The Two O'Clock Boy

by Mark Hill

  ‘The kids look like they’ve been making their own improvements to your work.’

  ‘A few years back those paintings would have cost you an arm and a leg.’ Amelia shrugged. ‘These days I can’t give them away.’

  Their feet clanged up the steps of an iron fire escape clinging to the outside of the building.

  ‘You don’t seem worried about it.’

  ‘I still paint for pleasure, but these days I don’t feel my entire life is ruined because my work isn’t hanging in the reception of some scumbag corporation.’

  The tarpaper on the roof of the building was covered with fag butts, which skittered like insects in the breeze. A deckchair, its canvas middle flapping, sat by a chimney mount, a mug filled with rainwater beside it. East London lay below them, squat and grey, beneath an armada of charging cloud.

  ‘You’re not what I was expecting,’ said Flick, stepping onto the roof.

  ‘You’re wondering what I’ve done with the tragic druggie.’ The tip of Amelia’s cigarette fizzed when she lit it. ‘Everyone’s a bit surprised, but I suppose that’s my own fault, you can never escape your past. Truth is, these days I live a dull and inconsequential life. Bog standard.’

  ‘Nothing more bog standard than living in a warehouse,’ said Drake.

  She laughed. ‘So why is it you’re here?’

  Flick handed her a photograph. Pressing the cigarette between her lips, Amelia studied it. ‘And who is this?’

  ‘His name is Kenny Overton,’ said Flick. ‘Do you recognise him?’

  Amelia tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Drake watched the way the tendons and veins bulged just beneath the skin of her hand, in sharp contrast to her face, which was smooth and angular and, even now in middle age, very striking. There were faint lines splaying from her eyes. Considering the life she had lived – an abusive childhood, years of drug dependency – she had aged extraordinarily well.

  ‘This poor man’s family was killed; it was in the papers,’ she said. ‘But what has it got to do with me?’

  ‘We understand Mr Overton was at the Longacre children’s home with you in the nineteen eighties,’ said Flick.

  Amelia blew out smoke thoughtfully. ‘Was he now?’

  ‘We’re investigating a possible link between the home and the murder of Mr Overton and his family.’

  Amelia gently fanned the photo, as if it were a Polaroid developing in her hand, then gave it back to Flick. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

  ‘You don’t remember him?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be difficult … I don’t remember anything about that place.’ Her eyes drifted to Drake. ‘I’ve a bit of a block.’

  ‘A block?’ asked Flick.

  ‘For many years I carried that home around in here.’ She tapped her temple. ‘I was obsessed, I never stopped going on about it, it nearly destroyed me – well, you only have to look at my work. The horror of that place poured onto the canvas, my demons fuelled my art. I would have given anything to rid myself of those memories, even though I made millions from them. But the amazing thing is they’re gone.’ She sighed. ‘Something happened to me a few years back … I don’t know if you know this, but my husband died.’

  ‘Ned,’ said Flick.

  ‘The very one.’ Her gaze drifted over Flick’s shoulder to a phone mast glittering atop a tower block. ‘And you probably know we overdosed. He died and I … I was in a coma for weeks. It was touch and go; the doctors thought I was a goner. And when I awoke all my memories of that place were gone, every detail.’

  The sun began to poke through a tear in the clouds. Amelia shaded her eyes. It was the middle of winter but her tan was deep and even. She may have given up painting, Drake thought, but she still clearly had rich friends across the world, and more than enough money to travel whenever and wherever she desired.

  ‘The anger I had for that place energised my work and made me very successful.’ She puffed on her cigarette. ‘When those memories went, so did my urge, my obsession, let’s say, to create. I’ve tried, really I have, darling, but everything I’ve painted since has been toss. C’est la vie. After Ned’s death I was done with the business, really.’

  ‘Can that just happen, losing your memory like that?’

