The Tale of the Wolf (The Kenino Wolf Series) (7 page)

Tabatha looked like she’d been there a fair while. Ciggie butts were strewn about her feet.

‘
I’m not late, am I?’ I said when I got close.

‘
Nah I’d been sitting here a while. Got here early.’ Her eyes were red. She’d been crying.

I knew why. This was our place, where we used to go when we bunked off: Tabatha, me, Geronimo and Longy. It was a place to hang, escape from whatever we felt the need to escape from.

‘
Y’oright?’ I said as I sat down.

‘
No, not really.’ She was dressed in jeans, trainers, a white sweatshirt and a leather jacket with white fake fur around the collar.

‘
Longy on your mind?’

‘
Course. What else? Why would anybody kill Longy, Wolfy? He was a plum.’

‘
I know, it don’t make no sense.’ It didn’t, he was the most gentle, foolish, silly bugger in the world. He didn’t have enemies, never did anything to create any.

‘
Are you going to see Marisol?’ She was crying again. The tears had started to flow. I put my arm around her, as much to comfort me as her.

‘
Yeah.’

‘
She’s not good, Wolfy. She’s a real mess.’

‘
I can imagine. I’ll go and see her in a bit. ‘

‘
I think you best.’

‘
Yeah, I know.’ I didn’t want to face Marisol. Didn’t know if I could take it.

‘
They made her identify the body. And if that weren’t bad enough they asked her some really seedy questions.’

‘
Yeah, I thought they would. I'll go see her after I’ve heard what you’ve got to tell me,’ I said, trying to change the subject.

‘
Can we leave that till Leon’s do on Friday? I don’t really feel up for it.’

‘
Course. I only came ’cos you slapped me in the head and I didn’t want to get hit again.’

‘
You need a slap every now and again,’ she said smirking.

‘
Well, I’ll dodge this morning’s one, if you don’t mind. It wasn’t exactly an easy night.’

‘
Yeah, I heard you had fun.’ She grinned.

‘
I don't even want to think about it. The only good bit was Boom-Boom made some friends.’

She was laughing. No doubt she'd been thoroughly filled in on our ‘chicken’ adventure.

‘
Wolfy, I’m gonna go. We’ll speak later, okay?’ she said,

‘
Course, Tabs.’ She gave me a hug and a little peck on the lips, then turned away and walked off, forlorn and dejected.

‘
Later.’

‘
Later,’ I replied. I’d only got up early because of Tabatha. The idea of staying in bed all day had been a thoroughly appealing one. The thought of dodging everybody seemed preferable to being out and about. I’d ignored these options in favour of Tabatha, but she was so grief-stricken she couldn’t think about anything.

So whether I liked it or not, it was time to see Marisol. It was too late to go back and hide.

A couple of years older than Longy, and a lot less foolhardy, she was the one that held all the business interests together: the crutch that everyone else leaned on; the rock, steady and stable; stoic and dependable.

What was I supposed to say? I found your brother. If I was earlier he might be alive. He was tortured. He had a rubber gimp suit on and a banana shoved up his arse. What the hell was I supposed to say?

Sorry?
What good was sorry? I didn't know what to do. I was struggling with his death myself. I couldn't cope. Now I was supposed to go comfort his sister.

There, there. It's all okay. It's all going to be alright.

Bollocks! It wasn't okay and it wasn't alright. Longy was dead, and everything was fucked up.

The shop was in Acton, down behind the park. The family had lived in the south and worked in the west. Marisol had taken over the shop as an adult and moved above it.

I pulled into the Churchfield Road, crossed the railway crossing and parked in one of the back streets. I locked up Betsy, and trudged slowly towards the shop.

The big metal shutters were pulled down over the front. A paper sign in scrawled handwriting was stuck to the metal.
Closed until further notice
.

There was a door to the side that led up to Marisol's flat with a chrome intercom next to it. Just the one button. She had two entire floors to herself. I pressed the buzzer. It whined miserably.

No answer. I pressed again.

Still no answer.

I pressed it again.

‘
We’re closed. Go away!’ a tearful voice responded.

‘
Marisol, it’s me … Wolfy.’

The door lock buzzed and clicked. I pushed the door and walked in. Marisol wrapped her arms around me the second she was close enough.

Her auburn hair was messed up and she was wearing a t-shirt and leggings. She looked bad, like she hadn’t slept since she’d heard. A single moment had torn her world apart. She felt like a rag doll in my arms. I carried her back up the stairs and through into the living room and placed her on the sofa. I'd known Marisol as long as I'd known Longy. We were friends, good friends.

I made her a cup of coffee and sat there on the sofa next to her. It took a while before either of us spoke. Words seemed pointless. How could you explain the unexplainable? How do you come to terms with what shouldn't have happened?

I pulled Marisol closer to me, held her in my arms. She held me back, wrapped her arms tightly around me, both of us clinging desperately to each other for stability, trying to steady each other in a world that seemed to be in chaos around us. I looked into her face and knew it reflected the pain and torment of my own. We sat there a good while in silence, not really knowing what to say. She was trembling. I gave her the crocheted blanket that was on the side.

