Twenty Twelve (21 page)

Isaac’s hand flies to his cheek. It feels swollen under his fingers, like a ripe peach. He can hear the throaty laugh of the sheriff down the hallway ‘Slipped and fell?’ he replies
.

Bert stuffs his handkerchief back in his pocket and nods. ‘Dangerous place, police cells.’

Ain’t that the truth
.

Early that morning the doctor told Isaac he was fixed up, so he got dressed in some old jeans Bert had left for him. He wonders what happened to the clothes he was wearing when he got shot
.

‘Now don’t you look nice.’ Nurse Mary-Joan smiled at the gap between the hem of his trousers and his feet where his bony ankles were displayed to the world. ‘All dressed up and nowhere to go,’ she said. ‘Now hold on a minute, you
do
have somewhere to go.’

Then she called the police officers who had stood guard all those weeks and they came in and told him he was under arrest, brought him straight over to the jailhouse and slung him in the pen
.

Bert fiddles with the pin in his necktie. It’s silver with a small green stone. It reminds Isaac of something Mama used to put in her hair
.

‘Did they ask you anything yet?’ Bert says
.

Isaac nods
.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’ Isaac knows all about the Constitution and the Fifth Amendment. Mama done drill them with all that stuff almost as much as the good book
.

‘Good boy,’ says Bert. ‘Now soon, they’re going to take you to the courthouse and ask you how you plead. You just leave everything to me.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Call me Bert, please.’

Isaac nods but he knows he ain’t going to do that. He’s always been taught respect for his elders, and anyway he don’t hardly know Bert. ‘Did you hear anything about my sister?’ he asks. It’s been near two weeks since he wrote Veronica-Mae and he hasn’t had a reply
.

‘I’m afraid not, Isaac.’

‘What about Daddy?’

Bert scoops up his papers. ‘We’ll talk about that after the hearing, okay?’

‘Okay.’

Bert taps on the door for one of the officers to let him out. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with, Isaac?’

‘Just get me out of here, sir.’

Spray hits the small window of the cabin, obscuring the view, although there is precious little to see. The last time I looked, the only thing I could see was mile upon mile of grey water. Now night has fallen and there’s nothing but black out there.

Ronnie stares out anyway, occasionally dipping her finger in the sugar tin then sucking it. With her face still, she seems less angry, less deadly. There’s still something electric about her, but it’s not as forbidding. She’s almost human.

‘Why do you work for the government?’ Out of the blue she turns to me, pinning me with those eyes the colour of bullets, hatred seeping out from every pore. ‘And don’t give me any shit about wanting to make a difference.’

I can’t see any point in lying. ‘My dad was a famous secretary of state.’

‘The great Paddy Connolly,’ she says.

‘Great indeed.’

‘I guess when that’s your starting point there was never any danger of you working in Tesco.’

I toy with asking how the hell she got involved with Shining Light, but suspect it did have everything to do with wanting to make a difference.

‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad,’ she says. ‘They may not mean to, but they do.’

I sigh and complete Larkin’s poem. ‘They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra, just for you.’

The cabin door opens and Connor enters. He speaks to Ronnie around another filterless cigarette. She answers him, then pulls me to my feet. ‘First leg of the journey is over,’ she says.

We make our way onto the deck, Ronnie steadying me with one hand, holding the rail with the other, as the boat sails in the grey dawn towards a small island. When it stops at the end of another wooden jetty, Ronnie jumps off. There’s a gap of a couple of feet between the boat and the first plank. The water swirls and froths in the void. If I slip, I’ll almost certainly be sucked under.

‘Faic tuson,’ Connor growls at me.

I don’t need to speak his language to know he’s telling me to piss off.

‘I wouldn’t wait to be told twice,’ says Ronnie.

So I jump, fall forwards and slam face down onto the jetty, the sea splashing my cheek through the gaps. Ronnie pulls me upright and waves to the boat as it sets off back to sea. I swear I see a smile on Connor’s face.

Then she strides away across the beach, leaving me to trot after her, seawater dripping down my chin. We climb a bank of dunes, our feet sinking out of sight, sand coating the bottoms of our legs, and pause at the top.

