How to Be Bad (11 page)

I wasn't unduly concerned. I tended to mislay books all the time. I had a habit of taking the finest copies off display, subjecting them to lingering adoration, then putting them down somewhere stupid. When a book was lost in this way, I found that a frantic search never helped. It was always best to take time out, go for a walk, do something else. As long as I remained reasonably relaxed, my unconscious mind could usually be relied upon to lead me to the missing volume.

So I locked up and went across the road to Jeff's café. I ordered pancakes and hot chocolate and waited for my unconscious to do its thing. Jeff, who had bought a few gardening books from me, wandered over to discuss the worsening international situation. “What about the Middle East, eh? Wouldn't want to go there for me holidays, would you? And what about them United Nations? Eh? Eh? Name me one bloody nation they ever united. Just one…”

When I left I saw two teenaged boys coming out of a local driving school called the Passmore School of Motoring. I didn't pay much attention, but as I was unlocking the shop, one of the boys spoke to me. He was about sixteen, tall and wiry with a complexion like a fully detonated mine field. Although I couldn't understand a word Spotty was saying, something about his diction was horribly familiar. “You torch ma bruddy agen yera ded man.”

“I beg your pardon?”

I looked around and saw that the spotty kid was standing next to Hitler Youth, son of Wuffer. “Yeh? Yeh?” taunted Spotty. He and Hitler Youth were evidently brothers.

I entered the shop as quickly as possible and closed the door behind me. The boys pressed their faces against the window, scowling and pointing. Then, abruptly, they got bored and walked away. I waited a while, then checked up and down the road. The two brothers were nowhere to be seen.

I went back inside but, as a precaution, locked the door. I sat down at my desk, logged on to the Madden Books Web site, and trawled through the orders and inquiries. After about ten minutes, someone hammered belligerently on the door. The two boys had returned with their father.

Wuffer, face pressed to the shop window, pointed in turn at me and his feet, inviting me to venture outside for a confrontation. What deterred me, apart from common sense, was that Wuffer was holding a loaded crossbow.

Seeing that I was unwilling to accept the challenge, Wuffer tried the door again, confirming that it was indeed locked. Then he and his sons embarked on a truly bizarre war dance. They started prancing and jumping past the window. Wuffer took off his T-shirt, exposing a torso that was the color and texture of lard. He bounded back and forth past the window, flexing his biceps, shouting and pointing. His sons imitated him, spitting on the window and beating their chests.

This went on for about fifteen minues. Finally, slowly, my tormentors moved off down the road, still pointing, shouting, and dancing.

*   *   *

N
O SOONER
had I washed the spit off the window than Caro turned up. She was extremely agitated. Two police officers had been round to see her about Warren. Someone had reported seeing him being pushed off the platform into the path of the train that had killed him. There was even a likeness of the suspect, which looked so unlike me that Caro had been able to say, quite truthfully, that she had never seen the man in the picture before. But the experience had shaken her up quite badly.

“Did they act like they suspected you?” I said.

“No.”

“Did you tell them Warren had been hounding you?”

“No.” She looked at me with contempt. “Of course I fucking didn't!”

“So they don't know anything. What are you in such a state about?”

“I didn't like the way they looked at me.”

I closed the shop for lunch. Holding hands, we walked into Sheen, not because we wanted to or because there was anything in Sheen worth seeing, but because walking helped me to think. We sat on a bench outside Woolworth's, watching the filthy traffic roar by.

“I've been thinking about what my own dad would do,” I said.

“I remember your dad,” said Caro. “He's handsome, isn't he?”

“No! My dad? Absolutely no way. You must be thinking of someone else. One thing he is, though, he's strong and solid. He never gives up until he's found a way through a problem.”

“And?” said Caro, meaning when was I going to stop making speeches and get to the point.

If I weren't such a reasonable, fair-minded everyday Nick Hornby kind of guy, I would have split her lip.

“I'm going to do what my own dad would do,” I said. “I'm going to go and talk to Gordon, man to man. I'm going to try to put things right.”

