Creed (25 page)

Cally tried to pull his wrist away, but he merely tightened his grip. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said without pleading.

‘
Answer me.
’

‘If you harm me they’ll kill him.’

His fingers loosened as if in reflex, although he continued to hold her there against the table. ‘Who’re they? The two freaks in the park couldn’t have taken him – they wouldn’t have had time to get back before me. Besides, they’re probably in the slammer by now.’

‘No, they’re not.’

‘They got out of the park?’ He let go of her neck completely, but she pulled off only an inch or so.

‘Joe, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. These people aren’t . . .’ She paused, as if searching for an appropriate word. ‘Ordinary,’ she finished limply, as though the description were inadequate.

‘Sure. One’s a vampire, right?’

She said nothing.

He lounged back in his chair and drew on the cigarette. ‘So who did take Sammy? You?’

‘I came so he wouldn’t be too frightened.’

‘That was the idea – get me out of the way, then snatch him. You knew he was here because you’d spoken to him on the phone.’

‘If you had handed over the film this wouldn’t have happened.’

‘But you didn’t know I wasn’t going to.’

‘Not until you got to the park, no.’

‘So you kidnapped my son for insurance, just in case I didn’t deliver.’

She straightened and picked up her glass. She closed her eyes when she drank.

‘They can have the negs and prints,’ he told her. ‘They can have whatever they like – anything. I’ll guarantee never to mention any of this to anyone. I haven’t got much money, but I’ll scrape up whatever I can. They can have that too. All I want is Sammy returned and for me to be left alone.’

‘They don’t trust you.’

‘Then what’s the alternative? There’s nothing more I can do.’

‘They’ll have to talk to you before they decide.’

‘Maybe I should just go to the Law.’ He said it as if thinking aloud.

Cally slammed down her glass, spilling whiskey. ‘Don’t even think of doing that! Oh God, you mustn’t even consider it.’

He blinked, taken aback by the vigour of her outburst. ‘Then you’d better tell me who these people are and what they are and why that crazy bastard wants his wrinkled kisser kept out of the newspapers. I mean, I can understand his shame at the family connection – if there is one – but he can hardly be blamed for what Mallik did before the last World War. What the hell is the big deal?’

‘For your own sake it’s better that you don’t know anything about them. They want to be left alone.’

‘So did Garbo, but things don’t always work out that way. What are they up to? Look, at least tell me if the man is related to old Nick. Nicholas Mallik,’ he added on seeing her confusion.

‘Yes,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘They’re related. But that’s as much as I can tell you.’

‘It’s something. What do I do now?’

‘I’ve told you – you give them what they want. After they’ve talked to you.’

‘Why can’t I just hand it over to you right here and now?’

‘Believe me when I say I wish you could. Unfortunately you have to do it their way.’

‘And if it’s a set-up? They’ll have me as well as my son.’

‘You’ve no choice. You did before, but now you haven’t. I’ll stay with you tonight.’

‘To help me make up my mind?’

She shook her head. ‘I keep telling you – you have no choice. I’m just here to make sure you do nothing rash.’

‘How could you stop me?’

‘Perhaps I couldn’t. But this way we’ll know.’

Not if I beat the shit out of you first, then call the police, he thought. ‘Have you got a weapon of some kind on you?’ It would have been silly to put the question casually, so he didn’t even try.

‘Forget about attacking me, Joe. You’re too tired for that. Anger helped you before, but most of that’s gone, hasn’t it? You’re exhausted.’

‘It’s been a long day.’ And he realised the earlier weariness had returned.

‘You’re very tired, Joe.’

‘What’re you – a hypnotist?’ His glass felt peculiarly heavy when he lifted it. The whiskey tasted sour.

‘It’s just that I can see how exhausted you are. It must be hard to think straight in your state.’

‘I can handle it.’

‘Your clothes are damp, did you realise that? Were you too tired to notice?’

The glass was too much of a burden, so he put it down. ‘Who are you, Cally? What’s your part in all this?’

She may have given him an answer – he definitely heard her say something – but his brain was closing down. It
had
been a long day. Sweet Judas, it had been a long
life
. ‘What’d you say?’ he asked, attempting to straighten his shoulders.

‘It’s all right to sleep, Joe.’

‘No. You said something else . . .’

‘I said I’m Lily Neverless’ granddaughter.’

‘. . . Yeah . . . that’s what I thought you said . . .’

His head rested against his arms on the table. Creed slept.

She had left the note on the table, close to where he slumbered. It was the first thing he saw when he woke.

He groaned and ran a hand through his tangled hair. His clothes stank. His
body
stank.

Why were they always leaving him notes? he wondered as he unfolded the small sheet of paper. Why couldn’t they just tell him things face-to-face? It was an address. He assumed he was supposed to go there, although nothing was mentioned to that effect.

Creed eyed the dregs of his whiskey, a dismal and solitary sight in the cold light of morning. He noticed her glass was no longer on the table. In the sink and washed of fingerprints, he mused. He examined the address again. Handwritten, in capital letters. Was he really supposed to go there?

He jerked upright when the phone rang.

Blood drained from his head when he stood too quickly and he swayed there by the table for a moment or so, one hand resting there for support. The telephone insisted and he made his unsteady way over to it. Anger and fear were bubbling by the time he snatched the receiver from its hook.

‘You’d better listen to—’ he began to say.

