The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (9 page)

There was a quiet period just after midnight when the shelter was empty. It wasn’t unusual for a Sunday. He took his cigarettes and his Ronson lighter and sat down on the sill of the door, arranging himself at an angle so that he could look along the rain-slicked pavement to both the left and the right.

He hadn’t even had the opportunity to take out a cigarette when he saw the man walking toward the entrance.

“Hello, John.”

It was Eddie Fabian, and he looked terrible. His eyes were red-rimmed and, when he put out his hand for Milton to shake his fingers were quivering. Milton took his hand and grasped it, looking into Eddie’s face. His first thought was that he had fallen off the wagon.

“Are you all right?” Milton asked.

“Anyone inside?”

“No. It’s Sunday. It’s empty.”

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“Of course not.”

Milton held the door open and followed Eddie into the shelter. People fell off the wagon all the time. Milton heard at least one share every week from someone who had returned to the fellowship after going back to the bottle. They were welcomed back with kind words and warm embraces, with talk of the slate being wiped clean, and Milton had sat at the back and observed and doubted that he would ever have enough empathy to help someone in that situation. Once, he would have seen such weakness as a sign of failure, but that was before he had admitted his own failings to himself. Now, while he did not judge those men and women—and while he could sometimes empathise with them—he still did not know how he would react if he were asked to help someone in that situation. It would require sensitivity and tact. He doubted that he would be very good at it. He wasn’t blessed with an abundance of either quality.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Eddie said as the door swung shut behind them.

“What?”

“Me turning up like this. I know you’re working. If you need to serve anyone, you know, you can just leave me here, it’s fine…”

“It’s quiet tonight. Sundays are always quiet.”

“I haven’t had a drink, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Milton started to retort, but Eddie shushed him with a wave of his hand.

“I can tell. The way you’re looking at me.” Milton tried to protest, but Eddie cut him off again. “It’s all right. You wouldn’t be far wrong. I might as well be honest with you. I’ve got a bottle of scotch in the cab. Just bought it ten minutes ago from the off-licence I used to use. Camden. They must’ve thought they’d seen a ghost, or thought their profits were about to go back up. I was going to find somewhere quiet and get into it, and then I thought of you. I thought maybe we could have a talk. Maybe you could persuade me why having a drink is a bad idea.”

Milton was finding the conversation uncomfortable. “Look—do you want a cup of tea?”

Eddie nodded.

Milton went into the kitchen, took down a clean mug and dropped a tea bag into it. He looked back out into the shelter as he poured hot water from the urn. Eddie was sitting quietly by himself, his hands on the table. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and then he clasped them together, one hand kneading the other. He looked anxious. Milton had seen this before. Alcoholics on the cusp of taking a drink looked like this. He took a deep breath. He found that he was frustrated that Eddie had come here, imposed himself in the middle of his own comfortable routine, until he checked the thought. That wasn’t how the fellowship worked. Milton had reached out for help more than once and had always been given it. Milton didn’t know why Eddie had chosen him, but he wasn’t about to turn him away. He might not know what to do, but at least he could give him a drink and listen. He’d work out the rest as they went along.

Come on, Milton
, he said to himself.
You can help. Just listen to him. How hard can that be?

He took the tea and set it down on the table. “Here.”

Eddie took a long sip, his eyes closed, and then set the mug down on the table and wrapped his hands around it as if using it to keep warm.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said. “Coming in here.”

“It’s fine. What is it?”

“I’m in a bit of a state, John, if I’m honest. I haven’t been this close to taking a drink since I stopped. I need someone to talk to. I know I should speak to my sponsor, but I don’t have one. I did have—I’ve had several—but we always fall out in the end. I don’t do well when I’m told what to do. You know what I mean?”

“I don’t have a sponsor, either.” The reason was different. Milton had no problem with accepting advice on how to live a better life. But he did have a problem with the unflinching honesty he knew that any sponsor would expect from him. It was easy to hide his history if all he had to do was stay quiet at the back of the room. He didn’t think he would be able to manage that in a relationship with a sponsor, so he had avoided getting one.

