by David Mark
The firm was run by a man who made a mint for the pair of them with bodged work and estimates that always undercut the other tenders for local authority business.
A slick Italian.
A man who might still be alive.
Who raped Pamela and shafted them all.
A man who looked so like the boy, that it stopped an old man’s heart.
A man called Santinello.
FIFTY
The Laburnums Care Home, Holybourne, Hampshire
January 19th, 1.03 p.m.
The nursing home is set back from the main road, shielded from the wide, quiet street by bare trees planted close enough together for their branches to intertwine, so that visitors’ first impressions of the large Victorian building seem to arrive through a black veil. It’s an apt image for a place that makes its living offering end-of-days care. Red-bricked and high-roofed, set in two acres of landscaped gardens and decorated to the standard of a decent bed and breakfast, Mally Santinello considers it to be a decent enough place for his old friend to die, and well worth the money he insisted Pat accept to ensure Billy sees out his days in comfort. The investment is a paltry one. Mally knows that had Billy been a man more like himself, he could have fleeced him royally over the years: skimming from the business, and demanding cash to keep his trap shut.
Santinello’s shoes make little noise on the driveway as he walks up to the visitors’ entrance, hands in the pockets of his expensive, three-quarter-length coat. He’s not cold, although it’s a bright and bitter day, but he’s never quite known what to do with his hands when they’re not full. He supposes that’s always been his problem.
The car park is half-full. He notices a sporty little thing parked next to a 4 x 4 and spots the baby seat in the back. Wonders if this is Adam’s vehicle: the nippy little thing Pat had told him about. Doing well, she says. New job. More colour in his cheeks. Laughing like he used to. Visiting his dad every day. Reading Westerns to him and calming him down when he gets upset. Once upon a time, Mally would have popped home for his silver Mercedes and driven back here, just to park it next to Adam’s and make the little prick feel shit about himself. Show him he may be raising his game, but that he’s still no success. No big-shot. No Mally Santinello. But these days, Mally doesn’t feel the urge to show off. Doesn’t need to buy a drink for every man in the bar or treat himself to a new vehicle with a personalized number plate each Christmas. He’s a lot more at ease with himself than he used to be. Content in his wealth. Proud of himself. Reconciled to his mistakes. And besides, he likes young Adam. Sees a bit of himself in the lad. The same drive, the same winky twinkle that helped him secure the deals that made him rich, all those years ago.
As he enters the warmth of the reception area and smiles at the familiar face behind the desk, Mally wonders about the nature of fortune. Wonders how much luck a man makes for himself, and how much is foisted upon him. He wonders if he’ll end up in a place like this. Gaga and piss-stained, coughing himself into the grave, surrounded by faces he doesn’t recognize in a world that wants him gone.
Mally gives a polite knock at the open oak door then pokes his head into Billy’s room. Adam is sitting at the foot of the bed, reading a story about some Indian scout taking on some tribe of baddies. Adam nods a smile and Mally indicates the lad should carry on. There’s no sign that Billy is listening to the tale, but Mally doesn’t doubt that Adam feels better for having something to do, and doesn’t want to stop his flow. He listens for a while, to the stories of the gunfights and knife-fights and beautiful girls in frilly dresses, and watches Billy die. He’s hooked up to a drip, fastened inside pale blue pyjamas and mummified by sheets and a crocheted blanket. A TV is on in the corner of the airy, high-ceilinged room, the sound turned down, a colourful programme for kids flickering odd lights onto the cream walls. There’s little about the man in the bed Mally recognizes as Billy Nunn; the tall, capable, funny fucker who helped him build up the company, stood by his side through it all, and who bailed him out of the shit without judging, or having to be asked.
Eventually, Adam reaches the end of the chapter, and closes the book. He’s dressed casually, in combat trousers and a fashionable jumper. His hair is growing back and he’s clean shaven. He’s looking better than the last time Mally laid eyes on him, and he’s pleased to see Pat was right: he’s thriving.
‘Day off?’ Mally asks, quietly.
‘Week,’ he says. ‘Felt a bit bad asking for time off so soon after starting, but it’s important, isn’t it.’
‘Definitely, son, definitely. They OK with you about it?’
