Olivia’s Luck (2000) (49 page)

No, I decided, getting briskly to my feet, no, I wouldn’t talk to the police, I’d talk to Mac. He was a shrewd, intelligent man and we’d always got on well, always talked frankly to one another. There was bound to be some terribly simple, innocent explanation to all this. I’d go and see him now, right this minute while I was still feeling bullish and elated about throwing Johnny out, go and have it out with him. Right, absolutely, go for it Olivia. Go call those shots.

I sailed off back through the house, through the French windows and marched back down to the caravan. Smiling and holding my head up high I felt that in my present mood, there was very little I couldn’t accomplish right now, very little I couldn’t achieve. I rapped smartly on the caravan door. There was a sound of scuffling inside, then Mac stuck his head out.

“Yes?” he barked in my face.

“Oh!” I stepped back in surprise. “Um, Mac, I’d like a word, if – if I may.” I faltered.

“Oh, sorry, Liwy,” he recovered with a smile. “I, um, fought it was someone else.”

“Ah.” I blinked. Who? I wondered. In my garden? “Well – is it convenient?”

He hesitated. “Yeah. Yeah – hang about.” He pulled the door to for a second and shot back inside. I heard muffled whispers, urgent instructions, but to whom, I didn’t know. I crept forward and peered through the crack he’d left. I could just about make out the side of Lance’s head, sitting at the table. Ah, so he was in on this too, whatever it was. I stepped back smartly as Mac reappeared. He came right out this time, and shut the door firmly behind him.

“Yes, luv, what can I do for you?” He rubbed his hands together briskly, grinning.

“Mac, I’m a little concerned.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, only I went to see Nina Harrison today. D’you know who I mean by that?”

He scratched the top of his head, looked puzzled. “Can’t say I do, luv.”

“Well, she’s my husband’s mistress, Mac. She’s the one you treated to a grandstand view of an al fresco pee one evening not so long ago, remember?”

He looked startled, but recovered quickly. “Oh yeah, yeah, it’s all coming back to me. I didn’t know her name, see.”

“Didn’t you? Or her address in Finchley, I suppose?”

He scratched some more. “Her address?”

“Yes, Mac. You see, today, when I went to see her, she showed me some letters. Two, actually, both anonymous, both threatening, and both written in this hand.”

I got out Alf’s receipt and handed it to him. He looked at it. Pursed his lips, but otherwise his face betrayed little.

“She also,” I went on, “has a very different account of that evening in the garden. You see, you told me that Alf was in the bathroom, but she maintains you were having a whispered discussion with him on the other side of the terrace.”

“What did she say?” he said quickly.

I folded my arms, smiled. “Ah, Mac, you surely don’t expect me to divulge what she overheard, do you? I mean, yes, you’re right, she
did
hear quite a lot, but snatches, naturally. Snippets of conversation. She couldn’t piece it all together herself, but I dare say if she related it to the police they’d have no problems.”

He looked at me for a long moment. His blue eyes were sharp and hard and I felt a small frisson of fear. It occurred to me that Mac was quite capable of being the affable brickie one minute and the hard-as-nails-East-End-boy the next. As quickly as the look had come into his eye, though, it vanished, and a second later he’d taken me by the elbow and was leading me gently away from the caravan door.

“Orright, luv, I shouldn’t tell you,” he glanced about him cautiously, “but I’m gonna now, ‘cos you know too much already. Alf’s in trouble.”

“Well, I rather gathered that.”

“Bit time, like. It’s the gee-gees.”

“Gee-gees?”

“Horses, luv. You know, gambling an’ that.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder, then round the side of the house. “Well, you know how he loves the racing, always sneaking in to watch the two-thirty from Kempton when he should be mixin’ cement an’ that, and that’s ‘cos he’s always got a bet on, see? He’s always gambled – well, we all have, to be fair, all like a flutter – but Alf’s got it bad, and he’s got himself in a right pickle now. He had a couple of big losers see, big-cheese debts to pay off, so to cover it, the stupid sod went and put all he had in the world on the appropriately named Fool’s Gold, which managed to limp home last in the three fifteen Novice’s Cup from Newmarket a few weeks back.”

“Oh! Oh dear. So – how much does he owe now?”

Mac rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask. Just don’t ask. Thousands, luv. Can’t be more pacific. And they’re after him for it, an’ all.”

“Who, the police?”

