Dangerous (40 page)

‘Do yourself a favour,’ said Henry. ‘Don’t. Not about this.’

‘I have to,’ said Clara. ‘Right now.’

Henry shrugged. ‘Well, on your own head be it.’

102

Sasha opened the door to the fourth-floor flat off Regent Street when Clara knocked on it not an hour after her talk with Henry.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. Her eyes slipped past Clara and fastened on Liam.

‘She in?’ asked Clara.

Sasha shook her head.

‘I’ll wait then,’ said Clara, and pushed past her into the room with the dusty couches and the dream-catchers and the faint sickly sweet lingering smell of pot in the stuffy air. There was a new telephone on a side table. She sat down on one of the couches, Liam remained outside the door.

‘She could be ages,’ said Sasha.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Clara.

‘You want some herbal tea or something?’

‘No. Thanks.’

‘Is it urgent then?’ she asked.

Clara gave her a steady-eyed stare. ‘It’s private,’ she said, and Sasha gave up all attempts at social intercourse and went off to her room.

Bernie came in over an hour later. She looked surprised to find Clara waiting for her, and not particularly pleased about it either.

‘Blimey, what brings you here again?’ she asked, coming in and decanting a bag of groceries onto a side table. ‘Did you find Henry?’

Clara opened her mouth to speak and Sasha’s bedroom door opened. Sasha came out, pulling on a pink-and-blue patchwork coat.

‘Going out,’ she said to the room at large, and left, pushing past Liam outside the flat door.

‘OK,’ said Bernie, flopping down on the couch opposite Clara. ‘Did you find him?’ she repeated.

‘Yeah. I did.’

‘And?’

Clara swallowed hard and looked at her sister. Sweet, gentle, jittery little Bernie. ‘He told me a couple of things. Things I couldn’t quite make sense of.’

‘Oh? What?’ Bernie fished in her handbag, pulled out a packet of Capstan cigarettes and a silver lighter. She took out a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled luxuriously. ‘God, that’s better,’ she sighed. She held out the packet. ‘Want one?’

‘No thanks.’

‘So what were these things he told you?’

Bernie inhaled again, then blew out a dragon’s-breath of blue smoke through her nostrils.

‘About Frank’s dog. And the pound note he was supposed to have stolen, remember that?’ asked Clara.

Bernie’s eyes narrowed as she squinted against the smoke. ‘Yeah, of course I do. Why?’

‘Henry said he wasn’t the only person in the house. And he was right, of course. There was also me. And you.’

Bernie’s gaze flickered down and to the left, fastening upon something on the couch. She picked off a speck of lint, dropped it onto the carpet. Then she twitched and gave a little laugh. ‘What, he’s trying to say he didn’t do those things? Come on!’

‘That’s what he’s saying, yes. And I know
I
didn’t. I wasn’t even in the house at the time when Attila was killed. Which only leaves you, Bernie. Only you.’

Bernie was nodding slowly. She took another deep drag of the cigarette and then rested her head against the high back of the couch, blowing out smoke in a leisurely stream from her open mouth as her eyes rested on the ceiling.

‘You got nothing to say about it?’ asked Clara, as the silence lengthened.

Bernie’s head tilted forward again and her eyes fastened on Clara’s. She smiled, but it was a smile without warmth.

‘I got plenty to say,’ she said. ‘But trust me – you won’t want to hear it.’

‘Try me,’ said Clara.

Bernie crossed her legs and watched Clara, saying nothing. Then she took another drag of her cigarette and said: ‘OK. Settle in, Clara. You sitting comfortably? Then I’ll tell you a story. Only it’s not a story at all, not a made-up one. This one is
real
.’

103

Henry sent Joey back to Sears’s place with the car, hoping he’d say nothing about seeing him with his sister. Then, making sure he was unobserved, he walked quickly over to the Oak and told the bouncer on the door that he wanted to talk to Redmayne.

‘You’re Sears’s boy,’ said the bouncer, looking at Henry with unfriendly eyes.

‘Yeah. But I want to talk to Redmayne. It’s urgent.’

‘Got a message from Sears then?’

‘No, it’s a message from
me
. I’m Redmayne’s brother-in-law, you know.’

