Long Reach

by Peter Cocks

  “I’ll drop you off at the bottom of the road,” she said. So I got in.

  It was quite dark by now and all I could see was Sophie’s hair, lit by the lights from the park and the profile of her nose and mouth. The curve of her lips in silhouette.

  “I like this,” she said. “Being with you. I feel comfortable. It’s never really happened for me before.”

  “Dunno why,” I said, though really I knew that everyone was shit-scared of getting close to her. “But I like being with you too.”

  The moment comes when you know that kissing someone is inevitable. My heart beat a bit faster and Sophie leant towards me, and I felt her lips part as she pressed her face into mine. Felt her teeth and her wet tongue. We must have kissed for half a minute, then pulled away. Then kissed again, this time for longer. I sat back in the car seat, feeling giddy and unreal.

  She dropped me off at the end of Church Street, chucked a U-turn before beeping, waving and screeching back off towards the A2.

  I walked back along the river feeling like I was six inches above the ground. I was even singing to myself. The last thing I was feeling was professional: I’d almost forgotten my business – the evening had turned into pure pleasure.

  I got back to the flat. The checks before I went in and the PINs were pretty much second nature to me now.

  Even though I was floating on air.

  I switched on the lights and booted up the Mac. There were a few messages – encoded stuff from Ian and Tony asking about the evening. I replied that all was well and I would detail my report in the morning. Then my phone buzzed with an incoming message. Sophie:

  Had a great evening, Eddie. I like being with you. Let’s do it again. S xxxx

  Four kisses.

  I remembered the real ones. At the rate they were multiplying, I would have enough to cover me from head to toe within a few weeks. I went to bed with that thought.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Several weeks, several more dates.

  Sophie and I were getting increasingly easy in each other’s company. She was happy to hang around with me, and I couldn’t believe my luck every time she made contact. Even at college there had been a major shift. She still talked to her gang of girls, but I seemed to be more her confidante than any of them were. She would leave them behind to sit with me. Likewise, Benjy French and the others began to keep their distance. They started talking to the girls.

  Talked behind our backs.

  I was still wary because I had got close to Sophie under false pretences. I expected her to rumble me as a fake at any time. But the longer it went on, the less fake I felt. I was behaving like the new me – and the new me was what she liked.

  I much preferred the new me too. After all, what was I except a better, more confident version of myself? Better-dressed, with a bit of money and a great flat. I started thinking of it less as a new identity and more as a makeover, and as our dates became more frequent, each time I was a little less surprised that I had managed to pull this gorgeous girl.

  Conveniently, I had almost forgotten her background.

  I had also forgotten to make notes. Well, I had written them up at first, but my entries were pretty dull: Went out, Sophie drove, had a drink, ate Chinese in Greenwich, snogged, home. After the first few entries I felt ashamed that they were so safe and easy compared with the missions Steve had been set, so I stopped writing them until, I imagined, something interesting might happen.

  We were leaving college one Thursday, some weeks after our first date, when Sophie said, “I can’t do this Saturday. Dad’s taking us sailing over to France.”

  “Oh.” The disappointment was clear in my voice. “I didn’t know you were a sailor.”

  “I’m not, really,” she admitted. “When I say sailing, I mean we’re going on the yacht. It’s a big thing with an engine. You don’t really get wet.”

  “Cool,” I said. “How big is it?”

  “Dunno. About sixty foot maybe.” She looked embarrassed. “As big as a bus.”

  “Big. Where are you going?”

  “A place called Honfleur,” she told me. “It’s really pretty. We’re going for dinner.”

  I nodded, impressed.

  “Maybe you could come next time.” She looked a little guilty. “This trip is a load of Dad’s business friends. Mum and I have to smile nicely and pour them drinks and listen to their boring golf stories.”

  She was trying to put a negative spin on it, but sailing to France for dinner sounded pretty smart to me.

