Live Fire (8 page)

‘I’m doing shepherd’s pie,’ said Katra.

‘See? I told you,’ said Liam, sitting down at the table. He grinned at Katra. ‘He didn’t believe me,’ he told her.

The kettle boiled and Katra poured the water into a cafetière and put it in front of Shepherd with a carton of milk and a mug.

‘Can we change our cars, Dad?’ asked Liam.

‘What?’

‘The Honda CRV and the BMW X3. Have you any idea what their carbon footprints are?’

‘I’m more concerned with fingerprints than footprints,’ said Shepherd.

‘It’d be better for the environment if we had a hybrid.’

‘Says who?’

‘Mr Walker at school. We drew up a list of all the cars our families have and looked at the mileage and the pollution and everything.’

‘So Mr Walker was asking you what sort of car I drove?’

Liam sighed. ‘It was for environmental studies, Dad,’ he said.

‘I’d rather you didn’t give him personal information like that.’ He pushed down the cafetière’s plunger and poured coffee into his mug.

‘What was I supposed to say? “No comment”? Come on, Dad, you’re being paranoid. He was just proving a point. Most of the kids in my class have gas-guzzling SUVs. And we’ve got two.’

Shepherd splashed some milk into his coffee. ‘Gas-guzzling? The CRV does twenty-four to the gallon. You should ask Mr Walker about the batteries.’

‘What batteries?’

‘The batteries in hybrids. Ask him what happens to them. Car engines can be recyled pretty much, and the metal can be melted down and used again. But the batteries in hybrids are full of toxic compounds. And ask him how much energy is used in making those batteries. I’m not saying electric cars aren’t the way to go, but right now the old-fashioned combustion engine is a hell of a lot more efficient than people give it credit for. And I like my BMW. It’s safer than the average hybrid, and so is the CRV. If, God-forbid, you’re ever in an accident I want you strapped into an SUV, not sitting in some battery-operated death trap.’

‘Dad—’

‘Don’t “Dad” me on this,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m serious. You look at the cars that members of our government drive. Gas-guzzlers one and all. When the prime minister and his wife start driving around in hybrids maybe I’ll trade in the BMW and the CRV, but until then we’re keeping them.’

‘What about biofuels?’ asked Liam. ‘Can’t we use biofuels? At least they’re organic.’

‘Half the world is short of food, Liam. People are starving in Africa and Asia. Do you think it’s fair to grow crops just to put fuel in cars here in the West?’

‘But Mr Walker said biofuels are the fuels of the future.’

‘They are,’ said Shepherd. ‘And when we’ve got enough food to feed all the people, we can grow crops for fuel. But that’s not going to be for a long time. It’s the same with battery cars. They’re for the future too. But the way things stand at the moment, we’re stuck with oil, we’re stuck with cars, and you’re stuck with me as your father.’ He ruffled his son’s hair. ‘But just so we can start saving the world you can walk to school from now on.’

‘Dad—’

‘Didn’t do me any harm,’ said Shepherd. ‘And my house was three miles from school. You can walk to yours in twenty minutes.’

‘What about when it rains?’

‘You’ll get wet.’

‘It’s not safe for kids to walk to school.’

‘We live in Hereford, the home of the SAS. Kids can walk the streets safely, trust me.’

Liam folded his arms sulkily. ‘There’s no point in talking to you sometimes.’

‘Liam, I like my car. I like driving it. I even like cleaning it when I get the chance. It cost me a lot of money and I don’t see why I shouldn’t get some pleasure from it now and to again. I certainly don’t see why some idiot in a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows should tell me how to live my life.’

Liam frowned. ‘How do you know Mr Walker wears a corduroy jacket?’

‘I guessed.’ Shepherd laughed. ‘Okay, we’re due to change the CRV soon anyway so why don’t we agree on this? You can decide on what we replace it with. But bear in mind that you’re the one who’s going to be driven to school in it every day. I’m sure your friends think the CRV is a pretty cool car, but if you’d rather turn up at school in a three-wheeler with a solar panel on the roof, that’s fine with me. Just make sure it’s got a boot big enough to hold the shopping for Katra.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘About the solar panel?’

‘About letting me choose the car.’

‘So long as you stop moaning about my X3, and providing it doesn’t cost more than the CRV, the world’s your lobster.’

‘Oyster,’ corrected Liam.

