The Ties That Bind (27 page)

When they were working at
Coming Up
, daytime drinking had been routine. Now they were out of practice with the afternoon pints and, it seemed, with one another. There was an awkwardness between them that was new. Luke was afraid to open his mouth in case he let something slip about his work with Grand. He hoped his friends were too absorbed in their own worlds to notice his withdrawal. If they did, he’d put it down to Jem. That was the stressful thing about keeping the truth from your friends: one lie led to another. Every thirty seconds Viggo anxiously checked his phone for Aminah’s summons and Charlene anxiously checked hers in case the new nurse – the second in as many weeks – wasn’t coping. Her limbs were thinner than ever and soft purple shadows ringed her eyes. She refused to talk about her father, who was fading fast, saying that she preferred the distraction of hearing about Viggo’s book.

‘She’s a nightmare,’ he confided. ‘She wants me on call all the time, and I have to drop everything if she calls for me.’

‘Think of the money, though,’ said Char.

‘Believe me, I do. No, I’m honestly loving the actual work. It writes itself, some of the things that she’s been through. If anything I’ve got to tone stuff down to make it believable. I’ve been delving into your world, actually,’ he said to Luke. ‘We’ve decided to make one of the characters in the story the illegitimate daughter of an old sixties gangster. So I’ve been reading up on the Krays and stuff. Well, watching films, mainly. It’s a bit grim, isn’t it? I can’t see the attraction.’

‘Luke’s moved on from all that,’ said Charlene. Her faith in him twisted his guts.

‘Yes, I’m just casting around for something new to work on,’ he said, then looked up at the window to break eye contact. ‘Oh look, it’s stopped raining. Who’s coming for a fag?’

‘Not me,’ said Viggo.

Luke stared. He’d seen Viggo smoke in gales worse than this one. He’d seen Viggo smoke in
blizzards
. ‘I’ve packed it in.’ He took off his blazer to reveal a nicotine patch on his biceps just like the one that Jem had made him wear. The thought arrived fully-formed, before Luke could stop it.
A little bird told me
. Immediately he told himself to get a grip. What was wrong with him? It was keeping secrets; it sent you mad, it made you think that everyone was at it.

Rain was no longer falling outside but the air was still damp. He’d already decided his cigarette wasn’t worth it when he heard his phone ringing from inside the bar. He dashed back in time to see Charlene pick it up.

‘Luke’s phone.’ Luke froze, irrationally certain that the caller would be Sandy or, worse, Vaughan. ‘Who’s calling? Hello, stranger. Where are you working these days? Piss off, you never are! That’s amazing, well done.’

She covered the mouthpiece and said, ‘It’s Alexa. She’s calling from
The Times
features desk!’

Luke made a fish mouth and took the phone.

‘
The Times
?’ said Luke. ‘How did they let
you
in?’

‘I know! Isn’t it brilliant?’ said Alexa. ‘I knew about the job the other week but I couldn’t say anything. Look, the desk want me to bring in some new talent and I was wondering if you wanted to take on this investigation I’ve got lined up: it’s a local council, South London so not too far from you, big parking ticket scam. They’re advertising for wardens and we want someone to go undercover. You’d be perfect for it.’

Viggo and Charlene were poised over their drinks, eyes wide.

‘Oh right,’ said Luke. At any time in the past couple of years, at any time up until a few weeks ago, this would have been his dream job. But he’d worked on pieces like this before: it would take over his whole life for months, derailing the momentum on the Grand case.

‘Thanks so much for thinking of me but it’s not something I can . . . it’s not the kind of thing I’m interested in at the moment.’

‘Are you
serious
?’ said Alexa. ‘This is
The Times
, for fuck’s sake.’ Luke smelled the sulphur of a burning bridge, realising too late that he should have given the stock response, that he was too busy, that he’d love to but he had another project on the go: the only acceptable response for any freelance, and in this case the truth. His eyes felt heavy as marbles as he raised them to meet his friends’.

‘Did you just turn down a job for
The Times
?’ said Viggo. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Call her back and accept it,’ said Charlene. She picked up his phone. ‘I bloody well will if you don’t.’

‘Leave that,’ said Luke, snatching it and slamming it back down on the table, where his hand remained hovering over it.

