He holds his hands up. “Whoa, mate. We don’t do that tonight. Way too much info.”
“I’m fucked up.”
“Yeah you are.” He nods and I notice he’s supping his pint fast, much faster than I will be able to keep up with. As I taste my ale, I realise it’s one of those strong Dutch lagers guaranteed to get you buzzing now, murderously intoxicated later, and feeling deathly tomorrow. “So we’ll get you royally fucked and everything will be fine in the morning.”
“Sure.”
We stare at one another, wondering what to talk about. We literally have nothing in common except work. Even then, he’s still not got the same philosophy as me on that one.
“How’s the family?” I ask, trying to seem interested.
“They’re grand. My daughter Hollie just had a kid. I’m a granddad now.”
“Shit.” I wipe some froth from my top lip. “How old is Hollie, mate? Last time I saw her, she was like five?”
“She’s nineteen and that fella of hers wants her down the aisle now, too.”
“Well,” I nod and purse my lips, “reckon it’s you who needs to get hammered mate.”
“Don’t I know it. Same again?” He stands and I nod, though I’ve barely drunk a quarter of this pint.
He stands at the bar and loudly asks, “Another round. Back in a sec.” Smoothly, he offers the barman a £20 note and leaves for the lavatory. While he’s gone, I tell them at the bar my pint doesn’t taste right and they throw it away. They give me a fresh one which I tell them tastes fine, saying it must have been a glass with washing-up liquid residue.
When they offer the second brew free, I tell them not to worry about it and to keep the rest of the £20 Ronnie handed over as a tip.
“He’s good for it,” I wink.
Returning to the table, Ronnie sees my fresh pint and remarks, “Good on ya son.”
I burp and wink, “Fucking kids. I tell you, Joe’s been giving me the right run around too… getting up to no good with girls.”
Ronnie swallows the head of his pint like a basking shark swallows plankton. “Like father, like son. Just buy him a stack of condoms. What’s it matter?”
“Oh well, he’s fifteen!”
“I were fourteen. Never did me any harm.”
I despise this man. Literally. “Hmm. Well, I don’t like it, not under my roof at least.”
By the time we’ve finished our ‘second’ round, I’m totally pissed. I’m trying really hard not to be, but I am, and this night is only going to get worse.
“Let’s move on. There’s no skirt in here,” he complains, one eyebrow cocked.
“Fine by me.” It’s an effort to talk without my tongue doing twirls and somersaults.
We walk down the Upper Avenue to another bar I don’t know the name of. The sign above the door looks blurry and the place seems to have changed name since I was last here.
While he’s at the bar, I excuse myself by visiting the loos. Checking my phone as I pee in a cubicle, I see a missed call from the solicitor. I shouldn’t ring back because a) I’m pissed and b) I’ll probably get wound up by the woman. Pity I can’t help myself.
After flushing, I wash my hands and stand in the corridor outside the toilets to give her a call.
“Mr Jones?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Lydia Birch from Jacques and Sinclair. I cashed your cheque successfully and called my friend. Your buyers should have planning permission within the next working week. Closure should happen very swiftly after that because everything else is set up and ready to go.”
The cheque didn’t bounce? How?
“Oh, okay.”
“You sound surprised?”
“I am.” I cover my surprise, saying, “It was on the market so long and now… I am surprised. But thank you.”
“No problem. By the way, you will be charged for this call.”
She hangs up and I’m striding back to Ronnie with the word bitch on my lips when he smirks, asking, “Who was it? The little woman?”
“Worse. My solicitor.”
“Get that down your neck.”
We stand by a room divider with a table and two stools but we don’t sit down. It’s shaded with dark walls and low-watt neon lights. I can tell this is more his type of place. He’s ogling the ladies heading off into town. I sip the froth off my pint and I know, I am going to be no good to anyone with two or three more sips.