‘Joke,’ said Shepherd. He took his coffee through to the sitting room and dropped into one of the sofas. He picked up the remote and switched on the television. Liam sat on one of the armchairs. He was still holding his Xbox games. ‘I’ve got a football match on Saturday,’ he said.

‘That’s great,’ said Shepherd. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Mr Graham says I’ve got a great right foot but I need to work on my heading,’ said Liam, enthusiastically. ‘He says I mustn’t be afraid – you have to head it like you mean it.’

‘He’s right,’ said Shepherd. ‘Tell you what, after dinner we’ll go out and have a practice in the garden.’

‘Cool. And can you come to the match on Saturday?’

‘What time is it?’

‘One o’clock. It’s at the school so it’s not far.’

Shepherd groaned. ‘I’m sorry, Liam, I’ve got a job. I’ve got to be at Heathrow by six.’

‘No worries.’ Liam took one of the video games out of the bag and began reading the cover.

‘Liam, really, I’m sorry. It’s a big job and I have to go.’

Liam didn’t look up. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Really. Katra’s been coming to my games and all my friends think she’s hot.’

‘But we can practise tonight. And tomorrow.’

‘Sure, if you want,’ said Liam, his voice a dull monotone.

‘So your friends think Katra’s hot, do they?’

Liam looked up, smiling. ‘They think she’s my step-mum, which is crazy because she’s only twenty-five.’ The smile vanished. ‘Did she tell you she wants to go back to Slovenia?’

‘What?’

‘Her dad’s not well so she wants to take care of him.’

Shepherd’s heart sank. When he’d hired her, Katra had told him her mother had died and that she was one of six children, the only girl. She went back twice a year to visit her family but every time Shepherd had been left in no doubt as to how much he had come to rely on her. He dreaded having to replace her. ‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said.

‘What’s the job?’ asked Liam.

‘Thailand,’ said Shepherd. ‘Bank robbers.’

‘They’re robbing banks in Thailand?’

‘It’s complicated,’ said Shepherd.

‘How long will you be away?’

‘They never tell me. Until the job’s done, I guess. I promise you, after this job we’ll spend some time together. I’ll take some leave and we can have a holiday.’

‘You said that last time, Dad.’

‘This time I mean it.’

‘You said that last time, too.’ He went back to his computer game.

‘Plug it in, I’ll give you a game,’ said Shepherd.

‘You’re terrible at video games,’ said Liam.

‘I’ve been letting you win,’ said Shepherd. ‘But that changes as of today.’

Liam went to bed just before nine o’clock. Shepherd tucked him in, then went down to the kitchen where Katra was loading the dishwasher.

‘The shepherd’s pie was great,’ he said.

‘It was on television,’ she said. ‘Jamie Oliver.’

Shepherd sat at the kitchen table. ‘Liam said your father wasn’t well.’

Katra closed the dishwasher and switched it on, then joined Shepherd at the table. ‘He’s very sick,’ she said. She tapped her chest. ‘His lungs. Cancer. He has smoked his whole life. My mother nagged him all the time and when she died I nagged him, but he wouldn’t listen to anybody.’

‘I’m sorry, Katra. That’s terrible.’

‘He’ll be starting chemo next week so I want to be with him. I’m sorry it’s such short notice.’

Shepherd groaned inwardly but didn’t say anything. Katra was the man’s only daughter – of course she had to be with him. But it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

‘I’m sorry, Dan,’ she said.

‘Hey, he’s your dad, you have to go,’ he said.

‘Are you here for a while?’ she asked.

‘I’m leaving on Saturday.’ Her brow furrowed and she bit her lower lip, as if she was about to cry. ‘Katra, it’s not a problem, I’ll talk to Liam’s grandparents. They’ll be able to look after him, I’m sure. And it’s not as if he’s a handful, is it?’

‘He’s a good boy,’ said Katra. ‘I’ll miss him.’

Shepherd leaned forward. ‘You are coming back, right?’

‘I think so,’ she said.

‘You think so?’

‘He’s very sick but he pretends everything is okay. I won’t know how sick he is until I’ve talked to the doctors.’

‘If there’s anything I can do, you just have to ask,’ said Shepherd.

She nodded earnestly. ‘I know.’

‘Your brothers, how old are they now?’

‘The oldest is twenty-two, the youngest sixteen. But they are men and in Slovenia . . .’ She shrugged. ‘He needs me. He needs his daughter.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s not what I meant. I meant that at least they’re old enough to take care of themselves.’

She smiled. ‘They’ve had to since I left,’ she said. ‘All the time I was in the house they never cooked a single meal or ironed a shirt.’ The smile faded. ‘I will miss you, Dan.’

