The Echo

by Minette Walters

"Because I'm not a fucking tramp."

  After ten minutes of drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and with no sign of Terry's reemergence from the dark building, Deacon wondered if he should go after him. He could hear Lawrence's voice in his ear: "You think this is good parenting, Michael? You let a fourteen-year-old boy go into a den of thieves, and you call that responsible?"

  He postponed one difficult decision by making another. He picked up his mobile telephone and dialed his sister's number. "Emma?" he said when a woman's voice answered at the other end.

  "No, it's Antonia."

  "You sound like your mother."

  "Who is this, please?"

  "Your uncle Michael."

  "God!" said the voice at the other end in some awe. "Listen, hang on, okay? I'll get Mum." The phone clattered onto a tabletop at the other end and he heard her shouting for her mother. "Quick, quick! It's Michael."

  His sister's breathless voice came down the line. "Hello, hello! Michael?"

  "Calm down and get your breath back," he said in some amusement. "I'm still here."

  "I ran. Where are you?"

  "In a car outside a warehouse in the East End."

  "What are you doing there?"

  "Nothing of any interest." He could see the conversation being hijacked by irrelevancies for, like him, Emma was adept at postponing anything difficult. "Look, I got your card. I also got one from Julia. I gather Ma's not well."

  There was a short silence. "Julia shouldn't have told you," she said rather bitterly. "I hoped you'd rung because you wanted to end this silly feud, not because you feel guilty about Ma."

  "I don't feel guilty."

  "Out of pity, then."

  Did he feel pity, either? His strongest emotion was still anger. "Do not bring that whore into my house,'' his mother had said when he told her he'd married Clara. "How dare you sully your father's name by giving it to a cheap tart? Was killing him not enough for you, Michael?" That had been five years ago, and he hadn't spoken to her since. "I'm still angry, Emma, so maybe I'm phoning out of filial duty. I'm not going to apologize to her—or you for that matter—but I am sorry she's ill. What do you want me to do about it? I'm quite happy to see her as long as she's prepared to keep a rein on her tongue, but I'll walk out the minute she starts having a go. That's the only deal you or she will get, so do I come or not?"

  "You haven't changed one little bit, have you?" Her voice was angry. "Your mother's virtually blind and may have to have her leg amputated as a result of diabetes, and you talk about deals. Some filial duty, Michael. She was in hospital for most of September, and now Hugh and I are paying through the nose for private-nursing care at the farm because she won't come and live with us. That's filial duty, making sure your mother's being looked after properly even if it means hardships for yourself."

  Deacon looked towards the warehouse with a frown in his dark eyes. "What happened to her investments? She had a perfectly good income five years ago, so why isn't she paying for the nursing care herself?''

  Emma didn't answer.

  "Are you still there?"

  "Yes."

  "Why isn't she paying herself?"

  "She offered to put the girls through school and used her capital to buy their fees in advance," said Emma reluctantly. "She left herself enough to live on but not enough to pay for extras. We didn't ask," she went on defensively. "It was her idea, but none of us knew she was going to be struck down like this. And it's not as if there was any point keeping anything for you. As far as the rest of us were aware, you were never going to speak to us again."

  "That's right," he agreed coolly. "I'm only speaking to you now because Julia was so damn sure I wouldn't."

  Emma sighed. "Is that the only reason you phoned?"

  "Yes."

  "I don't believe you. Why can't you just say sorry and let bygones be bygones?''

  "Because I've nothing to be sorry for. It's not my fault Dad died, whatever you and Ma like to think."

  "That's not what she was angry about. She was angry about the way you treated Julia."

  "It was none of her business."

  "Julia was her daughter-in-law. She was very fond of her. So was I."

  "You weren't married to her."

  "That's cheap, Michael."

  "Yes, well, I can't accuse you of that, can I? Not when you and Hugh have scooped the pot," said Deacon sarcastically. "I've never taken a cent from Ma and don't intend to start now, so if she wants to see me, it'll have to be on my terms because I don't owe her a damn thing, never mind how many bloody legs she's about to lose."