‘But you’ve literally got fuck all else to do,’ pressed Viggo. ‘You said yourself you hadn’t had a commission in three months. What could you possibly be doing that’s more important than—’

‘Oh, you little
shit
,’ said Charlene. ‘You aren’t. You
wouldn’t
.’

Luke, still jangled from his conversation with Alexa, didn’t manage to put on his innocent face in time.

‘Wouldn’t what?’ said Viggo with a nervous smile.

‘You selfish arsehole,’ she said. ‘You
promised
you’d leave it alone.’

‘Seriously, what’s going on?’ said Viggo.

‘There’s a story – a complete
non
-story – involving my boss, goes back years. Luke promised he wouldn’t dig around in it. And he’s going behind my back to research it all. You ungrateful . . . you selfish little
fuck
.’

‘No, Char, listen . . . it’s fine, he knows I’m not doing it with your blessing. I’ve made sure you’re completely safe.’

This, apparently, made it even worse. Her voice rose to a shout that drew the barman’s attention their way. ‘You’ve been
discussing
me with Mr Grand? It’s bad enough that you lied to me, but
this
. . .’ She slammed her glass down on the table. ‘There’s something wrong with you. People have got
lives
and
feelings
, you know. They aren’t just characters for whatever book you’re trying to write this week. You don’t deserve your friends, Luke.’ She gathered her jacket and marched out into the rainstorm.

Viggo’s bewildered gaze darted between Luke and the door for a few seconds, then he left to chase after Charlene. He was back in two minutes; she’d given him the slip, probably disappearing into one of the underground tunnels linking the beach to the city that tourists never seemed to see.

‘I don’t know where she’s gone. I’ve left a voicemail for her to meet me at the club in half an hour. What’s all this about?’

Luke sighed. ‘It’s nothing to worry about. Char’s boss was involved in an unsolved murder back in the sixties and I’ve just been
discreetly
asking around to see if there’s a book in it. She seems to think her job’s in jeopardy but if anyone’s taking risks, it’s me. I’m the one putting myself out there.’

‘Oh, Luke, not this again,’ said Viggo. ‘Didn’t you learn anything from that Len Earnshaw? Why do you insist on getting involved with these kinds of people?’

It was the exact phrase that Jem had used. Luke suddenly remembered the night they had met in Charmers, the way that Viggo had been the first to make a play for Jem and then, unaccustomed to sexual usurpation, had slammed the door on the way out of the penthouse. Viggo always got his man in the end. Luke was assaulted by the horribly plausible picture of the two of them meeting by chance in Leeds, going for a drink, and ending up in bed together.

‘You’d never have said that before,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even.

‘Before what?’

Luke pushed up Viggo’s sleeve and pressed hard on the nicotine patch.

‘Don’t think I don’t know what this is all about.’

‘
Ow.
’ Viggo slapped his hand away. ‘Just because you can’t pack in the fags, don’t get all arsey with me for trying. Aminah’s very anti-smoking.’

‘Yeah right.
Aminah
doesn’t like it.’ Luke drummed on the tabletop with his fingers, loud and long enough that the bartender looked up from his newspaper. ‘Just answer me straight. Are you seeing Jem?’

‘I told you, I’ve seen him around the place, although not since he came after you.’

‘No, are you
seeing
him?’ Now
he
was the one who sounded like Jem. He was appalled by himself, but could not let it go.

Viggo laughed uneasily. ‘Jesus, Luke, you don’t really think that?’

‘What is it, can’t stand anyone preferring me for a change?’

‘Where’s this come from?’ said Viggo.

‘It’s just that the only people who knew my address here, who could have told him where to find me, are you, Char, Maggie and my mum. And only one of
them
has been in contact with Jem.’

Viggo looked genuinely offended, but Luke knew that nothing made people more convincingly innocent than guilt. And for all his outrage, he hadn’t refuted the allegation.

‘You could at least deny it,’ pressed Luke.

‘I shouldn’t have to!’ said Viggo. ‘I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.’ He pulled his blazer on, then wrapped his scarf around his neck. ‘Look, I’m going to find Charlene and check she’s OK, then I’ve got to get back to the club. I don’t think you should come with me.’

