Harvey stiffened at the mere mention of his rival’s name. ‘Who?’ (This was more of a challenge than an enquiry.)
‘A Priori,’ Dory leaned forward, with a grin (taking up the challenge, quite happily). ‘First in the book, apparently.’
‘If you must know,’ Harvey suddenly blustered, ‘I didn’t try it on with your wife – she ain’t really my type – but that sure as hell didn’t stop her from tryin’ it on wiv me, though. Keen as mustard, she was…’
Huh?!
Kane’s grip tightened on the door handle.
‘It took quite a while, I admit,’ Dory continued, perfectly unflustered, ‘but then I suddenly remembered…’
‘What the fuck are you goin’ on about?’ Harvey demanded.
‘I remembered how I knew you, Harvey. I remembered where we first met.’
Harvey scowled, suspicious. ‘How d’ya mean?’
‘We worked together.’
‘Bullshit!’
Harvey’s reaction was instantaneous. ‘That’s baloney!’
‘Yes we did,’ Dory insisted. ‘Years ago. Very briefly. I was an exchange-student, earning some extra cash during my summer holidays. And you were older, temping – just for a week or so. We were guarding the same site together. In Newington.’
‘Nah. You got it all wrong, mate,’ Harvey tried his best to fob the German off. But he was starting to look uneasy.
‘I don’t think so. It suddenly all came flooding back. I remember it very clearly, in fact, because it was the same week that consignment of tiles went missing.’
‘What?’
‘The tiles. Antique tiles. Tiles from the old mill. They went missing.
And I was held partially responsible…’
‘Really?’ Harvey seemed delighted by this news. ‘Get the boot, did ya?’
‘No. I mean yes. I mean I was very lucky. My boss – our boss – Tom Higson, was extremely reasonable about the whole thing…’
‘Yeah,’ Harvey sniggered, ‘very good of ‘im, weren’t it?’
‘So you do remember, then?’ Dory cut in.
‘Nope.’
‘Well I was sacked from the job, officially,’ Dory explained. ‘TML forced Higson’s hand. But then he still kept me on with the firm; moved me to a different project – the Park Street Sainsbury’s. They were expanding it at the time…’
‘So what’s the big problem?’ Harvey demanded.
‘There isn’t one,’ Dory shrugged, ‘I just remembered you, that’s all. I just remembered your face. I remembered that night – how you came to ask for my help after a group of protestors broke into your section of the site…’
Dory smiled, dreamily. ‘Although when we actually went down there – to take a proper look – we couldn’t find any evidence of a break-in, because the cruel irony was – as I’m sure you already knew – the real break-in was going on elsewhere…’
Harvey glanced off, sideways. He didn’t comment.
‘…but I kept my mouth shut,’ Dory shrugged, ‘I took the brunt of it. If I remember correctly you weren’t long out of prison and expecting your first child…’
A long silence followed, punctuated by the gentle pitter-patter of rain.
‘So…’ Dory eventually broke the silence between them, ‘the fates have finally seen fit to draw us back together.’ He held his hands up to the sky, catching the raindrops on his open palms. ‘And for some, strange reason,’ he grimaced, ‘you just couldn’t resist the idea of mugging me for a second time.’
Harvey scowled. He didn’t speak.
Dory sighed, almost forlorn now. ‘But that’s where you made your fatal mistake. You got too cocky, too smug. And somewhere along the line you forgot the single, most important rule of Cheat’s Law…’ Dory shook the rain from his hands and leaned forward, his voice almost dropping to a whisper…
Over in his car, Kane rapidly suspended his breath, determined to hear:
‘Never kid a kidder.’
Eh?
Was that…?
Kane grimaced, frustrated, not sure if he’d…
Did he just…?
And then –
‘HAAAAAARVEY!’
Kane’s head snapped around as a scooter roared on to the road, at break-neck speed –
Kelly?
‘HAAAARVEY!’ Kelly was screaming, her arms gesticulating wildly. ‘LOOOOK OWWWWT!!’
Harvey turned – confused – taking a single, tiny, almost mincing step towards her, as the air around him suddenly resounded with a most deafening clamour.
