One Night (20 page)

Harry and Eve sat opposite each other in the cafe.  She was silent, she had been for minutes. Harry had given up trying to persuade her to talk after a while and taken to pacing the room instead. In the end he'd clearly come to some kind of decision and had sent some of his men out, telling them to take a walk and see what they could find. 

"That fucking bag must be somewhere," Eve had heard him say at one point. He'd said more than that, far more, but had kept his voice low so that all she’d caught was the deep rumble of his voice.

He was back sitting opposite her now, not speaking just studying her, his phone face down on the table. His hand hovered over it expectantly, like a cat by a mouse hole.

He spoke at last. “Tell me where it is, Eve. Last chance. If they find him I can’t be held responsible for what happens but I can promise you it won’t be pretty.”

He ran a hand through his hair then wiped it on his jacket. “This goes way beyond me, Eve. It’s true I’m an important man here but there’s more to the world than Southend. There’s some very big, very nasty people want that money back, Eve, and they’re not going to let your crush on this fucker stop them from getting it.”

She looked away from him, staring out of the windows into the dark. She wished she was out there. Out there with Joel.

Harry slammed his palm down onto the table. The clap cut through the night, echoed off the bare cold walls of the cafe. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t a fucking game, Eve. They’ll be here in the morning, they’re coming down from London to sort this mess out if I don’t sort it first. If they get so much as a fucking sniff that you know where that bag is I won’t be able to stop them. They will not stop until they have the money. You, me, your mum. None of us are safe.”

Eve stared back at him silently, trying to keep her face expressionless. Inside her emotions were in turmoil. Was there truth in Harry’s words? She was so used to his deceit that every word out of his mouth sounded like a lie. She remembered a time when she was a kid and the TV had gone on the blink. The colour balance went so that everything was redder than it should be, pink skies and sun burn all round. Dad used to joke that it made Coronation Street look like Costa del Sol. The thing was by the time they could afford to get it fixed she was used to it. When it came back from the repair shop everything looked wrong to her. Listening to Harry was like that. He lied so often that the truth sounded false in his mouth.

She didn’t know what to say to him so she said nothing, just let his warning hang in the air. It set her on edge though and when his phone rang she jumped, heart thumping and her hands leaping in her lap.

He grabbed the phone up eagerly and answered it. “Give me some good news.”

His face lit up with a smile almost straight away, a smile that sent a shiver down Eve’s spine. Harry pushed his chair back and stood, walking away from the table. He lowered his voice a little as he walked but not so much that she couldn’t hear him.

“You found him? Where is he? Have you got the bag?” He was silent as he waited intently for the response. “If he won’t tell you beat it out of him, I don’t care what you have to do to him just get the fucking bag. Call me back when you’ve got something for me.”

He hung up and walked back to the table. “They found him,” he said.

Eve felt sick.

“I wouldn’t want to be him right now,” he said. “Seriously. The boys have been up all night, they won’t have a lot of patience.”

One of the men leaning against the wall laughed at that.

“I haven’t got much fucking patience either,” he said. “Can I go and help?”

Harry waved him away. “Jesus, have a little respect. Can’t you see my niece is cut up about this?”

“Not as cut up as that cunt’s going to be when they’ve finished with him.” The man shot back and then fell silent at the stare Harry gave him. Eve thought she could see the hint of a smile beneath the glare. Like the furrowed eyebrows and piercing gaze were mostly for her benefit.

Eve just sat there, hands in her lap, wishing she could do something. She wasn’t going to give up the bag, wasn’t going to betray Joel’s trust. She sat like that for a minute, then two. All the time watching Harry pace like a father waiting for his first child to be born.

“You know that every minute that goes past is a minute’s pain you could have saved him.” said Harry. “Plus it’s one more minute where someone might overstep the mark, cut a little but too deep. They do love their work, those boys, but sometimes they get carried away. That’s why I’m here not there with them, got no stomach for blood anymore, even when it’s necessary like it is tonight.”

