Father and Son (16 page)

For a moment John
stands outside the French windows. He can see his father inside, alone in his
armchair, asleep. But it’s not his father, not the man he knew. The life has been
draining away from him gradually, ever since Joe was killed. It had been a slow
process, almost imperceptible, like a plant that stops flourishing and by
degrees withers, its roots doing enough to keep it alive, but nothing more.

Tony Ray had always flourished. He never went unnoticed, no matter
where he was. When he walked into a room people would resolutely try not to
strain their necks. Tall and well-dressed, with a dark complexion and his hair Brylcreemed
back, he was warm and effortlessly engaging. Whoever he was talking to, his
eyes would look straight into theirs, pinning them for just a moment.

But a moment was enough. He
was
interested in people. When he
talked to you, you sensed it straight away, that he was trying to understand
you, to see things your way. He’d ask you questions, where you came from, what
you did, your opinions… He had the natural naivety of a foreigner, of someone
eager to learn absolutely everything he could. Five minutes with Tony Ray and you’d
do whatever he wanted. They used to say he could have persuaded a bank manager
to bundle himself into the safe and lock the door from the inside.

Yet there was another side to him, one which people never saw. He
had a simple, childlike curiosity about every object he touched, becoming
absorbed in understanding it, whatever it was. There’d be long evenings at the
kitchen table of the old terrace house in Armley, taking apart an old alarm
clock, seeing if he could put it back together; or huddled over the latest test
prints of ten and twenty pound notes, an old bedside lamp and a magnifying
glass close by.
Come here
, he’d whisper, and John would lean in close,
until he could smell the coffee on his father’s breath.
See that printing
there? It’s called intaglio. The machines that can do that cost half a million
pounds each. Look, it’s a work of art…

His real fascination, though, was with life itself, and it was
all-consuming. Had circumstances been different he might have been an inventor,
or a scientist. Who knows, even a politician. But he was none of these. He was
Tony Ray, the one they never managed to convict, an old-school racketeer that
even the coppers chuckled about, a notorious figure in Leeds whose reputation, whilst
not exactly a matter of civic pride, was a lot rosier than anything London or
Glasgow could boast. And when his obituary is written, it will dwell on just
one element in his long and successful criminal career: the modern alchemy,
money counterfeiting.

“I don’t know what I’m going to ask him,” John says.

“Do you want me to do the talking?”

“No, I want you to be watching him, see how he reacts. You’ve got
the experience.”

“I can do both. Come on,” she says, pushing open the doors. “Tony!”

Tony doesn’t respond. He’s in his chair, same as always, but his
head is slumped forward, chin on his chest. The jacket of his purple jogging
suit is open, and down the front of his vest is a patch of yellow vomit. More
of it snakes out of his mouth. He sits there, shaking slightly, and makes no
attempt to call for help, his eyes unfocussed.

Den rushes to him, feeling for a pulse. “He’s alive.”

She lifts his head, looks into his eyes. They roll in their sockets,
as if he’s being dragged from a deep sleep. But he’s not dead.

“There’s nothing in it,” she says, urgent but matter of fact, her
nose up close to the vomit. “Just bile.”

“Dad,” John says, standing square in front of him, trying to take it
in, to read the signs. “Dad, what’s this about? What’s happened?”

Tony shakes his head a little, the hair thin and grey, cut to an
inch all over, like a convict. He says nothing, seems not to be listening.

John finds a towel in the bathroom and starts cleaning him up.

“I’ll tell you what this is,” he says, his hands trembling as he tries
to control the anger within him. “This is Joe. It’s Joe’s fault. They’re trying
to make sure nobody says anything, about the bomb, and they think Joe might
have told Dad.” He’s got most of the vomit off his dad’s vest now, but he keeps
on rubbing with the towel. “That’s all this is. This is Joe, hundred per cent.
Look at Dad! Look what they’ve done to him!”

“Perhaps,” she whispers.

“What does that mean?”

She shakes her head, still checking Tony over. “Nothing. Only,
perhaps you’re not the best person to be dealing with this.”

“Who let Reid in, that’s what I want to know,” he says, digging down
the side of the armchair and pressing the alarm.

