Highbridge (12 page)

Her mood suddenly changed. Lifted. The zip had closed easily. ‘I don't mind writing cheques to good causes, Sean, but a free lunch for people who should know what they're doing comes way down the list, for me. Sorry.'

‘You sure you didn't vote UKIP?'

She ignored the gibe, as she twisted and turned in front of the mirror wall and held in the slight bulge above the waistband. ‘I'll keep the jacket on.'

‘So, it's safe to give your seat to someone else, then?'

Sandra nodded. ‘I think I'll give this one a miss.' But I'll check out the lupins in Mum's garden, when I drop in there later. She often talks about how people should be allowed cannabis for pain relief.'

‘That's just to save the surgery's drug budget.'

‘If it makes sense and saves money?'

‘Your mum's a receptionist, Sandra, not one of the medics.'

The look was all Sean needed to know that it was time to drop the subject or go. He was already dressed in his Barbour Countrywear shirt and moleskins, which he felt gave the right image at the garden centre, as well as the fact they were comfortable. He reached over for the Gieves and Hawkes suit and shirt that was hanging in a suit carrier, which in turn was hanging on the towel rail radiator. This was for lunchtime and, as Sandra had said, looked better than his favourite. But Sandra wasn't finished yet.

‘But … that's part of the issue, isn't it? You're always saying most crime comes from social deprivation not criminal genes, so isn't the drugs issue a social issue as much as a medical one? Why don't we just let anyone who wants to do what that old couple in Bradford did, do it?'

‘Grow their own?'

‘For their own personal and private use. Then you handing out free lunches might be worth doing.'

‘Bit radical coming from you. Thought you were in Joey's camp. Shoot druggies on sight?'

‘If they are dealing and wrecking other people's lives.'

‘I might just suggest that over lunch. Especially the shooting bit.' She shot him another sarcastic look, then turned back to the shoe racks. He stepped forward to nuzzle her neck before heading for the door, but she turned and pointed a Manolo Blahnik left foot at him.

‘I bet that's what Joey and Luke are up to.'

‘What? Growing or shooting? And I think your L.K. Bennett flats should be about right for the VAT Goddess.'

But Sandra was too focused to joust. ‘They're growing stuff in that old cottage of Luke's.'

‘Our Joe? No way.'

‘OK. But he could be putting in the electrics for all the hydroponics and growing lights. Well? Couldn't he?'

Sean was about to say it was ridiculous, but there was that intuition thing. Joey and Luke had looked a bit odd in the supermarket car park the day before. And that business at the Lion. And, he had to concede, Joey often walked too close to the line.

‘Joey won't be doing the drugs bit, Sean.' She'd read his mind. ‘But you know what he's like. Anything to help a mate. Ask him what's going on. There's something.'

Sean nodded. He knew they'd be up to something. But drugs? No. Joey wouldn't do that.

By the time Natasha heard the shower pump signal that their elder son Alex had finally dragged himself out of bed, Joey's train was just passing the Roundhouse on its final glide down into Euston and he knew he might have something else to tell her tonight. He had almost made the decision to go back. Almost. When at that moment his phone vibrated.
OUTSIDE. USUAL SPOT.
It was from Benno. Waiting in Drummond Street just across the road from the side entrance in Melton Street. From there they would be on site in what had become known as the Billionaire's Bunkers within a matter of minutes.

Joey left the train and the travelling herd behind, turning right instead of left as he came off the platform ramp, and strode out through the loading bay to see Benno sitting in the old ambulance he used as a travelling workshop. He had long ago given up driving a white van mainly because he was fed up having it broken into overnight, despite fortifying it to a level Luke and his team wouldn't have objected to in Helmand, but mainly because even the traffic wardens who were paid per ticket usually ignored the ambulance. According to Benno. However, according to Joey, although Benno looked the part, especially in his dark overalls, hi-viz vest and the two old paramedic jackets he had hanging behind the seats, he usually remained untroubled because he had a face anyone would think twice about aggravating. In comparison, Bobby McBain's pebble-dashed features looked like an ad for Botox.

