East of the City (49 page)

To my surprise, he simply nodded at that. I don’t know, maybe he’d been waiting for something worse from me. And I was angry with him, sure, but there was other feelings too, like a kind of grudging admiration. He’d made his choice, and his choice was Katy, and I really couldn’t blame him for that.

‘Ian!’

There she was, my kid sister, coming towards us across the pavement wasteland. She was huddled over, trying to stop her coat from blowing open. 

I took a few steps towards her then I stopped. Tubs sat on the bench, unmoving. Hadn’t I been here before, with Dad? Angry and nursing a grudge against him, and him not budging an inch because he didn’t think he’d done wrong? Dad and Tubs, they were out of the same bloody kennel. But there were plenty worse qualities than stubborn pig-headedness, and a lot worse men in the world than Tubs and Dad. A bit late in the day, but I’d learnt.

I said, ‘Tubs,’ and he craned round to face me. He didn’t know what to expect. If I’d slammed down the shutters then, it would have been just like with Dad, a complete bust-up. Tubs knew it too, but he didn’t say a word. My call.

  ‘Well are you coming?’ I said, and after a moment he hauled himself off the bench and came over and we went to join Katy.

W
hen I parked outside Kerry Anne’s office I told Tubs and Katy I might be a while. I suggested they go around to see Nev. I arranged to meet them there in twenty minutes then I watched them go off down the street. They were discussing Jigsaw. On the way over, Katy had announced that she planned to go back to college, it seemed she’d already booked herself in. It was going to be strange not having her around. And it felt strange now just watching her walk down the street with Tubs, her not even knowing what she’d done, the one single worry in her head what to do with Jigsaw the wonderdog when she checked out of London.

Katy was free. Not just free of the law, free in her head too — it was what Tubs had given her just by keeping his mouth shut. I don’t know, maybe I really should have thanked him.

Sebastian unintentionally killed Dad, and Katy unintentionally killed Sebastian. It was one of those things that could have made you believe in some God if you thought about it that way.

Tubs and Katy turned into Nev’s shop. And I went up to see Kerry Anne Lammar.

I can’t say she was pleased to see me. When the receptionist showed me into the office, Kerry Anne stood up and smiled. She even shook my hand, but she would much rather have throttled me. She really thought she’d been going to teach me a lesson. Sure, she was happy the penthouse was going to be paid for in full now, that she was going to get her full commission. But she just would have preferred it if my deposit had disappeared into her boss’s pocket first. After that, any alternative purchaser I brought to her would have been stuffed with caviar and champagne. As it was, Piers Crossland, sitting across the desk from her, had nothing in front of him but papers.

‘Give the man a pen,’ Crossland said without looking up. He carried on reading, signed the page, then turned to the next.

I sat down next to him and Kerry Anne gave me the papers I had to sign to relinquish my rights over the penthouse. It was much less painful than I’d thought it was going to be. It took less than fifteen minutes.

Once that was done, there was a brief discussion about solicitors and banking details between Crossland and Kerry Anne. Only when that was finished did she finally produce the cheque for me, my deposit of one hundred thousand pounds, less the live thousand pound penalty, less administrative deductions, whatever that meant, of two thousand pounds. I slipped the cheque for ninety-three thousand pounds into my wallet. It could have been worse. A lot worse.

Without the help of Tubs and Clive and Lee Chan, I knew bloody well I would never have got to the bottom of Allen and Sebastian’s scam. And without that, Piers Crossland’s enthusiasm for the property market would never have stretched to a penthouse on the Thames, and my deposit would have disappeared straight down the plug-hole.

Piers went out the door ahead of me. As I followed him down the stairs he asked me if I’d reconsidered his offer. His offer, as I remembered it, was that I become a general dogsbody in the administrative section of the new merged company. A job for life, but not a job as an underwriter. Not a job I wanted.

‘At least till things settle down,’ he said now as we descended. ‘These things take time.’

I touched his shoulder. He stopped and looked back. I said, ‘I’m finished in the Room, aren’t I.’

He started to shake his head, but then he saw that I wanted it straight.

‘It won’t be easy getting you back in, but I’ll try,’ he said. ‘Maybe after a few years-’

I made a sound.

‘That’s the way it is, Ian. You know you’re innocent, I know it, but the market isn’t you and me.’ He considered a moment. ‘Straight up?’

