Seeker (4 page)

Willem blinked, blindsided by the abrupt question. “Huh?”

“Well, you don't want to get laryngitis, so I'm assuming you've got something planned that would not be so cool if you developed an inflamed larynx. Now,” Ste paused, clicking the mouse once, and turned triumphantly to Willem, “got it!”

On the screen an Excel document opened, displaying the pay information Willem needed to sort out the mess Kurt had made. “Brilliant. I owe you one.”

“I know, that's why you're coming back to Ken High Street with me. Also, for the record, you might want to seriously have a word with Kurt. Sure I know I don't like him, so you can read this as slightly biased, but there is no way that document would have been so embedded in the hard drive unless it was intentionally put there.”

Willem frowned. “Not even accidently?”

“No chance. Looks to me like he thought he'd removed the file permanently, but alas, or fortunately for you, nothing is ever totally deleted off a hard drive. You just need to know where to look.”

“Okay, that's slightly worrying.”

Ste coughed, and reached for the glass of water he'd brought up to the office with him. “I'd say so.”

Willem looked to the floor, his eyes following the pattern of the rug. Disappointment was a nice way to put how Willem felt. He trusted the people who worked for him, and in fourteen years of business he had never had any cause to discipline a single one of them. Now, that it should be one of his shop managers…

“Can you sit in on the meeting? Take notes. I want to make sure that there are no misunderstandings here.” He looked up from the rug, and the expression on Ste's thin face was as serious as Willem had ever seen.

“That I can do.”

“Cheers.”

“When's Kurt in next?”

“Tomorrow. Is tomorrow good for you?”

Ste gave this some thought; he was a busy guy outside of work, and the whole reason Willem made it policy to plan the rotas four weeks in advance. Actually, come to think of it, Ste was the reason behind most policy changes that Willem had ever made. Advantage of being the first person hired; he became the prototype for every future employee. “Okay, tomorrow is cool. But I'd suggest not ringing Kurt, but rather tell him tomorrow. If he's up to some big scam he might decide to leg it, rather than face the music.”

Willem hadn't considered this. Despite the big let-down over the deleted document his mind was still on its default setting; trust your employees, think the best of them and they'll think the best of themselves. “You really think he'd do that?”

The look in Ste's blue eyes was enough of a response for Willem. “Also, I'd suggest you let him bring a witness in, too. Need to do this by the book, just in case things get nasty.”

“Shit,” Willem said, taking a deep breath. If things did indeed get nasty, he saw all kinds of possibilities. Police, courts. It could go on for a while. He just didn't understand why someone would do something like…He stopped himself. Like what? He didn't even know what Kurt had done yet. “Can we send this file across to the Kensington office, then we can crunch these figures and your audit at the same time?”

“Yeah. It's called email. You know the one; you're the net junkie here.”

Willem made a face at Ste. “Well, yeah obviously we can email it across, but I just thought…”

Ste fought to hold back a laugh. “You're really off your game today. Something to do with the call you're expecting?”

“Call? What call?”

Ste pointed at the mobile still being cupped by Willem. “The one you keep looking at your phone expecting.” For a moment Willem felt like a kid caught out doing something particularly naughty, but Ste unknowingly gave him the perfect get out. “You waiting to hear about the new shop?”

Willem smiled, hopefully in a convincing manner. “Anytime now.” It wasn't a straight out lie, after all he was waiting to hear from Network Rail who were going to tell him if he got the lease on the unit at King's Cross Station. Getting a unit in one of London's biggest train stations would be the crowning achievement at this point in his career, since it tended to only be the big chains that got hold of those units. Select Service Partners was the biggest competition, with their various brands taking up most of the train station units in the country, everything from Upper Crust to Marks & Spencer. But if he could get a Coffee @ Town's End in a station; the potential revenue and exposure would set him on the road to becoming a proper chain, to the point where he could eventually form big business partnerships. But, of course, that wasn't the call he was waiting on, not that he was actually waiting on a call per se.

“Gonna be big potatoes,” Ste said, echoing the thoughts rushing through Willem's head. “At this rate you're gonna need an area manager.”

“Angling for a promotion?”

“You know it makes sense,” Ste pointed out with a smile, which didn't waver when he added, “so who you really waiting to hear from? You've got a glow about you, and it's not one I've ever seen you with before. Not even when you were with that…what was his name? Jacen, right?”

