One Night (19 page)

Eve sat and stared at her uncle, his words ringing in her ears. She had no doubt that he could have Joel killed; she also didn't doubt that he would if he had reason to. Or even if he just felt like it.

As a kid she'd known there was something different about Harry, known because of the way he approached her. And the favours. He did things that he didn't want other adults to know about, she came to realise, and that set him apart from the rest of them.

It was only when she was a teenager, after her father died, that she realised there was more to it than that. More to Harry than just the slightly strange uncle who had secrets.

It started one day at school, at lunchtime. Started with a glare and a shout and a push. Dawn Marsden running up to her in the playground, her eyes full of
loathing. 

"Bitch.  Fucking bitch." Eve didn't know how to react, she wondered at first if the older girl was even coming towards her. She looked around but there was no one else nearby and the people she could see were all staring at her. Then she turned back and Dawn was right there, both arms outstretched in front of her, shoving Eve backwards. Eve stumbled but managed to keep her balance, waving her arms to remain upright. Dawn stepped forward, almost on top of her.  She raised her right hand, that look of hate still in her eyes. Eve stepped back just in time to dodge the blow. Dawn’s open hand passed in front of her face, close enough that her long nails raked across Eve's cheek leaving three light scratches in the flesh.

Eve struck back, pushing the bigger girl away from her. Dawn stumbled backwards, the anger still on her face was joined by surprise now. Bewildered, Eve turned and ran, back into the school buildings and to the safety of her classroom. She had no idea where Dawn's rage had come from. 

As the end of the day drew near Eve grew increasingly nervous, partly because she thought that the older girl might attack her again, partly because she still didn't know why it had happened. It ended up being just as she had feared. No sooner was she out of the school gates then Dawn was behind her. As Eve walked down the street Dawn shoved her and kicked her calves, the rhythm and the strength of the blows gradually increasing. Eve turned and stared at her
, “Why," she said. "Why are you doing this?"

"You know why," Dawn spat back. "Because of him.
Your fucking uncle. Mr Big Bollocks." The name sounded funny in her mouth, like something she'd heard an adult say but didn't fully understand.

Eve had more than one uncle but she knew straight away which one Dawn meant. Harry. It could only be Harry. Why the hell was she mad at him though? "What's he done to you?"

"Not me," Dawn said. "Dad. Mum and Dad." Her face changed then and she suddenly looked five years younger. A scared little kid not the intimidating figure she'd been a moment before. Her mouth turned down and Eve thought she would cry but she didn't. Instead she turned and ran away.

Eve sprinted the rest of the way home, arriving flushed and upset. She ran straight up to her room, avoiding Mum and her worried look. As soon as the door was closed she started crying. Tears of confusion and fear. She still didn't understand what had happened, what Uncle Harry could have done to make Dawn attack her.

Later on over dinner she tried to get some clues from her mother, knowing she had to be subtle about it so as not to trigger a barrage of concerned questions. Up in her room she had been thinking about how to ask. She’d sat in front of her mirror pasting her mum’s foundation over the scratches to cover them up. She’d managed that act of concealment but hadn't really come up with a solution she was happy with so in the end she just blurted it out.

"What does Uncle Harry do, Mum?"

Her Mum, looked at her, that worried expression immediately on her face again.

"You shouldn't be asking questions like that
,” she said.

"Why? I know what everyone else does. Everybody. But not him."

Her mother shook her head and carried on eating.

"Mum!" Eve said insistently after a minute.

The woman sighed and put her knife and fork down. "I suppose you're old enough," she said. "He's a crook, Eve. A gangster. There isn't a decent bone in his body. How he came from the same woman as your dad I'll never know."

"But what does he do?"

"I don't know and I don't want to know. It was getting mixed up with his business that killed your dad. I don't want any more talk of it."

On that she was firm, she went back to her meal, eating in silence.

Later on Eve phoned her friend Claire and told her what her mum had said.

"Didn't you know?" the other girl said. "I thought everyone knew."

She told Eve stories then, stories her older brother had told her. Stories about money lent and debts owed and legs broken. Harry did lots of things, dodgy things, Claire told her. But his main business was lending money to people who needed it and then getting them to pay him a lot more back.

"Is that what happened with Dawn? Her Dad borrowed money off Uncle Harry?"

"Yeah, and he couldn't pay it back. So..." Claire paused and Eve could hear the uncertainty in her silence.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me, Claire. I need to know."

"So this is what my brother said. He said Harry made Dawn's Mum go on the game to pay him back. You know, let men fuck her for money. Let your uncle fuck her."

