Crusher (26 page)

Somehow I’d expected the top landing to be lighter than the landings below, but the lonely bare light bulb dangling from the ceiling had blown. The landlord must have been relying on the pane of glass set high into the roof above for illumination, but the skylight was so caked in bird shit and green slime it was like trying to
swim under canal water, and the doors to each flat were pale oblongs in the gloom. The deafening drum’n’bass was coming from the door at the rear, so I knocked on the one in the middle. It opened almost immediately, and whoever was inside left it ajar and walked away.

“I thought Mercedes would get their top saleswoman a better flat,” I said as I entered. My mother turned from the battered wooden wardrobe where she’d just been hanging up her coat and turned to me, amazed and afraid. “Who were you expecting?” I said. “Room service?”

The small room had, impossibly, been divided into two even smaller rooms, and through a sagging concertina door in the thin partition I glimpsed a double bed in the room beyond. At the far end of this one, by the window, a stunted sofa faced an ancient TV, while the corner behind me had been converted to a kitchen—if you could call a tiny sink, a picnic table, two chairs and an oven-toaster on top of a cupboard a kitchen. The only sign of food was an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

“Finn,” my mother said at last, “how did you find me? What are you …?”

“Why?” I said. “Why did you spin that stupid yarn about staying in a hotel in the West End?”

“Oh God,” she said, and hid her face with her hand. “I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me.” When she
looked up she seemed angry at herself. “I was worried you’d think you had to invite me to stay at our—your house, and—it would have meant taking everything too fast. I wanted to get to know you again, but that’s going to take time, and … it had to be your decision. And because you wanted to know me, not because you pitied me. I’m really sorry, I know how it must look.”

“What about the rest of it?” I said. “All the things you told me, how much of that was true?”

“All of it,” she said. “Except for the part about me being good at selling cars. They fired me after two days. I was really broke, and I was lonely, and I knew I’d been stupid. I told your dad I was sorry, and he said I should come home. Look—” She returned to the wardrobe and dug her coat out again. “There’s a cafe across the road, let’s go there and talk. This place is such a dump, and we can barely hear each other over that racket.” She nodded at the rear wall. The music from the back room wasn’t as loud in here as it had been on the landing, but the toaster-oven was rattling faintly in time to the thump of the bass.

“What is there to talk about?” I said.

“Well, we could talk about you,” she said. “Not all that horrible stuff you’ve been through, but where you’re going, what you really want to do with your life. Whether you’ve got a girlfriend. All that mother-son
stuff. Besides, this cafe has got the most amazing muffins—we could split one.” She patted her pockets and checked for the jingle of keys.

There was something so bright and cheery and fake about her tone that I held back.

“Why are you in such a big hurry to leave?” I said.

“Sorry, what?” she said. “This music drives me insane—the landlord does nothing about it, but it’s only on during the day, thank God—”

Jesus, how could I have missed it? When I turned to check out the kitchen again I saw two glasses sat draining in the dish-rack. Looking again through the folding door into the poky bedroom, I noticed one suitcase sitting open on a chair, and another protruding from under the rumpled double bed.

“Mum?” I asked at last. She smiled at me, feigning confusion, badly. “Who did you think I was when you opened the door?”

I hadn’t heard him climbing the stairs under the pulsing din, and was only aware of his footsteps a moment before he appeared in the open doorway. He looked a few years younger than my mother, wiry and lean, with old blue tattoos bubbling up from under the neck of his T-shirt. He had dark skin, and a fine fuzz of black hair was appearing on his shaven skull under a woollen beanie. A silver ring glinted in his right ear.
When his brown eyes lighted on me he grinned, revealing fine, even white teeth, though two of them were broken.

“Hey, we got company,” he said. “Finn, right?” There was an American or Canadian twang to his voice and he didn’t offer to shake hands, maybe because his own were full. One held a square bottle of spirits wrapped in a brown paper bag—more Jack Daniel’s, I guessed—the other a half-full plastic carrier bag, the sort that usually splits ten minutes after you leave the corner shop.

“Finn, this is Enrique,” said my mother, in a small voice. Enrique grinned at me, shut the door behind him with his heel and moved over to the picnic table to dump his shopping.

“Enrique Romero, right?” I said. “The painter?” My mind was racing.
The guy my mother left us for?