“Necessary?” Eve spat back. “You’re insane Harry. You’ve fucking lost it.”

He looked like he was about to reply when his phone rang again. He answered it and listened.

“Tough guy is he? How much life has he got left in
him?” While he listened he looked at Eve and shook his head like he was hearing bad news. “Yeah do that,” he said at last.

He hung up and a moment later his phone chirped. He picked it up and looked at the screen and then winced.

He looked at Eve. “He needs you, sweetheart. He’s playing the tough guy and it’s killing him. I hate to do this Eve, but you can stop what’s happening.”

He turned the phone round and she saw the picture on the screen. A man stripped to the waist sat on a plastic chair, his head lolling on his chest. The light was bad but good enough for her to see the wounds that had been inflicted on him. His chest was a mess of cuts and blood. Diagonal slashes, some shallow, many dee
per that criss-crossed the flesh. The overwhelming colour was red but she thought in the instant that she looked at the picture that she could see hints of white where the knife had cut down as far as his ribcage.

“They’ll move
below the waist next,” said Harry.

Something inside of her snapped and she blurted it out. Told him where the bag was without hesitation. She knew she shouldn’t, knew it wasn’t what Joel would have wanted but the sight of that bleeding torso stripped away any resolve she had.

Harry turned away from her smiling. “Come on boys, we’ve got half a million quid to pick up.”

He pulled his coat on and walked to the door, the men obediently following after him. Harry stopped at the door and pointed at one of the men, a young lanky kid who looked like he hadn’t grown into his body yet. “Matty, you stay here with my niece for me will you? Keep her company.” He looked at Eve. “I wouldn’t want you getting any ideas about running to lover boy. You need to forget that piece of shit ever existed.”

Eve watched them go, Harry and his thugs. Go to get the bag she had given up. She still felt sick for having done it but she knew that if it stopped Joel’s pain it was the right thing to do. Had she done it in time though? She needed to get to him, to take him to a hospital, to save him.

Matty stood against the wall obviously pissed off. He had the look of someone who would rather be somewhere else and she thought he probably didn’t appreciate being left behind. He was the youngest of Harry’s crew and she wondered if he felt it, felt like the junior. The boy.

He might be young but he could stop her if he had a mind to, she was sure of that. Those long arms wouldn’t let her past and he had the mean look of someone who’d be only too happy to take out his frustration at being left behind on her. Harry wouldn’t like that but then Harry probably wasn’t Matty’s favourite person right now either.

“I know what he’s like,” she said, “Harry.”

Matty said nothing, just stood there with his arms crossed chewing gum. Maybe he thought he looked cool. Like an American gangster or something. He was dressed like a juvenile delinquent from a 50s movie.  Blue jeans and big boots and a tight white T-shirt that clung to his skinny frame.  His arms were bare despite the cold and she could see his tattoos, full sleeves that ran from under the sleeves of his T-shirt to his wrists. They depicted a surreal mix of roses and guns and guitars that matched his rockabilly hair and clothes.

“He used me when I was a kid. Tricked me into doing jobs for him that no-one else would. I thought I was so clever at the time, you know. Felt so grown up to be helping him. I think I looked up to him a bit. He seemed so cool, so in control of things. Dangerous enough to be interesting, like someone from a movie. He doesn’t care about people though. He might say he does but he doesn’t, they’re just words he’s heard. Things he knows people are supposed to say. Harry isn’t like the rest of us, he’s broken inside somehow. He sees people as things he can use to get what he wants. We’re not really real to him I think. That’s his talent though, he can get anyone to do what he wants them to. Anyone.”

Matty was watching her. He was trying to look disinterested but she thought at least some of what she said had gotten through to him.

She remembered a conversation she’d overheard as a child. Her mum and dad talking about Harry late at night when she should have been asleep. Her dad was defending him.