“Just take it easy,” she says, smiling at Tony as she straightens
his collar. “There you are. Back to your best!”

“Everything okay?” asks a young male nurse, appearing at the door.

“Where’s Holt?” John says.

“Andrew? Just gone off duty.”

“You seen him?”

“Me? No, I’ve just got here.”

They say their goodbyes to Tony, who continues to sit motionless in
his chair, unable to speak. And in all the time they’ve been there, he hasn’t
looked his son in the eye once.

John marches down the corridor towards the reception, head down, a
stormtrooper looking for a storm.

“Nice and calm, remember,” she says, struggling to keep up.

He doesn’t need reminding. By the time he places both hands on the
counter, his anger has disappeared beneath that familiar half-smile, something
a little bit naughty, the smile of casinos and cigarettes and late-night whisky.

“Hi Terry!” he says as a middle-aged woman looks up from her
keyboard.

Her face brightens immediately. Den watches Terry’s midriff reduce
instantly as the woman sucks herself down a couple of sizes.

“Hello young man!” she says. “Was your dad behaving himself today?”

“Good as gold. Andrew Holt about?”

“Haven’t seen him for a while.” She consults a rota. “He was off ten
minutes ago. Shall I page him?”

“That’d be grand.”

She taps in his number, and all three of them wait there for the
phone to ring.

“This is Denise, by the way,” he says. “Friend of the family.
Although I do keep trying to convince her to marry me.”

Terry shakes her head until her double chin seems to work itself
free of the rest of her face, the good work with the midriff now completely undone.

“The worst thing, love?” she says to Den. “Plenty of women fall for it.
I’ve seen nurses swoon over a bit of the old Ray charm.”

“Oh, he’s a charmer, I’ll give him that.”

“Where’s Andrew got to?” Terry says, picking up the phone. “He might
be out of range. I’ll try his mobile.”

They wait as Terry’s call to Holt goes unanswered.

“Did your dad enjoy seeing his nephew?” she asks, finally giving up
on Holt.

“Yes. Yes, he did. Hadn’t seen each other for quite a while. I
bumped into him as he was leaving. How long was he here?”

“That’s the funny thing,” she says, looking down at the visitor log.
“Can’t have been more than a couple of minutes. Never signed out, either. Went
straight out the gate.”

John follows her finger as she finds the entry on the log: Dave Brown.
Is that the best Reid could do? Dave Brown? Some old ID he had lying about,
perhaps. Growing up in the Ray family has taught John that most criminals are
not known for their creative thinking. That’s why the jails are full of ’em. Not
many stay out indefinitely. Just the odd one, like Dad. And Lanny Bride.

“We should be going,” Den says, elbowing John in the ribs, staring
past Terry at four small security monitors that stand in a line against the
back wall.

One of the screens shows the car park. A white van has just pulled
up, and out jumps Graeme Thornton.

“Ah-ha, the carpet man! He is one of Holt’s flock, by the way. He
told me all about it…”

They watch as Thornton stops. Something in the windscreen of Den’s
Astra catches his attention.

“It’s my police parking permit,” she says under her breath.

Thornton glances over at John’s Porsche, then at the Astra’s
windscreen again. A second later he’s back in his van reaching for the ignition.

“Come on.”

By the time they are out in the car park the van has gone. Den
sprints over to the exit, peeping around the stone gate post, then stepping
right out and looking down the road. A second later she’s running back towards
the Astra.

“Get in,” she shouts. “He’s going back towards town.”

John is impressed. His instincts had been to go straight to the car,
by which time the van would have been out of sight.

He jumps into the passenger seat, still impressed. But then, as they
pull away, he realises that he’s in a fifteen-year-old Astra and Den’s at the
wheel. And no one is ever going to call her driving impressive, even the man
who loves her to death.

Den keeps three or
four cars behind the white van. It has made its way out onto the Ring Road, and
is now heading east, down through the Seacroft housing estate. They lose sight
of it from time to time. She doesn’t panic, just looks in her mirror and drops
down a gear, smoothly leapfrogging whoever’s in front, making sure the van is
in her sights again, then settling back into the flow of the traffic.

