Dead Money (24 page)

Fuck them. They weren't having the kind of shitty day I was.

They discussed the very complex situation of me wanting to withdraw my own money for a few minutes more, then the manager gave the bitch the nod. Normally they'd try and get me to stay with them, or at least ask why I was taking my business elsewhere. When I asked for the lot in cash, the bitch rightly assumed that the added customer service wasn't necessary. She counted it out for me, all eleven thousand of it. Not a lot, certainly not enough to pay off Beale's debt, but then that wasn't the plan, was it?

I left as quickly as I'd entered, pulled my mobile as the door swung shut behind me. "Lucy, it's Alan. Where are you?"

There was a flustered sound that I'd never heard come out of her before. "Alan?"

"I need to see you."

A pause. "I'm at university."

"Then I'll see you in a few minutes. Whereabouts?"

"No, wait, you can't, remember? Personal space?"

"It's gone a little bit beyond that, Lucy. I need to see you."

"Have you been drinking?"

"No." I got into the car, tugged the seatbelt. "Alright, a little."

"Well, I've got a lecture in about five seconds, so it'll have to be tonight."

I heard a voice in the background. Sounded like Josh, which was odd because he didn't do the same course. And then I noticed how quiet it was at her end.

"Lucy, are you—"

"Alan, sorry, I've got to go. I'll give you a call when I get out, okay?"

And she hung up. I sat and looked at the steering wheel. Didn't know why she was being so cagey all of a sudden. Yes, we'd said we'd cool things off a bit, but then she should've been over the moon to see me, surely?

And then there was Josh. I couldn't shake him. Probably a perfectly innocent explanation, but I couldn't seem to think of it. So I put the car into gear and drove out to Oxford Road.

Thing was, I wanted her to come with. No,
needed
was more like it. I couldn't do this on my own, because if I tried then my gut would eat me alive, I knew it. I needed someone to tell me what I was doing was okay. And if I went off with Lucy, then it was understandable. She was a good-looking girl, we had a good relationship, so it was only natural that one thing would lead to another and we'd end up skipping town.

And as for Cath, she'd be fine. It wasn't her Ahmad wanted, it was me. I was the one with the debt. And maybe if I was out of the way, he'd go back to Beale. Seemed like we were essentially interchangeable to him anyway. I didn't think he'd hurt a woman. He wasn't an animal. The lads he employed, I wasn't so sure about. They hadn't hurt her when they came in to turn the place over, but that didn't mean they wouldn't do anything once they found out I'd done a runner.

It didn't matter. I couldn't help it.

I parked up and left the bottle under my seat just in case a thirsty student decided to go rogue and put his elbow through the window. I took a couple of extra-strong mints and chased them with antacids because my stomach was giving me gyp again, then I nudged my tie tight and headed for the psychology department. I ended up at the Coupland building, opening the door just as a girl carrying a bag exited the building. She thanked me. I asked her if she knew Lucy Baxter. She didn't. I pushed on inside, where the staff proceeded to be thoroughly unhelpful.

"I'm sorry, sir, we can't give out that information." The woman looked like she was melting, the fat leaking over her chair and under the desk.

"I understand that, but this really is an emergency." I tried to think of any brothers or sisters who could have been in accidents, but came up blank. Fact was, we hadn't really talked that much about our respective families. "Her dad is seriously ill. He's in the hospital. I need to contact her as soon as possible."

The women moved her lips around in a slow circle and blinked behind her glasses. "One moment."

"Thank you."

She tapped a few things on the keyboard in front of her. I couldn't see what it was. Then she picked up the phone. Someone picked up at the other end because she said her name and asked for Lucy. There was a pause and then: "That's fine."

I wished I could see where she was calling. Probably some other office somewhere, but something gnawing at me told me otherwise.

I took out my mobile and cycled through the contacts until I found LB HOME, then I speed-dialled.

"Hello, is that Lucy?" said Judith. "Hi, I have a gentleman here who would like to talk to you about your father."

The tone came back engaged.

I killed the call, turned around and walked out of the room. I heard Judith sounding confused and irritated behind me. Like I honestly gave a fuck.

She wasn't the one who'd been lied to.

27

On the way to Hulme, I ran red lights and I almost took a couple of kids with me because they thought stepping onto a zebra crossing made them invincible. The woman who shouted after me sounded more like Beale than the lollipop lady she was.

When I got to Lucy's house, I parked and took a moment to myself. I needed to play this right. If she wasn't at home – really,
genuinely
not at home – then Judith at the university had put one over on me and good for her. If she was at home, though, then I needed to talk to her and find out what had happened in the meantime. But in order to do that, I needed to be calm and sober and I needed to stay that way until I found out what was what. It was all a matter of control.