“I need another leak. The seal is broken,” he complains and I smirk back. He just won’t admit he’s an old man who can’t take his drink anymore. I can admit that and more, which is why I quickly take my drink and pour three quarters of it into a used glass nearby. It’s dark and busy, people moving about, not looking at me stood here in my dark corner. Nobody sees and I hide the glass.
I quickly send a text to Jules: Do me a favour and check the bank online?
Ronnie returns and he’s still doing up his zip when he gets to me. It makes me wonder how he ever got a woman, but then I guess money is all some women see.
“You’re chugging them!” He winks. “I better get another round!”
“No, I’ll get these… you got the others.”
I stand and head to the bar. “Pint of Erdinger and a pint glass with two Cobra Zeros.” I wink at the girl behind the bar and she gets the gist. While she’s pouring Ronnie’s pint, I whisper to her, “My friend’s having woman trouble. I’m going to stay a bit soberish to make sure he’s okay.”
She takes the tops off my bottles and pours them into one glass together. The overflow I suggest she pour down the drain. I hand over my money and strolling back to Ronnie, his eyes are fixed to his phone screen.
When I get back, he hardly looks up at me, inveigled by whatever it is on his phone. I remember my text to Jules and wonder if she’s replied yet. Looking at my own screen, I see she’s not only replied but she’s tried calling me twice and I’ve missed them because of the noise in this place.
Reading the text, it says: Our balance is a little higher than usual. Like £673,000 higher? What the hell has happened? Even the farm sale wasn’t half that!!! What is going on? Ring me when you can.
ME: Jules, I’ll ring you when I can baby. Everything’s fine. Trust me.
Holy crap.
I look at Ronnie now sat there on his stool, studying his screen like he just got news someone is dead.
I know nothing is fine.
“What’s up mate?” I venture, digging into my non-alcoholic ‘pint’.
“Uhhh, nowt, nowt. Nothing. I just… I don’t know, a mistake with my finances or something. Wife just tried to use the card at a restaurant and it’s been declined.” He takes a long slug at his drink, almost decimating it to half-empty in one mouthful. He stares around the room for a minute before going back to his phone. “I’m just gonna check something…” he says under his breath.
I know what he’s checking. He’s checking his account to find out where that money went. At the same time as he’s doing that, the room swallows me in its hive of activity and I get lost staring at people and what they’re doing. It’s mostly groups of friends and young couples in here, not families or mixed groups like back in Pave. One figure stands out in the room and she’s wearing a red wig today and a sharp business suit designed to make her seem like one of the managers or something – a clipboard and her glass of wine untouched. She’s sat at the end of the bar and the instant our eyes lock, she presses a button on the phone she’s holding and I receive a text on my burner which I hide from Ronnie’s otherwise engaged eyes:
KIM: He’s in deep shit. Look at his face.
He’s studying something on his smartphone, his fingers working rapidly. I don’t even exist now. The worry lines in his forehead are creased to buggery.
KIM: Do exactly as I say. Suggest shots and moving onto Purple Door. Now.
“You want a shot mate?” I ask, not even trying to sound pissed anymore. The Cobra Zero has slightly sobered me up, but I think he has
other worries.
“Yeah, here,” he rolls a twenty from his suit jacket pocket and stuffs it into my hand absentmindedly. I order two shots of Sambuca and two of water from the girl who’s now my devoted confidant. She asks where my wife is and I tell her the truth i.e. at home looking after the kids, waiting for me to get back and shag her senseless (I leave out that last part).
While I’m standing at the bar, Kim moves towards me but not so that anyone would think we are together.
“What can I get for you?” a barman asks Kim.
“A bottle of champagne to go.”
Did I hear right?
I look over my shoulder and Ronnie’s still ensconced with his phone. He’s texting madly now it seems, probably his accountant/wife. I move a little to my right so I can speak to Kim without shouting.
“I told you a little lie,” Kim says beside me, under her breath. While my waitress gets me my waters and Sambucas, hers is busy unlocking the champagne fridge, “I left police a long while ago. I left everything behind. I went rogue. Nowadays, I have a lot of fun as my very own sort of policewoman.”
