Bone and Cane (21 page)

Where to go? He had no idea where she’d been abroad. Their one foreign holiday had been two weeks island-hopping around Greece. Did people still do that? He’d heard Caroline go on about the time she and Joe went to the Seychelles. Nick didn’t know where the Seychelles were, though they sounded like they were outside his price range. They shouldn’t go on a holiday where Sarah would have lots of time to brood. They should be on the move, keeping occupied. Maybe Eastern Europe.

Joe came in. He usually showed his face on Sundays.

‘Could you mind the switch for a few minutes? I need a word with Nas.’

Nick frowned at his brother. ‘Bob could be here any minute, Joe.’

‘This really won’t take long.’

Joe and Nas went outside. Nick wondered if Joe was giving her the push. Then he heard Joe’s car drive off.

Nas returned twenty minutes later, her long hair down and clothes crumpled.

‘Thanks,’ she said to Nick. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘S’alright. Joe gone?’

‘Back to his very pregnant wife, yes.’

‘The other day, when I found you crying, what happened? Did your husband find out what was going on with you and Joe?’

Nas shook her head. ‘Satnam wouldn’t mind. He’s been giving it to my fifteen-year-old nephew, Prakesh. My sister’s husband caught them at it.’

‘Ouch. You knew he was gay?’

‘I’d worked out he wasn’t straight, after three years of marriage and not much chance of getting pregnant.’

‘What did your brother-in-law do?’

‘Took Prakesh to Pakistan, but only after putting Satnam in the Queen’s with three broken ribs and a severely bruised groin. I’m visiting him when I finish my shift.’

‘Getting a divorce?’

‘If Satnam lives long enough.’ She gave Nick a cheerful smile, the smile of a woman who’d just had sex and didn’t mind him knowing it. ‘Is it true you’re seeing Sarah Bone, the MP?’

‘We’re just good friends,’ Nick said, winking.

‘Old friends?’

‘We lived together at uni, yeah.’

‘You’re a dark horse,’ she said, and grinned. He wondered what on earth she saw in his younger brother, the lucky sod.

‘Does Joe know that I know?’

‘Sure. Why do you think I rang and asked him to come over?’

That was how Joe worked, sharing a secret with Nick but not actually acknowledging it. Nick couldn’t understand why women stuck with Joe after they found out that he was feckless and unfaithful. Even Caroline, who was cleverer than Joe’s other girlfriends. Caroline, with whom Nick shared the one secret that Joe knew nothing about.

Their mother was still alive when Joe met Caroline. He brought her home to Sunday dinner and, for the first time, Nick envied his brother for one of his girlfriends. She was a teacher, like Nick, and a couple of years older than Joe. A beauty, too. Back then, Joe was still playing. Caroline was a County supporter, but a far cry from the groupies he used to see. Even so, he treated her like shit, and they soon parted.

Nick thought Caroline’s feelings for Joe were as casual as Joe’s for her, otherwise he would never have made a play for her. He invited her out for a drink. At first, it went badly. All she wanted to talk about was Joe. Then, after drowning her sorrows with Nick, she spent the night at his flat. The morning after she let him seduce her, she made Nick promise not to tell.

‘I thought your split with Joe was mutual,’ he’d said.

‘Is that what he told you? No, I finished with him. I didn’t want to share him. But I don’t want to hurt him.’

Then, as if to show that the deception was nothing personal, she made love with him again before breakfast. Back then, Nick and Joe had very similar bodies. During their fling, a total of six or seven nights spread over as many weeks, Nick sometimes suspected that Caroline was sleeping with him because of his physical resemblance to Joe.

Their affair lasted until Joe persuaded Caroline to go out with him again. She’d told Joe that she was seeing someone else, but not whom. Later, in prison, Nick developed a theory that Caroline went out with him in order to find out more about Joe, to get the knowledge that would allow her to get inside his head, learn how to lure him back and keep him. Nick was a means to an end. But Nick had had a lot of paranoid thoughts in prison, many of them unfounded. Caroline was lonely. Nick was available. They had teaching in common, and got on, without any grand passion on either side. To Caroline, Nick was a casual conquest. Joe was her prize.

Every woman he’d slept with had chucked him, that was another thing Nick often reflected on inside. He could add Polly to that list. The only one who hadn’t chucked him was Sarah. Instead she’d taken a job that made it impossible for Nick to stay with her.