Eve felt sick, but so many things from the past made sense now. Her Mum and Dad arguing about Harry, the favours he asked her to do, the air of arrogance he carried with him like a stick he could beat people with.

Sitting with him in the cafe she felt that sickness again. She was suddenly appalled that she was even related to this man.

"Do you know how I found out what sort of man you are?"

Harry smiled. "Was it the profile they did on me in the Mail on Sunday?"

"A girl at school told me. She attacked me. Because her dad owed you money and you made her mum pay it back on her back. I was thirteen when it happened."

Harry spread his hands. "Look I'm sorry, Eve. I've never been involved in anything like that though. Never."

"Well that was what I heard."

"What was this? Fifteen years ago?"

"About that yes."

"What was the name?” She couldn’t tell if he was actually concerned or just interested.

Eve told her and Harry smiled.

“Oh I remember her, nice lady she was. I didn’t do anything like you said, I promise you that. Her old man owed me money, that’s true, what the two of them did to get the money to pay me back I don’t know. Pay me back they did though. It was a happy ending all round from what I recall. Long time ago of course but it’s all still up here. All my business is.” He tapped his temple.

“They don’t all end happily though do they, your little bits of business?”

“Some people need a little encouragement to pay me back what they owe, that’s true.”

Eve looked at him. She hadn’t spoken to him this much in years, not since her childhood. “Tell me about Dad.”

“What happened to my brother was a terrible tragedy.”

“I know. Tell me
what
happened though. All I know is he went with you to do something and then he was dead.”

Harry to a breath. “Someone owed me money. A lowlife, I should never have lent to him in the first place. I’m to blame for what happened in that respect. Your dad had hit some bad times so he was doing some work for me to earn enough to keep you and your mum. He came with me that night, to go and get what I was owed. The guy laid into your dad I tried to stop him, Eve, please believe me, but that scumbag got a lucky punch in, broke something in your dad’s brain. That was all it took for my brother to be taken away from me.” He had tears in his ears, Eve couldn’t tell if they were real or not.

“What happened to him? The man?” she said.

“After he’d done it he ran. Fucked off like the coward he was. That night my priority was getting your dad to the hospital, to save him. To try and save him.” He sighed. Paused. “Sorry, it’s hard remembering.”

“What happened, Harry?”

“The next week I found him and got my money back. And then I killed him.” He wiped his hand over his face and when he took it away the tears were gone and his smile was back. “This is all ancient history though. Let’s focus on the present, Eve, please. I need you, I really need you, to tell me where that bloody bag is.”

The first time Joel had stepped through that gap in the fence his heart had been light, giddy with the joy of having met Eve. Thrilled by the adventure they were on together. Now it sat heavily in his chest, cold and hard like a stone. Better that than feel anything though.

He could see the lights of the cafe in the distance. She must be in there, he thought, Eve. It was risky, he knew, probably stupidly so, but he felt like he needed to see her. Needed to see for himself how she was with Harry so that he could gauge the relationship between them.

He felt his priorities shifting. Getting to the bag was still important, both because of what it might tell him and because he needed the money inside it. But now that he was close to Eve again it felt less important, what mattered was seeing her again. She had a hold on him that made his stomach turn over on itself. She was the moon and his gut was the ocean getting pulled this way and that like the tide. He decided he’d see her and then go for the bag.

He paused in the darkness by the fence, eyes searching every inch of the park for any signs of Harry's men. His ears were alert too, straining to hear anything above the distant sound of traffic and the gentle crashing of the waves on the beach. There was nothing, just the white noise of a seaside town in the middle of the night.

The hot dog stand by the gap in the
chain-link fence provided good cover but beyond that he had a run of probably ten metres before there was any more. For the two or three seconds it would take him to run it he would be completely exposed, his moving silhouette standing out against the night for any eyes looking in his direction. His clothing was dark and there was no light in the park beyond that coming from the cafe but he knew that even in those conditions the human eye would notice motion. The fact that they were all in the cafe would work to his advantage. Joel's eyes were fully adjusted to the darkness and his night vision would be far better than that of the men standing under the strip lights in the building.

He checked his path again and then threw himself forward, the muscles in his tired legs aching as he ran the exposed stretch at full pelt. He reached his target, a boarded up information booth, without any cries of alarm rising from the night around him. Ducking down in the shadows around the small structure he took stock of his surroundings. The lights of the cafe were visible about thirty metres away but there was still no sign of any of Harry's men.

He ran again, crossing another ten metres of open space and then ducking into the darkness beneath a roller coaster.  He was close enough to the cafe now to clearly see people moving around inside it. There was no sight of Harry or Eve, just the stocky shapes of Harry's thugs pacing. 

