Quintin gestured to the sofa. “Please, sit down.”
I played along and sat down as if I’d just arrived for dinner, which is how he seemed to be treating my presence. He sat opposite me and crossed his legs, centring the crease on his trousers with manicured fingers. He was handsome, but carried it as if it wasn’t his fault, just something he had to bear. The thin man dragged a dining chair over the hardwood floor to the front door and Quintin winced at the sound.
“So, where were we?”
“You were telling me about Miss Jones,” I said.
“Ah yes. Miss Jones is granted a certain period alive to be as depraved as possible, which of course provides for some entertaining scenes.” He smiled and those dimples I’d seen in his photo came to life. “Eventually her time on earth comes to an end, but not before she has, of course, become a voracious sex addict. She’s now ready to go to hell, happy in the knowledge that she’s really earned it. She meets Saint Peter again and now she’s worried, deciding all of a sudden that she doesn’t want an eternity of physical pain. He reassures her that there will be nothing of the sort, that physical pain is simply a mistaken impression of hell held by the living. So she goes to hell and finds herself locked in a room with a man. Maybe, she thinks, she can have more sex after all. The problem is the guy spends his time looking for imaginary flies, and is completely disinterested in her.” He made more dimples. “So that was her punishment, George, to be stuck in a room with a man who didn’t want to fuck her despite her desperate need. That was her hell.” He uncrossed his legs and leant forward. “Now you tell me someone would think of making that sort of adult film today. No, sir. It could have been written by Sartre or Beckett.” He spread his arms along the back of the sofa. The smile disappeared.
“But, George, you didn’t break in to admire my film collection. Tell me why you’re here.”
“I’m just interested in renting one of these flats out, so I thought I’d take a look.”
“Don’t fuck with me, George. I’ll call your quaint cops and get them to come and pick you up. In fact in the eyes of the law I might be justified in using reasonable force to protect myself and my property.”
“Go ahead and call the police,” I said, ignoring his threat of violence. I gestured to the man at the door. “Maybe they’d be interested in what your employee was doing Wednesday evening, when my employee had his fingers broken.” Quintin smiled. He got up and went to the drinks cabinet near the dining table.
“What’s your poison, George?” he asked, his back to me. “I’ve even got some Armenian brandy, not bad at all.” I glanced at the thin man who was sitting in front of the door cleaning his nails with the end of his stiletto. I couldn’t risk trying to get past him with that thing.
“Whisky is good,” I said, sitting back in the sofa; the wine I’d had earlier had been scared out of me when Quintin had appeared at the door. I felt for my mobile phone, more as a reassurance than anything.
“Bourbon OK?” He asked, his back to me.
“Yes, but no ice.”
“Well done, sir.” He came over with two amber-filled glasses and handed me one. “This is Eagle Rare Single Barrel, none of that Jack Daniels crap everyone here thinks is bourbon.” He sat down. “Let’s discuss this sensibly, mano-a-mano.” He raised his glass and drank. I did the same. I didn’t think much of the Eagle Rare. It tasted too salty.
“I knew your father at Morley,” he said. “Kockers, we used to call him. He used to clean up after our gatherings.” He grinned, waiting for a reaction, but I didn’t oblige. “And now here you are, like father like son, cleaning up after other people’s messes. Sylvia’s on this occasion, right? She always was one to make a mess.” He looked down at his drink as if to contemplate its appeal. “You’ve been poking your nose in my business, George, and I’m entitled to know what it is you want, or what Sylvia wants since she’s employed you.” Every time he mentioned her name his full mouth twisted briefly into a smile. I swear he didn’t know he was doing it.
“Why don’t you just ask her?” I said. His lips pursed as if he was considering the possibility.
I drank some more salty whisky.
“Did she send you up here to look for something?”
I decided to follow some of my own advice to others and directly ask the question I wanted an answer to. “What is it you want with Lucy, Mr Boyd? Surely you can see the anguish you’re causing her mother by seeing her.”