‘How is he, Joe?’ interrupted Evelyn’s voice. ‘Has he had his All-Bran?’

‘Evelyn?’

‘Samuel has another mother?’ The phone seemed hot with her impatience. ‘Did he sleep all right?’

‘Evelyn, do you know what time it is?’

‘Yes, it’s four minutes to ten. What’s the matter with you?’

He glanced at his wristwatch, but cheap doesn’t buy waterproof. The hands had stopped at forty-three minutes past midnight. Nevertheless the clock on the mantel swore truth to his wife’s words.

‘He’s, uh, yeah, he’s fine,’ he said into the mouthpiece.

‘Does he want to talk to me? Put him on, Joe.’

‘No,’ he replied too quickly. ‘He’s gone out for a walk. To get me a newspaper. He wanted some chocolate.’

‘He’s not allowed chocolate. Dear God, didn’t he tell you that? Do you want him to balloon up again? What on earth are you thinking of?’

‘He can’t get much, I didn’t give him a lot of money.’

She was only partially placated. ‘Probably off his diet because of stress. Is he missing me, Joseph? Did he say he wants to come home? He must be miserable.’

‘He’s okay. Quite chirpy really.’

‘What?’

‘Uh, you know, putting on a brave face. I think the break might be doing him some good, giving him time to think about things. You know what they say – absence breaks the heart but cures the head.’ His own head was hurting with the pretence. Christ, he needed to lie down.

‘Who says that?’

‘It’s just a saying.’

‘Hmn,’ she mused, ‘it’s one I haven’t heard. Well, maybe the punishment is a little harsh. He’s a sensitive boy, he needs his mother.’

‘To tell you the truth, Evelyn, he was only saying last night that a man has to stand on his own two feet occasionally, to get away from hearth and home to get a proper measure of himself.’

‘Samuel said that?’

‘It made me smile, I gotta admit. He looked so serious, as though he’d taken on a couple of years.’

‘I’ve never heard him speak like that before. Hearth and home?’

‘Yeah, well, they weren’t actually his words, but that was the gist of it. In fact, he said it would be fun to stay with his dad for a while.’

‘Oh did he now?’ The temperature of her voice had dropped considerably. ‘I don’t think it’ll be long before he changes his mind about that. Oh no, not when he starts to miss his creature comforts. Things like a freshly made bed, regular meals, someone to dote on him like a bloody fool! We’ll see how long it takes him to get fed up with dear Daddy and his slummy ways. Wait ’til he wants a nice clean shirt to wear, or something other than junk food to eat. Then we’ll see what his’ – she parodied the words – ‘
proper measure
is.’

Creed’s attitude was very reasonable. ‘I think it’s only fair to let him—’

‘Fair? What do you know about fair? Fair to you is when everything goes the Joseph Creed way. My, my, wait ’til you find out what it’s like to be responsible for another human being twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It’ll soon put a damper on your usual fun and games having to look after your son. Let’s see how you cope, let’s see how
you
take care of him.’

Oh bitch, if only you knew. ‘We’ll make out just fine,’ he said, all bravado. ‘Don’t you worry about us.’

‘I won’t. I’m going to have the time of my life, believe me. For once I’ll be free to enjoy
my
self, to do what
I
want to do. This is the first time in I-don’t-know-how-many-years I can just please myself! I can’t tell you what a good time I’m going to have! If he needs more hankies I’ll put them in the post.’ With that, the line shut down.

He breathed out, a long sigh of a breath. Tomorrow she’d want Sammy back home. He had to do something about the situation by then.

Creed can stew in his own juices for a bit while our attention is turned to someone else who figures (albeit peripherally for the moment) in the story. Antony James Barnabas Blythe was a man who was easy to despise. Born of fading gentry, schooled at Marlborough, stiffened by a brief spell in the Household Cavalry, he had armed himself against the common
rigueurs
of everyday life with the right connections before embarking on an uncloistered career. (The same connections had counterbalanced a lamentable lack of funds earlier on, for the economic realities of the ’seventies had taken their toll on the family wealth and, furthermore, his father had been inconsiderate enough to join the angels when a socialist government was in power and death duties were at their meanest.) His entrée into journalism was as a stringer to an established diarist, feeding through and often inventing tittle-tattle gained from his own society contacts, until eventually to take on the prime role himself after one costly libel case too many against the newspaper had tugged the rug from under the incumbent columnist.

Because of certain effete affectations, his prim lips, and acute sense of dress (nothing unstructured about
his
Savile Rows) plus a suspicious sensitivity regarding his own private life, it was generally assumed that Blythe was homosexual. That assumption was not quite correct for, whilst there had in the past been ‘dalliances’ with others of his own sex, particularly in the Guards, and he had accumulated an inordinate amount of Cinderella friends over the years, genuine lack of desire and haemorrhoids had long ago cooled any inclinations he might have had in that direction. In truth, and in practice (or non-practice, as it were), Antony Blythe was asexual. It’s a condition that precludes many problems in life.

Like Joe Creed, he was not well-loved by his peers but, unlike the photographer, neither was he respected. After all, who really likes gossips beyond a superficial level? Not only do you automatically know they can’t be trusted, but they also make you feel guilty for listening. Besides which you can never be sure you won’t be the next target. It was a bitchy profession, and Blythe was more bitchy than most.