  "I can't believe you said that," snapped his sister. "Aren't you at all upset that she's ill?"

  If he was, he wasn't going to admit it. "My terms, Emma, or not at all. Have you a pen? This is my telephone number at home." He gave it to her. "I presume you'll be at the farm for Christmas, so I suggest you talk this over with Ma and ring me with your verdict. And don't forget I promised to deck Hugh the next time I saw him, so take that into account before you reach a decision."

  "You can't hit Hugh," she said indignantly. "He's fifty-three."

  Deacon bared his teeth at the receiver. "Good, then one punch should do it easily."

  There was another silence. "Actually, he's been wanting to apologize for ages," she said weakly. "He didn't really mean what he said. It just sort of came out in the heat of the moment. He regretted it afterwards."

  "Poor old Hugh. It's going to be doubly painful then when I break his nose."

  Terry appeared from the warehouse with two filthy suitcases, which he parked on the backseat. He offered the explanation that, as the warehouse was full of fucking thieves, he was safeguarding his possessions by bringing them with him. Deacon thought it looked more like wholesale removal to what promised to be luxury living.

  "Doesn't the endless 'fucking' get a little boring after a while?'' he murmured as he drew away from the curb.

  They ate their takeaway, perched on the hood of Deacon's car. They were in danger of freezing to death in the night air, but he preferred that to having his upholstery splattered with red tandoori chicken dye. Terry wanted to know why they hadn't eaten in the restaurant.

  "I didn't think we'd ever get served," said Deacon rather grimly, "not after you called them wogs."

  Terry grinned. "What d'you call them, then?"

  "People."

  They sat in silence for a while, gazing down the street ahead of them. Fortunately it was well nigh deserted, so they attracted little curiosity. Deacon wondered who would have been the more embarrassed, himself or Terry, had some acquaintance passed by and seen them.

  "So what are we going to do next?" asked Terry, cramming a last onion bhaji into his mouth. "Go down the pub? Visit a club maybe? Get stoned?"

  Deacon, who had been looking forward to putting his feet up in front of the fire and dozing through whatever film was on the television, groaned quietly to himself. Pubbing, clubbing, or getting stoned? He felt old and decrepit beside the hyperactivity of movement—fidgeting, scratching, position changing—that had been going on beside him for over an hour now. This, in turn, meant that his mind toiled with the threat of fleas, lice, and bedbugs, and the problem of how to get Terry into a bath and every stitch of his clothing into the washing machine without having his motives misconstrued.

  One thing was certain. He had no intention of giving house room to Terry's wildlife.

  The row between Emma and Hugh Tremayne had reached stentorian proportions and, as usual, Hugh had resorted to the whiskey bottle. "Have you any idea what it's like to be the only man in a houseful of domineering women?" he demanded. "Don't you think I've been tempted to do what Michael did and walk out? Nag, nag, nag. That's the only thing you and your mother have any talent for, isn't it?"

  "I'm not the one who called Michael a sack of worthless shit," said Emma furiously. "That was your wonderful idea, although what made you think you could order him out of his own house I can't imagine. The only reason you
're in our family is because you married me."

  "You're right," he said abruptly, replenishing his glass. "And what the hell am I still doing here? I sometimes think the only member of your family I've ever really liked was your brother. He's certainly the least critical."

  "Don't be so childish," she snapped.

  He stared at her moodily over the rim of his glass. "I never liked Julia—she was a frigid bitch—and I certainly didn't blame Michael for taking up with Clara. Yet I let myself get dragged into defending you and your mother when I should have told Michael to go ahead and smash the house up with you and Penelope in it. As far as I'm concerned, he was well within his rights. You'd been screaming at him like a couple of fishwives for well over an hour before he lost his temper, and you had the damn nerve to accuse his wife of being common as muck." He shook his head and moved towards the door. "I'm not interested anymore. If you want Michael's help, then you'd better persuade your mother to treat him with a little respect."

  Emma was close to tears. "If I try, she won't talk to him at all. It's Julia's fault. If she hadn't told him Ma was ill, he'd probably have rung anyway."