There’s a field of patchy grass and weeds, a short strip of tarmac laid down the middle. At the very far end of the black strip is a two-seater biplane painted in khaki camouflage.

‘You have got to be kidding me,’ I say.

Ronnie presses on, leaving me standing and gawping. There is no way I am getting on that plane.

Valerie Maynard’s tissue had disintegrated, leaving a flake of white paper on her top lip.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ she said for the tenth time. ‘How could anyone think Tommy was involved in anything criminal?’

‘That’s what we’re looking into,’ said Clem. He took a surreptitious peek at his watch. He’d already sat with the head of Portman Row Centre for half an hour. He needed information and he needed it fast.

‘His mother must be devastated,’ said Valerie.

Clem didn’t want to head in the direction of poor Mrs Frasier. ‘I understand there was some trouble with a girl,’ he said.

Valerie wiped a fresh tear with the back of her hand. ‘He fell in love. These young people might not be as quick as you and I, but their bodies work perfectly well. Hormones racing around like any teenager.’

‘She wasn’t interested?’

Valerie gave a wry laugh. ‘They never are. Not in boys like Tommy.’

‘He didn’t take no for an answer, I hear.’

‘Tommy thought if he kept pestering her, she’d agree to be his girlfriend, so he went to the café where she worked every single day and asked her out,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to give him ten out of ten for persistence.’

‘She didn’t go to the police?’ Clem asked.

Valerie shook her head. ‘She came to see me and I explained the situation. Nice girl, actually; Polish.’

‘Apart from that, did Thomas have much contact with anyone outside the centre?’

‘I doubt it,’ she answered. ‘He came here every day like clockwork.’

The noise of laughter filtered down the corridor outside as two young adults with Down’s syndrome chatted and joked with one another. Clem could well imagine that for people like Thomas Frasier this was a place of acceptance. A place he could be himself. ‘You’d have to check with his mother,’ Valerie added.

Clem smiled but knew that Mrs Frasier was in a very dark place, and that he would be the last person she would want to speak to.

The Shaking Cow was a clean coffee and milkshake bar on the corner of Portman Row. The sound of the cappuccino steamer filled the air.

Kasia Borki smiled sadly at Clem from the other side of a window table. ‘I saw on television about Thomas.’ She pronounced his name the Polish way, emphasising the ‘O’. ‘It very shocking.’

‘It is,’ Clem agreed.

‘You think here in UK, it cannot happen like that. The police here don’t shoot people.’

‘Can you tell me about Thomas?’ Clem asked.

Kasia looked out of the window. ‘He like small boy.’

‘He began to make a nuisance of himself,’ said Clem.

Kasia waved her hand. ‘Is nothing.’

It could go one of two ways. There were those who were too well brought up to speak ill of the dead. And those who couldn’t wait to dish the dirt.

‘Serious,’ she said. ‘Is not important.’

‘What did he actually do, Kasia?’

She groaned, clearly not wanting to say.

‘Kasia?’

‘He come in every morning and ask me to be his girlfriend,’ she said. ‘He ask me for kiss.’

‘You didn’t feel comfortable with that?’

She shrugged. ‘I go to centre and Mrs Maynard apologise to me.’

‘And he didn’t bother you any more?’

‘No.’

‘He stopped coming into the Shaking Cow?’

‘Oh no, he still come every morning.’

Clem raised his eyebrows.

‘He very polite, he no trouble. He just come in, order his drink and use computer.’

‘Computer?’

Kasia pointed to the row of computers along the back wall. ‘This internet café.’

Ronnie opens the plane’s door and gestures for me to get in.

‘Forget it,’ I say.

‘Fair enough.’ She shrugs. ‘You’re in the middle of nowhere, without food or water and your hands are literally tied behind your back.’

‘I’ll take my chances,’ I tell her.

‘Good luck with that.’

As she clambers into the cockpit, the first spot of rain hits my face. I look up into the grey skies and strain at the bindings round my wrists but they don’t give a millimetre. The rain gets faster and I shout out my frustration at the growing storm. How long could I realistically survive out here?

I make my way to the tiny plane as the engine starts up and the propeller begins to whir. Ronnie doesn’t look at me as I slide into the space next to her. A clap of thunder rocks the runway.

‘Nice day for it,’ she says.