Willem swallowed hard. “How'd you mean?”

Ste raised an eyebrow. “What's his name?”

“Charlie.” The name popped out suddenly, and it left Willem with a sense of relief. It was as if he'd been holding his breath for weeks, and was only now able to breathe again. He grinned, no longer wanting to keep the news to himself. “Email that document across, and then I'll fill you in on the way to High Street Ken.”

* * *

“You're not freaking out on me,” Willem pointed out, unsure whether to be disappointed or not. There hadn't been much to tell, really, and it barely covered the five-minute journey up North End Road to the Talgarth Road junction. They were waiting at the traffic lights, the old Three Kings pub on their right, with its green doors constantly open as people entered and exited for the ever-important cigarette. Not that Willem frequented pubs very often, but making public places smoke free was the best ruling the government had made in recent years as far as he was concerned.

They were in Ste's little '02 VW Lupo, since Willem's own car was still parked outside his house. The walk from his place to the North End Road shop was only ten minutes on a good day, so it seemed pointless to take his car, which meant he was now stuck in this car, his legs struggling to fit beneath the dashboard. It wasn't that Willem was tall especially, but the passenger seat had got jammed one day after it had been moved forward to make space for one of Ste's larger friends.

“Why should I? Way I see it is that it's no different to being pen-pals, and many a romance has started out with two people being pen-pals,” Ste said, and hissed his frustration at the still-red traffic lights. “I swear they stay red here longer than anywhere else in London.”

Ste had a point about the pen-pals thing, and it was quite an enlightened view Willem decided. Not a view he suspected many others would hold to.

“They only stay red to piss you off,” Willem said, “either that or they're just helping you put off the audit.”

“Good thinking there, Sherlock.” Ste leaned forward and placed his palms together, looking up at the lights in mock-piety. “Stay red, stay red.” It was good to see that Ste wasn't allowing the laryngitis to get in the way of his natural good humour. “To be honest, though, isn't that the whole point of those chat room things? To hook up with people, make a connection? After all, for people like you, there has to be some way to meet new people in some meaningful way.”

Willem wasn't too sure he liked the “people like you” remark, but he conceded the point on account of the fact that Ste was actually making him feel better and less guilty. Although he still wasn't sure what there was to feel guilty about, but nonetheless that unmistakable feeling was very much present. “It doesn't help that chat rooms are mostly filled by weird people who are out to get laid, who have the social graces of pigs, and can't spell for toffee. Which is actually kind of depressing in and of itself.”

“Really? See, I don't get that, you'd think with all this written communication people's spelling would improve, not get worse. God, is that shop still there?”

“Huh?” Not for the first time Willem was caught off guard by Ste's habit of segueing from one thing to another.

He was looking across the junction where North End Road continued on its way to Kensington High Street, at a small convenience store. “Touch of Class, they've been there forever I'm sure. Remember them being there when I was in school.”

“Wasn't that long ago.”

“Over fifteen years.” Ste pursed his lips together. “Wonder if the Khans still run the place?”

“Want to pop in and find out?”

Ste looked at Willem like he was some mentally deficient child. “Like they'd remember me? Anyway, green is go!”

And so it was. Ste released the handbrake and the car went on its way.

Willem didn't like the Lupo, it was what he liked to call a lazy car. He preferred to be in complete control when he was driving, and the point of an automatic was lost on him. As they passed the store, Ste glanced at it quickly. The look of nostalgia was one Willem understood all too well, he'd been feeling it himself often enough the last couple of weeks.

“Charlie wants me to go to Southend to spend a few days with him,” he said suddenly. It was one of those things he wanted to lay on the table between him and Jake, but he was having the hardest time even broaching the subject of Charlie with Jake. Talking to Ste was so much easier for some reason. A notion that Willem would never have thought possible.

“Cool,” Ste said just as quickly. “You going to go?”

Good question. Willem wanted to, that much was certain, but how could he just up and leave everything? His job, his family, his sister…The idea of being away for a few days and not being on hand to help out with Curtis did not sit well with him at all, and then there was Jake. In almost thirty years they'd barely been apart, saw each other practically every day. “Don't know. Should I?”

“Dude, if you need to ask that question then damn right you do. I don't think you've ever taken a holiday in all the time I've known you. Bet you never had a day off school, either, did you?”

