Father and Son (15 page)

She leans into him.

“My laptop? You keep it,” she says, and kisses him on the temple,
letting her mouth hover there until he feels the warmth of her breath on the
side of his face. She whispers his name, three times, so soft it might be the
sound of the sea inside a shell, there yet not there, a trick of the ear.

Then she’s gone.

A minute passes, perhaps two. He sits there, tries to piece together
what she said, but the image of the dead baby crowds his mind until nothing
else makes any sense. New Zealand?

A shot.

He’s on his feet. Legs slamming into the table, tea pots and cups
crashing to the ground as he sprints across the terrace and down the stone
stairway. He’s at a gallop, his heart pumping so hard he can feel it lurch
upwards in his chest. Takes the corner of the building fast, almost toppling
over on the gravel pathway, steadying himself on one leg then sprinting up
towards the car park.

When he finally comes to a stop he’s gasping for air so loudly that
mothers and children in the playground stare with undisguised horror, expecting
the worst. But then they look around, unable to see the source of the emergency,
just a large man in a baggy black suit panting furiously.

Over in the car park the dark green tractor backfires again, a cloud
of dense blue smoke puffing out of its exhaust and dispersing almost
immediately on the breeze. In the distance the black MR2 winds its way over the
rolling grounds towards the exit.

“I don’t know who’s more paranoid,” he tells himself, “me or her.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turns, ready to make his way
back to the terrace, wondering how much the broken crockery in the cafe is
going to cost him.

He doesn’t need to wonder for long. The waitress is scurrying
towards him, a stern, nineteenth-century scowl all over her face.

“I’ll pay for the breakages,” he says as they make their way back up
to the terrace together.

“Forget it,” she says, “I thought you’d done a runner, that’s all. I
friggin’ hate that.”

She’s no bigger than average, but he doesn’t think he’d have made it
all the way to his car if he had been trying to leave without paying.

There’s a puddle of milky tea stretching halfway across the table,
and most of the crockery lies smashed on the floor. The Harvey Nics ladies
pretend not to look as John helps pick up the broken pieces.

“You want another cup?” the waitress says. “Looks like you’ve had a bit
of a shock.”

“Coffee?”

She pulls a face. “I wouldn’t bother. It’s like witch’s piss.”

Now she’s my type.

“Thanks for the advice. A strong tea would be fine. I don’t suppose
I can smoke here, can I?”

“Nah,” she says, a cluster of little metal teapots and milk jugs in
her hands, “but nobody’ll bother you if you go down the steps out the front, in
the garden.”

He leans against a stone plinth, the statue of a fat-cheeked
cherubim casting a shadow down across him. He looks at the cigarette in his
hand, watching ringlets of smoke dance around the tip. New Zealand? He was
sent
there? That’s bollocks. What did she mean?

There are footsteps on the gravel. The older of the women from the
terrace is coming towards him.

“Mind if I join you?” she says, a cigarette already in her hand.
“Grab a quick one while madam’s not looking.”

He lights it for her. “You are mother and daughter, then? I was
wondering.”

“My age that obvious is it!” she says, blowing a long plume of smoke
up into the air with evident pleasure.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says. “Quite the contrary.”

She smiles at him, the faintest trace of mischief in her expression.
“My daughter, yes, and she
hates
smoking. Who’d’ve thought it, I raised
a health freak!”

He laughs. “I’m sure she’s got your best interests at heart. No pun
intended.”

“Pun?”

“Heart? Heart disease?”

“Hell, don’t you start!” She takes a drag, but her face wrinkles, as
if the smoke suddenly disgusts her. “Think they know it all these days, don’t
they? Got kids, have you?”

He shakes his head. “My dad’s still around, though. We tend not to
share health tips.”

Who sent you out of the country?

“In fact,” he adds, “I don’t know much about him at all.”

“That’s sad,” she says. “Lives far away, does he?”

“About five miles away. Sorry, I’ve got to be going. Nice to meet
you.”