  "You're running out of people to blame."

  "Yes, but what are we going to do?" she wailed. "She's got to sell the farm."

  "It's your blasted family," he growled, "so you sort it out. You know damn well I never wanted your mother's money. It was obvious she'd use it as a stick to beat us with." He slammed the door behind him. "And I'm not going to the farm for Christmas," he yelled from the hall. "I've done it for sixteen bloody years, and it's been sixteen years of undiluted misery."

  "This is how we're going to play it," said Deacon, pausing outside the door to his flat after carrying a suitcase up three flights of stairs. "You're going to remove everything washable from these cases out here on the landing. We will then put it into black trash bags which I will empty into the washing machine while you're having your bath. You will leave what you're wearing outside the bathroom door, and when you're locked inside, I will take your clothes away and replace them with some of my own. Are we agreed?''

  In the half-light of the landing, Terry looked a great deal older than fourteen. "You sound like you're scared of me," he remarked curiously. "What did that old bugger Lawrence really say?"

  "He told me how unhygienic you were likely to be."

  "Oh, right." Terry looked amused. "You sure he didn't tell you about the rape scam?"

  "That, too," said Deacon.

  "It always works, you know. I met a guy once who scored five hundred off of it. Some old geezer took him in out of the goodness of his heart, and the next thing he knew this kid was screaming rape all over the place." He smiled in a friendly way. "I'll bet Lawrence tore strips off you for inviting me back here—he's sharp as a tack, that one—but he's wrong if he thinks I'd turn on you. Billy taught me this saying: Never bite the hand that feeds you. So you've got nothing to worry about, okay? You're safe with me."

  Deacon opened the front door and reached inside for the light switch. "That's good news, Terry. It lets us both off the hook."

  "Oh, yeah? You had something planned just in case, did you?''

  "It's called revenge."

  Terry's smile broadened into a grin. "You can't take revenge on an underage kid. The cops'd crucify you."

  Deacon smiled back, but rather unpleasantly. "What makes you think you'd still be a kid when it's done, or that I'm the one who'd do it? Here's another saying Billy should have taught you: Revenge is a dish best eaten cold." His voice dropped abruptly to sound like sifted gravel. "You'll have a second or two to remember it when a psycho like Denning does to you what was done to Walter this afternoon. And, if you're lucky, you'll live to regret it."

  "Yeah, well, it's not going to happen, is it?" muttered Terry, somewhat alarmed by Deacon's tone. "Like I said, you're safe with me."

  Terry was deeply critical of Deacon's flat. He didn't like the way the front door opened into the sitting room—"Jesus, it means you've got to be well tidy all the time"—nor the narrow corridor that led off it to the bathroom and the two bedrooms—"It'd be bigger without these stupid walls all over the place''—only the kitchen passed muster because it was attached to the sitting room—"I guess that's pretty handy for TV dinners." Once all his underlying odors had been effectively soaked away, he prowled around it in a pair of oversized jeans and a sweater, shaking his head over the blandness of it all. He reeked strongly of Jazz aftershave ("nicked from a chemist," he said proudly) which Deacon had to admit introduced an exotic quality into the atmosphere that hadn't been there before.

  The final verdict was damning. "You're not a boring bloke, Mike, so how come you live in such a boring place?''

  "What's boring about it?" Deacon was using a long-handled wooden spoon to poke Terry's patchwork quilt with infinite care into the washing machine. He kept his eyes peeled for anything that looked like hopping, although as his only plan was to try and whack the offending parasites with the head of the spoon, it was fortunate they never emerged.

  Terry waved an arm in a wide encompassing circle."The only room that's even halfway reasonable's your bedroom, and that's only because there's a stereo and a load of books in there. You ought to have more bits and pieces at your age. I reckon I've got more fucking stuff—sorry—and I ain't been knocking around half as long as you."

  Deacon produced his cigarettes and handed one to the boy. "Then don't get married. This is what two divorces can do to you."

  "Billy always said women were dangerous."

  "Was he married?"

  "Probably. He never talked about it, though." He pulled open the kitchen cupboard doors. "Is there anything to drink in this place?"