  “My brother’s coming too,” she said. “I don’t know if you’d like him, he’s a bit flash.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother,” I said. Although I did. Jason Kelly had featured in my briefing notes.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Sophie said, smiling. She kissed me on the cheek and tapped my nose with her finger.

  “So, where d’you sail from?” I asked. “Dover or somewhere?”

  “Portsmouth – well, Gosport’s where the boat is. We’ll drive down on Friday then sail on Saturday morning.”

  “What’s the boat called?”

  “Guess.”

  “Sophie?” I guessed.

  “Close. It’s Lady Sofia. It was called Seawolf. My dad just renamed it.”

  “Isn’t it unlucky to rename a boat?”

  “I hope not.” She laughed. “I might drown.”

  “Wear a life jacket,” I said. “And I’ll see you when you get back, yeah?”

  “Maybe I could come round to your flat?” she asked. “I’ll bring you a present.” She put her arm round my waist and batted her eyelashes at me.

  “I’ll look forward to it,” I said.

  “She wants to come to the flat.” I was on the phone to Ian Baylis, filling him in on my progress.

  “She can’t. It’s a safe house,” he snapped.

  “I know that. But it makes sense that she might want to, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ll think about it. Anything else?”

  I searched my brain, looked at the notes I’d made. I’d told him the Kelly boat had been renamed, plus the point of departure and approximate time. Told him who was going and where. It was his guess as to why. If he knew any of it already, he didn’t let on. I felt I had dished up a lot of information for Ian Baylis. He could have someone down in Gosport Harbour tonight, putting a tracker on the boat. Someone could be posted to look out for them when they arrived in Honfleur. Based on what I had given him, the whole trip could be under surveillance, but he still asked if there was anything else.

  “That’s it,” I said, a bit pissed off that he wasn’t more appreciative of my efforts. At last I’d had something to report and, to be honest, Baylis was so unresponsive when I did tell him, I felt undervalued. I thought he might have encouraged me more. Also I didn’t like him, but I did like Sophie, so it felt strange giving information about someone I liked to someone I didn’t. Against my instincts.

  He’d had his pound of flesh for this week and I was ready for a little time out. I rang off.

  An hour later, Tony rang. “Good stuff,” he said. “Ian’s filled me in. You’re making great progress.”

  “Thanks, Tone. I’m glad you think so. I wouldn’t have a clue from talking to Baylis.”

  “You know what he’s like,” said Tony. “He’s a pretty serious bloke. Doesn’t make a song and dance about it. But he thinks you’re doing good.”

  “Did he mention the flat?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he did say something. To be honest, I hadn’t factored in that you might have got so close to her so quickly.”

  I felt myself flush at the other end of the phone. “It’s pretty normal to invite people round, isn’t it?”

  “Course it is,” Tony said. “But I can’t risk anyone seeing the apartment. Especially anyone … well, connected.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do? Tell her she can’t come to my flat? I think that would bring things to a pretty dead end, wouldn’t it?”


  “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll sort it. I’ll talk to Anna. Get her to call you.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Eddie?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Anna. Hi. Can you meet me at Deptford DLR at twelve?”

  I looked at my watch, it was ten-thirty and I was still in my boxers. It was Saturday, and I’d been drinking tea and scratching my nuts most of the morning, channel-hopping.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Don’t do a big meet and greet,” she replied. “Just follow normal protocols, and when you see me, follow me towards the high street. We’ll disappear in the market.”

  Something in her tone made me a little wary. I don’t know whether it was the tension I detected in her voice or if it was because Sophie was away and I was seeing Anna alone. I got showered and dressed, and an hour later I was on the street. I did a routine check on the cars parked there. Nothing unusual, so I began to walk along the riverfront.

  After a few minutes I was aware of someone behind me. I quickened my step, then took a side path into the green behind the church. I ducked behind the gatepost, waiting for the figure to pass. It didn’t. The man turned in straight after me and we almost collided.