‘I’ll miss you too,’ he said. ‘You do a great job looking after us.’

Her lower lip was trembling and Shepherd could see she was close to tears. ‘I mean I’ll really miss you,’ she said. She put her head down so that her cheek was resting on her hands. ‘I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you and Liam, but he’s my father so I have to go.’

Shepherd felt suddenly awkward. ‘I’ll make you some cocoa,’ he said.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said. She got up, rushed to the fridge, took out a carton of milk and poured some into a pan. She stood with her back to him and wiped her eyes with a tea-towel. Shepherd didn’t know what to say. He empathised, but couldn’t think of any words that would make her feel better. Katra sniffed. ‘Are your parents alive, Dan?’ she asked, still with her back to him.

‘My father is. My mother died a long time ago,’ he said.

‘You never talk about your father.’

‘We don’t get on. Haven’t for a long time.’

She busied herself stirring the milk with a wooden spoon even though it was nowhere near boiling. ‘What happened between you?’ she asked.

‘It’s complicated,’ he said.

‘Liam says you always say that when it’s something you don’t want to talk about.’

Shepherd chuckled. ‘He’s probably right,’ he said.

‘You only have one father, Dan,’ she said. ‘One day he won’t be around.’

‘You’re right,’ said Shepherd. ‘But, like I said, it’s complicated.’

Shepherd dropped Liam at school on Friday morning, making a point to use the BMW X3. He grinned when he saw some of Liam’s friends gazing admiringly at it and decided his son wouldn’t be asking for an electric car again anytime soon. He drove to the house of his in-laws, just ten minutes from the school. He parked in the empty driveway of the neat semi, the lovingly tended garden putting his own to shame.

Moira had the front door open for him as soon as he was walking towards the house. ‘Daniel, so lovely to see you,’ she said. ‘Until you phoned I didn’t even know you were back.’

Only his mother-in-law could pay him a compliment and make him feel guilty at the same time. And only his mother-in-law called him by his full name. ‘Is Tom at work?’ he asked.

‘He makes it a point always to be first in at the bank,’ said Moira. ‘He has done for the past twenty-three years and I don’t see him changing now. Tea?’ She air-kissed both his cheeks and he caught the scent of the perfume she had worn ever since the first time he’d met her, sixteen years ago. Tom and Moira were creatures of habit. ‘Go through to the sitting room, Daniel,’ she said, closing the front door.

Shepherd went in and sat down on one of the overstuffed sofas. In the days when their daughter had been alive, there had been dozens of photographs of Sue on the mantelpiece and on the bookcase next to it. Now there were just two, at opposite ends of the mantelpiece, one of her aged twelve in her school uniform, and another of her holding Liam, a few hours after she’d given birth. There were no photographs of Shepherd, but he wasn’t offended that the wedding photographs had been moved. Sue was their child, Liam was their grandchild, and Shepherd wasn’t a blood relation. And now that she was dead, there was no point in making the room a mausoleum to her. They were the two best pictures they had of her – it was just the luck of the draw that Shepherd wasn’t in either. He smiled at the photograph of Sue and Liam. Tom was a keen amateur photographer and he’d fussed like an old lady as he’d taken the pictures, but his pickiness had paid off. Sue’s maternal pride poured out of the image, and he’d managed to catch the newborn with his eyes open, an expression of wonder on his face as he stared up at his mother. Shepherd felt tears well in his eyes and he blinked them away. It was almost five years since Sue had died in a senseless car accident but there hadn’t been a day when he hadn’t missed her.

He heard Moira walking down the hallway and brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. He was wearing a broad smile when she appeared at the door with a tray of tea. She placed it on the ornate coffee-table, and he poured a little milk into the delicate china cups. Moira always insisted on the milk going in first as she’d once read that that was the way the Royal Family took theirs.

‘You said Katra was going back to Slovenia?’ she said.

‘She only told me yesterday,’ said Shepherd. ‘Her father’s sick so she’s flying back as soon as she can get a ticket and I’m off to Thailand tomorrow. I’m sorry to spring this on you, Moira, but can Liam stay with you and Tom until I get back?’

‘Of course he can,’ said Moira. ‘You don’t have to ask, you know that. We’d love to have him. We haven’t changed his room since he was last here. In fact, there’s still some of his PlayStation games up there.’

‘It’s Xbox now,’ said Shepherd. ‘He’s moved on.’