She watches as he runs up the stone stairs, slides a twenty pound
note under the pot of strong tea which has now appeared, and heads off towards
the car park, dialling Den’s number as he goes.

There’s something
about driving a Porsche. You can think, but only one thing at a time. You can’t
piece things together. There are too many demands on your mind, too much stuff
going on around you. Having so much power in your hands is good for having one
thought, and one thought only. That’s the problem with driving the 911.

As he makes his way to his dad’s retirement paradise, one thought
sticks: it wasn’t him. It can’t have been Dad. Not a bomb. Not the IRA. It’s
not just wishful thinking, either. Dad just wouldn’t have got involved in
something like that. John knows it with a certainty that brooks no doubt,
however hard he tries to imagine it to be true.

Even as he gets out of the car, the satisfying clunk of the door,
his feet on the gravel, a solitary bird’s cry somewhere up in the trees… even
now, outside the nursing home, with his nerves so tight that he seems to hear the
rustle of every leaf around him, he doesn’t believe it. But Jeanette as good as
told him. Why? Why was she really in Leeds? And County Cork before that?

He stands under the trees in the car park and closes his eyes. Behind
him, across the road, is the open expanse of Soldiers Field, a patch of Old
England to complete the idyll, flat and a little windswept, but calm and
permanent. This is why the rich folk retire up here. The peace is quite sudden,
as soon as you pull off Roundhay Road. Only a mile away from the multicultural
bustle of Chapeltown, with its Hindu temples, Mosques, and the colours and
smells of whole continents.

Things don’t change that quickly, though. Not in a mile. One of the
Ripper’s victims was found on Soldiers Field. A body dumped on waste ground
down by the Gaiety Bar was one thing, but up here? It had been like a message:
no one is safe. And no one was safe. On and on it had gone, the victims adding
up, until people didn’t want to turn the telly on, just in case.

No wonder Len Holt had done so well. The Ministry of Eternal Hope
must have been like a beacon of light, something simple and honest to believe
in. Punk. Recession. Ripper. It had been a bad time to be in Yorkshire. A place
ill at ease with itself, shifty and scared, permanently glancing back over its
shoulder and asking why this was happening.

He looks along the black fence that leads off in both directions,
circling the grounds of Oaklands. The only way in is the electric gate just
ahead of him. A cigarette first? No. That woman’s daughter was right. He
reaches into his jacket pocket, finds the comforting, hand-sized box, and
crushes it until he can feel the dry tobacco in his fingers as the cigarettes
crumble.

He takes a deep breath. There’s no choice now. Instinct is not
enough. He doesn’t believe Jeanette, but he’ll have to ask Dad, and hope that
whatever the old man does will be enough, that one way or the other he’ll know
the truth.

He sets out towards the gate. But then he stops. Someone comes out
of his dad’s room and starts walking down the side of the building towards the
exit. Denis Reid.

John freezes. Should he rush to the gate, buzz the intercom and tell
them to call the police? How the hell did an ex-terrorist walk into Oaklands? Reid,
meanwhile, is looking straight at him, grinning. He raises an arm, waves a
hello
,
as if they’re old friends, his body loose and relaxed. Behind him, the head of
Andrew Holt appears through the French windows and watches Reid go, just for a
second, then disappears.

“I was hoping I might bump into you,” Reid says, loud and confident as
he waits for the security gate to grind slowly open. “Don’t worry, I only
wanted a little chat with him. He’s
fine
.”

John wants to go in, check on his dad. But by the time he’s realised
what’s happening, Reid is coming towards him, the gate now closing again. And Reid
looks like he wants a word.

“What do you need to talk to my dad about?” says John, getting in
first.

He knows how to speak to men like this. Growing up in the Ray family
taught him that much. Try and be casual, don’t show your fear. It helps being
six-two and nearly as wide. And it also helps being Tony Ray’s son. Courage? He’s
never really known how much of it comes from within, and how much from the
surname. Perhaps he’s about to find out.

