‘I’m the muscle,’ Seminole Billy said. He looked at the marks on Erykah’s arms. His thin lips barely parted as he spoke. ‘Buster here’s just along for the ride.’
‘I can see his gun,’ Rab said, gesturing at Buster’s shoulder holster. ‘Where’s yours?’
Billy extracted a folding knife from the front pocket of his jeans. He flipped open the short, serrated blade and picked at the corners of his cuticles, working the tip under his short nails. ‘I do things to men that makes them wish I had been carrying a gun,’ he said.
‘You said something about a contract,’ Erykah said. ‘Did he sign anything?’ She turned to Rab. ‘Did you sign anything?’
‘It was a verbal contract,’ Seminole Billy said. He snapped the knife closed and pocketed it. ‘Equally as binding, I assure you.’
‘Enough,’ she said. Erykah pulled the reading glasses off her collar and perched them on the end of her nose. She stood up, brushed her hands down the front of her narrow trousers, and walked over to the liquor cabinet. ‘I hope you gentleman don’t mind, but this calls for something a little stronger than tea,’ she said. Her fingers lit on the tops of a dozen bottles before she selected the Ardbeg Uigeadail, smoky and sweet. She nodded at the two strangers. ‘Have one if you like.’
‘No thanks,’ Billy said. ‘Used to be a bourbon man, back in the day. Expensive stuff like you got would be wasted on me anyway.’
Buster started to get up but Billy shook a finger at him. ‘Not on working hours.’ Buster grumbled.
Erykah poured a belt of amber liquid into a crystal glass. ‘Breakfast of champions,’ she muttered and held the tumbler to eye level. The tidelines of where she swirled the liquor retreated slowly, like ocean tide from the sand. She swirled the glass again, releasing a fresh wave of subtly spicy aroma. ‘How the hell do you rig a lottery draw?’ She shook her head. ‘Weighted balls, something like that?’
‘Something like that,’ Seminole Billy said.
‘He’s that one who set the bomb off in Archway last year! I knew I recognised him,’ Rab blurted. Erykah shot him a look that she hoped he would – for the first time in their marriage – correctly interpret as meaning Shut Up, You Idiot.
‘How much are we talking about?’ Erykah asked. ‘I need numbers.’ Maybe there would be enough left to cover his debts and a divorce. The bag in the bedroom was still packed. She would be fine without Nicole, she was sure, though her stomach twisted at the thought. Whatever there had been between them was in the past tense now.
Seminole Billy smiled. Good, now here was someone who knew how to move a business deal forward. He reached into his jacket and extracted a cloth bag, folded over at the top with a lock. He slowly opened it and pulled out the contents. Bank books, jointly in their names, registered with an offshore bank. ‘Put simply, your husband and yourself are going to make a donation to a timely social and political campaign we have already nominated, as per his initial agreement. A one-off gift, photographs of your good selves handing over a giant cheque, and you won’t ever have to see us again.’
‘How much?’ Erykah said.
‘Let’s just say, if you were hoping to spend the rest of your days commuting between tropical islands in a private jet, you might be disappointed.’
‘I guess that’s just something I’ll have to learn to live without,’ she said. ‘Give me the bad news. No point beating around the bush.’
‘Nineteen mil. More, if the spirit so moves you.’
‘I’m sure I said eighteen,’ Rab mumbled.
Erykah was momentarily breathless. She picked up one of the bank books and flipped through the pristine pages. They were from a bank in the Caymans. So the money wouldn’t even be touching their accounts here, then.
‘And I’m sure if you search your no doubt flawless memory you’ll recall that wasn’t the deal,’ Seminole Billy said to Rab, and balled one hand inside the other. The skin over his knuckles was puckered with scars from countless fights.
Rab eyed the fists, but continued talking anyway. ‘Is there any chance we could renegotiate?’
‘Renegotiation is above my pay grade,’ Billy shook his head. ‘You made a deal, my associate and I are tasked with enforcing it.’
‘But this is a lot of money, and—’
Billy held up his hand, his scarred palm facing Rab. ‘Careful now,’ he said. ‘You appear to have mistaken me for somebody who gives a shit.’