  “Sonny?” he said. It was a childhood nickname I hadn’t heard for years.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my old man. I think it was when Steve kicked him out for hitting Mum. My immediate instinct was to look around to make sure no one had seen us. The churchyard was empty save for a wino asleep on the far bench and a few crows.

  “How did you find me?” I asked under my breath.

  “Accident,” he said. “I wasn’t looking for you. I thought I saw you the other day. Going towards Greenwich.”

  “Last I heard, you’d moved down to Hastings, or somewhere.”

  “I did. Now I’m back. Full of old people, the seaside. And junkies and queers. I’m a City boy at heart: know where I am with the drunks and the coons.”

  I winced at the terms he used. Remembered his voice and the expressions from my early childhood.

  His hair was longish and greasy. He was unshaven and sunburnt – not tanned, but as brown as a turd. Like he sat outside a pub all day. Which is probably what he did, judging by the beer belly that stuck out from his otherwise scrawny frame. I felt a bit guilty that I didn’t have a scrap of feeling for him. But then I guessed his long absence showed that he probably didn’t feel much for me either.

  “You know Steve’s dead?” I asked.

  He rubbed a grimy hand across his eyes, like he was trying to work up some emotion, or at least make his bloodshot eyes water.

  “I heard,” he said. “Bad news.” He took out a pouch and rolled a fag. I looked at my watch: 11.50 a.m.

  “I’ve got to be somewhere,” I told him.

  “Looks like you’re doing all right for yourself, Sonny,” he said, lighting his roll-up.

  “Ducking and diving,” I answered vaguely. “Listen, don’t call me that. I’ve moved on. Everyone calls me Eddie now.”

  “I’ll still think of you as my Sonny-boy,” he said, trying to sound sentimental, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye.

  I didn’t buy it for a minute. “Well, don’t,” I said. “Better if you don’t think of me – or see me – at all.”

  “Only myself to blame, I suppose.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t lend your old man a couple of quid till next week?”

  I fished in my back pocket, pulled out my wallet and found a twenty.

  “Here’s a score,” I said. “Have it. Don’t owe me, then I won’t have to see you again.”

  He weighed up the possibilities. Looked at the note.

  “Make it fifty and you won’t see me for dust,” he said.

  I peeled off another two twenties and handed them over.

  “Good lad,” he said. “Always knew you’d do well … Eddie.” He clapped me on the shoulder, turned on his heels and headed off across the churchyard.

  ***

  I was a few minutes late for my rendezvous with Anna. She was sitting on the opposite, eastbound platform, wearing a white belted raincoat.

  I strolled along the westbound platform as if I was waiting for a train. Then, as soon as she had seen me, I went back down the stairs to the ticket area. Anna came down the stairs on the other side. Once she had left the station, I followed her along the busy high street and down into the market, which was throbbing with assorted people and the sound of reggae from a CD stall. She was dressed down, but still one or two stallholders called out to her, always up for a chat with a good-looking girl.

  “Hello, darlin’, have a look at my lovely plums…”

  “Cheer up, treacle, it might never ’appen.”

  The lairy banter of a South London market.

  She wasn’t very inconspicuous, I thought. She must have thought the same thing because she ducked between the stalls and walked behind them for a while. She continued down the street until the stalls thinned out and then went into a grey-fronted, modern gallery. I went in after her and looked at the pictures, circling in the opposite direction to Anna until I was standing next to her, looking at the same painting.

  “I quite like this one,” she said. It was a large, colourful image of a cartoon character in a cowboy hat, with graffiti on the wall behind him. Big splashes of acrylic paint stuck out from the canvas.

  “Yeah, it’s not bad.” I did actually quite like it. “Sorry I was a bit late. Ran into someone I didn’t want to see.”

  “Who?” Anna sounded worried. She didn’t take her eyes off the picture. Spoke as if she was still talking about it.

  “My dad,” I said.

  “Shit.” She looked around. “Did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t think so. No. I’m pretty sure.”

  “I didn’t know you had one,” she said.