“How far are you through the steps?” Eddie asked.

“I’m working through them,” Milton said.

“Which is the hardest for you?”

“The ninth.”

Eddie nodded enthusiastically. “Same for me. You remember what I said after the meeting?”

“You said you were doing well.”

He laughed humourlessly. “Who was I kidding? What a joke.”

Milton sat quietly and left Eddie the space to choose what to do next: to talk or, if he preferred, to sit quietly with his drink. He talked.

“What I told you about when we had coffee, the things that happened to me when I was a kid? I had tried to put it out of my mind. For years, I almost managed it. Then something happened that brought it all back to the surface again.”

“What?”

“The weirdest coincidence. I told you I’d been thinking of telling my story. Naming names.”

“Yes. You said.”

“I spoke to a journalist a while ago. Some of the men who abused me were well known. Politicians. Men from the establishment. It would be a big deal if I told it and people believed me. I mean—really big. This journalist, she wanted me to go on the record, but I’d been putting it off. Too scared. Story of my life.” He laughed bitterly. “I’d almost decided that I wasn’t going to go through with it when I was out driving one day a couple of weeks ago. It’d been a long day. I’d been up since five, it had been raining heavily all morning, and there was a lot of business. I was up by Westminster, at the lights in front of Big Ben. This chap came out of the crowd, tapped on the window and asked if I was free. I was, so I unlocked the door and let him in. I looked in the mirror. It was an old man. Looked like he was ex-military. He wanted me to take him to his place. He wasn’t a talker—he spent most of the trip looking at papers—but there was something about him that I couldn’t get out of my head. It was like I had an itch inside my skull. Couldn’t scratch it. It was only when we got there that I realised what it was. I recognised the place. There was no doubt about it. The place where they had the parties. And then I recognised him, too. This man—there was no doubt about that, either. I was staring at him in the mirror when he noticed and asked me if everything was okay. It hit me, all at once: the voice, the way he spoke, like he was superior to you, his eyes. Everything. He was one of the men. I’d bet my life on it.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing—not then, anyway. I dropped him off, took his money and left. Then I went and got drunk. That was when I fell off the wagon. A massive three-day bender. I don’t remember any of it.” He laughed bitterly. “I’d been making progress, too. Pissed all that away. It suddenly seemed stupid.”

He put both hands around the mug and clasped it. Milton said nothing and let him gather his thoughts.

“But then I sobered up and the memories came back. I thought about it. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. That man got into my cab rather than all the other cabs in London that day. What are the odds of that? There has to be a reason. A purpose. I thought about it, and I knew it had happened so that I could do something about what happened to me. I had decided not to do anything, and then that happened. It’s a sign. A message from my Higher Power. And I thought about it some more. He shouldn’t have been allowed to get away with it, what he’d done to me and the other boys. I couldn’t just forget about it.”

“What did you do?”

“I went back. I went back after work, parked up outside the block and waited for him. Every day I went back there, round about the same time. Every day I waited. It was a week before I saw him again. I took photos. Here. This is him.”

He took out his phone and slid it across the table. Milton looked. The shots had been taken from inside a car, and he could see a glint of reflection on the glass of a window and the line of the dash. There was a building opposite the car, a substantial one with numerous windows in the floors that were visible in shot. There was a man coming out of the building’s entrance. He was dressed in a tweed suit and he walked with a stick. His hair was white, a counterpoint to the gloom of the street and the bricks that were spoiled black by years of pollution. Eddie encouraged Milton to swipe, and he did, glancing through another dozen pictures, all similar to the first. The last one was the best: the man was looking straight into the lens. He was twenty feet away, on the other side of the road, but the likeness was clear and crisp.

“I don’t recognise him.”

“His name is Leo Isaacs.”

Milton shrugged.