‘There may be something in it for you,’ Rab said.
‘That so? Well, you’ve been warned.’ Seminole Billy reached out, lightning fast, and grabbed the wrist of the soft man’s right hand. Rab yelped. ‘Not so much fun when someone does it to you, is it?’ he said. ‘Been taking out some of that stress on the wife, son?’
‘It was only one time!’ Rab objected. ‘Erykah, tell them.’ He expected her to cover for him as usual. She said nothing.
‘So you admit it,’ Billy said, and looked at Buster. ‘Buster, you ever break a man’s wrist?’
Buster shrugged. ‘Only once. Not on purpose. It was incidental to the rest of the things I did to him.’
Billy nodded. ‘Yeah. It ain’t that easy to do, not without a lot of pressure,’ he said, and twisted Rab’s arm slightly. ‘A lot of pressure and maybe some breaking force.’
Rab looked at Billy, pleading. ‘Please, let me go. I can make a deal. I can make whatever deal you want.’
‘I’d say the chances of that happening are slim to none,’ Billy said. His other hand moved up, and held Rab’s fingers. ‘And Slim’s on a fucking diet. Fingers, now, that’s a lot easier than a wrist—’
‘Stop. Please! Erykah, do something!’ Rab shouted.
‘Shhhh,’ Billy said. ‘Now’s not the time to ask your wife for help.’ He twisted a little and there was an audible crack. A scream. Seminole Billy released his fingers and Rab dropped to the floor and writhed in pain.
Erykah’s eyes watered. But she didn’t leap to help her husband either. ‘You got something to say about this?’ Seminole Billy asked.
She shook her head. Rab was still moaning. Her mind was spinning with unanswered questions. Would they try to hurt her next? Would there be any money left? Could she get Nicole to take her back? Was there any way to turn the situation around – or at the very least, come out of it unharmed?
Billy nodded. ‘Good. In addition, me and Buster are gonna have to take our pay from your cut, not the charity’s. No offence. Helps to keep their paperwork clean. I’m sure you understand. We’ll be needing, oh, about fifty grand each as it happens. More, if we have to keep coming round here.’ He looked at Rab, who was curled up like a kicked puppy. ‘To keep up enforcement.’
Rab whimpered. ‘Jesus fuck, someone shut him up,’ Billy said. Buster started to reach for his holster. ‘Nah man, I mean keep him quiet. Don’t kill him. Yet.’
Buster grabbed Rab’s shoulder and shook him until the smaller man met his eyes. ‘’Ere, mate, it’s only a broken finger,’ Buster said. ‘And if you keep up like that I’ll give yer something to cry about.’ Rab choked down a sob and nodded.
‘So that leaves us with nine hundred thousand,’ Erykah calculated. ‘After the divorce, four-fifty for me, plus whatever we get when the house goes, though with his mortgage arrears, who even knows.’
‘Divorce?’ Rab looked up at her with puffy, red eyes. ‘But I thought we could give it a go – give us six months . . .’
‘This buys out that second mortgage you forged my signature on, am I right? Right?’ Rab said nothing, just looked down at his fingers.
Rab hunched forward, still cradling the bent hand. His face twisted with pain and bitterness. ‘Fine time to start acting like you’re some kind of innocent,’ he spat. ‘I’m not the one whose photo has been splashed all over the news this week.’
Anger rose up like bile in her throat. ‘Darling husband, and I mean th
is most sincerely: fuck you very much. You’re lucky I don’t take it all and alert the mortgage company to your fraud,’ she said, rubbing her wrists. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You’re lucky I don’t phone the police.’
‘Erykah, you can’t do this,’ Rab said, switching back to pleading. ‘You said when it all blew over we would talk about us . . .’
In spite of everything that had happened that old button was still just about functional, the one he pressed knowing how desperately she wanted stability, to belong. She swallowed and it felt like a rock hitting her stomach. ‘How dare you get on me about the press finding that photo. If it bothers you so much, why didn’t you think of that before agreeing to front a scam?’