  "There's some beer in the fridge and some wine in a rack by the far wall."

  "Can I have a beer?''

  Deacon took two cans from the fridge and tossed one across. "There are glasses in the cupboard to your right."

  Terry preferred to drink from the can. He said it was more American.

  "Do you know much about America?" Deacon asked him.

  "Only what Billy told me."

  Deacon pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it. "What did Billy say about it?"

  "He didn't rate it much. Reckoned it'd been corrupted by money. He liked Europe better. He were always talking about Commies—said they took after Jesus."

  The phone rang but as neither of them answered it, the tape went into action. "Michael, it's Hugh," said his brother-in-law's tipsy voice over the amplifier."I'll be in the Red Lion in Deanery Street tomorrow at lunchtime. I'm not going to apologize now because it's only fair you break my nose first. I'll apologize afterwards. Hope that's okay."

  Terry frowned. "What was that about?''

  "Revenge," said Deacon. "I told you, it's a dish best eaten cold."

  *10*

  Three miles away in Fleet Street, Barry Grover skulked in the shadows, waiting for Glen Hopkins's shift to finish. Only when the replacement, Reg Linden, had been in situ for fifteen minutes did he scuttle across the road and let himself in. Reg, who as night watchman had very little contact with Street employees, had long since ceased to question Barry's nocturnal visits to the offices, even looked forward to them for the company they offered. He took as much interest in Barry's researches as Barry did himself, and his view—untarnished by female gossip—was that the little man's problem was a tendency to insomnia. In that peculiarly uncomplicated way reserved to men who don't seek to know too much about each other, he and Barry were friends.

  He smiled affably. "Still trying to identify your dead wino?" he asked.

  Barry nodded. Had Reg been a little more perceptive, he might have wondered at the little man's agitation, he might even have questioned why Barry's fly was undone, but fate had ruled him an unobservant man.

  "This might help," he said, producing a paperback from under the desk. "You want chapter five—'Missing Persons.' No pictures, I'm afraid, but some useful information on James Streeter. Mrs. Linden came a
cross it in a bookshop and thought you might like it. She's always been interested in your projects." He waved Barry's thanks aside, and promised to bring him a cup of tea when he made one for himself.

  Deacon emptied another bag of washing into the machine. "You said there was stuff in the warehouse that belonged to Billy," he reminded Terry. "Was that a ploy to get me down there or was it true?"

  "True, but you'll have to pay if you want to see it."

  "Where is it?"

  Terry jerked his head towards the sitting room, where the suitcases stood in a corner. "In there."

  "What's to stop me going through the cases myself?"

  "One of these." The lad clenched his right hand into a fist. "I'll lay you flat, and if you hit me back, I'll have proof of assault." He smiled engagingly. "Sexual or the other kind, depending on my mood."

  "How much do you want?"

  "My mate got five hundred off of his old geezer."

  "Bog off, Terry. Billy can go hang for all I care. I'm bored with him."

  "Like hell you are. He's bugging you, same as he bugs me. Four hundred."

  "Twenty."

  "One hundred."

  "Fifty, and it'd better be good—" Deacon clenched his own hand into a fist—"or you'll be on the receiving end of one of these. And to hell with the consequences frankly.''

  "It's a deal. Give us the fifty." Terry uncurled his palm. "Cash only, or all bets are off."

  Deacon nodded towards the kitchen cabinets. "Third cupboard along, biscuit tin on the second shelf, take five tens and leave the rest." He watched the boy locate the tin, remove the wad of notes inside it, and peel off fifty pounds.

  "Jesus, but you're a weird bastard, Mike," he said resuming his seat. "There must be another two hundred in there. What's to stop me nicking it, now you've shown me where it is?''

  "Nothing," said Deacon, "except it's mine, and you haven't earned it. Not yet, anyway."

  "What'd I have to do to earn it?"

  "Learn to read." He saw the cynical look in Terry's eyes. "I'll teach you."

  "Sure you will, for two miserable days. And when I still can't read at the end of it, you'll get mad and I'll've wasted my time for nothing."