  ‘A couple of therapists told me I’m in a fugue state – do you know what that is? I don’t, really. I’ve …’ Her voice became an officious monotone. ‘Escaped from reality, taken on a new persona. They said it was only temporary. Well, it’s been years now. They’re still inside me, those memories, and I’ve been warned they’ll emerge sooner or later, to mess up my life all over again, lucky old me.’

  ‘Isn’t that unhealthy?’ asked Flick. ‘Keeping all that stuff buried?’

  Amelia pinched the smoking tip off the cigarette and flicked the dead butt across the roof. ‘Oh, I imagine so! I should be a quivering jelly of neuroses. I have my moments. I miss Ned very much …’ She watched a train click past on the track below. ‘But not as much as I thought I would. We loved each other, but we also made each other very miserable. Ned wasn’t a happy man, and sometimes he could be … difficult. These last seven years, though, I’ve been content. For the first time in my life I don’t feel the awful pain of that place. One day it may come back, I can’t do anything about that, but until it does, I’m going to enjoy life.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Christ, listen to me go on.’

  ‘It’s a far cry from the life you lived with your husband,’ said Flick. ‘The children’s parties and everything.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Amelia kicked at a clump of gravel with her foot. ‘Ned would have hated the life I have now, hated it, we both would have. Back then, we shared one ambition.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘We wanted to die.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘He managed to achieve it. I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t. But the life I have now would have been a living hell to Ned.’ She frowned at her watch. ‘Look, a few years ago I would have loved nothing more than to discuss my problems until sundown; you’d get tears, smashed furniture, the lot. But there’s ice cream to dish out, so maybe you could tell me why you’re talking to me about a man I apparently knew a hundred years ago.’ When Flick glanced at Drake, Amelia frowned. ‘Am I in danger?’

  ‘It’s only one avenue of investigation,’ Drake said, ‘and not a very promising one; we don’t want to alarm you.’

  ‘That bloody place.’ The colour drained from her face. ‘For years it made me cut myself and pump my veins full of shit. It nearly finished me. And now you’re telling me it’s not done with me yet?’

  ‘It’s most likely nothing,’ said Flick. ‘But has anything unusual happened recently?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Has anybody spoken to you about the Longacre? Have you received any odd calls?’

  Amelia hugged her chest. A cloud raced across the sun, sending the temperature plummeting. ‘You’re making me very anxious.’

  ‘As I say,’ Drake shot Flick a warning look, ‘it’s only one line of investigation.’

  ‘What did you say your name was again?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Ray Drake.’ He took out a card. Flick reached into her bag and found one of her own.

  ‘There’s absolutely no reason to be alarmed,’ Flick touched Amelia’s arm, ‘but feel free to phone me any time you want.’

  When they moved towards the fire escape, Amelia paused to gaze sadly at the city stretched across the horizon. ‘That place, I can’t remember anything about it, but I still can’t escape from it.’

  When they arrived back in the car park, Drake pointed a fob at his car, which unlocked with a whoop. He leaned across the roof to Flick, who stood on the passenger side.

  ‘It was a waste of time,’ he said. ‘All we’ve done is frighten a woman for no good reason. I want an update on the investigation on my desk by the end of the day.’

  Flick nodded, a blush sizzling up her neck, and climbed inside.

  Pulling
his seat belt around him, Drake recalled that last, uncertain smile Amelia Troy had given him as the cage of the elevator slammed shut and he descended into the depths of the building, and realised how grateful he was to see her again after all these years.

  20

  1984

  Ray was never much into sports at school. He was too slight for rugby, and didn’t care for getting slammed face down into the mud by the bigger boys. Rowing, with its freezing early mornings, was a struggle.

  But he had always been agile and never shied away from a challenge, attributes that came in handy when he decided, just for the fun of it, to climb up the side of the Longacre and into a first-floor window. Well, partly for the fun of it. He wouldn’t be going to the trouble if Sally had phoned him, as she normally made the effort to do. If she wasn’t going to let him know that she was okay, he would just have to bloody well find out for himself.