“That’s me,” said Enrique. “Want a drink? We only got two glasses—you’ll have to share with your mom.”

“Pass,” I said.

“Something to eat maybe? I just got some more cheese and crackers.”

“How was this going to work out?” I said to my mother. “You and him and Dad. Was it going to be like a threesome, or were you planning a rota?”

“Finn, please don’t,” she said.

“Why did you tell Dad you wanted to get back
together, if you were still shacked up with your pen pal?”

“Yo, what the fuck,” said Romero. “Lighten up, kid, OK?”

I glared at Romero, rage and indignation boiling up inside me, and I knew I had to get out of there before I blew out the windows. My mother had shut her eyes, in shame or pain or embarrassment at getting caught, I didn’t know which, and I didn’t care. “I should go,” I said.

“Hey, hey—what’s your hurry?” said Romero. He looked pained. “Look, I know this is kind of awkward, but we got things to discuss.”

“We really don’t,” I said.

He pushed his hand against the door so I couldn’t open it. I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm, trying to think straight, but my mind was clouded with choking black fumes of anger and confusion and disappointment. Romero’s bomber jacket hung open; from the flex of the muscles under his shirt I could see the guy was seriously ripped. You don’t get a torso like that from hefting a paintbrush. He twisted his neck and flexed his fingers, as if limbering up, and I could smell his aggression smouldering.

“Goddammit,” he muttered to my mother. The way she shrank from him when he spoke that way made
me tense too. “I told you,” he went on, “didn’t I tell you? The motherfucker’s been having us tailed.” He jerked his chin at me. “Bitch with red hair, she with you?”

“You want to step away from the door?” I said.

He just leaned on it with his elbow, tilted his head as if to weigh me up, and finally wiped his face with his free hand. “OK, kid, here’s the deal,” he said. “Fifty–fifty and we walk away, you never hear from us again. Unless you want to. She’ll send you a postcard every Thanksgiving if it makes you happy.”

“Fifty per cent of what?” I said.

He rubbed his nose and tried to grin as he fought to keep his temper. “Hey, we’re all here in one room, no more bullshit, OK? You’re smart, I’m smart, let’s not break each other’s balls. Fifty per cent of what the old guy left your dad. It should have been half hers anyway.”

I turned to my mother. “You knew about the money?” I said.

“I visited Charles Egerton to ask him for a loan,” she said. “He sent me away. Said he could never forgive me for abandoning you and your father, that he was leaving everything to Noel.”

“Holy crap,” I said. “Dad wasn’t going to take you back, was he? That’s why you hired Hans to kill him.” My mother’s face was drawn, and she couldn’t look at
me. “He took Dad’s laptop and his notes just to mislead the cops.”

“You only just getting this?” said Romero. He turned to my mother and snorted, “Kid’s not that smart after all.”

I ignored him and looked at her. “And you sent him back to kill me. So you could inherit, as my next of kin.”

“Of course I didn’t,” my mother insisted. “It was just—when we couldn’t pay Hans the rest of his money, he said he was going to start charging interest.”

Jesus. Those secateurs …
“Interest being one of my fingers,” I said.

“I never wanted to hire that asshole in the first place,” said Romero. “But no, she wants to get a professional, do it properly. That worked out great. Tell you what, the twenty grand we would have paid him, we’ll take that out of our cut, how’s that?”

“You don’t get a cut,” I said. My voice was calmer than I felt. “Open the door.”

“Finn—” my mother said.

“We’re not walking away from this empty-handed, kid,” said Romero. “I spent a goddamn fortune getting over here, hiring that guy, renting this shithole. We get fifty per cent, or you get to be in pieces in my suitcase, and she gets all of it.”

“Finn, please, just a third,” said my mother.

“Who the fuck is talking to you, bitch?” said Romero.

“A few people have tried to kill me this week,” I told him. “It didn’t really work out that way.”

“Please, Finn, don’t do this,” said my mother.

“I’m not going to shop you,” I told her. “Even if I tried, I couldn’t prove anything. I’m just going to let you walk away, because that’s what Dad was going to do.”

“No deal,” said Romero.

“Step away from the door,” I said.

He chuckled. “You think you’re tough, all those muscles and shit?” said Romero. “You know what we call guys like you in prison? Dessert.”