He looked surprised then laughed. A forced, harsh laugh that made me feel very tired.
“My dear Kockers Junior, you’re completely out of your depth, aren’t you? You haven’t got a fucking clue what’s going on. Sylvia hasn’t told you anything, you sap.” My tongue felt very thick, like my brain. Quintin was difficult to bring into focus.
“Are… you… shleeping… with… Lucy?”
He smiled, and what I thought he said was, “I suppose that could be considered your business, but not Sylvia’s.” He then said something else but I couldn’t make out his words at all.
Fuck and bugger it.
Salty drink, George. What’s your poison, George. I put the whisky carefully onto the coffee table and took out my mobile phone. Someone would need to pick me up; I needed to get back to Nina’s or go home to bed. But my fingers were unusually large and I couldn’t work the buttons. Quintin leant over the coffee table to take the phone gently from my hands.
I desperately needed to lie down, so I did.
* * *
Someone was doing DIY in my head, knocking through from one hemisphere of my brain to the other, trying to make an open-plan brain. I was lying down at least, on my side. I opened my eyes; I was hemmed in, seemingly by a wall of fabric. It smelled familiar. My feet came up against something when I tried to stretch my legs out and I was hit with a panic of being boxed in or even buried alive. I sat up quickly, only to find myself on the back seat of the Golf. Someone was tapping at the window but I couldn’t see them due to condensation. Although my raincoat was over me I was cold. I rubbed the window and saw Eric looking in. I wound it down and let in a blast of cold air.
“You alright, son?” I had no saliva and words came out unformed. The bastard had slipped something into my whisky, probably GHB given the salty taste. Eric opened the door. I sat up and groaned at the pain in my stitched shoulder; I’d been lying on it.
“You must have really overdone it last night, son.”
“How long have I been here?”
“It’s six-thirty in the morning, I’m just on my way home.” Jesus, just how long had I been out here?
“Did you see them bring me out?” I asked.
He glanced back at River Views and then at me. “No,” he said, before disappearing from the window. I felt in my raincoat pocket for my car keys, but pulled out my house keys with Boyd’s apartment keys tangled up with them. If Quintin and his henchman had searched me they must have thought they were mine.
* * *
I desperately needed a piss. When I put the keys in my raincoat pocket I felt a piece of paper. I pulled it out to find a folded A5 sheet that when opened revealed a photo of myself passed out on Quintin’s sofa. On the table before me was a sex toy, standing obscenely upright. Underneath the photo was printed: “Next time we use this on you.” I got out and looked up at the penthouse. The lights were on behind the blinds. I thought about going back up there but my head and legs had nothing in them and I couldn’t even formulate what I would say, never mind get up there to say it. I relieved myself leaning against the wall behind a white van, my urine splashing onto my shoes and billowing steam in the cold air. Then I ripped up the photo and scattered the tiny pieces around. Afterwards I sat behind the wheel of the Golf and found the car keys were in the ignition. Something dug against my armpit when I moved to start the engine. It was the DVD case I’d taken to my aborted date with Nina. Inside, still underneath my DVD, was the disc I’d swiped from Quintin’s office. Just a serial number on it. My shoulder throbbed lik
e an idling motorbike with no exhaust, keeping time with my head. I was worried that the stitches had come undone when I’d been manhandled to the car. I could go to Kamal’s, but I couldn’t face another badgering about going to the police, and his pork-sewing flatmate might still be at work or might just have gone to bed after a night shift. Sandra might be up; she didn’t work Friday nights so she could be on the ball Saturday for Ashley. I put the car gently into gear and moved slowly off.
36
IT WAS SEVEN WHEN SANDRA OPENED THE DOOR IN HER FLUFFY bathrobe. Her hair was still wet and she was makeup free. She looked pissed off for a second before looking me up and down.
“Jesus, you look like shit.”
“I look better than I feel.”
She helped me take off my raincoat and we went through to the kitchen. I explained briefly where I’d come from and what had happened last night, leaving out my aborted date with Nina.