FIFTEEN
‘He had three visions – three of ‘em – all different…’ Kelly’s speech was garbled, her wide, brown eyes were bulging from their sockets, her hands were flying around, ‘and the first one was about Paul, see? Which came true. And then the second one was about the roof fallin’ down…’
She paused, scowling. ‘No, I mean the second one…’
‘Just take it easy,’ Beede murmured, patting her on the shoulder, then pulling off his crash helmet and resting it, carefully, on the seat of his old Douglas, ‘you’re probably still in shock.’
‘…The second one was about a house fallin’ down, but then after the ceilin’ collapsed – last night, on the ward…’
‘Ah yes…’ Beede smiled at her, sagely, ‘I think I may’ve caught wind of that incident on the hospital grapevine…’
‘Yeah, well I thought that was it, see?’ Kelly interrupted. ‘I thought that was the vision come true, cuz the Rev weren’t actually hurt or nothin’…’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Beede frowned, concerned, ‘a doctor has formally discharged you?’
‘What?’
‘From the hospital? You have been discharged? Formally discharged?’ he paused. ‘And while we’re at it – should you really be resting so much weight on your bad leg yet?’
Kelly gazed down at her plaster-cast. ‘Uh…Yeah…’ she slowly shook her head, and then – quite out of the blue – ‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, panic-stricken.
‘What’s wrong?’ Beede asked, alarmed.
‘I’ve only gone an’ lost the bloody Bible!’
Kelly patted frantically at her skirt pockets (on the improbable tip that the volume in question might’ve been miraculously condensed, reduced and then secreted inside one of them). Next she peered down the front of her skimpy top.
‘Shit!’ she scratched her head, confused. ‘What the hell did I do with it?’
‘So your uncle wasn’t hurt?’
Beede tried to refocus her.
‘Huh?’
‘Your uncle?’
‘My uncle? You mean Harve?! Nah. I mean yeah…’ Kelly glanced around her, slightly paranoid. ‘I told him to stay put. He rang me an’ I just…I had this feelin’. It came over me really, really strong while I was talkin’ to the Rev…But then we got lost – me an’ Gaff – on the way over to…’
She fell quiet for a moment, chewed on her lower lip (with an expression of intense concentration) and then, ‘That’s it!’ Her face broke into a beatific smile. ‘Garry’s got it! I gave the Bible to Garry! I got him to hold on to it for me while I was…an’ then I…’
She silently re-enacted the scene in her head.
‘So when you finally arrived here,’ Beede pushed on, regardless, ‘your uncle was just standing there – perfectly alone – in the middle of the garden?’
He indicated towards the scene of unalloyed carnage which had once happily passed as Elen’s front lawn.
‘Uh…’ Kelly scratched at her head again. ‘Yeah. Yeah. He was just standin’ there, an’ we was comin’ down the road…’ she pointed ‘…on the scooter…’
Beede automatically followed the line of her finger. As he gazed down the street he detected a slight movement from within a parked car just two doors down. He focussed in on it. The car was a beige Mercedes. He frowned.
‘And then I just…’ Kelly drew a long, shuddering breath, ‘I just…I had this feelin’ again, kind
of like a…’ she grimaced, slightly bashful ‘…like an orgasm, really. But not…Not dirty or nothin’…’ she shrugged, ‘you know. So I just called out – at the top of my lungs. I just screamed. I went HAAAARVEEEEY!’
Beede cringed at the undiluted volume of her recollection. ‘I see.’
He dragged his eyes away from the Mercedes and turned back to face her. ‘I see…And then the scaffolding…’
‘Yeah. It fell. KA-BOOM!’
‘Gracious.’ Beede reached up a tentative hand to massage his aching shoulder. ‘Well that certainly sounds quite…That must’ve been extremely…’
‘He took a tiny step towards me,’ Kelly continued, ‘as I yelled. Just one, tiny, little step, yeah? An’ the metal bars fell every side of him – CRASH! – with only millimetres to spare. Didn’t hurt a single hair on his head, though. It was a miracle. Took him a full five minutes to climb his way out of there – I was goin’ nuts all the while, obviously, ‘cos if we hadn’t turned up when we did, if I hadn’t screamed, if he hadn’t taken that tiny, little step, he’d’ve been a goner, for sure. No doubt about it.’