‘No, you’re fucking not. You’re Sears’s boy,’ repeated the bouncer, and hauled Henry inside and frisked him. Meanwhile, he called one of the bar staff and had them dial through to upstairs, tell Marcus he had a visitor.

Satisfied Henry wasn’t carrying anything he shouldn’t, the bouncer pushed him into the bar.

‘Sit there,’ he said, and shoved Henry down onto a bar stool. The staff moved around, watching Henry curiously while cleaning glasses and restocking the optics.

Marcus came down within five minutes and stopped when he saw who was there.

‘You wanted to speak to me?’ he asked, coming over to where Henry sat.

‘Not really,’ said Henry. He was furious with himself for coming here, for weakening. Clara was his enemy, she had been against him all his life. Blaming him, sending him away, everything
his
fault, always
his
fault.

But . . . she was also his sister. And blood was blood, after all. He had a strong feeling that she was walking into things that she couldn’t begin to deal with. That opening a can of worms about all the shit they’d lived with could be a bad move. A
terrible
move. Push a rat into a corner and it would fly at your throat. Cornered, accused, he had a queasy feeling that Bernie might react the same way.

He hated that he was worried about Clara. But it was a fact; he was. She was, despite it all, despite
everything
, his blood. And she had tried to do her best for him, he knew that. So he’d had to come here, against his own better judgement.

‘What is it?’ asked Marcus, watching Henry closely.

‘It’s Clara,’ said Henry. ‘There’s something you should know . . . ’

104

For a long time Bernie said nothing. Then slowly, quietly, she began to speak.

‘You got yourself married off to Frank to get us out of that place owned by Lenny Lynch, you remember?’ said Bernie.

Clara nodded. How could she forget? She could remember even now how miserable, how trapped, how desperate she had felt back then. But she had made a choice; the only possible choice, in the circumstances.

‘The coppers were coming, weren’t they? The doctor knew you were under age and we – me and Henry – were going to get taken into care. Probably you too, I suppose. Turns out, that would have been better, but what did any of us know? Talk about Babes in the Wood. And you took charge, didn’t you, Clara. Like always.’

‘I did what I thought was best, Bernie. For all of us.’ She had, too. Allied herself to an old man, submitted herself to a sham marriage, she’d done all that to make sure the family stayed together and had food on the table. She’d done more than her best, she’d done
everything
for them.

‘So off we ran to Frank’s place, Frank who used to collect the rent from us with that dog, that fucking thing, alongside him. I couldn’t believe you’d done that at first, because I’d always been so terrified of his rap at the door.’

Clara thought back. Bernie had always cringed at the sight of Frank at the door, Frank wearing his old brown leather coat, the snarling dog at his side.

‘Show me a brown leather coat to this day and I still feel pretty much the same,’ said Bernie.

‘You weren’t frightened of Frank once you got used to him, though – were you?’ asked Clara, perturbed. She had always thought it was the
dog
that frightened Bernie. Not Frank himself. The thought made her anxious and uneasy.

‘Frightened? No. I got used to it.’ Bernie stubbed out the remains of her cigarette and quickly lit another, inhaling deeply before continuing. ‘But you know what I think? I think something
died
in me the day we moved in there.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Clara.

‘You remember that first night we got there? When he was drunk and he tried to get in the bedroom door?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Well, that set the scene for me.’

What Clara was thinking now was too horrible to give voice to.

Bernie’s face was sneering as she stared at her sister. ‘No one ever fucked with Clara, did they? You were always the tough one. I know you marked Frank’s card for him the very next morning. Made the boundaries very clear. Only they were just
your
boundaries. They didn’t apply to me.’

I’ll be your wife
, Clara remembered saying to him in the kitchen, when she’d slashed him with the carving knife.

But . . . oh shit, now Clara was starting to feel bile rising in her throat . . . had the lines between her and Bernie been blurred in Frank’s eyes? He’d taken on Clara, Henry and Bernie. They were part of a package, never to be split apart.

Clara swallowed hard. Then again. Finally she was able to get the words out. ‘Did . . . are you saying that Frank interfered with you? Is that what you’re saying, Bernie?’

Bernie looked at her with expressionless eyes. ‘Whenever you weren’t around, there he’d be. Waiting to pounce on me. On poor innocent little Bernie, so sweet-tempered, so accommodating.’ Bitterness laced her voice now. She let out a harsh, tremulous laugh. ‘Jesus, I was so glad when he died. If he’d lived any longer, you know what? I’d have
poisoned
the bastard.’

