Hope Road (33 page)

“You’re no different from your dad, are you? Freedom? This isn’t about a yacht. You’re pathetic.”

The creases on his face shine with perspiration. He looks old, haggard. His hand is on the handle of the door.

“Dream of the Mediterranean? It was you that made me want it, Den. You dragged me back from the edge. I wanted it to be with you.”

He pauses, expecting a response. There isn’t one. His body droops a little, then he opens the door.

One foot on the pavement, but she’s not quite done.

“There’s something doesn’t make sense.”

“What?” he says, light-headed, relieved to have got it over with.

“Why leave your business card in the Mondeo if there’s counterfeits in the boot?”

He explodes, a mixture of laughter and a deep, throaty cough. His breath is foul, whisky and cigarettes and rotten guts.

“I forgot!” he says, struggling for air. “Friday afternoon, I took the last hundred grand from the boot. When I do that, I always put a card in the glove compartment, or something, a brochure, anything with a letterhead, to make the car legit. From then on the car is ours, we’re just a bit behind with the registration documents.

“So, I go down south on the train to buy two cars, but one of ’em wasn’t right. Back I come, dump fifty grand in the boot, and I’m in such a rush to see you that I forget about the bloody card. Because you’re the centre of my life. Because I love you. In all of this, it was just you. You weren’t my alibi, Den. Not for a single minute.”

Her eyes are swollen, but there’s no way he’s gonna see her cry, not now.

“But you’re a criminal,” she manages to say, her voice thin but steady.

“I’m the son of a criminal. The brother of a criminal. I get told that often enough.”

“Not by me. Not one time. Never. And what about this!”

She pulls the white envelope from her pocket.

“You gonna blame this on your dad! Two and a half million quids’ worth of cars?”

He smiles.

“Open it.”

“John, do I really have to…”

“Open it. Go on.”

“Then what,” she says, angrily tearing the envelope open, “are you gonna try and snatch it off me?”

She takes out a single sheet of paper.

There’s nothing on it.

“What the fuck?”

“Lanny was never gonna shop Tony Ray’s son. Not a chance. He was bluffing. He’s not as smart as he thinks. I’m the clever one, remember?”

She screws the paper up, lets it fall from her hands.

“You could’ve got away with this, John. The cars, the money. You’d got away with it all!”

He hauls himself out of the car, stands on the curb.

“I didn’t want to go on lying to you, Den. Because I love you.”

She starts the car.

“Don’t contact me again.”

“Den? I w…”

“I mean it.”

“You can have your own room if you like, on the boat?”

She laughs, and for a second she sees the man who she led back from the abyss, and who in turn made her life exciting and decadent and worth living. Who loved her, and who knew how to be loved.

He stands there, a smile on his face, as the car pulls away.

“It’s okay, Den,” he says to himself, “you can stop recording now.”

With that he returns to the bar of the
Black Horse
to await the arrival of the West Yorkshire constabulary.

She drives past
Tony Ray’s Motors
, trying not to look, and at the end of the road turns right onto Regent Street. The dark monster of Millgarth looms in her mirrors as she heads out of town, no idea where. She makes it a couple of miles, but she can’t see well enough to drive. Pulls up, arms across the wheel, and lets the worst of it come.

Her face smeared with tears and dribble, she reaches inside her jacket and untapes a tiny microphone. The wire runs through the lining of her pocket and is connected to a small, flat digital recorder there. She brings the recorder out, fiddling with it until it yields up a tiny blue plastic memory card.

Her fingers are wet and she can hardly see what she’s doing. The card springs from her fingers, falling to the floor. It takes her a while to find it, groping in the dark around her feet. Then she opens the door, drops it into the gutter, and grinds it with her heel until its blue plastic sides come apart and its delicate circuitry is revealed. She gets out of the car, scrapes up the fragments in a handful of wet grit, and looks for the nearest drain.

A
glass of chilled
fino
sherry and a bowl of paprika-roasted peanuts. And to follow? Blade of beef with pumpkin seed and hazelnut risotto. He doesn’t know if it’s still on the menu, but that’s what he had the last time he was here, with Den.