“What a bastard. But let’s sort you out first. What’s it to be – coffee, bath, wound or painkillers?”
“I really came round so you could check the stitches. I’m worried they’ve come undone.”
“I’ll run you a bath while I look at it – you smell.” I relented to the idea of a bath, feeling too weary to trek home.
She put her hands on my shoulders as if to measure me.
“You’re the same size as my first. He left a couple of brand-new Armani suits when he scarpered to Spain. I was waiting for Jason to grow into them but it turns out he’s not built like his father. Doesn’t look like him either, come to think of it.” She winked at me and left. I gingerly took off my jacket and shirt while she ran the bath and fetched my overnight bag from the car – I always keep one in the boot. She came back dressed and with a first aid kit. I sat the wrong way round on a kitchen chair and she stood at my back. I could feel the bandage being pulled away.
“Are you going to the police about Quintin?”
“And say what? He’ll claim I got pissed and they helped me to the car; it’s not like they did anything to me. Anyway, if he gave me what I think he gave me there’ll be no trace of it in me anymore.”
I felt the bandage come away and fresh air hit the wound.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“What is it?” I asked, terrified of the answer.
“Nothing, just kidding. It looks fine to me. I’ll clean it with some disinfectant and put a new bandage on.”
* * *
Later I sat in the bath and lay back on an inflatable cushion between my shoulder blades, to keep the wound off the back of the bath. It felt good, especially when the painkillers I’d washed down with Sandra’s instant coffee kicked in. The pills killed the headache as well as the throbbing in my shoulder, and by the time I’d put on some new undies and a charcoal grey Armani suit I felt almost human. I emerged from the bathroom to the smell of cooking bacon and descended to find Sandra and Jason at the kitchen table. The sound of kids’ TV came from the living room where I assumed Ashley was plonked in front of the 42-inch plasma fixed to the wall.
“Morning, boss. Looking smarmy in Armani.”
Sandra got up and put bacon, tomato and a fried egg together on a plate.
“Have a seat, George. More coffee?” I nodded. Jason was managing to eat on his own, holding a fork in the palm of his hand with his thumb. His food had been cut up.
“Where’s Lucy?” I asked.
“Still asleep,” Sandra said, placing the loaded plate in front of me. “There’s a girl with problems.”
“You had a chat then?”
“As much as I could. She was in a state.”
“You find out anything?” I winced as she poured hot water into a cup and added instant coffee.
“Mr Boyd was taking photos of her.”
“Photos?”
“Yeah, not what you’re thinking. Just glamour portraits, that sort of thing. It’s a hobby of his, apparently.” I remembered the camera in his office, his visit to the camera shop in town when Jason and I had followed him last week. “Anyway, seems he turned her head with the attention. She found it flattering. Told her she was beautiful, the usual shit.”
“And she fell for it?” I asked.
“Jesus, boss, she’s not that bad,” Jason said.
“This from the guy who said ‘let’s hope she has a big personality’ when he saw her photo?”
“Well, it doesn’t do her justice,” he said, getting up and going into the other room. Sandra rolled her eyes at me.
“You think Quintin was grooming her?” I asked Sandra.
“She seems a little old to be groomed, but then she is childlike in some ways. That’s how it starts, isn’t it? Befriend children, take innocent photos of them, then gradually convince them to unbutton their shirt, then take it off. Before they know it they’re posing naked.”
I considered this scenario and sawed at overcooked bacon.
“Good morning,” Lucy said from the doorway. She was in a pair of Jason’s pyjamas that suited her boyish figure. I wondered if she’d heard our conversation.
Sandra offered her breakfast but she politely declined and settled for coffee.
“I can’t find my clothes,” she said.
“That’s ’cause I put them in the wash, darling, they had sick on them,” Sandra said.
Lucy blushed and looked down at her cup. Then she looked at me. “Thanks for coming to get me. Again.”
I shrugged.
