The Ties That Bind (24 page)

The Milk Bar is now an upmarket spa and the space that once housed the sleazy cinema has been divided into several treatment rooms, panelled with pine and scented with orchids. Heated flooring is soft underfoot. The owners wanted to restore the original wooden floors, but Mario Zammit’s blood seeped through the carpet and into the boards. It seems that some stains can never truly be scrubbed out.

Luke saved this new document together with Sandy’s confession in a file entitled
Grand
. He had nearly five thousand words now and each of them had been a step on the journey back to his true self. The writer within, left for dead, was gathering strength.

Chapter 35

Like all the best traditions, Luke’s regular visits to Disraeli Square established themselves without formal arrangement. They called the drinks they shared a sundowner but they didn’t open the bottle until long after dark, because their early evening was most other people’s bedtimes. Within a few days it was wordlessly established that if he hadn’t turned up by around nine, she would start to worry and wonder where he was.

The first time he returned, he wasn’t confident she would even let him in. Sandy made him wait before opening the door.

‘I’ve come to apologise for the effect my last apology had on you,’ he said. He had correctly anticipated her embarrassment; she sweated shame like last night’s gin. She was reluctant to make eye contact but when she thought Luke wasn’t looking, she stared at him like he was a book she shouldn’t be reading. It was clear that if they were to pursue a friendship – and, he realised as they shared coffee, he would have sought her company even if he hadn’t needed her on side – that the elephant must take its place among the shelves and filing cabinets of her sitting room, and that they would both take care to tiptoe around it.

Sandy always said that the first drink of the day tasted better after a good day’s work. Frequently she claimed to be ‘flat out’ and said that her telephone would not give her a moment’s peace, but once, when Luke stealthily dialled 1471, the recorded voice told him that it had been a week since the last incoming call. The fax machine hummed on standby but its roll of paper was dusty with disuse. Where were all these journalists and novelists, these biographers and historians, who demanded her services? It was only Sandy’s ability to charge money for access to her archive – her
hoard
– that set her apart from the unhinged people you saw on television documentaries, up to their necks in clutter and unable to throw anything away.

He had begun to wonder if he was the only visitor she ever had. And he was not paying her. How did she make any money at all? What was she living off? She was just old enough for a state pension, although he had no idea what that income might be and he would not have dreamed of asking her. He could picture her reaction to the word ‘pensioner’ and it was not a pretty one. Perhaps, if he did end up working with her, he would be the only client she had all year. He quite liked this idea: it allowed him to think not in terms of exploiting her but of putting much-needed business her way.

Most nights they’d have a few gins – they never came close to repeating their initial binge – then Luke would weave west through the Lanes, or stroll along the seafront if it was mild. Sometimes on Wednesdays, when he had come straight from conversation with Grand, he felt a small tug of guilt, but it never lasted. It was becoming easier to compartmentalise the different strands of his life and work.

Back at home he would work, usually into the early hours. Desperate to step into Joss Grand’s world, he delved deeper into old Brighton, reading and re-reading the history books, staring at the black and white photographs like a war widow weeping over her wedding album. He’d got his hands on a second-hand copy of Jasper Patten’s book about Hell’s Angels and would read himself to sleep.
Hell on the Rocks
was the stuff of nightmares for most people, but Luke’s unconscious had other preoccupations. When he closed his eyes it was the backstreets of Brighton he saw, and two little tenement boys, only one of whom grew into an old man.

The ringing telephone pulled Luke out of sleep like a body dragged from the waves. It was not yet fully light and the number was withheld. A woozy picture came to him of Serena calling him from an unfamiliar payphone somewhere mobiles weren’t allowed. Intensive care? A
morgue
? He answered before he had begun to process or prepare his reaction.

‘Luke? It’s Marcus McRae. There’s been progress.’

He was instantly focused.

‘Your man’s alive. He’s got an active bank account, wages and a little bit of benefit still being paid into it, and cash is being withdrawn. I can even tell you his DSS office – it’s London Road, Brighton.’

‘He’s in
Brighton
?’ squeaked Luke.

‘Yup. But listen, there’s a discrepancy on his address. The one on the system I can access doesn’t check out. And he’s moved a
hell
of a lot. I need to dig around in housing benefit before I can clear that up but the server’s down.’