A corner table at
Anthony’s
. But no Den this time. He’s always loved it here. Where else in Leeds could you get hazelnut risotto? Even the decor suits his mood, the muted cream and browns, the serious, high-backed chairs, no floral bullshit on the tables. The staff could shut the fuck up a bit, but isn’t that always the case?

Anthony’s
is exactly where you want to eat when the rest of your life stretches out ahead of you like a blank canvas, and you don’t even know what you’re going to do with the rest of the day. Two bottle lunch? Minimum.

He hears her footsteps across the wooden floor. Looks up. There’s something different about her. No piercings in the nose, and the hair has been brought partly under control. She looks older, dressed in a sleek, dark brown trouser suit and a cream top.

“You match the restaurant!” he says as he rises to kiss her briefly on each cheek. “Looking good, by the way.”

“
Gracias
.”

The waiter is over in an instant.

“
Fino
?” John asks.

“Just water,” she tells the waiter. “I’ll have wine with the meal.”

They sit down, holding their smiles. It would be more awkward still if John hadn’t already taken the edge off his nerves with a G and T at home.

“So, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Been exercising?”

“A little. You? Is that, ehm, a bit of extra weight?”

He grins.

“Three weeks in France? This is the best I could do!”

After driving through France on his own, John has come home to face the reality of what he left behind. And he doesn’t have a clue what he’s going to do.

The water arrives.

“Could you just send over a bottle of whatever
Albariño
you’ve got?” John asks the waiter, who nods appreciatively as he turns to go.

They touch glasses.

“
Salud!
”

“You shouldn’t really do that with water.”

“It’s okay,” she says, “we can do it again when the wine comes.”

“Very pragmatic.”

“Me?” She takes a sip of water. “Yes, very.”

He finishes his sherry.

“Have you seen Freddy yet?” she asks.

“No. I just got back yesterday. Spoke to him though. Sounds like the whole world crashed around his ankles and it was all his fault.”

“He’ll be going inside, though?”

“Inside? You mean jail? I dunno. They charged him with conspiracy to pass fake currency. Couldn’t get him on possession, couldn’t get him on actually passing the stuff.”

“It’s his first offence,” she says. “And he’s admitted that he left some of the money in the boot of the car, isn’t that right…”

John watches as the sommelier approaches with the wine.

“Ah,
Albariño
!” he says, inspecting the label then watching as a little is poured into her glass.

“So what actually happened in the hotel room?” she asks, then tastes the wine.

His stare widens as he waits for their glasses to be filled and the sommelier to leave.

“Donna threatened the Ukrainians. Said she’d go to the police. She thought they’d paid her in fakes. But they hadn’t. They didn’t know anything about it. It was Fuller who paid her in fakes.”

“He’s been charged, right?”

“Right. But what could Freddy do, there in the hotel room? Fedir starts slapping her around, teach her a lesson. But it’s Freddy against both the Ukrainians. And they’re nasty blokes. And big.”

“So he had to watch?”

“Fedir started to rape her. In the end Freddy couldn’t stand it. He pulled Fedir off her, persuaded him to go for a drink. He made sure Donna was all right, then followed the Ukrainians out so they wouldn’t suspect anything. He told her to get a taxi somewhere safe.”

“So he feels guilty that he didn’t protect her?”

“Yeah, but the thing is, he did.”

“And she died anyway,” Connie says. “At least they got the right person for her murder.”

“Craig? Yep, confession and everything. Cried like a baby, apparently.”

“He’s gonna plead accidental death, I heard.”

He savours the wine.

“What’s this? You developing an interest in British criminal law?”

“Law?” she says, swirling the golden yellow wine around in the glass then taking a delicate sniff. “The law’s important.”

She drinks, washes the
Albariño
around her mouth for a second, and swallows.

“And the car?” she asks.

“They pinned the notes on the amazing disappearing Ukrainians. And I think we shouldn’t mention any of this again.”

“Okay.”