“Nah, not the police, the bookies. Gaming debts aren’t enforceable by law see, so what the bookies do is they get some heavies on the case. A couple of big leery bastards in jangling jewellery generally turn up in a Ford Capri and ask you ever so nicely if you’d mind coughing up or they’ll shorten yer legs for you, that sort of thing.”

“Heavens!”

“That night your friend was ‘ere, we was in conference, see, discussing where Alf should go. To hide, right, a safe place, like. Well, when we swung round and saw that tart, Alf got windy. He was petrified she’d overheard and so the stupid git found her number by your phone and rang her to warn her off. Well, he got the muwer instead, didn’t he, who says she’s taken the baby out.” Mac gave me a sideways glance at this but I didn’t even flinch. “So instead, right, the pillock thinks – ah-hah, a kid! Maybe I’ll write her a note instead, put the wind up her a bit, rattle her cage an’ that, so he finds her address by the phone and goes for it. Well, I went ape-shit when I found out, but by then it was too late. He’d sent them.” He shook his head sadly, tapped his temple. “He’s never had much up there, our Alf.”

“Evidently. I mean – as if she’d get involved anyway! It wouldn’t mean a thing to her.”

“Yeah,” Mac sighed, “but like I said before, he’s not a bright lad, our Alf. He don’t fink fings frough, he just panics and gets in a state, don’t he?”

“But if Alf’s in such danger, why is he still here? I mean, that was a while ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but then again, this is as good a hiding place as any, innit? I mean, who’d fink of looking for Alf here, deep in leafy suburbia? But it won’t do for much longer,” he pursed his lips. “We just got word from some mates down Hackney way that Trinidad and Tobago is on their way, so Alf’s out of ‘ere first fing tomorrow. We’ve only got your bathroom to go now, luv, and me an’ Lance an’ Spiro can handle that.”

“Trinidad and Tobago?”

“The heavies, luv. Big black bastards whose ancestors hail from sunnier climes.”

“Oh! Good grief. Yes, well, I’m delighted in that case that Alf’s going. I certainly don’t want any broken legs decorating my back yard, thank you very much, and what am I supposed to do if they come to the door?” I asked a trifle nervously.

“Send them straight down to me, luv. I’ll sort them out.”

Really? I looked dubiously at Mac’s tiny frame. “Well, I sincerely hope you’re right.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t touch me. I know too many influential people, see,” he tapped the side of his nose. “Too many people wiv more subtler, but probably more interesting, mefods of persuasion.”

“Oh! Right.” Bloody hell. Yes, I imagined he did. It occurred to me that Mac had probably led quite an exotic life – this tiny little man who’d protected his big, lumbering, younger brother from a vile stepfather, been through Barnardo’s and then out the other side into the turbulent East End. I expect Mac knew quite a few colourful characters.

“So don’t you worry, luv,” he said, taking my elbow again, only this time, subtly propelling me housewards. “We can handle it. Only I’d be ever so grateful if – you know.” He tapped his nose again. “Mum’s the word.”

“Oh – yes, of course. I mean, I don’t know anyone to tell, Mac.”

Don’t actually know anyone in gangland Hackney who’d be interested in his brother’s whereabouts, I thought as I made my way slowly back to the house. It struck me, though, that there were clearly some lawless places out there. Not exactly Al Capone land, but a shady, grey, wheeling-and-dealing area where people still got their legs broken, a place that most ordinary people didn’t even know existed. I pulled my cardigan around me with a little shiver. Well, I for one was far happier being blissfully ignorant.

As I wandered back through the French windows I closed them behind me, shooting the bolts up firmly. Now that the weather had broken there was a chill in the air and the wind was getting up. In fact, it occurred to me that the reason it was gushing through here like a raging monsoon was because the front door was wide open. God, no wonder there was such a gale. As I crossed the room to the hall and went to shut it, someone coughed behind me. I froze. Stood there, paralysed with fear, one hand on the doorknob. Then I swung around. Over the back of the sofa, the top of a man’s head was clearly visible. A dark head.

“Who is it!” I yelped, swinging the front door open again. “Christ! What d’you want!”

“Peace and quiet and a large gin, since you ask.” Hugh’s head popped up over the sofa.

“Omigod!” I clutched my thumping chest. “Oh my
God
, Hugh, don’t
do
that! I thought you were Trinidad and Tobago!”

“Who?”

“Trinidad and Tobago, the heavies, well versed in the art of subtle persuasion!”

He frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, Liwy?”

Still hanging on to the furniture, I told him all about Alf and his debts. He chuckled.

“Blimey, I should think he’s scared witless. I’d rather be hounded by the police than those hoods. Can’t he raise the money?”