‘Oh fine. They understand. And I’ve been putting in the hours. Knackered, to the tell the truth, but it’s a good knackered. You know that feeling, where you’ve put in a good day’s work?’
‘Oh yes, nowt like it. I know he’d be proud of you.’ He nods at the figure in the bed. ‘And you’re doing all any son could do for their father.’
‘I hope so.’
Mally takes off his coat and hangs it over the side of the chair, then sits back down. ‘Any more news from the doctors?’
‘Just more of the same. Can’t be long left, but they said that weeks ago.’
‘They just don’t know, do they?’
‘No.’
‘Do they think he’s suffering?’
‘They say not, but when he has his moments and comes to, you can see he’s in pain. Couple of days back, he was himself for a good few minutes. Knew me. Asked about Tilly. Mam. He was cracking jokes. Then he was gone again. Back inside himself. Next time he came to he was younger than I am now. Angry and upset and giving shit to the nurses.’
‘It must be hard.’
‘It is.’
They sit and talk about Adam’s job for a while. The weather, and how the nights are drawing out. Football, and where the England manager is going wrong. They agree that if Billy was a dog, the vet would have put him to sleep by now. They share stories about the man in the bed, and sometimes remember to include him in the conversation. Once in a while, he wakes up, and mutters. Adam has to stifle a laugh as he notices one of Billy’s ears has folded over and stuck fast to the side of the face he has been laying on. He rights it, dutifully, and returns to his position.
‘That young one not here today?’ asks Mally, as he says yes to the offer of a cup of tea from the middle-aged carer who pokes her head around the door and smiles at the men in the room.
‘Tilly? No, she’s with her nan.’
‘No, I meant that nurse. Red-head. One who was here on Friday.’
‘Oh, you mean Helen? No, I haven’t seen her.’
‘Cracker, that one. If I was twenty years younger …’
‘You’d be ninety-seven.’
They laugh at that, and Mally hears Billy’s speech patterns in the jokes that Adam starts to crack. Soon they are laughing, chuckling, getting on, like grown men should. The moment makes Mally feel nostalgic. He remembers Billy, before the accident, and the rapid-fire one-liners he used to throw at the other men on their works crew. Used to have him in stitches.
‘You still haven’t picked up those photos, by the way,’ says Mally, picturing the collection of black-and-white images that have been laying on his kitchen table for months.
‘Oh, sorry,’ says Adam, sipping at his tea. ‘I keep meaning to, but you know how it is.’
‘I do, lad, I do. But they’re just going back in the cupboard if you don’t want them.’
‘I do want them, I’ve just been up to my eyes …’
‘They might do some good, is all I’m saying. Your dad looks happy as Larry in one of them. Laughing like somebody’s tickling his whatsit. I would have given them to your mam, but I don’t know how fondly she remembers those times, when he was away on the road, before the accident and before you came along. She could be a bit funny about things like that. Never really liked it.’
‘I understand. Blokey times.’
‘Exactly,’ says Mally, nodding his appr
eciation that Adam understands.
Adam pauses and looks at his watch. Pulls a face. ‘Your place isn’t far, is it?’
‘Five minutes on foot. Ten in that fridge on wheels you’re driving.’
Adam smiles. Looks at his dad. ‘Cool. Shall we give it another half hour here, then pop to your place?’
‘Lovely,’ says Mally. ‘I’ll crack open a bottle, if you’re up for it. And the cleaning lady’s made another bloody tiramisu.’
‘Just like mother used to make?’
‘Not a bit,’ he laughs.
‘She a looker?’
‘Tastier than her tiramisu. I’ll let you draw your own conclusion.’
The house isn’t particularly fancy, but Adam can tell from the quality of the cars parked up at the other sprawling properties in the neighbourhood that it would set him back the best part of half a million pounds if he were to buy it in today’s market. It’s a bungalow with a converted attic, set in neatly tended gardens. The last of the daylight bounces off the glass conservatory, the roof of which is just visible as Adam parks the Suzuki on the criss-crossed brick driveway. Gives a whistle. He feels a moment’s irritation, that his passenger lives hale and hearty in such luxury, while his father, his right-hand man for half a century, withers away in a nursing home, but he is trying to stop thinking negative or unkind thoughts, and tells himself that Mally deserves his success, and that he has never been slow to share it with the Nunn family.