  Part of him enjoyed all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Perhaps, when he was older, he could become a spy rather than the boring barrister his parents expected him to be. You can be anything you want in life, Ray sensed that instinctively – whether he could convince Myra and Leonard of the fact was another story.

  Sally’s car was outside the home when he arrived, and he heard the children inside, but nobody was answering the door. So Ray jumped at the drainpipe, scrambling for a foothold on the brackets that fixed the pipe to the brick. There was a tricky moment when bolts shifted and the pipe jerked away from the wall, and he hung on for dear life, but then he managed to get a hand to the nearest sash window and lift it. Heaving himself over the sill, swinging his legs inside, he collapsed on the worn carpet, laid staring up at a stain on a ceiling tile, getting his breath back.

  Then a voice asked: ‘Who are you?’

  Ray sat up to see a young girl sitting on a mattress against the wall opposite. Her knees were bunched in front of her, pencil poised over a notebook covered in crepe and glitter.

  ‘Me and Jason have got a game going on,’ Ray said. ‘Hide-and-seek.’

  The key to getting by at school, he had discovered, was to walk about as if you owned it, as if you had the brazen right to be there as much as any of the house masters, captains or the senior boys who fancied themselves as judge, jury and executioner. Ray was quick-witted and personable, people liked him, and he had discovered that more often than not he could talk himself out of – and sometimes into – difficult situations.

  But the girl said, ‘You’re not from here.’

  ‘I am.’ He climbed to his feet. ‘You just don’t see me because I’m really, really good at hide-and-seek.’

  He could see she didn’t believe a word of it. Most kids would have screamed the place down if they saw a stranger falling through an upstairs window. Instead, she went back to her book, totally absorbed. The top of her pencil twirled and danced over the page.

  Ray’s interest was piqued. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Drawing.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ He threaded his way through the clutter of furniture, careful not to bang his shins on the corners of the beds that jutted into the room like an invading fleet. ‘Can I have a look?’

  She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no either, and Ray gently tugged the book from her grasp. He turned the pages, expecting to see the usual childish stick figures and bulging girlish hearts, and was surprised by the detailed, painfully intricate images. The girl had drawn various kids he vaguely recognised from the home – Kenny, Regina, Connor – and he found himself drawn ever deeper into the winding swirls and whorls curling around the page. The gentle strokes would crackle suddenly, like a surge of electricity, and the detail of a face emerged out of the disturbance. Some of the children were smiling, some of them were laughing, but they all had unbearably sad eyes, expressive beyond their years.

  He was seriously impressed.

  ‘Did you do these all by yourself?’ The girl nodded, eyes clamped on the sketchbook in case he tried to run off with it. ‘I’m Ray. What’s your name?’

  ‘Amelia Troy.’

  He held out his hand, as he had been taught to do since he was barely able to walk. She stared, but he kept it there until her fingers tentatively reached out, and they shook.

  ‘You’re a real talent,’ he said, and a smile ghosted across Amelia’s face. ‘Maybe you could draw me one day. Do you want to be an artist when you grow up?’

  Her eyes widened, as if he had asked her if she was planning to travel to the moon. You can be anybody you want to be, that’s what he told himself, but maybe not if you’re a child like Amelia, living in a dump like this, with its damp and draughts and peeling wallpaper, and its festering atmosphere of dread.

  ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘Myra – my mother – sits on the board of an art gallery, and it’s quite a famous one. When you’re older, if you do me some drawings, I can arrange for them to see them. Maybe they could recommend a college you could go to. Would you like that?’

  The girl looked down, embarrassed. Ray realised Amelia had probably been made many promises in her short life, and not a single one of them had happened.

  ‘I’ll do it for you,’ he said, and meant it. Ray never said anything without meaning it. ‘Because I’ve a feeling we’re going to be friends.’

  The girl rolled her eyes. ‘We’ve only just met.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I’m never wrong about stuff like that.’

