By CLARE LONDON (29 page)

I couldn’t remember much of my exit from Seve’s building that day, or the walk back up the promenade, or how I decided eventually which café to stop in. I couldn’t have said what was driving me right then—my anger, my determination, my fear… or my heartache. But as soon as I’d settled with a large latte, I pulled out my phone. It was time to turn into Mr. Honest Citizen.

The relief was immense when Jack answered. I would have been happy to talk to either of them at the flat, but Jack was… something else. I’d been hoping he hadn’t yet left for work.

“Max? Are you okay?” Thank God for his practical streak.

“No. But I’m not hurt. Jack….”

“Yes?”

“You know you said you had friends in the police who’d listen to me. Who’d treat me properly?”

He drew in a sharp breath. He’d known how things were. “You want me to give them your number? When do you—?”

“Any time is okay. Thanks. And Jack?”

“Yes?”

I tried not to sound too pathetic. “Are you working this morning? Have you got time for a coffee?”

He gave a soft chuckle. “That’d be good. Tell me where you are and I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”

He arrived half an hour later. He’d taken the morning off anyway—Louis had an audition at the London TV studio later in the day and had begged a lift to the station. I’d been sitting in the café, silently, my coffee growing cold, my fingers touching the soft wool of Seve’s sweater every now and then. I was glad he hadn’t asked for it back, not least because it was probably the only thing reassuring the waitress I wasn’t a tramp settling in to stink out the café for the day. Jack sat down opposite me and ordered a green tea for himself. As it arrived at our table, his eyes had flickered over my face and widened.

“Yes,” he said. “I can see. About the not-okay thing.”

“I’ll be fine. Did you get a chance to call your friends?”

He lifted his cup, his mouth hidden by the rim and the steam. “When you’re ready, Max.”

“I’m ready now.”

Jack’s expression had said that personally, he didn’t think I could be any further away from ready, but he’d kindly refrained from saying it. And he’d driven me straight to the local police station. Thank God again, he also waited until I was done, sitting quietly in an outside office on an uncomfortable plastic chair. And when he thought they’d had enough of me and he knew they weren’t going to lock me up, he walked straight to the desk to sign up as my guarantor and took me home.

I had no regrets about the whole thing, you know.

Just a huge fucking pain in my chest where I used to have something that pumped blood around my body.

I TOLD the police lots of things, of course. I gave them details about Baz—as much as I’d known when we were both in London—and a witness statement about the attack on Stewart. I could see the policeman making notes to call a counterpart in London, trying to hide his enthusiasm at receiving a decent lead on a cold case. I also gave them information about Peck’s drugs business and the various rackets he’d been running around the London club, including attacks on his couriers like Baz and me, and a few other gruesome rumors I’d heard on the street. I didn’t hold back confirming Alvaro Medina’s involvement in it all, although that was received with more grim determination than delight. It wouldn’t be an easy thing, taking on a prominent businessman. But I had no doubt they would. In fact, as I was escorted out, I saw extra activity in the office and a detective requesting a search warrant over the phone.

They were reasonably decent to me, though they didn’t appreciate the fact I’d kept this information to myself for so many months. I had to tell them I’d worked for Peck—there’s no other way I could have known enough about the deals otherwise—but they listened to me when I explained I’d been clean for months and I’d been trying to get out of the whole business even before Stewart was killed.

They asked if I thought I was in any personal danger from informing on the organization. I thought about it for a moment, wondering why it didn’t seem as big a deal now, not like the fear I’d felt when I left Stewart’s body on the pavement or even when Peck had cornered me in the backyard at Compulsion. No, I said. I’d be fine. I didn’t elucidate on that.

They explained they’d have to charge me for the courier business—for dealing by association. I could go home for the time being under Jack’s supervision, but they’d press the case. They offered me legal representation, though it wasn’t as if I could deny it was true. But a woman came to talk to me, explaining there were mitigating factors. She talked about a noncustodial sentence and probation and counseling. I wasn’t thinking very clearly at the end of my interview, but she spoke briefly to Jack on my behalf and passed me a few contact numbers. And rather surprisingly, I said I’d follow them up. Talking to someone else about it all seemed suddenly like a very good idea.