  “I’d almost forgotten myself.”

  Anna passed me a sheet of paper. Estate agent’s details for a flat.

  “Meet me there in twenty minutes,” she instructed. “Get a cup of coffee, go round the houses a bit. I’m the estate agent, by the way.”

  She seemed edgy.

  Anna left the gallery and the girl behind the desk didn’t even look up. I spent another couple of minutes looking at paintings and then left myself, heading back down the high street in the opposite direction to Anna. I walked down to the end of the road and then turned back, under the railway bridge, taking a back lane up past a pub until I arrived at the address she had given me.

  The flat was above a dusty row of shops, accessed by a back alley. I climbed up an outside steel staircase to a rear door on the first floor: 1a. I pressed the buzzer and found the door open so I went inside.

  It was scruffy – certainly nothing like my apartment by the river, only ten minutes away. Curly-edged carpets, a shiny laminate floor, white woodchip walls, a couple of Ikea chairs and a saggy sofa. Anna was looking through a net curtain out on to the street below. A bloke was just finishing some wiring, as if he was putting in a phone line or TV aerial.

  “All done,” he said. He handed Anna a wiring diagram and she signed a worksheet and he left, nodding to me on his way out.

  “Putting a phone in?” I asked Anna.

  “Among other things.”

  “Who lives here?”

  “You do,” she said.

  My heart sank. I had quickly got used to my smart bachelor pad. She saw my disappointment.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “You can stay put in the safe house. This is a place for your assignations with Sophie Kelly.”

  “What? She’ll blow me out as soon as she sees this pile of shite.”

  “Don’t hold back.” Anna laughed. “Say what you think about the place. I think you’re underestimating either your own attraction or the kind of girl Sophie is.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so,” she said. “The game would be up the minute she saw the place by the river. This makes you cred
ible. Young bloke, not much money, making his way. It’ll bring out her protective instincts, believe me.”

  She lifted the curtain and looked out of the window again.

  “You seem a bit…” I hesitated before I found the right word. “Jumpy.” I didn’t want to sound cocky. She’d been doing this for a while and I was still a rookie.

  “I am a bit,” she admitted. “There’s something going off this weekend.”

  “Is it to do with the Kellys?”

  “Not sure. Probably. This is still their manor and I can smell trouble. It’s all connected.” She looked at me. “I just don’t like it when something unexpected happens. Like you meeting your dad. We should have known about that. About him. That’s exactly where slip-ups happen.”

  I agreed. Slip-ups had always occurred around the old man.

  “Does he know anything about this? Where you live? About your brother?” Anna asked.

  “He knows Steve’s dead,” I told her. “Nothing else.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure. And even if he did, you could buy his eternal silence for a couple of drinks.”

  “You don’t think much of him, do you?” Anna softened momentarily.

  “Less than not much,” I said. “He’s a stranger to me.”

  She nodded; understood.

  “I’ve tried to make this feel a bit like home,” she said. She turned back from the window to face me. “I’ve put some beers in the fridge. Crack us a couple, will you?”

  I went through to the kitchenette, just inside the entrance to the flat, opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of cold Buds.

  “Make sure that door’s shut,” Anna called from the living room.

  I checked the catch. A couple of new Banham locks had been added to the bolt and chain on the door. It was like Fort Knox. The locks were secure. I went back in with the beers.

  Anna had taken off her raincoat and was wearing a sort of business suit. I say “business”, but the skirt was quite short. It was navy blue and pretty tight and she wore it with a thin, white blouse. When she took off the jacket you could see her bra straps – she definitely had more buttons undone than a real estate agent would. Unless it was an estate agent trying it on with a client. She walked through into the bedroom. It was nicer than the sitting room, with French windows that opened on to a little balcony. A floor-length curtain blew in the breeze from the open window and, although the decor was grotty, the bed had been made up with clean sheets and a puffy duvet. Anna took the beer from me and took a glug. She reached back into her jacket, pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and stuck one in her mouth.