The Graft

by Martina Cole

  The annexe was all done in cream and russet tones, and the picture window in her bedroom had heavy brocade curtains that would not have looked out of place in Buckingham Palace. She had done Mum proud, old Tams, and in fairness it must have been hard at the time because Angela Leary had ridden Tammy’s back from day one. All those years Nick had dreamed of a truce between them and now it had come about he wanted it back as it had been before. He looked in her wardrobes and saw with relief that some of Mum’s clothes were still there, so she must be thinking about coming back. He was annoyed with her but could not imagine his life without her in it.

  Truth be told, he adored her. Always had and always would. He had protected her from his father and eventually taken over the mantle of caring for them all, so in a way he had taken on the role of husband in early life.

  But what choice had he had? Should he have stood back and watched her being beaten to a pulp? Let his father demoralise and terrorise both him and his sister?

  He had been seven when his father had first nonced him, and in that first act his father had ruined him as far as physical affection was concerned. He could only find solace now with faceless, uncaring people who used him as he used them. The guilt and the self-hatred was what he craved these days, that was the real turn on for him.

  He had found peace, as the years had gone on, by bettering himself, by having a bigger house or a bigger car, having money had been a salve at one time. It had reassured him that he was somebody no matter what he felt inside. No matter how his mind tried to destroy all he had achieved, he knew, every time he looked around him, that he had made something of his life. The memory of what his father had put them all through was still vivid, like an open wound and he lived with it every day of his life. Yet the more he achieved the worse he felt inside, how had that come about?

  He wished he knew what was going on in his head. All his years of working had left him able to harm someone, maim them and justify it to himself. Yet Sonny Hatcher had been his Achilles heel.

  All the feelings that his father’s treatment of him had engendered could not hold a candle to the guilt he felt over that boy.

  Every time his father had touched him the bile had risen inside him and he had wanted to vomit it all away once and for all. He had saved Hester, though. He had to remember that, cherish that fact, otherwise what was it all about? How would he be able to get through the days, let alone the nights, if it had all been for nothing?

  His mother had not been herself since the turn out with Gary Proctor and he wondered if that was what was bothering her.

  When she’d calmed down and he’d explained it to her, she would be all right once more. She knew him better than anyone and she had stood by him through all sorts. Not that anything had ever been proved, of course. Nick Leary was whiter than white and he intended to stay that way as well.

  But his mother wasn’t stupid, she knew the score, and had decided long ago not to delve too deeply into his various dealings. The clubs were all legit, the building firm was straight, he had every right to live in his fuck-off house, had paid for it fair and square. He wasn’t afraid of a bit of hard graft, a bit of hard collar, and Mum knew it. Had actively encouraged it all his life.

  Nick wasn’t going to live like his father, from hand to mouth, wondering where the money for the next drink was coming from. Was he fuck! He had given them all a good life and Mum knew it. She’d enjoyed the fruits of his labour so it was a bit late now to start being finicky.

  Nick lifted the carpet up and laid it back gently. Her safe was under the floorboards and unless you knew where it was it would take forever to find it. He had had all the safes fitted by a little firm from Belfast, the thinking behind that being it would be too far to come and burgle him from there.

  Now, though, Nick opened his mother’s safe with trepidation.

  Inside there were a few photos and a mobile phone.

  It was the phone that threw him.

  It had recently been charged up, and had eleven missed calls logged on it. Picking up the photos he felt his heart catapult itself up into his mouth. He saw himself smiling away, could remember when the photo had been taken. He had been so happy that day.

  Frankie looked happy as well, they all did. It was a good photo, but if Nick had not been so drunk it would never have been taken.

  But it had been taken and he had made sure that Gary got all the prints and the negatives of it, and Gary had done just that because he was in the photos as well and none of them wanted this kind of evidence lying about. Nick had forgotten about it then, he had never dreamed that the photo would be seen by anyone else in the world, let alone his own mother.

  She also had his old phone, the mobile that he used to call up Frankie and his other amours. The phone that had once been his link to his other way of life, a life that Tammy and his mother would never understand. And why should they understand, he didn’t understand it himself half the time.

  But the need was always there, it was like a cancer inside him, growing silently and waiting to erupt and when it did he was always unable to resist what it offered him.

  He looked at the missed calls and sighed. These photos meant a divorce, at the very least. One thing was for sure: Angela had not shown any of it to Tammy. If she had then the world as he knew it would be well and truly over by now.

  Willy called out to Tyrell and he went back into the lounge, full of trepidation. The boy had obviously sorted himself out. He looked more relaxed somehow, and Tyrell, thanks to Jude, knew all the signs of a good fix. He didn’t hold it against Kerr though because he knew how hard the demon drove. All he felt now that his anger had dissipated was sorrow.