‘What did the cops ask you about, Longy?’ I said as she pulled the blanket around herself. It was the first real words spoken between us. The first moment of reality to invade and I started it.

‘
They wanted to know whether he was kinky or not. Can you imagine?’ A smile rose on her face. She wanted to laugh. ‘He wasn’t that brave.’

‘
Brave enough to go travelling,’ I replied. The travelling Longy had caught everyone off guard. It was so out of character. Longy was a homebody, loved being at home. He was one of those Londoners that never strayed too far from his roots, kept close to his village. He’d only had the flat in Shepherds Bush because it was a bargain and Marisol was up the road. Otherwise he wouldn't have moved.

When he’d said he was going travelling, I almost broke a rib laughing. Then when I knew he was serious, I was awestruck. A man I'd known all my life had changed in what seemed like a day. One minute he was Longy, the next, he was travelling; gone and unheard of for six months until he reappeared at The Hanging Man, dishevelled and broken.

‘
Oh that wasn’t bravery.’ Her face took on a ghostly gaze.

‘
What was it then?’

‘
I don’t know. All I do know is that something forced him to leave. I don’t know what. I just know it did. I tried to ask him about it but he wouldn’t tell me. He just lied, saying he wanted to see the world, thought he could lie to me with those flickering eyes of his.’

I’d forgotten about that. Whenever he tried to lie, Longy’s eyes would start blinking rapidly. He had what poker players call a
tell
. It made me smile to think about it.

‘
He didn't say anything? Not even a hint?’

‘
I think it was something to do with Michael, but I'm not sure.’ She gritted her teeth as she uttered the name of her second brother.

‘
You haven't heard from him?’

‘
Not a word. His baby brother’s dead and that shitbag is too selfish to even speak to me. Always the fucking same, the fucking ...’

‘
Maybe he doesn't know?’ I cut across, trying to be reasonable, not for Michael's sake. As far as I was concerned he was, as Marisol said, a shitbag; one of the people at the top of my list of people I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire. It was more for Marisol. Talking about Michael always set her off, made the veins start to bulge in her neck and twist her all up.

‘
I've been trying to ring him, the bastard. But he won’t pick up. His own brother is lying on some cold slab in a mortuary all by himself, and he’s off gallivanting.’ The tears returned to her bloodshot eyes. I held her closer.

‘
They ask you anything else?’ I was trying to change the subject.

‘
Who?’

‘
The police.’

‘
Just some general bullshit. Did he have any enemies, people who may have wanted to hurt him?’ She was smiling as she said it. ‘Can you imagine that? Enemies. Like he was some kinda gangster. What gangster? He was a doughnut, little Baba. My silly little Baba. Why is he dead, Wolfy?’ her voice pleaded for an answer. ‘What happened to my little Baba?’

‘
I don't know why he's dead, Maris. I don't know why anyone would want to kill Longy.’

‘
What? What do you mean kill?’ she exclaimed.

‘
Didn't they tell you he was murdered?’ I hadn’t intended to tell her. I didn’t want to inform her of anything, but somehow it had slipped out.

‘
What? They only told me it was suspicious.’

‘
Suspicious was right. There was a guy with a machine gun.’ It was all coming out now.

‘
How d’ya know this?’

‘
Didn’t they tell you I found him?’

‘
No!’ There was a lost look to her, utter bewilderment. The only relative she actually cared about was gone, and the facts had been kept from her. Bosley was being circumspect. I understood why. In his world only the provable was uttered. But at the same time, a little compassion wouldn't have harmed.

‘
I thought you knew I found him. I thought you knew I was there.’ The sadness was washing back in like a returning tide, drowning the idlers on the beach.

‘
They never said nothing. All they made me do was identify him. Make sure it was him.’ The anger was competing with the grief inside her. I could see the battle in her face.

‘
Nothing else,’ I returned. ‘That's the police for ya. They never say anything unless they know it for sure.’ I didn't want to mention that Bosley thought I was involved or, at the very least, wanted me to be, which might have explained some of his reticence in being informative.

‘
I want to know what happened, Wolfy. And no bullshit ... everything!’ The anger had won, the tears were gone, dried by the fire in her eyes.

I was up to my neck in it now and had to give Marisol the full story, well as much as I knew.

‘
You sure?’ I was trying to protect her from some of the more gruesome bits of Longy's demise.

‘
Just tell me. Tell me everything.’ Her voice was stern and commanding. Steel pumped through her veins.

I started from the beginning: told her how I'd bumped into Longy at The Hanging Man; how he'd told me to meet him at his for three; how I'd got there early, broken down the door; told her about the guy in the cowboy hat with the machine gun. I even told her about the pepperoni. And because the look in her eyes frightened me so much, I even told her about Bosley, explaining how he wanted to send me down, and hoped I was involved. She knew it was bullshit, knew I loved Longy.