‘He was incredibly lucky,’ Beede confirmed.
‘It weren’t luck,’ Kelly snapped. ‘It was an Act of God. Like I already told you…’
‘Whatever it was,’ Beede said, ‘your uncle was extremely…’
He paused for a second, unwilling to use the word ‘lucky’ again (toying with the word ‘fortunate’ instead).
‘Your hand’s all knackered,’ Kelly mused.
‘Pardon?’
‘Your hand.’
He inspected it himself.
‘Uh…Oh. Yes.’
‘An’ you’ve got…’ she pointed, ‘all these marks. On your lip, on your neck. An’ a couple more – over there – on the side of your…’ Beede moved his hand to his neck.
‘Scratches. On your cheek. Not…’ she impatiently repositioned his hand for him ‘…on the other side.’
‘I was uh…’ Beede cleared his throat and then glanced around him, looking for a quick get-out. ‘Should your uncle really be doing that?’
Harvey was attempting to reverse his Toyota from under a section of the collapsed scaffolding (with the able assistance of Gaffar who was providing directions from the road).
‘Dunno,’ Kelly shrugged.
‘Good Lord!’ Beede exclaimed (pulling an old, cashmere scarf from his coat pocket and winding it, rapidly, around his throat). ‘Gaffar looks like he’s been in the wars…’
‘Urgh…’ Kelly growled. ‘Scrappin’, more’n likely. In some filthy gamblin’ den or other. He went to Readin’ last night – supposedly to sit wiv’ Paul – an’ that’s how the little chancer came back.’
As Kelly spoke, her conversation was neatly punctuated by her uncle’s repeated honking of the Toyota’s horn. When the honking stopped it was followed by a loud and ferocious string of expletives.
Kelly chuckled, indulgently. ‘He loves that stupid car. He nearly pissed his damn pants when he saw the windscreen was smashed…’ Kelly snorted. ‘I honestly think he’d’ve rather the scaffoldin’d landed on him. Silly sod.’
As if on cue, Harvey popped his head out of the passenger window. ‘There ain’t no point in all your blabbin’,’ he harangued the Kurd, ‘if I can’t understand a bloomin’ word of it. Speak in English, mate. Ingleesh. In English we say left…’ he waved his left hand, ‘an’ we say right…’ he waved his right. ‘Ya followin’?’
He scowled over towards his niece. ‘Where’d you pick up these retards?’ he asked. ‘Is there a special store or somethin’?’
Beede took a quick step forward. ‘Uh…Excuse me? Hello…?’
He waved. ‘…Mr Broad?’
Harvey began to withdraw.
‘HAAARVE!’ Kelly bellowed. ‘The old boy’s tryin’a speak to ya!’ ‘Huh?’
Harvey paused for a second (looking Beede up and down, irritably).
‘I just wondered whether it might not be a good idea,’ Beede cautiously suggested, ‘to wait for professional help before attempting to move that?’
‘Professional?!’ Harvey spluttered, enraged. ‘What d’ya mean, “professional”?! I am a professional, you idiotic turd.’
He disappeared from view again. Ten seconds later he accelerated forward. The Toyota wouldn’t budge, so Harvey accelerated harder – then still harder – until a plume of smoke began pouring from the exhaust.
Gaffar yelled and gesticulated wildly over the roar of the engine. A terrible, creaking noise issued forth (followed by a loud crash, followed by the brutal sound of tearing metal), and then suddenly the vehicle jerked forward, casting off its heavy wig of scaffolding (like a care-worn barrister after his final day in court).
The assembled party watched on, in astonishment, as the Toyota shot down the street, free at last, but completely stripped of its upper half.
Gaffar strolled over to Kelly, with a shrug. ‘Your uncle’s a monkey’s arse,’ he said.
‘Think he’s all right?’ Kelly wondered, as Harvey performed a high-speed u-turn and then roared back past them (chin held aloft, refusing all eye contact), driving doggedly on (and away) as if nothing was remotely wrong.
They stood together, in silence, heads cocked, listening to the Toyota’s over-revved engine negotiating a path through the remainder of the estate.