Benno was around five foot three of sinew and scars with a face that not only looked like the proverbial bag of spanners but looked like it had been formed by being hit with one. Which, in a way, it had been. When, thirty or so years before, he fell from a scaffolding, right on to his own bag of tools. He had told Joey he couldn't remember much about it except waking up to discover that as well as not being paid while he was off work, his then employers said he wasn't covered by any insurance because the accident had been his own fault. He had used the scaffolding, rather than the provided ladder, to take a shortcut to get from one floor to another. Everyone did it. In the time before Health and Safety became a religion and ladders were deemed instruments of the devil.

He was philosophical about it, as cases like his were now part of the chanted creed, just as he was philosophical about hitching the site fuel bowser to the back of his van one night. If they wouldn't give it to him. he'd take his own compensation. Everyone did that. In many ways it was a much fairer system. Everyone took what they thought they were owed, instead of some bean counter or computer calculating what some tax table said they could have. It was the face and the philosophy that had watched his back the past couple of years.

As Joey got closer to the ambulance he could see Benno in that all too familiar slightly bent forward position, staring at his lap. For most it would be taken as the BlackBerry Prayer position and he was checking his phone. With Benno it meant he was busy manufacturing one of his foul-smelling rollies. Sure enough, as Joey pulled open the door he had to clear the seat by scooping up the old Oxo tin that contained Benno's Rizlas and baccy.

‘Do you have to light up every time I arrive?'

‘Do you have to arrive every time I light up?' Evidence of which was slowly being dragged along Benno's bottom lip.

‘How old is this thing?' asked Joey as he dropped the tin between the seats and wound down the window.

‘Older than me.'

‘Antique, then?'

‘Probably. Me ma gave me that for me snap when I started out. You can get two rounds of cheese and pickle, a pasty, apple and a biscuit in there. As she did. Every day. I ended up hating cheese and pickle.' Having lit up, Benno started the ambulance and moved off, the rollie dangling from the corner of his mouth.

If you put Benno in a line-up with Luke and Matt and asked people to vote out the mercenary, tiny Benno would win hands down. He was, in a way. Like Joey, he was going from job to job, away from home and family, following the money. Which was how they'd met. Working on a hotel refurb in Luton. Then being asked by the builder to do some work on his own house in Borehamwood. From there one of his rich mates had asked them to work for him and before long they had formed an informal partnership, moving from one bling merchant to another. The houses and jobs getting bigger and more lucrative. Joey – well, Natasha – took care of all the paperwork and Benno pulled on a network of contacts they had built up over the past few years. Even as Benno exhaled and filled the cab with another cancer-inducing cloud of pollutants, he was someone else Joey would always want on his shoulder when things got tricky. As they seemed to be doing more often these days. That was why it was so hard making the decision to go back home. What would Benno do without him?

‘Then what was up with Dad over the weekend?' Tanya asked, making herself a cup of coffee in her Starbucks to go mug. ‘I mean, I know he does the Neanderthal thing because he thinks he has to, but he was a bit excessive on Saturday night.'

‘How do you expect him to react after what nearly happened to you the other week?'

Tanya let out a long sigh. Not this again. ‘Oh come on, Mum. I nearly got killed like Aunty Janey? Really? She got jumped from behind by some mugger and run over.'

‘That lad had a knife out at you, you said.'

‘Yeah. And, like, right outside the garage with a million CCTV cameras. Not in the empty car park of the Co-op.'

‘He had a knife, Tanya. And if he was crazy enough to do it outside the garage, then he was crazy enough to stab you.'

That point, along with her mother's obvious anxiety, was enough to at least make Tanya hesitate. ‘OK. But he didn't, did he?'

‘No. thank God.'

Which was enough to allow Tanya to swing back into gear. ‘He was crapping himself more than we were. Well, except for Becky. And what would you have wanted me to do anyway, Mum? Let him rape me or make me go down on him, or something? Without a fight?'

‘He was probably only after money,' Natasha replied quickly. She didn't want to contemplate anything else.

‘Yeah. Exactly. And when I told him he wasn't getting any he backed off. Went looking for someone he could intimidate. Don't make yourself the victim. Isn't that what you and Dad have always said?'