Willem opened his mouth to refute that, but found he couldn't. “Well, no, I didn't. Someone had to achieve something in my family, and it was pretty clear it wasn't going to be anybody else. The only thing my dad has achieved is a closeness with drink and God, and look at my mother and sister…”

“Even more reason to go. You put way too much on yourself, Will, always have as far as I can see. You've got no social life to speak of, other than having a few people over now and again for wine and fun on the Wii, a family that use you like a hole in the wall, and you keep Jake hanging around like a sick puppy.”

Willem narrowed his eyes, and looked over at Ste. “Since when did you get all insightful?”

“Since always. I've known you for a decade and a half, dude, and unlike me you're an open book. Listen, you do what you want to do, but seriously, doing something unexpected will probably do you well. You think I'm this reliable and good at my job because my private life is full of boring shit? Nope, always out there doing things that people would never expect of a responsible manager-type.” Ste winked at Willem in a conspiratorial way that sent a shiver of excitement up his spine. “Go, man, totally throw everything for a curve ball.”

Willem wasn't too sure how to respond to that, and was therefore quite relieved when his phone vibrated in his hand. He flipped it open and read the message from Charlie, asking him if he'd decided on whether he was coming or not.

Willem looked at Ste who was apparently fully focussed on driving up Kensington High Street, taking in the sights of all the shops and people as if they were brand new. Right, like he wasn't egging Willem on in his silence.

Willem grinned. Fuck it, Ste was right.

Need to arrange a time soon, he typed into his phone and hit the send button.

03.

The insistent banging soon roused him from his sleep, the echo of dreams still befuddling his reasoning. For a moment Willem wondered where he was; but with a growing feeling of depression he realised he was no longer in the arms of his lover. This brief down feeling soon turned to annoyance, when he opened his eyes and found himself lying on his couch, topless, his jeans only half buttoned. For a few moments more he didn't move. He just looked up at the high artexed ceiling, abstractly thinking that he really needed to sort it out; artex was so done, it looked lame and reminded him too much of old folks long gone.

It had been a nice dream. He'd met up with Charlie, and enjoyed the most amazing time. They had gone to a show, followed by a lovely meal in a swanky restaurant, talked loads, kissed even more, and ended back in Charlie's bed, and…

Willem scowled, feeling the hardness in his shorts, pushing tight against jeans misaligned by an uncomfortable night of sleep on the couch, slowly beginning to subside along with the more intimate details of the dream. Things had barely heated up before he was dragged back to the reality that he'd yet to actually meet Charlie.

Still the banging continued.

With a groan he forced himself to a sitting position, wondering who the hell would be knocking at his door so early in the morning and so damn incessantly. One name popped straight into his head. Lawrencia. Only his sister would think her problems were so important that they couldn't wait until a godlier hour before trying to find some kind of resolution. And worse, that it was a resolution that only Willem could help with. Like he actually gave a crap.

He stood up, adjusted himself inside his shorts, now that he was able to finally do so, straightened his jeans and looked around for his belt. Both the belt and his top were on the chair, so he stumbled over to get them. As he did so he glanced around the lounge. His laptop was still open, although it had powered down at some point during the night. Willem didn't remember actually ending the webcam chat with Charlie, so he could only assume that one of them had said goodbye. He hoped he hadn't fallen asleep on Charlie, because that would be tantamount to relationship suicide, especially this early in. He certainly didn't think he'd done so, and the crunched cans lying beside the laptop gave him good reason as to why he failed to recall the closing moments.

Charlie had mentioned that they needed Skype, and Willem had agreed that once they'd met up then he'd look into it. Having Charlie on his widescreen TV had to be better than just on his laptop via webcam, if nothing else HD would only increase the more intimate details of their…erm, conversations.

Willem grinned, as he did his buttons up and fed the belt through the hooks of his jeans; the conversation had certainly heated up last night, that much he did remember, but by that point he had been on his fourth can, and after that…well, he had no idea. He had never been a big drinker; the odd glass of wine when he settled down to a DVD, maybe a can or two when he was entertaining. But six cans of Fosters was something for which his body wasn't ready.

And now he had a headache to confirm it. The knocking on the door didn't help.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm coming, dammit,” he mumbled to himself and clipped the buckle of his belt. He picked up his top.

The blast of cold air as he opened the front door caught him full on his naked chest. He stepped back abruptly, almost closing the door on Lawrencia's face accidentally. She glared at him, but continued on in regardless.

“Morning to you, too,” said her retreating form. “Looks like you could do with a brew.”