‘Well…’ Beede shrugged, once an atmosphere of quiet had finally been restored.
‘Would you ever?’ Kelly murmured.
Gaffar slowly shook his head and then sucked on his tongue, ruminatively.
‘I s’pose we’d better be puttin’ our skates on, Gaff,’ Kelly finally broke the silence, proper, ‘an’ head back to Malcolm Sargent Road. I forgot the stupid Bible,’ she explained. ‘I left it wiv’ Gaz. The Rev’ll go nuts if we return wiv’out it.’
‘Oh. Okay. Sure.’
Gaffar walked over to where he’d parked the scooter, pulled on his helmet, kicked the scooter from its stand and pushed it towards them. He helped Kelly on board and then climbed on in front of her.
‘Are you certain that’s a good idea?’ Beede asked, horrified.
Gaffar started the engine and revved it up. Kelly grabbed on to his waist. Then –
‘Hold up a sec,’ she said, noticing the brown envelope still protruding from Gaffar’s back pocket. ‘This is yours, ain’t it?’
She pulled the envelope free and passed it to Beede with an apologetic grin. Beede took it, confused.
‘The bloke what wrote that’s actually my great-great-great-grandad,’ she swanked (almost – Beede felt – by way of an excuse), then, ‘Tally-ho!’ she slapped Gaffar on the shoulder and off they sped.
Beede inspected the envelope (his eyes watering slightly from the scooter’s emissions), then he winced, reached up his hand to his neck again and massaged it, distractedly, while glancing over at the house. He took a couple of halting steps towards it, then quickly changed his mind and limped slowly down the road towards the parked Mercedes instead.
On reaching the car, he peered in through the window and saw (much as he’d suspected) that Kane was lying, flat-out on the back seat, covered in his grey crombie.
‘Kane?’
Beede knocked on the window –
No response
Beede tried the door, found it unlocked, and pulled it open.
‘Kane?’
Kane didn’t budge.
Beede reached out his hand and yanked off the coat. Kane lay there, perfectly still, his eyes closed.
‘Kane?’ he repeated, an edge of concern entering his voice. He gave his son a peremptory shake.
At last Kane stirred. He yawned, then he stretched himself, then he opened his eyes and stared around him, dopily, finally focussing in on his father. His eyes widened, in surprise.
‘Beede?’
‘What on earth are you playing at?’ Beede demanded, not taken in for a second by Kane’s pathetic little act.
‘Uh…’ Kane pulled himsel
f into a sitting position. ‘Sorry,’ he blinked, ‘I must’ve just nodded off. I was waiting for an Estate Agent…’
He inspected his watch.
‘She’s actually very late…’
He picked up his phone, with a scowl, to check his messages.
‘An Estate Agent?’ Beede scoffed. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Kane glanced up. ‘Because I wanted to take a quick look around…’
He pointed towards the house.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Beede snapped. ‘You already have a perfectly good home.’
‘As an investment,’ Kane persisted, staring back down at his phone, ‘to rent out.’
‘You’re parked in,’ Beede informed him.
‘Am I?’
Kane glanced over his shoulder.
‘Yes. And that’s Dory’s car.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes. Yes, Kane. It is.’
Beede’s tone was bordering on the vitriolic.
Kane reached for his cigarettes.
‘Hang on a minute…’ Beede’s sharp eyes had alighted upon Isidore’s diary. ‘What’s this?’
He scooped up the black jotter from the back seat, then winced at the intense pain this quick movement afforded him.
Kane lit his cigarette, irritated.
‘Is your shoulder still bad?’ he asked.
‘No.’
Beede threw the envelope down (his one hand was so weak now that he found it almost impossible to manage both objects in conjunction).
Kane gave the envelope – then his father – a searching look before reaching into his coat pocket. ‘You’re obviously still in pain,’ he observed, ‘and I can give you something to relieve it…’ he felt around for his stash, ‘but you should definitely see a doctor at some point…’
‘It’s fine,’ Beede snapped, ‘I’m fine. I don’t need your pills…’ then he paused, churlishly. ‘No. No. What I mean to say, Kane, is that I don’t want your pills.’
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