I got out of the car and crossed the road. As I did so, I saw movement in the living room window. Heard someone approaching the door from inside and rolled my shoulders back, ready for whatever turned up.

It was Josh, arms folded. Behind him, blocking out the hall, was Daz. Beyond them I suspected the other housemate lay in wait, one big flesh wall between me and Lucy. She'd need more than that to keep me out.

"Y'alright, Josh? Is Lucy in?"

"No," he said.

I pulled out my mobile and called Lucy's. It rang through to voicemail. Josh made a move to shut the door on me, but I held up a hand to stop him. "Wait, I need to check the home number." He looked confused. I rang the home number. I could hear the phone ringing. I killed the call. "So it does work then. See, I tried it before and it was engaged."

"What're you on about?"

"She's here. I know she's here, Josh, so stop fucking about and let me see her."

"She doesn't want to see you."

"Then she needs to tell me that herself."

"No, she doesn't."

I stepped up to the front door, got in close to Josh, who only backed up one step. "You want to get hurt, son?"

"Eh?"

"I'm asking you if you want to get hurt. You and the rest of them in there. Because you might think you're hard, but you don't know the first thing about it. You haven't lived. A couple of scraps outside a pub in fucking Feltcham or wherever the fuck you came from isn't going to cut it when you come up against experience like me. So let's just say you did your bit, it didn't work, so I get to talk to her."

He tried to close the door on me. I got between the door and the jamb and shoved it back. You don't try to shut out a door-to-door – we have ways of gaining entry. He backed up even more, this look on his face like he didn't know if he was supposed to take a swing at me. By the time he figured out he should do something, I was already past him and down the hall, shouting Lucy's name.

"In here." The voice came from the kitchen.

She stood leaning against the kitchen table, a mug of tea in her hand. The mug read: I COULDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE ROYAL WEDDING. She was dressed in a man's rugby shirt that wasn't mine, and a pair of shorts that weren't mine, either. I could hear Josh behind me, shuffling his feet.

"So what's going on, Lucy?"

"What do you want?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"I know. You went to the university."

"Because you lied to me."

"And if I'd told the truth? We had a deal, Alan. Personal space."

"Alright, yeah, fine. I'm sorry."

"You sound it."

"I am. Honestly." I turned, saw Josh and now Daz, the other roommate, watching us from the hallway. I went over to the door and tried to shut it, but Josh kept one hand splayed on the wood. "Back up, big lad."

"Josh, it's okay."

He allowed me to close the door. "How long have you been fucking him, then?"

"Don't be like that."

"Oh, you're
not
fucking him? Have you told him that?"

"Alan—"

"Yeah, that's what I thought." I didn't move. If I moved, I didn't think I'd be able to stop myself. "This wasn't the way this was supposed to go."

"It's not ideal for me, either." She put the mug to her lips. "But you were the one who said it was over."

"And you were the one said you'd wait."

She smiled at me as if I was either simple or pre-pubescent. "Come on, Alan. You're not going to be that bloke, are you?"

"Fuck off."

Mocking now, the smile turned to a grin: "You're not going to start crying, are you?"

I wasn't going to cry, no. But I could feel a pain in my throat and I caught myself breathing heavier than usual. I lit a cigarette and puffed three times before I inhaled. "I should fucking kill you," I said, and I meant every word. "I should bash your fucking skull in."

"Why? Because I cheated on you? By that rationale, your missus should have a good hard pop at you, shouldn't she?"

I wanted to tell her that I was going to run away with her. That I wanted to take this to the next step, make a go of it, confirm the look she gave me on Friday and make it happen, just me and her, wherever she wanted to go, we'd go and that was it, that was final, that was our future wrought together.

But I didn't say any of that, because she didn't say anything more to me, and that just about ended it. I was an idiot. I'd been spun a cunt's yarn and I'd believed every word of it. I stared at her, tried to remember what it was that'd grabbed me the first time we met, and I realised what it was – it was the sex, pure and simple.

"Know what it is? Beale was right. You're rats, the lot of you. Trust you as far as I could shit you. Moment I turn my fuckin' back you're humping the first fifteen out there. And there was me thinking your lot trained their women up better than that."

She stared at me. Her mouth was open, but she didn't say anything.

I got closer to her and kept my voice low. "Think you're hot shit now, love, wait until you don't have Josh around. Then you'll get some fuckin' learning."

She screamed. I turned to see the kitchen door open, but I was already pushing past Josh before he could take in the situation. He made a grab for me, I shoved him back up against the wall and got nose-to-nose with the bastard. "What you looking at, eh?"

"Get out before you get hurt."

I pulled him and shoved him back against the wall, then made a move to go.

"You're welcome to her," I shouted. "You're welcome to the Paki
whore
, see if I fuckin' care!"