In the Dark (6 page)

Theo stood up and moved to the far side of the room; lowered his voice a little. ‘What business? How comes you always pull this mystery shit, man?' He glanced back to see his mother turning away, stepping into the kitchen, and he knew that it wasn't about respecting his privacy. She didn't want to know was all;
never
wanted to know.

‘About nine,' Easy said.

 
‘What a twat,' Paul said. He threw his jacket at the back of a kitchen chair and missed; opened the door to the fridge and stood staring into it, like he was unsure what he was looking at. ‘Major,
major
. . . twat.'

Helen rushed straight through to the toilet, bursting, and talked through the open door as she relieved herself.

‘You made me laugh tonight, Hopwood,' she said.

Paul closed the fridge and walked out of the kitchen. Looked, grinning, along the corridor at Helen on the toilet. ‘What?'

‘Taking the piss out of Graham.'

‘Wasn't difficult.'

She stood up, wiped and flushed. ‘When you said that talking to him was probably the closest you were ever going to get to a serial killer, and Katie laughed, I really thought I was going to wet myself.'

They'd settled on an Italian around the corner from the pub, and despite the awkwardness earlier on, the evening had gone pretty well. Helen had enjoyed herself as much as she had in a long while and she thought that Paul had as well. He was certainly drunk, but she thought it was a good sign. She couldn't remember the last time he'd let his hair down. He'd been singing in the car as she'd driven them back.

He leaned against the wall and started to giggle; said ‘twat' again, which set Helen off.

She led him back to the fridge and poured out two large glasses of water. As she was screwing the top back on the bottle, she felt his arms move around her waist; his cock pressing into the back of her.

‘Hello,' she said. She could feel him humming against her neck.

In bed, they tried to find a position that worked, but she was too heavy and he was too drunk and rough. He started to swear and slap his hand against the mattress.

She reached for him and told him to shush. ‘Let me,' she said, stroking him harder as the moan rose up in his throat; faster, until he pushed her hand away suddenly and rushed, heaving, for the toilet.

Helen stumbled after him, wrapping a dressing gown around herself. She stood in the corridor and watched him on the toilet floor, knowing that he wouldn't want her too close. When he'd finally finished throwing up he looked round at her. He pulled his knees up to his chest and cupped a hand around his genitals. Stayed looking at her as he leaned over the bowl again, spitting and spitting.

FIVE

‘Your destination is just ahead on the left-hand side.'

Paul pulled over behind a skip. Took the sat-nav from the windscreen and pushed it into the glove compartment. ‘Snotty bitch.'

The pub was set back from a road that ran between Charlton Park and Woolwich Dockyard, in deepest, drabbest south-east London. The river bowed a few minutes to the north. You could probably see the Thames Barrier from the roof; and the Millennium Dome, like a wok with legs, a mile or two beyond. There was scaffolding along one side of the building. The windows had been whited out from the inside with opaque swirls, and there was a sign on the door that said, ‘CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT'.

Paul tapped on the frosted glass with his car key. There was a school at the end of the street and he could hear the noise from the playground; the kids like squawking gulls.

‘Can't you read?'

Paul pressed his face close to the glass. ‘I've got an appointment.'

It was getting warmer. He took off his leather jacket and tossed it across his arm as the bolts were slid back.

Inside, there was dust in the air, dancing around the electrical cable dangling from the crossbeams. Paul could feel it on the backs of his hands, taste it when he spoke. ‘How's it going, Clive?'

The huge black man who had opened the door nodded as he lifted the trap at the end of the bar. He could barely squeeze through the gap; had to turn and shuffle in sideways. ‘Get you something, Mr Hopwood?'

‘You got the pumps hooked up
already
?'

Clive laughed and shook his head. ‘We've got a few cans under here. Soft drinks and all that for the workmen.'