Mally opens the double front door and they step inside. There is a smell of tomatoes and basil, and a gentle warmth that makes Adam feel instantly comfortable and drowsy. The inner doors open into a large, open-plan living room. It stretches forty feet to the far glass doors, which flows into the conservatory. A large kitchen stands beyond the door to the corridor, which Adam assumes leads to the bedrooms. It’s tastefully decorated in creams and terracotta. There is a large, leather, three-piece suite in the centre of the room, facing a giant entertainment system: a plasma screen TV at the centre of the shiny silver ensemble. The art on the wall is surprisingly modern. Impressionist red faces on blank canvases. Silhouettes of large, topless women overlaid on different coloured backdrops. A picture of a young man that Adam surmises to be Mally’s son, smiles out of a gilded frame on the mantelpiece above the glossy, wood-effect fireplace.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ says Mally. ‘Wine? Sandwich?’
Adam considers the offer of the wine, and then shakes his head. He’s drinking to a strict schedule, these days. It’s a deal he’s made with himself. A pint and two doubles with his lunch. A bottle of wine after dinner. Nip before bed. He knows it’s too much, but argues that if he sticks to drinking merely excessively, he will be able to keep it in check better than if he allowed himself to binge.
‘Just water for me, please.’
‘You sure?’ asks Mally, and he seems surprised.
‘Honestly,’ says Adam, and sounds too firm. He makes light of it. ‘I tried a drop at Christmas and if I remember rightly, it’s too easy to polish off a vat of the stuff.’
Mally smiles, appeased. ‘Right, you wait there. I’ll be back.’
Adam sinks into the sofa, his eyes on the blank TV screen. He takes deep breaths, wanting a cigarette, but concentrating on the nicotine patch on his forearm, along with a mental image of Tilly’s face and voice. Her nose is wrinkled. ‘Daddy smelly,’ she’d said, and Adam hasn’t sparked up since. He’s living as well as he can. Has given himself over to Zara completely. Can’t be in a room with her and not hold her close. Texts her every moment of his working day. Has even let her meet Pat, a brief hello and a kiss on the cheek on the doorstep; Zara dressed demure and delicate in long gypsy skirt and a fur-lined denim jacket. He is no more certain of his love for her than he is of anything else in his life, but he knows that making her happy makes him feel better. Jordan too, silly daft lump that he is. And Selena. Smiling more, now. Content with the playful thumps on the arms and giggling headlocks they share. Their chats on the way to school and as they take walks down the waterfront after tea. Father and daughter. Best of friends.
Mally returns with an old brown envelope in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. ‘Here we are then,’ he says, handing the envelope to Adam and sitting down in the armchair, facing him. ‘Good days, them,’ he says, and Adam looks at the slick, polished, nimble man of seventy-eight years old who sits close by, and hopes that he will age as well and as gracefully as he has. He has comforted himself, as he has watched his father withering and dying, that even if dementia is hereditary, he is not at risk. It is a crumb of comfort, against the famine of knowing that he is not Billy Nunn’s blood.
Adam reaches into the envelope and takes out the photographs. Leafs through the first dozen. Building sites, mostly. Cement mixers and out-of-shape men in overalls, smearing cement onto bricks like paté onto toast, or carting wheelbarrows up planks and over puddles. He sees a few faces he recognizes but couldn’t name. Pulls appreciative faces as he works his way through the bundle. Sees his father, perhaps forty years old, caught off-guard, feet up on his desk in the Portakabin, tie and checked shirt, paperback Western in his hands. Mally leans over. ‘Got him a treat that day,’ he says, indicating the picture, and sitting back down, smiling.
More pictures. Black-and-white again, now. Blokes. Eating butties and drinking flasks of tea. Hard hats and high-visibility vests. Mally and Billy, side by side, cutting a ribbon to open a new block of flats in Southampton, fresh-faced and smirking, Billy’s fingers ever so subtly curved into a V-sign at his side.
Next photo.
A face he knows.
Adam’s face twitches in confusion and he feels acid climb into his chest.