Eyes on the cafe he walked underneath the tracks of the ride, weaving in and out around the skeletal metal pillars that held them aloft. The darkness was deeper there and the air was rich with the smell of oil. He could imagine Eve and her dad riding the coaster. Eve shrieking and laughing and grabbing her dad’s arm. The thoug
ht of it made him remember the Carousel, their bodies pressed together on the back of the painted horse. The smell of her. The feel of her.

He kept walking, eyes on the lights ahead of him, her pull irresistible.

The framework of the ride carried him to within ten metres of the cafe and there he stopped for a second, looking back the way he had come to be sure no-one was behind him. From what he could see through the windows he guessed the men were all on the side of the building facing him. That suited him, if he travelled round the building to the opposite side he would have the darkness of the sea behind him rather than the glow of the town. He stepped out from the shelter of the roller coaster and ran, heading towards the cafe but veering left so that his route would carry him around the side of it, skirting past in the darkness. He was about five metres out of cover when the door of the cafe opened and two of Harry’s men stepped out. Joel kept running, trusting in the darkness around him to hide him, knowing he had no choice. There was a spark of flame as one of the men lit a cigarette and then moved the lighter for his mate. Joel safely rounded the corner of the building as they both sucked in a lungful of smoke and then breathed it out into the freezing night.

He kept going, keeping his distance from the building until he was on the far side of it and then crouching and creeping in towards it. He stopped a metre or so from the window, not wanting to get close enough that the light from inside would reveal him. 

He could see the interior clearly, see five guys standing around and two figures sitting at a table in the centre of the room.

Eve was facing away from him, Harry towards him. He hadn’t seen the man before but he’d pictured him. The provincial Mr Big running a one horse town. A big fish in a tiny pond, styling himself on the crooks he’d seen on the telly as a kid. Harry’s bl
ack hair was slicked back with Brylcreem, his suit was pressed but twenty years out of date. He wore a thick gold chain on his right wrist and a silver and gold watch on his left. Joel thought it was a Rolex President but from this distance it could easily have been a Chinese fake.

Joel could see that he was smiling, talking to Eve, trying to engage her. He couldn’t see her reaction, just the back of her head. He stepped back into the deeper shadows again, his heart hardening again. Whatever he had expected to see here, whatever revelation, had been denied him.

He was thinking of changing his angle, moving to another vantage point, when one of the men moved to a window facing him. The guy rested his thick hands on the window sill, leaning forward and gazing out, his eyes glinting from the lights reflected back at him by the window pane. Joel backed further away, not sure if the guy had seen something that had drawn him to the window or just wanted a change of scenery. It didn’t matter, Joel knew he had to leave now, that he had taken enough of a risk already.

He kept walking back, treading carefully until he was sure he was far enough from the window to be out of sight and then he turned and ran back into the night. He headed away from the cafe, away from Eve. Towards the bag and money within it.

He cleared the distance quickly, stopping in cover a few times to check that the way ahead was clear. The park streaked past him in the darkness as he ran away from the lights, he tried to close his eyes to the rides he remembered walking past with Eve. It was easier to let them just pass him by in a blur than to remember the happiness he had felt walking with her and hearing her childhood stories.

When he reached the mine cart ride it was deserted. The
Wild West setting brought back memories of the job. The smell of gun smoke and blood, nothing like the sanitised violence of TV shows. He made it to the shed the bag was in and checked the door, the padlock was intact, the door still secure. No-one had been here.

He knew he should just take the money but learning the truth meant more to him. He’d give it twenty minutes or so, if they didn’t come he would take the money and run. If they did he would know she had betrayed him. What he’d do after that he didn’t know.

Looking around himself he searched for a place to hide, his eyes settling at last on the booth the operator of the ride sat in. It was five metres or so from the shed he and Eve had placed the bag in, a small metal enclosure with windows from waist height that went all the way around it. He ran to it blowing on his hands as he did to take some of the chill off them. The lock on the door was simple and he opened it quickly, stepping into the booth and pulling the door shut behind him. 

The metal and glass protected him from some of the chill of the night but it was still cold in there, the hard surfaces radiating the winter inwards. Joel’s body was hot from the run but he knew that heat would dissipate quickly in the cold. He sat on the floor and pulled his legs up against his chest, wrapping his arms around them. His head was below the level of the glass but he didn’t expect Harry’s men to be quiet, if they came. He might not see them but he’d hear them for sure.

He had been there less than ten minutes when he heard the footfalls and talking. He knelt on the floor, poking his head up over the top of the metal and looking out of the window in the direction of the sound. There were four of them and they were walking straight towards him.