Paul showed him the plastic bag. ‘I've brought stuff.' He walked over to the bar and lifted the protective sheeting. It looked highly polished, but the wood wasn't solid. Half a dozen old-style radiators were stacked in line, waiting to be installed. MDF had been laid down, ready for a new floor, and several boxes of tiles were piled up against a wall alongside sacks of plaster and ceiling roses. ‘I know he's had you doing all sorts over the years, Clive, but now he's got you lined up as bar staff, has he?'

‘Just keeping an eye out,' Clive said. ‘Same as always.'

A man walked in through an open doorway at the far end of the room, drying his hands with a ball of toilet paper. He was a little shorter than average, with dark eyes and darker hair that was thinning on top but still long and curly at the back. The face was fifty-something, but the clothes told a different story: a powder-blue V-neck over a patterned shirt, designer jeans and training shoes.

‘What are we eating then, Paul?'

Paul hoisted up the bag. ‘I stopped off at that fishmonger's you like in Greenwich.'

The man nodded, pleased, and asked Clive to toss a rag across. A couple of grubby-looking stools had been placed next to a trestle table covered in a thin sheet of polythene, and he used the rag to wipe the dust from it before he settled down. He watched as Paul produced a French loaf, fresh prawns wrapped in newspaper, large tubs of whelks and cockles. He sent Clive across the road to fetch pepper, vinegar and the rest of it, then laughed when he caught sight of the smoothies Paul had produced from the bag: ‘“Innocent”? You taking the piss?'

They ate with their fingers, flicking shells onto the plastic-covered tabletop and dipping prawns into a catering-sized jar of mayonnaise. Paul listened while his host brought him up to date.

‘It's all about bringing boozers like this back to the way they were. Near as you can get, anyway. Brass rail along that bar, Victorian-style lights, all that. Nice Italian-type beer garden out the back.'

‘An old-fashioned pub with an Italian garden?'

The man ignored him. ‘These places had the guts ripped out of them years ago, got bought up by chains. You ask me, people are sick to death of all the noise and the awful food and everything being the same. Wankers' bars with Belgian beer and Paddy MacFuckerty's theme pubs, all that.' He licked the ends of his fingers, spread out his arms. ‘
This
is going to be as close as you can get to a proper old pub. A local. I told you on the phone it's a restoration job, didn't I? But it's not just about restoring the features and what have you. It's about an abiding faith in something. About restoring a bit of . . . what d'you call it . . .?'

‘Community spirit?'

He pointed. ‘Smack on. Plus, it's a decent earner, tell you the truth. Half a dozen of these places, turn each of them round in a month or two, flog them back to the brewery. Can't go wrong.'

‘Still got the flats, though? I thought you had the contract to do up that block in Deptford.'

‘Oh yeah, never busier.' He leaned back on his chair, looked around. ‘Just had to take on a few more chippies, sparks, painters, whatever.'

‘And . . . other business?'

The man rubbed his hands against the sides of his jeans, sucked at something in his teeth. ‘Come on. Since when do we go there, Paul?'

‘Only asking, mate.'

The man picked up his smoothie bottle and held it close to his face with the label facing Paul. He smiled. ‘Until proven guilty, Paul. You know that.'

Paul swept the discarded shells and inedible pieces of prawn into the plastic bag; dropped in the empty bottles. ‘You said you'd thought about it,' he said. ‘What I was asking.'

‘I did. I have.'

‘So, what can you give me?'

Clive was back loitering behind the bar. He was asked to take the rubbish away and keep himself busy.

‘You're not going to like it, Paul.'

‘Why is this such a big deal? I'd've thought you'd be only too happy to give me some names. You've got no love for any of these bastards.'

‘It's not about love. It's about honour.'

‘You serious?'

‘You're asking me to grass.' He held up a hand as Paul started to protest. ‘End of the day, that's what it boils down to.'

‘It's a favour,' Paul said.

‘That's never been how it worked with us.' His face asked the question before his mouth did. ‘Has it?'

Paul sat back, smoothing down the plastic sheeting with his palms, taking a breath. ‘What about some smaller stuff, then? Just bits and pieces.'

‘Same thing applies.'

