East of the City (35 page)

‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘Jesus fuckin’ shit.’

‘I can’t go home, Tubs.’

A hand came out from under the sink, the fingers opening and closing. ‘Pliers.’

I dug through the pile of tools and junk on the table. Handed him the pliers. ‘If I go home he’ll arrest me.’

‘I thought you said you only run because he tried it on at work.’

‘I did.’

Tubs grunted some more. His shirt strained open between the buttons, his white belly wobbled. ‘Home,’ he said. ‘That’s not work.’

‘I don’t want to get arrested anywhere, Tubs, okay?' Getting up, I went and stood by the back door. The yard was a mess, overgrown with weeds, and the sheets on the washing line were tangled together, they wouldn’t be dry in a week. It never used to be like that, not when Mrs Laszlo still had all her marbles.

‘You angling for a bed?’ Tubs rolled out from under the sink. He propped himself against the cupboard, breathing hard. His face was almost purple.

‘I’ll be right.’

‘Yeah. The fuck you will.’ He lifted his head. ‘Take the front room upstairs.’

‘That’s your Mum’s.’

He shook his head. ‘Hasn’t used it for years.’ Reaching back under the sink he gave the monkey wrench a sharp pull. ‘She can’t do the stairs.’

And the way he said that, and how the yard looked out back, I had a glimpse of how things were for him now, maybe how they’d been for quite a while. On the home front, Tubs was just managing to keep his head above water.

The monkey wrench came out, then the pliers. He tossed them up on the table and hauled himself to his feet. He asked how long I reckoned it'd be before Fielding showed up.

'Here?' I shrugged. ‘Couple of days.’

‘So what’s the big plan? You gonna shoot your way out?’

‘It’ll only take me a couple of days to get this sorted.' I’d put the folder down on the table by the tools. Now I laid a hand on it, explaining briefly that I thought Sebastian Ward had been feeding bad deals into the market through my syndicate.

Tubs wasn't in the least surprised. He reminded me he’d seen the photo. ‘Sebastian and the tart.' He meant Justine.

‘These aren’t Justine Mortlake’s deals,’ I said, looking down at the folder. I still didn’t quite believe what Lee had found. ‘These are Angela’s deals, Justine Mortlake’s mother.’

Tubs whistled. ‘No shit. Sebastian was fucking the mother too?’

I stared at the folder full of slips while I tried to steady myself. Sebastian and Angela? Christ, was that possible?

‘Hey,’ Tubs said, shaking his head. ‘He was a shit, but you gotta hand it to the guy. The daughter and the old lady.’ He seemed slightly awestruck.

‘I don’t think that’s how it was, Tubs.’

He went past me to the door. He told me to come on up and see the room.

Out in the hallway, he put his head round a door and told his Mum he had a friend staying for a couple of days. He got me to stick my head in too so she could see my face; he said that might stop her from having a heart attack if she bumped into me later. She didn’t seem to recognize me at all.

The room upstairs was big. A bay window at the front, a single bed over by the wall, and along the opposite wall a wardrobe and a dresser. I dropped the folder on the pillow. Tubs nodded to it.

‘How’s that meant to get Fielding off your back?’

I sat down on the bed, thinking about Angela, what kind of woman she was, or at least what kind of woman I’d always believed she was. Respectable, that went without saying. But hardworking too, and capable, she would have made it anywhere, with or without her family name. A lot more than you could say for Justine. But the Angela outside work, how well did I really know her? She'd married young, and I knew what a cold fish Allen could be. And if Sebastian had unexpectedly appeared, shining and full of charm, coming into her life the way he’d come into mine? Then there was the mastectomy. Glancing at the folder, I remembered how she’d reacted when she'd first seen the photo of Sebastian and Justine. And the way Angela behaved with that bloke White, she really hadn’t wanted me to believe what he’d told us about Sebastian. In the end I had to face it. Tubs’s idea wasn’t at all pretty, but it sure made sense of a lot of things.

Opening the folder, I pulled out the pages. I said, ‘If Sebastian was running a scam through Lloyd’s, maybe that gave someone a reason to kill him.’

Tubs straddled a chair by the dresser. He rested his hands on the chairback, his chin on his hands. ‘You find out who murdered Sebastian, you tell Fielding, and Fielding says thank you?’

I made a face.

‘Bit hopeful, ay?’

‘Tubs—’ Gesturing round at Angela’s slips, I said, ‘I really need some time alone to go through this.’ Then I went over and picked up the phone and dialled.