Willem remained by the still open door, and blinked. She wasn't wrong; coffee was definitely needed. Only black this time. He had an important meeting later in the day and attending in a hungover state was not a good idea. He shivered as the cold air hit him once again, and closed the door.

“Mum's right, you're not eating properly, are you?” Lawrencia asked as Willem entered the kitchen.

He looked down at his naked torso. Okay, so he was quite thin, but he was hardly malnourished or anything close to it. And besides, his muscles, although never going to win him any competitions, looked quite sexy. Charlie said so. “Right, and suddenly mother's grown a conscience?” he asked, pulling his top over his head.

Lawrencia looked away at the question, choosing to focus her attention on the making of coffee. But before she did Willem noticed the haughty rolling of the eyes. It wasn't just the standard “whatever you say” eye rolling, it was full on “get over yourself” rolling. Very few people had mastered that little piece of body language as successfully as his mother, but in that moment Lawrencia had it, and for a split second Willem saw his mother as a twenty-one year old woman. Lawrencia may have had her father's dark skin, but in every other way she had inherited everything else of their mother.

Many times over the years Lawrencia and Willem's siblinghood was laughed away, because of their differing skin tones, but whenever the two of them were seen in the company of their mother their lineage could not be doubted. Just like him, Lawrencia had inherited their mother's narrow eyes and thin eyebrows. Although he hadn't told her for a long time, Willem still considered his sister something of an ebony beauty, the Guyana roots giving her an exotic edge over most blossoming women, and he knew plenty of men who would give almost anything to be coupled with someone of such rare beauty. That she chose to remain with scum like Jimmy was beyond him.

“You and mum really need to sort this shit out, Will, it's not good for either of you.”

“Yeah, can't see it happening any time soon.”

“When are you going to forgive her?” Lawrencia asked over the crashing sound of the water from the tap hitting the water still in the kettle.

“I don't know,” Willem said coolly, “when are you going to stop taking advantage of her guilt?”

The conversation died there, while Lawrencia finished making the coffees. Willem didn't want to start his day like this, already he was irritable about being woken up so sharply, and having Lawrencia lecturing him was too much. If she continued he knew that it would lead to a few choice words from him about the whole Jimmy fiasco, and he so could not be arsed with it at the moment. So, instead, he allowed the frosty air to melt a little, and grabbed the milk from the fridge. He told her he was having it black this morning, and there followed a short exchange about late nights and the best hangover cures each knew. Spookily his little sister seemed to know more about hangovers than he did, but then he reckoned the best part of five years with Jimmy was enough cause to warrant more hangovers than his own life did.

“Where's Curtis?” he asked, cringing at the sharp bite of the coffee on his taste buds.

“At mum's. Me and Jimmy have to go up to Manchester; he's got some business to sort out.” Lawrencia at least had the decency to look away as she said that, which cushioned the blow a little. Willem knew exactly what kind of business Jimmy was engaged in, and there was never anything even remotely legitimate about it. “Thing is, mum can only have Curtis for the day, she's off to bingo tonight, so I was going to ask if you could keep him here for the night?”

“I do have work early tomorrow,” Willem pointed out, knowing full well he wasn't going to say no, but curious to see what kind of excuse his sister was going to ply him with today.

“I should be back by then.”

Willem was surprised. No excuse translated into Willem taking Curtis to their mother's before work, since there was no way in hell Lawrencia would be back early. He didn't doubt that she believed her reason for going with Jimmy was simply to make sure the twat didn't do anything too bad, but Willem also knew that once there, in the company of Jimmy's mates, Lawrencia's own judgement would wane and she'd soon be doped up like the rest of them.

As much as he hated the whole situation, he was glad she had enough sense to not take Curtis into it, too.

“Okay, fine. Tell mother I'll pop over to pick him up about six. Won't be able to get out of work any earlier than that since I'm going to end up on shift, depending on how things go with Kurt.”

Lawrencia looked up from her coffee, and Willem immediately knew she was not going to enquire about his problems at work. When she was a kid Lawrencia had always been interested in what her big brother did, but then came the big blowout with her parents and the absconding to Manchester and Jimmy. He still hadn't got to the bottom of what had happened in those three years away, but since she'd been back her interest in the life of Willem was relegated to how much she could get out of him, and using his place as a dumping ground for Curtis whenever the kid became an inconvenience.

