Trilogy: The First Three Books in the Amber For Go Series

by Paul Harris

  “They weren’t your oil drums that he surrounded himself with.”

  “Do you know the name of the trader who stitched him up?”

  “No it was a long time ago. He had a weird name.”

  Sol coughed and stood up, finishing the last of his beer. He looked peculiarly pale, almost wan, you might say. “I gotta go.”

  “Why?” asked Timmy.

  Sol responded quite curtly. “What do you mean, “why”? I got stuff I need to do.”

  “You normally do the Saturday session though.”

  “Look, Rod,” said Sol, ignoring Timmy’s protestations and pushing his barstool towards me, “it’s been good to see you again and I’m sorry it’s been under difficult circumstances; and I’m sorry for everything that’s gone on in the past.” He offered me his hand and I noticed that he was trembling slightly. “We ain’t got a problem, have we?”

  “No problem,” I said shaking his hand, and keeping a keen eye on his face as he avoided eye contact with me.

  “Perhaps we could meet up sometime? Have a meal or something? For old time’s sake?”

  “Indian?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, Indian would be good.” Then, he left.

  The two guys who were with him left too, leaving Amos, Timmy and I alone at the bar. Amos ordered another round of drinks and then said, “I don’t know why he hangs around with them two.”

  “Who?” asked Timmy, blankly.

  “Sol. Why’s he always with them Bothwell brothers?”

  “They’re alright, they are, good lads.”

  “They’re just scum; always going on about guns and knives and shit.”

  “Comes in handy sometimes, though, innit.”

  Amos shook his head. “Too heavy. Bad news.”

  I wasn’t interested in these so-called Bothwell brothers and their small time gun fetish, and was itching to get the conversation back on track. “So, how’d Bird know this stockbroker who ripped him off?” Then, Timmy’s phone rang and we were treated to the first couple of bars of the Los Lobos version of “La Bamba”.

  “Take it outside!” I snapped at him. “We’re trying to have a serious conversation.”

  He waved me away. “It’s only Buffalo wanting to know where we are. He’s on his way down.”

  “Great!” I grunted and looked up and down the bar. We were the only customers in there, which wasn’t any great surprise given how early it was on a Saturday afternoon. The girls were busy ferrying cups of genuine barista style coffee to the tables outside on the terrace. They wore aprons and carried tiny notebooks in their pockets like pseudo waitresses. One of them tripped up the step on her way back in from the terrace and dropped a cup. It bounced off the fake wooden floor and rolled over towards me. I picked it up and handed it to her. She smiled gracefully and almost curtseyed.

  “So?” I persevered.

  “So, what?” asked Timmy. “He’ll be here any minute.”

  “Not Buffalo! Bird! Where did he know that geezer from?”

  “What geezer?”

  I paused to try to collect myself. I took a mouthful of beer and tried to recall what had been drummed into me on my anger management course. “The stockbroker! And, I wasn’t asking you, I was talking to Amos.”

  “Here he is now.” And Buffalo walked in with a big broad grin across his big broad face and something unpleasant looking smeared across his beard.

  “Well, well, what you all doing down here?”

  “We got business here,” I replied, shortly. “What about you?”

  “Oh dear, wrong side of the bed this morning then, Rod?” As I was about to admit defeat and sit down, Buffalo snatched the stool away and sat on it himself. “What they serve in here?”

  I pointed at the pumps. “You’ve been in here before. What did you have last time?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No, believe it or not, I haven’t been in here since the refurb.”

  “That was two years ago!” said Amos.

  Buffalo looked Amos up and down and began stroking his beard with a look of strained curiosity on his face. Timmy leant some assistance. “This is Amos, by the way. Amos, this is Buffalo.” Amos held out his hand, but Buffalo continued to caress his facial hair for several seconds before taking it.

  “You from around here?” asked Buffalo, “Never seen you before.”

  “Been here a long time. Knew Rodney back in the nineties. I’ve never seen you before either. You get out much?”