As she said it Erykah realised that in marrying Rab she had, in a way, married her mother. He might not have been an addict, but – no, that wasn’t right, he might not have used drugs but that didn’t mean he wasn’t an addict. He was sneaky and mercurial, ran cold and hot. And she had become conciliatory over the years, the peacemaker, just as she had as a child. She had learned to avoid him when things were at their worst. She knew from the sound of his key in the door whether it was a good day or a bad day. She turned down her own reactions, muted every feeling and conversation until, bit by bit, she became a ghost in her own life.
‘Hey, folks, we’re still here,’ Seminole Billy said. ‘Now, are you gonna cut these cheques or am I gonna have to let Buster do his thing?’
Erykah turned to her husband. ‘Face it, Rab, you’ve been an extreme disappointment. First as a husband, and now as a publicity prop,’ Erykah said. It came out far cooler than she felt.
She turned to the men. ‘Gentlemen, you deal with me from now on. Rab, why don’t you fix a pot of coffee while the grown-ups have a chat?’
: 12 :
Diana Stuebner perused the headlines of the free paper that littered every available surface in London, from the trains to coffee shops. She turned through the four thin pages before holding it over her head as she ventured from the Tube into the street.
A cold sleet that had been hanging over the city was turning to wet snow. Patches of black ice lurked on every street and pavement. The city was a blur of slow-moving humans who had the bad luck to be outside. Black taxis and white vans jammed up the narrow Soho streets. She was late for work, but not by very long. Still – when you had to be on air, it mattered.
The radio station was housed in a building over four floors off of Soho Square. Rumour had it the place had been built as a Georgian brothel, but if that was true, it had had a lot of renovation since. Diana doubted the rumour herself. It was all part of the station’s legend. The public were also told that the station itself had originated as a pirate radio outfit on a Norwegian ferry anchored off Margate, but that was a myth too.
Diana juggled the wet paper with her overflowing handbag outside the front doors of LCC 97.5 FM – ‘London Chat Central,’ as the tube and bus adverts put it. A crowd of God-botherers and Bible thumpers clustered outside the doorway, preparing for a day of harassing passers-by and handing out leaflets. Even the poor weather didn’t seem to deter them. Early evangeliser gets the worm, perhaps.
Huge images of some of the star DJs adorned the windows flanking the front entrance. The one of Diana had her looking straight on, eyebrow crooked and arms folded across her chest. The Daily Edition, screamed tall red letters over her head. Bringing you the new before it’s news, screeched yellow script below.
The station traded on her youth but also on her reputation for being solid, calm, measured. And her voice: a voice which had been described as crushed gravel filtered through a silk stocking and sounded as if it belonged to a forty-something chain-smoking MILF.
People were often surprised to learn she was only twenty-five and had been working there since she was a graduate of twenty-two. Three years since the job interview when she more or less blagged her way into the position, hands clenched so tightly that her nails had cut into the skin of her palms. ‘LCC is in danger of turning into a legacy brand,’ she had said in the interview. ‘I did some research and your core audience is ten years younger than your presenters’ average age. If you don’t bring in new blood, you’re going to lose share.’ She had gone in intending to audition as a continuity announcer but she knew she could handle the real stuff; she just needed a chance to show them. To her surprise, they put her straight in as a newsreader.
Diana wove her way through the group of happy clappers. One of them, a man in a rumpled suit who was out there every morning, shoved a pamphlet into her hand. She smiled and nodded robotically. Same old same old. Station security had called the police a few times, but since it was a public pavement, there wasn’t much that could be done.
Barrington at the security desk buzzed Diana in. ‘All right D,’ he nodded, his eyes glued to a B-grade vampire flick he was watching instead of the camera feeds. Barrington was many things as a security manager, but being attentive with the CCTV was not one of them. ‘Why bother,’ he would shrug. ‘By the time you notice something’s wrong they’re already inside. Now you’re distracted from what’s going on.’ If pressed further he might also admit to being tired of watching the Bible-bashers from multiple angles all day long. On the other hand, in the event of a sudden zombie apocalypse outside the station, he was exactly the sort of person you would want on the door.
She glanced past his desk at the back doors where a tattered out of order sign had been taped up some months ago. On second thoughts, maybe he wasn’t.