  What a waste of a life.

  But it was pointless saying that to this boy because he wouldn’t listen. Anyway Kerr was not his problem, he was someone else’s. All Tyrell wanted from him was information on his son. And he would get it if he had to beat it out of him.

  But Kerr didn’t do any talking, it was Willy who told Tyrell what he needed to know.

  ‘He’s scared because Justin was supposed to go with Sonny that night, but the bloke who was going to pick him up didn’t show. He assumed like that it was all off, so you can imagine how he felt when he heard what had happened.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t he tell anyone? Why didn’t any of them tell anyone about it?’

  Tyrell knew as he was asking the question what the answer would be.

  For the first time Willy looked annoyed and said sharply, ‘He sleeps in shop doorways, or crashes where he can, and you know that TVs get sold when you haven’t got electricity and newspapers aren’t really our bag unless it’s to pad out our clothes if we’re sleeping outside on cold winter nights. Or maybe it’s because those things are for people with lives to live. Unfortunately, Mr Hatcher, that is not us. We have enough trouble just getting through the day.’

  Willy pulled open another car of beer with a snap.

  That ‘Mr Hatcher’ said it all as far as Tyrell was concerned.

  ’And anyway, who the fuck was he going to tell then? The Old Bill? Get himself put in the frame for something he didn’t do. Get real!’

  Tyrell sat down on the sofa, half ashamed now. He looked at the terrified Kerr and sighed.

  ‘So who was going to pick him up then?’

  Kerr shrugged.

  ‘The geezer from the rat house.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Don’t know. P.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘He’s old.’

  ‘Where does he hang out?’

  ’All over.’

  Tyrell was having trouble keeping his temper. He had had longer conversations with answering machines.

  ‘Where is this Justin now then?’

  The other boy shrugged once more and Tyrell felt his hands clenching into fists.

  Willy, sensing his impatience, said quietly, ‘Get a pen and paper and we’ll go through it all, eh?’

  He was
motioning Tyrell to go back to the kitchen. Once out there with him Willy said sadly, ‘He’s a bit backward, can’t you tell?’

  Tyrell’s patience was nearly drained as he looked at this young boy who had stayed in his flat, had eaten his food and drunk his drink, and was now trying to be the go-between for him and Benny from Crossroads. It suddenly occurred to him that he might just be being taken for a ride.

  ‘Just take it slowly. He’s frightened in case he gets it wrong, that’s all. I think he’s talking about that bloke who picks up the boys for the nonces. Sounds like him anyway. But you have to remember that Kerr is only thirteen and has been on the streets for a good while so we ain’t talking Brainiac status here, you know?’

  Tyrell nodded.

  ‘Let’s get back in there, Willy, and see what else we can gather from him. Find out if there is anyone else who might have something to tell us.’

  Willy smiled now.

  ‘That is exactly what I was going to say. Maybe we should go round to the rat house and be done with it?’

  ‘You aren’t scared to do that any more then?’

  Willy shook his head. He had flat out refused before. It was what Tyrell had wanted all along and the boy had refused point blank to go there, had had to be careful, he’d said. He had to live on the street and even after all this was over, that fact alone made it easy for him to go missing. Who would notice he was even gone? Who looked out for street kids?

  Tyrell had respected his thoughts on the subject because he would not put this child’s life in danger any more than he would one of his own sons’.

  ‘You’ve been good to me the last few days, Tyrell, and I want to pay you back. But I also want some kind of justice for Sonny Boy. He was a good mate, you know.’

  Tyrell didn’t know what to do so he ruffled the boy’s hair.

  ‘You’re a good kid, Willy Lomax.’

  Tyrell’s mobile was ringing once more and he glanced at it to see who was calling before he rejected the call.

  ‘Listen, can I trust you here with him for a few hours until I get back?’

  Willy nodded, and Tyrell saw the relief in his eyes.

  ‘I will talk to him, OK?’

  Tyrell picked up his jacket and as he reached the front door, remembered he didn’t have his wallet. From his bedroom he could hear Willy talking and what he heard made him smile sadly.

  ‘He ain’t a bad bloke, Kerr, so you try and remember what you was told, OK?’

  Willy was clearly trying to get as much information as possible.

  Tyrell popped his head back round the front room door then.

  ‘Shall I bring you two back a takeaway?’

  Willy nodded happily.

  ‘Hamburger and fries for me.’

  Tyrell was already gone but Willy knew he had heard him, knew he would bring back something nice. He was all right was Sonny’s dad, but Willy had an awful feeling that when he got to the bottom of his son’s death he wouldn’t get any kind of relief from the knowledge, would just create further nightmares for himself.