I look at her but we’re interrupted by the barman asking, “Which size?”
“The biggest,” she says, thrilled, her eyes lit up.
“Methuselah, then,” he questions and she nods, almost squeaking. He stamps the bottle on the bar and she passes over £200 in notes.
“The only way to beat them, is to join them? That’s not how it works, Kim.”
I keep staring ahead so it doesn’t look like I’m conversing with her. In the mirrors behind the optics, I can see Ronnie now jabbing at his screen, confounded out of his wits at where his money has gone.
“I have my million and you have a gift, call it a late wedding present for my niece. You’re my insurance. Now, I disappear, and you never see me again.”
She clutches the huge champagne bottle to her chest, grinning with glee, and confidently turns to face me. She also stares to her left to watch Ronnie, red-faced and a dead man no doubt.
“Who does he owe?”
“Everyone,” she says, “oh, he owes everyone. He has a shipment due which he won’t be able to pay for now. Whoops. Me hoarding his lost stash won’t have helped matters.”
“You can’t do this. It doesn’t work like this,” I argue, handing over money to the waitress who seems to have forgotten which is water and which is Sambuca.
“In the next life, Warrick, maybe in the next. Or maybe the point is, angels and demons don’t exist. It’s only whether you get caught or not.”
“They will find you, one day.”
“I’m the lesser of two evils. They won’t come for me, I’ve done them all a favour.”
“We’ll see.”
She smiles, her whole demeanour changed. “I want to thank you. I’ve enjoyed watching him squirm. I’ve enjoyed it almost as much as I will enjoy this and the oiled man I have waiting at home for me.”
She turns on her heel and leaves. She planned this, all along. She failed to get close to Ronnie through Julian, so chose me to make her punt instead.
I take the four shots and head back to Ronnie. I carry my two waters in one hand and find him still rattled and desperately seeking sense from a phone that will give him no solace.
He sees the shots in front of him and downs one after the other. I down mine before he has chance to recognise they’re water.
“Purple Door?” I ask.
“Sure.”
He’s by my side but not in spirit as we cab it down into town. The whole journey is spent with him checking texts and the Internet banking app on his phone. He’s not even bothered I’m obviously looking over his shoulder. To him, I’m a vague companion now, directing him on a path he’s lost his way on.
Kim has shafted him right up the wazoo.
We leave the taxi after Ronnie stuffs another twenty absentmindedly into the driver’s hand. Entering Purple Door, the bouncers just nod and don’t ask for ID or an entrance fee. I bet Ronnie’s paid up to the eyeballs here.
We find a spot and he gets drinks again, but this time I have a long draw from my pint because I think I’m in shock from all of this. I’m now in acting mode one hundred per cent and none of the bodies shaking their thing around us hold any interest with me. I’m getting back to my wife tonight to hold her as close as I can.
He’s hardly put his phone down except to hand over money or bark orders at people. I’m just surplus to requirement now. I’m just the tagalong who makes him look like he has a friend when he doesn’t have a single one in the whole world. All I want to do is go home to Jules and tell her I love her so much.
“What’s going on mate?” I dare to ask him and he shakes his head.
“I’m trying to sort this out. I think I’ve been frauded.”
“You gotta be careful these days, haven’t ya mate?”
“Fuck knows you gotta wrap your shit up in a dozen bulletproof jackets to keep it safe.”
He goes back to furiously typing on his phone, like he runs the whole world from that thing. If I were in a relationship with him or even cared what he thought, I’d have beat him over the head with it already. I’m just maintaining the ruse right now.
I’m thinking she needed him out in public tonight so she could hack his phone while she was in the same room. It has to be that. She knew which account to go for and knew he’d imagine his passwords were safe on a personal phone. Obviously, he underestimated Kim and her capabilities. We all did.
