Authors: Tom Bale
F
or Wendy
, the problem wasn’t one of recognition – Josh’s dark brown eyes were unmistakable – but she was no less disturbed by her son’s appearance.
Now she understood the double-takes, the air of confusion exhibited by Miya and the waitress when they saw Evan. Because the figure before them still bore a resemblance to his twin brother, but only in the sense that the pair of them could be employed as a kind of ‘Before’ and ‘After’ – perhaps in a campaign against the perils of unhealthy living.
Whereas Evan was lean, muscular and tanned, Josh was scrawny, with a small pot belly, and pale as a ghost. He was wearing a beanie hat indoors, in summer, which puzzled Wendy until she realised she could see bare skin around his ears. Had he lost all his hair?
‘Oh my God, what’s happened to you?’
Josh shrugged, as if he didn’t see what the fuss was about. He’d grown a raggedy beard, and wore a ring through his nose as well as two hoop earrings in each ear. This was
Josh
, Wendy had to remind herself, who’d always disdained body art and piercings, and who favoured formal, preppy clothing instead of the jeans and t-shirts worn by his fellow students. Even at Easter, when they’d last seen him, he hadn’t looked anything like this.
‘Bloody hell,’ Evan muttered. ‘Since when did you become a henchman in a Liam Neeson movie?’
That comment – and Georgia’s snigger – broke the tension. Josh shyly beckoned them in. Instead of the usual hug, Evan slapped his brother’s arm with a hint of real force. Georgia accepted a kiss on the cheek, wrinkling her nose when his beard tickled her face. Rob offered a handshake, somewhat reluctantly, which Josh shook with equal reluctance. And then it was Wendy’s turn.
Nothing less than an embrace would do, and Josh seemed to appreciate that. She held him close, and wasn’t at all repelled by the stench of ingrained sweat in his clothing; not when she could barely find room to contain all the anxiety and fear.
‘You’re not looking after yourself properly.’
‘Laundry hasn’t been a priority, I admit. Other than that, everything’s fine.’
‘No, Josh. You’re in trouble.’ She broke away in order to gauge his reaction.
‘Where did you get that idea?’ His eyes twinkled with a trace of his usual vitality, and she saw in them the mischievous – perhaps some would say
devious
– character that had been present in him from the beginning. Even as a toddler it was always Josh who’d pushed the boundaries, while Evan observed from a safe distance.
The others had filed through to the living room. Josh waved her on, but didn’t follow until he had shut and locked the front door. Wendy passed a tiny, cluttered kitchen and two closed doors which presumably led to the bedroom and bathroom.
The living room was a fair size, made cramped by a worn leather sofa and a four-seater dining table, as well as a dozen or so boxes of books and clothes. The curtains were partially open but most of the light was blocked by a row of shirts and sweaters on hangers.
‘Did you rent this furnished?’ Wendy asked. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Yes – and about two months,’ Josh answered, then coughed harshly. His voice sounded slightly gruff, adding to her fear that he was suffering from a serious illness.
Rob nudged one of the boxes with his foot. ‘It looks like you’ve only just moved in.’
‘Haven’t got round to unpacking. Been busy.’
‘Oh?’ Wendy said. ‘Because we’ve just learned that you dropped out.’
He frowned. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘It’s what you told Ellie, apparently, when you suddenly did a flit.’
‘Mm. Only because it was the prudent explanation, in the circumstances.’
Rob turned on him. ‘Yes or no, Josh. Have you dropped out?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Thank God,’ Wendy said, and gave Rob a stern look.
‘How’d your exams go?’ Evan asked.
‘Satisfactorily. Yours?’
‘Not too bad, thanks.’
‘Good. Have to call you Evan the Not-so-Thicko.’
‘Yeah, all right,’ Rob cut in. ‘What about this project?’
‘Project?’
‘The one that stopped you coming home at the end of term.’
‘Oh, that. It’s ongoing.’
‘Why would uni set you work at this time of year?’ Wendy asked.
‘This is more of a . . . private endeavour.’ Josh had been avoiding his father’s eye as he spoke; now he avoided Wendy’s as well. ‘Apologies if you were led to believe otherwise.’
Rob seemed ready to explode. Wendy sent him another warning glance, then said to Josh, ‘Is it connected to the men who came looking for you at the other house?’
‘Ah.’ Josh smiled thinly. ‘Pity they had to mention that.’
R
ob moved so abruptly
that for one terrible second Wendy thought he was about to grab Josh and throttle the explanation out of him.
‘Need the toilet. Through here, is it?’