Prison did strange things to you. For a while, he’d convinced himself that Joe found about the affair with Caroline and, thinking it was still going on, had betrayed him to the police to get Nick out of the way. Joe was the only person in Nottingham who knew about the skunk operation. He’d been right to turn down Nick’s offer of a partnership. If Joe had taken Nick’s money for the cab firm, Cane Cars might have gone down with him. Instead, six years later, Caroline was having Joe’s baby and the cab company was the city’s third biggest. Joe had chosen wisely. So had Caroline. Back then, when Joe persuaded Caroline to start seeing him again, Nick had lost it. He’d begged her to stay with him instead. Caroline said she loved Joe. Nick, foolishly, slagged his brother off. He warned Caroline that Joe would never be faithful to her.

‘We’ll see,’ was all she’d said.

‘Why? Why him, not me?’ he kept asking, until she snapped.

‘Because he’s younger and better looking than you, if you really have to have a reason. And better in bed. Because I love him. Is that enough reasons?’

‘That’s enough.’

‘He must never know. I don’t want us to come between him and you. You’re his only brother. So this stays our secret, right?’

‘Right,’ Nick had said, and he had kept the secret from Joe. Now he was keeping a secret from Caroline. Or maybe she knew about Nas. Caroline was the sort of woman who knew a lot more than she let on.

Halfway through his shift he rang Sarah but only got the machine. He didn’t know what kind of message to leave and hung up. He realized it was time to make a decision. He worked through the night until he had thought it through.

‘I’m packing this in,’ he told Bob when he returned his taxi early on Monday morning. ‘Today.’

‘Going back to the teaching?’

‘Something like that. I’ve been taking too big a risk.’

‘Aye, well, I can’t say the extra money’s not been useful but it was always a short-term thing.’ He glanced outside. ‘Your cab’s here.’

It was five in the morning, so the car didn’t sound its horn. Nick left Bob to his breakfast. He’d been lucky to get a ride this early. He’d thought he might have to hang around in Wollaton until Bob went on shift. When he got outside, he wished he’d waited.

‘A’right, kidder? Had a long night?’

‘You’re usually off by now,’ Nick commented, getting into the front passenger door.

‘You’re my last call. Been waiting for you, as it happens.’

Nick wasn’t slow to spot the menace in Ed Clark’s voice. But what was the point of running? Sooner or later, they had to have it out. He fastened his seat belt.

‘Wasn’t expecting to see you on Friday,’ Nick said as they hit the ring road.

‘Sounded like it.’

A responsible driver, Ed didn’t turn round when he talked. Nick, too, stared straight ahead, not wanting to see the expression on Ed’s face.

‘Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick, but I was under the impression that Polly wouldn’t want to go anywhere near you.’

‘Understandable mistake,’ Ed said. ‘But things have changed. That’s why I wanted to see you.’

‘To warn me off?’ Nick asked, keeping his voice light, tentative.

‘You’ve had your fun. That’s all it was, is what she tells me. Bit of fun, like me giving that MP a poke. Nothing serious. But Poll’s wi’me now. Understood?’

‘No,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t understand why . . .’ He stopped himself.

Ed knew full well what Nick couldn’t understand, yet he didn’t fill the silence. He turned onto Alfreton Road. They were nearly at Nick’s place. Nick spat it out.

‘How can she be with you if she thinks you killed her brother?’

‘She doesn’t think that,’ Ed said. ‘I won my appeal, remember?’

‘Sure, but . . .’

‘But nothing,’ Ed interrupted. ‘This is you.’

Nick got out of the car, dragged himself up the steps to his flat. Throughout the conversation, Ed had been firm but friendly. Had Nick got him wrong? He needed to think. A smoke would help, but when you got home in daylight, smoking a joint felt out of whack. He made himself a mug of hot chocolate and went to bed. He was knackered, but it took a long time for him to drift off. Even if Ed was innocent of murder, the taxi driver should still be the last person Polly would want a relationship with. How could someone who wanted Nick also like being with Ed? And why did Ed keep going on about Sarah? The thought that he might have swapped girlfriends with Ed kept Nick awake for hours, then crept into his shallow, restless dreams.

26

S
arah found a free hour to see Nick for lunch on Tuesday. They met in the Indian social centre at the back end of Forest Fields, a venue where Sarah liked to be seen.