"You don't know what it was like when our father disappeared. We were only kids and mum went off the rails completely. We'd come home from school for lunch and she'd be in her dressing gown stinking of gin and crying. Just sitting at the table and crying while we sat next to her and ate our sandwiches. There was no-one else around, just the three of us, and if Harry hadn't stepped up we would have been taken away from her and put into care. Harry had to grow up fast, too fast.  He had to toughen up so we survived and it changed him forever. But if he hadn't then I probably wouldn't be here now. I owe him everything, my brother, even if he is difficult now."

"Difficult?" Her mum had said. "He's a bloody monster. He's like a cross between Bob Monkhouse and Reggie Kray. Like Val Doonican meets the Yorkshire Ripper." Eve hadn’t understood what she meant at the time but she did now. That veneer of charm Harry smeared over the rage he carried inside. Like the thick layer of foundation covering the wrinkles on an old woman’s face.

She looked back at Matty and wondered if he’d even care what had made Harry the man he was.

“You didn’t see the photo,” she said and she could hear the panic in her own voice. “You didn’t see what they’d done to him. I need to get to him or he’ll bleed to death. Harry won’t give a shit about him now he know where the money is.”

Matty said nothing.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

He paused for a moment then nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a girl.”

“What would you do if you knew she’d been hurt? If she was all alone in the dark bleeding. If you thought she going to die if you didn’t go to her. What would you do, Matty?”

The tears were streaming down her face by the end of it. Coming hot from her eyes but cooling quickly in the frigid air.

The young man sighed. “I can’t take you to him. He’ll be okay though. Trust me love he’ll be okay.”

“You’re as bad as Harry. You’d let a man die for no reason. Just because Harry says so.”

“That’s not no reason, you should know that much.”

“You can’t let him die. He’s a good man
. “

“He’s not going to die.”

She stood up and shouted at him. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“Cos it wasn’t him. The picture wasn’t him.”

Eve felt like she’d had the best and worst news ever simultaneously. Joel was alive. No-one had hurt him. Which meant that Harry had tricked her and she’d given up the money for nothing.

“Explain. Tell me what the fuck you mean.”

“It was just a photo off the internet. From one of those gore sites. Like where they have the videos of blokes being beheaded by the bloody Mujahedeen. Just some poor sod somewhere who’d been sliced up. But not your poor sod. Fuck know where he is, Harry certainly doesn’t. He knows where the money is though, thanks to you, and that’s all he really cares about. War is deception is what he says, something like that anyway. This was just another one of his lies. Like you said he’s a tricky fucker.”

He’s done it again, Eve thought. He’s fucking done it again. Sucked me in with one of his stories and then spat me out when he had what he wanted.

She had to get to Joel. Had to find him and tell him what had happened. It might not be too late to fix this. She just didn’t know where she was. Didn’t have a bloody clue how to reach him. She leaned back in her chair and stared up, not wanting to look at Matty and his smug smile. She gazed instead at the lights on the ceiling of the café and then in a flash it came to her. She knew what she needed to do.

“I’m going now,” she said. “And I’ll go through you if I have to so you’d better get out of my fucking way.”

“I can’t let you go girl. I really can’t.”

“You don’t have a choice.” She g
ot up from the table. Her coat was hung on the back of the chair and she pulled it on while Matty watched, moving restlessly. She kept her eyes on him as she picked her bag up with her left hand. It had a shoulder strap on it and she wrapped a loop of it around her fingers, wound it tight but left enough length to swing the leather pouch and its contents.

"Fuck. Don't do this, I'll take you down in a minute. There's no way I could let you get past me.”

Eve was desperate. She knew she didn't have a chance in a fair fight but she also knew she had an advantage over Matty.  He wouldn't expect much from her. Plus all she had to do was get past him and give herself a big enough lead that he couldn't catch her.  He looked like he'd run pretty fast though, with those long skinny legs of his. And she hated to think what those tattooed arms would do to her if he did catch her.

She stepped towards him.  It's now or never she thought, and swung the bag at his head.