  He looked around the dismal room, with its clutter of beds and mattress and clothes strewn all over the floor, the windows smeared with a thousand and one fingerprints, and wondered what had led Sally to this place. How she could tolerate the stink of filth and unhappiness. She had grown up in a home where she had everything she could possibly want: a loving family life and a good education. She had come here originally because she wanted to make a difference to the lives of these kids. Now it seemed to him that something had gone terribly wrong. She had fallen under the spell of Gordon Tallis, that much was clear to Ray, and was as much as prisoner of this place as the children.

  Ray wanted her out of there, and all the children, too. But there was nothing he could do – he was just a kid. One day, when he was older, people would listen to him. He would have the authority of an adult and would set about making a difference, a real difference, to the lives of people. One day, he knew, he would do some good in the world.

  His parents expected him to become a barrister, not because of any sense of social justice on their part, but because it was what Leonard had done, and Leonard’s father before him, and his father before that. Well, Ray would see about that. To defy his parents would be unthinkable. But Ray had inherited Myra Drake’s iron will, her indestructible self-belief, and they knew it. One day he would force them to understand that what they demanded of him wasn’t what he wanted for himself.

  ‘Do you know Sally?’ Ray asked Amelia. ‘Do you know where I can find her?’

  ‘She’ll be in the office,’ said the girl. ‘Where she always is.’

  He returned the book. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Amelia. We’re going to meet again.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘I made you a promise.’ He stood. ‘And I keep my promises.’

  On the landing he heard the low thrum of the children’s voices in the garden – Sally said they were encouraged to stay outside during the summer – and banging from the kitchen. Ray crept over the bare floorboards, and down the stairs.

  The closed door of the office was on the left. When he yanked on the handle, it didn’t budge, so he knocked.

  ‘Sal! Are you in there?’ He kept an eye on the long hallway and the kitchen, where the shadows of Gordon’s staff, the Dents, lumbered across the black-and-white tiles.

  ‘Sal!’ When he put his ear to the office door, he heard the roar of air. ‘Sally!’

  ‘So this is a nice surprise,’ said a voice, and Ray turned to see the manager sat on the bottom stair, hands flopping forward over his knees. ‘Particularly as I don’t
remember anyone letting you in.’

  Ray blurted out: ‘One of the children.’

  ‘If you say so, lad.’ Gordon lifted a hand, unconvinced. ‘Maybe next time you could let us know when you intend to drop in, so we can polish our best silver, perhaps dish up a few canapés.’

  ‘Where’s Sally?’

  ‘She’s asleep. She works very long hours, Raymond – that’s your name, yes? – and she’s all tired out.’

  From the doorway opposite appeared the new kid, Connor, and another boy, a brute called Elliot. The last time Ray had seen him, he’d had a bandage around his face. But it was gone now, and his nose was misshapen and purple.

  Ray felt uneasy. ‘I’d like to see her.’

  ‘Another time, perhaps. Let me give her a message for you.’

  ‘Maybe we could wake her up.’

  ‘Disturbing a young lady’s beauty sleep, breaking and entering? And here’s me thinking you were a young gentleman.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’ve come all this way.’

  Gordon laughed. ‘You are by far the most polite housebreaker I’ve ever met, but I’m afraid our children are unsettled by strangers, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

  ‘And I’m going to have to insist,’ said Ray, praying that his voice didn’t crack, ‘that I see her.’

  ‘Why don’t we just call the police?’

  Ray stood his ground when Gordon approached, but his hands trembled behind his back. ‘I can’t see you doing that.’

  ‘You’re a bright and clever boy. A credit, no doubt, to your very expensive education.’ Gordon’s smile vanished. ‘But you’re not welcome, lad. I cannot allow people to let themselves in and walk about the place.’

  ‘My parents are very involved in children’s charities.’

  ‘Good for them,’ said Gordon. ‘Public-spirited people, so they are.’

  ‘Maybe they could come and see the work you do here.’ Ray swallowed. ‘They would be very interested.’