“Can't you tell her? We're leaving as soon as I…”

Willem looked down the hallway to the front door, all good feeling for his sister melting away. “He's out there, ain't he?”

“Yeah.”

Willem took a deep breath, itching to go outside and do some violence. Jimmy and he didn't often come into contact, and as far as Willem was concerned it was probably for the best. He'd tried to help Jimmy a lot when he'd first came onto the scene, but all Jimmy had done was take Willem for a ride and throw it all back in his face. There was no love lost between the two of them.

“So, how much then?”

Lawrencia was caught off guard, and Willem felt a glow of satisfaction, thinking that Ste would have been proud of his segue then. “Money. You could have texted all this across while you were half way to Manchester, so you obviously knocked me up this early because you're after cash. So how much?”

“Erm,” Lawrencia said, engaging her puppy dog look, but it was such an old trick that Willem wondered how long before she realised it didn't actually work on him anymore. “Well we need petrol to get up to Manchester, and will probably need to stop off on the way for some food, and…”

Whatever Lawrencia said after that Willem didn't hear. He honestly didn't care, all he felt was disgust. Bad enough that he be woken so damn early, but that he was now essentially paying Jimmy to go and do some illegal deal up in Manchester…His mind couldn't really bear to hear any more of Lawrencia's shit.

So he just walked back into the lounge and got his wallet off the mantle above the fireplace. Lawrencia had followed him into the room, and he handed her a couple of fifties.

She smiled at him. “Thanks, bro, we'll sort you out as soon as we get back.”

Willem just grunted, not trusting himself to speak.

“Okay, got to go, see you tomorrow.” Lawrencia pecked him on the cheek and left the room. Before she disappeared out of sight she glanced over at Willem, and the look in her eyes said it all.

She knew she was fucking up again, but she felt trapped and could see no way out. Willem would almost have called the look pleading, and although he knew he really ought to call her on it, he just turned away and stared at his reflection in the mirror hanging above the fireplace.

The sound of the front door closing came a few seconds later, once Lawrencia realised she wasn't going to get any other kind of help from her brother, and was shortly followed by the revving of whatever vehicle Jimmy had jacked to get them to Manchester.

“Weak-assed cock-sucking bitch,” Willem hissed at the mirror, and it seemed as if, for a second, his reflection glared back at him accusingly.

* * *

As Jimmy guided the white van away from Will's house, Lawrencia watched it grow smaller through the wing mirror. She was careful not to actually look back, in case Jimmy noticed. Her heart was beating fast, and she kept her hands tightly between her knees so that Jimmy would not see how much she was shaking.

Her brother thought he understood what she was going through, but he had no idea what kind of a man Jimmy actually was. She would have given anything to have returned home on her own, just her and Curtis. But in truth there was no way in hell Jimmy would have let her. He was many things, and a few of them were even good, but he was not the kind of man who would allow his son to be brought up by another man. Even if that man was her brother.

She lowered her head.

“Cheer up, babe, your bro came through, so let the good times roll.”

Lawrencia lifted her head and looked over at Jimmy, and forced a smile, hating herself even more. Soon she'd be doped up, and would be able to forget the pain eating away at her insides. It was a temporary release but the only one she had to look forward to.

In her heart of hearts she knew that she could never even begin to tell Will how he'd recently lost the chance of another nephew or niece.

* * *

“Good night, then?” Ste asked, trying to navigate his way across the now crowded office.

Willem looked up from trying to re-arrange the seating; the small office really wasn't designed for any decent meetings. With one table, two chairs and a couple of filing cabinets it was pretty much crowded. Trying to fit a third and fourth chair was proving quite a task. He managed to squeeze a third chair in so far, with a fourth still sitting in the hallway outside, waiting it's turn to be compressed.

He was glad that Ste had agreed to attend the meeting. Truth was, if Ste had refused, as was his right, Willem would have found someone else to stand in as a witness, but he preferred it to be Ste. He'd come a long way in the time they'd known each other, turned into a very confident and sharp man. When he got back from his weekend away, Willem decided, he would have to make sure he got Ste a big something, as a thank you primarily, for his birthday. He just had to remember to make a note of that intention in his diary once the meeting was over.

“It actually was,” Willem said, in answer to Ste's question, “what I remember of it.”

“Sweet,” Ste said, grinning like the proverbial feline from Cheshire. “A few cans and a webcam, what could possibly go wrong?”