The Sick Rose (26 page)

The skin between her eyebrows folded into a column of concern. ‘Of course not. Why would you think that?’

‘I was just wondering if anyone could find out about me, why I’m here . . . contact details for people at home. Where I’m living now, that kind of thing.’

‘The whole point of you being here is that your past stays in your past,’ she said. ‘I don’t even keep the notes here, they’re all filed at home. Literally no one but me has seen them.’

‘Not even Ingram?’ he said, although he didn’t seriously suspect Ingram of anything.

‘Absolutely not. What’s this all about, Paul? Do you think there’s been some kind of breach of security?’

‘No, not really. I was just wondering. You know, with the trial coming up and everything.’

‘I haven’t forgotten about that, you know. Christine’s going to put you in touch with the Witness Service people, they’ll take the edge off it all for you. But that’s not till next year. I’d put it to the back of your mind for now, if you could. Oh, look, Nathaniel’s starting!’

Only Nathaniel was allowed to operate the diggers, on the grounds of age and responsibility, although he was more accustomed to using seed dibbers and fingertips than powerful machinery. Dilan, who had extensive experience of mastering the dashboards and controls of strange vehicles in seconds, would have been the better choice (he had begged Ingram to let him behind the wheel, but to no avail). There was good-natured catcalling as Nathaniel swung the machine’s jaw around so quickly that for a second it looked as though the whole vehicle would topple into the mud.

Within an hour it was plain that this new machine could achieve in a day what usually took them months to accomplish. Nathaniel laid waste to an acre of sycamore stumps, clearing the land all the way to New Wood, and turned his attention to the remaining knotweed that grew eight feet high behind the gatehouse. Once the vegetation was razed, it became apparent that sections of the site had been used as a dumping ground by local fly-tippers for months or even years. The wildings had been hiding everything from old mattresses to domestic bin bags.

‘What is
wrong
with people?’ said Ingram. ‘There’s a perfectly good civic amenity centre on the Kelstice road. Surely it’s more trouble to throw all this over our wall?’ He instructed Paul and Ross to take it to the tip, although he didn’t help them to load the festering contents into the back of the truck. Then there was a scrape and a crunch as the jaws of Nathaniel’s machine closed over metal. He left the cabin and jumped down to the jumble of tubing. Paul was close behind him and instantly recognised it as lead. It wasn’t that old, it had no patina, so it must have been recently dumped. Now it was Paul’s turn to wonder what was wrong with people. He saw not litter or vandalism but a couple of hundred quid jutting from the brambles. Daniel would have made the ‘Kerching!’ sound of a cash register. A bold, stupid idea came to him and he was glad that Ross would be with him to stop him acting on it.

‘I wonder who dumped this?’ he said.

‘What is this,
Time Team
?’ snapped Ingram. ‘It’s just a pile of old metal, dear, where my nice gravel car park ought to be. Shift it, someone, will you?’ And then, as though he hadn’t been the one who had called them away from their jobs in the first place: ‘It’s a one-man job. I don’t want all of you disappearing for the day. There’s a lot to do.’

Paul wanted someone else to volunteer, to save him, but no one was going to fight him for the task of single-handedly disposing of scrap metal. His morning with Louisa had left him feeling invincible and reckless, and some crazy force within him spoke on his behalf. ‘I’ll do it,’ he heard himself say. On the way out he said to Ross, ‘Listen, the right-hand wipers have gone on the truck. I don’t think it’s legal to drive with them like this, and if it starts raining I’m fucked. I’m going to pop into the garage on the way back. If I’m late, that’s why. Square it with Ingram, will you?’