I nodded.

‘I can’t afford to have you underwriting for me. After everything you’ve been caught up in, the market doesn’t trust you. I’m sorry.’ He touched my arm. ‘But that other job’s yours if you want it.’ He carried on down the stairs.

I hadn’t seriously expected more from him. I’d delivered him Allen Mortlake’s head on a plate, and he’d taken the penthouse problem off my hands. He didn’t owe me anything now. And he sure wasn’t going to risk his company’s reputation in a hopeless attempt to restore mine.

But down in the foyer, Crossland stopped again and faced me.

‘Listen, this is probably no consolation, but I wasn’t going into the merger blind. I’d checked the numbers and the people. If things had been different, you’d be running the 486 box now.'

He was right; it was no consolation at all. But it surprised me.

‘Not Frazer?’

‘Burnett-Adams?’ Now Crossland was the one surprised. ‘Took me two years to get rid of him last time I was landed with him. This time he’s got six months.’

‘He’s out?’

‘Invited to resign.’ Crossland looked at me curiously.

And then, as usual too late to do me any good, I got it.

‘You don’t like him?’

‘I had to sit next to him on the 423 box for two and a half years, listening to his family history,’ Crossland said. ‘Never again.’

My head dropped. I even managed a wry smile. Office politics really is not my game.

Mistaking my look, Crossland asked if I thought he was making a blunder, getting rid of Frazer. I said, No, that it seemed like he knew what he was doing. I offered him my hand and when he took it, I told him, ‘And I won’t be changing my mind about the job.’

‘Well, if things don’t work out for you . . .’

‘Sure.’

We went out onto the pavement. He wished me luck, then I watched as he went over and got into his Roller. His chauffeur closed the door behind him. When the Roller pulled out into the traffic I saw Piers Crossland already on his mobile, absorbed in his next deal or his next problem, already a million miles away.

Fielding had won half a victory. I wasn’t in gaol where he would have liked to put me, but my life at Lloyd’s was over. Old habits and long-held ambitions being what they are, it was going to take more than a little while to get used to that. Turning on my heel, I headed down to Nev’s.

There was a Closed sign on the door, but when I went inside the party was in full swing. He’d decked the place out in streamers and there was a stack of coloured balloons floating up near the ceiling. On the TV screens, horses were charging over the turf, but the sound coming from the speakers was pure Rolling Stones. Over near the beer keg, a few people had started to dance.

I was halfway to the betting counter when Clive Wainwright emerged from the crush.

‘All done?’

All done, he told me. He told me now he just needed the cheque.

We pushed on to the counter; I brought out the cheque for ninety-three thousand pounds and endorsed it. He took it and disappeared into the crowd.

Leaning back, I ran my eyes over the room, picking out faces. Some from the old days at the Gallon, like buck-toothed Freddie Day, and some from the Stow, and heaps more I didn’t recognize, they must have been the staff from Nev’s other two shops and his regular punters, all invited down for the party.

Then the crowd opened up and Tubs appeared, beer in hand, with Katy just behind.

‘Seen Nev?’ he asked me, scanning the room. ‘First wake I been to where the guest of honour’s still on his feet.'

Katy punched his arm. Beer sloshed out of the plastic cup and down his sleeve, and he laughed. Then the music went off. A few people booed, then someone said, ‘Shut up,’ and after a bit everyone went quiet as the heads turned towards the corner where Clive Wainwright was helping Nev up onto a chair. When Nev was steady, he looked around, holding his beer close to his chest.

‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘and fellow blockheads.’ There were a few laughing jeers. He nodded and spoke right over them. He thanked everyone for coming, cracked a joke, then got down to business. Logan’s betting shops, he said, were ceasing to trade. He said he wasn’t in any kind of shape to make a long speech, besides, there were people there worried about their jobs, he wasn’t going to draw out their agony, he just wanted to tell them straight. ‘First off, you’ll be happy to hear, we’re not turnin’ into a hamburger shop.’ A lone cheer came from back near the door.‘And second off, yous haven’t got rid of me yet, I’ll be helpin’ out the new management for a bit.’ Then Nev glanced down at Clive and said, ‘Where is ’e?’

Clive stood on tip-toe and pointed.

