Ventriloquists (5 page)

For the moment Connors declined to comment further. He engaged first gear and pulled away, but he didn’t keep his counsel for long.

‘Should’ve trusted my instincts,’ he said. ‘This had a funny feeling from the start.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, for openers – why did it need two strangers? No disrespect intended, but you get to my age you get a good idea who you want to work with. Then Benny’s telling me, “You’re working with a new kid.” I’m like, “Why? Everyone on holiday or summing?” He’s gone, “It’s a job for Massimo. Bloke don’t need to supply reasons.” So I went along with it – obviously – but I had a taste in my mouth. No offence.’

‘None taken. I thought it was odd too,’ said Connors. ‘And the
urgency
of the thing. Has to be Monday night. Homeowners at a funeral up north. Well okay. I don’t doubt
that
exactly…’

‘
I’m
starting to.’

‘…but if they’re away, what does it matter what
time
we hustle? Don’t make sense.’

Dorman agreed. ‘None of it does. If I thought I could get out of this with my reputation intact I’d be out of here, mate. I don’t like the flavour.’

Somewhat uncertainly Connors asked, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

‘We get killed.’

‘No, I mean – what’s the worst that could happen if we refuse to do the job?’

‘That’s what I was talking about.’

‘…Jesus.’

‘Oh, not
directly
, maybe,’ Dorman conceded. ‘But I seen it happen. Bad jobs leading to a... to a devaluation of a reputation. The next thing you know the guy’s frozen out and half blind with hunger. No work to be had, see. Moves on. End of story. Good as dead…But this
one
guy – Feathers his name was – he thought he’d tough it out. Started taking risks.
Silly
risks. The last time I see him, guy’s punting for change outside the bookies, slowly starving to death. They say they saw him strangling a pigeon. For a meal, presumably. Only, by then the poor cunt was so doo-lally with fatigue and the munchies and desperation, he tried to eat the fucker
there
– raw – on the street.’

‘Yuck.’

‘Exactly. Yuck. Thereafter he was busting into places just to get a cell for the night. For the toast and coffee…We’ll park here.’

Connors waited until Dorman had killed the engine.

‘What happened to him? To Feathers.’

‘He disappeared. Poof! In a puff of smoke, like.’ Dorman sighed reflectively. ‘I wish
I
had someone I could look up to in a situation like this,’ he said softly.

Connors was already bristling: the altercation with Massimo had had a chance to get back under his skin. And now
this
: the obligation to play the part of the grateful new boy.

‘Situations like what?’ he all-but demanded.

‘Like this! This
amateur
stuff, mate!’

‘It don’t
feel
amateur,’ Connors replied.

‘Well, that’s because
you’re
an amateur.’

‘Oh fuck off! We both got it wrong, Dorman, it weren’t just me... Oh very funny.’

Dorman had burst out laughing. ‘Don’t get me wrong, mate, but you’re gonna be a fucking
cinch
to wind up! Temper flaring up like a pack of haemorrhoids!’

‘Yeah yeah...’

Dorman parked a couple of streets shy of their destination. ‘I got it,’ he said, clicking his fingers. ‘Staring us right in the face. It’s like going for food.’

Connors twisted in his chair. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We bought food, right? Why did we do that?’

‘Because you were hungry? Because that’s what they do on this planet?’

‘Oh I see. You’re being
humorous
. You’re being a
wag
. Well listen up. We went for food
and acted normal
for people to remember us, Connors. And by remembering us – what happened?’

‘They forget us,’ Connors answered. ‘We’re just two blokes who bought chicken.’

‘Exactly. So what could be more natural, after a dog’s bit a bloke, than that bloke going back to the house? It’s acting normal...’

‘Except for two things,’ Connors told him.

‘What two things?’

Connors counted them out into the palm of his left hand. ‘One: it’s the middle of the night – not exactly a traditional time for making a complaint.’

‘But they’re night owls, mate! We just seen the bloke come home!’

‘Unless he’s burgling the place.’

‘Good luck to the cunt if he is. We already
got
it all.’

‘And two: we happened to be inside the place removing their goods when the dog bit you, as I do believe I’ve mentioned before.’

‘Ah!’ Dorman raised a finger: point of order, my lord. ‘Except we weren’t.’

Connors shook his head slowly. ‘Weren’t what?’ he asked.

‘
In
side. We were
out
side. And what’s more, we saw the cunts coming out with a load of fucking computers and whatnot in their arms! It was
them
cunts burgling the place.
We
just happened to interrupt the proceedings.’

Connors smiled. ‘I see where you’re going –‘

‘Exactly.’

‘ –but why were we there in the first place? Why were we
passing
?’

‘We know someone in the next village… What do you think they’re gonna do, cross-examine us? We just stopped a burglary at their house!’

‘Or tried to,’ said Connors.

‘Or tried to, exactly.’

‘...How many of’m were there?’

‘Three. Nice unround number, three. And big cunts. But
white
. White as us. This don’t look like the sort of place as gets too worried by racial tension, you know what I mean?’ Dorman laughed.

‘
But we just robbed a black geezer’s house,’ Connors argued.

‘
Who
did?’

‘Well,
they
did.’

‘
They
did. Right. But they didn’t
know
it was a black geezer’s house, did they?’

‘I don’t know if they did or not,’ Connors admitted.

‘Exactly. You don’t. And do you know
why
you don’t know?’ Dorman asked him.

‘No. Because I’m an amateur?’

‘No. Because you’re not a bloody sociologist, are you? Let’s go for it, mate.’ Dorman did what his name suggested his ancestors once did for a living, or at least for tips: he opened the door. And he was about to slide out into the chilly air.