I didn’t tell anyone anything about the previous night at Seve’s flat or the work I believed he was doing to cover that up. I wouldn’t forget it, but I found I could reconcile filing that away in Seve’s world—at least if it kept him safe.

I just wasn’t sure if I’d ever know one way or another.

THEY found Baz’s body a couple of days later. Jack’s friend in the police generously kept us posted as much as he could. The body was rolled in a plastic tarpaulin from a nearby building site and wedged down between two rubbish bins behind a local takeaway restaurant. There was no evidence of where he might have actually died. Rats and foxes rifled around all the bins and there’d been rain during those nights, making forensic investigation that much more difficult—to say nothing of the rumpus over Health and Safety issues for the unlucky restaurant. However, there was still enough left to give DNA samples, and the last I heard, Baz was being matched to two other knife attacks around Soho and several robberies in Brighton. And they were still checking. Baz didn’t have any money on him, but there were some stolen credit cards in his pocket, a few items of jewelry, and a red cigarette lighter with an Arsenal crest. I knew this because the police had phoned me directly just to check if I knew any of the names on the cards or owners of the jewelry. I didn’t, but I could identify the lighter as Stewart’s. There were plenty of those souvenir lighters in circulation, of course, but one of the London kids had scraped their initials on Stewart’s at one time. I was able to describe it very clearly, as it was the one I’d borrowed from him—the one that had been in my pocket for so many months. Along with my witness statement, it was vital physical evidence tying Baz to the murder.

That evidence had been a shock to me. I realized Seve must have taken the lighter from me in the flat, picking it out of the stuff I’d left overnight on his living room table. I’d been too disturbed the next morning to check whether I had everything when I left. I was bloody glad it had helped to pin Stewart’s murder on Baz, and I was impressed with Seve too. That must have taken some quick-thinking “arrangement.”

Jack’s contact told us that the Drugs Squad piled into the Medina business empire like it was a day out at the beach—full of enthusiasm and long days involving packed lunches. We got all the news secondhand, but that was okay by me. Despite what I’d said to the police, I was worried about repercussions, although it seemed there were no links to Brighton except the fact that Medina had recently opened another club here. Maybe Uncle Alvaro had planned to expand on the south coast but hadn’t found the opportunity to start yet. Or maybe there was a reason he’d stepped carefully, unsure of his nephew’s appetite for that kind of trade. Whatever, I didn’t really relax until they’d found Peck.

They ran him to ground back in London. He must have fled back there as soon as he heard the police were back on the trail. He must have wondered what had happened to Baz—what had gone wrong with his plan to shut us up. I’m sure he thought it was a strategic retreat to lie low for a while. But other people must have heard he was vulnerable and on the run.

By the time the cops came to call at his seedy flat in Hackney, he was no longer available to help with their inquiries. He’d succumbed to an unfortunate accident and was found dead in his bed, apparently a victim of accidental overdose with his own drugs. There were plenty of other supplies and evidence in his place to incriminate him and the London club in the local Soho drug trade.

A quiet word later from Jack’s contact told us that the police thought Peck had been into a sadomasochistic lifestyle, because they’d found the marks of ropes and wires on his body. A search of his flat had found a weird selection of sex toys and provocative publications, as they called them. I knew Peck had never been interested in anything like that, but a few of the street kids I’d known would have had no trouble trussing him up, especially if there was a group of them involved. After all, they’d have needed to keep him still while they pumped the drugs into him and scattered damning evidence around the flat.

I had no proof anything like that had happened at all. I just hoped it had. Revenge would have been sweet.

The Medina business empire seemed to fold into itself with little fuss except for a brief shock/horror period in the financial press. I admit I went looking at the library again just to see what was reported. There were no high-profile arrests—presumably the lawyers were good enough to protect the Medina family from that for a while, at least—but it took its toll on the business. The stock price plummeted, several subsidiaries that had been under suspicion were quickly closed down, and the announcement went out that the whole chain of leisure clubs would be divested to new owners. Mr. Alvaro Medina resigned from the board “for personal reasons,” which probably included finding the time to fight various fraud and criminal charges—as alleged.