  Buffalo sniffed. It’s curious how two people who have never met before and have no history between them can take an instant dislike to one another. They glanced at each other with the same expression of suspicion etched into both of their faces. “I drink in the Pig,” said Buffalo with a degree of pride.

  “Shithole, ain’t it?” suggested Amos, malevolently.

  “Don’t like places like this,” retorted Buffalo, “full of ponces.”

  With the introductions and the niceties seemingly completed to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, I decided to pursue my inquiries. “So this City geezer that Bird got wrapped up with…any ideas?”

  “They’ve ruined this place,” interrupted Buffalo. “It used to be a good little boozer; it’s a fucking coffee shop now.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” I yelled in exasperation. The woman behind the bar snapped a look of admonishment at me and began to prowl in our direction like a lioness on the Serengeti. Hopefully she’d take Buffalo down first.

  “Where’s Lola?” asked Timmy.

  “You know Lola,” explained Buffalo, “he won’t leave the Pig.”

  “Well they’ve been married a long time.” Timmy didn’t seem to comprehend why the three of us, as a man, puffed out our cheeks and began shaking our heads at him.

  I was the first to break the silence that had descended. “Help me out, Amos. Please!”

  “Like I say, Rodney, it was a long time ago. I just know that he was local. He knew him from around here.”

  “How many traders you know from around here?”

  Amos shrugged. “There’re probably loads of them.”

  “But, how many do you know? You must have contacts or some kind of database.”

  Amos took a deep breath and then expelled stale air through the gap in his teeth into the atmosphere. I noticed that this act made a strange sound, somewhat akin to the sound you would expect to be made by a set of squashed Peruvian panpipes. “I honestly can’t remember, Rod. I just know he had a strange name, that’s all. Bird told me the geezer’s name but it was a long time ago and…” He looked me square in the eye. “My mind’s a blank, mate.”

  I stood up and kicked the brass foot rail that ran around the bottom of the bar. Buffalo was staring at Amos, still trying to place him, and picking debris from his beard. It was the quietest I’d ever known him.

  “I wonder…” Timmy broke in.

  “Don’t!” I held up a finger to stop him. “Don’t come out with anymore of your inane shite!” And I aimed another kick at the foot rail, this time missing with my foot and making contact with my shin. The pain was sickening but I refused to acknowledge it.

  Timmy gave it some consideration before continuing anyway. “All I was going to say was that I wonder if that Henshaw House geezer would know who it was. He’s something in the City, innit?”

  “That ain’t a name!” Buffalo snorted, breaking his silence. “That’s a stately home in Berkshire!” But, as he remonstrated with Timmy over the actual existence of such a person, Amos clicked his fingers, and something struck a chord with me too.

  “That’s him!” he shrieked. “Henshaw House was the geezer. Proper dodgy too.”

  Buffalo resumed his beard grooming activities.

  “Ain’t that the geezer that used to go with Ringlet?” I asked rhetorically. I already knew the answer. “Fucking Sol!” I lunged for the door, but Sol was long gone, because he knew; he knew exactly what the deal was with Henshaw House.

  I surveyed the street,
up and down. It was a beautiful day and the air was warming up in preparation for a full blown heat wave. The streets were busy with weary shoppers and passengers coming to and from the train station. Sol had stuff he needed to get done alright, and so did I. Amos caught me by the arm and dragged me out of the doorway “You ain’t going to find the geezer now, after all these years.”

  “We will. Sol knows where to find him; I’ll put money on that.”

  “He drinks in here,” Timmy casually cut in. “Normally sits outside reading one of them big newspapers, perving at the crumpet.”

  I looked at Amos. “You’ve got to know him if he drinks in here.”

  Amos shrugged.

  “You must do!”

  Amos shrugged again.

  “Yeah,” said Timmy, “you’d know him. He’s always hanging around the gaff.”

  “I can’t place the geezer,” pleaded Amos.

  “Your mind gone blank again?” I quizzed.

  “Rod, if I knew him, I’d tell you. I got no reason to cover for him. He ain’t no friend of mine. You’re talking like you think I’m in on it.”