Luke’s romantic vision of McRae shrivelled away to reveal what he had always known inside. The man was a hacker.

‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘You’ll be in touch as soon as you get an address for me?’

‘As fast as your slow-track rates allow,’ said McRae, and hung up. He probably charged by the second, so the brusqueness was welcome.

Luke wandered downstairs and drank from the kitchen tap while he waited for the kettle to boil. London Road was a down-at-heel neighbourhood only a mile or two away. He could walk it in twenty minutes.

The news that Jasper Patten was alive and close by made Luke want to sing. Even if alcoholism had claimed him, it was possible that pickled in his brain somewhere there was a fragment of memory. Only now did Luke realise how worried he had been that Grand had killed the last person who had tried to investigate him. Whatever else he was up to now, he didn’t go around carving up journalists. Without lessening the atrocities he had committed as a young man, or cancelling out the murder of his own best friend, Patten’s existence proved that Grand had changed. A hurdle had fallen, leaving Luke free to take the next step.

Chapter 36

It was the first weekend of October. As Luke and Sandy were both freelance, the days of the week ostensibly meant nothing to them, but that evening the spirit of a Saturday night carried down from the town and into the house through the gaps in the windows. The cocktails had been his idea; she had suggested the dancing.

‘Let’s go out,’ she said.

‘I’m not sure, Sandy.’ He wanted to write the following morning, and he was already in day-long hangover territory.

‘Yes you are. You’re far too young to spend every night sitting in with me. Is Revenge still open? I haven’t been clubbing for years.’ Revenge was the big gay club in a converted townhouse near the pier. He hadn’t been but knew that Saturday nights were notorious. ‘Take me where the poor boys dance!’

Luke knew the quotation but could not place it.

‘Auden?’ he said.

Sandy was laughing so much she virtually had to crawl to fetch the CD case from the top of the bureau. ‘Lulu,’ she said, showing him the tracklisting.

She changed in seconds flat, pulling on a black lace shift that skimmed her bottom. Luke said nothing; she still had the legs, if not of a girl, then of a young woman. They took a cab to the club and Sandy emerged from the back door starlet-style, knees together, both feet on the pavement like it was ladies’ night at Le Pigalle.

The dancefloor was a barrage of sound and a crush of bodies. Under the lights, with the bassline boxing his ears and a cocktail of amyl, sweat and cologne in his nose, Luke woke up as though from a coma. He had been so absorbed in his book for so long that he had forgotten to live in his body, he’d almost forgotten he
had
a body. He felt eyes on his skin. He decided that he wasn’t going home on his own and he didn’t mean back to Sandy’s. A laser etched the profile of a beautiful boy who was looking sideways at him, a skinny emo kid with a mop of jet hair, as unlike Jem as could be.

Sandy took Luke’s hand and lifted it to twirl underneath like Ginger Rogers and for a moment their friendship was exposed in all its absurdity. In the flashes of light between the slicing darkness Luke tried to read the boy’s expression. Did it say, I want you, or did it say, I quite like the look of you but I’m not sure I want to be with someone who goes clubbing with his mum? A friend his own age would have instinctively hung back to give Luke space, but Sandy was different. He felt responsible for her, even though
she
had brought
him
here. He realised that his concern was misplaced, in this context at least, when she dropped his hand, screamed ‘
Lorraine!
’ and rushed to embrace a towering drag queen at the bar. The dark-haired boy sidled into the space she had left.

‘Is that your
mum
?’ he asked in impressed disbelief. Sandy threw Luke a stage wink from the bar.

‘No,’ said Luke, suddenly proud of her again. ‘My friend.’

The boy’s youth and leanness mirrored his own, narcissistically appealing after Jem’s solidity.

‘Let’s go somewhere,’ said the boy. ‘You need to tell her?’

Sandy was at their side, Lorraine in tow. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she shouted into his ear. ‘I’ll put myself in a cab after this drink. You go off and enjoy yourself.’