105

After that, Clara had to excuse herself. She asked for the loo, and Bernie directed her out along the hall. Liam looked at her white, waxen face curiously, but said nothing as she passed him by. Once in the toilet with the door securely locked, Clara lifted the lid on the stained and reeking communal toilet and vomited hard into the pan. She retched until only clear bile came up, thinking all the time
Oh God, Bernie . . . oh, Frank, you fucking shit.

She had done everything for her family but in the end it turned out she had not done anywhere near enough. She had not saved Bernie from an elderly man’s depredations, in fact she had done worse: she had delivered her to his door. She had placed her in harm’s way.

God forgive me, I didn’t know. How could I know . . . ?

Composing herself, empty of sickness, Clara flushed the chain and turned to the sink. No soap. She rinsed her mouth, splashed her face with cold refreshing water. Looking around for a towel, she found none and so she wiped her face and hands on her dress. There was no mirror in there and she felt glad about that; she must look a fright.

She unlocked the door, went back along the hall, past Liam, and into the overheated, pot-stinking room again. Bernie was still sitting on the couch; she was on her third cigarette now. Chain-smoking – when had she started doing that?

Clara took her place opposite Bernie again and looked at her steadily. Clara’s heart was still racing, her stomach screwed up with tension, and her mind was turning it all over, thinking
Could I have seen the signs? Did I miss anything that would have told me what was happening?

But she remembered nothing. Whatever Frank had done, he had done in secret, stealthily, creepy as a spider, waiting for her back to turn and then leaping in.

‘The pound note. You said you found it in Henry’s bed,’ said Clara.

‘I lied.’

‘
Why?
’

‘Because I wanted to cause someone else as much pain as I was feeling. I wanted to hurt someone, something, it didn’t matter who or what. Poor little Henry was such an obvious target. And so were you.’

‘I thought it was all Henry, but he said it was you. God, Bernie, why?
Why?
’

‘He said he’d never tell,’ said Bernie.

Clara’s heart seemed to twist in her chest. That was the cry of a child, of the dear sweet Bernie she had always known. Not some monster who could steal from her own sister, burn an animal to death, and let her innocent brother take the blame.

‘I pushed him into it,’ said Clara. ‘Don’t blame Henry.’

‘I don’t. Not at all. I blame
you
.’ Suddenly Bernie’s tone was vicious. She pushed back her long sleeve. ‘Look at this, Clara. Look at what you’ve done to me.’

Clara looked and felt her stomach turn over with horror. There were countless red weals on Bernie’s arm. They looked like slash marks from a razor or a knife.

Bernie always wore long sleeves.

How long had she been doing this to herself? Months? Years? Forever?

‘Sometimes it helps,’ said Bernie with a crazy laugh. ‘If I cut myself, sometimes it just feels better, takes the pressure off, you know? That’s how it felt when I burned the dog.’

‘Frank’s dog,’ said Clara, aware that her voice was shaking.

‘Oh, I enjoyed that. That fucking thing. I hated it.’

‘And you let Henry take the blame. You let me think the worst of him.’

‘He knew I did it. He caught me in the act. And I told him that if he gave me away, if he didn’t take the blame, then I would be put away in jail and it would all be his fault.’

‘So he covered for you.’ Clara could see how this would happen: Henry, dragged from pillar to post all his childhood, had craved stability. Bernie’s actions had threatened that. And he would have wanted to protect his sister, to smooth these awful incidents over . . . yes, he would have covered for her. Of course he would.

‘Jesus, Bernie, I’m sorry,’ said Clara, her voice breaking.

But Bernie only shrugged. ‘You will be,’ she said flatly, and it sounded like a threat.

106

Clara was staring at her sister, at this hostile
stranger
, searching for some remnant of Bernie, the real Bernie, the kind and gentle girl she had once been.

Or pretended to be.

Because, for much of her life, that’s all Bernie had been: a pretence. Deep down she had been wounded, hurt beyond belief. Dragged into a situation in which she felt powerless. Clara’s heart bled for her, but at the same time she felt a shiver of complete revulsion. Who could do those things that Bernie had done? Who but a cold-blooded person, someone without any human feelings.