with Jack. That’s how he’d seen them. Like Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, uniting together to get through this shit, unbeaten and defiant to the end. But he was glad now that they were apart. Because no matter what he said, the old man would hate it. Seeing his boy here, not as a visitor, but on the same side of the bars as him.
He looked up from the table, hearing the door buzz. It was Jack. Pissing hell, he looked like shit. His skin was sallow and there were dark rings around his eyes. Withdrawal. From booze as well as drugs.
Frankie’s stomach churned. This was all so fucking wrong. This was his little brother, but now he was dressed like their dad. For an awful instant Frankie thought he might burst into tears, just start blubbing and not be able to stop.
He forced a smile. Don’t do it. He knew Jack too well. He took his cue from other people. If he saw panic in Frankie’s eyes, he’d panic too. Frankie had to show him confidence instead.
‘All right,’ Jack said, sitting down opposite him, grinning at him like he didn’t mean it, like he’d j
ust been told to for a photo when he wasn’t in the mood.
‘Yeah, you?’
‘Bearing up.’
He didn’t look it. He looked like hell. At least he didn’t have any bruises on him, though. Either from the pigs or from here inside.
‘I brought you something,’ Frankie said.
Jack grinned, seeing what Frankie had just pushed across the table to him. It was good to see him smiling.
‘A KitKat?’ he said.
‘It was either that or a Snickers, mate,’ Frankie said, nodding over at the near-empty vending machine in the corner of the room up against the scuffed lemon yellow wall. ‘But you know how peanuts make you fart.’
‘I was rather hoping for a cake.’
‘Yeah? Let me guess: with a file inside.’
‘Nah,’ said Jack, ‘the walls here are way too thick. But I’d have settled for a bag of draw.’
He meant it too. It wasn’t just his skin that looked like death. His eyes were shot to shit, like he’d been pricking them with needles.
‘I would if I could,’ Frankie said. He meant it. Didn’t matter how much he hated Jack being into drugs as much as he was. Anything to distract him in here would be better than nothing at all.
‘They search you on the way in?’
‘Same rules as with visiting Dad.’
‘Yeah, only I’m not fucking guilty.’
‘Don’t ever fucking say that.’
‘But I’m not,’ Jack protested.
‘I don’t mean that. I mean what you’re implying. About him. About Dad. He’s not fucking guilty either, OK?’
‘I know that, but—’
‘But nothing. He. Did. Not. Do. It.’
A mantra Frankie had spelt out to Jack a thousand times. Still hadn’t sunk in. Frankie believed his dad, believed him with all his soul that he’d not been part of the gang that had done that robbery. But Jack was different. Even back then, during the trial, he’d always treated their father’s protestations of innocence with a pinch of salt. Like it was all part of some elaborate game where no one really believed a word of what the old man was saying, but you had to pretend you did and keep on showing a united front, because that was the story he was trying to sell to the jury. Frankie had even caught Jack boasting once, about how the old man had committed plenty more crimes he’d never been caught for. He’d dragged him out of the pub they’d been in and had given him a right talking-to. It had taken all his strength not to slap him down, he’d been that pissed off.
‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ Jack said. ‘I meant that I’ve not even been found guilty yet by a court. I’ve not even been tried and here I still am being treated like this. I’m telling you, Frankie, it’s not fucking right.’
‘I’m doing all I can.’
‘Like what?’ The way he said it, it was like an accusation.
‘Like getting you a decent brief. The best money can buy.’
‘How are you paying for it?’
‘Don’t you worry about that.’ The advert for the car was running in next week’s Exchange & Mart and Auto Trader. With any luck Frankie would make enough off it to pay Straight Eddie back before the interest piled up too high on the loan. As for the rest of the money he needed to pay the brief’s fees, God only knew where he was going to get that. But get it he would. Even if it meant losing the club and selling off everything that he owned.
‘And what good’s that gonna do?’ said Jack. ‘The cops say I’m fucked, Frankie. Say I haven’t got a chance.’
Frankie thought about Sharon. Had she been there at the station when Jack was interviewed? Had she interviewed him herself? He thought about telling Jack about her, but didn’t. He’d fly off the handle if he knew they’d got close. Maybe even say something and get her in the shit. And besides, what did it matter now, when they weren’t going to be seeing each other any more?
‘Yeah, well I’m gonna prove them wrong,’ Frankie said.
‘How?’
‘By finding out what really happened.’
‘But the blood . . .’
‘Forget the blood. Someone put that on you. The same bastard who nicked your car.’ Frankie still wanted to believe this was true, but he made sure to watch Jack’s face damn close as he told him, praying it wouldn’t tell him otherwise.
‘I tried telling them that,’ Jack said. ‘The cops. I tried telling them that’s what must have happened.’
‘You any idea who?’ He knew Kind Regards had gone over this with him already, but he thought he might as well ask again.
‘I don’t know. It could be . . . it could be all sorts of people . . .’
All sorts of people that Jack had pissed off.