Josh nodded, rearing away as his father stomped out and slammed the door behind him. Wendy caught a sorrowful look on Georgia’s face, and wondered if she had made the same assumption. It was a disturbing thought: Rob undeniably had a temper on him, but he’d never been remotely violent towards any of them.
Turning back to Josh, she said, ‘What did you hope to achieve by not telling us? You knew we’d be coming here to collect you.’
He nodded quite readily. ‘Thought I could sort it out somehow.’
‘If there’s a problem, you should have spoken to us. We might be able to help.’
A quick smile acknowledged her switch to present tense. ‘Not that sort of problem, I’m afraid.’ For the first time the mask of flippancy had fallen away, and the resulting glimpse of his vulnerability made for a heartrending sight.
‘So what’s up?’ Evan asked. ‘Why are you hiding out here in disguise?’
‘There’s a long and rather pitiful explanation, but I really don’t see—’
The crash of a door startled them all, but Josh moved quicker than anyone, lunging at a spot on the floor beside the sofa, then leaping back up with a hunting knife in his hand. Georgia screamed, but Wendy hadn’t even begun to react when Rob stormed into the room.
‘What the hell are you playing at, all that shit in your bedroom, you stupid—’
Rob hardly seemed to notice the knife. It was only when Wendy grabbed his arm that he broke off, narrowing his eyes as if seeing Josh for the first time.
‘Georgia, it’s fine.’ Wendy kept her voice low but firm. She jabbed a finger at the sofa. ‘Rob, sit down. Josh, put that thing somewhere safe. I don’t want any shouting or arguing – but I
do
want answers.’
‘There’s a reason all his clothes are in here,’ Rob said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s because his bedroom is full of cigarettes and tobacco.’
‘Josh, you haven’t started smoking—’ Wendy began, but Rob was shaking his head.
‘We’re talking
thousands
of cigarettes. Whole tubs of tobacco.’
‘He’s right,’ said Josh. ‘This isn’t about personal consumption.’
‘Then what?’ Wendy asked, still mystified by the depth of Rob’s fury.
‘Smuggling,’ he said, and Wendy almost laughed, thrown by the word’s historical associations: pirates, secret passages and tales of derring-do.
‘You are fricking kidding me?’ Evan said, and Wendy didn’t care for the hint of admiration in his voice.
‘The labels are foreign,’ Rob explained. ‘I’m guessing our son has been importing tobacco products and selling them on, minus the small matter of paying duty.’
‘Guilty as,’ Josh said. ‘Though it seemed a harmless enough pursuit at first. I don’t approve of the high taxation levels on recreational substances, and I certainly don’t agree with much of what this government spends our money on—’
‘Sorry,’ Rob spluttered, ‘I must have missed the bit where you became a taxpayer!’
‘I mean in the general sense.’ Josh wasn’t riled at all. ‘It was in modest enough quantities to be insignificant in terms of revenue. At first I sold only to students, after careful vetting. But then a local convenience store became interested, a newsagent or two, and the operation expanded—’
‘Hold up,’ Rob interrupted again. ‘I’m betting those guys who gave your housemates a hard time weren’t from Revenue & Customs?’
‘Possibly not. I wasn’t there.’
‘Josh, be serious,’ Wendy said. ‘Who were they?’
‘Specifically, I can’t tell you.’ He looked at his watch, and then had the temerity to yawn. Wendy could see that Rob was on the brink of another outburst, and perhaps Josh spotted the danger, too, for he said, ‘Look, why don’t I explain it on the way?’
Wendy could hardly believe what she was hearing. ‘Are you. . .?’
Josh nodded. ‘I’ve decided I could do with a holiday after all.’
H
e was
upstairs when the visitor arrived. A taxi had been sent to get him because Fletch had no form of transport and no money.
The driver was a regular, and he tooted politely to announce their presence. John Nyman rose to his feet with the customary popping of knees and a weary, sighing breath. He was a strong man of sixty-two, but when he kept vigil in this room he felt more like ninety years old, and as weak as a sapling.
From the bed came a softer sigh; a faint, scratchy voice said, ‘Someone here?’
‘For me,’ Nyman said. ‘They won’t be long.’
He hadn’t realised Mary was conscious. It was becoming hard to tell the difference; increasingly she would drift in and out, here and not here, and the room was always so stifling, so heady with morphine and decay that sometimes he fell into confused waking dreams of his own, and for hours afterwards had to claw his way back to reality.
‘Who?’ she asked.