Tubs opened his hands like, No problem, but then as he got up from his chair to leave he heard me ask down the phone for Katy.

He whispered, ‘Who’s that?’

The bar, I told him, where Katy was working. She’d be just starting her shift.

Tubs leant on the chair and waited. After a moment Katy came to the phone, and I asked if she could talk right then.

‘Not really,' she said.

‘Okay, then listen. I won’t be home tonight. Maybe not for a couple of nights, but don’t worry, all right, I’m okay.'

‘This is about Fielding, isn’t it.’

I told her it was.

‘I had to let him in, Ian, he said—’

‘Don’t worry about that. I don’t think Fielding’ll come back to the flat now, but if you’re scared, anything like that, just move out. Go stay with a friend. All right?’

‘Ahha. Where are you?’

‘Never mind.’ I figured the less Katy knew, the easier things would be for her if Fielding came calling again. ‘If Fielding does show up, don’t get clever. I’ve got enough problems, I don’t need you in the shit as well. Katy?'

‘I have to go, Ian.’ In the background, her boss was calling her back to the bar. ‘You’re seriously okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I told her. ‘Just stay out of Fielding’s way for the next few days if you can. That’ll help me more than anything.'

We said our goodbyes and then she rang off. As I hung up, Tubs pushed away from his chair.

‘What the fuck are you doin’?’ he said. He took a step towards the bed, suddenly angry. ‘You stir up all this shit with Fielding and you leave Katy to take the flak?’

‘Come on, Tubs.’

He pointed. ‘Come on be fucked. She’s your kid sister. You’re her brother, right? You’re meant to be looking out for her. You wanna play some bullshit game with Fielding, that’s your business. Not Katy’s.’

‘It’s not a game.'

‘Don’t get smart. You’re her friggin’ brother. All the family she’s got now.’

It caught me hard. Maybe I heard an accusation in his voice that wasn’t really there, and I said, ‘What’s that mean?’

‘Pull your head outa your arse. It means think of someone else for a change.’

‘You blame me, don’t you?

He shook his head. ‘Nobody blames you.’

‘You do, Tubs. Right after the fire, the next morning, when I told you what happened? I saw how you looked at me.’

‘You’re dreamin’.’

‘I went for help, and Mum went in after Dad. You didn’t say it, but you think it should have been the other way round, don’t you. You think I should have tried to save Dad.’

‘No.’

‘You think if I’d gone into the house maybe both of them would still be alive.'

‘You’re telling me what I think? You're wrong, Ian.’ He let go the chair, pushed it across to the wall with his foot. ‘You are so fucking wrong.’

He made a snorting sound. I felt kind of stranded then, and stupid too, like I’d just taken a running jump at something that wasn’t there. For six months I’d believed it, that he blamed me, and now the first time it was out in the open the thing had collapsed into a big heap. He honestly didn’t blame me for not saving Mum and Dad. Maybe for other stuff, but not for that.

‘Right.’ I shuffled through the papers on the bed, trying to hide my confusion. I felt like a prat.

When I looked up a few seconds later, Tubs was watching me. Finally turning his back on me, he walked out, saying, ‘Come through here.’

I called after him that I wasn’t in the mood for games. He didn’t answer, and after a while curiosity got the better of me and I went out to find him. He was in his bedroom, at the back of the house, standing on a chair digging around the junk piled on top of his wardrobe.

‘If this isn’t important—’

‘It's important,’ Tubs said.

Folding my arms, I leant against the door. I was really beginning to wonder what this was about. A couple of overnight bags hit the floor, then Tubs made a sound like he’d got his hands on what he was after. He tugged a few times and the thing came out from under the pile of junk. Turning, he dropped it onto his bed.

Bob Collier. The lettering was black on a white background. Bookmaker, it said, and then his licence number. My old man’s cash bag, the same one I used to have slung over my shoulder way back when I worked with him. It was badly knocked about, the leather all cracked, but somewhere along the way it had picked up a new shoulder-strap. I looked up at Tubs, then back to the bag. Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed to give off a smell of the Stow. It was like the old man’s ghost had wandered into the room.

Tubs got down off the chair. ‘It won’t bite,’ he said.

I went and touched the shoulder-strap. Rubbed it between my fingers.

Tubs said, ‘I think there’s somethin’ inside.’

‘I’ve got stuff to do, Tubs.’

‘Priorities.’ Tubs pointed at the bag.