‘I don’t know this place,’ Nick said, wiping a thin line of sweat from his glowing forehead. Sarah couldn’t get over how healthy and well built he was these days.

‘I thought it was your kind of thing,’ Sarah said, hoping he wouldn’t read too much into her words. The centre served a very cheap vegetarian lunch, mainly to Asian OAPs, in a cavernous former church hall. They queued up for their food, which was served in stainless steel airline-style trays, then got one of the long tables to themselves.

‘This is good,’ Nick said, dipping one of his chapatis into the thin dal, which was accompanied by rice, vegetable curry, yoghurt, chutney and a sickly-sweet barfi. ‘A big lunch that’s within my means.’

‘You’re not that badly off, are you?’

‘I am now I’ve packed in the driving. It was too big a risk.’

‘I’m glad you’ve done that. You’ll find something else.’

‘I will, given time.’

Sarah tried to meet his eyes with a sympathetic look, but they darted from side to side, a trait she remembered.

‘There’s something on your mind. What is it?’

Nick gave a facial grimace that she also remembered, but hadn’t seen for a long time – a sign of embarrassment. He used to do it when he’d broken something, or had bad news for her.

‘This probably isn’t the time.’

‘What? I want to know.’

Nick looked around as if to see who could hear them. A couple of white, social worker types had just been served but showed no sign of bringing their trays to Nick and Sarah’s table.

‘Don’t tease me, Nick.’

‘It’s probably a case of somebody teasing me. One of the other taxi drivers, he claims that – I mean, it’s none of my business, only I guess I want to know . . .’

‘What?’

‘He claims that, since he got out of prison, about the same time that I did, he’s been having a thing with you.’

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Ed Clark.’

Nick leant forward. ‘Yes. You didn’t want to talk about him when I was round yours the other night. Were you and him . . .?’

‘No!’ Sarah said. ‘Something happened – I can’t talk about it here.’

Ed fucking Clark. She got more disheartened when she was thinking about him than she did when fretting about losing the election. Nick still looked suspicious. As Sarah tried to find a form of words to reassure him, Ranjit, the centre manager, came over.

‘It’s so good to see you again, Miss Bone. You still like our food?’

‘Very much,’ Sarah said. ‘Best value in Nottingham.’

Ranjit began a long, involved monologue about how the proposals to install a tram network across the city were likely to impact on Forest Fields. Sarah didn’t have anything to say. She doubted that the tram project would go ahead: too expensive. By the time Ranjit took his leave, Nick had finished eating.

‘Sorry about that,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ve had enough to eat. Want to get out before we’re interrupted again?’

‘Okay.’

‘Are you in a car?’ she asked, when they were outside.

‘I walked.’

‘I’ve still got twenty minutes,’ Sarah told Nick. ‘Can I give you a lift?’

Her car was parked by a small, deserted playground up a hill.

‘I’m okay.’

She didn’t push it. Possibly he didn’t want her to see where he was living.

‘Let’s talk in here.’

He followed her into the playground. By unspoken agreement, she sat on the bright red merry-go-round. Nick started it going, then jumped on. Sarah figured that her in MP mode had been putting him off, so began to reminisce about the one time she’d taken acid, with him. The pair of them had sat on a Lenton merry-go-round for hours, talking, occasionally remembering to spin the carousel again. Then they would watch the world whirl and distort before it froze back into dull dusk.

‘I remember,’ Nick said. He didn’t add to her reminiscence, or fill the silence that followed it. The merry-go-round began to slow down.

‘Nothing happened between me and Ed Clark,’ Sarah said. ‘I had no interest in him, except . . .’ she watched his frown and chose her words carefully. ‘The night of his release, there was a party and he tried it on. I turned him down nicely but firmly. Later – I was a bit pissed or I wouldn’t have got myself into this situation: he pulled me into his room and tried to . . . force himself on me.’

Nick put his foot down. The sole of his shoe squeaked on warm tarmac. He brought the merry-go-round to a halt. ‘He tried to rape you?’

‘He didn’t get that far. He was off his face on coke, speed, crystal meth . . . something. He knocked me over. I fought him off, sort of – I kneed him in the balls. But he could have raped me if he’d wanted to. Instead, he humiliated me.’

Nick got out a tissue. Only when he handed it to her did Sarah realize that she was crying. ‘It sounds like he did more than humiliate you. Did you report it to anyone? What did you do?’