  I ignored his complaint and turned to Timmy. “What days does he come in?” And with a sly dig at Amos, “Not Saturdays, obviously.”

  “He comes and goes; doesn’t have a regular routine, which seems a bit dodgy in itself if you ask me.”

  “You phone me the next time you see him!” I demanded.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “He still with Ringlet?” I asked, purely out of curiosity.

  “Is he fuck!”

  “She single?”

  “Probably. She ain’t half put some timber on though, innit.”

  “Issit, though?”

  Timmy nodded and completely ducked my sarcasm.

  “Leeds Castle!” boomed Buffalo. We all turned and stared at him. “I think Leeds Castle is my favourite stately home. What’s yours, Rod?”

  Chapter Seven

  Landlocked Beach

  We were walking across Wimbledon Common, hand in hand, and I was surreptitiously enjoying the experience. I’d held hands before, with Moke and Marilyn and miscellaneous others, the names of whom I no longer remembered, but I’d always been coaxed and cajoled into it. I had always felt unbearably self-conscious. This was different; it felt different; I was proud of my girl. Brie had light blonde hair, the colour of a sun-kissed harvest, tied into a bun at the back of her head. Her fringe hung down in loops over her face where there was just the merest hint of freckling which disappeared when the sun went in. As she gazed towards the horizon with her hand peaked across her forehead for shade, her broad smile radiated warmth and happiness. She had tiny little fingers and I felt each one of them between mine.

  We walked towards Rushmere Pond where a shimmering haze was hovering just above its surface. We broke from one another and I led for a short while before pausing to let her pass, urging her on with the palm of my hand. She staggered slightly, playfully, and I followed her as she zig-zagged jauntily on her toes and on her heels and on the sides of her flat-bottomed plimsolls. I examined her movements as the hem of her light summer floral dress flapped around her knees as she performed some kind of freakish Annabella Lwin dance routine.

  Multi-million pound white-washed mansions lined the boundary of the Common looming sternly over the parked cars that lay stationary nose to nose for as far as the eye could see. The war memorial stood aloof but neglected, anticipating the annual Remembrance Day service when it would become, for a brief moment in November, the focal point of a community normally far too industrious to ever stand still and to contemplate for so many seconds. Casualties of war would be honoured, parades would be marched, trumpets sounded, and then people would make their way home or to the Dog & Fox for a hearty roast with all the trimmings

  Young ladies adorned in skin tight jodhpurs that leave no curve nor crease to the imagination, with thigh high boots and pitch black riding helmets led horses by their reins as their animals deposited manure onto makeshift football pitches with absolutely no discomfiture whatsoever and with complete disregard to the aspiring footballers enjoying a half time ice cream under the shade of a nearby tree.

  We dragged our feet through the steaming fresh mown grass and kicked balls of it at each other’s ankles. Brie started a battle but I won it due to immeasurably superior fire power. She scuffed as she kicked and, as she was fumbling with her sandals, I launched a saturation attack. “Stop it!” she screamed. “It’s going down my socks.” She knelt and rolled down her tiny white pop socks, picking out the tiny blades of dying grass. I massaged her shoulders from behind as she knelt at my feet. She groaned and grabbed at my fingers. “And, it’s making my skin all itchy.” She stood up again and pouted, happily. I kissed her already puckered lips; we re-joined hands and continued walking.

  We made our way between bathers lying, half naked, in the midday sunshine with the Sunday newspapers spread out over their faces and Jack Russels snapping at their shoe laces. There were people milling around the pond. Young children were dragging small wooden yachts along on pieces of string, and older children were frantically working the remote controls of their speedboats. Elderly couples sat contentedly on faded wooden benches that were mottled with mould and decay, and scarred with engraved graffiti. They gazed in silence at the horizon beyond the rooftops waiting for the sun to set for the very last time.