‘Fine by me. The last place I want to be is a shit club watching that shit singer mime to her shit songs.’

Viggo swore at him in Swedish and turned on his heel. Outside, the rain began to fall again.

Luke was left alone in the pub, as angry at himself as he was at Viggo. Handled differently, that would have produced an admission that flared into a row and they would be halfway to making up by now. He pictured Jem and Viggo together to test for pain, like prodding a healing bruise. The discomfort came all right, but not from the idea of Jem with someone else. It was the idea of his best friend taking such obvious and spiteful revenge that hurt. A drunken one-off he could forgive, in time, but the other betrayal, the letting slip of the address, was too low a blow. Jem had always been cool towards Viggo but in his new deranged state it would not surprise Luke at all that he might use Viggo in a skewed attempt to get closer to him.

Luke had no thirst for the rest of his drink. He turned up his collar and thrust his face into the needling salty rain, walking home to the warmth and the work of Temperance Place.

Chapter 41

On his next visit, Grand wore the oxygen tube up his nose from the outset, and they all pretended not to notice. Vaughan seemed to take up less space, as though Luke’s privileged knowledge of his secret inheritance had diminished his very stature. Luke even dared to smile at him again, and this time when it bounced off Vaughan’s face, he caught it neatly and carried on with the interview without breaking his stride.

‘You were released from prison in 1960,’ he said. ‘Had Brighton changed while you were away?’

Grand cracked a knuckle. ‘To look at, yeah. They demolished Redemption Row while we was inside. They put my mum and dad in brand new flats over in Whitehawk. I was happy, they was properly looked after. I don’t know what we’d been worried about. It was ironic really that they’d come to take the water and an inside toilet for granted while we’d still been slopping out in our cells.

‘Jacky was first out so he came to collect me in a car. I liked that; start as you mean to go on. He took me back to Whitehawk and after I’d had a wash and a dinner, we went up the West Pier.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘We’d loved that place since we was boys, and we knew we’d have some space up there; the crowds was a thing of the past. It was already on its way out by then, looking ever so dated. You didn’t preserve Victorian architecture back then; you ripped it up. Out with the old, and all that. The punters had all been seduced by the flashing lights up at the Palace. Standing on the end of that boardwalk felt like the opposite of prison. Once we’d cleaned out our lungs, we went on a bar crawl, said hello to some of the faces. We had new respect, now we’d been inside. But we had to catch up quick. Things had shuffled around a bit.’

‘In what sense?’

‘The Gaming Act had just passed, for one thing. All them dodgy bookies was legit now but they was still bent bastards. It was just that they was now a front for all sorts of other stuff.’

‘So fruit machines would have already been in place everywhere.’

‘Everywhere,’ agreed Grand. ‘While we was drinking we checked out who had what. The next day we was ordering our own, with the last of the cash my mum’d been looking after for us. We set up a legit company: Chicago Slots. It had a nice American ring to it. I knew we could offer to undercut whatever they were paying, even if they didn’t make any money in the first place. It’s what you’d call a loss-leader in today’s business parlance although I hadn’t heard the phrase then. Maybe it hadn’t been invented. But everyone was still using Dave Rosslyn’s machines. His son Tony had just about kept it under control. We had to rough up a few people to show them what would happen if they stuck with Rosslyn’s machines instead of ours and Tony was one of them. In fact, we done him in a busy pub, just so that everyone could see what we was capable of.’

Grand tutted and shook his head, as though hearing for the first time about another man’s crimes. ‘After that, it took off like lightning. In fact, even if the fruit machines weren’t making us money, and we’d come to take them away, the club owners would beg us to leave them there. Because word would’ve got round, you see, that it was one of
our
pubs.’ Pride had him sitting taller in his seat. ‘We helped that along, I’ve got to admit. More than once we paid boys to have brawls just so we could steam in and break it up.’

‘So what happened to Tony Rosslyn?’

‘He come to work for us once he was out of hospital. Look,’ he said, a rasp creeping in with the effort of self-justification, ‘All we was doing was taking a service he was offering and improving on it. We never, ever put anyone out of business without offering them an in on our firm. Even Dave come onto our payroll when he got out, we didn’t leave him high and dry.’