‘I mean someone clever enough to have done it. Someone who wanted Susan Tilley and her grandma dead. Someone who for whatever reason fancied fitting you up for it too.’
‘No. There’s no one I know who knows her. No one at all.’ An idea flashed in his eyes. ‘What about my car? Have they found it? Maybe whoever took it, they’ve still got it and that will prove what they did . . .’
‘Maybe.’ Or maybe not. Because whoever had been smart enough to set Jack up like this would have been smart enough not to link themselves to his car.
‘I will get you out,’ Frankie said.
‘You promise?’ Jack’s voice wavered as he said it. He was looking at Frankie like a little kid, like Frankie just by virtue of being his big brother had the power to make anything happen, to sort out a bully at school, to take him for a ride on his brand new bike, to get him out of prison and give him his old life back, that all he had to do was say the word.
Frankie told him, ‘Yes.’
And there, the second he said it, he saw the tension draining from Jack’s shoulders. He was going to be all right, that’s what he was thinking. His big brother Frankie was going to make this all go away. He smiled, not like the smile he’d given Frankie when he’d got here. A real smile this time. One from the heart, not front. He picked up the KitKat and slipped off the red-and-white paper wrapper. He smoothed out the tinfoil before running the nail of his forefinger down the centre of the bar and snapping it cleanly in two.
‘Brothers,’ he said, handing one half to Frankie.
‘Brothers,’ Frankie nodded. It was something they’d been doing for as far back as he could remember.
They ate in silence for a moment. Then Frankie went and got them both a can of Coke.
‘You got a cell mate?’ he asked, sitting back down.
‘Yes, mate. It measures exactly ten foot cubed.’
‘Hah bloody hah,’ Frankie said. ‘I mean it. Who you in with?’
‘Don’t worry, they’re not called Bubba, if that’s what you’re worrying about,’ Jack said. ‘Nah, I’ve lucked out, to tell you the truth. I was in with a bit of a prick the first night I was here. A right wanker, to tell you the truth. Covered in cuts all over his arms. Kept telling me he had a Stanley knife hidden somewhere in the cell.’
Frankie felt his hackles rising. ‘Did he threaten you?’
‘Not really. He was more mad, like. But it doesn’t matter now anyway.’
‘Yeah, and why’s that?’
‘He took a tumble down a set of stairs yesterday morning. Slipped and broke three ribs and his ankle too. Gonna be laid up in a hospital for months, they reckon. Honestly, would you believe it? It’s like I’ve got a guardian angel watching over me or something. And even better than that, guess who’s moved in instead of him?’
‘Who?’
‘Stanley Lomax. Remember him? Got done for GBH two years ago.’
Frankie remembered him all right. A huge bastard. One of Riley’s boys. Meaning Riley was keeping his end of the bargain on this much at least. Jack now had a guard hard enough to take on any of Hamilton’s boys here on the inside who might think about making a move. They’d maybe even done for the bloke in the hospital too.
‘And you know what else?’ Jack said. ‘Even better than that, Stanley told
me Riley said to say hi. Like, personally, you know? Told me not to worry. I said he was all right, didn’t I? Back when you were slagging me off for working for him? I knew he wouldn’t let me down.’
He said it with a level of pride that got right up Frankie’s nose. Self-justification too. He’d not learned his lesson at all. Still worshipped the ground Tommy Riley walked on. Still wanted to be one of his boys.
‘I want to talk to you about the night it all happened,’ Frankie said.
‘But I already told you, I don’t remember . . .’
Frankie nodded, watching him closely now. ‘Mickey said he sold you something in the Albion.’
‘He did?’
‘Speed. Do you remember that?’
Jack’s face scrunched up. ‘Yeah. I think I do now. Something weird about the way it looked.’
‘It was blue.
A flash of recognition in Jack’s eyes. ‘That’s right . . . Hey . . . hang on . . .’ He clenched his fists. ‘You don’t think that had anything to do with—’
‘You blacking out and not remembering? No, I don’t. In fact, I already checked.’
‘But how? With who?’
‘Mo.’
‘Mo Bishara?’
‘Keep your fucking voice down,’ Frankie said. Mo was enough of a face to have connections in here, just the same as Riley and Hamilton.
Jack nodded nervously.
‘I went to see him. And you keep that to your fucking self all right, because I wasn’t very nice and I was wearing a mask.’
What little colour there was, drained from Jack’s face.
‘And that shit of his that Mickey sold you, it doesn’t cause amnesia or anything like what happened to you, and it doesn’t make people go Norman fucking Bates either in case you’re worried about that.’
‘So it couldn’t have made me do anything that I’d later forget?’
‘No. And you’ve never had any blackouts before, have you?’
‘Never. I mean, sure, the odd hour if I’ve drunk too much, but never anything like this. Not a whole bloody night.’
‘And you promise me. You fucking promise me that’s the truth. You still remember nothing. Nothing at all?’ Frankie watched his face, his eyes again.
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