‘Anyway,’ Nev said, ‘as from next Monday, the shops have got a new owner. If anyone wants to introduce ’emselves, that’s him over there, the berky-lookin’ bloke.’ He pointed where Clive had pointed, straight at me. ‘Ian Collier. You all woulda known his father. Ian’s big Bob Collier’s son.’ Nev raised his glass. ‘The new owner,’ he said.

Around the room the glasses went up, everyone trying to get a look at me. Tubs and Katy just stared. I raised my glass to them and drank.

Someone called out, ‘Speech!’ but I shook my head.

I told them I didn’t start till Monday. ‘But feel free to get stuck into the grog. It’s on Nev.’

They cheered.

Tubs reached over, his hand closing round the lapel of my jacket. He gave me a couple of friendly thumps on the chest. ‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘You.’ Then he turned to Katy, laughing, still trying to get his head round what I’d done.

Katy stepped up and kissed me on the cheek. Her eyes had misted over. ‘I’m so glad,’ she said. She squeezed my arm and looked around. ‘I think it’s great, Ian. Really great.’

I looked around too, and I wasn’t so sure it was great: there was a hell of a lot of work to do on the place, and even more on the other two shops. But I was glad all right. From that moment I never had any real doubts about what I’d done.

People came up to me and introduced themselves, and the music played, and the grog went down. But all the time I was smiling and talking I was thinking to myself, Call her.

But it was more than an hour before I managed to pull myself away from everybody. I slipped into Nev’s back room and used his phone.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the receptionist at the Phoenix Hotel in Dublin. ‘Miss Lee Chan’s not answering.’

‘Can you take a message?'

She said she could, but she couldn’t guarantee Miss Lee Chan would pick it up. ‘And she’s checking out first thing in the morning.'

‘When?’ I asked.

Paper rustled. ‘Four a.m.,’ she said. ‘Any message, sir?’

I pictured Lee wheeling her bags out the hotel door to the taxi, my message sitting there behind the reception desk until someone noticed it later in the day and chucked it in the bin. And Lee already halfway to San Fran.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No message.’  I hung up the phone. Then I sat there a while staring at the clock. Outside in the shop, the noise was trailing off now. Through the two-way mirror, I saw people leaving.

Then Nev and Tubs came in, and Freddie Day and Clive right behind them. Clive had taken off his tie, the end was dangling from his pocket. He came over and clapped me on the shoulder. He told me I was better off out of that snake-pit at Lloyd’s. He said he admired my guts. It might have meant more to me if he wasn't half-cut.

The other three called him over to the table, Clive clapped me on the shoulder again and went to join them. Nev pulled out a pack of cards and started to deal. When the money came out, I picked up my coat and did a round of the table, shaking hands. They all said how pleased they were. I found Katy out by the betting counter; she was sitting on some young bloke’s knee. She jumped up when I came over, and introduced me to him. He seemed about her age, but not as tipsy as Katy. I gave him a warning look and drew her aside.

I said, ‘I might not be home tonight. Got your key?’

She nodded. I looked over her shoulder at the young bloke. Handsome, I suppose, clean cut, and a bit sheepish when he noticed me looking him over. God knows, she’d picked worse.

I turned her away from the young bloke so that he couldn’t hear me say to her, ‘Actually, Katy, I’m definitely not home tonight.'

Then I made the mistake of looking her in the eye. I felt myself blush. She laughed, surprised, and more than a little embarrassed too. Some things, for all of us I guess, take time.

She hugged me. When we stepped apart, she said, ‘Hey, anyway, where are you going?’

A good question. I’d left Lloyd’s, Piers Crossland had the penthouse, and I was now the junior partner, alongside my bank, on both my old flat and three run-down betting shops. Looking at the balance sheet like that, I didn’t have any right to be feeling so hopeful. But I wasn’t really looking at the balance sheet right then, I was looking ahead, at the future. It would take time, but I knew I could turn those three shops round, make them so much better than what they were. Possibilities, that’s what I saw. Possibilities to improve and grow the business, and be part of something I was proud of. To earn the respect of men I respected.

My old man would never have bought Nev’s shops, I knew that. But I wasn’t my old man. I couldn’t spend the est of my life down on the rails at the Stow, taking on all comers, it just wasn’t me. And after what I’d seen lately, I knew I couldn’t go back to being a suit in the City. That wasn’t me either, not any more.