‘And which is why your father is probably being over-protective.'

‘OK. I get that. Just as he has to get the fact that he can't be away all week and then come home and come over all heavy handed at the weekend.'

Even though she agreed with her daughter, and it was what had got her up so early, Natasha didn't want to get into family politics when she still had to get Lucy and the boys out the door. ‘Can we talk about it tonight?'

‘Sure, no big deal. Do you want a coffee to go?'

‘Please. But how was Becky after not hearing from her Egyptian prince?'

‘Don't let her hear you say that, Mum.' Tanya laughed. ‘His name's Husani.'

‘OK. I'm still getting used to every second person in town being an immigrant.'

‘That is so racist.'

‘It's not. It's a fact. Well, perhaps an exaggeration. But you know what I mean anyway. So how's Becky after not seeing Humani?'

‘Husani. He still hadn't phoned her up to last night. After we cleared her phone he was probably giving her the silent treatment back, thinking that she had blanked him all Friday and Saturday. So, she's still devastated.' Tanya put the back of her hand to her forehead for the melodramatic effect. Then: ‘God knows how Dad'd react if I came home with one of Hus's friends.'

‘Actually, he'd be OK. Provided you weren't showing as much as you were on Saturday night. You can do short or low cut. But not both.'

‘You mean Dad doesn't like me dressing the way he'd like to see you dressed?'

‘I'd never be able to dress the way your father would like. And that's the point. He is your father. You're his daughter. And he knows there's too many blokes like him out there.'

‘Which blokes are like Dad?' It was a bleary-eyed Ross heading for the cereal cupboard.

‘None you know,' replied Natasha to prevent any potential Monday morning conflict. She picked up her phone and saw the text from Joey.
OK. I'LL CALL WHEN FINISHED. LXXJ.
But then noticed the time. 7.45. ‘Any signs of your brother, or Lucy, Ross?'

‘Someone's in the bathroom, which I guess won't be Alex.

Pass us the milk.'

‘I hope you're not talking to me,' his mother replied.

‘'Course not. Her.'

‘And who's “her”?'

Ross picked up the motherly tone, let out a huge symbolic sigh and trundled over to the fridge. Natasha headed for the door in search of the feet-draggers, but stopped as she passed Tanya. ‘Tell Becky to be careful, though. Racist or not. I don't like the way they treat their women.'

‘Point's already been made.'

As Natasha left, Tanya instantly replaced Sky News with
Friends
, while Ross unscrewed the top of the milk carton and tipped almost as much on to the table as landed in his cereal bowl.

‘Look at the mess you're making, moron.' Tanya moved quickly to scoop up a sponge to wipe it up.

‘I don't buy these big cartons, do I?'

As Tanya tried to work round Ross, and his namesake on screen was about to deliver his punch line,
Friends
was replaced by the planner and a nanosecond or two of Ross's favourite programmes until he settled on
Embarrassing Operation
.

‘Don't move whatever you do,' Tanya growled.

He raised his bowl so she could wipe underneath. Then increased the volume on the TV. She reached over and turned it down. He turned it up. She snatched the remote and hit the standby button. He looked at her for a moment. She looked back, waiting for what he'd try next. It came.

‘You're hormonal.'

‘What?'

‘You got a new boyfriend?'

‘What?'

‘It's not time of the month, so …?' He let it hang with a shrug. Then: ‘That what Dad was giving you a hard time about? You putting it out for this new bloke?'

‘You're watching too much MTV.' With that she turned to go, but stopped. ‘And how do you know when it's “time of the month”?'

‘Apart from you being a right pain. Every four weeks or so, isn't it? Two of our ten-day timetables. It's week two. And I've seen the wrappings in the bin.' He gave another shrug and then grabbed the remote and turned the TV back on. ‘I don't tweet about it or anything, though.'

‘Thanks. You're such a comfort.'

‘Is it him that's like Dad, then? This bloke?'

‘Eat your breakfast. Like a good little boy.' She put the emphasis on little, but as she swept out the room she wondered if she'd been as grown up at his age.