However, I’m sitting by his side and he’s still not so much as queried why I’m okay to hang about with a bastard like him, just gazing nonsensically anywhere but at the topless girls surrounding us. He’s underestimated me, too. He always did.
“I’m gonna get going,” I say, “Jules will be pissed off otherwise.”
It’s only ten o’clock and the time has zinged by but I don’t see what the point is in hanging around. I also know that the reason he isn’t ringing his bank is that his account no doubt contains a history of transactions of an illegal nature.
“Yeah, whatever. Fucking under the thumb, you.”
“Have you seen my wife? The things she can do… she’s worth all the aggro, believe me.”
He holds out his hand which I shake.
Concerned, I ask, “You’ll be alright?”
“Fuck off, sure I will. I’m gonna have me a few private dances with some of these chicks and find the fucker who’s done me over.”
I nod, all the while thinking, You’ll be lucky.
“Catch ya later.”
Outside I hail a cab home and the first thing I do is check my bank online using my phone. It’s like Jules said, there’s over six hundred thousand quid in there! I check for the details of who deposited it and there’s no name or bank account name, just numbers. However in the reference number section, she’s instead written: Don’t worry, this is untraceable. Just make good use of it and take Jules to paradise – and never come back.
I quickly call Jules.
“Warrick! Oh god, I’m so happy you’ve called. I’ve been worried sick.”
“I’m heading home. Warm up the bed. I’m taking you to paradise.”
Chapter Forty
Jules
Christmas Eve
“Oh yes. Oh yes. This is so good,” I tell him. “Oh yes.”
He’s brought me to The Old House Bistro for a late lunch following some last-minute shopping. The holidays will soon claim us with children’s toys to put together, films to watch and food to scoff, but for now it’s me and Warrick, just us, our old selves, always the same. Wendy and Terry have the kids tonight and Joe has gone down to London to be with his mum. She’s been lucky. She got herself a good bloke who forced her to have rehab and she’s gotten herself clean. We hope she stays that way.
“The burger’s to your satisfaction, baby?”
“More than,” I mumble with my mouth full. I’m chewing the burger all the way around the edges first before getting to the
meaty middle. “Hmm. You know how to feed me.”
“Oh yes I do.”
He’s grinning at me, hoping to get lucky I imagine. He’s enjoying posh kebabs on sticks and I’m enjoying a burger. There couldn’t be anything better. I’ve had to prise him away from his new baby (the community centre) to get him out here tonight.
We sold the farm and together with the ‘donation’ from Kim, we had enough to build a new building entirely from scratch. When an old building on the Lower Avenue was knocked down and the land put up for sale, we snapped it up. Warrick has big, big plans.
I’ve broken off for Christmas and I can tell he knows what I’m thinking. He reads me so easily.
I finish my burger and he asks, “Tell me you hate being back teaching.”
“I hate it,” I say, but my face scrunches up when I say it. My desk back home probably hates me being back but I don’t. I have dozens of Christmas cards to open later and even more boxes of chocolates to scoff. I also have a hundred mock exam papers to mark, but who’s counting right?
“Liar,” he chuckles, dipping his last few chips into salsa.
“When Ruby comes back, I’m going part-time.”
“Err, why?”
“Few reasons.”
He gulps. “But we need your income!”
I stare at him, squinting. “Really? Really?”
As well as what’s in our bank account, we still have £50,000 sitting in our safe, untouched. He’s more dumb than I thought he was if he doesn’t realise I know about the safe, I guessed the code and I counted every note of it.
“It’s only fair if she and I job-share. She covered for me, I’ve covered for her. We’re even. Jack’s even okayed it already. He’s happy to have me at all. Besides, when the community centre is up and running, I’m going to teach a dance class if that’s alright with you? I also have ideas for tea dances and widow and widower drop-ins.”
“I wouldn’t be happy if I were Jack. I’d want all of you,” he says, grinning with surprise, with so much desire lurking in his chocolate eyes, I’m swimming.
Beyond Angel Avenue Page 33