Reluctantly I dropped the strap. Then I reached out and touched the silver clasp, it clicked, and the bag sagged open. I’d been half-expecting the usual few grand in grubby notes that my old man kept as a float. But there was no money in there at all. I upended the bag on the bed.

Dad’s betting ledger fell out, and a medal that I recognized immediately. I looked at Tubs, but he didn’t say a word. I shook the bag, ran a hand round inside, but that was it, so I put the bag down.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I give up.’

‘This stuff’s yours.'

I picked up the ledger and thumbed through it. Out of the corner of my eye, I was studying the medal. Dad won it in the War, he never told me how. But it meant something to him, he gave it to me when I turned twenty-one. The day after our big bust-up I put it back in the china cabinet, and neither of us ever mentioned it again.

‘Bob wanted you to have it all,’ Tubs said.

I turned a page of the ledger. Numbers and names, lists of bets he’d taken, the only record of Dad’s last days. Then the significance of Tubs’s remark sunk in. I looked up.

‘He said that?’

‘Sit down, Ian.’

‘I don’t want to sit down. What do you mean he wanted me to have it?’ Tubs looked past me like he wasn’t sure about this anymore. I waved a hand at the wardrobe. ‘And what’s it doing up there?’

‘Because that's where I put it.’

‘Don’t piss me about, Tubs.' I tossed the ledger down on the bed by the medal. I put my hands on my hips. When I saw the pain in Tubs’s eyes, I felt the hairs prickle up the back of my neck.

‘He gave it to me to keep for you, Ian. He said you should have it.’

‘Gave it to you when?’

‘Back last summer?'

‘Back last summer, when?’

‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’ve got it, all right?'

Keeping a grip on myself, I asked very quietly, ‘When did he give you the fucking bag?’

Tubs looked straight at me. At last he said it. ‘That morning.’

It was like some dreadful thing had just reared up in front of me.

‘That morning,’ I said, ‘before the fire?’

Tubs nodded. Last year, on the morning of the day he burned to death, Dad gave the things he most valued in all the world to Tubs. For Tubs to pass on to me.

‘He knew he was going to die?’

‘He didn’t tell me that, Ian.'

‘But he gave you this stuff.’ I waved a hand over the bag and the ledger and the medal.

Again, Tubs nodded. ‘He didn’t make a big deal of it. He come round when I was on my way out, just give me the bag and said he’d got a new one. Said he reckoned I’d see you before he did, to give you the bag.’

Now I picked up the ledger and dropped it in the bag. Then I picked up the medal and held it in the palm of my hand. Dad knew he was going to die. That meant — what? Finally I dropped the medal in there too, and snapped the bag shut.

‘You could’ve given me this the next day, Tubs. Or anytime since.’ When I looked up he turned his head from side to side. Toying with the shoulder strap, I said, ‘I’m not in the mood for Three Guesses.'

‘If I’d told you back then, I thought it might fuck things up if your old man had life insurance or somethin’. If he did, you’d be the one claimin’.’ Tubs saw that I still hadn’t got it. Or maybe that I just didn’t want to get it. ‘I mean,’ he said, his gaze sliding past me, ‘if they started askin’ questions, I thought maybe it was best you didn’t know about your old man leavin’ you this stuff.’

I felt sick in the stomach. ‘You don’t believe that fire was an accident?'

Tubs turned his head.

‘You think Dad killed himself?'

‘I’m no friggin’ expert, Ian.'

‘But that’s what you think happened.’

Tubs bent and picked up some of the gear that had fallen off the wardrobe. He didn’t bother getting on the chair again, he just slung the stuff back up there. ‘Fucking Ward,' he said.

Ward. Now it clicked into place. The why of it. Why Dad had done it. Dead Men Don’t Pay. Once Dad died in the fire, his debt to Sebastian was cancelled. Dad didn’t have the money to pay Sebastian, what he owed him. But Dad wasn’t somebody who could have welched on the bet. If he’d done that, he never would have been able to hold his head up again, not in the places that mattered to him. Not at the Stow. Not in the Gallon. Dead Men Don’t Pay. Tubs kept his back turned to me, letting me figure it out for myself. And I saw it now, why Tubs didn’t blame me for not saving them. Suicide. Only Dad hadn’t planned on me and Mum coming back early that night. Jesus, it was too horrible for words. Dad had built himself a funeral pyre, he’d wanted to die, and Mum had walked right into it to save him.