It was a wise move to come in Den’s old rust-bucket, which is far
less conspicuous than a silver Porsche. Also, despite his trepidation, John
notices how controlled she is behind the wheel. Not like when they first met.
She used to drive as if she was auditioning for a part in Mad Max.

“You been on a course?” he says.

“Yes, as it happens.” She looks in the mirror again, as a blacked-out
Honda screams past so fast you can hear the doppler effect on the massive
pumping bass coming from it. “Been on a few courses actually.”

“One was patience and forgiveness, was it? Because a year ago you’d
have been screaming through the windscreen at that wanker.”

“That wanker,” she says, watching the Honda as it swerves gracefully
around car after car ahead of them, “is catching the attention of Mr White Van.
The more stuff happening on the road, the easier it is to stay unnoticed.”

“Christ, you’ve read the book as well.”

“I’ve been reading a lot of books. Thinking of applying for fast-track.”

First she makes sergeant, now she’s looking at more promotion? In
Manchester? He should be happy for her, she’s still young enough to make a new
life for herself without him. But he’s not happy. He wants her back, here in
Leeds. The longer she’s away, though, and the more promotions she gets, the
less likely that is.

He wants another go at explaining to her what went wrong last year,
all the stupid reasons he had for getting caught up in a bloody counterfeit
scam, after a lifetime on the level. The level? Not any more. He’s up to his
neck in it again, although this time it’s someone else’s shit. He just doesn’t
know whose.

“Why didn’t you tell them who Reid was?” she asks, as the white van slows
at a roundabout and takes a sharp left onto the A64 to York.

“Back at the home?” he says, straining to remember what exactly he
had said. “I dunno. Trying to keep things simple, I guess.”

“If someone like Reid’s involved, and he’s up there putting the frighteners
on your dad, there’s got to be a reason, John. You can’t protect him from the
truth.”

“I’m not trying to. I just need to understand it first.” They take
the York road. “Anyway, where’s carpet man going? I don’t suppose you could, y’know,
the van…”

“What? Ring it in? Ha!”

Five minutes later the van turns off towards the village of Barwick
in Elmet, only a few miles out of Leeds, but another time and place.

“Wow, this is nice,” she says.

“Never been here?” he asks.

She shakes her head as they pull into the side of the road, right
next to a forty-foot Maypole. Ahead of them the van disappears around a bend in
the road.

“Number six, Church Lane, is my guess,” she says.

“So you did check up?” he asks.

“Yep. Got an old mate to do it. See-you-later, remember? The van is
owned by Mrs Alice Carr. She has a dry cleaning business. The premises are back
on the A64, just out of Leeds. We passed the place a couple of minutes ago. Happy
now, Sherlock?”

“Yeah, but if you knew about this, why are we following him?”

“Dunno exactly. He seemed a bit jumpy when he saw my police permit. And
yesterday, at the home? He said your dad was always talking about you. Seemed strange.
I mean, your dad doesn’t look like he talks much to anybody, never mind the
dry-cleaner. So, I thought it was worth a look.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t like coppers. He’s ex-army.”

“Really?’”

“Artillery. He was down at the showroom earlier on. I had a chat
with him. He showed me his tats.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Honourable discharge?”

“Redundancy.”

“Come on,” she says, “we might as well have a quick look, since
we’re here. But let’s not get too close.”

“By the book, Inspector.”

“Shut your mouth.”

They park on a narrow lane that leads out of the village, an old
back road that twists off towards the next village, hardly used any more by the
look of it. On both sides are green fields, and the lane itself is overhung
with dense foliage. The van is parked up ahead, but Thornton is now outside the
front door of a large, detached Victorian house.

From the car they have only a partial view through the ornamental
ferns and old, crabby fruit trees that crowd the front garden. Thornton rings
the bell and the door opens almost immediately. A woman in her forties appears.
Her hair is pulled back tight, and she’s wearing a dark blue business suit that
looks a little out of place in the rural setting.

“Alice Carr, I presume,” Den whispers. “Widow, owns Carr’s Dry Cleaners.
Inherited it from her husband.”

“You have been busy,” he says as Thornton walks inside the house
without a word from either of them. “She seems a bit starchy. Not very pleased
to see him.”