“I came to tell him to shut the fuck up,” Reid says. “I needn’t have
bothered. Stroke, was it?” He sniffs, wipes the back of his hand across his
nose. “I told him anyway, nice and loud in his ear, just in case. And that goes
for you. You keep your gob shut. Anything you find about Roberto, it comes to
me and Lanny. Nobody else.”

“And if I don’t?” John says.

Reid adopts a ridiculous Irish accent: “Been talking to the lovely
Jeanette, eh? Tell yez all about me, did she, Johnny boy?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” John says, irritated by Reid’s
humour, but sensing the violence behind it. Too late for fear, though. One of
the men responsible for the Leeds bombing is standing in front of him. It’s not
the time to back down from evil; he just needs to know how far it extends.

Reid seems amused.

“You know what? You remind me of your brother. He was a mouthy twat
as well.”

“What’s this got to do with Joe?”

Reid says nothing, waits for the penny to drop.

And it does.

“That’s right,” Reid says, looking out across the sumptuous grounds
of Oaklands Retirement Home as if the sight of its perfect lawns disgusts him.
“I knew Joe. And now I’m back to clear up the mess he left.”

“His mess?”

Behind them Den’s white Astra has pulled up.

“Put it this way,” says Reid, watching as she gets out of the car
and pulls on her leather jacket. “Joe’s lucky to be dead. You find out who
killed Roberto, this’ll stop. It’ll go away, my friend. And we’ll all be a lot
happier, you included. Oh,” and he looks John up and down, “I hear you’re a bit
of a ladies’ man. Be careful with Miss Cormac. She’ll suck you dry and spit out
the pips.”

“Hi John,” says Den as she approaches, an uncharacteristically
cheerful note to her voice, as if she hasn’t noticed the thug in the bad suit
next to him.

“Who’s she?” Reid says, right at her.

“Talk about manners,” she says, no hint of surprise. She holds her
warrant card a little too close to Reid’s face. “Who the fuck are you,
Sir
?”

Reid glances at John, weighs the situation up, and turns to go, without
another word.

“Ever met an IRA enforcer before?” John asks her,
sotto voce
.

She looks as if someone slapped her in the mouth.

“Jesus, you could’ve told me.”

“Yeah, well you could’ve asked before you started waving your
credentials around.”

“You know me. Not one to shy away. And what’s the worst that can
happen?”

He shakes his head, as they both watch Reid walk across the car park.

“I dunno, but I think we’ll be finding out before long. Anyway, are
you OK?”

“I’m fine. You?”

Reid disappears through the car park gates on foot.

“I’m fine,” John whispers, as he feels her hand squeeze his.

“Well, that’s one IRA enforcer who knows not to get his car on the
security cameras,” she says, watching him go. “By the way, I’ve been down at
Millgarth getting bollocked for interfering in police matters.”

“Interfering?”

“Baron threatened to lodge a formal complaint in Manchester.
Although, reading between the lines, I think he could do with some help on the
Roberto Swales murder.”

“In other words, he’s cutting you some slack so you can help me.”

“Yes, John. As usual, it’s all about you. By the way, what did
he
want?”

He wants to hold her, to try and make everything right between them.
But there’s too much in the way now, and he doesn’t know where to begin to
explain. Knowing is one thing, but telling Den is another.

“John?” she says, sensing that something’s wrong.

“You remember the bombing here in 1990?” he says, staring down at
the ground. “Supermarket? Baby died?”

“I was only eight. But I’ve read about it,” she says, her hand
instinctively slipping into his again.

“Roberto was involved. I’ve got no proof, but that’s what this is
all about. And he wasn’t the only one.”

“The monkey in the suit?”

“Him as well. That’s why he was here.”

“Who else?” she whispers. “Who?”

“Joe.” He looks across at the nursing home, at his dad’s room on the
corner. “I dunno about
him
.”

She exhales. Takes a second.

“Come on, then.” She takes his arm. “Let’s go and ask him. But
remember,” she says, yanking him around until they’re facing each other, “this
isn’t
about you, John. Whoever was involved, this was nothing to do with you.
Remember that.”