The Pure in Heart (7 page)

He stood.

‘Try to be positive, Andy.’

Garden centre, she’d said. He couldn’t picture what it would be like and when she’d said Kingswood he couldn’t
place it. But it could be a start. For two years he’d been waiting for that – he didn’t like the words ‘new’ and ‘fresh’ but he thought of them. He wasn’t going back where he’d come from and he wasn’t going down the old road that had taken him there. He’d never got much out of it in the first place, though he’d pretended to, and there’d been a
few highs, a bit of speed, an escape though he wasn’t
sure now what from. Boredom he supposed. And he’d enjoyed being one of them. Spindo. Mart. Lee Carter. Lee Johnson. Flapper. They’d included him, and that had mattered. He’d liked the money as well. Everything had gone fine. They’d done small jobs, then bigger.

He hadn’t been prepared for it all to go so wrong so quickly. The man had come after him like a mad thing, running down the street; the
rest of them had been in the van, its engine running, they’d yelled at him. The man had nothing to do with anything, Andy should have left him, should have run and got into the van. He still saw it, the street, the van ahead, the man desperate and sweating, pounding along to catch him, still felt the panic. He panicked too easily. He should have kept a cool head; even if he’d been caught and the
man had identified him, he would only have gone down for nine months or a year. So what had he done instead of making for the van? He’d turned on the man, waited until he was close and then gone for him in the stomach, head down like a bull and the man had crashed backwards on to the concrete, splitting his head open.

Now he got another bottle of the expensive foreign beer, went back to the table
and forced himself not to think about it. His back ached. Sleeping on a blow-up bed in a corner of Matt’s room wasn’t comfortable and Matt didn’t like him
being there. Andy couldn’t blame him. None of them wanted him, and he knew it, but until he had a job he couldn’t get a place of his own, not even a single room in a lodging house; his allowance wouldn’t run to that and so long as he did have
family who would put him up he knew he wouldn’t get anyone’s attention in the social services. He wasn’t on the streets, that was all they saw.

I ought to be happy, he thought suddenly, tipping a stream of beer down his throat. I am in a pub, I can stay or go, I can drink what I like, I can get out and walk or buy a paper. I haven’t been able to do any of this or the rest for five years … I ought
to be happy.

Three women came into the bar and dumped shopping bags at the table next to him. They were smart. One of them gave him a sideways look. Nothing else.

You’ve got no idea, Andy thought. Who I am. Where I’ve been. What I’ve done. How would you?

The last mouthful he took from the bottle was only foam.

He went out into the street.

On the other side parked on a double line was a silver
BMW convertible. Sitting in it was a big man. As Andy came out of the pub the car slewed away from the kerb and across the road, swinging neatly in beside him as he walked.

‘Get in,’ Lee Carter said.

Andy kept on walking.

The car slid along, keeping pace with him. Funny, he thought, having the top down in March. There was sun but it wasn’t warm.

‘What’s your problem?’ The sound from the engine
was so soft Lee hardly needed to raise his voice.

Andy had turned out of the shopping street, down a side road. He didn’t know where he was walking.

‘Save your legs. It’s very nice. Leather seats.’

Just walk. Ignore him. Don’t look at him. He’s nothing to you now. Just walk.

It happened so fast he was lost. The car stopped and Lee Carter was out of it and round the front and pinning Andy against
the wall.

‘I said get in. I meant get in.’

‘I’m getting in nothing.’

‘I want to buy you a drink.’

‘I just had a drink. Two drinks of poncey bottled beer. They even don’t give you a glass in those places, did you know that?’

Lee Carter released him as quickly as he had taken hold. He was bellowing with laughter.

Andy stared, taking him in. He was fatter. Sort of sleek fatter. His hair was
flashily cut. His shirt and jacket were nice. He looked well. Well off.

‘I’ll take you to my place, get you a proper drink.’

‘Why did I have to crash into you?’

‘You didn’t. I been waiting for you. I knew you was at Michelle’s.’

‘Who told you? She wouldn’t.’

‘Course she wouldn’t. I can do better than that. Now, are you getting in?’

‘Not before I know why.’

‘Something to ask you.’

‘Right,
well, I ain’t interested.’

Lee walked back towards the car, but stopped before he opened the door, took out a packet of small cheroots and offered it.

‘I don’t.’