There were a few quotes in the papers from Mrs. Maria Nuñez, Alvaro’s sister, currently residing in Spain. She had been cleared of any involvement and had contributed many incriminating documents from her brother’s business to the police investigation. She was considering taking control of the board to see what could be recovered from the scandal.

There were no quotes from her son, no mention of him at all. A few gossip columns mourned the fact he’d not been heard of recently. Someone even interviewed the boy band, but whatever little they might have had to say, I didn’t bother reading it.

Otherwise, no news at all.

I WAS put on probation in the end. A great relief for us all. It seemed my help in wrapping up the drugs business in London and Baz’s nightmare reign had outweighed my criminal time in Peck’s employment. Louis did some more blubbing when Jack confessed he’d put in a good word for me. Must have taken a few thousand words, but I was truly grateful. And even more humbling, I found out my boss at the site had spoken on my behalf too. My job was still open, I had my freedom apart from a weekly checkin with my probation officer, and the door was closing on my old, bad past.

Socially speaking, I made a big effort to come out of my shell. I made sure no one saw me moping about too often. I went clubbing regularly with Jack and Louis, joined Harry and the Vs at the cabaret bars several times, and I sat bravely through many more soap opera TV nights with Louis and the gang. His TV character had really taken off with the public. The producers were talking about a romantic storyline with one of the main male stars. It’d be a pleasant change if he didn’t play either a token gay man or a tragic loser to be killed off—and I knew Louis was working slyly on making sure that didn’t happen. He deserved the success.

And the TV work was a good thing, because his dancing career had stalled for a while. Compulsion had been closed by the police because of the investigation, and it hadn’t reopened yet. A couple of other entertainment groups were interested in taking it over—including that well-known club owner with the too-long blond hair and too-orange tan—but with both the Drugs Squad and the Fraud Squad on the case, the Group’s assets weren’t being allowed on the market any time soon. I didn’t miss the club except in unwelcome, very late-night dreams. And its closure was an unexpected help to me. It meant I could relax into being Mr. Honest Citizen in every last sense.

I smartened myself up in other ways too. I started following current affairs programs rather than just watching old films. I did a few DIY jobs around the flat and learned to cook a couple of dishes more than my previous repertoire of grilled hamburger and grilled hamburger with onions. I was even able to entertain the others sometimes. Jack ate anything I put in front of him with quiet approval, though Louis snickered about it the first time I tried, so I had to whap him with the saucepan. Then he threw a fork, and Jack’s plate got knocked onto the floor, and everything deteriorated into laughing and yelling and—eventually—home delivery pizza for us all. But I didn’t mind, and Louis didn’t snicker the next time.

I was happy still working at the site. My boss had been really supportive, and it was familiar enough for me to slot back in while I was sorting out all the rest of my life. But one Saturday I left the flat early and went to a further education workshop on retraining as a youth counselor. I had a reasonable portfolio of exams from the time before I dropped out of Uni, and it looked like I had a chance of getting into a new course. And the idea of helping young people find their way through the shit and struggle that was out there was really appealing.

I went out too, with Will from the library. Well… he dated me, really. He made a point of coming to say hello whenever I went around there, and in the end I agreed to meet him after work for a drink. It seemed ungracious not to, and he was good company. Plus it felt right to have friends outside of our small group and to do more of the normal things friends did. Watch the football on TV, see a film, browse the record shops on a Saturday afternoon. Will was amusing, not too intense, and good-looking too, with gray eyes and a broad smile. Louis said he was really keen on me, he could tell. Louis had a lust light bleeping in his head at all times. It seemed to work better than any military radar, in my experience. And from the way Will laughed at my jokes—yeah, even some of the lame ones—and touched me whenever he could, I knew he wanted to go further. We were both consenting adults, obviously, so why not?