‘Is he in yet?’ Diana asked. She shrugged out of her coat and shook the droplets of ice out of her hair.
Barrington chuckled, nodding his shiny bald head. ‘Yeah, ten minutes ago,’ he said. ‘Shouting at some poor girl about his dry cleaning. I told him you had already been in and gone back out.’
‘Thank you,’ Diana said. Her producer, Jonathan, was always cracking the whip. He was domineering in the way only short men can be: not at ease with himself or anyone else. It wasn’t enough for him to be top dog; he also had to make sure you knew about it. Even if he came in thirty seconds before she did he acted like he had been kept waiting for an eternity.
Barrington waved his hand and turned back to his console. On the screen, four screaming co-eds were being engulfed by clouds of blood-hungry bats. ‘You know I got your back,’ he said.
Up on the third floor, a series of meeting rooms and glass-walled studios carved up the space. The building was listed, so nothing could be done about replacing the thin, wobbly-paned windows that looked out over Soho, and the station had spent a bomb installing soundproof inner rooms.
Strict rules about how the buildings looked couldn’t stop Soho from changing. Once media moved in, attracted by large offices in central London at knock-down prices, the rest weren’t far behind. Trendy restaurants that catered to the new professionals, all exposed brickwork and tables that looked like they were built from construction offcuts but cost more than a month’s wages. The people who worked in these places were women in nipped-waist frocks with flicks of black eyeliner and the put-upon world weariness of the very young. Skinny men with tattoos who used to stand on street corners waiting for trouble were replaced by a different kind of skinny men with tattoos, the kind who oiled their beards and turned up the sleeves of their lumberjack shirts just so. Diana felt confused around men like that, ones who were her own age but dressed like Depression-era hoboes. She wondered how long it would be until the fashion world turned again and men went back to looking like 1950s professors or 1980s cokeheads.
The restaurants did well, though. She liked being able to get gluten-free bangers and mash for lunch. In the restaurants, urbanites could coo over hacked pieces of pheasant served on slates while sneering out the windows at what little remained of Soho’s sex trade. More money was flowing in now, more policing, more of a land grab to seize the old walkups and turn them into desirable city centre living. And
yet Diana had the feeling that, too, was only temporary. The fashionably retro style nodding to a time of good, honest Victorian sweat and sweatshops was not entirely truthful. The real culture of Soho was made on the back of sex workers and when the slick of gentrification moved elsewhere, they would come back out from the wings to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.
Diana dumped her coat and bag on her office desk. She glanced at the pamphlet the pavement evangelist had given her. Are You Ready To Receive Ultimate Love? A smiling, bearded Jesus stretched his arms wide as kaleidoscopic rays of light emerged from behind him. Could be heaven, could be the entrance to a cabaret. She wondered if it ever occurred to the fanatics that, give or take a robe or two, the handouts they distributed looked like a poster from one of Soho’s nightclubs more than anything else. Or maybe that was the effect they were after – entrap the sinners and hope they stay? Ultimate Love indeed. She crumpled the paper into a neat ball and threw it into the bin.
The producer poked his head around the corner of Diana’s office. Jonathan, wearing his usual uniform of steel rimmed frames and mock turtleneck. He probably thought it made him look like Steve Jobs. Attractive enough for a middle-aged guy, if you ignored his habit of shouting at staff. ‘Morning, D,’ he said and perched on the corner of her desk. ‘So, headlines.’
‘Weather?’
‘Weather is done to death,’ he said. Jonathan rifled through a collection of press releases, printouts from news sites, and emails. ‘People are sick of hearing about how wet it is. If it’s wet where they are, they’ll ring in to complain about it. If it’s not wet where they are, they’ll ring in to complain we’re devoting too much time to it.’
‘Not our fault. It’s not like we’re responsible,’ Diana said. He nodded agreement. ‘But I take your point. Politics?’
‘Rumours of an opposition leadership coup still ongoing,’ Jonathan said. ‘Talk of removing Scottish MPs from some votes in Commons is causing a wedge, a few are speculating there will be defections to the SNP or Green parties. We’re expecting a statement from the Shadow Home Secretary later on to tamp down any rumoured splits in the party.’
The Turning Tide Page 13