East of Innocence (9 page)

‘At ease,’ says Hicklin, first signs of irritation. ‘Christ’s sake. We’re not nicking you. Got those papers, Dawson?’

Dawson hands him a stack of sheets, kicks my chair leg as he passes. I frown at Hicklin, who shakes his head, looks
to the ceiling: God help me. He flicks through pages, then shoves two sheets across the table to me.

‘Sign these, get your friend’s signature, then do me a favour. Foxtrot Oscar, as they say in the Army.’

Gabe doesn’t talk much on the way home, and I cannot tell whether it is because he is still too drunk to talk or simply too ashamed. We drive through the dark streets, empty apart from one or two swaying shirtsleeved men unwilling to admit that the night is over and that tomorrow is already upon them. Yellow streetlights paint Gabe’s face as we drive.

‘Couldn’t have just walked away?’

‘He says. When’s the last time you turned the other cheek?’

He’s got a point.

‘You need to talk to somebody.’

‘We’re talking.’

‘You know what I mean. This isn’t you.’

Gabe rouses himself, reaches forward and turns on the radio, finds a station, scans for another one. I do not know how to speak to him, how to reach him. In our history, there has never been awkwardness, no subject has been taboo. How can he have become so distant?

‘It’s about the leg, isn’t it?’ I say. But even as I say the words I sense how hollow, how amateurish and clumsy they are. Gabe is one of the most complex and intelligent men I have ever met. I have no idea what he is going through; I have no idea where to begin. Gabe looks across at me and I cannot meet his eye.

‘Daniel?’

‘Yes?’

‘Let’s not.’

We spend the rest of the journey in silence, like a couple who’ve been out to a restaurant and left in a hurry after a spiteful argument. I pull up outside his house and get out of the car with him, follow him to his front door, walk in after him without waiting for an invitation. Gabe doesn’t seem to care, disappears upstairs. I wait for him in his kitchen, put the kettle on, do the things we’re taught to do in circumstances such as these. The kettle has boiled and tea is made and I am beginning to think that he has gone to bed, passed out, when I hear his uneven steps on the stairs. I am still rehearsing what to say to him when he appears in the doorway holding something in his hand.

‘Remember this?’ he says.

I look at it. It is our trophy, our defining moment, Essex Junior County doubles champions. Of course I remember it. Just looking at its silver form of two boys, one serving one crouching, brings back the memories of that time, perhaps the finest of my life; a time when Gabe and I believed ourselves indestructible, blowing opponents off the court with an ease that, at times, felt pre-ordained, as if we had been divinely chosen. Sixteen years old and favoured by the gods. I remember the smell of barbecues, endless conversations about women, late nights and too much beer, the delicious challenge of girls’ bras, parties in strangers’ houses held while their parents were away. Endless blue skies and limitless possibilities. And Gabe, always Gabe, my constant partner.

‘I remember. ’Course I do.’

‘I want you to have it.’

‘Why?’

He looks at me and I notice how unsteady he still is on his feet, how he is wavering subtly, constantly regaining his balance. He is still far from sobering up; or perhaps he has just been tapping some secret stash upstairs. But Gabe is no ordinary person and, drunk or not, he is still capable of unmanning me with his gaze; I struggle to keep eye contact. But for once he breaks off first, sighs, puts the trophy on the kitchen counter. He walks away, back upstairs, and I wonder, while simultaneously hating the cliché, whether he is likely to do anything stupid.

At the stairs he turns back to me, one hand on the banister. ‘Because, Danny, I can’t bear to look at the fucking thing any more.’