He felt a forgotten life force bubble up inside him as he sailed past the tip, took the A45 to Daventry and joined the motorway to London. At this stage he was still telling himself that he didn’t necessarily have to go to Gavin, that there must be thousands of scrap dealers in England and that he would just keep driving until he passed one, but the motorways were lined with service stations and he knew as he left the M1 for the M25 that he had been fooling himself. He had never approached Essex from this angle before but he needed no map. Paul was calculating again, in hours not pounds now: with clear traffic and minimum hanging around at Gavin’s – not usually a problem, you didn’t go there for the hospitality – he would be back at Kelstice in four hours. He had not eaten since breakfast but he was running on adrenaline. The fluttering excitement he felt came not only from doing a deal or playing hooky, but from the sense that he was coming home. Was it possible to call somewhere home when you knew you would never live there again?

He had no idea what the stash in the back of the van was worth, but the drag of the extra cargo, making itself felt with every depression of the accelerator, confirmed that the sum was worth the risk. He saw several signs for a luxury hotel with its own spa and organic restaurant, and wondered if the haul would yield enough cash to take Louisa somewhere like that for the night. How lovely it would be to eat and drink in a restaurant where no one knew them and where the bedroom they came back to had its own en suite; where they could drink wine in the bath, or watch a film in bed.

In the privacy of the van he started talking to himself, telling the story of what had happened with Daniel and Ken Hillyard out loud. He had started doing this lately to relieve the pressure of bottling it up. It reminded him of all those times with Emily when the words ‘I love you’ had filled his mouth like too many sweets and the effort of not spitting them out had been painful. That experience had taught him that if you didn’t say the words, at least to yourself, they might explode out of you at the wrong time. He was desperate to tell Louisa about the court case and the way the police had misled him and his own unforgivable part in things, but the timing was never right. If he told her before having sex, she might not let him do it. Afterwards would be better, but it seemed that that perfect shining moment of absolute relaxation and trust that always followed sex immediately preceded sleep, and when he woke up the perfect moment was gone and it was time to wait for the next one.

On the forecourt of Gavin’s yard he sat at the wheel, suddenly nervous. When was the last time he had been here? Oh Jesus God. It had been the day before it had happened; they had promised Gavin a haul of copper that had never materialised. Gavin was casual about promises, but would he remember their no-show in the light of their subsequent disappearance? Paul shifted the van into reverse, but before he could move it there was a thudding noise behind him. Someone was banging on the side of the van.

‘Oi, oi!’ said Gavin, appearing at the passenger window, sweaty in black overalls and eating a sausage sandwich. He brought his fist down again, a double punch on the bonnet this time. ‘Long time no see!’

Paul had no choice but to ease the vehicle into the front yard now, while Gavin walked alongside him like a man leading a horse. He gave himself a short silent pep talk; all he had to do now was get in, do the deal and get out. He leapt out of the door with a swagger he hoped would fool both of them. He landed in an inch of runny mud but inside the hangar it was so hot that he could almost see the clay drying and caking on his boots. The furnace was as noisy as a train and it glowed red like hell.

‘Let’s have a look at you, then,’ said Gavin. If he knew what had happened to Daniel, he made no mention of it. Paul opened the back of the van and started to pull out the scraps of lead. He had underestimated the task; without Ross to help him it was hard, hot work. The lead was sliding in his hand. He took off his fleece and slung it over the back of a chair. His hands were sweaty and he tasted the salt on his upper lip. The inside of his mouth was, by contrast, uncomfortably dry.

Gavin held a few pieces in his hand, a human scale, assessing the value of the whole lot based on the heft of these few pieces.

‘Call it £400?’ he asked. Daniel would have haggled, and successfully, but Paul tried only to hide his glee.

‘Nice one,’ he said.

Gavin had the notes in a tin on a shelf. He peeled them off in twenties. It didn’t make a dent in the size of the roll, which must have been thousands of pounds thick.

‘Can you get any more where that came from?’ said Gavin.

‘I’ll keep my eyes open.’ It was easier than saying no.

‘Good lad. Cup of tea, see you on your way?’ At the mere mention of tea Paul’s desiccated mouth filled with saliva, and his thirst trumped his desire to leave. Gavin spooned three sugars into a mug that had a picture of a woman in a bikini on it. The hot liquid was supposed to make her bikini disappear but this one was so old that the woman was permanently naked in see-through patches, trapped between decency and nudity forever. The tea was delicious and refreshing despite a fine film of machine oil marbling its surface.