‘Fuck off,’ I reply.

The engine rattles like a decades-old lawn mower, making the cockpit vibrate as Ronnie checks the dials and switches – of which there are alarmingly few.

‘You do know what you’re doing, I suppose?’ I ask.

‘It’s been a while,’ she says. ‘But yeah. Like riding a bike.’

I swallow hard. I don’t like flying at the best of times and always listen to every creak and groan for signs of system failure, gripping the armrests as if that alone is keeping the wings in place. But this is something else.

She reaches down to a handle on her right and yanks until there’s a click. This is immediately followed by a noise outside.

‘What was that?’ I ask.

‘Wing flaps going down,’ she says.

‘Is that meant to happen?’

‘Better than them falling off.’

She leans towards another black handle on the control panel and pushes it up. The plane judders forward into the wind and rain. As it gains speed I take a deep breath.

‘Relax, Jo,’ Ronnie tells me as we reach the end of the tarmac and she pulls back on what looks like the steering wheel.

Suddenly the nose of the plane lifts and we leave the ground. ‘Attagirl,’ says Ronnie.

We lurch through the clouds, shuddering from side to side and as the plane banks steeply to turn, I fully expect us to fall out of the sky. The wind buffets us from side to side, shaking me to my bones. I glance out of the window and the ground is an alarming distance beneath us.

‘The pilot has now switched off the seat belt signs,’ says Ronnie and reaches behind her for a cool box, which she dumps on my lap. ‘The cabin crew will shortly be passing through with the drinks trolley.’ She snaps the top from the cool box. ‘Would madam care for beer or wine with her meal?’

‘How about a parachute?’ I say.

She flips open a carton of apple juice and holds it out to me. I open my mouth and let her pour. Then, with a half smile, she peels a banana, breaks it in two and shoves one half into my mouth, where it squelches on my tongue.

‘What I don’t understand is how you’ve arranged all this,’ I say. ‘Who are these people who just let you use their boats and planes? They must realise that what you’re up to isn’t strictly legal.’

‘Jo, Jo.’ She pats my knee. ‘You of all people must know everyone has a price.’

‘What do you mean?’

She shrugs. ‘Deep down you knew Shining Light had nothing to do with the bombing.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Okay then, you must have had your doubts.’

I can’t deny that.

‘But you kept them to yourself. Why was that?’ she asks.

I don’t answer.

‘You wanted the big job, to make the great Paddy Connolly proud,’ she says. ‘And the way to get that was to keep your mouth shut.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ I protest.

‘No?’

It stings. Did I want it all so badly that I let myself be taken in? ‘But how do you know which people to ask? Not everyone would be willing to break the law.’

She shrugs. ‘I’ve done some bad shit and I know some bad folk.’

A reminder, again, that Ronnie isn’t one of the good guys. I’m disproportionately grateful when turbulence whacks the plane, air thumping the wings, interrupting the conversation.

When the sky is calmer, Ronnie rummages in the cool box again and extracts a packet of peanut M&Ms. ‘Rory loves these,’ she says.

‘Rory?’

‘The guy you thumped on the nose.’

It all seems like a long time ago. So much has happened; time seems to stretch.

‘Is he okay?’ I ask.

She opens the packet, pours the contents into her lap and separates out the red ones. ‘He’ll live.’

We eat the sweets, Ronnie popping one in her mouth, then one into mine.

‘My arms are killing me,’ I tell her. ‘Can’t you untie me?’

‘Isn’t that what you said to Rory?’

‘That was different, I was trying to get away. There’s not exactly anywhere for me to go right now.’

‘Not a chance,’ she says.

I sigh and close my eyes.

Krish Sharma bent over the computers confiscated from the Shaking Cow while Clem hovered in the background.

‘He knows what he’s doing, doesn’t he?’ Clem asked.

Carole-Ann gave a theatrical sigh.

‘I mean, how old is he? He looks about twelve.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Clem. Calm down. This could take a long time.’

‘I don’t have a long time,’ Clem retorted.

‘Do you know how much data there is to retrieve on those PCs? How many people use internet cafés?’

‘But we know Tommy was in the Shaking Cow each morning between nine and ten,’ Clem said. ‘Kasia told me she could set her watch by him.’