“He’s a sucker for a damsel in distress,” Sandra said. She told Lucy to have a shower and that she’d bring her clothes up. Lucy went upstairs, seemingly unfazed about waking up in a council house dressed in men’s pyjamas surrounded by people she hardly knew. I looked at my watch.
“Thanks for breakfast, Sandra. I’m going to visit Dad then get some kip.”
“Oh my god,” she said. “I’ve just remembered. Jason has something to tell you.” She angled her face towards the sitting room doorway and shouted his name. He sauntered in, arms across his chest to protect his hands.
“What?”
“You’ve got something to tell George here, remember?”
Jason sat down and tried to look like he couldn’t remember what it was he had to tell me but he was too pleased with himself and couldn’t keep up the pretence.
“Well, you know the backups you weren’t doing in the office.”
I nodded. “Your mother was doing them and the backup drive was stolen.”
Both he and Sandra shook their heads.
“No, boss. Mum wasn’t doing the backups. The backups were done automatically online. I set it up like over a week ago, when I was in the office. They were incremental backups so were done in the background when the computer was on.” He sat back, looking smug. I tried to understand what it was he was telling me.
“You mean that everything that was on the hard drive is on the Internet somewhere?”
“Yep, Mum agreed the payment.” I looked at Sandra.
“Sorry, I’d forgotten all about it,” she said.
“It’s a pretty secure website though, no worries there,” Jason said.
“Let’s have the discussion about me being kept in the loop later. Right now I just want to know if you can download the bloody stuff.”
“Of course. I could try and do it onto our computer here, with a bit of tweaking ’cause it’s not the source of the original—”
I stood up.
“OK, then download the photos and the tracking info from the Trisha Greene case. Somebody wanted them badly enough to ransack the office, so I want to look at them again. Email them to me. And for God’s sake don’t tell anyone you’ve got them.”
“Like who?” Sandra asked, giving me a dangerous look.
“I’m just thinking of Brampton’s flying monkey, or Brampton. I wouldn’t put it past either of them to come sniffing round,” I said.
She walked me to the door and I told her I would pick Lucy up later to take her home.
“Be careful, Geo
rge,” she said.
“You worried about me, Sandra?”
“You’re a regular source of income, of course I’m worried.”
* * *
I drove straight up to Cottenham to visit my father, stopping only for flowers at a petrol station, more for the benefit of Megan the young care assistant than Dad, who I wasn’t sure even knew they were there. Megan, who took them off me to put in water, was reading my mind or expression.
“There have been no more visitors, Mr Kevorkian. I’ve double-checked.”
I smiled and wondered how old she was – certainly not much older than Lucy, but younger than Cathy at McDonald’s.
“Thanks, and please call me George.”
Dad was sitting in his high-backed chair facing the window in his room. I sat on the end of the bed. He looked round and smiled, like you would at a stranger who had just sat next to you in the doctor’s waiting room, then returned his gaze to the bird table outside on which three or four small birds pecked at seed before being seen off by a large pigeon. Some sunshine broke through the layer of cloud and reminded me how quickly one became used to drabness.
I wanted to ask him about his days and nights at Morley College, why he had hated it so much. It was my loss that he hadn’t been much more talkative before the Pick’s disease had taken over, and less so after my mother had died, when I’d mistaken the early symptoms for grief and withdrawal. It is to my shame that at the time he had needed me most, after Mum’s death, I had still been obsessed with Olivia, and hadn’t spent the time trying to bring him out of the shell he had retreated into. And even though I now knew it was the illness that caused him to withdraw, it did not absolve me.
Now, making sure the door was closed, I told him all about the Bookers, Quintin Boyd and Trisha Greene. I told him about Jason having his fingers broken, me being knifed, the office being broken into. I told him about being drugged by Boyd and my confusion about the case. I also mentioned the Cambridge Blue Club several times to see if I got any reaction. But there was nothing except when he occasionally turned and smiled as if it was the first time he’d set eyes on me. I left when they were about to serve lunch.
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