11

I DO NOT
sleep well and wake up early, listening to the sound of birds outside my window and wishing that I did not have to open the curtains, let the real world intrude into the sanctity of my home. As I eat breakfast, trying to keep my mind off the events of the night before, I hear the news over the radio of the discovery of Rosie O’Shaughnessy’s body in the dense woodland of Epping Forest. A broken neck, no evidence of sexual assault. I have a mental image from my childhood, of a blackbird that flew into the French windows of our living room; it lay, dead, on the patio, its head bent away from its body at an acute angle, its yellow eye gazing sightlessly up into the sky. Rosie must have lain there for days. She was not even twenty years old; she never had the opportunity to at least make her own life-changing mistakes.

I look about my kitchen. I live in an airy Victorian four-bed, constructed over a century ago when houses were built to a quality rather than a cost; it has high ceilings, period features, and is as close to luxury as I will ever need. But this morning listening to the news of Rosie’s death, for the
first time I see it in a different light, my own comfort in such sharp contrast to the squalid end of her life. The white walls bathed in early-morning sunlight seem a splendour I do not deserve, in fact feel guilty for enjoying. When did my life become so safe, so comfortable? This thought naturally leads me to my next, which hits me with such sudden force that I lay my spoon down on the table and stare blankly out of the window, unable to move until I have processed the implications. What the hell was I thinking challenging, no, worse, insulting a known gangster and murderer in his own bar?

I do not have long to worry; Halliday is clearly not a man to allow an insult to go unanswered for long. Later that morning, I am at my office and considering a long-running case, an elderly couple who had the chimney and part of the roof of their six-hundred-year-old converted coach house demolished by a wrecking ball supposed to be razing their neighbour’s garage. The neighbour is a footballer and apparently needed somewhere bigger to park his Hummer; he is South American from an impoverished background and is finding it hard to accept the cost and bureaucracy involved in the repair of a Grade I-listed building, despite his astronomical weekly wage. But dispute resolution is my area of expertise and I believe I am making progress towards a satisfactory outcome, his histrionic Latin outrage an act I am becoming familiar with and beginning to enjoy.

I am disturbed from this modern and tabloid-friendly tale by my bell ringing. I put my papers together, place
them to one side and walk into the lobby. Standing outside my door is Vincent Halliday in a grey suit with two of his men, both bigger than he is and dead-eyeing me through the glass from behind him with the nonchalant air of those practised in brutality. I pause, steady myself, realise that I have little choice. I open the door and nod them in. I dealt this hand; now I must see how it plays out.

If anything, Halliday’s reaction to my place of work is even less impressed than Baldwin’s. I momentarily question whether a colour scheme of white, black and chrome would convey a more professional ambience or would come across as too masculine; I have heard that condemned men are plagued with inane thoughts on the walk to the execution chamber. Halliday takes in my meagre office in several agitated and disgusted glances and I wonder about his blood pressure. He is wound up as tightly as anybody I have ever met. His men take their places at the door to the lobby, one either side, and I realise with a sick suddenness that this is a scene that the three of them have played out, with variations, many times in the past.

‘We’ll start,’ says Halliday without any preamble, ‘with what you said to me last night.’ We are all still standing in front of my desk; I would like to invite him to sit down but feel the volatility in the air and worry that it might be the last thing I ever get to suggest. My office is not big and our combined presence, so close together, is oppressive; we are like four dogs in the back of a van that have not yet decided who will be the first to launch. Halliday meets my eyes and I am surprised by the amount of rage in his; he is barely in control of himself, his hands squeezed into fists at his sides.
I wonder what is keeping him from attacking me, or giving the nod to have his men do it for him. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

His choice of words is oddly paternal, as if he has caught me cheating at school. I need to choose my next words very carefully.

‘I was reacting to what I saw as a provocation,’ I say slowly. ‘My father might not be successful or come with a reputation, but I could not and cannot understand why you would call him a mug to my face.’ Halliday is watching me intently and so far he doesn’t react. I take a deep breath. ‘I should not have said what I said, and I am willing to apologise. But I still believe that I was provoked.’ There. I cannot be any more contrite; I have offered Halliday everything that my pride will allow. He stands still, as still as he can, but his entire body somehow betrays his thought processes, as if the violence of his internal deliberations is causing his body to minutely vibrate. He blinks, his eyes once again search my face.