“He was an MP. Used to be a government minister in the eighties. Defence. He’s still involved in politics. He’s a Lord now. That’s why he was at Westminster when I saw him.”

“What happened?”

“After I saw him? I got out of the car. I went over and spoke to him. I told him who I was, and I asked him if he remembered me. He said he didn’t, but you could tell by the look on his face that he was scared. I don’t know if he recognised me or not, but he knows what he did. That was it. Made up my mind there and then. I called the journalist and told her I’d speak to her. We were going to do it tomorrow.”

The door opened. Milton looked up and saw a man that he didn’t recognise. He was of average height and build, with close-cropped blond hair and steely eyes.

“Sorry,” Milton said, “are you a driver?”

The man gazed around the room and then looked from Milton to Fabian and then back again. “No, guv, I’m not. Why? Is that a problem?”

“Drivers only in here, I’m afraid. No exceptions. If you want something, I can serve you through the hatch.”

The man shook his head and smiled. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. Sorry to bother you.”

“You don’t want anything?”

“No. I’m good. Good night.”

The man closed the door again. Milton felt uncomfortable. It didn’t feel like a random encounter. He went to the door, opened it, and looked out. The man was ambling away, his hands in his pockets. Milton watched him for a moment.

“What?” Eddie said from behind him.

“Nothing,” Milton said, shutting the door again. He turned back. “You said you were going to see her tomorrow. Have you changed your mind?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He took another sip, and when he looked back up at Milton, his eyes were fearful. “Someone threatened me tonight. A man broke into my house, came into my bedroom and woke me up. He put a gun to my head and told me that if I spoke to anyone about it, I’d be killed.”

“When was this?”

“An hour ago.”

“Have you called the police?”

“He told me not to. I didn’t want to take the chance.”

“What did he look like?”

“It was dark. I couldn’t really see his face.”

“What did he say?”

“What I just said. I wasn’t to talk to anyone about Isaacs or anything else. I wasn’t to go to the papers. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought he was going to kill me. I needed a drink to calm my nerves, so I went out and bought one. And then I thought you might be here. If you hadn’t been… I don’t know, I’d probably be pissed out of my mind now.”

“Go to the police.”

Eddie shook his head. “That’s what he told me not to do.”

“The police can look after you. And if you let them have your evidence—”

“I don’t have any evidence.”

“Well, you tell them what you know.”

“And nothing will happen. It was a long time ago. I’ve tried the police before. They ignored me. They don’t believe me.”

There was certainty in Eddie’s answer.

Milton drummed his fingers on the table. “So you’ve got two choices. Do what they say and shut up, or speak to your journalist and put it out there.”

“What would you do?”

“It’s not easy. I’d ask myself how I would feel about keeping quiet.”

“Terrible. He needs to pay for what he did to me.”

“So go public and tell your story. It’s going to look very strange if anything happens to you after that. It’s up to you, Eddie, but that’s what I’d do. You might make yourself safer if more people know about it.”

“You’re right. I know. I know that’s what I’ve got to do.”

“So the meeting is tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Then do it.”

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

Eddie looked away as he said it, his hands clenching again, and Milton doubted that he would go through with it. He knew, too, that it was the best way for Eddie to find peace. If he did nothing, there was no way that he would be able to stay sober. Milton thought about the twelve steps to recovery. They were never far from his thoughts, especially the eighth and ninth steps. They required an alcoholic to make a list of all the persons he had harmed, and then to make amends to them all. Milton couldn’t do that, because most of the people that he had harmed were dead, so he had adapted the steps to suit his circumstances. His way of meeting the requirements of the program was to help others. He had made his first attempt in London, and it had not turned out the way that he had hoped it would. A man had died and a woman had been almost burned to death. He had fled to South America, working his way north through Mexico until he reached Texas. Events, and his own bloody history, had intervened along the way, but he still meant to do good whenever he could.

Eddie, for better or worse, was a chance to do good.