She sat up straight and linked her arm in mine all cynicism gone. “You really think you can?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Whether he's a prick or not, I saw the way he looked at you. The old guy obviously adores you. I'll tell him the truth, that you're worried he's going to disinherit you, that you've got into serious financial trouble but you're too proud to tell him yourself.”

“That's good,” said Caro. “I like that a lot.”

“I'll tell him it's not just the money. You need to feel he loves you.”

“But don't mention Bad Jesus,” she said. “Tell him I made some bad investments.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Tomorrow night,” said Caro.

“What about tomorrow night?”

“Eileen is a spiritualist. That's her night for communing with the dead. Dad'll be alone all evening.”

*   *   *

I
TOOK
Warren's gun, tucked into the waistband of my trousers. The gun wasn't for Gordon's benefit. I was planning to talk to the old man, not murder him. But recent events had made me wary of making journeys in the dark—even a journey as short as this one.

Lenny always said that in a real fight, running away was the best defense.
These days, any stupid little jerk could be carrying a knife. No matter how skilled you are, someone can always run up behind you and stab you. You might hate yourself for running, but it's better than making your wife a widow and your kids fatherless.

But now I didn't need to run. If I bumped into Bad Jesus or he bumped into me, I would have the perfect reply to his supercilious remarks. The most eloquent answer of all.

Someone was walking behind me. Wondering if I was being followed, I slipped through a gate bearing a sign that read
NO HAWKERS
. I waited in a garden until the stranger passed by. It was a white-haired old man in a raincoat, leaning on a walking stick.

At twenty past eight, I rang the doorbell of Gordon's comfortable residence. It was a windy night, and the trees in the drive strained and swayed. You could almost smell the money blowing through the gardens of the rich houses. Bright, welcoming lights twinkled in the neighboring drive. I heard a car pull up, its tires stirring gravel, followed by words of welcome. Someone was arriving for a dinner party. There was the gentle
thwuk!
of an expensive car door closing—the doors of the cars I drove never sounded remotely like that. A woman laughed, and the confident, twittering voices faded away.

It finally struck me why Caro was so angry about everything. Her father was loaded. This house, a stroll away from Richmond Park, may not have been able to compete with Dickie Attenborough's home on Richmond Green or the Jagger residence on Richmond Hill, but Gordon obviously didn't have to scrape by on his old-age pension. While other offspring from similar backgrounds were living on generous allowances in well-appointed flats, Gordon's only daughter was surviving on benefits and fraud, living in a run-down hovel with bailiffs queueing at the door.

Gordon didn't answer, so I leaned on the bell and gave it a trick-or-treat ring. There was movement in the hall, then another long pause, as if someone were listening. Eventually, a thin, high, womanly voice said,
“Who's there?”

“It's Mark,” I said brightly. “Caroline's boyfriend. We met the other day.”

There was another pause, as if Gordon believed me but was not convinced I merited the enormous effort of opening the door. “What do you want?”

“Just a friendly visit.”

“Why?”

“Friendliness.”

I heard sighs and grumbles. A key turned, and the door opened to reveal Gordon, in his dressing gown and slippers. His bare ankles were snow-blindingly white, and he was wearing a particularly unlovely pair of green paisley pajamas, in a material that I believe is known as winceyette. For a man who couldn't punch his way out of a colostomy bag, Gordon glared at me with considerable hostility. When he saw I was uncowed, he backed down a little and tilted his head to one side like a drooping lily. “Well, look. I was about to watch a television program, so this isn't the best time.”

“Can't you record it?”

“Well, no, you see. I'm recording something on the other channel.”

“What time's the program on?”

“Nine o'clock.”

“But that's forty minutes away.”

“I know. But I need to make a cup of coffee and find the
Radio Times.
”

“And that'll take you forty minutes?”

Experiencing a rare moment of self-awareness, Gordon gave a high-pitched laugh. “No. I suppose not. You awkward sod!” Then he stepped back to let me into the hall, already hatching a contingency plan. “I suppose I could always make the coffee now, to save time.”