‘Always were a goody-two-shoes, you.’

‘If I had been I wouldn’t have been where I have.’

Lee lit the cigar and watched the smoke drift away from him as he blew it out. ‘Look, it ain’t a problem, I just want to catch up.’

‘Oh right,
old times and that.’

‘No. Old times are done. New times.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I could put something in your way.’

‘No thanks.’

‘Legit. I’m done with all that stuff. Doesn’t it look like it?’

Andy looked over the leather jacket, well-cut trousers. Cigar. Car. ‘Not really,’ he said.

‘Come up to my new place. Meet the wife.’

‘What sort of girl’d marry you?’

‘Come and find out.’

Andy didn’t
want to get involved with any of them ever again, and Lee Carter in particular, but he was interested, he couldn’t help himself, he wanted to see the place, the wife, even if he didn’t want to hear the proposition.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Lee Carter said and slammed the driver’s door.

A split second. You’re not going, Andy told himself.

He got in.

The car was top of the range and had everything.
The CD player blasted out, of all things, Dusty Springfield. Lee Carter drove fast and flashily out on to the Flixton Road. Andy didn’t speak. He couldn’t have made himself heard anyway. The wind hurt his ears. He was terrified, not having been in a vehicle faster than the prison delivery van for so long.

They sped out of Lafferton and after five miles turned into Lunn Mawby which Andy knew as
half a dozen houses and a petrol station.

‘Bloody hell.’

It was no longer a village but an estate of detached private houses, Tudor style, with wrought-iron gates and landscaped front lawns.

They swung round two corners and up a slope. Just three houses stood at the top. Tudor again. Twisty chimneys. Big trees at the back.

Lee drove the car at the gates and as he did so, pressed a button on
the side of the steering wheel. He pressed another button and a fountain in the middle of the bright green grass spurted into life.

‘Jeez.’

Lee grinned and swung the car to a stop.

‘Good?’ he said, and gestured to Andy to follow him as he walked cockily up to the front door.

Quarter of an hour later the guided tour was over. Everywhere they had gone, Lee had looked at him
for approval, admiration
and envy. Andy had withheld them all, merely nodding as he took in the billiard room, the gym, the bar, the thick pile carpets, the plasma television, the wall-to-wall mirror-fronted wardrobes, the conservatory, the Olde Englishe oak-fitted kitchen.

They stood there now, Lee at the open door of a six-foot-high fridge.

‘Beer?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Espresso. There’s a machine. Lynda works it better
than me.’

Lynda had not appeared.

‘She’ll have gone to the health spa.’

‘What am I here for?’

‘Tea then? Go on, let’s have a brew.’ Lee slammed the door of the giant fridge and picked up an electric kettle. ‘Sit down.’

It seemed childish not to.

Lee turned and looked across at him with a grin.

‘It’s legit.’

‘Right.’

‘I told you. I’m not stupid. I was stupid but I ain’t stupid now. But
what are you going to do, And? What plans you got, now you’re a free man?’

‘Work.’

‘At?’

His pride was up. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

‘There you go then.’

The kettle began to hiss. Lee took down two mugs from a rail above his head.

‘I’m looking for people. Always lookin’.’

‘No chance.’

‘Just listen, will you?’

‘No. Where’d you get all this? House. Car. You don’t tell me this
is hard graft. No one gets this lot in a year or two for grafting. You was skint, you was living two rows from Michelle last I knew. You didn’t even bloody go down for that job. Half the time I did, I did for you, Carter.’

‘I didn’t smash a man’s head down into the concrete.’

‘You –’

‘Oh shut it, Andy. Here.’ He shoved the mug of tea across the table. ‘It’s done with. You’re out of there, aren’t
you?’ Lee pulled out a chair with his foot and sat down.

Andy drank the hot sweet tea. Prison tea. In spite of himself he wanted to hear. Maybe it was true and something legit had bought all this. He looked out of the window behind Lee’s head. The garden was mainly lawn and elaborate trellis, with a bird bath, a couple of urns, a white-painted iron pump. There was a single bed of roses which
had been pruned down to their stumps. They stood out of the bark chippings at their base like rotten teeth out of a septic mouth.

He thought of the prison market garden. He didn’t want to be back there but he wanted to be outside.

‘Horses.’ Lee said, following his eye. ‘Horses bought this lot.’