‘I seen your mate last week,’ said Gavin.

Paul almost choked. They had promised him Daniel would not be bailed before the trial. Promised. If he had been bailed, surely Christine or even Woburn would have called him or written. He had not been in his flat for two nights.
Shit
. Perhaps even now there was a letter under his door. He cursed himself for coming back to Essex.

‘Are you sure it was him?’ said Paul.

‘Swear to God,’ said Gavin, although not confrontationally. ‘He still comes once a week or so. You might catch him if you hang about for long enough.’

‘You’re all right, mate, I’ve got to head.’

Paul drove with the windows wound down but he remained feverish with worry. He would not go back to the Lodge at all but drive straight to 45B and check for post. There was a jam getting off the M25 to the M1 and he used the dead time to call Christine. She sounded pleased to hear from him, like he was a favourite nephew, and told him that yes, Daniel was still in custody. Hadn’t she promised him?

Immediately Paul’s temperature returned to normal, although he did not feel the cold until he was on the M1, creeping through the roadworks. It wasn’t until he reached over to the passenger seat for his fleece that he visualised it still hanging over the back of Gavin’s workshop chair, green trim against navy, warming itself as the furnace blazed away. He swerved as he recalled the identifying Veriditas logo; the car in front sounded its horn and put its hazard lights on, while a lorry behind him flashed its headlamps in anger. When he had pulled the vehicle back into the middle lane, he clapped his hand over his heart where the lettering had been. Only then did he remember that he had unpicked the stitches. His relief was physical; even if Gavin was still in touch with Carl, which seemed unlikely given his recent bonhomie, there was nothing there to lead anyone back to Kelstice. He drove home with extra care, stopping only to buy a burger and chips. It wasn’t until he came to dig the coins out of his pocket that he realised how much he was shaking. On the way out of the service station, he used some of Gavin’s cash to buy Louisa a bottle of sparkling wine and a bunch of flowers, as though by spending it on her he could make his dirty money clean.

Chapter 35

June 1989

According to legend, vampires cannot cross a threshold without an invitation from the master of the house. Louisa knew how they felt. She had been poised to knock on Adam’s door for five minutes. Five days had passed without him returning her call, a record even by Adam’s standards. When, in desperation, she had called the Hammersmith Odeon they said that he had not been in to work all week, and that if she saw him first she could tell him not to bother coming back.

There was a rapping noise and a sharp pain and Louisa saw that her knuckles had struck the glass without her ordering them to do it. Ben opened the door, wearing a chiffon dressing gown with a marabou trim and a pair of novelty boxer shorts, black printed with red lipstick kisses. He blinked through a fug of marijuana smoke.

‘Louisa,’ he said eventually.

‘Is Adam in?’

He pulled his dressing-gown belt tight. ‘Just me,’ he said. ‘Come in, though.’

It wasn’t until she was in the hallway that it hit her how much she had built Adam’s house up in her mind: despite its unpromising exterior, she had imagined that inside it would be a cross between a church crypt and an opera house, with mirrors and drapes and candelabras on every surface. Instead she stepped into a world of sludge-coloured anaglypta wallpaper and matted brown shagpile. On the left was a door to the front room, which was being used as a bedroom – Angie’s, she surmised, from the huge bra lying on the floor. Ben hurriedly pulled it shut. There was a right-handed open-plan staircase with a single brown banister. The back room, where he had been watching
Neighbours
, contained no furniture apart from a peach velour three-piece suite. The walls here were pictureless and the shelves in the recess of the chimney breast only thinly scattered with books and cassettes. The place seemed entirely irreconcilable with its inhabitants and the music they made. Ben turned his attention back to the screen where Harold Bishop was holding court in the coffee shop, coffee pot in hand, jowls wobbling. Madge was rolling her eyes at him.

‘Joint?’ Ben offered. Louisa shook her head. She was quite paranoid enough.