She drinks more wine, taking her time to enjoy the taste of home.

“Are you hungry?” he asks as a waiter approaches with menus, “because I’m starving.”

They open the menus, relieved to have something other than the events of three weeks ago to talk about.

“Have you heard from Den?” she says, head in the menu.

“No. I’m afraid that’s over. Finished.”

“I have.”

“What?”

“Through a mutual friend.”

“Who?”

“Does that matter? She’s got a new job. Manchester.”

“Police?”

“Yes. She said, tell John
all the best
.”

All the best?

“Did she leave a number?”

She shakes her head.

“Have you decided what you’re having?” he asks.

Connie orders the scallop tartare. He has the same.

All the best.

Three weeks in France and that’s all he’s thought about. Den and him on a yacht, forever. Freedom. The only kind he wanted. Now it’s too late. Did he really think Den was going to stick around, knowing what she knew?

All the best. Yours sincerely, Denise.

Twenty minutes later and there’s a slight scowl on her face. The starters have been cleared away and they’re onto a second bottle of
Albariño
.

“John, there’s something we need to talk about. Something about the business.”

She shifts in her chair, still frowning.

“The
business
? My business was counterfeit money, as you know. More recently my business was trying to avoid being arrested for it. And I lost Den in the process.” He pours himself more wine. “That’s the only business I had, to be honest.”

“I didn’t mean that business. I meant the showroom.”

“What about it?”

She drinks what remains in her glass and accepts a refill, then drinks some of that too.

“Have you ever seen your dad’s will?”

“He’s still alive! Anyway, he never made a will, I know that much.”

“But he had an agreement.”

“Did he?”

“With Javier.”

“Who is…?”

“
Was
. Javier was the brother-in-law of your granddad and your great-Uncle Alfonso. Javier, you know, from Toledo?”

“Nope.”

“Are you
sure
your dad never mentioned Javier? He was in business with Ramón, the third son of Mercedes Eugenia, who was your, ehm… I think your great-granddad’s cousin from Santiago. You know, she…”

“Connie, I don’t know any of these people. I’ve heard of Uncle Alfonso, but the others?”

“Well, the fact is that Javier gave your dad 300,000 pesetas in 1963, which was a lot of money in those days, as well as incredibly difficult to get out of Spain, which shows how important it was, that they snuggled…”

“
Smuggled
?”

“Yes, smuggled it out. Your dad invested it for Javier.”

She stops, as if silence is the best way of explaining what comes next.

“Don’t tell me…”

“Fifty-fifty. That was the deal.”

“
Tony Ray’s Motors
is Javier’s?”

“Half.”

“Oh great.”

There’s still plenty of wine in both their glasses, but he pours more, emptying the whole bottle, and attracting the attention of several customers at adjacent tables.

“Hold on,” he says, bringing his glass carefully to his lips and lightening its load considerably. “Javier must be dead, right?”

“Right. His son was also called Alfonso. You ever hear of
him
?”

He shakes his head, then drinks more wine.

“He moved to Madrid and married Maria Garrido…”

“Cut the genealogy class. Who owns the half of the garage that I don’t? This Alfonso bloke?”

“He died,” she said. “Last year.”

A pause.

“He only had one child,” she whispers, her voice falling away almost to nothing. “A step-daughter.”

She bows her head and looks at the crisp white table linen, partly from embarrassment, and partly out of respect for her dead father.

Oh shit.

He’s about to drain his glass when he hears a familiar voice.

“Hello, Connie.”

Henry Moran is there, looking down at them both.

“John,” Moran says, as neat and youthful as ever, a silver tie setting off a sapphire-blue two-piece suit.

“Are you lunching here?” John asks.

Moran thinks about his reply.

“Yes. But I also need to talk to you about the showroom, John, on behalf of my client.”

“What?”

Moran, never one for too many words, he leaves it at that.

“What!” John says again, irritated by Moran’s manner.

Connie sighs. “
I’m
his client.”

“We just need to agree on a few things regarding the future of the business,” Moran adds. “My office in a couple of hours, that all right for you both?”