Mally leans over again. Looks at the image. ‘Aye, thought you might spot that one,’ says Mally, breezily. He nods at the image of the tall, broad-shouldered man in a grey suit and hard hat, shaking hands with a more youthful version of himself. ‘Not the way you’d want to go, is it?’ Mally laughs.
Adam’s brow creases. ‘Riley?’ he says. ‘Leo Riley?’
‘Well remembered,’ says Mally, impressed.
‘But …?’
‘I’ve got the paper here,’ he says, gleefully. He reaches down beside the chair and picks up a copy of the Express. Flicks through the pages. Holds up the paper for Adam to see. A picture of Leo Riley smiles out at him, under the headline: Kinky Sex Death of Politician.
Adam snatches the paper. Skims the article.
A well-known politician who survived scandal enquiries which cast a cloud over a city council has been found dead in his home – apparently the victim of a sex game gone wrong. Leo Riley, eighty-two, an Alderman and Freeman of the city, was discovered dressed in stockings and suspenders at his home on the outskirts of the city. He appeared to have accidentally asphyxiated while hanging himself from a doorframe, dressed in the kinky gear. A colleague said last night: ‘To think this is what he will be remembered for is a tragedy. There was talk of a statue being put up of Leo but now his name will be a laughing stock …’
Adam feels a numbness prickling into his chest and limbs. The world beneath his feet seems to be sloping. His balance is skewed.
‘Always was a funny bugger, that one,’ carries on Mally, unaware of his guest’s discomfort. ‘Your dad had him pegged as a dodgy so-and-so the minute he clapped eyes on him, but you make allowances when it helps your wallet, don’t you?’
‘Dad knew him?’ Breathy. Aghast.
‘Course he did. Your dad was my number two, wasn’t he. Was better at pricing up jobs than I was. I hope he gets a moment’s respite so I can tell him about that dodgy bugger going out dressed in bra and knickers. He’d laugh his head off.’
‘But when?’ Adam is stumbling over his words. He grabs Mally’s wine from the table and downs it, unthinking.
‘Easy, lad,’ says Mally, smiling, but puzzled. ‘I know it’s funny but what people get up to in their own home is their own business.’ He laughs, as if realizatio
n is dawning. ‘Don’t be thinking we were into any of that funny business. It was strictly business.’
Adam forces himself to breathe. Calm down. ‘What was the deal?’
‘Oh that was back in the glory days, when we were building things up,’ says Mally, stretching, enjoying the memory. ‘He was on the council and had the say on who got the contracts for building work. There was some other daft bugger on the council lining his pocket with brown envelopes, but Leo, God love him, had a bit more scope. Brought in outsiders with no connection, and gave us the government grants to build all these new community and housing projects. He took a cut, of course, but even with the three-way split, we made a mint.’
Adam is breathing through his nose. He can smell blood. Damp earth. Corruption. ‘Three-way?’
Mally leans forward, enjoying sharing these old war stories. ‘Oh aye. Bad lad from Canning Town. Name you might have heard of.’
Adam says it under his breath.
‘That’s right, Jardine. Real thing, he was. Used to be a big name, once upon a time. Saw off the Krays, so they say.’
‘They do.’
‘Aye, we were close, once upon a time. Not friends, but friendly. Moved in some nice circles, he did. Had a lot of people in his pocket, but not me. We were partners. And who’s done the best in the long run, eh? We’re all much of an age, but Riley’s there in the paper in his glad rags, and last I heard, Jardine was rattling about in some bloody castle up north. Little old me, here, living the good life. Fate’s a cruel mistress, as they say.’
‘When was this?’ asks Adam. He is still looking at the photo of Riley, his eyes blurring, the roar of the ocean in his head.
‘We did business for about ten years, I reckon. Last I saw Jardine was when he came out. Got let off and had a bloody great party to stick two fingers up to the coppers. Called me when he was still inside, before he’d even been cleared, and asked me to get a crew up to the hotel and make it presentable for the shindig. Can you credit that? Your dad did as good a job as ever, mind. I didn’t tell him it was Jardine, though. Jardine called me a wop whenever we met, but it was good-natured. Your dad didn’t like it, mind, so I just brought him with me the once. That was Billy, though, always had my back …’