  But he couldn’t say that, of course, because the man didn’t want to hear it.

  Nick looked at the caller numbers on the phone from the safe, and the more he checked them the greater his fear became. He had hidden this particular phone along with a lot of other stuff after the burglary. That was of course the downside to being in his business. Lily Law was the last person you wanted perusing your private and personals.

  Even though he had had the weight of the law on his side then he would not have put it past them to have used it as an excuse to turn him over. And a search warrant would have been a disaster that night. He would not be the first person who had lost their liberty like that, and he would not have been the last.

  He glanced down at the photographs once more and tried to imagine how his mother felt, seeing them. It was obvious they were all into something sexual because they were in various states of undress. Why the fuck did he let them take the photos in the first place? They looked so young, so very young, and so very vulnerable.

  It wasn’t as if he and Frankie were an item, though, was it? Or any of the others in the photograph. In fact, he would be hard pushed to remember their names. But there was one person in the photo his mother would have latched on to and he knew she would have made the connection. So now on top of it all he had to try and placate her, because she was just the type to blow the lid off everything if she was upset enough.

  As much as he loved her she was a fucking nuisance in some respects. Like Tammy, she was a bastard for snooping. He knew that Tammy, for all her acting the prat, knew what he was worth down to the last penny. She also worked out the Euro rates for the Spanish dealings in nano-seconds and could run all his businesses while still spending her life in wine bars and restaurants.

  She pretended to everyone that she had no head for business, but it had been her idea for him to deal in the first place and the money from it had set them up for life. His mother knew all about it, how could she not, she snooped as much as her daughter-in-law did. But this little lot would be the equivalent of a bomb going off in all their lives. Especially Tammy’s. How could he explain Frankie or any of the others? Frankie had at least had the sense not to want more from him, not to fall in love with him and he was so glad about that fact. For all Tammy was and for all their fights he would not let her be hurt for the world. She had not asked for anything from him except his love and she had that although she didn’t believe it now.

  If his mother and Tammy were now bosom pals, and she had actually left the house to go to Hester, poor Hester who had shamed them all by marrying her black man, was she going to blow the lid on all this?

  He stared down at the photos once more, the sickness enveloping him.

  His mother might have stood by him through thick and thin, but would this be one step too far as far as Angela Leary was concerned?

  It was Gary’s fault as usual. He never could leave anything alone. Now thanks to him Nick had to go and sort out Mackie. He only hoped he got there in time to shut the fucker’s mouth up. Permanently.

  This whole mess was all Proctor’s fault, had his greasy fingermarks all over it. Just like every other fuck up over the years. Nick should have sorted him twelve months before when he had realised just how far the man had sunk. If it got out now it would cause untold ag.

  He stood up and decided there was no time like the present. He would go and put the hard word on Mackie himself.

  Louis Clarke and Tyrell were in the Beehive in Brixton. It was busy in there and they had to talk close to each other’s ear to hear what was being said. This suited them, though: it was hard to overhear conversations in noisy pubs.

  ‘Billy went to see Leary.’

  Tyrell nodded slowly.

  ’And?’

  ‘Talk to him, Tyrell, he is well poggered over it all. Billy said it has made Leary go on the drink and the Charlie. And from what I heard about Leary, he was straight like that before. Anyway, Billy is setting up a meet.’

  Tyrell nodded once more and sipped at his lager.

  ‘I know how he feels. I went like that meself afterwards.’

  Louis didn’t know what to say to that.

  ‘He is full of guilt apparently. Thought it was a grown-up, see, because of the ski mask and the weapon. Anyone would.’

  Tyrell knew his friend was trying to make it all easier but he wasn’t. In fact, in a way he was making it worse.

  ‘I just want to hear from his own mouth what exactly went down that night, nothing else. I ain’t got no argument with him.’

  Louis nearly said it wouldn’t matter if he did. Nick was more worried about the Clarke brothers than he was about Tyrell Hatcher. He just wanted his friend to get it over with and maybe then he could get on with his life. Or what was left of it anyway.

  ‘Is that kid still at your flat?’

  Tyrell smiled.

  ‘I got fucking two of them now. This younger one, Kerr, is a righ
t fucking dick but he knows more than he’s letting on. I left the other kid with him. I think he’ll get more than me out of him. I think I frighten him.’

  Louis laughed.

  ‘It’s the dreads, they’d scare anyone. Come on, drink up and I’ll get us another one.’

  Mackie lived in Basildon, and he was not a liked man.

  He was a drunken, argument-prone bully with no interest in anything other than football, ‘filling his boots’ as he so nicely described his sex life with a string of girlfriends now his wife had gone, and drinking himself into oblivion.