  Two youths sped up to the pond on bicycles. They hurled their bikes to the ground and jumped into the water, fully clothed and still in shoes and socks, laughing uproariously as they splashed one another and anybody else they could reach. Children shrank from their presence and parents beckoned their young ones to leave the pond whilst the two mad boys frolicked and gambolled wildly amongst the toy boats. They swore and cursed with such a lack of self-awareness that one could only stand and admire if only from a purely socio-scientific stand-point. Between them they broke the spell of an idyllic summer’s day that had once been but was now all but gone.

  A young couple were trying to spin flat stones across the surface of the limpid water. The stones plopped to the bottom amongst the accumulated debris, never to return to their bouncing bomb missions. The two mad boys, assuming they were under attack from an enemy force, returned fire, hurling anything that they could lay their hands on towards the unhappy couple, including a bicycle pump and a remote controlled boat.

  An elderly man in a tattered string vest and a flat cap was throwing sticks into the pond for his dog to chase. The black curly haired mongrel snapped and pranced and jumped for the sticks until it left the man’s hand. Then, he cowered in the long grass at the water’s edge waiting for the stick to float back to him. Or, perversely, he would set off at speed in the opposite direction and find a new stick; a dry stick. He would bring it back to his master in triumph, only to see that too launched into the not too inviting water of the pond.

  A woman sat alone, dressed in a brown duffle coat, scuffed army boots, and a beige silk head scarf, screaming vile abuse at nobody in particular and flinging shreds of tissue paper onto the imperceptibly light breeze. She stamped her heels on the ground in petulant demonstration of an abject frustration of matters only she can ever know. She spat into the air and swore without reservation at a small child who bravely ventured to recover a football that had rolled far too closely to her.

  A sprightly old lady played football with her grandson. They kicked the bright yellow sphere to one another until grandma miss-kicked it and it pinged into Brie’s already reddening face as we meandered by. The lady’s low slung breasts swung like clock pendulums as she raced with a lop-sided stagger to retrieve the ball, profusely apologising to a simmering Brie.

  I laughed and so did she eventually when the stinging abated, and we dropped to the ground. I rolled over onto my side to face her. She was already on her side, propped up on an elbow, watching me, scanning me, searching for truth with her deep blue eyes.

  “Come on,” she sighed, “Mum’ll be waitin
g.”

  “Why doesn’t she come outside? Is she a vampire or something?”

  “You know what she’s like.” She reached out a hand towards me and I took it in mine.

  “You know, I don’t think your Mum likes me very much.”

  “You think!” Brie started laughing. “No shit, Sherlock!”

  She leant towards me and kissed me on my cheek.

  “So?”

  She laughed again.

  “So, why doesn’t she like me?”

  Brie took a deep breath and looked thoughtfully at me for a moment. “She thinks you’re a womanising drunk.”

  “Oh, is that it?” I laughed.

  “Amongst other things, yes.”

  “Good handle, though. I’m quite impressed with that.”

  The smile had disappeared from her face and had been replaced by a look that quite clearly suggested that she wasn’t quite as impressed as I was. I decided to stow my enthusiasm away for another time.

  “Womanising drunk, eh? Cool. Like Dean Martin.”

  “Who?”

  I stood up and pulled her to her feet. We were close and I inhaled an unlikely combination of perfume by Estee Lauder and armpits by Gillette.

  “You been using my deodorant again?”

  She was pulling her light summer dress down towards her reddening kneecaps. It was my favourite dress but she ruined it by matching it with a bobble covered green cardigan as protection against the chill of a thirty degree heat wave. A shiver ran down my spine as I considered the impact of a stranger’s hand on my favourite dress.

  “Come on,” she commanded and we walked past Cannizaro House and along the narrow road to the Fox & Grapes, stopping only to admire the riotous colour of the hanging baskets, before pushing our way inside, Gedge’s words still ringing in my ears.

  Womanising Drunk

  Stepping out of that picture of blissful summer into a dimly lit eighteenth century coaching inn was like plunging from day into night; from the height of abandoned delight into utter misery. It was like falling down a well into an abandoned cavern.