I followed him into the kitchen, passing the living room, where a television blared at geriatric volume. Gordon's idea of making coffee was turning on the kettle and spooning brown granules into a mug. In the middle of this exacting task, he heaved himself onto a stool and sat there, panting.

“Are you okay?” I said.

He nodded and waved his hand to indicate that for the next few moments, he would rather breathe than talk.

“Well, what it is,” I said, coming straight to the point, “is that Caro has no money and she's worried that your marriage to Eileen will affect her future.”

When Gordon nodded and smiled, I thought my charm offensive was working. I was mistaken. “Oh,” he said, “She is, is she? Well, why won't she tell me this herself?”

“She's too proud,” I said. “You know how it is with families. Simple things aren't said, then as time passes they become complicated things that are more or less impossible to say.”

Gordon stared at me as if I were talking utter bollocks. He may have had a point.

“Now, listen, Rodney,” he said, waving his forefinger like a conductor's baton.

“Who's Rodney?”

But Gordon was too busy talking to listen. “My daughter hasn't been as hard-done-to as all that. I don't suppose she's ever mentioned her trust fund to you?”

“No.”

“Well, when Caroline was twenty-one, a trust fund we'd set up for her matured. Since her birth, we'd been paying in so much a year, I forget the exact sum. It was around four thousand per annum. So when she came of age, what did Caroline do? She cashed in her trust fund and got a lump sum of about eighty-five thousand pounds. Now, she could have used this as a down payment on a flat or a small house. After all, she had a good job at the time, so repaying a small mortgage would have been perfectly within her means.

“Instead, what does she do? She resigns from her position at the magazine, travels round the world, buys a new car, treats herself to new clothes. In six months, all the cash had gone. Not a penny left. All right, you might argue that what Caroline does with her money is her own affair. Fine. But by the same token, what I do with my money is mine.”

I was surprised by his story but tried not to show it. “Okay,” I said. “I admit it was a shame for Caroline to squander her trust fund. But come on, most twenty-one-year-olds would do the same. What does anyone know at that age? She's still your daughter. I don't see what point you're making.”

“My point is this,” said Gordon, slopping hot water into his mug. “Caroline is an adult, and she hasn't exactly made a success of her life. I regret that, of course, but fail to see that it's any of my doing. I'm seventy-three, and at a time of my life when a man couldn't reasonably expect further happiness, I find I'm about to be married to a wonderful lady. Caroline isn't here to look after me when I feel ill, Eileen is. My only real responsibility is to my wife and myself.”

“So Caro's right, then? You don't intend to leave her the house. How would her mother have felt about that?”

“I don't think that's any of your business. Or hers.”

“You can't see why Caro would find your attitude hurtful?”

“I'll tell you what's hurtful, shall I? My daughter's attitude to me. When I was young, I didn't expect my parents to leave me a house.”

“Did they have a house to leave?”

“No. But that's beside the point!” Gordon was getting cross. “When I was a student at the LSE, there was a fellow called Dimbo Witters. His name wasn't Witters, nor was it Dimbo, but that's what we called him. Poor old Witters. His one topic of conversation was how his mother had remarried and Dimbo had been done out of his inheritance. Well, I always thought it was terrible to be so bitter. It's not how I want Caroline to feel.”

“You mean you're going to make sure she's provided for?”

“I mean I don't want her to feel slighted when she isn't.” He glanced at his watch and rose from his seat. “Now, if you'll excuse me, my program will be on shortly. I've watched the whole series, and I don't want to miss it.”

I gave Gordon a long, slow appraisal. With his white hair and neat maritime beard, he ought to have been a handsome old man. The raw materials were there. Had a different spirit inhabited that promising frame, the effect might have been pleasing. As it was, Caro was right. All the old man radiated was selfishness, negativity, and slow, brooding madness. Not content with disinheriting his only child, most definitely against the wishes of his dear departed wife, Gordon actually expected to be loved for this most unfatherly act.