And he launched himself at me.

He was fast, hard and wiry, and we both went flying. I landed on the TV and felt it slide off its wooden stand onto the floor, the hard edge of the unit cutting into my back. Romero’s right hand was round my throat clutching my windpipe while he punched me hard in the face with his left and I felt the skin of my cheekbone split under his knuckles. As I tumbled off the TV unit and onto the floor he lost his grip, scrambled to his feet and aimed a kick to my belly, but I grabbed the leg he stood on as I rose, throwing him off balance, forcing him to hop backward, arms flailing, till he collided with the door jamb of the bedroom, bursting the concertina door
out of its rickety frame and making the whole flimsy wall creak and groan.

All the while my mother was shrieking, but whether she was actually saying anything I couldn’t tell, because the guy next door had turned up the music to drown out the screaming and the racket of two men trying to kill each other. I pinned Romero to the door jamb with my left forearm while I pounded his belly with my right, trying to drive right through to his backbone, feeling the muscle there tense and give under my fist as he clawed at my wrist, his eyes bulging. Then his right hand snaked out and I saw too late the glint of the empty Jack Daniel’s bottle as he swung it.

The first blow bounced off my head and I pushed harder with my forearm against his windpipe, but on the second swing the bottle smashed, and through the pain I felt shards of bourbon-scented glass scattering down my hair and shoulders. I had to loose my hold and grab instead at his right arm that clutched the broken stub. While he twisted and turned his right to break my hold he pounded my gut again and again on the same spot with his left fist. I’ve never been kicked by a mule but I’m pretty sure the sensation came close, and I twisted my torso to avoid his blows before he ruptured something, held his right wrist with my left hand and hit him as hard as I could in the face with my right elbow. I
felt one of those lovely white teeth go loose, and I swear he grinned, like he was getting off on the pain, and I hit him again, and we staggered back, and suddenly my mother was crying out, trapped between him and the folding table. The whole rickety heap of fibreboard and cheap chrome struts was bending and buckling, and I realized I was pushing the broken bottle in his fist towards her eyes.

My instant of hesitation was all Romero needed. I felt my legs tangle in his and a hard shove brought me slamming down hard on the floor, driving most of the wind from my body. He was on me faster than a rat and his right hand pulled back to drive the broken shard into my throat, when suddenly his head jolted forward and downward, and my mother raised her arms again, and I pushed my right hand into Romero’s face and held his head up steady while she brought the full bottle of bourbon down for a second time, with all her force, onto the back of his skull.

This time the bottle shattered, soaking us both in booze, and Romero’s stab flailed and went wild, nicking my left ear. I grabbed his arm, wrenched it round and squirmed from under him till I was on his back. The raw bourbon was burning my eyes and a fragment of broken glass bit into my knee, but I pressed his face harder into the sodden purple carpet glinting with
shards, reached out to where the TV lay screen-down on the floor, grabbed the flex where it entered the set, and wrenched it out. Yanking Romero’s other arm back I lashed both his wrists together while he grunted and cursed and spat through his clenched and bloody teeth, and my mother sank onto the sofa with her hands over her mouth, saying over and over, “Please don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him.”

I didn’t know which of us she was talking to, and I didn’t ask.

“Nicola Hale.”

“Ms. Hale, it’s Finn Maguire.”

“Finn, good morning. I’ve been trying to reach you. We have a financial adviser we think you should meet.”

“That’s great, but right now I need a criminal lawyer, and I was wondering if you could recommend one.”

“I trained in criminal law. What’s happened?”

“I’m being questioned at Shepherd’s Bush police station.”

“Fine. Say nothing until I get there. Forty-five minutes, OK?”

I wasn’t actually the one who was in trouble. Since it was me who had phoned the cops, they’d heard my side of the story first, and that’s usually the one cops go with. Romero didn’t help his case by calling everyone in sight a dumb British motherfucker. For a guy who’d
done prison time this showed poor judgement, because thanks to me he already had plenty of cuts and bruises before the cops took him in, which meant that in the half-hour before the duty doctor turned up at the nick they could give him plenty more without getting into trouble. When the doctor eventually did appear they sent me to the surgery to be patched up first, allowing themselves extra playtime with Romero.