‘Fuck me you’ve got a pair on you,’ he says, a flat statement that implies no warmth or admiration. ‘I dunno.’ He unbunches his fists, puts his hands together, wraps one with the other. There is silence, and I cannot help but wonder at the assurance this man carries with him; he is deciding my fate in front of me, in my own office, reaching his decision in his own sweet time. ‘I dunno,’ he says again.

But like anybody there is a limit to my patience. I walk behind my desk, sit down and pull my papers towards me. ‘Don’t let me rush you,’ I say, looking down.

I do not know if my actions prompt his decision but Halliday sits in the chair in front of my desk and pulls his suit jacket apart, crosses his legs, makes himself comfortable. Although he has not said anything, the feeling in my office lifts like sun emerging from behind a cloud. One of the men by the door takes out his mobile and checks for messages. Halliday looks about my office with less agitation than during his first appraisal, takes his time, then looks back at me.

‘Fucking horrible place you’ve got here.’

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I like it too.’

Halliday cannot help the suspicion of a smile appearing on his thin lips. ‘You’ve got more mouth than a cow’s got tits,’ he says. ‘You know that?’

I do not reply, try to keep my expression neutral. I do not have the merest idea how this man thinks.

‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ Halliday says. ‘I’m looking to buy some properties for rental purposes. You are going to deal with the purchase, tenancy, all that paperwork shit. Spare me the trouble. Be the man in charge. Right?’

‘How many properties?’ I ask. He has caught me off guard but I am attempting to roll with his punches, keep up with his relentless onslaught. I may, and I believe I do, appear calm, but it is an act. Though I am not a wealthy man and I am trying to grow my practice, Vincent Halliday would not be top of my list of prospective clients. Anything he is involved in is going to be toxic and I do not want to touch it.

‘One. A conversion. Old convent into flats. Apartments.’

‘All right, well, if you’d like to engage me as your solicitor I will need some details. I’ll need to see your passport.’

‘You what, son? Do me a favour. This ain’t your everyday fucking transaction. This’ll be done through a company I’m setting up, is all you need to know for now. And you –’ Halliday leans further forward ‘– you’ll be our representative. Any correspondence, it comes to you. I don’t want nothing to do with it.’

‘Not really my area,’ I say. ‘I can do the conveyancing…’

He continues as if I have not spoken. ‘So if and when Revenue and Customs come sniffing about, this is where they come first. With me?’

His energy is unstoppable; already for him this discussion is finished, the deal is struck and he is ready to leave, move on to his next piece of business. But I am not done. I believe I can see where this is heading and I want to know more.

‘You’ll expect me to vet any prospective tenants.’

Halliday is halfway out of his seat; he sits back down. ‘Tenants.’ He looks at the two men he came in with; they smile, one of them laughs. Halliday looks back at me. ‘We’ll take care of all that. Less questions you ask the better.’

‘Right.’ I think I see.

‘With me?’ he says again.

‘I think so.’

So there it is. I am going to be fronting a property scam for Vincent Halliday and I am being given no choice in the matter. My profession is often slandered by people and it is true that there are plenty of lawyers who will cut corners; but it is not easy to find a lawyer who will willingly act as an accessory to major-league money laundering, which I suspect is the case here. I look at Halliday. His suit is
expensive, probably cost him close to a thousand pounds, he drives a Bentley, he lives in a twelve-bedroom mansion. For a criminal with few visible means of support, this is a perennial problem: how to explain away your manifest wealth when the tax office comes knocking. One answer is to buy a string of properties, fill them with fictitious tenants and use your own illegal profits as rent. Your bank account fills up with money that looks whiter than white, washed through your property; all you need is a lawyer to give it the appearance of legitimacy. For Halliday, I am a gift from heaven.