‘No one important,’ Nyman told his wife. Her hand felt as cold as stone, but her brow when he kissed it was burning; her eyes were closed and she didn’t respond. Gone again: drifting in and out, in and out, but always away from him and the life they had built together.
G
ary was downstairs
, and he answered the door. Pausing on the landing, Nyman heard the fear in the visitor’s voice as he explained who he was, and it couldn’t help but prompt a smile. Gary rarely had to do anything nasty these days: his reputation did the work for him.
Nyman joined them in the kitchen. The house was just off the Margate road, high on a hill with a commanding view over the lush, rolling countryside of North Kent, and nowhere was that view better appreciated than in the spacious, triple-glazed breakfast area.
‘Lovely place, Mr Nyman. Lovely.’
‘Yeah.’ He studied Fletch, noting the deterioration in the man over the past year or so, and experienced a flash of incandescent rage. How could it be that his Mary was barely clinging to life while this worthless little scrote continued to pump his body full of shit and still draw breath?
The bitterness must have shown in his face, for Fletch reeled back and fell into a seat. ‘How’s Mrs Nyman doing, only I heard sh-she. . .’ He lost his nerve as Nyman glared at him.
I don’t discuss my wife’s health with scum like you
.
‘What’ve you got for me?’
‘Oh, it’s good. Like I said on the phone—’
‘What you said on the phone, pardon my French, made no fucking sense at all. So why don’t you explain it to me again?’
‘About the café?’ Fletch didn’t get it.
‘Not the café,’ Nyman said. ‘Tell me about the woman.’
T
he story wasn’t quite
as confusing the second time around. After the initial phone call, Fletch had made sure all his contacts were on the lookout for a Land Rover with the name Turner on the side. Top priority, because it was John Nyman who wanted to know.
‘Bruce Fisher came up trumps after ringing round a few pals. Someone had just seen it on Wincheap.’
That sighting was soon followed by another: the vehicle was parked on an estate near Zealand Road. Here Nyman sensed that Fletch was trying to skip over the sequence of events, and said, ‘Hold on. So you could have called it in from Bruce’s pub?’
‘Y-yeah,’ Fletch stammered. ‘Benefit of hindsight and that, maybe I should’ve—’
‘We could have had him this morning, you arsehole.’ Gary’s voice was a touch too loud; Nyman gave a subtle nod at the ceiling and the younger man apologised.
So did Fletch: ‘I’m truly sorry. I wanted to check it out myself before I gave you duff information.’
Fletch had, by his own account, raced over there as fast as his withered legs could carry him, only to be told by a gang of kids that he’d missed the Land Rover by two or three minutes.
‘And this is where the woman enters the picture?’ Nyman asked.
‘Yeah. I’m on the pavement when she wanders up, asks if I’m looking for someone called Turner.’
‘Wanders up from where? Another house on the estate?’
Fletch thought hard, a pale tongue creeping from his mouth. ‘She sort of came from behind some parked cars.’
‘So she had a motor,’ Gary said, ‘and you didn’t get the frigging number.’
Nyman held up a hand. ‘Let’s hear the man out.’
‘I ask how she knows, and she says it’s ’cos I’m standing outside his flat. Plus, she says it doesn’t surprise her that he’s in some kind of trouble.’
‘So what’s the deal with her?’
‘Dunno, but I reckon there’s an axe to grind. Said she’d come to see him, but he’d gone off in the motor with his family. I asked if she had a key to his flat – no luck there, but I got something just as valuable.’
‘Then give it to us,’ Gary growled, ‘or piss off.’
Fletch coughed, turning to Nyman. ‘You did say about a reward, Mr Nyman. . .’
‘That I did, Fletch.’ Immune to Gary’s displeasure, Nyman took a roll of twenties from his pocket and peeled off two hundred pounds.
Fletch was almost slavering at the sight. With trembling hands he dug out a crumpled scrap of paper.
‘Norfolk,’ he said grandly. ‘She’s one hundred per cent that’s where they’re going. The whole family, like, to a posh holiday home. That’s pretty good, eh?’
‘Not bad, Fletch. Not bad.’ Nyman tossed the notes into the air: Fletch hesitated for only a second before scrabbling on the floor to collect them up. He was on his knees, stuffing the money into his pockets, when Nyman said, ‘We’re gonna take a look at the flat. You’re coming, too.’
Fletch lost some colour from his face. ‘M-me?’
Nyman grinned. ‘Beats walking home from here, doesn’t it?’
‘I-I could call a cab. . .’
‘An ambulance, more like,’ Gary muttered, and Fletch lost a bit more colour.