Andy remembered now. Lee had always been at the bookies, or on the phone to one. He’d kept on at
Andy to go to the races with him but he’d never been that interested.

‘Bollocks,’ he said now. If he knew anything about gambling, on horses or anything else, it was that in the long run you lost. ‘Mug’s game.’ It had to be drugs. Had to be. He wanted the fresh air more than ever.

‘Too right.’

Lee picked up the teapot and held it out. Andy shook his head.

‘I woke up one morning and there it
was in front of me. Big red letters. Mug’s game. So that was the answer. There’s always mugs.’

‘You bought a betting shop then?’

Lee laughed.

‘Listen. All the years I was at it, ten, twelve years – backing the gee-gees, winning some, losing some, but mainly losing, and I saw who was really making money. Yes, right, the bookies. But apart from them … tipsters, that’s who. Not your sad little
one-man, some no-hope ex-jock. Top stuff. Classy. Like an exclusive club. I paid out a fortune in my day to them tipping agencies. Promising to make you a fortune, inside information, all that crap. You got to have something different and you gotta do more than read the sports pages trying to pick nailed-on chances. The ones who can tip the real
big winners, the winners nobody’s picked, the 10–1
and 25–1 shots, those services can charge what they like … ten, fifteen grand a year, maybe more. That’s nothing. I used to play in fifties, hundreds. My clients now, they deal in thousands every bet. First thing you got to do is let them believe it’s hard to get in, that your service is exclusive and membership’s limited. You turn people down flat. Don’t give them a reason. Word soon gets round
and they’re crawling on their hands and knees to you. Clubs do it, it even goes on with fuckin’ clothing, for Christ’s sake – designer gear. Lynda has her name down for six months for some fuckin’ handbag that costs two grand because there’s only ever going to be fifty of them made. It’s bollocks but it’s a must have. So’s membership of my service.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘LER. For Limited Edition
Racing.’

‘So you find the outsiders that win.’

‘Right.’

‘How?’

‘There’s ways.’

‘Doping.’

‘No. Not these days. They test everything that moves.’

‘Fixing.’

‘I told you, there’s ways.’

‘How many members in this club?’

‘Six hundred and a few.’

‘Limited edition?’

Andy looked round the kitchen again. There were rows of orange-coloured iron casseroles and saucepans on top of the units. They
didn’t look as if anyone ever took them down to cook with.

‘Is that all?’

‘There’s other stuff. I trade a bit.’

Andy looked at him.

‘No. I never done drugs, never will.’

‘So it’s all clean.’

‘Well, it ain’t robbin’ banks.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m always looking for people. You’ll need a leg-up.’

Andy stood up. ‘I gotta get back. There buses round here?’

‘As if. Listen, you don’t want to live with
Michelle for ever, do you? Like your own place, wouldn’t you?’ Lee gestured round.

‘What I get I’ll work for.’

‘It was work I was talking about.’

‘I’ll find my own.’

‘What, mowing lawns? You can do that here, give you a tenner an hour. That’s what gardening pays. Come on, Andy.’

‘Who said anything about gardening?’

‘I know what you’ve been doing inside. There’s plenty I know. I’ve still
got stuff on you.’

‘OK, so there isn’t a bus, I’ll walk down to the main road, hitch a lift.’

Lee swept the car keys off the table into his hand.

‘There’s a lot of funny people about, Andy,’ he said. ‘Difficult for an ex-con to get work.’

Andy spun round. Lee raised a finger. He was grinning.

‘And here was I thinking you’d changed,’ he said.

Lee Carter had a baby face. Curly hair. Every
mother’s favourite son. Never trust a baby face. Stick Martin had told him that.

It’ll never be any different, Andy thought, it’d be Carter or one of the others, or else his prison record like a weight round his neck and a brand on his forehead. You couldn’t get away. Not ever. He thought of the sleek little probation officer trotting out her jargon. Whatever he did or didn’t do for the rest
of his life he’d never get away.

He’d made the football pitch himself out of the top of a cardboard box. He had painted it green and marked out the lines with black marker pen and the goalposts were cut out of wood from the shed. The nets had been a problem until he’d found two of the little white bags for putting washing tablets in and attached them carefully with thread. It was good. He was pleased with it. Now he was going
to think about how he could construct the stands.