‘Just so I’m clear,’ Connors stopped him. ‘We were in the neighbourhood, maybe asking for directions...’

‘Yeah okay: we were lost.’

‘...and we see em coming out of the house, carrying stuff.’

Dorman was growing impatient. ‘That’s about the size of it,’ he told his pupil. ‘Except – one look at us and they think they’re onto a loser, even if
we
think they happen to be moving house.’

‘At midnight.’

‘It don’t
matter
at what time. We scared em off and got a bite on our arse from the dog for our troubles.’

‘Well
I
didn’t.’

‘Well
I did.
And they’ll be sorry about that. They might even reward us, mate! Won’t occur to em someone’d be dumb enough to return to the scene of the crime so soon afterwards.’

‘I can follow
that
,’ Connors added. ‘This is suicidal.’

‘No it ain’t. Even got a poetry about it,’ Dorman countered. ‘We’re completely in the clear – think about it. We sow the right seeds while they’re still awake inside the house.’

‘But why did we come back?’

‘We or they?’

‘
We
! Us! Why are we here after we went away for a bit?’

‘It’s obvious.’

‘Not to me.’

‘We were
chasing
the cunts, but they got away – they slipped us on the B road.
Adios
. Goodnight, Vienna. They’s too fast for us. Too
skilful
.’

For a second or two Connors said nothing. The information was processed in several compartments of his brain. ‘And then what?’ he finally asked.

‘Then we do the
real
place,’ Dorman answered.

‘...Why ain’t they called the filth, I wonder. Place should be
oozing
blue light.’

Dorman chuckled. ‘For a
burglary
? Grow up, son. What’s it like here? Not exactly the Bronx.’

‘That’s what I mean. Burglary round here’ll make the papers, I woulda thought.’

‘That’s your problem, son, in a nutshell.
You think too much
. Are we coming or we going? This ain’t getting a bonnet for baby, sitting here getting piles. We don’t want him going to sleep.’

‘No, I suppose not. But what about the dog?’

‘Jesus. What
about
the dog?’ Dorman demanded.

‘And your plans for it.’

‘They can wait.’ Dorman sniffed. ‘I’ll take the fucker out for his last walk in the near future. First, we introduce ourselves. Then we do the right house. Then in the morning, P.C. fucking Piddlestick’s hot on the trail of three white skinheads in a... in a
plumber’s
van. Yeah. Double burglary, dirty wankers. Don’t know what this country’s coming to. Now
come on.
’

Beyond the door to Number 77 the dog barked. Dorman twitched. He felt his cheeks fill with surface-level blood: embarrassment and rage. He felt ill-prepared, despite the lesson he’d given Connors. Of all the unfamiliar emotions that he might experience, he felt
insecure
. And there was no point being rational about this, he had decided. There was no point saying to himself:
Craig, my son? You’re
bound
to feel a bit on edge. You just been bitten by a dog, son! The same one as wants to have another mouthful!
No point. Because if he couldn’t deal with a
dog,
for Christ’s sake, then his name would be rubbish before the week was out anyway: with or without Massimo’s account of tonight’s failures doing the rounds.
Then you notice your stock fall,
he continued.
Like it did for old George Feathers.

He had something to prove, no doubt of that: no less than a defence of his honour... He could feel Connors slightly behind him; feel the younger man’s attention. It was getting on his nerves, this assumed responsibility. Maybe better men than he could hack it... The dog barked some more. How many seconds had passed? His buttock throbbed; the alcohol in his system – the quick one he’d had at Massimo’s – had been drained of any curative effect it had once possessed and was now sour and sharp in his bladder. He felt sick.

‘Dorman?’ Connors repeated.

Come on, Craig
, he ordered himself.
Grow a pair or fuck right off like the old man did.

Beautiful.
Poetic
timing, son! Bringing the old man in at this hardly-appropriate moment. You got enough
room
on your chest for another medal? You
sulker
. Perhaps we could pin it to your fucking
spine
.

‘Dorman?’

‘Yes yes,’ the older man hissed irritably. He extended his reach towards the doorbell.

7.

Unable to sleep, Bernadette lay in bedclothes that she felt guilty owning. It didn’t matter that honest gambling had bought them: it’s the way she was.
All gamblers are guilty
. This was fifty per cent of something she thought of from time to time: it came back to her at the oddest moments. Inopportune was not the word.
All gamblers are guilty of something
, was what he’d said – what Chris had said, returning home one daybreak after an all-nighter – and the words had chilled Bernadette. She’d thought he’d lost. She’d thought he’d lost at a time in their shared life when they couldn’t afford to lose.

Disgustedly she kicked off the expensive bedware; the smoothness was an itch to her skin. She stood by the window and touched the bronze-coloured curtain; the hem was as heavy as a ham.

Down on the street, two men walked towards her house. For less than five seconds they were framed in light drizzling from a lamp, which turned their faces the colour of beechwood.

The man a stride or two in the lead was of medium height and lean build; he was in his late forties. He wore either dark blue or black; it was impossible to tell which. His iron-filing hair bordered a rigid monk’s tonsure at his fontanelle; he appeared angry. A mood had tugged his eyebrows together into an admonishing frown.

The second man was younger. Mid-twenties, was Bernadette’s instant guess. He had a fuller figure; not fat, but broad in the beam. The look of a man who was serious when he arrived at the gym. A ratty face: something
rodent
about the small nose. He was wearing a navy tracksuit and a pair of formerly white trainers, now stained beige by mud or puddles.

Bernadette had no way of knowing it, but these two men were about to change her life for the worse.