“I’m guessing she’s his boss. What’s she supposed to do, throw her
arms around him?”

“Could be his lover?”

“What’s the difference? She sets her tattooed, ex-army boyfriend up
as a dry-cleaner. It fits.”

“He told me he was starting up the business himself. Never mentioned
having a sugar-mummy.”

“Would you have? To another bloke? Come on. The story fits. We
better go before anybody sees us.”

She starts the Astra. But even as they pull away, Thornton comes back
through the front door.

“Shit,” says Den, picking up speed. They’re halfway up the deserted
lane before she can get into third gear.

Seeing a gate to her left she swerves suicidally towards it. The car
lunges up onto the verge, coming within inches of the gate, and jerks to a halt.
For a second they sit there, the abrupt silence tingling around them.

“See anything?” she says.

John looks into the passenger mirror. “Yes,” he says as the white
van starts to move. “He’s coming this way.”

“Put your seat down,” she barks at him, suddenly sounding exactly
like a police officer. He does as he’s told, fumbling with the lever as she
grabs a blanket off the back seat, throws it over her shoulders, then rips her
police parking badge from the windscreen. An instant later she’s on top of him,
her lips pushing hard onto his.

They hear the van approach.

“Ignore it,” she says, pulling her mouth away from his, then kissing
him again. Her hands run around his head, trying to hide his black hair and shield
what little of his face is on show. The van slows, then stops. They can hear
its diesel engine idling a couple of feet away. They are locked in an urgent embrace,
like two lovers who’ve spent all week waiting for their stolen moment together;
his legs are splayed, and she has slipped between them, dry-humping him like a
randy teenager.

“I might need a dry-cleaner if this goes on much…”

She grins, can’t help it, pushing her mouth down onto his, her
tongue exploring his lips with a gentleness that makes him wince.

A moment later the van moves off.

“That was close,” she says, as they come up for air.

He moves his hands beneath the blanket, running his fingers against
her spine and up over the contours of her back.

“What if he turns round?” John says, pulling her to him and letting
her chin fall against his open mouth. “We better make it convincing.”

She closes her eyes, and sinks back down onto him.

How long are they there? Hard to say. They’re both lost in separate
reveries, bitter, regretful, comforting… Two people who were made for each
other, who knew it and had accepted it. Two people who had hardly needed to
express their love, and who desperately miss the luxuriant, everyday normalcy
of the life they’d had together. Had it all been a mistake, an exercise in
self-delusion?

No. It had been real. She knows that much. And with a horrible
certainty she knows they’ll never feel it again. She can never trust him, not
now. That’s what she’s told herself countless times, alone in her studio flat
in Salford Quay, listening to the music he’d introduced her to, and drinking
the kind of wine she couldn’t really afford, another relic of her life with
John Ray. She’ll never be able to trust him again.

Her phone rings, and they struggle up from their embrace, blinking,
as if waking from a dream.

“Steve Baron,” she says, looking at the phone.

“No, no, no…” John says, unable to move beneath her.

He continues to shakes his head violently as she takes the call.

Her conversation is mainly negatives. No, she doesn’t have the
number… no, doesn’t know the address… John? No, she doesn’t know why he’s
not answering his phone…

She snaps the phone shut.

“What does Baron want with me?” he asks.

“He doesn’t. He wants to find Jeanette Cormac, who is also not
answering
her
phone.” She spins over the handbrake, using her buttocks
as a pivot, and settles into the driver’s seat.

“This is getting messy, John. You really need to tell Baron about Reid.
Like,
now
ish.”

She starts the engine.

“I left my phone in the Porsche,” he says, hauling himself up.

“Oh, and they’ve got Freddy in for questioning, by the way.”

“Shit, that’s all I need,” he says. “I suppose I’d better call
Moran. Can I borrow your…”

She looks at him, astonished. “You can’t
do
this!” she
screams.

“Do what?” he says.

But she’s not listening. She’s phoning Baron back.

“Steve?” she says, looking at John as she speaks.
“Dennis Reid. Ex-IRA fixer.
He’s working for
Lanny, and he’s in town.”