In the night air their skin was steaming. By silent mutual agreement they went down to the sea wall. Force of habit made Luke tilt his head up as though for Jem’s kiss but the boy was his own height and he pressed him into the wall, the damp rough stone against his back. Below them the wind threw a wave against the sea wall, soaking their legs in a cold warning. Luke was glad to have an excuse to move on.

‘Come home with me,’ he said.

Urgency relaxed into anticipation as they walked, stopping occasionally to kiss or light cigarettes. Under the pearl bulbs of the esplanade, Luke had leisure to take in the details of his partner for the night: a snake tattoo that slithered out of his jacket and around his neck, curling again between the hem of his T-shirt and his belt. His low-slung jeans were tucked into scuffed workboots that were exactly the same as Luke’s own.

As they turned into Temperance Place the boy was close behind him, lips on his neck. Luke pulled out his JGP keyring and jangled it.

‘It’s a bit quaint,’ he warned as he opened the door. They tumbled through it tangled together. The boy looked over his shoulder and froze. Too late, Luke realised that he still had his Joss Grand wallpaper up – the boy was going to think he was a nutter – but soon understood that that was the least of his problems.

Jem was at the kitchen table, his eyes black holes, his cheeks scooped out. Luke’s laptop was open in front of him and the notebooks spread around. In his hand was the sketch of a man bound in the Grand Truss, torn from the wall.

‘Didn’t take you long, did it?’ he said, with a coolness that was more terrifying than any loss of temper. ‘Who’s the twink? I don’t believe we’ve met.’ Jem stuck out his hand as if to greet Luke’s new acquaintance. The wrist was still scarred from his cry for help, and a fresh gash in the flesh between his thumb and forefinger dripped blood onto his notes. If that gets into my keyboard, thought Luke, I’ll bloody kill him. ‘I’m Jeremy, Luke’s partner. And you are?’ He was on his feet before Luke and the boy had fully disentangled themselves. He lunged at the boy, throwing the chair back with a clatter. Next door, Luke heard movement and voices. ‘I said, who are you and what the
fuck
are you doing with Luke?’

‘Whoa. I’m not getting involved in your domestic,’ said the boy. He backed out into the night, shaking his head ruefully at Luke, and was gone.

‘How did you . . .’ began Luke, but it was obvious. A crimson trail led from the back door, but smeared bloody thumbprints near the smashed kitchen window showed that Jem had first tried to reach the latch through the broken glass. When that hadn’t worked, he must have mustered enough force to kick down the flimsy door. Once this would not have surprised Luke but the Jem who sat before him now was kilos lighter than the one he had known. Perhaps twisted passion was deputising for brute force.

‘How did you find me? Did you hire someone to track me down? How?’

Jem widened his eyes in defiance. Luke couldn’t get used to his new face; the over-familiar planes had been made strange by the attenuation.

‘I didn’t have to pay in the end,’ said Jem, squaring off Luke’s papers. ‘A little bird told me.’

‘What do you mean, a little bird?’

‘Darling, what are you
involved
with here?’ said Jem, ignoring the question. ‘It looks very risky. Even worse than your last attempt at infiltrating the underworld. Murder? Look at this! “Weigh up risks to self vs risks to Charlene/Sandy.” “Is his Bentley the same one from the night of the murder?” “Look up pornography laws from sixties.” Who
are
these people? It all seems very . . . cheap. I’m concerned for you, Luke. You’re getting out of your depth again. And what’s
this
?’ He brandished the sketch. ‘Is this weird kinky shit what you’re into now? Is that what you wanted all along? Is this why we broke up?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Anger flared inside Luke. If Jem thought that, he really had lost it. If there was one way in which they had known each other entirely, it had been in bed, at least to begin with. He snatched the paper from Jem’s hands. ‘My work is
private
. This is my
home
. You’ve got no right to be here. You’ve broken in, for fuck’s sake. I want you out now.’

‘Where will I go?’ said Jem. He dropped to his knees and grabbed onto Luke’s thighs. ‘Please, Luke, I can’t live without you. I’ll change, you can see anyone you want, you can go out every night if you like, but please, I miss you so much. You can write whatever you like, I won’t interfere, I’ll support you the whole way. We can get a cab back to Leeds now. I don’t mind how much it costs. You can bring all your stuff. You can see other people, you can bring your new boyfriend up.’