‘I've got to give the brass
something
, for Christ's sake. Let them think I'm still doing some work.'

‘There are no gradations with this stuff.'

‘Fine. I get it.'

‘You can't be a
bit
of a grass; same as you can't be a bit pregnant. All you can be is a bit of a cunt.' He waited until Paul looked up at him. ‘I'm sorry, but that's how it is.'

Paul nodded, but he'd stopped listening. He knew he wasn't going to get what he wanted. He suddenly found himself thinking about Helen, about where she was going today.

The door from the street banged open suddenly and a kid walked in; sixteen or thereabouts and out of it. He looked around, confused.

‘Can you get a drink in here or what?'

The man at the table turned towards the back room, but Clive was already on his way over to the door, shaking his head and waving his arms in front of him. ‘Sorry, mate, the place isn't open yet.'

The kid started shouting about how the door was open, asking if he could just use the toilets, then threatening all sorts as he was pushed back out onto the street.

Clive threw the bolts top and bottom and turned back to his boss. ‘My fault. I never locked it after Mr Hopwood came in.'

The apology's acceptance was lost in the explosion of glass as the brick came through the window and the scream of chair legs against the wooden floor. Clive moved quickly for a big man: he was halfway out of the door before the brick had crashed into the base of the bar.

Paul stood up and walked to the doorway to watch. He saw Clive get hold of the kid's jacket as the kid tried to dodge between parked cars.

The man at the table picked a piece of glass off the plastic in front of him. ‘What can you do?'

Paul continued to watch as Clive pushed the kid up against a wall on the other side of the road, pressed his face into the grey brick and talked, close to his ear.

‘I'm sorry, Paul.' The man stood up from the table and smoothed down his sweater. ‘I can't be somebody else.' He took a few steps in Paul's direction. ‘
You
can. You can make other people think you're somebody else. You have that gift. It's not me, though.'

Across the road, Clive pushed the kid slowly down to his knees, maintaining the pressure on the back of the head so that the face scraped every inch of brick as it went.

Paul could see the red stain from forty feet away.

‘Lunch on me next time, then.' The man joined Paul at the doorway. ‘What about a bit of dim sum, up west? I know you like all that.'

Paul said that sounded good, and nodded towards the street. ‘I think you've just lost a potential regular, Frank.'

When Paul left, the kid who had thrown the brick was sitting on the pavement spitting out sticky strings of blood and moaning. Feeling around inside his mouth. He watched Paul unlock the car and stood up; asked if he could have a lift to the hospital.

Paul tossed his jacket into the car. ‘I saw what happened,' he said. ‘He didn't touch your fucking legs.'

SIX

Helen had been in her pyjamas and dressing gown since she'd got back from the health centre. She'd padded from room to room tidying up, had made a desultory effort to reorganise the kitchen cupboards and then given up. Decided she'd be far happier trying to eat her own body weight in crisps and Dairy Milk, letting the hand that worked the TV remote get all the exercise.

She half-watched
Deal or No Deal
, losing interest when the big-money boxes were opened, and thinking about that afternoon's visit to the doctor.

Everything was ticking along very nicely, apparently . . .

The head was not engaged as yet, but that could happen any time from thirty-six weeks onwards, so there was nothing to worry about on that score. The baby's weight was almost exactly where it should be. Tick. Her blood pressure was fine, he said. Tick again, well done. She nodded as the doctor rattled off the figures and wondered about
his
: he looked a little red-faced and she couldn't help wondering if he had a bottle of something in a desk drawer. The baby's lungs were almost fully developed now, he said, taking a good-sized breath as if to demonstrate what it was that lungs did. And he could survive unaided if need be, the clever little sod. In fact, all he would be doing in Planet Womb from this point on was lying about and putting on weight.

Helen reached across and took a second slice of cheese on toast from the tray next to her. The least she could do was pitch in.

All ticking along
very
nicely then, until the doctor had asked how
she
was. Until he took off his little round glasses, turned away from his computer screen and asked her that.