“I think,” I said, collapsing into a convenient armchair, still suffering from shock, “that if that had been an option he’d have explored it by now, don’t you?” Suddenly I sat bolt upright. “Oh help – I’m not supposed to tell anyone!” I clutched my mouth. “Oh God, Hugh, I swore I wouldn’t breathe a word to a living soul and I’ve just told you the whole story!”

“Oh, don’t worry, my love, I’m not a living soul, just a grey, shambling wreck inhabiting a living soul’s body. Your secret’s safe with me. My lips are sealed.”

“Well, they bloody better be or I’m in deep shit,” I said reverting to gangland parlance. “And anyway, what the hell are you doing here, Hugh, frightening the life out of me? Why aren’t you at home changing nappies and rubbing cream into cracked nipples?”

“Because – something terrible’s happened.” I realised with a start his face was very grim.

I gasped. “Oh God, not the baby!” I shot out of my chair.

“No, no, not the baby,” he said hastily. “Sorry, Liwy, didn’t mean to frighten you. No, Flora’s fine, that would be tragic, this is merely terrible. No, Millicent’s arrived,” he informed me darkly.

“Ah!” I sank back down again. “God, don’t
do
that to me, Hugh. I’ve had more than enough shocks for one day!”

“Sorry. Still, you must admit it’s fairly appalling. She breezed in this morning, totally unannounced, of course. She knows full well we’d go into hiding with Alf if she’d given us prior warning.”

“Oh dear, poor you!” I giggled. Millicent was Molly’s huge and formidable mother, truly a woman of substance, about fourteen stone in all, and still firmly entrenched somewhere in the 1950
s
, when being a housewife really stood for something. She couldn’t understand why Molly didn’t darn her husband’s socks, boil giblets for gravy and knit her children’s vests.

“There I was, upstairs,” Hugh went on tragically, “casting a dreamy, casual eye out of the bedroom window, minding my own business, quietly picking my nose and idly wondering whether Molly would like to be eased gently back into the sexual saddle tonight – albeit a few weeks before she goes up on the ramps for her six week checkup – when suddenly, a horribly familiar white Fiesta draws up. The door opens, there’s a ghastly hiatus…and then Millicent’s unmistakable bulk is disgorged, a carrier bag in each hand – one, no doubt full of nourishing food (bits of dead sheep to you and me) and the other full of Pingouin knitting patterns – and all I could do was watch, petrified, as she cruised menacingly up the garden path like a battleship under full steam.”

“Oh God! What did you do?”

“Well, first I dropped my bogey – ”

“Hugh!”

“Then my fantasy, and then I legged it downstairs and out of the back door, just as her humongous fist was hammering at the front. I tell you, Liwy, it was a close-run thing. I mean, normally I can spot her heaving into view at twenty paces and divert at nineteen, but this time she caught me on the hop.” He shuddered. “Frankly I’d rather meet your brace of black boys in a dark alley than Millicent in the front hall. Now where’s that drink I ordered?”

“Poor Molly,” I sighed, getting up to pour it.

“Ah yes, alas, poor Moll,” he intoned sadly. “Trapped for hours, nay, days even, being permanently scolded about how she’s not looking after the baby properly, and being told how Alison – married to Moll’s brother, remember? Mousy little wifey thing? Wears an apron? Probably wears it in bed.”

“Oh yes,” I giggled.

“How Alison – God, quite sexy actually. Naked but for an apron.”

“Get on with it!”

“Oh yes, well how Alison never gave baby Hannah the breast unless it was absolutely bang on four hours since she’d been offered it the last time, whilst my poor Moll sits there, being constantly milked by our demanding daughter and looking like some mad cow, all wild about the eyes, and now about to be driven even madder as Millicent subjects her to reams of photos of young Hannah – who looks like a cross between Boris Yeltsin and a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig incidentally – dressed in cutesy little smocky things,
all
of which the sainted Alison has made
by hand
, whilst the only thing poor Moll has ever made by hand is a mess.”

I giggled and passed him a large gin, sipping my own and sitting down beside him on the sofa, pulling my legs up under me. “Which is precisely why you should get back,” I said, wagging a finger sternly. “It’s unfair to leave her on her own.”

“I thought we’d do it in shifts,” he said, resting his head back and gazing at the ceiling. “I thought I’d creep back when it’s dark, smuggle her and Flora out, and tell her that your front door is always open – which it was, by the way – and that even better, Johnny’s car isn’t even in the front drive.” He turned his head, eyed me beadily.